G'day guys! Since everyone else seems to be doing this contest I thought I'd take a crack at it myself. No real need for flashy introductions in which I talk myself up (mostly because I have very little relevant credentials and I don’t want to be that guy who says “I’ve won like 9999999 locals and topped 37 regionals!!) so ill just jump right in and hope the ideas and theory I discuss do that for me.
I am unsure exactly what the “budget” or “go to” amount is and, since there was no guidelines on this, I will endeavour to limit all changes to around a $100-150 difference at most. If this is too much I would be more than happy to provide more cost-effective changes. Also, since Abyss Rising is legal of the 09/11/2012 I will write this as if the set was currently legal.
We'll start with Billy Brake's list.
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
The first thing to note is what the deck is trying to achieve. Obviously, this list, and the archetype in general, is attempting to control the board through a series of one for one exchanges via the Koa'ki Meru negations. As the duel progresses, it aims to generate +1's in a simplified game state through cards like Block Golem. Card Trooper fuels this graveyard toolbox and allows you to produce more consistent Block Golem plays. This then allows you to respond to most game states that you will find yourself in. Chain Burn, Final Countdown etc? No worries! Just grab your Sandmen and Wall’s and go to work. Monster heavy decks? Too easy! You have your own personal Guardian to protect you! In that sense, this deck has more flexibility to respond to a variety of situations than Mitt Romney has in explaining policies on a week to week basis! And while that didn’t win him the Presidency it should win you more than a handful of Yu-Gi-Oh matches.
Therefore, we need to keep this overall strategy in mind as we make changes.
Monsters
I don't think Billy's monster line-up is all that bad to be honest. However, there are some changes I would implement.
Maxx "C" - I personally am not a fan of this card in a deck like this that really has nothing to draw into. If your opponent decides that they're just going to go balls to the walls and throw their cards on the table, you cannot draw into any protection to save you from that game ending strike. There's absolutely no fun sitting across from a kid who proudly exclaims YOLO, as if they have just discovered the fact that they do indeed only live once, and then proceeds to fumble their way towards 8000 damage; irrespective of any draws you may get. I believe that this list would be better served with having cards that help either setup or maintain a setup so that situations like the previous do not occur.
Cut both copies.
Block Golem - I think 3 may be a little too much; especially given a specific card change I plan on implementing. If you draw it early then it will sit dead in your hand and having 3 copies (plus the additional card later in this article) just feels inconsistent to me. I understand that you have Troopers to fuel the Graveyard and whatnot but I am not a huge fan of early dead weight. You will have the two copies themselves as well as copies of Call of the Haunted to reuse them as required. Therefore, I believe we are safe in knocking this card down to 2.
This has the additional effect of slightly reducing dead draws if you are forced to go into a non-earth monster in order to get over a specific field. I totally understand that this little guy is amazing and essentially one of the ‘boss’ cards in the deck. However, if you do not get Card Trooper off early and see a copy or two of this guy then you are in a horrible position. The changes I plan on implementing later in the form of additional draw cards will mitigate the effects of dropping this to 2.
Cut 1 copy.
So far we have removed 3 cards
Spells
Mystical Space Typhoon - I don't think that this deck needs Typhoon all that much. It has Koa'Ki Meru abilities to negate spells/traps and so I feel that the deck would be best served running Forbidden Lance instead.
Cut all 3.
Soul Taker - Whilst not a bad card, I do not think it is necessary. I mean, I totally get that Billy wanted to capitalise on the Seal of Orichalcos’ ability to steal souls but I just can’t justify it in this deck! I may invoke the wrath of Dartz by saying this, but I just feel that Lance can also double up and help deal with larger monsters and reactionary backrow is the flavour of the day right now since responding on your turn is oftentimes too late.
Cut both copies.
So far we have removed 8 cards.
Traps
Starlight Road - Whilst this card is not terrible I do not like the fact that it is reliant on your opponent killing two cards at once and is susceptible to easier negation. You will rarely get caught in a Torrential Tribute play outside of resolving a Block Golem and so it will only be used on Heavy Storm until the duel progresses. It just adds to the cards we would not always want to see Turn 1. Besides, I feel the list will require more targeted protection when you see the additions in the trap line-up.
Cut the sole copy.
