Expert: Sam - 11/8/2009

Question
QUESTION: I recently made a volcanic deck, and I thought it was pretty solid.  Unfortunately, I have only won 3 out of 10 times we have played.  He has a warrior/ elemental heros deck.  I can't figure out why I keep loosing.  Here's my deck, please fix! Thank you!<br>
-Monsters x21-<br>
x1 Charcoal Impachi<br>
x1 Ultimate Baseball Kid<br>
x2 Solar Flare Dragon<br>
x3 Volcanic Rocket<br>
x3 Volcanic Blaster<br>
x3 Volcanic Scattershot<br>
x2 Volcanic shell<br>
x2 Volcanic slicer<br>
x2 Volcanic Hammer<br>
x2 Volcanic Doomfire<br>
-Spells x14<br>
x3 Blaze Accelerator<br>
x2 Wild Fire<br>
x2 Dark Room of Nightmare<br>
x2 Messenger of Peace<br>
x2 Tri-Blaze Accelerator<br>
x1 Heavy Storm<br>
x1 MST<br>
x1 Swords of Revealing Light<br>
-Traps x7<br>
x2 Volcanic Recharge<br>
x1 Backfire<br>
x1 Firewall<br>
x1 Magic Jammer<br>
x1 Gravity Bind<br>
x1 Call of the Haunted<br>

Thank you again!

ANSWER: Hey, thanks for the neat listing, will be able to read better. Your deck looks pretty good. The thing about burn decks, is that you need to have a way to defend yourself while dealing damage to your opponent. I dislike cards that only does small burn damage, otherwise the card would be a dead draw when you're in a pinch. Cards like "Backfire" and "Dark Room of Nightmare" are nice and all but they won't help you when you're losing, and is not fast enough to make your opponent lose. If you get a good hand in the beginning and have ways to defend your stalling cards, you'll win.

So it's important to have counter trap cards to defend yourself.

-Monsters x20-
x1 Ultimate Baseball Kid
x2 Solar Flare Dragon
x3 Volcanic Rocket
x3 Volcanic Blaster
x3 Volcanic Scattershot
x2 Volcanic Shell
x2 Volcanic Slicer
x2 Volcanic Hammer (Take one out for Morphing Jar if you feel that you're using up your hand quickly)
x2 Volcanic Doomfire

Taken out:
-x1 Charcoal Impachi (Thinning deck to 40)

-Spells x12-
x2 Blaze Accelerator
x1 Wild Fire
x1 Dark Room of Nightmare (Use Wave Motion Cannon instead. Makes your opponent worry and will try to destroy the card instead)
x3 Messenger of Peace
x1 Tri-Blaze Accelerator (Funny thing about this card. Volcanic Rocket CAN get this card since it contains the word "Blaze Accelerator")
x1 Heavy Storm
x1 MST
x1 Swords of Revealing Light
x1 Giant Trunade

Taken out:
-x1 Wild Fire (Making room)
-x1 Blaze Accelerator (Making room)
-x1 Tri-Blaze Accelerator (Making room)
-x1 Dark Room of Nightmare (Making room)

Added in:
+x1 Giant Trunade (Re-use Swords of Revealing Light, Gravity Bind, and Messenger of Peace when needed. Also can clear the spells/traps, then play the two blaze accelerators, then bring out Doomfire without needing to worry about opponent's spells/traps)
+x1 Messenger of Peace (Replaced "Gravity Bind")

Note: Just experimenting the spell set up, you might need to change them back or modify it when you do testings. In theory, you have 5 ways to get "Blaze Accelerator" (3 Volcanic Rocket, 2 itself), and 4 ways to get "Tri-Blaze Accelerator" (3 Volcanic Rocket and 1 itself). I think that's pretty good already.

