With Xyz released and many decks made ofc I have some less good fun decks that I am able to share with the rest of you. At the moment competitive ideas require more of my attention so I have to let some decks go out (I still work on them, only less).
And with that, the first deck is
Gishki Ritual Xyz
Gishki is a very interesting decktype, that's what we found out with rjuto when we stumbled across it a while back. But now with xyz they get a good boost, a boost allowing them for smaller and versatile engines and let them control in their lineup. So here goes the Gishki finaly control build.
19 Monsters (big number but its a special archetype)
2 Gishki Abyss
3 Gishki Beast
2 Gishki Chain
3 Gishki Erial
3 Gishki Shadow
3 Vision Gishki
2 Evigishki Gustkrake
1 Evigishki Soul Ogre
13 Spells
1 Dark Hole
1 Giant Trunade
2 Gishki Ceremonial Mirror
1 Monster Reborn
1 Morray of Greed
2 Mystical Space Typhoon
2 Pot of Avarice
3 Salvage
8 Traps
2 Bottomless Trap hole
1 Mirror Force
1 Seven Tools of the Bandit
1 Solemn Judgment
2 Solemn Warning
1 Torrential Tribute
15 Extra
2 Evigishki Merrowgeist
1 Gem-Knight Pearl
1 Kachi-Kochi Dragon
1 Number n00b: Utopia
2 Steelswarm Roach
2 Wind-Up Zenmeister
1 Vylon Disigma
1 Daigusto Phoenix
1 Gachi Gachi Gantetsu
1 Brionac, Dragon of the Ice Barrier
1 Stardust Dragon
1 Trishula, Dragon of the Ice Barrier
Side Deck
haha, yeah, right
Aaaaand you want an explanation I take it? Well, you are gonna get it anyways.
Let's get down to the old and basic Gishki. Have I ever gone through them? I have a hunch I have. Oh well. Vision and Shadow can be the entire tribute for the ritual alone, that means you spent only the ritual card itself and that monster to ritual summon. Of course you are still at -2. Well, Gustkrake, your main ritual monster, goes +1 on summon by returning one card from your opponent's hand to the deck (and shuffle). -2+1= -1. We still need 1 to be on the clear. Well, this is taken care of by ceremonial mirror, you can shuffle it back to the deck (reuse!) TO return one ritual monster from your graveyard to your hand. That means once the Gustkrake dies you can return it to the hand. Woot woot, +1. -2 +1 +1 = 0. Good job, you summoned a 2400 monster at 141. Sometimes.
Anyways, back with the ritual aspect of the deck vision gishki and gishki shadow were the heart of the deck. That's not only because you can use them as an entire tribute. You can discard from your hand shadow to fetch a gishki ritual, which usually is the mirror, the one you shuffled back to the deck, or vision to get a gishki ritual monster back instead. Making the entire engine all the more stable.
Then you got Abyss. Abyss can fetch both on summon. Which means you can pick between the 2 for whichever you need (or gishki chain if you feel like it). However there is also a deeper combo here. Let's say you have Abyss in the graveyard, Beast and one of Ceremonial Mirror/Shadow or Gustkrake/vision in hand (they are 10 cards in total so having at least 1 of them is very likely). Summon Beast, summon Abyss with its effect, search with the effect of Abyss (Abyss activates on special summon as well and Beast does not negate what he summons unlike most of his kind) and fetch either shadow or vision, whatever you are missing. Assemble a Mirror and a Gustkrake in your hand, activate Mirror, tribute Beast and Abyss to summon Gustkrake from your hand and activate its effect. In the end you used up one gishki beats, moved Gustkrake from your hand to the field and made the opponent lose 1 card. It's another 141 play even before using the mirror in the graveyard (when it will become a +1).
Going through Chain quickly, he is a 1800 beater which allows you to look at the top 3 cards in your deck and add 1 ritual spell or monster among those to the hand. You only have 5 of them but there is a good chance he will be a +1 1800 beater, also he is a beater seachable by abyss and can rearrange your topdeck. It's the card I'd drop if I needed something else in but he stays for now.
In the ritual version beast has the use mentioned above with abyss. More later.
Erial is a searcher that can wall. Because she usually stays on the field after being flipped its a simple +1, if you get abyss you summon it and do a combo similar to beast's too.
