I've come to understand in this format, that a control deck, while hard pressed to run, is not impossible. That deck, is Legendary Six Samurai, for reasons explained:

• They have vast amounts of negation and destruction
• They can hit hard and fast
• They have a plethora of abilities that makes achieving your desired goals possible, despite limits imposed after Sept 1.
• They thin from the deck fairly well, and can place monster on to the board with very little to moderate difficulty

Allow me to explain. Most of the monster line-up of Six Samurai doesn't change. 15-18 Monsters should suffice, with 17 being Optimal. You have a little bit more beef in the monster end to make up the loss of two smoke signals and two gateway. For example.

3. Legendary Six Samurai-Kizan
3. Kagemusha of The Six Samurai
2. Elder of The Six Samurai
2. Grandmaster of The Six Samurai
2. Hand of The Six Samurai
2. Legendary Six Samurai- Kaigeki
1. Legendary Six Samurai- Enishi
1. The Six Samurai Zanji/Irou

This monster line-up is as standard as you can get. Zanji or Irou is for fielder's preference. The Original Six I leave up to you, but I believe Yaichi is the only really viable card you can use, but even then, I don't believe his effect is truly worth it.

Your spells, are what makes this deck make up for your losses. I'll show you a skeleton.

3. Asceticism of The Six Samurai
3. Six Samurai United
2. Shien's Dojo
1. Shien's Smoke Signal
1. Gateway of The Six
1. Reinforcement of The Army

Asceticism is the End all-Be all if your going to play Six Samurai. It will make it easier to pull of Shien if you don't have it in hand. Not to mention, but getting a teched Irou, Zanji, Enishi or Kizan is outstanding. Hell, if you got Kizan boosted, you can even get out Grandmaster and get the recursion afterwards. Dojo is next up. I feel three is overkill and uses up space you can use later for something important. As you put monsters out, you can definitely search for an additional samurai to push for the advantage.

Lastly, your traps.

3. Musakani Matagam
2. Grave of The Super Ancient Organism
1. Solemn Judgment
1. Double Edge Sword Technique

Grave of The Super Ancient Organism saves your life! Period! Thanks to Belgian Blue for this interesting piece of tech. Boss Synchro's and Monsters are frozen in their tracks, allowing you sometime to come up with an answer to the big threat stuck in a rut. Musakani is awesome. While its no Infernity Barrier, in respects to searching for it, is destructive powers is hard pressed to be beaten in this format. It laughs at Heavy, Dark Hole and just about anything that can destroy in this format. Solemn is Solemn and if you don't have a Solemn for this deck, you eventually will wish you had one. DEST is a powerful play that gets you a synchro or pushes you for the game, especially when you can pull off an asceticism.

Extra decks for Legendary Six Samurai takes on the role of a swiss army knife. Get what you need to fit the situation. Some tips to have here,

1. Colossal Fighter
1. Legendary Six Samurai- Shi En
1. Naturia Beast
1. Naturia Landoise
1. Stardust Dragon
1. T.G. Hyper Librarian

The Extra Deck is all about protection and this core focus carries it in a big way. Once you get Shi En out, you need to decide what is more important. If your dealing with Chaos Agents, you might want to lean more on Stardust, Landoise and Hyper Librarian to support Shi En. If your are dealing with Dark World and the like, Beast is the way to go. Its up to you to place what you want in there, but bear in mind your extra deck will not be spammed as hard as it once was, so pick monsters that you can summon and have some that can adapt to any scenario.

Above all, your biggest threat will come in game 2 and 3. However, this is where you add your input to this discussion, and we can see whether it works or not.

Nice article!

Couple of things:
No Spirit?
No Barkion?
Warnings?

My reasoning is as follows:
Naturia Barkion: While he's good, and respectable attack points, you get more from Brionac than you do from Barkion. Removing two every time to get rid of a trap will most likely turn into ridding spells and traps. For decks that cycle from the RFP zone, he's perfect. In Samurai, he's mediocre at best, and if you haven't the spells or traps to remove, well then you're giving up monsters. Monsters that could be used, however, for DEST or Enishi.

