The Top Best Engines for Tearlaments

Without a doubt, the Tearlaments is the best deck, and judging by the latest banlist and the cards coming out within the Darkwing Blast set, it will be for a long time to come.

This deck is incredibly strong and can be combined with different strategies and combinations of cards, which are called "engines" in Yugioh terms.

These "engines" are made up of cards and combinations that belong to other decks and other archetypes that have nothing to do with Tearlaments but whose effects are an excellent synergy to support the basic strategy and the conditions for activating the Tearlaments’ cards.

Today we are going to analyze the 10 best engines with which to create a Tearlaments deck.

10th place: BRANDED

In a previous post I looked at a branded decklist explaining how it works and the combos.

Compared to the other engines it is perhaps the least expensive considering that to get the main cards you just need to buy 3 structure decks, and Aluber is a card that is cheap in this period.

The biggest problem with this archetype is that it forces the user to only perform fusion summons, limiting the ability to perform link summons, which are another great ability of the Tearlaments archetype.

For this reason, I put it in the last place.

9th PLACE: SHADDOLL

It is an archetype less and less used in Tearlaments recipes. 

Only Shaddoll Beast and Shaddoll Squamata are usually used.

The archetype is good because it gives access to one of the most feared floodgate monsters ever: El Shaddoll Winda.

Winda forces players to only perform one special summon per turn.

Nowadays, the opponent can easily overcome Winda's effect by activating the Super-Polymerization and also having Shaddol Beast in hand is quite useless considering it is a level 5.

And let's not forget that Winda's effect also limits our Tearlaments deck, which is why I put this engine in ninth place.

8th place: DANGER!

Dangers are monsters with different types that allow us to summon Curious, the Lightsworn Dominion and have various effects.

Our opponent will have to choose a card at random from our hand and send it to the graveyard and, if the discarded card is a Danger! Monster! then we can activate its effect.

Among the various effects we will have special summons of Danger! Monsters, effects that make both players discard cards (activating Tearlament cards), destruction of cards on the ground and much more.

If the card sent to the graveyard is a Tearlament monster, its effect will activate allowing us to summon a fusion monster from the extra deck.

Danger! Nessie is also an AQUA-type monster and allows us to summon Tearlaments Kitkallos and Tearlaments Kaleido-Heart.

7th place: LUNALIGHT

The Lunalight archetype is another very versatile engine that in addition to being able to count on some pendulum monsters, can summon fusion monsters that cannot be targeted by the opponent's cards, such as Lunalight Saber Dancer, and also can summon several Link monsters and has access to summons Rank 4 XYZ.

The basic combo consists of Lunalight Tiger which reborns the Lunalight monsters from the graveyard and Lunalight Yellow Marten which returns Tiger to the hand (which can be reactivated one more time and continue to reborn other Lunalight monsters).

If we use the Lunalight Perfume spell card, we can reborn a monster from the graveyard and later we can remove Perfume to add another Lunalight Tiger from the deck to the hand by DISCARDING A CARD as an activation cost. If the card we discard is a Tearlaments monster such as Merrli, we can activate its effect and perform a Tearlaments fusion, since it is treated as a discarded card due to the effect of other cards.

The same goes for the Lunalight Serenade Dance trap card that if it can be removed from the graveyard and allows us to send a card from our hand to the graveyard, and also in this case if the card we send to the graveyard is a Tearlaments card like Merril, we can activate its effect and perform a Tearlaments fusion summon.

The biggest problem with the deck is that the Lunalight archetype requires a lot of cards and it is not uncommon to see the Lunalight-Tearlaments decklist go up to 60 cards.

6th place: KING OF THE SWAMP + FUSION SUBSTITUTE

Kink of the Swamp can be discarded to take a Polymerization or a Fusion Substitute from the deck because both are considered "Polymerizations".

In my opinion Fusion Substitute is the best alternative for this deck as you can remove it from the graveyard by returning a fusion monster from the graveyard to the extra deck and then drawing a card. This effect will activate Tearlament's field spell card Primeval Planet Perlereino which allows us to destroy a card on the field when a Tearlament monster is returned to the deck or extra deck. In this way it is possible to remove cards from the field such as the fearsome Mystic Mine, which in this meta is 3 copies per deck, or other annoying floodgates.

Also King of the Swamp can replace any fusion material and would allow us to play fusion monsters of the Branded archetype or the Invoked archetype and, above all, the Millennium-Eyes Restrict which is one of the strongest fusion ever created.

5th place: BYSTIAL/BYSSTED

Bystial or Byssted is an archetype that I covered in my previous post.

It is made up of dragon monsters and is found in the Darkwing Blast set in common or super rarities, so the prices shouldn't be too expensive.

All Bystials are summoned from the hand by removing a light or dark monster from our graveyard or the opponent's graveyard making them really strong against certain decks that use a lot of graveyard plays. In addition, this special summon can also be performed during the opponent's turn! (remember the effect of D.D. Crow)

Bystials have special effects: Magnamhut searches for a dragon from the deck or recycles from the graveyard during the end phase, Druiswurm sends an opponent's monster to the graveyard and Saronir allows you to send a Bystial monster or a Branded spell/trap card from the deck to the graveyard.

Very good for a meta made up of Tearlaments who are all Dark monsters.

4th place: CURIOUS, THE LIGHTSWORN DOMINION + LINK CLIMBING

Curious is the link monster that can launch a huge array of combos within a Tearlament deck and will likely get banned during the next Forbidden and Limited List.

