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One of the most interesting deck concepts of the past year has to have been Baboon Burn. The concept was as simple as it was brilliant. If your opponent was prepared for your aggression you could stall and burn, and if your opponent was prepared for your burn, you could just beat him down. It was a concept other great deck-builders like David Rodriguez would take to new heights with Demise Burn, which of course had the added dimension of being able to clear the field for a minimal cost. Of course both decks got the axe on the last banlist with the restrictions of Advanced ritual Art and Ojama Trio. I think for me, that was the first time a banlist made me want to cry, as two cards most proficiently used by great deckbuilders and great players (safe for ARA in the heyday of Demise OTK) were limited. Especially since that same banlist was inconsequential to the current state of the game on top of that, to such an extent that a new set and an emergency ban had to step in to salvage it somewhat. The difference between the two decks is of course that Baboon Burn is completely salvageable and even improvable. A short history lesson I can’t get into this deck without delving into the extensive history of this deck. If you’ve heard this before, or it simply doesn’t interest you, feel free to skip ahead. A great many people who are familiar with the Baboon Burn deck attribute it to Justin Trias, who made Top 16 at a Shonen Jump with the deck, a feat that popularized the deck in the TCG and was the start of a veritable plague of baboon decks in Europe (no minor feat since Baboon is extremely scarce here). However fervent fans of the OCG and its Frontier Cups know better. Justin Trias’ deck was no more than a blatant netdeck of the winning deck of Frontier Cup 73. The few changes that Trias did make were actually for the worse. He replaced Emissary of Hades – Gorz with Sangan, which was a necessity change since Gorz isn’t out in the TCG yet, but even with that the change was arguably not the best he could have made. More importantly he replaced 3 copies of Des Koala with 3 copies of Nimble Momonga. First of all it was a Baboon BURN deck, so that change went against the grain and purpose of the deck, but secondly, Koala was a very strong opening, when the opponents hand was large, and he likely couldn’t attack over the Koala’s 1800 DEF. In fact, it might have even been the better play to maintain field presence off of than the Momonga. Lastly he changed a book of Moon to a messenger of peace, but since without the Koala’s the Book was considerably less useful, and he may have preferred to play more of a stall game in a more aggressive meta, it was the only really understandable change. To add insult to injury, he managed to copy most of the sidedeck as well, demonstrating two things : One is that he was hardly a top competitor, since he didn’t even take the time to think out a meta-appropriate side, and two is that despite doing nothing to the deck but making it slightly worse, it was still that good that it could take a sub-par deck-builder to a Top 16 finish at a major competition. But that’s not where the history of the deck ends. Attentive long-time TCGplayer readers may actually remember The Cat’s Pajama’s, a deck concept by Metagame and TCGPlayer author Jason Grabher-Meyer, a deck based on a previous concept by him he dubbed GG Panda. That was the first deck to use Ojama Trio as a control element (before that I almost felt like I was alone with that concept) to stop power cards like Cyber Dragon and Hydrogeddon that saw a lot of play back then, then using Gyaku-Gire Panda to finish the jon. And it wouldn’t at all surprise me if he got the entire concept from his travels to Japan, which almost brings this story full circle. When you have a very Beast oriented deck like that, adding a Baboon (which wasn’t available here at the time) was a logical one, and in the end, with the use of a typical Burn card like Ojama Trio, it wasn’t a far fetch to get in major damage through secret barrel, just desserts and the also very Burn-and-Beast oriented Des Koala. So this deck has a lot of history in the game, dating back at least a good three years. Bringing the concept back to life – replacing Ojama Trio Ok, maybe the history lesson wasn’t THAT short :p. That paragraph did however illustrate I really have no love for using Nimble Momonga. It may however be his newer, closely related cousin that is going to help us out in the end though. Nimble Musasabi was released in Light of Destruction, and while not quite a replacement for two lost copies of Ojama Trio, it didn’t open the door to a number of new combo possibilities since it would start out on your side of the field and was blessed with the Beast-type, truly complementing Baboon. The downside to this card is obvious. You can only create 5 non-tributable targets on your opponents field instead of 9 total, and the risk of getting multiple Musasabi in your hand was not a truly appealing one either. But the fact that you could set musasabi as a blocker, deal 500 burn damage in the process and then bring out baboon and two direct paths to your opponents LP surely somewhat makes up for that. On your next turn you could summon Lily or Gyaku-Gire panda, and attack with both them and baboon over the two musasabi for massive damage. Recreating the deck as a template With this in mind we should attempt to recreate the Baboon Burn deck. With a few minor adaptations that gives us : 3x Giant Rat 3x Nimble Musasabi 3x Des Koala 2x Gyaku-Gire Panda 1x Card trooper 1x injection Fairy Lily 1x Exiled Force 1x Morphing Jar 1x Neo-Spacian Grand Mole 1x Green Baboon, Defender of the Forest 1x Raiza the Storm Monarch 1x Marshmallon 1x Treeborn Frog 1x Level limit Area B 2x foolish Burial 1x heavy Storm 1x Giant Trunade 1x Book of Moon 1x Premature Burial 1x Monster Reborn 1x Gravity Bind 1x Ceasefire 1x Magic Cylinder 3x Just Desserts 3x Secret barrel 1x Ojama Trio 1x Gravity Bind 1x Limit Reverse The emphasis has slightly shifted, using a bit more of the Rat Toolbox approach with Exiled force and Lily, both great searchable picks in todays format against respectively Gladiator Beasts and Lightsworn, hence also why I added the Limit Reverse Exploring the possibilities This is just a template, an attempt at recreating the deck with our newest option, which, though good, cannot hope to live up to the original. There are however plenty more options we can try with this deck to attune it a little more to the current state of the game. Ryko the Lightsworn Hunter has been a popular pick in threes for Beast decks and others alike. He does indeed add yet another strong opening to the deck, and the mill effect certainly doesn’t hurt either. The downside is that the high amount of FLIP-effects may make for a weak point when the opponent sides for game 2. Another great option is Creature Swap. Summoning Rat or Musasabi in attack position and then swapping them over for extra advantage. You lose the ability to bring out baboon this way, but since you gain a large monster from the opponent and a direct shot at their LP (more than one with musasabi actually) it duly compensates. Tech and versatility is the name of the game these days, but because we are operating in a simple but very effective concept, it gives us a decent amount of leeway, especially in Game 1, as few decks are prepared for a combination of Burn and aggression. That gives you plenty of time to iron out the kinks in side-decking. Conclusions Baboon Burn is hardly dead. It’s got a lot of history and resilience, not to mention a great deal more options now, despite losing its key card to the limited list. The burn aspect of the deck is still very much in place, since the loss of two copies of Ojama trio doesn’t change anything in that regard. Having tokens was a much better control option, and not having them creates a larger threat you need to deal with, but the monster card zones will still fill up regardless because of the many swarms we see these days. The Ratbox aspect lends a hand with a plethora of tech that is highly useful in this meta, and with a little careful play your stall option like mallon, LLAB, gravity bind and even an ATK position Baboon will go a long way to letting this deck function like it did when baboon burn was at its peak. Along with plenty of delicious new options to try out, I’d certainly still count this deck as one of the most viable ones out there this format.
