Salamangreats are easily one of the best decks ever made for creating links.
Salamangreats are the best place to start in the world of Link calls if you want to test the waters.
They have a lot of different cards in their extra deck, some very strong monsters in their main deck, and more ways to Link summon than you could ever think of.
In fact, this deck has done very well in professional play. It has won multiple tournaments in both the TCG and OCG.
So, if you like the look of this fire-powered Link deck but aren’t sure where to begin, keep reading for some ideas.
17. Maxx “C”
During either player’s turn, you can send this card from your hand to the Graveyard.
This turn, whenever your opponent Special Summons a monster or monsters, you immediately draw one card. “Maxx “C”” can only be used once per turn.
16. Effect Veiler
During your opponent’s Main Phase (Quick Effect), you can send this card from your hand to the GY, then target 1 Effect Monster your opponent controls; cancel the effects of that face-up monster your opponent controls until the end of this turn.
15. Salamangreat Beat Bison
Link material is the most important thing you need if you want to Link call.
And if you have three or more Salamangreat monsters in your graveyard, you can bring this card back from your hand as a special summon for free.
Salamangreat Beat Bison does two other great things for this deck besides filling your field:
It can cancel out the effects of your opponent’s monsters and bring back Link monsters from the graveyard to the extra deck.
And if you return Fire-attribute Link monsters from your graveyard to your extra deck, you can target that many monsters your opponent controls and stop their effects for the rest of the turn.
This makes sure that your extra deck always has monsters you can link summon, and it also makes your opponent’s monsters totally useless for a turn.
14. Salamangreat Balelynx
In recent years, field spells have become very strong. Cards like the Ancient Fairy Dragon, which always look for field spells, have been taken off the market for this reason.
But luckily, Salamangreats come with their own field spell searcher—and it’s only a Link 1 monster!
When this card is Link Summoned, you can add Salamangreat Sanctuary, the field spell from this deck, from your deck to your hand.
And that’s not all:
You can get rid of this card from your graveyard to keep your Salamangreat cards from being destroyed in battle or by a card effect.
13. Salamangreat Sanctuary
Salamangreats have a quirk that no other deck has: when their Link monsters are Link Summoned using themselves, they get special abilities.
Now, this can’t be done with most decks.
We’re lucky that we can do it if Salamangreat Sanctuary is face up on the field.
This field spell can also be looked up with Salamangreat Balelynx, so you don’t even need Terraforming in this deck to make it a good choice.
This is without a doubt one of the best field spells ever made, and every Salamangreat deck needs it.
12. Salamangreat Sunlight Wolf
In a deck like Salamangreat that can link summon many times, many of your best cards can end up in the trash.
But that’s not a problem if you have Salamangreat Sunlight Wolf in your extra deck. Because this guy has two useful ways to bring him back from the grave:
When a monster is called to a zone this card points to, you can add one Fire monster from your graveyard to your hand.
With an up and a down arrow, this means that both you and your opponent can trigger this effect. This means that you can get some real value from this card right away.
Second, you can add any Salamangreat spell or trap from your graveyard to your hand during your main step if this card was Link Summoned with Salamangreat Sunlight Wolf.
11. Salamangreat Spinny
I’m not sure what kind of animal this guy is supposed to be (perhaps an armadillo?
I do know, though, that Salamangreat Spinny is a great addition to this deck.
You can give any monster on the field a nice +500 attack boost by sending this card to the graveyard.
On top of that, if you control a Salamangreat monster while this guy is chilling in the graveyard, you can special summon Spinny to your side of the field as long as you banish it when he goes.
This is a great way to get more resources to use with Link Summon and to give your monsters more power to hit your opponent.
10. Salamangreat Jack Jaguar
A monster with 1800 attack that does cutting damage is already pretty strong.
Salamangreat Jack Jaguar, on the other hand, has all of that and more.
While it is in your graveyard and you control a Salamangreat link monster, you can move any other Salamangreat monster from your graveyard into the deck to special summon this card to a place that any Link monster points to.
The fact that a card this good isn’t even at the top of this list shows just how strong the archetype is.
9. Salamangreat Fowl
The best thing about this deck is that once you normal call one monster, the rest of your monsters will just show up.
And this strange chicken can help in the following ways:
If you have this guy in your hand and someone else brings out a Salamangreat monster while you have this guy, you can special summon it to your side of the field for free. So far so good.
But on top of that, Salamangreat Fowl lets you throw away a card to stop any set card from activating this turn if your opponent has some very strong spells or traps.
8. Salamangreat Mole
The spell Pot of Avarice is very helpful. It was only recently allowed again in the TCG, and you can only put one copy in your deck at first.
So it makes sense that this incredibly powerful deck has a monster with the same broken effect that also gives you more materials for Link Summoning.
How it works is as follows:
If you Link summoned during your main phase, you can special summon Salamangreat Mole from your hand to a zone where a Link monster points.
You’ve got to love a monster that doesn’t use up your normal summon and that you can keep calling back again and again.
In addition, if this guy is in your graveyard and you don’t control any monsters, you can get rid of him to put 5 Salamangreat cards back into the deck and draw 2 cards.
