Collapsarpent and Wybustar = Reborn Tengu

Collapsarpent

Cannot be Normal Summoned/Set. Must be Special Summoned (from your hand) by banishing 1 LIGHT monster from your Graveyard, and cannot be Special Summoned by other ways. You can only Special Summon "Collapsarpent the Ebony Dragon" this way once per turn. If this card is sent from the field to the Graveyard: You can add 1 "Wyburstar the Ivory Dragon" from your Deck to your hand.

Wybustar

Cannot be Normal Summoned/Set. Must be Special Summoned (from your hand) by banishing 1 DARK monster from your Graveyard, and cannot be Special Summoned by other ways. You can only Special Summon "Wyburstar the Ivory Dragon" this way once per turn. If this card is sent from the field to the Graveyard: You can add 1 "Collapsarpent the Ebony Dragon" from your Deck to your hand.

Many of people already tested both of them and they know both cards sucks right now, eventhough the format may change in a way these card became competitive. You can't use it for xyz summon like wyvern eclipse, but you can make synchro summon since they don't miss timing. 

Finally we have an infinte special summon recruiter lv4 perfect for chaos strategies. They are like a less broken Reborn tengu. Ready for some crazy syncro chaos deck?

Water Synchron

Sorry for the lack of updating. I'm not really busy right now, I just don't feel exicited with the new cards on yugi-oh. Maybe is because I didn't find enough people to play yugi-oh in my new city...

I have trying to build a deck around nimble angler without using mermail or coelacanth, and I end up with this built. It is really good, but more than that, it is really fast. Which is an important factor for this format, when almost every duel finish in two or three turns.

3 Nimble Angler
3 N Sunfish
3 N momonga
3 Junk synchron
3 QuickDraw synchron
1 Synchron explorer
1 Sangan
2 Maxx C
2 tragoedias
1 Gorz

3 tuning
1 reinforcement
2 MST
1 Forbidden lance
1 Heavy storm
1 Foolish burial
1 Monster reborn
1 Dark hole
1 Monster reincarnation
1 Pot of avarice

2 Phoenix wind wing blast
1 Call of the hunted
2 Bottomless trap hole

2 Daigusto phoenix
2 Gachi gachi
1 Big eye
1 Tiras
2 Junk archer
2 Junk synchron
1 Nitro warrior
1 Junk berserker
1 Junk destroyer
1 Catastor
1 Gugnir

The best part here is the extra deck, I played two Junk archer to get rid of xyz monsters and easy otks. Junk berserker can attack twice if you use daigusto phoenix on him. Gungnir can be summon with two sunfish and junk synchron. And the best otk move in the whole deck is: Foolish burial and junk Synchron, so send angler and special summon two nimbles, junk synchron will bring junk warrior with 4300 atk. If you have quickdraw synchron, you can then bring archer and attack for 7600 damage.

I have won many times with this deck. Even though I found two problems:

1.- It is really linear, you have one goal: win fast due to synchro summon, no hand or field advantage.
2.- If you fail to kill, you won't have any resource back. Almost all the nimble monster will be already on the grave, Quickdraw will be a dead draw and Junk synchron only will bring catastor.

If you have the tuning cards already, you should really try this deck. Really cheap, good and fast.

Happy holidays to everyone.

Everybody ready for the Mermail match

At this point, probably everybody already played at least one duel against Mermail. And, as you can see, it is the kind of deck where veiler is useless and Maxx C doesn't allways help. The best players knew it, that's why many of them didn't maindeck Veiler or Maxx C on the last YCS. You probably think: "I can main deck veiler and sided in game 2". But the true is that you can't.

I already talk in a previous post about how fast is the duel on this format, and you can die in almost any turn. You can't afford to maindeck an useless card in a tournament. And probably the lack of veilers was the main advantage for Inzektors to win the YCS. Right now is really hard to make a deck perfect for every duel, but at least this format is way more better than the last one.

By the way, about those videos I promised. I couldn't upload it :( I feel really bad about it. I will try to find out a solution but I'm not sure...

Diawulf beast Videos and the "limbo" in Yugi-oh

While I write this, two videos are uploading to my youtube channel, I will put the links as soon as it finish.

Meanwhile, I always had this doubt:

Player A normal summon Sangan
Player B active Solemn warning

Sangan's effect don't active because it didn't go the field successfully. I think we all can agree with that. So, now we will go with the real doubt:

Player A set Sangan. End turn
Player B set Solemn warning. End turn
Player A flip summon Sangan
Player B active Solemn warning

In this case, Sangan's summon is negated, however it was already on the field. So, what do you think? it was on the field or not? Can player A active Sangan's effect? The answer (believe it or not) is No.

While a monster is summoned (normal, special or flip) it goes to a "limbo" state where it is not on the field or hand. And if you negate that summon, it doesn't count like it was destroyed on the field.

I ask this on Adjudication Conflagration, the judge facebook group.

So, now you know. Yugioh have a field for living monsters, a graveyard for dead monsters, and a "limbo" which is that period of time where the monster is been summoned.

Diawulf Beast deck

So, after testing about the deck the whole week I end up with this built. I know is good, but I have the feeling that the next "heraldic beast" archetype will be stronger than this. Anyway, I won't talk about the main combo of the deck because I already did it in my previous post. By the way, one of my favorite moves here is special summon gallis, special summon warwulf and then use disorderly march to draw two. This is a really easy way to summon Zenmaines without waste your normal summon.

3 Super nimble Mega Hamster
3 Chain dog
3 tanngnjostr of nordic beast
3 guldfaxe of nordic beast
1 tangrisnir of nordic beast
1 Ryko lightsworm hunter
3 Gallis the star beast
3 T.G. Warwulf
3 T.G. Rhino
1 T.G. Striker
2 Tragoedia
1 Gorz
2 Maxx C
3 Veiler
1 BLS

1 Heavy storm
1 Reborn
1 MST
2 Disorderly march

2 Gleipnir, the fetters of fenrir

I will upload some videos soon.

Finally online

Yes, I finally got internet connection again. I feel really sad to see many blogger leaving yugi-oh. I grew with them and know they quit with dissapointment. I will be here anyway while I still love this game.

I need to talk about Beast type monsters. I have to do it because I have been working on a full monster deck based on that, I was waiting a lot for a xyz beast monster which is the final piece of the puzzle and now I got it.

I can't give you a real decklist because I want to finish a full testing version, however I can talk about the main combo and why this will be a good move on the meta.

You have tanngnjostr on the field (probably special summon by his own eff on a previous turn), now use his effect and special summon guldfaxe. Then special summon chain dog from the grave for free. At this point you can special summon T.G. warwulf from your hand.




You control right now 2 lv3 and 2 lv4 (3 of them are beast and 1 is tuner). So you have a lot of options right now. However, I can do more things with the new xyz beast monster: Diawulf, the Terrorfang. Overlay Guldfaxe and chain dog to make diawulf and use his eff, destroy T.G. warwulf and an opponent's card. Right now you only waste two cards, the original tanngnjostr and warwulf, however warwulf will bring you another T.G. so, you only waste one card.

At this point you still control Diawulf and tanngnjostr, so you can special summon Chain dog and use your normal summon to make a rank 4 or rank 3 monster. In fact, if you summon another lv4, you can make a new Diawulf, destroy tanngnjostr and another opponent's card. At this point you only control two diawulf, so you can special summon chain dog from the grave again and push for 5600 damage. Also, in the end phase you can search for T.G. Rhino.

The move is really good, and it have more support like disorderly March.

I will make a new post with a complete decklist and some videos.

Format Analysis

When I was a little kid, I used to play chess (and I did it really well). In chess we separated the game in three phases, the opening, the middle game, and the final. The first part finish when one of the player castle the king. The second part finish when the players trade their queens.

