QuincymccoyIntroduction:
The Artifact archetype is one of the more unique archetypes to be created for the card game and not introduced due to the anime. A series of Level 5 LIGHT/Fairy monsters, these monsters are all about playing mindgames with your opponent. All of the Main Deck monsters can be set face-down in your Spell/Trap Zone, and they are all about activating and subsequently playing during your opponent's turn. Whenever one of your set Artifacts is destroyed during your opponent's turn, it can be Special Summoned. Also, most Artifacts have a second effect that activates when they are are Special Summoned during the opponent's turn. Many of you have probably heard of this archetype being used as an engine, as Artifacts made up the 'A' in HAT variants, but how many of you realize that pure Artifact can actually be an effective deck in itself? In fact, the deck has never had as good of a chance to compete as right now, as they finally have more generic, high-advantage cards at their disposal, combined with so many duelists using backrow destruction like Twin Twister. It's a perfect maelstrom, the perfect time to raise your ancient weaponry and watch it rise once more.
But before I begin discussing how this theme ties itself together into a seamless bow, I want you to understand the benefits of using this archetype in its pure form. Very few archetypes have access to a card that summons any of their archetype members straight from the deck. But even fewer can be activated at any point of the game, and even less than that also trigger the most important effects of your deck. Sure, the Artifact engine has the same capability, but only if you have Artifact Sanctum. With a Pure Artifact deck, you have a much larger range of combinations that achieves the same result. You have access to all of the strengths of the Artifact engine, but magnified and with added consistency. Trust me, it feels good to pull whatever monster you need straight out of the deck. The questions becomes, does the Artifact archetype bring enough to be successful on their own? I strongly believe that the answer to that question is yes, it does. Hopefully you will believe that too by the time you finish reading, otherwise I didn't do a good job!
As you might expect and as I hinted earlier, the biggest plays begin with our the Artifact Spell and Trap cards. Artifact Sanctum lets you Special Summon any Artifact straight out of your deck, and if your opponent happens to destroy it, you get to destroy a card on the field. (Yes, you can use that effect to trigger one of your other set Artifacts). This lets you bring out whichever Artifact you need to handle the situation. In other words, it lets you choose your weapon wisely! The other support card that gives you your power is Artifact Ignition. First you get to destroy a Spell or Trap on the field, then you set any Artifact from your deck to your Spell and Trap zone. Now, when the Artifact engine was popular, this card was used as a substitute or simply multiple copies of Mystical Space Typhoon because it gave you destruction with benefits. But when you are using an entire Artifact deck, this is the card that unlocks ALL of your big combos. If you destroy your own Artifact Beagalltach or Artifact Vajra during your opponent's turn, Ignition turns into 3 more copies of Sanctum. If you have both Sanctum and Ignition and Beagall or Vajra? That's when the sheer power and advantage of the Artifact theme starts to shine through. As for Artifacts Unleashed... we're just going to pretend that card doesn't exist, because the Artifacts would look pretty bad if you judged them just based on that. After all, these fairies do deserve a bit of the spotlight when analyzing their archetype, so let's bring up our weapons themselves!
The Artifact deck is easily classified in the Disruption category of strategies, as pretty much the bulk of their most useful monsters are all about preventing your opponent's actions. Artifact Moralltach is probably the most well-known Artifact, as it was the key part of the engine that dominated for formats in both the TCG and OCG. Whenever it is Special Summoned during the opponent's turn, you get to destroy any face-up card your opponent controls. The best part about his effect? It doesn't target. This gives you spot removal, and while you can only run 1 copy of him from here on out due to his Limited status, the pure Artifact deck runs many ways to reuse, reduce, then recycle. Who knew the archetype on ancient weapons would be so green? Next up, Artifact Scythe clocks in as the most disruptive Artifact in your arsenal, although that title depends on the matchup. After it is Special Summoned during your opponent's turn, your opponent cannot Special Summon anything from the Extra Deck. This is insanely powerful against decks that rely upon Extra Deck bosses, Pendulum Summoning, or even simply R4NK monster removal. Artifact Lancea follows in a similar vein but with a different activation condition than any other Artifact. It can be tributed from the hand or field at any point during your opponent's turn to prevent any cards from being banished for the rest of the turn. This is important to your deck, since every Artifact's first effect activates when it is destroyed and sent specifically to the Graveyard. Also, it can be used to interrupt some banishing effects or prevent most Kozmos from activating entirely. Lastly for disruption Artifacts, we have Artifact Achilleshield and Artifact Aegis. I am grouping each of these together, since they are pretty similar in role. Achilles prevents your Artifacts from being selected as an attack target for the rest of the turn, effectively stopping destruction by battle, and Aegis prevents your Artifacts from being targeted or destroyed by card effects for the rest of the turn. These two are generally overlooked for the Artifact engine, due to not offering any pure gains in card advantage, but they are effective when you are running so many combos to pull the precise Artifact you need.
