Zax's Cataclysm

EDIT 1: replaced Stroke of Midnight with Trim the Line, as Lobster reminded me that Engraver's Mark exists, which would completely hard counter the deck, so the option needs to be there for early patch removal. I wouldn't fall into the trap of using it on anything that isn't as essential as that though, as you would much rather just set up your combo. It also comes with the benefit of being faster to cycle if you do end up needing the Wall Hacks backup plan.

Very much a set plan with this deck, and you will very often get a double crash on turn 5 and win on turn 6 unless the opponent has specific disruption or counters! I'm very happy with this one, it all just comes together very nicely but has enough redundancy to pull it back if something goes wrong.

𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁

Gargaunaut Prime, Roxie the Mallet, Zaximus Defender. Reveal Zaximus to try and go first.

Gargaunaut runs The Ironclad Chronicle (the armour card) in the library.

𝗧𝘂𝗿𝗻 𝗯𝘆 𝗧𝘂𝗿𝗻

Turn 1: Roxie plays Pump it Up onto Zaximus, gaining him 2 armour. During update you then get the only ink you will need for the game.

Turn 2: Play Stroke of Genius onto Zaximus and swap him out into Scrapper.

Turn 3: Play Infinite Youth, swap Gargaunaut into Zaximus then Pass the Plate onto Zax too. He gets 2 armour from the suspend and then 3 from Scrapper in total So unless he's been hit (which is fine still) he should be at 7 armour here.

Turn 4: EXE the Infinite Youth to set up Crisis Engine, and swap Zaximus once again into Gargaunaut.

Turn 5: The combo turn if everything went to plan, you can swap out either Roxie or Scrapper - preferably Scrapper usually - into Zaximus. He'll get his 2 armour from the suspend putting him at 9 in an ideal world. Then Gargaunaut uses his library card, scribing the effect of Stroke of Genius with your 1 ink. It will give another 2 armour to Zax and ready him up. Then you can use Break Beats, boosting him up to do a max of 13x2 if using Pump it Up too, although it's unlikely you'll need those numbers. Either way you will usually get 2 crashes here which can be followed up in many ways next turn to secure the game.

As a general rule, when Zax or Oni get a good amount of armour you want to swap them out, as Gargaunaut allows them to come in ready so it prevents the opponent from removing your armour. The deck is fairly hard to disrupt: Zaximus can't be cycled so you'll definitely be able to set up the crisis engine. If they remove the infinite youth it delays you by a turn at most, and you can plan your swaps around it so Zaximus stays as protected as possible. If they remove the stroke of genius then you'll need to use Gargaunaut's stack a bit to grab the Wall Hacks, as you definitely need Zaximus to be able to come in ready. Even if worst comes to worst and Zaximus himself somehow goes down early, you have Onibaba to put out massive single target damage when combined with Mag Core or Armour Up+Scrap and Weld.

𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗚𝘂𝗶𝗱𝗲

Scrapper: Plays into the combo early by giving Zaximus armour, but mainly is around for the backup after the combo, with armour up plus scrap and weld moving huge amounts of armour onto one of your damage dealers.

Gargaunaut Prime: The main thing the deck is built around, he provides massive stability to the combo by preventing Zax from being cycled, allowing him to come in ready very early on, and even adding extra armour at the same time. Stroke of Midnight can make it a little harder for the opponent to remove your stuff later if you need to move to the backup plan, and can use your ink to either fix your cycle or remove opposing access to something scary looking. Wall Hacks is the redundancy for coming in ready. He's quite tanky as well so very unlikely to go down too early, especially with the amount you swap about.

Roxie the Mallet: The ability does nothing here, she is just the only character to run the correct combination of brands for what I need in this slot. Allows the first turn suspend to gain ink whilst also adding extra damage to the combo, sets it up quickly with infinite youth and then runs a self contained backup plan. If you ever run out of armour to boost your damage with but Zaximus is still alive, you want to put Magnetic core on him then swap him out. This still allows huge damage from 0 armour - next turn you swap in, suspend for +2 armour, play the ironclad chronicle scribed to ready up and get another 2 armour, pop mag core's EXE for 3 MORE, putting you at 7 unstoppably, which does 8x2.

Zaximus Defender: Self explanatory really! He gains armour passively, and can use Benobasa's Fist for the multi hit commands.

Onibaba: The backup plan if needed, she is another character that takes advantage of armour to deal huge damage. You do need Scrapper to get her past 4 armour in general but you can get Rocket Crush doing 6 damage, and Re'gine's doing 7. Sensu can stall an extra turn potentially if needed, but I'd say in 99% of games you would never reach the last card in her stack.

𝗥𝗲𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗰𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀

Not a whole lot of choice without breaking the combo! Defrag is a natural fit which Onibaba could probably run, and Gargaunaut can swap out Stroke of Midnight probably, but I don't know what to put there.

For sideboarding, Tonk0r could be an alternate backup as opposed to Onibaba, running something like Defrag, Backhand, Dragon feet. But that would more likely just be a main deck replacement since there's not really a different role being fulfilled there.

Otherwise just maybe get a patch removal character in there in case you go against something that can disrupt your combo with patches, like some endless chain stuff.