Note: In the Yu-Gi-Oh ruleset and card effect texts, certain terms and conditions are capitalized, such as “Fusion Summoning” or “Tribute Summoning”, etc. A “Hard once per turn” means that even if you have multiple copies of the same card, you cannot activate its effect again despite that, a “Soft once per turn” allows you to active multiple copies of the same card as long as you have multiple copies of it. Each player only gets 1 Normal Summon or Tribute Summon per turn, unless a card effect like Double Summon allows it. Continuous Spell/Trap cards remain on the Field even after their initial activation until they are sent to the Graveyard or Destroyed due to their own or other outside effect, Field Spells work much the same way, but have their own place on the left side of the Field. A floating effect is an effect that refers to a monster whose effect allows it to Summon another monster if its destroyed or removed from the field in one way or another. A boss monster is a card that’s generally considered incredibly powerful, usually with high stats and fairly difficult summoning condition that has fantastic effects. In some cases, they’re generic, and in others, they’re a major part of an archetype, in Ancient Gear’s case it is apart of the latter. Link monsters are lenient on their Summoning requirements, and only need you to have the required monsters on the Field to be able to Link Summon, but the first Link monster must go into the Extra Deck monster zone unless a Link monster is in that zone already and has a arrow pointing to a zone you control, in that case you can place it there. You need to combine a Tuner monster and another monster or monsters of any kind to create a Synchro monster, the levels (stars) must equal the Synchro Monster’s level.

In this article I am going to be comparing the strengths and downsides of two archetypal decks in Yu-Gi-Oh: Ancient Gears, and Superheavy Samurai. The Ancient Gear archetype is a series of EARTH Machine monsters whose focus is on either Tribute Summoning and Fusion Summoning higher ATK monsters to mainly beat down the opponent’s monsters by battle. The signature feature of Ancient Gear monsters is that most of their effects include the prevention of the activation of Spell/Trap cards during their attack during the Battle Phase. If the player is to focus on the Tribute Summoning strategy for their Ancient Gear deck, then cards such as the Field Spell Geartown, Continuous Spell Ancient Gear Castle, and Continuous Trap Ancient Gear Reborn are useful in that goal. Geartown allows the Tribute Summoning of Ancient Gear monsters for 1 less tribute, allowing monsters that would cost 2 to only cost you 1 monster, it also has the effect of upon its destruction and being sent to the Graveyard it can Special Summon a Ancient Gear monster from the hand, Deck, or Graveyard.

Ancient Gear Castle, not only giving a 300 ATK boost to all Ancient Gear monsters you control, for every time you or your opponent Normal or Tribute Summons a monster, it gains a counter, which allows for a Tribute Summon of an Ancient Gear monster using those counters as a replacement for Tributes instead, this also works in conjunction with Geartown, allowing you to Tribute Summon with only 1 counter on Ancient Gear Castle.

Ancient Gear Reborn allows for the Special Summon of a Ancient Gear monster from the Graveyard once per turn with a 200 ATK boost, which allows you to use it in Tribute Summoning without using your Normal Summon.

Now the reason you may want to Tribute Summon is because of what will be your main boss monster: Ancient Gear Reactor Dragon.

Requiring two Tributes to Tribute summon, it has varying effects based on the monsters used, if Tributed with a Ancient Gear monster it now inflicts piercing battle damage. If a Gadget monster was used then it can make a second attack during the Battle Phase. And as a constant effect whether or not it was Tribute Summoned, it can destroy a Spell/Trap card on the field after each attack, which could include Spells like Geartown to activate its secondary effect. It is optimal to Tribute Summon Ancient Gear Reactor Dragon with Ancient Gear Gadget, who is both a Ancient Gear monster and a Gadget monster:

Ancient Gear Hydra works much the same way, having two effects locked behind using Ancient Gear and Gadget monsters in its Tribute Summon, the first being to attack all monsters your opponent controls once each, and banishing the opponents monster at the end of the Damage Step if its still not destroyed. It has a constant effect of allowing your Ancient Gear monsters you control to have the signature Ancient Gear effect of Spell/Trap prevention during attacks:

Now Ancient Gear Fusion Summoning Decks work entirely differently then Tribute Summon Ancient Gear Decks. However both utilize the Ancient Gear Wyvern to search specific Ancient Gear Cards from the deck upon its Normal Summon or Special Summon:

Using its effect on Ancient Gear Box allows it to activate its effect once its added to the hand, to add another EARTH Machine monster with 500 ATK or DEF to your hand, with a Hard once per turn on this effect:

Some examples of searchable Ancient Gear monsters with this effect that fit the 500 ATK/DEF criteria:

The most common and most useful combo with Ancient Gear Fusion Decks is to have Geartown on the field, and no monsters, and use Ancient Gear Catapult on Geartown.

