Ban List wishlist

so, to mark the new format, which will be known next friday(ish) for TCG, i will post up a banlist wishlist although theres less than a week away.

Prior to the  current list, i think it is very good and honestly quite challenging. It has been one of the best formats so far because dragon format was referred to by most players as a teledad format. I've never played in that format before so experiencing it was pretty good. You needed to make good meta calls to top events because the best deck for that format might not be the best deck for that event.

Sure it may get boring to people after a while but i honestly enjoyed it more than a diverse format.

It may not be healthy since the format isnt diverse anymore but i honestly am not sure if i can enjoy sucha a format anymore. Honestly, it doesnt matter because players should just adapt no matter what the format is. We will still continue to play despite what happens.

The current list put dragons ahead other decks but it is honestly quite a diverse one. It is just that all the good players want to play dragons. When a deck is largely represented, it will top. If most good players run it, it will definitely appear in higher numbers in the top cut, which is simple logic.

With that said, here goes my banlist wishlist:

(assuming that we are following konami TCG's ideology of balancing things out)

Banned:
Limiter Removal- konami loves taking away power cards.
6th Sense- ~~~
Return from the different dimension- Main card which makes dragons broke. In many games dragons outpace rogue because they can access return and win.

Restricted to 1:
E hero Airman- i've no idea why this card was banned. It is not a power card at all in this format because of the power creep. Killing off heroes was a terrible idea.

Imperial Iron Wall- One of the floodgate ygo cards. I think it should be limited because its too unfair.

Gozen Match- Another floodgate card.

Skill Drain- Same card which stops ygo. If dragons were to exist, skill drain should not be at 2/3 because they would be too unfair.

Thousand Eyes Restrict- call me crazy but i dont see TER doing much in this meta. It cannot be incorporated into a top tier deck, and is hard to abuse.

Verz Ophion- another floodgate card.

Solemn Judgment- Solemn judgment, IMO, is a very skill based card. It should not have gone.

Sacred Sword of 7 Stars- One of the main reasons why dragons were the best deck, it put you ahead so far. Allowing you to draw 2 plus choose a dragon of your choice of the same element you gave up?

Spellbook of Fate- If dragons were to go, spellbooks would undoubtly be a beast. Fate, to me, has been 1 of the main problem in books. Maybe you should hit batel or secrets, but the deck already bricks to itself too easily. Not thought over properly so feel free to criticize.

Restriced to 2:
Dragunity Dux- Dragunities would be good in this format. However, 1 card lvl8 is never good.

Dragon Ravine- Another problem with dragons. Unlike swords, i think it should stay at 2 for dragunities.

Book of Moon- Something which i think should come back to 2.

Bottomless Trap Hole- killing more dragons is cool ~

Gold Sarcophagus- If ravine and swords are decreased, its only fair sarcophagus comes back.

** Batel** - maybe
**secrets**- maybe
** Evilswarm Kerykion**- Not thought out properly but nerfing verz sounds good.
**Constellar Kerykion**- forgot the name of this constellar bt its the constellar vers of kerkyion. Same reasoning.
*** ROTA***- Not my wishlist but i added it in because i think Konami might release it to 2 for noble knights.

Restrict to 3:
***unsure***

So basically my wishlist is just to slow down dragons, but still make them playable. They have multiple ways to shine still, including shrine, ddr, sarco, felgrand etc. Removing all the crazy power cards in the deck while keeping them playable.

Dragon decklist

http://i.imgur.com/a29aTM4.png

This will probably be my last dragon decklist for this format since i am pretty sure konami will kill off dragons in some way. Hopefully they let them exist still !

The format has actually been pretty diverse naturally, but everybody and their mothers decided to run dragon ruler thus the reason why the top cuts are filled with druler. TBH if a good player picks up a different deck, they can make it work etc (eg : Sam pedigo, Eaton guo and Sean mnccabe), even if they have to resort to maining 21 flood gate cards.

However i dont blame anyone for wanting to play dragons- its easily the best deck since you can also sack with return and 6th, and put free power cards on the board.

