YGO's ZERO-TH THEORY

Random Post

2012-02-09T21:31:00.002+08:00

Can’tbelieve its Thursday again, time really flies when your busy. As for myself, Ihave 4 assignments deal in 8~9 weeks, super busy since all of them involvesprogramming, solidworks and massive load of calculations.

Good newsfirst, I found some guys playing YGO at my school. I was having my breakyesterday noon and stumble across a few guys with binders. My duelist instinctcame in and I dump my school friends and ask for the binder. Well, from thebinder alone I can tell they are either beginners or someone who doesn’t investa lot in cards. Bad news for me since I want a good practice partner I can meeteasily since both my teammate quitted and the bench warmer of my team isn’texactly good. I tried my luck to see if they are willing to pay for cards, incase I score myself some buyers, bad luck here too as they are looking forcheap cards mostly.

Played afew rounds with them using their decks, one of them have an Agent deck. That’sgood, but he only bought 2 copies of the SD cause he doesn’t want to get thesame product again and again. Meaning he only had 2 Hyperion and Earth, whichis disappointing. The other guy has this deck that basically consists of cardsfrom the Yuma DP, Zubaba Knight, Goblin Doberg and stuff. He did have a GagagaMagician, but only 1, so not much I can do with it.

Playedusing both those decks and the results are obvious. I don’t think there wouldbe any disagreement that the Yuma wannabe deck would be no match for Agent,even if its not a completed one. He only has 1 Gachi Gachi thou, I offered tosell him another copy, but he said his doing fine with it. Well, anything thatworks for you I guess.

I haven’tplayed much at since end of last year, and I’m finally found myself some timethis weekend to visit Toysbar, mostly because Lam and I wanted to get rid ofour Vanguard stuff. I also scored a good deal on 3 copies of each of the SD22foils and Red-Eyes Darkness Metal. Meeting him at Toysbar this weekend as well.Luck is with me this time since I expect the price of REDMD and Pulsar to climeif Hieroglyph Dragons works as well as my test results shows me. Luckily,Inzektors are there to draw the attention and hopefully I can get my playset ofAnnead before anyone realize just how broken he is.

I was wrongin my first Hieroglyph Dragon post, stating that Atumus is better than Annead.True, Atumus is indeed a powerful card but Annead wins games, every time Ibring him out. Most of my games I would only manage to bring out 1 Atumus, andfor the majority of the time, I don’t even do that. But once the first Anneadcomes out successfully, the other 2 follows and there you have 9000 points ofdamage on the board.

After mytesting, I really really feel that Super Reju isn’t working for me, I eitherwin the turn my combo is played, or I only get 1 draw from it most of the time,its just not as effective for me, maybe it’s the build I’m making.

Hopefullyall the Hieroglyph Dragon cards aside from the monster exceeds are common andrares. I can’t imagine how expensive the RoTA would be if its an Super rare, inthe OCG, good Super Rares usually are worth 4 to 5 times the price of the bestultra rare of the set. Just so guys from the TCG would understand this, we have9 SRs in each set, we have 3 SRs in 1 box; we have 5 UR variants in a set, weget 3 of them in a box. We don’t get the same foil twice per box. Meaning ifits in Ultimate or Ghost, we won’t get the UR version, unless there is amisplacement in the box, which almost never happens.

I’mcurrently (by currently, I mean since the beginning of the year) working on aMagi Magi (insert STAR here) Magician Gal deck featuring Magical Merchant. Itdoesn’t run more than 23 monsters currently, Merchant works as a mill enginethat doesn’t mill of your good cards. Obviously it has Chaos Sorcerer andGagaga Magician in it. I would also like to have a playset of Gagaga Girl inhere too just to fit the theme, but those are expensive for its importance tothe META. Waiting for a reprint in the Starter deck so the Super Rare versionwould drop in price, so I can get a playset .

Guess I’llstop here today, extremely tired since me and my teammate worked for 6 hours onour assignment at McDonalds and had a lecture after that (at 6 pm). How tired am I, I slept at 8:30 yesterday,straight after I reach home from school, my dinner was on my table when I wokeup this morning. Normally, I sleep at 1, that’s 5 hours earlier. So, I can’treally promise when my next post would be up, probably in the weekends. Andexpect to see most only on the weekends starting now till April, and I’mextremely for those who like reading but my time is too occupied at the moment.

Final Banned List Prediction

2012-02-05T12:08:00.002+08:00

So, over the past few couple of weeks, I've had feedbacks on my previous prediction and after some thoughts, I've had change my banned list prediction a bit or rather, my wish list a bit.

Sorry for not posting for a week now, but school's re-open and a bunch of stuff I need to address. Assignments and stuff, well, thats what you expect from an Engineering final year.

Back to ban list prediction.

Forbidden :

1. Mind Control

In my last list, I felt that nothing should be hit cause every broken cards are generic and stuff. But, a friend of mine told me this "Was Oppression and Brain Control ever a theme card?"

That had me thinking, in the current format and the formats to come, Mind Control WILL be even more powerful than Brain Control. Sure, you can't attack with it, but with Syncros and Exceeds in the extra deck, you will not be getting your monster back. Not saying that we should get Brain Control back, cause thats still a very broken card, but Mind does the same thing now, or maybe even better.

In my Junk Doppel deck, I almost never lose a game when I have Mind in hand, same goes to my Sabers. While this card wasn't on my Radar before, I now truly feel that this needs to get hit.

2. Trap Dustshoot

I've seen several prediction list and some of them have Dustshoot on. Reasonings are quite simple. 90% of the time, you win if you have this in your opening hand and go first. You not only got rid of a combo piece or sometimes annoying pieces like Thunder King, you have knowledge on your opponent's resources and you can effectively plan your moves for the next few turns.

Good players can even make your opponent misplay by playing something to bait out big cards like Dark Hole or stuff. And this card spells Mind Games all over it.

While I do feel this card is necessary for the game, its over played now and have every reason to be hit by the banned list. If you pull Dustshoot late or mid game, its gonna be dead most of the time, but just because you could pull it turn 1 and it being highly splash-able, meaning its a good candidate for forbidden.

...

I'm not gonna have Black Luster Soldier - Envoy of the Beginning on the list simply because I don't think it's gonna be address (in this coming March list anyway).

Chaos and Plants aren't the top deck in OCG anymore. While this card is still THE most broken card in the game right now, I just don't think its gonna get hit, especially since GS04 is still being printed.

Limited :

1. Inzektor Damsel // Dragonfly

I have Hornet up on my list the last time, but a couple of guys brought up a very good point.

While Hornet is the key to the plus-4 combo, Damsel is the engine which kept it moving. It doesn't really matter if you have 1 or 3 Hornet in your hand or grave at a point if you can't keep generating the pluses with Damsel.

Centipede searches for Damsel, thats fine if you blowing up a card and searching for a card, once per turn. But Damsel puts the combo pieces on the board and set up for it again the next turn.

Hitting Damsel also means you would have to play other Inzektors from the next set (since they're bad in comparison to Damsel), and it makes perfect marketing sense as well.

I've made a mistake last time by limiting Hornet instead, since it would be ineffective, they have Armageddon Knight, RoTA, Tomatoes just to get a Hornet into the grave in the first place. And since all of the good Inzektors are level 3, Leviair to bring the Hornet back if its ever Crow'ed. After much thought, I feel, hitting Damsel would be the way to go.

For everything else on my forbidden list, I still feel the same. Including the Gachi Gachi Gantetsu that everyone is against.

Hieroglyph Dragon's Effect

2012-01-29T11:51:00.001+08:00

また、このカードがリリースされた時、自分の手札・デッキ・墓地からドラゴン族の通常モンスター１体を選び、攻撃力・守備力を０にして特殊召喚する。

Rest assured, the above text is the one featured on nearly every Hieroglyph Dragon and it clearly states that you could special summon ANY dragon Normal monster and have its ATK and DEF change to 0.

Yugioh Wiki have been wrong before and for those who have been worried by this, there is nothing to worry about.

Unless the wording would be change, you CAN special summon your Blue-Eyes or Luster Dragon.

My latest and by-far, most consistent build. Still needs fine tuning thou.

Hieroglyph Dragon : Tech update 1

2012-01-26T18:12:00.002+08:00

I'm so interested in this deck type that I've been testing it for the past few days, extensively!

I've been playing this deck like Infernity at its prime a few formats ago, consistently build up your card pool then OTK your opponent.

The only difference is that the deck doesn't run as many traps as Infernity does, cause you need most of quite a few monsters in hand to build the bridge to OTK.

1. Pot of Duality

Most OTK based decks stray away from this card,but for me, this card really helps the deck set up, since more than half of the monsters in my build can't be summon directly to the field. You really need to have access to those which you could normal summon (or CyDra) for your combos. The deck has 3 RoTA's where you can tutor any card to your hand, but I'm opening with dead cards more often than I expected.

I do agree that in an OTK deck, speed is usually more important than any other factors, BUT, I'm paranoid, so I would usually play things safer and make sure I have my pieces by turn 3 or 4. Thats not exactly a bad thing since Inzektors can't go off unless they start blowing my cards, unless they have Gigamantis in hand, they are not gonna kill me. As for the second most powerful deck, TG Agents, they will do, Earth 1st turn, Venus on the 2nd, thats about 4400 damage, but I would probably have my cards now to do their thing.

Can't deny the fact that Pot of Duality kills the speed of this deck, but thats the way I would play the deck. Just my personal pick over cards that add speed but lacks consistency (Upstart Goblin).

2. Luster Dragon (aka Sapphire Dragon)

I run a copy of this 1900 beater in my deck. Gieb is the Shura of the deck, if Hieroglyph Mark of the God Dragon would be Vayu, Sapphire Dragon would be Gale. This card really acts sorta like Gale in purpose. If you draw into it, it would beat most of the things off your opponent side of the board (aside from a Gachi boosted Venus). And Geib can pull it out with its effect and make rank 4's. Its sorta a tech for the deck but the main problem is how you would fit it in the deck.

As for me, I'm currently play 3 Hieroglyph Mark, 1 Luster #2 (Emerald Dragon) and 1 Luster. I'm not sure if I should play 3-1-1 or 2-2-1. Since Emerald Dragon combos well with the CyDra Hieroglyph Dragon or just about any Dragon out into Atumus. And the Mark is almost always dead in hand.

3. Compulsory Evacuation Device

The best trap of the format!

It does more than just messing up your opponent's strategies, it resets Red Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon. This deck makes Atumus extremely easy. We're gonna bring him out with Atumus most of the time and if we could potentially make an OTK by reseting him and getting rid of the now-useless-slot-wasting-Atumus, thats not bad a deal.

I'm playing 3 copies of these instead of double Bottomless and Torrential. While BTH is more powerful, its range of targets and functions are very limited as compare to Compulse, and Torrential is juts bad in this deck since you need monsters on your opponent field to start special summoning and combos.

...

Super Rejuvenation isn't really my kind of card, although I prefer playing consistently, I don't like cards that serve only as backup in case of my OTK fails.

Short Hieroglyph Dragon deck review (sorta)

2012-01-24T11:33:00.002+08:00

After a few days of testing, I feel very comfortable with the deck and the deck can put out extremely explosive plays quite consistently.

The build I'm currently playing focuses on Rank 6's, better know as Atumus the Hieroglyph Dragon Lord. Its ability to special summon Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon from your deck is deadly.

If that doesn't work, I have a back up plan in the form of Dragorado, which basically fits itself into the deck easily. Since it tributes stuff and acts as Debris Dragon for normal monsters. In addition of being a Debris, you can have it be a level 8 by releasing a Dragon (aka any of the Hieroglyphs). Now you can have Emmet and another normal monster out.

The deck can also go into Neo Galaxy-Eyes, but aside from acting as an oversized beater, its not that good.

The problem I have with the deck as of now is :

The deck leaves you empty handed most of the time after a combo. Most of the combo are easy to do but it will almost always take your entire hand to do it. Which would be a problem if your OTK doesn't work.

Conclusion : The deck is definitely fun and definitely has potential. A level 6 normal Hieroglyph Dragon can make this deck a lot better in my opinion. Which may actually be in the pack as well. If you look at Hieroglyph Seal's set number, its GAOV - JP002, normal monsters always have been the first few cards in the set, and now we have this card as a 002. 001 will be another normal monster, I really hope it'll be the dragon I'm waiting for.

If we have a Rank 4 Hieroglyph Dragon with a good effect, that'll probably broke this deck. Not possible in this set as all the monster exceeds have been shown.

Year of the Dragon Special

2012-01-22T16:35:00.000+08:00

Firstly, Happy CNY to all.

Looks like Konami is helping us celebrate the year of the dragon with both the Chaos Dragon SD and Hieroglyph//Sacred Mark Dragon archtype.

The former fails to top in every way imaginable, but as I said yesterday (also on DuelingDays), the deck has potential. If Inzektors weren't in the picture, they will most probably be tier 1, not top deck, but definately tier 1 (or somewhere near that).

I'm thinking a way to incorporate Blue-Eyes and White Stone of Legend into the deck, but the results aren't really satisfying. This feels like a race against time here, cause this deck has potential and its only a matter of time where someone build the best build for competitive scene, as someone whose been in the game for the past 9 years, I really wanna be the one who build that, instead of being just another netdecker. Just a little challenge I've set up for myself.

Wish you all the best of luck, prosperity among others!

Hieroglyph

2012-01-21T13:29:00.001+08:00

For some of us, this had been the Dragon Archtype we had been waiting for years. Finally, a Dragon deck that does not need to feature FGD or Dragon Ravine. And finally, an archtype that Red-Eyes can be the support instead of the boss

I've tried building this deck and had a few games (unfortunately, no META decks) on DN, and its really fun. The card effects that doesn't makes sense actually turn out to be very good.

Lets see, what does this deck have :

1. Its own Dark Armed, well, sorta, a 2800 that blows things up by removing a Dragon from grave and special summons itself (AND searchable). Too bad you have to banish 3 Dragon type normal monsters for it, which is a really heavy cost since this deck basically runs around the normal monsters, nevertheless, a great card and a great game ender.

2. Its own E Emergency Call. Theres no level limit on it so you can search your deck for any missing pieces for the OTK and play it. This is the card that made me think the Hieroglyph archtype may be more than just a fun deck, any deck with their own RoTA at 3 means business, I don't see it topping Inzektors anytime soon with only these cards in the pool, but already the deck has a fine structure build in.

3. They have their own, Cyber Dragon and Ancient Rules. Which adds up to their combos.

4. 2 extremely powerful boss monster exceeds. Along with the fact that the deck can run an impressive array of monster exceeds ranging from rank 4 to 8. (except for 7)

5. They get to special summon a normal monster from your deck, grave or hand!! when they are released (tributed). Sounds hard? Not at all, since most of the higher level Hieroglyph dragons can be special summon from hand by releasing one from the field, and you get 2 monsters out instead of 1, and a potential xyz summon. And there's plenty of cards that release your monsters, ie Enemy Controller and Burst Breath.

Hieroglyph Dragon King - Atumus
2400/2100

2 Level 6 Dragon-Type monsters

Once per turn; you can detach 1 xyz material from this card; special summon 1 Dragon-Type monster from your deck, but its ATK and DEF becomes 0. This card cannot declare an attack the turn you activated this effect.

So, you special summon a dragon but now your 2400 beater can't attack AND that dragon obviously can't beat anything. Bad? Far from it!

The card you wanna get out is none other than Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon. And you see more pluses coming in already since its effects aren't negated.

The most interesting part of this archtype is :

You can tribute the Hieroglyph Dragon in hand, yes, like ritual summoning, you CAN tribute those in hand for some of their effects. Meaning potentially you discarded something to blow something and get a normal monster out which could easily be use as an XYZ material.

I might have a Level 5 normal Dragon in here just so I can get to level 5 monster exceeds easier, but that depends on further deck testing. Overall, this deck is good and is really fun to play with.

HERO beat topping again!!

2012-01-21T00:36:00.002+08:00

Sorry fornot posting for a week, school started for me and CNY is in the corner, lots ofthings to do and I end up extremely tired everyday after revision and stuffs.Since I have some free time now, might as well make full use of it.

Looks likethe TCG had caught up with the OCG in terms of set release, since ORCS has beenpre-released last weekend if I’m not mistaken, this only happened once beforeback in 2006 I think, what ever this means, its not really a concern for bothparties I think. I’ve been hearing stuff saying Konami push the release toJanuary because they wanna make sure they can hit Inzektors in the March bannedlist, that’s a good hypothesis (or any term suitable, hey, I’m a Engineeringmajor, that’s the only term I know). Seeing how Inzektors win almost everytourney since their build stabilized, its no wonder konami want to hit it hard,just to make sure we don’t get another shitty 6 month ahead of us.

Coming backto the OCG, I’ve been seeing more and more HERO beat topping, it definitelyreplaced Rabbit Lagggia as the 3^rd most popular deck of the format,behind Inzektors and Agents. I say party, this is due to how the deck can main3 Macro Cosmos (if the duelist wants to) and don’t feel bad about it. Macro isextremely powerful at the moment, being THE best side deck card against most ofthe current top tier. If you could potentially main it, even better.

The otherreason I think HERO beat is gaining popularity is probably due to theineffectiveness of monster destruction in general. The deck normally run 7 to 8monsters (that’s not a typo), and almost every one of them are floaters (alliusis a floater to me, since Gemini Spark gains you pluses anyway, AND we alsohave HERO blast). The amount of traps the deck can run and how Decree willalmost never stay long enough to hurt it has something to do with its successas well. Super Polymerization is now run in 3’s in the main deck, well, sinceyou generate a lot of advantage anyway, and Laggia is the only other deck that doesthe same (and will stop your plays effectively), I see no reason not runningit.

Sekiha Tenkyoken!!

2012-01-15T12:00:00.002+08:00

Maybe Photon Streak Bouncer is the generic rank 6 I've been waiting for!

2700 2000 Rank 6 Light Warrior

Level 6 x2

When a monster your opponent control's effect is activated, you can detach 1 xyz material to actuvate this effect. Negate the activation of that effect and deal 1000 damage to your opponent's life point. This effect can be used once per turn.

Since it has a good effect, and is bigger than most level 6 monsters (which is exactly the point why one exceeds).

And now, Neo Galaxy Eye Photon Dragon

4500 3000 Rank 8 Light Dragon

3x Level 8

When this card is successfully xyz summon with Galaxy Eyes Photon Dragon, negate the effects of all other face up cards. Once per turn, you can activate this effect by detaching 1 xyz material from this card. Remove all xyz material your opponent controls, and during this turn, this card gains 500 atk for each card remove this way. Furthermore, during that turn, this card can attack a number of times equals to the number of xyz material detached by this effect.

Basically, this guy just wanna remove all of Hope's xyz material and attack twice with 5500 attack, and win. How are we gonna get 3 level 8's out again? Maybe the new level 8 Dragon normal monster if it has 0 attack, with Ancient Rules and Inferno Reckless Summon?

...

So, people are playing Bubbleman again (according to Dueling Days), haven't been looking at the HERO beat deck list in a while.

Bubbleman has always been a good HERO card, and became way more playable in HERO decks since advent of monster exceeds. Fishtank had played a number of him in his deck to go for Hope since the YSD.

Good update on the current trend as usual. Too bad the card doesn't have a foil OCG version.

March Banned list

2012-01-11T22:45:00.000+08:00

Its about 1 month from the reviewing of the banned list. And I want a head start from the others. If someone else has already posted their list, please link me to them in the comments since that means I had not subscribe to their blog yet.

First, let us look at the problems.

Without much difficulty, we can say that Inzektors are a major pain in the ass. The deck is way to autopilot for the format, and sometimes, way too powerful. (Not as powerful as TeleDAD in its prime, but still ... )

Next, we see Agents. These guys had claimed all but the last month of 2011 as their own. If there weren't Inzektors in ORCS, Agents will still be THE top deck. Hitting Inzektors and not hitting them will not be fair at all.

Sadly(or maybe gladly), I see no other deck being a major problem in the competitive scene. Other random 1.5s like Darkworld, Laggia and Dandy generally don't deserve to get hit, but to stop anyone from bitching ...

Banned :

None

Limited :

Gachi Gachi Gantetsu
Inzektor Hornet
Wind-Up Zenmighty or Wind-Up Rat
Rescue Rabbit (if this is hit, it'll most probably just be semi, but I would like to see it here)
Magician of Faith
Royal Oppression

reasonings :

For Gachi, its pretty obvious. The reason why Agents have been successful wasn't Hyperion (alone) but with the help of this rank 2 wall. Venus gain free pluses (almost free), Shine Balls aren't as dead as they were initially thought, and Earth made sure you have 6 copies of Venus in your deck, BUT without Gachi, these knowledge and resources aren't gonna top anything. Of cause, we can't banned Gachi, its not broken. But making multiple Gachi without costing any hand is way too much pluses. Most of the time, you don't mind a Gachi, its the fact that your opponent could make another 1 that bothers you. Gachi at 1 makes sure your opponent plays it right, his 3rd Shine Ball isn't as live anymore and you can concentrate on Hyperion. Problem solved.

Hornet is the center of the Inzektor Engine. Of cause, being a new archtype, we can't just kill it. But Konami should try to move the archtype away from free pluses, or at least thats how I feel. Hornet at 1 means you still can do the loop, since you only need 1 Hornet for it anyway. But this decreases the consistency AND makes DD Crow much more deadly. But Inzektors make Leviair easily. This shouldn't be a problem, and will not kill the deck. Like how the previous Banned List did on Samurai (limiting Gateway), it slows them down to a healthy speed and consistency, but still keeping it at top tier level.

Zenmighty's loop is just stupid, we all know that. While people say that a pure Zenmighty deck dies if the loop is somehow stop, thats not a very good reason in my books. The combo is way too easy to do and it leaves your opponent with nothing to fend itself. Zenmighty and Rat are both the culprits for this deadly loop, but hitting one of them would render the other useless (in this loop). Hitting which one would be anyone's guess, since both of them are healthy cards on their own (like how Dewloren and Symbol are).

Rescue Rabbit proves auto plus ones are broken, even with restrictions on it. While not being THE top deck in OCG, it still is one of the threats you need to side for. The deck is broken with Tourguide, YCS coverage proves that (not sure how it would do if Inzektors get thrown in the mix). While I do agree putting Rabbit at 1 will kill the deck, since unlike Cat, its targets are useless unless being brought out together. BUT, with Tourguide and Gold Sarc, I'm not entirely sure.

Faith can be brought back ages ago. While we do have 3 powerful spells (Reborn, Heavy and Mind Control, not Dark Hole) in the game, it still needs to set itself. Its effect is still powerful but that doesn't change the fact that its slow. It can be a power house in Chaos, and that may cause problems, BUT personally, I don't think so, and I wish for it to come back, it's been banned for way too long, BLS was way better and it got out.

Royal Oppression HAS to come back. The card is too important for non-spam decks all together. I don't think I need to say more for this card.

There may be others, but to me, these are the only ones worth changing. Of cause, we all know Tourguide of the Underworld deserves to get herself limited but we all know thats not happening anytime soon, same as Tengu getting semi-limited.

Semi-limited :

Master Hyperion
Agent of Mystery Earth
Grapha, Dragon God of the Dark World
Mystic Space Typhoon

Hyperion and Earth made Agent deck way too consistent. Putting them at 2 will not kill the deck, but this will drastically lowers its consistency. Together with Gachi at 1. This will force Agent players to either play a different strategy, find ways to work with the consistency issue or just drop the deck all together (although these changes will NOT kill the deck, but definitely not on tier 1 status). Maybe this will force them to run Krystia again, and take the deck to a more control approach. Hyperion is just too good a boss, even if his not generic.

While DW isn't doing much, it did top a few events and Grapha is a little too overpowered. The deck face consistency issues, that I agree. But with the right hands, or should I say, with Grapha in hand, this deck is even deadlier than Agents. Hitting Grapha would be the best choice since this would force DW players (or whats left of them) to play the other DW monsters, and not just rely on Grapha itself.

*Grapha : I shall not be hit by the semi-limited list, as my soldiers of the Dark realm aren't doing as much as they should be. Therefore ... bla bla bla ...

Me : Will some one please shut this overgrown purple dinosaur up ... *

MST at 3 basically made any deck that plays field spell and continuous S/T worthless. And it serve as a spam deck's best buddy against control deck players. While being a one for one, this card isn't as healthy as it seems at 3. Its should be at 1 in my opinion, but I say 2 would be fine.

No longer on list :

Emergency Teleport

We want this back, NO, we NEED this back. Mind Master is long gone, this is not TeleDAD format anymore. Emergency Teleport is no longer the broken lightning speed combo piece it used to be. BUT its the one thing Psychic decks need to be playable again. So, it needs to come back in my opinion, or Psychic will remain dead (or maybe thats what Konami wants).

...

These are the cards that are currently on my mind. Maybe I'm hitting Agents too much and maybe not hitting Inzektors hard enough. But I feel this would balance out this deck enough for it too be still competitive, but not autopilot and broken.

I didn't hit any Karakuri cards because I feel like they're not winning big events enough and I can't think of anyway to make the deck slower but not kill the deck entirely.

Of cause, I don't think we'll ever see a banned list update with less than 10 cards on it, but I can't think of anything else at the moment. Some haters may add Inzektor Damsel//Dragonfly somewhere up there and definately BLS, but I think that will kill the decks in question entirely, but who knows.

Tournament Reports ... and stuff

2012-01-11T10:17:00.000+08:00

I've been wondering since last night, do you guys (the readers) wanna read tournament reports?

I find myself on the "I'll read it, but I don't think I'll gain anything from it" side.

Unless someone is doing it like coverage from YCS, I don't think it helps you become better at all.

So, would you guys mind telling me should I :

1. Just have brief reports like most others, meaning just type out how the duel ends and stuff.

2. Continue how I'm doing it, although things get really repetitive ...

3. Elaborate things YCS style

4. Brief report + YCS style coverage on Finals (and maybe semi). This is what I want to do from now, if I have the time.

5. Drop the reports all together cause no one is interested and focus on other stuffs

Gatcha!! OOPS! Wrong show ...

So, just tell me how you guys feel in the comments. Thanks.

Wing Blast vs Evacuation Device!!

2012-01-10T15:12:00.001+08:00

Both of these are the best traps for the current format in my opinion. Here I wanna compare these traps.

Wing Blast :

Advantage :

1. Get rid of problem without destroying it.
2. Sends to top deck, making your opponent dead draw sometimes, and give you a turn to prepare for it.

3. Can target spell and trap in case you wanna OTK or something like that.

4. Gets rid of your opponent's boss monsters (any one of them)

Disadvantage :

1. You need to discard a card for it (which may be the reason some decks shy away from it)

Mostly seen in decks that :

Generate advantages easily and doesn't care about a card or 2. This card fits easily into most "aggressive" meta decks.

Inzektor, Doppel, Agents - decks that run medium amount of traps (6~7 copies) would run this card to a better effect because they have more cards in hand to discard and can gain advantage from the discarded card some times.

Compulse :

Advantage :

1. No cost

2. You can target your own cards, ie, chain to BTH and stuffs.

3. Gets rid of opponent monsters (preferably those from extra deck)

Disadvantage :

1. Only target monsters (not that big a deal actually)

2. Doesn't do much to monsters that can be summon easily again, ie BLS, Hyperion

Mostly seen in decks that :

Need to maintain card advantage to win. Control decks normally play this against powerful Synchro or Exceed monsters since they need 2 or more cards (most of the time) to make and this card gains advantage by sending them back. While not being able to deal with monsters like DAD and Hyperion as well, these decks play this card since its free and serve as cheap removal.

This card is usually only seen in decks that run high trap counts (10+ trap decks), for example HERO Beat. BUT, unlike Wing Blast, which is only seen in main decks (most of the time), Compulse proves itself to be a popular side deck card.

...

I've been hearing people saying 1 of those is better than the other, but my conclusion after looking at decklist that won tourneys, is the effectiveness of these cards depends on the deck its played in. Or more specifically, the amount of traps the deck runs.

Wing Blast works well in decks that run medium amount (6~7 ) of traps, while Compulse works better in decks that run high (10+) or low (lower than 5) traps. Also, Compulse works better in combo decks that involves special summoning monsters from hand (ie, X-sabers) while Wing Blast serve ONLY as combo breaker and does it very well.

All the above assumptions are made by myself after looking at plays, decklists, the meta and also after test playing. Feel free to give me feedback.

Shi-En Agent Beat

2012-01-06T19:06:00.000+08:00

Been offline for a while, need to help my sis move her stuff to KL since she's starting college next week. For the past 3 days, I've been travelling and moving stuffs (beds, tables, and all the other shits), reaching home after dinner.

Finally have time for myself. Since I have Agent and Samurai cards, decided to build them into a single deck. Its a real fun deck to play, and can be good depending on how you play and whats your meta.

monster (25):

3 Master Hyperion
3 Agent of Mystery Earth
3 Agent of Creation Venus
3 Mystic Shine Ball
3 T.G Warwolf
2 T.G Striker
3 Elder of the Six Samurai
2 Kagemusha of the Six Samurai
2 Junk Synchron
1 Black Luster Soldier - Envoy of the Beginning

spell (11):

3 Asceticism of the Six Samurai
1 Reinforcement of the Army
2 Mystic Space Typhoon
1 Heavy Storm
1 Dark Hole
1 Monster Reborn
1 Mind Control
1 Enemy Controller
1 Pot of Avarice

trap (3):

2 Call of the Haunted
1 Trap Dustshoot

I was only playing Elder but found Asceticism, so I put them in, works good. Since turn 2 Shi-En means nothing at all.

Enemy Controller over Book of Moon, because I can do more things with it. And I have free Shine Balls anyway. A second Mind Control isn't bad at all.

I was originally gonna run 3 Decree over the 3 Traps. But Decree isn't really that good now since the meta isn't trap heavy and the decks who run tons of traps have a lot of outs to it. But, I'm not entirely sure how good double Call is, since I don't like playing Solemns in decks that have low trap count. Mirror Force and Torrential Tribute isn't working good as of late.

I was debating either double Call, double Wing Blast or double BTH. Settle on Call since it has more combos, but this is subject to change.

Not really an all powerful deck, and I don't see myself taking this to tourney any time soon. Just posted this since I can't seem to think of anything to discuss.

BLS > Chaos Sorcerer XD

GS04

2012-01-02T15:45:00.001+08:00

Its a few days (or maybe a week) before GS04 reaches Malaysian shores, but we all know what cards are coming out anyway.

The set is easily one of THE BEST troll packs Konami has ever released.

Troll targets :

1. The "casual" OCG players.

Theres 2 groups of people in the game, one who would pay a good amount of cash for powerful cards, which are known by the other party as "netdeckers" and the other who would spend less than rm20 or less only on a single copy of something, self proclaimed "casual" players.

Well, when Pot of Duality was announced. Most of us competitive players are already aware of this, since TCG did get PoD reprinted a few months back, and it being a widely played 2 year old card, its reprint is inevitable. Those that are greatly sadden by this news was those who stock piled a few dozen of copies. For us who already had a playset, this wasn't a big deal, since the card payed for itself.

