Revival of the Living Dead

half a month had passed since the September Banned List was active, with the unbanning of Call of the Haunted, Revival of the Living Dead in its Japanese translation, Undead has taken its throne as the most powerful type once again.

why do I say so, if you study the history of the game, you would notice that in each banned list aside from the decks that do best during that 6 months time, there would always be a type of monsters that would be better than others.

March 09 Banned List : Winged Beast (BF and GB, two powerful decks that based on Winged Beast). Winged Beast had Icarus attack that destroys just about anything if used right. Winged Beast nowadays are fast, with Undeads out of their way in the previous list. its no wonder they could be the fastest in the META, and in the last META, speed was everything.

September 08 Banned List : Undead was the king. Any deck that utilize Undead into their strategy would be a handful to beat. With Zombie Carrier, Mezuki and Goblin Zombie at their disposal, Undead have the ability of creating a big field presence with close to no cost. the limiting of Mezuki and Card of Safe Return really did de-throne the Undead as shown.

Undead are a powerful type to compete with, as every type has their own play style. Warrior depends on the supports they have and the ability to swarm the field with little effort, being the most balance type in my opinion. Dragons are based on heavy amount of destruction and overwhelming powers, not to mentioned the ability to summon quickly but the price is not low. Winged Beast are fast, and extremely good in clearing the field, but they lack the offensive power shown in Dragons and Warriors. aside from these types, I do not think that any other type are worthy of competing as the best type.

the problem with Undead is, it has all the strengths of the types I mentioned (although not at the same degree) yet missing their weakness. Undeads are fast, they can search for each other quickly and do not lose any advantage when pulling out a big monster. Their destructive power alone may be weak, but combine with the Syncro Monsters that they easily excess, make them one of the most destructive forces ever. not to mention, a good amount of Undeads are Dark, meaning they have excess to Dark Supports. but the scariest thing about Undead is their ability to utilize the Graveyard. a Torrental Tribute or a Deck Destruction Virus may cause a very bad sotuation in a lot of decks, but Undeads love the Graveyard, combine with Burial from the Different Dimension, make Undead a very formidable opponent. A undead deck under the hands of a skilled duelist along with a good side deck can virtually take on anydeck.

in the past 2 weeks, I've seen Undead decks win tourneys all around the place(in OCG at least). even with the advantage gain in EX2, Lightlords still aren't as powerful as the Undead Syncro decks, not to mention the crippled BF, GB and Dark Armed Decks. Skill Drain and other STUN decks may have success against them, but as I said before, a few side deck cards and they are as good as gone. this may sounds as if the Undeads are gonna be big this season but I don't think its true. Undeads may be powerful, but unlike most META decks, its not all powerful. it puts up a good challange to any deck but it could not take out any well build deck without a god fight. this may be because Carc of Safe Return in Banned or maybe it was DDB or even Monster Reborn. but from what I've seen and experience, Undead Syncro is not like your average, all powerful boring ever lasting META deck, its great fun dueling against it, and from what I've seen, it takes skill and the ability to choose what card to use in a situation to truely rule over the living deads.