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Vanquish Soul is one of the three archetypes that were featured in the deck build pack Wild Survivors inYu-Gi-Oh!The deck features monsters of multiple types with no repeated ones and three attributes in Fire, Dark, and Earth.
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Vanquish Soul is a midrange deck. These decks are not performing long-winded combos like many of the most popular decks but instead opt to focus on interrupting the opponent to prevent them from setting up their board in the first place. Vanquish Soul decks accomplish this very well with many powerful effects that can force the opponent to end their turn prematurely.
Key Cards
Vanquish Soul Caesar Valius
Vanquish Soul Caesar Valiuscan easily be special summoned at any point. The effect of importance is revealing one of each Vanquish Soul attribute from your hand to destroy any other card on the field. Notably,this effect does not target,allowing it to get around certain forms of protection.
Vanquish Soul Caesar Valius has thehighest attack stat of any Vanquish Soul monster,which is useful if you do not have enough resources togo into anAccesscode Talkerfor the win. You can control more than one Caesar Valius, which can help close out games.
Vanquish Soul Razen
The main monster searcher of the archetype,Vanquish Soul Razen,gets any Vanquish Soul monster except itself into your hand. Vanquish Soul need as many attributes in their hand as possible so that all the monsters can use their effects, so Razen is especially important in getting the missing attribute.
There are multiple ways to special summon Vanquish Soul monsters at quick effect speed. This allows you toutilize Razen’s effect to destroy all other monsters in its column.
If your opponent isn’t smart with zone placement, this can destroy both a monster in the main monster zone and the extra monster zone.
Rock Of The Vanquisher
Vanquish Soul monsters often want to be in your hand but must also be put onto the field to get usage out of their effects.
Rock Of The Vanquisheris how to get itoff the field and return them to your handas a quick effect. Any Vanquish Soul monster can be used for its link summon, so you are not locked into only using low or high-level ones.
Rock Of The Vanquisher cannot be used as link material, but being able to special summon Vanquish Soul monsters from the hand is a way to get extra deck fodder onto the field easily.
Vanquish Soul Dr. Mad Loveis a key card to Vanquish Soul’s interruption plan. It gets you a Vanquish Soul spell or trap card from your deck on its summon, though, unfortunately, cannot addStake Your Soul!to your hand.
Its most relevant effect is the one that canreturn the monster with the lowest defense to the handby revealing a Dark and Earth monster from your hand.
Bouncing a card is very strong, especially on an extra deck monster, as this returns it to the extra deck instead.Dr. Mad Love’seffect does not target or destroy, allowing it to get around almost all forms of protection.
Stake Your Soul!
Stake Your Soul!is the main way toeasily special summon a monsterout from the deck. The monster it summonshas to have the same attribute but a different namefrom a revealed monster.
This special summoned monster goes back to the hand at the end phase, which, while normally a downside, is a positive for Vanquish Soul since they want monsters in hand.
There are at least two Vanquish Soul monsters of each attribute, so there is rarely a time when you won’t be able to special summon a monster off of Stake Your Soul! This lets you push your advantage late-game, too, as it becomes an easy way to go into your extra deck to push toward the end of the game.
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How To Play Vanquish Soul
Vanquish Soul decks are veryreactive and follow a game plan of slowly out-grinding your opponentuntil they are out of resources.
It is a much easier deck to pilot, thanks to not having to memorize combo lines since there are none in the deck.
At most, Vanquish Soul’s combo extends to overlaying two level four monsters intoZoodiac Chakanineto then makeZoodiac Boarbowwith it to attack the opponent directly.
This then allows you to overlay that withDivine Arsenal AA-ZEUS - Sky Thunderto havea full board wipe optionat any point in the game.
When going second,Vanquish Soul Razenwill be one of your main ways to bait out negates, as it can threaten to destroy monsters in its column.
Going first, one of your main disruptions is going to beVanquish Soul Dr. Mad Loveto bounce an important monster. When timed during a choke point of a combo, it can force the opponent to end their turn - which in Yu-Gi-Oh! can often mean you win the game.
Strengths And Weaknesses Of A Vanquish Soul Deck
Strengths
Vanquish Soul decks have a lot of searchability. Thanks to having monsters with the same levels and attributes,Small Worldis a fantastic inclusion. It can turn redundant cards in your hand intohand traps or Kaijusto help get interruptions or get cards to help break an opponent’s board.
Stake Your Soul!does not require you to reveal a Vanquish Soul monster, so you can use your utility cards to turn them into Vanquish Soul monsters on your field.
There are two major benefits of Vanquish Soul decks. One is that since all their monsters have different types, they can take advantage of thefloodgateThere Can Be Only Onesince it will not lock you out of specific monsters, thanks to them all having different types.
They also do not need much of an extra deck, allowing you to take advantage of a toolbox of generically good extra deck monsters likeKnightmare PhoenixandKnightmare Unicorn.
Since you will not always need these, Pot Of Prosperity is phenomenal in the deck as you can always use it to its max potential since you won’t worry about banishing six monsters permanently from the extra deck.
Weaknesses
The difficulty of playing Vanquish Soul comes from understanding what answers to turn to when responding to your opponent’s plays. They have access to plenty of disruption, but knowing when to use that disruption is difficult.
You want touse interruptiongenerally when youropponent is running low on extendersand at a time where if they lose a monster on the field, they will struggle to reach the end board they were trying to create.
It is important to use your disruptions before your opponent sets up negates, as Vanquish Soul does not have many answers to these outside ofInfinite Impermanence.
