Anti-Meta Pick: Synchro Assault Mode

Two years ago, in May 2019 when Dark Neostorm came out, there were four cards that supported the Assault Mode strategy. Two of these cards in particular, and transformed the deck into one that can spam synchro monsters. But mainly players were using the cards to summon in order to bring out as an omni-negate. Sometimes even two copies in a single turn.

While the idea is not bad, it has a couple of flaws. First of all, you have to play some cards in your deck that cannot do anything by themselves like Stardust Dragon/Assault Mode and . Also, when you don't see your Assault Mode Activate while having a Stardust Dragon on the field, your deck will not be able to do much.

What if you can achieve the same level of field control without needing to rely on your Stardust, playing only one copy of Assault Mode Activate, and filling your deck with strong trap cards? One player—Sherif El Gendy—has figured this out and managed to pilot this deck to a second-place finish at his locals. He shared his list with me:

After checking out the deck, did anything strike you as curious? For me, it was the fact that the main deck is made up of only eight cards—eleven if you count —alongside generic synchro monsters in the extra deck. Now, regardless of what other cards were used to fill the deck, it appears that there is room for a lot of innovation, as long as one can play around the restriction of . If a player uses the Sentinel's first effect, they're locked into summoning only synchro monsters from the extra deck for the rest of the turn.

The basic plan is to use Tenki to search for Assault Sentinel, which one will normal summon and then tribute to its own effect to bring out from the deck. If summoned, Reflector can add to hand. Then its second effect will be used to special summon Sentinel back from the graveyard and increase its level by up to four additional ones.

Since Reflector is a level one tuner, one can special summon almost any synchro monster from level five to nine. Luckily, there is no reason to rely on Stardust anymore as we have a wealth of strong options and flexible levels to toy with. For example, say we won the dice roll and opted to go first. We can use the above sequence to end on backed by a couple of trap cards and hand traps. Shenshen is a one-sided that can revive itself, making graveyard-reliant decks unable to operate the way they are supposed to, a great defense. Since most decks this format are grave-reliant, it's an amazing pick that affects many top decks at the same time. Offensively, meanwhile, there are monsters like and that can put pressure on the opponent. The deck also features fearsome draw power with its ability to include and .

In a way, the deck is a protect-the-castle type of deck. However, it can be much more depending on the build. Off the top of my head, one could use those eight Assault Mode cards with Eldlich, Paleozoic, Artifacts, and even Pendulums or Sky Striker or Virtual World to some extent—including potential for bricking though. Basically, it can easily fit any strategy that does not need its normal summon. Apart from hand traps and generic spell/trap removal, the above decklist contains thirteen trap cards. That is enough to fit a deck core or one or two engines instead.

Personally, I believe that this small Assault Mode core is a great engine. One-card combos have always been powerful in Yu-Gi-Oh! history. The above deck can give top strategies a run for their money and can simplify game states to suit the relatively slow pace of the deck. I hope someone will innovate on the deck and push it even higher up the competitive scale.

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