I’ve been a fan of RPGs for as long as I can remember, and in all that time I’ve fought hundreds upon hundreds of bosses. Out of all of those boss fights—from the mammoth Sin to the insane cult leader Mr. Carpainter—there have only been three threats that strike fear in my heart. First, the ability to instantly defeat my entire party without me even getting a say in the matter. Whether it be instantaneous (like Odin’s Zantetsuken) or the result of damage far beyond the total health capacity of a character, abilities that automatically incapacitate any or all of your characters are extremely powerful.
The second ability that I fear is one that somehow restricts or rewrites the actions that I’m able to take. There’s nothing more frustrating than seeing your major physical attacker taken out of the battle because he’s afflicted with Stop, Sleep, and Confuse all at the same time. It’s even worse if a restrictive status-dealing move is coupled with an instant KO move. The White Ball ability comes to mind, since it can both KO and petrify a character at the same time, forcing you to revive the statue and then remove the petrification all while the boss is still beating down your remaining party members.
The last and most relevant ability that really terrifies me is when the boss in question can become completely impervious to damage. If you aren’t dealing any damage, the fight becomes a matter of how long you can hold out with all your potions and heal spells and whatnot. Can you survive long enough for the invulnerability to end . . . or will it end at all?
A better question might be, “What does any of this have to do with Yu-Gi-Oh!?” Well, these things are perfectly relevant given that they all exist in the game. Cyber-Stein has been the cause of more one-hit KOs than any other currently legal card in the Advanced format, and Gravity Bind and its ilk can cause all the nasty status ailments in the world to your opponent, but what card out there can grant you invulnerability to your opponent’s attacks? It’s Clock Tower Prison, and it’s time your opponents learned to fear it.
“Hammer Time”
Monsters: 10
3 The Unhappy Maiden
3 Neko Mane King
1 Sangan
1 Magician of Faith
1 Mask of Darkness
1 Spirit Reaper
Spells: 27
3 Clock Tower Prison
3 Magic Reflector
3 Prohibition
3 Final Countdown
3 Nightmare’s Steelcage
3 Spell Reproduction
2 Offerings to the Doomed
2 Magical Mallet
1 Graceful Charity
1 Scapegoat
1 Terraforming
1 Level Limit - Area B
1 Swords of Revealing Light
Traps: 4
1 Gravity Bind
3 Solemn Judgment
When the Clockwork deck first debuted at Shonen Jump Championship Atlanta, it was built as a passive version of the Empty Jar deck. The goal was simply to get Clock Tower Prison on the field, load it with clock counters and Magic Reflector counters, and wait. After it got to the point where your opponent simply couldn’t get rid of the Clock Tower, you could just sit there and wait for him or her to either deck out or concede. The Clockwork player would prevent him- or herself from decking out by sending Outstanding Dog Marron to the graveyard turn after turn, ensuring that he or she would always have a card left in the deck. Given many players’ inability to realize when a game was lost, this frequently had the side effect of allowing the Clockwork player to see most of the opponent’s deck as he or she discarded due to the hand size limit. It was really all quite clever except for one minor detail: the deck had a very minimal capacity to actually win the game rather than simply not lose. Granted, if you don’t lose for long enough, your opponent likely will due to the fact that you have Outstanding Dog Marron and the opponent doesn’t, but the only card in the original deck that could possibly be construed as offense-oriented was a single Mass Driver.
My version of the Clockwork deck works somewhat differently than the original when it comes to actually winning the game. Specifically, it packs a card that will allow me to win the game rather than just wait until my opponent loses. It would be the worst thing ever to have to concede a game you can’t lose just because you had to pay some life to Solemn Judgment or gave the opponent life with Upstart Goblin. No, I’d much rather just win outright, without dealing with my opponent’s life points. Being able to do so by means of a spell card would be even more ideal given that three copies of Spell Reproduction are a must for this kind of deck. Fortunately, Final Countdown fits the bill very well. If the main strength of the deck is being able to wait around doing nothing without fear of being damaged, then why not play to that strength?
All you need in order to start the Final Countdown is 2000 spare life points, but what happens after that? A near-infinite amount of arguing occurred when the card was initially released over what exactly was meant by “After 20 turns . . .” It turns out that 20 turns really isn’t that long after all, due to the fact that it counts both players’ turns, meaning that only ten cycles of turns have to pass before you win. I’ve seen many games featuring conventional decks take far longer than that to complete. Final Countdown is also on the short list of cards that can benefit from the obscure Pyro Clock of Destiny. Normally, the 2000 life point payment to activate Final Countdown would be extremely dangerous—especially considering the aggressive nature of the current North American metagame—but as I’ll explain shortly, I’ve taken a number of measures to ensure that I can survive long enough to either become protected by Clock Tower Prison or win outright by Final Countdown.
The monster line-up in this version of the Clockwork deck is specifically designed against current deckbuilding trends in order to minimize the time spent dealing with the opponent’s monsters. In the early game, you’ll most likely want to use The Unhappy Maiden to force the opponent into ending his or her battle phase prematurely. After the first couple of turns, Neko Mane King becomes the card of choice for fending off Exiled Force and Zaborg the Thunder Monarch. Of course, if your opponent is packing something like Mystic Swordsman LV2 you’d definitely prefer to see Neko Mane King over The Unhappy Maiden, but that’s what cards like Sangan and Magical Mallet are for. Between these cards, the huge amount of spell- and trap-based stall cards I’m packing, and the three copies of Solemn Judgment to help keep everything in place, there’s really only one card that can mess everything up, and that’s Cyber-Stein. Much like the old Vanish-Doom combo that could even take out the final boss of the Super Nintendo Final Fantasy III, a dedicated Cyber-Stein deck will simply wipe the floor with Clockwork entirely on the strengths of a successful Giant Trunade. Sure, they may only have two of them to work with now, but a good Stein deck should be more than capable of digging for Trunade when necessary. If you don’t have Solemn Judgment or Prohibition and a way to block damage when they get Trunade, you’re likely to lose. Fortunately, dedicated Stein decks are few and far between these days, since most players seem to prefer the random “tech” Stein that has yet to be in an SJC-winning deck since September 1st.
The last thing that I want to talk about is the three copies of Prohibition, another one of those tricky cards that has been around forever. Prohibition prevents the named card from being played in any way, shape, or form. You cannot set the named card, you cannot summon the named card, you cannot activate the named card (unless it’s already set on the field), and you cannot play the effect of the named card. For example, if someone named Kuriboh with Prohibition, Kuriboh could not be discarded from either player’s hand to prevent the damage from one attack. Many Cyber-Stein players had considered it for their side decks, but the idea didn’t work out so well. However, if a card named by Prohibition is already on the field, it’s excluded from the effect. Thus if you wanted to prohibit a card that you play as well, you just play it first and then prohibit it. Normally, Heavy Storm would be the first thing you call with Prohibition, but after that, what you would call with future copies of the card is entirely dependent on the situation at hand. Most likely you’ll just discard them to Spell Reproduction to get back Magic Reflector to ensure the safety of your Clock Tower. The same thing will likely happen with extra copies of Final Countdown.
That’s going to wrap things up for me this week, but next week I’ll be back with another deck and the next installment of The School of Duel, neither of which you’ll want to miss. Until next time play hard, play fair, and most importantly, have fun!
Jerome McHale
jcmchale@andrew.cmu.edu
NEXT WEEK: I like the idea of reducing my opponent’s useful monster count to four so much that I feel compelled to do it.