-Traps x8-
x2 Volcanic Recharge (Use Pot of Avarice instead)
x1 Backfire (Would go with Ceasefire)
x1 Magic Jammer (Use Solemn Judgment or Dark Bribe instead)
x1 Call of the Haunted
x1 Torrential Tribute
x1 Solemn Judgment
x1 Dark Bribe

Taken out:
-x1 Firewall (You want to keep some monsters in graveyard to return to deck)
-x1 Gravity Bind (Would rather have "Messenger of Peace" since you can stop using it anytime to attack with Doomfire)

Added in:
+x1 Torrential Tribute (Staple)
+x1 Solemn Judgment
+x1 Dark Bribe

After taking another look at this deck, this deck might do pretty well if you can test this deck some more. The main cards would be "Volcanic Rocket" (Since it can get you either the regular accelerator or tri) and "Volcanic Doomfire". Since you have "Volcanic Blaster", getting the Volcanic monsters you need won't be hard. If you can focus on getting "Volcanic Rocket" out, you can reduce the number of cards that you have like "Blaze Accelerator" and "Tri-Blaze Accelerator" since Rocket can get them back from graveyard. Reduce number of dead draws possibility.

Hope this helps. Let me know if you have any questions.

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Thanks for the advice on the last deck.  I'm working on another deck for maybe tournaments when I have enough money to buy all the rest of the cards. Unfortunately, it has too many cards though, and I can't decide which cards to get rid of.
Deck:
2 Royal Firestorm Guards
2 Volcanic Hammerer
2 Volcanic Slicer
3 Solar Flare Dragon
3 UFO Turtle
3 Volcanic Counter
2 Volcanic Doomfire
3 Volcanic Rocket
3 Volcanic Scattershot
3 Volcanic Shell
1 Volcanic Blaster

3 Blaze Accelerator
2 Messenger of Peace
2 Foolish Burial
1 Heavy Storm
1 Swords of Revealing Light
2 Tri-Blaze Accelerator

2 Just Desserts
1 Volcanic Recharge
1 Gravity Bind
1 Magic Cylinder or Waboku
1 Call of the Haunted
3 Solemn Judgment
3 Phoenix Wing Wind
1 Torrential Tribute


Answer
Interesting deck. If you have Backfire in your deck, you can attack/block with UFO Turtles. Then use Royal Firestorm Guards to bring them back into deck. Repeat process.

Also another possible combo.
Volcanic Shell + Card Trader: You need at least 2 Volcanic Shell total, 1 in deck and 1 in graveyard. Activate Volcanic Shell's effect to get the other Shell to hand. Use Card Trader to re-draw. Effectively, you can draw a card per turn at a cost of 500 lifepoints. Also, you can do this with any extra cards in your hand like "Blaze Accelerator" that you got from Rocket.

Monsters: x20
2 Royal Firestorm Guards
1 Volcanic Hammerer
1 Volcanic Slicer
3 Solar Flare Dragon
3 UFO Turtle
2 Volcanic Doomfire
3 Volcanic Rocket
3 Volcanic Scattershot
2 Volcanic Shell

Taken out:
3 Volcanic Counter (Good card but you would want to avoid winning this way)
1 Volcanic Shell
1 Volcanic Hammerer
1 Volcanic Blaster
1 Volcanic Slicer

Note: This is the best I could come up with for thinning the monster list. Was focusing on usefulness and keeping cards that can fill up the graveyard fast like UFO Turtle.

Spells: x10
3 Blaze Accelerator
2 Messenger of Peace
1 Foolish Burial
1 Heavy Storm
1 Swords of Revealing Light
2 Tri-Blaze Accelerator

Taken out:
1 Foolish Burial (At the moment I don't see a good use for this card, other than for Scattershot, Counter, and the Royal Guard)

Traps: x10
2 Just Desserts (Try to get Ceasefire)
1 Volcanic Recharge (Use Pot of Avarice instead)
1 Gravity Bind (Get 3rd Messenger of Peace if you can)
1 Magic Cylinder or Waboku
1 Call of the Haunted
1 Solemn Judgment
1 Torrential Tribute
2 Dark Bribe

Taken out:
2 Solemn Judgment (It's limited now, you might want to use Dark Bribe)
3 Phoenix Wing Wind Blast (Decent card but the effect is not worth the cost. If you return a troublesome card, you'll just stalling for a turn)

Added in:
2 Dark Bribe (Solemn Judgment's replacement)

Hope this helps. Good luck at the tournament.