Hey guys, I’ve made post in the past about TCGs in general, but I’ve talked about Yugioh a few times. As much as I try to keep up with new Yugioh [and I’m not doing a great job of that.], I love Yugioh from 2002-2014 [off and on.]

As an old head, I tried to get into GOAT. Edison sounds cool with Lightsworn, E Heroes and Gladiator Beast, however I never played with Synchro monsters before I took my first break. Which is why I kept going back to GOAT.

Looking at GOAT decks got me so excited. However, looking at exact lists, I realized I never really played meta Yugioh. I was 8 and my brother was 6. I told my wife I remember playing two decks: Dragons and Warriors. I told her I remember playing Masked Dragon and the Armored Dragons. I remember my brother playing zombie cards like Pyramid Turtle and Vampire Lord.

Then it hit me. We played structure decks (And probably just tweaked them with our favorite cards). I did some research and realized Zombie Madness and Dragon Roar released at the same time. And, based on my memories I can assume I got the Dragon’s Roar and my brother got Zombie Madness.

I did some digging through our cards and was able to assemble what I’m calling Zombie Chaos. I wouldn’t say it is strictly optimized, but it seems really solid on the surface.

1x Sangan

3x Pyramid Turtle

3x Giant Rat

This line of play is what got me thinking. I remembered my brother playing Giant Rat and Pyramid Turtle. As I was looking at them, I noticed their synergy. When Sangan dies, he lets you search for a 1500 attack monster and add it to your hand. When Giant Rat dies, he can search for an Earth monster with 1500 attack and summon it. When Turtle dies, he can search for a zombie monster with 2000 defense or less and summon it. These cards form the back bone of consistency for our deck.

1x Ryu Kokki

2x Spirit Reaper

2x Vampire Lord

I don’t actually know the proper numbers of each to play, but these make up our zombie targets. Ryu Kokki is our beater. He will be better when I build my Warrior deck later. Vampire Lord had all the swag back in the day. And Spirit Reaper has proven to be an all star through the years. If there’s any Zombies I should add to the tool box, comment down below!

This is where I’ve taken some liberties with the zombie strategy. I’m not sure if we will keep it or not, but Black Luster Soldier is so cool. I know my brother and I loved this guy as a kid. Who knows if we ever summoned him properly as kids [haha.]. My light package includes:

2x Magician of Faith

1x D.D. Warrior Lady

1x BLS

1x Night Assailant

1x Breaker the Magical Warrior

1x Chaos Sorceror

I wanted some generically good dark monsters. These were the 3 I arrived at. Chaos Sorcerer is another good top end for the Chaos engine. Breaker is generically an All Star in retro Yugioh. I usually like to play Exiled Force in my retro decks, but I wanted the dark version of this effect for Chaos. Truthfully, Exiled Force may find its way into the sideboard as a searchable target for Giant Rat. I didn’t want this deck to lose its Zombie identity so I went a little light on the dark package. I would like to add a 2nd Night Assailant if I find one.

What does Yugioh call reanimation? Either way, we are playing Zombies! I wanted to lean into reviving. I do want a second Book of Life, but not sure I have one. Snatch Steal is a reference to the structure decks and the fact my brother and I jammed those in every deck as kids. Creature Swap is filthy in a deck with 7 recruiters. We can Creature Swap Giant Rat for one of their creatures and then swing into it and we still get the search off of it. Call of the Haunted is a classic and perfect for Zombies!

Classic Yugioh am I right!? Pot of Greed is naturally insane. Since I wanted reanimation to be a bit of a focus here, Graceful Charity and Card Destruction are gas here. Graceful Charity is card neutral [G.C. plus 2 discard balances out the three you drew.], but its card selection. For example, discarding Vampire Lord or Ryu Kokki and then playing Book of Life to reanimate it, while also banishing a card from the opponent’s yard [potentially messing up their own BLS], is a great tempo swing. It would also enable us to discard 1 light monster and 1 dark monster to special summon our BLS early. Its a busted card made better by the Zombie and the Chaos engines. Card Destruction is literally the same. The drawback is you can set up your opponent, but this is casual and I wanted more discard outlets.

2x Nobleman of Crossout

1x Fissure

1x Mirror Force

1x Torrential Tribute

1x Sakuretsu Armor

3x Compulsory Evacuation Device

I also go a little heavy on my removal packages in card games. This could definitely be tweaked for more thematic includes. The 3 Compulsory Evacuation Device are nods to the structure deck itself. Sakuretsu Armor was a favorite of mine back in the day. T. Tribute and Mirror Force are obviously busted. I threw Fissure in last minute to round out the list. It should probably just be Raigeki Break.

You work hard to cheat out BLS or Ryu Kokki, you need to have insurance. These 4 cards, plus Breaker the Magical Warrior can help clear the back row for your special summons. Magic Jammer is another interesting card we could run over some of the removal.

Thoughts

I played this last night against my wife. I was able to chain up very quickly. I opened with both Turtle, Rat, and a Heavy Storm so the match was pretty easy. Obviously, not every match will go that smooth. My brother is coming over Monday to play some more games, so, if needed, Ill revisit this post with any updates.

The idea was to recreate the structure deck of Zombie Madness [2005] to relive those old school duels my brother and I had without creating meta decks. The chaos engine may prove too unfun or too powerful, but that’s still to be seen. [Last night I didn’t see a single light monster.]. If it becomes too strong for our casual meta, I can always add some more thematic zombie monsters to lower the power of the deck.

Cards too considering: Raigeki Break, Magic Jammer, a 2nd Night Assailant, Mystic Tomato, Thunder Dragon, Tribute to the Doom, a 2nd Book of Life. If you are wanting to build this, just know if you go too heavy on the Chaos staples, the deck will lose its identity.

Format

So what’s the format exactly? The deck tries to thread a nice line of legal in GOAT while also being something we could have played in January 2005 when the cards came out. Mirror Force and Sangan are banned at the time of the Structure deck’s release but are legal in GOAT. So those are decisions you’d have to make for yourself. Since no one hosts tournaments off the ban list of January 2005 and the fact my brother and I didn’t really follow it to begin with, I used GOAT’s ban list as an outline, not a hard rule. Though, as I tweak the deck, Mirror Force and Sangan would be cards I’d considering cutting just based off the ban list of the time of the deck’s release. But again, this is a casual deck and you should just agree on a ban list with your friends.

Do you remember the Zombie Madness structure deck? What do you think of my version? Would you use this deck for old school Yugioh? What old school structure deck should I recreate next? I’m thinking the Dragon Roar deck!

Thank you for reading! Have a great day!