Bystial-Synchro Tearlament: A Master Duel Deck Journey + Overview

Background of the Problem

With the loss of Chaos Ruler and Merrli to the banlist, Tearlament as a deck—although still undeniably strong—is nevertheless a shadow of its former self. The lack of relevant millers like Agido and Kelbek has also weakened the deck to a point where it's more difficult to reliably get the Fusion going. To alleviate this, many people either try to maximize the deck in order to provide as least dud mills as possible, or mix Tearlaments with other archetypes to create some kind of synergy with each other.

A hybrid I have personally found comfort playing is utilizing generic Synchro Monsters as a way to access the Tearlament side of my deck and using Bystial Monsters either as all-around big bodies or as extra Synchro Materials. 

Synchro Tearlament

By borrowing tools from the Mannadium archetype, the idea of the deck is rather simple; by Synchro Summoning into Visas Amritara, I am able to search Spell/Trap cards which mention "Visas Starfrost" in their card text. In Mannadium decks, this is generally used as a way to search Visas Starfrost through "Primeval Planet Perlereino". In this build, not only can I search Perlereino, I can also search other Tearlaments Spell/Trap cards as needed like "Tearlament Scream" or "Tearlament Metanoise", as they also mention Visas Starfrost in their card text. Amritara also has an effect to destroy a Monster I control while Synchro Monsters I control gain 800 ATK. The ATK gain almost never matters in an actual duel, but the destroy effect can be used to trigger a Tearlament Monster's Graveyard effect to continue Fusion Summoning.

Two particular monsters are needed to accomplish this combo: Mannadium Trisukta and a Level 2 Tuner.

Mannadium Trisukta is a Level 6 Synchro Tuner Monster with generic materials that on summon can Special Summon a Level 2 Tuner from the Graveyard with its effect negated. It and the summoned Tuner would then immediately be used as a material for Visas Amritara's Synchro Summon, thus enabling the above-written combo. To Synchro Summon Mannadium Trisukta, I needed exactly a Level 4 non-Tuner and a Level 2 Tuner. Tearlament isn't particularly lacking on Level 4 Monsters, with the presence of Reinoheart, Scheiren, and other Level 4 Monsters like "Fairy Tail - Snow" and "Supreme Sea Mare" available in the deck. However, the deck does not natively have nor run Tuners, which means I have to look for Tuners from outside the archetype.

The requirements for the ideal Tuner isn't much: It needs to be easily summonable, and it cannot take my Normal Summon for the turn. The idea is that when my Normal Summon (usually Reinoheart or Sea Mare) gets negated, I can instantly pivot into my Synchro strategy and continue my plays there. However, this turned out to be a much harder search than I thought it would be, as there isn't much Tuner Monsters that fulfill both requirements at once. 

Tuners which are engine starters like "Diviner of the Herald" and "Deep Sea Diva" were instantly crossed off the list, as they both needed to be Normal Summoned in order to function. Gimmicky Tuners like "Ringowurm, the Dragon Guarding the Hundred Apples" and "Crimson Resonator" were also crossed off, as I wouldn't be able to summon them when I needed to. In a similar fashion, I also cannot use archetypal Tuners like "Adamancipator Researcher" and Mannadium Tuners (Meek, Torrid, Fearless) as their summoning condition are too hard to fulfill in Tearlament.

Two Tuners which I had considered using for their relative ease of summoning are "Blackwing - Sharnga the Waning Moon" and "Vision Resonator".

Sharnga is able to Special Summon itself from the hand if there is a Monster with 2000 or more ATK on the field, while Vision is able to Special Summon itself from the hand if there is a Level 5 or higher Dark Monster on the field. Both of these condition can be easily fulfilled by Tearlament, as "Tearlament Kitkallos" alone is a Level 5 Dark Monster with 2300 ATK. Between either of them, I tried experimenting with Vision first, using it along with a small Resonator package to make "Red Rising Dragon" and "Scarred Dragon Archfiend" instead of Trisukta and Amritara. However, it didn't take too for me long to realize Vision wasn't as easily summonable as I had hoped, as often I didn't have a Level 5 Dark Monster available on the field. This also means I cannot use Sharnga as well, as to have a Monster with 2000 ATK early into Tearlament plays means I wouldn't need to Synchro Summon in the first place.

With those two out of the way, there was only one singular Tuner remaining on the list: "Assault Synchron".

