Notes & Combos

Orcust may be the best deck in this event alongside Invoked engine since every Kaiju is banned (why can't it be like that all the time, I don't know), but it sure was absolute unadulterated pain to play through, especially with all the bricking, Maxx C and Ash.

This list is unoptimised, just like my life, but here we go: it's actually a copypaste of MichaelR's list at the time of the first TC. Since I'm no freebooter, this time I'll go with an in-depth explanation, because I'm as depressed as Longirsu and have clearly have too much time in my hands, that I could have spent touching grass. Instead I touch virtual metal while going on verbose retail over...this thing.

While others may have a differing opinion on the subject (which I'm obviously going to ignore for the sake of venting and humour of dubious quality), Orcust is fundamentally the CTRL+C CTRL+V of Yu-Gi-Oh, a devastating montage chain: repeating the same lines over and over again, with not exactly subtle variation, but somehow the kid finding about Skeleton, Babel and Bomber will talk about it like it's the pinnacle of skill and TOSS was the best format ever. The only reason it looks even remotely skilled is because the deck makes positively NO sense upon reading it and requires watching another, or testing while also being used to meta decks. Which just isn't going to happen post-TOSS meta unless Bardiche and Isolde are involved. TOO BAD THEY'RE BANNED IN THIS EVENT.

Orcust is also absolutely trash when it comes to its pure version due to being good only when kick-started by everything else before the third Girsu arrived. AND. REFUSING. TO. WORK. OTHERWISE.

For this reason, since my job here will be to make this disaster a bit clearer to the layman, instead of going for the usual list I'll divide this deck in sections.

Why Aren't You Banned In Events Like This?

These 3 cards are once again legal in a low-power event, despite having the highest probability of stopping your entire gameplay on turn 1. Some people may try to go for the classic "it allows your opponent to play", but considering how they have banned basically everything that gives consistency outside of Orcust and decks that shouldn't even be legal in lore events like this (Invoked and Gold Pride), it's more "I'll win because I drew these broken cards". And if they are a problem in the standard format, imagine here ("But Ash Blossom is actually balanced" - Yes, yes, I get it).

• Maxx C: gives your opponent a chance to get a hand they shouldn't have each time you SS after resolving and a heart attack when activated while lacking Called
• Ash: blocks Maxx C, your deck, and the will of living of everyone, given that her getting Called also disables you from blocking Maxx C. It's astounding that she and it are legal. Astounding.
• Called: you should know, it negates stuff on chain (but not lingering effects that have already resolved), kills the GY, kills the above two, and keeps them disabled for both players for TWO turns. You see now why Salamangreat hates them? Because they can't reuse Ash. And they're legal here. With the best deck being GY-centric.

The Four Cretins

Like I said, Orcust is incredibly inefficient on its own and needs others to do the stuff that it should have done in the first place. Most notably because they have no effects while on the field, you need at least one on the field to summon Galatea, they only work from the GY, they brick like ****, lock to DARK (albeit only post-actively, meaning you can spam different Attributes before locking yourself) and there are too few of them (4) while being hard once per turn. Which means that you have to mill a name you didn't use on that turn yet, but some cards happen to have very clear optimal targets due to how clunky they are.

