Duelist Edition

The "new" reprint set coming out in about a week's time features Advance Dark and *drum roll* Miracle Contact as their feature cards. Being an E HERO fanboy, Miracle Contact's release after 4 years after GX's ending is a dream come true. I was on the impression that Konami would never make this card.

Another thing that most (if not all) Asia region players seems to forgot, is that Duelist Edition volume 1 has D-HERO Bloo-D (Plasma) as one of its secret rare. Granted, I don't want to pull that thing out of my box, since that would mean no Miracle Contact. But this means Bloo-D is now OFFICIALLY Asia format legal. It may be true that the age of Bloo-D has long pass and the D-HERO engine is nothing more than a relic of the pass as comparison to POD and Card-Car D. But, the ace of the D-HEROs finally legal for tournament play over here would be nice to see, although this came 5 years too late.

I know a lot of you guys are excited by Miracle Contact's announce, thinking Rainbow Neos would be beastly. And the newer scans showed that it can only bring out Elemental HEROs, which is quite the put down. Nevertheless, a great addition to the HERO archtype and a card that would add to the Neos collection very well. Although the Neos archtype can never be completed without the other 4 NEX Neospacian and the remaining 5 NEX Neos Fusions.

*Konami! Theres still a guy waiting for those cards here, please make them ...*

Now, how will this set affect the META, not even slightly would be the perfect answer. Because its nothing but a reprint set and the new cards only supports very very outdated archtypes. It can be said, the new cards are for collection purpose only.

If your wondering why didn't I post this a few weeks ago when the news first came out? Thats because I was busy with books and stuff.

So Priority is finally gone...

My exam's starts tomorrow, so I don't have much time to blog.

Just remember, there's no more priority, you can now hit Rescue Rabbit and his lot with TT, Veiler and stuff.  Don't do what Veiler did down there ...

Shout out!

Digital Mortal : http://digital-mortal.blogspot.com/

This is a fellow Malaysian blogger's blog, home to very very good quality post and also frequent updates. The dude started his blog about a month ago, and damn, theres so much to read I don't know where to start. Sadly, he only has 3 followers (as of 23rd of April) and only bout 2000 views. He didn't ask me for any shout outs, but I feel alot of readers are missing out on an amazing blog.

Since me, Mike and Scyu'Lee's blog aren't posting that frequently as of late, players from other countries might felt cut off from Malaysia. Kyde's blog helps solves this, and he also has interviews with successful players like Satoshi Kato, Wilson Tsang etc.

If you are one look like wall of text and enjoy reading them, head there, the guy puts up articles as though he is a reporter or something.

...

Kyde : Good job on the blog! Sorry for not getting your permission before doing this shout out post, but I feel most of the world is missing out your articles.

Update!!

My final exam starts next week and I'm been busy studying, since this is my final year and failing any subject would result in extending my studies (something I wanna avoid since I plan to get a Masters degree at my school right after I graduate) .... Why did I even bother explaining the reason of me studying? Don't expect a tournament report or much update for the coming 2~3 weeks, I'll be preparing for my final exams.

I've did a bit of modifications to my Hieratic deck (its Hanzo Hieratic now), and adjusted my side deck accordingly.

monster (22):

3 Hieratic Dragon of Shuu
3 Hieratic Dragon of Aset
3 Hieratic Dragon of Tfeni
2 Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon
3 Card-Car D
3 Ninja Grandmaster HANZO
3 Effect Veiler
1 Watt Dragon
1 Emerald Dragon (Luster Dragon)

spell (12):

3 Pot of Duality
3 Seal of Gathering
2 Mystic Space Typhoon
1 Reinforcement of the Army
1 Heavy Storm
1 Book of Moon
1 Monster Reborn

trap (6):

2 Ninjitsu Art of Super Transformation
2 Torrential Tribute
2 Solemn Warning

I did not play Jurrak Guaiba in my deck cause:

(1) Those are apparently hard to find in Malaysia
(2) I can't get a playset of them

So, basically the reason of me not playing them is because I don't have them. Go on, laugh at me.

