Underworld Dolls

FINALLY!

The new Gimmick Puppets, present in "The Infinite Forbidden" finally arrived here and I can show off with what I came up with.

Which ones are those new Gimmick Puppets? Let's start with the monsters, to go over to the fieldspell and finally the trap.

Maindeck:

#2 - Gimmick Puppet Little Soldiers - It's literally a better Gimmick Puppet Scissor Arms. Like seriously. If you played 3 Scissor Arms before, put in 3 Little Soldiers now and either kick the Scissor Arms or be happy that you can play it basicly 6 times now, if you only go for the mill effect. As already said, Little Soldiers are better however. They cannot throw Gimmick Puppet Terror Baby to the GY but any LVL 8 Puppet as cost. The actual effect is them inheriting the Puppets LVL. So even if they get impermed, they still do the milling. It can also raise up to two puppets levels on the field by 4, which turns any LVL 4 into a LVL 8.

#2 - Gimmick Puppet Bloody Doll - Rarely have I seen such a good legacy support card. It can be ashed but the deck also has a lot of effects to bait that out beforehand. Show them one of your 13 Extra-Deck monsters and special summon any Puppet from your maindeck together with Bloody Doll from your hand. This singlehandedly unclocks the whole deck, whilst remaining in line with everything else. And ontop of it, you get a reaccursion effect. If Bloody Doll hit's the GY (except from your hand) you can activate it's second effect, which adds it back to your hand. So if you use it as XYZ material or mill it trough Little Soldiers, it goes right back to the hand.

#3 - Gimmick Puppet Cattle Scream - Cattle Scream is a simple extender and it does exactly that: extending. Gimmick Puppets always had the thing that they kinda can't make much use of their XYZ material, so Cattle Scream changes this. Special summon it from your hand or GY by getting rid of one of your XYZ materials but be careful, it get's banished once it leaves the field if summoned this way. To circumvent this, use it as material for a XYZ summon. That way, it goes back to the GY.

Extradeck:

#4 - Gimmick Puppet Fantasix Makina - Finally a reliable Rank-Up-Spell searcher. This card alone basicly kills the need of playing any other RU-spells other than Rank-Up-Magic Argent Chaos Force and also kills the need of playing more than one copy of it. It searches us a RU-spell and also acts as reaccursion inform of it's GY effect. If you summon a XYZ monster, you can special summon Fantasix Makina either to your opponents field (why this is important will be clarified later) or to your own field and right after you can add a RU-spell from your GY to your hand, mimiking Argent Chaos Force's secondary once-per-duel effect. It also gives us a second normal summon for the turn, even if it leaves the field.

#5 - CXyz Gimmick Puppet Fanatix Makina - The horror dolls new (and for going 1st only viable) boss monster and also Quattro's second self-insert. On summon, it searches us a "Puppet"-trap. So it searches us either Puppet Parade or the new Servist Puppet. Both are good. Extremely good. Puppet Parade was just noch reliably searchable until now. Now it is. It's great. It's second effect is to summon a monster from either GY to the opponents side of the field. Why this is important, I will tell you later. Fanatix' third effect is to target a monster that just got special summoned to the opponets side of the field and destroy it, to then inflict half of it's ATK's damage in form of burn damage. Great for going first, even better for... Something else. More on that later.

Spells & Trap

#6 - Mansion of the Underworld Dolls - What the f*ck is Konami on about with all these brutally good fieldspells?! Mansion of the Underworld Dolls does multiple things. First of all, it's our first real searcher, besides Gimmick Puppet Chimera Doll. Second of all, it makes our Gimmick Puppets completely invulnerable to battle destruction and also makes them completely unaffected by any monster effects, that aren't XYZ monsters. It's third benefit is to use an XYZ material on our side of the field to summon a Gimmick Puppet from our GY to the opponent's field. Again, more on that later.

#7 - Servist Puppet - Another good going first option. It targets and takes control of as many monsters our opponent controls as we control Gimmick Puppet XYZ monsters. It also can be banished from the GY to revive a XYZ monster from either GY to either side of the field. Why is this important?! More on that now in the following.

Why is this new support all about putting stuff on the opponent's side of the field, without locking them or anything? It's all in the name of an extremely consistent 1-card FTK that totally does not reek terror in the OCG right now. Right? ... Eh.

