Good Bye 2011

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!!!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!

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!!

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

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

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

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

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)

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

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

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.