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.