Phantom Knights Deck #773402 — Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel

Deck — Deck Power Evaluation

Final Contextual Deck Power: 57/100 (±6 · Confidence: Medium)

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

Legality

Main 44 / Extra 15 / Side 0 — status: Legal.

Identity & game plan

• Win condition: Rank-Up-Magic Requiem or Force into a rank-5 or rank-4 Phantom Knights / Dark Rebellion Xyz boss (Dark Requiem, Arc Rebellion, Four Heavenly), with Phantom Knights Xyz and Link bodies as backup; Link-3 Rusty Bardiche and the Diabellstar / Dark Magician of Destruction line; Azamina fusions via Hallowed Azamina only as a side route
• Turn 1 (going first): Open a Level 3 Phantom Knights starter (Torn Scales, Decayed Cloak, Doomed Soleret, Silent Boots), search a second starter, and build toward a Rank-Up-Magic Xyz boss while holding Ash Blossom or Infinite Impermanence up
• Turn 2 (going second): Use a hand trap (Ash Blossom, Infinite Impermanence, Maxx C, Forbidden Droplet) on the opponent's first summon or search, then rebuild from the graveyard through Phantom Knights recursion effects
• Recovery: Re-summon from the graveyard with banish-cost effects (Silent Boots, Ancient Cloak, Torn Scales) and draw with Mulcharmy Fuwalos to refill the hand
• After siding: No side list in the evidence and no post-side data; no post-side plan can be assessed

Why it scores here

The deck reliably opens a starter: about 0.95 of 5-card openings contain at least one of the 19 starter-copy cards (hypergeometric, Inferred), and 10 searcher-text cards give a 0.74 chance of a search in hand. It converts into rank-5 and rank-4 Xyz bosses through Rank-Up-Magic and recurs from the graveyard, which supports a steady midgame. Its interaction is the strongest part: 7 hand traps and 15 negation-text cards, with 0.67 odds of a hand trap in a going-second 6-card hand. Scores are assigned to the system, not averaged from card scores. The Phantom Knights archetype is popular, but popularity earned no points here. Exact-name purity is only 39%: 36 off-archetype copies (Azamina, Diabellstar, Burning Abyss, Red-Eyes, Exosister, Magician, Timaeus) and three or more dead cards (Gaze of Timaeus, Red-Eyes Dark Dragoon, Exosister Karmael) pull the efficiency and pilotability scores down.

Dimension scores

How the score was computed

Strategy profile: Combo. Structural ≈ 62, Going First ≈ 64, Going Second ≈ 62, Meta = provisional, Tournament Reliability ≈ 56. Modifiers: Engine conflicts (off-archetype package) (-3); Banlist exposure (Limited) (-1). Final formula: 0.80*Structural + 0.20*TournamentReliability (Meta provisional); 0.80*62.3 + 0.20*56 = 61.0, then -4 modifiers = 57

Probability & combo summary

• Opening a starter: P(≥1) ≈ 0.95 · key two-card combo ≈ — · full-brick estimate ≈ 0.02 (all Inferred)
• Combo output: best PowerIndex —, median —, board-per-starter —
• Turn order: 0 going-first lines vs 0 going-second lines

Strengths

• Three Level 3 starters at 3 copies each (Torn Scales, Decayed Cloak, Doomed Soleret) give about 0.95 starter access in the opening hand (Inferred)
• Interaction density: 7 hand traps and 15 negation-text cards, with about 0.67 hand-trap access going second (Inferred)
• Graveyard recursion (Silent Boots, Ancient Cloak, Torn Scales) gives interruption resilience (Inferred)
• Legal list with no copy violations; the 4 Limited cards are all at the 1-copy cap (Verified)

Weaknesses

• Exact-name purity 39%; 36 off-archetype copies dilute the engine (Verified)
• Gaze of Timaeus needs Dark Magician or Dark Magician Girl as a target, and neither is in the list (Verified text, Inferred dead card)
• Red-Eyes Dark Dragoon needs Dark Magician plus Red-Eyes Black Dragon or a Dragon Effect Monster as materials; none are in the list (Inferred from card text)
• The Exosister Karmael Xyz needs two Level 4 Exosister monsters; none are in the list (Inferred from card text)
• Half the main deck is non-monster (21 of 44 spells and traps) with no recorded combo evidence (Verified count, Inferred effect)

Critical choke points

• Rank-Up-Magic Requiem and Force, 1 copy each, are the only route to the rank-5 and rank-4 Xyz bosses (Verified count)
• Maxx C and Foolish Burial, 1 copy each (Limited), limit the search and disruption redundancy (Verified count)
• Phantom Knights Level 3 starters carry the opening; losing them leaves Diabellstar and Mulcharmy as the only backup starters (Inferred)

Recommended changes

Evidence & confidence

• Verified: Legal with 44 main, 15 extra and 0 side; no copy violations; 4 Limited cards at 1 copy; Copy histogram 1:13, 2:2, 3:9 (sums to 44); Exact-name purity 39%, 36 off-archetype copies; Gaze of Timaeus text requires Dark Magician or Dark Magician Girl as a target; Red-Eyes Dark Dragoon text requires Dark Magician plus Red-Eyes Black Dragon or a Dragon Effect Monster as Fusion materials; Karmael text requires two Level 4 Exosister monsters; Hand traps 7, searcher text 10, negation text 15, removal text 23
• Inferred: P(>=1 starter in 5) ~0.95 (hypergeometric); Hand trap access 0.67 going second; Recursion and Rank-Up route give resilience and recovery; Dead cards (Gaze, Red-Eyes Dark Dragoon, Karmael) and the Azamina fusion route via Hallowed Azamina with Sinful Spoils fodder; Dimension scores D1 to D11 are semantic reads with no recorded boards; Off-archetype engine conflict modifier
• Provisional: Meta Power (no dated metagame sample); D13 matchup fit (no tournament or meta-share data); D12 side adaptability (no side list)
• Data gaps: No combos supplied: combo floor, median and ceiling are text-only inference No tournament link, so archetype meta-share and per-pilot records are absent No win-rate telemetry in YGOVN: going-first/second, matchup and brick rates are Inferred or Unknown Meta Power is provisional without a dated metagame sample Preprocessor inconsistency: usage_statistics marks 9 extra-deck core cards as in_this_deck false although they appear in the cards list (Cherubini, Arc Rebellion, Dark Requiem, Four Heavenly, Dark Rebellion, Shamanite, Rusty Bardiche, S:P Little Knight, Malevolent Scythe). core_present_pct 48 is understated; ~21 of 25 core cards are present (84%). No LIGHT-attribute monster appears in the attribute spread, so the Azamina fusion route depends on Hallowed Azamina with Sinful Spoils fodder; not verified No side deck in the export; side adaptability is not measurable Title is null; deck identity comes from the archetype and card list