Charlie Brown was constantly confronted with a conflict of self-image. He saw himself as either the hero or the goat. Unfortunately, he was often downtrodden, depressed, and an overall failure- definitely a goat. In Yu-Gi-Oh!, there have been several monster-types I like to refer to as “goats.” Fish, Thunder, and, well, Rock monsters are all excellent examples of goats. There just weren't many good Rock-type monsters, and there were very few (if any) reasons to build a deck around them.
But every goat has its day, and Rock monsters have received a massive boost from The Lost Millennium! Today I'll look at a deck sent in by a reader who's decided to dust off his Rock deck and give this previously disadvantaged monster group some love. Here's what he had to say about the deck he submitted.
Hi, Jason!
I built a Rock deck a while back, and discovered that there weren't many good reasons to do so. Where were all the awesome monsters like the ones that Warriors, Fiends, and Spellcasters had? But, thanks to the release of The Lost Millennium, I'm now faced with the opposite problem- how do I choose which of the cool new Rock monsters to use? There are so many that use different themes, so I'm sending my deck to you in hopes that you can give me some assistance.
The basic strategy of this deck is to create a defensive wall. I get set up, control the field, then force an opponent to crash into my bigger roadblocks with Staunch Defender. But it's underpowered and has problems with pressing through attacks. I've experimented with multiple copies of cards like Smashing Ground, but they just don't seem to be doing the trick.
Please help!
Robert C., Walla Walla, Washington
Let me take a moment to say that if you come from a place with a funny name, the chance of getting your deck featured is slightly increased. How could Inot feature a deck from Walla Walla? Admittedly, Robert also happens to have an original deck that ties in perfectly with the new set. But the Walla Walla thing is delicious icing on the cake.
Here's what Robert put together.
Robert's Rockin' Rampage
40 cards
Monsters: 20
Spells: 14
Traps: 6
This deck has a fairly well-thought-out concept that focuses on huge defense, which is Rock's big trademark Then there are some extra Earth monsters tossed in. A lot of Rock monsters happen to carry the Earth attribute, and
Gaia Power can beef up all those monsters. There aren't any problems with the deck per se- it's been built well to maintain board presence, it packs a few interesting combos, and it has the usual mix of high-impact spells and traps. But the deck still manages to have an awkward offense, at best, and it's just not good enough to warrant its current boundaries. Why focus on an all-Rock deck if you're not exploiting the Rock monsters?
To be fair, it wasn't entirely possible to do this over the past few months. There just wasn't a lot of “glue” with which to stick Rock monsters together. But The Lost Millennium has come to our rescue, bringing some great new cards and some exciting reasons to play Rock monsters!
Let's start by dropping some cards to make a little room. First on the chopping block are
Gigantes and Rock Spirit. These two cards are incredibly good, offering more bang for your one-summon-per-turn buck and, in the case of
Gigantes, a cool effect that can definitely win games for you. But they're both special-summon only and require their controller to remove monsters from his or her graveyard in order to bring them to the field. We're going to be adding an awesome new monster
fromThe Lost Millennium that requires the same summoning conditions, so we can't have too many dead cards. It's with a fond wave goodbye that we'll send these two monsters off to hit the dusty trail.
Next, I'm going to remove the three copies of
Nimble Momonga. While everyone's favorite high-speed squirrels are obnoxious to play against, act as instant walls in the early and mid-game, and can swing a game around completely under the right conditions, we need more Rock monsters for what I want to do with the deck. Normally, I like to emphasize the fact that you don't always need to hug too tightly to a theme, but this fix is going to be the exception. We're going to want as many Rock monsters as possible, and you'll see why once we get to the additions.
I'm going to remove the two copies of
Gaia Power as well. While I love playing
Gaia Power in many decks, I don't think we need it on offense, and it doesn't fit the defensive intents of this approach. Not having room for
Terraforming also hurts its effectiveness. I will leave one copy to be used as a random battle trick. Just be careful with it, as the stat changes it creates can cause swings and vulnerabilities you might not be prepared for.