I maxed out Veilers because they are the only hand trap I like this format. HEROs are pretty much MIA in Malaysia and the only deck that Veiler doesn't do good against that sees play would be Dark Worlds. Still, making Black Rose and Sacred Wyvern is good. The card is good against Inzektors (obviously), random wind-ups and especially Mirror matches.

The other cards shouldn't need introductions.

side (15):

2 Maxx "C"
2 Tragodia
2 Koaki Meiru Drago
2 Ryko Lightlord Hunter
1 Mystic Space Typhoon
3 Shadow Imprisoning Mirror
2 Dust Tornado
1 Mirror Force

When Dragons Collide

From the title, its easy to assume that I'm gonna talk about both the structure deck and the tops at both YCS Dallas and Toulouse. Oh yeah, so Jeff won another Asia Championship it seems, his second one back to back, does this makes him the Billy Brake of our Asian Region?

Back to Dragons. I was really shock/surprised when I read the top 8 feature where a Chaos Dragon variant made it there. And that feature match was one of the shortest one I've ever read. It was like, game 1 "I drop Dark Flare and two Pulsar, game!" game 2 "Slightly more challenging but I did piratically the same thing". When the deck got into finals, it dominated Dino Rabbit in a 2-0 manner.

So, right after that, I read the feature for Dallas, where a similar deck also made it to finals, this time it lost to Rabbit, but just slightly in a 1-2. However, the fact that Chaos Dragons or Twilight Dragons (because this build doesn't just run the Chaos, it has Judgment Dragoon in it) made it to the finals took the spotlight and no one really cared about the winner now. Another example of if your gonna die, die in style.

I was puzzled at how the deck won, sure I understand that the Lightlord engine is powerful, but sacky. So how luck help 2 guys thousand of miles away accomplish almost the same thing around the same time. Both run 30+ monsters and no traps (the Dallas one has one Treacherous Trap Hole, but thats not important). Both have no MSTs and Maxx Cs in deck. And both plays 3 Lylas backed with the Solar Recharge engine. As similar as they may be, these decks are different. The Dallas finalist played a full Lightlord Engine, Plague Spreader and Future Fusion. Toulouse's version of the deck spots 3 of each Tourguide, Thunder King and Dark Flare. We can easily see the products of these differences, the Dallas's version is more powerful in terms of raw strength and the Toulouse version has more precision and control.

I've build Chaos Dragon before, with some Lightlords, but never brought the monster count above 25. Also, my build always had 3 REDMDs and Apocalypse Dragons, along with a lone BLS. The result is a consistent, but not powerful deck that has minimal power plays outside of the REDMD and Pulsar wall. I revisited the deck yesterday and included a similar Lightlord Engine (including the 3 Recharges) and bumped the monster count to 32. I preferred the Toulouse version since I'm a more control oriented guy, but he plays 3 Tourguide and Thunder King (Promo for Asian championships), so I end up a boss rush deck with 3 of each Chaos Dragons, 3 Sorcerers, a BLS, a DAD and 2 REDMDs.

monster(32):

3 Lightpulsar Dragon
3 Darkflare Dragon
2 Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon
3 Eclipse Wyvern
3 Lyla Lightlord Magician
3 Ryko Lightlord Hunter
3 Effect Veiler

2 Tragodia (Asian format, switch one of them to Gorz if your not affected)

1 Dark Armed Dragon
3 Chaos Sorcerer
1 Black Luster Soldier
1 Honest
1 Card Trooper
1 Sangan
1 Mystic Tomato
1 Plague Spreader Zombie

spell (8):

3 Solar Recharge
1 Charge of the Light Brigade
1 Heavy Storm
1 Dark Hole
1 Monster Reborn
1 Allure of Darkness

This is kinda like a hybrid of the 2 topping decks, as I play the partial Lightlord engine from Toulouse, together with the Plague, Tomato from Dallas. Reason why I have 3 Veiler main decked is because I have 4 sets that I wouldn't want to get poped by Hornet. Unlike the TCG, the OCG is swarmed with insects, so you can never be too safe from setting monsters with no backrow, unless its a Wyvern or Sangan, then it doesn't matter.

