Phantom Knights Deck #765384 — Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel

Deck — Deck Power Evaluation

Final Contextual Deck Power: 64/100 (±7 · Confidence: Medium)

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

Legality

Main 42 / Extra 15 / Side 0 — status: Legal.

Identity & game plan

• Win condition: Phantom Knights Xyz/Link bosses (Dark Requiem, Arc Rebellion, Evilswarm Ophion, Four Heavenly Dragons, Rusty Bardiche) reached through graveyard recursion and Rank-Up-Magic chains; Hand-trap and negation control that stalls the opponent while the Xyz engine rebuilds from the graveyard
• Turn 1 (going first): Search or Normal Summon a Phantom Knights monster, use GY-banish effects to add or Special Summon the next Phantom Knights piece, then Xyz or Link into a boss while holding Ash Blossom, Droll and Maxx C as interaction
• Turn 2 (going second): Hold hand traps (Ash Blossom, Droll & Lock Bird, Maxx C, Ghost Belle) to answer the opponent's first summon, then rebuild the board from the graveyard
• Recovery: Banish Phantom Knights monsters from the GY (Ancient Cloak, Torn Scales, Decayed Cloak, Stained Greaves) to re-add or re-summon engine pieces and Rank-Up-Magic spells
• After siding: Not applicable: Master Duel has no side deck and the list runs side_count 0

Why it scores here

This deck is scored as a system: its engine opens often because the 28 archetype-core copies, nine searchers and roughly 14 generic starters give several independent ways to put a Phantom Knights monster on the field, and its graveyard recursion lets a failed opening keep converting rather than dying outright. Its interaction package is the strongest part of the score: seven hand traps plus negation spells and traps (Ash Blossom, Droll and Lock Bird, Maxx C, Ghost Belle, Dominus Impulse, Forbidden Droplet, Fog Blade and Umbrage Veil) protect the engine on the opponent's turn and give it a real going-second plan. The ceiling is high, since the Extra Deck holds several 2500 to 3000 ATK bosses and Rank-Up-Magic chains, but there are no recorded boards, so the median and floor are inferred from card text and the hypergeometric draw odds rather than observed play. The score is held down by hand-trap dependence in hands, a non-trivial number of off-archetype Extra Deck cards (Lswarm, Burning Abyss and Exosister), the high pilotability burden, and the Limited status of several key one-copy cards. Popularity in usage statistics confirms the list is real and accessible but added no points on its own, and no card scores were averaged into the deck score.

Dimension scores

How the score was computed

Strategy profile: Combo. Structural ≈ 69.6, Going First ≈ 70, Going Second ≈ 72, Meta = provisional, Tournament Reliability ≈ 60. Modifiers: banlist exposure (-2); engine conflicts (-2). Final formula: 0.80*Structural + 0.20*TournamentReliability + ContextModifiers (-4); Meta power provisional and excluded

Probability & combo summary

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

Strengths

• Seven hand traps and negation spells give layered interaction on both turns
• Graveyard recursion through several Phantom Knights monsters gives recovery after disruption
• Multiple independent engine starters and nine searchers make the engine reliably live
• High-ATK Xyz and Link bosses give real closing power

Weaknesses

• No side deck, so no post-side adaptation
• Off-archetype Extra Deck cards dilute the Extra slots
• Key one-copy Limited cards mean a single dead copy costs a lot
• Hand-trap-heavy hands can brick when the opponent does not summon

Critical choke points

• Phantom Knights monsters in the graveyard must be intact for the recursion chain to continue
• Limited one-copy cards such as Maxx C and Crossout Designator
• Lswarm and Burning Abyss Extra Deck cards need specific material and are not reliably summonable

Recommended changes

Evidence & confidence

• Verified: Legal list: 42 Main, 15 Extra, 0 Side, all restricted cards within legal copies; Card text for each distinct card as provided in the evidence; Usage statistics: 56 percent of standard core cards are present
• Observed: No observed board or combo data exists in the evidence
• Inferred: Engine accessibility from hypergeometric odds and card text; Interaction quality from hand-trap and negation text; Median and ceiling estimates from card text, since no boards exist; Going-first and going-second power estimates
• Provisional: Matchup fit and Meta Power, pending a dated metagame sample; Side-deck adaptability dimension, since Master Duel has no side deck
• Data gaps: no combos supplied, so combo floor, median and ceiling are text-only inference no tournament link, so archetype meta-share and per-pilot match record are absent no win-rate telemetry exists for going-first, going-second, matchup or brick rates Meta Power is Provisional unless a dated metagame sample is supplied deck title is null in the source record