If there’s one thing we learned from Shonen Jump Championship Washington it’s that almost any deck can make it into the Top 16 in this format. With a whopping ten different archetypes represented by players from all over the continent, the format is still up in the air (as of this writing) for SJC Chicago. Zombies have made a definite impact and will likely see play for quite some time in this format. Perfect Circle took home the gold in Washington and chances are many players will take their copies of Destiny Draw and Destiny Hero - Malicious out of their binders for tournament play once more.

Which begs the question: what should one play for the next tournament of the format? The Zombie mirror match is essentially a coin toss, usually resulting in the player who drew more copies of Card of Safe Return and Pyramid Turtle coming out on top. Furthermore, Perfect Circle has a pretty decent matchup against Zombies, being one of the few decks that can actually break up the snowballing undead strategy before it goes off. Since Zombies beat about everything else, these two decks are likely to see the most play in the tournament. We therefore must rule out Zombies as an option for the duelist who wants to win the tournament because the odds of winning multiple 50/50 draws on Day 1 aren’t too good. Perfect Circle doesn’t seem like the optimal choice either, since it will be one of the decks players try to counter and suffers from its own consistency issues as well.

I’ve often said that the best decks are those that go the longest without losing. At Washington, the three players who did the best in terms of longest winning streaks were myself, Dale Bellido, and Marc Glass. Since Dale and I played Zombies—a deck I’ve ruled out for Chicago—Marc Glass’s deck seems to be one of the best bets for the tournament. His journey through the field in Washington was an interesting one. After taking a round 1 loss to former Shonen Jump finalist Mario Matheu, Glass battled his way through eight rounds of tournament play before finally coming to a stop and losing the last round to yours truly. His record was good enough for 7th place, and his unexpected round 1 loss on Day 2 of the tournament came at the hands of his own tactical error. Here’s what he ran:

Monsters: 17

3 Cyber Dragon

1 Breaker the Magical Warrior

3 Cyber Phoenix

2 Green Gadget

2 Red Gadget

2 Yellow Gadget

1 Neo-Spacian Grand Mole

3 Drillroid

Spells: 14

1 Heavy Storm

1 Mystical Space Typhoon

2 Nobleman of Crossout

1 Future Fusion

1 Overload Fusion

1 Pot of Avarice

1 Smashing Ground

3 Shrink

1 Lightning Vortex

2 Hammer Shot

Traps: 11

1 Mirror Force

1 Torrential Tribute

3 Solemn Judgment

3 Bottomless Trap Hole

3 Sakuretsu Armor

Gadgets have always been lingering close to the top on the playability charts. Generally Gadgets is a very safe deck to use in any tournament because of its favorable game 1 in almost any matchup. Although Zombies can take game 1 with some smart play and decent draws, there are a few card choices in this deck that will give them a very hard time.

The first important choice is Bottomless Trap Hole. Few people realize that Zombie Master won’t get its effect off if it’s removed from the field before resolution. That means cards like Torrential Tribute, Bottomless Trap Hole, and Phoenix Wing Wind Blast will not only get Zombie Master out of the way, but will also rob the opponent of his or her special summon and make the opponent waste a discard. While the two former cards here will only get maximum benefit if the Zombie player uses priority to activate the Master’s effect, Bottomless Trap Hole can still trade off with the Zombie Master and remove it from play to boot. Bottomless is also a very strong card in general, removing summoned Monarchs or Cyber Dragon cards from play and getting the last laugh against Breaker the Magical Warrior.

The other thing that gives Gadgets an edge over Zombies is Hammer Shot and Smashing Ground. The top Zombie players won’t set their monsters face down unless there’s a really good reason to. Why? Because it’s not worth having your Pyramid Turtle removed from play by Nobleman of Crossout just to try to lure the opponent into attacking it. Soul Exchange will wreck it anyway, and there’s not a whole lot of face-up monster removal running around at the moment. Chances are, setting the Turtle will just give your opponent more ways to destroy it outside of battle. The Gadget deck can take advantage of this play, though, because of the pair of Hammer Shot cards and the single copy of Smashing Ground. The value of being able to get the Turtle out of the way cannot be overstated.

Knowing that they’re up against Gadgets, Glass’ opponents would probably start setting their monsters after all. In preparation for this, Glass played the allotted two copies of Nobleman of Crossout, and also ran three copies of Drillroid. Most Gadget decks have Cyber Phoenix in this spot, but after the recent failures of Monarchs in the format, that spot isn’t really warranted in my opinion. Drillroid serves as an excellent replacement. It gives the deck a lot more aggressive power, and will prevent Glass from getting bogged down by Spirit Reaper, Gravekeeper’s Spy, or Legendary Jujitsu Master. Neo-Spacian Grand Mole does essentially the same thing, but trades permanent removal for safety by returning to the owner’s hand.

Running a monster like Drillroid is always risky because it can be destroyed in battle by Cyber Dragon or Card Trooper. While there’s not much that can be done about Trooper, three copies of Shrink have been included to help combat Cyber Dragon and Monarchs. While packing a trio of Shrink cards is generally viewed as a risky overkill, this deck should be able to put every copy to use because of the Gadgets and the three copies of Drillroid.

Solemn Judgment exists in this deck as either the offensive finisher or last resort defense. When Glass is winning, Judgment acts as negation for any answer to his final push, stopping Mirror Force, Scapegoat, or any other effect that would keep him from winning. On the defensive end, Solemn Judgment can prevent big cards like Raiza the Storm Monarch or Lightning Vortex from dropping. In a format where damage is relatively hard to come by, Solemn Judgment may have finally found its niche.

This deck is extremely consistent. Being able to roll off eight wins after taking a first round loss is nothing short of incredible. It takes not only amazing talent, but a solid deck to back it up. Marc Glass has created a Gadget build that, with a few tweaks and some help from the side deck, could very easily hate on Zombies and Perfect Circle enough to make another Top 16 appearance.