The Phantom Thieves of Time (Time Thieves/Phantom Knights)

This new Time Thief deck of mine has many more of the strong points I mentioned in my last one, so I'll go ahead and link my previous one below.

https://ygoprodeck.com/jumpin-jack-time-thieves-pure/

For the uninitiated, I'll get up to speed on the key cards of both this version and the previous, so there may be some copy-pasting.

Time Thieves are an archetype debuting in Soul Fusion, boasting cool L4 monsters and an interesting Xyz to swing around. Sadly, at the time it was more of a splash engine that couldn't really function without outside support. With the arrival of Ignition Assault, however, a new slew of clock cleaners popped up and brought plenty more to mess up people's decks with card swiping and bouncebacks.

It's more of a slow-paced archetype, I feel, but that doesn't mean it's without its strong points. With the addition of cards from both Phantom Knights and Danger!, it's a force to be reckoned with. So without further ado, the deck of many turned heads awaits.

New Monsters

One of the best cards to have Turn 1 with this deck is Time Thief Regulator. When this cute robo-pooch is the only monster on your field, Tributing it lands you two free Time Thief monsters with different names from the deck. It's extra well-boding if you get Startup in the same hand, since you can Special Summon it and save your Normal Summon for another good Xyz material monster.

A prime target for the bow-wow's benefit comes in the form of Time Thief Winder. Normal or Special Summoning the handsome blighter grants a Candina-esque effect that searches any Time Thief card from the main deck, whether it's a monster or backrow. Its effect from the hand is just as good, as you can bring it out just by detaching a material from an Xyz monster you control. Overall, a great card to have at three and try and revive whenever possible.

Time Thief Bezel Ship makes headlines with its ability to revive itself from the grave by detaching a material from an Xyz monster you control, much like Winder. Do bear in mind that if you simply have it sent to the grave by itself through Links or other methods, however, it'll be banished and unable to use. So it's best to use it as future Xyz material afterwards, so you can continue to recycle it as you please. That's not to say its Quick Effect isn't also useful, since it Tributes itself to attach a card from your opponent's graveyard to a Time Thief Xyz you control. This effect is similar to another card we'll get to later, so do keep a lookout.

Last but not least as far as the main deck Thieves is Time Thief Chronocorder. First glance might have you tilt your head and wonder why this is worth play, but looking into it, you'll find that it can revive itself should your Time Thief Xyz leave the field by a card effect, including its own, and also Tribute itself to have your opponent take battle damage they would've inflicted to you the Battle Phase you sent it away. It's another card that's banished if revived from the GY this way, so Tribute it in dire situations like when a super powerful tool would whittle you down by a large margin, otherwise use it for future Xyz material much like Bezel Ship.

 

The Phantom Knights of Silent Boots acts as a free summon should you control another Phantom Knights monster. Upon banishing it from the grave, you can add a Phantom Knights backrow card from your deck to your hand, like Shade, Fog, or Rank-Up. It and another new monster acts as prime material for a very certain Xyz that comes in surprising handy, so keep on the lookout for it.

That very monster is The Phantom Knights of Ancient Cloak. Its power up effect is more of a bonus, but what really sells it is the ability to let Silent Boots summon itself for free and banishing it from the grave pretty much acts as a Candina, letting you search for any The Phantom Knights card in your deck, not just a backrow. Note the "The" part in it, as Fog Blade can't be searched this way unlike Silent Boots.

Armageddon Knight replaces Foolish Burial from the previous build, as the mere summon lets you send a DARK monster from your deck to the grave. This will allow you to get to the beneficial effects of Ancient Cloak or Time Thief Bezel Ship much easier, not to mention it's a Level 4 monster, making it an applicable Xyz material for  Time Thief Redoer, Perpetua, or any of your other go-to Xyz monsters.

The Danger! monsters of the deck act as a way to both gain quick, easy material for Xyz and Links, as well as to generate card advantage. This is in part by the fact that these cards can summon themselves and draw a card right afterward, and this effect isn't once-per-turn for any of the monsters listed.

The first of which would be Danger! Mothman!. Being one of the two L4's of these particular kinds of monsters, its discard effect allows you to draw one and then discard one, which can let you get off the GY effects of monsters like Bezel Ship and Silent Boots should they be in your hand. Don't get discouraged too much if it gets discarded when you try to summon it, however. Because if you have this next monster in your hand, you won't have to worry too much.

