Fireworks Zombie Beatdown [Build 1]

Given I haven't had the opportunity to properly test the list yet, I'm likely going to have to update this list at some point in the future. However, there's been a fair bit of theorycrafting and test hands that have gone into making this deck, so I'm confident enough that this is a fairly good preliminary build, despite all this being on paper as of writing.

Zombie Fireworks looks to be the strongest unique tool Zombies have access to. Its requirement isn't too steep, it has a decently high power ceiling, and special summoning any 2 Level 6 or lower Zombies that can also have effects from the grave is not something that other decks can do at the moment. As such we've chosen to run 3 of it and build with it in mind.

The highest value Zombie Fireworks targets available right now are Shadow Ghoul, which, given the right setup, can be as big as a 2 tribute monster despite only needing 1 tribute, and Necromaid Nana, which can convert 1 or both of your Fireworks special summons into 2 cards. These will be the cards we will aim to special summon off of Fireworks most of the time. You can choose to maximise on one or the other depending on how you want the deck to play, I've chosen to run 2 of each for a few reasons. Firstly, it's exactly enough to have the option to summon 2 of either if I want to, provided I get to find the targets I want, and secondly I did find myself liking going into 1 of both in test hands so this would give me more chances to do that. The reason why I'm not on 3 of each is just because I need the space for other cards and I seem to find the good targets consistently enough.

Next, some discard fodder for Fireworks. Shadow Ghoul and Necromaid Nana are both viable targets but that alone isn't enough. We're running all the Zombie 2 tributes: 3 Dark Skeleton Dead Ruler, 3 Cyber-Stein Shrine and 2 Wicked Shadow Dark Lurker. Dead Ruler is decent, it's the best beatstick you have, especially in the early game, and also offers you an alternate burn wincon. Cyber-Stein Shrine is realistically here just because it's a 2 tribute Zombie, but it's not the worst. It can't beat over other 2.5ks nor wall them but it can generate 2 extra bodies, which can convert into tribute fodder for your other monsters, allowing you to easily get 2 high level monsters on the board in a single turn, which helps keep up the pace with fast decks like Gate Order. Another monster you can spend that extra tribute material on in Wicked Shadow Dark Lurker. This is your backrow removal and also part of your secondary burn wincon. The reasons we're not on 3 of this wonderful card is that its strength is matchup dependent and we need our Zombie bosses face-up for another card in the deck. Technically you could just play Lurker and no other Zombie bosses since you have many ways to get to Lurker and Lurker's effect sets up Fireworks by bouncing itself, but playing this ratio facilitates running 3 Fireworks a fair bit easier since you're even more likely to find additional fodder to discard off Fireworks, enables another card in the deck easier, and makes this deck more "Zombie" than "Fireworks". 

We need low level Zombies for a couple cards in the deck: Dead Ruler's discard cost, Cyber-Stein Shrine's special summon effect, even emergency Fireworks targets if you fail to find either Ghoul or Nana. Luckily The Strange Specter of Celestial Severance is a very powerful card that happens to be in-theme. This card is very strong graveyard setup, allowing you to pick and choose what card among the top 3 you want in grave more. It can go in many strategies (looking forward to trying it in Thunderbold personally), here it is also very strong since this deck needs the grave for quite a lot. You can mill Level 7s for Nana, Zombie Normals for Shrine, Shadow Ghouls or Nanas for Fireworks, and Hanako's Right Behind You for the next card, The Half-Body Crawling Around. This facilitates even more tribute fodder for cards like Wicked Shadow Dark Lurker to feed off of, and is another way to get out 2 high level bodies in 1 turn. Realistically this is just the 2nd best effect Zombie available which is why we're running it. Hanako is the best target for Half-Body, which unfortunately only retrieves 0 ATK Normal Zombies, and the best target only has 800 DEF. Half-body is still more flexible than Necroman III and 900 ATK (Blue-Eyed Silver Zombie is Necroman's best Zombie target) isn't enough to fret over for me. Speaking of targets we're on 3 Samba Zombie Rio as the best target for Cyber-Stein Shrine. You can argue that it's not going to matter what the ATK of the normal monster target is since ideally it'll become tribute fodder anyway, but I like having the option to keep a decently statted low level beater around and I feel like I find the Half-Body target consistently enough to not care too much about running a monster with severely lower stats just to resolve an effect that I was getting to resolve decently consistently already.

For generic monsters, Amazing Dealer is very good in general and is exceptional here. You want to get a fair number of different things into the grave so you value the consistency a great deal. At worst it is good to send it off of The Strange Specter of Celestial Severance later in the game. Sea Dragon Knight can be used alongside Lurker to scout out backrow and pop the scarier ones. I originally chose it as a shuffle outlet, Nana puts your high levels at the bottom of the deck where they are impossible to retrieve, unless you shuffle them back to the top. The Strange Specter of Celestial Severance is one way to shuffle, but having more doesn't hurt. Sea Dragon Knight shuffling graveyard cards into deck allows you to recycle your good cards and even keep the deck count at a stable number, in some scenarios the deck can burn through itself quite quickly. I've also considered Siesta Torero for this slot, helps Shrine actually beat over some things, that'll be something I'll test in the future.

For the spell/traps, 3 Ship of Seven Treasures. All our high levels are 7s, this is a very good draw source to slot in as a result. This is also another reason why we would want a fair number of Zombie 2 tributes, both Ship and Fireworks compete in terms of wanting to discard your high levels, so running more of them means more high levels to discard for both of these spells. You can also consider cards like Enraged Scale Liberation, the deck likes having things in grave and Scale Liberation sets up exactly that. Trap-wise, 3 of The Cursed Cat Counting Dishes. This is why we would rather have our Zombies face-up, and another reason as to why we want the Zombie high levels in the first place. While not a very unique card, it's still decently solid, though lower value than something like Cross Target, it's benefit is that it can negate the attack of Level 9 monsters, being able to stop the attack of something like a Master of Sevens Road. 1 Imptailing Crisis is good against Gate Order, and is handy for protecting your face down Lurker, or just in general when you don't really have a board presence. You can consider running the other Crisis, Crisis at the Sacred Tower, if you want less redundancy in the activating requirements of your traps, Cursed Cat already triggers on attack, so having one that triggers on Normal Summon instead for diversity is very fair, though it runs the risk of being dead in the Gate Order matchup. Finally we're on Mirror Force for the Legend, very strong card for tempo and defensive reasons and similarly to Imptailing can be used if you don't have board presence.

Overall, the deck is decent. Needing so many things in grave will definitely hurt against decks like Sea Serpent that can shuffle all your setup away, but if your setup doesn't get disrupted, the payoff is very fun to say the least. Being able to draw 4 cards off of Fireworks if you summon double Nana is a blast, and while we don't have anything specific we want to draw into, just having more card advantage to play with isn't bad. It's worth noting that the potential draw power from Fireworks + Nana has the potential to make it get slotted in as a draw engine for a Maximum deck, or other decks that really want to draw into specific things and has the deck space necessary to fit everything (the full package can be quite large). I'll have more insights when I get to test the deck more, but for now this feels satisfactory to me. If you're looking for a Zombie focussed list, this one is for you.