D/D/D Deck #762272 — Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Links

Deck — Deck Power Evaluation

Final Contextual Deck Power: 61/100 (±7 · Confidence: Medium)

• Primary strategy: Combo
• Secondary strategies: Midrange, Pendulum, Fusion
• Format: duel-links

Legality

Main 30 / Extra 9 / Side 0 — status: Legal.

Identity & game plan

• Win condition: Build a layered D/D/D boss board (Siegfried Spell/Trap negate plus Deus Machinex) off Dark Contract with the Gate / Copernicus / Gryphon, then convert the accumulated ATK advantage into an OTK.; Pendulum-swarm beatdown: Gilgamesh places scales from Deck, Pendulum Summon multiple Fiends, and 3000+ ATK Fusions (Beowulf, Caesar Ragnarok) close the game.
• Turn 1 (going first): Normal Summon Copernicus or Kepler, search with Dark Contract with the Gate, resolve Gryphon/Orthros extension, Link Summon Gilgamesh to place two D/D Pendulum scales, Pendulum Summon into Siegfried plus an Xyz/Fusion body, then set Headhunt or Patent License.
• Turn 2 (going second): Use Forbidden Droplet (P(>=1 in 6) ~ 0.50) to strip interaction, then fuse with Swirl Slime from hand or Necro Slime from GY, break the remaining board with Underworld Goddess or Caesar Ragnarok, and swing for lethal.
• Recovery: Grind with GY recursion: Flame King Genghis revives a D/D on each Special Summon, Abyss Ragnarok revives from the GY, Necro Slime fuses from the GY, and Deus Machinex recycles via its Pendulum effect.
• After siding: Duel Links runs no Side Deck, so adaptation is Main-Deck only: Artifact Lancea versus GY/banish decks, Forbidden Droplet versus negate boards, Ghost Belle versus GY recursion.

Why it scores here

This D/D/D list is scored as a system, not as an average of its cards: 11 primary starter/searcher copies (Dark Contract with the Gate 3, Copernicus 3, Gryphon 3, Kepler 2) give roughly a 0.92 chance of at least one live engine card in a five-card hand, and the Extra Deck covers negate, OTK and removal roles across all nine slots. What holds the score in the low 60s is everything downstream of the opening: 11 of 18 Main Deck names are one-ofs, the Fusion line runs a single Swirl Slime, Necro Slime and Swamp King, and there is no recorded combo evidence, so floor and median output are inference only. The ceiling is genuinely high (Gilgamesh Pendulum setup into Siegfried plus Deus Machinex, backed by 3000+ ATK Fusions), but the format's 4000 LP makes the Dark Contract and Gilgamesh self-damage a real cost, and the deck has no Side Deck adaptation in a best-of-one format. Popularity and the archetype's historical standing earned zero points here, and no individual card score was averaged in. No dated metagame sample exists, so Meta Power stays provisional and the final number leans on Structural plus a mid Tournament Reliability estimate.

Dimension scores

How the score was computed

Strategy profile: Combo. Structural ≈ 63, Going First ≈ 63, Going Second ≈ 66, Meta = provisional, Tournament Reliability ≈ 58. Modifiers: Self-damage engine cost in a 4000-LP format (-2); Compact non-engine going-second package (1). Final formula: 0.80*Structural + 0.20*TournamentReliability (Meta provisional)

Probability & combo summary

• Opening a starter: P(≥1) ≈ 0.92 · key two-card combo ≈ 0.13 · full-brick estimate ≈ 0.08 (all Inferred)
• Combo output: best PowerIndex —, median —, board-per-starter —
• Turn order: 0 going-first lines vs 0 going-second lines

Strengths

• Very high starter density for a 30-card Duel Links deck (~0.92 to see at least one of Gate/Copernicus/Gryphon/Kepler in the opening five).
• Excellent Extra Deck coverage with all 9 slots used: Siegfried and Deus Machinex for interaction, Beowulf and Caesar Ragnarok for damage, Underworld Goddess for removal.
• Strong recursion loop through Flame King Genghis, Abyss Ragnarok, Necro Slime and the Deus Machinex Pendulum effect, giving the deck a real follow-up turn.
• Meaningful going-second package (Forbidden Droplet x3 plus Underworld Goddess and Headhunt) rather than a pure going-first board deck.
• High closing power: multiple 2800-3200 ATK bodies plus Beowulf's team-wide piercing damage.

