Friday, July 27, 2012

New loves

Bored of yugioh until I went on Facebook and saw Karlo Bonillos water deck. It looked interesting and exciting and it seemed fun so I'll be testing it out after my exams. The mermaid xyz is a beast and there's a searchable divine wrath and the field spell is like inZektor ladybug which is so strong :D and no we dont use the ice spirit thingy. All credits of the deck goes to him and more updates coming soon !

Sunday, July 22, 2012

Abyss Rising

Damn just gotta love Konami for printing more delicious rank 4s for Dino Rabbit Asia format to use.

Gagagigo- 2950 beatstick although vanilla. Very strong, and worth dedicating one space of DR AF extra deck to. Could be useful.

Rating: 7/10 (in terms of card design)

Gagaga Gunman- Nice generic card to play. Attack boost is always nice and its versatile with 2 effects so you'll never know when he'll come in handy.

Rating: 7/10 in DR decks with equal functionality to Photon Papillosasdfgh (9/10 in terms of general card design. Any monster that can be looped with Infernity is O.O)

Snowdust Giant- Decent card to overlay your Kabazauls into. Good for the mirror match. Reveal Kabazauls/ in hand Snowmans and decrease attack? Nifty too.

Rating: 7.5/10 very balanced card.



Tuesday, July 17, 2012

The RFG Zone

I noticed several things about players when they play. Usually people always check their opponents graveyards to see if a card has been played or not, or to see how many pieces of a certain card your opponent has left in his deck.

But many people always forget about the removed from play zone. If you watch duel videos, you can notice that many people never touch the banished zone.

Sometimes maybe you forgot your opponent has a Veiler or a Damsel banished from BLS. Forgetting Veiler could end up with a mistake of calculating probability (anyone can do it, with college math), and forgetting Damsel is banished could get you in trouble with Leviar.


Monday, July 16, 2012

Playing Against Machina Gadgets

Seeing as how popular this deck is getting, i have had the opportunity to have several in depth testing sessions with Andrew who was using Machina Gadget.

Today's post discusses what you should do VS the deck.

So lets discuss what happens if you start second.

The first thing you should know about Machina Gadget is that you must Veiler the first Gadget or Gearframe you see. Usually they will use the Gadget to lure out the Veiler before committing with Double Summon to special summon another Gadget or Gearframe to search their stuffs.

Now at this point you might think im screwed as you have lost alot of advantage while your opponent has gained a ton of fuck and sits with 2 or more backrow.

After everything you are left with 5 cards during your turn (assuming you veiler-ed). Your opponent would have a total of 6 cards. The important thing to note here is that by using Double summon, your opponent has -1 himself so its just an illusion. The other thing to note is that you know 2 cards are Gadget/Gearframe so that leaves you with 3 more cards. Assuming your opponent set 1 backrow, you can safely say that the other 2 cards in hands are monsters, one probably being another gadget, or a veiler or limit break which he is conserving.

If he sets 2 cards, the other could be a monster, or a 3rd trap card he is unwilling to overextend with.

The comforting situation here is that with 2 set cards, you are likely to open up with one s/t removal which can eliminate one card already. That leaves you with another card to deal with. Which means you can bait it easily. Inzektors can easily do it by baiting a Centipede or something.
Lets say they set a Compulsory and a Warning, and you hit Warning (50% chance), then you can force your opponent to -1 to Compulsory your Inzektor. If you are playing Chaos Dragons, just drop a Lyla and fall back a turn.

Hieratics on the other hand have an easier way to deal with if you summon a Hanzo. Then you can follow it up with a Tefni, Su etc.

Assuming you have more than 1 trap, it makes it easier to deal with the Gadget/Gearframe/ Fortress he is about to drop. Another comforting thing is that Fortress causes your opponent to -1 , so it balances out the advantage they gained from Gadgets. If you have a BTH or a Warning you should save it for the Fortress.

Now assuming if you start first, what should you do?

