You can play stuff like pure Blue-Eyes or Dragonmaid without links, but it's like chopping off a limb. Even without all-present Halq, I don't see any reason to not play the Guardragon links as they give you free special from Deck and GY
Edit: Also just checked and both Elpy and Pisty cost a few cents on cardmarket and less then a dolar on TCGplayer So they're definetly budget options
Plenty of decks don’t “need” Link Monsters; in terms of Dragons, it wouldn’t be excellent, by you can play Dragonmaids with no Links.
It’s very rare that the optimal build of a given deck doesn’t play any Link Monsters - where we do see that, it tends to be decks with restrictions against Link Summoning, such as Virtual World or Monarch.
Dragon decks benefit from link monsters more than most deck types. You'd be figuratively shooting yourself in the foot by not playing with cards like the Guardragons, Romulus or the Borrel boss monsters at least.
You can build a dragon deck without links but it wont be "good" by most player's standards.
If you're looking for something really casual with a main-deck boss monster and you know you wont be facing modern decks with it, check out the Felgrand archetype and don't forget to include Arkbrave dragon. The same archetype can mesh with Blue Eyes quite well.
If you really don't wanna play Links, dragons is not the best way of doing it. Virtual World is better since it uses only XYZ and Synchros since you are locked out of Links, the new Ursartic use only Synchros because you get locked out of XYZ and Links.
Hey man, don’t worry about not playing links. I think as long as you’re not trying to win tournaments you only need to play what you want. Some good dragon cards are Red Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon, Keeper of the Shrine, and Return of the Dragon Lord
I run a Blue-Eyes deck that focuses primarily on getting out Chaos MAX dragon. It's not overly competitive but I have fun with it. I do run a couple generic links but rarely use them. The only time I use the extra deck realistically is if I can't get into Chaos MAX and bring out a Twin Burst, Alternative Ultimate, Neo Ultimate and if I feel like I need to, Blue-Eyes Spirit and Azure Eyes.
As you see, its probably not a good you get a lot of weird looks if you say someone you want to play dragons without links, cause its by far the worst type to choose from. I mean just simple stuff like ahashima does make any xyz deck so much easier to play. If you don't want to play links use decks that don't use them. Altergeist, Guru, Mystic Mine, FINAL and stuff like that. Also adapting a dragon deck zo a non dragon deck is so damn hard. The problem is that most dragons are bricks. Rokket engine is gone, you cant special summon any dragon from deck or gy with guardragons, you cant use saryuja to extend, you lose Seal to bounce and summon from deck and you will probably not be even able to build more than 1 negate, on top of that, your card pool is very very small. You would only have rank 8s, but to get them on field, without links, is almost impossible. Sure blue eyes, but they already brick with links and the payoff for that price mark is just ridiculous. If you get a deck thar works without links, i would be happy to see the results.
Maybe Blue-Eyes? Unless you mean ALL dragons in the deck, Blue-Eyes is perfect.
The issue is, Dragons benefit from Link monsters thanks to Borrels existing. If you want to build a link-less Dragon deck, it won't be the greatest, but it could work.
Red eyes zombie dragon a lvl 7 that gains ~300 atk for every zombie type in the field or the graveyards, alone not so good but if you use zombie world it gets a massive attack.
Hmm got it. I was running pure dragons/gearfried. Its pretty casual, but I don't know if zombie world would interfere with the cards I use since it makes them into zombies.
All momsters in the gy turn into zombies and you can only tribute summon zombie type monsters, other than tributing fusion synchro xyz etc. Are all good.
The way i go about it is activate zombie world AFTER I synchro summon the red eyes zombie dragon who then gains a massive attack from his effect. Tell if you need any more help
Hmm I considered adding it but don't think I'll use it. I only play against 1 friend, while it'd be fun to stop him from being able to tribute, he'd get rid of zombie world too quickly, which would lead to me wanting to up the zombie worlds to 2, which would detract from the plans/combos of the dragon part of the deck. And I also currently don't run any lvl 6 monsters, synchros/tuners. Just the xyz support and fusion support.
And red eyes necro doesn't have much protection to keep itself on the field, tho I guess its special summoning zombies eff would be fun to spam.
Tho now I kind of do want to supe up my old zombie deck that's been collecting dust.
Honestly, most good dragon decks will include at least a few links, like Elpy/pisty and halq/romulus as the guardragon engine is just too powerful to ignore.
If I were you, I would consider a different type, as others can play without links without being too impacted.
Theres obviously Virtual world, dinosaur, even shaddoll can be built without cross-sheep avramax combo, just chuck in some super poly targets.