Where a little over a year ago most of my decks were born on paper and slightly tweaked in the heat of battle to fit my own style, the more a format progresses to include either more decks, or more high-utility decks, the more of my decks are a continually adapting process, starting from a rather stringent but very consistent deck on paper, to a very versatile toolbox over time, that no longer only needs to adapt to my own style, but a plethora of deck themes and styles. My latest brain child seems to be bearing remarkable fruit as tested against Europe’s best two weeks ago. Monsters : 20 2x Destiny Hero - Plasma 3x Caius the Shadow Monarch 1x Raiza the Storm Monarch 2x Destiny Hero - Malicious 1x Cyber Dragon 1x Elemental Hero Stratos 1x Destiny Hero – Disk Commander 1x Destiny Hero – Fear Monger 1x Ehren, Lightsworn Monk 1x Treeborn Frog 1x Neo-Spacian Grand Mole 1x Exiled Force 1x Card Trooper 1x Sangan 1x Snipe Hunter 1x Spirit Reaper Spells : 16 3x Destiny Draw 2x Reinforcement of the Army 2x Foolish Burial 1x Heavy Storm 1x Giant Trunade 1x Premature Burial 1x Monster Reborn 1x Brain control 1x Fires of Doomsday 1x Enemy Controller 1x Scapegoat 1x Lightning Vortex Traps : 6 2x Phoenix Wing Wind Blast 2x Limit Reverse 1x Torrential Tribute 1x Crush Card Virus Side-deck : 15 2x Giant Rat 1x Injection Fairy Lily 1x cyber Dragon 1x Fires of Doomsday 2x Jinzo 3x Light-Imprisoning Mirror 2x Puppet Plant 2x Threatening Roar 1x Mystical Space Typhoon At first glance the deck seems to be a bit all over the place. These last few formats have put a great deal of pressure on decks to be high-utility, in turn giving up some of their consistency. This is actually the reason that draw power enables the DARK decks, because it lets them dump dead cards to draw into the option they need. A lot of cards are low utility, so decks need to pack a large variety of cards and then have ways to get the one they need in order to create a high-utility deck. A gladiator beast deck typically runs two copies of Reinforcement of the Army and two copies of Proving ground on top of the fact that each Gladiator can search out his kin from the deck. A DARK deck will use a mix of an insane amount of draw power and a reverse toolbox fueled by Armageddon Knight and Dark Grepher. Its up to other decks, although they don’t have the same ability to maintain consistency, to keep up in terms of utility. The best way to achieve this is to have a well-functioning toolbox, and a lot of different combo plays that can make any combination of draws into a useful play. The end result when all is said an done seems to look a lot more all over the place than it really is. Permit me to highlight some of the parts that allow this deck to run as well as it does. Crush Card Virus A big topic apparently. Funnily enough this section does not deal about the choice to run CCV. That’s a no-brainer. If you have the card and it’s a natural fit for the deck (with 8 potential targets) you add CCV to your deck. Especially in light of what I DO want to talk about. In Japan CCV isn’t such a huge threat. The meta adapted. In Europe, we’re seeing the same sort of adaptation three months after the Gold series was released. Deckbuilders take into account this card is widely used, and make sure to minimize the impact of it. This is not the case in North-America, where, despite having to deal with CCV on the SJC circuit a considerable time longer than the rest of the TCG, deck-builders just don’t seem to grasp the concept of adaptation. I understand they don’t teach evolution in Kansas anymore, but the rest of the continent should still be minimally familiar with Darwin’s theory. The SJC has seen a few decks succeed with very, very forced CCV plays. Gladiator beast and Lightsworn decks that have no business running CCV, but they do anyway, splashing very low utility cards like necro guardna and D.D. Crow, further ruining the utility and consistency of their decks, just to be able to force inopportune CCV plays. Those same players then go out of their way to make bad plays like setting crow and CCV, just to make it work. This is not a healthy concept and we all know it. So how is it that these guys are actually getting rewarded and winning games and tournaments by making these bad decisions and plays ? Easy, because the entire field is happy remaining oblivious to the widespread use of CCV, taking no action whatsoever to limit the damage this one card does. If you let CCV typically strip 2 cards total, it’ll hurt bad, anymore than that and you’ll need the heart of the cards to stand a chance of winning. On the SJC circuit, where players are supposed to be “pro”, we see CCV strip 2 or 3 cards on the turn it is activated, and sometimes up to 5 cards total !!! If you know everyone and their mother go out of their way to play CCV, how is it that people take such risks to expose themselves to the card ? That’s the first thing you’ll notice in this deck. It returns to a line-up of several smaller, but powerful effect monsters. At any given time, 50-55% of the monster line-up, 75% of the deck, is immune to crush. That means 9 out of 10 times CCV will strip 1 card at best. On top of that it runs its fair share of recursion, and the big monsters are often floaters. Because you want to make sure you get at least one card with CCV a lot of players will wait until a large monster is played. Unless they can chain CCV targeting the monster my monarchs or plasma are targeting, they generally paid for themselves since they lose three cards total (CCV, target, and whatever the monarch or plasma hit) to only 1 or 2 of mine. If this was against a deck that actually made these inopportune plays with splashed crows and what not, they are in for a world of hurt and then some. The Limit Reverse Toolbox I admit, I fell in love with this one. Limit Reverse is the greatest common to be released since Snipe Hunter. In a format that sought to punish us from reactive recursion by banning Call of the Haunted, we get a card in triplicate that allows all the same plays barring the old tricks with Jinzo. At first sight the card is just a way to get two more draws from disk Commander, but upon closer inspection it becomes so much more. With Disk Commander in the grave it becomes excellent Heavy Storm bait, because even if you set it alongside another trap, you come out on top, since Limit Reverse replaces both traps with fresh cards in your hand, and your opponent still loses his Heavy Storm. If the other trap or spell was chainable, you gain even more advantage. The ability to lure out so much s/t removal with this card is insane. On top of that it pulls pretty much all the tricks call used to pull, summoning some tribute bait for two draws in the end phase, dodging counter traps and freshly set MST’s and what not. But one target does not a toolbox make. Though this deck generally gets Disk in the grave in a timely fashion, that’s not always possible, or even the best option. So having multiple targets is what keeps Limit from being a dead card. The two secondary options here are Card Trooper and Sangan. Both still get you one additional card if played reactively, but they open up the door to more aggressive play. Trooper can set up your reverse toolbox further while taking out a monster in battle, then still get you your draw, whereas tributing sangan to, well, anything sets up a bigger monster and replaces your limit reverse with another card searched from the deck. Given you opted to Reverse Sangan, that likely makes disk commander a solid choice for sangans effect. So