If you’re looking to dip your toes into the world of Link summons, then Salamangreats are the best place to get started. They offer a super varied extra deck, seriously strong main-deck monsters, and more ways to Link summon than you could possibly imagine. In fact, this deck has seen quite a bit of success at the competitive level, and has topped multiple tournaments in both the TCG and OCG. So if you like the look of this fire-powered Link deck, but maybe you’re not sure where to start, then keep on scrolling for some ideas.
15. Salamangreat Beat Bison
If you want to Link summon, there’s one thing you desperately need – Link material. And while you have 3 or more Salamangreat monsters in your graveyard, you can special summon this card for free, straight from your hand. On top of filling up your field, Salamangreat Beat Bison does two more amazing things for this deck: It can negate your opponent’s monster effects, and return Link monsters from the graveyard to the extra deck. And by returning Fire-attribute Link monsters from your graveyard to the extra deck, you can target that many monsters your opponent controls and completely negate their effects for the rest of the turn! This ensures that your extra deck always has monsters for you to link summon, as well as making your opponent’s monsters completely useless for a turn.
14. Salamangreat Balelynx
Field spells have gotten seriously powerful in recent years. Cards like Ancient Fairy Dragon that consistently search out field spells have been banned for this very reason. But luckily for us, Salamangreats come with their own field spell searcher -, and it’s only a Link 1 monster! When this card is Link summoned, you can search out this deck’s field spell (Salamangreat Sanctuary) adding it from your deck to your hand. And there’s more: While this card is in your graveyard, you can banish it to protect your Salamangreat cards from destruction by battle or card effect!
13. Salamangreat Sanctuary
Salamangreats have a quirk that no other deck has – when their Link monsters are Link summoned using themselves, they gain special abilities. Now for most decks, this is impossible. Lucky for us, if Salamangreat Sanctuary is face-up on the field, we can pull it off. This field spell is searchable through Salamangreat Balelynx too, meaning you don’t even have to run Terraforming in this deck to make it a worthwhile option! This is easily one of the best field spells ever printed – and is a necessity for any Salamangreat deck.
12. Salamangreat Sunlight Wolf
In a deck like Salamangreat that can link summon many times over, you can end up with a lot of your best cards in the graveyard. With Salamangreat Sunlight Wolf in your extra deck, that’s not a problem though. Because this guy comes with two handy graveyard retrieval effects: Firstly, you can add 1 Fire monster from your graveyard to your hand when a monster is summoned to a zone this card points to. With an up and a down arrow, this means both you and your opponent can trigger this effect, meaning you can get some serious value off of this card right away. Secondly, if this card was Link summoned using Salamangreat Sunlight Wolf then you can add any Salamangreat spell/trap from your graveyard to your hand during your main phase.
11. Salamangreat Spinny
I’m not quite sure what animal this guy is meant to be (maybe an armadillo?) But what I do know is that Salamangreat Spinny is amazing in this deck. By discarding this card to the graveyard, you can target any monster on the field to give it a nice little +500 attack boost. On top of that, if you control a Salamangreat monster while this guy’s chilling in the graveyard, you can special summon Spinny to your side of the field as long as you banish it when he leaves! This is a great way of adding some extra resources to Link summon with, as well as giving your monsters an attack boost to hit at your opponent.
10. Salamangreat Jack Jaguar
An 1800 attack monster that inflicts piercing battle damage is pretty strong already. But Salamangreat Jack Jaguar has all of that and more. While it’s in your graveyard, while you control a Salamangreat link monster, you can shuffle any other Salamangreat monster from your graveyard into the deck to special summon this card to a zone that any Link monster points to. The fact that a card this good is ranked barely mid-way on this list just shows how powerful the archetype really is.
9. Salamangreat Fowl
One great thing about this deck is that once you normal summon one monster, the rest of your monsters will just pop off. And here’s how this strange chicken can help: When another Salamangreat monster is summoned while this guy’s in your hand, you can special summon it to your side of the field for free. So far so good. But on top of that, if your opponent is running some seriously powerful spells/traps, Salamangreat Fowl lets you discard a card to prevent any set card from activating this turn.
8. Salamangreat Mole
Pot of Avarice is a spell that’s really helpful. It was only recently allowed again in the TCG, and it’s still initially limited to 1 copy per deck! So it’s only natural that this insanely powerful deck has a monster offering exactly the same broken effect, as well as providing you with more materials for Link summoning. Here’s how it works: If you Link summoned during your main phase, you can special summon Salamangreat Mole from your hand to a zone that a Link monster points to. Gotta love a monster who doesn’t eat up your normal summon, and one you can summon consistently too! On top of that, while this guy is in your graveyard and you currently control no monsters, you can banish this card from your graveyard to shuffle 5 Salamangreat cards back into the deck, as well as drawing 2 cards. This is a great way to make a comeback when the game isn’t quite going your way – making this little guy a very helpful addition to any Salamangreat build.
