STOP SPENDING MONEY ON DROLL AND LOCK BIRDS

It's an average side deck at best against Spellbooks, and there are cheaper, much better ways to side against the deck.

Everyone knows that Spellbooks are gonna be a huge problem in the future, and Divine Judgment of the Spellbooks is just fucking stupid, but spending $20 on 2 Droll and Lock Birds just for the slight benefit of being able to hinder their searching for ONE extra turn. The problem is not the searching, the problem is Priestess and Spellbook of Fate. It feels like treating the symptoms and not the disease.

Here are 3 common side deck cards you probably already have and work just as well against Prophecy and can work against other decks as well:

Prohibition
Mind Crush
Thunder King Rai-Oh

Simple. Play Prohibition and call Spellbook of Secrets. Now they can't activate that or have Spellbook of the Master copy it. It doesn't completely shut them down, but it significantly hurts them. The most searching power they have at this point is Spellbook Magician, who has almost no power on his own unless they waste the resources to beef him up with Spellbook of Powers.

As for Mind Crush, this is honestly a better alternative to Droll and Lock Bird as far as stopping the opponent. When they reveal 3 Spellbooks to summon Priestess, chain Mind Crush and call Priestess. Search all the Spellbooks you want. Without Priestess, the deck can't do anything. Spellbook of Life can be a bitch in this regard, but it still accomplishes what you set out to accomplish.

Thunder King speaks for himself. They can't search, he stops the summon of Priestess, and they can't summon anything that can run it over. It got Semi'd with the new list, but really, who is going to side into 3 T-Kings?

Don't just follow the hype over a rare from an old set that may help you when siding against Prophecy. It's like assuming that Gemini Imps are the only good side against Dark Worlds. Think for yourself and make your own sides and see what you can come up with!

Gaga for Gagagas

Except I'm really not.

I've been testing a Gagaga Xyz deck out lately. The deck runs and acts similar to Synchron decks in that it mainly just runs to dump out powerful Xyz monsters similar to how Synchron decks spam Synchros. The only difference is that Gagagas are significantly slower.

Synchrons have the benefit of going straight to the grave once they've been used for Synchro summoning, so they can recycle themselves directly after and keep spamming the field. Xyz monsters stay on the field in the sense that they have to be detached, so there's not real way that they can be recycled that much except by using monsters that can immediately detach for effect. Otherwise big beaters like Zombiestein just hog all the fun.

"22 DOES NOT SHARE MONSTERS. 22 ONLY SHARES PAIN."

 

The deck lacks a few key ingredients for a spam deck. It has almost no way of immediately recycling themselves other than cards like Gagagarevenge, and even then it's not something that you can drop and get things started again.

The deck also inhibits itself way too much. Gagaga Kid makes the deck much faster but it has that stupid clause that you can't even use its effect without Time Walking yourself. It forces you to play defensively and the deck has no way to coming back if they completely kill you next turn. It wouldn't even have been that bad if it prevented the monster SUMMONED from attacking, but no, it stops the whole damn Battle Phase. This limits the kind of monster you can play and limits the kind of plays you can make. Hope you enjoy seeing Big Eye, because he's about the only good card in that situation.

In all, the deck is fun, but I can't see myself playing it.

Gladiator Fists?

I've been fucking around with the idea of combining Gladiator Beasts with Fire Fist monsters. I've been testing a bunch of different builds and different methods of making the deck work and I've come to the decklist I think works best:

MONSTERS:

Gladiator Beast Laquari x3
Gladiator Beast Darius x3
Gladiator Beast Andal x3
Gladiator Beast Bestiari 1
Rescue Rabbit x2
Effect Veiler x2
Brotherhood of the Fire Fist- Bear x1
Brotherhood of the Fire Fist - Gorilla x1

SPELLS:

Fire Formation - Tenki x3
Fire Formation - Tensu x2
Mystical Space Typhoon x2
Pot of Duality x2
Monster Reborn x1
Heavy Storm x1
Dark Hole x1

TRAPS:

Gladiator Beast's War Chariot x2
Fire Formation - Tenken x2
Fire Formation - Tensen x2
Bottomless Trap Hole x2
Compulsory Evacuation Device x2
Solemn Warning x1
Solemn Judgment x1
Starlight Road x1

EXTRA DECK:

Gladiator Beast Essedarii x2
Gladiator Beast Heraklinos x1
Gladiator Beast Gyazarus x1
Brotherhood of the Fire Fist - Tiger King x2
Brotherhood of the First Fist - Cardinal Commander x1
Shock Master x1
Gagaga Cowboy x1
Maestroke x1
Gem Knight Pearl x1
Photon Butterfly x1
Blackship of Corn x1
Steelswarm Roach x1
Stardust Dragon x1

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The deck is easily Tier 2, possibly high Tier 2. The addition of Fire Formation cards being generic Beast-Warrior support makes the deck a lot more viable, and the addition of actually being able to MAKE something out of the Andals helps as well. Tiger King first turn with a Tensen and a Tenken set is a really good way to open, since all of the Fire Formation stuff is chainable, and if they kill Tiger King, you can chain all your cards and then get his floater effect off.

Tenki makes Proving Ground pointless. I tried playing Proving Ground along with Tenki but having 6 ROTAs doesn't help and just clogs your hand with monsters. The deck plays really heavy backrow, and playing with lots of monsters in hand fucks up your plays. Most of the time you don't even need all 3 Tenkis, and most of the time Tenki is just used to get Bear or Gorilla.

Why only 1 Bear? 3 gets way too cloggy. The point of the deck is to abuse the Glads, not the Fire Fists. The Fire Fists are just the cherry on top that add to the mix. Bear is only needed because he can get toolboxed and its effect only really needs to go off once. I'm not trying to do a bunch of fancy shit where I blow stuff up and then set things and try and do all these flashy plays. I'm not here to be flashy, I'm here to beat face.

The same reasoning goes with Gorilla at 1.

Let me know what y'all thnk.