Forum:Deck Guide/Ancient Gears

ANCIENT GEAR GUIDE

by Gadjiltron

Intro
Yu-Gi-Oh GX introduced Dr. Vellian Crowler, who was known for his strange androgynous appearance, his attempts at trying to get Jaden Yuki expelled, and his Ancient Gears archetype. The archetype stayed underlooked, even with the presence of a supporting Structure Deck, and only gained popularity once TDGS granted it a new life with just one card that eases the Ancient Gears' play style.

Mechanics
There's one thing common amongst most of the Ancient Gear archetype: While their monsters attack, the opponent cannot activate Spells or Traps, removing the worry of Mirror Force, Shrink, Dimensional Prison and the like. This proved to be a very powerful means of protection, later to be known amongst other duelists (such as myself) as the "Ancient Gear Effect" as it got reprinted on other cards.

However, in exchange for such potent protection, the Ancient Gear monsters are either too weak to run effectively, while their stronger counterparts cannot be Special Summoned. This resulted in the archetype being ignored until TDGS. The reason will be elaborated later on.

Analysis

 * Speed: Ancient Gears were formerly too slow to play, with their large key cards needing Tribute Summons while their lesser monsters are too weak to hold against most beatsticks. Until Geartown came by, which reduced the difficulty in summoning the bigger monsters and giving the Ancient Gears an ability to Special Summon.
 * Power: The great stats of their largest monsters combined with trampling and their self-protection effect makes these monsters difficult to deal with.
 * Consistency: Ancient Gears are largely about beatdown, and centred around summoning their largest monsters (which need a Tribute or two). There have been attempts to shortcut this, though, but the big monsters tend to end up as dead draws from time to time.
 * Risk: At least their self-protection effects let you go about attacking the opponent's Life Points safely without getting tripped up by Mirror Force.
 * Meta Ranking: Unfortunately, a pure Ancient Gear build is too clunky to even make it to the meta. They are, however, usually seen alongside the Gadgets and Machina archetypes in the mid-tiers.

The Field
The one card that gave the Ancient Gears great popularity is Geartown, which was only introduced in TDGS, right after the end of GX. Why is it so good? Let's have a look. These effects make Geartown an amazing field card for the archetype and thus it must be maxed out.
 * Ancient Gear monsters can be Normal Summoned with one less Tribute. This alone made the archetype much more playable since their large monsters that cannot be Special Summoned can be summoned with greater ease.
 * When the card is destroyed, you can Special Summon an Ancient Gear monster from your hand, Deck, or Graveyard. This would be an amazing effect, if the bigger monsters weren't so strict on Special Summoning. There are a few monsters, however, which don't mind this. Do note that this effect is prone to Missing the Timing, and will not activate if the opponent destroys Geartown mid-chain, or if you play over your own Geartown field without setting over it first.

