Deck Doctor Doug Zeeff Submission

November 7, 2012

by Doug Zeeff

There's a good chance that you guys are sick of reading these Deck Doctor submissions of varying degrees of writing abilities, but I promise that you'll enjoy yet another one of them. My name is Doug Zeeff, and I'm here to try out for the new Deck Doctor article slot. There are probably a couple of you that recognize me because I'm not a new face in the Yu-Gi-Oh article scene. I am a writer for another awesome Yu-Gi-Oh! website, tcgplayer.com, and my articles about casual decks go up every Monday. This being said, I'm definitely a well seasoned writer to say the least. If I get this position I'd ensure a solid article and deck review every single time, and a well edited and revised one at that. Moving on, today I have two awesome decks to fix up, Rock Stun and Gishki Hero Turbo!

Balboa is Here
Good ol' rock puns. Anyway, if you've never heard of Rock Stun than allow me to educate you. The strategy as a whole revolves around locking down your opponent with three Koa'ki Meiru monsters: Guardian, who negates effects; Sandman, who negates traps; and Wall, who negates spells. All three of them are 1900 ATK beaters that force the other player to waste cards, similar to Light and Darkness Dragon. The strategy received a huge boost with the addition of Block Golem, a Level 3 Lego monster that Special Summons two Rock-types from your graveyard. The catch is that those monsters can't use their effects that turn and that you can only have Earth attribute monsters in your graveyard.

1900 ATK is pretty close to the peak of Level 4's, and the recently (and finally) released Seal of Orichalcos buffs them all up by 500. That means 1700 ATK Fossil Dyna Pachycephalo, 1400 ATK Neo-Spacian Grand Mole, and even a 2400 ATK Card Trooper! Needless to say, Seal is pretty damn good in Rock Stun.

Before I go into any more detail about Rock Stun as a deck, why don't we take a peek at Billy Brake's.

Billy Brake's Rock Stun Deck
Monsters: 19
3 Koa’ki Meiru Guardian
3 Koa’ki Meiru Sandman
3 Koa’ki Meiru Wall
3 Block Golem
2 Card Trooper
2 Maxx “C”
2 Fossil Dyna Pachycephalo
1 Neo-Spacian Grand Mole
Spells:10
3 Mystical Space Typhoon
2 Soul Taker
2 Pot of Duality
1 Seal of Orichalcos
1 Monster Reborn
1 Dark Hole
Traps: 12
2 Dimensional Prison
2 Solemn Warning
2 Call of the Haunted
2 Bottomless Trap Hole
2 Torrential Tribute
1 Solemn Judgment
1 Starlight Road
Extra Deck: 15
2 Gem-Knight Pearl
2 Kochi Kochi Dragon
2 Soul of Silver Mountain
1 Temtempo the Percussion Djinn
1 Wind-Up Zenmaister
1 Gachi Gachi Gantestu
1 Fairy King Albverdich
1 Gaia Knight, Force of Earth
1 Naturia Beast
1 Naturia Barkion
1 Scrap Dragon
1 Stardust Dragon
Breaking it Down
To be completely honest, Brake got several things write with this build. Looking through all the choices you can tell that the deck is focused on getting out Koa'ki Meirus and protecting them, which controls the duel hopefully in your favor. He's decided to run triple of all the Koa'ki Meirus as well as triple Block Golem, and a few more Anti-Meta-ish cards. Fossil Dyna Pachycephalo is amazing not only for the ability to lock down the few outs the other player has to an established field but also because you can get it back with Block Golem.

Of course, no deck is perfect, and there are a few cuts I'm going to make, first off being Stardust Dragon and Starlight Road. While Starlight Road fits in decks that run so many traps Stardust Dragon interferes with Block Golem pretty badly. The success of our deck is almost completely based off of how well we can time Block Golems, and the protection of Starlight Road isn't worth making our Block Golems dead. Both Torrential Tributes are taken out as well because, just like Six Samurais, we need to keep our monsters on the board.

Dimensional Prison is a nifty card in the right situation, but I feel two is overkill. The Koa'ki Meirus are pretty bulky, and Fossil Dyna all but completely stops anything that could actually get over your lock down Rock-type monsters. Seal of Orichalcos further supports the subtraction of a Dimensional Prison because Seal protects Fossil Dyna. In reality, having Seal out with a Koa'ki Meiru and Fossil Dyna is near unbreakable, and is definitely annoying as hell.

