Notes & Combos

Since I love playing Bystials, I tried mixing it with the Horus and Resonator package with the help of guides. Before I knew it, I reached Master 3 faster, without any expectation in reaching Master 1. I'll be going over some of the MVPs and card choices that I have made.

Why play this deck?

• This is a very aggressive beatdown deck with a balance of high attack cards with removal effects (archfiend dragons, Baronne, Horus), interruption/bounce (SP little knight, Hieratic seal, Bystials) and negates (hope harbinger, Baronne, Dispater).
• Good resource recursion and advantage via Branded regained, both Dispater's effects, Horus Happi’s recovery effect and Imsety's search and draw, Chaos Gate (both effects), Red Gaia, Magnamut, and Red-eyes Darkness. You will win in a war of attrition as long as you manage the monsters that you banish and protect your spells.
• This deck is optimized to go 1st or 2nd. The Bystials and hand traps can both protect you and interrupt your opponent's plays. Every hard draw and every regained draw, I can hopefully get an Ash, Maxx C, or even a Nibiru.
• The extra deck monsters such as the Synchro Monsters can branch off to XYZs or links, with multiple lines you can go through. Very fun seeing different extra deck cards on the field.

Cons of playing this deck:

• While this deck has multiple engines that synergies with each other, The Bystials, Horus, and Resonators have a hard time accessing each other. You would have to hard draw them, get lucky with vampire lord's mill, or Imsety and Regained's draw. Your full potential is dependent on every draw you get.

• You live and die by the trinity of this deck (Red Gaia, Regained, and Horus Sarc). There is a chance that your opponent has a feather duster to stop your supply lines.

• You are Graveyard-dependent which means Kashtira, Exosisters, Dimension shifter, Necrovalley-stun will give you a hard time.

• Game state knowledge, you need to be more conscious and plan ahead when banishing monsters in order to fully benefit on Dis pater's revival effect. a single mistake may cause you to get stuck on an Imsety on the field instead of a Baronne because you forgot to banish a tuner or used Branded regained to recover the tuner for a draw that you didn't intend to do. this is pretty much a learning experience under a pressure of a time limit.

• This deck requires you to make risky plays and over extend with scenarios such as vampire lord possibly setting up the gy of a Tearlament, Branded, Labrynth Player or you summoning a Red Dragon Archfiend which can wipe your own board in the End Phase if you didn't use it as extra deck material.

For the card choices

• Hand traps (19 total): Pretty satisfied with this ratio, i start with 1 to 3 hand traps while still having my engine cards ready when it's my turn. No Effect Veiler since, if I can help it, I don't want to trigger triple tactics as much as possible.

• Psy-frame package (MVP): If my opponent tries to Ash blossom, Maxx C, Droll me when I activate Lubellion, Imsety, or chaos space, I can use Psy-frame and then summon accel stardust to get a Baronne or Dispater. My opponents would surrender immediately after resolving this.

• Red-eyes package: black metal is your best normal summon unfortunately, this package allows you to link into Sphere, and summon Bystials or Ringowurm or synchro lines with darkness metal's free summon. No Meteor Dragon since I don't want to increase the chances of bricking.

• Ringowurm (MVP): This card paired up with a Lubellion or Saronir gets you Baronne and Dispater. this card is so good that I always use my Magnamut’s search to get this card for my next normal summon. it also can special summon itself if there is a Nibiru token, and you can use Dispater to revive this banished monster for more synchro plays.

• Bystials (Core): A standard package, one of each level 6 since I don't want to draw multiple Baldrakes that sits idle in my hand. No Branded beasts since I do not want to brick at my starting hand. Baldrake from the hand and Druidswarm from regained or Hieratic's summon forces my opponent to commit into removing these cards via battlestep or removal effects since they don't want their monsters to be banished and sent to the gy in quick succession.

• Resonator Red Dragon package (Core): having 3 vision is a must because it can special someone itself when there is a lvl 6 bystial. I go for accel stardust to baronne or Dis Pater,or if I have a chance to summon an additional tuner go for Scarred Archfiend. Scarred has an effect that when it is sent to the gy you may summon a red dragon archfiend which is a free body for another level 10 synchro or rank 8 xyz. Red Gaia allows your archfiends to return from the gy, when you destroy a monster via effect or battle allowing you an OTK chance. no fiendish golem, didn't really need it, again I don't want to brick.

• Horus engine (Core): A very compact package; the Sarcophagus battle effect and protection does come up. If possible, I would leave a Happi on the field, in case my opponent tries to remove my cards via board wipes like evenly. Happi can recover cards even if they are banished face down. No other Horus monster card is necessary since I do not want to hard draw one of them. The field spell is good but you need to play the Horus Diety and Planet Pathfinder to make it more consistent, which I decided not to commit.

