~ A Fairy Tale told by Amy Cool ~
This article is a guide to Fairies after release of Lost Sanctuary structure deck.
This article is a guide to Fairies after release of Lost Sanctuary structure deck.
Fairy Tale Music - if you need
Long ago, when the cards were still young, first Fairies were introduced into Yu-Gi-Oh!. A bit later they got a home called The Sanctuary in the Sky. That’s where the story about fairies began. People built many different decks around them. Many strategies could be made since fairies had so much support. From very aggressive to control decks, fairies lived until today. From all decks, Counter Fairy was the most competitive Fairy themed build. Still, it never had that glory it was supposed to. But, why until today? What happened today? Today, Fairies called for help and guess what, they received it. Master Hyperion along with his army of Agents, decided to strike the Earth and raise his finger above anyone who is against Fairies. And when someone who holds the Solar System in his hands has an eye on you, it can't be any good. So folks, be prepared, since Fairies are not a joke, not anymore.
We will cover all the good and bad sides of Fairies and implement ways of success for them. At the end, our product will be very solid and competitive deck that will make Fairies very proud.
First from all let us cover new support cards that are about to be released in TCG very soon as a new structure deck: Lost Sanctuary. Only five cards are important but their impact on Fairies will be amazing.
The Agent of Mystery - Earth
Light / Fairy / Tuner / LV2 / 1000 ATK / 800 DEF
"When this card is Normal Summoned, you can add 1 "Agent" monster from your Deck to your hand, except "The Agent of Mystery - Earth". If "The Sanctuary in the Sky" is on the field, you can add 1 "Master Hyperion" to your hand instead."
The Agent of Wonder - Jupiter
Light / Fairy / LV4 / 1800 ATK / 1000 DEF
"Once per turn, you can remove from play 1 "Agent" monster from your Graveyard to select 1 face-up LIGHT Fairy-Type monster you control. It gains 800 ATK until the End Phase. Once per turn, if "The Sanctuary in the Sky" is on the field, you can discard 1 Fairy-Type monster from your hand to select 1 of your removed from play LIGHT Fairy-Type monsters, and Special Summon it."
Master Hyperion
Light / Fairy / LV8 / 2700 ATK / 2100 DEF
"You can remove from play 1 "Agent" monster from your side of the field, hand, or Graveyard to Special Summon this card from your hand. Once per turn, you can remove from play 1 LIGHT Fairy-Type monster from your Graveyard to select 1 card on the field and destroy it. If you control a face-up "The Sanctuary in the Sky", you can use this effect up to twice per turn."
Cards from the Sky
Normal Spell
"Remove from play 1 LIGHT Fairy-Type monster in your hand to draw 2 cards. You cannot Special Summon or conduct your Battle Phase during the same turn you activate this card."
Divine Punishment
Counter Trap
"Activate only if "The Sanctuary in the Sky" is on the field. Negate the activation of an opponent's Spell, Trap, or Effect Monster's effect, and destroy it."
From the family of Agents, these are the best Agents can offer. They like to act together so you will have best performance when you use them as that. Earth is a LV2 Tuner monster which makes him so powerful and usable in many different ways. His effect is the key for bringing Master Hyperion on the field. Once you have Sanctuary in the Sky and get this card, Master Hyperion is ready to strike. On the other hand you can always get Jupiter instead of Hyperion if you need to. Cards from the Sky is the new draw power that combines well with Jupiter and also many older cards like Dimensional Alchemist, Miraculous Descent or Light of Redemption. Jupiter is best from all these since he supports Hyperion, can bring back cards that are removed from game directly onto the field and is faster than trap cards like Miraculous Descent. Jupiter has also another effect which can boost LIGHT Fairy-Type monster you control for 800 ATK. However this effect is used just in critical situations that might cost you game. Master Hyperion is the new boss monster for Fairies and his effect, used in a Fairy build, makes him even more broken than Dark Armed Dragon. Fact that you can have Sanctuary in the Sky so quickly and bring Hyperion into the game with Earth’s Normal summon and that you can have 3 copies of both in your deck, combined with your amazing draw engine, makes your opponent wanna cry in the corner. At the end, Divine punishment is a card your opponent is really gonna hate. It's something like a Solemn Judgment and funny fact about it is that you can have all 3 of them in your deck. Bad side of it is need for Sanctuary in the Sky which is not a big deal in well built Fairy deck. So now you saw what we meant by “when Master Hyperion raises his finger above you”.