I've tested played with this deck for a bit and holy shit, this is good. It can keep its ground with Hieratics and  HEROs, and pull of wins ever so easily. The card that made all the difference is Solar Recharge. Recharge made this deck good, without it, the deck doesn't function properly and you get random hands. Recharge solves that while setting up your grave. Its definitely not tier 1 yet, close, I mean real close, but not there yet. My only concern is how did something like this stayed under the radar for so long. Why did no one build it till last weekend where 2 guys decide to play it and brought it to the final table.

Lastly, I don't see this deck stirring up the META game for OCG that much, since this and Hieratics are essentially the same deck (the reason why I did not put Card Car D in this deck is because I can't seem to fit all 3 in, and I don't like to play CCD in 1's or 2's). Both Hieratics and Chaos Dragon set up for a few turns and aims to end the game in 1 huge turn. Consider this a poor man's Hieratic if you want, as it's not as consistent due to the Lightlord mill engine being sacky to begin with.

People side 3 Macro Cosmos, every top tier deck except Inzektors does so. That card is gonna wreck Chaos Dragon's play far worst than Inzektors. Granted we have 3 Lylas and Rykos mained, together with 3 MST in the side, but one cannot be too sure of what the opposing player would side. Side decks against Hieratics (some of them) BTH, Maxx C and Trago would also affect this deck's plays, even those you side for Rabbit, Dimension Prison and Mirror Force would do damage to it. The reason I don't think Chaos Dragon would do anything in OCG is this : while preparing our side decks for the big 3, we would have at least 10 cards in our side for the deck. The only chance this deck has of winning would be taking game 1, but this deck isn't the most consistent of decks.

Well, I may be wrong, since I did not see Chaos Dragon topping, and I've always see the SD as slightly below mediocre. Leave a comment and responds please, I wanna know what you guys think bout this deck.

Asian Championship 2012

If I'm not mistaken, its tomorrow. Its none of my business since I didn't win my country's ACQ and did not became a rep. But good luck to all players participating tomorrow.

Prediction:

Inzektors are gonna win. I'm pretty confident with this. Although I secretly wish Hieratics to win, but the odds are extremely low.

Reasons why Inzektors are gonna win:

1. Being THE top deck of the META
2. Inexpensive = big number
3. Just about every rep (except for a few) are playing this.

Although decks like DW and Laggia may have a fighting chance, but the odds aren't in their favor ... at all!

I wish all players good luck, and good luck to the judges as well. Stay hydrated and don't stay up late tonight. Hope someone proves me wrong thou, as I certainly would like to see some rogue deck take the top spot.

I miss this deck ...

The upper part of the picture features a deck I know a lot of us miss a lot.

Lightlord Agent Ver.1.1

monster (27):

3 Judgment Dragoon
2 Lightlord Beast Woolf
2 Lightlord Angel Celestia
2 Lightlord Summoner Lumina
2 Lightlord Warrior Garoth
1 Lightlord Magician Lyla
1 Lightlord Druid Arkus
1 Lightlord Paladin Jain
1 Lightlord Hunter Ryko
3 Master Hyperion
3 Agent Venus
1 Agent Earth
3 Mystic Shine Balls
1 Honest
1 Sangan

spell (10):

3 Upstart Goblin
3 Solar Recharge
1 Charge of the Light Brigade
1 Monster Reborn
1 Monster Reincarnation
1 Heavy Storm

trap (3):

3 Reckless Greed

Definitely not the best deck to play in a large scale tourney. Obviously you need to be extremely lucky for this deck to be good. If consistency is your thing, don't play this deck, its Lightlord, what did you expect.

The point of the deck would be dig deep into your deck and start dropping big boss monsters. Hyperion plays are actually more consistent than what I initially think.

Game normally proceed like this :

(1) Early game you do Venus plays or Lightlord plays to thin your deck
(2) Hyperion and xyz monsters in mid game
(3) Dropping Judgment to end the game

I wanted to run just 1 Celestia, but I thought bumping the angel count would be good for Hyperion. But I might just throw in a Agent Jupiter or something.

Obviously the absence of Tour Guides is because I play OCG and we don't have them little girls yet. Three of those and a BLS would make excellent addition to this deck.

Hanzo Hieratic

I've not been able to travel to locals this weekend because I need to help my parents at work, so no tourney reports and updates. But, I've most certainly confirmed that I wanna turn my pure Hieratic deck into a Hanzo Hieratic build.