In Yugi, we had something similar. The opening finish when one of the duelists successfully recruit his key monsters (Machina Fortress, gergiaccelerator, grapha, hornet, wind-up shark). The middle game represent the moment when the players develop his combo trying to take field and card advantage while make some damage. And the final part of the duel is the point where both player can potentially die due to a key strategy move. They have to push and sacrifice their card advantage in order to seal their victory.

I used to believe yugioh was like that, but this format is really different. We have lost our middle game, so after searching for the key monsters, the duel can end by any time. Probably you are thinking that I'm talking about those many OTKs we all suffered. However I'm talking about something else, in this format we have combos that don't need to deal damage to seal the duel. I not sure if I expresing myself correctly, so I will put a example.

 You attack with card trooper into a set monster, it flipped face up and it was geargiarmor that search geargiaccelerator. At this point, you know the next turn will bring two geargianto X and one machina fortress, but you have to consider the rest of your opponent hand. So, you desperately need something to defense yourself because even when you didn't lose any card or recieve any damage, you  know you won't survive to see your next turn. The same scenario can be develop if your opponent opens with two dragged downs to grave, or Shi en with three back row cards, or wind up rabbit with wind up factory. You may not die in these cases, but probably the duel will be over if you don't do something quickly. You have this feeling of: "I will probably won't survive to this".

I still remember when I played trap cards and I could acctually decide whether to defense myself with it or take the damage to keep my traps. Right now we don't have a choice. That's why we keep playing many trap cards even when there is three MST and Heavy Storm in the game.

By the way, Did you read the whole coverage? You will find yourself reading X player use MST and hit MST. Because everybody is playing MST at three to clean the back row line to start and finish his battle in one turn. Everybody had fear and they should. Even BLS can finish a duel on his own. We have lost our middle game and Joseph Maddalena knew that. That's why he played every turn like it was the last one. Because it acctually is.

I know this format is better than the last one because this time we at least have the cards and the chance to defense ourself, but we don't have the choice. Beside everything I said here, I love this format. I'm not sure if things will be ok with mermail on the game, but we will have to deal with it.

P.D. I will move out in the next week. So probably no new post until I get internet conecction again. :(

YCS analysis

my first observation, in case you already read the coverage, is that everybody was playing at least one copy of enemy controller. So, I don't know if my posts have any relevance on the actual meta or I'm just predicting some cards. Who knows....

Also I want to talk about Joseph Maddalena's deck. Probably a random piece of shit with a bounch of broken cards, or a miracles creation from one of the best deck builders in the game. While I was reading his feature matchs I first thought: "This guy is really random". Not because he played something weird and different. It was because whenever he could attack, he did it wasting all his resources even if he wasn't able to deal 8000 damage. For him there was no tomorrow, I even feel sad to see him going too far. In  my perspective of the game this deck and this play style shouldn't efficiently work. However my perspective of the game doesn't really represent the actual game, and Maddalena's deck does.

Maddalena's decks proves a lot of things:

1.- In a format where everybody is playing tons of back row destruction and paying life points, MonsterSmash strategy is a good choice.

2.- Monster Smash was built it about a lot of differente concepts, but Gallis the Start Beast and Ally of genex birdman were always a great combo, even if you didn't tried to pull off the koaki'meru final combo.

3.- In a monster Smash you must use big monsters capable of come back to the field, this is why probably the must successful MonsterSmash deck that I ever saw was Agents-Smash.

This time, Maddalena showed us how recurrent machina fortress and the whole machine archetype can be. He also tried to use the best dark (birdman, neutron) machine and light (Cyber dragon, cyber eltalin) machine just to take advantage of the chaos monsters and BLS hability to OTK.

Right now I don't think he or his deck is random. I think he overview the game, and took advantage of it in the best way possible according to his playstyle.

Next post will be Metagame analysis, but not like Perovic. He already gave of us his perspective of the game in the USA, but I will actually talk about the game (AKA, the cards on it).

Enemy Controller

Yes, I think it is an excellent tech card. With too many decks capable of put too many monsters on the field, nobody bother to lose one of them to take control of an opponent monster. It help reach the OTK you are aiming for in this format. You can steal a lot of good monsters like excalibur, and maybe win that turn with him.

Enemy controller also help you to avoid trap cards like mirror force, even though anybody is playing competitively. You can avoid veiler too. If you syncro summon Black rose and active his eff, your opponent will drop veiler on it. So you can chain enemy controller, tribute black rose and take control of one opponent monster. So, when the chain is resolving, Veiler won't negate black rose, because it is not on the field during Veiler's resolution (and you will clean the whole field).

I'm not saying this card should be on every deck, but enemy controller could be a good card for certain strategies.

Why I didn't post for a month...

This might sound really stupid, but it is the true. I said I was going to put videos about my las deck. So I said to myself: "Don't post anything else, you have to make the videos". Even though I did the videos, the quality wasn't very good, and my laptop is almost crashing. So I couldn't do anything, and I end up doing either a video post or a regular post. :(

So, I finally give up to my own word and decide to not put the videos. And I will not try to make any new video post until I format my laptop (which should be happen soon). Anyway, I have a lot to talk about. But instead of filling a huge post about it, I will be doing small posts in the next few days. But before that I want to finish the inzektor topic I started a month ago.

At this point, many of you already know inzektor is not dead. The deck is strong and it can be played in a lot of different ways (Hanzo, Verdant sanctuary, Mystic tomato). But is not as deadly as it use to be, which is good. Billy brake topped with inzektor in YCS Indy few days after I post my inzektor build, however his build was really different than mine. And the answer to that is only one card: Thunder king rai-oh.

Rai-oh is probably the strongest side deck (or main deck) card on this format. it block Wind-up factory, geargia armor, stratos, smoke signal, and many other key cards in the meta decks. Rai-oh is problem to Centipede, the new key card in the inzektor deck. So, billy brake decide to not increase the number of cards in the deck that can be stopped by Rai-oh. That's why he didn't use hanzo either.

Rai-oh is must on every side deck. And if you are building a new deck, you should be prepare for that. Doesn't mean you can't use card to search, it means you have to be prepare to not search if you can't.

Inzektor is alive?!

I have been thinking on how similar is wind-up factory to black whirlwind, but then I remember Verdant sanctuary, a card that work when an insect is destroyed. I tried to build something with this to rebuild inzektor again and seems I found it.

Monsters:

3 Howling insect
3 Izk Centipede
1 Izk Dragonfly
1 Izk Hornet
3 Izk Hopper
1 Izk Gigamantis
2 Doom Doozer
1 Koa'ki meiru bettle
1 Cross-sword bettle
1 Naturia butterlfy
3 Aztekipede, the worm warrior

Spell

3 Verdant sanctuary
1 Foolish burial
1 Allure of darkness
2 Pot of duality
2 MST
1 Dark hole
1 Heavy
1 Reborn

Traps

2 Bottomless
2 Torrential tribute
2 Evacuation device
1 Starlight
1 Solemn judgment
1 Call of the hunted

The main combo here is set howling insect and active verdant sanctuary. Your opponent will attack howling and you can search inzektor dragonfly to the field and inzektor hornet to the hand, if after this point your opponent try to use dark hole to avoid dragonfly effect, you can search again with verdant sanctuary and go for centipede.

Howling insect is great even if you don't have verdant sanctuary on the field. It can protect your life points, or  search for hornet to make the rest of the inzektor cards alive, or search for naturia dragonfly and negate one extra attack before your opponent can actually make some damage. Naturia dragonfly is another great lv3 in this deck, it is searchable with verdant sanctuary and you can make a rank 3 or a level 6 or 7 syncro monsters. Black rose is really usefull if you pretend to special summon doom doozer and push for a lot of damage.

