A Brief Inquiry Into Orcusts
Overview and History
Orcusts was released in 2019, as part of the world legacy lore. The deck quickly became meta and remained as one of the strongest archetypes in the history of Yu-Gi-Oh! And continued to dominate the game until the ban of the deck's strongest card Orcust Harp Horror. The deck took a lot of hits even before then like Knightmare Mermaid. Since then the deck did see some niche success in events from time to time, but nothing too significant. With the deck naturally having too many bricks in the form of main deck Orcust monsters, losing a card that helped compensate for that by summoning from the deck was too ponderous of a price. The deck did receive help in the form of Girsu, the Orcust Mekk-Knight which is just one of the most powerful normal summons and a true one card combo. Girsu though did not contribute to the deck in the same way as Orcust Harp Horror did, but still did just enough. Which again was hit when Linkross got banned. But since then the deck has been a fairy strong rogue deck and has seen results in the form of pure, Eldlich, scrap and other variants.
About The Author
Hi my name is
. I’m a Konami judge and have been playing the TCG since 2019. I’ve played Orcusts as one of my first decks, and since then they've been my favorite deck of all time. I’ve never stopped playing this deck since 2019. I used to play Sky Striker Orust in 2019, which has just been the desk's peak, and to a certain extent, the same is possible in Master Duel.. I’m a Konami judge and have been playing the TCG since 2019. I’ve played Orcusts as one of my first decks, and since then they've been my favorite deck of all time. I’ve never stopped playing this deck since 2019. I used to play Sky Striker Orust in 2019, which has just been the desk's peak, and to a certain extent, the same is possible in Master Duel. Deck Strategy and Playstyle
This is something you need to thoroughly understand. The deck originally is a graveyard control playstyle that can combo very hard, yet can even out grind decks like Eldlich. However, this is changed significantly in Master Duel, due to its banlist. In Master Duel, though the deck has Harp limited instead of being banned, it is balanced out by also limiting the other 2 best cards in the deck, Galatea, the Orcust Automaton and Girsu, the Orcust Mekk-Knight. Though the deck still has a decent amount of grind game, it is nowhere near the level of grind it could usually do. So players need to adapt their playstyle for Orcusts in Master Duel. The deck still has a high skill ceiling and high combo ceiling. With a decent and good opening hand, the deck can combo hard but the overall grind game is heavily crippled due to Galatea, the Orcust Automaton being limited. So the strategy must be to go explosive and grind games if needed, but must end it as soon as possible.
Core Cards
Main Deck Cards
Girsu, the Orcust Mekk-Knight x 1
One of the 3 best cards in the deck. Girsu is a one card full set-up. Girsu, the Orcust Mekk-Knight on summon is a foolish burial for Orcust monsters as well as for World legacy monsters. In addition, if Girsu is the only monster you control, you can then summon 2 tokens to each field. This is helpful as you can use your own token to make Linkuriboh and then Galatea and it also disrupts your opponents combos, by usually putting the token in the middle as well as shuts down cards like Lightning Storm and Evenly Matched and more. Girsu also has a 3rd effect, many people forget about. Since he is a Mekk-Knight, when there are 2 or more cards in the same column as Girsu, he becomes a tuner. So him combined with any other of the many level 4 monsters in the deck, like Orcust Harp Horror, Dark Grepher or more means you have a level 8 synchro play. Which is usually going to be Borreload Savage Dragon.
Orcust Harp Horror x 1
Harp is still the best card in the deck. It gives you access to any of your Orcust cards in the deck. Alone in the hand, Harp doesn’t give you too many options, besides going into battle, crashing and then making plays in main phase 2. But when combined with any of the other cards in the deck that help you get it into the deck, it is truly explosive. Cards like
Orcustrated Return which allows you to go +1 but even other cards like
Orcust Brass Bombard,
Forbidden Droplet, }Dark Grepher} and
Foolish Burial allow you to gain advantage while being able to send Harp into the graveyard. Depending on the opening hand, Harp’s role drastically changes. In a bad hand, Harp can act as a starter to get you Girsu. Or in other hands, it can act as an extender to usually summon
Orcust Knightmare or
Orcust Cymbal Skeleton.
