Local Preparations: Agent of Negation, Rai-Oh

As agent decks slowly begin their walk into the sunset, I stand a stubborn believer in their potential. Since this blog was first posted, I have continued to support Agents, partially due to how easy it was to build an agent deck as a returning player.

I had mentioned last week that one of the main reasons I consider Agents such a strong deck is due to the fact that there are several different viable builds with unique strategies, many of them without a Tour Guide from the Underworld. I've decided to test out one of these decks at my local tournament this weekend.

The most common agent deck without tour guide is the T.G. build, using T.G. Striker and T.G. Warwolf to thin your deck down as well as provide quick special summons to move into your synchros and XYZs with ease. This is a very popular and successful build, but it is very vulnerable to Thunder King Rai-Oh, which has risen in popularity since it's re-release as a common in the new legendary collection. As a result, I decided to forgo the usual T.G. Agent build, and create a much more control-oriented deck.

Monsters 26
3 Mystical Shine Ball
2 Archlord Kristya
1 Black Luster Soldier - Envoy of the Beginning
2 Herald of Orange Light
1 Honest
1 Junk Synchron
3 Master Hyperion
1 Sangan
3 The Agent of Creation - Venus
3 The Agent of Mystery - Earth
3 Thunder King Rai-Oh
2 Tragoedia

Spells 8
1 Dark Hole
1 Heavy Storm
1 Monster Reborn
2 Mystical Space Typhoon
3 Pot of Duality

Traps 6
2 Call of the Haunted
1 Solemn Judgment
2 Solemn Warning
1 Trap Dustshoot

Extra 15
1 Ally of Justice Catastor
1 Ancient Fairy Dragon
1 Ancient Sacred Wyvern
1 Armory Arm
1 Black Rose Dragon
1 Brionac, Dragon of the Ice Barrier
1 Gaia Knight, Force of Earth
1 Magical Android
1 Mist Wurm
1 Red Dragon Archfiend
1 Scrap Archfiend
1 Stardust Dragon
2 Gachi Gachi Gantetsu
1 Number 17: Leviathan Dragon

The core of the deck is essentially the same. I opted for Junk Synchron over Genex Ally Birdman simply due to being easier to use and less combo-y. If I draw him (and I've already used Venus which is very common) I can simply pull out a level five synchro, and if any other monster is in play, a seven eight or nine is not out of the realm of possibility. The keys to the deck, however, are Herald of Orange Light, Thunder King Rai-Oh, and Archlord Kristya. They're all very easy to use and when timed correctly can devastate my opponent. I like to think of Rai-Oh as a mini Kristya, as he allows my own specials to go through, but I can choose whenever I want to pop him to eliminate my opponents biggest threats.

Call of the Haunted is sort of a card I had to think a lot about for this deck. In the end I decided it was more important to run this card to reuse Rai-oh and revive tuners than it was to run a Gorz, and it made the cut. I ran Call in one of my earlier versions of my agent deck and found it incredibly useful to be able to pull back Hyperion or revive an Honest and pop him back to my hand, or revive Earth to tune.

The only major flaw I see in this deck is the fact that I can not special summon as quickly as before without my T.G. Strikers-- but the control offered by my traps and monsters should help slow the pace of the game down in my favor.

I hope you all enjoyed today's post, to anyone who is going to your own events from YCS Kansas to a small local best of luck to you. As always, I appreciate any feedback left in the comments below, and feel free to post your own decks if you're looking for any critiques or feedback.