When I decided to build a deck based around Geartown, my first instinct was to call up Dr. Crellian Vowler and ask him to write an intro for it. After all, as the world’s foremost expert on Ancient Gear strategies, surely it would be appropriate for him to introduce a deck based around what might be the last support card the Yu-Gi-Oh! GX-based Ancient Gear monsters ever get. As it turns out, it was easily one of the worst ideas I’ve ever had in my life. All he did was whine and complain about how it wasn’t fair that the Yu-Gi-Oh! GX era was over, and with it the "dominance of (his) Ancient Gear strategy." I informed him that Ancient Gear decks have never been what one would consider "dominant," but that they’ve always been a fun deck to play on the local levels. Vowler, being Vowler, had a great number of choice words to say in response. Frankly, I’ve never heard "outrageous" used so many times in a single sentence or as so many different parts of speech. In fact, the only place where outrageous wasn’t used in the entire conversation was the part immediately after I explained the effect of Geartown to him. What are Vowler’s thoughts on the card? "My word, that’s far more useful than Ancient Gear Castle." I’m going to go ahead and call that high praise from the Ancient Gear Expert and take it as his blessing on this week’s deck. (Jason’s Note: How did that guy even get a phone? I thought we stuffed him in a barrel and rolled him into the ocean...)
There has always been one thing holding back Ancient Gear Beast and Ancient Gear Engineer from the annals of competitive play: they both require a tribute. You can sneak Ancient Gear Engineer into play via Giant Rat, but the "cannot be special summoned" clause on the Beast prohibits you from even dumping and reviving the card with Monster Reborn. With Geartown in play, all your Ancient Gear monsters require one less tribute to be normal summoned, and in the case of Beast and Engineer, that means you can play them without any tribute. Many would argue that a field spell with no built-in protection is too inefficient to be worth consideration, but I tend to disagree with that viewpoint. In a way, the card does have built-in protection.
If it’s destroyed, you get to summon an Ancient Gear monster from your hand, deck, or graveyard. Sure, it can’t be Ancient Gear Beast or Ancient Gear Golem, but I’ll remind you that Ancient Gear Knight is bigger than Gladiator Beast Bestiari or a spent Breaker the Magical Warrior. I’d also remind you that with Shrink or Limiter Removal on your side, Ancient Gear Engineer is bigger than just about anything your opponent can dish up. It’s also immune to Phoenix Wing Wind Blast regardless of whether or not it’s attacking, giving the card added value in a metagame where the ability to spin away Stardust Dragon is invaluable. Look now, upon what might be the final incarnation of the Ancient Gear deck.
Monsters: 22
3 Ancient Gear Beast
2 Ancient Gear Engineer
2 Ancient Gear Golem
2 Cyber Phoenix
2 D.D. Crow
2 Giant Rat
1 Card Trooper
1 Sangan
2 Nitro Synchron
2 Jutte Fighter
Spells: 15
1 Monster Reborn
1 Heavy Storm
1 Mystical Space Typhoon
3 Geartown
2 Ancient Gear Workshop
1 Limiter Removal
1 Brain Control
1 Terraforming
2 Book of Moon
2 Lightning Vortex
Traps: 3
1 Torrential Tribute
1 Mirror Force
1 Trap Dustshoot
Extra Deck: 15
2 Red Dragon Archfiend
3 Thought Ruler Archfiend
1 Colossal Fighter
3 Goyo Guardian
2 Magical Android
2 Nitro Warrior
In theory, you’ll be reading this on September 2, one day after the new Forbidden and Limited list goes into effect. Out of a bizarre sense of obligation, I’ll point out that Ancient Gear decks really had nothing to lose to the list in the first place other than Premature Burial, making them a lot better off than many of the most popular decks. This leads to a lot of bad deckbuilding on the part of those who lost key cards and, consequently, a lot of bad playing on the part of opponents as well. That makes this the perfect time to bring back the only strategy in the game that consistently disallows any form of defensive spell or trap cards to be played. After all, a common deckbuilding response to an undefined format is to pack as much removal as humanly possible into a single deck, hoping to outright kill each and every monster that sees play. This time around, lots of removal just isn’t going to fly thanks to the introduction of Synchro monsters, so players will likely turn to the next best thing: attack blockers and battle tricks. You might be able to waylay Stardust Dragon with Enemy Controller, but if you intend on using that card against an Ancient Gear deck, you’ll have to do so before the Gear player declares an attack.
