When Gladiator’s Assault was released one of the cards that no one paid attention to was Goblin Black Ops (originally called Goblin Assassin Team). To my knowledge it is the weakest version of cards similar to Goblin Attack Force, but at the same time, one of the deadliest because it has the uncanny ability to attack your opponent directly. And it’s due to this that I call the ability to attack directly, “Assassination” or Assassinating.

In the real world, Black Ops, or Black Operations are a type of secretive operation performed by professionally trained agents and are generally used for unconventional warfare, such as assassinations, espionage(spying), and sabotage. Keeping this in mind, Goblin Black Ops works best if your opponent doesn’t see it coming, and if you know what your opponent’s plans are (by spying), and sabotaging them.

As you may be aware of, there are many cards out there that possess the admirable ability of being able to attack directly. Sadly most of them are wimps. These are (but may not be limited to) Mystic Lamp, Jinzo #7, Leghul, Ooguchi, Rainbow Flower, Queen's Double, Servant of Catabolism, Nightmare Horse, Spell Striker, Cyberdark Edge, Submarineroid, Raging Flame Sprite, Mucus Yolk, Alien Infiltrator, and Gear Golem the Moving Fortress are all cards that have 800 ATK or less who have the ability to possibly attack directly. Some of these cards are easier to use than others.

Back to our feature card, Goblin Black Ops has a nifty 1300 attack, but a sad 0 defense, and, similar to it’s bigger Goblin brethren, after it attacks and is involved in battle it is switched to Def. position. Now, you might be saying, “He’s going to die it defense position.” I say to you, he served his purpose. After all, isn’t that what black ops are all about?

His purpose is to become a sneak attack on your opponent’s LP, hitting hard, and then becoming a target, sacrificing itself to protect you. With 1300 attack, he is the strongest Direct attacker out there who does not have the damage reduced, and best of all, he has the ability to attack under Messenger of Peace. Crystal Beast Amethyst Cat, who’s attack is 1200, unfortunately gets its attack reduced by half. This is also the weakness of Cyberdark Edge.

But what if you want to capitalize the BGO’s potential? By making him as strong as possible you can use him to swing for game in the end of the duel, and if you maximize his limit by adding 3, you can use the first two to take out chunks from your opponent’s life points. The standard monster protection, such as messenger of peace Waboku and threatening roar can protect your LP from your opponent’s attacks Waboku and Threatening Roar are also chainable, so if your opponent tries to use Mobius or even Snipe Hunter you can use these cards to protect you and your monsters for the turn.

So if you were to make a Deck of Black Operations, how could you go about doing that? I’m glad you asked!

By doing your homework you can see that some of the “Assassin” monsters are actually quite usable. For a long time Raging Flame Sprite was good because, although she starts at a meager 100 ATK, each time she does damage by attacking directly, her attack is increased by 1000. Very quickly she can butt heads and win against the Blue Eyes White Dragon.

Cyberdark Edge is a neat little monster as well. It only has an original ATK of 800, but you’re not going to want to special summon it with Mystic Tomato, because you won’t get the effect if you do. Save the Tomato for Goblin Black Ops. When Edge is normal summoned you can take a LV 3 or lower dragon type monster from your graveyard to equip to it, and then you add that monster’s attack to it’s base attack. The two strongest LV 3 or lower monsters out there both happen to have 1500 attack, which is a good thing because you can special summon them both with cards like Giant Rat and Flying Flying Kamakiri #1. They are Twin Headed Behemoth(Wind), and Dweller in the Depths(Earth). Both cards work nicely in the deck I’m about to introduce to you because they can attack under G. Bind and Level Limit Area B, which is perfect for Dweller who gets a boost for Continuous spells like LLAB. Another good dragon card to use would be Exploder Dragon, being able to suicide him (without taking damage due to his secondary effect) to destroy a monster first can guarantee you to have a level 3 dragon in the graveyard, plus being 1000 attack allows it to attack under Messenger of Peace as well, Isn’t it great that a lot of these cards work to your advantage?

Once Cyberdark Edge is equipped with one of these monsters it becomes a 2300 attack monster (or 18 in Exploder’s case) who attacks directly. Even if the damage is cut in half, 1150 damage is nothing to sneeze at. Since Cyberdark Edge is a Machine monster, it works perfectly with machine support, if you decide to take that rout.

There’s two more monsters I would like to talk about, and the first one is Spell Striker.

