This build is something I had a long time in my sleeve, but never played it for real. Actually it’s pretty good and consistent, the reason why I don’t play this in ranked, is that it’s a real asshole deck.
Yeah you read the right thing and I even say that once again: <asshole deck>.
Even though this deck is easy to counter with the right cards (eg. Mask Of Restrict, Light-Imprisoning Mirror, etc.), there won’t be many who run these counter cards as many of the players still didn’t realize that Hieratics are now a part of today’s Meta Game and they are still underrated and looked down at. The same thing is happening with Chaos Dragons, which now have topped in the German Nationals (Muci Izci), Malaysian WCQ (Sung Lee) and certain other Nationals where they have been under the Top16. I play Chaos Dragon in real life too and I will show you guys my decklist in the following weeks.
Those who know what this deck is capable of will sure agree with me, except when they are playing this deck by themselves. For those who don’t know what this deck is capable of, I will explain later, maybe you are able to figure it out by yourself too if you read the decklist.
So here’s my interpretation of Gishki Hieratic or Hieratishki as I heard sometimes. (Gishki are called Ritua in OCG). Kudos (Credits) for the one who came up with this idea, I made some big changes to this deck, but to come up with this idea is definitely the work of a genius. This build of mine is actually pretty consistent and caused a lot of rage quits, so don’t blame me if nobody wants to duel you with this deck 😛
Decklist:
Monster (21)
3x Evigishki Gustkraken (LV 6)
3x Gishki Abyss (LV 2)
3x Gishki Shadow (LV 4)
3x Gishki Vision (LV 2)
3x Manju Of The Ten Thousand Hands (LV 4)
3x Hieratic Dragon Of Su (LV 6)
3x Hieratic Dragon of Tefnuit (LV 6)
1x Gorz The Emissary Of Darkness (LV 7)
1x Wattail Dragon (LV 6)
1x Luster Dragon #2 (LV 6)
Spell (16)
3x Gishki Aquamirror
3x Preparation of Rites
3x Hieratic Seal Of Convocation
1x Mystical Space Typhoon
1x Dark Hole
1x Heavy Storm
1x Monster Reborn
1x Pot Of Avarice
2x Salvage
Trap (0)
–
Extra (15)
1x Maestroke The Symphony Djinn (R 4)
1x Number 39: Utopia (R 4)
1x Gem-Knight Pearl (R 4)
3x Constellar Ptolemys Messier 7 (R 6)
1x Hieratic King Dragon Of Atum (R 6)
1x Number 25: Force Focus (R 6)
2x Photon Strike Bounzer (R 6)
1x Sword Breaker (R 6)
1x Gaia Dragon, The Thunder Charger (R 6)
1x Ally Of Justice Catastor (LV 5)
1x Black Rose Dragon (LV 7)
1x Mist Wurm (LV 9)
Side (15)
2x Effect Veiler (LV 1)
2x D.D. Crow (LV 1)
2x Smashing Ground
2x Forbidden Lance
2x Mystical Space Typhoon
1x The Huge Revolution Is Over
2x Chain Disappearance
2x Shadow-Imprisoning Mirror
So now some explanation as usually:
I think you all know the Wind-Up Hand loop too good, as it left you with a hand of 2-3 cards in your turn and all this happened turn one! If there wasn’t a Veiler in your hand, you were pretty much done for. Now this build of mine has the same ability with the difference that the monsters we call out are really some beat sticks which can’t be run over easily like those Wind-Ups, whose only boss monster they could probably call out was Acid Golem or maybe a Tiras/Adreus.
And in addition to that the cards aren’t sent to the grave where they probably can gain advantage (Inzektor), but they are sent back to the deck which is even more awesome. Now which card lets you do this?
It’s Evigishki Gustkraken! This neat Ritual monster lets you look at two cards in your opponents hand and choose one of them to return to the deck. This way you can even gain the advantage of knowing which card will probably be face-down, so it’s effect is really awesome. The stats of this monsters aren’t bad too: 2400 atk/1000 def. The def is a little meager but it has its reasons: with this def it can be added to the hand by Gishki Abyss, which can get any Gishki monsters with 1000 or less def.
Probably all of you want to know how the loop works now, but be a little bit more patient, as I explain the card effects and the reason why I put those cards in. For those who can’t wait or those who know all those effects: you can skip this part.
