Monarchs have always been a force in yugioh.. my first competitive deck was a monarch deck and ive adjusted mine as time went on from the multiple brain control formats and everything else..

it seems monarchs have taken a step back and are no longer a tier 1 deck type.

the point of this post is to discuss monarchs and what we can do to push them back to atleast compete with things like tele-dad

i think a big part of this is speed.. and soul exchange is a little slow although powerful you cant attack.

anyone have ideas??

yea. though i will admit. the brain control-snatch era was a monarchs unquestioned rule. but i for one think that the monarch deck as of now is even better than it use to be. its just that in comparison to what other decks are like, DAD or JD, they arent fast enough or dont destroy as much anymore. lets face it. a simple -1 for your opp isnt nothing when cards like DAD can do a -3.

hmm.. well nothing was better than 3 raiza but i do think caius is very powerful and so is prime material dragon which was added to them.

what can we do to to make the gap between monarchs and DAD ect.. smaller?

i think that the closest we can get now is the TeleMonarchs. the speed of teleport and combined power of monarchs + synchros might help them out.

Monarch have to worry about speed and solemn overall. >_>

Sadly, even with Teleport and whatnot, Monarchs will be much slower than the reigning Decks. They only work when Tribute Summoned (which is also what helped make them more balanced) except for Kreis/"Kuraz", but he also can't attack the turn he's Normal or Special Summoned in exchange.

Things like DAD can be Special Summoned, blow stuff up easily, and still attack for virtually nothing. And with higher use of Solemn Judgment, Divine Wrath, etc, Monarchs are much more susceptable to being negated than before.

There really isn't anything that can really speed them up to the point of keeping up with such Decktypes. (And there shouldn't be. They were fine the way they were. Not too good, not too bad)

In reference to being able to Snatch Steal and Brain Control all over the place, a card called Mark of the Rose came out in Crossroads of Chaos and it has a "snatch steal" effect to it although with a slight twist. Maybe it's possible to abuse that card using just the right amount of plant monsters in your deck.

The side effect of Mark of the Rose gives the equipped monster back to your opponent but if you tribute it for a monarch then it quickly solves that problem.

But then again like some of you have already mentioned, I'm not exactly sure if that takes care of the "speed" factor for the current meta.

I dunno...not really any Plants one could just throw into a Monarch Deck without a bit of tweaking...closest being Sacrifice/"Samsara" Lotus probably (being a different Treeborn Frog).

^ Hmm... good point. Maybe Mystic Tomato would be an okay choice. Just ram all three copies into a stronger monster. And to a lesser extent maybe Lonefire blossom might work too although a bit slower since the effect is only once per turn.

Maybe...though, IMO, it's another case of 2 Decks that work differently enough to not really mix too well overall. At least not in a way that'd make it able to catch up to DAD and whatnot.

Besides, Monarchs had their spot in the limelight long enough...there should be another type to take it that hasn't really been seen...

Take alook at my monarch/gravekeeper deck. I think i found a quick summons with them without call of the haunted and premature burial. With a gravekeeper deck you can use brain control, enemy controller(which is not good with zaborg) and last but not least Rite Of Spirit. Take a look and let me know if you see an idea there

Well, utilizing Monarchs in an existing Decktype isn't TOO difficult...it's the other way around that's tricky; mixing other cards into a Monarch Deck. At least Plants are

Now if only we had that Monarch loving Plant..........Dandylion.

End turn PWWB discarding Dandylion is the best, but I digress.

Mystic Tomato would definitely be the best Plant to use outside Dandylion. Alot of Dark cards can be brought out with it. Which means you can get off Mark of the Rose.

A hybrid Plant/Monarch Deck could work, but I don't know. It would definitely give more control to the deck.

As to Speed, well with using Caius and Mystic Tomato as well as a few other Darks Allure speeds it up. The problem being you can only summon 1 Monarch per turn. Frankly I think people are overlooking Kuraz which can be special summoned, and then Synchroed. This would could add more Speed with the deck. However that would require something like Divine Sword/DDR combo for Kuraz.

I've personally never been a fan of Monarchs, but that has been me, but they are definitely still up there in playability.

That's what I mean...it's basically like any sort of upside you can find from mixing ends up taking away some other aspect of Monarchs that helps it or people just like about it x_x.

I liked Monarchs at first...before they became so huge...then they became annoying to see ALL the time...being told to put <insert Monarch> into <insert themed Deck that doesn't want/need it> and such...

interesting idea with mark of the rose taking your opponents monster possibly using its effect depending on what it is and then sacraficing it getting the + 1 from your monarch and still being able to attack.

thats certainly a one up on soul exchange.
dang even if you dont need it think about it grab an extra really strong monster and smash them with whatever you have on the field, move there blocker, ect.