Gladiator Beasts have taken a nosedive in terms of competitive playability since the release of Emergency Teleport and the Synchro monsters. Many players wondered how the matchup would pan out. While Gladiators may have trouble answering Stardust Dragon and sometimes Thought Ruler Archfiend, TeleDAD has just as much trouble answering Cold Wave and Gladiator Beast Heraklinos.

At Shonen Jump Championship Baltimore we saw Gladiator Beasts eliminate TeleDAD from contention round after round on Day 2. The reason is that with a powerful enough hand Gladiator Beasts can take on any deck. With hands ranging from that of Test Tiger and Cold Wave to Crush Card Virus and Sangan, Gladiators offer many different kinds of draws that can allow them to win the game.

The reason Gladiators saw little to no success after that is because it’s so much easier for the TeleDAD player to draw ways to cripple the Gladiator duelist. Stardust Dragon is only the beginning. Factor in Solemn Judgment, Dark Armed Dragon, and stand-alone problems like Psychic Commander, and Gladiators simply don’t have enough tricks to stop them all.

What players need to do is adjust their decks to play a different game. No longer are Gladiators the ones who want to set up first. Crushing an opponent with Cold Wave isn’t easy when that player can just play Krebons and negate your entire battle phase. What you want to do is win the way Paul Levitin won with Gladiator Beasts. He did it before Gladiator Beast Gyzarus was even released. He did it with a much stronger emphasis on Gladiator Beast Heraklinos and combating the Dark matchup. What many players don’t realize now is that the Gladiator deck they’re using is built for the mirror match, and isn’t going to be as effective against Dark Armed as a result.

Eric Ing is one player who understood how you’re supposed to change your decklist for the expected metagame. Here’s what he ran at Shonen Jump Championship Seattle:

Monsters: 18

3 Test Tiger
2 Gladiator Beast Laquari
2 Gladiator Beast Bestiari
2 Gladiator Beast Darius
1 Gladiator Beast Murmillo
1 Gladiator Beast Hoplomus
1 Gladiator Beast Secutor
1 Gladiator Beast Equeste
2 Elemental Hero Prisma
2 D.D. Crow
1 Morphing Jar

A lot of good cards have been released since Levitin won SJC Minneapolis with Gladiator Beasts and Ing has incorporated them into his deck. Many people have been tinkering with Gladiator Beast War Chariot, which can make for a nifty lockdown of your opponent’s field with the help of Gladiator Beast Equeste. War Chariot stops your opponent from using a monster effect and destroys it, leaving the way clear for a direct attack. That allows you to switch out for Equeste and retrieve the Chariot.

This little mini-lock can actually freeze an opponent. If you haven’t drawn a way to attack over Equeste you’ll want to use monster effects to get out of the lock. Destiny Hero - Malicious, Psychic Commander, and Snipe Hunter are some good examples of cards you might normally consider using. However, with the Chariot down you’ll simply lose your monster. From there your opponent can summon another monster, hit you with both Gladiators and swap Equeste out and then back in to retrieve the Chariot. You’re stuck in the same predicament, plus now there’s a 2100 ATK Laquari to take care of. Of course if you don’t make a move that’s not going to help. Then your opponent tags out Equeste for Laquari, or plays more monsters and goes for Gladiator Beast Heraklinos. Now the opponent has Herk and Chariot and you’re really in a bind.

Of course you can also get Heraklinos in the first scenario. With a Laquari in grave you can tag out the Equeste for Darius, and then tag out the second monster for Equeste. Thus you return the Chariot to your hand and bring out Heraklinos to the field. Your opponent has the same problem no matter what he or she decides to do.

Going for Heraklinos is a play I think Ing made a lot throughout the tournament. The reason? He’s brought Shadow-Imprisoning Mirror back! The Mirror is one of the best cards non-DAD decks have these days. Destiny Hero - Malicious and Dark Armed Dragon are the keys to victory against Gladiator Beasts, and cards like Snipe Hunter, Krebons, and Necro Gardna are all needed to win games. These are the cards that allow you, the TeleDAD player, to survive Cold Wave from a position that doesn’t waste many cards.

