Phantom Knights Deck #767174 — Yu-Gi-Oh! OCG

Deck — Deck Power Evaluation

Final Contextual Deck Power: 60/100 (±8 · Confidence: Low)

• Primary strategy: Midrange
• Secondary strategies: Control, Toolbox
• Format: ocg

Legality

Main 55 / Extra 15 / Side 0 — status: Legal.

Identity & game plan

• Win condition: Xyz pressure from Phantom Knights Xyz monsters (Break Sword, Malevolent Scythe) and Dark Rebellion / Four Heavenly Dragon, fed by level-3 DARK Phantom Knights monsters that Special Summon themselves from hand or GY.; Link and Xyz Dragon finishers (Rusty Bardiche, Arc Rebellion, Dark Requiem) once the board is established.
• Turn 1 (going first): Open a hand-starter (Decayed Cloak, Silent Boots, Doomed Soleret, Torn Scales or Danger!? Tsuchinoko?), extend into a level-3 pair, Xyz into Break Sword or Malevolent Scythe, and hold Ash Blossom, Ghost Belle or Solemn for the first opposing interaction.
• Turn 2 (going second): Hold a hand-trap (Infinite Impermanence, Ash Blossom, Ghost Ogre, Ghost Belle, Maxx C, Droll & Lock Bird) to answer the opponent's first engine, then rebuild through GY banish effects and the same hand-starters.
• Recovery: Recover from a disrupted board by banishing Phantom Knights monsters from the GY for their GY effects (Torn Scales, Silent Boots, Decayed Cloak, Ancient Cloak) and re-entering Xyz from the Extra Deck.
• After siding: No side deck is registered, so there is no documented post-side plan; this is a gap, not a plan.

Why it scores here

The deck's structural strength is its Phantom Knights engine: about 15 copies of hand-starters across five different cards, plus Ash, Ghost Belle and Ghost Ogre hand-traps, give a hypergeometric estimate of roughly 0.9 for at least one archetype-core card in a 5-card opening hand (Inferred). Interaction is dense (23 negation-text and 34 removal-text cards by the regex scaffold, 11 hand-traps, four Solemn cards), which is why end-board and going-second scores are above average. Recursion through GY banish effects and multiple Xyz routes lift resilience and grind. The score does not come from Phantom Knights being a popular archetype (usage stats only show the list is real and accessible) and it does not come from averaging card scores. It is held down by 42 off-archetype copies (Forbidden, Solemn, Cyclone, Dominus, Harpie, Danger!), an absent side deck (no post-side plan, which lowers the Tournament Reliability input), no combo boards, and no tournament data, so confidence is Low.

Dimension scores

How the score was computed

Strategy profile: Midrange. Structural ≈ 64.9, Going First ≈ 66, Going Second ≈ 62, Meta = provisional, Tournament Reliability ≈ 56. Modifiers: off-archetype dilution (-3). Final formula: 0.80*Structural + 0.20*TournamentReliability + ContextModifiers (Meta provisional, no dated metagame)

Probability & combo summary

• Opening a starter: P(≥1) ≈ 0.91 · key two-card combo ≈ — · full-brick estimate ≈ 0.09 (all Inferred)
• Combo output: best PowerIndex —, median —, board-per-starter —
• Turn order: 0 going-first lines vs 0 going-second lines

Strengths

• Large archetype-core presence with multiple self-summoning hand-starters
• Dense layered interaction (11 hand-traps plus Solemn and Forbidden cards)
• GY recursion through several Phantom Knights banish effects
• Multiple Xyz routes to 2000+ ATK finishers

Weaknesses

• 40% exact archetype purity; 42 off-archetype copies
• No side deck, so no post-side adaptation
• No recorded boards, so the combo ceiling and median are unverified
• Several cards need conditional timing (hand-traps and Quick effects)

Critical choke points

• Dependence on a level-3 DARK monster pair to reach any Xyz summon
• Hand-trap timing on going-second turns
• Missing Level 12 material for AA-ZEUS, making that Extra Deck slot situational

Recommended changes

Evidence & confidence

• Verified: Main 55 and Extra 15 are within OCG size rules [0-60] and [0-15]; All ten Limited and Semi-Limited cards are run at or below their legal copy limit; Archetype purity 28 of 55 exact-name copies (40%); Archetype core inclusion: 12 of 25 core cards present (48%)
• Observed: Usage statistics show the list is a real, accessible archetype build
• Inferred: Hand-starter opening probability ≈ 0.91; Going-first and going-second estimates; Interaction density and resilience from regex scaffold plus excerpt reads; Extra Deck coverage and pilotability
• Provisional: Matchup and format fit (no dated metagame or tournament data); Meta Power (null)
• Data gaps: no combos supplied — combo floor/median/ceiling is text-only inference no side deck — no post-side plan can be scored no tournament link — archetype meta-share and per-pilot match record absent no win-rate telemetry exists in YGOVN — going-first/second, matchup, brick/starter rates are Inferred Meta Power is Provisional unless a dated metagame sample is supplied deck title is null