Yu-Gi-Oh! Ultimate Athletes Deck Guide

Yu-Gi-Oh! Ultimate Athletes Deck Guide by storm_echo

Hello, fellow duelists. I play a lot of decks, but one of my favorites has always been the Ultimate Athletes. So, I decided to make a short guide! Enjoy!

~Main Deck~

Monsters

The Athletes

• U.A Perfect Ace x3

What I consider to be the core of the deck, and why U.A. as an archetype can be so threatening. You can discard dead terraforming, RotA, (yes this does happen in this version of the deck) and dead summoner monks to negate anything your opponentwould try to do on their turn. Hugely disruptive and keeps the deck safe on your opponents turn. If you end up with two Aces and the fodder to spare for them, your opponent will be hard-pressed to get anything started and you’re liable to simply win outright.

• U.A. Mighty Slugger x3

The second pillar of the deck, this guy is your OTK machine when combined with Powered Jersey, which I’ll discuss later. His effect is a pseudo-armades effect, and allows Slugger to attack without fear of Mirror Force, Dimensional Prison, Fire/Ice Hand effects, flip effects, and the like. On top of that, if Slugger kills a dante or triverr, the effects don’t get to activate. Very strong against the meta. Once you’ve entered the battle phase with a Slugger en route, your opponent will be taking the damage and can’t do anything about it. Most of the decks damage comes from this guy.

• U.A. Midfielder x3

The absolute #1 most important card in the deck, Midfielder is necessary for the U.A. archetype to have any real viability. Searchable with RotA and most importantly able to be freely normal summoned, Midfielder opens up all of your in-hand U.A. to be special summoned, and also allows for some interesting plays once you have an established field. Really though, you’ll most often be normal summoning him just to get off a Stadium search and a special summon from hand. Absolute necessity at 3.

• U.A. Blockbacker x2

While some people advocate running only one copy of this card, I find that in the current meta it’s nice to have two copies of it, simply because you can negate both the first and second Dante or Triverr on their summon and leave them dead in the water for a Slugger to kill next turn without their effects going off. It is a bit cloggy, but if worst comes to worst you can always pitch it for ace.

• U.A. Goalkeeper x1

While he can be a bit cloggy, he still does only need one monarchs stormforth to be live (and an opponents monster), and his effect is rather reasonable. He can protect one on-field U.A. from destruction one time each turn, during your opponents turn. While it might seem a bit lackluster, especially compared to Ace’s disruption effect, what’s important to remember about Goalkeeper is that he’s another name. Each of the U.A. cannot be special summoned by returning a U.A. with the same name as themselves to the hand, and they can each only be special summoned once per turn. This means that if you’ve already brought out Ace this turn, you can’t bring out a second one. This makes Goalkeeper a viable addition to the deck, giving you a second protective monster with a wonderful 2800 defense to keep your plays safe from your opponent’s turn. Another use of this card is as a way to make sure that your opponent can’t simply force Ace to negate a dark hole, as you can use Goalkeeper to protect Ace, leaving Ace’s effect ready to go for the next disruptive motion your opponent might choose to use. Other Monsters

The Hand Traps

• Battle Fader x3

The first of the two hand traps (I’ll bet you can guess the other one), I included Battle Fader because a lot of the time you’ll be missing a stadium or midfielder to play, and won’t have any options turn 1 but to pass turn. Battle fader fulfills another purpose as well: Tribute Fodder. Everyone knows that the U.A. biggest weaknesses is an inability to special summon them without another on the field already and their tendency to have brick hands. Battle Fader fixes both of these issues by giving a viable simple pass option to the deck as well as leaving tribute fodder on the field in many cases after it’s effect is used. It also lets you run Allure of Darkness, which further helps with consistency.

• Gorz, the Emissary of Darkness x2

Everybody’s favorite hand trap! I like him as a viable first-turn option to let you pass to your opponent safely, letting you stall for stadium and midfielder more reliably. Allure of Darkness target as well, and a nice level 7 to make potential rank 7 plays using himself and Blockbacker (note: this is NOT a core play and should only be made in emergencies). One of the issues Gorz tends to has is that he’s thoroughly dead once you get things rolling, but thankfully in this deck we have Perfect Ace, who can pitch Gorz for that wonderful disruption. On top of all of this, both Gorz and the token he generates can be used as that all-important tribute fodder, which means that in some situations you could normal summon even Blockbacker if you had to.

