Saturday, June 29, 2013

WCQ Discussion

Today, i am gonna be writing what i think would be the most important article i have written this whole year, or probably one of the most in the history of my blogging days.

The title is very very vague and does not go into depth the 2 issues i am mainly going to talk about today.

Today, i am also going to address 2 very VERY sensitive issues, which could be very well regarded as the 'racism' or 'religion' topics of yugioh, if we had any.

Today, i am also going to be as frank as i can be, hence there will be no metaphors in my words, no "hinting" or shooting anybody indirectly. In fact, i will be doing the exact opposite: i will be criticising directly.

The first thing i am going to talk about is the OCG vs TCG argument with regard to the WCQ retrospect.

It first occured a few weeks ago when Yugioh edition Singapore FB page congratulated Irwin Arogo for his victory in the Phillipines.

A loud mouthed German player by the name of Nick J Lloyd (whom some of you may have heard of) instigated an OCG-TCG verbal war when he uttered something similar to the likes of:

1) if i was in OCG I will win everyday.
2) Its so easy to top in the Asia region.

This immediately got various OCG players shooting him down for his words. I can easily find the picture source for this, but i am not going to provide it here.

There are 2 sides to this argument. OCG players have every right to boast because generally, ALMOST every year of WCQ has been won by OCG players. You also have to take into account, most rulings are favoured towards the OCG where rulings which conflict in OCG/TCG follow the OCG rulings in worlds.

It is very obvious that Nick was being a douchebag by saying that. His reason for that is that in Asia (not including Japan) , the player base is so small (less than 200, some are just a little above 100), and that makes it easier to top.

The arguments OCG players brought up was that OCG > TCG and just because he thinks its smaller, does it necessarily mean that he will win all the way? Some comments even pointed out that he cannot make it past round 1/2 because of various reasons such as single elimination format etc bla bla

Now, i am going to give my point of view.

No doubt Nick was wrong to say that, but he had some valid points too. As a person who has played in Asia (Malaysia) and TCG (Australia), i think my opinion will be quite accurate.

So, the first thing i would like to say is :  Nick is right !

With TCG events going over 500-1000 players and even 2000 (for USA!), it is going to be very hard to make the top cut. Why?

The variance is so strong that you will very likely meet some randy deck which will sack the shit out of you (thunder family fml), or something else which you will cause you to lose out. Even if you win the remaining matches, the fact that a randy who beat you early who would probably lose out in the remaining swiss rounds, means your tiebreaks will be terrible. So even if you go X-1 or X-2, because you lost to a nobody who probably dropped after round 4/5, there is no way you can make it into the top 16/32/64.

At the same time , even if you do very well as in you do go X-1 against decent opponents, there is a chance that you do not make it in too due to a large number of players, so there will be many X-1/X-2s, and thus, you will lose out coz their other players have good tiebreaks. For example, my friend Jono Ritzau (OC worlds rep 2012) went to 1 of the YCS (the 1 which satoshi topped), and went X-2 but did he top? No. Thus, due to this, luck plays a huge part where you have to meet good players and beat them to get better tiebreaks.

Looking at it from Asia's POV, to go to top 16 or whatever, you just need to go X-1, or X-2 with about 120 players (average). Furthermore the chances for variance drop alot, and you also have to consider the fact that with a smaller playerbase, our players know what the potential opponent is playing before even playing them , so you can avoid certain plays etc. You also have to play lesser rounds in swiss or single eli, (usually 5), however Malaysia had a 7 swiss round for this yr's WCQ which was an interesting change.

So, to go to the top 64, (32 from day 1, 32 from day 2 are seeded), with a playerbase of 90 players, you only need to go 5-2 to be safe , or 4-3 to even qualify. This makes it relatively easier. Is this painful to hear? Yes, as an Asian player (originally) too i have to admit it is, but we have to accept it. Our Asian qualifiers are RELATIVELY EASIER.

However, there is the other fact that OCG> TCG. In my opinion, i would also have to agree. While the qualifiers are easier, so to top you can easily go into top 16/top 8 bla bla, but the cream of the crop in OCG are better than cream of the crop in MOST TCG regions (take note i said most not all). Is this painful to hear? Yes it is, but we also have to accept it.

Back to the point above^: whereby OCG > TCG, however you cannot disregard TCG players (i have come to learn this the hard way), some TCG players are really really good. I am going to bring up 2 instances. For example, i will say that TCG dragon players are better than Asian dragon players. When playing against Chris Mattiske in the final round of Swiss in Nats, i had a shock as he was really good. "Unreal, he had the tuner!". Fellow HLG teammate Wesley Seek also told me, it is funny as the reason why he can breeze through alot of his dragon matchups more easily in his WCQs is because most of the practice he had on DN were with TCG players which were really good. These players include players with the IGN of Crimson Flare, 902, rapture, and many more which i cant rmbr. I also have to admit this, because dragons are a very grindy deck, and we all know TCG players are generally more grindy and conservative in nature compared to OCG players.

I am done with the first issue now and i will talk about the second issue.

The second issue regards the Singapore- Malaysia WCQ phenomenom.

