[CENTER][B][U][COLOR="PaleGreen"]III. Rank-Up Puppets![/COLOR][/U][/B][/CENTER][COLOR="33333"][QUOTE][COLOR="44444"][QUOTE][CENTER][B][COLOR="#fc6464"]Introduction and Mindset[/COLOR][/B][/CENTER][/QUOTE][QUOTE]The "Rank-Up" build is the closest thing to a "pure" build, a OTK variant that focuses on summoning multiple powerful rank 8 XYZ monsters to go for the kill as early as possible. [YGOCARD]Rank-Up-Magic Argent Chaos Force[/YGOCARD] is a key card, allowing the deck to bring out rank 9 beatsticks like [YGOCARD]CXyz Coach Lord Ultimatrainer[/YGOCARD] and the rank 8 "Gimmick Puppet" XYZ's' improved forms, for even more offensive pressure.

Being able to XYZ summon multiple monsters with enormous ATK in one turn - not to mention the deck's ability do deal disgustingly high burn damage in many instances -, the "Rank-Up" build has no trouble putting over 8000 damage on the board in a single turn; the deck is not without its flaws unfortunately: for the "Gimmick Puppet" theme lacks cards that allow us to add from the deck to the hand the cards we need, in a deck that uses many high level monsters with horrible stats, it's not unusual to lack any possible plays during the first turn(s) of the game, and we have only few defensive options...

To have the deck run as smoothly as possible, the "Rank-Up" build packs all the draw power it can get, and it's not uncommon for it to speed through half of the deck in the first two turns of a game. All in all, playing the "Rank-Up" build is best described as a race: the goal of the deck is to gather all the pieces needed to win before the opponent has had the chance to prepare their defenses for the [noparse]storm[/noparse] to come...[/QUOTE][/COLOR][/QUOTE][/COLOR][COLOR="33333"][QUOTE][COLOR="44444"][QUOTE][CENTER][B][COLOR="#fc6464"]A "Rank-Up Puppet" Skeleton[/COLOR][/B][/CENTER][/QUOTE][QUOTE]Although most "Gimmick Puppet" monsters aren't as optimally designed as we'd like them to be, we try our best to use a fair share of the support we were given:[list][*]3x [YGOCARD]Gimmick Puppet Dreary Doll[/YGOCARD]: the heart of the deck as always, allowing us to summon the first level 8 monster of the two needed for an XYZ summon, without a significant cost. Using all three copies may seem superfluous, but seeing as [YGOCARD]Gimmick Puppet Dreary Doll[/YGOCARD] can be used as a cost for [YGOCARD]Trade-In[/YGOCARD], and makes for a valid target for [YGOCARD]Machine Duplication[/YGOCARD], it shouldn't seem too strange that we use as many copies as we can: other than recurring as a free level 8 XYZ material every turn, her applications are many![*]1x [YGOCARD]Gimmick Puppet Gear Changer[/YGOCARD]: our normal summon that can turn into a level 4 or a level 8, depending on what we need at the time! Using multiples is not advised, as the card is somewhat situational in its application; it's great to have a copy at hand to search out with [YGOCARD]Gear Gigant X[/YGOCARD] when we need it.[*]3x [YGOCARD]Gimmick Puppet Humpty Dumpty[/YGOCARD]: our second target for [YGOCARD]Machine Duplication[/YGOCARD], and one of the cards that allows us to make plays early in the game before we have set up our graveyard; he will almost never have to be used more than once, but, turning into [YGOCARD]Gear Gigant X[/YGOCARD]/[YGOCARD]Lavalval Chain[/YGOCARD] and preparing our graveyard for the rest of the game, or ridding our hand of those nasty level 8 cloggers, he's not often a card that we don't want to see, and if his timing is inconvenient, at least he's a Dark monster for [YGOCARD]Allure of Darkness[/YGOCARD]...[*]3x [YGOCARD]Gimmick Puppet Magnet Doll[/YGOCARD]: a free special summon from the hand, if we can somehow live up to its extreme expectations... [YGOCARD]Gimmick Puppet Magnet Doll[/YGOCARD] may not always be as usable as we'd want him to be, but he's still a level 8 monster, and we need a lot of those as to not dead draw [YGOCARD]Trade-In[/YGOCARD], on which we rely for our speed, too often.