Dropping the Rai-Ohs

I'm having troubles finding Thunder King Rai-Oh good this format. Sure, they can never be bad cards, and will serve some purpose in a duel, but most of the time, they act only as beat sticks.

The main problem Rai-Oh has this format would be Card-Car D and Inzektors. Rai-Oh is all about sitting on the field for as long as possible and stopping your opponent from going off.

Card-Car D's effect cannot be stop by TKR because it draws. This made all the difference because CCD is played in almost every deck in 3's now. The 3 CCD helps the player draw into field resetting cards like Dark Hole and Torrential Tribute. When your opponent has a card set face down, it is best for you to just swing with the 1900 TKR instead of getting another monster out. Over-committing to the board is extremely bad this format, and its one of the key points that separates a good player and a bad one this format.

I'm borrowing some terms here. If your opponent has TKR on the board, you can safely sit on a board cleaner and your opponent essentially gives you 5 turns. With CCD, your resources doubles the ones you could draw without it, and you can easily make a come back by trading one for ones and maybe sometimes even negative ones, just cause you have so much advantage.

Since we don't really search for cards this format, and have tons of monster removal teched in. eg Lair Wire. TKR just can't stay on the field for long enough I felt.

The other reason why TKR isn't good, is because Inzektors are the top deck.

TKR means nothing to Inzektors because they can unequip Hornet, pop it; equip Mantis, run over it and even plays like equip some random Inzektors to Centipede and run over TKR.

TKR is an antimeta card, and the worth of an antimeta card is almost always determined by how good it can take on the top deck of the meta. In this case, it gets completely destroyed. Sure, you might pull out the argument of the Inzektor player not having the right cards in hand and can't search them out with Duality. But, in that case, any beat stick will do, not only TKR.

I guess these are 2 of the many reason why HERO beat drop TKR from the main completely. At least for me, I feel that TKR needs to rest for a format or 2 now, since its been doing overtime at both TCG and OCG sides for the past 4 formats.

I guess TKR would not be seeing much play in the main deck (OCG wise) till Inzektors get hit, since they are the main reason players stray away from cards that can't be chain. Just some thoughts.

So Grapha ... I mean, DW won the 100th YCS eh?

If I told you I've seen this coming, I'm lying.

DW is a good deck, and a tier 1 deck, no less. But the deck has never been the top deck of the meta. But, good job piloting the deck above the other 4300 players, the dude deserved the glory and win.

Reckless Greed is a beast in the dude's deck. True Story.

I was expecting Wind-Up or HEROs to top the event, simply because I hate Rabbit and I fail to acknowledge them as anything other than Samurai ver 2.

But, since the OCG and TCG has such a huge gap in between them, DW's win means nothing to the OCG. That said, DW is still one of the most powerful decks in the OCG.

Nothing much to say other than I'm extremely surprise that Chaos Piper made top 4.

Skill Drain HERO beat

I was planning to run this deck in ACQ last weekend if I can't get hold of the second Gaia Dragoon, luckily I didn't have to bother bout that.

Took a few days off YGO and rebuild this deck into normal format (which means promos are allowed).

monster (10):

3 E HERO Neos Allius
1 E HERO Airman
3 Photon Trasher
3 Card Car D

spell (17):

3 Gemini Spark
3 Pot of Duality
2 E Emergency Call
1 Reinforcement of the Army
3 Miracle Fusion
2 Mystic Space Typhoon
1 Heavy Storm
1 Monster Reborn
1 Book of Moon

trap (13):

3 Skill Drain
3 HERO Blast
2 Torrential Tribute
2 Compulsory Evacuation Device (or maybe Raigeki Break XD)
2 Solemn Warning
1 Solemn Judgment

Card-Car is a beast in this deck, since I normally set 2 and go if I don't have Airman in my starting hand. Now, I don't need to have Airman in my starting hand.

Having 4 instant plus-1's is nice.

HERO blast is very very much alive now with 3 card cars and 3 dualities to get to your Sparks. Not to mention Blast is a plus-1 in itself.

I'm running 2 copies of CED now but that might be change into Raigeki Break since it deals with threats better. But I still prefer maintaining my advantage.

Just a slight update for now.

My Top 2 Hieroglyph deck list!!

