Earth Machine Trains

This is my most recent upgrade to my beloved Earth Machine Trains deck. For about 3 or 4 months in a row I reached Platinum and almost hit Diamond consistently with this build of Trains. The deck has changed significantly but the core concepts remain somewhat the same. 

OVERVIEW: Earth Machine is an aggressive pressure oriented deck that aims to use powerful high octane Earth Machine monsters like Number 81: Superdreadnought Rail Cannon Super Dora , Superdreadnought Rail Cannon Juggernaut Liebe , Machina Citadel and Therion "King" Regulus to control various aspects of the duel. Your main tactic is to rely on sheer brute force and utilize various Quick Effects to disrupt your opponent. The goal overall is to constantly acquire resources to dump down threat after threat each and every turn until you eventually smash through your opponent's defenses and win the duel.

GOING FIRST: Going first, you generally want to build up an end board consisting of Number 81: Superdreadnought Rail Cannon Super Dora and Therion "King" Regulus. You should always prioritize summong Number 81: Superdreadnought Rail Cannon Super Dora and if you get a clunky or unoptimal opening hand, it's much safer to end your turn with a defense position Number 81.

What I love about Number 81 is that it can, at spell speed 2, make itself immune to all card effects, and having the ultimate Towers with 4k defense gives you a powerful wall. However, we can further abuse this quick effect in combination with Heavy Freight Train Derricrane, which upon being detached from an Xyz monster, allows you to destroy any card on the field. This is your main form of disruption.

Your second best form of disruption comes in the form of Therion "King" Regulus! Because after so many years, Earth Machine finally has an omni negate! If you've already comfortably summoned Number 81 and have the means to extend into another search, you'll be searching for Regulus to give you another point of disruption. 

The third piece to our trifecta of awesomeness is Machina Citadel! Which you can easily summon with the trap card Machina Overdrive! The downside of Overdrive can easily be avoided thanks to Number 81's ability to become immune to everything. The ideal strategy is chain 1, use Overdrive, then chain 2, use Number 81. So now, Number 81 won't be destroyed by Overdrive, but you'll also get to special summon Citadel from the deck! What makes Citadel so good and worth summoning? His ability is a spell speed 2 Raigeki! And we can yet again use Number 81's immunity to our favor. Activate Citadel, target Number 81, and then watch the magic! Now all monsters your opponent controls with 3200 or less attack are nuked and you've got 2 terrifying boss monsters still on the field.

By the way, you can also search Machina Overdrive with Machina Redeployment. 

Another awesome monster you can combo into and act as another piece of disruption is Infinitrack River Stormer, specifically, River Stormer with Infinitrack Road Roller attached to it as material. This is a very annoying floodgate that puts all your opponent's monsters in DEF mode, making it even harder for your opponent to fight back against your powerful trains. 

GOING SECOND: If you win the coin toss, you should always choose to go first. Because your going first boss monsters are much more valuable, much safer and more resilient than going second. However, what makes Earth Machine so dangerous is that although it prefers to go first, it has no problem going second as you can easily setup an OTK on your first turn going second! 

Under normal circumstances, you will usually want to setup an OTK by first summoning Superdreadnought Rail Cannon Gustav Max, which can burn your opponent for 2000, then rank it up into my favorite card: Superdreadnought Rail Cannon Juggernaut Liebe! Who can boost itself up to 6000 attack points. And 2000+6000 = Checkmate! 

To prevent any kind of disruption, (and believe me, they're gonna have something) be it a sneaky trap card or your opponent's own boss monster. We'll again be using Heavy Freight Train Derricrane. When you detach Derricrane from Gustav, you can pop any card in play. Which further allows us to push forward into our glorious Juggernaut OTK.

As I previously stated, if given the choice, choose to go first. Because we can always just go for the Juggernaut OTK on our second turn, and it's much easier to do after the first few turns of the game. 

COMBOS: Oh gosh, there's so much to explain here. As the combos of this deck are not as concrete or easy as they used to be. As I stated in the Overview, your main strategy is to continuously acrue resources and apply constant pressure. It's a unique Beatdown / Midrange hybrid that can only be properly understood after you've played with this deck yourself. 

