Chimera Deck #674538 — Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel

Chimera — Deck Power Evaluation

Final Contextual Deck Power: 72/100 (±6 · Confidence: Medium)

• Primary strategy: Combo
• Secondary strategies: Midrange, Fusion-Centric
• Format: master-duel

Legality

Main 41 / Extra 15 / Side 0 — status: Legal.

Identity & game plan

• Win condition: Fusion Summon high-ATK boss monsters (Chimera the Illusion Beast, Guardian Chimera, Fiendsmith's Desirae) with multiple negations and board control, leveraging Beast/Fiend/Illusion material flexibility.; Resource accumulation and grind via Mulcharmy effects and card advantage; board-break going-second via removal and link/extra-deck toolbox.
• Turn 1 (going first): Open with Gazelle, Mirror Swordknight, or Nightmare Apprentice; search Chimera Fusion or core engine pieces; Fusion Summon a boss (typically Chimera the Illusion Beast or Fiendsmith's Desirae if Engraver present); build 1–3 negations and set up follow-up.
• Turn 2 (going second): Use hand traps (Ash Blossom, Infinite Impermanence, Droll & Lock Bird, Maxx 'C') to interrupt opponent's combo; rebuild board via Mulcharmy effects or Fusion Summon into removal-heavy Fusion monsters (A Bao A Qu for destruction, S:P Little Knight for banish).
• Recovery: Gazelle triggers on Normal/Special Summon, searching Level 5 Fiends or Chimera Fusion; Nightmare Apprentice revives and searches Illusions; Fiendsmith Engraver mills and revives; Chimera Fusion's GY effect (with Chimera the Flying Mythical Beast on field/GY) searches or removal—ensures turn 3+ recovery.
• After siding: No side deck available in Master Duel (0 side slots); board must adapt via main-deck flexibility. Strategy remains combo-first T1, reactive T2.

Why it scores here

Chimera is a mid-range Fusion deck that opens reliable combo turns via Gazelle, Mirror Swordknight, and Nightmare Apprentice (P(≥1 in hand5) ≈ 0.98), converting these starters into end-boards with 2–5 Fusion monsters averaging PowerIndex 98–100 and 1–3 negations. The deck achieves strong resource economy through Mulcharmy draw effects and Chimera Fusion's flexible material sink, but faces significant brick risk from heavy Level 4–6 monster density (27/41 main deck) and limited independent lines—most openers funnel through the same 3-card core. Going-second is hampered by reliance on situational hand traps; the Extra Deck is efficiently packed with 8 Fusions plus 5 Links for toolbox coverage. Meta Power remains provisional (no dated metagame supplied); popularity and deck frequency did not influence this score, which reflects system-level consistency, combo output, recovery, and turn-order balance.

Dimension scores

How the score was computed

Strategy profile: 0.70 Combo + 0.30 Midrange (reflects that deck opens strong combos but lacks forcing going-second and independent recovery lines). Structural ≈ 71, Going First ≈ 76, Going Second ≈ 65, Meta = provisional, Tournament Reliability ≈ 68. Modifiers: Heavy main-deck bottleneck (Level 4/6 density) (-3); Limited going-second resilience (-2); Compact Extra Deck tooling (2); No side deck (Master Duel format) (-3). Final formula: 0.80*Structural + 0.20*TournamentReliability (Meta provisional; no dated metagame supplied)

Probability & combo summary

• Opening a starter: P(≥1) ≈ 0.98 · key two-card combo ≈ 0.95 · full-brick estimate ≈ 0.02 (all Inferred)
• Combo output: best PowerIndex 100, median 100, board-per-starter 2
• Turn order: 0 going-first lines vs 0 going-second lines

Strengths

• Exceptional combo consistency: P(≥1 live starter) ≈ 0.98; triple-run core monsters (Gazelle, Mirror Swordknight, Nightmare Apprentice, Cornfield Coatl) reduce variance.
• High ceiling: recorded combos all PowerIndex 93–100; best line yields 4 end-monsters with 2 negation-bearing bosses and +5 card advantage.
• Resource economy: Mulcharmy draw effects + Chimera Fusion GY loop enable turns 3+ recovery; end-hand typically 2 cards after full combo, mid-range grind is viable.
• Extra-Deck tooling: 8 Fusion slots are all live; 5 Link monsters provide removal (A Bao A Qu), banish (S:P Little Knight), and recursion (Fiendsmith's Sequence); no wasted slots except Synchro/XYZ tech.
• Hand-trap density: 9 copies (3 Infinite Impermanence, 3 Ash Blossom, 2 Droll & Lock Bird, 1 Maxx 'C') provide going-second interaction; P(≥1 in hand6) ≈ 0.80.
• Flexible material typing: Fusions use Beast/Fiend/Illusion, enabling multiple search targets and reducing garnet risk within the engine.

