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.