Skeletons In The Closet

With the release of Legacy of the Valiant in OCG, people are pretty excited and are probably testing their new builds by now. LVAL gave added support to existing archetypes such as the infamous Gravekeepers, the expensive Bujins, Monarchs, OOParts and Photon.

Although there are so many archetypes to choose from, this article is going to focus on the most annoying archetype series 8 introduced, none other than the cute, little trick-or-treaters called Ghostricks.

For a long time, Ghostrick has been a boring opponent for those who were unwary to fight one. I once fought my brother using a Flaming Star 3-Axis deck and we played for about at least 45 minutes just to finish 1 game. It's mostly due to the fact that Ghostricks have a great defensive line thanks to their level 1 monsters that swarm the field when you're going to make a direct attack. Another hindrance to killing them is their field card Ghostrick Mansion that halves all damage not coming from a Ghostrick monster. These 2 assets makes the Ghostrick somewhat hard to kill.

Although they are hard to kill, they also have a hard time to kill you. Their monsters don't boast enough attacking power with only 1600 ATK being the highest excluding Alucard. Yes, they can attack you but trap cards are there to stop them, and even though they only receive half the damage, chances are, the half damage you're inflicting is higher than their full damage.

Ghostrick doesn't have a solid winning condition until now. With the support from LVAL, Ghostricks now have a way to win against the opponent without even attacking. This build wins by a very very cheap way involving constant defending and exhausting the opponent's resource and most importantly, they can now play mind games adding pressure to your opponent.

Decklist after the jump

MONSTERS 14

x2 Ghostrick Skeleton

x2 Ghostrick Jiangshi

x3 Ghostrick Frost

x3 Ghostrick Lantern

x1 Ghostrick Spectre

x3 Ghostrick Mary

SPELLS 16

x1 Allure of Darkness

x1 One Day of Peace

x3 Upstart Goblin

x1 Terraforming

x3 Pot of Duality

x2 Book of Eclipse

x2 Swords of Concealing Light

x3 Ghostrick Mansion

TRAP 10

x2 Needle Ceiling
x2 Ghostrick Out

x1 Starlight Road

x3 Ghostrick Panic

x1 Solemn Judgment

x1 Solemn Warning

EXTRA 15

x1 Stardust Dragon

x2 Ghostrick Alucard

x1 Temtempo the Percussion Djinn

x1 Wind-up Zenmaines

x1 NO. 49 Fortune Tune

x2 Ghostrick Dullahan

x3 NO. 39 Utopia Roots
x3 Slacker Magician
x1 NO. 54 Lion Heart

The main strategy of this build is to win by a deck out. You banish your opponents deck by using the crippling effect of Ghostrick Skeleton to banish as many as the quantity of your face-up Ghostrick monster(s) including Skeleton himself.

So how do we bring out Ghostrick Skeleton fast enough on the field? The answer to that is draw him faster or special summon him from the deck. Since the goal is to put Skeleton on the field as soon as possible, we uses draw cards such as Allure of Darkness, Upstart Goblin or Pot of Duality to quickly draw him. We can also special summon him from the deck by receiving damage and use Ghostrick Mary's effect. Ghostrick Jiangshi will probably won't be able to search him since there's rarely a monster beside Jiangshi so just use Jiangshi's effect to search for Mary instead.

Once you get Skeleton on the field, you must protect him like how Verz protects Ophion. Mostly, Ghostrick Mansion will do the protection so you just have to focus on keeping your Mansion and hope the opponent doesn't draw MST or Heasy Storm. You can protect both cards if you have a Ghostrick Out face down on the field.

Now, even though you have Ghostrick Mansion, don't be cocky because you will still receive some damage. And even though they're only half its full potential, they can still kill you. So next you have to worry is keeping alive, good thing that Ghostricks are good at this despite being dead creatures. You can defend your opponent's direct attacks thanks to the level 1 monsters of the archetype. Plus, you can special summon those monsters when you use their effect, adding number to Skeleton's effect.

A bonus strategy of this deck not attacking is when your opponent set his Mirror Force, Magic Cylinder or D. Prison. Since you won't attack, those cards would be in the backrow collecting dust until the end of game. In hindsight, this strategy also punishes your opponent's backrow giving him limited place to play his Spell or Trap card.

That is basically what you will do throughout the game. 

TLDR? It can be summarized into the ff:

1. Put Skeleton on field.

2. Activate Mansion.

3. Protect Cards.

4. Flip all Ghostricks then use Skeleton effect.

5. Flip Ghostricks face down.

6. Defend from direct attacks.

7. Repeat step 4-6 until you win.

Card choices discussion.

Why put Upstart Goblin?

*It gives me a draw making me closer to the cards I want and the +1k is not  bad since I'm not attacking anyway.

What's with the level 1 line up?

*I chose Mary since she can special summon Skeleton to the field. Lantern and Frost helps negate the direct attacks while Spectre is only 1 since there will be a time that the only thing you can do is to set your Jiangshi.

Why Mansion over Mausoleum?

*Mansion halves the damage of non-Ghostrick monsters which adds survivability, while Mausoleum only puts them in face down which we can pretty much cover with all of the support we have such as Ghostrick Panic and Swords of Concealing Light.

Why Needle Ceiling?

*Needle Ceiling is like another Dark Hole for you or perhaps, a Raigeki since it doesn't affect you.

Why use Terraforming instead of adding Stein?
* Since I don't want to attack, I didn't put Stein so I have to grind for my Mansion. Also, if I attack, It will give my opponent the chance to activate Mirror Force or D.Prison. This will free him a space in the S/T Zone instead of having those cards collecting dust face down. Lastly, all my chosen monsters are not affected by BTH because they are all below 1500 ATK, which doesn't sit well with Stein since it has a 1600 ATK, if I summon him, BTH can be activated, freeing  a space in the opponent's backrow and me losing a Ghostrick, diminishing the amount of Ghostrick count for Skeleton.

Why Book of Eclipse?
*The goal is to deck out the opponent, and since the opponent will just summon all the time to increase the chance of inflicting those half damages, Book of Eclipse will let him draw more to quicken the process. Also, I can use it in my turn when Skeleton banished all of his deck and I activate Eclipse to win since he can't draw anymore.

If Skeleton is the key, why only 2?
*You want to special summon Skeleton from the deck and not want to draw him. He clogs the hand when he's there and mostly, there's no point in having 2 Skeleton on the field because of his effect restriction.

Why Ghostrick Mary to 3?
*Yes, people always tell me to bring it to 2, but chances are, you want to have her in your starting hand to summon Skeleton from the deck. If ever you don't want her anymore, banish her with Allure of Darkness.

That is my skeleton of Ghostricks using the new support cards. Hope you all like it and do comment if you wish to share your knowledge.