Rerouting Deck Fix: Fire Fist Toolbox
12/21/2017 11:00:00 AM
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Despite a plethora of Xyz and Synchro Monsters and a strong base of
recursion, destruction, and revival effects, the most notable Fire Fist
deck in the history of the theme was “+1 Fire Fists.”
That deck was arguably the most boring strategy in the history of existence
because it did roughly one thing and one thing only: accrue hand and field
economy with simple effect activations and whittle down opponents card by
card. It was less entertaining and more straightforward than H.A.T. –
Hands, Artifacts, and Traptrix – and that's really setting the bar
impossibly low. But this week's contributor from France writes…
If there is indeed a deck that has been at the top and has then
completely disappeared from tournaments today, it's Fire Fists. The
deck has many advantages, a great flexibility in monsters, and yet
we see it nowhere. We have all the tools off the Forbidden and
Limited list!
Brotherhood of the Fire Fist - Rooster is clearly the all-star; it
allows you to fetch any monster from the deck. The direct access to
this card passes through Brotherhood of the Fire Fist - Horse
Prince. Of course, you can see that's the real reason I added Red
Resonator and Resonator Call. A Level 2 plus a Level 4 and blam -
you have your Synchro!
Thanks,
-Simon H. ~ Montazeau, France
Kudos to Simon for putting together a string of Fire Fist cards that do
something besides Summon Brotherhood of the Fire Fist - Bear and activate
Fire Formation - Tenki.
I appreciate that. Here's his build.
Virtually any time you add a spicy element to an established deck,
especially an older fan-favorite that's gone out of style, I'm going to
like what you're doing.
There are limitations to that I'm sure, but if a new add opens up a new
pathway for powerful plays, I'm game. I love to see innovation.
Because “Fire Punch” Was Trademarked Already
There was another Fire Fist deck that briefly had some time in the sun, but
the monsters in the 3-Axis Fire Fist deck still didn't span the full
breadth of Fire Fists.
I'm not saying you need to play every Fire Fist monster in every iteration
of the theme, but there are some cool interactions when you start combining
themes. Also, I know that 4-Axis Fire Fist was technically a thing, but it
was hugely overshadowed by 3-Axis Hybrids and “+1 Fire Fist,” so I largely
discredit it as a best-of-the-best deck rather than a standalone strategy.
There was hype for that deck at some point, sure, but there was
significantly more noise than actual results.
Brotherhood of the Fire Fist – Caribou's one of the biggest cards I want to
explore with this Rerouting. While it has two effects, the first effect is
too slow to be reliable. In a pinch, it'd be useful to summon a monster,
but I want to use its second effect. After all, Fire Formation - Tenki is
the lifeblood of your deck, and using Caribou to Synchro Summon a Fire Fist
monster – specifically Brotherhood of the Fire Fist - Horse Prince – will
feed into more Fire Fist monsters and in turn more Fire Formation spells,
and so on and so on.
And I'm in full agreement with Simon – the easiest way to do that is with
Red Resonator. You've got Fire Formation - Tenki and Onslaught of the Fire
Kings to fetch Brotherhood of the Fire Fist - Caribou, and Resonator Call
for Red Resonator, so keeping the deck as close to 40 cards as possible
means you'll have a good chance of getting to Horse Prince. Again,
Brotherhood of the Fire Fist - Horse Prince isn't necessarily your main
play, but it's a good means to an end. It's a beefy monster, but the “style
of play” if you will is more focused on generating cards.
Which means that Brotherhood of the Fire Fist - Rooster is the other segue
to keep the ball rolling. Fire Fists dominate by generating more and more
economy in the form of Fire Fist and Fire Formation cards, so keeping that
stream steady is definitely one of the best ways to keep your strategy
running smoothly. The “+1 Fire Fists” deck used Cardcar D and Pot of
Duality to see Fire Formation - Tenki more, 3-Axis Fire Fists played
Brotherhood of the Fire Fist - Leopard, and this iteration runs Caribou
alongside the previously used Horse Prince to accomplish the same goal.
