I am prepared to receive alot of hate for this.
But it must be said.
PS: Pls ignore why this post mimics a personal diary, or sounds like i'm thinking aloud or that im crazy.
For the past few days preparing for Oceanics and final exams, i have come across a very very contradictory situation : Maining Monster reborn in dragons.
the first thing you must think is this guy is out of his mind, reborn is a staple card and reborn is a very versatile card which aids in many otks, and many comboes, it is hardly ever dead, and you can do so many cool stuff with more than 1 tuner (like the shamir otk!)
The thing is, i couldn't agree more.
i noticed a long long time ago, that reborn was cut from japanese decks and i had no problem with accepting that. One of its primary uses now in TCG is to combat verz by bringing back a dracosack and bringing back level 4s to make that gemknight pearl vs verz. Verz is pretty big here, so reborn is theoretically pretty good (it still is)
However, that decision plaqued me for several days as reborn is the 41st card in my deck, and i have to say, im out of space (i am thinking of playing other cards). It was hardly ever dead, in playtesting on DN, and although i never playtested with my deck much in real life (outside of the last regionals) , i never found it dead and i never regretted drawing it.
However, when i was discussing with a friend about the viablitity of RFTDD once again (i love hearing peoples opinions ), and he came up with a very good metaphor. RFTDD is very much like abyssqual in mermails, its dead early game, it provides alot of leverage but yet it is just somehow not needed. When i was playing mermails, i was a very big fan of squalless builds.
The same goes for reborn. We know its (somehow) not needed, its a card which you would like to have in winning situations (most of the time you're in one), and when i discussed with another friend, he told me :
1) reborn is a winmoar card, meaning that reborn is good when you are in a winning position, and helps aid your victory but it also doesnt do that much if your in a losing position. This argument is very true. Because if i play against dragons and my opponent has 3-4 colours and a maxx c and i have dead cards in hand like reborn, reju, and not enough dragons, what am i going to do? the most i can do is to make a synchro, or if possible, a dracosack/big eye, but what follow up will i have? My opponent will easily overpower me next turn with his own big eye , and more big beaters.
Similarly vs verz, if your opponent has a whole load of traps and you have reborn, whats the point? Although i dont think my points for the verz comparison is solid (you must have as many options as possible), but you get the idea.
Also Reborn Vs Prophecy is very subpar considering how often jowgen is on the field. Builds that play exchange love Reborn in your hand, its free stuff for them !
But still that was not enough to convince me. This whole thing i had considered a while ago, but i still could not bear to cut reborn.
Asking me to cut Reborn was like asking Yugi to cut dark magician from his deck.
Then i started taking out my deck and tutoring some hands.
I drew " 1 Max C 1 Droll Lock bird, 1 Super Reju, 1 baby, 1 reborn, 1 Storm" . I checked my 7th draw and saw Effect veiler.
Yup bye reborn!
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
Sunday, May 19, 2013
Another regionals report =(
So a bunch of us travelled to newcastle to play a regionals to help our friends qualify (surprise! we have unfair activities in TCG too ! ) and i ended up with 3 hours sleep the previous night because people would not let me sleep.
So i wasnt gonna play actually, just go down to buy stuff i needed to complete edragons which was 3 dracosex. I literally couldn't find any although i had $ to buy them, just no one who wanted to sell them for a legit price without blowing off ebay prices. #1stworldproblems
Then it was announced 1 day before that Tachyon would be legal so OF COURSE I WANTED TO PLAY EDRAGONS
Round 1: Gadget
G1 : Dragon > gadget
G2 : Dragon > gadget
Round 2: Spellbooks (yaowei)
he scooped because everyone wanted kato to qualify but then we played it out for fun and it was funny because it was more like playtesting, and he was asking me if certain plays were correct or not throughout the game.
conspiracy happened and we played many many games but i shall just record what happened in the 1st 3.
g1: Dragon + droll > prophecy with toontable + elf in hand
g2: Prophecy God hand > Dragon with 0 hand trap + He set up D fissure beforehand,so next turn i mst the d fissure and dropped card destruction but he had solemn judgment
g3: I EEV turn 1 and dropped 4 from his hand including a tower and he summon kycoo. was planning to deal with it next turn then he topdeck ANOTHER TOWER and dropped another kycoo while i topdeck redox mst veiler whee yugioh. People who say EEV = instant win have never met me.
he later proceeds to pull a dracosack and another SCR in 5 packs...:)
Round 3: Verz
G1: Dracosack is good
G2: Cleared his Ophion and he dropped DAD next turn to destroy my thought ruler and summoned something, but i electric virus the DAD and win.
Round 4: Verz (Andy)
He was supposed to scoop for our friend too but we played it out
G1: Dragons + reju r good
G2: I had storm mst reborn virus baby and smtg irrelevant, he summoned thunderbird set 1, and i passed. He made ophion next turn and set another 1, obviously you'd read it as pandemic. So i thought i'd do this thing tcg players did called conserving and making the right play and mst the other fd, made gemknight pearl and attack into ophion but it was forbidden dress ! He otk me next turn with reborn and something else. Misplay is still misplay and loss is still loss.