If you want to know how that works, please click on my video and scroll to minute 19:08. If you need a text guide, I'll explain it and try to keep it as short and simple as possible, cause after all: Thats all we are here for anyway.

How to First-Turn-Kill with Gimmick Puppets (post The Infinite Forbidden)

First of all, what are the requirements? Well, you need the fieldspell. It's nessecary for the one-card-combo. Be aware, there are also FTK's with this deck that don't require the fieldspell but they require other, much more specific hands. We just go over the easiest one now.

Step 1: Activate Mansion of the Underworld Dolls, add Gimmick Puppet Little Soldiers 

Step 2: Normal Summon Little Soldiers, mill Gimmick Puppet Bloody Doll with their effect. Activate Bloody Doll's GY effect and add her to your hand

Step 3: Activate Bloody Doll's effect and summon her alongside Gimmick Puppet Cattle Scream 

Step 4: XYZ summon Gimmick Puppet Fantasix Makina with Cattle Scream + Little Soldiers

Step 5: Use Fantasix Makina's effect; using Cattle Scream to detach; to add Rank-Up-Magic Argent Chaos Force from the deck to your hand

Step 6: Use Argent Chaos Force on Fantasix Makina to XYZ summon CXyz Gimmick Puppet Fanatix Makina and add one of the traps to your hand

Step 7: Use Cattle Screams GY effect to detach Fantasix from Fanatix and special summon Cattle Scream. Use it together with Bloody Doll to go into Number 40: Gimmick Puppet of Strings. On summon, activate Argent Chaos Force in your GY to get it back to the hand. Now use Nr.40's effect to place a String Counter on Fanatix Makina

Step 8: Use Argent Chaos Force to rank-up Number 40 into Number C40: Gimmick Puppet of Dark Strings. On summon, you are forced to activate it's effect. In the same chain you activate Fantasix Makina's graveyard effect. Nr.C40 destroys Fanatix Makina (and everything else with a String Counter) dealing 3100 burn damage to your opponent and draw 1 card and Fantasix Makina special summons itself to your side of the field and also adding back Argent Chaos Force to your hand.

Step 9: Link summon Gimmick Puppet Chimera Doll using Fantasix and Nr.C40 and use it's effect to add Gimmick Puppet Terror Baby to your hand. Do not special summon it. Use Fantasix Makinas effect that grant's you an additional normal summon for this turn and normal summon Terror Baby. Use it's effect to revive a Gimmick Puppet.

Step 10: Use Little Soldiers GY effect to banish them to turn Terror Baby's LVL to LVL 8. XYZ summon using it and the revived doll into Number 15: Gimmick Puppet Giant Grinder 

Step 11: Now is the moment where you need the fieldspell. Activate Mansion's effect to detach a material from Nr.15 to special summon Nr.C40 to your opponent's side of the field. It's effect will now trigger but will do nothing, since there's nothing with a string counter on the field (except if you left something there, earlier) This will also make you able to activate Triple Tactics Talent and Triple Tactics Thrust.

Step 12: Using Giant Grinders effect to destroy Nr.C40 and deal 3300 burn damage to your opponent.

Step 13: Use Argent Chaos Force to rank up Nr.15 into your second Fanatix Makina. The opponent is left with 1600 LP at this point. To burn them the rest, use Fanatix Makinas effect and revive Nr.C40 yet again and use it's third effect right after to destroy Nr.C40 once more and deal 1650 burn damage. This will accumulate to a whopping 8050 burn damage turn one out of just one card. 

Congratz, you are now considered "toxic", because some of the people that play this game are massive hypocrits and call a easy to interrupt FTK toxic instead of a deck that takes you away the ability to play, basicly. Just an example.

Now that the important stuff is done, we can come to the rest. Lol.

What are Gimmick Puppets?

In short: They are a LVL 8 XYZ-spam deck. Keep asking what are Gimmick Puppets. Never ask how are Gimmick Puppets I guess.

