The card advantage dilemma (2014 edition)

Problem: Your opponent is trying to search his whole deck

Solution: Active Mistake

Problem: Your opponent already search his whole in the first turn

Solution: Xyz summon verzbeaute and wipe out the whole field. Then set Mistake and stop all future bullshit. 

Final Conclusion: Enjoy a fair game where you and your opponent try to overcome each other by destroying cards, inflict damage and making good reads.

(Also you will have to pay for 3 copies of Mistake and 2-3 copies of Verzbeaute, which probably cost 100$ each piece)

Draw 6 or mill 6?? Up to you bro!

The picture speak for itself so.. LOL

Chaos - Oath deck sept 2013

Hi everyone, I have been testing archfiend of Oath since the time I found that guy who beat me. After a lot of testing I finally make this built.

3 armageddon knight
3 Dark grepher
1 Evilswarm ketos
2 Dimensional alchemist
2 Photon trasher
1 Chaos sorcerer
1 Black luster Soldier - envoy of the beginning
1 Dark armed dragon
2 Plaguespreader zombie
3 Destiny hero malicious
3 Wybustar the ivory dragon
3 Collapserpent the ebony dragon
2 Tragoedia
1 Gorz
2 Maxx C
2 Effect veiler
1 Archfiend of Heiress

1 Reinforcement of the army
1 Allure of darkness
1 Foolish burial
2 D.D.R. different dimension reencarnation
2 Archfiend's oath

The key combo here is summoning Lavalval Chain and send Heiress to the grave to search for Archfiend's Oath. In that way, you can put any monster on the top (BLS) and then name it with Oath effect to add it instantly.

Dark grepher, armageddon, trasher, ivory and ebony are some of the cards made it to accomplish that goal. According to your grave, you can search for DAD or BLS. Also, you can make the usual malicious-plagues combo. Plaguespreader zombie is a great card with Oath, and you can use it more than once if you draw DDR. I trully recommend this deck, one of the best things I ever played.

Now I leave you with a video of "Igiveup"the man who show me this strategy. Also, you should look out for a previous video on my channel, because I uploaded more things about this deck.

New xyz black rose?!

According to all the ocg sources right now, there is a new rank 4 xyz monsters wich looks like this:

2 level 4 monsters 

1900 atk / 0 def

If the total number of cards your opponent controls and has in their hands is higher than the total number of cards you control and in your hand, you can activate this effect by removing 1 Xyz Material from this card. Destroy all other cards on the field. This effect can only be activated during your Main Phase or your opponent's Battle Phase.

Which means we finally have a black rose xyz monster, even though we can only active his effect if we are losing... pretty good, dont you think?

I really believe this card is going to shape the game. From now on, field presence is too dangerous, while card advantage (in hand) and draw power means everything. 

Also, maybe this cards could work in Crystal Beast because they never actually loss a monsters if it goes destroy.... time to testing I guess. 

P.D: Did you realize this card don't have the "once per turn" restriction and is also light??

The man who beat me with my own strategy

This time I bring you a chaos deck, which I have being building to add bls - envoy of the twilight, A 3000 atk beastick. To summon it, you have to remove all lights or darks in grave, while you have the same amount of each atribute in grave. His effects are not really good and if you active it, you can not attack that turn. That is why this card is garbage for most people. But I think it have a lot of potential if you control the grave. Another card that I'm trying to add is Chaos seed. Which let you add a dark or light warrior monster from the RFG. If you play it correctly, you could make a loop between both BLS mosnter and Chaos seed, so you will always have a lv8 3000 atk monster.

I started testing this idea, but suddenly I faces a guy who was playing the same deck, at least that what I thought until I realized He was doing it two or three times better than mine.The real key of the deck is Archfiend's Oath. A card that never saw the light of the competitive game until lavalval chain was release.

Al, Archfiend's Oath makes a huge combo with Plagespreader zombie and Malicious. You just put Malicious on top due to Plaguespreader effect and then, you only need to name any card and Malicious will hit the grave.

I will leave you now with the duel we had. Sadly the Audio is in Spanish, but I the most important things have been said on this post already. 

Neo-Spacian Decklist September 2013

I think I have been posting too many things about this topic. I was trying to make things better, add some audio to the videos and even making it both in english and spanish, but I think it takes too much effort, time and space. I will keep making videos about the decks I built, the audio will be in spanish but I will add english subtitles. I really think that is the best solution, but you can leave a comment about it if you want.

So, going back to the topic of this post. Neo-Spacian is an OTK deck that needs only card to win, but you have to make a huge set up first:

1.- You need at least hummingbird and Neos in the grave (it still work if you have them in the field or in your hand, but it is better and easier if they are in grave.
2.- You need less life points than your opponent (because the winning condition es Neos).
3.- You need Miracle Contact.

Before continue with this explanation, here is the deck list:

3 Elemental hero prisma
2 Elemental hero neos
2 Hummingbird
2 Aqua Dolphin
1 Flare Scarab
1 Grand Mole
2 Tragoedia
1 Gorz
2 Cardcar D

3 A hero lives
3 Convert Contact
3 Miracle Contact
2 Miracle Fusion
3 MST
1 Book of moon
1 Dark hole
3 Upstar Goblin

3 Reckless Greed
1 Evacuation device

And now the extra deck because you cant figure out in your own...

2 Air neos
1 Aqua neos
1 Flare neos
1 Magma neos
1 Grand neos
1 Storm neos
1 H. Absolute zero
1 H. Nova master
1 H. Hero gaia
1 H. Great Tornado
1 H. The shinning
1 excalibur
1 Zenmaines
1 Diamond dire wolf

The main goal of the deck is winning with Air neos, who's attack increases according to the difference of life points between you and your opponent (when you are losing). In a perfect situation, your opponent will have like 11000 life points and you will have 1000 or so... Which means that Air neos attack will be 12500 atk.

How can we get our wining condition? We have 3 upstar goblin to increase deck consistence and also increase the opponent life points. Convert contact not only works like Destiny draw, it is also a foolish burial, which is great. You can only active convert contact in an empty field, which means we have to leave our field open, this is good because we can take damage from the opponent, also this work great with cardcar D and A hero lives. Talking about A hero lives, this should be the main reason this deck is good. You can use it to lower your own life points (increasing Air neos attack) and bring Elemental hero Prisma, he will work in two ways. Prisma will send any material to the grave for miracle contact or miracle fusion, and he will become a material for some contact fusions.

