The truly frightening thing about Gorz is that he might be lurking in any deck under the sun. There are places where he’s an obvious inclusion and others where he doesn’t really make sense, but the card is so powerful that rational thought will likely take a backseat in the decision-making process. He’s a lot like Crush Card Virus in that sense except that every deck can fulfill the condition for using him without having to dedicate any extra card slots to requisite monsters. All you have to do is pass your turn without any cards on your field, and Gorz is online. To complicate matters further, it’s even possible to trick an opponent into letting you summon Gorz by leaving nothing but a chainable spell or trap on the field. How do you combat something that can change the tide of the game in a single second, and how can you use the card’s existence to your advantage?

Regardless of whether or not you’ve chosen to play Gorz yourself, on Day 1 of a Shonen Jump Championship no one knows what’s in your deck. When going first, you can simply pass to your opponent without doing anything if you’re not happy with your first six cards. The theory is that by doing nothing, you signal that you have Gorz and that your opponent shouldn’t try anything fancy. There are, however, complications that can arise depending on the caliber of your opponent and how well you perform the maneuver. Yes, it’s entirely possible to screw up the act of playing nothing and telling your opponent to go.

The trick in making it a convincing bluff if you don’t have Gorz is to quickly evaluate your opening hand, decide on a course of action, and pass the turn in short order—preferably before your opponent has finished evaluating his or her own cards. It’s more difficult when you deal with an opponent who doesn’t even look at his or her cards when going second until he or she has made the first move, but even then, confidence is key. The move is most desirable in a game 1 situation where you want to see what your opponent has in store for you, but you don’t want him or her to have the extra card that comes with going first. In games 2 and 3, your decision on whether or not to play anything on the first turn is aided by the fact that you now know what your opponent is up to. Some decks are more likely to disregard a potential Gorz than others, and if your opponent is playing one of those decks, you might not want to pass with a totally bare field even if you do have Gorz.

Right now, Lightsworn is the deck you need to be most concerned about when you consider bluffing Gorz. The problem is that the way people are running it these days, it’s more like a combo deck than a standard aggressive deck—making it entirely possible that the Lightsworn player can kick out 8000 damage on the first turn (or at least set things up so that he or she will have it by that player’s second turn). Between Charge of the Light Brigade, Solar Recharge, and end-phase effects, Lightsworn have plenty of ways to randomly dump Necro Gardna into the graveyard—making it more and more likely that Lightsworn players simply won’t care whether or not you have Gorz. If you drop Gorz and then can’t swing with him, the Lightsworn player will just clear the field out with Judgment Dragon and attack without fear. After all, Gorz is gone. Personally, I would never attempt to bluff a Gorz against Lightsworn. Even if you were to resolve him successfully, chances are that it would act strictly as a 1000-point burn spell, forcing your opponent to destroy everything with Judgment Dragon for a second time in the turn to ensure that you can’t make something of your 3000 ATK token. The real impact of Gorz is going to be felt in matches against Teleport Dark Armed Dragon.

One of the biggest weaknesses of the Teleport Dark Armed Dragon deck is that if its big turn doesn’t knock you out, it’s all out of steam. Anyone who still has life points left after the deck drops a Synchro or two and a Dark Armed Dragon likely has enough fuel in his or her hand and deck to retake control of the game. This is especially true in the Teleport Dark Armed Dragon mirror match, and for that reason, I think we’re going to see Gorz in every single Dark Armed Dragon deck in Day 2 of the next SJC. The most important thing when you’re trying to put together a KO turn with Teleport Dark Armed Dragon is making sure that you will win the game. Dark Armed Dragon used to be the card that guaranteed victory for the turn player, but now that Gorz exists, the only safe knockout turn is one where the opponent has no field and no hand. This lets you play a fun little game with the Dark Armed Dragon player if you’re willing to take beats from Elemental Hero Stratos or Sangan on your first turn. Regardless of whether or not you actually have Gorz, pass on the first turn of the game with either nothing set or something you can easily get rid of in response to an attack. If you do it convincingly enough, this should set off alarms in your opponent’s head that say, "Maybe I shouldn’t go all out, just in case." By maintaining at least one card in your hand at all times, you can keep the illusion up throughout the game, drastically changing the way your opponent plays for fear of that one card you haven’t been playing.

If you’re on the receiving end of such a scheme, your goal should be to figure out whether or not your opponent actually has the card by trying to create situations where the opponent would have to play it without over-committing to the field. Stardust Dragon is actually very good at this. Since Gorz itself has enough ATK to run over Stardust Dragon, using its attacks as bait for the Fiend is a good way to catch your opponent in a lie while keeping yourself protected and holding back the big guns. Zombie decks are very good at this, since many players will likely try to wait for a big Synchro attack before dropping their Gorz. Zombies can circumvent this and force sub-optimal plays by just attacking with stuff like Zombie Master, Mezuki, and Goblin Zombie instead.

All of those cards will deplete 8000 life points faster than your opponent thinks, and before the opponent knows it, he or she will have to drop Gorz or risk getting pecked to death by your swarm. At that point it’s simply academic to unleash the removal you had lying in wait, giving your opponent one last chance to turn things around. It should be noted that even if you do manage to force out Gorz, it still gives that player a free turn and usually forces you to spend cards or effects to get rid of it so that you can win next turn. Free turns are huge in this game, and it only takes one to change a guaranteed win into a guaranteed loss. That’s the very reason that Necro Gardna sees play.

I want to emphasize that everything you just read applies to Day 1 only. On Day 2, things are completely different since everybody knows what everybody else is playing. If you want to try to use a Gorz bluff on Day 2, you actually have to have Gorz in your deck. You’ll also know what your opponent is playing ahead of time and can more accurately gauge the chances of him or her winning in a single turn if you either don’t draw the Gorz or your opponent sees through you. Even if you aren’t going to main-deck Gorz, it might be wise to throw him into your side deck to keep your options open and your opponent on his or her toes.

Finally, I’d like to give you a good example of how not to telegraph that you have Gorz. Under no circumstances should you ever go first, play Cold Wave, and pass. Doing so invites your opponent to say, "I have Gorz too," and do nothing: effectively mimicking you without giving up a card to do so. Doing this not only squanders the advantage of going first, it also means you’re playing Cold Wave in your deck. Why people like to throw that card into decks with sixteen other spells that need to be played is beyond me. (Yes, I know all about the Cold Wave chain Emergency Teleport trick. No, I don’t think it’s worth giving up more accelerants or removal for a silly trick that isn’t even guaranteed to win you the game, especially with people main-decking copies of Shadow-Imprisoning Mirror.)

Gorz the Emissary of Darkness represents a huge shift in the way we assess game position. Now that the only truly safe attack is one where the opponent has no hand or field, the capacity for critical thinking is more important than ever. Anyone who tries to simply coast through the paradigm shift without putting in the effort to understand what’s going on is going to lose a lot of games, get frustrated, and then blame everything on Gorz. Don’t let this happen to you, and until next time, play hard, play fair, and most importantly, have fun!

—Jerome McHale