I'm sorry to disappoint, this will also not be the post where I talk about Shiranui-Mayakashi. I know, I know, it seems like the perfect place to do so. Talking about the zombie deck for Halloween. But trust me, I'm working on a very specific themed post where I talk about Mayakashi, you'll like that one way more. So, by some stroke of luck, I started this series during my birth month. That was not intentional, for the record, it was just that I got the recommendation to talk about YGO on my blog by a friend who often listens to me rant about YGO archetypes and I had the free time to write about it. Because of that, it made it so that the second post of this series, since I want to get them out monthly, would come out in October. Initially my plan was do to an entire post about cute YGO decks, decks that are made up of tiny adorable friends. But, since it's the season for it, I thought "why not do a Halloween entry". So today I have chosen 5 monster themed decks to celebrate the Halloween season. Welcome back to...
Yu-Gi-Oh Archetypes That Explain Why I Love Yu-Gi-Oh
Entry #2: The Monster Mash
Wight
It's a wight people Taco night. What better way to start our monster-themed discussion than with a Skeleton. So I'm going to take you back REAL far in this entry. Like, literally to the very first English set in all of YGO. If you played YGO at its North American release, as so many of us did, you are probably familiar with the monster Skull Servant. A truly iconic monster of early YGO, one of the most perfect designs in the franchise's history, a guy who looks like he really likes spare ribs and will get upset at you for failing him so often. Despite his low stats and unassuming demeanor, he is instantly lovable, one of the most perfect skeletons in card game history. So much so, that over the years Konami has given this skeleton quite a bit of support. Piece by piece, he has gotten more and more until, finally, he got a whole deck built around him. That deck being the Wight deck, not to be confused with the White deck, which is also a real YGO deck and I'll be talking about it when we teach the fish to synchro summon. For the record, it's called the Wight archetype and not the Skull Servant archetype because Skull Servant's Japanese name is "Waito". This will surely not cause any problems in the future.
So, I'm sure you noticed reading Skull Servant that its flavor text read "A skeletal ghost that isn't strong but can mean trouble in large numbers." If you're somewhat familiar with YGO and more familiar with other card games, you may at first be flabbergasted at the fact that YGO cards even can have flavor text. It's something that is only on Normal Monsters so it doesn't come up very often. Now, in most cases, the flavor text on Normal Monsters means absolutely nothing. It is just flavor, if I had a nickel for every Normal Monster with like 1200 ATK which claimed to be invincible, I would be able to afford to play YGO physically. Skull Servant's text, though, is the theme of the archetype essentially. Skull Servants are weak on their own, but become strong when they work together. They just need a leader to organize them. Like a president or something. A prime minister. A sultan. Maybe even... a marxist union leader to aid them in their goal of seizing the means of production?
King of the Skull Servants is the very first card to support the Wight archetype and it is the win condition of the deck. It reads "The original ATK of this card is the combined number of "King of the Skull Servants" and "Skull Servant" in your GY x 1000. When this card is destroyed by battle and sent to the GY: You can banish 1 other "King of the Skull Servants" or 1 "Skull Servant" from your GY; Special Summon this card." The King is rallying the Skull Servants into an army for him to lead into battle, becoming a powerful organized force that will trample over your opponent's forces. There is, however, a problem with how Skull Servants functioned at this point. And that is a mechanical problem in YGO.
See, in YGO, you are only allowed to run three cards of the same name in a deck. Not just three copies of the same card, three cards of that name. This isn't normally a problem because every card in the game has a unique name, but early on it did actually create some issues. Konami seemed unsure on how to do retrains for some times, or were just worried about the possibility of people "running 6 copies of a card in their deck". So they could not simply print new cards with the name "Skull Servant", because you would be, in effect, making players choose between the older Skull Servant and the newer one. But you also couldn't not do that, because while King can get very big, 5000 ATK, best case scenario (3 Skull Servants and 2 Kings in the GY) isn't a game winning amount of attack. It's enough to run over anything it comes across, but not enough to swing for game. And it's not like King has the ability to protect itself, you are kind of just relying on "summon a big guy and win the game" as your strategy.
