A guide on building Salamangreat for the ladder for free, featuring my Platinum 1 deck list.
 
 

Disclaimer

I do not endorse playing Salamangreat in ladder for free to play players. While it’s defnitely an interesting deck for whales to try as their 3rd of 4th option, Salamangreat is very expensive, being filled with SRs and URs both in the Main Deck and Extra Deck that are not included in its Secret Pack, and is less good than many other cheaper strategies. While this deck can get you to Platinum 1, it sure did it for me, if your goal is to climb the ladder as fast as possible without spending a cent, and your brain, unlike mine, isn’t stuck in 2019, play something else.
 
 
 

Introduction to Salamangreat

Salamangreat is a Cyberse type, FIRE attribute, midrange deck that’s used by Soulburner in the anime and is famous for winning 4 out of 5 continentals and worlds in 2019 in real life. It primarily uses the Extra Deck for Link Summoning, but it’s able to easily go into Rank 3 and Rank 4 plays.
 
 
The focus of the deck is the graveyard: almost every card in the deck has something to do with the graverad, by having effects in it, or sending cards in or out of the graveyard, sometimes both in the same card. This makes the deck able to get the entire graveyard back on the field and in the hand every single turn as long as you have access to any Salamangreat monster in your hand or field.
 
 
Lastly, the gimmick of the deck is summoning its boss monsters using another copy of themselves as materials to gain an extra effect. While competitive builds only use this gimick with its Link monsters, the archetype also has a Fusion, an Xyz, and a Ritual monster with that charateristic (but the latter two are terrible even in casual builds).
 
 
 

A closer look to the Salamangreat cards (the good, part 1)

Monsters

 
 

Level 3:

 
 
Salamangreat Gazelle: This card is currently limited for a reason. It’s a free Special Summon as soon as any Salamangread (except Gazelle) hits the grave, that also sends any Salamangreat card, not just monsters, any card from the deck to the graveyard, in a deck whose focus is the graveyard. Obviously, a searcher and an extender in the same card is pretty powerful, run as many as the banlist allows.
 
 
Salamangreat Spnny: it has two effects: discard itself, which allows you to trigger Gazelle on command, and at the same time sets up the second effect: if you control a Salamangreat except Spinny you can special summon Spinny from the grave, but it banishes itself when it leaves the field (remember that Xyz materials aren’t considered as being on the field, this comes up later). Together with Gazelle they’re a complete Rank 3 engine, but it’s bad to draw without any other Level 3 in hand and it’s searchable by 200 different cards. Play two or three.
 
 
Salamangreat Foxy: this is the last of the core Level 3 monsters. Each turn you choose between a Pot of Desires on its Normal Summon, or bring it back from the graveyard (and maybe popping a face-up backro) by discarding a Salamangreat card. At first glance it might look weaker than Spinny, if not for the Normal Summon effect, but actually most of the times it doesn’t matter if Spinny is discarded by its own effect or by Foxy, and your most important Level 4s love being in the graveyard and hate being in the hand, so the discard most of the times ends up not mattering, or even fixing your hand. Plus, the free pop means it’s an out to floodgates, as long as they don’t prevent Spinny from Special Summoning itself, and if the opponent’s strategy relies on a Field Spell or a Continuous Spell/Trap being on the field (like Sky Striker Multirole), Foxy is a constant threat to it. Run 2 or 3.
 
 

Level 4:

 
 
Salamangreat Jack Jaguar: Looking at this cards there are two things that you’ll notice at first glance. The first is that it’s the biggest Normal Summon in the deck, at 1800 ATK, plus it does a piercing, which does come up because of its stats. The second one is that, together with that (piece of garbage of) Zebroid X, it’s the only Normal Summonable Salamangreat monster to have only one activated effect, but, oh boy, that’s a good effect. You can shuffle any Salamangreat monster from the graveyard back into the Deck except another copy of itself, and if goes in the Deck it Special Summons itself from the graveyard, it’s pretty good. But here’s the thing: Jack Jaguar doesn’t care if the shuffled monster goes in the Main Deck or in the Extra Deck, it still will Special Summon itself. Yes, Jack Jaguar reborns itselfs by reloading your Extra Deck. What can you ask more? That it wasn’t a complete brick in hand, but at least that makes it something to discard with Foxy if something that atrocious happens. Run 1 or 2.
 
