Yu-Gi-Oh! Structure Deck: Saga of Blue-Eyes White Dragon

Since its first appearance in the early 2000s, Blue-Eyes White Dragon has been among the most iconic cards in Yu-Gi-Oh! It has also been among the most beloved and quite difficult to pull from the few recent collections in which it has been featured. Back in the days, this awesome monster was also part of a few decks and sets centred around Kaiba before getting its very own structure deck in 2013.

Now, 9 years after its first release, Konami has decided to make an unlimited reprint of the Blue Eyes White Dragon Structure Deck. Konami has released older sets as unlimited previously but this is the very first time they decided to do it for this structure deck and one I am pretty excited about. In fact, this approach could give everyone the opportunity to get a copy of a famous deck whatever they were not playing Yu-Gi-Oh! back in 2013 or they just missed it when it first came out.

Having a deck featuring one of the most iconic card from the Duel Monsters era is then a very valid reason for jumping on this deck as soon as released. The nostalgic value of Blue Eyes White Dragon Structure Deck is definitely very high. However, the card list of this deck has not changed since 2013 and its competitiveness may not be as good as it was when deck was first released. There are a few points to address first before we could take some conclusion so let’s start by reviewing how this deck works.

Engine And Card Combination

With a risk to sound obvious, the boss of this structure deck is Blue-Eyes White Dragon. After years, this epochal monster is still the strongest Normal monster in the game with 3000 ATK. A few cards have come very close to tackle its supremacy, like “Rabidragon” with its 2950 ATK, but Konami has ensured Blue-Eyes would still sit on top of the charts.

Even if Blue-Eyes White Dragon is an all powerful monster, it is still a Normal monster. Nowadays, most competitive decks prioritize Effect monsters over the Normal ones, in particular if they are Lv8 monsters and they require sacrificing other materials in order to get to the field. In reality, Blue-Eyes is more important as a crucial component of the deck engine and because of the wide range of spell and trap cards that provide support to it.

The deck’s strategy is quite straightforward and it is focused on getting Blue-Eyes White Dragon(s) to the field to overpower your opponent with brute force. There is a lot of Seto Kaiba in this strategy. The engine can be initiated by “Maiden with Eyes of Blue” as this card can special summon the White Dragon from deck, hand or graveyard any time the opponent attacks or targets the Maiden with a card. In addition, she is also a tuner monster and could be used to synchro summon “Azure-Eyes Silver Dragon”, another good piece of your engine.

The first key effect of Azure-Eyes Silver Dragon is in fact to prevent all players to target or destroy a Dragon monster using a card effect till the end of the turn it is special summoned. Once on the field, this synchro monster also allows a player to summon a Normal monster from the graveyard during the Standby phase. This could be a good way to bring back the Blue-Eyes you just used to synchro summon the Silver Dragon or any other copies of this monster sent to the graveyard by cards like the Spell card “Dragon Shine”.

“Rider of the Storm Winds” is a another card designed to both boost your attack and protect your dragons on the field. The Rider can be attached to a Normal Dragon directly from your hand and grants the dragon the ability to inflict piercing damage. Moreover, this card could be destroyed instead of your dragon to protect your most valuable monsters.

The rest of this structure deck is, as usual, pretty much standard. There are some good cards to support the deck engine and some other cards with general useful effects that fit the strategy nicely.

How To Crush Your Opponents For Good

Overall, the deck engine works efficiently and is well balanced as it can be expected on a Structure deck. On the other end, Blue-Eyes White Dragon deck, as every other starting deck, is designed as an entry point for new players and therefore its engine is not too complex.

On a positive note, as Blue-Eyes is among the most iconic monsters in Yu-Gi-Oh!, it has constantly received new cards that could support its archetype. Considering any general dragon support also works, there is plenty of ways to improve the Blue-Eyes White Dragon Structure deck and to make it more competitive.

