The Fire King Sanctuary

by arqalite (Antonio Curavalea) and the the Fire King Discord server

If you have any feedback - please reach out to the Fire King Discord server staff and let us know.

Introduction

Welcome to The Fire King Sanctuary - a book dedicated to Fire Kings, a Yu-Gi-Oh! archetype and deck. It aims to be a comprehensive resource for anyone who wants to learn to play the deck, either casually or competitively.

This book assumes you already know how to play Yu-Gi-Oh! at a basic level and that you have a decent grasp on most gameplay concepts. We do want to make it a valuable read for all types of players, so we'll try to explain more advanced concepts where applicable, but beginners should expect to Google some things here and there.

Additionally, note that this guide focuses on the Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG. While most of it will apply for the Yu-Gi-Oh! OCG as well, there will be some details that differ between the two formats.

We'll begin by talking briefly about the archetype as a whole, its defining characteristics, and its strategy (following the current consensus on how the deck should be played).

Then, we'll zoom in and go through all the Fire King cards, discussing their role in the deck, and suggested ratios to start deckbuilding with. We'll also briefly touch on non-engine and cards outside of the archetype that truly level up your deck, so you're not missing out on anything that could help you win games.

Finally, we'll get to actually playing the deck. We'll take a look at the play patterns and combos you need to know, learn how to play through your opponent's interruptions, and discuss some interesting opening hands. We'll top it all off with some tips & tricks, and various extras you might want to know.

By the end of this guide you should be well-equipped to pilot a Fire King deck and understand how to make the most out of it during all your duels, from casual games with friends to intense matches at tournaments.

With all that out of the way, let's get started!

Reading this Book

We recommend reading the book in its entirety for the best experience, as future chapters build on the information presented in earlier chapters.

At the same time, we also want to make it easy for you to browse, bookmark and reference certain pages and sections - as such, any pages that require prior reading will have links to the relevant material. For example, any mention of a card in this guide will have a link to its discussion in this book, or to Yugipedia if the card is not covered here.

Once we get to patterns and combos, we'll start including videos and detailed instructions on how to perform them. We recommend playing along and practicing everything as you read - this way you're able to learn much faster.

The easiest way to do this is through a simulator - Project Ignis: EDOPro was used to test and perform everything in this book, as it lets you set the order of the cards in the deck, disable shuffling, and draw a specific number of cards - perfect for learning (and writing a guide!)

If you are learning the deck to play the physical card game, we definitely recommend following along and performing everything with real cards. Practice waiting for your opponent's response between actions, and say each action out loud before doing it. This will quickly build your muscle memory and will make playing at tournaments much easier.

In short, don't just read how to play the deck, put it in practice too!

Every play and combo showcased is performed using a sample decklist which you can find in the Extras section.

It might look different from what you will ultimately build for yourself, but that's alright. As long as your deck has the cards used in these combos and patterns, you should be fine.

The Fire King cards

Fire King is a Yu-Gi-Oh! archetype revolving around destruction by card effects, both as a way to disrupt your opponent, and as a way to generate card advantage. By using destruction effects properly, you're able to get your own cards into rotation while also setting up interruption for your opponent.

At the time of writing, there are 18 Fire King cards in the TCG (and 2 lore-related cards we'll touch on briefly). We'll go through each one, explaining why each card is played or not, and things you should know about each of them. The goal is to help you understand their role in the Fire King strategy, so you can make your own decisions when building your deck.

We'll provide recommended ratios, but feel free to deviate from them if you think they aren't right for you. More competitively-oriented players might end up with a deck that follows most of the provided ratios, but there is always room for personal preference, so try to experiment and find your own style.

The Monsters

There are 12 Fire King monsters - 11 Main Deck ones, and one Extra Deck monster.

We'll first cover the essentials of the Fire King engine, cards like Legendary Fire King Ponix and Sacred Fire King Garunix. Then we'll talk about extenders and utility cards, such as Fire King High Avatar Kirin and Fire King Avatar Arvata.

We'll then switch to the Extra Deck and look at the final boss of the Fire King deck - Garunix Eternity, Hyang of the Fire Kings.

Keep in mind that most, if not all of the commentary will be focused on the card's usage nowadays; some cards had their time to shine through the archetype's history but now aren't as useful anymore. Some could be underpowered now, but future players might find a way to make them powerful. This is normal and is expected to change as the game evolves in speed and depth of effects and interactions.

Without further ado, let's start with the cutest member of the bunch - Legendary Fire King Ponix!

Legendary Fire King Ponix Level 1 FIRE Winged Beast If your monster(s) that was originally FIRE is destroyed by battle or card effect: You can Special Summon this card from your hand. If this card is Normal or Special Summoned: You can add 1 "Fire King" Spell/Trap from your Deck to your hand. During the next Standby Phase after this card was destroyed and sent to the GY: Add this card from the GY to your hand. You can only use each effect of "Legendary Fire King Ponix" once per turn. ATK 500 | DEF 200

He's not just the cutest Fire King, he's also one of the most important cards in the deck too.

Ponix is one of your starters - you'll almost always want to summon him during your first turn to search Fire King Sanctuary, which will get the Fire King engine started (see the [Starting the Engine] play pattern).

If destroyed during your combo, it will return to your hand during the next Standby Phase - this ensures you constantly have a FIRE monster or Fire King in hand to destroy for effects like Fire King Avatar Arvata's negate, or Fire King High Avatar Kirin's effect to Special Summon itself, both of which require you to destroy a FIRE monster in your hand or field.

Keep in mind Ponix cannot return if used as Link Material for a Link Summon - it specifically needs to be destroyed and sent to the GY.

Later on, you can make use of his effect to search Fire King Sky Burn or Circle of the Fire Kings to destroy your opponent's cards, extend your board, or push for an OTK.

It's recommended to always run 3 copies.

Sacred Fire King Garunix Level 8 FIRE Winged Beast If your monster(s) that was originally FIRE is destroyed by battle or card effect: You can Special Summon this card from your GY (if it was there when the monster was destroyed) or hand (even if not). If this card is Normal or Special Summoned: You can destroy 1 FIRE Beast, Beast-Warrior, or Winged Beast monster in your hand, Deck, or face-up field, except "Sacred Fire King Garunix", and if you do, this card gains ATK equal to half the destroyed monster's ATK it had there, until the end of this turn. You can only use each effect of "Sacred Fire King Garunix" once per turn. ATK 2700 | DEF 1700

If Ponix is the spark that starts the fire, Sacred Garunix is the fuel. He's a crucial component of the deck and the main way to get other Fire Kings into rotation.

Most of the time you will be searching him with Fire King Island, ideally after destroying a FIRE monster. This causes his first effect to trigger and Special Summon himself immediately from hand.

His second effect lets you destroy any Fire King from deck, accessing their on-destruction effects to either control the board or generate more card advantage.

Oftentimes, you will destroy Fire King Avatar Arvata or Fire King High Avatar Kirin, both of which allow you to Special Summon a Fire King from the GY (and Kirin also destroys a card!).

Other times, you might want to destroy Fire King Courtier Ulcanix, which gets Fire King High Avatar Garunix on the field (albeit without clearing the board), to be used as Link/Xyz Material as needed. Or, depending on the game state, you can keep him and wait for an optimal moment to Xyz Summon Garunix Eternity, Hyang of the Fire Kings via Fire King Sanctuary, disrupting your opponent in the process.

You can also destroy High Avatar Garunix directly, causing Sacred to have 4050 ATK - sufficient to run over most monsters. (Watch out for High Avatar Garunix blowing up the field in the next Standby Phase, though!)

Last but not least, an important part of the [1-card Ponix combos] is destroying Fire King Avatar Barong with this effect, so you can search Fire King High Avatar Kirin during the next Standby Phase. Alternatively, you can destroy Fire King Courtier Ulcanix and have her Special Summon Fire King High Avatar Garunix as the 2nd Level 8 needed.

We recommend running 2-3 copies.

Note that Sacred Garunix can Special Summon himself from the GY too, provided he is already there when a FIRE monster gets destroyed.

Over the course of longer games, you'll constantly summon and destroy Fire Kings, which means Sacred Garunix will always hit the field every turn, bringing reinforcements via his second effect.

Finally, beware of the Green Baboon ruling - if you have this card in the hand (or GY) alongside another Fire King that can Special Summon itself from the hand, you will only be able to activate one of them.

Fire King Courtier Ulcanix Level 4 FIRE Winged Beast If this card is Normal or Special Summoned: You can destroy 1 other FIRE monster in your hand or face-up field, and if you do, add 1 FIRE Beast, Beast-Warrior, or Winged Beast monster from your Deck to your hand, except "Fire King Courtier Ulcanix", then you can make this card's Level become that added monster's. If this card is destroyed and sent to the GY: You can Special Summon 1 "Fire King High Avatar Garunix" from your Deck in Defense Position. You can only use each effect of "Fire King Courtier Ulcanix" once per turn. ATK 800 | DEF 2000

Garunix's most trusted partner and most definitely your best starter. Her TCG debut in Rage of the Abyss gave a substantial consistency boost to the deck, ensuring access to Legendary Fire King Ponix and making Amphibious Swarmship Amblowhale even easier to make.

Her first effect is what gives you access to Ponix. You'll often want to destroy a FIRE in your hand to grab him, and use his first effect to Special Summon him to the field (because a FIRE monster was destroyed by card effect).

Later on, you can make use of it to search any Fire King you might need. One great example is Fire King Avatar Rangbali, whose first effect is the same as Ponix - meaning you can immediately Special Summon him to the field for a quick Spell/Trap negate - see the [Rangbali On Demand] play pattern.

Ulcanix's second effect also comes in handy as her destruction brings Fire King High Avatar Garunix to the field immediately. Most of the time you'll intend to make use of this effect to search a card with Island without sacrificing Xyz/Link Material on the field.

One last trick she can do is enable access to Kikinagashi Fucho as a last resort if you encounter Dimension Shifter, or Ponix/Island are negated. By using her first effect to search Ponix, she becomes a Level 1, which lets you overlay into Fucho. That way you can try to survive your opponent's turn and avoid playing into Shifter.

We recommend running 3 copies.

Fire King High Avatar Garunix Level 8 FIRE Winged Beast Once per turn, during the next Standby Phase after this card was destroyed by card effect and sent to the GY: Special Summon this card from the GY. If you do: Destroy all other monsters on the field. When this card is destroyed by battle and sent to the GY: You can Special Summon 1 "Fire King" monster from your Deck, except "Fire King High Avatar Garunix". ATK 2700 | DEF 1700

Before Fire King Courtier Ulcanix, this card was somewhat useful in case you needed Sacred Fire King Garunix to gain a significant ATK boost, maybe to beat a large monster.

The field clear was still useful too, but you'd more often reach for Garunix Eternity, Hyang of the Fire Kings before you'd reach for this card, thus most people would run 1 copy, or even 0.

With Ulcanix, he's now a necessary piece for some of her combo lines as she Special Summons him from the Deck if Ulcanix is destroyed by card effect. Thus, running 1 copy is pretty much mandatory.

However, you mostly want him to sit quietly in the deck until he's needed, so going over 1 copy isn't recommended.

The second effect rarely comes up, if ever. Smart opponents will try to avoid battling it, and you'll end up using this card as Xyz or Link material long before it would have a chance to be destroyed by an opposing monster.

Fire King High Avatar Kirin Level 8 FIRE Beast During the Main Phase, if this card is in your hand (Quick Effect): You can destroy 1 other FIRE monster in your hand or face-up field, and if you do, Special Summon this card. If this card is destroyed and sent to the GY: You can Special Summon 1 "Fire King" monster from your hand or GY, except "Fire King High Avatar Kirin", then you can destroy 1 card on the field. You can only use each effect of "Fire King High Avatar Kirin" once per turn. ATK 2400 | DEF 200

High Kirin plays an important role as both an extender, and as on-demand card removal.

His first effect enables to you destroy any of your FIRE monsters to Special Summon it to the field. In practice this either means blowing up your Amphibious Swarmship Amblowhale and raining fire on your opponent, or getting Kirin next to Sacred Fire King Garunix to... rain fire on your opponent using Fire King Sanctuary and Garunix Eternity, Hyang of the Fire Kings. Either way, your opponent won't like it.

Another use-case for Kirin is destroying Legendary Fire King Ponix or Fire King Courtier Ulcanix to dodge targeting negation like Effect Veiler or Infinite Impermanence. By chaining to them and resolving the destruction effect before the negating effect can resolve, Ponix/Ulcanix will be able to resolve theirs, making your opponent waste a card.

His second effect lets you revive any other Fire King from your GY while also destroying a card on the field. You'll make use of this often via Sacred Garunix, either to extend your combo, to remove an opponent's card, or as a tactical nuke on Hyang to Special Summon even more monsters.

Furthermore, it can form a fun loop with Fire King Avatar Arvata. Provided Kirin is in the GY, whenever Arvata is destroyed you can revive Kirin, then destroy it during the End Phase, letting you revive Arvata. Making use of this interaction can help you preserve resources in the deck by just looping the cards you already have in the GY.

Running 2-3 copies is recommended. Most people run 3 because opening Kirin never hurts, and it can be useful to have more copies available during longer, grindier games.

Fire King Avatar Arvata Level 4 FIRE Beast-Warrior When a monster effect is activated while this monster is on the field (Quick Effect): You can negate the activation, and if you do, destroy 1 other FIRE monster in your hand or face-up field. If this card is destroyed and sent to the GY: You can target 1 FIRE Beast, Beast-Warrior, or Winged Beast monster in your GY, except "Fire King Avatar Arvata"; Special Summon it, but negate its effects, also destroy it during the End Phase. You can only use each effect of "Fire King Avatar Arvata" once per turn. ATK 1800 | DEF 200

Another nice extender, and the archetypal source of monster negation.

Both roles are very important to the strategy, as you'll often use Arvata's second effect to Special Summon a Fire King from the GY, thus gathering more material for your Xyz/Link Summons.

In certain combos, it's also part of your endboard. His first effect lets you negate a monster effect once per turn, then destroy one of your FIRE monsters. This can mean you have yet another way to destroy your Amphibious Swarmship Amblowhale besides Fire King High Avatar Kirin and Promethean Princess, Bestower of Flames.

If you see it in your starting hand, it can also help you play through Nibiru, the Primal Being and protect your field, provided you get it on the field at or before the 5th summon.

Anywhere between 1-3 copies should be fine.

