Steelswarms, ruler's of the underworld!

I - Introduction
II – Their cards
III - Must have techs
IV – Side Decking
V – Basic Decklist Example
VI – Steelswarm VS Monarchs
VII – Steelsworn: Description and decklist example
VIII - Conclusion


I:Hi guys,

As my debut article I’d like to talk about the Steelswarm Archetype.
The Steelswarm Archetype are like Monarchs, they focus on Tribute Summoning. They all are DARK attributed Fiend-type monsters with 0 DEF except their Gatekeeper which has a nice 1900.
The effects of the high level Steelswarm monsters can only be used when you used 1 or more Steelswarm monsters as the tribute fodder.


II: Lets talk about the Steelswarm cards first:




These are the best choices and must haves in a Steelswarm build, you could try the Dark Creator but it can be hard to get out because it conflicts with Recurring Nightmare a lot.


Aside from speeding yourself up, how about slowing your opponent down?
I'm talking about Rai-Oh here, in a format where Special Summoning is a mandatory thing to survive it's a beast card to run. It's a great 1900 ATK, which is most likely to survive in the early stages of a game, when the opponent attempts a Special Summon you can use this and just negate it. Don't forget this stops searching, as you mainly recycle from the grave it's another pro, it stops many cards like Stratos, or even a whole deck(Offering Gadgets).


IV:‘’So what, we got another meta wannabe deck with some Monarch alike cards?’’
That’s what you could be thinking right now. Well yes, they’re like Monarchs, but they are definitely not a wannabe one! Some of their effects and combo’s make you control the game in no-time. The big problem with them is that they don’t have any realy protection which means that they can hardly maintain the field presence.


Now it is possible to run several cards as techs here like Virus Traps or Dark Flash, the problem is, you already need to be in control of the game. Although these guys do it fast enough, that does not tell that you will hold any of these techs at the moment you can play them. As we all know, you will draw right into such cards when you are in a pinch! In other words, they're slightly situational.


Because of these facts, Side Decking becomes extremely important for Steelswarms! You need a strong Side Deck which is ready for the threats your deck can face. And remember, In order to overwhelm the opponent, you need to find your weak spot(s)! These weak spots need to be filled up!
Biggest weaknesses of this deck are for example in today’s game:

- Samurai: when you play against Samurai, you really want to Side in Puppet Plant, steal their Shi-En, be pretty safe for the turn. In addition, that is the opportunity to make a comeback play. The reason Samurai is so dangerous to you is their fast Shi-En, and since you don't have too many Spells or Traps it's hard to play around. If you can't play Recurring Nightmare you lose a lot of consistency because you cannot decide your combo's anymore. That makes it a lot harder to play a game, that's why I mentioned Puppet Plant, it's a Shi-En stealer and is hard to negate. Another good option but kind of forgotten card is Warrior Elimination, with it you can easily bait Shi-En it's effect or first bait with Recurring and then play this.

- Gravekeeper: You are unable to use Dark Armed Dragon, Recurring Nightmare, Stygian Street Patrol, Steelswarm Mantis. You miss a big part of the deck, just because of Necrovalley, now Traps are risky as they are most likely to be blown away by Descendant, but we got Heavy Storm back, and 3 MST, that should work against them and their pesky Grave locking.

- Agents: Agents can spam like crazy, they can make huge combo's of just Gold Sarcophagus and Tour Guide, They search everything they need. And now they can spam BLS too. Well because this deck needs it Normal Summons the best cards to play against them is Forced Back and Pulling the Rug, Forced Back is a stall card and Pulling the Rug is just crazy to stop their plans all at once.

- Twilight builds: With the new TCG exclusive Tour Guide, BLS to 1 and JD to 3, Twilight decks make a comeback and are ready to rock. As we don't have access to the Imprisoning Mirrors, we'll need a other alternative. Just be aware that backrows are hard to use with 3 Lyla, 3 MST and 1 Heavy in Twilights. Although that's true, you can try Grave of the Super Ancient Organism, you need to change a bit of your deck as DAD, BLS etc are useless now, but it works. You need some extra protection for it too, like Solemn J, Dark Bribe, etc, this way, it could work, but it's a risky one. To be honest I haven't really figured out how to side against this yet.

