Creative Deck Strategy: Warriors in Time

Fresh out of the Booster Special: Destiny Soldiers that is hot off the presses in the OCG, the Destiny HEROs have arrived. Care to join their fight?

Introduction:

Before I’d begin, a disclaimer as always – Please do not sell this theme short just due to their unconventional effects. Sure, the individual effects of each Destiny HERO monster could be better, and I’ve seen that complaint across pretty much every online medium, forum, and discussion board. That does not mean that the deck is a complete failure. In writing this article, I am hoping that more duelists will see the potential in this theme, since there is a lot of it, and finally begin to respect this quirky archetype that has been revived after originally beginning its days back in Yu-Gi-Oh GX. So without further ado, it’s time to suit up.

The Destiny HERO archetype has always been the old child out among the HEROs. They didn’t have their own Fusion Spells like the Evil HEROs, they didn’t have a true common theme or game mechanic among the monsters, but they did have one of the best draw engines. Destiny Draw is an amazing draw spell that was one of the first of its kind, setting up the Graveyard while getting through more cards of your deck. To extrapolate from this one card, the deeper you look, it actually represents the hidden theme of the Destiny HEROs, playing for the future. To get the most out of your Destiny HEROs, you must think ahead to turns in advance. What you do in your first turn should be preparing for an even bigger play on your second. And so on. That is the quirk behind these cards, one that I hope you will grow to appreciate even more as you continue reading this article. It hasn’t really shown up well in the past, since Destiny HEROs were generally shunned outside of the Zombie-engine or Plasma-rush strategies. But even those kept a bit to this idea. While the archetype in the past was very disjointed and had very little actual win conditions on its own, the support contained within the Booster Special has revolutionized the deck, turning it into a top-notch Fusion Summoning based theme. Now I’m sure you are doubting that last sentence, since Destiny HEROs have never truly revolved around Fusion Summoning like their other HERO counterparts. But it truly is a new dawn for the HEROs, making a Fusion Summon strategy actually effective at leaning completely on Fusion Summons, perhaps for the first time in the game’s existence.

So what cards contribute to this refined focus and gameplan for the deck? It’s easier to start with that hasn’t changed. Destiny HERO – Malicious is still one of our key players. By banishing itself from the Graveyard, you get to bring out a new copy from your deck. This is the perfect Fusion Material, since it makes even more material for the rest of your Fusion Summons during the turn, or even for the Fusions you will make on the next turn. It is a main priority to setup in your Graveyard for the moment of the duel in which you absolutely need that extra Fusion Material, just like the next monster. Destiny HERO – Celestial is the other main Fusion Material you will want to be using, because once you deplete all of your hand resources, you will want to have a way to draw a couple of new cards to keep moving forward. By banishing itself and an additional D-HERO while your hand is empty, you get 2 free draws. Remember, you can totally just set all of your Spells to empty your hand before using its effect. Destiny HERO – Decisionguy may have two effects that can only be used once per duel, but he adds yet another dimension to the time-theme that’s going on with this archetype. As long as you Normal Summon him before Fusion Summoning, you get to add back a HERO monster from your Graveyard during the End Phase. Next up, Destiny HERO – Dynamiteguy may help your Fusion monsters bit more than your card advantage, but it is another great option to use as Fusion Material. By banishing itself from the Graveyard, a Destiny HERO you control gains 1000 until your next turn. It also has an effect to allow you to change any battle damage you would take into 1000 effect damage to both players, even if you would be taking 0 battle damage from a battle. This hand-trap effect insulates you from OTK attempts, giving you the time you need to unlock your plays and Fusion Summon out your boss monsters. But the deck is not 100% dedicated just to Fusion Summoning, because Destiny HERO – Drillguy steps up to the plate by offering easy access to R4NK Xyz Summons. With all of these monsters working in tandem, you have a pretty wide base for the main deck, but what boss monsters should you be relying on from the Extra Deck?

Not only did the Booster Special introduce new Effect Monsters for the archetype, but it also heralded the arrival of two Destiny HERO Fusion Monsters. Destiny HERO – Dystopiaguy can inflict up to 1600 effect damage on its summon, and then if its ATK points are ever different from its original ATK, it can re-set its ATK back to 2800 to destroy a card on the field. Adding to the effect damage from Dynamiteguy is great, and it can even use the Graveyard effect of Dynamiteguy to destroy a card on the field. Remember, Destiny HEROs is all about setting up your future plays, so setting up a Dynamite well before Dystopiaguy is expected. The other new Fusion Monster is Destiny HERO – Deadlyguy, otherwise known as the setup monster. And if you don’t consider him as such, you should. By discarding a card during either player’s turn, you can send any Destiny HERO from the deck to the Graveyard to have all of your Destiny HEROs gain ATK points. This lets you setup all of your ‘future’ effects by getting them into the Graveyard as soon as possible. But more importantly, it offers yet another way to change the attack of Dystopiaguy to unlock its destruction effect on either player’s turn.

