Implying Owls Are Birds

Let's not beat around the bush here. I'm a guy who likes cute things. As I sit on my bed writing this article, I have a plush Minccino sitting atop a plush tiger sitting on my shelf.

I've got your new Dragunities right here Konami.

So it should come as no surprise that when you ask me what deck it is that I enjoy the most, I'd answer with Madolches.

"But Madolches are shit" you might say. And back when they first made their debut in Return of the Duelist, there'd be no denying that. They didn't really do anything. Actually it would be more apt to say they did absolutely nothing at all but look cute. And considering they debuted alongside Geargias and Prophecies, it was really easy to ignore them as another useless archetype made to fill up the set. But I didn't give up hope in them being good eventually, and the next booster pack, Abyss Rising finally gave them cards that let them do something; especially considering their new boss monster wasn't a terrible level 5 Main Deck monster.

Have fun trying to pull your Grapha out of the deck again.

 With an Xyz Monster under their belt that could recycle cards in the grave and clear the opponent's field, a Spell Card that turns all of your Main Deck monsters (and even Chateau) into a duplicate Magileine, and a Trap that vomits your hand onto the field for OTKs while even giving you fodder for Tiaramisu's effect, Madolches finally had the potential to be a competitive deck. 

Aside from the fact that you'd probably lose by the time you could manage to set all of that up without getting lucky draws.

Luckily, Konami decided to pull Owl out of Pooh Baseball, turn him into a Yugioh card, and create a sugar coated version of Wind-Up Magician.

SUBETE WA MADOLCHE NO SEKAI

   
Madolche Hootcake
EARTH/Beast/Level 3
1500/1100

 When this card in your possession is destroyed by your opponent's card (either by battle or by card effect) and sent to your Graveyard: Shuffle this card into the Deck. You can target 1 monster in your Graveyard; banish that target, then Special Summon 1 "Madolche" monster from your Deck, except "Madolche Hootcake". You can only use this effect of "Madolche Hootcake" once per turn.

Wanna let that sink in for a bit? This guy effortlessly pulls Messengelato from your deck, and because he's a Beast and not a Winged-Beast, Gelato then pulls a Madolche Spell or Trap from your deck. 

Why is this good? Well, I won't waste your time anymore and get to the purpose of this article, which is to explain my actual deck build. I'm not exactly great with coming up with names, so this deck goes by the simple title of Hootdox.

I know you're probably looking at this and saying "What the hell is going on here?" Well pipe down and listen, because that's what I'm here to tell ya.

As we saw above, Hootcake needs monsters in your Graveyard to activate his effect, which kinda seems to go against the entire gimmick of Madolche monsters, which is staying out of the Graveyard. The obvious solution to that predicament would be Xyz Summoning, but how do you Xyz Summon and have Hoot on the field at the same time?

 Why, Tech Genus Warwolf, of course.

T.G. Warwolf can Special Summon himself from your hand when a Level 4 or lower monster is Special Summoned to either side of the field. Obviously, a play you're going to see very often with Madolches is Normal Summoning Mewfeuille, whose effect then Special Summons a Madolche from your hand. By summoning another Level 3 Madolche with that effect and dropping Warwolf, you now have materials to Xyz Summon M-X-Saber Invoker, while keeping a Beast on the field to trigger the Messengelato Invoker summons.

With a monster now in your grave, you can banish it with Hootcake to summon a second Messengelato and pull off another search, and then overlay for Tiaramisu. If done early on, you may have to sacrifice plussing off of Ticket in order to actually pull Tiaramisu's effect off, but with Chateau being run at 3, there's a good chance you can have it in hand before executing this combo, allowing you to plus and plus and plus.

Of course things don't always go the ideal way, but that's why you have other options to be able to meet your objective. Tragoedia is a good card on its own, with Madolches' ability to build up hand advantage, but the Xyz era also makes Tragoedia's other two effects much more useful. Discard a monster to swipe an opponent's monster of the same level, then copy the level of the discarded monster for an Xyz Summon of any generic 2 and sometimes even 3 material monster! Are you starting to put the pieces together? You can summon Trag after suffering damage on your opponent's turn or even your own turn attacking into a monster with more ATK or DEF than your monster, then scoop up your opponent's Level 3 or 4 monster. This gives you a target for Hootcake's effect, and you can even use Tragoedia and an opponent's Level 3 to summon Invoker!

Using your opponent's forces to send them to their own demise; how like a Fiend.

I shouldn't have to explain Fire Formation - Tenki. It fetches a Beast-Warrior, i.e. Warwolf from your deck. I know that's not the pressing question on your mind. Reading through all of this you're thinking "Where does the "dox" in this deck's name come from?" "What the hell is that thing next to Tragoedia?" I know you. You're that guy in class who keeps interrupting the teacher with questions, not realizing the next thing they're going to say answers that question. Stop it. No one likes that guy. So put your hand down and let me explain.

Look at that guy's grin. He knows he's going to destroy you.

 Redox, the Rock-Incarnate Dragon
EARTH/Dragon/Level 7
1600/3000
  
You can banish 2 Dragon-Type or EARTH monsters from your hand or Graveyard, except this card; Special Summon this card from your hand or Graveyard. During your opponent's End Phase, if this card was Special Summoned: Return it to the hand. You can discard this card and 1 other EARTH monster to the Graveyard to target 1 monster in your Graveyard; Special Summon that target. When this card is banished: Add 1 EARTH Dragon-Type monster from your Deck to your hand. You can only use 1 "Redox, the Rock-Incarnate Dragon" effect per turn, and only once that turn.


Don't look at me like that. This guy is important enough to the deck that it's named after him. Are you even reading this guy's effect? He's a Monster Reborn that doesn't get laughed at by Naturia Beast and doesn't have a restriction on when you can use him like Grandsoil. Simply toss him and an EARTH monster from your hand and summon any monster you want from your Graveyard; even himself or the monster you discarded. This not only has the benefit of being able to summon more monsters in a turn than you would otherwise be able to, but on a turn that you didn't use his special summon effect, you can banish him with Hootcake to summon something from your deck, and Redox will add another copy of himself to your hand as well! How could you not run 3 of him? Situational as it may be, you can also use this guy with Tragoedia or another copy of himself to Xyz Summon Number 11: Big Eye and steal any monster from your opponent. Situational? Maybe. Doesn't mean it's impossible, and you will feel a sense of satisfaction if you pull that off.

 

Better go say a prayer. This is the new face of terror.

Don't count them out because they're a bunch of dolls and stuffed animals; Madolches may not be in the top tier, but they're still well on their way to taking this game by storm!