Fire King Avatar Barong Level 4 FIRE Beast-Warrior If a face-up "Fire King" monster(s) you control is destroyed by card effect (except during the Damage Step): You can Special Summon this card from your hand. Once per turn, during the next Standby Phase after this card was destroyed by card effect and sent to the GY: Add 1 "Fire King" card from your Deck to your hand, except "Fire King Avatar Barong". ATK 1800 | DEF 200

Barong, alongside most other Avatars, has the following issue - because of the Green Baboon ruling, this card's first effect will compete for attention with other Fire Kings that have the same effect - most often with Sacred Fire King Garunix, meaning you'll rarely end up choosing to summon Barong this way.

His second effect, albeit very slow, still has use in today's Fire King decklists - for example you'll search Fire King High Avatar Kirin with it at the end of the [1-card Ponix combo].

Thus, only 1 copy should be sufficient.

Fire King Avatar Rangbali Level 4 FIRE Beast-Warrior If a face-up "Fire King" monster(s) you control is destroyed by card effect (except during the Damage Step): You can Special Summon this card from your hand. When a Spell/Trap Card or effect is activated, while this card is on the field (Quick Effect): You can negate the activation, and if you do, destroy 1 other FIRE monster in your hand or face-up field. You can only use each effect of "Fire King Avatar Rangbali" once per turn. ATK 1600 | DEF 200

Just like Barong, because of the Green Baboon ruling, the first effect isn't that great on its own.

However, because his second effect is a Spell/Trap negate (being the counterpart to Fire King Avatar Arvata's monster negate), you usually want to have him around.

Probably the most likely way you'll bring him out is by using Fire King Courtier Ulcanix's effect to search him, and use his first effect to Special Summon him. Again, just be careful - if you also have Sacred Garunix, or any other Avatar in hand, you'll have to pick which card you want to Special Summon!

Running at least 1 copy is recommended.

Fire King Avatar Yaksha Level 4 FIRE Beast-Warrior If a face-up "Fire King" monster(s) you control is destroyed by card effect (except during the Damage Step): You can Special Summon this card from your hand. If this card is destroyed and sent to the GY: You can destroy 1 card in your hand or field. You can only use this effect of "Fire King Avatar Yaksha" once per turn. ATK 1800 | DEF 200

Hopefully you got the hang of it - like the other Avatars, Yaksha is forced to deal with the consequences of the Green Baboon ruling. Thus, this card's first effect will compete for attention with other Fire Kings that have the same effect, meaning you'll rarely end up using it.

Sadly, the second effect is also not enough - nowadays we usually want our card effects to destroy and do something else, not just destroy, meaning Yaksha very rarely finds a place in modern Fire King decklists.

Yaksha had its moment in the spotlight in the first few iterations of the Fire King deck, but as more and more support was printed over the years, it lost its role and is now relegated to binders (it is a pretty card to look at!).

We don't recommend running any copies of this card.

Fire King Avatar Garunix Level 3 FIRE Winged Beast If a face-up "Fire King" monster(s) you control is destroyed by card effect (except during the Damage Step): You can Special Summon this card from your hand. If this card in your possession is destroyed by an opponent's card and sent to your GY: You can Special Summon 1 "Fire King Avatar" monster from your Deck. ATK 700 | DEF 1700

The younger form of Fire King High Avatar Garunix, it has the same issue with the Green Baboon ruling as the other Avatars.

The second effect is unfortunately too impractical for the modern game, requiring your opponent to destroy it, and it limits the type of monsters you can summon due to requiring a "Fire King Avatar" specifically (so, no Sacred Fire King Garunix or Fire King High Avatar Kirin - this card was released before those ever existed).

This means it doesn't really have a place in today's decks - we don't recommend running any copies of this card.

Fire King Avatar Kirin Level 4 FIRE Beast If a face-up "Fire King" monster(s) you control is destroyed by card effect (except during the Damage Step): You can Special Summon this card from your hand. If this card is destroyed and sent to the GY: You can send 1 FIRE monster from your Deck to the GY. ATK 1000 | DEF 200

The younger form of Fire King High Avatar Kirin, it has the same issue with the Green Baboon ruling as the other Avatars.

The second effect can enable some shenanigans by sending non-archetypal FIRE monsters with GY effects, but in a pure Fire King deck it really doesn't do much for you (remember - these cards want to be destroyed by card effects, not just sent to the GY). You could technically set up a Sacred Garunix in the GY with this card, but more often than not you'll get it into rotation by other means.

In some cases you can run this alongside Volcanic Scattershot, which burns your opponent for 500 damage if it's sent to the GY. That way you can try to win if time is called by summoning Sacred Garunix, destroying Avatar Kirin with it, which can send this card to the GY. It's a Side Deck option if you find yourself going to time very often.

This card is pretty much a searchable Foolish Burial for FIRE monsters - but in order to make the best use out of this card, you'd have to dedicate your combo to it, which means most of the strategies we'll talk about here will not apply. Feel free to experiment with it, but it's out of the scope of this guide.

We don't recommend running any copies of this card.

Garunix Eternity, Hyang of the Fire Kings Rank 8 FIRE Pyro 2+ Level 8 monsters If this card is Xyz Summoned: You can destroy all other monsters on the field. You can detach 1 material from this card, then target 1 Spell/Trap on the field; destroy it, and if you do, this card gains 500 ATK. If this card is destroyed while it has material: You can Special Summon "Fire King" monsters from your GY, up to the number of materials this card had. You can only use each effect of "Garunix Eternity, Hyang of the Fire Kings" once per turn. ATK 3000 | DEF 2000

The big boss of the archetype, and our only Extra Deck monster.

If this card is Xyz Summoned, you can destroy all other monsters on the field, which is immensely powerful. Coupled with Fire King Sanctuary, you can do this during your opponent's turn, potentially shutting their strategy down completely, or at least leaving them in a weaker position.

The Spell/Trap destruction effect, with the associated ATK boost, is helpful but comes up rarely, as you usually will prefer to preserve the materials so the third effect is more explosive. You can use it in certain situations to enable an OTK, by attempting to destroy Fire King Island and using Sanctuary's effect to destroy Hyang instead - see the [Hyang Self-Destruction OTK] pattern.

Yes, you read that right - by destroying Hyang with all its materials still attached, you can Special Summon that many Fire Kings from the GY - a game-changing effect in the proper circumstances. We'll discuss some OTK combos later on, which make use of this effect to immediately put out 8000 or more damage.

You can run 1-3 copies, depending on how often you think Sanctuary's effect will come up.

The Spells & Traps

The Fire King archetype has 6 backrow cards: 5 Spells, and one Trap card.

There are also two lore-related cards, 1 Spell and 1 Trap, and we'll talk about them too (spoiler alert: they're not particularly good).

Of notable highlight are Fire King Island and Fire King Sanctuary, both of which are essential parts of the Fire King engine. They help you get cards into rotation, and in the case of Sanctuary, it ensures follow-up during the opponent's turn.

Let's get started by talking about them first!

Fire King Island Field Spell If this face-up card in the Field Zone is sent to the GY or banished: Destroy all monsters you control. You can only use 1 of the following effects of "Fire King Island" per turn, and only once that turn. ● During your Main Phase: You can destroy 1 monster in your hand or field, and if you do, add 1 "Fire King" monster from your Deck to your hand. ● If you control no monsters: You can Special Summon 1 FIRE Winged Beast monster from your hand.

If Ponix is our main Spell/Trap searcher, Island is our main monster searcher. It's hands down the card that makes all the magic happen.

You'll want to use its first bullet point effect every turn; during the first turn to search Sacred Fire King Garunix and get him on the field if you destroyed a FIRE monster, and later on to search any Fire King you need.

The second effect comes up much less often. Even if you have a FIRE Winged Beast in your hand, you're better off destroying it with the first effect and search something.

Not even Sacred is worth using for it. In fact, you'll often destroy a copy of Sacred in your hand just to grab another copy from deck - getting his Special Summon effect to go off is just that crucial to the deck.

Running 1 copy is mandatory, 2 copies is recommended.

Beware its first effect - if this card goes to the GY or is banished face-up, it takes all your monsters with it. As such, Fire King Sanctuary is essential to ensure you have a way to protect Island.

Sometimes you can use this effect to your advantage, by playing another Island on top of it, or destroying it with High Kirin. However such cases are rare, most of the time you want Island to stay in the Field Zone.

Fire King Sanctuary Normal Spell When this card is activated: You can place 1 "Fire King Island" from your Deck face-up in your Field Zone. Once per turn, if a card in your Field Zone would be destroyed by card effect, you can destroy 1 FIRE monster in your hand or face-up field instead. Once per turn, if your opponent Special Summons a monster(s), you can: Immediately after this effect resolves, Xyz Summon 1 FIRE Xyz Monster using only "Fire King" monsters you control. You can only activate 1 "Fire King Sanctuary" per turn.

This card grabs Fire King Island, and makes sure it stays protected, provided you have a FIRE monster available to sacrifice.

...and it also nukes the entire board if your opponent dares to Special Summon a monster while you control 2 Level 8 Fire Kings.

How, you may ask? Because the only Xyz worth making with this card's last effect is Garunix Eternity, Hyang of the Fire Kings. The rest of the FIRE Xyz Monster pool isn't even worth looking at.

Generally you will want to hold onto this effect as your last disruption, using up your handtraps, negates and other disruptions first, and then clean up the mess with Hyang at the very end. Hopefully this will clear the way for a nice OTK, see the [OTK combos] for more details.

Running 1 copy is mandatory, but 2-3 copies is recommended.

Fire King Sky Burn Quick-Play Spell Target an equal number of "Fire King" monsters you control and cards your opponent controls; destroy them. If a "Fire King" card(s) you control would be destroyed by card effect, you can banish this card from your GY instead. You can only use 1 "Fire King Sky Burn" effect per turn, and only once that turn.

This is just really good removal - since most of our cards do something when they, or another card, are destroyed, you will usually end up better off using it.

Of course, you still need to make sure you destroy the right monsters, and remember that you need to target Fire King monsters with this card, so you can't pop Amphibious Swarmship Amblowhale or Duelittle Chimera with this.

The GY effect is also really useful and can save you in a pinch - just make sure you don't forget about it as you keep adding cards to the GY.

Remember you can search this off Legendary Fire King Ponix if you already have Sanctuary/Island.

Anything between 0-3 copies is fine.

Circle of the Fire Kings Quick-Play Spell Target 1 FIRE monster you control and 1 FIRE monster in your GY; destroy that monster you control, and if you do, Special Summon that other monster from your GY. You can only activate 1 "Circle of the Fire Kings" per turn.

Circle is a fun card, with two main uses.

The first one is being an OTK tool, see the [OTK combos]. You can destroy Garunix Eternity, Hyang of the Fire Kings to revive a FIRE monster from the GY, and then using Hyang's effect you can revive even more monsters to quickly fill up your side of the field.

Additionally, Circle can be used to dodge any kind of targeting disruption on your FIRE monsters. This is most useful on Legendary Fire King Ponix and Fire King Courtier Ulcanix, helping you use their effects through an Effect Veiler or Infinite Impermanence for example.

We recommend playing 1 copy, but you can skip if if you don't like it.

Remember you can always search this card with Legendary Fire King Ponix.

Echelon of the Fire Kings Normal Trap Special Summon 3 FIRE monsters (1 Beast, 1 Beast-Warrior, 1 Winged Beast), 1 each from your hand, Deck, and GY, but their effects are negated, also destroy them during the End Phase. You can banish this card from your GY; this turn, your opponent cannot activate cards or effects when you Normal or Special Summon a "Fire King" monster(s). You can only use each effect of "Echelon of the Fire Kings" once per turn.

This card is more of a novelty than an actual playable card. Put it in your collection binder, it looks cool.

The fact that it Special Summons one monster of each type is a reference to Fire King Avatar Kirin (Beast), Fire King Avatar Barong (Beast-Warrior) and Fire King High Avatar Garunix (Winged Beast) being the first three Fire King cards ever released.

However, it negates their effects, which makes it hard to justify using this card. Furthermore, it requires you to have 1 each in your hand, Deck and GY, so it's actually very difficult to activate this card in the first place.

The GY effect is actually kind of nice, however we don't have a way to send it there so we can protect ourselves whenever we need it.

We don't recommend running any copies of this card.

Onslaught of the Fire Kings Normal Spell If only your opponent controls a monster: Special Summon 1 FIRE Beast, Beast-Warrior, or Winged Beast monster from your Deck, but its effects are negated, also destroy it during the End Phase. You can only activate 1 "Onslaught of the Fire Kings" per turn.

Onslaught has two main issues nowadays, that make it very difficult to justify playing.

One issue is that we really want to go first so we can set up, then disrupt the opponent during the second turn. However, this card requires your opponent to be the only one controlling a monster, so it's only useful going second. And you can't summon Legendary Fire King Ponix to search this card, because having Ponix on the field makes the card unusable.

You could make a Fire King deck that focuses on going second and attempting to OTK, and this card could be useful there, but the second issue with this card is that it negates the effect of the summoned monster, which makes it only useful as Island fodder, or Link/Xyz material.

As such, we don't recommend running any copies of this card in the strategies outlined in this deck.

High Tide on Fire Island Normal Trap If you control a Level 7 or higher WATER or FIRE monster: Apply the appropriate effects, in sequence, depending on the Attributes of monsters you control at that time. ● WATER: Special Summon as many WATER monsters as possible that were sent to your Graveyard to activate monster effects this turn, then destroy 1 monster you control. ● FIRE: Destroy 1 monster on the field, then if you have any cards in your hand, discard 1 card to the Graveyard.

This is a lore card that Konami probably intended you to play in either Fire Kings or Atlanteans, but it sucks in both?

Anyway, the FIRE effect of this card is just bad - you have to wait a turn in order to destroy a card, then discard a card. Assuming you destroy an opponent's monster, you just went -1 (used the trap and discarded a card, to remove your opponent's monster). If you destroy one of your own cards you could potentially go plus, but when Fire King Sky Burn exists, why bother?

We don't recommend running any copies of this card.

Firestorms Over Atlantis Normal Spell Activate 1 of these effects; ● Discard 1 WATER monster to the GY, then target 1 face-up monster your opponent controls; destroy it. ● Destroy 1 FIRE monster in your hand, then you can draw 1 card. If only your opponent controls a monster: You can banish this card from your GY, then target 1 Level 7 or 8 WATER or FIRE monster in your GY; Special Summon it. You can only use each effect of "Firestorms Over Atlantis" once per turn.

Another lore card that does a lot of things, but it just isn't good at any of them.

The FIRE effect is just Upstart Goblin with extra steps. You could argue that you could destroy a good monster and combo off it, but most of the time you will have better ways to destroy that monster, making this card either redundant, or an outright brick.

The GY effect would have been nice, if it didn't require you to not control any monsters. They intended this as a comeback effect instead of being an extending effect, but the restriction makes it too situational to ever come up.

We don't recommend running any copies of this card.

