Endymion Guide (Master Duel)

Decklists

Mythical Endymion (Master Duel)

Main Deck: 3x Magister of Endymion (N), 3x Servant of Endymion (SR), 1x Mythical Beast Garuda (N), 3x Mythical Beast Jackal King (UR), 1x Astrograph Sorcerer (UR), 3x Endymion, the Mighty Master of Magic (UR), 2x Reflection of Endymion (SR), 3x Mythical Beast Master-Cerberus (UR), 3x Upstart Goblin (UR), 1x Terraforming (UR), 3x Into the Void (SR), 3x Pot of Desires (SR), 3x Spell Power Master (SR), 3x Chicken Game (UR), 3x Mythical Institution (N), 2x Called by the Grave (UR)

Extra Deck: 1x Odd-Eyes Vortex Dragon (R), 1x Starving Venom Fusion Dragon (SR), 1x Odd-Eyes Absolute Dragon (R), 1x Odd-Eyes Rebellion Dragon (R), 1x Odd-Eyes Rebellion Dragon Overlord (UR), 1x Gravity Controller (R), 1x Heavymetalfoes Electrumite (UR), 1x I:P Masquerena (UR), 1x Lyna, the Light Charmer, Lustrous (SR), 1x Dharc, the Dark Charmer, Gloomy (SR), 1x Beyond the Pendulum (UR), 2x Selene, Queen of the Master Magicians (UR), 1x Apollousa, Bow of the Goddess (UR), 1x Accesscode Talker (UR), 1x Underworld Godess of the Closed World (UR)

Viability

Unlike the TCG, Electrumite and Chicken Game are legal and Servant, Upstart, Into the Void, and Desires are all unlimited under the Master Duel Banlist. This means that OCG builds enjoy massive draw power alongside the consistency given by a pure Pendulum Monster build. Going first, Endymion reliably sets up impressive boards. Nevertheless, the Deck struggles to compete with modern Combo Decks that offer similar average power with less resource commitment and more space for Handtraps. Incapable of running Handtraps itself, Endymion has a hard time going second against oppressive Combo boards.

All in all, Endymion is a Rogue Deck in Master Duel. It's objectively weaker than most Meta Decks but can put up a good fight from time to time and easily achieve a high rank when piloted correctly. The big downside to Endymion is its high price in Master Duel: Almost no other Deck in Master Duel is as expensive. Endymion, Jackal King, Cerberus, Astrograph, Chicken Game, Upstart Goblin, and Selene are all UR, and all mandatory. These are 16 URs in the Main Deck alone! Clearly, this is not a Deck you build if you intend to efficiently compete, but rather a Deck you build because you enjoy the mechanic and are willing to sacrifice some Dust for it.

Playstyle

Endymion is a Combo Deck, so preferably it goes first. Going first, it attempts to build a highly disruptive Endboard on the first turn using Pendulum Summons and the unique mechanic of Spell Counters. The Main Deck Negators are Endymion, the Mighty Master of Magic (S/T card or effect, SOPT), Mythical Beast Jackal King (monster effect, SOPT), and Reflection of Endymion (bounce when SS by Selene).
The Extra Deck features Odd-Eyes Vortex Dragon (Omni), Selene, Queen of the Master Magicians (SS2 Special Summon from GY/hand), Apollousa, Bow of the Goddess (monster effects), and I:P Masquerena (SS2 Link Summon) as disruptions on the opponent's turn.
A typical Endboard consists of Selene in the EMZ, Endymion, Jackal King, Vortex on the field, and enough Spell Counters to use the effects of those cards.

Spell Counters are placed by certain Cards in the Deck and allow effects to be activated once a certain number of them is amassed. For instance, a scaled Servant gains a Counter for each Spell activated, and three Counters can be paid to activate its effect to Summon itself alongside a Spell Counter Monster from the Deck.

The Combos performed by the Deck are unfixed, instead, a lot of play lines including Draws are executed in parallelism to have access to the necessary cards at some point to build the Endboard. Depending on the outcomes of the draws performed, the steps change, so Combos are relatively unique, but they consist of a few recurring core plays:

