Chapter 140. Dragon Rulers Make Their Debut! "Super Meta" Only After the Splash-Engine Awakening!
"The Rise and Fall of the Super-Meta Dragon Rulers!
From 'Dragons Rule the World' to the Whole Family on the Forbidden & Limited List—How Did They Survive It?"
The title appears across the Duel Worlds.
Veterans who already understand combo lines and the Dragon Ruler gameplan are immediately interested.
At last, there's a comprehensive video about this strategy.
Just from watching the World Championship duels, they can already confirm it.
This Deck—back then—being "super meta" was definitely not hype.
Inside the short video, the host "One Dragon Ruler, One Spellbook" begins in a breezy tone, holding a Dragon Ruler in one hand and a Spellbook card in the other.
One Dragon Ruler, One Spellbook: "Hello! Good evening, duelists!"
One Dragon Ruler, One Spellbook: "Today's video covers the era eleven years ago—Dragon Rulers and Spellbooks!"
One Dragon Ruler, One Spellbook: "Even if you joined the scene later, you should still be familiar with Dragon Rulers."
"In the seniors' words, Dragon Rulers were the super-meta of their time."
"Our seniors tell us about the Rulers' domination and how they took the biggest slices of the meta pie."
"That's like how we tell new players nowadays that Tearlaments were super-meta."
"So in theory, the status of Dragon Rulers is comparable to Tearlaments."
"They both can be called the opening shots of a whole new era of Dueling."
"But in raw power, Dragon Rulers are still nowhere near Tearlaments."
"Even so, I believe that in the coming years—or in a decade—another super-meta Deck will rise."
"That's the ecology of Yu-Gi-Oh!
And the next super-meta will again shatter our habits and assumptions."
"All right, enough digression."
"Today's theme: the Dragon Ruler family bucket!"
"We'll start with the cards and characteristics."
A simple intro already contains a mountain of information.
Yugi Muto, Jaden Yuki, Yusei Fudo, and the other main-character veterans across worlds tense up.
The Dragon Rulers' status… can it really be put side-by-side with Tearlaments?
They've all seen how strong Tearlaments are.
They weave chains during the opponent's turn.
In one Duel, they brute-force all kinds of chains to complete real-time interaction.
That's Tearlaments—warping the rules of Yu-Gi-Oh! to a degree.
And the Rulers' World Championship showcase, at the time, already broke the ideas of "minus cards" and "bricking."
But can their status really be compared to Tearlaments?
One Dragon Ruler, One Spellbook: "Let's start with Dragon Ruler characteristics."
One Dragon Ruler, One Spellbook: "The big Dragon Rulers are split by Attribute: WATER is 'Tidal, Dragon Ruler of Waterfalls,' EARTH is 'Redox, Dragon Ruler of Boulders,' FIRE is 'Blaster, Dragon Ruler of Infernos,' and WIND is 'Tempest, Dragon Ruler of Storms.'"
One Dragon Ruler, One Spellbook: "The small Rulers correspond one-to-one: 'Stream, Dragon Ruler of Droplets,' 'Reactan, Dragon Ruler of Pebbles,' 'Burner, Dragon Ruler of Sparks,' and 'Lightning, Dragon Ruler of Drafts.'"
"All big Rulers are Level 7, so they make Rank 7 Xyz."
"For the small Rulers: the WIND and FIRE ones are Level 3; the EARTH and WATER ones are Level 4."
"For big Rulers, we'll read one card; the others follow the same pattern."
"For example: 'Blaster, Dragon Ruler of Infernos.'"
[Card Name: Blaster, Dragon Ruler of Infernos (Level 7)]
[Attribute: FIRE]
[Type: Dragon]
[ATK/DEF: 2800/1800]
[Effect: You can only use 1 'Blaster, Dragon Ruler of Infernos' effect per turn, and only once that turn.]
[● Discard this card and 1 FIRE monster to the GY; target 1 card on the field; destroy it.]
[● Banish 2 Dragon or FIRE monsters from your hand and/or GY; Special Summon this card from your hand or GY.]
[● If this card is Special Summoned: During your opponent's End Phase, return this card to the hand.]
[● If this card is banished: Add 1 FIRE Dragon monster from your Deck to your hand.]
"Four effects total, and the key is you can only use one of them per turn."
"It can Special Summon itself from the hand or the GY."
"The 'return to hand' clause defers to the opponent's End Phase."
"When banished, it searches."
"Blaster's touches are all FIRE-Attribute-related."
"Likewise for the others—the structure is the same."
"What differs is the Attribute they care about and what the first effect actually does."
"FIRE Ruler destroys."
"WATER Ruler sends a monster from the Deck to the GY."
