Archetype Game

[Darj]

Dreambodiment

An archetype of poli-Attribute Psychic Token monsters. They do have monster cards and all, but their gimmick is Tributing themselves and generate a Token with effects and stats that, if this were a more traditional archetype, would be on the monster card itself. This applies to their Extra Deck monsters, mainly Link and Synchros, since Tokens cannot be used for Xyzs. Also, because Tokens are their strength, the monster cards all have lackluster stats, if not 0/0. This comes with some advantages, though. For instance, due to their low stats they get support from Debris Dragon, Junk Synchron, etc.

 

Another advantages of this archetype is the Token's Normal monster treatment and support, their inherent immunity to being flipped face-down, and to a lesser extent, monster effect negation (e.g. Skill Drain) since their effects are actually gained and the monster cards Tribute themselves as cost, although the effects of the actual monster cards can still be negated through other means. Also due to their gimmick of replacing themselves with a Token, Link and Synchro monsters are not too bound to the Link Rules.

 

On the other hand, they are relatively susceptible to monster effect negation, because having their effects negated means you end with no monster, or a monster with low stats just sitting on your board.

 

 

Next:

Haveninmade

[Dova]

Haveninmade

 

LIGHT Fairies that focus on locking down your opponent, whether it be with Continuous/Equip Spells, Continuous Traps, or placing themselves in the Spell/Trap Zone. Effect negation, face-up card negation, attack prevention, zone locking, they have it all in some form or another. The theme is them acting as sort of heavenly sirens, calling in enemy monsters/cards when stuff triggers, then immobilizing/negating them. Once that is done, you can use one of your Haveninmades along with one or more of your opponent's locked down monsters to Fusion Summon big boss monsters, which can call out your opponent's cards as well as putting them out of commission, and sometimes cause your opponent's monsters to grant you benefits. Said Fusions each correspond to a main deck monster, but not every main deck monsters has to have a Fusion counterpart.

 

Unfortunately, the archetype's weaknesses start there. Their bosses and monsters don't have much protection for themselves, relying on negation/prevention to knock out potential threats, although some Haveninmades grant protection to said locking spell/traps/monsters. They don't swarm very easily, and, while most of their effects activate in the hand, all Fusion Materials need to be on the field to Fusion Summon, meaning you're going to have to get out some of your Haveninmades to get your bosses. Most of their stats aren't that low, but focus much more on DEF than ATK, and they probably haven't got any MD monsters over Level 6. Regardless, they are very annoying.

 

Ecclestial

[Darj]

Ecclestial

Synchro-centric archetype of LIGHT monsters whose members have roles of clerics, priests, priestesses, healers, monks, witch doctors, shamans, sages, etc., and are pretty much a church/ecclesiastical organization. But the catch is that they are all Fiend monsters, and resemble demons. They go to show that not all devils are evil.

Their playstyles are LP gain and single-use protection from destruction in a similar fashion to "Return of the Dragon Lords" and the latest Six Samurais. They generate card advantage and plays when you gain LP, and most of their effects include a small to average LP gain bonus (e.g. an inverse Volcasaurus effect that gives you LP instead of burning the opponent), for them to be are able to trigger themselves. Basically they are Aromages done better, and with better support. Also they benefit from techs that give you LP, namely Ancient Fairy Dragon, Juragedo, etc.

 

 

Next:

Bloodrush

[Draconus297]

Bloodrush

 

THUMP-thump. THUMP-thump. You done goofed.

 

This is an aggressive, angry EARTH archetype through and through, focusing on full-aggro beatdown and removal, going straight for the jugular and accepting no substitutes. The archetype members are all based on aggressive, destructive predators, and their artwork features them posed just before the kill.

 

Heavily featured in this archetype is piercing and a "bleed" effect similar to Vampires', making sure to deplete the opponent's LP and resources down to nothing. However, this archetype does a lot with both effects, forcing the opponent to expose their typically vulnerable throat and having effects that trigger based on the cards that get sent to your opponent's Graveyard.

 

This archetype has two essential counters- stat reduction and defense walls. While they can play around effect removal/negation pretty easily (they even have a few cards that allow your monsters to regain their effects if they've been negated somehow), and they're pretty good at getting monsters with low DEF into Defense Position to take advantage of piercing, their entire archetype just stops functioning if you can't beat over your opponent's stuff. Basically, these guys can wreck any Deck that uses only a few monsters, or if their monsters are small enough to get smacked over, but Superheavy Samurai utterly destroy the archetype, as do Reptilliannes.