For some of you who do not know, for MASWCQ, many Singaporeans have headed down to MAS for a shot at the trophy!

This has gotten many many complaints from the mas citizens as they felt that they have been invaded with players who do not belong to the country. Naturally, for MASWCQ, its just fair to assume that malaysians should have the right to compete on their own without interruption.

However there is 1 fact that i would need to address. Everybody knows that Singaporean players are generally looked up upon by Malaysian players. MAS players cringe at the sound of a SG pro or if they are paired up against SG players in a match. MAS players feel inferior to their SG counterpart. There is no need to deny it, because its true. Hence, an invasion of SG players usually mean that they are afraid that the singaporeans will disrupt their wcq and knock out some of their chances of winning their matches or topping.

It is true because last ACQ, the top 8 was dominated by Wesley, Putra, Sam, and Alex who are all Sg players, and today in MAS WCQ, about 11-12 players in the top 32 in swiss are Singaporean players. That is a huge chunk considering a little less than 20 players travelled down from Sg to play.

So do i blame my fellow malaysians? no i dont. In their situation, i would hate it if my chances were destroyed by players who were from another country. However, in the TCG, konami has a policy whereby each player can join any wcq of their choice, but only 1. This means disregarding your nationality, you can play anywhere you like but you can only play 1 wcq per year. There has been nothing (to my knowledge) regarding OCG so singaporean players have every right they want if they wanna play in Malaysia.

But then, you have to look at it from the bigger picture. Scrolling through the images of standings, pairings, and just overall the entire tournament in play, i found out 2 very different things which can only be viewed from a 3rd person's POV, without biasedness.

The first is that with SG ppl coming down, its actually a blessing in disguise for our players. In this case, malaysian players actually have to increase their skill in order to win, and this creates a more competitive environment. This basically appeared to me when fellow players like Shahmir, Kyde, Johnson, and many more defeat some very big names and appear in the top tables. Good job to ma bois who topped ! (many which i cannot name all). Does it mean Sg players are all better than malaysian players? Maybe generally, but definitely there are instances which are not the case. Our players have also adapted (slowly adapting) and becoming better and better.

Give them some time, i guarantee the malaysian players will become better. Those who continually give excuses or just give up do not deserve to top. This shows they do not want it badly, and they aren't serious about the game and just want the plate handed to them on a silver platter. If you are serious, you will change for the better.

Its also good experience to play with somebody who is not of your country. You get to see various playstyles, various techs, and its basically just a good eye opener.

Malaysia has often been involved in articles relating to the brain drain, which means many citiziens are moving out of malaysia for a better living environment. Usually they move to Western countries or to more advanced Asian countries commonly, Singapore.

The phenomenom now is opposite to the brain drain. Instead of good resources leaving us, we are having good resources enter the country !

The second thing is how Malaysians and Singaporeans are integrating together and getting to know each other personally. This is good because it can lead to card discussions, bringing out the best of both worlds for both countries' citizens, and it gives malaysians a chance to learn from them. Making more friends is NEVER a bad thing, and its beneficial to both sides. This gives malaysians a chance to talk with them, and establish a calm and cheerful environment. No doubt a little bit of tension will always exist (because they are of a different nationality), but who are we to  regard that?

There have been many comments on our FB pages like "is this really MASWCQ looks like SGWCQ to me" but 1 particular comment from Sung Lee showed that there were people who also looked on the brighter side of things. He said something like "its ok, lets all work hard tomorrow, and support each other".

Before i end, i want to say nobody bribed me to write the fucking retarded article, i wrote it just because its fresh off my thoughts and i think it would be a waste not to point this out. I mean every single thing i said in here, and i know it could cause potential arguments or flaming, but i still will post it up.

The bottom line is, if something occurs, you can choose to look at it negatively, or to take it as something positive.

I am not flaming people who dislike the singaporeans coming in, i know how you feel because i was once skeptical of it too, but sometimes you should just have to look at it differently you kno.

Also, check out kanye's new album #yeezus, shit is real.


Thursday, June 27, 2013

Sealed Play: Battle Pack 02

WARNING: DO NOT READ THIS POST UNLESS YOUR PLANNING TO PLAY SEALED bp02 OR GOING TO THAT YCS IN EUROPE WHICH IS SEALED

So i managed to have a first hand draft session with 7 other friends at my local store today.

It sounded fun so why not! + i have NOO idea whats in the set besides the egyptian gods (reprinted in original art fuckyessexy) and also some money cards like megalo and breakthrough skill and carcarD

So, im here to blog about the sealed pack on:

1) How you should play it+ what is it really about
2) is it skilled based
3) what is goodddddd inside
4) blowout fuck stuff

so point 1 will be on how you should play it.

Hearing from some friends, the pack was designed to be about beatdown monsters and stuff where konami wants you to focus on summoning some big ass monster and control with it. That means there are less sacky shit and there is no heavy storm, dark  hole etc but reborn does exist (some cunt used DMOC + reborn :( on me  )

So, im gonna go into it as fast as i can because i hate typing and writing essays

1) how should you play it?

