Pure K9

I wanted to experiment with Pure K9, and there are a few reasons for this. Vanquish Soul may increase the ceiling of the deck, and does give you more in-engine ways to play Turn 0, but it's also complicated. You got to add, return, and even not play the cards in your hand to get the most out of the Vanquish Soul cards, and there's a lot of little ways that's rewarding, but sometimes you want a scalpel, and sometimes you want a hammer. I just found I was enjoying playing with the K9 half of the deck more than the Vanquish Soul half, and while having only 6 cards you typically want to play presented an interesting deckbuilding challenge, I wanted to see what a purer version of K9 might look like. I really wanted an excuse to play 3 K9 Case and 3 Chaotic Elements, so here it is.

Somewhere midway through testing various level 5 extenders, I encountered Kozmoll Dark Lady. Exactly Jokull can summon her from your hand, giving you even more insulation against various monster effects. The deck already beats Nibiru by summoning Ripper on 3,4, or 5 summons, but with one of these it beats Nibiru + Veiler, and often beats Droll as well. It's slighly bricky, especially when you see multiples, and you will lose some games to bricking out on them. However, the only other bricks in your deck are the maindeck Purulia, and honestly Overlay Booster and Ready Fusion are just not quality extenders in the modern game. Somewhere through that process of testing Dark Lady, I came to a few conclusions. The first was that Tribute Summoning Dark Lady was not just reasonable, but actively good. The second was that I needed more starters. I tried to test with 1 Dark Lady and the Seventh Tachyon Package. This package was sweet in the deck, by holding back on it for the right moment you could search any of your Dark/Earth monsters. Ultimately I cut all of my bad extenders and ran 3 Dark Lady again. You really want to naturally see the Lady in a lot of situations, so even though it's occasionally a brick, it's not really a searchable card with engine (3 Seventh Tachyon are not really "engine" in a sense", not if you search Dark Lady) it really is a card where if you're running it you should probably run 3.

The deck basically puts up boards of Rank 5 XYZ monsters, notably Ripper, Vallon, plus K9 - EX Forced Liberation to rank-up into Werewolf after you burn your negate. Some boards also put up Constellar Pleiades, sometimes as early as turn 0. It also ranks rank 5s up to Full Armored Dark Knight Lancer into Zeus, and with Lupus attached your monsters have targeting protection very often. Another board I like to set up, and sometimes it's just part of a board, but you set up twin Rippers with the rank-up. These boards are often backed by Vallon and/or Dark Lady. That board means you can one of your Rippers to add on your turn, another Ripper to negate on your turn, then in the draw phase make Wereworlf to snipe their hand. From that moment you have perfect, or at least near perfect, information about what your opponent is playing and what they opened, and you've probably already burnt them out of some resources. This gives you the data you need to figure out the Dark Lady and Ripper chokepoints, but it is at the cost of 1-2 interruptions. It can also be useful going second, to make a Ripper and a Werewolf before the batter phase without losing to Nib.

I might come back and do combo tutorials, but they're all pretty obvious, that's one thing I actually like about this version from a competitive perspective. It's easier to play than VS, and significantly easier at that.

So first of all, let's talk about our Rotas. You have 9 cards that are solely here to search cards

ROTAs

3x Chaotic Elements

1x Seventh Tachyon

2x Seventh Ascension

3x Case of K9

Chaotic Elements was always going to be good some day. Theoretically the GY effect could come up in a grind game, but it's mostly irrelevant. The bonus effect could also come up in a grindgame, and is also mostly irrelevant. This searches the Dark K9 monsters, Jokull, and Lantern. Neither of these are one card starters, and this deck actually has none. Wild right? You need to see two different cards to combo. Chaotic Elements helps you see Jokull more often, and also can search Lantern whenever you see Jokull, so I think it's well worth the slot. You don't have a lot of K9 monsters in the archetype, so you need to maximize your odds of seeing them.

Seventh Tachyon searches any of your K9 monsters, and also searches Dark Lady if you have exactly Jokull. As a result you should use Chaotic Elements or Case of K9 before using Seventh Tachyon, so that you know what to search for, and so you play better into Droll. On the other hand, you want to search Dark Lady before using Jokull in a lot of hands, and this may be a factor that would have you play it the other way. Case of K9 is a ROTA on a continuous spell, but if it gets popped it sets your rank-up spell, K9 EX Forced Liberation, assuming you didn't already have access to it. It can also reset it from the GY, making Feather Duster and Heavy Storm innefectual. It also gives you an attack boost if the opponent has activated a monster effect in the hand or GY, and it boosts K9 monsters to high ATK, which is nice. I think being able to have 3 K9 Case in the deck is one of the perks of the pure version. I think Seventh Tachyon is also mandatory for pure, even though I don't love the card.

