This guide exists to showcase decks you can make with just a single in-game pack. For example, let's say you have a complete set of Grandpa Muto cards- you could wait until you start opening other packs to begin constructing decks, but why when there's everything you need to make a fun and effective Gravekeepers deck right there?

This guide is for you if:

• You enjoy trying different types of decks.
  
• You want to play decks that are effective in the campaign without being too overpowered.
  
• You like playing with archetypes and seeing what they have to offer.
  
• You want to respect the ban list (and if not, it isn't hard to make tweaks to suit your needs).

This guide is not for players that want meta decks. You can easily find those elsewhere.

Since there's an excellent guide by Jomami that already details how you can make a good Gravekeeper deck with just cards from the aforementioned Grandpa Muto pack, I'm not actually going to bother with that one, though it is a great way to get started.

Mai's packs have three different archetypes; if you're familiar with the character in the anime, you'll not be surprised to find that her packs include both Harpy and Amazoness cards, either of which you can make a decent deck with. There's also a fair number of Insect cards, but if you want to make an Insect deck, it's best to wait until you get to the Kite Tenjo packs where Inzektors will be available.

Amazons' Wrath


Monster Cards

• 3x Amazoness Baby Tiger
  
• 3x Amazoness Princess
  
• 3x Amazoness Spy
  
• 3x Amazoness Paladin
  
• 3x Amazoness Sage
  
• 3x Amazoness Tiger
  
• 2x Amazoness Trainee
  
• 3x Amazoness Queen

Magic Cards

• 3x Amazoness Fighting Spirit
  
• 3x Amazoness Heirloom
  
• 3x Amazoness Village

Trap Card

• 3x Amazoness Archers
  
• 3x Amazoness Willpower
  
• 2x Queen's Pawn

You're going to have to live with the fact that you will be taking damage with this deck- but it still works great for campaign and even does okayish against the challenge decks. Just keep in mind that to use it optimally, you'll have to swing in on some losing battles.

Princess is great for searching what you need; an optimal early play would be something like play Princess to grab Village, play it immediately; attack with Princess, discard Baby Tiger to activate her ability, pull Queen from your deck, then chain Baby Tiger's ability to Queen's summon to pull it back out. Queen protects Princess from being destroyed even if she attacks into a monster with higher ATK.

Fighting Spirit and Heirloom are both great for taking out high power monsters- Heirloom serves double duty in protecting one of your monsters if you can't get Queen out. Heirloom is particularly great on Sage, since she's your only means of Magic/Trap removal. Tiger and Baby Tiger both have the potential to become good heavy hitters; Baby Tiger seems pretty weak at first, but remember that it's empowered by all Amzoness cards in your graveyard- that's everything in this deck except Queen's Pawn, and that can really add up by time all is said and done, especially if you're using the Village to constantly replenish your fallen warriors.

Due to the rules of this guide, you won't be able to use Empress or Pet Liger since we have no way to fuse cards. If you plan to start working towards making this into a proper deck, that's one of the first things you should think about.

Harrowing Harpies


Monster Cards

• 3x Birdface
  
• 3x Harpie Channeler
  
• 3x Harpie Dancer
  
• 3x Harpie Harpist
  
• 3x Harpie Lady 1
  
• 3x Harpie Queen
  
• 3x Harpie's Pet Baby Dragon
  
• 3x Harpie's Pet Dragon
  
• 2x Stealth Bird

Magic Cards

• 2x Harpie Lady Phoenix Formation
  
• 3x Harpies' Hunting Ground
  
• 3x Hysteric Sign

Trap Cards

• 3x Hysteric Party
  
• 3x Icarus Attack

Extra Deck

• 3x Harpie's Pet Phantasmal Dragon

The main way you'll be playing this deck is using Harpie Channeler to get out what you need- leading to using one of the dragons as your heavy hitter. Pet Phantasmal Dragon is great on both offense and defense, though newcomers would do well to remember that it only protects from effects that target- cards like Dark Hole or Mirror Force that do not target a monster will not be stopped by it.

There's a couple important things to remember; firstly, Harpie Lady 1 is the only card that is named "Harpy Lady" while it's in your hand or deck- this is why we don't use Elegant Egotist.

Secondly, Harpies' Hunting Ground is a double-edged sword; if you have it out, you must use its effect when you summon any card that is "Harpie Lady" while it's on the field; this means that you'll have to destroy a spell or trap even if only your own are available- this isn't entirely bad though. You want to destroy Hysteric Sign, it's designed for this; if the cards that Hysteric Party summoned are already gone, there's no harm in destroying it; and of course, Harpies' Hunting Ground can destroy itself if your other cards are too valuable at the time.

