Temporal isolation

As the post suggests I will be taking a break from yugioh.

This is mainly due to uni, life etc. every time I play on dn I spend at least 2-3 hours when I coulda been using my time doing smtg else more productive.

This means no blog posts, and no playing etc, and at most I will be on dn watching ppl, or testing with friends for their tourneys etc.

Last minute advice for ppl in tcg - 3 veiler is pretty real, like 3 is needed to stop temperance of prophecy, and you should be saving your veiler only for that, and never for an early game batel. The world is strong win condition.

The current tcg format is very theme based, and with all the generic strong cards gone from the game, the best deck will be the most broken and consistent theme. Atm its spellbook , mermail or dragons. Don't expect so much "variance" as you thought when the list was first released because no matter how many bf whirlwind you have, the deck will never have as much options and synergy compared to new themes.

The end.

Will see u guys again during regionals and national season next year !

TCG meta updates from testing

So after a few days of testing and observing, i will give my 2 cents about the meta  post banlist.

If you arent in the TCG you prolly wanna skip this post because theres a huge wall of text.

Firstly, I am gonna say 1 thing: If you all thought decks from the past will be revived and the meta will be SUPER DIVERSE, you're all wrong. It will be much more diverse than the previous shiddy format, but definitely not to the point of any deck has a standing chance to win.

It came to me slightly that the best decks will still be the theme decks with the best support and has the highest level of power creep. When LFN msg-ed me yesterday and told me that he too noticed the same thing, it confirmed my suspicion. Despite how good decks like BF or zombie suddenly become with the support of whirlwind to 3, and mezuki/plaque to 2, it still cant keep up with new decks like mermail and fire fist 4 axis.

So, i will list out my observations and testing:

take note the dragon deck im talking abt is 4 dragons and is NOT dragon plant, however with tetherwolf and DDR engine.

Day 1:

Personal Playtesting:

tested mermails vs hieratics: mermail dominant (w LGQ)

tested dragons vs hieratics: lost first round abt 1-4, won 2nd round abt 2-1 after modding the deck. Even to say the least. Came down alot to who had the hand trap. (w LGQ)

I did get some testing with yanni but i cant remember what happened or what decks were involved, i think there was mermail or dragons.

Observation: (watching australian team w Bodan, C.Hanson, Jono etc)

spellbooks vs bf: spellbooks dominant
spellbooks vs mermail- evenly matched for the games i watched.

Input from Jono:

Dragon Plant vs WU- WU wins
Dragon plant overall weak compared to many decks.

Day 2:

Personal Playtesting:

Mermail vs dragons w Phantom beast plane engine - mermail won marginally (2-1)  (w/ Nelsown)
mermail vs dragons - 1-1 (unfinished game with Joshua Schmidt.)

mermail vs BF: mermail won by a longshot
mermail vs BF OCG : mermail won (with jason)

Observation:

mermail vs dragunity 4 dragons : dragunity won g1 (watched only 1 game between joshua schmidt vs michel gruner)
mermail vs FF 4 axis : even for games i watched (abt 2) (between C.Hanson and A$AP YGO i think?)

Input from LFN:

Zombies > laval
Prophecy > zombies

So, these are the products of my testing and observations ^

Credits to :

Input sharing:

LFN
Jono Ritzau
C. Hanson
Bohdan
Christopher Welch
Yvon Boulet (spiceyyanni)

Playtesting:

LGQ
Yvon Boulet
Ryan Nelson
Joshua Schmidt
Jason Yong

List sharing:

LGQ- hieratics
C. Hanson- mermail techs/list/ratio for discussion
Joshua Schmidt- mermail techs/list/ratio for discussion
Shahmir- for coming up with the dragon ruler skeleton

If there is anybody i've forgotten sorry lol

I am biased towards Mermail, and because it is the deck i will most likely be playing, i will talk about matchups from its POV:

I have not tested vs Infernity, or Verz and Constella which IMO are all good decent decks too. IMO Mermail will still be superior to Verz as before overall because it has alot of options (I.e: 1 card temtempo, Infantry, traps, verz opening bad etc etc)

The same should be said with constella, because Mermail has Infantry to answer Pleaides.

I should test VS infertnity soon because it seems like  a very powerful deck.

The build of mermail im playing will be undisclosed but then i am maining  2 veilers, but 0 Max C, and running at least 2 MST (adding the 3rd soon).