So what Konami did instead was create cards that treat themselves as Skull Servant while in the Graveyard. Completely bypassing the deckbuilding restriction, but hypothetically allowing people to run as many copies of Skull Servant as possible to make King a one-turn kill. This not only got around the restrictions of the deck, but also made a lot of thematic sense. Skull Servant is just a skeleton after all. And aren't we all skeletons in the end? This started an expansion of the kingdom of Skull servants. Every few years, Konami would release a set that would add a new member to the kingdom. We met the Prince of Skull Servants, the Princess, the royal knight, the advisor, the lord and lady of the kingdom (as an aside, Lady in Wight has one of my favorite card arts in the game's history). They even adopted a dog! I don't want to get into the Marron storyline right now, it makes me sad! And all these cards all become Skull Servant once they are dead. An army of skeletons that, while individually very weak, but together are... well they're not unstoppable by any means, they're easily stoppable, but like. They can make the King a big beater with 26k ATK, which is enough to win the game if it connects. And while I do genuinely love the flavor of this archetype, to me, Wight is the quintessential YGO archetype. It is a random Normal monster from the very first set in the game that has become an entire deck, something that can only be done from the unique way YGO functions (i.e., not set rotating and being willing to give legacy support to beloved old cards). This, to me, is YGO in its purest form.
Vampire
If there is one thing Konami knows well, it's vampires. Vampire is another very old archetype. Its earliest monster, Vampire Lord, first appeared in North America in 2003, roughly 18 months into the game's lifespan. One of the very first Structure Decks in YGO's history, our version of a precon, was themed after the Vampires, introducing the archetype's original boss monster "Vampire Genesis". And over the years, Vampires have taken on a couple forms, starting out as a mill deck that forces your opponent into milling cards when they deal damage, before getting a massive retool that makes the deck all about stealing your opponent's monsters. It's an old, storied archetype that is difficult not to love since it's, you know. Vampires. And also it's full of Castlevania references. Konami surprisingly doesn't directly adapt their video games into YGO very often, but man do they love to reference them.
The Vampire archetype is, obviously, based on the legends, myths, and literature about Vampires. It is an archetype of aristocratic undead who sit up in their kingdom, preying upon the people who live in it. There are numerous different kinds of Vampires across the history of YGO, many of whom take inspiration from various cultural depictions of vampires throughout history. Perhaps unsurprisingly though, the primary inspiration for the Vampire archetype comes from two specific sources: Bram Stoker's revolutionary horror novel "Dracula" and the key adaptations of the character since, and Konami's very own Castlevania series.
From the former, we obviously have Vampire Lord himself who is tied to the Castlevania inspiration, there's another card based on Simon Belmont who creates a loop with Vampire Lord to kind of represent the eternal struggle between Dracula and the Belmonts. But Lord is based on the classic novel depiction of Dracula, where he was an alluring but ultimately monstrous man who was unambiguously evil. Vampire Lady also draws inspiration from the novel, being one of the Brides. Unfortunately there is no Carmilla card, sorry y'all. Vampire Kingdom is based on traditional interpretations of Dracula's Castle and the Transylvanian town that would surround it. Vampire Duke is based on the movie vampire, specifically the Bela Lugosi interpretation, although it also borrows a lot of design elements from Christopher Lee's interpretation in the Hammer Horror reboots of the classic Universal monster films. Shadow Vampire, and its upgraded counterpart Crimson Knight Vampire Bram, are based on Vlad the Impaler, both being the actual warrior versions of Dracula we see in so many origin stories. Finally, there is the bridge between the two interpretations, Vampire Voivode and his upgraded version, The Zombie Vampire. Both of these monsters are based on the Castlevania interpretation of Dracula. Also, I'm just going to put her here because there's not really a good place to put her, there's also Vampire Grace and Vampire Grace is based on Elizabeth Bathory, the countess who would allegedly kill young women and bathe in their blood to remain young.
The latter inspiration is where we get the Vampires post-switching up their gameplan. Vampire Scarlet Scourge and his upgraded form Dhampir Vampire Lord Sheridan are based on longstanding Castlevania character, occasional protagonist and ally to the Belmont clanc Aluard, Dracula's very own son. A Dhampir is actually someone of mixed lineage, half vampire and half human, which is what Alucard is. Vampire Grimson is based on the Grim Reaper, often depicted as Dracula's second-in-command in the Castlevania series and usually serving as the penultimate boss fight in Castlevania games. Vampire Vamp is based on the Succubus enemies in Castlevania, being depicted as an androgynous vampire in a revealing outfit. Vampire Familiar is based on the bat enemies, Vampire Retainer is based on the beast enemies. Vampire Fraulein, my favorite Vampire card, is based on the depiction of female vampires in the Castlevania series. And while the field spell is based on classical depictions of Dracula's Castle, a lot of the subsequent support spells and traps show it as a massive looming fortress full to the brim of monsters, like the Castlevania version of the castle. Also you have the Link monsters. I don't know what the deal with the Link monsters is, they're like Vampire Vampires, who knows.