The first thing you should notice is card advantage isnt very important in this game. Sure you know your basics but then the main thing you should have are a balance of :

a) big monsters ! (if you open a pack and open a fkiing huge tribute monster like dmoc, barbaros machine king thingy, and superconductor tyrano, darklord desire take it!! its better than randy lvl 7 weaklings like brain crusher which i got unfortunately :(

b) attack boosters, or attack interruptors such as shrink, mirror wall , ego boost and alot of cards which i cant rmbr the name but you will encounter em.

c) protection+ stallers- this includes stuff such as waboku and shit

d) spellz  (which i got none except 1 shard of greed)

e) weeny monsters! these monsters are designed to be exceptionally good where they have recurring effects or they just cant be destroyed by battle. There are some really fucking broken weeny monsters.

Basically you summon monsters and grind and set backrow you exhaust everything. In this set, car carD isnt as good as an attack booster but reborn is still very good.
-----------------------------------------------------------------

2) Was it skilled based?

yes and NO. in some points, the skill comes from deckbuilding and choosing what is good and what is not, and then integrating it for deck balance.

Also, the skill comes from how you summon monsters to block and set up for a situation where your opponent cant come back from.

For those who love grindy formats, you'll love this !!

But the contradictory part here is that advantage isnt as important despite it being a grindy format. AND the monsters are the stars of the game.

The part which is skillless involves you having to answer your opponent immediately to his monster, so basically if he summons a big ass and you have 2 backrow and a defence monster, he is forced to attack over you, and you are forced to answer to it immediately. It takes skill to plan your moves but its so autopilot after that since everything just plays out from there.. you cant really read or bluff your opponents set and stuff because you KNOW FOR SURE its a trap etc and you need to answer to it anyway.

It was definitely something fun and felt fun especially when you use blowout cards to win.
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3) what is good inside!

1) darklord desire
2) obelisk the tormentor
3) dark magician of chaos
4) reborn
5) premature burial
6) aye iron
7) truckroid
8) ego boost
9) bazoo the soul eater
10) shocktopus
11) barbaros machine king thingy
12) reasoning
13) goblin attack force
14) steamroid
15) magical arm shield
16) cyber dragon
17) graceful charity
18) coth
19) metal reflect slime
20) copycat
21) cloning

what to avoid like the plaque

1) treeborn frog - sux shit with infnite backrow
2) brain crusher
3) airkkinight parshath
4) tiki trap monsters
5) weak monsters
6) magician of faith (unless u have reborn and u used it early game and draw her u sacky shit
7) card trooper - with 20 cards in ur deck, you dont exactly wanna mill your resources and 1900 is not impressive + takes alot of damage when it dies
8) card car d

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Blowout cards

1) octopus - im not sure the name of the card but it was an octopus, and when its destroyed, you can equip to your opponents monster and its attack becomes 0 and position cant be unchanged. Pretty sick effect its like removal for any big monster since dark hole mirror force and torrential tribute and stuff doesnt exist. So, if you get it, USE IT.

2) aye iron- this card was given to me as a last card in the pack which no 1 wanted. I didnt read it until i build my deck. When i read it i was like fuck what is this thing its so broke. its a 1600 attack monster which lets u add 400 attack permanently if u didnt attack with it this turn.

what makes this such a blowout is that it is literally the best opener in the entire set especially if u open with it. It is imposibble to deal with it turn 1 because statistically, you would have drawn into some of your backrow cards. 2000 attack on first turn is pretty good + 400 every subsequent turn. If you get this card take it immediately !

3) truckroid- yes you heard me. truckroid. cards legit as fuck. at 1000 attack it doesnt seem much, but everytime it destroys something, the monster is equipped to truckroid and truckroid gains its attack. My truckroid ate 2 monsters and became 4200, and it ate a barbaros maching king, and became 4800 fuck yea.

With all the attack position changers truckroid is crazy!! Card is so good with octopus and no entry. Especially if your opponent overextended with his field and you open no entry and turn all attack stuff to defence. Which comes down to skill. No entry is like the torrential tribute in the set where you cant overextend too much if not all your stuff turns to defence and your opponent attacks over it. Also, most of the attack boosters dont work on your monsters in defence anyway so no entry is definitely a legit card.

4) mecha phantom beast hamstrat- yes thats right ! 2 free tokens is good i heard ! defence + tribute fodder.

This is basically all i can rmbr about this set and im sure all the ocg readers are bored as fuck. There is so much more which we never got to see / explore.

So, short tourney report:

r1: Yi

g1: I summon aye iron and rape
g2: he had infintie backrow where i had none so i just die after he time machine his big monster back.
g3: this was a very back and forth game where i was controlling until he dropped barbaros machine king. He controlled for a while before summoning DMOC + premature on his barbaros. I summon truckroid and with the help of octopus, i made truckroi 4800 attack but next turn he had earthquake to turn truckroid to def and i lost.

x-1

r2: Robin

g1: aye iron is good.slowly controlled + beatdown
g2: he summon a whole horde of monster and i lost
g3: its now my turn to summon monster horde + shard of greed !

x-1

r3: andy

g1- i breakthrough skill his steamroid and truckroid ate it with the help of a trap. next turn it ate his gilasuruas and he scooped
g2- i cant rmbr what happen but i controlled with shard of greed and backrow and some big monsters

x-1

so i went 2-1 in 3 round of swiss and the guy before me picked the obelisk :((

Also egyptian god is 1 per box and i ended up with shitty breakthrough skill (although its worth more money) :((((

 farkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk





Thursday, June 20, 2013

castle of dragon souls

the new card for the mirror match. or for dragons.

