That's what I would have said a year ago. Let's move on to the introductions :
The white dragon represents strength, while the black dragon represents potential.
- A very strange woman
Before we begin, we'll split this presentation into 2-3 segments, the first for Red-Eyes Roulette , the second for Red-Eyes Reverse , and the last for the post-Explosion of Meteor format and the arrival of Loading... .
- RE Roulette (pre explosion of meteor)
- RE Roulette (post explosion of meteor)
- RE REVERSE
Red-Eyes Roulette
Explosion of Meteor )
( Pre-This deck was really, really, really weak. Its only strength (and usefulness) was to summon a large monster at over 2800 ATK and skip its turn. When you're a T1, this is a good thing, as it allows you to understand the type of deck your opponent is playing and better interrupt him! But when you're T2... it's a whole different story!
Fortunately, there are some big monsters like Loading... that need to be sent to the graveyard!
Card and skills
This skill :
Once per duel, when you have a “Red-Eyes” card in your hand AND a “Red-Eyes” magic/trap in your deck, you can use your skill and choose between several monsters to add from the outside to your deck, THEN, you draw a “Red-Eyes” magic/trap at random and flip you flip a Red-Eyes card from your deck to your hand.
So with the skill you'll add:
- Loading... to play Loading... .
- Loading... to play Loading... .
What's the strategy in this skill? Add as much trap magic as possible and reduce the number of monsters so that you have as few as possible. This way, you'll have an array of strong cards to interrupt your opponent. You'll be able to play around 30 cards very easily, as the skill will prevent you from brick.
Here's an overview of the cards that are PRIMOR to having a proper base deck :
Red-Eyes Black Dragon
Although it's a burden because it's a big monster that you'll have to play in x3, it's what allows you to keep your deck running. Without vanilla, you can neither resolve Red-Eyes Fusion summon the extra deck monsters that need it.
You don't like having it when you need it, and on the contrary, you hate it. But that's where skill comes in!
Red-Eyes Wyvern
- If you don't normal summon this turn, summon one "Red-Eyes" monster from your GY to your board. It's a good card but it conflicts with Red-Eyes Fusion
, because you don't have to summon a monster normally in order to use your fusion. But thanks to Red-Eyes Insight
, you have a much easier way to get rid of it from the first turn and filter your deck.
Gearfried the Red-Eyes Iron Knight
Why play this card when you can add it with this skill? Because with him, we have a defensive and aggressive style, because when an equipment card equip on Gearfried, it can destroy the equipment card and destroy an opposing S/T. Pair it with Loading... and you can steal a monster and destroy a magic trap!
Mana Dragon Zirnitron
-
You send easier with
Red-Eyes Fusion
for summonMeteor Black Comet Dragon
. This way, when your opponent will destroy you or banish one of your S/T cards, you can summon it specially and put the card that has just left your field OR another of your cards that is in your graveyard or bannish zone -
If you have it in your starting hand, it’s a dead hand. You can’t send it back in your deck because it’s not a "Red-Eyes." AND RED-EYES PLAYERS KNOW
THE CURSE OF ZIRNITRON
THAT GIVES IT TO YOU SIX TIMES OUT OF 10. (The only way to fix this problem is to play as many cards as possible, that is 30 cards.)
Aether, the Evil Empowering Dragon
- When this monster is summoned : Target one card and banish it. It's strong with Loading...
or Loading...
, it is also a monster card that breaks the curse of Zirnitron
: When you have it in hand, send Aether
to the graveyard to get rid of potential bad pick.
Red-Eyes Fusion
- Summon a Fusion monster that lists a “Red-Eyes” monster as material by sending them from hand, field or deck to the graveyard, but you can't summon norm and spe summon. Most of the time, you'll want to summon Loading... because you'd rather keep Loading... around to finish off your opponent and Loading... is much more situational and too complex to pull off, since you play very few equipment cards. RE Fusion is also the strength of this weakness..
Red-Eyes Insight
Red-Eyes Fang with Chain
- Target a monster WITH EFFECT in the board, and equip him at your monster, he takes the attack and defense of the latter. This card is excellent, it allows you to interrupt your opponent in his combos or at the end, which sometimes allows your monster to get a much bigger attack than he has. Wait ..
