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?

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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.

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Musings on Deck Types

I usually look at Magic: the Gathering for information on how a card game works because it is much more developed as a game. It has a comprehensive ruling system as well as large monetary tournaments for players. There are also clear established strategies, and these strategies apply to Yugioh as well. In Yugioh there are 3 main deck types: aggro, control and combo. Although most players know of these deck types, I'll give a quick recap here. Aggro seeks to beat the opponent quickly through early pressure before the opponent can stabilize. The aggro deck wins by tempo. Control tries to stabilize while eventually gaining enough card advantage to overwhelm the opponent. Combo tries to assemble a certain set of cards which usually lead to a win.

The thing about Yugioh is that tempo isn't very important and hence aggro decks are far weaker than those in Magic: the Gathering. In Magic, the number of playable cards in a turn is limited by something called mana. In Yugioh, no such restriction is in place. This means even if an aggro player applies much pressure to his opponent, his opponent can easily reverse the game state by playing a series of cards. Cards like Brain Control and Lightning Vortex have a tendency to do this, and Yugioh by its nature discourages aggro. The aggro deck then must evolve to overcome this problem. It must deal 8000 damage in a single turn. This essentially turns aggro decks in Yugioh into a combo deck.

Of course, there is an exception which is Six Samurai. It's almost impossible for Six Samurai to perform an OTK on the opponent, but it has two aspects that allow it to overcome aggro's natural weakness. First, it has Grandmaster of the Six Samurai. The Grandmaster is a 2100 ATK that replaces itself when destroyed. The self-replacement is certainly important, but the 2100 ATK is arguably more so. Gadgets replace themselves, but their low ATK makes them be classified as a control deck rather than aggro. 2100 ATK on the other hand is large enough to apply a lot of pressure. The second aspect is Great Shogun Shien. The Shien's effect makes Yugioh more like Magic: the Gathering, where a limited number of cards can be played in a turn. This dampens the "reverse game state" nature of Yugioh and gives aggro more of an edge. Six Samurais still need a lot of good draws to summon both Grandmaster and the Shien quickly though.

But Six Samurai aside, there are no successful aggro decks. In essence they have become OTK decks. DDT for example, has the strategy of an aggro deck in terms of it seeking to overwhelm the opponent in one turn, but plays like a combo deck by setting up the removed from play zone and winning with Dimension Fusion. Hence, Yugioh essentially has 2 different deck types: control and combo. Control decks have reigned supreme for a long time thanks to the wide array of Monarchs and so people complain about them. Combo decks end the game within a few turns so people complain about them. The sole decent aggro deck requires luck to do well in a tournament, and so people complain about them when they win. This is why people will always complain about deck types. There are three options and all of them have flaws.

However, most players complain about the combo deck more than the control deck (and little people even mention about the aggro deck because there's only one) because apparently combo decks requires no skill whereas control decks do. I disagree with this argument because it seems to me that these people are assuming a large number plays requires more skill. I do not think this is the case. A combo deck operates at its optimum only if each play is done well. In fact, a wrong play can change a combo deck's win to a loss. Every move is crucial in a combo deck. In a control deck however, its pilot can make a mistake, evne a terrible one, but can frequently still end up winning the game. The large number of plays results in a lower value to each play. If a player never misplays, then both decks are equally good. If a player misplays, then he is better off with a control deck, because a misplaying combo deck pilot won't last along in any tournament.

The last thing is that I find the large number of complaints about OTK comical. "It's no fun when the game ends in 3 turns". Well in Magic: the Gathering Extended format, there is a deck called Dredge. This deck frequently wins on turn 2, sometimes turn 3 and almost always by turn 4. This is fast in Yugioh standards, and extremely super-duper fast in Magic: the Gathering standards. It is so fast that most deeck simply cannot win game 1 of the match. In order to have decent chance of beating it, a deck must have about 6-8 out of 15 cards to deal with it. that's half the sidedeck to beat one deck, and it's not even a guaranteed win. Yet, there's still no whining on how the key cards should be banned in the Magic: the Gathering community whereas some Yugioh players are complaining about decks that have yet to make a significant impact in any major tournaments.

Customary Optimistic Anti-DAD Section:

Anyway, it's the "counter DAD" part if the blog, so let's shift to a completely new topic: Protector of the Sanctuary. It's effect was garbage in the past but now it has a decent, even great use. There are enough draw effects now to make it playable. Here's the card text for reference:

Protector of the Sanctuary
Level 4 / 1100 ATK / 1900 DEF
Earth / Fiend

As long as this card remains face-up on the field, your opponent cannot draw a card(s) except during Draw Phases.

The effect is nasty for the opponent, but it's weak 1100 ATK sure isn't. This means we can't just throw this into any deck because any mosnter short of Sangan will just attack right through this thing, at least on the turn it's summoned. We can always summon it via Giant Rat, but it loses effectiveness because assuming it is the opponent who will attack Giant Rat, he will already have played all the draw effect in hand prior to attacking. So how do we run this card? One approach is

3 Des Koala
3 Protector of the Sanctuary
2 Exiled Force
2 Giant Rat
1 Maryokutai
1 Sangan
1 Stealth Bird

3 Wave-Motion Cannon
2 Hammer Shot
1 Level Limit Area B
1 Book of Moon
1 Monster Reborn
1 Smashing Ground
1 Scapegoat

3 Dark Bribe
3 Magic Drain
3 Shadow-Imprisoning Mirror
3 Solemn Judgment
1 Ceasefire
1 Gravity Bind
1 Magic Cylinder
1 Mind Crush
1 Threatening Roar
1 Trap Dustshoot

It's pretty much a Burn deck wtih Protector of the Sanctuary stuck in, but the cool thing about Protector of the Sanctuary stops the opponent from drawing from Dark Bribe. [EDIT: It turns out that Dark Bribe can only be activated during the draw phase with Protector of the Sanctuary on the field, making this a horrible interaction!] The Shadow-Imprisoning Mirror should stop pretty much everything in Dark Armed Draon Return decks except for Jinzo, which is where Hammer Shot comes in. The opponent might try to summon Jinzo then play Heavy Storm. Pretty much all stall Burn decks suffer from this weakness but just pray you facedown Solemn Judgment then Dark Bribe saves you. One interesting t hing to note is if Protector the Sanctuary is face down and the opponent plays Allure of Darkness or something similar and then Ceasefire is chained, the opponent will end up removing a Dark monster form their hand for nothing.