My answer would be that if your using Inzektor you should explode with Damsel + Gruff immediately to summon a Tiras to lock down your opponent. If your Damsel does get Veilered, granted you'll still have some traps in your hand to back yourself up. If you don't, then sad story bro.

If your playing Hieratics, then well, just do your normal Card Car D or Hanzo farming. Later you just need to conserve 2 or 3 cards to set up a strong field once their backrow is gone. Gadgets may be consistent but they have small attack so it puts them at an disadvantage immediately. You could say they can still draw removal but not everything goes according to plan 100%.

One of the perks of going first against Gadgets means that you get to control the pace of the game, whereby if you set one trap with a Veiler in hand, it will cause the game to go at a faster pace. On the flipside, if you set multiple traps, the game will become slower since your opponent will have a dilemma whether to bait them out and waste his Double Summons, Gearframes, Fortresses and hence lower the amount of options he has. If he decides to conserve, your in a good position, but if he responds with a backrow war, then the game is likely to go in his favour.

The one thing to remember is that while Gadgets can gain an insane amount of advantage, you can too if your playing a meta deck ! Inzektors, Chaos Dragons, Hieratics all have insane ways to plus off.

Another thing is that even though they have an INSANE amount of advantage, some of their hand could be dead gadgets (staring at your field of big beaters).

Initially i had an impression that the deck was one of Inzektor's worst matchups but then I found out that the match was a 50-50 matchup. Every deck, no matter how perfect they seem, has their own inconsistencies, and fears. Thats why its important we take some time to play each and every deck for at least a week to know their weaknesses.

Oh and if your running Gravekeepers, you just need to throw down a Royal Tribute and sit back.

As for siding VS gadgets, the best card would be Mind Crush. Mind Crush is never dead vs gadgets and once you know their hand you can play accordingly. You can be a sohai , and wait for your opponent to MST it to gain more advantage. And while Gadgets are mostly run in 3s in each machina gadget, there is a chance of hitting more than 1. Mind Crush punishes Gadget players who try to conserve their Green Gadgets (highest attack) and whatnot.

Another incredibly effective set of cards are Dimensional Prison and Bottomless Trap Hole, which are 2 amazing game stabilizers, but were kicked aside due to inzektor. I still think that BTH is worth maining now in 1s or 2s since the only thing it doesnt hit is Damsel. Prison and BTH both remove Fortress and Gear Gigant X

For Inzektors, I could suggest siding Creature Swap. If this card sounds like a retard suicide tech, then i have to beg to differ. Nana sided 2 of this in his Inzektors which led him to pilot to top 8 spot in Japan's Nationals. Although Chariot came up with the concept (according to sources), i consider this a genius tech because they realized that Inzektors have bad hands sometimes so giving your opponent a Gruff/Hornet is too sweet while you take their big monsters. Swap works great by taking their Fortress, or Gear Gigant. Swap cannot be affected by Lance which is important to note. Summon Gruff and equip hornet and pop then swap. Sweet?

During locals, i also got to observe some players siding in Snowman Eater. Snowman can potentially slow them down and looks effective during playtesting, although it seems very mediocre in theory. I don't do this personally, and i'm iffy about this but i wouldnt mind giving it a try. Problem is the probability of oversiding in matchups.

While your reading this, you may wonder where the hell is Cyber Dragon? While Cyber Dragon works like a power card vs Gadget Machina, i dont feel it is solid enough, mainly because putting 2 in your deck means that one could be dead in the late game if your staring down a Fortress, assuming you have already used one on Chimera. This means you need to put Cyber Dragon at 1, but if you run the card at 1, what are the odds of you drawing it? Chimera in extra deck already takes up 1 precious slot, and Cyber Dragon is easily countered by generic traps if you rely on it too heavily.

Of course these are my personal thoughts since Cyber Dragon only counters one matchup effectively in the Asia format and everybody knows that each side card should be versatile and can counter more than 1 matchup.

Anyway its been a long while since i wrote an essay on my blog. Expect the next few posts to be short and sweet. Ciao



Sunday, July 15, 2012

Top Shop Qualifier Tourney Report

So i decided to head down to locals yesterday and try to help Kyde qualify.

