|
Viewing 1 - 9 out of 34 Blogs.
Page:
1 |
|
|
|
~ CONGRATULATIONS, YOU JUST MADE A BAD CARD REVIEW! ~
Now the deal with the above line is that whenever you see someone make a bad card review on a forum post or something, you just link them to this post and the first think they see would likely it.
Whenever a person writes utter garbage about why they think a certain card is good or bad, my inner child releases a "ugh I can't believe someone typed that" kind of feeling. This means this blog is not limited to site features commonly known as "Card of the Day" but encompasses any statement that judges a card. I'm writing a blog here to go through the common things that make a review bad.
1. Bad Spelling and/or Grammar
"Pot of Avaice sukcs becuse early game its completely usless and drewaing it means 1 dead card and that lose games."
A card review with bad spelling and/or grammar makes a card review bad because it doesn't sound credible. Would you trust someone who can't speak properly? I won't. Similarly I would be hesitant to trust someone who can't type properly. Spelling or grammar doesn't have to perfect because a few mistakes here and there are perfectly acceptable but when every sentence is flooded with them, it just makes the typist seem like a bad player and it's not a good idea to listen to tips from bad players.
As a side note, one of the worst thing is to criticize someone's post by saying "Please use better grammer" because whoever posts it just sounds dumb.
2. A Card Sucks Because It Dies to _____.
"Banisher of the Radiance sucks because it dies to Smashing Ground."
A very common point people reference when they say a card sucks is the "it dies to" argument, but this point is not informative at all since every card dies to something. Another example is "it dies to D.D. Crow". The problem with this is that D.D. Crow stops 95% of cards that target the graveyard so getting stopped by D.D. Crow doesn't mean a card is bad. Monster Reborn dies to D.D. Crow. Does that mean Monster Reborn is bad?
A worse version of this is to list a con of a card with something like "it's a continuous spell so it dies to Mystical Space Typhoon", e.g. a con for Level Limit Area - B would be "continuous spell". However, the card cannot be implemented as a non-continuous card without being ridiculously broken. Being continuous as both good and bad points so it should not be listed a negative aspect of a card.
3. A Card is Good because for "INSERT OVERLY SPECIFIC EXAMPLE".
"Malfunction is good because let's say I am at 600 LP and have Insect Knight in attack mode and Malfunction facedown position. My opponent is at 1800 LP and has nothing but a facedown Mirror Force. I attack, he activates Mirror Force and I play Malfunction for the win."
This is also fairly common as advocates of a card will give the most farfetched scenario which will likely never happen to support why that particular card is good. Usually a less competitive player will gives these reasons as these are the players who dream of the most bizarre and impossible to pull off scenarios.
A card isn't good because of its use in a specific scenario. A card is good because of its effect which is not overly dependent on the state of a game. Judgment Dragon is good because it is a huge monster that destroys a lot of stuff on the field for a small cost. Notice in that description, the only reference to the game state is that there's stuff on the field and that occurs in a wide variety of scenario. Certain specific examples can be mentioned if they occur in very high frequency like the Prisma-Test Tiger-Darius into Gyzarus move, but there are few moves that deserve this honour.
People who do this also tend to ignore or understate bad aspects of a card, such as "it only has 400 ATK which is not ideal but can attack over Skull Servant". Some people even manage to praise a negative aspect. I don't understand how that works, but some people like the iPod Shuffle because it lacks a screen so I guess anything does for retards.
4. Stating Wrong "Facts"
"Solar Recharge is a -2 because you lose Solar Recharged, the discarded card and 2 cards from the top of your deck and you only gain 2 back by drawing. -4 + 2 = -2."
If you think no one is so bad at Yugioh to write this, think again. I don't know how someone can write the top 2 cards from the library is a -1. Even if I sucked at the game I would think that the top 2 cards would count as a -2, not -1. A common occurrence of this would be people giving false rulings as a basis for their reviews of a card. This could be that they read the card incorrectly, they just lack basic rules knowledge or they just suck as judges.
Yes, just because someone is a judge doesn't mean he's good a rulings. Many judges, even level 2 but usually not level 3, don't know the rules very well. In fact many level 2 judges are inferior to level 1 judges. It's because those level 1 judges just can't afford to go to a major event to get certification.
There's not much to expand on this except that people who post such things appear retarded.
5. "Nuff Said"
"D.D. Crow, nuff said."
"No, not nufff said" is my typical reaction upon reading such garbage. There's no explanation and this "nuff said" garbage usually goes back to reason #2 in this blog. Next time when writing an essay, trying stating your points in 2 to 5 words and end it with "nuff said". I'm sure the reward is a fantastic mark.
So that's pretty much it for my semi-rant on bad card review. Remember to link bad card reviwers to this page! And may peace be with you.
EDIT: This blog no longer applies since a new ruling has been issued regarding Junk Synchron vs. Hand of Nephthys which can be found here.
Something huge just happened. I was going to write about this before but the lack of official ruling and the fact that the combo doesn't work in the OCG made me opt not to. However, the ruling I wanted was just released and that's why I'm writing about this now.
What's the ruling? It's here. More specifically, it the line "The monster Special Summoned by "Junk Synchron's" effect only has its effect negated while it is face-up on the field." One ofthe useful application of this is to summon Hand of Nephthys with Junk Synchron and bring out Sacred Phoenix of Nephthys. This has been ruled in Japan to not work for some reason, but luckily unless another ruling is issued, this ruling can be cited to make the said combo work.
Effetively, with Hand of Nephthys in the graveyard, every Junk Synchron becomes a Sacred Phoenix of Nephthys. The ability to summon Sacred Phoenix of Nephthys (which I will now refer to as SPoN because I'm tired of typing it) so many times is just overwhelming, especially because the top tier decks right now have little to take care of it. Gladiator Beasts will have to rely on D.D. Crow after they destroy it with Test Tiger bringing out Murmillo or Gyzarus. That's a lot of hassle. Dark Armed Dragon? Yep, destroy then D.D. Crow. Lightsworn is the best of them with Honest and Judgment Dragon, but hey nothing's unbeatable. Corn Monarchs has a decent number of answers with Caius, Raiza and Soul Exchange but it's just one bad matchup in the top 4 decks.
SPoN is also a great card right now due to the lack of bounce effects. Phoenix Wing Wind Blast is not played very often right now and Raiza's popularity has vastly decreased. Caius is still popular along with Dimensional Prison and Bottomless Trap Hole which are the main enemies of the bird. Again these cards are most likely found in Corn Monarchs, and accepting one bad matchup is ok.
Strategy and Goal
So the deck will have 3 goals:
1. Get Hand of Nephthys, either on field or graveyard
2. Get out Sacred Phoenix of Nephthys
3. Beat face
Drawing into SPoN isn't so bad because it just thanks Crush Card Virus for Special Summoning her. With 3 copies of the bird, Hand of Nephthys should likely be able to fetch one from the deck rather than from the hand. Sadly there's no easy way to search for Hand of Nephthys other than Apprentice Magician. The problem with using Apprentice Magician is that it's attacker fodder for Gladiator Beasts and that's a big no-no right now. It also requires to be attacked to search and that's not guarantee to happen with so much monster destruction running around.