I called Artifacts a disruption-based archetype and spent some time discussing the disruption Artifacts, but the strategy also heavily leans toward the advantage category, so let's talk about the advantage Artifacts. There is no better place to start than Artifact Caduceus. While it is face-up on your field, every time you Special Summon an Artifact monster during your opponent's turn, you get to draw a card. Think of it like a themed T.G. Hyper Librarian, every time you unleash one of your Artifacts, you get card advantage in return. Next up, you have your main source of recovery, Artifact Failnaught. Whenever it is Special Summoned during the opponent's turn, you get to set an Artifact monster from your Graveyard back into your Spell/Trap Zone. This is important because it is the second Artifact that provides advantage just on its own, but it also provides searchable ways to recycle your Moralltach, Scythe, and more. The last batch of Artifact monsters is those whom I like to refer to as the enabler Artifacts, the monsters that enable all of your key plays. Artifact Beagalltach is the first of these, as whenever it is Special Summoned during the opponent's turn, you destroy up to 2 set cards you control. At first glance, this is a major negative since you are just losing card advantage, but when you are destroying Artifacts, you can only gain card advantage through Moral, Fail, or Caduc, you can't really lose any. The other enabler has a similar effect, Artifact Vajra. Currently only available in the OCG, this Artifact destroys all cards in your Spell/Trap Zone when it is Special Summoned, but it also has the additional ability to Special Summon itself from the hand whenever your opponent declares a direct attack. Don't get me wrong: the deck is improved with Vajra, but it is not necessary for the deck to function, so please do not discredit the archetype just because the TCG does not have Vajra yet.
You've met the main monsters, I've talked about their interactions and how they disrupt your opponent while giving you advantage. However, I haven't spent much time talking about the glue that holds this deck together, and that is draw power. Introducing a card that has made waves since its release, Card of Demise. I haven't discussed this card yet, as it hasn't come up in any of my articles until now, but I do have a very strong opinion that this was one of the best designed cards of recent memory, right up there with Floodgate Trap Hole. Sure, Demise brings a potential +2 to the Artifacts, but what's even more important is that it gives you an even better chance of opening Sanctum or Ignition, the two cards that win you duels. I mentioned at the beginning that the timing has never been more perfect for the Artifacts, and that is because of this Spell letting you dig through your deck so quickly. But it is not alone. Alongside Demise should always be Pot of Duality with Artifacts, and it just happens to mesh with Demise rather perfectly. I don't think I need to explain how important a card that lets you pick from your top deck can be. Lastly, Pot of Desires is an option as well. Desires is a highly debated card for competitive play right now, and my mentality when it comes to Artifacts is rather simple - if you are using the Synchro variant with Tuners as your non-Artifacts, then Desires is amazing since PSY-Framelord Omega can recycle the key cards you accidentally banish. If you don't, then Desires just has too high of a probability of ruining your duel. Remember, every Ignition or Sanctum banished gives you a significant drop in potency. They unlock your biggest advantage combos, so you never want to lose them just for a potential +1, but Desires can have an impact if you want to be a risky.
In total, I've given you a very brief overview of the archetype, key cards, and main combos. From here on out, the deckbuilding decisions now fall squarely upon your shoulders. Pretty much all of the Tech cards I will mention in the next section are options that have the tendency to pull the deck in different directions. By running Card of Demise, you need to have a way to ensure that you can use the 7 or 8 cards you have in your hand when activating it on your first turn. And for Artifacts, since they are all Level 5, you only have 5 Spell/Trap Zones to fill with archetype cards, so you need to round out your build with outside support to make the most of Demise and your archetype. This is the most important part of a pure Artifact deck, the deckbuilding phase.It determines your strongest matchups, weaker matchups, and which plays you can disrupt or get out of in the first place. Without further ado, let's get a handle on the tech cards. Tech Options (that can determine your variation on our theme): Blackwing - Gale the Whirlwind - The first of our 'Synchro Artifact' tech options. Gale offers the ability to reduce the power of your opponent's boss monsters, while also being DARK which unlocks the power of not only Beelze of the Diabolic Dragons, but also Void Ogre Dragon. This utility both with and without the ability to Special Summon is extremely important and noteworthy.