- Next up is Anti-Meta decks, they can stop plans with Dyna easily, but an even bigger problem is Rai-Oh and Doomcalliber Knight. They are almost always on the field and can screw up big plays, know we all got the popular Veiler in our Extra Deck, but that doesn’t always work, as it’s in the opponent’s turn. Forbidden Chalice negates the effect on the field but it’s a cost to tribute Doom or Rai-Oh, not working either then. Again, Debunk can help you against these. And if you’re afraid of Banisher of the Radiance you can try Forbidden Chalice.

- Decks that swarm faster than you, yes they are are a problem from time to time, Dark Flash could be a good side but it’s extremely dangerous especially if the opponent goes into Stardust, it’s just utterly useless then. Trying Bottomless and Compulsory Evacuation Device for these are great to stop/slow them down from swarming the field constantly. Even Summon Limit can help.


V:Now that we have got the basics covered, lets get to the deck:

Total(40):

Monsters(28):
1X Dark Armed Dragon
3X Dark Grepher
2X Destiny HERO - Dasher
2X Effect Veiler
2X Necro Gardna
1X Sangan
2X Steelswarm Caller
2X Steelswarm Gatekeeper
3X Steelswarm Girastag
2X Steelswarm Mantis
3X Steelswarm Moth
2X Steelswarm Scout
3X Stygian Street Patrol

Spells(9):
1X Allure of Darkness
1X Foolish Burial
1X Heavy Storm
2X Mystical Space Typhoon
1X Pot of Avarice
3X Recurring Nightmare

Traps(3):
1X Solemn Judgment
2X Solemn Warning

Now that is just a basic list, feel free to toy around with it.


VI: ‘’But what makes these ‘’Steelswarm’’ monsters any better than Monarchs and why would I even bother playing them instead of Frognarchs/Monarchs?’’
Simple question, simple answer, these guys got a different style, they allow for more destructive techs, they make +’s instead of 1 for 1 trades and they easily recycle with Recurring Nightmare. As Frognarchs can run Obelisk, so can Steelswarm if they want to! Difference is that it would be a big waste as having Steelswarm Caller, Gatekeeper and Mantis is much more sexy. As you can see and like I said before, some of their effects make a +1 instead of being a one for one trade like Monarchs, this is a big deal nowadays. As these cards need their own deck, it explains why they have some more powerful effects. Running them over Monarchs is of course a personal preference, but it's because they only relate to Monarchs as the time when they activate and relying on Tribute Summoning. Of course the biggest difference, Steelswarm Monsters are not splashable and Monarchs are. For the rest they got a different play style and different combo's.


VII:These guys are not the fastest ever, but there’s only one Archetype that is, Lightsworn. Combining Steelswarm and Lightsworn makes an obvious deckname, Steelsworn.

’’Why Steelsworn?’’
It’s for the simple reason that Steelsworn allows for an engine that gets your cards faster were you want them, Stygian Street Patrol and Steelswarm Scout in the grave, Dark Armed Dragon & co in the hand. We all know that the Lightsworn engine plays fast, but it takes a little risk, because you can mill vital cards! This risk gets easily compensated with the fact that you have many cards that fit in the Graveyard, but also, because you got both, LIGHT and DARK you can run several additional ''boss monsters''. This means that you get a better chance of gaining control over the game because of the simple fact that these monsters Special Summon themselves with the easiest requirements.

Here’s an example decklist:

Total(40):

Monsters(26):
1X Black Luster Soldier - Envoy of the Beginning
2X Chaos Sorcerer
1X Dark Armed Dragon
3X Dark Grepher
2X Ehren, Lightsworn Monk
2X Jain, Lightsworn Paladin
1X Lumina, Lightsworn Summoner
2X Lyla, Lightsworn Sorceress
1X Necro Gardna
2X Steelswarm Caller
3X Steelswarm Girastag
3X Steelswarm Moth
2X Steelswarm Scout
3X Stygian Street Patrol

Spells(11):
1X Allure of Darkness
1X Burial From a Different Dimension
1X Charge of the Light Brigade
1X Heavy Storm
1X Pot of Avarice
3X Recurring Nightmare
3X Solar Recharge

Traps(3):
1X Solemn Judgment
2X Solemn Warning

Like I said, the Lightsworn engine allows for many more boss monsters, which is what we want since they give easy access to control over the game. Of course I'm talking about cards like Black Luster Soldier - Envoy of the Beginning and Chaos Sorcerer, you could even try Judgment Dragon if you feel like it. This is pretty much the most destructive build I got so far for Steelswarm's.


