Chapter 238. A History of Dragon Fist: Gandora-X FTK and the Arrival of Guardragons!

Across the major Duel Worlds, Duelists were all discussing the power level of "Ultimate Offering."

The chat groups started buzzing.

Watching the short video from beginning to end, they all felt that "Ultimate Offering" was a card whose power exceeded the limit.

FTKs and loops, plus all kinds of bizarre main-deck tech choices—its strength showed up everywhere.

But at the very end of the clip, a final thought forced them to re-examine "Ultimate Offering."

Yugi Muto: "It's really because Trap Cards act a turn late, right? If it were a Continuous Spell…"

Jaden Yuki: "Mr. Muto, if it were a Continuous Spell, then it'd be a flat-out fake card."

Yusei Fudo: "Or you could say there are too many substitutes. 'Double Summon' also gives you an additional Normal Summon, and it's a Spell."

Playmaker: "Right. If you really just crave another Normal Summon, even though 'Double Summon' is only once, I'd say it's more than enough."

Yuma Tsukumo: "From that angle, 'Ultimate Offering' actually fell behind because the game evolved too fast! It can't keep up with the environment anymore?"

As the protagonists of each world dug deeper, they started to realize it too.

Was "Ultimate Offering" really growing weaker because the game sped up and Trap speed is too slow?

Looked at this way, isn't there a chance it could be released someday?

For a moment, other Duelists like Weevil Underwood and Bastion Misawa shot strange looks at the big screen.

If that's the case, maybe their worlds are actually suitable habitats for "Ultimate Offering"?

In the Prime World, Sei Yuki was constantly monitoring how the main characters' views were changing.

It had to be said.

They were main-character material after all.

After watching so many episodes, their Duel thinking had already shifted.

They were now capable of proposing ideas like "Trap speed is too slow."

Of course, that was only one reason.

In reality, the more important point was that there were too many replacement cards.

In modern Yu-Gi-Oh!, running a going-second card that's dead when drawn can effectively mean "one less card."

That's really less reassuring than a single hand trap.

If it were a Spell, then yes, just as Jaden and the others said, its power would likely blow past the limit.

After thinking it through, Sei Yuki quickly started the next short video.

At the same time, the title appeared across all Duel Worlds.

"A History of Dragon Fist! A Complete Look Back at Dragon Fist's Former Glory!"

Once they saw the title, the "Ultimate Offering" discussion gradually shifted to "Dragon Fist."

Diehard Dragon-deck fans rejoiced.

Non-Dragon fans grew curious.

Dragon Fist?

What in the world is that archetype supposed to be?

Wait a second!

Didn't a previous video cover this?

While each world's Duelists were nursing their own thoughts, the new video started playing.

Hardcore Dragon Old-Timer: "Hello! Good evening, Duelists!"

Hardcore Dragon Old-Timer: "Today's video star might feel a bit different from the previous top-tier decks!"

Hardcore Dragon Old-Timer: "Unlike Tearlaments, Zoodiac, or Dragon Rulers,

they don't have a single archetype name with a set bread-and-butter line.

It's more like a deck's development history that borrows the powers of many Dragons,

to keep widening its options and punch out its own advantages and combos!

He is—the Dragon Fist deck system!

"First, some off-topic basics—what does 'Dragon Fist' even mean?

In plain terms, I think it mainly has the following nicknames.

First nickname: a fixed combo.

For example, Guardragon Fist—its lines are formulaic, like performing a standard military boxing routine.

Second nickname: rock-paper-scissors.

A deck that grabs the die roll, takes first turn, makes a board, and leaves the opponent unable to play Yu-Gi-Oh.

Third nickname: widely spread.

As in, one person tells ten, ten tell a hundred—the Zoodiac Rat combo spread everywhere and people called it 'Rat Fist.'

Or it's just the playerbase's habit—or some other reason—and it spreads before you know it.

In short, the reasons behind 'Fist' are complex and intertwined.

But whatever the reason, it all extends to the same root.

"Ahem, enough digression!

Let's get to the main topic!

The historical development of the Dragon Fist deck!