For example, the 2022 Battle of Chaos core set includes four excellent cards to add to a Blue-Eyes deck:

Blue-Eyes Jet Dragon (Lv8 Effect Monster) has a strong defensive value as it prevents other cards a player controls to be destroyed by any opponent card effects. In addition, if a card on the field is destroyed by battle or card effect, you can special summon Jet Dragon from your graveyard or from your hand. This effect only works while “Blue-Eyes White Dragon” is on your field or in your graveyard but could be exploited over and over again during a match. Last but not least, if this card battles, the player could force 1 card the opponent controls to return to their hand.

Dictator of D. (Lv4 Effect Monster) reminds a bit of Magicians’ Souls and it provides a lot of useful effects. First, this monster can be special summoned from the hand by sending a “Blue-Eyes White Dragon” from your hand or Deck to the graveyard. Moreover, a player can discard a “Blue-Eyes White Dragon” or 1 card that mentions it in order to special summon a “Blue-Eyes” monster from the graveyard (like the one just sent to special summon Dictator of D).Last but not lest, while a player controls a “Blue-Eyes” monster ad Dictator of D. the player can choose the targets for all the opponent’s attacks.

Blue-Eyes Tyrant Dragon (Lv8 Fusion Monster) is a great fusion monster to give nightmares to your opponent. This monster in fact not only has 3400 ATK but it can attack every monsters your opponent control once each every turn. In addition, not only Tyrant is immune to the effect of traps but allows a player to set a trap directly from the graveyard every turn this monster has engaged in a battle.

Ultimate Fusion (Normal Spell card) is an interesting card to add to your deck while you are boosting your extra deck. In particular, this card is a fast track pass to get any “Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon” or “Blue-Eyes Alternative Ultimate Dragon” or “Neo Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon” to the field by shuffling the materials from your hand, field, and/or graveyard back into the deck. It also destroys face-up cards the opponent controls up to the number of “Blue-Eyes White Dragon” and “Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon” used as material just to be on the safe side. Only draw-back is this card could only be used in the main phase.

Apparition with Eyes of Blue (Continuous Spell card) is another useful card to make sure Blue-eyes monsters keep getting to he table. The card has two effects that combined together to pretty much allow a player to summon Blue-Eyes from the hand with another monster along with it. Since this effect is a continuous spell and it has no restrictions, a player could use it to summon good monsters like Blue-Eyes Abyss Dragon or Blue-Eyes Jet Dragon just to mention two cards from this review. There are plenty of good cards that could come to the table using this spell and there could be even more while Konami releases support to this deck.

The four cards above are just a few examples of good cards you could consider to boost your structure deck but the list is really quite long. The centre of your deck, Blue-Eyes White Dragon, could enable a number of interesting strategy and could definitely be used competitively even in 2022.

Final Thoughts

Overall, Saga of Blue-Eyes White Dragon is a very nice tribute to Blue-Eyes White Dragon and a very good entry level to unleash the power of this great card against your opponents. The cards included in this structure deck are nicely balanced and the support provided is pretty good. Most important, new players can easily learn how to use this deck in just a few plays and how to bring out the awesome power of Blue-Eyes to the field.

More experienced players and those looking to be more competitive may question the value of this reprint. In the end, this deck was designed in 2013 when the game was very different and nowadays summoning huge dragons with a lot of firepower may not be the most appealing strategy for everyone.

In reality, as a lot of support cards for Blue-Eyes archetype have been released throughout the years, the reprint of this structure deck offers a great opportunity to have once again an easy source of basic support cards for the archetype. I am not only talking of Blue-Eyes itself but also of other cards that have been difficult to find in the past years. For example, Azure-Eyes Silver Dragon is only available in Saga of Blue Eyes White Dragon and it has not been reprinted since 2018.

With this structure deck available once again and the recent release of other good cards in the Battle of Chaos set I cannot wait to see Blue-Eyes coming back to the tournaments. In the meantime, I will refine my Dark Magician deck to make sure I will be ready to re-enact one of the most historical battles of Duel monsters.