Without Exarion Universe in the card pool, most players didn't expect to see many aggro decks, but it turns out there were some good ones in this tournament! Marco Gheri combined solid technical play with some innovative deck building ideas to achieve an impressive finish with his Gearfried Aggro deck.
I asked Marco why he brought a Gearfried deck of all things to today's FLC and he said he simply enjoys the card. Good answer. What's not to enjoy about an 1800 ATK / 1600 DEF beater in a slow format without Exarion Universe?
Gearfried fills an important role in this deck. It's simply bigger than almost every other LV4 monster in the field today. In some ways, Gearfried acts like a D.D. Assailant that can't be taken with Snatch Steal (which is actually a mini-big-deal). But more importantly, Gearfried plays both offense and defense extremely well. The one matchup Marco is hoping to avoid today is the Chaos Control players packing 3 copies of Skilled White Magician, a card with similar stats to Gearfried that can really slow it down.
There's a bit more to the deck than Gearfried's impressive stats -- Gearfried has some pretty nifty combos of its own. The classic combo is to use Blast with Chain to equip Gearfried, which triggers its effect, then lets you target any card on the field for destruction. This is extremely useful and you can even do it in response to S/T removal. Sometimes the mere threat of a Blast with Chain sitting behind Gearfried can make your opponent think twice.
Those familiar with past incarnations of the Gearfried deck probably noticed a conspicuous lack of Smoke Grenade of the Thief -- but this was done quite deliberately by Marco. In fact, he says not playing Smoke Grenade was the best decision he made today. It seems counter intuitive: why play Gearfried without the combo pieces? Well, for one, Smoke Grenade is completely dead without Gearfried. Second, Smoke Grenade is somewhat redundant with Don Zaloog, while Blast with Chain actually combos quite well with Don Zaloog. Third, this deck sets lots of backrow, so your opponent will likely set a to match them. That's not good for Smoke Grenade -- if you don't get it off early on, you lose a ton of information and miss the chance to hit one of your opponent's better cards.
Finally, Marco's side deck is pretty cool too. It can bring in more hate against Goat Control in the forms of Skill Drain and King Tiger Wanghu, and it also covers Chaos decks with the likes of Royal Oppression and Trap Dustshoot. Extra copies of Swordsman LV2 and Dust Tornado always help against decks like PACMAN, Burn, and Flip Flop. And yes, folks, that's a Torrential Tribute in the side deck. I'd never thought of it before, but Aggro decks can definitely get away without main decking it, can't they? If everything's going smoothly and they're beating down the opponent, they won't want to use Torrential.
I really like how this deck is built. Marco isn't afraid to go against conventional wisdom, and that approach has been paying dividends for him here this weekend.
Gearfried fills an important role in this deck. It's simply bigger than almost every other LV4 monster in the field today. In some ways, Gearfried acts like a D.D. Assailant that can't be taken with Snatch Steal (which is actually a mini-big-deal). But more importantly, Gearfried plays both offense and defense extremely well. The one matchup Marco is hoping to avoid today is the Chaos Control players packing 3 copies of Skilled White Magician, a card with similar stats to Gearfried that can really slow it down.
There's a bit more to the deck than Gearfried's impressive stats -- Gearfried has some pretty nifty combos of its own. The classic combo is to use Blast with Chain to equip Gearfried, which triggers its effect, then lets you target any card on the field for destruction. This is extremely useful and you can even do it in response to S/T removal. Sometimes the mere threat of a Blast with Chain sitting behind Gearfried can make your opponent think twice.
Those familiar with past incarnations of the Gearfried deck probably noticed a conspicuous lack of Smoke Grenade of the Thief -- but this was done quite deliberately by Marco. In fact, he says not playing Smoke Grenade was the best decision he made today. It seems counter intuitive: why play Gearfried without the combo pieces? Well, for one, Smoke Grenade is completely dead without Gearfried. Second, Smoke Grenade is somewhat redundant with Don Zaloog, while Blast with Chain actually combos quite well with Don Zaloog. Third, this deck sets lots of backrow, so your opponent will likely set a to match them. That's not good for Smoke Grenade -- if you don't get it off early on, you lose a ton of information and miss the chance to hit one of your opponent's better cards.
Finally, Marco's side deck is pretty cool too. It can bring in more hate against Goat Control in the forms of Skill Drain and King Tiger Wanghu, and it also covers Chaos decks with the likes of Royal Oppression and Trap Dustshoot. Extra copies of Swordsman LV2 and Dust Tornado always help against decks like PACMAN, Burn, and Flip Flop. And yes, folks, that's a Torrential Tribute in the side deck. I'd never thought of it before, but Aggro decks can definitely get away without main decking it, can't they? If everything's going smoothly and they're beating down the opponent, they won't want to use Torrential.
I really like how this deck is built. Marco isn't afraid to go against conventional wisdom, and that approach has been paying dividends for him here this weekend.