Another great combo here is:

1.- Remove a inzektor hopper to special summon the worm warrior (a NOMI lv4 monster) from your hand.
2.- Summon dragonfly and do the whole combo with centipede searching for another hopper (usually you can skip this part without dragonfly combo because your opponent won't attack you if you have howling on the field or if you have verdant actived).
3.- Exceed for leviair and special summon hopper from the RFG and exceed for a rank 4 monster.

And with this I want to emphasize the importance of doom doozer and worm warrior because they are really heavy beater easily summoned, also worm warrior let you make a lot of rank 4 xyz monsters.


I guess I should be making some videos so you could believe, I will. But in case anyone want to try this build I have warn you: This is not like Inzektor used to be. It is slower and with more control over field.

Also, If 3 insect monster are destroyed while you have 1 verdant sanctuary active, you can search 3 MONSTERS!!, and if you have 2 verdant sanctuary on the field, you can search for 6 MONSTERS!!!

Appropriate

YCS Toronto show us how much consistency wind-up have and how much creativity we could explore without inzektor in the game. I did try a psych deck similar to Jeff Jones built, but I didn't want to add Grandsoil because I thought it could be expensive. I'm happy for him going so far, he is clearly one of the best players on this game.

Also, his deck remain me how important could be Creature swap on today's meta (like I said in my previous post). He played one, but the strategy itself include some trading strategy due to psych jumper.

Now I want to attack about another side deck card against dark world. I know it maybe won't be any necessary because it seems DW fail to do anything competitive, but this side deck card is really fun to play.
Your opponent use Gates and discard Browwn, you chain Appropriate and draw 4!,  a dragged down later and you will have 3  more. With 7 new cards you can fight back all the card advantage DW created.

I still never use it, but it is my side deck waiting to mimic maxx C effect.

Next post will have a funny but usefull sidedeck card against Wind-up and Geargia.

Main deck decision for this format

Dark world is a major problem right now, and if you are get into a tournament in the next format, you should maindeck good solution against this match up.

Two Mystical space typhon:

Because shi en, ryko, lyla, sparks are not enough to deal with backrow. Sometime you need to destroy a card right away, like gates to the dark world or Skill drain.

Creature Swap:

Dark world use to leave Grapha on the field alone. Even if we can deal with him once (Dark hole for example), we still have to fight him again in the next turn. So, the best option is taking control of it. If your deck use some flooters (Machina, plants, laval, zombie, etc), you might use creature swap to take that grapha and control the field for at least until the grapha came to the field.

Bottomless:

It acomplish a better job than warning. It remove grapha, alius or excalibur. The only problem is that it is useless against shi en. But, not all the six samurai match is around shi en anymore.

good luck, and I hope you don't get dragged into the loss game

Old format?

I still remember sept 2011 Ban List, after that everybody was playing agents, plants and karakuri, they also were testing DW and dino-rabbits. While some people tried to pull off teleport and destiny draw at 2.

Right now, I feel we are almost in the same position. They are testing agents, plants and Dino-Rabbit. Also, DW and machinakarakurigeargiantX are making huge card advantage everywhere. While some people try to pull off teleport and destiny draw at 3.

So, this is like a dej'avu. At least until we get Abyss rising.

Skill Drain in the next format

We all can see know that Dark world will be the deck to beat in the next format, also with heros and six samurais. Since two of them can maindecked Skill Drain or don't bother if the opponent have skill drain on the field, we can see this card will shape the format.

-It will give the field control Dark World need to win. They already have the hand control thanks to Dragged down, we will be in a really hard position.

-It was usual main and side deck card against inzektor and wind-ups. In the next format will work against geargia, agents and plant decks (actually is a syncro deck with maybe 3 plants).

-At least in the next few months, Veiler will be less important than MST. So, prepare your deck for the battle. You can use a Skill drain based deck, or a deck with some kind of immunity against Skill Drain.

Finally The List

So, like many of us, I was completely wrong about the Banlist. This time Konami redeem himself and gave us a list that address problems from the present (Hornet, REDMD, Rescue Rabbit), problems from the past (teleport, destiny draw, spore, agent earth), and problems from the future (Brionac, gishki Kraken, ultimate offering).

This could assure a safe and diverse format at least for the next 4 months. So, expect a bunch of interesting decks from this blog :P

The Banlist Mistery

At this point I saw two different Banlist quite possible. Who knows if any of them are true or not.

We all need to wait a bite more...

September 2012 Banlist prediction

Banned:

Heavy storm
Black Luster soldier - envoy of the beggining
Wind-up Hunter
Sangan

Limited to 1:

Insektor Dragonfly
Solemn Warning
Red eyes darkness metal dragon
magician of faith / Dark magician of chaos / Witch of the black forest
grapha  the dark world dragon

Limited to 2

skill drain
Rescue rabbit

 BLS is a game shifter on his own. His 3000 de atk makes him really broken, which is far better that chaos sorcerer. On the other side, WU hunter is one of the reason wind-ups reach the top of the meta, this card is why we have to play veiler and maxx C if we want to go to a competitive tournament. In this game, there are some cards that shape the meta only because they exist. Some examples of that were: dark strike fighter, royal oppression, book of moon, royal tribute, shi en, among others. All of them get into the banlist because they restrict diversity on the game, and force the player to use a certain type of deck or some specific cards. I think is time for BLS and Hunter to be banned.

My fellow readers already know I'm one of the few persons who thinks Heavy Storm should be banned, again. But before explain why I believe this, maybe I should talk about why Heavy Storm were banned the first time two years ago. From the tactic point of view, heavy Storm is an unbalance card capable of break all the defensive line on the field, it leads into +X card advantage that ends in a total control for the heavy Storm's player. The absence of this card on the game made the game slower and strategic, card advantage was almost only possible with skill. From the financial point of view, it was a good way to sell Solemn Warning and Pot of duality. A few months later, the game was full of defensive cards, and Heavy Storm wnt back because his only presence on the game will make people set less back row. However, Konami took advantage of this meta characteristic, so decks capable of destroy M/T easily will be at the top of the meta. Lyla and ryko in Chaos Dragon, Hornet in Insektors, Laggia in DinoRabbits, Grapha in DW, all of them can easily manage a field with only one or two back row cards, and they also can acomplish other purpose if there is no back row in the field. The card advantage was huge and the OTKs were one step closer for everyone. Finally Konami created Hieratic, a clear signal that OTK decks have doors open in this format.

So, once again the presence of Heavy Storm lead us into a wrong path, and Konami already saw it. This game needs a resource to deal with back row fields, it must have harder activation process than Heavy Storm, but it must be less complicated than summon Black Rose Dragon. The middle point is the balance, that's why Konami have created Storm, Night Shot and Absorbing Jar. But he didn't stop, Konami have also shaped the next meta. The next meta deck is geargia, a deck who moves making continues +1 like a gadget 2.0 version, we all know that decks like this never afraid of heavy back row fields. The next deck is Atlantean, which have a boss monster only useful if your opponent set a lot of back row cards. The third deck is mermail, an OTK deck for fish, but mermail also have his own Heavy storm, it is searchable and immune to stardust or starlight. In the financial point of view, the absence of Heavy Storm will promote the sell of all this archetypes and Void Trap Hole (a super rare card in the OCG).
 
At this point in the game, we have xyz flooter monster for every rank from 2 to 6: Gachi gachi gagentsu, Wind-up zenmainess, Maestroke Djinn, Ninja Carmesi and Tiras. All of them are capable to deal with heavy backrow fields and maybe even destroy some of them in the process. The banlist I suggest here promote what konami have to time looking for, stimulate xyz monsters and new cards. Now I'm gonna explain why.

1.- Insektor is the first xyz summon engine of this game, all the xyz monsters that konami will create on the future will go through this deck. We lived the same effect with blackwings and synchros, that's why Insektor won't die too soon.Centipede will be still on the game, so we still have some way to search for dragonfly. Call of the hunted, Reborn and Reverse limit will let us taking back from the grave later. Aside, Insektor also have his own Heavy Storm in the form of Release Restraint Wave.