My trophy!

monster (21):

3 Tfeni Dragon

3 Shuu Dragon

3 Aset Dragon

2 Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon

1 Emerald Dragon

1 Watt Dragon

3 Card-Car D

3 Effect Veiler

2 Koaki Meiru Drago

spell (12):

3 Pot of Duality

3 Mystic Space Typhoon

3 Seal of Gathering

1 Heavy Storm

1 Monster Reborn

1 Book of Moon

trap (8):

3 Call of the Haunted <--- shouldn't have played 3 since I side them out almost every match

3 Raigeki Break

2 Torrential Tribute

side (15):

2 Maxx C <--- useless

1 Koaki Meiru Drago

2 King Tiger Wanghu <--- good but it does the same thing as Drago, could be something better

2 Ryko Lightlord Hunter

1 Dark Hole <--- useless

1 Mind Control <---useless

3 Macro Cosmos <--- MVP

2 Bottomless Traphole

1 Chain Disappearance <--- I wanna have 1 more of this

extra (15):

2 Gaia Dragoon

2 Atumus

1 Photon Streak Bouncer

2 Exa-Beetle <---only need 1

1 Tiras, Keeper of Genesis <--- never once made this

1 No 12 Crimson Shadow <--- never once made this

1 No39 Hope <--- same as above

1 CNo39 Hope Ray <--- made it once but it did not do anything

1 Queen Dragoon < --- not once

1 AOJ Catastor < --- not once

1 Brionac < --- useless

1 Black Rose Dragon < --- once but doesn't stop me from losing

So most of the cards in my side and main are absolutely useless.

I still think Maxx C is bad, even thou I lost to it, its still bad in our format.

...

Mike Ting took alot of the videos of my matches including my match with Sam, so check out for updates on his blog.

Asian Qualifier 2012 Report

Shout out to cookie for being an awesome judge!

Deck played : Hieroglyphs

1st match vs Andrew Ang - Inzektors

1st duel : I misplayed and my OTK fall short of the mark. He OTK'ed me back.

2nd duel : I open with Macro.

3rd duel : I open the most offensive hand of my deck. He sets 2 and summon Centipede, attacked. I MST a Judgment and proceed for an OTK.

XOO

2nd match vs Samurai

1st duel : My opponent was a newbie, he made Shi-En and Catastor with his whole hand, but not attacking for some reason. I drop REDMD on him and win from there.

2nd duel : My opponent actually negated MST with Shi-En, summoning Kageki and getting Torrential.

OO

3rd match vs Machina Gadget

1st duel : I rush him with Hiero OTK.

2nd duel : He killed me with Fortress because I have no combo.

3rd duel : Open double MST and an OTK.

OXO

Proceed to 3 rounds of swiss and cut to top 8.

Swiss round 1 vs Inzektor

1st duel : I rush him with the OTK.

2nd duel : He actually let me start and I open Pot into Car, too much advantage.

OO

Swiss round 2 vs Sean - Inzektor

1st duel : I got off a slow start and his Inzektors just keep gaining advantage.

2nd duel : Drago wins games.

3rd duel : He open Mask of Restrict and I have no removal. (edited thanks to Clover)

XOX

Swiss round 3 vs Long Zhai - Inzektor Wind-Up

1st duel : He wind-up loop my hand.

2nd duel : I manage to clear his back row and rush for an OTK.

3rd duel : He side in Jogen, but I top Wanghu.

XOO

Squeezed into top 8!

Top 8 vs Allen Chiew - Gravekeepers

1st duel : His massive backrow was just too much for me to handle. (Andrew pointed out at the end of the match he made an illegal move of summoning 2 monsters in his first turn.)

2nd duel : I found an opening and went for it, luckily, the OTK works.

3rd duel : I have 1800 life,Ryko set, TT and BTH set. My opponent has Decendent and Sin Cyber on the board. He played Dark Hole for some reason, use his monsters just got killed by the traps. Then he made a second misplay of getting Recruiter instead of Decedent with Duality, and left me at 100 life. The next mistake he made was not searching when I destroyed his recruiter. His 3 misplay gave me a chance to turn the tables and won.

XOO

Top 4 vs Sean - Inzektor - revenge match

1st duel : We both just set and play card car. I eventually gather my pieces first and kill from there.

2nd duel :  I was able to force and early OTK on him because he was lacking in his backrow.

OO

Finals!! vs Sam - Inzektors

1st duel : I couldn't do anything because his Wingblast keeps hitting my cards.

2nd duel : I tried to go for an OTK even after he drop Maxx "C", he had Trag.

XX

...

Top 2, so close yet so far. Overall I think I did very well, seeing that I'm THE only Hieroglyph player in top4. (edited)

If your wondering what build I took, just scroll down :)

Hieroglyph Dragon version 2.2

monster (22):

3 Tfeni Dragon
3 Aset Dragon
3 Shuu Dragon
2 Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon
3 Card-Car D
3 Effect Veiler
3 Koaki Meiru Drago
1 Wattmeter Dragon
1 Emerald Dragon aka Luster Dragon #2

spell (11):

3 Seal of Gathering
3 Mystic Space Typhoon
3 Pot of Duality
1 Monster Reborn
1 Heavy Storm

trap (8):

3 Raigeki Break
3 Call of the Haunted
2 Torrential Tribute

I'm expecting a lot of mirror matches so I tweak the build to be an anti-Hieroglyph build, which, unless God hates me, I would take game 1 in a mirror for sure.

