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Doomkaiser Dragon
Card# CSOC-EN043
Doomkaiser Dragon's effect isn't just for Zombie World duelists: remember that its effect can swipe copies of Plaguespreader Zombie, too!
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 Gate Guardian is one of the icons of Yu-Gi-Oh! Like Blue-Eyes White Dragon, Dark Magician, and Relinquished, its popularity as a recognizable character exceeds its playability. In fact, out of all the really recognizable monsters in the game, Gate Guardian is likely the worst for actual dueling.
But players will always try to make a card work if you tell them it can’t—it’s a challenge, and it can be a lot of fun. Erik, whose decks have been used a few times, has created a Gate Guardian deck that, although the Guardian itself is more of an afterthought, is really quite solid. Here’s what he had to say:
This is Erik, from Grand Rapids, MI. The following deck was inspired by some local duelists insulting some old and very underused cards—the Gate Guardian pieces and the Gate Guardian itself. I took this criticism as a challenge to make a workable and competitive deck around them. The following is what popped out.
Now, some explanations. The Gate Guardian is almost strictly for show only. Seriously, when would it be more useful than having the three pieces on the field?
The rest is pretty simple: Search, Stall, Dump, Remove, and Bring Back. Fiber Jar is delicious in this deck. If I can get Dimension Fusion in my next draw, that's up to 13600 ATK with an open field, ripe for pillaging.
When I played with this deck, I almost took two local tournaments, so perhaps by sheer surprise factor alone, this gets the upper hand. The pieces seem to be the prime choice for Dimension Fusion as it is, because of their wonderful, wonderful effect. Gate Guardian was used once in about four weeks, against a Blue-Eyes that wouldn't attack my pieces in a casual duel. Discarding the pieces was almost never a problem, nor was removing. The only real problem was getting to the Dimension Fusions in a timely manner, so I could still pay the LP for them.
As always, love your columns, love Metagame in general, keep it up!
—Erik, Grand Rapids MI
Here’s what Erik’s deck looks like:
Erik’s Gate Guardian Deck
46 Cards
Monsters
1 Gate Guardian
2 Kazejin
2 Suijin
2 Sanga of the Thunder
3 Bazoo the Soul-Eater
3 Mystic Tomato
1 Tribe-Infecting Virus
1 Cyber Jar
1 Fiber Jar
1 Witch of the Black Forest
1 Sangan
Spells
3 Dimension Fusion
1 Painful Choice
1 Card Destruction
1 Monster Reborn
2 Soul Release
1 Pot of Greed
1 Graceful Charity
1 Dark Hole
3 Mystical Space Typhoon
1 Heavy Storm
1 Mirage of Nightmare
3 Tribute to the Doomed
Traps
3 Raigeki Break
3 Torrential Tribute
3 Magic Jammer
It’s solid; it just needs some trimming and one new trick that can really help it out.
At 46 cards, the deck is just too big, but dropping cards from a deck is never an easy task. In this case, one can look over the entire deck, and if the reader is not keeping in mind the total cards in the deck, it looks quite good. However, the current size is a big handicap. In a situation like this, I like to start the thinning by targeting the deck’s redundant features. In this case I started by dropping a Raigeki Break, a Magic Jammer, and a Mystical Space Typhoon. All three of these cards are very useful, but I felt that with Raigeki Break in the deck, it was safe to drop a Mystical Space Typhoon, and sort of vice versa. I don’t see any more than four pieces of this type of removal being needed, especially with Tribute to the Doomed in the deck. In fact, Tribute to the Doomed was the second decision I made when looking at what to drop. It’s easily one of my top picks for the most underrated card in the game—I adore Tribute to the Doomed, but here it was a bit too much redundancy.
I then dropped a single Magic Jammer—again, it just felt too redundant, and it was high up on my list of “things I’d rather not see multiples of in an opening hand.”
Heavy Storm and Torrential Tribute were the last of the clean drops. I’m going to recommend sending a single Torrential to the side deck, so it’s not totally disappearing, and I’ll leave it to Erik as to whether or not he wants to side deck or totally get rid of the Heavy Storm. Again, with Raigeki Break in the deck, I didn’t feel as much spell and trap removal was necessary, and considering the number of cards this deck likes to keep in the spell and trap zone, I felt like Heavy Storm was a bit cumbersome.
I’m going to remove one Dimension Fusion, because there’s another card I want to use instead.
