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