Chapter 154. Zoodiac and True Draco Click Instantly! The Afterglow Until the Final Curtain!
All the duelists had fully grasped the Ratpier engine.
Naturally, they could also understand what it meant for the Ratpier engine to be a splash-in.
And after savoring the idea in detail, the veterans broke down even more.
Because the Ratpier engine could, in fact, be splashed into any deck!
DM World.
Yugi Muto took a deep breath and brought the Ratpier engine into his Dark Magician deck.
Not to mention anything else—Ratpier could make the required interruption with Drident, and even potentially set up something like Thunder King Rai-Oh on top of that.
Your other lines can keep doing their own thing.
Dark Magician can absolutely keep running its own engine.
Of course, the premise is that you don't trigger any self-restrictions.
And the Ratpier engine itself has no self-restrictions!
That is one of the terrifying points of a splash-in!
"So that's how it is. Even my Blue-Eyes White Dragon can run the Ratpier engine, right? Interesting. Very interesting. These few cards are… fascinating."
Seto Kaiba naturally caught on and showed a pensive look.
VRAINS World.
Unlike other duelists, Yusaku Fujiki was organizing each top-tier deck's characteristics and advantages.
If Dragon Rulers used the Graveyard, hand, and banished zone to their fullest, then Zoodiac undoubtedly pushed the Extra Deck to its limits.
Just one Ratpier.
That's right.
As long as you give it one Ratpier, it can explode through the Extra Deck in all kinds of ways!
That's the terrifying part of Zoodiac—or rather, the terrifying part of Ratpier!
But eras differ.
The era back then and the current era are completely different.
Yusaku Fujiki couldn't really judge whether today's Zoodiac would dominate on its own.
But one thing was certain.
Tearlaments were absolutely still number one.
Zoodiac player: "Therefore, the Zoodiac Ratpier engine was widely used across many decks."
Zoodiac player: "After elevating the power level of many decks, next we have to recognize one point."
Zoodiac player: "That is, Zoodiac Barrage and Fire Formation – Tenki were limited."
Zoodiac player: "Looking at the impact, there was no real effect on the dedicated Zoodiac deck."
Zoodiac player: "After all, what got hit were the cards in other decks."
Zoodiac player: "So the ones affected were just the decks that splashed in the Ratpier engine!"
Zoodiac player: "Hence it also explains why Zoodiac kept getting more active!"
Zoodiac player: "So where did Zoodiac go next?"
Zoodiac player: "Naturally, it kept splashing like crazy!"
Zoodiac player: "The absurd part is, even without Barrage and Tenki, decks that splashed Zoodiac remained strong!"
Zoodiac player: "Zoodiac Infernoid, Zoodiac Invoked, Zoodiac Chaos Dragon, Zoodiac Inzektor, Zoodiac Metalfoes, Zoodiac Burning Abyss, and so on all existed!"
Zoodiac player: "This proved one thing even more!"
Zoodiac player: "That the Ratpier engine was powerful!"
"Of course, at that time in the meta, Zoodiac Invoked became a true slice of the pie."
"That is, 'Aleister Zoodiac.'"
"Since this involves Aleister, I'll set it aside for now!"
"Let's keep looking at Zoodiac's development!"
"After the Maximum Crisis pack released, the source of all evil—Ash Blossom & Joyous Spring—arrived!"
"How strong is Ash Blossom? I won't even say!"
"It's a card that set the tone for subsequent competitive formats!"
"And in that pack, there was another theme that must be mentioned."
"That is, True Draco!"
"This 'True Draco' isn't Dragon Ruler; this True Draco was also top tier!"
"As for the boss card, I don't think anyone has forgotten!"
"It's this one—Master Peace, the True Dracoslaying King!"
True Dracoslaying King?
Wait!
This card is…?
Yes!
It's the card that inherited the "Dracoslaying King" title—Master Peace, the True Dracoslaying King!
It can Tribute Continuous Spells/Traps you control instead of monsters to Tribute Summon itself!
And it's unaffected by the card effects of the original type (Monster/Spell/Trap) of the cards Tributed for its Tribute Summon.
It also has a Quick Effect to banish a Continuous Spell/Trap from your Graveyard to destroy a card!
So this "Sword King" card was competing with Zoodiac at that time!
Thinking of that, many duelists were suddenly at ease!
Then!
If nothing unexpected happened next, the True Draco theme should absolutely crush Zoodiac, right?
Zoodiac player: "I'll just mention the True Draco deck briefly."
Zoodiac player: "First of all, True Draco is a deck that goes minus first and then pluses later."
Zoodiac player: "And many of the True Draco boss monsters can use Spells/Traps as Tributes."
"This leads to situations where, at the start, you Summon a True Draco monster and end up spending quite a bit of resource."
"Of course, a price paid also means power!"