I really don’t feel Maxx "C" fits in here nicely. With all of your negations, whether through traps or Rock-types, you shouldn't have to deal with a lot of huge pushes by your opponent. Of course, side decking them would be a good choice, but I don't think I'll main deck them. I'll also remove the Gaia Knight, Force of Earth because you'll almost never be going into Synchros and if you do you'd most likely go for Naturia Barkion. These changes leave me with six main deck slots and two extra deck slots, but even with the small changes the deck will run a lot more consistently.

Additions
To kick things off I took Starlight Road out of here, so it's only fair to throw in a Huge Revolution is Over to take its place. In any other deck Starlight Road would be the better option, besides maybe Watts, but Block Golem plays need to go off constantly. I replaced the missing Dimensional Prison for Mirror Force, something to net us some card advantage in Torrential Tribute's absence. A third Call of the Haunted is going in, too, because keeping the Koa'ki Meirus in the game is extremely detrimental to our strategy here.

I have three slots left, but I'm only using two so I can push this deck down to 40 cards. You want to be drawing your power cards early on, so I figure moving down to 40 is the way to go. The last two spaces go to Koa'ki Meiru Boulder, our makeshift Elemental HERO Stratos. Boulder, if not used because you already have an established field, can also be fodder for the Koa'ki Meirus' revealing cost, something that Maxx "C" couldn't quite accomplish.

To the extra deck I'm putting in another Fairy King Albverdich because we have the space and it's one of the more valid Xyz Monsters that we can use. Maestroke the Symphony Djinn goes in last, regardless of it being a Dark attribute. Maestroke is one of my top Xyz Monsters, and a last ditch effort to stall or turn something face down is something I'll willing to gamble on. After all of these changes here's the deck list:

Billy Brake's Rock Stun Deck (Doug Zeeff Edit)
Monsters: 19
3 Koa’ki Meiru Guardian
3 Koa’ki Meiru Sandman
3 Koa’ki Meiru Wall
3 Block Golem
2 Card Trooper
2 Koa'ki Meiru Boulder
2 Fossil Dyna Pachycephalo
1 Neo-Spacian Grand Mole
Spells:10
3 Mystical Space Typhoon
2 Soul Taker
2 Pot of Duality
1 Seal of Orichalcos
1 Monster Reborn
1 Dark Hole
Traps: 11
3 Call of the Haunted
2 Solemn Warning
2 Bottomless Trap Hole
1 Dimensional Prison
1 Mirror Force
1 Solemn Judgment
1 The Huge Revolution is Over
Extra Deck: 15
2 Gem-Knight Pearl
2 Kochi Kochi Dragon
2 Fairy King Albverdich
2 Soul of Silver Mountain
1 Temtempo the Percussion Djinn
1 Wind-Up Zenmaister
1 Gachi Gachi Gantestu
1 Naturia Beast
1 Naturia Barkion
1 Scrap Dragon
1 Maestroke the Symphony Djinn

Under the Sea
The Gishki are a dominating Water archetype based around easy Ritual Summons. It's a very unique set of cards, and combining their power with Destiny HERO cards is a sweet idea. In the deck that Joe Giorlando sent in Evigishki Soul Ogre and Destiny HERO - Plasma are the stars of the deck. Both being Level 8 and Trade-In discardable give them a huge advantage over some other monsters, and that's not to be overlooked. There's also some searching power of Elemental HERO Stratos, Gishki Vision, and Gishki Shadow. Coupled with Gishki Aquamirror's recycling abilities and the drawing with Allure of Darkness, Destiny Draw, and Trade-In make these combination of archetypes pretty freaking deadly. Lets dive in to Joe's deck!

