Today I'm writing on a topic that few article writers will ever touch on: how to take advantage of end of match procedures.

What are end of match procedures?

End of match procedures are used to end a match quickly when a match is taking longer than the allotted time for a match. For those who are familiar with how this works, here's the procedure summarized:

1. End of match procedures are used at the end of the allotted time limit for a match. This is usually 40 minutes.

2. Players play for an additional 3 turns, counting from the start of the next turn.

3. The player with more life points at the end of the 3 turns wins the game.

4. If both players have equal life points, then play is continued until the first change in life points. (If life points change in a chain, the entire chain resolves first before game ends.) The player with higher Life Points wins the game.

5. If after the game, a player has more wins in the match, that player is declared the winner of the match. If both have the same number of wins, start a new game with a 4 turn time limit. The winner is determined similar to the previous game.

Making the deck

So how can we take advantage of this? We need to do 2 things:
1. Stall the game.
2. Deal quick damage when end of match procedures are in effect.

Before I continue, I want to say that stalling the game and win via end of match procedures is perfectly legal. That said, we still can't slow play in order to go to end of match procedures. So how do we stall the game then?

First, we have the generic continuous spell / trap stall in the form of Level Limit Area - B and the like. Next, we back it up with Self-Destruct Button to repeat the process for about 40 minutes.

To win, we either need to deal quick damage or gain life points. Using both is obviously the best course of action. Here's the deck list before I go any further:

3 Morphing Jar #2
2 Mystic Tomato
1 A Cat of Ill Omen
1 Magician of Faith
1 Morphing Jar
1 Sangan
1 Spirit Reaper

3 Inspection
3 Lightning Vortex
3 Nightmare Steelcage
3 Upstart Goblin
2 Messenger of Peace
1 Level Limit Area - B
1 Scapegoat
1 Swords of Revealing Light

3 Self-Destruct Button
3 Solemn Judgment
3 Threatening Roar
1 Gravity Bind
1 Mirror Force
1 Torrential Tribute
1 Wall of Revealing Light

Sidedeck:
3 Emergency Provisions
3 Dian Keto the Cure Master
3 Dimension Wall
3 Poison of the Old Man
2 Wobaku
1 Magic Cylinder

Playing the deck

This deck focuses on stalling for as long as possible then activate Inspection or Wall of Revealing Light and Self-Destruct Button, or just Self-Destruct Button if your opponent manages to attack you two the correct Life Point difference.

About 2 to 5 minutes before the end of the match, tie the game then side deck in all 15 cards and remove everything that requires Life Points are gives Life Points to your opponent.

The major enemy against this deck is Jinzo and Royal Decree so your Solemn Judgments are mainly for those. It's still a tough match up if your opponent has all 4 of them though, so try to stall game 1 as long as possible before they can side in Jinzo and Royal Decree.

If you're able to choose between going first or second in game 1 and manage to tie every single game, then you can have your opponent go first in the last game (if the previous game is a tie, the player who chose to play first or second in the previous game gets to choose again). When this happens, they have a single battle phase to defeat you, which can easily be rendered useless through Wobaku or Threatening Roar.

If you lose a game, then try to tie every single game until the clock has around 5 minutes left. Then side deck in the burn and hope that you can win that game and the next through end of match procedures to win the match 2 to 1.

End of Match Procedure Deck Version 2

If stalling is not your type, you can try this speedier version:

3 Royal Magical Library
3 Thunder Dragon
1 Card Trooper

3 Inspection
3 Magical Mallet
3 Nightmare Steelcage
3 Toon Table of Contents
3 Upstart Goblin
1 Card Destruction
1 Giant Trunade
1 Level Limit - Area B
1 Magic Stone of Excavation
1 Reload
1 Scapegoat
1 Spell Reproduction
1 Swords of Revealing Light
1 Toon World

3 Self-Destruct Button
3 Threatening Roar
1 Gravity Bind
1 Mirror Force
1 Torrential Tribute
1 Wall of Revealing Light

The side deck is similar to the previous version. This deck can out speed Jinzo with a good hand but at the cost of having the chance of having horrible opening hands. This version tries to cycle through the deck until it gets both Wall of Revealing Light / Inspection and Self-Destruct Button. It plays considerable more games than the previous version which increases the number of opportunities to get undesirable opennng hands.

I hope this increased your understanding of end of match procedures and helped your formulate your own end of match procedure deck.