Hello and welcome back to another exciting Gate Ruler deck. Today, we will be addressing an archetype that came into its own in the previous set and has now received some serious upgrades, in terms of the arsenal of ‘silver bullet‘ effects it has at its disposal. If that hint and the title were not enough, we are in fact dealing with Martial Skills.
The Decklist
In this instance, we have opted for the Overlord Ruler, once again over Trickster, mostly for the resource/energy efficiency ability that is inherent to it, since some Units dictate the cost of the Martial Skill still has to be paid for activation to take place. Operating as a midrange deck with a combo setup, eventually, the archetype shifts to an aggressive beatdown strategy, since several of its Units can utilize powerful removal and disruption effects from the graveyard before cycling them back to the deck.
Martial Skills
In terms of Martial Skills, the following would be your main inclusions. Specifically, The Golden Blade is, at the moment, the absolute staple card of the archetype. Without it, you lose out on a significant amount of value. Additionally, we have Steelheart Aura which might seem like a peculiar inclusion from a design point of view. While it may not offer much as a CNT in Overlord, it is nonetheless a versatile tool when played from hand; assisting in either the combo setup procedure or allowing the Ruler to act as a form of board control.
Lastly, these principal inclusions aside, we have several more secondary options to mention, that arrived in the most recent set. While perhaps not as important as the two aforementioned cards, they still nonetheless operate as vital components to the ‘Silver Bullet‘ arsenal, that is the martial skills deck modus operandi. From ‘card draw‘ with Dragon Rider Reconnaissance to ‘resource disruption‘ with A Blow of the Sacred Blade and Rite of Sanctifying Steps the archetype at hand is fully capable of being adapted to any strategy.
Core Units
For the purposes of this article, key units are defined as those that can either activate Martial Skills from the Graveyard or can search, summon or recycle relevant units directly from (and back to) the deck.
Goldenscale Paladin, Chimerela – the Dragonblood Princess, and Silverscale Warrior naturally fill those slots due to the way they were designed. The unlikely fourth edition to the roster that arrived courtesy of set 3, boosting the consistency of the deck even more was Vinoculus of the Shifting Mirage. It can specifically search out Goldenscale Paladin due to its cost and the latter having the Dragon attribute.
Lastly, with the most recent Gate Ruler set, Become the Hero!, the archetype was afforded the new unit Yuchouka of the Heartsease. Boasting an amazing 5 ATK for a level 0 unit, the card in this instance is also capable of cycling back important combo pieces, spot removal, and even defensive shields like Goldenscale Paladin, Nebulox of the Pale Haze, and Dark Knight Vamel respectively, with her effect.
Final Thoughts
I still continue to genuinely like this deck but my belief in its potential as an archetype is starting to wane. Yet, it already has pseudo searchers and obscenely powerful removal cards at its disposal. The former allows for potential ‘one-of Martial Skill’ inclusions to be a viable deck-building strategy in wider metas, as evidenced in the current article, while the latter could be crucial in breaking an opponent’s setup.
However, it is my impression that the archetype is suffering and will continue to do so due to a lack of design direction and a dedicated Ruler that can house the archetype. What do I mean? To give an example, Martial Skills are nowhere nearly as versatile as the Genesis Summoning Archetype and Mechanic. Specifically, the former cannot be housed across a multitude of different Rulers like Overlord, Trickster, Legion, and Knight unlike the latter. Naturally, this makes sense. Martial Skills have not had the amount of support that Genesis has received and yet, certain cards like Goldenscale Paladin, Chimerela – the Dragonblood Princess, and Steel Heart Aura, particularly the way their abilities have been worded, give the strong impression that they were designed for Trickster.
Time will tell how the archetype is meant to evolve. It could be that most of the current main roster will not survive another set or two worth of Martial Skills support but that is obviously something that we cannot predict with great accuracy presently.
Thank you for reading and I do sincerely hope you enjoyed this write-up. If you are curious to see more, do not forget to give me a follow on Twitter and if you would like to be a part of the creative process that goes into doing these write-ups, you can also check out my Patreon. Your further support would be very much appreciated.
Special shout-out and kind thanks to C. Sweeney & Kenny as my first ‘GateRuler’ related Patrons.
gunnolfbjorn 