Support Cards

While the Fire Kings on their own can form a functional deck, the strategy really levels up when you add various cards from outside the archetype - so let's talk about them!

As usual, we'll cover each card individually and talk about what makes it great, alongside recommended ratios where applicable.

Keep in mind that this section won't be able to cover all the cards that people might be using, especially as time goes on. If you feel we missed a pretty important card, reach out to us in [the Fire King Discord server] and let us know, so we can write a page about it.

A note on generic staples

We will not cover most generic staples (think Effect Veiler and Infinite Impermanence) because their role is the same in almost every deck.

The few that we do cover (Ash Blossom & Joyous Spring, for example), we do so because the card plays an additional role in our deck besides its usual function.

Ready? Let's dive in.

The Main Deck

On average, a pure Fire King deck will have about 15 spots for generic non-engine. For the most part you'll want to fill up that space with handtraps like Ash Blossom & Joyous Spring, consistency cards like One for One, and defensive cards like Called by the Grave.

A build focused on going second could forgo the handtraps and defensive cards for board breakers like Lightning Storm and Dark Ruler No More.

Alternatively, you could dedicate some spots for a second engine that helps you reach your starters, like the Kashtira/Arsenal Falcon engine. In this guide we'll focus on the pure deck, but keep these options in mind if you think you require more power/consistency than the pure variant can offer.

Let's explore some of these cards and see what they can do for us.

This section is intentionally kept very small, as we won't cover generic non-engine that doesn't do anything notable for our deck. If you have suggestions of a card that is particularly interesting in Fire King, let us know in [the Discord server] and we'll add it here.

Ash Blossom & Joyous Spring Level 3 FIRE Zombie | Tuner When a card or effect is activated that includes any of these effects (Quick Effect): You can discard this card; negate that effect. ● Add a card from the Deck to the hand. ● Special Summon from the Deck. ● Send a card from the Deck to the GY. You can only use this effect of "Ash Blossom & Joyous Spring" once per turn. ATK 0 | DEF 1800

Hands down the most popular handtrap in the game, and probably by a long shot.

Ash Blossom, and the rest of the Yo-kai Girls, set the standard for how powerful effects that trigger in the hand can be, and because of that she's been competitively viable ever since her release in 2017.

We won't spend much time talking about her effect - almost every strategy interacts with the Deck in a way that can be negated by Ash Blossom. What is important for us is that besides being amazing disruption, she's also a FIRE monster.

That means we can use her as Island fodder to grab Sacred Fire King Garunix and get his effect to trigger, helping us unbrick when we don't open anything useful besides her and Island.

We recommend running 3 copies of this card.

Book of Eclipse Quick-Play Spell Change all face-up monsters on the field to face-down Defense Position. During the End Phase of this turn, change as many face-down Defense Position monsters your opponent controls as possible to face-up Defense Position, then your opponent draws cards equal to the number of monsters changed face-up by this effect.

Book of Moon Quick-Play Spell Target 1 face-up monster on the field; change that target to face-down Defense Position.

Both of these are really versatile cards, if you think about it.

They can protect your monsters from effects that target, like Effect Veiler. It's the same trick we talked about when discussing Fire King High Avatar Kirin and Circle of the Fire Kings and it can be a godsend when Legendary Fire King Ponix is vulnerable.

You can also use them as an interruption during your opponent's turn. With Eclipse, you'd ideally use it before pulling the trigger on Garunix Eternity, Hyang of the Fire Kings so he can wash away all the cards flipped face-down by this effect. (Keep in mind that your opponent can Set a monster face-down and it will count for this card's End Phase effect, getting them a draw. Not many people do this, though.)

Finally, they're good board breakers if you go second.

Depending on your personal preferences, you might prefer one over the other or neither at all.

One for One Normal Spell Send 1 monster from your hand to the GY; Special Summon 1 Level 1 monster from your hand or Deck. Limited to 1 copy in the TCG.

Pitch a handtrap, grab Ponix - 'nuff said.

It's a minor, but helpful consistency boost, so throwing one copy in your deck never hurts if you have the space.

If you run this, we also recommend running Relinquished Anima in your Extra Deck - you cannot Link Summon Salamangreat Almiraj using a Special Summoned Legendary Fire King Ponix, as Almiraj specifically requires a Normal Summoned monster. Anima can fulfill the same role as Almiraj in your combos, alongside its monster-stealing effect, so it's worth having around.

The Extra Deck

We only have one in-archetype Extra Deck monster - namely Garunix Eternity, Hyang of the Fire Kings - which means we have 13-14 spots to fill up with generic/non-archetypal cards.

The strategy outlined in this guide does heavily recommend some Extra Deck monsters, like Promethean Princess, Bestower of Flames and Amphibious Swarmship Amblowhale, so realistically, most decks will have about 6-8 spots where you can run anything you want.

As before, we'll cover plenty of options so you have what to choose from. The heavily recommended cards will have a note that looks like this, so keep an eye out for it.

Let's get started!

Amphibious Swarmship Amblowhale Link 4 FIRE Machine 2+ Effect Monsters Gains 200 ATK for each Link Monster in the GYs. You can only use each of the following effects of "Amphibious Swarmship Amblowhale" once per turn. ● If this card is destroyed: You can target 1 Link-3 or lower monster in either GY; Special Summon it. ● If a Link-3 or lower monster(s) on the field is destroyed by battle or card effect while this card is in your GY: You can banish this card from your GY; destroy 1 card on the field. ATK 2600

It's one of our main endboard pieces, and it has one single job - to blow up spectacularly.

What does that mean, you ask? We use it as a target for Fire King High Avatar Kirin's in-hand effect, destroying it. This will trigger its effect to revive a I:P Masquerena or Duelittle Chimera from your GY, and also trigger a Sacred Fire King Garunix in your GY, filling up the field very quickly.

Then, when any Link-3 or lower is destroyed, you can banish it from the GY so you can destroy 1 card on the field. Neat, isn't it?

Finally, a cute trick you can do is Xyz Summon Dingirsu, the Orcust of the Evening Star later on in the duel, to attach Amblowhale to it as material, then detach it whenever needed - basically resetting it in the GY to be banished again.

Be careful with Amblowhale's effect when Promethean Princess, Bestower of Flames is on the field. She locks you into FIRE monsters, so you will not be able to Special Summon an I:P Masquerena from the GY with Amblowhale. Sequence your interruptions properly to avoid this.

We heavily recommend running 1 copy if you own it.

Promethean Princess, Bestower of Flames Link 3 FIRE Fiend 2+ Effect Monsters You cannot Special Summon monsters, except FIRE monsters. You can only use each of the following effects of "Promethean Princess, Bestower of Flames" once per turn. During your Main Phase: You can Special Summon 1 FIRE monster from your GY. If a monster(s) is Special Summoned to your opponent's field, while this card is in your GY (except during the Damage Step): You can target 1 FIRE monster you control and 1 monster your opponent controls; destroy them, and if you do, Special Summon this card. ATK 2700

Quite the amazing card, to be honest. It's both an extender, and an endboard interruption once she's in the GY.

You will often use her effect to revive a monster in order to Link Summon Amphibious Swarmship Amblowhale more easily, as the final step in your combos. (Or just revive Fire King Avatar Arvata and chill.)

Then, during your opponent's turn, when they Special Summon, you will use her other effect to target Amblowhale and one of their monsters in order to destroy both and revive Princess. This will trigger Amblowhale's effect, and ideally a Sacred Fire King Garunix in your GY.

We heavily recommend running at least 1 copy.

Just keep in mind she locks you into Special Summoning FIRE monsters only.

If you have an I:P Masquerena in your GY waiting to be revived by Amblowhale, you will need to use a different method to destroy Amblowhale (things like either one of Fire King High Avatar Kirin's effects, or an Fire King Avatar Arvata negate), otherwise you will not be able to revive Masquerena.

Salamangreat Sunlight Wolf Link 2 FIRE Cyberse 2 FIRE Effect Monsters If a monster(s) is Normal or Special Summoned to the zone(s) this card points to (except during the Damage Step): You can add 1 FIRE monster from your GY to your hand, but for the rest of this turn, you cannot Normal Summon/Set or Special Summon monsters with the added monster's name. During your Main Phase, if you control this card that was Link Summoned using "Salamangreat Sunlight Wolf" as material: You can add 1 "Salamangreat" Spell/Trap from your GY to your hand. You can only use each effect of "Salamangreat Sunlight Wolf" once per turn. ATK 1800

Sunlight Wolf is the namesake of the [Sunlight Wolf recycling pattern], as he can return any FIRE monster from the GY to our hand.

More often than not, that would be Fire King High Avatar Kirin (so you have a second way to pop Amblowhale, especially if you plan to summon back I:P Masquerena with its effect), but in some situations you can grab an Ash Blossom & Joyous Spring or any other Fire King, as needed.

What matters is that he's awesome at recovering resources from the GY, so seize any opportunity to use him, and use him wisely.

We heavily recommend running 1 copy if you own it.

Salamangreat Almiraj Link 1 FIRE Cyberse 1 Normal Summoned monster with 1000 or less ATK (Quick Effect): You can Tribute this card, then target 1 monster you control; it cannot be destroyed by your opponent's card effects this turn. When a Normal Summoned monster you control is destroyed by battle, while this card is in your GY: You can Special Summon this card. You can only use this effect of "Salamangreat Almiraj" once per turn. ATK 0

Almiraj is a nifty card.

First of all, it makes the Ponix + any Fire King combos possible, as we can Link Summon this using Ponix in order to have a target for Arvata/Kirin.

Additionally, it enables us to perform the [Sunlight Wolf recycling pattern] more easily, by using just 1 material to summon something under Sunlight Wolf.

And last but not least, it can turn any handtrap into a FIRE monster, to make Fire King Island plays with, in case you didn't open a good hand.

Its effects aren't too relevant but in some situations you can protect a monster from being destroyed by card effects, so that never hurts to have.

We heavily recommend running 1 copy if you own it.

Relinquished Anima Link 1 DARK Spellcaster 1 Level 1 monster, except a Token You can target 1 face-up monster this card points to; equip that face-up monster to this card (max. 1). You can only use this effect of "Relinquished Anima" once per turn. This card gains ATK equal to that equipped monster's. ATK 0

Anima enables us to perform the [Sunlight Wolf recycling pattern] more easily, in case we had to Special Summon Legendary Fire King Ponix instead of Normal Summoning it. (Remember, Salamangreat Almiraj requires a Normal Summoned monster as its Link Material.)

And besides that, he's just a good staple to have around. His monster-equipping effect can come in handy against opponents who don't manage their zones correctly.

We heavily recommend running 1 copy if you own it.

Hiita the Fire Charmer, Ablaze Link 2 FIRE Spellcaster 2 monsters, including a FIRE monster (This card is always treated as a "Familiar-Possessed" card.) You can target 1 FIRE monster in your opponent's GY; Special Summon it to your zone this card points to. If this Link Summoned card is destroyed by battle, or is destroyed by an opponent's card effect while in its owner's Monster Zone: You can add 1 FIRE monster with 1500 or less DEF from your Deck to your hand. You can only use each effect of "Hiita the Fire Charmer, Ablaze" once per turn. ATK 1850

Hiita is a godsend when it comes to helping us recover from an Ash Blossom & Joyous Spring, or extending further against other FIRE decks.

You can summon this, steal a FIRE monster, make Promethean Princess, Bestower of Flames, revive a monster, and make Amphibious Swarmship Amblowhale - [see the pattern here].

Later on she can help you Link-climb a little easier, if you're running other Link-3 or higher monsters and you need to summon them.

And if she's ever destroyed (usually you Link her off immediately after using her effect so this doesn't come up that often), she can search any FIRE monster with 1500 DEF or less.

We heavily recommend running 1 copy if you own it.

Kikinagashi Fucho Rank 1 WIND Winged Beast 2 Level 1 monsters Unaffected by other cards' effects. Once per turn (Quick Effect): You can detach 2 materials from this card; for the rest of this turn, this card cannot be destroyed by battle, also you take no battle damage from attacks involving this card. ATK 0 | DEF 0

This guy is determined to ignore your opponent for an entire turn - which is exactly what we need when Dimension Shifter is out and about.

You'll always make it as a last resort if you didn't draw into any counters for Shifter, like Called by the Grave or Crossout Designator (in the unlikely case you're willing to run 1 copy of Shifter yourself).

By Xyz Summoning it and using its effect during your opponent's turn, they won't be able to touch you at all, increasing your chances of survival until Shifter wears off.

Just keep in mind Fucho is unaffected by all other card effects, including yours, so don't try to use it as Island fodder or attempt to target it with card effects.

To summon him, you'll just need Ponix/Ulcanix and a FIRE monster in hand - see the page dedicated to countering Shifter for the combos.

We recommend running 1 copy.

Dingirsu, the Orcust of the Evening Star Rank 8 DARK Machine 2 Level 8 monsters You can only Special Summon "Dingirsu, the Orcust of the Evening Star(s)" once per turn. You can also Xyz Summon this card by using an "Orcust" Link Monster you control as material. If a card(s) you control would be destroyed by battle or card effect, you can detach 1 material from this card instead. If this card is Special Summoned: You can activate 1 of these effects; ● Send 1 card your opponent controls to the GY. ● Attach 1 of your banished Machine monsters to this card as material. ATK 2600 | DEF 2100

Dingirsu is like a Swiss army knife; he has 3 effects that are all relevant for us, but which come up rarely.

First of all, he has non-targeting removal which can come in handy if you face a monster that can't be targeted by card effects.

Then, he can detach 1 material whenever one of your cards would be destroyed, which can combo nicely with Garunix Eternity, Hyang of the Fire Kings or Fire King High Avatar Garunix, or can just protect you from your opponent.

Last but not least, he can recycle a banished Amphibious Swarmship Amblowhale by attaching it as material, then detaching it at the first opportunity to do so. It comes up very rarely, but it does enable an extra disruption that could tip the scales in your favor.

Feel free to experiment with him to see if he's worth running.

Number 90: Galaxy-Eyes Photon Lord Rank 8 LIGHT Warrior 2 Level 8 monsters If this card has a "Photon" card as material, it cannot be destroyed by card effects. You can only use each of the following effects of "Number 90: Galaxy-Eyes Photon Lord" once per turn. When an opponent's monster activates its effect (Quick Effect): You can detach 1 material from this card; negate that monster's effect, and if the detached material was a "Galaxy" card, destroy that card. During your opponent's turn (Quick Effect): You can take 1 "Photon" or "Galaxy" card from your Deck, and either add it to your hand or attach it to this card as material. ATK 2500 | DEF 3000

Some opening hands are barely playable - you're able to put out 2 Level 8s on the field, but don't have Fire King Sanctuary available to Hyang on the opponent's turn.

