Warning: The following started off as a small off-topic and only became an article for not much reason other than the length of the analysis, don't hold me accountable for errors since it's supposed to be sloppy and is kinda pointless as an article.So, I was thinking of who the better of the egyptian gods is to use in a deck that can summon them and still not suck, like frogs. Ofc Ra is already out, it sucks regardless, sorry ra, blame whoever gave you that crappy useless text, this is probably why it was in ancient egyptian in the original series, so no one would get how much it really sucks.
Anyways, generally slifer would be a no brainer with its ability, but then I noticed that while it has the summon negation and response prevention clauses, it lacks the protection against targeting Obelisk has. So, went through the latest YCS for a decent sample of competitive decks to compare (yes, Kansas City was a mess of a YCS, but it's the latest one we have) what each of them does. Let's start with Osiris for each deck and then obelisk.
The effect we are looking at with Osiris (slifer) in the comparison is the effect that destoys monsters with 2000 atk or less that are summoned in attack (yes it reduces the attack of the higher ones as well but that only means it wont be destroyed by battle and Obelisk wont be either with his stable 4k, so its not a field to compare them). Basically what this means is that any normal summon driven combo starter that could harm osiris is stopped. Special summons generally get around that since you can just special summon in defense. It looks like a trigger effect, meaning the opponent wont be able to activate an ignition effect until it resolves, however other trigger effects will just chain to it. Of course in obelisk's case it is targetting protection that we are looking at. Specifically:
Chaos
Starting from the top deck in the top 32, chaos, represented only by the YCS winner so not the biggest threat, but still.
Tour guide plays are stopped meaning the player will not be able to hide behind a zenmaines. D.D. Warrior lady will have to be set instead of normal summoned in attack to crush into slifer, risking the opponent just attacking it with another monster. Honest plays are greatly hindered since the only monster you can summon to run over slifer is bls (if you summon any other light monster in attack to attemp and get over slifer with honest, it will die), which will get over it even without honest.
Unfortunatelly for Slifer it is still harmed by Caius, Chaos Sorcerer, Black Luster Soldier, gorz, enemy controller, book of moon, dark hole, torrential tribute (on another monster's summon). Thankfully for slifer synchro summons will be hard for his opponent without the help of monster reborn and something like reaper to stall a turn, or something like that, but the deck does not have such good synchro access with only veiler.
Obelisk is immune to Caius, Chaos Sorcerer, Black Luster Soldier, enemy controller and book of moon, while it dodges cards like brionac, scrap dragon and arcanite magician from the extra deck. It is still vulnurable to Honest plays, D.D. Warrior Lady, naturally dark hole and torrential tribute (in response to another summon) and since that veiler can just be normal summoned it is more succeptible to synchro plays than slifer, meaning it can be killed by black rose dragon. Zenmaines can stall for 2 turns, but that's all it can do. Leviair can get a spirit reaper to stall for more.
Tengu Synchro
Next we have our tier zero-ish deck of the format, which should be interesting to check.
Many plays here begin with a normal summon, meaning Slifer can stop a normal summoned Lonefire, a Debris Dragon play, a tour guide zenmaines stall again and generally most of those synchro plays of the deck that start with a normal summon, and the deck does a lot of those. What gets a bit past it is Reborn Tengu, while the first one will die when normal summoned the second can simply be special summoned in defense to bypass the effect.
It still has issues with Caius (easier to summon here thanks to dandylion, tengu, ss cards etc.), Black Luster Soldier, Gorz, mind control, dark hole, book of moon, enemy controller, torrential tribute, dimensional prison and many synchro monsters the deck has simple access to if it gets around the fact it can only normal summon a tengu.
Obelisk still can get around Caius, Black Luster Soldier, mind control, book of moon and enemy controller as well as dimensional prison and synchro options like Brionac and Scrap Dragon.
It dies however to synchro options like Trishula, Catastor and Black Rose Dragon, which the deck has easy access to, while also the regular Dark Hole and Torrential Tribute.
Karakuri
Gaining quite a bit of popularity lately despite the fact they pretty much stopped getting support in the xyz era, other than the occasional rank 3 and a Big Eye that is not yet with us.