[*]1-2x [YGOCARD]Gimmick Puppet Scissor Arms[/YGOCARD]: a difficult candidate... [YGOCARD]Gimmick Puppet Scissor Arms[/YGOCARD] is our hero in the early game, sending [YGOCARD]Gimmick Puppet Dreary Doll[/YGOCARD] to the graveyard immediately to be used for the rest of the game, but apart from that his assets are few, sporting a rather low ATK stat, and unable to activate his effect when summoned by other means than the normal summon. Use a copy to fetch with [YGOCARD]Gear Gigant X[/YGOCARD] when you need it, but at this time why didn't you just make [YGOCARD]Lavalval Chain[/YGOCARD] and send [YGOCARD]Gimmick Puppet Dreary Doll[/YGOCARD] to the graveyard directly?[*]1-2x [YGOCARD]Gimmick Puppet Shadow Feeler[/YGOCARD]: including this final piece of the puzzle puts us at eight level 8 monsters in total - now let us hope that this will be enough to get the best use out of [YGOCARD]Trade-In[/YGOCARD]! [YGOCARD]Gimmick Puppet Shadow Feeler[/YGOCARD] is another problematic case, for he forces us to take enormous damage if we want to use him for his effect; rebuilding our field once after our monsters have - evidently - fallen may be just the boost we need to claim victory, and his effect of not being able to be destroyed by battle may even make [YGOCARD]Gimmick Puppet Shadow Feeler[/YGOCARD] a decent monster to tribute summon every once in a while...[/list][/QUOTE][QUOTE]Other options? The "Gimmick Puppet" theme doesn't take kindly to outside support usually, but there are exceptions:[list][*]0-3x [YGOCARD]Gearspring Spirit[/YGOCARD]: a very risky card, but I feel that I should mention it nonetheless. We know what it can do and how much it can help, but this variant hates to limit itself to Machine-type summons only...[*]0-1x [YGOCARD]Genex Ally Birdman[/YGOCARD]: need to whipe a field with [YGOCARD]Black Rose Dragon[/YGOCARD]? [YGOCARD]Genex Ally Birdman[/YGOCARD] is your guy! Need to bring out a monster with more ATK than [YGOCARD]Leo, the Keeper of the Sacred Tree[/YGOCARD], that is unaffected by battle-responsive traps? [YGOCARD]Genex Ally Birdman[/YGOCARD] is your guy! Need to banish a Dark monster for [YGOCARD]Allure of Darkness[/YGOCARD]? [YGOCARD]Genex Ally Birdman[/YGOCARD] is your guy! Need to [noparse]return[/noparse] a [YGOCARD]Gimmick Puppet Dreary Doll[/YGOCARD] to the hand to be discarded for the activation of [YGOCARD]Trade-In[/YGOCARD]? [YGOCARD]Genex Ally Birdman[/YGOCARD] is your guy! Need I say more? [YGOCARD]Genex Ally Birdman[/YGOCARD] is your guy![*]0-1x [YGOCARD]Machina Fortress[/YGOCARD]: another way to get rid of those level 8 monsters that like to clog our hand... It won't be used often, but it will come in handy every now and then, and it may allow us to make plays under some annoying "floodgate" cards like [YGOCARD]Kaiser Colosseum[/YGOCARD]; feel free to read falln's post on the "Machina" build if you'd want to know more about its potency - it should be noted that putting in more "Machina" cards than the single [YGOCARD]Machina Fortress[/YGOCARD] is not advised, for the goal of a "Machina" build conflicts heavily with the goal of this variant.[/list][/QUOTE][QUOTE]A large part of our deck is made up of spells, to initiate plays, to draw through the deck, and to break our opponent! We can't do without them:[list][*]1-2x [YGOCARD]Advance Draw[/YGOCARD]: a large part of our spells has only one goal, which is to add speed to the deck, for we want to assemble our pieces quickly! Monsters rarely stay on the field for more than a turn these days, and most adequate decks in this game can outgrind us and outresource us without much trouble; not if we bring them down first! [YGOCARD]Gimmick Puppet Dreary Doll[/YGOCARD] revives herself practically for free, so [YGOCARD]Advance Draw[/YGOCARD] is a nice choice for free draw power if we don't have anything else to do during a turn, or if we just had a level 8 monster to spare.[*]1x [YGOCARD]Allure of Darkness[/YGOCARD]: we're a Dark deck after all![*]0-1x [YGOCARD]Foolish Burial[/YGOCARD]: it deserves a mention, and it does what it's supposed to do, namely setting up our graveyard in the early game. This deck dislikes losing advantage however: some like the card; some don't.