Yu-Gi-Oh! Structure Deck: The Crimson King

“The Crimson King” is the 57th and most recent structure deck for the Yu-Gi-Oh! Trading Card Game. Released at the end of September, the deck is based on the play style of Jack Atlas, Yusei Fudo’s former rival and friend in Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V anime. Jack is a very strong duellist and his strategy is built around the use of Resonator monsters to bring out Fusion monsters of increasing strength.

The Crimson King Structure deck comes with some great cards from the Red Dragon Archfiend, plus a variety of Tuners and Spell cards to support chain of combos that can start with just two cards and bring out powerful Synchro monsters. In total, the deck includes 50 cards of which 5 are Ultra Rares, 3 Super Rares and 42 Commons. Among the cards, 7 are new cards while the rest are re-prints from older sets. Similar to some other structure decks released previously, you will have just one copy for all cards in The Crimson King deck although this one also provides enough cards to make a very good size extra deck.

Let’s look more in detail on how this deck works and you can bring the best out of it to be able to echo Jack Atlas in saying “There is only one King! That is me!”.

Structure Deck: Engine & Card Combination

As mentioned, Jack Atlas’ strategy in this deck focuses around Synchro summoning progressively stronger Monsters till you have enough firepower to bring your opponents Life Points down. As expected, the deck is filled with many Tuner Monster to support the engine and many of them have useful effects. In particular, this deck is filled with 8 different “Resonators” monsters with a variety of effects that allows to special summoned them directly from hand, to bring back monsters from the Graveyard or to prevent them or other monster to be destroyed.

Among them, the best one is the new “Soul Resonator”, a Lv3 Tuner Effect Monster that allows the player to add one Lv4 or lower Fiend monster from their Deck whenever it is either Normal or Special summoned. Soul Resonator also has a second effect that allows a player to banish him from the Graveyard to prevent any card to be destroyed but only if the player controls a Red Dragon Archfiend or a card naming it.

This card is not only one of the new cards released with this deck but also the first card needed for an impressive two-card combo that can win you the match in one turn:

1) Once Soul resonator triggered, one of the best cards to look for is Bone Archfiend, a Lv4 Effect Monster as it can be Special summoned by sending a card to the graveyard. Bone Archfiend second effect allows the player to send a Tuner monster from the hand or deck to the Graveyard while increasing or reducing its level by 1. Best target at this stage would be Crimson Resonator, a Lv2 Tuner Monster.

2) Crimson Resonator can then be brought back on the field once Soul Resonator and Bone Archfiend are used as Synchro materials to summon Red Rising Dragon, a Lv6 Synchro Monster. As there is only one DARK Dragon Synchro Monster on the field, Crimson resonator’s effect will also allow the player to bring out Vision Resonator and Synkron Resonator from the deck and Special Summon them.

3) Red Rising Dragon and Vision Resonator can now be used as Synchro materials to summon Scarred Dragon Archfiend. Vision Resonator’s effect can then be activated from the graveyard in order to search for Crimson Gaia in the deck and add it to player’s hand. Crimson Gaia is a continuous Spell card that allows the player to adds any Red Dragon Archfiend or a card that names it from the graveyard or deck to their hand. It also synergizes with Red Dragon Archfiend as it forces all the opponents monsters in face-down defence position when this last one attacks.

4) The next step in your engine would be to use Scarred Dragon Archfiend and Synkron Resonator as Synchro materials in order to summon Hot Red Dragon Archfiend Abyss. This will also trigger the effects of the two materials that were sent to the graveyard allowing you to get back Vision Resonator from your graveyard to your hand and to summon a Red Dragon Archfiend from your extra deck to the field. Note that as Scarred Dragon Archfiend has been used as Synchro Material to summon a DARK Dragon Synchro Monster, the player can also use its effect to destroy all Attack Position monsters the opponent controls.

5) Vision Resonator can then be Special summoned from your hand and then used together with Red Dragon Archfiend as Synchro material to summon Hot Red Dragon Archfiend Bane that can use its own effect to bring back Scarred Dragon Archfiend from your graveyard by sacrificing Crimson Resonator.

Overall, this combo will only need “Soul Resonator” and any Tuner monster to bring out three Synchro monster with a total of 9700 ATK while cleaning up completely the opponent board. Unless the opponent is prepared for this sequence, there is a high chance players can win the duel with one mighty blow.

Interestingly, the above example is not the only combo that you can run with this deck and all of them can be as deadly as this one. In fact, one of the key advantages of this deck’s cards is to have a lot of effects that allow a player to recycle their monsters while also providing support or protection from the graveyard.

In addition, there are other powerful support cards like “Absolute Powerforce” (Quick-Play Spell) that targets a Red Dragon Archfiend, giving it 1000 ATK, piercing, double battle damage, and prevent your opponent from activating their own effects. Considering Red Dragon Archfiend has 3000 ATK, this effect can easily turn the tide of any game in just one attack and it is not as difficult to pull as it may seem considering also the possibility to use Crimson Gaia to set your opponent monster in Defence position…

Other very good cards include “Red Supernova Dragon”, a Lv12 Synchro Monster that can be banished as quick effect when the opponent declares an attack or triggers an effect in order to banish every card your opponent controls. The value of this monster does not end here as Red Supernova Dragon will also come back at the end of player’s next End Phase.

Scarlight Red Dragon Archfiend is another Synchro Monster with the ability to destroy all effect monsters with 3000 ATK or less once per turn and to deal 500 damages to the opponent for each of them.

Is This Set Worth Buying? Final Thoughts

Considering composition and price, I think the Crimson King Structure deck is quite a fun deck to play and to have. The main strength of this deck is the strong synergy among the cards and the wide range of effects that the cards can trigger. The overall result is a very flexible deck that can provide a nice learning curve for new players looking to get into the game and to learn more of the strategic potential of current Yu-Gi-Oh! Format. The game style is also aggressive enough to be enjoyable while also providing some defensive effects to deal with the opponent strategy.

In addition, players will have at their disposal a lot of Fiends and Archfiends Monsters and support cards to use to boost and personalize their deck. The easiest and cheaper way to improve the deck would be to buy three or four copies of the Structure deck in order to maximize the cards needed for your combos and to have a very consistent extra deck.

On the other hand, the Red Dragon Archfiend Archetype does not offer a very strong defence against highly competitive decks. In particular, the deck does not provide a lot of options against interruptive effects and hand traps and it appears to be very weak against anti-Synchro or anti-Dragon decks like those based on “Meklord” and “Buster Blader” Archetypes. Overall, this Structure deck can be a very good budget friendly medium level deck but it will struggle in any competitive environment of current Yu-Gi-Oh! format.

That concludes our thoughts on the Crimson King Structure Deck. Do you agree? Let us know your thoughts and tag us on social media @zatugames. To buy the Crimson King Structure deck today click here!