Ever since Yu-Gi-Oh existed, Dragons were there. They were thought to be mystical beast. Blue-Eyes White Dragon was a fearful monster in the game of Yu-Gi-Oh, being the highest attack monster in the game.
As the games evolve, Dragons are still boss monsters. Starting with the 5 Dragons of the 5D's series, Stardust Dragon, Red Dragon Archfiend, Ancient Fairy Dragon, Black-Winged Dragon and Black Rose Dragon. Dragons are often boss monsters. Example? Rainbow Dragon, Dark Rainbow Dragon, Judgement Dragon, Trishula, Dark Armed Dragon and many more. However, despite these monsters being Dragons, they does not contribute much to the Dragon type. However, with the limited card pool, Dragons can still be competitive. Especially when the format was dominated by Blackwings and Lightsworn, Dragons stands out a lot. There was this Dragon Deck born in that particular format. It was called Disaster Dragon, innovated by Richard Clarke. This deck has countless tops and this deck was very popular among dragon duellists. When Richard Clarke is creating this deck, he was going for a more control approach. This deck has the capabilities or being an Anti-Meta deck and has Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon to give it a aggressive side. Not long ago, two Dragon decks has topped YCS. One being a Disaster Dragon and the other being a good old standard dragon deck. It looks just like Disaster Dragon apart from not having Koa Ki Meiru Dragon.
Without further ado, Disaster Dragon
Monsters: 19
3 Koa’ki Meiru Drago
3 Red-Eyes Wyvern
3 Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon
3 Masked Dragon
1 Light and Darkness Dragon
1 Vice Dragon
1 Prime Material Dragon
1 Exploder Dragon
1 Totem Dragon
1 Delta Flyer
1 Dread Dragon
Spells: 12
3 Book of Moon
2 Gold Sarcophagus
2 Mystical Space Typhoon
1 Future Fusion
1 Enemy Controller
1 Monster Reborn
1 Dark Hole
1 Giant Trunade
Traps: 9
2 Solemn Warning
2 Bottomless Trap Hole
1 Solemn Judgment
1 Torrential Tribute
1 Mirror Force
1 Seven Tools of the Bandit
1 Burst Breath
This wasn't the original build by Richard Clarke for this format though. This deck list was taken from the offical YGO website, this Dragon deck was Top 16 at YCS Milan. The deck is pretty self-explanatory. Koai'Ki Mieru Drago says no to Light and Darkness Special Summoning. Having that said, it stops Cyber Dragons, Blackwings, Lightsworn, DarkLords, Angel deck, perfect declarer, Infernity and etc. The Traps and Spells line-up are like Anti Meta deck's line-up. This deck is supposed to be played slowly and control your opponent's plays. Infact, this deck covers a wide variety of deck. Prime Material is an awesome card. REDMD allows reuse of Dragon synchros. Meaning, a +1 every turn. Red-Eyes Wyvern allows REDMD to be revived. It is a sub-par play because it only has REDMD as a traget. However, it's extremely easy to pull out this combo. In TCG, they do not have Dragon, a field spell that is like a dragon's foolish burial every turn. This card helps this deck to adapt to situations easily.
A quote from my Dragon Team Thread at Pojo.
Disaster Dragon is a control oriented deck that plays disruption strategies mixed with lockdown aggression to gain and maintain control of the board. It carries a lot of momentum and explosive power as the deck can consistently drop 2+ monsters per turn without losing advantage and often times they will be big monsters. This is done through the use of the decks backbone card “Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon”. Weighing in at 2800ATK this card is easily the most powerful or one of the most powerful dragons in the deck, outclassed only by a potential “White Night Dragon”. Red-Eyes effect allows for the constant recursion of monsters from the graveyard as well as the ability to bypass the normal summon limit and the requirements for tributes that many decks suffer from. As a result Disaster decks are packing some of the highest ATK monsters in the present Metagame, because they can bypass the tribute mechanic required to summon them.
Obviously ATK points don’t do much on their own but the fact that its carrying these powerhouses only serves to solidify Disaster Dragons real strength; disruption and lockdown. Through the usage of cards such as Koa’ki Meiru Drago, Exploder Dragon and Light and Darkness Dragon alone the deck is capable of shutting out and eliminating a majority of plays made by the current popular decks. The deck plays like a toolbox, with Masked Dragon working to recruit the dragons you need for tributes, Synchros, battle, monster removal, etc and cards like Red-Eyes Darkness and Genesis Dragon allowing you to reuse them. Cards such as Foolish Burial and Future Fusion allow you to dump dragons into your graveyard faster while also aiding in the deck inherent synergy; some dragons such as Yamata Dragon or Light and Darkness Dragon cannot be Special Summoned, thus they are unable to cheat their 2-tribute requirement via Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon as most dragons would. Instead the deck utilizes “Totem Dragon” a self-recurring dragon that can act as 2 sacrifices in order to summon a dragon-type monster. Being a dragon in itself Totem Dragon is a viable target to search with Masked Dragon or to dump with Future Fusion. It can also be easily revived via Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon.