I also added gorz and tragoedia because an empty field is always a good place for those cards. Reckless greed is there because we have too much draw power (which means we could pull two reckless greed at the same time).

You can see how this work in the videos I uploaded the last week, so I think I don't need to say anything else.

I hope you like it and be ready for some chaos post.

Neo-Spacian VS Laval 2013

This is the last video about Neo-Spacian that I will ever made. The deck is good, is not a tier 1 deck, maybe not even a tier 2 deck. But its fast, cheap and fun. My next post will be deck list and finally I will be moving on to more exciting things.

Black Corn is legal in Europe but Adam Corn is illegal in America

Adam Corn was caught with "marked sleeves". Apparently he did it so good that the judges had to do three "RANDOM" deck checks on his table to finally found he was cheating....

According to him, all was framed to disqualified him. It is statistically impossible have three random deck checks. I honestly don't know what to believe, I have been reading Adam Corn feature match since the times of Metagame.com. I truly admired how he used to play, but time have changed and now everything behind the game look more dark than ever.

I leave you with his interview and you can find more about this topic in the blogs I recommend.

Neo-Spacian vs Fire King (Storm neos y Magma neos) Spanish

I made another video about Neo-Spacian. Don't worry, soon I will be uploading more content in english. 

The real number behind Six Sense

Considering Dragon rulers has the deck with more draw power in the meta, we can widely agree the fact that they will be adding Six Sense into the main deck. But how many times they will be able to active it? And even if the do, how many times they will draw 5 or 6 cards?

Considering a normal hand of 6 cards, there is a 15% chance of draw Six Sence, and of course, a 33.3% of resolving the card correctly and drawing 5 or 6 cards. Which means there is a 5% chance of drawing +4 or +5 in any game, or 10% chance of milling 1 to 4 cards to the grave (which could be also good).

Considering a hand of 6 cards with Seven Swords, there is a 20% chance of draw Six Sence, and of course, a 33.3% of resolving the card correctly and drawing 5 or 6 cards. Which means there is a 6.6% chance of drawing +4 or +5 in any game, or 13.2% chance of milling 1 to 4 cards to the grave (which could be also good).

Considering a hand of 6 cards with Seven Swords and card of consonance, there is a 25.6% chance of draw Six Sence, and of course, a 33.3% of resolving the card correctly and drawing 5 or 6 cards. Which means there is a 8.4% chance of drawing +4 or +5 in any game, or 16.8% chance of milling 1 to 4 cards to the grave (which could be also good).

Of course, all this numbers increase exponentially every turn because the deck is going thin.

What this all really means in terms of competitive game?

We are talking about a 5-8.4% of wining automatically by card advantage in the second turn. So, in a tournament with 10 rounds (which probably means 30 duels), you will be wining at least one game (probably two) just because you active six sense successfully and draw.

That is what you really got if you buy six sense. You will win one game in one big tournament. Are you going to buy anyway?

Neo-Spacian and new content in spanish

I have been thinking about the low quantity of "let's play" yugioh videos in spanish in youtube, and then I finally decided to upload this one. I really believe Neo-Spacian could be a good tier 2 deck some day, but this build is still a bit far from that. In this video I made a mistake choosing to destroy another card instead of vanity of emptiness with my MST. I was hoping that Vanity will destroy itself in the middle of the chain, but that is not how that work. The link to the ruling is in the description box. This mistake don't change the result of this duel, I could win anyway if you think about it. This a rated match duel, so there is game 2 and 3. Did you want me to upload the rest?

He estado pensando en la poca cantidad de videos de yugi-oh en youtube en español, y he decidido subir este. Realmente creo que Neo-Spacian puede ser un buen deck tier 2 algun dia, pero esta construcción esta aun lejos de conseguirlo. En este video cometo un error destruyendo otra carta con MST en lugar de Vanity of emptiness, esperaba que vanity se destruyera solo en medio de la cadena pero no es asi como funciona. El link a este ruling concreto esta en la descripcion del video. Este error no cambia el resultado final del duelo, podria haber ganado de todos modos porque Storm neos hubera reventado las otras 2 cartas. Este es un rated Match duel, por tanto existe un duelo 2 y 3. Quieren que los suba?

Ice barrier deck 2013

I have been thinking about what to post in the blog, but I couldn't find a topic interesting enough. I feel really far from the game and every day this feeling is bigger and bigger. This is not something I want to, I still love this game, the problem is I don't have a yugi-oh environment in my city to play.

So, I decided to make regular videos where I show other people duels (Meta and No-Meta decks). This is the first of many videos I will be posting. I also decide to add some commentary on the video to explain what is going on. As many of you already know, I'n not an English speaker, sorry if I don't speak correctly. I promise to do better in the future.

All sides of Hieratics

As you might now, I have been play testing hieratics in many different ways in this format with the addition of labradorite dragon and galaxy serpent. I wanted to make some videos to show you as always, but I had too many troubles to adjust the camara. When I finally get it, I didnt found a duel interesting enough to be posted. I was really frustrated about it, so I decide to just post some simple duels where you can see what the deck can do now (and couldnt do it before).

On this video, you can see how I decided to make black rose dragon to blow up the whole field because my opponent had made a huge field investment. On this link you can see how I created a huge field and bring stardust at the same time to protect everything. This is the new thing that hieratic couldnt do before. Now they can protect their own field.

I have to more things to say:

1.- I have played better duels than these ones. And of course, I have played worse duels than these. However I dont record everything I do in dueling network. The deck is good, but it require a lot of skill and experience to be played successfully.

2.- Apparently there are three ways to play this deck:
-Normal hieratic: Only hieratics monsters + Carcard D + Duality
- Hieratic Rulers: Using non dark or light normal monsters instead of labradorite dragon + dragon rulers + seven swords.
- Chaos hieratic (this is my build): using hieratics monsters and "random" darks to summon chaos sorcerer and BLS.
I feel a little tire of the deck, so I wont be testing all the others builds. But I can assure you the hieratic rulers is the most consistence build from those three.

