User blog:Kuroxander/Guide on How to make a Drop Zone centric Dragon Knight viable in the current game

 (Before I get started, I know Dragon Knight isn’t meta or really relevant right now, but I really like the deck and I tested the deck out against decks that are strong currently like Thunder Empire and Chaos and the deck was able to win enough times or at the very least able to stand against them well enough. The reason I'm doing this blog post to to be able to share with you all the joy of playing the deck and potentially gives the attribute more fans.)

Introduction
 Dragon Knight is an attribute exclusive to Dragon World that has been introduced since the early beginning of the game with BT01: Burning Valor, which was January 31 2014, about 3 and a half year ago. It has then been continually receiving support and the attribute currently is able to be built and played in a myriad of ways but the attribute hasn’t been really meta or competitive enough compared to the other attributes in Dragon World like Armordragon, Sun Dragon and the quite recent Thunder Empire in which the latter is undeniably strong in the current meta. But with the release of Crossing Generation in June 16 2017, Dragon Knight finally received support that make the attribute be able to go head to head with other decks in the format. Although it is not really overpowered or meta, the attribute is fun enough to play and at least give you a decent chance to win provided you know what you are doing with the deck.

 In this blog post, I will be doing a simple guide and sample deck list for Drop Zone centric Dragon Knight which is my favorite variant of the attribute and is also one of the strongest variant you can build with Dragon Knight currently. I don’t really have much experience in rest centric Dragon Knight so I won’t be covering them much here. The first deck I ever build is Drop zone centric Dragon Knight which was around the time BT05: Break to the Future was released and I really like the play style of the deck and right now I’m ecstatic to be able to play the deck again in the current game without it being overly power creep by other decks.

 (Disclaimer: All of it are just my opinion from play testing done and my personal bias towards certain play style so there may be some points which are disagreeable with you or I may have overlooked something or even misinterpret what the cards do or made a mistake, if so I would like to know your opinion in the comments on others ways that the deck can be run or what mistakes I made in this blog post so that it can be corrected and improved. Also the deck list provided should be treated as sample of a competitive enough deck list and were created based on play testing done and my personal preferences so feel free to add or remove and change it around to suit your play style. It can also be used just to analyze on what the attribute can do and what cards you can expect a typical Drop zone centric Dragon Knight deck to run. Also, I tend to get off topic really fast, which might annoy some of you, if so just ignored anything that is written in parentheses that might not interest you.)

 With the introduction and disclaimer out of the way, let’s get to work. Drop zone Dragon Knight, obviously, is a deck focused on having different named Dragon Knights in drop in order to achieve the requirements to use powerful ability that the deck has to offer. The deck also has plenty of cards that let you draw and gain gauge really fast while also have plenty of filter cards so you can have a consistent ways of gaining resources and getting your desired cards consistently with the deck. The deck is mostly run as an open center deck but some variant can run closed centric as well though I do not really like that kind of style since I like to be able to use items that the attribute offers. Since the deck focus on having different name Dragon Knights cards in the drop zone as well as having other Dragon Knight cards on the field, it is recommended to run mostly monsters, which is obvious, as well as items, spell and impacts that has Dragon Knight as an attribute in order to consistently have as many different named Dragon Knight in the drop zone. But cards like Fire Dragon Shield are still ran although the card does not have Dragon Knight as an attribute. This is mostly because the attribute lack defensive spell and having defense spell is crucial in Buddyfight and the card also helps you mill so you can have more Dragon Knights in your Drop Zone, so run 4 copies of it, it is the preferred Dragon Shield for the deck. After explaining on generally how the deck works, I think I can start elaborating with more details, starting of with the items

 (From this point onwards I will be shortening Dragon Knights to DK because typing Dragon Knights about a hundreds time would be too tiring, sorry for the lack of effort.)

Items
 There is currently only 3 items in the game (actually 4, but I personally think that Jackknife "Gold Ritter" does not really count as one as it does not support the attribute at all) that has Dragon Knight as an attribute which are Dragon Lance, Stronghorn, Dragon Life Spear, Royal Lance and Convertible Dragon Lance, Gearzlance. There’s another item that can be seen as supports for Dragon Knights which is Cavalry Dragon, Hyperion but that card does not have DK as an attribute so it does not count in the drop zone as a DK. The 7k atk and 2 crit is quite decent but the effect of gaining a gauge is quite underwhelming currently in the game because DK has plenty of ways to gain gauge without needing for the item to destroy monsters or deals damage to the opponent.

 The first item that can be run in DK is Dragon Lance, Stronghorn which cost 1 gauge and 1 life and has 4k atk along with 2 crit and penetrate. It gains 3k atk while you have another DK on field but it can’t attack the left or right. This item is a decent wall breaker and is able to destroy an Arthora without boosted def from Crystal Spikes. The downside of not being able to attack the left of right can lose you the game, case in point being against Chaos, imagine a scenario where you want to link attack over 9k def Chaos Adil Diabolos that is on the left or right but lack the attack power to do so because of the restriction of the item causes you to be unable to target Adil for an attack and ends up causing you the game because that card can’t be removed from field except by being destroyed by an attack which admittedly this deck struggles sometimes because most of the monsters has low atk power. But that was only one prominent example of the using this item that I had. Still, this item is a good enough wallbreaker but the restriction hinders its power by a lot. So I wouldn’t recommend running this card as the main item instead of the next one.

