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...