Danger! Chupacabra! is another L4 who discards to revive a Danger! from the grave, other than itself. This way you can bring back Mothman! for further Xyz summons or any of the others for Links as well.

Another great monster of this kind if your wallet can take it is Danger!? Jackalope?. Its discard effect allows you to Special Summon a Danger! right from the deck. It also makes for a fine R3 material considering if you have Phantom Knights both on the field and in the grave.

And that brings us to the one Limited monster of this variety, Danger! Nessie!. Its discard warrants a search for any Danger! monster from your deck. In the case of this monster and Jackalope?, you'll want to discard those as soon as possible, favorably with Mothman! or Chupacabra! if possible.

Spells/Traps

Starting things off is actually a card that actually requires non-specific cards to get its mileage out of. Since your Main Deck is pretty much all DARK monsters, Allure of Darkness is used to get a draw 2 in exchange for a DARK monster you might not necessarily need in your hand at a given point. Use this to, well, draw extra cards you may need or try and bait an Ash Blossom so your Time Thief Regulator isn't the one on the receiving end of it.

Time Thief Startup is a pretty cool card to have Turn 1, letting you Special Summon a Time Thief from your hand for free. Its second effect in the GY is miles better, as it banishes itself to attach one each of a Time Thief monster, spell, and trap from your grave to a Time Thief Xyz monster you control. After putting it to use Turn 1, if at all, you're likely best off using it as an attachment from the deck or discarding with a Danger!.

Time Thief Hack is a Continuous Spell protecting your Xyz monsters the turn they're summoned, but its secondary effect is worth more mention. This effect lets you target an Xyz monster you control to power it up by 300 ATK times its materials. And should at least one of those materials belong to your opponent, boom. Direct attack.

Time Thief Flyback attaches a Time Thief card from the deck to your Time Thief Xyz monster straightaway, most often another Flyback for the bounceback effect. Though it also banishes itself from the grave to employ the Bezel Ship-esque effect of attaching a card from your opponent's grave to your Xyz monster. Another card that's primarily for attaching from the deck, but not too shabby on the field or the grave either.

Time Thief Retrograde is the real cream of the crop, especially since it can be searched with Winder. Should you control a Time Thief Xyz, you can negate an opponent's Spell or Trap and attach it to that monster as material, setting up respective card detachment effects and swiping even more materials.

With The Phantom Knights' Rank-Up-Magic Launch off the banlist at last, Xyz decks among this caliber can truly shine now. Being a card you can activate at a moment's notice or during your opponent's turn, it shifts any material-less DARK Xyz you control into a much more powerful form. Sadly, Outer Entity Azathot is still banned, so not as powerful plays can really come through. Luckily, that doesn't mean this card is devastated. You can still do things like, say, morph your Break Sword into a Redoer or Perpetua or, even better, make a Dark Rebellion into a Dark Requiem, the added attachment effect of Launch making it able to get off its effect instantly with 3000 ATK to swing around.

Phantom Knights' Fog Blade joins Retrograde's side as a reliable negation/disruption to add to the deck's power. Not only that, but in the GY, it banishes itself to Special Summon a Phantom Knight from there. So effectively, you could say, bring out a used Break Sword to Rank Up into a Redoer or Perpetua or set up another use of Silent Boots. A surefire card to run three of.

The Phantom Knights of Shade Brigandine is a must to search using Silent Boots or Ancient Cloak, and a great card to start your first turn with. If you have no traps in your grave, you can activate it the turn you set it, bringing it to your field as a L4 DARK monster, so it's perfect to use for this deck's boss monster to get that bounceback effect off fine and dandy. And speaking of...

Extra Deck Monsters

The indisputable boss monster of the deck is none other than the Akira the 3rd of Yu-Gi-Oh!, Time Thief Redoer. This versatile young scamp attaches a card from the top of your opponent's deck every Standby Phase, and that fuels its crazy detaching effect. With a monster, it banishes itself until the End Phase to protect itself from harmful effects and destruction, so be sure to detach other kinds of cards from it to get their effects off, too. Detaching a spell lets you draw a card, simple enough. But by detaching a trap, you'll achieve a non-targeting bounceback of any face-up card on your opponent's field, including one of their seemingly indomitable monsters. And to add insult to injury, if it's a main deck card you returned during your opponent's turn, during your Standby Phase you get to attach the card you returned. I can't tell you how many times I narrowly escaped danger with this guy and paid back with my own crazy play.