Photon Lord can come up during those situations, giving you something to end on (although S:P Little Knight can also fill that role).

That happens quite rarely, so experiment with him and see if it has a place in your games.

Duelittle Chimera Link 2 FIRE Beast 2 FIRE monsters All FIRE monsters on the field gain 500 ATK/DEF, also all WATER monsters on the field lose 400 ATK/DEF. If this card is destroyed by battle or card effect: You can target 1 FIRE monster in your GY; add it to your hand. You can only use this effect of "Duelittle Chimera" once per turn. ATK 1400

500 ATK may not seem like much, but when we're able to fill up the field in a matter of seconds, it adds up quick. This makes Duelittle Chimera a surprisingly underrated tool for quickly closing out games in the mid-to-late game.

If summoned off Amphibious Swarmship Amblowhale during your opponent's turn, it can also help boost our defenses, forcing some decks that can't generate large amounts of ATK to clear our monsters by other means before heading into the Battle Phase.

Its second effect is nice too, as it can help us recover something from the GY to either extend further or set up our next turn if Duelittle is destroyed by any means (this includes your effects!).

It's certainly a valuable tool in our toolbox, so try running it and see if it works out for your playstyle.

I:P Masquerena Link 2 DARK Cyberse 2 non-Link Monsters During your opponent's Main Phase, you can (Quick Effect): Immediately after this effect resolves, Link Summon 1 Link Monster using materials you control, including this card. You can only use this effect of "I:P Masquerena" once per turn. A Link Monster that used this card as material cannot be destroyed by your opponent's card effects. ATK 800

Masquerena's role is simple - become an interruption during your opponent's turn, by Link Summoning a card like S:P Little Knight or Knightmare Unicorn (both of which let you remove a card from the field).

Keep in mind that she's a DARK monster - so if you plan to summon her with Amphibious Swarmship Amblowhale's effect, you need to make sure you aren't FIRE-locked by Promethean Princess, Bestower of Flames.

S:P Little Knight Link 2 DARK Warrior 2 Effect Monsters If this card is Link Summoned using a Fusion, Synchro, Xyz, or Link Monster as material: You can target 1 card on the field or in either GY; banish it, also your monsters cannot attack directly this turn. When your opponent activates a card or effect (Quick Effect): You can target 2 face-up monsters on the field, including a monster you control; banish both until the End Phase. You can only use each effect of "S:P Little Knight" once per turn. ATK 1600

Probably the most generically useful Extra Deck card at the moment.

You make it with another Extra Deck monster as material and banish a card on the field or in either GY, and then you have another disruption ready whenever your opponent activates a card or effect.

She's obviously meant to be summoned with I:P Masquerena, but oftentimes you'll make her without Masquerena too.

If you have one, play 1 copy. It's not a mandatory card per se, but it's too useful to pass up.

Number 100: Numeron Dragon Rank 1 LIGHT Dragon 2 "Number" Xyz Monsters with the same name and Rank Once per turn: You can detach 1 material from this card; this card gains ATK equal to the combined Ranks of all Xyz Monsters currently on the field x 1000, until the end of your opponent's turn. When this card is destroyed by card effect: You can destroy as many monsters on the field as possible (min. 1), then each player Sets 1 Spell/Trap from their GY to their field. When an opponent's monster declares an attack while this card is in your GY and you have no cards in your hand or field: You can Special Summon this card. ATK 0 | DEF 0

This card is part of the Numeron Dragon OTK package, alongside Number 97: Draglubion and any Dragon "Number", like Number 38: Hope Harbinger Dragon Titanic Galaxy. It's a fun way to deal 9000 damage with any 2 Level 8s.

Numeron Dragon is the centerpiece of the OTK, as its effect allows it to gain ATK equal to the sum of all Ranks on the field x 1000. Since you'll be bringing it out via Draglubion, it will usually have 9000 ATK, letting you end the game in one single attack if your opponent has an empty field.

Should the OTK fail, his second effect makes sure to blow up the field if it's destroyed by card effect, although letting your opponent Set 1 Spell/Trap can be dangerous.

The last effect comes up very rarely, and it usually doesn't mean much as Numeron Dragon is a 0/0 monster by itself, but it could save your life if your opponent just had one monster left to attack with.

Number 97: Draglubion Rank 8 DARK Dragon 2 Level 8 monsters Your opponent cannot target this card with card effects. You can detach 1 material from this card; take 2 Dragon "Number" monsters with different names from your Extra Deck and/or GY, except "Number 97: Draglubion", Special Summon 1 of them and attach the other to it as material, also for the rest of this turn you cannot Special Summon other monsters, or declare an attack, except with that Special Summoned monster. You can only use this effect of "Number 97: Draglubion" once per turn. ATK 3000 | DEF 3000

This card is part of the Numeron Dragon OTK package, alongside Number 100: Numeron Dragon and any Dragon "Number", like Number 38: Hope Harbinger Dragon Titanic Galaxy. It's a fun way to deal 9000 damage with any 2 Level 8s.

Draglubion itself is just the enabler for the OTK, helping you bring Numeron Dragon out without bothering to properly Xyz Summon it.

The fact that it's an untargetable 3000 ATK beater comes up very rarely as you'll usually use its effect as soon as you summon it, meaning you're only allowed to attack with the Special Summoned monster, and in the context of the OTK, your opponent won't have a next turn to be able to target this guy with effects.

Number 38: Hope Harbinger Dragon Titanic Galaxy Rank 8 LIGHT Dragon 2 Level 8 monsters Once per turn, when a Spell Card or effect is activated on the field (Quick Effect): You can negate that effect, and if you do, attach that card to this card as material. When an opponent's monster declares an attack: You can detach 1 material from this card; change the attack target to this card and perform damage calculation. If another face-up Xyz Monster(s) you control is destroyed by battle or card effect: You can target 1 face-up Xyz Monster you control; it gains ATK equal to 1 of those destroyed monsters' original ATK. ATK 3000 | DEF 2500

This card is part of the Numeron Dragon OTK package, alongside Number 100: Numeron Dragon and Number 97: Draglubion. It's a fun way to deal 9000 damage with any 2 Level 8s.

In that role, Hope Harbinger is just the Xyz Material for Numeron Dragon, it doesn't do much. However by itself, it's certainly not a bad card, and since it requires 2 Level 8s, it's something we can make easily.

First off, it's a Spell negate, which is nice to have, but keep in mind Fire King Avatar Rangbali is easier to access in most situations.

The second effect forces your opponent to get rid of it first, or prepare to attack into it. It's unfortunate that it doesn't have any protections, so it can be easily removed.

The third effect doesn't come up that often for us since we don't usually end up with 2 Xyz Monsters on the field at the same time, but it can mean giving itself a lot of ATK which isn't something that can be easily ignored.

Overall, if you're including the Numeron Dragon package, this is the best choice for the 3rd card, but keep in mind you will rarely, if ever, summon this card by itself. You could go into it mid-to-late-game when you need a Spell negate and Rangbali is inaccessible for any reason.

Playing the Deck

Now that we discussed all the cards we need to know about, let's see the deck in action!

The Fire King strategy, as it's currently played by most people, focuses on going first and setting up layers of interaction with which to disrupt the opponent during their turn, then pushing to win the game during the third turn. If that fails, we outgrind the opponent using the multiple ways we have to revive cards out of the GY, until they can no longer keep up with us.

In practice, it all starts by setting up the Fire King engine and getting cards like Sacred Fire King Garunix in the GY and Fire King Sanctuary on the field. This enables you to build board presence and prepare to blow up your opponent's field with Garunix Eternity, Hyang of the Fire Kings when they summon anything you might consider a threat.

You can add more layers of interaction with cards like Amphibious Swarmship Amblowhale and Promethean Princess, Bestower of Flames. This gives you multiple opportunities to destroy your opponent's cards before nuking the field with Hyang, allowing for more control over the game.

Going second, we attempt to disrupt the opponent with the non-engine we have available, then attempt to clear their board and push for an OTK on the 2nd turn. This can mean turboing out Hyang and/or using cards like Fire King Sky Burn and Circle of the Fire Kings to dismantle your opponent's board and cycle through enough monsters to deal 8000+ damage.

Keep in mind that this deck performs its best when going first because we need to be able to set up our engine, and going first means fewer interruptions to worry about. When going second we're very vulnerable to many more interruptions and we struggle against boards with multiple negates, for example.

However, we have a very strong grind game - if correctly piloted, the deck can keep reusing resources from the GY for multiple consecutive turns while also consistently destroying cards on both sides of the field. Thus, surviving past the first few turns significantly tips the scales in our favor - keep this in mind as you learn the deck, and recognize when you should go for less explosive but safer plays so you can grind your opponent out later.

In this section, we'll take a look at some play patterns you will find yourself doing often, then integrate those patterns into a few complete combo lines to showcase what the deck can do.

Finally, we'll discuss various options for handling interruptions and common situations you might find yourself in, so you're prepared for anything that might come your way.

Let's dive in!

Patterns

So what are patterns (or play patterns)?

They're short sequences of actions you commonly take while playing a deck. Some of them can be coupled together to form a combo line, while some are stand-alone and serve to help you advance your overall game plan in a certain way.

In most of your duels you'll aim to perform one or more of these patterns, attempting to set up the Fire King engine while also layering interruptions or recycling cards. Thus, it's a good idea to learn these patterns and where it's applicable to do them.

Later on we'll discuss combos, and you will see how some of these patterns come together to form a larger combo line. With time, you'll be able to improvise combos as you go by just chaining patterns together, no longer needing the combo sheet handy.

Enough talking - let's start learning how to play this deck, shall we?

Starting the Engine

As mentioned before, the deck really prefers to set up first, in order to put all the engine pieces into play. But what is the Fire King engine?

The way we see it, Sacred Fire King Garunix alongside Fire King Island are the main pieces of the engine - Sacred's ability to revive each turn when a FIRE card you control is destroyed, while also destroying another Fire King from deck, is what makes the deck tick and is the action you'll perform pretty much every turn.

Fire King Island enables all this, by destroying a FIRE every single turn, searching Sacred and triggering its effect to Special Summon itself, or searching any Fire King you need and triggering an existing Sacred in your hand or GY instead.

How do we get these cards into play? Most often, it'll be through our favorite birb, Legendary Fire King Ponix. Let's see it in action.

Base pattern - Ponix

Requirements

• In hand:
  • Legendary Fire King Ponix
• In Main Deck:
  • Sacred Fire King Garunix
  • Fire King Sanctuary
  • Fire King Island

Steps

• Normal/Special Summon Legendary Fire King Ponix.
• Activate Ponix's effect to search Fire King Sanctuary.
• Activate Sanctuary from hand, place Fire King Island in Field Zone.
• Activate Island's effect to destroy Ponix and search Sacred Fire King Garunix.
• Activate Sacred Garunix's first effect to Special Summon itself from hand.
• Activate Sacred Garunix's second effect to destroy any Fire King from deck.

Variation 1 - Ponix + Any FIRE monster in hand

This variation is used when performing a larger combo. By destroying a FIRE in hand instead of the Legendary Fire King Ponix on the field, you have 1 additional monster on the field to use as material for Link Summons.

Requirements

• In hand:
  • Legendary Fire King Ponix
  • Any FIRE monster
• In Main Deck:
  • Sacred Fire King Garunix
  • Fire King Sanctuary
  • Fire King Island

Steps

• Normal/Special Summon Legendary Fire King Ponix.
• Activate Ponix's effect to search Fire King Sanctuary.
• Activate Sanctuary from hand, place Fire King Island in Field Zone.
• Activate Island's effect to destroy the FIRE monster in hand and search Sacred Fire King Garunix.
• Activate Sacred Garunix's first effect to Special Summon itself from hand.
• Activate Sacred Garunix's second effect to destroy any Fire King from deck.

Variation 2 - Ponix + Arvata/Kirin

When Fire King Avatar Arvata or Fire King High Avatar Kirin are destroyed, their effects let you Special Summon a Fire King from the GY. To ensure you have a valid target for these effects, we Link Summon Salamangreat Almiraj or Relinquished Anima to send Ponix to the GY.

This gives you yet another material for Link plays, and it is the main way to reach the Arvata + Amblowhale endboard.

Requirements

• In hand:
  • Legendary Fire King Ponix
  • Either Fire King Avatar Arvata or Fire King High Avatar Kirin
• In Main Deck:
  • Sacred Fire King Garunix
  • Fire King Sanctuary
  • Fire King Island
• In Extra Deck:
  • Salamangreat Almiraj or Relinquished Anima

Steps

• Normal/Special Summon Legendary Fire King Ponix.
• Activate Ponix's effect to search Fire King Sanctuary.
• Activate Sanctuary from hand, place Fire King Island in Field Zone.
• Link Summon Salamangreat Almiraj or Relinquished Anima using Ponix as material.
• Activate Island's effect to destroy the FIRE monster in hand and search Sacred Fire King Garunix.
• A Chain forms:
  • Activate Fire King Avatar Arvata or Fire King High Avatar Kirin's effects to Special Summon Ponix from the GY.
  • Activate Sacred Garunix's first effect to Special Summon itself from hand.
• Activate Sacred Garunix's second effect to destroy any Fire King from deck.

Outcome

Sacred Fire King Garunix is into play, allowing you to continuously revive him after he gets sent to the GY and bring other Fire Kings into play, via Island or any other destruction effect.

Furthermore, Fire King Sanctuary is activated, allowing you to Xyz Summon Garunix Eternity, Hyang of the Fire Kings during your opponent's turn (provided you have 2 Level 8s on the field).

The two variants make use of a monster in hand to generate additional Link material, helping you make a stronger endboard.

Notes

You will notice later on that the first variant is pretty much a basic [Hyang setup] combo. This is because this pattern is the building block that all the combos will expand upon.

The other two variants are the start of any 2-card Ponix combo, aiming to end on either Princess + Arvata, Amblowhale, or Amblowhale + Arvata.

Adding Fuel to the Fire with Ulcanix

Fire King Courtier Ulcanix is a very powerful addition to the Fire King strategy, offering us more opportunities to extend and generate card advantage at all stages of the game.

As mentioned in her individual card discussion, she is our best starter, provided you have another FIRE monster in hand. If that monster is a Fire King, you get access to Ponix while also getting the benefit of the destroyed monster's effect, allowing you to build more board presence at a faster pace than with Ponix alone.

Furthermore, she can be used as destruction fodder for any other Fire King effect, fetching a copy of Fire King High Avatar Garunix from the deck and ensuring we stay even or gain card advantage.

In later turns, she can be revived from the GY, allowing us to dig our deck deeper for any Fire King we might need and enabling cool shenanigans like getting Fire King Avatar Rangbali on the field whenever a Spell/Trap negation is needed.