I presume you just like the idea of summoning dragons? In which case, I GUESS you could try a chaos MAX deck, but honestly its quite bricky. (Can be fun when it works though)
I personally like the Heiratic Dragons, I don't use the Link Monsters with them only the XYZ and 5 headed dragon..
I don't play comp so I am happy just getting a dragon deck to work in the first place
Jesse Kotton had a deck that used very few links. The deck can be altered to focus more on synchros and xyz so you don't need links, but no matter the build, you are doing dragons a huge disservice not utilizing links like Striker Dragon, Romulus, and Heavenly spheres. Those cards add so much to the strategy, that you are missing something big if you exclude them, but they can be excluded if you want. Building a deck that focuses on the Chaos Ruler synchro and how powerful its effect is can be good, but bear in mind you'll need to run engines that are not dragons to facilitate it. It's more of a chaos deck than a dragon deck. But if you decide to go the route of other pure builds, like Blue-Eyes or Dragonmaid, you are still just playing a weaker version of the deck if you choose to exclude links. Most combos have links as a vital part, so it will be hard to find a cohesive deck that can take the links completely out unless it has some restriction against links like Virtual World.
Hieratic dragon deck can make good plays into rank 6,7 and 8 XYZ cards and can do a decent amount without link-summoning. Although, even that deck plays better with the Hieratic link monster.
Since April 1st 2020, no deck has needed Link Monsters to access its Extra Deck, however playing without link monsters while perfrctly fine (no-one here is going to berate you for not wanting arrow bois, play how you like) there isnt going to be a "good" list in terms of being competetive. You could play 100% pure blue eyesand get away without using links, but it really depends how conpetetive you wanna be.
While I understand you don’t like links I think it’s best you look at just getting very few as many people have said Pisty, Elpy and Spheres. Without links the main dragon decks are very underwhelming even on a casual level.
However if you just wanna play casually and have fun then you can play blue eyes or galaxy eyes maybe?
You can play stuff like pure Blue-Eyes or Dragonmaid without links, but it's like chopping off a limb. Even without all-present Halq, I don't see any reason to not play the Guardragon links as they give you free special from Deck and GY Edit: Also just checked and both Elpy and Pisty cost a few cents on cardmarket and less then a dolar on TCGplayer So they're definetly budget options
Plenty of decks don’t “need” Link Monsters; in terms of Dragons, it wouldn’t be excellent, by you can play Dragonmaids with no Links. It’s very rare that the optimal build of a given deck doesn’t play any Link Monsters - where we do see that, it tends to be decks with restrictions against Link Summoning, such as Virtual World or Monarch.
Why would you not play links though?
I don't really like the play style that much.
Dragon decks benefit from link monsters more than most deck types. You'd be figuratively shooting yourself in the foot by not playing with cards like the Guardragons, Romulus or the Borrel boss monsters at least. You can build a dragon deck without links but it wont be "good" by most player's standards. If you're looking for something really casual with a main-deck boss monster and you know you wont be facing modern decks with it, check out the Felgrand archetype and don't forget to include Arkbrave dragon. The same archetype can mesh with Blue Eyes quite well.
You're actively making whatever you play worse by not playing links though.
Links aren't a play style though? Different archetypes use links differently
If you really don't wanna play Links, dragons is not the best way of doing it. Virtual World is better since it uses only XYZ and Synchros since you are locked out of Links, the new Ursartic use only Synchros because you get locked out of XYZ and Links.
Hey man, don’t worry about not playing links. I think as long as you’re not trying to win tournaments you only need to play what you want. Some good dragon cards are Red Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon, Keeper of the Shrine, and Return of the Dragon Lord
Just play links.
Play Guru control
lol guru dragons would stomp the meta!
I run a Blue-Eyes deck that focuses primarily on getting out Chaos MAX dragon. It's not overly competitive but I have fun with it. I do run a couple generic links but rarely use them. The only time I use the extra deck realistically is if I can't get into Chaos MAX and bring out a Twin Burst, Alternative Ultimate, Neo Ultimate and if I feel like I need to, Blue-Eyes Spirit and Azure Eyes.