But instead of just using Brotherhood of the Fire Fist - Rooster as your
default off Horse Prince, adding in other cards diversifies what the deck
can do. Adding in Lonefire Blossom, albeit only one, lets you dip into your
Extra Deck in a different way. Obviously, not every deck should just try to
mash monsters together until you have infinite copies of Firewall Dragon on
the field, but a Lonefire Blossom that turns into a Dandylion means you
have extra fuel for Link Summons.
Between Fire Formation - Tensu, Onslaught of the Fire Kings, Soul Charge,
and my addition of Synkron Resonator, you'll have plenty of ways to get a
third monster to Link Summon into Decode Talker, which in turn gives you
two Fluff Tokens. Again, that's just another option beyond the standard
Brotherhood of the Fire Fist - Rooster.
Consolidation Is King
Additionally, Simon opted to cover as much ground as possible with his
strategy. Don't get me wrong - I'm doing the same thing by pulling key
points from several iterations of Fire Fists, but I think there's a limit
to how far we can reasonably take that. Some of the spells - like a single
Twin Twisters and single Forbidden Chalice – don't really mesh with the
rest of the deck. Since you're hoping for your combos early on and you need
to see them consistently, you'd like your backup cards to be equally
consistent. More on those changes later.
Adding a Synkron Resonator in place of a third Red Resonator makes sense;
you have three Resonator Calls, and you don't need a surplus of monsters in
your hand. I appreciate Brotherhood of the Fire Fist - Dragon because it
can make Brotherhood of the Fire Fist - Cardinal when Coach Soldier
Wolfbark can't, but two copies is superfluous. I don't think Brotherhood of
the Fire Fist - Boar merits a spot here, and Speedroid Menko doesn't seem
to fit the deck at all, even though I'm partial to it.
Thanks to Link Monsters there are really a lot of new ways to play Fire
Fists that were previously impossible. Brotherhood of the Fire Fist - Raven
and Brotherhood of the Fire Fist - Buffalo suddenly become useful, albeit
in niche roles. When
this ugly thing
hits the shores in the booster set Extreme Force, you'll have
another way to trigger effects like Brotherhood of the Fire Fist - Raven.
But for now, I'm scaling the deck and resisting the urge to include every
crazy idea under the sun. One card I'd like to highlight is Brotherhood of
the Fire Fist - Cardinal. Because it takes two “Fire Fist” monsters, it's
obviously harder to summon than something like Brotherhood of the Fire Fist
- Tiger King, but Cardinal's effect is well worth the effort on two levels.
Bouncing your opponent's cards is obviously good, but recycling your Fire
Formation - Tenki and Fire Fist monsters is pivotal.
I remember back in Round 5 of this
regional
that my victory largely stemmed from my opponent running out of cards. I
think he resolved all three copies of Tenki and used all his Brotherhood of
the Fire Fist - Leopards to search all three copies of Tensu, so I won by
virtue of my opponent just not having anything useful left.
| Brotherhood of the Fire Fist - Tiger King (UTR)
|
$8.09
|
$3.78
|
$2.50
|
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Set
|
Cosmo Blazer
|
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Number
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CBLZ-EN048
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Level
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4
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Type
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Xyz/Effect Monster
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Monster
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Beast-Warrior
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Attribute
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FIRE
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A / D
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2200 / 1800
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Rarity
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Ultimate Rare
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Card Text
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2 Level 4 Beast-Warrior-Type monsters
When this card is Xyz Summoned: You can Set 1 "Fire Formation" Spell/Trap Card directly from your Deck. Once per turn: You can detach 1 Xyz Material from this card; negate the effects of all face-up Effect Monster currently on the field, except Beast-Warrior-Type, until the end of your opponent's turn.