 

Depthjaw

[Tinkerer]

Depthjaw

 

A DARK Fish Archetype featuring next-gen mechanics by utilizing the "Deep Graveyard" (i.e. face-down cards in the GY)*

 

They lock people out by flipping stuff in the GY face-down, but they completely benefit off it by allowing themselves to "tag-out" with these cards. To further their power, they have high stats, a lot of on-summon effects, and a special hatred toward Extra Deck monsters. Don't be surprised if they're able to loop their level 10 boss monster over more times than Dark World Grapha.

 

 

Next: Bindlestiff (look up "Bindle" to get this)

 

* https://forum.yugiohcardmaker.net/topic/321503-new-abilities-for-old-zones-the-deeply-hiddens/

 

(one of my earliest designs and ideas I'd posted on ycm. Always wanted to revisit it, but with there being more things that banish face-down, it became more impractical for a mechanic like this unless it fully embraced the game's actual similar mechanics.)

[Draconus297]

Bindlestiff

 

This Beast-Type archetype is composed of dogs (specifically, mastiffs) carrying bindles of supplies, being ready to get going at a moment's notice.

 

While these pups are a bit too big to take advantage of the colossal support for Level 2 Beasts, their archetypal support helps them vaguely keep up with the pace of the game . . . and keep your opponent from abusing their likely speed advantage.

 

You see, these dogs take some things with them when they pack up and go, either via effect removal or use as Material. Specifically, removal and theft effects, which include hand theft- nothing like the feeling of taking away your opponent's Ash Blossom and dropping it in your own hand as a result of going into your Synchro.

 

The issue is that, being dogs, they don't exactly know what to pack. Their effects often rely on random chance or placement (the top card of your opponent's Graveyard, a card in the same column as themselves, etc), so you might not take/remove the exact card you wanted to. In addition, I said they "vaguely" keep up . . . as in, they are solidly fast by 5Ds-era standards. They're pretty dammed slow as far as the modern game is concerned, only really able to make one or two combos a turn, so you need that to count. That said, due to their effects being "make your opponent do X" effects, protection and negation actually have a hard time stopping then nine times out of ten, so there's that.

 

Phantom Code (please make it something AGM-usable? Pretty please?)

[Darj]

Phantom Code

An ABC-like contact Fusion-centric archetype of DARK Cyberse monsters. The maindeck monsters are all Normals, including a few Tuners here and there. Their main trait is that the monsters have fragments of coding text, while their flavor text drop hints for arranging an entire code, as if it was encrypted or whatever. Thus, the Fusions are Contacts of said monsters that merge those fragments to get the full code, so to speak. Another interesting trait is that some of those Contact Fusions require specific archetype Synchro and/or Xyz monsters, so you have to Summon those first to access the bigger code; this is also hinted in the flavor text of the vanillas.

Since the archetype monsters are Normals, they heavily rely on their Spell/Trap support, as well as Normal support. Also, since the Fusions have the specific names of the monsters written as materials, you can also play stuff like Prisma, Fusion Conscription, etc.

 

Next:

Overflux

[Draconus297]

Overflux

 

This WATER Cyberse-Type archetype runneth over with refreshment- hand refreshment, that is! Each member can Special Summon itself from your hand if you have enough cards in hand (eg, "if you have at least 3 cards in your hand, you can Special Summon this card (from your hand)"), and most of them have ways to put things back in your hand from wherever they end up, themselves or other members.

 

This does give them a weird use as discard fodder that refreshes itself every turn, as well as a flow of monsters that let them be able to make plays every single turn if they can get the right monsters going. Of course, there's also their incredibly effective engine, which has to cycle through their Deck so your hand is big enough to be able to use some of the harder-to-trigger self-Summon effects.

 

Being Cyberse-Type, they do have some pretty effective Synchro plays they can go into with their sheer spam potential, especially given the sheer numbers they can put on board on a turn-by-turn basis, but they do have a Main Deck boss . . . that no one will ever Summon without building specifically for it. It's not a bad boss by any means, and very powerful . . . it's just that it requires you to have 13 cards in hand to self-Summon, and it's nomi, which means that you already need to have a solid rhythm going to actually Summon it.

 

Dinnert

[Tinkerer]

Dinnert

 

A good meal requires a good amount of time put in.

 

This archetype has a hodgepodge of types and attributes with a few common ones being beast-warrior chef monsters. The beast-warriors offer consistency, but they actually do little to help the true playstyle of the Deck. Instead, the Deck plays out being very tightly control based with floodgate effects, disruptive quick effects and the like. The problem is that their ATK is locked to 0.