I decided to use machina gadget for fun. So i borrowed andrews stuffs and built a deck and random side in the morning.

round 1: VS a random guy

Gadget mirror

Game 1: I summon green gadget and he laughed and he had a retarded attitude which made me annoyed and i was playing conservatively because i thought he had Machinas too. One important part of this game was he maindecked Cyber Dragon which really really caught me off guard. Killed him soon after i farmed alot of advantage

Game 2: I was confident that he had no Machina so i tried to do the usual gadget + double summon plays to fork some advantage. I didnt have any traps while he had a full backrow but i wasnt worried if he plussed with Giganto or kept a Gadget in his hand because i could easily take it out next turn. Suddenly he flip DNA surgery and declared dino and i was stunned literally. Lagia + full backrow was too strong. I eventually got over everything but he just summon Gadget + he had removal for mine and wiped out my lifepoints. Reminded me of the 5th gadget deck concept back in the old days :/

Game 3: He had full backrow and opened Ultimate Offering while i stared an orange hand. Nothing to do here.

OXX

round 2: Chang Yin aka the sohai

Game 1: We came to a stalemate and we were topdecking and he summoned either Hornet or Gruff + topdecked gigamantis which he popped and brought back damsel :O

Game 2: I controlled with my gadgets and then he topdecked allure to reveal hornet and centipede but i suddenly remembered something funny which i wanted to try out. I told him to take it back because after draw phase he was in standby phase, and he hadnt reached main phase and then i chained Mind Crush and sealed the game.

Game 3: I had Macro up and we were at a point in mid game where he topdecked Monster reborn to revive his centipede which my gadget couldnt get over as most of my traps were gone. Next turn he played Mind Control to remove my Gadget and attacked over my cards >.>

OXX

Scrub ! I will never play Machina Gadgets again.

I decided to play the remaining rounds for the fun of it.

round 3: friend of random guy so i figured he was running a retarded deck too.

Game 1: I Gadget, dual summon into Maelstroke and he compulsory. I gadget and dual summon again into Maelstroke since i wanted to avoid BTH. Beatdown then set 2. In his turn, he played Heavy Storm, Future Fusion into 3 Jinzos and showed me Limiter Removal.  :000000

The whole day i got Yugioh-ed.

Game 2: I killed him fast after he played a retarded Power Bond on Cyber Dragon and something else and made Cyber Twin and i flipped Compulsory.

Game 3: This was a very retarded long match as first turn he set 5, and a face down monster. I assumed it was gonna be some Cyber Phoenix or random stuff but I attacked into Morphing jar. He had 11 cards to my 6 cards and i thought i was fucked. he had so much Waboku + Threatening Roar and my Giganto got BTH but i eventually played around all his cards and killed Future Fusion with Raigeki break. I then played Avarice and Offering and won from there. There was a bit of a debate as the retarded Lagia Gadget guy was sitting down next to him telling him what to do and i got pissed at a point.

XOO

Round 4: Siao Sian Lee

Chaos Dragons

Game 1: I set backrow and gadget and then killed his Laila and reborn it then summon gadget and got too much advantage.

Game 2: He randomly MST my solemn judgment then Chaos Dragon god hand me after Decree :(

Game 3: I opened good and he opened good and at one point i had 3 set traps and I MST his Royal Decree just to find that he had another copy face down ! I took a beating from REDMD and Pulsar then during my turn i drop out 2 Machina Fortress to whack his Pulsar and he special summoned another from his graveyard but my Fortress destroyed his other REDMD. Fortress #2 whack his other REDMD and I destroyed his Decree. Next turn i Compulsory his REDMD but he summon Wyvern and banished for REDMD but i flipped BTH and he gave me the hand shake.