There are some other methods to get Hand of Nephthys out, but they're pretty clunky. Foolish Burial is a -1 in card advantage and that's never good in this kind of deck. Magician's Circle is means I can't attack with SPoN right away and it requires another Spellcaster to attack which won't always happen. Flying Kamikiri suffers from the same problem with Apprentice Magician. Serpentine Princess will never get its effect. Finally, Sangan is... wait, Sangan is pretty good. But that's one card. So instead of searching for it, how about let's just draw it. Drawing into too many copies of SPoN is a problem but it can pitched to Trade-In and there will likely be at least a copy of SPoN in deck for Hand of Nephthys.
The Deck and Explanation
Tribute Monsters: 6
3 Sacred Phoenix of Nephthys
2 Destiny Hero - Malicious
1 Cyber Dragon
Monsters: 15
3 Cyber Valley
3 Hand of Nephthys
3 Junk Synchron
1 Destiny Hero - Disk Commander
1 Elemental Hero - Prisma
1 Elemental Hero - Stratos
1 Legendary Jujitsu Master
1 Sangan
1 Spirit Reaper
The monster line-up is very uncommon for a SPoN deck but the time of Apprentice Magician is long gone, at least for now. It's just too passive. Cyber Valley is just good as it stalls and draws. It can also be brought back with Junk Synchron if somehow it ends up in the graveyard, which can happen with the amount of removal right now. Although its second and third, ok the third will never be used, will be negated by Junk Synchron, it's first effect still works fine.
The mini-Destiny Hero draw engine here because there's not much else draw engine the deck can use and if Junk Synchron special summons Disk Commander and something like Torrential Tribute is chained to destroy all monsters, Disk Commander will leave the field which means it's no longer face-up. Ta da! 2 cards! The Prisma is in here to send Sangan to the graveyard. With so many cards to get Prisma, getting it first will be more likely than getting Sangan first.
Legendary Jujitsu Master is just to fill in the space and is good tech against other decks right now. It happens to be level 3 for Synchro summoning Goyo Guardian.
Spells: 14
3 Soul Exchange
2 Enemy Controller
2 Reinforcements of the Army
1 Scapegoat
1 Brain Control
1 Destiny Draw
1 Heavy Storm
1 Monster Reborn
1 Premature Burial
1 Trade-In
There's a ton of tribute opportunies in this deck so supporting 3 Soul Exchange is easily done. Enemy Controller serves a number of purpose here. First it's good against Gladiator Beasts. Second it allows for Disk Commander to get its effect when its summoned by Junk Synchron. Third it allows whatever Junk Sychron summons to be turned into a higher level monster to be converted into hopefully Goyo Guardian or something. The rest of the Spell line up is pretty self explanatory.
Traps: 8
3 Solemn Judgment
2 Limit Reverse
1 Crush Card Virus
1 Phoenix Wing Wind Blast
1 Torrential Tribute
The trap line up is also very straight forward, running all the good Traps. A Phoenix deck isn't a Phoenix deck without Phoenix Wing Wind Blast! Two Limit Reverse might be too much and can easily be replaced by Mirror Force, Trap Dustshoot or whatever.
Extra Deck: 15
3 Goyo Guardian
2 Colossal Warrior
2 Junk Warrior
2 Red Dragon Archfiend
2 Stardust Dragon
1 Gladiator Beast Gyzarus
1 Reaper of the Nightmare
1 Sanwitch
1 Thoughtruler Archfiend
Goyo Guardian gets the monster copies because it is the Synchro monster most likely to be summoned 3 time.
Sidedeck-wise, Mind Control can certainly be an option as there is Cyber Valley, Junk Synchron and it wrecks Ryko, Lightsworn Hunter in the Lightsworn match-up (A facedown monster is very likely either Ryko or Necro Gardna, so 50% chance). Some S/T destruction should be in there too to counter Royal Oppression as that just wrecks this deck. Fossil Dyna can be pretty bad as well, but hopefully a timely Soul Exchange can take care of it.
D.D. Crow is pretty bad for this deck, but everytime they remove in response to Junk Synchron or SPoN trigger effect, they get a -1 in advantage. Kycoo could be useful, as it can take down Fossil Dyna if for some reason the opponent has no protection.
This build isn't optimized or anything is mostly based on theory, so try it out and make changes as necessary!
PS. I say 90% chance the icon on front page for this blog won't be Junk Synchron nor SPoN.
What's better than having your opponents lose to the most random move ever? The looks on their faces are priceless and make the game awesome. The problem now is how to make the most random move, and then win. Playing Spellbinding Circle is always random, but that's not going to win the game a lot. So what's the answer?
First lets take a look at what's winning right now: Gladiator Beasts, Dark Armed Dragon, Monarchs and to a lesser extent Lightsworn. What happens when I stick Gladiator Beasts into Dark Armed Dragon? Yep... WTH?
No, really. Gladiator Beasts really only take 2 monsters to work: one to tag out and one to tag in so it doesn't take a lot of room. Even the powerhouses of them are neatly tucked into the fusion deck. Bestiari is obviously included since it's the best one of them. Then a single copy of Laquari, Murmillo and Darius will be thrown in as well because Laquari is necessary for Heraklinos, Darius makes fusing easy and Murmillo is for advantage. Add in Prisma for synergy and Test Tiger for random swap and here's the Gladiator Beast monster line up:
2 Elemental Hero Prisma
2 Gladiator Beast Bestiari
1 Gladiator Beast Darius
1 Gladiator Beast Laquari
1 Gladiator Beast Murmillo
1 Test Tiger
That's only 8 slots gone and the rest will be filled with Dark Armed Dragon stuff. Why not Lightsworn or Monarchs? Because Lightsworn can dump Gladiator Beasts into the graveyard meaning my toolbox is reduced and Monarchs require tributing which just doesn't work well with Gladiator Beasts. Most of the Dark Armed Dragon stuff is self-explanatory so I'll just throw a list at you:
3 Darked Armed Dragon
2 Destiny Hero - Malicious
1 Dark Magician of Chaos
1 Dark Grepher
1 Destiny Hero - Disk Commander
1 Destiny Hero - Plasma
1 Elemental Hero Stratos
1 Sangan
1 Snipe Hunter
It's not running such a big line-up of darks thanks to the Gladiator Beasts splash, but should be sufficient for Dark Armed Dragon since Elemental Hero - Prisma counts as pseudo-darks by sending Plasma and Sangan to the graveyard.
The Spell line-up is mainly Dark Armed Dragon based but it's a bit more offensive to make Gladiator Beasts attacks easier.
2 Allure of Darkness
2 Destiny Draw
2 Enemy Controller
2 Reinforcements of the Army
1 Book of Moon
1 Brain Control
1 Monster Reborn
1 Mystical Space Typhoon
1 Premature Burial
1 Scapegoat
So really the only odd inclusion is the 2 copies of Enemy Controller and the single Book of Moon which usually is absent in Dark Armed Dragon but they fit well with Gladiator Beasts as well as screwing over enemy Gladiator Beasts. There might be a shortage of graveyard recursion since both Disk Commander and Gladiator Beasts wants them to draw 2 cards and get out Gyzarus respectively which is why the Trap line up runs a couple of Limit Reverseto help it out. Sangan is always a great target with Limit Reverse and Prisma just dumps it to the graveyard reliably.
