Phantom Knights Deck #772498 — Yu-Gi-Oh! OCG

Deck — Deck Power Evaluation

Final Contextual Deck Power: 30/100 (±8 · Confidence: Low)

• Primary strategy: Midrange
• Secondary strategies: Stun
• Format: ocg

Legality

Main 55 / Extra 15 / Side 0 — status under the rules at evaluation time: Illegal. 1 violation(s).

Identity & game plan

• Win condition: Xyz and Link boards built from the Phantom Knights engine (Rusty Bardiche, Malevolent Scythe, Dark Rebellion Xyz Dragon, Dark Requiem Xyz Dragon); Hand-trap-backed grind: interrupt the opponent's summons and out-resource them over several turns
• Turn 1 (going first): Open a Phantom Knights monster, use Silent Boots or Doomed Soleret to Special Summon, then Xyz or Link into a board-control or pressure monster. Not fully supported by recorded boards, so this is text-derived.
• Turn 2 (going second): Hold hand traps (Ash Blossom, Maxx C, Infinite Impermanence, Droll and Lock Bird) to interrupt the opponent's first summon or search, then rebuild through the Phantom Knights searchers.
• Recovery: Banish-from-GY searchers and recursion (Silent Boots, Decayed Cloak, Ancient Cloak) to re-add Phantom Knights cards after a hand trap or a board wipe.
• After siding: No Side Deck is listed (side_count 0), so the deck cannot adapt between games of a best-of-3. This is a weakness, not a neutral score.

Why it scores here

The deck is Illegal: one copy of Albion the Branded Dragon (Forbidden in OCG) is in the Extra Deck, so the normal Final Contextual score is capped and this result is structural-only. Its consistency reads as moderate: the 23-copy Phantom Knights core gives a high chance of at least one core card in a 5-card opening hand (about 0.94, Inferred), but only 40% of Main Deck copies are exact-archetype and 16 generic/off-archetype copies dilute the engine. Interaction is the strongest part of the system: 12 hand traps and 28 removal-text cards give good coverage, especially going second (about 0.79 chance of at least one hand trap in a 6-card hand, Inferred). Conversion and median output cannot be verified because no combos were supplied, so those scores are text-derived and carry a wide band. The deck has no Side Deck, which caps post-side adaptability and lowers Tournament Reliability. No popularity or meta-share points were given, and card scores were not averaged into the deck score.

Dimension scores

How the score was computed

Strategy profile: Midrange. Structural ≈ 51, Going First ≈ 54, Going Second ≈ 55, Meta = provisional, Tournament Reliability ≈ 45. Modifiers: banlist exposure (-8); no side deck (-4). Final formula: Illegal cap: 0.80*51 + 0.20*45 + modifiers(-12) = 38 pre-cap; capped to 30 because the list is Illegal (structural-only, Meta provisional)

Probability & combo summary

• Opening a starter: P(≥1) ≈ 0.94 · 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

• Dense hand-trap and negation package (12 hand traps, 15 negation-text cards)
• Core archetype is accessible: 23 copies, about 0.94 chance of at least one in a 5-card hand
• Layered removal and recursion through Phantom Knights GY effects

Weaknesses

• Illegal as built: Albion the Branded Dragon is over the Forbidden limit
• No Side Deck, so no post-side adaptation
• Off-archetype splash across Link, Synchro, Fusion and Burning Abyss cards (about 42 copies) dilutes engine coherence
• No recorded combos, so conversion and median output cannot be verified

Critical choke points

• Albion the Branded Dragon in the Extra Deck is an automatic illegality until removed
• The Phantom Knights searchers must be live to rebuild after a hand-trap interruption

Recommended changes

Evidence & confidence

• Verified: Albion the Branded Dragon is Forbidden and over the copy limit (1 copy, 0 legal); Main Deck is 55 cards and Extra Deck is 15, both within OCG size rules; Side Deck count is 0; Limited and Semi-Limited copy counts are all within limits (only Albion violates)
• Observed: Archetype core inclusion statistics (23 core copies present; usage stats show Phantom Knights core cards at 50-69% inclusion)
• Inferred: P(at least one core card in opening hand of 5) about 0.94; P(at least one hand trap in 6-card going-second hand) about 0.79; Dimension scores D1-D11 and D14, from card text and hypergeometric estimates; Structural score 51 and pre-cap final 38
• Provisional: Meta Power (null, no dated metagame sample); D13 matchup and format fit (no tournament data); D4 floor and median output (no recorded boards)
• Data gaps: No combos supplied: combo floor, median and ceiling are text-only inference No tournament link: archetype meta-share and per-pilot match record are absent No win-rate telemetry exists for this deck Meta Power is Provisional unless a dated metagame sample is supplied Deck title is null, so the list is identified only by its archetype and id