Raising 700 attack while giving you a +1 is fucking good in my opinion.

700 does so much in other matchups even for prophecy, and evilswarm.

Castle + chalice + reactan = ophion die.

Its definitely a sleeper card.

If destroyed by dragosack, special summon another dragon to fuel as defence while next turn you get it back in your grave.

Can be used for otk abilities too. Storm field while dragonic is fd, and proceed to summon another dragon.

Whatmore, they think their colosal can whack your crimson blader? Fuck off.

They think you cant kill them with blaster, tempest and tidal? Fuck off

They think their redox is strong? fuck off.

damage step ppl!

Big eye + Vanity? Np Econ + reactan + dragon souls

Has soo much potential in dragons now since its basically a better Returrn from different dimension. Also fuels rftdd

Chalice their dragon in response to Crimson Blader in dmg step? Castle of dragon souls.

FUCKING GOOD CARD DESIGN KONAMI (no pun intended)

Luckily you can only use 1 copy.

Whoever uses 1 will have an edge in the coming Asia WCQs =)

Monday, June 17, 2013

JUST A HUNCH

WHAT IF KONAMI DESIGNED DRAGON RULERS TO BE USED WITH MONARCHS

IM TALKING ABOUT THE NEW MONARCHS FROM SHADOW SPECTRE.

DRAGON RULERS = INFINITE TRIBUTE FODDER

THAT SICK TRAP ROTA WHICH SEARCHES MONARCHES.

MONARCHES WHICH GAIN ADDITIONAL EFFECT IF TRIBUTED WITH A MONSTER OF SAME ELEMENT

ALSO SHADOW SPECTRES IS SEX.

BUY ALL THE BOXES !

Friday, June 14, 2013

Dragon Rulers: The Ideal List

What would i have played ? If i could go back:



Lol nah jokes, Its true that i would have played prophecy, but then learning it takes ages, and i dont have access to judgment days, Junons etc. 

So..... down to the dragon list! 


PS: This is a horrible list. It is just in testing.

The first thing you notice is i cut breakthrough skill for forbidden chalice. Chalice > BTS imo, and i would just play 2.

The 2nd thing you notice is i am replacing Droll birds in main for psy blocker.

The deck is at 42, because i am cutting dark hole to my side deck, (i am playing 41 cards)

I am also only going to discuss side for prophecy and mirror here because nothing else really matters. If you lose to thunder family, you can join me in the hall of shame =)

THE REASON WHY I AM PLAYING REBORN IS BECAUSE I HAVE MADE MY DECK MOAR CONSISTENT BY CUTTING OUT DROLL AND NOT REAL BIRD.

However, i have not had time to revamp my sidedeck.

Playing Fusiiler + EEV is amazing but fusiler can be horrible at times in the sense that you need skill drain to back it up. Of course you can choose to side in skill drain eev fusilier into verz but i would not recommend it because your deck already destroys verz (i would just bring in the MST)

yesterday i was testing 2 decree, 2 horus, and 2 puppet plant.

Now i will go over various side cards:

Fusilier + skilldrain + eev- really good but a 2 card combo can be hard to assemble. Skill drain is amazing vs prophecy, and fusilier at 2.8k puts in alot of work. Never eev on standby phase. Always wait till they can deal with their fusilier and then eev. Or wait till they play something and you chain to make their tower star hall miss timing. However, beware that prophecy players will try to bait out your eev as much as possible sometimes when they dont even have tower in hand. Do NOT be taken in and suckered. Conserve and make the optimal timing play.

Puppet plant- This card is amazing. Taking jowgen, blowing him up, Taking kycoo and stpping plays is more than amazing. I just want to make love to this card if i could.  7/10

EEV- EEv has incredible inconsistencies and the only consistent way to resolve it is to play it along with fusilier. But to play that, you must also play skill drain just in case your opponent has a full monster/trap hand. It is also one of the only ways to destroy a whole set up field of star halls/tower.
7/10

decree + horus- was amazing at first but then it became horrid in the end when i drew horus with card destruction. or when i drew horus lvl 8 with ntg else in hand, and from that moment on i knew i would nvr fucking touch horus ever again. and neither should you. Like its amazing if you resolve it, but you do NOT auto win. because jowgen, junon, Lily, and compuls is still a card.  0/10

Kycoo- amazing card nonetheless. Worth siding and making space for it. 7/10

Ryko- decent card in slow grind games. Can be used vs verz too. Ryko should be paired with Tsukuyomi for an ideal side. 6/10

MST- one of the best side cards. You must play it to hit soul drain etc 8/10

Tsukuyomi- really good card but psy blocker is superior imo. Tsukuyomi is stellar but it is also really predictable. 7/10

droll & lock bird- 5/10. this card is really really good, but i always draw him at the wrong time so biasedness reduces it to 5/10 :(

These are the only cards i consider playing vs prophecy.

