[CP01] Shocklead Psychics

 By this point I'm far behind releases, however, considering the recently released KP03 didn't change the outlook on Psychics, Fiends or Warriors, I'm probably going to finish these. Anyways, I'm Liri from Boku No Road and in this entry we'll delve into our take for Psychics.

 

Psychics is the deck used by Romin Kirishima in the Yu-Gi-Oh! Sevens anime. The type debuted on KP01, received a small bit of support during KP02, and received enough cards to build a complete deck on CP01. The playstyle of the deck centers around playing with their LP total by using it as a resource to pay for their effects ro to reach thresholds, and recovering it to compensate for its costs. It is very reminiscent of the initial Psychic playstyle when they debuted during 5D's.

As payoff for risking your own lifeline in order to make your plays, Psychics have some of the strongest, most explosive plays to be seen in this format thanks to certain particular cards that we'll soon go into detail.

Deck List & Strategy

This deck's plussing engine as well as its strongest combo piece, [Romance Pick] is the reason Psychics can stand a fighting chance and, also, is the reason why they're capable ot suddenly pulling insane amounts of damage during their strongest turns.

Pick's ability to salvage any Psychic from our GY is powerful because its considerably easy to pull. It doesn't have the same restriction as [Kuribott] or the Setupper/Upsetter combo of ''Not controlling any other monsters'', and it is immensely abuseable seeing as how you can retrieve one Pick with another Pick, and thus, keep generating resources.

In order to pull Pick's effect most of the time you'll have to run a high concentration of Psychic monsters. That goes without saying, but generally the question is ''how many?''. Magic numbers and probabilities tend to fluctuate too much depending on the gamestate, how many cards are in your deck and how many of those are Spells/Traps/Non-Psychics. Surely you can reach an average where you won't miss her effect, but for this list we offer a ratio of 28 valid triggers aganst 12 whiffs.

 

What's the purpose of this amazing engine though? Well, Psychics has very offensive bosses that all play around their LP payment dynamic. [Prima Guitarna of the Colorful Light] is their main one, and the featured ace of Romin in the anime. ''By burning her own life, Prima Guitarna can lift the spirits of the monsters on the board'' or something like that. Her effect's simple, beatdown focused and helps in getting over monsters.

[Esperaid of the Smashing Lights] and [Foldablitz of the Dream Strings] are the other bosses that this type relies on. Both of them feature Life thresholds as conditions instead of costs. Esperaid is a card with an unprecedented destruction effect in exchange for being on the brink of defeat, however, it is not merely a comeback card, but also, if you use your LP payments in a clever manner, you can push yourself to the point where you can use Esperaid's effect to clear the path for your monsters to inflict huge damage through direct attacks. 

Foldablitz, though, is a more unremarkable one, at least on paper, as it doesn't have any direct impact on the field. It is very common knowledge that just inflicting unsubstantial amounts of damage (specially if it comes with a requirement) is either FTK material or a terrible piece of cardboard. It, however, is a card competent enough to pull its own weight. During your explosive turns, this card allows you to close the Life gap and potentially put your opponent in lethal range. It's not too strong by itself, but if you clear board with Esperaid and then burn the opposing player for 1500, you're essentially pushing 6300 damage with just those 2 monsters. It is not 8000, but it is very close to being so! Not to mention, if the game drags out and you get to use Foldablitz's effect twice then it will surely sting to your opponent.

This deck in particular runs a spread of 2 [Shocklead Dragon] and 3 [Phoenix Dragon]. Shocklead Dragon is a tech that is very liked in Japanese decklists for Psychics. Shocklead works as another piece of your explosive turns where, for instance, you can use its ability after you've powered up your Prima Guitarna, essentially powering the strongest monster on your opponent's board down to 0. It works wonders, with the downside of Shocklead not being salvageable through our main playmaker, which is why we round up our monster line-up with 3 copies of Phoenix Dragon.

For Spells/Traps we merely run a 3-3 split of [Psychic Divergence] and [Psychic Great Wall]. Our simple S/T removal that also costs Life and helps us bring our Life Total down to easily utilize Romance Pick since turn 1, and just a simple, standard defensive trap to protect our, admittedly, very fragile boss monsters.

Matchups

1.- Spellcasters: Poor(-)

Spellcasters, as usual, have the tools to deal with everything. Dragears and Seven Roads trample over your fragile boss monsters, and Dark Liberation totally shields them over anything you can throw at it. This matchup is pretty self explanatory and doing poorly against it will reflect on the representation aspect of your deck

2.- Dragons: Neutral

It's pretty much a race to see who can inflict 8000 damage first. It's up to the one who can invade the opposing board the fastest. Your advantage as Psychics is the lack of desireable defensive options for pure Dragon decks beyond [Dragon's Tenacity]. Counteroffensive can hurt your turn and board though, so be careful if you can read around that little piece of cardboard.

3.- Fiends: Neutral

Same deal as dragons. Your main disadvantage is lowering your own LP too much and then falling into their lethal range. Other than that, there's no factor that tips the scales towards one player or the other. If nothing else, Fiend's traps prove problematic, as [Epic Demon's Rock] could potentially end the duel if you fail to read it.

4.- Warriors: Positive

Even though this list in particular has no outs to Yameruler, shielding yourself for one turn to prevent damage from bleeding in proves enough to hold off any Warrior player and then gives you a chance to turn the board and eventually the game around. In theory warriors might have an edge for having enough outs to your strongest threats, but in practice they fall apart just as easily.

5.- Monster Mash: Neutral (-)

Yeah, I decided to include this in the matchups. In theory its Dragons but on crack. There's threats coming at you every turn at an insane pace, but you generally have outs to things that prove problematic for other decks (e. a set Dark Rooker, and all the 2500 bases Monster Mash runs).

6.- Rogue: Positive (+)

What even qualifies as Rogue? Beastgear? Aquas? Fishes? Those decks lose to themselves more than they do to your cards.

Notes

1.- Royal Demon's Heavymetal is a super strong boss monster that goes well with your Berrycist. Instead of the small dragon package you can probably run some number of Fiend Support cards such as [Gargoyle of the Palace], [Royal Demon's Deathvoice] or [Royal Demon's Punk] in addition to Heavymetal himself.

2.- If you want to delve deeper into the dragon package, you can run some number of [Rush Dragon Dragears], the Setupper/Upsetter package, [Blue-Eyes White Dragon], etc.

3.- LP gain cards like [Electric Ampoule] can bring your lifeline up. They're not terrible, clunky as they are.

Ending Thoughts

You lose to not drawing enough Picks more than you will against any matchup(that is not Spellcasters, clearly). Psychics have enough power to deal 8000 damage in a single turn with their buffs, burn, and clearing effects, but in the end its still the absolute definition of a glass cannon that lacks in protection and power presence in its boss monsters. Not to mention, other than Guitarna, all your other bosses rely upon your LP engine going off.

We can close this by hoping more support comes our way, which will indeed come given how important Romin is for the Sevens series.