The deck looks like a blast! Gear Golem the Moving Fortress and Big Shield Gardna are both winners in a format where duelists often attack so recklessly. Both cards can block Cyber Dragon, and with the aid of Shield & Sword or Weapon Change, both can take it down in battle too.

With that said, I do think we could make some improvements. To start, I’m not convinced of the effectiveness of the Marauding Captain/Inferno Reckless Summon combo. I’ve played it to death in a variety of decks, but even with three Marauding cards and three Inferno cards, it’s very difficult to pull off. With all the special summoning we’ve got going, there are just easier ways to bring out those high DEF monsters. Inferno’s fun, but it’s not very realistic. We can make this deck a local level powerhouse and I want it to live up to that potential.

I’m also concerned about some of the spells this deck isn’t taking advantage of. There are some really useful (and relatively common) spell cards that aren’t here, and they could provide some support to this deck’s theme. Plus, I’ve got one in mind that’s a little less commonly used, but will have a huge impact. You can’t tell, but I’ve got a devious grin on my face a mile wide.

First up, I’m going to drop both copies of Marauding Captain and the pair of Inferno Reckless Summon cards. As much as I’ve always wanted this combo to work, it rarely ever does, and we could do a lot more with those card slots.  

I’m also going to remove the three Warrior Lady of the Wasteland cards. All she really does is search out Throwstone Unit and Gardna, and both of those cards can be searched for with Giant Rat. I’ll be adding something to compensate for this, but we can save room in the deck by dropping her for now.

Finally, the two Giant Trunade cards don’t make a huge amount of sense to me. Sure, they can clear the field for an attack without costing you Weapon Change, but with all the useful spells this deck isn’t running—and with Sword & Shield covering for Weapon Change at times—these seem risky. They’ll often be dead draws, and we can’t really have that in such a synergy-centric deck. Cards like Throwstone Unit and Command Knight are already going to be difficult to use every now and then, so Trunade presents a risk of low utility.

So I’ve cleaned out nine card slots so far and the first thing I want to do is add more monster removal. Two Exiled Force cards will work splendidly here, taking down stuff like Cyber Dragon or troublesome Monarchs—basically anything that could run the risk of winning out over one of Philip’s walls. I’m also going to include one copy of Last Will. It can search out almost anything in this deck, and gives us another fast way to get access to our walls in lieu of Warrior Lady of the Wasteland.

Shield & Sword and Weapon Change are integral to this deck’s success, so one Magician of Faith seems like an excellent idea. This decision is especially sound because I’ll be adding so many useful spell cards. Virtually all of them will be reusable, and since this deck secures the field so well (or will by the time I’m through with it), giving up a normal summon for one Magician is definitely workable.

As for those spells, I’m going to add one Confiscation, Pot of Avarice, and Book of Moon apiece. Avarice will let us get the effect of each Giant Rat an additional time, providing more defensive power and again compensating for the loss of Warrior Lady. It gives access to extra options in a deck that will sometimes draw unevenly, and that’s a precious asset. Combined with Magician of Faith we’ll be able to cycle up to ten monsters back into the deck in a single game. When your strategy is to soak up shots and outlast the opponent’s offense, that’s useful.

Confiscation is a valuable method of pre-negating problematic cards. This deck invests itself significantly in the field, and because of that, Zaborg the Thunder Monarch can be a huge problem. Discarding it with Confiscation is just one of several ways in which you can pillage the opponent’s hand to keep your central strategy safe. It’s an amazing turn 1 play, and should probably be in any deck that cares about what your opponent might do during the course of the game.

Book of Moon gets in on Big Shield Gardna synergy alone! It’s priceless to see an opponent attack into Big Shield and take some damage in an effort to turn it to attack position, only to attack with something like Magician of Faith and then watch in horror as Book of Moon turns Gardna back to defense. Beyond that, Book of Moon blocks incoming attacks from anything large enough to bust down your wall, saves your monsters from Sakuretsu Armor, and can keep Giant Rat from getting nailed by Smashing Ground or Brain Control.

