Machine decks may or may not be a dying breed.

The new Limited list has taken a big bite out of the hopes and dreams of Machine players. The deck’s strength is bolstered by Painful Choice, Mirage of Nightmare, and Fiber Jar, and unfortunately, all three of those cards will hit the Forbidden List on April 1.

That said, Machine decks are currently very strong, and Brandon Dendler used a good build that had some progressive tricks. It’s possible that with sufficient innovation, Machine decks may flourish in the new Advanced format. If that’s to be the case, then some of the key new methodologies may be present in Dendler’s deck.

Progressive Machinations: 40

Monsters: 16
1 Blowback Dragon
1 Perfect Machine King
1 Jinzo
1 Black Luster Soldier – Envoy of the Beginning        
1 Sinister Serpent
3 Roulette Barrel
1 Cyber Jar
3 Fusilier Dragon, the Dual-Mode Beast
1 Tribe-Infecting Virus
3 X-Head Cannon

 Spells: 16
3 Limiter Removal
1 Change of Heart
1 Heavy Storm
1 Premature Burial
3 Megamorph
2 Giant Trunade
1 Painful Choice
1 Snatch Steal
1 Swords of Revealing Light
1 Pot of Greed
1 Mystical Space Typhoon 

Traps: 8
3 Solemn Judgment
1 Magic Cylinder
1 Waboku
1 A Hero Emerges
1 Ring of Destruction
1 Call of the Haunted 

The deck hugs the minimum count of 40 cards in order to draw into Limiter Removal as often as possible. While previous builds of Machine decks were capable of running well into the mid-forties, Mirage of Nightmare will no longer be available in a matter of weeks, and that means that Machines will need to be run very tightly to function as intended. 

Dendler makes good use of virtually all the strengths machines have to offer (sadly barring Cannon Soldier). He’s using all three of the big Machine tribute monsters, and runs A Hero Emerges to help get them into play and compensate for their potential status as dead cards. He’s balancing his Light and Darkness monsters very well, running Roulette Barrel both to keep his Light and Dark counts to optimum levels and because they make for solid defensive plays. In an environment like the post-March Advanced format, where Machine players won’t be able to cover their insanely risky overextensions with Fiber Jar, defensive cards like Roulette Barrel and Gear Golem the Moving Fortress will be incredibly important to the archetype.

Fusilier Dragon, the Dual-Mode Beast will be integral to Machine strategies in the near future. Capable of delivering massive hits to the opponent when fuelled with a single Limiter Removal, they compensate for the fact that the deck has lost the field-clearing power of Magical Scientist. I’m not sure why Dendler decided to run his deck almost as if he were playing with the new Limited list, but to his credit, he did a great job of it.

The deck’s balance of spells is mostly typical for a battle-oriented deck. Tried, tested, and true staples like Change of Heart and Snatch Steal are a must for anything that seeks to win through attacking. Added to those are a few key cards tailor-cut to the deck’s purposes—a pair of main decked Giant Trunade allow Dendler to get in those key single hit rushes for the game, and the three copies of Megamorph not only combo well with Fusilier Dragon, but they also take advantage of the deck’s potential weakness in the early game.

The traps are unconventional, but effective within the build. Ring of Destruction, Call of the Haunted, Waboku, and Magic Cylinder are power packed no-brainers, especially for a deck that is attacked so often. A Hero Emerges and Solemn Judgment, on the other hand, are picks you don’t often see. Here they make sense—A Hero Emerges compensates for your high level monsters and acts as another piece of proactive defense, and the three Solemn Judgment provide a very ambitious method of ensuring early game wins. The ability to prevent your opponent from doing virtually anything within the first three turns is a highly underrated factor in Machines, and it’s quite possible that this might be taken quite seriously in the near future.