Lastly, I’m dropping Dark Hole strictly so it can be replaced with Raigeki. Though I understand the value of getting Guardian pieces into the graveyard so they can be removed, I don’t actually really see them getting into play reliably as normal tribute summons, so I personally think Raigeki should definitely take priority over Dark Hole.
 The other addition that I’m going to suggest is the one that will really help this deck out. I agree with Erik—any deck that is dependant on Dimension Fusion sometimes has problems paying the life points needed for its cost. I dropped one Dimension Fusion earlier in the fix because there’s a replacement card that I personally find better for a deck like this: Return from the Different Dimension. Return from the Different Dimension is one of the eight cards in the new Exclusive packs available in stores—it’s a trap card that costs half your life points to activate, but it allows you to special summon as many monsters as possible that you control from out of play to the field. The monsters return to being out of play at the end of the turn, but for one turn, you get some serious firepower. In a deck that uses huge monsters like Kazejin, Suijin, and Sanga of the Thunder, you generally only need one turn to attack anyways, provided everything works as you’ve designed it to. Even with just a handful of life points left, you can still activate Return from the Different Dimension, so barring Jinzo, you’ll always be able to use this card regardless of what your life point total is. Return from the Different Dimension is going to give this deck speed, reliability, and redundancy where it really needs it: its central theme.
Beyond that, I personally think the choices Erik made are very solid. Including seven tribute monsters is completely cringe-worthy, but it basically comes with the challenge: we can’t pitch the once-off Gate Guardian, even though it would be best for the deck, because if we did it just wouldn’t be a Gate Guardian deck any more. The three Bazoo the Soul-Eaters give a perfect way to profit from all those discards, as well as getting your monsters out of play, while the three Mystic Tomatoes give this deck something that it sorely needs: maintained board presence and defense while it sets up its combo. Meanwhile, Cyber Jar gives the deck the drawing power it needs and gets more monsters into the graveyard, and Fiber Jar works as Erik described it. It’s a really cool deck.
Here are the final changes I made:
-1 Raigeki Break
-1 Torrential Tribute
-1 Magic Jammer
-1 Heavy Storm
-1 Dimension Fusion
-1 Dark Hole
-1 Tribute to the Doomed
-1 Mystical Space Typhoon
+1 Raigeki
+3 Return from the Different Dimension
Here’s the completed deck list:
Erik's Gate Guardian Deck—Jason’s Fix
42 Cards
Monsters
1 Gate Guardian
2 Kazejin
2 Suijin
2 Sanga of the Thunder
3 Bazoo the Soul-Eater
3 Mystic Tomato
1 Tribe-Infecting Virus
1 Cyber Jar
1 Fiber Jar
1 Witch of the Black Forest
1 Sangan
Spells
2 Dimension Fusion
1 Painful Choice
1 Card Destruction
1 Monster Reborn
2 Soul Release
1 Pot of Greed
1 Graceful Charity
1 Raigeki
2 Mystical Space Typhoon
1 Mirage of Nightmare
2 Tribute to the Doomed
Traps
2 Raigeki Break
2 Torrential Tribute
2 Magic Jammer
3 Return from the Different Dimension
The deck is weak in the opening, with Mystic Tomato being an ideal first turn play, but with ten pretty awful first-turn monsters comprising more than half of its lineup (Gate Guardian, six component pieces, and three Bazoo the Soul-Eaters). I’d like to add Thunder Dragon to the deck to give more things to discard for all those discard effects, but I just can’t rationalize bumping the deck up to ten tribute monsters. Always try to open with a Mystic Tomato; if that isn’t doable, a Witch of the Black Forest or Sangan can do. If none of those options are in hand, it might be worth bluffing, playing nothing to bait out a decent attacker for Raigeki Breaking. Mirage of Nightmare is deathly important, so manage it carefully.
Ironically, for side decking, the deck is pretty well-prepared. While most decks would have to side deck hard against Chaos, this deck’s pair of Raigeki Breaks and Torrential Tributes mean it’s already somewhat ahead of the Chaos-tech curve. As such, the first candidates for side decking should be the redundancies that were removed: Torrential Tribute, Mystical Space Typhoon, Raigeki Break, and possibly Magic Jammer if it’s truly needed. View the side deck as an extension of the main deck more than just a source of tech. Ceasefire can be a stellar addition, since you can Soul Release an opponent’s Effect monsters, bring them back, and then sock him or her for big damage that he or she likely won’t see coming.
That’s the fix! Thanks for sending it in, Erik!
Have a deck to submit? Want to say hi? Get in touch with me via email at jason@metagame.com.
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