So, to explain some choices-

The monsters are extremely standard. I chose scarecrow over fader because some people are starting to run vanity again. And felgrand isnt realistically good in the TCG.

spells !:

2 ddr- this card is a bi-product of me playing the OCG for a while. It is never dead , opens endlesss possibilities, turns lacklustre hands in t1 of maybe only 2 colors into playable ones, recycles your fuel, and puts pressure on your opponent. Furthermore, i'd like to blow my opponents out when i use ddr after siding out return :D

enemy controller- used to be book of moon but am just testing this. Surprisingly good in mirror as stealing your opponent's afd t1 is too good. Activatring your own ravine then using their afd on your ravine destroys their t1 setup, which is an insanely good setup which can win you the game.  Also a 1 card out to pleaides but yeah nvm.

trap stuns- still in the midst of testing. may switch for mst. stun is great with monsters like dragosack where you can summon sack, and opp activates a trap and you chain stun, then blow up 1 of their fds. Clears multiple cards and allows you to push. However unlike mst it is sometimes dead.

sidedeck:

fossil dyna- vanity + ophion out. I wish we had ghosttrick frost :(

e virus- i noticed lately it is getting harder to play around evirus, thus added it in.

dna surgery- books + noble night

tuner scheme- card that was tested out for fun but turned out to be insanely good. If known, opponent will play retardedly to play around it. If set t1, it turns their afd combo against them. If not, you take away some of their resources when they sync a monster, and to deal with the monster they just relinquished to you, they needa expend more resources too. Its harder to play around it then you think because not every situation compels you to make star eater/ colossal/ dragosack

Or i could run debunk XD But debunk has been pretty crappy lately.

Banlist post tomorrow !

The Merits of Card Trooper

So, another dragon article- i hope you guys aren't bored with the content :3

First of all everybody knows that trooper is pretty relevant in TCG Druler but some choose not to play it because of the fact that you will mill your spell/trap cards if you have bad luck with it.

Well, this article hopefully changes your mindset on Card trooper's flexibility.

A while ago, i had been testing different ratios of card troopers from 0 to 2 in standard dragon and found that 1 is a pretty good number so that you don't draw too many vs your mirror match which is where its 50-50 most of the time. Generally 2 would be the right number but i found 6th sense to have the same useability of Card Trooper (another reason why i think 6th sense is absolutely staple!)

So, if you look at it from a different POV, you will almost always be summoning card trooper only when you are without colours. If you have a dragon hand, and a trooper. then yes trooper is an added liability but only if your opponent has a nutty hand with fuel + traps ! But not everyday is a sunday so thats the only situation where its bad.

If you have a spell/.trap hand and you summon trooper and mill spell/traps, at first it may seem bad, but you are generally discarding the possible dead draws you have for next few turns and turning it into live dragons from your deck (hopefully!), plus if your hand is full of traps, and you milled more, then its fine because you still have your hand to abuse. You can then proceed to waste their resources so that you can put pressure on them so that they cannot make a comeback.

In the above situation, if your opponent is in a good position, you'll almost be losing anyway. Having trooper at least lets you sift through your decks for plays next turn with the possibility of milling dragons. So, its a card which lets you do something and improve your chances over the upcoming turn.

Worse comes to worse, late game, trooper acts as redox monster reborn fuel when you have no dragons left in your deck (you dont wanna mill your traps and power cards!)

Thus, i think in almost every situation , trooper is never bad in the mirror except when you open colour hand and they open perfect, which was pointed out that your already losing anyways, so why not play a card which increases consistency overall? Its similar to the mindset of playing ryko in junk doppel , whereby even if you mill power cards, and not combo cards (which was an added benefit), you'll still be closer to your combo pieces in your following draws.

Patrick Hoban talks about Upstart Goblin, card trooper is an upstart goblin on roids which generate more and more advantage as long as it stays on the field.

In fact, i have had so many situations where i summoned it and blaster just to put pressure against an opponent's s/t board in the mirror. A card which puts added pressure is almost always good.

Added benefits include using it vs retarded rogue decks or playing the resource game vs your opponent if you know he still sides debunks (sucks in TCG) or if he runs fossil dyno.