Spirit: If only he had some way out on Asceticism. Too bad he doesn't. He's perfect at Level 3, making an easy Leviair/Leviathan or into Shien or Beast. However, even with his stats, his effect just doesn't make the grade. Though you get an extra draw, you'd have to run multiples to see any real justice and Sams just don't have it like that.

Warnings: For Samurai, Warnings are a nightmare waiting to happen. I'd rather compulsory it or BTH it rather than pay 2000 LP to see it be used to set up another big play. In terms of Dark World, Grapha will laugh at Warning, but not at bottomless. Warning could be ran, but its' player's choice in the matter. I happen to think Samurai do better without it.

Sadly, a lot of Decks that originally relied on themselves more have ended up going the whole Extra Deck route a majority of the time, so it's nice that this Deck doesn't rely on it SO much and is really just a "just-in-case" bit more than the primary focus.

That's the beauty of Legendary Six Samurai. The deck, while it doesn't autopilot itself anymore, still has the amazing fact that it can do a lot of damage in this format. The biggest issue it would have to contend with:

• Plant Synchro
• Agents

The big issue with Agents vs. Samurai: Boss Monsters and Herald of Orange Light. TGU speeds up the summon of the monsters, but generally, a well placed CED or Bottomless on the XYZ makes for a decent deterrent. Herald of Orange Light is a Huge Shot against Shien and Beast; Kristya, Hyperion and Soldier can be held off for while with Grave of The Super Ancient Organism, it clearly can't hold forever.

Plants are a whole other entity that continually plus for everything they do and will most likely cause samurai the biggest issues. Graveyard disruption and whole bunch of other tech is going to be needed (and likely, a new ban list) to deal with the menacing weeds that we just can't seem to get rid of. The matchup here will literally be determined by Naturia Landoise to a point. Landoise and Hyper Librarian are really the only hopes you got early on to make it happen, and even then, expect your opponent to plus off you with Maxx C. Needless to say, you'll be siding in those debunks real easy for this deck.

T.G. Agent and Pure T.G. I don't really think is going to be an issue anymore, and definitely, the up and coming deck to watch for will be Hero.

Another sad bit...while they may make "counters" for big Decks, it's not like they'll actually make most of it THAT effective overall. At least not enough to TRULY halt such things... =\

ok, so far i've come up with two semi-viable builds for this format (for those who don't remember, Sams are my favourite deck, I ran them first after matt lai topped Canadian nats with the first reasoning build, and I turned it into a counter samurai build that I took to 5 consecutive tops at regionals, the finals of the national Summer cup, the Finals of the Pharaoh tour and 27th place at nats, stopped after reasoning was limited, started again after STOR was released and last format I got my top 8 regs, top 32 nats and europeans mats with this deck. I have a history with sams). This is after 11 different builds so far, and though the second deck comes close, neither is still perfect for taking to a YCS. The first build is a bit in the direction described here :

The benefits of this build are clear. Its lightning fast and very often it can drop Shi En + Beast on Turn 1 or 2. The downsides to the build are also clear, its very combo oriented, so as invincible as it is 7/10 times, it'll also draw completely dead and auto-lose about 2/10 times. This is the risk with cards like Elder, Squire, Dojo, that are fairly pointless on their own. The second build has to give up a little explosiveness but gives you back a lot of stability in return :

Though not that much different, we're giving up three of our 4 liabilities to tech more protection, which is crucial. The interaction is still the same, the front and backrows need to protect each other. Some comments on the OP and these builds :

1) Spirit isn't easy tech, but he is pretty good. All last format people tried to run spirit and I just didn't understand why. It was awful then, with D-prison everywhere. This format there is next to no backrow, meaning if your summon goes through, likely so does your attack, and 2300 on Kizan or zanji is nothing to sneeze at when you can plus off it. So its really a surprise so few people are using it to bolster their sam decks this format. as bad as it was last format, its that good now

2) Yaichi is pretty horrible. There is little backrow to go for, that which there is is mostly chainable. The best you can hope for is deterring them from setting a warning IF you can actually keep it out for longer than a turn, which isn't likely. But if you have sams on the field, how badly do you need that warning gone really ?