Torrential Tribute – This card is really good. Obviously. However, the purpose of this deck is to maintain control through its series of simple single card negations. Torrential Tribute detracts from this end goal by removing your monster presence. Whilst I understand that there are going to be times that you are unable to set up, I feel running a card that doesn’t fall in line with the main strategy just doesn’t cut it.
Cut both copies.
Therefore, we have removed a total of 11 cards and I would replace them with the following
2 x Cardcar D
A little race-car that will carry us to victory! This card is great to open with as the advantage it generates can help secure your upcoming plays. However, it really shines in the grind games to help dig for resources and answers faster than your opponent. This decks entire purpose is to simplify the game state and use single cards such as Block Golem to produce easy +1s after this had been achieved. Therefore, Cardcar D serves to advance the strategy of this deck.
1 x Gaia Plate the Earth Giant
This is a large part of my reasoning to reduce Block Golem to 2. This card gives the deck a beatstick that it can drop; something it was severely lacking in the form of an earth monster. A 2800 boss monster that has an inherent 'Shrink' ability built-in is worthwhile running. Furthermore, this deck just wouldn’t feel complete with some sort of Rocky Balboa influence and this guy packs just the punch to fit the bill. I also like this change since The Seal of Orichalcos can sometimes lock us out from responding to 2500+ threats on the board.
3 x Forbidden Lance
This card seems to have far more versatility to it than MST. It protects your Koa'ki Meru's for the entire turn and allows them to get over bigger monsters and win out vs. Thunder Kings etc. Damage Step shenanigans are just too fun to ignore.
1 x Book of Moon
This card is simply too versatile not to run in my opinion. Especially in a control based deck like this. Whether it is simply running over monsters with less than 1900 defense or completely shutting down opposing plays, Book of Moon just needs to be run here. Sure, it may be an inherent -1 but it just allows you to respond to so many different situations that it would be foolhardy to ignore it.
1 x Heavy Storm
Despite being somewhat backrow reliant I feel that Heavy Storm still has a place in this deck. Besides Skill Drain, the rest of the backrow will usually be removed from the field in order to negate or remove your opponents cards. Backrow can be frustrating at times for this deck admittedly and your opponent will be extremely likely to allow themselves to set multiple backrow once they realise what you are playing. This opens up the potential for some back-breaking plays with Heavy. After recently weathering Sandy I have a newfound appreciation for Storms!
2 x Skill Drain
Probably one of the most obnoxious cards going around. There’s absolutely no fun to be had for your opponent when you flip Skill Drain, summon a Wall and watch the crestfallen look on their face as they begin to set Tour Guides to avoid damage. Personally, I play almost specifically to see that crestfallen look as their life points drain away! And for fun, too, of course; my fun that is! This card lost a lot of popularity at the beginning of this format due to the fact that Dark Worlds and Heroes were expected to have a large showing. However, the latest YCS did not have a single Hero or Dark World in top 16 and so I feel that this card is gaining strength as the format progresses. On the other hand, Atlanteans/Mermails can play around this card so if that deck picks up strength and remains a contender this choice may need to be revisited Just for reference, of the 14/16 of the top lists I could find publicly, there were a total of 230 monsters main decked that had 1900 or less attack; this number does not include Rescue Rabbit, Cardcar D etc for obvious reasons. That’s almost 40% of the average deck that will either crash or be weaker than all of your monsters when everything becomes a pseudo vanilla beater!
NOTE: Skill Drain does not remove the need to reveal for a Koa'ki Meiru; that is a condition and NOT an effect.
1 x Dark Bribe
Given that I have implemented Skill Drain into the deck I feel that this card has more relevance than Starlight Road. We do not wish to put non-Earth monsters into the grave if we can help it and so Bribe has the added bonus of also bypassing this. Obviously one is not forced to summon the Stardust but the overall versatility of Dark Bribe does it for me here. Nothing even remotely humorous I can mention with this card so I’ll have to just move on! I could probably have a somewhat effective crack at the card art but I digress..
The Extra Deck
To me, this really did feel like an “extra deck”. There were some Synchrocentric elements and half a Sabre/Samurai deck in here. Whilst the Extra deck can be considered somewhat unimportant for this archetype, it still deserves some focus as there will be times that you need to go into (predominately) rank 4’s in order to react to a specific field; even if this means you will render Block Golem useless. Therefore, I feel we need to increase the options within this extra.