Reasons being Hieratics are extremely easy to side against.

I'm now maining 3 copies of MST and a Heavy Storm. Siding 2 Rykos and 2 Dust Tornado, but I still feel I need more outs to Mask of Restrict and Light Absorbing Mirror, which outright kills this deck.

Hanzo is useful as it can get my big monsters out without Tributes, and also get rid of Inzektors before they do anything. Of cause, my opponent would either have an MST in hand or being a complete idiot if he tries to do something when I would obviously have Ninjitsu Art of Chou-Henshin set. But, the card definitely works far better than Fiendish Chain.

I completely acknowledge that the reasons I top2 in ACQ 2012 are bad side deck on my opponent's side and lack of knowledge on what Hieratics can do in Asian format. I did not see a proper side deck against me until top4. But, since I top once, and proved the deck's worth, its not gonna be the same the next time, specifically WCQ.

OOparts seem to be very fast at making xyzs, and I really need more chainable cards than ever. Not to mention Geargias are gonna be good, no matter how stupid they look.

The only thing stopping me from getting a playset of Hanzos now would be the price tag. And my allowance are pretty tight in the following months.

REDU monster XYZs

After looking at the REDU cards coming up in 2 weeks time, I've seen some gems from this set. Like GAOV, this set has a lot of monster xyzs. Aside from the obvious Excalibur, there are some extremely good monsters that would prove every powerful in older decks.

Geargiganto X

The first would be Geargiganto X.

2 level 4 Machine monsters 2300/1500

Once per turn, you can detach 1 xyz material from this card; add 1 level 4 or lower Machine monster from your deck or graveyard to your hand. When this card leaves the field; you can special summon 1 level 3 or lower "Geargia" monster from your graveyard.

This card is good, very very good. Machina Gadget, Karakuri and Offering Gadget all get boosted because of this card. The second effect isn't gonna help you unless you tech in Geargia or your playing Geargia, but the first effect is enough to make it good.

A free searcher with 2300 attack and can come out effortlessly in Offering Gadget(although I see no good targets in pure Offering Gadgets). Its not that free in Karakuri and Machina Gadget, but if you get it out, its gonna net you advantage. Think of it as an oversized Gadget.

Giant God of Silver Summit

2 Level 3 EARTH monster 1800/2200

Once per turn, you can detach 1 xyz material from this card to taregt 1 set card in your opponent's spell and trap zone; that target cannot be activated while this card is one the field. While this card is destroyed by battle while it has xyz materials: you can target 1 EARTH monster in your graveyard; special summon that target in face up defense position.

The first effect isn't that useful, unless you wanna go for game and you are certain the set card is something like Mirror Force. But the second one is good. Yes, it has restrictions. But if the restriction isn't there, I'm gonna make 2 of these and Scrap Dragon just pop things for free. The reason he needs xyz material attached to activate his revival effect would be to prevent someone building a deck around summoning 2 of these and sit behind them.

Evidence of Konami knowing what they are doing, on contrary of what most people think.

This card is gonna be SOOOO good in X-sabers. This is a fine reason for you to use your Emmersblade and Darksoul for overlay. You can always put this guy on the board, target an obvious Torrential (when your opponent has a full field of monsters), and Emergency Call for a Gottom's play. In case your wondering, this card doesn't have a level/rank limit to his special summoning ability; you can very well special summon your Gottoms if you opponent destroy this in battle.

XYZ Reborn says "hi!".

Fairy King Alverd

2 Level 4 EARTH monsters 2300/1400

Once per turn, you can detach 1 xyz material from this card; all face up non-EARTH monsters currently on the field loses 500 ATK and DEF.

Simple effect, nothing complicated, but effectively make this card a 2800 beatstick if your opponent doesn't run EARTH. Best use in decks that run high EARTH monster count, ie Offering Gadget. Also can be run in Rabbit Laggia if your opponent has something like Gaia Dragoon out which normal rank 4s can't touch.

Thats it for my "review", I felt that konami is trying to indirectly boost older themes while selling newer themes, which is always good.

