[No] Bad Cards 2: Rising Air Current (Part 1 of 2)

The Shadowknight Rises, Pt. 1

Welcome to [No] Bad Cards, a new series that seeks to challenge, or confirm, the assumptions around some cards seen as difficult to use profitably in Goat Format. Each article will consist of three sections: a background section explaining the reason the card was chosen, a section dedicated to the theory driving a proposed optimal utilization of the card and the deck formed from it, then, finally, a section detailing the results of testing in competitive environments and deckbuild changes that followed with explanations of those as well.

Submissions welcome here

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BACKGROUND

I've played a lot of games with WIND Aggro, call me a true believer, and I believe that WIND Aggro should utilize the unique opportunity Rising Air Current (RAC) represents in regards to structuring its offense, and I believe I have found a method that utilizes it best, by being able to win without it but really leaning into it when we get it. The real meat and potatoes is in the eclectic menagerie assembled here to capitalize on it. I’ve been chewing on how to master the Manticore of Darkness and wound up including my favorite monster (other than D.D. Warrior Lady), Dark Necrofear, along the way, which may also be the best deck I can think to fit her into. RAC addresses one barrier all decks must be able to climb over or blow through; when the winds are high the 2000 DEF Gravekeeper’s Spy is no obstacle.

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THEORYIOH! AND DECK

https://www.duelingbook.com/deck?id=20579971

The above is the list I entered in Format Library Championship 41. As you can see, it is more or less Emissary WIND Aggro. The idea is simple with Rising Air Current: most Monster cards deemed playable happen to be DARK, LIGHT, and EARTH, with some few exceptional WATER Attribute monsters commonly seen as well. WIND and FIRE monsters thus benefit more from their Field Spells, since their application is almost guaranteed to be asymmetrical given their Attribute’s extremely small footprint in the metagame. Asymmetrical ATK boosts lead to increased pressure on opposing monsters and the opponent’s LP while multiplying advantage across your front row. 

What advantages does RAC provide over a card like Banner of Courage or Graceful Dice? Persistent power: a standard +500 ATK -400 DEF that pushes Level 4 monsters into contention with tribute monsters in terms of raw strength, and it applies the whole time, not just during a battle phase in particular. The Field Spell zone also leaves your five Spell and Trap card zones open, should you build towards a heavier backrow element. Field Spells do represent concentrated risk, however as they can be removed in untimely fashion, like an opposing Dust Tornado during your attack declaration. Distributing risk is one way to mitigate this, which explains most of the monster choices.

We are usually playing around Heavy Storm in one way or another, and that means we are in a race against time to maximize impact before it can be drawn in some games, but in many it can be baited with just one of the two high-impact field-redefining cards we use. We will get to Skill Drain later. A 2:1 RAC:Terraforming ratio was chosen versus 3 copies of RAC in order to reduce clog and is probably the ideal ratio for decks not fully dependent on the Field Spell they’re using. Array of Revealing Light remains an underexplored sideboard option for Terraforming mains.

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THE MENAGERIE

Nothing rocks the 1900 ATK monster slot quite like Slate Warrior. Slate adds a unique effect to your Book of Moon, in which if you have a manual battle position change available, it can give Slate Warrior +500 ATK/DEF. The FLIP effect never goes off, you should virtually never Set this card without planning to use Return From the Different Dimension, Dimension Fusion, or Solemn Judgment. The Nobleman of Crossout hit is brutal. If Slate gets run over by anything other than Blade Knight attacking alone or Mystic Swordsman LV2, the threat gets softened up by its stat drop effect; the ATK tiers being what they are, it’s bound to come up. 

