End of the Year 2009

Yeah, I wasn't planning on doing this type of post, but I might as well.

So, I'm not sure exactly what to talk about. So much has happened this year.

I guess I might as well talk about the meta that was around for this year and what could happen next year. I suppose the most notable deck was Synchro Cat. It kinda forced the Limiting of both Summoner Monk and Rescue Cat. It also contributed to the ban of Dark Strike Fighter, though it had it coming.

The hole left by Synchro Cat was filled with Blackwings and Lightsworn, though mostly Blackwings. And, for some reason, they (Konami) saw it fit to bring Mezuki back to 2.

With the arrival of Brionac, Dragon (*cough* Sea Serpent) of the Ice Barrier, Zombies came into power. They were pretty good without Brionac, but it pushed them straight to the top.

Gorz, although played sometimes in some decks, was made into a staple. Obviously because Brionac could just send your field back to your hand and threaten an OTK. Tragoedia is now splashed into some decks just to help with that.

Zombies, although sometimes slow, are fairly consistent. Lots of searching, lots of floaters. Blackwings and Lightsworn probably won't last much longer. The Shonen Jump Championship in Los Angeles will probably be won by Zombies, but anything can happen.

Of course, with Absolute Powerforce coming out in February, Battle Fader will come to the TCG. Although it will be too late by then, since the new ban list will be coming less than a month afterward, it will definitely help ward off OTK's.

Hopefully the new ban list in March will help to fix the meta. Judgment Dragon is too good to even exist, Mezuki is too abusable, and Black Whirlwind turns Blackwings into feathered Gadgets with decent effects.

However, the threat of X-Sabers looms on the horizon. All of the new X-Saber support coming in Absolute Powerforce could make them a new top deck. Saber Hole is barely fair. It's like Vanquishing Light (Horn of Heaven for Lightsworn) without the cost. I don't think X-Saber decks need that when they can rip all of the cards out of your hand with ease.

Either way, we'll just have to wait and see what happens next year.

Chaos (Sorcerer)

Every time I've tried to make a new deck recently, I've wanted to make a Chaos deck.

I mean, you get to main stuff like Dimensional Alchemist and Thunder King Rai-Oh. In fact, Rai-Oh is so amazing this format that I'm basically going to main it in any competitive deck I play.

But really, you're not going to be drawing into Chaos Sorcerer that often. Even if you do, it's not even your win condition. It's just there. Sure, it's really nice, and I like it, but it's not really worth building a deck around. Usually, you'd just drop it to remove something; it would rarely do damage on its own.

Yes, it's good, which is why (French) Twilight exists. But it's not a win condition. It's just a nice piece of Special Summonable Monster removal. It might even get Unlimited next ban list, since it's not going to break the meta anytime soon.

On an unrelated note, I'm still trying to make a decent Fortune Lady deck without Future Visions. The only reason I really want to do this is to abuse Fortune's Future, since it has a cool name. Oh, and it's pretty good, too.

Tournament Report 12/27/09

I went to another tournament with Zombies. I was using the Emergency Teleport engine, but I also mained a couple of Thunder King Rai-Ohs, which helped a lot.

I was able to pick up a second Brionac, since it's not limited yet, and a couple Fortune's Futures. Yes, Fortune's Futures. I'm trying to make a Fortune Lady deck that doesn't rely on Future Visions, but that's a story for another day.

Round 1: vs Stardust Dragon/Assault Mode

This match made me consider siding Lava Golems...

-Duel 1: My opponent was able to summon SD/AM, and I couldn't do much to stop it.
-Duel 2: He drew counters to everything I had.

Round 2: vs Lightsworn Earthbound Immortals

This guy was running a Lightsworn engine, he used Magical Citadel of Endymion as his Field Spell, and had stuff like Dark Creator to revive his milled Earthbounds. He was also using a bunch of token cards.

-Duel 1: We sat there for a few turns, not doing much. After a while, though, I dropped Tragoedia and OTK'd him.
-Duel 2: I OTK'd him.

Round 3: vs Monarch Oppression

-Duel 1: I won.
-Duel 2: He misplayed, I won.

Round 4: vs Plants

-Duel 1: I used Black Rose Dragon to blow up the field. I won soon afterwards.
-Duel 2: Brain Control his X-Saber Urbellum and attack with two Rai-Ohs for game.