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Dragon mirror-

Compulsory evacuation device- really really good card and one of the only cards which helps you break the vanity emptiness big eye lock. Effective vs OCG if they try to emptiness + stardust you. 8/10

Electric virus- good too but then it can only hit dragons and machines. Doesnt have much cool chaining utilities compared to econ. 6/10. Can be easily played around.

Enemy Controller- the superior e-virus. can be used to take opponent's crimson blader, or prevent a crimson blader attack. can also prevent a colossal fighter otk ^^ You can chain to big eye if they veiler and then proceed to take  2 of their cards. Teammate first tested this card before Japan and DGz and was supposed to be a surprise card to take WCQ but sadly everyone else found out about it before hand :D  9/10

vanity's emptiness- another really good card with potential. Emptiness allows you to dictate the pace of the duel by choosing when to turn it off. Most of the time they wont be able to get rid of your field if you are controlling with emptiness, lest they clear your monster with dark hole. Then next turn you can proceed to swarm and bait out their scarecrow.  8/10

Swift scarecrow- the best sidedeck card. a must play in 2. 10/10

Obelisk- During testing on dn, obelisk was awesome. Then you take it to a 8 round swiss tournament and its inconsistencies start to show. I would not recommend you siding this. 5.10

Exploder dragon- the alternative to obelislk. Exploder allows you to stop obelisk because it doesnt target. I would rather side exploder because it is more versatile as it helps with rogue matchups and Verz.

My side for dragon will definitely include either 2 compul/2 emptiness , 2 scarecriow and at least 1 econ.

My side for prophecy will not include horus and decree , however i may test the fusilier eev side, or just side mst, eev, puppt plant and kycoos (a combination of them)

I am not giving a definite build because dragons are a very personal build but i am suggesting what i think is good, and you can choose to test them. At the same time i dont have the time to fully test out my choices as im in the midst of exams.

Thats all for today.








Thursday, June 13, 2013

Mastering the dragon mirror : Back to the Basics

So, im back with ANOTHER ARTICLE, because i simply feel like it.

This article is written to help some of you guys out there realize that the dragon mirror is actually more skill based than you think !

It took me 1 game vs Christopher mattiske in the very last round of nationals swiss (oceanic champion) to realize that i was doing it wrong. In game 1, i had a reju for 5, and a maxx Cand 2 Veilers (in which 1 of them i used to make Ancient Sacred Wyvern), while he had only 1 veiler and 1 Maxx C throughout the whole game. Looks like i would have won right? Fraid not, he baited out my stuff, and killed me with Crimson blader in the last moment. My misplay was that i should have let his Big eye steal my mnster, and saved the Veiler for another play incase he had Reborn or a tuner in hand. I disregarded the probability out of greediness so that i will just outright trash him with like 1000 to 1 card advantage and it cost me the game after he bladers me and destroys my other momster with his big eye (which i veilered).

That led me to alot of thinking the night after. What was i doing wrong? In all of my playtestings, i had found out whosoever had more reju, veiler, maxx c would win. Usually that was the case.

Fastforward to last night where 1 of my teammates asked me to playtest, and i decided to test some theories.

Game 1: I bait him into a collosal fighter loop and otk him

Game 2: I open dragons and spells/traps without any hand traps and lose after he rejus for a fuckload.

Game 3: I resolved reju for 2, and set 1 backrow, keeping my hand of 2 veiler, 2 chalice, 1 compuls. he card destructions me and rejus for 14 putting him in a very strong position. He sets 3 backrow and passes, I heavy storm him and right after the game became more balanced in my favour. I did my stuff, he maxx C and i reju-ed for another 2 before passing. My hand consisted of 2 scarecrow, while i was down 2 veilers, and he had 3 in his hand. Usually you would scoop right? But i decided to play it out. In the last turn i was at800 to his 6800 lp, and i had used 1 scarecrow already while he had wasted all his dragosacks, and big eyes, while most of his dragons/resources were burned in the process of trying to otk. I used my last big eye on his gaia (to atk his token), tributed stuff to summon another dragon and revived a blaster to win.

What went wrong?

It realized to me that that was a repeat of my game with mattiske. Sure the fact that i had scarecrow helped alot, but this meant 1 thing: The dragon mirror is not unwinnable if your opponent has a fuckload of advantage!

So, what went wrong over the whole time?

It dawned upon me that after so much testing, we have come to forget the very basics of the dragon mirror. The grinding, usage of resources, making your opponent waste resources, and the way you manipulate dragosacks and big eyes. The mirror takes alot of patience.

Whilst testing all this while, I can safely say that until the past weekend, i have forgotten the very basics of the dragon mirror. My team and I have tested out various power cards such as enemy controller, victoria, trifortressops etc etc even before Japan has started using them. I have relied too much on the power cards for winning and built my deck to utilize drawing those power cards (double sword) instead of actually focusing on the dragons abilities themselves.

