[No] Bad Cards: Theban Nightmare (Part 2 of 2)
The author tested a Theban Nightmare deck in two Goat Format Friday tournaments, learning that while the deck has potential, it needs faster removal and better consistency, and identifying problematic matchups like Turbo and Tsukuyomi.
RESULTS AND MODIFICATION
Continued from Part 1: I entered the earlier of the two weekly Goat Format Friday tournament time slots to give it a test run against people who were motivated to point out weaknesses in the theory, and that they did. A brutal 0-3 run with a few games won was instructive. But there was time for the second tournament as well, which meant time to adapt and try again, see if the changes made improved the odds. A few things stood out. Back To Square One was unsatisfying to use on powerful monsters and is pretty inflexible in practice because of it. Nobleman of Crossout was sorely missed; Sets need to be answered efficiently.ā The 55 for the second tournament:
Chaos monsters ran amok and since Tribute to the Doomed, along with Raigeki Break, puts things in grave, triple Kycoo seems wise and pushes our original ATK average up. Mirage Dragon has been moved to the sideboard and reinforced with Pitch-Black Warwolf in triplicate as battle traps are far more common in games 2 and 3 of any match. Equips were added to improve likelihood of combat success. Goal would be to counter their siding pattern more or less with a field of attackers that donāt die to battle traps and canāt be climbed over, and fast. Rope of Life, similarly, is simply much stronger after they side into beatsticks. BLS came in over Freed because getting clobbered with the card reminds one why it should be played, but also, with the crazy number of discard outlets we have, how hard can it be to summon? To answer that question, I didnāt summon him once, but he also never shut off my Thebans soā¦The second tournamentās matches went a little better, as Turbo ground me out multiple times, but sideboarding into all the trap negators and equips does net wins if your opponent didnāt draw enough answersāTsukuyomi remained a thorn in my side. Kycoos were solidly mid in this context. The Warrior toolbox could still benefit from classics like Exiled Force and MS LV2. The special summon economy is quite low, which means I may be looking at Card of Sanctity based Theban Nightmare builds just for the Dimension Fusion cycles, but Theban was surprisingly live. I actually managed to get an exact kill with probably one of the luckiest topdecks of my long ācareerā.
Now thatās what 3700 damage looks like. What did we learn? We need a faster build with even more removal, yes, but also, Theban Nightmare is surprisingly easy to play into and could be a tech choice in a similar deck focused on Rush Recklessly. Turbo gave us problems, but clearly surmountable ones, and thatās encouraging. Apophis continued to apply pressure and wall attacks nobly, and definitely warrants more exploration, but not having a payoff in the form of Zaborg/Mobius in the 55 left a noticeable absence (though having the ability to pump it up is cool). My assumptions about BTS1 were proven incorrect and remind me a bit of the debates concerning Phoenix Wing Wind Blast versus Raigeki Break.More or less, Chaos Warrior: Weird Stuff Edition is where the deck landed. It is monster-heavy but weāre also discard-heavy and Rush Recklessly-heavy. Turns out itās actually pretty easy to play into Theban Nightmare when built for it, so Rope of Life was less critical and went to the sideboard for aggro matchups where large attack position monsters are plentiful. The general side plan of "rush them if you can or overpower themā remains. Injection Fairy Lily was added to main because weāre not running Solemn and we are trying to take LP as quickly as possible, its absence was an oversight. IFL is a killer Sangan fetch and topdeck war-winner many times over, and we love topdecking! I could have stolen another match with her probably. Another card that plays nice with Apophis clearing the way for a direct hit.Ā āThis experiment leaves me with more feeling, not less, that Goat Formatās spice rack still has plenty of potency left in it. As I played with the deck and had a chance to sleep on it a bit, I realized that courting discard cards so heavily, when one-for-one cards should be fine to get our hand size down, was likely a mistake. Monster count should be reduced per the splevin scale (see below).