The second deck to stuff Protector of the Sanctuary into is Gadgets. The large amount of protection should obviously protect Protector of the Sanctuary.

2 Cyber Dragon

3 Banisher of the Light
3 Protector of the Sanctuary
2 Green Gadget
2 Red Gadget
2 Yellow Gadget
1 Giant Rat
1 Neo-Spacian Grand Mole.

3 Enemy Controller
2 Hammer Shot
2 Shrink
1 Heavy Storm
1 Smashing Ground
1 Fissure
1 Limiter Removal
1 Pot of Avarice
1 Scapegoat

3 Shadow-Imprisoning Mirror
3 Solemn Judgment
1 Bottomless Trap Hole
1 Mind Crush
1 Mirror Force
1 Torrential Tribute

The lack of Trap Dustshoot but Mind Crush is because I personally love Mind Crush. Trap Dustshoot can be a dead draw but Mind Crush is good even by itself as long the player running it can guess well. Anyways, Giant Rat conveniently searchs out Protector of the Sanctuary. The list is pretty generic, but the main decked Shadow-Imprisoning Mirrors aren't that bad since many deck run Dark monsters and so if it doesn't hurt you, I think it can be ran in three copies. There's no Royal Oppression here because I think Roayl Oppression doesn't stop a whole lot of cards compared to Shadow-Imprisoning Mirror.

That's kind of it for this blog, and now I'm screwed for my essay because I wrote this bloody blog. Anyway ciao!

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Ryan Murphy writes another irrelevant article on the traditional format, and more importantly, SJC Costa Mesa has gone by (along with several ruling errors in games posted on Metagame alone) and to no one's surprise, Dark Armed Dragon (DAD) took the prize. Actually, it took a lot of prizes. The sheer amount of DAD decks obviously contributed. I think a field of 25% random / E-Hero decks, 25% DAD decks and 50% anti-DAD decks is a good rough estimate. Yet the power of DAD is undeniable. Or is it?

Some people seem to think that DAD is easy to beat. The following quotes I made up are based upon actual, and laughable, posts on none other than ccgrealms.com, which is most famous among other things for their poorly written front page articles (although some are ok, don't read their deck garages, it's poison).

"Just use Bottomless Trap Hole!"
"Divine Wrath!"
"Shadow-Imprisoning Mirror pwns the DAD"
"DAD dies to Royal Oppression"

The people saying these things obviously underestimate the power of DAD. Bottomless Trap Hole? Ok, I'll destroy your monster with priority then summon another DAD. Divine Wrath? Ok, 2 for 1 yourself. Shadow-Imprisoning Mirror? Ok, I summon DAD and attack. Royal Oppression? Snipe Hunter, roll, DAD for game. I'm not saying these aren't foils to DAD because sometimes they do work, but rather each individual card can not take down all aspects of DAD, but sticking all of these cards into the same deck will lead to tech overkill and auto-lose to any other deck. I think Shadow-Imprisoning Mirror comes pretty close to stopping DAD, but it's not always drawn, and there's still Mystical Space Typhoon and Heavy Storm to deal with.

The problem with beating DAD is hard to splash in some tech that destroys the deck, but a dedicated deck designed to beat it will simply lose to other decks. Some players have tried another method: outspeeding it. First up is Chris Moosman's Exodia deck.

5 Exodia Pieces
3 Destiny Hero - Dogma
3 Destiny Hero - Plasma
3 Cyber Valley
1 Elemental Hero Stratos
1 Sangan
1 Dark Magician of Chaos
1 Destiny Hero - Disk Commander

3 Allure of Darkness
3 Destiny Draw
3 Machine Duplication
3 Trade-In
3 Upstart Goblin
1 Dimension Fusion
1 Monster Reborn
1 Premature Burial
1 Spell Economics

3 Reckless Greed

The deck tries to win on about turn 2 to 3. However, I think this deck was a poor choice for a 17 round tournament. The chances of getting unrecoverable hands it very high, as a hand of draw cards without the necessary discard fodder or vice versa means good game. The deck also fails when the opponent decides hand control is a good way to beat DAD (don't ask me why, I am as confused as you are). Searching a piece with Sangan only to have it discarded via Drastic Drop Off kills the deck's win condition. Someone inflicting damage with Goblin Zombie or flipping Needle Worm and knocking off an Exodia piece to the graveyard is a different story with the same ending.

Lance Leonhardt thought Rainbow Dark OTK was the way to go. Seriously, Raindbow Dark OTK in a 17 round tournament? Every Rainbow Dark OTK shares essentially the same list and they all suffer from the same inconsistency problems. Lance quoted a 87% success rate with the deck. I have no idea where this number came from and am having troubles believing in that number but let's assume that number is accurate. Let's also assume that if the deck doesn't go off on turn 1 it has a negliable chance of winning because if the chance of drawing a card that makes it possible to go off on turn 2 is slim to none. The chance of winning 17 games in a row is 9%. That's still pretty high, until we change the word game into match. The raw percentage actually goes up to 95% chance of winning the match because it's hard to lose 2 games if the chance of winning a game is as high as 87%, but that's not taking account the side deck. The deck is completely hosed by D.D. Crow and Wobaku / Threatening Roar. Although I'm not taking the time to calculate it, my instinct tells me the chances of a deck winning a match with sidedeck becomes much lower than 87%. If the deck had a 60% chance of winning a match, the chances of winning the tournament would be about 1.5%. That's just too low.

I was in disbelief when I read that Paul Levitin decided to pilot Gladiator Beasts. I think everyone saw it coming that he's not going to top 32. The key card Heraklinos dies to Royal Oppression, which people were running, and monster form removal, like... Dark Armed Dragon! But he was running Shadow-Imprisoning Mirror which means he's a smart person, but he would be smarter if he just didn't run Gladiator Beasts in the first place. Oh, Heraklinos also dies to Neo-Spacian Grand Mole and Exiled Force, and both are those are commonly found along side the previously mentioned Royal Oppression.