- It can make up to 2 attacks on monsters during each Battle Phase. It’s perfect to finish your opponent when he least expects! Coupled with the effect of Loading... , we have a mastodon that can do great damage in no time.
Necro Fusion
Summon a Fusion Monster by banning monsters from your GY. This card have the same problem at Zirnitron
, it's a cool card for the deck BUT it's a dead hand too.
-
If you have any cards for send others monster to your GY, she's useless.
-
When you use
RE Fusion
, you can useNecro Fusion
for summon Loading... or an other Red-Eyes Fusion monster.
Back to the Front & Super Team Buddy Force Unite!
- Summon a monster from your GY or your hand for Unite
. Same Problem, if you have any cards for send a monster in your GY, it's a dead card.
But Loading...
is "different" because when it’s destroyed, you can put another Buddy
from your deck this gives you access to a little trick with Zirnitron
to be able to lay 2 cards in one string.
Ice Dragon's Prison
Very strong, it allows you to interrupt your opponent and steal his monsters to make more powerful links like Loading... or Loading... .
You can replace it with Loading... , Loading... or Loading... if you want. I keep this card because its better for make link monster imo.
Paleozoic Canadia
Good cards, it allows you to delay when you do not have access to your "Red Eyes" cards. Its second effect is very interesting too! When a trap card is activated, you can specifically summon it as a monster; it is not affected by monster card effects.
You can tank, use as a link material, but the most interesting: Use the effect of Loading... on Canadia, You've got endless ammunition
Borreload Furious Dragon
Furious completely changed the strategy of the deck, before him we played it much slower, summoning monsters like Loading...
+ Zirnitron
to make XYZ 6, but the game became too fast for us to do this without being interrupted.
Now we have F U R I O U S.
Once per turn, you can target one of your monsters, then target a card on the opponent’s field: destroy them. On the other turn you can target Loading...
, which allows you to spe a vanilla, giving you a "another cartridge" to shoot
Meteor Black Comet Dragon
Archfiend Black Skull Dragon
A killing machine, its two powers are symbiotic and are consistent: When attacking, your opponent cannot activate an effect that requires activation. (Understand this sentence, if the opponent has Loading... in his GY, he will be able to activate its effect, as Loading... can also do so, beware! ) Also, if he attacked this turn, then you can target a normal monster "Red Eyes", burn half of his attack to your opponent. Powerhouse!
Red-Eyes Slash Dragon
As I said before, it’s much more situational (especially if we take the current meta with Unchained, it almost plays in our disadvantage.) However, it allowed the deck to shine at full time thanks to its effects:
- When a card effect that targets one of our cards is activated, we can send an equipment card from our field to the graveyard; undo the effect and destroy the card.
- If destroyed, he can summon all cards that were equipped to him. Use it with Loading... and you can tute 2 "Red-Eyes" cards in addition to summon them back on the field!
Dark Armed, the Dragon of Annihilation
This XYZ is amazing in the deck! If we have exactly 5 DARK monsters in our GY, we can summon it using a dragon monster of minimum level 5!
Very effective in grind game (and also allows to recycle Aether
, & Zirnitron
, by returning them to the graveyard after using its effect)
- Target a card on the field, destroy it, then banish a card from your graveyard. Yes, this is not turn-by-turn! So if you have 2 material, you can do it twice
Knightmare Phoenix & Knightmare Unicorn
Two excellent cards link, which can easily be done thanks to Loading... ! No complaints.
Result :
You have a base Red Eyes deck, congratulations to you! But you only have 20 cards, so you will be much more likely to get the 6 watches that make up your deck in your starting hand and start badly. Here are the cards I propose to change the consistency of your deck (without it being a dead hand.)
Here are some cards to complete your Red Eyes deck:
Book of Moon
This card is excellent for countering monsters with quick effects.
Cosmic Cyclone or Mystical Space Typhoon
These anti back-rows are excellent in t2 and can also interrupt the opponent in his combos (as for Unchained)
Needle Ceiling
A very good card that destroys the entire opposing board ( The effect of Meteor Black Comet Meteor
and Back to the Front
will always let you with a monster )
Handtrap
Handtraps can be added too! This is not a possibility to be excluded, far from it! You just have to be careful, because the handtraps will not block your opponent! Find the right dosage!
