Side decking with Infernity

Hello again fellow members of the blogosphere. This is a topic I haven't touched on in the past, the Infernity side deck. As all of you should know by now, Infernity is very ill tempered and is very specific about what it does and doesn't like. The deck needs fluid consistency or it will struggle to make plays, especially in today's Infernity hating metagame.

The reason I didn't cover this topic is because I honestly had no idea how to side deck with Infernity. After a few months of trial and error and close observation of top decks and other successful, I finally settled on a side deck I was comfortable with.

Here's what I came up with:

Ryko, Lightsworn Hunter

As history dictates, puppy power wins games. This has been appearing in Infernity side decks for a long time. It does two things: (1) it gets rid of an annoying card (2) it fills the Graveyard. This is probably one of the most effective ways to deal with popular Anti-DARK cards like Consecrated Light and Shadow-Imprisoning Mirror. It also gets rid of Legendary Six Samurai - Shi En and helps weaken the effectiveness of Necrovalley.

However, this card is not without its faults. Firstly, it eats your Normal Summon. For a lot of decks, this isn't a problem. However, Infernity requires handlessness to make make plays, and having an extra monster to summon can slow the whole process down. Additionally, whilst milling should theoretically be an advantage, it can also be a sever handicap. The deck will run a low monster count even after siding, so mostly spells and traps will be milled. This can be very problematic for Infernity, especially when cards like Infernity Launcher or Barrier are milled.

This card takes very careful usage. If anybody decides to use this side, be cautious about Ryko. There are three in the side, but that does not mean 3 should be sided in. Sometimes just 1 or 2 of them can do the job.

Thunder King Rai-Oh

I am very pleased with TKRO so far. I side this against X-Sabers and Plants. If you can protect this card for long enough in the Saber match up, you can slow them down enough to gain the upper hand. Against Plants, it's a 1900 body meaning that Tengu can be ran over. It also causes RotA and CotLB to be dead for a while.

The biggest benefit of TKRO is not its first effect, but its second effect. If sabers can't get Faultroll or Hyunlei off, they have very little they can do. If plants can't get their big synchros like Trishula off, they're at a disadvantage. TKRO also works well with CotH. Flipping CotH on TKRO when they need to synchro is a nice way to add insult to injury, provided they don't have Seven Tools of the Bandit.

TKRO also helps against some of the deck's other awkward match ups. GBs don't have anything mained that can run over it. Provided that you Barrier their Lances, you should be in good shape. War Chariot is a nuisance, but it can be dealt with fairly easily. Either kill the Glad or Barrier it. TKRO also slows down Machina decks should you encounter them, but like with GBs, it does take a little protection.

Puppet Plant

This is a side deck staple these days. It combats Heros, Sabers, Samurais and GKs rather effectively, hence why this card sees so much play.

Although this has to activate in the hand, it doesn't affect the consistency of the Infernity deck very much. It will be out of your hand very quickly since the above decks use a lot of Warriors or Spellcasters. I don't really have much to say about Puppet Plant since it's relatively self-explanatory.

Forbidden Chalice

Someone on Pojo recommended this card to me, and it has done its job very well. The play in the X-Saber deck that kills Infernity is Trap Stun/STotB + Hyunlei. I can't use Traps to stop that play since it will be negated. I can't use Monsters to stop that play because Infernity can't run cards like Veiler. What I can do is use Forbidden Chalice. It's a Spell, so it's almost impossible to negate. That means that Hyunlei becomes a 2700 ATK beater for a turn. It also negates Trishula, which is always a good thing.

This card also has rulings to make it stronger. Because it's an ATK/DEF modifier, it can be activated during the battle step; something that is unique to Chalice. That means it can negate a Ryko, a Pashuul, a Reaper or sometimes even a GK Spy. Those sorts of cards can really slow down the game for an Infernity player, so Chalice is excellent against them.

Chalice can also act as a pseudo Book of Boon by negating Consecrated Light or Thunder King Rai-Oh for a turn, just long enough to push for game. I highly recommend this card to every Infernity player out there.

Nobleman of Crossout

With flip effects so prolific, Nobleman of Crossout can do a lot of damage. It hurts GKs and Plants a lot. If you hit GK Spy, you pretty much win provided you can keep Valley out of the way. Against Plants, if you hit Ryko, you hit a major part of their engine. If you hit Glow-Up Bulb, Dandylion or Spore, your odds of winning are also increased substantially. It also deals with sided Penguin Soldiers, which is a very helpful thing. This is a good side card for just about any deck, so give it a try if you haven't done so already.

Dust Tornado

This card hasn't left my side deck since I started playing this game. Infernity has trouble with Necrovalley, Dimensional Fissure, Macro Cosmos, anything like that. Dust Tornado is a quick and easy solution to those cards. Dust Tornado also makes some low tier match ups easier. Dragunities lose to Dust Tornado, not that they're a threat to this deck. I've faced some pretty nasty rogue Malefic decks, so this helps put you into a winning position provided you can keep Eradicator Epidemic Virus out of effect.

This is probably the best anti-rogue card available in the game. If you play a deck with a lot of Graveyard interaction, you should be siding this card in twos.

Gozen Match

I saved the best until last. Gozen Match is amazing right now. If you run a mono-attribute deck, you should be siding this (or even maining it). This shuts down so many decks.

The ruling on it states that neither player can summon into different attributes. In other words, you can't Tribute Summon, Ritual Summon, Fusion Summon, Synchro Summon or Xyz summon into a different attribute. For example, you can't tribute a Treeborn Frog to summon Caius.

This card is very, very effective at what it does. Although MST and Trunade can deal with Gozen, a lot of decks recently stopped maining MST, so Gozen will probably win you games on its own. It wins the game against Monarchs, sufficed to say that you keep Battle Fader and Mobius under control. It hurts Plants a lot. The only synchro they can make is Librarian with Junk Synchron and Dopplewarrior. If you get the first turn on sams and you flip this in response to Kageki, you win. They will never be able to summon Shi En because they don't main any DARKs. This is also a fairly effective card against GBs. They will be unable to gain any real field advantage and Gyzarus will be impossible to summon under Gozen.

As you can see. Gozen match hurts a lot of decks. In a deck like Infernity, Gozen's power is amplified due to all of the negation in the deck. Barriering anything that threatens Gozen and making a field of powerful Synchros is a game winner. Just remember that you'll be affected too, so you wont be able to synchro into non-DARKs. Fortunately, most of the extra deck is DARK attribute.


That was my side deck. Hopefully you all enjoyed my post and found it informative, and hopefully this post was better than some of my recent ones. I'm happy to receive any feedback and I appreciate honest opinions. As always, I'm open to requests, so if you want me to make a post on something, just say.

~Valafar123