Let's see what she's all about - starting with extending our Ponix plays.

Extending the Ponix patterns

Maybe "extending" isn't the right word here, since you'll be summoning Ulcanix first; however looking at it from the perspective of what she brings to the pattern, it's usually one or more monsters on the field and the ability to trigger Fire King effects before getting to Island.

In short, Ulcanix + any other FIRE gets you the same result as Ponix + any Fire King, plus another body to use as material.

Steps

• Normal Summon Fire King Courtier Ulcanix.
• Activate Ulcanix's effect to destroy any FIRE in your hand, and add Legendary Fire King Ponix from Deck to hand.
  • While not necessary, it's not a bad idea to always also make Ulcanix Level 1 with this effect. This ensures you're still able to make Kikinagashi Fucho if your opponent drops a Dimension Shifter on you.
• Activate Ponix's effect to Special Summon itself from hand.
• Activate Ponix's effect to search Fire King Sanctuary.
• Activate Sanctuary from hand, place Fire King Island in Field Zone.
• Activate Island's effect to destroy Ulcanix and search Sacred Fire King Garunix.
• A Chain forms:
  • Activate Sacred Garunix's first effect to Special Summon itself from hand.
  • Activate Ulcanix's effect to Special Summon Fire King High Avatar Garunix from Deck in Defense Position.
• Activate Sacred Garunix's second effect to destroy any Fire King from deck.

As you can see, the Ulcanix + FIRE pattern gives you 3 total bodies on the field, whereas the Ponix + FIRE version only nets you 2 bodies. This makes Link Summoning plays much easier to do and enables stronger endboards.

This is ignoring the monster you destroy off Sacred - it could very well be a Fire King Avatar Arvata or Fire King High Avatar Kirin, giving you yet another monster off their effects.

TIP: If you don't really need the 3rd monster on the field, you can destroy Ponix with Island, ensuring it returns to your hand during the next Standby Phase while also keeping a lower summon count (for Nibiru, the Primal Being).

Keep this in mind when you have resources for the current turn, but you don't have anything to use for follow-up on the next turn.

Hyang setups with Sacred and Ulcanix

Ulcanix's second effect can enable us to set up Garunix Eternity, Hyang of the Fire Kings at any point of the game, provided we have access to Sacred Fire King Garunix. This can either happen on your turn, or the opponent's turn (although you'll also need Fire King Sanctuary on the field).

In this video we're using Circle of the Fire Kings as a demonstration tool to revive Sacred Fire King Garunix from the GY. In real duels, this can be any effect or occasion that can summon Sacred from hand or GY.

Steps

• Summon Sacred Fire King Garunix.
• Activate Sacred's effect to destroy Fire King Courtier Ulcanix from Deck.
• Activate Ulcanix's effect to Special Summon Fire King High Avatar Garunix from Deck.
• Xyz Summon Garunix Eternity, Hyang of the Fire Kings using both Garunixes as material. This can happen on the opponent's turn if you have Fire King Sanctuary active on the field.

Rangbali On Demand

Another neat thing about Ulcanix is that her search effect works when she's Special Summoned too - allowing you to perform various tricks during your opponent's turn.

One such trick is summoning Fire King Avatar Rangbali in anticipation of your opponent playing an important Spell/Trap, and negating it.

As before, we are using Circle of the Fire Kings to revive Fire King Courtier Ulcanix from the GY. In real duels, this can be substituted for any effect that can summon Ulcanix from hand or GY (i.e. Arvata, Kirin, Hyang, etc.).

The important part is that you can use Ulcanix at any point to destroy a FIRE and search Rangbali, whose effect lets you Special Summon it from hand (because a FIRE was destroyed).

Steps

• Using any effect, Special Summon Fire King Courtier Ulcanix.
• Activate Ulcanix's effect to destroy a FIRE in your hand or field, and add Fire King Avatar Rangbali from Deck to hand.
• Activate Rangbali's effect to Special Summon itself from hand.
• When your opponent activates a Spell/Trap effect, use Rangbali's effect to negate that effect and destroy another FIRE.

Recycling cards with Sunlight Wolf

You're using up a lot of cards as you perform your combos. Thus, making use of Salamangreat Sunlight Wolf to recover one of these cards can strengthen your endboard or help you get enough fuel for the next turn. Don't hesitate to use this card, if you have resources available (and Nibiru, the Primal Being isn't around).

In a nutshell, you want to summon Sunlight Wolf in the Extra Monster Zone, then summon another card below it in order to trigger this effect.

One way to do this is through Ponix + 2 other FIRE monsters. Let's take a look.

You can also do this with any 4 monsters (at least 2 FIREs). This has the advantage that you can Link Summon I:P Masquerena under Sunlight Wolf, which can be used further as Link Material for Promethean Princess, Bestower of Flames into Amphibious Swarmship Amblowhale. Then, when Amblowhale gets destroyed, it can bring back Masquerena to act as an additional interruption.

When to perform this pattern

• If you aim to end your turn on Amphibious Swarmship Amblowhale, retrieving a Fire King High Avatar Kirin can act as a safety net if you're unable to use Promethean Princess, Bestower of Flames's GY effect.
• If you had to use Ash Blossom & Joyous Spring, either as interruption or as Island fodder, getting her back into the hand forces your opponent to play around her next turn, potentially giving you an advantage.
• You can also just go for it you just have a lot of material around and you're not afraid of Nibiru, the Primal Being.

Requirements

Enough material for:

• Salamangreat Sunlight Wolf
• A Link-1 or higher of your choosing

Steps

• Link Summon Salamangreat Sunlight Wolf using 2 FIRE monsters.
• Link Summon any Link-1 or higher under Sunlight Wolf.
• Activate Sunlight Wolf's effect to add a FIRE monster from the GY to your hand.

Outcomes

You add back a FIRE monster from the GY to your hand, while still preserving enough material for a Link-3 like Promethean Princess, Bestower of Flames.

Notes

Use your best judgement and your intuition when deciding whether this pattern is worth going for. Recycling a card can be immensely powerful, but it comes at the cost of playing into Nibiru, the Primal Being.

Keep in mind you cannot Summon the monster added back to your hand or any monsters with the same name - thus, if you add back a Fire King High Avatar Kirin, you cannot use its effect that turn.

Sometimes it might be more advantageous to summon something from the hand or GY under Sunlight Wolf - keep an eye out for such opportunities, but in the vast majority of cases, Link Summoning something is your best bet to trigger Sunlight Wolf.

Finally, Sunlight Wolf's effect also works if your opponent summons something next to one of its links - this very rarely ever happens, but if it does, be sure to punish your opponent for their mistake and use its effect.

Promethean Princess & Amblowhale

The main strategy outlined in this guide goes as follows: set up the Fire King engine, then set up various interruptions to disrupt your opponent with before pushing for an OTK.

One such setup is the Amblowhale endboard, which makes use of Promethean Princess, Bestower of Flames alongside Amphibious Swarmship Amblowhale to set up multiple layers of destruction effects, while maintaining board presence as cards are destroyed on both sides of the field.

Requirements

• On the field: materials for a Link-3 (3 monsters, or a Link-2 + another monster), of which at least 1 FIRE
• In the Extra Deck:
  • Promethean Princess, Bestower of Flames
  • Amphibious Swarmship Amblowhale

Steps

• Link Summon Promethean Princess, Bestower of Flames using materials on your field.
• Activate Promethean's effect to Special Summon a FIRE monster from the GY.
• Link Summon Amphibious Swarmship Amblowhale using Princess and the revived monster.

Outcomes

You have set up at least 2 interruptions (or more, depending on how the duel progressed until this point):

• First, Promethean's effect to Special Summon herself from the GY by destroying 1 monster on each side of the field.
• (Optional) By using Amblowhale as her target, you can activate Amblowhale's effect to Special Summon a Link-3 or lower from the GY (this could be I:P Masquerena or Duelittle Chimera or anything else).
• Finally, when a Link-3 or lower is destroyed, you can banish Amblowhale from the GY to destroy a card on the field.

Coupled with the other interruptions set up in previous patterns (Sacred Fire King Garunix in GY, Fire King Sanctuary ready to Xyz Summon a Garunix Eternity, Hyang of the Fire Kings) and any handtraps you may have in your hand, you have lots of ways to hinder your opponent's plays.

Notes

As the metagame shifts, there may be moments where there is too much interruption going around for you to reliably set this up. It's a good idea to determine what your opponent is likely to have (especially in games 2 and 3 of a match), and weigh the risks of going for this board and getting interrupted halfway through, versus sticking with a simpler set-up (maybe 2 Level 8s with Sanctuary and some handtraps).

Additionally, in some circumstances (under Mulcharmy Fuwalos, or against a player that runs Nibiru, the Primal Being for example), it might be more beneficial to remain with Princess on the field and the monster she revived (especially if that monster is Fire King Avatar Arvata as it can make up for Amblowhale's absence with its negate). As you get better at the game, be on the lookout for occasions where this might be worth it.

Link-climbing with Hiita

It's your turn, you start setting up your board, and your opponent decides it's time for an Ash Blossom & Joyous Spring. That sucks!

Fortunately, if you can manage to get 2 monsters on the board, you can recover, thanks to Hiita the Fire Charmer, Ablaze.

When to perform this pattern

Generally you only want to do this if you get interrupted in such a way that your usual combos can't be performed anymore.

If you can continue the combo, it might be worth continuing as-is in order to avoid over-extending, although having the extra material from Hiita does make things easier.

Requirements

• 2 monsters, at least 1 FIRE
• A FIRE monster in your opponent's GY

Steps

• Link Summon Hiita the Fire Charmer, Ablaze using 2 FIRE monsters.
• Activate Hiita's effect to Special Summon the FIRE monster in your opponent's GY to your side of the field.
• Link Summon Promethean Princess, Bestower of Flames using Hiita and the stolen monster.
• Activate Princess's effect to revive a FIRE monster from your GY.
• Link Summon Amphibious Swarmship Amblowhale using Princess and the revived monster.

Outcomes

You can still end on Amblowhale while getting interrupted by an Ash Blossom, although it does lead to a weaker endboard (no Salamangreat Sunlight Wolf recycling, no I:P Masquerena in the GY to revive later, potentially no Fire King Sanctuary if Ponix got negated).

About the other Charmers

You can do the same thing with Dharc the Dark Charmer, Gloomy, if your opponent has a DARK monster in their GY, and Ponix is on the field. You Link Summon Relinquished Anima using Ponix, before continuing the pattern.

Because there aren't too many DARK handtraps going around, this is usually something you get to do going second, against decks that play DARK monsters. Still, it's worth experimenting with Dharc to see if it's a good fit against the current meta.

Additionally, Lyna the Light Charmer, Lustrous could be a tech option to add to your Extra Deck when Nibiru, the Primal Being is very prevalent in the meta and there are a few LIGHT decks going around.

Both Nibiru itself and the token are LIGHT, meaning you're able to summon Lyna with it and any other monster, then perform the steps above.

In the same vein, other Link Charmers might be relevant as the metagame shifts. Be aware of their existence and see when it's possible to take advantage of them and make your deck more resilient.

Hyang Self-Destruction OTK

You managed to set up a killer board, you interrupted your opponent with all you got and finally managed to clear the board with Garunix Eternity, Hyang of the Fire Kings.

Let's turn 3000 damage into an OTK with a neat trick.

When to perform this pattern

After Xyz Summoning Garunix Eternity, Hyang of the Fire Kings and you want to attempt to OTK your opponent.

Hyang must have Sacred Fire King Garunix as material, and Sacred's effect must be available this turn.

This pattern gives you up to 9000 (or more!) damage, depending on Hyang's materials.

Requirements

• Garunix Eternity, Hyang of the Fire Kings
  • Material 1: Sacred Fire King Garunix
  • Material 2: Any Fire King
• Fire King Island and Fire King Sanctuary active on the field
• Fire King High Avatar Kirin or Fire King Avatar Arvata in the Main Deck

Steps

• Activate Garunix Eternity, Hyang of the Fire Kings's effect, detaching Sacred Fire King Garunix in order to destroy Fire King Island.
• Using Sanctuary's effect, destroy Hyang instead of your Island.
• A Chain forms:
  • CL1: Hyang's effect, Special Summoning 1 monster - usually itself - from the GY.
  • CL2: Sacred's effect, Special Summoning itself from the GY.
• Activate Sacred's effect to destroy either Fire King High Avatar Kirin or Fire King Avatar Arvata.
• Activate Kirin/Arvata's effect to revive a monster from the GY.
• Attack for game.

Outcomes

You turn 1 monster into 3 monsters, with a total ATK close to, or surpassing 8000, ideally OTKing your opponent.

Notes

This works best when Hyang's second material is either Kirin or Fire King High Avatar Garunix, as they have a lot of ATK.

This same result can be achieved with Circle of the Fire Kings, destroying a 2-material Hyang for a Fire King in your GY. Hyang's effect triggers, Special Summoning itself and Sacred. Sacred can then pop another monster from the deck, giving you even more monsters to play with. This is covered in the [OTK combos] section later on in the guide.

Keep in mind that Hyang can be summoned with any number of materials. Depending on the game state, you might be able to make a 3-material Hyang, making this OTK even deadlier.

The Numeron Dragon OTK

Besides the Hyang Self-Destruction OTK and the OTK combos, you also have the option of playing the Numeron Dragon OTK package in your Extra Deck for some additional game-ending oomph.

As a reminder, these are the 3 cards that compose this package:

• Number 100: Numeron Dragon
• Number 97: Draglubion
• Number 38: Hope Harbinger Dragon Titanic Galaxy

3 Extra Deck spaces can be a little tight, so it's up to you whether or not these cards are worth playing.

In short, you can use any 2 Level 8 monsters as material to summon Draglubion, then use its effect to summon a Numeron Dragon with Hope Harbinger as material. By detaching a material, Numeron Dragon gains ATK equal to all Ranks on the field x 1000, meaning it'll go up to at least 9000 ATK.

When to perform this pattern

When your opponent's field is empty and you think you're able to attack for game with Numeron Dragon.

Keep in mind that Draglubion doesn't allow you to attack with anything else except Numeron Dragon the turn you summon it!

Requirements

• 2 Level 8 monsters on the field (or a way to get them there)
• The Numeron Dragon OTK package in your Extra Deck

Steps

• Xyz Summon Number 97: Draglubion using the 2 Level 8 monsters.
• Activate Draglubion's effect, detaching a material and revealing Number 100: Numeron Dragon and Number 38: Hope Harbinger Dragon Titanic Galaxy, then summoning Numeron Dragon with Hope Harbinger as material.
• Activate Numeron Dragon's effect, detaching a material to gain ATK equal to all the Ranks on the field x 1000. (Usually a total of 9000.)
• Attack for game.