• Triple Tactics Talent (MVP): This is a Handtrap and quick effect monster meta, i have this active for most of my games and was a keycard to my victory. I used the draw to extend, steal monsters for an otk, and remove their combo starter, having atleast 1 copy is a must.

• Chaos gate and Levianeer: Levianeer's hand rip is great 1st turn and the field destruction with no targeting makes the opponent react with uncertainty which cards will be destroyed. you tend to have a lot of monsters on the gy so I didn't have an issue choosing between these two effects. Chaos gate helps you find a Lubellion or Levia, although I find myself being forced to choose Lubellion since I rarely have light monsters in my hand. If I wanted to get Levia more frequently, I might add effect veiler on 2 or 3 copies and subtract imperm. only 1 Chaos Gate I don't want so see doubles in my starting hand going 2nd.

• Salamangreat Alma: if I have a resonator as the only normal summon. I would use this card to get it to the grave to get my Bystials active and get Red Gaia.

• Dharc Charmer: any monster I steal from my opponent can be used as a Vampire Lord xyz material. Any other charmers are good depending on who is dominating on the tier list.

• Double SP Little Knight: I love banishing my opponent's monster to trigger Regained's draw effect, that I had to do it twice. Kashtira Unicorn bait as well.

• Hope Harbinger: Sucks up any sinful spoil spells, and protects your hieratic and IP/SP by redirecting attacks to this card. I prefer summoning this over Photon Lord since it does get taken hostage of the activated card.

• Dispater and Baronne: you should be summoning Baronne for immediate protection against Nibiru, but you can make a risky play and summon Dis Pater to extend into a Baronne. If Baronne's negate is used up you can use her stand by phase effect to swap into a Happi or Magnamut for a possible resource recursion. These are your main monsters.

• Accel Stardust: if I can’t find the resonators i would have to make do with a Psy-frame or Ringowurm. beggars can’t be choosers.

• Vampire Lord: I'm feeling lucky (Enables opponent Tearlament / Labrynth gy effects). This card is definitely, a risky extender that connects the 3 engines. You may also accidentally sabotage yourself by milling your continuous spells. You can try Couch Trainer as an alternative use a Lubellion or add a Horus monster to the deck. You can also make Vampire using Red Dragon Archfiend and Lubellion if you didn't draw into an Imsety or Sarc.

FAQ: This is a general response to cards that I might have not added to my deck or thoughts.

• Why did you not add this handtrap?

the deck is too tight and i feel i have more than enough hand traps to close the game quickly. Recently, I feel droll and lock bird is good, but I am ok with the current build.

• No boardbreakers at all? (evenly/ droplet/ kaijus etc.)

I have Nibiru which is enough. I find that stopping my opponent from board building through hand trap interruption is more convenient and effective, than try to dismantle a board which has an omni negate and several extenders ready to jump at me. if I were to add a board breaker probably 2 copies of evenly matched or 1 thrust,1 harpie, and 1 evenly. I would play more board breakers if more stun decks appear in the middle of the season.

• In the extra deck, No Photon lord, Savage Dragon, Cheng, barricade blocker, Link 3 and 4,etc?

you can play these cards if you want. in my replays I used to have an underworld goddess. upon further review, I never had the opportunity to summon it and it took too many resources even with IP masque on the field. the 2nd little knight comes up and really annoys my opponent. My deck building process is if I summon it: I need it's effect to immediately have value.

• Is this the best Bystial variant deck?

I fought against other brother-in-arms while climbing the ladder. In my heart all Bystial variants are S tier, but i think Runick Bystials is slightly better than the rest. Despite Konami limiting the best cards, since it is very great defensive and very reactive (although Runick floodgates is the best version of Runick).

Dragon link is very combo oriented making it vulnerable to hand traps, but has a better turn 1 end board than the other Bystial decks. Also has more potential bricks.

The Bystial stun deck I saw in this site is based.

Bystial Thunder Dragon has better internal consistency with a guaranteed floodgate since everything is light or dark. it has a better normal summon than this deck for starters.

P.U.N.K. Bystials have better synchro lines, better searches and draw power, and if they summon psychic end punisher i might be in trouble. But would I lose? Nah, I activate Nibiru before it happens.

Albaz decks are as always performing well, even though we are in a fire nation meta, because of the good support and branded fusion being so explosive.

This Horus resonator variant is definitely the most aggressive and risk-reward deck.

• What are your best and worst match ups?

really hard to come up with a response for this question since it's a case-by-case basis. I'll just post a vague tier list based on this month's experience.

We're making it bros tier: Horus, Albaz Despia, Tearlament, Chimera, Mathmech

Gotta lock-in tier: Snake-eyes, Rescue-Ace, Labrynth, Vanquish Soul, Mikan-Ko, Salamangreat

Nah I'd Win (I lost): Pure Kashtira, normal summon fossil dyna...