[No] Bad Cards: Theban Nightmare (Part 2 of 2)

RESULTS AND MODIFICATION

Continued from Part 1: I entered the earlier of the two weekly Goat Format Friday tournament time slots to give it a test run against people who were motivated to point out weaknesses in the theory, and that they did. A brutal 0-3 run with a few games won was instructive. But there was time for the second tournament as well, which meant time to adapt and try again, see if the changes made improved the odds. A few things stood out. Back To Square One was unsatisfying to use on powerful monsters and is pretty inflexible in practice because of it. Nobleman of Crossout was sorely missed; Sets need to be answered efficiently.​ The 55 for the second tournament:

Chaos monsters ran amok and since Tribute to the Doomed, along with Raigeki Break, puts things in grave, triple Kycoo seems wise and pushes our original ATK average up. Mirage Dragon has been moved to the sideboard and reinforced with Pitch-Black Warwolf in triplicate as battle traps are far more common in games 2 and 3 of any match. Equips were added to improve likelihood of combat success. Goal would be to counter their siding pattern more or less with a field of attackers that don’t die to battle traps and can’t be climbed over, and fast. Rope of Life, similarly, is simply much stronger after they side into beatsticks. BLS came in over Freed because getting clobbered with the card reminds one why it should be played, but also, with the crazy number of discard outlets we have, how hard can it be to summon? To answer that question, I didn’t summon him once, but he also never shut off my Thebans so…

The second tournament’s matches went a little better, as Turbo ground me out multiple times, but sideboarding into all the trap negators and equips does net wins if your opponent didn’t draw enough answers–Tsukuyomi remained a thorn in my side. Kycoos were solidly mid in this context. The Warrior toolbox could still benefit from classics like Exiled Force and MS LV2. The special summon economy is quite low, which means I may be looking at Card of Sanctity based Theban Nightmare builds just for the Dimension Fusion cycles, but Theban was surprisingly live. I actually managed to get an exact kill with probably one of the luckiest topdecks of my long “career”.

Now that’s what 3700 damage looks like. What did we learn? We need a faster build with even more removal, yes, but also, Theban Nightmare is surprisingly easy to play into and could be a tech choice in a similar deck focused on Rush Recklessly. Turbo gave us problems, but clearly surmountable ones, and that’s encouraging. Apophis continued to apply pressure and wall attacks nobly, and definitely warrants more exploration, but not having a payoff in the form of Zaborg/Mobius in the 55 left a noticeable absence (though having the ability to pump it up is cool). My assumptions about BTS1 were proven incorrect and remind me a bit of the debates concerning Phoenix Wing Wind Blast versus Raigeki Break.

More or less, Chaos Warrior: Weird Stuff Edition is where the deck landed. It is monster-heavy but we’re also discard-heavy and Rush Recklessly-heavy. Turns out it’s actually pretty easy to play into Theban Nightmare when built for it, so Rope of Life was less critical and went to the sideboard for aggro matchups where large attack position monsters are plentiful. The general side plan of "rush them if you can or overpower them” remains. Injection Fairy Lily was added to main because we’re not running Solemn and we are trying to take LP as quickly as possible, its absence was an oversight. IFL is a killer Sangan fetch and topdeck war-winner many times over, and we love topdecking! I could have stolen another match with her probably. Another card that plays nice with Apophis clearing the way for a direct hit. ​This experiment leaves me with more feeling, not less, that Goat Format’s spice rack still has plenty of potency left in it. As I played with the deck and had a chance to sleep on it a bit, I realized that courting discard cards so heavily, when one-for-one cards should be fine to get our hand size down, was likely a mistake. Monster count should be reduced per the splevin scale (see below).

​Alas, I was too much of a coward to cut further normal summons, so 13 +2 RotA is a risk we’re taking; I felt it would be bad form to not mention what might be the right way to go about it. Here's a link.

​Figured this deck might have more in common with other aggro decks despite being a Warrior variant and Rush Recklessly target necessity also gives reason to amplify monster count other than Apophis. Direct hits and carryover damage are maximized with the full playsets of Rush and Smashing. The math of our summons hitting face and theirs leaving board should keep LPs in decent standing but Embodiment can absorb an attack in a pinch if activated at the end of an opposing Main Phase 1, assuming they’re not packing a proactive answer. Compulsory Evacuation Device is an underrated aggression tool with backup defense as an alternative role: it does two things we’re aiming to do: go minus, and set the opponent back on tempo. Gumo deck uses three and so shall we.

Critics of Lightning Vortex say that it often is a minus in card advantage terms, less often neutral, and rarely plus. I would argue that with sheep tokens, Spies, and aggro monsters everywhere, people aren’t so scared of Torrential Tribute that they’re respecting it to the point that going neutral on the Spell at minimum would be unlikely. Sometimes old technology works. Theban is surprisingly live.

Mataza was avoided in main, by the way, due to not hitting 2100+ with Rush; if I have Rush in hand no Spy should stop me. Yet, I’m also looking at Marauding Captain as a hand-emptying piece of tech for Theban as well. This deck is certainly a pile of cards, but I think with the proper application of mortar more bricks are usable than you think. The danger of trying to be on the bleeding edge of deck development means that you don’t know whose blood is on the blade until it’s too late (spoiler: usually yours), but every tournament is its own leap of faith anyway.

Stay spicy!
-C.G.