This deck concept dates back a very long way, so this is going to be one of those deck posts with an unusually long intro. Feel free to skip to the deck, I can use any feedback.

Clock Tower prison actually finds its origins in my home country. Clock Tower enjoyed a very brief hype leading up to nats in, I think 05 or 06, when Adam Corn put the word out he was showing up with a deck based around it. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately, as we kept clock under wraps a very long time because it was never successfully used since) he failed miserably. Corn actually got the deck idea from a Belgian player, former Belgian national champ Wim Eliano. The deck then heavily revolved around spells (magician of faith was still legal as well) and was played in a format that had very little intrinsic opposition to passive decks (and trust me, clock is as passive as it gets). I only learned all of this much, much later. The person who got me into Clock Tower was former realms member Xav, who had an extremely effective build that was more in tune with the changing format. It was much more adept at protecting clock tower using triple skill drain, triple solemn judgment (long before it became the norm) and later triple dark bribe as well. Had he simply told me about the deck I would have probably dismissed it as a quircky novelty deck, but he played it against me on YVD and I was completely frustrated and flabbergasted that I had so little outs to it. It got me intrigued, and for well over a year Xav, Monkeychild and I formed Team clock, with Clock Tower being our common deck (I played a lot of decks back then). We kept it well under wraps, and it worked, we were able to take the deck to tournaments and use the element of surprise. And trust me, once I got my teeth into perfecting the deck, it elicited a lot of awe from a lot of players. This deck was brutal, as it basically allowed you to use the entire clock and in that time your opponent didn’t get a single play off. It was just plain fun watching people writhe in agony like that, when they started to realize what was really happening.

The basic Principle of Clock Tower is to get Clock Tower Prison on the field and stall for 4 turns. With 4 counters you were immune to battle damage and all you had to do was protect the Tower. When people saw the card their first thought was always of some Destiny Hero power play, by the time they figured out clock was the key, you had your protection in place. The deck could easily be built with Wave-Motion Cannon or Final Countdown as your win condition, but either required playing those card in threes, and in the case of Wave-Motion you lost precious backrow space and had to protect it as well. Macro faded in and out back then as well, so that Wave-Motion was quickly discarded. We actually preferred to play a single card, more annoying option as a win condition : Outstanding Dog Marron. Basically we ran a lot of draw to get our protection in place. As a result we stunned our opponent without making a play, but also thinned our deck. Without stopping to think we must be playing some sort of win condition they began hoping they could deck us out. By the end of the game, both players were playing with full hands, forcing discards at the end of the turn due to hand size limit. When nearing the end of your deck, you then casually discarded outstanding dog marron, which immediately returned to your deck, meaning you could never deck out, at which point an amazing look of despair, panic and defeat crossed your opponents face.

For a while clock became utterly unplayable though. Solemn Judgment went to 1, skill drain went to 2, and then a lot of decks surfaced that made it hard to keep your plays alive. The latest being samurai. But the pending banhammer for sams and the release of the card momentary truce in Generation Force made me want to try and resurrect the clock. I loved this deck, I’ve won regionals with this deck. It’s the most fun I’ve ever had playing a deck and it was a true original and a labour of love. For those who haven’t heard of Momentary truce :

Its not simply faster than the draw we used to have for the deck (Jar of greed, legacy of yata garasu and Good goblin housekeeping mostly, and a morphing jar), its also less likely to be stopped in a format of 7 tools and such, and it protect from damage (including burn damage) for two turns. The Clock Tower deck relies heavily on keeping yourself safe for 4 turns, but you also need the backrow space for protection. That meant cards like Swords of revealing light and Nightmare’s Steel cage were golden, as they freed up the space they occupied after the effect wore off. But we still had to augment it with cards like level Limit Area B, Scapegoat and sometimes Gravity bind, that provided problems in that way. Momentary Truce, as it were, kills two birds in one stone. Its artwork also seems to be a sign, as it features Legendary Six Samurai – Kizan. Samurai have long been my most successful deck, ever since grandmaster was released until reasoning got limited, and again from the release of the LSS til now. Them being the key opposition to this deck as well, it seems fitting that if they no longer occupy an important space in the meta, as they may not come September, that they help me bring back my other favourite deck. From its history and origin, to momentary truce’s art, to the fact that clock tower prison was my favourite pull from my very first sneak preview I ever played, this deck just seems to pull me in.

