Brain Drain Occuring in YuGiOh

Before i start my post i managed to see Wind Up Zenmaines , a tcg exclusive card which is fucking fucking overpowered. The card is pure bad game design as it is 100000000x worse than Gantetsu, really frigging solid in so many ways since it has crazily high defence and decent attack too.

Level 3 is so easy to bring out, i can even see X Sabers being played more just cos of this. Plants can just Tour Guide into Tour Guide and drop this and stall and do shit.

Konami is printing more imbal cards =(

Which brings me to the current issue. The Brain Drain phenomenom

The brain drain phenomenom describes the situation whereby a country loses its human resources to other countries due to migration.

As many of you may or may not know, Malaysia is currently facing this crisis. Generally, migration is not a bad thing, because it has many advantages which i am not going into depth, but then the thing about migration is that when people migrate out of the country, there are also people migrating into the country.

So, if the rate of people migrating into the country exceeds the rate of ppl migrating out, the country is gaining advantages in the form of human resources and many more stuff, and the converse is true.

But if the very opposite thing happened, then that country is facing a loss. However, that loss, if its minimal can be mitigated by other external factors like increase of birth rate bla bla bla.

There is a funny saying written by Shaun Tan, the finalists of the World Bank 2011 Essay Contest that goes:

Smart Indians go to med school,
Smart Chinese go to investment banks,
Smart Malaysians go to Singapore.

Of course this is very crude and cynical and im not a racist, or an elitist who has no patriotism for my country (please do not misinterpret)

Now let us apply this into Yugioh.

There are many factors that cause Yugioh players to leave the game. Some leave because they have done enough or had enough of the game, some leave for work issues, and some leave to try another game.

However, this is all very healthy.

But i noticed lately that Yugioh is being sidecast more and more.

Let us first discuss the TCG. Since i am not a TCG player, my interpretations or analysis may not be accurate so i wish to inform you all of that.

I can see many players switching over to Magic because of its skill-based influence and and also because that the game is more prestigious and stuff (kinda agree)

However the main factors the players are leaving the game can be broken down and has been broken down by Michael Bonacini (Death Aspect blog) several times again and again.

Recently, Konami has taken a liking to printing incredibly broken wtf cards. It seems that everytime a card that is incredibly imbal is released, it is the TCG design's team fault. (or so it seems)

What better example then "Charge of Light Brigade , Darksoul , Tengu , Tour Guide and now Wind Up Zenmaines??? "

It is not any better when the company decides to print these cards in the highest rarity possible.

Tengu was different and made accessible to everybody but Tour Guide, Charge, Barrier, and Zenmaines (assumed) are printed in SCR rarity. Furthermore, they choose to reprint cards like Warning and Duality, which were all incredibly crucial for the last 2 formats with maximum rarity too. Even poor Glow Up Bulb was bumped up to Ultra/ Ulti version.

Seriously, Wind Up Zenmaines is surely gonna cost like $ 70 + at first release already and will surely skyrocket. Luckily it is not a card you need 3 copies of.

I mean the OCG design team is not entirely innocent either but the only thing broken that has been printed lately is Grapha and Rescue Rabbit, which the latter is not abused that much anyway. You can make Rabbit Ragia decks where you run the risk of drawing shitty and dead cards but the rewards are that you have a walking Solemn Judgment + beatstick on the field if successful which can change the game tempo.

The promotion and the release of new broken cards makes certain players sick of the game. Obviously, they want to reward players who are willing to pay more $$ to top the game. The game over in the TCG side obviously doesnt reward much skill anymore although it is much better than last format (which i should praise)

Furthermore its not like the game is like MTG whereby skill is much more prevalent there. Once my SPM exams have finished i must really make an effort to delve into MTG for awhile.

Now i will discuss the OCG part of the game =)

The game is still very much popular and well received in countries like Japan (i think), but i will choose more to focus on the Asian format, and ultimately Malaysia, my own country.

Here in the Asian format, we aren't allowed to use much promos. I have to be very thankful because i think the Asian format is the best format in the world because it rewards so much skilled play and there are no broken TCG promos floating around. Moreover, when cards like Recruiter and Dark Soul make their way to the OCG, they arent even broken anymore and the players who top Asian format tourneys are all consistent toppers.

I mean sure GK can be still good, but then there are risks to running it, such as DW. You can side Watcher or Imps all you want but the risk is still there.

As for Sabers , it is very stable and consistent and can just about beat every matchup if played properly, save for DW and Agents, which is also a huge risk. You can tune the deck or your side to match it, but again there are risks to that too like your matchups versus random decks or how the consistency will fare.