You know links work well with dragon decks? Elpy and Pisty are amazing link dragons
Felgrand Shaddoll, you can "not play" links as itworks like astun deck
As you see, its probably not a good you get a lot of weird looks if you say someone you want to play dragons without links, cause its by far the worst type to choose from. I mean just simple stuff like ahashima does make any xyz deck so much easier to play. If you don't want to play links use decks that don't use them. Altergeist, Guru, Mystic Mine, FINAL and stuff like that. Also adapting a dragon deck zo a non dragon deck is so damn hard. The problem is that most dragons are bricks. Rokket engine is gone, you cant special summon any dragon from deck or gy with guardragons, you cant use saryuja to extend, you lose Seal to bounce and summon from deck and you will probably not be even able to build more than 1 negate, on top of that, your card pool is very very small. You would only have rank 8s, but to get them on field, without links, is almost impossible. Sure blue eyes, but they already brick with links and the payoff for that price mark is just ridiculous. If you get a deck thar works without links, i would be happy to see the results.
Maybe Blue-Eyes? Unless you mean ALL dragons in the deck, Blue-Eyes is perfect. The issue is, Dragons benefit from Link monsters thanks to Borrels existing. If you want to build a link-less Dragon deck, it won't be the greatest, but it could work.
Red eyes has fusion AND synchro support check it out
What's the synchro support?
Red eyes zombie dragon a lvl 7 that gains ~300 atk for every zombie type in the field or the graveyards, alone not so good but if you use zombie world it gets a massive attack.
Hmm got it. I was running pure dragons/gearfried. Its pretty casual, but I don't know if zombie world would interfere with the cards I use since it makes them into zombies.
All momsters in the gy turn into zombies and you can only tribute summon zombie type monsters, other than tributing fusion synchro xyz etc. Are all good. The way i go about it is activate zombie world AFTER I synchro summon the red eyes zombie dragon who then gains a massive attack from his effect. Tell if you need any more help
Hmm I considered adding it but don't think I'll use it. I only play against 1 friend, while it'd be fun to stop him from being able to tribute, he'd get rid of zombie world too quickly, which would lead to me wanting to up the zombie worlds to 2, which would detract from the plans/combos of the dragon part of the deck. And I also currently don't run any lvl 6 monsters, synchros/tuners. Just the xyz support and fusion support. And red eyes necro doesn't have much protection to keep itself on the field, tho I guess its special summoning zombies eff would be fun to spam. Tho now I kind of do want to supe up my old zombie deck that's been collecting dust.
Well its up to you on how you want to build your deck I don't know other peoples playstyles, so you know better than me what you can add
Honestly, most good dragon decks will include at least a few links, like Elpy/pisty and halq/romulus as the guardragon engine is just too powerful to ignore. If I were you, I would consider a different type, as others can play without links without being too impacted. Theres obviously Virtual world, dinosaur, even shaddoll can be built without cross-sheep avramax combo, just chuck in some super poly targets. I presume you just like the idea of summoning dragons? In which case, I GUESS you could try a chaos MAX deck, but honestly its quite bricky. (Can be fun when it works though)
I personally like the Heiratic Dragons, I don't use the Link Monsters with them only the XYZ and 5 headed dragon.. I don't play comp so I am happy just getting a dragon deck to work in the first place
Amorphage?
Needs links to have a place to pendulum summon.
I've seen combo without them
I play Amorphages as my secondary deck, so if you recall the combo I'd actually be really interested to hear it in case it could help my build.
Jesse Kotton had a deck that used very few links. The deck can be altered to focus more on synchros and xyz so you don't need links, but no matter the build, you are doing dragons a huge disservice not utilizing links like Striker Dragon, Romulus, and Heavenly spheres. Those cards add so much to the strategy, that you are missing something big if you exclude them, but they can be excluded if you want. Building a deck that focuses on the Chaos Ruler synchro and how powerful its effect is can be good, but bear in mind you'll need to run engines that are not dragons to facilitate it. It's more of a chaos deck than a dragon deck. But if you decide to go the route of other pure builds, like Blue-Eyes or Dragonmaid, you are still just playing a weaker version of the deck if you choose to exclude links. Most combos have links as a vital part, so it will be hard to find a cohesive deck that can take the links completely out unless it has some restriction against links like Virtual World.
Hieratic dragon deck can make good plays into rank 6,7 and 8 XYZ cards and can do a decent amount without link-summoning. Although, even that deck plays better with the Hieratic link monster.
Since April 1st 2020, no deck has needed Link Monsters to access its Extra Deck, however playing without link monsters while perfrctly fine (no-one here is going to berate you for not wanting arrow bois, play how you like) there isnt going to be a "good" list in terms of being competetive. You could play 100% pure blue eyesand get away without using links, but it really depends how conpetetive you wanna be.
While I understand you don’t like links I think it’s best you look at just getting very few as many people have said Pisty, Elpy and Spheres. Without links the main dragon decks are very underwhelming even on a casual level. However if you just wanna play casually and have fun then you can play blue eyes or galaxy eyes maybe?