Gishki Gustkraken
This card is still an OGG card and only appeared in Duel Terminal 6, which not many players have access to so I guess you have to wait a bit to use this deck. But all OCG and Duelingnetwork players can still abuse this deck 😀
Now this is the main part of your loop so you always want to have several copies including the corresponding Ritual Card in your hand. Therefore you have a lot of searchers for this and your Ritual Spell.
Now to count them down: Abyss, Vision (for Gustkraken), Shadow (for Spell), Manju Of The Ten Thousand Hands (for both), Preparations Of Rites and Salvage to bring your Water searchers back, in particular: Vision, Shadow and Abyss.
Whats his effect now? As I already said and you can see above, when he’s Ritual Summoned you can look at up to 2 cards in your opponents hand and decide which of both has to return to his deck. If you have the right cards in your hand, you can get rid of probably 2 – 3 cards of his hand while having a field filled with boss monsters.
Gishki Abyss
This guy can get you any of your Gishki monsters including the Ritual Monsters when he’s summoned. That means even if he’s special summoned by Reborn or something else, you will get the effect. so all those searchers really adds consistency to the deck.
Gishki Shadow
This guy searches for your Gishki Ritual Spell and can be used as a tribute in emergency situations.
Gishki Vision
Vision searches for your Gustkraken and can also be used as a full tribute for Gustkraken in emergency situations.
Manju Of The Ten Thousand Hands
The ultimate searcher of your deck can search for the Ritual Spell or Gustkraken, was useful in every Ritual Summon based deck and is still useful in this Gishki build.
Hieratic Dragon Of Su
Mostly there to be tributed for the Ritual summon to call out a vanilla LV 6 Dragon, but can also get rid of your opponents backrow. Now the question comes up: Does Su’s effect resolve if it’s tributed for a Ritual? Yes, it does as sending Su/Tefnuit to grave for a Ritual Summon from hand is considered as a tribute and those Hieratics can be tributed from everywhere to resolve its effect. Its tribute effect even resolves if Macro Cosmos is on the field. If that’s the case, the effect will resolve in the Banished Zone, so a really awesome thing.
And if somebody wants to rule shark you that Hieratics misses their timing to special summon a vanilla, that’s not the case, as their effects are mandatory.
Hieratic Dragon Of Tefnuit
This nice guy can special summon itself or can be used as a tribute for Gustkraken. Those Hieratics are easy to get into your hand, as you have 3 search cards (Hieratic Seal Of Convocation) plus those six Hieratics.
As usual Hieratics Special Summon a Vanilla Dragon-Type Monster from deck, hand or grave. This would be in our case Wattail Dragon or Luster Dragon #2, as we are focused on Rank 6 XYZ’s.
Gorz The Emissary Of Darkness
For self protection if everything fails or you fall prey to a Torrential Tribute/Dark Hole etc.
Luster Dragon #2/Wattaildragon
Concerning these two guys there are just two questions left, I guess:
Why are there two different LV 6 Vanillas? – The reason is: Chain Disappearence. This little evil Trap card removes from play all copies of your dragons if it’s summoned and has 1000 or les ATK, as it’s summoned through Hieratics, it always has 0 ATK/0 DEF so these cards will often fall prey to an intelligent siding opponent. Therefore you have two different Dragons here. The difference of 100 ATK doesnt really matter as both of them have 0 ATK/ 0 DEF when summoned and you don’t really want to revive them with reborn, as there are much better targets than those vanillas.
So why no more Vanillas? – If you’re asking this, you’ve never played a pure dino rabbit deck … It fudgin clogs up your hand with good for nothing Vanillas and you lose hand advantage too if you have to summon them from your hand, so two copies are definitely sufficient, believe me, I’ve tested this long enough and with my playstyle I’ve never had problems with not having one of those vanillas when needed. Having those LV 6 Vanillas in your hand even sucks more than in a Dino Rabbit Deck as you can’t even summon those cards easily, but need a tribute.
Gishki Aquamirror
One of your Key cards. It lets you recycle your Ritual Monster, and reuse itself as it’s shuffled into the deck and therefore can be searched by your cards again.
Preparations Of Rites
Keeps your combo going, to get your opponent lose another card of his hand. You can also only add the Ritual Monster, while there’s no Ritual Spell in your grave as adding this Spell is optional.
Hieratic Seal Of Convocation
Searches for your Hieratics that you want to tribute for the Ritual Summon of Gustkraken.