 

...until you get to turn 10.

 

At that point, the Deck becomes the most viciously offensive thing you've ever seen with their ATK becoming double their original ATK and then sporting battle based effects.

 

They have a single normal spell called "Dinnertime!" which is basically an in-archetype Poly, though if you use it on turn 10 or later it becomes an Ojama Delta Hurricane/Short Circuit/Des Croaking as well, all but insuring your victory if it resolves.

 

Planetlander

[ChampionZero]

Planetlanders are pioneers of the cosmos, their set of Machine Synchro monsters summon themselves from the Extra Deck with hefty costs, but they allow you to special summon the various Warrior monsters of the archetype back from the Grave or the Deck, allowing the ship and crew alike to cooperate in battle. Naturally, they take after Star Trek in terms of theme, but your Warriors focus a lot on battle wile the ships focus on protecting their crew. Keep the team together and you've got a good chance, but even without the ships your crew can handle themselves. A major weakness of theirs is a lack of swarming power without their Synchros, so defensive Traps are a must.

 

Marshmellow

[Dova]

Marshmellow

 

A collection of defensive Fairies that can't deal damage. Battle damage? No. Some sort of effect damage win condition? No. They have one, perhaps even two easily brought out cards with win conditions, but said win conditions are necessarily easy. So, to compensate, they focus on stalling your opponent. Some cards prevent either player from taking damage (with some sort of cost, of course), and when your monsters leave the field, they have a tendency to either come back/foat and harm your opponent's advantage, or just buff you for having a nice health meal of Marshmellows.

 

Vomitron

[Darj]

Vomitron

Archetype of Synchro & Ritual WATER/Machines with a trash-reusing theme. They revolve around banishing cards to activate the effects of the Level5 or lower monsters, while the higher-Leveled monsters have effects that use banished cards as cost/fodder for their effects, by returning them to the maindeck, and the Rituals can banish monsters in the GY as Tribute material substitute for their Summon. This flavor-wise represents their ability of breaking down and liquefying trash, to be used as fuel by their boss monsters. Due to this playstyle, the benift from milling support. Milling Ritual cards is less of an issue, since, following the new generation of Ritual Spells, they have in-GY effects that support the archetype, plus they are also able to Ritual Summon the monster from the GY.

 

 

Next:

Dullahulla

[ChampionZero]

Sometimes you need to quite while you're a head.

 

Everyone knows the classic Celtic harbingers of Death, but the stress of keeping an eye out for lethal gold and the quotas they have to meet tends to take a toll on them. So naturally, a bunch of them decided to head to a deserted island, build a tropical resort, and just kick back for a while. That's Dullahulla. These decapitated dudes and darlings come in two kinds of monster: bodies and heads. The heads only level 1 and the bodies level 4, but they each have some great effects for when you control the right head and the right body in the same type of zone! The trick is staying alive until then because the heads don't tend to last long without their better half... better four-fifths... whatever.

 

Thematically, these demons love to mess around with their disembodied heads, for example; sand sculptures, volleyball, and other hilarious pranks! Let them have their fun, eh?

 

Pair-atroopers

[Dova]

Pair-atroopers

 

Two of a kind is a consistent theme of this archetype. It's a collection of monsters with varying Levels, Types and Attributes, however there are always two monsters which share the same kind of stat. Why is this important? Well, they can Special Summon themselves and another monster from the hand with effects to heavily damage your opponent's field/hand, but they can only do it if that other monster pairs with them. For example, if you had a DARK Level 3 Fiend in your hand, you could only Special Summon it if you had a DARK, Level 3, or Fiend monster to Special Summon with it. Maybe some cards even share the same name while in the hand, creating even more pairing combinations. Who knows? Other than that, generally medium Level, and probably doesn't have an Extra Deck to worth with. Might even be splashable, but they once they've found their pair, there's not much your opponent can do about that.

 

O.P.T.

[Draconus297]

OPT

 

Isn't it ironic, don't ya think?

 

Now, while it's not stated anywhere in their support, it's greatly implied by their artwork that the name actually stands for "onion phantom troop" . . . and, even more unexpectedly, not one OPT clause, or even a once while face-up clause, exists anywhere in the archetype. Instead, most of their effects can only trigger once per monster, per turn, because most of the things that trigger them (Normal Summon, Pendulum Summon, the start of a particular Phase) typically only happen once per turn.