Once you make that attack, that’s it in terms of spell and trap cards from your opponents. They flat-out can’t play them until the end of the damage step. That’s bad news for duelists who were relying on Dimensional Prison or Shrink to keep them safe from harm. In fact, the only real option once the Ancient Gear monster attacks is to play a monster effect like Honest in order to keep things in line. As a general point, you’ll find that monster effects are more important now than they’ve ever been before thanks to the fact that they’re the only thing that can’t be stopped by a timely Solemn Judgment. For the most part, traps that can’t "win the game outright" like Crush Card Virus can are seeing a drastic reduction in play since most of them are easily negated by Stardust Dragon or Solemn Judgment, leaving players to wonder why they ran them in the first place.
Furthermore, you can’t use traps on the turn you draw them, so they’re harder to plan around in-game. Will my opponent negate or destroy my Mirror Force? Has he or she got Cold Wave to make my Torrential Tribute irrelevant? Questions like these are pushing players toward a greater spell count, so for plays to be made on the opponent’s turn, players turn to quick-play spells and monster effects. D.D. Crow is still the king of the hill in terms of popular monsters with quick effects since it’s still amazing even without Dark Magician of Chaos, Destiny Hero - Disk Commander, and Premature Burial in the format.
Cutting off powerful graveyard effects like Destiny Hero - Malicious and Gladiator Beast Darius can still win games all on its own, so Crow makes the cut here as it does in nearly every deck. Also making the cut is a card I haven’t seen in tournament play in quite a while: Cyber Phoenix. With the increase in overall spell counts also comes an increase in the 
number of targeted spells played. Mind Control is sure to be a popular pick in the upcoming months and surprise, it targets! Just like when Brain Control was legal in threes, Cyber Phoenix turns targeted spell and trap cards into dead cards and forces your opponent to only play with his or her own monsters. Ancient Gear Golem and Ancient Gear Beast are infinitely scarier if your opponent knows he or she can’t take control of them, and Ancient Gear Golem is especially nasty because it’s too big to be used for a Synchro summon even if your opponent would get control of it with Mind Control. The Golem can also take down the most commonly used Synchros without any help, and thanks to Geartown you’ll be able to drop it on the field for the bargain price of one tribute. Huge ATK, built-in protection, and piercing for one tribute? Not bad at all.
My choice of Tuners for the deck might come as a surprise to some. Specifically, I’m using a pair of Nitro Synchron cards in addition to the all-star Jutte Fighter instead of a pair of level-3 Tuners. This is mainly because I really want to be able to play Nitro Warrior from time to time. With the other decks I have built currently, I wind up with monsters whose combined levels equal seven all the time, and I can’t bring down any Synchro monsters because the only one that’s level-7 requires Nitro Synchron.
To that end, why not play it in this deck? Like the Ancient Gears, it’s a Machine, and it can combine with Ancient Gear Engineer for a quick Nitro Warrior. Throw in the fact that you get a free card when you make Nitro Warrior, and you’re almost guaranteed to be able to play the Warrior’s effect to become huge and cut through defenses! Think for a moment. Draw an extra card with Nitro Synchron, then drop Ancient Gear Workshop to get back your Engineer and pump Nitro Warrior. It’s crazy, and it isn’t something you can do very easily in most mainstream decks.
This weekend marks the first major event of the new format and the first major event in which The Duelist Genesis is legal. I’ll be there to play, so feel free to say hi between rounds if you’re going. Things are going to get very exciting in Baltimore, so until next time, play hard, play fair, and most importantly, have fun!
—Jerome McHale
Jerome.mchale@gmail.com