Let's face it, not everyone is rich enough to afford Dark Armed Dragon. Dark Armed Dragons love money. It goes to the highest bidder, and since money doesn't grow on trees, not many people can become the highest bidder. But how can a cheap player avoid the fate of being owned in Yugioh? Luckily, I'm a cheap player, so I know some outs to this. The obvious one is simply to borrow cards off friends. That works fairly well for me, but to those people who don't have friends (cmon, Yugioh isn't the coolest sport ever) or who don't have rich friends, this blog will put out some rogue decks for display.
The first thing we have to do is figure out how to beat Dark Armed Dragon. In the late game, it's pretty unbeatable as a +3 is simply brutal, so we'll have to outspeed it. There's 2 methods to this: fast combo or fast aggro. We can also negate Dark Armed Dragon and its buddies' effects, rendering them into not so scary monsters.
The following decks are the cheapest decks I can find of each type. That means a deck like DDT won't be found beneath as although it is fast, it is hardly cheap. This also means Six Samurai won't be included because it isn't that rogue (although it isn't tier 1 as it requires a lot of good draws) and the Grandmaster of the Six Samurai or extremely expensive. Sad days for those who didn't raid the little kids' pile of Grandmasters during the Sneak Preview.
Fast Combo: Exodia Turbo
I think the unrestriction of Reckless Greed and the appearance of Hand Destruction adds a lot of power to the deck. Dark Eruption is also a fantastic card for the deck, as it either gets back lost Exodia pieces or reuses Sangan.
5 Exodia Pieces
3 Emissary of the After Life
3 Vortex Trooper
1 Card Trooper
1 Maharaghi
1 Morphing Jar
1 Sangan
3 Hand Destruction
3 Upstart Goblin
2 Dark Eruption
1 Card Destruction
1 Dark Factory of Mass Production
3 Accumulated Fortune
3 Good Goblin Housekeeping
3 Jar of Greed
3 Legacy of Yata-Garasu
3 Reckless Greed
There are 22 draw cards in the deck, with Hand Destruction and Card Destruction giving an immediate -1, and Accumulated Fortune giving the +1. It is very possible to draw through a large part of the deck each turn. Card Trooper draws a card upon destruction and its milling effect is awesome when a Dark Eruption is in hand as you either hit no Exodia piece but thin the deck by 3 cards or hit an Exodia piece and retrieve it with Dark Eruption. Vortex Trooper is also a great card as it can be set to become a pseudo Upstart Goblin or get a free Magical Mallet effect if that Dark Factory of Mass Destruction doesn't seem it's going to do anything soon. Maharaghi is a great card as it repeatedly sifts through 1 card per turn. A Maharaghi being summoned every turn adds a lot of speed to the deck. It will almost send the revealed card back to the bottom unless it's an Exodia piece or an Exodia recurring card if a piece is in the graveyard.
The biggest benefit of the deck is that it's super cheap to build. Exodia goes for rather cheaply. There's no Mirror Force and the like to skyrocket the price. The most expensive cards here would be Card Trooper followed by Dark Eruption, with the latter not being really expensive. Card Trooper seems to have fallen out of popularity lately so it's possible to pick one up for an non-astronomical cost.
Fast Combo: Morphing Jar #2 OTK
The combo is to get All-out Attacks and another monster on the field, then special summon Morphing Jar #2 facedown or flip Morphing Jar #2 if you have it facedown already. In the former, Morphing Jar #2 will be flipped up by All-out Attacks.The Jar's effect will activate, sending the monster and the Jar back to the deck. They will be resummoned facedown, then flipped face up by All-out Attacks. Poison Mummy will inflict 500 damage and Morphing Jar #2 will send the monsters back to the deck. Lather, rinse and repeat until the opponent is dead.
3 Morphing Jar #2
1 Poison Mummy
3 Hand Destruction
3 Reasoning
3 The Shallow Grave
2 Foolish Burial
3 Upstart Goblin
2 Book of Moon
1 Card Destruction
1 Different Dimension Capsule
1 Level Limit Area B
1 Messenger of Peace
1 Monster Gate
1 Monster Reborn
1 Premature Burial
1 Scapegoat
3 All-out Attacks
3 Dark Bribe
3 Threatening Roar
2 Rock Bombardment
1 Gravity Bind
The idea is to dump monsters in the graveyard via Foolish Burial and Rock Bombardment to set up The Shallow Grave. Once that's done, activate All-out Attacks, summon something via normal summon, Reasoning or Monster Gate (tributing a revived monster or sheep token), then play The Shallow Grave for the win. The weakness of the deck is that it dies to D.D. Crow and if all 3 All-out Attacks are dumped via an unfortunate Reasoning or Monster Gate. The problem can potentially be solved through adding Magical Stone of Excavation, but that's expensive. Another way to avoid this is to not play Reasoning or Monster Gate until an All-out Attacks has been drawn.