Round 5: vs Lightsworn

-Duel 1: He had to waste his Plaguespreader on a Goyo Guardian to get rid of my Rai-Oh. I had another one in hand, which I summoned the next turn. I basically won from there.
-Duel 2: Judgment Dragon is evil.
-Duel 3: His Ryko turned the game around, which was bad for me. After he used it to destroy my Catastor, I was top-decking. I drew Allure of Darkness and played it. I drew Mezuki first, and I hoped that I didn't draw a Dark. I ended up drawing Burial from a Different Dimension, which meant I had to send my hand to the Graveyard. Mezuki revived Spirit Reaper, but it was futile. He had Ehren in the Graveyard with Lumina on the field. But, he revived Plaguespreader Zombie and tuned it to Wulf for Flamvell Uruquizas. Either way, I lost.

So I went 3-2, which is okay, but not good. There are still no Turbo Packs, but Turbo Pack 2 comes out in a couple of weeks, so I'll just have to wait for those.

I'm hoping that I'll be able to come up with a competitive, yet creative deck for next week. I'm thinking Fortune Ladies or Junk and Debris, but I'm not sure.

Monarch's Dawn

As promised, I'm planning to rebuild the Monarch's Dawn deck, now that I have Charge of the Light Brigade. Hopefully the deck will be (slightly) more consistent. Either way, I'm still trying to figure out how exactly to make it.

Among other things, I pulled two Rinyan, Lightsworn Rogues from the Stardust Overdrive packs I got for the holidays. I was thinking about using those.

The Monarch's Dawn deck is all about the Celestia-Wulf combo. Rinyan would help with that, as well as giving the deck some "flip draw."

Well, I'll just try out different things and see how I can best make the deck.

...

Oh, by the way, in 5D's Episode 90, Kiryu met up with Yusei and Lotten/Rotten blew them up with dynamite. That's all that really happened.

Deep Sea Diva

Tried it, hate it.

Allow me to explain. The person whom I played against in Round 4 at the last tournament I went to had a nice idea. Use three Deep Sea Diva and two Spined Gillman. That makes it so that your Deep Sea Diva is almost never a dead card; you could use it for the normal shenanigans that it's famous for, or you could drop a Level 5 Synchro for free.

The concept behind it was amazing. It increased your chance of winning against Lightsworn (Catastor) as well as allowing you to draw the Diva more often.

As amazing as it seemed, I play tested the variant against some Lightsworn Junk and Debris deck I threw together because I was bored. The Diva Zombie deck lost. Three times. In a row.

It was terrible. If you draw a Spined Gillman, it's dead in your hand. That's tolerable, but the more annoying part was that Diva eats up your Normal Summon. You can't summon Goblin Zombie then Emergency Teleport for Krebons. You can't even just let Krebons sit on the field for a turn so that you can summon the Goblin Zombie later.

It may not be much of a problem in the mirror match, but with other match-ups, it's not worth it.

Tournament Report 12/20/09

I went to another tournament with my Telekinetic Zombies deck. I changed it a little more to make it a little more consistent. There are less dead draws in the deck now, well, one less dead draw. I want to say I'm not planning on using it again, but I'm not sure. I picked up some Deep Sea Divas, so I'm considering using them instead.

Anyways, I picked up a couple Aurkus and some Beckoning Lights for the Lightsworn variants I'm planning to make.

Round 1: vs Dragons

-Duel 1: Brain Control FHD for game.
-Duel 2: I didn't draw very well, so I lost.
-Duel 3: My opponent drew pretty badly. I was forced to push through to kill his Snipe Hunter, but then we were both sitting there for a few turns after he played Swords of Revealing Light. After two turns, I OTK'd him.

Round 2: vs Gadgets

I was not prepared for Gadgets at all, but some of the stuff I normally side helps against them anyways.

-Duel 1: He drew very little removal. I was basically able to kill every single one of his Gadgets with one Mezuki.
-Duel 2: I drew basically all of my Spell/Trap removal, but he still had counters to everything I had. He was able to take control and win.
-Duel 3: Same as Duel 2.

Round 3: vs (Newbie) Zombies

-Duel 1: He misplayed, which helped me win.
-Duel 2: He dropped me to 400 LP, but then I pushed back and dropped him to 1500 LP. I was able to get him down to 50 LP, but he set Spirit Reaper. I had used up all of my Tuners already, but the duel went to time and I won.

