In Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Links, there are tons of different decks and archetypes available for players to build. From anime fan favorites like Blue-Eyes and Dark Magician to other popular decks from the TCG such as Six Samurai and Thunder Dragons. Buster Blader is a deck that combines both of these.

Buster Blader has always been popular, for some due to the lore told through its card artworks or maybe because of its anime appearances in Yugi’s deck. Buster Blader is one of the decks that made it into the limited selection of Duel Links. There are many ways to build and run a Buster Blader deck and with gems so scarce it’s important to know the best way to build in order to get the maximum value out of your deck.

10 Open Crimson Kingdom Packs

There are more Buster Blader cards than just Buster Blader itself. Luckily, a fair bit of them are all obtainable from this box. It contains Buster Blader, The Dragon Destroyer Swordsman which is a fusion of Buster Blader and a Dragon Monster that acts as a straight upgrade to the original. “Crimson Kingdom” also contains the original Buster Blader, which despite being rather out-dated by modern standards on its own is still needed in the deck in order for it to function to its max ability. This box also contains Buster Blader, The Destruction Swordmaster, however, you shouldn’t go out of your way to try and pull it out since it’s not used in the best Buster Blader decks.

9 Play DNA Surgery

DNA Surgery is a card that will make all cards on the field a specific type, meaning you can call Dragon to take full advantage of Buster Blader’s strength of acting as an anti-Dragon deck. This is especially true when you have Buster Blader, The Dragon Destroyer Swordsman on the field. The monster will force all of your opponent’s monsters to defense position as well as negate all of their effects. This allows Buster Blader to attack freely and deal devastating piercing damage. This combo is the cornerstone of pure Buster Blader decks, and how most builds of Buster Blader should be played due to its effectiveness.

8 Use The Orcust Engine

One of the biggest problems Buster Blader decks suffer from is a lack of consistency and potential to “brick.” That’s why when the deck was at its prime it utilized the skill “Last Gambit” before it was nerfed to become practically unusable. You need to get to your key cards like your “Fusion” spells and DNA Surgery, and Orcust allows it to do just that.

Thanks to Orcustrated Return, you can draw through your deck fairly easily. The Orcust monster cards themselves can even act as extenders thanks to Brass Bombard being a “Tuner,” allowing the deck to go into various Synchro monsters.

7 Don’t Focus on Buster Blader

Now, it may seem odd for a Buster Blader deck to not want to focus on the titular card. However, Buster Blader is only run as a necessity, and it will almost never actually hit your field. While it could theoretically gain a lot of attack, its far too slow to set-up and your opponent will quickly take care of monsters before you can Tribue Summon it. Buster Blader is needed in order to have access to your much more powerful Buster Blader Fusion Monsters, rather than used as a monster on its own.

6 Open Power Of Bravery Packs

While the core cards for the Buster Blader deck are in “Crimson Kingdom,” “Power of Bravery” contains powerful Buster Blader support cards. Most important among them which should always be played at three is Buster Whelp Of The Destruction Swordsman. Most of Buster Whelp’s effects won’t come into play, with the exception of the effect it has when it is Normal Summoned which adds any Destruction Sword card from your deck to your hand.

This includes the in-archetype Fusion card (also in Power of Bravery) Destruction Sword Fusion. This is a quick effect that can use cards from either field as materials, making DNA Surgery all the more important so you can fulfill the Dragon requirement of your Fusions with your opponents’ monsters.

5 Ignore Buster Destruction Swords Cards

Buster Blader has a mini archetype built into it in the way of “Buster Destruction Swords” cards. These are monsters that can be equipped to “Buster Blader” to act as “Floodgates” that prevent your opponent from doing certain things. While the effects of the “Buster Destruction Sword” cards are good, the problem is that they can only be equipped to “Buster Blader,” meaning it has to be that exact monster rather than one that has “Buster Blader” in the name such as Buster Blader, The Dragon Destroyer Swordsman. You are almost never going to have the original Buster Blader on the field, making these cards not worth running, let alone the fact they’re not impactful enough.

4 Use Fusion Substitute Monsters

The benefit of the Buster Blader Fusion monsters is that they don’t require you use “Buster Blader” to fulfill the Fusion Material requirement. Thanks to this, you can use cards like The Dark - Hex Sealed Fusion which can be used to substitute any monster. This means it can act as “Buster Blader” making it easier to go into your Fusion monsters. It also allows a card like Dark Paladin to be played without running Dark Magician since the Fusion Substitute monster can act like it instead in order to fuse with the Buster Bladers that are already in your deck.

3 Mix With Red-Eyes

Despite Buster Blader itself utilizing your opponent’s Dragon monsters, modern Buster Blader decks use Dragon-Type monsters themselves in order to boost their monsters. While pure Buster Blader can do work, it’s at it’s most powerful when mixed in with the Red-Eyes archetype.

Red-Eyes Slash Dragon can dump Buster Blader into the graveyard, then revive it with it’s floating effect. It can also help set-up your Fusion monsters thanks to having more Dragon monsters to fuse with in your deck if you don’t draw into DNA Surgery and have to rely on Buster Whelp Of The Destruction Swordsman.

2 Delaying Cards

The biggest issue Buster Blader decks struggle with is consistency. Unless you draw a combo of DNA Surgery, Buster Whelp Of The Destruction Swordsman, and either Buster Blader or a Fusion substitute card the deck can’t quite get going. Due to this, it is a good idea to run cards that can stall out until you draw into these combo pieces. Buster Blader doesn’t have any of its key cards limited in any way, allowing you to use those cards in your deck. Kiteroid is an excellent addition since it can save you from two attacks. Counter Gate is another solid choice to negate an attack and draw a card as well.

1 Utilize Skills

Your deck itself can only do so much, thankfully there are a large plethora of Skills in Duel Links that Buster Blader decks can utilize. While it originally used Last Gambit, it’s generally too slow to work nowadays. Destiny Draw can be a suitable replacement since it allows you to get any of the cards you need so long as you took 2000 or more Life Point damage. Switcheroo is the best choice, since you can mulligan a card from your hand and draw a new one and can use it twice per Duel. All this requires is taking 1000 or more Life Point damage, which can be achieved yourself by using Cosmic Cyclone.

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