Alot of people are terribly bored with the format as of now, so i would advise them to learn OCG mermail mirror because the deck is incredibly fun ! Its a whole different format with whole different card interactions, and for some reason i feel that the OCG and TCG might just merge back together next format. (call it 6th sense)

That's all for today.

Carl Manigat's Mythic Ruler

Yesterday ARG Worcsdfzdnfsjdfq just finished and i managed to take a look at some of the decklists. Granted most of them were horrible and established my stance on why American YGO shouldn't be taken too seriously at times, 1 particular deck stood out very much to me which was Carl manigat's mythic ruler.

3xBlaster Dragon Ruler of Infernos
3xRedox, Dragon Ruler of Boulders
3xTidal, Dragon Ruler of Waterfalls
3xMaxx “C”
2xMythic Tree Dragon
2xMythic Water Dragon
1xMontage Dragon
1xBattle Fader
1xFlamvell Guard
0xSpells : 15
3xForbidden Lance
3xSacred Sword of Seven Stars
3xUpstart Goblin
2xDragon ravine
2xTrade-In
1xBook of Moon
1xGold Sarcophagus
0xTraps: 6
1xReturn from a Different Dimension
3xReckless Greed
1xCompulsory Evactuation Device
1xBottomless Trap Hole

This was his main deck list.

First of all you will notice is that it has absolutely no tempest and meaning you only run 3 dragon rulers.

Secondly is the upstart and reckless engine which bears so much resemblance to Patrick hobans's dragunities.

The idea of this deck is to use those 2 colours to summon a rank 8 usually felgrand, or draggluong or even galaxy eyes comparable to a level 8 that hoban's deck focuses on summoning.

It also runs montage dragon as a searchable level 8 to abuse together with mythic water. Montage dragon is a beast being able to considerably put game on board makes it an incredibly interesting monster. However i think its used just for synergy with trade in and mythic water. Lance + montage is crazy because putting 4k damage is insane since it bypasses scarecrow and fader.

The 2 trade ins represent the consonance engine in regular dragunities.

The merits of the deck is that it doesnt rely heavily on ravine which can be considered an asset since field spell wars wont be a problem for this deck.

I think it is very very interesting and is definitely worth testing out.

Is it good? Probably, he had to be doing something right to make it to the finals or a glorified regionals. However, it may not be good because of consistency issues etc but its definitely worth a try.

The event also showcased fossil dyna pachyphealo's entrance to the druler sidedeck similar to what japan has been doing.

Fossil dyna is very neat with stardust radiance. Backed up with a debunk and a trap stun, its incredibly powerful. However it wont be as effective in TCG compared to OCG where traps arent very prevalent.

Its ability to kill orphion and many other decks is neat too , an has alot of weightage to how versatile it might be.

The Upstart Goblin Conundrum

Its late now so i'll keep this short.

A few days ago, dgz dragon ruler thread had a very heated discussion about Upstart Goblin in standard dragon rulers TCG.

The idea was that you would run 37 cards thus making it easier for you to get to your key cards.

You would mostly use upstart after you thinned your deck though dragon searches/ravine mills or only when you need to, or when you could deal your opponent some damage to mitigate upstarts costs.

The pros of upstarts are:

1) 37 cards - cool stuff.
2) Easier to get to your key cards
3) Most standard rulers will cut consonance for this (which is probably better)
4) Implied consistency

The cons are:

1) 40 is tight space. Playing upstart cuts you from 3 other cards which could be useful combo cards or relevant traps for mirror.
2) 1000 life points gain sucks balls.
3) Having it in your hand when you wish it was a trap is worse.
4) Using it and drawing another dragon.
5) Much more

So, i was pretty against the card cos it sounds terrible and 1000 lp means its harder to kill your opponent.

But i was very wrong when i started testing some hands. The card did give the deck consistency and you saw sword, colours, maxx c etc more often than you should.

So, with both sides of the theory being equally convincing, the last thing you had to do is test the theory. So, from my deck i cut 3 cards which i found unneeded which are terraforming (to add consistency for ravine. Being at 37 means you will see ravine more), and 1 trap and 1 mst.

I tested a number of games with a friend. I found out my loss rate increased by 30% (from 30% on average from past scores to a whopping 60%) after testing with upstart.

