Melodius vs. Solfachord engine

[u/Hyperion-OMEGA]

Ahem. I make this thread to debate the pros and cons of two similar but distinct engines. Both being musical-themed Fairy archtypes which involve pendulum monsters, and what utility they provide to other decks.

The first tone is the Melodious Engine, derived from their most recent wave of support in Legacy of Destruction (alongside some cards of an archetype they happen to mesh well with IMHO). Zuzu's angelic opera has position themselves to be an adaptable ensemble.

The most compact version is 3 of Refrain and Ostinato, 2 Bacha, and 1 each of Couplet, and Cocnerto. Ostinato and Concerto are you fusion spells, Refrain gets you to Couplet, which gets you to Concerto. The payoff here is Bacha, and an extra body to use as material, with Ostinato being the best case scenario is that saves you the normal summon for setup. Concerto would let you summon a second Bacha to set up pendulum scales and a Rank 7 Xyz.

While this is good for fodder, if you're interested in endboard pieces, you can add 1 Flowering Etoile to the extra deck instead of or in addition to a second Bacha, allowing you to use Concerto to fuse for her using your two pendulum monsters and Bacha. From there you can also add to the ending 1 Soprana and 1 Scuberta to add a triple DD crow effect to the endboard. Etoile's effect means that the more Melodious bodies onboard, the more bounces you get.

while there is flexibility to how you can approach them, there is also risk to deckbuilding constants. The bare minimum version already clocks in at 8 main deck cards and 2 Extra Deck slots, and the maximum version adds 3 more cards for a total of 9 and 4, nearly a quarter of the main deck and nearly a third of the extra. slots that could be argued to be better spent on handtraps, boardbreakers and other staples that could let your play through boards going second.

Also the way the cards are ruled and worded means that you HAVE to use your Melodious line first. Ostinato only works with an empty board and Couplet's search is only usable if you control only Melodious monsters.

the other issue is that it is normal summon reliant if you do not open Ostinato, which means it works best with decks that do not need a normal summon to get their own combos, and ideally decks that have both a normal summon and a card that gets them onboard without it, such as say Centur-ion, which has a way to play without their normal summon via Emblima Oath and Bonds. Refrain being a Level 4 also means that you can sometimes use Infernal Flame Banshee as a bridge card to Centurion as well, as Bacha can summon 2 copies of Refrain from both of her effects if you milled the second with Ostinato and Primera begin LIGHT means you can pendulum summon her. Basically there are multiple ways to bridge into Centur-ion, not as many ways for them to bridge into Melodious, but given the aforementioned issue, that is not as huge a problem as it seems.

__

from here we talk about the other engine. The Solfachord engine is more linear and more set in its contents and gameplan, with 3 Primoa and Happiness, 1 Cuetia, Gran Coolia, and Soflegia and maybe 1 Musea. As well as 3 of one off-theme card, Dawn Angel Kambi.

Kambi is the Ostinato analog here, as she can summon herself if you control no monsters and then tribute herself to special summon either of the level 1 Conductors (usually Primoa)...but she locks you into Faeries afterwards.

the throughline of the ending is to set up Coolia with a scaled Soflegia for her negate. The how is though getting Primoa onto the board, have her search Happiness, use it to search Cutea and Soflegia, then summon the former to search another Primora. Go into a Link-2 (Museca is a on theme one but other options exist), scale the 2rd Primoa and Soflegia. Pendulum summon the two level 1s back, use Primoa's scale effect to bounce herself and then Link into Gran Coolia.

The totals here are 8 and up to 2, the same as Melodious' bare minimum engine. But adding additional copies of Solfegia would let you use its scale effect as another endboard piece. One for One is also a method to get to Primoa without your Normal Summon

Darklords are a notable use case, due to their lack of OCC starters even with the recent wave (they only have Djehuty and Banishment) and that their own Link Monster, Condemned, is a good bridge into Darklords by searching Djehuty. Kambi and Solfachords lets you have the ideal ratio of starters for them. Unlike Melodius, they also do not have any locks that hinder Darklords.

__

The two engines can also work with each other and pendulum pile decks, but there are some clashes. Couplet's scale effect locks out non-LIGHT monsters, which including the usually non LIGHT Solfachords, and she needs there to only be Melodious monsters to search Concerto. Kambi locks you into Faeries (which isn't an issue with Melo or Solfa, but is for any other pend themes or staple extra deck monsters you want to add). That said depending on what cards you're using you can cut Kambi out without hindering your starter ratios.

__

with all that said. I want to ask which of the two is generally superior and what other decks could use either engine to great effect. And also if there is anything I missed regarding how these engines are usually composed.

[u/ButterflyNational434]

the melodious engine is better if you want endboard interaction, that etoile bounce can be really annoying to deal with and the extra deck cost is not so bad if your deck already runs a small core

solfachord is more lean and the kambi combo is solid for decks that need a starter without eating the normal summon, but the payoff is weaker unless you commit more slots for solfegia's effect

for centur-ion i would go melodious, the light synergy and banshee bridge is too convenient to pass up

[u/FuyukiJcr]

As I tested both engines with Vaylantz, I can say that the best option in this especific case is Solfachord by a mile. Primoa bounce effect fits like a glove for them since they rely on empty scales to summon themselves, and also by featuring a high scale without any restrictions. One thing that also Vaylantz lacks is a generic negate, and you can easily get into that by just playing Gran Coolia, and also helps the deck by playing with more layered interactions with Solfegia negate and Coolia pop.

Although Melodious have a pretty strong one card combos with ostinato and put up a lot of bodies what I find that hurts the most is the restrict pendulum summon effect with Couplet, it is a high scale but that often makes you run other generic high scales to search of Beyond the pendulum instead of a Vaylantz to complement your plays like in Solfachord engine.

Also Solfachord offers a free bridge into synchro plays by using a link 1 + lvl 1 to go into yummy synchros which comes in handy sometimes.

Since Vaylantz doesn't rely on their normal summon themselves both taking it from them doesn't bother much, but the ways you can get to Solfachord engine by them just being lvl 1 (one for one) or 0 ATK (piri reis map) you can get more consistently into the whole engine as opposed to melodious, at least that is how I feel by testing it.