 Dragon Life Spear, Royal Lance cost a gauge to equip, has 5k attack and only 1 crit. It has two good abilities that triggers when it attacks while you have achieved the required number of DK with different name in drop. While you have 3 or more, you remove 1 gauge from the opponent which is really good because gauge removal is quite a rare ability and while only a few cards has it, it really hinders the opponent especially if they playing a deck that struggles with gauge gain or have cards that requires high amount of gauge. If there are 5 or more, the item also gains an additional 2 crits which is simple but put pressure to the opponents. As you can see this is a good item with the only downside of needing drop zone setup in order to access its full ability but it is quite easily achieved in the deck and the ability is useful enough to warrant running 4 copies of this card.

 Convertible Dragon Lance, Gearzlance supports Resting oriented DK so I won’t cover it here but that item is great in the resting variant of DK that sadly got a bit nerfed due to the errata for The Skies in your Hand, Force Return and Gambit.

Size 0
 This segment would be really short because there is just no Dragon Knight size 0 that is worth running in the deck. The Dragon Knight size 0’s are just 2 crit vanilla except for Dragon Knight of Mind's Eye, Galileo that can boost your monster or item attack by 3k by resting it which is admitted quite good in Rest oriented DK because you can use it to boost your Gearzland, trigger its effect to get Double attack and make it a decent wallbreaker and use a spell like Dragonic Maneuver to return him to hand to use his effect again. But for open center DK there is no DK size 0 that can return to hand after attack to achieve quad formation and although DK has quite a few good size 3’s there is no good size 0’s to support them so running a more size 3 focused Drop Zone Dragon Knight deck is not quite possible at the moment because of the lack of good size 0’s. DK could fare a lot better with a boomerang clone DK or a size 0 that helps you mill cards. More size 1 or 2 that can reduce its size other than Dragon Knight, Faust is also a welcomed size 3 support for DK.

 But I digress, if you want to run size 0 in DK, run Tiny Flame Dragon, Linear. It has 2 crit without any call cost whatsoever and a boomerang dragon like effect but since it isn’t a DK, it’s not mandatory to run it but if you want to, run 1 to 2 copies of it would suffice.

Size 1
 Now we can move along to what I consider the main Yusaku playmaker of the deck, the size 1’s DK. The size 1’s in DK are imo really good and functions as the main resource gainer for the deck so let’s start with my favorite DK and the one of the buddy of choice for the deck, Dragon Knight, Tomoe. She has 5k attack, 1 crit and 2k def while costing a gauge to call. She can only be called once per turn and when she enters the field while you have a DK in your drop, you can draw a card. It’s a simple ability that let’s you plus with the only downside of having only a crit which is quite reasonable although she has a reasonably high attack for a size 1 DK which can be boost to 7k while you have a specific size 2 on field. The only major downside of this card is by having copies of hers in your hand can sometime be dead since you can only call her once per turn so the other copies is stuck in your hand until the next turn. This rarely happens but it can be a hindrance if it does since it limits your plays. This result in some people prefers running the next card over her.



 Dragon Knight Great Emperor, Maximilian is a retrained of Dragon Knight, Maximilian which was a good resource gain card in the early days of DK because he lets you have a free additional charge and draw that is not limited to once per turn. DK Emperor, Maximillian Pegasus on the other hand lets you have even more insane resource gain. He is free to call and has 2k atk, 3k def along with a crit. His ability is a named once per turn called Guardian of Art that lets you discard a card from your hand and draw 2 cards if he enters the field while you have 2 other DK on your field which includes your items and set spells. His ability is insane as drawing two by discarding a useless card in your hand is a huge advantage while also able to fill up your drop zone by one DK if you chose to discard one. He can be considered a really good buddy for the deck as he has an effect that make you want to run him at 4 copies and is also free to call. This card can also be called more than once per turn, so unlike Tomoe, having multiple of this card in your hand does not make them dead in that turn as you call still call them but usually you still don’t want to because you still can only use his ability once per turn and while on field he is a vanilla with weak stats. But the one advantage Tomoe has over him is her higher attack stat that is useful sometimes for monster clearing and wall breaking. There’s also the advantage that her ability does not need you to discard a card from hand to draw, needing only a gauge for her call cost so it's easier. So if you ends up in a situation late game where you don’t have cards left to discard or you’re in a situation where all the cards in your hand are good and you don’t want discard any, Tomoe would be a better choice. Still I prefer to run both of them together to get the maximum amount of card advantages in a turn while also filling up your drop zone with DK.



<p class="MsoNormal"> The next size 1 was a card that I thought was unnecessary when she was revealed but is actually good once I started playing her. Dragon Knight, Lenus has 4k power, 1k def along with a single crit. While you have another DK on field, she gains move which is essential in item centric build. She also gain you a gauge each time she moves Imo, she is the best size 1 move to run in DK as she gives you a free advantages while protecting your life and in DK, having more gauges is quite good since some of your higher size monster and impact can cost you quite a lot of gauge. One thing to note is that you can gain a least a total of 2 gauges worth from this card by calling her to the center during your turn, during your attack phase move her to the left or right to gain a gauge then move her back to the center during your opponent’s attack phase to gain a another gauge.

