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.
 * Death Hands, Misfortune Emperor is a creature with a Terror Pit in it and it can be used against creatures that lock your spells. It's ineffective against 5000GT, Riot, however.
 * Demon Wolf, Howling Moonlight Castle is the main removal of mono Darkness decks, being able to take down both a weenie and any other creature for just 5 mana. And it has shield trigger.
 * Hyperspatial Emperor Hole is amazing just as a hyperspatial spell, being able to fetch Dias Zeta, the Temporal Suppressor and Ryusei Kaiser, the Victorious 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.
 * Gaial Kaiser, the Victorious (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.
 * Thunder Tiger: With generally unkillable stuff like Perfect Madonna and Perfect Lily nowadays, this could be the best way to get rid of them. Or you could just use Thunder Tiger to get rid of another weenie while keeping your VGK for a possibly bigger target.
 * Deadzone, S-Rank Zombie is a zombie version of Redzone, Roaring Invasion that packs a huge -9000 power deduction that reduces even mighty finishers into bite sized creatures, which it can deal with one-handed via a battle, and it can also deal with Premium Madonna, Nobility Dragon Elemental all by itself. It also won't die, as it just comes back from the graveyard via S-Rank Invasion.
 * Zakira, Ultimate Lifeform gets all the race support it can get and can unleash fixed removal like Thunder Blade, Wolf Tiger, but it can also be summoned from the graveyard, which means that discarding it does not help, and if your opponent destroys it it just comes back.
 * Olzekia, General of Decapitation is a simple two-for-one. You could kill one of your small creatures for Olzekia...or destroy Black Ganveet, VGK or Thunder Tiger 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.
 * School Man/Deathraios, Cursed Blade Reaper/Necrodragon Abayo Shabayo/Heavy, Dragon God are cheap removals that can be recovered and respammed.
 * Bonbaku Tiger, Bomb Cluster is another cheap removal that can get rid of annoying creatures like Berlin, Bell Gravekeeper or Perfect Madonna, Light Weapon which are usually a disturbance to discard or beatdown strategies.
 * Black Insect Magistrate/Varz Romanov, Dark Lord of Demons are pseudo-speed attackers that remove any non-evolution creature.
 * DEATH Dragerion, the Supernova is an insanely strong removal that sometimes comboes quite well with Necrodragon Guljeneraid.
 * Tsumitobatsu, Misfortune Hero is another insanely strong mass removal, reminiscent of other creatures, though somewhat better, even if it is just a niche card for Mono Darkness Control and Courtney decks.
 * Death Gate, Gate of Hell kills a creature and gets you back a body from the graveyard.
 * Necrodragon Odol Needle forces the opponent's creatures to battle it and get destroyed. And it has shield trigger. And it is a Dragon.
 * Infernal Smash: Cost 4 destruction. Simple, and powerful. Pretty good even with the prevalence of multicolored psychic creatures.
 * Killer the Kill, Demon Dragon King is a Terror Pit with a body and an easy to bring out evolution creature.
 * Dead Ryusei, Eternal Demon Dragon is yet another Terror Pit with a body. It costs more than Killer the Kill and it can give you some card advantage. The options above are better, but Dead Ryusei 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 1000 power at best and dead at worst. Psychics with enters-the-battle-zone abilities, like Prin Prin, the Victorious and Black Ganveet, Temporal Soldier, however, still get 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, BloodRayne, Start Dash, Death March, Reaper of Death, Marrow Ooze, the Twister, Deadly Fighter Braid Claw, and so on.
 * Kanashimidomino, Destruction Demon Dragon is another strong anti-rush card that in certain cases can clean entire battle zones, though due to its cost it has seen less use than Rose Castle.

Discard
Out of all civilizations, Darkness focuses almost exclusively on it. But what cards should you use?
 * Jenny, the Dismantling Puppet is the best type of discard for both beatdown and control, as it interferes with the opponent's strategy beforehand.
 * Black Psycho, Revenge is basically the evolution creature version of Skeleton Vice, which is surprisingly easy to bring out due to both its bait and its Invasion ability.
 * Lost Soul discards your opponent's entire hand, plain and simple.
 * Dark Masters, Demon Dragon is Jenny, the Dismantling Puppet with its effect tripled. Due to its cost, it has seen as much use as Lost Soul in mana ramps and slower controls.
 * Jenny, the Suicide Doll is a recoverable and respammable early discard.
 * Ghost Touch is the spell version of Jenny, the Suicide Doll. It also has shield trigger.
 * Tigernitro, Explosive Devil is an earlier nerfed Lost Soul for Mono Darkness Control and Courtney decks.
 * Ganveet Blaster is both removal and strong discard, mostly used to get around Zeniths.
 * Lost Mind Torture is a stronger version of Mind Reset that has synergy with stuff like Batou Shoulder, Shadow of Fiction.
 * Pet Puppet, Puppet Trick works well with Death Puppets, especially Troll, Graffiti Doll.
 * Gachinko Joker works in mana ramp decks paired with Lost Soul.

Self-mill
See this for information.

Reanimation
Although reanimation isn't quite used these days, here are some good cards. From best to worst:
 * Welcome Hell, Supreme Devil Depth has synergy with Draguners and features strong even if a little restricted reanimation abilities. Also, it can flip into a big bad finisher.
 * Inferno Sign both reanimates one of your non-evolution creatures with cost 7 or less and has shield trigger.
 * Babelginus, Demonic Dragon revives any non-evolution creature.
 * Urami Hades, Curse Hero is the same as Babelginus, but restricted to Darkness.
 * Killer the Kill, Revolution Demon King has a massive reanimation effect, though conditional.
 * Yata Izuna, Eight-Headed Parasite spams evolution creatures from your graveyard. Due to its strong role in King-Queen lockdown decks, King Alcadeias, Holy Gaia got banned.
 * Killeredeye, Dark Armor is the same as Yata Izuna, though with an added self-mill effect and it's restricted to Darkness evolution creatures only.
 * Dragon Bone, Secret Wicked Dragon has synergy with Babelginus and allows you to reuse its effect.
 * Triple Revival Resurrection brings back three weenies at once. Usually good for Shachihoko Spring decks.
 * Miracle Re Born is the same as Inferno Sign, only lacking shield trigger and being restricted to Hunters. Though it works on evolution Hunters too.

