Deck Analysis: Devil Guy Beat

As promised.

Rau showed me the places he posted his decklist online, and the comments it received.

And it seems most of you really dont see how this works, and I'm a bit disappointed at the level on such forums. The only thing that caught me off guard after the third turn was Dark Creator.

Its important to be able to formulate a rough idea of the enemy's deck by just looking at a few key cards when they're played. This also allows you to calculate the amount of needed cards theyre packing, and hence the number of "hidden tech" cards.

But thats a story for another day.


On to the deck analysis.

For those who do not know, Devil Guy Beat looks like this:

Monsters/モンスター/27
1 The Dark Creator/ダーク・クリエーター
1 Destiny Hero Plasma/D・HERO　Bloo-D
1 Gorz the Emissary of Darkness/冥府の使者ゴーズ
1 Dark Armed Dragon/ダーク・アームド・ドラゴン
2 Destiny Hero Malicious/D・HERO　ディアボリック・ガイ
3 Caius the Dark Monarch/邪帝ガイウス
1 Sangan/クリッター
2 Krebons/クレボンス
2 Destiny Hero Doom Lord/D・HERO　デビル・ガイ
3 Necro Gardna/ネクロ・ガードナー
2 Battle Fader/バトル・フェーダー
2 Dark Grepher/ダーク・グレファー
2 Mystic Tomato/キラートマト
1 Blackwing Gale the Hurricane/BF－疾風のゲイル
1 Armageddon Knight/終末の騎士
1 Plaguespreader Zombie/ゾンビ・キャリア
1 Elemental Hero Stratos/E・HERO　エアーマン

Spells/魔法/14
3 Destiny Draw/デスティニー・ドロー
3 Burial From a Different Dimension/異次元からの埋葬
2 Allure of Darkness/闇の誘惑
1 Giant Trunade/ハリケーン
1 Heavy Storm/大嵐
1 Reinforcement of the Army/増援
1 Emergency Teleport/緊急テレポート
1 Pot of Avarice/貪欲な壺
1 Brain Control/洗脳ーブレインコントロールー


Copy pasta from Rau's FB.

Heres whats unpredictable in the deck:

Emergency Teleport (If you didn't allure Krebons)
The Dark Creator
Pot of Avarice(Into a 2nd Diabolic play)


So what makes this work?

The first thing that stands out in this decklist is Necro Gardna, and the triple Burial From a Different Dimension.

Whilst in other 埋葬ダムド/Burial Dark Armed builds, 2 is the more commonly used number, and much more emphasis placed on Necro Gardna.

But, as the deck name suggests, the main player in the deck is not Necro Gardna, but Devil Guy.

Because Burial can turn Devil Guy's effect from a 2 turn stall into a permanent removal, Necro Gardnas and other concepts used by Burial Dark Armed are just stuck in because they happen to make Burials become live cards, instead of dead ones, depending on the situation.


Another aspect of this deck is the its synchro's.

With Gale, Zombie Carrier, and Krebons, this deck easily accesses high level synchros.

Unlike other builds, this deck calls upon the well tested aspects of Emergency Teleport Dark Armed Dragon for its synchros.

Since many aspects of the engine were hit by the banlists, its impossible to make a deck to live off of what remains, and simply adding it to a deck wont work due to the absolute lack of synergy.

To solve this lack of synergy, Burial was maxed out.

Whilst it seems to only benefit the Necro Gardna aspect, Burial on Diabolic and Zombie Carrier can give you more than just one use of either monster, another synchro on the field.

Gaius the Evil Monarch maxed out is another interesting choice that may not make sense, but greatly contributes to the deck.

In the current meta, it is not always the opponent will be attacking on the return turn, so at times, Necro Gardnas may be stuck on the field, an outlet for other engines.

So how does maxing it out help?

The deck also packs two Battle Faders, to compensate for the lack of any traps(well come back to this later)

Battle Fader, although it gives you another turn, only gives you on turn. Without something to solve your problem, your not going to be getting game anyways.

Gaius solves many of said problems.

With both its monarch ability and relatively high ATK, it will probably take two cards with it, giving you another chance at winning.

Not to mention Devil Guy's effect followed by Gaius is always more painful than 2400 direct damage.

Although it could work at 2, having 2 or 3 Gaius gives this extremely defensive deck much more much needed aggression.

Most of the other cards are either standard cards or teched, and do not contribute much to the central function of the deck.

In terms of deck function and cards included, Devil Guy Beat functions well because it capitalizes off aspects that have already been tested and tried, and have been proven to work.

Burial Dark Armed, Teleport Dark Armed, Cold Wave Dark Armed.

By pulling on the concepts that that made these decks work, and making them mesh, Devil Guy Beat can shift, to an extent, to methods and play styles used in the past.

Because the play styles for the three decks were Short term defense, short term offense, long term offense, respectively, Devil Guy Beat, playing a long run defense game, can shift with ease to several styles of play easier than other decks.

Yes, doing so does depend on your draw, but the deck does change over games.



The second aspect of what makes it work is what everyone realizes first: No traps.

Why not? Isnt Holy Barrier - Mirror Force good?

If you're running no other traps, why not run Treacherous Trap Hole or Royal Decree?

These types of thinking are too low level.

The lack of traps, and in fact, any backrow (quickplays included), are due to the recent meta.

Because the deck was built to function without spells, all of the spells are either included to A: Assist and recycle, or B: Speed up the deck.

To combat Dimension Eatos, the current top meta, most decks are packing as much backrow disruption and destruction as they can, which Eatos replied with Starlight Road.

Hurricane and Cyclone have joined Heavy Storm in top class needed cards, next to Mirror Force or Torrential Tribute, with Cold Wave following behind, bringing Breaker with it to fill the recently vacated spots of Sided backrow removal.

To combat Eatos, a heavily trap based deck, some people have been maining decree recently.


What no backrow does is capitalize off the amount of backrow removal by making all of these mentioned cards dead draws.

Drawing a Storm, Hurricane, or Cyclone gives you a completely dead card for the whole game, putting you 1 card less than Devil Guy Beat.

And god help you if you're maining 3 Decree also.

This gives you no advantage in card count, but it does give you Effective Advantage, a LOT of it.

By including a single backrow card, such as a quickplay meant to be played on the opponents turn, brings with it a very high chance that it'll be end-phase cyclone'd or decree'd, considering there are no other cards to use it on.

To compliment this, Burial is typically held in the hand, not set and used in response to something.



The third gimmick that the deck utilizes is Adaptive Side Shift, a side deck and main deck that allows you to completely or partially shift the deck focus and decktype, to throw the opponent off even more.

Whilst the main deck contains zero backrow, making you immune to any End Phase Cyclone'ing or Decree'ing or Set-Storming, the deck the side shifts into is Trap Fader Monarchs, bringing in more Monarchs, a 3rd Fader, many traps, and other card choices.

This is another reason for the 3 mained Gaius.

With this shift, the card to kill the main deck, oppression, becomes useless, by this time any back row removal related cards are gone, making you immune to anything stopping your traps, and finally, the main fighting force of the deck becomes 2400 Beaters, not 600 weenies with fancy combo effects, whilst sitting behind a ridiculous amount of defense.


In conclusion, Devil Guy Beat works because it can capitalize off proven concepts, already hammered out for you, and several highly effective gimmicks.

Despite looks, for starters the absolute lack of backrow, do not let this decieve you into playing it wrong. Devil Guy Beat remains a very defensive deck overall.

Thats all for today.

G-Ray Out.