So, what should YOU do ?

1) Test the real dragon mirror.  Yes you heard me. test it without your power cards like Super rejuvenation. You can test without Maxx Cs and Veilers first too and then slowly add back Veiler then Maxx C into your different stages of testing.

Testing without reju and hand traps teach you the 1st basic rule: Managing the very resources themselves. the dragons are basically built in Monster reborns and reinforcement of the armys built into each card.

Next, factor in Effect veiler: This will teach you and refamiliarize you with the art of baiting the card effects, managing your Big eye and dragosack resources. I will talk about Big eye later in the article, because big eye is SO important.

Lastly, when you factor in maxx C you relearn the art of pushing and conserving. Should you  continue going despite being under maxx C? Should you continue going and let him draw the extra card so that he cannot otk you next turn? or should you go more so that it will cost him to waste dragons and grave/hand resources while you slowly build up tempo.

2) PLAY THE 3RD BIG EYE
Yes you heard me ! The true art of using dragon mirror is not just using your dragons properly and putting dragosack out on the board, its also learning how to use your Big eyes. Big eye has been seen as a liability to many players in the sense that they only use it when they have protection or are very sure that the opponent doesnt have a Veiler. It is not wrong exactly, but it is not exactky right either. Sometimes making Big eye after a turn battle phase to steal your opponent's remaining stuff is better than dracosack because if your opponent takes your dragosack, your fucked. The art of the mirror should be learning to balance both usage of big eyes and dragosacks. Veilering your Big eye is good too because if they veilered it on summon , Big eye can be used to attack something, and you can just leave it on the field. If your opponent takes your Big eye, it isnt so painful since you can just either :

a) take it back
b) be thankful that at least it doesnt spawn dragosack tokens

There are so many rounds during the tournament where i am so thankful that I am playing the 3rd Big eye.

The general rule should be:

If you are not playing the Monster reborn, you must play the 3rd big eye, because you will be making xyz more than you think compared to synchros.

3) SHOULD YOU FEAR PROPHECY?

Lets face it. Books are not a meta deck. They are Konami's latest design of anti meta on crack. Imagine an anti meta deck which has a boss card to let it search a +6. Books are basically:

1) Batel- Airman
2) Secrets- Specially designed Rota to search spells
3) Wisdom-Forbidden lance
4) Fate- Raigeki break-gemini spark-esque card/ book of moon
5) power- some random gay ass card
6) tower- a pseudo magician of faith card which lets you recycle your traps every turn.
7) starhall- burden of mighty/solidarity sort of card
8) master- a 5th to 6th copy of any other card you want in the deck thus increasing its consistency
9) crescent- pot of duality

and..... a Judgment day to help it search every single other card mentioned in the deck.

Does this deck start to look like hero Beat to you yet?

So, in a way yes. But yet, the deck dies like how every other anti meta deck loses. To various cards like EEV, decree, skill drain.

Kycoo, Puppet plant and Horus have been testing very well for me vs books. People are aware of droll, and eev, could a surprise factor now take the tournament?

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Anyway , thats all for today, tmr i will be reviewing a list of what i would have played in my tournament if i could go back and play it all over again. Thank you for reading, and i hope it helps you guys out there, in midst of your WCQ.


Wednesday, June 12, 2013

The Champions: Nathan Kosc and Chris Hanson



Its been a LOOOOONG time since i wrote an article with and real content, but after reading Bonacini's blog about how Yugioh went wrong and how we all must take responsibility to save the game we love, i decided to do an article about 2 lists from players from Australia's Team Progressive.

Having the honour of being in the team too, i was able to get their decklists, and am gonna do a review of it. 

I remember Matt peddle doing articles for metagame.com back in the old days where he would review creative and good decklists which topped tournaments. 

Kosc and Hanson have both topped different tournaments, where Kosc finished 12th in swiss and came 3rd in nationals, and Hanson finishing 4th in swiss and came 4th in the oceanics tournament. 

The first thing we notice about both lists is that they both play 40 cards. 40 is the optimal build for dragons while some players extend up to 41 or even 42 cards. Personally, i would play 40 but it is so hard to minimize space in dragons because of how many cards are dedicated to the main engine and 3 copies of dragon spellbook judgment day. 

The whole point of playing 40 is to excess reju faster, as well as to get to your power cards. Playing 40 in dragons means you can only choose a certain amount of power cards which suit yourself to play. Some choose REDMD, LADD, reborn, Dark hole, etc depending on their player's choice. This makes dragons a really personal deck, because you cannot just netdeck someone's list, because you are bound to have a few cards which you disagree with or just hate playing throughout the tournament. 

Both lists also share 2 very powerful under the radar cards: Psy Blocker and Forbidden chalice. 

Most players from progressive are in love with psy blocker, and i have to agree. the card was brought up in a topic discussion on DGz forum, whereby it could be used as a wind fodder for tempests' effects, or just used for its solid effect. For those who do not know, Blocker negates all lingering effects if they are already activated which means Iron Wall or Ophion face up would be negated by Psi Blocker, and an active maxx C will have its effect negated for the rest of the turn. 