Notes

This can backfire easily, if your opponent has any form of interruption you aren't expecting, or if they manage to put out a monster on the field.

If the OTK fails, Numeron Dragon is just a beatstick that can be easily removed. Your opponent could also take advantage of its effect, destroying it in order to access a Spell/Trap they had in the GY.

Combos

In this section we'll discuss the combos you'll perform most of the time, featuring our two starters - Legendary Fire King Ponix and Fire King Courtier Ulcanix.

For the most part, we'll cover most 1-card and 2-card combos, plus a few notable 3-card combos.

Each page focuses on a specific starting hand, showing you all the possible routes, with relevant commentary for each.

Let's dive in!

1-card Ponix combos

The 1-card Ponix combos set the foundation for all the other combos in this guide. The goal is to get the Fire King engine started while also setting up a Garunix Eternity, Hyang of the Fire Kings on the opponent's turn.

There are two possible routes:

• the Barong route, useful when playing under Mulcharmy Fuwalos
• the Ulcanix route, plays into Fuwalos but gets Ulcanix into rotation too for more follow-up on turn 3.

Using the dropdown below, choose the route you'd like to see:

Ponix + any Fire King

Adding a second card to the 1-card Ponix combos makes them so much more powerful, allowing you to add multiple layers of interruption besides Garunix Eternity, Hyang of the Fire Kings.

Depending on the second card, though, the combos can vary slightly from one another, usually to optimize or improve them in some way. As such, we'll cover each specific 2-card combo in individual pages, discussing what makes it unique and what you should look out for.

That said, all those combos build on the same play patterns we covered earlier in this book, following most of the same steps and only diverging where necessary. Thus, it's possible to standardize them into a handful of generic combos that can be reused for any opening hand where you have Legendary Fire King Ponix and a Fire King monster. They might be slightly inefficient compared to the specific variants, but keeping things simple can be great when starting out and learning the deck.

Let's take a look at them and see what can be done with just 2 cards:

Ponix + Ash Blossom

Ash Blossom & Joyous Spring quite often plays double duty in our deck because she's a very powerful interruption that's also a FIRE monster - thus giving you the option to use her as fodder for Fire King Island if needed.

Using her in this way poses the following question - should you play safe and go straight for the endboard, or risk playing into Nibiru, the Primal Being in order to recover Ash Blossom from the GY?

Sometimes, going for it is worth the risk. As such, one of the goals of the following combos is to retain value from the Ash Blossom by either recovering her immediately with the Sunlight Wolf recycling pattern, or leaving the opportunity open to do so later, using Duelittle Chimera towards the end of the interruption sequence.

We have multiple possible routes available:

Ponix + Sacred

There are two limitations at play that make this starting hand less potent than it could have been without them - specifically, the the Green Baboon ruling, and Sacred Fire King Garunix's own restriction on its Special Summoning effect.

The Green Baboon ruling only lets us Special Summon one monster from the hand in response to a FIRE/Fire King being destroyed. Since Sacred Garunix is so integral to our strategy, you will almost always choose to summon him over anything else you might have in your hand.

That, coupled with its own restriction that states Sacred must be in the GY at the time of destruction in order to Special Summon it from the GY, means you'll often destroy him with Fire King Island just to search another copy.

All this forces Ponix + Sacred combos to be the exact same as the Ponix + any Fire King lines, as the first copy of Sacred is nothing more than a FIRE monster for the purposes of these combos.

That said, having 2 copies of Sacred in rotation makes your grind game so much more resilient. Opponents that have access to banish effects will look to banish your Sacred Garunix as soon as possible to limit your ability to cycle resources - that becomes much harder to do when there are two of them floating around.

Perform the Ponix + any Fire King lines if you open this starting hand.

Ponix + Barong

Using Fire King Avatar Barong as the second card in our combos allows us to ensure our Amblowhale boards don't get easily sabotaged. Using his Standby Phase effect, we can add Fire King High Avatar Kirin to our hand and use it to destroy Amblowhale at our own discretion instead of relying on our opponent to trigger Promethean Princess, Bestower of Flames's GY effect.

This means that generally you don't want to extend by destroying Fire King Avatar Arvata or Fire King High Avatar Kirin from Deck, as you'd be forced to revive Barong, making his effect unable to trigger anymore.

Instead, if Nibiru, the Primal Being is not an issue, you'll want to opt for the Ulcanix + Duelittle Chimera route of the Ponix + any Fire King combo, ending on an Amblowhale endboard with lots of utility, and now a High Avatar Kirin in hand.

Steps

• Normal Summon Legendary Fire King Ponix.
• Activate Ponix - add Fire King Sanctuary from Deck.
• Activate Sanctuary - place Fire King Island in Field Zone.
• Activate Island - destroy Fire King Avatar Barong in hand, add Sacred Fire King Garunix from Deck.
• Activate Sacred in hand - Special Summon it to the field.
• Activate Sacred on field - destroy Fire King Courtier Ulcanix from Deck.
• Activate Ulcanix in GY - Special Summon Fire King High Avatar Garunix from Deck.
• Link Summon Duelittle Chimera.
• Link Summon Promethean Princess, Bestower of Flames.
• Activate Princess - Special Summon a monster from GY.
• Link Summon Amphibious Swarmship Amblowhale.

Ponix + Rangbali

Opening Fire King Avatar Rangbali gives you access to a new endboard, Promethean Princess, Bestower of Flames backed up by Rangbali. Arguably, Rangbali's Spell/Trap negate is generally weaker than Fire King Avatar Arvata's monster negate, but that doesn't make this board bad by any means.

We don't recommend extending with Ulcanix or High Kirin here - instead, go for Arvata - that sets it up in the GY to be revived during your opponent's turn by a Fire King High Avatar Kirin destroyed from your Deck, for a surprise monster negate.

Let's see the combo in action:

Steps

• Normal Summon Legendary Fire King Ponix.
• Activate Ponix - add Fire King Sanctuary from Deck.
• Activate Sanctuary - place Fire King Island in Field Zone.
• Activate Island - destroy Fire King Avatar Rangbali in hand, add Sacred Fire King Garunix from Deck.
• Activate Sacred in hand - Special Summon it to the field.
• Activate Sacred on field - destroy Fire King Avatar Arvata from Deck.
• Activate Arvata in GY - Special Summon Rangbali from GY.
• Link Summon Promethean Princess, Bestower of Flames.
• Activate Princess - Special Summon Rangbali (again) from GY.

Alternatively you can still set up Princess + Arvata, and have Rangbali wait in the GY to be revived later.

Ponix + High Avatar Garunix

Using Fire King High Avatar Garunix in your combos comes with a catch - if destroyed by card effect, it comes back in the Standby Phase and destroys all other monsters on the field, potentially ruining your endboard if you're not careful.

The solution to this is to Special Summon High Avatar Garunix from the GY during your combo, ensuring its effect can no longer trigger.

That aside, the combos themselves are pretty much the standard Ponix + any Fire King lines, as High Avatar Garunix doesn't have any effects that can help you extend or otherwise improve the combos.

One thing to note is that most decklists only run 1 High Avatar Garunix, thus Fire King Courtier Ulcanix lines don't work here - she cannot Special Summon High Avatar Garunix if you don't have him in your Deck anymore.

Perform the Ponix + any Fire King lines if you open this starting hand, making sure to revive Fire King High Avatar Garunix during the combo so it doesn't blow up your field later!

Handling Interruptions

Sometimes, things go wrong. What do we do when that happens?

So far we've taken a look at the Fire King strategy in a vacuum, but Yu-Gi-Oh! is a 2-player game, and your opponent will certainly have a plethora of cards and effects that can interrupt you, or at least make your strategy a bit more complicated to execute.

It's crucial to know how to avoid and handle these interruptions, how to recover when they successfully resolve, and to determine when things go wrong enough that it's better to just shuffle your Deck and go to game 2.

Going first, the biggest thing you should worry about are the handtraps your opponent might be running. Ranging from monster negates like Effect Veiler and Infinite Impermanence, to board-destroying effects like Nibiru, the Primal Being, to the ever-frustrating Dimension Shifter, and more recently, the [Mulcharmy cards], these can either end your turn outright, or give your opponent sufficient advantage to win the game next turn.

Of course, going second you are faced with all the above, plus your opponent's set up board. Depending on what deck they're playing, you might need to adapt your playstyle accordingly in order to avoid playing into their strategy.

We aren't able to cover how to counter the meta at any given moment, as that's bound to change often with new banlists and product releases. However, we can build a general library of things to look out for, and then you can adapt and apply that knowledge for the decks you're expecting to face.

The best way to learn about what's played right now is to engage with the game's various communities, from Discord servers like the [Fire King server], to the [/r/yugioh subreddit] and local communities you might have access to. Make sure to participate in them and keep an eye on what's happening.

With that out of the way, let's talk about the types of disruption you might encounter, and how to recover after encountering them.

Dealing with negations

Nobody likes being told "no". Unfortunately, Yu-Gi-Oh! is full of effects that do that, from negating certain actions to negating entire types of cards. It's part of what makes Yu-Gi-Oh! a fast-paced and interactive game, and is a necessary evil as decks become better and better at building unbreakable boards if left to their devices.

As such, you'll often encounter players running cards with effects that negate your cards' effects and/or activations. Knowing how to avoid them (or even when to let them resolve) can make the difference between a win and a loss more times than you'd think.

Every seasoned Fire King player knows the pain of activating Fire King Island's effect, only for an opponent to chain an Ash Blossom. If left to resolve, it has a high potential of ending our turn right there, forcing us to rely on our own handtraps to survive until the next turn.

Thankfully, for every problem, there are potential solutions. Let's take a look at them and see how we can use them to our advantage.

Targeting negation

Cards like Effect Veiler and Infinite Impermanence activate by targeting the monster whose effect your opponent intends to negate.

Due to game mechanics, if a targeted card changes location, the target is no longer considered valid and the card will not be affected by that effect.

As such, if we have a way to change the locations of our cards, we can dodge targeting and get to resolve our effect. And we certainly have one - Fire King High Avatar Kirin. Chaining its Quick Effect allows us to destroy our own card before our opponent's effect resolves, causing it to lose its target.

Promethean Princess, Bestower of Flames's GY effect can also fulfill this role in limited circumstances, and so does any other effect that destroys or changes the location of our monsters in any way (banish, send to GY, return to hand, etc).

Keep in mind this does not work for Continuous, Field, or Equip Cards - they need to remain in the place where they were activated for their effects to resolve.

Example

• Player 1 Normal Summons Legendary Fire King Ponix and declares it's on-summon effect as Chain Link 1, to add a Fire King Spell/Trap from the Deck to the hand.
• Player 2 activates Effect Veiler from hand as Chain Link 2, discarding it and targeting Ponix. At resolution, it will negate Ponix's effect.
• Player 1 activates Fire King High Avatar Kirin as Chain Link 3. At resolution they will destroy a FIRE monster in the hand or field and Special Summon Kirin to their field.
• The chain resolves:
  • Kirin resolves, and Player 1 destroys Ponix, then Summons Kirin to their field.
  • Veiler resolves, but because its target is no longer valid, no effects are negated.
  • Ponix resolves, and Player 1 adds Fire King Sanctuary to their hand.

Non-targeting negation

While some negating effects target, there are plenty that do not, and will just negate the effect they're chained to regardless of the final location of that card. Think Ash Blossom & Joyous Spring, it just says "negate that effect". That makes it trickier to deal with, and we don't have too many ways to avoid that.

For Ash Blossom specifically, we have the [Hiita link-climbing pattern], provided you have a way to get 2 bodies on the field. Don't hesitate to go for it whenever it comes up!

When it comes to in-archetype cards, Fire King Avatar Arvata and Fire King Avatar Rangbali can deal with this class of effects, however getting them on the field is not always trivial. We did showcase a good hand where we had the luxury of Normal Summoning Arvata to counter an Ash Blossom, but that won't happen every time.

Thus, it can be worthwhile to add cards like Called by the Grave and Crossout Designator to your Deck as an additional way to avoid getting your important cards negated (or generally interacted with by your opponent's handtraps).

However, you also need to acknowledge that sometimes you just don't have any way to play around this. You are at the mercy of your opening hand - bad hands are just as common as good hands, so learning how to make the most out of any hand is an essential skill.

Don't give up immediately - you'd be surprised how many decks cannot easily OTK you, even with just a Ponix on board. Your chances of survival increase further if you have some other Fire Kings in hand (think Sacred Fire King Garunix or even an Fire King Avatar Barong), and your own selection of handtraps. Persevere through games and you'll find wins where you least expect them.

In competitive tournaments you also need to learn when to surrender to save time, but that's another discussion. In fact, we would be inclined to say that as a beginner, sticking through every match will benefit you in the long run more than immediately scooping when you brick or end on a poor board.

Dealing with destruction

Besides negating your effects, your opponent also has access to a plethora of effects that destroy your cards - and that's something you need to watch out for too.

While we love destroying our cards, we rely heavily on controlling when those cards get destroyed. As such, getting a monster destroyed when you're not expecting it can be the difference between passing on a good endboard versus passing on a random assortment of monsters.

In most cases, while we have cards in our toolbox that can deal with card effects that destroy your cards (Arvata, Rangbali, Crossout, etc.), it's rarely a guarantee that you will have them ready. Thus, you do need to be aware of what destructive effects your opponent may have, and when they might be inclined to use them.

Fire King Sky Burn's second effect can come in handy here, provided you found a way to put it in the GY first. At any point in the game where one or more Fire King cards would be destroyed, you can just banish Sky Burn from the GY instead. That's something that can and will come up, so make sure to check your GY and avoid forgetting about this effect.

Additionally, be aware of Fire King Sanctuary's protection effect. Once per turn, if your Fire King Island would be destroyed by a card effect, you can instead destroy a FIRE monster in your hand or on your field.

Inexperienced opponents might try to drop a Ghost Ogre & Snow Rabbit on your Island, not knowing about this effect, so don't forget about it yourself and make sure you're playing correctly.

Droll & Lock Bird, and the dilemma of your opponent's hand

Droll & Lock Bird Level 1 WIND Spellcaster If a card(s) is added from the Main Deck to your opponent's hand, except during the Draw Phase (Quick Effect): You can send this card from your hand to the GY; for the rest of this turn, cards cannot be added from either player's Main Deck to the hand. ATK 0 | DEF 0

Droll & Lock Bird is frustratingly annoying for us, as having it activated after resolving Ponix or Ulcanix usually guarantees we can't continue our usual combos.

The biggest pain point is that we cannot resolve Fire King Island afterwards - as such, if we suspect that our opponent runs Droll, we might have to opt for different plays than usual.

