Drytron is a Ritual-focused archetype of LIGHT Machine monsters named after the stars of the Draco constellation and their respective Greek letter designations. There are 2 primary categories of Drytron monsters: Level 1 Effect Monsters with 2000 ATK and 0 DEF, and Level 12 Ritual Monsters with 4000 ATK and DEF.
Drytron was brought into MD upon its release, and immediately it became one of the most powerful decks in the meta. Due to the numerous flaws present in MD near its release and the absence of a new banlist for 4 months, it has earned a notorious reputation from the playerbase. The meta has evolved quite significantly since Drytron's heyday, but the deck itself isn’t any less powerful than it was back then. In fact, the new support cards released in Flames of Fury significantly improve the combo potential of the deck. If the TCG has proved anything, it’s the fact that Drytron is still very much kicking despite the major meta shifts of the last year, and MD Drytron is much more powerful than TCG Drytron.
Playstyle
The deck’s general playstyle revolves around the restrictions present in the effects of every Level 1 Drytron:
Cannot be Normal Summoned/Set. Must be Special Summoned with the effect of a "Drytron" card. You can Tribute 1 other "Drytron" monster, or 1 Ritual Monster, from your hand or field; Special Summon this card from your hand or GY in Defense Position, then you can [effect unique to each Drytron]. You cannot Special Summon monsters, except monsters that cannot be Normal Summoned/Set, the turn you activate this effect. You can only use this effect of [this Drytron] once per turn.
Yes, that is the entire effect text of the Level 1 Drytrons.
These restrictions essentially prevent the use of any engines that involve Special Summoning non-Ritual and Extra Deck monsters, while allowing the use of the Normal Summon for the abundant pool of Ritual support cards, since Drytron has no in-archetype Normal Summon. On top of this, almost every play the deck has requires at least 2 Drytrons in your hand, since you need to have something to tribute for the effect of the 1st Drytron.
Their intended playstyle revolves around Ritual Summoning individually powerful Ritual Monsters, such as the deck’s very own boss monster, Loading..., and being able to continue doing so every turn due to every Level 1 Drytron being able to summon themselves from the GY. Now you might say, how can a deck of Level 1 monsters summon a Level 12 Ritual Monster? This is possible due to the deck’s unique take on Ritual Summoning, which uses the ATK of the tributed monsters instead of their Levels in order to Ritual Summon. This interesting gimmick, alongside the generic nature of the deck’s Ritual Spell, Loading..., allows the deck to be able to summon almost any Ritual Monster in the game with only 1 or 2 Drytrons as tribute fodder, something the deck is easily able to provide.
The deck’s real playstyle is quite different, however. Due to the interactions of Drytron monsters with the Cyber Angel archetype and the deck’s inherent lack of an Extra Deck locking mechanism, it can use all sorts of summoning mechanics alongside Ritual Summoning, which is what turns this deck into a true combo machine with a terrific grind game.
Core Cards
There are a few variants of Drytron that can be used, but for this section I will be talking about the essential cards that every “competitive” variant should be running.
Drytrons
Rituals
Fairies
Extra Deck
Something important to know about deckbuilding with Drytron is the ratio of Level 1 Drytrons to everything else in the deck. Drytron is a deck that has no 1 card combos, and as such it has to run a lot of Drytrons to be able to consistently open hands that don’t immediately brick. A good way to measure how consistent your deck will be is by looking at this ratio. The ideal ratio of Drytrons to non-Drytrons is 1:1, meaning that ideally half your deck should be the Level 1 Drytrons or cards that get you to them, but having slightly lower counts is still acceptable if you want non-engine, something especially important in the Kashtira and Purrely infested meta.
Allows you to search any Ritual Monster from your Deck, and as such is the most important Drytron to have due to the fact the added Ritual Monster can be used to summon another Drytron. Run at 3 copies at all times.
Allows you to search any Ritual Spell from your Deck. Run at 3 copies at all times for having consistent access to the archetype’s Ritual Spell.
