Tour Bus will be a key card on the next format

Dark smog, Darkflare Dragon and Tour Bus has one thing in common. They all are the begining of what is coming. A extreme control environment, where everyone will be trying to create a graveyard and stop the opponent to create one for him.

All the meta decks need to control the grave more than before:

1: 4 fairies

2: Grapha

3: Inzektor Hornet

4: Bulb + Spore

5: Dark + Light

Tour bus accomplish two things, fits the hole that Sangan will left when he have gone, and you can send it to the grave with eclipse wyvern to bring back lightpulsar dragon from the grave.

Tour bus will be the next grave control card on the game. But this time is way better that his predecessors because the target will be back to the deck, instead of being removed. So, leviair won't safe you from that.

I mention leviair because rank 3 have become the most important rank on the game, just like lv6 syncro was when brionac and goyo were alive.

Inzektor is the new blackwing

Inzektor Dragonfly works like Shura, Inzektor Centipede works like black Whirlwind, and inzektor hornet works like Icarus attack. However all of them works a lot better than their predecessor. Dragonfly don't need to attack, Centipede can be searched from the deck, and hornet can't be stopped by starlight road.

Like blackwing, all of them are dark, avoid bottomless trap hole, summon a monsters from the extra deck easily, and if you don't use warning on the first inzektor your opponent summoned, you are screwd.

If konami explode all the potential of winged-beast in the past, now is time for insects to be exploded.

Psych-hamster deck

Building a deck on this format have been one of the most difficult things I ever done lately, and building a psych deck without Mind master was even harder that I thought. Before Show you the decklist, I want to explain why almost every psych card on the game sucks.

Esper Girl: The syncro psych strategy is like Karakuri, in both cases the engine and the combo are combined. So if you get the combo, you will get new cards to your hand. Esper Girl accomplish the same purpose than bureido, however esper girl effect is really hard to pull off. Of course you can use serene to bring her from the deck, but if you draw sper you do nothing. You need another monster to syncro with it. You don't want to set this card and pass. This is not the card that you want to use in your first turn.

Silent wizard: This card and Serene, are the best cards to pull of esper girl, and even though this card has 1900 atk points. It doesn't worth to summon it if your graveyard is empty. Also if you can't syncro with wizard, you will have to wait until he dies. And hopefully you will be able to make a syncro summon the next turn. This is not the card that you want to use in your first turn.


Serene: This card is an excellent engine for the deck, finally something useful. This is the kind of card that you want to use in your first turn. Maybe in the next turn Silent can remove it and bring it back.

And that's all. There is nothing else remarkable on the psych cards, and even these cards are not too great. The worst things is that put in a psych syncro monster won't worth the effort, so Silent probably isn't too useful. What this deck needs is some way to put a syncro psych monster on the field easily and another good card to establish a good opening turn.

Monsters 21

3 Hamsters
2 Ryko
3 Tanngnjostr of nordic beast
3 Guldfaxe of nordic beast
3 Silent
3 Serene
2 Esper
2 Veiler

Magic 10

1 Emergency Teleport
1 Heavy storm
2 MST
1 BoM
1 Enemy Con
1 Mind Control
1 Pot of avarice
1 Dark hole
1 Reborn

Traps 8

2 Warning
1 BTH
1 Solem
1 MF
1 TT
1 Prison
1 Evacuation
1 Starlight

And this is how I try to fix the problems of the deck. With Hamster, serene and Ryko I have enough 1º turn plays. Ryko helps to destroy backrows and send psych monster to graves so I can use Silent the next turn. While hamster creates a lot of plays on his own.

1.- With hamster, you can bring Tanngnjostr, then bring guldfaxe and syncro for thought ruler or psych lifetrance. So, this is how you put a syncro psych monster without lose card advantage. This combo makes Silent wizard playable.

2.- Another great thing about this is that almost every monster here is EARTH. So use Hamster, bring Tanngnjostr, and then bring guldaxe. Syncro for stardust, normal summon esper girl and syncro for Naturia beast. You only use two cards, to bring two great syncros, also you put a psych monster in the grave.In fact, this is the main reason to use this build. Now you only need to use a heavy trap line to protect these syncros.

3.- And like all the good decks, you can make trishula easily. Tanngnjostr + hamster + esper girl.

4.- The deck has a lot of lv3 monsters, which means you can summon leviair and bring back esper girl from the RFG to pull off her effect.

5.- The only advantage of spych syncro monsters is life points gaining, and the only way to pull off that advantage is PAYING LIFEPOINTS!! And that is way I use two warnings on this deck.

I Know even when the deck is good, it can't work on this competitive environment. I will make some videos to show you the pros and cons.

Merry Chrismas to all.

About Dragons collide

Since Machina came up, we have been complaining about how konami creates all these broken structural decks. Machina fortress became one of the most easiest ways to kill stardust and shien, while the power of Hiperion makes DAD looks like a joke. Then Grapha was created and everybody started to hate structural decks, put a boss monster on the field never was so easy.

Now Dragons collide have been finally released on the OCG, but this time is not broken. Konami finally listen to the players. The deck is focus on power and floaters, all these combinated on a chaos strategy. However, this time we won't see any kid coming from a store with three of these decks and wining games.

Of course I know the Whole strategy behind Dragon chaos haven't been revealed yet, but is good to know that everything doesn't came out in the structural deck.

only time will tell us if this strategy will be broken or not. I hope it won't.

btw, next post will be Psych deck!!

Lack of inspiration

The game have been going downhill for me (and for many other people i guess). The precense of Tourguide, zenmaines among others make this game looks really awful. In fact, I don't care that all the people is playing the same or all the best cards in the game have a ridiculous price. What piss me off is that you have to play specific strategies if you don't want to play any of those cards. For example if you want to deal with zenmaines, you can remove from game or bounce it to the extra. So whether you play a strategy capable of bring brionac easily or you play a chaos strategy capable of remove zenmaines without loss cards.

Also, with all the boss monsters going around in the game, there is no reason to feel safe behind stardust, which is the core of the whole syncro phylosophy. There is no diversity in the syncros option, that makes obsolete almost 70% of the strategies that I love in this game.

I'm thinking about the next banlist, I know is too early, but I don't think there is nothing else to think about this format.

Tournament Report

No, This is not a usual tournament report because I didn't play. I was one of the organizers and the head judge.

The event was really good according to what the people said. I feel really happy because I recieve almost not complains about anything.

Sorry for the lack of post, I was preparing everything for the tournament. Now that it is finally done, I can keep up with my usual life. (yeah!)

Analisis de Formato

En formatos anteriores, Konami orientó el meta hacia combos de dos cartas. Spore, mind master, formula, kagemusha, kageki, dragunity dux, foolish burial, GK descendant, Karakuri ninishi, etc. Ninguna de esas cartas es capaz de hacer algo por si sola, sin embargo todas ellas fueron parte del meta del ultimo año. Esto se debe a que todas esas cartas eran parte de combos muy faciles de realizar y la ventaja obtenida tras realizarlos era casi instantanea (por ejemplo Formula). Por tanto podriamos resumir casi toda la era de los syncros con 3 palabras: Two cards combo. Todos los decks meta funcionaron asi, y si tu querias hacer un deck nuevo, podias utilizar este concepto y obtener exito (ejemplo de ello fueron las pocas innovaciones de aquella epoca, como Tech genius, water syncro, among others).

