Let’s delve down into the underworld for this instalment of my highly irregular updating schedule! Today we’re going to be looking at a bunch of different decks for one of my all-time favourite clans, the Dark Irregulars! After the jump: decklists galore! We’re going to be dealing with a whole array of archetypes for the Dark Irregulars, but before that, we’ll go over and into the lore of the Dark Irregulars.

イメージしろう!

~Imagine this!~

This post is, at time of writing, based on the English release including BT01, BT03, and BT07. It also includes information about the Japanese-only set BT05.

Part The First. The World of the Dark Irregulars.

Picture this: The land is ruled over by the demon lords, and pretty much everybody is straight out of a horror movie. If you’re a little squeamish, you already know that you’re in the wrong place. You hear a scratching from off to your right, and you turn, to see nothing. You begin to increase your pace, looking behind you every now and again to make sure you’re not being followed… but no matter how many times you make sure, you can’t shake the feeling that something is leading you somewhere… Leading you to the heart of the Dark Zone: the Abyss; the home of the Dark Irregulars.

Part the Second. Key Players in the Abyss.

If you’re going to be playing with demons, you had better know who they are. As you enter the Abyss, you are probably not surprised to find that the first person you’ll meet is not going to be this guy:

The Dark Lord of Abyss is a human who rules over the Abyss. Makes sense, right? Well, there’s a bit more to it than that. He used to fight with the other “main” major power in the Abyss, who is none other than Bladewing Reijy. Not much is known, really, about the Dark Lord, other than he wishes to destroy the world of light, with the help of the King of Diptera, Beelzebub, who was sent to the Abyss to fix the Dark Lord’s mistakes.

Now, we know a lot more about Reijy. He’s a guy who had his body surgically enhanced with what is basically an expansion port, which allows him to install dark technology to increase his powers to massively superhuman (and supernatural) levels. His “Destruction Wing”, the main technology, is made up of fifteen blades, and it warped his soul so much that everyone he comes into contact with simply crumbles into dust, which simply goes into powering his deadly weapon.

We’ve also got the Dark Lord’s right hand man, Amon. He’s the Marquis of the Demon World. Regal and imposing, his demonic form strikes terror in the hearts of all he opposes. So much, in fact, that every enemy shrinks in comparison to his power. He can even invoke cowardice in the army of his enemy, by, you guessed it, cannibalism.

There’s also this guy. Crazy vampires be crazy, as they say, and this guy is the craziest of them all. Or is he? Using the strange power of his Black Downfall, he, too, can cause his opponents to shrink in terror. But he literally makes his opponents shrink. Return to a lesser state of being, as it were. And that’s pretty much all you need to know about him. If he’s around, watch out for the katana.

Part the Third. The Meta of the Dark Regulars.

The key card for every single meta Dark Irregulars deck is Demon World Marquis, Amon. Sure, he’s only a 10k vanguard. But his ability is brilliant. During your turn, for every card that’s in your soul (and believe me, you will have a soul), Amon gets Power +1000. This means that by about turn 4 or 5, Amon himself will be attacking for at least 20,000 power. But that’s not all. His second ability is one of the most amazing [ACT] abilities there is. If you counterblast 1, and move one of your own rearguards into the soul, your opponent is presented with a choice: which rear-guard of theirs do they retire? Yes, you force them into the terrible position of retiring their ownrearguards! If you’re willing to drop things like draw triggers, you can give Amon a 1000 power boost, and force your opponent to retire a rearguard, just for the low, low price of counterblast 1! If you want your deck to have any substantial chance to win a tournament, you have to use this card. You don’t want to ride anyone else.

The other key player is the Thruster. No, not pelvic thrusts. We’re talking rocket boosters. Yes, boosters. Doreen the Thruster is quite possibly the best match you could ever have for boosting Amon, as when you use Amon’s ability (or indeed, any other main-phase soulcharge ability), she gets a +3000 boost to her power.

If you can guarantee that you’ll be soulcharging at least two cards every turn, she’s possibly the trump card of the deck.

Another great booster for the deck is the grade 1 Amon, the Poet of Darkness. During your turn, if you have 6 or more cards in your soul (and, as I have said before, you will), Poet of Darkness, Amon (and the corresponding grade 2, Demon of Aspiration, Amon) both get an extra 3,000 power boost. That means that if you have a column of Demon of Aspiration, boosted by Poet of Darkness, it hits for 20,000.

The kind of cards you want for your deck are things like Alluring Succubus (a grade 1 that soulcharges 1 when you call or ride it), Decadent Succubus (a grade 2 that, when on the vanguard circle, soulcharges 1 whenever you call a rearguard), and of course the ubiquitous null-shield, March Rabbit of Nightmareland!

Other options may include the new Witching Hour trio (the grade 1 Bike, the grade 2 Carriage, and the grade 3 Chariot), which get +2000 power for each card with the same name in the soul. These cards are more useful in the rogue decks, especially the Reijy deck (as we’ll see below).

In terms of triggers, you definitely want to run the draw trigger, which at the moment is Mad Hatter of Nightmareland. A deck can’t function without draw triggers if it has no other way to draw cards (well, at least, Dark Irregulars can’t); and the 5k shield is a much better trade-off for the Marquis’ ability than a 10k one, wouldn’t you agree? Apart from that, a good Dark Irregulars trigger set is probably 8 critical, 4 draw, and 4 heal. The stand triggers aren’t that useful in this deck. If you want to include it for a Nightmareland deck, that’s cool, but keep in mind that you’ll end up with 4-4-4-4. (I’ll go into detail with this trigger make-up in a later instalment – it’s rather popular in the Japanese meta.)

