Some weird deck building theory on a less than conventional Kaiju strategy.
You could say I’ve been trolling, but on the other hand I’m not completely sure if this deck is legitimate or not. I inadvertently became fascinated with a Kaiju variant based heavily on stalling and finally took it to the fullest extent. I’m pretty sure I talked about it in passing on previous articles, but now I’ll divulge the awfulness that is Kaiju Stall, or what I refer to in a unpolitically correct manner as “Kaiju Cancer”. A strategy so sinister it almost isn’t even a strategy.
The basic idea is simple, create an engine that can stall for almost an infinite amount of time. The basis of the engine is monsters that cannot be destroyed by battle, a famous stalwart of stalling. Obviously there are weakness to these monsters, and that’s where the rest of the deck comes in. The rest of the deck is basically just an engine that negates anything that would allow the opponent the get around a monster that cannot be destroyed by battle, or recurs these indestructible monsters. Once your opponent is exhausted of options, then you wait, and they deck out, or you simply win with slow attrition. It’s excruciatingly boring to use and to play against when it works.
The Degenerate King:
The king of all stall that inspired me to make this idea was an absolutely astounding card: Aroma Jar. This card is laughable because it provides absolutely no offensive thrust whatsoever so no decks other than stall would have any inclination to use this card. Here’s Aroma Jar:
Aroma Jar
Level 1 / WIND / Rock-type
500 ATK / 400 DEF
If this card is flipped face-up, this card cannot be destroyed by battle while it is face-up on the field. If this card is flipped face-up, during each player’s End Phase: You gain 500 LP.
First, it’s a monster that cannot be destroyed by battle, which is perfect. Second, it gains an absurd amount of lifepoints at a breakneck pace. I remember reading this card the first time and being incredulous. I databased it in my mind as one of those cards to always remember and now time has come around and we’re here and we have a terrible deck to make. It’s very clear why this card is super good for stall since it literally gives you everything you could want, a way to burn your opponent’s turns by preventing battle damage, and gaining lifepoints to allow you to survive longer, thus burning more turns again. I suppose it’s not so ironic that the card is a candle because it burns so much Yugioh time.
Old School Stall Engine:
This engine I find rather comical because it’s comprised mostly of really old cards. Once again though, like Aroma Jar, a typical Yugioh deck has no business running these cards because they only provide stalling utility, which is unwanted if not unnecessary to a typical deck. This engine is the most recent addition to my deck, but I’ve known about it for a while. Though I knew all the cards it was comprised of, I was made more aware of this strategy as a whole by a YouTuber named GreatFailsMontana. He’s inactive now, so there’s not any particular reason to looking at his channel, but I’ll give him the plug anyways.
The engine is based around the long forgotten Mask of Darkness. Mask of Darkness is a Flip effect monster that adds a trap card from your graveyard to your hand when flipped. The idea is to continuously flip up and down Mask of Darkness to make a continuous stall engine with really unhealthy trap cards. The power is more poignant during games two and three when the typical floodgates come in from the side board and are especially more difficult to get rid of when being used by a deck like this one.
The important counterpart to Mask of Darkness is Tsukuyomi. Tsukuyomi is a Spirit mosnter, so it returns to your hand at the end of every turn. When Tsukuyomi is normal summon you can flip a monster face-down. Typically in this deck you use it to make an infinite recursion loop with Mask of Darkness. Depending on the deck you infinitely recur different cards.
The main trap cards I utilize in the deck are as follows:
Burst Rebirth:
Pay 2000, Special summon a monster from your graveyard face-down. The synergy with Mask of Darkness is pretty clear, but this can also summon back a Spirit Reaper or Aroma Jar. The 2000 life points is far more mitigatable when you consider that you’re continuously gaining lifepoints with Aroma Jar.
Magical Hats:
This card protects Mask of Darkness, while also flipping it face-down, while also stalling off attacks, while also setting up specific traps for Mask of Darkness to recur, while also doing crazy Kaiju things, while also being a trap itself! It’s the bee’s knees believe me.