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<p class="MsoNormal"> Another noteworthy mover that DK has access to is Dragon Knight, Martell. It cost a gauge and a DK from the drop as soul and has 2k atk, 2 crit and 1k def along with Soulguard and Move. Nothing much to say about it, it’s just a simple mover with soul but I prefer running Lenus since she’s free to call and gives you free gauge and have a higher power but if you prefer a mover with higher crit and stays on the field longer than Martel is a better choice.

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<p class="MsoNormal"> Moving on we have Dragon Knight, Carrasco and his evolved form Dragon Knight of Mirror, Carrasco. The first Carrasco has 4k attack, 1 crit and 3k def while the latter has 5k attack and 1k def instead. They both has an ability to mill cards and gain advantages when attack which is great for filling up the drop zones with DK’s and gaining free advantages is always welcomed. The previous one lets you mill one and gain a gauge while the newer one lets you mill 2 and gain a gauge and life if you milled a monster. Both cards have advantages over each other with the original Carrasco guarantees a gauge from his ability while the upgraded one mill one more card and gives you both a gauge and a life if you milled monster. I personally prefer the evolved Carrasco a bit more because for me I mainly would use Carrasco for the mill effect rather than the free gauge. Therefore for me, Mirror Dragon Knight, Carrasco’s ability to mill 2 cards is better and while DK has lot of ways to gain gauges consitently, they lack ways to gain life so having a chance to gain life with Mirror Dragon Knight, Carrasco makes him a bit more worth it to run.

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<p class="MsoNormal"> The last size 1 that is worth running in Drop zone DK is the loyal steed of the most well known DK in Buddyfight, Cavalry Dragon, Rocinante. It has 2k atk, 2k def and 1 crit. Although it doesn’t have DK in its name, it still counts as a different named DK in drop for your cards ability because it has DK as an attribute. Its ability is a counter act of paying a gauge and putting himself from your hand or field into a soul of a DK monster on your field. While in the soul of a DK monster, Rocinante gives it soulguard and 1 additional crit. Just the fact that this card gives your monster protection at counter speed is good enough to run him and since it’s a counter you can use Rocinante on the field to attack then put it into the soul of another monster to buff it up by 1 crit and gives it a soul and soulguard. Another noteworthy thing to mention about Rocinante is that since your better size 2’s, which I will discuss in detail in the next segment, requires you to put a DK into their soul as part of their call cost, you can call Rocinante beforehand to enter the soul of the size 2 to fulfill part of their call cost while at the same time buffing their crit. I really like this card because it gives both protection and helps improves DK’s damage output. As an example, the 1 crit can boost Vlad Dracula to let him deal a total of 8 damages in a turn if your attack isn’t nullified or even higher if you can put more copies of Rocinante into Vlad’s soul.

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<p class="MsoNormal"> I think that’s it for size 1’s DK that I recommend to run in the deck. As you can see the size 1’s primarily functions as a resource gainer and miller but seems lack the ability to interfere with the opponent or helps you win the duel. That’s where the size 2’s role is as a main damage dealer and can be considered the main way for you to deals damage and wins.

Size 2
<p class="MsoNormal">  For size 2’s, the first card I want to discuss is what I consider the staple 4 of’s in the deck which is Dragon Knight, Gilnter. He has 3k atk and def and a 2 crit which is the same stats as size 1’s like Systemic Dagger Dragon. Its stat is lackluster but since you won’t be calling this card to the field at almost any circumstances, it does not matter that much. What makes this card really good in DK in general especially Drop Zone oriented DK is his named once per turn ability to pay 1 gauge and discard himself, which help fill the drop zone with another DK, to look at the top 3 cards of your deck and gives you an option to add up to one DK among them to your hand, call up to one DK among them and sent the rest to the drop. His effect enables you to potentially add 1 DK and/or call one DK to your field which saves up cards in your hand and may be able to let you call a Tomoe or Maximillian to draw even more card from his effect. There’s also an option of not adding or calling any DK and just to put them into your drop zone to fill your grave with DK but most of the time you still want to add or call DK you excavated with his effect. The only downside of this effect is that it’s kind of luck based so you may end up getting no DK from the effect which kind of suck at times but the potential plus that this card offers is just too good to pass up. Since it is recommended to run as many DK cards as possible in this variant of the deck, most of the time you can guarantee at least a call or have a DK added to your hand so running this at 4 is recommended.

