Gimmick Puppet Deck #773649 — Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Links

Deck — Deck Power Evaluation

Final Contextual Deck Power: 58/100 (±6 · Confidence: Medium)

• Primary strategy: Midrange
• Secondary strategies: Combo, Xyz-centric, Graveyard-centric
• Format: duel-links

Legality

Main 30 / Extra 9 / Side 0 — status: Legal.

Identity & game plan

• Win condition: Rank 8 Xyz attrition/beatdown: Number 40: Gimmick Puppet of Strings (3000 ATK), Number 88: Gimmick Puppet of Leo (3200 ATK) and Number 15: Gimmick Puppet Giant Grinder removal/burn.; Number 88: Gimmick Puppet of Leo Destiny Counter alternate win (three upkeeps, slow) and steal-based OTK via Gimmick Puppet Gigantes Doll or Service Puppet Play.
• Turn 1 (going first): Normal or Special Summon Gimmick Puppet Rouge Doll to make a Rank 8 Xyz in one card, or open Gimmick Puppet Little Soldiers plus a Level 8 body for the same rank; back it with a Set Xyz Block / Service Puppet Play and hold Forbidden Droplet or Droll & Lock Bird.
• Turn 2 (going second): Neutralise the board with Book of Eclipse or Forbidden Droplet, then take control or remove with Gimmick Puppet Gigantes Doll / Service Puppet Play, then Xyz into Number 15: Gimmick Puppet Giant Grinder to destroy a Special Summoned monster and burn.
• Recovery: Rebuild out of the Graveyard: Condolence Puppet mills Gimmick Puppet names, Dreary Doll revives itself, Junk Puppet and Fiendish Knight re-Summon bodies, Cattle Scream returns from hand or GY, and Rouge Doll adds itself back to hand whenever it is sent to the GY from the Deck.
• After siding: Duel Links uses no Side Deck; adaptation happens at construction time through the Forbidden Droplet / Book of Eclipse / Droll & Lock Bird ratios rather than between games.

Why it scores here

The deck is scored as a system, not as an average of its card scores: its identity is a compact Gimmick Puppet Rank 8 engine (Rouge Doll alone turns one card into a Rank 8 Xyz, with Little Soldiers and Condolence Puppet feeding the same plan out of the Graveyard) wrapped in a heavy proactive non-engine shell of three Forbidden Droplet, three Book of Eclipse and three Droll & Lock Bird. It reliably opens a functional plan a bit more than half the time and converts that into one Rank 8 Xyz plus a modest amount of reactive interaction; the ceiling with two bodies and a Trap is real but the median is a single Rank 8, which is why D3 and D4 are separated rather than conflated. Resilience and grind are the strongest structural traits because Dreary Doll, Junk Puppet, Fiendish Knight, Cattle Scream and Rouge Doll's own Graveyard return let the deck rebuild after a board wipe, while the end-board itself is interaction-light (only one Xyz Block and one Service Puppet Play). Two Rank-Up-Magic cards are carried with no Number C / CXyz target in the Extra Deck, so a measurable slice of the Main Deck is functionally dead and drags opening-hand quality and Main Deck efficiency down. No meta-share or tournament representation was used to earn points, Meta Power stays provisional, and the final number comes from consistency, median conversion, resilience and a genuinely strong going-second package measured on the whole list.

Dimension scores

How the score was computed

Strategy profile: Midrange. Structural ≈ 59, Going First ≈ 60, Going Second ≈ 66, Meta = provisional, Tournament Reliability ≈ 55. Modifiers: Dead Rank-Up package (-3); Compact recoverable core (2); Proactive going-second density (2); Extra Deck duplication without payoff (-1). Final formula: 0.80*Structural + 0.20*TournamentReliability (Meta provisional)

Probability & combo summary

• Opening a starter: P(≥1) ≈ 0.62 · key two-card combo ≈ 0.5 · full-brick estimate ≈ 0.15 (all Inferred)
• Combo output: best PowerIndex —, median —, board-per-starter —
• Turn order: 0 going-first lines vs 0 going-second lines

Strengths

• Gimmick Puppet Rouge Doll is a genuine one-card Rank 8 Xyz and also recycles itself to hand whenever Condolence Puppet or Little Soldiers mills it.
• Deep Graveyard engine: Condolence Puppet mills names, Dreary Doll self-revives, Junk Puppet and Fiendish Knight re-Summon, Cattle Scream returns from hand or GY.
• Strong proactive going-second shell for Duel Links: 3 Forbidden Droplet, 3 Book of Eclipse, 3 Droll & Lock Bird plus Gigantes Doll / Service Puppet Play steals.
• Extra Deck is fully utilised with a coherent Rank 8 toolbox including a 3000 ATK beater, a 3200 ATK alternate-win body, targeted destruction with burn, and a Rank-Up searcher.
• Fully legal list (30/9/0) with no restricted cards in the Duel Links field.

