READ: My 1st Place "Fire King" Deck Profile | Backstory and Tech Choice Discussion

Hey everyone! Arc here. As a result of the recent poll I held in X (formerly twitter), I will share the deck profile of my recent OCG ranking top for "Fire King". I will also share a bit of a backstory on how I landed on this deck and what I discovered after numerous testings here and there.

Let's begin!

Backstory:

"Fire King" is one of those decks back in the day that I find cool in terms of strategy. I wasn't able to build it back then as I was playing "Fire Fist" and my funds weren't just enough as a student who has big dreams and huge goals. (Shallow pocket)

I let my intrusive thoughts win..

Fast forward, I came to the point where I now have slight capacity to afford it then Structured Deck R: Onslaught of the Fire Kings arrived in OCG. It was when "Legendary Fire King Ponix" was announced where the deck caught my interest once again. I felt that Ponix is the missing piece that the deck needs to be on par with the meta. I still have doubts at the beginning as historically, Structured Deck R doesn't have a good record when it comes to meta relevancy except the Dinosaur SDR.

On buying the Structured Deck...

This was supposed to be a box opening video but my video and audio messed up :(

The new "Fire Attribute Limited" event came and I decided why not heal my inner child? (Or demon xD) and I purchased 3 Structured Deck R: Onslaught of the Fire Kings. I said that I finally have more reason to play "Fire Kings" as an event was created to allow people to play with "Fire" (decks). Long story, I placed 2nd on my first try but placed 1st place on a regular ranking. I wasn't quite satisfied as I only won 1st place on ranking  due to a higher tie breaker point (Yes, finals result is tie).

After four weeks...

I tried different builds of "Fire Kings" ranging from the budget friendly "Pot of Extravagance" build to "Sinful Spoils". Sinful Spoils Fire King is my build on week 2-4 and after various testing and ranking tournaments, I have figured out different ways to adapt specifically the end board you can make. I also realized some routes that I only figured out on week 4 and it's quite life changing that it resulted in me finally getting a 3-0 win!

This is me four weeks of playing Chimken

Deck Profile:

Here's my deck profile

Date: October 7th
Ranking: 1st

Tech Choices and Strategies:

• I played 3 "Sacred Fire King Garunix" as it combos really well with "Fire King High Avatar Kirin" to allow turn 0 play disruption. Simply use Kirin's effect to special summon itself by destroying a different "Fire King" monster in your hand. "Sacred Fire King Garunix" will trigger allowing you to destroy High Kirin from your deck. High Kirin will activate allowing you to special summon a "Fire King" monster from hand or GY and destroy a card on your opponent's field (it doesn't even target). If you have "Fire King Avatar Arvata" or "Fire King Avatar Hanuman" as the monster to summon, it adds another layer of interruption.

• I only played two copies of both  "Fire King Sanctuary" and "Fire King Island" as drawing multiples may brick and in the long run, as long as you keep both cards on the field, the rest of the copies become excess cards anyway. I'm still experimenting on the ratios depending on the meta call.

• I didn't play "Infinite Impermanence" on week 4 as it conflicts with the set-up. On instances where you resolved Maxx "C" or set-up "Decode Talker Heatsoul", you would always wish to draw monster hand traps. Another reason is that monster hand traps can be used as fodder for "Fire King Island" and can be converted to "Salamangreat Almiraj" for it to combo with "Sacred Fire King Garunix".

• Heatsoul combo is quite life changing. This can be done by recycling "Fire King High Avatar Kirin" that you destroyed with "Sacred Fire King Garunix" using "Salamangreat Sunlight Wolf" with the help of summoning a "Linkuriboh" using "Legendary Fire King Ponix" and summoning Heatsoul for that extra 2 draws on your turn and next turn. Since Heatsoul is fire, you can use "Fire King High Avatar" to destroy it then since a FIRE monster is destroyed, this triggers the "Sacred Fire King Garunix" effect to revive itself and destroy a FIRE monster from your deck for a potential interruption.

• Having "Sacred Fire King Garunix" in GY allows you to take advantage of its effect to destroy a FIRE monster from your deck rather than a combo ending with it and just destroying "Fire King Avatar Barong" in your deck. This ensures that "Evenly Matched" won't scare your combo away if your only interruption is summoning "Garunix Eternity, Hyang of the Fire Kings". To be fair, I rarely ever summon their XYZ due to how fragile the set-up is especially on games 2 and 3 where people can already side "Ghost Ogre & Snow Rabbit" or "Cosmic Cyclone".

• I played 3 "Fire Formation - Tenki" as this not only allows you to use it as a fodder for "Diabellestarr the Black Witch" but also temp check if you can bait your opponent's "Ash Blossom & Joyous Spring" or or have them preemptively use Maxx C to dodge a possible "Fire King Avatar Arvata" summon.

• The "Sinful Spoils" engine is the best in helping you access "Legendary Fire King Ponix". I would strongly recommend using "Fire King Sanctuary" in placing "Fire King Island" and potentially use its effect to search and destroy so that you can deck thin and avoid drawing another "Fire King Island" with your additional draw 1 with "The Sinful Spoils Hunter Field" . Historically, this can still happen though FYI.

• Super Polymerization is excellent when facing Decks like "Centurion" or "Fire King" with the help of "Mudragon of the Swamp". I don't own "Garura, Wings of Resonant Life" that's why it's not there but Mudragon does the job anyway.

Summary:

I kinda feel that there's still room for improvement especially in my side deck as I keep facing different decks every week. I'm glad that I hold on to these decks for weeks as it allows me to get familiar with its plays and correct my misplays each week. 

Clearly, the more you use your deck, the more you get used to it. It is also very important that you are well aware of your local meta and consider your deck's toughest match-ups. These things will help you on ways to adapt your deck build to increase your winrate in a way.

It's nice that I had a chance to find a new deck that I enjoy playing competitively and I always look forward to the things I will discover as I use "Fire King". I hope this can ignite the fire of fellow "Fire King" players out there who's willing to enter the Sanctuary of this scorching "Fire King Island". Thanks for reading 'til the end and for being "Legendary". 

(Shout to my mentor @YUK1NA) :)