I'd say Karakuri is Slifer's specialty for a simple reason, it kills ninishi and neutron plays. A play karakuri players at this time competitivelly will usually make is utilize the extra normal summon of ninishi, however not only does ninishi die before that is possible, but even if it is somehow special summoned in defense, what it does is give you an additional normal summon, which means that if what you summon is not haipa it's dead. Neutron on his side has the disadvantage that it just won't get its effect, when summoned it will die without a limiter removal or solidarity, therefore you dont get a search. Additionally plays where you special summon Cyber Dragon, normal summon a tuner and synchro are no longer available.
It will still get nailed though by gorz, smashing ground, book of moon, dark hole, mind control (if they manage to otk), Compulsory Evacuation Device, Mirror Force and Torrential Tribute. Additionally they dont have to worry about their merchant suiciding into a giant dragon since it will die anyways.
Obelisk has issues here despite being immune to book of moon, mind control and compulsory evacuation device,
since many ninishi plays can easily end in Black Rose Dragon or Catastor, to take it out.
Laggia Rabbit
Rabbit has inherently issues with stalling and high defense, being a xyz and stun focused deck which gives it a double bad affinity against them, and if you are going for 3 tributes with frogs chances are your deck can stall quite good in this scenario. However some main dimensional fissure and most of those who dont side it, which is a major issue for a frog deck.
This may actually be hurt more than karakuri by slifer, considering nothing in the regular monster line-up of the deck can possibly work against it. Rabbit is out, tour guide is out, vannilas are ofc out, rai ohs are out, jurracs are out, even techs like Grand Mole are out. To top it off egyptian god cards have this summon negation protection so not even laggia can stop it if you manage to get the 3 tributes on the field. This brings up the point that an on field dolkka can stop slifer's destruction effect, and considering it's mandatory it is a simple way out. That is if the dolkka is out and if slifer did not already run it over.
However rabbit decks boast a rich control s/t line-up, which is not stun is at least nearly that. This generally includes dimensional prisons and smashing grounds ready to kill Slifer, while book of moon, torrential tribute and maybe mirror force make an appearence again. Dimensional Fissures can naturally pwn your tribute source in most cases but that's just an extra considering obelisk faces the same issue.
While Obelisk's effect does not directly affect the monster lineup, it is still decent against rabbit actually. First of all the no-negation god clause means laggia cant kill it, and dolkka no longer has the easy way out since there is no mandatory effect here. Being a xyz deck it doesnt have good synchro access in most cases so the colossal 4k stable attack make it hard to get over. In addition, control s/t lineup usually means adding cards that target, so outside of the smashing ground that will certainly kill obelisk, cards like dimensional prison, compulsory evacuation device etc. will not work, and if you go to add to those the fact there is no summon response or negation it can get them in a really hard place leaving them with about 5 useful s/t while ofc monster lineup can't do much. That is if you don't get d-fissured again.
As a sidenote, influenced by the OCG where they dont have dolkka some may use forbidden chalice, which kills slifer since it makes its attack 0 but of course does nothing to obelisk.
Dark World
There aren't any notable dark world players in the TCG I'd say (since they probably all jumped in rabbit and tengu synchro), leaving players that look for top 32s to get a decent template with less-than-great decks to work on. Still it is quite popular among many players and has good tcg support like tour guide and dark smog, so it appears a lot.
What Slifer can do here is stop bouncing a normal summoned monster for grapha and stop raven plays.
Unfortunatelly for Slifer, Grapha's overused effect kills him and if they happen to run skill drain the ? atk slifer had better run. Thankfully for him, he dies to no virus because ? is neither greater nor lesser than another number.
Obelisk is immune to grapha's effect, and even though grapha can be summoned it can't do much to the 4k atk obelisk. Of course he doesn't die to Deck Devastation Virus, and thankfully the virus that would kill him is banned.
Looking at them I'd say their outs are just the mass destruction regular cards TT, Mirror Force and Dark Hole, a grapha effect after skill drain or a raven+beige play into black rose. Generally the fact he is immune to all things grapha hurts them badly, so as a deck they lack there.