This monster allows you to send any card from the deck to the graveyard, so if we send a Tearlament card its effect will activate allowing us to summon fusion monsters.

Curios, the Lightsworn Dominion to be summoned requires 3 monsters of the same type but with different attributes, allowing the deck to play Bystial cards.

Also, the second effect that allows you to mill the first three cards from the top of our deck is something incredibly strong considering that the Tearlament cards sent to the graveyard would all activate.

 

This monster is incredibly powerful for its effects but also when combined with floodgates and link climbing cards such as Knightmare Gryphon.

Gryphon is a mini-floodgate as it does not allow specially summoned monsters to activate their effects unless they are linked to another link monster on the field and, in addition, it allows you to retrieve magic or trap cards from the graveyard and set them on field; so if with Curious we sent cards like Super Polymerization or Antispell Fragrance to the graveyard, we can take them back and put them face down on our field.

3rd place: SPRIGHT

This engine has been played a lot but, with the arrival of the October banlist, things seem to have changed.

In fact, the Ronintoadin ban has arrived which has severely limited the possibility of the Spright deck to implement the combo that leads to the summoning of Toadally Awesome, a fundamental monster to deny the opponent's cards.

However, it is not an engine to be underestimated considering that in future expansions it will receive other supports. Right inside Darkwing Blast we will be able to find Splight Sprind which, once per turn, allows us to send a level 2 monster from the deck to the graveyard and, within the Tearlaments archetype, the main target is Tearlaments Merrli.

Tearlaments Merrli went well in combo with Spight Elf. Merrli, specially summoned via Spright Elf's effect, allows you to mill 3 cards from the deck and possibly perform a fusion summon. Now through the effect of Splight Sprind we can send it to the graveyard to do an additional fusion summons.

The combo would look something like this:

With Splight Sprind’s effect, we can send Tearlaments Merrli to the graveyard to perform a Fusion Summon.

Then, with the effect of Spright Elf we can special summon Merrli from the graveyard and mill 3 cards with a high probability of making another fusion summon.

2nd place: SUPER POLYMERIZATION

Simple and effective.

It allows us to play in the extra deck the very strong monsters Mudragon of the Swamp, Garura, Wings of Resonant Life, Predaplant Dragostapelia and Starving Venom Fusion Dragon.

Garura is used in combo with link climbing as it allows you to draw a card when it goes to the graveyard, Mudragon protects our monsters from the effects of the opponent's cards, Dragostapelia cancels the effects of the opponent's monsters and Starving Venom can hurt the opponent in so many different ways.

Super Polymerization is considered spell speed 4 and therefore cannot be stopped and more than one can be activated per turn.

1st place: ISHIZU’S CARDS

They are called this because they are inspired by the cards present in the deck of Ishizu Ishtar, one of the characters of the manga and anime during the fantastic saga of the Egyptian Gods.

We find them in the first place as they are the most broken engine available for the Tearlament deck and all this has been proven by the excessive power exercised during the last YCS National Japan held in August 2022.

Let's start with Keldo the Possessed Statue and Mudora the Cestus Oracle.

Keldo can be special summoned from the hand by discarding another Fairy-type monster with Earth attribute, and then he can search the deck for the Exchange of the Spirit card or other cards that mention it.

Mudora can also be special summoned from the hand by discarding a Fairy-type monster with an Earth attribute but her second effect allows her to search and place the "Gravekeeper's Trap" trap card face up on the field.

Both can be removed from the graveyard or the field to shuffle up to 3 cards from any graveyard into the deck.

If Exchange of the Spirit is on the field or in the graveyard, the number of cards that can be shuffled increases to 5.

This is a very strong effect against any deck and especially in mirror matches as it allows us to go and check the opponent's graveyard and the interruptions it can make.

If the opponent activates an effect of a Tearlament monster in their graveyard, these cards shuffle it back into the deck and that effect doesn't start.

Let's talk now to the main card of the Ishizu cards engine: Gravekeeper's Trap.

If Exhange of the Spirit is in our graveyard, the opponent and I repeat only the opponent cannot activate the effects of monsters in his graveyard and cannot summon any monsters from the graveyard.

WE ARE FACING THE MOST POWERFUL FLOODGATE CARD IN THE GAME.

But that's not all.

We can discard a card to add any card from the Fairy-Earth engine to our hand and when the opponent draws, if we guess the card he drew, we immediately send it to the graveyard and if that card has an effect that activates from the graveyard it doesn't may activate due to the first effect of Gravekeeper's Trap.

IT'S BROKEN OVER 9000!

Let's also analyze 2 other fundamental cards for this engine: Agido the Ancient Sentry and Kelbek the Ancient Vanguard.

Both can mill the top 5 cards from the top of both players' decks and if Exchange of the Spirit is in the graveyard, Kelbek can get a trap card back from the graveyard and Agido can mill another 5 cards from both decks for a total of 10 MILLED CARDS, but the opponent's cards will not be able to activate if we have Gravekeeper's Trap face up on the field.

Imagine that the trap card you retrieved from the graveyard via Kelbek's effect is Anti-Spell Fragrance. If it is activated on the field together with Gravekeeper's Trap the opponent cannot play at all.

CONCLUSIONS:

So far we have thought that the biggest problems of the Yugioh card game are Mystic Mine and Super Polymerization. Now with the release of the new Ishizu cards, the problems will be very different.

Sure, Joshua Schmidt with his Runick-Spright deck managed to beat the Tearlaments decks thanks to the surprise effect and Golem lava but I don't think this will be enough to stop the mono-meta Tearlaments + Ishizu's Cards.

See you next time