Deck Doctor – Kyle Ferris | Alter Reality Games

November 15, 2012

by Kyle Ferris

Hello I’m Kyle Ferris from Denver, Colorado. I am 16 and have been playing this game for a little less than two years. My only real credential is 54^th place at the Colorado Springs Regional of this format piloting Machina Gadgets. Hopefully, eventually I’ll have one of my own decks featured on this sight after topping a YCS.

Every deck has a right way and a wrong way to be played. This not only extends to deck building but also to your play style; It does you no good to try and swarm with Gladiator Beasts, or to try and play Stun with Lightsworns. That’s something I want to try and emphasize in this article: Play your deck the way it was meant to be played. For instance, Don’t play a Stun deck as a Beatdown 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

Ok let’s see what we’ve got here.

After Legendary Collection 3 got released, many players were looking for ways to fit Seal of Orichalcos into their decks. While in some decks (Such as Malefics) it works well enough, there are some decks where it just doesn’t work, Rock stun in particular. After all, Rock Stun has its name because almost all of the monsters in it are (gasp) rocks! If you want an attack boost, Solidarity would work just as well, if not better since it lacks the Seal’s many, many downsides.

However, we don’t need that attack boost. If you would again look at the name, this deck is called Rock STUN, not Rock Beatdown or Rock Throw or W.W.E. Smackdown vs. Rock 2012. Stun decks work on depleting your opponent’s resources until they can’t do anything, not popping out 1900 beaters (although they can do that rather well), which brings me to the main issue of this deck: It’s focused too much on Block Golem.

While using Card Trooper to mill rocks to the grave to set up Block Golem sounds good in theory, it leads to the main issue with uncontrolled milling: You will mill cards you don’t want milled, namely spells and traps. That’s why decks that run the Lightsworn Engine tend only to run the bare minimum of spells. In a proper stun deck, your lineup should be around 40-50% backrow, and Card Trooper will end up wasting that.

Kyle Ferris’ Rock Stun Deck

Monsters: 16
3 Koa’ki Meiru Guardian
3 Koa’ki Meiru Sandman

3 Koa’ki Meiru Wall
3 Block Golem
2 Fossil Dyna Pachycephalo
1 Neo-Spacian Grandmole

1 Gaia Plate the Earth Giant

Spells: 8
2 Mystical Space Typhoon
2 Smashing Ground
2 Pot of Duality

1 Monster Reborn
1 Dark Hole

Traps: 16
2 Dimensional Prison
2 Solemn Warning
2 Call of the Haunted
2 Bottomless Traphole
2 Torrential Tribute

2 Compulsory Evacuation Device

2 Fiendish Chain
1 Solemn Judgment
1 Starlight Road

Extra Deck: 15
2 Gem-Knight Pearl
1 Kochi Kochi Dragon
1 Temtempo the Percussion Djinn
1 Fairy King Albverdich

1 Number 16: Shock Master

1 Gagaga Cowboy

1 Maestroke the Symphony Djinn

1 Photon Papilloperative

1 Steelswarm Roach

1 Soul of Silver Mountain

1 Giant Soldier of Steel

1 Wind-up Zenmaines

1 Number 30: Acid Golem
1 Stardust Dragon

First off, the new monster line-up

I have nothing against Maxx “C”, it’s a good card. However, it doesn’t fit in Rock Stun, at least not in the main deck. Maxx “C” is only good if you draw into a card to stop an OTK, such as Gorz (Which we don’t run; too much backrow) or Tragoedia (Don’t maintain hand advantage), so it’s out to make room for more cards we can use (Traps). Card Trooper was also cut for the reasons I mentioned previously. The only Monster that I ended up adding was a Gaia Plate. Now I know what you’re thinking “Hey now Kyle, didn’t you just say that this isn’t a beatdown deck? Why would you run a card that is literally nothing but a huge beater?” Well, hypothetical reader, there’s a difference here. In this case, rather than waste space on a paltry 500 boost, we’re placing in a giant beater that will come in late game to clean it all up. In a stun deck, late game is where you win; the opponent is down, topdecking their card’s and then you drop this monstrosity on them and you enter the Scoop-Phase.

The Spell line up remained relatively unchanged because spells aren’t very important to a stun deck. Orichalcos was cut for reasons mentioned previously, an MST was dropped because our Koaki Meirus will be able to negate most card’s the opponent uses, and Soul Takers were swapped out for Smashing Grounds because the main deck it was used on (Chaos Dragons) isn’t nearly as prevalent now, side deck it.

Billy Brakes deck had 12 traps. He had a STUN deck, with 12 traps. Get it together man.

Even worse, he’s missing two of the best trap cards for the deck: CED and Fiendish Chain. Let me school you with a history lesson real quick.

