It’s finally here! Structure Deck 10 started hitting store shelves across North America this morning, and while you’re reading this, there’s a good chance I’m doing one of the following:
a) Driving to get my precious Gadgets.
b) Driving back from picking up my Gadgets.
c) Playing with my new Gadgets.
Option “C” will probably hold up through about Sunday, broken only by brief periods of sleep and fending off concerned roommates worried about my new obsession. I’ve been waiting for Gadgets for a long time.
So yeah, everybody’s excited about the Gadget monsters finally arriving in Upper Deck Entertainment territory. The problem? Many duelists are going to bust open their three Structures sometime this week, rip out the Gadgets, and then give a blank stare as they realize they have no idea how to turn them into an immediately playable deck. If you’re in that boat, then this is the article you want to read.
My favorite thing about the Gadgets is the number of different ways they can be run. One of the best Gadget strategies from Japan is “Fifth Gadget,” a deck name that you may have seen kicking around a lot lately but that rarely gets explained. “Fifth Gadget” gets its name from the total number of cards in the deck. It runs three of each Gadget monster, and 45 cards total in order to try and draw Gadget monsters less frequently than a 40-card build would. By running the maximum number of Gadgets allowed, you will be able to get more free Gadgets than a deck running only two of each. Trust me; having two Gadgets in your hand with none left in your deck is really lame. The deck is named “Fifth Gadget” because nine of the 45 cards are Gadget monsters—exactly one-fifth of the deck’s total composition.
Today I’ll show you some quick steps you can take to construct your own tournament-ready version of Fifth Gadget. There’s a surprising amount of leeway in the decklist, but this is a pretty easy version to copy that you can then experiment with and alter to your own tastes.
Step one is to go out and acquire three copies of Machine Re-Volt. Don’t worry; I’ll wait for you while you do . . .
. . . Ready? Good. Crack the three decks and strip out the following cards:
3 Green Gadget
3 Red Gadget
3 Yellow Gadget
1 Mystical Space Typhoon
1 Limiter Removal
1 Heavy Storm
2 Enemy Controller
1 Pot of Avarice
3 Sakuretsu Armor
You can set the rest aside for use in other decks. You’re now eighteen cards into the build, but we need to add 27 more to get the final count up to 45.
Since we’ll be getting so many monsters for free thanks to Gadgets, we don’t need to use as many as you might expect (though the number is actually a little high by the standards of some). I’ll be using 20 monsters total, which seems average for a 40-card deck but is definitely low for 45.
Gadgets have one major problem: they’re small and get run over quite easily. We’ll be solving this problem by running a lot of monster removal in our spell and trap line-up, but a pair of Cyber Dragon cards will also give this deck some muscle it sorely needs. Since Cyber Dragon is a Machine type, it’s going to find some natural synergy with the Gadgets.
Breaker the Magical Warrior will help clear the way for our Gadget horde, and two Exiled Force cards will take care of face-down monsters. We want to create lots of card-for-card trades, simplifying the game so that our Gadgets have a better chance of remaining on the field and overwhelming the opponent. Exiled Force will help us do that, providing the face-down monster hate that very few spell and trap cards can give us.
Now we hit the part of the monster spread that requires some creativity. Many duelists would add two or three Chiron the Mage cards and move on. Chiron’s cool because he can create those card exchanges Fifth Gadget loves, turning dead spell cards into useful discards. That’s handy when you’re running an inordinately high number of spells, and he’s a pretty big body thanks to his 1800 ATK. I’m going to go in a slightly different direction though, taking a page from some friends of mine in Tokyo. Instead of pitching my extra spells to Chiron, I’m going to funnel all my extra cards through Snipe Hunter, because he can let me discard extra Gadgets in addition to spells, and gives this deck another way of dealing with big monsters. Risky? Yes. That one-in-three rate of failure hurts even when you’re discarding a Gadget. The payoff is admirable though, so a pair of Snipe Hunter cards makes sense.
I’d like to search them out and maintain field presence against big attackers, so I’ll run two Mystic Tomato cards. Quite frequently a single big monster combined with the wrong draws shuts your Gadgets down, so Tomato will keep our defenses up while making Snipe Hunter more available. I’m even going to add a pair of Newdoria cards to give Tomato another option. They’ll come in handy when I’m being harassed by a big monster, but don’t have extra cards to use for Snipe Hunter.
So I’m going to add the following monsters:
+2 Cyber Dragon
+2 Mystic Tomato
+2 Newdoria
+2 Snipe Hunter
+2 Exiled Force
+1 Breaker the Magical Warrior
Yup, no Sangan. The Gadgets are all going to search each other out, and I’d rather draw the remaining small monsters normally while summoning a Gadget instead of wasting a normal summon on Sangan. Gadgets require a certain level of discipline to run effectively, and anyone who’s anticipating them to become the new super-easy cookie cutter is going to be surprised. Exiled Force is run over D. D. Warrior Lady because Exiled can’t be shut down by defensive traps.