Which its first effect allows the summoning of any Ancient Gear monster from your deck, ignoring its Summoning conditions, at the cost of destroying one face-up card you control, which is quite useful when using it on Geartown. When Ancient Gear Catapult is activated, you destroy Geartown, and summon Ancient Gear Golem, then activating Geartown’s effect to summon Ancient Gear Wyvern to search for Ancient Gear Fusion and add it to your hand. Now that allows you to Fusion Summon whichever Ancient Gear Fusion monster you desire!

This is due to Ancient Gear Fusion’s unique effect to use monsters as material from your Deck as well as opposed to just your hand or field, as long as you use Ancient Gear Golem in the Fusion Summon. The Fusion Summoned Ancient Gear monsters are quite useful, Ancient Gear Howitzer, requiring only 2 Ancient Gear monsters, is unaffected by card effects and can deal 1000 points of lifepoint damage to your opponent every turn, and upon its destruction by battle, can summon any Ancient Gear monster from your Deck, ignoring its Summoning conditions, allowing for the setup of a Fusion Summon should you have Ancient Gear Fusion in your hand.

Ultimate Ancient Gear Golem is a Fusion monster requiring 2 Ancient Gear monsters and specifically 1 Ancient Gear Golem. It sports the signature Ancient Gear effect as well as the ability to do piercing damage like its regular Golem counterpart, in all aspects its the same except for increased Attack and Defense, and one additional effect, which allows it to Special Summon 1 “Ancient Gear Golem” from your Graveyard ignoring its Summoning conditions upon being destroyed in any way. It’s 4400 ATK being a mountain for your opponent to overcome by battle.

Ancient Gear Megaton Golem requires 3 Ancient Gear monsters to Fusion Summon. It has the regular Ancient Gear effect, as well as two additional effects, one being if it was summoned with 2 or more Ancient Gear Golem or Ancient Gear Golem Ultimate Pounds it can attack a number of times equal to those many materials. Its last effect is a floating effect similar to Ultimate Ancient Gear Golem’s, but an improved version, if it leaves the Field in any way other than being returned to the Extra Deck, it will Summon a Ultimate Ancient Gear Golem from the Extra Deck ignoring its Summoning conditions, which if you used a Ancient Gear Golem in Megaton’s Summon, it turns into a 3 phase boss monster.

Ancient Gear Chaos Giant is strangely a DARK Machine monster as opposed to being an EARTH Machine monster. It requires a hefty 4 Ancient Gear Monsters to Fusion Summon, but once it hits the Field its almost nigh invincible, having the ability to attack all monsters your opponent controls once each, the ability to do piercing damage against Defense Position monsters, being unaffected by Spell/Trap cards, opponents not being able to activate monster effects during the Battle Phase, and boasting a high 4500 ATK, this card will either win you the game, or lose you it, as requiring 4 monsters is a high cost, and the opponent can still activate monster effects during their Main Phase as well, though you can use Overload Fusion a Spell card as a last resort.

The last Ancient Gear Extra Deck monster isn’t a Fusion monster at all, but rather strangely, the only non-Fusion monster in its archetype, a Link monster.

Requiring 2 EARTH Machine monsters to summon, when its Link Summoned you can add a Ancient Gear Monster or Geartown to your hand. A Hard once per turn on both effects, its second effect is that you can target a Spell/Trap card you control and 1 face-up monster your opponent controls, and destroy the Spell/Trap card, then if you do, change the opponents ATK/DEF to 0, permanently. This can be used in conjunction with Geartown that you searched and added to your hand, and using it for Ballista’s second effect.

Now onto the Superheavy Samurai archetype, a archetype of similarly EARTH Machine type monsters. Their main focus is on Special Summoning as well as Synchro Summoning, but their most unique trait is that most of them change their position upon their Summon, mainly changing to Defense Position, as well as effects that do not activate if you have Spell/Trap cards in the Graveyard, which requires that a Superheavy Samurai Deck either run no Spell/Trap cards, or Spell/Trap cards that can easily Banish themselves from the Graveyard, like Damage Diet and Rise to Full Height.

However on top of that their unique gimmick as that they can attack in Defense Position, using their DEF as their ATK points, with all of the Superheavy Samurai having higher DEF points then ATK points.

The main poster boy for Superheavy Samurai is Superheavy Samurai Big Benkei. When they are Summoned they can change their battle position, and allows all Superheavy Samurai monsters to attack while in face-up Defence Positions.

