Alright, I'm back from my Black/White coma, and I'll
actually be writing new articles, now. Yay! A beacon of hope
in your otherwise Mark-less world!
A Karakuri deck has tons of different options for tech cards
and engines, but which is the best? You may have heard of
Karakuri decks utilizing Plants, Machina, Geartown, the
Salvo engine, and a huge supply of individual cards that are
constantly varying between builds. Decks are becoming more
and more cramped these days, especially in the current
format, which is plagued with staples. But for those of us
who don't feel like shelling out for Solemn Warning and Pot
of Duality, there are still options.
Not all Karakuri support cards are commonly used. To sum up
a few, I would always recommend three Anatomy and Showdown
Castle whenever possible. The Castle is what makes the deck
a true threat, and extra copies become like
Monster Reborn.
Simple, costless cards like Haipa will take down just about
any huge monster--while making your opponent sorry they ever
summoned low-ATK monsters and tokens. Anatomy is a Pot of
Greed when used right, and an MST decoy otherwise--two fates
you won't hate to see.
The three traps you may have looked at are Trick House,
Klock and Cash Shed. Their timing isn't quite worth it
unless your deck really centers around the robots. Trick
House can fill a lot of different roles if you can hit its
timing--it ultimately depends on the deck. Same with Klock,
being a much more powerful Mirror Force, but I prefer the
latter for 
consistency's sake.
The new Super, Cash Shed, is a real godsend for Karakuri.
Negating any Spell/Trap for free is HUGE, and this works off
of Haipa, Shogun, Strategist, and last turn's Merchant. As
with Solemn Judgment, this gives you a large degree of
control over the state of the duel, and is definitely a
staple if your build is pure enough.
Finally, Karakuri Komachi "Ninishi" fills the exact same
niche as Strategist,
but replaces combo power with brute
force. Her DEF is high enough that she will likely last a
few turns, but extra copies don't get their effects. Karakuri decks can have a lot of monsters to play, but I
wouldn't recommend replacing your Strategists unless your
deck is all-out OTK with Limiter Removal, in which case this
robot lady can be deadly.
No doubt, a Karakuri deck takes skill to wield, and is
almost as customizable as Quickdraw. But the cards in the
deck--and how they're used--are all up to the Duelist, and
what a decision that can be!