Question is where should we place all these new cards? What deck will benefit the most from them? It is logical to say place them into an Agent Fairy deck since those cards are main support for them and you solved the problem. Well, to answer it as easy as that is not possible since you have to look deeper into this problem. Research should be made and many different decks should be tested to see which build is the most successful for Fairies now. You can be happy since we did that for you and we will present you the way we did it.
~ Agents of Valhalla ~
Valhalla, Hall of the Fallen
Continuous Spell
“Once per turn, if you control no monsters, you can Special Summon 1 Fairy-Type monster from your hand.”
After research on cards and strategies Fairy benefit from, we made a conclusion that Agent based deck should be made which utilizes Valhalla, Hall of the Fallen. Why that card? Because it has the power to summon with no cost very strong Fairy monsters including Master Hyperion and can easily be searched with Hecatrice. This will bring more consistency for Hyperion's summon since you don't need to wait and remove an Agent to summon him. That is not only reason for Valhalla is it? Of course its not the only. Jupiter's effect is another reason. He can special summon removed from game monsters and has no limit for it besides LIGHT-Fairy type. Does this mean something for you? No? Okay, let us show you just one example that will make you happy. Special Summon Hyperion by Valhalla or by removing an Agent. Then imagine you have strong Fairy monster in your graveyard like Archlord Kristya or Athena or Splendid Venus or Guardian Angel Joan. You remove it and use Hyperion’s effect. Then you Normal summon Jupiter and discard another Fairy to use his effect and special summon that removed monster by Hyperion just so. Now you have Hyperion, Jupiter and a strong Fairy on the field. Now since you discarded another one by Jupiter you can use Hyperion’s effect again (Sanctuary in the Sky is almost always there) and destroy another card of your opponent. These examples are many and this is the reason we will make an Agent deck based on Valhalla.Hecatrice
Light / Fairy / LV4 / 1500 ATK / 1100 DEF
“You can discard this card to the Graveyard to add 1 “Valhalla, Hall of the Fallen” from your Deck to your hand.”
To build that deck, first we will cover support cards that we could use for it.
This card is used usually in Agent deck. It can special summon up to 3 Mystical Shine Balls which can be Tuned with Agent Earth for more options like Stardust Dragon or Trishula. Also it is a good fodder in graveyard for Hyperion's effect. White Elephant's gift can be used also for draw power here. However, this card brings more drawbacks. Space in this kind of deck is from critical importance. 3 LV2 Normal monsters in deck only for Venus's effect is not so good as it sounds. Getting them in hand before you use Venus's effect is fatal for your game. Also getting Elephant's Gift means you need to wait for Venus or Shine Ball which ruins your consistency. Because of these things this card is better to exclude from your deck along with its support.The Agent of Creation - Venus
Light / Fairy / LV3 / 1600 ATK / 0 DEF
“Pay 500 Life Points, select 1 "Mystical Shine Ball" from your hand or Deck, and Special Summon it to your side of the field.”
This card has more meaning in an Infernity deck than in Agent Fairy and because of that we will just jump over it.The Agent of Wisdom - Mercury
Light / Fairy / LV4 / 0 ATK / 1700 DEF
“If you have no cards in your hand at the end of your opponent's End Phase, draw 1 card from your Deck during your next Standby Phase.”
The Agent of Force - Mars
Light / Fairy / LV3 / 0 ATK / 0 DEF
“This card is unaffected by any Spell Cards. While "The Sanctuary in the Sky" is on your side of the field, and your Life Points are higher than your opponent's Life Points, increase the ATK and DEF of this card by the difference between your and your opponent's Life Points.“
Mars and Saturn work together since they both need same setup for their effects. You need to have higher LP than your opponent. To accomplish that you need to have cards like Draining Shield, Cestus of Dagla, Supremacy Berry, Aegis of Gaia, Rainbow Life, Magic Cylinder, Fountain in the Sky etc. This all means you have to make a deck specific to them since using their effect has not so much impact if you don't want to OTK your opponent. This strategy is not so easy to pull and is far from competitive build. Mars and Saturn, we say bye for now.The Agent of Judgment - Saturn
Light / Fairy / LV6 / 2400 ATK / 0 DEF
“While your Life Points are higher than your opponent's, you can Tribute this card to inflict damage to your opponent equal to the difference. If you do not control "The Sanctuary in the Sky", this effect is not applied. You cannot conduct your Battle Phase the turn you activate this effect.”
