Sunday, November 4, 2012

Preparing for Asia Plus - 3

While everyone thinks that Dark World as a major pain in the ass for this event, I see a different deck as a threat. Like Dark World, this is a deck that can be fitted into any of the 3 players and would be able to deal with the opponent just as well. The deck I'm having very high up my alert chart, is none other than Lightsworns. Now, the deck has fell in favor ever since the end of its pinnacle a few years back, but the deck has never truly been dead. Everyone knows how much a punch Judgment Dragoon packs, the only problem keeping it from being a top contender would be consistency.

Back to Asia Plus, or "good luck making your decks consistent with the shared banlist". While every other deck on the planet loses consistency, Lightsworn's mill engine is as powerful as ever. Yes, its often luck based and when you mill bad, your screwed; but that didn't stop the deck from tearing apart the format years ago. Some would prefer Chaos Dragons, another deck that utilizes the Lightsworn engine, as the more competitive choice. True, Chaos Dragons has quite a few tricks up its sleeve and a tons of boss monsters that could only be match by Agents. None of these monsters are anywhere as powerful as Judgment Dragoons.

Starlight Road is a card that is seeing play in every deck nowadays, Judgment Dragoon is basically a Stardust magnet in a normal game. BUT, remember, this is Asia Plus, we share banned list, so there would be but 1 Heavy Storm across the board. Many would not have the balls of steel to main Starlight Road (siding is a whole different story thou), and logically, thats the right thing. Without the extra protection, JD can clear the field for a mere 1000 life anyday. Also, because of the high chances of playing against rogue decks, people can't have too many cards for a strategy. While Macro Cosmos and Skill Drains are to be expected, lets not forget that Lyla and Ryko are some of the best backrow hate in the game, and the deck could play them in 3. MSTs and Dust Tornadoes, even Twisters are still very much effective against this decks.

Jain is a card that can walk over HERO's 1900 line and a powered up Venus, not to mention everyone's public enemy number 1, Thunder King Rai-Oh. Also, Lumina is still one of the best supporting monsters in the game. Divine Dragon Apocralypth (Chaos Lightsworn) and Herald of Creation (Pure Lightsworns) are great cards that lets you reuse THE most powerful monster in the game. Call of the Haunted makes it even scarier.

While the general strategy behind Lightsworn is sacky and easily countered in an everyday duel, due to the lack of resources (and a better word) in Asia Plus, it's tier suddenly rose quite a bit. Your opponent would only have half the cards they had to deal with you, while you are generally not weaken by the shared banlist at all.

Again, this is just my opinion and I do believe everyone has their own stance. Be it Lightsworns or Dark Worlds, both these decks are gonna be doing serious damage for the coming weekend and those who had yet to submit their deck list should definitely take these decks into consideration. For an environment with a defined metagame, Dark Worlds might be more suitable as it could be fitted to suit the environment. But as I've mentioned, the metagame in Malaysia is none existence, and like every Lightsworn's capability in doing damage is more suited for a non-defined metagame in my opinion.

Its like, if you know where your opponent is hiding, you bring a sniper rifle; in guerrilla warfare, assault rifles are the weapon of choice. 


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