7. Salamangreat Heatleo
Salamangreat Heatleo is one of the 2 big boss monsters this deck relies on – and boy is it a good one! When it’s Link summoned, you can target a card in your opponent’s spell and trap zone, and shuffle it back into their deck. An excellent option for getting rid of your opponent’s pesky backrow cards, and it may just save you from a Solemn Judgement to the face. Plus, this guy gets way more powerful when you Link summon it using Salamangreat Heatleo. If you do, you can target any face-up monster on the field and have its attack become equal to the attack of any monster in your graveyard! You can either use this to seriously weaken your opponent’s biggest monsters, or to beef up your smaller monsters. Either way, your opponent could be taking some serious damage.
6. Will of the Salamangreat
It’s not often that you get spell cards in Yu-Gi-Oh that are this good, and that haven’t been banned. But hey, this is Salamangreat. They’re an entire archetype of broken cards. Will of the Salamangreat is a continuous spell card, and here’s why it’s so awesome: During your main phase, you can straight up just special summon any Salamangreat monster from your hand or graveyard. This doesn’t even have to be main deck monsters – if you’ve got a Salamangreat link monster lurking in your graveyard, Will of the Salamangreat can bring that straight back to the field. On top of that effect, this card can seriously swarm the field too. Because if you control a Link monster that was Link summoned using a monster with the same name as itself, you can send this card to the graveyard and special summon Salamangreat monsters from your hand/ graveyard, up to that monster’s Link rating! So you can just special 4 monsters all at once with this spell card. I’d say this is easily one of the best special summoning cards in Yu-Gi-Oh, and I’m highly surprised this wasn’t limited in the recent ban list update.
5. Salamangreat Gazelle
Speaking of the ban list… Here’s a card so good that it just had to be hit (currently Limited as of this writing). And here’s what it does: When any other Salamangreat card is sent to the graveyard, you can special summon Salamangreat Gazelle from your hand. This wording is so vague that it covers all sorts of graveyard shenanigans. If you Foolish Burial a Salamangreat card? That’s a special summon. Maybe you sent a monster to the GY for a Link summon? Yep, that’s a special summon. Or was it destroyed by battle or card effect? You guessed it, special summons all round! And on top of that, when this card is special summoned, you can then send any Salamangreat monster from your deck to the graveyard.
4. Salamangreat Almiraj
This is actually one of the most generic monsters in the archetype, and it’s seen a lot of play in decks that don’t even run Salamangreats either. By tributing this Link 1 monster, you can protect one of your monsters from card effects for the rest of the turn. Then while this card is in your graveyard, if a normal summoned monster is destroyed by battle, you can special summon Salamangreat Almiraj to your side of the field. This is a great way of keeping at least one monster on the field, ensuring that during your next turn you’ll definitely have materials to Link summon with.
3. Salamangreat Pyro Phoenix
Now this is the true boss monster of the deck. It’s also truly one of the best Link monsters ever printed. This guy is a Link 4 monster, meaning he’s pretty costly to summon, but it’s so worth it. Because if Salamangreat Pyro Phoenix is link summoned using itself as Link material, you can destroy every single card your opponent controls! This is one of the most powerful board wipes the game has ever seen. It’s a Raigeki and a Harpie’s Feather Duster all wrapped up in one big Link monster – and that’s not even all he does. This card also allows you to special summon a Link monster from your opponent’s graveyard to their side of the field. This may sound like an odd thing to do. But if a Link monster is summoned to your opponent’s field, Salamangreat Pyro Phoenix inflicts damage to your opponent equal to that monster’s original attack!
2. Salamangreat Circle
Salamangreat Circle is an amazingly powerful search spell. Not only is it a quick-play card (meaning you can play it pretty much whenever you like), but it also has 2 different effects, making it useful in a wide variety of circumstances: You can either use this card to search out any Salamangreat monster from your deck & add it to your hand, allowing you to add some seriously powerful monsters like Salamanagreat Gazelle at any point in the duel. Or you can use this card to protect your Link monsters from monster effects. This is such an amazing searcher that it’s actually been limited to 1 copy per deck in the TCG, since they needed to nerf this incredible deck somehow.
1. Salamangreat Miragestallio
Who’d have thought that the best monster in a Link-summoning deck would be an XYZ monster?! Salamangreat Miragestallio has only very recently been unbanned in the TCG (as of this writing). And you can still only use one copy per deck! But this card is an amazing extender. By detaching an XYZ material from Salamangreat Miragestallio, you can special summon any Salamangreat monster straight from the deck. Most Salamangreat monsters actually want to be in the graveyard, as they can special summon themselves from the graveyard in one way or another – meaning you’ve practically got a free extra monster off of this effect. But there’s more: When this card is sent to the graveyard for a Link summon, you can return any monster on the field to that player’s hand! If you can bounce back an opponent’s extra deck monster with this effect, they’ll be forced to leave it out or summon it again – wasting all the materials they spent summoning it in the first place. If we ever see the day where we can play more than 1 copy of Salamangreat Miragestallio per deck, then play as many copies as physically possible!