Este formato es muy diferente y puede resumirse en otras tres palabras: Floaters and Boss. Dandylion, Sangan, Tourguide, gadgets, Grapha, Tengu, Agent of earth, any T.G., etc. Todos ellos funcionan como excelentes monstruos flotantes o buscadores, de modo que nos dan presencia de campo a la vez que no implican una inversion de cartas en el. Mientras que Hyperion, Gorz, Tragoedia, Chaos sorcercer, BLS, Caius, Tourguide, Kristia, etc. funcionan como boss monsters que pueden poner la partida de tu lado si lo necesitas. De modo que ahora solo necesitas 1 carta en lugar 2 para ganar. De hecho las mejores cartas del formato son aquellas que actuan tanto de floater como de Boss, como TourGuide. ¿Cual es el problema de todo esto?

De hecho hay 2 problemas en este formato. El primero es la cantidad, sin royal oppresion podemos jugar tantos boss monsters como nos de la gana para presionar al oponente incluso si esta tratando de defenderse con veiler. El segundo problema es la presencia de Heavy storm, lo cual significa que tendremos miedo cada turno. No solo es miedo por perder nuestras defensas ante heavy, sino que ademas es miedo de perder una gran cantidad de vida y presencia de campo en el proceso. Existen demasiados boss monsters y muy pocas maneras de establecer una exitosa posicion defensiva.

Este cambio total en la mecanica del juego ha hecho que algunas cartas se vuelvan mas fuertes. Ejemplo de ello es Monster reborn, no era un problema cuando el juego era todo sobre combos, revivir un kageki, o una spore, o un sangan no significa nada si no tienes nada que hacer con esos monstruos. Pero este formato no es asi, ahora se convocan monstruos fuertes con efectos descompensados, uno de esos monstruos puede darte la victoria el solito. JD, Hyperion, Kristia, BLS, grapha todos ellos son extremadamente buenos, y si ademas podemos revivir a alguno del cementerio el juego se vuelve aun mas peligroso. Monster Reborn es, nuevamente, una carta descompensada.

Porque Konami hizo esto? Creo que Konami esta tratando de insertar los nuevos xyz monsters en el juego, para conseguirlo estos tienen que ser capaces de competir (estrategicamente) con lo syncros, pero tal y como esta el juego eso es imposible. De modo que konami ha preferido hacerlo inutiles (destruyendo todas las estrategias basadas en dos cartas al mismo tiempo), y cuando los xyz monsters reciban suficientes cartas, seran capaces de crear una estrategia por si mismos. En ese punto la era de los boss monsters se ira y las estrategias de dos cartas volveran.

Hay algunas pistas en las nuevas expansiones que prueban esta hipotesis: Konami aun crea nuevos arquetipos basados en dos cartas, pero para que sean jugables en este formato, esas estrategias deben ser realizables con una sola carta. Ejemplo de ello es Insektor dragonfly, el cual puede jugarse por si solo para traer hornet, Destruir dos cartas a lo largo de todo el combo para terminar trayendo un xyz de rank 3. Sin embargo el ejemplo perfecto de mis palabras se encuentra en la estrategia de los evol, el cual es un combo de dos cartas increiblmente lento e imposible de jugar. PERO se vuelve totalmente jugable gracias a Rescue Rabbit (un combo de 1 carta).

Boss y Floaters, esta es la nueva clave del exito, y Courtney Waller (el ultimo ganador del YCS) supo verlo con claridad.

Por cierto, con todas esas convocaciones especiales y todo el miedo por setear, este era el momento perfecto para reimprimir duality y warning, dado que ambos se vuelven casi injugables en un ambiente como este.

Konami sabe como ganar dinero, ¿estas listo para ir paso por delante?

Format analysis

(Subire este post en español unos dias)

In the past formats, konami guided the meta into a two cards combo. Spore, mind master, formula, kagemusha, kageki, dragunity dux, foolish burial, GK descendant, Karakuri ninishi, etc. Any of those cards are capable to work on their own, however all of them were part of the meta. That is because those cards were part of combos easy to set up. We can summarize the syncro era with three words: two cards Combo. All the meta decks worked with two cards combo, and if you wanted to make a new deck, you could used that rule and got success (Tech genius, water syncro, among others).

This is format is really different and I can summarize that with three words too: Floaters and Boss. Dandylion, Sangan, Tourguide, gadgets, Grapha, Tengu, Agent of earth, any T.G., etc. All of them work like excellent floaters if you need it. While Hyperion, Gorz, Tragoedia, Chaos sorcercer, BLS, Caius, Tourguide, Kristia, etc. work like boss monsters that can turn the game on your side if you need it. So, now you only need one card to push the game instead of two. What is the problem here?

There are actually two problems on this format. The first is the quantity, without royal oppresion we can play as many boss monsters as we want and push for game even if our opponent is trying to protect himself with veiler. The second problem is the presence of Heavy storm, wich means that we have to feel fear every turn. We have strong boss monsters and few ways to establish a defense position.

In the past, Monster reborn wasn't a problem because the game was all about making combos. But this format isn't. This format is about summoning strong monster with broken effects, we only need one card to win. JD, Hyperion, Kristia, BLS, grapha all of them are extremely broken and if we can bring him back from the grave, everything is more dangerous. So, now Monster Reborn is, again, a broken card.

Why Konami did this? I think Konami is trying to insert the new xyz monster in the game, in order to do that they have to compete against syncro monsters, but they can't. So Konami is making them useless (and the whole two card combo strategy), and when xyz monsters get enough support, they will be able to create a strategy on their own. At that point, the boss monsters era will be gone, and two cards combo come back.

There are some clues on the new sets that proof this hypothesis: Konami is still creating new archetypes based on two cards combo. But in order to fight against all those boss monsters, those strategies most be performed with only card. Like Insektor dragonfly, who can be play it alone, destroy two cards in the process and bring a rank 3 xyz monster. However the perfect example of my words is the evol strategy, which is a unplayable slow two cards combo. But become totally playable with Rescue rabbit (one card combo).

By the way, with all those special summons and backrow fears this is the perfect moment to reprint pot of duality and solem warning, since both of them may be unplayable on this environment.

Konami knows how to win money, are you ready to be one step of ahead of him?

Karakuri and the truth about machine decks

I wrote this post in may on another blog, so I will post it here because I think is interesting.

I tried to build many old strategies that I used to love; one of those is "Roids", a fusion deck where the materials are almost playable. Even though I could have some descent duels, it was really hard to use the deck. The real problem wasn't the build itself, it was on the fact that all of them are machine. Nowadays this game has two strong sidedeck cards against machine: cyber dragon and system down. The field can be clean easily without waste a normal summon or active a destruction effect, also you can loss your graveyard in the process. However, machine decks exist... wait, that's not true. "Machina" decks exist. The question is, why? And why there isn't any other playable machine strategy? ¿What happen with roids, Jinzo, cyber dragon decks? The answers to those questions lie behind the Machina strategy.

Machina is a basic deck, where Solidarity use to be a staple that string the options even more. The main squeleton of the deck is: 6 gadgets , 3 gearframe, 3 fortress. And the key to success is a concept that we all know: Floaters. All the gadgets can search for another gadget, while his key monster is a special summon 2500atk beater capable of destroy card after his dead. So, Machina can create almost 4000 damage any turn and that is what makes the strategy so good. Who cares if you clean the field? The machina strategy can create a new field of 4000 damage and finish the duel. The possibilities increase if we add solidarity and limiter removal to the mix.

