One of the coolest cards to come out of Shadow of Infinity was, in my opinion, Anteatereatingant. The art and concept alone would have been enough to hook me, but the fact that it packs a rather unique set of effects made it a winner on the design level as well. Unfortunately, nothing has yet made it a winner on the table. Even in Shadow of Infinity Sealed Pack play, it’s darn near useless. Play-worthy spells and traps are rare in the format, and once you finally get Anteatereatingant onto the field, it usually gets run over by something like Saber Beetle—especially if you’re playing against Julia.
Today we’re going to try and change all that. I mean, a monster that can destroy any card in your opponent’s spell or trap zone once per turn? That’s pretty darn impressive . . . so long as we can work around the Ant’s bizarre (and high) summoning cost. That’s exactly what today’s submitter has tried to accomplish, and for me, joining him in his challenging task is simply irresistible. Here’s what he had to say about his efforts.
Hello Jason,
My name is Brandon. I am 20 years old and I live in Fort Collins, Colorado. I was surfing your site when I saw the card of the day, Anteatereatingant, and read the little caption below that said it can generate massive card advantage. I kept thinking to myself “ how?” Monsters that require two tributes are rarely a good investment, since they can just get hit with Smashing Ground or Cyber Dragon.
Then a spark of innovation made me think of Dark Coffin and Statue of the Wicked. That wasn't enough because Cyber Dragon and Smashing still run wild and can easily take out Anteatereatingant, but Anti-Spell Fragrance works a good synergy and stops Smashing from taking out Anteatereatingant. I gave the deck a try, and tested it against my friends’ Zombie and Cookie builds. It did fairly well, but it's very combo-dependent. It’s also a very thick deck, weighing in at 44 cards. I decided to send it to you and see if you could fix those problems.
Thank you!
Brandon H., Fort Collins, CO
Here’s the decklist Brandon sent me.
Anteatereatingeverything
44 cards
Monsters: 20
3 Anteatereatingant
2 Doom Dozer
3 Howling Insect
3 Insect Knight
1 Sangan
1 Breaker the Magical Warrior
2 Magician of Faith
2 Swarm of Locusts
1 Tsukuyomi
2 Swarm of Scarabs
Spells: 12
1 Book of Moon
2 Nobleman of Crossout
1 Graceful Charity
1 Heavy Storm
1 Mystical Space Typhoon
1 Premature Burial
1 Snatch Steal
2 Smoke Grenade of the Thief
1 Swords of Revealing Light
1 Metamorphosis
Traps: 12
2 Anti-Spell Fragrance
1 Torrential Tribute
1 Mirror Force
1 Call of the Haunted
2 Bottomless Trap Hole
3 Dark Coffin
2 Blast with Chain
As he noted, Brandon is attempting to use several cards to mitigate the cost associated with special summoning Anteatereatingant: Dark Coffin (a personal favorite of mine), Blast with Chain, and Smoke Grenade of the Thief all destroy or discard one of your opponent’s cards when they are destroyed themselves. Unfortunately, this raises an issue: a close reading of Anteatereatingant’s text reveals that you “send cards” to the graveyard in order to special summon it, so while you could send Dark Coffin, Blast, or Smoke Grenade to the graveyard with the Anteater, you wouldn’t get any benefit from doing so.
That’s a hard pill to swallow, because it negates a lot of the work and inspiration that went into putting together the deck. Short of Ojamagic, I can’t think of anything that would combo with Anteatereatingant in the fashion that Brandon is looking for, and I doubt he wants to turn this into some sort of wacky Ojama deck. That said, I think Brandon is on to something.
I really like the use of Swords of Revealing Light here. You could hide behind it for two turns, then send it to the graveyard as half of Anteatereatingant’s snack requirement, and you’d still gain two turns of battle negation. I love the potential this deck has to use a series of cards that lock down battle on both sides of the field, and then feed them to an Anteater when you’re ready to smash some face. You can even hide an Anteater behind a locking card and let it munch away on the opponent’s back row for turns on end, confident in the knowledge that your Anteater will be safe from Cyber Dragon and other big attackers. This plays into Brandon’s existing decklist, since Swarm of Locusts and Swarm of Scarabs will benefit from the same field control that supports the Ant.
Now we’ve got our mission—make a lockdown deck that can hide behind its own lock to destroy the opponent’s cards, or special summon Ants and Doomdozers quickly to create a sudden push of offense. With the ability to break its own lock at will through summoning the Anteatereatingant cards, these two strategies will often coalesce into an incredibly slow tempo that suddenly turns into an unexpected victory.
As always, we’ll begin by paring away some cards. We’ll need to do more than usual here, since Brandon’s deck was a bit too large for this kind of strategy. We need to get to those locking cards and Anteaters reliably, so sticking as close as possible to the 40-card minimum for a standard constructed deck is integral.