Toon Terror (courtesy of digibuilder)


Monster Cards

• 2x Red-Eyes Toon Dragon
  
• 2x Toon Ancient Gear Golem
  
• 3x Toon Alligator
  
• 1x Toon Cyber Dragon
  
• 2x Toon Dark Magician
  
• 3x Toon Defense
  
• 3x Toon Gemini Elf
  
• 3x Toon Goblin attack Force
  
• 3x Toon Mask
  
• 3x Toon Masked Sorcerer

Magic Cards

• 3x Field Barrier
  
• 3x Toon Kingdom
  
• 3x Toon Table of Contents
  
• 3x Toon World

Trap Cards

• 3x Call of the Haunted

Originally posted by digibuilder:

The first priority should be to get Toon World or Toon kingdom on your field. Toon Table of Contents can help you get any "Toon" monster, spell, or trap into your hand. If your opponent attempts to destroy your Toon Kingdom, you can use Field Barrier to stop it.

We'll be using lower level Toon monsters to establish a presence on the board, and having Toon World or Toon Kingdom on the field will allow you to attack your opponent's life points directly. Toon Masked Sorcerer can draw a card for you if he deals damage to the opponent, and Toon Gemini Elf can discard a card from your opponents hand if she deals damage, allowing you to take control of the duel.

Your higher level Toon monsters can help you gain the advantage if the duel runs a little longer than you expected. Toon Dark Magician allows you to discard a card to search your deck for either a Toon monster or a Toon spell/trap. Red-Eyes Toon Dragon can help you special summon more monsters as you draw them or search them to your hand. Toon Ancient Gear Golem allows you to deal damage to your opponent through defense position monsters as well as having 3000 attack.

The goal of the deck is to attack your opponent directly to deal a lot of damage, but such a powerful effect comes with restrictions. Most Toon monsters can't attack on the same turn they are summoned, and when Toon Kingdom or Toon World is destroyed, most Toons will destroy themselves. To protect our Toons while they can't attack, I have included Toon Defense, which allows your opponent to attack you directly instead of destroying your monsters. And in case Toon Defense doesn't work out, you can always use Call of the Haunted to bring your Toon monsters back for anouther shot.

Jounochi's has two primary themes: Red-Eyes and Rituals. You can make some very interesting decks focusing on ritual monsters, including the Impcantation and Demise/Ruin archetypes, which I may visit later. Also, it has Tribute to the Doomed, which used to be a major staple of basic monster removal- something you may want to swap in.

Night Flight


Monster Cards

• 3x Black Metal Dragon
  
• 3x The Black Stone of Legend
  
• 3x Red-Eyes Baby Dragon
  
• 3x Gearfried the Red-Eyes Iron Knight
  
• 3x Red-Eyes Retro Dragon
  
• 2x Red-Eyes Wyvern
  
• 3x Rocket Warrior
  
• 3x Red-Eyes Black Dragon
  
• 3x Red-Eyes Black Flare Dragon

Magic Cards

• 3x Red-Eyes Fusion
  
• 2x Red-Eyes Insight
  
• 3x The Claw of Hermos

Trap Cards

• 2x Red-Eyes Fang with Chain
  
• 2x Red-Eyes Spirit
  
• 2x Return of the Red-Eyes

Extra Deck

• 3x Goddess Bow
  
• 3x Rocket Hermos Cannon
  
• 3x Red-Eyes Black Dragon Sword
  
• 3x Red-Eyes Slash Dragon
  
• 3x Red-Eyes Flare Metal Dragon

This deck is able to get out a lot of fairly powerful monsters pretty quickly- it's a mostly straightforward bruiser deck, you're not going to be doing anything fancy. But many cards allow you to search your deck and special summon either Red-Eyes Black Dragon or Red-Eyes Black Flare Dragon. You can overlay them to get out Flare Metal Dragon who can then detach one of them to immediately resummon it, as both are considered normal monsters when in the graveyard.

Gearfried and Rocket Warrior are both very useful for using with Red-Eyes Fusion to get out Slash Dragon, as well as make use of its effect. That also brings us to this deck's biggest weakness: Gearfriend is really the only card it has that's able to destroy spells and traps- since this guide is aimed at playing campaign mode, that's not a huge deal, but definitely something to keep in mind if you plan to improve this deck into something more viable for challenge mode.

Hermos gives a lot of versatility, with its bow, cannon, and sword all making use of what's already in the deck for the sake of Slash Dragon. This deck can easily get monsters that go well over 5000 attack with Black Dragon Sword equipped on one of the heavy-hitters, which can be a lot of fun. Just keep in mind that there seems to be a bug with Hermos that prevents it from using cards while they're in the hand, despite its effect clearly saying it should be able to.

