Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG: Structure Deck: Dark World

As the name can hint, “Dark World” is an archetype consisting of dark Fiend monsters. This archetype was first introduced in Elemental Energy (2005) and received it first dedicated structure deck six year later, in 2011. At the time, “Gates of the Underworld Structure Deck” and the overall archetype was quite a hit among the players as it featured two monsters with very high power which can be Special Summoned once discarded to the graveyard by a card effect. This is just the peak of the iceberg as the whole archetype revolves around monsters that can be summoned from the graveyard with the help of a few Spell Cards and traps that can support the process.

Now, at the end of 2022, Konami has decided to open again “the gates to the dark world” and release the last Structure deck for the year focused on this archetype. “Structure deck: Dark World”, is a re-styled version of the one released in 2011 and it contains several great reprints together with new cards to provide great support for the archetype. Overall the new deck represents a good boost to Dark World archetype and to the decks based on it.

Structure Deck: Engine & Card Combination

Dark World is a pretty solid archetype that focus on triggering the effects of your Dark World monsters by discarding them. The final aim of the strategy is to summon to the field a lot of monsters with high attack values and to disrupt your opponent’s strategy with a few good cards.

The engine of this deck can start in multiple ways as most of the new cards released with this deck have complementary effects. “Genta, Gateman of Dark World” (Lv4 effect monster) is a good starter for example as it can be discarded from the hand to add the field card “The Gates of Dark World” directly from your Deck to your hand. Once in play, this field card increase ATK/DEF of all your Fiend monsters by 300 points and, most importantly, it allows the player to banish a monster from the graveyard and to discard a monster to draw a card. The first effect can allow the player to bring back Genta as it can be special summoned once banished and it closes a nice loop with this monster.

The second effect of The Gates of the Dark World (“discard a card”) is a trigger for the next step of the engine. Depending on your needs and your hand, you can discard “Siilva, Warlord of the Dark World” (Lv5 effect monster) or “Beiige, Vanguard of the Dark World” as they can both be special summoned if sent to the graveyard by card effect. Other monsters can be sent to the graveyard to draw cards, destroy opponent monsters or Spell/Trap cards. Interestingly, many cards in this deck have additional bonuses similar to this with their main one designed to punish the opponent if they are the one sending your monsters to the graveyard. Also, you may take a few minutes to carefully read all your cards as some effects do not have the “once per turn” limitation opening the way for repeated combos.

Among the darkest shadows of your deck lies one of the key monsters for your strategy, “Reign-Beaux”. This monster comes in two variants with very different effects. “Reign-Beaux, overlord of

Dark World” can be summoned back from the graveyard and destroy all the opponents monster when it is sent to the graveyard by a non-player card effect. “Reign-Beaux, Overking of Dark World”, on the other hand, is a Lv8 effect monster that can be special summoned from the graveyard by returning a Level 7 or lower Dark World monster to the hand. In addition, if Reign-Beaux is discarded by a card effect, the player can search for a Level 5 or higher Dark World monster besides another Reign-Beaux and summon it if this was discarded by an opponent’s effect,

The final boss of this deck, “Grapha, Dragon Overlord of Dark World” is a Lv10 Fusion monster that can change any opponent’s monster effect or Normal Spell/Trap Card effect that’s activated into “discard a card”. It also allows to special summon “Grapha, Dragon Lord of Dark World” when it leaves the field by the effect of an opponent’s card together with forcing you and the opponent to discard a card.

Unleash Hell On Your Opponent: Cards & Strategies

Overall, the engine of the Dark World deck works nicely and it is reasonably balanced as it can be expected in any Structure deck. Personally, the two main limits of this deck are the presence of just one copy of all your nice effect monsters and the presence of a few cards that are not completely aligned with the overall graveyard-based strategy. For example, “Absolute King Back Jack” does not really fit for me. All the Danger! cards are also not really great as they do not benefit from belonging to the “Dark World” archetype and most of their effects are weaker than those of your Dark monsters.

Overall, if you are looking to play a Dark World deck, I strongly recommend to start from 2 or, better, 3 copies of the structure deck to fuel more cards to your strategy and to remove those that weaken it. On a positive, you can really build a reasonably good deck just by mixing the cards from these copies of the structure decks. This not only makes Dark World a very good product, but it also provides a good entry level into the game or at least into this Archetype.

Once you familiarize with the Dark World strategy, you will probably be looking to improve the extra deck. There is definitely a lot of space to boost this structure deck considering it comes with just one fusion monster. One upgrade you can consider is to add a few Link monsters that can exploit the amount of monster your engine can bring to the table. Some good options that can be considered are:

Saryuja Skull Dread (2800 ATK, Link 4) can be summoned by using 2 or more monsters with different names. The effects of this card are linked to the number of material used and they range from granting linked monsters 300 ATK/DEF to special summon 1 monster from your hand.

Unchained Abomination (3000 ATK, Link 4) requires 2 or more monsters including a Link Monster to be summoned to the field. This monster can budget on some of your Dark World monster effects that destroy a card on the field to destroy another card. In addition, when another monster is destroyed by battle and during the end phase the player can destroy another card severely damaging any player strategy.

Underworld Goddess of the Closed World (3000 ATK, Link 5) requires 4+ Effect Monsters to join the dark party but one monster can come from those the opponent controls. Once the Underworld Goddess is link summoned, the effects of all face-up monsters the opponent currently controls are negated. Moreover, this monster can prevent the opponent to special summon a monster from the graveyard once per turn.

Is This Set Worth Buying

Overall, I think that most of the structure decks are worth buying, with a few exceptions. For a very reasonable price they deliver a mix of new cards and old reprints that were hard to get. It is true that a few of these structure decks may have not been as interesting as most of the others but this is not the case for Dark World.

In fact this structure deck is of very good quality for both composition and playability. The reprints are very good and the newer ones fit perfectly the strategy. Most important, the deck is playable right out of the pack and offers some competitive value without a big investment. In addition, it represents a good way for newer players to practice with combos and with a non straightforward engine.

Overall this deck is a good investment and it is a lot of fun to play with.