With that said, the first batch of cuts almost seem to write themselves. Smoke Grenade of the Thief, Blast with Chain, and Dark Coffin serve little purpose now that we understand the rulings interactions at work here. That frees up seven spots right there—dropping the deck to 37 cards—but we’ll need a bit more wiggle room.
The pair of Swarm of Locusts seems like potentially wasted space. Anteatereatingant can perform the same function, albeit at a higher initial cost. The Locusts can also present a huge liability: if one is ever taken by your opponent with Snatch Steal, he or she can easily use the Locust’s effect to turn the Locust face down and destroy the Steal, keeping the Locust permanently. That’s rough when you’re running a Lockdown variant. On the other hand, even if the opponent can Snatch Steal Anteatereatingant, you’ll at least be able to use a second Anteater to destroy Snatch Steal and retrieve your first. In addition, dropping Swarm of Locusts will give me some flexibility in the deck’s support infrastucture.
By that, I mean that I can drop the Howling Insect cards for Flying Kamakiri #1. If you’re playing Insects, you’ve got a unique advantage over any other type-themed deck by essentially having access to two monsters that replace themselves when destroyed in battle, instead of just one. Both Kamakiri and Howling Insect can search out more copies of themselves to load the graveyard for Doom Dozer, but they also have unique specialties as well. While both cards can attack under Messenger of Peace, Howling Insect can scoot under Level Limit - Area B and Gravity Bind. Kamakiri has a higher ATK though, and each monster can search out different choice cards. Howling Insect can dig for Swarm of Locusts or Swarm of Scarabs—which is why Brandon has chosen Howling for his build—while Kamakiri can fetch the mighty Sasuke Samurai #4.
Which one is the right self-replacing monster for the job at hand? Frankly, I like both, and while I’ll be removing Swarm of Locusts, I’m leaving Swarm of Scarabs, and I like the idea of having a searchable chain of monsters that can fetch me one at will. I’ll remove two copies of Howling Insect, but will leave the last one.
Moving along, Insect Knight is a great beatstick, but our Lockdown deck won’t need big monsters quite as often as Brandon’s original deck did. Dropping one makes sense. Finally, with Smashing Ground seeing less play and Jinzo returning to near-staple status, Anti-Spell Fragrance isn’t the best fit for this deck. I’ll drop both, which will leave me with plenty of space.
As a side note, I’m unsure as to which fusion cards are in Brandon’s fusion deck, but I’d assume he’s using Metamorphosis for its potential with Anteatereatingant and Doom Dozer. In that case, he’d want to run every competitive fusion at levels 5 and 8. Level 5 offers Reaper on the Nightmare, Fiend Skull Dragon, and the popular Dark Balter the Terrible. At level 8, there’s Cyber Twin Dragon and Gatling Dragon, both of which can be game-winning cards. Thousand-Eyes Restrict rounds out the lineup for its synergy with Magician of Faith, too.
Thirty cards remain, meaning that we can add ten more to get this deck into fighting shape! Right off the bat, I want to add two copies of Flying Kamakiri #1 and a pair of Sasuke Samurai #4 cards. This will accomplish a lot of cool things, not the least of which will be wrecking Cyber Dragon cards with tiny Samurai!
In addition, the use of self-replacing monsters can block attacks when my lock fails, and by rolling those self-replacing monsters into Sasuke Samurai #4, I now have a wall of infinite potential. The only thing better than an opponent who fears attacking Sasuke is an opponent who boldly does so and loses monsters to it. The Samurai are also going to bolster Swarm of Scarabs, giving you a potent monster destruction suite that operates in different ways.
(For reference, if your “for decks” box doesn’t include a pair of Sasuke Samurai #4, it totally should!)
Those are all the monsters I want to add, so now I want to choose what I’ll lock the field with. In this case, Jinzo is actually going to be making my decisions for me. I’ll be keeping the deck light on traps due to its heavy presence in my area, though if you want to adapt the list for your metagame, consider using Gravity Bind. In my case, it’s not much of a choice, since Jinzo’s actually sitting in the corner of my study as I write this, glowering at me and waiting to administer corrective beatings if I so much as even think of running more traps than necessary.
Messenger of Peace and Level Limit - Area B are the two obvious choices. On top of that, I’ll add in two copies of Stumbling as well. We’ve got plenty of little monsters that can victimize defenders with low DEF values, and throwing Cyber Dragon into defense—where it can be destroyed by an attacking Anteatereatingant—is nothing short of sweet.
Finally, I’ll round out the deck with a pair of Smashing Ground cards. Chaos Sorcerer was brutal enough on Brandon’s build, but now that we intend on having face-up Anteaters just sitting on the field, the ability to destroy Chaos Sorcerer at will becomes even more important.
The final tally of changes is as follows:
-2 Blast with Chain
-3 Dark Coffin
-2 Smoke Grenade of the Thief
-1 Insect Knight
-2 Howling Insect
-2 Anti-Spell Fragrance
-2 Swarm of Locusts
+2 Flying Kamakiri #1
+2 Sasuke Samurai #4
+1 Level Limit - Area B
+2 Stumbling
+1 Messenger of Peace
+2 Smashing Ground
The fixed-up version of the deck looks like this!