 
Salamangreat Falco: here’s the second brick. While it does nothing in the hand, it has two powerful graveyard effects: upon hitting the graveyard, you can set any Salamangread Spell/Trap fom your graveyard, and you can return to the hand a Salamangreat monster, and if it goes exactly to the hand (not the Extra Deck) it Special Summons itself. It’s a shame you can only use one effect per turn, but it’s plenty powerful this way. Run one copy.
 
 
Salamangreat Fawl: modern decks have become so consistent that they sometimes play a just ok card in case they have one extra search, this is the fase for Fowl. It’s primariy a searchable Kagetokage to enable Rank 4 plays, but it’s secondary effect to send a Salamangreat card from the hand or field to freeze a backrow does come up (and is not once per turn).
 
 

Spells

 
 
Circle of the Salamangreat: not much to say: it’s Reinforcements of the Army, but it’s a quick-play spell and has a secondary effect that comes up. Run as many as the banlist allows.
 
 
Salamangreat Sanctuary: as most modern strategies, Salamangreat has a Field Spell that enables it. The main effect is allowing you to once per turn Link Summon a Salamangreat Link Monster using only another copy of itself as material, so, once per turn, you can unlock the bonus effect of one of your Salamangreat Link monsters for free. It also has a bonus effect that allows you to heal, so you can use this card to get the healing rewards. This would be an auto-three of plus Terraforming if one of your Link monsters didn’t search it for free. Run just one copy.
 
 
Will fo the Salamangreat: a free Monster Reborn/Double Summon every turn. A card like this would be amazing even if it didn’t have a second effect, and it does have a great second effect: it upgrades from Reborn to Soul Charge, at the cost of setup and sending itself to the grave. The only problem of this card is that it needs Salamangread moneters to do anything, so running a full playset is asking to brick. Run one or two.
 
 
 

A closer look to the Salamangreat cards (the good, part 2)

Traps

 
 
Salamangreat Roar: an Infernity Barrier that sets itself from the gravetard. This hould be enough to explain how good it is. Run 1 or 2.
 
 
Salamangreat Rage: if you have Roar in your hand this is what you’re searching. Even tho it has two effects, you can only use this card once per turn and you have to choose between the two. The first one is a little more than a land-locked Raigeki Break, but requires no setup, the second is much better but requires you to control a Salamangreat Link Monster that was summoned using another copy of itself as material, but has no cost, and destroys (without targeting) cards your opponent controls up to the number of its arrows, which, depending on what you have on the field, means that it can go anywhere from a one for one to a de facto nuke.
 
 

Extra Deck

 
 
Salamangreat Balelynx: he is the reason why you play just one copy of Sanctuary. Any Level 4 or lower Cyberse monster gives you a bottom-pointing arrow to enable Jack Jaguar and also gives you the Field Spell for free. Plus its graveyard effect can get very annoying for the opponent, since it can blank a Raigeki and other destruction-based board breaking tools. Play 3.
 
 
Salamangreat Sunlight Wolf: in Salamangreat it’s not the Link 3s or 4s, but it’s an humble Link 2 to be the star of the show. With an attack of 1800, arrows pointing straight up and straight down, and a summonning condition of 2 FIRE effect monsters, Sunlight Wolf is the boss monster that will be on the field the most. But what does this unassuming Link 2 do to be granted such an important role? If a monster is Special Summoned to a zone it points to, you can add any FIRE monster back (but if it does indeed go to the hand, you can’t summon monsters with the same name for the rest of the turn), which means it can recycle Gazelle, but also generic cards, like Ash Blossom, plus, since it points up as well, you opponent might trigger it and give you a another free monster. Plus, a Sunlight Wolf summoned using another copy of itself lets you add a Salamangread Spell/Trap from the grave back to your hand for free every turn, which means that as long as you have one Roar or Rage in rotation the opponent will have to deal with it every single turn. Your primary going 1st combo involves Gazelle sending a trap from to the graveyard, getting it back with Sunlight Wolf and sitting on Wolf protected by that trap. Always play 3, I canno stress it enough.
 