The last cards that I want to add to the deck are what I think put it over the top. Unity is a relatively recent promo offered through Shonen Jump, and it’s a quickplay spell that targets a monster on your side of the field. Unity then makes the DEF of the targeted monster equal to the combined DEF of all monsters you control until the end of the turn, which in this deck can be a massive boost! Sure, Big Shield Gardna and Gear Golem the Moving Fortress are obvious choices, but since you’re combining the DEF of all of your monsters, the 1900 DEF of Command Knight and 1450 from Giant Rat can really add up. You’ll often be able to deploy a few walls, bait an attack from the opponent, and then flip Unity to dish out 4000 damage or more through battle. Brutal.

Even better is the card’s combo potential. If you’re like me, you’re probably eyeing Shield & Sword and Weapon Change, and with good reason. Shield & Sword won’t work with Unity—its effect only takes into account the original ATK and DEF a monster possesses, so Unity’s pump won’t result in a big ATK score. However, Weapon Change creates a dynamic field condition that will constantly convert DEF modifiers into ATK modifiers for a single monster, so you can combo it with Unity to generate stunningly huge ATK values. Even just a pair of monsters like Command Knight and Throwstone Unit can result in either monster wielding a mighty 3900 ATK. Add in more monsters and things just get even crazier.

Here are the final changes to the deck:

-2 Marauding Captain

-3 Warrior Lady of the Wasteland

-2 Inferno Reckless Summon

-2 Giant Trunade

+2 Exiled Force

+1 Magician of Faith

+1 Confiscation

+1 Pot of Avarice

+1 Book of Moon

+2 Unity

+1 Last Will

The fixed build is as follows:

I Attack with . . . Big Shield Gardna?—Jason’s Fix—40 Cards

Monsters: 19

3 Big Shield Gardna

1 Breaker the Magical Warrior

2 Command Knight

1 D. D. Warrior Lady

3 Gear Golem the Moving Fortress

3 Giant Rat

2 Exiled Force

1 Sangan

2 Throwstone Unit

1 Magician of Faith

Spells: 18

1 Confiscation

1 Pot of Avarice

1 Book of Moon

2 Unity

1 Last Will

1 Graceful Charity

1 Heavy Storm

1 Mystical Space Typhoon

2 Reinforcement of the Army

2 Shield & Sword

2 Smashing Ground

3 Weapon Change

Traps: 3

3 Royal Decree

“This deck opens strongly,” is a phrase you’ll often see in my articles. I value a powerful first turn showing highly, because maintaining a field presence into turn 2 leaves you with exceptionally good offensive potential. Whether you tribute the monster you have, flip it for an effect, or use it as an attacker, that move frequently sets the tone for the rest of the game. A strong opening is the best way to put yourself into the driver’s seat for the rest of the duel.

With that said, virtually no deck can open as well as this one. Between Big Shield Gardna and Gear Golem the Moving Fortress, you’ve got six monsters that can repel Cyber Dragon. Gardna gives you three chances at negating Nobleman of Crossout as a bonus, and Giant Rat, Command Knight, and Throwstone Unit can also maintain field presence exceptionally well. Look over the list and you’ll see that a whopping fifteen of the deck’s nineteen monsters are ideal openers, a feat matched by no deck I’ve come across in all my years of dueling.

From there, you’ll want to spend your first few turns just setting big monsters and building your on-field potential. Use Exiled Force and D. D. Warrior Lady in conjunction with Smashing Ground to get rid of anything with an ATK high enough to threaten your big defenders. Though it goes without saying, do not blindly use Exiled Force to hit a face-down monster. Not only do you risk losing your Exiled to cards like Treeborn Frog and Sangan, but you also lose out on the entire point of Exiled in this deck: whacking big threats. The exception might be keeping the opponent off the field in a Monarch matchup to deprive them of tribute bait, but that’s a rare situation. Your goal is to build field presence, and you need to prioritize your removal towards that end.