Thats it for today, back to work.

Asian Championship Qualifiers Malaysia

This Saturday. The first major event for the Malaysian YGO community in 2012.

Sorry I've been posting exceedingly less (no pun) this month. My assignments are taking 90% of my time and I've only been to locals once 2 weeks ago with Mike. A few more weeks and I'm free again since most of my assignments are deal two weeks from now.

BUT, I still got the weekend off for Asian Qualifier, thanks to my wonderful course mates.

The major power house or the TOP deck of this tourney, would be, without a doubt, Inzektors.

With no cards from their deck being promos and a boost from GAOV. This deck means business. Not to mention the deck is basically made out of commons and rares, minus Mantis and the extra deck. Prepare to see at least 50% of the players playing Inzektors.

The other 50% would be made out of Hiero, Laggia, Dark World and randoms.

I don't expect Hiero would be played in numbers because its main OTK card, Gustav Max! is a promo and not allowed. But, with the consistency to pull out big moves, and being a new and powerful theme. But mostly because the organizers forces us to crack GAOV boxes to enter, I say Hiero would have a powerful showing and hopefully, its debut in Asian Format Malaysia would be a good one.

I would be playing Hieros if Sharmir could get me my Bouncer by this weekend.

Despite what people are saying, and not being TCG-level gay, Laggia or Dino Rabbit seems to be the next best deck to Inzektors. The major reason why I say this deck would do good is that, like Inzektors, the deck doesn't have promos. Being able to play at 100% is a major factor in winning big tourneys like this.

With Agents out of tier 1, DW replace them as the number 1 Structure deck theme. Grapha is amazing, and Gate is one of the best field spells we've seen for a while. BUT, I don't see the deck winning. People are siding Dark Imprisoning Mirror and Macro Cosmos for the Inzektors match up, and most players have 3 copies of MST for their disposal. Although the Hong Kong Qualifier result shows a DW getting into the finals might be proof that they don't matter, since DW is one of the best deck against Inzektors.

All the other decks are fillers. This tourney is basically an attempt by the 3 Tier 1's to overthrow Inzektors as the Top deck.

Wish me luck, I hope I don't end up playing some random deck again, like what I did for almost ALL of my official tourneys.

Now, Back to work!

Hieroglyphs in Asian Format

For those of you who don't know whats so different bout the deck in or out of Asian format, heres a little update.

The main deck is EXACTLY the same, if you don't play Gorz. But, the extra deck ... isn't.

We don't have Gustav Max! in Asian format, basically meaning we don't have excess to one of the most important card in the Hieroglyph OTK.

So, is Hieros still good in Asian format, not nearly as destructive, thats for sure. But, not to say they're no longer good.

I've been playing the deck for 2 weeks now, not rely on the promos because I know I won't have them in my country's official tournaments. I don't wanna make a misplay in tourney because I'm too used to Gustav Max!'s overkill.

Firstly, I would really like to remind Hiero players, Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon is a boss monster in itself. Its more than just ammo for your OTK. If your playing in Asian format, most of your OTKs will be based on this Dragon's 2800 base attack.

Trinity in Asian format (GQ's version) :


REDMD, Shiyu, Aset//Tfeni or 2 copies of Gathering will do the trick.

Do the normal Hiero stunts. Get Atumus and REDMD(from your deck) on the board. Now, bring back one of a Hieroglyph and banish REDMD for REDMD.

Get the second Dragon back onto the field. Make Exa-Beetle. Beetle will get rid of an opposing card for FREE. And we now overlay those 2 rank 6's into 2 copies of Gaia Dragoon.

2600 + 2600 +2800 = 8000

While this is very very basic, it shows that we don't need Gustav Max! to win, contrary to what I'm hearing people say.

Is getting a copy of REDMD to your hand harder than a third Hiero? Not really, sure, you have 3 Gatherings to get your pieces, but we main 3 copies of Pot of Duality and Card Car D respectively. Digging into the deck is fairly simple.

Even if you don't have your combo, just don't over commit to the board and you would be fine. There are tons of good Rank 6s that can hold their own. Namely Photon Streak Bouncer and Exa-Beetle.

Just don't go all out when you don't have game and you would be fine.

Call of the Haunted :


Slow? Maybe. Unreliable? I beg to differ.