As for why no Lord of the Red? It's just a little hard to get out without a dedicated ritual deck, which this clearly is not. You can search the ritual card itself with Red-Eyes Insight, but getting Lord of the Red himself into your hand requires some other cards which don't mesh as well with the rest of the Red-Eyes archetype.

And of course, if you want to ignore the ban list, Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon is an absolute must; this card is insane, it's obvious why it's banned, and it instantly makes this deck a lot more powerful.

I was going to make an A-to-Z deck of the proto-Xyz union monsters, but dedicated support cards for the archetype is very limited, and Kaiba doesn't many generic cards that mesh well with it. But of course, his signature card is none other than the famed Blue-Eyes White Dragon, the very first card in the series to be "featured".

Sapphire Eyes


Monster Cards

• 3x Master with Eyes of Blue
  
• 3x Priestess with Eyes of Blue
  
• 3x Protector with Eyes of Blue
  
• 3x Sage with Eyes of Blue
  
• 3x The White Stone of the Ancients
  
• 3x Blue-Eyes White Dragon
  
• 3x Blue-Eyes Alternative Dragon
  
• 2x Deep-Eyes White Dragon

Magic Cards

• 2x Beacon of White
  
• 3x Bingo Machine, Go!!!
  
• 3x Burst Stream of Destruction
  
• 3x Dragon's Mirror

Trap Cards

• 3x Champions Vigilance
  
• 3x The Ultimate Creature of Destruction

Extra Deck

• 3x Blue-Eyes Twin Burst Dragon
  
• 3x Neo Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon
  
• 3x Azure-Eyes Silver Dragon
  
• 3x Blue-Eyes Spirit Dragon
  
• 3x Agave Dragon

This deck is pretty straight-forward; use your tuners to help get Blue-Eyes onto the field, wreak havoc with high power monsters. Stone of the Ancients is one of my favorite opening plays as it depends solely on being sent to the graveyard- it doesn't have to be by battle; this makes it very easy to get a Blue-Eyes out whether it's destroyed by a foe or even used as Synchro material. You'll likely want to keep at least one Blue-Eyes on the field for Champion's Vigilance, it's a really good counter trap in this deck. Deep-Eyes is a fun hand trap in case they wipe your field with something like Dark Hole or Mirror Force, while Silver-Eyes is great for just flooding the board with high Atk monsters.

Dragon's Mirror is fun, but definitely droppable- you don't need it for Twin Burst, and you're not going to use Neo Blue-Eyes very often anyways. Kaiba has no shortage of other dragon support cards should you wish to experiment. On the subject of experimentation, White Stone of Legend may serve as an alternative to one of the other tuner monsters, making it easier to get Blue-Eyes into your hand and thus easier to special summon Alternative Dragon. You may also want to experiment with Chaos Form.

Being the star of the original series, the second series, and the comics that both were based off of, it's little surprise that Yuugi has a lot of stuff in his packs; Black Luster Soldier, Buster Blader, Magnet Warriors, Lv monsters... There's a lot going on here. However, we all know what his signature card is, and I'd be remiss if I didn't attempt to make a deck based off of the...

Pharaoh's Magician


Monster Cards

• 3x Apprentice Magician
  
• 3x Magician's Robe
  
• 3x Magician's Rod
  
• 3x Breaker the Magical Warrior
  
• 3x Royal Magical Library
  
• 3x Dark Magician Girl
  
• 3x Dark Magician
  
• 3x Magician of Dark Illusion

Magic Cards

• 3x Dark Magic Attack
  
• 2x Dark Magic Expanded
  
• 3x Dark Magic Inheritance
  
• 2x Dark Magical Circle
  
• 3x Magical Dimension
  
• 3x The Eye of Timaeus

Trap Cards

• NONE! But this deck does have a lot of quickplay spells.

Extra Deck

• 3x Amulet Dragon
  
• 3x Dark Magician Girl the Dragon Knight
  
• 3x Dark Magician the Dragon Knight
  
• 3x Ebon High Magician
  
• 3x Ebon Illusion Magician

First things first: Keep in mind that Timaeus is not searchable with Dark Magic Inheritance, Dark Magical Circle, or Magician's Rod. Still, Amulet Dragon makes a great game ender, and both the Dragon Knights have their uses as well.

Regardless, this deck is pretty straightforward: Use Breaker and/or Magical Library to hold the line early on, use cards like Magician's Robe or Magical Dimension to special summon Dark Magician, use cards like Dark Magic Attack and Dark Magical Circle to take care of cards he can't handle on his own. It's a very simple deck to pilot, and there's not really much else to say.

I am thinking of perhaps dropping Dark Magician Girl and replacing her with something else- but she can become a decent force in her own right with this deck. For a casual deck like this, she's not a bad addition, and she does feed into Dark Magic Expanded- plus serves as another potential use for Timaeus.