Phantom Knights Deck #773854 — Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel

Deck — Deck Power Evaluation

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

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

Legality

Main 40 / Extra 15 / Side 0 — status: Legal.

Identity & game plan

• Win condition: Xyz and Link bosses built through Rank-Up-Magic chains and graveyard recursion (Break Sword, Dark Rebellion Xyz Dragon, Four Heavenly Dragons, Dark Requiem Xyz Dragon, Arc Rebellion Xyz Dragon).; Link pressure and board control through Rusty Bardiche, S:P Little Knight, Cherubini and Masquerena, with Dominus Spark and Impulse as board-removal and summon-negation backup.
• Turn 1 (going first): Summon from hand with Silent Boots, Decayed Cloak or Doomed Soleret, Torn Scales or Ancient Cloak from the GY, then build a Rank 3 Xyz (Break Sword) and use Rank-Up-Magic Launch or Requiem to reach the Rank 4 and 5 bosses. Keep Ash, Impermanence, Maxx C or Dominus traps up when possible.
• Turn 2 (going second): Hold Ash Blossom, Infinite Impermanence, Maxx C and Dominus Impulse for the opponent's first summon or activated effect, then rebuild through GY recursion (Torn Scales, Silent Boots, Stained Greaves, Ancient Cloak banish effects) into a Rank 3 or 4 boss.
• Recovery: Recover from GY and banishment with Torn Scales, Ancient Cloak and Stained Greaves revives, and refill hand with Foolish Burial, Reinforcement of the Army, Silent Boots and Decayed Cloak searches. Fuwalos draws when the opponent Special Summons.
• After siding: No side deck (side count 0). No post-side plan exists in this list; the Master Duel ladder is not treated as best-of-3 here.

Why it scores here

The deck's structural score comes from how the system behaves, not from averaging its cards. Its hand-starter access is good but conditional: Silent Boots, Decayed Cloak and Doomed Soleret give about 74 percent chance of at least one hand starter in 5 cards, and Torn Scales and Ancient Cloak add graveyard-based access. Once a Phantom Knights monster is live, the GY recursion gives it strong resource grind and a wide set of interruption-resistant routes. Interaction is layered across 7 hand traps, 6 Dominus set traps, Fog Blade, Umbrage Veil and Wing, which lifts end-board quality. Its closing power comes from several 2000 to 3000 ATK Xyz bosses. The score is held back by single-copy Rank-Up-Magic enablers that gate the Rank 4 and 5 bosses, two Extra Deck slots (Karmael and Ophion) with no matching materials in the main deck, a thin Level 4 DARK main-deck base, and a high pilotability burden. Popularity and archetype usage did not add points, and no meta or win-rate data was used.

Dimension scores

How the score was computed

Strategy profile: 70% Combo / 30% Midrange; D13 excluded as meta-neutral with weights renormalized (Combo sum 97, Midrange sum 95). Structural ≈ 68.3, Going First ≈ 70, Going Second ≈ 76, Meta = provisional, Tournament Reliability ≈ 59. Modifiers: banlist exposure (-1); unrecoverable single-copy rank-up choke (-1). Final formula: 0.80*Structural + 0.20*TournamentReliability + ContextModifiers (Meta null, provisional): 0.80*68.3 + 0.20*59 - 2 = 64.4

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

• Layered interaction: 7 hand traps, 6 Dominus set traps, Fog Blade, Umbrage Veil and Wing
• Strong GY recursion and card-advantage text (Fuwalos, Silent Boots, Decayed Cloak, Ancient Cloak)
• High-ATK Xyz bosses (Dark Requiem 3000, Arc Rebellion 3000, Dark Rebellion 2500, Four Heavenly 2500) with 2 copies of Break Sword as the Rank 3 base
• All 40 main and 15 Extra slots filled with a legal, Limited-compliant list

Weaknesses

• Karmael and Ophion have no matching Level 4 materials in the main deck (per their card text)
• Only Fuwalos (WIND) is Level 4 in the main deck, so Rank 4 DARK bosses depend on Rank-Up-Magic
• No Level 5 monsters in the main deck; Rank 5 bosses depend on Requiem
• 35 percent of the main deck is traps, several conditional
• No side deck: no adaptability and no post-side plan

Critical choke points

• Phantom Knights' Rank-Up-Magic Launch: single copy, required to reach the Rank 4 and 5 bosses
• Phantom Knights' Rank-Up-Magic Requiem: single copy, required for the Rank 5 Dark Requiem and Arc Rebellion routes
• Foolish Burial and Reinforcement of the Army: single copies that feed GY recursion and searches

Recommended changes

Evidence & confidence

• Verified: Legality: 40 main, 15 extra, 0 side, no violations; Restricted cards: Foolish Burial, Maxx C and Reinforcement of the Army at Limited, 1 copy each; Card text for Karmael and Ophion material requirements; Copy histogram, role-tag counts and boss ATK values
• Inferred: Starter probabilities (0.74 going first, 0.81 going second) and hand-trap probability; Brick and dead-card risk from conditional traps; Ceiling and median read from card text (no boards); Structural and final scores
• Provisional: Meta power (null) and D13 format fit; D12 side adaptability (no side deck)
• Data gaps: usage statistics in this deck ignores the Extra Deck: all 11 missing core cards entries (for example Dark Requiem Xyz Dragon 1621413, Dark Rebellion Xyz Dragon 16195942, Four Heavenly 90091224) appear in cards[] zone=extra, so missing core cards is unreliable. Core is treated as present in the card list. 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 in YGOVN (going first or second, matchup, brick or starter rates) Meta power provisional (no dated metagame sample) Deck title is null