Is Orcust truly gone? No. Will it be meta? Probably not. With the recent-ish banlist hitting and effectively slaughtering most meta decks - people have had to adapt and change their playstyle in order to still be able to deal out powerful blows. Orcust were one of the decks that got hit pretty badly - with their main combo starter being straight up banned. However, many people have found that with the new Rank-Up-Magic spell being unbanned - you can quite simply and easily make True King of All Calamities. With a little tweaking the deck can be good as new - so that's why I present; RUM Orcust..
To start off our deck analysis: we will split the three engines so that we get a better understanding of the different combos in place. The first engine - or set of cards rather - is obviously the Orcust package. Our main opener has now become Knightmare and World Wand meaning you want to resolve them as much as possible. I've included Gizmek Orochi and the two Dark Warriors into this category as they are there to start up your orcust cards. Next, we run a rather decent Danger! engine. You obviously want to run the classic Nessie, Jackalope and Tsuchinoko - however I also run two Mothman and one Chupacabra for consistency and bodies on board. They help out well with discarding your unwanted cards and freeing up your hand. Finally I run the Scrap and Co. engine. The reason I run it is clearly pitching - but it can also end you on a Galatea + full combo for an added disruption if you somehow can't make Calamities. Since Harp Horror has been sent to the shadow realm, you now run O-Lion and Jet Synchron as your targets for making Scrap Wyvern. You do run the extra Garnets on the side - them of course being Scrap Golem and Silent Boots - but that's why the Dangers! are there.
The main concept is getting Dingirsu and Cymbal Skeleton in grave - and making Cherubini. This is made simpler with the Danger! engine and the Scrap engine as they both have many level 3's that you could go for. Going second - you can still make VFD without really trying. Just make sure you have PK RUM in hand and just perform a standard Orcust combo after. Once you pop a card with Ding's effect - you now have a rank 8 without material on board. Simply pass - and chain the Rank-Up on activation of any spell, trap or summon. Although watch out for Super Polymerization - that can kill boards. Finally, you have the standard I:P combo alongside Unicorn and the two Topologics. You can always go into this if you're having trouble making Calamities - and it still can win you games.
To conclude: this deck is a mediocre 7/10. As much as it pains me to say - the banlist did a lot for this deck, and not in a positive way. I doubt this deck will become meta in this format - but right now we're in that state of limbo where Konami hasn't revealed which direction the Ultimate Banlist will take us. Maybe Harp will come back at 1 - maybe it will completely be unbanned. Maybe it will be left in the dust for an eternity to come - nobody knows. As of now, this is most likely the optimalest way of playing Orcust: but quite frankly, not the strongest its been...
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