Phantom Knights Deck #773384 — Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel

Deck — Deck Power Evaluation

Final Contextual Deck Power: 64/100 (±6 · Confidence: Medium)

• Primary strategy: Combo
• Secondary strategies: Stun
• Format: master-duel

Legality

Main 43 / Extra 15 / Side 0 — status: Legal.

Identity & game plan

• Win condition: Rank 4 or Rank 3 Xyz bosses (Dark Rebellion Xyz Dragon, Four Heavenly Dragons, Arc Rebellion, Break Sword, Malevolent Scythe) reached through GY-triggered Phantom Knights Special Summons and Rank-Up-Magic; Link and Xyz pressure from Rusty Bardiche and Raider's Knight once the board is established; Ragged Gloves adds 1000 ATK to a DARK Xyz it is used to summon
• Turn 1 (going first): Open a hand-summon starter (Torn Scales, Silent Boots, Decayed Cloak, Doomed Soleret or Ancient Cloak), chain GY and hand effects to put a Phantom Knights Xyz on the field, and hold a negation (Fog Blade, Forbidden Crown or Umbrage Veil) for the opponent's response
• Turn 2 (going second): Use Ash Blossom, Droll and Lock Bird or Maxx C on the opponent's first search or summon, then rebuild the board from the GY through the Phantom Knights recursion loop
• Recovery: Recursion from the GY (Torn Scales, Silent Boots, Decayed Cloak, Ragged Gloves banish effects) plus searchers (Silent Boots, Decayed Cloak, Ancient Cloak, Reinforcement of the Army) to rebuild a Xyz after a board wipe
• After siding: No side deck is registered, so there is no post-side plan to evaluate

Why it scores here

The deck reliably opens an engine: the 31 exact-name Phantom Knights copies plus Phantom Knights Xyz and Rank-Up cards give about 99% (hypergeometric, Inferred) chance of at least one archetype-core card in a 5-card opening hand, and four hand-summon starters can each restart the line from the hand or GY. It converts through GY-triggered Special Summons into Rank 3 and Rank 4 Xyz bosses, and its interaction density (13 negation texts, 28 removal texts, 5 hand traps) lets it protect that conversion. Its survival across disruption comes from recursion and redundancy rather than a single choke point, but the floor is unmeasured because no recorded boards exist. Popularity did not earn points: the archetype's 91% usage rate on core cards confirms the list is real, not that it is strong, and no card scores were averaged into the deck score. Going-second power and side-deck adaptability are weaker because the deck has no side deck.

Dimension scores

How the score was computed

Strategy profile: Combo. Structural ≈ 66.6, Going First ≈ 70, Going Second ≈ 60, Meta = provisional, Tournament Reliability ≈ 60. Modifiers: Limited-card exposure (-1). Final formula: 0.80*Structural + 0.20*TournamentReliability + ContextModifiers (Meta provisional, null) = 0.80*66.6 + 0.20*60 - 1 = 64.3, rounded to 64

Probability & combo summary

• Opening a starter: P(≥1) ≈ 0.32 · key two-card combo ≈ — · full-brick estimate ≈ 0.01 (all Inferred)
• Combo output: best PowerIndex —, median —, board-per-starter —
• Turn order: 0 going-first lines vs 0 going-second lines

Strengths

• Archetype-core access is near-certain in the opening hand (about 99%, Inferred)
• Four hand-summon starters and several GY-triggered recursion effects give redundant restart routes
• High interaction density: Fog Blade, Forbidden Crown, Umbrage Veil, Ash, Droll, Maxx C, Dominus Spark and Impulse

Weaknesses

• No side deck, so best-of-3 adaptation is absent
• No recorded combo boards, so ceiling and floor are text-only inferences
• Only 53.4% exact-name archetype purity; the 12 off-archetype and generic copies dilute the engine

Critical choke points

• Rank-Up-Magic Requiem and Force are single-copy Xyz route enablers in the main deck
• Droll and Lock Bird and Maxx C are the going-second hand-trap layer, and each is a single point of interaction on the opponent's first move
• Dark Rebellion Xyz Dragon, Four Heavenly Dragons and the other Rank 4 bosses need specific Xyz material, so a missing DARK Xyz stalls the board

Recommended changes

Evidence & confidence

• Verified: Legal for master-duel: 43 main, 15 extra, 0 side; all restricted cards at legal max (Maxx C, Foolish Burial and Reinforcement at Limited 1; Droll at Semi-Limited 2); Card text and stats for all 40 distinct cards; Archetype purity 53.4% and archetype spread from the composition block; Usage statistics: 25 core cards, 14 of them present
• Observed: Usage inclusion rates for core cards (for example, Reinforcement of the Army 97%, Ash Blossom 94%)
• Inferred: Opening-hand consistency: about 99% archetype-core, about 32% per 3-copy starter (hypergeometric); Interaction quality from negation and removal text density; Going-first and going-second power components; Structural score under the Combo profile
• Provisional: Meta power (null) and matchup fit (D13), because no dated meta sample or tournament link exists
• 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 absent) no win-rate telemetry (going-first, going-second, matchup, starter and brick rates are Inferred or Unknown) Meta Power is Provisional unless a dated metagame sample is supplied Deck title is null; the deck is identified only by archetype usage_statistics in_this_deck flags contradict the cards array for several Extra Deck cards (for example Malevolent Scythe, Rusty Bardiche, Dark Rebellion FHD and Raider's Knight are listed as absent but appear with copies in the cards array), so core_present_pct (56%) is unreliable