Weaknesses

• 11 of 18 Main Deck names are one-ofs, so hand quality is wide-variance even when a starter is present.
• The Fusion engine lives on a single Swirl Slime, a single Necro Slime and a single Swamp King, so removing or milling one piece can strand the Fusion half.
• Dark Contract with the Gate, Gilgamesh and Abyss Ragnarok deal 1000 damage each in a 4000-LP format, compressing the deck's own life total.
• No scored combo boards exist, so the floor/median cannot be verified; the deck may be far less consistent in practice than the starter numbers suggest.
• No Side Deck adaptation is possible in the Duel Links best-of-one format, and the deck is notoriously decision-heavy.

Critical choke points

• Dark Contract with the Gate's search resolving: negating it strands the primary one-card engine for the turn.
• The Copernicus/Kepler Normal Summon, which competes for the single Normal Summon the deck has per turn.
• Gilgamesh's summon lock ('except D/D monsters') can leave the pilot without a non-D/D out if the line is mis-sequenced.
• A resolved Ash-style or GY-hate effect on the single Swirl Slime / Necro Slime line collapses the Fusion route.
• Accumulated Dark Contract burn can make an otherwise winning board irrelevant in time.

Recommended changes

Evidence & confidence

• Verified: Legality: 30 Main / 9 Extra / 0 Side, all within Duel Links size rules (20-30 Main, 0-9 Extra), zero violations.; All 30 distinct cards are Unlimited in the BanDuelLink field; restricted_cards is empty.; Card text for Dark Contract with the Gate, Gryphon, Copernicus, Kepler, Swirl Slime, Necro Slime, Gilgamesh, Siegfried, Beowulf, Caesar Ragnarok and Deus Machinex.; Extra Deck composition: 3 Fusion, 1 Synchro, 2 Xyz, 3 Link.; usage_statistics: 16 of 25 core cards present (64%); Ragnarok listed at typical_copies 2 while the deck runs 1.
• Observed: No scored combo boards were supplied (combos_evidence: 0 total, 0 scored) - no measured ceiling, median or board-per-starter exists.
• Inferred: P(>=1 primary starter in a 5-card hand) ~ 0.92 and P(>=1 of all engine singles) ~ 0.97 from hypergeometric estimates.; Two-card Swirl Slime fusion line appears in roughly 13% of opening hands.; Full-brick (no starter and no searcher) estimated at ~8%.; Text-only ceiling of Gilgamesh Pendulum setup into Siegfried plus Deus Machinex with 3000+ ATK bodies.; Self-damage from Gate / Gilgamesh / Ragnarok materially shortens the game in a 4000-LP format.
• Provisional: Meta Power is null: no dated metagame sample and no tournament_context link.; Matchup coverage and format fit cannot be graded without archetype share or per-pilot match records.; Post-side performance is unknown because Duel Links has no between-game siding.
• Data gaps: no combos supplied - combo floor/median/ceiling is text-only inference no tournament link - archetype meta-share and per-pilot match record absent no win-rate telemetry exists in YGOVN (going-first/second, matchup, game-level, brick/starter/OTK rates) - those signals are Inferred or Unknown Meta Power is Provisional unless a dated metagame sample is supplied usage_statistics 'in_this_deck' flags mark Deus Machinex, Siegfried, Beowulf, Caesar Ragnarok, Genghis, Tell and Gilgamesh as absent although all seven appear in the Extra Deck - the flag appears to be Main-Deck-only and was not used as evidence no Duel Links Skill is recorded in the export, which typically materially changes D/D/D starter reliability