What can I say? I like the British. Those good ol’ chaps across the Atlantic have brought us many great things. Monty Python was a silly British comedy, Wallace and Gromit is one of the most amusing pieces of animation on Earth, and I’m currently enjoying yet another episode of the demented antics of Brainiac: Science Abuse on G4. The other thing about the British that I like is that they’re apparently masters of card games . . . at least, that’s the impression I’m under thanks to Tim Willoughby.

In case you haven’t read Tim Willoughby’s article on card advantage and his deck “Ghandipants”* (in which case, you’re committing a horrible injustice and should stop reading this article to go check his out right now), the charming overseas gamer with the funny accent concocted a deck concept that can best be described as unfair. Tim’s deck can go by many different names. Ghandipants is his preferred title, but it isn’t the only one that works. Another fitting name would be “Empty Cookie Jar, version 2.” Older TCG players may find “Jar” to be a fitting name for the deck.

The concept of Ghandipants is simple. Your goal is to not enter battle. Ever. You’ll use any means necessary to completely destroy what duelists know as the battle phase. While you’re doing this, you’ll also be depleting your opponent’s deck by using cards such as Morphing Jar, Needle Worm, Card Destruction, and Morphing Jar #2. In fact, Morphing Jar #2 is the key of the deck. Not only does the successor to Morphing Jar assist in depleting the opponent’s deck of powerful spells and trap cards, but it can also effectively end the battle phase, since all the monsters special summoned through its flip effect are put into play in face down defense position. 

Of course, actually playing out the deck can be a bit more complicated. Mr. Ghandipants (the duelist who’s playing Tim’s deck concept) is required to make many decisions each turn on when to use his or her cards. However, if you can figure out the deck’s basics and have a firm grasp on the chain-link system, the deck can be a ton of fun to play. A few days before Shonen Jump Championship Long Beach, I decided to run Mr. Willoughby’s deck instead of running my Lava Lacooda/mono-burn control deck. I’ve been playing mono-burn control for a few months, but Shonen Jump Long Beach was the first actual experience that I had with Ghandipants. The funny thing is that I’ve said in the past that you should never enter a big tournament with a deck you’ve never played before. Entering Shonen Jump Long Beach with Ghandipants not only made me a complete fool, but also a hypocrite. With no pride or beliefs left intact, I gave the deck a whirl just to have some fun. I made a few changes to Tim’s original deck, such as the inclusion of Solemn Judgment in place of Negate Attack, but it was still Ghandipants at heart.

Somehow, I didn’t finish terribly. Granted, I lost my round 1 match because of my own boneheaded decision not to scoop up my cards and enter game 2 faster. My second loss came at the hands of a ridiculous Cyber-Stein/weenie Machine deck run by Fred Starks, in which I once again played badly in game 2 by not over-committing all of my defense to the field. (If he had Heavy Storm or Giant Trunade in the early game, I would have lost anyway.) I decided that I might as well go all-out as soon as possible.

Seeing as how I had no prior experience with Ghandipants, I was rather satisfied with a 7-3 performance. It’s definitely a solid deck if anyone is looking for something completely absurd and unfair to unleash on opponents at their local Regional event.

While the deck lost some key cards with the latest Advanced format changes, its core concepts remain the same. After all, it’s based on Morphing Jar #2. But what exactly makes Morphing Jar #2 so powerful?

Breakdown and Strategies

Morphing Jar #2 is a nightmare for any player with poor eyesight: it’s a flip effect monster that contains a load of text within its effect box. When the Jar is flipped, both players return all monsters that they can to their deck. (In the event that Morphing Jar #2 was flipped and destroyed as a result of battle, it is not returned to the deck.) Both players then shuffle their decks and pick up cards from them until they retrieve as many monsters as they shuffled back. All monsters of level 4 or less that are revealed through this effect are special summoned to the field in face-down defense position (as long as they can actually be special summoned). All other monsters that can’t be summoned, along with all non-monster cards revealed, are sent to the graveyard.

