The World I Truly Wish For | Demiurge Post-GBT11

Okay, so now that GBT-11 has been out, for like, two weeks? I finally decided to stop being lazy and write this post about Post-GBT11 Demiurge. Been dead on the wiki for awhile, so I might as well make myself useful for once.

Demiurge got huge buffs to his arsenal and now he's definitely viable as a deck. Way more than the pure meme it used to be. It hits hard and it hits fast. I've been loving the deck so much after the set dropped and winning with the deck has never felt so satisfying or consistent.

Many things have changed for the deck after Set 11. To name a few:

• MonoZTB is now a viable choice when it comes to Demiurging, along with the Idea Drone build.
• First stride Demiurge is a common occurence, albeit restricted to the MonoZTB build.
• Demiurge has actual plays it can perform pre-Demiurge
• The deck has double the amount of ZTB triggers available to it
• Demiurge can potentially go off twice in one game

Now that's set aside, decklists. I made a fairly good Idea-drone decklist and explanation, which has been updated and can be found here. Since I already have an updated Idea-drone post, I'll be dedicating the rest of this blogpost to the MonoZTB variant.

The MonoZTB variant is extremely fast at securing Demiurge, to the point where one can entirely expect it to happen on Stride Turn 1 or 2. It's pretty great, honestly, and by far outspeeds Idea Drones at this point. In my testing matches, I've gotten first stride Demiurge off about 90% of the time, the other 10% of the time being second stride Demiurge games.

List looks something like this:

First Vanguard - Pulsar, Sentry Dracokid

Grade 0:
4 Pulsar, Sentry Dracokid
2 Pulsar, Slash Dog
2 Pulsar, Rush Boar
1 Chronovolley Rabbit
2 Chronotimer Leghorn
2 Pulsar Tamer, Mara
1 Pulsar, Hypnosis Sheep
1 Pulsar, Fickle Monkey
1 Chronodoze Sheep
2 Chronotherapy Hamster
2 Pulsar Tamer, Annem

Grade 1:
3 Steam Tamer, Arka
1 Pulsar Tamer, Dagan
4 Pulsar, Revolver Dracokid
1 Chronoethos Jackal
1 Pulsar Tamer, Nepada
1 Pulsar, Bring Hawk
1 Pulsar, Nibble Rat

Grade 2:
3 Pulsar, Rewind Tiger
2 Pulsar, Valve Laser
2 Chronospin Serpent
1 Chronobeat Buffalo
1 Pulsar Tamer, Lugal-ure
1 Pulsar Tamer, Manish
1 Pulsar, Speedy Bunny

Grade 3:
4 Pulsar, Drastic Colossus
3 Chronojet Dragon G

Grade 4:
2 Deus Ex Machina, Demiurge
1 Fiery March Colossus
1 Interdimensional Dragon, Beyond Order Dragon
4 Chronodragon Nextage
1 Metapulsar, Mystery-freeze Dragon
1 Metapulsar, Altered Dragon
1 Metapulsar, Split Pegasus
1 Retroactive Time Maiden, Uluru
1 Highbrow Steam, Raphanna
1 Interdimensional Beast, Pandora Chimera
2 Far-away Time Maiden, Uluru

Now to explain myself and this janky build.

The first thing that looks off is the fact I'm running 4 of the forerunner. Why, you ask? Sentry is the best bind engine in the deck. Getting a second Sentry on board guarantees you first stride Demiurge. It's imperative that you get a second Sentry early, so I chose to max out on him. A couple others have been running 3, but I've been pretty comfortable with running the 4.

Arka is the PG of choice, being an easy Bind 2 button. Dagan's the next Sentinel, being a No Pass in and of itself due to the 100% count of ZTBs in the deck while also milling the deck to set up the drop for Demiurge. Both are ZTBs, so there's no issue if they end up getting bound, as well. The only other important Grade 1 is Revolver Dracokid to swap out Chronojet for Drastic, enabling Sentry and acting as a normal Stride Fodder.

The key Grade 2 for the deck is Rewind Tiger, that helps to maintain hand, field, and speed up binding. The other two important G2s are Valve Laser and Chronospin, since their higher base powers allow you to defend easier in certain matchups and even Gradestall if you need an extra turn to set up for first stride Demiurge.

Grade 3 choice here is very important. Drastic is the main ride, offering a great on-ride and giving Demiurge a significant powerboost with his stride skill. My backup is Jet G. Being both a ZTB and giving access to Nextage, he's the best pick as a backup to Drastic. He's also a solid ride, since he can Time Leap a G1 to call out Rewind Tiger and bind another while drawing 1. Jet's just great. Prospatheia can be run over Jet if you really want to have Sentry consistency.

Grade 4s are fairly self-explanatory. The second Demiurge is an odd pick, but there are a couple rare occasions where the second one does come in handy. The rest of the GZone is for after the Demiurge turn, in the case of Nextage and Fiery-March, and for setting up Demiurge if you weren't able to pull it off first stride, in the case of Altered and Mystery-freeze.

The Beyond Order and 2 Far-away Ulurus are only in there for second stride GB8 memes. Please don't roast me for this, I just wanted some giggles when playing with friends.

Now the big question everyone's been asking:

Between MonoZTB and Idea-drone, which is the superior Demiurge build?

MonoZTB's definitely the more competitive of the two now. It's much faster and, while a bit of a glass cannon, it has a great success rate and payup compared to Idea-drone. The deck can't do too much after two stride turns, but it's really powerful within the range. Idea-drone does have the plus side of being strong throughout the game and being much more flexible as to when and how you use the Demiurge, so I wouldn't say MonoZTB is better in every aspect. Try out both and see for yourself!

If you have any questions or feel like I should address something more in depth, please leave a comment below! I'll be making a Chronojet Zodiac post sometime soon, so look forward to that as well.

Also a couple of screenshots of Demiurge games, for your enjoyment.