G3: Dragons r good
Round 5: Prophecy (jimmy)
Another guy who was supposed to scoop for our friend but he wanted to play it out suddenly after g2 so (O.o ok)
G1: we take the longest g1 and i win with blader stopping him from dropping John and win
G2: Time was called and i was leading 8000 to 3500, and when i attack with tempest, he chain waboku, and i dropped tsukuyomi to keep tempest fd so that if he had John he couldn't be able to kill me. But he topdecked the 2nd John in his deck and dropped 2 and knocked me down in the 5th turn :(
I still went up cz nobody wanted to wait for us, and dragons which go 1st usually ... assumingly....you know...
Round 6: Stun deck (james)
G1: he had raioh and safe zone and stuff which slowed me down but i played around it and won
G2: I mst his 2 fd, card destruction and made mental sphere demon and whack and set EEV. Next turn he makes direwolf uses its eff on mental sphere, but i chain eev and he died.
So i went "undefeated" and came 1st, got 1 1/2 boxes of Tachyon and pulled Totem bird.
decklist is :
3 blaster
3 redox
3 tidal
3 tempest
2 burner
2 reactan
2 stream
2 lightning
3 veiler
3 max c
2 droll lock bird
1 corsesca
3 super reju
1 card destruction
1 sword
2 gold sarc
1 reborn
1 heavy
1 book moon
2 breakthrough skill
extra:
3 dracosack
2 big eye
1 gaia
1 abyssgaios
1 pearl
1 scrap dragon
1 crimson blader
1 thought ruler archfiend
1 armory arm
1 ancient sacred wyvern
1 black rose dragon
1 colossal fighter
sidedeck:
stuffs
explanation for maindeck:
People said no u will not face prophecy only a few ppl have 3 judgment days, then suddenly everywhere spellbooks were the majority and almost everyone had 2-3. But i decided to keep it in cos just in case u meet a random verz and they max c you, and you just drop droll
explanation for retarded extradeck
- Blackrose dragon because i couldnt find burei
- Thought ruler over red demon today because predicted not many dragons and many verz with compuls is annoying
- 2x Big eye. Although Frazier and the rest of the other american players are going on about why you need 3 big eye, i really don't see the point, i rarely made it, i rarely play it in dragon mirror match, and i can cut it for more options.
Anyway today was just testing grounds against verz + prophecy. Have side/main revamped :)
No more posts for now cos nationals season and the blog will just die because everyone is using FB, twitter etc so.... !
So i wasnt gonna play actually, just go down to buy stuff i needed to complete edragons which was 3 dracosex. I literally couldn't find any although i had $ to buy them, just no one who wanted to sell them for a legit price without blowing off ebay prices. #1stworldproblems
Then it was announced 1 day before that Tachyon would be legal so OF COURSE I WANTED TO PLAY EDRAGONS
Round 1: Gadget
G1 : Dragon > gadget
G2 : Dragon > gadget
Round 2: Spellbooks (yaowei)
he scooped because everyone wanted kato to qualify but then we played it out for fun and it was funny because it was more like playtesting, and he was asking me if certain plays were correct or not throughout the game.
conspiracy happened and we played many many games but i shall just record what happened in the 1st 3.
g1: Dragon + droll > prophecy with toontable + elf in hand
g2: Prophecy God hand > Dragon with 0 hand trap + He set up D fissure beforehand,so next turn i mst the d fissure and dropped card destruction but he had solemn judgment
g3: I EEV turn 1 and dropped 4 from his hand including a tower and he summon kycoo. was planning to deal with it next turn then he topdeck ANOTHER TOWER and dropped another kycoo while i topdeck redox mst veiler whee yugioh. People who say EEV = instant win have never met me.
he later proceeds to pull a dracosack and another SCR in 5 packs...:)
Round 3: Verz
G1: Dracosack is good
G2: Cleared his Ophion and he dropped DAD next turn to destroy my thought ruler and summoned something, but i electric virus the DAD and win.
Round 4: Verz (Andy)
He was supposed to scoop for our friend too but we played it out
G1: Dragons + reju r good
G2: I had storm mst reborn virus baby and smtg irrelevant, he summoned thunderbird set 1, and i passed. He made ophion next turn and set another 1, obviously you'd read it as pandemic. So i thought i'd do this thing tcg players did called conserving and making the right play and mst the other fd, made gemknight pearl and attack into ophion but it was forbidden dress ! He otk me next turn with reborn and something else. Misplay is still misplay and loss is still loss.
G3: Dragons r good
Round 5: Prophecy (jimmy)
Another guy who was supposed to scoop for our friend but he wanted to play it out suddenly after g2 so (O.o ok)
G1: we take the longest g1 and i win with blader stopping him from dropping John and win
G2: Time was called and i was leading 8000 to 3500, and when i attack with tempest, he chain waboku, and i dropped tsukuyomi to keep tempest fd so that if he had John he couldn't be able to kill me. But he topdecked the 2nd John in his deck and dropped 2 and knocked me down in the 5th turn :(
I still went up cz nobody wanted to wait for us, and dragons which go 1st usually ... assumingly....you know...
