Danger!

JamSpil
Jun 8, 2019
2 min read

Updated: Jun 25, 2019

Danger! started out strong in Cybernetic Horizon with cards like Danger! Nessie! and Danger!? Jackalope? Soul Fusion also brought a second wave of support just in time for Niagara.

Playing style

The Deck aims to amass card advantage from the effects of the "Danger!" monsters, that force the opponent to discard a card from the "Danger!" player's hand, whose effect follows the pattern bellow:

You can reveal this card in your hand; your opponent randomly chooses 1 card from your entire hand, then you discard the chosen card. Then, if the discarded card was not [its own name], Special Summon 1 [its own name] from your hand, and if you do, draw 1 card. If this card is discarded: You can [...]. You can only use this effect of [its own name] once per turn.

The strategy consists in the "Danger!" monsters revealing themselves in their owner's hand to activate their effects, then "hiding" in the hand again, making the opponent randomly discard a card from their opponent's hand. If they fail to "catch" the "Danger!" monster, the monster is Summoned and a card is drawn. If they do "catch" the "Danger!" monster, it triggers its discard effect, which varies from Special Summoning a "Danger!" monster from the Deck to destroying card on the field. As such, the competitive potential of the Deck lies in the fact that activating a "Danger!" monster's effect will only rarely be a disadvantage to their user. Summoning several "Danger!" monsters in a turn isn't difficult and they can quickly perform an OTK, especially when combined with other archetypes, such as "Dark World" and "Fabled", whose effects activate when they are discarded.

Competitively, the "Danger!" theme has so far seen two branches of use. One use has been the combination of "Tsuchinoko?", "Jackalope?", "Nessie!" and sometimes "Mothman!" into a Rank 3/Link engine in Decks that use Graveyard/discard effects often. These "Danger!" monsters are chosen for their Summon effects, searching and consistency. This has proven so splashable that most meta decks have at least experimented with the engine, with themes as varied as "Orcust", "SPYRAL", "Gouki", "Burning Abyss" and, most notably, "Thunder Dragon"s playing it.

The other use of the "Danger!" theme has been the abuse of the non-once per turn draw effect provided by each "Danger!" on a successful reveal, by playing as many "Danger!" monsters as possible and repeatedly using this effect to thin the Deck. The "Danger!" monsters also Special Summoning themselves to be used as material for Link Summons makes it even stronger. This has made multiple FTK engines considerably more viable, and may have been a deciding factor (among many) in the eventual banning of "Firewall Dragon".