The "casual" players however, spammed the FB pages and all around locals about how "netdeckers" are idiots, paying 150 for a single copy of card thats gonna turn into a rm1 joke.

Konami trolled them back, by making Pot of Duality a NR. When news was spread on New Years Eve, me and a good amount of others laugh like we're mad mans. Not so much that our Pots won't drop in prices, but mostly on the fact that the bitches got trolled HARD. On the other side of the fence, people are now bitching that Konami is milking them for their cash and shit.

Whatever the cause, kudos for Konami for the perfect troll.

2. The TCG players who regularly compare card prices with OCG

When Zenmaines was announced a month ago, I read a few TCG players saying how unfair it is for us to get it just a few months afetr its initial release in the TCG, Photon Shockwave is STILL the newest set in TCG for those who doesn't follow TCG. Zenmaines was a TCG Secret Rare, fetching up to 60 USD (the last time I checked). Naturally, its gonna be the other NR since everyone wants a copy or 2.

Nope, Konami says "Common, we troll them bitches, and we gonna troll them hard"

And Zenmaines ended up being the Catastor of GS04, and I've seen people bitching about it. But, my point is, how does the rarity of card in OCG affect someone on the TCG side? Its not like they can use it or anything?

Not much of a troll I guess, but I think this is Konami's answer to the question "Is Konami predictable with reprints?"

No, they're not. They work like madmen, and thats a compliment!

Secret Wish List that was not granted.

1. Solemn Warning - I seriously want a foil copy of the card.
2. Chain Disappearance - the card is just way too pricey over here.
3. Snowman Eater - refer to Warning

But, in return, we get,

1. Starlight Road - I was gonna get the UR one sooner or later, but a GR isn't that bad, especially considering how much the price differs
2. Dimension Prison - The same reason as Road
3. Lava Golem - I always wanted a playset of these, but I can never find them, cause people usually only pack the most wanted cards in their binder and always give me this answer "oh! I left it at home ... sorry, maybe next time ..."

This is a good set, better then GS02 and GS03 already, but I don't see it beating GS01 in sales any time soon.

Preordered mine, still thinking whether I should get a second box. AND, the price of GS04 is a lot lower compare to the previous GS's. Well, the retail prices for packs and decks are dropping. Thats good news.

Not getting a NR was the main problem with Gold Series, getting the wrong one hurts just as much. This one however, I don't care if I don't get a NR, since I don't need it anyway. Just make sure I get a playset of foils for the staples!

Good Bye 2011

2011-12-31T19:39:00.001+08:00

2011 is gonna end in a few hours, and heres what I have to say about the year for YGO.

It has been a bad one ...

Well, compare to 2010, anything not better will seem bad, since it was that good of a year for the game, movies, Duelist Revolution among others.

2011 was a bad year for YGO for me at least, and the Malaysian YGO community (KL).

Main reason was Cardfight! Vanguard. The game was much more simple and luck based as compare to YGO, but it penetrated the market at the right time. Comparing this to what Duel Masters did a few years back. DM was a much more strategical game and very very much more complex, so, its target market are competitive players (or so it seems), BUT that was 2005~2006-ish, YGO was super huge back then and it was Goat Control format, it didn't caught on, and faded away. What CV did was it came in when YGO was a mess with loads of overpowered combos - Six Samurai era. People stray away because the game ended too fast for them and Kizan was rm100 a piece, a playset of those, Shi-En, Gates and Grandmasters would easily hover between 900~1000, for a country which pays their fresh grad Engineers (points at me) about 2000 per month, thats quite an amount.

Now, you see half of the YGO players playing CV in KL. Most of us are only playing this as an secondary cardgame, only having 1 deck and still focusing on YGO, BUT, no other (card) game had this effect on the community, which YGO reign supreme for at least a decade. Although I've seen lesser players from our side playing that actively on that side. Well, CV is now as expensive or maybe more expensive than YGO is, I think thats the main reason people came back, that, or the game is just too simple for us who likes traps and Effect Veilers.

The other important thing that happen in 2011 is, of cause, Monster Exceeds.

Exceeds may not had change the game like Stardust and his lot did 3 years ago, BUT, there's no doubt that they are here to stay (unlike Fusions and Ritual). And they are getting more powerful as more sets are introduced.

Aside from the 1 main point that made 2011, 2011. There really isn't anything thats gonna be remembered for. The March and Spetember formats are perhaps, the most boring of formats in a long long time. Its not that the balance between decks are off, the games (here) are very much skill based, and we see decks that control doing as well as decks that spam. But, its still very dull. 2011 can be described as the year of Gachi Gachi, as Hyperion rode it to top deck status and stayed there for the rest of the year (although Inzektors are giving them a run for their money).

Thats YGO as a whole for 2011 from my point of view. Now, off to myself.

I'm doing better this year as compare to last year. I've top considerably more shop events than I've ever did. And I've made it to top16 in Christmas Tourney a few days ago in Single Elimination format, which I suck at and has never advance pass top64 since 2006.

I've been better at my game now, that is, taking down top tier decks with ex-top tier decks. Basically showing them how good is the deck they had betrayed. Up to now, I have always played decks that were dominating the pass formats, its almost as if, when the deck loses popularity, I would play it, mainly cause the pieces are easier to assemble and mocking people like this feels good.

Thats it for today, its new years eve and I have a life. Not gonna post an E HERO decklist like I did for the past 2 years, since I've already update my current strategies in the Mask Change post.

Bye 2011, and welcome 2012!!

Oppression Being Irrelevant

2011-12-27T11:23:00.000+08:00

Many are saying we need Oppression back or we continue getting our ass raped by Inzektors. I want Oppression back too, and I see it back March 1st, BUT, unless something happen to Inzektor, or someone found a flaw in that +4 loop or that Zenmighty Loop, or maybe just a super special awesome tech that would render them useless. Its not gonna do much.

Oppression never succeed in stopping a Tier 1 deck from being tier 1, it did however, joined their ranks and made them more consistent.

Oppression does next to nothing to standard Inzektors in my books. Reason being Hornet. Its gonna blow Oppression up before searching for Centipede, and blow more shit up.

Unless your opponent has something like Hyperion, Krystia or BLS (bosses who would outright kill you if you 2nd Inzektor might somehow failed itself), you would target the backrow first. In this format, people don't set alot. Unless your gonna risk it out and set 4, hoping Hornet misses, and you won. BUT, even after taking Storm out of the question, IF your opponent hits Oppression, his gonna rape your other 4 cards off. Setting useless cards against Inzektors are suicide.

And if you could set multiple in the first place, and not fear a Heavy Storm to the face, your not in any position to be scare of Inzektors. BTH, Torrential, Warning are 3 cards almost always seen in a deck with 10+ traps, and all of these stop the loop just as well, no, they stop it better. You want something that stays, Macro or Shadow Mirror.

I still do think Oppression should and would be coming back March 1st, but I don't see it terribly good against Inzektor, of cause, 1 more generic card against them would increase your chances, but the problem with Oppression would be, you don't wanna see it at the other side of the table. Hornet can blow his own cards, and with Oppression back, I imagine they would run Trap Stun again, instead of MSTs.

During the past weekend, I've been playing alot against Inzektors. Maybe I'm just being confident in my own deck, I don't think a +4 Hornet loop would outright kill Junk Doppel, theres not many cards he can hit in the first place. Zenmighty Loop does the same effect to the deck, as long as he doesn't pull Dimensional Fissure. The biggest problem most deck have against Inzektors would be how good the deck works with Fissure. How can a deck with an ability to gain massive pluses, rape your opponent's hand and just outright makes Leviair like its free, plays Fissure so well.

I'm saying this based on my own opinion, but I felt that people are fearing the wrong card. Samurai, Laggia and now Inzektor all dominated their own format (until a new set release or banlist), they all have 2 things in common, wasting your opponent's resources and access to Dimensional Fissure. D Fissure wins games for you in the right deck, but people are so preoccupied with the loops and shits, they tend to forget the main thing killing them is Fissure, not the loop itself.

If your playing Agents, you don't have set cards most of the times, unless your opponent has Gigamantis, his not gonna kill you, you've loss next to nothing and your gonna take out his field next turn. Hornet has a +4 loop? Venus Gachi play does the same thing, it doesn't destroy 2 of your opponent's card, Gachi waste them. And you have Orange Light to deal with the loop in the first place, unlike Veiler in Plants, Agent thins their deck a lot faster and pulls them more often. The problem now would only be Fissure, the card that stops all of your plays.

BUT, there is no doubt Inzektor Wind-Up is a broken deck. There's no disagreement that its tier 1, some might even argue its tier 0, but we all know thats not true. Its amazing but not unbeatable.

That was my personal opinion. I'm a little weird and look at things at a different way to many I guess.

Just build my own version of TG Agents, but unlike how most people play it, my focus is not on Agents, but on TG. The deck works like how an average Junk Doppel should, summoning very very beefy monsters steadily and ending the game by flooding the field with monsters. Basically, its now my Combo/Spam deck for Official Tournaments. My Junk Doppel is my Control/Annoying Stall deck for Official Tournaments.

How the hell these 2 decks swap functions? I just found that I work better with builds like this, and I just like to be different. Venus, Warwolf and Hyperion easily makes an OTK and by NOT summoning Venus head on, the chances of me pulling it off drastically increases. Reaper, Mole and Goat, cards that you don't see in the Asian Format, just outright proof their worth to me in my Junk Doppel and after placing a lot of Traps and hand traps into the deck, it might not be as consistent in pulling out big plays, but it can stall the game long enough and waste enough cards from your opponent to pull out a kill, the way I like the game to be done.

Well, I'm just weird I guess.

Christmas Tourney Finals Videos

2011-12-26T23:24:00.002+08:00

Head to Zack's New Blog. He had the videos up and running.

http://competitive-to-survive.blogspot.com/

Enjoying my holiday, bye!

Christmas Tourney Report

2011-12-25T19:14:00.001+08:00

Its a Single Elimination Tourney, and I played Junk Doppel, since I'm most comfortable with the deck. My strategy against Inzektor? Kamikaze, I siding 3 Shadow Imprisoning Mirrors, bet they don't see that coming.

Round 1 : VS Inzektor

Seriously, that was fast.

Duel 1 : I open One for One ditching Dandy to get Formula out. I set MST but on his turn, he had Heavy. He then played Allure, removing Damsel. I swear to god my balls shrank when I saw that ditch. But fortunately for me, he didn't pull good I suppose, Foolish for Hornet, set 2 and pass back to me after a misplay, he summoned Tomato and hit Formula, cause I thought it had 1000 def. I then did a Heavy Storm + Trishula and he shuffled, knowing he has no outs to a Trishula with no Hormet in sight and no hands.

Duel 2 : I open what I thought to be the worst hand ever. It was 2 Shadow Mirrors, a Dandy, BLS and Wing Blast. He open with a Foolish for Hornet, set 3 and D Fissure. I was like ... shit. But I topped MST, got rid of Fissure. I then set Dandy, set all 3 Traps, which he had 2 MST for, but he missed 1 Mirror. His Damsel turned Vanilla and I topped Reaper and stalled the next 20 minutes. A lot of cards later, I cleared the field and both of us have 2 hands, life was 4900 to 5100 with him leading. He had Leviair fetched his Hornet and attacked my monsters. I summoned BLS (finally) but he had BTH. My last option was to make a Stardust with Lonefire, a Glow from grave and Spore removing Lonefire, my last card in hand was Junk Synchron, but I don't have any non-tuners in the grave for target. He then made another Leviair with Damsel into Hornet, forcing Stardust to tribute itself and get centipede. He got back his Damsel and send Hornet to grave to destroy his own Call, upon realizing his only Inzektor in deck was a lone Hornet. He summoned that, look at my banished pile, and saw Lyla, 1900 + 1900 +1700 is game, but he realize he didn't have a 3rd Leviair. So he settled with Revise and take me down to 600. Stardust came back, I pulled a RoTA and that fetched me Doppel and spelled GAME for him, since he told me he had no monsters left in the deck.

OO

Round 2 : VS TG Agent

Duel 1 : He started with the Venus play but C got me 2 cards, one was Heavy. He set 2. I played Storm, summon Grandmole (yes, I main Grandmole, cause I HATE Gachi Gachi). He summon Earth, I Veiler'ed it, it attacked my Mole and Venus hit Directly. On my turn, I ditch Dandy for Spore, summon Debris, made Trishula, Android and Formula. Attacked and ended. He then Special Striker and summon Earth, grabs the Venus, Exceed into Gachi. I syncro Black Rose, made Gachi into attack and attack for game.

Duel 2 : He open Earth for Venus, ending with 1 set. I MST'ed that (MST) and set Sangan and Dustshoot. Dustshoot got rid of Hyperion. I remember seeing Judgment. He then tries to Trishula me, but I had Veiler. I topped One for One again. Getting 2 Fluff tokens and Spore (doppel came down), which got me Formula. I tune the other with Spore for Catastor, which he played Judgment on. I then tune Doppel and Formula for Arm, special BLS from hand. Game.

OO

Round 3 : VS WWBF

Duel 1 : Since it was a friend of mine, the duel wasn't as stressful. I don't remember the exact details but i won from Stardust, a Formula on the field and I summon Junk Syncron and made Black Rose to attack him all out.

Duel 2 : He had 2 cards in hand. I played Storm on his backrows. I summoned Junk Syncron, get Doppel back and special another Doppel. Next I got a 3900 Junk Warrior out and attacked him directly and he dropped to 800, with me at 3000. I'm feeling good since I have Veiler for DAD and his likes. But he summoned Sirocco, I was thinking maybe a Bora, but Veiler can stop that, he attacked me and dropped Kalut. and took exactly 3000 life from me. I guess I was over confident here.

Duel 3 : I started with Decree and Reaper set. He set 4 backrows and ended. THE END.

OXO

Round 4 : VS Pure Agents//Agent Angel

Duel 1 : I somehow got him to 5400. He had a gachi out. I had Reaper and Dandy set. I special Sorcerer, he payed for Judgment, leaving him at 2700. I pay special Glow from grave, get Arm out, and banish Glow for Spore. 3+4+2 = 9.

Duel 2 : He opened Gachi and set 2. I played Heavy, he had Starlight Road. I wasn't expecting that. I summon Grandmole and attacked his Stardust, he played Mirror Force. I set 2 (bluffs), he summon Earth, got out Catastor, Banish Earth for Hyperion and Venus for his effect. MST'ed my last card and attack for game.

Duel 3 : I open Dustshoot to see Sangan, Mole, Shining Ball, Judgment, Dark Hole and Torrential. I got rid of Sangan. He summoned Mole, I played Warning (which I didn't know why either), he set both his cards and MST got Torrential. I summon my Mole, flipped Dandy and attacked for 1200, and Overlay them for Revise ... why did I do that? He had Dark Hole ... Venus came out and attacks for 2000. I set Doppel and Compulse. I have Junk in hand but he had Judgment. He attacked my monster, I played Compulse on Gachi, wanting him to negate it, he let that go. I then end up losing cause I slowed myself too much fearing Judgment.

OXX - what pisses me off was my opponent told me sorry he wasn't paying attention during the coarse of the match, his mind was on some prom or something. Which my friend translated into "I don't need to play my fullest to beat you ..." LOL.

Top16/8? I'm not that sure myself. But this is my best record in a large single elimination tourney to date.

Things that happened during the tourney :

1. Andrew Ng is actually a bot. His name appeared in 2 seats in round 1, and his opponent's got a bye for the match. LCW "dueled" him round 2. Another Bye.

2. Some dude dropped his deck box from the table and at least a dozen of Zenmighty and Hunter fell out. Frenzy didn't happen thou.

3. Fishtank and Sunny scrubbed!! But their anonymous friend, who never NEVER played a single tourney (big or small) before, made it to top16 I think. Apparently, he faced Andrew (LoL) in the 1st duel. Fishtank said his gonna cry his way home.

Mask Change

2011-12-21T18:37:00.002+08:00

Busy Saturday is ahead of me, gonna wake up early in the morning, go pick up my Shonen Jumps at KLCC, go to GA for some tourney and head back for a house warming party at night. And later, gonna prepare for the big tourney the next day.

Yeah, spending Christmas eve with cards, and Christmas with more cards.

Like I've said in the M HERO post, I see a lot of people "misplay" when playing Mask Change. So, I'll be discussing my experience with the card from the past year. I have been doing quite well with Mask Change and some people question me about this (including my team mate Nick on multiple occasions, well, his statement was "the card isn't good yet, why are you playing it?").

I'm trying to make this post like how Christ Bowling made his Maxx C video, in case you guys haven't watch that. Type it out on youtube, its a good 12 minutes or so video. It helped me a lot, since my Maxx C plays are definitely more effective now as to when I first got the card.

I know I don't have as much of an experience on the top tables as some of the players out there, but just hear me out and see if this helps.

1. Activation

Many people tend to play Mask Change during the main phase, which I don't understand why. The fact that it being a quickplay pretty much means its a card that you should only play in the battle phase. The fact that its a quickplay also means that if possible, you should always play it in a middle of a chain.

The most common of is to activate it in a chain, lets say, Icarus Attack, to gain pluses of it.

An E HERO deck is a deck that survives on pluses and making more pluses by wasting your opponent's resources. Mask Change is no different.

For Example,

Your Opponent has 2 Face Downs, a Librarian, a Formula and a Dopple token out.

I see quite a few would summon Ocean, play Mask Change into Acid(proxy) to take out your opponent's backrow and attack. There is nothing wrong with that, but your opponent will just sync for Scrap during end of main phase 1 or worst, Black Rose if you have backrows yourself.

What I would do, is to summon Ocean, declare battle phase. Your opponent may or may not perform synchro summon, as he might assume your just trying to get some damage. Why I take Ocean as an example is important, because Ocean doesn't have the attack to get rid of Formula Synchron, if you were to have a HERO that would take it out in battle, your opponent WILL synchro into something bigger.

IF your opponent allows you to go into battle phase, and assuming your opponent doesn't have Warning (which would basically make everything I just said pointless), attack the token for damage, if your opponent has plays Prison or Mirror Force, THATs when you play you Mask Change.

Both Acid and Vapor(if you really need to) can take out Librarian, and he can't synchro in the middle of battle phase.

What did you accomplished?

You've played an Ocean and Mask Change, so 2 cards. Your opponent lost Prison, Librarian, the token and another facedown assuming you've made Acid.

This might not be news for some of you guys, but I've seen people do the wrong things way too many times.

Another play which can be done now, is to treat Mask Change like Delta Crow on crack. With Acid of cause.

Summoning Ocean and set a couple of facedowns on the first turn is WAY to obvious. Don't do that.

But summoning Ocean and set a couple of facedowns when you have Airman or Allius in the grave is good, because the things that are running in your opponent's brain would be you trying to get your HERO back.

This may or may not matter depending on the duel, but I say most of the time, this play alone will win you the game if your playing a deck that is similarly backrow dependent. Set as many as you can (on your own risk), now, your opponent will be more willing to set his whole hand, because you won't play Heavy Storm normally under these circumstance. Thats when you would generate the most pluses off Acid.

Basically, I'm saying mind games are important when your playing Mask Change. Never play it when its obvious because it'll end up being a minus 1. The more unlikely your gonna play the card (on your opponent's point of view), the more pluses you can generate.

Aside from the normal, beat, beat, beat, Mask Change, beat, Game. Which if you DON'T play Mask Change, your an idiot.

And if you have a HERO out and Mask Change set, when your opponent plays MST, DON'T chain the mask change unless absolutely necessary or you can reuse that M HERO (like Miracle Fusion). The simple fact being your most likely only going to run a copy of each Mask HERO, if your playing all of them in a FUSION HERO build, if your not, you don't have to worry about this.

Now, off to M HERO Daian. This perhaps is the toughest M HERO to play with in my books. Mainly because if your playing it using Forest or Wild Heart, theres no way this won't look like your trying to play Mask Change. Playing Daian means your attacking your opponent face on, there is no tricks to it. UNLESS you would fake a misplay!

If you played with me, you know I pretty much always fake misplays. Don't do it in a way where your opponent knows your faking it, this is something I can't describe, its in the blood I think.

How do you fake a misplay with, lets say Forest. Using the same 3 monsters your opponent had in my example just now. The easiest and perhaps the most effective would be this :

Act like your a noob (compulsory, if your opponent knows your good, then thats too bad), summon Forest and ASK him whether Librarian would allow him to draw if you synchro summon, naturally your opponent will be thinking Mind Control and he can easily chain Formula to it. His gonna let you pass.

Next, you act as if you realize that you need to kill that Formula Synchron and get into the battle phase, and you ask checking with your opponent, can he synchro summon if your attacking his Formula. Now, your opponent will think your just trying to attack the Formula (he will most probably think you don't know Formula has 1500 defense and your a noob) and when you got into battle phase, drop your act and show him how good you really are(not compulsory).

Attack the token, get Daian out and kill his Librarian and then Allius(from your deck) take out the Formula. Then politely thank him.

This of cause is not necessary because IF your opponent just syncs into Stardust, then there is no problem, problem was with Colossal and Scrap. Again, the faking was to gain maximum advantage and prevent a failed attack.

Thats about all I can say about when to activate Mask Change, aside from the obvious. Well, I bet most of the things I said were pretty obvious too.

2. Playing Mask Change by NOT playing it

The title doesn't make sense right, well, I'm not sure how do I make this clear with my inability to express myself.

If your gonna play Mask Change in 3s, then chances are your gonna draw into more than 1 copy. But, thats not necessary a bad thing, in fact, it can be pretty beneficial.

1st, we're gonna assume your opponent thinks Mask Change is some sort of tech and your playing 1 or 2 copies. If you draw 2 early and an Ocean. SET both of them, with protection from Heavy Storm of cause.

Now, there are 2 ways you can play around with 2 set up. The 1st would be wasting your opponent's Solemn Warning if he had them set. But its the second way to play this I wanna talk about.

Imagine your opponent has like 3 facedowns and an Ocean. You KNOW he has Mask Change set. So, your gonna summon something bigger and try to run over it, wasting the Mask Change and saving your set cards in the process. This is why Vapor is important in the deck. When your opponent attacks, your gonna bring him out. Your opponent mostly can't take him out in main phase 2 since he is blanket from destruction effects. Your opponent is gonna set his hand. Now, the 2nd Mask Change is gonna make him cry. If your opponent just sets 1 or maybe 2 Facedowns, don't play the Mask Change, since its more likely MST.

Thats how I think you should play if you have more than 1 Mask Change in hand. How does this differs from having 2 Gemini Sparks? Well, sending the HERO isn't a cost and only happens during resolution.

Treat 1 of the Mask Changes as bait and hitting him hard with the second one.

Also, theres a trick I like to play between matches. If you played Mask Change to its full potential during Game 1. When your siding, you CAN take them all out and put in the side deck cards, effectively, that gave you 3 extra slots. This is where playing Mask Change by not playing it starts.

Now, your opponent will not set his whole hand even with Judgment or Road if you have Ocean and a facedown. Your opponent is less likely to response to your attacks that may end up in a minus if you have Mask Change. This is just how the human brain works. When you are hit by something so hard, your gonna take more precaution steps against it. He may think that his doing the right thing by not letting you gain pluses for free, but in actuality, his just slowing himself down.

I'm not saying this without references. I've done this a lot. I side out Polymerization and Mask Change almost every game. And that gave me at least 10 cards in my deck that I could side out. It doesn't just gives you a lot of freedom with the side decking, it also makes your opponent side in precautions for something thats no longer there. I would normally side in some Kycoos and Breakers along with BLS to make it Chaos Beat and gain access to Escuridao without Super Poly.

I'm not sure if this is effective, but I'm been successful so far with this game plan.

3. The don'ts!

This is basically a summary to what I've said.

Don't make obvious plays, play Mask Change only when you know your gonna gain massive pluses. Like how Gemini Spark should be played.

NEVER E CALL for a target thats not Heat or anything big. Its too obvious. Like, E Call for Forest ... I know, you have Mask Change now ...

Never play it just to gain extra damage, unless its gonna kill. This is where most people fails. They just drop Mask Change to deal an extra 2400 damage. In an E HERO deck, you can easily take out all 8000 life with minimal setting up, why bother for a 2K plus?

Never fuse into Gaia, unless you absolutely need to, if you don't have Mask Change. Because Gaia baits out stuff like crazy, same goes to Nova, but you need to randomly summon Nova for plus 1's. Your opponent is less likely to play stuff against Shining and ZERO, hence Gaia is the perfect bait. And he makes ANYTHING a kill target for Daian.

Don't randomly summon a M HERO without thinking. If you have 2 HEROs on the field that are Mask Change targets. You opponent plays Storm. Don't panic and chill the fuck down. Don't just play Mask Change and grab your extra deck. That would be a big mistake.

2 things you need to keep in mind. 1, will you get killed if you don't play the card, and if you do play it, does it matter? Depending on your opponent's hand size, and how the duel has been played, the answer can go both ways. 2, if you need to summon for what ever reason suitable, who you gonna summon. If you think just get rid of the HERO with the least attack, your wrong. The biggest difference in attack 2 HEROs can have would be 1000, thats HEAT and Forest. If that 1000 difference is more likely than not, NOT gonna kill you. You don't necessary need to bring out Daian. And if you 1 of your HERO is ZERO, then thats not even a question at all. Don't use it on ZERO, please. You need to question yourself, which M HERO you are LESS likely to need later on in the game, or maybe if you have Miracle Fusion, who you wanna make.

While it may not make sense to you, as I suck at explanations. Thats what going on in my brain when something like this happens.

...

That concludes what I wanted to say. I'm sorry if the post is messy, I'm not entirely too sure how should I place the points.

But, playing with E HEROs basically means you need to know how to react to different circumstances. So, the things I wrote may not be helpful in your game. You need to think about things like what you may draw into the net turn. If your gonna lose the game if you play safe, why no set up for something that can help you win, but you don't have the missing piece yet. Then again, with the amount of tutors the deck have, its not as unlikely as you may think.

Sorry for the long post and thank you for your time. Feel free to comment as those are just my personal thoughts on how the card should be played. I welcome constructive criticisms, both on your thoughts on Mask Change and how I presented myself.

Tourneys, Organizers and how people think

2011-12-19T18:30:00.000+08:00

I think this is the 1st time I'm posting something about how people think. Well, there's not been a successful tourney in Toysbar (yugioh wise) since August. The turnouts are usually extremely low. Toysbar, since the beginning of the year had replaces Gamers Arena as my locals, mostly cause its closer to my place and parking is free. BUT, recently, I've been feeling like going back to Gamers.

I really miss dueling, and by dueling, I don't mean play the damn game, but play it right. And I almost never get into the mood to play seriously unless something is on the line, and I think many felt the same as well. Maybe I'll stick to GA starting next year since I'm moving out (again) and it'll be a lot closer.

Problem with TB's YGO tourney problem. I asked a few locals and most of them gave me this very disappointing answer.

Its not worth rm15 if they won't be taking anything but a TP. One of them (which I shall not name) stated that his cool with the entry prizes, but he wants a fair chance to win, not paying up so the winners take good stuff for little cash.

I was a little confused by this as in TB, there's no judge (if Cookie isn't there) and we just check out issues regarding rullings on Wikia. Thus, there won't be any bias. And the pairings are done by drawing lots, so unless God hates you, you have your fair chance. BUT, he answered something entirely different.

Dude claims that its a waste of their time cause the winners are almost always predetermined as me and Fishtank have won every (yes, every) tourney since May, and its a waste of effort for most of them. I'm sure thats not how everyone thinks, but at least theres a few who thinks that way.

That, I couldn't do nothing, as I can't possibly just give them a free win.

Most others give another reason thou, which may be reasonable to them, but not so to the organizers and us competitive players.

Most players in TB are looking to get at least a Booster pack and a TP for just entering the tourney, thus, no one wasted any thing. This is good if the organizer is Konami, but in our locals, the organizers are just players like ourselves. No way they're gonna ditch out cash so everyone is happy. The profit margin is too low, unless they alter the prizes.

I speak for myself on this one, but I don't mind getting shitty entry prizes if the main prize is good. I don't mind paying 15 and not getting anything if I lose if I'm getting something like Lavaval Chain if I win.

But most people don't think that way. Thus organizers are having tough times. RM15 is actually the maximum amount of cash most people would pay for a tourney.

So, its either going to be "fair" and everyone gets something but shitty grand prizes, the more competitive players would not even think of coming because I would be better of playing for my ranking at GA. If the grand prize is good, the former group won't show because they know they're not getting anything from it, and when that happens, there are gonna be less than 8 players (which is most of the time, me and team Arco).

Of cause, the fact that TB is more based on Bushiroad card games such as WS and VG is a huge part of YGO being further down in priority.

Not sure how I've sounded after that wall of text. Am I bitching or ranting? Seriously, I have no clue. I've never wrote anything like this. And my "market analysis" must have suck and not made sense right? Sorry if it does, can't help it, I'm an Engineer.

But, thats just how I felt right now. I feel like the YGO community in TB is falling apart. People are saying that its the format that lead this to happen, well, the current Asian format is a VERY skill driven format, we consistently see the big names topping (Sam won Top Shop and MY team took 2nd in Asia Team), but to the lesser experienced players, they might shy away from the game and play something less "experience driven".

Also, I would say the gap between good and bad players in YGO is really huge now, you can easily stuff a F.G.D in there and still have room for Blue Eyes. I could easily call out whose gonna win by just looking at whose playing (like when we suddenly saw Sam playing in Top Shop Qualifier, most of us were just like ... I'm not winning ... am I?). I'm guessing that kinda also lead to why TB YGO is suffering.

Masked HEROs

2011-12-16T16:52:00.001+08:00

I bet most of you guys already know this, the next premium pack, PP14 features 10 new cards in secret rare form. Most of them are mediocre to good. I find most of them interesting.

My main interest would be the M HEROs, but aside from that, there are a couple of other cards that caught my eye.

The first one would be Rosalian. While its effect is not necessary what I would say amazing, but it has its uses. Once per turn, negate the effect of all other face-up cards till the end phase. A few example how this effect would be good would be attacking No39 Hope, or playing a trap while Decree is up (I think thats possible, although I'm not 100% sure, please update me on this one.). The main reason I took interest in Rosalian is his summoning condition.

You can special summon him by banishing a level-7 or higher Plant from your hand or graveyard. Kinda like Hyperion but slightly bigger, at 2900, his no joke. What makes him good is that he is a level 8 Plant himself. While he can't be special summon by Lonefire, this card gives you another reason to play Tytannial. Maybe as another boss monster for Skill Drain Barboros? Like how Eatos was, only Rosalian is less situation late game and is bigger. Overall, I say his one of the cards I would definitely try out.

Ma'at as a Secret Rare sucks, its either Ultra or don't print it at all. They've already ruin E HERO the Earth years ago as a secret and not naming him The EARTH (his name is in katagana, unlike the other Planets).

Orge Dragoon serves as another boss for Infernities, but I highly doubt Infernity has space for it. Since they run 3 Hundred Eyes, Brionac, Trishula, Leviair, Chain, Emerald among others. Well, I'm not that familiar with an Infernity deck's extra, so I'm not one to bitch.