That One Guy

• Summoner Monk x2

Summoner monk? What? Well, this deck runs plenty of spells, and his ability to bring out Midfielder is the main reason to run him. Pitch a spell, get a midfielder, which then opens up all the rest of your plays. On top of that he is a renowned instant-rank-4 monster, and he’s DARK so you can use him with ALLURE. Dead or useless copies later in the game are, as usual, food for Perfect Ace.

Spells!

• U.A. Stadium x3

Permanently boosts all your monsters by 500 when you SS a U.A. monster. Yes this DOES include both Gorz and his token. This is nice, but the second effect is most important: When you normal summon a U.A. monster, you can add another U.A. monster from your deck to your hand. This lets you pick your monster based on whether you need offence or defence at the moment. Stadium is the card that, alongside Midfielder, makes this deck at all viable.

• Terraforming x3

You need stadium. This searches it. Pitch any dead copies with Ace.

• Reinforcement of the Army x3

Good ‘ol RotA! You need Midfielder, this searches it. You can pitch dead copies with Ace as usual.

• U.A. Powered Jersey x3

Oh, dear lord. Where do I start. This card is hands-down the single best equip spell in the game (sorry Saqlifice). What does it do? It gives an Axe of Despair 1000 Atk boost to the equipped U.A. monster, it gives a BLS-EotB ability to attack a second time if the equipped monster destroys an opponents monster by battle, and it gives the equipped monster the ability to do doubled battle damage when it inflicts battle damage by attacking over an opponent’s monster. This card enables a wonderful OTK with slugger and stadium, which I’ll discuss later. The downside of this card is that if the equipped monster remains on the field until your next turn, the monster is banished. However, when this card is sent to the grave because the equipped monster returned to the hand, you get Jersey right back to your hand with it. This works with U.A. tag-outs, so unless Slugger was your only U.A. you’ll usually keep both the monster and the Jersey in hand. Run no less than 3.

• The Monarchs Storm Forth x3

What does this deck need? Tribute fodder. Where can we get it? From our opponent! Seriously though, this card is non-targeting, non-destruction removal that gets around a whole plethora of nasty monsters, in exchange for a normal summoned Ace, Slugger, or Goalkeeper. Almost never a bad draw, given all the higher-levelled monsters you’re running.

• Book of Moon x1

One of the best mid-turn disruption cards around, stopping enemy XYZ and Synchro shenanigans as well as working to get around things like the Djinn Lock, putting a boss monster facedown so Jersey Slugger can squash it, any number of uses. Too versatile not to include, and we’re not running many traps in this deck, so it’s good to have.

• Allure of Darkness x1

Just a little tech I included for consistency, it can use Summoner Monk, Gorz, or Battle Fader for food to give you a couple draws. This can save the game if you really need that Midfielder now and not later.

• Raigeki x1

It’s Raigeki. It wipes their whole field. No downside, great card to have, and it’s a spell. Moving on!

Traps

• Royal Decree x3

Yeah, this is our only trap. It negates all other traps. Why do we run it instead of trap stun or wiretap-type cards? Because it sets up an interesting problem for our opponent and their MST; they can either MST Stadium to slow our plays down, or they can MST Decree to make their traps live while leaving our field spell out. Neither really favors them, although I would rather they MST Decree 99% of the time since slugger and ace and the tag-out mechanic have a tendency to make enemy traps fizzle or wind up useless. Still, it’s an awesome floodgate and it’s very abuseable in this deck, so we run it.

~The Extra Deck~

Rank 4’s

• Castel, the Skyblast Musketeer x2

I think he’s much better than Silent Honor ARK right now, so I run two of him instead of one Castel on ARK. Non-destruction removal, and helps get around some nastier stuff like Beelze which this deck might otherwise have issues with. Also has a pseudo-Book of Moon effect, which can come in handy.

• Diamond Crab King

I love this guy! Gets over Towers without needing Jersey, but more importantly lets you have a 3000 ATK beater and 3000 DEF wall at the same time. Good for when you’re missing Stadium or Jersey for your own buffs.

• Gagaga Cowboy

Cowboy for game? Yeah, he burns 800 and seals games. Useful.

• Evilswarm Exciton Knight

Blows up the field when you’re behind.

• Master Key Beetle

You can make it with Monk+Monk, and it might save your ass one day. You can protect Stadium with this, which is the main reason to run it.