far I’m only stating the obvious. What really makes this toolbox amazing instead of just great tech is cards like Exiled Force, Grand Mole and Injection fairy lily, which are immense options in the face of cards like DAD and Gladiator beast heraklinos. These are your tertiary, control-oriented options. Especially Exiled Force gains a whole new dimension here. Thanks to two Reinforcements of the Army and a Sangan to get it from the deck, two foolish burials to get it to the grave and at least 4 chances to revive it, you have it at your beck and call continuously. And with Exiled Force clearing the way, you are likely wrecking a lot of your opponents large investments for practically no cost, while poking for damage with other monsters. The other two aren’t nearly as handy or easy to play, but still solid options. Lily gets around Honest for damage on your turn, whereas a Mole being brought back time after time becomes a brick wall that eventually leads to clear shots against an open field (there is a reason it was limited after all). For these two cards I side a pair of Giant Rats as well. They work wonders in the Gladiator beast match-up, as a small extended Ratbox.Together this toolbox opens a veritable new dimension in an already very versatile deck. I really don’t understand how this card is not seeing more play at the top tables. Everybody knows its great. Admittedly not everyone knows quite HOW great, but still. This thing opens so many doors for so many decks, it’ll likely get limited next format. And it may take that long to see mainstream play, just like with that other formidable common, Snipe Hunter. We abused the crap out of that card, but it didn’t see mainstream play until after it was limited. Ehren, Lightsworn Monk This card gets my vote for second best TCG exclusive (after Grandmaster) and one of the best cards in LODT. Few people so far have realized how splashable she is, being a 1600 ATK LIGHT Warrior-type monster. With similar stats and attribute to drillroid, she is actually a more searchable, reliable and upgraded version of drillroid. Despite sharing the same vulnerability to FLIP-effects, she is really in a league of her own. The ability to send treeborn frog, disk commander, Hoplomus and what not back to the deck is spectacular in this day and age. It offers a new degree of field and graveyard control never before seen. Now I’m not a fan of UDE’s Secret rare policy, on the contrary, I loathe it, as it has ruined the game for collectors, has made the trade and sale market all but collapse and puts decent cards we should have gotten as commons and rares in a price range the average duelist can never hope to gather. But my stance on it has always been that when UDE releases a card they make, they are free to do so in any fashion they like. I can’t ethically object to that, the way I can ethically object to DAD becoming a secret instead of a rare. And for a card as great as this one, and as splashable and searchable as this one, I was actually glad to pay 25 bucks to get an Ehren. I love this card. Not only is it a solid staple for any warrior toolbox deck, if it survives to the end phase, Ehren sets up your graveyard like secondary Card Trooper as well, whilst staying on the field with much higher ATK. Ehren really only sucks in one match-up and that’s against Lightsworn. But in that game you’ll likely want to side her out for Lily anyway. Destiny Hero – Plasma For a while I thought Plasma Control was going to be a hit in the format, until I played the deck at a regional and bombed. The deck can summon a plasma with ease, but the redundancy in its support completely kills plasma control as a viable deck this format, making it more a slow stall deck, that simply can’t keep its win conditions out long enough to really pay off or beat the faster and higher utility decks. That doesn’t mean Plasma isn’t a good monster. I’m not running it as a dedicated option for the deck, but I’m not running it as meaningless fodder either, as so many DARK decks tend to do these days, pitching it to Destiny Draw or Trade-in rather than actually putting the card to use. In this deck I run two copies. Since Plasma is easily searchable, there is no need to weigh down the hand with a third copy, but still maintains the safety of still having one left in the deck if you mill a copy, or discard it to destiny draw. The deck packs remarkably little direct support as well, but it doesn’t have to, because the needed support lies dormant in your existing strategy, letting you summon plasma from the deck at your whim. Sometimes you’ll plan a plasma play by flipping an end phase scapegoat, then summoning plasma on the following turn, but more often than not you pull it off by summoning treeborn frog, summoning malicious, then playing reborn or prem on stratos to fetch plasma. That still leaves your normal summon, which, if at all possible you could use to normal summon sangan, then sac frog, mali and sangan to Plasma and suck up a monster as you get one from your deck. You’ve invested two cards from your hand, but you gain a monster on the field on top of plasma, a monster in your hand from sangan, and you strip the opponents biggest monster and render the rest of them useless. That sort of play can break a game wide open if the situation is right. And that’s what the deck aims to do : drop plasma only if the situation is really right. It has too many options, ranging from monarchs to ehren to deal with smaller monsters, saving plasma to shut down major options like DAD or judgment dragon. What makes plasma so solid as an added control option ? Well we already mentioned searchability, but the fact that its searchability is provided by the single greatest support engine in the game is nothing to scoff at. The extra draw power and tribute support a destiny engine provides combines for the easiest incorporation of such a huge monster ever seen. Its rather indiscriminate special summon condition however is what really breaks plasma. The fact that you need only invest tokens, floaters and a frog most of the time, makes it like a free one-sided skill drain attached to a large body. What in that sentence doesn’t sound appetizing ? Giant Trunade For many still a controversial choice, but lately I’ve been even more inclined to use Trunade instead of MST. First of all, these days, especially with the widespread use of solemn judgment, it happens more and more that you have a choice of spells and traps to destroy, and as with any facedown cards, that’s a tough choice you don’t want to make. So for big turns you’d rather have trunade baiting out the solemn, or clearing the back row for a major hit. Even though it’s a -1, plenty of advantage can be had from the card. Getting back spent copies of premature burial or limit reverse tends to count for a lot as well. All in all, you’ll likely not be investing much in spell and trap removal until you can make a big push, and when you do, you’ll likely want to clear the whole back row, making Trunade and infinitely better main deck choice than MST. I’m sure most of my other choices make perfect sense. A pair of PWWB help ditch cards I need in the grave, while controlling the field, Vortex can reset an ill-times swarm while doing the same and enemy controller combo’s well with frog, malicious, scapegoat, fires of doomsday and Ehren. I would say, give it a try, I can only bestow its virtues on paper so much, you need to handle the deck to get a real feel of how good it is. I rarely open with a bad hand, and I’ve never opened with a useless hand.
