Deck of the Week: Shaddoll

Hello, and welcome to my first of hopefully many deck threads. Before jumping into the deck of the week, I'd like to let people know that these threads, aside from this one, will be posted usually by Monday morning, as I'll be writing them up on Sunday nights. That being said, unless I am requested to do a certain deck (feel free to request a deck to me through PM or through DN) the decks featured here will predominantly be the current top tier or tier 2 meta decks. Alright, enough chitter chatter, let's get into this week's deck

BACKGROUND
This week, I'll be covering my favorite of the big three decks in this format: Shaddolls. If you couldn't tell by my profile pic, I'm a sucker for Spellcaster-themed decks. I piloted Prophecy for around a year or two, right up into Duelist Alliance (yes, even through the DRuler format, and no, I did not win a lot in that format) when Shaddolls were announced. Only recently however did I put down the books and start playing with dolls, and boy am I glad that I did (that didn't come out right, but you get the idea.) Shaddolls are what I believe to be the most versatile, yet underutilized of the big three. What I mean by that is not that the have more play options that the other two (that would be Burning Abyss), but that they can be ran in more than one very successful ways. The main deck Shaddoll monsters are all Spellcasters, DARK attribute, and have both Flip effects and effects that are triggered when they are sent to the graveyard by a card effect. The extra deck consists of fusion monsters of varying types and attributes whose fusion materials are all 1 Shaddoll monster and one monster of their corresponding attribute, and all share an effect that when they are sent to the graveyard, you can add 1 Shaddoll spell or trap card from your graveyard to your hand. The deck's key spell card is Shaddoll Fusion, an archetype specific Polymerization with the effect that if your opponent controls a monster that was summoned from the extra deck, you can use monsters from your main deck as the fusion materials. That's literally insane ow good of an effect that is. It makes topdecking Infernity Archfiend look bad. Not only do you get a Powerful Shaddoll fusion monster on your side of the field, but it cost you no resources and triggers your Shaddoll monsters' effects as well. Other notable spells and traps include El Shaddoll Fusion, Sinister Shadow games, and Shaddoll Core, to a lesser extent.

PROS AND CONS
Pros: Shaddolls are a deck that have insane amounts of consistency, while at the same time can be super explosive and contain good amounts of OTK potential. The main deck Shaddolls add versatility, in that their Graveyard effects can be used to speed the deck up and gain fuel for your big plays, while their Flip effects deal with problems on the field, and can slow down your opponent to your liking. Essentially, the deck is really good at controlling the pace of the game, be it fast or slow. The grind game is very strong with this deck, meaning that making a big push doesn't leave too much potential for heavy recoil if your play is stopped/interrupted.

Cons: If piloted by the wrong person, Shaddolls can become either too fast or two slow. A player that pushes too hard and goes through their resources too fast can be punished heavily, and if their big play is halted there is little left for them to do but try and recycle their resources through Soul Charge or Shaddoll Falco. At the same time, if a player is too conservative, they can be easily overwhelmed by their opponent with little room to act, as any play they attempt to make can be stopped easily. Additionally, outside of Shaddoll Dragon, Shaddolls lack serious spot removal, which can result in the opponnent overwhelming you even if some of your key plays are made.

MY DECKLIST
Shaddolls can be run with many different engines in order to accomodate for some of their needs. The most popular engine, a faster variant, is Chaos Shaddolls, which utilizes the Lightsworn engine in order to send Shaddolls to the graveyard and gain massive advantage, overwhelming your opponent. Other engines include Denko Dolls, Yang Zing Shaddolls, Fluffal Shaddolls (you're welcome, Fiendish ), and formerly Artifact Shaddolls, which no longer sees play due to Artifact Moralltach being limited. My take on the deck, however, is Spirit Shaddolls. The deck is much more control based, and is designed to safely gain advantage every single turn until it explodes into one huge push, much like the Cosmo Blazar Mermails were run. There's already a wall of text in this post, so I wont post the entire list, but will provide a screenshot and explain some tech choices that I made. If you have any questions on certain cards I will elaborate on them to the best of my ability.