This brings us to conclusion that we need only Agent Earth and Jupiter to make this deck work very well. Including older Agents means we will just ruin everything. Some people still force Venus but our professional advice will be exclude it even if it sounds great, testings showed how inconsistent build with Venus can be.
Now let us see some great strong Fairy monsters we could add to abuse with Valhalla.
Splendid Venus
Light / Fairy / LV8 / 2800 ATK / 2400 DEF
“All non-Fairy-Type monsters lose 500 ATK and DEF. The activation and effects of your Spell and Trap Cards cannot be negated.”
Guardian Angel Joan
Light / Fairy / LV7 / 2800 ATK / 2000 DEF
“When this card destroys a monster by battle and sends it to the Graveyard, gain Life Points equal to the original ATK of the destroyed monster.”
Archlord Kristya
Light / Fairy / LV8 / 2800 ATK / 2300 DEF
“If you have exactly 4 Fairy-Type monsters in your Graveyard, you can Special Summon this card from your hand. When you do, add 1 Fairy-Type monster from your Graveyard to your hand. Neither player can Special Summon monsters. If this face-up card would be sent from the field to the Graveyard, it returns to the top of the owner's Deck, instead.”
Athena
Light / Fairy / LV7 / 2600 ATK / 800 DEF
“Each time a Fairy-Type monster is Summoned, inflict 600 damage to your opponent. Once per turn, you can send 1 Fairy-Type monster you control, except "Athena", to the Graveyard to Special Summon 1 Fairy-Type monster from your Graveyard, except "Athena".”
Tethys, Goddess of Light
Light / Fairy / LV5 / 2400 ATK / 1800 DEF
“When you draw a Fairy-Type monster(s), you can reveal 1 of those monsters to draw 1 more card.“
Because these are best options others will not be mentioned. So what should we use and what not from those? It is obvious that we need Archlord Kristya since it has very good effect. Can be Special summoned by its own effect and by Valhalla which makes it more powerful. Then we come to Tethys. Cool card, only drawback is that we need Valhalla always to summon it. No one wants to Tribute summon here and waste resources. Question which comes now is do we really need it? We have enough draw power and Tethys will use important place in our deck.. Using it at 1x will not bring so much either. Conclusion is no, we will not use it at all. Now we come to Joan, Splendid Venus and Athena. Joan and Venus have effects which are not so important in our deck. On the other side Athena has exactly an effect we need in here. Since Valhalla can Special summon it we can Normal summon another monster and use her effect to bring for example Hyperion from graveyard. Also it brings additional burn damage. This card has only pluses and no minuses and thus, we include it over others.
We have to explain one more support card which is used in many similar decks. Herald of Orange Light. We will not use this card because using full power of Valhalla means we need so much high level monsters and Agents. We don't want to discard another fairy with Herald, especially not an Agent or Hyperion. Also we don't want to discard a high level monster like Kristya or Athena when we can summon them with Valhalla. Herald is good no question about it but such cost we just can't afford right now.
After many adaptations and testings we made a deck that will bring Valhalla and Agents to another level.
Agents of Valhalla - 40
Monsters - 18
3x The Agent of Wonder – Jupiter
3x The Agent of Mystery - Earth
3x Master Hyperion
3x Zeradias, Herald of Heaven
2x Athena
2x Hecatrice
1x Archlord Kristya
1x Honest
Spells - 15
3x The Sanctuary in the Sky
3x Valhalla, Hall of the Fallen
3x Cards from the Sky
3x Pot of Duality
1x Mystical Space Typhoon
1x Monster Reborn
1x Dark Hole
Traps - 7
2x Solemn Warning
2x Divine Punishment
1x Torrential Tribute
1x Mirror Force
1x Return from the Different Dimension
First from all we need to make sure we have always Sanctuary in the Sky on the field. For that we use 3x Zeradias. Many people say 3x Zeradias and 2x Sanctuary is best solution but it is not. When your opponent realizes how much your deck needs that card he/she will use all forces to destroy it. Also you will face many field depending decks like Gravekeeper or Dragunity. Valhalla is also needed at 3x but we used Hecatrice at 2x since we can play with Agents and Hyperion without Valhalla and space is needed for other cards. Even with 2x Hecatrice we have very good draw engine which brings us enough Valhalla and Sanctuary. Many people would say your deck will suffer when you get multiple copies of your Field card and Valhalla in your hand. But they did not consider this fact. What will we do if we get 3-4 high level monsters in our hand and we cannot summon them? It is better to have one extra copy of Valhalla in your hand than to lose the duel in waiting to get it. This deck is aggressive style and we cannot wait for something in here. If we wait we lose.