3 Solemn Judgment
2 Dimension Prison
2 Limit Reverse
1 Crush Card Virus
1 Torrential Tribute
Crush Card Virus has very little tribute material but since it wins games it's an auto-include and decks with even fewer targets have ran it. Dimension Prison is just more monster control to make the deck safer and an out against Prime Material Dragon since the rest of the deck is easily screwed against it. The overall deck is over 40 cards but I'm not taking the time to thin it out and more cards means more words which means I get more money. To finish it all up here's the fusion deck and more words:
3 Gladiator Beasts Gyzarus
3 Gladiator Beasts Heraklinos
1 Destiny End Dragoon
1 Mokey Mokey King
1 Sanwitch
During a game, put Mokey Mokey King on top will add more WTH factor as well as hiding the game plan.
This is only one way to stick Gladiator Beasts into Dark Armed Dragon. It's possible to just stick a single Bestiari and Murmillo into a deck and have them tag out each other for repeated destruction. I think the deck as is can certainly win a few games in conpetitive play and this has not been refined yet. And to end the blog off here's an abrupt ending.
Kuraz is a Johnny's dream (Johnny is a M:TG term for players who play for fun, usually by pulling if outrageous combos deemed bad in competitive play). The fact that is destroys and draws has driven many players to pick up 3 copies of Kuraz and stick them in a deck filled with Dark Coffin, Statue of the Wicked, Card Trooper and possibly Vortex Trooper. The problem with that is those cards suck. Ok, Card Trooper does not suck but the rest certainly do in terms of competitive play. Without Kuraz, those Dark Coffins won't be doing anything anytime soon. It is a common ailment in the casual player's deck: combos that don't win the game yet are really hard to pull off and each part of the combo does nothing.
So a combo should do at least some of those 3 things: win the game, easy to pull off, the combo pieces aren't useless. Winning the game is really hard to do so a good combo should be easy to pull off and each part should be high or at least average in utility. Although such a combo might not win the game, it should at least provide a decent gain in game advantage.
So what's a good combo? If Kuraz destroys something face-up on my field that's already been spent, then I get a +1. For example, destroying a Call of the Haunted attached to nothing is good. Too bad Call of the Haunted is banned, but hey, we go Limit Reverse!
So here's a combo: Kuraz the Light Monarch + Limit Reverse + Disk Commander.
But that doesn't win me the game. I get to draw a lot of cards though and since Kuraz can't attack the turn it's summoned, it isn't reliably to have it win the game through attacking. Luckily both Kuraz and Disk Commander are Warriors along with the rest of the Destiny Hero support so it's not that hard to build a deck around them. Here's the monster line up so far:
3 Kuraz the Light Monarch
2 Destiny Hero - Malicious
1 Destiny Hero - Dasher
3 The Immortal Bushi
1 Destiny Hero - Disk Commander
1 Elemental Hero Stratos
Immortal Bushi allows Kuraz to be summoned essentially for free which is obviously awesome. Sadly that's not much other good Warriors to tribute for meaning I better tribute for Kuraz a lot of times. That means I need to return it to get it back to my hand over and over again. That seems like a job for The Warrior Returning Alive. Destiny Hero - Malicious is in as another search "target" for Stratos, a tribute material for Kuraz and a destruction target for Kuraz. Dasher essentially fulfills the same role. Both these monsters can be summoned via The Immortal Bushi which works great. After all that junk, I basically stuck Kuraz into a Destiny Hero engine, but let's pretend we don't know that, ok?
Since it still lacks some beating power, the rest of the monster slots will be filled with creatures that attack. Exiled Force, Ehren, Lightsworn Monk, Elemental Hero - Wildheart, D.D. Warrior Lady and D.D. Assailant are pretty much Warrior Toolbox staples and fit the job well.
Most of the Spell line up explains itself:
3 Destiny Draw
2 Enemy Controller
2 Reinforcements of the Army
2 The Warrior Returning Alive
1 E - Emergency Call
1 Foolish Burial
1 Heavy Storm
1 Premature Burial
The only thing of note here are Enemy Controller and Foolish Burial. Enemy Controller is a great metagame call because it just wrecks Gladiator Beasts and is synergetic with The Immortal Bushi. Foolish Burial dumps Kuraz, The Immortal Bushi and Disk Commander when needed.
The Trap line-up is pretty self-explanatory:
3 Limit Reverse
3 Royal Oppression
1 Bottomless Trap Hole
1 Mirror Force
1 Torrential Tribute
Any deck in this format needs an answer to Gyzarus because it's no fun getting owned by it over and over again. Gyzarus is basically Kuraz on steroids, being able to be summoned over and over again easily and is way easier to use because of the lack of "draw 2 cards" clause. Royal Oppression stops Gladiator Beasts cold, and the aggressive nature ofthis deck should hopefully force your opponent into a tight spot before Heavy Storm comes.
Running Royal Oppression and Limit Reverse in maximum copies seems retarded but just simply don't play Royal Oppression until it's necessary and it will be ok. Kuraz also destroys Royal Oppression if Limit Reverse needs to come online.
So here's the full deck list:
3 Kuraz the Light Monarch
2 Destiny Hero - Malicious
1 Destiny Hero - Dasher
3 The Immortal Bushi
2 D.D. Assailant
2 Exiled Force
1 D.D. Warrior Lady
1 Destiny Hero - Disk Commander
1 Ehren, Lightsworn Monk
1 Elemental Hero Stratos
1 Elemental Hero Wildheart
3 Destiny Draw
2 Enemy Controller
2 Reinforcements of the Army
2 The Warrior Returning Alive
1 E - Emergency Call
1 Foolish Burial
1 Heavy Storm
1 Monster Reborn
1 Premature Burial
3 Limit Reverse
3 Royal Oppression
1 Bottomless Trap Hole
1 Mirror Force
1 Torrential Tribute
The deck seems to run very little monsters but Reinforcements of the Army, E - Emergency Call and The Warrior Returning Alive all count as 1 monster each. The Immortal Bushi also keeps coming back for beating face whichmeans more monster goodness. Having Disk Commander get removed by D.D. Crow is really bad but the Exiled Force still works with Limit Reverse and Kuraz and so Disk Commanderi s good but not essential to the deck. The deck also runs 41 cards because prime numbers are just way better than those dumb composite numbers.
That's all for this blog, have a nice day y'all.
I really prefer not to mention Ryan Murphy's stuff again, but I just couldn't hold it. Before reading this blog, you should read his article on Makyura deck for the Traditional format. It was all swell until he started doing percentages, where everything is just really bad. Don't worry, I'll go through them.
Warning: don't read if you hate math.
1. "We already know that we’ll be doing this math out of only 36 cards, because of the three copies of both Thunder Dragon and Toon Table of Contents".
This is just wrong. Although Thunder Dragon and Toon Table of Contents usually thins out the deck by 2, there is a chance that the opening hand will contain multipl copies of Thunder Dragon and Toon Table of Contents. Let's calculate the chance of not drawing another copy of Thunder Dragon assuming the first copy has already been drawn.
So in the 6 card hand, 1 is Thunder Dragon, so 5 cards are left. The chances of the remaining 5 not being Thunder Dragons is 37/39 * 36/38 * 35/37 * 34/36 * 33/35 = 76%. That's big, but not so big it's negligible. The same result applies to Toon Table of Contents too, so it becomes even more likely that one of them will show up in multiple copies.
But let's assume it's 36 cards since it makes calculations a lot easier.
2. "With the above changes to our total deck count made, we are (in a sense) only running 25 cards."
