u/NevGuy

I've never been a Branded guy, but after testing this deck in the TCG it has quickly become one of my favorites of all time. It will probably drop next month in MD, so I thought I'd do a quick write up about how New Branded plays, as it is very different from how it has been built in the past, in the hopes of guiding anybody interested in the deck (please play it it's so good).

The deck is now 40 cards, and as a result, cuts down on a lot of the engine that was standard beforehand in the 60 card versions. No Lubellion or Lost, no Saronir, no Red, no Deployment, and cutting down to 1 Opening. Many of these cuts can be explained by the following principle: Branded Fusion, and anything that locks you into fusions really, has become secondary. You always prioritize the Synchro plays enabled by White Albaz. Yes, this means that Aluber now mainly adds High Spirits. Brafu still a fine card, but it's mainly useful in the crack back or in grind games, as it really cuts down on the power of your boards. The new Synchro lines revolve around Black Dragon, an insane card that gives you access to either Quem or Cartesia from deck. The main gameplan revolves around setting up a resource loop around those 2 cards to do most of your fusion summoning during the opponent's turn. White Albaz is by far the most powerful card in the deck, mainly because it's very good at enabling said gameplan. You can actually only play 2 due to a quirk in naming, so keep that in mind. A card that I really like is something you'd never expect to see in Branded, but is actually really useful and powerful: Omega. It's the second 8 star synchro that you make, and its utility resides in recycling Golden Swordsoul and triggering it immediately to get access to your ever so important Spellcasters. Another powerful inclusion is Nadir; this card had seen play in old Branded, so you may already be familiar with its use cases, but it is a powerful 1 card combo that still gives you most of what you want. Going back to new cards, F&V is a powerful utility spell that becomes your de facto set off of Albion, as it is disruption and follow up. Obviously great going second as well. The new Kitt is very useful to dump off of Quem or Brafu, as it reborns most relevant monsters, although it's not usually part of your turn 1 combos. Finally, the Dogma Devourer is powerful for 3 main reasons: 1) it allows you to fuse away 2 opponent's monsters with OG Albaz 2) When sent to GY, it can search Mercourier to add to your endboard, and 3) it's a 3500 ATK towers if you have an Ecclesia in field or GY.

Overall, with the new cards, the deck becomes a powerful meta contender. It doesn't have a great Dracotail matchup, but once that deck is faded out, it will be a top 3 deck, as exemplified by the OCG. I've attached an example MD list. You could maybe add Anaconda, but I didn't bother. Thanks for reading.

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