In "long":  Gimmick Puppets are a DARK-Machine type archetype with heavy focus on defeating your opponent in one turn. Now turn 1 included. A very aggressive deck, it seeks out to destroy your opponent with high ATK numbers and massive removal via destruction. They are also very capable of applying (temporary) protection to their monsters via GY-effects. With the new support however, the deck is much less focused on mass-removal and beatdown and much more on burn damage, what they originally tried to do but never accomplished. Number 15: Gimmick Puppet Giant Grinder was always able to dish out tons of effect damage via destroying your opponent's monsters with it's "up-to-twice-per-turn" effect. The effect damage however was only ever inflicted if the destroyed monster was an XYZ monster. Much better for said burn damage were Nr.C15 and C40 and to a certain extend even Number C88: Gimmick Puppet Disaster Leo. Those however, needed a RU-spell to go into, which the deck had no way to search out other than itself unsearchable support outside of their own cards.

The deck was plagued with being very non-unique in their playstyle and even the generic playstyle they had was badly done and it suffered to massive consistency issues. 

... Until now, where the new legacy support catapulted them singlehandedly into Tier 1 status and went so over board with the capability of inflicting burn damage, that we in the TCG now have to be scared that the deck or anything related to it, might get banned again at some point. For example, Rank-Up-Magic Argent Chaos Force, their inofficial RU-spell. Wouldn't be the first time that this card would spend a (long) while on the forbidden list. They now can focus purely on their burn damage and often not need any battle damage to win which is definetely nice. The only other burn damage-only deck that comes to mind is Volcanic. And Volcanic is far away from being meta-worthy.

So what do we have now? We now have deck that has barely any downsides and blockades that hold it away from being very strong, such as once-per-turn clausels. The only thing that keeps it sorta in check is the fact that Bloody Doll and Gimmick Puppet Dreary Doll lock you into Gimmick Puppets, which is why the Extradeck usually consists of no support outside of their own archetype. Do they need anything more? Hell no. 

Just using it's own inarchetype monsters, we have a deck that is extremely capable of going second (and probably even favors exactly that) and in case your opponent for some reason let's you go first in this purely going-first meta, you can alternatively kick their nuts with a brutally consistent first turn kill as your "alternate win condition". The deck also sports 2 more alternate win conditions with Number 88: Gimmick Puppet of Leo and Number C88: Gimmick Puppet Disaster Leo but those are not too good. Better is to just beat them up then with your massive big-**** ATK numbers or just burn them into submission as if you are satan himself.

What are your options?

That kinda depends on many factors.

What is your opponent's deck? Are you going first or second? What is your starthand? Are you a sadist or not?

Questions over questions.

Your main playmaker is of course Gimmick Puppet Bloody Doll. You can fetch her with Gimmick Puppet Little Soldiers, Gimmick Puppet Scissor Arms, Mansion of the Underworld Dolls, Condolence Puppet, Foolish Burial, etc. Other key cards are of course your Little Soldiers, Gimmick Puppet Bisque Doll to occassionally unclock your hand and Gimmick Puppet Dreary Doll is your main reaccursion to go into more XYZ-plays. You can play her on 1, 2 or 3 really. I love her on 3 tho, since I play enough cards in the deck that get her into the GY from the hand like Forbidden Droplet. She also is mainly used for Machine Duplication. Other targets for that are Bloody Doll and Little Soldiers.

Your main way of protection are Gimmick Puppet Bisque Doll which makes your dolls untargetable for the rest of your turn, Gimmick Puppet Terror Baby which makes all your dolls effects spell speed 4 for the rest of the turn, Condolence Puppet which makes one of your XYZ monster indestructable by opponent's card effects and Mansion of the Underworld Dolls which protects your dolls from battle and any card effects from non XZY monsters. Due to Giant Grinder being so "anti-XYZ", some called this deck an "Anti-XYZ deck" before. This couldn't be further from the truth now. You opponent playing XYZ monsters makes them extremely vulnerable for even more and easy dealt burn damage and them not playing XYZ-monsters makes him basicly incapable of outing your monsters.

Your Extradeck will probably mainly contain Gimmick Puppets. If not, the deck is not bad in using generic Rank 8 XYZs like Number 38: Hope Harbinger Dragon Titanic Galaxy or Dingirsu, the Orcust of the Evening Star. Just be careful with Dreary Doll's "can only be used for Gimmick Puppet XYZ" restriction and with Bloody Doll's lock into Gimmick Puppets. Gimmick Puppet Chimera Doll and Gimmick Puppet Gigantes Doll also lock you heavily. 

