Exchange of the Spirit OTK

This deck is considered a Classic Deck, this page is used to tell the history of a deck rather than how it is played now. This can happen either from mechanics of the game changing, changes from the "TCG" or "OCG" Forbidden/Limited List, or the deck has slowly lost it's ability to be played over time due to years of no support or neglect.

While "Exchange of the Spirit" may have returned from the Forbidden List, the card has received an "Errata", making this combo impossible.

An Exchange of the Spirit OTK was an OTK strategy that involved quickly filling your Graveyard with cards before your opponent could fill theirs, followed by the activation of "Exchange of the Spirit" to switch both players' Decks with their Graveyards. Ideally, "Exchange of the Spirit" would be activated during the very first turn when your opponent had no cards in their Graveyard, causing them to immediately lose from a Deck out at the start of their turn (an FTK).

This Deck build was made unusable in the Advanced Format in April 2006 when "Exchange of the Spirit" was Forbidden, limiting it to only the Traditional Format. As of January 2015 in the OCG and April 2015 in the TCG, this card has received an erratum that requires both players to have at least 15 cards in their respective Graveyards to activate instead of just the user's, thus making this Deck strategy retired and no longer usable in any format.

There were many builds for this Deck, but the following list includes some of the more popular cards used:

Recommended Cards

Monster Cards

• A Cat of Ill Omen
• Fiber Jar
• Morphing Jar
• Magical Merchant
• Makyura the Destructor
• Dekoichi the Battlechanted Locomotive
• Chaos Necromancer
• Tsukuyomi
• Destiny HERO - Defender
• Necroface

Spell Cards

• Book of Moon
• Book of Taiyou
• Emergency Provisions
• Soul Release
• Card Destruction
• Foolish Burial
• Painful Choice
• Reasoning
• The Cheerful Coffin
• Temple of the Kings

Trap Cards

• Exchange of the Spirit
• Good Goblin Housekeeping
• Sixth Sense
• Legacy of Yata-Garasu
• Fiend Comedian

To pull off the OTK/FTK as quickly as possible, the following cards are typically used:

• Exchange of the Spirit
• Reasoning/Monster Gate
• Makyura the Destructor/Temple of the Kings
• The Cheerful Coffin
• Reckless Greed
• And a Deck mostly filled with Spell/Trap Cards

First, activate Reasoning. This will burn through your Deck and possibly send 15 cards to the Graveyard. Then, activate "The Cheerful Coffin" and discard "Makyura the Destructor". Finally, activate "Exchange of the Spirit". Your opponent has no Graveyard, so they are left with no cards in their Deck, and thus they will Deck Out next turn.

In addition to the aforementioned combination, you can also use "Future Fusion" to summon "Chimeratech Overdragon" by sending "Cyber Dragon" and at least 14 other Machine-Type monsters to the Graveyard, thus fulfilling the condition. And at the start of your opponent's turn activate "Exchange of the Spirit".

This First Turn Kill also makes use of many Deck thinning cards. Examples include:

• Toon Table of Contents
• Gather Your Mind
• Good Goblin Housekeeping
• Dekoichi the Battlechanted Locomotive
• Legacy of Yata-Garasu
• Thunder Dragon

As another alternative, you can replace "Makyura the Destructor" and "The Cheerful Coffin" with "Tsukuyomi" and "Sixth Sense". One of the best cards to use in a Deck with "Exchange of the Spirit", however, is "Necroface", so on the off-chance that your opponent can skip his/her Draw Phases or has a full Graveyard, they shall lose some cards from their Deck and finally Deck Out easily.

Another, but slightly slower, alternative is to use a slightly modified Deep Draw Dragon Exodia OTK deck. Instead of the five pieces of Exodia, plus possible specifics like "Dark Eruption" or "Monster Reincarnation", run "Needle Worm", "Exchange of the Spirit", "The Shallow Grave" and some other similar Deck Out cards. With luck, you can pull this off second turn, by drawing through your Deck quickly, and then Exchanging when your opponent has 3 to 9 cards in their Graveyard, depending on how many copies of "Dark World Dealings" and "Hand Destruction" you run.

Another alternative is use a deck consisting of Spell Cards with drawing effects so you can keep drawing and dumping Spell Cards while "Royal Magical Library" and "Magical Citadel of Endymion" are face-up on the field. Recommended cards include "Terraforming", "Gather Your Mind", "Spell Power Grasp", "Magical Mallet", "Reload", "Cup of Ace", "Upstart Goblin", "Toon Table of Contents" and "Toon World".

In a pinch, "Fiber Jar" can be used to reset the Graveyard.