Being a 3000/3000 (almost) generic beatstick is good. And he is a Shi-En under handless situations, that can't go wrong.

Photon Sanctuary may seem to be a Photon Imitation of Stray Lambs, but its actually pretty good, even outside of the Photon archtype. The negative effect of the card, is unlike Stray Lambs, where you can't summon at all, you can't summon anything thats not a Light monster. That basically solved everything Stray Lambs was deemed useless for. Not being able to be used as a syncro material is good since Formula and Quaser are both Light.

The tokens themselves are pretty beefy, 2000 each. Means you can now drop Galaxy Eyes without even normal summoning anything. A huge leap from what ORCS gave us. Photon Wyvern also has its uses because of this. Unless your opponent has a Solemn set, his very likely to have his whole field nuked 1st turn, and since this is normal summon, Rai-Oh doesn't do shit. I say, if you plan to play Photon (or rather, Galaxy Eyes), get a play set of this. I see this being played in other decks as well, namely a token deck, which I've been planning to build since DREV.

Now, into our topic of interest, the Masked HEROs.

The 2 M HEROs released in PP14 makes the 2 from PP13 look like jokes.

M HERO Acid's effect is simple, he can only be summoned by Mask Change and when he is, he blows up ALL spells and Traps your opponent controls. AND all their face up monster loses 300 attack. This has to the one of the most devastating effect from a HERO since Absolute ZERO. Like how ZERO brought HEROs into the competitive scene, this would be the HERO that would make Mask Change playable.

The 1st effect needs no introduction, destroying all spell and trap upon summon is an extremely powerful effect, the only thing that might happen to you would be BTH or Torrential. Well, if you took out 2~3 cards, its fine. Solemn Warning and Judgment does NOTHING to this card, keep this in mind. Your opponent has to negate Mask Change, and sending a HERO into graveyard isn't a cost, you only do that upon resolution. So, IF your opponent has Solemn, it would be a 1 for 1, where you treat Mask Change as MST, while your opponent loses 2000 life.

The 2nd effect may not seem so powerful, BUT it has its uses. Acid is 2600 to begin with, so its gonna kill anything thats under 2800 upon summon. Although your most probably gonna use ZERO as the tribute fodder and blow up your opponent's field.

Because of this, I'm considering playing 3 Mask Change instead of the 1 I'm playing right now. I really do think Mask Change is an amazing card, its won me a lot of games up till now, and I only had Vapor and Gokka to work with. I've seen a lot of people misplay this card, kinda like how most players don't know when you should play Gemini Spark or Super Poly in HEROs (especially when they play my deck). May discuss about this some other time.

The last card I want to review, would be M HERO Daian. And I would say, this card is AMAZING. While you would most probably play 1 copy of this in your extra, unless your running some sort of Earth based HERO deck (which isn't half bad, cause Wildheart is 2500 under Skyscrapper and Blade Edge is a 2600 piercer thats is free to summon most of the time).

Daian is 2800/3000 (a 3000 defend HERO is good since we don't really have a generic wall, but thats sarcasm I guess). When Daian destroys a mosnter by battle and sends it into the grave, you ... special a level 4 or lower HERO from deck ...

I guess Konami decides that HEROs doesn't have a good search engine and need a bigger shura/firedog then. This card is good when you need to push for game, see this happening quite often. HEROs usually face 1 problem when trying to push for game. The right monsters on the field. What this card does is it searches out the piece you need and win the game from there. If you play Fusion based HERO decks (Miracle Gemini is NOT a HERO deck!!!), you would have face this multiple times. Having those big powerful quickplays in hand but not having the right HERO out, and you would have to minus-one'd yourself to get rid of what ever your opponent has on his field. Well, this card answers that question, and with 2800 attack, it answered them very well.

I may be a bit bias on the 2 M HEROs, but that just showed how excited I am knowing these 2 would be release soon.

GS04

2011-12-12T21:17:00.001+08:00

I'm sorry I've not been posting, but I still have 2 more papers coming up in the next 3 days, but something really caught my attention.

On Shriek and some other sits, I'm seeing the updated GS04 list. 2 more cards were added to it.

1st was Pot of Duality. Well, this is no surprise, since its a 2 year old card now and deserved its reprint ages ago. For people who didn't see this, yes, its coming. If its not in GS04, its gonna be in some other reprint next year.

The other however, was a big surprise. Wind-Up Zenmaines.

What? A TCG exclusive in a reprint set? Really?

Not that this has not happen before. Grandmaster of Six Samurai and Volcanic Rocket were printed in Jump Festa a year before EXP1, so I guess its possible. But I would be lying if I say I saw this coming.

I'm guessing the success of Wind-ups and the fact that the previous 2 GS were failures lead Konami to such desperate measures.

I'm still not buying on this completely, as this does seems too good to be true.

So, what more can I expect from this? Tourguide as a common maybe?

From Rauzes

2011-12-08T17:52:00.001+08:00

Checked my FB mailbox a few minutes ago and saw Rauzes sent me this.

"Yo I thought of a nice idea of YGO deck using the new Trial Deck cards.
Go ahead and post it up

Sin Chaos

Key Cards: Chaos Zone, Sin Dragons

Chaos Zone:
By summoning the Sin Dragons alone, it gains 1 counter.
Objective is not to utilize its special summoning ability(which can still be used to call out Blue Eyes with 8 Counters) BUT
When its destroyed with 1 or more Chaos Counters, it can search a Light/Dark monster with levels less than the counters on it.

If you summon ONE Sin Dragon, and they chain Cyclone, you can do the following:
Chain 1 in response to summon: Cyclone.
Cyclone resolves, destroys Chaos Zone with 1 Counter.
You use the 1 counter to search Machine Emperor Wizel(OH FUCK! LEVEL 1!)

Although you cant special summon at this time, its a good search. The opponent wont mindlessly blow up Chaos Zone after that.

Enemy used 1 Card, you used 2 Cards.
End result: You lost 2 cards, thinned deck 2 cards(1 Wizel, 1 Sin Dragon, potentially 1 Terraforming used), and have a Wizel in hand.

Key Card:
Eclipse Wyvern

Hi. I search any Sin Dragon by feeding Chaos Soldier/Sorcerer. WTF.

Deck build would be 2/3 Sin world and 3 Chaos Zone.

Key Sin Dragons:
Sin Blue Eyes(Light/Dark, 3k, Thin Deck), Sin Stardust, Sin Cyber End(Just power)

Key Monsters:
Machine Emperor Wizel INFINITY
Chaos Soldier/Chaos Sorcer.
Eclipse WyvernX3, A few other Level 4s: Summon Priest?

Secret to generating a lot of LIGHT monsters in graveyard:
2 Level 4s, Exceed Hope.
Use Hope to Exceed Hope Ray.

Now, you have just pulled 2 LIGHT monsters from the Extra deck, and whatever was used to exceed.
If you have enough, exceed something else, use Eclipse Wyvern instead to search.

Another use of Hope:
Negate 2 attacks. 3rd attack will cause it to self destruct.
Oh Snap Wizel @.@

Keep in mind Eclipse is OPTIONAL and can miss timing to remove, but to add is compulsary.
You can also use Eclipse to balance out the number of Sin Blue Eyes/Normal Blue Eyes in your deck to make less dead draws.

Draw Engines: Allure of Darkness, Trade In. "

Osiris.deck

2011-12-08T10:40:00.001+08:00

monster (19):

3 Sky Dragon of Osiris (or play 1 of each god if you want)
2 Green Gadget
2 Red Gadget
2 Yellow Gadget
3 Karakuri Merchant
2 Karakuri Komachi
1 Karakuri Strategist
2 Karakuri Soldier
1 Morphing Jar
1 Sangan

spell (11):

3 Karakuri Cash Cache
3 Karakuri Anatomy
3 Burden of the Mighty
2 Pot of Duality

trap (10):

3 Ultimate Offering
2 Dust Tornado
2 Starlight Road
3 Final Attack Orders

Why the weird cards I chose? Just to make sure nothing could get through Osiris.

No real strategy beside summon Osiris and proceed to beating every monster your opponent has.

Inzectors

2011-12-06T11:18:00.001+08:00

Since I'm getting loads of cash from my birthday last Sunday and my friends bought me something I was thinking of buying. I felt like cracking a box of ORCS next Thursday (right after my finals).

I'm looking forward to Inzectors as seeing how easily the deck generates pluses, and mostly cause you would most probably get enough cards to build the deck with 1 box, and maybe a few singles (which is most probably Hornet).

True, the deck can be easily sided against. But I like the concept of the deck, while I don't like the art.

I'm still not sure what am I going to do with Inzectors, since I already have my official deck, I'm just planning to play around with techs and such.

Can't get my brain to think with this much partially stable systems and compensator designs in my head.

Late yesterday night, I re-build my Fusion HERO (note, I have a couple of HERO decks with me all the time), after I took apart Rainbow Neos (I didn't touch the deck for months). The deck is surprisingly very very good. While being a fun deck it has hard times pulling copies of dead cards, but the deck almost certainly kills when you have Polymerization. I'm not joking.

The big question now would be the extra deck cause I still have not decide which HEROs to have. But 2 Zeros, 2 Shinings, a Tornado, an Escuridao and a Gaia is most certain. Thats 8 slots left.

I basically made this deck after playing with Nick's Dark Paladin deck (which he claims to be his official tourney deck), which surprisingly is very consistent. Well, the deck was filled with tutors, so, it would be pretty embarrassing if it wasn't at least that good.

My Fusion HERO decklist is currently something like this :

monster (15):

2 E HERO Prisma
2 E HERO Sparkman
2 E HERO Bladeedge
1 E HERO Wild Heart
1 E HERO Airman
1 E HERO Necroshade
1 E HERO Bubbleman
3 King of the Swamps
1 Morphing Jar
1 Sangan

spell (23):

3 Polymerization
3 Fusion Sage
3 Fusion Recovery
3 Miracle Fusion
1 Super Polymerization
3 E Emergency Call
1 Reinforcements of the Army
1 The Warrior Returning Alive
1 Heavy Storm
3 Mystic Space Typhoon
1 Monster Reborn

trap (2):

1 Solemn Judgment
1 Trap Dustshoot

My extra deck would most probably be :

2 E HERO Absolute ZERO
2 E HERO The Shining
1 E HERO The GREAT Tornado
1 E HERO Gaia
1 E HERO Escuridao
1 E HERO Shining Flarewingman
1 E HERO Plasma Vice
1 E HERO Wild Edge
1 E HERO Wild Wingman
1 E HERO Necroid Shaman
1 E HERO Dark Bright
1 E HERO Sailorman (I've still not played this yet, but who knows, since I have 1 extra slot left)
1 V HERO Trinity

Back to Inzectors, and I still fail to see why Gilamantis is necessary. I know its a beatstick but I don't see how it serve the deck aside from that.

Fill me in on this please.

I'll most probably be playing a build that runs 3 of Hornet, Damsel and Centipede with no other Inzectors (until someone can explain to me how Gilamantis works). I'm thinking of playing a syncro exceed build since Inzectors are the easiest set of cards to make Rank 3 (in the OCG) and generate pluses from it.

Will see how it turns out, since I'm still busy with final exams, I have not tried anything out yet. Will get to it in 2 weeks.

Random Tourney Report

2011-12-04T01:30:00.001+08:00

I just wanna get the TP with that Jurrac, I could care less bout Hope and GR Monster Reborn.

Deck used : X-sabers, since I'm lame

match 1 vs Ken Shing - Dark World

1st duel : He wins with random DW shits
2nd duel : I sided, he doesn't stand a shit of a chance
3rd duel : Like I said, I no longer have targets for Grapha and stupid Lightning so I proceed to beat him.

XOO

match 2 vs Keok - Dark World

1st duel : He Grapha'ed my set cards and won after a few attacks with me having nothing.
2nd duel : Sided out all those cards he might hit, he has no targets. I won from there.
3rd duel : Pulled Shadow Imprisoning Mirror, Gottom's Loop his whole hand. Felt good since its DW.

XOO

match 3 vs Lam - Dark World

Since he wanted Hope and I dont want anything in particular, we decide to just split or something and just play a duel instead of match.

1st duel : He Grapha'ed my BTH, then somehow beat me with it.

X

Results : Second, got GR Reborn and 2 TP (which I later found out to be the wrong packs).

Well, really, 3 DWs when I'm playing Sabers. Not that they matter at all since my side pretty much did its job every match.

Thats it for today, can't elaborate because Team Mamak just had this long ass discussion on how Vanguard Sucks, how the current format sucks, a few racist issues and among others.

Finally, the semester is OVER!!!

2011-12-02T19:28:00.001+08:00

Well, I still have my finals coming in a week or so, but that dreadful sem is finally done!!

I apologize for not having anything posted this week, its been a super busy week, assignment, labs and the bloody lectures are stacking up (all thanks to the random holidays Malaysia always have). Well, I guess that what to expect from an Engineering course.

Back to YGO, I have 0 updates currently. Cause I have not been playing for the past 2 weeks.

There would be a tagforce style tourney tomorrow at Toysbar, so if your interested, please head there.

We need at least 10 teams to start the tourney. Lam wants to get back into the game competitively again (as oppose to just casual I suppose) and Nick (he said he quit playing the game quite a few times now) wants SD22 ...

I'm not joining cause I have no interest in tag duels (especially tag force style) and the prizes in my eyes aren't good at all. 2 boxes of SD22 maybe good for someone, but I really have no interest.

And I don't have a teammate anyway, so I could care less.

Till Next format

2011-11-26T22:23:00.001+08:00

I've decided since last weekend that my main deck for the remaining of the format would be Junk Doppel.

Finally bought my Quasar today (although I felt extremely bad for my wallet) and test play agansit Fishtank with TG agents.

It did very well. Very Very well if I may add.

I took down Shooting Quasar (he proxied it) and proceed to win without Maxx C or other cards that may generate my loss of advantage.

I seriously need a big official tourney right now, I guess theres still Malaysian Open at the end of the year.

Back to typing my report, bye for now.

Imperial Iron Wall

2011-11-24T21:00:00.001+08:00

Fishtank told me a few days ago this card was in Sam's deck (Darkworld) the day he won Top Shop Qualifiers. In case you guys haven't heard, the man beat a tourney infested with Agents with Darkworld (in most case, an inferior deck).

Mad skillz? Ya, no doubt the man has serious skills, and I come to respect that. But I think that Iron Wall made a lot of difference.

I was thinking the other day, what good does Iron Wall do in Dark World. Gate is useless now, thus cutting the deck from its major draw and search and just about everything engine.

BUT, after some thinking, it doesn't work that way. First, Gate is searchable, and chances are, your gonna have Gate out way before you drew Iron Wall. So, better put, Gate is there to search for your main anti meta cards. Its more of a draw power than an engine if you play it this way. Even without its primary effect, Gate still has the boost 300 effect. Which makes DW monsters incredibly big.

Thats not all. What do we side in against DW, the usual would be Bottomless and Prison (if they're not mained already). We also see a lot Kycoo and D.D Crow, and in some extreme cases, Debunk. Sorry to say but Iron Wall kills all of these, rendering most of their side useless. MST at 3? Gate and Iron Wall makes 6 targets.

Why is it good against Agent? Hyperion. Hyperion's annoying constant come-out-of-no-where-and-kill-you is what keeps Agent topping in OCG. This stops Hyperion from even coming out, same goes for Luster Soldier. With just 3 cards sided in, you see your opponent's main strategies broken, his side deck useless, and your boss just never dies anymore.

Gachi is nothing in the eyes of Grapha, Orange Light is just pathetic to the Dark World Army. Espeacilly Grapha. (Note, I'm not Grapha, as he would say something like "I, Grapha blablabla of the Darkworld, will ..." )

All and all, I still don't think DW is the top deck of OCG. Its a good deck, no doubt, but no.1? No way, not now at least.

While I see it have a better matchup against Agents, it dies to most of the other tier 1. Unless you can be certain you would see at least 60% Agents, I won't feel safe playing them.

Iron Wall is an interesting side, people just don't see it coming, but I see it as a side for Dark Worlds against Agents only.

On side note, Inzecters are getting pretty popular in Japan it seems, gotta get my hands on one of those soon. Regardless of how bad they look.

Inzecter

2011-11-22T08:21:00.001+08:00

One of the new archtypes that came out in Order of Chaos (anyone notice its set unit is ORCS), well, not really, the ONLY new archtype that came out in ORCS. Ninja, Photon, WInd-Ups and Evol are all archtypes we seen earlier.

In OCGland, the deck is doing very very well. Topping a few tourney already as we speak.

I have not tested on the deck yet so I can't give much comment, but from first glance, the deck's concept looks good. The reason I'm not playing it is that I'm not a fan of their art.

This is a list I found from someone who top something like our Top Shop Rep for 2012 I think.

monster (18):

3 Inzecter Hornet
3 Inzecter Damsel
3 Inzecter Centipede
2 Inzecter Gilamantis
1 Inzecter Ameise
2 Summoner Monk
1 Sangan
1 Armageddon Knight
1 Genez Ally Birdman
1 Dark Armed Dragon

spell (11):

3 Pot of Duality
3 Mystic Space Typhoon
1 Heavy Storm
1 Monster Reborn
1 Allure of Darkness
1 Foolish Burial
1 Book of Moon

trap (11)

2 Bottomless Trap Hole
2 Call of the Haunted
2 Solemn Warning
1 Solemn Judgment
1 Trap Dustshoot
1 Torrential Tribute
1 Scrap Iron Scare Crow
1 Seven Tools of the Bandit

And in the extra deck, there is no Exabeetle.

Well, I'll find time to build this deck on DN or maybe even real life if its THAT good and test it for myself.

Top Shop report

2011-11-19T22:22:00.001+08:00

I've stayed up extremely late yesterday night try to build and test a build of Sabers that doesn't lose out to Agents and Laggia completely. Finally build a good side for both these decks at bout 3 am and went to sleep.

9am this morning, went to take a bus to town. On the bus, I found a major flaw in my plan, it basically means I'm gonna lose round 1 most of the time and I must win both the following rounds, and my plan didn't include my opponent siding against me.

I really need more time to prepare as finals is near.

I end up building a Chaos Version Doppel Plants (without doppel warrior) on the bus, and getting the few cards I lack from Fishtank once we're there.

Test play against him for 1 (yes ONE) duel, and the flow seems good. So I just throw a side deck together for every possible deck and went for tourney.

Not the best thing one can do, and DON'T do it in your tourney, you'll regret it.

The format for day 1 was Single Eli to top32 and 5 rounds of swiss to top 12.

Single Elimination : VS some guy that Andrew told me is a pro - Darkworld

1st duel : I pull MST, Reborn, Heavy, Goat, Junk Syncron, One for One. Sets Goat and MST and ends. He plays Lightning, target MST and Grapha hits Goat, which I chains. He sets 2. I drew a monster, play Storm. One for One for Glow UP, go for Formula, again into Android, I summon Junk Syncron, summon Stardust and then Shooting Star. I play Reborn on his Grapha, not using Shooting's effect cause I only have 6 Tuners in my deck (which 2 was in the grave already), attacks for 6000. He hangs in with Book of Moon next turn, but was finish a turn later.

2nd duel : He baited my Heavy Storm and lock me down with Skill Drain, he was down to 800 at this point, and I have Chaos Sorcerer out, he then pulls a Sin Cyber End and a Grapha. I manage to hang a few turns but his Gozen Match backed with Judgment and Skill Drain was too much.

3rd duel : I forgot what happen in the early parts of the game, but at one point, I have MST and Mirror Force/torrential Tribute set and Android face up. He plays Cheerful Coffin, ditching 2 Grapha and a Silva (his hand is now at one), he targets my 2 backrows, I chain MST to Gate and drop a DD Crow on Silva. I pulled Kycoo next turn to basically rape his set up.

OXO

So, both me and Fishtank wins and went into Swiss.

1st match vs Some guy I used to lose to which I never knew his name - Agent Angel

1st duel : I set a Ryko, he goes for Gachi and I killed Venus. He sets an ass load of backrow. I was hit by Dustshoot next and my Mirror Force was MST'ed. He wins a few turn later with Earth, Venus poking for damage.

2nd duel : I sided in Decree although he got rid of it early. His Hyperion took out my set Sangan, I took Junk. He attacks me and I drop Tragodia, he ends but I had MST. I target Glow Up with Trago and made Formula, drew into Reborn, gets Catastor back and summons Junk, attacks for damage and sync all the cards for Shooting Star. Won from there.

3rd duel : He starts and gets Valhalla, but summons Earth. I kill it with something and ended, I have Trago in hand. He specials Venus, go for Shine Ball, summon Earth, tune for Wyvern, summons Hyperion by removing the Venus in hand and showed me 4 Angels in grave. LOL. Got OTK'ed like a bitch.

XOX

2nd match vs Some guy who knew me - Agent Angel

1st duel : I pulled shit again and he starts doing his loop and kills me.

2nd duel : I somehow got Shooting Star out and won from there.

3rd duel : I open 2 Decree and Storm. I was like FML. Set Ryko and Decree. My opponent summons Earth which I Veiler'ed, it got killed by Ryko. And he sets 4 ... I gladly played Decree and blow those sons of bitches up with Storm next turn, setting Decree and attacks with Kycoo. Won from there.

XOO, by this point I was super tired from lack of sleep and how many Agents I'm fighting.

3rd match VS No clue who this is - WW BF

1st duel : I opened with 2 Leeching the Light ... thats when I notice I forgot to side it back out. Loss this duel easily.

2nd duel : I opened bad but topped Starlight Road, set a bunch of things to get hit by Icarus. After a few turn, I played Goat and summons Glow Up, tunes for Formula, and my opponent decides to play Icarus, I played the Road and go for Shooting Star. He nearly killed me but he stopped right off the mark cause he didn't knew and all out attack with Dark Armed and Gale would kill me (he played Book and Dark Armed), instead he left my token and attacked it with Gale, but I did have Trago. Made Black Rose and drop BLS for game.

3rd duel : I forgot to side out Dustshoot (his going first), and sets 3 when I topped deck Dustshoot, he has his own dustshoot and got rid of my good cards. Loss there.

XOX, sleep more the day before tourney, you need it. I also completely neglected BF and didn't have anything to side for it.

4th match VS someone I knew but forgotten - WWBF

1st duel : He tops DAD and won with it. We were joking too much so I don't remember much from this match.

2nd duel : Shooting Star rape him in the ass.

3rd duel : He attacks my Formula with Shura, I chain Mirror Force, he tribute it for Icarus, I played Starlight Road. And Shooting Star trolled him again.

XOO, Shooting Star is a Troll. Remember that.

5th match vs Robbert (or whatever his name was again, a local basically) - Agnet Angel

1st duel : I pulled Heavy, Dark Hole, Reborn, Dandy, Lonefire and BLS. I thought they were limited for a reason. But my opponent has Dustshoot (asian english, which he keeps stating) and got rid of Lonefire, his only card was Earth, so I set Dandy. He attacked Dandy and Token with Balls, and made Gachi. Set 2 and ends. I play Storm, he allows it, and Dark Hole, which he didn't cared, since he knew I had nothing. Hyperion came down and butt rape me.

2nd duel : I some how manage to make Shooting Star AGAIN. And won with it. Seriously, 60% of my wins are from Shooting Star.

3rd duel : He pot of Duality into Dustshoot and gets Venus with Earth. He plays Dustshoot and I reviewed, MST, veiler, Maxx C, Sorcerer, Jian (yes, the Lightlord dude) and Mirror Force. He then forces me to play Mirror Force and attack for game with the 1000 and 1600 bastards. I could pull any monster from there. It was Decree, Dark Hole, Decree, Lonefire(which he had Orange light), Mind Control, Foolish (DD Crow'ed) and BLS which I can't summoned. And his 1000 dude attack me while I drew those.

XOX, well, a loss is a loss, at least it was someone who I know was good, not some random ass dude with a top tier deck. :)

Dropped out with me in 17th placed, if they didn't told me it would be top12 instead of 16 earlier in round 5, I would have killed someone.

Fishtank loss once in Swiss and got 3rd, so Toysbar is still in the tourney and is in there strong. I hope we get the GS04 box.

Decklist, although I scrub, I think this list is good for the format, just the side deck needs some bushings.

monster (20):

2 Junk Synchron
2 Effect Veiler
1 Glow Up Bulb
1 Spore
1 Dandelion
1 Lonefire Blossom
1 BLS - Envoy of Beginning
2 Chaos Sorcerer
2 Tragodia
1 Mystic Tomato (wasn't any help)
1 Sangan
2 Ryko Lightlord Doggie
1 Jain Lightlord Gay person (wasn't any help)
2 Maxx C (doesn't do shit in OCG, at least not with this much Agents)

spell (12):

3 MST
1 Heavy Storm
1 Dark Hole
1 Monster Reborn
1 One For One
1 Pot of Avarice (never once played this)
1 Scapegoat (MVP of the day, easily)
1 Enemy Controller (not much help)
1 Book of Moon
1 Mind Control

trap (9):

2 Bottomless Trap Hole
2 Solemn Warning
1 Mirror Force
1 Torrential Tribute
1 Solemn Warning
1 Trap Dustshoot (never pulled it once when I truly need it)
1 Starlight Road

Problem with the deck, I have too little Dark Monster in the deck, and I ahve the Chaos stuck in hand too much because of that, guess deck testing IS important.

Order of Chaos

2011-11-16T10:17:00.001+08:00

This set should be rename Order of Inzector, Evol, Mainspring and Ninja. No one cares about Photon anyway so I won't mention it.

I don't think we have more than 15 generic cards in here but there are some very good ones for review.

1. Kuribolt

This kuriboh forces Laggia and his lot to negates its summon, if they don't wanna risk a rank 1 monster exceed. They added a "this card can't be use for syncro summon" on it, which is good, cause I see its stats very powerful in Junk Doppel.

2. Gogogo Giant

While basically being a card that supports the Gogogo archtype, this card is good in my opinion because its both a 2000 beater and a Rock monster. Some people still wanna play Dark Gaia for some reason, and need materials that aren't worthless.

3. ZeXal Weapon - Unicorn King Spear

As I mentioned, this card's effect isn't really that useful but its stats are good. But I can't find a use for it upon that.

4. Dark Blade, Head Soldier of the Dark World

This is THE card I want the most from this set. This is actually a retrained version of Dark Blade (if you remember, the very old vanilla 1800 beater that has 2 union dragons). And its a Warrior as oppose to a Fiend while being a Dark World monster.

The best part of this card, is of cause, its effect.

Once per turn, you can banish 1 DARK monster from your Graveyard and select 1 level 4 or above LIGHT monster your opponent controls. The selected card is treated as a equip card for this card. Also, if this card on the field would be destroyed, you can destroy a monster equipped to this card instead.

This card kills Agent, in the right deck. Being a 1800 beater to begin with helps a lot, and a Warrior means its better.

I should most probably get this before Saturday.

5. Trans Archfiend

This is a official (for Asian format) Fabled Raven that recycle those remove from play DW monsters. Many are saying this card is gonna make DW good here, but I really doubt so, thats my opinion thou.

6. Divine Dragon Apocalypse

Why the hell is a divine dragon named Apocalypse? Is he Ragnarok's long lost brother? Any how, this card can recycle Red Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon and I can't think of anything else for it.

7. No 96 Black Mist

This is actually a really good card in my opinion. Agent Angel can play this if they don't wanna go Gachi, but I don't see the point. Well, we can make a deck based on it, not sure how that will do thou.

8. Creeping Darkness

Banish 2 DARK from the Graveyard. Add 1 DARK Level 4 monster from your deck to your hand.

Good effect and not a bad cost, but what deck runs that many DARK and could careless about Banishing 2?

9. Exceed Reborn

This isn't a bad card, but theres no good target in the game (official at least).

10. Royal Prison

I eat Junk Doppel for dinner is what should have been wrote on the card text.

Thats it for my VERY short review on the cards I think is gonna be good. Not to say this set is bad, but most of the cards are themed.

Invoker and Zenmaio

2011-11-13T11:50:00.001+08:00

I've been trying to fit Invoker into my X-saber deck but I don't see the point of doing that. Mainly cause there's no good target for its effect.

M.X- saber Invoker

Rank 3 1900/500

2 Level 3 Monster

Once per turn, you can detach 1 Exceed Material from this card, special summon 1 Level 4 EARTH Warrior or Beast-Warrior Type monster (from your deck) in face up Defense Position to your side of the field. Destroy that monster during the End Phase.

This card is no doubt good, but I don't think its good in sabers, at least not mine.

This card will be better if its :

1. Targets Level 4 or lower, instead of just level 4.

2. Target Beast type as well.

The only level 4 target in an X-saber deck would be Boggard Knight, which you want to normal summon, and special summoning it in defense does not do anything.

I was thinking of playing my old friend XX-saber Garsem, until I notice he is Beast instead of Beast-Warrior.

The only good use for this guy I can think of at the moment would be playing some sort of T.G Saber hybrid, but even then we don't play Rhino.

All and all, I think this card has potential but I just can't find a good target for its effect.

Wind-Up Zenmaio

Rank 5 2600/1900

2 Level 5 Monster

Once per turn, you can detach 1 exceed material from this card to target 1 set card on the field; destroy it.

I'm not an expert with Wind-Ups and I don't see any Wind-Ups anywhere near my locals so I'm not sure how good the deck is in summoning level 5s.

I'm having mix feelings about this card, seeing that it only destroys face-downs.

People are running BTH and Warning over Prison and Mirror Force, so I doubt you would hit any facedowns S/T with it. And the only monsters that we wanna hit would be Ryko and Spy.

2600 isn't bad but rank 5 means its not generic.

My conclusion with Duelist Box 2012 would be :

The sleeves are awesome and I want it badly; the mat is good seeing we don't have access to rubber mats often (unlike TCG). Those are the Pros.

Now the cons. Red isn't a good color for the box, I just don't feel comfortable with it; we get normal packs instead of special ones like Legendary Collection 2; cardboard deck box and stickers feel cheap; and we still haven't see anything from the pre-constructed deck, which is most likely filled with Zubaba Knight and his lot.

Neutral : 2 Promos which may or may not be good, well, they're not bad, just not good; we have a Secret Rare Hope, just in case you don't like Ultra and Super.

All that for Rm300 or slightly lower than 100 Usd isn't really bad, really, its not, considering we get rip off with products most of the time, but I myself won't get it if I'm not sharing.

Good News

2011-11-09T23:31:00.003+08:00

I'll be representing Toysbar for the Asia Top Shop Malaysian Qualifier (I'm not sure when, seriously, update me on that, I don't wanna miss this).

This afternoon, Alex (TB's bossman) pm'ed me and asking if I wanna represent TB and I told him I'm fine as long as I'm free. And I'm a rep now for that.

Guess me topping their tourney wasn't for waste.

Still a week (or at least a few days) till the tourney and this time I should have time to prepare for it.

Wish me luck guys, I'm aiming for at least top 8.

Random guy said this to me and makes sense "Yo GQ, you know why you top in non-official tourneys but scrub in official ones? Cause you only play with your non-official deck in the those tourneys ... Practice those official decks fool (okay, maybe he didn't say fool)"

That actually makes a lot of sense although the way he says it makes me wanna punch his face into the wall.