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<p class="MsoNormal">   Another good size 2 to run in the deck is the evolved version of Dragon Knight, Bertrand who changed strategy from both mixing drop zone and resting oriented to only drop zone oriented which is Dragon Knight Directive, Bertrand which has 4k atk and def along with 2 crit. He cost a gauge and for a DK on your field to enter his soul in order to be called. A thing to note that since his call cost only specify a DK and not a DK monsters, you can use your set spells like Transportation Air Lane and DK items for his call cost. Bertland has Soulguard and Move which is good since a mover with soulguard is needed in item centric deck to protect your exposed center. What really makes him worth running is his ability to buff the atk and def of all DK cards on your field by 2k if you have 4 or more different DK in your drop zone. Using his ability, he becomes a Thunder Knight, Halberd with soul as he is buffed to a 6k wall which is decent for a mover. He also buffs your items too so your Stronghorn becomes a 9k wall breaker that can deal with Arthora boosted by shoes and Royal Lance becomes 7k which can deal with the average wall. The best size 1 to pair with is either Tomoe or Carrasco because they will be buffed to 7k atk which can be used to clear monsters on your opponent’s field. Carrasco also has the benefits to mill cards to help Bertland achieved the requirement for his ability faster.

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Moving on we have probably my favorite size 2 in DK which is the retrained version of Dragon Knight, Vlad Dracula which is Count Kazikili Bey, Undying Dragon Knight Duke, Vlad Dracula. Vlad has 5k atk and def along with 2 crit. He requires 2 gauges to call and like Bertland requires a DK on your field to enter his soul as part of his call cost. As mentioned before with Bertland, you can use set spells and items too. Vlad has soulguard which is required for size 2 nowadays to avoid counter destruction on attack and helps him stay on the field longer. The part that makes him shine and imo makes him the best size 2 in Drop Zone DK is his ability to gain penetrate if you have 2 or more different named DK in drop, double attack if you have 4 or more different named DK in drop and burn the opponent for 1 damage each time he attacks if you have 6 or more different named DK in drop. A 2 crit Double attacker with Soulguard and Penetrate is already good enough but having an on attack burn is just the icing on the cake. The on attack burn makes damage reducing spells unable to stop the 2 attack damage from Vlad as when Vlad attack, Vlad’s auto ability to deal 1 damage triggers first before the opponent has a chance to activate their counter spells which makes spells like Black Dragon Shield to only be able to reduce the one effect damage. If Vlad has all his ability active, he can deals a total of 6 damage alone in 4 separate packages and while having Rocinante in soul, this is further boosted to 8 points of damage. I consider Vlad to be the ace for Drop Zone DK and most of the time would like to call him in order to win the game as he is one of the few DK in the deck that can push for a lot of damage and can be considered a win condition for the deck. The most devastating weakness that this card has is, aside of vulnerability to counter rest cards that is becoming more used and relevant these days, his low 5k attack. Having only 5k power for a size 2 penetrater and Double attacker is a glaring weakness that makes this card unable to get through walls to deal damage and this makes decks like Arthora to be able to wall out DK completely. This weakness can still be solved by running the deck with Vlad as the buddy and running Ultimate Buddy! to boost his atk by 5k and gives him an additional soul which turns him into a 10k atk Double attacker with Penetrate which can be devastating for the opponent. But this still has the consequences of drawing Ultimate Buddy!, without having Vlad on field which make Ultimate Buddy dead in your hand and because it does not have DK as an attribute, it may end up slowing your deck up. The best size 1 to pair with him on field is Lenus as she can provide defense if you failed to win with Vlad the previous turn.

<p class="MsoNormal"> Moving on we have Dragon Knight, Bokuden which has 5k power and def along with 2 crit. It’s a old card from the BT05 Break to the Future and since at that time drop zone centric DK weren’t as well supported as it is now, this card was kind of overlooked. It has an effect of on enter look at you gauge and give you the ability to send as many DK as you want from your gauge to drop, then put as many card from your top deck to gauge. This card primary functions as sort of a drop zone accel for the deck and since having more DK in the drop zone as quickly as possible will make your powerful cards to gain their ability faster, this card really helps, especially in the early game if you want to push for damage. An example would be calling this card to your center turn one to deal the opponent 2 damage, protect your center and potentially set up up to 3 DK’s in your drop zone for your next turn. Another example on how this card can be useful would be the chance to get out Vlad during your second turn with all of his ability active by after calling equipping a DK item, have Transportation Air Lane set and use it’s effect, then call Bokuden to potential fill your drop zone with 3 DK from your gauge, then call size 1 like Maximillian or Tomoe or Carrasco to fill your drop zone even further and call Vlad by using Bokuden as part of his call cost. You would more than likely have enough DK in drop to fulfill Vlad’s requirements. You can also use Gilnter’s ability after calling Bokuden to fill your drop zone with more DK and potentially get more cards that can be used to push your damage output further. Although admittedly, this method isn’t guaranteed to work but you will have quite a number of DK cards in your grave to fulfill the requirements just in your second turn for Vlad’s ability. With Bokuden’s effect to fill your drop zone with DK and by having Royal Lance equipped along with having a Vlad on field with a size 1, you can push for an upward of 10 damage in just your second turn without wasting much resources and if your opponent doesn’t draw into a shield or other defense spell, you more than likely will win in your first turn. (But still other decks can otk easier and more consistently.) Even so, this card isn’t consistently good enough to warrant running since you requires quite a lot of specific cards in your hand to make this card worth using and after the first 2 to 3 turns, this card ability isn’t that useful since the maximum amount of DK we want in the drop is at most 6 cards (or 7 if you run Dragon Knight Prince, Edward the Black ) so unless DK receive a support in the future that require 8 to 10 or more DK in drop to activate a devastating ability, this kind of drop accel card for DK isn’t quite useful yet. But if you run a Drop zone centric DK focused on Alps Dragon Knight Lord, Geronimo, I recommend running copies of this card to buff up Geronimo faster to an insane stat.

