Let's Build: Don Zaloog Beat!

Okay so the post title sounds like something that Jason would do, but scrap that, this isn't Jason's articles.

Today's article concerns the leader of the Dark Scorpion band, which once, had a very distinct effect on the meta. Don Zaloog was the main component of an anti-meta-ish Warrior Toolbox back in the old days.
Of course, no one will use his second effect because that is like giving advantage for the opponent. What's good about him is that he's a warrior, level 4 and has an Airbellum-ish effect.

Airbellum effect only activates when he directs attacks. The beauty of this guy is that as long as he inflicts damage, your opponent loses something.

Being 1400 attack lets it evade Bottomless Trap Hole - the most annoying trap card in the game.

So, how do we make sure our opponent's monsters have low enough attack?

While most decks have Solidarity, this time we make use of its counterpart, Burden of the Mighty. Burden is fairly annoying, and can maken any 1700 level 4 monster fall prey to Don Zalog.

So the deck will be runnig a higher trap count, can be considered a rogue type of element, meaning its defininitely more interesting to play around with.

So, on to the deck.

3 Don Zaloog
1 Tragoedia
1 Mystic Tomato
1 Sangan
1 Battle Fader
3 Caius the Shadow Monarch
2 Snowman Eater
2 Thunderking Raiou
1 Morphing Jar
1 Blackwing Gale the Whirlwind
1 Gravekeeper's Descendant
3 Gravekeeper's Spy

2 Shrink
1 Mystical Space Typhoon
1 Giant Trunade
2 Book of Moon
1 Allure of Darkness
2 Burden of the Mighty
1 Pot of Avarice
2 Pot of Duality

3 Dimension Prison
1 Mirror Force
1 Torrential Tribute
2 Royal Oppression
2 Bottomless Trap Hole
1 Solemn Judgement
1 Starlight Road
1 Wasteland Tornado


As you can see, the deck has quite alot of protection.

You can also see that it doesn't exactly focus around Don Zaloog but actually focuses around just simple beat, but more interesting than standard beat decks like Hero Beat and stuff like that.

In fact, Don zalog is more like a simple element that is used just to assist the deck to garner advantage.

3 Caius the Shadow Monarch is godly, as 2400 attack is just big enough to simplify the game, plus it removes any card that you want. You can easily self- tribute cards like Fader, Snowman, and Spy.

The deck generates more advantage than simple beat decks that has only 15 monsters because it adds more variety/ synergy in the build. It also has the same objective strip your opponent of as many cards as possible. Needless to say, it won't draw bad as those other decks do.

Spy and Descendant is fun because they can abuse the Burden of the Mighty card since its free monsters. That means more monsters that your opponent can't destroy.

Raiou is excellent here too because it is 1900 meaning not many cards can take it down. Its gonna stay for a pretty long time. It stops Airman, Gearframe, Black Whirlwind, and simply slows down the whole game.

Tragodia is tech, unaffected by Oppression, and can definitely pitch dead level 4's to steal your opponent's.

2 Snowman eater is gay, self explanatory.

I splashed Gale the Whirlwind because Gale is quite broken. Being able to evade and destroy an overpowered setup such as a "Stardust Dragon+ Bottomless Trap Hole". It can singlehandedly take down anything short of a 2500 monster, and combined with Don, that's pretty mean. If Oppression isnt on the field, feel free to sync it with a Snowman, or a Spy.

I didn't run Heavy Storm and Reinforcement of the Army as you can see. Heavy Storm is bad because you wanna keep your Oppressions and Burdens to control. So, instead, I played Giant Trunade over Storm. One plus that Trunade has over Storm, is that it won't trigger Starlight Road.

I didn't run Reinforcement because we already have Mystic Tomato, 2 Pot of Duality, 1 Allure and 3 Dons. There's not much use searching Don anyways since the deck doesn't focus totally around him. Having 1 to 2 copies at your beck and call is sufficent enough lol.

POt of Duality allows synergy and lets you dig through your deck to get Caius, Oppression, and Burden. I would run 3 but not enough deck space.

Oppression is broken in this deck since basically only Spy special summons. And if you can just leave Spy face-down till its attacked, and it can escape Oppression. Furthermore, Spy is more like a first turn card, so it won't be affected by Oppression.

I teched Tornado of the Wasteland because it can randomly destroy Black Whirlwind, Machina Armored Unit and annoying cards. You just don't lose out when you play it. There's no reason not to either.

I'm quite looking forward to seeing some rogue decks bursting into the spotlight in the M'sia and Singapore World Qualifiers. But most of the good players are playing meta deck anyways.... Sigh..

Thanks for reading!