He says this after saying Pot of Greed, Upstart Goblin, Graceful Charity, Hand Destruction and Dark World Dealings will thin 1 card each, although Hand Destruction digs through 2 cards. He also says Pot of Greed and Graceful Charity both arguable digs through more than 1 card, but it's not even arguable. Pot of Greed thins the deck by 2 and Graceful Charity thins by 3. How can this be argued? I don't know. But I'm not going to focus on this though.
Rather he goes on to say that there are 7 ways to send Makyura to the graveyard after getting it in hand. But all of those 7 ways (Graceful Charity, Hand Destruction and Dark World Dealings) are already used to thin out the deck, so if we use the assumption of 25 cards, there are no way to send Makyura from hand to graveyard.
Instead, the 7 ways should be left out and instead of 25 cards, the deck has 31 cards (36 - 3x Upstart Goblin - 2 for Pot of Greed), then do the 7 ways of discarding Makyura. This isn't perfect though since we have to take in account using several of the 7 ways to dig deeper and then recalculating the percentages. It's not that hard but it's tedious and I'm not going to do it now. The point is don't do what Ryan Murphy did.
3. "That chance is 0.16. Then we’ll have to discard him, which we can do with seven cards. The chance of that is 0.28. That brings the chances of pulling this off to a total of about five percent.
0.16 x 0.28 = 4.48%. Now with the decrease in chance as said in point number 1 of this blog, at least he could round down to 4%. But no, he rounds up, perhaps to make the deck look just a bit better. I'm not sure though.
4. "We can also simply draw Premature Burial, which is two cards out of the 25, yielding an eight percent chance of doing so. That gives every card a thirteen percent chance of sending Makyura to the graveyard: we start with six. That means our starting hand has, on average, a 78 percent chance of sending Makyura to the graveyard. Those are some incredible odds!"
I don't get this paragraph at all. First he has a typo for Foolish Burial. No biggie though. But he somehow concludes that every card has a 13% chance of sending Makyura to the graveyard. First the 5% he got from point 3 is based on using 2 cards, so how can he add the percentage of using a 2 card combo to a single card and then claim that each card ha 13%? I have to say though although this intuitively doesn't make sense to me, in the end the percentage does work out to about 78%*. His method of calculating just doesn't make sense to me, but if it works then I guess it works.
So point 4 wasn't that bad for him, but his calculations from points 1 to 3 is really messed. So that's it, and mabe this blog will remind you not to take numbers from an article without a grain of salt. If there are miscalculations in this blog, then I apologiz, but then at least you're doing the stuff in the previous sentence.
* Using his assumptions (ie. 25 cards in deck and 7 cards to send Makyura to the graveyard), and the assumption that our hand is free of Toon Table of Contents and Thunder Dragon, getting Makyura in hand is 1 - 21/25 * 20/24 * 19/23 * 18/22 * 17/21 * 16/20 = 69% and the chance of gettin a way to send it to the graveyard is 90%. That means both happening at the same time is about 62%.
For using Foolish Burial, the chance of not having Makyura in hand is 76% (1 - 6/25, since every card in opening 6 has 1/25 chance of being Makyura). Then the chance of having a Foolish Burial is 43% (similar calculation in above paragraph).
The percentage os sending Makyura to the graveyard first turn can be calculated by 1 - the percentage of not pulling the 2 card combo and not using Foolish Burial. This comes to 78%.
Tags: Yugioh Probability
No strategies or decks this time. I'm going to go over 3 really bad card designs in Yugioh. They among the worst if not the 3 worst designs. I'm also not going to go over the infamous Legend of Blue Eyes age normal monsters (I'm looking at you Doma, Angel of Silence!) because I don't even count them as designs. They're just random numbers stuck onto a normal monster card frame. And since this isn't really a top 3 list, the numbers below are arbitrarily given and does not reflect a card's badness. I'll also try to aim for newer cards because the designers could use lack of experience as an excuse for older cards.
1. Witch Doctor of Sparta
400 ATK / 2000 DEF
Level 4 / Earth / Spellcaster
Effect: Inflict 500 damage to your opponent each time a monster(s) is Special Summoned from either player's Deck.
The bad thing about this card is that its effect is completely pointless. How many cards special summon from a player's deck? Ok, there's lot. Now how many of those don't suck? Um, the searchers (eg. Mystic Tomato and Pyramid Turtle), Monster Gate and Reasoning? Yeah, that's it. And no, A Deal with Dark Ruler and Rise of the Snake Deity aren't good cards. Now the limited list of cards it actually affects isn't the reason why it's bad. No. It's the sucky effect it does when a special summon for some reason happens. 500 damage? That's like nothing. The last thing I'd worry about is 500 damage when my opponent special summons from his/her deck.
And that's not all, it's not even 500 damage per monster. It's 500 per monster(s). So it's 500 damage against Rescue Cat. Does it hurt that much to make it 500 damage per monster? Seriously, it's like the designers when out of their way to make this card bad. Then there's the issue of most cards that allow a player to special summon from his or her deck are optional, which means if he/she can't afford the 500 damage, they simply don't choose to special summon. So it only does damage when its opponent doesn't care for the 500 damage. That means this card sucks. A more appropriate effect would be "Your opponent can't Special Summon from his or her deck". But no, the designers had to give this card a completely useless effect. But you could special summon monsters yourself to inflict damage? But it's impossible to special summon enough to make this worth more than a Ookazi.
Apart from the effect, there's also the issue of the name and picture. Sparta is an ancient Greek city. Why is a card game based on monsters from ancient Egypt feature a place from ancient Greece? And the monster is some sort of 2 legged bull with legs so skinny there's no way it can support that comparatively large body. Why is there a bloody 2 legged monster bull in Sparta? The last time I checked, humans populate Sparta, not monster bulls with super skinny legs that has a skull as a head.
But hey, isn't it good with or against Gladiator Beasts? NO. Against Gladiator Beasts, it's 400 ATK will just get wrecked, and in defense mode, it's perfect for the Gladiator Beast to just ram it and swap out, getting all their effects in the meaning time. And Gladiator Beast - Murmillo will just destroy it before the other Gladiator Beasts come out so its effect will only deal 500 damage! With Gladiator Beast... no, just no. If you planned to do it, just don't and save yourself some dignity and losses.
The card simply makes no sense.
2. Brutal Potion
Normal Trap
Effect: This card becomes an Equip Card, and equips to 1 monster you control. Once per turn, when you inflict damage to your opponent with a card effect, the equipped monster gains 1000 ATK until the End Phase.
First off, the card art has nothing to do with any sort of potion. It's more like a guy being possessed or seduced or something. The guy in the picture is also chained up, so how brutal can he get? There's some blue marks comingfrom the joints of the chain but the chains are visibly still firmly attached to the handcuffs. It makes no sense.
Then there's the effect which just sucks. Axe of Despair gives a 1000 ATK boost without any other effort, and it's not played. So why would anyone design a card that has a worse effect? But it's a trap, but it's impossble to make the card worthwhile. It gives no attack boost on its own and so requires another card to give a temporary attack boost. Equip cards are bad because they lead to 2 for 1 card disadvantage but this card is ambitious enough to make this a 3 for 1 card disadvantage because everything except Ring of Destruction inflicts damage at trap speed (which is the point of this being a trap) at at the expense of a card. Then for a -3 you don't even get a permanent boost in return. It would still be a bad card if it gave a permanent boost but being a temporary boost makes it appear in this list.
