Update on War Gods! To the Battlefield People!!

JOTL had officially reach our humble Malaysian shores this morning/afternoon and many like myself had enlisted the War Gods as a top contender for this years WCQ. But the question remains, can the War Gods overthrow Incarnate Dragons or even fight on par with them. Also, will Prophecies, and their Judgment Day be to big an obstacle. 

A few days ago, I've posted a sample decklist to the deck, this is a revamped decklist, that had proved itself to be more consistent and also allows the deck to do more plays. 

As you can see, not only do we see Tenki in the deck, we actually have Fire Fists joining the fray. Its like the Chinese Warlords joining hands with the Japanese Deities to take down evil Sorcerers and stupidly huge Mythical Beasts, directed by Michael Bay. 

Fire Fist Bear is a staple in any Fire Fist deck because its good. Free pluses turn after turn is good. With 2 Bears in the deck, I basically have a total of 8 Yamatos, not to mention POD and Maxx C. Sweet! I doubt I have to explain how is Bear good, unless your hiding under some rock for the past 4 months or so?

Now, for the new card, Fire Fist Boar is a level 4 Tuner. Its also a recruiter, which makes it the 3rd Bear. Why is he so good in here? Crimson Blader! We all know how good the card is in Incarnates and how can we forgot how good it is AGAINST them lizards. Hell yeah, a tuner monster that doesn't take away consistency (and adds to it, no less) is good. 

Oh yeah, Vivid Knight is like the Battle Fader of this deck. LaDD attacks your Yamato? Reveal it to make it lose 500. Attack Susanoo? One way ticket to hell bro. Best part, it stays in the hand. LOL.

Spell and Trap line up remains majorly identical, aside from 3rd MST to a Gyokko. A searchable MST that prevents your opponent from dropping Gorz is absolutely amazing. Although I couldn't just replace the MSTs with it because Gates of Dark World and D.D.R are very much cards. Also, I never like the number of the deck to go over 40 (its 41 now already).

Aside from Blader, the other noticeable changes was the inclusion of more Fire Fist cards. I've bumped Tiger King up to two because his just amazing against decks that like to hide behind Zenmaines. Also, since I've bumped the Formation count, he gains me free advantage every time I make him. What more, because we have Boar now, making him is easier than ever.

The other new card, Fire Fist - Kirin doesn't really do all that much. It basically just serves as another target when I need it. The card can stand its ground against the 2800 line, which is good since thats the standard line at the moment as oppose to 3000. I'm not sure if I wanna have him in the deck or another Blader, but you never really synchro twice per game and it can't make anything thats not FIRE. Normally, I rather just make an XYZ instead of Blader isn't good.

To the side board, Droll & Lock is for Prophecy, nuff said. Gozen is for Incarnate, it kinda messes with the Fire Fist part of the deck, but locking down the biggest deck of the format (for a few turns) is quite enough for me.

Prison is in here for random beat down decks, Fire Fist, HEROs, and in some case Dark World and Machina. Skull Meister is a card I'm still very much on the fence of (with DD Crow), but Meister stops DW better if they are going first. As I mentioned in my earlier post, Autonomous Unit is good versus Fire Fist, DW (stealling Grapha is nice) and also, the mirror match. Grab their "grave trap" make a Susanoo, win sounds like a great plan. Debunk is another card thats good in the mirror match too. Finally, the Rai-Oh is for the mirror, any antimeta, Prophecy (if I go first), Mermails and also Fire Fist.

Notice I have next to nothing effective against Verz, but, that deck is breakfast, so who cares. (>0<)

Entering the Battle Field

Judgment of the Light, unlike Tachyon Galaxy, seems to be a fair balanced-out set. Yes, there might be a few cards that are "too good" here and there, but nothing the likes of Spellbook Judgment Day and Incarnate Dragons. The set introduces a few archtypes and supports some older ones, Archfiends being one of the highlights of this set, hope it doesn't become Harpies 2.0, Firefist's 4-axis gets amazing boost from the set and seems like High Priestess wasn't broke enough so they gave Prophecy another boss monster, this time a Judgment Dragon to go with High Priestess's Dark Armed Dragon.

Today, I want to discuss a deck I've been super hyped about since its announcement, War Gods.