• Harp: Harp holds the whole Deck by spit only, exclusively because it summons from Deck. And summoning from Deck is broken, as proven too many times over the course of Yu-Gi-Oh history. Unfortunately, it's good only when it's on the GY and while you could Normal Summon it, you'd still need another Orcust mill just to summon Galatea. And its effect is a HOPT. If anything it has an okay 1700 for 2-TK attempts (which, realistically is never going to happen), or, more probably, to make sure you won't have to make a greater board the turn after just to finish your opponent (this deck caps at a natural 3K without OK). What you're going to summon to it follows the current priority (it's excluded by its own effect): Girsu > OK > Skeleton, with each step being skipped if it's not in the Deck or has already been used. Previously, OK was the only good target, but Girsu exists so that makes things less embarassing.
• Orcust Knightmare: OK, on top of sharing the same problem Harp has, it's also a level 7, thus causing even more bricking problems than usual, as well as a 100/2000 statline that's only good to dodge Lightning Storm or Return fodder. Unfortunately, their effect also happens to mill other cards and they're Orcust, which means that they're going to be Harp's main Summon target. And an ATK boost that only exists to compensate for the lack thereof in Orcust. Potentially, OK can be the best card in the deck, offering backup to Harp, providing Skeleton in useful time, and giving you Damage Step privileges with Babel up. In practice, they're going to mill Wand because Wand is an even greater cretin than the other 3 put together, without which the combo simply goes on.
• Wand: World Legacy - World Wand is without a doubt the most idiotic card of the quartet, starting off with the faint premise of being the only card able to REVIVE Orcust instead of shuffling them back to the Deck. There is only one problem you can see in front of you: it's not an Orcust. Which means half of the effects of Orcust don't work on it unless they work on its stats, notably being a DARK Machine. While technically being level 8 and thus you could use 2 to summon Dingirsu, said method is completely made useless by the standard "non-traditional" way, and Wand is an even worse OK in terms of effects, stats and bricks, forcing you to send it to the GY at every cost in order not to blast your own winning conditions right from turn 1, even making you hope you draw Return or summon a Knightmare Link (read below). Perhaps the most tragic aspect is that it can often lead to lacking enough banished targets, as Dingirsu and Galatea require 1 each, and Wand has to summon a third to activate. Because, yes, it lacks a GY revival, just like Skeleton lacks a banish revival. See if this deck forgives your mistakes now.
• Skeleton: Skeleton is that friend nobody likes (except for being a skeleton, but that's just meme luck), for good reason. Not only it has worse stats than Harp, but it's also a HOPT revive with no mill effect and the same Orcust problem, and will then need to get recycled by either Wand or the Links. Even better, Skeleton doesn't work the way you'd think a GY reviver would work in other decks: in other decks, Skeleton would be an extender, but in this deck it either compensates for bricks or handtrap stops, by sheer free-styling, or the one trick it does under the Dingirsu part of the "3 Idiots" section. That's not all: this piece of heap isn't allowed to stay in the Deck, EVER, no matter how many times it will be forced to be shuffled back or summoned by either Harp or Wand, but neither in the hand, where it's even more useless. Only good thing, supposedly, is that, like Harp, you can Normal Summon it...but that then requires you to get another monster for Galatea

The Girsu

In a way that would later be repeated with Kashtira, when it comes to buffing lore decks by understanding nothing about both card design and power levels (presumably because they don't test enough or don't call people who play the game competently), years later the first batch, which had proved itself to be a janky but actual tier 1 pile of cards, Konami, realising the golden days were long over, and finally coming to the realization that the deck was positively dependant on pretty much everything but the Deck itself (they would make the same mistake with Vanquish Soul, something I'm not forgiving them for), decided to finally give the deck an actual Orcust starter that sends to the GY Orcust stuff and can be summoned by Harp...except they forgot to add the DARK lock and the result...was expectedly broken

• Girsu: Being a Mekk-Knight and Orcust level 4, that actually has an effect both while on the field (that summons) and when summoned (that mills) (but none from the GY, as a tradeoff, which might make you think he sucks), means this card is going to be extraordinarily degenerate and actually reliable unlike the 4 Cretins. How does it translate to the actual gameplay? Well, I could always give you the following sentence: "Mill Harp that summons the OK that mills the Wand that revives what's banished" (still a midrange deck btw). Sounds familiar? Girsu is the ancestor of Tearlaments Reinoheart (in fact Scheiren has been used in Orcust since her release). But wait, there's more: should it be the only monster on your field, it can also summon a Token on both field (and you can remove theirs very easily), although, sadly, several Links require Effect Monsters, and the Token is a normal. But outside of that. Back when the first Kaiju-infested TC was around, Girsu was at 1, now it's not. You run 3 of these. I'm just poor.