It has an effect where during the Main Phase I can Special Summon this Monster as an effect by taking 700 damage as a cost. Additionally, while summoned that way, I cannot perform any other Extra Deck summon until it leaves the field, except Synchro Summon. Suffice to say, this card is everything I needed. Assault fulfills the requirement I was looking for to a T, and the restriction it has is negligible in practice. Being a "Synchron" Monster also gives an additional benefit of being searchable with the Spell card "Tuning", an excellent Ash Blossom bait and an extra mill for Tearlament.

Using Assault, I can Special Summon it after my Reinoheart is negated and Synchro Summon into Trisukta, enabling the Amritara package and continuing my play.

Bystial Synchro

Widely used as a countermeasure against Light and Dark decks, Bystials are often regarded as Tearlament's worst enemy after Kashtira and graveyard-hate. Of course, this hasn't prevented people from using Tearlament and Bystial together, utilizing a fringe synergy between the two to further boost Tearlament's capabilities. In this deck, Bystial Monsters, while still useful as a piece of opponent interruption, can be used further as a material for Synchro Summon.

"Bystial Dis Pater", the boss monster of the Bystial archetype, is a Level 10 Synchro Monster that requires Dragon Monsters as one of its materials. It has an effect where during my Main Phase, I can special summon 1 banished Light and Dark monster to my field. This is incredibly helpful to to the deck as it provides a way to recover banished Tearlament monsters which the deck otherwise has little to no ways to. In fact, it was this very effect that drove me into building a Synchro Tearlament in the first place, despite Chaos Ruler being banned.

Synchro Summoning Dis Pater in Tearlament proves to be a little tricky, as unlike decks like Dragon Link or dedicated Bystial strategies, Tearlament does not natively have Dragon monsters. Using Bystial monsters in the deck help fulfill one part of the condition, but I still need the necessary tuner to Synchro Summon a Level 10, as most commonly used Bystial monsters are Level 6 while Assault is a Level 2. Thankfully, I don't need to go on my way to search for a Level 4 Tuner, because there exists a Dragon Synchro Monster that helps facilitate Level 10 Synchro Summon.

"Accel Synchro Stardust Dragon" (often nicknamed as A.S.S. Dragon) is a generic Level 8 Synchro Monster that has a similar effect with Trisukta; which on summon can Special Summon a Level 2 or lower Tuner from the Graveyard with its effect still live. Accel Synchro also has an additional effect where by tributing itself, it can Special Summon a "Stardust Dragon" from the Extra Deck (treated as a Synchro Summon) and immediately after the effect resolves, Synchro Summon using monsters I control, giving it protection from the opponent's activated effects. By first Synchro Summoning Accel Synchro with a Bystial monster and Assault, I am now able to easily Synchro Summon into Dis Pater while at the same time also giving me access to other strong Level 10 Synchro Monsters like "Baronne de Fleur". 

Combo Lines

With a total of six Synchro Monsters lined up in the Extra Deck along with three of the Tearlament Fusion Monsters, the hybrid is now complete. The most common game plan goes as follows:
> Normal Summon "Tearlament Reinoheart" and send "Tearlament Havnis" with its effect to Fusion Summon into "Tearlament Kitkallos". From this point onward, continue the Tearlament combo as normally.

> If Reinoheart gets negated, Special Summon "Assault Synchron" and Synchro Summon into "Mannadium Trisukta". Trisukta with its effect reborns Assault, and then with these two further Synchro Summon into "Visas Amritara". Amritara with its effect adds "Primeval Planet Perlereino" to further search a Tearlament Monster or "Visas Starfrost", or adds "Tearlament Grief" to Special Summon a Tearlament Monster and send it to the Graveyard. If Perlereino is added, activate it and add "Tearlament Scheiren" to the hand if there is another Monster on the hand or add "Tearlament Kashtira" if there isn't any. Either way, Special Summon the added Monster to the field, and if it hasn't already been used as a material to Fusion Summon, use Amritara's second effect to manually trigger its Graveyard effect.
A variation of this line is using Trisukta and the reborn Assault to instead Link Summon into "S:P Little Knight", fulfilling S:P's condition to use its permanent banish effect.