Superheavy Samurai Magnet allows for the Special Summon of 1 level 4 or lower Superheavy Samurai monster from your hand, and changes its own position after the effect resolves. Also true to its name it has a second effect that only restricts your opponent to attack only Magnet as long as it remains face-up on the field.

Superheavy Samurai Swordsman changes its battle position on Summon, but its main effect comes from when an opponent battles a Superheavy Samurai monster you control, which activates its main effect to turn the opponent’s monsters ATK and DEF to 0. Swordsman works great in conjunction with Superheavy Samurai Magnet.

Superheavy Samurai Blue Brawler boasts the same battle position change effect, as well as being unable to be destroyed by battle. Which allows for great stall potential to allow yourself to draw what you need, or hold out to Synchro Summon what you need.

Superheavy Samurai Trumpeter is a Tuner monster that is the prime material and are required for the Synchro Summon of a Synchro Monster. It can Special Summon itself from your hand as long as you do not have a Spell/Trap card in your Graveyard. But it restricts you from Summoning any other monsters other than Superheavy Samurai monsters, and can be used as 2 Tributes for the Tribute Summon of a Superheavy Samurai monster, usually Big Benkei, and if Tributed this way, you can Special Summon it from your Graveyard.

Superheavy Samurai Battleball is another Tuner monster used in Synchro Summons, its main effect is that it allows you to use your opponent’s monster as material to fill levels in a Synchro Summon, regardless of material required for it to come out.

Superheavy Samurai Big Waraji is a level 5, and is able to be Special Summoned to your Field from your hand if you have no Spell/Trap Cards in your Graveyard, and locks you into only Special Summoning Superheavy Samurai monsters, additionally it can be counted as 2 Tributes for the Tribute Summon of a Machine-Type monster, in it’s archetype’s case, Superheavy Samurai Big Benki.

You can use Superheavy Samurai Swordmaster Musashi’s effect to retrieve Trumpeter from the Graveyard if you used it in its Synchro Summon, and Summon it again to “upgrade” to Superheavy Samurai Stealth Ninja, who is a level 7. It can also use its DEF points for ATK points, and can attack while in Defense Position

Superheavy Samurai Stealth Ninja naturally possesses the ability to attack using their DEF points to attack, and also the ability to half their DEF for the turn to attack directly. They have an effect that if they were destroyed by card effect then they are able to Special Summon themselves back from the Graveyard during the next Standby Phase. This can also be Synchro Summoned without using your Normal Summon using Superheavy Samurai Big Waraji’s effect to Special Summon itself, and then Special Summoning Trumpeter.

There are many more Superheavy Samurai monsters with varying effects that allow for the destruction of enemy Spell/Trap cards, increasing their own ATK in accordance to your opponent Special Summoning monsters. Superheavy Samurai Ninja Sarutobi is able to destroy a Spell/Trap card on the Field and deal 500 effect damage to your opponent, as long as you have no Spell/Trap cards of your own in the Graveyard. Being level 8 its easy to summon through the use Superheavy Samurai Magnet’s effect and Trumpeteer. Additionally like all Synchro Superheavy Samurai monsters, it can attack while in Defense Position, substituting its ATK points for its DEF points.

Superheavy samurai Warlord Susanowo is a level 10 Synchro monster, who, once per turn, can target a single Spell/Trap Card in your opponent’s Graveyard, and set it to your side of the field, effectively stealing it from them for your own use, and when it leaves the field, it gets banished instead of returning to your opponent’s Graveyard.

Superheavy Samurai Ogre Shutendoji is a level 6 Synchro monster, who, when Summoned, can destroy all Spell and Trap Cards your opponent controls.

Superheavy Samurai Beast Kyubi is a level 9 Synchro monster, whose main effect is that while you have no Spell or Trap Cards in your Graveyard, they gain 900 DEF points for each Special Summoned monster your opponent controls, and can serve as a way to combat an enemy board fill with Extra Deck monsters, as a single monster already puts it’s effective ATK at 3400 DEF points, well above most monster’s ATK points for the most part, however that boost goes away as the Special Summoned monsters leave the board, either by being gotten rid of by your opponent or Kyubi’s hand.

And lastly, Superheavy Samurai Steam Train King is a level 12 Synchro monster, arguably the boss monster of this archetype, boasting 4800 DEF points that can be used to attack. Additionally its main two features allow you to, once per turn, discard up to 2 cards from your hand, then target that amount of cards on your opponent’s side of the field and destroy them, and once per turn, you can banish all Spell and Trap Cards from both player’s Graveyards, and deal 200 damage to your opponent for each card banished.