"I Can Fix Them"

From here the questions are two: but if the deck is so bad if played, how come it was tier 1? What happens if you don't draw Girsu? Oh it's very simple: you slap 2, 3, even 4 engines in to do the work for you. Harp has a good effect but not practical way to make it work? Just kick its instrumental **** from the Deck to the GY, or plain yeet it from the hand. While there are many ways in the normal format, TC2 vastly restricts the number of options into the "DARK Senders" and the Scrap Slaves. Let's start with the former (Illustrate the differences between Armageddon and Grepher. And include the Danger engine)

• Armageddon: Being a Warrior, searchable by ROTA, and DARK, the attribute that matters when it comes to summoning with Orcust, from a time where hard once per turns didn't exist, it was a matter of time until he was found to be broken and promptly brought to 1 by the banlist. Unlike Aleister, Arma doesn't need to be Normal Summoned to work, but he may as well be given Isolde isn't legal. And because it's Orcust we're talking about, that alone is sufficient to make this deck less useless than it would be. Also, because he activates on summon, he can be protected by Droplet on chain to dodge Imperm. Unfortunately, he's at 1 and since this isn't Floo and there is only 1 NS, that causes problems both when he's not in the starting hand and when he is, as he's not an Orcust and he alone can't contribute to Galatea, making other summons favourable to him. You can tell "balance" is nothing more than a flaw when the one of the archetype drags better cards down like this.
• Grepher: Being a Level 4 DARK Warrior with better stats than Arma, and an effect that has the potential of sending 2 Orcust to the GY, Grepher looks just better in every aspect and you'd wonder why he's at 3 while Arma is at 1. Ah yes, it's not on summon. Fu-. DEAR GOD IS HE SLOW: by the time he gets summoned, and is able to activate his effect, either your opponent is on AUTO chain (which Konami doesn't fix because they're just incompetent), either they can't or forgot to, or already did and you wasted a Normal. Only good part is that his Special Summon doesn't start a chain and the discard is a cost, meaning it will activate anyway even if the summon goes to the Netherworld , but it only works with high levels, of which you only have Nessie, Wand and OK, with the former potentially being a better discarder (+ draw, again potentially). And being the summon and the effect separated and not at the same time, you can't use Droplet as soon before your opponent uses Imperm at the first chance they got, unless they stupid and fumbled it. But this is just the sort of jank the lack of the Phantom Knight and Tearlaments engines causes to Orcust forces you to play.

About Dangers: Outside of the obvious "lacking proper engines", Dangers respond to both the exigency of powering through handtraps, and not relying on a single contested Normal Summon to work. Much like the Arma and Grepher, they're not Orcust, meaning they can't bring out Galatea, but not being OPT on the discard thing (meaning every Ash is wasted on them), they can actually put Orcusts where they should stay, give you free draws...and because it's almost random (with the only exception being Snek), burn your handtraps and/or staples in the process, forcing you to set them (can't work witj handtraps unless you already have an Orcust on) or to accept the risk. Ah, and the effect if discarded is a HOPT, which is going to bite you back.

• Nessie: Given her effect doesn't really summon when discarded, but instead gets searched for, it can be difficult to handle, depending on the hand size at the moment of the activation, herself included. Still, if you have a very short hand, even better when she's the only card Nessie can or will end up discarding herself, fetching Snek and then activating Snek to discard and summon itself. Still a level 7, but Grepher can solve that, in part... Also has 2600 DEF (higher than Thunderbird), but a mediocre ATK, albeit less jank than Skeleton and OK if summoned by Jack, but 100 lower than Harp (1600). Just be glad it has good DEF, ok?
• Jackalope: I'm honestly conflicted about Jack. On the one hand, it's a Danger, it summons from Deck, fixes stuff, draws stuff, and works in combination. On the other hand, it never works as intended because the Deck summon only works if Jack is the one discarded, and what you summon is always in Defense (making Thunderbird/Bigfoot very frail to attacks), on top of the random thing that makes handtraps getting discarded a good probability. Still better than most Orcust cards tho, but not an Orcust card itself.
• Tsuchinoko: Tsuchinoko, from now on called Snek, is the best card in all of Yu-Gi-Oh, a subject that is not up to debate. The only Danger with immediate utility as opposed to both Nessie and
• Thunderbird: Truth be told, Thunderbird is just a budget version of Bigfoot, destroying a Set card instead of a face-up one like the latter, because Bigfoot is a UR and I'm poor. It's a different name, it shares the "random" effect of other Dangers and is a 2800/2400 beatstick when summoned by Jack

The Scrap Slaves

Orcust teaches us all that NSs are effing miserable, especially with this junk of an archetype with no active effect until Girsu, so, given the fact they would also be taking that one NS and that it's just better to find better ones that mill from the Deck. While originally limited to Recycler, the broken support extended the archetype line to the whole engine and led to the birth of the Scrap Slaves: a whole engine, that would have higher value in decks like Dino, deformed to do what Orcust can't do, by focusing fully on the mill that Orcust itself refuses to be able to outside of Girsu. After all, why fix the issue of the deck when you can delegate the work to better Normal Summoners? Too bad they're all EARTH, meaning they get locked by Orcust. Even the engines Orcust uses are scuffed.