Good night (or morning, depending on where you are) for now.

Shi-En Saber deck

2011-11-07T22:34:00.000+08:00

Last Saturday I added Elder of Six Samurai into my Saber deck since I thought I needed Shi-En's presence to maintain control without Brionac and Trishula. It end up doing very very well so I left it in there after re-building my deck this afternoon.

I now see why Agents play Elder, it wasn't just Shi-En. Of cause, Shi-En was the main reason people are playing it but there is more to it than just that.

1. This acts like a mini Tourguide for us OCG guys. We always have problem going to rank 3 cause there aren't many good level 3 that supports exceeds. Since there are tons of level 3 in Sabers, I can make Leviair or Revise Dragon easily (not as brainless as Tourguide, but still very easy); well, Special Elder, summon Venus; 2900 Revise is very good for me.

2. Shi-En is good, although this deck can't do a 1st turn Shi-En, its still very viable. Bottomless is useless against Shi-En and the cards use to make Shi-En are under 1500. My main point of playing Shi-En was that the chances of seeing Warning was 1/3 in team tourney, and thats IF my opponent can draw into it. But still, I rather they Solemn Shi-En than Emergency Call any day.

3. Another tech I come to love is Creature Swap, since thats how I plan to take out Krystia and Hyperion, by not taking them out. Just swap that dead Elder if you don't have Darksoul or Emmersblade.

After that tourney, I played a couple duels with a duelist from Melacca with Rabbit Laggia, note that this wasn't his tourney deck, so it has a full set of staples while I did not have Judgment, Dark Hole, Reborn and Mirror Force (although I've decided not to play Mirror Force now).

The results was something close to 50-50, all of my lost was to 1st turn Laggia backed with 3~4 back rows. Creature Swap was super fun, as it forces Raggia to negate it. My opponent also noted how annoying my Creature Swap was and Shi-En actually won me a few games.

I guess me buying Shi-En last weekend was not a fail investment, well, its just rm20 or 6~7 USD. I could care less.

Found out why I lost to Doppel yesterday, my deck was too defensive in nature and too dependent on combos. That and the simple fact that I totally did not took Junk Doppel into consideration when building my side deck.

I took out my Maxx C's for Snowman Eaters, which was a mistake as my deck doesn't really have a bad match up against BF and the Rabbit Raggia's can't go full force as they need a lot of staples (as mentioned by my opponent). I even have 2 copies of Malevolent Catastrophe in my side for Dimension Raggia and Keepers, but I've totally forgot about Starlight Road. Bad side boarding on my side, maybe because I wasn't playing competitively since school started.

Well, next weekend (or maybe this), we have another large tourney at Sungei Wang. I'll try to make it if my tome allows it.

Decklist for my Shi-En Saber or just X-saber featuring Shi-En.

monster (20):

3 XX-saber Darksoul
3 XX-saber Emmersblade
2 XX-saber Boggard Knight
2 XX-saber Fullhelm Knight
2 XX-saber Faultroll
2 X-saber Pashuul
1 X-saber Airbellum
1 XX-saber Regigura
2 Elder of the Six Samurai
2 Effect Veiler

spell (11):

2 Pot of Duality
2 Mystic Space Typhoon
2 Creature Swap
1 Mind Control
1 Monster Reborn
1 Dark Hole
1 Heavy Storm
1 Book of Moon

trap (10):

2 Gottom's Emergency Call
2 Bottomless Trap Hole
2 Solemn Warning
1 Solemn Judgment
1 Torrential Tribute
1 Trap Dustshoot
1 Reinforce Truth

extra (15):

1 Trishula Ice Barrier Dragon
1 XX-saber Gottoms
1 Stardust Dragon
1 Scrap Dragon
1 Black Rose Dragon
1 X-saber Urbellum (Souza if non-Asian tourneys)
2 XX-saber Hyunlei
1 Brionac Ice Barrier Dragon
1 AOJ Catastor
1 Legendary Six Samurai Shi-En
1 Number 39 Aspiring Emperor Hope
1 Number 17 Revise Dragon
1 Leviair the Sea Dragon
1 Gachi Gachi Gantetsu

Reason for me running Gantetsu with just 2 level 2 is :

1. I have Reborn, Mind Control and Creature Swap; and the meta is full of level 2s at the moment.

2. I have Maxx Cs in my side, and in desperate times, I may need it to stall for a few turns or for an extra boost.

3. Cause all I really need in my extra was those other 14 cards. I was debating between this and Chimera Fortress, but I don't really see a lot of machines running around as of late.

Results!

2011-11-07T01:00:00.001+08:00

MY team won !!

In case your wondering, no, I didn't win anything, MY team is Sung Lee, Michael and Ivan's team. Not surprising at all as most of us are betting on either this team or Sam's to win.

Left early but Cookie told me the results. The top 4 was like MY team and 3 random ass teams.

Epic fail report no.1 :

We found out that we don't have a single copy of Solemn Warning, Judgment, Bottomless, Dustshoot, Mirror Force, Dark Hole, Heavy Storm, Monster Reborn and Brionac in our decks. Cause we all assumed the other is using it.

I end up with a lot of traps just before the tourney, but can't fit Reborn, Dark Hole and Judgment into the deck.

Epic fail no.2 :

I should have read feng shui books during my free time, obviously our seats have bad chi. Why? 6 groups that sat on the row lost, all 6 groups. Bigger epic fail? We all know each other so we sat together.

Real report :

Raggia vs Agent XX
Karakuri vs Darkworld OO
X-saber vs Junk Dopple OXX

1st duel - This duel was about 30~35 minutes long, cause my opponent thinks a lot and for a very long time. Mark lost somewhere here and Jun Pak won. I did a Trishula loop and gain advantage for game.

2nd duel - I was trying to be an asshole cause I know we only have 10 minutes left. What I did? Trying to stall the game out. But, out of nowhere the judge told me we are not going to be timed cause its lunch time after this and stalling will only affect our own lunch time and not the entire tourney (Lol? WTF was that?) Didn't have enough big cards to push for damage while my opponent tops a BLS kills me with it, Trishula and Arcanite.

3rd duel - I open with DD Crow, Effect Veiler, Gottom's E Call, Starlight Road, Regigura and Nobleman ... WTF? (the guy beside me explained that since I was the only one left playing, the bad chi accumulated on me). My only chance was actually to play Starlight Road, but the card he played was Lyla. My turn, Faultroll. Got hit. Draw, Nobleman!? Almost dead. I need to draw into something and I drew into ... Effect Veiler ... (Guy next to me was like ... I told you so)

Aside from the luck, I wasn't confident at all during this tourney. Partly because we never practiced and we see Zack, Andrew and Cookie test play a lot.

Need to test play more next time, but it can't be helped cause school is hectic for me at the moment.

This is IT!!

2011-11-06T06:46:00.002+08:00

Going to Team Tourney in a bout an hour, just woke up and having my daily dos of coffee, its 6 in the morning on a Sunday.

I'm teaming up with Mark Lee and Jun Pak from Team Arco in case your wondering, our team name is ... Team Wizz 2. Cause Sunny's team is Wizz 1.

After much consideration, my team goes by,

Jun Pak (leader) - Machina Offering Gadget
Mark - Rabbit Raggia
me - Saber

To me this is a good set cause we have Aggro, Control and Combo in the team, as oppose to the initial, double control and a combo.

The main focus on my deck today would be Shi-En. I'm playing 2 copies of Elder for Shi-En or rank 3 exceeds.

Will update you guys later today. Stay Tune.

Deck Testing

2011-11-04T07:46:00.000+08:00

Finally got some time to test the tourney decks for the upcoming team-tourney. I'm trying to build all 3 of our decks as we speak.

While I was testing with Sunny yesterday night, I accidentally build a pretty good Chaos BF build. It doesn't run Rai-Oh cause its Asian format (although I don't think it needs to), it doesn't run Sirocco either (cause I was actually trying to make a BF with just 1 Sirocco, I found out yesterday my teammate only has 1 copy).

Instead my deck runs 3 copies of Neos Allius, a Dimension Alchemist and an Honest for the light part. I tested it quite a lot yesterday and I only lose once (twice maybe, cause one of my win was from Sunny being ball-less).

I'm not sure if my teammate would want to play this build, as Sunny commented that this was a deck that was build for me, not my teammate.

Bye for now, school starts soon.

Sorry for not posting

2011-10-31T21:09:00.003+08:00

Super Busy with School and stuff. Since this is a short sem they cram things into half the time slot, plus I'm taking 2 more subjects than most of my course mates, so I don't really have much time for any thing.

This Sunday will be Team Tourney or what ever the official name is. Since Nick didn't give me any reply last week, I've ditch him and join someone else's team.

Not so sure what deck I'm gonna play thou, I guess I would only have time this Saturday. I know you need tons of play test, but I just don't have time this coming month.

I'll be free again by December, just in time for Dragonic Legion!!

Karakuri Offering Gadget is a lot more powerful than what I originally expected. I mained 3 Dust Tornado to play Offering safer and it works out really good.

Might need to work on the spell line up abit since its still based on Gadgets.

Need some suggestions, my role in the team would be the dude that plays combo based spam decks, since we have a Aggro and a Control player already.

What deck do you think would be better, Karakuri based, Plant based or something else entirely? Note that the 3 of us share a single ban list.

Watching A Lot of Anime Lately

2011-10-26T14:05:00.001+08:00

I don't think I've followed this many anime titles in my life, but since I'm having my short sem now, school isn't that much of a load, I'm watching a lot of titles. Thanks to my friends who keep telling me different new animes.

I'm now currently following Mirai Nikki, Guilty Crown, Bakuman, Beelzebub, Nurarihyon no Mago, Zexal, Cardfight Vanguard!, Digimon Xros Wars and Pokemon Best Wishes!.

This is just a random rant, don't mind me.

Back to YGO.

Karakuri Gadgets are doing better than I thought. And being inexpensive (aside from Pot of Duality), I find this a good deck to play at locals and stuff.

9 Gadgets are a bit too much for the deck as the main cards are actually the Karakuris.

My deck currently look like this :

monster (18):

2 Green Gadget
2 Red gadget
2 Yellow Gadget
3 Karakuri Watchdog 313
3 Karakuri Strategist 248
1 Karakuri Komachi 224
2 Karakuri Ninja 919
1 Karakuri Soldier 236
1 Glow Up Bulb
1 Sangan

spell (12):

3 Pot of Duality
1 Pot of Avarice
1 MST
1 Heavy Storm
1 Monster Reborn
1 Dark Hole
1 Mind Control
1 Book of Moon
1 Enemy Controller
1 Foolish Burial

trap (10):

3 Ultimate Offering
1 Call of the Haunted
1 Mirror Force
1 Torrential Tribute
1 Trap Dustshoot
2 Solemn Warning
1 Solemn Judgment

Now I'm seriously planning to get some Bureis and Bureidos. Yes, I don't have the syncro monsters.

...

The previous post was just a random hate post directed to one of the guys at my locals. Don't take anything I said there seriously.

Grapha fails! Tourguide FTW

2011-10-25T19:42:00.002+08:00

Obviously I'm talking bout the YCS this past weekend. I wasn't really surprise that Tourguide Plants won, I'm actually cheering for someone this YCS, Billy Brake, cause I really wanna see a back-to-back champion, and it did happen.

Tourguide Plants took 20 of the top 32 seats, according to math, thats 62.5% of the field. They also have 6 agents, bunch of random decks and no Grapha (sorry Ice, you mad?).

My friend back home told me he thinks that DW will top YCS Columbus, because "Grapha is gay, they have Tourguide AND Raven, no Asian Format bullshit etc". I told him Plants would win, if they don't, its gonna be Agents. Reason being DW is a bad deck.

Guess I was right this time.

Dude went upset because I outright said his "unbeatable" deck bad, and I threw gasoline on the burning fire, I told him this "Dude, your DW beat my X Sabers twice in a couple dozen duels, you really still think the deck is good?"

Problem with my friend's deck was that he ran 3 Goldds and Silvas. Because they are broken and Virus kills everything!!

Back to YCS Columbus!! 3 Maxx C mained is good, although I have mixed feelings bout it. I tried main 3 Maxx C here in OCGland, its good, but I just don't feel secure.

Thats it for my random rant. My brain is stuff with my assigments dealed in ... 3 weeks. Why do I bother since the deal date is so far ahead? Because one of my team mate is a bitch and he plans to have a few consultation with the lecturer next Monday morning, for a subject that doesn't accumulate any GPA points. Nice job!

Dragonic Legion Thoughts (pre-release)

2011-10-22T21:40:00.002+08:00

We now know what its 2 boss monsters do, and Light Pulsar Dragon just sorta gets more attention. That good and all, but I think people are forgetting 1 extremely important thing. Well, at least its important to me.

Nick and I discussed this a few days ago, and we came to this conclusion.

Light Pulsar Dragon may be very good, broken if considered the FTK (but we all know how FTKs are in competitive scene). SD22 or at least the cards shown to us right now, doesn't support Dragon as an archtype ... at all.

This is the 4th Dragon based Structure Deck, and till now, we still haven't get a decent card to support Dragons.

All our hopes are on the 3 unconfirmed new cards.

Dragons as an archtype. While we see a lot of dragons running around. We never really see a good Dragon deck, Disaster Dragons and Hopeless Dragon builds are the ones closes to this. But they have one extremely big flaw. It depends on Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon.

REDMD is arguably the only real good dragon support in the game at the moment. Totem Dragon and Mask Dragon can also be considered, but they're just fillers for me. Thats totally personal, so don't quote me on that.

While that being good and all, Dragons have only did one thing since their introduction, as game enders. We have never seen a dragon based control deck in YGO before. If you were to say Horus Lock Down, I would reply you, no. Just because Horus is a dragon, it doesn't make it a Dragon deck. And Lock Down isn't Control.

Really wish Konami would make good Dragon supports, generic ones that would help dragon rise a tier, and not just release another random FTK into the game.

This is just a personal rant, so don't quote anything and I'm sorry if I offended you somehow.

Karakuri Offering Gadget

2011-10-22T11:08:00.000+08:00

Been working on this deck on DN, works okay, but I wouldn't say perfect. I kinda busy this week so I don't really have time to further test this week until Wednesday.

monster (20):

3 Red Gadget
3 Yellow Gadget
3 Green Gadget
3 Karakuri Watchdog 313
3 Karakuri Strategist 248
2 Karakuri Ninja 919
1 Cyber Dragon
1 Glow Up Bulb
1 Spore

spell (11):

3 Pot of Duality
1 Instant Fusion
1 Foolish Burial
1 Monster Reborn
1 Dark Hole
1 Heavy Storm
1 Pot of Avarice
1 One For One
1 Limiter Remover

trap (9):

3 Ultimate Offering
3 Dust Tornado
1 Solemn Judgment
2 Solemn Warning

extra (15):

1 Ice Barrier Dragon Trishula
1 Scrap Dragon
3 Karakuri Shogun Bureido
2 Karakuri Shogun Burei
1 Ice Barrier Dragon Brionac
1 TG Hyper Librarian
1 Cyber Saurus
2 Lavalval Chain
1 No 39 Aspiring Emperor Hope
1 Kachi Kochi Dragon
1 Daigusta Emeral

Ninja Grandmaster HANZO

2011-10-19T12:17:00.002+08:00

This card is seriously good, me and Nick (sorta) discussed how the deck can work. Being able to search for Ninjitsu Art cards is good, considering Ninjitsu Art of Super Transformation is amazing.

Lets see, you search it for free, you tribute a ninja (HANZO most of the time), you tribute one of your opponent's monsters, you special summon something big. A plus one for the one who plays the card.

We were looking for good monsters to summon, and we decided that the best one would be Dark Horus Dragon.

Dark Horus has 3000 attack like Blue Eyes, unlike Blue Eyes, he has an effect that special summons a Level 4 Dark from your grave when your opponent plays a spell. Which pretty much means you get to special summon HANZO back for free, AND HANZO's second effect activates.

HANZO searches for a Ninja monster aside from himself when he is special summon, and most of the time, the ninja you wanna search for would be Gold Ninja.

Gold Ninja is basically a Summoner Monk for Ninjas. The main difference is that you discard a Trap instead of spell. This is good since you don't set as much since we have Heavy Storm, AND HANZO searches for traps any way. You can ditch a Ninjitsu Art and Special Summon HANZO, grab another Ninja and go off from there.

The Armored Ninjas are quite good after testing. I'm only playing Earth and Flame because I feel like the other 2 aren't as good. Earth is basically Cyber Dragon with 1600 attack (so you can play Chaos End Master if you want), and Flame can increase a Ninja's level by 1 when his summon (usually himself).

This deck makes easy Rank 5s. The most useful one would be, No 61 Volcasaurus. Because this deck has quite a number of beat sticks, Volcasaurus's effect can be very deadly when used right.

Super Transformation can also get you Dinasaurs and Sea Serpents. The only Dinosaur worth considering is Super Conductor Tyranno, because its a 3300 beat stick and it has a burn effect that may come in handy. I don't find any Sea Serpent good thou.

HANZO is Dark while Gold Ninja is Light, Pulsar is very alive in this deck, not to mention Envoy of Beginning since I'm playing Warrior Returning Alive to get HANZO back.

My current build, which I made this morning, looks something like this :

monster (18):

3 Ninja Grandmaster HANZO

3 Gold Ninja

3 Armored Ninja Earth

3 Armored Ninja Flame

2 Dark Horus Dragon

2 Light Pulsar Dragon

1 Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon

1 Black Luster Soldier - Envoy of the Beginning

spell (9):

1 Reinforcements of the Army

1 The Warrior Returning Alive

1 Monster Reborn

1 Heavy Storm

1 Dark Hole

2 Mystic Space Typhoon

2 Pot of Duality

trap (13):

3 Ninjitsu Art of Super Transformation

2 Armored Ninjitsu Art of Freeze Lock

1 Mirror Force

1 Trap Dustshoot

1 Mind Crush

2 Solemn Warning

1 Solemn Judgment

2 Call of the Haunted

Armored Ninja Blade Heart is very good since its a 2200 which can attack twice. Best part is that you don't necessary need him to attack twice, since his effect is detach a material and have 1 Ninja on the field attack twice.

Thats it for now I guess.

HERO and Sabers update

2011-10-15T11:38:00.001+08:00

Lots of update to do, I've been testing my 2 main decks against each other, Junk Doppel, DW and just about every deck aside from Agents (cause no one wants to pit agents against me for some reason).

I had a week of holidays and I've been wasting most of my time on anime, pokemon(finishing White, playing Platinum again) and YGO. Yeah, I'm totally getting the otaku disease.

HERO updates :

I'm dropping the 3rd Miracle Fusion cause I feel that the format and my current play style/mind set isn't suitable for playing 3, its dead early game. Its a hard choice for me to make, as 3 Miracle Fusion has been the back bone of my deck for at least 5 years now. But it has to be done.

Surprisingly, without the 3rd Miracle Fusion, my fusion plays are bigger. I tend to fusion summon more with Polymerization and Fusion Gate.

I planned to go trap based and more HERO beat style, but my ego forbids me going there. So, I play more cards to get to my fusions faster, and it pays off against an opponent that isn't Agent.

monster (15):

3 E HERO Neos Allius
2 E HERO Ocean
1 E HERO Airman
1 E HERO Forestman
1 E HERO Heat
1 Honest
1 Snowman Eater
3 Thunder King Rai-Oh
2 Cyber Dragon

The monster line up is partly fusion base and partly HERO beat. Ocean, Allius and Airman goes both ways. Forest, Heat and Snowman are the fusion based cards. Thunder King and CyDra are the HERO beat cards.

I find this monster line up good, its sorta like some boss rush where you beat a monster and a bigger one comes out. The HERO beat elements helps me stall the game until I pull my cards for Fusions.

I tested played Gorz in here, but its not working as good as I want it. I mean its not bad, but its not good either. And I don't really have empty place in the deck any way.

spell (17):

3 E Emergency Call
2 Miracle Fusion
2 Polymerization
1 Fusion Gate
1 Super Polymerization
1 Future Fusion
1 Heavy Storm
1 MST
1 Dark Hole
1 Monster Reborn
3 Gemini Spark

I really don't like Dark Hole in here, but I kinda need it this format because Agents are bitches. I don't run Pot of Duality too since I don't like the card in here at all (its too HERO beat-ish).

trap (8):

2 Bottomless Trap Hole
2 Solemn Warning
1 Solemn Judgment
1 Mirror Force
1 Torrential Tribute
1 Trap Dustshoot

Trap line up is VERY standard. I don't think I need much of an explanation here.

Side (15):

2 Kycoo the Ghost Destroyer
2 DD Crow
1 E HERO Captain Gold
1 Skyscraper
1 MST
1 Super Polymerization
3 Skill Drain
2 Dimension Prison
1 Magic Drain
1 Transmigration Prophecy

Captain Gold and Skyscraper is my personal pick over Lance and Chalice. My plan to go against Agent is simple, no monster in an Agent deck can't be killed by Allius with Skyscraper. I play 3 Skill Drain because there are just too many MST right now in the game. Magic Drain is a personal tech.

I'm not sure how good the side works, but I'll let you know by the end of the week.

Sabers update :

My saber's had a bigger face-lift. Its now more of a combo deck than a control deck.

monster (22):

3 XX-saber Faultroll
3 XX-saber Darksoul
3 XX-saber Boggard Knight
3 XX-saber Fullhelm Knight
2 XX-saber Emmersblade
2 X-saber Pashuul
1 XX-saber Regigura
2 Effect Veiler
2 Maxx C
1 Gorz the Emissary of Darkness

3 Gottoms has never been dead in this build and Regigura helps make easy Trishula.

spell (9):

3 Pot of Duality
2 MST
1 Heavy Storm
1 Dark Hole
1 Monster Reborn
1 Book of Moon

Nothing Special here.

trap (10):

3 Gottom's Emergency Call
2 Solemn Warning
1 Solemn Judgment
1 Torrential Tribute
1 Mirror Force
1 Trap Dustshoot
1 Reinforce Truth

3 E Call because I want to max out my combos. And the card has never been dead for me.

The main boss monster in the extra deck, is Brionac. Brionac makes so much combo in this deck it isn't funny. I'm considering getting a DT one now since I can't have a boss be a common. Brionac helps me in getting rid of every card in my opponent's hand with or without Regigura. Or make Trishula a few times. I don't have an exact formula for the multiple Trishula, you need to know what your doing, and work your way around it with Brionac and Faultroll.

side (15):

3 Gemini Imps
2 Cyber Dragon
1 DD Crow
2 Smashing Ground
1 MST
2 Bottomless Trap Hole
2 Light Imprisoning Mirror
2 Chain Disappearance

My saber side is very easy to understand. I guess there is no need of explanation here. Gladial Beast and BF are still very very large here and I'm still seeing some Machina plays. Cyber Dragon is very alive here.

SD22 Update

2011-10-12T19:52:00.001+08:00

The Light Dragon has been reviewed.

From my limited knowledge of Japanese, I translated this as :

Light Pulsar Dragon (I googled Pulsar, and confirmed its a real word)

Light Level 6 2500/1500

Effect :

You can remove from play a Light and a Dark monster from your graveyard to special summon this card to the field. When this card is in your graveyard, you can discard (or send) a Light and a Dark monster from your hand to the graveyard to Special Summon this card to the field. When this card is send to the graveyard from the field, you can select 1 Dark Level 5 or above Dragon from your graveyard and special summon it to the field.

On side note, Red Eyes Black Dragon and Red Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon are gonna be reprinted in this SD. Can't say we didn't see that coming, but Red Eyes Black Dragon is just there as random filler. I seriously hope Konami doesn't pack 2 REBD in the deck ...

In case your wondering, NO, this is not the cover card!!

Yes, its an Ultra Rare. Konami has confirmed that this deck will have 2 UR and 1 SR, instead of 1 UR and 2 SR. This was the original pattern for OCG structure deck since YU and KA, but changed after the non-character SDs came out.

The cover card is a Dark Dragon (which many suspects to be level 8, like all other cover monsters).

Cards I expect to see in the reprints :

Prime Material Dragon and Return from a Different Dimension. Anyone notice Chaos Emperor Dragon actually fits into this deck perfectly, although we all know his not gonna be in here, I like to see Konami release a banned card in one of their SDs.

A Pulsar is a highly Magnetized, rotating Neutron star that emits a beam of electromagnetic radiation. ~ Wikipedia

I guess that description fits the picture.

Please correct me in the translation if you find mistakes as my knowledge to Japanese is very limited (I took a Japanese Language course but dropped half way).

Gorz, Maxx C and their friends

2011-10-11T10:04:00.001+08:00

While playing 12~14 traps is still pretty viable here in OCG (maybe the Japanese has bigger balls? I don't know), the cards that activates from hand is what defines this format.

Saw this video at Youtube and I feel like stating how these cards affect us on the Asian OCG side. I'm terribly sorry but I'm counting Singapore out of the list, just because Singapore allows TCG in their locals. In fact, I guess the only place my post would apply would be Malaysia (and maybe Thailand).

1. Gorz the Emissary of Darkness

Probably the most powerful card you could activate from your hand. Gorz is not just an OTK stopper like people say he is. He is a game winner and a boss monster himself.

Gorz is extremely useful in our META because people just don't see him coming, even when you have an empty field on turn 2. Thats cause here in Malaysia, we have 9 months of official play and 3 months of ranking or others. For the most part of the year, we don't have the privilege to use promos. Making this card dangerous to less experience duelist.

But in the eyes of experience duelist, some people are making it too obvious that they have Gorz. From what I know, there are 2 ways to play Gorz better. (I'm not saying these are the only ways, I'm saying these are the methods I'm more familiar with). The first is to set chainable traps or spells. MST and his lot would be the best choices although in some decks there are Reckless Greed, nevertheless, they do the same. Activating the chainable card when your opponent attacks would make Gorz live, and it would be less obvious, and you might hit that annoying Solemn Warning. The other is to let your opponent know you have Gorz. Either through Pot of Duality or God Sarcophagus. Why do that? I don't see many doing this but this might be useful at times, especially when the game is still early and you don't have much to do. Most people don't wanna see Gorz too early, before they have some way to pass his 2700. The second method isn't really that popular because it lacks the surprise factor and you only get 1 beatstick instead of 2 most of the times, not to mentions, if your opponent does have something, you probably won't have anything to responds. Personally, I've never did that myself, but an equivalent to that would be drawing your deck out and looks down on your opponent's big monsters and your empty field, and ask your opponent whether he wants to attack.

2. Gemini Fiends

The card gain sudden popularity a few weeks back as the number 1 counter for Darkworlds. Some people at locals says it kills Sabers as well, but the only thing it really hits in sabers is Gottoms. I'm not sure how effective that is, but I assume not really.

While Dark Imprisoning Mirror was the best card to side against DW last format, 3 MST and Heavy Storm makes it difficult to keep Mirror on board. Gemini Fiends kills 3 cards in the deck (4 in some), Dragged down, Dealings and Destruction (Morphing Jar may be the 4th but who plays that). While it only hits 3 cards, the former 2 are the ones that starts the DW engine most of the time, and the latter is the one that would kill you once resolve. That leaves Gate as their only consistent combo card, but as I said, we have 3 MST.

Best part of Fiend is that unlike the other hand traps, its a plus 1. You ditch it, negates something and draws 1.

Personally, I didn't really believe the saying Gemini Fiends make DW less popular, but the showings of the deck is really low now, I guess it may have something to do with it. If DW were to drop out of Tier 1, I'm guessing Fiend would follow suit.

3. Maxx C

The only card from EXP4 that everyone wants, and for good reasons.

Maxx C is powerful this format because Junk Doppel is pretty much still very alive, Venus plays is still a bitch and combo decks are everywhere. Like Chris Bowling said on his channel (not quoting), this card is like Threatening Roar, it tells your opponent to stop whatever his doing, unless he wants you to gain so much advantage you are gonna win next turn, for sure.

I'm not gonna repeat what he said about the best timing to play Maxx C, as I know the TCG players are much better than us regarding Maxx C. We only got it 3 weeks ago, and while we know the obvious, there are bound to have some plays we haven't seen yet. This may be due to the fact that a lot of the players here in Malaysia doesn't follow the TCG side of the game, mostly due to them suck at Engrish.

I've see many bad players playing Maxx C, as they side it in against my HERO. Playing it when I activate Fusion Gate and stuff. Like someone on Youtube said, Maxx C should be played only if you are sure your gonna get pluses off it; you wanna leave your opponent in a difficult situation; or when you want to stop your opponent from doing things. And never play Maxx C as a 1 for 1.

4. Honest

Honest win games. Honest is also overpowered. And the card has a potential to be tech into any deck which runs at least 3~4 lights.

When played in a deck that isn't pure Light or having a lot of Light monsters, this card catches your opponent off guard, a lot. You don't expect to see it in Junk Doppel, but it could be there. It is a Light for your Chaos monsters; it can be returned to your hand for combos; and it has 1900 defense, walling most level 4 monsters off easily.

Everyone is familiar with Honest, so I'm not gonna talk more about that. Main point I wanna say is to try playing Honest in a deck that has a smaller Light count.

The other cards that activates from hand are either too popular to be discussed or too useless to be played. Hope you guys have a nice day and thanks for the long read. Finally finished my Internship and I'm now have 1 week of paradise (minus report) before school starts.

Tourney report and Trap Dustshoot

2011-10-08T20:28:00.000+08:00

Went to Gamer's Arena today for tourney as a member of Team DDB, short for Don't Dark Bribe. The team consist of me, SST and Fishtank. The reasons for the name is private and I don't feel like discussing this online, but for those who go to my locals, it should be pretty obvious.

I bought my last Darksoul so I decide to play Sabers in the tourney. BUT, I did something really stupid, I mained 3 Rai-Oh, 2 Creature Swap and 2 Prison just because I felt that Agents are gonna be big.

I didn't test the deck later cause I have no time and stuff. Which lead to big problems after this. Note to self, never do big modifications to your deck just before tourney. Cause it doesn't always works.

I was told later on (game 3) that this was single elimination instead of swiss. Putting pressure on me is fun I guess.

1st match vs Junk Doppel

Game 1 : I started with 2 Duality and 2 Rai-Oh. Summon the Thunder King and BTH. He had Trooper to run over it. I drew and he played Dustshoot, getting rid of Rai-Oh, I played Duality for Boggard. His MST got rid of BTH and he knew I have nothing left, so he spammed everything he had for game.

Game 2 : I started and slowly build up resources for the kill, standard Sabers stuff.

Game 3 : I open double Faultroll, Boggard, Fullhelm, Heavy, awesome hand. He set monster and spell/trap. I drew into Pot, he played Dustshoot. My Super Special Awesome hand just turned into shit as I have nothing to play at all. I manage to pull Reinforce Truth and block his attack for long enough and top decked Boggard. I summon Boggard, he has Striker and a face down. I special summon Faultroll, he played Torrential.

So, scrubbed.

Dustshoot defines the format, he told me after the match that things was easy on his part because he knew what I have and just played around them.

The dude also went all the way to semi finals where he was defeated by Abang Long and his Agent.