<p class="MsoNormal"> I feel like I wasted more time than necessary to talk about a card that I don’t find that useful. The next card that I like to elaborate upon would be Dragon Knight, Billy the Kid. Billy has 5k atk and def along with 2 crit. He cost a gauge to call and when he enters the field you can mill the top two cards of your deck, if both of them are monsters, Billy gains 2000 atk until end of the turn. He can also gain Double attack when he attacks if you have 3 or more different monsters in your drop zone. This card is obviously meant to synergize more with Dragon Zwei than DK but it still a decently good card for the deck as he is still a one gauge double attacker with a mill effect when enters which can help you mill more DK in drop and potential gives you a 7k wall breaker for a turn. Vlad is obviously a much better damage dealer than this card but this card has what Vlad lacks which is a lower gauge cost and requires no need of other cards to be on field to call, potential 7k power for a turn and a mill effect which make this card able to sometime provide more to the deck than Vlad. I personally still run max copies of Vlad over Billy but I can see the appeal of running a few copies of him in the deck to deal with situations that Vlad couldn’t.

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<p class="MsoNormal"> The last card in this segment is Dragon Knight, Faust which has 5k attack, 2 crit and 2k def. He cost a gauge to call has an ability to reduce its size by 2 if you have a size 3 monster on field as well as an ability to protect your size 3 from destruction by sacrificing this card. This card is obviously good in a more size 3 centric Drop Zone centered DK and running 4 copies is a must if so. But as I previously mentioned, DK don’t have good size 0’s or other size reducing cards to warrant running that kind of deck. But you can still run a few copies of size 3’s in drop zone oriented DK as your boss monster for dealing with situations where your size 2’s can’t.

Size 3
<p class="MsoNormal"> For size 3 DK, imo there are 3 cards that benefit from the drop zone the most and are the best size 3’s DK has access to. The first Size 3 would be the evolved version of Dragon Knight, Geronimo from BT01 which is Alps Dragon Knight Lord, Geronimo which has 2k atk and def along with 2 crit. Yeah, I know these stat are really pitiful for a size 3 but his ability kind of makes up for it. He cost 3 gauges to call and need one or more DK cards to enter his soul. He has move, double attack and Soulguard and gains 1k atk and def for each different named DK in your drop. So, if you have many DK’s setup in your drop by using card’s abilities like Bokuden, Gilnter and Maximillian, which you can then put to soul as part of Geronimo’s call cost, you can potentially see a wall than can achieved more than 10k def and also has 10 atk to beat over other walls. Having move is good so you can still atk with your item. Double attack is imo a must for size 3’s in general so having it make this card solid enough to function as an attacker for 2 crit that can be boosted to 3 with Rocinante or even more if your have more copies of it in the soul. The soulguard and the option to put as many DK cards which includes items and set spells from your field into this card soul is also really good because once this card achieved a high enough def, the opponent would need to resort to monster destruction effect to get rid of him so the 2 to 3 souls gained from his call cost will keep him on the field longer. Ideally, you wouldn’t want to call him in the early game as the number of DK cards in your drop zone is low, so I recommend calling this card only when the number of DK cards in your drop with different name is at least 6 so that this card can have 8k def but I prefer only calling this card when I have 8 or more so that this card can have a 10k def. Why having 10k matters? Well, from some play testing done, 10k def is enough to wall out a crystal spike boosted Arthora, a Arc Sword boosted Batzz and a Chaos Adil Diabolos, forcing them to link attack to get over you but with if you 3 cards in your soul, it’s hard for them to remove this card from the field without some monster destruction eff. Even so, they still have lots of ways to get over Geronimo easily. As an example, the original Batzz gain 3k if your opponent 4 life or less and gains triple attack and can easily get over Geronimo with or without the boost from Arc Sword. Thunder Empire also has an option of equipping Dragroyale which give Batzz 6k attack which he can then easily get over Geronimo unless you have 12 DK with different name in your grave which is kind of hard to achieve since decks like Thunder Empire can easily have Batzz gain a lot of attack without setup and can be achieved early to mid game while having 12 different DK in drop is only achievable in the late game unless you are really lucky. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not bashing Geronimo, imo Geronimo is a really good wall and and even better wall breaker because not a lot of DK you run here has high atk or def stat while this card does so it can be used to handle matchups that your lower sizes monster can’t but in the current meta with overwhelming Thunder Empire players, it’s hard to defend against them with this card alone but against Chaos and Arthora, you can still find some success using this card to wall them out and beat the crap out of some of their high def monsters.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:-36.0pt">             Moving on, we have the upgrade form of Dragon Knight, Tutankhamun from BT, who took some makeover lessons from Marik Ishtar and Priest Seto, Golden Dragon Knight Lord, Tutankhamun which is my favorite size 3 in DK. He cost 2 gauges to call and has 6k power, 2 crit along with 7k def (the 7k def make him dodge the range for pillar of fire but seeing most dungeon world player will prefer running the new counter spell over PoF, him having 7k def don’t really give him many benefits). His first ability is the ability to let you destroy a monster on the opponent’s field by discarding a DK from your hand and isn’t restricted to once per turn. It’s a one for one and is really good to get rid of soul wall with high def that this card can’t get over with his puny 6k attack for a size 3 while at the same this fill ups your drop zone with DK to setup for your other cards and his second ability. You also don’t need to worry about not having enough cards in your hand since with DK you can plus a lot and can a decently size hand so no worry about not having enough “ammo” for his ability. He also has Double attack and when he attacks he lets you draw a card when you have 5 or more different DK in drop which if he attacks twice he lets you draw 2 which replenish the cards in your hand that was used up in his first ability. This card is really, really good and well designed as a boss monster for DK, not only does it have a drop zone filling ability and monster destruction abilities that your other cards lack, he also has an effect to replenish the cost used by his ability which is really amazing. The only downside that this card has is his lack of move, meaning if you an item already equipped, you either won’t be able to attack with your item or you can’t protect your center from your opponent’s attack which make Tutankhamun 7k def a bit pointless since with the lack of soulguard, the opponent can easily deal with it with some simple monster destruction ability or just ignored this card completely and to rush and deal damage to you directly. I feel like if this card has counter on his first ablity and maybe reduce some of its def in favor of move, it would be a much better boss monster for DK and would be able to let DK stand in par with other decks that are more relevant. But it’s still a good card and running 2 to 3 copies of it is enough as you don’t want to draw it early game and you can kind of call it out directly with Heavenz Sunshine if your opponent have a size 3 on field.