Tags: Destiny Hero Plasma Ehren Caius Raiza Exiled Grand Mole
I was doing a little bit of retrospective this week to see how far I’ve come as a deck-builder and a duelist, musing on things I said and did in the past that I’ve changed my mind about in the past, rather successful year of competitive dueling. I’ve come to the conclusion there are very few things I completely changed my mind about, but being in a more competitive environment I’ve certainly come to respect a few nuances I didn’t possess previously. I’m now seeing a lot of what I did back then in others, and realize how the error of my ways lay in so many smaller things. A lot of what I read here on TCGplayer blogs lately is a lot of inexperienced duelists trying to be original at any cost, passing off ideas as competitive that don’t even stand a chance in most local competitions. Ever since I started with YGO, and long before competition even dawned on me, I already decided that creativity was the highest good for this TCG. It was much more of a rarity in the past, living through several chaos and monarch formats that had only one top deck. I’ve not changed my mind in this regard at all, it is still my ultimate goal to be as original as I can, while letting that creativity be my competitive edge. Creativity for the sake of creativity usually takes away your edge.
Examine your meta ... in-depth.
So here are a few hints for you creative duelists out there, that may help you discern your truly valuable innovations from some of the crap I’ve been reading of late, some of it completely counter-productive. First of all, examine the current meta. That seems logical, but for most this basically stops at a simple assessment of what the top decks are, and what cards can beat them, on paper. Since the majority of these writers don’t play in a very high level competitive environment, they never truly get the chance to test their ideas. An assessment of the meta should start with how many decks are currently seeing play at the top level. A meta like that of old, with one deck like chaos or monarchs dominating seems like a tougher challenge, because the deck obviously has a great many more strengths than other decks, but in reality, this sort of format is ideal. If you can predict that 9 out of 10 games played will be against this one deck, you have a lot of freedom to use cards that otherwise wouldn’t be competitive, as long as your final product plays into abusing the weaknesses of this one deck. During the Monarch formats I won several tournaments using a deck with Ojama trio, Final Attack orders, Great maju Garzett and high-ATK easy to summon monsters like Goblin Elite Attack force, Goblin Attack Force, Cyber Dragon and the Fiend Megacyber. The tendency to use low ATK support monsters was punished by final attack orders (as well as off-setting the weakness of my goblins) while power cards of the day like cyber dragon where completely shut down by the use of Ojama trio as a control element (as well as empowering my own cydra’s and Megacybers), and the massive amount of damage this strategy dealt (imagine ojama trio into a play of Cyber dragon, Fiend megacyber, sac megacyber for great maju garzett while you had an active FAO) against a deck that revolved around control was so disrupting, it was easy to beat the monarch decks. Now don’t get me wrong, that deck was TOTAL jank. But a one-sided format not only lends more power to weaker cards, as long as the deck as a whole combats the top deck of the moment, it also means the chance anyone ever side-decks anything against your rogue deck is non-existent.
In a diverse meta, you need less tech and more of a solid, flexible framework
Since about March 2007, barring the period between March 2008 until the emergency ban, we’ve seen a lot more diversity at the top level, with anywhere from 3 to 8 top decks seeing play at major competitions. These decks all have their inherent strengths and weaknesses, and that makes it harder to find a unified anti-meta strategy that runs a lot of non-competitive cards like the deck I named earlier. In fact, in those cases an effort like that is futile. At the top level, innovation has always been a matter of one or two tech cards. And while I would never recommend you give up your grand view of creativity to go about tweaking CC decks, lessons can be learned here. In order to be successful in such formats you need a strong and resilient frame-work or engine to build upon, and limit your choices of innovative cards to those that can be useful in multiple match-ups. Most efforts in that regard have been actually about as UN-innovative as the creators think they are innovative, because inevitably they’ve all been either counter-trap tech versions of existing cheap decks (GK, samurai and a lot of gadgets), or cheap decks with a versatile framework (pretty much only gadgets).
Don't limit your options by cost. At least not too much. There is a difference between realistic, do-able and downright cheap.
I’m going to go off on a little sidetrack here for a moment to address the issue of innovative deckbuilders always attempting to build cheap decks. This is also usually a trait that stems form inexperience at the competitive level. While it is indeed always a good idea to stray from using the absolute money cards in creative decks (lets face it, if you had those cards you would just run teched versions of the top deck anyway) to keep the idea implementable, you needn’t resort to commons and rares all the time. There are plenty of solid competitive cards that don’t cost an arm and a leg, and are often easier to trade for in competitive settings because everyone else is looking for the money cards. On the competitive scene you’ll generally see that the sub-top cards are hard to trade for, because everyone is hoping to bunch them together and trade for a real money card, but when you ask if you can purchase the cards, you’ll usually get an exceptionally good deal, because they know they can’t unload it for more on ebay anyway, with the market so geared towards money cards. It seems strange that so many so-called creative deck-builders are side-tracked by slightly higher costs, stifling their own options for innovation.
Now, getting back on track, I can tie these two paragraphs together by simply stating you don’t need to limit yourself to the obvious to make your creative, janky tech work. During the dominance of DAD return I ran a deck that was built on a destiny hero engine, running a bit like a T-hero of Perfect Circle deck, using warrior cards to support the engine and my choice of tech for the moment : Disciple of the Forbidden spell. A resilient card as a 1700 ATK warrior, the disciples effect allowed for spot removal of large threats when you needed it. This sort of idea works well, but it wouldn’t have worked without the warrior toolbox cards and a sufficiently competitive engine to integrate it into.