End-board Pieces

3x Kozmoll Dark Lady

1x K9 EX Forced Liberation (rank-up)

One of my favourite additions to the deck, Kozmoll Dark Lady is a monster negate that destroys. This can insulate you even further from hand traps, provided you find some way to get it onto the field. It can be a brick, especially if you see multiples, but for every hand that bricks on it there are multiple hands that it increases the ceiling for. It does warp combos slightly, but you can use Lupus to Xyz summon after the negate and it's just an extra interruption, and a very good one at that. Nib can eat shit, this card gives you the ability to play through Nib + Veiler, and it can also sometimes stop Droll, this card is an essential piece to our gameplan going first. Side it out going second to make room for Fuwalos and backrow sweepers. You either play 3 of this card, or you don't play this card. I decided after testing it at 0, 1, and 3, that I wanted all 3, to increase our ceiling and resilience, but you could decide it's a brick and just run more non-engine. This card is non-essential, but in my opinion very good.

Case of K9 is the best of the two rank-up spells for K9, because it adds an extra interruption to the rank-up. This is relevant in combos, both breaking boards and interrupting. I'll go into what you're summoning with this in the Xyz monster's sections. It loops itself provided you don't run out of K9 monsters to throw into combat.

K9 Monsters

3x Jokull

3x Lantern

3x Izuna

3x Lupus

The pure build has to max out on these, they are absolutely mandatory. This deck wants to see names in combination, so Lantern is needed in greater numbers than VS builds. More of your grind game also depends on Lantern. All of your K9 monsters except Lupus share the effect to normal summon themselves without tributing, provided the opponent doesn't have 1 or 0 cards in hand. This means turn 1 going first, and often enough turn 2 going second, you can normal summon them despite them being level 5. Lupus and Izuna share the trait that they can summon themselves out of the hand if the opponent has activated an effect in the hand or GY that turn. 

Jokull is your main starter. His best effect is that he searches for your other names. Since you can NS him you might be thinking he's a 1 card combo. However, because the extenders he searches for are conditional, he's not really. Despite that, there's no doubt that you play 3 of these. If you reveal another level 5 in the hand, you can special summon both Jokull and it and immediately ignite Jokull for a search. If that monster is Dark Lady, your opponent can't even ash or Droll you profitably in this case, and because you can make Ripper (a hand/GY negate) early, even if you burn up the Dark Lady negate you're still not weak into Nib. If you use the summon effect, the monsters you summon can't make a Light Xyz, which dramatically reduces how many Xyz monsters are viable for this deck.

Lantern is a 1 card Xyz monster... Conditionally. Unlike Jokull, Lantern can only target level 5 K9 monsters (your maindecks). But this revive is its main effect. While on board, you can search for a spell. Provided you haven't use Case of K9 yet this turn, this strings into a monster search. It can even search itself in a roundabout way, to hold one for follow-up. However, you should be prioritizing adding the rank-up spell to your hand. You can get up to 2 searches for spells, but if 1 is going to get negated you want to add the rank-up spell. Lantern is an extender of sorts, provided you can get a maindeck K9 monster in the GY, such as by sending it or detaching material. Lantern also locks you out of making Light monsters, in our case Constellar Pleiades and Hound.

Izuna is actually our best normal summon. On summon it sends a K9 card from the deck to the GY. This is usually Lupus or Jokull, you could send the rank-up spell if you're under Droll and have a battle phase, and that's about it. However, normal summoning this is key to a lot of your combos, and it's also a clutch hand trap of sorts going second.

The reason Izuna is a hand trap (sort of) is Lupus. In addition to summoning itself, Lupus grants targeting protection to any Xyz monster its attached to. It also has a third effect, where at spell speed 2 you can Xyz summon a rank 5 using Lupus. This means turn 0 if you see Lupus and Izuna, you're making a rank 5 on the opponents turn as soon as they activate an effect from the hand or GY. These are also good tribute fodder for Dark Lady. Lupus basically boils down to an extra interruption in a lot of your combos.

Non-Engine

3x Ash

2x Maxx "C"

2x Called By the Grave

1x Crossout Designator

3x Droll

3x Mulcharmy Purulia

1x Nibiru

I wanted to focus on high impact hand traps, but in a Maxx "C" metagame I felt this deck, even though it can sort of play on both player's turns, still needed the cards for the minigame, which is dissapointing (I don't feel like Maxx "C" is nearly as effective and K9 VS). Purulia is the Charmie of choice for me, mostly because it pairs most effectively with Droll of any of the Charmies, but you could main the Fuwa and side the Purulia. Droll is just mandatory in the modern game, especially when you're worried about K9 VS.