Next comes Redoer's sweet, sassy counterpart, Time Thief Perpetua. This ever-helpful, defensive cutie bears two great effects: one to detach a material to revive a Time Thief from the grave -- including Redoer -- , and another to attach a Time Thief card from your deck to any Xyz monster you control, not just Redoer, to use as material. And it's a Quick Effect, too. So for free, you get to restock the materials of your powerful Xyz monsters you need to get into shape to power up your plays.

Abyss Dweller makes for another generic material R4 that can go in a long way. Bearing an effect you can activate at any time on any turn, you detach one to prevent your opponent from activating card effects in the grave. This way, you won't have to worry about the effects of cards like Doomking Balerdroch, Destiny HERO Malicious, or the Shaddoll main deck monsters giving you much trouble.

Tornado Dragon is an easy-to-summon walking MST, bearing a Quick Effect that detaches a material to pop any backrow on the field. Not much else to say, though it's joined by another windy companion.

Castel, the Skyblaster Musketeer might not be the most powerful Xyz monster in terms of attack, but its effect can come in clutch if used just right. Detaching one material at a time acts as a Paleozoic Canadia of sorts, only lacking the ability to activate on your opponent's turn, to set a monster they control face-down. Detach two at once, and it shuffles it into the deck instead.

Number 41: Bagooska the Terribly Tired Tapir is a sort of "if all else fails" monster when you desperately need to stall out some powerful monsters from your opponent for a while. In defense, it forces all your opponent's monsters into defense and prevents them from activating their trigger effects, so it's definitely worthwhile if you're in need of a turn or two to gather resources without worry that the turn they would have used to utterly end you will have already passed.

The Phantom Knights of Break Sword is surprisingly powerful in the right hands. More often than not, you'll be using its effect to pop itself and one of your opponent's cards at the same time. The former may sound dumb, but it actually revives two Phantom Knights (which are most likely the Silent Boots and Ancient Cloak it was likely used to summon) and amps up their levels by one, letting you then go into a new Rank 4 to continue your plays.

Dark Rebellion Xyz Dragon is mostly used as a beatstick for a quick smack, given its ability to halve and gain a monster's attack by detaching its two materials. That'd be run-of-the-mill and pretty arbitrary if we weren't also running the aforementioned Rank-Up quick play, which upgrades it into Dark Requiem Xyz Dragon, a far more powerful and useful form. So long as Rebellion is still attached to it, you can either snatch the whole of an opponent's monster's ATK for itself or negate the activation of another monster's effect to destroy it and revive an Xyz monster from the grave. I wouldn't fret about keeping good materials on it, though. So long as Time Thief Perpetua is on the field, its own quick effect can help keep attaching Time Thief cards for it to use if your deck is supplied with them.

Meanwhile on the side of Raidraptor - Blaze Falcon, it acts as another RUM Launch target for either a Redoer or Perpetua fresh out of material and you need something to keep its use going. You'll want to bring it out on your turn in ATK, as it can attack directly while it has material. And once it inflicts damage whilst doing so, it lets you pop an opponent's Special Summoned monster free. Otherwise, you can detach a material if this isn't possible to pretty much Raigeki all your opponent's Special Summoned monsters and burn for 500 each.

Your typical Link setup consists of cards like Knightmare Unicorn for deck returns and possible additional draws, Knightmare Phoenix for backrow popping, and I:P Masquerena for being able to summon these during your opponent's turn, surprise them with their respective effects, and protect them from card effects. You can also use Wee Witch's Apprentice to power up all your DARK monsters while also making sure LIGHT monsters are on the weaker side, as well as adding a DARK monster from your grave to your hand when it's destroyed. This especially works if you're having Redoer attack directly using Hack's effect, just a heads-up. Other than that, a little Underclock Taker can go a long way in terms of whittling down your opponent's offenses.

Side Deck

The side deck I've included goes into some options if certain cards aren't your thing and some would work better than others. Danger!? Tsuchinoko? goes on the field whether you summon it successfully or discard it, while Blackwing - Zephyros the Elite is a great card to easily bring out, especially with stuff like Armageddon Knight to support it.