Cut:
1 Naturia Beast – Essentially impossible to make under any circumstances
1 Naturia Barkion – Essentially impossible to make under any circumstances
1 Gaia Knight, the Force of the Earth – Essentially impossible to make under any circumstances
1 Stardust Dragon – Without Starlight Road this becomes uneccessary. Scrap Dragon is POSSIBLE to make though almost as rare as the cards above.
1 Soul of Silvermountain – Really cool card but extremely hard to make and so running two copies just felt a bit much.
1 Kachi-Kochi Dragon – You will rarely want to give up two Koa’ki Meru monsters for even a single copy of this card
1 Gachi-Gachi Gantetsu – Too situational. Requires you to have both Cardcar D’s on field, have both get veilered etc.
Add:
1 Number 16: Shock Master
1 Maestroke the Symphony Djinn
1 Photon Papilloperative
1 Steelswarm Roach
1 Gagaga Cowboy
1 Abyss Dweller
1 Ally of Justice Catastor
Whilst I am aware that this removes a lot of Earth monsters from the Extra Deck, keep in mind that virtually all of the ones removed were impossible to make regardless. Yes, this means that you have a lot of cards that are not Earth and this will affect Block Golem. However, you are not forced to make them and would only resort to doing so if you were in a horrible position. For this reason, I feel it is necessary to have flexible (and plausible) options in the extra deck just in case. The extra deck provides options to respond to a variety of gamestates that your main board would otherwise be unable to. Running cards we cannot make simply because they are earth and ignoring valid options because they are not earth just doesn't seem wise. You will only ever go into a non-earth XYZ when you are unable to respond with any other card. For this reason, being non-earth is irrelavant. EItheThis is also another facet to the reasoning I used in opting to drop Golem down to 2.
This now allows me to collate the revised list fully below. However, no deck is complete without a funky name, right? Right! We have rocks? Lots of rocks? A couple of race-cars? Hmm. Sounds like a ‘Rocky Road’ to me! Ok, sorry, I’ve had my fun. Here is the list:
Monsters: 19
3 Koa’ki Meiru Guardian
3 Koa’ki Meiru Sandman
3 Koa’ki Meiru Wall
2 Block Golem
2 Cardcar D
2 Card Trooper
2 Fossil Dyna Pachycephalo
1 Neo-Spacian Grandmole
1 Gaia Plate the Earth Giant
Spells: 10
3 Forbidden Lance
2 Pot of Duality
1 Seal of Orichalcos
1 Monster Reborn
1 Dark Hole
1 Book of Moon
1 Heavy Storm
Traps: 12
2 Dimensional Prison
2 Solemn Warning
2 Call of the Haunted
2 Bottomless Trap Hole
2 Skill Drain
1 Solemn Judgment
1 Dark Bribe
Total: 41
Extra Deck: 15
1 Temtempo the Percussion Djinn
1 Soul of Silvermountain
2 Gem-Knight Pearl
1 Kochi Kochi Dragon
1 Wind-Up Zenmaister
1 Fairy King Albverdich
1 Number 16: Shock Master
1 Maestroke the Symphony Djinn
1 Photon Papilloperative
1 Steelswarm Roach
1 Gagaga Cowboy
1 Abyss Dweller
1 Ally of Justice Catastor
1 Scrap Dragon
I feel that this revised list serves to further the overall goal of working off multiple one for one negations and then generating mid-late game advantage through Block Golem and Cardcar D. I also believe that it has more consistency and negation/protection than before which should serve to increase its competitiveness across the board.
If Cardcar D is not an option then additional traps or cards such as Grandsoil the Elemental Lord and/or Giant Rat are worthwhile testing in order to dig for cheaper alternatives.
THAT CONCLUDES DECKLIST ONE!
Wow. 2400 words and I haven’t even started on Joe’s Gishki-Hero list. If you got this far then I assume the previous 2300 words were interesting enough to keep you reading. With any luck, the next 2000 are just the same!
Joe Giorlando’s original list is as follows.