The toolbox approach is a must in this format. Utility is currently worth more than consistency.
Before I leave you to your deck-building endeavours, I’d also like to leave you with one of my own findings from recent formats. Decks these days are built like toolboxes. Gladiator beasts run on two proving grounds and two Reinforcements of the Army, while GB themselves can search each other out as needed, DAD runs on Grepher and Armageddon Knight combined with a loads of recursion and draw power, samurai decks run on reasoning and Reinforcement of the Army. This is a crucial thing to remember, because in the past, the anti-meta approach relied on stability. Running three copies of your preferred tech, in order to find them fast against stronger and faster strategies, so you could cut them off from their power plays fast. Because all the top decks these days are built like toolboxes (and can because of several cards that overcome low dependability by digging through the deck faster) they have a lot more utility, allowing them to find the suitable answer to your tech in a timely fashion. As such, if you built your deck with a lot of cards in multiples and you were counting on them to get you the win, odds are you’ll create a lot of dead hands and be stuck with relatively few answers. If you were counting on traps, but the other deck has the option to bring their one copy of Jinzo online on turn two, you can’t really get a whole lot done anymore. As such, as much as doing so pains me, the best answers to the current meta are always decks that have sufficient utility themselves, and have access to multiple answers to the answers. I mean these days you are likely to have to deal with a veritable range of threats from deck to deck, but in the same decks as well. Stopping them all is less an issue now of finding the right card, and more an issue of finding the right card at the right time within the same deck. That’s actually a tip that largely applies to all the top decks as well. I remember thinking that Plasma control was the shit for a regional this year. Running a full complements of fires of doomsday, plasma and phantom skyblaster, I soon found myself ruining my (up to then) perfect regional top 8 record. A big price to pay for an assumption. Lately I’ve been running a deck with 2 plasma’s, 1 scapegoat, 1 fires of doomsday, no skyblasters but a lot of generic trib support (malicious, frog etc) and I seem to be able to bring plasma online whenever I need to, while being stuck with dead, redundant copies of cards considerably less. And that is where competitive experience really comes in. On paper, the more dedicated version looks considerably better, but in real life you need to find the middle ground between consistency and utility. And a good deck-builder will indeed be able to build his framework on paper, but from that to a competitively viable deck still takes quite some testing. To those of us who do play on a very competitive level, the flaws of some of these suggestions are painfully apparent. Most at the blink of an eye, but some of them when we put the deck together. A good player tests most decks he gets if he even deems them slightly playable, and its an exercise that greatly improves your deck-building skills (even if you build it with proxies). Such decks feel sluggish and they fall apart at the slightest sign of bad luck. And this while some of them really are promising, and with a few tweaks could be genuinely competitive.
Conclusions
So to those who seek originality in their deckbuilding, whose daily YGO dreams are of finding that one innovative deck that will take the scene by storm and place well amidst a bunch of high-priced netdecks : keep doing your thing, but heed the pitfalls that come with too ardently pursuing what is only a means, and forgetting the goal. If you can, get in some competitive experience. Locals, regionals or even some online form of competition. I know the threshold can be a large one, it was for me at first, but remember you learn as much from a loss as from a win. If in the end it leads to more respect as a deck-builder, every loss was worth it and eventually translates to the goal you are pursuing : winning with a more or less original deck. A goal that offers a degree of satisfaction that is unsurpassed. You haven’t lived until you win a regionals by summoning, of all things, great maju garzett. So pursue your goals, but be realistic, attentive and remember that the work you do on paper is only the preparation, tweaking decks to fit the needs of a format are part of the building too. You don’t stop building a house after you pour the foundations either …
Tags: Original Anti-meta Pitfalls
So I'm hanging around, watching some TV when I get the news that i should check out the upperdeck forums, for some interesting news. If you hadn't heard yet, you should probably read it for yourself before continuing : http://entertainment.upperdeck.com/community/forums/thread/1160322.aspx I didn't want to deny you that experience. This is amazing news. Either DMOC or Dimension Fusion had to go to make the game considerably less luck based and stop bad players from stealing wins from the better players. We have been anticipating that changes ever since UDE admitted they were working on a mid-format list update. But i think like most players, I had completely given up on the change being applied prior to nationals. Now the change is upon us, and for me and several other players in Europe (Belgium, Holland, Germany and switzerland for sure, probably a few others), nationals is only 3 days away !!! This change has me terribly excited if it is indeed enforced by May 9th worldwide, as announced. Not only does it take out freak FTK decks like Ohm OTK, that have no chance of winning, but lets poorer players steal away wins from players who would otherwise have a shot at Top 8 honors, it also limits return to 1 and allure to two, which takes a lot of the luck aspect out of DAD decks. They are still the top deck, but it at least gives other decks a serious chance to contend when they don't have to worry about fluke returns or dimension fusions on turn 2 as much as they used to have to. Tech can actually make a difference now. But the fact that it is this close to nationals for us has an added bonus. Only the best players will be able to adapt quickly enough, and that increases the skill factor immensely as well. I have to admit, with the impossible rare policy continued throughout LOTD, making lightsworn decks as hard to make as DAD return decks, I was just about to call it quits, with nationals being my last tournament. Now I may just ride out the weekend before I decide. UDE has shown a willingness to change the game. That still leaves us with a game that is rapidly deteriorating with so many money cards and expensive power decks, but it at least makes me hopeful that UDE will perhaps, unlike the MArch 1st list, make the necessary changes to keep this game at the very least moderately healthy (lets face it, we don't ask much, we kept playing througout chaos and monarchs and we're still here) Much like the last time we had an emergency mid format ban this is quite the shocker, but undoutbtedly the timing of this change will have far more repercussions than the Stein ban. Its certainly made my heart beat for YGO for the first time in two months, and given everyone, pro or con, a whole lot of stuff to talk about. If the list is upheld worldwide as of May 9th, its safe to say this is UDE's crowning achievement of the format. well done !