The results today was :

1st : Long - Agent Angel
2nd : Sean - Chaos BF

Game 3 for that match was epic, and Sean have game at one point but he gave up the gamble and instead try playing conservative, his opponent topped deck MST for the win. Sean had Decisive Armor on the field, while his opponent has Gellenduo on field, no face downs, Cyber Dragon and Krystia in hand. Playing Armor's 3rd effect here would mean game. But Sean chose not to risk hitting nothing, but instead summoning his Thunder King (his last card in hand), with Warning set, believing it was full proof. A top deck MST blew Warning, Cyber Dragon was tribute summoned, and Chimera Tech cleared the field. Krystia came out finally and turned the duel around.

Zack said something quite good for once, "There are just times you can't predict what your opponent has, thats when you man up and throw logic out of the window and act like a gamble."

Something like that although it was in Mandarin, so I don't know how much of the original text still there.

Moral of the day :

1. Be prepared for battle, don't come unprepared and don't change your game plan before testing it out.

2. Playing safe wins you games; but lady luck is a bitch most of the time

Galaxy Eye Photon Dragon

2011-10-06T08:02:00.000+08:00

I've mention building a deck around this guy from a week before Photon Shockwave, but I end up not even buying a single pack of it because I just found a way to get all the cards I want from it. Sadly, Photon Dragon wasn't part of that.

BUT, I'm planning on building this deck as soon as I could clear out some of my older more boring deck. I think thats unlikely, but hey, we always have DN.

Galaxy Eyes is not a broken cards by any means, we know that. And we know his special summoning condition (his optional one) isn't really what we say easy to achieve.

But being a 3000 attacker rival main dragon is more than enough reason why I wanna play him. Rival dragons don't really see play much. Red Daemon doesn't see play now because of how tight the extra deck is, Armed Dragon LV10 is just too hard to summon and the deck has too much dead draw, and while Blue Eyes does have some uses, it usually in decks like Exodia.

Galaxy Eyes ... is no different ... but hey, awesome card design is awesome.

monster (19):

3 Galaxy Eyes Photon Dragon
3 Beast King Barboros
3 Thunder King Rai-Oh
3 Des Caliber Knight
1 T.G - Striker
1 T.G - Warwolf
3 T.G - Rush Rhino
1 Black Luster Soldier - Envoy of the Beginning
1 Honest

spell (11):

2 Pot of Duality
2 Trade-In
1 Gold Sarcophagus
1 Heavy Storm
1 Dark Hole
1 Monster Reborn
3 Forbidden Chalice

trap (10):

2 Dimension Prison
2 Bottomless Trap Hole
2 Horn of the Phantom Beast
2 Skill Drain
1 Solemn Judgment
1 Trap Dustshoot

Okay, this deck list doesn't seems right at all. Its just antimeta that features random Galaxy Eyes. Scrap this!!

Testing Results

2011-10-05T07:32:00.000+08:00

Tested my Chaos BF build on DN yesterday night with Fishtank using Rabbit Lagia. Was working pretty good as I could beat Lagia easily and swarm for game. Gorz is important as it serves as an easy out to Lagia.

The matches I lost all have Fishtank playing Black Rose and then summon Hipposaurus to attack for game. I've added in Effect Veiler to replace Maxx C. But in the 3 games after I did that, I never pulled it once.

Pretty satisfied with the deck but I know this is NOT the deck I would be playing this format.

I tested Quickdraw Dandy against Agents for a few rounds, and came up with conclusion that Drill Warrior = Quaser next turn.

I was testing Maxx C, but it really didn't did anything. My opponent would normally go for Venus plays turn 1. Unless I pulled the Maxx C turn 1, it doesn't really matter. Might drop them for a Veiler and a Trago.

Signing off now, going to work, have a nice day!

Chaos Feather Control

2011-10-04T16:24:00.002+08:00

Its been a while since I made a BF based deck. I wanted to build a Chaos BF variant for some time now, but was never free. And when I have time, I'm either building my HERO, Saber or Quickdraw; or COD.

I really haven't been building any new decks lately. But since my internship is coming to an end this week. I have next week off so I'll probably update my Koaki Meiru and Gadgets.

Thought of this decklist in the office today (since my supervisor is in Thailand, I'm pretty much free for the whole week).

monster (20):

2 BF - Sirocco the Dawn
2 BF - Bora the Spear
2 BF - Shura the Blue Flare
1 BF - Gale the Whirlwind
1 BF - Kalut the Moon Shadow
3 Thunder King Rai - Oh
2 Cyber Dragon
1 Honest
1 Black Luster Soldier - Envoy of the Beginning
1 Dark Armed Dragon
1 Gorz the Emissary of Darkness
1 Spirit Reaper
2 Maxx C

spell (12):

2 Pot of Duality
1 Gold Sarcophagus
1 Black Whirlwind
1 Allure of Darkness
1 Monster Reborn
1 Dark Hole
1 Heavy Storm
2 Mystic Space Typhoon
1 Book of Moon
1 Forbidden Lance

trap (8):

2 Icarus Attack
2 Dimension Prison
1 Trap Dustshoot
1 Solemn Judgment
2 Solemn Warning

extra (15):

1 Trishula Ice Barrier Dragon
1 Stardust Dragon
1 Scrap Dragon
1 Light End Dragon
1 BF - Armor Master
1 Black Rose Dragon
1 Brionac Ice Barrier Dragon
1 AOJ Catastor
1 Tyrus, Protector of Founders
1 Invers Roach
2 No 39 Aspiring Emperor Hope
1 Gatchi Kochi Dragon
1 No17 Revise Dragon
1 Empty Space Sea Serpent Leviair

The deck has only 1 way of making Trishula, have Spirit Reaper set. Summon Kalut and fetch Gale, special summon it and make lv9. But since we have only 1 tuner in the deck, and the extra deck space isn't that demanding.

The decklist is not tested yet. I'll test it out as soon as I can thou. Feel free to point out anything that you felt unnecessary.

Dandy Warriors with Promos

2011-09-30T21:05:00.000+08:00

In case your wondering why the heavily hit plant based syncro decks are still doing so well in Japan, TCGland and even here ... well, thats cause they're still too good of a deck.

While the deck seems dead after the massive hit by banned list September 2011, the deck is still pretty much VERY alive.

I'm not talking bout Tengu and Tourguides since we don't have them here. But, without 2 extremely broken cards, the decks is still winning large tourneys, the only decks that could hold an edge is Agents.

In essences, this deck and Agents are polar opposites. Agents do the same thing every game and beat you with that. Dandy Warrior can play every game with different procedures, not following any guides and end the game with a field of syncro monsters.

Right now, I'm actually considering Dandy Warrior as the more powerful decks as compared to Agents (with the promos of cause). I seriously think that this deck is more broken now then the previous format.

1 example is that I pit 2 of my decks together, my HERO and my Dandy Warrior. I can have Rai-Oh, Super Poly or anything I might need against the deck and I still lose 80% of my games.

My HERO deck is build to kill plants and other syncro decks, and prior to a few weeks ago, no decks that does syncro spam can beat it like this.I'm not bitching or saying how good my HERO deck is, but looking at the results kinda stuns me. Thats when I really realize how bad a mistake Konami made by banning Oppression, I knew that was the stupidest move one can make, but I never expect this big of a stupid move.

Of cause, carefully sided against, this deck is easily beaten. But if played right, this is a deck that could almost always get you game 1.

Looks like I have to remodel my HERO decks for coming months as thats my unofficial tourney decks.

BUT, for some retarded reasons, my Sabers can take out Dandy Warrior easily. I'm not sure why, but I'm winning roughly 12~14 times in my 20 games.

My guess is that, my sabers, like Dandy Warrior is a turn 2 deck.

For me, the only real way to beat Dandy Warrior this format (if your not running Agents or Macro) is to do your stuff before your opponent. If you try to stall and slows your opponent's pace, its not gonna work, since I don't need to normal summon to bring out Quaser, and more turn equals more cards in hand. Oppression is not with us anymore.

Drill Warrior is extremely powerful this format, getting it out 1st turn almost always ensures your win. BUT, you can play around it, with the right cards.

For example, I see a lot of players playing Warning on Drills summon. That might be good and all, but thats not gonna do much harm to your opponent. I normally let my opponent ditch a card, getting his oversized mole out of the way, do some damage next turn. Play Warning when your opponent tries to get it back next turn.

Whats the difference? Warning it when its summon, and your opponent wastes 2 cards and you traded it off with 1. Sounds good. Thats good and all, but its Dandy Warrior we are talking about, they might just drop Dark Armed or BLS on you, then your screwed.

Saving the Solemn now might equal to you getting hit by Drill Warrior, but thats only 1200 damage most of the time. His gonna ditch a card that his gonna get back next turn. So, his 3 cards for your Warning. Better deal? But there's more, saving Warning then also meant you can play it in case your opponent does have a bigger monster than might have been able to kill you then.

Effect Veiler works the same. You can ditch the Veiler when your opponent activates Drill's effect. But, the discard isn't a cost. So his still gonna keep his hand and Drill Warrior while you lost Veiler. If you let it go, you might get a free direct attack, ditching Veiler when he activates Drill Warrior's effect. Now he can't get his card back and he can't use his effect this turn.

Of cause, thats just how I look at it.

Why am I discussing bout Drill Warrior specifically when I'm saying Dandy Warrior as a whole is an overpowered deck? Cause Drill Warrior is the 1 card that make this whole deck alive. You make sure his effect doesn't resolve, you own the game (most of the time).

The other card that made this deck so powerful this format is BLS.

This card needs no introduction, and the only good strategy against it is to kill it ASAP. And make sure your opponent doesn't bring it back.

BLS is the main reason you don't wanna waste your Solemn Warnings. Cause holding BLS and Junk Syncron with Level Eater in grave means "Game 2 please".

Effect Veiler is not gonna do much against BLS, so you can play waste it when you feel right. DD Crow is the same.

The truth is, there is just no good anti-BLS strategy in the game. There's always trap cards, but those aren't strategies. And thats why decks with BLS is always gonna be better than the decks without it.

This might be old, but to beat this deck, you need to know what they have in the grave. Check the grave, think of any possible combo with the cards in the grave. Make sure non of the vital pieces is sent there (the 3rd Dark, a plant for Spore, etc).

The deck is powerful because it doesn't need any field commitment. You can blow their entire field up but they're gonna rebuilt it next turn. Against Dandy Warrior, time IS gold. Every turn you try to stall means more things are drawn and more combo pieces are now in the grave. Not saying playing Conservative is bad, its good. But if you don't think you could hold onto a fullforce combo from Dandy Warrior, your better off attacking risking a Gorz or your whole resource get blown up. Its not gonna matter pass turn 2.

Final note, Dandy Warrior is a Turn 2 or 3 deck. Either beat it in 2 turns or survive 3 turns. Then you'll most probably win the game as their asset won't be enough for another push. BUT, surviving 2 turns from Dandy Warrior is no easy task, especially since Quaser and Heavy are in the game.

Those are my opinion, please feel free to state otherwise. Thanks for reading!

Re : What do I side into while

2011-09-28T19:56:00.002+08:00

For myself, the only 2 decks that I consider a problem to Sabers are DW and Agents.

DW : not too much bout the I cant ditch their hand thing, but Sabers tend to set a lot and decks that blow up cards regardless of position and does that early in the game is generally bad for sabers.

I usually side in cards such as 2 Kycoo, 2 Crow, Release and 2 copies of Dark Imprisoning Mirror.

Agents are just pure annoying. Not so much bout Krystia, I can play around a card that just stands there, no problem. Its the cards that I dont see that matters. You never know when they have Hyperion or Orange Light, that why they're doing so well.

Consistency is another issue, Agents are perhaps the toughest deck you'll ever face if your trying to ditch their hand. All of their plays comes together easier than yours.

I now side 2 copies of Light Improsoning Mirror, 2 BTH (my main 2 D Prison instead now), Soul Release, 2 Kycoo.

Kycoo is a boss in the format. The amount of decks this guy can kill is amazing. Even if he doesn't out right kills a deck, you can still make your deck a bit more anti-meta-ish in game 2 so you won't die to card people usually side against Sabers (ie, DD Crow).

As mentioned, after play testing, I felt like maining Dimension Prison over Bottomless Trap Hole.

If your starting, you wanna have BTH, while D Prison works a lot better in later games, or when your starting second in general. But for me, my first move is usually setting Emmers or Darksoul, I don't mind my opponent go on offense there. D Prison is more effective later in the game. Cause normally I don't mind letting my opponent have the head start as long as I can strip them of their advantage later on.

But BTH is still an extremely important card this format. Since Agents are big, Grapha is a pain and Librarian will still kill you if you don't take it out fast.

I was siding Black Horns of Heaven, but took that out since I decide to main D Prison and took out BTH. But the Black Horn is an amazing card this format. It acts as your 3rd and 4th Warning, minus the cost.

The last 2 cards I have in my side are a copy of Nobleman of Crossout and a copy of Creature Swap.

Nobleman is an obvious choice. GK aren't as dead as I hope they would be. Ryko is an ass. Most importantly, I don't like people beating me with Sabers cause I have an ego to live up to.

Swap is the card thats gonna grab most of your attention, if your not from Japan that is ...

The card is good against decks that rely on 1 monsters. The card can get you that Krystia and your opponent is doomed, BLS and you opponent is crying, Quaser(when played right) and your opponent will scoop.

Just my personal preferences I guess as most of my card choices are weird a lot of the time.

Side deck changes!!

2011-09-27T07:38:00.004+08:00

Wanghu is a good card, I'm pretty positive bout that. It kills plants by itself. Samurai and Agent both can't make big plays with it on the field.

But why isn't it seeing any plays this format. Well, maybe cause those are the only decks this card hits, and it doesn't hit the latter two hard enough. Another thing is that not many decks could play this card in their main deck well. The only good deck that could potentially play this and not be pure antimeta are those who are played like antimeta, namely T.G and something else.

Wanghu is more of a side board card then. But, there are better cards you can play in your side deck nowadays then the king tiger. 2 Soul Release actually kills more decks than Wanghu can.

Lets see, Soul Release kills plants, Darkworld, T.G (if you destroy more than 1 of them that turn), Sabers (because Darksoul works like T.G now here and Faultroll is the only bitch in Sabers), Agents (to some degree, but there is always the T.G variant), Frogs and Infernities.

Leeching the Light seems like a good card until I tested it out. It doesn't do too much damage to Agents, especially those that plays T.G. It really doesn't do anything against Lightlords, because their monster are almost always too small to matter, or backed by Honest. Most players now hold onto their Dragoons for the kill, so the 3000 boost for every monster seems a bit useless, and with Dragoon out, your mostly looking at giving 3000 to 1 of your monsters.

Crow vs Veiler is perhaps the most widely asked questions here.

Lets see what these do. Veilers are more commonly seen in the main because he hits more decks, but Crow hits them harder. But, Crow has a more limited range of targets.

A Veiler can stop Plants (if played right), Samurai, Agents (if played right), Gadgets and any other random monsters you don't wanna see. Crow kills Darkworld, Plant, T.G based decks, Sabers, Lightlord (if played right) and Infernity. But to those deck that doesn't need the grave, Crow is useless, whereas the only deck Veiler is completely useless against would be Darkworld.

I think its safer to assume, if you can't main Veilers, don't side them. Whereas, Crow is always a good side card, but its not that much of a main deck card. But this assumption is based on our OCG meta, so I can't say much bout TG cause Tourguide is gay, although I still can't figure out how a girl can be gay.

Gemini Fiends (or however its called) is a card thats gaining in massive popularity at the moment. I can't think of why anyone wanna play that card aside from Saber and Darkworld hate. I do think its a good card, but as a DW and Saber player, I know I can and will play around it. I side out Dealings most of the games for more hate usually. And in Sabers, I side out the Faultroll Loop pieces for antimeta cards too. Maybe that just me, cause I tend to side into antimeta quite a lot.

But, I do kinda understand why they side these. Cause you need more cards in your side for decks that your bad against. 2 Crows and a Soul Release is never enough for decks that are near Tier 1. You do need more cards for them. And Gemini Fiends is a good card, just not my cup of tea I guess.

Off to work now, signing out!

Random ranking tourney

2011-09-24T18:12:00.003+08:00

So, we played this ranking tourney with Sirocco as the 1st place prize.

Only 4 of us where there, but what the heck.

I still didn't get my Maxx Cs and Darksoul yet, so I'm playing HEROs.

Round Robin format, but thats not important.

1st match vs TG Agent - Fishtank

1st duel - Get Rai-Oh out 1st turn for the early lead. My other monsters rush for game later.

2nd duel - He hid behind Gatchi for very long, and tried to go Trishula, I play Torrential which cause me Hope, but his 3 monsters for Trishula was Warwolf, Striker and my Honest he reborned. He later drop Hyperion on me and won.

3rd duel - I open Skill Drain, set it and summon Allius, holding Honest. He plays MST and got a free Gatchi play. I ditch my Honest to keep my Allius. Summons Airman to pop his Mirror Force, overlay both for Hope. Some how, he manages to kill my guys but I was fighting back with Shining. I joke about him top decking a BLS and kill me here. But he did had BLS, and the thing he top deck was Honest.

0-1

2nd match vs Six Samurai - Crowser

1st duel - He opens into Shi-En and sets 2. I misplay here, I summon Allius and attacks into his Shi-En, holding Super Poly hoping he chains something. But he lets it through, and now I look like an idiot, and plays Super Poly to get rid of Shi-En and deal damage. He later plays Dual Sword into Trishula. I regretted playing Super Poly at this point, cause playing it now might got me a lot more advantage. Loss to Trishula.

2nd duel - King Tiger just sits there and does his job. My opponent was left with nothing to summon but setting.

3rd duel - He stalled too long with Kageki and rushes, making Trishula and we both played all our backrows. I summon Allius and destroyed his Kizan, setting Spark. He summons Mizuho, special Kizan, tribute Kizan and tries to pop my back row, which I chained to get rid of his Trishula. I drew, played King Tiger and Miracle Fusion for game.

1-1

3rd match vs Twilight - LCW

1st duel - He open nuts and double JD on me one the 3 turn after Dark Hole killed Rai-Oh.

2nd duel - I open Airman and Gate. Playing a Shining 1st turn and setting Judgment and BTH. He summons Lyla, which I played BTH. He then Recharge into Wolf in defense. I topped Kycoo and banished his Lightlords. He later review multiple JDs, but no Lightlords.

3rd duel - I open Dustshoot and Mind Crush. I summon Airman for Allius and attacks his lone set monster, which wasn't Ryko, but Necro. I set the 2 traps. I then saw 2 Monster Reincarnation, 2 JD, Recharge and Avarice. Basically he had the worst hand anyone could have, and I just kinda won from there without doing much.

2-1

Fishtank won 3 of his games so he won the Sirocco. And I got a random booster for 2nd place.

TG Agents are good, they live up to their reputation.

Boggard and Emmers

2011-09-24T09:30:00.002+08:00

I found a pattern in the number of these cards being player in sabers. You play these in a different amount you can massively affect your play style and how you wanna win you games in general.

Of cause, you would have 5 of them in your deck, thats always a staple now, but who gets the 3?

3 Boggard and 2 Emmers or 2 Boggard and 3 Emmers.

I see more people leaning towards 3 Emmers. I myself plays 3 Boggards and 2 Emmers.

Play anything aside from 5 of these and some of them might go to waste and you won't have space for Effect Veilers and Maxx Cs.

3 Boggard and 2 Emmers :

I like this set more because I could afford to go all out more often. This set up actually ensures easier Trishulas and Gottoms in general.

But, this set is useless unless your playing Regigura, which is deem too unreliable for many. I see why people dislike the Faultroll loop in general, and I understand the reasonings behind them, but I'm not buying it.

In this set up, you also need to have 3 Faultroll, or your Boggards go to waste. Boggard + Regigura = Trishula + a 1900 beater.

Stripping advantage is what I think this set up is all about. And of cause, this set up enables the Faultroll Loop alot easier as compare to the other set, which doesn't play the loop at all.

Of cause, being the offensive set does have its drawbacks. Namely, if you can't get your cards right, ie, no Faultroll or Darksoul (although unlikely since you play 3 Pots and Emmers), your gonna have a hard time staying alive, since Boggard can't be sync to anything but Sabers.

Hope gives you that extra boss monster if you have 2 Boggard and wanna push or just stay in the game. But you should avoid this in general, as I find summoning Hope means you can't afford to lose it, and its the card you don't wanna make unless absolutely necessary.

Emmersblades are only run in 2 because the 3rd copy WILL go to waste in a deck like this. There aren't a lot of targets aside from Darksoul or maybe Kamikaze into something to get Regi or Fullhelm out (which I tend to do a lot).

2 Boggard and 3 Emmers :

The more common way of playing Sabers. This allows you to stall longer and search your key pieces easier. Best thing bout this set up is that you won't need 3 Faultroll to function.

This is more defensive in nature because without 3rd Faultroll and Regigura, you can have tech in 2 more cards. I personally go with Hamster or Debris (not both) and maybe Maxx C or Gorz.

Emmers is a hell of a wall, searching you any sabers at any given time its destroyed by battle in no joke. This card alone (technically) can wall attacks from most decks if they don't have an answer to it.

Builds that main 3 Emmers are mostly going for Level 6 Syncros or Rank 3 Exceeds. If your opponent is playing massive backrow aka CONTROL (ie, BF or GB), go into Hyunlei and blow them up. Playing beat down or something like that? We fight AGGRO with AGGRO. Revise Dragon and Gaia Knight are extremely big beaters. Last but not least, the COMBO decks, they do to much shit with their banish pile, so Leviair is there to take that advantage away from them.

An Emmers with Fullhelm in hand can instantly get pass most plays as long as they don't have boss cards like Quaser or Krystia out.

Boggard only serve as the extra muscles in here most of the time. Or getting Faultroll out faster if you already have the pieces.

This set up is more popular as you could held on to your tail easier and the less demanding set up allows you to side more effectively and play more techs that the other set up can't.

The problem with this set up is Darkworld. Because of how reactive this deck could be, Darkworld and their Lightnings could easily gain advantage while poping your things. You need to play Emmers to get its effect off, but when staring at an opponent that could destroy your cards for free, its not that good of a deal.

Only thing we saber players could do against DW at this point is to play more chainable cards and try not to set Emmers unless necessary. The releasing of triple MST is good for sabers, since decks with field spells are generally bad for them. But even with that, to take down DW with Sabers means you need both luck and skill, try playing more conservative and don't commit to the field too much, and do that only when your gonna win. This is easier in the former set than this, although the difference is minimal.

Another card in sabers I really wanna discuss about is Regigura.

This card is there for the Faultroll Loop, and if you don't plan on the Loop, don't play this. Playing this also meant you need 3 Faultrolls.

But thats not all to this 200/1000 reptile.

This card can easily make Faultroll with Boggard, and give you a free Trishula. I feel this cards good because of Trishula. Usually, in sabers, we make Trishula using a Fullhelm and 2 more sabers. While you can get Darksoul and search and all, but I don't think your gonna pull that off that easily without Emergency Call.

Regi gets access to Trishula faster and easier. Although playing Regi gives you less choices and variances most of the time.

I think the point I wanna make is that, playing or not playing Regi is all bout which do you think is more important :

Variance and less dead draws or Trishula (yes, Trishula).

I don't think I'll go any further, as my post usually only get out half of what I'm trying to say, asI can't express myself that well.

Quickdraw Dandy Warrior 2.0

2011-09-22T20:28:00.000+08:00

So, this is the deck I'm currently building. Since I pretty much completed my Sabers and build my side deck to beat the Malaysian meta.

monster (26):

3 Quickdraw Syncron

2 Junk Syncron

2 Effect Veiler

1 Debris Dragon

1 Plague Spreader Zombie

1 Spore

1 Glow Up Bulb

1 Unknown Syncron

1 Black Luster Soldier - Envoy of the Beginning

2 Lightlord Hunter Ryko

1 Lightlord Magician Lyla

1 Dark Armed Dragon

1 Sangan

1 Spirit Reaper

1 Level Eater

1 Card Trooper

1 Lonefire Blossom

1 Dandelion

1 Dark Dust Spirit

2 Maxx C

spell (11):

1 Monster Reborn

1 Dark Hole

1 Heavy Storm

1 Mystic Space Typhoon

1 Foolish Burial

1 One For One

1 Pot of Avarice

1 Mind Control

1 Charge of the Light Brigade

2 Solar Recharge

trap (3):

2 Call of the Haunted

1 Limit Rebirth

The deck list may seem kinda weird, but it works for me.

Why do I have Solar Recharge when I'm only running 3 Lightlords.

Cause I see the 3 Lightlord + 2 Recharge thing in Chris Bowling's Tengu Plant / Tourguide Plant deck.

I originally thought thats only good cause Tourguide is gay ... I'm not sure how a girl can be gay, but apparently thats how it is ...

But no, you don't need tourguide for that. And come to think of it, Sangan into Ryko is kinda pointless.

I don't see myself poping alot with Ryko either. Most of the time, its just there to mill or as discard folder.

Tested it out after I convince myself to. It does make the deck a lot more explosive, not necessarily more consistent. But I like power, so it stays.

Most of the monster line up are kinda pointless in explaining, aside from Dark Dust Spirit.

I was planning on running Caius, only to found out I sold my last copy of it. That sucks I know. So I proxied it with Spirit. After test play, I found that I need it's effect in much more situation as compare to Caius's.

I'm not sure if his staying in there for long thou, as I don't like cards that needs to be advance summon.

I play 1 reaper and 1 trooper as oppose to 2 trooper as I think that could get me Leviair easier. Since we don't have tourguide, I have to make up with what I have right?

The 3 traps are all call of the haunted variants. Cause there are tons of targets that would benefit you when your opponent plays MST.

I was planning on playing 3 Rykos, but I felt that I'm gonna see Nobleman when I set it 1st turn, so Lyla kinda makes Nobleman less deadly. And I really don't wanna see Recharge dead.

The remaining problem now is the extra deck. Thats Quickdraw's main problem. Because there are so many key cards you need in the extra, you need to plan very very well. I still haven't make a final extra deck list yet.

Tell me what you think. In case your wondering, no, OCG doesn't have Tourguide and Tengu.

Non-YGO

2011-09-22T00:43:00.002+08:00

Well, its kinda ... I mean VERY late now, but I wanna get a few things out before I go to bed.

First, you may or may not know, I also play Cardfight Vanguard as my secondary card game, and I do have a blog for that.

Although its pretty much dead, like Lam's blog. Or just about 90% of the bloggers blog.

And for those of you who reads my blog and plays Vanguard, I just wanna link these blog to you.

my VG blog : http://ride-the-vanguard.blogspot.com/

Rauzes's VG blog : http://soimba.blogspot.com/

Have fun.

Oh yeah, found a super sweet tech for Quickdraw Dandy. I'm not sure about the consistency and stuff, but I find the card nice in there.

I'll talk about it tomorrow, as I can't really focus on typing right now. Off to bed!

Henshin!! Super Saiyan Ultra-Yuma

2011-09-20T19:50:00.003+08:00

Thats what happened in episode 24 of YGO ZeXal. Astral overlay'ed himself and Yuma to form a super hero mode of themselves. Of cause, they are not on the field or in the game, its just sorta like how Kaito can Photon Change before dueling.

ZeXal is actually some sort of mythical force thats suppose to save Astral's world. So, its not just a random name, its actually a random name that got used in the story for some random purposes. Wow!

I bet a lot of people will go crazy and rant about how the transformation or fusion thing is stupid and how its so not YGO. BUT, this isn't the 1st time they do it.

No, this happened late 2007 when Judai fused himself and Yubel to form the Tom-Cruise-Version of himself.

This is just the animators way of answering the fans how was that move possible. By stating, A is possible because B is possible. That doesn't make sense? It does cause C makes sense, and C is equivalent to A and B. By C I mean Yusei turning gold in color before summoning Shooting Quaser where he fused with the Crimson Dragon (since Red + Crab = Gold).

On side note, the ZW or ZeXal Weapon cards, or the only card revealed. The Unicorn thing. Is Good!

Ignoring the fact that its effect can only be played if you have Hope Ray out, which isn't hard at all. Its just as hard as getting Hope out, and we know how hard that is.

The Unicorn Spear thingy (which I forgot its name) is a 1900 Light Beast monster. That by itself is enough for lots of good things.

TG Gadget just got another big beater, to top things off, TG Gadget seems to be the deck which could make Hope the easiest. And being the deck that could pull off Hope Ray's stupid requirement most easily.

So, now we can have :

6 Gadgets, 3 Unicorn thing, 2 Striker, 3 Warwolf, 1 Rhino, a Glow Up Bulb and BLS.

Or you could play 9 Gadgets and have 20 monsters in your deck. I'm not sure what thats leading towards, but I'm not sure I like that monster count in Gadget.

That Unicorn actually makes playing Warning in Offering Gadget reasonable. Not to mention Seven-Tools.

Unicorn shit also made BLS alive in Gadget if anyone where to play it that way.

To top things off, Unicorn dude is part of the ZW archtype which can be translated as "we will release a ton of support for these guys so get your wallets ready", so I can see improvement for the deck. Thats IF Offering isn't hit by the banned list in 6 months. Hahahahaha ...

Or maybe they just made it a Unicorn to remind the players how many packs/boxes of DREV he pulled in hope of getting Pot of Duality. Who know?

EXP4 is here!!

2011-09-17T14:47:00.004+08:00

Got myself a playset of Boggard and 2 Darksoul today, need 1 more. Pulled 1 Boggard from 3 packs, traded the holos from the other 2 packs for 2nd Boggard. Bought a Darksoul for RM35, thats like 10 bucks USD? Traded BLS UR for a Darksoul and Boggard, not the best trade ever, but I wanna make sure I have the cards before the market price goes stupid and I got that BLS for free from Rauzes.

LOL!!

5 down, 1 more to go. And thats from the 1st day the set is release here at Toysbar.

Didn't get to play in today's ranking cause my job is a bitch.

Did a pseudo half-ass Trishula loop with sabers today. But it took me 4 cards in hand to loop 3 Trishula ... come to think of it, its pretty worth it.

Counter Trap Issues

2011-09-16T12:14:00.002+08:00

Sorry for not posting the entire week, I have fever and shit.

I see Mike Ting finally realizes that Divine Wrath is a good card this format. We also found out that MST is not played as much as everyone anticipated. I did say not many decks can play 3 MST, but thats not the issue we currently see. The reason MST is not played much is because people are not either not setting or setting multiples to ensure Heavy doesn't go through. Blind MST is never good, and you'll see people holding it as long as possible or setting it hoping people plays an MST on it so you can chain it to another card on their board.

While I do agree that Divine Wrath being extremely good this format (mainly cause no one will see it coming), I don't really like the idea of having multiples or a playset of it in the main deck.

I think the only deck that could afford playing multiple copies of the same counter trao in their main deck would be Counter Fairies. The other decks shouldn't really just splash in Counter Traps for fun. Of cause, if you know what your doing and serves your deck well, by all means, do it. But I see too many people splash in counter traps (mainly Seven Tools, in multiple copies) just cause they think they'll need it.