Since I haven’t kept up with this deck since I dropped it after Solemn Judgment was limited, I may be missing some key options, in cards I don’t know, or don’t remember released in the meanwhile. If you have any suggestions that may be useful for this deck, please make them. This deck has long run on cards that weren’t competitively viable (like good goblin housekeeping) to most people, so let me be the judge of what works and what doesn’t. No idea is too crazy. The current build is basically much as my old build was, but with the draw engine updated (GGH is too slow, 3 Momentary Truce and 2 pot of Duality seem like a natural fit). The deck runs single copies of countdown and WMC, they are basically expendable in the great scheme of things. WMC is usually a lightning rod and Countdown only does its work when you see it early enough. So there is some room to play with here.

The deck is called Clockdown, a contraction of Clock and Lockdown and Countdown.

Most pertinent Issues :

1.Increasing protection. We have no more Heavy Storm and the fact that doubling up on MST is a key way of dealing with this is a bonus, since a card like Prohibition can really thrive in game 1 because of this. What worries me most is the widespread play of Seven tools of the Bandit, which makes it easier to stop my counters. Protection for clock tower that by-passes that flaw would be great, but keep in mind that cards like Field barrier don’t work because they take up space permanently and Barrier and Magic reflector etc, only protect against destruction (which was enough back then, but there’s a lot of bounce and banish going around these days that wipes my clock counters as well). Losing two solemn judgments was painful, more counters to my counters being played was more painful, but most painful is simply the fact that the game has changed and has more outs to lockdown decks.

2.Increasing efficiency. I probably won’t be able to keep my tech countdown and WMC, and that’s cool. Using space efficiently here to get my key cards is what is most important. Getting skill drain for example was always most important back then, shutting down jinzo and monarchs before they set up, and I only had three and a rather slow draw engine. The release of Gold sarcophagus really helped back then, but is entirely too slow now. 3 Truce and 2 POD (not 3 because 2 in hand slows me down a turn) seem to go a very long way.

3.Sideboard. This deck goes to time a lot. A burn type switch makes a lot of sense and chainable burn piggybacking on a momentary truce is just pure magic. But I also need outs to burn decks and negation decks.

First test on DN vs meklord deck. Threw out countdown and WMC for third POD and Seven tools. May still be short on draw/search because I didn't see skill drain until turn 20 or so. If this had been a synchro deck or a plant deck, i would have been toast. He played mektimed blast and after one I prohibited it. Looked to have been a misplay, as I had bribe and seven tools set, but I saw him discard a mektimed (meaning the prohi paid off) and I needed the bribes down the stretch to negate the field spell he played two of.

Some memories came back when he played POA to avoid decking out right before I discard marron and his hopes were crushed to cinders :p

But guess i still need to see skill drain faster.

Hmm. This looks like so much fun!

Maybe side into Tempest OTK or something similar. I would put Magic Drain out there but your main concern is Traps, right?

Maybe triple up on Prohibition and go for a little more "speed" with Jar of Greed.

I'd say Drain is really important now seeing as most (if not all) competitive decks rely on effects. Not to mention Trunade (hope it goes and Heavy comes back...off-topic - sorry)

What about Hanewata in the side?

Dark Snake Syndrome? Continuous Magic - Inflict damage to both players' Life Points during each of your Standby Phases. The first damage begins at 200 points and is doubled during each of your following Standby Phases. Coupled with all the LP payments out and with Truce...

EDIT: Just was the post...bet he raged a little...lol. This is such a troll deck.

EDIT 2: Reckless Greed?

The prohi's already eat up backrow space, its just nice that they can hit multiples of a card against some decks. But its never a good thing if you have to play two.

The main concern is as much traps as spells, maybe slightly more traps. ideally i'd have 3 more dark bribes. That would also make prohi more reliable, because now i have to think spell first with prohi to make sure my seven tools are maximally effective, but that leaves more cards to deal with and still only 4 remaining backrow spaces, one being reserved for skill drain. But drain might be a little too niche indeed.

Hanewata on side against burn would be good, but depends on if burn makes a comeback. Normally i'll side to burn for game 3 to win in time.

DSS has no interaction with Truce, since truce shuts down damage for two turns, so similarly for you and your opponent.

Missed that bit of MT...lol, my bad.

Reckless?

Reckless, doesn't like me :p It always fails miserably for me. i don't get what I want i can't draw an out for another two turns.