Photon Trident is a fun little card that gives any Photon a temporary 700 Attack Boost and when it does deal damage you can destroy any S/T on the field. But it also gives your photon piercing which can be quite useful. It's main usefulness is that you can use it on the defensive much like Horn of the Phantom Beast but less vulnerable especially against something Field Spell Oriented. It can also be use offensively during the damage step making it very difficult to stop. Read More for the Full albeit Short Review and the tutorial on building a deck.
Photon Trident
Quick-Play Spell
Target 1 face-up "Photon" monster you control; until the End Phase, it gains 700 ATK, and if it attacks a Defense Position monster, inflict piercing Battle Damage to your opponent. When it inflicts Battle Damage to your opponent this turn: You can target 1 Spell/Trap Card on the field; destroy that target.
Looking at this card at first I was like wow this card is terrible... Looking at it now though along with all the other cards Photons can use to boost their Attack at random points throughout the duel it's quite nasty. First off this card gives any Photon monster 700 ATK... That's the same as Rush Recklessly which many many formats ago was a broken card so they had to also give it piercing which seems underwhelming but can spell good game against a reaper. Also makes your opponents set monster still a liability in terms of damage... Another hidden perk of this card is the mind games, you see if you use this card once during the duel your opponent will first off think you aren't very good because this card is often thought of as terrible and that may cause misplays. But better yet is that turn opponent sets Sangan and a face-down... Summon Photon Saber Tiger search another attack the sangan use Photon Trident... Opponent takes 1300 damage and loses the set card. Yes sure they get to search but often that set card isn't Sangan... it also makes your opponent less keen to set Traps now that you have an extra set of Space Typhoons in your deck.
Well that's mostly all I have on Photon Trident so here is the Deck Building Tutorial!!!
So you want to build a deck am I right? Well I have a nice process for which you can go about building a deck. First and foremost though are you ready for the ultimate experience of trial and error and even more severe the restraint required? If yes continue on If no continue on anyway it really isn't that bad.
The Idea
First Step: I often when building decks start off with an idea!! So heres an idea scheme for a Photon deck... "Oh it's a Photon Deck" Idea number 1!!!... "I guess I could run a control build of Photons!!!" Idea number 2!!!... "OOOOH these cards don't work well together but they are OMG LIGHT!!!" Idea number 3!!!So in essence your first step in deck building has a minimum of 3 substeps depending on what you are trying to build.
First: You want to know what the deck is going to be based around in my case it was Photons.
Second: You want an idea of how you want the deck to run. IE: Control, Beatdown (Aggro), Advantage Abuse, Special Spam, Instant Win Condition (Explained later), etc...
Third: What special traits do you want the deck to have? In my situation it was a Light based deck due to Photon's Attribute. I could also though make it a Chaos deck, or Photon Hero, or Skill Drain control, or so on and so forth.
Fourth (Unnecessary (Unless Veteran) but depending on previous ideas useful): You want to know exactly how you plan on defeating the current top decks.
So taking all these into account I'll layout my 4 ideas for my deck.
First: I'm building Photons
Second: I want to to be a Beatdown deck (Beatdown although an Aggro deck has many aspects of Control but a bigger focus on the Attack Points)
Third: I want my deck to be purely Light to take advantage of Light support but not Purely Photon
Fourth: I plan on defeating the current top decks through use of cards that directly stop my opponents more powerful plays and then overwhelm them with advantage and large monsters.
The Win Condition
Short and Sweet Second Step: In all truth you want a deck that can win right? Well then how do you plan on winning? "Deal 8000 damage, deck out, Exodia?" WRONG that is how you can win a duel but the Win Condition is the plan to win. In Photon my win condition many would say is reduce life to 0... but in reality the win condition is to control the pace of the duel and waste my opponents resources until I can safely deliver the deathblow with one of my large monsters and doing all of this by aggressively attacking. Instant Win Conditions though are in essence ways to win the duel on the spot. an Instant Win Condition would be Infinite Life while having more cards in deck than opponent. Or Infinite Damage or any plethora of OTK/FTK decks. But their Win Conditions are quite extensive but normally based on a all in one turn scenario.
The Major Players
Third Step (I will be using pictures to help explain): First you want to layout the cards that your deck will be based around this will be referred to as the Core of the deck and is almost always a monster line-up. Like if building a Plant deck your first cards will almost always be the Plant Synchro Engine. Here is my decks Core:
3 Photon Sabre Tiger
2x Photon Slasher
1x Photon Wyvern
2x Galaxy Eyes Photon Dragon
From there you want to include the Staples that will be in the deck ignoring all personal card choices for now
Added cards:
2x Mystical Space Typhoon
1x Heavy Storm
1x Dark Hole
1x Monster Reborn
1x Solemn Judgment
2x Solemn Warning
Next you will want to of course begin adding in your personal choices/tech but before that you want to place into the deck a buffer or in other words cards that slide well into the deck and capitalize on the decks strengths while covering it's weaknesses Heres the deck after the Buffers (which in exchange for capitalizing on strength tend to slightly change your ideas for the better). Buffers also can remove the need for certain staples but you never touch the Core.
Changed/Added Cards
-2 Mystical Space Typhoon
+3 Elemental Hero Neos Alius
+1 Elemental Hero Stratos
+1 Reinforcement of the Army
+1 Honest
+3 Thunder King Rai-oh
+3 Photon Sanctuary
+2 Miracle Fusion
So hmm I've now converted the deck from pure Photon to a Photon Hero Hybrid idea which may or may no stay as we move on to the realm of adding in Personal Card Choices.
Your personal choices for any deck you build will often be different than anyone elses (This often is the near entirety of the trap line-up)
+2 Photon Trident
+2 Fiendish Chain
+1 Mirror Force
+2 Dimensional Prison
+1 Starlight Road
+2 Compulsory Evacuation Device
+2 Skill Drain
So suddenly once personal choices are added in the deck became Skill Drain Photon Hero Beatdown.
From there you build the Extra Deck starting with cards you have to run in order for other cards in the deck to serve a purpose and then you throw in things you just know you can summon.
I won't cover Side Decks here because that isn't something that you should be told how to do it's something you need to learn on your own.
The TEST!!!
Now that you have a deck the next thing you have to do is test it a minimum of 3 times against good players to see what needs to change and what does or does not work as right now the deck is pure theory.
So after testing I realized that the deck needs Pot of Duality to access it's better cards and doesn't need 3 Photon Sanctuary and the Core of the deck can be better changed to instead of Galaxy Eyes and Photon Wyvern include a third Photon Slasher and 2 Photon Crusher. Then I can add in 3 Pot of Duality and 1 more Skill Drain and can drop the Heavy Storm for a The Huge Revolution is Over. And so on and the end product looks something like this!!
So after all that we wind-up with a deck that covers it's own weaknesses and achieves all 4 Ideas. From there on it's only your own skill keeping you from doing well.
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