Anteatereatingeverything: Jason’s Fix
40 cards
Monsters: 19
3 Anteatereatingant
2 Doom Dozer
2 Insect Knight
2 Flying Kamakiri #1
1 Howling Insect
1 Sangan
1 Breaker the Magical Warrior
2 Magician of Faith
1 Tsukuyomi
2 Swarm of Scarabs
2 Sasuke Samurai #4
Spells: 16
1 Book of Moon
2 Nobleman of Crossout
1 Graceful Charity
1 Heavy Storm
1 Mystical Space Typhoon
1 Premature Burial
1 Snatch Steal
1 Swords of Revealing Light
1 Metamorphosis
1 Level Limit - Area B
2 Stumbling
1 Messenger of Peace
2 Smashing Ground
Traps: 5
1 Torrential Tribute
1 Mirror Force
1 Call of the Haunted
2 Bottomless Trap Hole
This deck is really, really hard to attack. Not only is it packing five spells that lock an opponent out of battle*, but it’s got three monsters that replace themselves on the field when destroyed in battle, and two monsters that have a 50 percent chance of just destroying anything that comes their way looking for trouble. That’s not even taking into account more standard cards, like Sangan and Tsukuyomi, that will usually slow aggressive duelists to a crawl.
Tsukuyomi actually deserves some special attention for its unique synergies. Ok, sure, we could use it to recycle Magician of Faith’s effect, but everybody saw that. How about using it with Anteatereatingant to use the Anteater’s effect and attack with it on a single turn? Or maybe use a new twist on the old Thousand-Eyes Restrict combo, destroying two of the opponent’s spell or trap cards instead of just one? Makes that special summoning cost look a little paltry, huh? You can even turn low DEF monsters to defense position and then run them over with your smaller attackers, or set up a Sasuke Samurai #4 attack where the worst-case scenario is just a bounced Samurai, instead of a destroyed one. This is the perfect example of a unique deck that takes old, conventional cards to new heights.
Your ideal opening is a self-replacing monster, but Sasuke Samurai #4 and Sangan are also very acceptable. You’ll probably want to play everything in attack position. Again, Smashing Ground is down, Nobleman of Crossout is up, and you won’t have to fear Chaos Sorcerer on turn 1, barring some ridiculous draw from the opponent.
From there, try to force your opponent into a passive role. Many expert players will gladly accept your offer of a temporary truce in order to draw more cards, and won’t realize what’s hit them until you flop your lock and start eating their cards with Scarabs and Anteaters. Always try to get the opponent to set the number of cards that you want him or her to have—if you can do that Tsukuyomi trick, go for it, and try to make everything look natural. Set one spell or trap, let your opponent set one too, and then set a second. He or she will probably either activate Heavy Storm or set another back row card to match you, and odds are good that he or she will usually choose the latter.
Playing this deck can be a tricky balancing act, because you need to choose wisely when summoning Anteater. Do you summon it now, to start eating cards, or do you keep it in hand in order to blow your own lock later on? Often, this will be solved by drawing a second copy of Anteatereatingant, but don’t rely on that, of course. This deck takes skill and practice to succeed.
Remember that when all else fails, Doom Dozer is freakin’ huge. It’ll run over anything threatening you, and often one of the best plays you’ll make will be to special summon an Anteatereatingant, destroy the opponent’s lone back row card, normal summon something, and then whale on their biggest monster with Dozer. This deck can generate huge swings in momentum at the drop of a hat, and you need to take advantage of that to play it effectively.
Insects are very good right now, and highly underrated. While Skill Drain Insect and Insect Return are both semi-obvious choices, this takes the theme in a very original direction that will surprise opponents and keep them guessing. Part PACMAN and part Beatdown, it does things that are nigh-unheard-of in higher-level play. For added fun you can make it even more complicated: if Jinzo isn’t leaning over your shoulder, add Pole Position. It’ll punish Mobius the Frost Monarch, and allow your Doom Dozers to breeze through your own spell-based lock.
If you’ve been looking for an Insect deck, this might be the one for you. Other than Mirror Force, every card in the fixed list is available in a non-holo version, which makes it pretty easy to build if you’re on a budget. That also makes it a good choice for people like me, who enjoy having a few extra decks kicking around but don’t want to spend hundreds of dollars to do so.
Hopefully you’ll give it a shot, and hopefully the fix helps Brandon get the most out of his Anteatereatingant cards!
—Jason Grabher-Meyer
Do you have an Advanced format deck you could use some help with, or that you just want to show off to the world? Do you want to see it appear in a future Apotheosis article? Send it to me at Jason(at)metagame(dot)com, with your name, location, and explanation of how the deck works—I might take a crack at it!
*For the math nuts, this deck opens on turn 1 with a 58 percent chance of seeing a locking spell, with the odds rising 6 percent on each subsequent turn until you draw one.