27 out of the top 32 decks ran Dark Armed Dragon. So that shows how effective the anti-DAD strategies were. So how the heck are we suppose to take down DAD? Well, it's not easy, so the best strategy for hard core players is to just run their own DAD decks. For the rest of the world's players, they can either sulk and wait for September 1st, quit the game, think of new strategies, or earn money to obtain DAD then follow the same stragegy for hard core players. The last one is probably the most rewarding as the end product actually contains Dark Armed Dragon, but the second last choice is decent too.

So what are these new deck ideas? I don't know, as if I knew I would be winning a lot of tournaments then using the prize to obtain DAD and build the DAD deck instead of blogging. I'll blog any new ideas that come to mind next time. Ciao!

P.S. By the way I didn't attend SJC Costa Mesa because I'm not rich enough to buy plane tickets while skipping classes to play a children's card game.

Tags: SJC Costa Mesa Dark Armed Dragon

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Let's face it, not everyone is rich enough to afford Dark Armed Dragon. Dark Armed Dragons love money. It goes to the highest bidder, and since money doesn't grow on trees, not many people can become the highest bidder. But how can a cheap player avoid the fate of being owned in Yugioh? Luckily, I'm a cheap player, so I know some outs to this. The obvious one is simply to borrow cards off friends. That works fairly well for me, but to those people who don't have friends (cmon, Yugioh isn't the coolest sport ever) or who don't have rich friends, this blog will put out some rogue decks for display.

The first thing we have to do is figure out how to beat Dark Armed Dragon. In the late game, it's pretty unbeatable as a +3 is simply brutal, so we'll have to outspeed it. There's 2 methods to this: fast combo or fast aggro. We can also negate Dark Armed Dragon and its buddies' effects, rendering them into not so scary monsters.

The following decks are the cheapest decks I can find of each type. That means a deck like DDT won't be found beneath as although it is fast, it is hardly cheap. This also means Six Samurai won't be included because it isn't that rogue (although it isn't tier 1 as it requires a lot of good draws) and the Grandmaster of the Six Samurai or extremely expensive. Sad days for those who didn't raid the little kids' pile of Grandmasters during the Sneak Preview.

Fast Combo: Exodia Turbo

I think the unrestriction of Reckless Greed and the appearance of Hand Destruction adds a lot of power to the deck. Dark Eruption is also a fantastic card for the deck, as it either gets back lost Exodia pieces or reuses Sangan.

5 Exodia Pieces
3 Emissary of the After Life
3 Vortex Trooper
1 Card Trooper
1 Maharaghi
1 Morphing Jar
1 Sangan

3 Hand Destruction
3 Upstart Goblin
2 Dark Eruption
1 Card Destruction
1 Dark Factory of Mass Production

3 Accumulated Fortune
3 Good Goblin Housekeeping
3 Jar of Greed
3 Legacy of Yata-Garasu
3 Reckless Greed

There are 22 draw cards in the deck, with Hand Destruction and Card Destruction giving an immediate -1, and Accumulated Fortune giving the +1. It is very possible to draw through a large part of the deck each turn. Card Trooper draws a card upon destruction and its milling effect is awesome when a Dark Eruption is in hand as you either hit no Exodia piece but thin the deck by 3 cards or hit an Exodia piece and retrieve it with Dark Eruption. Vortex Trooper is also a great card as it can be set to become a pseudo Upstart Goblin or get a free Magical Mallet effect if that Dark Factory of Mass Destruction doesn't seem it's going to do anything soon. Maharaghi is a great card as it repeatedly sifts through 1 card per turn. A Maharaghi being summoned every turn adds a lot of speed to the deck. It will almost send the revealed card back to the bottom unless it's an Exodia piece or an Exodia recurring card if a piece is in the graveyard.

The biggest benefit of the deck is that it's super cheap to build. Exodia goes for rather cheaply. There's no Mirror Force and the like to skyrocket the price. The most expensive cards here would be Card Trooper followed by Dark Eruption, with the latter not being really expensive. Card Trooper seems to have fallen out of popularity lately so it's possible to pick one up for an non-astronomical cost.

Fast Combo: Morphing Jar #2 OTK

The combo is to get All-out Attacks and another monster on the field, then special summon Morphing Jar #2 facedown or flip Morphing Jar #2 if you have it facedown already. In the former, Morphing Jar #2 will be flipped up by All-out Attacks.The Jar's effect will activate, sending the monster and the Jar back to the deck. They will be resummoned facedown, then flipped face up by All-out Attacks. Poison Mummy will inflict 500 damage and Morphing Jar #2 will send the monsters back to the deck. Lather, rinse and repeat until the opponent is dead.

3 Morphing Jar #2
1 Poison Mummy

3 Hand Destruction
3 Reasoning
3 The Shallow Grave
2 Foolish Burial
3 Upstart Goblin
2 Book of Moon
1 Card Destruction
1 Different Dimension Capsule
1 Level Limit Area B
1 Messenger of Peace
1 Monster Gate
1 Monster Reborn
1 Premature Burial
1 Scapegoat

3 All-out Attacks
3 Dark Bribe
3 Threatening Roar
2 Rock Bombardment
1 Gravity Bind

The idea is to dump monsters in the graveyard via Foolish Burial and Rock Bombardment to set up The Shallow Grave. Once that's done, activate All-out Attacks, summon something via normal summon, Reasoning or Monster Gate (tributing a revived monster or sheep token), then play The Shallow Grave for the win. The weakness of the deck is that it dies to D.D. Crow and if all 3 All-out Attacks are dumped via an unfortunate Reasoning or Monster Gate. The problem can potentially be solved through adding Magical Stone of Excavation, but that's expensive. Another way to avoid this is to not play Reasoning or Monster Gate until an All-out Attacks has been drawn.

Fast Aggro: Generic Aggro with a Touch of Machine

The deck name says it all. Stuff in the most aggro monsters one can find and attack! The touch of machine is for Limiter Removal, which just steals games out of nowhere.