Something weird on this new format

At the beginning of this format I did what I always do, testing old decks. Many of you do the same, however for me is bit different because I use to test my old weird decks. Usually I win most of those games because my opponent don't know what I'm playing or don't know what to expect (creativity win games sometimes).

However this format was different, I lost most of those duels. Also, some of my old decks wasn't really playable or able to adapt to the new ban list. The format was so shaped, that I found myself restricted to left behind many of old decks.

I keep thinking about it, but I'm not sure what happened. The lack of staple on the game have bigger consequences that I thought.

New trap or old trap?

First I want to apologize for not updating the blog recently, I have been a bit lazy this days (and I know that is not a good excuse). I want to things better for the blog and for you community, so you might see more post from now on.

Today I want to talk about and old trap card that might be in everybody side deck or main deck right now, and that card is Vanity of Emptiness.

Even though it didn't have too much impact during his release, You can see it everywhere by now. And if you still think this card doesn't suit your deck, you are either a fool or a bad deck builder.

With the decrease of trap staples on this game and/or good defense cards, vanity of emptiness fit the hole that royal oppression had left. In theory, you might think that vanity of emptiness can disappear easily, however some decks and some specific fields can find a away to keep it alive and win with it. The best example was Dracossack + tokens + vanity of emptiness. That was a really hard field because you had to destroy the tokens and dracossack the same turn to get rid of him, but you can't special summon and there is nothing else to destroy and blow away emptiness. The field was almost perfect.

Those situations are less common everyday and that's good. However, vanity keeps coming back in many duels even if it only purpose is avoid 1 special summon. It is a great deal if you think about it. With bottomless and warning at one, What other card can avoid an special summon better than vanity of emptiness? You don't need to pay, and you can easily destroy it yourself if you don't need it anymore. Of course there are many situations where is useless, but bottomless and warning also had drawbacks so....

Why don't give it a chance and try it your main deck?

Train of thought about the new format

I have been play testing the new format this last week and I end up following an interesting success of events which probably Konami already thought when they made this Ban list.

1.- No Heavy means set 5 five Spell and Trap cards and go:

 Even though dealing with huge backrow is awful, I don't think we have seen this in the other way around. Setting 5 cards means we have to play more trap cards, which is something we haven;t been doing for a year. After a few duels I managed to remember how to do it, however I found myself with a lot of problems either building or playing any deck. Setting 5 is not as easy as it used to be, which lead us to point 2.

2.- No Trap staple means few decks can really "set" a bacrow defense:

Decks like Heros, Teleport syncro, gadgets or Machine don't have any theme specific trap card. So any possible defense card may be a dead draw sometimes or be easy readable or easy destructible via Typhoon. If you don't have good trap or defense cards (Where are you royal oppression?), you can't try to control the duel with backrow cards.

3.- Specific Theme decks with great trap cards have control of the game:

Decks like Blackwings or Worms have huge possibilities since their trap cards generate huge advantage either by card advantage or field presence or tempo, and this is the first good line of decks that might shape the meta.This decks will be call "Tier 2 decks" and will be floating around many local players and YCS for the first month of the game. Any deck that can get through them will be the real contender.

3.- Floater, "Forbidden lance" decks, and searchable Typhoons:

Maybe all of you know about it, but Dragon Rulers have become a slow but strong deck, it was kind a obvious if you think carefully, any deck that can put a a 2400-2800 atk floater on the field his a bitch, and right know there is almost no consistence back row card  (no macro, no fissure, no soul drain) that can stop it.

In the other hand, decks like evilswarm and spellbooks share something that any other deck can, both of them have a searchable and exclusive forbidden lance card in the form of infestation pandemic and Spellbook of wisdom. Evilswarm still can put huge amount of damage on the field and create control situation similar to what oppression used to give. Spellbook in the other hand concentrate their effort on hand and field advantage. Also, World of prophecy is a demon that can easily clean the field and is stronger than any Dragon ruler monster.

And the last but not least strategy to deal with backrow cards successfully is to search for your own typhoon cards. This is something that Firefirst can easily do thank to fire formation - gyokkou, also they can even retrieve this fire formation among others in their grave to the deck. So there goes the fire, now let see the water. Mermail can easily deal with backrow cards using both atlantean monsters. They can search both cards from the deck with mermail abysspike and retrieve it to the hand due to salvage. They also have their own excellent floater and searcher.

With all these, I don't want to discourage anyone to try old decks or innovate something new in old decks. But if you are really going to fight in this new meta, you have to be prepare for what is come. I hope this wall of text have been useful for you.

New Banlist sept 2013 TCG

I don't know why we have a different Ban List than the OCG. I don't think it really matter, but this take all of us for surprise. Mainly to those who already bought Trishula.

I don't know what you may think, but this list is great, is the best banlist I have ever seen. They kill almost everything, reducing almost all broken things in this game to 0.

In the next four months many things can happen, who knows how the meta is gonna evolve after this. But we have some things for sure, all the "one card win" on the game are gone, so field presence mean something again. Also, now the game is going to be slower, so card advantage will be important again.

The next thing we all need to learn know is: How am I going to destroy a whole backrow?

Prohibidas:
Burner, Dragon Ruler of Sparks
Elemental Hero Stratos
Lightning, Dragon Ruler of Drafts
Reactan, Dragon Ruler of Pebbles
Stream, Dragon Ruler of Droplets
Number 16: Shock Master
Card Destruction
Gateway of the Six
Heavy Storm
Monster Reborn
Pot of Avarice
Spellbook of Judgment
Super Rejuvenation
Solemn Judgment
Ultimate Offering (This card was banned the last format, right?)