A Zombyra the Dark drops to a surmountable 1400 ATK after a Slate kill, Jirai Gumo down to 1700 like Duck. The same difference RAC adds, a Slate can subtract from anyone but a solo Blade Knight. Since Slate’s second effect activates in the GY Skill Drain won’t negate it and sometimes the inevitability of a -500 ATK/DEF penalty can reduce an opponent’s offensive momentum. Generally you will be happy you have a 1900 that has multiple paths to 2400 ATK and feeds your boss monster. Strangely, Slate was one of the later cards to be added, despite being the best WIND Aggro monster one could ask for, as at first the Fiend direction had not yet been decided. Initially the deck focused on Winged Beasts like Birdface, Garuda the Wind Spirit, and Cyber Harpie Lady, but the ceiling was too low even when Manticore of Darkness was identified as a possible asset in a deck built around floating on a Rising Air Current.


Emissary of the Afterlife presents a unique challenge to decks with three copies of Sakuretsu Armor in their 55s, as like a 1600 ATK Sangan battle traps activate its effect and bring a stronger monster to your hand. Your opponent will most likely not have any Level 3 Normal monsters to search their Deck for when Emissary goes off. Asymmetrical application of symmetrical effects is a theme here. Being a DARK Attribute seems unhelpful until you realize that in most games Emissary functionally is a WIND Attribute monster and Winged Beast monster while adding to your Fiend count. A well-timed Skill Drain can also turn a Blade Knight attack into a beneficial trade.

Sonic Duck has a few interesting properties. First, at 1700 ATK, it is the strongest level 3 Normal monster, making it the best target searchable by Emissary of the Afterlife in raw numbers and giving it the natural ability to slip under Gravity Bind and Level Limit Area - B. Second, Duck is also a WIND Attribute monster. Third, as a Winged Beast that can be tutored for, there is probably no better way to feed Manticore consistently working with these ATK values. At some point it did occur to me that Emissary, Slate Warrior, and Shadowknight Archfiend allowed for the summon of something stronger than Garuda who it would be competing with for food: our rogue deck’s own mini-Black Luster Soldier – Envoy of the Beginning: Dark Necrofear.

Necrofear feels relevant in this build. Emissary hitting GY is always an upgrade and your Slates are likely to eat Sakus, but you have adequate defenses against your opponent's Kycoo the Ghost Destroyer. By design, I wanted to maximize the number of aggressive “floaters”, a term used to describe monsters that replace themselves with another card when played. This allows me to keep up consistent pressure by replacing my monsters with new options when they are destroyed and simultaneously thins my deck of Monster cards, reducing the odds that one will be drawn rather than a Spell or Trap card that could make my next turns more dynamic since we are limited to one Normal Summon per turn.

Dark Necrofear turns into Snatch Steal when removal is used on it, whereas BLS just goes to grave when it attacks into a battle trap. Kinda like how it really sucks to use Mystical Space Typhoon on a Jar of Greed (this sentence aged well), your opponent will not have great options to stall your offense in full swing. Monsters that punish effect-based and attack-based destruction can be difficult to remove safely, and that’s the goal. 

It’s important to know that if an opponent uses Solemn Judgment to negate its summon, like Sacred Phoenix of Nephthys and Vampire Lord, it is destroyed by a card effect, and sent to the GY. So, its effect will still trigger and it will become an Equip Spell card. Unfortunately, we are playing after the errata which corrected her function such that she will not continue to come back as an Equip Spell once she is in Equip Spell form if destroyed. She must be a monster and under your control going to your GY for her effect to work not unlike Last Will, so despite the deck having many possible applications for Creature Swap, this is not one of them. Summoning her when your opponent doesn’t have a monster to steal but does have a backrow is risky.

Manticore of Darkness provides another use for the Ducks while also being a 2300 ATK monster that can sometimes be played from GY and doesn’t need RAC to be strong. Additionally, getting one out per game the cheesy way is actually common given the number of discards available like Tribe-Infecting Virus, Graceful Charity, Card Destruction and the opponent’s Delinquent Duo. What if your Swift Gaia just plain refused to stay dead? Brain Control in main of course exists to support the Manticore, but, if you have two in hand, you really just have one with an extra life that your opponent will need to play around, so it also feels less bricky to brick that way. With good timing, it’s doable to get them both on the board that way, pitching a Manticore for Manticore then pitching a Duck for the discarded Manticore. 