2 Cyber Dragon
2 Jinzo

3 Blue Thunder T-45
3 Hydrogeddon
3 Kycoo the Ghost Destroyer
2 Injection Fairy Lily
1 Card Trooper
1 Cyber Phoenix
1 Marshmallon
1 Spirit Reaper

2 Enemy Controller
1 Brain Control
1 Fissure
1 Heavy Storm
1 Limiter Removal
1 Monster Reborn
1 Mystical Space Typhoon
1 Nobleman of Crossout
1 Premature Burial
1 Scapegoat
1 Shield Crush
1 Smashing Ground

2 Royal Decree
2 Dimension Wall
1 Magic Cylinder
1 Mirror Force
1 Torrential Tribute

Most of the cash spend on the deck are Mirror Force, Card Trooper and Jinzo. Mirror Force is quite essential for any duelist, and it's coming out in the Gold Pack soon so it should be easier to obtain. Injection Fairy Lily can be picked up quite cheaply because it's not very popular. The point of the deck is to simply summon monsters, beat face then Dimension Wall or Magic Cylinder the rest of the LP. This plan works especially well with Inection Fairy Lily because it puny 400 ATK make Dimension Wall deal a significant amount of damage.

Negate the Teeth Out of the Dragon

The final deck list tries to use Skill Drain to negate Dark Armed Dragon. A 2800 ATK monster is not nearly as scary as a 2800 ATK monster that gives +3 upon summon. The burn is based of on Kenny So's deck, but I think it's fundamentally different enough to be something else. There's also an interesting tech in the deck.

1 Green Baboon, Defender of the Forest 

3 Giant Rat
3 Gravekeeper's Spy
3 Nimble Momonga
2 Exiled Force
2 Maryokutai
1 Mask of Darkness
1 Morphing Jar

3 Wave-Motion Cannon
2 Messenger of Peace
1 Different Dimension Capsule
1 Level Limit Area B
1 Scapegoat
1 Smashing Ground

3 Dark Bribe
3 Skill Drain
3 Solemn Judgment
1 Gravity Bind
1 Magic Cylinder
1 Mirror Force
1 Threateing Roar
1 Torrential Tribute
1 Wall of Revealing Light

There's one win conditon in this deck: Wave-Motion Cannon. Dark Bribe and Maryokutai takes care of most spell/trap removal and Skill Drain takes care of the rest. If anything grows wrong, Solemn Judgment will stop it. Maryokutai is a great card because it's unaffect by Skill Drain and doesn't take up precious spell / trap zone space. The rest of the deck is mostly removal and stall. Green Baboon is in because it works well as a big wall that isn't negated by Skill Drain. The deck only has Wave-Motion Cannon as a win condition, so it must be protected at all costs.

The most expensive cards in the deck are Green Baboon and Dark Bribe. Green Baboon isn't essential to the deck can be replaced along with a Giant Rat by 2 Cyber Phoenix or something. Dark Bribe is pretty crucial, so either steal it off little kids who haven't been raided yet, buy the game for the cards then return/sell the game or simply check your local Electronics Boutique.

Conclusion

I hope these 4 decks have given you some ideas. These builds aren't the best, but they are a starting point and shoudln't suck too badly. Remember, budget decks don't have to suck. Just don't try to build a naturally expensive deck out of common cards because it won't work. Those decks need their pricey cards for a reason. That means DDT without Magical Stone of Excavation, Destiny DRaw or Dark Magician of Chaos will perform poorly. The same idea applies to Six Samurai without Grandmaster -- it sucks. Hope you enjoy your children's card games.

Tags: Dark Armed Dragon Rogue

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For some reason, every six months, some Yugioh players around the world are bound to get angry. That reason is the banlist. There's really no stopping the anger though, simply because everyone has their own version of the ideal banlist and if one person is happy another is angry. As well, every six months, a group of players will say "I quit Yugioh because of the !@#$% banlist", but they inevitably come back to the children's card game and stop complaining about the banlist. With that introduction, let's start the blog by looking at the new March 1st banlist.

Newly Forbidden: Breaker the Magical Warrior, Call of the Haunted, Magician of Faith

Breaker returns to the banned pile. It likely won't change the game as Breaker, although powerful, was not crucial to any one deck but rather just splashed into virtually any deck. The lost of Breaker means a loss of a spell / trap removal to a generic deck, but it won't have a lasting implication to the game.

Call of the Haunted joins the ban pile possibly because of Disk Commander, but then Monster Reborn has been unbanned. This change seems really retarded for many players but keep in mind how Monster Reborn can recur an opponent's Disk Commander and the Monster Reborn player will get to draw 2 cards. This means Perfect Circle gets a faster version of Call of the Haunted but now faces the danger of having the opponent randomly taking their own Disk Commander and thereby facing a +2 card advantage. The banning of Call of the Haunted conveniently takes away the Perfect Circle's saving grace to this move: chaining Call of the Haunted targeting Disk Commander to fizzle Monster Reborn. Perfect Circle now must either get rid of their own Disk Commander through D.D. Crow or The Transmigration Prophecy or else face the devastating +2.

Magician of Faith, like Breaker, does not have a huge effect on the game anyway. The popularity of Magician of Faith is even much less than Breaker, so the effects of its banning will go largely unnoticed. The Apprentice engine weakens a bit, but Magician of Faith's slot can simply be replaced of another Crystal Seer or Old Vincictive Magician so basically, who cares about Magician of Faith?

Newly Limited: Advanced Ritual Art, Monster Reborn, Nobleman of Crossout, Ojama Trio, Raiza the Storm Monarch

Limiting Advanced Ritual Art obviously weakens Demise OTK a bit, but also messes up a bunch of wannabe combo decks as well. I think a better option would be to limit Demise, King of Armageddon instead because Demise OTK would also lose some of its power in the form of a less consistent Trade-In. Limiting Demise would also weaken the Rainbow Dark OTK as a side effect, but since Rainbow Dark OTK sucks, I guess it doesn't matter. Advanced Ritual Art does open up possbilities like using it with Exodia, so I think restricting it instead of Demise is less ideal.

A discussion of Monster Reborn has already been written in the Call of the Haunted paragraph, but I want to add here that Monster Reborn owns with Dark Magician of Chaos. It's a cute combo that wins games, but it won't be unstoppable or anything so it'll simply serve as a new move to watch out for for the next six months. (Two consecutive "for"!)

