Rogue Deck Tutorial Part 1

Ladies and Gentlemen, you know me as the Cynical Duellist well its time to get cynical as I bring you a collection of rogue decks which not only are fun to play towards the end of this format, but also are rather competitive and entertaining.

But before we do anything we must first argue the idea of a rogue deck.

AS YOU KNOW in yugioh, there are 2 deck types in the top tier of play. META and ANTI-META

Now meta decks are defined by speed, they can special summon super fast and also gain huge advantage through card effects and the heavy use of the extra deck.

Some Prime examples would be, Dino Rabbit and Synchrocentric (AKA PLANT SYNCHRO)

Whereas anti-meta aims to restrict meta decks from gaining advantage using specific cards like - Thunder King Rai-oh and King Tiger wang-hu to turn play into a game of just normal summons and the occasional spell, you could argue - taking decks back to the vanilla age.

Now that that is established we can move onto the idea of a rogue deck - in yugioh as you know there are many decks out there, but only some are classed as "Tier 1" - these are decks which nearly every competetive player out there uses to try and gain victory. Like I mentioned before - Dino Rabbit and Plant synchro being the two most popular. SO! A rogue deck (by my definition) is a deck which can perfom like a meta deck with some anti meta elements, throwing you're opponent off guard making them un aware of what to expect and allowing an easier victory because your opponents struggle to counter it - as they themselves have built their sides and decks to counter the popular decks. THIS IS THE GREATEST ADVANTAGE ROGUE DECKS HAVE. Dragons can also fall into this catagory, as people dont have the balls to play them right now - but after their structure deck - LOOK OUT!

A perfect example would be Lars Junginger's deck from YCS Brighton titled (water synchro) - LIST BELOW

Lars Junginger (WATER Synchro, 4th Place)

Monsters: 24

3 Reborn Tengu

3 Swap Frog

3 Maxx "C"

2 Treeborn Frog

2 Caius the Shadow Monarch

2 Effect Veiler

1 Lonefire Blossom

1 Dandylion

1 Glow-Up Bulb

1 Spore

1 Junk Synchron

1 Genex Ally Birdman

1 Black Luster Soldier – Envoy of the Beginning

1 Gorz the Emissary of Darkness

1 Ronintoadin

Spells: 13

3 Mystical Space Typhoon

3 Enemy Controller

1 Dark Hole

1 Heavy Storm

1 Monster Reborn

1 Pot of Avarice

1 Book of Moon

1 One for One

1 Foolish Burial

Traps: 4

2 Solemn Warning

1 Compulsory Evacuation Device

1 Trap Dustshoot

Extra Deck: 15

2 Gachi Gachi Gantetsu

1 Leviair the Sea Dragon

1 Number 39: Utopia

1 Formula Synchron

1 Armory Arm

1 T.G. Hyper Librarian

1 Ally of Justice Catastor

1 Brionac, Dragon of the Ice Barrier

1 Gaia Knight, The Force of Earth

1 Black Rose Dragon

1 Ancient Fairy Dragon

1 Stardust Dragon

1 Scrap Dragon

1 Trishula, Dragon of the Ice Barrier

Side Deck: 15

2 Ally of Justice Quarantine

1 Spirit Reaper

2 Penguin Soldier

1 Snowman Eater

1 D.D. Crow

1 Gemini Imps

2 Bottomless Trap Hole

1 Compulsory Evacuation Device

1 Dimensional Prison

1 Smashing Ground

2 Dust Tornado

Now you might now be saying "merh merh merh plant synchro engine merh merh" Yes, but who at YCS Brighton expected a frog engine to be thrown in there? Clearly everyone who finished below him didn't, and look where it got him. 4th! Thats right 4th. A position I held a very long time ago myself.
The deck focusses on using caius to gain advantage through frog engine use, but also in the side deck he kept Penguin soldier (A very good card this format) to counter dino - rabbit = Yes dolkka can stop it, but its a nasty monster if you aren't prepared for it - again ROGUE DECK ADVANTAGE!

There are downsides to rogue decks and that is, after game one you must be prepared for your opponent to counter you because he knows how your deck works. (I will if people want start posting rogue deck guides to help people get out of wanting to just play meta decks right now to own on DN) which I can briefly cover - Your side deck should be cards you wanted to main but cant fit at most - keep counters to below 5 or 6 as your deck itself is counter to most meta decks, whilst being meta itself - complex I know but once you get the hang of it, it works.

Okay so now moving on - Building a rogue deck.

To build a rogue deck you must first observe the current meta and see what (or try to) understand how the meta works and the decks in it. From here you can have an idea of your rogue deck. Like Lars - who used a small monarch engine to control whilst still using plants to get the meta engine flowing within to create a consistent deck.

The deck we're going to build will be FORTUNE LADIES - an old and forgotten deck, but very comptetive when build correctly. ALWAYS REMEMBER - Speed and Control when building.

So right now cards like TOUR GUIDE and TENGU and RABBIT dominate the meta - but they all have a similar weakness - they all need to be on the field to activate. So when building the deck certain cards are needed. for example for control we will be using the field spell (Yes thats right)



This card helps slow down meta decks and anti meta but still benefits your own. May be for one turn but its enough to gain advantage especially in this deck.

So from here we need to see what monsters work well in this deck. Well for one,


works perfectly with the card. So Clealry we need a fortune lady engine. this gives us speed and advantage and with what else we're using in the deck. This is possible. A fortune Lady engine is THUS

3 Fortune lady Light < special summon
3 fortune lady dark < special summon
2 fortune lady water < Card draw
1 fortune lady fire < Control from her is amazing - free destruction > Played right she is a plus 1

So we have an engine that takes advantage of an opponents annoyance, but we havn't won yet. We still need control, draw and a win condition.

Now for control its clear we need a lot of setting up, so stall will be needed. One important thing to remember in a rogue deck is that you wont always be having a fast paced win, you have to set up for it. One deck that is perfect at this is PIPER CHAOS, personally one of my favourite decks but also a clever one. As the whole Piper engine revolves around setting up.

Not only this but Fortune Lady Light is a level 1, so this engine works perfectly with the deck.

3 Mystic Piper < Draw
3 Battle fader < stall and saves you from OTK's
1 Effect Veiler < Control + tuner
1 Glow up bulb < Synchro

So right now in the deck we have 9 cards based on control and 5 for drawing and 6 for special summoning. Its looking good.

Now for the win condition. In this deck we have have 2 as most of the monsters are light and dark Black Luster Soldier - Envoy of the Beginning can be integrated and other common chaos cards like Chaos Sorcerer.
Not only this but another way is another forgotten card usually associated with "Future Visions"



But you can also in this deck have a few more options to abuse this and LIGHT and also allow for easier synchro summoning

GENEX ALLY BIRDMAN can lift these back to the hand for further use then synchro for a synchro of you're choosing. Say you lift light and summon water with her effect then summon birdman. You can then synchro for a level 7 monster like


A rarely used synchro monster that has the ROGUE FACTOR!!! AS you're opponent will not expect it.

With this done we have room for 2 "tech cards" these can be in this deck either "DOOM CALIBUR KNIGHT" "THunder king Rai-oh" or "Maxx C" depending on what you prefer you decide, I personally used Thunder king for this deck. as the search isn't so high.

Now that we have our monster line up the deck is starting to come together.

IN part 2 I shall take you through spells and traps. Then in part 3 Extra deck and The finally side. Moving onto your first game and climbing up the ranks on duelling network with you're rogue deck.

I'll see you next time.