3) Of the original sams, the only good tech really is Zanji. For a few reasons. first consider what i said about Yaichi, then think of how much use you have for Kamon, Nisashi, Yariza or Irou, and you'll realize they are equally pointless. Meanwhile clearing massive threats is amazing in a format like this, especially in e deck that uses Fiendish chain in this way. Secondly, Kizan is usually a tag along to get a second sam, an easy beater or what not, but asceticism and zanji turn it into a rank 4 xyz. Next to karakuri, this may be one of the few decks that actually loves steelswarm roach. With the backrow and protection you have for him in the form of naturia beast, shi en, matagama, chain and warning, he's almost as good as a win against plants and agents.

4) Don't play Grave of the Super ancient organism. I played that card on side at the start of last format and learned the hard way why it completely and utterly kills you by locking you out of your high level synchros. It WILL save your life. And two turns later it will cost you the game. And it was the difference between 2nd and 8th place at regs last May. Meanwhile Leviathan and consorts get under grave, as does catastor. With the need and benefit of going into beast over shi en so often now, I would not advise taking that risk. Instead :

5) Fiendish chain, maximum copies. I would not run a sam deck without them. Consider the trifect of beast, Shi en and Musakani. What's missing from making this a safe field ? Effect negation and attack stoppage. Chain does both in one. It doesn't hinder you one bit, and it stops lower level monsters and xyz as well.

6) Max on musakani, its the reason I want sams to be the top tier again, they have this huge asset in a format that is all about spells and destruction. They get beast and musakani so easily. Its the greatest card this deck has right now.

7) Extra deck : Barkion vs Brionac is not an either or, you need both. Run 2 copies of beast. Other staples include Steelswarm roach and leviathan, possibly Decisive Armor. Landoise is hard to support. I wouldn't exclude him from testing, but i certainly wouldn't call him staple either.

8) Warnings : Sams have two weak points. Attacks and monster effects. This is why two warnings, a book of moon and a set of fiendish chains are an absolute must.

Matchups : Fiendish chain is awesome against plants, and when you side, you bring in rivalry to dispatch of them. Not that hard. You lose beast, but they lose basically every large level monster they have barring maybe a BLS. Maxx C kills you though ... Then again, ot also kills them, so you could sideboard some yourself, and see if you get one off before they do.

Belgian, I can agree with some of the choices, but I have to say that Sam can't afford playability on Solemn Warning. My reasoning is this:

• In terms of what it resolves, warning impacts a lot plays, but the biggest offenders it doesn't deal with are Grapha and Kristya.
• Bottomless Trap Hole can activate where Solemn Warning can't and permanently resolves the issues of Grapha, Kristya and Soldier
• Both are semi-restricted, but Bottomless (though a rarity) can still eliminate simultaneous summons.

Warning has more applications for the cost, but it can't stop the inherent summon, and this is where Bottomless is going to shine. I feel that Bottomless Trap Hole, like Warning, isn't chainable. So its a prime target for DWL, and S/T destruction. However, when BTH is sprung, big threats that Sams can't handle, like Kristya, Hyperion, Black Luster Soldier etc. sans Stardust Dragon can definitely get removed from the equation.

In relation to GotSAO (Grave of The Super Ancient Organism), I see it as a two part problem. If it buys you two turns, then its good because you have two turns to win. Its bad if you can't. I like fiendish chain, but I see it as patch fix that can't always fix an issue. It definitely can catch a player off guard, but don't see it the same way you do. It might just be the lack of major tourney experience. But that is how I see it. However, I do see your views on it and I'd say I'd try it out.