Dark Sanctuary -To Be Released September 16, 2016 for the TCG in DP: Rivals of the Pharaoh - Alright, this is by far my new favorite card to run in the deck, and by no means would you expect it to work as well as it does. Right now, many duelists are overloading on Twin Twister, and that means that they will feel a large amount of pressure to destroy two cards to ensure they do not lose card advantage. That being said, I'm sure you're aware this card doesn't give you any card advantage. In fact, we're actually going to ignore all but the last line of text on the card, since Destiny Board will never work with Artifacts. By having this Field Spell face-up, your opponent will have to choose - destroy it, or risk losing LP. I can promise you now, if their choice is to Twin Twister for just one card or attack for a possible OTK, most duelists will go for that OTK. Because it has been ingrained in most duelist's heads that LP doesn't matter until it hits 0. I cannot tell you how many times someone has overextended versus my Dark Sanctuary, because card advantage is so much more important in the minds of many TCG players. You are already playing Artifacts which causes a major mindgame for your opponents - I implore you to consider playing up the mind games even more. One final note, this uses the Field Zone which is perfect when you don't want to lose cards to Card of Demise in the End Phase.
Spoiler
Main Deck:
| Artifact Moralltach
|| Artifact Scythe
||| Artifact Failnaught
|| Artifact Vajra
|| Artifact Lancea
|| Artifact Caduceus
| Artifact Achilleshield
||| Artifact Beagalltach
| Artifact Aegis
| Thunder King Rai-Oh
|| Aroma Jar
||| Dark Sanctuary
||| Card of Demise
||| Pot of Duality
|| Mystical Space Typhoon
||| Artifact Ignition
||| Artifact Sanctum
||| Call of the Haunted
Extra Deck:
|| Gaia Dragon, the Thunder Charger
|| Constellar Ptolemy M7
| Number 21: Frozen Lady Justice
| Wind-Up Arsenal Zenmaioh
| Adreus, Keeper of Armageddon
|| Constellar Pleaides
|| Number 61: Volcasaurus
|| Artifact Durendal
| Shark Fortress
| Outer Entity Azaroth
| Artifact Moralltach
|| Artifact Scythe
||| Artifact Failnaught
|| Artifact Vajra
|| Artifact Lancea
|| Artifact Caduceus
| Artifact Achilleshield
||| Artifact Beagalltach
| Artifact Aegis
| Thunder King Rai-Oh
|| Aroma Jar
||| Dark Sanctuary
||| Card of Demise
||| Pot of Duality
|| Mystical Space Typhoon
||| Artifact Ignition
||| Artifact Sanctum
||| Call of the Haunted
Extra Deck:
|| Gaia Dragon, the Thunder Charger
|| Constellar Ptolemy M7
| Number 21: Frozen Lady Justice
| Wind-Up Arsenal Zenmaioh
| Adreus, Keeper of Armageddon
|| Constellar Pleaides
|| Number 61: Volcasaurus
|| Artifact Durendal
| Shark Fortress
| Outer Entity Azaroth
As always, the list above is just my personal build. I strongly encourage you to hoist your ancient weapon and join the fight, you'll find the mindgames behind this deck to have no equal. After all, psychological warfare with Fairies is always an effective way to play Yugioh. Right Herald of Perfection? Until the next time, keep innovating and building creative decks! Most of all, just enjoy dueling for the fun that it can be!
Reminder, I also take suggestions for future CDS articles! While I will not run out of cool ideas, I do want to be writing articles about strategies you are interested in. So if you desperately wish to see a CDS article about the archetype, theme, or strategy you love, feel free to private message me on the YGOrg Discord server or the YGOrganization Forums with your ideas to keep under consideration: my username is Quincymccoy.