Round 4: vs Diva Zombies

-Duel 1: He committed to the field after while, leaving no cards in his hand. I was going to bomb the field with Black Rose Dragon, but he flipped Book of Moon on my Gale. With his only Spell/Trap out of the way, I was able to OTK that turn.
-Duel 2: He started conservatively with one set Bottomless Trap Hole. I destroyed it with Mystical Space Typhoon, then ripped the other Bottomless from his hand with Spirit Reaper. After a little bit, he stopped my Dark Armed Dragon with Royal Oppression after he had Synchro Summoned Magical Android. It was pretty bad for me, but I was able to search Gale with Mystic Tomato. He couldn't do anything to stop me, and his Royal Oppression stopped him from making a comeback.

Round 5: vs French Twilight

-Duel 1: I was able to put a bunch of pressure on him with Dark Armed Dragon and some Synchro Monsters, even though he had milled amazingly. I was still able to win in the end.
-Duel 2: Again, I was able to put pressure on my opponent with a flurry of Synchro Monsters. He had to use up the rest of his cards to get rid of them, leaving me in control of the game. I just passed my next three turns, because there was no way he could win before decking out.

So I went 4-1, and I got a Hobby League Trap Hole. I'm planning on getting another one next time, so I can replace my Common ones with the Ultra Parallel Rare ones.

Charge of the Light Brigade

Well, as all of you should know, it was reprinted less than a week ago. Yay.

Although that doesn't affect anything on the Shonen Jump level, since most of the people who go to those would have the money for any deck that they want, but it could affect the Regional tournaments, and will definitely affect locals.

I don't plan on playing a Lightsworn deck competitively, since they're pretty inconsistent, but I am planning on making at least three different Lightsworn variants for fun. Why? Because Lightsworn is one of my favorite themes.

Until I get my set of Charge of the Light Brigade, which would hopefully be in less than a week, I'd probably just use some other new decks I've been making for no reason.

Oh yeah, Tempest Magician got reprinted, too. That's nice. It actually kind of is, since I have Arcanite Magician and pulled Explosive Magician. That probably means some sort of Spellcaster Synchro deck would be coming up soon...

5D's Episode 89

A good episode, well, at least until the end.

Yusei and Kiryu escaped from the mines while two children from the town brought Yusei's D-Wheel to him. Then, Yusei took his D-Wheel and dueled Lotten/Rotten while Kiryu ran off with the two children. That's basically the whole episode.

Notable things include:

Lotten/Rotten's Gattling Ogre OTK and his ability to draw it every duel.

Lotten/Rotten's Continuous Trap that prevents either player from having more than one Monster on the field at a time.

Yusei's Effect Veiler, which can be decent. It's a "drop hand" effect, at least.

Yusei's Return Marker Trap Card. It negates a Monster's effect if it causes damage or destroys card(s) and then gives the opponent damage equal to the ATK of the Monster. However, it doesn't destroy the Monster, so it's situational.

At the end, there's an annoying cliffhanger where if Lotten/Rotten draws a Speed Spell or Trap Card, then he'd win. Obviously he's gonna draw a Monster, but we'll have to wait for the next episode to see Yusei's vict-, I mean, the conclusion of the duel.

Telekinetic Power Well

It's that old Common from Crimson Crisis that no one uses. If you watched my videos around the time when Crimson Crisis came out, I miraculously pulled three of them at the Sneak Preview and put the card to use in the Bolt-Tune Monarchs deck.

What's so good about it? You can Special Summon multiple Level 2 or lower Psychics from your Graveyard, but you have to take damage equal to the total Levels x300.

However, the damage can be a good thing. Since taking damage is the last thing that occurs, your opponent can't flip Torrential Tribute to try and destroy all of the Psychics you just Special Summoned.

What caused me to use this is basically the same reasoning behind using Deep Sea Diva: You can Synchro Summon twice off of one card. You could also use Emergency Teleport to Special Summon a Tuner for a Synchro.

The upsides to using Telekinetic Power Well over Deep Sea Diva are that you don't have to waste your Normal Summon, it's okay if you draw multiples, and Krebons has better ATK and a better effect. Deep Sea Diva is just a one-shot deal.

However, Deep Sea Diva doesn't give you damage and you don't have to set up by placing Krebons in the Graveyard. These didn't seem like much of a problem to me when I was playing at my locals, but they can come up.

Deep Sea Diva will probably continue to be used. I mean, people were using it before the idea came up to put it in a Zombie deck. However, the use of Psychics (not necessarily with Telekinetic Power Well) in Zombie decks will probably rise as time goes on.

Tournament Report 12/13/09

In this broken meta, it's hard to win without playing a top tier deck. Some of the guys at the card shop were even relating this meta to the Tele-DAD days.