This is a great way to get back into the game when things aren’t going your way, which makes this little guy a great addition to any Salamangreat build.
7. Salamangreat Heatleo
Salamangreat Heatleo is one of the two big boss monsters that this deck depends on, and boy, is it a good one!
When Link is called, you can choose a card in your opponent’s spell and trap zone and put it back into their deck.
It’s a great way to get rid of your opponent’s annoying backrow cards, and it might even save you from a Solemn Judgement.
Also, this guy gets a lot stronger when Link uses Salamangreat Heatleo to call it forth.
If you do, you can make the attack of any face-up monster on the field equal to the attack of any monster in your graveyard.
You can use this to make your opponent’s biggest monsters much weaker or to make your smaller monsters stronger.
In either case, your opponent might take a lot of damage.
6. Will of the Salamangreat
In Yu-Gi-Oh!, you don’t get magic cards very often.Oh, that are this good and haven’t been taken away yet.
But look, it’s Salamangreat. They are all broken cards of the same type.
Will of the Salamangreat is an ongoing spell card that is awesome for these reasons:
During your main phase, you can special summon from your hand or graveyard any Salamangreat monster.
This doesn’t even have to be monsters from your main deck. If you have a Salamangreat link monster in your graveyard, Will of the Salamangreat can bring it back to the field right away.
On top of that effect, this card can also fill the field with a lot of creatures.
Because if you control a Link monster that was summoned using a monster with the same name as itself, you can send this card to the graveyard and special summon Salamangreat monsters from your hand or graveyard, up to that monster’s Link rating.
So this spell card lets you do something special to four monsters at once.
This is easily one of the best special summoning cards in Yu-Gi-Oh, and I’m very surprised it wasn’t limited in the latest ban list update.
5. Salamangreat Gazelle
Speaking of the list of things that can’t be done…
Here’s a card that was so good that it had to be played (as of this writing, it is Limited).
What it does is this:
When a different Salamangreat card is put into the graveyard, you can use a special summoning spell to bring the Salamangreat Gazelle from your hand there. This sentence is so unclear that it could mean a lot of different things.
If you Foolish Burial a Salamangreat? That’s a very special call.
You might have sent a monster to the Graveyard for a Link summon. Yes, that is a unique call.
Or was it killed in fight or by the effect of a card? You got it, everyone has to use a special summon.
And when you special summon this card, you can send any Salamangreat monster from your deck to the graveyard.
4. Salamangreat Almiraj
This is one of the most common monsters in the Salamangreats archetype, and it’s often used in decks that don’t even have Salamangreats.
You can protect one of your monsters from card effects for the rest of the turn by attributing this Link 1 monster.
Then, as long as this card is in your graveyard, you can special summon Salamangreat Almiraj to your side of the field if a normally summoned monster is killed in battle while this card is in your graveyard.
This is a great way to keep at least one monster on the field and make sure you have enough materials to Link summon on your next turn.
3. Salamangreat Pyro Phoenix
Now, this is the monster that really runs the deck.
It is also one of the best monsters ever made for Link.
This guy is a Link 4 monster, which means he’s pretty expensive to call, but so worth it.
Because if you link summon Salamangreat Pyro Phoenix using itself as the Link material, you can destroy every card your opponent controls.
This is one of the most powerful ways to clear the board in the history of the game. It’s a Raigeki and a Harpie’s Feather Duster rolled into one big Link monster, and that’s not even all he does.
You can also use this card to bring a Link monster from your opponent’s graveyard to your side of the field as a special summon.
It might seem strange to do this. But if your opponent summons a Link monster to their field, Salamangreat Pyro Phoenix does damage to your opponent equal to the original attack of that monster!
2. Salamangreat Circle
Salamangreat Circle is a search spell that is very strong.
It’s a quick-play card, which means you can play it pretty much whenever you want. It also has two powers that make it useful in many different situations:
You can either use this card to add a Salamanagreat monster from your deck to your hand, like the Salamanagreat Gazelle, or you can search your deck for any Salamanagreat monster and add it to your hand.
Or, you can use this card to keep monster effects from hurting your Link monsters.
This searcher is so good that it can only be in one deck in the TCG. This is because they had to find a way to make this amazing deck less powerful.
1. Salamangreat Miragestallio
Who would have thought that an XYZ monster would be the best monster in a Link-summoning deck?
As of this writing, Salamangreat Miragestallio has only just been allowed back into the TCG.
And each deck can still only use one copy!
But this card is a great way to get more time.
By removing an XYZ material from Salamangreat Miragestallio, you can special summon any Salamangreat monster from the deck.
Most Salamangreat monsters want to be in the graveyard, because they can special summon themselves from the graveyard in some way. This result is almost like getting a free monster.
But that’s not all:
When this card is sent to the graveyard for a Link summon, you can return any monster on the field to its owner’s hand.
If you can bounce back an opponent’s extra deck monster with this effect, they’ll have to leave it out or summon it again, losing all the materials they used to summon it in the first place.
If we ever get to the point where we can play more than one Salamangreat Miragestallio in a deck, we should play as many as we can.