This deck has amazing draw engine. Cards from the Sky and Pot of Duality love to operate together. If you get to use both in the same turn you benefit since their drawbacks are almost same. Duality helps a lot by picking up important cards in right moment. Other cards that help in thinning the deck are Hecatrice and Zeradias. Also they both fill the graveyard for Master Hyperion.
We used 2x Divine Punishment since 3 were a bit dead in here. At the end Return from the Different Dimension as additional swarm with monsters that were removed from game. Hyperion removes everything in your grave so Archlord Kristya will mostly be summoned by Valhalla or Jupiter. Since many of our agents will be removed when you use this trap you can always tune Agent Earth and someone else for Brionac or even tune more if enough monsters were removed. Then Hyperion has again Graveyard filled with fodder for his great effect.With Athena, Jupiter, Hyperion, Valhalla and Cards from the Sky you can circle around Hand Graveyard Field and RFG very easily.
This is how Agents of Valhalla look like. However, this deck has one major drawback which brings it off the competitive scene. That is control. It has almost no control. Your opponent can easily destroy your cards, negate your summons etc and you cannot do anything about it. You spend many cards and all your opponent needs to do it summon one Debris Dragon that will clear all your hard work. So obviously aggressive style is not an option.
~ Counter Fairy ~
Now lets go another way to our old good Counter Fairies. Let us see how good does this new support from Lost Sanctuary on them. As you are familiar with old cards that Counter Fairies use we will not take a look at them here in details, instead we will proceed to deck itself.After many adaptations and testings here is the decklist:
Counter Fairy - 40
Monsters -18
3x Van'Dalgyon, the Dark Dragon Lord
3x Bountiful Artemis
3x Meltiel, Sage of the Sky
3x Zeradias, Herald of Heaven
3x Thunder King Rai-Oh
2x Harvest Angel of Wisdom
1x Honest
Spells - 8
3x The Sanctuary in the Sky
3x Pot of Duality
1x Monster Reborn
1x Dark Hole
Traps -14
3x Divine Punishment
2x Solemn Warning
2x 7 Tools of the Bandit
2x Magic Drain
2x Negate Attack
1x Solemn Judgment
1x Mirror Force
1x Torrential Tribute
We used here Counter Fairy potential to its limits as you can see. 12 Counter Traps makes this deck always have something to negate. 3x Van'Dalgyon is used since his effects are amazing and he is needed to get rid of things that are already summoned or activated since our deck utilizes the most on negating things at start. Testings showed him as very consistent addition to this deck. Artemis and Meltiel are main cards that benefit from Counter Traps besides our boss monster. Artemis makes draw power and Meltiel is there to make sure we don't lose that much LP with so many Solemns and Tools. Also he destroys cards on opponents field which makes him one of key cards in our deck. Rai-oh combines good with this “anti” deck. Also he can be used with Honest. Harvest Angel is there to recycle our traps like Divine Punishment. You just want to abuse that card as much as possible since it really stops your opponents moves dramatically. Pot of Duality is our main drawing engine and in this kind of deck where you need specific cards in specific situations it shows its true power when you can pick what you need.