My problem with counter trap being,

1. They are way too specific, only able to chain towards the activation of a certain type of card, even Solemn Judgment can't negate a monster's effect. Normally it doesn't matter, but having DW in the game makes running unchainable cards really really dangerous.

2. The cost of playing counter traps are more often than not, high. The 3 most powerful counter traps in the game right now would be Solemn Judgment and Warning, with Divine Wrath just barely taking the 3rd place on the podium. 3 of these cards have steep activation cost, although their ability to prevent your opponent from winning makes people overlook that.

Truth is, if you mess up while playing a big counter trap, your most likely than not going to lose to its activation cost. A wrong read on your opponent and you played Judgment on a bait, and you'll most probably lose.

That said, I really cant say playing more counter traps is safe this format. But I say play 3 to 4 counter if your deck is based on control. If your deck is aggro based, play 0 to 1 counter, or to be exact, play Solemn Judgment.

Another hidden gem for (beginning of ) this format will be Magic Jammer.

I see a sudden rise in play for this ancient Counter Trap.

While I only see Gadget maining it, it does make sense. First, Magic Jammer is a card that can't negate itself, as oppose to Magic Drain. Which to me is a card that makes no sense at all. Players are playing more spells to traps this format, and the spells you commonly see in your opponent main decks are big ones. Its been a long time since we have Monster Reborn, Dark Hole and Heavy Storm in the game together. And the newer slightly less powerful spells aren't to be mess with either. All and all, you have a shit load of targets right now.

Secondly, while ditching a card for a negation of a spell is steep, actually, its VERY steep. Stopping a spell can be more devastating than stopping a monster effect most of the time. While spells don't kill you, they make way for their monster to do the job.

I'm not saying Magic Jammer is a card good enough for every deck now. No, its not. But for decks like Gadget, or Counter Fairies. This can be a good addition if you have a few slots for techs, or you just want a card to negate some spells. I do think this is the better card to Magic Drain.

EXP4

2011-09-12T22:55:00.002+08:00

As expected, Darksoul is the UR, well, we know this already since he is the cover card. The other UR being Empress.

Boggard is a SR, as I told many people, but most of them keep saying it'll be NR. I don't know who thought of that in the 1st place, but Boggard is almost a guaranteed SR, the only possibility it ain't one, is that it switch rarity with Darksoul. In your face non-believers!!

Infernity Barrier is comfirmed ... as a COMMON! I seriously didn't see this one coming. I told Lam the other day its mostly a SR, when he said it might be a rare. Guess we really underestimated Konami in this. It doesn't concern me at all, but Lam plays Infernity, and I'm not sure what his response would be when he hears of this tomorrow morning.

The 2 syncros are foils, like there would be a non-foil syncro after CRMS (in main booster series and non-reprint sets).

Perhaps what shocks me the most would be Maxx C. Normal Rare. Great ... it'll be a RM40 card now. I was putting my money on Maxx C as a rare, but secretly wished it being a common. But I forgot Konami just likes to put awesome side deck/tech cards as NRs. Thanks man!

The other cards are not important what so ever, because I have no business with them and most of the players here in Malaysia doesn't as well. All and all I don't see EXP4 as a great set. The cards everyone wants from here are the Sabers, but they're not top deck material.

BUT, the format at the moment is actually really good for sabers. And since no one is making extremely fast decks, or rather, can't make extremely fast decks. Sabers do have a chance, as long as you know what your doing. Like, siding out Airbellum when you play DarkWorld? Or maybe taking out random DD Crows when you take on Agents? I'm just saying.

I still feel Sabers being extremely competitive in OCG right now, just not on the top. I tend to say they suck thou if you have conversation with me real life. Well, other things that come out of my mouth when I talk to other players would include E HERO being a bad deck because it has no auto-win, you need to control the entire game or you lose, and main deck Winged Kuriboh is pro.

Well, most of the things I said are based on my own deck anyway, and most people still think of E HERO as a deck that you need constantly spamming Fusions to win. The truth is,you never need to spam that many fusions to begin with. Key to playing with E HERO, hold back on your resource, waste your opponent's and summon Fusion monsters for the win. Simple formula that no one from my locals understand for some reason.

And yes, I do mained Winged Kuriboh, just cause its pro. No joke!

Back to topic, EXP4 sucks. Like all extra pack before it. At least to me, its not worth buying, not like I planned to buy a box to begin with, I'm more comfortable getting singles nowadays.

Update

2011-09-11T22:13:00.002+08:00

Went to Toysbar today for selling BLS Ultimate rare, did some deck testing with the local people there and some guys from Gamers earlier that day.

I was half serious when I mained 3 Smashing Ground into my Saber, but it turned out quite well. Especially since it was a simple 1 card out to Krystia.

While Smashing Ground is a slow card, this format here isn't what I call fast either, so I guess it'll be a fine tech before the format inevitably speeds up again with new boosters coming out. But thats still months ahead, and I could care less in the mean time.

I'm not really gonna main deck 3 Smashing of cause, but 1 might try out 1 or 2 and a Creature Swap. Since these cards really helps Gadgets, and I tend to play Sabers like Gadget.

Played a few games with y updated Quickdraw Dandy, and it does wonders. Its as powerful if not more powerful than last format. Well, I didn't mained 3 Quickdraw last format, so maybe thats where the difference come from.

I found out that I never need the 2nd Librarian and Formula anyway. Lonefire and Debris aren't really that important with Quickdraw around. The only card that kinda hurt would be Avarice, but Drill Warrior is next to extremely amazing.

However, this deck does have a very bad match up against Agents thou, because Krystia is always a bitch. Well, thats where the side deck comes in I guess.

Don't really recommend this deck for big tourneys, while this deck is still a clear tier 1 in OCG right now, its not the top deck in its tier, which makes playing it dangerous. Since people will still side for you, and you won't have the best advantage around. And especially when the No.1 deck of the format right now sorta kills this deck game 1.

On a not so YGO note, I played in the Cardfight Vanguard tourney today for the 1st time. I do have a Vanguard blog but its sorta ... dead.

Went 2 - 2, which I got my opponent getting heal triggers on me when I go for game, thats just how luck based that card game really is.

Well, its not a bad experience thou. Rauzes was there too, he crack a box of Vanguard and basically thats the best box we've ever seen. Imagine getting Duality, Chimera and Veiler for your SRs in DREV, thats how good his box was.

Thats all for today I guess, sorry for posting something non-YGO, but I thought some of you might wanna know what happen to Rauzes. The guy ain't dead and still playing Battle Spirit and more recently Vanguard.

Sabers update : side deck

2011-09-09T20:42:00.002+08:00

I've just finalizing my side deck based on the metagame from Japan, which is Agents, Junk and Gadgets.

I've also done some minor mods to my deck too, although I'm not covering that yet, still need some fine tunings.

side (15):

2 King tiger Wanghu

2 DD Crow

1 Effect Veiler

3 Leeching the Light

1 MST

2 Solemn Warning

2 Mind Crush

1 Dark Imprisoning Mirror

1 Debunk

I've not added Maxx C into considerations yet, so don't be surprise at all if it comes into the side, or main.

Took warning off main and sided it for some other card, namely to lower my trap count.

Saber update Sspt 2011 #1

2011-09-07T20:20:00.003+08:00

1 week to EXP4 or should I say Darksoul, Boggard and Maxx C? I could care less bout the rarity of the 2 sabers, but I really want Maxx C to be a common, not rare. As I don't wanna waste RM20 on a rare, where as a common would meant it be RM5 tops.

Really wish people will think of sabers as trash and sell them Darksoul and Boggard for 20 or 30 a piece. I really don't wanna throw a huge amount of cash into a deck that probably will never see support again.

monster (19):

3 XX-saber Faultroll

3 XX-saber Darksoul

3 XX-saber Boggard Knight

2 XX-saber Emmersblade

2 XX-saber Fullhelmknight

2 X-saber Pashuul

1 X-saber Airbellum

1 XX-saber Regigura

1 Debris Dragon

1 Super Nimble Mega Hamster

spell (10):

2 Pot of Duality

2 Mystic Space Typhoon

2 Enemy Controller

1 Book of Moon

1 Dark Hole

1 Monster Reborn

1 Heavy Storm

trap (11):

2 Gottom's Emergency Call

2 Call of the Haunted

1 Mirror Force

1 Torrential Tribute

1 Trap Dustshoot

1 Dark Bribe

1 Solemn Judgment

2 Solemn Warning

I really don't like Starlight Road, thats why I have Dark Bribe instead. I was thinking Magic Drain, cause I normally leave my opponent handless, but considering I might need the negation before the sabers do their job, I chose Dark Bribe. AND, if the sabers are really gonna do their job, that card they just drew will end up ditched anyway.

Warning isn't that great this format, but Agents are a pain. Warning still serve as the number 1 answer to their plays. Its a bit more dangerous now playing Warning, but it won't matter if I'm winning and it doesn't really matter if I'm losing anyway.

No Veilers because there just aren't enough good target for the card in the OCG right now. Aside from maybe random Samurai ( this deck could take down samurai with 3 Signals without Darksoul ), Gadgets (with 3 MSTs ... really?) and Agents (2 or maybe 3 cards in the deck gets hit), there is no deck with a Veiler Target. This deck's number 1 enemy is Darkworld and Keepers, which I doubt Veiler does anything to.

Veiler just isn't good enough in the OCG, the only decks that mained it right now is Junk variants, and thats because they wanna play BLS.

Regigura is a boss. I don't think I'll ever play Sabers without it. I don't know why half the world plays sabers like BF, but to me, Sabers meant Faultroll Loop, THE END.

Hamster wasn't here before because I dislike Ryko in a control deck, but now I see him more than a recruiter, his better than the 3rd Emmersblade, HIS LEVEL 4!!! There will be times you need Hope to clear a path for you or you just need to stall a few turns. I don't wanna waste 2 Boggards on that. With a 1800 def, this thing is pretty much a wall.

Debris might sounds like a random card there for solely Black Rose, but I mainly made this deck to run 3 Emergency Calls, and sometimes, my only Saber is in the grave. Well, I took the 3 E Call out for second Call of the Haunted cause its just better, but that Debris is still helping out real good. An 2000 wall is good starting play, to bait out those Nobleman and stuff.

Enemy Controller cause I originally ran 3 Fullhelm and no Airbellum, but my pride doesn't allow me to do that, since Airbellum did fought along my side for years now, AND I did build sabers last year just for it. Controller is still good thou, monster Exceeds just made them better.

I cut Pot from 3 to 2, cause I draw into multiples a lot, not much aside from that.

I do run a high trap count for this format, but I don't necessary hate 1 for 1s, if I could bate a MST with a Mirror Force or Warning, that means my E Calls will less likely be MST targets. Note, I usually don't leave a Saber on the field unless necessary. And I felt that Bribe and Judgment are cards that you CAN'T set alone, it has to be there to protect something.

I've yet to build a side deck yet cause I'm not sure how the Malaysian meta looks like, although it most likely mirrors Japan's cause the winning decks over there right now doesn't need promos.

Have fun guys! Sorry for the lack of post last week. I planned to post quite a few times, but I deleted the post after typing halfway cause I don't feel like its quality material.

Oh yeah! New deck , DRAGONIC LEGION, cool name. Supports Light and Dark Dragons? We all know THE BEST support for Light and Dark Dragons is in the prison.

But I know I smell Red Eyes Darkness Metal in that deck, there is NO other Dark (or light) dragon of its caliber that has yet to be reprinted in the sad common non-foil state.

Gagaga Magician deck

2011-09-06T07:55:00.002+08:00

Misleading title, but I've not done anything to it yet, and the deck is still merely an idea. Spending too much time on work and anime.

What I did thou, was building my Sabers to match this format, I try making it so that I would not lose to a first turn Krystia. Normally I have my traps waiting for it but as we know right now, traps that aren't chainable aren't that good anymore.

Another threat is Darkworld. The deck can be said as saber's biggest problem, even bigger than Agents. But no good players in my area plays Darkworld, as most of them seems to favor Agents and Gantetsu more. All my DW matchups till now are easy as my opponent mostly misplay themselves to death.

Going to work now, will post the updated list this evening.

Gagaga Magician

2011-09-04T00:57:00.002+08:00

Picked up a play set of Gagaga today, since I have obviously nothing better to pick up.

Thinking of playing a deck that focuses on Advance Draw, Gagaga and Wonder Wand.

I know I'll be playing 3 copies of Future Vision, Barboros and Sin Stardust.

But I've no clue what to play for the Spellcaster part.

Not much from me now and I made dozens of decks on duelnet this week, but most of them are either inconsistent or its not fun to play with.

Quickdraw Syncron based deck Ver.01

2011-08-31T16:56:00.005+08:00

I have no clue what to name this deck, maybe you guys can look at the deck list and help me classify this deck?

monster (25):

3 Quickdraw Syncron

2 Junk Syncron

1 Unknown Syncron

2 Chaos Sorcerer

1 Level Eater

1 Mystic Tomato

1 Sangan

1 Spirit Reaper

3 Ryko Lightlord Hunter

1 Skelengel

1 Cyber Dragon

1 Black Luster Soldier - Envoy of the Beginning

2 Card Trooper

1 Lonefire Blossom

1 Dandelion

1 Spore

1 Glow-Up Bulb

1 Debris Dragon

spell (11):

1 Heavy Storm

1 Monster Reborn

1 Dark Hole

1 Pot of Avarice

1 One-for-One

1 Mind Control

1 Charge of the Light Brigade

1 Foolish Burial

1 Mystic Space Typhoon

1 Book of Moon

1 Enemy Controller

trap (4):

2 Call of the Haunted

2 Limit Rebirth

Extra(15):

1 Formula Syncron

1 Armory Arm

1 T.G Hyper Librarian

2 Junk Warrior

1 AOJ Catastor (I wanted to play Android to increase the light monster count, but there are Agents)

1 Brionac, Ice Barrier Dragon

1 Drill Warrior

1 Turbo Warrior

1 Black Rose Dragon

1 Nitro Warrior

1 Scrap Dragon

1 Stardust Dragon

1 Trishula, Ice Barrier Dragon

1 Shooting Quaser Dragon

The only real problem I have with this deck is the limited extra deck space, which is present in every Syncron based deck build.

The only card in my main I'm thinking to drop would be one of the Chaos Sorcerers, but I have no idea what card would be good in its place.

I was thinking of Doppel Warrior, but I'm trying to make a syncron deck without the use of that broken bastard. Then again, with Tourguide introduced, Doppel is no better than Dark Armed Dragon, incredibly powerful when it comes into play, but only IF it comes into play.

So far, the only deck in the OCG that can take this deck out easily would be ... Agents.

Which lead me to think if I should main Effect Veiler. But the card is no use against DW and BF(which apparently is still pretty hot here, for unknown reasons). Lightlord is too inconsistent and too easily to side against to be bothered.

And the fact that the only good target for Veiler would be Earth and Venus.

Obviously, the spot would go to Maxx C once its released to the OCG, but its still 2 long weeks before that.

I think I'll discuss bout that later on, any of you who has suggestions please comment below.

On side note, I'm building this deck that features Dimension Alchemist and Banisher of the Radiance. Its suppose to be a pseudo-Counter Fairy deck, but I haven't decide whether to go with that yet.

I'll be playing Divine Punishment, Zeradias and of cause, Sanctuary in the Sky.

The real motive behind this deck's design is, to kill Agent in game 2. With the tons of Fairys I have in the deck, Tribe Shocking Virus is very very alive against the Agents. The banish part of Virus's effect also helps set up for Alchemist and other related cards.

I have not make a side deck for the deck yet, since the main deck is barely done. But it WILL have 3 Tribe Shocking Virus in it.

Thats all for today and Happy Independence day to all Malaysians and Selamat Hari Raya to all Muslims.

...

The deck is currently 9-0, but no Agent Fairys in sight yet.

Was met with a Faultroll Loop for my entire field and hand. The dude has Faultoll, Gottoms and Scrap up on the field. I have a Drill banished. The next turn, I topped One for One, Drill took back Dande, which I discard to summon Spore, Tune Spore to a Token to form Formula. Spore came back and tune for Librarian, Level Eater took 1 level off Drill, and I summon Shooting Quaser Dragon. To tops things off, I pulled BLS from Formula. Which basically hit for game. He showed me he had Starlight Road and Mirror Force set. Basically took down a freaking massive wall with 1 timely drawn One for One.

Agent Angel Dominating

2011-08-29T07:51:00.002+08:00

Well, can't say I'm surprise. It IS the deck that won World Championship 2011. Its an SD to top that. And worst/best of all, its not touched by the banned list, nor its trap heavy enough for Heavy Storm to make a difference.

Normally, I would not care about what deck is dominating as such as no matter what the deck is, I could usually take it out with E HERO cause HEROs are pro and most people here in Malaysia only knows how HERO beat (which I dont take as an E HERO deck) is played. I mean, I play Poly and they are almost always stunned.

And I'm always like "What!? You don't watch the anime?"

But Agent Angel being the top does sorta hurt HEROs. I'm sorry to say that, Agents have always been my HEROs biggest problem in tourneys. Its not that I can't beat it at all, but the odds of winning is against me. Cause my deck focuses on taking out my opponent's shit one by one, then finishing them off with big fusions and Rai-Oh. The two bosses from that deck sorta beats generates 2 much advantage.

BUT, thats not that big of an issue. The biggest issue would be side boarding. For me, I find Agent Angel incredibly hard to side board against. The only cards I can think of and ARE really good would be 2 Mind Crush, a Dustshoot(which I mained) and 2 Veilers.

Continuous Trap like Skill Drain and Light Imprisoning Mirror had never been that effective against them to start with. With Heavy and 3 Typhoon, it just got worst.

I'm still modding my side deck and thank god I'm having an almost-1-week public holiday.

And since Samurais are no longer a threat, I think I could take out the Shocking Viruses for more Angel hate.

Ranking/Trishula Tourney Report

2011-08-27T22:54:00.003+08:00

I build my deck at TB before the tourney cause a lot of Pokemon players are there for the pre-set release tourney for Black and White (not that you would care). Took out the cards that are only legal after September 1st (actually, it was just Heavy and Trunade).

After that, I notice that I had Dustshoot in my deck, which is suppose to be use next format. But since I don't wanna do any major changes to my deck, I didn't bother. My trap count is lower now, just 9 instead of the previous 11.

Deck used : E HERO.

Format was 3 rounds of Swiss and winner is decided by the highest pointer at the end of the match.

Only bout 10 people came cause Gamers Arena also held their Ranking Tourney today, while its both ranking tourney, you get to rank up faster winning there cause there are more high rankers of the 5D's and Zexal Rank (refer to stupid new ranking system for this). Where as I suspect most if not all the people at TB are DM ranks. Aside from the non-locals that is.

But while slower at ranking up, I think Trishula is very tempting.

1st match vs BF (unknown guy)

1st duel : He didn't really played any back row, which was to my surprise, but I was pushed back quite a few times by Arms Wing and a Kalut on Rai-Oh. But nevertheless, Miracle Fusion was making monsters too big for him to take down.

2nd duel : He made a mistake, summoning Ghibli back with Blizzard and then special a Bora. Then he tunes Ghibli with Blizzard for an Arms Wing (this is due to the misprint in Crow pack where Ghibli was printed as level 4). But I allowed it anyway, cause I have an Allius in Grave, a lone Stratos on field (after he Delta Crow from hand to hit my Bottomless and Mirror Force), Honest and Miracle Fusion in hand. He said sorry to me a couple of times and said he will go back to summoning another, but I said its okay and lets him continue (actually, I'm just saving my ass cause I really dont wanna see a Trishula). Won next turn with Miracle and Rai-Oh top decked.

1-0

2nd match vs Six Samurai (Wei Yann's Friend)

1st duel : I had a bad hand and was left at the defense (hardly). He summons Mizuho, Kizan, Kizan and a on field Grandmaster. He then searches his deck for Shinai with Signal. Summons it to the field. I have a face up Snowman, a Mirror Force and a MST, no help here cause my life was at 3200. BUT, he tributed his Shinai when there was no Samurai in the grave to pop my Snowman. And he declared an attack before clearing my field, which of cause got met with the Mirror Force. He took back the Kizan and set his last card down, which I played MST on (Dual Sword). From there it was smooth sailing cause I have Rai-Oh already in hand.

2nd duel : He started and end his turn with 2 Shi-En and a Kizan on the field and 1 card in hand. I have Tribe Shocking Virus in hand, but no HEROs. I topped an E Call. Playing it in case the dude doesn't negate it, but he did. Got raped next turn with another Kageki and Kagemusha into 3rd Shi-En. I have a set Mirror Force, but who cares.

3rd duel : I started and summon King Tiger Wanghu to the board, set Judgment, Warning and Skill Drain to the back (I'm thinking my opponent is pretty screwed). He has Kageki set, which I passed 2 turns later with a No 39 Hope with Allius and Airman. He would later review 2 of his 3 sets as Dojos, playing the set card Dual Sword, which I obviously negated with Warning. He the summons Kizan, summons another Kizan. He then asked tried to summon something with teh Dojos, but Wanghu just sits there. So he tries to attack it, but Hope blocked both attacks. He sets his last card to the back, but I have Judgment. I play Reborn, grab Ocean with Airman, summoning Virus, remove the Ocean to rid him of Kizans. Then proceed to attack for game.

2-0

3rd match vs Quickdraw Dandy Warrior (Wei Yann's other friend)

1st duel : I started with Dustshoot and Mirror Force set, grab Allius with Airman. He then showed me his hand of Tuning, Dandy, Debris, Sorcerer, Unknown Syncron and Trunade. Dandy was obviously picked. He played Tuning, grabbing Junk and mill a Sorcerer. Sets a monster. I summon Allius, overlay them into Gatchi Dragon. Attck for 2100. Rai-Oh hits the field next turn. Preventing him from doing anything big and won the game from there.

2nd duel : I started with Airman into Allius, attacks into an obvious set Ryko. Set 2 Skill Drain which was met with Decree at the end of the turn. He sets another monster and ended. I summon the Allius, plays Spark, rid him of Decree, flipping a Skill Drain. Miracle for Shining and attacks into a Doppel. after several turns, he was left with 2 cards in hand, nothing on the field. I have a Rai-Oh and Shining, 2 Skill Drain(1 set), Transmigration Prophecy and Solemn Judgment set, Honest and Crow in hand. I really don't see how my opponent is gonna turn this around. He removes Lonefire for Spore and summons Warwolf. Sync to Black Rose and attack my Rai-Oh after I said I would not negate it, which was of cause met with the Honest. He plays Avarice next, and I chained Prophecy to it, getting Miracle Fusion back to my deck. He sets his last card. . I attack and he flips Call of the Haunted, which I had a DD Crow for it.

3-0

So, I got 1st place and my GR Trishula.

The TP pack was crap. but who cares, I got a Trishula for RM15, thats 5 bucks in USD. I'm happy bout it.

Last tourney for this format, although I'm not gonna miss it. WooHoo, 3rd time playing with E HERO for tourney this month(I think) and 3rd time getting 1st. Might sound a little arrogant in this post but I'm still hyped bout Trishula.

Got myself a copy of Ultimate Rare BLS for a reasonable price, but almost immediately sold it to Wei Yann (well, he booked it but needs to get his pay check first before he could pay for it).

Nick is too Epic...

2011-08-24T20:29:00.004+08:00

I'm sorry, but the dude made Vengeful Servant deadly ... I'm not sure if this deck/idea is new or not, but I've not seen this deck before, and he claimed he didn't net deck. So, I guess you could say this dude is actually to broken to quit.

So, the dude quit 2 months ago, but spends his time on duelnet making stupid decks that actually works (to a certain degree).

He and Lam made a Gagaga deck. Which focuses on summoning Tyrus with Gagaga and other monsters such as CyDra, Tricky and even Instant Fusion. Simple idea, but to make it consistent is a chore.

Nick thinks Gagaga as broken/good, whatever. Lam just think its cool (thats soooo Lam), but they kinda came up with the same concept that day.

Back to the rage-quit-thats-not-really-out-of-the-game aka Nick.

He build this Vengeful Servant deck, in case you don't know the card (which you shouldn't), its a equip spell from CRMS I believe. The effect is something as follow :

When the equip monster's control is switch, deal damage EQUAL to the original attack of the monster to the NEW controller.

Useless piece of shit? Sure, until I killed a dozen of decks today on duelnet.

The set 2 or less format we are heading now is absolutely great for this deck.

I'm not sure if you could see the picture, the 1st 3 cards in the deck are Vengeful Servants. And the whole deck is based around, giving your opponent Big monsters, take it back, swing damage, play Servant, give it back. Game 2 please.

Note, this is the deck concept but not HIS deck list, as I tried to remember as well as I could. I remember him playing 3 Swaps, but I just don't think it fits the flow of the deck all that well. But since the deck list is slightly different. And I think there is a monster that works well with Swap that I missed. I guess I'll have to update the decklist again soon.

I played a TG deck just now, the dude was like sync everything for Quaser, ends. I play Dark Hole, which he negates. I play Mind Control, taking the Quaser. Play 2 Vengeful Servants. End turn. Thats it. His Quaser back stabs him for 8000 damage.

Duality, Arms Hole and Fader/Scarecrow made this deck consistent. This is obviously an OTK, so these cards will help me gather my pieces for the kill.

Best kill of the day was something like:

He attacks me with Stardust. I special Gorz. He sets something. I equip Gorz with 2 Servants, Creature Swap, deals 5400 to my opponent. I discard Mite, taking Gorz, I took 5400 damage (100 left), end turn, he takes another 5400.

While extremely inconsistent in theory, this deck works quite well (I don't understand this at all).

This deck loves to see a JD. I don't contribute much to the field, and the more life he payed, the better. Early Solemn Judgments against this deck, you are almost always gonna die to it.

(The random Spell in between MSTs, is the the 3rd MST, DN wont let me play 3 at the moment, but the deck absolutely needs 3)

Tour Guide, Fabled and DW. Broken

2011-08-21T00:12:00.004+08:00

Made a Tour Guide DW deck that featured Fabled in them, and the deck is, by Asian Format standards, BROKEN.

Well, IF the TCG monster exceed rulings apply, it IS broken. Not really broke without it thou, nevertheless, GOOD.

The synergy, between tour guide, raven, broww and snow are amazing. I literally never open dead, even if I pull 3 Broww, 2 MST. 1 Tour Guide and thats a very broken hand.

I'm wondering whether I should play Grapha at 3. Yes, a DW build that makes me wanna take out a playset of Grapha. I don't know bout the majority of players, but I don't really care what a deck can do, but I almost always play a full set of the boss cards.

Playing Fabled in there means I can go for Envoy of Beginning as well.

While not being able to do what plants did this format(summoning a bunch of monsters in 1 turn), its good under the new list, or at least how my results shown me.

No deck list yet as I'm still pretty much just testing this concept. I know someone might have already said this somewhere, but to me this is something big, and worth posting.

BTW, ranking tourney next week at TB will be a prized one. The winner gets ... GR Trishula ...wow.

I guess I need to take my Oppression and Trunade out of the box one last time before the format ends eh?

TG Addiction

2011-08-17T23:56:00.002+08:00

I was building this deck the whole week, and it's pretty fun to play and does it's job ... but now that Heavy's back, its sorta ... well, not as good.

monster (20):

3 XX-saber Darksoul

3 XX-saber Boggard Knight

2 XX-saber Faultroll

2 XX-saber Fullhelm Knight

1 XX-saber Emmersblade

1 XX-saber Regigura

1 X-saber Airbellum

2 T.G Striker

2 T.G Warwolf

1 T.G Rush Rhino

2 Effect Veiler

spell (10):

3 Pot of Duality

1 Heavy Storm

1 Monster Reborn

1 Dark Hole

3 MST (Was playing 2 MST and 1 My Body)

1 Reinforcement of the Army

trap (10):

2 Gottom's Emergency Call

2 Call of the Haunted

2 Horn of Phantom Beast

1 Trap Dustshoot

1 Mind Crush

1 Solemn Judgment

1 Dark Bribe (was playing 2 Trap Stuns, but well, Storm is back)

I kinda made this deck to sweep back rows. Striker and any level 4 Saber is a Hyunlei. And I'm sorta addicted to what Horn of the Phantom Beast can do.

The deck basically aims at taking out the backrow, then take out the hand. Like what Sabers were build to do.

But banned list sorta makes clearing backrow irrelevant cause people wont set as much.

Clearing the hand is good and all, but I guess people will be maining Veilers from now.

Oppression and Stun were a big part of the deck and did won me a couple of games, I guess thats gone now. Bribe ... I have no clue whether that works or not, but it can help for the push for game I guess.

Was playing Mirror Force and Torrential, but I figure I should focus on taking out my opponent faster than protecting myself, since 1 JD can basically screw me over. The 2 Calls are new in here, I didn't have any Call in my original build, but I guess it can help.

I don't really know what the deck can do now, seeing the set 4 format is over. Guess I need to test the deck out first.

Give me some feedbacks.

Nice List ...

2011-08-16T20:45:00.002+08:00

MST at 3, Heavy at 1, BLS at 1, Oppression gone ... Wut?

With the new list,

they seriously hits Junk Doppel (the plant part of it anyways, the Asian version is mostly unharmed aside from Formula Syncron).

Samurais got shot in the face. Shi-En and Signal at 1 means the deck is not as dead as I thought.

A lot of randoms.

Icarus at 3?! OMG!? What is wrong!? Why is konami helping BF? This can't be happening!! I must be dreaming!! Finally Konami decides that they hit BF too much.

With D Draw at 2 ... I see it coming to 3 next list!

I like this list very much ... especially 3 MST. But Oppression banned, I don't understand. But with 4 staples in the deck to destroy it, its not gonna do much.

Heavy Storm out on the loose basically means TG as a deck may have just met its end. It is a deck that focus on setting 4 backrows. Same goes for GK, 3 MST and the deck just suddently became so less scary.

Judgment at 3, Heavy at 1, BLS at 1, Necro at 2 and Oppression banned. Guess we have a contender for top deck in the form of an old deck.

Great news overall, its gonna be one mad format coming September, with the deck that spams the most hit, and decks that set a lot no longer safe.

Heat Wave Rabbit deck

2011-08-16T07:37:00.002+08:00

I build this for fun on Duelnet yesterday. Me, Fishtank and Sharmir are teaming up for the team tourney next month, and we decided that player A will be fodder, which I wanted to be, and the other 2 doesn't allow.

So, we decide to duel it off. I played it against Fishtank, which I took beating at 1st until I cleared the field with Mirror Force and proceed to win with Heat Wave and vanilla monsters.

BUT, since I won, I couldn't be fodder, so I challenge Sharmir since he was the boss, and told him I'll be A if I won a match.

I won game 1 hands down because Tengu is a beast (lit.). Loss game 2, his 2100 Laquari attacks my Vorse Raider, I flip Horn, he flips horn, I flip another horn, he flips 7-tools. His advantage was then too large for me to win. 3rd duel starts with me summoning Andal, setting Chariot and Bottomless, holding Rabbit. He ends with 2 sets, which I so conveniently drew Trunade.