This is the future of all the machine strategies: Easy special summon effects, great turns with 4000 damage and a lot of floaters that don't relies on the grave. This is the only way to play a machine deck, and Konami knows it. That's why karakuri have a lot of searchers, syncros with special summon effects, and extra draw effects.

Karakuri is the new "Machina", with more summons, more draws and more resources. But always with the same strategy, great turns of 4000 damage, and without loss cards so you can repeat the process if your opponent use system down. Konami figure out a way to eliminate all the past machine strategy and keep only the new ones, those capable of survive against cyber dragon and system down. Konami have found a way to ban thousand of cards without use the banlist.

I'm not complaining, I just feel sad because I can't play Roids even like a tier2 deck.

Torneo en Sevilla

El dia 11 de diciembre, CórdobaDeck organiza un torneo en el Otakon de Sevilla. Un gran evento en el que yo actuaré como organizador y como Juez. Los premios y las caracteristicas del torneo ya se encuentran en internet, asi que espero poder ver a todos mis lectores de Sevilla y del resto de Andalucía alli.

FMD 2 more

So, I tried to record some games, but I don't always draw diva. So I'm only uploding those videos where I draw diva.

The deck is too much better than before. However, after 16 duels I only summon black mist twice. And only one of those time Black mist gave me the game.

On this game I use Herald of perfection instead of a monarch to make Trishula. Actually I won this because my opponent burn too many resources too fast.

My opponent used MST on Aoi and I almost loss to that. But then I saw his hand with mind crush and I had a chance to win the duel. My opponent keep burning resources to kill my monster, while I wait to draw anything strong. Diva gave me trishula again and I almost won if he wouldn't draw that lucky JD.

This type of strategy works better on a different meta. I will talk about that on another post I guess.

Frog-Monarch Designator again...

I don't want to bore all of you with this topic again. I just say that deck works better with diva and black mist.

3 swap frogs

2 tree F

3 Dupe F

3 deep sea diva

1 lost blue breaker

1 Ronintoadin

3 raiza

2 caius

1 vanity

1 gorz

3 duality

3 enemy C

2 d.d. designator

1 MST

1 Heavy storm

1 Reborn

3 PWWB

2 Mind crush

1 Trap dustshoot

3 spiritual water aoi

Diva works like another monarch because I can bring android in early game, or gachi gachi or armory arms in the middle game, or black mist in late game. Also, I don't need to use 7 tribute monster, so that means less dead draws. Diva match perfectly with aoi too, I can even use two aoi in the first turn thanks to diva.

I won't upload more videos because it seems redundant, but I can change my mind if someone really don't believe it.

Nº 96: Black Mist

I can use the frog engine to summon this card, I will get a boss monster thanks to the engine. I just need to summon swap frog, ronin and another lv2 monster. And we all know the perfect lv2 water monster: Deep Sea Diva. Who can give another lv2 monster on the field. Now I can threat my opponent with a syncro summon or a xyz summon. Also diva + monarch + treeborn frog = trishula.

I'm testing the new version of Frog Monarch Designator and looks amazing, maybe I will put a few videos.

FINALLY!!

Finally someone new and with real passion show us that this game is about fun (and really expensive cards), but mainly fun XD.

You can see the decklist here. This guy talks a lot but I really like to hear his opinion. He even side a Sword of revealing light just to troll a little.

Frog-Monarch Designator: Final conclusion

I hope you, at least, had seen one of the videos I made before read this.

The wining condition of the deck is based on a simple concept. If you control your opponent resources, you can control the duel. However this concept isn't always true. This strategy is strong as long as the game is based on 2 or 3 cards combos. Not combo decks are usually antimeta, which usually play slowly enough to win with monarchs. But we have to take one more thing in consideration: 1 card combo.

The one card combo is based on a single card capable of change the duel on his own. Examples of that is Monster Reborn, JD, BLS, among others. Mostly, all of them need some previous preparation before be useful. If you see my duel against Tourguide plants, you can see that my opponent had BLS on his hand but I never led him summon it. However there are few exceptions, those cards are Tengu, Tourguide, Dark hole, among others. These cards can be drawing and instantly played, even more you can draw Tourguide and instantly kill a monarch. That is the reason of some of my losses. So, the wining probability of this deck is negatively correlated to the number of good cards that can work to well on their own.

About the decklist, I have been testing a lot of different things to put inside.

Back to the square one: This is another pwwb but you always have to target monster. It is a great card that led me see the opponent hand with mind crush on the next turn. But sometimes the number of discard cost was to high. I changed it for Enemy controller, which gave me too many victories on his own.

Effect veiler: I already have too many control cards with even higher costs and better benefits. I couldn't loss more space on cards that don't give field advantage.

Duality: Yes, I have to play three copies. I need to active it on my first turn, to pull aoi-frog combo, and if i don't need it, I can discard it with pwwb. This card is totally necessary to make the deck consistence.

Mother grizzly: At some point, I used mother Grizzly to increase the chance to get my frogs on the field, however the probability to draw a frog is too high, and drawing a mother grizzly on late game is really awfull.

Tragoedia: Aoi-Frog combo is really expensive, and it totally worth it. However it doesn't match with tragoedia, since my hand is reduced. Also even when I summon it under the best condition, it wasn't so useful. Also I couldn't use pwwb, mind crush, etc because it could reduce my hand. I changed both of them for mst and Heavy storm.

The best thing I tested was the Frog engine. I'm talking about Des frog, the only "monarch" that can be search it from the deck or grave due to Dupe frog. Also you can really use the second effect of swap frog to summon twice. Or use two des frog to summon Tiras or Andreus, or clean the field with Des croacking. The results where great, but the number of potential dead draws were too high.

Finally I think the deck is good, could be better if the game wasn't so fast. But it will be definitely something that I will test again on march.

FMD duels (part 2)

Now I upload 5 videos, there was two more duels where I loss in the first turn, so I won't upload them.

On this one I could play vanity instead of caius at the begining, but luckly I won anyway.

This guy offered me a rematch, so we played a full match. I won the first one but I should be presure over him from the begining.

On the second duel, he OTKed me, nothing else to say...

On the third duel he started with a bad hand so I slowly won, probably you can skip this video because there is nothing interesting on wining on this way.

And the last video is another DW duel, and probably the prove that Tragoedia isn't a good choice at least for this build. Even when I special summoned under the best conditions, it didn't be able to push for damage and it was easily destroyed. Also, I ussually burn resources (swap frog and Aoi) during a duel, so Tragoedia is hard to play.

I will talk more about the deck, and will try to draw a conclussion

FMD Duels

Today I will upload three videos and tomorrow another three videos. They took too much time, which I hate. The deck aims his purpose almost every duel but I'm not always won anyway.

On this one I think I should choose a different 1º turn play. Also my opponent decides to syncro summon trishula instead of a burei combo, so I manage to survive and almost win.

On this one my hand was like crap, but he made my d.d. designator alive, and when I saw his hand I found a way to win the duel.

On this one I learned something, aoi send the card to the grave, not discard. So the effects don't apply. Again, I almost win this, but he managed to control my hand before I controled his hand, LOL.

As you can see, the deck is good but still need something to really push over the opponent. I will make three more videos and then, I will talk a little more about the deck.