It even tries to combine two types of damage together. Usually, effect damage (aka Burn) is seperate from battle damage (aka non-Burn) because they don't go together very well, perhaps with the exception of "aggro burn" which never really took off. This card encourages this though, and hence other than having a sucky effect, it goes on to encourage a player to build a sucky deck to go along with it.
To top it all off, they just had to put "once per turn" on it. Without the phrase, it might be remotely played in a deck where a player flips a Stealth Bird chaining Brutal Potion to equip onto Stealth Bird, activate 3 Tremendous Fire then attack for game. But no, they had to hose whatever possibility this card had by taking a bad card and making it worse. This card just brutally sucks in all levels.
3. Change of Hero - Reflector Ray
Activate only when an "Elemental Hero" Fusion Monster is destroyed by battle and sent to the Graveyard. Inflict damage to your opponent equal to the destroyed Fusion Monster's level x 300.
First you have to summon an Elemental Hero fusion monster. That's on average a -1 in card advantage. But let's say that happens, it has to be destroyed by battle. That's another -1. Then this itself is a -1. That's a -3 in card advantage. Usually that sucks. This card doesn't just suck. No, it takes it to a whole new level. Usually when something after a series of hard to do events, like getting a Elemental Hero fusion out and having it destroyed, a player is rewarded for the effort. This card punishes a player for going through all the hoops needed to play this card. And that's a lot of hoops because playing this card is impossible.
Getting out an Elemental Fusion isn't that hard, but usually a player who expends so much effort into getting one out is going to get a powerful big fusion, like Elemental Hero Shining Flare Wingman or Wildedge. The first is impossible to overpower and the second one has a massive attack. Then anything that can actually destroy it in battle will first remove it with effect. Examples Dark Armed Dragon, Darklord Zerato, Judgment Dragon. Dark Magician of Chaos will get back a spell that can either destroy the fusion or something that destroys Change of Hero - Reflecor Ray. It's just impossble to meet this card's activation requirements. Well, you could always get some like Elemental Hero Darkbright and ram it into monster, then destroying said monster with Darkbright's effect but that's just a lot of hoops to jump through and playing bad cards for nothing.
Then the card name makes no sense. There's no change of hero. It's just the fusion dying and exploding like a bomb. There's no reflecting as well. From the card name I would imagine an Elemental Hero fusion tagging for another one then having some sort of Magic Cylinder effect. But no, it's some useless effect. And this card deals a maximum of 2400 damage, whereas Magic Cylinder will deal more than that. And if you really want more Magic Cylinder, there's always Dimension Wall as a substitute.
I was really tempted to do this in video format because the tone of voice really matters in something like this and I can spam a lot more expletives in video format than in writing because a writing filled with swears tend to be unreadable. Hope you enjoyed the read. Additionally, here's a note to self to write better conclusions.
I always prefered practical writings over theoretical ones. This is because even if a deck theoretically should work, in practice is can easily perform otherwise. Some players are great at looking at a decklist on paper and making great changes to it, but I find nothing beats practical playing for testing, and even the greatest theoretical deck builders in the world find practical testing an essential asset.
Sure, it might be great to analyze percentages, play styles and analysis of deck lists, but I find looking at actual games so much helpful. Why did a player do such a move instead of another move in that context? What is the best move in this that scenario? These are the types of questions I ask that help improve my game. Percentage analysis might be great, but in an actual match, instinctively knowing the correct move is faster than running the percentages, and this instinct can only be gotten through hours of play. Play styles are great and important, but an aggressive player will naturally tune his deck into an aggressive version through play testing and a conservativ player will tune his deck into a conservative version similarly.
By practical writings, I do not mean the typical tourney reports where it normally looks something like this (which is entirely fiction):
Round 1: DAD, game 1, I swarmed him quick with Irou, Grandmaster and Shien. Game 2, I got Crushed by recovered with Grandmaster and topped into Zanji for game.
Round 2: Gadget, I just swarmed him twice quickly both games FTW.
These reports don't really offer anything except maybe entertainment if you're really into other people's tournaments. Practical writing for me means that at least some plays are explained thoroughly and a summary of a duel should be at least detailed enough to make out the game state at that point.
That said, theoretical writings are still very useful as all decks start from a theoretical concept. But there's no replacement for practical application. This is why I'll go through my regionals tournament and point out what I did wrong, because the only thing better than learning from your own mistakes is learning from somone else's. Oh, I made plenty of mistakes, resulting in a 2-3 drop record. If you're allergic to bad players, you might want to shy away from this one.
Anyway, I wanted to play Dark Armed Dragon (DAD) because it was available and I was tired of going rogue. My friend suggested I should go zombies with DAD and I was just like "no!", and I would have to run at least 1 copy of Dragon Zombie in my sidedeck because it fits the deck so well. More on that later though. Here's the deck I played:
3 Dark Armed Dragon
2 Dark Nephthys
2 Destiny Hero - Malicious
1 Darklord Zerato
1 Dark Magician of Chaos
1 Destiny Hero - Plasma
1 Jinzo
1 Card Trooper
1 Cyber Valley
1 Dark Grepher
1 D.D. Crow
1 Destiny Hero - Disk Commander
1 Destiny Hero - Fear Monger
1 Elemental Hero Stratos
1 Morphing Jar
1 Phantom of Chaos
1 Sangan
1 Spirit Reaper
3 Destiny Draw
2 Allure of Darkness
1 Brain Control
1 Heavy Storm
1 Monster Reborn
1 Mystical Space Typhoon
1 Premature Burial
1 Reinforcements of the Army
1 Scapegoat
1 Trade-In
1 Crush Card Virus
1 Escape from the Different Dimension
1 Return from the Different Dimension
1 Torrential Tribute
1 Trap Dustshoot
I built this deck the night before, which is an improvement from last regionals when I built a deck 30 minutes before the tournament.
I didn't hear the judge call player's meeting so I missed it completely. I was still wrriting my deck list during the player's meeting at a far off table. When I saw everyone seated for round 1, I thought that was the player's meeting. So I sat down at my seat then saw everyone with their mats out and pile shuffling their decks. I was like "Why's everyone shuffling? Isn't this just player's meeting?" I asked my opponent then he says it's round 1 and so I rush off to submit my deck list then quickly seated at my table at began the match without a mat, calculator or anything, because those stuff were with my friend who was sitting out this regionals but came for trading and stuff. Lesson #1: listen to the judges' announcements.
Round 1: Necrovalley
He must have thought I was a complete beginner from the situation above, but this match was really easy, although I did misplay something.
Game 1, I won the die roll and went first and just set a monster with face down Heavy Storm. He goes, sighs, then sets 4 spell/traps and plays Necrovalley. On my turn, I had Jinzo in hand, but instead of summoning Jinzo then Heavy Storming, I Heavy Stormed first, which he naturally counters with Dark Bribe. Shoot. I'm pretty sure he had Solemn Judgment though but 4000 LP is a lot. I think the reason I Heavy Stormed first was that I was attracted to the advantage that play would have given me if the Heavy Storm resolved, and the Necrovalley really messed up may cards in my hand so I wanted to get rid of the Necrovalley. Summoning Jinzo would be a better play because Heavy Storm can be stopped by both Dark Bribe and Solemn Judgment whereas Jinzo can only be stopped by Solemn Judgment, so Heavy Storm being negated is twice as probable than Jinzo being negated. Lesson #2: before making a huge play, think about it first, even if just for a few seconds.