We also are going to call in a few more Fusion Monsters to support our cause, and first up on our list includes the cover card of an upcoming booster set, Invasion: Vengance. Starve Venom Fusion Dragon can be created with any two DARK monsters you control. First it steals the ATK of a Special Summoned monster your opponent controls, then it can steal the effect of one of those monsters, and lastly, if it is destroyed by a card effect, you get to destroy all Special Summoned monsters your opponent controls. Starve Venom is your key to clearing away Crystal Wing Synchro Dragon fields, since if they negate his ATK gain or effect-stealing effect, you simply clear away their entire field anyways. But Starve is not alone because we are also calling in the two Vision HERO Fusions: Vision HERO Adoration and Vision HERO Trinity. The unique thing about these two monsters is that they take any HERO monsters as Fusion Material. They have been overlooked through much of the past since Elemental HEROs have much better Fusion Monsters to use, but for Destiny HEROs, they provide the OTK power. They are next-near mandatory when you are attempting to win any duel, because they are just that good at providing an easy OTK. If your opponent leaves 2 or more monsters in face-up ATK position, feel free to clear them all off the field with a triple-attacking, 5000 ATK Trinity. If you manage to bring out both of them in the same turn, it’s almost a guaranteed OTK. But this raises the question, why is it important to take any HERO monster as a material if we will just be using Destiny HEROs? The simple answer is that we will be including a couple of Elemental HEROs as well, which makes the deck run more smoothly and give you even more advantage and consistency.

It’s time to light our hero signal, because Elemental HERO Blazeman is joining the fray. For any Fusion-based deck, you need to have consistent access to your Fusion Spell, and our best way to get Polymerization hands-down is Blazeman. In fact, this deck may have the most consistent access to Polymerization out of any Fusion deck ever made, including Fluffal. Factoring in E – Emergency Call, Foolish Burial, A HERO Lives, and Blazeman, you have a total 84.60% chance of opening with Polymerization, and that’s if you start with only 5 cards. Your probability continues to rise when you factor in the draw power of Destiny Draw and Allure of Darkness, or if you factor in the ‘slow’ searcher for Blazeman, Elemental HERO Shadow Mist. While Shadow Mist is generally more well-known for its contributions to a Masked HERO strategy, it actually serves Fusion builds extremely well, because when you use it as a Fusion material, you can add any Destiny or Elemental HERO to your hand. With all of this consistency, clear win conditions, disruption, and draw power, you can be absolutely sure that Destiny HERO can be a deck to contend with.

One last paragraph before I continue on – it’s also important to note which cards I am NOT using. Can some of these options be included? Of course. But they are very much sub-optimal if you hope to achieve victory. Mask Change and the Masked HEROs are actually not good cards to run in a standard Fusion D-HERO build. One, they take up valuable room in the Extra deck, but secondly, it gives you a reason to waste your Normal Summon on a Destiny HERO instead of taking the free Poly search from Blazeman. By adding too many things you may want to do with a single summon, and more cards to dead-draw in the wrong situations, you are not helping your cause. The same exact argument can be made for Destiny End Dragoon, Destiny HERO – Plasma, and Destiny HERO – Dogma, even though many have made the argument about the extra layer of synergy by factoring in Over Destiny and Elemental HERO Prisma. Again, it is just filling way too many slots for too little of a reward. Extend this argument to many of the ‘useless’ Destiny HERO monsters and other ‘neat’ tech cards as well such as D – Time, because it continues to ring true and is not worth it in the end. Enough negativity, let’s talk key cards.

Key Cards:

• Destiny HERO Malicious, Celestial, Decisionguy, Drillguy
  • These are your main D-HEROs that will carry you to victory. Between these four, you have monsters that want to be Fusion Material, monsters that float advantage, and a wide range of quirky effects to help you win the duel.
• Elemental HERO Blazeman
  • I’ve already discussed the numbers, but he is your key to getting Polymerization to hand. For Destiny HEROs, at least 2-3 Fusion Summons per duel is your win condition.
• Elemental HERO Shadow Mist
  • The best searcher for the HERO archetype that is not restricted in the TCG. Even if you choose NOT to run Mask Change and its related suite, you can still find great success using Mist as Fusion Material, discard fodder, or simply costs to activate your other cards.
• Polymerization
  • The deck wins or loses on this card. I cannot explain enough how integral this card is.
• Fusion Recovery
  • This is the card that lets you Fusion Summon so many more times in a duel. Fusion out Deadlyguy using Shadow Mist and any Destiny HERO, add a new HERO to hand with Mist, then add back your Poly and Shadow Mist with this card. On your following turn, you can then discard that Shadow Mist to send a Celestial or Malicious from deck to the Graveyard, and search out another free HERO. This play will be discussed even more at length later, but it is even more of a key card here than with Lunalights.
• Destiny Draw, Allure of Darkness
  • These two cards compose your main draw engine, they’re just great at turboing to the cards you need.
• E – Emergency Call, Foolish Burial, A HERO Lives, Reinforcement of the Army
  • These cards get you to your Blazeman faster, which means you get to your Polymerization almost any time you want.

