Thunder Dragon: deck recipe [Post-Banlist]

Special Summon Artifact Vajra to block a direct attack and potentially trigger Baggy Sleeves.

Synchro Summon PSY-Framelord Zeta and use its effect to banish an opponent’s Special Summoned monster, disrupting their plays and possibly preventing an OTK.

• Use Gold Sarcophagus to banish Thunder Dragonroar from your Deck.

• Use Dragonroar’s effect to Special Summon Thunder Dragondark from your Deck in Defense Position.

• Normal Summon Plaguespreader Zombie.

• Synchro Summon Black Rose Dragon and wipe the board.

Depending on what you have available (Chaos Dragon Levianeer, Thunder Dragonduo, or Chaos Sorcerer), you can extend this combo and potentially OTK your opponent, but, if you don’t have anything else, you can always add Thunder Dragonhawk from your Deck to your hand via Dragonroar’s effect, and then discard it to Special Summon Dragonroar.

By taking advantage of the empty board, Dragonroar can now push for 2400 damage, and, if your opponent banishes it or sends it to the Graveyard during the next turn, it can float into Dragondark.

Thanks to its high ATK and its ability to destroy up to two cards on the field when Summoned by banishing both LIGHT and DARK monsters, Chaos Dragon Levianeer can be a truly devastating card, especially in a deck that has no trouble filling the Graveyard this quickly and consistently.

Levianeer adds a significant amount of firepower to the deck, it can be used for explosive plays or even to recover from disadvantage since Summoning it can trigger the effects of your “Thunder Dragon” monsters.

If you Summon Levianeer after wiping the board, you might not want to activate its effect. If you did activate its effect in this situation, you would not be able to use it to attack your opponent, and you would miss out on quite a lot of damage.

Charge of the Light Brigade is used to set up the Graveyard for Chaos Dragon Levianeer and search Raiden, Hand of the Lightsworn.

This Spell Card essentially thins your Deck while also giving you access to a Tuner to use for Synchro Summoning.

If you do not open with Gold Sarcophagus (or Aloof Lupine), you can discard Dragondark to search another copy of it, and then discard Dragonhawk to Special Summon Dragondark from the Graveyard.

Now you can Normal Summon Plaguespreader Zombie and Synchro Summon a Level 7 Synchro like Black Rose Dragon or Samurai Destroyer.

If you milled a “Thunder Dragon” monster (except Dragonduo and Dragonhawk) using Charge of the Light Brigade or Raiden, Hand of the Lightsworn, you don’t need a Dragondark in your hand in order to make this play.

Baggy Sleeves has great synergy with the “Thunder Dragon” archetype in particular, since it mostly consists of Level 5 or higher monsters, and it gives you an incentive to play Artifact Vajra.

• Divine Wrath, Ultimate Providence, and Blue-Eyes Spirit Dragon can negate the effects of your monsters, which can be devastating.
  
  
• The combination of Dark Magical Circle and Magician Navigation can keep you in check by threatening to banish your Tuners.
  
  
• Kiteroid, Sphere Kuriboh, and Grit (Skill) can prevent you from OTKing your opponent, giving them a chance to retaliate.
  
  
• No Mortal Can Resist (Skill) can be used to turn all monsters in your Graveyard into Skull Servant, significantly cutting down your resources

I faced Blackwings only a couple times, so I can’t be sure, but the matchup did not exactly feel favourable for me, especially because of Blackbird Close; let’s just say that this is a deck that I was simply not able to out-resource.

A previous version of my deck, that I was running back when I had only one Dragonhawk (I pretty much entirely built this deck while I was competing in the KC Cup), actually performed better in this matchup because I was making up for the lack of monsters with more copies of Karma Cut and one of Ultimate Providence.

Blue-Eyes was surprisingly not a threat. Dragonroar’s ability to float into another monster when sent from the field to the Graveyard or banished, combined with Artifact Vajra, Shinkuro, Sphere Kuriboh, World Legacy Clash, and Karma Cut made it quite easy to withstand my opponent’s attacks, while Baggy Sleeves allowed me to recover quickly and retaliate.

I don’t think I lost a single game against Dark Magician this KC Cup. Even after my opponent had Summoned Kycoo the Ghost Destroyer via Magician Navigation, I was still able to come out on top. Artifact Vajra and Sphere Kuriboh managed to keep me alive until I was able to Summon either Black Rose Dragon or Chaos Dragon Levianeer.

Force Navigation by threatening a Synchro play, use Vajra and Kuriboh to survive, and keep in mind that Kycoo does not prevent you from Special Summoning monsters that are banished via Thunder Dragonhawk. Fiendish Chain and Treacherous Trap Hole are the most notable cards that might cause an issue in this matchup, particularly when you’re trying to Summon Black Rose Dragon to get rid of Kycoo, but the latter is invalidated by the Navigation that was used to Summon Kycoo itself.

I was initially running Herald of the Abyss as an out to Invoked Cocytus, but I finally opted for a single copy of HTS Psyhemuth in my Extra Deck. I never really struggled against this particular deck, mostly because I know what to expect from it: I am simply more familiar with Invoked Elementsabers than Blackwings or Lunalights.

I encountered Lunalights only a couple of times during my entire run, while I was still trying to complete my deck. I played poorly because I underestimated Lunalights, and I never got to face them again.

I don’t think this is a losing matchup for Thunder Dragons at all, especially if the opponent is on the play. Levianeer gets around Lunalight Sabre Dancer (cannot be targeted by the opponent’s card effects), and HTS Psyhemuth can deal with both the Fusion Monsters. Playing carefully and safely is the key to winning this matchup.

Most of the Thunder Dragon decks I faced during the KC Cup were running the Lightsworn engine: sometimes they led with Charge of the Light Brigade, maybe even The Melody of Awakening Dragon, got a good amount of monsters in the Graveyard, and simply overwhelmed me, and sometimes they were notably less lucky.

Shiranui felt nearly impossible to out-resource, which is sort of how I handled every other matchup. My opponent’s backrow prevented me from pushing through early on, which is when Shiranui are supposedly weaker, and, while No Mortal Can Resist didn’t completely neutralize my Graveyard since Skull Servant are still DARK monsters, it was another issue that I had to deal with.

The stall did not feel like a problematic matchup at all. Thanks to Glow-Up Bulb and a considerable number of Level 5 or higher monsters, I was able to quickly get rid Lava Golem whenever it was Summoned, Chaos Dragon Levianeer and Thunder Dragonduo helped me by emptying my Graveyard, reducing the number of Life Points I would lose at the end of each turn because of Shadow Game, and finally Thunder Dragonhawk and Dragonroar ensured that my monsters would continuously come back.

HEROes are able to apply a lot of pressure early on, and very often a single Artifact Vajra is not enough to stop them. I was personally caught off guard by this deck and I lost most of the times I encountered it, even though I admittedly didn’t have to face it that often.

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