Frog-Monarch Designator

As I said in my last post, I have been searching for a good deck to maindeck D.D. designator. I get three potential decks that let me see the opponent hand. The first is Gishki, however I instantly decide to not try it due to what I said in this post. The second deck is Darkworlds of course but I don't like to give free cards to my opponent (dragged down to the grave and dark world dealing). And the last is Frog Monarch due to AOI and raiza and this is probably the best option because, if I have a frog in the grave, almost every card in my hand can work on his own.

So, the wining condition is: Check the opponent hand, eliminate treats, and control with monarch and vanity fiend.

However the deck lacks of consistency because is impossible to search for any card of the wining condition. So even when I add extra copies of those cards in the deck the result is mostly the same or worse. After a lot of testing I end up with a decent decklist I think.

I will give you the decklist, tomorrow I will make some videos about the deck. In this case, I will make at least 6 videos so you can really see all the advantages and disadvantages of the deck.

3 swap frogs

2 tree F

3 Dupe F

1 Sangan

1 Ronintoadin

3 raiza

2 caius

2 vanity

1 gorz

2 trago

2 fader

3 duality

3 enemy C

2 d.d. designator

1 Reborn

3 PWWB

2 Mind crush

1 Trap dustshoot

3 spiritual water aoi

D.D. designator

This format all the people is trying to search by any mean possible. That's why Mind crush become a staple in many sidedecks, and in some cases a main deck card. However when we consider the Darkworld match, we can't use Mind crush. So, most of the time they are free to search any darkworld monster they want.

D.D. Designator is capable to solve that problem, since the card is banished. Also, unlike Mind crush, you always get to see the opponents hand and that information could be the key to win the game.

I'm trying to main this card but the deck is still in progress. I will put it a Decklist and a few videos really soon.

XYZ Territory

When XYZ monsters appeared a few months ago, all of us think almost the same: "Good effects but low stats". So, it was clear that we have to take control of duel in order to use a bunch of XYZ monsters.

When I was working on my Crystal Beast deck, I had that idea in my mind: I need to control the duel and keep the tempo.

All of that is over, XYZ territory breaks that concept and force everyone to use pure XYZ summon decks in order to win. Of course, that won't happen today or tomorrow because we have a lot of broken cards on this format. But it will happen; XYZ territory makes 3300atk Utopia, 3100atk leviathan, 2700atk Roach, 2900atk SHOCK RULER!!!

With this card, I can even clean the field with Crystal beast. Can you imagine something like that? I random guy is using CB and sworn the field in the second turn... without Crystal beast abundance.

Take your chance and try to pick all the copies you can of this card. Probably most people think it is garbage, so it won't be hard to trade. You will thank me in a few months.

Telepon D.D.

I was thinking about the few Macro decks capable of reach top32 on previous YCS. Most of them share one concept, a lv4 tuner. Doesn't matter his attribute, type, attack, def or effect; the only thing important is to accomplish the goal, which is summoning a lv8 syncro with D.D. survivor.

At the beginning all the macro decks had "rose, warrior of revenge" inside, because it was the only lv4 tuner. But now there are plenty of lv4 tuners in the game, and probably the best generic one is Guldfaxe of the nordic beast. However there is one card that makes me think there is a better option for the deck, and that card is Telepon D.D.

If this face-up card is banished: you can banish 1 psychic-type monster with 1500 atk or less from the deck. During your next stand-by phase, special summon that monster. (This card don't miss timing)

With Macro on the field, this card assure you a monster on the field always, so it works exactly like D.D. survivor, and it is a perfect tribute for any monarch, syncro summon or to protect your life points. Also the special summon happens on the next turn, so you can summon telepon D.D. in the same turn that you played pot of duality. The only issue is, what could we bring from deck? The old answer to that question is Krebons, a card that probably many of you already forgot. Another option is Psychic commander, the only 1900 attack monster that don't fall in bottomless trap hole.

Even when this simple idea could end up in a great improvement for Macro decks, I'm hoping for more than that. The last two expansion on this game had support for all the psychic decks, maybe Order of chaos will give the final piece of the puzzle that will make Macro-psychic or pure psychic decks the push they need.

I will work on a decent build as soon as Order of chaos is revealed, whether it have any psychic support inside.

karakuri-Machina

One of the few meta decks without BLS or tourguide is karakuri, the speed and simplicity of the deck give him a chance to fight in the competitive environment. I want to talk about the few different variants that this deck present, but before is necessary to remark the similarities with the previous machine deck, Machina Mainhiem.

Machina become the first competitive structural deck created by Konami, it was great and made all us happy and sad at the same time. The deck had strength, speed, a lot of searchers and a boss monster. Machina Fortress was huge, but not so broken. The general design was good and the side options were good too. System Down and Cyber dragon become staples for awhile, both of them are perfect to punish overwhelming fields. Thanks to those 2 cards, all the competitive machine strategies have to have some easy way to OTK or push the duel strongly in their side. Good examples of that are:

- 2+ Gadgets with a heavy backrow (2000 damage)

- 1+ Gadget with solidarity (2000 damage)

- Machina gearframe + Machina Fortress (4300 damage)

- Machine duplication (infinite damage)

KaraKuri have the same design. Burei and kuick deal 4300 damage, exactly the same amount that gearframe and fortress. Also both of them require only 2 card to be accomplished. The search effect of Gearframe is replaced by the search effect of KK Merchant, while the special summon of fortress is replaced by KK Ninishi.

I have been using a pure KK build for long time and it is awesome, as I see it, there are 2 ways to play it. You can go for the win with all that you can, Cyber Dragon, Instant Fusion, Reckless greed, De-syncro and everything that can help you to win in one turn. Another way to play is taking control of the game using Naturia beast and landoise with a heavy backrow field to block all the moves of your opponent, Fiendish chain, Solem warning, pot of duality, evacuation device, among others are the perfect choices.

However there are some reasons why I end up choosing KK-Machina instead of a pure KK to play in this format.

1.- KK have great tuners but the no-tuner are not so good, that is why all kk decks need to use instant fusion or cyber dragon. Machine Gearframe is a great first turn card with 1800 atk points, probable the best no tuner machine card in the game.

2.- All those combo cards (de-syncro, kk anatomy, kk cash cache, instant fusion) are potential dead draws. I know the combo has consistency but it is also fragile. In a KK-Machina deck that won't be the end of the turn, you can still special summon fortress to push the game on your side.

3.- Once you make the KK combo, there is a chance you draw all monsters, instead of all the traps you need to support your field. This could be dangerous for the next turn, however if you use Machina fortress, you could droop all those machine monsters, summon fortress and go for the win.

4.- And finally something that I have been thinking deeply this days. KK decks only use one watchdog, because the main syncro combo is around all the lv 3 and Cyber dragon / Instant fusion. However Watchdog is a great lv4 tuner that should be play either to syncro with gearframe or to be special summoned for kuick. You can droop it with Machine fortress if is not a good time, so kuick have more chances to be a great topdeck card.

So, here is the decklist:

3 Gearframe

3 Fortress

1 Force

2 KK Merchant

3 KK Nisamu

2 KK Kuick

3 KK Ninishi

2 KK Strategist

2 KK watchdog

1 Cyber dragon

2 veiler

1 KK Cash cache

1 KK anatomy

1 Mind control

1 Heavy storm

2 MST

1 Reborn

1 Book of moon

1 Limiter removal

1 Dark hole

1 Pot of avarice

1 Starlight Road

1 Solem Judgment

2 BTH

1 MF

In the middle

I know I'm not posting anything interesting lately. I end up being in the middle of many things to do, and I don't have enough time to finish all the decks I have in mind. Also Photon shockwave (TCG) and order of chaos (OCG) will be totally reveal in a few days, and I hope those new cards give me some ideas to make more innovations.

