Konami Arcade Games

These are a series of cards Konami released based on characters in their Gradius video game series and other "shoot 'em up" games. These include player-controlled ships, support items, enemies, and bosses. It should be noted, however, that several in the theme for the card game are not from Gradius series.

Playing Style

A Gradius Deck revolves around the use of the cards "Gradius" or "Victory Viper XX03" along with their support cards. The main strategy is to protect your monsters from traps with the effect of "Jade Knight" and boost them all with cards you can activate during damage calculation. The majority of the Deck's monsters have effects that trigger whenever it attacks and destroys an opposing monster; these effects involve increasing their own ATK, destroying opposing cards, and especially summoning more monsters. As a result, a Gradius Deck operates under a Swarm/OTK hybrid, which is augmented by additional ATK-boosting cards such as United We Stand. Another effective strategy is to utilize cards that drop opposing ATK scores, such as Gearspring Spirit. Due to having initially low Original ATK on a majority of its monsters, so this Deck must have a counter ready every turn as it is vulnerable to being overrun by large opposing beaters. A variation on this Deck reached the SHONEN JUMP Championship Nashville 2010, using cards like "Honest" (before it became Limited) and "Creature Swap".

Gradius Swarm

The mass swarming of this Deck provides the opportunity to rapidly Synchro Summon and Xyz Summon. The primary monsters are all Level 4 Light monsters, allowing Lightwave Tuning to be an option. However, one might feel hard-pressed to invest largely in both Synchro and Xyz strategies while maintaining an appropriate Deck size or Card Ratio.

If one wishes to incorporate Gradius, the player has access to the many support cards that come with being a low-ATK Normal Light Machine. A pair of Gradius may be searched using Rescue Rabbit, which can be used to Xyz Summon Gear Gigant X to search another Machine from the Deck or Starliege Paladynamo to overcome a difficult monster. Gradius' Option is a monster that can be automatically summoned when Gradius is out, and by using a combination of a Level 1 Tuner such as Mono Synchron or Unknown Synchron as well as Lightwave Tuning, it is plausible to summon Shooting Star Dragon the opening turn. The player may also wish to incorporate other Normal Machines to supplement Rescue Rabbit, such as the Tuner Genex Controller or the high-ATK Mechanicalchaser, or any other possible Normal Machine. Keep in mind that since Genex Controller and Mechanicalchaser are both Dark monsters, it highly increases the playability of Black Luster Soldier - Envoy of the Beginning.

All plays should be focused on swarming and increasing ATK power. Both Gradius and Victory Viper have monsters that can copy their ATK, so equipping these monsters with United We Stand can be very beneficial, along with other ATK-boosting cards such as Honest. Other powerful Equip Cards for Machines are Mage Power, Fighting Spirit, and Break! Draw! Without their ATK-boosting cards, these monsters are vulnerable to high-ATK monsters. For these impenetrable monsters, simply take them with Creature Swap. This steals an opposing high-ATK monster while giving your opponent a low-ATK monster that your jets can easily eradicate. Jade Knight is an especially potent Swap, as you will still obtain its searching effect even if it is destroyed under your opponent's control. Although not a best-case scenario, if your own jet is destroyed by battle, it will still activate an effect so long the other monster is destroyed by battle as well (this is because the jets do not require the opposing monster to be sent to the Graveyard and occurs immediately after damage calculation).

Recommended cards

Monsters

• Blue Thunder T-45
• Cyber Eltanin
• Cyber Valley
• Delta Tri
• DUCKER Mobile Cannon (to recycle Honest)
• Falchionβ
• Gearspring Spirit
• Gradius
• Gradius' Option
• Honest
• Hyper Synchron
• Jade Knight
• Lord British Space Fighter
• Mono Synchron

* Rescue Rabbit

• Road Synchron
• Trigon
• Tuningware
• Victory Viper XX03

Spells

• Break! Draw!
• Burden of the Mighty
• Creature Swap
• Dragon Laser
• Ego Boost
• Enemy Controller
• Gravity Blaster
• Inferno Reckless Summon
• Iron Call
• Lightwave Tuning
• Limiter Removal
• Machine Assembly Line
• Power Capsule
• Rare Metalmorph
• Rush Recklessly
• Shrink
• Solidarity
• Swords of Revealing Light
• United We Stand

Traps

• Beckoning Light
• Half Counter
• Needle Ceiling
• Ojama Trio
• Prideful Roar
• Rising Energy
• Safe Zone
• Threatening Roar
• Torrential Tribute

Extra

• Avenging Knight Parshath
• Chimeratech Fortress Dragon
• Chimeratech Overdragon
• Constellar Omega
• Gear Gigant X
• Genex Ally Triforce
• Evilswarm Ouroboros
• Light End Dragon
• Maestroke the Symphony Djinn
• Michael, Lightsworn Ark
• Photon Papilloperative
• Power Tool Dragon
• Power Tool Mecha Dragon
• Number 32: Shark Drake
• Number 39: Utopia
• Stardust Dragon
• Starliege Paladynamo
• Tin Archduke

Cyber-Gradius Deck

This deck presents some similarities to the popular Lightsworn Deck, as it needs a lot of Mill effects to have a lot of Machine-type monsters in the Graveyard and on the field to use the effect of Cyber Eltanin to clear your opponent's field and attack it directly for an OTK, but be careful, your opponent's Spells & Traps won't be destroyed, so the use of Heavy Storm or Counter Trap Cards can totally clear your opponent's field or save you from devastating effects like Mirror Force, Magic Cylinder, or Torrential Tribute. Additionally, this deck presents some advantages to the Lightsworn Deck, the first one is that the player using this deck can see what to discard, since cards are discarded from the hand and not from the top of the deck, and also this deck is almost immune to "Bottomless Trap Hole" and "Messenger of Peace", but it still having a lot of ATK because of the using of "Honest" and cards like "Beckoning Light" to recover the Honests and send more spaceships to the Graveyard. If "Cyber Dragon" is in this deck, "Chimeratech Fortress Dragon" can also be used as an emergency card in the extra deck. Also, only a few Trap Cards are used in this deck, only the staples ("Solemn Judgement" and "Torrential Tribute") and semi-staples ("Raigeki Break") and the "Beckoning Light" because it is a great engine in the functionality of this deck.

Recommended Cards

Monsters

• Gradius
• Victory Viper XX03
• Falchionβ
• Jade Knight
• Lord British Space Fighter
• Delta Tri
• Trigon
• Honest
• Cyber Dragon
• Cyber Eltanin

Spells

• Swords of Revealing Light
• Mystical Space Typhoon
• Hand Destruction
• Card Destruction
• Limiter Removal
• Dragon Laser
• The Fountain in the Sky

Traps

• Raigeki Break
• Torrential Tribute
• Beckoning Light
• Mirror Force
• Xing Zhen Hu