A slightly belated article for a build cooked up throughout the past week and first posted in video form a few days ago. You can find that right here:
So what is the idea? Well, it revolves around Ken the Warrior Dragon and Gen the Diamond Tiger, a pair of TCG-exclusive cards Konami released in the latest set (as of this writing). Their effects essentially let you artificially create a situation where your opponent controls a monster and has activated its effect before even getting a turn, letting you freely use things like Triple Tactics Talent and Thrust when you’re going first. This, combined with additional benefits they provide, enables all manner of bullshit in decks like Mikanko and Dark World, but when I saw them, the pile of goo I call a brain was permeated by but one thought:
“Oh, these are Warriors, now which Koro deck can spare a summon?”
Since the best fit seemed to be Po-Koro with its buttload of extenders, here we are. And then I also made a Chronicler’s Company variant because I was laughing so hard about the thought of these weirdos showing up and thrusting their talents around until they just get shoved into the next best band of zany characters.
Po-Koro
As per usual, this build simply aims to spam lots of monsters with the help of Po-Koro generating Tokens and Onewa bringing back banished EARTH Warriors. Ken & Gen here simply act as options to Normal Summon (or Special Summon off Isolde) that most importantly let Thrust act as a searcher for things like ROTA, Terraforming, or revival cards to help assemble the combo. Also they fulfill Huki ‘s Special Summoning condition when placed correctly, so that’s cool. I went with a ratio of 3 Gen and 1 Ken, since Gen is the one you want to Summon first so that Ken triggers on the opponent’s field to draw you 2 cards, increasing the chance of finding the Triple Tactics Spells that make them go from good to insane.
The combo itself uses another fairly new card in Revolution Synchron, searchable by Junk Converter, which is in turn searchable by Turaga Whenua – and its required discard can be your Isolde search. What this line accomplishes is reliable Tuner access, which is exactly what we need to properly utilize the Po-Koro Tokens despite the fact that making them locks us out of the Summoning mechanic used to do so.
What I consider the best play is to get Junk Converter banished (by Onewa’s effect 0r a Kakama search), Special Summon one of your Level 2 extenders to Onewa’s zone so he triggers and brings back the Converter, and then combine the Revolution Synchron in your hand with those two monsters to make Power Tool Dragon. Then Converter brings back the Synchron, you make a Level 10 with those two EARTH monsters (Chengying, Baronne, whatever you prefer), and Po-Koro makes two Tokens that are free to be linked into I:P. Yes, it needs to be specifically Power Tool because it’s the only EARTH that works with Revolution – our boy is finally relevant.
Beyond that, the deck contains other formidable boss monsters like Borreload Savage, Crystal Wing, Naturia Beast, and Avramax that can be made either on subsequent turns or in case you can’t quite assemble the primary goal.
It’s all quite flexible, but any significant amount of disruption is still going to ruin your day, and the end boards are still fairly breakable. I doubt this is much of a competitively viable strategy, more of an exercise in creativity putting together a reproducible combo with some new cards while working under Po-Koro’s strange requirements and restrictions.
Chronicler’s Company
This one isn’t too different from a regular C.C. deck, with the main Extra Deck payoffs being I:P, Avramax, and/or a Borreload Savage made with Cupid Pitch so you can get your Hop Ear Squadron to upgrade into a Level 10 or the Level 4 Herald of the Arc Light. But the presence of Ken and Gen adds the interesting aspect that sometimes, you just have an additional Level to work with since they’re 3s rather than 2s. And the wacky alternate Synchro boss I found for those cases is Power Tool Braver Dragon, continuing the theme from Po-Koro.
With the help of the Equip Spells you run anyway for Isolde, it can negate a monster or change its battle position, and the latter option is even worth considering when one of your Equips is specifically Life Extreme, which has a destruction effect triggered by just those battle position changes. We still use Cupid Pitch in this line, so Psychic End Punisher also makes the cut as a Level 11 Hop Ear target.
Other than that, it’s worth nothing that you don’t really want Ken or Gen to be your Isolde summon here, since at that point you need to focus on gathering up the Level 2s so the numbers work out optimally. Unlike in Po-Koro, where it was legitimate to bring them out one way or the other, here you’re generally only going to use them if you open Gen as your initial Normal Summon. On the other hand, there is one unique benefit this deck also gets if you do that: Place the monster you give your opponent in an empty column, and the activation of its effect will also allow you to bring out Maku from your hand or GY, who can then protect another card from disruption once while you perform the rest of the combo. Oh, and the battle position change that she does on summon also triggers Life Extreme. Truly the age of Power Tool is upon us.