The extra deck is not particularly tight. 2 of these monsters you're never summoning.

#C104 Umbral Horror Masquerade

#C106 Giant Red Hand

Are just here to reveal off of Seventh Tachyon and search for level 5 Earths and Darks. Umbral Horror Masquerade is essential if you're playing Seventh Tachyon, and I think you should play Seventh Tachyon, Ascension, and C104 in pure K9 even if you're not playing Dark Lady and especially if you are. Giant Red hand is probably worth the space, and I really dug deep into the well looking for rank 5 Xyz monsters, and drained that well dry. You don't normally need to search the Earth K9s, but it is nice to be able to.

The most important monsters in the extra deck are the K9 monsters

K9 Xyz Monsters

3x Ripper

2x Werewolf

1x Hound

The most important of these is Ripper. Ripper has 2 effects. The first one is a search, for any K9 card, and then you can set a K9 quickplay spell (the rank-up) if your opponent activated a card in the hand or GY. This effect is relevant in combos, both sending an Xyz material to the GY and adding a card to the hand. The set can be relevant, and is moreso in this varient, but mostly just think of this as a search - you don't have enough spells to grab 3, and the quickplay spell we're not playing isn't particularly helpful without another Xyz monster to summon. Ripper also negates the effect of a card that activates in the hand or GY. So this negates Nibiru, and just the vast majority of hand traps in the game, in addition to preventing GY effects to handle follow-up. Additionally, more and more monster effects are activating in the hand to start or extend in combos, so this negate is very relevant. At least one of these should always be on your end board going first, and there are combos that put up two of them to insulate against Nibiru. Notably, the negate negates effects not activations, a crucial piece of synergy for the deck.

Werewolf is also consistently a part of the end board. It can only be summoned with the rank-up, by ranking up another K9 Xyz. You make him on your own turn going second, and on your opponent's turn going first. This is because its effect varies depending on whose turn you are on. On your own turn it detaches 1 material for a Chenying style banish effect, or 2 thirds of a Trish: he banishes 1 card your opponent controls and/ or a card from their GY. GY banishes are essential to dealing with the follow-up of a more and more decks every year, and banishing on the field after destroying a card with the rank up means going second the rank-up was worth 2 interruptions. However, the real peaks of this card are on your opponent's turn: You look at your opponent's hand, and banish 1 card from it of your choice. This gives you perfect information, or nearly perfect information in any game where your opponent has banished their own cards facedown. It also removes their potential extender from their hand right after you destroyed a card on their board. If you can fire off Ripper early, then use the rank-up to pop a card and make Werewolf, then immediately snipe their hand. If you have Dark Lady on board, or any other interruption you know, at the very least, know how you're hosed, and at the very best you know exactly how to disrupt your opponent. You need 2 of these - the rank-up resets itself, so you make 1 in the first 2 turns, then you can turn Werewolf back into Ripper for a negate and a pop, then you turn Ripper back into Werewolf. If you can make a second Ripper with your hand for follow-up, you do that, and then rank-up that Ripper into second Werewolf, after you've used up Werewolf's material. Werewolf has a third effect, which is that it can attack a number of times equal to the Xyz material attached to it. That means, you break boards with attacks before you banish in a lot of situations. It can realistically have 3 attacks, so this will help you OTK with the attack clause.

Hound is trash. You need an extra name to make with the rank-up, and it can help OTK and break boards, but typically I basically never make this. I still think you have to play it. It detaches a material to target and banishes a card, but only during the standby phase, which is not ideal timing for a banish on the field. It's also Light attribute, so you can't summon if if you're used the Dark maindeck monsters' summon effect. But you'll sometimes make this either to rank-up, or with the rank-up, and it's banish is sometimes relevant. It also grows larger and larger over time, and has destruction protection to go with the targeting protection you can give it with Lupus, meaning it's sort of a "1 turn Towers". I think you just need the names, even in the extra deck.

Generic rank 5s

1x Vallon, the Super Psy Skyblaster

1x Constellar Pleiades

1x Ragnafinity

Vallon is the best generic Xyz monster that isn't Light, excepting Ripper, which we're already maxed out on. This deck desperately needs non-Light rank 5s. If it gets sent to the GY, even as Xyz material, it picks apart the opponent's backrow, which is a nice bonus. It also has a "Book of Moon" effect to set facedown a monster on the field. This is a good interruption, and has remained a good one for a long time, but it isn't exciting. You still need this card and add it to almost any end board.

