Guide to: Iron Chains

Once per turn, you can select 1 "Iron Chain" monster you control to have it gain 300 ATK and DEF as long as this card is face-up on the field.

Iron Chain, one of the less-used archetype ever, because they had no real power, they could go in easy but really low mill, or into easy but really low damage. They are a group of only 4 monster+a synchro and a spell support, totally unuseful since it is for low mill (you'd need to have 5 iron chain monsters on the field, not attack to make your opponent mill 5 cards from his deck).
However, they started gaining some potentials as the time passes. Let's see the useful ones and then see the supports:

Iron Chain Coil, the one at the start of the post. He's nothing but a tuner. However, he is the second most useful card, you'll see why with the next one.

When this card destroys a monster by battle and sends it to the Graveyard, inflict 300 damage to your opponent. Once per turn, you can Special Summon 1 Level 4 or lower "Iron Chain" monster from your Graveyard, except "Iron Chain Repairman". This card cannot attack the turn you activate this effect.

Iron Chain Repairman. This+Coil in the grave make easy level 7 synchros. Black Rose Dragon is the favourite option but you can go into easy Landoise too, to stop opponent's Tour Guides, Rabbit, Inzektors, well, pretty much everything. Given that in this meta it is pretty much impossible to summon big monsters without using monster's effect, that should stop pretty much everyhing, just be aware of Dark Holes. With this deck you can even go into beast, so if you're lucky you can do both in one turn and be protected by everything.

These two were the useful Iron Chain cards. Were you expecting more? If yes, you were wrong. To build an Iron Chain deck you'd need 3 copies of both.
Basically you need to send Coil to the grave, summon repairman, use his effect and Summon coil. Then either synchro or combo with something else.

Well, let's the supports:

Reinforcement of the Army, searchs for Repairman and a lot of other cards.

Naturia Synchros (Naturia Beast, Naturia Barkion, Naturia Landoise and Naturia Leodrake), I'm going to use this in most of the cards description, so I wanted to let you read this first if you don't know 'em.

Black Rose Dragon, as said, this card is easily summonable being a Level 7 generic Synchro. Basically your Repairman become a field nuke, nothing else.

Mist Wurm, I said that level 9 are easy to summon too, and his effect permits OTKs, too.

Quillbolt Hedgehog, SS himself from the grave when a tuner is on the field. Not Bad. Level 2, EARTH, Machine, easily send-able to the grave, then SS him back to synchro with Coil into Beast or with Repairman and Coil into Leodrake (3000 attacker non-fiendish-able? Yes, thanks. Of course you need to use your judgment, and I don't mean the card, to know when to use it) or into Mist Wurm (bounce back some monsters and go, probably, into OTKs). If you have more than one of them you can even XYZ into daigusto phoenix or something like that.

M-X-Saber Invoker, Comboes Like Hell with Repairman. Summon this using Coil as a material, use his effect detaching coil to summon repairman from deck, use repairman and effect and combo as you want. He's pretty easy to be summoned

Genex Ally Birdman, it recycles repairman while XYZing with coil into some monsters like leviair to take back used Qullbolt Hedgehog or other birdman used to synchro and things like that OR go into invoker to combo more. Sadly he is dark, if it was earth that would be crazy.

Junk Forward AND Elder of the Six Samurai, I put them together because I wanted to compare them as they are used for the same purpose. Junk Forward is easily summonable and is searchable via Reinforcement of the Army (you're going to play RotA in this deck), on the other side Elder isn't summonable during first turn because it needs the opponent to have a monster on his field, that stops your first turn lock. However Elder is easily searchable (Shien Smoke Signal AND RotA) and can help you go into Shi En. I usually prefer Forward since being easily summonable can help to get faster Synchros and XYZ and playing Shien Smoke Signal only for Elder may seem pretty unnecessary. However you can run a control build more centered aroun Shi En and Naturia Synchros with Elder.

X-Saber Pashuul, another Warrior, tuner, LV 2, EARTH. Basically an Heaven on Earth, goes with repairman into Barkion to stop traps or goes with forward/elder into Naturia Beast/Naturia Beast OR Shi En.

