The speed of the current format is largely the reason behind that. This is another relatively fast era of dueling, but compared to periods like the Cyber-Stein format and the early dominance of Dark Armed Return, the sheer volume of complaints from tournament players is a lot lower. Speed is a huge factor right now . . . but I think the difference between this format and ones before it is the number of ways a skilled duelist can slow a game when he or she needs to. I discussed that in my article about Gorz the Emissary of Darkness, and Matt’s article did a great job of outlining how a strong defense can be leveraged into a game position that’s both deadly and secure. At a time when everybody could have a game-clinching hand with just one more draw, a good defense can be just what you need to unleash your offense.

Even in tournaments where defense has been thrown to the wind, we’ve still generally seen victory go to whoever has the final answer—the player who manages to conserve his or her last chance to Synchro summon, or the duelist who has that killer copy of Judgment Dragon after the opponent over-extends. The ability to shut down your opponent’s offense and force that duelist to play out his or her hand creates a big opportunity, and a strong defensive line is often the best way to create that situation. Thankfully there are plenty of ways to do that, and today I want to look at some of the most accessible.

Deploying Gardna is often easy: most players will be familiar with the sight of Dark Grepher or Armageddon Knight sending a copy of Gardna to the graveyard, while Lightsworn have been loading their yards with copies of the little Warrior since Shonen Jump Championship St. Louis. Outside of those two archetypes the viability of Necro Gardna may dip, but it could see play in a Zombie build studded with discard costs. Three Zombie Master cards are a near-universal inclusion in Zombie decks at the moment, and Gardna is the perfect monster to feed to the Master’s effect. Space and pacing may make Gardna a counter-intuitive pick, but there’s a profitable choice to be made here if anyone can make it work.

Necro Gardna is an obvious answer for the decks that can play it, but the main challenge is the short length of that list. Actually setting Necro Gardna after drawing it is risky, since Phoenix Wing Wind Blast and Compulsory Evacuation Device could remove it from the field and leave you vulnerable. In addition, such a move requires a normal summon, which is often the fuel behind the early game-ending moves many decks want to make. Armageddon Knight is a good answer to that problem—being easier to splash than Dark Grepher—but a resurgence in popularity of Card Destruction may also spell good things for duelists who want to play Gardna, yet find it too slow for their strategy.

While Necro Gardna deters a single attack and your opponent will usually be able to see it coming, Threatening Roar shuts down multiple attackers and often does so without warning. It’s really time this card started seeing more play.

As a defensive tool Cyber Valley has all of the impact of Threatening Roar with none of its chaining potential or flexibility. It eats a normal summon when played from the hand, and it deters you from summoning other monsters on later turns—after all, your opponent could just attack those instead of the Valley. But in return you get a free draw for your troubles to balance the Valley’s own lost card presence, as well as a chance to play several cards that might not be viable otherwise.

At the beginning of the 5D’s era, most duelists were predicting widespread use of monster theft cards: primarily Mind Control. The speculators got that card’s secondary market value up to the thirty-dollar mark before the truth (and Mind Control’s price) came crashing down. Nobody ended up running it: Gladiator Beasts lost their footing in major competition and TeleDAD players realized that Tuning to Malicious was almost always better than Tuning to whatever your opponent had kicking around. Mind Control is often a dead draw in today’s environment, which means it’s nigh-impossible to play.

Cyber Valley changes all that by giving you another outlet for any monster you pilfer—one that doesn’t care about the level or position of the monster you’re taking. Being able to trade two cards and a normal summon for two more cards is pretty good, but doing that while also eliminating your opponent’s best monster and protecting your life points is even better. We saw this exact strategy play out in the Shane Scurry deck Edgar Flores piloted at Shonen Jump Championship Atlanta. While Flores’s efforts amounted to a disappointing 4-2 drop , the deck he wielded proposed a lot of interesting fundamentals that can be adapted to other strategies.

During the reign of Gladiator Beasts, Cyber Valley was an underplayed card that could have been a format-defining force if it had just seen more use. Mind Control came into the picture too late and too infrequently to help it earn its due. But we’re at a point in the game where the opportunity for Cyber Valley to be a powerful card is again open, and it’s something a lot of decks should be considering.

All three of these cards are splashable to varying degrees, and all three offer play patterns that many decks could capitalize on. With these three cards (in addition to Gorz and others), this format is really only as fast as you let it become—there are ample ways to slow things down, and doing so is proven to have tournament-winning potential. The next time you put a deck together, or revise your build for a big event, think about the defensive options you have and how they might work for you.

—Jason Grabher-Meyer