What used to be a slow tribute summon-heavy control deck, has now become a fast-paced combo deck that can end on some seriously powerful board states. The deck focuses on two types of effects – ones that destroy cards on your side of the field, and ones that trigger when they’re destroyed by card effects. By combining these two types of effects, Dinosaurs can pull off some seriously long combo chains and access all sorts of threats from the extra deck – negates, interruptions, you name it and Dinosaurs can do it.
10. Lost World
This field spell single-handedly made the deck what is today, and enables almost every single combo this deck has to offer. Firstly, this card ensures that all non-dinosaur monsters lose 500 attack and defense, making running over your opponent’s monsters even easier. The real power to this card lies in its second effect – once per turn when a dinosaur monster is normal or special summoned, you can special summon one Juraegg Token to your opponent’s side of the field. Then if a normal Dinosaur monster on the field would be destroyed by battle or card effect (i.e. the token you just summoned) you can instead destroy a different dinosaur monster from your deck. Dinosaurs have a bunch of monsters that can pop cards on the field, as well as a bunch of dinosaurs that gain amazing effects when they’re destroyed by card effect, making Lost World one of the best cards in this deck’s arsenal.
9. Babycerasaurus
Whenever you’re destroying dinosaur monsters by card effect, be it through Lost World or one of the many destruction effects dinosaurs have to offer, you’ll want to be destroying Babycerasaurus. When this card is destroyed by card effect you can special summon any level 4 or lower Dinosaur monster from your deck. The crazy thing about Babycerasaurus is that there isn’t any sort of ‘once per turn’ restriction on this effect. If you can pop multiple copies of this card in one turn, you’ll get a special summon every single time. This makes Babycerasaurus a fantastic extender in the deck, and an absolute staple for any sort of Dinosaur strategy.
8. Double Evolution Pill
Don’t you just hate it when you can never seem to draw your deck’s boss monster when you need it? Double Evolution Pill takes care of that for Dinosaur decks, by special summoning any level 7 or higher Dinosaur monster from the deck, ignoring any summoning conditions on that monster. To activate this card you’ll have to banish 1 Dinosaur monster and 1 non-Dinosaur monster from your hand or graveyard. Running a bunch of generic hand traps in your deck can be a great way of getting these non-Dinosaur monsters into your graveyard.
7. Ultimate Conductor Tyranno
When it comes to powerful boss cards, you can’t get much stronger than Ultimate Conductor Tyranno. Not only is this guy incredibly easy to summon, requiring you to only banish 2 Dinosaur monsters from your graveyard, but his effect can be absolutely devastating. Firstly: at quick-effect speed you can pop a monster card on your field or in your hand to flip all monsters your opponent controls into face-down defense position. This is a great way of triggering Babycerasaurus’s search effect by popping this card in the hand or field, and this will stop all monster effects your opponent may have up at the time. As if this wasn’t enough, Ultimate Conductor Tyranno can then attack each monster your opponent controls, and if it attacks a defense position monster you can inflict 1000 damage to your opponent and immediately send that monster to the graveyard. This is an amazing piece of removal for any Dinosaur deck, and a great way to completely board wipe your opponent with a single card.
6. Fossil Dig
I’m honestly amazed this card hasn’t been hit by the ban list given how much it does for the deck. This spell card allows you to search out any level 6 or lower Dinosaur monster from the deck and add it to your hand. Sometimes you’ll want an extra Babycerasaurus to destroy with your other dinosaurs, and other times you’ll want cards like Souleating Oviraptor that can start your whole combo chain. Whatever Dino fits you best, Fossil Dig has got you covered.
5. Animadorned Archosaur
This card has two amazing effects that can be used in two sorts of decks – pure Dinosaurs and Dinosaur-hybrid decks. On summon, this card can pop a monster in your hand or on your side of the field (another great way of triggering Babycerasaurus) to search out either a Reptile, Sea-Serpent, or Winged-Beast with the same level as the destroyed monster, or you can search an ‘Evolution Pill’ card from your deck. Most Dinosaur decks use this to grab a copy of Double Evolution Pill to summon out their Ultimate Conductor Tyranno, or any of their other powerful main-deck Dinosaurs. Another great option is to use this to go into Dinowrestler Pankratops, a powerful card that provides you with an interruption on your opponent’s turn.
4. Evolzar Dolkka
Arguably the most important thing in Yu-Gi-Oh at the moment is negation. If you’re going first in Yu-Gi-Oh, chances are you’ll be setting up as many negates as possible before passing to your opponent, since this makes it harder for them to make any monsters that’ll beat yours. Evolzar Dolkka is an amazing piece of negation that’s incredibly easy to access, requiring only two level 4 Dinosaur monsters to summon. And here’s what it does: At quick effect speed, you can detach a material from this card to negate the activation of a monster effect, and if you do destroy that monster. Not only are there no restrictions to this effect, but you can actually use it twice in the same chain to negate multiple effects at once. On top of that, this effect doesn’t specify monster effects that trigger on field, making it great for stopping powerful hand traps such as Nibiru the Primal Being that would otherwise wipe out your board entirely.
3. Souleating Oviraptor
If you’re looking to start your combo chain in Dinosaurs then there’s truly no card better than Souleating Oviraptor. On summon, you can target any Dinosaur monster in your deck and choose to either add it to your hand or send it to the graveyard. This can set your hand up with a Babycerasaurus for popping with other card effects, or can load up your graveyard with cards that trigger in the graveyard such as Miscellaneosaurus or Giant Rex. You can then destroy 1 other level 4 or lower Dinosaur monster on the field to special summon any Dinosaur monster you like from the graveyard. This is a great way of triggering Lost World: the field spell will give you a token on the normal summon of Souleating Oviraptor, which you can then attempt to pop with Souleating Oviraptor’s effect, then use Lost World to pop a Babycerasaurus from the deck instead.
2. Miscellaneousaurus
Miscellaneousaurus is such a good card that it’s been limited in official play, and it’s easy to see why. You can discard it from your hand to ensure that your Dinosaur monsters are completely unaffected by the activated effects of your opponent. This doesn’t just protect you from monster effects, but from spells and traps too, ensuring your combos can go off without a hitch. And while this card is in the graveyard, you can banish any number of Dinosaur monsters from your graveyard (including itself) to special summon a Dinosaur monster from the deck with a level that matches the number of Dinosaurs banished. This effect combos really well with Giant Rex, a card that special summons itself to the field when it’s banished. If you’re running low on monsters, you can also just banish Miscellaneousaurus by itself to grab a free Animadorned Archosaur from the deck.
1. Scrap Raptor
Scrap Raptor reads like a custom card – it’s simply too good for this deck. You can target a card you control and destroy it to gain an additional normal summon of a ‘Scrap’ monster. While Dinosaur decks don’t typically run many Scrap cards, when Scrap Raptor is destroyed by card effect (i.e. its own effect) you can add 1 Scrap monster from your deck to your hand. This allows you to grab a copy of Scrap Chimera from the deck, who on summon, special summons a Scrap monster from the graveyard – conveniently giving you two level 4 monsters on the field to do whatever you like with. There are so many different combo lines you can go down following this – you could go into Crystron Halqifibrax and potentially go into some powerful synchro monsters such as Naturia Beast, or you could go into the Link-2 monster Scrap Wyvern and start summoning powerful Link monsters such as Apollousa, Bow of the Goddess. This small Scrap engine goes a long way in any Dinosaur deck.