Additional Tech Options:

• Destiny HERO Diamond Dude – Out of the remaining Destiny HERO monsters, this is another solid Level 4 due to the high number of Normal Spell cards you are running. At the very least, he works as Fusion or Xyz Material. 
• Destiny HERO Dark Angel – By far one of the more interesting pieces of support, Angel lets you lock down your opponent’s first Spell card of the turn. The downside is that your opponent can use her for Tribute or Synchro material. The effect to stack a Spell is useful if you have Diamond Dude, Allure, or D Draw at the ready, but in most cases, you shouldn’t use it.
• D – Fusion – The only Spell/Trap Support from the new Destiny HERO set, this is their themed Fusion card. Sadly, it is very slow in that it is a Trap card, AND it can only use Fusion Materials from the field. While it does give the Fusion monster a bit of protection, your main Fusion monsters don’t really need it. 
• Pot of Avidity – This is a great card because it works extremely well with Malicious. So well, that it lets your extra Fusion Material can be stretched to serve in every single Fusion Summon that you ever make in the duel. It also replaces itself with a draw, so there isn’t even a drop in advantage to scare you away.
• Half Shut – While you don’t exactly need the battle protection for yourself, this is an amazing card to esnure OTKs with Trinity. Attacking 3 times on the same monster when yours has 5000 ATK is pretty much guaranteed game. Alongside the fast draw power and high search power, it is actually a valid option.
• Anti-Magic Arrows – Protect your attacks, since only one of your Fusion boss monsters have built-in protection.
• Dark Armed Dragon – All of your Destiny HEROs are DARK. Also, you have amazing control of your Graveyard due to Malicious, Celestial, Deadlyguy, and Dynamiteguy. It can still be a good boss monster for certain situations.

Click on the spoiler below to see a full sample decklist:

Tips and Tricks:

Sadly, in the case of Destiny HEROs, a decklist simply isn’t enough to get the feel of the deck, because it plays rather awkwardly. Many times, your best play is to take an initial minus in card advantage with a risky Fusion Summon for Destiny HERO – Deadlyguy, waiting until your next turn to make up for that risky play with Celestial and Malicious. Yes, this will happen very often. In fact, your best opening play with the deck requires Polymerization, Elemental HERO Shadow Mist, and any HERO monster. Simply Fusion Summon into Deadlyguy using your HEROs, add Destiny HERO – Decisionguy with Shadow Mist, Normal Summon Decisionguy and use his first once per duel effect. During the End Phase, you will get Shadow Mist back from the Graveyard, allowing you to use Deadlyguy during your opponent’s turn to prep the Graveyard with Celestial or Malicious, plus you get to add another HERO with Shadow Mist. To count cards a bit, for the initial -2 you took in card advantage for Fusion Summoning and the probable loss of both your Fusion and Decisionguy during your opponents turn, you gain 2 HERO searches and Celestial in the Graveyard ready to give you 2 free draws. That alone gives you enough fodder for your next Fusion Summon, if your one HERO search was Blazeman. Everything truly builds from there, since many duelists you face will overextend to the field to defeat Decisionguy and Deadlyguy, only because of your initial investment into the field and most duelists considering any Fusion monster a threat. This leaves them wide open for a Vision HERO OTK, since Trinity and/or Adoration can easily swing in for an early gamewin.

Does this article cover every play available to you? No, and neither does the build I have chosen to present to yinz. The sample decklist above is completely built in the OCG mindset of deckbuilding, just like every strategy and deck I present in my articles. The short version of the difference between the OCG and TCG mindset is simple – TCG duelists build their decks to not lose, while the OCG duelists build their decks to win. TCG builds are generally more overly consistent than the strategy needs to be, and the OCG builds realize that one time or another you won’t be able to get every little thing you need. The statement I am trying to defend is that you may not have tried a decklist like this before even if you have experimented with Destiny HEROs already; however, if you don’t find success the first duel you attempt, please don’t give up any hope for the archetype. There are definitely ways to make the deck much more ‘safer’, with disruptive traps and less potential ‘dead’ cards in your starting hand, but this is the best build for showing the pure height in power the theme can hit. With that goal in mind, this is why I always present a decklist in the OCG mindset, because it does the trick in showcasing powerplays. I hope you now understand this, and grow to appreciate just a bit more the themes that will never be fully in the meta spotlight while still remaining captivating strategies.

Conclusion:

As always, the list above is just my personal build. From what I’ve seen, many folks have been pretty stumped when it comes to utilizing Destiny HEROs properly, so I hope that this article helped to dip your finger into the mystery pool of knowledge. Who knows, this article might even pave the way for you to win with them! 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.