Yu-Gi-Oh! Banlist Fallout: Kashtira is Forever
Now that we have access to the new Forbidden & Limited List, released at the last possible hour of the last possible day in August, there’s been a mixed reception, to say the least. A few of the most egregious cards were banned, namely Fiendsmith’s Lacrima as a means to stop cheesy wins due to time rules, and Hot Red Dragon Archfiend King Calamity as a final end to Centurion stopping someone’s turn, but broadly there’s a few “villains” remaining. Notably, Fiendsmith & Snake-Eye escaped largely unscathed, as did their natural predator, Nemeses Ritual Beast, a Dimension Shifter deck.
In a meta like now, where you’re either playing the top dog or a matchup aimed at almost always winning against that known quantity, there’s one strategy which seems to crop up with shocking regularity. I’m of course talking about Kashtira, so I wanted to use today’s deck as a springboard to address why strategies like Kash are primed to rise from the dust of a banlist.
The name of the game with Kashtira is ‘individual card strength’, that is to say, the power contained by resolving a single piece of the broader deck’s arsenal. In Kashtira, their best monsters at worst represent a big Level 7 body that can beat over problematic monsters, and eat negation, but at best they’re full combo (or near to it). Fenrir is a special example, being able to search itself for follow-up, or Kashtira Riseheart as a Level 4 or 7 extender.
Another deck with relatively high individual card strength, and access to Level 4 & 7 axis plays, is Shining Sarcophagus, whose titular card makes up the other half of modern Kashtira. Kash often was played pure, or with Speedroid for Baronne access, however with most generic Extra Deck goodies gone, Sarcophagus has found itself a nice slot as a companion for Kashtira.
Not only does Shining Sarcophagus only sometimes need its Normal Summon, something Kash knows well, it essentially does what the red-armored menaces do but with differently managed HOPTs. Yes, you can only resolve one Fenrir into Riseheart, but you can easily get another 4+7 via Gadget Trio into Sarcophagus into Dark Magician the Magician of Black Magic, sometimes with the opportunity to order it such that you’re wiping the board before resolving a Rank 4 Xyz Monster. This strategy aims to use its 7s as Kash normally does, but its Level 4s allow Infernal Flame Banshee to take the stage, in turn resulting in an easily-enabled Nemeses Flag, into Archnemeses Protos, with a FIRE Attribute monster on the board to lock out a Snake-Eye opponent. Unicorn is WIND, Fenrir is EARTH, Tearlaments Kashtira is WATER — through both the Main & Extra Decks, you can lock out any single Attribute with shocking frequency. Number 76: Harmonizer Gradielle also benefits this aspect of the deck, being many Attributes if your monsters were expended for a Summon.
This deck, however, also survives based on its resiliency against specifically Ash Blossom & Joyous Spring, a card now sure to run rampant in the format. Droll & Lock Bird would be a death knell for this strategy, but because the most opportune points to use it are locked behind Quick-Play Spells oft-activated in the Draw Phase, it’s been severely underplayed. The elephant in the room, however, is Thunder Dragon Colossus, and broadly Ritual Beast as the anti-meta to our anti-meta.
Ritual Beast seems like it’d have a perfect game against us, preventing searches with Thunder Dragon Colossus, destroying our Kashtira prior to an open game state with Ritual Beast Steeds, and more. Luckily, Fenrir threatens Colossus on its own, and Nibiru, the Primal Being clears those boards without a negate available, as soon as the second Ulti-Cannahawk is made active.
In truth, this is a deck that works well because it’s simple; you’re playing Kashtira, an easy to use deck with high strength and a value loop, alongside Shining Sarcophagus, essentially Kashtira with the serial numbers filed off. When the game is in tumult due to a banlist, and Droll isn’t a severe concern, Kashtira will always be an option for savvy duelists.
This reminds me of how Eldlich acted for a great many years, as the defacto best control engine to slot into a combo shell. You had all manner of combo Lich brews, from Synchro, to Auroradon, to Cyberse, all safely assuming that if their core high-ceiling gameplan were to be disrupted, the golden zombie lord would surely back them up. As far as 1-card combos go, these decks are quite tame, as their “combo” isn’t actually often additional layers of interaction, but simply a soft guarantee they’ll be able to play next turn, same as the first.
In truth, there’s not a deck this format that beats both Dimension Shifter & Thunder Dragon Colossus, but by that same token, there’s not a lot that get to play those cards, either. To that end, something like a Kaiju board would do nicely in this strategy, including maybe a few copies of Interrupted Kaiju Slumber to threaten to break boards, on top of a diversified Kaiju lineup.
Additional pieces might be copies of the Mulcharmy we have access to, quickly involving the new one arriving in just over a month, but those cards require an entirely separate discussion, when that set debuts.
This list includes everything mentioned, including a really great Decode Talker - Heatsoul line made possible via Dracossack. Dracossack’s Mecha Phantom Beast Tokens into 2 copies of Link Spider, into G Golem Crystal Heart, bringing back a Link Spider, into Heatsoul. This line can allow you to dig for answers or set up 3 different Attributes for either Archnemeses Protos, or Accesscode Talker, who sometimes makes an appearance here.
That said, you’re often going to be locked to Xyz Monsters from the Extra Deck, meaning the majority of our suite takes from that pool. Big Eye, Flare Metal for time, and both Zeus & Ty-phon are all must-includes, with the Link portion being largely up to preference, given it takes a whopping ~5 slots.
While Kashtira is certainly a solid deck to play after this banlist, once the dust has settled I think I’ll continue to jam Millennium Virtual World! I had built that deck a few weeks ago mostly on a lark, but it’s since become my absolute favorite version of VW ever to exist. You can see the breakdown for that strategy here!
What are you guys playing after the banlist’s good-not-great outcome? Should Konami be more frequent in its banlist cadence, now that the game seems to be moving faster? What was your favorite format in recent memory? I’d love to hear what you’ve been thinking in the comments below!
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