Gren Maju? Blue-Eyes? If you picked either of those, well, great choices. But it also means you haven’t seen an Ancient Gear deck in action! Ancient Gear can bring out powerful monsters with ease – and has ways to protect them too. Beatdown decks are great fun, and Ancient Gear is no exception. So if that’s piqued your interest in some relevant card choices, then let’s get on with the list.
15. Ancient Gear Golem
If you watched any Yu-Gi-Oh! GX then you know all about this monster. The funny thing is, GX aired over 10 years ago, and this card is still amazing. Ancient Gear Golem is a LVL8 with 3000 ATK/3000 DEF and is certainly a powerful monster, as well as material for stronger monsters in the deck. It deals piercing damage against Defense Position monsters, and your opponent can’t activate Spells/Traps until the end of the Damage Step. Note that this monster can’t be Special Summoned, but don’t worry, there are ways around that…
14. Ancient Gear Golem – Ultimate Pound
If you’d prefer a more offensive Ancient Gear Golem, you can use this card instead – and still have a solid base for all your ‘Ancient Gear’ Boss monsters to build off. Ancient Gear Golem – Ultimate Pound is a LVL8 with 3000 ATK/3000 DEF. This monster also inflicts piercing damage, and if it destroys a monster in battle, you can discard a Machine Monster to attack again. You can do this twice too, which is an insane amount of damage. If this card is destroyed you can draw a ‘Polymerization’ for your Fusion plays, and you can also add an ‘Ancient Gear’ monster from the Graveyard to your hand. This monster trades in the protection that ‘Ancient Gear Golem’ has, in exchange for power. And sometimes that’s all you need.
13. Ancient Gear Box
This is a card you won’t want in your opening hand. But it can be a great way of getting more monsters on the field. Ancient Gear Box is a LVL4 with 500 ATK/2000 DEF, but has a rather unique effect: If it ends up in your hand without you drawing it, you can add an EARTH Machine-Type monster with 500ATK and or 500DEF to your hand. You can get creative with targets for this. But the Infinitrack monster further on this list is a great choice.
12. Gear Town
The Ancient Gear Field Spell doesn’t give boosts to ATK/DEF (let’s be honest, they don’t need it!) and it doesn’t give protection. But it makes summoning much easier. When Gear Town is on the field, Ancient Gear monsters take 1 less monster to Tribute Summon. So most monsters only take a single monster to Tribute. This is great on its own. But if this card is destroyed, you can summon any ‘Ancient Gear’ monster from your hand, deck, or graveyard. Remember, nothing is stopping you from destroying your own Field Spell too.
11. Ancient Gear Fusion
Archetype-specific Fusion cards usually do what Polymerization does, but better. And the Ancient Gear version is no exception. Ancient Gear Fusion lets you Fusion summon an Ancient Gear monster using monsters from your hand or field as material. But if you use an ‘Ancient Gear Golem’ or ‘Ancient Gear Golem – Ultimate Pound’ you can use monsters in your deck as material as well. Some of the Ancient Gear boss monsters are so strong that they can win a game outright, and this card makes summoning those beasts almost unfairly easy.
10. Ultimate Ancient Gear Golem
Ancient Gear Golem is a great monster. But its Fusion version is so much better! Ultimate Ancient Gear Golem requires ‘Ancient Gear Golem’ and 2 ‘Ancient Gear’ monsters to summon, and earns that ‘Ultimate’ in its name with a total of 4400 ATK/3400 DEF and piercing damage. And if this card attacks, your opponent can’t activate Spells/Traps until the end of the Damage Step – so feel free to attack as recklessly as you want. This monster hits harder than most monsters in the game. And if it’s destroyed, you can still bring an Ancient Gear Golem back from your Graveyard.
9. Ancient Gear Ballista
Ancient Gear decks have access to a great Link monster that acts as a searcher, and can also destroy your own Spells/Traps. Ancient Gear Ballista is a Link-2 with 1500 ATK – and when it’s Link Summoned, you can add any ‘Ancient Gear’ monster or ‘Gear Town’ from your Deck to your hand. Searchers are always good. But this card’s 2nd effect is even better: You can destroy a Spell/Trap you control and make an opponent’s monster’s ATK/DEF become 0 until the end of the turn, so you can trample them with ease. And remember: if you destroy your Gear Town, you can special summon any Ancient Gear monster!
