For those of you that don’t know, there was a contest last summer where Konami let the players vote for the next two structure decks to be created and released. The competition was close and initially it was thought that cyber style had taken the first place slot. But it was edged out at the last moment by the Ice Barrier deck.
Well the Ice barrier structure deck dropped in the OCG in November 2020 and just released here in the TCG in February 2021, paving the way for the HIGHLY anticipated Cyber Style Successor structure deck. This deck will most likely not be a PURE Cyber Dragon deck as the one, and ONLY, leak had shown us: Cyberdark End Dragon!
As you can see Cyberdark End Dragon is a melding of Cyberdark Dragon and Cyber End Dragon. So it stands to reason that Cyberdark Dragons will be equal players in this deck if not a major contributor to its design. The issue alot of players have been having is HOW is Konami planning to incorporate Cyberdarks into today’s game. Even when they were released they were lackluster, one trick ponies that were too slow to really gain ANY traction and they quickly fell to the wayside as a joke to all but the most die hard fans of the archetype.
I have been racking my brain, like so many other players trying to figure out the plan to make Cyberdark playable and then the most likely answer came to me after the release of BLAZING VORTEX and the re-imagining of the Armed Dragon LV monsters. You see Armed Dragon’s were another Archetype from the GX era of Yu-Gi-Oh! They were powerful in their day but are not able to keep up in today’s fast paced competitive game. So instead of making a bunch of errata for older defunct cards they simply created NEW versions that became the old versions in name AND that were not reliant on the spells of yesteryear (Level Modulation & Level Up).
And now we have completely NEW cards that possess all of the original cards information and abilities along with a few enhancements to make it more relevant in today’s fast paced game play.
So, What I expect is that Konami will continue this rebirth of defunct archetypes and apply the same formula to the Cyberdark Dragon archetype.
So what will that look like?
Well, we know that cyberdarks were SEVERELY hobbled by their lack of ability to special summon themselves or each other, so this would NEED to be the very first issue to be addressed with any re-imagining of the archetype. This could be accomplished through creature abilities or spell/trap cards.
The second issue would be to address their ability to interact with other cards. Currently Cyberdarks can only interact with level 3
dragon type monsters which is what prompted Konami to create Cannon & Claw as dragon types. Since Konami has already hinted with their spoiler of the Cyberdark End Dragon at the possibility of interacting with machine monsters AS WELL AS dragon type monsters (at least for their extra deck boss monsters), not to mention the deck being a melding of both Cyber Dragon AND Cyberdark Dragon cards, they would need to open up Cyberdarks ability to interact with machine type monsters AS WELL AS dragon type monsters. There are of course multiple ways to go about this but let’s speculate a couple of options.
First they could simply open up the cyberdark interaction to include ALL cyber dragon monsters. Clean, simple, to-the-point. BORING! They could stick to the level three restriction on Cyberdark interactions (same as with the dragons) and have a level three cyber dragon. That would mean they would have to create another Cyber Dragon right? WRONG. We already have one ready to be revamped and unleashed upon the current game… Proto-Cyber Dragon.
Of course, if they were to re-introduce Proto-Cyber Dragon I would hope they would tinker with it a bit to bring it current with the other cyber dragons currently in existence. As we here at TCG Informer speculated months ago when word of this deck becoming a reality was finalized (see here) I would LOVE to see Konami do something along the lines of making Proto-Cyber Dragon a tuner monster to give Cyber Dragons the ability to run and have synchro monsters. Now this is my own personal speculation (lets face it, wish list) but Konami could easily rework older cards like Cyber Barrier Dragon and Cyber Laser Dragon into viable Synchro versions. Bump them up to level 8 (as creating a level five cyber dragon is EASY) and restrict the materials to Proto-Cyber Dragon + Any Level 5 Cyber Dragon monster (so as not to be easily abused in other decks). This would breath new life into older cards that were a mainstay in the very first Cyber Dragon decks to exist.
Now with Konami’s newfound workaround to revitalize aged archetypes all three of these could simply receive new cards with the same abilities (plus a few enhanced goodies) that are just speedier and do not rely on spells or traps to deploy them to the field. Or Konami could just leave them lost forever in the shadow realm.
I hope to see these classics once more in some capacity whether it be in the extra deck (as a synchro, or even a link) or the main deck as a more powerful version of itself.
However you speculate/fantasize about what is to come with this deck the one thing that is for certain is that we will ALL be eagerly awaiting the OCG release (slated for May 15, 2021) and finally getting a look at what treasures Konami will have packed inside this structure deck just waiting for us to uncover.
As always stay safe, keep brewing and theory crafting.