Allows you to summon another Drytron from the GY. This effect might not seem as important as Alpha’s or Zeta’s, but it is an invaluable effect for the general gameplan of the deck. Run at 3 copies at all times.
Allows you to draw a card by revealing a Ritual Monster or Ritual Spell in your hand. While Delta isn’t integral to most combos, the additional draw you get for free can snowball into an immense resource advantage over the course of a duel. Run at 2 or 3 copies depending on your deck size.
The archetype’s boss monster, a Level 12 Ritual Monster that can be summoned with 2 Drytrons using Loading.... Draconids is an extremely powerful card, having incredible effects for both going 1st and going 2nd. If summoned going 1st, it acts as a very powerful removal tool with a relatively minor cost of banishing up to 2 Drytrons from the GY, while also being untargetable by monster effects, which some decks really struggle with. If summoned going 2nd, it acts as an imposing board clearer and OTK tool due to its massive 4000 ATK and the ability to attack every Special Summoned monster your opponent controls. Due to being a Machine with 4000 ATK, it can be used for the effect of Loading... in order to summon another Ritual Monster when necessary. Despite its many notable qualities, the deck’s gameplan going 1st is based around other Ritual Monsters, and as such the card is generally used as a going 2nd OTK tool, but if your combo gets interrupted it can be used as a fantastic backup Ritual to end on. It is quite flexible in its usage as it is both a Drytron by name and a Ritual Monster, so you can’t really go wrong with including 1 copy of it in your deck.
The archetype's only Ritual Spell. Allows you to Ritual Summon any Ritual Monster from hand or from the GY by using the total ATK of Machine monsters that equal or exceed the ATK of the Ritual Monster being summoned. Something noteworthy is the ability to use XYZ or Link Monsters as the cost for this effect, as the card checks for the ATK of the tributed monster(s) instead of their Level(s). It can also return itself to the hand from the GY by targeting a Drytron on the field and reducing its ATK by 1000, which allows you to Ritual Summon twice with only one Ritual Spell. Despite the power and flexibility of the card, you don’t want to draw it in your opening hand as the card does nothing by itself. Running 1 copy of it is optimal for minimal bricks, but 2 copies is also acceptable if you are afraid of losing your Ritual Spell to Runick or Kashtira.
The archetypal “searcher” of the deck, allows you to Special Summon a Drytron from your Deck. This Drytron is then usually used to Link Summon or tributed for another Drytron to get it off the field, allowing it to be able to activate its effect in the GY. This card is able to summon the Drytron in Attack Position, which can come up occasionally due to the 2000 ATK of the Drytrons. This card is sometimes not run at the maximum 3 copies due to the next card in the list.
The Field Spell of the deck, surprisingly not that overpowered. It allows you to search a “Drytron” Spell/Trap on activation, which is usually just Nova and occasionally Meteonis. None of the other Drytron S/T are worth playing, and as such the card is mostly just used as additional copies of Nova (please print better Drytron S/T I beg of you). The level modulation effect is something that can occasionally come up, but don’t count on it to win you games since your main combos often end with 0 Drytrons on field. The amount of copies for this card vary depending on deck size, but at least 1 should be run.
The REAL archetypal searcher of the deck, since every Drytron is a LIGHT Machine that cannot be Normal Summoned/Set. In addition, if the card’s activation is negated, you can discard a card to get it back to your hand and use it again, which is perfect for the deck. Run at 3 copies at all times.
Because each Drytron you want to search is Level 1, Jack is another piece of consistency you can add to your deck if you need more Drytrons to meet the 1:1 ratio. This is the least powerful consistency enabler of the deck due to its reliance on the opponent.
I don’t think I have to explain why this is included.
These cards are what make Drytron truly oppressive as a combo deck, due to how they interact with the Level 1 Drytrons.
The heart and soul of the deck. It is searchable with Alpha, and it allows you to nullify the summoning cost of Drytrons after you get it into rotation with its ability to search any LIGHT Fairy upon being tributed, which includes itself. Every combo the deck has is based around resolving Benten as many times as possible to generate the maximum amount of advantage with the immense number of available Ritual support cards in the pool of cards that Benten can search.
