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The truth is Volg Tiger, compared to its parts, isn't very useful.

Artworks and aesthetics:
I always thought Volg Thunder was a creature wielding a glowing blue pike riding something, but it appears that that isn't the case.

Volg Thunder seems to have one of those elaborate and confusing card arts, like Emperor Chirico and Xenon Da Vinci, but I might as well try to look at it and understand it.

The first thing one would notice about Volg Thunder is its red, dragon-like head and its beastly arms. In DM lore, Demon Commands have a unique shape (beast, human, bird, etc.) so Volg looking like a beast fits being a Demon Command. You'd also note the glowing blue pike, which on closer inspection looks more like a glowing blue stick with circles on it. Volg also has a glowing blue cross on its chest, which is reminiscent of Bloody Cross. Similar crosses (but pink) also appear on Volg Tiger and Thunder Blade.

But if you look at Volg's back...



What the hell is that?

Maybe it's an axe. Or a one-eyed Gargoyle. Kinda reminds me of Telescope Horn. I'm not going to bother spending time to figure out what it is.

General description:
The main purpose of Volg Thunder is to be spammed to deck the opponent out. This is all that it is used for in Japan.

Okay, you can use it to fuel your graveyard... but who cares about that?

In today's spell-heavy meta, what with all the hyperspatial spells, Volg Thunder can wound a deck immensely. However, choosing your opponent to deck out isn't enough. It doesn't matter if you mill your opponent at all, unless you deck him or her out. And to do this, you need enough Volg Thunders. There is only one solution: spam Volg Thunder.

Ways to play Volg Thunder:

Zabi Mira, the Reviving Shaman
It's simple enough. Spam mana-boosting weenies and other small creatures that do stuff, like Bronze-Arm Tribe and Sol Habaki, Apocalyptic Sage. Then, after getting 3 or 4 creatures into the battle zone, summon Zabi Mira. Kill several of your creatures, then get out as many Volg Thunders as you can. Unless your opponent is running a particularly creature-heavy deck, 4 Volg Thunders means an instant deck out. And even then, if 4 Volg Thunders didn't do the job, play another Zabi Mira, destroy all your Volgs, and bring them out again!

Yeah, that should deck the opponent out.

And, if you don't have another Zabi Mira to spare, or your opponent is somehow still alive doing science... well, you have four or five double breakers in the battle zone. Go to town with the opponent's shields.

Last Storm Double Cross, the Super Awakened
There used to be WD control decks like this (Note: You cannot copyright a deck name) that sought to play enough psychic creatures to summon Last Storm, awaken it, attack, spam Volg Thunders, and deck out the opponent. Sometimes I think "You have a world breaker in BZ, why bother decking the opponent out? Sure, that avoids STs, but you shouldn't worry about those if your opponent is sufficiently under control."

Maybe that's why that deck type died out. Well, it isn't completely dead, but I don't think it's meta-worthy anymore.

Anyways, you can use both Last Storm Double Cross and Zabi Mira at the same time: Just evolve Storm Genji onto the Volg Thunders you spammed out with Zabi Mira, then, next turn, awaken it into Last Storm and spam those Volg Thunders again. Surely no one could survive that. (Note to self: do not tempt fate)

Crimson Rage, the Imperial Ogre Blade and Codename Sorge
On the night of February 8, 2012, at the period of time from 10:00 PM to 12:00 PM (Japanese standard time), いづき (Idzuki), now known as oston_oz, changed the world forever.

The combo is difficult to explain easily, so here's a helpful wiki link.

The typical Crimson Sorge deck (as it is known here and Japan) was WFN (with Falconer) or sometimes LWFN and aimed to boost to 8 mana to initiate the combo. Repeatedly hitting your opponent over the head with Volg will probably kill them.

Example deck here.

Of course, this combo is now dead due to Sorge and Crimson Rage being combo-banned.

Hyperspatial Raiden Hole
The importance of Raiden Hole is not that it plays Volg Thunder, but that it plays an attached creature. Preferably, it would be a card that best supports Volg Thunder. So obviously, the best card to play with it is Thunder Tiger!

Nah.