OXO

Insert conspiracy here and i gave him the win so he would make top 4.

so i finished 2-2 :( then became the cameraman and shot kydes semi final videos. damn wtf his opponent play for 26 mins in one game. Battery life suxxxx.

things i learnt from yesterday:

1) I suck at gadget
2) I hate suicide bomb decks.
3) I can do retarded sharking with Mind Crush =D
4) Im a random scrub :)
5) Never play a deck which you had never played before in your life. I didnt think i'd finish this bad but owells.


Friday, July 13, 2012

Chain Disappearance

random filler post. so.

cd is a very very solid sideboard card now for asia format and is better than it was before

you may think what does this deck kill besides inzektors?

the truth is it absolutely:

1) destroys trooper

2) it is even better when they summon Hornet and try bait out your removal then you chain disappearance

3) it kills the new water deck: deep sea diva and maybe some of the atlantean cards

4) kills Hieratics. High attack? I dont think so. Eset is 1000 attack, REDMD special summoned by Atums is 0 , and killing 1 Vanila can mean alot to their combo. The only thing that destroys it is MST but MST @ 3 is really annoying and kills just about anything anyway

5) Can avoid opponent's Chain Disappearance in mirror match. They chain to my Inzektor/trooper and I disappearance my own in response and opponents stuff gets removed. sweet stuff there =)

also nifty to kill random wind up inzektors around. quite good to be sided in 2s

Sadly it doesnt do anything vs Machina Gadget and Chaos Dragon so its not maindeck worthy

Sunday, July 8, 2012

Banlist Post

So, this will be a mixture of what I think should happen, and what Konami MIGHT do. Im damn lazy to divide it into 2 separate posts so bear with me.

Banned:

Monster Reborn
BLS

I can see Konami banning either 1 of this but not 2 of this together, although i know both SHOULD be banned. I would much rather see MR be banned because its retarded but Konami might just let us have a generic topdeck god card so im not really sure what they're gonna do.

I think BLS should be banned because anything running 3 Tour Guide and 3 Veiler as a toolbox can automatically include this card.

Then again September banlist is when Konami lets the game go on a retarded rampage so im not too sure about this.

Mind Control
I dont know how many Inzektor mirror matches i have lost to this or how many i've won with this. Destroys Bounzer, Force Focus, Crimson Ninja and everything and it is almost as broke as Brain Control in the xyz format

Future Fusion

Needs no explanation.

Limit to 1:

Magician of Faith
Im not too sure about this. But i dont think it would make much difference if it came back because its slower and you'll take the risk to play it. Furthermore it doesnt have much synergy with other top decks around. People might splash it in Inzektor to get more lights and apart from taking Heavy Storm, Reborn, or MST, it doesnt do much. Not like you wanna early game and take Duality. Then again i could be wrong and it could make an impact.

Tsukuyomi
I'd like to see this come back. It'd be interesting. Konami may just release this or MOF and im hoping it will be this. Basically anything which isnt TOO generic like BLS or TGU, or too theme specific wont make that much impact i think. Tsukuyomi functions abit like a Maelstroke and the fact that he has to be normal summoned continuously makes it slower. Putting Tsukuyomi in Machina Gadget with Double Summons and Offerings maybe a lil sick. It could also be splashed into Hero Beat for fun because of its effect.

Dark Magician of Chaos
If reborn goes, this will almost do nothing. I think. 


Spore
This is something i'd like to see. This MIGHT bring Plant back to being a viable tier 2 deck. Without Glow Up Bulb.

Miracle Fusion
Hero is too strong now as it is topping everywhere and Hero can OTK very fast and has the most consistency and this just leads to it being a power topdeck. After one of Japan's Nationals winning with Arrive Bubble Beat, I'd say that Hero is the best deck for Worlds.

Rekindling
Too imbal in Laval

Goyo Guardian
I'd like to see BF get back in the competitive zone

Limit to 2:

Rescue Rabbit
Rabbit @3 is lol. Rabbit @1 will kill the deck off. Putting it to 2 will make it balanced. Once TGU and Dolka reaches OCG shores, the game should become quite diverse and balanced.

