playstyle guide part 2: Fighting Decks

Playstyle guide part 2. Fighting Decks
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What exactly are Fighting Decks?

Fighting decks are characterized by their ability to play Boss Monsters. Stand-Alone plays that are durable, and protected by minimal backrow, and able to win fights with the opponent's monsters. Examples of such decks include Skill Drain Barbaros, Victory Viper OTK, and the more popular Chain Beat.

Backrow Selection

Since your goal is to fight multiple battles with just one monster, you have to be prepared for the opponent's backrow play. Cards like Forbidden Lance, Trap Stun, and Forbidden Chalice will help you adjust to the opponent's plays, giving your monster the ability to resist the opponent's plays. Since you will exhaust card advantage this way, it's best to never overextend to the field. Keep one monster on board, and the rest in hand for later, and try to only commit spells or traps to the board as necessary. Don't set your quick play spells unless absolutely necessary (ex: set typhoon against the tenki matchup). You're already going to have a bigger monster on board, so your plays should be focused on stopping effects (effect veiler or breakthrough skill, fiendish chain) and avoiding continuous backrow, except in the case of skill drain. Your backrow should be as dynamic as possible.

The Extra Deck

Extra deck plays should consist of monsters that are resistant to cheap removal. The Extra deck will not frequently be used, as you are only committing as many monsters to play as necessary, but each extra deck choice should be a game changer.

Siding in Card Advantage

It's exactly as it sounds; you want to side in cards that allow your deck to generate positive advantage to offset your deck's heavy minusing. Cards that remove the opponent's board en masse (example; System Down) and disrupt card advantage are good to use in the side deck.

Weaknesses

The deck needs to slow and control the pace. It can get easily overwhelmed by swarm decks and cheap removal. Qliphoths generally don't care about this play style unless it brings all of the damage to the board right away (in the victory viper OTK, for instance). It's important to have a durable monster on board and correctly predict the opponent's plays so you know which backrow to supplement your play with.