Why Psy Blocker is good is because it has so much more variety than droll & Lock Bird. While droll can be insane if you drew it right, if you drew it after people went off with SJD, it becomes a liability in hand. Psy blocker does the same thing droll does, but better because it is not terrible after SJD. It can be used to bait out removal such as Fate, or stop fate/traps if you can make reads, or just call Jowgen/Kycoo. Draw it first turn? Then just summon it and call Spellbook of Secrets. Opening Dragosack and Blocker is a really strong opening, and your opponent needs to summon Batel/Kycoo and need to have the power to destroy blocker and search. In both situations, Droll and Blocker only prevents your death.

The difference is that Blocker is harder to play around compared with droll and lock bird. Both needs specific cards to counter, and Blocker can also stop spellbook of fate, because mostly fate is fueled by JD, secrets, master in the grave. By cutting off secrets, the spellbook player would have to open a combination of batel and power or a master, to pull off a fate. Even so, without Batel + power, the spellbook player needs to commit Kycoo to the board to destroy the Blocker, instead of conserving it for a better play. 

In the verz matchup, blocker is far from terrible, unlike droll & Lock Bird. I dont have to go over this because even without blocker, verz is not a deck against the dragon matchup. Put Blocker in the equation, and it just gets completely destroyed. 

For the dragon matchup, blocker allows you to bait the Veiler, or stop the scarecrow. You can also bait Maxx C out, by summoning a dragon, and then summoning blocker to call Maxx C. If your opponent wishes to respond with Veiler, you would have baited 2 hand traps with just 1 card. Provided you have your own hand trap or a protection card like compuls, or chalice, you are in a good position and can just go off in the next turn. Even without all that, you can call a dragon in their graveyard to stop their plays. If your opponent has only 2 colours, he's pretty much fucked, and if he has 3, it could drastically reduce his plays and options. 

The next card to discuss is Forbidden Chalice. Chalice used to be popular in OCG when Wesley Seek first used it in his side during the SG Asia Champs Qualifiers. Chalice has many uses to it, and because it is more versatile than Breakthrough Skill, Progressive decided to play 2 copies. While BTS is dead in some ways, chalice is almost never dead. Being able to use it in your own turn after drawing it is huge,  and chalice allows for some cool plays such as the Colossal fighter deckout combo if you're under Maxx C. This is really huge because it adds another win condition for the deck, and makes your opponent weary to drop Maxx C on you if he has a big monster on the field. The situation happens really often and is really easy to pull off. 

Chalice is also good versus spellbooks when they try to overpower your dragon with Kycoo+ Power. Chalice adds 400 to your Tidal/blaster/dracosack and causes your opponent to waste 2 very important cards! 

Last but not least, Chalice is very solid versus Verz, although not as solid as BTS. Using Chalice in the damage step against Ophion is crucial where you can summon a baby and chalice ophion to avoid getting Pandemic-ed. Follow that up in main phase 2 with a dracosack and you have game. 

Both lists played the same power cards where they focused on Heavy Storm, Book of Moon and Card destuction, while cutting Monster Reborn. Reborn is a very subpar card especially in a list with 8-9 hand traps because it can increase your chances of opening strange hands.

Another interesting thing is that Kosc sided Vanity Emptiness. Even without Stardust karat Dragon, emptiness is very interesting because not many players side removal for it, or removal for your monsters. Emtpiness + Dragosack was not solid because sack can be easily electric virus-ed. Instead, if you made Big eye, or a synchro, this play can easily lock your opponent out of many plays. I would have sided 2 if i could have gotten my hands on any. 

On the other hand, Hanson decided to side Kycoo which was clutch for the mirror and for prophecy. a well timed Kycoo + vanity emptiness iis deadly for the mirror match, and a well timed Kycoo beats over prophecy while stopping their bottomless and their fates. 

All in all, it is innovation like this that makes dragons such a personal list. You can play just about any card you can think of in dragons from psy blocker to droll bird to even obelisk ! As the saying goes for dragons, old is gold. :)

Thats all for today.

PS: Nationals and Oceanics was fun in the sense that I got to meet so many new players, and awesome people, like the rest of progressive, and B0dan, and even some fans and readers of the blog (im surprised! but shoutout to ryan nelson, dylan mangione, and the other asian guy who came to shake my hand when i was emo when the top 16 commenced)




Tuesday, June 11, 2013

WCQ oceanics + nationals list


The first list is the list i used for Oceanics. The second list is the one i used for Nats. 

Now to discuss some card choices:

1) Droll & lock bird is shit. If you draw it after they go off, what are u gonna do?
2) EEV is shit if you draw shit
3) Psy blocker is the nuts. deck needs MOAR blocker. i only played 1 because i could only find 1.
4) Breakthrough skill is shit- droll veiler max, bts hand anybody?
5) compuls is legit. So many things to do with it
6) Obelisk is shit if you draw bad. 
7) decree was never needed. 
8) you NEED to play 3 big eye in TCG. People's playstyles are different.
9) Although Gold sarc with other full hand of colours is redundant, gold sarc > sword still because consistency is key in long matches. 
10) return from different dimension is OP in time, i wish i had it.

