Deck Doctor – Tyler Nolan | Alter Reality Games

November 12, 2012

by Tyler Nolan

Hello, I’m Tyler Nolan. I’ve been playing Yugioh for a very long time, and have seen many different kinds of decks succeed. From seeing all these different kinds of decks, I’ve developed a keen sense for deck building, and have used that to achieve some small successes on the YCS circuit. I’m here to talk about two very different deck lists, and ways to improve them. Let’s begin with the deck that is more my style:

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 Grandmole

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
1 Fairy King Albverdich
1 Gaia Knight, Force of Earth
1 Naturia Beast
1 Naturia Barkion
1 Scrap Dragon
1 Stardust Dragon

Before I make any changes to the deck, I want to identify what the deck is trying to do. It plays a game based mostly on one-for-ones, and typically has a very strong end game fueled by Block Golem, and Seal of Orichalcos. So the goals I have in fixing the deck are emphasizing this game plan, and increasing the deck’s survivability into it’s very powerful late game.

The first issue I have with Brake’s list is the spell line-up. Mystical Space Typhoon, while great in more aggressive decks that need to make certain cards resolve, in a slower, more grinding deck, it is often just a dead card. The reason for this is because Typhoon is a very single purpose card, in game 1 its role will often be limited to blindly targeting an opponent’s backrow, something you could easily just bait out by summoning a monster. The tempo lost by running your normal summon into a bottomless trap hole is worth much less than the versatility lost by running a linear card like Typhoon in the main. Decks like this thrive off of their consistency, and the best way to increase the consistency in a deck is to have more versatile cards in it.

Soul Taker is another cut I would make, while it forces one-for-one trades, it doesn’t help as much as other options with the overall goal of staying alive, since you can only play it during your turn. I prefer cards that allow for a more immediate answer.

In the trap line-up, the only issue I really see here is the Starlight Road. While Starlight is a very powerful option in trap-heavy decks like this one to help dodge heavy storm, the resulting Stardust Dragon shuts down your Block Golems for the rest of the game. There are better options to play around Heavy Storm for a deck like this.

There are some issues in the extra deck as well. Cutting one of the Kochi Kochi Dragons seems obvious enough, since the chances of needing 2 in a single game seem very slim, and the odds of that being relevant don’t seem as important as having another option in the extra deck. Soul of Silvermountain seems extremely difficult to summon, with only 1 level 3 earth in the maindeck. I’d definitely cut one of those for more room as well. It’s worth noting, that while I’m cutting the other 2-ofs, I’m keeping Gem-Knight at 2 because only it, and Fairy King keep block golem online.

With no earth tuners in the deck, it is probably safe to cut Naturia Beast and Naturia Barkion as well, the odds of Reborning an opposing earth tuner don’t really justify the wasted space in the extra deck. Cutting Starlight also lets me cut Stardust from the extra.

So a quick list of the cuts to this list:

-3 Mystical Space Typhoon

-2 Soul Taker

-1 Starlight Road

-1 Kochi Kochi Dragon

-1 Soul of Silvermountain

-1 Naturia Beast

-1 Naturia Barkion

I’d add in one copy of Book of Moon, as a replacement for Soul Taker. Being a quickplay, it helps with the goal of staying alive, and will usually result in a one-for-one trade after you attack over the booked monster, helping accelerate to your ideal simplified gamestate. I’m also going to add in 2 copies of Forbidden Lance, not only does it function as a pseudo-Sakuretsu Armor, but it also protects your monsters from Bottomless Trap Holes, or Torrential Tributes.

I’m adding a bunch of backrow to the deck, so while I cut Starlight Road, I’m going to replace it with 2 copies of Dark Bribe. The other option was The Huge Revolution is Over, while it negates Heavy Storm better than Bribe does, it doesn’t have nearly the versatility that Bribe does. Bribe helps push your Block Golems through Warnings, or helps push lethal damage through Dimensional Prisons. This leaves me with 2 slots, which I’m going to make copies of Compulsory Evacuation Device. Compulsory is a great card in a field full of extra deck-reliant decks, and it doubles as a way to save your monsters from Bottomless Trap Holes.

Moving onto the extra deck, while you don’t usually want to make non-earth monsters, there is no reason to not give yourself the option. Cards like Utopia and Steelswarm Roach can be so gamebreaking that it can be worth turning your Block Golems off. Acid Golem is something that will come up every few matches that just ends the game on the spot, and reborning an opposing veiler to go into mist wurm for game with 2 of your rocks doesn’t seem too unreasonable either. The most important thing about the extra deck in a deck like this is utility, you aren’t reliant on the extra for your game plan, so you can afford to fill it with situational, but potentially game breaking cards.

Additions:

+1 Book of Moon

+2 Forbidden Lance

+2 Dark Bribe

+2 Compulsory Evacuation Device

+1 Number 39: Utopia

+1 Steelswarm Roach

+1 Mist Wurm

+1 Number 30: Acid Golem of Destruction

Resulting in a final list looking like:

*Doctored* 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 Grandmole

Spells: 8

2 Forbidden Lance
2 Pot of Duality

1 Book of Moon
1 Seal of Orichalcos
1 Monster Reborn
1 Dark Hole

Traps: 13

2 Compulsory Evacuation Device

2 Dark Bribe
2 Dimensional Prison
2 Solemn Warning
2 Call of the Haunted
2 Bottomless Trap hole
2 Torrential Tribute
1 Solemn Judgment

