I always have a list of goals that I try to accomplish at each tournament I play in. Obviously, the top priority is to win said tournament, but there are a lot of other things that I look to do as well. For example, I always hope to inspire someone to try out a new deck and have fun with it. I also hope to see people trying out decks that I’ve built for this column, and I especially look for modified versions tailored to thrive in a highly competitive environment. Despite what some people may tell you, making people cry is not something I hope to achieve (though it happened on numerous occasions when I was piloting my Counter Fairy deck). Out of all the goals on the list, three of them take top priority over all the rest.
The first is "win the tournament." The second is "don’t make any horrendous playing errors," and the third is the one relevant to today’s deck, "don’t lose to Crush Card Virus." At this point, there’s enough evidence from the feature matches at every high-level tournament since the release of Gold Series to back up the statement that successfully resolving Crush Card Virus usually makes you win. It’s a very rare occasion when the card hits one monster or less, and even then, the player in question gets to see everything his or her opponent is holding. Most of the time, however, Crush Card Virus is going to strip you of almost everything you’ve got and take away at least one of your upcoming draws. You’ll have to hold back on playing draw spells for a few turns and try to stall things out, but without Spirit Reaper or a Crush Card Virus of your own, that’s not very likely.
Sometimes you can play out of a Virus hit, but much more often you just can’t. That’s why people look for ways to shoehorn it into decks it has no place in like Gladiator Beasts or Lightsworn. To the people who do so, the random games it wins justify warping the deck and using fewer support cards that help increase the consistency of the central strategy. Honestly, I’m pretty sure I’ve seen the same number of games lost by a lack of a second Gladiator Beast Murmillo as I’ve seen won by the inclusion of Crush Card Virus in a Gladiator Beast deck. Despite the fact that in my eyes it seems like a huge crutch that people fall back on to justify building otherwise unstable decks, that’s not going to stop everyone and their brother from using it, so you always have to be prepared to deal with losing everything all at once.
That’s when it hit me: what if there was absolutely no possible way for Crush Card Virus to get me? Better yet, what if I could build my deck to counter the entire metagame at once and make it completely Crush proof? It seemed like such a good idea that I had to do it, so I present my final deck before The Duelist Genesis previews: "How to Succeed Against Crush Card Virus Without Really Trying."
The construction of this deck involved balancing two very important things. I wanted to not lose to Crush Card Virus, but I also wanted to win. If I only cared about the first, I could play things like Shapesnatch and not bother with stuff like "playing good cards" or "not losing to everything else." I thought for a long time about what strategy could be played with no cards with 1500 or more ATK while still being successful, but eventually I stumbled upon Ratbox. The only card that I’d really want in a Ratbox deck that naturally has 1500 or more ATK is Ancient Gear Engineer, and while not having it is a bit of a loss, it’s easily replaced with a card that I’ve had my eye on since its release in Tactical Evolution: Mormolith. Some of you may not be familiar with Mormolith since it only ever sits in trade 
binders. I found a couple for $10 apiece at the latest Shonen Jump Championship Philadelphia and made sure to buy them up as quickly as I could before anyone realized that the card was Exiled Force and Needle Ceiling rolled into one with fewer limitations on its use. Mormolith lets you tribute one Earth monster to wipe every face-up monster on the field with less DEF than the tributed monster’s ATK. Since it has 1000 ATK, you can tribute Mormolith to its own effect to clear the field of all face-up monsters.
Why do I say "all face-up monsters?" It’s because the only commonly played monsters that exist on the field while you still have a chance to win the game have 1000 DEF or less (with the exceptions of Gravekeeper’s Spy and Prime Material Dragon). Every basic Gladiator Beast except Hoplomus falls to Mormolith as do nearly all the Lightsworn. Garoth, Lightsworn Warrior and Jain, Lightsworn Paladin both survive the wrath of Mormolith, but interestingly enough, those two are the Lightsworn monsters that see the least representation and the most ridicule from players. Maybe that will change if Mormolith is given a fair shake, because it’s truly deadly.
Many players prefer leaving three or four Gladiator Beasts on the field rather than consolidating them into Gladiator Beast Heraklinos for fear of a monster-based removal effect, but Mormolith makes this a bad idea. Even worse for the Gladiator Beast player, if he or she does consolidate, you’ve also got a pair of Exiled Force cards and a Neo-Spacian Grand Mole waiting in the wings to make that player pay! This deck thrives through its removal options, and believe me, those options are both plentiful and renewable. Limit Reverse ensures that even if your first copy of Mormolith gets nailed by Solemn Judgment on its summon, you can bring it right back for another try. That’s right: Limit Reverse is good for cards other than Destiny Hero - Disk Commander.
In fact, Limit Reverse can be used to revive almost any monster you’d want to see in this deck, from Mormolith to Card Trooper. Trooper is a particularly effective pull, allowing you to turn your Limit Reverse into a free draw should it be targeted by an opposing Bestiari or Mystical Space Typhoon in addition to softening the beatings from Heavy Storm and Gladiator Beast Gyzarus. Reverse can also pull back copies of Injection Fairy Lily to make your opponents reconsider their battle strategies. This is especially important now, since assuming that your opponent has three copies of Solemn Judgment is a 
safe bet. If you can force your opponent into playing Solemn Judgment and then hit him or her with Injection Fairy Lily, victory frequently follows, especially if you managed to hit the opponent with anything before the Solemn went off. Half of your life points is frequently a lot, and more and more players are willing to dump 4000 on something silly like Heavy Storm to keep something like Bottomless Trap Hole intact. These people are going to lose against you when you bop them with Lily. You will probably smile a lot when it happens. If it happens, and it’s at a tournament I’m attending, please make sure to tell me so that I can partake in the glee that results from opponents being careless with their life points.
I get the feeling that most players right now aren’t expecting Legendary Jujitsu Master in the main deck. They’ll probably see it coming in from the side, and they’ll also see it after they hit into it once and leave themselves wide open to a Lily swing, but they probably won’t see it coming before then. That’s why I felt it to be of great importance to have three copies in the main deck. This deck is all about surprises. Surprise, I bounced your dude! Surprise, I wiped your field! Surprise, you paid all those life points just so I could wreck you with Lily! When you play this deck, you’ll have so many other things keeping your opponent on his or her toes that the opponent will be even more surprised when you flip Shrink, Enemy Controller, or Book of Moon to foil that player’s best laid plans. Heck, Enemy Controller can even be a direct contributor to the "beat your opponent with Lily" strategy I’ve been lauding.
If you like surprises and you like forcing your opponent to deal with them, and you also like not losing to Crush Card Virus, then I can’t recommend this deck highly enough. Join us next week when we start The Duelist Genesis previews, and until next time, play hard, play fair, and most importantly, have fun!
—Jerome McHale