As for how the deck plays, as stated previously, there are two key gameplay styles for Vampires. Milling and stealing. What I love about these two styles, though, is that both of them represent Vampirism effectively. The original gameplay style of milling your opponent represents a vampire biting your opponent and then sucking the life out of them. They are feasting upon the opponent's "life" draining them of the resources needed to play the game. It is a very cool way of interpreting how a vampire would function in YGO mechanically, Vampires are probably one of if not the first deck to have a very specific mechanical gimmick like this to represent the archetype. The problem the deck faces however is that sending cards from your opponent's deck to the GY stopped being a way to kneecap their plays and started being an active boon for them. Cards are, largely, more useful in the GY than they are in the deck because YGO often treats the GY as a "second hand", a resource you have access to and can usually play from. If Vampires were to continue to be playable, they needed an overhaul.
So, in 2018, Vampires got a major overhaul. This is when they introduce the Castlevania-inspired Vampire monsters, moving the deck to be more in line with Konami's own branding. This new gameplay style is built around the theme of vampires turning the people they bite. All of the newer Vampires either can special summon monsters they destroy by battle to your side of the field, i.e. turning them, or resurrect your opponent's monsters as their servants. Now, I won't act like such a radical departure in gameplay isn't at least a little disappointing. Konami sometimes does this when they add new support to an archetype, completely changes how the archetype plays, and it's obviously disappointing to the existing fanbase of said archetype. Classic Vampire fans and modern Vampire fans are two entirely different groups playing two entirely different decks. But, I appreciate the modern Vampire stuff because it manages to still adapt vampire mythology effectively into YGO's gameplay mechanics, making sure the deck retains its flavor despite a radical shift in design. Old or new, Vampires are vamping.
Ghostrick
There was no way I was going to get through a Halloween post about YGO without mentioning THE Halloween archetype. Or I guess now it's one of the Halloween archetypes because Pumpking now has a full deck, but this is the classic Halloween archetype in YGO's history. The Ghostricks are an archetype of monsters who populated haunted locations around a town, namely the mansion and museum. They are not specters of malice, not really, they mostly wish to peacefully coexist with the townsfolk. Some of them even do lead regular lives within the town's borders. What the Ghostricks do love, however, is pranking people. It is no secret that many of the locations in the town they live in are haunted, and in fact, it was the Ghostricks themselves which spread this information.
They are hoping that the humans will choose to be bold
or choose to try and disprove the tales of old
and come to their homes in the middle of the night.
At which point the Ghostricks will give them a fright.
They wait in their mansion in anticipation
for the foolish humans whose trespass is so brazen.
But on Hallow's Eve, they come out to play
and march from their mansion in a Ghostrick Parade.
For their pranks are good natured, only meant in jest.
Laugh along, and you might be invited to the Ghostrick Fest.
You'll laugh and play, smiling ear to ear
and they'll retreat to do it again next year.
But be warned, dear reader, do not impose
for the Ghostricks make for vicious foes.
If your heart be full of malice,
you best not step into the Ghostrick's palace.
The Ghostricks do not suffer fools,
and you may become a Ghostrick too.
The Ghostricks are a group of monsters themed after Halloween. Every monster in the archetype is either based on a classic symbol of Halloween worldwide or based on a Yokai that roughly fulfills the theme. Rather than being representative of the monsters themselves though, the Ghostricks are instead cute chibi versions of each monster. They essentially exist in three tiers: the first are the proper Ghosts and they are all level 1 Fiend Monsters. This is where you'll get Jackfrost, Lantern, and Specter, as well as their Extra Deck "leader", Dullahan. Jackfrost is obviously based on the winter spirit of the same name, Lantern is based on Jack-o-Lantern, both the pumpkins people carve every year for Halloween and the folklore about Stingy Jack, Specter is just based on a ghost, and Dullahan is based both on the figure from Celtic mythology and the Headless Horseman from Sleepy Hollow.