Setting up Gladiator Beast Heraklinos and Shadow-Imprisoning Mirror usually means victory against a TeleDAD duelist. That player will need something out of left field like Neo-Spacian Grand Mole or Raiza the Storm Monarch to really take care of it. Add War Chariot to the mix and it’s all over. The opponent can’t even use Phoenix Wing Wind Blast to spin the Mirror back because Heraklinos will negate it.

The Mirror has lots of extra uses that Ing took advantage of on Day 1 in Seattle. Against Lightsworn, using Shadow-Imprisoning Mirror to stop Necro Gardna can win you the match. Lightsworn players use Gardna to both protect their monsters and prevent Gladiators from tagging out. Use the Mirror to stop that and suddenly your opponent has lost his or her Lumina, Lightsworn Summoner and Garoth, Lightsworn Warrior in one simple turn. Now the Lightsworn player is forced to play whatever cards he or she has left, and you can just mop up afterward, confident because you know your battle phase isn’t about to be negated.

Ing came prepared for the amount of trouble Synchros could cause him as well. Compulsory Evacuation Device made the main deck cut because against Synchro monsters it effectively reads "remove one monster from the field." Against other cards, the Device isn’t any less useful. Lightsworn players are going to frown every time you bump Wulf, Lightsworn Beast back to their hands, and bouncing Dark Armed Dragon after it’s used an effect once or twice can save you the game. In the mirror match, Gladiator Beast Gyzarus falls to the Device the same way Synchros do. It’s really a brilliant piece of tech for competitive metagames right now.

The last new card Ing ran was Shrink. It’s seen play in Gladiator Beasts before, but most players don’t like the way that it fails to contribute to big plays. With Enemy Controller and Book of Moon there exists potential for a variety of game-changing moves. Shrink doesn’t really do more than one thing, but allowing you to win a battle with Stardust Dragon or Colossal Fighter is huge. Remember, Ing’s playing Gladiator Beasts, so destroying Colossal Fighter in battle is a good thing for him. He can simply tag out for Gladiator Beast Murmillo at the end of the battle phase to clear out the Fighter.

Shrink can also be chained to Cold Wave, allowing Ing to take care of setups that might have been untouchable otherwise. Think Stardust Dragon and two copies of Phoenix Wing Wind Blast face down. Usually a field of Gladiator Beasts isn’t going to get by without serious trap support, but a scenario like this can be handled with Cold Wave and Shrink.

The final great piece of tech in this deck is Giant Trunade. Trunade saw lots of play in TeleDAD because it gave that deck outs to win the game against players using Solemn Judgment. No one really uses it anymore though, which is why Solemn players are finding so much success compared to the first Jump where TeleDAD was available. Trunade essentially acts as your second Heavy when your opponent uses Solemn Judgment. The opponent doesn’t get to keep the defensive cards that player paid half his or her life points to keep. This can give you the opportunity to win the game or simply the freedom to set up against an opponent with no interference from that player’s back-row cards. In the latter case the opponent is now staring down Heraklinos, and all he or she has are a bunch of spells and traps.

Freeing up the back row means attacks are often going to get through. That gives Trunade playability in pretty much every hand Ing could draw. But there’s even more tricks with the Trunade. Shadow-Imprisoning Mirror blocks Ing’s own Gyzarus from using its effects. Trunade offers a way for Ing to remove the Mirror from the field only during his turn. That gives him just enough time to wreak havoc with Gyzarus, tag out and contact Fuse into Heraklinos, and then set the Mirror once more. Game over.

It’s time to say "out with the new" and "back in with the old." Gladiator Beasts can still win in today’s metagame. Players are just going to have to go back to the progenitor build from Minneapolis and understand how that deck was able to win. Only then will they be able to make a new deck capable of taking on TeleDAD.

—Matt Peddle