• Recycler: Recycler was used long before Girsu arrived and it's not hard to see why: unlike several cards I could name, he can actually mill any Machine, instead of just DARK monsters or Orcust, which gives a huge flexibility boost, on top of being on summon, unlike Grepher, who had to be special. With the addition of Raptor and Wyvern, and the presence of Dangers, the player can also find solace should they get Imperm'd, as they can follow up by summoning Wyvern, but Recycler came from previous times, when the archetype didn't even exist (it arrived only 2 months later and the vanilla Synchro was a promotional card), and milling is all it does. Mostly because the actual recycling effect is never coming up. Yet, that alone is able to save Orcust and compensate for the limitation of other cards. Mostly because of Harp.
• Raptor: Raptor is degeneration itself, being able to, at the same time, pop itself, giving a double normal Summon of Recycler, searching said Recycler after being popped, or alternatively popping Orcusts on the field to make them hit the GY in advanced plays, and being a material for Wyvern. Also a valuable NS because of all of the above, or a SS target of Wyvern. AND ALL OF THIS JUST TO MAKE ORCUST WORK AND NO OTHER BENEFIT BECAUSE OF THE ARCHETYPE'S INCAPACITY. I almost feel bad for it. Almost.
• Wyvern: AND FINALLY, WE REACH THE APOTHEOSIS OF THIS INSANITY, THE BROKEN LINK MONSTER THAT'S HELD BACK ONLY BY THE DARK LOCK, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, INTRODUCIIIING... WYYYYYVEEEEEERN!!! Wyvern is a Link-2 with the same summoning conditions as Galatea (1 archetype monster + 1 another monster, with Scrap instead of Orcust), revives Scrap from the GY (which you can mill with Recycler, and then use Danger to get the second monster) Special Summons from Deck if a Scrap is destroyed (very often by the above effect) and can bring out both Recycler and Raptor, as well as higher Links depending on the board. Keep in mind that you always need to destroy one card on the field (even theirs, but it comes at the cost of the combo) and that Recycler resolves only if it stays on the field after Wyvern has popped. Also EARTH, in a deck with DARK locks. See why I'm calling them slaves? They have to work the way Orcust wants them to.

The Main Problem

Before reading the rest of this paragraph, please make sure you actually absorbed what has been said so far, or at least what each Orcust does, because just listing what Babel does will unlock everything to your mind with those premises gotten clear. Hear me out: Orcustrated Babel By being an Orcust Spell that makes every Orcust effect Quick:

• Can make Harp summon during their turn to block OTKs and give materials to Masq to Link Summon
• Makes Orcust Knightmare a Damage Step effect, to which nothing can be responded to except negates or other Damage Step effects.
• Makes Skeleton able to revive Dingirsu itself during their turn, sending their card to the GY or adding a banished monster as a material for an extra layer of protection
• Allows Galatea to "not run out of fuel" during their turn too, by shuffling resources and setting Crescendo.
• Enables the Warcrime Duo
• Allows Longirsu and Bomber to make the degenerate loop described below. And recycle resources during their turn
• Is Set by Galatea, which you can (AND MUST. DON'T YOU DARE FORGETTING TO. I'M WATCHING YOU) Unfortunately it doesn't work on Dingirsu itself (not being an Orcust that is a Link or GY effect), needing Skeleton to do that. Or Wand, because it had to be special.

Yes Hello, I Would Like To Set My Counter Trap To The Field From The Deck, Thank You

• Crescendo: Crescendo is a Counter Trap. An Orcust Counter Trap. An Orcust Counter Trap that can be Set by Galatea. While absurd on its own, it's actually less impactful than you think: for one it takes one turn to get it useful, and, well, the Skeleton-Dingirsu line offers more certainty than relying on a single Crescendo is ever going to make, as both Babel and Crescendo are contending for the effect of Galatea, and the two effects (because yes there are 2) exclude each other on the same turn. That being said, in combination with said Dingirsu tech, it can finish the job by making sure the opponent is never getting up again and has a practical (if a bit grindy, given the needed recycle) effect for the turn after. But one thing is sure: it's no Salamangreat recycle.

