User:Romanoff Blitzer/The Nameless Guide/Darkness Civilization

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Destruction
Okay, Darkness has the best destruction, but sometimes the good old standbys aren't so good anymore. Now that we've got that over with, let's go over some better options. From best to worst, here are some good destruction cards:
 * Terror Pit: Too slow.
 * Hyperspatial Emperor Hole is amazing just as a hyperspatial spell, being able to fetch Dias Zeta, the Temporal Suppressor and Victorious Meteor Kaiser among other things, but I get to remove one of my opponent's weenies with that too?! What an incredible deal! This card is usable as a 3 or 4-of in...just about every single darkness deck, both control and beatdown, that isn't rush.
 * Black Ganveet, Temporal Soldier: Amazing card; see my review for more details. Creates incredible card advantage with Emperor Hole; you spend one card to remove two of your opponent's cards and get a creature. That's a +2, right there.
 * Victorious Gaial Kaiser (aka VGK): See Black Ganveet above. Both Black Ganveet and VGK have their niches; Black Ganveet can take down a troublesome large creature, while VGK can get rid of an annoying untapped creature. You can also target a creature with 7000 power or less with Emperor Hole, and then kill it with VGK.
 * Olzekia, General of Decapitation is a simple two-for-one. You could kill one of your small creatures for Olzekia...or destroy Black Ganveet or VGK to reset them, or even destroy Olzekia itself to get it back later with a Hyperspatial Revive Hole.
 * Hanzou, Menacing Phantom: SURPRISE I GOT YOUR GAIAL KAISER or Cyber N World or whatever. Hanzou kills just about anything in beatdown short of Cosmo Cebu Lambda, the Super Electromagnetic.
 * Death Gate, Gate of Hell
 * Infernal Smash: Cost 4 destruction. Simple, and powerful. Pretty good even with the prevalence of multicolored psychic creatures.
 * Thunder Blade, Wolf Tiger is a Terror Pit with a body. With relevant races. The options above are better, but Thunder Blade is still good.

Continuous Power Reduction
Unlike most forms of destruction, these cards stick around and apply their power-decreasing effects over a continuous period.
 * Funk, Guard of Hope can be anti-rush, but is mostly used to severely weaken psychics. What were once formerly mighty dragons are now reduced to bite-sized creatures with 2000 power at best and dead at worst. Psychics with enters-the-battle-zone abilities, like Victorious Pudding Pudding and Black Ganveet, Temporal Soldier, however, still gets their effects off whether they die immediately or not.
 * Rose Castle is first and foremost an anti-rush card. Kills many things, including Zabi Claw, Dark Warrior, Death March, Reaper of Death, Marrow Ooze, the Twister, Deadly Fighter Braid Claw, and so on.

Discard
See this for information.

Self-mill
See this for information.

Finishers

 * Dorballom, Lord of Demons 
 * "Mastermind" 
 * Volg Thunder when spammed multiple times to mill the opponent.

Card Advantage
Well, Darkness doesn't have much ways to gain card advantage, but let's see what it does have.
 * Bubble Trap 
 * Dark Soul Creation
 * Kodamanma, All-Devouring Puppet gains you a card and a body. Who cares if it's from your shields? It's still card advantage, and it doesn't matter if you lose a shield as long as your opponent is dead. Kodamanma only goes in quick beatdown decks, though.
 * Super Trash Train, Fuuma Devil

Notable Other Cards

 * Batou Shoulder, Shadow of Fiction is an important card in a meta where every single deck is running spells, mainly hyperspatial ones. It's at its worst against N EX and rush, which focus on creatures, but great against other decks.
 * Benzo, the Hidden Fury is the cheapest way to cast any shield trigger. Good with Memories of the Planetary Dragon. Good with Shield Plus, especially Milzam, Spirit of Miracles. Crazy with both. Of course, you could just use Benzo to summon two creatures for the price of one.
 * Duema Ogre! Kikuchi, Assistant Instructor and Kareiko, Karma's Banned Technique stop tons of things, from The Door of Miracle and Mystery to mana boosting cards.
 * Magnum, Allshot Puppet is an anti-psychic and anti-shield trigger card, among other things. Interesting hoser, although it doesn't fit in decks these days because most decks want to take advantage of those decks (or in the case of rush, too fast to use Magnum).
 * Time Tripper, Shadow of Stagnation slows the opponent down. Contrary to Kaijudo Portal, Time Tripper is used in beatdown decks, where it gives an advantage in tempo*. It holds a Master Weapon - All Yes well, too.
 * Upheaval 
 * Zabi Mira, the Reviving Shaman