War Gods are an archtype heavily centered around beat down. Their standard play is to summon Yamato and his XYZ counterpart, Susanoo, and beat the field down. They rarely will have 2 monsters on the field by the end of the turn, not that they can't, its just that they don't need to. For War Gods, the graveyard acts as your "other hand", they have numerous cards that let you activate in the grave to support your beat down and also protect your War God. Also, they have their own, searchable, Kalut, which is pretty much a game ender in itself.

Note that all of the war God supports needs a War God Beast-Warrior (either Yamato or Susanoo) on the field to activate their effect. While that might seems like a very big let down, it is, but after a month of test playing (on YGOPro), I felt that if that weren't the case, this deck would be overpowered (well, if you compared everything to Incarnate Dragon, then yeah, thats not overpowered at all). Yamato is no doubt the card you want to open with each game, however, you don't just lose because its not in your opening 6, just like how opening 2 normal monsters in Dino Rabbit doesn't really mean anything but a slower start. Yamato lets you search your deck for a War God and ditch a card at the end of your turn (every end of your turn). This lets you add Habakiri (the Kalut) to your hand while sending Murakumo or Hetsuka (the "grave traps" to your grave), with no cost. This makes killing Yamato a hell of a job if the War God player plays right.

Susanoo is the reason why I took interest in this deck. This card is a real monster and games can be won by just summoning it, no joke. Susanoo is a 2400 (2500 if you have Tenki on board) that lets your attack EVERY monster on your opponent side of the field once, yup Blade Edge effect is good. Firefist 3-axis made a wall of monsters and gonna kill you next turn, Susanoo takes the damn wall down. Dragosacc and two tokens make it impossible to kill, Susanoo willl take in down (with Habakiri). Linde thinks she's broke and summon another Mermail, sorry bro, Susanoo is gonna take them down. Not only that Susanoo have an amazing effect that doesn't require a detach to activate, it also lets you either add to hand or send to grave a War God from your deck. Its very difficult for any deck to take down Susanoo if played right, the War God Emperor lives up to its name and WILL be a force to be reckoned with.

monster (17):

3 War God Yamato

3 War God Murakumo

3 War God Hetsuka

3 War God Habakiri 

3 Maxx C

2 Vivid Knight

spell (13):

3 Fire Formation - Tenki

3 Mystic Space Typhoon

2 Pot of Duality

2 Forbidden Lance

1 Monster Reborn

1 Heavy Storm

1 War God Advent

trap (10):

2 Bottomless Traphole

2 Mirror Force

3 Compulsory Evacuation Device

1 Solemn Judgment

1 Solemn Warning

1 Starlight Road

extra (15):

1 Stardust Dragon

2 War God Emperor Susanoo

2 Abyss Dweller (Luckily, we are getting this before WCQ)

1 Firefist Tiger King

And other generic good Rank 4s

The trap line up is very basic to a beat down based deck, theres nothing much to say about it. As for the spells, Tenki lets you search for Yamato (and Vivid Knight if you already have Yamato) and makes it a 1900 beater. Lance makes sure your Beast-Warrior War God stays on the field, either from Battle or Effect. The only effective cards to get Susanoo off the field (aside from the Solemn Duo) are Mirror Force, Torrential Tribute and Dark Hole. You don't summon much, so TT isn't really much of a threat, Lance deals with Mirror Force and Dark Hole.

War God Advent is a very powerful mid to late game spell card. If your opponent has a monster and you don't, it lets you special summon a War God from your grave and another one from your banished pile. They can only be used for xyz summon for a Beast, Beast-Warrior or Winged Beast. It doesn't have any other draw backs. You can attack with them if you wish and they don't get destroyed at the end of the turn. Its super powerful especially when you can special summon Susanoo with this card as well. However, this card is very much dead early in the game, and for consistency, I only play one of it, but I win the game every time when this card successfully resolve.

Lets move on to the monsters. Vivid Knight being the odd ball of the bunch. Its function in the deck is to protect Yamato and sometimes, Susanoo. Its effects lets you banish a LIGHT Beast-Warrior when it was targeted for an attack or card-effect, banish it until your next stand-by phase (Thunder Bird shit) and special summon Vivid Knight from hand. Vivid Knight normally gets run over, no doubt, but thats no issue as your War God is safe and gonna wreck havoc come next turn. Basically, this card acts like a searchable Forbidden Lance (sorta).