Originally I had only 1 mirror because I like to cut it close, but then I realized if my ritual gets banished I cant get mirror back so... yeah, I went and used 2.
It is also vital to looping Gustkrake, (have a Gustkrake on field and use him as a tribute for a Gustkrake in hand, take back last Gustkrake and summon using the one you now have on field etc.) happens quite often is what I've found.
I used to have 2 morray of greed because I like the fact WATER decks can get relieved of a monster hand without any loss in card presence, it is actually quite a good card. You might say that in that case respite would be too, but glads are very different, they can toolbox through their deck so they can get exactly what they need, and therefore keep little monsters. I run 19 of those and if I open 3 vision, a gustkrake and an ogre all I can do is bite my nails until I get a mirror. Not to mention rituals can be dead as hell sometimes. Well, with the adding of the second mirror they were reduced to one though.
2 Poa. Yes you are using the graveyard a lot and searching, but also you need monsters in grave for mirror, beast and salvage. If you force yourself to use the poa because you had it too early its going to get you in bad places. Also I run 3 salvage and do 0 milling.
And 3 Salvage which is always amazing in such decks and just awesome in this. 1 salvage = either instant ritual or 2 xyz or 2 cards from the opponent's hand just by reusing gustkrake eff
and many more, the uses of such a +1 are even better than steele in gravekeepers, since they are multipurpose and usually instant.
And the rest is some control.
Ok, now, the xyz aspect and how the deck came to that. Let me tell you as the deck is now without xyz it would kinda suck. 3 Beast would be too many and instead of control you'd need backrow hate to protect your rituals. BUT gishki with xyz have an amazing card at their disposal.
Gishki Beast: Gishki Beast can fetch you a lv4 or lower gishki from the grave when he is summoned while he is lv4 himself. That means instant, 141 Xyz. Additionally it is searchable by erial which is also a lv4 and has good chances of staying on the field. And my personal favourite: Summon Beast after searching it with Erial, get a lv 4 (shadow, chain, erial, another beast) from the grave, xyz summon Zenmeister, flip erial face down and in end phase she is flipped face up for another search, of perhaps beast for another xyz next turn. Additionally Salvage getting you 2 beasts for 2 xyz summons in 2 turns just like that is too nice. You can also pull vylon disigma like that or if a lv2 is lurking you can also pull a rank 4 and a rank 2 (daigusto) xyz together for different situations.
What Xyz adds to this deck is simple, easy to make combos and compact engines. That means that since you don't go through extravagant means to go through with your play you don't need as much insurance and can use a control lineup instead. Set your traps, summon your big xyz, make some plusses and maybe summon some rituals to hurt the hand while at it.
Oh, the synchros are there for monster reborn.
And moving right along to the other deck
Wind-up Xyz Synchro
Can Wind Ups work really? Only thing I have found is using factory and offering to do stuff each turn but depending on having 2 continuous cards on the field is a bit meh to me. Even one is tbh. I grew out of those stuff from the time I was playing Machina Armored Unit. You may say black whirlwind is the same but that happens on summon, doesn't need you to waste your effect, and blackwings were and are a strong archtype with good cards and support and cards that can be special summoned from the hand, while wind up barely has any special summon power outside of magician who needs another wind up already on the field which kinda defeats the point... there is also their spell that summons from the graveyard but it's the same thing as adding swing of memories to rabbit or something or call to any deck or that copy warrior thing or trap monsters, as it negates effects so you cant get advantage, you are just going -1... It's one of those things I guess, if it kept effects it would be playable, but without...
Of course there is the way of getting the high attackers to use the wind up factory and other support to get simple advantage, but I didn't go down that way with this deck since I wanted to try xyz. This deck is about the extra.
Though while making this deck and post I did find the light in wind-ups and will proceed to working on it now and may return with an update later. Konami, you and your misleading cards... For now I'll be posting this control version of wind-up synchro xyz.
