Yu-Gi-Oh! Deck Debut: GMX Yummy Mitsurugi

Konami of America is no stranger to deeply American jokes when they make their exclusive archetypes, and the 7 card suite debuting in Burst Protocol is no exception.  GMX doesn’t want to have a coherent end board, it wants to turn people into dinosaurs.  That’s the conceit of the deck, to dig through your cards in a slot machine version of Branded Fusion, though the initial reaction has been mixed upon their reveal; even the actual Konami employees had trouble hyping it up on-stream, in a telling gaffe.  That being said, those most competitive—such as the wonderful Joshua Schmidt— have seen through the gimmicks and pithy boss monsters in the strategy to its actual purpose: Roughly 20 cards’ worth of 1-card combos leading to both Yummy & Mitsurugi access.  I’m bullish on GMX as an engine, just as I was for Mitsurugi upon its first wave, so let’s discuss exactly why that is, and how you might see these curious cards in more games than most would expect. Presenting: GMX Yummy Mitsurugi.

We got a banlist recently, and on it, the two key cards for Yummy Mitsurugi, being Yummy★Snatchy & Ame no Habakiri no Mitsurugi, were Limited. This is absolutely devastating for Yummy, and still rough for Mitsurugi, especially with another focal point of each deck being Banned, in Herald.  These are archetypes often played together, both reeling from the banlist, which primes GMX to be their dino in shining…feathers.

See, Returned Dino Daneen is an eminently accessible Level 1 Dinosaur that unlocks a ton of the deck’s combos, and one of their Fusion Monsters, GMX - Allos is Level 8, and reborns a Dinosaur (Often Animadorned Archosaur).  Archosaur pops Allos to search a Level 8, I don’t know, Reptile…such as Habakiri.  The intended end point for any of your GMX lines is two Level 1 monsters on the board, and Habakiri in hand.

What makes GMX special, though, is how many starters you can potentially play, to access your core line. Miscellaneousaurs, Selande, & Souleating Oviraptor all do it, and with Selande being a Warrior, and the other two Dinosaurs, you have ample search Spells to find them.  Heck, even good ol’ Foolish Burial kicks things off, sending Misc to Special the Level 1 Daneen.  Of course, there are some caveats—unless you want to gamble a little bit, you can only access the Mitsurugi line safely 100% of the time, as your Fusion Spell, GMX Applied Experiment #55, is rather unique.  Instead of using material from your hand or field, it quite literally ‘digs’ through the deck to find the cards used, one “GMX” monster and one Dinosaur. Losing 400LP for each reveal, you can max out at 19 cards before #55 just instantly kills you, a rather funny side effect for an otherwise excellent card.  The build I’m showcasing today runs 6 “GMX” monsters in the Main Deck (of which 5 will be in Deck at time of activation), and 6 Dinosaurs (again, 4-5 in Deck).  If we run the math, the numbers suggest we’ll successfully resolve #55 and live to tell the tale 92.16% of the time if we start at 8000LP, which—while a risk—is still pretty good.

Another reason the deck is 50 cards as opposed to 40 is that we’re on a number of soft garnets, cards we don’t ideally want to draw, but that don’t just end the game if we open.  Really, the only hard garnet is Daneen, and even then we can play without it.  The problems with this strategy, however, are alleviated by it…simply getting another wave.  I don’t say that facetiously, as so many TCG-Exclusive archetypes have required such a thing, but purely by virtue of having more names to reduce the functional odds of dying to your own Fusion Summon will feel great.  Both Mitsurugi and Yummy can each cycle through their entire archetype off of a 1-card, as well, hence the number of 1-ofs present in each of their packages.  Ultimately, given we’re just looking for a way to start and extend, whether we open components of the Yummy or Mitsu engine is fairly irrelevant—it’s the GMX we’re after.