In theory, Dragon Fist was born because several 'Guardragon' Link Monsters appeared!

But the origin and lineage of Dragon Fist had already formed before that.

And here we have to mention Gandora-X.

I trust everyone already knows the basic Gandora monsters.

The key is—what exactly is this origin card 'Gandora-X'?

In April 2016, Gandora received a brand-new power-up!

The card name is Gandora-X the Dragon of Demolition!

Its effect is: when it's Normal or Special Summoned from the hand, it destroys all other monsters on the field, then inflicts damage to your opponent equal to the highest original ATK among those destroyed monsters, and this card's ATK becomes that value.

Its drawback is a mandatory trigger in your End Phase: your LP becomes half.

At the time, this card's strength was absolutely respectable!

Its burn scales off the highest original ATK among the monsters it destroyed, and its board-clearing is solid!

So a lot of players thought of one thing!

FTK.

That's right—if there's an 8000-ATK monster on the field,

can't I just drop Gandora-X, blow everything up, and win on the spot?

Okay, the nightmare starts here."

…What?

Another FTK?!

Across all worlds, Duelists listened to the Gandora-X origin and went slack-jawed, staring at this Gandora-X.

Just this one card already made their heads spin—some couldn't even process it.

8000 LP?

To satisfy the burn condition, you need a monster with 8000 ATK on the field?

How are you supposed to do that?

And besides!

How are you even Summoning Gandora-X?

These are all problems, right?

Soon, the Duelists who were shocked by "FTK" were all wearing inquisitive looks.

Experience had changed them—when presented with a deck or a strategy, they now reflexively started thinking.

Condition one: assemble a monster with 8000 ATK.

Condition two: how do you search Gandora-X?

Condition three: how do you Special Summon Gandora-X?

Condition four: can you really string all of that together?

When Yugi Muto, Yuma Tsukumo, Joey Wheeler, and the others raised these questions, the group fell into silence.

Wait, so how do you make this into an FTK?

The answer arrived quickly.

Hardcore Dragon Old-Timer: "Since players had already connected the dots to a Gandora-X FTK,

the next step was building the deck around it.

First up: searching and Special Summoning Gandora-X.

You could use Eclipse Wyvern to set it up,

and Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon to Special Summon it,

but how do you banish Eclipse Wyvern in the first place?

Since Dragon Rulers were already gone, banish-to-search was too hard.

Thankfully, in the 2017 environment, Fairy Tail - Snow appeared!

With that card, the 'banish to retrieve' problem was solved.

So what engines do we choose beyond that?

No question—you had to mill.

And so,

a That Grass Looks Greener Lightsworn Zoodiac Gandora FTK was born!

The idea is simple.

Use Grass and Lightsworn to dump a ton of resources to the Graveyard,

pairing with Zoodiac and Snow, especially Snow!

That card was just too important!

With a 'no once per turn' Special Summon that banishes seven each time,

if you Special Summon it twice, that's fourteen banished!

And the way to reach 8000 ATK

is to use another Gandora.

That card is Gigarays Gandora the Dragon of Destruction.

Even if we ignore the rest, it has one effect:

this card gains 300 ATK for each banished card.

In other words, if there are 27 cards banished,

this Gandora shoots up to 8100 ATK!

Then pair it with Gandora-X and you can FTK in one breath!

The key is that Gigarays Gandora is easy to put on the field!

You can Special Summon it by sending 2 monsters from your hand and/or field to the Graveyard, except itself.

And it also has its own banish effect!

And thus,

the Gandora-X FTK line was completed!

"Not only that,

a later Link-3, Crusadia Equimax,

has an effect that lets it gain ATK equal to the combined original ATK of the monsters it points to.

Since we can pump ATK sky-high, it naturally became a card you'd slot to support Gandora-X.

As for more ways to banish Eclipse Wyvern, there were plenty later,

such as Chaos Emperor Dragon - Envoy of the End, Black Dragon Collapserpent, and Chaos Emperor, the Dragon of Armageddon, etc.

In short, the Gandora-X FTK deck

was a fun and fairly popular origin-era Dragon Fist build."