Nobleman of Crossout being limited does not make much of a difference since little people ran more than 1 anyway and there's always Shield Crush for those who want to play more defense mode destruction.

The limiting Ojama Trio pretty much screws over Baboon Burn. Just Desserts becomes garbage and Secret Barrel losing 600 damage is a huge loss. The worst thing now is that the Baboon Burn player now faces a barrage of monsters compared to a lock field previously. The limiting of Ojama Trio makes Baboon Burn uncompetive at a tournament level. This could possbily make Green Baboon lose monetary and trade value. Any deck using a burn transition side deck also weakens as it's pretty hard to side into burn with only 1 Ojama Trio. If a deck wants to side into burn, it's going to have to be more of a lock down type, and those require a dedicated deck to install the necessary protection for the lock down pieces.

Raiza the Storm Monarch getting limited means no more back to back Raiza annoyances. Caius the Dark Monarch is getting released soon though so Raiza's loss is hardly devastating and there's always still Zaborg at the moment. A lot of players are happy about this, but it's not really the most radical change in the metagame, and instead of Raiza people will just complain about something else. Like Caius.

Newly Semi-limited: Book of Moon, Cyber Dragon, Foolish Burial, Light and Darkness Dragon, Mage Power, Magical Stone Excavation, Necroface

Book of Moon at 2 copies is a decent change. It opens up more fun comboes and Morphing Jar goodness. It is not very powerful by itself so having it as 2 copies is hardly dangerous. It's only broken with Cyber Jar, and I doubt Cyber Jar is coming back any time soon, since even its Dragon brother has been semi-limited.

Cyber Dragon at 2 doesn't matter since the difference between 2 and 3 copies is minimal. Many decks opt to not run the third copy anyway so the most of the damage is inflicted on Machine decks and Zane Trusdale wannabes. I find it weird that the Dragon is limited now instead of a few formats ago when people were screaming for the restriction of Cyber Dragon seeing as how it was "broken" and stuff.

Both Foolish Burial and Light and Darkness Dragon at 2 shares the same story with Cyber Dragon. Who runs 3 copies?

Mage Power at 2 is great news for people who are still loyal to Ben-Kei OTK, but will be of no significance to the rest of the world. Ben-Kei OTK is incredibly slow and hard to pull off meaning it won't be tournament worthy and if no one played even 1 copy of Mage Power before, why would anyone want to play 2 now?

The extra copy of Magic Stone of Excavation will have profound effects, at least for part of the next 6 months. It screams combo, and combo will be playable, if not dominant. Magical Explosion FTK is certainly getting some hype, but I am unsure of its power so I'll have to watch the next two SJCs. If it wins the next SJC, people will side deck to beat it, and it if it still wins another SJC, then it will be a force to be reckoned with. At worst, DDT gets a power boost. and D.D. Crow might be extremely important.

Necroface is so expensive that its semi-restriction will not affect many players. Although both the Necroface Turbo and the Necroface OTK deck are very powerful, the chance of them winning any tournament is very little simply because not a lot of people will play these decks. In an 8 round tournament, it is very likely that a deck will lose due to bad hands. Hence, Necroface decks will always be the victim of "genetic drift".

Newly Unlimited: Apprentice Magician, Creature Swap, Green Gadget, Jinzo, Pot of Avarice, Reckless Greed, Red Gadget, Yellow Gadget

Some players will opt to play Apprentice Magician in threes, but considering many decks only played a single copy when 2 were available means this unrestriction will go largely unnoticed in terms of tournament play. As well, the Apprentice Engine is horribly unpopular an is just very slow in the modern metagame. The banning of both Magician of Faith and Breaker is another incentive not to play Apprentice Engine.

Three copies of Creature Swap will give the Zombie player an edge, but I still think the deck is too graveyard reliant since D.D. Crow and Dimensional Fissure is too devstating to the deck. D.D. Crow is a hard to stop 1 for 1 trade that also destroys the deck's infrastructure. Dimensional Fissure means auto-lose if unanswered, and it is very difficult to answer considering the counter trap line up of decks that utilize Dimensional Fissure. Tomato and Rat Box both don't work very well as well so three copies of Creature Swap simply doesn't matter.

The Gadgets were hardly broken at 3 copies each so it will not be a problem. If anything, 9 Gadgets will give more opportunity for bad Gadget-flooded hands.

Three copies of Jinzo! Not a lot of people played 2 Jinzos when it was available though, so I don't think its impact will be that much. However, it's comforting to know that decks that really need to shutdown traps does have 2 Royal Decree and 3 Jinzo at their disposal. Jinzo does get weaker with Call of the Haunted gone. It won't warp the game, but Jinzo at three makes some people happy just knowing its there.

Anyone running Pot of Avarice in threes are just asking for dead hands. I don't believe there is a deck out at the moment that can possibly support 3 Pot of Avarice, so this is a nice unrestriction because if a card doesn't need to be restricted, then it shouldn't.

I think Reckless Greed at 3 copies will bethe most important change in the unrestricted department. It makes stacking Reckless Greeds together that much easier and gives combo decks a much easier time to draw their necessary pieces. I personally love Exodia Turbo just because winning with Exodia is at the top of fun things to do in Yugioh and Reckless Greed helps in that. Oh, did I mention that Reckless Greed gives combo a much easier time finding its pieces? I think I did but it can't hurt to emphasize that.

That wraps up the blog. Enjoy your card games!

Tags: Yugioh Banlist

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Hey, I'm back again with another local report, and I'm not going to comment on other people's writing this week. Oh, the joy!

