Deck Profile: Frog Monarchs (The End)

I mentioned in my most recent tournament report that my Monarch deck had undergone some big changes since the last time I showed it here on this blog; so big that I couldn't fit them in the tournament report itself. Here's a reminder of what the deck currently looks like...

And now let's discuss, starting with the cards I've added.

Additions: 7
1 Spirit Reaper
1 Neo-Spacian Grand Mole
1 Pot of Duality
1 Scapegoat
1 Soul Taker
1 Needle Ceiling
1 Malevolent Catastrophe

Spirit Reaper is just a great card to have to establish field presence. It fits really well with some of this deck's strong points, including slowing your opponent down to fit your pace and grinding card advantage out of them. Grand Mole is a bit trickier to understand, but it's kind of like a cross between a Monarch and Dark Dust Spirit in that it can clear threats without destroying them while coming back every turn. And even better than those two, it doesn't require me to have tribute fodder in order to be useful. I found it to be a great answer to problem cards like Archlord Kristya and Crimson Blader.

A third Duality was an obvious inclusion made possible by the new banlist. It's really the only card that helps smooth over the consistency issues inherent to this deck (and many other non-archetype decks), and it does its job very well here. Scapegoat is an old favorite tech of mine from my Steelswarm days. Ever since trying it out in some other trapless decks lately, I've wanted to put it in here and it's a good stall tool so far. An extra Soul Taker in my side makes it easier to clear problematic monsters like Crimson Blader, Vanity's Fiend and Fossil Dyna, and it helps to crack setups from decks like Infernity.

Finally, we have the two new Traps! Needle Ceiling is a replacement for Metaion; I like it because it can't be hit with Veiler, Fiendish or Breakthrough and can be used during the opponent's turn to interrupt their explosive plays before they get completely out of hand. Malevolent Catastrophe is my answer to the banning of Heavy Storm. It is slow and can occasionally get stuck in your back row, but I feel like it's necessary to combat the bitch ass heavy-backrow decks that are seeing more play now.

Subtractions: 6
1 Enemy Controller
1 Soul Exchange
1 Heavy Storm
1 Electric Virus
1 Metaion the Timelord
1 Light and Darkness Dragon

I took out one Enemy Controller and Soul Exchange mainly to make space for some of the new arrivals, but Controller is definitely a card you can deal with having only two of. It's a card whose usefulness can be stretched if you save it for when you need it, and it's often not necessary for you to win games. Soul Exchange on the other hand was always just annoying to me; skipping your BP for the turn slows me down even more than usual, and I felt like Monarchs didn't need even more lead weights on their heels while trying to keep up with the meta.

Meanwhile in the Side Deck, I decided to take out one Electric Virus to adapt to the dropping popularity of Evilswarm and Machine-based decks. I may possibly need to bump it back up to two if people don't stop riding Dragon Rulers though. Metaion was replaced by Needle Ceiling as discussed previously, and I felt that an extra LADD wasn't a good call anymore with Prophecy going back to playing Priestess, Dragon Rulers constantly using Skill Drain, and heavier Trap lineups across the board making it easier to deal with, especially the resurgence of Fiendish Chain.


So that's all! Thanks for reading, and I hope you guys enjoyed this piece of theory from the mind of a Monarch player. I may return to the deck in the future if Konami keeps supporting it beyond Shadow Specters or if the meta becomes kind to it, but they really should cut it out with the Continuous Spell ideas. Later!