Now, what on earth would make the players here leave the game when it is so good here?

Firstly the price of the cards here are atrociously high , and hyped, and every Malaysian and Singaporean can tell you that the card prices in Msia are higher than Singapore's anytime, heck whoever takes a trip down to Singapore for a holiday will find himself in card heaven due to cheap prices everywhere.

Now this problem is caused by dealers and certain vendors. Malaysia is not big, and is actually very small, and due to that, the access between players and dealers between different states is large. Furthermore we have Facebook now as a communication device whereby several pages are set up just to discuss card prices and selling and trading.

The problem arises when these main dealers, who control the card market, suddenly decide to inflate the price. For example a SR Siroco could have been sold for RM 80 to Rm 100, but could be purchased at Rm 50 in Singapore last format. The prices will be spread out throughout the whole country very fast, which forces players to dish out their cash quick in order to but these cards.

However the problem doesnt stop there. Because these cards are not considered "market price", other vendors are forced to follow suit to this trend, because if they do not, they will be making a huge loss here and there. There are some good-hearted vendors who choose to sell the cards at a significantly lower price which lessens the burdens for some players.

Not to mention, when the demand increases, the price can hike by a large amount. Its pretty normal everywhere but whatever.

A whole lot of Yugioh in Malaysia comes down not to the playing but also to the selling/ buying involved. There are some players who have disregarded the game, and focused most of their time on the sales aspect instead.

Because of the price hike, some players have decided to leave the game or if they do stay in the game, they do so half-heartedly, knowing that they cannot afford to pay for these cards.

So, another reason for the brain drain in Malaysia's Yugioh is the introduction of a new card game Cardfight Vanguard.

I have never played VG nor been exposed to the game, so i took the liberty to ask certain players who have picked up the game about its prospects.

I asked 5 players and all 5 said that the game does not rely much on skill, and for now, all you can do is summon, attack, guard and stuff. (terms which i'm not familiar with)

Furthermore the price a Starter deck is cheap, but then the price of crucial cards are also expensive (about 50 to 80 per card) , and because the max number of cards in VG is 4 per deck, that makes the game slightly more expensive.

Please take note that I am not calling the game sacky or skillless, please do not feel insulted i am neutral about it, but the comments are feedback i have received from various players.

All 5 players i have asked are all decent players and they have been exposed to the terms "sacky", "luck-oriented", and are exposed to the blogosphere and are well aware about skill based games.

But if the game is sacky why do the players want to play it? Is it because they prefer to have fun and play games where any player has the chance to win? Or is it because they cannot stand the highly competitive Asian format?

Please take note again that i am not ranting merely i am just conveying about the current situation of Yugioh. Please do not say "if you cant take it, just quit the f**king game". I am not facing any of the problems above such as difficulty to obtain cards, financial problems bla bla bla. I am probably quitting soon due to college

Currently, we can place Yugioh in between Vanguard and MTG, whereby MTG is the most skill-reliant, followed by Yugioh and MTG.

IN ASCENDING ORDER in terms of skill reliance: VG, YGO, MTG

Yugioh now stands in the middle, so if any player wishes to play casually they will switch to VG, and if they choose to play more skill based games, they will go to MTG.

Just to show some data, i have found out that most of the players in my area are all taking up Vanguard, and they are playing YGO and Vanguard at the same time. In fact, aside from me , i only know 2 other players who do not play the game. At the same time, there has been a massive player rise in numbers for YGO over the past year, but the massive player rise for VG is so much more in just one or two months, whereas the increase in player numbers for YGO is only 2 players.

It has been a long and winding post and i congratulate you, the reader, if you have made it this far. Thank you for reading and thats all for today :)

It is sad that while everybody can play in tourneys, i am stuck at home with the burden of SPM public examinations.

[ edit- master sephiroth commented that the tcg exclusives were designed by ocg design team. now thats something to think about :D ]

Ranking Tourney Results

Kl Sunday Ranking Results

1st place- Sean
deck used- chaos bf

2nd place- ?
deck used- dark world

i did not get sean's decklist because it is still under construction and perfection, according to him, but i do have a basic skeleton of his monster lineup for those who are interested

3 Raioh
1 BLS
3 Bora
1 Gale
3 Shura
1 Jinn the Dry Wind

Yes he does run 3x Pot of Duality too

i am very sure there are more cards included but i do not know. Possible Gorz etc.

He however doesnt run any Sirocos or Vayus.

KL Ranking Tourney Sunday # 2

1st place- Andrew
Deck Used- GKs.

