The combo itself was very strong, but the deck had to function without it too, and so it was not a completely dominating force: it did have competition.īlackwings, for example, earned their spot as a prominent deck through their consistency, Summon spam ability, and powerful archetypal Synchro Monsters. The Airbellums would Synchro with the Summoner Monks to make two Dark Strike Fighters, which could then both attack directly and Tribute themselves with their own effects to finish the game with burn damage. The first Summoner Monk would Summon a second Summoner Monk, which would in turn summon a Rescue Cat, which itself would Summon two X-Saber Airbellums. This win condition spawned a combo that only required one Summoner Monk and two Spell Cards in hand to perform. Dark Strike Fighter made OTK’s very easy, as the monster alone could deal 4000 damage. Synchro Cat had access to the entirety of the era’s pool of Synchro Monsters, and had the ability to abuse Dark Strike Fighter, which was easily the most powerful Synchro Monster of its time. The first major deck, Synchro Cat, saw success largely because of its vast toolboxing capabilities. In this format, the strongest decks were Synchro Cat, Blackwings, and Lightsworn. With the oppressive force of Dark Armed Dragon out of the meta, the competitive field opened up into the first general Synchro format. The decks that would replace Tele-DAD in the meta, however, would be focused entirely on utilizing Synchro monsters as their primary win condition. It was essentially the same deck it had been before Synchros, but with a Synchro engine added in. While it had very easy access to Synchro plays, the main plays of the deck still focused around Dark Armed Dragon. Although the Tele-DAD format we talked about last time was the first Synchro format, I decided to separate it from the Synchro era of the competitive game because of the nature of the Tele-DAD deck. This period in the game’s history marked the rise of the Extra Deck as a general resource, the advent of archetypes as a driving force in the game, and several significant changes in how the competitive game was managed in the TCG. The Synchro era of Yu-Gi-Oh! (or “the 5D’s era”) is fondly remembered by many players, and for good reason.

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