Greedon Masques is a really fun deck archetype introduced in Clash of the Heroes (D-BT11) that has a tank-like playstyle that I personally enjoy. Its game plan stays consistent, and having access to 7 damage while having a large card hand makes you feel invincible.
There are other deck variants that stay on the original Greedon, allowing for three vanguard attacks using Desire Devil, Bubetsuu. I believe this version, however, is more consistent and relies on fewer variables.
Greedon Masques has already topped in Japanese regional tournaments:
If you’re looking for an easy-to-play deck that’s incredibly fun and can stand toe-to-toe with the meta, Greedon Masques is the perfect archetype for you.
The Winning Image of Greedon Masques
My deck focuses on attacking with as much guard restrict as possible, with every attack requiring two or more cards to guard. Desire Devil, Fuujo allows Greedon to ask for two cards whenever he attacks, while Desire Devil, Gouman gives our rear-guards guard restrict for the whole turn.
An extra damage allows more opportunities to hit defensive triggers, letting us tank through deadly turns while preserving our hand for more combos. Our winning image is to outsustain our opponent, so when they burn through their cards, we can clap back with our own powerful, guard-restricting attacks.
Greedon Rideline and Mulligans
We play the old Greedon rideline from Set 3: Advance of Intertwined Stars because it keeps three Desire Devils in the soul, incredibly important when using Greedon Masque’s skill.
Here are the following rideline interactions and mulligans you should keep in mind when riding up to your first Grade 3 turn.
- You may be tempted to play your favorite starter for this deck. Personally, my favorite Dark State’s starter is Chrono Dran, but I highly advise playing Desire Devil, Taida instead. This starter has “Desire Devil” in its card name, which is relevant to Greedon Masque’s skill.
- Our Grade 1 rideline is Desire Devil, Gouman, which when ridden by our Grade 2, lets us draw a card when we show the original Greedon in our rideline to our opponent. This card is also incredibly important as it gets called out by one of our Dragontree rear-guards later.
- Our Grade 2 rideline is Desire Devil, Boshokuu, which lets us put a card from hand to soul to search out a card with the same name as Boshokuu. Luckily we don’t have to run additional copies of this card, because we can search another card in our deck with the same card name as this unit.
- Our Grade 3 rideline ends with Avaricious Demonic Dragon, Greedon, a powerful grade 3 that we sadly don’t use. This deck is focused on Greedon Masques, so we need to ride this vanguard to ride into its Masque form. We want to ride to Masques as quickly as possible, needing early pieces to get there.
Getting to Greedon Masques
Your first objective before riding to grade 3 is to gather the pieces to ride Greedon Masques as quickly as possible. That means drawing into a Masque of Hydragrum or a Dragontree Wretch, Skull Chemdah to search the order, and a copy of Greedon Masques.
Every deck nowadays has a way to rush you when they ride grade 3. You need the extra damage to tank hits so you can counterattack with your own restanding vanguard. Greedon Masques has an automatic continuous effect that lets you increase your damage by one, meaning you die at seven damage instead of six.
Ways to Superior Call in Greedon Masques
The cost of restanding your vanguard is absorbing three rear-guards into your soul. Calling triggers to suck up may feel terrible, but there is a way to call rear-guards from your soul to avoid this fate.
You can use Dragontree Wretch, Demon Sherrider to soul blast 2 to call a grade 1 or less to RC. This will help you keep cards in your hand without calling them to RC, so you can use them to guard later.
Be careful when using this skill, because you need three “Desire Devil” cards to use Greedon Masque’s skill in the first place. If you don’t have 3 cards, you can’t use Greedon’s skill at all unless you soul charge a card using Desire Devil, Incane.
How to Play the Early-Game As Greedon Masques
Refrain from calling rear-guards in the early game, except maybe calling Chemdah to search a Masque order. There are numerous decks like Gravidia and Zorga that retire rear-guards, and you need them to suck into your soul for Greedon’s skill.
You can afford to guard early as well because Greedon Masques does not use counterblasts for its skills. Make sure you maintain your soul count, and you can afford to take a little bit more hits because you die at seven damage.
The Mid-Game As Greedon Masques
Restanding with your vanguard without losing drive checks is always powerful. You can threaten with critical pressure if you hit multiple crits in a row, and you can keep a card hand because you technically draw four cards a turn.
If you have enough counterblasts, you can use Incane’s skill to give your vanguard +5k and an extra drive, making your vanguard even more threatening. If your soul allows it, you can suck up Fuujos to retire rear-guards and threaten a vanguard swing with guard restrict, on your first grade 3 turn.
Make sure you use Greedon Masque’s skill to search for a Desire Devil, because the more cards you can put down to restand your vanguard, the more you’re threatening your opponent.
Seal The Late-Game With Guard Restrict
Hopefully as the game goes on, you’ve checked several triggers and your opponent’s on the brink of death from your guard-restricting vanguard. If you need insurance to close your game, you can do a combo where you call Gouman from your soul using Sherrider’s skill.
When you suck Gouman into your soul after Greedon’s first attack, you can activate guard restrict for the whole turn. You force your opponent to guard every attack onwards for two or more cards from hand.
Ways to Play Against Greedon Masques
Greedon Masques is powerful, but predictable. You can expect everything a Greedon Masques player will play, and they’re incredibly reliant on checking triggers to beat you down.
If they don’t check triggers, you know what’s in their hand and can guard their small rear-guard attacks. Even if they check triggers, you can preserve your perfect guards to protect yourself from that random variance. They check four cards every turn, so you know what’s in their hand and you know what to expect.
Use your deck’s abilities to retire their rear-guards, because they may want to suck them into soul for the next turn. You may have to no-guard a vanguard attack, but if you brace yourself, you can fight back in your next turn.
Full Greedon Masques Decklist
Here is the full decklist for Greedon Masques, a simple yet deceptively powerful deck that can power through turns no other deck can. When it gets to your turn, you can dish out your own punishment against the opponent. I hope you enjoy this deck as much as I have while playing it, and I hope you have fun checking double crits every day. See you in the next article!