Also along for the ride is Bujinki Ahashima, a Link that lets you summon two monsters of the same level from the hand and grave, then immediately Xyz summon with both. It also pops a backrow your opponent controls should an Xyz monster it points to detach a material for its effect. Might not be the best option, but you could say it has its place.

The Utopia Engine is available as well, consisting of your summoning order of Number 39: Utopia Double, Number 39: Utopia, and Number S39: Utopia the Lightning, as well as their respective power-up spell Double or Nothing!. It's a reliable beatstick package, if not an overkill one, that can easily scale some high power walls.

Notable Combos

1. Hand: Time Thief Regulator

• Summon Regulator with a Normal Summon or Startup, then tribute to summon any pair combination of Winder, Bezel Ship, or Chronocorder.


• Xyz Summon Redoer from the Extra Deck to start the card-snatching journey. If Winder is in hand, you can detach a material from Redoer to summon it for free; especially good if you only used Bezel Ship and Chronocorder, as you can then detach Bezel Ship to summon it back and set up future Xyz summons.


• At any point when Winder is summoned, search for Retrograde or another Time Thief card that is beneficial to discard for a Danger! monster summon, such as Flyback, Startup, Bezel Ship, or Chronocorder.


• After getting two more L4 monsters out, Xyz for Perpetua and activate her Quick Effect to attach Time Thief Flyback to Redoer for free, setting up his bounceback effect later.


• Set Retrograde and pass the turn.


• During opponent's turns, continue to attach Time Thief cards to Redoer using Perpetua, who can also re-summon other Time Thieves from GY and set up more searches and Xyz Summons, as well as attach cards from your opponent's deck with Redoer's Standby Phase effect.

2. Hand: The Phantom Knights of Ancient Cloak/Shade Brigandine and Silent Boots

• Normal Summon Ancient Cloak, allowing you to Special Summon Silent Boots. If Shade Brigandine is in hand, summon it first, then Silent Boots, and try to summon another L3, like Ancient Cloak or Danger!? Jackalope? after another Phantom Knight is in the GY.


• Xyz Summon The Phantom Knights of Break Sword, and activate its effect to destroy itself and any card your opponent controls.


• Upon destruction, activate Break Sword's secondary effect to summon Ancient Cloak and Silent Boots from GY. Make sure Ancient Cloak is in Attack Position.


• If possible, summon another L4 monster, like a Danger! or a Time Thief under the effect of Startup or if you used Bezel Ship's GY effect while Break Sword was on the field.


• Xyz Summon Redoer, then activate Ancient Cloak's effect to grant Redoer 800 extra ATK and swap itself to Defense.


• Xyz Summon for Dark Rebellion Xyz Dragon and use its effect to detach both its materials to sap an opposing monster's ATK.


• When both are in GY, banish Ancient Cloak to search for Rank-Up Magic Launch and banish Silent Boots to search for Fog Blade, setting both and passing the turn.


• During your opponent's Main Phase, activate Magic Launch on your Rebellion to make Dark Requiem Xyz Dragon, potentially negating a monster effect of your opponent, getting rid of said monster, and summoning an Xyz from your GY, such as Break Sword for a potential Link Summon.

3. Hand: Armageddon Knight

• Normal Summon Armageddon Knight, whose effect will proc and allow you to send either Silent Boots or Ancient Cloak to the GY.


• Banish said Silent Boots or Ancient Cloak from the grave to add Shade Brigandine to your hand.


• Set Shade Brigandine, then immediately activate it to Special Summon itself from the backrow as a L4 monster, if you've made sure no traps were in your grave.


• Use Armageddon Knight and Shade Brigandine for the overlay of Redoer. This will allow you to be able to use both Redoer's monster and trap detachment effect right off the bat.


• Optionally, you can bring out several more L4 monsters, either with Winder's hand effect, Bezel Ship's GY effect, Startup, or the Danger! cards Mothman! and Chupacabra!, for the Xyz Summon of other monsters like Perpetua, Tornado Dragon, Abyss Dweller and the like.

The rest of the cards and combos are rather self-explanatory, so feel free to experiment with the set as a whole and even report back some discoveries on plays you've made with it. Would love to hear your feedback and experiences!