Limitadas:
Atlantean Dragoons
Brotherhood of the Fire Fist - Spirit
Deep Sea Diva
Genex Ally Birdman
Rescue Rabbit
Thunder King Rai-Oh
Evigishki Mind Augus
Dewloren, Tiger King of the Ice Barrier
Constellar Ptolemy M7
Dimensional Fissure
Gold Sarcophagus
Royal Tribute
Bottomless Trap Hole
Compulsory Evacuation Device
Eradicator Epidemic Virus
Macro Cosmos
Soul Drain
Torrential Tribute

Semi-Limitadas:
Mezuki
Plaguespreader Zombie
T.G. Striker
Fire Formation - Tenki
Dimensional Prison

Salieron de la Lista:
Destiny Hero - Malicious
The Agent of Mystery - Earth
Tsukuyomi
A Hero Lives
Black Whirlwind
E - Emergency Call
HIeratic Seal of Convocation
Pot of Duality
Scapegoat

The new Tool in Hieratic: Dragorado (Dragrad)

If you have played hieratic in your life, you only need to read the effect of this card to know is too good. For those than merely know the basic hieratic combos, I will explain further:

When this card is Normal Summoned: You can target 1 Normal Monster with 1000 or less ATK in your Graveyard; Special Summon that target in face-up Defense Position. Once per turn: You can Tribute 1 Dragon-Type monster, then target 1 face-up monster you control; until the End Phase, that target becomes Level 8 and gains 800 ATK.

First off, If you check my new build of hieratic on this blog, you will see that Electric Dragon have been replace for Labradorite Dragon, a dark tuner monster that gives the deck more versatility. With labradorite in the deck instead of electric dragon, Dragrad can be use it to make a lv10 syncro summon (Trident Dragon). You can put a 3000 atk monster in the field with only one card, but that is not all, if you have other cards on the field you can active Trident Dragon effect to push for 9000 damage in one turn. 

BUT THAT IS NOT ALL, If you have an hieratic on the field (Tefnuit for example), you  can active Dragrad second effect to tribute the hieratic and bring another normal monster. Then xyz summon Atum and bring Galaxy serpent. Galaxy serpent and Dragard will make Trident Dragon and Atum will become Gaia to deal 5600 Damage in one turn without losing cards or field presence. 

The combo can go on according to your hand and the situation. Also, Dragrad is Dark and have 1900 Def. It works fine with the chaos strategy and is a good opening card.

The Return of Goat Format

In this game, there are some cards that change the way we play, one of those relevant cards is Heavy Storm. Some of you may agree or disagree with his presence on the game, but that is not what I want to talk about today.

Today I want to talk about Scapegoat. A really old card that was limited after the goat format because summoning four monsters in the field using only 1 card was too overpower, and in my opinion it is still too overpower. However the game is a bit out of control (even without Dragon Rulers and Spellbooks in the spotlight) and cards like Threatening roar and waboku have seen competitive play because of this. Scapegoat is back to accomplish the protection goal of those traps, but with more versatility with combo decks (syncro summons) and other cards (Destiny Hero Plasma, Dire Wulf, etc).

With Scapegoat at three and Gorz at two, going for game is not gonna be easy. Also, cards like Creature Swap and Dark Hole will come back to the main deck.

So, Are you ready for the return of Goat Format?

Four Ban List each year = The Double edge Sword

I wont post the Ban List for the OCG because at this point everybody already post it. You can visit any blog in my blogroll and you can see it if you want.

In the other hand, I want to talk about the fast rotation format that we are going through from now on. It looks like Konami is forcing us to buy new material of every set no matter what, and many of you already think the same. But lets think twice, Are we already forced to change for a new deck every set? (Inzektor, Mermail, Fire Fist, Dragon Ruler) Yes. And to do so, the next deck has always be way stronger than the first one, which usually means that we end up with a deck too overpower at the end of the format (Dragon Ruler, Wind-ups, Six Samurais, Blackwings, and other decks that control the game upon their release). We always hate that situations because the power level on the game push off almost every other deck. If we use 4 banlist, then we can touch decks or cards too overpower, so the next set wont need to be extremely overpower to be sell. All this is good news.

However, there is a small problem. It is hard to be keep up in the game is it is changing too much. Even if you are not changing your deck, you have to make changes for the new format, for the new meta, for the new cards, and so on. Also it make hard for new player to join the game, probably we will have to explain cards and archetype that soon wont be use it. And the game as they met will be totally different.

I think 4 Banlist is a great idea, but we will have to wait and see how konami is going to explode this tool.

The new era of Hieratics (Labradorite and Galaxy serpent built)

I have been tested Hieratic with the new normal tuners and the result are so huge that we can totally change the way hieratic is played. But before I talk about the new things, I want to make a review of the things we had left after Darkness metal dragon got limited and Constellar Ptolemy M7 appears.

The past:

Hieratic was a three cards OTK combo, where you tribute at least twice to bring 3 Atums and 2 Redmd, which then became 3 Gaia and 1 Gustav Max for the win. A little after that, Hieratic was used with Gishki to build a handless combo using evigishki gustkraken and Constellar Ptolemy M7. Then the banlist took care of both version limiting Red eyes darkness metal dragon and Gustkraken to 1.

After that, Hieratic became a lame rank 6 combo (using only Tefnuit and Su) to bring either Atum, a dead Redmd and a random tiny electric dragon, or bring Constellar Ptolemy to get rid of some monster on the field (or retrieve a hieratic monster from the grave). Using the lv5 hieratic monster will lead to a desaster since many situation end with a lv5 weak hieratic monster and a 0 atk vanilla lv6 in the field (you can kill yourself at this point). So, you are playing an hieratic deck with too few hieratic monsters, the deck started to cry for the lack of consistency.

Building a field is useless if you can not protect it. Hieratic was unable to summon stardust or something similar (Pandemic Contagion Infestation, Dracossack, etc). Things went worse when Big Eye was all over the place. Furthermore, chaining Maxx C to an hieratic effect means you either go for game or lose the next turn, you couldn't decide to stop because hieratic don't had enough resources to start the combo again in another turn. Big backrow fields was also a problem, a solitarie mirror force can stop the whole thing.

The present:

Now that we can choose between searchable lv6 (Labradorite Dragon) or lv2 (Galaxy Serpent) tuners makes the deck a lot better. For instance, you can use lv5 hieratic monsters to bring lv11, or lv7 syncro monsters or use lv6 hieratic monsters to bring lv8 syncro monsters or rank6 xyz monsters. You can now end with a field of Atum, Redmd and Stardust to protect it all. You can bring Crimson Blader to stop DragonRulers. If your opponent chain Maxx C, you can go for Stareater, hit for a lot of damage, and veiler wont stop you (also your opponent will only draw 2 cards). Now you don't need Gustav Max because you have access to Ancient Sacred Wyvern to deal the ultimate damage and win the duel. Backrow or huge fields ( cof cof Fire fist cof cof) won't be a problem since you have access to BlackRose Dragon.