Orcust Knightmare x 2-3
While I always say 3 is optimal, 2 still works well when you have other engines splashed into the deck that can offer some utility. Knightmare in hand is a brick. But thankfully due to cards like
Dark Grepher,
Knightmare Phoenix and other cards, it’s sometimes not terrible to have it in your hand. Its graveyard effect is to banish itself to target a monster on the field, then send any dark machine monster to your graveyard and increase the targeted monster’s attack by the level of Gizmek Orochi, the Serpentron Sky Slasher, the Serpentron Sky Slasherike
Gizmek Orochi, the Serpentron Sky Slasher. Depending on your board state, the card you foolish off Knightmare changes. It can be anything from setting up a board by sending
Orcust Harp Horror or just to extend by sending
Orcust Cymbal Skeleton. In most situations, you’ll find yourself sending
World Legacy - "World Wand" to bring back knightmare to have a guaranteed follow up on your opponent's turn or your next turn.
Orcust Cymbal Skeleton x 2
Cymbal is just an absolute power unit. It is not really bad to see it in your hand, as you can always just summon it, and with any other monster on your field, you get to make Galatea. Which can then enable you to go to all your plays Subsequently. Cymbal’s effect allows you to summon back any Orcust card in your graveyard. Which includes
Galatea, the Orcust Automaton and
Dingirsu, the Orcust of the Evening Star. Which can then either extend plays or apply heavy pressure on the board.
Orcust Brass Bombard x 1
Brass is one of those cards that you don’t realize how useful it is, until you play it. Brass is a lv1 tuner that can banish itself to special summon an Orcust monster from your hand. Since brass is a LV1, you can always just normal summon it, to make
Linkuriboh and then just use its effect to summon from the hand and go into Galatea. Opening Brass with
Orcust Knightmare can turn a really bad hand into an amazing one. In addition a neat play you can do is 2nd turn and onward, set up Knightmare and Brass on field to make a
Borreload Savage Dragon.
World Legacy - “World Wand” x 1
People will try to convince you to play this card at 2, and trust me on this, don’t! In a deck that already plays a lot of bricks in the form of main deck monsters, you must not increase the number under circumstances. Wand is a complete garnet in hand. You only want to dump it into the graveyard via
Orcust Knightmare as soon as possible so that you don’t end up drawing it. Wand has an effect to banish itself from the graveyard to special summon any banished Orcust monster. This synergy of Orcust monsters banishing themselves and then wand, recycling them then in turn being recycled itself by galatea or
Longirsu, the Orcust Orchestrator. Then being able to do it again the next turn.
Scrap Recycler x 3
With your only starter being at 1, you need additional summons that can help you start your plays.
Scrap Recycler helps you get your plays started by playing a small or big scrap package. Which is the player’s preference, but playing a tiny 3-4 card scrap package is mandatory. Depending on your deck build, if you’re playing a tiny scrap engine, you’ll send
Orcust Harp Horror by the effect of
Scrap Recycler. Whereas in a heavy scrap engine, you’ll dump other stuff like
Jet Synchron or
Crystron Rosenix to further combo harder. Recycler also has a 2nd effect, but that won’t come up in the deck. At the end of the day, because of Recycler being an old card, with no once per turn, we’re just going to aim to abuse its summon effect multiple times in a single turn.
