Ancient Gear Drill is an intriguing card.  It’s something rare for Yu-Gi-Oh… a Spell Tutor that can get any Spell, as opposed to only certain ones.  There are several costs/restrictions though.  Ancient Gear Drill requires a discard from hand.  That’s not too bad: lose one card you probably can spare (and maybe combo with) to get a Spell from your deck.  Next restriction: you cannot activate it from the field this turn, nor can you use it (from the field) to pay for costs.  Fortunately, there is a loop hole: said restrictions go away if, for example, you use Giant Trunade to send it to your hand.  Now, keeping this (and Giant Trunade) from becoming a common sight in decks is the requirement that you also have a Monster with Ancient Gear in its name in play.  Now, you can still work this into your deck if you wish: there are many low Level Ancient Gear Monsters.  Ancient Gear Golem and Ancient Gear Beast aren’t contenders since they can only be Normal Summoned and require Tribute.  Ancient Gear has little purpose even in an Ancient Gear deck (it’s not good for swarming, and there are better ways to get Tribute Fodder), so it too is out.  That still leaves Ancient Gear Cannon and Ancient Gear Soldier.  Cannon is rather nice: it’s a small Monster you can choose to Tribute for 500 burn damage… and prevent Traps from being activated for the rest of the turn.  Soldier is nice as well: it may be only 1300 ATK and DEF, but when it attacks, it prevents Spells and Traps from being activated until the end of the Damage Step.  Both can prevent nasty surprises, and either could be added freely to most decks to sneak in an Ancient Gear Drill.

 

However, I am not advocating that.  At least not for decks in general, because you’d have to run at least two of each card to get any kind of consistency, and that’s six deck slots.  More over, to really be consistent, you’d want three of each, and possible running the second of my two recommended Monsters.  Now, for an Earth themed deck, or more accurately, one using Giant Rat already… try it.  Giant Rat turns either Ancient Gear Monster into a free summon.  Even if you can’t pull off the combo, they are good in their own right when Special Summoned in such a manner.  One or two copies of Ancient Gear Drill and Giant Trunade are quite reasonable in a deck: Ancient Gear Drill being the only real deadweight if no Ancient Gear Monster is ready or your hand consists of just that Spell.  When the combo does go off, get whatever Spell you need.  Of course, with the current Spell selection, that may not be as great a deal: possibly four cards of effort to get that Spell into hand this turn.  Of course, if you could have used Giant Trunade and/or the Ancient Gear Monster anyway, and/or the Monster was Summoned via Giant Rat, then it becomes a two for one the wrong direction: two from hand for one from the deck.  It’s still good just to get that Nobleman of Crossout or Smashing Ground if that’s all you need to win.  You could go for Graceful Charity or Pot of Avarice, but that can get really expensive given what it took to get them to you already.  Card Destruction, if combined with Ancient Gear Drill (they can’t chain anything to Giant Trunade) could be a fun pull and help you truly gain some card (and field) advantage.

 

So to summarize, you at least Ancient Gear Drill in any Ancient Gear deck, and any deck that already runs Giant Rat shouldn’t have too much trouble getting use of the other needed components and setting up the combo, save for actual deck space.  Though I don’t think it will often be worth it, it will some of the time.  Lastly, Cyberstein OTK should consider it as well, since the bits work well with what it has or are already in the deck, and getting that Last Will or Limiter Removal can mean a win.

 

Ratings

 

Traditional: 1/5 – Too much effort, even though there are much better Spells to choose from in your deck.

 

Advanced: 2/5 – This is a general score.  You can work the combo into almost any deck, and benefit some from it.  In a deck already using Giant Rat (and decent Spells) it’s add a point to a point-and-a-half, and add two points for an actual Ancient Gear deck.

 

Limited: 3.5/5 – Its actually quite nice here, since there are some Ancient Gear Monsters and decent Spells in SOI.  The main thing hurting it is you aren’t apt to get multiples, so it’s going to be sort of a lucky break when it goes off.