• There is no standard Normal Summon. Oftentimes, a low-level monster is Normal Summoned to make Electrumite
• Electrumite uses its effect to "search" a monster into the FUED, then destroys a card on the field to add a monster from the FUED (usually the one searched) to the hand, and then draws a card. The card searched should always be Astrograph Sorcerer (unless you unfortunately banished it with Desires) because Astrograph will trigger afterwards, Summoning itself from the hand and giving back the card you just destroyed. The Astrograph on the field can then serve as Link Material for Selene (for Pendulum Summoning 3 monsters from the FUED), and it's a level 7 to make Absolute, too.
• A scale that collects Counters is placed early to gain Counters from activated Spells. Servant is the preferred low-scale and Magister the preferred high-scale, but playing Servant first is usually best as it is a great starter. So if the starting hand contains Servant or Mastery, then (searching then) scaling Servant is almost always the best first action.
• The Pendulum Summon should take place as late as possible after all draws and searches have been conducted. After the Pendulum Summon, the board is improved by Summoning certain Extra Deck Monsters and resolving the Scale effects.
• Cerberus serves as a searcher for the other Beasts, an extender when Summoned by Jackal King, and a potent Boardbreaker by "eating" opponent monsters going second. The up to one copy of "Baby" Jackal is often seen as an alternative searchable Normal Summon, and it can indeed be used as such to Summon Jackal King early going first or Summon Cerberus straight from the Deck going second. Garuda can be a searchable bounce when left in hand going first, or a searchable backrow pop going second.
• If Cerberus is in the starting hand, then it can be scaled, popped to search Jackal King, and Jackal King scaled and popped to Summon that Cerb from the FU-ED. So with one card, a Spellcaster that collects Counters fast was Summoned and the Endboard boss Jackal King searched into the FUED. In case Institution was activated beforehand, it would now have four counters, three of which can be used to search Servant, and continue from there. In general, Mythical Endymion boasts much more searches than Draw Endymion due to Institution and Cerberus, thus allowing more plannability while increasing the reliance on wise searching decisions.
• Summoning Jackal King early and leaving it on the field serves as a protection against many popular Handtraps for the rest of the Combo.
• The Searches and Draws made throughout the Turn serve the purposes of obtaining the cards necessary to build the Endboard and gain Counters on the way.
• Selene is usually made with Electrumite after the Pendulum Summon, sometimes even before it if that enables to Pend 3 from the FUED. Absolute is linked off into I:P or Apollousa under Selene, Summoning Vortex, before Selene revives the Endymion used for Absolute. On the opponent's turn, Selene either revives Reflection or resummons a used up negate that was bounced by Endymion.
• Chicken Game is used to draw and later replaced by Necrovalley/Citadel, or popped with Endymion to prevent the opponent from using the card.
• Endymion plays well enough into Maxx "C": If it's dropped, searches and draws are conducted and one big Pendulum Summon is made, so the opponent will go no more than +1 with Maxx "C"
• Gravity Controller is in the Extra Deck to link off a single Cerberus that clogs the EMZ, or to enable the low-investment Overlord OTK described below.
• Starving Venom Fusion Dragon allows to copy an effect, e.g. Electrumite's effect to loop Astrograph a second time in a turn, which can be of use.

Going second, the Deck attempts to gain six Spell Counters to resolve Endymion's Pendulum effect that Summons it from a Pendulum Zone and simultaneously destroys as many cards on the field as there are cards that can hold Spell Counters on the field, before building its board to prevent the opponent from recovering on Turn 3.

The Charmer Links (commonly Dharc or Lyna, depending on the format) come in very handy going second, allowing to make Selene with only two materials invested, which can be used to go straight into Accesscode Talker. Beyond the Pendulum can both search a monster and pop two cards, under ideal circumstances.

The Overlord OTK is a low-investment OTK attempt when other, more usual options like Accesscode Talker have run out, and can be achieved as follows:

1. Summon any two Level 7s and overlay them into a Absolute in the EMZ.
2. Link off Absolute into Gravity Controller, trigger Absolute to summon Odd-Eyes Rebellion Dragon.
3. Summon Odd-Eyes Rebellion Dragon Overlord using the XYZ as material. Attack three times to deal 9000 damage!

Deckbuilding

Many of the ratios given in this guide's sample list can be changed to preference and not all cards are strictly required for functionality. Here are a few guidelines to regard when creating new builds:

• You'll want to run not much more than 44 Main Deck cards for consistency.
• Keep a good ratio of Spells and monsters; aim for a minimum of 15 Spells to ensure enough Counters, optimally 20.
• Handtraps and sole protection cards are highly detrimental to the Deck's power, as there are almost no low-card combos.
• For the same reason, outside Engines are not recommended, even if they contain Spells (e.g. Invoked), again, because the Deck lives off having the entire hand dedicated to its plays.
• Cards that provide net resource disadvantage - say, Small World, for instance - don't have any legitimacy in Endymion, as they are too costly.
• Situational techs are a bad idea. A card drawn should be useful almost always, be it in the starting hand or mid-combo, independent of specific complementary Draws - if it isn't, that's bricking potential.
• Winmore cards are unnecessary. The Deck already has a great ceiling, an average Endboard often enough to secure a win - reliably getting there through Handtraps and/or unlucky draws is usually the difficulty, so the worst-case should be taken into account when building, not the best-case.

These guidelines can be summarized by the

You can consider to play 1x The Mighty Citadel of Endymion (SR) as an additional Field Spell.

Given Master Duel's unique Best-of-1 dueling, and Endymion's power going first, some players actually decide to run a few boardbreakers like Lava Golem in their Main Deck to render a lost coin toss less of an autolose against strong Combo Decks.

In Master Duel, neither Souls nor Spellbooks are needed because with Chicken Game, Upstart Goblin, and Electrumite, consistency and draw power are already great, thus allowing stronger focus on the actual in-archetype cards.