Blast from the Past: Blackwings

In my last article I talked about the myriad changes brought about thanks to the September 1, 2013 TCG forbidden and limited list. Among those changes was the very unexpected (in my opinion, at least) unlimiting of Black Whirlwind, which, along with the three Kalut the deck was given previously, immediately made Blackwings a viable deck again.

This was proven when Blackwings placed in the top 4 at YCS Toronto out of more than 700 duelists who played at the event during the first week in the new format. This is easily the best a Blackwing deck has done at a major event since the 2009-2010 era when Konami decided to go after the deck by limiting Kalut and semi-limiting Icarus Attack, the deck's bread-and-butter trap card. 

Given this success, I'd like to take a long, critical look at the deck in a new article type I'm calling "Blast from the Past." These articles will periodically revisit decks that were once popular, fell out of playability, and later returned in a significant way. They'll analyze the given deck's viability in the new format/meta-game, what effects (if any) the deck may have on the shape of the game, and whether or not the deck ultimately has staying power in the face of other archetypes that are currently being played or that will soon be released. 

Click through for the full article!

Let's get started by reviewing the biggest boost to the deck: Black Whirlwind.

"When a "Blackwing" monster is Normal Summoned to your side of the field: You can add 1 "Blackwing" monster from your Deck to your hand with less ATK than that monster."

Black Whirlwind is a continuous spell card that essentially serves as rolling thunder for the Blackwing deck, giving it continual momentum by providing the player with a stream of monsters to maintain their hand count.  

The two biggest monsters to search out are: Blackwing - Kalut the Moon Shadow, and Blackwing - Blizzard the Far North. 

Kalut is a powerful hand trap that allows the Blackwing player to discard it in order to beef up their relatively low-attack monsters. The two strongest monsters in the deck are Shura the Blue Flame and Bora the Spear, with 1800 and 1700 attack, respectively. Discarding a Kalut boosts them by 1400 attack, making Shura 3200, and Bora 3100. That's enough to take out pretty much any other monster in the game! In short, Kalut is a really good card, and Black Whirlwind allows the player to get it in their hand that much faster. 

When Konami limited Black Whirlwind, it curbed the power of Blackwings, but didn't make them unplayable. When Kalut was also limited, however, the deck became too weak to do much of anything, and it's easy to see why: on a surface level, Kalut is an infinitely more important card for the deck than Black Whirlwind.

Evidently the deck is very much playable right now, and many players have been very excited about its prospects in the current meta-game, but why? 

Since Blackwing - Gale the Whirlwind was limited and Dark Strike Fighter was banned a few years ago, Blackwings became and have since remained an anti-meta deck with a beatdown-centric strategy. The deck seeks to slow down (or cripple altogether) other meta decks through the use of cards such as Skill Drain, Vanity's Emptiness and Macro Cosmos (in certain builds) while maintaining control of the board through the use of removal cards like the ever-feared Icarus Attack, all while running over the opponent's monsters with the help of Kalut the Moon Shadow. 

It's a pretty straight-forward deck that has a small backbone of cards, which leaves a lot of room for techable, meta-stopping cards and that's what has allowed it to remain relevant for so long. The basic skeleton of the deck has been ironed out and remained mostly unchanged for the last few years:

2 Sirocco

3 Shura

3 Bora

3 Kalut

2-3 Blizzard (Depending on preference)

1 Gale

1 Zephyros

1 Vayu or 1 Kochi (Also depending on preference and play style)

1 Dark Armed Dragon

3 Pot of Duality

3 Black Whirlwind

1 Allure of Darkness

3 Icarus Attack

That's about all that is staple in Blackwings. That leaves a player 10-12 cards of their choice to play. That's an incredible amount of flexibility, and the options are nearly endless because the Blackwing monsters themselves work around cards like Skill Drain, thanks to the attack-boosting power of Kalut. 

Vanity's Emptiness is one of the best meta-stopping cards in the game right now, and the sole fact that Blackwings can main deck it in multiple copies makes the deck viable. It's similar to when Royal Oppression was around and Blackwings main decked that, allowing them to stall other decks in their tracks while gaining and maintaining field and hand advantage through Black Whirlwind.

Well, what about our current meta? Mermails, Dragunity, Dragon Rulers, Prophecy, Dragon Ruler Plants... Almost all of them are weak to some sort of combo of Vanity's Emptiness and Skill Drain. Blackwings can also play Deck Devastation Virus and Eradicator Epidemic Virus, both of which can bring some of the meta decks to a screeching halt. In other words, Blackwings are pretty damn good right now. 

Yet, I don't expect them to stay that way.

I've been playing the deck for a while to test it out, and it definitely has its strengths against the current meta, which I've already described, but it has the same problem that it has always had: if and when the opponent manages to break through your field lock, you are probably going to lose. It takes a lot of skill to maintain a board lock, and Blackwings have a hard time getting that lock set up before the opponent has a chance to cycle through their deck and set themselves up. The lock is also pretty fragile.

The best lock the deck has is to make Number 66: Master Key Beetle (via Shura and Kochi, or Bora and Kochi) and use its effect to target Vanity's Emptiness so that the opponent can't special summon and the Blackwing player can continue playing their spells and traps to maintain the board lock without losing Vanity's Emptiness to its own effect. Make no mistake, its an excellent combo and somewhat hard to break, but it isn't unbreakable, and there are plenty of cards that could break it, not the least of which are Blaster, Dragon Ruler of Infernos and Tidal, Dragon Ruler of Waterfalls.

All the opponent has to do is summon either of these cards when you have no protection for Key Beetle (Mirror Force, Dimensional Prison, Forbidden Lance, etc.) and attack over it, and just like that the lock is gone. Given that, at the most, a Blackwing deck will contain anywhere from 5-8 protection cards beyond the 3 Icarus Attack (which is incompatible with Key Beetle anyway), this lock gets broken pretty often in this manner. 

Given that, I expect Blackwings to be relatively popular for a while until they mostly die out. However, I think the deck will always be one of those lingering decks that aren't popular enough to be top tier, yet are still enough of a threat to be concerned about when going into any kind of major event. Basically, you'll want to keep siding cards to take care of this deck should you have to play against it.

Regardless of what happens with the deck this format, I'm very glad to see it return to the pool of viable decks. It seems this format is going to be a truly varied one, and I think that's always healthy for any game. I hope you enjoyed the article! Don't be bashful about sharing your thoughts in the comments!