BF Kalut the Moonshadow
I'd like Bf to see more competitive play.

Agent of Mystery Earth
For Agents to come back in the game.

Inzektor Dragonfly
Inzektor Hornet

I'm sure Konami will not hit Inzektors TOO hard because it is somewhat like BF and they will slowly hit it. It also boosts their sales of xyzs because inzektors are one of the most generic deck for spamming exceeds. Putting Hornet to 2 doesnt do shit so i think Dragonfly will go to 2. Inzektors may be the best deck, but many pro players are faring away from the deck namely because:

1) it is too mainstream and if you meet a pro player, it's gonna be hard because they know how to play around it or against it

2) It can commit too much to the field. Lets say you have a hand of Hornet, Damsel, MST, Veiler and some other trap. Do you think it is good? I think its a terrible hand because if you think about it, if your opponent has a second or third trap, or if they throw down a Veiler, you will be able to do nothing and are forced to topdeck it out. Basically if all you have is 1 inzektor, and it gets Veilered then its basically downhill from there.

3) It has retarded consistency problems. Believe is or not. 3 centipede, 3 damsel, 3 hornet, 3 gruff can still give you retarded hands of multiple centipedes and anything else.

4) The deck is playing at technically 5 cards if you open up with an Inzektor Hornet. Because Hornet is part of a combo so you are actually holding 5 cards. Its damn pain if your opponent opens Stratos, Card car D, Gadget, Gearframe, Rabbit so you'll have to face 7 cards. If you are pro and your opponent is a normal player its not hard to play around, but if you are facing a veteran in a tournament, then you're fucked. lol

Despite many players from the TCG saying how linear Inzektors are, i strongly disgaree and i think they are the most skill based deck lol. Any OCG player will probably tell you the same thing too

Mystical Space Typhoon
Having 3 in the game is a nightmare. I was contemplating for it to go to 1 but i felt that was too much and 2 is the right number to keep the game interesting. It is a very good card in inzektors because it helps you deal with Hornet or Gruffless hand.

Hieratic Seal of Convocation.
Tier 1 rota.

Mirror Force
I could see this card coming to 2. Kyde brought it up once since the game has alot of otk so Konami may bring this back to deal with more otk since Torrential Tribute to 2 didnt help. To top it off, it isnt popular anymore at all.

Unlimited
I dont bother to tamper with this part of the banlist. Im sure konami will release 1 or 2 out of 5 or 6 changes which may have significant changes on the game like maybe malicious, or necro gardna but whatever.

Some other stuffs include:

Why Royal Oppression wont come back
Because I dont think Konami likes a single card that can kill off an entire deck. Sure theres the MST at 3 argument but its Yugioh bro.

cyber stein
This is incredibly personal and i'd like to see how you will survive if you bring out Last Warrior from Another Planet/ Cyber Dragon fusion.

Why i didnt think of hitting REDMD?
Hitting it will kill off Hieratics straight and despite the deck being incredibly OTK-ish its not easy to play either and it require skills much like Inzektors.

The bottom line, the point of making banlist predictions is out of pure amusement and to share thoughts. It doesnt matter what we post because in the end Konami is making the decision, not us, and i am sure Konami wont even read our blogs.

Who cares what comes back, what doesnt come back or how fucked up the game is, because we may rant for a while, but deep down inside we all know that ranting is pointless and the best players are the ones who adapt, and use it to their advantage to continue topping.




Saturday, July 7, 2012

Rabbit Hanzo

Something i was testing at GA just now.

Its very consistent and even though i opened with 2 Kabazauls, or 3 Duality, 2 Hanzo, i still managed to survive but if i draw it together with crap like Lance i think i will die flat out because its not TCG where you can grind game out because theres Inzektors everywhere.

After playing competitive Yugioh, i think i can safely say i feel damn lazy to blog about YGO and such apart from tourney reports or short posts on other stuff. I think many other competitive players feel the same too except LGQ and Kyde. LOL.

Why Safe Zone? Cos Michel Gruner says its good.

Post end.