Other Stuff

• ROTA: What do you want me to say? It adds Arma and Grepher
• Burial: like ROTA, except it's every monster, and it mills them
• Droplet: You'll be very thankful this exists as it gives you an out that can't be responded to most of the time going second, and protects your on-summon millers by using them as cost on chain (although it also removes them, which can be a problem when needing to summon Galatea), on top of that stat shave. Only problem is that it doesn't work without a monster on their side, making it weaker on the first turn. But outside of that, it's a broken Quick-Play Spell that works best with this junk. Well, most of the time
• Return: It can be nice to Set this with Galatea, activating it on the same turn, sending Wand or an Orcust from the hand to the GY and draw 2 cards but Babel and Crescendo are much much better so this is marginal at best. It's nice if you draw it and your hand is bricky, I guess?
• Impermanence: Imperm, if Set, disables their S/T column on top of the negate, and if on hand (assuming no card on the field), can negate monsters without the need to wait one turn. Very necessary when it comes to a deck that shines mostly when it comes first, don't you think?

The Three Idiots

Now for the main course: the main Link monsters that this deck relies a bit too much on, because "theme" and "balance" yeah sure. In theory, I should only have the best words when referring to them. In practice they have impactful design problems when it comes to their gameplay, first and foremost the fact they just DON'T WORK without banished cards. The inexperienced might point out banishing is the cost of Orcust, but given Wand revives them and ALL of these 3 contend the same "banish pile", and that the effects are needed to extend, running out of them is going to doom your turn and match very easily, with Longirsu being the worst of them. Which, combined with the natural brickiness of the deck, and the fixes needed by the engine cards, makes for an unforgiving deck on top of being jank. While technically it's 3 Idiots, it's more correct to say that it's Galatea and the Links she needs to make work...in a deck that needs to be fixed already. But, you see, Galatea has this peculiar summoning condition of requiring an Orcust + another monster (which can be another Orcust, but you can guess how that's not going to be the case, given their uselessness on the field, and Brass Bombard being a potential fixer to that that has the same problem, and is thus not worth running), meaning that getting rid of each Orcust is going to drastically reduce the chances of the deck of getting a useful board, and is the one thing that causes all the fine (ok, fine is a stretch here) tuning (not in that sense, despite what Girsu may suggest you) the deck is on already. And while this condition is absent from the other monsters, it doesn't matter at all as they can't get into the field (at least not in an intelligence-respecting way) without Galatea, one way or another.

• Galatea: Galatea is the Deck's (illegal) queen, the main goal of the deck, or at least the first step to stop sucking as much as it normally does without outside help. And we're talking about an Orcust card itself here, an exception among exceptions! What does Galatea do? Setting a spell in exchange for a banished DARK Machine (that includes Wand, thank god) card getting shuffled back. Shuffle priority, with explanation, is as follows: Wand (well, there is only 1 and it revives the rest) > OK (is the second best targer for Dingirsu but it can be summoned by Harp and there are only 2) > Skeleton (Wand is better as the summon and Link Summon will put it in the GY) > Harp (it's the best target for Dingirsu and it can't summon itself, but also can't work without targets in the Deck. Which is actually very common) > every Orcust Link (which is not going to happen unless it's your opponent) > Dingirsu (pretty much Wand only but it can come up). Because of Babel, Quick and all, it can be hard to decide whether she must remain on the field or not, but as Dingirsu is summoned by attaching Galatea (legally cheating etc), Galatea should stay in the GY, as the current state of the game doesn't really allow for a 1800 ATK-only monster whose is only immune from battle destruction when pointed by a Link Arrow. Getting there is the problem...
• Dingirsu: Dingirsu is that card every Orcust matchup talks about, as if it's the most hated card to existence, despite being a relatively non-Quick mediocre Xyz with a special summoning condition and a protection effect from the very kind of effect he protects from. Oh wait, Babel, right: Skeleton can revive from the GY to shift both of his effects to Quick (indirectly: Babel doesn't affect him), and his removal is a non-target non-destruction one, which is however tied to a HOPT Special Summon, however he's brought out. Dingirsu, being practically impossible to summon in the "normal" way, requires a single Galatea or Longirsu (and being treated as a Xyz Summon, he can be revived), and can recover banished cards on summon (at the cosr of giving up the removal effect). So where's the trick? Well, being a Xyz, materials and all, everything he absorbs will be stuck away from the GY or the banished pile, where they would be more useful, especially Galatea. So how do you free Galatea and the rest, at this point? (Read below)
• Longirsu: At long last, the third Idiot (and third "girsu" after Beckoned By The World Chalice and Ningirsu) also happens the most disappointing of them all, being a 2300 Link-THREEEEEEEEEEEE Orcust with an effect that requires TWO banished monsters to get shuffled back ("well it's resource recycling I guess") to make something that's going to work only 1/3 of the time, being Arrow-based, and costs him the turn attack, and an effect destruction immunity effect that has no use except. For. One. Trick. (Read the Bomber section below)

