As a competitive duelist who’s played Yu-Gi-Oh! for well over three years, I’ve seen quite a few bizarre and interesting cards released in each set. To my surprise and delight, some of those cards are actually making their way into decks at Shonen Jump Championships! Cards that never saw much play in the past, such as Hino-Kagu-Tsuchi, are adding to the variety of competitive decks that you might see at a large-scale tournament. Even Clown Control, an ancient theme from the days of Pharaoh’s Servant, is getting a lot of attention from many competitive players.*
Some of the most interesting cards in this game usually have the ability to burn through the opponent’s life points with card effects. This applies to many bizarre cards, such as Ojama Trio**. However, one of the strangest monsters cards to be released in Yu-Gi-Oh is the molten leviathan known as Lava Golem. While many monsters may look different or just plain weird, Lava Golem possesses one of the most interesting effects in this game.
The Basic Breakdown
While most duelists would normally summon monsters under their command, is a monster that’s summoned to your opponent’s side of the field. While you’re the one who’s in control of when you can summon this volcanic monstrosity, your opponent will have the option to use Lava Golem with his or her own cards. Why exactly would you want to construct a deck that’s based on this bizarre and unique monster?
Lava Golem may possess large ATK and DEF values, but the molten fiend is a bit too hot for many duelists to handle. As long as Lava Golem remains face-up on a player’s field, that player will be inflicted with 1000 points of damage during each of his or her standby phases. To put it in more simple terms, take a look at the card art for Lava Golem. If you had your opponent summon Lava Golem to your field, then picture yourself as that poor soul who’s trapped in the cage that’s attached to Lava Golem, over which this volcanic fiend usually sheds molten rock from its body. Basically, Lava Golem melts over your head, and you can bet that its melting body hurts. While a little bit of molten rock isn’t hard to handle, if Lava Golem keeps you imprisoned below its melting body for too many turns, your life points will be completely burned away.
What’s even more interesting to consider is that Lava Golem is basically treated as your normal summon for the turn, and it still requires two tributes in order to be summoned. Of course, since you’re not going to control this monstrosity, you’ll be able to tribute away your opponent’s monsters instead! This makes Lava Golem a solid form of monster removal, as it immediately earns you a solid two-for-one—you’re losing one card (Lava Golem), while your opponent loses two monsters!
However, your opponent is now in control of a fiery behemoth with an ATK value of 3000. How are you going to deal with this monster, and what are the larger benefits of running a deck that’s based on Lava Golem?
The Not-so-Basic Breakdown
While Lava Golem has remained as an overlooked powerhouse in the eyes of most duelists, some players have taken the time to explore the potential of this behemoth’s ability. Lava Golem is one of the most competitive cards that’s available to a Burner or Stall strategy, which involves a massive amount of tempo control and card effects that will reduce the opponent’s life points to zero outside of battle. The opponent’s battle phase can be easily controlled through cards such as Level Limit – Area B and Messenger of Peace, while monsters like Stealth Bird can slowly whittle away at the opponent’s life points. Lava Golem not only assists with this theme’s win condition, but also acts as a powerful form of monster removal.
However, once you summon one Lava Golem, the surprise factor is gone. Now Lava Golem has just become one of the most influential cards in your match! Lava Golem is incredibly powerful and can end the game if it’s summoned to the opponent’s field. Your opponent is often going to be too scared to summon a second monster to his or her field. This means that if you don’t have many stall cards to fall back on, you’ll still be able to control how many monsters your opponent is attacking with! The opponent has the option to overextend the monster zone by attempting to deal fast damage, but he or she will be aware that this will allow you to summon Lava Golem. However, if you have a card such as Wave-Motion Cannon or Stealth Bird on the field, then your opponent probably won’t want to simply sit in his or her seat staring at an empty monster zone. In short, Lava Golem can apply a tremendous amount of psychological pressure to an opponent.
One of the advantages that a Lava Golem-based Burner deck has over typical Burner decks is that it can make a veteran duelist second-guess his or her typical side deck choices. One of the more popular trends that I’ve noticed in side decks is that they usually include multiple copies of Des Wombat. While this little monster packs a punch against fast-playing Burner decks that use quick one-time spell and trap card effects, Des Wombat is less good against Lava Golem. While the Wombat may be able to punch through Level Limit – Area B and Gravity Bind, its ATK value is too high to allow it to attack through Messenger of Peace. Des Wombat also cannot destroy Stealth Bird. What’s worse is that the Des Wombat user cannot put more than one monster on the field without risking a Lava Golem summon that would burn away the Des Wombat as a tribute.
Not only does Lava Golem eliminate Des Wombat as an automatic side deck option, but it requires your opponent to make serious choices on how he or she would like to play the rest of the match. Your opponent could focus on spell and trap removal in order to score a direct attack or two with Lava Golem, or he or she could go for pure removal and simply destroy all monstrous threats that are played. Lava Golem can easily mess with the opponent’s head, and playing it or playing against it can display the differences between a new duelist and a seasoned veteran duelist.
Combos and Counters
Once your opponent knows that you would love to summon Lava Golem to his or her field, he or she will most likely try not to overextend. Ojama Trio can not only lock down the opponent’s monster zone, but the tokens that this trap card can special summon can be offered a tribute to summoning Lava Golem! While Lava Golem takes up your normal summon or set for the turn, the actual summoning of this molten behemoth is a special summon. The Ojama tokens are only restricted to not being used for tribute summons. This allows you to punish an opponent with Lava Golem, even if he or she is making an extra effort to play around it!
If your opponent feels secure that you don’t have another Lava Golem, then he or she might be more willing to use more monsters to take an offensive approach against you. Lava Golem already provides solid monster removal, in that you end up losing one less card than your opponent, and Compulsory Evacuation Device allows you to summon Lava Golem again if your opponent attempted to swarm the field. Compulsory Evacuation Device also counters various forms of monster removal that can threaten your Stealth Birds or Des Lacoodas, so it’s an all-around solid choice for a Burner/Stall deck.
The popularity of Evan Vargas’s “Soul Control” deck is rising with the new advanced format. If you’re feeling threatened by a horde of tribute monsters that can easily remove the Lava Golem that you summoned to the field, then consider side decking a few copies of Mask of Restrict. This old continuous trap card from Labyrinth of Nightmare will stop your opponent from tribute summoning Lava Golem for the banes of a burner/stall deck, including Mobius the Frost Monarch and Horus the Black Flame Dragon LV6. While you will not be able to special summon Lava Golem to your opponent’s field while Mask of Restrict is face-up, your trap card will nearly lock an already summoned Lava Golem into place on your opponent’s field. Your opponent won’t even be able to use Enemy Controller or Metamorphosis to remove it!
Final Thoughts
Lava Golem, both as a deck theme and as a monster, has been highly underrated since last October’s Advanced format. Its playability has definitely increased with the new Advanced format, and it’s sure to cause some panic among duelists if it shows up at a Shonen Jump Championship. This is understandable, as the big behemoth guarantees you advantageous monster removal and can potentially win you the duel. If you haven’t taken a look at Lava Golem as the basis for a deck theme in this format, I suggest that you try it out. You’d be surprised at how effective this card is at causing erroneous plays from your opponent if Lava Golem is summoned to his or her field.
If you have any questions or comments regarding this article or past articles, feel free to e-mail me at Mrosenberg at Metagame dot Com.
*Ramon Bennet placed thirty-fourth at the Atlanta Shonen Jump Championship with Clown Control! Congratulations, Ramon, and good luck at future events with that deck theme.
**Then again, I don’t think that anything is more bizarre than three small Speedo-wearing . . . actually, what are they?