2.- Without Heavy in the game, people will be more open to set things, Chaos Dragon won't OTK so easily, and with REDMD limited we solve the Gustaph maxx issue. However, Chaos dragon still have his own Heavy storm and it is DarkStorm Dragon. He is one of the targets of LightPulsar Dragon. When pulsar dies, you can bring Darkstorm from the grave and if you didn't normal summon you could use his effect to clean the back row field. It won't be easy, but DarkStorm have a purpose, and his name is giving us a clue.

3.- With Heavy Storm out, Ninjas will be one of the most powerful decks on the game due to his strong trap cards and his ability to use Giant trunade every turn. That's why we will have a new Tin with Hanzo in the cover and new Ninja support in the next set cards. We all will have to use three MST in the main deck just to deal with this deck.

4.- Six samurai will take strength again because Magatama is one of the best trap cards in the game, However with only 1 warning, it will be difficult to avoid a single caius to remove Shi en. Also since everyone will be using three MST, the continuous  M/T won't be so good. This is a crucial job that Night Shot can not accomplish. Also, with Geargian on the game, machine archetype will rise again, wich makes Kinetic solider a common side deck in many decks. By the way, one of the few main decks solutions to deal with Kinetic soldier is a Kageki boosted with Shadow of the six samurai - shien effect or an excalibur. So those are more things that improve Konami's sales.

5.- Gravekkeper will be alive again, however with MST at three it won't be easy. Also, Geargia, mermail, atlantean, ninja and six samurai are not graveyard based decks. The lack of Royal oppression and the limitation of solem warning will be also an important weakness for this deck. By the way, the new prophecy spellcaster deck will be capable of search his own field spell card as fast as gravekeepers, so it will be a nice spell battle.

6.- Grapha have one of worse card design I have ever seen, it is almost as unbalance than BLS. The possibility of summon a 2700 atk wasting no resources is something that any deck should be capable of do. Also, the absence of Heavy Storm will increase the presence of Dark World Lightning and the strength of Grapha. So this deck could receive benefits in a format like this, but Why grapha should be limited instead of Dark World Dealing or Dragged down to the grave?, With grapha limited, the DW engine only purpose is summon some sillvas and some goldds, this will lead us in two directions. They can die against mirror force, torrential or a non effect 2700 atk monster like scrap archfiend, Or they overlay to bring a rank 5 xyz monster like tiras to deal with stardust and mirror force at the same time. The result only means more sales for Konami.

7.- Konami show us he is capable of restrict a TCG exclusive the day Tengu went at two. Nobody was expecting something like that because Tengu wasn't even arrive to the OCG meta. I think it was because Tengu promote something that Konami have no interest to promote anymore, syncro-only-based decks. They saw that Tengu will get to Asia when it won't have any financial purpose, so it was more convenient limited now. Is not the same case for Tour guide, it promotes rank 3 xyz monstes. The only problem with this card is that he search for sangan. But without him, Tour guide won't be so versatile. Also, The new archetypes like geargia and mermail promote only rank 4 monsters, while atlantean needs water monsters only. Tour Guide will exist still in the game, but her purpose will be overshadow by superior archetype where she just doesn't fit in because Sangan don't exist anymore.

8.- Rekindling won't be touch still because Konami still have a lot to explore inside the FIRE atribute, Firestar monster are the prove of that. Also, Konami knows we want to still play syncros, we want a balance game where we can use white cards and black cards, we want more options and that is what they are working on. Firestar is the future, but Atlantean is the present. Atlantean is the first demostration of a deck that abuse of the best tuner on the game, deep sea diva, and makes huge combos with water syncro monsters like brionac or gungir to active atlantean effects, in the same way, the deck needs Leviathan dragon and snowdust giant because they also active atlantean effects. Finally we will have a balance xyz and syncro deck where both of them are important. We can see something similar in  geargia since they can use karakuri to unleash more combos. Only time will tell us if these type of deck will exist.

9.- magician of faith / Dark magician of chaos / Witch of the black forest  are all in the same line because I'm not sure that they come back to game. Both magicians are important to retrieve cards like MST, however the only real reason for this cards to come back is if Konami really wants to push the new spellcaster. Who knows right now.

Maybe the banlist will have more things, but I think I have cover the important ones.

P.D. Remember this is only my opinion... I can still be 100% wrong about this.

Prediccion lista de Baneadas sept 2012

(I will translate this post to english in a few days)

Hace mucho que no escribia una entrada en español, sin embargo creo que esta entrada es algo mas relevante, por tanto la hare en los dos idiomas.

Prohibida:

Heavy storm
Black Luster soldier - envoy of the beggining
Wind-up Hunter
Sangan

Limitadas:

Insektor Dragonfly
Solemn Warning
Red eyes darkness metal dragon
magician of faith / Dark magician of chaos / Witch of the black forest
grapha  the dark world dragon

Semi-limitadas

skill drain
Rescue rabbit

La salida de BLS y WU hunter parecen un poco evidentes, BLS es una carta que cambia la direccion de un duelo por su propio peso, sus 3000 de atk hacen que sea una carta muy poco balanceada en comparacion de chaos sorcerer. Por otro lado, WU hunter es una de las razones por las que WU han alcanzado la cima del meta, esta carta es una de las forzosas razones por las cuales debemos llevar veiler y maxx C en un torneo competitivo. En este juego, hay cartas que por su solo existencia son capaces de darle forma a todo el meta, ejemplo de ello fue dark strike fighter, royal oppression, book of moon, royal tribute, shi en, entre otros. Todos ellos entraron en la lista para permitir la diversidad de nuevas cartas. Creo que es momento para que BLS y WU hunter entren en ella.

Mis mas fieles lectores sabran que soy de los pocos que creen que heavy storm deberia irse, otra vez. Antes de defender este punto de vista, quiza deberiamos hablar sobre porque se fue la 1º vez, y porque volvio hace un año. A nivel tactico, Heavy storm es una carta descompensante que permite desarmar toda la linea defensiva del campo, generando +X que ademas permiten obtener el control del duelo de forma perenne debido a la ventaja de cartas final. Su ausencia en el juego abrio las puertas a un juego mas tactico, donde la ventaja de cartas se ganaba de forma lenta. A nivel comercial, era una buena forma de vender solem warning y pot of duality. Con el tiempo, el juego se lleno de defensas en muchos decks, de modo que heavy storm tenia que volver, dado que su sola presencia haria que la gente setee menos. Sin embargo, Konami ha explotado esta caracteristica del meta haciendo que decks con la capacidad de destruir M/T vayan a la cima del meta. Lyla en Chaos dragon, Hornet en insektors, Laggia en DinoRabbit, Grapha en DW, todos ellos tienen la capacidad de destruir atras, pero ademas cumplen otras funciones cruciales, que pueden llevar tanto a una mayor ventaja de cartas como a estar un paso mas cerca de la victoria. La gente empezo a setear cada vez menos y esto llevo a mas OTK. Finalmente Konami creo Hieratic, señal clara de que se habian abierto las puertas hacia los OTK.

