"He'll Always Be Doom Gaze To Me" - Three Color Monsters, A Primer

When Opus IV brought us Monsters...

... about all that happened at my local scene was a ton of decks that started to run The Emperor. Nobody thought Monsters were an overwhelming package by themselves, and the lack of utility provided by Mira and Relm seemed to seal that fate. Monsters was not a deck that could work, just yet.

We were wrong. As some astute players across the world saw before others, Monsters were scary. Opus V brought a few new pieces to a deck that you need to know about. It is a deck that is positioned so well in the current meta, that maybe the worst things you can say about the deck is that it is hard to play.

To be as competitive as possible right now, your deck has to do the following things:

• Beat janky decks
• Be understood by the pilot as well as possible
• Have answer for Monsters

I took what I consider to be the best Monsters deck to Toronto and made Day 2. Let me tell you how to play it, and how to beat it.

Three Color Monster decks look like a random pile of nothing, on the surface, but each card serves a very vital role. This is a control deck, through and through. 

Forwards

Relm (4-144H) will always draw you a card, and that is about the only thing to expect from her. If you play her early, you can sometimes sneak in a point of damage. Otherwise, she will play defense for you. Gau (4-123H) helps fill your board up with Monsters and can help recur some of your best ones. You likely never want to use his Rage ability. If you have multiple copies of Gau in hand, position yourself to cast both. You want that enter-the-field trigger. Terra (4-146L) joins the cast to function as a fourth copy of Valefor (1-062L). She is often responsible for several Valefor casts in a game, as you can recur her enter-the-field ability multiple times if you return her to hand with Valefor.

Monsters

Green Dragon (4-124C), Koboldroid Yin (4-057R), and Bangaa Thief (4-088C) are three-of cards that round out 2CP Monsters. These play nice with Gau, or provide Earth CP for one specific backup we will cover later. I chose two copies of Deathgaze (5-063H) and one copy of Malboro (4-142R) to get to 12 Monster cards, but these slots can vary. You want Monsters who become Forwards, and statistically, you will want 12 to be consistent.

Summons

A majority of these cards help slow the game down while you recruit your Monsters. Famfrit, the Darkening Cloud (3-123R) is almost always one-sided. Chaos, Walker of the Wheel (3-071H) has its oft-partnered backup in Yuna (1-176H) to be hyper efficient. Atomos (4-037C) may look odd, but it is a great EX Burst, and helps us with Earth CP. Two copies of Moogle (1-172C) help us find answers, and two copies of Alexander (4-052C) help us draw or answer a mirror-match.

Note that every Summon mentioned is packing an EX Burst, with the exception of Valefor. Sometimes, this deck will make you feel like a very lucky player.

Backups

Shantotto (1-107L) is a no-doubt game-changer for this list, and a mandatory three-of. Many of the aforementioned Earth cards are here just to enable her play, such as the one copy of Mustadio (1-118R). Nono (4-066R) is the easy-mode backup in this deck. Once you resolve him, your Monster activations are functionally free, as they will each activate a backup after attacking. Yuna is an additional EX Burst, and enables Chaos, Walker of the Wheel to be the best version of itself. Eiko helps us recur Valefor and often seal the win. Miounne (5-067R) is a card that allows us to resolve Shantotto twice, which makes it very hard for us to lose. One copy of Cosmos (1-183H) helps address our three-color concerns.

How to Win with Monsters

The main strategy of this deck is to build up Monsters, and survive long enough to send your Monsters
at your opponent after they have no Forwards to interact and respond with. If you want to play Monsters, prepare to take damage and be comfortable with it. You are going to average 4-5 points of damage per win. The abundance of EX Bursts help.

The first point of damage we hit on the opponent is often easy and effortless. Then, we just need any three Monsters. With Nono, if we resolve Shantotto in our first Main Phase and keep one backup open, we can enter combat, activate one Monster, and attack into our opponent’s empty board. Nono triggers, you activate Shantotto, and repeat for easy damage. From here, we need one Valefor to resolve in a future turn, and we win. An opponent likely will not have an option to recover fast enough after Shantotto to threaten a victory by the time you find the Valefor necessary to win. Truthfully, the order of operations is not important. We could play Valefor and deal damage to an opponent with Monsters, and then in a future turn, cast Shantotto and deal damage to an opponent with Monsters. A majority of the meta is not packing answers for Monster decks, so many of our interactions turn into one-sided board wipes.
However, that does not mean no answers exist.

How to Answer Monsters

Monsters require patience and timing to properly interact with the deck. You must wait for your opponent to activate their Monster, and that activation must resolve, before you can interact with it as a Forward. 

If you are playing Monsters, here are where your problems begin. If you are playing against Monsters, this is where your opportunity to interact begins. This is my list, in order of importance, but your mileage may vary:

Monster Removal

• Few players are running specific Monster removal, but some cards can interact with Monsters post-activation or have several modes and can be a huge benefit. Examples are Strago (4-130H), Alexander, Dragon (4-106C), Glasya Labolas (5-032H), Bismarck (5-133H), Hecatoncheir (4-093R), and Tellah (2-012R) or many other Fire cards who can just burn a Monster down

Summon Cancelling

• Edward (5-031H), Celes (4-038L), and Clione (4-125C) can prevent you from resolving Valefor when you need it most.

Hand Disruption

• Zidane (3-056H) and the majority of Ice cards can stop you from establishing the board state you need in the first place, and can also remove your access to Shantotto by eliminating the Earth cards you hold until it is time to cash her.

Backup Removal

• Nono is very important to the build, as well as Eiko, and generally getting to more than one or two backups is desired. Backup removal can really set you back.

Yourself

• This is a single-player deck that has specific lines of play. If you do not know them, or you just don’t find the cards when you need them, you’re relying on luck at that point.

This is just one version of Monsters. There are several other variants, of which I do not have experience personally, but are nonetheless viable.

I had a great weekend playing this deck, and I do not see it going away anytime soon. As well-positioned as it is, however, it is not unbeatable. Do not wait for your local metagame to catch up. This deck demands respect.