CDP: Ghostrick 2025, with Burning Abyss, Xyz Force, and Twins of the Eclipse
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Welcome back to the Haunted Mansion, as today I'm turning my attention to showcasing a modern Ghostrick build with some hefty upgrades. The Ghostrick archetype consists of DARK Fiend, Spellcaster, Zombie, and Fairy, monsters that cannot be Normal Summoned if you don't already control one on the field. Instead, they flip face-up and face-down, gaining advantage along the way. Their best Main Deck option is Ghostrick Siren, a Level 4 that sends the top 2 cards of your deck to the GY, then if you milled a Ghostrick card, you get to tutor a Ghostrick S/T and/or flip an opponent's Effect Monster face-down. You can even trigger this effect multiple times if you combine it with Ghostrick Shot, which Special Summons a Ghostrick from your GY before flipping a face-down Ghostrick face-up. The true 'unique' power of the Ghostrick theme shared by no other archetype is the advantage cycle fueled by Ghostrick Angel of Mischief, its R4NK Xyz Monster that can be Xyz Summoned using any other Ghostrick Xyz. As a soft once per turn, Angel can tutor any Ghostrick S/T by detaching a material, and if you detach something like the R3NK Ghostrick Alucard, you'll also get to trigger his effect to recover a Ghostrick card from your GY. With such easy access to Angel, you can quickly build a board of Ghostrick Mansion to protect your LP, Ghostrick Scare to threaten to set your opponent's board, Ghostrick Break to recover even after losing a Ghostrick monster, and Ghostrick or Treat to inflict a heavy cost for your opponent to resolve their Monster's effect.
So how does this theme fare in 2025? Well it definitely gets a lot of help from the new Supreme Darkness set, particularly in the form of Twins of the Eclipse. While this R4NK can use R4NK Xyz Monsters for its summon, it's key effect is that when sent to the GY, it targets 2 other R4NK or lower Xyz Monsters in your GY, Special Summoning 1 and attaching the other. Cycling this back and forth to your board with things like Full-Armored Xyz, Armored Xyz, and even A Bao A Qu, the Lightless Shadow will be too much for the opponent to overcome. As you'll see in the replays, this doesn't just recover Ghostricks - it can even recover Number F0: Utopic Draco Future! Beyond Twins, you can also reliably turn to Xyz Force to tutor any Xyz card from your deck or recover one from your GY, simply because you have so many ways to get an Xyz monster as Xyz material. It even lets you access Xyz Poseidon Splash for an unexpected mass destruction, a card typically only ran in Shark builds. The last part that's left for this strategy is just getting to your first Angel of Mischief, and between Tour Guide from the Underworld, Speedroid Terrortop, a Burning Abyss engine, and Danger!? monsters, you have plenty of avenues to get to that first Alucard. Once you do, the duel certainly tips in your favor to take over the game, and go for the long win. Scare your opponent with a bit of Ghostrick-iness - they just might not see them coming!
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