Here are my conclusions:

upstart goblin is definitely not worth maining as the cons outweigh the pros. The reasons are as follows:

1) Holding upstart after you can thin down the deck sounds like it would work. However it doesnt work that way, You need to activate it immediately alot of times and it will just brick. This is not goat control where you can wait for a card to be good. You need cards you can use immediately effectively.

2) The 1000 lp cost matters alot more.

3) The 1000 lp cost after they resolve the ancient fairy combo turn 1 will make it worse. At that point even if you drew into 6 sense it wont necessarily help you. In that position, in 1 of the games, i found that if i had a trap instead of upstart, i would have grinded the game out and probably won.

4) After i took out upstart, and he continued using them, i went up to 12k lp in 1 game and took no damage lol

5) Increasing your trap count will let you see more traps compared to reducing your trap count and reducing deck count. Eg: running 8 defensive cards in a deck of 40 nets you a 20% chance of drawing the defensive cards after 1 draw- im not counting opening hand cz the math would be different there) If i were to run 37, the chances of drawing a defensive card , provided you cut 2 defensive card (and 1 other card) is 16.2%. Why run upstart if it only decreases your chance of seeing traps. You can argue "oh but theres swords too". Lets add sword to a pool of cards you wanna open with including maxx c. Thats 8 defensive cards 3 swords, 3 maxx c, so 14- 35% without upstart, and 32.4% if you cut 2 defensive cards for the upstarts.

6) drawing upstart after upstart sucks or opening with 2.

Overall i wouldnt run upstart. However, according to your playstyle, if you feel that you need more draw power and feel like consonance is being a drag, id much recommend upstart over consonance from testing (prefer uostart over consonance).

However i just prefer card trooper and traps.

Was my sample space (from testing) large enough to warrant an accurate conclusion? (approximately only 10 games). Maybe not since as sample size increases your results differ and variance decreases. Although i think if i tested more, i would just be more disappointed. Upstart is not a card you can throw in any deck just to reduce your deck size.

 Standard dragons are definitely not suitable and even in dragunity im not a fan of it because although you are increasing consistency, you are sacrificing many important comboes and plays and disrupting synergy in the deck. Overall i think the dragunity build in TCG is very weak because they spend too much space on upstarts and stuff and disregard comboes with zephryos, redmd and garuda. Their average strong play is set up 1 rank 8 with backrow which is so easy to do in dragon ruler also. I think if dragunity are to become strong again, they need to take a different approach. Their strongest play needs to have mysteltain to get a combo off and even the end product doesnt seem all that appealing.

Thats all for today.

mythic ruler build + explanations for differing ocg card choices

So, alot of people have been asking and just last night a german friend was asking me why the tcg and ocg builds were so different. They pointed out these differences:

1) lack of debris dragons
2) presence of dragon shrines
3) no trigon/ kodomo dragon combo

well, the 1st thing is that in ocg, mermail is a very fast deck, and can easily outpace dragons. Thus, the focus on terraforming, and ancient fairy is very bad because those cards will just get Infantried and cleared very easily.

Imagine if you play vs mermail and you open a hand of terraforming ravine, big dragon, and you cant make a play and they just outswarm you turn 2, you auto lose. Thus if you are running shrine instead of terra, you get to make a big play. Furthermore, with cards like dragon ice + infantry combo from mermail, you are forced to have a follow up play when your main one gets disrupted.

Due to that, shrine is run in multiples and the trigon combo is just underhwelming. Other decks like firefist and verz are almost similar so i can atribute it to this mainly. In the mirror, you want to be able to access your colours asap too.

So, debris dragon is cut too, since there is no trigon combo to focus on afd. In fact, most japanese builds run few traps (some run lots too as they believe in player preference i assume), so using debris on a guard means you will synchro with guard and debris will become a blader target.

Now to discuss my tcg mythic dragon build.

I had a few testing games with Muci (german player) and discussion with Gruner last night and this build tested to be pretty good.