Your main turn 1 combo is to do 2 things with your opening combo: the first is of course, to summon Number 81: Superdreadnought Rail Cannon Super Dora , but the second mandatory thing you'll want to do is Draw 2 cards with Infinitrack Tunneller. We all know how powerful Pot of Greed is, so the question now becomes, how do we turn our Tunneller into pot of greed?
By dumping dozens of Extra Deck monsters into the GY of course! This is why we play so many dinky Xyz & Link Monsters like Infinitrack Goliath, Ancient Gear Ballista and Gear Gigant X. In the following paragraphs, I'll go over the most common openers and combos to allow us to both draw 2 cards and summon the big bad Number 81: Superdreadnought Rail Cannon Super Dora 

Combo #1: Machina Gearframe Combo  (requires Machina Gearframe & any Level 10 Machine in hand)
Normal Summon Machina Gearframe ; add Machina Unclaspare to your hand. This will Special Summon Unclaspare. Activate Unclaspare's effect and send Machina Fortress to your GY. Then Xyz Summon Gear Gigant X. Using Gigant X's ability. We will search for Infinitrack Harvester
(note, if Harvester is already in your opening hand, you will search for Flying Pegasus Railroad Stampede )
Then, discard your Level 10 Machine to Special Summon Machina Fortress. Now use both Fortress and Gear Gigant X as link material to Link Summon Platinum Gadget. We will then use Platinum Gadget's ability to Special Summon Infinitrack Harvester.
Harvester will then search out Infinitrack Brutal Dozer. Now, use Harvester as material to Link Summon Infinitrack Goliath. Now tribute Goliath to Special Summon Brutal Dozer. Dozer will special summon Infinitrack Tunneller. Now use both Tunneller and Brutal Dozer to Xyz summon Infinitrack River Stormer! Detach Tunneller from River Stormer to search for Heavy Freight Train Derricrane. Now, we'll use River Stormer as material to link summon another Infinitrack Goliath. Summoning Goliath will let us Special Summon Derricrane. Now, tribute Platinum Gadget to Special Summon River Stormer from the GY.  Now send both Goliath and River Stormer to the GY to Link Summon Double Headed Anger Knuckle, who we will then use to Sac Itself to special summon the level 10 machine we discarded. Now, we can activate Tunneller, putting the 5 extra deck monsters in your GY back into your Extra Deck and drawing 2 cards! So you now have 2 Level 10 machines to summon Number 81 and a fresh hand full of gas! 

Combo #2: Infinitrack Harvester Combo  (requires Infinitrack Harvester and a Train in hand)
Normal Summon Infinitrack Harvester ; add Infinitrack Brutal Dozer to your hand. Now use Harvester as Link Material to summon Infinitrack Goliath. Now tribute Goliath to Special Summon Brutal Dozer. Dozer will special summon Infinitrack Tunneller. Make our beloved Infinitrack River Stormer, then special summon the Train in your hand. Detach Tunneller to add a different Train to your hand. Use River Stormer as Link Material to go into another Goliath. Then sacrifice Goliath to revive River Stormer, then Special Summon the second Train from your hand, then sac River Stormer again for the 3rd Goliath. Now use Goliath and 1 of your 2 trains to go into Double Headed Anger Knuckle. Now tribute Knuckle to special summon the Level 10 train you just put into your GY. And once again, you now have 5 Extra Deck monsters in your GY and 2 Level 10 Trains in play. 