As for your ED-monsters and what they do:

Gimmick Puppet Chimera Doll - It's a searcher for your puppets and also let's you special summon a puppet right after searching one from your hand. It's good. Can be played as a 2-of as well if you feel like it. I never needed it tho.

Gimmick Puppet Gigantes Doll - It steals your opponent's monsters and let's you turn them into LVL 8 monsters, if they have a LVL to begin with. Removing your opponent's monsters is one thing but straight up not giving them back is a different thing and Gigantes Doll does exactly that. It's good. Use it.

Number 15: Gimmick Puppet Giant Grinder - Up to twice per turn (or 4/6/etc. times if you control multiple) you can target and destroy a special summoned monster your opponent controls. If it's an XYZ monster, this can easily lead to massive damage numbers from just this one card. Be careful tho, it's low ATK stat of 1500 can be a pain in the butt.

Number C15: Gimmick Puppet Giant Hunter - Also equipped with a not hard-once-per-turn, it let's you destroy any card your opponent controls. If it happens to be a monster, it inflicts damage to your opponent equal the original ATK of that monster. Goes well with Forbidden Droplet.

Number 40: Gimmick Puppet of Strings - Initiates Nr.C40. It places String Counters on every monster on the field. The rest of the effect is not even worth talking about.

Number C40: Gimmick Puppet of Dark Strings - Finishes what Nr.40 startet. Destroys everything, deals burn damage = to the highest ATK on the field of the monsters that got destroyed and then draws you one card. Can be looped. Not once per turn.

Number 88: Gimmick Puppet of Leo - It's a beatstick ... ? It's good if you don't plan to go into a battle phase. (Against Yubel) Otherwise, it's really only used to get the next monsters effect trough better.

Number C88: Gimmick Puppet Disaster Leo - It has good protection when coupled with Condolence Puppet. It also does a tiny 1000 burn damage. If you summon Number 88 and put it to the GY to then revive it with 0 material, you can make a Number C88 with just one material which let's you use it's alternative win condition more easy. 

The new ones are explained earlier.

"Flex-Space"

This deck has a lot of flexible space. You can basicly put in everything you want but my picks are as followed:

Droll & Lock Bird - Best handtrap by far in my eyes. Kind of a hit or miss but so many decks outright die to it.

Ghost Mourner & Moonlit Chill - A negate that does burn damage. And she's cute.

Forbidden Droplet - This deck has a lot of fodder to throw into the GY. I also play it as a going-second deck. And Droplet might be the best board braker in the game, currently.

Machine Duplication - Duplicates Gimmick Puppet Dreary Doll. Alternatively Gimmick Puppet Little Soldiers, Gimmick Puppet Bloody Doll.

Terraforming - Searches Mansion of the Underworld Dolls which starts literally every combo. Simple.

Foolish Burial - Bloody Doll, Bisque Doll, Terror Baby, Dreary Doll, etc. They all have great GY effects. Send them there.

Puppet Ritual - Intheme Monster Reborn and can be switched out with exactly that. I like it tho, since it can't really be negated with Crossout Designator. Happened to me more than once with the default Monster Reborn.

Triple Tactics Talent / Triple Tactics Thrust - Both can be activated without your opponent using any effect from their monsters or controlling any monsters since Nr.C40's on summon effect is mandatory.

Rank-Up-Magic Numeron Force - This one is so good and I heavily advice to play it. It can be searched with Fantasix Makina and cracks otherwise impenetrable boards.

Side Deck

The side deck choices are really simple.

Kajius like Radian, the Multidimensional Kaiju  for even more going second power in case the opponent's deck is really problematic. Favoring the LVL 8 Kaijus here in case you draw two, you have one for XYZ fodder.

Nibiru, the Primal Being for every deck that has no natural out for it.

Anti-Spell Fragrance - I hate Runick. F*ck Runick.

Curse of Darkness - With Jeremy Fragrance on 1 with the most recent banlist, we need substitute for that. Curse of Darkness deals 1000 damage whenever one activates a spell card. It's by far not as good as Anti-Spell but it's at least something.

Some closing words

Never thought Gimmick Puppets would get such beautiful support. Now the only thing that could ruin it, is Konami putting them out in high rarities, shortprints and the community making them massively overpriced. 

Please don't do this.