Deck Doctor Contest – Nick Marcos

November 6, 2012

by Nicholas Marcos

Billy’s Original Deck:
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 Traphole
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

Right off the bat I can see that Billy opted to play the deck similar to his inzektor deck, where the overall goal is to mill his main combo pieces with card trooper and bring them back using call of the haunted. It’s a strategy that has given him much success, and I think it will work wonderfully here as well, since both decks require some degree of setup.
The first thing I’d like to change is that while Block Golem is certainly a cool card, I don’t feel that it flows well with the deck. Sure, you’ll be milling targets for it with card trooper, but even if you brought back your targets with block golem, their effects could not be activated for that turn anyways, and because of Seal of Orichalcos, you can’t even turn those monsters into a xyz summon! So with that being said, I’ve decided to cut Block Golem altogether in favor of a more flexible monster lineup that isn’t limited to earth attributes and still follows the “stun” play style this deck shoots to play.
For the spells, I chose to drop a soul taker to make room for a second Seal of Orichalcos and one Demise of the Land. In case some of you guys were not aware, When Demise of the Land “activates” a field spell card from the deck, it does not truly “activate” it. What it does is it places it on the field without starting a chain, meaning that you have not technically activated a Seal of Orichalcos yet, so you can still activate the other Seal of Orichalcos. And with all the special summoning going on in this format, Demise of the Land won’t be dead at all.
Lastly, for the traps, the only real changes I made were dropping both torrential tributes in favor of two Compulsory Evacuation Device and a single Skill Drain. The reason I chose to drop Torrential Tribute is because this deck is heavily reliant on field presence, so Torrential Tribute would do more harm than good in a deck like this. Skill Drain is a neat addition because it stops a lot of the Meta in their tracks. The only reason I don’t run two is because through previous play testing I had done with the deck, it would usually sit dead in my hand or on the field.
Because of my decision to exclude Block Golem, I decided to leave the extra deck relatively untouched, seeing as how we really won’t be using it too often.
So overall, here are the changes I made:
-3 Block Golem
-1 Koa’ki Meiru Wall
-2 Maxx “C”
-1 Neo-Spacian Grand mole
-1 Soul Taker
-2 Torrential Tribute
+2 Thunder King Rai-Oh
+2 Effect Veiler
+1 Demise of the Land
+1 Seal of Orichalcos
+1 Book of Moon
+2 Compulsory Evacuation Device
+1 Skill Drain
Here is the final deck list:
Monsters: 16

3 Koa’ki Meiru Guardian
3 Koa’ki Meiru Sandman
2 Koa’ki Meiru Wall
2 Card Trooper
2 Thunder King Rai-Oh
2 Effect Veiler
2 Fossil Dyna Pachycephalo

Spells:12

3 Mystical Space Typhoon
1 Soul Taker
2 Pot of Duality
1 Demise of the Land
2 Seal of Orichalcos
1 Book of Moon
1 Monster Reborn
1 Dark Hole

Traps: 13

2 Dimensional Prison
2 Solemn Warning
2 Call of the Haunted
2 Bottomless Traphole
2 Compulsory Evacuation Device
1 Skill Drain
1 Solemn Judgment
1 Starlight Road

Extra Deck: 15

Joe Giorlando’s Original 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

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 think Joe’s deck is pretty neat. The main deck seems to be solid overall, with most of the changes being focused on the extra deck. The few things that I would change with Joe’s main deck are to include a pair of Royal Decree. After reading Alex Vansant’s article on the odds of drawing particular cards in a certain sized deck, it becomes very clear that adding in two Royal Decrees to make a 42 card deck with this much draw power is completely negligible when looking at the benefits it provides.
I was very tempted to add in two pot of duality or even two Card Car D to help along the draw power, but I realized very quickly that because this is a Turbo Deck, the idea is to explode on the opponent, which pot of duality would not help you do. Card Car D stood a better chance of being added, but I decided not to because I would rather use my normal summon on elemental Hero Stratos, Destiny Hero Diamond Dude, or Tour Guide from the Underworld.
As mentioned before, most of the changes I made went to the extra deck. Cards that were easily eliminated were the excess rank 3’s such as Grenosaurus and Melomelody. In addition, I also removed Big Eye and Gaia Dragon. Unless I am missing something obvious, the only way I saw to bring out rank 7’s was by using Tragoedia’s effect on an in grave Gorz while also having a monster reborn to bring it back to overlay with. This was far too situational and easily cut. With all those cuts, I added in the elemental Hero fusions that Joe cleverly left out (and I almost fell for it) as well as some more exceeds that while they won’t be brought out every game, it is very realistic that they will, so knowing that they are there is reassuring.
Here are the changes I decided to make:
+2 Royal Decree
-1 Grenosaurus
-1 Melomelody the Brass Djinn
-1 Acid Golem of Destruction
-1 Number 11: Big Eye
-1 Gaia Dragon, Thunder Chrager
-1 Black Rose Dragon
+1 Scrap Dragon
+1 Photon Papilloperative
+1 Elemental Hero Escuridao
+3 Elemental Hero Absolute Zero