Meanwhile, I can make some videos about any of the deck I already finished on this blog. If anyone wants to see me play any deck in particular, just leave a comment below.

Our own power over the game

Many people is complaining about how broken are all the TCG exclusive cards, and honestly I start to feeling the same way. Konami makes a lot of profits creating those broken cards and, like any other company, is good strategy business. I understand that, and I really don't care how expensive a card could be. What I really care is how broken a card could be, and how it can change the meta. Suddenly tour guide and tengu creates a new and broken deck.

This is not the first time it happens, and it won't be the last if we do nothing about it. Maybe Konami creates the game, the rules and the cards. But we buy it, we analyze it, we build it and play it. Should be in our hands to decide if a card is playable or not. When the designer makes something wrong is in the hands of the user to fix it.

If I organize a tournament, Tour guide will be illegal. Maybe the tournament won't be official, but at least won't be broken.

The diversity is one of the things that make this game so beautiful, we could work together to fix it...

I don't know, maybe I'm dreaming too much...

YGO and the three cards combo

Probably a lot of you tried an OTK deck once in your life. A few years ago, I tried to pull off the overload fusion combo (overload fusion, heavy storm and future fusion), but there was no way to make it competitive. At that point I realize that a three cards combo, with one copy of each one and any way to search them, was absolutely impossible.

So, a few month ago I tried to make a Gishki deck (I really love ritual monsters), and the sinergy problem started to come. Even when I could play three copies of each and the deck itself had a lot of searchers. Of course I was able to put a ritual monster on the field, but had to deal with the card investment and opponent's threats. Also there was really difficult to ritual summon more than once in the same duel. Suddenly I saw the difference between a good deck and a broken competitive deck.

Competitive decks have broken cards that work good by themselves. Kristia, Hyperion, Honest, Glow-up Bulb, debris dragon, JD, Tour Guide, Tengu... All of them push the game on your side. They need something else, but that is not a problem because usually the rest of the deck tries to accomplish that purpose. For example, Hyperion is easy to play if the entire deck has agents on it. In the same way, Honest works perfectly in any light deck.

On the other hand two cards combo decks had more problems, the perfect example of this is Six Samurai. It always needed two cards to make his wining condition (Shien), and the only thing that made it competitive was the increase of the search mechanisms (smoke signal). When the engine desappear, the two cards combo became hard to pull off.

So, now you can see how a three cards combo is the worst possible scenario in the game. Even if you can do it once, the possibility of do it again is equal to zero. That's why my Gishki ritual deck has no trap cards on it, I have to commit the entire deck on the same purpose in order to make it really competitive. And still, I don't feel like ready to win.

So, the next time you are trying to make a deck, remember this. "The number of cards you need in your combo is negatively correlated to the no combo cards you are playing"

That is the recipe for a competitive deck

Fabled-Hamster Duels

I decide to make some random videos about the deck, so today I will put three. Enjoy!

This one was really easy since I draw almost everything and he draw like nothing.

This one was way much harder, I lost. But I won't hide the fact that I am not such a good player and the deck ins't perfect either.

Finally this duel has a lot of mistakes. We could make even a contest about who can find them all.

Tour guide or not Tour guide?

(This video has subtitles in spanish)

This is a thirty minutes video that totally worth your time. But before you see it I want to talk about how Tour guide has become the most controversial card lately.

At first I thought that a instant search for sangan was not big deal, instead a instant rank 3 xyz could be deadly in the future. Things become worse when the xyz ruling establish that the materials remain on the field, so sangan and tengu could use their effects. Suddenly a lot of strategies could not stand against tour guide. The free efect veiler and the 2500 atk beastick were too much, and the only thing capable of defeat it was royal tribute and set spy (even tour guide could be useless against a previous tour guide).

Then the xyz ruling changed, and Tour guide was still broken but not that much. However, sangan isn't the only target. There a other strategies that benefit for this search, one of them is Dark world. With Tour guide, the deck can put a lv3 dark world in the grave and summon leviathan, even better they can bring leviair and special summon one the DW in the RFG. The advantage is so big, that is hard to think in a better build without tour guide. Another deck in the same situation is Fabled, where Tour guide can search for kushano and send it to grave to start all the crazy combos that a fabled deck is capable of.

I saw a dark future about this, it will become worst each time a rank 3 xyz appear in the game or another lv3 fiend show off. I remember the first time I saw tour guide bring kushano I thought: "That is best way to play the deck, is so broken, that any other fabled strategy is useless".

When I saw this video I realize that my creativity have been blocked for the only existence of Tour guide. But there are plenty of option, all as good as tour guide deck. And if you check the decklist from Toronto you will see people wining with and without tour guide.

So, now I'm back to the square one. I believe Tour guide is broken, but searching for sangan is not big deal. You can play tour guide or not, and still you can make an awesome deck.

Fabled-Hamster

One of the main problems that I found when I tried to build a Fabled deck was the normal summon. In order to make grimro a playable card, I had to put a Fabled on the field. But if I waste my normal summon on a Fabled monster, then the only good monster I can bring with grimro is chawa, because it special summoon itself to the field. At the end, the worst part is that I really need my normal summon to put another monsters, like tengu, snipe hunter or lyla.

The usual solution to this, is stablish a first turn tengu, so I will normal summon a fabled monster on my next turn to start my syncro combo. The syncro options were limited and sometimes easy to block.

Also there is a something wrong in the strategy that doesn't make sense with the usual deck building. In order to make all the combos, you have to put a lot of fableds on the deck. So, the monster lineup reach 25-27. Also you are forced to play it all at once, so you can use Ragin effect and draw 2, you have to put yourself in danger and end up in topdeck mode. Of course you can make librarian and forgot about ragin, but that don't get the full potential of the deck.

So, in order to keep my normal summon, establish a best 1º turn, and reduce the monster lineup. I decided to use one of my favorite cards on the game.

A first turn hamster let you keep your strategy in the dark at least for a turn. Also, you can see the enemy's strategy first, so you can decide whether bring chawa, cerburel or ryko. With Hamster you can put a fabled monster from the deck without using your normal summon, make grimro a playable card, and let you search for anything to summon or special summon. The possibilities are so amazing that I'm gonna write some of it right now:

If your hand started with some of the following cards:

A lot M/T cards and hamster: set hamster, then bring chawa from the deck, make ragin and draw two.

Hamster and Grimro: Hamster brings Chawa, Grimro search for Kushano, normal summon Kushano. Make Ragin, draw 2. syncro lv8 for Valkyrius. Discard a fabled for Kushano, discard Kushano for Valkyrius eff and draw 1.

Hamster and Krus: Hamster brings Cerburel, make Brionac, discard Krus to bounce something and special summon Cerburel for Krus eff. Make Valkyrius or Stardust.

Hamster and Chawa: Hamster brings Ryko, destroy M/T with Ryko eff. Summon Chawa and make Ragin, or Black rose, or any lv5 or lv 7 syncro you want.

Hamster and Tengu: Hamster brings Ryko, destroy something, summon Tengu and attack with floaters. Or bring Chawa instead of Ryko. Summon Tengu, make Trishula. Or bring Cerburel instead of Chawa and make AOJ decisive armor. Or Fabled Leviathan.