Monsters
Let's take a look at the monsters in the Ancient Gear archetype.
 * Ancient Gear - The smallest and possibly weakest monster of the archetype. It can Special Summon itself from the hand if another copy (not another "Ancient Gear" monster) is present on the field, and is clearly intended for Tribute fodder. However, this is actually more difficult to execute than intended, thanks to its abysmal stats. Better off using other means of generating Tribute fodder, like Trap Monsters, for example.
 * Ancient Gear Beast - One of the early Ancient Gear monsters. It stands at 2000/2000, which is horrible for a LV6 monster, and it cannot be Special Summoned. It makes up for this, however, by sporting both the Ancient Gear Effect and the ability to negate the effects of whatever monsters it destroys in battle, allowing it to safely defuse Ryko, Lightsworn Hunter and the like. However, with Geartown, Ancient Gear Beast does live up to its name, since it now can be summoned for no Tributes, letting you fully exploit all its abilities.
 * Ancient Gear Cannon - Another of the little monsters of the archetype. It is marginally useful, being able to Tribute itself to seal off Traps during the Battle Phase while inflicting minor damage, but there are better ways to go about doing things like these, with cards like Trap Stun.
 * Ancient Gear Engineer - A somewhat decent member of the Ancient Gear archetype. It holds stats of 1500/1500 for a LV5 monster, which makes it horrible without Geartown around. However, it doesn't have any qualms with Special Summoning, so Geartown or Giant Rat can be used to bring it out quickly. In addition to the Ancient Gear Effect, Engineer is immune to Traps that target, letting it shrug off cards like Raigeki Break. Furthermore, if it attacks and survives the battle, it can destroy an opponent's S/T, making it great for clearing the path for other monsters that can't protect themselves.
 * Ancient Gear Gadjiltron Chimera - This was one of the Ancient Gear monsters designed to mesh with the Gadgets, gaining effects depending on what was Tributed. It stands at a not-so-stellar 2300/1300 for LV6 and no innate effect, making it nothing but a beatstick if Summoned without Tributing a Gadget. If you do Tribute Summon it, it gains the following effects:
 * Green Gadget - AGGC turns into a 2600/1300 beatstick, which lets it easily crush other monsters of its level, but that's about it.
 * Red Gadget - AGGC burns 500 to your opponent for a successful direct attack. Not a very useful effect.
 * Yellow Gadget - AGGC burns 700 to your opponent for destroying monsters in battle, which is a fairly okay burn effect.
 * Ancient Gear Gadjiltron Dragon - Another Ancient Gear monster designed to mesh with Gadgets. AGGD stands at a massive 3000 ATK with an innate Ancient Gear Effect regardless of how it was Summoned. In addition to this, it has no qualms over Special Summoning, making AGGD a prime target for Geartown's Special Summons and a must for the Ancient Gear Deck. If you want, you still can Tribute Summon AGGD with the Gadgets, and it gains the following abilities (which stack) depending on what you Tributed:
 * Green Gadget - AGGD gains Trample, turning it into a better version of Ancient Gear Golem.
 * Red Gadget - AGGD burns 400 to your opponent for successfully inflicting battle damage to the opponent, which is better than AGGC's version.
 * Yellow Gadget - AGGD burns 600 to your opponent for destroying monsters in battle, which is more likely to happen than with AGGC due to its larger stats.
 * Ancient Gear Golem - The former key card of the Ancient Gears and cover card of TLM. Golem was meant to be the star of the archetype - with fearsome stats of 3000/3000, the Ancient Gear Effect and innate Trample, it can punch through defenses with its mighty fist without worry of taken out mid-battle. Even though AGGD took the spotlight due to Golem having that Special Summon restriction, it still is a main ingredient for the Ancient Gear's only fusion, along with other support that can and will Special Summon Golem, ignoring Summon restrictions.
 * Ancient Gear Knight - One of the better low-level Ancient Gear monsters. At 1800 ATK, he makes a good beatstick and doesn't get killed as easily as the other members of the family. However, he doesn't have the Ancient Gear Effect initially. If you want that unlocked, you'll have to Gemini Summon the monster. Still, his strong ATK will mean that Knight will be able to stick around long enough to be Tributed for the bigger Gears.
 * Ancient Gear Soldier - The basic Ancient Gear monster, standing at a simple 1300/1300 with the Ancient Gear Effect. However, his lackluster stats mean that he'll die very easily in battle. Better use Knight.
 * Ultimate Ancient Gear Golem - The one and only Fusion monster in the archetype. UAGG requires one Golem and two other Ancient Gear monsters to Fusion Summon, and the result is a fearsome 4400 ATK Trampler with the Ancient Gear Effect. Slap on Power Bond and Limiter Removal and it can do enough damage to win you the game instantly. If UAGG gets destroyed, you still get Golem back, which means that the opponent still has an Ancient Gear trampler to deal with. When making UAGG with Future Fusion, popular combinations include picking 1 AGG and 2 AGGDs to reduce chances of hitting dead draws while keeping the milled cards available for revival.