• Abyss Dweller

Quick effect which goes into your opponent’s graveyard and hits the ‘OFF’ switch. Very nice, and makes matches against BA, Shaddolls, Mermails, and to a lesser extent Nekroz a lot easier.

Rank 5’s

• Number 61: Volcasaurus

Can pop an opponent’s monster and inflict damage to them equal to the destroyed monsters original ATK.

• Shark Fortress

Forces your opponent to attack it, and you can detach to let a monster you control (any) attack twice during that turn. A weaker Jersey effect, but it has some uses.

• Crimson Shadow Armor Ninja

Has a quick effect which lets him avoid destruction by battle and card effects. Very niche, but hey, he can stall in rare cases. Even more situational than Shark Fortress, but what do U.A. need the extra for anyways? Exactly.

• Tiras, Keeper of Genesis

Can’t be destroyed by card effects, and at the end of a battle phase in which this card was involved in battle, you can pop a card. This is very useful.

• Greedy Sarameya

A continuous effect which turns Nurse Burn and Chain Burn on themselves. Hugely situational, but it might win you a duel against one of those decks. It also lets you blow up your opponent’s weaker monsters when it destroys one of them by battle. Great card.

Rank 7’s (Gorz and Blockbacker)

• Big Eye

Ooh! What a nice looking Crimson Blader you have there… mind if I borrow it? Take control of your duels with Big Eye today!

• Master of Blades

Essentially immune to targeting for a couple turns, and has the option of negating your own Book of Moon to pop an opponents card. Nice 2700 body as well.

• Mecha Phantom Beast Dracossack

Stall a lot, free tokens, etc. etc. One of the “big three” of rank 7’s.

~The Combo and other stuff~
Just some thoughts.

The OTK

• If you have stadium on the field, a U.A. either on the field or able to be normal summoned, U.A. slugger (can be searched), and Jersey, AND your opponent has attack position monsters with 1700 or less attack on the field and nothing else, you can perform this OTK. Special Mighty Slugger (2300), boost him off Stadium (2800), then equip Jersey (3800). Then enter the battle phase and attack once over their 1700 attack monster (4200 battle damage minimum, after Jersey doubling) then use the Jersey effect to attack again for 3800 minimum. This is a perfect 8000 damage OTK, and is the reason I don’t run Upstart Goblin. Upstart put this out of range.

What to do with Stadium searches

• Generally, your search priorities (If you don’t have them already in your hand) are Midfielder->Ace->Blockbacker/Goalkeeper->Slugger. The biggest asset of U.A. is how easily they can disrupt their opponent, and one of their main weaknesses is Stadium’s vulnerability. Prioritizing defensive searches ensures you can keep up your gamestate in the event that your Stadium is taken down. Obviously you can go for a slugger if your opponent is open to The OTK! or you have a Jersey you wanna use, but don’t rely on it.

Should I use my extra deck?

• No.
• Just kidding, you should use it, but ONLY when the situation calls for it or you’re for some reason winning hard in board state and can afford to lose two monsters to an XYZ. Remember that U.A. have a difficult time generating advantage and board presence, and making XYZ takes away from any presence you might have, so it’s usually only worth it if making that XYZ will help you win immediately. The thing about U.A. is that Perfect Ace, Slugger, and Blockbacker are already as good as if not better than most Extra Deck monsters, so it’s often a waste to try to shove them into an extra deck monster. You don’t want to waste your Midfielders on a rank 4, since without Midfielders your in-hand U.A. become infinitely less useful and you can stadium search much less often. Generally speaking, if you don’t win by making an XYZ, don’t do it. Obviously if you need 800 damage make Cowboy, and if you need to get around a beelze and have two level 7s don’t worry about using Big Eye. Just don’t waste monsters to make extra deck stuff for no reason and you’ll do fine.

Side Deck?

• The only cards that I feel are mandatory sides for this deck are MST x3, Dimensional Fissure, and Macro Cosmos. You don’t run mained MST but floodgates are still sort of a thing, so in case of Skill Drain or Vanity’s (etc.), break glass! You can side Macro Cosmos and Dimensional Fissure (and should in almost every meta matchup right now), because your monsters rarely if ever go to the graveyard. They can brick hands, but once you know what your opponent is up to it’s usually safe to drop things like Decree to put them in.IMPORTANT NOTE: Macro Cosmos will BANISH your jersey after your monster returns to hand, Dimensional Fissure will not. Keep this in mind when debating whether to flip the Macro before you kill their monsters or not.