No Running from the K9 Forces!

K9 is the hottest new deck coming from “Justice Hunters” on August 1st, 2025 in the TCG. Their Main Deck monsters are all Level 5, opening them up to Rank 5 XYZ plays and the board-breaking might of Chaos Angel . Let’s take a look at their Main Deck line-up.

The Forces

Aside from K9 - Lupis, the K9 monsters can be Normal Summoned if your opponent has two or more cards in their hand. However, the officer making the biggest splash is K9 - 17 Izuna. Her effect is like an Exosister hand trap: if your opponent activates a monster effect in their hand or GY, she can Special Summon herself, then send a K9 monster from your Deck to the GY! 

This combos well with K9 - ØØ Lupus , who can Special Summon itself to the field if – you guessed it – the opponent has used a monster effect from the hand or GY. But Lupis has another trick up its sleeve! Lupis has a quick effect that allows you to XYZ summon, even on the opponent’s turn. More on the XYZ options later!

K9 - 66b Lantern and K9 - 66a Jokull are perhaps less exciting, but the pair lets you Special Summon a Level 5 from your hand and GY respectively when they are summoned. K9 is a deck that lets you play the game with ease going first or second!

Call for Backup

Of course, the K9 forces wouldn’t be useful without a suite of Rank 5 XYZ monsters of their own! K9 - 17 "Ripper" is an extender and a hand trap deterrent all in one! Outside of Jokul and Lantern, if the opponent has already used a hand trap against your primary combo, you can use Izuna in combination with Lupis to access Ripper, who extends your combo by grabbing two K9 cards from your deck. Furthermore, Ripper can negate a follow-up hand trap, protecting your setup from the ever-looming threat of Nibiru, the Primal Being . On the opponent’s turn, Ripper can prevent the usage of popular cards like Maiden of White ’s second effect as well!

To fully understand the impact of Ripper’s first effect, we must look at the K9 Spells and Trap. "Case of K9" is a classic extender – though it’s not a Field Spell like one would expect! Each K9 Main Deck monster is an extender in its own right, so Case for K9 will never be dead. Case gives your K9 monsters an extra 900 ATK points on the turn that your opponent uses a Monster effect from the hand or GY, which deters the opponent from running over your monsters while providing OTK potential on yours!

K9 also features two quick-play Spells, K9 - EX Forced Liberation and K9-LC Release Restraint. Forced release allows you to tag in a different XYZ monster on top of a K9 XYZ, while Release Restraint allows you to use either a K9 XYZ or a Rank 5. However, Forced Release has the added bonus of destroying a card on your opponent’s side of the field without targeting! Both cards also have infinite recursion: At the end of a Battle Phase where your K9 monster battled, you can set both Forced Release and Release Restraint from the GY! A notable use of these cards is that they can be chained to an attempted negation of your XYZ monster’s effect to dodge them. 

K9 - EW Special Release Experiment is a different type of disruption, allowing you to revive a K9, then immediately placing a K9 XYZ monster on top, which then gets destroyed during the End Phase of the next turn. Special Release isn’t quite as adaptable as Forced Release or Release Restraint, but it is a powerful disruption that is difficult to play around.

The Moon’s Power

K9 - EX "Werewolf" lives up to its name, being able to tear up the opponent by attacking up to the number of XYZ materials it has. With 3300 ATK, that only takes three materials for an OTK - and combined with A Case for K9, it’s only two! However, its real power lies in its quick effect. When your opponent activates a card or effect – effectively, this ability is unavoidable – you get an effect depending on who’s turn it is. On your opponent’s turn, you look at your opponent’s hand and banish a card until the End Phase. It’s an effect that can end the opponent’s turn! On your own turn, Werewolf banishes a card your opponent controls and a card in their GY. Again, Werewolf does not target, meaning only the most hardy of protections can stop Werewolf.

K9 - ØØ "Hound" is an easier to achieve monstrous form that can’t be destroyed by battle or card effects on the turn that it is summoned. Then, it gains 500 ATK for each time your opponent activates a monster effect! This is a permanent boost, so the opponent better be careful if you summon Hound on their first turn. Then, during the Standby Phase, Hound targets one card on the field and banishes it. Hound is a solid in-archetype way to deter the opponent from exploding on their first turn, since one wrong move means lights out!

I Know a Guy

Of course, K9 monsters aren’t limited to K9 XYZ monsters. While Jokul and Lantern are limited to XYZ summoning Light monsters, that’s no problem for Number 67: Pair-a-Dice Smasher ! While dice-rolling effects are typically non-viable, with its effect to change one dice’s result to 7, Pair-a-Dice Smasher has a 91% chance to lock the opponent out of their monster effects on their turn – similar to the now-banned Number 16: Shock Master . In fact, Pair-a-Dice Smasher is banned in the OCG! 

But let’s not get too ahead of ourselves. The other primary Rank 5 XYZ you’ll be going into is N.As.H. Knight . N.A.s.H. Knight is a solid XYZ monster to summon on the opponent’s turn, as a non-targeting attach as material is very difficult to stop. However, its true power is revealed in combination with its strengthened form, CXyz N.As.Ch. Knight ! CYXZ N.As.Ch can rank up into Number C104: Umbral Horror Masquerade and attach Number 104: Masquerade using its previous form. That’s a pretty solid bonus for just playing to K9’s plan! Other Rank 5 XYZ that K9 has access to are Vallon, the Super Psy Skyblaster , the awesome power of Divine Arsenal AA-ZEUS - Sky Thunder , and notably, can use Lupis to summon Super Starslayer TY-PHON - Sky Crisis on the opponent’s turn to prevent the use of monsters effects for monsters with 3000 or more ATK!

Conclusion

K9 is set to be one of the most powerful engines post-Justice Hunters. This deck combines with Vanquish Soul and Psyframes especially, considering their core also interacts on the opponent’s turn. Make sure to watch out for your GY and hand effects once Justice Hunters breaks loose on August 1st!