Chain Material concept deck

This is just a concept that I though of in class a few moments ago. Now, I'm on my laptop in campus.

monster (17):

3 Cyber Valley
2 Cyber Dragon
2 Volcanic Rocket
3 E HERO Heat
1 E HERO Airman
3 Card Car D
3 Effect Veiler

spell (17):

3 Fusion Gate
3 Pot of Duality
2 Terra Forming
2 Miracle Fusion
2 Parallel World Fusion
1 E Emergency Call
2 Mystic Space Typhoon
1 Heavy Storm
1 Monster Reborn

trap (6):

3 Chain Material
3 Reckless Greed

extra (15):

3 Blaze Fenix
3 E HERO Shining
2 E HERO Nova Master
1 E HERO Gaia
1 E HERO Tornado
1 Hieratic Dragon God Ennead
1 No39 Hope
1 No 50 Black Corn
2 Randoms

Obviously this build's goal is to dig into your deck fast and get your 2 card OTK out. Conveniently, Card Car D is a machine, which fuels Blaze Fenix.

Assignment Deal this Friday

Expect me to go back to my normal blogging rate by Saturday, thank god everything went out well.

Went to TB last weekend and skipped a replacement class. Got a pack of PP14 (finally) and traded some of the cards from the pack for the 2 M HEROs, since noting else matters anyway. Sold off a lot of stuff and made cash, got some Ultra Pros on the way back.

Also, played Pokemon TCG for the first time since 2005 with Joshua aka Cookie. I must say the game is much more interesting now than it was back in the days, or maybe because I wan't good back then and none of my friends were good players, making the game seem dull. The few matches on Saturday was amazing, I played Edmund's deck with features Zekrom and Mewtwo Ex while Joshua had a Durant deck which basically mills your opponent for game. A game easily took 20 to 30 minutes, which is good.

Since I've quit playing Vanguard, Pokemon seems like a nice game to start. I already know the rules and its WAY more exciting and skill rewarding than Vanguard (to me anyways). Would be a nice 2nd card game since they constantly reprint stuff and I still have staples like Switch (awesome card) with me from back in the days. Anyone who plays the Pokemon TCG can comment on what decks are cheap and skill rewarding in the comments and I'll look into it, since I have no clue what to play and Edmund told me his Zekrom deck is worth a fortune.

Call me a draw whore but Prof Oak's "shuffle your hand into your deck and draw 6", and Juniper's  "discard your hand, draw 7" is too fun to not run for me.

...

Back to YGO.

Build 4 decks last Saturday night, none of them competitive but I say good for fun games and if a friend wanna try the game out, its always good to have a few extra casual decks with you.

So I build:

Junk Dopple featuring Tuning Ware and Basses

Lightlord + Agent Boss rush deck, featuring 10 boss level monsters in the form of 3 JD, 3 Hyperion, 2 Lightray Diaboros, DAD and BLS

Chain Burn (standard chain burn ...)

Chain Material beatdown (I have Volcanic Rockets, Cyber Dragon and Miracle Fusion for beatdown in case I don't have an OTK)

What do I think of these decks:

(1) Junk Dopple ~ Fun and interesting, but very very skill demanding since I don't think a random noob is able to pilot this deck without misplays.

(2) Lightlord Agent ~ Again, its very fun considering we now have Lumina at 2, Rank 3's can be made very easily. There are tons of shitty and random hands you can get since this deck runs so many bosses and no Traps. If things goes right, and you fill your grave early in the game, you have 10 boss monsters where you can drop without issues. Since the only Darks you run are Necro Guardnas, Armageddon Knight and Plague, DAD is very much alive.

(3) Chain Burn ~ its chain burn, it'll always be fun.

(4) Chain Material Beat ~ Perhaps the most competitive deck of the four, this deck has some very heavy beaters and you can easily side Material and Gate out for Skill Drain and Barboros. You can almost always hit more than 9000 damage when you have Gate and Material out. Of cause, the deck features Blaze Fenix. But also has an Elemental HERO engine that focuses on getting Nova Master out to help you draw into your combo. King of the Swamps are in here to get Poly, fuse for ZERO and also exceed into Aerosharks, which can deal at least 1500 damage per turn after you did a Gate play.