 

As for what they actually do, this archetype revolves around using your opponent as a resource- dirty dirty monster stealing, using S/T from your opponent's Graveyard, going plus off of your opponent's plus, what have you. While this sounds kinda slow (and it is), it is utterly frustrating, especially because you're essentially beating your opponent with an inconsistent gimmick Deck based on the ghosts of produce.

 

Seadepth

[Darj]

Seadepth

Archetype of DARK Sea Serpents that flavor-wise are related or associated with Depthjaws described before At the very least they are depicted in some of their artworks. They also mess with face-down cards in the GY, either by sending them there face-down, or flipping cards already in the GY face-down. However, they are not as extreme as Depthjaws, and are more focused on GY control and getting X numbers of face-down cards in the GY to unlock their effects. The bigger archetype monsters take steps further by banishing the cards face-down instead.

Most of their support effects apply on DARK Aqua/Fish/Sea Serpent monsters, emphasizing their relationship with Depthjaws.

 

 

Next:

Bluffzeit

[Dokutah]

They say that the time we had now is a Golden Age... Prosperity filling our land and sky... But ill said that all of this is a fabrication of the highest order! the shadows adorn itself with faith blinding light... scheming, and corrupting. Act now, or the utter demise shall be done upon us!

 

Bluffzeit a dangerous deck specialize to initiate and support cards with instant win effects with its only trade off being unable to push game damage-wise (no burn effects, super low stat).

 

Depicted as various government-manipulating members of secret cult. This DARK Psychic and Cyberse has various shaddy effects that get suprisingly strong if you use cards with Instant Win effect as a cost. The also super resilent having effects that can grind your plays for days using various protection and recovery effect. Imagine in the like of stratos-es slapped with either one or both YZ and/or TG float effects

 

Mime Fatale

[Dova]

Mime Fatale

 

A bunch of monsters with weak stats and varying levels. Nothing interesting about them at all, no sirree. Just Raigeki them and...oh wait, they're not dead. Huh. How about Casteling that annoying Level 8...huh, that didn't do anything either. What about just attacking them? They haven't got great stats, so this should end up oh and the attacks negated. Lovely.

 

These artists of the stage are all about fooling not your opponent, but the mechanics and creatures within the game. Some of them are skilled in the art of seeming threatening, scaring off monsters and negating their attacks, but most are unaffected by your opponent's cards or effects in some way or just are immune to a certain type of removal, like destruction. A rather defensive archetype that tries to set up a field, then uses trickery like pretending your opponent has no monsters, so it attacks directly, or acting like you don't have more than 7 cards in your hand. This extends to its Extra Deck, with cards pretending to be one or more materials they're not (or even double) for whatever ED monsters the archetype actually uses (Fusion, Synchro, Xyz, there's a lot to play around with here, so feel free to use one or all of these). Outside of this basic theme, there's a lot of searching and hand play, but not much to do with the GY, so make your plays count. Shouldn't be too hard with their staying power.

 

When playing or designing this archetype, remember this: You decide how to play the game, even if your actual cards that play with it are pretty bad by themselves.

 

Dynablade

[Darj]

Dynablade

Archetype of EARTH Winged Beasts that like to cut things in half. From monster's ATK/DEF, Levels/Ranks/Ratings, splitting the GYs in half and returning 1 half into the deck, or returning/sending half of the banished cards of either player to their GYs, to destroying half of the number of cards on the opponent's board, and so on. They can even make the opponent discard half of its hand, so the opponent has to keep these tricks in mind when facing these bladed wings. Flavorwise, the are based on birds that cannot fly or are mainly grounded, namely the ostrich, kiwi, roadrunner, pheasant; their bigger monsters are also versions of these animals, but in their case they sport much bigger wings and can actually fly. They are are also armored with plates, claws, etc. You can think of the Pokemon Skarmory as an idea.

 

 

Next:

Ketargy

[Draconus297]

Ketargy

 

Let's assemble the building blocks of horrifying life!

 

This lovely little piece of WATER Synchro hell features members that are named after a combination of essential compounds for life (sugars, proteins, amino acids) and the most unsettling animals and plants on the planet (ie, "Ketargy Sucroscorp"), with the more complicated compounds and scarier creatures reserved for the ED. However, unlike dedicated Synchro spam Decks, you won't typically have a bunch of big bosses out at once . . . in fact, as suicidal as it sounds, you typically only throw out one at a time, for two reasons:

1. Your monsters can HOPT grant specific effects to members on the field by shuffling themselves into the Deck from the Graveyard, in combinations that can make you asinine to actually remove;

2. Oh hai archetypal spam S/T, plus consistency out the ass

 

Basically, the style here is to get the monsters that grant the effects you need on board as fast as possible, Synchro with them, and then shuffle all the Materials you used back into your Deck to stack all those effects onto your Synchro of choice so it becomes a force of nature. Going into multiple different Synchros only complicates matters by making you have to split your resources into multiple different bosses, which might leave one with an exploitable weakness.