So, to have a chance at winning, I played a fairly uncreative Zombie variant, Telekinetic Zombies. It's basically just Zombie Synchro that uses Krebons, Emergency Teleport, and Telekinetic Power Well. Telekinetic Power Well can set up big plays by Special Summoning multiple Krebons from the Graveyard at the small cost of 600 LP per Krebons.

By the way, I bought a Mist Wurm. It was very useless during the tournament. Brionac is much better, but that should be obvious.

Round 1: vs Blackwings

-Duel 1: My opponent had this game, but he misplayed, allowing me to drop Gorz, which won me the game.
-Duel 2: I basically had control for the entire duel and won.

Round 2: vs Blackwings

This guy was better than my last opponent, but he was pretty unlucky.

-Duel 1: He no Black Whirlwinds. That basically spells "scoop" for Blackwings.
-Duel 2: Again, he got no Black Whirlwinds. I kept drawing Trap Hole/Bottomless Trap Hole to get rid of all of his Monsters. I OTK'd him in the end, playing around a possible Gorz, which he told me afterward he didn't have.

Round 3: Diva Zombies

My opponent was a pretty cool guy. We joked around; I told him to side out one Deep Sea Diva, since drawing two is bad, and he told to not play Tragoedia.

-Duel 1: He went for an OTK, but I had Tragoedia. I was forced to go for an OTK, playing around a possible Tragoedia. He would've won if I didn't beat him that turn.
-Duel 2: I drew badly, and he was able to take control and win.
-Duel 3: We both drew badly. He dropped Gorz, and I was forced to suicide my Zombie Master into his Token so I could drop Dark Armed Dragon. He scooped when I started for an OTK the next turn.

Round 4: vs Lightsworn

-Duel 1: He barely milled any Lightsworn, but he did mill Plaguespreader Zombie. I summoned Zombie Master, discarded Mezuki, stole his Plaguespreader, and went for Doomkaiser Dragon. I stole his Plaguespreader again so I could Synchro for Stardust Dragon. I basically harassed him with his own Plaguespreader.
-Duel 2: He got a bunch of free cards, as Lightsworn sometimes do, and I was ready to give up. However, he misplayed, locking his own field with 5 Monsters. He didn't have Celestia, and decked out two turns later.

Round 5: vs Blackwings

I don't know why everyone is still playing Blackwings. They're just like Six Samurai with Black Whirlwind... Regardless, being in the Finals, we agreed to split. If I won, I'd get 12 packs. If I lost, I'd get 8 and a Hobby League card.

-Duel 1: I didn't draw well and couldn't do much. He was basically in control the entire duel.
-Duel 2: Double Black Whirlwind spells "scoop" for someone playing against Blackwings. Oh, and Trap Dustshoot is pretty broken, too.

So, I went 4-1, and got 2nd place, which is good. I pulled Explosive Magician (Ultimate), Reptilianne Hydra, and Blackwing - Silverwind the Ascendant (Ultra). More importantly, though, I pulled a third Gemini Spark! I also bought three Warrior's Strike Structure Decks, so expect to see a Gemini deck, eventually.

I'm not planning on playing this deck again. The plays take forever to think of and it draws dead too often. I want to go back to Junk and Debris, I just need to find a good build that can abuse Tragoedia...

Jar of Greed

Yes, Jar of Greed. That Trap Card that lets you draw 1 card, the one that no one uses. Yeah, well, someone is actually using it.

I saw a Zombie deck where this guy was actually playing Jar of Greed. It's actually not a bad idea. It helps with Tragoedia, and it essentially makes your deck smaller.

It seems like a nice idea, but it wouldn't work with just any deck. A Zombie deck is a good choice, though. They're normally pretty slow and just play conservatively. Jar of Greed can help get the more important cards (Burial from a Different Dimension, Heavy Storm, etc.) while also thinning the deck.

I can't think of many other decks that would use it, though. Maybe in some sort of Junk and Debris variant or in Monarchs. Probably not in Lightsworn or Gladiator Beasts, but someone may find use for it in Blackwings.

Obviously, Legacy of Yata Garasu is better. It also looks cooler and comes in Secret Rare. However, how many people play Spirit Monsters? Almost none, so it doesn't matter very much.

5D's Episode 88

An interesting episode. It actually added to the "plot," if you want to call it that.

The remainder of the duel between Yusei and Kiryu took less than 10 minutes, which means that it could have easily been put into the last episode. However, it appears as though the duel had to end in a new episode to effectively further the story.

It should be obvious who won the duel, but both Yusei and Kiryu, along with Ramon (leader of the family that Kiryu sided with), were taken to the mines where they would become slaves.