Weaknesses

• Limited independent lines: All 5 recorded combos funnel through Gazelle or Nightmare Apprentice; disruption of these two starters significantly reduces board complexity.
• Heavy monster density: 29/41 main-deck Effect Monsters; 17 Level 4 and 10 Level 6 creates copy conflicts and brick risk if multiple are in opening hand without extender.
• Weak going-second game: No recorded going-second combos; hand-traps are reactive, not proactive; board-break engine (removal from Extra-Deck) is secondary to combo, not optimized.
• Choke-point turn order: No explicit turn-2 plan; if opponent establishes board, deck relies entirely on hand-trap quality, not engine adaptability.
• No side deck in Master Duel: Post-side pivots impossible; matchup strategy is locked to main-deck composition after game 1.
• Synchro/XYZ dead weight: Chaos Angel and D/D/D Wave High King Caesar are not part of the main combo engine; 2 Extra slots wasted on rarely-summoned tech.

Critical choke points

• Gazelle + Mirror Swordknight: 6 of 41 main cards; if both miss opening hand and are stuck in deck, Nightmare Apprentice becomes sole starter, reducing board power significantly.
• Chimera Fusion activation: Requires Beast or Fiend material + GY activation condition (Chimera the Flying Mythical Beast on field/GY); if not set up early, recovery stalls.
• Extra-Deck full: 15-card limit can fill quickly with 4 end-monsters per combo; running out of Extra slots mid-game forces suboptimal Fusion choices.
• Mulcharmy draw conditional: Fuwalos/Purulia only trigger if opponent Special Summons; against decks that prefer swarming or grinding, draw is suppressed.
• Level 4/6 density bottleneck: 27/41 monsters at Level 4–6 reduces flexibility for synchro summoning (only 1 Tuner + Synchro in deck) and limits tribute fodder options.

Recommended changes

Evidence & confidence

• Verified: Deck is Legal in Master Duel format (41 main, 15 extra, 0 side; no banned cards; no over-limit restricted cards).; All card text and banlist status confirmed from evidence.json card entries.; Combo evidence: 5 recorded combos, all PowerIndex 93–100, scored per deck-power-model-v1 methodology.; Archetype core identified via usage statistics: Gazelle, Mirror Swordknight, Cornfield Coatl, Nightmare Apprentice, Chimera Fusion are 100% inclusion.; Extra-Deck composition: 8 Fusions, 5 Links, 1 Synchro, 1 XYZ (verified from cards zone=extra).
• Observed: All 5 combos scored PowerIndex 98–100 with median 100; boards range 3–5 end-monsters with 1–3 negations.; Hand-trap density: 9 copies across 41 cards; P(≥1 in hand6 going-second) ≈ 0.80 (hypergeometric).; Resource signature: avg_graveyard 10.8 cards, avg_end_hand 2, avg_banished 0.8 (from combo data.resource profile).; Starter diversity: 4 independent starters identified (Gazelle, Mirror Swordknight, Nightmare Apprentice, Cornfield Coatl); all triple or double-run.; No going-first or going-second combo tags; all 5 combos labeled 'unknown' turn order.
• Inferred: P(≥1 live starter in hand5) ≈ 0.98 via hypergeometric model on 21 core + 18 searcher cards (D1).; Brick rate ≈ 0.02 estimated from full-hand misses of core starters when flooded with Level 4–6 duplicates (D2).; Median board output (D4) inferred as 2 end-monsters per combo baseline, ceiling 4–5 when full lines resolve (D3/D4).; Interruption resilience (D5) scored 65 because only 4 independent starters exist; disruption of Gazelle/Mirror Swordknight reduces board significantly; limited loop recovery (D5).; Going-second power (D8) inferred as 68 because no recorded combos tagged going-second; reliance on hand traps + Extra-Deck removal is functional but not specialized (D8).; Matchup fit (D13) scored 52 (Provisional) because deck deviates 68% from archetype core; tournament meta-share not provided (D13).
• Provisional: Meta Power is null: no dated metagame sample supplied; archetype usage stats are present but do not constitute a meta ranking.; Tournament Reliability (D14) scored 68 based on opening-hand stability (high P(starter)) and recovery (Gazelle/GY loop), but no tournament pilot data exists to verify tournament-level consistency.; Matchup coverage (D13) is Provisional; Chimera is 32% core-aligned with archetype stats, suggesting either a hybrid or off-archetype build; without dated meta, format fit cannot be assessed.
• Data gaps: No tournament link in deck export; archetype meta-share and per-pilot match record absent—Meta Power remains Provisional. No win-rate telemetry (brick rate, starter rate, game-level outcomes) exists in YGOVN—consistency and resilience claims are Inferred from probability and combo structure. Going-first vs going-second split: all 5 recorded combos labeled 'unknown' turn order; no explicit T1 or T2 sample, so turn-order-specific power scoring is estimated. No post-side data: Master Duel has 0 side slots; side-deck adaptability is 0 by rule, but real best-of-3 formats would require side-tested data. Archetype deviation not reconciled: deck is 32% core-aligned; unclear if this is intentional hybrid or a result of limited deck pool in Master Duel.