I have not come to the conclusion if C is worth maining atm but im definitely sure veiler is pretty good (so far)

At the same time, 3 MST is definitely a staple so far this format because you wanna hit:

1) abysphere
2) traps and scapegoat freshly set)
3) coth and DDR
4) black whirlwind, tenki, WU factory
5) Grand spellbook tower Le Maison
6) Opposing MSTs

I have heard Madolches are decent but i've yet to play any so i will not comment on it.

For now, i would pick mermail as a better deck compared to dragons mainly because mermails have more options and dragons are incredibly linear. However the dragon plant version seems really inferior because it is inconsistent.

I honestly am not sure if scapegoat will make a big impact this format but i lost 1 game to dragons because he had 2 consecutive scapegoat which i had to deal with in 2 consecutive turns and he turned the tide by making big eye and something.

So: to sum it up:

1) Decks that are real are:

Mermails, Spellbooks, FF 4 axis, Dragunity 4 dragon engine (gruner's build was dragunity engine mixed with all 4 Dragon rulers which was genius IMO):

I am under the opinion that dragon rulers can only survive with dragunity engine and if your not running that engine, it will be very bad. I love the fact shock master isnt legal because we finally get to play ygo :)

It seems reminiscent towards the post tachyon format except the format is slightly more balanced..

2) 3 MST is needed

3) The best deck will be the deck which has the most options. In this case IMO will be spellbooks, mermails, or the dragunity ruler engine. Dragunity rulers seem incredibly broke bar Maxx C and Veiler (dies to the 2 cards), but is probably more consistent than the others, with 3 ravine, 3 tempest, and several backup plays if you meet a veiler on atumus)

Infernity seems similar to d rulers, if you start first, and your opponent has ntg to stop you, the game is 100% yours in game 1 when you vomit your field. Because the format has not shaped whether hand traps are needed, infernity seems solid because it will almost nett u a game 1. However losing access to shock ruler is very painful to it, although you can still make doom orgy dragon.

4) A good amount of backrow in mermail is good. Apart from Abyssphere, maybe some warning torrent bth mirror force?

So, this is basically what i've come up with. I will test more to include madolches, karakuri, infenrity and verz. If you guys have tested stuff which i've not factored in, please feel free to comment and share your opinions. At the same time, if you guys have any disagreements with what i posted, please feel free to share and discuss too. If you have any questions about my opinions, do ask too and vice versa.

I hope this information will help the TCG players in playtesting, especially for YCS Toronto which will be held next week. All the best to the players attending.

Tcg forbidden list

Is the most interesting list I have ever ever seen in my entire fking life

I actually love it because it hit alot of cards that don't allow you to play yugioh like shock ruler, soul drain, d fissure, cosmos etc.

With that said I am 100% sure dragons/mermail will still be somewhere tier 1.

Hitting backrow cards like ced, bth was all the icing on the cake.

However with all the generic backrow cards nerfed , say hi bitches.

its still too early to say what decks are real or not, because realistically, it depends on how good the deck is built, or how much synergy the cards still have left. EG; i think decks that are the most consistent at pulling off combos will be good (mermail because of its internal interactions)

I also like how it hit just about every wacky strong card like gateway, card destruction etc

Wow KONAMI just wow.

You never fail to surprise.

I'm under the assumption tcg and OCG will have different formats, so OCG KONAMI let tcg KONAMI finally take control of their own banlists. Then they gave us this.

For once, I'm actually thankful I play in tcg now.

short banlist post

So the list released by ygoorganization is real.

Regardless, it will be a very interesting and cool format.

Viable decks will be:

1) dragon plants (yes theyre still kinda legit except it dies to verz 100% g1)
2) spellbook (am sure they're not that dead and are still playable to a certain extent)
3) MERMAIL
4) infernity
5) 4 axis ff
6) bujin
7) verz
8) hero
9) agent
10) gadget
11) karakuri

well basically almost every deck!

konami was kinda right to hit tues and sphere, hitting those 2 to 1 each defnitely hurt more than hitting dragoons to 1. Dragoons may be a searcher but at the same time dragoons should exist so that marksman remains a respected card. By hitting tues, gunde plays become less prevalent, the deck automatically slows down early game until the next 2 turns when you can do your plays. Hitting sphere made the deck have less options so you cant just spam it how you want

This is possibly the best list konami has done in ages as it was very well thought of. As i predicted in an earlier post, the problem cards were babies and jday, and im actually surprised konumi decided to ban the 5 cards.