Nuevamente, la presencia de heavy storm nos ha llevado por mal camino. Sin embargo, Konami ya lo ha visto. Este juego necesita un metodo para limpiar las magias y trampas del campo que sea mas dificil de usar que heavy storm, pero sea menos complicado que intentar traer blackrose. En ese punto de equilibrio, Konami ha crea Storm, night shot y Absorbing jar. Pero no se ha quedado ahi, el siguiente deck que ha preparado es  geargia, un deck que viven constantemente haciendose +1, es una version gadget 2.0, todos sabemos que esa es una tematica que no teme a las magias y trampas defensivas. El segundo deck que ha preparado es atlantean, un deck, cuyo boss monster solo es util si tu oponente setea mucho. El tercer deck que ha preparado es mermail, un OTK por naturaleza para fish, pero ademas mermail tiene su propia heavy storm, buscable e inmune a stardust o starlight. A nivel economico, la ausencia de heavy promueve la venta de todos estos arquetipos y ademas la venta de void trap hole (una carta que es super rara en el OCG)

La lista que sugiero aqui promueve aun lo que konami lleva tiempo buscando, estimular la venta de xyz monster y de nuevas cartas, y ahora voy a explicar un poco el porque:

1.- Inzektor es el primero motor de convocacion para xyz monsters, y todos los xyz que creara konami en el futuro pasaran por este deck. Vivimos el mismo efecto en blackwings y los syncros, por ello Insektor no morira tan pronto, centipede sigue en juego, de modo que aun existen formas de hacer que dragonfly llegue a la mano, ademas tenemos call of the hunted, reborn y reverse limit para traer dragonfly o cualquier otro insektor a la mesa, seguir destruyendo y trayendo xyz monsters. El deck sera mas dificil de jugar, pero no habra muerto. Por otro lado, Insektor tiene su propia Heavy storm en la forma de release restraint wave.

2.- Sin heavy en mesa Chaos dragon tiene mas dificil realizar un OTK, y con REDMD limitado se soluciona el problema de gustaph maxx. Sin embargo, Chaos dragon tambien tiene su propia heavy, DarkStorm Dragon. Es uno de los objetivos de pulsar. Una vez que muera, puedes traer Darkstorm, y si no has convocado de forma normal aun puedes usar su efecto para limpiar las magias y trampas del campo. No sera facil, pero DarkStorm tiene un proposito, y su nombre nos ha dado la pista.

3.- Con heavy storm fuera, Six samurai volveran a coger fuerza, siendo magatama una de las mejores trampas del juego. Sin embargo, con solo un warning, sera dificil impedir que un simple caius rompa sus planes. Ademas, la entrada de geargia hara que mas arquetipos maquina vuelvan a surgir, kinetic soldier sera un side deck muy comun tanto en gergia como en karakuri. Por cierto, una de las pocas cartas en main deck que pueden lidiar con Kinetic soldier es un kageki potenciado por Shadow of the six samurai - shien. De modo que este xyz sera una razon mas para asegurar la victoria de six samurai y las ventas de Konami.

4.- Con heavy storm fuera, muchos de vosotros pensaran que Gravekeeper volvera a la vida, y posiblemente sea asi, lograra algunos avances significativos. Sin embargo, ni geargia, ni mermail, ni atlantean se ven afectados por necrovalley en gran medida. Ademas la ausencia de royal oppression y la limitacion de solem warning pueden ser decisivas. Incluso el futuro deck de magos puede buscar su propio campo tan rapido como gravekeeper y empezar una interesante batalla de conjuros.

5.- Grapha es una de las peores cartas diseñadas por konami, casi tan descompensante como BLS. La capacidad de poner en la mesa un 2700 de atk sin gastar ningun recurso, es algo que ningun deck deberia ser capaz de hacer. Ademas, la ausencia de heavy aumentaria la presencia de dark world lightning y la potencia de Grapha. Este deck claramente recibiria notorias ventajas en un formato asi, sin embargo, ¿Porque limitar Grapha en lugar de tocar algun motor de robo como DW dealing o Dragged to the grave?, con grapha casi ausente, la unica ventaja que se puede sacar con estos motores es traer un puñado de sillvas y golds, esto nos lleva en 2 posibles direcciones, o se mueren todos ante una mirror force, torrential o un monstruo de 2700 atk. O, se superponen para traer un xyz de rank 5 como tiras, capaz de lidiar con stardust y mirror force a la vez. El resultado significa mas ventas de xyz para Konami.

6.- Konami nos demostro que es capaz de tocar una TCG exclusive cuando Tengu se fue a 2. Nadie se lo esperaba porque la carta nisiquiera habia llegado al OCG: Yo creo que esto se debe a que la carta impulsaba algo que a Konami ya no le interesa promover, decks basados exclusivamente en syncronizar. Para cuando Tengu llegara al OCG ya no tendria ningun fin comercial, era mas conveniente limitarlo ahora. Sin embargo, Tour guide es diferente, este promueve XYZ monsters de rank 3. Es cierto que busca sagan y eso es un gran problema, pero sin Sangan en el juego se disminuye el poder de tour guide. Ademas Konami promueve monstruos de rank 4 en geargia y mermail, mientras que en atlantean tienen que ser water. Tour guide seguira existiendo pero sus objetivos se veran ligeramente desfasados por arquetipos superiores donde ella ya no encaja porque sangan ya no existe.

7.- Rekindling no sera tocado aun, porque Konami aun tiene mucho que explotar en el atributo fuego. Los Firestar son prueba de ello. De hecho Firestar es la prueba de que Konami sabe que aun queremos jugar syncros, queremos un equilibrio donde podamos jugar tantas cartas blancas como negras, queremos mas opciones, y eso es lo que nos esta dando. Atlantean es la 1º demostracion dado que abusa de uno de los mejores tuners del juego, deep sea diva, ademas en este deck tanto brionac como gungir tiene crucial importancia porque sus efectos de descarte activan los efectos atlatean, de la misma manera lo hace leviathan dragon y snowdust giant. Por fin un perfecto equilibrio entre xyz y syncros donde ambos son cruciales. Algo similar podemos obtener si combinamos geargia y karakuri, aunque casi no sucede en mermail. Solo el tiempo nos dira si este tipo de decks podran existir.

8.- magician of faith / Dark magician of chaos / Witch of the black forest estas tres estan todas bajo el mismo apartado porque la verdad no estoy seguro de su regreso. Los dos primeros pueden ser clave para recuperar MST, pero la verdad, estas tres solo volverian segun el interes que tenga Konami en potenciar el nuevo arquetipo de magos. Habra que esperar a ver que sucede.

Posiblemente la lista tenga aun mas cosas de las que he puesto yo en ella, pero creo que he cubierto lo mas importante.

P.D. Recuerden que esto es solo mi opinion... aun puedo estar 100% equivocado XD

Coe-Mermail Duels

This time I will show you some videos about some random duels, on my next post I will make an analysis about the deck and the combos in general.

Sadly, my computer have some problems and I can't insert the videos here. So, you will have to follow the links to youtube to see it.

The first one is only an easy demostration of me, wasting resources in order to summon coelacanth. All thanks to the new mermail engine.

On this one I didn't draw Coleacanth, however I explode all the power of the mermail archetype.

At the begining you can see how I can summon abysspike and gachi without wasting any card advantage. I could summon coelacanth earlier, as you can see, but I'm not an OTK kind of person.

The deck have even more power than this, and probably you will find more people building similar and better decks about mermails. Keep an eye on these because it is gonna be the key to see where the next format is going.

Nimble Goosefish (Angler)

Nimble Goosefish is even better than I thought... it is the next Dandylion of the xyz era.

"if this card is send it to the grave from the hand or deck, special summon up to two nimble monster from the deck."

Foolish burial to Nimble G. Special summon two Nimble momonga from the deck:

 Tribute one for a monarch, or both for light and darkness dragon.

 Or
summon junk synchron, bring back Nimble G. and synco summon Junk warrior with 4300 atk, then overlay both Nimble momonga to summon gachi gachi, so Junk warrior will have 4700 atk.

You can also summon Nimble G when Nimble sunfish is destroyed by battle. That will let you summon another nimble sunfish and two other nimble monster (thanks for the comment jaymie). All three of them will let you summon Dark Mist on your next turn.

Or

You can special summon Quickdraw synchron sending Nimble G. from your hand, then summon two nimble monster from the deck, and you will be ready to summon some good syncro monsters.