<p class="MsoNormal"> Last but not least we have Dragon Knight Prince, Edward the Black. He has 8k atk, 2 crit and 7k def, a stat line that is expected for a size 3. He cost 2 gauge to call and needing a DK to be put into your gauge so he net gauge cost is 1 which is really cheap for a size 3 with his stat line that also have Double attack. He also gains a crit if you have and 3 or more different DK in your drop and penetrate if you have 7 or more different DK in your drop. He’s a really cheap and decent size 3 with 8k atk, penetrate and Double attack with 3 crit but lack soulguards so any form of monster removal can remove him from field easily unless you have Rocinante or Faust. Imo, this card is comparable to Vlad as Vlad kind of function the same as him. With Vlad, you have soulguard which gives him the benefit of lasting longer on the field, gains penetrate faster than Edward and when he attacks he can burn for 1 which most of the time is better than an additional crit imo. On the other hand, Edward has the advantage of having a higher atk and def stat which can get over things than Vlad can’t, have double attack without any restriction, cheaper than Vlad and his damage output reaches 6 faster than Vlad since Edward only need 3 DK in drop compared to Vlad’s requirement of 6. But I still think that it is more worth it not to run Edward since Vlad is a size 2 so it can be paired with your size 1’s for higher damage output and can do Edward’s job just as well as him as long as you don’t face against high def wall. So until we have more decent size 0’s or higher size monster that can reduce it’s size, Vlad is a better option to run than Edward most of the time. One thing I forgot to mention is that with Vlad has another advantage that since he is a size 2, we can run movers alongside him like Lenus so you can still attack with your item while protecting your center.

Impact
<p class="MsoNormal">  For Impact, Dragon Knights has access to 4 impacts with DK as an attribute in which one of them is an impact monster. The first impact for DK is Dragon Cavalry Arts, Ultimate Smash which at the time of its release, a pretty good impact. It cost 4 gauges to cast and require you to have no monster in your center while also having 2 Dragon Knight and a Weapon on field which means it counts your set spells as DK on field as well which make it not that hard to achieve its condition. When the impact is cast, it destroys all monsters and items on op’s field and deal 3 damage to op which although it is quite old, this card is kind of decent enough since it does not require your opponent to be at a specific life and it deals damage while getting rid of both monsters and items which is good. Even so, this card is outclassed by the next card that was released in Crossing Generation with its cheaper cast cost and easier to achieve condition.

<p class="MsoNormal"> is an impact that cost 3 gauges that can be cast without any requirements needed. It allows you to target cards on your on opponent’s field up to the number of different named DK’s in your drop and destroy them and burn your opponent for each card destroyed which is basically DK’s version of HD impact. This impact not only get rid of any monsters, items or set spells on your opponent’s field, you also burn them for each and since you can easily get 3 different DK or more in your first few turns, you can immediately cast it during your final phase and remove their field presence and reduce their life point. When compared to Calvary smash, both card serves the purpose of removing your opponent resources and burn the opponent and since this card cost less gauge and can destroy set spells which are more commonly seen these days with decks like Oni Assassin and Black Dragon while only have the requirement of needing some different named DK in grave, this card is easier to cast and can destroy more card along with dealing more damage to the opponent.