Extra Deck: 15
2 Gem-Knight Pearl
1 Kochi Kochi Dragon
1 Soul of Silver Mountain

1 Steelswarm Roach

1 Number 30: Acid Golem of Destruction
1 Temtempo the Percussion Djinn
1 Wind-Up Zenmaister
1 Gachi Gachi

1 Number 39: Utopia
1 Fairy King Albverdich
1 Gaia Knight, Force of Earth
1 Mist Wurm
1 Scrap Dragon
1 Stardust Dragon

As far as the sidedeck goes for this deck, I’d definitely put the Mystical Space Typhoons in there, as people are sure to side Royal Decree in. Gozen Match is a solid option for decks like Wind-Up, and King Tiger Wanghu is worth considering, being that he is an earth. I would probably play Prohibition for Dark World, with Dark Bribe to protect it from Typhoons, a Prohibition on Grapha can easily spell game for a Dark World player. Nobleman of Crossout is great versus the Geargia deck, being one of the few ways to easily trade one-for-one with a Geargiarmor.

Moving on to the next decklist:

Joe Giorlando’s Gishki Hero Turbo Deck

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

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

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

I’ll admit, I’d never seen a deck like this before. The first thing I did was I rushed to duelingnetwork to get a visual of the list, and read the cards I didn’t recognize… Well, that didn’t help much, let’s play a few games to figure this out. The immediate issue I see here is there are no fusions in the extra deck to miracle fusion into, so I cut a Grenosaurus and Melomelody for an Absolute Zero and Escarudo.

Okay, those were some pretty one sided games. Game 1 he summoned a Venus, and poked me for 2000 until I was dead. Game 2 he played an Archlord Kristya on turn 2 by tributing venus and a shine ball, and I didn’t have the Dark Hole. I’ve established this is trying to play a DDT-like game, where you sit back and draw cards until you have the pieces to combo your opponent out. The problem here is that you have no way to stay alive. We’re going to need to make some big changes to this one.

The Salvages are probably dead cards more often than they are live with only 4 targets in the deck. Tour Guide is probably not where a deck like this wants to be. You ideally want to have around 14 or 15 monsters in a deck like this, and as good as tour guide is in a deck like wind-ups, in here it is usually just going to tutor sangan. With only 10 dark monsters left in the list, Dark Armed Dragon is probably too situational to warrant playing.

Typhoon is a quickplay, which means Diamond Dude doesn’t hit off of it. There are cards that do similar things, but hit off diamond dude as well.

The Extra deck needs a bit of revamping as well so that the Miracle Fusions aren’t completely dead cards. I cut the Melomelody, Grenosaurus, and the Black Rose Dragon to make room for some fusions.

-2 Salvage

-2 Tour Guide from the Underworld

-1 Sangan

-1 Dark Armed Dragon

-3 Mystical Space Typhoon

-1 Melomelody, the Brass Djinn

-1 Grenosaurus

-1 Black Rose Dragon

Now that we’ve freed up 6 slots, we can start adding cards. Scapegoat is an amazing card for a deck like this. Not only does it help you stall as you try to develop a hand to kill them, but it also lets you summon Plasma, which can be a very powerful card versus decks that rely on monster effects, like wind-up.

I’m also going to add 2 copies of Card Trooper. This can mill your Ogres so you can return them to your hand with Aquamirror in order to give you more discard fodder to trade-in, or an Ogre you already summoned. It also helps buy time, by running over whatever they summon, while also replacing itself so you don’t get set back. Trooper is also unique in that it is the only zero card answer to thunder king, since it replaces itself upon ramming into Rai-oh.

It isn’t really our goal to be going off on turn 1, so there is no reason to not play Dualities in here, especially after cutting Tour Guide. This will help greatly with the consistency problems I was having while testing the deck.

Threatening Roar tech out of the Classic DDT lists which not only helps you stay alive, but also protects your diamond dudes so you can continue digging through your deck with them.

Now, to replace the Mystical Space Typhoons, I’m going to add Nobleman of Extermination. I’m opting for this over Night Beam for the information it provides. If you Nobleman a Solemn Warning, and they don’t have another copy in their deck, you can safely assume they have another copy down and play around it. Not being able to chain to Night Beam doesn’t really have much of an effect in this deck either, since you don’t have backrow they can’t chain Mystical Space Typhoon to it anyway, and you won’t be committing to the field versus unknown backrow so compulsory won’t do much either.

For the Extra Deck, I’m adding 2 copies of Absolute Zero, and one copy of Escarudo.

+1 Scapegoat

+2 Card Trooper

+2 Pot of Duality

+1 Threatening Roar

+3 Nobleman of Extermination

+2 Elemental Hero Absolute Zero

+1 Elemental Hero Escarudo

Leaving us with a final list looking like:

*Doctored* Gishki Hero Turbo Deck

3 Gishki Soul Ogre
3 Gishki Vision
3 Destiny Hero Plasma
2 Destiny Hero Diamond Dude
2 Trageodia

2 Card Trooper
1 Gishki Shadow
1 Elemental Hero Stratos
1 Gorz, the Emissary of Darkness

3 Destiny Draw
3 Trade-In
3 Miracle Fusion
3 Nobleman of Extermination
2 Pot of Duality

1 Scapegoat
1 Gishki Aquamirror
1 Reinforcement of the Army
1 Allure of Darkness
1 Dark Hole
1 Heavy Storm
1 Monster Reborn

1 Threatening Roar

2 Elemental Hero Absolute Zero

1 Elemental Hero Escarudo
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

Well, it’s been a blast writing this, and hope to get the opportunity to do it again. Thanks for reading.

-Tyler Nolan