The second tier is the feminine spirits. These are all level 2 Spellcasters, and this is a much larger subset of Ghostricks, including Doll, Fairy, Mary, Nekomusume, Witch, and Yuki-Onna, with their "boss" being the Extra Deck monster Socuteboss. These are, respectively, based on haunted dolls, fae folk, Bloody Mary, the Nekomusume (which is a cat yokai who can transform into a woman, but also represents classic cat/black cat costumes, Witches, the Yuki-Onna which is a famous Yokai who appears as beautiful woman to lure in men to freeze them because they're secretly ice demons, and, of course, their boss the Succubus.
The third category of Ghostricks are the more classical monsters. These guys are all level 3 Zombies and they are what you'd expect out of Halloween. Ghoul, Mummy, Skeleton, Stein, Warwolf and their extra deck "boss" Alucard. And also Yeti and Jiangshi are there!!! These are, respectively, based on Ghouls/Zombies, Mummies, Skeletons/the Grim Reaper, Frankenstein's Monster, Werewolves, and Vampires. With the latter two being based on the Yeti, a famous cryptid from the Himalayas, and the Jiangshi. The Jiangshi is a type of undead monster in China that is a very specific type of vampire that are famed for their hopping and their distinctive appearance, having green and white skin and wearing the official garments of the Qing Dynasty. Also there's technically a fourth tier of Ghostrick, who are level 4 Fairy monsters, but the only two Ghostricks in that category so far are Siren, who is based on the Sirens of Greek Mythology and the more modern interpretation of Sirens, being mermaids who lure men into the sea, and the like "big boss" of the Ghostricks, Angel of Mischief, who is a fallen angel.
Now, full disclosure, I enjoy Ghostrick because of its art. I love the Ghostricks because they are "the Halloween archetype", they're like everything that is wonderful about all Hallow's Eve this side of Nightmare Before Christmas. But, what we do know about Ghostricks is that they love playing pranks on people. They want nothing more than to scare those who enter their domain. And YGO translates this love of scaring into the gameplay of Ghostricks by taking advantage of one of the more unique mechanics to YGO: flipping cards face down. The Ghostricks are a flip archetype, by default they cannot be Normal Summoned unless they have a buddy on the field and instead have to be placed on the field face down. This sucks, of course, it means it's much harder to design starters this way, but like. Ghostrick is famously not good, so much so that one of the most prolific YGO content creators is a lifelong opponent of the Ghostrick fans because he dared to play the deck in a way where it will win.
The Ghostricks, having been put face down, will lie in wait for the opponent to make their move. At which point, they will jump out and scare the opponent's monsters, forcing them face down. The opponent's field, having been sufficiently scared, is now, at least to the Ghostricks, free real estate. And as such, the Ghostricks can attack your opponent directly while all their monsters are running away in fear. This gameplan is very thematically appropriate, but also bad, so the Ghostricks have been given something else. Angel of Mischief is one of the rare "Alternate win condition cards", cards in YGO that instantly win you the game if you fulfill their effect conditions. Angel of Mischief lets you attach Ghostricks to her and then when she gets enough of them behind her, they all scare the opponent into winning the duel. It's a cute archetype that really brings the Halloween spirit and I just love the vision behind it, even if I have not and probably will not play the deck myself.
Danger!
We're talking about cryptozoology now. What a wild swing, amirite? So, confession time: I was a cryptozoology kid. I was the exact conflation of "science loving", "science illiterate", and "filled with a desperate need to be smarter than everyone else" that the History Channel fully indoctrinated me into cryptozoology. I was a religious watcher of MonsterQuest, one of my best friends in high school and I would have watch parties for it and discuss the episode if we couldn't watch it together. It was fun. I had a lot of arguments that I was very wrong about with people who now unquestioningly support far worse anti-science initiatives, but it was fun. I have, thankfully, grown out of the cryptid phase, but it's a nostalgic special interest for me and I still get down with cryptids even though I don't believe anymore. Me and the Flatwoods Monster share a birthday, it was meant to be. So I was, of course, going to gravitate toward YGO's very own cryptozoology archetype. Introducing the Danger! monsters. The exclamation point is actually part of the name.