This card is able to search every Ritual in your deck except Draconids, which includes Benten and should be enough reason to run 3 copies of this card. If you want to have more space for your tech cards, however, this is the first card you should ideally be cutting down on. Having a single copy of this is still very good due to Thrust.
Natasha is one of your going 2nd tools, and it’s one of the strongest ones among them. While in the GY, it can target and steal a monster your opponent controls at the cost of banishing a Cyber Angel from the GY. This effect is extremely powerful and versatile, being able to remove an opponent’s monster while giving you valuable board presence, on a very cheap activation cost. In addition to that, the effect is not a “once per turn” effect, meaning that you can use it multiple times as long as you have Cyber Angels to banish for its effect. However, this effect cannot be activated if Natasha has not been summoned properly prior to meeting the activation condition, meaning that you have to actually Ritual Summon Natasha first. Natasha also has two other effects, one of them being the ability to gain LP equal to half the ATK of a monster you control and the other being the ability to negate attacks declared on Ritual Monsters. These 2 effects are not nearly impactful enough on MD’s BO1 system, so they can be thought of as bonus effects (the LP gain effect especially). Another card that you can’t really go wrong with by including in your deck, especially now that Benten is back at its original 3 copies.
The culmination of everything wrong with Benten’s non-once-per-turn searching ability and the true boss monster of Drytron, the disco ball of negation. Herald has the effect to negate any Spell/Trap Card or monster effect your opponent activates by sending a Fairy from your hand to the GY, a powerful effect that becomes truly fearsome when coupled with the lack of a once per turn clause. The game plan of Drytron when going 1st is to provide discard fodder for this card in order to essentially negate your opponent’s entire turn, a task made extremely easy with the help of Loading....
(Almost) all of the cards mentioned here are able to be searched off of Benten, and are integral for combos/disruption.
The newly released Choju has dethroned Diviner as the best searchable Normal Summon for going 1st (excluding Vanity’s Ruler), but Diviner is still an absolutely mandatory card to run. Diviner is able to send a Fairy from the Deck or Extra Deck to the GY and increase its Level by the Level of the sent monster. You’re often going to be sending Loading... with this effect in order to search what you need, but you have 2 other excellent candidates in N’tss and Mudora as well. This card can be run at 2 or 3 copies depending on how much you value being able to draw Diviner as a form of extension.
Everyone knows what he does. This card’s inclusion is entirely due to the presence of Loading..., since you’re able to summon it while only Special Summoning twice during the process and as such is your best answer to it.
The card that enables Herald to become a true menace. When sent to the GY, Eva is able to banish up to 2 LIGHT Fairies from the field/GY in order to search the same amount of Level 2 or lower LIGHT Fairies from the Deck. This effect gives Herald two negates simply for being sent to the GY, which is why the card has been banned in the TCG for almost 2 years by now. While the card can be played at 3 copies, you don’t ever need to resolve the card more than once in order to win games, and it allows you to keep bricks at a minimum.
Orange Light is the best target to search with Eva’s effect, as it is able to act as a very powerful handtrap in case Herald is removed from the board, and Eva fulfills the cost of Orange Light by itself. It’s also an extremely good search with Benten if you have everything else you need. Unfortunately, it’s limited to 1 copy to pay for the sins of the Ishizu cards, and as such you likely won’t be able to search it with Benten in order to keep it for Eva, unless you choose to run the next card.
Green Light is the spell counterpart of Orange Light, which sounds good but is far inferior to it. This card’s inclusion in the deck is entirely due to the fact that Orange Light is at 1.
While not a LIGHT Fairy, Mudora is still a Fairy and as such is able to be sent off of Diviner’s effect for access to extremely powerful GY disruption, and is not a complete brick in the hand due to being usable as fodder for Perfection and Orange Light. Despite being an extremely powerful card, the current meta isn’t exactly a stellar place for it, but whenever it finds a suitable environment you should absolutely be running it. Mudora is run over Keldo simply because of its ATK being higher, and also being cheaper.
