YCS Long Beach

After the largest TCG event concludes, its numbers are staggering. Almost 4400 players attended this event. A variety of deck made their appearances here including the big three. Dino rabbit, inzektors, and wind-ups were there and large in numbers. After two days of playing, the final four comes down to Dino rabbit, Chaos piper, Skill drain heroes, and Dark world. After playing out the semis, only dino rabbit and dark world make it. After defeating rabbit 2-0 dark worlds rise to be victorious.

The build in question was something unique and probably unheard of until this event. Michael
Balan main decked malefic stardust to help protect the gates of DW. Maining tour guide to special broww and specialing grapha becomes that much easier to summon. He sided gellenduo against rabbit knowing that wouldn't activate dolkka's effect and laggia couldnt do anything against it. Maining skill drain probably helped this match up in favor of DW as well.

Thanks for reading.

U

Galactic Overload OCG Import

As the release of Galactic nears, all of the exclusives  are usually slowly revealed on the konami strategy site or yugioh-card.com. One of the imports that caught my attention was Number 11: Big eye.

Big eyes effect is something konami never liked. Something players tend to love and that is taking advantage of your opponents hard work for little to nothing. This card is a goyo guardian without having to do battle. Its effect is: Once per turn: You can detach 1 Xyz Material from this card to target 1 monster your opponent controls; take control of the target. This card cannot attack the turn you activate this effect.

This card has a great effect but also some bad points about it. One in particular is it is a rank 7 requiring 2 level 7 monsters.  Level 7 monsters are not the easiest to summon this days. Let alone with good to great effects. The main one I think of Arcanite magician. Great card with an amazing effect. It can be hard to summon sometimes but well worth it in the end if successful.

Thanks for reading guys.

U

Managing playing chaos

hello everyone

it has been a long while since the last time i posted here. it is mostly due to regionals and testing and those kind of things.

after testing HERO, inzektors and darkworlds. its time for Chaos.

what you think at first glance, is that if you dont run TGU in chaos (which i would do), you wont be affected massively by MaxxC, since most of your special summons are inherent or in damage step (except battle fader); and can run some techs for those meta decks around.

sample decklist:

monsters (23)

1 BLS
2 chaos sorcerer
2 raioh
1 sangan
2 battle fader
1 gorz
1 neo spacian grand mole
2 kycoo the gost destroyer
3 effect veiler
2 MaxxC
1 honest
3 dimensional alchemist
2 caius

magics (10)

1 book of moon
1 monster reborn
1 heavy storm
3 MST
1 mind control
2 POD
1 dark hole

traps (7)

2 solemn W
1 solemn J
2 torrential tribute
2 fiendish chain

the deck is self-explanatory.

its a bit slow if you dont draw any alchemist. its purpose is to put pressure on your opponent using raioh, grand mole and kycoo; defend yourself using hand-trap cards (gorz, fader, veiler, honest and MaxxC) and get rid of your opp's big monsters using BLS, chaos sorcerer and caius.

the downside of this deck is side-deck options. you can side in 1 or 2 snowman eaters, 1 or 2 cyber dragons, DD crow and some spirit reaper, but you cant side in important cards such as shadow imprisoning mirror (against DW and inzektor), dimensional fissure (against DW), or gozen match (against SixSams, wind-up). so you must be aware of how you build your side deck according to not to disrupt your own strategy.

i will be testing the deck this evening. i expect good results, but i dont see this deck being better than HERO or inzektor.

i hope you enjoyed the article

greetings

The best deck at my locals

hello everyone

today im going to talk about the best deck played at my locals; wind-ups. this is not due to skill factors, but to the fact that there are no rabbit-laggia decks, another wind-up deck, and not so much MaxxC (only 8 for 5 players). so after i took that into account, two Saturdays ago, i took my teammate's wind-up deck and modified it to the asian mode (not windup rabbit and no factories); so the results were: it won all tourneys held from then.

at the first tourney held, the decklist was a bit budget, since it run no TGU, but i won using it. so i gave the deck back to my teammate and proceeded to modified it throught last week. after we fit in 3 TGU, the deck won again both locals played last weekend (Saturday morning and Saturday evening). so i took it to improve it one more time (this time, it cannot be improved anymore) and i will play it on Friday evening.