The deck is now full of options, you can go for defense (Starteater, Crimson Blader or Stardust), for card advantage (Blackrose dragon, ScrapDragon, Atum or Constellar Ptolemy) or for the win (Ancient Sacred Wyvern). But thats not all, now that you can use lv5 hieratic monsters, you have 6 new monsters with huge synergy in the hieratic deck. That puts the deck with a total of 12 hieratic monsters (14 if you add the Rota). But That's not all, the new vanilla lv6 monster is DARK, which means you can add some Chaos monsters like Pulsar, chaos Sorcerer and BLS and they will never be a dead draw (almost).

I have been testing the deck and I found myself with extra space. Yes, you hear right, I have blank spot to add any tech card I want. And since I'm a control player, I decided to add some traps, which are usually protected by Stardust. (He also protect my sidedeck cards which is also good)

I will end up this post with the decklist (totally argueable)

Monsters: (26)

3 H Tefnuit
3 H Su
3 H Eset
3 H Nebthet
2 Dragrad (Dragodorado)
2 Labradorite Dragon
1 Galaxy Serpent
1 Honest
1 Gorz
2 Maxx C
2 Veiler
1 Pulsar
1 Chaos Sorcerer
1 BLS
1 Redmd

Spells:

1 Dark hole
1 Heavy Storm
1 MST
1 Monster Reborn
1 Book of Moon
2 Forbidden Lance
2 Hieratic Seal of Convocation (Rota)

Traps:

2 Mirror Force
2 Bottomless Trap Hole

I will make a few videos to show you how bad I played (the deck is good though)

And The World finally ends...

World finally ends and the winner is Shin En Huang. Apparently many people think he won due to Card destruction, but lets faced that is part of the game, overpower card everywhere. Except in David Keener's hand, of course, he played as good as he could, but clearly he didn't open good in game one.

About the event, I loved when Kuriboh started to multiply in the field LOL That was a huge flashback of my childhood.

Also, I was really surprised when lucky straight was summoned and the dice started to roll (That's Vegas baby). Weerapun rolled a 7, he made the graceful charity effect and got superrejuvenation. He also won that duel and lucky straight used all his material.

All good time and we are almost at the end of this format. Everybody is wonder what is gonna happen next. What about the banlist? The game is gonna change? who knows...

Everybody is Changing

Yes, I want to talk about the game change that Konami just announced. Most people think it probably will be a simple increase in extra deck space, but I don't think konami made a previous announcement to do a something too simple. The changes seems to be somehow related to ban list and how we play the game, so I don't think it will be something like (you can't use more than 6 Dragon rulers in the deck, or you can't use more than 10 trap cards in the deck, or something like that).

There are many things wrong in this game, and I think konami already realize that the game is out of control. The special summon concept, the extreme draw combos, the locks, burn strategies, and so on. Even the first turn (when the first can go for a full combo without worry about trap cards), and the backrow/HeavyStorm dilemma are broken concepts that leads to lucky based moves.

Many things should change and Konami is willing to do it. Also, I decide to make some changes on this blog and I started with the banner title (which I poorly made in photshop), it represent Outstanding dog marron, a card that I always like since I started to play.

So, with a surprise moment of optimism, I hope for the best of the game in the new format and I guess some of you think the same.

Supporting the boycott

Probably most of you already hear about it. Actually the number of people reading me is so small that I dont really think I will make any change by writting this here...

http://josephgiorlando.wix.com/occupyygo#!ycstorontoboycott/cnec


Is time to show our disagreement to Konami, and demand some respect.

Temperance + World = any book at 1 is OK

I was thinking how to play Spellbooks with only 1 SB of secrets and 1 SB of judgment in the main deck. At first, it was really slow and different from the usual, but at the end it seems pretty much the same. Some of you already thought about it because SB of fate remove SB of judgment and it can be recovery due to SB of eternity. However, I will take a different direction on this and talk about temperance and World of Prophecy.

1 turn:

Summon Magician, search for SB secret, then search for SB master, then search SB of judgment

2 turn:

Summon temperance, active SB judgment, active temperance and special summon World of Prophecy from the deck. Retrieve Secret and Master to the hand. Active SB Secret, search for SB power or SB wisdom. Active SB Master and search for SB power or SB wisdom. Attack, search for Fate and the set it. End turn, search 3-4 cards (2 eternity and 1-2 Fates) and special summon jowgen.

If you are lucky enough, you could even use world of Prophecy eff and clear the field. This move in turn 2 will reduce all hope for a slower game in the next format.

I will let you two videos about these moves, so you can see what I just explained.

What about MST?

We finally get that time of the format when every start to wish and guess what cards are gonna be ban or limited. Probably we all can agree about Dragon Rulers and Spellbooks somehow get a hit, and a few duelist out there still think that mermails and fire fist have to be hit, I agree with that.

However, It seems nobody else remember that we cant and couldnt set trap cards. All this start with mermails and Chaos Agents, two decks with huge present in the past format, both of them used 3 MST to deal with backrow fields, both of them capable of duel huge amount of damage in one turn. The lack of backrow protection lead to the creation of Fire Fist, an archetype that search continuous spell and trap cards so a single MST couldnt really hurt them.  All that fell behind Spellbook and Dragon rulers due to draw power (because draw power beat everything).

As soon as spellbook and Dragon Rulers get out of the metagame picture, we will end up in the same problem, What about MST? We still can not use trap cards? The game will still be as fast as it was 6 months ago? Is this the same demon but with a different name?

I think it will be...

the edge of the format

This month has been really stressful for me because of personal stuffs. Today I feel in the eye of the hurricane, so I decided to use these minutes of calm to write a little on the blog.

I know I have been absent the last month and already explained the reason on previous posts. Even I dont have a place to play yugi-oh on my current town, I still play in dueling network from time to time and keep update about new cards, tournaments topdecks and reprints.

I was relieved when I saw the new cards from shadow specter. I still think the next format will be an agro format, but we will be seeing a slow transition between agro and control. Something similar happened at the end of teledad format. I could say more nice things about the future, but I guess we will have time for this. We havent even started the banlist speculation, even though probably everybody want it.

