If “Laggia Made Right” made you think of Dino-Rabbit decks, than this article is much more necessary than I thought. As you may or may not have guessed, we’re going to be learning about something you won’t find in your private school’s textbooks, Evolution, more specifically, the Evol Archetype/Series/Whatever you want to classify them as. They've been in the Meta ever since Order of Chaos gave us new tools to play with, and with Rescue Rabbit receiving his semi-limitation, players hooked in by the concept of the Evolzars now have more reasoning to play the deck than ever.
But before I continue praising one of my favorite decks in the game, let’s start from the ground up, what exactly are Evols? The archetype is divided into three parts, Evoltiles, your cute little Reptile friends, Evolsaurs, Gladiator Beasts turned into Dinosaurs and made competitive, and the one that anyone who has played competitively will know, the Evolzars. The gist of the deck is that your Evolsaurs get effects when special summoned (typically from the deck) by your Evoltile monsters. These effects range from searching the deck to popping backrow, and with the Evolzars having Dinosaurs as their Xyz Material requirements, you can easily bring them out. And seeing as how your Evolzars are: A Solemn Judgment with an attack stat; and a Divine Wrath without cost, you can shut down many of your opponent’s strategies and force them into wasting resources to stop your monsters.
Now that we’re up to speed, here’s a skeleton of what most consider to be the standard Evol build:
If it’s in there, play it, all of the open spots are your tech choices. You might argue about 2 MST, but you can’t count on Diplo all the time. Gorz is in there because what Evols lack the most, is attack power. Laggia and Dolkka might have amazing effects, but if your opponent can get something out with 2600+ attack, you’re going to have to play around them. We’ll come back to this in a bit. You should add Veilers, Bottomless or Torrential, Enemy Controller or Mini-Guts, usually a third Evo-Diversity, and more tech spells such as Mind Control or Book of Moon. The extra deck should contain almost exclusively rank 4s, but one or two Rank 3s such as Acid Golem and Zenmaines for when you find yourself unable to hold all of these Westlo.
I’d like to take the time to explain why there are so many Evol Tile/Saurs, but yet we’re only running a select few. The truth of the matter is that Evols are one of those decks that have plenty of options, but not all of them are good. You’ll find that Evol Spells and Traps that aren’t named “Evo-Force” or “Evo-Diversity” are borderline unplayable, but this is far from the only archetype to have that problem. Cards like Evoltile Odonto used to be good, but compared to the options we have now, it’s just too slow and situational. At the same time, there are cards like Evolsaur Darwino, which seem good on paper, but end up clogging both your main deck and your extra deck, forcing you into losing tech choices on both ends. The whole issue with running Rank 5 or 6 monsters and attempting to go into Xyz monsters like Solda is simply that it doesn’t fit the most consistent Evol play style. Evols like Terias just clog the hand even more so than regular Evolsaurs do, and as I said, you’re losing too much Extra deck space to justify the decision. Three Cerato, Two Diplo, and Two Vulcano gives you enough room to wiggle with, and you’ll be having much better draws by not filling your deck with the “larger” Evolsaurs. I’m not saying that the Evols not run here are bad, but rather that the other cards are simply better.
As far as filling up the rest of that deck goes, make sure you have outs to situations Evols aren’t meant to handle. The deck can’t straight-up pop the opponent’s monsters, so make use of cards like Enemy Controller and Number 50: Blackship of Corn to deal with things like Spirit Reapers and Marshmallons. Duality is an amazing card, use as many as you can (two at the time of this article), and keep in mind that odds are you can just set a Westlo and lose nothing from playing the Duality. Bottomless is usually better than Torrential here simply because Torrential would result in you losing cards such as Westlo before they can be utilized. Enemy Controller is usually preferred over Mini-Guts, but keep in mind that both are intended to be used with Evoltile Najasho when possible. Make sure you have some heavy hitters in the extra deck, even things like Shark Drake can work here, it’s the attack stat that you’re looking for, not the effect. And if there is one spell card that you should always be running, it’s Pot of Avarice. Your build will usually be something of a 17-17-6 with Monsters/Spells/Traps respectively, and you burn through those 17ish monsters faster than you could possibly imagine. Having Avarice on hand, and in the future, even teching a Daigusto Emeral, can keep your momentum going.