Red-Eyes tech
- Use Loading... -> Send Loading... to your GY & and tuto Loading... -> Summon a Red-Eyes Fusion Monster
But you can also search another Spell/Trap "Red-Eyes" like Loading... !
- Insight -> Send
Wyvern
and tutoFang
-> SetFang
If you have a Fusion Monster from your board and Loading... and Loading...
During opponent turn :
- Use in first
Canadia
, at the end of the chain, create a new one withFusion Necro
chain 1 +Canadia
(In your GY) Chain 2. In the best case, if you have managed to solve this, you will have on your board: Red-Eyes Fusion Monster + Furious + Canadia - Use effect
Furious
onCanadia
for destroy one card, thanks to its effect it is indestructible
If you have Loading...
(which was summoned with RE Fusion
) and Loading...
on the field:
- Attack with Black Skull, and activate RE Fang and equip it to him. He can attack two monsters during this turn.
When you attack with ``Archfiend`, your opponent CANNOT ACTIVATE EFFECT, ENJOY! Use as much effect as you have in reserve to remove all the annoying cards he has on his field.
There are a number of cards that allow you to temporize better with Gearfried: Loading... .
- Summon your Red-Eyes Fusion + set
Baby
. - When your opponent attacks and destroys
Baby
-> Effect Baby -> Spe Geafried -> Effect Gearfried and destroy Baby equip - Effect Baby -> tuto Loading...
We've seen RE's main techs, now let's move on to the support to see how it has evolved the deck.
Red-Eyes Roulette
Explosion of Meteor )
( Post-The release of the Explosion of Meteor
box was expected because a few weeks earlier we had a new skill for RE:
This box that came out on December 12, 2023 reveals the appearance of one of the best monsters from the "Red-Eyes" archetype: Loading... .
-
- Once per turn, you can summon it from your hand by sending a normal monster to the graveyard, its level increases by 1. This first effect allows you to access XYZ like Loading... more easily or Loading... .
-
Once by turn, (Except the turn where this card have sent)) Banish Black Meteor, tuto Loading...
With this jewel, you can make Flare with this skill using a 2 cards combos:
- Norm Loading...
-> use his effect and summon Loading...
OR vanilla + use effect of
Black Meteor
-> summon it = XYZ Flare / Voloferniges.
The main changes to your deck will be as follows:
Red-Eyes Black Meteor Dragon
This wonder allows you to go to the graveyard or the deck for your fusion, so you won’t have to add x3 RE Fusion to your deck since you can tutorial
Fusions are still the core of the deck, which is why we prefer to keep a lower monster ratio than those of spells or traps.
Aether, the Evil Empowering Dragon
You have enough interruption and level 6 monsters, you can afford to remove it, this will allow you less brick! (In addition to that, its effect cannot be activated if the trap you are using for the spe is not chain 1)
Red-Eyes Fusion
RE Fusion remains the centerpiece of your deck, although you can now go add it with Black Meteor, you still need to have the 2 cards combos in hand! And even if it was, make 1 Flare and set 2/3 cards and very low now ...
Gearfried the Red-Eyes Iron Knight
Gearfried is much too slow, it’s not a quick effect and does not activate when invoked. In addition to that, it can also be added via the skill Red-Eyes Roulette
I added it because, although his defence is poor, he had at least one, and also because it allows to fulfill the requirements for being able to use the Red-Eyes Roulette
.
The Black Stone of Legend
It allows to spe another RE but without more, it does not synergize with the skill.
Red-Eyes Slash Dragon
Too situational and there will always be a tendency to add ``Archfiend to finish the opponent instead of Gearfried. So we can remove it to put more XYZ 7.
As I said before, it’s much more situational (especially if we take the current meta with Unchained, it almost plays in our disadvantage.) However, it allowed the deck to shine at full time thanks to its effects:
- When a card effect that targets one of our cards is activated, we can send an equipment card from our field to the graveyard; undo the effect and destroy the card.