Has you can see, the possibilities are endless, and now you only need two cards to make it. You should try the deck some time, you will be surprise of all you can get.

3 Hamster

3 Grimro

3 Tengu

3 Cerburel

3 Chawa

2 ryko

2 krus

1 kushano

2 ganashia

2 MST

1 Heavy

1 Dark hole

1 Reborn

1 Book of moon

1 Enemy controller

1 Mind control

1 Pot of avarice

2 Pot of duality

2 BTH

2 PWWB

1 TT

1 MF

1 Solem Judgment

Gagaga Magician = Dark Magician

If you are watching yugioh zexal, you probably already know how similar it is with the original yugioh.

Yami and Astral are both spirits who live in the body of lame kids. Both of them have their memories erased, and are good player. While both kids have good attitude but don't play really well, also both of them found a yellow relic where theirs spirits live. And for some reason, neither have parents (actually yugi had parents but they never appear in the show).

The difference is that Astral and Yuma are more real character than Yami and Yugi. Yuma can't stand Astral at the beggining of the show, wich totally make sense. Anyone will feel bad if a strange spirit try to live in your mind (and it is worse if anyone believe you). Also, Yugi was really lame, he almost had no personality in the whole show and almost never played a duel. How is possible that at the end of show Yugi defeated Yami?? HE NEVER PLAYED THE GAME!!!!! At least Yuma is newbie, that is a piece of real life that I can enjoy.

Wonder wand = Magic Formula

But for me, the best comparison between them come from gagaga magician, which is a playable dark magician. Maybe they are not exactly similar, but they both have a girl (gagaga girl = Dark magician girl). And if you keep looking into it, you will find more things like these.

Gagaga Bolt = Thousand Swords

Overworked

If your opponent love to summon gachi gachi as soon as he can. You can use this card like Raigeki, but better because it is a trap card.

I don't hate Agents, is just that I like finding easy ways to kill meta decks.

Imperial Iron wall

Yeah, I know. Most of you will think this a crazy idea, and it doesn't even deserve to be considered. But once again, I'm gonna ask you to think a little about because I gonna analyze the card against the best deck in the format:

If we have imperial iron wall on the field, we block "cards from the sky". In this way, half of the engine of the deck is stopped. Now the problem si how to deal with earth and venus, but actually there are minor problems since your opponent can't summon Hyperion or use his effect if it is already on the field.

Talking about remove from the grave, your opponent can't summon BLS or chaos sorcerer either, or remove monster from game with their effects. Trishula is not longer threat, since it can't remove anything. Eventually the lack of graveyard control will block Kristia, since your opponent can't easily have exact 4 fairys in his grave.

At the end, the only enemies left are gachi gachi and Honest, but probably you can deal with both with the rest of your hand.

So, this could be a great way to rape a whole deck, don't you think?

Crystal beast Extra Deck

Someone ask me about the extra deck, so I will put it here and explain a few things about it. But first, here is the deck list again, I add a third MST.

3 Pegasus

3 Ambar

3 Amatist

3 Ruby

3 Topaz

2 Summoner monk

2 Veiler

2 Ancient city - rainbow ruins

1 Terraforming

3 Crystal beacon

2 Crystal promise

2 Crystal release

2 Crystal blessing

3 Pot of duality

1 Book of moon

1 Dark hole

3 MST

1 Torrential tribute

1 catastor

1 Trishula

1 Scrap dragon

1 Librarian

1 leviair, the sea dragon

1 Gem-Knight Pearl

2 Utopia

2 Steelswarm Roach

1 Vylon Disigma

2 Number 30: Acid Golem of destruction

1 Number 16: Shock Ruler conqueror of colors

1 The Sacred Hyades

Both Utopia and Roach are staple in the deck since Rank 4 is the easier xyz summon you can make. Gem-Knight pearl let you destroy stardust or another 2500atk monster. Whereas Nº30 replace Leviathan dragon in the OCG, don't worry for the burn damage you could suffer, if you manage to keep Nº30 on the field, you are probably wining already. On the other hand, Leviair is really important since one the worst enemies of the deck is bottomless trap hole.

The two best card on your extra are Nº 16 and Vylon Disigma, wich actually are the two best generic xyz monsters on the game (In terms of brokeness). And yes, Librarian is there because I want another lv5 syncro to fight.

In each new pack of the zexal era, new xyz monster will came up and this extra will be stronger.

Bird of Roses

If this 1800 atk Beater die in battle, I will get spore and bulb in the field. Also is lv4, so spore could become lv5 later and syncro with sangan to make stardust or scrap dragon. Or, I could use mark of the rose, remove bird and make syncro with whatever destroyed bird of roses at first place.

I could bring cherry inmato if I need to protect my life points...

I'm making a new deck about it, in case you didn't notice.

Six Sams around the world

A lot of people think this deck is garbage right know, and there is not reason to think differently. The lack of consistency since smoke signal is limited has stopped the potencial of the deck and his big openings. Also since everybody use effect veiler, kageki is less efective. And the return of the chaos strategy just make everything harder.

BUT there is one thing that makes this deck good, or at least that is what I think. Magatama of Musakani is the only card perfectly capable of protect a backrow field, with it you can play dimensional prison, warning, bottomless, mirror force, etc. Without the fear of lossing everthing to heavy storm.

Between this and the possibility of summon naturia beast, I think Six Samurais can be a great control deck. Also since you can use a backrow and protect it, you can use other control monsters like kycoo or Pachycephalo.

Six samurais are still played in South America and OCG, Why the rest of the world don't give it a shot?

Infernity New Combo

Probably all of you are following the coverage of YCS Toronto, so you saw this new combo in action. If you still didn't see it, here is the link.

And for those who play infernity decks and can't not totally understand english, I'm gonna slowly explain the combo in spanish:

Necesitas 1 archfiend, 1 necromancer y 1 avenger en grave; 1 mirage o launcher en mano.

1- Convocas Infernitte mirage y lo tributas para revivir archfiend y necromancer, Archfiend te trae launcher del deck. (2 monstruos en el campo y launcher set)

2.- Activas necromander y revives avenger. sincronizas los 3 para traer Hundred eyes dragon. (1 monstruo en campo y launcher set)

3.- Hundred eyes copia mirage y lo remueve. sacrificas hundred eyes para traer archfiend y necromancer, buscas otro necromancer con el efecto de archfiend. (necromancer, archfiend y launcher en campo; necromancer en mano).

4.- Descartas necromancer con el efecto de launcher. Revives avenger con el efecto de necromancer y syncro por castator. (catastor, launcher y necromancer en campo)

5.- Activas launcher y revies avenger y necromancer, syncro avenger y catastor por brionac. (brionac y 2 necromancer en campo. uno de ellos no ha usado su efecto)

6.- Revives archfiend con necromancer y buscas el 3º necromancer. descartas necromancer con brionac para levantar archfiend a la mano. (brionac y 2 necromancer en campo, archfiend en mano)

7.- Juntas ambos necromancer para hacer Leviair the sea Dragon, retiras un necromancer para traer Mirage desde el RFG. (leviair, brionac y mirage en campo. Archfiend en mano).