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
Similar to navigating the Rocky Road above, I feel it is necessary to first develop an understanding of the direction this deck is trying to take. I’m not going to lie folks, I had to Google exactly what a couple of these cards do! That’s not taking a swipe at the deck by any means; if I had to Google them then I can reasonably expect that my opponent will have similar dilemmas in understanding the deck and it’s card interactions. Hopefully this will be a further advantage that one could capitalise on! So, what’s the strategy here, what is the deck trying to achieve as its core purpose? It is obvious at a glance that the main purposes of this deck are to spam Absolute Zeros and the odd Soul Ogre and in order to control the opponents field and force through massive damage (at least, it will once we fix that eclectic extra deck!). It is also apparent that this list attempts to piggy-back off the consistency of a somewhat standard Destiny-Hero draw engine alongside Trade-Ins. So, the question becomes, how best to facilitate both the draw engine and the ritual/fusion elements?
NOTE: I understand that it would be extremely easy to add in some Malicious and change this towards a more Gustraken focused build. However, the list submitted by Joe has a distinct focus on Destiny Hero Plasma and its synergy with Soul Ogre and the decks unique draw engines. I do not feel that I should take Joe's list in a direction he never intended and change it to a completely different deck. Therefore, I will attempt to fix the deck whilst still keeping its original framework and staying as true to Joe's vision as possible; I feel this is the only way to be fair to Joe and any future players.
In order to streamline the deck and shave off the fluff around its main strategies, I feel that the following cards need to be removed.
Tour Guide from the Underworld
Amazing card. I don’t think anyone would debate that. However, I do not see its purpose here besides being a strong stand alone card. Realistically, you could add this card into almost every deck but the question you need to ask yourself is, why? What does adding this into my deck do for me? Besides helping to regulate the dark count (which this deck does with ease through draw spells and Miracle Fusions anyway) and digging for Sangan, it really does not further the deck in any significant way. This is also one of the easiest ways to free up necessary room in the extra deck.
Cut both copies.
Sangan
I understand that this card can search your Gishki’s and whatnot but it is incredibly slow in a deck that aims to be incredibly fast. You have 7 specific draw cards and 6 search cards in Joe’s original list and will have similar in the revised list so I just do not feel this card remains necessary without the Tour Guides.
Cut the single copy
Gishki Vision
Digging for the Soul Ogre is an integral part of this deck as that adds consistency to both your ritual plays and your Trade-In targets. However, 3 for only 3 rituals feels a bit much and I think we need to shuffle the Gishki search capabilities of this list around slightly in order to increase consistency. Salvage allows you to recycle the two copies en masse and so this barely affects your ability to tutor out a Soul Ogre when needed.
Cut one copy.
Destiny Draw
This card is really, really good. However, it only has 5 targets in this deck and 3 of those are shared targets for Trade-In. Similarly, all 5 are also targets for Allure of Darkness. Leaving 3 copies of Destiny Draw in would lead to me wanting to cut Allure and I feel that the sole copy allowed has more versatility in making use of potentially dead darks like Tragoedia and Dark Armed Dragon. It was then a toss up between this and Trade-In and I just felt that Trade-In had more consistency with the Aquamirrors ability to return Soul Ogre to your hand alongside the searchability of Plasma itself.
Mystical Space Typhoon
I almost never recommend Night Beam over Mystical Space Typhoon. Night beam is unable to be set and chained to your opponents card. In most decks, you are not uspet if your opponent clears your Mystical Space Typhoon at end phase instead of hitting a relevant trap. However, in this deck, you never want to set your copies of MST. Why? This deck plays 0 trap cards and no other cards that it would be setting in the backrow. This allows you to make all copies of your opponents MSTs and Heavy Storm completely dead. By setting your copy, you may take a technical ‘minus 1’ if you allow your opponents othwerwise dead cards to be useful. I concede that there will be times you need to set cards but this will be extremely rare.
Furthermore, Night Beam has synergy with Diamond Dude and would bring the eligible targets in Joe’s original list up to 16. As I said, I would almost never suggest this card over Mystical Space Typhoon but in a deck that does not set backrow and uses the turbo elements of Diamond Dude, it seems to have a unique synergy and usefulness.
Cut all 3 copies
This means we have removed a total of 8 cards from the original list. I would replace them with the following.
Gishki Shadow
I feel that this deck needs an additional copy of this card. Digging for the ritual spell adds consistency to the engine and furthers one of the decks two facets; that of controlling the field with Soul Ogre. Running two of each Gishki search card seems to be more balanced. Especially when you consider the fact that you have Salvages to return them to your hand at any given time and the Mirror will be shuffling itself back into the deck with regularity. I know that the second can potentially be dead. However, if you did happen to draw into both copies, the second can be used as the entire tribute for the Mirror that the first digs for. I toyed with the idea of adding an additional Mirror alongside this change but I ultimately decided against it.