Meanwhile, I have been testing some decks and making some videos to show you. However, there is two problems about it:

-Testing in DN is harder due to the new duel pool and match duel.
-Speelbook and Dragon Rulers are so OP than any deck look like a fool against them. It take some time to record a duel that is decent enough.

Anyway, I dont know if I could show you something in the next few days or weeks, I hope I can.

Good luck during the rest of this joke format.

Too many news and too many time...

Long time since my last post and probably all of you know why. This game have change a lot bla bla bla etc etc. I think I don't even need to tell you what happen because we all can see it, many youtubers and bloggers have talk about it, quieted this game and ranted about what it become. I won't do the same, but I understand their feeling to the game, and feel as sad as them.

Anyway, a lot have happen on this game since my last post. Elemental dragons (ED) and Spellbooks (SB) went up and big eye become a high price card. Judgment of the Light was released on the OCG and nothing competitive came up to compete against ED or SB. It is a really interesting pack in my opinion, but maybe won't sell as good as lord of the tachyon.

At this point, I feel far from the competitive or even casual scene. And I like it because the game is awkward right now, I have this feeling of guilt or hate if I win or lose just because I open lucky. I have been trying to think on the future of this game, but every time I make some deep thoughts on the last cards designed I see the same things we already faced right now.

Blue eyes structural deck, which include blue-eyes maiden and blue-eyes silver dragon, seems to be focus on special summon a 3000 atk beater. This probably means that the agro style format we have been living for the past two years will be keep going for a while.The new syncro monsters are no difference, Celestial dragon, Claiomh Solais, Almades and  Psychonductor Behemont have effects usefull mainly in agro formats.

To provide some kind of peace on this format of brokeness, konami created a new anti-meta card: Trifortressops. I should call it anti-dead card instead, because is one of the few things that can stop all the elemental dragon tools and LaDD. Also, in case you didn't notice, if your opponent summon 3 or monsters, you can summon this card at ANY MOMENT THIS TURN. This is not like fader, gorz or tragoedia. Your opponent can not see this coming never. This card may become expensive, you should try to buy two or three.

As I said before, I have been trying to think on the future. It is clear to me that the format will still be agro. However the fact that konami keep printing cards against backrow confuse me, few decks can afford to play backrow anyway. Harpie ladies destroy all backrow while all phantom beast are untouchable, I could say similar things about spell books or evilwarms, but I'm sure you already see the point here. I guess this is only a push foward to an agro format.

September is still far, but I guess konami knows that Dragon lords are not here to stay. Eventhough they are super rare in Asia, they are coming rare for the TCG. I think Konami is trying to sell as much as possible of them before the banlist. Which is nice because brings some good feelings for the future, however I don't know why konami put the dragon lords on tins, and maybe more important than that, what else is coming in the tins?? If dragon lords isn't a toptier deck, big eye won't need a reprint.

Anyway, I will try to be back on the blog. Thanks to keep reading me.

Side deck card against Incarnate Dragon

Many of you already fear the first turn LaDD combo.

So, to stop the huge elemental summon avalanche, you can summon Chaos hunter while your opponent is trying to summon the first incarnate.  Since this is the first turn, your opponent won't attack you and you will be capable of stop most moves and design a strategy to win.

Sorry for the lack of posting, honestly I just don't feel exciting with yugi-oh right now for different reasons. I hope most of you find some fun on it.

Water synchron is on the House!

In this video I started with an awful hand. I pushed for damage thanks to nitro warrior effect. He had Evacuation device, but clearly didn't use it because he want to take control of nitro with creature swap. He makes an awful mistake then and I take full advantage of it. 

I wasn't sure if I should start with nimble momonga in attack, or pull the foolish + junk combo. I usually never go that fast in duel. But since this is a video for you guys, you should see the deck in action. I didn't want to set lance because I didn't see an scenario where it actually works in the next turn. Also I was fearing MST, I made the good call. My opponent go crazy with heavy + dark hole. I win anyway one attack.

Finally some videos!!!

I finally have a new computer, so for the next few weeks you will see videos about all the previous decks I made.

Now I present you two duels I had with my Quickdraw Water deck. As you can see, the duels are pretty fast and I kill in one/two attacks.

I added some music, please leave a comment if you DON'T like the music.

The first one is against Inzektor and the second one is against Ophion (my worst enemy)

Side deck card against Ophion

I was building a gogogo zombie deck and I found this card:


It is a great card against Ophion since they remove one material to search for their infestation pandemic. Then you just use space cyclone to remove the last material on Ophion and it is done. You can special summon gorz or tragoedia or anything you need to beat him.

Btw, Forbidden lance or infestation pandemic can't stop space cyclone because Cyclone don't affect the xyz monster, only affects the material. I already ask this question on the judge forum.

Deck lockdown and the blue-eyes

Many of you probably already played against Spellbook and their new awesome draw card, and even when the deck is really vulnerable to Rai-oh or Naturia beast, I present you another solution:

It not only works like Rai-oh, it also stop special summons from the deck, which is good against fire king or temperance or rescue rabbit, or tourguide, and so on...

Honestly, I know is not a really good choice but that's because this game have 3 mst on it. Maybe if you are playing aliens or Beastlord Volcan...


Anyway, probably all of you already heard about the new structural deck based on Blue-eyes white dragon. Finally Konami realize most of his audience are adults XD

So, if you remember this card, I suggest you to buy it while it is still a low price card.

Mind Crush to 3

Usually the banlist give me some cards back to innovate in this game. However, this time the banlist had almost nothing interesting for innovation. Except, maybe mind crush to 3.

With all the meta decks searching a lot of cards every turn, mind crush is key to stop them and look their hand. With that information we should be able of play around and win in a few turns.

So, which deck can successfully use 3 mind crush?

Dark World! of course, however I think all of you already know how dark world wins and how mind crush work inside of it.

That's why I want to talk about my old deck Designator Monarch. If 1 mind crush could be enough to stop fire fist or spellbook or mermail. Imagine all you can do with Mind Crush + AOI + D.D. Designator

Pretty deadly if you ask me...

