This week we’ll be starting a new focus for deckbuilding. We’ve previously focused on decks that demonstrate specific theories, or can be used in competition in the Traditional format. Today, we’ll be keeping an eye on the price tag of the deck we make. The Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG can be an expensive game if you want to follow trends: only so many copies of every card are printed, and when every player wants one in particular, it makes the prices jump. However, Yu-Gi-Oh! is a game of almost boundless strategy, and you don’t have to be a drone subject to the whims of other innovative players!
We’re going to take advantage of the decks that haven’t been played by the big teams yet—the decks that lie waiting to be discovered. The first benefit of doing this is obvious: you’ll stand out as a player. Can you remember anyone who won a Shonen Jump Championship with the Chaos Sorcerer/Return from the Different Dimension deck other than Emon? Probably not, but many players still remember Adrian Madaj and the innovative Recruiter deck that brought him to a second-place finish at the European Championship in 2006. That was over two years ago, and he’s a player from Poland.
A large part of competitive Yu-Gi-Oh! has become the strive for glory in the gaming community. You just can’t achieve that by following the trends, so you have to make a choice the players who define the game have already made: take chances or safely accomplish nothing. Players like Paul Levitin introducing Gladiator Beasts, Adrian Madaj playing Recruiter, Kris Perovic playing Diamond Dude Turbo, Evan Vargas introducing Soul Control, and countless other top duelists had to take their chances with a new deck. By venturing into the unknown, you give yourself a chance to stake your claim with the greatest duelists to play the game.
The second benefit to venturing from the masses is one you might not consider at first: your decks are going to be cheaper. That means you’ll be saving money while taking your shot at glory. That’s the mission of this new column: to continue discussion on deck ideas that will, more often than not, fail miserably. You’d be a fool to think the greatest decks, ideas, or inventions came about in any other way. Here, we’re willing to try, fail miserably, and learn from those errors so we can try again. That’s what being a great duelist is all about.
This week, we’ll be looking at a new form of Batteryman OTK. Somewhat randomly, I came to realize that the Batteryman deck had two cards that were almost identical: Battery Charger and Recycling Batteries. We’re going to abuse them to create a reusable draw engine, drawing to a quick win in one of several ways. And we’ll do it all for under 30 dollars.
The Monsters
The monster lineup is going to be rather small. Notice that there are two sets of monsters: large monsters with eight stars and small Batteryman monsters. The three copies of both Guardian of Order and Batteryman Industrial Strength are great game-enders, but they also allow us to play three copies of Trade-In to speed up the deck.
The three copies of Batteryman Micro-Cell can be used as they were originally intended, by being set and allowing an incredible speed for the deck. It has a second use as well, though. Using both Battery Charger and Recycling Batteries, we’re going to discard Batteryman AA and Micro-Cell as costs to draw cards and return them to our hand for repeated cost payment. Of course, Batteryman AA is also one of our win conditions, allowing a total of 9000 damage when all three are on the field. That’s the key to this deck: the drawing engine and win condition are the same cards, meaning we can fit more strategies than other OTK decks because of the crossover. While Batteryman Industrial Strength is going to be discarded for the cost of drawing cards with Trade-In during the beginning of the game, it represents another win condition. It can even play the role of clearing the way for other attackers. Very few cards in this deck fail to serve multiple purposes, so you’ll have to weigh all your options before making a move.
The Spells
The rest of the deck is meant to draw cards repeatedly and create a quick game-winning situation. The heaviest card in the deck is Card Destruction, though Dark World Dealings and Hand Destruction play the same role at a slower pace. You discard your Batterymen for the costs of those cards, and then return them to your hand with Battery Charger and Recycling Batteries. This is going to let us get through 
the deck faster so we can play our game-winning combos.
The deck’s most impressive combo uses Inferno Reckless Summon with Batteryman AA. That’ll create a combined 9000 ATK. That also means you’ll have exactly three Batterymen on your side of the field, which is going to let you activate Short Circuit to clear the way for a direct attack.
Notice that a majority of this deck is comprised of commons and rares. The only cards of real value are Guardian of Order and Dark World Dealings. According to eBay, the prices for those are somewhere in the range of . . .
That’s a total of just $9–24 spread between those six cards: you can probably pick up the rest of the deck for free. Luckily, the price for innovation isn’t very steep!
Remember to keep an open mind when you strive to become one of the game’s great duelists. It’s going to take innovation and bravery, and you’ll be met with many challenges. On the way to achieving that glory, enjoy playing with different decks and the surprise it’ll cause your opponents.
—Ryan Murphy