Add 1 copy
Night Beam
As discussed before, this card just feels more synergistic with the Diamond Dude element of the deck and doesn’t suffer many of the major downsides it would in most other decks. If Macro-Rabbit variants begin to pop up in the metagame then this will need to be revised. Until then, I feel it is a worthwhile exchange.
Add 3 copies.
Deep-Sea Diva
This feels like it has more synergy than Tour Guide in this deck. It tutors out Gishkis to be revived with Salvage and opens up many synchro plays that the deck would otherwise not possess. Gachi-Gachi can help stall out in order to dig for additional combo pieces and synchros such as Gaia Knight, Scrap Dragon etc can just dig you out of bad situations.
Add 2 copies.
Soul Taker/Smashing Ground (depending on your preference and availability)
I almost added Pot of Duality to the deck instead of this card. However, I went through my revised list and noticed the following fact: a turn one Thunder King shuts down the 4 Gishki searches, Stratos and Reinforcement of the Army. The deck relies on the consistency provided by these 6 cards. Without their searches, the draw cards such as Trade-In and Destiny Draw sit dead and you will oftentimes be left with half a combo in your hand without the ability to dig for the rest. To that end, I decided against adding in 2 additional cards hurt by Thunder King and to add 2 answers to the card instead. Unfortunately for this deck, the threat of a turn one Thunder King as early as game one is extremely relevant and needed to be addressed.
The Extra Deck
There are 15 mostly good cards here and almost all have a place in specific decks. However, they are taking up room for cards that we need. As it stands, the deck has no targets for the 3 Miracle Fusions and so we need to change that immediately! The following I see as necessary cuts:
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
For all of the above, the reasoning is that we no longer have access to rank 3 XYZ.
1 Blade Armor Ninja – Excalibur just generally does it better.
1 Number 11: Big Eye – No way for us to make this.
1 Gaia Dragon, Thunder Charger – No way for us to make this.
1 Black Rose Dragon – No way for us to make this
These would be replaced with:
3 Elemental Hero Absolute Zero
1 Elemental Hero Escuraido
1 Gaia Knight, the Force of the Earth
1 Scrap Dragon
1 Stardust Dragon
1 Gachi-Gachi Gantestu
1 Daigusto Phoenix
1 Photon Papilloperative
1 Gagaga Gunman
Monsters: 19
3 Gishki Soul Ogre
3 Destiny Hero Plasma
2 Gishki Vision
2 Gishki Shadow
2 Destiny Hero Diamond Dude
2 Trageodia
2 Deep-Sea Diva
1 Elemental Hero Stratos
1 Dark Armed Dragon
1 Gorz, the Emissary of Darkness
Spells: 21
3 Trade-In
3 Miracle Fusion
3 Night Beam
2 Destiny Draw
2 Salvage
2 Soul Taker/Smashing Ground
1 Gishki Aquamirror
1 Reinforcement of the Army
1 Allure of Darkness
1 Dark Hole
1 Heavy Storm
1 Monster Reborn
Total: 40
Extra Deck: 15
3 Elemental Hero Absolute Zero
1 Elemental Hero Escuraido
1 Gaia Knight, the Force of the Earth
1 Scrap Dragon
1 Stardust Dragon
1 Gachi-Gachi Gantestu
1 Daigusto Phoenix
1 Photon Papilloperative
1 Gagaga Gunman
1 Maestroke Symphony Djinn
1 Heroic Champion Excalibur
1 Number 39: Utopia
1 Hieratic Sun Dragon Overlord of Heliopolis
I feel that the revised lists of both the main and extra deck serves to cut off the uncessary parts of the deck and focus more specifically on what it should be doing: spam Absolute Zero and spin things with Soul Ogre. I have given the list some testing personally and I genuinely do believe that consistency has been increased and I am not completely shut-down by a Thunder King ruining my day.
I hope that both Billy and Joe respect the changes I have made to their individual decks and that the rest of you agree. I would be more than happy to take any and all constructive criticism!
Until next time, the Doc is out!
Ashley
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