Tags: Banlist
Attended my fourth regionals of the year this past weekend. Up to then I was 3 for 3, making top 8 at each of the previous three regionals. But Nationals are approaching fast (May 10th) and the only two competitions left for me to get some serious practice in happen to be regionals, while I’m still doubting what to take to nationals. So I decided to go in, a little unprepared admittedly, with my Plasma Control deck. As a result of too little practice and too many mistakes, I got stuck at only 3 wins in 6 rounds, ruining my perfect record as far as regional top 8’s goes this year. I was a little disappointed, that goes without saying, but overall I walked away quite content. I managed to scrap Plasma control off my list of potentials for nats, and I had a LOT of fun. The deck, despite its shortcomings and my own stupidity (how many times do you have to be told not to take an untested deck to a serious competition ??) is so much fun to play. The look on people’s faces when you pop your fifth plasma of the game on the field to take their dark magician of chaos remains priceless. Summoning a jinzo off a doomsday token when they have a CCV set, even better. But in the end its still a control deck, and despite such a strong drawing engine and a semi-lock (plasma + jinzo or decree) you leave too many outs for faster decks. Brain, the increasingly popular lightning vortex, heavy storm etc, are all major threats to the stability of the deck. The absolute most fun I had though, was with my side-deck. I’m not going into a detailed report of the tournament, after all, who wants to hear a person they don’t know talking about a dismal finish ? I only write detailed tournament reports if I have something to show for my trouble. But I just wanted to share the last two rounds of the tournament, to highlight my two best side-deck choices. Round 5 vs a Samurai deck. In game 1 he outpaces me, no contest. In game 2 I side in 3 copies of puppet plant. Sadly I don’t see them, but dropping two plasma’s in turn 2 grabbing a grandmaster and zanji ended that game equally quick anyhow. Then game three. He opens with six sam united, summons spirit and grandmaster, draws two, equips spirit and sets a face-down, which was so obviously solemn judgment. I peek at my hand, which consists of caius, valley, brain control, puppet plant, Plasma and some other card. If I hadn’t read the solemn I might have dumped puppet plant, summoned caius and gotten my caius killed off. So I tested the waters with brain control. No way was he going to let me snatch and tribute his 2600 ATK monster if he could stop it, and he chains his solemn, paying 4000 to negate it. Then I drop puppet plant, grab the grandmaster, attack for another 2600, summon cyber valley and remove both to draw two. I couldn’t believe my luck, I drew scapegoat. I set the goats, flipped them end phase, summoned plasma and that was game … I stick to my guns, as I have for 6 months, Puppet plant is the best tech against samurai if you either play a deck with a lot of tribute monsters, or you play samurai yourself. Most people side idiotice stuff like kinetic soldier or lightning vortex. Supposing they don’t get negated, vortex returns grandmaster to the hand and kinetic is easily dealt with for a little damage and a zanji. A good samurai player doesn’t regard them as threats. Round 6 I play against a priestess OTK deck, he says he took that many losses because he faced three straight samurai match-ups, again confirming I Should have played counter samurai that weekend. First game, he wins the die roll, I don’t get a turn. Second game I side in three neko mane king. Somewhere after drawing 10 odd cards, he plays giant trunade. I chain burial from a DD (yes, I main it in my plasma control deck) and send all three of his valleys back to his grave. I also chained fires of doomsday. His next move was dark world dealings. I said thank you very much and proceded to beat face the next turn thanks to my neko mane king. Unbelievably fun. What I love about the card is that its so easily sided in, because its not ever really dead. Almost no one still attacks a facedown monster. And if you have a deck that runs a lot of protection, like gadgets or something, and you WANT them to attack, you could always play it face-up as well. So for all the grief of ruining my perfect record, I had a pretty good day and enjoyed myself quite well. So I got over it pretty quickly. Besides, I have bigger worries. Only one more regional separates me from nationals and I’m still not sure whether I’ll play counter Samurai or Clockdown at nats. But one thing I do know, I’ll be siding three neko mane kings and three puppet plants regardless ;)
Tags: Neko Mane Puppet Plant
Well, the format is pretty much shot. That much we can agree on. DAD return is nigh unbeatable because of its amazing speed and access to mass destruction in the blink of an eye. But that doesn't mean we should give up. Even if we never succeed until DAD return is crippled in some way, it would be an insult to our love of this game if we just accepted that it was king of the format. Of course i'm not here to suggest just any old decktype and say it can be teched for a DAD return match-up. Such simple notions are beyond the intelligence of a decent player, because everybody with half a brain knows that when it comes to beating DAD return consistently, you have two options : Keep up with the pace, or slow it down. Keeping up has proven difficult. Decks like samurai, DDT and various OTK's and FTK's have proven to be equally fast or even faster, but seem to lack the consistency to continuously do well at large events. Likewise, strategies that seek to slow the game down only need one laps of weakness, or one oversight to get rolled by a return or d-fusion swarm. Which is why its simply nerve-wrecking to have to make the decision between more security by overextending and risk losing because of lack of options, or risk lesser protection and a swarm in a moment of weakness. So what's left to do ? Well, how about both ? The deck I want to propose is an adpated variation of plasma return. Its doing quite well in Japan right now, going toe to toe with DAD decks, and only slightly less appealling than the lightlords. of course neither the current incarnation of Plasma control or lightlords can keep up with DAD here, because UDE saw fit to bestow an already awesome deck with some awesome options like Allure and Zerato. But what if you could run a faster version of plasma control, abusing the same sort of speed ? That's what I want to attempt with this decklist : 2x Destiny Hero - plasma
3x Caius the Shadow Monarch
2x jinzo
2x Cyber Dragon
2x Destiny Hero - malicious
1x Destiny Hero - Disk Commander
1x Destiny Hero - Fear Monger
1x Destiny Hero - Dasher
1x Elemental Hero Stratos
1x Spirit Reaper
1x Sangan
1x Snipe Hunter
1x Treeborn Frog
1x Marshmallon 3x Allure of Darkness
3x Destiny Draw
3x Fires of Doomsday
1x Heavy Storm
1x Mystical Space Typhoon
1x Premature Burial
1x Monster Reborn
1x Brain Control
1x Reinforcement of the Army
1x Cold Wave
2x Royal Decree
1x Torrential Tribute
1x Mirror Force
Because of the speed granted by the same allure/draw engine used by todays top deck, you have the option to set up equally fast, and then shut down their traps for a turn or two while you pick off their monsters. This looks like an ordinary circle deck, but really the ability to get plasma out so easily is what grants this deck such amazing control. Grabbing zerato, DMOC or DAD gives you a gigantic one-way skill drain beatstick that shuts down all monster-based effect - the core of any DAD return deck - and the largest monster on the field. No card in that deck can touch you at that point safe for heavy storm or MST. This deck is in no way proferred as a solution to the DAD plague. Trying to outpace any deck is inevitably a war of who draw his best cards fastest. BUt at the very least, compared to most solutions suggested to date, it should be able to keep perfect pace and even odds with the DAD return decks. Its not even a suggestion I'm that happy with myself, since it still involves a 300 dollar draw engine. But at this point I'll take anything that can go head to head with DAD that doesn't involve playing what anyone else is playing ...