March BanList 2013

Edited Friday: Much better Banlist. Good Luck to everybody in the new format

Banned:

Sangan
Wind-Up Carrier Zenmaity

Limited:
Wind-Up Magician
One Day of Peace
Solemn Warning

Semi-Limited:
Tsukuyomi
Thunder King Rai-Oh
Advanced Ritual Art

Unlimited:
Spore
Blackwing - Kalut the Moon Shadow
Lumina, Lightsworn Summoner
Shien's Smoke Signal

Gishki FTK = Victory Dragon

Probably all you already know about the gishki FTK deck. However, since I'm part of the judge program, I heard extensive discussions about how  this deck win the whole match with only 1 duel.

Iin case you still don't know how this deck works, or if you need to remember the key moves, you can check it again here. 

So, in the last part of the combo, if you return upstar goblin instead of one day of peace, You will be the only  one to draw a card. Repeat this complex process over and over.... and you will be burning time. When the the duel goes in time and Turns are call. You proceed to deck out the opponent and that's it. You win the whole the match with only one duel. 

Many of you may think this is looping, and in yu-gi-oh you can't do it,  you have to say the number of times you will repeat the loop and that's it. But no.

This is looping:

Player A control King tiger wanghu.

Player B special summon treeborn frog in the stand by phase

Wanghu destroy treeborn

Player B bring back treeborn

Wanghu destroy it

Player B IS LOOPING, because he is repeating the exactly the same action over and over without any change in the game. In this case, player B have to say a number a of times he want to this move (like 500 times). 

Gishki FTK, in the other hand, never loop. It go through 3-4 moves that finally increase opponent life point by 1000. It is not the same because the game is changing and It is not only 1 action. 

So, Gshki FTK decks is like Victory dragon. If you go first, you can win the whole match with only one duel. 

Probably yu-gi-oh is facing the worst deck in history. 

Where can I find the real Banlist before anyone else?

Well... if you work for Konami secret banlist department, maybe you wouldn't need to google for this question XD  LOL

ANYWAY

When I'm looking for the banlist, I always check this page. They always have the REAL banlist in the second week of March/August before any other english page I ever saw. So, be ready to trade fast if you want to take advantage of this information.

Banlist prediction march 2013

I feel I have to talk about the banlist but nobody seems to care about it this time. I do want see some cards ban and other unbaneed. However I don't feel an specific hate for any in particular.

So, just to keep up this tradition of trying to predict the banlist, here I go with my attempt:

ban:

T.G. Librarian

Heavy Storm

Black Luster soldier envoy of the beginning 

To 1:

Atlantean Dragoon

Wind-up Factory

dragged down to the grave

Rescue rabbit

Elemental hero bubbleman

To 2:

Wind-up Magician
wind-up shark

deep sea diva

fire formation - Tenki

So, librarian uh? Yes. At first I though rekindling should be limited, but then I realized that konami is pushing many fire archetypes. However laval have been out for long time, and the only problem with them is that librarian is broken. When Laval find a way to resolve the first rekindling, they make Librarian and draw 4-5, probably getting another rekindling and ending with quasar on the field. So, if konami don't want to touch rekindling, he will ban librarian to stop the massive amount of player that will jump on laval when the next hidden arsenal will came out. 

Everybody knows why black luster should be banned, I don't need to tell you how broken this card is. Also, there is no market for him anymore, so konami wins nothing with this card on the game.

I don't know if Heavy Storm should be banned this time. But I have to stick to my prediction because I have been telling this for a year now and I know someday it will happen.

Mermail have been a strong deck this format, however I agree with Simon He when he said: "After summon moulinglacia the deck does nothing". The decks real problem is how fast it is, It goes for megalo and then Moulinglacia in only 1-2 turns, probably sealing his wining in the process. Limiting atlantean dragoon should be enough to avoid the megalo-moulinglacia play and force them to not play recklessly.

Rescue rabbit to 1 need no explanation

Elemental Hero bubbleman shouldn't be limited. The real problem here is Heroic champion excalibur, which is actually a syncro monster if you realize that he lose both material after his effect goes on. With both monsters in the grave (alius/bubbleman), you can active miracle fusion in the same turn and bring good fusion monsters. So, to fix this HERO fever, bubbleman should go to one.

Many people think grapha is the main problem in Dark worlds. I think It is the only good think in the whole archetype. The rest is only to search and summon grapha. Dragged down to grave is way worse, it not only active a dark world monster and add a fiend to grave. It also let you check the opponent hand, a privilege that few cards have on this game. And most of them went finally limited or/and banned.

Wind-up is probably one of the most consistence decks in yugi-oh. Almost any two cards in the deck create a combo with each other, and probably the most annoying combo in the whole deck is magician-shark, which sometime ends in shock ruler. So, to avoid this combo I think we only need to semi-limited Shark and magician. The probability of this combo is reduced and limiting factory to 1 helps to assure it. The deck is still playable, which is good.

Fire formation tenki should go to 1, but putting at 2 will help to stop the sacred deck in the OCG and still let fire fist do some tricks.

The main problem with this prediction, is that banning heavy storm will push many old decks that used to work when Heavy storm wasn't on the game. Like Gravekeepers, Six Samurais, evols, geargia, among others. And I don't think konami want that, also I'm not sure if Fire king Garunix and Fire fist - Bear will be enough to stop people from shield themselves.

So, that's it. hope get some things right this time. 

Harpie dancer FTK??!!

So, first the gishki ftk and now this, at least this one can be stopped by veiler. Konami is either blind or stupid, maybe both.

Gishki FTK?!

I was really surprise when I saw this. How on earth I didn't saw that coming when I was building gishki?

If you study the combo carefully you will see that veiler won't stop you.

Good luck to anyone that already have the cards (really easy to obtain btw).

Fire Fist and the BanList

In my previous "BanList prediction" I usually present a solution to ban Heavy storm and create a decent game state. And even I always failed, I still think Heavy storm should be banned and Konami knows it, that's why Konami creates Storm, Absorbing jar and Inzektor. Most recently, Fire king appears like a way to punish players for use backrow destruction and bring back Sacred phoenix of Nephthys to the competitive game. Haze beast can't be target them, so few magic or trap cards can stop them. Also, Harpie ladies destroy all the backrow thanks to their field spell card. With all this backrow hate, Heavy storm shouldn't be on the game, however it is. And apparently there are still reasons for that.