 
Salamangreat Heatleo: Decode Talker arrows and stats, the summoning condition is 2+ FIRE Effect monsters. Heatleo is the original boss of the deck. You won’t summon it every game, but a well timed Heatleo against a backrow player can spell “death” on your opponent. If Heatleo is Link Summoned it can shuffle a card in the opponent’s Spell/Trap zone into the Deck. It doesn’t even get the card into the graveyard, but back into the deck, which can completely ruin the opponent’s setup. Plus, this effect is not once per turn, you can use it every time you Link Summon an Heatleo, which means that if you haven’t used the effect of Sanctuary yet you can just do it again for absolutely free. Plus the unlockable effect isn’t terrible: it makes the attack of a monster on the field equal to the one of a monster in your Graveyard, so it can both make your monsters bigger and your opponent’s smaller depending on the situation. You’d definitely run 3 if the Salamangreat Extra Deck wasn’t so tight and the 3rd Heatleo wasn’t expensive to summon, so, run 2 unless you really have no idea of what to shove in the 15th Extra Deck slot.
 
 
Salamangreat Miragestallio: you might wonder why the hell a Link deck got a Rank 3 engine, Miragestallio is the answer. This card has been banned in the TCG for a while, the reason being that it is the galloping extender without which the deck is really left on foot. Miragestallio takes completely generic materials and you can detach one to Special Summon any Salamangreat monster from the Deck in defense position, but for the rest of the turn you cannot activate the effects of non-FIRE monsters, so, be careful with it if you plan on using a non-FIRE monster in the same turn. Because of its material you can fill your build with Level 3 extenders to make your engine started, because all your main gain 1st cobos use Stallio anyway. Plus, it has the bonus effect of bouncing a monster if used a Link Material for a Salamangreat Link Monster, which helps you deal with defense position monster (which you can’t shrink with Heatleo). Play 1 or 2.
 
 
 

A closer look to the Salamangreat cards (the less good)

Monsters

 
 

Level 1:

 
 
Salamangreat Raccoon: this card is a battle handtrap that has seen a little bit of experimentation before Prohibit Snake was out. If you really want to play a battle handtrap in Salamangreat just play Prohibit Snake.
 
 

Level 2:

 
 
Salamangreat Meer: this card was a specific meta call (that never took off) for 2019 format because of the wide use of Ghost Ogre in it, and nobody yet realized the power of Flame Bufferlo. There’s absolutely no need to play this card.
 
 

Level 3:

 
 
Salamangreat Foxer: a searchable Mystical Space Typhoon that recycles your cards sounds good on paper, the problem is the setup required: three Salamangreat monsters including a Link monster in the gravyeard. You won’t easily have that setup on turn 2, which is when you want backrow removal the most. I would say that’s worth running if you don’t have access to any good backrow removal, but given that you get a full playset of MST in the starter deck, just play that instead.
 
 

Level 5:

 
 
Salamangreat Parro: to understand why a Level 5 with a specific summoning condition has seen any play you have to first understand one the time rules of the real world TCG. In real life tournaments you have a round timer, and when the timer expires, if there hasn’t been a winner yet, the duelists finish the current phase and the duelist who has more LP at the end of it wins the duel. So, you’d run one in the side deck to cheat it on the board and steal the occasional win with the help of the clock. Since Master Duel is on single duels instead of matches and uses a chess timer instead of a round timer, the only reason you might want to play this card is to turbo out the gems you get as a reward for healing yourself, but there’s the Field Spell for that.
 
 

Level 8:

 
 
Salamangreat Beat Bison: Beat Bison is just infuriating, because it’s so close to being great. A searchable DAD that chan non-targeting negate a board, including floodgates? Subscribe me to it. Except it only Special Summons itself in defense position, so the only way you’re able to take advantage of the 2800 ATK is if you Special Summon it with Will’s 1st effect or Tribute Summon it, neither of them is a particularly good idea, it won’t negate an entire board because Balelynx wants to be in the graveyard, Jack Jaguar is ideally keeping Wolf off the GY, and if you’re summoning Heatleo you’ve problably in aggro mode, so you’d really want Bison to be able to Special Summon itself in attack position. All of this makes the trouble of getting 3 “Salamangreat” monster in the graveyard through a negation board not very worth it.
 