The Warcrime Duo

How do you free Galatea? Why, by Link Summoning the monster that's holding her, of course: Dingirsu. As for HOW to do that, we're going to hit on the ol' reliable Masquerena.

• I:P Masquerena: Like I already said, Babel enables a lot of things. One of said things is fixing the mills and the GY summoning by combining their Quick effects with Masquerena's ones, and grant the Link Summoned monster extra protection. Because Orcust want to stay in the GY and not remain in the Deck or hand, the ideal target is going to be a monster with a Quick/on summon disruption effect that can also help sending them to the GY, where they should stay, preferably a link-3 for the lower resource cost
• Knightmare Unicorn: Holy cow, they actually tied the lore in a less blatant way than OK, I'm moved. Unicorn is of course the ideal target and Iblee's favourite monster, having a powerful spin effect with a cost that benefits both Danger and Orcust. Of course, there is the problem that line requires you to effectively a card in the hand in order to work, which is not always going to be granted, with the best target being Nessie for the sake of card advantage and flexibility, but you know what they say, necessity is the mother of creativity

GET OUT OF MY PROPERTY!

• Topologic Bomber Dragon: Revolver/Varis was an edgelord that caused a lot of damage in both the Cyberse World and the real world in which we play his cards, we know. Bomber is no exception. Bomber's effect makes it so every time you SPECIAL (NOT normal. I repeat. NOT NORMAL) under his arrows, it will nuke every MAIN (no, the Extras are unaffected) Monster Zone. If you're thinking Dingirsu, think again: it would only work once per trigger especially if Dingirsu is the one monster. No, instead, it's going to be Longirsu: if Longirsu is pointed by an Arrow, he is immune from destruction, including Bomber's own one, and his Arrow-based effect will actually prove useful, since if summoned to the down-left of Bomber (assuming it's been summoned on the RIGHT one, not left), it will point their Extra Zone, controlling it by affecting it with his own effect, every turn, their one too, with Babel, at the cost of being able to attack only with Bomber. They're gonna have to remove Bomb-oh they surrendered. Balanced.

What do you mean there are other Extra Deck monsters?

• Spider: So Nibiru just hit the field with that token, and you want to convert it into an Effect Monster to summon Galatea, and it exists. TOO BAD IT'S EARTH.
• Cerberus: Given the lock, he's an emergency out before going for the lines, assuming the resources are sufficient. Also discards, much like every other Knightmare. Also has that niche protection if co-linked, assuming you even get there
• Phoenix: Like Cerberus, but for the backrow
• Blocker: With a dubious and very slow Field Spell recovery effect, Blocker happens to be DARK thus unaffected by the lock (and Avramax enabling with Masq), with a nifty send as cost for all kinds of purposes, and a Babel protection effect which won't save it from getting Cosmic Cyclone'd but isn't going to hurt.
• Dharc: Somehow I played 2 because I lacked Security Dragon and Lib at the time. 1 is enough, anyway, steals DARK monsters with any stats from your opponent's GY, TO A ZONE HE POINTS TO (REMEMBER), and fetches DARK starters from the Deck if destroyed...if.
• Avramax: Lock not being on assuming, he's, well, broken, multiuse, a giant boss, especially with Masq's protection (please use Blocker, not Dharc. PLEASE), that damage step boost, the multiple layers of protection and that shuffle effect should he leave the field face-up

...even in death, I serve the Omnissiah.