Constellar Pleiades would be the perfect Xyz for this deck... If it wasn't a Light attribute in a deck with a anti-Light lock. Still, your handtraps and normal summoned monsters make this easy enough. I considered Artifact Durendal and Chronomaly Vimana. Durendal's problem is the deck does get a lot off it's quick play spell, meaning it's spell negate doesn't actually help against backrow hate (In fact it hurts it). Vimana seemed sweet to summon with your hand traps and get a cheeky negate on. However, in the modern era detaching two material is a major downside, ideally you'd summon something for an interruption on their turn, and then use it again on the crack back. Pleiades does exactly this.

Ragnafinity is cool. Because many of our lines put up one extra monster, and because Ragnafinity isn't a light monster, there are easy setups for this going first and second, including using Lupus to quick Xyz into it on the opponents turm. It banishes a card on the field at spell speed 2, and also inflicts damage in the process. It does this by detaching a single material. It's other effect is not relevant. Whether you're going first or second this is a useful ability, and the fact that it can do it twice without losing the targeting protection granted by Lupus is super nifty. I'm getting conflicting reports about Pair-A-Dice Smasher. Master Duel Meta and the wiki say it's banned, but the ban list on Dueling Book doesn't seem to include it, so I guess if you're playing on Dueling book replace this slot with Pair-A-Dice Smasher.

Zeus package

1x Zeus

1x Full Armored Dark Knight Lancer

It's Zeus. It detaches 2 materials to send every card on the field as material. This can be clutch as a "last resort" to clear a sticky field, but also you can break the board then sit on the Zeus as a big interruption on the follow-up. Lancer is just here to rank up onto rank 5s, to get an extra material under your Zeus. It can also attach a card from your deck if something gets popped, a lesser used effect, but occasionally relevant. I think you need Zeus and a monster to slap on top of your 5s.

Ty-Phon

Good ol Typhon. Just slap it on top of a guy and concede. You can just slap it on top of something provided your opponent summoned from the extra deck twice. Ty-Phon is a floodgate that prevents monsters with 3000 or more ATK from activating their effects, and can also detach an Xyz material to non-targeting bounce something, and the extra deck isn't very tight, so I think this makes a lot of sense. It's non-essential, but I think good enough, and if slapped on top of an Xyz monster you can even have a Ty-Phon with targeting protection.

S:P

Yeah, we run S:P. You'll be locked out of S:P if you activate Seventh Tachyon, but having S:P in the extra deck is a good way to have tools and clear your zones in a protracted grind game. The field/GY banish is also really good. You don't make this a lot, and if there was a non light rank 5 Xyz monster that was worth running, I'd cut this right away. But there isn't one, so this stays.

Sideboard Guide

It's pretty simple. Going First you want all 6 Solemns, and you don't need Mulcharmies, or Droll. Usual pattern for when you know you're going first is

Out - 2x Droll, 1x Nib, 3x Purulia

In - 3x Solemn Judgement, 3x Solemn Strike

You could easily replace these with floodgates you think are good. However, I like to play the based approach when it is viable. Solemns are also extremely powerful - negating inherent summons is clutch, and so is negating card effects at Spell Speed 3. You could leave in the Nib if you know your opponent is on Nib but not Droll, but keeping in a single Droll for Crossout is usually correct.

Going second you have a bunch of bad cards to cut, and some Mulcharmies and backrow sweepers to side in

Out - 3x Kozmoll Dark Lady, 2x Called By the Grave, 1x Crossout Designator

In - 3x Mulcharmy Fuwaloss, 1x Harpie's Feather Duster, 1x Heavy Storm, 1x Twintwisers

As the game has evolved, backrow sweepers have turned back into generic cards for going second, rather than hate for actual trap decks (they do that too). Fuwalos is usually going to be good, but you can leave the anti hand trap cards in if you don't think it will be good, or if you think it is good but Purulia is bad.

Veidos is kinda a neat one. It's a Dark Pyro monster for Chaotic Elements, and basically in any matchup where a field spell does something broken, even just adds a card to start with, you can Summon this to your opponent's field and pop the field spell. Your opponent can't really profitably link it off, since it destroys the whole board if they do. It could be essential against Tenpai, where it acts like a more targeting Ghost Ogre, but unlike Ghost Ogre it answers literally any field spell as it is activating. Its ability to destroy the board can also create opportunities to break the opponent's board. You board it over whichever hand trap you think is least effective in the matchup against vitrually any deck with an important field spell, which is more and more of the field all the time. You could cut this for something else if you think you need to, I just like that it's searchable in good matchups.