<p class="MsoNormal"> The next impact would be one of my favorite cards from BT05 which is Dragon Cavalry Arts, The Glorious Legacy. It was one of the few non-damaging impacts in the game at the time of its release and was considered a really good impact as it lets draw 3 cards while only paying 2 gauges. But it comes with a cast condition of requiring you to have 5 or more DK in drop without having them to be differently named to cast it which is not that hard for the current version of DK to achieve. So running this card at 2 or 3 is fine if you want but imo this card is kind of unsuitable in the current meta as unless you drawn into a shield, counter destruction spells or another impact, cards drawn in the final phase can’t help you much until your next turn and with the current format of fast paced damage deck, you more than likely won’t survived until your next turn. So imo, I rather draw into cards during my main phase with cards like Tomoe and Richard but still running this card for additional drop zone setup and more draw power is still good regardless.

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<p class="MsoNormal"> The last card in the impact section is the only impact monster that DK has gotten which is Edward the Black, "Battle of Gargantua". He cost 4 gauges and requires a DK to be put into your gauge so he kind of cost a total of 3 gauges. His cast cost lets you fill up your drop with DK which is useful early to mid game and can also helps fulfills the requirement for his ability. He is a size 3 with 9k attack, 3 crit and 7k def which is decent for a size 3 that lack Double attack. He has an on enter ability of destroying all monster on op’s field and lets you draw 2 cards if you have 5 or more different DK in your drop. His ability is kind of a combination of Calvary Smash and Glorious Legacy in which he destroy all monsters, deals 3 damage if his attack goes through and draw you some cards. Imo, this card is decent but lack an appealing factor that make it more worth to run than the other impact other than the fact that it is an impact monster. Calvary Smash and Spirit Aura destroy more cards and deals more damage while costing about the same as this card and Glorious Legacy let’s you draw more card in comparison while costing less gauge and like with that card I’m not a fan of drawing during the final phase as I’m not guaranteed to draw cards like impacts or shield and counter destruction spells that would be useful during the final phase or your opponent’s turn. I think that this card would be a lot better and more worth running if it can also destroy items alongside monsters.

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<p class="MsoNormal"> Other options for impacts that can be run are Gargantua Punisher!! and Thunder Lance X Tempest Buster! both which are really powerful and game ending impacts that DK has access to as merit of being in the world that has support every main set. Both impact cost quite a lot of gauge but the gauge cost is easily achievable in DK and the additional requirement of needing to attack 3 or more times this turn for X Tempest Buster is also not that hard for DK since you want to run and open center field with a size 2 and 1 or a size 3 with Double attack. These cards has the downside of not being a DK card so having them in you hand early game or in the drop would not benefits you and may sometimes limit your plays in the early games.

Spell
<p class="MsoNormal"> For spells, Dragon world has access to some of the best spells in the game in which lets DK to be able to use some of it to boost their deck even further. But let’s start with some DK spells first which would be Transportation Air Lane which imo, the best DK spells that the attribute has to offer. It’s a set spell which means you can use it to pay for the call cost of your size 2’s and 3’s and has the ability of while you control another DK, you can put a card from your hand to gauge and draw a card once per turn. It’s a free charge and draw, which is simple but really amazing as you can keep building up resources each turn. It’s a pity that you can only have 1 copy of it face up on the field, otherwise this card would be really broken. A thing to note is that since it isn’t a named once per turn you can use this ability again in a turn if you set another Air Lance which is possible by after using the first air lane’s ability, use it to pay the call cost of cards like Vlad or Bertland, then set the second Air Lane so you can more advantage in that turn.

<p class="MsoNormal"> Another set spell that DK has access to is Vanguard Retreat. It allows you to pay 1 gauge to return a DK monster on your field to your hand during your opponent’s turn. Its ability is great to return your Tomoe or Maximillian to hand to reuse them next turn or bounce your DK monster to dodge on destruction ability like penetrate or Spectral Strike. Like Air Lance, you can only have one on the field but you easily discard the additional copies or use them for paying call costs.

<p class="MsoNormal"> The next DK spell is Dragonic Maneuver which is a counter spell that can return a DK from your field to hand. This card is admittedly more useful in resting oriented DK but it’s still quite useful in this variant of DK to achieve the same benefit as Front Row Retreat but better since this card can be used during either turn and can also bounce back your item or set spell to prevent them from being destroyed.

<p class="MsoNormal"> Another good but situational DK spell would be Slash Strike, Dragoslasher which requires a DK in the drop to be cast. It allows your weapon to gains 5000 power boost and give it the ability to remove soul from an opponent’s monster until the end of the turn which is really good playing against Star Dragon World and Ancient World. It’s also useful to counter decks like Deep or Black Knight which would see some resurgence in Evolution and Mutation. So this card is great as a sideboard card against those decks.

<p class="MsoNormal"> The last DK spell is Knight Assault which is a DK spell that grants a DK monster or item on your field the ability of not having their attack nullified if they are attacking alone until end of the turn. It’s kind of a cheesy card that lets you bypass shield for a turn. To get the most benefit out of this card, it should be used on size 2’s or size 3’s that has double attack so you can have 2 attacks that can’t be nullified, therefore the best monster to use alongside this card is Vlad since he has double attack with penetrate along with soulguard to prevent monster removal and the ability to burn for 1 when he attacks which prevents damage reducing spell to reduce the damage from Vlad’s two 2 critical attacks since the spell will only reduce the burn damage from his ability. Unless your opponent has a high def monster in the center, a counter rest card, cards like Mach Braver or critical reducing cards, your opponent is guaranteed to take 4 damage (or more if you have copies of Rocinante in soul) with the assumption that they have 2 damage reducing spells in hand.