When this card is sent from the field to the Graveyard: You can send 3 face-up "Fire Formation" Spell/Trap Cards you control to the Graveyard; Special Summon 2 Level 4 or lower Beast-Warrior-Type monsters with the same ATK from your Deck, in face-up Defense Position.
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Here are the changes - I kept a lot of the rogue cards in, though the
addition of Call Of The Haunted looks out of place. When you can leverage
Coach Soldier Wolfbark's effect on top of your other plays by reviving it
with Call Of The Haunted, the game could quickly spin out of control for
your opponent.
-1 Brotherhood of the Fire Fist - Dragon
-1 Brotherhood of the Fire Fist - Boar
-2 Speedroid Menko
-1 Coach Soldier Wolfbark
-1 Red Resonator
-1 Onslaught of the Fire Kings
-1 Forbidden Chalice
-1 Twin Twisters
-1 Storming Mirror Force
-1 Fire Formation - Tensen
-1 Traptrix Trap Hole Nightmare
-1 Trap Hole of Spikes
-1 Trishula, Dragon of the Ice Barrier
-1 Crimson Blader
-1 Traptrix Rafflesia
-1 Brotherhood of the Fire Fist - Lion Emperor
+1 Brotherhood of the Fire Fist - Spirit
+1 Synkron Resonator
+1 Lonefire Blossom
+1 Dandylion
+1 Upstart Goblin
+1 Fire Formation - Gyokkou
+2 Solemn Strike
+1 Fire Formation - Tenken
+1 Compulsory Evacuation Device
+2 Call Of The Haunted
+1 Brotherhood of the Fire Fist - Tiger King
+1 Number 41: Bagooska the Terribly Tired Tapir
+1 Firewall Dragon
+1 Akashic Magician
Some cards don't really make sense in this strategy. Trishula, Dragon of
the Ice Barrier is extremely hard to field, and if you opt to play
Brotherhood of the Fire Fist - Boar, you might as well try and find a way
to squeeze in Ignister Prominence, the Blasting Dracoslayer. Here's the
final composition we arrived at after the changes.
The more I toyed around with this thing, the more weird ideas I had… some
of them being the addition of Raven and Buffalo like I mentioned before.
But there's no good reason to stuff the deck beyond its 40 card minimum.
Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should, though you're
free to go as crazy as you want. This is Yu-Gi-Oh after all; who knows.
Just remember, beat your opponents before they beat you!
-Loukas Peterson
Loukas Peterson lives in Nashville, Tennessee where it's warmer than
warm, whatever that means. When he's not submitting ideas for Fabled
support and a Fabled Link monster, you can find making “attempts” at
“art” and playing his ukulele terribly, or on Wednesday nights, hanging
out with the local raccoons. Hailed as the only person capable of
cooking Minute Rice in 57 seconds, Loukas is always looking at
expanding his apartment to house every dog in the world.
Do you love winning with unconventional strategies? Do you love
creating mash-ups? Does your deck need an injection of crazy? Send the
following to
rerouting.tcgplayer@gmail.com
to have your deck featured in the “Re-Routing” deck fix column!
-Your Main and Extra Deck list. (No Side Deck needed, but please send a
written deck list, not a screencap; screencapped deck lists will be
filed and then burned in the furnace accordingly… and your deck should
be TCG legal).
-Your name and city.
-Remember, please use full card names! Abbrevs and mis-sipllngs make
Loukas' life sad. Try your darndest to get the TCG name on there.
-A paragraph or two describing your deck: what it does, why you're
playing it, and its strengths and weaknesses. “Winning” is not a
strategy per se, and neither is “beating your opponents before they
beat you.”
-Your favorite card from the build and why – make me fall in love with
the deck! The cooler your strategy the more I'll want to fix it, and if
you throw in funny jokes, that'll surely get my attention too; be
warned, unfunny jokes will push your deck to the back of the stack.
Don't be afraid to get creative! New stuff takes priority, because I'm
not bored of it yet! –LJP
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