Anyway, I then summoned Dark Grepher and just beat him down. He did nothing for a couple of turns except taking damage from my Dark Grepher. He eventually had to stop my attacks with Book of Moon hen Scapegoat. By this time I also had a Fear Monger set. When he was down to 1 Sheep token (why does ScapeGOAT make SHEEP tokens? They're different animals), he finally got a Gravekeeper's Commandment and attacked over my Dark Grepher.
I topped into a DAD. At this point, my hand was Premature Burial, Phantom of Chaos, Monster Reborn, Brain Control, D.D. Crow and 2 DAD. I couldn't get rid of the Necrovalley which made much my cards useless. I summoned DAD, which he negates with Solemn Judgment. He was now at 2300 LP after the negation. At this point he had 1 face down spell/trap remaining. I decided to go for game by flip summoning Fear Monger, summoning D.D. Crow, then playing Brain Control on Commandment to attack for game.
So why did I go for game instead of just ending for the more conservative play? He obviously had a bad hand so I should take advantage of that instead of letting him recover. If his facedown card was a negation of any sort, even though he could negate Brain Control, I would be screwed anyway as I wouldn't be able to take down Necrovalley because of his negation. If I didn't do anything, he could just draw into more negation or just monsters to stabilize in which case Brain Control becomes worse and worse. I would also lose my Fear Monger, which is crucial when 4 cards out of hand were unusable. If his facedown was Torrential Tribute, at worst I would lose my D.D. Crow and Fear Monger and he would lose his Commandment, Sheep token and Torrential Tribute. I get a slight advantage in this, and this he would only save himself with Torrential Tribute if he was confidant that I had Brain Control in my hand. The worst case scenario to go for the win is Mirror Force, since I would lose a lot stuff and I would've been better off to not go for game. But Mirror Force is only 1 card compared to the many cards that if face down meant I should go for game.
Game 2: This game was rather uneventful. We did little for the first two turns, and then I tribute my face down Sangan for Jinzo to search for Snipe Hunter which I sided in. The Jinzo resolves against his 2 face down spell/trap which I was quite surprised to happen. He had 2 facedown monsters and I attacked his face down Sangan, and he searches for Gravekeeper's Spy. He couldn't get rid of Jinzo on this turn and just sets a monster. I summoned Snipe Hunter and chose to destroy the newly set one, which is likely set to handle Jinzo. In particular, it was likely Gravekeeper's Guard to bounce my Jinzo. The die roll goes well and destroys his face down Gravekeeper's Guard.
I chose to not Snipe his facedown mosnter for 2 reasons: I didn't want to discard anything from my hand and I was quite sure I didn't need to snipe it because the biggest problem would be Gravekeeper's Spy, which the face down monster likely is not because he didn't flip it in the initial turns. If it was another Gravekeeper's Guard, he would have flipped it already on his turn. So I just attacked and it was Dark Mimic. He couldn't get rid of Jinzo, but summoned Gravekeeper's Spy and destroyed my Snipe Hunter with help from Book of Moon. I played Brain Control and summoned Stratos to attack for game next turn.
Round 2: Plants
He seemed like a nice 30 year old guy but not a very experienced player. Both of his friends (I assumed they were his friends because they wanted him to win, although the two guys were much younger, around 13-15).
Game 1, I won the die roll and had an OTK hand but since I couldn't attack, I just set a Heavy Storm and ended. The only cards that could have really saved him were Spirit Reaper and Threatening Roar, with the latter unlikely played main deck. On his turn and summons Spirit Reaper. Shoot. Alright, I'm not that screwed because I can still kill him next turn if he doesn't make me discard Monster Reborn. He attacks and discards Monster Reborn. Oh dear. On subsequent turns he proceeds to bring out 2 Gigaplants and drop me to 1700 LP. I was top decking by now (i.e. nothing in hand and on field), because hte OTK hand really fell apart without the Monster Reborn, and a Lightning Vortex hit my field of 3 monsters quite badly. I had Malicious in graveyard and top into Crush Card Virus. I special summoned Malicious and Crush'd his field away, but topdecking Darkord Zerato, Destiny Draw and Dark Magician of Chaos after is just karma I guess, and he beats me down soon after.
Game 2, I sided in a D.D. Crow and The Transmigration Prophecy. Although Gigaplant doesn't target, I'm sure he didn't know that and they could still stop Blazewing Butterfly. I attacked into UFO Turtle with Stratos first turn, and he searched out Lonefire Blossom. He got out Gigaplant after chaining 2 more Lonefire Blossoms. He gemini summoned Gigaplant and I use D.D. Crow in response to his effect. As predicted, he didn't know the ruling and I got away with it. Some call this cheating but I call it an encouragement to know the rulings for your own deck. I top deck into DAD but he Dustshoots it away. I took control of Gigaplant with Brain Control, attacked then tribute it for Jinzo. He was in trouble as he couldn't kill Jinzo. I'm guessing his deck had very little monster removal aside from Lightning Vortex. He just sets a monster, and I top into another DAD next turn for game.
Game 3: He Dustshoots my DAD away first turrn, but he had no monsters other than Blazewing Butterfly for the entire game. I brought him down to low LP with Dark Magician of Chaos, and with The Transmigration Prophecy, Sangan and Crush Card waiting, he couldn't recover, epsecially when I top into DAD. I wonder what he drew because how can so many cards be dead in a plant deck?
Round 3: DAD
I said earlier that I had a 2-3 record, so this is where the losing starts happening. We got deck checked and the judge tells him to get new sleeves after the round. Deck checks are the worst things in the world as they order your cards and it takes a lot of pile shuffling to randomize the deck. As a result, card type tend to aggregate. Game 1, I summoned Stratos then Dustshooted his hand, which would otherwise be an OTK. Instead, he just sets Spirit Reaper and ends. I top decked to Allure of Darkness, which converts my previous hand of useless level 8 darks into a turn 2 OTK.
Game 2, my monsters were all clumped together and I had a hand of a Dark Nephthys, all 4 of my level 4 and below warriors and Reinforcements of the Army. He opens with Stratos into Malicious into Destiny Draw to Allure of Darkness. I start off with Strato into Malicious into end turn. He does something that gives him a few +1's but I live for the turn. I to into Sangan and I'm like ugh.... He gamed me next turn.
Game 3, this is is reverse game 2 as I drew several Destiny Draws but nothing to go along with it. He pretty much repeats his steps in game 2 and I lose. I blame deck checks.
Round 4: Monarchs
He was a local player at the card shop I attend. I don't play him very often though for some odd reason, maybe once or twice in my entire Yugioh playing life.
Game 1, I had an all monster hand. He sets a face down monster and ends. I set Disk Commander and end. He tributes his Treeborn Frog for Raiza and attacks for 2400 damage. I draw and set Disk Commander. He tributes Treeborn Frog for Caius to remove my Disc Commander for 1000 damage, then attacks with both Monarchs for game. That took like, 3 minutes.
Game 2, I sided in 2 Rugs. My opening hand was a Darklord Zerato, Morphing Jar, Pulling the Rug, Pulling the Rug, Stratos and Destiny Draw. I summon Stratos to search for Malicious then play Destiny Draw discarding Malicious. I draw Disc Commander Rug and Morphing Jar. I set one of my Rugs. He sets a spell/trap, then Dustshoots me getting rid of my newly drawn DAD. I attack into Scapegoat and I set Morphing Jar. He thought the facedown was Disc Commander and so left a Pot of Avarice in his hand. On my turn, I flipped the Jar then played some Destiny Draws an Allure of Darkness. I summoned Card Trooper and attacked. On his turn I Dustshoot his hand and returned a Gravekeeper's Spy and left his hand with nothing immediately playable, and noted a Mirror Force. He sets a face down spell/trap. I summon a Fear Monger to attack for damage. He flips Mirror Force.