 

Spells

 
 
Fury of Fire: A double Monster Reborn, so it might look like a card able to compete with Will, but it Special Summons only in Defense Position, which means it’s not able to revive Link Monsters, and the effects of the monsters are negated, both important restrictions Will doesn’t have, but those are nothing in comparison to the last restriction on this card: being able to only summon once per the rest of the turn in a Link deck means you can’t do basically anything with those monsters, especially given you’d have to summon your Link Monsters again to unlock the second effect. It has seen some experimentation to summon exactly Apollousa, but never took of. Play this card only if you really want to turbo Apollousa on the board.
 
 

Extra Deck

 
 
Salamangreat Violet Chimera(+Fusion of Fire): This was quite popular in early build, but got eventually phased out to maximizie consistency. The idea was to reduce the attack of an opponent’s monster with Heatleo, Fusion Summon Chimera and once punch the opponent with it, nowadays it’s obsolete because Accesscode is a card. You can play it if you don’t have access to Accesscode and Transcode yet, but even in that case there’s something better you might be doing.
 
 
Salamangreat Pyro Phoenix: A Link 4 with Firewall arrows, 2800 ATK and its materials are 2+ FIRE Effect Monsters. This card was clearly supposed to be the boss of the deck, after all, a one-sided Black Rose Dragon does sound scary, but it doesn’t do anything unless you summon it with a copy of itself, which is very expensive for a Link 4, so you have to reserve the Field Spell’s effect for it, and also two solts in the Extra Deck in a deck where Extra Deck space would be scarese if we were allowed 20 cards in it. All these factors made so that, even with an crazy good payoff, it never really has seen much play, but you can use it just to fill the Extra Deck.
 
 
Salamangreat Almiraj: it has been know for a long time as “the Salamangreat that’s good in everything except Salamangreat”, but it does transform non-Cyberse Normal Summons into Salamangreat Link monsters that point down, which does come up, especially if you’ve filled your deck with ghost lolis or you’re playing Parallel eXceed. Maybe play one.
 
 
 

Indirect support

Of course, almost no deck runs only cards of the archetype, of course part of them are staples, but some other cards just work particularly well with the deck even if they’re not generally good, or if they are generally good they become a lot better inside the deck. Here I’ll be talking about the non-staples.
 
 
Lady Debug/Flame Bufferlo: This is the most divisive topic among Salamangreat players, beating even how many copies of Pot of Desires you should run. This is because they fill the same role, they’re both Normal Summons that give you extra consistency, but they do it in so vastly different ways to have their own distinct strenghts and weaknesses, so much it’s very hard to two people agree on which one is better. Debug, on summon, searches any Level 3 or lower Cyberse monster, while Bufferlo, upon leaving the field, transforms any Cyberse monster in your hand into Pot of Greed. So, if your opponent uses PSY-Framegear Gamma or Ghost Ogre & Snow Rabbit on Debug it can end your turn, plus she can’t do much about a Jack Jaguar or a Falco in hand, but Debug is never dead in your hand and is guarateed to give the card you want (as long as it’s a Level 3 or lower Cyberse monster), while the opponent is going to have an harder time ending your turn by stopping Bufferlo and the cards it can give you aren’t limited to Level 3 or lower Cyberse monsters, plus it gives you something to do with a Jack Jaguar or Falco in hand, but the cards it gives you are random and can be dead in your hand. Playing between 3 and 5 of them collectively is what’s generally gonsidered good.
 