Let's take this randomly-generated hand for example:

• Sacred Fire King Garunix
• Fire King Avatar Rangbali
• Infinite Impermanence
• Fire King Island
• Legendary Fire King Ponix

Going for any Ponix + FIRE combo would be the best play here normally, but what if you know your opponent runs Droll? How do you play around it?

Let's see one possible solution.

• Normal Summon Fire King Avatar Rangbali.
• Activate Fire King Island.
• Activate Island's effect to destroy Ponix and add Fire King High Avatar Kirin from Deck to hand.
• A Chain forms here:
  • CL1: You activate Sacred Fire King Garunix's effect to Special Summon itself from hand.
  • CL2: Opponent chains Droll & Lock Bird since you added Kirin from Deck to hand.
• Activate Sacred Garunix's effect to destroy Fire King Courtier Ulcanix from Deck.
• Activate Ulcanix's effect to Special Summon Fire King High Avatar Garunix from Deck.
• You have 3 bodies on the field now, and a Kirin in hand to do as you wish.

The unfortunate part is that this play means you aren't getting Fire King Sanctuary off Ponix, which weakens your endboard (as Island is vulnerable to getting destroyed, and you cannot summon Garunix Eternity, Hyang of the Fire Kings during your opponent's turn).

Proactively limiting your plays like this can cause you to miss out on opportunities where performing the regular combos would have gotten you the full endboard, because your opponent didn't have anything in their hand.

That said, playing into your opponent's handtraps can hurt immensely too, so there is a careful act of balancing that needs to be done here.

Should you be greedy and go for the strongest play possible? Or play conservatively and ensure you can survive? Probably a blend of your personal preferences plus your ability to read your opponent's actions is the best way to go here.

Figuring out how to gather information from your opponent is a genuine skill that can (and should!) be developed - do your opponent's actions mean they're waiting to interrupt you, or are they just waiting for you to finish your turn?

Dimension Shifter, and why Fucho is your friend in need

Dimension Shifter Level 6 DARK Spellcaster If you have no cards in your GY (Quick Effect): You can send this card from your hand to the GY; until the end of the next turn, any card sent to the GY is banished instead. ATK 1200 | DEF 2200

This guy says "no❤️ " to our entire deck, as most Fire Kings' effects either require them to be destroyed by card effect and sent to the GY, or they activate in the GY.

Pray you open a Called by the Grave (or Crossout Designator if you're willing to run 1 copy of Shifter yourself).

Otherwise, this forces us to go on the defensive immediately, as trying to play through it is just a waste of resources; all our combos end up giving you just 2 monsters' worth of Link material, as everything else gets banished before we can make use of it.

Here is where Kikinagashi Fucho comes in. This little fella is unaffected by other card effects (including yours - keep that in mind!), and by detaching 2 materials it becomes unable to be destroyed by battle, making it an impenetrable wall for a turn.

How do we make him? We have two options, depending which starter we opened (and assuming we got Shifter'd during the Draw or Standby Phase, or before we started our combo).

Try to avoid playing any other cards if you can avoid it. Fucho may be invincible, but your other cards are not, so if it's not a Quick-Play Spell or Trap Card you can activate during your opponent's turn, you shouldn't place it on the field.

Use the rest of your hand sparingly too, as you might need those cards to survive the next turn while you regain your footing.

If you opened Ulcanix + a FIRE monster

• Normal Summon Fire King Courtier Ulcanix.
• Activate Ulcanix's effect, to destroy the FIRE monster in your hand and add Legendary Fire King Ponix, then make her Level 1 to match Ponix's Level.
• Activate Ponix's effect from hand to Special Summon itself.
• Activate Ponix's effect to add Fire King Sanctuary from Deck to hand.
• Overlay Ponix and Ulcanix into Kikinagashi Fucho.
• Pass turn.
• During their turn, activate Fucho and detach both materials in order to make it invincible.

If you opened Ponix + a FIRE monster

• Normal Summon Legendary Fire King Ponix.
• Activate Ponix's effect to add Fire King Sanctuary from Deck to hand.
• Activate Sanctuary, place Fire King Island in your Field Zone.
• Activate Island's effect destroy the FIRE in your hand to add another Ponix from Deck to hand.
• Activate Ponix's effect to Special Summon itself from hand.
• Overlay into Kikinagashi Fucho and pass turn.
• During their turn, activate Fucho and detach both materials in order to make it invincible.

If you opened Sanctuary/Island + 2 FIRE monsters

• Activate Fire King Sanctuary, place Fire King Island in your Field Zone. (Or activate Island directly.)
• Activate Island's effect to destroy a FIRE monster in your hand and add Fire King Courtier Ulcanix from Deck to hand.
• Normal Summon Fire King Courtier Ulcanix.
• Activate Ulcanix's effect, to destroy the FIRE monster in your hand and add Legendary Fire King Ponix, then make her Level 1 to match Ponix's Level.
• Activate Ponix's effect from hand to Special Summon itself.
• Activate Ponix's effect to add Fire King Sanctuary from Deck to hand.
• Overlay Ponix and Ulcanix into Kikinagashi Fucho.
• Pass turn.
• During their turn, activate Fucho and detach both materials in order to make it invincible.

With a good enough hand - say, Ponix, Kirin, Sacred - you can also try doing some plays with Fire King Sky Burn to interrupt your opponent while keeping monsters on the field through Kirin and Sacred. It's more difficult to pull off, but it can be worth a shot sometimes.

After Shifter is gone

• Hope you either draw another Ponix/Ulcanix, and perform the appropriate combo.
• If you don't, activate Sanctuary/Island if needed, then use Island's effect on any other monster except Fucho! to search what you need to proceed further.

Mulcharmy Fuwalos, and the art of playing low to the ground

Mulcharmy Fuwalos Level 4 WIND Winged Beast If you control no cards (Quick Effect): You can discard this card; apply these effects this turn. ● Each time your opponent Special Summons a monster(s) from the Deck and/or Extra Deck, immediately draw 1 card. ● Once, during this End Phase, if the number of cards in your hand is more than the number of cards your opponent controls +6, you must randomly shuffle cards from your hand into the Deck so the number in your hand equals the number your opponent controls +6. You can only activate 1 other "Mulcharmy" monster effect, the turn you activate this effect. ATK 100 | DEF 600

Ah yes, 'we have [Maxx "C"] at home'. Doesn't make it any less annoying.

With most decks, Fuwalos gives you two options, either play normally and give your opponent a bunch of cards, or play suboptimally to avoid that.

We, in the meanwhile, have regular combos that don't play too hard into it. Some [Princess + Arvata lines] give your opponent 1 single draw, others give 2 draws, or we could just do a [Hyang setup] and give them zero cards.

You could just power through it, make Amblowhale + Arvata and give your opponent 4-5 draws - but that is immensely risky. You do you. :)

Similar to its other Mulcharmy siblings, you can also just Chain Ash Blossom & Joyous Spring to this card's activation, if you have it in your opening hand.

Mulcharmy Purulia, and the inevitable Normal Summon

Mulcharmy Purulia Level 4 WATER Aqua If you control no cards (Quick Effect): You can discard this card; apply these effects this turn. ● Each time your opponent Normal or Special Summons a monster(s) from the hand, immediately draw 1 card. ● Once, during this End Phase, if the number of cards in your hand is more than the number of cards your opponent controls +6, you must randomly shuffle cards from your hand into the Deck so the number in your hand equals the number your opponent controls +6. You can only activate 1 other "Mulcharmy" monster effect, the turn you activate this effect. ATK 100 | DEF 600

Welp, try not to cry as you Normal Summon Legendary Fire King Ponix and your opponent immediately draws a card.

Yeah, this kinda cooks us. We need our Normal Summon, and we generally summon from hand at least twice during all of our combos (make that three if we start with Fire King Courtier Ulcanix.

There's really no guaranteed way to avoid it. Thus, we recommend just powering through it and hoping your opponent draws the worst 2-3 cards in their entire deck.

Similar to its other Mulcharmy siblings, you can also just Chain Ash Blossom & Joyous Spring to this card's activation, if you have it in your opening hand.

Mulcharmy Meowls, and how (not) to ignore your GY

Mulcharmy Meowls Level 4 EARTH Beast If you control no cards (Quick Effect): You can discard this card; apply these effects this turn. ● Each time your opponent Special Summons a monster(s) from any GY(s) or banishment, immediately draw 1 card. ● Once, during this End Phase, if the number of cards in your hand is more than the number of cards your opponent controls +6, you must randomly shuffle cards from your hand into the Deck so the number in your hand equals the number your opponent controls +6. You can only activate 1 other "Mulcharmy" monster effect, the turn you activate this effect. ATK 100 | DEF 600

This absolutely adorable critter makes things awkward for us.

Under Meowls, we have to make the following changes to our combos in order to limit the amount of draws you're giving your opponent:

• Try to destroy Fire King Courtier Ulcanix off Sacred Fire King Garunix - this gives you a Fire King High Avatar Garunix from Deck, avoiding the GY entirely.
• If you have to destroy Fire King High Avatar Kirin, try to Special Summon something from hand with its effect, instead of the GY.

This makes most combos give only 1-2 draws, and some 3-card hands can give 0.

For example, Ulcanix + Arvata (or Rangbali) can play under Meowls using the two tweaks from above, provided you have another FIRE monster in your hand. Let's take a look:

• Normal Summon Fire King Courtier Ulcanix.
• Activate Ulcanix's effect to destroy the FIRE in your hand and add Legendary Fire King Ponix from Deck to hand.
• Activate Ponix's effect to Special Summon from hand.
• Activate Ponix's effect to add Fire King Sanctuary from Deck to hand.
• Activate Fire King Sanctuary; place Fire King Island in the Field Zone.
• Activate Island, destroying Ulcanix for Sacred Fire King Garunix.
• A chain forms:
  • Ulcanix's effect to Special Summon Fire King High Avatar Garunix.
  • Sacred's effect to Special Summon itself.
• Activate Sacred's effect to destroy Fire King High Avatar Kirin from Deck.
• Activate Kirin's effect to Special Summon Fire King Avatar Arvata from hand.
• Do [Sunlight Wolf recycling] with the 3 monsters except Arvata if you want.
• Link Summon Princess and end your turn on Princess + Arvata.

Sadly, if you start with Ponix, you're either forced to give your opponent 1 draw by playing normally, or do the 1-card [Hyang setup].

Nibiru, the Primal Being, and a lesson on self-restraint

Nibiru, the Primal Being Level 11 LIGHT Rock During the Main Phase, if your opponent Normal or Special Summoned 5 or more monsters this turn (Quick Effect): You can Tribute as many face-up monsters on the field as possible, and if you do, Special Summon this card from your hand, then Special Summon 1 "Primal Being Token" (Rock/LIGHT/Level 11/ATK ?/DEF ?) to your opponent's field. (This Token's ATK/DEF become the combined original ATK/DEF of the Tributed monsters.) You can only use this effect of "Nibiru, the Primal Being" once per turn. ATK 3000 | DEF 600

Quite frankly, Nibiru is one of the main factors that limits our success just because of how much it excels at stopping combo decks that cannot prevent or recover from it.

We are a prime example of that, as we're only able to stop Nibiru if we manage to get Arvata on the field before the 5th summon. That does happen, but not consistently enough, as there are many lines that cannot do it.

We don't have many ways to recover from it either, as usually we use Sacred Fire King Garunix's effect before Nibiru even has a chance to hit, and everything else doesn't generate enough material to recover. Thus, it quickly becomes a priority to ensure you can play under the 5 summon threshold as much as possible.

All the combos in the Combos section have a note about Nibiru, telling you whether that line can stop it or if it plays into it. Make sure to remember that as it can help you decide which setup is best for your current situation.

One thing you should learn to do immediately is avoid activating unnecessary effects that summon monsters.

A lot of times during your combo you might destroy an Arvata or a Kirin, and their effects will come up, but you don't need the monster they summon to finish your endboard. Generally, it's best to not activate those effects to keep your summon count low, even if it feels wasteful.

Also, avoid extending when it doesn't make sense to do so. If you think you can beat your opponent with an Arvata on the field and 2 Level 8s for Hyang, plus the non-engine in your hand, then there's very little reason to go into Princess or Amblowhale.

As you gain more and more experience with the deck, you'll be able to tell at a glance what lines your opening hand can do, and coupled with meta and matchup knowledge, you should be able to tell how low to the ground you can play and still have a chance at beating your opponent.

That said, there will be matches where you just have to gamble. You might have zero non-engine in hand, and you're sure a Hyang isn't enough to win. In that case, go past that 5 summon threshold and try to do your best - sometimes it'll work out, sometimes it will not.

Overall, try to be mindful of Nibiru and keep your boards as minimal as you need, and you should be fine.

Tips & Tricks

Next up, let's dive into some of the nuances of playing the deck.

Some of these are general tips and tricks that you should keep in mind, as they can give you an edge when you least expect it.

Others focus on dealing with lower power hands, where you didn't open a starter.

Every once in a while, you will find yourself in unique, slightly different situations - after all, you can't control neither your opening hand, nor your opponent's actions. Thus, you shouldn't always expect to be able to combo. Be prepared to deviate, or play completely differently to suit that situation.

SEGOC, and chain-blocking Sacred

At the time of writing, in the TCG, all Trigger Effects that would activate simultaneously, will start a single Chain. This is called SEGOC, or "Simultaneous Effects Go On Chain".

SEGOC rules work as follows - whenever multiple trigger effects would activate at the same time, they will activate in the following order:

• The turn player's mandatory effects
• The opponent's mandatory effects
• The turn player's optional effects
• The opponent's optional effects

If multiple effects are part of the same category, the respective player chooses the order in which they are activated.

Making use of this ruling can help you protect important effects from a large number of interruptions. This is called chain-blocking and it is an important concept to grasp in order to play effectively.

This often comes up after using Fire King Island - you'll destroy, for example, a Fire King Avatar Arvata and search Sacred Fire King Garunix. If Arvata has a valid target in the GY, you can activate both Arvata and Sacred, and decide which order they go in.

A beginner player might activate Arvata first, and then Sacred. The opponent now has an opportunity to respond to Sacred's activation, potentially negating it with Dominus Impulse. This can be disastrous for us, as we heavily rely on Sacred resolving to get any of our combos going.

Doing the reverse is much safer - Arvata could potentially get negated, but it hurts much less in the long run. Pay attention to what effects you activate, and to the order you activate them in.

A note on simulators

Some simulators, like EDOPro (which was used to record the replays throughout this guide), abide by OCG rulings, meaning SEGOC works much differently - first, effects activate in public knowledge areas (like the GY), then in private knowledge areas (like the hand). As such, all the replays in this guide had to activate Sacred last.

