Fresh out of the Booster Special: Destiny Soldiers that is hot off the presses in the OCG, the Destiny HEROs have arrived. Care to join their fight?

Introduction:

Before I’d begin, a disclaimer as always – Please do not sell this theme short just due to their unconventional effects. Sure, the individual effects of each Destiny HERO monster could be better, and I’ve seen that complaint across pretty much every online medium, forum, and discussion board. That does not mean that the deck is a complete failure. In writing this article, I am hoping that more duelists will see the potential in this theme, since there is a lot of it, and finally begin to respect this quirky archetype that has been revived after originally beginning its days back in Yu-Gi-Oh GX. So without further ado, it’s time to suit up.

Not only did the Booster Special introduce new Effect Monsters for the archetype, but it also heralded the arrival of two Destiny HERO Fusion Monsters. Destiny HERO – Dystopiaguy can inflict up to 1600 effect damage on its summon, and then if its ATK points are ever different from its original ATK, it can re-set its ATK back to 2800 to destroy a card on the field. Adding to the effect damage from Dynamiteguy is great, and it can even use the Graveyard effect of Dynamiteguy to destroy a card on the field. Remember, Destiny HEROs is all about setting up your future plays, so setting up a Dynamite well before Dystopiaguy is expected. The other new Fusion Monster is Destiny HERO – Deadlyguy, otherwise known as the setup monster. And if you don’t consider him as such, you should. By discarding a card during either player’s turn, you can send any Destiny HERO from the deck to the Graveyard to have all of your Destiny HEROs gain ATK points. This lets you setup all of your ‘future’ effects by getting them into the Graveyard as soon as possible. But more importantly, it offers yet another way to change the attack of Dystopiaguy to unlock its destruction effect on either player’s turn.

One last paragraph before I continue on – it’s also important to note which cards I am NOT using. Can some of these options be included? Of course. But they are very much sub-optimal if you hope to achieve victory. Mask Change and the Masked HEROs are actually not good cards to run in a standard Fusion D-HERO build. One, they take up valuable room in the Extra deck, but secondly, it gives you a reason to waste your Normal Summon on a Destiny HERO instead of taking the free Poly search from Blazeman. By adding too many things you may want to do with a single summon, and more cards to dead-draw in the wrong situations, you are not helping your cause. The same exact argument can be made for Destiny End Dragoon, Destiny HERO – Plasma, and Destiny HERO – Dogma, even though many have made the argument about the extra layer of synergy by factoring in Over Destiny and Elemental HERO Prisma. Again, it is just filling way too many slots for too little of a reward. Extend this argument to many of the ‘useless’ Destiny HERO monsters and other ‘neat’ tech cards as well such as D – Time, because it continues to ring true and is not worth it in the end. Enough negativity, let’s talk key cards.

Key Cards:

• Destiny HERO Malicious, Celestial, Decisionguy, Drillguy
  • These are your main D-HEROs that will carry you to victory. Between these four, you have monsters that want to be Fusion Material, monsters that float advantage, and a wide range of quirky effects to help you win the duel.
• Elemental HERO Blazeman
  • I’ve already discussed the numbers, but he is your key to getting Polymerization to hand. For Destiny HEROs, at least 2-3 Fusion Summons per duel is your win condition.
• Elemental HERO Shadow Mist
  • The best searcher for the HERO archetype that is not restricted in the TCG. Even if you choose NOT to run Mask Change and its related suite, you can still find great success using Mist as Fusion Material, discard fodder, or simply costs to activate your other cards.
• Polymerization
  • The deck wins or loses on this card. I cannot explain enough how integral this card is.
• Fusion Recovery
  • This is the card that lets you Fusion Summon so many more times in a duel. Fusion out Deadlyguy using Shadow Mist and any Destiny HERO, add a new HERO to hand with Mist, then add back your Poly and Shadow Mist with this card. On your following turn, you can then discard that Shadow Mist to send a Celestial or Malicious from deck to the Graveyard, and search out another free HERO. This play will be discussed even more at length later, but it is even more of a key card here than with Lunalights.
• Destiny Draw, Allure of Darkness
  • These two cards compose your main draw engine, they’re just great at turboing to the cards you need.
• E – Emergency Call, Foolish Burial, A HERO Lives, Reinforcement of the Army
  • These cards get you to your Blazeman faster, which means you get to your Polymerization almost any time you want.