Tags: DAD Caius Plasma Fires Of Doomsday
The current state of the game We’ve always had cause to complain. And to be fair, if we hadn’t, we’d have kept looking til we found one. You can’t please them all, the saying goes, and the repetitive whining and complaining we read on forums daily – and if we are truly honest, have participated in a few times – is part of life. A good one at that. Venting frustration and getting feedback and opinions in regards to how others feel is an important social contribution, which is why I often get a little ticked off when mods interfere in such debates. But lately things have really started to go awry in the game. A short list. The ban-list To be fair, this is where all our current troubles started. The banlist didn’t touch a single top tier deck at that point in time. It killed chain burn, baboon burn and demise decks, which are outsiders. Needless, but forgivable since fast-paced though unstable OTK decks steal wins away from good players that could be contending for the top spots based on skill. How then did every UDEnami agent/operative/henchman manage to miss that this list opens up pathways to worse and more stable OTK’s ? I fail to see the reasoning in this sort of thinking. Why eradicate OTK’s that aren’t a threat only to create worse and more stable ones that ARE a threat ? I really don’t know whether to blame UDE or its stupidity for not seeing this ? The bigger “whoopsie” is of course the negligence in addressing the Dark Armed Dragon decks. Dark decks already have massive support, including the incredibly speedy Destiny engine that spurred the wave of LADD decks of the preceding format, and DAD had already proven its track record with these capabilities in Japan. Reason enough to avoid the pitfalls of the OCG, and address the issue, as several UDE employees have always stated proudly they do. But no. Existing problem cards like DMOC and d-fusion remain (taking care of either would have already halted all those OTK/FTK decks) and on top of that they do not touch DAD. Oh no, what does UDE do ? it gives the most broken deck around another 3 draw-two cards that are infinitely splashable, and actually fuel win conditions like return and escape and d-fusion, and to boost they decided these decks should also have access to a large, easy to summon monster with a raigeki effect. I mean that makes sense. And so the banlist, for the first time in 3 formats, plunges us back into the days of Chaos and monarchs, with one dominant deck. Except of course chaos and monarchs, as stable and strong as they were, were much slower and relatively easy to counter for original deckbuilders. DAD return is nigh unbeatable because it sees half the deck on the first two turns, almost guaranteeing an answer to any problem. The secret Rare Policy (and rarity changes) This one has been a thorn in our side since TAEV, when they successfully ruined the day of every original duelist and collector by making at least one card in every theme impossible to get. But apart from Crystal Seer’s upgrade to ultra, that set was so poor to begin with, the complaints died down rather fast. That saw even more secret rares in GLAS, which completely destabilized the secondary market to a point where this really couldn’t be called a trading card game anymore, because all anyone still wanted to trade for were secrets, and if we had those for trade, we really wouldn’t be looking to trade. This caused an immense boom among the ebay sharks and I’m sure UDE employees got in on the action as well, hording a few secrets and then cashing in. I really fail to see any other reason for this sort of policy. But the worst was yet to come. UDE had sniffed money. And they crowned their achievement with PTDN. This set contained only 48 commons for 100 cards. That meant that 88% of what you pulled was only 48% of the set. This completely made it impossible for collectors that weren’t uber rich, and again spoiled the day of most casual duelists who enjoy experimenting with different decktypes. Apart from anime-fans, probably the largest demographic. With 10 secrets in the set, in keeping with the established tradition, they again took ALL (I understand some of them, I mean increasing profits isn’t bad, just not to that degree that you rip off your customers) the most wanted cards and increased their rarity. With the crowning achievement Dark Armed dragon being upgraded from a rare to a secret rare. Knowing full well this was already a deck with more capabilities and possibilities than any other, as the OCG had proven, they made it an elitist deck that only the richest could afford, and then broke it with two more hard to get cards like the secret rare zerato and the ultra rare allure of darkness. This immediately caused a rift between the haves and have-nots that cannot be mended. Again secondary market prices soared and UDE no doubt benefited (why else persist in a bad strategy ?). To add insult to injury, the long awaited mass release of CCV turned out to be a 1-in-50 pull from a 20-30 dollar pack sparking a new height for secondary market prices (its up to what now ? 300 ?). After all was said and done and some people went to extremes to get their 3 DAD, 3 allure and a zerato to keep up with the pack, UDE manages to cause a new rift by making CCV impossible to get, because in the end what does CCV do to this already messed up format, but provide some decks with an incredible advantage in the mirror match ? So the whole problem we saw with some having CCV and others not is only extrapolated to a larger scale, since the mass release really wasn’t a “mass”-release. Degradation of product The rarity changes aren’t of course the only way UDE manages to provide poor quality products. Under the pretense of making structure decks more playable – who plays structure decks out of the box anyway ? – they now decided they have to change all other products as well. What this actually means is to reduce the value of these decks to people looking for affordable reprints, by taking out all worthwhile reprints and replacing them with junk we already have a gazillion times. They can do this because the product will sell anyway on the basis of the new cards, which are a hot ticket to players and collectors alike. This means UDE basically has a license to anally molest us, since we’ll buy the product anyway, meaning they get their money either way, while keeping valuable reprints for when times get harder (ie when their own crappy product and making the game inaccessible catches up to them and profits start to dwindle a few years down the road). The biggest farce of course was yet to come. The Gold packs. Hailed for over two months as the big turning point, a reprint pack with amazing new foil technology, and reprints of major tournament worthy cards of the caliber of Mirror Force, CCV, Don Zaloog and grandmaster. Limited edition, hobby store only and completely hush-hush. The buzz carried the product, and people massivele pre-ordered by the box, 100 to 150 bucks at once, even the people who really couldn’t afford to spend that sort of money. It was after all limited, and going to be absolutely great with easier to get reprints. And then the other shoe drops. April Fool’s day the spoiler gets out. And it was indeed a cruel and expensive joke, as people found out they wasted huge amounts of money on cards like 7-colored