Finishers

 * Asmoshis, Craving Demon Dragon is pretty strong field and hand removal.
 * Beginning Romanov, Lord of the Demonic Eye is a favorite finisher of graving decks, one that used to be comboed with Sir Virginia, Mystic Light Insect until it got restricted.
 * Death the Lost, Demon Revolution can discard your opponent's entire hand when it is put into the battle zone, and when you have no shields, it breaks all of your opponent's shields when it attacks, and is reminiscent of the Mad Romanov Miraculous Meltdown one shots several years ago since it can kill your opponent instantly, Unless you run into Shield Triggers and Shield Savers, of course, so take care.
 * Diabolos Double Zeta, Temporal Demon Dragon is almost the same as its predecessor, a strong and hard-to-kill finisher once it awakens. The hyperspatial spells that can bring it out have good removal effects too.
 * Dorballom, Lord of Demons/Dorballom D, Demon Dragon King are insanely strong removals against decks that don't run Darkness.
 * Galloween, Ultra Revenge protects your creatures with the power of revenge when it's tapped...well, it should not be called "Revenge", it should be called a blatant massacre. Simply block your opponent off with a few Honenbes and they will have your opponent's creatures mass killed AND you get to reuse to Honenbes and if your opponent sends out Redzone, Roaring Invasion, it will have his Redzone killed instantly.
 * Hellvorof, Supreme Dragon Edge into Welcome Hell, Supreme Devil Depth are way better than their predecessors, as it has a pretty strong reanimation effect not restricted to just one race and an even stronger removal effect once Dragsolutioned. Also, it is a Dragheart Fortress and its Draguner fuels your graveyard when brought out. That's a +4 right there.
 * Killer the Kill, Revolution Demon King is a Ballom with a strong additional reanimation effect. It's conditional, though.
 * "Mastermind" is obviously amazing in God Nova OMG decks, especially when comboed with Upheaval.
 * Ryusei In The Dark: Its predecessor was used in many decks as a finisher that turns the tides in the battle zone to its owner's favor. Ryusei In The Dark is the same thing in a civilization where its only battle zone control is most of the time just creature removal.
 * Ulvorof, Dragon Edge/Hellfuezu, Purgatory Blade is easy to Dragsolution with all the removal Darkness has and it awakens into a stronger version of Asmoshis which is pretty hard to remove.
 * 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 is both cheap removal and gets you a card in hand, despite wasting an important resource.
 * Dark Soul Creation gets you three cards for the price of one creature.
 * Dead Ryusei, Eternal Demon Dragon 
 * Heavy, Dragon God is highly versatile, as it is both cheap removal and draw that can be recovered and reused.
 * 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.
 * Pork Beef has for some reason seen use in Mono Darkness Control, mostly based on Funky Knightmares though.
 * Super Trash Train, Fuuma Devil is a stronger version of Mongrel Man, but it's pretty unreliable.
 * Wicked Soul Reincarnation is almost the same as Dark Soul Creation, with the exception that it sacrifices any number of your creatures, gets you two cards for each and has shield trigger.

Other interesting 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.
 * BloodRayne, Start Dash has become strangely useful nowadays due to its effect quickly bringing out creatures such as Jenny, the Dismantling Puppet and Honenbe, Skeletal Guardian, as well as their evolution versions.
 * Dark Lupia creates some interesting combos with creatures like Heavy, Dragon God or Necrodragon Guljeneraid, it is the engine of Heavy Loop decks.
 * Duema Ogre! Kikuchi, Assistant Instructor/Kareiko, Karma's Banned Technique stop tons of things, from Hogan Blaster and Mystery Cube to mana boosting cards.
 * Ghastly Drain offered great card advantage, despite wasting an important resource, and it helped fulfill the Gravity Zero requirements of many cards. This lead to a powerful combo deck and its restriction.
 * Kill the Live, Revolution Demon Dragon can have each player discard a card from his hand when it attacks, but it's true selling point is if you have 2 or less shields, you can put a darkness creature you discarded into the battle zone! You can put out Dorballom, Lord of Demons/Dorballom D, Demon Dragon King and use it as evolution bait, then if your opponent does not run lots of darkness cards, he will lose. You can also put Codeking Mozart or Zabi Mira, the Reviving Shaman and you will win easily too. He does get Summoning Sickness, but he costs 6 so it can be got around using Eternal Sign.
 * 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).
 * Migawari, Nightmare Manji is good for graving decks and offers grave recovery.
 * Necrodragon Guljeneraid is an annoying thing that just won't fucking die, no matter what. It works well with the graving and self removal that Darkness Dragons have going at.
 * Ninjariban, Dragon Edge is a versatile little thing for Mono Darkness Draguner which can bring out a nice amount of good draghearts. Although if combined with Welcome Hell and Magnum into a loop, it can help Dragsolution a certain Dragheart creature.
 * 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 is plain insane, screwing many decks, especially mana ramps, and works great in discard controls.
 * Zabi Mira, the Reviving Shaman is used to spam a huge variety of psychic creatures, mostly Volg Thunder though, with the intention of decking out the opponent.