- If destroyed, he can summon all cards that were equipped to him. Use it with Loading... and you can tute 2 "Red-Eyes" cards in addition to summon them back on the field!
Red-Eyes Flare Metal Dragon & Voloferniges
Flare is protected from destruction by card effect AS LONG AS HE HAS XYZ materials! It is therefore immune to the effects of Loading... or Loading...
Voloferniges gets his quick effect when one of his XYZ materials is a DRAGON Monster. It’s always good to protect your monsters from having a big attack in the grind game.
Result :
What I've suggested above is weak: as you've seen, you can't do XYZ during your turn unless you did reborn vanilla.
Except that, in Explosion of Meteor , we have another archetype with level 7 monsters that have a way of synergizing with Red-Eyes:
Amazement.
Their boss monster: Loading... is a level 7 monster.
It is summoned at the end of a chain where a trap card has been activated. As you know, Traps must be activated the next turn they are placed! Amazement cards therefore do not conflict with Red-Eyes Fusion Monster.
This new version of the deck emphasises a new horizon for the deck :
- Red-Eyes Control
Thanks to Harlekino, we can filter our deck by placing our Amazement traps directly from our deck
Example :
But the deck is very dependent on the two archetypes. If you don't manage to get Harlekino
; Loading...
; Loading...
in your starting hand with a ‘Red-Eyes’ card, it's going to be complicated.
We are coming to the end of the tutorials for RE Roulette
, we will now move on to the next part: The P R I M E of the RED-EYES
Here comes EL PADRE: the new skill.
Before the release of Explosion of Meteor, the deck was mixed with Tenyi so that non-effect monsters such as Loading... or Loading... could be summoned, they benefit from the effects of the tenyi monsters and Loading... . Use this with Loading... and you have monsters that can hardly be destroyed in combat and cannot be affected by monster effects, and Piercing that Draws a card when you norm a normal monster.
Yes, you read that correctly, because the new skill solves problems in the Red Eyes deck!
- You can NORMAL summon Loading... without sacrifice.
-If you control a "Red-Eyes" monster, Set 1 "Red-Eyes" Spell/Trap Card from your Deck to your field. Then, if you don’t control any Normal Monsters, return 1 card from your hand to the Deck. The special feature in this second effect is that you can use the card set the turn where used the skill!
Yes, you heard right ! In theory with Loading...
(Not yet available in Duel Links)
and Loading...
you don't return 1 card.
- In return, you can’t summon any monsters other than "Red Eyes."
The skill is still cool! But we can say goodbye to Loading... and the traps that allow us to resurrect our fusion monsters like Loading... ( ( Red-Eyes fusion monsters have the name "Red-Eyes Black Dragon" thanks to Loading... , when they are sent to the graveyard or face down, they lose this name to take their original name. )
The Resurrection of the Black Dragon
When the box comes out, the deck could unleashed the potential it’s been hiding all along, to such an extent that it could match up with other decks of the moment, like Salamangreat, S force, Yubel and many more!
So much that, alleluia! He eventually became a Tier 3 deck for about 1 month before being eclipsed by Tachyon, Shiranui and the new BE..
What allowed Red-Eyes to take off again and to chain so many top during the period of December-January?
The 1 Card Combo
With the skill that allows to norm vanilla, this allows to access a big monster and to summon a fusion monster or to lay a RE Trap thanks to the skill. As a result, we now have 6 one card combo:
Red-Eyes Black Dragon
Black Metal Dragon
This little metal creature allows by when she sent from the field to the GY, search a "Red-Eyes" card from your deck. You will only have to invoke by link Loading... to summon it very easily then go search Loading... .
Its versatility
The deck unlocks new way to be played! It is no longer stuck with just a big fusion and set 2/3 cards and pray for it to pass, I have listed some combos to do with the deck:
1 Card Combo
- Norm vanilla
- Use skill : Set Loading... .
- Use Insight and search Loading... => use RE Fusion and summon Loading...
- Set all your S/T cards.
-
Norm BMD -> Summon Loading... + effect BMD = Search Black Meteor
-
Effect Black Meteor -> Send Vanilla + summon it.
-
OPTIONNAL
If your hand is bad or you don't have fang, use skill for set RE trap. -
Set all your S/T cards.