<p class="MsoNormal"> That would be all for spells with DK attribute. As you can see, DK lacks protection spells or good monster removal spells which means in order to have these essential components in the deck, it is recommended to run Dragon Shields and non- DK counter destruction spells that Dragon world has access to in order for the deck to be able to defend against the opponent’s onslaught. The best shield to run in DK is undeniably Fire Dragon Shield because like I mentioned early on in this blog post, it helps you mill DK cards and since it’s a damage reducing spell, it also helps against monster whose attacks can be nullified and impacts that deals damage that can be reduced. The next best Shield imo would be Green Dragon Shield since it both nullifies an attack and grants you free life which is kind of needed in DK since the deck lacks life recovery cards. Life gain is important especially in the current state of the game since deck that can deal a whole of damage in a turn is becoming more common so Green Dragon Shield helps with it. Blue Dragon Shield is also an option but since the deck has can gain gauge easily, it is not that needed but if you run a more gauge consuming build, running Blue Dragon Shield instead of Green is a valid option.

<p class="MsoNormal"> For monster removal, Dragon Spell, Hiding Bomber and Double Loss is imo the best monster removal spell with counter speed that Dragon World has access to currently. Hiding Bomber can only be cast during the opponent’s turn and cost a gauge to destroy or return a monster with 5000 or less def to hand which is good for dealing against Thunder Empire because Batzz and Black Dragon because most of their monster has an effect when destroyed so having an option to return them to hand instead is really good. Double loss is only able to be cast when your monster is destroyed. It allows you to pay 1 gauge to remove a soul from a monster on the field and destroy it which is good against Star Dragon World, Ancient World, Deep and Black Knight. I prefer running both copies at 2 and sideboard the other 2 copies of each in order to switch them in depending on the matchup. But only running 1 of them is also a viable option if you test the deck out beforehand and find out which deck you struggled the most then put in the appropriate counter spell in order to deal with rhem better.

<p class="MsoNormal"> Dragon world also has plethora of other good spells such as Heavenz Sunshine, Dragobond and Batzz X Link. Heavenz Sunshine is stupid good as it gives you the ability to pay 1 life to destroy a monster on the opponent’s field and the ability to call out a DK from your deck equal to the size of the destroyed monster which is good to get out monster that you want by destroying the monster on the opponent’s field with the same size. I recommend running this card at 4 although it’s not a DK since it’s both a searcher and a monster remover. Dragobond is good for monster protection which this attribute kind of lack and also provide you life gain which like I previously mentioned with Green Dragon Shield is quite needed for the deck. Batzz X Link is a really amazing card as it lets you add one of your top 3 cards into your hand while also gives you 2 gauges and a life with the condition of needing to attack 3 or more times in a turn which like I previously mentioned with X Tempest Buster, is something that the deck want to achieve each turn. That’s all for non DK spells that are really good for the deck but since there are many Dragon World spells, they will be some that synergize with the deck or help accomplishing what the deck lack, so if there are cards like that make sure to let me know in the comments so that I will be able to add them it.

Sample Deck List
<p class="MsoNormal"> (Notes: This is just a sample decklist created from my experience playtesting the deck so it’s by no means the perfect deck just a simple enough deck that let you get a grasp on how the deck can function and feel free to add or remove cards from it to suit your liking.)

Size 3
2xGolden Dragon Knight Lord, Tutankhamun

Size 2
4xDragon Knight, Gilnter

3xUndying Dragon Knight Duke, Vlad Dracula

2xDragon Knight Directive, Bertrand

Size 1
4xDragon Knight, Tomoe ( Preferred Buddy)

4xDragon Knight Great Emperor, Maximilian (Optional Choice for Buddy)

3xDragon Knight, Lenus

2xCavalry Dragon, Rocinante

Items
3xDragon Lance, Stronghorn

4xDragon Life Spear, Royal Lance

Spells
4xTransportation Air Lane

4xFire Dragon Shield

4xGreen Dragon Shield

2xDragon Spell, Hiding Bomber

2xDouble Loss

4xHeavenz Sunshine

Impact
<p class="MsoNormal"> 2xDragon Cavalry Arts, Spirit Aura!

<p class="MsoNormal"> Total: 53 cards in deck but since you mill and draw a lot having a higher deck count does not affect your consistency that much but feel free to change the cards arounf till it become 50 to maximise the consistency.

Closing Thoughts
<p class="MsoNormal"> The support it has right now is good enough for the monster side of the attribute since Crossing Generation released some really good monsters for the deck but I think in order for Dragon Knights to be good, a boomerang dragon like size 0 or better size 0's, a better item and better spells that has DK attribute is needed. That’s all for this blog post. I originally planned to release one for Guardians but seeing that we most likely will be receiving new support for it in the form of card that are both guardians and executioners like Tanuki, I think that waiting for them to be release before doing one would be better. I would most likely release one for Guardians next since I think the new support will most likely to be released in X BT03 but if not then I would be doing a guide/deck list for Sword of the King Heroes or update the old blogposts with recent cards. Thank you all for reading through this blog post and hope you all have a nice day.