It seems very very well thought of until u consider trisula, and this 4x a yr rule.

So, i will talk more on the special rule and other random stuff:

1) i have no idea what konumi is doing with releasing trishula. lol nutsssss. decks like mermail and plant dragons jsut go into it like nothing.

2) so is this banlist 4x a yr thing. wut? so what about tcg? now we have to play different formats? multiple banlists smell like set rotations though, and in this case, means the game is gonna cost more than mtg ??!! This means ppl are gonna go crazy 4x a yr not 2x anymore.... By nerfing the game every set, this means an archetype can never be too powerful, and konami will do its best to balance it. 1 thing to wonder is: if you do this, why not just create balanced cards instead of running multiple banlists? However, we cant deny konami is trying to use its power to create the most balanced game state they possibly can. Every move is done to slowly readjust and create the perfect format in their eyes.

As much as i hate to say it, it feels like konami's Research and development team is retarded and incapable of producing healthy cards, and instead they're letting the players be the lab rats to bring out the potential in newly released cards, then using their power 4x a yr to implement a restrict list to nerf their creations. Hopefully i am wrong...

3) New format in OCG called no limit duel which is basically traditional format (vintage), however no news is certain if u can use only 1 banned card, or multiples. Kinda expected this when they hit shark and left magi to 3, so that zenmaity becomes less imbalanced in traditional format.

In this format, it seems the shop has control over the format. This means the shops can choose to implement any format they want, either of the past (goat control , t hero ddt format), or they could set their own banlists with respect to the current 1. There are so many possibilities that it hasnt been clarified properly yet.

4) It also seems that there will be age groups involved. IMO they are probably trying to solidify and unite the dragon duel idea for every country. This is a very good thing meaning the older players wont have to bully the kids who play with blue eyes.dek

All in all, konami seems to have gone loco and imo the game is gonna become so so messy :-/

Just when all of you thought you could read konami's actions, they surprise you by pulling off something mind blowing just to show that they can, and cannot be predicted. This list also confirms something i have suspected over the past 2 formats: Konami may not be so profit oriented afterall. Then again, hitting expensive rare broken cards means they can sell their other upcoming products anyways. so lol.

new banlist ??

Hi guys i was just gonna write an article about how archetypes ruined the game from my experience from cube draft, but then after seeing a bunch of players online writing abt it on FB (ya wtf?) in a single post, and since most the content is similar i thought meh screw it.

The most recent banlist which i saw last night also happens to be the most logical and credible.

Source is from Clarence's blog here:

http://unknown-persona.blogspot.com.au/

He got it from a Japanese player (not stated whom, from where, or on what form of social media)

Clarence has always been a credible source, so if any of the leaked lists circulating is the banned list, i would probably say the 1 he posted is the real 1.

I am not gonna say this is the real list. But i will breakdown the impacts of this list.

So, not much to say, most of it is a very good list because:

1) Judgment day and Batel is hit. Batel is the stratos of the deck, and to slow the deck down since most of the spellbooks cards needs spellcaster monsters, so its logical to hit batel to encourage the usage of other stuff like defender, justice etc. By hitting jday and batel, the decks consistency is reduced much greater than you think. It will force them to use more eternities, which will continue to affect the decks consistency further. Thus spellbooks become a hit or miss deck. Risk it and resolve jday and win (? not 100% also since otks still exist), or just open shit and die.

2) Dragons hit in the best possible way ever by the implementation of the special rule. Since they announced it, i never had my hopes too high as people on FB kept speculating about extra deck change or change in max number of cards because that would just be way too retarded. People who said Occupy Ygo caused the change is also retarded. As noble as the cause is, it has made 0 impact on the game as of yet.

By implementing the 6 dragon per deck rule, the dragon ruler deck automatically disappears, and cards like reju, Card destruction are left untouched, and the babies are left untouched too.

3) Mermail hit in the best possible way. Lets face it. If most of the archetypes retain their search engine and mermail's get hit, it would be the most unfair. By not hitting dragoons, atlanteans still remain a considerable force so that marksman can still be a powerful card (deal damage summon dragoons), and it makes abyss dweller and bahamut shark still relevant, which are both very important for the bujin matchup. BY hitting diva, you hit the card which gives you the most options. In the deck, its way better than Tour Guide has ever been since you get so many options with diva. Now you cant go waste first turn diva into gachi and it also prevents diva into infantry into diva for otk and retarded advantage.