Despite how much I praise the archetype, it’s imperative to know your weakness, because believe me, there are plenty of decks that act as hard counters to you without even realizing it. The easiest way to beat over an Evol deck is by simply having a very large attack stat. Cards like Grapha, the Karakuri Shoguns, and most Elemental HERO Fusions can simply beat right over your deck. Your side deck should have been prepared to face decks like these before you even changed it to suit playing with Evols, but there are several main-deck options that can help you secure that Game 1. I didn’t leave Gorz within the deck skeleton above without good reasoning, his attack stat, and potentially even higher token, can save you more often than you’d think. Most Evol Builds only run a handful of traps, and your quick-play spells are just MSTs or Econs. Getting Gorz out is easy as soon as you draw into him in this deck. Make sure to keep options such as Compulse and Bottomless around between your Main and Side deck so that harder hitting bosses aren’t as potent of a threat.
Another common weakness is actually drawing your Evolsaurs. You’re almost always going to want your Evolsaurs in the deck to be brought out via the Evoltiles, but drawing them isn’t the end of the world. If you’re able to set a Westlo, get an Evolsaur out of his special, and then normal summon the hand-bound Evolsaur the next turn, you’ll have an easy Evolzar right there. A good tactic is being able to bluff your opponent. When you set a monster face-down and your opponent knows what you’re playing, they’ll often be hesitant to attack because they’re expecting a Westlo that they can just Veiler when you flip summon it. Play with your opponent’s head, you have a dead hand and just Duality’d into a card that tells your opponent what deck you’re playing? Set a Vulcano, your opponent could very likely pass, and then flip it and normal summon another Evolsaur, boom, another Evolzar out on the field.
Also keep in mind that your deck is a bit slower than some of the top decks this Format. You don’t exactly have a “Normal Summon Wind-Up Magician, Special Summon Wind-Up Shark, good game?” or “Set 5, Summon Stratos, effect good?” killer play, but the deck is great at preventing your opponent from doing just that. Between Laggia, Dolkka, Veilers, your backrows, and being able to function as a near-pure Rank 4 Toolbox, you’ll have something for every situation. Just be sure to play with a level head, conserving your resources can and will pay off in this deck, as you’ll see below.
Now I’d just like to spend some time going over general tactics as well. Your deck has an amazing, and I mean amazing, two-card combo with Evo-Force and Evoltile Najasho. Evo-Force will be used to special summon an Evolsaur from the deck and have it treated as if it was special summoned by an Evoltile, and Najasho special summons you an Evolsaur from the deck when he is used as a tribute. Keep in mind using Najasho as a tribute is a cost. Your opponent uses Solemn Warning on the Evo-Force? Go into a Vulcano from Najasho’s effect and bring someone out of the graveyard to Xyz with. Your opponent has two lonely backrow? Double up on Diplo. Your opponent has a few smaller monsters blocking the way to their LP? Bring out your Ceratos and keep on searching. Najasho can even be used in conjunction with Enemy Controller as I’ve referenced before, but remember, you can set Najasho before you tribute him for either of these cards instead of trying to summon him and getting hit by a Solemn. And remember to be wise with the order in which you special summon your Evolsaurs. Let’s go back to the Najasho-Force combo, say your opponent has one backrow on the field. Special Summon Diplo first, so that you force your opponent to use that backrow card if possible. Say that it was Torrential; you can now use Vulcano to pick up the same Diplo that you just forced a play with. And defensive plays work just fine as well, Evo-Diversity into a Westlo, use Duality, and then set any backrow cards that you’d like, and you haven’t lost any advantage. The classic “Enemy Controller on your Utopia, Chaos Xyz Change” play is also amazing in this deck, coupled with the fact that you can plus again off of Najasho.
Evols might not be a Tier 1, YCS winning deck, but they’re playable. It’s a deck that you can easily side things in and out of, and the deck itself forces your opponent into making their plays early thanks to your Evolzar squad and Diplo’s mandatory pop. You have your match-ups, the good and the bad, and even with their incidental counters becoming more popular this format, Evols aren’t going to be leaving the Meta anytime soon.
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-Thecheese103
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