I run 3 Maxx C because 3 Maxx C is a staple this format, nuff said. No really, there is no single match up now that I wished I had Veiler instead of Maxx C, that includes Verz and 4-axis Firefist.

Now, the "what if you don't open Yamato" situation. Hetsuka, the "grave trap" that lets you protect your War God from target effects has 2000 defense, not to mention, 1700 attack. Murakumo, the one that lets you destroy an opponent face-up, has 1600 attack. Together with your spells and traps, they can easily last a turn, and you just have to make Susanoo, either search for a Yamato then or just continue with the beat down with Susanoo.

...

This deck is still far from completion, and I have no idea how its matchup with Prophecies are considering they get a broken boss from the new set. However, it has decent match up with all existing top tier. Bad game 1 against Incarnate because first-turn LaDD is a bitch, but otherwise not much of an issue. This deck eats Verz for breakfast. No joke, you can open Ophion all you want, it doesn't mean shit. Firefist' is a coinflip match up. I might wanna play a few Automation Units for the 4-axis match up as I am more than happy to grab their Bear.

In conclusion, this deck is one hell of a control deck and will win games against any careless opponent. It has one of the best staying power I've seen in a long time (Incarnate's endless revival doesn't count) and its very basic, that's a good thing. I would not say this deck is Tier 1, I'm not sure, but this is definitely a must try for fans of good-old beat down. 

Samurai Kicked My Ass

Last weekend, there was this special tournament where the winner gets a playmat featuring CNo39, CNo32 and Neo Galaxy-Eyes. Every official shop held it last Sunday, so I went to TB since I had mid terms in the morning and TB's tourney started late due to a Cf! Vanguard event earlier that day. The format is 4 rounds of swiss and the one ranking 1st wins, no top 8/4 what so ever and basically meant, if you loss 1 round, your out.

I wanted to try out my new Hieratic build, similar concept to my ACQ build, but featuring more draws, I played Escape for Hope. Together with 3 Cardcar, 3 Reckless and 1 One Day at Piece, this deck now runs 10 draw cards. At least that WAS the concept I wanted to test, the end result of testing that day was the build sucked and no where near as consistent as I've imagined. Oh well, thats why testings are important I guess. 

But, I did not enter the tournament with that Hieratic build, simply because I left half of my extra deck at home, specifically, I didn't bring any of my rank 5's and also missing in 1 M7. So, I just played my E HERO deck instead. Theres a problem here too. I did not have a side deck with me. I didn't plan to play the deck that day, and I've took the side deck apart for ACQ a week before and had no time to rebuild it. The tournament started 5 minutes after I arrive, so I went into a tourney with a deck that needed its side deck badly, without a side deck. Genius!

Round 1 : Vs Samurai

A friend from Vanguard warned me that my opponent was a stacker and I've also seen him stack multiple times. But my ego was like, "Chill bro, this is Samurai, just cause it has "Sam" in part of its name, doesn't make it any better ..."

Duel 1 : I lost the die roll and my opponent open with Gates, Shi-En, and Great Shogun Shien. I look at my hand, and I was like "Ok ... fuck! Game 2"

Duel 2 : I open with Bubbleman, 5 S/T (1 of them being Super Poly). I set 4 and Bubbleman, and said "You have Storm, you win." He open the nuts again with double Typhoon, double Shi-En (United instead of Gates this time) and attacked. I flipped Super Poly and made Nova, continued to beat his way for game. If I've set 2 like a normal guy would, I would have lost at this point.

Duel 3 : I open HERO Alive, E Call, Super Poly, Warning and Judgment. Pretty good hand, my next card was Mirror Force. I was like "As long as I don't see double ShiEn across the field, this game is pretty much in my pocket". But guess what, I did see double ShiEn, along with an Invoker and Inverz Roach (which I don't understand why he made). I drew to 6 and was like, "fuck this ... scoop" 

At this point, I basically just drop and watch other people play. And tested my Hieratic deck with some friends, proxies nonetheless. Which is how I knew the deck fails. Note to self, next time, bring a side deck coming into a tourney.