 

Their backrow mostly exists to mitigate the downsides of your archetype shuffling itself into the Deck, borrowing support ideas from things like Madolche and Sylvan, and even borrowing ideas from anime-only cards.

 

These horrors have a few different notable silver bullets, beyond the typical Vanity's, Ash Blossom, or Necrovalley- given that the Main Deck monsters have to target a specific member on the field to grant it an effect, Forbidden Dress can delay them for a bit before they get the immunity/removal/whatever effect they need in case you're in a pinch, and negating its effect means your opponent has to stack all those effects on again.

 

Tattoo Titan

[Tinkerer]

Tattoo Titan

 

A Union Archetype of high level monsters with 0 ATK. Their playstyle is like some unholy mix of Graydle and Sylvan.

 

Their strategy involves equipping them to the opponent's monsters, excavating based on the opponent's level/rank, and special summoning others based on their excavations.

 

However, even then, they aren't straightforward. They have spell/trap supports that alter their playstyle: from cards that let you take control of equipped monsters, to making your Tattoo Titans equip other monsters + take their ATK, to forcing your opponent to banish-mill the amount you excavate. They have a plethora of means to play all depending on your preference and deck-building direction.

 

However, if you wanna keep them pure, they have a few Fusions with named materials and a single common effect that banishes the opponent's monsters equipped with the fusion material monsters.

 

Shmebulock

[Fruiota_Hiroshi]

Shmebulock is an archetype based around a single rainbow-barfing gnome. Similar to the Jinzo archetype, it focuses on a main monster (the Link 3 EARTH Fairy “Shmebulock”) and variations of its ability, in this case the ability to bring other members of the archetype on to the field and gain power based on how many Shmebulock monsters it’s pointing to. It’s really more of an attack-based archetype than anything else, though they do have a few burn effects in their Spell and Trap support. Most of their other support is either specifically for “Schmebulock” or resembles generic cards like CotH and Mirror Force. It’s not much good in tournaments and whatnot, but you can still have fun with it against your friends.

 

Bridged

[Darj]

Bridged

Link-centric archetype of WATER/Thunder monsters that are jelly-ish and with different shapes, like for example a jellyfish, octopus, urchin, a neuron, a blob, etc. What makes them Thunder is that they are all have electricity within and can conduct electricity, and the reason they are named Bridged is because they rely on connecting with each other through their appendages and build some sort of network. This concept is represented through link markers: the more "Bridged" Link monsters your have linked and co-linked, the stronger they get and the more effects they unlock.

 

 

Next:

Murine System

(not, it's not meant to be "marine" nor is a typo nor anything)

[Tinkerer]

Murine System

 

A WATER Cyberse Archetype of monsters that all have the effect where they gain 600 ATK and DEF for each card in the same column as them.  Because they tend to rely on the opponent having cards to keep their ATK up, they have a lot of effects involving direct attacks and protection.  They have continuous Spells/Traps, but they often remove the effects of monsters in their column as cost to activate/maintain.

 

Their boss monsters happen to be blue cards, but they're Rituals rather than Links and generally have gimmicks involving swapping cards in columns to activate stun or protection effects.  Rather than gaining 600, they gain 1000 ATK/DEF for their troubles.  As such though, the optimal version of the deck is mostly agreed to be the non-Ritual variation.

 

 

Bohemian (Since it is December and I always listen to the RENT Broadway soundtrack this time of year)

[Darj]

Huh, I was expecting a mice-themed or at the very least Beast-Type archetype xD

 

 

Bohemian

Archetype of WIND/Spellcasters based on musicians, charming their audience with enchanting performances, with a slight focus on the famous "Bohemian Rhapsody", among other big hits. They are Synchro centric, since concepts like Synchro, Tuner, etc. are associated with music, and have strong reliance and support on Tuners. Their Spell/Trap support have the names of such song hits. They make use of some unexplored mechanics like using an opponent's monster as material for a Synchro support, as a form of disruption, or quick-effect Synchro Summons like Yang Zings and Crystrons. Finally, they can bounce each other back a forth, taking advantage of cards like Mist Valley Divine Wind and Genex Ally Birdman, which as a Tuner can assist them with plays beyond a Synchro Summon.

 

 

Next:

Adrenalideleine