Introduction

I know a lot of people who just play what wins. If DAD is winning, DAD is what they run. If Perfect Circle is just pulverizing the competition, there isn't a reason not to play it. This makes sense if your playing for money/prizes, but what’s better is to play for money/prizes, and for fun. What I mean by fun is contemplating, building, and testing a radically new something to you or to your Yu-Gi-Oh! environment.

Starting Out

One of the first things you want to do is to pick a theme. One of the best ways to do this is just to look through those shoe-boxes of spare cards. Find something interesting, and build onto it. If you run into a dead end, try something else. The possibilities are endless.

Step 2- Deck Building

One of the things most people get tripped up on when deck building is the card choice. Premature Burial and Mystical Space Typhoon aren’t necessarily staples. Threatening Roar could outweigh Mirror Force.

Keep a keen eye for cards that would be better utilized in the sidedeck. I always read through deck lists that main deck cards like Twister and Tornado. How often are you really going to need those?
In some cases, however, main decking side cards makes sense. Like at SJC Minneapolis, Paul Levitin main decked 3 Shadow-Imprisoning Mirror. It worked out fine because almost every deck there was Dark Armed Dragon Return. If it was Six Samurai of the like he would just side them out for more useable cards.

Step 3-Deck Testing

This is the biggest part. You'll want to reasonably test against a variety of decks and opponent skill level. What I'm trying to get across is don't just test against DAD, Six Samurai, Perfect Circle, and DDT. Test against Gadgets, Lightsworn, Jinzo, and plethoric masses of decks you might see. Even if you don't think there is a chance you'll get matched up against one, try is anyway; it might reveal a fatal flaw in your strategy.

It's Easy

Warrior Toolbox Return
Monsters:18
2 Elemental Hero Wildheart
1 Armed Samarai-Ben Kei
1 D.D. Assailant
1 Freed The Matchless General
3 Don Zaloog
1 D.D. Warrior Lady
2 Mataza the Zapper
2 Marauding Captain
1 Exiled Force
2 Giant Rat
2 Command Knight

Spells:18
2 Reinforcement of the Army
2 Mage Power
1 United We Stand
2 Lightning Blade3 Fusion Sword Murasame Blade
3 Axe of Despair
3 Divine Sword-Phoenix Blade
2 D.D.R.-Diffrent Dimension Reincarnation

Traps: 4
1 Return from the Different Dimension
3 Escape from the Dark Dimension

I made this deck a couple weeks ago with spare cards laying around. I tested it and it worked pretty well, even though DAD still beat the crap out of it. But with a little revision it might stand a meta-chance.

On another note, you really wouldn't expect a deck like this make a day 2 at an SJC. But what I'm getting at is that trying something new can not only help progress you as a player, but boost originality in the duelists around you.

Closing

I think a lot of the fun in this game is being kind of sucked away from it. People began the game in curiosity, but they slowly grew towards playing it only to dominate. I'm not in an way saying that playing this game to win or winning is bad in any way, but I think the element present when they first started needs to be re-presented to the players today. Try something unorthodox and acentric today, you might just create something amazing.