TGU Agents
After their early success in the OCG the agents stayed around for long, in higher status than before the banlist that lightly hit them as well.
Slifer here stops venus plays that aim to stall with gachi, naturally synchro summon attempts that begin with a normal summon and attempts to run it over via honest.
It dies to the splashable stuff like gorz, dark hole, TT, Mirror force, things like compulsory etc. even though tgu agents don't use that much control in their s/t lineup lately. It dies to Master Hyperion and BLS, as well as Herald of Orange Light and Creature Swap, giving Slifer a bad matchup here.
Obelisk on the other hand is immune to Master Hyperion's effect as well as Black Luster Soldier's, while it doesn't care about Herald of Orange Light.
It has issues with Honest and Creature Swap as well as the general splashable stuff. The less control they use in their s/t lineup the less are the chances they'll use cards that target, making things worse. Comparing the 2 however Obelisk seems to have the better match-up since it beats Hyperion and BLS.
I'll leave X-Sabers and Herald Agent out since they only had one representation each (naturally chaos gets in for actually winning the ycs), and move on to the Wind-Up and Inzecter engines from the OCG side of things to wrap this up.
Wind-Up
It has some popularity in the OCG and considering we have tour guide it will have a lot of it in the TCG.
Silfer shines here because of the fact it kills rat. Not only does it kill Wind-Up rat when normal summoned, but also to activate its effect rat has to switch to defense, meaning that even if you special summon it it has to be done in attack. No rat means no loop means no hand killing means no bringing down slifer's attack to 0.
However it being a compact engine makes it a good control deck, so Slifer may see a lot of cards of the prison or compulsory variety, while having enough space for a control line-up in the monster area means it wouldn't be weird to see a BLS in. Additionally adding one kitten should be a good idea in a wind-up deck and considering zenmaighty can search it it's an additional problem.
Obelisk can't stop the hand rape, however wind-up happens to be a xyz deck, so it can't do much about obelisk other than stall with zennmaines either. Their general out, kitten, is useless here since it targets of course. In addition a control line-up wouldn't be as simple to help either, leaving the control player to just hope to draw one of the few outs to the on field obelisk.
On the other hand you still may be losing your hand, and after a swarm on the field the lone obelisk cannot give you victory for a while without cards in hand, meaning that they will eventually draw into their limited outs if you don't do something about it.
Inzektor
I'd say at the moment more popular than wind-ups in the OCG, in fact considered one of the top decks to look out for in the OCG.
Slifer on field means no dragonfly, no centipede, not even hornet normal summoned, which gives them issues, which would pretty much sum it up, depending on the build they may just end up looking for a DAD topdeck.
Of course their compact engine allows them for a control line-up, hurting slifer, and while it's just one, DAD can get over it.
Obelisk actually should have the advantage here. While Damsel and Centipede can be normal summoned, Hornet's effect cannot even attemp to target Obelisk meaning their regular universal out to everything is out. The same goes for the chance they managed to summon Exa-Beetle, and not even DAD can get them out of that situation, or even decktype specific things like armor blast or lair wire. Their control lineup will have issues as well, leaving them looking for a topdeck.
I can't think of much to get them out in their main line-up other than that divine topdeck, or perhaps putting synchro options in the build, the fact hornet doesn't work is what hurts them the most here.
I started this as an off-topic question thing to figure out for myself as well which to prefer for fun decks and it turned into a hastily thrown together article midway... This also means there are a lot of mistakes I don't care about btw. Anyways, since it started I'll close it and maybe pretty it up later.
Before I started I thought Slifer would be the better one, it was when I looked them up that I remembered Obelisk has something important Slifer does not, and it was only while writing this article that I started thinking Obelisk could be the better one. I'd still try out Slifer, being better off vs Tengu Synchro shennanigans slightly puts it in the lead here, but Obelisk seems to be pretty good as well since in addition to targetting monsters, of which there are a lot, there are also several s/t that just don't work against him, while having the stable 4k.
That's my analysis on this pointless matter.