Some techs you may wish to consider including are Stil Vampir, Dark Lord, Blue Dust, Werwolf Sieger (because who doesn’t love a vanilla 10k?) and Courting Succubus, which soul-charges 1 when it boosts successfully. You could even think about running Rock the Wall, which soulcharges itself when you guard with it; but when we catch up to the Japanese set BT05, we get the grade 2 “Dark Soul Conductor”, which soulcharges 2 when you place it on the guardian circle.

Here’s a decklist which can be somewhat competitive:

Grade 0 (17):

1x Vermillion Gatekeeper (FV)

4x Dark Knight of Nightmareland (Critical)

4x Blitzritter (Critical)

4x Mad Hatter of Nightmareland (Draw)

4x Cheshire Cat of Nightmareland (Heal)

Grade 1 (15):

4x March Rabbit of Nightmareland

4x Alluring Succubus

3x Doreen the Thruster

4x Poet of Darkness, Amon

Grade 2 (10):

4x Decadent Succubus

3x Blue Dust (or Emblem Master; see below)

3x Demon of Aspiration, Amon

Grade 3 (8):

4x Demon World Marquis, Amon

2x Stil Vampir (or Dark Lord of Abyss; up to preference)

2x Evil Eye Basilisk

Part the Fourth. The Dark Irregulars.

The spirit of “irregularity” is finally here with the arrival of BT07. I’m only going to talk about one particular rogue deck here. (There are, of course, others, such as Edel Rose, but there’s a reason why she is only $2…) The deck I’m gonna talk about is the Reijy deck.

Picture this: You collect the fifteenth piece of the Destruction Wing, and your opponent crumbles to dust in front of you.

That’s it. That’s the winning image.

The idea behind this deck here is to do nothing except soulcharge until you ride Reijy; and, on turn 3, when you ride him, his ability already is active. Bladewing Reijy has a continuous ability, that while you have 15 or more cards in your soul (i.e. he is wearing the Destruction Wing), he gets Critical +2. In addition, when you ride him, you can select one of your rearguards, and search your deck for up to three copies of that card, and move them into your soul.

This paves the way for the best booster of them all: Demon Bike of the Witching Hour. It seems rather unassuming at first, with its measly 6,000 power. But you only ever want one on the rearguard circle. The one behind Reijy, at that. When you ride Reijy, you can definitely target Bike, pushing the remaining Bikes into soul, making its power total during your turn 12,000.

Which just happens to be perfect for Reijy, as that column then becomes 22,000 – and you’re attacking for 3 damage, remember. If you get a double critical trigger with that all-important twin drive, you can win in 3 turns. No problems.

“But what happens if you have Bike in hand,” I hear you ask? That’s where Knowledge Drunkard comes into play. Knowledge Drunkard is a promo card which, when its attack hits a vanguard, you may put a card from your hand into your soul, in order to draw a card! So powerful, right?

You can also team up Reijy with cards like Emblem Master, which, upon hitting a vanguard, lets you counterblast 1 and soulcharge 3. Three cards! That’s 20% of the way to finishing that key, the Destruction Wing!

Riding Decadent Succubus on turn 2 is quite helpful, as it allows you to pretty much drop your hand and soulcharge an extra 3 or 4 cards before other card effects.

Of course, the deck doesn’t really come into its own until we have set 5, when we get two key cards for Reijy builds: firstly, the draw trigger “Hysteric Shirley”. Like Margal from the Royal Paladin clan, it moves into the soul from a rearguard circle. But instead of giving a power boost to another unit, it soulcharges 1 when it does so.

Double soulcharging in this deck is quite important, and with the other card from set 5, “Dark Soul Conductor”. It’s a grade 2, which, when it is discarded from the guard circle, you may soulcharge another 2. The beauty of this is, you can intercept with it (moving it to the guard circle), and then soulcharge the 2 cards.

You can, instead of starting with Vermillion Gatekeeper, start with Devil in Shadow, which lets you counterblast 1, and push it back into the soul (it moves when you ride over it), in order to look at the top 5 cards from your deck, and find a grade 3. This is an important mechanic as you always want to be riding Reijy. You never want to have to ride Amon, but sometimes it happens, and it’s okay. I had a rather painful game today where I soulcharged three out of my four Reijy in the first two turns.

Anyway, let’s have a decklist.

Grade 0 (17):

1x Vermillion Gatekeeper (or Devil in Shadow, up to preference) (FV)

4x Dark Knight of Nightmareland (Critical)

4x Blitzritter (Critical)

4x Mad Hatter of Nightmareland (note, this will become Hysteric Shirley in set 5) (Draw)

4x Cheshire Cat of Nightmareland (Heal)

Grade 1 (15):

4x Yellow Bolt

4x Alluring Succubus

4x Demon Bike of the Witching Hour

3x March Rabbit of Nightmareland

Grade 2 (10):

4x Decadent Succubus

4x Emblem Master (may become 2-2 with Dark Soul Conductor eventually)

2x Knowledge Drunkard

Grade 3 (8):

4x Bladewing Reijy

3x Demon World Marquis, Amon

1x Dark Lord of Abyss

And with that, we’re finished looking at the wonderful image of the Abyss; the underworld that is home to the Dark Irregulars. May you never misride, and remember:

スタンダップ・ザ・ヴァンガード!

~Stand up, the vanguard!~

Sakako