Spell Striker was released in the Nintendo DS game Yu Gi Oh World Championship 2007, and has since been splashed in a variety of decks, to include Monarchs and anything else that required tributes. Spell Striker has some of the poorest stats in the game, he has 600 attack and 200 defense. Despite this, his effect is very intriguing. First you can special summon him by removing a spell card from your graveyard from play (hence the name). Then he can attack directly, and if he is involved in a battle at all, the controller (that should be you) will take no damage to your life points. This is very important because there are a few special cards to combo with this monster, as well as the next and last Assassin I will discuss.

Submarineriod!
Submarineroid has 800 attack, and 1800 defense. It can attack directly, and when it does, you have the option to switch it into defense position. Most of the time this can protect your life points as well, so as you can see, Spell Striker and Submarineroid are similar in this aspect, despite one is water and the other is earth.

Now all we need to do is throw Robbin’ Goblin into the mix. Robbin’ Goblin forces your opponent to randomly discard a card each time you inflict damage to your opponent through battle. By using these Assassins, this should be relatively easy to do. And since most monsters are under 1300 attack, you can safely use the card Heart of Clear Water with Submarineroid and Spell Striker to make it near impossible for your opponent to get rid of them.

So now let’s build the deck. Taking in all that I’ve already talked about, let’s see what else I want to add.

Giant Trunade – Instead of Heavy Storm. Heavy would ruin your own strategy more often then your opponent’s.

Solemn Judgement and Dark Bribe – You don’t want Heavy storm or something similar to ruin things for you, right?

Waboku and Threatening Roar – With your opponent popping out spell and trap removal you’re going to need something to protect your monsters for at least 1 turn while you wait for the opportunity to put your stall walls back up. This card does the trick.

Call of the Haunted – When you have monsters in the graveyard that you can choose from, Call becomes a neat card to toy with

Command Knight – Put up a wall, or boost Spell Striker.

Wave-Motion Cannon – Since I’m including at least one Dweller in the Depths, I need at least 1 good continuous spell card that can be used to help boost him up. Wave Motion Cannon, at the same time, can act like Goblin Black Ops, in that, it can finish the opponent at the last second, or at least help to push you closer to the goal.

Iron Blacksmith Kotetsu – Secretly you’ll be getting ready for the super attack with GBO. To prepare, use Kotetsu to gain the powerful equip spells, like Mage Power and United We Stand, or instead you can grab Heart of Clear Water and Mist Body.

Mage Power and United We Stand – to beef up your monsters.

Premature Burial – It is an equip spell that can be fetched with Kotetsu, so it’s in.

Mist Body – To use with Command Knight or Goblin Black Ops.

Dream Clown – Searchable via Giant Rat, and can destroy a monsters without giving itself up.

Amazoness Swords Woman – Earth and a warrior. If your opponent happens to get a powerful monster in the field, this bad girl can hurt your opponent really well.

Deck: 40

Monsters: 18
Command Knight
Goblin Black Ops
Goblin Black Ops
Spell Striker
Spell Striker
Dream Clown
Amazoness Swords Woman
Amazoness Chain Master
Cyber Gymnast
Giant Rat
Giant Rat
Mystic Tomato
Mystic Tomato
Iron Blacksmith Kotetsu
Iron Blacksmith Kotetsu
Cyberdark Edge
Dweller in the Depths
Exploder Dragon


Spells: 14
Reinforcements of the Army
Reinforcements of the Army
Heart of Clear Water
Mist Body
Premature Burial
Mage Power
United we Stand
Messenger of Peace
Messenger of Peace
Messenger of Peace
Giant Trunade
Mystical Space Typhoon
Premature Burial
Wave Motion Cannon
   
Traps: 8
Robbin' Goblin
Dark Bribe
Dark Bribe
Solemn Wishes
Solemn Wishes
Waboku
Threatening Roar
Call of the Haunted

The idea of this deck was to utilize as much of the weaker Warrior/Earth Monsters that had good effects to keep your opponent on their toes. Messenger of Peace is used to keep your opponent away while you chip away at their LP with weaker direct attacks every turn.

It’s true that you have assassins who can attack directly, but sometimes you need to just destroy a monster or two. Mist Body helps keep your stronger monsters from being destroyed in battle while A Heart of Clear Water also prevents your weaker monsters from being destroyed by cards that target, such as Sakuretsu Armor. Wave-Motion Cannon is awesome because your opponent will be wasting their spell and trap removal on your Messenger of Peace’s, so you can take them out easily.

This is my take on Assassins, I hope this was insightful and gives everyone a new look on the neat little buggers!

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