fish and 8-claws scorpion, of which they already had thirty copies between the set and the SD common reprint, and never played in their life. Apart from 22 crappy commons per pack, you also get 3 gold cards, which are basically upgraded ultra rares. And apart from the announced ones, these too were cards you already owned a gazillion times if you regularly bought SD’s, DP’s, starter decks etc. In fact the only card in it that everyone did want, CCV, ended up being one in 50, making its ridiculous secondary market price pale in comparison to what you would have to pay to pull one on average, with 50 packs costing you a minimum of 1000 dollars !!!! Meanwhile on the competitive front Costa Mesa came and went and the biggest SJC in history was a farce. Coverage was short, boring and repetitive. And that wasn’t metagame’s fault. What are you going to cover when 28 of the 32 top decks there ran dark armed dragon ? We saw this coming long before. The OCG saw it, we saw it at Houston, and costa mesa confirmed it. Going into Columbus we all knew the only possible innovation were new variations of either DAD return, or OTK’s and FTK’s. And let me tell you, it’s a sad, sad day when you have to start rooting for an FTK to win to keep from dying of boredom. And it made for the third straight FTK deck that could have been prevented if UDE had done one of three things. Ban DMOC, ban D-fusion, never made allure. Which would still have left us with the same stale format we have now of course. I mean if its going to be skillless, might as well have some FTK’s to mix things up. This last one is very stable though. Without reasoning and monster gate, it loses most of its inconsistency compared to explosion and such. What the future holds Nationals, Europeans and worlds are coming up. It seems everybody right now is stressed out apart from the very few rich people around. Either they are worried about getting enough DAD’s and allures for nats, or they are breaking their head over something that can remotely compete with it. Both causes equally futile, the latter more than the former. But with nats on the way, we have other concerns. What will happen once nats are over ? What will we do then ? Simply endure another 4 months and hope UDE finally listens then ? Seems pointless to me. These repeated fuck-ups since TAEV show that despite massive protest, UDE has no intention of changing its policy of greed until it sees a decline in sales. Which isn’t likely with the current devious sales tactics. Soon Light of destruction will be upon us. Call me a prophet of doom, but I guarantee you cards from all themes will be upgraded in rarity, it will have 10 equally impossible to get secret rares and very little to be had for the player with a modest income. And I’ll tell you, we, all of us, suckers that we are, will just keep buying into it … Its ludicrous, ridiculous, utterly kafka-esque.
For the first time since chaos sorcerer, and then 4 months later Stein were banned, we've been plunged in a format with a single dominant deck again. What's more is that the dominant deck is stable and extremely fast, which spurs only OTK's and FTK's as viable alternatives at major competitions. As if that wasn't enough, it seems this game is going downhill in more than just one way. The productSpurred by recent successes with the latest booster set Phantom of Darkness, UDE seems to have launched a new offense to rip the p(l)aying customer off, realeasing wave after wave of product with minimal quality, selling them off a single key selling point. First they launched two terrible promo's with the PTDN SE packs, knowing full well those things get sold anyway on the basis of it containing PTDN, they then follow it up with a reworked structure deck, removing all good reprints like the other monarchs and Solemn Judgment, knowing full well that Caius and DDR will make people by their lower quality version of the deck anyway, and now, on April fool's, they pull the best April fool's joke ever. They've hidden the content of the Gold Series for two months, spurring a record number of pre-orders for the product at a rather steep price, and on April 1st of all days, they announce that the content of the gold pack will be utter crap. 7-colored fish, 8-claws scorpion, rare metal dragon, rivalry of warlords and what not, together with cards that have shown up in a million varieties before like brain control, reinforcement of the army, heavy storm and cyber dragon, make up UDE's idea of valuable reprints. A lot of people happily pre-ordered a box for 130 or more dollars, only to find out they get a heap of 7-colored fish and sonic bird for their money, and only if they get really lucky a CCV, a prometheus or a grandmaster. Those being the only 3 cards in the set that everybody doesn't already own. if of course you, like me, already happen to own multiples of grandmaster and prometheus, then the set really holds no value. The GameThe latest SJC was rather painful as well. Innovation was minimal, limited to the painfully obvious doomed-to-fail tech like protector of the sanctuary and a new breed of FTK. That was actually the only highlight of the Columbus SJC. While a new OTK/FTK is no reason to rejoice, on the contrary, not getting a turn is not good for the meta, a new one is cause for rumor and speculation for a good two weeks, meaning that if we get a new one each SJC, we may just survive dying of boredom this format. And even the fun of seeing something other than the ridiculously dominant DAD return win was foiled, as Jerry Wang manages to stack his CCV each game for the win. I mean he had CCV and a target in his hand in game 1 after seeing only 8 cards, and in Game 3 after only 7 cards. What a REMARKABLE coincidence !!!! And in the final of an SJC no less. Either Jerry should be predicting my next lottery picks, or he pulled an Emon. A good thing Erin managed to get the win in one turn in Game 2 or it would have been over even faster. Word to the wise, if you don't plan on summoning them and don't run reasoning or monster gate, Dreadmaster gets by CCV, which Plasma and dogma do not. But for the majority of matches on metagame, same as with Costa Mesa, i just couldn't bother to read them anymore, despite their extremely limited length. Somehow the fun of reading "D-Draw, Allure, D-Draw, Armageddon Knight, Pass, draw, D-Draw, D-Draw, Armageddon Knight, DAD, remove, d-fusion game" over and over seems to lose its, euh, allure after about two or three times. That was by round 3 of Houston. Since then we've had the rest of Houston and all of costa mesa and columbus to read it again. heck, if Jason had copy/pasted his reports and just changed the names, most people would have been none the wiser. Now we are on a fast track to nationals. Everybody is either looking for copies of DAD or desperately finding something that works against it, taking in regionals and city championships to qualify and practice. But what happens after nationals ? Three more months of this crap ? I think I'll pass. Imagine what the next two weeks will be like for folks like me on the competitive circuit. More netdecking, another FTK to deal with that steals wins from good players, and if they aren't copying Erin diaz's deck, they'll probably be copying Jerry Wang's stack ...
Tags: Gold SJC Columbus Wang Diaz
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