To fix this, in EDOPro you can activate the "TCG SEGOC" custom rule when creating your lobby.

If you use other simulators for practice, check with the developers or their community to see which rulings they abide by.

At the time of writing, the following simulators use:

• Master Duel - OCG rulings
• EDOPro - OCG rulings, custom rule for TCG rulings
• Dueling Nexus - OCG rulings
• YGO Omega - OCG rulings in OCG queues, TCG rulings in TCG queues

Shielding yourself with Arvata

Let's look at this hand:

• Fire King Sanctuary
• Fire King Avatar Arvata
• Legendary Fire King Ponix
• Any other 2 cards

You might think Ponix go brrr here, and that's not necessarily wrong, it could get you to any endboard you want just fine - Ponix + Arvata is one of the strongest opening hands if you want to combo.

But what happens if it gets negated by Ash Blossom & Joyous Spring here? If the other two cards in your hand can't deal with her, you're missing out on Ponix's search. You can continue the combo, since you have Sanctuary, but it's not optimal.

Now, what if your opponent waited until you activated Island, and then Ash Blossomed it instead? You're now stuck with Ponix in Attack Position, and no follow-up. This isn't ideal - and we had the counterplay in our hand this whole time.

Let's restart the game, and play this instead:

• Normal Summon Fire King Avatar Arvata.
  • We now have a monster negate online, since we have Ponix in hand, who's a FIRE monster.
• Activate Fire King Sanctuary, and place Fire King Island in your Field Zone.
• Activate Island's effect, to-...
• Your opponent chains Ash Blossom & Joyous Spring to negate Island's effect.
• Chain Arvata's effect to negate Ash, and destroy Ponix from hand.
• Ash is negated, so you resolve Island; destroy Arvata to search Sacred Fire King Garunix.
• A Chain is created:
  • CL1: Activate Arvata's effect to Special Summon Ponix from the GY.
  • CL2: Activate Sacred Garunix's effect to Special Summon itself from hand.
• Activate Sacred Garunix's effect to destroy Fire King High Avatar Kirin from Deck.
• Activate Kirin's effect to Special Summon Arvata from the GY.
• Link Summon Salamangreat Sunlight Wolf with Arvata and Sacred.
• Link Summon Relinquished Anima with Ponix.
• Activate Sunlight Wolf's effect to add Kirin from GY to hand.
• Link Summon Promethean Princess, Bestower of Flames.
• Activate Princess' effect to Special Summon Ponix from GY.
• Activate Ponix's effect to add a Fire King Spell/Trap from Deck to hand.
• Link Summon Amphibious Swarmship Amblowhale.

As you can see, we made use of Arvata's effect to negate the opponent's Ash Blossom, ensuring Ponix can search a Spell/Trap.

With this hand you'd usually get either Fire King Sky Burn to further interrupt your opponent during their turn, or Circle of the Fire Kings to attempt an OTK during your next turn - meaning your Ponix's search wasn't essential, but it's still very nice to be able to resolve it, since it means you get to do more things later on.

What if I have Ulcanix instead?

The line is similar - just replace Ponix with Fire King Courtier Ulcanix. The main difference is that the chain after resolving Island will have 3 effects:

• CL1: Ulcanix's effect to Special Summon Fire King High Avatar Garunix from Deck.
• CL2: Arvata's effect to Special Summon Ulcanix from GY.
• CL3: Sacred Garunix's effect to Special Summon itself from hand.

Then after you activate Sacred to destroy Kirin from Deck, you'll revive Arvata and have 4 bodies on the field instead of 3. This means instead of Link Summoning Relinquished Anima, you can Link Summon I:P Masquerena instead using Ulcanix and High Garunix.

This nets you an additional interruption, as you'll Special Summon Masquerena off Amblowhale's effect, and you can use her Quick Effect to go into S:P Little Knight or Knightmare Unicorn.

Summary

Opening Sanctuary, Arvata and any Fire King guarantees you can play through at least one interruption via monster effect.

In essence, you're no longer required to use your Normal Summon on Ponix/Ulcanix, as you already have Sanctuary. Thus, Normal Summoning Arvata makes your combo more resilient in most situations.

Arvata is a really neat card - look for this pattern in your games, and make use of it to thwart your opponent's handtraps.

Rangbali can do a similar job against Spells/Traps that can activate in the hand, namely Dominus Impulse and Dominus Purge.

Turning handtraps into combo pieces

Playing too much non-engine can cause you to encounter suboptimal opening hands sometimes. That sucks - but depending on the situation you might still be able to make some plays.

Linking handtraps into Almiraj

Thanks to Salamangreat Almiraj, Sanctuary + pretty much any handtrap is a Hyang setup:

• Normal Summon Droll & Lock Bird.
• Link Summon Salamangreat Almiraj using Droll.
• Activate Fire King Sanctuary; place Fire King Island in Field Zone.
• Activate Island's effect to destroy Almiraj and search Sacred Fire King Garunix.
• Activate Sacred's effect to Special Summon itself from hand.
• Activate Sacred's effect to destroy Fire King Courtier Ulcanix from Deck.

You have Hyang ready to go, and assuming the other 3 cards were also handtraps, you have 4 interruptions total to mess your opponent up with.

Sanctuary + any FIRE + any handtrap

This is a 3-card combo that can end on Amphibious Swarmship Amblowhale, and also searches Fire King Sky Burn for additional interruption.

This following combo works with any hand that has:

• Fire King Sanctuary,
• 1 FIRE monster (here it's Ash Blossom)
• 1 Level 4 or lower monster with 1000 or less ATK (here, that's Effect Veiler)

You can also start with Fire King Island, but in that case Ponix will be forced to search Sanctuary so you can set up Hyang.

• Activate Fire King Island.
• Activate Island's effect to destroy Ash Blossom & Joyous Spring in your hand to add Sacred Fire King Garunix from Deck to hand.
• Activate Sacred Garunix's effect to Special Summon itself from hand.
• Activate Sacred Garunix's effect to destroy Fire King Courtier Ulcanix from Deck.
• Activate Ulcanix's effect to Special Summon Fire King High Avatar Garunix from Deck.
• Link Summon Salamangreat Sunlight Wolf using both Garunix monsters.
• Normal Summon Effect Veiler next to Sunlight Wolf's link.
• Activate Sunlight Wolf's effect to add Ash Blossom back to hand.
• Link Summon Promethean Princess, Bestower of Flames using Sunlight Wolf and Veiler.
• Activate Princess' effect to Special Summon Ulcanix from GY.
• Activate Ulcanix's effect to destroy Ash Blossom and add Legendary Fire King Ponix from Deck to hand.
• Activate Ponix's effect to Special Summon itself from hand.
• Activate Ponix's effect to add Fire King Sky Burn from Deck to hand.
• Link Summon Amphibious Swarmship Amblowhale using Princess and Ulcanix.
• Set Sky Burn, and pass turn.

Before Link Summoning Amblowhale, you can Link Summon Duelittle Chimera using Ponix and Ulcanix. However, this means Sky Burn isn't online from the start (as you'll have to wait until Sacred returns to the field), so weigh both options carefully and pick the one that's best for the situation at hand.

Summary

With some clever manuvering, even an opening hand of handtraps can still set up a decent board, provided you opened Sanctuary (or Island).

Using Sacred as a handtrap

Sacred Fire King Garunix gives you countless opportunities for interaction when you plan around the fact it can Special Summon itself from both your hand and your GY.

Let's take this opening hand as an example:

• Effect Veiler
• Fire King Avatar Rangbali
• Droll & Lock Bird
• Sacred Fire King Garunix
• Fire King Sky Burn

Looking at it from a combo perspective, this hand is disastrous, as we cannot perform any of the combos we showcased in this guide. However, we can still put up an interactive endboard, provided we use our cards wisely.

Let's play this out:

• Normal Summon Fire King Avatar Rangbali.
• Set Fire King Sky Burn.
• Pass turn.

Your opponent might think it's kind of pathetic, but in reality we have at least 5 interruptions set up:

• Rangbali can negate a Spell effect, destroying Sacred from hand.
• Sky Burn can pop Rangbali and your opponent's monster.
• Sacred can trigger from hand or GY, when Rangbali gets destroyed.
  • Sacred then can destroy Fire King High Avatar Kirin, reviving Rangbali and destroying a card.
• Veiler can negate a monster.
• Droll can stop your opponent from searching more cards.

With any luck, this can be enough to ruin your opponent's turn, giving you a chance to take over the game depending on what you draw.

Avatars working together

Let's look at another funny hand:

• Fire King Avatar Rangbali
• Fire King Avatar Arvata
• Fire King Avatar Barong
• Called by the Grave
• Ash Blossom & Joyous Spring

Once again, no chance of getting the usual combos going, but we are also not planning on just passing. Let's play this out:

• Normal Summon Fire King Avatar Arvata.
• Set Called by the Grave.
• Pass turn.

If you're running Called by the Grave, remember it doesn't have to be used against handtraps only, you can also disrupt your opponent's GY effects or anything that targets cards in the GY.

As before, it's a pretty unassuming board if you're the opponent, but it does pack a punch.

First off, the obvious interruptions:

• Arvata can negate a monster effect, destroying Barong.
• Called By can disrupt any effect that activates in the GY or that targets cards in the GY.
• Ash Blossom can negate an effect that messes with the Main Deck.

Additionally, when Arvata destroys Barong, Rangbali's effect can be triggered, giving you the option to Special Summon it from the hand. That gives you an additional Spell/Trap negate, destroying Arvata.

When Arvata is destroyed, it can bring back Barong to keep up your defenses until the End Phase. If Barong gets destroyed, either by your opponent, or during the End Phase as per Arvata's effect, it gives you access to Legendary Fire King Ponix in the Standby Phase, enabling you to fight back right away.

Be aware of the Avatars' effects and use them to your advantage whenever possible. It's common to forget that Barong and Rangbali (and Ponix!) have this effect that Special Summons them from the hand if another Fire King is destroyed.

Crashing monsters intentionally

Don't be afraid to use the Battle Phase to your advantage, or whenever you're in a pinch.

Say you're in a simplified game state after both you and your opponent threw everything you had at each other. It's your turn and you topdeck an Effect Veiler, against your opponent's leftover monster. Don't sigh in defeat yet!

Sacred Fire King Garunix is in your GY, and you still have lots of monsters left in your Main Deck. Additionally, you haven't used Salamangreat Almiraj this Duel. Let's see what we can do.

• Normal Summon Effect Veiler.
• Link Summon Salamangreat Almiraj using Veiler as material.
• Enter the Battle Phase, and attack one of your opponent's monsters with Almiraj.
• Almiraj is destroyed; Activate Sacred Fire King Garunix's effect to Special Summon itself.
• Activate Sacred's effect to destroy something from the Main Deck.

This works with any FIRE monster, not just Almiraj - we just wanted to show that you can use any handtrap to trigger Sacred and get things into rotation once again.

Of course, keep an eye on your Life Points, don't crash into something too big and accidentally lose the game that way.

What about Cursed Fire King Doom Burst?

Cursed Fire King Doom Burst Level 3 FIRE Fiend If this card is destroyed by battle or card effect and sent to the GY: You can target 1 face-up monster your opponent controls; it loses 400 ATK until the end of this turn. You can only use each of the following effects of "Cursed Fire King Doom Burst" once per turn. If you control a Fiend Tuner: You can Special Summon this card from your hand. If this card is Special Summoned: You can target 1 face-up monster your opponent controls; it loses 600 ATK until the end of this turn. ATK 1600 | DEF 800

So, this guy isn't really a Fire King, he's in fact a Resonator / Red Dragon Archfiend card! It was used by Jack Atlas in the manga, a few months before the Fire King archetype debuted in the OCG.

However, because of his name, he can be searched by any card that searches a "Fire King" card. You don't really have much reason to do so, though. (Unless you're playing a Resonator engine in your deck, in which case, you do you.)

The sins of Green Baboon, Defender of the Forest

Throughout the guide, whenever we talked about the Fire Kings' effects to Special Summon themselves from the hand, we blamed "the Green Baboon ruling" for the reason we can only Special Summon 1 monster, even if we have multiple monsters with the same effect in the hand.

What's up with that?

Green Baboon, Defender of the Forest Level 7 EARTH Beast When a face-up Beast monster you control is destroyed and sent to the GY, while this card is in your hand or GY (except during the Damage Step): You can pay 1000 LP; Special Summon this card. ATK 2600 | DEF 1800

This card is what's up. It was very powerful in the OCG in 2006, causing it to be Limited on its release in the TCG in 2007, and staying that way until 2009.

As a consequence, we now have the following ruling:

Only one Trigger Effect that Special Summons the activating monster itself, and that can be activated in the hand, can be activated in any given Chain. A "Trigger Effect that Special Summons the monster itself, and can be activated in the hand" also includes effects that can be activated in either the hand or the Graveyard.

Regardless of whether the effect is actually being activated in the hand or Graveyard, only one of this kind of Trigger Effect can be activated on any given Chain.

All our Fire King cards that can Special Summon themselves from the hand are affected by this ruling. Thus, we are not able to activate Legendary Fire King Ponix from the hand and Sacred Fire King Garunix from the hand or GY in the same Chain, for example.

Make sure to always keep this ruling in mind as you perform your combos.

Sample Decklist

Main Deck

Monsters

• 1x Fire King High Avatar Garunix
• 3x Sacred Fire King Garunix
• 3x Fire King High Avatar Kirin
• 2x Fire King Avatar Arvata
• 1x Fire King Avatar Barong
• 1x Fire King Avatar Rangbali
• 3x Fire King Courtier Ulcanix
• 3x Ash Blossom & Joyous Spring
• 3x Legendary Fire King Ponix
• 2x Droll & Lock Bird
• 3x Effect Veiler

Spells / Traps

• 1x One for One
• 1x Pot of Prosperity
• 1x Called by the Grave
• 1x Circle of the Fire Kings
• 1x Fire King Sky Burn
• 3x Fire King Sanctuary
• 3x Fire King Island
• 3x Infinite Impermanence

Extra Deck

Xyz Monsters

• 2x Garunix Eternity, Hyang of the Fire Kings
• 1x Dingirsu, the Orcust of the Evening Star
• 1x Kikinagashi Fucho

Link Monsters

• 1x Amphibious Swarmship Amblowhale
• 2x Promethean Princess, Bestower of Flames
• 1x Dharc the Dark Charmer, Gloomy
• 1x Hiita the Fire Charmer, Ablaze
• 1x Salamangreat Sunlight Wolf
• 1x S:P Little Knight
• 1x Duelittle Chimera
• 1x I:P Masquerena
• 1x Salamangreat Almiraj
• 1x Relinquished Anima