Trap Stun

It's really good, and stuff. It's practically a staple in non-Stun decks, which is why it may begin to change the way the game is played. Wasn't there a card that did that until August 31st? I think it was called Heavy Storm...

So, unless you're playing against Stun, you should expect to see Trap Stun(s). There's no set number yet, but it's usually one or two, though some people may play three (it's like having four Cold Waves...okay, not really).

Now, what does this mean? First of all, it means that Book of Moon, and maybe even Enemy Controller, will be more important than ever. You can disrupt big plays with Quick-Plays under Trap Stun, preventing your opponent from Synchro Summoning XX-Saber Hyunlei or Black Rose Dragon.

It also means that you can't Set all of your Traps to your back row so quickly. Trap Stun could easily wreck your plans, so it might be better to save some of your Traps in your hand, unless of course you have a way to stop Trap Stun from hurting you. Wasn't a similar idea used up until August 31st? It had something to do with not overextending your back row without protection...

There are also two different ways that people will play Trap Stun. The first way is to Chain it to a non-Counter Trap. That's a little bit more expected than the second way, and is usually used when making a small push, like attacking over a Monster with a Shura or Flamvell Firedog.

The other way is to play it like Cold Wave, before doing anything. This prevents Counter Traps, like the prevalent Solemn Warning, from stopping your big plays. And, if you play it like Cold Wave, and your opponent negates it with something like Solemn Judgment, Dark Bribe, or Seven Tools of the Bandit, then you aren't forced to commit to your big play. You can wait until you have another opening.

Unfortunately, there's no surefire way to punish your opponent for playing Trap Stun. It normally only lasts during their turn, so you can't push back with immunity as you could have if they had played Cold Wave. Moreover, there's no super-anti-Trap Stun-card, like Starlight Road was to Heavy Storm. You basically have to settle on either using Solemn Judgment to negate it, playing more Quick-Play Spells, or using specific Trap-hate cards like Seven Tools of the Bandit, which isn't a bad idea.

Trap Stun is an all around good card that was just overshadowed by Heavy Storm and Cold Wave in the past. It did see some play before September 1st, but with Heavy Storm now gone, it's the next best thing to Cold Wave.

Tournament Report 9/4/10

This was the first locals with the new ban list. As a result it was a very interesting day, with almost everyone playing different decks from each other. I did see two people playing similar Chaos Control decks and at least two people playing (Chaos) Blackwings, though.

I went with my Vayu Turbo deck, and Aki came along with my Scrapkeeper deck. There were about 32 people in the tournament today.

Round 1: vs Chaos Control

-Duel 1: I drew too many dead cards, which is the worst thing that could happen against a Stun deck like this.

-Duel 2: Same as Duel 1...

Aki won Round 1 against Newbie Amazoness.

Round 2: vs Newbie Deck

I won...

Aki won Round 2 against Machina Gadgets (my Round 3 opponent from last week).

Round 3: vs Lightsworn

-Duel 1: I got killed by Celestia and Royal Decree.

-Duel 2: I forgot how I won. I'm pretty sure that I just kept control of the duel for the whole time.

-Duel 3: He drew really badly, allowing me to set up an optimal Morphing Jar play. I controlled the game with Spells/Traps for the rest of the time, swarming with a bunch of Synchros near the end of the duel to claim victory.

Aki won Round 3 against Chaos Blackwings (my Round 2 opponent from this tournament).

Round 4: vs Chaos Control

I just had to play against both Chaos Control decks... My deck has such a bad match-up against control decks like that...

-Duel 1: I got him down to 3300 LP, but Breaker and Chaos Sorcerer rushed in to kill me.

-Duel 2: We simplified the game down to only having a couple cards each. He Monster Reborned my Effect Veiler (which I had used earlier to kill his Doomcaliber Knight) and Normal Summoned Fossil Dyna Pachycephalo. He tried to Synchro Summon with the two Monsters, but Pachycephalo prevented him from doing so. I was able to take control from there with Sirocco.