 
Leve 3 extenders: Because Stallio is a card, Level 3 extenders are good in Salamangreat, so even Kagemucha Knight can win you games, but of course, if there are a lot of Level 3 extenders some are inevitabily better than other. There are two great Cyberse ones: Backup Secretary and Sea Archiver. Secretary is very easy to summon, but Sea Archiver can be summoned from the Graveyard as well, so it’s basically Spinny all over again, but it can be triggered during the opponent’s turn, which you can use to trigger Sunlight Wolf. Non-Cyberse ones include the Level 3 Dangers, and Psychics (Psychic Wheeleder, Psychic Tracker, and Emergency Teleport, even just Ghost Ogre and Emergency Teleprot), but my personal favorite non-Cyberse one is Crusadia Reclusia: it’s very hard to summon, second only to Sea Archiver, but just like Sea Archiver, what loses in consistency makes it up in power. Reclusia is a FIRE attribute monster, which means it can be used not just to make Stallio, but also to directly Link into your Salamangreats, plus can be recycled by Sunlight Wolf, and it gives you the option to pop itself to get rid of an oppoent’s card, so it helps breaking boards. Depending on how focused on Stallio your build is, you can play anywhere from 0 to 5 Level 3 extenders.
 
 
Parallel eXceed: basically, if you Link Summon you can Special Summon it from the hand and another copy of itself from the Deck as Level 4 monsters, so two free bodies which you can use for a Rank 4 or to link climb, which is very powerful, but it’s a level 8 in the hand or deck, so you can’t search it and you can brick. Back when Stallio was banned this was an autoinclude 3, now that Stallio is back it’s competing for deck space with the Level 3 extenders, so, unless you manage to save a lot of space or don’t mind playing more than 40 cards (but you reallly should mind playing more than 40 cards). Play either 3 or 0, anything in between is just wrong.
 
 
Prohibit Snake: it’s probably the strongest battle handtraps in the game. If your Cyberse Link Monster is battling, you can discard it to bounce the opponent’s monster, so it takes care of the opponent’s monster even if it cannot be destroyed by battle, but it doesn’t end there, in fact it has a second effect, which allows you to add any Level 4 or lower Cyberse monster from the graveyard (including itself) back to the hand when your Cyberse monster destroys something by battle. Battle handtraps aren’t generally good unless they also do something else, but this one was good enough to see play in topping Salamangreat list, primarily because it’s a searchable out to El Shaddoll Winda. Maybe play one.
 
 
Cynet Mining: it’s ROTA for Cyberse, but has a discard cost (which might not matter or even fix your hand), there’s little to add.Play as many as you pull.
 
 
Update Jammer+Transcode Talker+Accesscode Talker: “the Accesscode package” for short, it’s your finisher, it’s how you’re going to close most games. You use Update Jammer to summon Transcode Talker, and use Transcode Talker to bring back Update Jamer, that’s already an OTK against an empty board, but you can link off Update Jammer and Transcode Talker into Accesscode Talker, and you get a 5300 non-targeting Dark Armed Dragon that attacks twice and that your opponent cannot respond to. Play one of each.
 
 
Splash Mage: it’s really just an extention of the Accesscode package to get an extra pop. I’ve never been in a situation when it would have made the difference between winning and losing, but you can play one.
 
 
Linguriboh: With the G, not the K. It transforms any Cyberse into a trap negate to protect your plays in certain matchups, and it’s a DARK Link to banish off Accesscode. You can play one.
 
 
 

Example deck

 
 
Here’s an example: the deck I’ve got to Platinum 1 with both in Season 1 and 2. As you can see there’s no Maxx “C”, but that’s because by the point I realized it was legal in this format I had already ran out of UR CP. Don’t make the same mistake. I could dismante some URs to get there, but I hate dismantly non-eccess cards.
 
 
I’ll go card by card explaining my choices and ratios of the cards of which I’ve not talked about earlier.
 
 
Salamangreat Forehead (Ash Blossom & Joyus Spring): auto-include 3 of. It’s weird that Salamangreat has one of the best Tuners the game but doesn’t have a Synchro.
 
 
Raigeki and Monster Reborn: They’re good, and you get them for free. If you’re penny pinching a build there’s no reason to not play these, especially Monster Reborn. Also Solemn Judgment is a good idea if you really wanna go cheapo. I’m not really a fan of Lightning Storm in this format: unless you go second and you have it in your opening hand it’s pretty dead, I don’t advise it even in the cheapoest build.
 