But first, I feel like to understand Danger!, you need to know what a cryptid is. A cryptid is a creature that is purported to exist but for which there is very little substantial evidence to support the existence of said creature. It mostly exists through eyewitness testimonies, blurry photography/video and insufficient, easily tampered with environmental evidence. The most famous example of a cryptid is Bigfoot, an alleged extant ape species that is said to inhabit a wide range of environments across the US but is most prominent in the mountains of California, Oregon, and Washington. Despite numerous sightings, photographs, videos, and footprints found in the area, science finds the theory uncompelling, mostly because expeditions to find Bigfoot are near constant and yet we've yet to find a piece of evidence that is actually notable. We've found millions of Bigfoot prints, and yet we've never found any notable evidence that would show that a large, presumably social primate is native to the Pacific Northwest. No evidence of what it's been eating or just evidence that it has. No DNA samples that stand up to real scrutiny. No body that doesn't "mysteriously disappear" after the press conference so that scientists can't study it. Cryptids are, really, something that only exists within folklore and because Americans are usually very literalistic, they are adamant that their folklore HAS to be real, leading to a pseudoscientific field about chasing Basking Sharks and Owls.
Danger! is an archetype themed after these hypothetical animals. However, rather than simply placing them within their "natural environments", the Danger! archetype draws inspiration from another source: King Kong. The Danger! monsters all live on a mysterious, uncharted island called "Umaria", which has, at the time of we enter the Danger! archetype's storyline, been discovered by the humans and they have sent an exploratory team into the island. What the researchers don't know is that is that they are in Danger! Not only is the terrain harsh and uninviting, with dense jungles, lakes that seem impossible to cross, and impenetrable mountain ranges, but the native fauna are exceptionally good at hiding. In fact, despite their often gargantuan size, sometimes appearing more as kaijus than cryptids, they seem uniquely capable of lying in wait. Being entirely undetected until they feel that they're in Danger!, at which point they will come out to attack the researchers. Yet, despite this hostile environment, the researchers must press on. Must do their due diligence to research this harsh island ecosystem. Even if it would cost them their very lives.
The Danger! monsters, the cryptids themselves, hit on all the bangers. Well maybe not all the bangers, the Flatwoods Monster isn't there, but like basically all of them. Obviously the most central figure in the card art is the most famous cryptid of all time, Bigfoot. The Loch Ness Monster, or "Nessie", is present, an alleged lake monster that supposedly lives within Loch Ness in Scotland and who kickstarted the lake monster craze of the 20th century. Mothman, gotta have Mothman, an alleged large humanoid moth or owl that was spotted around Point Pleasant, West Virginia in the 1970s in the months leading up to a major bridge collapse and has now been allegedly seen around the world, heralding disasters since. Chupacabra, the alien-esque bipedal vampire of Latin America who preys on livestock, draining them of their blood. The Jackalope, a "fearsome critter" of the American West that was allegedly a jackrabbit with large deer antlers growing from its head. The Tsuchinoko, a serpentine cryptid/mythological figure from Japan that takes the form of a flat snake and only wants to get drunk and lie. The Thunderbird, a massive Eagle or Condor from Native American mythology that is said to bring storms when it flaps its wings and also had a rash of sightings in the Midwestern US in the 1970s. But you also got a couple deepcuts in there as well. Dogman is based on the Michigan Dogman, a bipedal, humanoid canine that is said to have a howl akin to a human scream and who became a pop culture icon in Michigan due to a popular song about his legend. And finally, Ogopogo, based on the Canadian cryptid of the same name that is said to inhabit Okanagan Lake and who also became a pop culture icon in its native province.
But the most notable thing about the Danger! archetype is their gameplay. Danger!s are one of the most unique archetypes in the entirety of YGO, a gameplay style that can only really function within YGO. So, cryptid hunting is, as mentioned previously, a very popular thing within American pop culture. Lots of people do it as hobbyists, entire industries have been built out of cryptid hunting, basically every channel on cable has had a cryptid hunting reality show at one point or another, it's a whole thing. But, despite the near constant investigations, cryptid hunting never brings back anything substantial in terms of evidence for these creatures, usually instead seeking to prove that it's not impossible rather than it being likely. YGO translates cryptid hunting into its gameplay like this: you reveal the Danger! monster from your hand and then shuffle your hand with the Danger! monster flipped back around. Your opponent then randomly selects a card from your hand; if it's the Danger! monster you discard it to the GY, if it's not the Danger! monster, you discard the chosen card and then summon the monster to the field.
That's hilarious. If you don't understand the joke: the cryptid is only real if your opponent FAILS to find it. If they successfully find it, you have to discard it because there's no solid evidence for its existence. It's such a masterpiece of card design, it's so funny. Like it perfectly represents the theme of the archetype and also creates this incredibly unique gameplay. And because of the fact that it's themed around discarding monsters for effect, it synergizes well. You can play Danger!s in so many other decks. It's so cool, Danger! is one of my favorite archetypes in the game and I just wish it had a gameplan of its own because it never really has gotten there. Like, Danger! is a powerful engine in other decks, its usage in decks like Dark World and Thunder Dragon caused them to be dominant threats in the meta game. But Danger itself just doesn't really have a plan besides "summon a bunch of guys and hope that's enough", it's so sad. Like I hope this deck gets some support that makes it a thing, this is one of the coolest decks in YGO bar none.
