Zach Buckley
7/27/2012 10:40:00 AM
 Comments

Dueling can be hard. You'll often find yourself between a rock and hard place in desperate need of a clean slate to finish out the game. You know that sticks and stones won't break your bones, but you swear another topdecked Tour Guide from your opponent is going to kill you. Your opponent begins to realize the gravity of your situation and the results are completely earth-shattering. What will you do? Well, when your wits and your puns aren't enough to see you through, there's always Koa'ki Meiru!

Booyah! That's right - Rock Stun, folks!

The Koa'ki Meiru archetype is one of the most expansive themes in the game, consisting of a ton of monsters that all have various effects and abilities. The particular little group I'm going to talk about today could almost be considered a sub-archetype. Composed of Koa'ki Meiru Wall, Koa'ki Meiru Sandman, and Koa'ki Meiru Guardian, with the addition of Koa'ki Meiru Boulder as a searcher; this variation of Rock Stun can put your opponent under extreme duress. Let's take a quick look at the deck, and then I'll explain the magnitude of the trouble your opponent could potentially be in:

Rock Stun Zach Buckley
Main Deck	Side Deck
3 Fossil Dyna Pachycephalo 1 Gorz the Emissary of Darkness 2 Koa'ki Meiru Boulder 3 Koa'ki Meiru Guardian 2 Koa'ki Meiru Sandman 3 Koa'ki Meiru Wall 1 Morphing Jar 1 Neo-Spacian Grand Mole 2 Spirit Reaper Monsters [18] 1 Book of Moon 1 Dark Hole 1 Heavy Storm 2 Kaiser Colosseum 1 Monster Reborn 2 Mystical Space Typhoon 2 Pot of Duality 2 Smashing Ground 1 Trial and Tribulation Spells [13] 2 Bottomless Trap Hole 1 Compulsory Evacuation Device 1 Dimensional Prison 1 Solemn Judgment 2 Solemn Warning 2 Torrential Tribute Traps [9] Deck Total [40]	EXTRA DECK
Notes:

Every Deck Needs a Foundation Upon Which to Stand

Effect negation is a powerful tool to have at your disposal. Look at Dino Rabbit, for example. The whole reason the Evolzars are feared and loathed is because of their negation ability. When you have the ability to stop your opponent dead in their tracks you have free reign to do whatever you want. This deck is designed to do just that: Koa'ki Meiru Wall, Sandman, and Guardian are the foundation upon which you'll do so.

Wall, Sandman, and Guardian can tribute themselves to negate a spell, trap, or monster effect, respectively, and destroy it. That's huge. You effectively have walking Dark Bribes and Divine Wraths, all of which generally work as 1-for-1's in terms of card presence (instead of -1's like Bribe and Wrath). But don't get caught up in the number crunching: one of these guys coupled with one or two backrow cards can completely shut your opponent down, forcing them to waste their resources just so that they can get the thing off of the field. That's your real focus.

Often when I'm dueling, I look at the game as a battle of resources - which very well could have come from spending such a long time playing exclusively with Herald of Perfection. This deck reminds me of the Herald in many regards, the most obvious of which being the effect negation. For those of you who don't know, Herald of Perfection is the ultimate card when it comes negating opposing effects; just discard a Fairy-Type monster from your hand and you can negate the activation of a spell, trap, or monsters effect and destroy it. More than that though, the biggest similarity between these three Koa'ki Meiru monsters and the king of ritual monsters, is the fact that you have to be able to play the slow grind. You need to pay acute attention to which cards your opponent has and hasn't played already, as well as their overall card presence. Have they already tossed away their Dark Hole? Their Heavy Storm? Torrential Tribute? All of these are important questions to ask, because it can make a huge difference to your play decisions. You have to read your opponent's moves: are you going to negate a Mystical Space Typhoon with Koa'ki Meuri Wall, only to get hit with Heavy Storm when you still have two or three backrow cards to lose?

As an added bonus on top of their negation abilities, each of these Koa'ki Meiru sport the magical 1900 ATK that's come to be a defining criteria for many a monster this format - which means all three of them can hold their own against most monsters that can be Normal Summoned. Their only "downfall"? These monsters are destroyed at the End Phase if you don't reveal a Rock-Type monster in your hand. I put downfall in quotations because I don't actually consider that a setback at all - at least when it comes to this set of KMs. By forcing you to reveal a Rock-Type monster at the End Phase, it also guarantees that you'll HAVE a Rock-Type monster in your hand during your next turn! In essence, each of them have a built-in "Hey, stupid! Don't overextend yourself!" effect. Luckily, you have a wonderful supporting cast of rock stars that will help keep your game in business - the best of which is Fossil Dyna Pachycephalo.

The first time I saw this gem of a card was last year's reprint in the 2011 Collector Tins. How could anyone overlook a card like this? For those of you who did, when Fossil Dyna's face up on the field no monsters can be special summoned. Its second effect is even more desirable: when Pachycephalo is flipped face-up, it destroys all special summoned monsters on the field. It's a walking freaking land slide! Seriously. The fact that Pachycephalo's a Rock-Type is just perfect, really. It works to keep your negators from being overpowered, and it evens the playing field if your opponent's field gets out of control with multiple monsters. In this build we're running triple Fossil Dyna: combine that with Dark Hole and double Torrential Tribute, and you can see we're effectively running SIX field wipes. Let that sink in for a moment. Six. Six.

Rounding out our list of KM-compatible monsters are the only two Rock-Types with Limited Status, and our searcher for the deck. When destroyed by battle and sent to the graveyard, Koa'ki Meiru Boulder allows you to add any level 4 or lower Koa'ki Meiur monster from your deck to your hand; instantly giving you access to your stony trinity. As for the two Limited monsters? Those would be Neo-Spacian Grand Mole and Morphing Jar. There isn't much that needs to be said about those two.

Two Spirit Reapers and Gorz the Emissary of Darkness wrap up our monster count for today. Spirit Reaper is a great stall card and sometimes that's exactly what this deck needs. Gorz is your last line of defense if you're opponent has managed to absolutely wipe away your field. That doesn't happen often, but you should still be prepared either way.

Never Take Your Spells and Traps for Granite (Sigh...)

For the most part, your spell and trap lineup is pretty predictable. You've got your Dark Hole, Monster Reborn, Heavy Storm, Book of Moon, and Mystical Space Typhoons in the spell department. We're also running double Pot of Duality because this deck rarely Special Summons. Really, it only Special Summons if it absolutely has to. What it does do, though, is tribute a lot - and that's why I decided to tech in a copy of Trial and Tribulation. This Galactic Overlord Secret Rare allows you to plus off of monsters tributed the turn you activate it. If you tribute just one monster, you can draw one card; two and you can add two monster cards from your graveyard to your hand; and then if you tribute three monsters that turn, you can destroy up to three cards on the field. It's something that works well as a single piece of tech, but anything more can be clunky. One copy is the perfect number.

The spell that easily puts in the most work, though, is Kaiser Coliseum. The Coliseum is amazing right now, and it'll probably continue to be impressive for the foreseeable future. Kaiser Coliseum stops your opponent from having more monsters on the field than you if you control at least one monster yourself. It totally shuts down Dino Rabbit, Chaos Dragons, and Wind-Ups by limiting them to just one monster at a time. It'll even stop Inzektor Dragonfly if you have the backrow needed to counter the inevitable Inzektor Hornet. One of my favorite set-ups with this deck is to have Kaiser Coliseum backed by Koa'ki Meiru Wall and Fossil Dyna Pachycephaol. It puts your opponent in a tight spot that isn't easy to get out of - at least not without wasting a ton of cards.

-Zach Buckley