Fast Aggro: Generic Aggro with a Touch of Machine
The deck name says it all. Stuff in the most aggro monsters one can find and attack! The touch of machine is for Limiter Removal, which just steals games out of nowhere.
2 Cyber Dragon
2 Jinzo
3 Blue Thunder T-45
3 Hydrogeddon
3 Kycoo the Ghost Destroyer
2 Injection Fairy Lily
1 Card Trooper
1 Cyber Phoenix
1 Marshmallon
1 Spirit Reaper
2 Enemy Controller
1 Brain Control
1 Fissure
1 Heavy Storm
1 Limiter Removal
1 Monster Reborn
1 Mystical Space Typhoon
1 Nobleman of Crossout
1 Premature Burial
1 Scapegoat
1 Shield Crush
1 Smashing Ground
2 Royal Decree
2 Dimension Wall
1 Magic Cylinder
1 Mirror Force
1 Torrential Tribute
Most of the cash spend on the deck are Mirror Force, Card Trooper and Jinzo. Mirror Force is quite essential for any duelist, and it's coming out in the Gold Pack soon so it should be easier to obtain. Injection Fairy Lily can be picked up quite cheaply because it's not very popular. The point of the deck is to simply summon monsters, beat face then Dimension Wall or Magic Cylinder the rest of the LP. This plan works especially well with Inection Fairy Lily because it puny 400 ATK make Dimension Wall deal a significant amount of damage.
Negate the Teeth Out of the Dragon
The final deck list tries to use Skill Drain to negate Dark Armed Dragon. A 2800 ATK monster is not nearly as scary as a 2800 ATK monster that gives +3 upon summon. The burn is based of on Kenny So's deck, but I think it's fundamentally different enough to be something else. There's also an interesting tech in the deck.
1 Green Baboon, Defender of the Forest
3 Giant Rat
3 Gravekeeper's Spy
3 Nimble Momonga
2 Exiled Force
2 Maryokutai
1 Mask of Darkness
1 Morphing Jar
3 Wave-Motion Cannon
2 Messenger of Peace
1 Different Dimension Capsule
1 Level Limit Area B
1 Scapegoat
1 Smashing Ground
3 Dark Bribe
3 Skill Drain
3 Solemn Judgment
1 Gravity Bind
1 Magic Cylinder
1 Mirror Force
1 Threateing Roar
1 Torrential Tribute
1 Wall of Revealing Light
There's one win conditon in this deck: Wave-Motion Cannon. Dark Bribe and Maryokutai takes care of most spell/trap removal and Skill Drain takes care of the rest. If anything grows wrong, Solemn Judgment will stop it. Maryokutai is a great card because it's unaffect by Skill Drain and doesn't take up precious spell / trap zone space. The rest of the deck is mostly removal and stall. Green Baboon is in because it works well as a big wall that isn't negated by Skill Drain. The deck only has Wave-Motion Cannon as a win condition, so it must be protected at all costs.
The most expensive cards in the deck are Green Baboon and Dark Bribe. Green Baboon isn't essential to the deck can be replaced along with a Giant Rat by 2 Cyber Phoenix or something. Dark Bribe is pretty crucial, so either steal it off little kids who haven't been raided yet, buy the game for the cards then return/sell the game or simply check your local Electronics Boutique.
Conclusion
I hope these 4 decks have given you some ideas. These builds aren't the best, but they are a starting point and shoudln't suck too badly. Remember, budget decks don't have to suck. Just don't try to build a naturally expensive deck out of common cards because it won't work. Those decks need their pricey cards for a reason. That means DDT without Magical Stone of Excavation, Destiny DRaw or Dark Magician of Chaos will perform poorly. The same idea applies to Six Samurai without Grandmaster -- it sucks. Hope you enjoy your children's card games.
Tags: Dark Armed Dragon Rogue
Related to:
Yu-Gi-Oh!