[*]3x [YGOCARD]Junk Puppet[/YGOCARD]: out themed [YGOCARD]Monster Reborn[/YGOCARD] that opens up so many plays - it's another one-card rank 8 if we have the right graveyard setup, and it can even revive a "Gimmick Puppet" XYZ monster for a Rank-Up play![*]2-3x [YGOCARD]Machine Duplication[/YGOCARD]: our deck has two possible targets ([YGOCARD]Gimmick Puppet Dreary Doll[/YGOCARD] and [YGOCARD]Gimmick Puppet Humpty Dumpty[/YGOCARD]), one of which can be special summoned practically every turn! [YGOCARD]Machine Duplication[/YGOCARD] is a card that we want to see soon, and will assist us greatly when making an early push. Using three copies of a card is a logical choice if one wants to see it as early as possible, but considering that it's highly unlikely to ever resolve [YGOCARD]Machine Duplication[/YGOCARD] more than once per game, including only two copies may be the best choice after all.[*]2-3x [YGOCARD]Rank-Up-Magic Argent Chaos Force[/YGOCARD]: another MVP, which allows us to bring out [YGOCARD]Number C15: Gimmick Puppet Giant Hunter[/YGOCARD], [YGOCARD]Number C40: Gimmick Puppet of Dark Strings[/YGOCARD], and the off-theme [YGOCARD]CXYZ Coach Lord Ultimatrainer[/YGOCARD]! The destructive power of these cards is so immense that a part of the "Gimmick Puppet" guide was dedicated to explaining a build focusing on making the best use of the card! Just like [YGOCARD]Machine Duplication[/YGOCARD], you'll usually only use one copy in a game - one may recycle the card from the graveyard once - but considering how important [YGOCARD]Rank-Up-Magic Argent Chaos Force[/YGOCARD] is for the deck's success, including the full three copies isn't that silly of an idea...[*]3x [YGOCARD]Trade-In[/YGOCARD]: speeds up the deck greatly while setting up our graveyard.[*]3x [YGOCARD]Upstart Goblin[/YGOCARD]: remember when I mentioned that this deck could easily put more than 8000 damage on the board, as opposed to just "8000 damage"? This is why: the fewer cards we have, the better our chances of drawing what we need; we don't care too much about 1000 life points more or less, so [YGOCARD]Upstart Goblin[/YGOCARD] is used at the maximum number.[/list][/QUOTE][QUOTE]Our deck uses few traps, as our strategy is a highly agressive one, but there are some cards that may come in handy:[list][*]3x [YGOCARD]Reckless Greed[/YGOCARD]: considering our deck's extreme speed, it's highly probable that we'll draw multiple copies of this card sooner or later, and resolving two copies of [YGOCARD]Reckless Greed[/YGOCARD] tends to win games.[*]2-3x [YGOCARD]Trap Stun[/YGOCARD]: although our deck can easily plow through the most powerful of monsters, an opponent's backrow may get in the way when we try to go for the kill; [YGOCARD]Trap Stun[/YGOCARD] turns of any player interaction for a turn, which will usually be enough for us to claim victory![/list][/QUOTE][/COLOR]Note: any deckspace not filled by above listed cards is usually best occupied by the "staple" cards of the format, which should generally revolve around monster effect negation and spell/trap removal.[COLOR="44444"][QUOTE]Lastly I should probably include some ideas for the extra deck, shouldn't I? The following should be decent list for ideas (there are some other options worth a try as the possibilities for rank 4, 8, and 9 are plenty; you can see in the example builds at the bottom of the guide some of our regulars' choices of preference):[list][*]1x [YGOCARD]Black Rose Dragon[/YGOCARD].[*]1x [YGOCARD]Giganticastle[/YGOCARD] (if using [YGOCARD]Effect Veiler[/YGOCARD]).[*]1x [YGOCARD]Star Eater[/YGOCARD].[*]1x [YGOCARD]Alsei, the Sylvan high Protector[/YGOCARD].[*]2x [YGOCARD]CXYZ Coach Lord Ultimatrainer[/YGOCARD].[*]1x [YGOCARD]Divine Dragon Knight Felgrand[/YGOCARD].[*]1x [YGOCARD]Evilswarm Exciton Knight[/YGOCARD].[*]1x [YGOCARD]Gear Gigant X[/YGOCARD].[*]1x [YGOCARD]Lavalval Chain[/YGOCARD].[*]1x [YGOCARD]Number C15: Gimmick Puppet Giant Hunter[/YGOCARD].[*]1x [YGOCARD]Number C40: Gimmick Puppet of Dark Strings[/YGOCARD] (note that this card will destroy all monsters with string counters when special summoned in any way, so use those copies of [YGOCARD]Junk Puppet[/YGOCARD] wisely).[*]1x [YGOCARD]Number C107: Neo Galaxy-Eyes Tachyon Dragon[/YGOCARD].[*]1x[YGOCARD] Number 15: Gimmick Puppet Giant Grinder[/YGOCARD].[*]2x [YGOCARD]Number 40: Gimmick Puppet of Strings[/YGOCARD].[*]1x [YGOCARD]Number 66: Master Key Beetle[/YGOCARD].[*]1x [YGOCARD]Number 101: Silent Honor Ark[/YGOCARD].[/list][/QUOTE][/COLOR][/QUOTE][/COLOR]