Misplay of the day... I even wrote down on paper that he had Mirror Force! The misplay was simply due to me nothing taking the time to think before I played. Lesson #3: write notes, then actually consult them when making a play.
With that aside the game evetually went to the point where he had nothing and after I attacked with Spirit Reaper a couple of times and he ended up with 1800 LP. I didn't draw anything to take advantage of this and he tops and sets a Gravekeeper's Spy. I shift Reaper into defense and waited for something to kill the Spy. After checking my graveyard, I had 1 card left to kill his now 3 monster defense, and that was Phantom of Chaos copying Darklord Zerato. Sadly, it was the last card in my deck and when I summoned it he negated with Solemn Judgment. I had Mystical Space Typhoon face down to destroy Solemn Judgment but didn't use it because I misplayed again. Lesson #2: Before making a game breaking play, look at all your cards.
It actually didn't matter since he had 1800 LP and I only had 1300 ATK on the field, but a misplay is a misplay. I didn't have anything threatening in my hand to tempt out a Solemn Judgment to lower him to 900 LP either. So I decked out next turn.
Round 5: DAD
I don't want to write about round 5 because I don't remember it that well so nothing useful will come out of it. If I did write it, it'll be like "Game 1, I swarmed him fast. Game 2 I got owned by D.D. Crow and Game 3 by Kinetic Soldier when I only had Dark Grapher and Phantom of Chaos in hand", which is precisely the useless tourney report I describe in the introduction.
So 2-3 means no prizes and that's a drop. I think I learned a lot though thorugh my misplays, and I hope you do too. The nice thing is my friend who didn't play but traded got a good deal for a Dark Creator. If I were to change the deck, I would add in put in Fires of Doomsday for something for *gasp* Destiny Draw, which will reduce slightly the chances of getting destroyed by a tribute monster hand.
Until next time, ciao.
Tags: Yugioh Regionals Dark Armed Return
Ahoy, time for another blog. I'm not going to do a indepth analysis or anything because it's exam time. Instead, this blog is just for those who have nothing better to do than to read Yugioh literature in their spare time. (Although reading abuot Yugioh sounds bad, writing about Yugiho is much worse.)
Last blog I mentioned about the unusually large number of Six Samurai decks at Toronto regionals. The theory is that although Six Samurai is still an underdog against the Dark Armed Dragon, its ability to randomly lucksack the opponent allows it to occassionally beat Dark Armed Dragon while being a relatively affordable deck type made it a popular deck to run. The sheer number of Six Samurai essentially promised quite a few spots for it at the low number tables. For this reason, I do not believe that Six Samurai is a great deck to play unless a) you stack or b) you believe in your luck.
Fast forward to SJC Minneapolis and there only happens to be 1 Six Samurai deck in top 16. What happened? First, every round in a tournament makes it much harder for the Six Samurai player to top 16 because of the luck sack factor. Second, people were ready for Six Samurai. Pretty much everyone were running Kinetic Soldier in the sidedeck as well as armed with the knowledge on how it works. Third, and perhaps most importantly, Crush Card Virus.
Six Samurai essentially die to a 2 card combo. Now, one of those card in the combo (the less than 1000 ATK Dark monster) is readily accessible. That means when a player running Crush Card Virus draws Crush Card Virus, it's game over for the Six Samurai player barring a Solemn Judgment or the greatest top decks ever.
So Six Samurai are completely screwed by Crush Card Virus, what happened to Oppression Gadgets? They were not even found in top 16. I for one have always disliked Oppression Gadgets because the deck just sometimes blows up from the potential amount of bad hands. Solemn Judgment and Royal Oppression makes for a very LP draining deck. The best guess I have is that because the deck sucked in the first place, it just didn't have the stuff to top 16. My second best guess is that the deck sucked so no one played it.
So what did top 16? A plethora of Dark Armed Dragon decks, 2 Gladiator Beasts, a Dark Return deck, a Six Samurai deck and a Spell Economics combo deck. The oddball is obviously Gladiator Beasts. Like what the hell? Gladiator Beasts? I guess every deck has its days. To find out how on Earth does Gladiator Beasts win games, let's look at one of the featured matches on Metagame.com.
Game 1 had Gladiator Beasts doing nothing when staring down a Dasher and Dark Armed Dragon not doing anything because of defense mode Gladiator Beast Hoplomus. The stalemate was broken after Gold Sarcophagus got out Dimension Fusion. Game 2 had Dark Armed Dragon was destroyed by Crush Card Virus. Game 3 had Dark Armed Dragon doing nothing except getting beaten down by Gladiator Beasts. I'm pretty sure someone out there is agreeingwith me that was a very lucky match for Paul Levitin (I'll assume it's luck unless proven otherwise). Paul Levitin ran Crush Card Virus with 2 eligible tribute material and both materials are not searchable. Game 3 was just one of those games where the Dark Armed Dragon deck blows up by itself.
So after seeing this, I am hesitant to jump on the Gladiator Beasts bandwagon yet. Gladiator Beast Heraklinos is a decently pricey card so making an investment in it not a thing to do on a whim. I do not think Gladiator Beasts can continue to make a strong impact on the game because it's very easy to kill with hate. King Tiger Wanghu comes to mind as it hoses a lot of Gladiator Beasts monsters. Skill Drain also tears the deck apart as Gladiator Beasts are pretty bad without their effects. Begone Knave also screws it over for those willing to try a random card.
So that's all I wanted to talk about regarding SJC Mineapolis. For some reason this SJC didn't seem that big compared to the other ones, as shown from the relatively low amount of coverage on Metagame.com. Perhaps too many players ran Dark Armed Dragon?
Here's a quick ruling question: can Witch of the Black Forest search out Gravekeeper's Spy? To rephrase, is 2000 less than or equal to 1500? I'm sure that everyone o you knows the answer to this: no. Unless of course, you're Ryan Murphy. What's more, the deck is a complete joke.
But enough of the customary Ryan Murphy ranting. Complaining about the format and Dark Armed Dragon is so passé. So instead, I'm going to talk about my day at Toronto's regional tournament.
Before the Tournament
So I had a week to build a deck for regionals. I didn't use that time to build a deck. Instead, I showed up at the tournament place, waited for my friends to arrive then started to decide on a deck 1 hour before registration ended. So if one friend played Dark Armed Dragon and the other played Six Samurai, what was I to play? Well, I could've played Six Samurai as well, but instead played Macro. So I started going through boxes and boxes of cards just pulling out whatever seemed useful. I just pulled out 40 cards from and then called it a deck. Bad idea.
