This article is the opposite of budget. We are talking about the infamous DOTX. The whole deck sits around $300 which is basically 10x my proposed budget.
My build for DOTX is built mainly to have an advantage in the mirror match. I'll start with the deck list and then go through my choices.
Starter: Lizard Soldier, Fargo
6x Crit
4x Gatling Claw Dragon
2x Seal Dragon, Artpique
4x Heal
Grade 3:
4x Dragonic Overlord, "The X"
3x Dragonic Overlord, The End
2x Dragonic Overlord (Breakride)
Grade 2:
3x Perdition Dragon Knight, Ilham
3x Berserk Dragon
3x Twilight Arrow Dragon
2x Perdition Dragon, Dragonic Neoflame
Grade 1:
4x Perdition Dragon, Rampart Dragon (PG)
4x Lava Flow Dragon
3x Eternal Bringer Griffin
2x Dragonic Gaias
Grade 4:
4x Divine Dragon Knight, Mahmud
4x Flame Emperor Dragon King, Root Flare
Alright First Lets talk about why I'm not running Calamity Tower, Burning Horn, Burnout, DOTG, and Red Pulse as the majority of DOTX builds if not all are built that way.
- I don't like Burning Horn
- I think that 12k attackers are good-to-okay. They shine the most in aggressive decks when you can call them as attackers when your opponent is at grade 1. In DOTX they basically exist to justify calamity tower wyvern which I think is kinda dumb.
- Red Pulse is terrible if you go second.
- If your opponent goes first then your pretty much always going to be hitting 1k less everytime you attack until you get rid of red pulse. Thats super easy 10k no-pass situations for your opponent and can let them really pull ahead. Not to mention that its effect can miss.
- Calamity Tower is good but it does not justify Red Pulse or Burning Horn
- Yes Calamity Tower lets you loop DOTX while getting a free card and in general gives a bit of advantage to Kagero which really needs it. But it doesn't justify 14k columns with your 9k grade 2s. (Your grade 3s are more useful for striding, re-legioning, and DOTX/DOTE effects. So you won't really want to call them to rear). Nor does omg omg turn two Red Pulse into Calamity Tower.
- DOTG is Good
- This doesn't make sense If DOTG is good then why am I not running it? First it forces you to run a good amount of Neo-flame which I think is underwhelming is most situations. So I don't want to be constrained to running 3-4. You'll notice that Neoflame is Still in the deck and I'll go over that later but its not at amounts which justify running DOTG.
- Dragonic Burnout
- Another thing that's missing is Dragonice Burnout. This is because He is very situational, you need an overlord in the drop zone and you need soul. This is great for putting Overlords back into the deck to re-legion more but I had it at 1 for a while and I never found it super useful and there was never a situation where I was dying to have it.
- 4x DOTX
- Duh
- 3x DOTE
- Some people like to run 4x DOTE but 3 is plenty as you can search him out with the legion skill and you generally don't want to ride him.
- 2x DO (Breakride)
- This is a hedge against being aggro'd down and serves as a replacement ride to DOTE which you can search out with Eternal Bringer Griffin.
- 3x Perdition Dragon Knight, Ilham
- Legion-Looping + a free-retire is a sure way to totally shut down a lot of decks. Especially if it goes unchecked.
- 2x Perdition Dragon, Dragonic Neoflame
- He is at 2 because he can help you wipe out columns with ease. If your opponent is going aggressive by making a column then you can punish them really hard with this forcing them to guard attacks or lose a column. In the more common case when your opponent calls 2 attackers to go aggressive neo-flame doesn't really help out too much.
- 3x Beserk Dragon
- CLASSIC. Berserk Dragon may seem totally outclassed in today's super efficient counterblast usage, but he is still a wonderful inclusion in the deck. The key thing to remember is that you don't have to use his ability. In fact most games you won't, but the situations where you get rushed (mentioned above) by 2 rear guard attackers you can retire 1 and attack the other which will force your opponents assault to slow down.
- 3x Twilight Arrow Dragon
- CB1 for retire 1 of anything. Could you ask for anything more? Yes it has to be boosted but you can always use draw triggers. This kinda takes the place of Burnout but is less restrictive. In my opinion atleast.
- 4x Perdition Dragon, Rampart Dragon (PG)
- A good old standard PG. This is the biggest hedge against the mirror since you can PG a rear-guard to prevent DOTX legion from restanding. This can prevent your opponent from either recovering or getting ahead of you. Yes you can also use triggers but why give up options if you have to.
- 4x Lava Flow Dragon
- STRIDE! Strides are really good. Especially Root Flare. Having access to them constantly and without having to drop your precious DOTEs or DOTXs can be really useful. Plus its a 7k to go with your grade 2s
- 3x Eternal Bringer Griffin
- This is the one of the reasons we run DO (breakride) and he serves as a psuedo Red Pulse allowing you to drop a DOTE to get the DO so you don't have to ride it. Doesn't get used that often but I've played about 20 tournament matches IRL with the deck now and I've only been forced to ride DOTE once which seems pretty good.
- 2x Dragonic Gaias
- What would DOTX be without Legion-Looping. Unlike Calamity Tower a single Gaias can let you Legion-Loop infinitely and get a crit every turn. This puts a lot of pressure on your opponent and almost guarantee's your win in the long run. (Forces them to guard at 4 damage)
- Lizard Soldier Fargo
- So instead of Red Pulse we use this guy because he is a 5k which lets you hit your opponent's easily. Also he allows you to apply extra pressure on any attack. And demolish your opponent's field if you breakride. He ends up being an even trade or forcing your opponent to guard when its bad for them to keep their field.
- Gatling Claw
- Many decks are reliant on their starter so having an easy way to snipe it is always good.
So this deck is built to beat the mirror match but how is that exactly? The over arching principle is that the DOTX mirror is a war of attrition so we have to take advantages where we can. If our deck starts off with more inherent advantage then we start off the war of attrition ahead rather than even. This means we are more comfortable the whole game.
- Take out losses from Red Pulse
- By running Fargo we almost guarantee that we will get a 1-for-1 with our starter where Red Pulse isn't guaranteed. Also if we go second we can still hit good numbers while if they go second its possible to take advantage of their low attacking power and get easy guards.
- Take out losses caused by Calamity Tower
- This is a little counter-intuitive. Calamity tower itself is a +1 in terms of card advantage. However if you have it behind anything other than Burning horn (Remember the thing about Grade 3s being kinda important) then you are getting effectively -1 EVERY TURN in comparison to what is a normal column. Thus if my opponent attacks me with a 14k column and I attack him with a 16k column I've already gone even with Calamity Tower and every turn after that in which the same scenario persists I pull ahead.
That's basically it for All my choices thanks for sticking with me through such a long read. I won't be giving out any tips on how to play this deck because if I let every one know how to play my version of the deck then they will know how to counter me. That or everyone will start playing my deck and then I'll have to figure out how to counter myself. :P
Keep and eye out for a video deck profile on my Team's YouTube "Vanguard Central" and let me know what you think of my deck!
As always thanks for reading,
~Bambi
P.S. I wrote this partially to give a peak into my deck building mindset and partially because I want to be able to claim ownership of this specific build in case it gets super popular somehow hahaha. (Just want credit where its due is all.)
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