Super Athena: Part 2

Last time, I introduced you to Super Athena, an OTK deck based around athena and darklord superbia. I've been playing around with super athena and the deck has changed quite a bit. I've mainly been aiming to up the consistency and speed of the deck and feel I've more or less done it.
So without further ado, Super-Athena Mk II:

2 Archlord Kristya
3 Athena
3 Darklord Superbia
3 Darklord Asmodeus
3 Hecatrice
1 Honest
2 Herald of Orange Light
2 Fairy Archer
2 Gellenduo
1 Sangan
1 Morphing Jar

3 Valhalla
3 Trade-In
3 Upstart Goblin
1 Reborn
1 Dark Hole
1 Giant Trunade
3 Gold Sarc
1 Foolish Burial

1 Call of the Haunted

I've done away with aurora paragon... It was just too dead in hand. The deck relies alot on asmodeus so getting kristya to grave isn't a big issue.

Fairy Archer may seem like a strange choice, but it's actually been working really well in an alternative otk.
The otk requires: Athena and another fairy (except athena) on field, 2 athena, 1 fairy archer (unless on field fairy is archer) and 1 superbia in grave

1. Activate athena, tribute fairy, summon superbia (600 dmg)
2. Activate superbia, summon another copy of athena (600 dmg)
3. Activate new athena, tribute superbia, summon superbia again (1200 dmg)
4. Superbia effect, summon last athena (1200 dmg)
5. Activate final athena, trib and summon superbia (1800 dmg)
6. Superbia effect, summon fairy archer (1800 dmg)
7. Fairy Archer effect (1600 dmg)

600 + 600 + 1200 + 1200 + 1800 + 1800 + 1600 = 8800 dmg

and that's just burn damage, you still have 10700 points of attack power left. Getting all those targets in grave can be a bit of a chore and to set this up you'll spend between 1-4 turns doing it with asmodeus, foolish burial and trade-in.

I added call of the haunted as an alternative to setting up our win condition. Reborn and call of the haunted are my solution to getting around my previous problems with asmodeus. Just summon superbia and athena piggybacks off the superbia's effect. In the end you have an extra 3000 attack to play around with.

I've been toying around with the idea of adding 'D.D. Sprite' to add the possibility of extending the combo and adding synchro capabilities.

You can Special Summon this card from your hand by removing from play 1 face-up monster you control. If you do, return the removed from play monster to the field during the next Standby Phase.

To illustrate D.D. Sprite's uses, consider the above combo, with a D.D. Sprite in hand.

Steps 1-4: same as above (current field is 1 superbia, 2 spent athena's, 1 fresh athena; Your opponent has taken 3600 damage)
5. RFG 1 spent athena, special summon D.D. Sprite (1200 dmg)
6. Sync Sprite with other spent athena (if you summon avenging knight parshath, 600 dmg... probs not  though....)
7. Activate last athena, trib superbia, get superbia (600 dmg)
8. Superbia effect get synchro-material athena (600 dmg)
9. Activate new athena, trib superbia, get superbia (1200 dmg)
10. Superbia effect get kristya, archer or D.D. sprite (1200 dmg)

3600 + 1200 + 600 + 600 + 1200 + 1200 = 8400 (or 9000 if you summon parshath)
The field set-up is now 2 athena's, Superbia, a level 8 synchro and your last summon target with superbia.
With Kristya you can safely attack for game; archer can deal and extra 1200-1600 dmg; and D.D. Sprite allows you to make another level 8. This combo adds extra flexibility to the deck, and I invite anyone to give the combo a crack. Personally, I'm not a fan of extra frills.

Super-Athena: A look into the future

We finally got to see the last 6 Gold cards for gold series 4. Out of the 6, the one that struck me as the most understated was 'Darklord Zerato'. Darklord Zerato's appearance won't mean much to most players, but to me it suggests one thing: The Darklord's mainstream release. I'm thinking that the 3 prize cards will turn-up as commons in gold series 4 or they'll be included in the collector's tins in august-september time.

I started looking into the darklords and have been experimenting with the cards on duel net today. I was very impressed by 'Darklord Superbia'.

When this card is special summoned from the graveyard, you can special summon 1 Fairy-type monster from your Graveyard, except 'Darklord Superbia.'

Using this card means finding appropriate revival cards to utilise it's effect. I've seen builds that use dark creator. From the title of this article, you may have caught on that my build plays 'Athena.' The reason? Athena in combination with this card opens up a powerful OTK.

Super-Athena OTK

2 Archlord Kristya
3 Athena
3 Darklord Superbia
3 Darklord Asmodeus
3 Hecatrice
1 Honest
1 Marshmallon
2 Aurora Paragon
3 Armageddon Knight
1 Sangan
1 Skelengel
3 Herald of Orange Light

3 Valhalla, Hall of the Fallen
3 Trade-In
1 Monster Reborn
1 Dark Hole
1 Giant Trunade
2 Mystical Space Typhoon
1 Foolish Burial
3 Gold Sarcophagus

For me the build is very reminiscent of fish OTK. The big difference is the smaller focus on synchro summons.

