Yu-Gi-Oh! Deck Debut: U.A. ft Battleguard Echoes
Something odd happens to Yugioh players over a period of about three months when it comes to the evaluation of strategies. There’s an initial wave of excitement following a deck’s reveal in the OCG, which fosters initial exploration and builds online, then a lull before it hits the TCG, followed again by experimentation from those cracking packs, and finally — Judgement. A deck either succeeds or fails at the competitive level, and if it’s the former, only its devotees & ‘Petdeckers’ bring it to locals, or sometimes regionals.
When a deck is forgotten, usually it’s only direct support which revitalizes interest in an archaic gameplan, but as I’ll hope to explore today, sometimes targeted, indirect support can be enough to raise some eyebrows. Is a pseudo-Tenki and Zephyros-adjacent card enough to bring U.A. back from the dead? Let’s find out, in U.A., ft Battleguard Echoes.
First, some background: U.A. was a TCG-exclusive archetype initially released in Duelist Alliance, the single most gamechanging set in Yugioh’s history; if not for the relative power of everything around it, this would have been a strategy we’d see much more of without a doubt. Unfortunately, their gimmick of accruing advantage by swapping between ‘offensive’ and ‘defensive’ players by returning to the hand didn’t see much success beyond the odd OTK deck, and it faded into obscurity.
In Phantom Rage, another wave emerged, hoping to drag the U.A. into the modern age with a brand-new Field Spell in U.A. Hyper Stadium, alongside powerful playmaking monsters that pivoted more reactively, but it really wasn’t enough. Some explored the deck, but it came down to a lack of consistency and burdensome bricks. In any format where Apollousa can fall prey to negation, so too can U.A. Perfect Ace.
Despite this, in Legacy of Destruction, two more cards were printed that suddenly seem to provide context for a variety of TCG-exclusive Warrior archetypes, in the forms of Battleguard Echoes and Pyrite Knight. These worked in tandem to bounce your Warriors back to hand, turn off problematic monsters by flipping them face-down, and providing bodies to run over with U.A. Powered Jersey and Dunker. Notably, these two cards assist more than just U.A., also giving powerful new lines to Flame Swordsman and even War Rock, albeit the reason I’m focusing on U.A. is because I believe it to have the most potential merit.
Pyrite Knight in particular seems to have been passed-over by the wider playerbase, being a monster you can Summon from the hand or GY with ease, and give your opponent a body they can’t do much with, on top of providing ways to circumvent issues like Tenpai in the Battle Phase. If Isolde was still around, summoning this in Mikanko by bouncing a Ha-Re the Sword Mikanko to then Kaiju over for game certainly sounds appealing!
For Field Spell decks that want to go second, LEDE also provided us with Way Where There’s a Will, a phenomenal means of digging through ones’ deck and using extra Field Spell access to your benefit! Given U.A. Hyper Stadium requires Field Spells in hand to resolve its extra Normal Summon, having extra utility pieces around doesn’t hurt.
Moreover, we can even add a Veidos package to this list, which speaks to a broader issue with the current format — this TCG-Exclusive Pyro isn’t seeing enough play. The two top decks, being Snake-Eye & Tenpai, both heavily rely upon a Field Spell to make their plays function, and getting rid of it while dropping their ATK to 0 the following turn is a legitimate play. Tenpai in particular fold to Ashened for Eternity, dropping their ATK before the OTK or recurring Veidos the Eruption Dragon of Extinction to ensure Sangen Summoning never sticks on the board for very long. To top it all off, this 4-card package is essentially generic, being of similar weight to the old PSY-Framegear Gamma engine with a familiar 3:1 soft garnet ratio.
The consistency here also cannot go overstated: Between your Field Spells, U.A. Signing Deal, Extravagance, and Battleguard Echoes, a full half of your deck is tutors, ensuring your silver bullets are easy to access, and your gameplan gets going pronto. The real concern here is what you ought to do going first, as Tenpai being in the format means you’ll come up against other going-second builds as well.
Here, the strength of Pyrite Knight is apparent, as we can lock our opponent out using Gozen Match, Rivalry of Warlords, etc as well as Veidos to play a non-game. The homogeneity of our monster line-up is a boon, as well as the necessary bouncing to ensure we can keep the crucial cards onboard before we lock ourselves. In addition, if you really get greedy for it, you can play Dimension Shifter here, as your actual core line does not require the GY, only plays involving searching-and-discarding Pyrite Knight, or starting plays with U.A. Penalty Box. In addition, one card we’re not playing, Kaiza, the Hidden Star, can potentially even raise the ceiling on this strategy higher than it already is, by sending Pyrite to the GY, and soft looping itself, although that’s really more for dedicated “Warrior Pile” decks with Destiny Hero - Malicious and the like.
I don’t want to make any claims about the resiliency of this strategy, but I do want to point to the fact that its indirect support certainly raises its ceiling beyond what previously existed. U.A. in the modern game is more of a thought experiment than a strategy, where you’re able to play a hyperconsistent version of a somewhat middling strategy, courtesy of new cards. Certainly, Echoes allows for the turning-off of plays by flipping opposing cards face-down and cycling off of U.A Libero Spiker, and yes Pyrite Knight means your U.A. Stadium can get an extra search, but do such boons compound to result in a deck which actually competes?
It’s difficult to say, but the price tag of the deck’s core is cheap enough that I do encourage folks to play around with it! LEDE has been one of the stronger TCG-Exclusive-laden sets in recent memory, and aside from Tenpai it’s been looked at as a ‘blah’ set.
To me, the fun of Yugioh is bucking the trend of deck forgetfulness, and trying to see what new cards can bring to old strategies in truly exciting experimentation. Superheavy Samurai, for example, has been wholly dropped in favor for the new hotness in Melodious, despite both essentially being Pendulum-based board swarm that results in Level 4s, with the difference being demands: SHS requires no Spell/Traps in GY, whereas Melodious simply requires you open Ostinato. Likewise, my Gishki builds are just waiting on White Circle Reef to see play again in a competitive context, and even Horus, once hyped as the best engine possible for decks that have GY presence, needs Toy Chest to find modern success. The game is fast, and that means we oft lose sight of potential meta players by virtue of them not being the absolute newest release.
Some of the greatest decks I’ve known come from this exact line of thinking: Infernoid cleaning up during Nekroz format, World Chalice Kaiju taking a YCS, or Dinomist being the perfect counter to Zoodiac. If we’re willing to take a chance on powerful, small rogue packages and targeted ‘Petdecks’ for a format’s threats, there’s no telling what might show up at top cut.
With that, I’ll finish waxing poetic about Rogue in Yugioh for now! U.A. was a great way to talk about this tendency among the playerbase, and I hope it inspires you to explore! Let me know what older strategies might have potential in the comments below!
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