That’s quite an effect for a single monster, but then again, almost every Jar monster in the Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG has some kind of awesome effect—well, as long as that Jar isn’t named Dimension Jar, that is. Take a look at the recently forbidden Cyber Jar: it wiped the field of monsters, gave both players five new cards, and all revealed monsters of level 4 or less were special summoned to the field. Fiber Jar not only reset the field, but it also reset your hand and graveyard. It was like starting a completely new game, only with the old life point totals. Morphing Jar #2 gives me a similar feeling, and it follows a golden rule of TCGs: any card which breaks the basic rules of the game is amazingly powerful.

One of those rules is that both players are trying to reduce their opponent’s life points to 0. If you’re playing Morphing Jar #2, however, I doubt that you’re trying to actually deplete your opponent’s life points. The goal of a card such as this is to deplete your opponent’s deck until he or she starts drawing on empty (thus losing the game). Morphing Jar #2 also challenges the idea that players should be attacking every turn, since the Jar summons monsters face down in defense position. (This effectively ends the battle phase, as Tim stated in his card advantage article.) Another key fact is that when flip effect monsters are flip summoned or flipped face up, they don’t normally go face down again. Morphing Jar #2 shuffles used flip-effect monsters back into your deck and gives you another chance either to draw them or to summon them face down again. Any card that allows you to use the same Mask of Darkness, Morphing Jar, or Magician of Faith multiple times in a duel breaks the normal rules of the game, and Morphing Jar #2 is no exception.

Tim highlighted Desert Sunlight as one of the deck’s more useful cards. I agree. It’s one of the best cards in the Ghandipants deck, and I played a full set of Desert Sunlight in order to abuse Morphing Jar #2 and various other flip effects during my opponent’s turn as much as possible. This card is one of the best options against Mystic Swordsman LV2, since an opponent who feels safe in attacking your face-down monster will not be able to escape its flip effect if you turn Desert Sunlight in response to his or her attack declaration.

As with all of the Jar monsters, there’s a chance that Morphing Jar #2 can backfire on you. This occurs when you end up summoning multiple copies of Morphing Jar #2 face down. While some players may consider this a blessing (it gives you the opportunity to deplete your opponent’s deck even further), odds are good that your opponent will only be drawing monsters and revealing the same cards that he or she put back with Morphing Jar #2’s effect in the late game. If you use Desert Sunlight to flip up and trigger multiple copies of Morphing Jar #2, you can expect to do a lot of pointless shuffling. At one point during my tournament run at Shonen Jump Long Beach, I used Desert Sunlight to flip up three copies of Morphing Jar #2 at once. Upon the resolution of the ensuing chain, I had wasted about two or three minutes on the clock. Since you are not winning through life point damage, this can be very dangerous, since you will most likely lose if time runs out.

Final Thoughts

I emailed Tim a few nights before Shonen Jump Long Beach to leave him a message for when he returned from his hectic event coverage at Pro Circuit Atlanta. I told him that if I were to win the Des Volstgalph, he would be free to treat himself to a night’s worth of drinks at his local pub, on me. Unfortunately, he still has to pay for his own drinks, but I couldn’t thank him enough for shining some light on Morphing Jar #2. Ghandipants is one of the most brutal decks I’ve played in a long time. Its annoyance factor borders on that of the Tsuku-Lock deck, and it was surprisingly consistent. If you’re looking for something to try out in the next Advanced format, be sure to look at those copies of Morphing Jar #2 that are stashed somewhere in your closet. They’re tired of collecting dust. While you’re at it, be sure to let Tim know that you want to read another Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG article from him someday.

If you have any questions or comments regarding this or any previous articles, feel free to email me at Mrosenberg at Metagame dot Com. I’ll try my best to answer all emails.

* I made an effort to say “Ghandipants” as much as possible at Shonen Jump Long Beach. It’s the best name ever given to a deck.