Arrrrre you Ready Kids?

The Plunder Patroll archetype is the most recent TCG-Premiere, and features a set of WATER/Fiend monsters taking on the high seas with boats, puns, and tons of unique effects. If you haven’t been fully acquainted with the theme yet, let’s do a quick rundown of the important cards, why they are important, and how they contribute to the end goal of disrupting your opponent to victory!

Now it is important for me to stress that these two traps are essential for their ability to rig attributes, but it’s important for you to notice that they offer distinct advantages. Assuming you are going first, Pride lets you rig an attribute before your opponent even has the chance to play a card, but Booty gives you an additional summon if you wait until your opponent summons a monster. Also, as the game accelerates towards a state where many duelists are running Red-Eyes Dragoon following its upcoming release in the 2020 collectable tin, you may even err towards the disruption capabilities of Pride if you can rip your opponent’s single copy of Dragun in response to the activation of Red-Eyes Fusion or Predaplant Verte Anaconda!

HEROs Don the Black Flag:

With this lengthy introduction out of the way, let’s check out the deck in action so you can understand the basic combos and the advantages of hitting the high seas hard and fast on your opening turn.

Replays:

If the embedded video above does not work, click here to view the replays on YouTube.

Pirating your Opponent’s Options:

What you may not notice in the replays is that none of the duels have the deck in a fully commanding position throughout the entire duel. The ‘swaying’ I mentioned earlier is reflected well by the duels, as the opponent may destroy your entire established field only for you to swing the duel back into your favor with a string of plays on the subsequent turn. Across the internet, I’ve seen these new Plunder Patroll cards described as being “extremely fair,” to the point where it doesn’t offer enough to stand a chance in the current game. But with the right tech cards and the right balance of the build, I think that this deck really can shine. The HERO engine is just one such option, others will be described later in the alternative tech options. But enough about playstyle or theory for now, let’s get into the decklist.

Sample Decklist:

Check out the decklist in the spoiler below!

My Suggestions on what NOT to Run in 3 Copies:

With all of its restrictions and the requirement of discarding Patroll cards for your ships, the Plunder Patroll theme does not always play well with outside support cards. But this has led many folks across various online communities to focus a bit too hard on a couple individual support cards, so give me a moment to provide some feedback on what cards you shouldn’t place a heavy emphasis on.

Lastly, do not try to plug so many expanded engines alongside the Plunders. If you are turning to Generaiders, Dark Worlds, or Atlanteans, you are severely risking not having enough Plunder Patroll resources to disrupt the opponent. Yes, the other themes offer a bit more disruption, but if those decks aren’t competitively viable on their own, what would be the benefit of adding their disruption capabilities to a deck that already disrupts extremely well on its own? While there are additional engines listed in the techs section below, note that those are designed to replace the HERO engine in this build should you choose to steer the Patrollships in a different direction, but I want to make sure you’re setting a good course before your veer too hard off the Patroll path!

Additional Tech Options:

Outro:

Well this has been quite the fun trip sailing across the high seas with some HEROs. I hope this inspires you to take another shot with this theme, because the Plunder Patroll archetype has been criminally under-served by the decklists I’ve seen posted online thus far – they really can do much more than you may have seen. Please try this theme for yourself, it may surprise you and show you just how much you missed dueling without the overhanging jolly roger. With that, I’ll leave you to your own devices for now – maybe my next article will resonate with you in these troublesome times.

Reminder, I also take suggestions for future CDS articles! I really want to see some input from you! If you wish to see a CDS article about the archetype, theme, or strategy you love, feel free to private message me on the YGOrg Discord server, the YGOrganization Forums, or just post a comment in response to this article on our Facebook page with your ideas to keep under consideration! On most YGO-related communities my username is Quincymccoy, so feel free to reach out.

I’ve also launched the Creative Deck Profile series of articles (CDP), where I take a requested archetype or strategy, posting a build with some replays. These are hosted on my YGOrganization Youtube channel, located here. Be sure to subscribe, as I upload previews of upcoming articles there before they are officially posted to this site!

As of now, I have a couple of outstanding requests that I am looking into: Cyberse, Generaider Boss, Mecha Phantom Beast, Psychic, Shaddoll.