Later, I tested my deck out with SST, which proves the concept of the deck surprisingly broken. But some tweaks still need to be made. I'm not sure if anyone posted decklist online yet, if anyone have links to Bunny Heat Wave deck, please link it in the comments below.

TB Ranking Tourney

2011-08-13T22:37:00.003+08:00

So, they cancelled the Formula Syncron cause there was only 8 players.

I played E HERO cause Lam wants to use my TG Gadgets.

3 Rounds of Swiss, as usual.

Results : 1st.

I'm too lazy to post, and I mostly played against people I know. The 8 players are me, Lam, Cookie, Andrew, Zack, Daniel and 2 guys I have no idea who they are(they play 40 card decks, one of them play a copy of Sin World and Sin Truth).

TG

2011-08-12T07:35:00.003+08:00

These guys are being so big of a trend now. Its like you could build any ANTI meta deck and have about 10 slots for their cards, and your very good to go.

Currently, I have 2 decks that plays TG, TG Gadget and TG Syncro. The latter is basically Doppel Junk with Striker and Warwolf to increase my syncro spam, but this deck will most likely die on September 1st due to most of its key cards getting hit by banned list.

Not that it matters anyway, I picked up Doppel Junk as soon as it was release, when everyone was hyping on Samurai. People were telling me its just a poor man's Dandylion. That may be true, but hey, poor people are strong.

Enough of that, lets talk about my other TG deck. Unlike normal TG Gadget, I run it differently. As most TG gadgets are just Offering Gadgets with TG in them, mine is basically Skill Drain Gadget with Gadget in them. Well, no Skill Drain thou, but its play style is more antimeta-ish. I prefer decks like this cause it doesn't require you to pull good to start your plays.

We all know what made TG such great antimeta pieces, TG1-EM1 and Horn of the Phantom Beast. Pitch-Black Warwolf is another card that is so great in antimeta, that I'm surprise no one played it. I played with Mirage Dragon (which has the same effect) for years, and I know just how good this card can be. Although I missed out the fact that he could get the boost from Horn till last weekend's YCS.

My deck currently looks somewhat like this, and I plan to take this to TB tomorrow for the ranking tourney, where as an additional prize, Daniel made us play for Formula, which might get killed, but who cares, chances are against it.

I would really like to top with different decks, since I topped last week with E HERO, it would be boring to play the same deck again.

monster (15):

3 TG Rush Rhino

2 TG Warwolf

2 TG Striker

2 Pitch Black Warwolf

2 Green Gadget

2 Red Gadget

2 Yellow Gadget

spell (10)

3 Pot of Duality

2 Mystic Space Typhoon

1 Monster Reborn

1 Dark Hole

1 Book of Moon

1 Enemy Controller

1 Mind Control

trap (15):

3 Horn of the Phantom Beast

2 TG1-EM1

2 Compulsory Evacuation Device

2 Dust Tornado

2 Solemn Warning

1 Solemn Judgment

1 Torrential Tribute

1 Mirror Force

1 Bottomless Traphole

side (15):

3 Beast King Barboros

1 Pitch-Black Warwolf

1 Green Gadget

1 Red Gadget

1 Yellow Gadget

3 Skill Drain

3 Ultimate Offering

1 Royal Oppression

1 Dust Tornado

I think you know what I'm doing with the side deck here. Basically the side deck can change this deck into Skill Drain TG, Offering Gadget or just go plain with Antimeta Gadget.

I kinda like how this is working out.

Chaos Numbers

2011-08-09T19:38:00.002+08:00

So, unlike Buster Mode introduced in the 3rd pack of 5D's, I actually think this is good (anime effect wise).

Hope Ray is an instant summon, just overlaying Hope together with its Overlay unit and you get to summon a 2500 monster that can pump itself up by detaching one of its overlay unit. It gains 500 for each of the units detach, meaning it can go to 4000 (Hope + 2 Overlay units), plus for each unit detach, you can also decrease the opposing monster's attack by 1000.

Hope Ray is basically THE biggest beatstick in yugioh, nothing under 7000 can take it out. LOL.

But thats just the anime effect.

Banned list is in the corner, any post about combos and facts, deck might just end up wasting afford by next week.

6th August TB monthly Tourney report

2011-08-06T18:34:00.000+08:00

I haven't done one of these in a while, I went to TB early today(getting leave from company) with Lam and our friend Hong(not a blogger).

I went there just cause I don't feel like working and my friend at intern needs to go on a date, so he can't fetch me home today. Hence, I took the better option to go to TB with Lam, and sell my DW deck there, for Rm190(with Tyrus, bad deal? What ever).

Not really interested in the tourney as only the 1st and 2nd place gets prizes aside from TP. 1st gets Librarian (wow, how bout doing this earlier in the format?) and 2nd gets a SR Monster Reborn (for a card with commons and URs, its a stupid rarity). But since my 2 mates, SST and Fishtank are joining. I feel like I'll waste my time not playing.

Play my HERO deck, cause I'm not in the mood to play, just in the mood to take something home. (LOL)

Match starts at 12.30 I guess. But thats not important.

1st match vs Debris Dandy

1st duel : I have Rai-Oh out and he fails to stop me killing his Stardust. And beat him to death.

2nd duel : I have Super Poly and BTH set. Summon Airman, but was met with double MST at the end phase. He did the usual stuff to get a whole field of syncro and won.

3rd duel : I pull 5 monsters ... and SKILL DRAIN. The trap card alone won me the match as he couldn't do anything. His hand was full of Dandy, Debris, Junk and such. Cards that normally kill me if I don't have the continues trap. I eventually pull Fusion Gate and start spamming with it.

1-0

2nd Match vs Frog Monarch - SST

1st duel : I originally had him on the run but realize that our hand was 2 to 6 (with him leading), once he got rid of Rai-Oh, it was over.

2nd duel : He did his stunts and did Gatchi with Formula and Ronin. That stall the game for way too long. He took my Tornado with Creature Swap, and attacked me. I had Super Poly and fuse the 2 monsters for Shining. He destroyed them with me not having anything removed. The game once again was stalled, with me at 600 and him at 800. I have Heat and Shining out, Skill Drain face up. His turn came, he tribute his Treeborn for a Raiza, attack on Heat, which would deal 800 damage and win the game, but I play MST on my Skill Drain, raising Heat to 2000, taking only 400 damage, and Shining went up to 3800. Won next turn by attacking Raiza with Shining.

3rd duel : I start King Tiger, attacking to his Morphing Jar 2. Reset the field with an Ocean, without me losing half my deck (only a Spark). He didn't pull any frogs and Airman, Ocean, Allius beat him to death.

2-0

3rd match vs Infernity - Lam

1st duel : I played Solemn Judgment and Warning, which got my life to 2000. He Dark Hole my Rai-Oh and brought it back with Reborn. I top into E Call with Miracle and Spark in hand. LOLz!

2nd duel : I pull into DD Crow early and shut down his Mirage plays. From there it was pure beat down with HEROs.

4rd duel : I ditch DD Crow when he target Archfiend and Necro with Mirage, but it was an invalid move as he had cards in hand. Instead he went for Brionac with Zombie and Knight, which he then continue to use Mirage, which I still ditch Crow. His Brionac was killed by my Shining. He played Call, bringing the Dragon back, ditching his newly drawn card for it, but I have Skill Drain.

3-0

4th match vs Six Samurai - Fishtank

1st duel : I had Nova out, 3 Facedown, no HERO in grave and 1 card in hand. He go for Trishula, with a Grandmaster summon on field. I chain Super Poly, fusing his 2 monsters for Draco, which left him handless, monster-less, with 2 facedown. Me, handless, no HEROs in Grave, and 2 extremely big monsters on the field. He remove the bigger monster. Nova was met by Prison, but at that time, my field was huge and his life was running too low, with his last set card being a Gateway.

2nd duel : I have Rai-oh and Airman out and winning. He played Smoke Signal and play Light Imprisoning Mirror to negate Rai-Oh (which should be invalid as Rai-Oh's 1st effect is continuous, but we didn't realize that). He got Kageki, which summons Kagemusha, then Kizan came out to kill Rai-Oh, he goes for Shi-En. BUT, I already have Tribe Shocking Virus and an E HERO in hand since the beginning of the game. The 2 monsters attacked and went through, with him at 100. He draws and shows me United.

Before the match, we decided that this would be a 2-1 match no matter who own (which would later proof as an important decision).

4-0

Before the final match, we found out our organizer had the wrong idea in how the point accumulation works. Cause, he ruled, 1 point for losing a duel, 1.5 points for drawing and 2 points for winning it. But that lead to a very serious problem. As if you win 2 duels straight (2-0'ed your opponent), you would get 4 points, which is good. But if you lost 1-2, you get 2 points for the 1 win and 2 points for your 2 losses, so you still get 4 points...

So, by the end of the day, to get most points, you need to win 2-1, so you get 4 points for the 2 duels you win, and 1 point for the one you lost. A stupid mistake by the organizers indeed, and he realize this after the tourney when we told him.

But all my wins are 2-1 up till now, which place me and another Samurai player at the top.

Another problem with the tourney is that the matchings aren't match by points. Which I met with all the full win players (which is right), but the other guy played 2 guys with 1-X. And we are all surprise there is another 4 win in the tourney aside from me.

5th match vs Six Samurai - the other 4 win guy (cause I told the organizers that the remaining guys with the highest points should duel it out, and decide who takes Librarian)

1st duel : I have Rai-Oh out and stops his searches. He tries to clear my field which gone bad and end up with me with nothing on the field, and him with a facedown and 1 S/T. But I have 4 hands. I play Fusion Gate, summon Airman, grab Allius, fuse with all my hand for 2 Shining with 4100 attack, and attacks into him, which he reveals his set card being Magatama.

2nd duel : He summons Kizan and Kageki. I summon Ocean, killing Kageki, holding Fusion Gate, and debating whether to go for ZERO, but I felt he might have Dark Hole, so I end up setting Mirror Force. He plays MST , and he plays double Mizuho, Shinai and Grandmaster to clear me of my field and attack for the win.

3rd duel : I have 3 facedowns, Airman and normal Poly to ZERO, he has Enishi on the field, he then summons Kageki and specials Kagemusha, going for Shi-En. Then plays Enishi's effect to bounce ZERO, I wasn't bothered with Magatama as he has 1 set and I have Solemn, turns out he doesn't have Magatama and Shi-En dies for nothing ... Later in the game where he is extremely low in life. He plays Double Edge and summons Kageki and Kagemusha (why no Shi-En ... I really don't know, maybe cause his life was lower than the samurai's attack?). I flip Skill Drain, and he syncros for Shi-En. Ramming into my Airman, but I flipped Prison, which he flipped Magatame (cause I mistakenly said Mirror Force), and Shi-En was killed. He has Magatama set, and set a monster. I summon Shocking Virus, Airman attacks into the monster which turns out to be Kageki, but my last set card was Super Poly, which summons Tornado and deals 4500 damage and wins the match.

5-0

The organizers are now brain storming to decide the placing, but I pointed out I'm the only one in the tourney with full wins, and I have 25 points under my belt, AND he specifically said no Top 4~8 bullshits before hand. Thus, they have no choice but to hand me Librarian, while SST and the other samurai guy fights for 2nd place and SR Reborn.

SST won that match and goes home with Reborn (which he claims to be the card he wanted).

So, I place 1st, and got a decent prize for it. And from the TP, I pulled Pashuul, which is worth RM40 or at least 35 here.

Nice day overall, and for once I feel great bout ditching work. :)

My Banned List prediction/wish list

2011-08-05T19:48:00.000+08:00

Yes, I've already did this, but I had a few more cards I wanna talk about and add to the list (remember last time, I only had a few cards that I really wanna hit).

And since I don't wanna post this in the middle of the banned list post all other bloggers are doing, I kinda like being the 1st guy to do it, and the last guy as well. At least I hope I was the 1st on blogger and hopefully last too.

Lets start with the list 1st and I'll sorta explain why I place the cards as it is.

Thor'ed(Get it?) :

Giant Trunade

Glow Up Bulb

Hyper Librarian/Formula Syncron (preferably the latter)

Foolish Burial

Limited :

Pot of Avarice

Heavy Storm

Ultimate Offering

BF - Vayu the Bancho'

Hyper Librarian/Formula Syncron (the former please)

Shi-en's Smoke Signal

Dual Sword Welding Technique (if I remember the name correctly, the annoying double Reborn)

Treeborn Frog

Starlight Road!!!

Semi-Limited :

Agent of Bla Bla Bla Earth (the searcher dude/girl/whatever)

Master Hyperion

Reborn Tengu (shit needs to die)

Snow, Something of the Dark World

Pot of Duality (I don't think its worthy, but I sorta see it coming)

Book of Moon

Royal Oppression

Dewloren, you should stay there in the Ice Barrier

Released, your good to go :

maybe ... Magical Stone Excavation? Is Snipe Hunter at 3 already? If its not, then maybe. But thats about it.

Harsh list? Totally. Weird List? Yeah, sorta.

For the banned, I think most of us will agree on Trunade and the Librarian/Formula. Maybe not banning one of the 2 syncros, but they need to be hit, NOW.

Foolish and Glow Up Bulb, for a reason. These are broken cards right here. 10 combos in YGO that deals with special summoning, Foolish will be part of 9 of them. Bulb is just too good. Its not one of the weapons Junk Doppel can use, its the epicenter of everything. This and Formula are what made Quaser and plants broken, Librarian is but a mere catalyst. You can still go Quaser 1st turn and shit consistently without Librarian, although you get more pluses off that pedobear.

Banning Librarian may be good as future decks can't abuse it, but for now, Glow Up and Formula are the main killers, in all plant variants.

For the to'1s. Avarice, Shi-En's Signal and Dual Sword Welding had it coming.

Offering? Really? No, I don't think this card is worth sending back to 1, as it just got back to 3 not too long ago, but as Dewloren did when it came back to 3. The same deck that caused this card to go to 1 all those years ago, will be forcing it back in again. Its just a hypothesis.

Vayu and Treeborn? Why?

Treeborn, cause I agree with the author of Death Aspect, should be at 1, those who subbed to him, should have read this, and those of you who doesn't, please do right now.

Vayu, cause Konami just likes hitting BF in some way in every banned list. And cause Grave BF is running strong even today, its gonna be the likely candidate to get hit. Although I fail to see how this will kill BF. BF is an epic tale of a deck in the making, forcing the banned list onto itself over and over again, but keeps on standing back up on its own 2 feet and continue fighting. Hitting Vayu will just add to their already awesome resume.

Last but not least, and the one card most of you are WTF'ing about, Starlight Road.

Why the hell? Its not because I want Storm back, I put it here, thats just stupid. But its so more people play the card, and I think this card has the same effect as Storm, Mirror Force and Torrential, at 1. Having it at 3, people aren't even looking at it, but at 1, its good main deck material, thats just how people are. The mind games this card can give to the game, just by the fact that everyone will have 1 copy in their main deck, is giving me a fangasm. Some times, you don't hit a card cause its bad to the game, but making the game more fun with it hit. Like Oppression, no one care about it when it was at 3, but we would main 1 now if we have the space, I see Starlight Road as the equivalent to that, but unlike the continues trap, this card can make your opponent think twice before going for big plays, and playing big traps.

Any love for my suggestion? In the comments!

The semi limited are made of cards that are self-explanatory. Tengu is broke, we need to hit it, not being in OCG is a bad reason not to do something bout it.

Snow is fresh on the list cause I feel hitting this will make Dark World a less search and spam deck, while hitting Grapha means nothing if its not 1 or less. But I don't expect this to happen this banned list thou. As Konami thinks this deck is the answer to Keepers and Sabers.

Duality did nothing this format, but I have a gut feeling its gonna get hit to 2.

Book of Moon and Royal Oppression are cards that prevents spamming of big plays and putting them to 1 in a syncro spamming format was one of the stupidest things konami did, but no one bitched about that surprisingly. These are needed to make the game slower, and with Storm around, Oppression is almost equivalent to BTH.

Like I said, I have nothing for the unlimited. I don't specifically find anything worth taking out.

I really doubt Black Luster Soldier is coming out (it would be great if it does), but if I could have a banned card release back into the game (and not destroy the format), I would rather have DMoC(Dark Magician of Choas for those of you who just joined us).

The card is really good even with today's standards, but I don't think anyone will name it broke with the top tier cards right now. Its one card that spellcasters need to stray away from FTK (although this card may just be the center of an FTK ... again). What the heck ... its not gonna happen isn't it?

Graceful Charity

2011-08-02T07:35:00.000+08:00

Anyone remembers this card? Draw 3 ditch 2?

I was having conversation with some guys last week online, and they were talking bout how Pot of Duality is the most broken search/deck filter card ever ... Obviously they haven't join this game before Graceful was banned.

They defended Pot was better by saying you don't have to discard anything ... which is true IF you are playing Antimeta-ish stun decks, and thats only true half of the time, or more specifically when you reveal 3 powerful traps. But they missed the point that you don't have to discard the cards from the 3 you drawn, I forgot to tell them that as well.

With that said, I really don't think Pot of Duality is gonna get hit by the banned list in anyway come Spetember. I don't know why many are thinking its gonna get to 2. Its only seen in decks that can't go spamming in 1 turn, if you wanna hit Agents, hit Earth and Krystia, its good enough. But since when Konami is so predictable.

Like many bloggers expected, I wish Heavy Storm to come out of prison and throw Trunade into it. I don't think Konami understands this thou. So if they do, its gonna be the first time they actually did something good for the game in a while. Their usual strategy of taking care of the meta is banning the most powerful themed cards so people stop bitching for a few months, and make new more broken shit so that you complain for the months to come before the banned list. I really do NOT hope that they banned Trunade but left Storm in banning, thats just gonna be stupid.

Note, this is not a banned list talk.

But, another thing I wannna talk about is TG Gadgets. This deck is amazingly consistent, even without Tengu, which would make it broken ? Then again, if we have Tengu, why would we bother playing Gadgets? Just go with TG Tengu and we have a championship winning deck thats cost less than half the price of BF.

This deck, as I tested, has an incredible match up against Dark World, providing they did not activate a Virus before hand, then your just sitting ducks. Drawing into any 2 TG and a Gadget automatically makes you Trishula, and Dark World is almost always dead with a timely summoned Trishula.

I did not have Dualities in my TG Gadgets, mainly because I need my only playset in Sabers. Another thing I'm missing is Wonder Magician. Which is still pretty expensive around here although no one plays them.

I play my deck like usual Gadget Stun, which consists of Breakers, Smashing, Controller and other shits like Compulse and Prison. That Oppression is too much work for maining sadly. Works for me as of now, I'm not sure what I'm gonna do with it though.

I'm planning to side another set of Gedgets and 3 Ultimate Offering to turn this into Offering Gedgets. Since Stun decks usually have a lot of room in their side, well, I haven't build a side board for this deck yet, so I guess this can wait till then.

Selling off my DW deck to a friend, cause I'm totally bored with that deck, and I like TG Gadgets better as of now.

Sorry for not posting last week end, I hurt my fingers (yes, fingerS!) last Friday night and it hurts typing.

E HERO main deck

2011-07-28T20:12:00.006+08:00

I don't really feel like posting the deck list now, as this format isn't really good for HEROs, the main decks are all bunch of cards that generate their own advantage, HEROs like Gadgets and other stuns decks rely on the 1 for 1s that generates plus 1s in the long run to win the duels.

But facing samurai that generates too much advantage going first, agents that are plus ones themselves, doppel junk which are a joke of a deck, DW that never dies ... The deck has clearly seen better days. Waiting for the banned list to hit those deck, in the TCG, whenever a new banned list starts, GB dominates, here, its HEROs. :)

Anyways, my deck isn't really what you would call a stable build or so, I try to make it fun and do a lot of cool shits. Hence I play things that people don't for card advantage and consistency. And the people who wanna test my deck usually loses, cause its a deck that is build to match my play style perfectly (fine tuning!), so, I doubt it will do netdeckers any good. Another reason I love this deck is that I'm sorta in yugi-mode playing this deck, cause I can usually call out cards before I draw them. Ask Team Arco, they see me do this alot of times, I just randomly calls a card, and I draw into it. Its weird, I know. :)

monsters (12):

1 E HERO Airman

3 E HERO Neos Allius
2 E HERO Ocean
1 E HERO Forestman
1 E HERO The Heat
2 Thunder King Rai-Oh
2 Snowman Eater

spells (19):
3 Miracle Fusion
2 Polymerization
1 Super Polymerization
1 Fusion Gate
1 Parallel World Fusion
1 Masked Change
3 Gemini Spark
3 E Emergency Call
1 Monster Reborn
1 Giant Trunade
2 Mystic Space Typhoon
traps (9):

2 Dimension Prison
2 Bottomless Traphole
1 HERO Blast
1 Mirror Force
1 Solemn Judgment
2 Solemn Waring

WOAH!? Unbalanced? Theres a ton of cards that doesn't work half of the time, and the amount of searchers are too low for a 12 monster deck. Yes, absolutely. But I play this deck just fine and I usually doesn't pull dead unless going against Shi-En, Quaser or Krystia(to an extent).

This deck can run just fine, as long as you know what to play, and don't just fuse for big monsters when ever you have the chance, I rarely fuse into anything, and when I do, its usually when I'm trying to go for game or trying to turn the tides around.

Like most HERO decks, the cards in the deck are meant to be 1 for 1s that could be plus 1s after a while.
Masked Change serves as a 1 for 1 most of the time, gaining tons of pluses when use right and consistently end games for me.

Parallel World is a cool card in itself. Summoning Earth and winning with it that turn is the coolest thing a guy can do.

The biggest question most of you will have is : Why Polymerization?

My answer: Why no Polymerization?
3 cards for a monster which may be destroyed is basically putting yourself into a -2 situation. I know that pretty well.

But there is just so much for reasoning in the game, and for life as well. I don't really have a reason why these are in here, but I just don't feel like I'm playing E HERO without Polymerizations in the deck. Hey, what ever that works for me right?
I guess thats all, the other cards are pretty standard, tell me what you think.

Not talking bout the banned list, cause I already did, earlier this month.

BTW, thanks for the Parallel World. :)

E HERO Extra deck

2011-07-26T22:41:00.002+08:00

Picking 15 cards for my HERO extra is tough job. I really hate Konami giving me so many cards yet no place to put them. I fought my way through mobs of people to get a playset of Escuridao, yet I'm not even trying to play 3 (although, his not worth playing 3 ... now).

Counting in Chimeratech and Draco-Equites, makes only 13 HEROs in the extra. Why don't I side them instead? Cause I don't even have place in my side for the META, why would I waste 2 more on Extra deck cards. Thats my theory anyways.

My extra deck now look kinda like this :

3 E HERO Absolute ZERO

I was thinking of playing 2, but after some thinking, its staying at 3. I don't Fuse much although I play a ton of Fusion Related cards in my deck. But when ever I do, its always spamming ZERO and Shining. 3 may be overkill, but I just like this card at 3 very very much, its a HERO thing. :)

3 E HERO The Shining

Obviously, this is the one HERO you MUST play 3 of. If your HERO deck doesn't have Syncros(Debris HERO), then this is one card you wanna max out. No explanation needed on why this card is Max, its just the way it has to be.

1 E HERO Nova Master

Its just there cause it needs to be.

1 E HERO The GREAT Tornado

Same goes for this guy. This guy is a one way out to Quaser in case you forgot.

1 E HERO Gaia

As above.

1 E HERO Escuridao

I do not actually run any DARK in my deck. But Shi-En is one of the deck's biggest problem ... what the heck, it just needs to be played.

1 E HERO The EARTH

I love this card. I will try to summon this card if I wanna go for game, its not bout the effect and usefulness, its just cool, and thats what E HERO should be.

1 V HERO Trinity

Seriously, I kill with this card ... a lot. If your opponent is summons a bunch of monsters in one turn, Fuse into this and its GG. I did this to Andrew last week, he summons Kageki, specials Kizan, set 3 facedown. I play Trunade, which he allows. Summon Airman, grab random HERO, play Poly and get this dude out. 5000+5000-1800-200 = 8000. :) Math is good.

1 M HERO Vapour

I play a copy of Masked Change just cause I feel the card extremely fun. Gokka is good, but I couldn't find any space and I don't really summon him.

1 Chimeratech Fortress Dragon

I'm thinking of taking this card out of the deck, since Machina ain't that big of a problem for me, and Karakuri are almost dead here. But thats a story for another day.

1 Surging Dragon Knight Draco-Equites

Shooting Quaser and Scrap Dragon are both annoying bitches. Super Poly shuts them down, and make use of them in the process.

I really wanna take Chimera out for Hope, but I don't really summon Hope much either. Not sure what to do bout this, but oh well.

My side deck is kinda weird, or staple-ish, depending on where you are from and whats your meta.

2 King Tiger Wanghu

I hate Doppel Plants. I really do. This helps in Agent match ups as well, believe it or not. The only way for them to get to this is Hyperion, thats IF they can get it out with the traps and spells HEROs are playing.

1 Thunder King Rai-Oh

Syncro summoning and other stuffs are annoying, plus Whirlwind BF, Agents and TG aren't so dead right now. This guy was MVP and still is right now.

2 Tribe-Shocking Virus

Six Samurai hate. Why this over Jogen or Penguin? This is actually a beatstick, unlike the other 2. Plus the removing from play may help with Parallel World Fusion. I actually tried siding this against Agent, cause I side in Skill Drain. He played Decree and Kristia to lock me down, I drew into this with Honest at hand (which is exactly why I play this, stupid I know, but what the heck)

1 Cyber Dragon

Just cause its CyDra. I can't think of another reason not to play it. Thats stupid ... I know.

2 DD Crow

There are too many decks relying on the grave right now. Its good to play these birds.

2 Super Polymerization

If this isn't sided, then you can bet its mained. I don't see anyone in their right mind not playing these. Well, I did actually, and he had a good reason to back it up ... what ever.

2 Skill Drain

This card isn't as good as it used to be, cause Exceed summoning and Grapha makes this a joke, but siding this against the right deck can be devastating.

2 Dust Tornado

I hate decks that run Field spell, so I destroy them.

1 Transmigration Prophecy

This is a card thats suddently gaining popularity over at OCGland. I can see why. This is always in my Saber main deck cause how good it is. And with DW rising as a top deck, this card can waste their Lightning, get rid of Grapha, and recycle my Miracle Fusions (or Fusion monsters in case I need them). All and all, best time to use the card ever.

Good bye Rauzes Duel Marathon!

2011-07-24T01:27:00.006+08:00

Today was suppose to be Rauzes' last visit to GA ... for YGO anyway, he still plays Battle Spirit, so I suppose we are still gonna see him regularly.

Anyway, Rauzes is the one playing Kuriboh Monarch (with the EPIC Airman mat), while Karl Lim was playing DW with a hell load of proxies, so much that I don't really know what the hell is he doing.

The shaking of the camera is due to me and SST trying to maintain a good angle to the duel, but reach our human limits, thus passing my phone to each other every few minutes. Mind the trash talk. This wasn't the best duel videos ever.

I also have another video with Rauzes, but its on my friend's phone. Worst time for a feature match ever, I played him in HERO mirror for a match, which was epic, and he said 1 last game, and I decide to film it. But I end up pulling crap, making the only HERO mirror vid from GA ... a pretty one sided match. :(

...

Other things that caught my attention were :

Not the Burei and Bureido, who cares, look at the other side of the field, and the guy with the epic win/fail deck won.

This is a different guy from the picture above, there are actually 4 guys playing decks that mained that Heart of the Underdog card

Vorse Raider + Mage Power + 5 S/T after Trunade = WIN. "Screw you Laquari, I'm bigger!"

Karl Lim "CHAOS EMPEROR DRAGON!!!"

Ryko and HEROs with a hell load of S/T, yeah, something only Rauzes will do. Airman mat is sexy thou ... no homo.

EPIC fail of the day : Me not taking my 3 Illuminator from Cookie, cause I misheard him, somehow ...

Team tourney stuff

2011-07-22T20:10:00.003+08:00

The title was a lie. I ain't gonna talk about it.

Didn't have much updates because I have not bought a single pack pf Shockwave and thus have nothing new to show and tell. But I did manage to get a deal with Cookie for 3 Illuminators cheap, thanks dude.

In case your wondering why I need those cards, its because I'm trying to make a Skill Drain Ultimate Offering Galaxy Eyes Barboros Beatdown-and-sorta-stun Gadget deck.

WTF? I know.

No list yet, as I don't have Galaxy Eyes, but I WILL post them when I get them. The basic concept of the deck is to play like Offering Gadgets, get your Illuminators out, draw like your mad, summon Galaxy Eyes and attacks Tyrus and laugh at him. Magical Planter and Advance Draw helps :)

What about if I draw into Gadgets and forced to play Skill Drain fast ... I haven't really put my thoughts into that ... I'm sorry.

Speaking of Galazy Eyes, I know tribute 2 and summon a very big dragon in 1 turn isn't really powerful anymore, but is it really that bad a card? its cool, I KNOW that.

Trying to play it in my Red Eyes deck ... once I start building it ... once I get my 3rd Darkness Metal, which I plan to get as soon as I get my second copy ... come to think of it, its about time I get my 1st copy of it ... Oops.

But playing Galaxy Eyes in that deck, is just pure fun, since it CAN be normal summon like the boss cards from SD. And it can get rid of floaters.

Played Evoldo-Dar-Kaiser deck last weekend. I find it ... normal ... at best. I think you need DT cards to make that deck worth running ... I think. Since there is no update on that deck on any blog what so ever. Come to think of it, why hasn't anyone build a Mainspring deck. I myself, too lazy for that.

New ninja cards from Zexal, nice. I KNEW Silver Ninja wasn't just for show. Now we are getting an entire subarchtype, nice. A monster Exceed? Even better. A dude that carries a Katana around and starts chopping wood in a freakin dojo on top of a mountain in the middle of no where? Can't get better than this.

Blue Eyes Ultimate Dragon's latest anime appearance (finally), is awesome. We haven't seen him AND Blue Eyes (outside of card and Sin form) for a while now, 6 and a half years to be exact. Neos and Flamewingman being Legendary monsters, along with other GX era monsters like CyDra and StealthUnion (meh) ... is Konami's way of neglecting Syncro. Really, I was surprise to see Neos but no Stardust.

Offering Gadget ver 1.0

2011-07-20T07:51:00.002+08:00

I've started playing Offering Gadget seeing how relatively inexpensive its cards are. The Gadget set is a joke, illuminator is a rm20 card etc. While not having access to Disigma and the other broken monster exceeds from DT. This deck works very very well. Best of all, it doesn't need to play staples (you can, and should, but don't 100% have to).

Let this be quick cause I'm going to work any moment now (my friend's fetching me, and I'm not sure when he'll be here, worst time for a blog post ever :) )

monster (15):

3 Green Gadget
3 Red Gadget
3 Yellow Gadget
2 Breaker the Magical Warrior
2 Banisher of the Radiance
1 DD Warrior
1 Neospacian Grandmole

spell (13):

3 Fragment of Greed (LOL)
2 Smashing Ground
2 Creature Swap
2 Mystic Space Typhoon
1 Forbidden Lance
1 Dark Hole
1 Monster Reborn
1 Book of Moon

trap (13):

3 Ultimate Offering (Duh! OFFERING Gadget)
3 Dimension Prison
2 Dust Tornado
2 Bottomless Traphole
1 Mirror Force
1 Solemn Judgment
1 Royal Oppression

Tell me what you think, the extra isn't quite done, but I've only played Illuminator and Hope, and there is still tons of space!

