[Pro-Decklist]The Phantom Army

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Phantom Knights, inherently, are a Spam and Control deck, with more reliance on Control (when not mixed with other archetypes). Each Phantom Knight monster in the Main Deck has a form of searching and adding to hand--with the exception of Fragile Armor, who draws a card instead of searching one--all with the condition that you banish it from your Graveyard. As such, the Graveyard is considered your second hand. However, this is only considering Phantom Knights being used on their own. Once you throw in a few combinations and outside help, Phantom Knights can turn into a scary and relentless OTKing machine that leaves your opponent with very little room to rest.

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There aren't actually any "key" set-ups and combinations. This decklist, my decklist, was designed to morph and form with the Chaos Theory: "Anything that is anything can and will happen. No exceptions."

In other words: The deck wasn't built to get off certain spectacular combinations, but to be so fluidly random that any combination could be obtained by a simple diceroll. Also known as: "Consistently-Inconsistent Consistencies."

However, the most common form of an OTK will happen as follows:

1. Start with Terrortop + Silent Boots. Your opponent most control 1 card.
   
2. Terrortop --> Taketomborg --> Dante --> Mill 3
   

From here, you need to set up so that you have 2 Phantom-Traps in the Graveyard, with different names. This can be achieved with either Gloves to mill, or Armor to pitch a Phantom-Trap to draw a card. More often than not, you will have had to banish at least 1 Level 3 Phantom Knight monster to achieve this Graveyard set-up.

1. Next, Normal Summon any Level 3 Phantom Knight (except Silent Boots). You can also banish a Phantom-Trap to Special Summon any Level 3 Phantom Knight that may be in your Grave.
   
2. Special Summon Silent Boots through it's own ability.
   
3. Overlay for Leviair to Special Summon a banished Level 3 Phantom Knight.
   
4. If you Normal Summoned already, banish your first Phantom-Trap to Special Summon the detached Phantom Knight, that you detached from Leviair. If you already banished a Phantom-Trap to do Step 1, then just simply Normal Summon any Level 3 at this time.
   
5. With your 2 new Level 3 Monsters, overlay for Phantom Knight - Broken Sword. Use Broken Sword's effect on himself + your opponent's card. Broken Sword will then activate in the Graveyard to Special Summon the only 2 Phantom Knight monsters in your Graveyard--and make them both Level 4.
   
6. Overlay for any of your DARK Xyz Monsters--whichever fits the current situation. (we'll make it Key Beetle in this example)
   
7. Enter BP and attack with Leviair. (1800 dmg total)
   
8. Attack with Dante and Key Beetle (6800 dmg total)
   
9. While still in BP, banish your second Phantom-Trap. Special Summon your Phantom Knight - Broken Sword.
   
10. Attack with Broken Sword (8800 dmg total)
    

This will also cover seemingly random Side Deck and Extra Deck choices, as well as the real use for certain cards in the Main Deck.

Mathematician: This one is the most obvious. He's a Level 3 monster (good for Xyz Plays) who is also a walking Foolish Burial. He's a 1 card set-up for many of my combinations.

Speedroid Engine: Another obvious reason. The Speedroid Engine is quick and easy access to my Extra Deck (mostly for Dante), but it also helps thin out the deck. Remember that Taketomborg can SS itself as long as you control ANY WIND monster. So you can make a seemingly meaningless Leviair summon turn into a devastating combination with Broken Sword.

Lightsworn Engine: The last obvious card choices. Lightsworns are known for milling cards. And since Phantom Knights view the Graveyard as a second hand, milling out pieces of the PK Combinations is vastly important. Raiden also allows access to a few important pieces of the Extra Deck--which I'll get into later--while Lumina allows easier access to some of the Rank 3 combo pieces.