Memento
We're going to be ending our little exploration of monster-themed archetypes today by taking this underground. We will be covering an archetype that has to do with death, rebirth, and most notably the underworld. Or A underworld, YGO has more underworlds than you can shake a stick at. Put that on the docket, actually, YGO archetypes about the Underworld, I could do two of those. In particular, we are going to go to the realm of Mictlan, the Underworld of Aztec theology. This is normally where I would go into a summary of the Aztec underworld and the legends surrounding it but, there are two problems with that.
First off is that, unfortunately, Indigenous mythology is a blind spot for me. I'm trying to get better about it, given what we learned in the last section I don't think it should surprise that an unfortunately large part of my knowledge of Indigenous folklore comes from people trying to misconstrue said folklore to suit their own needs. Side note, watch "The Native Bigfoot" by Trey the Explainer, amazing video debunking cryptozoology's claims that Bigfoot was common knowledge to the Indigenous Americans. So I do not know enough about Indigenous myth to be comfortable espousing knowledge about it, I feel like it would just ultimately feel like I'm reading a Wikipedia page, because that's what I'd be doing. The second problem is that I don't think it matters. I think that the use of Aztec mythology in the Memento archetype is entirely aesthetic and has nothing to do with the story of Mictlan. The very little knowledge we have of the lore of the archetype talks about "towers of bones being piled as high as possible" and "endless rattling". I think Memento is just utilizing the aesthetics of Aztec mythology to create something new rather than trying to tell the story of Aztec mythology within YGO. I would like this to change, of course, but you take what you can get.
Instead, the purpose of this archetype is actually one of the things that I have spoken of before as one of the reasons I love YGO. When you first look into the Memento archetype, you'll just see a group of cards with really interesting, dark, kind of gothic artwork. It's artistically compelling but you probably don't think much of it at first. But then you notice a card in the archetype that looks familiar to you. Probably, if I had to guess, Horned Dragon. You sit there, and it dawns on you that you know this card. This is Tri-Horned Dragon, a very bad but very memorable Normal monster from old YGO. So you look over the cards again, and you recognize a few of them. Ghattic is Wretched Ghost of the Attic, that old school normal monster that tried to steal Kuriboh's identity. Twin Dragon is Twin-Headed Thunder Dragon, one of the only Fusion monsters in old YGO worth running because its materials made it easy to summon. Dark Blade is, well, Dark Blade, a very strong normal summonable Vanilla from back in the day that came in one of the starter decks. You realize every card in Memento, except for its boss monster, is an old Normal Monster from the OG YGO.
The theme of Memento is revitalizing a bunch of really old Normal monsters, like, some of the earliest released in the entire game. Monsters that existed before YGO was even conceptualized for an international release. These are monsters that could be considered "dead" in the modern day, ancient monsters that probably have never and will never see play and are, for the most part, forgotten about nowadays almost 30 years on. But, in Mementomictlan, under the rule of the king of the this underworld Tecuhtlica, they are given new purpose. They are reborn as his undead servants, all of whom are trying to summon forth the true form of their divine master, who will ravage the opponent's field and, in doing so, provide more bones for the kingdom of bone, Mementomictlan. It's such a wonderful archetype that effectively utilizes YGO's ability to bring classic cards "back from the dead" and turn them into a unified force.
Unfortunately the gameplay for this deck isn't particularly on theme. Like it kind of is, the purpose of the deck is that the Memento monsters all destroy each other to get their "bones" into the GY, and when enough "bones" are in the GY you can summon the true form of Tecuhtlica. But honestly like, in the grand scheme of YGO this is such a common gameplay style. Load up your GY to fulfill your deck's purpose is basically just all of YGO at this point. But Memento carries this gameplay style with amazing art and a pretty wonderful theming, I adore this deck and while it's not the most creative deck in the game's history, it is impossible not to admire it for representing a massive part of what makes YGO the game that it is. But seriously, they need to put more Aztec mythological influences in this deck, please, Konami, I am begging you. You have multiple Underworlds based on the Christian interpretation of the underworld, you can throw pre-contact Mexico a bone here.