Starlight Road:
There are typically two major outs to the lockdown this deck provides. When you are preventing the opponent from doing anything with Spirit Reapers and Aroma Jars, they may use Dark Hole or Raigeki. If you’re using continuous spells and traps to stall they’ll want to use Twin Twister. Both are solved by Starlight Road, and the additional Stardust prevents the activation of the second copy of any of those aforementioned cards for later.
Dark Bribe:
Potentially the best of the traps for this style. Typically, you’d think the draw you give the opponent would be too detrimental for most decks, but for this deck, the idea is that you are only afraid of a few cards in there deck, and if you can stop them your opponent can’t really play Yugioh. Dark Bribe solves a lot of this decks grief in a fairly easy fashion, it also aids in the deck out process and is recurable protection.
Solemn Scolding:
This is the penultimate version of Dark Bribe. It literally can negate anything, but it can be the only card you have face-down which kinda sucks. You can set it and another card, like Dark Bribe as well and then negate in sequence to partially get around this, ex. first negate an opponent’s card with Dark Bribe. Then they later try to summon and now you can negate it with Solemn Scolding. You can also surround yourself with continuous spells and traps to stall. Once again, the lifepoint boosting of Aroma Jar really comes in handy with this card, especially when you consider that you’re attempting to play a really long duel, which means Aroma Jar will likely be on the field at least 20+ turns, which equates to 10,000+ lifepoints, which is more than three activations of Solemn Scolding.
Quaking Mirror Force:
The major issue that this card provides with typical decks is completely non-existent for stall. The problem for a typical deck is that Quaking Mirror Force doesn’t actually solve the problem presented by the opponent’s monsters because they still exist on the field, so you cannot attack for game without removing them. Well, stall doesn’t care about attacking for game, and the additional possibility of flipping 5 monsters face-down in a deck with no monsters to tribute over them is just an added benefit.
Solemn Strike:
Just some all purpose monster effect negation, plus benefits. I’ve thought about running Breakthrough Skill instead though, but because Breakthrough Skill banishes itself a lot of time, I figured that Scolding would be better, since it’s more likely to be recurred by Mask of Darkness.
Wall of Revealing Light:
Wall of Revealing Light is essentially the best stall trap in the game. pay 3000 lifepoints and the opponent cannot attack. Being a continuous trap, if functions with Solemn Scolding more easily and is simultaneously recurrable. It also pays lifepoints, which is a bit of a bummer when running so many cards that do, but they’re so good it’s hard not to run all of them.
Jar of Avarice:
This is an interesting one. Jar of Avarice is only run to make your deck infinite. While you run 1 copy of it and Mask of Darkness you’ll never deck out. It also can recycle the entire Kaiju engine when need be, and the additional draw power never hurt anyone.
Kaiju Capture Mission:
It has the obvious synergy with Kaiju cards, but the main purpose it to be used in tandem with Magical Hats. I only run 1 copy, and whenever I activate Magical Hats I grab the one copy and set it as a monster. If the opponent randomly attacks it, then it’s destroyed by the opponent and you’ll get to draw 2 cards. Similarly, I run 1 copy of Interrupted Kaiju Slumber for this same reason. If you set it with Magical Hats, then you can use it in the graveyard next turn to search a Kaiju, which is quite nice.
Messenger of Peace
Additional Stall Measures:
Another king in the game of stalling is the card Messenger or Peace. In combination with Aroma Jar it’s basically costless attack denial. It provides the same notion as Aroma Jar in that it prevents attacking, so it creates another wall that your opponent must destroy to proceed. Line-up copies of Dark Bribe and Solemn Scolding behind Messenger of Peace and a lot of decks wont be getting anywhere very quickly.
