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Burn decks have evolved a lot since the early days of Yu-Gi-Oh!
The old strategy used to be to stall your opponent for as long as possible with cards like Swords of Revealing Light, then slowly whittle their life points down with various burn spells.
It’s a solid strategy for sure.
But what if you want to be a bit more aggressive?
Trickstars are a burn deck that are crazy fun to play. They make use of the latest summoning mechanic introduced in Yu-Gi-Oh (Link summoning) to make some crazy overpowered boards, making monsters that’ll burn your opponent for damage (as well as having amazing attack stats!)
If you’re looking to give this deck a try, here’s some Trickstar cards worth checking out.
15. Trickstar Lilybell
Trickstar Lilybell is one of the few Trickstar cards that doesn’t burn your opponent for damage, but it does have a great way of building board presence.
When this card is added from your deck to your hand (except by drawing it) you can special summon it straight to the field.
Like most modern decks, Trickstars have a whole bunch of ways of getting cards from your deck to your hand – making Trickstar Lilybell an amazing card to run.
What’s more, while Trickstar Lilybell is on the field, it can attack your opponent directly.
While 800 damage isn’t a massive attack, combine that with the burn power that this deck has and it may well be enough to get you close to winning.
When it does inflict damage to your opponent, you can also add one Trickstar monster from your graveyard to your hand – setting you up perfectly for another play.
14. Trickstar Crimson Heart
Instead of burning your opponent, Trickstar Crimson Heart actually replenishes your life points.
It’s all well and good to burn your opponent many times over. But if your life points aren’t high enough, you’ll be out of the game before you know it.
Here’s how it works:
Each time a Trickstar monster is summoned to a zone this card points to, you gain 200 life points.
Trickstars are a deck that can link summon over and over, so you can gain some serious life points with this ability.
On top of that, you can discard a Trickstar card to let both players draw a card, with the added bonus that if your life points are 2000 or more points higher than your opponent, you can draw 2 cards instead.
This is a great way of getting rid of dead cards, drawing new ones, and recovering life points, all in one neat little effect.
13. Trickstar Magical Laurel
Here’s an equip spell that offers an amazing way to flood the field with monsters.
By targeting a Trickstar monster in your graveyard, you can special summon it to your side of the field, with this card equipped to it.
If that Trickstar monster inflicts damage to your opponent (either by battle or card effect), then you can then special summon any Trickstar monster from your hand!
This equip spell fills your field with more Trickstar monsters than you’d ever expect.
And you can either keep these cards on the field to make use of their burn effects, or use them all to Link summon some of the seriously powerful Link monsters this deck has in its arsenal.
12. Trickstar Rhodode
Sometimes even the best strategies get disrupted in Yu-Gi-Oh, and you’ll end up losing your best monster to some obscure card effect.
Trickstar Rhodode is perfect for this exact situation, allowing you to special summon any Trickstar Link monster from your graveyard at the low price of discarding a Trickstar card.
On top of that, each time a card(or cards) gets banished from your opponent’s graveyard, you can inflict 200 damage straight to their life points.
There are multiple cards that banish cards from the graveyard. But if you want to speed up this process, you can always use cards like D.D Crow or Kycoo the Ghost Destroyer to banish those cards yourself.
11. Trickstar Narkissus
Trickstar Narkissus is one of the best burn cards in this strategy, burning your opponent for 200 damage every single time they activate a monster effect in their hand or graveyard.
These days, Yu-Gi-Oh is all about loading your graveyard up with monsters, then using graveyard effects to bring them back.
So having Trickstar Narkissus on the field is a great way to punish your opponent for something they’re almost guaranteed to do.
What’s more, Trickstar Narkissus is ludicrously easy to bring out onto the field.
Whenever your opponent takes effect damage, you can special summon this card for free from your hand – pretty much every Trickstar card inflicts damage in some way or another, so this will be on the field in no time at all.
10. Trickstar Foxglove Witch
Going second in Yu-Gi-Oh! can be a real pain.
Your opponent has had an entire turn to set up a board, will most likely have some monsters already on the field, and a whole backrow of spells and traps to mess up your gameplan.
Well Trickstar Foxglove Witch actually makes going 2nd in a duel feel like a great strategy.
When this card is special summoned, you can inflict 200 damage to your opponent for each card they control.
So letting your opponent set up a huge board becomes a massive bonus – the more cards they have, the more damage they’ll be taking.
On top of that, when this card leaves the field, it doesn’t leave you empty handed…
When Trickstar Foxglove Witch is destroyed by battle or card effect, you can special summon any Link 2 or lower Trickstar monster from your extra deck, as well as again burning your opponent for 200 damage for every single card they control.
Nice!
9. Trickstar Bella Madonna
Trickstar Bella Madonna is the boss monster for Trickstars:
A Link 4 monster with a whopping 2800 attack!
And while this card points to no monsters, it gains some powerful effects.
Firstly it’s completely unaffected by other card’s activated effects. This is one of the most powerful forms of protection you can get in Yu-Gi-Oh.
A lot of “indestructible” cards have clauses such as “can’t be targeted by card effects”, leaving them vulnerable to board-wipes like Raigeki.
But Trickstar Bella Madonna is completely unaffected by all other effects, meaning this card is going to stay on the field for a long time!
Furthermore, you can also inflict 200 damage to your opponent for each Trickstar monster in your graveyard – once per turn.
Considering this is a Link 4 monster, you’ve probably got at least 4 Trickstars in your graveyard to summon this card. Meaning at the bare minimum your opponent will be taking 800 damage every single turn!
8. Trickstar Divaridis
This insanely powerful Link 2 punishes your opponent for the simplest thing possible – summoning.
That’s right, every single time your opponent normal or special summons a monster, they’ll be taking 200 damage from this card’s effect.
