The Deck Garage: A Storm is Brewing...

Hello all! This week, I'll be analyzing a Cloudian Deck I made. This deck is mainly based around slowly gaining card advantage over the opponent whilst using tokens to collect Fog Counters. Without any ado, here's the decklist:

Monsters:
2 Cloudian - Acid Cloud
3 Cloudian - Altus
3 Cloudian - Cirrostratus
3 Cloudian - Ghost Fog
3 Cloudian - Nimbusman
2 Cloudian - Storm Dragon
3 Cloudian - Sheep Cloud
3 Mother Grizzly

Spells:
3 Cloudian Squall
2 Diamond-Dust Cyclone
3 Fog Control
1 Mystical Space Typhoon
1 Smashing Ground
3 Summon Cloud
1 Swords of Revealing Light

Traps:
3 Begone, Knave!
3 Spirit Barrier

Okay, the strength of the Cloudians lies mostly in their strong monster effects, especially those of the Acid Cloud, Altus and Cirrostratus. If you play your cards right, you'll be able to quickly gain advantage using their powerful effects to destroy all their options one by one. This version of the Cloudian deck was built to quickly collect Fog Counters whilst saving your cards. Let's begin by analyzing the monsters:

The main monsters here are Acid Cloud, Altus and Cirrostratus. These three are the heart of your deck; by using their powers effectively, you will be able to keep your opponent's options limited.

Most of the monsters here are self-explanatory, but there is one or two that need a bit of explaining:

The Sheep Cloud is mainly here for stalling purposes, and also for another purpose: to get out tokens. You may think that the counters can't do much (having 0 attack and defence doesn't exactly make for a strong monster), but in fact, they can act as good counter collectors. Furthermore, their name is treated as 'Cloudian Token'. This qualifies them as Cloudians, and thus, can work in synergy with some of the other cards in this deck. Take Fog Control for example; usually, most people would not consider tributing a monster just to place three fog counters on a monster. However, if you let Cloudian - Sheep Cloud get its effect off, then tribute one of the tokens for Fog Control, you've basically gotten three free Fog Counters.
Cloudian - Sheep Cloud also works great with Cloudian Squall. Cloudian Squall is at its most useful when there are loads of face-up monsters on the field. With Cloudian - Sheep Cloud, you can swarm the field easily, load up your tokens with Fog Counters and use them to fuel your main Cloudians.

The other unusual monster in the deck is Cloudian - Nimbusman. I used to be skeptical about the effectiveness of this monster, since it's one tribute and is unlikely to ever have very high attack (since you'll probably be using your Fog Counters all the time). However, this card is very useful when you have your opponent on the ropes; when you have cut down their choices, you'll find that you will in fact have a great deal of spare counters. Then you can bring out your Nimbusman for a very large behemoth of a monster.

Next, let's move on to the spells.
Cloudian Squall will probably be your main fog-generating card. Fog Control works well with Cloudian - Sheep Cloud, and Swords of Revealing Light is very useful for buying yourself some time to set up.

The traps are both defensive, and are meant to work in conjunction with the 'cannot be destroyed in battle whilst in attack mode' effect of the Cloudians. Begone, Knave! acts in a way both defensive and offensive; it can act as a deterrent and protect your life points, or it can clear your opponent's field for the cost of life points. Spirit Barrier is an obvious choice in a Cloudian deck, as it covers the obvious weakness of your life points almost always being open to an attack.

Well, I hope you enjoyed this week's article. I'll be back next week with a new one!

Duel With Honor!
~Geno