Pot Of Avarice
This guy surely looks like a caricature of Hitler, strange guys these Japanese, ain’t it? But back to the topic, this card’s really awesome in late game when you have almost used up all your resources. So with Avarice you can shuffle back all the cards you need and get more hand cards, sounds good isn’t it?
Salvage
You can add Vision, Abyss or Shadow to your hand again to reuse them and gaining advantage.
Constellar Ptolemys Messier 7
Card effect:
- 2 Level 6 monsters
You can also Xyz Summon this card by using 1 face-up “Constellar” Xyz Monster you control, except “Constellar Ptolemys Messier 7”, as the Xyz Material. (Xyz Materials attached to that monster also become Xyz Materials of this card.) This card’s effect cannot be activated during the turn it is Special Summoned that way. Once per turn: You can detach 1 Xyz Material from this card, then target 1 monster on the field or in a Graveyard; return that target to its owner’s hand.
This guy is your main XYZ unlike in a pure Hieratic build where Atum is your main XYZ. So for what are we using its effect? That depends on your hand. If you have the possibility to pull off another Ritual Summon then you will return your hieratic to your hand to be tributed again and getting another LV 6 Vanilla to XYZ again. You can also return Vision, Shadow or Abyss to make some different combo. This deck is really versatile at this point, you can also return one of your opponents monsters which is annoying you (regardless if in grave or on the field).
If someone wants to tell you that you cannot use its effect when it’s XYZ summoned with two ordinary LV 6 Monsters, that’s not true as this condition only applies when it’s XYZ summoned on another Constellar XYZ monster. Everyone who says this can’t read and is a dumbass…
The Huge Revolution Is Over
Just a side deck option, I don’t know why I chose this over Starlight Road, but i guess I prefer this card as I don’t play Stardust Dragon and Starlight Road can be negated by Solemn Warning then and this card removes the negated card from play. You can use one of them it doesn’t really matter, I guess.
So now you know about almost every card of this deck, the other cards are self explaining in my opinion.
Now to summarize the main combos:
- Search for Gustkraken and Gishki Aquamirror (Vision, Shadow, Abyss, Preparation Of Rites, Manju)
- Search for Hieratics (Seal Of Convocation)
- Tribute Hieratics from hand for Ritual Summon of Gustkraken
- Look at two cards of your opponents hand, return one of them to the deck
- Special Summon a LV 6 Normal Dragon-Type Monster from your Deck, Grave or Hand to the field in DEF
- XYZ summon to Messier 7, detach Gustkraken or Vanilla (depending on your hand, but usually I detach Gustkraken as I can get him back to my hand again with Aquamirror)
- Use Messier’s effect to return the Hieratic you tributed to your hand (or some of your Gishki searchers if you still have Hieratics left in your hand or a Seal)
- Ritual Summon another Gustkraken to return another card to your opponents deck and get to see one card
- Keep going with this loop (but I advise you to not overextend this, normally i just put 1-2 cards back to his deck and end my turn)
- In the best case scenario you can get rid of 3 cards from your opponents hand and know almost the complete hand of him (a good card to combo with this loop would be Mind Crush/ D.D. Designator, I think, as you’ll always know some of his cards, but I don’t have space for it now so this has to wait in the corner of my mind)
Weaknesses:
- Can’t really side as this would wreck the synergy of the deck and this deck would lose consistency (needs all those searchers to be consistent)
- Macro Cosmos, D.D. Crow, Chain Disappearance can hurt this deck
- If Special Summons are locked with cards like Evilswarm Ophion, Krystia, Fossil Dyna, etc. this deck is pretty dead as Ritual Summon is considered as Special Summon too
- Fossil Dyna/Dark Hole/Torrential Tribute can wreck your whole engine (maybe a sided Starlight Road would be nice)
- If you fail that way, there aren’t many options to recover as you don’t have much defense left except a lone Gorz and your combos drains your hand a lot (usually left with 1-2 hand cards, if you play more cautious your strategy won’t make that impact, so it’s pretty much a get rich or die trying situation)
- This deck is horrible against Evilswarm decks (Ophion, who can even protect himself with Pandemic Contagion Infestation!)
- Mask Of Restrict wrecks this deck too although nobody has this in his side deck yet, but they will if Hieratics are becoming Meta worldwide
Thanks for reading and I appreciate some comments, your own combos or whatever you want to talk about.
Sources (images and card effects/rulings):
CreativeMinds @ Wordpress.com 