Compared to the massive engine requirements of the Main Deck, the core Extra Deck for Drytron is a lot smaller.
This card does wonders for the deck, and it is crazy to imagine that Drytron was initially released to the TCG/OCG without it. When XYZ Summoned, Mu Beta is able to send any “Drytron” card from the Deck to the GY. This effect by itself is incredible for the deck, as it allows you to get an additional Drytron in rotation for the turn, allowing you to extend to infinity. This effect can also send Meteonis or Draconids when the situation calls for it, which is another bonus. However, Mu Beta has an additional effect, that being the effect to detach XYZ materials from itself instead of Tributing cards from the hand or field when Ritual Summoning, an effect that notably lacks the once per turn clause. What this effect means is that Ritual Summoning has no cost if this card is on the field, as you can only Ritual Summon twice with one Meteonis. By far the most essential card in the Extra Deck, and should be run at 2 copies regardless of the existence of Kashtira in the meta due to the extension and follow-up it can provide.
Diviner’s primary target in the deck, as Arc Light allows you to search any Ritual Monster or Ritual Spell when sent to the GY. Arc Light is also Level 4, meaning that Diviner becomes Level 6 after sending it, the perfect level for your combos.
Diviner makes itself Level 6 after sending Arc Light to the GY, and every going 1st Ritual you run is Level 6, making Beatrice a natural inclusion in the deck, coincidentally being a LIGHT Fairy itself. While Mu Beta is the most essential card in the Extra Deck, Beatrice is by far the most powerful one due to its absolutely insane effect and great accessibility. The flexibility of Beatrice is essential for the deck, as it single handedly allows you to run some of the most ridiculous payoffs you can think of, as well as turning some awkward hands into full combo. Beatrice very frequently comes up when going 2nd as well, as sometimes you have to give up making Mu Beta with the first 2 Drytrons you get on board, a problem Beatrice can fix by sending a Drytron with its effect. Beatrice’s effect is also a Quick Effect, meaning that you can use it again in your opponent’s turn to send Mudora for GY disruption/Eva if you were unable to access it. This card is absolutely mandatory to run in any version of the deck.
Turns Diviner into spot removal while still allowing Diviner to become Level 6, there is no reason to not include this card.
This is what every Drytron turns into when they grow up, a fact made apparent by the fact that it’s a LIGHT Machine, which allows for some hilarious synergy with the deck.
+1 Zeus material. That’s it.
These cards all serve one purpose: make Zeus. Pick the one that you prefer more.
This card’s primary purpose is to allow Nova to fully act as a searcher, by linking off the summoned Drytron. Linkuriboh has other niche situations however, the biggest one being the ability to out TCBOO by trading a Machine for a Cyberse. Loading... is a viable alternative for Linkuriboh, sometimes it’s even better as it can force out disruption when going 2nd while using a single Drytron. They are both UR so choose your fighter.
Tech Cards
Tech cards in Drytron are most commonly found in the form of boardbreakers, since this deck has quite few spots for non-engine due to the massive engine requirements. Most commonly, the amount of tech cards you run will be the determining factor for your deck size, as you always want to stay close to the 1:1 ratio. Basically meaning, more non-engine = bigger deck size.
These cards are here to act as your Kaiju-type cards, all of them having specific benefits to themselves. Kurikara is the most effective one to use in the upcoming meta of Kashtira and Purrely, since Noir and Arise are both extremely susceptible to it, and it is summoned to your field instead of the opponent’s. In addition, Kurikara is a Level 1 and a Fairy, so it can be used as material for an XYZ summon, and isn’t a complete brick when going 1st. Lava Golem is overall super powerful against most decks, but it does not work on Purrely because they often play around this card by ending with one monster on board. Volcanic Queen is the only traditional Kaiju available to Drytron, since the actual Kaijus can be Normal Summoned/Set and are unusable in this deck.