The idea with Koa'ki Meiru Drago is to play it after Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon is on the field, or simply remove him from the field by other means in order to summon Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon. One of the most common analogies for Koa'ki Meiru Drago usage compares it to a switch, courtesy of a feature match involving Richard Clarke where he flipped Koa'ki Meiru Drago on and off the field allowing himself all the Special Summons and locking his opponent out of everything.
Future Fusion also carries synergy with the newly released Genesis Dragon. Allowing you to discard dragons from your deck to the grave and simply retrieve them to your hand in a form of reverse tutoring. Genesis Dragon also carries synergy with Yamata Dragon and Light and Darkness Dragon. Both dragons cannot be Special Summoned from the grave but via Genesis they can be resummoned again and again. An infinite loop exists with Light and Darkness Dragon and Genesis Dragon where in you sacrifice Red-Eyes Darkness Metal and Genesis Dragon for Light and Darkness Dragon. When that dies you bring back Red-Eyes and use its effect to revive Genesis who grabs back the Light and Darkness Dragon. Then you can sacrifice them both to summon it again and spam Light and Darkness Dragon. It’s fairly unstable for obvious reasons but the ability to infinitely reuse a monster as powerful as Light and Darkness Dragon is definitely an option the deck has at its disposal.
In basic summary Disaster Dragon is a more control oriented deck that utilizes a full deck of dragons. As it doesn't rely on any combo's to go off it’s by far the most consistent dragon deck and is one of the favoured choices online. Future Fusion is the power house dumper of the deck, and although it’s not needed it kicks the deck into high gear instantly by giving you 5 dragons of your choice in the grave - right where you want them. Masked Dragon acts as a recruiter toolbox engine, Red-Eyes can swarm the field or reuse dragons, Yamata and Light and Darkness rack up a ton of advantage and disrupt/lock down the field, Prime Material Dragon covers your dragons from s/t hate, Koa'ki Meiru locks out the top decks Light and Dark summons and also acts as another control measure and Genesis is basically the best thing ever, allowing you to recycle lost dragons, trade in dead ones and tons more. The deck does not pilot itself and requires forethought and careful consideration of options. Every choice made with what you dump, search, revive can tilt the scales in either favour. It plays aggressively - as almost every monster in the deck has higher ATK than opposing monsters they can utilize this in their favour and play a momentum game. By locking down the opponents options while you continue to amass your own it is quite easy to take complete control of a duel in a matter of turns.
Next SOL Dragon.
SOL Dragon
Main Deck: 41
Extra Deck: 15
1_Five-Headed Dragon
1_Trident Dragion
1_Red Dragon Archfiend
1_Brionac, Dragon of the Ice Barrier
1_Exploder Dragonwing
1_Arcanite Magician
1_Iron Chain Dragon
1_Ancient Sacred Wyvern
1_Magical Android
1_Black Rose Dragon
1_Goyo Guardian
1_Ally of Justice Catastor
1_Dark End Dragon
1_Stardust Dragon
1_Colossal Fighter
Monsters: 23
3_Blue-Eyes White Dragon
3_Red-Eyes Darkness_Metal Dragon
1_Dark Armed Dragon
3_White Stone of Legend
1_Flamvell Guard
1_Dread Dragon
2_Vice Dragon
2_Destiny Hero - Malicious
1_Destiny Hero - Diamond Dude
1_Destiny Hero - Plasma
1_Armageddon Knight
1_Plaguespreader Zombie
1_Phantom of Chaos
2_Chaos Sorcerer
1_Tragoedia
Spells: 16
2_Trade-In
2_Cards of Consonance
1_Allure of Darkness
1_Destiny Draw
2_D.D.R. - Different Dimension Reincarnation
2_Hidden Armoury
1_Monster Reborn
1_Mystical Space Typhoon
1_Future Fusion
1_Scapegoat
Traps: 2
1_Mirror Force
1_Torrential Tribute
This was probably the strongest Dragon deck. However, with the advent of the banlist, it has pretty much crippled this deck. "SOL Dragon" is an advantage oriented variant of the popular "Hopeless Dragon" One-Turn-Kill deck that originated from Japan. SOL Dragon utilizes the tuner monster "The White Stone of Legend" to fuel its draw engines and feed its hand and graveyard with "Blue-Eyes White Dragon"(s) for "Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon" to then revive and swarm the field with. Unlike most Hopeless decks this deck does not play to OTK and as such a lot of the card choices in the deck are chosen to help it last longer into duels, give it more options and aid in abusing the advantage generated by White Stone of Legend. The deck is, as I have already said, and advantage engine. It plays by wearing the opponent down with large beaters and lightning fast Special Summons. It retains advantage through all of this because the beaters come from the Graveyard, and are thus able to be considered "Pseudo-floaters", the Special Summons from the hand and Extra Deck are in the form of monsters such as Chaos Sorcerer and Arcanite Magician; monsters who pay for their summoning cost by clearing cards from the opponents field. All the while as this goes on SOL Dragon is able to maintain a consistent draw engine powered by 3 draw cards. Each and every target for these draw cards is searchable and as a result dead draws are rare. The deck is very live and very versatile. The deck as a whole is a gargantuan draw engine; 13 of the cards in the deck can be considered "high level" monsters, and thats a majority of your monsters, however its a minority in your deck and each of those high level monsters is capable of fueling at least one of the 3 different draw cards in the deck, if not 2 of them - or in Plasma's case all 3. In addition to that almost all of them are Special Summons with easy costs to play.