Most of the cards you can see for nnationals were very standard and all the same as OCG Lists. hence they are predictable, and easy to counter. To go far, you need the surprise factor. 

Both lists are pretty shit. I would play a whole different list if i had to, if i could go back.

people who are playing nationals, please, please if your using dragon rulers, please play psy blocker and cut breakthrough skill. Do NOT go through what i went through. Although most of my losses were attributed to luck, i cant deny that it is partially my fault and my decks consistency that failed me. 

1 last advice- psy blocker is OP. Stop denying how bad it might be, and concoct different situations to try to make it look bad. Card's much better in practice than theory. 

Monday, June 10, 2013

scrubbed TCG event

After spending the weekend playing WCQ + Oceanics in all 3 days, i am safe to say, i am sick of Yugioh. Playing for 1 day is fine, 2 days is already tantalizing, but spending 3 days playing the game is just horrible.

So, lets start off with my WCQ report:

round 1: anti meta frog monarch something:

G1: he  duality into soul exchange so i immediately thought frog monarch. He set a card and pass and i assumed it was dupe frog. Did Dracosack stunts and later he flipped it up to be Fossil dyna ?? Won because did not know what he was playing.,

G2: He opens Macro first turn but macro doesnt do so much shit to dragons cos they replace themselves and i still win although no s/t  removal was in sight. Obelisk OP

round 2: dragon mirror

G1: i forgot how i won
G2: I made obelisk and won in time with a veiler in hand.

round 3: dragon mirror:

G1: i forgot how i won
G2: I forgot how i won

round 4: dragon mirror Marcus Rokman

G1: He had all 4 colours faster than i did so he won as i couldnt clear his big eye.
G2: He kept going under maxx C and although i drew half my deck there was no scarecrow :( Trident dragon (veilered) + compuls + reborn too strong.

round 5: verz

Verz is not a deck

round 6: Battling boxers

not a deck

Round 7: Verz

verz is not a deck

round 8: Dragon mirror Chris Mattiske

G1: Was toying around with him and controlling the board but in the last turn , He outplayed me. Enough said. Never met a guy as good as him. Used all dragons + babies and made 2 big eye which i had the veiler for, and his last card in hand was the fire tuner (didnt expect it as he had all of the effects banished already!), made Blader and killed my cards with both Big eyes (i veiler-ed on summon)

G2: He had more dragons and a better hand and i just died.

Never judge a person by his cover. Immediately i knew he was the best dragon player at the event all day. No salt from this loss. He was so good. Inb4 he became the Oceanics champion.

so i finished swiss with a 6-2 record and had placed 11th. In Day 2 i would play my friend with prophecy who placed 54th.

Top 64:

G1: Jd + secrets is skill with no droll!

G2: I knew cutting the 3rrd mst was gonna cost me and in my hand instead appeared effect veiler! which is very subpar to me in game 2/3. if i had mst instead of veiler (which i left in beccause i only sided 8 initially i sided 9) i could have cleared his second backrow and proceed to resolve EEv on thought ruler archfiend. But my archfiend got Bottomless i am sad why wasnt it compuls :( died after.

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Oceanics report:

round 1 : verz

round 2: verz

round 3: thunder family

G1: he summoned shock master 1st turn and call monsters, wow how did he know what i was playing i wonder? I had perfect hand of 4 dragons 1 reju, and topped the next reju. He made another rank 4 with batteryman and i got beat to death the next 2 turns no veiler in sight

G2: I summoned a dragon and passed, and he summoned shock master! This time i let it through, and he overextended onto the board, as i pitched my veiler when he detached the 2nd time. I proceeded to dark hole and win.

G3: He again goes shock master iron wall. it cost me turns (lots of damage) and resources to clear it, and after i blaster his iron wall, he flip another 1 pls fuck me nao :(

round 4: verz. Sam Moore

this guy was the best verz player i met all weekend. All the time i use Dragosack to tribute a token and pop itself hoping people would side reptilliane vaski, but since no one did it, i decided to stop doing that, but he pulled off a vaski! Game 3 he sided something out and i immediately knew it was vaski and just did the normal plays and win.

round 5: dragon mirror

this was a good match because neither of us saw a super reju or a maxx c or a veiler whole game, and we went into time when it was in game 1. I grinded it out and cleared his lp to 0 in the last round in time.

round 6:  dragon mirror

Game 1: he won cos he rreju-ed for 5 into reju # 2

Game 2: i won

game 3: i had no hand traps and no reju and all dragons and he had dragons maxx c, veiler , reju twice (for abt 2-3 cards on separate turns)  =( Since we went into time, he won this easily because his life was higher after time.

so since i was 4-2 and X-2 i could not top, i went to my last round opponent

round 7: spellbooks, Jackson Spadaro

He told me he was X-1-1 and i told him i was x-2 and since he had a better chance of topping, i gave him the win and dropped.