Modern Yu-Gi-Oh! is all about combo decks such as Rokkets and Salamangreats.
So if your opponent wants to get their best monsters out, they’ll have to take some hefty damage for them.
The fact that this card is only a Link 2 monster to boot (requiring only 2 monsters to Link summon) makes it so easy to summon, and a great choice for any extra deck.
7. Trickstar Festival
Although the era of Yu-Gi-Oh VRAINS is over, that doesn’t mean the era of Trickstars is over!
In fact this card is the latest Trickstar card to hit the scene – making its debut in Dawn of Majesty.
This spell card makes Link summoning a breeze, by special summoning two Trickstar tokens to your side of the field.
Tokens can be used as material for a Link summon, so this spell card can make Link summoning high link-rating monsters like Trickstar Bella Madonna becomes a million times easier.
In fact, Trickstar Festival alone is a 1-card Link 2 monster – allowing to get cards like Trickstar Dvivaridis onto your field for free.
This also protects your monsters from destruction while it’s in the graveyard:
Whenever a Trickstar extra deck monster would be destroyed by battle or card effect, you can simply banish Trickstar Festival from the graveyard, keeping your extra deck monsters safe from harm.
6. Trickstar Holly Angel
Trickstar Holly Angel is easily the best extra deck card that this archetype has.
Not only does this burn your opponent for immense amounts of damage, but it also acts as a great beat stick for the deck.
Here’s what it does:
Whenever a Trickstar monster is normal or special summoned to a zone this card points to, you can inflict 200 LP damage to your opponent.
Trickstars are a deck that can summon monsters over and over – meaning you can inflict some serious damage with this effect.
And on top of that, every single time your opponent takes damage due to a Trickstar monster’s effect, you can have this card gain that damage in attack until the end of this turn.
With all the burn cards this deck has in store, Trickstar Holly Angel can get to some ludicrously high attack stats. Which makes it a serious threat to be reckoned with – and it’s only a Link 2 monster!
It’s common for decks to start their turn by searching out the exact cards they need from their deck, before getting on with any combos.
Trickstar Reincarnation is the most brutal way you can punish your opponent for searching.
It banishes your opponent’s entire hand, then allows them to draw the same number of cards from their deck.
If you know your opponent has some powerful cards in their hand, then Trickstar Reincarnation is the perfect way to get rid of those threats.
This trap card also provides a way to revive your used-up Trickstars too:
By banishing this card from your graveyard, you can special summon any Trickstar monster you like from your graveyard.
4. Trickstar Candina
You’ll notice that this deck doesn’t normal summon monsters often.
But when you do summon, you want it to be Trickstar Candina.
When Candina is normal summoned, you can add any Trickstar card from your deck to your hand.
This allows you to search not only Trickstar monsters to link summon with, but you can also search out of this deck’s most powerful spells and traps, such as Trickstar Reincarnation and Trickstar Lightstage!
And it doesn’t stop there:
While Trickstar Candina is on the field, your opponent will take 200 damage every time they activate a spell or trap.
Spells and traps are more powerful than ever in Yu-Gi-Oh – so it’s practically guaranteed your opponent will run a few in their deck.
And you’ll be getting some serious damage off with Candina on your side of the field!
3. Trickstar Corobane
As if Trickstars weren’t a powerful enough deck on their own, they also come with their own in-archetype hand trap.
Whenever your Trickstar monster battles an opponent’s monster, you can discard Trickstar Corobane from your hand to the graveyard to have that monster gain attack equal to this card’s attack until the end of the turn.
This offers a sly way of baiting your opponent into taking damage.
Simply leave a weak-looking Trickstar monster out on the field, wait for your opponent to attack it, then discard Corobane to rapidly bump up your monster’s attack and defeat your opponent’s monster in battle. Easy!
On top of that, Corobane also provides a great way to Link summon – by special summoning itself from the hand while all monsters you control are Trickstar monsters, or you control no monsters!
2. Trickstar Lycoris
Trickstar Lycoris punishes your opponent for something that literally every duelist does in Yu-Gi-Oh:
Adding cards to your hand.
This can be through searching or drawing. They’ll be taking 200 damage either way!
And the best thing about this card is that you can drop it onto the field during your opponent’s turn.
Simply return one Trickstar monster you control from the field to your hand, then you can special summon Trickstar Lycoris from your hand for free.
The fact this card burns your opponent for something they have to do, just makes it the best burn card this deck has – and easily the best Trickstar monster ever released.
1. Trickstar Light Stage
Trickstar Light Stage may just be the best field spell ever printed.
As of this writing it’s been limited to 1 copy per deck in the TCG, and for good reason!
First off, when it’s activated you can search any Trickstar monster from your deck to add into your hand.
I’d personally recommend searching Trickstar Lilybell, who special summons herself from the hand when searched.
This field spell also has two incredibly potent abilities:
You can target a set card your opponent controls, preventing it from being activated until the end phase.
And then during the end phase, your opponent must activate it, or it’s immediately sent to the graveyard.
You’re basically forcing your opponent to activate their spells and traps, as well as completely shutting off battle traps like Mirror Force or Magic Cylinder that need to activate during the battle phase.
And regarding the second effect:
Every single time a Trickstar monster inflicts damage to your opponent by battle or card effect, Trickstar Light Stage inflicts a further 200 damage straight to their life points!
This effectively doubles the burn power that this deck can achieve, as well as burning your opponent every single time they take battle damage.
Harsh.
But this card is truly the centerpiece of the deck, and without a doubt a must-have.
Rob Myers is a physics student from England, who spends his time looking at space and turning it into numbers. In his free time he enjoys playing card games, reading the Discworld series, and working his way through his never ending video game library.