-Duel 3: He didn't draw many Monsters, so Armageddon Knight and Armed Wing were able to take him out after a while.

Aki won Round 4 against Salvo Chaos.

Round 5: vs (Chaos) Blackwings

I'm not sure if he used Chaos Sorcerer or not, but I did see D.D. Warrior Lady.

-Duel 1: Kalut is freaking annoying...

-Duel 2: Too many dead draws...

Aki won Round 5 against Chaos Control (my Round 1 opponent).

So, Aki ended up going undefeated with Scrapkeepers! I went 3-2 and got 8th place, which is meh. Our Turbo Pack 3's weren't all that great.

But, Aki did get a bunch of store credit, which he used on a Bottomless Trap Hole (he only had access to one English copy), a Cyberdark Horn (Dragunities should be arriving soon...), an Ultimate Rare Effect Veiler, a pack of sleeves, and two Duelist Revolution booster packs. The DREV packs were meh, since the only holo he pulled was Voltic Bicorn, which he already got from the Japanese DREV booster box.

So yeah, the tournament today was pretty good. I got valuable experience with the new format, and Aki got his first locals win with a deck no one was expecting. It was odd that there were no Gladiator Beast or Quickdraw Plant decks there, though...

What to play this format...?

I can't figure out what deck I want to play this format.

I think about using Quickdraw, but then I realize that it's a meta deck now. Even though I started using it in February, it's now expected to be a top tier deck, so I'm adverse to playing it. Moreover, it's not as great as people hype it up to be. The deck's inconsistent, and it has very little offensive power.

I also consider some sort of Black Salvo-centered deck. But, it's not all that great, seeing as how you need to draw Dekoichi before Black Salvo. I mean, you could use Armageddon Knight to send Dekoichi (or Cannon Soldier) to the Graveyard, but that would ruin the whole point of using Dekoichi. Regardless, a well-timed D.D. Crow can mess up your plans entirely. Even though people play Dimensional Alchemist to help with that, the deck is still exceedingly slow.

I've been thinking about using Scraps, but they're kinda meh. You need to draw the Tuners before the non-Tuners, and the deck is extremely vulnerable to remove from play cards. When the deck works, it's awesome, but it doesn't work nearly often enough.

I want to find a way to use my Mist Valley Falcons (and Dark Simorghs, by extension), but they're not all that amazing by themselves. In some sort of super-controlling deck, the 2000 ATK is really nice, but it's not always worth it. I suppose that it could fit in Blackwings, being a Winged Beast. Gale would also give access to Mist Valley Thunder Lord, which is amazing.

I've also got an interesting concept, using The Immortal Bushi as a pseudo-Gadget. Instead of drawing into more Gadgets, you just keep using the same Immortal Bushi after it dies, allowing you to fill your deck with Monster removal cards. It's just an idea, though. I'm probably not going to use it.

Most likely, I'm going to be using my Vayu Turbo deck. It's proven to be pretty decent, having both speed and control elements. Main Decked Skill Drains should also do a good job as messing with the new (unestablished) meta. Basically every deck that people are planning on using rely on Monster Effects, so Skill Drain would wreck. The problem I'm seeing with Vayu Turbo, though, is that its outs to big Monsters tend to be Synchro Monsters, and Synchro Monsters can be easily shut down now that people can just Set whatever back rows they want. As opposed to having to decide between a Dimensional Prison and a Bottomless Trap Hole, they could just Set both, meaning that your Synchro Monster will die no matter what you choose. I do Main Deck a bunch of Trap-hate, but it might not be nearly enough.

Lastly, I was thinking about making a new Monarch variant. I'm not sure about exactly how I'd do that, but I'll figure out something. I'd probably have to wait for either the meta to become established or Starstrike Blast to be released. Monarch builds aren't really all that effective unless they have some sort of anti-meta spin on them, usually.