Many Duel Links players express a dislike for decks they deem “Lame”, such as Dark Magician, Crystron, and Ritual Beasts. They just want to swarm the field with big monsters. Duel Links certainly allows players to fulfill this dream, with decks such as Masked Heroes, Blue Eyes and Blackwings. But there’s one viable aggro deck that often goes overlooked. Let me introduce you to Machina.

Summon Machina Fortress, that's it, that's the deck

Machina Fortress looks underwhelming in Duel Links at first glance. It’s only 2500 attack, and it requires losing hand advantage to summon. While all of this is true, consider this. Machina Fortress is searchable, recurring, and almost never dead in hand. The same cannot be said for many other main deck high level monsters, such as Blue-Eyes. Fortress is deceptively quite a good card.

Fortress’s effects are also nothing to scoff at. When it’s destroyed by battle, it can destroy one card on the field. I often crash into dark magicians with this effect, taking out two cards for the price of one. It also has a secondary effect, that allows you to look at your opponent’s hand and discard one card if they target Machina Fortress with a monster effect. This comes up against Shiranui and Blackwings often, and it’s quite a powerful effect.

Searching Our Lord and Savior, Machina Fortress

Machina Gearframe is a SR, in the same pack as Machina Fortress. On normal summon, it can search any Machina monster from the deck. Typically you would search fortress with this, but often if you already have a fortress in your hand, you’ll search Machina Megaform instead, to set up Fortress recursion later. It is also a level 4 earth machine monster, allowing us to, in combo with the mediocre but necessary Machina Soldier, use Scrap Recyclers seldom used second effect to draw one card. Gearframe is an amazing searcher, and is a big reason why the deck can function.

Megaform, Recursion, and Synchros

Machina can go into synchros. In fact, Machina often goes into synchros. Synchros are quite good in Machina, thanks to two cards, Machina Megaform, and Jet Synchron.

Machina Megaform is a level 8 Machine type monster, searchable by Machina Gearframe. This automatically makes it good, for summoning a Machina Fortress in the grave back to the field for the price of one card. But it’s better than something as simple as that. Machina Megaform also can summon itself from the grave if Machina Fortress is sent to the graveyard at any point other than by battle. This includes through card destruction, like Shiranui Spiritmaster, but also if Machina Fortress is used as Synchro material. Throwing a synchro engine into Machina might seem difficult, but it actually makes the deck much better.

Jet Synchron, while popular in the TCG currently, does not see much play in Duel Links. But Machina can use it quite well! Machina Fortress only needs one other machine monster to discard to summon itself from the hand, as it can also discard itself and summon itself from the graveyard. So using the level 1 Jet Synchron that wants to be in the graveyard is a perfect fit. It can also be sent to the grave by Scrap recycler, which further has synergy with Machina Soldier and Gearframe. A common three card combo is Fortress, Jet Synchron, and Megaform. Simply discard Jet to summon Fortress, discard Megaform with Jet Synchron, and go into Scrap Dragon. Then, Megaform summons itself from the graveyard, giving you two high attack monsters. It's also worth noting that Scrap Dragon can summon back Scrap Recycler if it dies.

Building Machina

The optimal skill for this deck is typically ‘Firm as the Earth”, a Bastion exclusive skill. After the loss of 1000 LP, you can play “Gaia Power” for free. This allows your monsters to become further beatsticks, and allows Fortress to ram into Blue-Eyes White Dragon, netting the destruction of two cards with one of yours.

The core of Machina is quite easy to make, as it’s all in one mini pack. Scrap Recycler is found in many tickets, so that shouldn’t be very hard to get either. Jet Synchron may be difficult to find, as it’s a UR in the main pack, Aerial Assault. While it certainly compliments the deck, and definitely makes the deck more powerful, it is not necessary to the core strategy.

Here is the Machina deck list I used last season to obtain King of Games. I welcome you to play around with it, and find the ratios and techs that you most enjoy. 

Conclusion

Machina are low on most player’s radars, but they’re far from bad. I think Machina are underrated, although it's probably because I play them. If you’re looking for a new aggro play style, I wholeheartedly recommend giving Machina a go. They may be very one note, but that one note is an extremely underrated monster named Machina Fortress.