12 druler
3 maxx c
1 battle fader
1 corsesca
2 debris
1 kodomo dragon
2 flamvell guard
1 mythic wood
1 mythic water

2 shrine
3 ravine
3 sword
1 mst

1 6 sense
1 rftdd
1 compuls
1 warning
2 pwwb
1 torrential
1 trap stun

1 stardust
1 crimson
1 afd
1 brd
1 colossal
1 scrap
1 zera
1 star eater
2 dragosack
1 big eye
1 gk pearl
1 terror fang dire wolf
1 felgrand
1 draggluong

the maindeck is very simple, you dont run any unnecessary cards so that it doesnt affect the consistency. Mythics are generally only used vs rogue matchups and usually sided out in g2/3 in mirror. Mythics are horrible to draw, and serve as a liability when you banish your tidal and redox. However, running the 2 shrines (or more) nullifies the fact. If you run mythics with consonance you just flat out lose because of dead draws.

Shrine gives you leverage in the mirror in case u open with the shitty water mythic so that you dont flatout lose. Combine that with Maxxc  or a protection trap and you're good to go. You basically only use it to make draggluong in the mirror which theoretically is nuts as its another big eye which cant be blader-ed and also an effect veiler for their dragons, unless you can otk with felgrand.

Ps: im not running stardust radiance because it isnt legal in my area and i usually test with europeans and Oceanians so we do not have access to it. It can easily just replace stardust dragon for tcg. For tcg USA  i would also play emptiness, not sure in the main or side but definitely will run it.

Battle fader because the hype now is felgrand star eater combo. I have never liked battle fader and cant wait to change it back to scarecrow when the mythics hype die down.

No queen dragun djinn cz its underwhelming and you almost never make it. pearl is just better overall for beatsticks against evilswarms.

Everything else is very standard and normal. I feel that in ygo now, alot of the skill comes from deckbuilding and knowing what cards to play to maximise consistency and how to adjust towards the meta (most important aspect basically). There is lesser skill in gameplay compared to older formats like BF, plants,and goat control etc, but there is still an intensive amount of skill when it comes down to controlling resources. Basically, no matter how good a person is, the person's limiting factor is his deck. A good dragon mirror happens when both players have equal amount of resources and grinds it out for the win. No matter how good you are, if your deck sucks and you make wrong choices, you will still lose. Thus, to make sure you dont lose to shitty hands and cards, you need to make sure your main, and side has no unnecessary cards.

There is not much to explain because the game is quite simple at this point and you just have to give small dot points and players will understand why x is good, or why x is bad play etc. It doesnt take a genius to play yugioh, but it takes skill to build a good deck.

I will write an article about sidedecking soon because many people are still wrongly sidedecking and putting in either wrong cards or just oversiding -__-

Thats all for today.

Playing the dragon mirror : TCG + current decklist ~

So, while lurking on dgz, i managed to see an article posted by claudio about the dragon mirror in the dgz thread. One of the comments by a fellow dgz-er went something like:

- too vague. only show fundamentals of using redox /blaster for offence/defence etc
- unclear direction and message as to whether mst was good or not and how ravine should be played. also didn't give implications if ravine was mst-ed and opponents ravine continues flowing etc.

He also mentioned that Claudio should have analysed the winner of YCSlondon's lists and gave pointers on which sidedeck method is optimal.

And there was the inspiration for my article !

I have not had time to update the blog lately because of finals but i have some spare time now to talk about yugioh.

The dragon mirror as of late has gone towards the direction of added traps and trap stuns. Trap stun is an insanely good card because you can negate important traps which hinder your set up or blow out cards like return/6sense.

So, there are a couple of directions that you could take with dragon mirror game 2/3s sidedecking plans.

1) Vanity fiend+ electric virus
2) elctric virus + debunk etc
3) debunks + mst /stun

Debunks + mst /stun is probably the best way to go because it is the most consistent method. Vanitys fiend is unreliable and i have never liked cards which take too much to set up and is going to lose to traps lke rageki break or mirror force or torrential etc.

electric virus is slightly more consistent and better but it depends alot on your opponent's methods meaning you need to act in accordance to his actions which in my opinion is very unflexible. Sometimes E virus can become dead in hand. In the dragon deck, you want to use your cards asap and have flexibility, this is not goat control where you can wait for a card to be good.

