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Deck Profile – Paul Levitin’s Twilight Deck
Did you SEE that?! If you haven’t checked out the Round 1 Feature Match, go read about Paul Levitin smashing his way out of his worst matchup to utterly rock poor Ryan Spicer. Here’s the Deck Paul did it with – an edgy new version of the often-controversial Twilight Deck!
| Monsters | Spells | Traps | Side Deck | Extra Deck |
1 Dark Armed Dragon |
3 Solar Recharge |
1 Crush Card Virus |
2 Kycoo the Ghost Destroyer |
2 Dark Strike Fighter |
Playing two copies of “Allure of Darkness” on top of your three “Solar Recharge” and three “Charge of the Light Brigade” changes the pace of your Deck, adding both speed and an imperative to finish games faster. If you don’t win fast, you can and will Deck out all the time. But here, Levitin is also packing a core DARK monster lineup.
Levitin’s build is really low on Lightsworn monsters. He’s only running ten Lightsworn monsters total, and because he’s packing two copies of “Judgment Dragon” he’s kept himself diversified as much as possible. The only Lightsworn monsters he’s running multiples of are “Ryko, Lightsworn Hunter” for strong openings, and “Lyla, Lightsworn Sorceress” to deal with problematic defensive Spells and Traps. From there, he only plays one copy each of Wulf, Jain, Garoth, Aurkus, Ehren, and Lumina.
That leaves plenty of room for DARK monsters, and Levitin takes careful advantage of that fact. Two copies of “Dekoichi the Battlechanted Locomotive” and two “Black Salvo” add a deadly twist to the deck, clearing the field and then allowing Levitin to throw down his “Judgment Dragons,” Dark Armed, and “Chaos Sorcerer” for game. One of the problems with a lot of “Black Salvo” and “Debris Dragon” Decks (Decks that specialize in throwing down “Black Rose Dragon” at key points) is that many of them aren’t very good at threatening an immediate follow-up against that cleared field they create. Levitin has no such problems. Armed with four big Special Summon monsters plus “Monster Reborn,” it’s pretty easy for him to pound home a win. And if the monsters he’s relying on were already sent to the Graveyard, either through opposing effects or his own Lightsworn End Phase abilities, he can get them back with his three copies of “Monster Reincarnation.”
Reincarnation has been an important lynchpin of successful Twilight builds in the past – namely Erin Diaz’s Day 2 build from last year’s SHONEN JUMP Championship Chicago. It’s great because the Allures give you a slight mathematical improvement in getting access to “Charge of the Light Brigade” and “Solar Recharge”, which means more cards sent to the Graveyard in each Duel across the long term. “Monster Reincarnation” becomes the center of what’s effectively a reverse toolbox engine, as the Deck throws card after card to the Graveyard and then plucks out the ones it needs to create a win when the time is right. Cool stuff, fundamental to the rare successful Twilight Decks, and Levitin knows it.
This Deck is great – it’s fast even by the standards of this format, reliable, and opens strong. It hits the ground running and never really stops, pinning the opponent between a ton of different removal threats. Nobody’s going to be ready for it, and Levitin could ride that fact all the way to Day 2 – or even his third win.