Twin-Headed Behemoth also exists to support Manticore plays, as the presence of a Behemoth nearly guarantees you can drop one the next turn, or, that your opponent will use a D.D. Warrior Lady on it instead of your Manticore, which can be +EV. “EV” or Expected Value is a broad term used to describe an exchange of cards or resources for the player, under the idea that asymmetry in resources dictates game outcomes: DDWL is a good game piece to remove from the board at the cost of a normal summonable monster. Similarly to Emissary, Twin-Headed is part of the aggressive floater policy that allows me to omit some S/T removal from my mainboard, reaching 2000 ATK under Rising Air Current as a Level 3 isn’t too bad, and if it blocks an attack, you can use the added 1000 or 1500 ATK on your side as more damage when you swing back or as a critical obstacle buying you another turn.

Shadowknight Archfiend is often seen as unwieldy even within Archfiend focused decks because its effect halves the damage it deals. We are running the only two WIND Fiends legal in Goat Format, so better options don’t exist, but we could do worse, even if 900 LP per controller Standby Phase (Skill Drain doesn’t stop it) is expensive. Two copies is the most I would care to run because it is well-balanced, emphasis on balanced. You pay a fair price for its good stats, relevant Type, and relevant Attribute, and 1/6th chance to negate a Saku or Snatch or Exiled Force. Shadowknight prevents us from using Solemns which is a significant drawback, but it crashes Blade Knight and has enough DEF to stop weak monsters. Not folding to Tsukuyomi matters. With RAC up it is a 2500 ATK monster that runs over common beaters and tribute monsters alike. If a BLS whacks a Slate and drops to 2500, you have a path to crash. Rising Air Current, with a Dark Necrofear to feed, is the best possible overlap in use case for this monster in my opinion.

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THE SECOND CORE

​I cook a lot with another duelist that has a strong Wind affinity, and when he saw I had Skill Drain in the sideboard, he said “no, you main that right now.” So, I tried it, and yes, having a build where all your stuff has GY triggers and you use Normals unironically means it is nearly all upside. It also forces your opponent to use their S/T removal more wisely, as Skill Drain can stop Breaker or Mobius cold on its own, but having both it and a Field Spell that boosts ATK to worry about can put a lot of strain on any Warrior hand not containing Heavy Storm. Obviously our ideal board state has Rising Air Current and Skill Drain up at the same time, so Sakuretsu Armors exist also to punish opponents for holding their S/T removal too much, since we don’t absolutely need both to establish battlefield control. A Dust Tornado would be useful, especially if a Raigeki Break comes too, as the opponent’s End Phase is the ideal time to Set a Skill Drain with Dust or discard a Manticore for Break. Break’s flexibility is unrivaled and also plays nice with Dust. See, the deck is truly about 34-36 cards, with a good amount of flex slot availability.

I personally consider Twin-Headed Behemoth to be excellent but not absolutely necessary. Further cuts and adjustments could of course be made, frameworks lifted, etc, but, if you wanted to expand on it here isn’t a bad place to start. A playset of Solemn Judgment if made workable would be oppressive. Jar of Greeds would continue to make Storm worse in the absence of Solemn and could have utility despite being a bad topdeck, but given that Manticore is here, Magic Jammer might not be a bad outlet to have access to either. 

The sideboard is somewhat well-thought out, the most important piece other than extra battle traps is Chiron, who can pitch redundant or useless Spells to take out floodgates or Royal Decree and can himself be pitched to revive a Manticore. King Tiger Wanghu is also an option but Spear Dragon feels better under RAC and Drain and is well supported by traps. Nobleman of Crossout didn’t feel right to omit completely from the 55—vs Turbo Chaos obviously. Given Chaos Control’s resurgence, putting them back in main might not be a bad call, but Skill Drain is pretty effective at slowing down the crazy stuff it can do, in theory

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RESULTS AND MODIFICATIONS

Continued here in Part 2.