Dark Grepher x 1-2
Back in 2019 when I won a tournament, I said that if Grepher was semi or unlimited, I would play it at 2 or 3, instead of playing Armageddon knight. As back then and to this day,
Dark Grepher is limited in the TCG. Grepher is a foolish burial at the cost of discarding a dark monster from your hand. In addition, it can be special summoned from your hand by discarding a Lv5 or higher Dark monster from your hand. Thankfully, Orcusts play at the very least, 3 LV5 or higher dark monsters in the deck. The number goes upto 8 depending on what build you’re playing. But that’s not the neat part of Grepher. The main effect we care about is, the foolish burial. So it’s more than fine to normal summon grepher. Even in situations where your opponent would stop its effect with an Ash, you’re still fine if the card that is being discarded for cost is an Orcust monster. Early turns, discarding a harp or Knightmare, is nifty. If they don’t respond with ash, it’s just a huge reward to be able to resolve Grepher.
Orcustrated Return x 2-3
Return is the once per turn discard an Orcust, draw 2 card effect. Obviously we know that All Orcusts, besides
Girsu, the Orcust Mekk-Knight all main deck Orust monsters have graveyard effect. So return is a +1. Early game opening a Return + Knightmare or Harp gives you a good starting board set up. In addition, Return is a great ard to bain out hand traps, like Ash, A good player when playing against return is almost never going to use
Ash Blossom & Joyous Spring on an
Orcustrated Return if they see the card you’ve discarded is a
Orcust Knightmare or an
Orcust Harp Horror. As resolving those 2 cards is far more valuable than the draw 2. Of Course this is not always the case. As drawing 2 new cards is extremely powerful, and there is a very strong likelihood that the cards you just drew are good starters or extenders that can help you play even if the discarded Harp or Knightmare get stopped.
Orcust Crescendo x 1
Crescendo is the archetypes’ omni negate trap that negates the activations and in addition banishes the card. It is one of the most powerful archetype trap cards. In order to activate it, the only requirement you need is to control an Orcust link monster. Which is not hard at all. Crescendo is searchable via
Galatea, the Orcust Automaton. In most cases the first card you grab off Galatea’s effect is
Orcustrated Babel. So you’ll usually grab crescendo at the end of your opponent’s turn with Galatea, which then gives you an omni negate on your turn, allowing you to make your plays, safely. In addition, Crescendo has an effect in the graveyard to banish itself and add an Orcust monster from your deck or banish pile to your hand but also locks you into only summoning dark machine monsters that turn. So ideally,you want to use crescendo’s graveyard effect on your opponent’s turn, that way on your turn you can go about your plays. Keep in mind, you can only use 1 Crescendo effect per turn. In a different banlist, like how I play it in the TCG, Crescendo is played at 2 or 3. Most times it can act as a started as well, by discarding it through a
Forbidden Droplet and just grabbing Girsu and breaking the other board a little. But in Master Duel where both
Girsu, the Orcust Mekk-Knight and
Galatea, the Orcust Automaton are limited, Crescendo loses its merit a little. But still a great 2nd turn card to search or great to open in your hand.
Orcustrated Babel x 1
Babel is one of the strongest field spells to exist in the history of Yu-Gi-Oh! The card makes all your Orcust monster’s effect, a quick play. Which means you’re using
Orcust Harp Horror to summon monsters on your opponent’s turn, using
Orcust Knightmare to dump cards into the graveyard, using
Orcust Cymbal Skeleton to revive stuff t disrupt your opponent and
Galatea, the Orcust Automaton to recycle and search cards as well. Orcusts are a powerful archetype even without Babel, just because of how powerful every individual Orcust monster is. But being able to do everything on your opponent’s turn as well, makes them a nightmare. Since Babel is searchable, you only play it at 1 and it is a garnet. It’s also very difficult to get rid of Babel for good. As everytime it wounds up in the graveyard, the next turn it can be added back to the hand, by discarding a card. So an opponent has to banish Babel to get rid of it for the entire duel. If someone is playing against Orcusts,
Orcustrated Babel is a key card they need to get rid of as soon as possible.
Foolish Burial x 1
Burial is one of the most powerful spells to ever exist. It has been at 1 for most of its lifetime and for a good reason. A single
Foolish Burial can enable one card combos in a deck like Orcusts and in others, act as a powerful extender. Burial’s effect is very self explanatory, so it is absolutely necessary to play this card.
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