17 Monsters
1 Blackwing - Gale the Whirlwind
1 Blackwing - Zephyros the Elite
2 Genex Ally Birdman
2 Wind-Up Bat
2 Wind-Up Hunter
3 Wind-Up Magician
1 Wind-Up Nyanko
3 Wind-Up Soldier
2 Wind-Up Warrior
13 Spells
1 Book of Moon
1 Dark Hole
1 Giant Trunade
1 Mind Control
1 Monster Reborn
2 Mystical Space Typhoon
1 Overwound Spring
2 Pot of Duality
1 Reinforcement of the Army
2 Wind-Up Factory
10 Traps
2 Bottomless Trap Hole
1 Mirror Force
2 Overwrench
1 Solemn Judgment
2 Solemn Warning
1 Torrential Tribute
1 Trap Stun
15 Extra
1 Ally of Justice Catastor
1 Arcanite Magician
1 Black Rose Dragon
1 Brionac, Dragon of the Ice Barrier
1 Genex Ally Trifoce
1 Scrap Dragon
1 Stardust Dragon
1 Trishula, Dragon of the Ice Barrier
1 Adreus, Keeper of Armageddon
1 Evigishki Merrowgeist
1 Leviair The Sea Dragon
1 Steelswarm Roach
1 Tiras, Keeper of Genesis
2 Wind-Up Zenmeister
Side deck
haha, yeah, cool story bro
Now on to the choices. I'll just skip through the non-wind-up monsters quickly. You don't need lv4 tuners, because of the soldier and warrior effects you can sync into any lv7 or 8 of your choice with level 3s similarly to how delta flyer syncs. Bouncing to hand is important to the deck apparently, and while Birdman's ability is limited to monsters, Zephyros's ability can bounce factory as well AND since he is lv4 he can make a zenmeister while at it, and since you can replay factory, when using zenmeister's effect you'll get one additional search. Quite a nice combo. gale is a ccontrol monster (that pwns utopia cuz it sucks) that is a lv3 tuner and combos with zephyros.
Bat is a searcher but it stays being useless after that since you cant do much with its levels. It can combo with machine dup but I dont want to touch such cards. I like hunter, it can take out that useless nyanko, bat or even magician if you have advantage already to kill the opponent's hand. Lovely. And it is your lv3 to spend warrior's effect on. And it has 1600 making it the second strongest wind-up in the main. Magician is self explanatory I believe, nyanko is a nice toolboxing option to take out synchros/xyz, soldier is a 1800 lv4 that can become a 2200 easily and can use his effect as easy. Warrior has reversed stats but is much more convenient as he does not have to become a lv5 to use his effect.
Btw, that is the secret combo konami hid. Use Soldier's/Warrior's effect on himself with magician on field/factory without having used your normal summon, summon/search and summon another soldier/warrior, make him lv5 too with his own effect, make a rank 5 xyz. I call decoy on zenmeister, this is much more interesting.
On the s/t, only one overwound spring because I can only feel like going -1 so much for the sake of a deck. Sure the non-wind-up brigade can turn it into 141 or plus but thats still kinda situational. 2 duality because the deck is quite spread in engines so you need the extra consistency. Also, most of the times you cant special summon without a turn of setting up so I cant imagine it being dead that often. Only 2 Factory because for now I find it enough and I dont like continuous cards. May bump it up to 3 later, still need to work on it. 2 seems fine for now. Most trap lineup is self explanatory except overwrench which I happen to really like in control versions. Simply the fact zenmeister can go to 5 k for an otk and soldier to 4400 for otk chances again is quite good on its own. Add to that the fact you can bounce any monster to reuse the effect and it becomes quite decent.
I feel like I may need a poa just for the extra. Extra space is really tight, on the one hand I feel I need disigma and pearl, on the other I left out valuable synchros. Such things happen with such decks I guess... This deck can be better I'd say with more direct control but you'd be giving up a big part of your extra deck access, and it could be better with a more interesting approach but I have to work on that one first. The deck as it is can be optimized too, I haven't spent as much time into it. Heck, writing this took a lot more, hence why I found a new way in it while writing.
Well, not everything can be competitive and kickass, but we can always see some more casual decks to get into they ways of the xyz (without ultimate offering), and such non-competitive, non-kickass decks I share, with gishki being obviously better than wind-up here. Still, they can be complicated to use, which is all the fun really, and can be your xyz starter or something. Unless you are the type that wants their decks to play themselves, then there is a chance you'd flip your desk over if you went with those.
