Another Approach to Reptilianne

We looked yesterday at one possible route of approaching Reptilianne, featuring a strategy which converted card advantage, via Reptilianne Gardna + Damage = Reptile/Offering to the Snake Deity, into pressure and damage with Caius the Shadow Monarch. Caius has been a quasi-fixture in competitive Zombies decks, especially, for almost a format now, and he fulfills a similarly aggressive role in that Reptilianne build. I feel that that particular build is a strong tier 2/3 pick, with a few metagame modifications.

Today we will look at another, perhaps less competitive, approach to Reptilianne, this one focusing on an oft-overlooked Spell Card: Recurring Nightmare. Like Salvage or Gravekeeper's Stele, Nightmare creates a quick 2 for 1 by recurring monsters from your Graveyard. However, its condition (two DARK monsters with exactly 0 DEF) can be hard to trigger. I don't think that this card has ever been on the radar, except as a lynchpin of the wildly inconsistent Rainbow Dark Dragon OTK during the March 2008 format. We'll take it in a new direction to exploit the multitude of DARK Reptilianne monsters with 0 DEF.

Let's look at a monster base first:

3 Mad Reloader
3 Reptilianne Vaskii
3 Reptilianne Naga
3 Reptilianne Gardna
2 Reptilianne Viper
2 Reptilianne Scylla
1 Dark Armed Dragon
1 Gorz the Emissary of Darkness
1 Power Invader

The monster base keeps the backbone of the Reptilianne engine with 3 Gardna 3 Naga 3 Vaskii, plus 2 Viper and 2 Scylla to further exploit 0 ATK monsters our opponent may control. Of these monsters, Naga, Viper, and Vaskii are all recurrable by Nightmare. Mad Reloader and Power Invader are two of the higher utility, non-Reptilianne 0 DEF DARK monster to further support our Nightmares. Reloader gives us additional card filtering and will load our Graveyard for Nightmare and Reptilianne Spawn.

The Spell lineup will be:

3 Reptilianne Spawn
3 Recurring Nightmare
1 Allure of Darkness
1 Mystical Space Typhoon
1 Heavy Storm
1 Brain Control

With triple Reloader, redundancy will be our friend as we toss superfluous extra copies of Spawn, Reptilianne monsters, or even Nightmare itself in constantly digging toward/setting up an eventual power play with Invader and Vaskii. Nightmare reverse toolboxes our fallen Nagas, Vipers, Vaskii, Reloaders, and Invaders, in effect giving up access to stall, ATK reduction, monster theft, removal, card drawing, and aggression.

A timely Vaskii drop can often end the game out right, by Tributing two opponent's monsters which have been attacked by Naga and then killing two more via battle and its free destruction effect. In tandem with Invader, you're looking at potentially 4000-5000 damage in a turn by this route.

The Trap lineup will be similar to the previous build, with

3 Offering to the Snake Deity
3 Damage = Reptile
2 Bottomless Trap Hole
1 Ojama Trio
1 Torrential Tribute
1 Trap Dustshoot

I covered most of these choices in my last post. I have dropped Call of the Haunted due to its meager speed and lack of truly outstanding targets in the deck (Vaskii is a nomi).

I'll post my extra deck here, too, just for reference:

2 Reptilianne Hydra
2 Stardust Dragon
1 Red Dragon Archfiend
1 Colossal Fighter
1 Brionac, Dragon of the Ice Barrier
1 Mist Wurm
1 Black Rose Dragon
1 Magical Android
1 Ally of Justice Catastor
1 Goyo Guardian
1 Chimeratech Fortress Dragon
1 Armory Arm
1 Blackwing Armor Master

Side deck is to be determined. It will likely include Light-Imprisoning Mirror for Lightsworn and some Pole Positions due to the influx of Smashing Ground and Gladiator Beast decks in the upcoming format.

The Koa'ki Meiru analysis will be next, coming shortly.