2nd place- Zack Teoh
Deck Used- TG Sabers

I have none of the decklists. I am happy that Andrew found a good tier 1 build for GKs again as he found a good reliable way to side against DW and deal with Heavy Storm, but no disclosure as i didn't get his consent :)

As you can see, OCG format is a good reliable way of measuring the top players as they always repeatedly top consistently.

Ranking Tourney Kuching

1st place- Jia Jun Tay
Deck Used- Quickdraw Dandy

2nd place- Bruce Law
Deck Used- Chaos Sworn

I have none of the decklists as par to that because i did not ask them players. i can try though.

Ranking Tourney Miri

1st place- Joo Phin Loo
Deck Used- Quickdraw Dandy

The difference between Miri's rankings are different because it follows the Asian format whereby no promos are allowed. I do have the decklist for this.

Monsters: 25

Doppel Warrior X2
Junk Synchron X2
Quickdraw Synchron X2
Sangan X1
Tragoedia X2
Card Trooper X2
Ryko, the lightsworn hunter X2
Lone-fire Blossom X1
Effect Veiler X2
Spore X1
Dandylion X1
Level Eater X1
Glow-up Bulb X1
Debris Dragon X1
Dark Armed Dragon X1
Mystic Tomato X1
Chaos Sorcerer X1
Black Luster Soldier X1

Magics: 11
Reinforcement of Army X1
Tuning X1
Dark Hole X1
Foolish Burial X1
Pot of Avarice X1
One For One X1
Monster Reborn X1
Charge of the light Brigade X1
Heavy Storm X1
Allure of Darkness X1
Scapegoat X1

Traps: 4
Call of the Haunted X2
Limited Reverse X2

I found that Tragoedia is really vital in Qd Doppel Dandy and his build looks good for an Asian format version whereby he had no access to Quasar.

Thats all for today thank you for reading

QD Doppel

My Asian BLS is taking forever to arrive so i'll just post the decklist out first.

This is the QD variant im testing out atm:

2 Card Trooper
2 Ryko
1 Gorz
1 BLS
2 Quickdraw
2 Doppel
3 Junk Synchron
1 Level Eater
1 Spore
1 Glow up Bulb
1 Zephyrus
2 Effect Veiler
1 Sangan
1 Dandylion
1 Mystic Tomato

3 Tunings
1 Dark Hole
1 Monster Reborn
1 Charge of Light Brigade
1 Calling Army
1 Enemy Controller
1 One for One
1 Foolish Burial
1 Pot of Avarice
1 Heavy Storm
2 MST

2 Bottomless Trap Hole
1 Trap Dustshoot
1 Torrential Tribute

Extra deck:
1x TG Hyper Librarian
1x Shooting Quasar
1x Formula
1x Stardust
1x Scrap Dragon
1x Trishula
1x Arms Aid
1x Junk Destroyer
1x Junk Warrior
2x Drill Warrior
1x Black Rose Dragon
1x AOJ Catastor
1x Magical Android
1x Brionac

Deck's really consistent.

I didnt really want to run the 2x Call of Haunteds because in the opening hand, they were dead usually so yeah. I would really like to run it though but i have no idea what to take out atm. I mean, who wouldn't like to abuse Trooper more? =D

2 Bottomless is necessary to combat Angels etc.

E-con is incredible in here, especially against Angels. They go decently against everything else except DW.

Tomato accesses Sangan more and level 4 in grave for variance of play with Spore

Will try to fit in Recipro Dragonfly.

So basically the whole idea is to go Quasar or spam the field with many monsters.

Love the consistency especially with 3 Tunings, who cares if they are dead in hand at times, they can be Drill Warrior fodder, Rarely dead.

Problems that i am personally unsatisfied with, concerning the deck:

1) No extra boss monster besides BLS. Need to add in a Dark Armed or a Sorcerer

2) Trying to fit in Call of the Haunted

3) After all the Librarian draw whoring, i end up with a large hand... or nothing but combo pieces. Drawing more Junk Synchrons arent that bad though

4) No Book of Moon, but then i replaced it with Econ cos it works better.

5) I know Zephyrus seems a lil out of place since there is no 2x Call, but then he has been helping quite alot lately. 1600 summon and beat is also decent.

Reborn Tengus would make this deck like perfect lol. And yup Librarian should have been banned lol.

This is actually a pretty good format which i like, but will be playing only one deck since im slowing down. Maybe will get my spirits for Yugioh lit up when i head down to KL at the end of the year, but since Andrew and Cookie are quitting, its a bit demotivating.

