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The Crimson King Structure Deck is built around the Resonator and Red Dragon Archfiend Archetype inYu-Gi-Oh!, a combination used by Jack Atlas in the Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds anime.
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The character and Archetype are both very popular, and the structure deck makes it easy to jump right into playing it. Although it is playable straight out of the box, often, Structure Decks work best by buying three copies of it to have playsets of the most important cards. This deck is built around Synchro summoning, getting a ton of Synchro monsters on the field, and ramping into even higher-level Synchro monsters with them.
Key Cards
Hot Red Dragon Archfiend Abyss
Hot Red Dragon Archfiend Abyssis one of the few negates available in the Crimson King Structure Deck. As a quick effect, you can negate any card’s effect. Notably, this included spell and trap cards, not just monster cards.
Offensively, Hot Red Dragon Archfiend Abyss is also recursion for your Tuner monsters. Since you are Synchro climbing frequently, being able to bring back Tuners easily is very important for the deck to go into its large Synchro monsters, especially since many require a Synchro monster to be used.
While youcan use Hot Red Dragon Archfiend Abyss as Synchro material, itis advised not toas it’s one of the best cards in the deck and better on the field. It should only be used as material as a last resort.
Resonator Call
Consistency is the most important thing in Yu-Gi-Oh! As such, searchers are among the best cards andResonator Callfalls right into that category. Its effect simply adds any Resonator monster, of which most of your Main Deck monsters are.
Notably, Resonator Call isnot once per turn. This means if you have multiple copies you can use them back to back and get all the Resonators you need to get your main plays going. The Crimson King deck can’t function without their Resonators, making the search vital to the strategy.
Soul Resonator
Soul Resonator is the best normal summon in the deck. The effect to special summon a monster from the deck is one of the best in the game, and Soul Resonator can do just that on its normal or special summon.
Soul Resonator brings out any level four or lower fiend monster, which allows you to easilySynchro summon any Synchro monsteryou want. As an added bonus, Soul Resonator comes with protection for your Synchro monsters as well.
Crimson Resonator
Crimson Resonator is a free special summonfor the deck. In Synchro-based strategies, this is especially good to verify you can Synchro summon your main monsters easily. So long as you control no other monsters, you can special summon it, something easy to do on your first turn. Often, it is going to be the first card you summon if you open it in your starting hand.
It is also a fantastic card for Synchro climbing. If you only control Crimson Resonator and a Dark Dragon Synchro Monster, you can special summon two Resonators straight from the deck. This allows you to easily go into your most powerful Synchro monsters.
Scar-Red Dragon Archfiend
Cards that let you stay even in card advantage of fantastic, andScar-Red Dragon Archfiendlets you do just that. When its sent to the graveyard from a monster zone, it replaces itself with a copy of Red Dragon Archfiend.
This special summon of Red Dragon Archfiend is treated as a Synchro summon, allowing you to still re-summon it from the graveyard since it is treated as a proper summon.
Scar-Red Dragon Archfiend is the best target toSynchro summon with for monsters that require a Synchro monster as material. As an added bonus for using it, you also get to destroy all your opponent’s Attack position monsters to make it easier to get in for lethal damage.
Red Dragon Archfiend
Red Dragon Archfiendis the namesake of the deck, with almost every card in it relating to it in one way or another. It’s a solid card on its own, capable of destroying all Defense position monsters. When mixed with cards that take care of Attack position monsters likeScar-Red Dragon Archfiend, it makes for an easy OTK (one-turn kill).
Summoning Red Dragon Archfiend is trivial in the deck with how much it can flood the field with tuners and non-Tuners. Although most of the Tuners are low-level and Red-Dragon Archfiend is a level eight, there’s enough in the deck to easily hit the level threshold for Red Dragon Archfiend.
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How To Play The Crimson King Structure Deck
Crimson King is a deckfocused on doing a ton of Synchro summoning. Many of the Tuners have useful effects, such asSynkron Resonatorwhich will add another Resonator from the graveyard back to the hand when it’s sent from the field to the graveyard (which is easy to do with Synchro summoning).
Your primary play starters areSoul Resonator,as it can get another level four or lower Fiend monster to start Synchro summoning with,Crimson Resonatorto get a free body on the field, orRed Resonatorto special summon from the hand on its normal summon.
The deck also has a lot of searchers as well.Crimson Gaiaadds any Red Dragon Archfiend or a card that mentions it to your hand from the graveyard or deck. It also combos withRed Dragon Archfiendas when it attacks all monstersare put into Defense position.
This leads to Red Dragon Archfiend destroying all your opponent’s Defense-position monsters (bar Link monsters) after the attack to act as a one-sided board wipe.
Resonator Callcan add any Resonator you need at any given time depending on the gamestate. Since these are the only Tuner monsters in the deck, you always need access to them. Some can special summon themselves when a Synchro monster or a monster of a specific level is on the field such asCreation Resonator, so it helps to get the Resonators you want late-game out of your deck and into your graveyard as quickly as possible.
The Synchro monster lineup has plenty of options. If you’re going first, the best one to make isHot Red Dragon Archfiend Abyssas it is the only one with a proper negate as a quick effect.
Another option isRed Supernova Dragon, which is an interruption that can banish itself when an effect activation happens to banish everything your opponent controls.While Red Supernova Dragon comes back during your next End Phase, your opponent’s cards remain banished (something few decks can recover from).
There are plenty of Synchro monsters that are great at closing out games too.Scar-Red Dragon Archfiendis great for clearing the battlefield of Attack position monsters when used as Synchro material for a Dark Dragon, something all the Synchro Monsters in the deck are.
Scarlight Red Dragon Archfienddestroys all effect monsters that were special summoned with Attack less than or equal to 3000.Hot Red Dragon Archfiend King Calamitylets you deal extra burn damage when it destroys a monster equal to the Attack stats of the monster that was destroyed.
The win condition of the deck isthe big Synchro monsters that can clear your opponent’s field to make it easy to OTK. Its biggest weakness is it is very prone to interruption such as effect negates and hand traps, as a well-timed one can completely shut down your turn.
Luckily, many of your effects activate from the hand, namely the Resonators that special summon themselves which are much harder, if not impossible to negate in some circumstances. Even if their on-field effect is negated, they are still Tuner monsters to make Synchro monsters with and keep the pummelling going.
