With the most recent addition to Master Duel, Wandering Travelers introduced the Adventurer Token archetype. What may seem like an innocuous bunch of travelers, turns out to be the best way to get a strong combo going for the foreseeable future. The preemptive semi-limitations of the two strongest cards should already convince you of that.

This initial Guide will take a look at the archetype as a whole, though you'll likely only see less than half in action. The ones that are worth playing can be seen as supplementary parts of an actual strategy, which is why the main focus will be on what decks you can best combine Adventurer with.

Table of Contents

    Table of Contents

    Adventure "Archetype"

    Strictly speaking, this isn't really an archetype, as they have no common name to share. Instead, the Adventurers are all about the Adventurer Token. Like any other Token, it doesn't have an effect, being just a Level 4 EARTH Fairy with 2000 ATK and DEF. The actual point is to have the Token on your field, so you can enable your other effects. For that reason the overview will be split in Token Summoners, Token Payoff, and Peripherals.

    There are many prior examples of such thematic reliance, often ending in gimmicky unplayableness. Only this time, Konami did an oopsie and relentlessly overtuned these cards. So much in fact, they were hit on the very next banlist after their release in the OCG! 

    Since all these cards refer to each other as  "Card that mentions "Adventurer Token"", we'll be abbreviating that as "Adventurer cards".

    Token Summoners

    Rite of Aramesir Card Image Fateful Adventure Card Image Water Enchantress of the Temple Card Image

    • Rite of Aramesir - Summons the Token and places the Continuous search Spell, Fateful Adventure. The downside is: Your Normal/Flip Summoned Monsters can't activate their effects this entire turn. 
    • Water Enchantress of the Temple - Banishes itself from hand or GY to add Rite of Aramesir from Deck or GY to hand.
    • Fateful Adventure - Searches an Adventurer Monster. Does the same for an Equip Spell when a Monster is Normal/Special Summoned.

    Strictly speaking there is only one card that Summons the Adventurer Token we sought after. But what really makes brings this engine to life are the efficient searchers we have access to. The Rite and Water Echantress are the ideal cards to open on. You can even add Foolish Burial to the mix, thanks to the Enchantress also working in the GY.

    Token Payoff

    Magicore Warrior of the Relics Card Image Breath of Resurrection Card Image Wandering Gryphon Rider Card Image

    • Magicore Warrior of the Relics - Can be Special Summoned if you control an Adventurer Token. After a Token battled, you can set an Adventurer Trap from you Deck.
    • Wandering Gryphon Rider - Can be Special Summoned if you control no Monsters, or an Adventurer Token. If you Control the Token, can shuffle itself back to negate and destroy any effect or activation.
    • Breath of Resurrection - If you control the Token, Summon two Monsters from your hand and/or GY. Afterwards, equips an Adventurer Equip Spell from hand or GY.
    • Thunder Discharge - If you control the Token equipped with an Adventurer Equip Spell, destroys opponent's Monster with less or equal attack. Afterwards, equips an Adventurer Equip Spell from hand or GY.

    Of course, the star of the show is Gryphon Rider. It allows combo decks to establish a layer of protection against devastating handtraps. The Warrior and Traps are more in line with what a pure Adventurer Deck wants to accomplish. The nature of their Token-dependency can easily cause a bricky mess when said Token is absent.   

    Equip & Field Spells

    Forest of Lost Flowers Card Image Zaralaam the Dark Palace Card Image Dracoback, the Rideable Dragon Card Image

    Before going into the specifics, some quick facts that apply to all Adventurer Equip Spells:

    • Can only be equipped to your own Monsters.
    • You can't control two of the same name.
    • If sent to the GY, they can be equipped to the Token. 

    The spells have the following effects:

    The Field Spells on the other hand take inspiration from the Dream Mirror archetype. Both in mechanics and practical clunkiness, that is to say.

    • Forest of Lost Flowers - After the Token destroys a Monster by battle, draw 1 card. If that effect activated, add the other Field Spell from Deck or GY to hand. The Monster equipped with Papillon is unaffected by the opponent's activated effects.
    • Zaralaam the Dark Palace - After the Token destroys a Monster by battle, inflict half the destroyed monster's attack to the opponent. If that effect activated, add the other Field Spell from Deck or GY to hand. While a Monster is equipped with Dunnell, the opponent can't activate things in the Battle Phase.

    What Makes Adventurer a Strong Engine

    Prank-Kids Fansies Card Image Number 42: Galaxy Tomahawk Card Image Red Rose Dragon Card Image

    An engine, or package, or whatever you may want to call it, exists to fulfill a certain motivation. Looking at the Adventurer, Rite of Aramesir clearly does a lot of the heavy lifting which we want to take advantage of. Therefore, we maximize the copies of it we run, while at the same time keeping the secondary search targets at a minimum. 

    To get started, you need one of Rite of Aramesir, Water Enchantress of the Temple, or Foolish Burial. If we could, we'd be playing three of each.

    Whichever card we begin with, the resulting field will be Fateful Adventure and a Token. Next up, we Summon any Monster. This activates Fateful Adventure and gets us the least bad of the Equip Spells: Dracoback, the Rideable Dragon. At this point the Continuous Spell can search the second card, Wandering Gryphon Rider, and discard Dracoback in the process. 

    To summarize: We got two Monsters, an omni-negate, and a bounce effect from a single starter card.

    Since both the Rider and the Token need to be present for the negation, using either as material should ideally lead into another negate, like Baronne de Fleur. Another great use for the Gryphon Rider is Number 42: Galaxy Tomahawk. That way you can Summon Auroradon and pop off from there. The reliable handtrap protection and utility of the materials far outweighs the loss of your Normal Summon's effect.

    Coincidentally, most archetypes that don't rely on a Normal Summoned effect are also engine-like. Cyberse Tokens, Rose Dragons, and Tenyi are great combo enablers, but there's too few good ones to make a complete deck out of them. Thanks to Adventurer and notably Small World, an amalgamation of engines is made possible. Another great fit are decks like Phantom Knights and Prank-Kids, since they care more about GY effects.