However, Yusei, with his gangster skills, used a bent nail to open the shock collar that was put on him. His escape with Kiryu from the mines was foreshadowed that the end of the episode, but we'll have to see what happens...

Zombies

Recently, I've been messing with Zombies to try and find a build that I like.

First, it was Monarchs. The build was okay, and was pretty safe because I could drop Tragoedia to stop OTKs. However, it was a bit too inconsistent, as Monarch decks can be.

Next, it was Zombie Chaos. Didn't like it. I discussed this in an earlier post.

After that, I was trying to think up of a variant on the Zombie Synchro decks in the OCG. They aren't really suited to the TCG, though, so I gave up on that.

Now, I'm trying out a new "Zombie Synchro" deck, if you want to call it that. It's based on Synchro Monsters, but not the normal way of summoning them with Mezuki abuse, though it could work like that. I've also thrown Rykos and Chaos Sorcerers in there to see how it works. I think I'll drop the Chaos Sorcerers, but I'm not sure. Maybe I'll keep just one...

Anyways, if it works out, there will be a post going into more detail on the deck later.

Plaguespreader Zombie

It's actually one of the better-designed cards in the game. Well, it would be, if it weren't a Dark/Zombie.

It's a Level 2 Tuner, which everyone should know all too well. Its effect is actually quite good while not being broken. You can stall your own draw for a turn to Special Summon it from the Graveyard, which is a fair effect. It's a 1 for 1 and you can normally only use it once.

What makes Plaguespreader Zombie worth Limiting is the fact that it is a Dark/Zombie.

Being a Dark, it's easy to get into the Graveyard with Armageddon Knight and/or Dark Grepher. It also has the support of a bazillion other cards.

Being a Zombie, you can Special Summon it from the Graveyard practically as often as you want.

If it were some other Attribute/Type combination, it would be much more fair. Maybe not Fire/Pyro (Blaze Accelerator), but something like Wind/Dragon, Water/Aqua, or Earth/Beast-Warrior. Just not Dark or Zombie. Light or Fairy wouldn't be very good, either.

Chaos and Zombies

Since I was able to get a second Mezuki, I've been wanting to run Zombies. However, I really like the idea behind Chaos.

So, I wanted to try both of them in the same deck. It didn't do as well as I had hoped. It was very rare that you could use a Chaos Sorcerer and Zombies together, the deck functioned like one or the other. That wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the fact that the support for one is dead for the other.

Mezuki doesn't exactly help when you've got no Zombies in the Graveyard, and Chaos Sorcerer can't be summoned if you don't have a Light and Dark in the grave.

Because of this, I've decided to scrap the Chaos and go with Zombies. I'm trying to decide between a Monarch variant, a twist on Zombie Synchro, or a variant with Plants in it.

The thing with just plain Zombie Synchro is that you don't always get to your Zombie engine quickly enough to set up. You basically have to get to Goblin Zombie, which is only two cards in a 40-card deck.

This is why I'm leaning away from my Zombie Synchro variant, since there's no reliable way to search for Goblin Zombie. I'll see where it goes, though.

5D's Episode 87

An "eh" episode. It's just the duel between Yusei and Kiryu. It would have been much better if the duel had actually been completed in the episode. Of course, there's so much talking and so many flashbacks that the duel has to spill into the next episode.

Kiryu actually plays some decent cards. However, most of them are only good if you're top-decking.

He also plays a bunch of cards that empty his hand in one turn. What if he top-decked one of those cards? That would be really bad for him, but, of course, anime characters stack.

Yeah... Not much to talk about for this episode.

Monster to Spell/Trap Ratio

Generally, decks tend to have more Spell/Trap Cards than Monsters. This is mainly based on the reasoning that you can really only play one Monster from your hand per turn, and it's beneficial to get more cards that you can use (Spells/Traps).

A top tier deck that has (many) more Monsters than Spell/Trap Cards is Lightsworn. For one, some of the Monsters act as Spells/Traps, like Honest in the hand and Necro Garnda in the Graveyard. The more obvious reason is that Lightsworn players like to mill more Monsters than Spells/Traps, which should make sense.

For me, in most of my decks, I like to have slightly more Monsters than Spells/Traps. This is because my decks' engines are usually Monster-based and an all-Monster hand would be better than a no-Monster hand.

Of course, as shown, it depends on the deck. For instance, Gadgets obviously wouldn't want to play too many Monsters, since the Gadgets themselves almost guarantee that you won't run out of Monsters to play.

What does this have to do with anything? Not much. It's an interesting perspective on deck building, though.