Gem-Knights and Rescue Rabbit

Made something new, and thought I'd share it. I'm pretty sure that at this moment the deck only exists on DN, because some of the cards in it aren't out in either the OCG or the TCG. This makes it more of a fun build, but that doesn't diminish from it too much if you're casual.

3 Gem-Knight Gardnet
3 Gem-Knight Tourmaline
3 Gene-Warped Warwolf
3 Gem-Knight Obsidian
3 Rescue Rabbit
3 Tour Guide of the Underworld
1 Sangan

3 Gem-Knight Fusion
2 Mystical Space Typhoon
2 Pot of Duality
2 Gold Sarcophagus
1 Dark Hole
1 Heavy Storm
1 Monster Reborn
1 Mind Control

2 Mind Crush
2 Gem Enhancement
2 Solemn Warning
1 Solemn Judgment
1 Trap Dustshoot

2 Gem-Knight Topaz
2 Gem-Knight Ruby
1 Gem-Knight Citrine
1 Gem-Knight Prism Aura
2 Number 39: Utopia
1 Gem-Knight Pearl
1 Kachi Kochi Dragon
1 Steelsworn Roach
2 Leviair the Sea Dragon
1 Number 30: Acid Golem of Destruction
1 Number 17: Leviathan Dragon


So, here we have a Gem-Knight deck based around the Rescue Rabbit and Tour Guide of the Underworld. Principle is fairly easy to understand and pretty effective, play Rescue Rabbit, banish to search 2 Gem-Knights or 2 Warwolves and recycle the Rabbit later on with Tour Guide into Leviail the Sea Dragon.

The deck is built to play very fast. Games with it rarely last longer than 5-10 minutes if you're playing it fast enough. Every card is good to draw early game with the exception of possibly Gem Enhancement (which is likely to be replaced with Call of the Haunted. It survives for now because it can recycle big attacking Gem-knights for OTKs).

This deck doesn't necessarily have a lot of good options when it comes to top-decking. It has some decent beaters, but it cant top-deck easily into a boss unless you got a poor start because the Rabbit will have sent all your targets to the graveyard early on.

What this deck does do though is put damage on the table and do it /fast/. The minimum a Rescue Rabbit on its own puts on the table as long as it has targets is 3200, with the max being 4000. When recycling with Leviail, putting 8000 out in one turn is actually pretty easy.

Gem-Knight Obsidian is used at 3 primarily for use with Gem-Knight Fusion. The combo can lead to easy big monsters (usually Rubys or Topaz) almost for free, and Gem-Knights removed with GK Fusion can be recycled with Leviail if you want.

2 Pot of Duality is used here because it is useful on the first turn and can ensure a good set-up. Issue with it is though, you never want to draw more than 1, so running 3 is overkill.

Gold Sarcophagus is used for a very fast combination with Tour Guide on turn 1. Tour Guide into Leviail, banish Rescue Rabbit with Gold Sarcophagus, and special summon Rabbit with Leviail. This can lead to a defensive set-up with either Utopia or Roach (I personally prefer Utopia), while preparing to recycle Rabbit the next turn for a total of over 8000 damage (less if you used Roach).

The Trap Dustshoot and Mind Crush engine is used here to give early control and advantage. Both can be absolutely fantastic, as they let you read the opponent's hand and check for threats. Plus there's not too much of a downside if you make a blind call with Mind Crush and discard either GK Fusion or GKObsidian.

This deck might not have the /best/ win ratio around, but its not inconsistent at all and since I started using it my rating on DN has shot up because of the speed that it wins. Give it a try, make some adjustments to it yourself if you want. It's well worth it.

Introduction

So, I'm going to try my hand at blogging again. I've tried before, but only once, and it went nowhere really. Just ended up being a sort of online diary that never got read, and which I wound up deleting. Sucked, was boring, now gone forever and good riddance.

This time though, I plan to base it around something, which should give me stuff to write about that isn't personal troubles that no-one cares about. And that something is card games, specifically Yu-Gi-Oh.