both the 1st and 2nd build were able to discard 4 cards from ur opp's hand in my first turn (in the worst case, it would discard 3 cards), so if the player won the dice roll, he will win the first game without doubt.

the 3rd and last build can discard 5 cards from ur opp's hand in my first turn without using Daigusto Emerald, only adding 3 cards: 1 Tour Bus and 2 Monster Slots. lets see the build:

monsters (26)

2 windup hunter
3 windup rat
3 windup magician
3 windup shark
1 junk forward
3 TGU
1 tour bus
1 AG birdman
3 TG warwolf
3 gilasaurus
2 spell striker
1 marauding captain

magics (14)

3 upstart goblin
2 MST
1 monster reborn
1 heavy storm
2 monster slots
1 pot of avarice
2 fossil dig
1 ROTA
1 instant fusion

one of the ways to discard your opp's whole hand is TGU + monster reborn:

1. summon tgu, bring tour bus and go for zenmaighty.

2. zenmaighty eff (detaching TGU) for hunter, send 1 card and bring back zenmaighty to the extra with tour bus eff.

3. activate monster reborn for tour bus and go for zenmaighty, detach hunter and go for rat, send the 2nd card tributing zenmaighty and bring it back with tour bus eff.

4. repeat zenmaighty + rat and hunter to send 5 cards form your opp's hand to grave. note that when you have zenmaighty + rat + hunter and your opp only has 1 card in his/her hand, you must tribute rat instead of zenmaighty, because you can use zenmaigthy eff on your next turn if it is not destroyed.

another way to discard your opp's hand is magician + zenmaighty + monster slots:

1. summon 2 lvl 3 monsters (gilasaurus, spell striker, junk forward, instant fusion, gilasaurus + birdman, marauding + gilasaurus/warwolf/junk forward/instant fusion) and go for zenmaighty.

2. zenmaighty eff for magician, 1st magician eff for hunter and tribute 1st magician (-1 in hand).

3. 2nd magician eff for 2nd hunter and tribute 2nd magician (-2 in hand).

4. go for 2nd zenmaighty and eff for 1st rat; rat eff for hunter and tribute 1 zenmaighty (-3 in hand).

5. go for 3rd zenmaighty and eff (detaching rat) for 2nd rat. activate monster slots, targeting both rats on field and graveyard. the rat on graveyard will be banished and it doesnt matter if you dont draw any monster capable of being summoned.

6. you should have: 2 face up zenmaighty, 1 face up rat and 1 banished rat.

6.1. if you drew a lvl 3 monster: summon it. rat eff for hunter, tribute rat (-4 in hand). overlay hunter and lvl3 monster for leviair and eff for rat. rat eff for hunter and tribute rat (-5 in hand). field: 2 zenmaighty, 1 leviair, 1 hunter.

6.2. if you drew a windup shark: rat eff for hunter, summon shark. hunter eff on shark (-4 in hand). overlay hunter and rat for leviair and eff for rat. rat eff for hunter and tribute rat (-5 in hand). field: 2 zenmaighty, 1 leviair, 1 hunter.

6.3. if you drew neither lvl 3 monster nor windup shark: rat eff for hunter, tribute zenmaighty (-4 in hand). overlay rat and hunter for leviair. leviair eff for banished rat. rat eff for hunter and tribute rat (-5 in hand). field: 1 zenmaighty, 1 leviair, 1 hunter.

note that neither effect veiler nor MaxxC must be involved in this combo. also note that due to the huge amount of lvl 3 monster that can be special summoned, 1 effect veiler cant stop sending 3 more cards from your opp's hand to grave. so you will have sent 4 cards in total.

hope you have enjoyed this post and hope it help you to make different builds of a known deck and make different comboes.

thats all for today.

gretings

March 2012 Dimensional Eatos

Everyone has probably tried to revive good decks of past format. This is my attempt at one. Dimensional eatos was a deck that was anti meta in a format that was heavily reliant on graveyard. The format currently depends on effects that activate on field and depend on graveyard a little bit.