https://i.imgur.com/CcnWvGw.png

Nikitama, Aratama, and Rasetsu: The basic Spirit engine. Aratama searches Nikitama, and Nikitama acts like a Marauding Captain for Spirit monsters. As well as being LIGHT and DARK, which not only allow the summoning of two of the Shaddoll Fusions as well as being Chaos fuel, Nikitama has a second effect that if it is sent to the graveyard while you control a Spirit monster, you can draw a card. This means that you can normal summon Aratama, use a Shaddoll in your hand and the Nikitama you just searched, and special summon El Shaddoll Construct,  which allows you to draw a card, send a Shaddoll card to the graveyard, and activate the effect of the Shaddoll monster you used as the other fusion material, in whichever order you choose. That gives you at least a plus one, while putting two bodies on the field to attack with. And, since Aratama is a Spirit monster, and returns to your hand at the end phase, you can do the same play all over again, instead using Construct on the field as a fusion material. Nikitama gives you instant Rank 4 access as well, which is extremely helpful as some of the best xyz monsters of the format (101, Exciton, 360 NoScope) are all Rank 4. Rasetsu is really good on his own, and can be searched by Aratama. He not only gives the deck the FIRE Attribute target needed for  the summon of El Shaddoll Grysta, but it also helps with the deck's much needed spot removal. With 1900 defense and an effect that acts as Compulsory Evacuation Device on legs, you can set it, a few backrow, and pass. When your oponent uses their monster to attack it, you can simply send it back to wherever it came from, and if it survives the attack, can be re-set next turn. I try to avoid using his effect on being normal summoned, as you cannot special summon the turn his effect is activated, and instead use him as fusion material on my turns if I do not set him.

Mathematician: This is an obvious choice for a deck that revolves sending its monsters to the graveyard, and it also is an Earth Attribute target for El Shaddoll Shekhinaga. I only run two because of the fact that I only run eight main deck Shaddolls, and he can surprisingly be dead at 3

BLS: Nikitama and Construct are LIGHT. the rest are DARK. You can do the math.

Creature Swap: This card is the nuts in any Spirit deck. Swap a Spirit monster, get your opponent's big bad boss monster, and the Spirit monster comes back to your hand at the end of the turn. I only run one because if I mill it, it's not the end of the world, and I can still win without it, but I don't want it to be dead in my hand, so 1 is a very comfortable number for Creature Swap, in my eyes.

Solemn Scolding: This card is so good, and no one seems to use it. Especially in a deck where the best backrow card stays face up (Vanity's Eptiness), I don't see why nobody wants to run one of this guy. It's Solemn Judgement, but the cost is slightly steeper. However, in a deck where you constantly have field presence like Shaddoll, it should always be run, because you should almost never have to worry about the cost. Especially with every deck running Upstart Goblin, the cost is basically 2000 LP instead of 3000.

360 NoScope: Castel, the Skyblaster Musketeer, for anyone wondering. He's at 2 in here because again, the deck lacks spot removal. He's the best spot removal card in the game.

There's my decklist, feel free to critique my choices/call me a scrub/whatever.

CARDS THAT F%&K THIS DECK UP

• Shadow Imprisoning Mirror
  
• Macro Cosmos
  
• Soul Drain
  
• Skill Drain
  
• Non-Fusion Area
  
• Majesty's Fiend
  
• Vanity's Fiend
  
• Puppet Plant
  
• Neo-Spacian Grand Mole
  

FINAL THOUGHTS
Shaddolls are so much fun to pilot. Imagine being able to consistently control the speed of any duel. It's like playing god (or Ra, I guess). I love this deck to pieces, And even though it Sports a horrible matchup against Qliphort, I'm sure someone will find a way to build them that will put that statistic to rest. You can build this deck however you like and see success with it. This particular version helps a lot with understanding how chains resolve and when to activate certain effects in order to constantly gain advantage. Tell me what you think, And as always, play hard, and special summon as much as you can in one turn!

-BrAv3rY

M8, plz, Fluffal Shadolls doe. D:

edited just for you, The Black Ace

Thank you, friend. :3