The card is full of posibilities, and the best combos lies on the new mermail monsters and coelacanth. I already made the deck and is really good. (some videos soon)

Coelacanth's new field

(Check out my previous post if you didn't read it)

So, I forgot that coelacanth negate the effect of the monsters summoned. You can make a huge field anyway, but it won't take a huge card advantage.

So, let's show this:

You mill nimble with fishborg planter eff. So, you will summon two nimble monsters and fishborg planter. (this part could also work if you mill Mermail - Abysshilde, but it is harder to accomplish)  Tribute both nimble monster to summon Coelacanth, and since you have another fish on field, your combo won't be stop by veiler or fiendish chain (except if your opponent have both at the same time).

At this point there are two options, your opponent waste a veiler or not. So I will continue the combo considering my opponent didn't waste veiler foolishly.

Now you can use coelacanth eff, discard a card to summon: Nimble sunfish, Royal swamp Eel and Mermail - Abysspike. My field right now is: Fishborg planter,Coelacanth, nimble sunfish, royal swamp eel and mermail Abysspike.

Summon Stardust with royal swamp and mermail abysspike. Summon gachi gachi with fishborg planter and nimble sunfish. And if the situation make it possible, summon Mermail megaloabyss from my hand and search  for Depthscale -Kraken from the deck. Xyz summon Mermail Gaioabyss using coelacanth and megaloabyss, so you will have the ultimate lock.

1.- 2900 atk stardust on the field.
2.- Gachi gachi (it is good anyway)
3.- 3200 atk Mermail Gaioabyss: lv5 or higher won't attack you, so Gachi won't die easily. And you can negate effect monster with atack less than 3200 (that's all monster on this game).

Also, since you search for Depthscale - Kraken, you can negate another effect.

Now, About how you will get all those cards together. You only need megaloabyss and coelacanth in your hand, also random water cards on your hand. You have a lot of things to send fishborg planter to the grave or nimble in the top deck. In fact, nimble sunfish can send fishborg planter to the grave and summon another nimble sunfish. Also we have now three different nimble water fish monster on the game, and all three of them are really awesome.

I will add some picture later. Check out all mermail monsters, they have a lot of sinergy with nimble monsters and coelacanth eff.

Coelacanth will rise from the Abyss

ABYR-JP030  Fishborg planter WATER/Fish - Effect/2/200/200 You can activate this effect once while this card is in the Graveyard. Send the top card from your deck to the Graveyard. If the sent card was a WATER Monster, Special Summon this card from your Graveyard afterwards. The Effect of "Fishborg Planter" can only be used once per turn. ABYR-JP031 Nimble Angler WATER/Fish - Effect/2/600/100 If this card is sent from the hand or the deck to the Graveyard, Special Summon up to 2 Level 3 or lower "Nimble" Monster other than "Nimble Angler" from your deck. Mill nimble angler with fishborg planter effect. Special summon planter and 2 Nimbles for the deck. Tribute two monster to summon coelacanth. Active Coelacanth eff, your opponent will use veiler to negate you, but you will negate veiler with coelacant eff. Special summon 4 mermail fish monster and use their effects to get huge hand and field advantage. Now you can summon 2 xyz monsters or chaos number 32, or whatever you want. Also, coelacanth is level 7 like megalo-abyss (which you just search from the deck with mermail abysspike eff), so you can summon mermail gai-abyss. The end result is at least Utopia, roach and Mermail gai-abyss. I will develop this combo with further details on the next days. But the final conclusion is: Coelacanth is back....

Chaos Skull duels

These are three great example of what the deck is capable of.

On this video, my opponent use card destruction and a virus to take a huge advantage over me. I tried to make stardust and put the third dark on the grave to summon DAD. But tuning send a dark to the grave, so I had to summon DAD earlier. I bring Scrap dragon to the field and control the duel with it.

On this one, I was afraid of vanity fiend, even though I did nothing to prevent his summon. I draw poorly until a dog's chance came up, but I made a mistake summon red archfiend, with a level 5 and a level 2. It could be easily solved it if I just summoned another pulsar anyway. Drill warrior let me send a dark to grave to push for the game.

On this case, for some reason my opponent didn't loop me. So I summon Drill warrior and use my whole hand. he tried to use torrential tribute when drill warrior summoned back, but it isn't possible because torrential tribute miss timing. For some reason he really wanted to waste that torrential, so I let him use it with pulsar on the field and I didn't lose a monster. I guess he had gorz, so I used drill eff to make a direct attack. I attacked first with pulsar, when he summoned gorz, I attacked directly with drill warrior for the game.

In conclusion a would say:

1.- A dog's chace is excelent with chaos monsters and level eater. Maybe it could be a key card for some syncron deck with tuningware or darksea rescue.

2.- Quickdraw syncron and drill warrior are great to retrieve veiler and piper in any lv1 deck. Also unknown syncron and a dog's chance means Formula syncron in any turn, also a dark and light could be send it to the grave without using some random milling system.

3.- Skull servant and wightmare is the most efficient dark lv1 engine because it works great in the grave and can be easily send it even with his own eff (wightmare).

I honestly believe this is not a high competion deck, but it have important combos that could lead into something bigger.

The KiD

 The best part of playing aliens is when you summon alien KID and say: "The KiD is on the house"

Yes, I 'm having a really good time playing aliens. 

The emperor's holiday

I have been using The Emperor's holiday against insektor, and it usually works, except when the opponent draw mst. :S

It stop hornet, lady bug, giga-mantis and zetkaliber, so they don't gain the boost atk.

I have Time!!!

So, I finally have some time to write again. I have been playing many things on DN and I have some things to comment about.

I have been trying to use king of the skull servant with Wigthmare, it is good in a sort of chaos variant, because wightmare let you control the number of darks in the grave. However, the deck is not really good, I don't know if it is my fault or is because the idea is bad, even though it have some awesome moves. Anyway, check the decklist and then I will explain how all this suppose to work:

3 King of the skull servant
3 Wightmare
3 Mystic piper
2 Level eater
1 Sangan
3 Quickdraw synchron
3 Eclipse wyvern
2 Red-eyes darkness metal dragon
3 Lightpulsar dragon
1 Darkflare dragon
1 Chaos sorcerer
1 Black luster soldier
2 tragoedia
1 Gorz
3 veilers

2 Tuning
2 A dog's chance
1 Reborn
1 Allure
1 One for One
1 Heavy Storm

So, You probably don't see the pattern here. The first combo is removing eclipse and skull servant to summon a chaos monster, Then I will use wightmare to summon skull servant from the RFG and attack with it. Of course, all this have to happen on a late game. So, I tried to add some light and dark cards to establish a first turn play. that's why I add 3 pipers and 2 tragoedias. Between the spells cards we have "one for one" to bring piper or skull servant and put some cards on the grave quickly. A dog's chance accomplish the same purpose, you just need to summon tragoedia and change his level to1. or bring back level eater from the grave and use a dog's chance to get piper.

Talking about level eater, the card is awesome. Many of you already know that, it is a key card on junk doppel, and it was a useful element on scraps, fableds among others. On this deck, level eater let you do 4 different things:

1.- It let you active and use a dog's chance successfully. Because you need to normal summon or you loss 2000 damage.

2.- It protect your life points. Even if your opponent find a way to destroy pulsar and redmd, he won't touch your life points if he doesn't have another monster.

3.- It change Monster levels. Which is really important right now. You can change pulsar and sorcerer  level to 5. That allow you to summon Tiras or Adreus. You have Darkflare and Quickdraw for that to.

4.- Easy Quickdraw summon. With level eater and a lot of chaos monster you can summon quickdraw without any problem. You can summon Pulsar/chaos sorcerer, use eater eff and tribute to summon quickdraw, then use eater eff again and syncro summon drill warrior.