Combo #3: Infinitrack Harvester Solo Combo  (Only requires Infinitrack Harvester in hand, but doesn't end with Number 81)
Normal Summon Infinitrack Harvester, add Infinitrack Brutal Dozer to your hand. Use Infinitrack Harvester as Link Material to summon Infinitrack Goliath. Then tribute Goliath to special summon Brutal Dozer. Brutal Dozer this time will summon Infinitrack Road Roller. Now use Brutal Dozer as Link Material to link summon another Infinitrack Goliath. Then, use Road Roller as Link Material to link summon the 3rd copy of Infinitrack Goliath. Now use both of your Infinitrack Goliaths to link summon Ancient Gear Ballista. Ballista will add Ancient Gear Box to your hand, and when Gear Box is added to your hand, you can then add Infinitrack Tunneller to your hand. Tribute Ancient Gear Ballista to special summon Tunneller. This will trigger the effect of Infinitrack Road Roller and it will summon itself to your field. Now you can Xyz summon Infinitrack Harvester and use it's ability to add Therion "King" Regulus to your hand (detach Tunneller). Now Special Summon Regulus and equip it with Brutal Dozer. Now use Tunneller to shuffle Harvester back to your main deck, and put the 4 Link Monsters back into your Extra Deck. And your end board will be a Harvester+Road Roller and your Omni Negate. Pay attention to this combo in particular, because when Konami prints new, much better Earth Machine Link Monsters, this specific combo will get way, way, way, WAY stronger.

Combo #4: Machina Metalcruncher Combo (Requires Machina Metalcruncher and 1 Train OR Brutal Dozer)
Normal Summon Machina Metalcruncher, show your opponent 3 copies of either Heavy Freight Train Derricrane OR 3 copies of Infinitrack Brutal Dozer (depends what's in your hand). Tribute Metalcruncher to Special Summon Brutal Dozer, then special summon Infinitrack Road Roller  from the deck, and Special Summon the Train from your hand. Send Brutal Dozer to the GY as Link Material to summon Infinitrack Goliath. Now send Road Roller to the GY as Link Material to summon another copy of Infinitrack Goliath. Now with your 2 Goliaths, use them to link summon Ancient Gear Ballista, which will add Ancient Gear Box, and adding Box to your hand allows you to also add Infinitrack Tunneller to your hand! Now tribute Ancient Gear Ballista to summon Tunneller. This will trigger Road Roller to summon itself from your GY. Now with Tunneller and Road Roller, make the Xyz monster; Infinitrack Harvester. Detach Tunneller to add a different train to your hand. Now use River Stormer as Link Material to summon your 3rd Infinitrack Goliath. This will allow you to special summon the Train from your hand. Now use that train and Goliath as material to Link Summon: Double Headed Anger Knuckle. You will then sac Anger Knuckle to special summon the Train you just put in your GY. Now you yet again have 2 Level 10's that will let you summon Number 81: Superdreadnought Rail Cannon Super Dora and you can put 5 Extra Deck monsters back into deck to draw 2 cards. 

CONCLUSION: This build of Trains is much stronger than older versions I've posted on this website. This one has much greater variety, and there's so many more flashy and insane combos you can pull off once you fully get the hang of the deck. Its one of the many reasons I love this deck, there's just so much stuff you can do. Its awesome! <3 However, no deck is perfect. And this deck definitely has many weaknesses, the biggest one is not being able to fit enough hand traps into the main deck. But I've put a bunch of other recommendations in the Side Deck that you can add to your own build of Trains. The cards listed in the Side Deck can help fix the weaknesses this deck has. 

Your biggest weakness is Maxx "C". Maxx C is an infuriating card to play through. So if you can, try to find as many was as possible to hard counter Maxx C. Crossout Designator and/or extra copies of Called by the Grave and Ash Blossom & Joyous Spring help very much. 

Extra copies of Forbidden Droplet are excellent because you can use Ancient Gear Box as the perfect fodder to discard with Droplet. 

Cosmic Cyclone and Lightning Storm acts as additional copies of Backrow removal. Backrow decks like Eldlich and Labrynth are without question, Trains' worst matchup. 

Book of Moon & Gameciel, the Sea Turtle Kaiju act as the perfect answer to deal with gigantic threats that dare try to grow bigger than Superdreadnought Rail Cannon Juggernaut Liebe. 

Tinker with some of the weak points and find what works for you. This is just the version of Earth Machine Trains that I find to be the best to play for my specific playstyle. 

Good Luck and Have Fun obliterating your enemies with gigantic trains!