Thats all for today, thank you for reading :)

Side deck this format post exp4

2x Maxx C
2x Thunder King Raioh
2x Breaker
2x DD Crow
1x Mystical Space Typhoon
1x Leeching the Light (yeah LOLOL)
2x Chain Disappearance
2x Mind Crush
1x Divine Wrath

Not mine, but just a skeleton of normal side decks etc, depending on what deck your running

Something funny: Billy Brake looks my local hairdresser. LOL

May stop Yugioh once and for all next year depending on where i go to further studies =)

KL Zexal Ranking Tourney Results

1st place- Sean- Chaos BF
2nd place- Zack Teoh - Junk Doppel
3rd place- Junk Doppel
4th place- Dark World

No. of Participants- 16

Sold my BLS to Sean for a "friend" price, so he decided to play Chaos BF in locals in KL yesterday.

Chaos BF actually is really good. Just throw 3x Raioh into the deck and you can play BLS

Obviously Raioh is a good meta call because its the best card to go against Angels, and Junk Doppel.

Also, 3 Raioh is enough for BLS because in BF, you can make Magical Android and no39 Utopia easily anyway, so yeah lol.

No decklist today because he doesnt want to reveal it. Note that there is still 3 Duality.

Got myself 2 Maxx Cs, Gonna work on this format's sidedeck now :)

While testing Junk Doppel

When i found time to playtest.... i found out that:

Divine Wrath is strong! And a good sidedeck option. From Baha's SS decklists, i noticed that the Junk Doppel players all sided at least one copy of Wrath. This is probably due to Herald of Orange Light or something, and because it is spell speed 3. Very useful. Maindecking is probably not a good idea though.

Enemy Controller in the maindeck is also good! :)

In Junk Doppel, it really reminds me of Brain Control, an incredibly broken card. The best thing is that its chainable and i like it best when my opponent Herald Orange my monster, i sac mine for theirs and still can do something for the turn :) Its quite versatile this format.

Been testing Dualities too. A lil wtf i know but the consistency boost is good, since im not running the Twilight-ish variant with Tragodias, and 2 Sorcerors.

Its just that i fear opening with Call of Haunted, 2x Sorceror and a bunch of other dead stuff in hand which have no synergy with each other. However, i will try testing them soon despite not being too appealing to me.

Junk Doppel has been amazing with Drill Warrior around, i feel like Avarice was not even touched on the list at all lol.

Thats all for today, thank you for reading

Random

Darksoul Ultra, Maxx C NR, Boggart SR, Infern Barrier C

X Saber players got trolled ! hahahha luckily i sold off my sabers recently. Barrier common maybe because Archfiends cost a bunch here. But apart from them, the deck is dead cheap.

Dragonic Legion announced: Light and Dark support for dragon type monsters.

Dragons tier 1 finally!

GS probably gonna reprint BLS.

The 2 products complement each other, good marketting ventures, Konami. More $$ to you

Dont know why many Malaysian duelists around dont want to buy BLS now, because they think its gonna be reprint in the new SD.

I highly doubt it as its more likely gonna be reprinted in GS as a Normal Rare, which is still gonna be costly and cost rm100++ anyway, so you might as well get it now. lol

Thats all for today. Waiting for my Asian BLS!

Mock Exams in 1 week

So, will not be posting much due to studying alot.

Once i complete my JD deck, i will probably post a pic up here or something.

DW September 2011

Monsters- 18
3 Snow
3 Grapha
3 Broww
2 Scarr
2 Beige
1 Morphing Jar
1 Fabled Raven
1 Sangan
2 Breaker the Magical Warrior
1 Dark Armed Dragon

Spells- 16
3 Dragged Down Into The Grave
3 Dark World Lightning
3 Gate of Dark World
3 Pot of Duality
1 Monster Reborn
1 Heavy Storm
1 Allure of Darkness
1 Card Destruction

Traps-
2 Mind Crush
1 Trap Dustshoot
2 Bottomless Trap Hole
1 Eradicator Epidermic Virus

Mind Crush ftw in here with 3 Dragged in to the Grave + Epidermic Virus

For obvious reasons, those Ryko + Raven builds arent making the cut this format anymore lol

Never really liked them anyway, personally

Thats all for today =)

Seans Grave BF

17 Monster
2x Card Trooper
1x Dark Armed Dragon
3x Knight of the End
2x Dark Grepher
1x Zombie Carrier
3x Black Feather - Sirocco of the Dawn
3x Black Feather - Vayu the Big Flag
1x Black Feather - Zephyros the Elite
1x Black Feather - Gale of the HUrricane

11 Spell
1x Dark Hole
1x Heavy Storm
1x Monster Reborn
3x Pot of Greederosity
1x Reinforcement of the Army
1x Burial from a Different Dimension
1x Allure of Darkness
2x Mystical Space Typhoon