So why did we use this trap line-up? Many people would suggest other cards like Drastic Drop Off, Dark Bribe and Divine Wrath. Okay it is time to explain some things how you should think when you pick your traps in here. First from all, never, and we really mean never use cards that have huge costs. People just don't get that card like Dark Bribe should never be used unless you run special deck like Mill which needs your opponent to draw more than you. Yes it can negate spell or trap but cost that your opponent draws a card is higher than discarding a card from your hand for Divine Wrath. You want to have control of the duel and letting your opponent draw means your Dark Bribe just helps. Of course it can negate sometimes critical cards but the same way it can lead to that your opponent draws that critical card and beats you. So how will we replace Dark Bribe? Of course we need to negate as spells so the traps. Adding 7 Tools and Magic Drain will do the job. Tools are not even a cost when you play with Meltiel. Magic Drain brings you only advantage, never the opposite. How? It is simple. When you activate Drain, your opponent must either discard another spell from hand or let Drain negate his activated spell. Either way Meltiel and Artemis will get their effects triggered. This is because they only need a counter trap to be activated to trigger them, they don't care is it negated or not. Divine Wrath is not needed when we have Divine Punishment that only needs Field, end of story. Drastic Drop Off is good but when you consider that you need other cards more you dont have space for it. You can use it your side deck when you play against decks like Six Samurai that uses Shien's Smoke Signal.
One of problems our deck faces is protection of critical monsters like Artemis and Meltiel. If your opponent just keeps attacking you, you only have Mirror Force and Honest that can save you. Now you get why we could not include Drastic Drop Off. Negate Attack solves that problem partially. When your opponent attacks with a solid monster like Stardust Dragon or even its Assault Mode and your have Meltiel on the field, you chain Negate Attack. You might say Negate Attack is not a good card but did you consider fact it is a Counter Trap? Because of that Stardust AM will not be able to negate it. Then following happens, attack is negated and Meltiel can destroy Stardust. You might say how when Stardust can negate it? Well, there is a secret about Meltiel and Artemis that not many people know. What do you think how can a monster with spell speed 2 be chained to Counter Trap which is spell speed 3? Answer is that those 2 play in higher league. Their effects are continuous and thus they just apply without starting a chain. That is why their effects can be triggered by Counter Traps. Meltiel having an effect which does not start a chain makes Stardust unable to respond to its effect which will destroy him. This is why Counter Fairies were always good.
Even if it sounds great this deck has some weaknesses that should be fixed. It is much better than Agents of Valhalla and its competitive but still it needs something more. You saw that we have problems get rid of cards that are already on the field. Having Meltiel and Sanctuary in the Sky along with Negate Attack will not always be the case. Of course there are many other situations where you can pull same thing like when Stardust tries to negate something and you chain Divine Punishment to it. Still, more destruction power and consistency is needed here. Also draw power needs Cards from the Sky very much since sometimes we get Divine Punishment and lack of Sanctuary. It is rare but happens. Reason we cannot add it in here is that we use 3 Rai-ohs and 3 Van'Dalgyons. Other cards are just too important to be removed.
~ Counter Agents ~
So what happens if we use destruction power from Agents and Control power of Counter Fairies? Pure awesomeness that's what happens! But, how will we fuse those two into one great deck?Here is the answer after many adaptations and testings:
Counter Agents - 40
Monsters - 18
2x Master Hyperion
3x The Agent of Mystery - Earth
2x The Agent of Miracles - Jupiter
3x Bountiful Artemis
3x Meltiel, Sage of the Sky
3x Zeradias, Herald of Heaven
1x Honest
1x Malefic Cyber End Dragon
Spells - 11
3x Pot of Duality
3x Cards from the Sky
3x Sanctuary in the Sky
1x Monster Reborn
1x Dark Hole
Traps - 11
3x Divine Punishment
2x Solemn Warning
2x 7 Tools of the Bandit
1x Solemn Judgment
1x Torrential Tribute
1x Mirror Force
1x Return from the Different Dimension
This is our final installment for Fairies. We accomplished great consistency and synergy with cards of these two different styles. Now let us explain why is this the best build for Fairies closed with Lost Sanctuary and why it can be considered competitive.
From Counter Fairies we used two main cards Artemis and Meltiel. Zeradias and Honest are there in both builds so is no different here. We excluded Van'Dalgyon since he proved not to like this deck very much. For him we don't have enough Counter Traps that he benefits from and usually we get him as garbage. Other reason why we excluded him was to be able to use Fairy draw engine Cards from the Sky. 17 monsters that are Fairies makes Cards from the Sky happy. And now with so much draw power we don't care what we remove since there is Jupiter to bring it back if needed and Return from Different Dimension.