This week I tried to play Volcanic Monarchs. Not just any Volcanic Monarchs however. It's Volcanic Monarchs siding into Burn. It's kind of weird how I've never played Volcanic Monarchs nor Burn before. The justification for this is that my opponent will likely side into D.D. Crow and Pulling the Rug. D.D. Crow is quite useless against Burn and Pulling the Rug still kills Monarchs, but at least the Volcanic Rockets are gone. It would be excellent if my opponent sided into Twisters to try to kill Blaze Accelerator, but not many people are foolish to do that. I sided into Burn instead of Macro because I did not expect a lot of LADD PC because its popularity has dropped quite a bit recently in my metagame. If I happened to face Macro, I'm pretty screwed first game and siding into Macro which is less dedicated and therefore weaker doesn't improve my chances of winning. As well, my friend and I were talking about Baboon Burn didn't really need Green Baboon, so I thought my deck after siding should work only a bit worse than Baboon Burn. Here's my decklist:

3 Raiza the Storm Monarch
2 Mobius the Frost Monarch

3 Volcanic Shell
2 Apprentice Magician
2 Crystal Seer
2 Volcanic Rocket
1 Breaker the Magical Warrior
1 Card Trooper
1 Magician of Faith
1 Marshmallon
1 Old Vindictive Magician
1 Sangan
1 Spirit Reaper
1 Treeborn Frog

2 Pot of Avarice
1 Blaze Accelerator
1 Book of Moon
1 Brain Control
1 Heavy Storm
1 Mystical Space Typhoon
1 Premature Burial
1 Soul Exchange
1 Wild Fire

2 Phoenix Wing Wind Blast
1 Dimension Wall
1 Magic Cylinder
1 Mirror Force
1 The Transmigration Prophecy
1 Torrential Tribute

Sidedeck:
3 Des Koala
3 Just Desserts
3 Ojama Trio
3 Secret Barrel
1 Dimension Wall
1 Gravity Bind
1 Level Limit Area B

My friend asked me to go play the night before, and I said I'll go the morning of the tournament. It was 2 hours before the tournament and I didn't even have a decklist or anything. When he asked me for one so he can see if we had everything to build the deck, I quickly opened Notepad and just started typing stuff that I thought would be good. The random Dimension Wall in the main deck is to make side decking into Burn easier.

I arrived at the local shop, got some sleeves then started building. The original deck list was suppose to have 2 side decked Dimension Wall and only 2 Des Koala, but I couldn't find the 3rd copy which I was suppose to have. When I was registering, I realized the tournament was a free tournament and hence the prize was bad: 1 booster pack for second place and 2 packs and a deck box for first place. So this was pretty much a testing tournament. There were a lot of people, I think 43, so in 4 rounds, 3-1 would need tiebreakers to get in top 8.

Round 1: Necrovalley with Anti-spell Fragrance

He was a nice guy, using an iPod Touch as a calculator. I want an iPod Touch. But anyway, his deck played six spells to minimize the effect of Anti-spell Fragrance.

Game 1, he got an early Anti-spell Fragrance but Breaker killed his Necrovalley and Apprentice Magician searching into Old Vindictive Magician which was flipped then tributed away for Raiza to bounce Anti-spell Fragrance gave me a +2. Another Raiza to bounce the Anti-spell Fragrance again sealed the win. I never drew anything that would give away that I was playing Volcanic Monarchs.

Game 2, I sided into Burn, and since now my deck had almost 50% traps, Anti-spell Fragrance was pretty useless. Ojama Trio is also really good against a deck like Gravekeepers. A barrage of Just Desserts and Secret Barrel, all which hit for over 2000 damage gave me the win. After the game, he commented on how he never expected me to side into Burn.

Round 2: Dark Deck

He ran stuff like Destiny Hero - Dasher , Dark Magician of Chaos, Allure of Darkness and Escape from the Dark Dimension. He's a good player so I expected a tough match.

Game 1, I just dealt a lot of early damage with Volcanic Rocket direct attacks. He stablized a bit but the game was very simplified and Snipe Hunter dealt the final damage needed to win the game. I was hoping the early damage would set up a easy win if I happened to draw into Dimension Wall or Magic Cylinder.

Game 2, I was pretty screwed since I sided int Burn and it was 8000 LP to 2100 LP in his favour. He summoned LADD and I activated Just Desserts and chained Gravity Bind. He couldn't kill the Gravity Bind and I just amassed a lot of cards and stablized. After like 10 turns of doing drawing, I decided that I had enough cards to win. I flipped Des Koala, LADD PC chained to it,then I chained Just Desserts, then he chained Enemy Controller tributing an Ojama token to take control of my Des Koala, then I chained another Just Desserts, then Book of Moon on LADD. By the end of the chain, he had 2100 LP remaining. I misplayed at this point because I should have summoned Snipe Hunter, discarded to kill LADD, discard to kill my own Gravity Bind then attack with everything I had for game. Instead, I summoned Mobius the Frost Monarch which didn't really help. Next turn, he summoned Snipe Hunter and destroyed my field then attacked for game.

Game 3, he took a direct attack from Card Trooper and a Sangan, and 2 direct attacks from Old Vindictive Magician. I then played Ojama Trio, attacked a token with my Card Trooper then played another Ojama Trio. He activated Torrential Tribute in response to the summon and I chained Just Desserts. He was now down to 200 LP and I used Secret Barrel for the win. I misplayed here as well as I should have activated Just Desserts then chained Ojama Trio so he couldn't use Torrential Tribute. Oh well, live and learn.

Round 3: Six Samurai

He was using stuff like Six Samurai United, Enishi, Shien's Councellor and other typical Six Samurai stuff. He was a nice guy so I really enjoyed playing with him.

Game 1, Volcanic Rocket got some damage though before he got Grandmaster of the Six Samurai out after a The Six Samurai - Yaichi came out via Reasoning. Brain Control and Raiza wrecked his field and it was game shortly after. In this game, he played out 2 Six Samurai United but opted to draw after they each got 1 counter.

Game 2, I sided into burn and I had Marshmallon out while his field was stuck with Grandmaster and Yaichi. A combination of Just Desserts, Secret Barrel and Des Koala game me the win. He also only drew 1 card with Six Samurai United this game.

Round 4: Dragon Aggro

I saw a Spear Dragon as I walked up to the table and I was quite surprised. I was pretty much in top 8 because a 3-1 losing a 4-0 in round 4 is a guaranteed in, I think.

In both game 1 and 2, I just destroyed him. I used Dimension Wall on a Spear Dragon, then Magic Cylinder on it after he saved it from my attack with Enemy Controller. Both games, Raiza sealed the game.

Quarterfinals: Monarchs

I saw Monarchs, Jinzo, Foolish Burial and Treeborn Frog along with some other stuff.He was surprised to be in the top 8, stating he's not in the top 8 very often. I don't remember this match that well.

