Maliss is one of the top decks in the Yu-Gi-Oh! metagame. It has appeared in the top cut of many regionals and YCS tournaments, and for good reason. The deck is very powerful, and thanks to the low number of needed cards, it can have a very versatile main deck that can respond to anything your opponent does.
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The Maliss archetype is based on the series Alice in Wonderland but with a cyber twist. It’s a unique take on an archetype. Maliss is a link-summoning archetype through and through, so if you love the link mechanic and shutting down anything your opponent does, Maliss is the perfect deck for you.
Sample Decklist
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Main Deck |
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|---|---|---|---|---|
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Maliss P Dormouse x3 |
Maliss P White Rabbit x3 |
Maliss P Cheesy Cat x2 |
Bystial Baldrake x3 |
Bystial Druiswurm x3 |
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Bystial Magnamhut x1 |
Bystial Saronir x1 |
Effect Veiler x3 |
Ash Blossom & Joyous Spring x3 |
Mulcharmy Fuwalos x3 |
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Maliss In Underground x3 |
Maliss C GWG-06 x1 |
Mallis C MTP-07 x1 |
Maliss C TB-11 x1 |
Terraforming x1 |
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Metaltronus x3 |
Allure of Darkness x1 |
God Sarcophagus x1 |
Dominus Impulse x3 |
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Extra Deck |
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|---|---|---|---|---|
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Maliss Q Hearts Crypter |
Maliss Q Red Ransom |
Maliss Q White Binder |
A Baoa A Qu, The Lightless Shadow |
Link Decoder |
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Firewall Dragon |
Splash Mage |
Accesscode Talker |
Dharc The Dark Charmer, Gloomy |
I:P Masquerena |
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S:P Little Knight |
Haggard Lizardose |
Knightmare Phoenix |
Knightmare Gryphon |
Ryzeal Detonator |
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Side Deck |
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|---|---|---|---|
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Artifact Lancea x3 |
Dimension Shifter x3 |
Droll & Lock Bird x3 |
Solemn Strike x3 |
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Called By The Grave x1 |
Harpie’s Feather Duster x1 |
Mulcharmy Meowls x1 |
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The Side Deck is just a sample one. If you expect a certain meta, you can adjust it as needed to accommodate it. This Side Deck was created with tournaments in mind, but not local events which may have different decks. It acts as a great base to start with though.
The Maliss engine is incredibly small, allowing you to play a ton of hand traps and other generic engines to make a formidable deck. This particular decklist uses a Bystial engine, which is the most popular engine to use with Maliss (but others such as Sky Strikers have been used in the past).
Related
Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG: 10 Banned Cards From The Duel Monsters Era
Here are the banned cards from the Duel Monsters era in Yu-Gi-Oh!
Key Cards
Maliss P Dormouse
Maliss P. Dormouse is your primary play starter. Banishing a Maliss monster is essentially the same as special summoning it, as all Maliss cards share an effect that lets them special summon themselves if banished.
Maliss P. Dormouse is the card you want to be spending your normal summon on if possible. A strength of Maliss is most of the cards can special summon themselves in some way, so even if your normal summon gets negated, you can still get monsters on the battlefield.
Maliss P. Dormouse’s effect is not an on-summon effect and can be activated any time you want during your main phase. This helps to play around with effects that can negate a summon, as you never used the effect and can try again with a different copy of Dormouse.
Maliss P White Rabbit
The second-best main deck monster, Maliss P White Rabbit is generally what you banish off of Dormouse’s effect. White Rabbit generally ends your first banishing chain by setting a Maliss Trap card from your deck directly.
You have three different options for Trap cards. They can either revive a Maliss monster, interrupt your opponent by banishing a card they control, or get another Maliss monster into your hand. All Maliss Trap cards have an activation requirement of banishing a Maliss monster, and since they can special summon themselves upon banishing, they give you natural combo extenders.
Maliss In Underground
Maliss in Underground is the Maliss archetype’s field spell. Its effect is simple, banishing a Maliss card from anywhere. This essentially gives you a free special summon of any Maliss monster upon activation.
Its passive effect is decent, although, it isn’t often you’ll be banishing your Maliss Trap cards as you generally want to banish your monsters instead. It is a great way to easily close out a game, as a 3000 ATK boost is nothing to scoff at.
The banish effect only triggers on activation. That means unless you have another copy available, you won’t be able to activate that effect again.
Maliss Q Hearts Crypter
The best of the Maliss link monsters, Maliss Q Hearts Crypter is what you often want to link climb into. It’s one of the few natural interruption cards in the archetype, and trivial to make. It does require exactly three monsters (and at least one Maliss monster) to create, no more, no less. So you can’t link into it with just one monster and a link-2 monster.
You want to make sure it’s always pointing to a monster, as that makes Maliss Q Hearts Crypter impossible to negate. Its special summon from banish effect is great, as it becomes a 5000 ATK monster, and combined with Maliss in Underground, becomes 8000 to bring an opponent’s life points to zero with just one attack.
Bystial Engine
The Bystial Engine is vital for extending your combo lines. After you link away your Maliss monsters, they get stuck in the graveyard. This is where the Bystials come in. All Bystials can special summon themselves by banishing a Light or Dark monster in either graveyard, and all Maliss monsters are Dark monsters.
This gets you a Bystial on the battlefield and a Maliss monster banished which can then special summon themselves. With how easy this makes it to flood the battlefield with monsters, you can link summon into anything you want. This allows you to play a big toolbox of Link monsters in your Extra Deck, as you’ll always be able to go into them for great monsters going first or second.
How To Play The Deck
A Maliss deck is all about getting monsters down and creating a ton of Link monsters. Thanks to how easily you can recycle your monsters after using them as link material, you can keep the pressure up and make multiple boss monsters in just one turn.
Maliss wants to go first, as you can set up a lot of interruptions to shut down anything your opponent might do, some of which cannot be responded to such as Maliss Q Hearts Crypter. Other Link monsters you want on the battlefield include Firewall Dragon and A Bao A Qu, The Lightless Shadow which can cut off your opponent from the combo, stopping their turn entirely.
Even if you’re going second, since Maliss doesn’t need to commit to a normal summon, you can play through a lot of disruption. If you’re going second, Accesscode Talker is the link monster you want to make as it can take care of a lot of your opponent’s cards.
Thanks to how small the monster package is, you can play a ton of hand traps for even more interruptions. You’ll have Ash Blossom & Joyous Springs to stop a ton of combo starters and extenders, along with Effect Veiler to cut off a powerful effect. If you’re going second, Mulcharmy Fuwalos can draw you a ton of cards, letting you get as many cards as possible into your hand to break your opponent’s board.
The general flow of Maliss is summoning Maliss P Dormouse, banishing White Rabbit and special summoning it, setting a Trap card, and then link those cards away. Afterward, you can use Bystials to banish your Maliss cards in your graveyard to special summon them again. You can keep linking up until you have a formidable battlefield of Link monsters to stop anything your opponent tries to do.