We used 5 Agents in total which is enough with this speed in deck. Agent Earth is more needed to thin the deck and bring Hyperion whenever we need him. Testings showed that Jupiter is not needed at 3x but if you like it that way you can make him 3x. With 5 Agents Hyperion at 2x is more than enough. Here we have our Counter Fairies and good trap lineup which will protect our Hyperion from any harm which was not the case in aggressive build.
Lets get to Draw power. Cards in the Sky and Pot of Duality are now again working together which was lack in Counter Fairy build. Artemis is additional draw power and also we have Zeradias and Earth that thin our deck too. This way Sanctuary in the Sky is almost always there which was not the case in Counter Fairy build. Divine Punishment can now be abused to its limits.
Trap lineup had to be like this since we were limited with space again. Of course priority cards took place over those with less importance. Magic Drain was amazing but considering that Traps are much more dangerous than Spells for our deck, 7 Tools win the game here. Others are a must anyway. We used Return from the Different Dimension since it can bring us so much advantage which was explained in Agents of Valhalla deck.
Now we have everything we needed. More draw power brought us more consistency. Agents with Master Hyperion brought more destruction and options we can have. Now Negate Attack is not needed anymore since Hyperion cleans all treats. Then we place our traps and wait for opponent to trigger them while we benefit on it. Great power and great control that are well combined make this deck the most competitive Fairy build. At the very end we made it even more powerful with our personal touch called Malefic Cyber End Dragon. Since Sanctuary is always there having this card will surprise your opponent very much. Its summon condition in this kind of deck is funny and all we can say the card rocks.
Deck is so adaptive which makes him able to side very well against many decks. Many cards can be exchanged with others depending what you need.
NOTICE: All these decks have a standard Extra deck including Chimeratech Fortress Dragon. Also Counter Agents need one copy of Cyber End Dragon in their Extra Deck in order to be able to summon Malefic Cyber End Dragon.
~ Gameplay against other decks ~
We will cover now gameplay against some great meta decks.Against Gravekeeper this deck can do good, Sanctuary of the Sky interrupts Necrovalley. Now you will say GK has Commandant and Recruiter which can bring Necrovalley faster than Fairies Sanctuary. This is not true. You saw what draw power we have which exceeds draw engine of GKs.
Even when your opponent tries to Activate Necrovalley over your Sanctuary you can use Divine Punishment to negate that and then Meltiel will destroy another good card of your opponent. Destroying cards with Meltiel and Hyperion that are critical for GK like Spy means you get a lot of advantage. Divine Punishment can negate Descendant who has to pay the cost first to use its effect. Negating it while you have Meltiel you get huge advantage over GKs. Royal Oppression might be hard for your Hyperion but just consider it and use conservatively your Tools and Divines and Solemn. Have a backrow before you try Hyperion so you can negate traps that will negate summon of your Hyperion. Fact that GKs run also Counter traps like Solemns makes you happy again since you benefit on those cards.
Against Six Samurais, well they are screwed always 2nd game because of solid side against them but your deck can do even more. Black Horn of Heaven along with Magic Drain in side will stop them totally. Even poor Shi En cannot negate your Divine and other Counter Traps since he lacks of spell speed. He is easy target for Hyperion and also Malefic Cyber End. On the other side Samurai Traps like Musakani Magatama your Counter Fairies will like since their effects cannot be negated by this card and if they try to negate Hyperion with it, your Tools Solemn and Divines will take care of it quickly which will lead you immediately to great advantage. Along with other side cards that kill Samurais, this could be easy match-up for you.
Other card you could use for your side deck against many decks like Plant Synchro is Debunk.
You got the point now you can think of playing and siding against other good decks. Thing you need to know is that support cards like Light of Judgment were not mentioned here since they are not as good as ones we have chosen. They were considered but beaten by other support cards.
~ Conclusion ~
At the end we can say this article took you to the journey through Fairy world, explained you many things about them including strengths and weaknesses, other good techs and strategies, showed you how to make Fairies competitive and revealed great builds that you won't find somewhere else on the net. From the general point of view it learned you whole procedure of making a competitive deck with your personal touch to it.Creators comment: Pro article is pro.