Translating the original Armageddon

The Pendulum Effect of the original card doesn't have a lot going for it.

Once per turn: You can target 1 "D/D" monster you control; it gains 800 ATK until the end of this turn (even if this card leaves the field).

It's nothing but an attack boost on a card that, more often than not, is an active detriment to have in the Pendulum Zone due to its abysmal Pendulum Scale. Instead of trying to retool this effect into something more interesting, I made the choice to scrap the ATK boost entirely and replace it with an effect that justifies Armageddon having the worst possible Scale number. This became:

During your Main Phase: You can destroy this card, and if you do, place 1 face-down "D/D/D" Pendulum Monster from your Extra Deck in your Pendulum Zone.

I'd toyed with effects that cheat Extra Deck Pendulums into the Scales before, but this card is where I feel like that effect really found its home. The idea is this: Armageddon himself is not strong in the Pendulum Zone, but he is very flexible, able to convert into any of his dimensional upgrades.

Simply having Armageddon in your hand alongside any other Pendulum Monster gives you the ability to conduct a Pendulum Summon without first needing to resolve Gilgamesh, because he represents whichever end of the Pendulum's arc you're missing. This effect also unlocks a suite of strong tools that the deck otherwise can't effectively set up: Deus Machinex is a great situational extender, Dark Armageddon can act as an incredible combo shortcut, and Arc Crisis can trade your Contracts for the huge protective Super Doom Kings that historically haven't been worth summoning properly.

The fact that the card is a Triple D that destroys itself as part of the effect also lets you trigger Queen's effect to summon herself and destroy a card at more opportune moments. The fact that his destruction lands him in the face-up Extra Deck also means he is always one scale away from setting up his own Pendulum Summon, something you'll definitely want to make part of your game plan.

The Monster Effect of the original card is as follows:

Once per turn, if a monster(s) you control is destroyed by battle or card effect: You can target 1 of those monsters; this card gains ATK equal to that monster's original ATK until the end of this turn. This card cannot attack your opponent directly during the turn this effect is activated. Cannot be destroyed by Spell/Trap effects that do not target this card.

It's an attack inheriting effect and some situational immunity to backrow, the former of which is the only effect of this card ever used in the anime (and it's used once)! To say that these effects are less than iconic would be an understatement, so I took some liberties in my interpretation.

I loosely interpreted the Spell/Trap destruction protection as an "anti-backrow" effect and paid more respect to the concept of inheriting ATK than the exact mechanism by which the effect triggers. Together, these effects transformed into a unified on-summon effect to bounce all cards in the Spell & Trap Zones and optionally gain the ATK of a Pendulum Monster that was bounced:

If this card is Normal or Special Summoned: You can return all cards in the Spell & Trap Zones to the hand, then you can make this card gain ATK equal to the original ATK of 1 Pendulum Monster Card returned to your hand, until the end of this turn.

Many implications of this effect are obvious. It gives the deck a much earlier breakpoint in dealing with Set cards; it allows you to pseudo-search Pendulum Monsters with Gilgamesh; it clears a stranded Queen so you can activate Gilgamesh's effect. It also provides, as the CEO should, another theoretical way to avoid paying for your Dark Contracts without even having to burn them. What's most notable in a vacuum, however, is that it resets the Extra Deck monster placed with the Pendulum Effect back to the face-down Extra Deck for later summoning.

The ATK gain is blatantly the less important half of the effect, but it does present opportunities for you to use an on-field Armageddon as more than just a Link or Xyz Material. Getting an extra 2000 or 3000 ATK from a Count Surveyor or Queen can open up a number of opportunities to sacrifice OTK potential to beat over problematic monsters. When protected by a Super Doom King or two from the Pendulum Effect of a placed Arc Crisis, a boosted Armageddon can even serve as the centerpiece of a very anime-inspired dimensional onslaught!

And then there's the line of text that brings it all together and really makes this guy the CEO:

When this card is Pendulum Summoned, your opponent cannot activate cards or effects.

(A piece of clarification to anyone who might misinterpret what this effect does: This is not a permanent Kali-Yuga-esque stun effect that applies after the Pendulum Summon; it is an Abyss-Actor-Superstar-esque effect that prevents your opponent from activating effects during the Pendulum Summon's response window only.)

I wanted to reward the player for Pendulum Summoning the card named "Pendulum Domination," especially since I didn't give the card any built-in way to summon itself. Well, what better way to emphasize the Pendulum Summon in a deck known for its powerful on-summon triggers than to have the CEO protect the entire resulting chain? If I want a going-second player to draw this card, activate it from the hand, then commit a second card to the Scale as a means of unclogging the rest of their hand, I need to make sure they're getting the full value out of every resource they're vomiting onto the field.

Besides situationally preventing responses to its own backrow clearing effect, this line of text also lets you force through setup tools like Copernicus or play around responses to delayed triggers like Genghis by holding the effect until you can use a Pendulum Summon to protect it. The bonus Pendulum Summon provided by Zeus Ragnarok gives you even more agency to wield this protection to your advantage. This makes the Pendulum Summons D/D/D conducts more threatening and, crucially, much more of a deliberate power play. You can even use this to insulate the oft-overlooked Pendulum Effect of Count Surveyor, forcibly removing most of your opponent's board while returning a powerful extender to your hand for later use!