Obviously there's going to be a Yu-Gi-Oh day.
This week I'll be profiling my first competitive deck; Anti-meta Gadgets (Gadget Oppression sounds cooler though). It's three formats old (one format more than I've been playing) but it still handles most meta decks fairly well.
Here is the decklist:
Monsters: 18
Red Gadget x 2
Yellow Gadget x 2
Green Gadget x 2
Thunder King Rai-Oh x 3
Banisher of the Radiance x 2
D.D. Warrior Lady x 2
Blackwing - Gale the Whirlwind x 1
Neo-Spacian Grand Mole x 1
Spirit Reaper x 1
Amazoness Sage x 1
Gorz the Emissary of Darkness x 1
Spells: 8
Monster Reborn x 1
Dark Hole x 1
Mystical Space Typhoon x 1
Burden of the Mighty x 1
Smashing Ground x 2
Book of Moon x 2
Traps: 14
Bottomless Trap Hole x 2
Dimensional Prison x 2
Royal Oppression x 1
Trap Dustshoot x 1
Phoenix Wing Wind Blast x 1
Mirror Force x 1
Call of the Haunted x 1
Dark Bribe x 1
Solemn Judgment x 1
Torrential Tribute x 1
Divine Wrath x 1
Starlight Road x 1
Total: 40
It's a relatively simple deck to use, and a rather cheap one to build (sans the Thunder Kings). In a deck of 40, which any competitive deck should be running, choice of cards is of great importance. I will now go through reasons for each card.
Monsters:
Red/Yellow/Green Gadget: Running two of each is the best number as running only one results in inconsistency while running three results in bad hands. The reason to run Gadgets is because of their deck thinning capabilities and the advantage you get as a result. It is fundamental Gadget Theory (Which is just basic Yu-Gi-Oh advantage theory applied with Gadgets).
Thunder King Rai-Oh: A staple in any anti-meta deck, ran in two or three. Unlike Gadgets, having a Rai-Oh in your hand or on the field can be an early game changer, so it is best to run three for the highest chance of getting one at the start of the game.
Banisher of the Radiance: It's basically a Macro Cosmos that can attack. 1600 attack is laughable, since the threshold these days tend to be 1800, but just this card's presence on the field can be a nuisance for the opponent enough.
D.D Warrior Lady: It's simply an amazing card advantage-wise. There is almost no way your opponent can get rid of this card without losing some kind of advantage (Unless they play Lightning Vortex/Torrential Tribute/Dark Hole and you are an over-extender). If they won't attack her, you attack them, and the result will be the same.
Blackwing - Gale the Whirlwind: Splashable level 3 tuner with an amazing effect. Use it to bring down a heavy beater, or if things don't go your way, tune it with a Gadget for Black Rose Dragon and clear the field.
Neo-Spacian Grand Mole: Easy way to get rid of synchros or heavy beaters. Can also create the Grand Mole Lock for a cheap victory; but a victory is a victory even if it's "cheap".
Spirit Reaper: It's a great card for defense as well as offense. Only thing to worry about is piercing damage.
Amazoness Sage: Being 1400 attack is just under Bottomless Trap Hole, and it will get rid of a spell/trap when it attacks, either by your opponent stopping the attack with one of their own, or the attack goes through and you can choose one. Truly an underrated card.
Gorz the Emissary of Darkness: Will save you from OTK attempts. It is important not to overextend your back row otherwise you won't be able to use this card.
Spells:
Monster Reborn: Easy staple.
Dark Hole: Another easy staple.
Mystical Space Typhoon: Yet another easy staple.
Burden of the Mighty: Gadgets are weak, and since 1/3 of your monsters are Gadgets, this card can help alleviate that fact. Can also waste an opponent's MST while keeping your face down Royal Oppression safe. Destruction bait if you will.
Smashing Ground: Simple 1 for 1 destruction card.
Book of Moon: Endless versatility; the card you splash in before any other splashables.
Traps:
Bottomless Trap Hole: Removes from play important summons your opponent makes. It has lost much playability since Solemn Warning, but us poor folks still use it.
Dimensional Prison: Removes from play threats, and gets past Stardust Dragon. What else can you ask for?
Royal Oppression: The other half of the name of the deck. Ever since it became limited, it has lost a lot of playability, but it is still a card your opponent will be worried about.
Trap Dustshoot: Trap Dustshoot wins games. If you go first and have it in your opening hand, it's an easy set and unavoidable activation during your opponent's first turn. You get to see your opponent's hand and send one monster back into their deck. The rule that you can only activate it when your opponent has 4 or more cards is the only reason this card isn't banned. It's that good.
Phoenix Wing Wind Blast: Here is one of the cards that don't seem to abide Gadget Theory, but in reality they do. Consider Smashing Ground. No cost to activate it, and gets rid of one of your opponent's monsters. That's a simple 1 for 1. Now consider this card. Discarding a card is a cost, and the effect sends one monster your opponent controls to the top of their deck. In the end, you lose 2 cards, while your opponent loses only one. But since it gets sent back to the top of their deck, they lose their next Draw essentially. In that sense, it is a +1 in itself. In the end, it's a 2 for 2 even if it doesn't seem that way.
