Notes & Combos

Clearly Branded Dracotail seems to be the most dominant and favored version of this deck, but I believe Magistus Dracotail is both underrated and under-explored. The premise is pretty simple: Magistus significantly increases your ceiling and adds another push going 2nd via a single Spenta, while playing better into the increase of low-impact handtraps that people are swapping to. The trade-off: you lose more into Maxx C / Fuwa, while trading off on another powerful 1-card playmaker in Branded Fusion.

My most common matchups on the way to M1 were the Dracotail mirror, Odion, and an assortment of the existing meta decks sprinkled in (Maliss, Mitsu, Orcust). In general, this deck doesn't have a particular losing matchup, aside from floodgate-heavy trap decks. But unlike the more Pure Dracotail builds, Spenta into Ninaruru gives you a second in-engine way to pop troublesome backrow, while Doomed Dragon, Aiwass, and fusion Zoroa all offer threatening removal and board presence.

The ratios in this build are relatively vanilla, with the only notable callouts being: 3x Veilers, which overperformed during the climb vs. all the Dtail mirrors, Called By because you need more answers to the roach compared to Pure, and the entire Trap lineup which is the most debatable. I would want to try Ghost Mourner in future builds to better block turn-0 Faimena attempts. As for the Extra Deck, Invoked Caliga may be the deck's strongest selling point, yielding a heavy floodgate option that you can fuse into on your opponent's turn, thanks to either Arthalion adding back Crowley or triggering his summon off Cross Sheep.

I had lots of fun during this climb and have developed a super love-hate relationship with this deck: you get either the worst hands of all time (Spenta + Zoroa + Crowley all glued to your hand) OR the greatest grip of 5 you'll ever see (Spenta + Faimena + Dtail name + Spell). While the Branded variant is an overall solid build, if you're looking for something more explosive and equally as flexible, give Magistus a shot!