Now we move on to the spells. Most of our spell and trap cards are going to be oriented towards destroying the opponent’s monsters, making up for the somewhat low ATK the Gadgets wield. We’re already packing two Enemy Controller cards thanks to the reprints in Machine Re-Volt, but three Smashing Ground cards are a must. If we had a Shrink or two, this would be the ideal deck for them, but I don’t, so I’m going to go with one Rush Recklessly and the Controllers instead. Nobleman of Crossout is a must, and from there, I just want to add Graceful Charity, Confiscation, and Premature Burial. Premature can bring back a Gadget and trigger its effect, but it’s most valuable when resuscitating Exiled Force, Newdoria, or Snipe Hunter.
+3 Smashing Ground
+1 Nobleman of Crossout
+1 Graceful Charity
+1 Rush Recklessly
+1 Premature Burial
+1 Confiscation
On to the traps! We’re already packing three Sakuretsu Armor cards, so three Widespread Ruin cards, a Mirror Force, and a Ring of Destruction will bring us to a total of nineteen effects that easily create card-for-card trades. Most of those are monster removal effects, and I’m not even counting Snipe Hunter, Enemy Controller, or Rush Recklessly. Such an emphasis on disruption is going to maximize the chances of the Gadgets scoring direct attacks, while amplifying the benefit we get from having extra cards.
To finish out the deck, I’m going to add three copies of Solemn Judgment. These are really important because they’re going to stop tech cards that hurt Gadgets on a wholesale basis. Jinzo is very large, and shuts down a large portion of the deck if he’s allowed to run wild and free. Acid Rain and System Down can undo our hard work in creating swarms, and even a lucky Mind Crush at the right time can rob us of two or three cards in one go. The biggest worry by far is Deck Devastation Virus. If the opponent ever gets Deck Devastation off, you can probably expect to lose. Solemn Judgment is a handy answer to any of these threats, and it can even stop problematic plays like Card Destruction in case of Dark World, or Royal Decree in aggro beatdown.
+3 Widespread Ruin
+3 Solemn Judgment
+1 Mirror Force
+1 Ring of Destruction
Here’s what the final decklist looks like:
Fifth Re-Volt—45 Cards
Monsters: 20
2 Cyber Dragon
3 Green Gadget
3 Red Gadget
3 Yellow Gadget
2 Mystic Tomato
2 Newdoria
2 Snipe Hunter
2 Exiled Force
1 Breaker the Magical Warrior
Spells: 14
1 Mystical Space Typhoon
1 Limiter Removal
1 Heavy Storm
2 Enemy Controller
1 Pot of Avarice
3 Smashing Ground
1 Nobleman of Crossout
1 Graceful Charity
1 Rush Recklessly
1 Confiscation
1 Premature Burial
Traps: 11
3 Sakuretsu Armor
3 Widespread Ruin
3 Solemn Judgment
1 Mirror Force
1 Ring of Destruction
This is definitely a twist on the average Fifth Gadget deck, but it makes use of the maximum number of cards in your three Structures and other than the Widespread Ruin cards, it’s pretty easy to put together. It’s the perfect starting point for a player who’s new to Gadgets, and it can definitely win tournaments.
The average opening move for a Fifth Gadget deck is to summon a Gadget, grab one from your deck, and then set a back-row card to protect it. While that’s not a bad play, it necessitates a protective card to set and can be vulnerable to an early press of Cyber Dragon and another attacker. Fifth Gadget isn’t a fast deck, so it needs to play strongly on the first few turns to set a grinding tempo that quickly simplifies the duel. This version has the edge in that respect, because it can set Newdoria or Mystic Tomato in order to prepare for a killer second turn.
From there your goals are pretty clear-cut: summon Gadgets whenever possible and use all your removal to take cards off the field as fast as you can. No matter what kind of edge you generate, it won’t count for anything if you fail to simplify early on, so don’t hold back when you’ve got the chance to destroy a monster and create a trade. While other decks would shy away from moves like Sakuretsu Armor on a flipped Dekoichi the Battlechanted Locomotive, this deck can afford to make that kind of play. In fact, it sometimes needs to do so. Granted, being too trigger happy is a bad idea—Smashing Ground on Sangan is still a bit extreme, and the healthy medium between that move and absolute conservatism can be surprisingly difficult to reach. This deck will often be easy to play, but in games where you can’t gain control in the first few turns, things can be a lot harder. If you get knocked off the field early on and need to recover, judging the proper moves becomes difficult. That kind of situations becomes easier to deal with as you gain experience, however.
Trust me; Gadgets are more challenging to play proficiently than you may think, but if you start with a deck like this and put in some hours in your League or local scene, you’ll find yourself becoming skilled with them rather quickly. Don’t be too aggressive: Gadgets are control monsters at their core, not beatsticks. Just remember this deck’s two goals:
1) Clear the way for your Gadgets.
2) Simplify the game so that your extra supply of monsters actually matters.
If you keep those two points in your mind and don’t play too conservatively, you’ll find that Gadgets are your new favorite deck. They’re fun, challenging, and offer some cool advantages that you really can’t get anywhere else. If that’s not a winning combination, then I don’t know what is.
Stay with us over the next week and a half, because we’re going to have plenty of Machine content to show you what you can do with your new Structures! There’s more to Machine Re-Volt than just a single Gadget strategy, so hopefully you enjoy the Gadget-palooza we’ve organized for you.
—Jason Grabher-Meyer