Game 1, I outpowered him with Volcanic Rocket, then out Monarch'd him with Raiza and Mobius. Yay.

Game 2, he played like 5 Monarchs off a turn 1 Foolish Burial into Treeborn Frog. I succumbed to the advantage.

Game 3, I dropped him down to 900 LP but he had like 3 cards over me. I stablized with Marshmallon. I had Just Desserts and Magic Cylinder set, so if he summoned a second monster or attacked, he would lose. I was pretty confident until he summoned of all monsters Jinzo, at which time I thought I was pretty screwed. I drew, then he drew and set a monster. I top decked into Raiza and tributed my Marshmallon to bounce the Jinzo. He brought back Treeborn Frog and I played Just Desserts for the win.

Semifinals: Baboon Burn

I assumed it is Baboon Burn although I didn't see a Green Baboon since he ran the Beasts. I didn't see Just Desserts or anything though, only Ojama Trio.

Game 1, I got some early damage though but he played Ojama Trio on me followed with a massive Gyaku-Gire Panda. I had nothing to kill the Gyaku-Gire Panda and I had a Treeborn Frog only the field. It would be game if he attacked Treeborn Frog with the Panda but I had Card Trooper, Pot of Avarice and 4 monsters in my graveyard. I summoned Card Trooper, milled 3 cards: spell, trap, spell. Shoot. I ended my turn and he attacked my Treeborn Frog with the Panda. I reflected the damage with Dimension Wall for game. Random Dimension Wall of the win! His expression was a mixture of surprise, anger and !@#$%.

Game 2, I decided against siding into Burn since he was playing Baboon Burn, and my weaker version of Baboon Burn should lose to his version. Level Limit Area B and Gravity Bind also do nothing against the Panda. I sided into 1 Dimension Wall and hoped I could reflect the damage again. This game was like game 1, except I didn't have Dimension Wall.

Game 3. he was at 11000 LP from Draining Shield and Nimble Momonga. Luckily, I kept what I thought was a useless The Transmigration Prophecy to stop his Pot of Avarice and life gain from Nimble Momonga. I killed his Gyaku-Gire Panda and my Ojama tokens with Wild Fire, then attack for some damage with my Wild Fire token. I killed his Premature Burial'd version of Gyaku-Gire Panda after he destroyed my Wild Fire token with it. He summoned another Gyaku-Gire Panda, but I flipped Magician of Faith to return Wild Fire which I used again. He was down to a few Life Points and a top decked Breaker attacked for the rest.

Finals: Demise OTK

Game 1, I had 2 Pot of Avarice, 1 Premature Burial, 1 Raiza and 1 Volcanic Shell. He had the god hand.

Game 2, I sided away all the slower cards and stuffed in some Burn. I set Phoenix Wing Wind Blast and summoned Volcanic rocket. He had the god hand.

So that's the end of that. The pack I got yielded nothing of value. I played another Demise OTK after the tournament and I lost horribly. I think the deck is too slow to deal with that particular deck, so I'll need to adjust the deck a bit.

The side deck works, because everyone was quite surprised by the side. I think I'll play test with the deck more as I think it has potential. Cyber Dragons would certainly help with the deck's lack of speed against Demise OTK. Thestalos could help too, but Mobius helps in the Macro match and Raiza is just good. That's all for this blog. Have fun playing a children's card game.

Tags: Volcanic Monarch Burn Local Tournament Report

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Since crazy and unexpected combos are everyone's favourite things, this blog will talk about one of those. The title obviously says this already, along with the fact that the casual deck will revolve around Gemini monsters. It's also not hard to guess with Gemini monsters the deck will use because there's little Gemini monsters worth using.

Chthonian Emperor Dragon (CED) is obviously one the better ones. Two attacks from it is just too damaging to ignore. Tribute summoning it is really bad though since it's hard for a 2400 ATK normal monster that will obviously inflict a lot of damage very soon to last very long. So it's up to its friend Blazewing Butterfly to summon it. Now if Blazewing Butterfly is the only friend CED gets, then this deck would have been posted a long time ago, but Gladiator's Assault brings about a new support: Superalloy Beast Raptinus (SBR). It turns Blazewing Butterfly into a Monster Reborn for CED, and CED becomes much faster. SBR is also a Dragon type, which works well with the fact that Dragons are popular in the casual metagame and is a type with a decent amount of support.

The game plan is to summon CED for a lot of damage. A potential OTK would be to Dragon's Mirror out a SBR then play Dimension Fusion to return 2 CED to play and attack for game. Here's deck list before continuing on:

Tribute Monsters: 3
3 Chthonian Emperor Dragon

Monsters: 17
3 Blazewing Butterfly
3 King of the Swamp
3 UFO Turtle
2 Mystic Tomato
1 Breaker the Magical Warrior
1 Lord of D.
1 Marshamallon
1 Sangan
1 Skreech
1 Snipe Hunter
1 Spirit Reaper
1 Treeborn Frog

Spells: 16
3 Dragon's Mirror
2 Dark Factory of Mass Production
2 Foolish Burial
1 Creature Swap
1 Dimension Fusion
1 Future Fusion
1 Heavy Storm
1 Lightning Vortex
1 Mystical Space Typhoon
1 Nobleman of Crossout
1 Premature Burial
1 Scapegoat

Traps: 5
2 Sakuretsu Armor
1 Mirror Force
1 Phoenix Wing Wind Blast
1 Torrential Tribute

The deck tries to summon CED as many times as possible, especially early game. Foolish Burial is a great card in the deck as it gives access to Treeborn Frog when CED is in hand, CED when Blazewing Butterfly is in hand, and just sets up whichever fusion is needed when Dragon's Mirror is in hand. There are 2 monsters to summon with Dragon's Mirror. SBR is a choice, but it's best to leave 2 Blazewing Butterfly and 1 CED in the graveyard for use with Dark Factory of Mass Destruction. King Dragun is good when CED is in hand and its built in protective effect works well with CED.

The deck is capable of generating a continuous stream of aggression while setting up for a big OTK. The continuous aggression will hopefully get rid of most of the disruption such that the OTK will be disruption free. Even if the opponent survives, it is highly likely that a lot of damage has already been caused so another random hit from CED would end the game.