The mid-game is where you usually go off. Shield & Sword can allow for a close game of three or four monsters apiece to suddenly become a series of one-sided battles in your favor, resulting in field presence swings and big damage. Remember that Shield & Sword doesn’t just turn your high DEF into ATK bonuses; it also reverses the stats of the opponent’s monsters in order to leave him or her vulnerable. In addition, while an early-game Shield is sometimes viable, you should really consider Weapon Change to be a mid-game card. It has to sit for an entire turn before you can use its effect (since it won’t activate until the standby phase), so you should try and draw out some spell and trap removal before using it.

Once you get Weapon Change going, you also bring the Unity OTK combo online. Remember that since Unity is a quickplay spell it can be used during the damage step, so unless you’ve been forced to chain it to a piece of removal, you probably shouldn’t activate it before that point. It lets you do a ton of nasty tricks, the best of which is attacking with a small monster like Magician of Faith or Exiled Force in order to bypass an opponent’s set Mirror Force or Sakuretsu Armor. Once you hit the damage step, the opponent can’t activate anything short of Kuriboh to block your huge pile of damage, so Unity can turn that Magician of Faith’s ATK into a 4000+ value and the opponent can’t do anything about it. Ouch. It’s also great to use it in the damage step when you’re defending, because the opponent can’t use Enemy Controller to turn your monster to its more vulnerable attack position once the battle hits that point.

Games will be won and lost on Unity. Use it skillfully, and it becomes this strategy’s key to success.

While it’s harder for this deck to win in the late game than in the mid-game (simply because you’ll probably have fewer monsters on the field at that point), the same difficulty applies to your opponent. Just one of your monsters can often hold off everything your opponent can throw at you. The average competitor’s best topdeck will usually be Cyber Dragon, and six of your monsters just shrug off its blows. If you’re drawing reasonably well, nothing short of a Monarch or multiple pieces of monster removal will be able to render you vulnerable.

A brief sidenote on some of the deck’s more interesting cards: just like in a Stein deck, Last Will combos with Exiled Force quite nicely. Here, instead of bringing you Stein, Will ensures that you can use Exiled Force and still continue building your field. That’s important, because while you might want to wipe out an opponent’s Cyber Dragon or Monarch early on, you don’t want to lose development time while doing so. You can also grab a second Exiled or D. D. Warrior Lady to wipe two monsters off the field as needed, which is pretty valuable, and you can even search out another high-DEF monster to fuel Unity.

Royal Decree is pretty cool here too, shutting down reactive cards that you could play around (Sakuretsu Armor, Mirror Force, and the like) as well as proactive cards that are often harder to avoid. While you can simply choose not to attack into Sakuretsu, most decks can’t dodge Ring of Destruction without using Book of Moon or tributing the targeted monster for Enemy Controller. That can result in forced simplification when you don’t necessarily plan for it, usually not a good thing. Decree lets you shut down both Ring and Torrential Tribute without exchanging a card to do so, leaving you with the ability to render other cards the opponent controls useless. That’s exceptionally valuable for a deck that requires multiple monsters on the field in order to win.

Most successful archetypes in this format revolve around an aggressive pace intended to overwhelm the opponent. Nine times out of ten this deck can’t be beaten by that strategy, and that makes it a great metagame call for the average local or regional tournament. Can this deck win big tournaments? Absolutely. It just builds off the proven points of theory that make Warrior Toolbox work, adding in a dash of ingenuity to take advantage of current gameplay trends. . .

. . . and then swinging for 8000 damage with Big Shield Gardna or Magician of Faith. So it’s fun and efficient! Try this one out—it’s a blast to play, and is really in tune to the current format.

Until next time, keep those creative decks coming!

—Jason Grabher-Meyer

Working on a deck for the new Advanced format? Looking for some help, or just want to see your creation right here on Metagame? Send it to me, and you might see your deck featured in an Apotheosis column! I’m Jason (at) metagame (dot) com, and I’m always looking for cool new decks to write about.