VIII:Steelswarm is a very destructive Archetype with some explosive effects, they get rid of many threats easily and the attack statuses are mostly really high. Thing is, they cannot maintain control of the game making them extremely vulnerable to a counter attack. Of course this problem can easily be solved with proper siding against your weaknesses making you win game 2 easier. They can easily be mixed with other decks, and when this is done you get more outs to yourself making it easier for you to counter a counter attack or maintain the control of the game.


I hope you enjoyed my article, thanks for reading!
Comments appreciated!

Ps: All credits for the banner and card pics goes to KKJ, thanks!

I'd think this would be better if their actual effects were listed too like in other guides, it's annoying going to check elsewhere.

Before I even posted this I already added links to the names in paragraphs 2 and 3(the names are click-able). I don't know what you're talking about, the cards in the decklist except the Steelswarm cards are all pretty famous and everyone knows them, there's no point in adding links to them all. Unless there are new players who don't know every single cards yet, but most people know the cards.

What do you think of the article itself?

Well, guides are ment for players that have less experience to help them to learn new tricks, cards or archetypes, so assuming that every single one of them nows all of those cards is a little cocky, the images are pretty nice though

Not trying to go off topic here, but it's cocky to assume that the know the cards, while most players on the DN forums do know the cards??

Thanks for reading though, and I didn't make the pics.

Well I meant like at least the effects listed under the cards or even the whole info like level and stuff, like the other guides have the description, though you did link them all I just thought it'd be easier if it was listed on the same pages rather than needing to click the link.

Anyway I do think it's a nice deck and can help my steelswarm deck quite a bit.

I demand their JD gets added!

There is only one slight error. Steelswarm Gatekeeper is a continuous effect, so for it to work, it has to be on the field before a tribute happens.

(I play the most recent YGO for the DS, and it usually has most of the rulings accurate in gameplay)

I've experienced this with similar effects before, so, if I'm correct, then you can't play the Moth combo like that.

OverlordMMM wrote:There is only one slight error. Steelswarm Gatekeeper is a continuous effect, so for it to work, it has to be on the field before a tribute happens.

(I play the most recent YGO for the DS, and it usually has most of the rulings accurate in gameplay)

I've experienced this with similar effects before, so, if I'm correct, then you can't play the Moth combo like that.

Last time I checked all over the net I found out I could :/.
Well, if you can provide a link with info about this, I might be able to fix it, although I do know DS games have it wrong lots of times.

What did you think of the rest of the article anyway?

thanks a lot

stardust breaker wrote:thanks a lot

Kind off spam, but thanks for reading....I guess lol.

3E-hero neos wrote:

stardust breaker wrote:thanks a lot

Kind off spam, but thanks for reading....I guess lol.

You have no idea...
Ninety percent, literally ninety percent, of this guy's posts are this exact message.
Anyway, so, does their king actually work in this deck?

Steelswarm Herucles? Nah, that card is so bad...
Unless you meant something else with 'king'.

3E-hero neos wrote:Steelswarm Herucles? Nah, that card is so bad...
Unless you meant something else with 'king'.

No, I meant the one your referred to. Meh, I am not a master of the Inverz. I just thought that it would be nice to be able to use the strongest one.

I just checked a few things and it looks like you are correct with Gatekeeper. The game had it wrong this time. It was difficult to find another card with a similar effect to look at rulings, but Naturia Spiderfang is pretty close. (The game has it correct for Spiderfang and it goes along with the ruling, so my guess is that since there is no ruling for Gatekeeper, that mechanic isn't there either)


As for the guide, I like it a lot, and it goes along my thoughts of how Steelswarm should be. There are mainly Scout decks that people play, but thats something to stay away from in my opinion since for that Monarchs are better.

Some interesting things to note, though are that Girastag can actually gain you a lot of LP if used with other cards to re-use him. One time I had 10,000 LP even after using two Warnings.

Also, since Needle's effect activates when "sent to the grave" it can work well with Monster Reincarnation, discard effects/ costs, etc. That card has some synergy with Dark Worlds for that reason.

Steelswarm Needle

When this card you control is sent to the Graveyard, select 1 face-up Ritual, Fusion, or Synchro Monster on the field, and destroy it.

Doesn't work with discard or Foolish or LS engine.

Glad you liked it, I really worked hard on this one!

I have another Steelswarm deck, called Merchantswarm, you can find it here.

Thanks for reading!

Scratch what I said then. Still has potential, though.

I'm not saying it doesn't, thing is that Girastag does the same but better.

I just realized its the only splashable card of the series. Hmm. Interesting.