Lets get to the decklist and break down:

Guardian Eatos-3
Beast King Barbaros-3
Elemental Hero Neo Alius-3
Photon Thrasher-2
Elemental Hero Stratos-1
D.D. Survivor-1
Crusader of Endymion-1

Gemini Spark-3
Forbidden Chalice-2
Mystical Space Typhoon-2
Dimensional Fissure-2
Pot of Duality-2
Dark Hole-1
Soul Release-1
Reinforcement of the Army-1
E Emergency Call-1

Skill Drain-2
Fiendish Chain-2
Macros Cosmos-2
Bottomless Trap Hole-2
Starlight Road-1
Torrential-1
Dimensional Prison-1

There are a couple of unique choices in the deck that were not available during its reign originally. One of them is Photon Thrasher. Thrasher is a good beater that can be searched. Under skill drain it gets that much better. Something people are wondering is why am I only playing one survivor?? I'm only playing one because once in play it will keep reviving itself and its searchable.

The spell line-up is nothing special really. playing soul release is good this format with everything having a slight dependency on graveyard. You can banish those hornets sitting in yard. Stop the wind-up loop by banishing hunter. Forbidden chalice is one of my fav cards in the deck because its something people do not expect anymore. It negates the effect and gives a slight boost of 400 ATK. If you use it on an opponents monster usually you will be able to run it over even with the 400 boost.

The trap line-up is also a little different this time around as well. Macros cosmos is up to 2 now instead of the one people played originally. With exceeds now in the game, macros is better because it will still remove the materials unlike dimensional fissure. So this is great against anything thats heavy on exceeding (cough dino rabbit cough) or monsters that act as equip spell cards when sent to the graveyard (cough hornet). It will allow wind ups not to reuse their zenmaightys and rats. So it can hurt alot of the meta right now. The one torrential tribute is a player preference.

 Let me know what you guys think and suggest changes to the deck. Thanks for reading guys.

U

Absorb Jar

A new monster coming out of Galactic Overlord. Its a new monster to add to the jar archtype. I think this card could see some play but its kinda late. Now that new format is in effect. Setting backrow is not as popular with decks like inzektors running around.

Absorb Jar effect: FLIP: Destroy all Set Spell and Trap Cards on the field. Then, each player draws cards equal to the number of their cards destroyed by this effect. This turn, you cannot Set cards.

I see a lot of potential in this card. Especially against decks that set a lot like Rabbit, Bubbleman Beat, TG Stun, Glad Beast etc. It allows the players to draw depending on how many of their cards were destroyed and cards cannot be set for the remainder of the turn. This would be good when you opponent attacks into it. This would destroy their set spell and trap and they cannot set like they normally would during main phase 2.

Its a good way to draw out starlight roads etc. It cannot be dark bribed like heavy storm can. It has its upsides and downsides but I feel like it will be a good tech or side deck card.

Thanks for reading guys

U

Two terms to take into account this format and in the upcoming ones.

hello everyone

you should be familiar about what im going to talk about, reprints and presales; both are things to take into account when you play YGO.

reprints: are an important part of the game for budget players and for smart players. budget players are mostly noobs and kids (face it), and have not so much money to pay for that meta-changing playset, so they will play poor versions of a meta deck, having lesser chances to get success (most of those noobs realize that they wont succes and turn to play anti-meta or burn decks). smart players have the money and can pay for that playset, but they know how konami is, and know that there will be a reprint of that card (TGU can be a good example); so its better wait for the reprint and simply play a deck that doesnt need those cards (when POD was released, i used to play HERO STUN, a deck that didnt need the PODs, due to E-call, Stratos and ROTA).

presales: this the simplest concept and the most useful of all YGO. there are only 3 steps to have success here.
1. go to OCG blogs, or OCG news and look for that new card/deck that is widely used because is very good and useful.
2. go to Dueling Network and make a TCG version of that deck, or add that widely used card to a deck and start testing. in this step, you need to know about TCG meta dekcs and adapt your deck to the TCG playstyle (taking into account priority ruling and TCG exclusives).
3. after you have your deck/card tested. look for a presale on ebay, trollandtoad, TCGmarket, MAWO cards, and so.

the difference between both concepts is the quantity of money. for some presales, you will need a good quantity of money, but the price tag of the card can increase and you will have spent less money than the people that didnt buy through presale.

be aware of some presales, becasuse i saw on ebay a presale of 1 inzektor dragonfly/centipede/hornet for more than 40$, before knowing its rarities (i hope noone bought those presales).

i hope this help you to get important cards at a low price.

greetings

Preparing for regionals

hello everyone

today i have much more time than yesterday to write a post.