Spells and Traps
Now, let's look at the S/Ts of the archetype. Geartown is already elaborated on earlier so we won't cover that.
 * Ancient Gear Castle - A continuous Spell that grants 300 ATK to all Ancient Gears on the field. While this is good since AG Knight will reach a fearsome 2100 ATK, it also has other benefits. As monsters get Normal Summoned or Set, the Castle gains counters, and can be substituted for Tributes to summon the bigger Ancient Gear monsters depending on how many counters it has. Once it holds more than 2 counters, keeping track of how many is irrelevant, since Castle can be Tributed for any of the big Ancient Gear monsters at that point.
 * Ancient Gear Drill - While controlling an Ancient Gear monster, you discard one card from your hand to Set a Spell card from your Deck. However, you can't use it this turn, meaning that your opponent, who knows what card it is, will work quickly to take it out. It's best used to search out MST or any Quick-Play Spell since you can easily chain that, but other than that, it's not worth the investment.
 * Ancient Gear Explosive - Destroy an Ancient Gear monster you control and burn damage to your opponent equal to half its original ATK. This means that you can't boost the damage dealt with Limiter Removal or the like. Too bad this card isn't a Quick-Play Spell like Scrapstorm, otherwise it would be much more useful in dodging removal while slapping the opponent hard in the face.
 * Ancient Gear Factory - Reveal an Ancient Gear monster in hand, RFG Ancient Gears from your Graveyard equal to its Level, and you will be able to Normal Summon the revealed monster without Tributes. Better off using Geartown, since you won't have to give up as many resources to conduct your summons.
 * Ancient Gear Fist - An Ancient Gear equip that destroys the monster the equipped monster battles at the end of the Damage Step. Because of rulings, the equipped monster needs to survive the battle to use the effect, thus this is only useful for destroying monsters that can't be destroyed in battle.
 * Ancient Gear Tank - A fine Ancinet Gear equip that boosts the equipped monster's ATK by 600. This lets monsters like Ancient Gear Soldier and Engineer survive more battles. When the Tank gets destroyed, however, it still has a last laugh in burning 600 points of damage to the opponent. Decent equip, worth running a few of these.
 * Ancient Gear Workshop - Simple effect: Return an Ancient Gear from your Graveyard to your hand. A useful recovery Spell which can either help you summon UAGG or pick up AGGD back to facilitate Machina Fortress's summoning.
 * Spell Gear - It's a tricky Spell with difficult activation costs. You send 3 Ancient Gear cards you control to the Graveyard. Chances are, you probably don't have that many, or are unwilling to give up some of them. In return, you get to Special Summon one Golem from your hand and Deck each, ignoring their Summoning restrictions. However, you lose all other monsters you control, along with your Normal Summon/Set for the next turn. This card is highly situational, and would be better if the Golem summoning requirements were loosened a little. Try running one if you want, but no more than one.

Example Deck


Other Tips
You can also consider adding these cards to boost the strength of the Deck.
 * Cyber Dragon - Good beatstick, and easily Special Summoned as Tribute fodder. Be careful if you choose to leave it out on the field, since your opponent will be likely to use it for Chimeratech Fortress Dragon.
 * Battle Fader - Stops a potential OTK, and generates a monster for Tribute.
 * Cyber Phoenix - Adds an extra layer of protection in preventing the opponent from targeting your Ancient Gears with Spells and Traps outside the Battle Phase. Also, if it goes down in battle, it replaces itself with a card.
 * King of the Swamp - Discard this guy to search for Polymerization so you can Summon UAGG. Alternatively, he can substitute for the AGG needed for UAGG.
 * Machina Fortress - It has several great effects, and its summon condition can be easily satisfied by simply dumping an AGGD. Since Geartown can Special Summon from the Graveyard, you can always get Dragon back.
 * Minefieldriller - It's an EARTH Machine, so it meshes well with the general theme of the archetype. If it is removed from the field in any way, even when Tributed, you can recycle one of your Field Spells from your Graveyard. This will most likely be the case, since you would have voluntarily destroyed your own Geartown to use its Special Summon.
 * Scrap Dragon - If you do run Tuners, use this guy. He can destroy one of your own cards and one of the opponent's. Generally, you can use him to nuke your own Geartown to get a free Dragon.
 * Solidarity - Gives a decent ATK boost to all your Ancient Gears, allowing you to be able to use their weaker members without worry of them being squished in battle. Of course, you'll need to run pure Machines to get this to work.
 * Pot of Duality - Ancient Gears don't take too kindly to Special Summoning, so you are free to use this card to filter through dead draws without impeding your strategy.
 * Magical Hats - Not only does this help you hold the line, but if you pick your Geartowns to serve as tokens for this card's effect, regardless of what the opponent attacks, the Geartowns will be destroyed, allowing you to Special Summon two AGGDs at once! You can also use this in conjunction with Statue of the Wicked to generate Tokens for Tribute Summoning as well.
 * The Transmigration Prophecy - This can recycle any card back to the Deck. Generally, you'll want to recycle your Geartowns so you get more potential Special Summons.
 * Malevolent Catastrophe - Trigger this when you attack, and nuke the field of all S/Ts. Yes, this will include your Geartown.

As usual, be on the lookout for the following cards which can destroy you.
 * Cyber Dragon - Since you're running (almost) pure Machines, a stray Cyber Dragon will clean out your field and efforts as it consumes all Machines to form Chimeratech Fortress Dragon.
 * Mystical Space Typhoon - It can destroy your Geartown in the middle of a Chain. That's a problem, since doing so will cause Geartown to miss the timing and deny you your Special Summon.
 * Ally of Justice Catastor - A major pain to the Deck, since the archetype is mostly EARTH. This means Catastor can simply shoot down anything and everything you have to offer at no effort.