I’ve mentioned it a lot already, but I also think Spirit Reaper is an excellent addition to this deck. Considering it’s stall, logically you’d want to consider one of the many other monsters that cannot be destroyed by battle, for example Marshmallon or Arcana Force 0 – The Fool. I’ve mentally logged some more obscure ones too like Mecha Phantom Beast Blackfalcon and Holding Arms as well which I may try in the future. But about Spirit Reaper, well there are two reasons. First, With the usage of Mask of Darkness, Tsukuyomi, Radian, the Multidimensional Kaiju, and Spirit Reaper you run a viable amount of DARK monsters to run 2 Allure of Darkness. This helps you dig into your needed major stall cards. With 2 Allure of Darkness and 1 Upstart Goblin you effectively run a lot less cards in your deck making you much more consistent. Second reason, you run Kaijus. As I’ve mentioned in previous articles, Spirit Reaper is really good in combination with Kaijus because of his synergy with the deck. He covers up the two main weaknesses of the deck, getting OTK’d and having an opponent who won’t commit to the board. Also, Spirit Reaper has amazing synergy with Dogoran, the Mad Flame Kaiju, because Dogoran clears the opponent’s board to allow direct attacks with Spirit Reaper. This is especially nice because you can even do this under Messenger of Peace with no worries.
Interrupted Kaiju Slumber
Kaijus:
The Kaijus really complete the stall engine in my opinion. They firstly add the most effect spot removal in the game. It’s almost completely unanswerable and can solve any monster that the opponent may throw at you with a single Kaiju. They can provide monster removal, negation and straight raw damage.
Kaijus have a lot synergy with already present cards in the deck. Magical Hats is amazing with Interrupted Kaiju Slumber and Kaiju Capture Mission. Cards like Dark Bribe and Solemn Scolding make an already menacing 3000 ATK beater much more difficult to deal with. Additions of easily searchable Allure of Darkness targets is always a plus as well. Rank 8 and 7 XYZ monster add to the burden you put on your opponent. Potential negation through cards like Gamecial are even more detrimental to the opponent and can keep your locks even more solid.
The basic Kaiju engine I’ve been running is this:
- 3 Dogoran, the Mad Flame Kaiju
- 2 Radian, the Interdimensional Kaiju
- 1 Gamecial, the Sea Turtle Kaiju
- 1 Neo-Spacian Grand Mole
- 2 Kyoutou Waterfront
- 1 Interrupted Kaiju Slumber
- 1 Kaiju Capture Mission
The engine runs the minimal amounts of every card you’d want to run in the deck I thought I could get away with. I’ve toyed with the idea of completely dropping Kyoutou Waterfront and just running 2 Capture Mission because Kaiju Capture Mission surprisingly puts in a lot of work in this build. I want to get a lot of Kaiju Counters and use the Kaiju effects, and I also want to accurately search Gamecial when I need it, so that has kept me from dropping Kyoutou Waterfront.
I run maximum Dogoran above the other Kaijus simply because he provides the optimal things for this deck. First, he doesn’t do anything for my opponent if I give him to them during my turn, making him ideal for dropping on the opponent’s monsters. His actual effect to clear the field is amazing for this deck and even combos amazingly with Spirit Reaper. He’s level 8, meaning you can make rank 8 XYZ with Stardust Dragons if you summon one off of Starlight Road.
Radian has all the same facets as Dogoran except his effect is not as beneficial to you. Sometimes you can push out a massive amount of damage and win really quickly in some scenarios using Radians effect, but that’s rare. More often than not I use him because he has no effect for my opponent during my turn and he has less ATK than Dogoran, meaning you can run him over with your own Dogoran. Radian is the only Kaiju with those two traits. He’s also an Allure target.
Gamecial is the game ender. You don’t really want to draw him because if you get any amount of counters on the board you’re basically not allowed to summon him to the opponent’s side of the field. Ideally you can get him onto your side and start negating even more cards and seal the deal so to speak for your opponent. I have contemplated swapping Gamecial for Jizukiru, the Star Destroyer Kaiju because the setup for getting out an effective Gamecial is very difficult. Jizukiru on the other hand is much easier since he’s got such high attack, so he can almost always attack over the opponent’s Kaiju. His effect isn’t nearly as potent, but it still is very beneficial. He has tons more synergy with Kaiju Capture Mission, so if I was to swap to the build running more of that, I would probably also swap to Jizukiru.
Neo-Spacian Grand Mole is a clear combination with Kaijus. It also provides really good stall because it can remove the Kaijus from the opponent’s field making a soft monster lock and can also answer any monster the opponent may try to put in your way under Messenger of Peace.
And that’s what it is. I really want to take this to some tournaments here soon, so hopefully I’ll be giving some results for the deck in the near future. Best of dueling to you!
Written by: Kyle Oliver