 
Pot of Desires: It says: “Draw 2 cards”. The debate on how may of these you should plat will never end. What’s sure is that playing exactly 1 copy is wrong.
 
 
Twin Twisers: You should be playing SOME sort of backrow removal in your deck; they win you the game against backrow decks, and even the most monster mash combo decks often play CBTG and Impermanence (plus Virtual World ends on Chuche, which is a trap card). MST, Cosmic Cyclone, Twin Twisters, Duster, even Galaxy Cyclone, play something.
 
 
Called by the Grave: Negates handtraps, it should be enough of an explanation.
 
 
Infinite Impermanence: It’s tthe most played trap in the game for a reason. Not only it is an handtraps but also spells/traps if your opponent isn’t careful with positioning, and you can use it to out a floodgate for a turn, which often times is all you need.
 
 
Bagooska: in the TCG you usually play Bagooska and Abyss Dweller, but that’s because in games 2 and 3 you know what you’re playing against and you can make the Rank 4 that has the highest chances of shutting off your opponent’s play. Here there’s only Game 1, so that reasoning doesn’t work, because of that you should just pick one or the ogher and stick to it.
 
 
Hiita and Borrelsword: You never make these, you’re always using the other 13 monsters, and the last two are just a formality to get to 15 cards. Any two random cards that will give you some sort of variety of options will do.
 
 
 

Buying Guide

Of course, you should start by opening Blazing Fortitude: it has every single Salamangreat card and you will very quickly have your Salamangreat core, plus you might pick up a few copies of Almiraj, which will be useful in other decks.
 
 
After that, Soldiers of the Storm sounds very tempting: Cynet Mining, Lady Debug, Transcode Talker, and Accesscode Talker are all in there. There is only one problem: those are all the cards you care about that are in that Secret Pack. If it had also Bufferlo and Sea Archiver it would have probably been worth it, even Prohibit Snake would have increased the value of this pack by a lot, but it’s just bellow the boundary of being good, which makes it a gamble and a very easy way to waste gems (what I did). You can try your luck to get a couple cards you want with 10 or 20 packs, but I do not advise doing anything else. Use your CP to get your Cyberse cards.
 
 
Only you have all your Cyberse cards (and eventual non-Cyberse extenders), which are necessary for the deck to function properly, you should think about the staples, and by “staples” I mean handtraps. First of all the 2nd and 3rd copies of Ash (one of the strenght of Salamangreat is indeed that it can juggle Ash), then Maxx “C” and one more handtrap of your choosing (probably Infinite Impermanence). Only after that you can think about other staples, like Called by the Grave and Pot of Desires.
 
 
 

The Salamangreat Combo

Sure you can’t do much with a deck if you don’t know a thing about how you’re supposed to use it, so here’s the combo that should be burned into your muscle memory before you ever touch the ladder with this deck:
 
 
Salamangreat Gazelle + Salamangreat Spinny = Reincarnated Wolf, Jack Jaguar, Miragestallio, Roar, plus Gazelle back to the hand.
 
 
Normal Summon Spinny, link it off for Balelynx.
 
 
Gazelle and Balelynx trigger, add Sanctuary and Special Summon Gazelle, Gazelle triggers again and send Salamangreat Roar.
 
 
Bring back Spinny and overlay it with Gazelle to summon Stallio. Detach Gazelle (this detail is more important than how it looks at this point) for Stallio’s effect to Special Summon Jack Jaguar.
 
 
Link Jack Jaguar and Balelynx into Wolf, then activate Sanctuary and summon Wolf again using only Wolf by the effect of Salamangreat Sanctuary.
 
 
Use Jack Jaguar’s effect in the GY to shuffle back the first wolf and summon itself under the second Wolf. Wolf triggers to add back Gazelle from the GY, and then use Wolf’s raincarnated effect to add back Roar.
 
 
Set Roar and any other backrows you might have drawn and pass.
 
 
 

License

This guid is under the Creative Common Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License – [creativecommons.org] .
 
 

 
 
I hope you enjoy the Guide we share about Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel – Guide on building Salamangreat for the ladder for free; if you think we forget to add or we should add more information, please let us know via commenting below! See you soon!