However with diva limited, now players will have to main the 1 copy of salvage and abys sturge (which i have always advocated). If dragoons was hit, mermails would still be playable. I think diva hit was just perfect, since dragoons will now be used to search megalo, atlanteans. It also reduces the 2 card otk (stream + dragoons), since i will hesitate alot more before using diva for that.

Ok maybe im being biased but im happy dragoons didnt get hit.

The rest has been covered by clarence so just read his explanations especially for tensu.

Bringing back trunade for me was the part i disliked most in the list.

Granted i can see what Konami wants to do: wants you to make a big push with trunade and take the risk to try to kill your opponent and if you arent able to , then it gives you leverage to be able to make a comeback instead of just losing everything.

Pros of trunade:

1) not losing out overall
2) triuple star hall? trunade bitch
3) abuse with demon chain, safe zone and stuff

Cons of trunade:

1) trunade chain sphere for profit!
2) trunade tenki for profit!
3) backrow format everyone sets 4-5 and "grind" . For a very long time i no longer see set 4-5 backrow formats as grinding. I see however mermails/windups trying to break through those decks as real grinding.

Anyhow, theres alot more to think through and im sure konami has done their testing to ensure a "balanced" format (or maybe they were on maryjane and decided to be high like when they created judgment day)

As much as storm is a bad card which gives you plusses, it punishes bad players, but then i also wonder why they made judgment day.

If the format continues to revolve around cards like safe zone and fiendish chain, there could be some skill to trunade especially when its optimum to drop it and it wont be all mindless set 5 format.

Or maybe i just typed all this for ntg and wasted ur 10 mins if this doesnt turn out to be the new list :D

#occupy yugioh

The new rage and talk of the TCG world.

In case you are from OCG and you dont know whats going on:

Its basically ARG writer Joe Giorlando asking ppl to boycott YCS toronto because it was poorly run/decided/planned etc

coupled with the fact where he threw in the notion that konami should make the game better

TBH no one gives 2 shits abt the YCS toronto thing: if i really wanted to win a YCS, i will do all means, even if its to play in a shitty format with the best deck and book exp flights etc. Where there is a will, there is a way.

The only reason ppl are supporting it because konami should make the game better and they want them to start doing better coverage and stuff.

TBH konami coverage is really shit and it doesnt take a genius to tell that they dont really put much effort. I think TCG should be thankful that they actually get coverage. What does Asia Yugioh get? nothing. Coverage is done by the players themselves (blogs, players, associations like YES, HLG bla bla) .

So what do i think of it?

Im not gonna go in depth, but i think its cute. Its definitely something worth supporting especially since ive been in Australia TCG for a while and its really shit, even compared to SEA, where at least there r more events there. Sure we get regionals pre-nats, but after? Totally ntg.

I'd give my support and acknowledge their efforts. But am i gonna go crazy and change my FB picture to that red picture? And risk my social life? Nah, for fucks sake.

Also, you cant really blame the haters because some of them give really solid reasoning and are not unreasonable. In my opinion, it all comes down to each person's individual personality, and how they view things in life. Some people are the more assertive type like Joe Giorlando, Michael Bonacini and Kris Perovic type who strive to make a change especially when they feel things aren't right. Others like Angel Flores are the complete opposite. They accept things as it comes to them and adapt to changes whether they like it or not.

And there are types like me , who sit back and watch the drama wheeeeee.

Like dont u love it that TCG players have to argue abt every single thing

And to ppl who tell me: "you're just the type of player who complains but doesnt do jack shit and just sit back and reap the benefits":

1) I live in Australia, there are no benefits
2) My life is not Yugioh, i have better things to do, i do not care abt yugioh as much as the other players do

Laughter is the best medicine (must read post)

So, once in a while we need to have a good laugh

One of the best things about yugioh is that player interactions outside of the game is enjoyable.

Read this thread from start to finish-

http://duelistgroundz.com/index.php?showtopic=154937&page=1

It is literally the best

For posts which have "spoilers", please click the show button cos those are literally the best

I died several times throughout the thread

Go Jono!

Ps - it gets better after pages 3/4/5 ish