Right now, most decks don't play backrow cards, many moves can be review like: "Player A use MST on Player B MST". Chaos Dragon, Hieratics, Mermails, Agents, and many others just don't play a trap at all. In fact, a guy in a recent YCS played a machine monster smash and topped, proving again that using backrow is overrated. Only DinoRabbit can use backrow successfully due to Laggia effect. Fire fist, dino rabbit and ophion have a lot of backrow control on this game. And if we ban heavy storm, all these decks will be stronger than ever, even if rabbit goes to one. So, my doubt here is: Is Heavy still healthy for the game?

Konami needs to find a solution to this nonsense, because we should be to use magic and trap cards. The first and good solution is Fire Fist, maybe the second archetype capable of search their magic and trap cards (the first deck to do this was Infernity, searching all the barriers in one turn). Even if you use Heavy storm against Fire fist, they can easily search for more. The deck remain me a lot to Gladiator beast because they are focus in battle, even though they have a mechanism to destroy spell, trap or monsters on the field. However, give the possibility to use magic or trap cards to one deck is not the solution to make heavy storm unplayable or less broken. Konami needs to ban heavy storm and substitute it for some cards that create the same fear on people (like inzektor just to make us feel in the past format).

the game right now have plenty of strategies capable of deal with backrow cards. Also, konami already designed strategies capable of destroy backrow fields. So, we will see if heavy storm finally goes to 0 again or not.

New Brionac?

The card that I want to talk about it is this:

Beast Lord Volcan
lv6 syncro
 2000 / 1600
1 tuner + 1 or more no tuners

When this card is Synchro Summoned: Target 1 face-up card on each side of the field; return those targets to the hand, and if you do, cards with the same name as the card that was returned from your side of field (if Spell or Trap) cannot be activated, or (if Monster) cannot activate their effects for the rest of this turn. You can only use the effect of "Beast God Vulcan" once per turn.

and I know many of you will think that it can't be remotely similar to this:

Brionac, dragon of the ice barrier

lv6 syncro
2300/1400

1 tuner + 1 or more no tuners

You can discard any number of cards to the Graveyard to target the same number of cards on the field; return those targets to the hand.

And you might be right, Beast lord volcan is not brionac but tell me one thing. What generic lv6 syncro you usually summon if you need to? Gaia? and to do what, attack? The true is that nothing can rid off things better than brionac. And after brionac went to the banlist, lv6 syncro was similar to rank 1 xyz, totally useless.

Now we can see Volcan like the new best lv6 syncro capable of get rid of things. Is like a well-design Brionac. Let see how this card evolve in the ocg meta. 

Ivory and Ebony deck

After a lot of testing, I finally made a successful deck build to show you. But before that, I want to talk about how Ivory and Ebony helps a lot to the consistance of chaos dragon.

A usual escenario with chaos dragon: You have only light in the graveyard and Pulsar/Darkflare in hand. So, the usual move here is just lose. Now, thanks to ebony and ivory, you can remove the light to summon ebony (dark), then tribute it for darkflare and search for ivory (light). At this point, you have dark and light in the grave and a dragon in your hand to use darkflare effect. You can summon any chaos monster and push for a lot of damage.

Ebony and Ivory let you advance summon and syncro summon a lot. Also Paladius can be summoned sometimes. I have trying to find the right tuners for the deck, even though syncro summon have no value right now. My solution for this was resonators.

2 Tour Guide
2 Dark resonator
1 Sangan
1 Plaguespreader zombie
1 Barrier resonator
2 Dimensional alchemist
1 Eclipse wyvern
3 Lightpulsar
2 Darkflare
3 Wybustar the Ivory dragon
3 Collapsarpent the Ebony dragon
1 Dark armed dragon
1 Red eyes darkness dragon
2 Veiler
2 Maxx C
2 Tragoedia
1 Gorz
1 Honest

1 Resonator call
1 MST
1 Heavy
1 Dark hole
1 Reborn
2 D.D.R.
1 Allure
1 Mind control

I decided to use the resonator tuners because:

1.- Resonator call let me decide if I need a lv1 or lv3 tuner, or if I need a dark or light monster in the grave.
2.- Barrier resonator can be send it directly from the hand in case I need to stall and prepare my grave for a big next turn.
3.- Tourguide have more targets, so I will almost never need to make the "Tourguide-search-Tourguide" move.

Also, a lv3 tuner and Ivory/ebony makes Black Rose dragon. After cleaning the field and search for Ibory/ebony, I can summon any chaos dragon to push for damage. In the other hand, Barrier resonator and Ivory/ebony make light/dark lv5 syncro, so I have a complete control of my graveyard.

I find myself removing so many things that I decide to add ddr and alchemist to take back key cards like plagues, Red-eyes, eclipse wybern, Honest, among others.


I'm waiting for a new laptop next week, so I will make some awesome videos about this deck (and about my previous deck). All of you will see how great this deck can be and hopefully you won't need to mill your best cards anymore.

METAMETAMETA

I will start this new year with one of the most funny duels I had on Dueling Network in 2012. I was using my chaos skull deck, opening with drill warrior in the rfg and level eater on the field. My opponent started with centipede, search for hornet using ladybug.

At this point I decide not to make field presence so he won't have anything to destroy. Maybe I could kill him in one attack with the right cards. In my turn I bring back drill warrior attack direct and remove him again (I had like 6 in hand).

He summoned wind-up rabbit and wind-up shark.... and after 3 zenmaigthy and 1 zenmaines, I had 0 cards in my hand. However, since drill give a card every time he come back and I had piper in grave, I manage to still have some resources. I had everything I needed to continue thanks to drill warrior.

(At this point, I knew he was using Inzektor-WU. But I wasn't prepare for what come next...)

He summon rescue rabbit, tribute for two sabersaurus and exceed summon DOLKKA. he attacked, and in my turn Dolkka negated drill warrior eff... I asked him if he had a name for his deck, he said: METAMETAMETA. Which, of course, is a perfect name for this deck.

At the end, after 3 zenmaigthy, 1 zenmaines, 1 dragonfly loop, 1 dolkka and 1 laggia, I was still ALIVE!!!! but that was done. I had nothing else to survive and he had everything to win.

That is just another prove of how broken that format was.

Anyway, I hope all of you had happy holidays. Expect some nice build using wyburstar and collapsarpent ;)