I plan on basing a lot of these posts off of debates among the duelling group I generally associate with. However, I've not got much to write about with regards to that right now, so I'll start with an introductory post about a deck I've been messing with recently. I do not claim that its the best of its kind, but it is my look at it. Disregard the side-deck, I'm limited to Dueling Network at the moment so I just use the side-deck to store cards I want quick access too.

This is my take on Legendary Six Samurai this format.

As you can see, the deck uses the Ascentism engine, 3 Elder of TSS and 3 Ascentism of TSS with the standard Kageki and a single Kizan because I lack space for more. Its also very backrow heavy and does not have a Starlight Road. What it does have is Fiendish Chain, a card not run much at the moment due to its extreme fragility when it comes to backrow hatred.

Fortunately, due to the way this build runs, this is not much of an issue. The idea of this deck is to drop Naturia Beast as quickly as possible, and have it protect your backrow and deprive the opponent of spells in general, while your traps pick off their creatures. If Beast cannot be played, go into Shi En, its the next best thing, but its possible for the opponent to play around it more easily so Beast is usually the safer choice.

Now, this is a very strong way to open. Depriving the opponent of spells is very powerful this format. Games are very fast a lot of the time, and spells are used far more than traps with all the backrow hate about. Players cant afford to draw trap heavy, so they run spells instead, and cutting off said spells can be crippling. One thing to note is that this deck is no exception to that rule, and a first turn Beast played against it can spell doom with a poor start, but it usually has outs if necessary.

The current trap line-up consists of the following.

2 Solemn Warning
1 Solemn Judgment

These are pretty standard for LSS.

2 Bottomless Trap Hole
2 Fiendish Chain
1 Compulsory Evacuation Device
1 Mirror Force

Not unusual exactly, but all of these except maybe Compulsory really need Beast to keep them safe from the backrow hate. They're not worth running otherwise. I originally has 3 Dimensional Prisons instead of the Chains and CED, but this deck needed answers to field nukes like Black Rose Dragon. I didn't want to max out on Fiendish Chain, and don't like running only 1 D-Prison, and therefore put in Compulsary.

3 Double Edged Sword Technique

Yeah, its just easy to play a LV5 synchro with this. Thought about cutting it down to 2, but 1 card Beast/Shi En/Catastor is just really good here.

Getting late for me here, so I'll list a few advantages and disadvantages of this build.

Advantages:
-1) As I said earlier, spell negation is powerful this format, and first turn Beast is easy to play. If you cant play it, you'll usually just go into Shi En instead, which does a similar job, just not as good.
-2) Players aren't likely to be prepared to fight massive backrow. Its unusual this format, and the backrow cards themselves are very different from what people will be expecting.
-3) Dropping Beast or Shi En straight away if you go second is much easier with the lack of backrow cards around. Beware of Veiler, but since the Ascentism engine is immune to that, it'll probably be fine there.
-4) It is very fast. It wont win at the speed of light, but it gets set up very easily, and obtains easy plusses.
-5) It is immune to Trap Dustshoot unless the opponent goes first and opens with it. Dustshoot will be played a lot this format, so this is important.

Disadvantages:
-1) If the opponent breaks your set-up, you are probably going to lose. Like most LSS builds, the deck does not top-deck well at all, although 3 DEST helps to an extent.
-2) Its not got anything big and crushing compared to a lot of today's decks. Nothing like BLS. The deck can deal with monsters like that, but cant summon any on its own.
-3) It needs a monster at the start. This can be an issue sometimes, and if you don't get the ability to drop Beast or Shi En opening hand, things can get really tricky.
-4) In mirror match, it is likely that the game will become a case of who won the dice roll. The deck just runs so many spells, opponent opening Beast can cause it to shut down. I don't know for certain, but I think it likely at least.
-5) The deck has some issues handling Gorz the Emissary of Darkness. The card is just a massive wall that causes problems for this deck, and it really needs more outs to it.

Feel free to take this deck, test it, improve on my design. As I said, its likely not the best of its kind.
Thank-you for reading, I hope you found it interesting.