They were stunned.

Utterly stunned.

Yugi, Joey, and the others had just asked those questions—

and the video immediately answered every single one of them.

Once again, the Duel Worlds fell into a dead hush.

So this is the gap.

While they were still figuring out how to solve those problems, the geniuses of the Higher World had already cooked up all kinds of wild combos.

What shocked them even more was this:

one single deck—

seriously—

could it really involve this many tech cards, engines, and packages?

Zoodiac?

That Grass Looks Greener?

Lightsworn?

Gandora?

Links? And a countless pile of other single-card synergies!

"This is—this is a total hodgepodge! One big stew!"

"My scalp's tingling. Is this even a deck anymore?"

"Chaotic, way too chaotic! I'm lost! I can't believe a deck like this can actually FTK!"

"Maybe it's because this was the first version. After later refinement, it should get clearer."

The chat exploded, shattering the silence.

What they were debating and pondering was this:

can a "boil-everything" deck like that really be playable?

Hardcore Dragon Old-Timer: "And for Gandora back then,

there was one more core card we can't skip!

Now Forbidden, the invincible Xyz—Number 95: Galaxy-Eyes Dark Matter Dragon!

This card signaled the glory days of Dragon decks!

Its effect: when Xyz Summoned, you can send 3 Dragon monsters from your Deck to the Graveyard (only 1 of each name). Then your opponent—well, the rest you know.

Look! Check it out!

What an absurdly accurate mill!

No 'once per turn'! And the mill is a cost!

All I can say is—it's unbeatable! Truly unbeatable!

With this card, Gandora FTK was like giving a tiger wings!

And later, there were even more ways to bring out Gandora-X,

like Firewall Dragon, Crusadia Equimax, Galaxy-Eyes Cipher Dragon, and so on!

But even so,

there was still one issue with Gandora-X's builds.

How do you bring out Dark Matter 95?

No matter what deck or strategy you're on,

figuring out the extension line to make Rank 9 'Dark Matter' was still a hurdle.

Simply put—the hands bricked.

Rank 8/9 setups were just too hard to assemble.

"While everyone was racking their brains on how to make Rank 8/9 lines smoother,

Konami kindly printed a bunch of cards to solve your Rank 8/9 problem.

Having trouble summoning Dark Matter from the Extra Deck? No problem—here, have a card that just pulls monsters straight from the Extra!

And so—

Guardragons descended and changed Gandora forever.

In October 2018, a new core set released.

The Guardragon engine appeared!

Three cards—Guardragon Elpy, Guardragon Pisty, and Guardragon Agarpain!

They immediately got the playerbase fired up!

Setting everything else aside, let's just read these three little Links' key effects.

First, Elpy and Pisty are both Link-1!

They only need one Dragon.

That's right—you heard me. With just one Dragon, you can Special Summon them.

Elpy: during your Main Phase, Special Summon 1 Dragon from your hand or Deck to a zone that 2 or more Link Monsters point to.

Pisty: during your Main Phase, Special Summon one of your Dragons from your GY or that is banished, to a zone that 2 or more Link Monsters point to.

Agarpain is Link-2!

And it Special Summons a Dragon from the Extra Deck to a zone that 2 or more Link Monsters point to.

One gets them from the Deck, one from the GY/banished, and one—get this—

from the Extra Deck!!!

Do you know what that means?"

It means your defenses are blown.

Right now, in every Duel World, Duelists were frowning hard.

They stared at these three Guardragon Links—

and at Number 95—with eyes that shifted from curiosity to confusion, to shock, and finally to fear and helplessness.

Especially when they heard those three effects, they felt their worldview on Dragon cards shatter.

These Guardragons—

their effects don't just summon your own monsters—

they reach into the entire Dragon family?!

Seto Kaiba, Kite Tenjo, and Yusei Fudo all shuddered and rubbed their eyes, afraid they'd misread something.

These three cards were absolutely the Dragon deck's thigh.

No—

they were the Dragon deck's heart.

With these three cards, once you find the right Dragon combos—

you take off.

Straight to the moon.

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