X-Saber Wayne, we play a lot of Warrior monsters, so this card will help a lot, even in some comboes.

Doppelwarrior, there's a lot of SSing from the grave, isn't there? Well, this one works really good in here. Sadly he's dark, but being a costless SS permit abuses of Birdman resulting in a free SS of Birdman. Along with Coil and Repairman this one Summons Level 9 and you've got two tokens OR this+Coil into Naturia Beast, then bounce Repairman for Birdman to re-use him, Synch Birdman with the two level 1 tokens to go into Wayne, with his effect re-summon Repairman and use his effect to summon back Coil to go into a level 7 (at this time I'd like Landoise if I have a spell card in hand).

Reinforce Truth, well, you have probably two targets, Doppelwarrior and Pashuul. This card really helps Synchro Summoning, more than you think.

Junk Synchron, good card, if you play doppelwarrior and some other level 2 monster (and you do if you use Hedgehogs) this one is really good. Nothing else to say since you should know how to use this card, that's not hard.

Quickdraw Synchron AND Dandylion AND Tuning (this engine is to be played only if you're playing Junk Synchron), this permits the abuse of Synchro Summons. However I don't like this since it overshadows the original Engine.

T.G. Striker AND T.G. Warwolf, I believe this two should be played together, but that's not really needed, you can play only one of it, if you want. Those two helps Synchroing and Warwolf let you summon easy rank 3 XYZ. Warwolf is DARK Beast-Warrior, pretty bad, while Striker is EARTH Warrior, going to love this. Naturia Synchros FTW!!!

Cyber Dragon, well, takes down Geargias and Gadgets, if needed. Is a beatstick that can take down some monsters and is sometimes used in some Side Decks, so if we can, why not playing this in here? You can summon this and then summon coil to go into a level 8 while dumping Coil in the grave. But it is mainly needed for another reason, read next card

Reveal 1 Fusion Monster in your Extra Deck and send, from your Main Deck to the Graveyard, the Fusion Material Monsters that are listed on that Fusion Monster Card. During your 2nd Standby Phase after this card's activation, Special Summon 1 of that Fusion Monster from your Extra Deck and target it with this card. (This Special Summon is treated as a Fusion Summon.) When this card leaves the field, destroy that target. When that target is destroyed, destroy this card.

Future Fusion, I think I'll never get tired of this card. Use this and dump all of the Machines to combo (Coil and Hedgehog mainly, but there are others I'm going to talk about). Just activate and dump everything, it's easy.

Machina Gearframe AND Machina Fortress, little splashable engine, and since pretty much every machine monster you play isn't needed in your hand (except few), fortress is pretty good to dump 'em in the grave providing a big monster, too. This card doesn't fear neither being destroyed by the Inzektor Loop, nor being discarded by the Wind-Up loop. Pretty good, uh? Being Machine can be sent from the grave to thing the deck using Future Fusion, only that once you have used your Future to extremely thin your deck, you won't be able to summon this back except by discarding 3 Birdman, but that's not really possible, lol.

Scrap Recycler, dumper, nothing else. Dump Hedgehog, Coil or whatever else you need in the grave to combo. Easy. If you draw into Future Fusion, this card is no longer needed, so you can dump it with fusion too to thin your own deck and draw faster the cards you need (tink that 3 coils+3 hedgehog+3 Recycler+at least 1 Cyber Dragon, but you can send how many of them you want+3 Machina Fortress+3 Gearframe=16 card thin).

Tour Guide from the Underworld AND Sangan, hate to admit this, but this little engine is really useful in here, since she's going to summon Invoker really fastly. Nothing else to say.

Spell Striker, WOW, I love this card. Initially, when the Wind-Up loop wasn't well knowed, I used to play a fast build that used this card. Hell if that was funny, since you were going to loop and no one knew that the loop existed. Being Warrior EARTH level 3 you don't even have to think about it, Naturia Synchros, Naturia Synchros everywhere. Being searchable with RotA, you can even banish your own RotA after you've searched this to summon himself. This card effect is good too, it helped me winning some duels, LOL. Only thing it risks while being on the field during your opponent's turn is the Inzektor Loop. Didn't mentioned it, but that was pretty understandable that this cards helps in XYZing, too.