5.- Two level eater makes easy Golden Rat summons, which means you have an extra engine to draw more cards and add a light monster to the grave.

By the way, Drill warrior is one the of the best card for a chaos deck. It allow you recover piper to constantly draw, or veiler to constantly negate effects. You can send redmd or skull monsters to prepare your grave for big plays. And you can retrieve chaos sorcerer or BLS.

I will upload some videos about the deck soon. I promise.

Gold series 5 is only Meta Predictor

I always saw gold series like a warning for things to come. The first gold series brought us breaker the magical warrior, months after that breaker was unbanned. The gold series 2 brought us "exiled of the wicked", a card that destroy all fiends on the field. The next year, infernity arrived to the meta. And gold series 4 brought us Eradicating aerosol, a card that destroy all insect on the field. A year from that, insektor came out. Also, BLS was reprinted and then unbanned.

So, now we can see gold series 5 and ask ourselves, There is something here that will impact the future?

Many amazoness warrior were reprinted just before the new amazoness support were released. So, we could expect some new dark scorpion support for the next format.

Barkion and Beast are good on six samurai and karakuri, so probably neither of them will be hit by the ban list.

Too many zombies appear on gold series 5, could we see a zombie come back on the next format??


I already tested the next structure deck and it is really good. However, you will need three hanzos to play it. I will show you some videos when I finish some issues of my personal life.

Tag Duel

I think I never talk about my personal life on this blog. I mean, my personal yugi-oh life. So, maybe is time to through some light on that.

I'm a tournament organizer on Cordoba, Spain. Some friends and I made a project to use a government house to play card games. The entire House is used for children's activities, we only made to project to use one room, one day, each week. The project was approved, so we go a play in a safe and nice play, where nobody messes with us, or nobody is forcing us to buy anything. I'm really proud of all we build there, if you want to know more about it, you can check CordobaDeck's blog.

We decide to spice things a little since the format become so nasty. That is the point when I re-designed the Tag Duel rules. This new rules are pretty similar to old UDE rules about tag duels, 2 (A and B) players play against 2 (C and D) players in teams and take turns to make the moves. So First turn is player A, second Turn is player C, then Player B, and finally D. Then it goes to player A again and so on.

The new thing here is the entire team has to follow the ban list. For example, only one player (A or B) can have heavy storm in the deck. Another new rule is that both players share the field, the graveyard and RFG, but they don't share the deck, the extra deck or their hands. This means that you can syncro or xyz summon with the monsters of your partner, or use call of the hunted on your partner monster. The best part maybe is that you can remove your partner monster to summon light Pulsar or chaos Sorcerer.

The result was delightful, we played an entire tournament with 6 teams and it was fun as hell. The winner was a Twilight-inzektor team. If you want to know more about the rules you can read on this link, but it is in spanish. I can translate it if anyone really want it.

I hope you like this idea.

A lot of things to say

I know I haven't post as usual as I used to, I really haven't too much time for that. And as you can read for my older posts, I don't feel on the mood. However I have a lot of things to say, one of those things is Heavy storm.

Heavy storm had to come back after all people setting their entire back row. It was clear to all of us, that the psychological effect of heavy storm in the game is important. However, right now I think we all see thing a little different. Wind-up, chaos dragon and heriatics are creating some many OTKs everywhere, and we can't create a backrow defense because of Heavy storm (and MST at 3). We also have Insektor, Rabbit and DW, they are not as deadly as the other three, but the presence of heavy is also a problem against them. We could think this is konami's fault and maybe it is, but that is not the point. Heavy storm become a problem by itself, it makes lightsworm, karakuri and agents really deadly. Somehow we forgot how broken is Heavy storm, and why it shouldn't be on the game.

What we need is something with the same effect of heavy storm, but with more cost or harder to play, I mean less broken. That is why I thought Heavy storm will be banned when Storm and Absorbing Jar was created, but it didn't happen. In fact, any card that should be banned was not banned in March. But today things become more clear to me.

First we have Poseidra as the boss monster of the next structural, wich effect only work on a format without heavy. And now we have an exclusive Heavy storm for the water archtype (Abyss-Strom) that send cards (not destroy). So, right now I feel pretty sure of heavy storm is going to be banned on september.

The result is pretty simple; we will be able to build a defense line against Insektor, Wind-up and heriatics. Older decks like BW, GB or GK will rise again, but only the decks which can be abuse of "Storm" will reach the competitive level, like Ninjas. Also ninjas have a lot of synergy with dragons, sea serpents and dinosaurs, three archetype that are well supported right now.

Honestly I see the game going in a good direction in september, if I'm right...

Alien invasion

I have been testing aliens lately and it give me good results. It has hard matchs, but any rouge deck on this format has it so. The best part is the possibility to use prohibition to stop Hornet or rescue rabbit, however it become almost a dead draw against chaos deck because I'm forced to call lyla or ryko or prohibition gets destroyed. 

The deck in general has some strong points that I will be glad to discuse after you see the decklist:

Monster

3 A Warrior

3 A KID

1 A telepath

3 A ammonite

3 A dog

2 Rai-oh

1 Honest

Magic

1 MST

2 Prohibition

3 Code A ancient ruins

2 Mysterius triangle

3 duality

trap

2 bottomless

2 Warnings

2 planet popullant virus

2 starlight

1 mirror foce

1 Solem judgment
1 Torrential Tribute
2 Offering to the snake deity

In a format like this, a lot of decks are constantly special summon monsters on the field, I can deal with them easily with alien kid and mysterious triangle. Also offering to the snake help a lot, but the best trap card is popullant virus, it is like raigeki with an added bonus. Prohibition is an usual side card against inzektor, but it can be usefull against dw, rabbit, wind-up, among others. It can be twice as usefull if you can take back prohibition to your hand to change the target according to the game state. But probably many of you don't know to put back prohibition to your hand. That is the great ability of the alien syncro monster.

I will make a few videos to show you how fun it is, but since DN don't have a system to track counter, I only play this deck against friends. If anyone want to duel me, you can do it.

Sea emperor and Hanzo

SD23-JP001 SeaEmperor Dragon Poseidra

WATER/Sea-Serpent - Effect/7/2800/1600

Activate this effect by Releasing 3 Level 3 or lower WATER Monster you control. Special Summon this card from your hand or Graveyard. When this card is successfully Special Summoned by this effect, return all Magic and Trap Cards on the field to their respective owner's hands. If 3 or more cards are returned to the hand(s) by this effect, all Monster your opponent controls lose 300 ATK x the number of cards returned to the hand(s)

SD23-JP004 Armed Soldier of the Sea Empero

WATER/Sea-Serpent - Effect/2/0/1600

While this card is face-up on the field, once per turn during your Main Phase, you can Normal Summon 1 Level 4 or lower Sea-Serpent-Type Monster in addition to your Normal Summon or Set. (You can only gain this effect once per turn.). When this card is sent to the Graveyard for the activation of a WATER Monster's effect, select 1 face-up card your opponent controls and destroy it.

Hanzo search for ninjitsu, then use the trap card to eliminate an opponent monster and summon Sea emperor dragon Poseidra. When Poseidra is in your grave, you can summon Armed soldier of the sea emperor, summon diva on the same turn and summon another lv3 water via diva's eff. Then send everything to special summon Poseidra from the grave. Also Armed soldier will destroy a card on the field and Poseidra eff will let you retrieve ninjtsu to your hand to summon another poseidra.

It looks good to me.

Amaryllis duels

To answer some of the comments on my previous post, I did try a lot of engines before but there is any competitive plant that can step aside on this format. One of the best things I have been trying was cactus fighter, but it doesn't have a chance against insektors and heros. The main problem here is that there is not more plants capable of work with skill drain on the field, dark plants isn't a choice either by the same reason. I did tried mystic tomato and it work good. But a second or third duality could be even better to give consistency to trade-in. Milling is also not a choice because the deck keep searching for especific cards that shouldn't be mill (skill drain or trade-in).

