Gladiator Beast

The Gladiator Beasts are a series of cards released in Gladiator's Assault, themed after the famed ancient Roman slave-warriors of the Colliseum. With few exceptions, the Gladiator Beasts all have the effect to return to the Deck during the end of a Battle Phase if it battled, and then Special Summon another Gladiator Beast Monster to replace it, with most gaining new effects when Summoned in this manner. Because of this, and the fact that many Gladiator Beast Monsters are fairly weak, most of their support cards are designed to either protect them during battle (thus ensuring they can return to the Deck to Special Summon another Gladiator Beast Monster) or return unwanted Gladiator Beast cards in the player's Hand or Graveyard to the Deck, where they can be brought out more readily by the battle effects of the others. To fuse Gladiator Beasts, the key monster and any other Gladiator Beasts must be on the field to Special Summon the monster. Fusions between Gladiator Beasts do not require Polymerization. Because of this recycling feature, a Gladiator Beast Deck is probably the most flexible one can make, even more so than a Hero Deck, for while a Duelist may be able to fuse almost any combination of Heroes, he must still rely on aquiring a fusion card to conduct it. The Gladiator Beasts are a mix of destruction, aggro, and toolbox tactics, making them very aggressive, strategic and fast paced in a themed Deck. Many cards in the theme are TCG exclusives, examples being "Test Tiger" and "Gladiator Beast Octavius".

While the Gladiator Beasts are extremely efficient at recycling, a Reload or two can assist in getting the right cards into (and in some cases out of) the Hand. Gladiator Beast Darius can be used with Card of Safe Return and Solemn Wishes to restock your Hand and Life Points. If you are reliant on the self-recycling Equip cards, Spell Absorption may be useful for easy LP gain. Terraforming & Gold Sarcophagus can get the Colosseum - Cage of the Gladiator Beasts out much faster, allowing a Counter buildup to start early. Since there are no Tributes in a Gladiator Beast Deck, Mask of Restrict is significantly more useful than it is in other Deck types. Since having just 1 Gladiator Beast puts every other Gladiator Beast at your disposal, a good Gladiator Beast Deck has as low a card count as possible to maximize the initial options. If it can be protected, Secutor is an easy way to fill up the field quickly with various Gladiators. Another huge advantage of this Archetype is that since your entire arsenal stays in your Deck but keeps popping in and out, your opponent never knows what to expect. You can take advantage of this by including cards that reveal your opponent's hand, such as Ceremonial Bell and Respect Play, and cards that reveal your opponent's face-down cards such as The Stern Mystic or Mind Haxorz, which have little drawback to you. The most important Spells and Traps for a Gladiator Beast Deck are ones that let them survive battles, such as Gladiator Beast's Battle Manica, Defensive Tactics, and even Waboku.

Weaknesses
The Gladiator Beasts has to attack without getting sent to the graveyard. One of the Gladiator Beast decks' weak points is that they are required to battle in order to activate their effects, so one of the easiest ways to stop them is by using cards that prevent battle such as Sakuretsu Armor, Mirror Force and Enemy Controller, and even Shrink is very useful since most Gladiator Beasts have low attack points. Another weakness is that these decks have to perform many Special Summons from the deck to work at its full potential, while that may sound like an advantage, it's actually a weakness because cards like Royal Oppression or Vanity's Fiend easily stop them. The other weakness is that they are easily stopped with cards like Trap Hole or Bottomless Trap Hole. Though, since they are all Special Summons, Gladiator Beasts are unhindered by Pulling the Rug. Skill Drain Decks, though, are a big obstacle for Gladiator Beast decks because, like Monarchs, they rely on their monster effects very much.