The last of the drops will be the single copies of
Scapegoat,
Swords of Revealing Light, and
Nobleman of Crossout. I think the deck has enough defense that it doesn't need Swords and Scapegoat. While they're useful cards that could save games, they could also lose them by being dead draws—especially in the mid-game where this deck needs to be at its best.
Time for some additions! First, I'm adding two copies of
Megarock Dragon, a hot new special-summon card from
The Lost Millennium.
Megarock Dragon lets you remove Rock monsters from your graveyard when it comes into play and gets 700 ATK for each monster removed in this way. Add a few monsters and you've got a real bruiser on your hands that can take down virtually anything. This is the reason why I wanted to make sure the deck was as full of Rock-types as possible.
However, getting that offense to stick can be tricky, and that's where a pair of
Dummy Golems come in. It's easy to look at
Dummy Golem and say to yourself, “That's stupid! I'll get nothing but goat tokens half the time.” Well, hold up there, Mr. Doubty-pants. Getting a monster in return for your trade is just part of this card's effect. A big advantage to using it is that you can hand your opponent an attack position monster during your turn at any time you like. When you've got
Megarock Dragon on your side of the field, that can often end the game. Consider the chance to nab one of your opponent's monsters to be a strong addition to the deal.
Next, I want to add a pair of
Medusa Worm. Once you get
Staunch Defender going, you may as well have some cards worth drawing fire, and
Medusa Worm is going to do just that. It's a very strong pull off of
Giant Rat under the new rulings, which will allow it to flip itself from face up attack into face down defense and then be flip summoned again in the same turn. Running two copies of
Medusa Worm should pay off nicely. In addition, if an opponent clears it off the field with an attacker, you can always just add it to his or her tab and collect when
Megarock Dragon hits the field. An extra 700 ATK is always good.
Cyber Jar and
Card Destruction will both make the cut. They both help you get to the Dragon as fast as possible, they both get Rock-type monsters into your Graveyard, they both help you control the tempo of the game . . . and
Cyber Jar is even a Rock-type itself!
Finally, I want to add two copies of
Book of Moon and one
Ceasefire for enhanced field control.
Book of Moon will let you use
Giant Rat in the middle of battle to find one of your high-DEF monsters, and then turn it to defense position when the opponent goes to attack it. It can interrupt attacks you can't handle, change a strong attacker into a sitting duck by turning it to defense position, and it can allow for some neat tricks when it's added to chains.
Ceasefire is going to turn defense position monsters that you need face up into that position, and it will also function as a chainable closer. It also works against Burn and Last Turn decks, which can give this deck some trouble.
Here are the changes I opted to make:
And here's the final decklist!
Robert's Rockin' Rampage: Jason's Fix
40 cards
Monsters: 21
Spells: 12
Traps: 7
I have a few suggestions for the side deck.
Big Shield Gardna can foil an opponent who side decks cards like
Nobleman of Crossout against you.
United We Stand can make sure that your
Dummy Golem hits cause an optimal amount of damage, and since many of the monsters in the deck can sneak under
Gravity Bind due to their low level, this deck is going to do very well in Lockdown matchups. That's good, because these matchups can otherwise be a bit tough for this deck. We need an aggressive opponent, and Lockdown decks lend themselves to a passive style that can cause this deck some issues.
The deck plays fairly easily, building up a bunch of Rock monsters through the mid-game while maintaining defensive control of the board and whittling down the opponent before popping a big surprise, like a
Staunch Defender and
Stone Statue of the Aztecs combo or a big
Megarock Dragon. Keep your monsters, spells, and traps face down as much as possible to minimize the impact of
Tribe-Infecting Virus and
Lightning Vortex, and remember that
Book of Moon can counter those cards nicely. Don't try to win in the early game—this deck just doesn't have the hard-hitting ATK stats to do so. Instead, keep your opponent off balance and guessing about what you'll do next, and then slowly build toward your win conditions.
That's it for this week! Thanks to Robert for sending in his deck, and here's hoping that my suggestions help him out. If you've been staring at your new Rock monsters from The Lost Millennium and wondering what to do with them, give this deck a try!
—Jason Grabher-Meyer