Volg Tiger isn't useful. You would think that it would be an extremely flexible and powerful card, but it isn't. For one thing, the reanimator ability is dependent on your opponent's cards, making it unreliable. The most consistent thing you could do is make your opponent discard again with Jenny, the Suicide Doll, and most other things would just be inconsistent. While it is true that an opponent would hold more expensive cards in their hand, by that late in the game your opponent's hand is either empty or has drawn too many cards for Volg Tiger's effect to be reliable. Another thing is that Volg Tiger doesn't really fit anywhere. It comes too late to use in beatdown, and it isn't good in a control deck since it needs to attack to trigger its effects.

You could still play Thunder Tiger with Raiden Hole if you want to get rid of an opponent's weenie. Just don't expect the coming Volg Tiger to do anything except sit around and maybe become evolution bait for Storm Genji XX.

If not Thunder Tiger, then what do you use to accompany Volg Thunder when you play Raiden Hole? Cheval, preferably. Volg Thunder already fills one half of Cheval's awakening condition, so with another Angel or Demon Command on turn 5 (preferably a psychic creature like Black Ganveet or Rumble), you can easily awaken Cheval into Cheuxvelt, which has amazing abilities.

Hyperspatial Revive Hole, Hyperspatial Vice Hole, Hyperspatial Gallows Hole, Hyperspatial Emperor Hole
Um... well... you could... but I don't see why you would choose to play Volg Thunder over something more useful like Black Ganveet or Rumble. Unless you want to mill yourself, where playing Volg with these actually would be useful. Revive Hole is especially useful in regaining creatures you've milled off earlier.

Well, if you just want to deal damage to your opponent by ripping through his deck, I wouldn't go for it. Mill isn't for just destroying the opponent's deck, unless you want to go for a deck out. Nobody runs Traumatize for that purpose, after all.

Zabi Epsilon, Lord of Demons, Gaial Zero, Gaial Kaiser, Hyperspatial Gotsusan Hole
These cards are beatdown deck material. Not the kind of thing Volg Thunder should be used in. Use something else instead.

Hyperspatial Romanoff Hole, Hyperspatial Guard Hole
As usual, nothing that these cards can play would be as good as Diabolos Zeta, Temporal Ruler. Don't bother playing Volg Thunder with these.

Go fu... err, mill yourself.
Okay, we've covered all the ways to deck the opponent out with Volg Thunder in the above section. Now, we cover the less important way to use Volg Thunder: Self-mill!

Since Volg Thunder specifically mills for creatures, it's useful at consistently getting creatures into grave to fuel grave-related abilities. It also does a decent job at graving your spells. It's not meta-worthy, but possibly fun and interesting. Since Colorful Dance was restricted to 1, this may be the second or third next best thing (behind Primal Scream).

Just be careful not to deck yourself out.

Romanoff Zeta, Temporal Demonic Eye
If your deck is particularly full of spells, you might want to risk milling a large portion of your deck to try this. Use Volg Thunder to mill yourself to hopefully get up to 10 spells to awaken it into Romanoff Zeta Wizard, and save yourself from deck out by shuffling all the spells into your deck. And after that, you could use Volg Thunder again to fill your grave with spells to cast with the Wizard.

Hannibal Zeta, the Charismatic Annihilator
You're only going to get anywhere with using Volg with Hannibal Zeta if your deck has a large amount of spells. It's not a terrible idea, so go ahead.

Beginning Romanoff, Lord of the Demonic Eye
Since Volg specifically mills for two creatures, it easily fills two thirds of Beginning Romanoff's summoning requirement.

Decks:
Most people in TCO throw Volg Thunder in WD Hunter control decks for Volg Tiger. That is utterly wrong, especially since these people usually don't have any idea where to point Volg Thunder's effect at. They see Volg Tiger as its own reward...

However, outside of Crimson Sorge, Zabi Mira, and WD control decks with Last Storm, Volg Thunder doesn't have much of a use... oh sure, there are those self-mill decks, but they aren't very powerful.

Ways to counteract it:
Provided that your opponent survived the initial wave of Volgs, Cyber N World and Codename Snake both empty your opponent's graveyard. Cyber N World also hurts if you're using Volg to mill yourself, too. An opposing Soul Recall would be somewhat harmful, but the only Soul Recall card that's used is Dias Zeta.

Overall rating:
I give it an 8.5/10. Power-wise, it's a 9.5 or even a 10/10, but outside of mill decks it just doesn't have much use.

(P.S.: TCO censors the word n o o b. How ridiculous is that?)