A good hand could defeat slower decks like Monarchs, but Macro ruins the deck. First turn Dimensional Fissure with protection in place means auto lose as almost every card in the deck does something with the graveyard. It's decent against Gadgets as Shrinks and Sakuretsu Armor just bounce off King Dragun and the mass amount of searchers further makes Shrink unfavourable.

Things get pretty bad if a Raiza hits a SBR then attacks down a CED so beware. Other than that, it's a Dragon Gemini deck and that has to warrant some fun value. Feel free to try the deck and enjoy!

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It is undeniable that Perfect Circle has been the dominating Monarch archetype for some time now. It's reasonably consistent, but certainly fast and hits hard. It is easy to see why the original Soul Control Monarch archetype is rarely played now. However, the recent shift in the metagame might give it a second life.

One thing bad about Perfect Circle is its distruptibility. It simply depends on the graveyard too much. Almost all of its tribute fodders are graveyard related: Treeborn Frog, Destiny Hero - Malicious, Destiny Hero - Fear Monger. Macro Cosmo's recent population explosion reflects this fact. Perfect Circle's tribute engine is also mainly DARK, so a Shadow Imprisoning Mirror can cause havoc on a Perfect Circle player's game plan. Now all of this wouldn't be so bad if Perfect Circle didn't run such weak monsters. Believe it or not, being malicious or a commander of disks doesn't really help in battle. Attack points do.

Although Light and Darkness Perfect Circle did score a first place finish at SJC Orlando, I assume that it's also the most widely played deck type at that event. Sure, a lot of Macro decks were there too but random bad hands can cause even a deck to lose even when in a good match up. The sheer number of Perfect Circles certainly had something to do with its success. I'm not saying that Perfect Circle isn't powerful, but I am saying that its SJC Orlando win isn't as much as a testament to its power as it seems.

That said, I want to advocate traditional Monarchs. For those who don't know that that is, it simply uses the best and high utility cards in the game to generate tribute fodder for Monarchs. Traditional Monarchs is less susceptible to graveyard hate because it simply doesn't use the graveyard as much. Multiple copies of Soul Exchange can create absurd amounts of card advantage without going through the trouble of setting up infrastructure. Here's a deck list to ponder on:

3 Mobius the Frost Monarch
3 Raiza the Storm Monarch
2 Cyber Dragon

3 Gravekeeper's Spy
2 Apprentice Magician
1 Breaker the Magical Warrior
1 Gravekeeper's Guard
1 Magician of Faith
1 Marshmallon
1 Mystic Tomato
1 Old Vindictive Magician
1 Sangan
1 Snipe Hunter
1 Spirit Reaper
1 Treeborn Frog

2 Nobleman of Crossout
2 Soul Exchange
1 Brain Control
1 Heavy Storm
1 Mystical Space Typhoon
1 Pot of Avarice
1 Premature Burial
1 Scapegoat

2 Sakuretsu Armor
1 Bottomless Trap Hole
1 Mind Crush
1 Mirror Force
1 Trap Dustshoot
1 Torrential Tribute

This deck is not messed if someone plays a Dimensional Fissure. Macro only messes up 3 cards in the deck: Mystic Tomato, Treeborn Frog and Pot of Avarice. in fact, it's triple Mobius should give Macro a hard time instead. The reason for the Mobius instead of other Monarchs is that there is already a lot of monster removal in the deck. Soul Exchange and Old Vindictive Magician are 2 cards that not many other decks have to remove monsters. The rising use of Pulling the Rug also benefits Mobius since the frosty king is the only Monarch that has an optional trigger effect when summoned. That means its effect doesn't have to be activated. The benefit of this is that many players will just reveal Pulling the Rug upon its summon, before its targets are chosen. I, seeing as how the opponent has a Pulling the Rug facedown, can just not activate the effect. I might have done so had I not seen the facedown Pulling the Rug, but that's a lesson to not be so eager to activate Pulling the Rug against an optional trigger effect.

The bad part about playing this deck is that it has a bad match up against Perfect Circle because it's just slower on average. However, Perfect Circle has a horrendously slow opening. It will typically do nothing for the first few turns, which gives you the time to start spamming Monarch and hopefully win first. The Mobius are quite bad in this match up because Perfect Circle runs little traps, and most of them are chainable. In this match up, the only thing to hope for is to simply get a good hand.

One more thing is that this deck doesn't run Light and Darkness Dragon because there's no Disk Commander to revive when it dies. Without the +2 card advantage from Disk Commander, there is much less incentive to play the half-albino dragon.

There's also a Monarch archetype called 15 Gauge Monarch. It's not very popular since few people are willing to give up consistency for power, but nonetheless, it has done well at an SJC before so it can't be all that bad.

3 Granmarg the Rock Monarch
3 Mobius the Frost Monarch
3 Raiza the Storm Monarch
3 Thestalos the Fire Monarch
3 Zaborg the Frost Monarch
2 Destiny Hero - Malicious

3 Gravekeeper's Spy
3 Mother Grizzly
2 Peten the Dark Clown
1 Treeborn Frog

3 Foolish Burial
3 Soul Exchange
1 Brain Control
1 Fiend's Sanctuary
1 Heavy Storm
1 Mystical Space Typhoon
1 Scapegoat

1 Mirror Force
1 Sakuretsu Armor
1 Torrential Tribute

This deck has the ability to summon a Thestalos first turn often which could be devastating if it hits the right card. It can summon Monarch after Monarch which is devastating against any deck. It also has the capacity to run 3 Foolish Burial. One of them gets out Treeborn Frog, the second gets out Destiny Hero - Malicious. The third one gets out Peten the Dark Clown, which acts like a Destiny Hero - Malicious. It's pretty screwed against Macro Cosmos though because the deck only has Gravekeeper's Spy as undisrupted tribute fodder and that's really bad. This fact makes this deck particularly bad for this metagame, but it might be playable if Macro ever declines in popularity.

I hope this blog has inspired an alternative Monarch archetype. If anything, Soul Control Monarch is much more inexpensive to build than Perfect Circle. So give it a try! Thanks for reading.

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