One thing i noticed from the dragon mirror in the YCS london builds in the mirror matches is that those decks tend to set alot of backrow in the first few turns and rely on grinding out those backrows. It seems entirely true that they have been seeing too many traps and not enough of their combo pieces. The best way to overpower your opponent in the dragon mirror is to have a good ratio of traps/ and fuel for your dragons.

If one draws too many traps and backrow cards and doesnt get the engine going while his opponent puts pressure, then one is going to be far behind.

One thing i have decided to try is Card carD. The idea behind it is to maximise the playability of your opening hands, meaning you either open a swords, cardcarD or a ravine into ancient fairy combo which immediately puts you far ahead of your opponent. In the YCS london feature matches i saw the players pass frequently during early games because they didnt have enough plays. CardcarD is good because it puts you ahead of your opponent. Using it in turn 2/3 if your opponent doesnt get going with a few backrow is so godly. Opening sword + card car = jizz.

Cards of consonance was undoubtedly one of the best cards in the deck, to help dig the combo pieces.I replaced consonance with cardcarD so that i didnt have to run 5 tuners and i could get away with 1 of each level 1 and 2 debris. Cardcar also let u just win turn 1, and in late game it becomes a dragon fodder for redox reborn effect which is very valuable. There is the argument that it could be dead, but so can consonance. I would rather have a dead monster than a dead consonance which does the same thing. Pitching debris for consonance is so dumb you only have 2 to use, asusming 1 for the ancient fairy combo and 1 for star eater / reborn plays.

12 druler
3 maxx c
1 scarecrow
1 corsisca
1 guard
1 kodomo dragon
2 debris dragon
2 card car D

3 ravine
3 sword
1 mst
1 terraforming

2 trap stun
1 6 sense
1 rftdd
1 torrent
1 compuls
1 warning
2 break

1 afd
1 zera
1 brd
1 armory arm
1 orient dragon
1 colossal
1 tra
1 scrap
1 star eater
1 stardust
1 blader
2 dracosack
1 big eye
1 gaia

1 dd crow
2 snipe hunter
1 dark hole
2 mst
2 xyz encore
2 debunk
2 skill drain
1 transmigration
1 eev
1 divine wrath

the deck is very standard.

card choices explanation:

1) no mythics. i did not think mythics fit with this build. mythiccs cannot be used together with consonance and stuff because it can cause cloggy hands. however mythics worked best with dragon shrine. i am currently working on a tcg build with shrine and mythics so stay tuned. i tested 1 earth mythic and it was extremely underwhelming

2) kodomo drragon- better trigon. kodomo looks shitty tho :(

3) no shrine- this build is not meant to work with mythics so i wont run shrine.

4) high trap count- traps win u the mirror. pronto. even warning is pretty good although 2k lp seems like alot, but u immediately win if u resolve it and it prevents u from losing 2k and field presence and control. i didnt run 3 pwwb/break because i still feel having 3 is too much because ravine and swords require cost to fuel too.

5) orient dragon- good card to banish ancient fairy dragon. afd is huge in the mirror. and having zera and orient is suffieicnt to kill it.

The rest is very standard and snipe hunter is very good cz u can use it to pressure your opponent especially in matchiups like spellboooks and anti meta deck. it is also very good vs stardust iron wall lock set up by dragunity when they go 1st. I didnt run metaion or refpanel because they are too expensive and kinda underwhelming especially refpanel. It is very good card but i feel debunk is better vs the mirror, and vs dragunity u should be more worried about their stardust iron wall lock rather than focusing on their draw spells. However, refpanel is very real threat although it is greatly dismissed by dgz players.

What i side vs various decks:

dragon mirror: 2 debunk,1 crow (when going 1st), 1 transmigration (when going 2nd) , 2 mst, 1 hole

spellbooks: 2 snipe hunter 1 dd crow 2 skill drain 2 mst 1 dark hole 1 wrath

dragunity ruler: 2 snipe hunter, 1 wrath, 1 crow 1 transmigration

verz- 2 snipe (going 2nd), 2 skill drain (going 1st side 2, going 2nd side 1), 2 mst, 1 wrath , 2 encore

constella- 2 snipe 2 skilldrain, 1 dark hole, 2 mst, 1 wrath, 1 eev (if i go 1st)

nothing else is very relevant so....

