Gladiator Beasts (2008)

Gladiator Beasts were a strong archetype as soon as they released towards the end of 2007 but lost the main spotlight quickly when Phantom Darkness released in 2008 and Dark Armed Return decks became the strongest decks to play in the time along with all their variants. These darkness decks remained strong even after the May emergency banlist but they started to face serious competition when Light of Destruction came around. The set had a vast and excellent array of cards for lots of decks and introduced the powerful Lightsworn archetype to counter the darkness. For Gladiator Beasts this set was a big deal, as it introduced Gladiator Beast Gyzarus, a very strong fusion monster that enabled Gladiator Beasts to rise to the top again. The following deck list is one of my versions from that time.

Notes and strategy: Outside of their fusion monsters, Gladiator Beasts don’t have high level monsters that are easy to special summon as seen in all the strong darkness decks from that time. Their strength lies in their effects gained by battling, including easy destruction effects. To make sure these cards can battle and activate their effects we need trap cards to stop the big monsters we can’t beat in battle and ways to special summon multiple Gladiator Beasts to fusion summon Gyzarus; granting easy destruction of 2 cards along with even more bonuses after it tags out to other Gladiator Beasts. Book of Moon and Waboku cards help with battling bigger monsters while Darius, Double Tag Team and our staple revival cards make Gyzarus easy to bring out. Archfiend Shield is also a neat tech card that can be used to protect your Gladiator Beasts from destruction effects or even used as a lesser Waboku to gain an effect activation from your gladiator Beasts by battling and sacrificing the shield.

You ultimate monster Heraklinos can be devastating against some decks when summoned at the right time and many of your cards here make him a lot easier to summon than what it seems. Without traps to help you Gladiator Beasts can be left vulnerable to some decks so a play set of Solemn Judgment and 1 copy of Magic Drain can help you keep your spell and traps safe from Heavy Storm.

Some Gladiator Beasts will not be ideal if they’re in your hand and not in the deck and in these cases Test Tiger and Gladiator Beast’s Respite can help fix that. Gladiator Beasts are also considered a great deck to fight against other trap heavy decks since they can utilize Cold Wave and gain uninterrupted destruction through their monster effects and get rid of pesky traps through Bestiari.

March 2008 Format

That’s it for some of my notes about this deck, the great thing about Gladiator Beasts is how flexible they can be with the stun cards and techs they want to use along with all the options you can include in your side deck. Hope you guys enjoyed this post and thanks for reading!