On Barkion, I think its more important that is for the muscle than the effect. The effect itself is great and real clutch. But with all the effects going on, especially with effect negation in Veiler(most top tier) & Herald of The Orange Light (agents), Barkion is going to get hammered in the worse possible way when you really dont need him taking it up the butt. I like Barkion. More of side option, especially if I see that I can bring him in to further cement board control.

On Spirit of the Six, changing the build around to use him works. But you're more likely going to use the searches you have left to get to him. Thing is, Shi En is still the priority and had his early appearance on the board can wreak some havoc, especially when supported by a Solemn or Musakani. If anyone knows this best Belgian, its indeed you. However, I also understand Beast plays make or break the game early. Against Agents, I can see the crucial play since they don't run but so many spells. So I think its mostly on situational awareness that the call should be made. Beast or Shi En first? Depends on a lot of variables and field conditions.

As far as the other Sams. We'll have to see what comes in Photon Shockwave and other packs. I think Irou still can bring things to the table. Depends. If not for the maindeck, than for the side deck.

* kristya says "when this face-up card on the field" when warning hits it its effect does not trigger, so not sure where you are going with that. It also hits grapha, but that's a rather stupid play, you want to hit the card the they are going to bounce for grapha so they don't plus off your warning.
* Warning permantely deals with BLS, since it was never properly summoned so it can't be revived. Barring monster reborn kristya is pretty much gone too.
* The only place where hitting two monsters comes into play is against rabbit, and that's why rabbit plays starlight road to and Forbidden lance so they can negate it when they summon respectively 2 or 1 monster.

Sams cannot only afford to use it, they NEED to use. BTH lets monster effects through, Warning does not. Warning negates monster effects that summon, works in the damage step etc. BTH does not.

Huh ? Warning can stop ANY summon, inherent or by effect ...

Yes, and BLS and Hyperion will thank you as they take another card of yours with it for an easy plus, and they still have a normal summon left.

The thing is, in buying you those turns, it eliminates your means for winning. Chain has only one disadvantage to Grave and that's that it only hits one monster. But sams end the game rather quickly after so that's all that's needed. It has a lot of advantages in the number of things it hits and not stopping you from doing what you need to do.

Well, you know one card bark shines against ? BTH. And if they have to veiler its a -1, if they have to herald, its a -2. I'll take that chance. These days people only often set one trap, and either its a solemn variant, or something barkion can stop. with a warning gone, I'll chance barkion A LOT. Either taking half their LP with you or sealing the game by stopping their trap.

I rarely search spirit, he's there or he isn't. But he is very good and offers distinct possibilities with DEST that no other card can. Beast first is a priority, except when i need to keep musakani alive, or they already have two or more backrow, then i'll chance Shi En first.

Well I'm talking this format. Just like spirit was horrible last format and quite good now, so can irou be a good card in formats to come. As it stands, people rarely set things, and when they do its dandy, sangan, darksoul etc.

So then, warning would say, (randomly I'm suggesting this and not to be a troll) it would activate on cards like valhalla?

Warning has a big push. No doubt about it. I tested my build with and without. With, I had more control on the monsters, but I also found them getting tagged with typhoons. Without, I might let an effect through, but I still managed to disrupt them on a big play. On my turns, evac device gets put to offensive use in tandem with enishi to do big damage. Imo, its fielders choice.

Now regarding the rest of the sams. Photon shockwave will probably be in this format. Irou, does open a few plays, especially for insane reason you want to drop bls. I like to main him over xanji because he easily jump from kaigeki and pair with enishi, can net you some good f/d coverage and f/u coverage. This, of course is for the local and maybe a regional.

I don't think we can main maxx c, so I'm feeling hyper librarian on top of spirit to get a fast draw but I haven't see or heard of it personally.

Well it is a bit trollish, since no good player would play valhalla this format ... I'm sure I can name a handful of other cards that no one would play that warning can't stop.

2 points of note here :

1) tagged with typhoons ? You mean that wouldn't happen to the BTH/CED you suggest in their place ?
2) How do you get tagged by typhoons with Shi En and/or Beast on the field ? Your primary concern right now ?

