General Strategy:

Thunder Dragon here play very differently than in the TCG, due to the lack of boss monsters Titan and Colossus. In Trinity, you're mainly looking to get LIGHT and DARK monsters in the GY to provide fodder for your Chaos monsters, aiming to go for big damage pushes with your beaters, Twin-Headed Thunder Dragon, Black Luster Soldier - Envoy of the Beginning, and Thunder Dragonduo. However, that isn't to say that this is all the deck can do. You can also look to prioritize recursion, grind, and value with cards like Black Dragon Collapserpent, White Dragon Wyverbuster, Chaos Space, Baobaboon, The Chaos Creator, and the low-level Thunder Dragon monsters. In certain matchups, it's difficult for the archetype to deal with specific cards, so you use removal and interruption options to deal with them, ranging from handtraps to Monarchs to traps to a Flip monster (no, really).


Opening Plays:

Thunder Dragon's opening plays are unfortunately limited due to ideal link monsters being on the Half-Point List, so you're mainly looking to gain searches and set up for your next turn. Aloof Lupine alongside any thunder-type monster can allow you to combo with banishing Thunder Dragondark or Dragonroar, triggering the Dragondark search or converting into a Link monster. However, slower options are also viable. Something like setting trap cards, or monsters like Baobaboon or Mimicking Man-Eater Bug are just as powerful, since your opponent is forced to either waste removal or get punished.

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Closing Thoughts:

While Thunder Dragon has seen a fall in popularity recently, that isn't to say that it's bad. Of all the competitive decks in the format, it can hybridize the most easily with other archetypes, since Thunder Dragon itself can operate on a simple 11-12 card main-deck engine. For example, Thunder Dragon have synergy with strategies as diverse as Madolche (Hootcake can banish Dragondark from GY), Metaphys (LIGHT Chaos fodder, provides blowouts to deal with hard matchups), Monarchs (Collapserpent/Wyverbuster make for solid tribute fodder, and the removal that Monarchs provide work well with Thunder Dragons), Myutants (banishing cards from hand/field can work to unbrick hands as well as facilitate large Myutant bosses), and even Crystron (combo amazingly with Dragondark, Dragonroar and Dragonhawk). In short, Thunder Dragons have some of the greatest deckbuilding variety in the format, able to be combined with just about anything. Want to get creative, or just to swing in with some giant boss monsters? Let the thunder roar!

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Written by 41 Flavors of Burritos

Edited by WideWalrus