Except for one player.

At first glance, you look at Joshua Graham’s decklist and think it’s just another Gladiator deck. Until you notice he’s only got fifteen monsters. Here’s what he ran:

Monsters: 15

While most players only devote half the deck to spell and trap cards, Graham’s got 26 of them. He’s made room for these cards by cutting a lot of monster tech. Spirit Reaper, Morphing Jar, and Sangan are nowhere to be found, and even Gladiator Beast Secutor is missing. The reason? Joshua Graham has prepared his deck to play against Gladiator Beasts, and he’s taken out a lot of the cards other players side deck out for their Rescue Cat combos. Graham therefore enters game 1 without the cards most players consider weak in the mirror match, and brings a bunch of spell and trap cards the opponent isn’t expecting.

Before both players side into Rescue Cat and Neo-Spacian Dark Panther, the mirror match often comes down to who has more tricks and who’s holding fewer dead cards. The game is simplified relatively quickly and it’s the player who has the dead D.D. Crow, Crush Card Virus, or Gladiator Beast Secutor who usually takes the loss. Graham has ensured that he’s not going to have any dead cards when the game has been reduced to top-decking wars. Drawing useful cards is more important in a Gladiator mirror match than in any other mirror. If you can’t do anything for a turn, you’re probably going to be staring down Gladiator Beast Heraklinos on the next turn. From there, it’s never long before you’re scooping up your cards.

Let’s take a look at the extra cards Graham’s using. From his card selections, it’s pretty clear that Graham plans to simplify the game even faster than the mirror match usually forces. Dust Tornado and Bottomless Trap Hole appear in threes in Graham’s deck. Both make card-for-card trades that leave the opponent unable to defend. Taking out Solemn Judgment or Book of Moon during the end phase of his opponent’s turn allows Graham to make big plays with little fear of being broken apart. Even when it comes to little plays, you don’t want to let Gladiator Beasts get a free attack, and Dust Tornado can make that happen for Graham.

What many people don’t see is how Graham can use Dust Tornado to prevent his opponents from getting in attacks as well. By removing his opponent’s defensive cards, Graham can make successful attacks and tag out for Gladiator Beast Laquari. Now his opponent has a monster in the way bigger than anything he or she can normal summon. The opponent can’t make any little plays, and will be forced to make his or her big plays first. That allows Graham to answer back with his big plays, putting him on top once more.

And most of the time Dust Tornado is going to do both things. Gladiator Beasts rely on their defensive cards to both stop opposing attacks and to allow them to make their own. Book of Moon and Enemy Controller paralyze the attacker and present a weak defender for your Gladiators to attack. Other cards like Mirror Force and Torrential Tribute destroy the opponent’s monsters altogether, removing the threat and leaving a clear path for you to attack through. If your opponent has a weaker monster like Gladiator Beast Murmillo or Gladiator Beast Bestiari in play, Dust Tornado is going to be even better. If your Gladiators get to destroy monsters in battle, you’ll be in an even better position to win the game.

Graham has also included the oft-forgotten Gladiator Proving Ground. Popular in formats with no Test Tiger, Proving Ground is scarcely found elsewhere. Graham plays Proving Ground instead of playing the third Bestiari. This is actually quite smart for several reasons. Chances are you’ll have a Bestiari in your deck or your hand, so drawing a Proving Ground is just as good as drawing a Bestiari. But sometimes you’d rather draw a Laquari or Darius, and Proving Ground is as good as having those cards as well. Finally, when your opponent flips Trap Dustshoot or Crush Card Virus, he or she can’t hit the Proving Ground from your hand. Then you’re free to grab Bestiari, which would otherwise have fallen victim to these two power trap cards.

Brain Control is a somewhat surprising inclusion to the Gladiator Beast deck. Few players have it in their main deck when making Day 2, but for this format it makes sense to play Brain Control in the main once more. Gladiator Beast decks are everywhere, and being able to make a contact Fusion with your opponent’s monsters is just amazing. Outside of the mirror, Brain Control can end games. Solemn Judgment, Royal Oppression, and Judgment Dragon are key cards in other decks, and their life point payments leave them vulnerable to a big Gladiator Beast and their turncoat of a monster. In the worst-case scenario, Brain Control paves a path for your Gladiator Beast to attack directly (made even easier thanks to three copies of Dust Tornado!) and swap out for Gladiator Beast Murmillo. You’ll deal a significant amount of damage and take care of the monster that was causing you trouble.

The final off-card Graham plays is Shrink. Shrink is another card many players have considered a good option for Gladiators, but one that usually gets the axe when making final cuts. Once again, this is a card that’s become stronger thanks to the way players are approaching the game these days. Little plays like attempting to swing over Gladiators are becoming more and more common as players realize the importance of saving their big moves. Shrink turns those attempts into a disaster, destroying the opponent’s monster and allowing your Gladiator to meet the condition of having battled that turn.

And it does it all in the damage step. Your opponent won’t be able to chain his or her own spells and traps, and you’re free to swap out for Gladiator Beast Bestiari to destroy them. Next turn you can make a contact Fusion happen, and if you’ve got a Gladiator in the graveyard, you’ll contact Fuse for Gladiator Beast Heraklinos. Shrink can also let you dodge important defenses like Bottomless Trap Hole and Crush Card Virus.

Joshua Graham’s deck has tricks. It’s a more consistent and tricky deck in terms of the Gladiator mirror match. There’s certainly a lot of Gladiator mirrors in the game right now, and Graham’s build is one of the more successful variations on the Gladiator Beast strategy.

—Matt Peddle