When Dragons Collide

From the title, its easy to assume that I'm gonna talk about both the structure deck and the tops at both YCS Dallas and Toulouse. Oh yeah, so Jeff won another Asia Championship it seems, his second one back to back, does this makes him the Billy Brake of our Asian Region?

Back to Dragons. I was really shock/surprised when I read the top 8 feature where a Chaos Dragon variant made it there. And that feature match was one of the shortest one I've ever read. It was like, game 1 "I drop Dark Flare and two Pulsar, game!" game 2 "Slightly more challenging but I did piratically the same thing". When the deck got into finals, it dominated Dino Rabbit in a 2-0 manner.

So, right after that, I read the feature for Dallas, where a similar deck also made it to finals, this time it lost to Rabbit, but just slightly in a 1-2. However, the fact that Chaos Dragons or Twilight Dragons (because this build doesn't just run the Chaos, it has Judgment Dragoon in it) made it to the finals took the spotlight and no one really cared about the winner now. Another example of if your gonna die, die in style.

I was puzzled at how the deck won, sure I understand that the Lightlord engine is powerful, but sacky. So how luck help 2 guys thousand of miles away accomplish almost the same thing around the same time. Both run 30+ monsters and no traps (the Dallas one has one Treacherous Trap Hole, but thats not important). Both have no MSTs and Maxx Cs in deck. And both plays 3 Lylas backed with the Solar Recharge engine. As similar as they may be, these decks are different. The Dallas finalist played a full Lightlord Engine, Plague Spreader and Future Fusion. Toulouse's version of the deck spots 3 of each Tourguide, Thunder King and Dark Flare. We can easily see the products of these differences, the Dallas's version is more powerful in terms of raw strength and the Toulouse version has more precision and control.

I've build Chaos Dragon before, with some Lightlords, but never brought the monster count above 25. Also, my build always had 3 REDMDs and Apocalypse Dragons, along with a lone BLS. The result is a consistent, but not powerful deck that has minimal power plays outside of the REDMD and Pulsar wall. I revisited the deck yesterday and included a similar Lightlord Engine (including the 3 Recharges) and bumped the monster count to 32. I preferred the Toulouse version since I'm a more control oriented guy, but he plays 3 Tourguide and Thunder King (Promo for Asian championships), so I end up a boss rush deck with 3 of each Chaos Dragons, 3 Sorcerers, a BLS, a DAD and 2 REDMDs.

monster(32):

3 Lightpulsar Dragon
3 Darkflare Dragon
2 Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon
3 Eclipse Wyvern
3 Lyla Lightlord Magician
3 Ryko Lightlord Hunter
3 Effect Veiler

2 Tragodia (Asian format, switch one of them to Gorz if your not affected)

1 Dark Armed Dragon
3 Chaos Sorcerer
1 Black Luster Soldier
1 Honest
1 Card Trooper
1 Sangan
1 Mystic Tomato
1 Plague Spreader Zombie

spell (8):

3 Solar Recharge
1 Charge of the Light Brigade
1 Heavy Storm
1 Dark Hole
1 Monster Reborn
1 Allure of Darkness

This is kinda like a hybrid of the 2 topping decks, as I play the partial Lightlord engine from Toulouse, together with the Plague, Tomato from Dallas. Reason why I have 3 Veiler main decked is because I have 4 sets that I wouldn't want to get poped by Hornet. Unlike the TCG, the OCG is swarmed with insects, so you can never be too safe from setting monsters with no backrow, unless its a Wyvern or Sangan, then it doesn't matter.

I've tested played with this deck for a bit and holy shit, this is good. It can keep its ground with Hieratics and  HEROs, and pull of wins ever so easily. The card that made all the difference is Solar Recharge. Recharge made this deck good, without it, the deck doesn't function properly and you get random hands. Recharge solves that while setting up your grave. Its definitely not tier 1 yet, close, I mean real close, but not there yet. My only concern is how did something like this stayed under the radar for so long. Why did no one build it till last weekend where 2 guys decide to play it and brought it to the final table.

Lastly, I don't see this deck stirring up the META game for OCG that much, since this and Hieratics are essentially the same deck (the reason why I did not put Card Car D in this deck is because I can't seem to fit all 3 in, and I don't like to play CCD in 1's or 2's). Both Hieratics and Chaos Dragon set up for a few turns and aims to end the game in 1 huge turn. Consider this a poor man's Hieratic if you want, as it's not as consistent due to the Lightlord mill engine being sacky to begin with.

People side 3 Macro Cosmos, every top tier deck except Inzektors does so. That card is gonna wreck Chaos Dragon's play far worst than Inzektors. Granted we have 3 Lylas and Rykos mained, together with 3 MST in the side, but one cannot be too sure of what the opposing player would side. Side decks against Hieratics (some of them) BTH, Maxx C and Trago would also affect this deck's plays, even those you side for Rabbit, Dimension Prison and Mirror Force would do damage to it. The reason I don't think Chaos Dragon would do anything in OCG is this : while preparing our side decks for the big 3, we would have at least 10 cards in our side for the deck. The only chance this deck has of winning would be taking game 1, but this deck isn't the most consistent of decks.

Well, I may be wrong, since I did not see Chaos Dragon topping, and I've always see the SD as slightly below mediocre. Leave a comment and responds please, I wanna know what you guys think bout this deck.