Joe Giorlando's Gishki Hero Turbo Deck
Monsters: 20
3 Gishki Soul Ogre
3 Gishki Vision
3 Destiny HERO - Plasma
2 Destiny HERO - Diamond Dude
2 Trageodia
2 Tour Guide from the Underworld
1 Sangan
1 Gishki Shadow
1 Elemental HERO Stratos
1 Dark Armed Dragon
1 Gorz the Emissary of Darkness

Spells: 20
3 Destiny Draw
3 Trade-In
3 Miracle Fusion
3 Mystical Space Typhoon
2 Salvage
1 Gishki Aquamirror
1 Reinforcement of the Army
1 Allure of Darkness
1 Dark Hole
1 Heavy Storm
1 Monster Reborn

Extra Deck: 15
1 Grenosaurus
1 Melomelody the Brass Djinn
1 Wind-Up Zenmaines
1 Leviair the Sea Dragon
1 Number 17: Leviathan Dragon
1 Number 30: Acid Golem of Destruction
1 Temtempo Percussion Djinn
1 Maestroke Symphony Djinn
1 Blade Armor Ninja
1 Heroic Champion Excalibur
1 Number 39: Utopia
1 Hieratic Sun Dragon Overlord of Heliopolis
1 Number 11: Big Eye
1 Gaia Dragon, Thunder Charger
1 Black Rose Dragon
Fixing It Up
Unlike the first deck, I'm going to be making a lot of changes here. The extra deck, for starters, could use a complete remodel. Triple Miracle Fusion is decent, but Joe seemed to overlook any actual Elemental HERO Fusion Monsters to Summon, which obviously is a problem. I actually don’t like the three Miracle Fusions very much, so I'll be cutting one anyway. Regardless, some Elemental HEROes need to go into the extra deck.

While you'll be drawing a ton of cards in here, you'll rarely actually be plusing. It seems only natural, then, that Trageodia is taken out. I also found myself liking Gishki Shadow more then Giski Vision because Gishki Aquamirror recycles your Ritual Monsters. For this reason I'm dropping a Vision for a second Shadow, which just makes everything flow better. Also, as good as Trade-In is, I'll be dropping one of them for space issues.

The first thing to take the place of our drops is a pair of Destiny HERO - Malicious. It's a +1 when it goes off, and while I won't be playing any tuners you can still pull off some Rank 6 Xyz Monster plays with my next inclusion: Evigishki Tetrogre. Rank 6's like Photon Strike Bounzer are amazing, and the Gishki monsters are super searchable, meaning higher Ranks are easy to make. You also don't play any trap cards, so you can safely call traps with Tetrogre's effect for annoyingness.

For the extra deck I took out several unfitting cards such as Melomelody the Brass Djinn and Grenosaurus for more practical ones, such as two Elemental HERO Absolute Zeros and one Elemental HERO Escuridao, as well as some Rank 6 Xyz Monsters. All of these changes make the deck achieve what it's trying to do: spam huge monsters with little cost to you. The final build looks like this:

Joe Giorlando's Gishki Hero Turbo Deck (Doug Zeeff Edit)
Monsters: 22
3 Evigishki Soul Ogre
3 Destiny HERO - Plasma
2 Gishki Vision
2 Destiny HERO - Diamond Dude
2 Destiny HERO - Malicious
2 Gishki Shadow
2 Tour Guide from the Underworld
1 Sangan
1 Elemental HERO Stratos
1 Dark Armed Dragon
1 Gorz the Emissary of Darkness
1 Spirit Reaper
1 Evigishki Tetrogre
Spells: 18
3 Destiny Draw
2 Trade-In
2 Miracle Fusion
3 Mystical Space Typhoon
2 Salvage
1 Gishki Aquamirror
1 Reinforcement of the Army
1 Allure of Darkness
1 Dark Hole
1 Heavy Storm
1 Monster Reborn

Extra Deck: 15
1 Wind-Up Zenmaines
1 Leviair the Sea Dragon
1 Number 17: Leviathan Dragon
1 Number 30: Acid Golem of Destruction
1 Maestroke Symphony Djinn
1 Blade Armor Ninja
1 Number 39: Utopia
1 Hieratic Sun Dragon Overlord of Heliopolis
1 Gaia Dragon, Thunder Charger
2 Elemental HERO Absolute Zero
1 Elemental HERO Escuridao
1 Photon Strike Bounzer
1 Sword Breaker
1 Inzektor Exa-Beetle

The Part to Read if you Skimmed It
As I've already said, I'm already a writer. Even so, I'd like to spread my writing ability and audience to those of Alter Reality Games, and I'd be glad to get picked. I hope you appreciate my passion and writing ability, and if I don't get the position I wish the best of luck to whoever does. Being a writer can be stressful, and sometimes you have to put up with random people's crap, but it's, at least for me, all worth it as long as I'm teaching someone something new or helping someone out with their deck. In conclusion, I had a great time editing these decks and look forward to even more then in future!

- Doug Zeeff