The Warrior Returning Alive, this card can retrieve most of your most useful cards, mainly Repairman, but you can use this to retrieve Spell Striker and then remove this card to summon him. Nothing else to say.

Raigeki Break, discards your unuseful cards in hand (or mainly the ones that you need in the grave) to destroy opponent's card. As said in the Mirror VS. D-prison post, no one still plays Stardust Dragon, and without priority you can even use this to negate opponent's monsters effect like Rescue Rabbit or Inzektor Dragonfly and others. This is a random cards removal, too.

XX-Saber Gottoms, level 9 3100 ATK. He's here to manage even bigger monster without losing any other card, like acid golem or red archfiend dragon or other overboosted cards. Sadly he's fiendishable, so don't summon him if it only to deal other 100 damages, except if those 100 damages will let you win. You can use his effect too, tributing himself or Invoker.


This deck has potential, since with a good hand you can even do some crazy comboes. One I like is:

NS Repairman, SS Coil from the grave

SS Doppelwarrior from the hand

SS Birdman Bouncing Repairman

Synchro Birdman and Doppel into Librarian

get two tokens that you'll use to synchro with Coil into Wayne

(Draw 1 for Librarian)

Use Wayne's effect to SS Repairman

Use Repairman's eff to SS Coil

Synchro Coil and Repairman into a level 7

(Draw 1 for Librarian)

OR

Synchro Coil and Wayne into a level 8 (Scrap Dragon usually)

(Draw 1 for Librarian)

IF you summoned Scrap Dragon

Use his effect to shoot Repairman to destroy an opponent's card

OR

If you summoned Stardust Dragon, make sure that you've summoned your repairman in DEF 

because he can't attack at all

There are some variants of this deck other than the Iron Chain classic build:

Quickdraw build, using Junk Synchron, Quickdraw, Dandy, Doppel and Tuning with a special Extra.

PROs: this build tends to synchro a lot generating a lot of advantages even during the first turn.

CONs: this build tends to overshadow the Iron Chain main Engine and it needs a lot of space in the extra deck. Since the original build has a tight extra deck, this one could be difficult to build.

Mill Variant: uses Iron Chain Snake with Inferno Reckless Summon to equip them to a Lava Golem and then attack him with Photon Thrasher to deal some damages and make your opponent mill 24 (+6 draws and probably another draw due to a passed turn before this happened it is 31 cards, only 9 remains). Wait a turn (opponent draws a card remaining with 8 cards in deck, if he hasn't used any draw/search cards). Then you can use Repairman to re-summon snake, equip him to an opponent monter, XYZ Repairman and Thrasher into Blade Armor/Excalibur to deal more damages OR into Utopia to stall more, attack the monster and mill (probably 3/4). Wait 'till the opponent decks-out.

PROs: this build is somehow funny and unaxpected. Lava Golem can kill a lot of powerful cards in this format, like Laggia, The Shining and other cards.

CONs: unstable, if you don't draw into anything good it is all BUT funny.

Control Build: this one uses Elder to go into Shi En and abuses of Naturia Synchros, other than using some other tipical control cards.
PROs: is the second funniest build among these, it probably the most competitive since it can stop opponent moves really easily and has a lot of possilities, is not limited to some card (the Classic one is the most similar to this, so if you want you can use one of your Classic build to build this off of that).
CONs: can't explode on first turn like the Quickdraw and the classic build do.

Overall:
This deck has a lot of potential, and there are a lot of cards that support this kind of deck that I didn't talk about and it is possible that other will come out. Among those build, the control one is surely the best one, and I think it is less funny of the classic build for other people, while this one is the one that I like the most since I like a lot control decks.

Sorry, don't think I'm seeing you all as noobs, I linked all the cards, even the more known, for Par Condicio (Equal Conditions, don't know if that is known external to Italy, so I wrote it however). And, with the link you can easily check some rulings, and linking some cards and not others would be...ugly to see, I'd say.

Well, that was all for today, tomorrow I'll post something else, even if I don't know what, Stay Tuned