Rauzes's is quitting ... Again ...

2011-07-18T19:50:00.002+08:00

Every volcanic eruption has its sign way before the main event, and his quitting is no different.

I've knew this for a few months now, since he doesn't really appear at locals at all, less than 10 times this whole year, and when he does, he doesn't really looked as energetic as he was last year.

Last year, me and Lam would have to take turns playing him at Wendy's till late night, with both of us exhausted and him wanting for more.

But the few times I played him this year were like 5 duels and he walks off, and such.

He doesn't go through binders like he used to as well.

All and all, I'm not surprised he quit, his gonna quit sooner or later.

Not to be rude or stuff. We are gonna miss him in YGO, but hey. YGO is just a part of life, and we can always meet for other stuff. For people not around here, this might be goodbye for one of the most important characters in YGO blogging.

I'm meeting him this Saturday one last time as duelist (after that, we'll just be meeting as friends). And I really want his last days of dueling be his best memories of this game. The game is but an entertainment, but the friends you get from the game, are the ones you should cherish, no amount of podium is worth that much.

Coming from someone who never top any big tourneys, is cheesy, I know, bare with me people.

Good bye my friend. And yeah, good job on the Soliel=G-ray=Rauzes thing. You don't know how hard it is for me to keep it to myself (and our dueling community). And over the 1.5 years of your 2nd blog's life span. I've always wanted to just say this out loud to the blogging community, but the impact won't be as big isn't it.

Thanks dude, once again for the community.

...

Btw, the reasons I've not blogging as much last week, is due to my laptop getting destroyed by water, and its now in the shops. My old PC is stupid, and typing is a chore. I'm not sure when my laptop is gonna come back, but I wont be posting much before that.

I'm not dead or losing the interest in the game in case your wondering. Rauzes' quitting isn't a trend or a disease, its not contagious. :)

Photon Shockwave is GOOD

2011-07-14T19:52:00.002+08:00

My laptop was forced ti be sent for repairs due to some stupid circumstances at my office this Monday, so I apologize for the very lack of post this week. I blame my employee's not responding to my complains on the air-conditioning, leaking and such.

GENF was , aside from a few cards (namely the monster exceeds), a bad set.

The new set, PHOTON SHOCKWAVE however, was far from being bad. Actually, its the best set, in my opinion, from the whole series 7 so far.

Some of the cards that i think being real good are, not going into the new archtypes, as I'm not sure what they can do as a whole:

1. Elec King Cobra

A 1000 attacker that could direct attack your opponent, and to tops things off, you get to search your deck for an Elec monster and add it to your hand if this card successfully direct attacks. With the amount of seacrhers Elec have, the deck really has a chance of being tier 1.5~2. Tier 1 is out of the question of cause, but who knows. All and all, this is one good inclusion to the archtype and good to see a syncro based archtype being supported now.

2. Silver Ninja

The ninjas have always been a cool, fun but bad deck. This card makes the deck a little more playable, although I still don't see them good. But taking the deck aside, and the fact that you need to be flipped to play its effect, its actually a good card, espeacially if you could tribute a ninja that you used the flip effect, and if your opponent attacks into him (which cause him to be flip), you get to set as many ninja from your grave or hand as you please. Pretty nice stuff we got here.

May build a ninja deck if i got the extra cash.

3. Tribe - Electrocuting Virus

Infecting Virus's less broken counterpart. SO they finally release something to really fit the role Infecting Virus had, good job. BUT aside from Mirror Matches, I don't see this card really gonna anything ... but that the point.

This is a build in anti-mirror-match weapon. Mainly for decks that play a single type of monsters, ie, Samurai, BF and even HERO. All and all, a card you NEED to get a playset of, just in case.

4. Big Vanity Silhouette

Rush Recklessly just suddenly become useless, like how Trap Hole did when BTH came in. Its just bigger, simple and nice. Although I don't know what deck currently needs the 1000 boost, a card like this is good to have.

5. Extra-Gate

Now we have a really big card. This is really big, I mean, really really BIG! ... no ... its not. Unless the rulling states that you choose what card to remove, which it doesn't. This card would be not useful ... against the wrong deck.

Targeting syncros, so they won't wreck your day? maybe, but aside from naming level 12, getting rid of Quaser, its not helping. So what deck really benefits from this card? Machine decks, namely getting rid of Fortress Dragon (against an opponent that doesn't syncro).

Its good against dragons, naming 12, getting rid of FGD (which is played at 1) so Future Fusion is useless. But thats all I can think of.

Unless the rulling says that you choose the cards remove, then this would be really big.

6. TriWight-Zone

A NR from the set. This is one TERRIFYING card. Choosing 3 level 2 or lower vanillas from your grave and special summoning them might not seems scary, but in the right decks, this itself is a winner. And from its name, Wight (or skull servant in TCG) decks will be one of these decks.

But thats not all, far from it. As we do have Rescue Rabbit (from the same set ). Suddently, this card just became sorta scary isn't it? White Elephant's Gift? OJAMAs? See where am I going folks? But I'm no expert in these decks, so I dare not say this would be game breaking, but good? YES, easily.

7. Temporary Truce

This is a winner. This is THE best card from the set, and being a common, even better. Well, not really the best card, but from a Final Countdown and Exodia player, this is a godsend!

The text is simple. Each player draws 1, and till my opponent's end phase, we both take no damage.

Exodia players are gonna love this card. Its another draw card to our arsenal, and as a bonus, we won't get kill next turn if we don't do Exodia.

When Konami said they hate FTKs, Exodia is obviously one they don't include in the hate list. To Final Countdown, this is just a card that lets you draw for free and not waste a card next turn. Drawing into 3 just makes you a god, its a free +1 for the deck.

8. Holy Armor - Mirror Mail

LOL on the Miror Force pun, but this is an interesting card indeed. While playing this blindly makes it a -1. Playing it right, and we have a great card for fun decks.

9. Ruler's Penetrating Gaze

MVP of the set, easily, for quite a few decks. With a level 7 or higher Normal monster on the field. Its a Solemn Judgment, no shit, its not a part of Judgment, it IS Judgment. Decks that can play this card easily ... I can't think of thou ... Maybe Dragons with Blue Eyes, Duals (as the picture suggest) ... thats it. But with these many new Normal monster support, its not hard to imagine a new deck rising from this set. Thunder-End Dragon and his friends, say Hi.

10. Radiance of Darkness

Interesting card. As Mike suggested, GK and DW are good decks to play this. His right, but his missed 1 thing, BF. This card, for BF is a great card for the plant match ups (going 1st turn of cause). It has power and is easily played.

BUT, I personally don't think much of this card. Its dead if you don't set it 1st turn, drawing it after the initial summon is useless. But I'm not one thats good at judging cards, so I don't further provide comments.

11. Tyrant's Desperation

As all the tyrant cards before it, its good, but not many will play it. Its effect is devastating, both players cant normal or speical summon, making Flip Summon the only way to attack. But its activation requires 2 normal monsters ... troublesome? We have Rabbit.

Rescue rabbit solves us of this problem. And not to mention the other rabbits from this set. Flip monster decks suddenly become worthy again. Guess its time to MAIN them Noblemans.

While there are other very good cards from the set, they're not really my cup of tea. :)

These are just the cards that I will be aiming for, together with the ones I mentioned before. Tell me what you think, and what cards you guys think is good, and I missed.

Banned List predictions!

2011-07-08T23:12:00.002+08:00

Its still too early for this, I know, but we are gonna start posting about this sooner or later. By the end of the month maybe?

But its hard to nail anything at the moment.

I see a lot of cards I think its gonna get hit, but I can't think of any way to hit those cards right. Its gonna be no effect at all to the deck's brokeness, or straight out kills the deck. But knowing Konami, thats what they do best, hitting the problem too hard or not hard enough ... at all.

Hey, they hit BF with every list since its introduction, guess what, they are still here, and topping.

Some cards that I think will be hit by the list includes :

banned :

... sorry, I can't think of anything that really needs to go right now. Seriously, no one card is overly broken.

You might argue that Future Fusion is dangerous at the moment. I agree, but killing Future Fusion directly kills Disaster Dragons and all other REDMD decks. Jinzo decks got killed as well. And we are aiming at Escuridao's 1 card FTK, but thats just gonna make the deck, a none FTK, but weaker ... no ...

Besides, there are better ways to kill that FTK.

limited :

TG Librarian and Formula Syncrons are the cards that made Shooting Quaser a broken card. They will be hit by the banned list, no doubt there. But is limiting them the best solution Konami can provide.

We all know Formula will NOT be banned, just because Shooting Star Dragon is Yusei's ace card, and it needs Formula. And by itself, its good, but not broke. More than one thou, its a different story. No one plays more than 2 of these, except some dedicated deck list.

Librarian is a card that is super hard to judge. I would just throw this guy into the banned zone just because how overly powerful this card can be. You might argue that this card isn't really that powerful alone, but if you look at Asian Format, Junk Doppel is a deck that CAN top without this card. The point I;m making now may not have much sense in it, but I'm trying to say, this card is too dangerous even at one. The deck that host it is powerful even without its MVP, with it, its just broken.

But banning it is another issue. I'm not surprise if this card would get banned, but banning it also causes problems to other syncro decks thats not a Quaser deck. I really don't know where this card should be. Give him a yellow card? Or just kick him out of the field?

Another card that I think is gonna get limited (or at least semi-limited) is Double Edge Sword Technique (or what ever the name). Samurai's Gottom's E Call kills too much this format. Its the Icarus Attack of the deck, only much more deadly. If a Samurai player plays this against you, you will either be in a very bad position if not dead already. You CAN argue that with the amount of Warnings, Seven Tools and Trap Stun we play now, this card is hard to play, but being the card we will be forced to play our negation cards on, is already good enough proof that its broken.

Aside from these, I really can't think of anything I wanna hit this hard. Maybe Lonefire to 1? But thats not gonna affect Junk Doppel a lot but its gonna hurt other plant builds.

semi :

Vayu is a card that I think its gonna be semi'ed. Just because so many are playing Grave BF at the moment, and Konami always brainlessly hit something even if the deck isn't really broken anymore. The sheer amount of BF decks still topping will attract Konami to it, and the only member of the deck to even have a chance to be hit by the list are Vayu and Sirocco. But between the two, Vayu is the one more important (Grave BF).

While we never had this done before. I actually think SD bosses, Machina Fortress and Master Hyperion has a good chance of getting into this spot on the list. Just cause the decks they are being piloted are doing very well in the OCG.

Universally-wise, I wish Reborn Tengu getting semi-limited, that card is just pure bullshit. Its basically TCG's Jace the Mind Sculptor. It got release and took the format for itself (or themselves).

Cards that may or may not be limited :

Pot of Duality and Six Samurai United. Both are good cards that see plays in top lever events (in the current format, the latter see a lot more plays than the former). If nothing got hit, these will be good candidates.

For TCG players, I know you just got your Pots reprinted in SR, congrats, but I think they might hit this to 2 if they don't have more to hit (unlikely thou).

BUT, the one that will most DEFINITELY go to 2 is Dewloren.

He should have never came back out to 3 in the first place. This was the mistake Konami made. This card is basically just an OTK or FTK engine, nothing more to it. It has to be done.

And sending Dewloren back to 2, kills a lot of FTKs and preventing new FTKs (of this pattern) from coming out. But best of all, all the other cards in their respective FTK decks (Future Fusion specifically) won't have to be killed, and other decks won't have to suffer.

Card that I know won't be hit although many say they would :

Super Polymerization - This card will not be hit, this list, the next and so on. "With Escuridao, you can fuse EVERYTHING!!!" ... But is the deck winning more? Wait ... is it winning at all?

The only HERO variant still topping OCG events at (reported) tourneys is Debris HERO, and they don't even play Super Polymerization. So, guys. The card is good. But its not winning, its not topping, and its not getting hit. (Unless Konami just wanna boost Exceeds and decides to hurt Syncro and Fusion)

And killing the ONLY card that could take out Shooting Quaser EFFECTIVELY ... isn't a good move.

I can't think of more right now, should have kept a list with me. I blame the papers that fill my brain with ALL MAJOR roads in and out of the capital being closed for the week ends.

No10 White Knight Illuminator

2011-07-06T07:17:00.002+08:00

This is one of the cards that make me wanna get this set, although I don't see anything else worth ... aside from Galaxy-Eyes, cause its cool.

Illuminator will be big in Offering Gadgets, no doubt there, its what Hope hopes to be, but will never be. Apart of being slightly smaller than Hope, the only opposing monsters that makes this difference worth mentioning are Monarchs, but they will blow your Ultimate Offering anyways, so it doesn't really matter.

Definitely a card worth getting a playset of.

Ultimate Offering, a Gadget and 4000 life will get you a field of 3 Illuminator, 1 Hope/Roach and 3 extra cards in hand. Playing them with cards like Pot of Duality and Grandmole (in Gadget Stun you usually have them), and we already have a killer.

All and all, Offering is gonna be more and more played thanks to the Gadget's searching and these broken ass Monster Exceeds.

The other card that I want to have a few copies of from this set will be Evolkaiser Ragia. The broken assed Dragon that needs Dinosaurs as Exceed materials.

While people will try to build the Evoldo and Evoldar deck from this set, I don't really feel like it. This is not to say the deck isn't good. I don't know, cause I'm really not one that is good at judging new archtypes. But its safe to say that I'm not interested in them.

And the deck I'm gonna play this card in is, Gadget Stun. What?

Usually in Gadget stun, I play King Tiger, Grandmole, Gale, Banisher AND Hydrogeddon. You may not agree, but I love Hydrogeddon with Burden of the Mighty.

Banisher, Mole and Gale also lets me gain access to rank 3's, so I guess Gadget Stun would become more powerful with more generic Exceeds coming into the picture. I might even main a playset of Snowman Eater just to play Blackray Lancer, cause its cool.

So, my Photon Shockwave to get list would be :

3 No 10 Illuminator

2 Evolkaiser Ragia

3 Galaxy-Eyes Photon Dragon

Chaos Fusion HERO

2011-07-04T21:48:00.002+08:00

Its been a while since I last post a HERO deck up here, mainly cause its been national seasons and I've not been making any non-official decks. But National season 2011 has come to an end, although there are still tag duel Asian championship and Malaysian finals at the end of the year, its over for most of everyone.

So, welcome back promos!!

I've been building this deck since last weekend, after I got home from the tag duel tourney, its still under constructions, but lets see what you guys have to say.

Its a deck that I say, take Fusion to a whole new level ... of fun. Not competitiveness, as there are tons of dead draws in the deck, although I can work it out somehow. Definitely not a deck you wanna bring to high level events.

Monsters (20):

2 E HERO Neos

2 E HERO Prisma

1 E HERO Heat

1 E HERO Airman

1 E HERO Voltech

2 Cyber Dragon

2 Cyber Valley

2 Jinzo

2 Jinzo Returner

2 Snowman Eater

2 Rainbow Dark Dragon

1 Chaos Sorcerer

Spell (16):

3 Pot of Duality

3 Fusion Gate

3 Miracle Fusion

1 Overload Fusion

1 Future Fusion

2 Parallel World Fusion

1 Giant Trunade

1 Monster Reborn

1 Dark Hole

Trap (4):

2 Chain Material

2 Paradox Fusion

extra (15):

3 Blaze Fenix

1 E HERO Absolute Zero

2 E HERO The Shining

2 E HERO Escuridao

1 E HERO Great Tornado

1 E HERO Nova Master

2 Rainbow Neos

1 Chimeratech Over Dragon

1 Cyber Twin Dragon

1 Empty Sea Space Serpent Lavaiel

Building this deck lets me hate the 15 card extra even more, and I've already hated it for 3 years now.

I've nothing more to say, but this deck is not completed. But my internship boss is an asshole, and wants me to stay back for an extra hour after work to help a senior manager with the project for 2 weeks. It'll take some time, as while I do have time to make decks at night (as I don't have to read any thing for school), but I can't think right. :P

Thats it for now, but expect me to bring this half ass deck to Toysbar this weekend for some testing. And I hope I can have a tourney report to review to you guys as well.

Note that Toysbar is the place I go to relax and play some casual games where Gamers Arena is the shop I go for serious tourneys only. Heck, its been months or maybe years now since I played at GA outside of tourneys. I usually just walk around(after I scrub) looking for trades and stuff, then go home.

Team tourney TB was a success

2011-07-03T09:09:00.003+08:00

Attracted 2 teams from GA, Team Bird - Joshua, Wei Yann and Michael, and Team NoLife - Zack, Andrew and TengSam. Along with 2 groups of Arco.

I was very late and everyone had to wait for me to start that day, but people are trading and playing, so they didn't mind I guess.

Match starts at 2. Format was 1 duel-swiss. No side decking and stuff.

My team, was me, SST and Fishtank. But someone name us team A ... just cause we were the 1st team to register.

I'll try to get some pictures from the organizers to upload.

Anyways, 3 rounds of swiss.

1st match vs Team Bird

SST(leader) vs Michael(supposed leader)

me vs Wei Yann (actual leader)

Fishtank vs Joshua

I played HERO, I start with Duality, fetching Allius. Setting 2 MST, a Spark and a Warning, summoning Allius and pass. Wei Yann plays Trunade. Ditch Eater for Quickdraw, sync for Junk. Plays Tuning for another Quickdraw, ditching Dandy and get Eater back, sync for Road. Specials Unknown from deck, Eater comes back for Formula. Road was now 6 (after Eater again), Junk was now 4. Sync 3 for Quaser. I have 1 card in my hand that he didn't know, so I tried to fake a Honest. He drops Sorcerer. GG.

In Quaser deck, Trunade win games.

OXO - SST and Fishtank both won.

1 - 0

2nd Match vs Team Rex

This was Bryan's team. Members are him, Crowser and another guy that I know but never knew his name.

I played the guy I knew but didn't, he was playing DW. He starts with a Dealings. ditching Broww for extra cards. Setting 3 and a monster facedown. I summon Airman, getting Ocean, set all but Ocean and Forest in my hand. Attack, but it was Beiige. He drew and played Destruction, getting both Goldd and Sillva out. Attack into my Mirror Force, he plays Gate and got Grapha out somehow. Ended with 2 cards in hand on his side. I play Trunade, he chains Judgment. With 1 card set on his field, I flip Miracle, going for Gaia with Ocean and Forest. Flip Reborn, get Airman back, break his last set (Mirror or Prison, I forgot). And attack for 4000 damage.

OOO - All of us won.

3rd match vs Team Nolife

I paired down with Andrew using Grave BF. I threw my dice and scores a 2. I told him, this is MY dice and his gonna threw a 1, and he did. I started with Poly and Warning set, Rai-Oh up front. He gets Armageddon out, ditch Zephyros, and tries to summon Zephyros back. I thought about it for a while, and Warning it (telegraphing Icarus). He sets 2. I have Rai-Oh and Heat attack and sets Mask Change. He summons Sirocco, flips Delta-Crow, I chain Mask Change to get myself Gokka (with 2300 attack), he attacks Rai-Oh. I drew and attacks his Sirocco. He summons Armageddon, ditch Vayu, and goes for Arms Wing, which kamikazed with Gokka. I summon Airman and got Allius out, killing his Armageddon Knight. He summons Sirroco and kills my Airman, playing Pot to get a Compulse. I have Allius and Miracle in hand, with no Ocean in grave, I can't summon Zero to trade off his Sirocco, and everything else is bad. I topped another Miracle, playing it to form Tornado, half his Sirocco, he plays Compulse. I summon Allius, he has no response. I played the last Miracle to get Shining and attack for the win.

XOO or OOX - one of us lost, but I'm not sure who.

We were excited as shit, cause it WAS 3 rounds of Swiss and those with the highest points win. Being the only 3 wins in the tournament, we were so sure the SDs are ours.

BUT, due to the fact that there was no side decking, the tourney ended in less than an hour. So the organizer decide to go for TOP 4 (with 8 teams ... right). The 3 of us instantly went EMO, as we know our wins with Team Bird and Nolife were super hard, and we broke our brains just trying to stay in.

Top 4 vs Team Bird

I paired up with Michael this time, and he plays Agent, easily my worst match up. Cause HERO doesn't really do much against them Agents.

I loss the dice and open Rai-Oh, Airman, Ocean, Heat, Allius and Mirror Force ... I play 12 monsters in my deck and I pulled 5? He starts with Venus, getting Gantetsu out, pumping his Venus to 2000. I drew Forest. I summon Airman, to get myself another Allius (just to thin my deck for spells). He pays 500 for his last Shine Ball, summons Earth, gets Venus, Sync for Armory Arm. Removes an Agent for Hyperion, destroy my backrow with it. Play Miracle Descend, and go for game.

Nothing I could do with that, although Rai-Oh may be some help going 1st. I look over to SST, telling him I loss. Looking at his field. He has Swap Frog and Creature Swap at hand, Ronin on field, and his opponent has Quaser out ...

XXO - Fishtank beat Joshua, but that doesn't really matter does it.

Fighting for 3rd place was even worst, the 3 of us obviously wasn't in the mood right now, and didn't play right. And our opponents started and open very big.

I paired with Zack, he open 2 United and have Shi-En out with 5 back rows. I have 2 Dualities, 2 E Call, Airman and Mirror Force ...

But that doesn't really matter as only the 1st place gets a prize, the others are all losers.

Team Bird lost to Team Rex, so Home 1, Away 0.

Later that day. Joshua or Zack or the organizers decided that since there are 6 teams and in each booster box, we get 6 foils. Each team should get 1 foil. Which is reasonable/ fair. So they sort out the foils.

But Team Rex, our Team, and 2 other teams got nothing. Team Bird got an Elec Chimera and a Draco-Equites.

So, the 6 packs that the organizers have have the SRs (which are obviously the main points of the pack). They open the 6 packs and there was a Pot of Duality. And some of the players gone all EMO, which was quite a show actually.

Overall, the tourney was good and attracted a good amount of good players, but the sudden change in rules and the no side decking stuff was frustrating.

...

Link to Toysbar FB page.

Dark world ver 2.0

2011-07-01T22:53:00.004+08:00

So, its been a busy week for me. My project at the company is being rushed and I'm awfully exhausted most of the time, and can't think of anything to post.

Well, there would be this little team tourney tomorrow in celebration of Toysbar's relocation. And winner team gets 3 SD21. Which I hope I could trade for a YSD06 instead.

Me, SST and Fishtank will be a team, so I guess I can say I have pretty strong teammates. I'm not that worried bout the teams local to TB (no offense), as their team are basically 3 guys that doesn't have a team and decide to play together. Me and the 2 Arco know each other's play style, decks and strengths very well. Thus, we would have better team coordination and stuff (if that matters).

The only problem between us and the prize is Cookie ... Cause his playing for some reason (and not being a judge), and who knows who his teammates will be?

ANYWAYS, back to my main point.

This is the most consistent build I made so far, as I hate spam or die decks quite a lot.

monster (18):

3 Grapha

3 Snow

2 Sillva

1 Goldd

3 Broww

2 Brron

2 Beiige

1 Scar

1 Morphing Jar

spell (17):

3 Gate of DW

3 DW Dealings

2 DW Lightning

3 Pot of Duality (just cause I have them)

2 Mystic Space Typhoon

1 Monster Reborn

1 Dark Hole

1 Card Destruction

1 Giant Trunade

trap (5):

2 Deck Devastation Virus

2 Skill Drain

1 Return from Different Dimension

Pot makes this deck consistent, it really does. You make say that you loss the ability to go all out turn 1, but I've never gone all out turn 1 before, cause my luck almost always sucks.

Brron is good, reason not many play them is Raven is just better. But Raven is expensive as shit and its a goddamn promo.

Trunade is good, too many are siding in Shadow Imprisoning Mirror for the DW match ups. DW Lightning does nothing to it. Your opponent can chain it and nothing goes off. Or you hit another card, and he chains it and your DW you discard was wasted.

Beiige is good cause it acts like a smaller Goldd/Sillva, but it can be summon without releasing, and its a 1900 under Gate, taking down the Rai-Oh in Kamikaze style if you need to.

Scar is in here just in case you really pull awesome and need something to fill the grave for fodder. I open triple Gate alot, I don't know why.

Overall, I really ... HATE this deck. I really wanna sell it now for Sabers in September. Reason being its too straight forward. It has no tricks up it's sleeve, and winning is almost identical every time.

In a word, to me, this deck is boring. I don't care how consistent or how broken this can be, but its boring. You don't do anything but dumping Snow, get Gate, dump Grapha, blow shit up, and summon Grapha, then proceed to loop your opponent to death (if he doesn't do anything to you).

That being said, I think I'll still stick with this deck for the mean time as my sabers are now full of proxies for Darksoul and Boggard. I'm still working on a heavily antimeta version of the deck. Its hard but I hope I can do it.

...

Just found out that Joshua's team is him, Michael and Wei Yann.

Good for us since SST needs that revenge kill from Wei Yann. And I want that revenge kill from Michael.

Agent Angel

2011-06-29T07:26:00.002+08:00

The deck dominated last Sunday's qualifier. Not really, cause I didn't even see 5 in the preliminary rounds, but it did dominated top 8. 5 out of the 8 last players still in the game picked this as their arsenal and Sam won using it.

So, with the release of SD21!! SD20 suddenly became so dominating and won the whole Worlds Qualifiers?

No, but the release of YSD6 or more specifically, Gachi Gachi Gantetsu did. It was just that there were no major tourney in between the Zexal starter's release and Agent Topping. And Dark World can sit back and wait for EXP4, where Konami(OCG)'s real motif of releasing the card comes into play.

K-guy1 : Dude, what are we gonna do with EXP4?

K-guy2: Why? Anything good in there? Maybe Darksoul(lol).

K-guy3 : I don't want something from the TCG to dominate us, even if its highly unlikely, but Revise Dragon is an asshole, it made the impossible slightly viable.

K-guy1 : Hmm, by the way, the new SD coming up, we should really start preparing bout it. Press conference is next week.

K-guy2 : (not listening) ... yeah, there are GKs in there as well, Tribute is a damn bitch. I don't want to see them own. This is OUR game ...

K-guy4 : Eh yo dudes, check this out. This random BF dude direct attack me with Spirit Reaper, and ditch my Reign!! LoL at him! Hand discarding effect my ass!! Hahahaha!!

K-guys1~3 : LOL. Thats it!!

And the above scenario is what I picture happened in the Konami HQ before they decide upon DW SD.

Really bad that I loss to Samurai/Khye on Sunday, cause my Sabers can take on Agent perfectly now, although I don't know what will happen if the guys player them agent are the best players in Bolehland. But against normal players, I 2-0'ed them every match, which contributes to them asking what does most of the cards do.

Took out Warrior Lady for Banishers. I name the 2 Banisher(C and R) in my deck Sean and Peter respectively.

The card is super good in there, stopping most plays from almost all meta decks side from Samurai, and all I have to do is protect it.

I play Level Limit Area B, so you see how powerful these sons of bitches can be. XD

But this is about the end of the road for my antimeta sabers, yes, I hate to admit it. But the meta is just too diversify for me to do shit now. And with Darksoul and Boggard coming out in 2 months, that doesn't help the antimeta part of the deck as well.

Will play 3 of each, but expect Sean and Peter still in the deck. As they are too awesome to take out.

Report thingy.

2011-06-26T23:04:00.002+08:00

Or should I say Scrub-port?

Anyways, I decided to play sabers cause I have a god damn pride issue. When I say I might play DW, all of them were like "OMG! You gave up on sabers? Bla bla bla?" and such.

And I decided to play sabers just cause I really don't feel that DW is consistent. And slightly due to the annoying people.

Wasn't feeling like I'm gonna get to top 32 cause I usually lost in round 2 in single eliminations.

Match starts at 11-ish. And I was in the 1st half of round 1.

Match 1 : vs ??? - DW

duel 1 : I started off with Emmers in attack (DW lightning is a bitch) and my opponent really IS DW. Nothing happen in 5 turns until he played Trunade, and Destruction. GG.

duel 2 : I open Fullhelm, D Fissure. He set 2. I summon Emmers, special Faultroll and Hyunlei his back. Proceed to win with 2 beaters.

duel 3 : I open double DD Crow(which is bad cause he didn't do anything with his grave). He sets 4. I have Fullhelm swing him for a few turns. I draw into Banisher aka Sean. He Bottomless, I Judgment. And he played Return from Dark Dimension on Fader. Proceed to win with Airbellum striping his hand.

So, I did good against DW. I was surprise actually. At least I wasn't kicked out in round 1 I guess. Ha ha.

Match 2 vs Khye - Samurai

Why do I always meet a friend somewhere here?

duel 1 : I controlled the field since he can't get United or Gateway when he Shi-En. I was able to break through his Shi-En, clear his back.

duel 2 : I was leading 8000 to 1700 with Kinetic out and Judgment, Prison, Truth set. He has Shi-En. He plays Trunade, which I allow since I have no follow up. He summons Hand and direct for 2500. I set the 2 traps again and I can win with my hand as long as Shi-En dies. He summons Kizan and attacks. I misplay here, I play Reinforce Truth when Kizan attacks, and his Shi-En won't attack. Proceed to lose after I can't get through his Shi-En.

I made this mistake a few weeks ago against Fishtank, damn, same mistake again.

duel 3 : I open 1 Faultroll, 1 Fullhelm, 1 Ryko, 1 Pashuul, 1 Ryko and 1 Solemn. Set Pashuul and Solemn. He Shi-En, which I don't know why I didn't Judgment. He attacks and sets 2 and Kizan. I go for Faultroll and Scrap, he plays Rivalry, forcing me to play Judgment. I try taking out his FD, but I was a Dual Sword, making his Shi-En invincible that turn. I attack Kizan for damage. He plays Gate, summons Hand and attack for 2500. I set Ryko, which blew his Shi-En. I drew Fullhelm. Summon and attack. He tops into Reborn ... Summoning Shi-En and getting Grandmaster, knocking me to 200 (he would have won here if he used Gate's power up effect). I draw into Smashing, holding Dark Hole. Obviously I can't get rid of Shi-En now. GG

Well, still lost at round 2, like I always do. BUT I did get some good deals today.

Traded Tyrus, Ice Edge and 3 Rainbow Life for Pot of Duality. Yes, Pot of Freaking Duality for the Tyrus that I bought cause I thought I need 2, the Ice Edge cause I was ripped off and the Rainbow Lifes that I traded ages ago and I've never took out of my binder.

Got my play set of Debunk too. Thanks to a Singaporean player who traded them to me for 3 Flamvell Firedogs, a Starlight Road (R) and 10 bucks.

Oh did I mention I got Revise Dragon (Utl) for Caius and holy Wyvern. Nice trade indeed. And best of all, I got my 2nd Hope for 10 bucks.

Not a good day for tourney, but good for trading cards. Very very good day for trading cards.