2 Cards Combo
- Norm vanilla + Effet Black Meteor => send vanilla to GY and spe Black Meteor.
- Use skill : Set Loading... . Summon Loading... + use his effect (send vanilla material) + effect Return for Summon other vanilla => Summon 2 vanilla.
- Summon second Flare or Loading...
3 Cards Combos
- Norm Loading... + equip Loading... => effect Gearfried => effect BMD search Black Meteor OR Insight
- Use skill, set Loading... and equip Gearfried.
- Effect
Black Meteor
=> summon. - Use SECOND EFFECT OF GEARFRIED FOR REVIVE VANILLA => Summon Loading...
- Use
Insight
and send vanilla to the GY, search trap RE + effectFlare
(send Black Meteor to the GY and revive vanilla. - Set all your cards.
This way, you have : burn, a way to stop a monster attack and one (or more) way(s) to stop your opponent’s combos.
During this techniques, I showed you different ways to use the deck:
- Red-Eyes Control
- Red-Eyes XYZ
- Red-Eyes Fusion
There is also a variant where you can mix the level 8 synchros like Loading... or Loading... with Loading... lol!
Result :
Jlnzo's deck
( 1st Place in Big Blow Cup#1)
Guts's deck
( 1st Place in Anytime, Season 67)
Zerox's deck
1st Place in Latam Showdown#161
R.A's deck
Top 8 in Duel Links Grand Prix#54
The decks that were presented above all made tournament tops during the period of December-January.
Here is the current version of the deck I propose based on the current meta:
RE Side:
Loading... is always a dead card, when my opponent plays an opponent who banish (Phantom Knight, Shiranui, Agent, Borrel Link etc.)
I remove one Furious
and a Necro Fusion
to add Loading...
and an Loading...
, this magic allows me to search Lancea OR Black Meteor.
Black Skull Dragon is played ONLY against Blue Eyes, and more particularly because of Loading... which is quite annoying, fortunately, I have this fusion that I can invoke using Loading... and vanilla to ignore SS
Dead card :
Having Return in your starting hand is a bad thing, because it deprives us of a large part of our strategy, namely the XYZ! It therefore restricts us to RE Control and RE Fusion.
We suffer from the same problem with it since the old skill versions.
The bricks are strengthened because we no longer have the possibility to exchange our RE trap for magic since we no longer play RE Roulette
!
Where is Red-Eyes now?
Red-Eyes has disappeared in front of decks that are carried by their skills ( Tachyon, Shiranui, Blue-Eyes, Phantom Knight, Agent, Star Seraph,
etc..)
That doesn't mean it's became null and void or obsolete, far from it! As you can see, I play special cards to counter this type of deck in order to increase my chances of winning, such as Loading... ; Loading... ; Loading... ; Loading... and Loading...
Conclusion
To finish this guide, we can say that Konami played very well in creating the new skill.
It has helped to solve many problems that the deck suffers even in TCG or on Master Duel; namely the lack of consistency:
- REBD is a brick in hand, if we had a card like Loading... for norm monsters like him but ONLY FOR RED-EYES, it would be a very big advance
- Trap not very effective. the only cards that can interrupt the opponent during his turn is Loading... or Loading... (if one has the lethal, but otherwise, it’s all.) We have to lay them down, wait for a turn and (For Burn) wait for the conditions to activate.
Having the opportunity to play them during our turn helps to solve some of the problems that the deck was facing, so we can play fusions, XYZ and even links/ synchros while having a certain harmony between them!
I do not take into account the existing version of RE, that is to say RE/Kashtira
and RE/Rokket
. They each have their own mechanics, but depend on a engine!
Recently, we've had a wave of new cards ( and Loading...
Primoredial cards like Loading...
) that play with normal monsters. A new version could be born under the name RE/Primoredial
!
If Konami releases support for this system in the next few months or years, I won’t be surprised at all, and it will be a very good thing!
Thank you for taking the time to read me,
I sincerely hope you enjoyed being a guide on a deck with which I made my debut on Duel Links. Thanks to
, , and who helped me write this.It was
, an absolute fan of Red-Eyes.