PSY-Framelord Omega + Minerva: These cards aren't very often used. But, when they are, they usually lead to some devastating extra advantage. Omega recycles all of your banished cards--all of them--so that you can reuse your banished Phantom-Traps, or return your banished Phantom-Knights for more Graveyard-searching antics. He can also disrupt a large number of plays your opponent can make, while also bouncing around nearly every attempt to remove it from the field.
Minerva, just like all Lightsworns, allows you to mill more cards. However, she has an added perk: She either draws you cards for every Lightsworn milled through her effect, or she pops cards your opponent controls for every Lightsworn milled. If RNGesus is on your side, she can be highly effective and destructive to your opponent--often forcing them to use different means of monster removal to get around her effect.

Number 86: A lot of people (mostly random spectators) stated this card as just a random, useless addition that will only ever act as a 3k beater for a single turn... Until they realized that it said *any* Level 4 Warrior. Which includes Raiden, and the Level 4 Phantom Knights that exist in the deck--Phantom Knights that can be Special Summoned from the Graveyard through their Phantom-Trap counterparts. There have been many games in which I've been able to summon this card with 3 or more materials--and it has won me games in every single one of those instances.

Booby Trap E: This card may also seem hilariously random, but it's actually another random card that can simply win games on its own. This card lets you set Continuous Trap cards from your Graveyard into your S/T Zone... And let allows you to activate those set cards immediately. I've won plenty of games where, right after someone MST'd my Fogblade, I've activated this card immediately after the resolution to set Fogblade again, and then activate it immediately.
I've also used this card in combination with a milled out Vanity's Emptiness to shut down all of my opponent's advances on their turn, right in the Draw Phase.

Side Deck Oddities
Xing Zhen Hu, Sanguine Swamp, Tomb Shield and Skill Prisoner: Xing Zhen Hu (and Replica) and Sanguine Swamp effectively do the same exact thing. They both prevent my opponent from playing any backrow against me. Although this deck can bounce around backrow (considering their boss monster is a floater, and every Phantom Knight monster searches for another), they have trouble getting around a wide variety of Floodgates. These two cards prevent them from ever being activated.
Tomb Shield, on the other hand, is to catch these Floodgate Traps while they're already on the field. By banishing this card from the Graveyard, you can negate any face-up trap your opponent controls. And this card is chainable, like Breakthrough Skill, meaning it can negate your opponent's Mirror Force during the Battle Phase if you desperately needed it to.
Skill Prisoner is actually my personal choice when it comes to running cards like Breakthrough Skill. This card sort of acts like it, to an extent. What it does is it negates monster effects that target cards on your side of the field--during either turn, even while in the Graveyard. So if your opponent activates Castel/101/Rebellion while targeting a monster you control, you can activate Skill Prisoner to negate that effect and protect your monster. It has come in handy many, many times.



This deck has many glaring and obvious weaknesses.

1. Vanity's Emptiness. This also includes the Floodgate Twins, Vanity's and Majesty's Fiend. Phantom Knights need to Special Summon in order to advance their own gamestate.
   
2. Shadow-Imprisoning Mirror. Very obvious, since they're all DARK monsters. However, this specific build has been able to get around and win while SIM was on the field.
   
3. Imperial Iron Wall (and by extension, Necrovalley). In order for this deck to search, this deck needs to be able to banish cards from the Graveyard. Without the ability to search effectively, this deck can and will die. Also, being unable to banish, means that this deck cannot use its normal outs to backrow (Galaxy Cyclone, Tomb Shield, etc)
   

Please note the following:

• Cracked Helm is the worst Phantom Knight. It's so terrible, you can get away with running 0. I run 1 so that I have an emergency Level 4 to work with in dire situations.
  
• Fragile Armor will always be a 2 of. No more, no less.
  
• All the other Phantom Knight monsters MUST be run at 3. The only reason why I got away with running Silent Boots at 2 was because I never noticed it to begin with.
  
• The side deck was mostly designed against the people I normally play against. By no means is it commercially and competitively viable. It needs massive changes to deal with PePe.
  
• You'll probably never summon Lyla, but her importance to destroy Floodgate S/T means you can't run the deck without her.
  
• Raiden wins games. No exceptions.
  
• There is a reason why you run 3 Broken Sword in the Extra Deck. Don't run less. You're not going to have a good time.