"WIND Ruler searches a Dragon from the Deck."
"EARTH Ruler revives a monster from the GY."
"Next, the babies. We'll take the FIRE baby as the example."
[Card Name: Burner, Dragon Ruler of Sparks (Level 3)]
[Attribute: FIRE]
[Type: Dragon]
[ATK/DEF: 1000/200]
[Effect: You can only use the effect of 'Burner, Dragon Ruler of Sparks' once per turn.]
[● Discard this card and 1 Dragon or FIRE monster; Special Summon 1 'Blaster, Dragon Ruler of Infernos' from your Deck. A monster Special Summoned by this effect cannot attack this turn.]
"The baby effects all share the same template—discard materials,"
"then Special Summon the corresponding big Ruler by Attribute."
"And that's the core of the Ruler main deck."
"Once you understand these traits, how they operate becomes very clear."
Indeed.
That really is the case.
Just from the effect text and traits, the big-and-small Ruler operation and lines click into place at once.
In the Duel Monsters world, even Joey Wheeler wears a pensive look after hearing this.
He's formed his own sense and thoughts about Rulers now.
Other duelists like Seto Kaiba, Yugi Muto, and Mai Valentine also organize their thoughts, and with the earlier duel footage, they thoroughly grasp the Rulers.
The more they learn, the more they find that the Ruler effects look complex but are actually absurdly simple.
In the GX world, students and faculty at Duel Academy show astonishment after grasping the traits.
"So that's it—big Rulers are comfortable in hand or GY, and the babies' job is just to pull out their matching big Rulers."
"Looked at this way, one weakness is obvious.
Once a big Ruler gets banished, you can't get it back within the theme."
"You can run 'Storm Dragon's Return.' If you can loop and make a perpetual engine, that would be funny."
"But here's another problem: the Rulers don't seem to have in-theme Spells/Traps to pair with.
Without Spells/Traps, you rely only on monster power; that's another weakness."
Syrus Truesdale, Bastien Misawa, Alexis Rhodes, and others immediately start analyzing.
They list the strengths.
Naturally, they list the weaknesses too.
In the video, the host swiftly moves on to the Rulers' drawbacks.
One Dragon Ruler, One Spellbook: "Now that we know the traits and lines, let's talk weaknesses."
"One: the big Rulers lock themselves. You can only use one of their effects per turn, so you must choose carefully."
"That's in sharp contrast to Tearlaments—two effects? Sorry, I'll use both."
"Two: once a big Ruler is banished, the theme can't recycle it in-archetype, so banish with caution."
"Three: field clearing exists in-theme, but only on the FIRE Ruler.
That loops back to point one—if you spend your one effect on destruction, you can't use the other modes."
"Knowing that, let's look at the release timeline and packs."
"Year 3102, February—Pack 804 officially released."
"Everything was out except the FIRE and WIND babies."
"That was a long time ago."
"But when that pack dropped, the Ruler theme was still largely obscure, or used more as a splash engine for other Decks."
"Why do I say that?"
"Think it over: don't these Attributes plug into lots of Decks?"
One question, and duelists across the worlds are stumped.
When the Rulers first arrived, they were just generic tech. But on second thought, many duelists go pale at the implications.
No joke.
Those Attributes—with almost no harsh self-locks, only Attribute and Dragon-Type requirements.
That means these Rulers could go into most Decks as a small engine for combo support.
In the Duel Monsters world, Seto Kaiba takes a deep breath.
Forget anything else—Tempest alone slots into Blue-Eyes shells.
Blue-Eyes is LIGHT, sure, but nothing stops him from running WIND Dragons around it.
In the GX world, Bastien Misawa blurts, "Whoa."
He can jam Rulers into his Deck.
Too perfect—so perfect he wouldn't need much math.
If his Deck back then had these Rulers, he can't even imagine how satisfying it would have been.
In the ZEXAL world, Reginald "Shark" Kastle's expression shifts.
He instantly thinks of Tidal pairing with Mermail/Atlanteans to create strong chemistry.
There are so many WATER monsters.
It's a perfect match for the WATER big and baby Rulers.
No wonder.
The theme was obscure at first because everyone thought of it as an engine.
One Dragon Ruler, One Spellbook: "I'm sure you've all thought of it."
"Exactly—when the Rulers first appeared in that environment, for many senior duelists, they were splash engines."
"Geargia players loved Redox to revive from the GY."
"Dragunity is the classic example—run Tempest, and in-theme searching off the Field Spell becomes smoother."
"You could say they got an essential buff from Rulers."
"'Lava' players no longer feared getting stuck."
"Because Blaster can be discarded from the hand to pop a card."