> Alternatively, Special Summon "Bystial Magnamhut" by banishing a Light or Dark Monster from either Graveyard. Then, Special Summon Assault with its effect and immediately Synchro Summon into "Accel Synchro Stardust Dragon", which can reborn Assault on its summon. After this, Synchro Summon either into "Bystial Dis Pater" or "Baronne De Fleur" using the two Monsters, or if feeling out for an opponent's interaction, use Accel Synchro's effect to Special Summon "Stardust Dragon" and Synchro Summon with it instead, giving the summoned Monster a protection until the end of the turn. Dis Pater can Special Summon a banished Dark Tearlament Monsters such as Scheiren or Kitkallos, while Baronne similarly with Amritara can destroy a Tearlament Monster on the field to trigger its Graveyard effect.

Strengths and Weaknesses

Strengths

Being able to pivot from from one strategy to another is already an advantage of it's own. A strategy that gained quite a traction in paper play was using Labrynth cards as a "smokescreen" for Tenpai by siding them in on the second and third match. A Fire King and/or Rescue-ACE player's ability to pilot their deck are often judged by how well they utilize the Snake-Eyes portion of their deck before revealing their true color. Both the Synchro part and the Tearlament part of this deck can act as a cover to each other, taking away opponent's interactions like Ash Blossom and Infinite Impermanence while continuing the gameplan as usual. Perlereino due to not having "Tearlament" or a clause that treats it as a Tearlament cards means it is normally not accessible to Tearlaments outside of drawing it. People are already using "Trivikarma" as a way to search it, but having more ways to search is a very much welcome addition to the deck. Using a Bystial monster's effect to banish a Light or Dark attribute monsters on the opponent can sometimes decide the duel's outcome on its own, as there isn't too many decks that can viably recover banished monsters without jumping through some hoops. The access to powerful monsters like Baronne also gives the deck a significant edge over the opponent, as it is a powerful piece of interaction they have to deal with if they don't want to be interrupted. A diverse Extra Deck monster type can also be a countermeasure against floodgates like "Dimensional Barrier", as the opponent cannot choose both Synchro and Fusion to be locked away at the same time. 

Weaknesses

In terms of pure firepower, Synchro Tearlament cannot compete against top-tier meta decks like Snake-Eyes Fire King. While Tearlament excels in survivability, the amount of limited and banned cards the archetype made it so there is only so much the deck can do until it simply runs out of fuel to go further. On a related note, having only 3 cards in an at least 35-card deck that can Fusion Summon means the deck is extremely reliant on the mills being lucky. This fact does not go away no matter how much modification is done to the deck as a whole, and makes it a disadvantage against decks that can do its combo 100% of the time. Bystial monsters can only Special Summon themselves if there are a Light or Dark attribute monster in the Graveyard. If the opponent's monsters are anything but those two attributes, the Bystial's presence are effectively nothing but a brick. Tearlament's nature of being a Graveyard archetype also makes it especially weak against permanent banish effect from the likes of Dimension Shifter, as having no access to the Graveyard means the deck is unable to do anything until the effect goes away or the duel is inevitably lost. This is all while ignoring the existence of better, more popular Tearlament hybrids like Horus Tearlament or Branded Tearlament that have been tested by more people and thus have found its footing already.

Deck List and Side Techs

Being a homebrew as opposed to an established, community-made deck, I often found myself changing bits about the deck and fine-tuning what I feel is lacking from the list. Those changes can be as minor as adding or removing a specific card from the list, or as major as overhauling how the deck fundamentally works. Currently, this is what the deck I'm playing with looks like.

The addition of 1 "Visas Starfrost" and 1 "Visas Samsara" gives me extra Tuner monsters to work with while also giving me access to "Vicious Astraloud", while 2 Tuning is simply caused by me not having a third Tuning to add to the deck. "PSY-Framegear Gamma" was added in place of "Ash Blossom & Joyous Spring" for its effect to Special Summon itself and "PSY-Frame Driver" to negate an opponent's monster, and it being a Level 2 Tuner along with Driver being a Level 6 gives me another way to Synchro Summon into Accel Synchro. 

Afterthoughts and Conclusion

Synchro Tearlament offers a degree of versatility that under the right circumstances can easily go toe-to-toe with popular decks by out-grinding them or simply overpowering them with a wave of Synchro Monsters. With a good weather, the deck is able to produce an endboard consisting of Baronne, Dis Pater, Rulkallos, and Redoer/S:P Little Knight without counting other cards like Sulliek and the Bystials. Even if most of the weightlifting comes from the few yet powerful individual cards, the Tearlament cards gave them a powerful backing that the deck is able to safely survive without them as opposed to always having to rely on them for the endboard. While there are undeniably better Tearlament builds more suited for the current meta, this is a build I'm personally comfortable playing with.

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