Mirror Force: The card every duelist fears when attacking with more than one monster. Now that it's become a common, even us poor folks can use it.
Call of the Haunted: Bring back Gale for another halfing and synchro. Or bring back a Thunder King if your opponent is preparing to synchro for themselves. If anything, it'll save you in tight situations.
Dark Bribe: Another card that doesn't abide to Gadget Theory. The only time you should use Dark Bribe is when the card you are negating has a game changing effect, such as your opponent uses Dark Hole for a +3 or Monster Reborn to bring back a huge threat. So even if you give your opponent a +1, that doesn't really matter for your deck, since Gadgets get +1's every turn if you just keep summoning them. The moment you lose your advantage is when you lose the duel, that's the fundamental part of Gadget Theory.
Solemn Judgment: You either run it or you don't. If you do run it, you either know when to use it or you don't. A definite game changer near end game.
Torrential Tribute: Easy way to get pluses, since most of the time all you lose are Gadgets.
Divine Wrath: Negating an effect can win games. The cost is the usual turn off of the card, but costs mean nothing to Gadgets.
Starlight Road: Back when Heavy Storm wasn't banned, this card was back row protection. But even now it can be protection.
All that's left is to show how this deck works, but even that is a simple task. In these examples assume I go first:
Hand 1:
In this example, I don't have a Gadget in my hand. The best thing I can do now is set some back row protection (Book of Moon and Bottomless Trap Hole) and see what my opponent is capable of.
Next turn I draw Burden of the Mighty. What I would do now depends on my opponent's field. If they some set back row, I would summon Amazoness Sage and attack with it to gain some advantage. If not, I will use Neo-Spacian Grand Mole to bounce both our monsters. If they attempted to summon a lot of monsters that turn, then Dark Hole is the obvious choice. I would end my turn by activating Burden of the Mighty and setting Starlight Road.
It would not be until 8 draws later that I would draw a Yellow Gadget. But this deck isn't dependent on drawing Gadgets; it is dependent on gaining advantage. Gadgets only help with that goal.
Hand 2:
Good shuffling is important. Notice that in this hand I also didn't get a Gadget, and that two cards from the previous example repeat (Amazoness Sage and Burden of the Mighty). But here we have new toys to play with; Thunder King Rai-Oh and our array of traps. Since I'm assuming I know nothing about my opponent, I would simply start with by summoning Thunder King Rai-Oh, activating Burden of the Mighty, and setting Dimensional Prison. I will save Royal Oppression and Call of the Haunted when I learn what my opponent runs.
Next turn I draw Red Gadget, and the process of deck thinning begins. By thinning your deck, you get a better chance of drawing more useful cards while at the same time always having access to monsters in your hand.
Let us assume all my opponent did was set a monster, so I have no idea what they run. I would proceed as follows:
- Summon Red Gadget
- Search for Yellow Gadget and add it to my hand.
- Attack their set monster with Thunder King Rai-Oh
- If monster is successfully destroyed, attack with Red Gadget.
- Set Call of the Haunted or Royal Oppression based on destroyed monster.
Basically, just use common sense and this deck is easy to use, fun, and wins games. One more thing I'd like to emphasis is the importance of summoning Gadgets to not only thin the deck, but to shuffle as well. If I didn't summon Red Gadget and thinned my deck, my next card would have been:
Starlight Road. This isn't to say that Starlight Road is a bad card, but it's rather situational. But by searching, you get an automatic +1 and also change the draw order. Let's consider long term and look at the next 10 draws without thinning:
Compare the next 10 draws assuming I summon a Gadget every turn, and as a result search for the next one and thin my deck, as well as shuffle (Of course that means that by turn 6 I have ran out of Gadgets to summon, but that doesn't hinder the point I'm trying to make):
This is why I say shuffling is important. If you compare the first 10 draws with this new set, you'll notice that there are 5 repetitions (That's half of the sample space!) and those repetitions are more or less in the same order. Unless you do some very precise shuffling, which you won't be doing during a game, these cards will most likely stay together.
But let's focus our attention on the 5 new cards we have access to:
- Monster Reborn
- Mirror Force
- Banisher of the Radiance
- Torrential Tribute
- Bottomless Trap Hole
All these cards are more or less game changers. Compared to the 5 cards we previously drew:
- Dimensional Prison
- Neo-Spacian Grand Mole
- Yellow Gadget
- Green Gadget
- Book of Moon
What are you going to do if you draw Yellow Gadget late game? In most (practically all) situations, the cards drawn through Gadget thinning are superior to those drawn without Gadget thinning, mainly because the latter includes Gadgets themselves, which are for the most part useless near end game.
Hand 3:
Do you see where I am going with this? This deck doesn't require you to pull off fancy combos or do excessive summoning and push for game. It's about wearing down your opponent's resources and hitting them little by little until they break. Half of dueling is the mental battle; if you can play mind games with your opponent, then you are more likely to win, because you are less predictable. The other half is maintaining advantage, and Gadget Oppression brings both of those factors into a cheap > $100 deck.
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