"Mass draw, search, and recovery are all True Draco's hallmarks."
"Let's just look at a few cards to get the idea."
Card #1! Dinomight Knight, the True Dracofighter — WATER / Wyrm / Level 6 / 2500 ATK / 1200 DEF.
To Tribute Summon it, you can Tribute a Continuous Spell/Trap instead of a monster.
Once per turn, when your opponent activates a card or effect while you control this Tribute Summoned monster (Quick Effect): you can take 1 "True Draco" or "True King" Continuous Trap from your Deck and either activate it or add it to your hand.
Card #2! Majesty Maiden, the True Dracocaster — WIND / Wyrm / Level 5 / 2300 ATK / 1500 DEF.
Same Tribute Summon clause.
Once per turn, when your opponent activates a card or effect while you control this Tribute Summoned monster (Quick Effect): you can add 1 "True Draco" or "True King" monster from your Deck to your hand.
Card #3! Ignis Heat, the True Dracowarrior — FIRE / Wyrm / Level 5 / 2400 ATK / 1000 DEF.
Same Tribute Summon clause.
Once per turn, when your opponent activates a card or effect while you control this Tribute Summoned monster (Quick Effect): you can take 1 "True Draco" or "True King" Continuous Spell from your Deck and either activate it or add it to your hand.
As one True Draco card after another was revealed, they finally understood why this deck was called "minus first, plus later"!
Every one of these monsters…
They were all high-Level monsters!
Which meant that to hit the field, didn't they all need a Continuous Spell or Continuous Trap as Tribute?
And furthermore, if they were all Tribute Summons, then at the start you really would hemorrhage resources!
But what that brought was the follow-up: resource recovery and searching!
And the bosses all had resistances!
Which meant…
The battlefield was rock solid!
So this was True Draco?
But with Zoodiac—were they competitors or…?
Zoodiac player: "Having seen True Draco, I believe you've understood the theme."
Zoodiac player: "Why bring up True Draco? Simply to lay the groundwork for where Zoodiac went next!"
Zoodiac player: "At that time, the True Draco theme had quite an impact on the meta!"
Zoodiac player: "Put simply, True Draco relied on its boss monsters and the in-theme Spells/Traps that worked with them!"
Zoodiac player: "For example, True Draco Heritage, Disciples of the True Dracophoenix, True King's Return, True Draco Apocalypse, and so on—all offered solid support!"
Zoodiac player: "Among them, the most important was the Field Spell Dragonic Diagram!"
Zoodiac player: "1) 'True Draco' and 'True King' monsters on the field gain 300 ATK/DEF."
Zoodiac player: "2) While this card is in the Field Zone, each Tribute Summoned 'True Draco' monster cannot be destroyed by battle once per turn."
Zoodiac player: "3) Once per turn during your Main Phase: target 1 other card in your hand or on your field; destroy it, and if you do, add 1 'True Draco' card from your Deck to your hand."
Zoodiac player: "The first two effects are just icing on the cake!"
Zoodiac player: "The key is effect 3!"
Zoodiac player: "It provides the search for Master Peace!"
Zoodiac player: "That changes everything! Master Peace plus the Field Spell equaled higher search consistency!"
Zoodiac player: "However, when you have to pop a card, the weaknesses of True Draco become more apparent."
Zoodiac player: "That is, the starting resources go too far into the red, leading to severe initial minus!"
Zoodiac player: "Next, True Draco relies on Spell/Trap combos to function!"
Zoodiac player: "To run efficiently, you can't be missing pieces!"
Zoodiac player: "These are all weaknesses."
"So, in such a situation, how did True Draco take on the meta's overlord Zoodiac?"
"Zoodiac was stable, plus-generating, and loaded with disruptive cards!"
"You, True Draco, go minus at the start and can't even reliably get your bosses out!"
"Knowing this, let's look at Zoodiac's situation on the April list."
"At that time, the Zoodiac Ratpier engine was basically scrapped!"
"Zoodiac Ratpier went to 1, and Zoodiac Drident was Forbidden."
"The Continuous Spell Zoodiac Barrage was also Forbidden!"
"Great. The Ratpier engine was directly obliterated!"
"With just one rat, what are you even bouncing around about an engine for?"
"So the heavy lifting fell onto Zoodiac Broadbull!"
"But the problem is—relying on the bull alone… can it really shoulder the burden?"
"Zoodiac took a look at its opponent, True Draco."
"And thus, the True Draco deck and Zoodiac clicked instantly—two decks perfectly patching each other's flaws!"
"Zoodiac True Draco took the stage."
Stunned!
Duelists across all worlds were stunned!
What was this?
Zoodiac and True Draco… colluding?
Whoa?
Why does this feel so familiar?
So in the end, not only did True Draco fail to counter Zoodiac…
They actually teamed up with Zoodiac to slaughter the rest of the meta?
