Gladiator Beasts

They theoretically have a good match-up against practically everything. Remove Dandylions and Treeborn Frogs, destroy Necrovalley, negate Judgment Dragon and Kalut, take advantage of Emmersblade and Scrap Goblin.

The problem is that once something gets past them, they can't do much to get rid of it.

Gladiator Beasts are all about prevention, and they're pretty good at it. Negating effects and destroying cards before they can roll into combos is fairly easy for them.

However, once something big hits the field, they have a tough time destroying it. All of them have fairly low ATK, so they'll even have difficulty getting through a Cyber Dragon.

They would basically have to wait for some Monster removal card or for some way to Special Summon Bestiari to fuse for Gyzarus. The latter isn't going to happen very often, but the former will if they load their deck with those types of cards.

If they do that, then they might not draw Monsters often enough to take advantage of a clear field. Even if they do, their Monsters are still vulnerable to Traps and such.

Essentially, Gladiator Beast decks need to consistently clear the opponent's field (or at least stun their back rows) to be effective. Unfortunately for them, that can't happen as often as it needs to.

The thing that keeps Gladiator Beasts in the meta is their amazing match-up against a few key decks. They thrive against set-up decks like (Quickdraw) Plants, Frog Monarchs, and X-Sabers. However, they lose pretty often to other Stun decks like Blackwings and Gemini Stun.

So yeah, Gladiator Beasts aren't as good as I thought they were. Now I have to find a new deck to take to locals...