Edison Blabber: my two cents on Gladiator Beast

I'm playing some GB recently, and experimenting a lot with it. I love the deck despite the stigma it has (and despite the fact that I got far far more rage quits playing GB than I did in the rest of my Edison experience), but I can't hide it has its flaws.

I'll probably do an Edison Deep Dive in the near future, but for now I just wanted to blabber about what makes GB good, what makes it bad, and what we can do to fix it.

The Gameplan

The GB archetype was conceptualized to be a toolbox archetype built around monsters which can tag into each other upon surviving battle depending on the situation supported by equip spells which can be passed from one GB to the other. Let's just say that the monster part was much better than the equip part.

As such, the way the deck shaped up to be was a control deck where each won battle netted you some sort of advantage, while keeping the opponent in check with traps and the incredibly strong Gladiator Beast War Chariot. This makes a lot of sense, and to the best of my knowledge even more combo-oriented builds (namely, Prisma builds) are still quite control by nature.

As such, the deck namely has issues getting the engine started, but once it gets started it can keep on piling up the pressure until it's too much for the opponent to handle through it's incredibly powerful boss monsters, Gyzarus and Heraklinos.

The Good

The toolbox nature of GB is a plus in my book, being able to search out whichever option you need. The effects themselves are good, namely:

• Bestiari pops an S/T, but does so mandatorily so you are forced to destroy one of yours if the opponent has none;
• Murmillo pops a face-up monster, but again mandatorily;
• Darius summons a GB from grave with its effects negated and goes back in deck if anything happens to Darius;
• Equeste adds back a GB card from grave, most importantly Chariot;
• Retiari can banish a card from the opponent's graveyard;
• Laquari becomes a 2100/400 beater;
• Hoplomus becomes a 700/2400 wall.

If everything is well, the first 4 net advantage, Retiari disrupts the opponent's plays and Laquari/Hoplomus are used to have better field presence (in Laquari's case, possibly netting a +1 in battle), since all the others are quite frail.

However, the effects aren't as good as they'd need to be to warrant a pure GB deck, but that's where the fusions come into play:

• Gyzarus can be contact summoned with Bestiari and any other GB and destroys up to 2 cards on summon, tagging into two GBs after battle;
• Heraklinos can negate any S/T by discarding one card, but can't tag.

Gyzarus is an advantage machine, popping 2 cards on summon and then tagging into potentially two other cards which can plus again (or, with a GB in grave, into Heraklinos). As such, most games are won without even summoning Heraklinos. On the other hand, you win all the games in which you summon Heraklinos (with good sense, summoning it at the cost of all your resources is a big no-no), so there's that.

When listing the good things about GB, you can't not mention War Chariot. Having a +0 monster effect negation is super strong, but recurring it even once with Equeste puts you in a great advantage position.

The Bad

The deck is very NS reliant, meaning you will only be able, at best, to commit 1 monster per turn to your field. Edison is moderately slow-paced, but if the opponent has 1 piece of removal per turn you are left with no monsters to play with. More specifically, every monster you lose puts you back one turn, while the opponent might be setting their grave or hand up in the meantime.

The deck is very battle-reliant, as well, meaning you get even more opportunities to suffer your weakness to monster removal in the form of battle traps. At the same time, you suffer 1800+ ATK monsters in the early game (when you likely don't have a 2100 Laquari), and still suffer from CyDra in the late game (since you need to sacrifice your Laquari for it).

Similarly to Monarchs, you want to have 1 monster in hand every turn to summon. Unlike Monarchs, you also want to draw into as many traps as possible, making the balance of the deck very shaky, risking to be either trap-flooded (which is the best worst-case scenario, since you can just stall a bit hoping to draw into a monster) or monster-flooded (which is the worst worst-case scenario, since you won't be able to set a field of traps any time soon). If you are familiar with Magic the Gathering, you can just think of GBs as lands.

Setting a lot of traps makes you very susceptible to BRD and Heavy Storm, so you need to either strongly underpower your field by not committing too much (in which case they can still blow your field up and set you back 1 turn and some advantage) or commit and protect it. The deck can struggle to come back from disadvantage because the engine is so slow to get started, so a successful bomb strikes twice as hard.

Finally, the deck just dies to Royal Oppression, no questions asked.

What we can do

First things first, I want to address the Prisma + Test Tiger + Rescue Cat build. I don't like it. The deck is already a mess of card balance, adding more potential bricks. It ups the ceiling, but I don't think the problem with the deck is the ceiling but rather the floor.

You want to draw Chariot. Maybe you don't know you do, but you do. I'm playing 3 Upstarts and not looking back. Heck, it's even rare that I side them out.

Samnite (if tagged in, searches a GB card when it destroys a monster by battle) and Secutor (if tagged in, doesn't tag out on battle but summons 2 additional GBs from deck) are great, but they only ever shine in Test Tiger builds, which come at the cost of worse balance. Again, we want to lower the floor, not increase the ceiling.

WIth those things out of the way, here are some considerations I keep in mind when building GBs:

• Morphing Jar is crazy. You generally benefit more from drawing 5 than the opponent, and you want to set your whole hand either way.
• Hoplomus enables a great mixup with Morphing Jar and keeps in check a lot of stray monsters you'd normally have problems with while you draw the outs.
• Since the balance of the deck is shaky, IMHO the name of the game is "flexibility". A card needs to be flexible and have multiple applications to work in the deck. Here is a subset of considerations that stem from the flexibility requirement:
• Starlight in the main is bad. You need to draw it before the opponent draws Heavy Storm, and is otherwise a dead card. It is live against Icarus Attack, BRD, and JD, but if you ask me that just means it is a good side deck card, not a good main deck card.
• You want protection from Heavy Storm and from battle traps, and Dark Bribe is my go-to card for that. Yes, it's a -1, but if your attack goes through you will reset the advantage to 0 or to +1 and advance your engine, so it's 100% worth it. Dark Bribe also negates a lot of power cards in a way that the opponent wouldn't expect, such as Miracle Fusion, Soul Exchange, etc..., so it is one of the most flexible cards in the deck, and I'm maining it at 3 with very little doubts on whether to go down to 2.
• Book of Moon and Shrink are both protection for your monsters and ways to win battles. BoM is the most generic one, allowing to dodge BTH and battle traps, as well as stopping your opponent's synchro plays (especially mind/brain control synchros) and turn off a lot of monster effects. Shrink is usually better in battle and lets you go above very strong threats such as Tytannial (forcing the negate), Kristya and others, but also gives you BTH protection. I'm on 3 for both.
• Smashing Ground is the weakest form of 1 for 1 removal because it doesn't help protecting your monsters during your opponent's turn. I'll always favor more copies of Dimensional Prison or BTH over Smashing Ground. I'd rather wait a turn or stall out until I draw the actual out than lack protection.
• Call of the Haunted helps both with comebacks and, in a sense, with monster protection (i.e., you can summon the same monster that was destroyed, but that's stretching it a bit). In general, it's a bad card when you are in an advantage position, but it's a good card when you are back, especially if you summon Gyza with it.
• Icarus Attack is a great card on paper. It avoids your Bestiari from getting banished in the case of a BTH or Prison, and offers chainable 2 for 2 removal, which is great, especially if it baited out a different trap (letting you go +1). In reality, it performs a bit worse than that because it requires your opponent committing to the field, and drawing multiples really sucks because you can't keep the tempo up. I'd think of using 2 or 1, especially with 1 Call of the Haunted.

Conclusions

GB is a super fun deck to play, perhaps a little less fun to play against, but it's something I want to make work. Expect an Edison Deep Dive in the near future ;)