8.- Descartas archfiend con el efecto de brionac para regresar leviair al extra. (brionac y mirage en campo. no mano)

9.- Activas mirage y traes 2 necromancer. El primero te trae archfiend y el segundo te traer avenger. Infernit archfiend te busca infernity Barrier. ( Brionac, archfiend, avenger y 2 necromancer en campo. Barrier set)

9.- Syncro hundred eyes(1 archfiend, 1 avenger y 1 necromancer) y remueves mirage de nuevo. Tributas hundred eyes (porque tiene el efecto de mirage) y traes 2 necromancer otra vez. el primero te revive archfiend, buscas infernity beetle. (brionac, 3 necromancer, 1 archfiend, barrier set y beetle en mano)

10.- Juntas los dos necromancer que han usado su efecto para traer leviair. retiras un necromancer de leviair para traer Mirage del RFG. Usas brionac para descartar beetle y regresar leviair al extra. (brionac, mirage, archfiend, barrier set y 1 necromancer que no ha usado su efecto. no mano)

11.- Revives bettle con necromancer y syncronizas a trishula. (brionac, Mirage, trishula, barrier set)

12.- usas mirage para traer 2 necromancer. Revives archfiend, buscas otro bettle, lo descartas con el efecto de brionac para devolver trishula. El segundo necromancer te trae avenger y hundred eyes por 3º vez. (necromancer, brionac, hundred eyes y barrier set)

13.- Nuevamente remueves mirage, traes 2 necromancer sacrificando hundred eyes. 1 te revive archfiend y buscas el 3º bettle. Juntas los 2 necromancers que han usado ya su efecto para traer leviair de nuevo. (necromancer, brionac, leviair, archfiend, barrier set y bettle en mano).

14.- Leviair te trae mirage, y descartas bettle para regresar leviair al extra. Necromancer revive bettle y haces trishula por segunda vez. (brionac, trishula, mirage y barrier set).

15.- Mirage te trae necromancer y archfiend, buscas barrier. revives avenger y syncronizas por Infernity doom dragon. (trishula, brionac, infernity doom dragon y 2 barrier set).

De esta manera, usando solo mirage, 3 cartas del grave y 6 recursos de tu extra (brionac, trishula, infernity doom y 3 hundred eyes) puedes ganar el duelo rapidamente. Si es q tu oponente no se ha rendido aun.

Random deck

A friend ask me to post this deck, I don't think is too good. It is just average deck capable of surprise the opponent sometimes.

2 caius

2 chaos hunter

3 D hero dasher

2 D hero malicious

1 Stratos

2 Dark grepher

2 Necro gardna

2 Vanity fiend

1 End of anubis

1 Gorz

2 Tragoedia

1 DAD

2 Destiny draw

1 Allure

3 Pot of duality

1 reinforcement

1 E- emergency call

1 Dark hole

1 Book of moon

1 Monster Reborn

2 MST

2 Soul exchange

1 Heavy Storm

2 Bottomless trap hole

1 Mirror force

1 Solemn Judgment

I see this deck like an Anti-Chaos deck, it have two vanity fiend and two chaos hunter to avoid special summons or effects of chaos monsters. Also, it have the end of anubis to negate some interesting effects like sangan, GK recruiter, Reborn, etc...

I know it have some inconsistency, but at least chaos hunter can discard any card so, I can always drop the garbage to summon it.

Good luck to everyone who is trying to innovate in this format. I think is too hard to figure out something good that can easily beat angels and chaos.

Better than herald and Veiler

Naturia Landoise accomplish the same purpose than Herald of the orange light and Effect Veiler, but he can do it with more efficiency. With landoise you can negate and destroy in any phase of the game (better than veiler), and you only need to discard one card (better than herald). Of course you have to discard a spell card, but in the right deck that won't be a problem. And that deck is Karakuri.

Karakuri is capable of put lv7 Syncro in the field in almost any turn, all the monster are earth, and it even play more spell cards than monster. You can also attack with him.

This card is great in the actual meta, you can negate gorz, tragoedia or veiler when your making the OTK with the burei's swarm. It also eats all the chaos sorcerer, destroy them in battle or negating their effects.

This is a video of me using Karakuri, just to show you how awesome it is:

Gishki Ritual Control

Hidden arsenal 5 will bring a lot of new strategies to the game, and of course, some of the more powerful xyz monsters. But today I want to talk about a deck that I wanted to play since it came up in the OCG.

Gishi is an archetype who aims to summon ritual monsters almost every turn. We all know how inconsistency this could be, in fact, the only ritual monsters played lately is herald of perfection and even that deck is really inconsistence. However, Konami know that and instead of create broken ritual monsters like herald of perfection, they create a searchable engine in order to make a really consistence Gishki deck. And this is what I did:

3 deep sea diva

3 Gishki abyss

3 Gishki erial

3 Gishki Shadow

3 Vision Gishki

3 Evigishki gustkrake

1 Evigishki Soul Ogre

3 Gishki ceremonial mirror

1 Book of moon

1 pot of avarice

3 Pot of duality

2 MST

1 Heavy storm

2 Preparation of rites

2 Moray of greed

3 salvage

1 dark hole

2 Bottomless Trap hole

The key card in the deck is the ritual monster EviGishki Guskrake. Usually the bad thing about a ritual monster is that you need to waste two cards in order to put a ritual monster in the field, and this monster is not the exception. You will need the ritual spell card and something to tribute. But the ritual spell card have anothe effect in the grave, you can return it to the deck and take back the ritual monster from the grave to your hand. So it's a +1 once you use your ritual monster. Also EviGishki Guskrake let you look two cards from your opponent hand and send one to the grave, so it is also a +1. And that is how you will summon a ritual monster without losing card advantage.

You still need to get those 3 cards (the ritual spell, the tribute and the ritual monster), and to do that you have excellent searchers. Gishki Shadow and Vision Gishki can replace the whole tribute you need to Ritual summon a Gishki monsters, also you can discard them to search the ritual monster and the ritual spell card respectively, so you are playing 3 extra copies of each one. This is great to make those rituals summon more easier, but that isn't all. Gishki abyss and Erial let you search for any Gishki card you need, so you will be able to get the ritual monster, Gishki shadow or Vision Gishki. Now you have 12 searchers that let you make your ritual summons twice faster. BUT that isn't all...

Now we add Deep sea diva and Preparation of rites to give even more consistency to the deck and create a truly good first turn. We can summon deep sea diva and bring Vision Gishki, then active the ritual spell card, and use Vision Gishki as the tribute. EviGishki Guskrake will make your opponent discard one card, and then you can syncro diva and EviGishki Guskrake into Stardust dragon. In the grave, you can active the ritual spell card, return it to the deck, and take back EviGishki Guskrake to your hand. Now you have 4 cards in your hand and stardust in the field. While you know one of the four cards that your opponent has in his hand.

I also add 3 Pot of duality and 2 moray of greed to get more consistency to the deck. Pot of avarice and Salvage let you return the Vision Gishki and Gishki shadow to your hand and make even two ritual summons in one turn.

Of course, the worst enemy against this deck is Thunder King rai-oh, but against him we have the perfect side deck:

"Forbidden arts of the Gishki"

Crystal Beast Xyz conclusion

I wish have recorded other matchs. Once I used Roach to stop JD and Plagues, something that this deck can do a lot.

I think this deck is like a good wine, It's gonna be better with time. Every Xyz monster that Konami create, is a tool for this amazing xyz summon deck.

P.D. -2 Tragoedia +2 MST (in case you want to try the deck)

Crystal Beast XYZ (2 video)

Yes, I lose this one. But the deck aims his purpose.

