One of the more important skills in the Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG is deck building. This task can be so mind numbingly head racking that significant floods of duelist forego the process and just copy full deck list from sites like this one. It gives players a somewhat good deck, but to an extent. The decks that are copied effectively become the metagame, and they give wins, but at the same time they set players up to fall to anti-meta. Losses to Anti-theoretical decks are not the most pleasant, in fact they are the definition of ‘getting owned.’ Clearly the same amount of losses, yet less ‘epic fail moments’ would be preferable, so deck making is important to avoid that.
Theory & Testing
I personally think of Deck making as a science, and each deck is a scientific experiment, this has giving me clear cut goals in my duels on what to try and what to purposely fail to do. Rather odd concept there, trying to fail, but there is a point to it. Each hand that is played is a set of options, possibilities, and combinations. Other writers have addressed the break down of these mechanics to purely mathematical realms so no need for an in-depth explanation of why the past statement is true, yet they tend to focus on ‘the positive result.’ “You have a 35% chance of drawing ‘such and such’ in tangent to ‘such and such,’” this is banter skilled player’s understand, yet it doesn’t give a clear view of what to do if the result is negative. The usual packing of draw cards seems cover over deck flaws by increasing advantage, and thinning deck, but it doesn’t actually remove the problem.
A play can do three things in regards to a player’s advantage, increase, decrease, or nothing. When testing a deck, attempting a pre-planned ‘BAD’ play when possible will teach if it is actually bad, where it may not be bad, and when it is forced to be played, it’s advantage or disadvantage can then be measured more accurately, and abusive plays become more obvious. Knowing what forces a bad play allows for modifications. Knowing a specific card will give a bad result eighty percent of the time played one way, as opposed to another way, informs a deck builder to lean to the more positive option, and add support to assist that outcome.
Take for example, to clarify, Future Fusion, the Fusion monster than can be chosen may be one of many, especially if the deck is themed. Focusing on plays that support one of the fusion monsters, instead of another one that is obvious, can change the way a deck is played, and thought about. Applicably Chimeratech Overdragon versus Five-Head Dragon in Cyberdark Decks focuses on machines, or focus dragons. Testing possibilities not only assures a duelist that a route of action is good, but what they believe to be bad is actually bad. Each combo in a deck should be tested in this manner; the amount of refining that it gives is significant and needed. After seeing what results in poor performance, it can be avoided better if not removed from the possible plays.
The three main types of decks are Threatening, Combo-ing and Controlling. Threatening being the aggressive, style that forces your opponent to deal with what you’ve played or face the consequences in the most costly manner you can manage at the time, highlighted by ‘god draws’ and hands so dreaded demons could not even conceive them, they are dependant of luck. Combo-ing decks are decks of pure math, their goal, get an exact combination of cards and play them for a win condition. Controlling decks are designed to remove options from what ever it faces, identified by locking, field clearing styles of play. Knowing what style fits you personally as a duelist is essential. It is like a niche, the correct decisions will come naturally if you are in your own style.
Engines
Above deck fields are rarely used by themselves, but are often mixed. Combos that define a form of backbone for the deck are called Engines, all decks need an engine (if not three or four) of some kind, else they are and I quote.
“A Random Pile of Crappy Cards”
In current Meta Aggressive styles there is the Draw Engine and the Summoning Engine, they may or may not be supported by a type of thematic utility engine, such as ‘Counter Fairies,’ or ‘Ratbox.’ Destiny Heroes are a common draw AND summoning engine forming the bases of ‘Perfect Circle Monarchs’ (PCM).
Draw Engines are what give decks SPEED. A draw engine is a simple concept but also very key. The cards in a deck must facilitate to increasing advantage because an opponents advantage will naturally continually increase upon exceeding yours. The classical set and get destroy, set get destroyed and hit, set get destroyed and hit twice, and so forth. Drawing is important but it is also possible to have a deck so focused on drawing that it draws to nothing, draw to draw to draw and a player is no more in advantage due to a lock or poor design.
Summoning Engines are what give decks EXPLOSIVE FORCE. Samurai swarming, Monarch Control, and Dark Armed Return gain their OTK’s from Explosive force, created by summoning engines. Summoning engines are ways to summon more than once a turn, play powerful monsters, or gain field advantage, they are very threatening to go against when a player does not know how they work.
Toolboxes are what give a deck its DEFENSES. They are usually seen in the form of counter trap or continuous spell or trap cards. They can also be seen ad monsters like Dark Armed Dragon, Marauding Captain, Exiled Force, and recruiter style monsters. They are ways to disrupt what an opponent has played… continuously. They are the hardest engines to create, and maintain. Their purpose is to prevent incursions on advantage, or to punish those incursions creating the right tool for the right situation.
Test decks to see if they consistently for fill a specific play, whether that play wins the duel depends on its effect and your advantage at the time. If your deck does what it is suppose to do then it works, the deck may work but it may not give wins is a valid test on consistency and should be marked as positive. From there you can warp or modify it to win more with out corrupting consistency by tweaking the engines, or making them work together with more synergy, or where net decking usually fails, learn to play the deck period, or succeed in playing it a different way for a different problem you may face in completive play.
Tags: Engines Yugioh Deckmaking Making Deck Decks
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