2 Cyber Dragon
2 Mobius the Frost Monarch
2 Van'Dalgyon the Dark Dragon Lord
3 D.D. Survivor
2 Kycoo the Ghost Destroyer
1 Banisher of the Radiance
1 Exiled Force
1 Kinetic Soldier
1 Morphing Jar
1 Spirit Reaper
3 Dimensional Fissure
2 Enemy Controller
2 Reinforcements of the Army
1 Brain Control
1 Monster Reborn
1 Mystical Space Typhoon
1 Scapepgoat
3 Dark Bribe
3 Solemn Judgment
2 Macro Cosmos
2 Magic Drain
1 Mind Crush
1 Mirror Force
1 Torrential Tribute
This is the worst deck I've ever played with (relative to the age of the game). The deck has no aggression, relying on a few monsters to win the game. The number of dead hands are just astounding. There's also a bunch of random cards in here, like Mind Crush without Trap Dustshoot and the random Kinetic Soldier. When I was writing up the deck list for registration, I realized the deck had no Torrential Tribute and took out Trap Dustshoot for it.
The Tournament
Round 1: Some Fiend Deck
He played Dark World with Doom Shaman to bring them back. He also had a Volcanic Shell engine going to fuel its discard cards.
Game 1: He discards Doom Shaman via Phoenix Wing Wind Blast and then plays Swing of Memories to summon him, then normal summons it. I told him that Doom Shaman still dies but the Head Judge ruled it otherwise. More on that later. I still beat him though as we were both topdecking but I finally assembled D.D. Survivor and Dimensional Fissure whereas he topdecked some Dark World monsters.
Game 2: I just drew a hand of Dark Bribe, Solemn Judgment, Macro, more Dark Bribes and more Macro and he beats me down with Snipe Hunter.
Game 3: I was on the verge of losing but topdecked Morphing Jar, which I didn't side out because my sidedeck was worse than my main deck. He had Snipe Hunter on the field and instead of sniping my Morphing Jar away, he decides to just attack. With the cards I drew, I finally drew a Macro Cosmos after not seeing neither a Dimensional Fissure nor a Macro Cosmos for upwards of 10 of my turns. I then proceeded to beat him after I used Torrential Tribute on his Return from the Different Dimension with him at 150 LP and me at 200 LP.
Round 2: Traditional Monarchs
Game 1: After I used Solemn Judgment and get out Van'Dalgyon, I attack his face down Gravekeeper's Spy, On his turn he plays Smashing Ground, which I Magic Drain'd. He then plays Snipe Hunter, takes control of my Dragon with Enemy Controller then attack for game.
Game 2: I get down Macro and D.D. Survivor early in the game and just outplay him with Enemy Controller tricks and stuff. I want to note that this will be the last time I'll get out D.D. Survivor with Macro Cosmos together for the rest of the tournament.
Game 3: He does a simlar move where he just takes my Van'Dalgyon with Enemy Controller and attacks me for a bit over 4000 damage, with Snipe Hunter again, for game.
Round 3: Some Counter Burn
Game 1: I Solemn Judgment his Solemn Solemn Judgment and just beat him down with Kycoo while he had a bunch of useless Divine Wrath. I didn't know he was playing Burn in this game.
Game 2: I sided in Twisters because my 6th sense told me to. I play Heavy Storm, he counters with Solemn Judgment, I counter his counter with Solemn Judgment. I drop Van'Dalgyon and play Brain Control on his remaining Bountiful Artemis for game. In this game I learned that Bountiful Artemis gets to draw when any player activates a counter trap, not just its controller.
Round 4: Magical Explosion FTK
Game 1: I drew some crap like Scapegoat and D.D. Survivor and he just OTK's me on his turn. If only I had a Macro or Dark Bribe, I would win this.
Game 2: He did nothing for 3 turns and I just beat him down with D.D. Survivor and Kycoo.
Game 3: His deck fails horribly and dumps all 3 copies of Magical Explosion to the graveyard so he has to wait a turn to get them back with Cyber Valley. If I had Dark Bribe, Solemn Judgment or Mystical Space Typhoon, I would win this but I just had crap like Scapegoat and D.D. Survivor and topdeck into Magic Drain.
Round 5: Old School Beat Down
Game 1: If you haven't notice, I won my games just beating down people with 1800 attackers. He just overpowered me with Berserk Gorillas and Goblin Elite Attack Force.
Game 2 I had Dark Bribe, Solemn Judgment, Macro, Macro, more Dark Bribe and Magic Drain and he just beats me down with D.D. Warrior Lady and Kycoo.
So with this lost, even top 32 for a prize was impossible and I dropped. Everytime I drew an opening hand I wanted to roll my eyes because they were all so bad. The deck has little synergestic interactions. I also hit into Gravekeeper's Spy an unsually large number of times and D.D. Survivor and Kycoo don't destroy those.
After the Tournament
With such an early drop, I had time to look around. First, a highly respected world class player who shall remain anonymous said he built the Shadow of Ohm FTK and concluded that Gillison and Diaz had to stack the decks to win because because all the neccesary draw power and the discard stuff had to be stacked together in order to operate like what was seen on Metagame feature matches.
The second thing I saw is just sickening. I was watching James Neumann play, and he lost. Now, that's not very sickening but the next thing is. He signs the match slip and checks that he won and walks away. Now a less acute player would just sign the slip and hand it in. That means the records would say Neumann wins. He seemed to be really sportsman-like but I guess that's just a way to mask make his cheating much easier. I guess he could've mistakenly checked the wrong box but when was the last time anyone checked the wrong box on a match slip, and this should be especially rare for someone who frequents large tournaments. So if you play James Neumann, watch out for his tricks.
Anyway, there were an unusually large number of Six Samurai players. At the top tables, I would say 1 in every 2 decks was Six Samurai. More on this next blog.
Bad Judging
The number of incorrect rulings from the judges is just astounding. Seriously, I, as a level 1 judge, know my rulings better than the judges at the regionals. Much better in fact. It's kind of sad how these judges don't check the judge forums because these rulings can easily be found there. So I'll just outline some of them here and hopefully some judge will learn something from this.
#1: Swing of Memories vs. Gemini Monsters
A Gemini monster thatis normal summoned to have its effect active is treated as the same monster. Cards like Birthright stay on it and continue to affect it. Swing of Memories will still destroy it at the end of the turn. I almost got screwed over from the head judges incorrect ruling but luckily I still won. The Head Judge says he just came back frm Shonen Jump Columbus too, so yeah, even Shonen Jump judges don't update their rulings.
#2: Dark Bribe vs. Protector of the Sanctuary
Dark Bribe cannot be activated outside the draw phase if Protector of the Sanctuary is on the field. The judge ruled that Dark Bribe can be activated and then the draw effect just does happen. Wrong!
#3 Burial from a Differential Dimension vs. Macro Cosmos
This is a big one. A lot of players think that Burial from a Dimension cannot be played while Dimensional Fissure, Banisher of the Radiance or Macro Cosmos is active. It has been ruled offically ruled by Curtis Schultz that it can be used. Click the link for the reason.
#4 The Six Samurai - Yaichi vs. Torrential Tribute
Yaichi and Kamon need another Six Samurai of a different name with them on the field to activate and resolve. If Torrential Tribute is chained to Yaichi's effect, it would wipe out the Six Samurais and Yaichi's effect would not resolve. Even after I explained this to a judge, he continued to believe that the effect will still resolve without another Six Samurai on the field. Bad judging.
Lessons Learned
So here's what I learned:
1. Don't build a deck 1 hour before a regionals.
2. The Shadow of Ohm FTK doesn't work when not stacked.
3. James Neumann cheats.
4. Many judges are incompetent.
5. Kenny Lam slowplays like mad. You should know this if you live in Toronto.
So that's it for now. Happy dueling.
Page:
1 |
|
|
|
|
