Introduction to Ancient Warriors
Introduction
The Ancient Warriors archetype is a telling of a classic Chinese novel, Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Written in the 14th century, Three Kingdoms is a dramatization of the decline of the Han dynasty in 184 AD and the subsequent alliances and conflicts of those attempting to consolidate territory, military power, and political clout in its wake.
The archetype's monsters are characters from the novel, with their given names and courtesy names merged to create their card names. For example, Liu Bei's name is combined with his courtesy name — Xuande — to produce Loading... . The Spells and Traps illustrate pivotal events from the novel, such as Loading... depicting Liu Bei's three visits to Zhuge Liang (Loading... ) to recruit him as his military strategist.
General Approach
While an Ancient Warriors deck can go first, the archetype's monsters are board breakers designed to go second. More specifically:
- The WIND monsters (of the Shu Han state) activate their effects while your opponent controls more monsters.
- The WATER monsters (of the Eastern Wu state) remove or negate cards your opponent controls.
- The FIRE monsters (of the Cao Wei state) trigger their effects when your opponent's cards are destroyed.
The archetype has numerous searching and 'fixing' effects that trade any card from your hand or field for any "Ancient Warriors" card from your deck. Most notable are Loading... and Loading... , which retrieve additional monsters that can Special Summon themselves to the field.
The general plan is do the following:
- Start by weakening your opponent's field with board breakers like Loading... and Kaiju monsters.
- Use Loading... and the Level 4 Ancient Warriors to establish initial field presence while removing more cards from your opponent's board.
- Expand your board with the high-Level Ancient Warriors, use their effects to clear out any remaining obstacles, and attack for 8000 damage.
- If you fall short of the one-turn-kill, then follow up with Loading... and/or a few interruptions to prevent your opponent from rebuilding.
Deck Contents
Like many archetypes, the Ancient Warriors have a robust roster of cards, however only the best monsters and Spells typically see play. For the purposes of this guide, we will focus on the Ancient Warriors cards that are routinely used.