What the heck was that?
At the same time, all eyes turned to the combined Zoodiac–True Draco list!
There was no problem at all without the Ratpier engine!
The Zoodiac flag-bearers were still Zoodiac Thoroughblade and Zoodiac Whiptail!
What was different was the inclusion of 2 copies of Zoodiac Ramram!
Ramram grants Trap-effect protection, and if destroyed by battle or card effect, it can revive a Zoodiac from the Graveyard!
In other words, the current Zoodiac engine had completely lost Ratpier.
And though Zoodiac Barrage was gone, the True Draco package that got added perfectly filled the holes!
The True Draco package ran Master Peace, the True Dracoslaying King and Dinomight Knight, the True Dracofighter as the two anchors!
Master Peace, as the upper-ceiling boss, raised the cap!
And for the replaceable Tribute resources, the True Draco Spells were True Draco Heritage and Dragonic Diagram!
The True Draco inclusions weren't many, but they were all key in-theme cards!
One ensured the floor; one ensured the ceiling!
Truly a den of thieves!
Yugi Muto: "Tiny engines are absurd! They even stitched in True Draco!"
Jaden Yuki: "It's a pity about the Ratpier engine. That thing was really strong—ridiculously so!"
Yusei Fudo: "Then relying on just Thoroughblade and Whiptail, plus the extra Broadbull, definitely wasn't enough. True Draco arriving was just in time!"
Yusaku Fujiki: "Indeed, at first glance the two themes really do look compatible! A kind of 'well-matched' illusion."
After seeing the build in the chat, the first impression was perfection!
The cooperation between True Draco and Zoodiac was genuinely too perfect!
Zoodiac player: "True Draco plus Zoodiac—of course the power level needs no words."
Zoodiac player: "One more thing to mention in that environment was the Link rule change."
Zoodiac player: "So you can see there was also a critical card in the Extra Deck!"
Zoodiac player: "That is Missus Radiant!"
Zoodiac player: "A Link-2 that, while providing ATK to EARTH monsters, also—when destroyed—can add an EARTH monster from the Graveyard to your hand!"
Zoodiac player: "Conveniently, Maxx 'C' is EARTH."
Zoodiac player: "And the Dinosaur deck that got strengthened in the format was afraid of Maxx 'C'!"
Zoodiac player: "And so, Zoodiac True Draco immediately swept the competitive environment!"
Zoodiac player: "Until the final curtain."
Zoodiac player: "Yes, 'K-Snake' finally couldn't stand it!"
Zoodiac player: "Zoodiac was far too outrageous—or rather, it had stayed active for far too long!"
Zoodiac player: "On the July list, the workhorse Zoodiac Broadbull was Forbidden!"
Zoodiac player: "At the same time, Master Peace was Limited to 1!"
Zoodiac player: "And the key Field Spell Dragonic Diagram was also Limited to 1!"
Zoodiac player: "From a competitive angle, after that sweeping set of hits, Zoodiac as a deck basically entered its death march."
Zoodiac player: "The plus engines were all handled!"
Zoodiac player: "Zoodiac had nothing left."
"But that doesn't mean Zoodiac truly became a dead deck!"
"In the current environment, Zoodiac can still come out and make some noise."
"For example, the currently somewhat hot 'Zoodiac Armor' build!"
"With Armored Xyz and Full-Armored Xyz available, you can do a bit of playmaking."
"This involves a few Xyz lines from the 'Armored' suite!"
"For example, Full-Armored Xyz can immediately perform an Xyz Summon if an Xyz Monster is on the field, then from the Graveyard it can equip another Xyz to boost ATK and provide destruction protection."
"Then by using Zoodiac Boarbow, plus Armored Xyz to equip an Xyz Monster from the Graveyard, you can make the ATK skyrocket, and the second-attack clause lets you swing twice in one go!"
"Simply put, this build focuses on making Number F0: Utopic Draco Future as a going-first negate, and going-second uses Boarbow to finish!"
"If you can't finish, you shift to Number 38: Hope Harbinger Dragon Titanic Galaxy."
"While it looks a bit like a bruiser's plan, it's still solid in power!"
"But to match its heyday, it's still quite a ways off!"
"This is the life of Zoodiac from ancient times to now."
The entire journey of a once top tier.
It reappeared before duelists across every world!
From Dragon Rulers, to Zoodiac, and then to Tearlaments and so on—
All of them told duelists this:
A top-tier deck can never survive completely intact!
It can only keep active by relying on crutches again and again!
This is the fate… of top-tier decks!
Thinking of this, many veteran protagonists were filled with emotion and sighs.
All of a sudden, they became even more convinced of the importance of trusting their own decks!
Ironclad hand traps; mainstream decks come and go!
Hand traps are still the steadier bet…
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