Notes & Combos

My very first climb to M5 was surprisingly smooth, win-streak riddled sailing. I'm a relatively new, free-to-play player — hence the extra copy of Dark Strings and the situational TY-PHON+Dingirsu as well as the lack of a second Chimera Doll and the optional Leo package in the Extra Deck. Although the latter monster helped me win a few battles of attrition by recovering a banished Puppet, you can feel free to cut: TY-PHON, the third Dark Strings and Dingirsu. Everything else is mandatory.

The going first gameplan is to pray not to brick; Mansion and Little Soldiers are individually a 1-card FTK, Little Soldiers alongside any other Gimmick Puppet in your opening hand is a 2-card FTK and Scissor Arms bolsters the deck's consistency. If you can afford to set-up Bisque Doll, do so; Imperm is an omnipresent nuisance and you won't typically "draw the out". If you can't negate Maxx "C"/Fuwaloss, play through it anyways — especially if you've got Mansion; barring the Tenpai Dragon (HT variant) and Exodia matchups, this deck doesn't really care about Maxx "C". Should you fail to FTK, you should try to end on 2-3 Xyz monsters (placing the final one in the EMZ if you make three) and a set Service Puppet Play; this in conjunction with Fanatix Machinix's second effect, handtraps/disruptions and sometimes Condolence Puppet's second effect proved to be too difficult for a lot of players to break.

When going second, pray for fortune. If you can either resolve Maxx "C" or negate the imperative cards in their combo then that's fantastic. If you can't, too bad.