Crystal beast XYZ

This is the build I will be testing this format:

3 Pegasus

3 Ambar

3 Amatist

3 Ruby

3 Topaz

2 Summoner monk

2 Veiler

2 Ancient city - rainbow ruins

1 Terraforming

3 Crystal beacon

3 Crystal promise

2 Crystal release

2 Crystal blessing

3 Pot of duality

1 Book of moon

1 Dark hole

2 MST

1 Torrential tribute

The second summoner monk is great for the deck and veiler really help to avoid those removal cards (caius, chaos, etc). But I think the deck works different to the old version of crystal beast deck, the absence of abundance is an example of that. I'm going to talk about some specific points to clear things up.

1º I'm not trying to bring all the crystal to the field: The old version of the deck supossed to bring as many crystal as it could. Then it took advantage from the field spell effects and crystal abundance. That is totally overrated right now. Now the deck aims to put at least two crystals in S/T zone. Then it use crystal beacon to bring ruby and special summon all the crystal to make some xyz summons.

2º Crystal blessing is not a dead card anymore: In the past, Crystal blessing was the worst card to start the duel because you need to get your crystals in the grave. To do that, you need to summon it first, and then they have to be destroy in the S/T zone. Of course, there is a chance they are in the grave because you use abundance, but if you acctually active abundance, you are probably wining the duel anyway. Now things are changed, now your crystals goes to grave after they have been used like xyz material, and that will happen too often.

3º Promise > Reborn: Promise represent the crystal that ruby have inside, and it accomplish the same purpose. It is the second way you have to summon the monsters you need to do your xyz summons.

4º Pegasus bring cards from the grave too: Don't forget it XD

5º Ancient city - rainbow ruins breaks the rules: This card have a lot of effects, but the first effect has a special ruling. If you have at least one crystal beast in your S/T zone and your opponent use heavy storm or black rose, Ancient city will not be destroy. Watch it.

6º XYZ summoning: In a typical situation the deck summon two xyz monster at the same time, and the best combination is Utopia + Roach. But in some cases Vylon Disigma and Nº16 Ruler of color will give you an instant wining condition.

I hope you like the build. To be honest, if you don't get to summon roach faster, there is no way you can win against Kristia.

P.D. I'm happy for the XYZ ruling change :P

Rock Paper Scissors

Maybe some of you guys already thought this when you was playing on DN:

"I understand that scissors can beat paper, and I get how rock can beat scissors, but there is no way paper can beat rock. Paper is supposed to magically wrap around rock and leaving it immobile? Why can't paper do this to scissors? screw scissors, why can't paper do this to people? why are not sheets of colleges ruled notebook paper constantly suffocating students as they attempt to take notes in class? I'll tell you why. Because paper can't beat anybody, a rock would tear it up in two seconds. When I play rock paper scissoors, I always choose rock. Then when somedoby claims to have beaten me with their paper I can puch them in the face with my already clenched fist and say, oh sorry, I thought paper would protect you. "

"Yo entiendo que las tijeras le ganen al papel, y que la roca pueda con las tijeras, pero no hay ninguna posibilidad de que el papel le gane a la roca. ¿Supuestamente el papel va a rodear mágicamente a la roca hasta dejarla completamente inmóvil? ¿Porque no puede hacerle lo mismo a las tijeras? Olvida las tijeras, ¿Porque no puede hacerle lo mismo a la gente? ¿Porque no los folios de los colegios guian al papel de los cuadernos para sofocar a los estudiantes que intentan tomar notas en clase? Yo te diré por qué. Porque el papel no le gana a nada, una roca lo haría pedazos en dos segundos. Cuando yo juego papel-piedra-tijeras, siempre elijo piedra. Luego cuando alguien dice que me ha vencido con su papel, yo puedo golpearlos en la cara con mi puño (piedra) y decir, oh lo siento, pensé que el papel te protegería."

End of the format

It have been a long format for me, but finally is over. So, probably some of you have wonder which deck I have been playing the whole format, and this is it.

3 Tengu

3 Hamster

2 Ryko

2 Lonefire

1 spore

1 glow-up bulb

3 tanngnjostr of the nordic beast

3 guldfaxe of the nordic beast

2 veiler

1 dandylion

1 sangan

2 mark of rose

2 DDR

2 MST

1 mind control

1 dark hole

1 reborn

1 book of moon

1 foolish

2 pot fo avarice

2 bottomless

1 mirror force

1 starlight

1 solem judgment

1 dust tornado

1 gleipnir, the fetter of fenrir

I'm not gonna talk about the deck itself, so if you want to know how it works go to this page.

Now, probably you see the changes that I have made in the last months. Tengu is important to create more syncro option, also I always wanted to put out trooper, I hate when I mill mark of rose. Gorz is out of the deck because I aim to put card on the field via tengu and hamster (which are the best way to start your game). Instead of gorz I put "Gleipnir, the fetter of fenrir", so I can give more strong to the nordic engine.

It is the best deck I ever create, and I'm very proud of it. I'm not sure it works well in the next format. To be honest, I don't feel happy for the next format, but there is nothing I can do for that. Mark of rose is a Key Card in the game, remember it because some day will be really broken.

Por ultimo quisiera agradecer a todos mis lectores por pasar siempre por aqui y mirar todas mis actualizaciones, sobretodo la gente de latinoamerica (recalcando México) que son los que mas tiempo dedican en leer lo que escribo. Aprecio que entiendan que haya decidido escribir en ingles a pesar de saber que vosotros son los que mas leen.

Relinquished lv1 Deck

Some of my fellow readers will recognize this deck, but for the new ones please open your minds for a second to hear this crazy idea.

22 monsters

3 manju the ten thousand hands

3 relinquished

2 tragoedia

2 d.d. trainer

2 mokey mokey

4 exodia pieces (normal monsters)

1 DAD

1 gorz

3 chaos

1 BLS

11 magics

1 allure

1 heavy storm

1 dark illusion ritual

1 advanced summon arts

1 dark hole

2 elephant's gift

1 preparation of rites

3 MST

7 traps

3 common charity

3 reckless greed

1 torrential tribute

Let me explain this:

Ritual engine: Advanced ritual arts works here like foolish burial either for a dark or a light monster. You can summon manju, active ritual arts to send an exodia piece and then summon relinquished. With this you can acomplish a lot of things, you can put a dark and a light in the grave for your chaos monsters; you can put 3 dark monster for your DAD; you can summon relinquished, a great monster in a format without warning, also it eat monsters like stardust or sangan without even send it to the grave yet, it create more damage for the opponent also.

Those few normal monsters also work for the second engine of the deck, common charity. A great card to fed tragoedia attack. Also it can be chain it to MST, or you can set two of these and you opponent will atk you with no fear for gorz, then you active both and summon gorz.

Also you have elephant gift and allure to create more draws, don't worry for your normal summon, you basicly win by summon all your strong monsters.

And the last engine of the deck is reckless greed, this card is ussually a -1 for you. but if your opponent use MST on it, you will recover that -1. Also you will have two cards a head. The best about this card on this deck, is that the engine is so strong that you will have two reckless greed at the same time all the time. So you won't need to wait to use it.

With these 7 traps, you can create a scary backrow that can be totally chainable against heavy or mst. Also you have 4 exodias pieces to create more fear on your opponent.

I create this deck 6 months ago, and the problems were royal oppression and the heavy backrow fields. Now both things disappears, and BLS and tragoedia are back. You should try this deck in the new format, the side deck have more things to have fun.