The Champions: Roy St.Clair "D-Zombie-Skill Drain"

As you may remember, "The Champions" was the name of an older column on www.metagame.com (R.I.P.). In his articels, Matt Paddle (correct me if it was someone else) analysed decks topping at Shoen Jumps or Nationals. Because I realy liked this column I will continue it in my blog. As Claudio Kirchmair already analysed the winnner deck by Rodrigo Togores in his blog and Nimroid Hellfire already did Herman Herrrera on eTCG I'll start with Roy St. Clair's "D-Zombie-Skill Drain" (which I lost against in Iserlohn last Sunday).

At first,here is his list:

Main Deck:

1 Elemental Hero Stratos
2 Destiny Hero – Malicious
2 Destiny Hero - Diamond Dude
2 Pyramid Turtle
2 Mezuki
1 Sangan
1 Goblin Zombies
2 Krebons
1 Plaguespreader Zombie
1 Dark Armed Dragon
1 Rose, Warrior of Revenge

1 Brain Control
2 Allure of Darkness
1 Heavy Storm
2 Lightning Vortex
1 Emergency Teleport
1 Mind Control
1 Burial From a Different Dimension
3 Destiny Draw
1 Reinforcement of the Army

2 Dimensional Prison
1 Torrential Tribute
3 Skill Drain
2 Bottomless Trap Hole
1 Return from the Different Dimension
1 Solemn Judgment
1 Call of the Haunted
1 Mirror Force

Side Deck:

3 Kycoo the Ghost Destroyer

2 Zombie World
1 Giant Trunade
1 Mystical Space Typhoon

2 Dust Tornado
3 Mirror of Oaths
3 Light-Imprisoning Mirror

So,what makes his deck so strong?

When I first saw the Top 16 Decklists, St. Clair was my personal favourite. Why?
First of all, the presence of Skill Drain gives him a very positive matchup against Gladiator Beasts and, much more important, Lightsworn. Lightsworns are only stupid beatsticks without thier game-breaking effects and Gladiator Beasts also can do like nothing under the effect of Skill Drain. You could already see how effective Skill Drain works against those two decks when Jeff Jones won Shoen Jump Championship Anaheim with his Skill Drain Synchro deck. At first, St. Clair's deck looks quite similar to Jones' :

- Skill Drain against the meta
- Teleport Engine for fast Synchro-Summons
- D-hero engine for speed

So,what makes the difference between thier decks?
Instead of running Desteiny Hero - Defender, Barbaros and Tomatos, Roy choosed to add a Zombie engine, containing 2 Pyramid Turtles, 2 Mezuki and 1 Goblin Zombie backed up by a singel copie Burrial From The Different Dimension to his deck.
The advantage?
Should be quite clear:
Roy simply can throw down more special summons, he can simply abuse Mezuki, which has just gone up to 2 copies per deck, to Synchro Summon big beaters with Plaugespreader Zombie again and again.
This is why his deck wins against Lightsworn and Gladiators: He can get out the lagrer monsters AND shut down his opponet's game-winning plans with Skill Drain.
But beside his almost perfect metagame prediction, he added some more tech cards to his deck:
If his opponet should be able to build up a field of 2 or more monsters, he could simply blast them away with one of his two copies of Lightning Vortex!
Even if his opponet would only have one big monster he couldn't get rid of he could just use a Vortex with Mezuki, Malicious or any Zombie he would be able to revive with Mezukis effect without losing card adventage!
Also, as his deck is very susceptible to Royal Decree, Vortex is a better chose than Phoenix Wing Wind Blast in Jeff Jones' Deck. Vortex also serves as a target for Diamond Dude's effect, so you can stack it to the top of your deck with Plaugespreader (which should be in your Graveyard very early) and activate it for free with Dude!
Another tech I realy like in this deck is adding the single copy of Return From The Different Dimension:
With Pyramid Turtle and Goblin Zombie, he has accsess to his two copies of Mezuki and his Plaugespreader very early and will mostly have them removed together with 1 copy of Malicious. Now,imagine a Retrn on those 4 Monsters: You can Synchro Summon 1 Level 8 (mostly Stardust) and 2 Level 6 Synchro Monsters only with Return! As you should already have used all those cards before to do big Synchro summons, Return will mostly be the big finishing move.
I also like the two copies of Dimensional Prison in his deck. Under the effect of Skill Drain, your opponet has to win by stupid beatdown, so stopping him from attacking is the best way to win.
Also, Prison is an aditional way to get rid of Colossal Figther, which would be a massive problem for Roy's deck if he wouldn't play that much monster-removal: 2 Vortex, 2 Prisons, 2 BTHs, Torrential and Force will not allow his opponet to keep Colossal on the field for very long.

Next, let's look at his Side-Deck:

His side is mainly teches against anti-meta decks and Lightsworn. With Dust Tornado, Trunade and MST he can get rid of opposing Oppressions to throw down all his special summons and win this turn. LIM serves like 3 additional copies of Skill Drain, so he would be able tu disrupt hs opponets plays even faster. And If he happens to draw to many copies of those cards, he could simply discard them with Lightning Vortex.
3 Kycoos can disrupt his opponet's play as long as he is under effect of Royal Decree or doesn't draw any Skill Drain or Mirror. It also give him access to Tempest Magcian as aditional discard option and finishing option. The two copies of Zombie World would be usefull to stop Plant and Monarch decks while also giving him the option to summon bigger Monsters like Stardust Dagon with Mezuki. Zombie World also is an alternative way to get rid of Colossal Fighter (if he isn't a warrior any more, he can't revive himself).

Conclusion:

All in all, Roy's Deck was a perfect answer to the metagame he seemed to have predicted. I don't know what he lost against, but I bet it was one of the two Vayu Decks that made all the day to the finals. Because of Icarus Attack and the option of playing Oppression, his matchup against those decks is quite bad.

So,does his deck have weaknesses?

As I already mentioned, Royal Decree + a big Monster is his largest weakness. If you can manage to bring out a Colossal backed up with Decree,he loses unless he draws Vortex.

So,thansk for reading again. My next post will be an interview with Benedikt Junk. I hope you're looking forward to it ;)