Today I present 4 duels to some how explain how the work on a duel. There were some others duels that I recorded but I won't upload because I loss by OTK. There is nothing interesting on that, probably we all loss by OTK from time to time on this format.

On this duel my opponent end up with a field full of tuners, so I just need to bottomless the only no tuner on the field to stop the swarm.

This is he second duel against the same person, the burn damage of amaryllis did half of the job.

He manage to summon big monster all the time, but I win anyway using his own monster against him.

This is a lame machina-cyber dragon deck. We played three games and this is the only one I lost. In fact, I would also win this one if I summon Interplanetarypurplythorny dragon when tytania gets destroyed in 2:40.

This is a wind-up deck not focus on the combo. Skill drain rape all his moves and I slowly win.

As you can see, the deck is pretty slow and need the opponent to invest a lot on the field. I'm not sure what else I can do about. The deck really need two lonefire blossom.

I'm testing a totally different deck right now, I hope it gets better results.

Phoenixian Cluster Amaryliss - Skill Drain

After weeks of testing, I believe we have three options. We can play one of the three top tier deck of the format (rescue rabbit, inzektor or wind-up), or play a kind of skill drain deck (Dark world, hero-Fusion, etc) or play an OTK deck (Dragons chaos, Burn deck, Herietic, etc).

Beyond those three options, there are few toptiers two decks floating around the tournaments, which is nice. I see we have a lot of diversity, however I never like OTK decks or heavy investment decks (Rescue rabbit), I rather play Frog Monarch the whole format instead of any competitive deck right now.

How I said on my previous post, I have been working on plants on the last few weeks. Even without spore and bulb, the archetype still have good options. Some of them are perfect for a skill drain deck like Cherry inmato, phoenix cluster amaryliss, lonefire Blossom and botanical girl. I manage to create a deck about all these cards and it give me a lot of victories, but it still fall on consistency. I will show and explain the decklist and then I will explain why I think the archetype hasn't the potential to survive right now.

Monster 17

2 Botanical girl
2 Phoenix Cluster Amaryliss
2 Tytaniall

3 Cherry Inmatto
1 Lonefire blossom
1 Sangan
2 Goblin zombie
1 Mezuki
1 Plaguespreader zombie
2 Interplanetarypurplythorny Dragon (LOL)

15 spell

1 Allure of Darkness
1 Dark hole
1 Reborn
1 Hidden armory
2 MST
2 Mark of the roses
2 Duality
2 D.D.R.
3 Trade in

8 Trap

2 Skill drain
2 Torrential tribute
1 Solemn judgment
1 mirror force
1 starlight road
1 bottomless trap hole

I love Mark of the roses, it is one of the best cards on the game and is a great match for D.D.R. You can remove tytanial to steal an opponent monster with The mark and then bring back tytanial with DDR to push for a big amount of damage. Then, if the opponent is still alive, you can summon amaryliss from your grave to seal the deal.

Botanical girl help to search for amaryliss so you can discard it with trade-in. Cherry inmato fill your graveyard with plants to more burn damage with amaryliss. Also I first turn cherry inmato means that you can have two inmatos on the field on the next turn and one in the grave, everything ready to use a Mark of the rose for a lv6 or lv8 syncro.

Interplanetarypurplythorny dragon (IPPT Dragon) is a great beater that can be summon when cherry inmato dies (or botanical girl or goblin zombie). It also let you make a lv7 syncro like Power tool dragon. So you can search for mark of the rose and prepare for a big punch. IPPT is also good with skill drain and is another dark for allure of darkness.

The zombie engine is another great dark strategy immune to skill drain, you can blow a lot of combos with ddr and mezuki. And plaguespreader zombie is another lv2 tuner to make Power tool dragon with IPPT dragon.

So, the deck has a great strategy but it lacks of resources. Lonefire at one is a big problem to deck since it don't came out as fast as it should be. Also the deck lacks of strength on the normal summon, like probably all the syncro decks left on the game.

I'm a little tired of the deck right now. But I will upload some videos about it just to show you his potential. If anyone has any idea about how it could be better, please say it.

Long time ago

Have been awhile since I don't post on the blog, and just like me, a lot of people have stopped blogging and posting often. This game has changed a lot, and this trend will remain until September (I hope). Honestly right now I don't expect anything. My life has been as chaotic as this game, and I can't keep waiting for some peace.

Don't get me wrong, I keep playing, in the same way I keep living. But I feel nothing good comes from me. Maybe I should change the name of the blog, btw the name of this blog (Outstanding innovations) is not pretentious way to say I'm good. It is about the love a have to "outstanding dog marron", a card that brings a lot of good memories about my childhood.

Anyway, lets go back to yugioh issues before you stop reading this blog. In the last month a lot of yugi-oh things have been happen. Dark world has won the 100th YCS while Rabbit won YCS Lima. Also, more cards from "Return of the Duelist" have been revealed and I feel happy there is nothing too broken on it. Looks like others atributtes besides light and dark are going to be rewarded, which is cool.

Hieroglyph have taken a spot in the meta on OCG, in the only way possible, been an OTKdeck. While Heros and DW made a remerge tothe meta on TCG. Maybe the game is not a total mess, I mean at least we have a few deck options.

I will post my actual deck in the next post, a plant deck of course.

Another side deck card against wind up

You can use Veiler and Maxx C (group 1), or you can use Fiendish chain, macro cosmos and skill drain (group 2). If you choose the first group, you will stop the combo only for one turn. If you choose the second group, you will be vulnerable to MST and heavy storm.

However, with different dimenssion ground you can stop the combo even if your opponent MST you. But just like veiler, the combo will only be stop for one turn.

the advantage of D.D. ground over veiler and maxx C is that DD ground can also hit Dark World.

I know I have been absence from this blog, maybe things change on april.... maybe.

The Right Banlist

I understand this game is business for Konami, when we see an awesome broken card, they see a piece of paper with huge profits for the company. We know that and we accept it from the beginning. Even though, we keep playing this game because we like it. we used to believe we were receiving what we pay for.

This game has been evolving a lot in the last four years. After Tele-DAD format, this game has been going down on prince, and his complexity attracted a lot of people. Good design (solem warning), tactical decisions (Shi en), Complex strategies (Fishborg blaster), and complex card effects (karakuri). All of these are excellent examples of the things we loved about yugi-oh in the last few years. All these things require skill and experience to be performed perfectly.

However things have been changing a lot lately. Usually Konami push the game to the limit at the end of each format, but this time is not the case. This new format has all the broken decks on it, and what is worst, the next decks of the following months have to be even more broken in order to get a spot in meta and increase konami's profits.

After all these goods years, how could we live with this? How could we play if only a coin toss could kill us? Would we deserve to win only because we draw broken cards?

Why we have to keep feeling this? We shouldn't have to... We buy the cards, we think about it, we play the game, we are yugi-oh, Why we have to let somebody else put the rules? We love this game and now is time to protect it.

Maybe we need to create our own banlist, a good one. A banlist established by the best players in the game (National and continental champions) working together for a healthy format.

We need to show konami and the world what we are capable of. If you think the same, spread this idea. We need to organize us.

Heavy Storm banned?

As I espected, the full set of galactic overload has been revealed and it clearly shows evol like the next topdeck in the game. With his own personal "Reinforcement of the army" and more versatile monster to create laggia and dolkka (and rank 5-6 monsters as well). Right now there are 6 magic cards that let you search for a dinosour-evol.

Also, there are two cards capable of clean backrow fields with more tactical moves. So there is a chance that heavy storm will be ban in the next list. The card's name are: Storm and absorb pod.

I will writte more about galactic overload if I find enough time to do it.