"Divine Wind of Mist Valley + Harpie Dancer players didn't hesitate to slam 3 Tempest for fun."
"In short, very few duelists built 'pure' Dragon Rulers at first."
"They were basically a splash engine."
"If your Deck touched these Attributes, you could play Rulers."
"And what was the environment?"
"3-Axis Fire Fist, Evilswarm (Rescue Rabbit), Dragunity, Spellbook, Six Samurai, Mermail, Hieratic, and so on."
"Even if someone brewed a pure Ruler list, it didn't post many standout results."
"Until March, when the PR03 pack added the WIND and FIRE babies."
"That's when Rulers finally completed the eight-card core and began their path of destruction."
"But was it really that simple?"
"At the time, people had lots of criticisms of pure Rulers."
"For example: they need to banish 2 monsters to Special Summon—a resource-hungry hurdle if your GY is empty."
"The Rank 7 pool 'didn't seem deep.' People played mostly 'Number 11: Big Eye' and 'Mecha Phantom Beast Dracossack.'"
"Going first, they supposedly had no real, floodgate-style pressure."
"And the Deck 'lost' to monster floodgates and Abyss Dweller-style GY locks."
"So many players weren't high on this 'hand-trap-ish' engine."
"But here's the kicker: in that era, with very few actual hand traps in circulation, interrupting Rulers was hard."
"More importantly, the other meta Decks of the time just couldn't keep up."
At that line, many veterans can only twitch at the corners of their mouths.
"If those Decks 'couldn't keep up,' what does that make our Decks?"
But they have to admit it.
Once the Rulers had their full in-theme pieces, their power level became entirely different.
Especially the big Rulers—hand and Graveyard blur into one giant resource pool.
And each big Ruler's discard effect serves a different battlefield purpose, which means the board state swings in different ways.
One Dragon Ruler, One Spellbook: "The real core was pairing them with out-of-theme Spells/Traps."
"One example is the Quick-Play Spell 'Super Rejuvenation.' Refill your hand with ease."
"Or 'Sacred Sword of Seven Stars'—banish a Level 7 big Ruler to draw two."
"And then the big Ruler can still search you a baby."
"When 'Number 11: Big Eye' has used up its effect, feed it to 'Sacred Sword' too."
"Rulers slap down Rank 7s like it's a joke."
"No matter how many disruptions you have, it's hard to truly stop a Ruler turn."
"So with all those advantages converging, it was heaven-sent timing, player habits, and card-pool alignment."
"Rulers rose; other Decks receded."
"But Spellbook didn't disappear."
"So as the environment settled, it ended up as Dragon Rulers vs. Spellbook."
"To fight Spellbook, Ruler lists also packed heavy hate."
"Such as 'Eradicator Epidemic Virus'—declare and rip them apart."
"And to fight Rulers, 'Crimson Blader' exploded in popularity."
"Back then, it was nicknamed 'Victory Blader.'"
"Traps like 'Soul Drain' could lock effects that activate in the GY or when banished."
"'Imperial Iron Wall' could lock banishing in general."
"These were all countermeasures against Rulers."
"Did they work? Not really."
"You have out-of-theme tech? Rulers have out-of-theme backrow removal to hit your Traps."
"Even beyond those techs, the Ruler system was almost perfect for that meta."
"Endless resources, easy explosiveness, and Rank 7s on demand."
"Rulers proved their power among the top duelists—again."
"So in the end, the meta pie was—Dragon Rulers vs. Spellbook, splitting the world in two."
"Dragons ruled the world."
Hearing how Rulers went from splash engine to quiet meta mainstay—and then to super-meta dominance—duelists across the worlds are left wide-eyed.
So that's what "super-meta" looked like back then: a dimensionality-reduced beatdown.
So many other strategies… If they had to pack piles of Ruler hate just to barely stay in the room, that indirectly proves how overwhelming Rulers were.
After all, Tear players have a saying:
"The harder you tech against Tear, the more you realize how strong Tearlaments really are."
"And when you realize that, you're one step from becoming a Tear player yourself."
And anti-Ruler tech was the same story.
But that raises a question.
What on earth was Spellbook?
Why could it go fifty-fifty with Rulers back then?
With so many decks getting farmed by Rulers, Spellbook wasn't culled.
Was that Deck also a super-meta deck of its era…?
Enjoyed the story? Support me and get access to early chapters by joining my Patreon!
Find me at: Patr*eon*.com/Resium
Free members can read 10+ Chapters Ahead of Release
Paid member can read 150+ Chapters Ahead of Release
Stories Available
Honkai? No, This Is Daily Life
Hogwarts Pet Master
Pokémon: Who Let Him Leave Pallet Town!
Scrolling Yu-Gi-Oh! Shorts