I'm gonna work my way through some combo guides

Combo #1: Jokull + Dark Lady

1. Declare Jokull, reveal Dark Lady, summon both. Right off the bat you have a negate on board, to insulate yourself against hand traps.

2. Jokull ignition, add Izuna

3. NS Izuna, send Lupus

4. Xyz Summon Ripper

5. Detach Jokull, search Case of K9

6. Activate Case of K9, add Lantern

7. Lantern eff, SS Lupus and Lantern

8. Lantern eff, add the rank-up

9. Make Vallon

10. Set the Rank-up

So your end board is Dark Lady (monster negate that destoys), Vallon (untargetable Book of Moon with a floating effect), Ripper (hand/GY negate), K9 - EX Forced Liberation (pop then rank-up), and Werewolf (targeted Hand banish). Notably, since you searched K9 Case, backrow sweepers are not going to be particularly valuable against you unless seen in multiples. Cosmic Cyclone, on the other hand, is actively pretty good against you.

Jokull + Izuna combo

1. Jokull eff, reveal Izuna, SS both

2. Izuna eff, send Lupus

3. Jokull eff, add Lantern

4. Lantern eff, SS Lupus

5. Overlay Jokull and Lupus on summon 5 for Ripper. You're now insulated from most hand traps, including Nibiru.

6. Lantern eff, add the rank-up

7. Ripper eff, detach Jokull, add K9 Case

8. Here you have a choice. Activate Case of K9, and either add Lantern for follow-up, or add Lupus to make Ragnafinity with targeting protection on your opponent's turn.

9. Make a rank 5, this is either Vallon, or if you added Lupus you make Ragnafinity on the opponent's turn. Vallon is safer of course. Into exactly Nibiru, you can make 2 Rippers instead, and then rank 1 up next turn after burning Xyz material. The advantage to this is the Werewolf will have targeting protection, and you can time your rank-up pop better more and easily since you aren't worrying about activating Ripper first.

Jokull + Lantern

1. Jokull eff, reveal it and Lantern; SS both

2. Lantern eff, search the rank-up (this is best line into Droll)

3. Jokull eff, search Lantern #2

4. Overlay 2 5s for Ripper

5. Ripper eff, search Case, detach Jokull

6. Activate Case, add Izuna

7. NS Izuna, send Lupus

8. Lantern eff, SS Lantern and Lupus

9. Make Ragnafinity with 3 K9 monsters

10. Set the rank-up

So you have Ripper negate, plus rank-up pop, plus Werewolf hand rip, and a Ragnafinity with targeting protection and the ability to banish a monster on this turn, on the opponent's turn, and then a third one the turn after that (and it even helps you win in time). Until July 1st this slot should actually be Pair-A-Dice Smasher, but there's no reason to build the deck with a card that is soon to be banned.

Jokull + Izuna

1. Jokull eff, SS Jokull and Izuna

2. Izuna eff, send Lupus

3. Jokull eff, add Lantern

4. Lantern eff, SS Lantern and Lupus

5. Lantern eff, add the rank-up

6. Overlay Lupus and Jokull into Ripper

7. Ripper eff, add Case of K9

8. Activate Case, add follow-up or extension (usually Lantern #2)

9. Overlay remaining monsters for Vallon

10. Set Quickplay

This is a pretty standard board, and represents what you'll often be ending on. Vallon + Ripper + quickplay into Werewolf. If you're going second, you make a second Ripper instead, to immediately rank the 1 with 1 material and Lupus attached into Werewolf. From there you have to decide whether 2 attacks or 2/3 of Trish are better given the board state.

Jokull + Lupus

1. Jokull eff, SS Lupus and Jokull

2. Jokull eff, add Izuna

3. Overlay for Ripper. Ripper eff, detach Jokull, add Case

4. Activate Case, add Lantern

5. NS Izuna, Izuna eff, send Lupus #2

6. Lantern eff, SS Lupus and Lantern

7. Lantern eff, add rank-up

8. Make Ragnafinity

9. Set rank-up

So this board is really good, you get protection on both of your Xyz monsters, you could even make Pair-A-Dice-Smasher till July 1. Note that another option is to leave Lantern on the end board for follow-up and damage purposes, and just make a second Ripper or Vallon.

Lantern + Izuna

1. NS Izuna, send Lupus

2. Lantern eff, summon Lantern and Lupus

3. Lantern eff, add the rank-up

4. Make Izuna and Lupus into Ripper

5. Ripper eff, detach Izuna, add Case

6. Activate Case, add Lupus

7. Set the rank-up

8. On the opponent's turn SS Lupus and Xyz summon Vallon. You also have a Ripper negate, and a rank-up spell to pop and make Werewolf