If you are wondering why i side so few cards vs mirror match it is because in the mirror match you must maintain full consistency and just remove unneccessary cards. i wont say what i side out because im too lazy but it is not hard. Just remember what Hoban said: you shouldnt be siding out your combo cards therefore i wont really side stuff lke terraforming or cardcarD so i replace stuff like break compuls which are meant to be replacements for my sided cards.

In the words of my now dead from ygo friend wesley , less is more, more is less.

Thats all for today.

Lady of the Lake + Imperial Iron Wall

Lady of the Lake is a plaquespreader version for Noble Knights.

Like Plaquespreader, you can abuse Imperial iron wall with it so it remains in the grave forever.

With no other cards which conflict with iron wall in noble knights, this could be a very big combo.

Iron wall shuts off dragons which is the most relevant part.

I have not read or investigated anything about noble knights so i have nothing to comment about the deck.

D Ruler decklist ~

So, at this point of the format i will share my druler decklist and explain  card choices and why some cards are there and why some aren't.

There should be no problem with this because drulers are an everchanging deck and there is no fixed list since they adapt as the format goes on.

12x druler
3x maxx c
2x corsisca
1x flamvel guard
1x swift scarecrow
1x trigon
1x fogking
2x debris dragon

3x sacred sword
2x card of consoncance
3x dragon ravine
1x terraforming
1x dark hole
1x mst

1x mirror force
1x return from different dimension
1x torrential tribute
2x pwwb
1x sixth sense

1x angel of zera
1x scrap dragon
1x armory arm
1x star eater
1x crimson blader
2x colossal fighter
1x black rose dragon
2x ancient fairy dragon
1x stardust dragon
1x big eye
2x mpb dragosack
1x gaia

2x electric virus
2x ferret
2x mst
2x xyz encore
2x trap stun
2x divine wrath
2x debunk
1x castle of dragon soul

so first of all the decklist:

Monsters:

1) Fog king- not very popular yet in TCG although the latest ycs winner mains 1. I tested it and loved it because it was:

a) tidal foolish burial food is very important t1.
b) debris food is strong follow up play
c) summoning him is equivalent to summoning a tuner and lets u make big eye and steal their stuff while you protect your cards with backrow
d) combo:

debris - fogking- summon dragon- make dragosack- make 2 token- sync ancient fairy dragon.

That alone is a very strong first turn play and if you have a maxx c backed up you are in a very strong position. Also can be used with sacred sword and  stuff.
e) Fogking + electriv virus = bye ophion!
f) Fogking tribute 2 dragons clear opponents monster for game by avoiding scarecrow

2) dark hole- this card felt like reborn and hole last format. it may seem redundant sometimes if you;re in a commanding game state but it is too powerful not to run. Breaking up big fields in mirror is too strong as well as against random firefist anti meta decks or constellars. Nobody really makes stardust dragon in mirror so much and even taking out 2 tokens from sack can do alot.

3) 2x consonance / 1x terraforming ratio- i opted not to cut consonance because this card singlehandedly made dragons tier 1 again this format. When i was testing earlier in the format i would constantly beat dragon with mermails, however once they started running consonance and the deck sped up so fast and other decks just couldnt keep up. i feel 2 is the right number which is not too many and also lets u dig into your deck for your traps. terraformin at 1 because it is just right, if you run 2, you may experience dead draws or ravine hands with no real traps and no real protection.

4) pwwb over break- currently testing pwwb over break because pwwb is way more versatile. Aside from being a pseudo debunk (this comes up alot more than you think), it gets rid of big monsters and by not destroying them, your reducing your opponents fuel in the mirror. By pwwb-ing ophion, they cant make a kerykion play next turn. also testng pwwb after you started playing perfect circle era again just makes you feel why people would set stuff or play into situations where they get killed by wing blast. However my decision isnt fixed i could well go back to break if i dont like it vs rogue decks.

