Ancient Gear Dark Golem – #LEDE-EN006
This card’s name becomes “Ancient Gear Golem” while on the field or in the GY. If this card is Normal or Special Summoned: You can add up to 2 cards (“Ancient Gear” cards and/or “Geartown”) from your Deck to your hand, except “Ancient Gear Dark Golem”, then discard 1 card, also you cannot Set cards for the rest of this turn. You can only use this effect of “Ancient Gear Dark Golem” once per turn. If this card attacks, your opponent cannot activate Spell/Trap Cards until the end of the Damage Step.
Date Reviewed: May 24th, 2024
Rating: 3.75
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is awful. 3 is average. 5 is excellent.
Reviews Below:
King of
Lullaby
Hello Pojo Fans,
Ancient Gear Dark Golem is the newest version of a different Ancient Gear Golem, and ends our look at the Ancient Gear archetype.
Same stat line as the original, and as such, it becomes Ancient Gear Golem while on the field and in the grave, lending it support as well as fusion capabilities. Unlike the original and the previous upgrade to the original, Dark Golem can get you two cards upon its summon. When you factor in potentially tributing two of your monsters for this card, it’s great to see it paying you back. With Ancient Gear Advance, you can set it up so you won’t have to tribute for Dark Golem at all, turning it into a +2. You can search out any Ancient Gear cards or Geartown from the deck, minus itself of course. You do have to discard a card afterwards, but that merely sets up your grave for something like Ancient Gear Fusion or Ancient Gear Duel. If you sent a copy of itself or an Ancient Gear Golem to the grave with the discard, you can bring it back through Ancient Gear Commander. Locking you out of setting cards for the rest of the turn means little when Commander can be banished to play Ancient Gear Duel face-up, and the archetype revolves around face-up Spell Cards.
Inherits the same lock-out of Spell/Trap Cards until the end of the Damage Step ability, and we’ve already discussed how that will rarely matter now. In terms of being “Ancient Gear Golem”, Dark Golem does it a lot better than the original and Ultimate Pound, and that’s how retrains are supposed to work: improve on the predecessor(s) while maintaining some connection to them. Searching cards to gain advantage quickly to swarm and OTK is what Ancient Gears are supposed to do, especially with Limiter Removal at three and Power Bond as well at three (better finish the opponent if you use Power Bond).
Ancient Gear Dark Golem may replace Ancient Gear Golem because it is just better. It gets you cards and doesn’t need to be Normal Summoned to do so. You can Special Summon it, which you cant do with the original unless you go through an effect that ignores the requirements. AGDG gets you to the Ancient Gear/Geartown cards you want and drastically increases the chances of an OTK. Maybe run one of the original to have fusion options, or you can run a set if you run Trade-In.
Advanced- 3.5/5 Art- 4/5
Until Next Time,
KingofLullaby
Crunch$G
Instead of a new Fusion, the new boss for the Ancient Gear archetype is another retrain of Golem with Ancient Gear Dark Golem.
Dark Golem is a Level 8 EARTH Machine with 3000 ATK and DEF. Great stats, just funny Dark Golem is still an EARTH Machine. It’s name becomes Ancient Gear Golem while on the field or in the graveyard, so you get those benefits like being able to revive this off Ultimate Ancient Gear Golem, or using it as Fusion Material. It’s not Golem in the Deck, so no sending it off Commander. Upon being Normal or Special Summoned, you can add up to 2 Ancient Gear cards or Geartown from your Deck to your hand and then discard a card. Another searcher for Geartown and your Ancient Gear cards, whether your monsters or your Spells and Traps. The discard is fine if you use Overload Fusion to try and summon Chaos Ancient Gear Giant, though this being a Level 8 still, I don’t know if the discard was needed after the double search. You can’t Set cards for the rest of the turn, cause they don’t want you abusing Ancient Gear Drill to get to any Spell, though you can’t even activate the Spell set off Drill the same turn, so it only matters for Quick-Play Spells really. The search effect is a hard once per turn, and it also turns off backrow from the opponent when it attacks. I get why it doesn’t have the piercing, don’t want to make it outright better than the original Golem. It’s still a solid retrain of the classic, giving the Deck a lot more consistency. You can search Commander and Duel off this and discard Commander to instantly set up your Duel. It’s also super easy to summon in Ancient Gears with cards like Catapult, Geartown, Fortress, and Tanker. You’d probably play more of this than the original Golem, even if it isn’t always treated as Golem, but both have a place in the Deck.
Advanced Rating: 3.75/5
Art: 4/5 Not a lot of differences between this and the original Golem, but looking hard enough I can find them.
Mighty
Vee
This isn’t the first time the star card of a support wave was a combo piece, and it certainly isn’t the last– ending the week is yet another retrain of Ancient Gear Golem, Ancient Gear Dark Golem, succeeding Ancient Gear Golem – Ultimate Pound as another form of Crowler’s ace monster. Ironically, it’s still a level 8 EARTH Machine monster, and shares many of the searchable amenities as the original Golem does, though you’ll usually access it with Ancient Gear Advance searching Ancient Gear Catapult. It shares the original’s solid stat spread of 3000 attack and defense, as it should.
Dark Golem counts as the original Ancient Gear Golem on the field or in the Graveyard, which is highly welcome considering Ultimate Pound lacks that clause– this makes it a valid Fusion material for Ultimate Ancient Gear Golem and allows for the use of Ancient Gear Duel and the bonus effect of Ancient Gear Fusion. Dark Golem can also actually be Special Summoned, which puts it miles above its predecessors by default. You’ll want to summon it off of Ancient Gear Catapult for your main combos. As usual, Dark Golem takes the original’s ability to prevent your opponent from activating Spells and Traps if it attacks; an ability that made sense at the time even if it’s outdated by modern standards. Dark Golem’s main effect is its sole hard once per turn effect, triggering if it’s Normal or Special Summoned to let you search any two Ancient Gear cards (including Geartown), then discard one card at the small cost of preventing you from setting any cards for the rest of the turn. Aside from Infinite Impermanence, a good Ancient Gear deck will be unbothered by the drawback. Double ROTAs are always potent cards for their respective decks; while it’ll depend on your hand, Ancient Gear Commander (or Box, which gets Commander anyway) and Ancient Gear Tanker are a safe duo since you will easily flood your board with Ancient Gear monsters and can go into Rank 8 plays in the process. Ancient Gear Fusion will also be instantly live thanks to Dark Golem’s name clause, so you can instantly go into Chaos Ancient Gear Giant and terrify casual players or sweep boards filled with weak monsters. Unfortunately, as is usual for integral combo pieces, Dark Golem is a walking Hand Trap magnet! If you already used your Normal Summon to get to it, Ash Blossom or Effect Veiler on Dark Golem will basically spell your doom, and that’s not even considering enemy disruption since you’ll want to go second in OTK-focused builds. I also would’ve liked to see a Special Summon condition, but I get that it’s already extremely easy to summon so I can’t complain too much about that. You don’t need more than one copy, but you can play two for safety if you’re scared of it being a garnet.
+Double ROTA is a strong searching effect
+Can set up the summon of Chaos Ancient Gear Giant all by itself
-Vulnerable to common Hand Traps
-Potential garnet in bad hands
Advanced: 4/5
Art: 4.25/5 From far away it looks like Golem doing some knee attack thing, but it turns out it’s just Ultimate Pound. Again.
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