Notes & Combos

this is a fun proof of concept deck: crimson dragon can be played in virtual world with decent results. it's not the best version of the deck (see: the master 1 list from this season) but it's half-decent.

let's get one thing clear right away: the calamity lock is godawful. it requires a second level 12 on the field, which only happens with strong opening hands -- most VW hands can't synchro 12 twice.

that's why this list has trishula and hot red dragon archfiend abyss -- you're far more likely to have an extra level 9 body. still, be aware that crimson dragon is a "win more" card -- you only benefit from crimson dragon when you have decent openers. in fact, the standard board of laevatein + shenshen + chuche wins most going-first games in the current meta already.

another significant weakness of crimson dragon is that you are often playing right into your opponent's imperm! you can't protect crimson dragon's effect with chuche, since crimson dragon must return to the extra deck to resolve successfully. on top of that, crimson dragon combos also require cloudcastle to be worthwhile, another chokepoint that plays right into imperm.

that said, the investment needed for a crimson dragon variant is minimal: no bricks in the main deck and a 4 card swap in the extra deck. we've dropped the tzolkin and baronne packages to fit cloudcastle, trishula, hot red dragon archfiend abyss, and trishula.

cloudcastle turns shenshen + any level 3 tuner (12 stars) into cloudcastle + shenshen (18 stars), which makes the minimum crimson dragon board a terrifying laevatein + hot red + chuche.

you'll have to perform the cloudcastle line from the VFD days: summon shenshen, use chuche in GY to make shenshen level 6, then synchro shenshen with a level 3 tuner to summon cloudcastle. use cloudcastle to revive shenshen. from here, you'd target cloudcastle or shenshen with crimson dragon to summon either hot red (turn 1) or trishula (following turns).

another possibility is summoning only shenshen and crimson dragon, passing the turn, and using crimson dragon to summon trishula on your opponent's turn to banish a card from their hand, GY, and field.

if you do not have a hot red or trishula, you can also play blue eyes spirit dragon and black rose moonlight dragon. use crimson dragon to summon blue eyes spirit, negate a GY effect, then swap out blue eyes spirit using its own effect to summon black rose moonlight dragon to bounce an opponent's special summoned monster.