GMX also has the capability to play well in a low-to-the-ground environment, as their second Fusion Monster, GMX - Velox is shockingly competent for the flack it’s gotten by literal Konami presenters on-stream.  In so many words, on the opponent’s turn, it’s a Drident (Quick Effect pop) that either adds or Special Summons a slot-machined GMX or Dino.  Those cards, in the case of Daneen & the GMX, have relevant effects when Specialed, either adding cards or popping additional Monsters.  If you get Oviraptor, that’s a way to cycle through either Misc or another Daneen, which feels quite good as a baseline!  The math behind Velox finding you a card in 19 is literally 99%, if we use the combined numbers above, but again this is a statistic you’ll see improve once we get new GMX cards.

Let’s go through a few combo lines, as examples, starting with Misc for the first.  Discard Misc, banish it, Special Daneen, grab Selande.  Selande, Special Animadorned (no effect), Daneen fuse Animadorned & Selande into Allos.  Allos Special back Animadorned, pop Allos, add Habakiri, ending on Daneen & Animadorned on board, and Habakiri in hand.

If we start from Selande, grabbing Daneen, we can use Daneen to search for GMX Chairman Kimridge, who searches for Experiment #55.  #55 is ensured to hit a GMX, and either Animadorned, Misc, or Oviraptor—each of which can find Animadorned in their own way.  Fusion Summon Allos, then either discard & banish Misc, reborn Oviraptor to search Misc and do the former…or just reborn Animadorned itself.  From there, you actually get to end on potentially 3+ bodies including 2 Level 1s + Habakiri in hand, either pivoting into a Velox, I:P line, etc.  The only caveat is that, as described, you’ve likely got 4000 or less LP left.  Normal Ovi also does the combo, never cycling through Selande and being our messiest option, but it still works.

The degree to which this deck is hot off the presses is such that the site I use to put together my lists lacks hi-rez images of multiple cards in the archetype.  I say this because it’s difficult to surmise some of the inclusions where flex slots exist, such as Forbidden Crown versus Forbidden Droplet, or something like Saryuja Skull Dread in the Extra Deck as a means of de-clogging multiple spare GMX Monsters or Oviraptors from your hand.  After all, Special Summoning the GMX cards with Monster Effects triggers their secondary effects!  Does this deck want to be a The Zombie Vampire deck?  There’s so many questions, and while I’ve played a good few games to goldfish, and test games into current meta, I fully expect this to be a tough nut to crack in terms of a solved list.  It may even be such that the better hybrid is solely with Mitsurugi, dropping Yummy for more handtraps.  This list currently plays what I’d generously call 12 pieces of non-engine, which is quite light given the 50 cards in your Main Deck; were those Yummy cards additional ways to interact with the opponent on turn 0, you may find the deck more resilient.

What I can say is that GMX cards will be appearing…somewhere.  Selande is a FIRE Warrior, and on his own he’s full Infernoble combo, or even finds a number of Fire King Monsters via Animadorned and a relevant Jurrac in hand.  There’s a world where he himself is positioned as a sort-of Tour Guide From the Underworld for Dinosaurs, and I’m definitely here for that!  Similarly, in the vague Dinosaur pile, Daneen is just…a good card, honestly, and might see play alongside Kimridge as a quick and dirty extension off of Misc.  Much like wave 1 of Mitsurugi, this archetype currently can’t be played on its own, but as an engine there’s genuine promise.  The doomsayers who downplayed GMX’s potential were wrong, critically, because of one simple truth: There’s no locks, anywhere.  When a deck in Yugioh can be played with anything, there’ll be some strategy looking to pick up the slack and co-opt its best tools.  Burst Protocol is looking incredible, and I can’t wait to cover more of its new and returning decks as it arrives in the coming week!

What GMX needs to survive on its own is…hard to say.  Quite honestly it would need to be as strong as Habakiri was for Mitsurugi in wave 2, and that’s asking a lot of a deck whose boss monsters leave a lot to be desired.  Some kind of Circular-style card that is a Monster, and Specials a GMX from Deck, would be a good start, or just more names if you’ve already gone through Experiment #55.  I doubt this deck will stand on its own…ever, frankly, but as an engine it’s only going to get stronger.  That’s evolution, baby.

How are you using GMX now that it’s fully revealed?  What does the deck need in its next wave of support?  What else in Burst Protocol do you want to see me cover?  How has the banlist affected your decks?  Let me know in the comments below!