Thrust is a card released in the latest set, and it is a phenomenal card in this deck. Going 2nd, you have the ability to search any boardbreaker or extender you may ever need, and going 1st you can pull out extremely devastating Trap cards from your deck to ruin your opponent’s gameplan.
While handtraps can be quite powerful, this isn’t a format where a single handtrap is going to be sufficient at stopping the top decks. As such you likely won’t be running any of them because you can’t really afford to run many of them, with the exception of Loading... of course. Yes, you won’t be running Loading... in this deck because the card sucks into a format filled with Kashtira and Purrely and Thrust, and because Loading... is a very sufficient answer to the roach.
Variants
As mentioned earlier, Drytron has a few variants that it can use to great efficiency on Master Duel, starting with:
“Standard”
Everyone knows what this variant is achieving to do: summon Herald and load it with a bunch of negates. However, the most recent addition to the deck has made this variant a bit spicier.
Choju is one of the most explosive cards in this deck if it ever resolves. It is a searchable version of Loading... that’s somehow even better, it is a natural Level 6 for Beatrice, and you can summon it by tributing a Benten on board which means you get to search even more. All of these qualities turn Choju into the best combo starter the deck has, as by tributing Benten to summon it you get to search Herald + Dawn with Choju and Benten with itself, and you know exactly where those 3 cards lead to. This one play grants so much advantage that it frees up Loading... to send anything you desire, allowing for some truly ridiculous payoffs to be run without any drawbacks to your main gameplan, such as:
While Shadow’s Light basically cannot ever be activated from your hand in this deck, it can be sent to the GY with Beatrice to grant you a 2nd Normal Summon, allowing you to pair Herald with Vanity's Ruler in the same endboard, while still having enough gas for Herald to be an active threat. This payoff is not even intensive on deck space, since the only card you would be adding is a single copy of Shadow’s Light. In the upcoming format, this payoff is very promising for the deck, as many decks will be relying on Kaiju-type boardbreakers and negateable spells in order to get rid of Arise and Noir, a combination which is completely countered by Ruler + Herald.
Branded
There is exactly one Branded card in the Main Deck for this variant.
This variant of Drytron, as the name implies, aims to utilize Branded cards in order to create very powerful endboards. There is exactly a single reason why this variant even works:
Verte is most commonly known for sending Loading... with its effect to summon out a Loading... onto the board in every deck that could afford to run it, but Verte works with any “Fusion” Spell, which includes everyone’s favorite Loading.... While Verte is very much capable of just turning any 2 monsters into Loading..., the purpose of BraFu in this deck is much more important. Branded Fusion can summon a plethora of monsters, one of which includes Loading... that so happens to list any LIGHT monster as a Fusion Material, which allows Verte to turn into Foolish Burial for Loading.... The ability to access Eva without the use of Benten or Beatrice opens up your flexibility a lot, to the point of being able to afford summoning Loading... over Diviner in your main combo, once again ending on the spectacular Ruler + Herald board.
You might have realized that both of these variants end on basically the same board, Ruler + Herald. At this point it is up to the player to determine which variant they want to run, because Choju and Verte cannot be used together in the same deck due to space. The standard variant is a lot more explosive and ends on an overall better board compared to Branded, but the Branded variant’s access to Verte is invaluable, and it runs less overall bricks. The downside of the Branded variant is that the Extra Deck is a lot tighter due to being required to run Verte and 3 Fusions to accommodate Branded Fusion, which is a non-issue for the standard variant.
There is one last variant that I want to touch upon in this guide. It isn’t a variant I would consider to be “competitive” but it is super popular among the playerbase:
Turn Skip
You definitely saw at least one mention of this during your MD career. The primary goal of this variant is exactly as the title says: just skip your opponent’s turn. This is possible with the combination of these 2 cards:
By combining these 2 cards, you get to skip your opponent’s Main Phase 1 and Battle Phase, and due to how Phases work, your opponent cannot access their Main Phase 2 if you skip the Battle Phase, thus resulting in a functional turn skip. Neither of these cards are hard to access in Drytron: Amorphactor is a Ritual, which is accessible in a million ways, and Thunder of Ruler can be accessed with the combination of Loading... and Loading..., both of which are extremely easy to summon in this deck.