Weaknesses

• Rank-Up-Magic Argent Chaos Force and Numeron Force have no Number C / CXyz target in the Extra Deck, making them near-dead cards that also empty Fantasix Machinix's search and Puppet Parade's Set clause.
• 12 singleton cards create high opening variance and several one-ofs need prior Graveyard setup before they do anything.
• End board is interaction-light: only one Xyz Block and one Service Puppet Play, with no negate-bearing boss monster.
• Book of Eclipse is a stalling tool that hands the opponent cards in the End Phase and does not advance the Rank 8 plan.
• No Side Deck and no tournament evidence, so post-game adaptation and matchup claims cannot be substantiated.

Critical choke points

• Negating the first Rank 8 Xyz Summon removes the deck's main payoff and there is no second Extra Deck route in the same turn.
• Rouge Doll's Summon effect being negated or blocked leaves only slow two-card lines through Little Soldiers or the Graveyard loop.
• Drawing both Rank-Up-Magic cards without Fantasix Machinix produces dead cards in hand for the rest of the game.
• The deck depends on Gimmick Puppet names reaching the Graveyard; Graveyard hate or a banished-stock lock disables Dreary Doll, Junk Puppet and Fiendish Knight at once.

Recommended changes

Evidence & confidence

• Verified: Legality: 30 Main / 9 Extra / 0 Side, no size warnings and no violations under the BanDuelLink field.; No restricted cards in the list; every card reports banlist status Unlimited with legal copies >= copies run.; Card text for Rouge Doll, Little Soldiers, Condolence Puppet, Fantasix Machinix, Puppet Parade, Service Puppet Play and both Rank-Up-Magic spells as supplied in description_excerpt.; Extra Deck contents: Strings x2, Fantasix Machinix x2, Giant Grinder x2, Gigantes Doll x1, Number 88 of Leo x1, Chimera Doll x1 - no Number C or CXyz monster is present.; Copy histogram: 12 distinct one-ofs and 6 distinct three-ofs across 18 distinct Main Deck cards.
• Observed: combo data reports total combos = 0 and scored combos = 0 ('no parseable boards'), so no combo power index, board per starter or interaction density could be measured.; usage statistics contains 24 core rows at 100% inclusion; the export flags 6 as missing from this deck although the card list actually contains all 6 in the Extra Deck, so the 75% core-present figure is a reference-matching artefact rather than a real gap.
• Inferred: P(>=1 Rouge Doll in a 5-card hand) = 0.434 and the 5-copy searcher-text group sits at 0.627; engine-live estimated near 0.62 once the two-card follow-up requirement is priced in.; Full-brick rate estimated near 0.15 from 12 singleton cards, dead Rank-Up slots and Graveyard-dependent one-ofs.; Median board inferred as one Rank 8 Xyz plus a Set card, ceiling as two Rank 8 bodies or one Rank 8 plus Service Puppet Play / Xyz Block.; Rank-Up-Magic Argent Chaos Force and Numeron Force are functionally dead because no Number C / CXyz exists in the Extra Deck.; Going-second strength inferred from 3 Forbidden Droplet / 3 Book of Eclipse / 3 Droll & Lock Bird plus Gigantes Doll and Service Puppet Play steal effects.; Graveyard recursion depth inferred from Dreary Doll, Junk Puppet, Fiendish Knight, Cattle Scream and Rouge Doll's add-back clause.
• Provisional: Meta Power is null: no dated metagame sample was supplied.; Matchup Coverage & Format Fit is provisional because tournament data is unavailable.; Post-side adaptation cannot be evaluated because Duel Links uses no Side Deck and no side list exists.
• Data gaps: No recorded combos - combo floor, median and ceiling are text-only inference. No tournament link - archetype meta-share and per-pilot match record absent. No win-rate telemetry exists in YGOVN (going-first/second, matchup, game-level, brick/starter/OTK rates); those signals are Inferred or Unknown. usage statistics reference matching flags 6 Extra Deck cards as missing although they are physically in the list, so core-present percentage is unreliable. No Side Deck exists in the format, so side-deck adaptability cannot be measured from play data. Meta Power is Provisional unless a dated metagame sample is supplied.