Long ago in the Magical time of January 2007, a pack released called “Duelist Pack: Jaden Yuki 3”. In most every sense of the word, it sucked. It was focused on (ugh) Neo Spacians and (Uuughhhhh) Evil HEROs. However there was one little card in there, a small unassuming monster with not but 900 attack. His name was Neo Spacian Grand Mole, and he was so fearsome that he was limited 33 days later on the March 2007 forbidden list. Its existence (along with Legendary Jujitsu Master, but we don’t talk about him) is what led to the eventual creation of the Rock Stun deck. So WHY would you not want to run its trap version? Any trap heavy deck should run a copy of CED, it’s that good. Fiendish chain meanwhile is the extra negation we need to push this deck over the edge in No-Fun-Allowed Territory.

Finally, I removed the Synchros from the Extra Deck (Why do you have Synchros with no Tuners?) except for Stardust for Starlight Shenanigans. I also put some variety into the extra deck, because you really only should be XYZing as a last resort, Negation or Summon prevention are far more important than a 2600 beater.

Onto Joe Giorlando’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 21

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

Oh Jeeze…

Alright first off, NEVER run a Gishki deck without running the full Gishki Engine. That is to say, 3 Gishki Abyss, 3 Gishki Shadow, 2-3 Gishki Vision. Second off, the Level 8 Gishkis are mediocre, in fact there’s only 3 good Gishki Ritual Monsters, and only one of them is released in America. When running a Gishki deck, Level 6 is the magic level. And what Archetype is a great level 6 tribute engine?

…other than Hieratics I mean…

That’s right! Destiny HEROs! Of course, this deck doesn’t run the Level 6 tribute engine, it runs the Trade-Destiny-Allure Draw Engine. Now why would you sacrifice the ability for easy Level 6 ritual summons in a ritual deck in exchange for some extra draw power? I don’t know. Regardless, this deck main problem is a lack of focus. It seems to want to be an Absolute Zero deck, with the Gishki part tacked on as an afterthought.

Kyle Ferris’ Gishki Hero Turbo Deck

Monsters 24

1 Evigishki Gustkraken
3 Evigishki Mind Agus
3 Gishki Abyss

3 Gishki Shadow
2 Gishki Vision

2 Gishki Beast
1 Elemental HERO Stratos
2 Destiny HERO- Malicious
3 Destiny HERO - Dasher
1 Dark Armed Dragon
1 Gorz, the Emissary of Darkness

2 Tragoedia

Spells 16

3 Destiny Draw
3 Miracle Fusion
2 Mystical Space Typhoon
2 Salvage
2 Gishki Aquamirror
1 Allure of Darkness
1 Dark Hole
1 Heavy Storm
1 Monster Reborn

3 Elemental HERO – Absolute Zero

1 Elemental HERO- Great Tornado

1 Elemental HERO – Escuridao

1 Abyss Dweller

1 Gagaga Cowboy

1 Evigishki Merrowgeist

1 Maestroke the Symphony Djinn

1 Photon Papilloperative

1 Number 39: Utopia

1 Number 16: Shock Master

1 Inzektor Exa-Beetle

1 Photon Striker Bounzer

1 Number 25: Force Focus

Now see that’s more like it. First off, the Gishki Engine will provide for much, much more consistency. I’m sure you know Gishki’s ritual using the other rituals as a tribute most of the time to maintain advantage with Aquamirrors return effect right? Good. Of course in this case we also use the glorious Destiny HERO tribute engine. Both Malicious and Dasher get their main effects in the graveyard, and we have 5 cards (Destiny Draw and Aquamirror, which is searchable) to get them there. From there they can provide us with extra tributes, easy summons, or Fodder for Miracle Fusion. All the Banishing that we have going on also allows for great graveyard control, making DAD live often.

Unfortunately, the only really truly good Gishki Ritual right now, Zeal Gigas, is unreleased in the TCG. However, Gustkraken is also an extraordinarily good card, and an amazing first turn play. Combining that with the destiny HERO engine also allows for easy Rank 6s. For instance if you had the starting hand

Gustkraken (which is searchable by Vision which is searchable by Abyss, giving you 6 chances to draw it)

Aquamirror (Which is searchable by Shadow which is searchable by Abyss, giving you 7 chances to draw it)

Malicious (Searchable by Stratos)

Aquamirror the Malicious for Gustkraken, take down a card, bring back a Malicious, overlay for Strike Bounzer.

Of course that’s one combo, and a three card combo at that, but Gishkis have such searching power, and Destiny HEROs have such draw power that you will be able to get a good starting hand more often than not.

In addition to the Complete overhaul of the engines used in the deck, I also cut Tour guide as an XYZ engine in exchange for the Gishki Beast Engine. It all has to do with space: Why use a 3-4 card XYZ engine when you can use a 2 card XYZ engine using cards that are mostly in your deck? Not to mention that Beast lets you reuse Abyss, and, worst come to worst, you can bring back a Shadow and use it as a tribute.

And that’s it for me. More importantly than simply giving you ideas on how to net deck something, I hope that this article taught you something rather about deck building itself: Be open ended, be focused, and most importantly, be fun. This is Kyle Ferris, Deck Doctor, Signing off.