My Body As A Shield

Apart from its totally cool name, it's obviously one of the best cards to play in the game right now.

While it is safe to say that each deck runs at least a number of destruction cards, (in every meta deck: destruction is everywhere: in the form of micromanagement or macro management) but is it safe to say that we are prepared for it?

We all fear our combos that need to be set up being destroyed, we all want our cards to be safe, what is the best option out there? It's no doubt My Body As a Shield.

Blackwings are famous for its Black Whirlwind combo and if its opponent forks out trap hole, Bottomless Trap Hole or something of that sort, what can you do? You lose a card and you do not benefit from Whirlwind's effect, so how? Answer is simple: My body as a shield.

You fear mirror force, Lightning vortex, torrential tribute etc? Simple again: My body as a shield. What about that Gyzarus play your opponent is setting up? Or Celestia? Simple: the answer is there. If you successfully negate and destroy Gyzarus/celestia, your opponent has just lost field presence and massive card advantage. 1500 LP for that? I think its massive card advantage as it can prevent complete change of tempo within the game.

The famous Gemini Spark is a combo that lets you sacrifice a Gemini monster to destroy 1 card on your field and draw 1 card. Play My Body as a shield. You lose a card(my body) and 1500 life points. In turn, your opponent has lost 2: Spark and the monster. Usually 2 cards is a hit for the opponent as the average number of cards a player has per turn is about 3-5. 2 is a big killer as that Gemini Spark could have helped him destroy something that he really needed and then he would have picked up a useful card from his deck.

It also can allow complete tempo change in the game : (in your favour of course!) No longer are you worried about your combo being destroyed. Its extremely versatile and it gives you peace of mind to duel without making mistakes.

But the best part about My Body As a Shield comes in the form of anti meta builds. MBAS truly shines in these decks. Why? Quite simple actually. Think about it, most anti meta builds run a low count of monster as they want access to spells/traps to shut of the opponent. Then, this low count of monsters is extremely important as the the downside of runnin anti meta is you have less monsters compared to opponent. But, you have your spells and traps to handle that threat.

Now what if your opponent flips up an unexpected Mirror Force or Torrential to change the tempo of the game. Having a monster count of about 12 to 14 isnt gonna help as that severely lowers your percentage and chances of drawing monsters next turn. My Body is so good that it can prevent this threat from happening. With protection and monster presence, and cards that eleiminate your opponent's monsters presence: what more could you ask for?

Now MBAS is often referred as the new solemn. It is cool to witness solemn wars again :D Take note that MBAS actually "destroys" cards in the process, so you can chain MBAS to another copy if the target is a monster.

(EG: Jon flips MBAS in response to Mike's Celestia. Mike can flip MBAS in response to Jon's MBAS.)

Take note that MBAS cannot negate Royal Oppresion's effect (as this is a commonly widespread mistake) Its because Oppression negates the monster special summon. Because it actually prevents the monsters from being summoned, the monster HAS NOT REACHED the field yet so it is invalid.

At least half the players in the top 16 of SJ Colombus ran MBAS in their main decks and sidedecks. Jeff Jones even took the liberty of running 2 in his main deck.

MBAS is very flexible and follows the Malay Proverb (which my teacher cant stop mentioning in school -.- ) : ke tepi boleh ke tengah pun boleh (which is rougely translated to: side can, midle also can) so it actually can fit in almost any deck you want it to be in. In fact, I run 2 MBAS as a replacement for the 2 lost Solemns in my Skill Drain Barbaros deck, and its awesome. Not scared of anything at all ah. I also decided to remove 3 D. Fissures, as they are dead draws and quite a waste of deck space. So sidedeck it for the meantime lah...

This era of anti meta is a use of anti meta as a Meta deck, and as such you need to reduce variables and make your plays as brainless as possible. What can I say, it works.