5) 6 sense. Obvious reasons but i cut book of moon for it. Book is a very good card but 6 sense is just much better. I had torrential and mirror in because those 2 are very strong blowout cards which nobody expects or sometimes they cant help but play into it. It is very hard to put pressure on your opponent if your constantly playing around mirror force, so people tend to disregard it even though they know its a real threat. Thus if you have force, you can cause a uphold swing of momentum. The reason why i run cards like force, tt, and break is because like rftdd and sixth sense, all 3 cards cause a swing in momentum which is important in the game. If people start playing around force too much i will cut it back for book.

6) no vanity emptiness- i have never mained emptiness or sided it at all this format because i never liked a card which can potentially neg you and is only good if your in a commanding position. Its not that important in the mirror cos most of the time opponent ditch out 1/2 monsrers and other traps do the same thing. it will be going into the side once stardust radiance becomes legal in australia.

extra deck:

1) Angel of zera- most people hate this card in america/australia but i agree with the europeans that zera is needed. zera can act as a big beatstick in the mirror which is alot more valuable than we think alot of times. People are forced to go into sack (which requires alot of resources), or scrap which are only 2 answers. The extra summon if banished is a plus if your playing against rogue deckss and can be very useful.

2) 2x colossal. just something im tryng out. 2nd colossal because colossal applies pressure in the mirror and being able to surprise opponents is good. 2nd colossal to revive blader is good too as you still have 1 more. colossal is usually the synchro i go into the most which fits my playstyle.

Apart from that the rest is really standard. Not maining gaios although i run fog king because i dont believe in commiting to an xyz which loses to raigeki break/wingblast. You could argue making any synchro is similar, but gaios has been underwhelming since most of the time with fog king theres a better play and it just doesnt seem necessary.

side deck:

1) lack of vanity fiend- similar reason to gaius. There are people who still run breaks and fiend seems just too gimmicky.

2) fire fencing ferret- surprisingly good card to pressure with in spellbook matchup. In books you need to put as much pressure as possible and sometimes summoning this and a dragon is all you need. Kycoo is getting popular so ferret makes the matchup more favorable. Good vs constellar etc too since the deck is bound to see an increase in play. I have always thought constellars were the best deck to go against dragons (better than verz) because the extra tenki firefist plays help alot in the grindfest.

3) trap stun- good card. i chose to run this over decree so i could resolve my traps. This card is surprisingly good in the mirror too i side 1 in because it can kill so many things like return, vanity and chainable traps not to mention refpanel. Would not bring 2 in because it sucks to draw multiples.

4) castle of dragon souls- i was maining this but it came up too often where i would just draw it with a bad hand and wish it was another real trap. Ideally its only good in the mirror, and not very good against anything else, so i decided to bring it in for the mirror. This is only under trial, if a better card comes along i will cut it first.

5) no skill drain- dont believe in paying extra 1k. eg- summon kycoo + 1k = 2.8 k damage which is painful and if they follow up with mst or something you lose. May give it a shot again as the meta shapes. Drawing drain when you have no real plays is bad. That is the main reason why i dont run it. Imagine a hand of 2x tuner 1x dragon 1x drain 1x mst 1x trap. Drain doesnt do much in this situation so to minimize inconsistency i cut it.

6) no 2nd scarecrow- i dont like siding too many cards for the mirror. I usually side 1x virus, 1x mst, 1x stun, 2x debunk if i go first, and if i go 2nd, 1-2x virus, 1x mst, 2x debunk. Going over 6 is hard and i still havent found a perfect side for dragons that im very comfortable with.

Thats all for today that has been a long wall of text, if you have any questions or comments, just shoot.

RETURN FROM THE DIFFERENT DIMENSION

I think it is time to come back to blogging, I have missed I quite abit, and this format In tcg calls for a lot of discussion constantly as more and more tech cards pop up in dragon decks, as the format changes, more and more tech cards and variant improvise the mirror. This is a mirror of the last format honestly except we don't have rejuvenation to make things worse.

There have also been many interesting tournaments happening in the TCG with stuff like ARG circuit, Europe's (Germany's particularly) tournaments and other stuff.

Many stuff like Verz and constellar finals in ARG circuit is also worth discussing :O

I will be posting more content soon so look forward to it !!

A while after I stopped blogging, I had a chat with 1 of my Singapore friends and he said that my previous blogging style could get sort of messy. I reread some of my old posts and found it quite true. So in the future expect more concise, planned out posts.