The benefit of Trade-In in the SOL engine is that every draw target is searchable with Plasma acting as a sort of fiber between them all. Level 8, D-Hero and Dark. Its searchable via Stratos and a 4th target for Trade-In. Also every target for the D-Hero engine is recruitable via Stratos and as such your targets for Allure and D-Draw are recruitable. That means every target for every draw card is able to be searched. On top of all that almost every card in the deck is either Light or Dark which in turn fuels both Chaos Sorcerer and Dark Armed Dragon.
Every monster in the deck is either a Floater, Pseudo-Floater or a named Destiny Hero. Destiny Hero - Plasmas uses have already been outlined. Destiny Hero - Diamond Dude acts as another fiber to merge the deck together; Dark for Allure, DAD and Chaos Sorcerer, D-Hero for Stratos and Destiny Draw, level 4 Warrior for Reinforcement of the Army and an ability that can give you any Normal Spell in the deck for free. This sets up potential abuse with the 3 draw cards, both Trade-In and Destiny Draw can be activated for a free 2 draws if hit by Diamond Dude's effect while Allure will give you its draw but still require a removal.
As every monster in the deck is designed to work in tandem with the rest of the deck, while paying for itself and fueling the draw engine it is easy to see how in a matter of turns this deck can reduce the opponents field to a simplified game state of 1-2 cards including their hand, while your field and hand still consists of the same number of cards you drew at the beginning of the duel. By abusing the decks inherent nature to feed itself free cards at the expense of your opponent and playing the simplification game there is very little your opponent will be able to do when you decide to start dropping dragons.
And drop dragons this deck does. A single Red-Eyes Darkness Metal paired with a Blue-Eyes and a Chaos Sorcerer is enough ATK points to go for game. Though this deck may not play OTK that certainly doesn't mean it can't explode into one. Chaos Sorcerer's use in this deck is vital; serving almost as important a role as The White Stone of Legend. It merges the Light and Dark themes, acts as a free 2300ATK beat stick while also possessing the ability to float upon summon via the removal of an opposing monster. When combined with the Stone of Legend it opens up plays into Arcanite Magician; this decks best secret weapon.
Not many opponents expect a dragon deck to be able to drop a Sorcerer on turn one, sync it to a White Stone for a Bottomless dodging Arcanite which can then proceed to wipe 2 more cards off their field. But regardless of whether or not they expect it; this deck can do it. And it can do it well.
In summary; SOL Dragon is an advantage oriented deck that aims to wear the opponent out of resources whilst maintaining its own, all the while dropping free 2000ATK+ monsters each turn. By playing the simplification game and exhausting the opponents resources to the point where they have no answers left for your monsters you can easily achieve total control of the board, the duel and win it in a matter of turns. This deck is explosive and fast, however, its greatest strength lies in its incredible versatility.
As I said earlier, the limiting of D-Draw really hurt this deck. There is a build that only runs 1 D-Draw. It's still awesome and no doubt better than Hopeless Dragon. It pulls crazy OTK much more consistently. However, You can still play it slowly and beat your opponent by overwhelming with advantage. I could show a deck list but I'm lazy to do that now x_x
It has plenty more variants that do better for this format.
Hopeless Dragon isn't the only Dragon deck that is strong. Sure it is good but still, it's inconsistent. I've played it tons of times already. Moreover, with the advent of the banlist, leaving allure at 1 and stuffs like that, it has left the deck even more inconsistent. The popular "Hopeless Dragon" One-Turn-Kill deck that originated from Japan. This is where it all started. This deck is one of the most inconsistent deck of the meta but still, it's a very strong deck and swarms your opponent to death. It gives quite a few tops at regional. No dount the other dragon decks are much better but if u are lucky enough in a tournament, this deck gives u win too.
Source is from my team thread which has a lot of good Dragon players. Both innovators of Disaster and SOL are in the team thread. Do check it out if u are interested
Sorry that this post is very lengthy :/ I just thought i should write smth about my favourite type. I'll post about a new card later.
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