12 Trap
1x Mirror Force
1x Torrential Tribute
2x Bottomless Trap Hole
1x Call of the Haunted
3x Icarus Attack
1x Dimensional Prison
1x Solemn Warning
1x Solemn Judgment
1x Trap Dustshoot

Extra
2x Black Feather - Armored Wing
2x Black Feather - Arms Wing
1x Black Feather - Silver Wind of the Isolated
1x Stardust Dragon
1x Trishula, Dragon of the Ice Boundary
1x Black Rose Dragon
1x Brionac, Dragon of the Ice Boundary
1x Gaia Knight, Force of the Earth
1x Scrap Dragon
1x Infernity Death Dragon
1x Ally of Justice Catastor
1x No. 39, Aspiring King Hope
1x Protector of the Founders, Tiras

Here are Sean's comments on the build.

Notes:
2 Card Troopers and no Rykos FTW! Maxed Sirocco and Vayus to maximize speed and the probability of generating OTKs. 2 Grephers for easier OTKs. No Sangan b'cos he's too slow.

3 Pots for easier and faster combo-setups (I usually side 1 out in game 2 and 3). My Pots have changed my hand from bad to good in many occassions!

1 Heavy and 2 MSTs is just awesome! (much better than 3 MSTs). Haven't dropped Mirror Force b'cos it's still a game-changer for me. No Starlight Road in main b'cos it's too situational.

1 Prison and 1 Warning to balance things out (might be switching back to "good-old" 2 Warnings or something else but will decide after more playtests).

I chose Call of the Haunted over Return from the Different Dimension (RftDD) b'cos RftDD has been more of a bad draw for me so far and paying half my LP for a big push is often too risky. Hence, I've decided to drop it. Call is just awesome with Trooper and Knight of the End!

I've recently replaced Chimeratech Fortress Dragon with Tiras for testing. (Example: I can use a Sirocco/Cyber Dragon and a Puppet Plant'd Shi En to Exceed Summon Tiras). Will include Empty Space Sea Serpent Levaiel if I manage to find an extra slot.

Not sharing my Side Deck b'cos it's a secret!

Now, yesterday i was discussing Card Trooper and Ryko with Sean and we both agreed how good Card Trooper was.

Notice that Sean doesnt run Ryko. The reasons are:

1) Its alot slower than Trooper

2) Its easily destroyed before you can mill.

3) You can only mill once. With Trooper, anybody can mill, attack, set up a BTH to protect it and repeat next turn.

4) Ryko is a 1 for 1, while Trooper is a +1 . Which many do not realize. Because you can mill, then pump attack to attack over your opponents monster (assuming this of course), and then when your opponent destroys it next turn, you get to draw a card.

Strangely, i love Card Trooper, but hate Ryko in my Junk Doppel. Now i know my personal wish for next banlist: Card Trooper to 3!

Okay happy netdecking =)

KL SG Wang Zexal Ranking Tourney Results

1st : Sean
Deck Used: Grave BF

2nd: Some guy with "long" in his name who eliminated Sam from Asian Tourney Top 16
Deck Used: Skill Drain TG (with Dark Bribes and 3x Horn of Phantom Beast)

Either 3rd of 4th is teammate Andrew with TG Agent Angels

Somewhere in top 8 is Kyde's Six Sam. He has a very strangely built deck. He has topped 2 weeks in a row, whereby he came in 2nd place last week while Sean also came in first last week.

Luckily, Kyde was kind enough to share with me his build:

Legendary Six Samurai-Kageki x3
Legendary Six Samurai-Kizan x3
Kagemusha of the Six Samurai x3
Grandmaster of the Six Samurai x2
Elder of the Six Samurai x1
The Six Samurai-Irou x1
Legendary Six Samurai-Enishi x1
(Monsters-14)

Six Samurai United x3
Asceticism of the Six Samurai x3
Shien's Dojo x2
Cunning of the Six Samurai x1
Gateway of the Six x1
Shien's Smoke Signal x1
Reinforcement of the Army x1
Monster Reborn x1
Heavy Storm x1
Dark Hole x1
Book of Moon x1
(Spells-16)

Double-Edged Sword Technique x2
Mind Crush x2
Trap Stun x2
Trap Dustshoot x1
Reinforce Truth x1
Solemn Judgment x1
Torrential Tribute x1
(Traps-10)

Unfortunately, im not a six sam expert and i cant comment on it :x

I will try to get Seans build and post it here if i get his consent.

So, yeah, i will be posting the results for the weekly ranking tourney every week =)

PS: got sean's build. will be posting it tmr, etc