my team is preparing for regionals, which will be held on March 24th (Saturday), so it is my only chance to get qualified for european championship. all the four components will be playing meta decks, but maybe the deck distribution will be 1 wind-up (or 2, depending if we get the 6th rat and the 5th hunter), 1 or 2 inzektor, 1 hero , 1 rabbit laggia.

the 3 decks that are confirmed are both inzektor decks and the wind-up deck (if i play it, it will be the asian variant; using gilasaurus and so, in which the minimun amount of cards sent by your opp is 4, and cannot be stopped by effect veiler. true). the bad thing is that if i dont play the wind-up deck and my teammate doesnt get the rabbitlaggia cards that he doesnt have, i will have to play HERO STUN (a deck that im very familiar with, so it is not a bad new).

what if i have to play HERO STUN?

if i play HERO STUN, i will have to take into account my worst matchup (wind-ups) and main/tech cards in consequence. so lets write a sample decklist:

monsters (6)

1 stratos
3 neos alius
1 captain gold
1 grand mole

magics (19)

1 dark hole
2 mst
1 reborn
1 ROTA
2 E call
3 miracle fusion
2 super poli
3 POD
3 gemini spark
1 skyscraper

traps (15)

2 torrential tribute
3 skill drain
3 HERO blast
1 solemn J
2 solemn W
1 starlight road
2 BTH
1 mirror force

extra (15)

3 the shinning (at last, legal in europe!!!!)
2 nova master
2 absolute zero
1 gaia
1 great tornado
1 stardust
1 utopia
1 utopia ray
1 roach
1 warrior + dragon fusion (didnt know its english name)
1 something random

as you can see, i main 3 skill drain to stop all the decks around (mainly rabbit). if skill drain is destroyed or negated, i also main 1 skyscraper to destroy the XYZs in battle. i have another variant in mind (maining 2 divas + gachi and 3 jurrac guaiba + laggia + dolkka), but due to the ammount of effect veiler, i wont run it.

so comment or recommend any card. suggestions are wellcomed

greetings

quick update

hello everyone

have 26 minutes to write this post, since i will have to enter in class at 10 a.m.

after testing so much the inzektor deck with 3 card-car d, i realized that i have to main gorz (yes, i didnt main it). other card that came into mi mind is royal decree, but it will conflict with call of the haunted, so it will be a side-deck choice.

another deck that i want to test (if i got qualified for european championship) is final countdown. but seeing how the meta is, dolkka is a pain in the ass for that deck, bu ti will test it anyways.

well the teacher is in, i must leave now.

greetings

Night Shot

It reminds me of Super smash bros ending. lol

With galactic overlord in the future, there will be a lot of cards thats going to affect the meta. One of them is card car d. Check out heavy's post on it. One of the new cards that grabbed my attention is Night shot.

The effect is: Target 1 Set Spell/Trap Card your opponent controls; destroy that target. Your opponent cannot activate that target in response to this card's activation.

This is going to see play along side mystical space typhoon. It is a way to shut down those cards that can be chained.  Some big examples are call of the haunted, forbidden lance, book of moon, mystical space typhoon.

There are a lot more cards from  galactic overlord that Im going to review down the line.

Thanks for readin guys.
 

Card Car D

hello everyone

today im going to talk about this card.

first its effect:
Cannot be Special Summoned. During your Main Phase 1, if this card was Normal Summoned during this turn: You can Tribute it; draw 2 cards, and enter your End Phase. You cannot Special Summon monsters during this turn.

losing 1 turn can be somewhat bad, but draw 2 cards is awesome nowadays.
before playing this card, you should set a m/t card so not to have 7 cards in your hand at the end phase (unless you dont mind to discard a treeborn frog, or an inzektor hornet).

this card is seeing play in combo decks that has no big turn 1, such as hieroglyph, lavals, infernity (ending with 3 set barriers, a face up infernity monster and a face up void dragon).

maining this card, pot of duality and upstart goblin will thin your deck too much and will be esential to get the key cards in your strategy. after the release of this card in TCG, maybe combo-oriented decks´popularity will increase (so did in OCG).

as soon as possible (since this card will be legal in May), i will be testing my inzektor deck maining 3 of these, 3 duality and 3 upstart goblin in DN. so if you see me online, feel free to play against me (heavy sh*t eater is my username).

thats all for today

greetings