Additional Tech Options:

• Destiny HERO Diamond Dude – Out of the remaining Destiny HERO monsters, this is another solid Level 4 due to the high number of Normal Spell cards you are running. At the very least, he works as Fusion or Xyz Material. 
• Destiny HERO Dark Angel – By far one of the more interesting pieces of support, Angel lets you lock down your opponent’s first Spell card of the turn. The downside is that your opponent can use her for Tribute or Synchro material. The effect to stack a Spell is useful if you have Diamond Dude, Allure, or D Draw at the ready, but in most cases, you shouldn’t use it.
• D – Fusion – The only Spell/Trap Support from the new Destiny HERO set, this is their themed Fusion card. Sadly, it is very slow in that it is a Trap card, AND it can only use Fusion Materials from the field. While it does give the Fusion monster a bit of protection, your main Fusion monsters don’t really need it. 
• Pot of Avidity – This is a great card because it works extremely well with Malicious. So well, that it lets your extra Fusion Material can be stretched to serve in every single Fusion Summon that you ever make in the duel. It also replaces itself with a draw, so there isn’t even a drop in advantage to scare you away.
• Half Shut – While you don’t exactly need the battle protection for yourself, this is an amazing card to esnure OTKs with Trinity. Attacking 3 times on the same monster when yours has 5000 ATK is pretty much guaranteed game. Alongside the fast draw power and high search power, it is actually a valid option.
• Anti-Magic Arrows – Protect your attacks, since only one of your Fusion boss monsters have built-in protection.
• Dark Armed Dragon – All of your Destiny HEROs are DARK. Also, you have amazing control of your Graveyard due to Malicious, Celestial, Deadlyguy, and Dynamiteguy. It can still be a good boss monster for certain situations.

Click on the spoiler below to see a full sample decklist:

SpoilerMain Deck:
||| Destiny HERO – Malicious
|| Destiny HERO – Dynamiteguy
|| Destiny HERO – Celestial
| Destiny HERO – Drillguy
| Destiny HERO – Decisionguy
|| Destiny HERO – Diamond Dude
||| Elemental HERO – Blazeman
||| Elemental HERO – Shadow Mist
||| E – Emergency Call
||| Polymerization
||| Destiny Draw
||| A Hero Lives
|| Allure of Darkness
|| Fusion Recovery
| Foolish Burial
| Reinforcement of the Army
||| Cosmic Cyclone
|| Pot of Avidity

Extra Deck:
||| Destiny HERO – Dystopiaguy
|| Destiny HERO – Deadlyguy
| Vision HERO – Adoration
| Vision HERO – Trinity
| Starve Venom Fusion Dragon
| Number 39: Utopia Beyond
| Constellar Ptolemy M7
| Dark Rebellion Xyz Dragon
| Castel, the Skyblater Musketeer
| Diamond Dire Wolf
| Daigusto Emeral
| Gagaga Cowboy

Tips and Tricks:

Does this article cover every play available to you? No, and neither does the build I have chosen to present to yinz. The sample decklist above is completely built in the OCG mindset of deckbuilding, just like every strategy and deck I present in my articles. The short version of the difference between the OCG and TCG mindset is simple – TCG duelists build their decks to not lose, while the OCG duelists build their decks to win. TCG builds are generally more overly consistent than the strategy needs to be, and the OCG builds realize that one time or another you won’t be able to get every little thing you need. The statement I am trying to defend is that you may not have tried a decklist like this before even if you have experimented with Destiny HEROs already; however, if you don’t find success the first duel you attempt, please don’t give up any hope for the archetype. There are definitely ways to make the deck much more ‘safer’, with disruptive traps and less potential ‘dead’ cards in your starting hand, but this is the best build for showing the pure height in power the theme can hit. With that goal in mind, this is why I always present a decklist in the OCG mindset, because it does the trick in showcasing powerplays. I hope you now understand this, and grow to appreciate just a bit more the themes that will never be fully in the meta spotlight while still remaining captivating strategies.

Conclusion:

As always, the list above is just my personal build. From what I’ve seen, many folks have been pretty stumped when it comes to utilizing Destiny HEROs properly, so I hope that this article helped to dip your finger into the mystery pool of knowledge. Who knows, this article might even pave the way for you to win with them! Until the next time, keep innovating and building creative decks! Most of all, just enjoy dueling for the fun that it can be!

Reminder, I also take suggestions for future CDS articles! While I will not run out of cool ideas, I do want to be writing articles about strategies you are interested in. So if you desperately wish to see a CDS article about the archetype, theme, or strategy you love, feel free to private message me on the YGOrg Discord server or the YGOrganization Forums with your ideas to keep under consideration: my username is Quincymccoy.