Thunder Dragon Chaos

11/25/2018

What is Thunder Dragon Chaos?

Thunder Dragon Chaos is a Yu-Gi-Oh! Goat Format deck distinguished by its 3-4 chaos monsters (1 Black Luster Soldier - Envoy of the Beginning and 2-3 Chaos Sorcerer) and 3 Thunder Dragons. It almost always plays 2 Night Assailants and a few ways to discard them: 1 Card Destruction, 1 Tribe-Infecting Virus, and copies of Phoenix Wing Wind Blast or Raigeki Break. It also has a noticeably high monster count, with a typical 18-21 monsters. This deck is sometimes also called "Turbo Chaos."

Thunder Dragon Chaos Strategy

Thunder Dragon Chaos is a high-synergy control deck that uses its chaos monsters as an easy, consistent source of card advantage. It can play a grind game just as well as most other decks in the format, but it can also flood the board with a bunch of chaos monsters and push for big damage quite easily. It can use cards like Card Destruction, Cyber Jar, and Morphing Jar to help setup its kill turns.

Thunder Dragon Chaos Core Interactions

The deck’s most important interaction is that it puts light and dark monsters in the graveyard very quickly. Thunder Dragon can immediately be a light monster in the graveyard (note: you can activate Thunder Dragon’s effect even if you have no copies left in the deck), and the deck plays a swath of dark flip effect monsters to dig through the deck and fill the graveyard.

Using Thunder Dragon, Night Assailant, and Sinister Serpent in conjunction with discard effects is also a key element of the deck. In particular, Thunder Dragon Chaos seeks to build up a hand of these monsters and fire off a Card Destruction, gaining massive card advantage and filling up the grave with chaos monsters. Night Assailant gives Thunder Dragon Chaos more access to its powerful flip effect monsters: Magician of Faith, Cyber Jar, and Morphing Jar.

Thunder Dragon Chaos Deck Skeleton

1 Black Luster Soldier - Envoy of the Beginning
2 Chaos Sorcerer
3 Thunder Dragon
1 Breaker the Magical Warrior
1 Sangan
1 Magician of Faith
2 Night Assailant
1 Sinister Serpent
1 Pot of Greed
1 Graceful Charity
1 Delinquent Duo
1 Card Destruction
1 Heavy Storm
1 Mystical Space Typhoon
1 Snatch Steal
2 Nobleman of Crossout
1 Mirror Force
1 Torrential Tribute
1 Ring of Destruction

Thunder Dragon Chaos Example Decklists

Thunder Dragon Chaos with Jars: https://www.duelingbook.com/deck?id=2779979

Thunder Dragon Turbo Chaos Goat Format Decklist

Thunder Dragon Chaos with Metamorphosis: https://www.duelingbook.com/deck?id=2779965

Thunder Dragon Chaos Control Goat Format Decklist

Strengths and Weaknesses of Thunder Dragon Chaos

Thunder Dragon Chaos has a fairly straightforward gameplan and is substantially easier to play correctly than Goat Control, which makes it a popular deck among players who are newer to Goat Format. The deck is not auto-pilot by any means, but it does have less decisions to make compared to many other decks in the format. This makes it harder for a Thunder Dragon Chaos player to throw away a game with a big blunder.

Thunder Dragon Chaos has a notable advantage over other chaos decks in the format in that it can summon its chaos monsters quicker due to the inclusion of Thunder Dragon and self-discard effects. Thunder Dragon Chaos will simply be able to play more chaos monsters faster and more consistently than the other chaos decks in the format, on average. Its inclusion of more power cards, particularly Card Destruction and Morphing Jar, can help a fair bit in chaos mirrors as well.

However, Thunder Dragon Chaos has the weakness that it is generally most vulnerable to the sidedeck out of all of the chaos decks. Trap Dustshoot is noticeably stronger against this version than the other chaos decks because of the fact that that Thunder Dragon, Night Assailant, Cyber Jar, and Morphing Jar keep the hand count high. Mind Control is also quite strong versus Thunder Dragon Chaos. The opponent can either steal a set flip effect monster and use its effect for themselves or steal a chaos monster and use its effect to banish itself. Like other chaos decks, Kycoo the Ghost Destroyer can be an issue as well.

As a high-synergy deck, Thunder Dragon Chaos is also notorious for its potential to draw “brick” opening hands. It will open multiple copies of Thunder Dragon about 5% of the time. It can also run into issues with having too many chaos monsters that it can’t summon, or just too many monsters in general. Its higher potential to draw poor hands effectively places a cap on its winrate, which can be frustrating.

Common Misconceptions About Thunder Dragon Chaos

There has long been a rivalry between Goat Control and Thunder Dragon Chaos, and it can be a point of confusion for some as to which is better and which is more popular. The relative popularity of the two decks generally varies from place to place. There are certainly some online metagames where Thunder Dragon Chaos sees more play than Goat Control. There is not yet sufficient evidence to indicate whether one deck solidly beats the other. You’ll have to make that determination on your own.

There have also been etymological debates regarding the naming of Thunder Dragon Chaos. We have chosen this name because the presence of Thunder Dragon is a clear distinguishing factor between this type of chaos deck and other chaos decks. Some will insist that if Thunder Dragon Chaos chooses to play Metamorphosis (as one of the example decklists does), that it is actually a totally different deck. Both the strategy and the strengths/weaknesses are quite similar regardless of whether or not you choose to run Metamorphosis, so it makes sense to classify them together.

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Do you want to play a chaos deck but aren't sure which one? We have deck guides to other chaos strategies too!

Here are some articles that will help you play Thunder Dragon Chaos:

We also have some recorded games with Thunder Dragon Chaos so that you can watch it in action:

Do you have any questions about Thunder Dragon Chaos or want to share your own Thunder Dragon Chaos decklist? We’d love to hear from you in the comments. Want expert help to construct your own Thunder Dragon Chaos deck? Then j oin our Discord server.

ACP

ACP is a co-founder of GoatFormat.com, along with Skully. He has been an active contributor to the revival of Yu-Gi-Oh!'s Goat Format from 2012 onward. In 2017, he created the Angel Chaos deck, a notable contender in the Goat Format metagame. He has a long history of being a TCG content creator, first for The Game Academy (now defunct) and later for GatheringMagic.com. He has placed in the top32 of the Yu-Gi-Oh! Championship Series three times. A mathematician by profession, he is known for his logical and analytical approach to gaming.

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