Normally I would complain about how this variant falters in the face of the side deck and relying on the surprise factor for the main combo, but MD ladder is BO1 and as such I cannot really provide an argument for not playing this variant on ladder. It mostly has the same weaknesses as the other variants of Drytron, maybe slightly weaker into handtraps compared to the others, but in a BO1 its weaknesses are a lot less noticeable.
If the Yu-Gi-Oh! DB website asks to login with Game Card ID just click "I don't have a game card ID" and fill some basic information to proceed
Export Guide
- Via the MDM extension (Recommended): Download on Firefox, or Chromium Browsers For Chromium browsers (Chrome/Edge/Opera/Brave...etc) just click "Add to chrome" on the store page and it'll work on most if not all chromium browsers. After using the extension, go to the Master Duel game => Main menu => Deck option => The Card database option at the top right corner => locate the deck you exported and copy it
Once the deck page loads click Edit then do one of the following based on the platform your device is running:
(PC Only): Press F12 to open the browser console => Paste the export code there => Hit Enter
OR (Other platforms/PC): In the address bar of the current tab remove the URL and type "javascript:" without the quotations then paste the export code and hit Enter
Save the deck
Go to the Master Duel game => Main menu => Deck option => The Card database option at the top right corner => locate the deck you exported and copy it
If the Yu-Gi-Oh! DB website asks to login with Game Card ID just click "I don't have a game card ID" and fill some basic information to proceed
Export Guide
- Via the MDM extension (Recommended): Download on Firefox, or Chromium Browsers For Chromium browsers (Chrome/Edge/Opera/Brave...etc) just click "Add to chrome" on the store page and it'll work on most if not all chromium browsers. After using the extension, go to the Master Duel game => Main menu => Deck option => The Card database option at the top right corner => locate the deck you exported and copy it
Once the deck page loads click Edit then do one of the following based on the platform your device is running:
(PC Only): Press F12 to open the browser console => Paste the export code there => Hit Enter
OR (Other platforms/PC): In the address bar of the current tab remove the URL and type "javascript:" without the quotations then paste the export code and hit Enter
Save the deck
Go to the Master Duel game => Main menu => Deck option => The Card database option at the top right corner => locate the deck you exported and copy it
If the Yu-Gi-Oh! DB website asks to login with Game Card ID just click "I don't have a game card ID" and fill some basic information to proceed
Export Guide
- Via the MDM extension (Recommended): Download on Firefox, or Chromium Browsers For Chromium browsers (Chrome/Edge/Opera/Brave...etc) just click "Add to chrome" on the store page and it'll work on most if not all chromium browsers. After using the extension, go to the Master Duel game => Main menu => Deck option => The Card database option at the top right corner => locate the deck you exported and copy it
Once the deck page loads click Edit then do one of the following based on the platform your device is running:
(PC Only): Press F12 to open the browser console => Paste the export code there => Hit Enter
OR (Other platforms/PC): In the address bar of the current tab remove the URL and type "javascript:" without the quotations then paste the export code and hit Enter
Save the deck
Go to the Master Duel game => Main menu => Deck option => The Card database option at the top right corner => locate the deck you exported and copy it
The guide is already getting insanely long due to the intricacies of building Drytron, and as such I prepared a separate Drytron Combo Sheet filled with every 2-card combo you might need. Combos involving 3+ cards mostly just result in additional bodies on board/more Fairies in hand, and as such are not included (with a certain exception).
Conclusion
I would like to thank everyone that has helped me polish out the guide and provide me with deck building advice. Drytron is quite a hard deck to build and pilot optimally, and I hope that this guide will be able to alleviate the barrier to entry slightly.