Except that on your turn you have nothing left to go off with since you weren't able to defend against their onslaught.

Same can be said of Zanji getting pulled of Kizan (and not just when you have another sam next to it like kageki) and he is a one-card answer to face-up and fd threats instead of needing two.

There's no room for Maxx C, and its not like we run sangan to search it. Maybe on side vs plants. As for seeing or hearing, you won't hear a lot about sams right now, since no one is playing them. So its up to us to use our common sense and skill. Last format, spirit = bad. Big backrows, lots of D-prison. This format, SPirit = good. Next to no backrow and D-prison is a rarity. Its a matter of logic.

That's true. However, zanji causes cards to flip. Although uncommon, players do use flips. I like zanji for the suicide or wallbreaking. Barring sangan or the like, Irou makes sure the trouble makers stay out of the way. Ex. Zanji and Irou both hit f/d reaper/ marshmellon. Both will get rid of it in the latter, you get hit with a small burn if Zanji does it. Zanji though is great when you need to take out a big monster. however, he's hard pressed when it comes to removing big threats. Enishi can remove f/u threats as a quick effect. But he's limited to that. Zanji can clear just about anything. Personally, I say players choice.

Now what I meant by tagged: if I get first turn beast or Shien, it doesn't happen (to the latter, it happens lest often) with the others I used it its place, it makes it easier to draw out MST and keep it away from my counter traps.

Now Belgian, we have to say with respect to me not having anything to go off with, is a general assumption that 100% of the time, they are going to have the answer. We both know to do that consistnentlu without stacking is mathematically impossible. CED does offer some versatility in terms of using it to clear out on offense and chain on defense. I like bottomless because it removes big threats. I like it because you can get rid of something leviair can't return. Again, it might be tourney inexperience, but that's how I see it

Remove only fd, only face-up or both ? If that's my choice, its not a hard one, I'll go for both. Besides, Enishi is an ignition effect. Unless you meant LSS Enishi, but he doesn't remove squat, he only bounces cards, doesn't get rid of them, you still need another card to get rid of them next turn. Flip effects are currently completely not played. Last format you went from three to two ryko's, currently he's not played at all. And besides, with ryko as the only threat against a deck with 3 musakani, I'll take my chance with Zanji still. Basically its a choice between limiting yourself or not ...

Others and protecting counter traps ? You don't use warnings and musakani isn't live with "others", so what are you protecting ? Just your solemn ? If you suspect that's a massive threat, why did you go into "others" ? Instead of Shi En or Beast ? "others" are reserved for situations where Beast or Shi En are already on the field or in a simplified game state where the risk is minimal.

Consistency is maximizing your odds of having a hand that perfectly supports your strategy. That does not require stacking. Again, with bottomless removing the threats leviair can't bring back, those are typically the cards with effects they can still use to wreck your field : brio, hyperion, chaos sorc, BLS, scrap dragon, trishula. Might I also add that with these cards, there wasn't a need to remove them as they can't be revived at all if not properly summoned first (ie, hit by a warning).With CED at least 3 of those cards can just hit the field again, often the same turn, and just use their effect again, or attack. With limited synchro's it just puts them where you can use them again. These cards aren't without merit. With Rabbit Jurrac, although heavily teched for it, BTH will become staple again, and CED isn't a bad sideboard card with cards like zenmaines in the mix. But they are cards that, if played, should be played in addition to, and not instead of solemn warning.

Ok. Point taken.

I did find an interesting piece in Six Strike Triple Impact. At first, I shied away from it, thinking it highway robbery. Its fairly easy to activate and still you get its effect if you have less than three face up during resolution. Its effects are pretty strong, giving you an otk situation if your opponent can't stop you.

Still kinda mixed about it...

Well I tried out some of your fixes. Spirit would be more flush if we had another Smoke Signal to go off of, but overall, it plays just as explosive, but it doesn't have too many out that it should have. Two MST is enough with a Storm to ensure you can hit hard.