8. Infinitrack Anchor Drill
This isn’t an Ancient Gear monster, but it works so perfectly with the deck and blows your Extra Deck options wide open! There are a few Infinitrack monsters that can find a home in an Ancient Gear deck. But this may be the best. Infinitrack Anchor Drill is a LVL4 with 1800 ATK/500 DEF and when it’s summoned you can special summon an EARTH machine monster (basically, any Ancient Gear) from your hand in defense position. This monster can also change other monster’s levels, and make it very easy to bring out some absurdly strong XYZ monsters.
7. Ancient Gear Hunting Hound
Who wants to wait to draw Polymerization for their Fusion monsters? Nobody. And this deck has a great monster that’ll do it for you instead. Ancient Gear Hunting Hound is an excellent LVL3 with 1000 ATK/1000 DEF. When it’s normal summoned, you can inflict a cheeky 600 damage to your opponents Life Points. Yet the best thing about this card is that once per turn, it lets you Fusion summon an Ancient Gear monster using materials from your hand or field. A reusable Fusion effect would be fantastic in any Fusion-heavy deck – and here is no exception.
6. Ancient Gear Reactor Dragon
If you can’t get around Ancient Gear Golems summoning restrictions, this is a great card that’s easier to bring out (and is just as powerful). Ancient Gear Reactor Dragon is a LVL9 with 3000 ATK/3000 DEF and if an ‘Ancient Gear’ was Tributed in its Summon, this card gains piercing damage too. Plus this card can attack twice if a ‘Gadget’ was used for the summon. So you have a few options for extra effects, and you’ll definitely want to be attacking too – since your opponent can’t activate effects until the end of the Damage Step, and you can destroy a Spell/Trap if you do destroy any monsters.
5. Ancient Gear Fortress
Boss monsters in an Ancient Gear deck can be tough to bring out. So getting them destroyed early can really hurt. Ancient Gear Fortress is a Continuous Spell and gives all your Ancient Gear monsters protection from card effects on the turn they’re summoned. On top of that, your opponent can’t stop your Ancient Gear effects, or activate anything in response to them. This lets you clear the field in peace. As if that wasn’t enough, when this card is destroyed, you can special summon an Ancient Gear monster from your hand or Graveyard. Ancient Gear Fortress is incredible. Especially because in most decks, effects like this usually have some sort of cost!
4. Ancient Gear Catapult
This spell card gives amazing support to the deck. And if you were curious about how to bypass Ancient Gear Golems restrictions, this is how you do it. If you control no monsters, Ancient Gear Catapult lets you destroy a face-up card you control to special summon an ‘Ancient Gear’ monster (ignoring any summoning conditions). This is such a good effect considering the amount of dangerous ‘Ancient Gear’ monsters to pick from. You can also banish this card from the Graveyard to Special Summon a LVL1 Machine EARTH Token, which can give you extra material for Summoning when you need it most.
3. Ancient Gear Wyvern
Amongst all the powerhouses on this list, this monster almost looks out of place. But it’s a very important card, and the deck is nigh unplayable without it. Ancient Gear Wyvern is a LVL4 with 1700 ATK/1200 DEF and is the main search card for the deck. When this card is summoned, you can add any Ancient Gear card from the deck to your hand. Whether you need to get to your boss monsters or protect your field, this card can give it to you – which is why you’ll almost certainly want 3 in your deck.
2. Ancient Gear Howitzer
This excellent Fusion monster gives you yet another way to bypass summoning restrictions – and it deals a good chunk of burn damage too. Ancient Gear Howitzer is easy to summon, and is a LVL8 with 1000 ATK/1800 DEF. This monster inflicts 1000 burn damage during the main phase, too. And this burn effect can be done once per turn. Now I know those stats are awful for a LVL8. But you want this card to be destroyed. When it is, you can special summon an ‘Ancient Gear’ monster from the deck, ignoring any conditions. With this on the field, your opponent has to choose between taking 1000 damage each turn, or a monster with 3000 ATK. You can’t go wrong with that.
1. Chaos Ancient Gear Giant
This is an incredible Boss monster. And if you manage to get to the Battle Phase with it, the duel is usually over. Chaos Ancient Gear Giant requires 4 ‘Ancient Gear’ monsters (Ancient Gear Fusion!) and has 4500 ATK/3000 DEF. This monster comes with protection against Spells/Traps too, and your opponent’s monsters can’t use their effects in the battle phase. All of this would comfortably earn this monster a place on the list – but it can also attack all of your opponent’s monsters once each. And it deals piercing damage to any defense position monsters as well. Chaos Ancient Gear Giant is disgustingly strong. And it isn’t too hard to bring out with this deck’s support. You’ll have a real shot at winning when this card hits the field, so make it your top priority!
