Notes & Combos

After the borderline insulting Ghost Gal's rerun rewards, Altergeist finally makes a comeback thanks to new access to limit 3 traps, Pookuery, Memorygant and a skill that's at least marginally better than LP Boost Alpha. Or well, that's what I'd like to say: while the deck is definitely better than before, it still falls behind the top decks by quite a margin. It's definitely a fun and competent deck, but expect to struggle when going 2nd (against Blue-Eyes and Shiranui in particular, since they can destroy your backrow on your own turn).

The two new cards only help Link climbing and closing out games, which means that they're only relevant when the deck is already able to make plays, and the skill allows to turn a monster stolen by Crackdown into something that can be used to make an Altergeist Link, which is nice but nothing insane (it doesn't generate any card advantage out of thin air, contrary to most modern skills), also it can awkwardly clog your backrow as the Crackdown will be stuck on the field forever.

Despite that, Crackdown is still my preferred Limit 3 option. I don't have a 3rd copy, so I decided to play Compulse alongside it, however I'm not sure if I would want to play a playset even if I had it anyways. I'm also playing Warning Point and Transmigration Prophecy as generic good traps; Warning Point can be rough to use when going 2nd and it is prone to getting sniped by backrow removal, but it's still one of the best options available, and Transmigration is just a pretty solid option given the current meta: I would consider playing a 2nd copy if I had it.

The monsters lineup is standard and so is the Extra Deck as well. I would have liked to experiment with more copies of Pookuery, but I didn't want to dig the box again.

I tried playing One for One and Spellbook of Knowledge, but I wasn't convinced yet again. They allow for pretty good highrolls, but they're either suboptimal or completely dead in too many situations.

As this deck's strength is enanced by every good trap that gets released, it may get some indirect boosts in the future. Moreover, one of the less used limit 3 Traps like Overroot or Lost Wind might eventually get unlimited, alongside Personal Spoofing; I don't expect Konami to release Protocol soon, but they might even give us a good Limit 1 trap in a bundle.