The card is amazing as it effective let you reuse those REDMDs. Say you have a copy of Call set and trying to go for game.

Now you can. You can send REDMD to the grave with Exa-Beetle and bring it back.

Or you can use this to bring your combo back, or just your beaters may be enough to change the tide of the game.

Inzektors aren't the only deck that would benefit from this. While I do agree setting cards against Inzektors can be dangerous, BUT, we have 3 Card Cars, 3 Pot of Dualities and 3 copies of EFFECT VEILER, their odds of opening a Hornet aren't exactly as high as yours with Veiler. Based on statistics.

Tragodia :


Good against most match ups aside from Inzektors (although this can save your ass from a OTK). Trag normally comes down onto the board at 3000 in this deck, since you won't be committing much to the field with Card Car D if his in your hand.

People aren't playing Mirror Force and Prison anymore, and Fiendish Chain are generally bad against Hieros. This card is gonna do some real damage against a non-Inzektor opponent, and thats IF they have access to Hornet.

This card is godly in Mirror Matches (prior to the siding of Dragos), drop it on the field and if your opponent leaves any non-rank monster on the board, take it, since you have some many cards in hand and most of them would most likely be monsters.

Siding in Maxx "C" and this card instantly goes over 5000 most of the time.

Side decking :


Everyone knows how important side decking are, especially if your a top tier combo deck. Everyone's gonna have something for you.

I would like to suggest Debunk but the card isn't really what I say effective.

King Tiger Wang Hu, however, IS.

Imagine you place King Tiger on the board turn 1. The only Inzektor that your opponent can summon now would be centipede and the only Hiero that could come out is Tfeni, even so, your opponent can't continue with his tricks until they get rid of King Tiger. In the mean time, you could be gathering the cards for the 3-card-kill, all by placing 1 simple card on the field.

In my opinion, King Tiger is even deadlier to Inzektors and Hieros that Drago is. Sure, Drago is searchable and can be recycled, hence a staple in Hiero side decks. But no doubt Wang Hu is a huge addition to side decks.

I'm not sure if I could find space for it, but its definitely in my top consideration list. I'm already playing at least 2 copies of the card in non-Hiero sides, and they work good.

My Body as a Shield and Forbidden Lance. Maybe even Royal Decree. All these cards that stop the cards players side in against you would be good. I don't think I need to press on this too much. I'm also seeing an interesting side of Wingbeat of Giant Dragon.

Why is HERO beat good this META?

Currently, we see HERO beat as one of the top 3 decks in the OCG, why are they suddenly good again? They had been taking about 2 formats off.

Many will surely say Airman into Bubbleman then into Blade Heart is full of win.

True, that combo is one of the best OTK HERO beat obtained after years of evolution. But I beg to differ. Note that all the things I'm about to type are all based on my point of view.

Why Blade Heart isn't the main contributor? :


While we all agree the Blade Heart thing is good and effective, it is not what HEROs rely on to win, I firmly believe, to the very end, HEROs will win on their one-for-one trades.

Refering to this tournament :  3.3.2012 - 13th Kanto Championship - Metagameanalysis

We clearly see that Inzektors are the top deck. But, let us not forget that Inzektors can easily be stop by one-for-one's and with the consistency of a HERO beat deck, it con be sure that the player CAN make Blade Heart the next turn. Making HEROs the best counter to Inzektors.

To some degree, that is the truth. I feel like the only way to fight on an almost equal par to Inzektors without rushing for an OTK would be using HERO beat. But, statistics shows, the one-for-ones AND Blade Heart aren't enough to make this deck top tier.

So what had made them top deck again? Agents, or rather, the lack of them.

META game analysis showed us that HERO beat disappear off the radar about the same time Gachi Gachi Gantetsu is release into the game. The ability to take multiple meant-to-be one-for-one's is major problem for HEROs. That together with Hyperion, which can be drop at any point of the game and cost disruption to the overall strategy.

When Agents got less popular a few months ago due to Inzektors, HEROs found the opportunity to step up their league again. As compared to a match against Agents, a match against Inzektors are much more easier played, because they always have cards one the field Gemini Spark can hit. Or rather, One-for-one can work as one-for-ones.

When HERO's greatest threat, Agents, lost its popularity,  HEROs found this as a chance for reemergence.

...

I hope this makes sense, although I don't really think this as important to many. Because, all we really need to know is what deck tops and how they top. Not necessary why they top.

Again, most of the points I made are from the conclusion I myself deduced after much observation on the META trend, as any report, the results can be overthrown by an unseen factor.

I welcome inputs on your opinion on why HERO beat took top deck status again, and I enjoy reading them. Cause a conclusion from a network of infos and thoughts will always be better than something one person did.