General Strategy:

Pendulum pile, at least this starter deck in particular, doesn't have a general strategy. Instead, the focus jumps from what you have available and what your opponent is playing. Additionally, since you don't have a good focus on what to start with, you don't have a good win condition! This means that you'll have to be on your toes in order to identify the best option in your scenario and what is the best option to make. Because of these traits, this deck's playstyle is different from other decks and is a lot harder to pilot as a result.


Opening Plays:

Going first you generally want to set up multiple disruptions. Supreme King Gate Magician can turn into Juraishin by searching Supreme King Dragon Lightwurm, Normal Summoning it, then Synchro Summoning Juraishin with both. Unfortunately, this play requires all 3 Summons, so it’s only worth it if it’s the one play available. Juraishin can also be Summoned in 2 Summons using Harmonizing Magician to Special Summon Dragonpit Magician from the Deck. The Endymion package is versatile, offering you scale access or disruption with Servant of Endymion’s scale effect to Summon Magister of Endymion from the Deck. Some more efficient setups are Fighting Flame Swordsman, Diabellze the White Witch, and Zefranui, Secret of the Yang Zing, which all search for disruption Traps and only require 1 Summon.

Going second and on the crackback you have a plentiful amount of board breakers. From Exciton Knight to wipe the field to Draco Berserker of the Tenyi to clear multiple Monsters to Metalfoes Mithrilium to bounce a card and recycle your Metalfoes cards! If you can, you can use Endymion Servant to summon Reflection of Endymion to bounce a card.

There are a couple of tips that I can give you for certain cards:
- Don't forget to protect your Zefra cards by banishing Zefra Providence if you go for Zefra War!

Tips on your side deck:
- Wavering Eyes is used in the mirror. It is a huge blowout for your opponent if you draw it.
- If you side in Retaliating "C", be careful to link it off before you attempt to remove a pendulum monster from the field. Otherwise, your pendulum cards will be banished!
- Pendulum Impenetrable is used after sideboarding to prevent your opponent from killing you with Spell-Shattering Arrow and Wavering Eyes.
- Prohibition has a number of uses and is very flexible as a result. Declaring a card that's important to an opponent's strategy can have long-lasting consequences, for example.
- Called By the Grave is useful for both removing key pieces from the GY and protecting your scales from something like Ghost Ogre & Snow Rabbit. D.D. Crow is useful for removing key pieces from the GY as well.


Closing Thoughts:

Don't treat this Pendulum starter as the be-all end-all of pendulum. There are many ways to play pendulum, not this this amalgamate. If you want, you could play different pendulum engines such as Dinomist, or an entirely different pendulum style, like D/D/D! The most important piece of advice here is to try new things. Not everything will work as expected, but there will always be something to explore with Pendulum.

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Edited by WideWalrus and Stephen

Decklist and write-up by Psionic Brush

F KrasherV. You will be missed.