Constructing The Reptilianne Deck

The original Reptilianne theme and cards from Stardust Overdrive were rightly ignored. The deck focused on the offbeat, unwieldy mechanic of reducing opponent's monster to 0 ATK and it did it in the worst way possible. Reptilianne Gorgon could only reduce a monster it attacked to 0, while Reptilianne Medusa required both a tribute and a discard before it could do the same. Reptilianne Viper, one of the few nice ways to exploit 0 ATK, was as such rendered often dead and awkward. Ditto for Reptilianne Scylla. As DARK Reptile-type monsters, the cards had access to a lot of good support (Allure of Darkness, Dark Armed Dragon, Offering to the Snake Deity, Damage = Reptile) but couldn't quite capitalize.

Absolute Powerforce brings about a change, though. Suddenly the deck not only has a reliable way to reduce a monster's ATK to 0, but also a universal tutor and a boss monster of sorts. The new support cards also allow Reptilianne to become the first deck to really exploit the powerful Reptile-type support cards mentioned above. Let's take a look:

Reptilianne Naga
DARK/Reptile/Effect/*/0/0

This card cannot be destroyed by battle. A card that battles with this monster has its ATK reduced to 0 at the end of the Battle Phase. During your End Phase, change this face-up card to Attack Position.

Reptilianne Gardna
WATER/Reptile/Effect/****/0/2000

When this card you control is destroyed and sent to the Graveyard, add 1 "Reptilianne" monster from your Deck to your hand.

Reptilianne Vaskii
DARK/Reptile/Effect/********/2600/0

This card cannot be Normal Summoned or Set. This card cannot be Special Summoned except by Tributing two monsters with 0 ATK from anywhere on the field. Once per turn, you can destroy 1 face-up monster your opponent controls. There can only be one face-up "Reptilianne Vaskii" on the field.

That sums up the relevant new support. Naga in particular is a huge boon to the deck. Its Spirit Reaper-like effect guards against even huge swarms. The surprise factor of an opponent attacking into a Set copy instantly gives you a 0 ATK monster to exploit next turn with Viper, Scylla, or Vaskii. Moreover, even its drawback (shifting to ATK mode each End Phase) can be used to your advantage with Damage = Reptile. Since Naga has 0 ATK, the resulting damage is usually enough to bring out a free copy of Scylla or even Medusa from the Deck. Ramming Naga into your opponent's monsters will also become important to your strategy as the Duel and Match progresses; smarter players will not simply attack into your set monsters with abandon after Naga burns the first one.

Gardna is more or less made for Offering to the Snake Deity. That Trap Card is highly similar to the popular Icarus Attack, but until now, it really didn't have a comfortable home due to the overall mediocrity of Reptile-type cards in YGO. Gardna changes that by turning your Offering into a solid +1 exchange: your Gardna + your Offering for your opponent's two cards, and a monster from your Deck to your hand. Gardna's 0 ATK also lets you use it in a way similar to Naga while you control Damage = Reptile; you can actually perform a double search (one to field, one to hand) if you make use of your ATK position Gardna.

Vaskii is a boss monster that is actually searchable, by Gardna. A single Naga exchange gives you the two 0 ATK monsters (Naga + the opponent's monster) needed to drop Vaskii. From there, you can carve up another face-up monster for free and likely kill something by battle due to Vaskii's massive 2600 ATK (allowing it to attack even over Stardust Dragon). Gardna as such can be a powerful card advantage engine. In tandem with the tokens created by Reptilianne Spawn, it can also be a quick answer to an opponent's Dark Armed Dragon or Judgment Dragon.

Now that we have that support covered, let's get to building the Deck. Or goal will be to use Naga and Gardna advantageously with Reptile support, leading to aggression with freely searched Scyllas, a Vaskii drop and further power plays with Caius the Shadow Monarch. For monsters we will run:

3 Caius the Shadow Monarch

3 Reptilianne Scylla

3 Reptilianne Gardna

3 Reptilianne Naga

2 Reptilianne Vaskii

2 Reptilianne Viper

1 Tragoedia

1 Dark Armed Dragon

Caius can feed off of the +1s from Offering/Damage, as well as the multiple tributable tokens produced by Spawn. Tragoedia exploits our abundance of Level 4 and 6 monsters and synergizes with our single copy of Recurring Nightmare (see below).

The Spell lineup will be:

3 Reptilianne Spawn

2 Enemy Controller

1 Recurring Nightmare

1 Allure of Darkness

1 Mystical Space Typhoon

1 Heavy Storm

1 Brain Control

The last four are self-explanatory I think. The 3x Spawn gives us an easy way to make our copies of Caius and Vaskii live. It functions much like Scapegoat, really, right down to the ability to use the tokens in an advantageous swipe/tribute with Enemy Controller. Recurring Nightmare will recur our Nagas, Vipers, and Vaskiis while synergizing with Tragoedia and Allure of Darkness.

The Trap lineup for this deck is a bit fat:

3 Offering to the Snake Deity

3 Damage = Reptile

2 Bottomless Trap Hole

1 Ojama Trio

1 Torrential Tribute

1 Trap Dustshoot

1 Call of the Haunted

Offering and Damage are our key ways of manipulating Naga and especially Gardna to our advantage. Bottomless Trap Hole helps against most widely played decks, while Call of the Haunted is mainly here for our Synchros and for Gardna. I have always been a fan of Dustshoot. Ojama Trio may seem off-kilter here, but it can permit an easy Vaskii play, or become borderline ridiculous with Reptilianne Hydra (drawing 3 cards from Hydra's effect).

This deck has the removal to keep many strategies off-balance. The advantage created by Gardna via Offering/Damage creates a Gadget-esque engine that feeds further aggression. Unfortunately, this deck is still inferior in almost every way to the similar Blackwing archetype, which will keep it at the tier 2/3 plateau for the time being.

Hope you enjoyed it. My next post will look at Koa'ki Meiru.