The main OTK is:

1. Clear opposing front and back rows (using dark hole and giant trunade)
2. Activate Valhalla, Hall of the Fallen, Special summon Athena
3. Normal Summon any smaller fairy, opponent takes 600 damage
4. Tribute fairy, special summon superbia in grave (opponent takes 600 damage)
5. Activate superbia's effect, summon any fairy with more than 700 attack (inflict 600 more damage)
6. Attack for game (600 + 600 + 600 + 2600 + 2900 + 700 = 8000)

Ideally on superbia's effect, you want to summon archlord kristya (or mini kristya: aurora paragon) to stop your opponent from summoning gorz/tragodia/fader.

If you can't clear your opponents front row you can extend the above combo, with copies of Athena in grave. All you have to do is summon the extra athena with superbia's effect, and you can start the combo all over again, doing even more damage with accumulating Athena effects. Hopefully you'll be able to attack over any opposing monsters.

Because Superbia's optional trigger effect is a 'When [something happens]...' it can't miss the timing. So there's your obligatory technical Yu-Gi-Oh jargon.

This card cannot be Special Summoned from the Deck or Graveyard. Once per turn, you can send 1 Fairy-Type monster from your Deck to the Graveyard. When this card you control is destroyed and sent to the Graveyard, Special Summon 1 "Asmo Token" (Fairy-Type/DARK/Level 5/ATK 1800/DEF 1300) and 1 "Deus Token" (Fairy-Type/DARK/Level 3/ATK 1200/DEF 1200). An  "Asmo Token" cannot be destroyed by card effects. A  "Deus Token" cannot be destroyed by battle.


The main purpose of asmodeus is to quick dump combo pieces into the graveyard. He's also a 3000 attack wall, forcing your opponent to waste resources to try and get rid of it. Unfortunately, if you have to play dark hole to clear your opponents front-row, he actually slows down the OTK (you have to waste a normal summon tributing tokens to summon athena). I'm failing to find a way around this, so I will perhaps have to find a replacement for asmodeus altogether. To keep asmodeus in, I need an inexpensive way to get asmodeus off the field without destroying him (maybe birdman? needs testing...)



Other than this one flaw, I'm really looking forward to playing this deck. It's actually very consistent in assembling combo pieces in the graveyard.

Agent Angel: I like fairies

Today, I pre-ordered 3 copies of the new structure deck, 'Lost Sanctuary' (I got a pretty good deal too, it comes with a free A6 'monster' binder... hurrah for ebay!).

To those of you who have been living in a bunker, religiously playing yugioh to avoid the rapture, without contact with the outside world, 'Lost Sanctuary' is a new fairy theme deck that expands on the 'Agent' archtype introduced in 'Ancient Sanctuary' years ago. The OCG has had the deck for a while, the new cards introduced resulted in fairy decks being top tier in OCG territories.

In anticipation of the new fairies, I've recently been testing the deck on Duel Net. My honest opinion of the deck is that it's not quite as explosive as some of the other decks in the TCG tiers. It either loses cards very fast as you try to stop your opponent with herald of the orange light, or really REALLY works.

There are various builds of the deck, but the one I was testing was a build based around 'Agent of Creation - Venus' and 'Agent of Mystery - Earth'.

Agent of Mystery - Earth is one of the new fairies, and probably one of the most significant release. It's a level 2 tuner, that allows an agent player to add a different agent to hand. Combined with Venus' Shine Ball spamming abilities enables fairies players easy access to trishula, mist wurm and black rose.

Agent Angel

2     Archlord Kristya
3     Master Hyperion
3     Agent - Earth
3    Agent - Venus
1    Agent - Jupiter
3    Shine Ball
3    Herald of the Orange Light
1    Honest
1    Marshmallon

3    Cards from the Sky
1    Monster Reborn
1    Dark Hole
1    Giant Trunade
2    MST
2    Forbidden Lance
1    Mind Control
1    Book of Moon

1    Solemn Judgement
2    Solemn Warning
1    Seven Tools
1    Mirror Force
3    Dimensional Prison


The decks really easy to understand. The general idea is make pluses, win.

Jupiter is a searchable beatstick that can boost himself over a pesky opposing synchro monster. Jupiter also also some handy grave control to help bust out that kristya.

Hyperion is a new boss monster, that has been compared to DAD, with a once per turn clause.

This concludes the short preview of a deck we'll be seeing alot of in the near future. The deck also brings new variants of fairy decks thanks to 'cards from the sky'. I will be investigating these in future articles.