Round 6: Stun deck (james)
G1: he had raioh and safe zone and stuff which slowed me down but i played around it and won
G2: I mst his 2 fd, card destruction and made mental sphere demon and whack and set EEV. Next turn he makes direwolf uses its eff on mental sphere, but i chain eev and he died.
So i went "undefeated" and came 1st, got 1 1/2 boxes of Tachyon and pulled Totem bird.
decklist is :
3 blaster
3 redox
3 tidal
3 tempest
2 burner
2 reactan
2 stream
2 lightning
3 veiler
3 max c
2 droll lock bird
1 corsesca
3 super reju
1 card destruction
1 sword
2 gold sarc
1 reborn
1 heavy
1 book moon
2 breakthrough skill
extra:
3 dracosack
2 big eye
1 gaia
1 abyssgaios
1 pearl
1 scrap dragon
1 crimson blader
1 thought ruler archfiend
1 armory arm
1 ancient sacred wyvern
1 black rose dragon
1 colossal fighter
sidedeck:
stuffs
explanation for maindeck:
People said no u will not face prophecy only a few ppl have 3 judgment days, then suddenly everywhere spellbooks were the majority and almost everyone had 2-3. But i decided to keep it in cos just in case u meet a random verz and they max c you, and you just drop droll
explanation for retarded extradeck
- Blackrose dragon because i couldnt find burei
- Thought ruler over red demon today because predicted not many dragons and many verz with compuls is annoying
- 2x Big eye. Although Frazier and the rest of the other american players are going on about why you need 3 big eye, i really don't see the point, i rarely made it, i rarely play it in dragon mirror match, and i can cut it for more options.
Anyway today was just testing grounds against verz + prophecy. Have side/main revamped :)
No more posts for now cos nationals season and the blog will just die because everyone is using FB, twitter etc so.... !
Sunday, April 28, 2013
Another regionals report
I've run out of things to talk about for now., so i'll just go with another report.
Hopefully after all this i can go back to reading up on the OCG.
Asia Championship 2013 has just passed and congratz to:
1) SAM MY IDOL FOR GETTING 2ND WITH VERZ
2) Edsel from Phillipines for getting 3rd
3) Korea for winning the whole thing !
In case anybody doesn't know yet :
Master Key Beetle + deck lockdown + 1 trap = GG incarnate dragons
Do check out Yugioh Edition Singapore on FB for the awesome coverage!
At the same time, it is currently day 2 of YCS Lille and fellow group Complexity Card Gaming members Alpay and Joshua Schmidt are now in the top32, all the best to them !
As i'm typing this, i just got news, Alpay finished in the top 16, and Joshua is in the top 8!
For both the pages mentioned above, just type it in the search bar in FB
So back to the report:
Today the venue was held in a RSL club which i guess stands for sport and leisure club or something, which meant it was a proper and good venue, unlike the previous ones. So, there was ample space to walk around, large playing spaces, and most importantly good lighting and aircon.
There were 128 people joining today, which was just as big as the previous and im tired so im just gonna post the report:
Round 1: Fire Fist
i won the die roll
Game 1 : he opened Abyss Dweller (how the fuck he know i using mermails?) but i somehow pull through and won
Game 2: He overextended into my Torrential tribute, we were topdecking, and we both made sick topdecks (he had tenki i had something else which i couldn't remember) but i won
1-0
Round 2: Six Samurai
i won the die roll
game 1: He wasted Solemn warning on my teus, and i just megalo and kill
game 2: This time he didn't want to waste his facedowns on my teus, so i summoned pike , knocked over the bottomless (why didn't he chain it?), played mst on his other backrow (which he kept touching meaning its obviously something good), and then otk
2-0
Round 3: Windups
he won the die roll
Game 1: he turn 1 D Fissure and car D, i cant remember what i did but i know i warning-ed his tour guide, and he had no monsters so i pulled through.
Game 2: I was very sure he was playing rabbit because no sign of WU in g1, so i sided in all the rabbit related bullshit and lost after he did the volcacharge combo
Game 3: Proper siding = win. cannot remember how.
3-0
Round 4: Mermail
i won the die roll
Game 1: He made Gachi then killed me with megalo + diva next turn
Game 2: I win somehow
Game 3: This was a very good game and had alot of grinding. Slowly played around his cards (he had advantage) until i had the advantage by a longshot. Won somehow because dweller + catastor > abystrite + bahamut + linde after i cleared his backrow.
4-0
Round 5: Dark World turbo
he won the die roll
Game 1: I swear i literally died when he had tour Guide, reborn, gates, card destruction, snow, a million dragged downs but somehow i won because he commited everything to his field and turbo-ed his deck and replenished my hand so i just destroy his field slowly, and his hand was all crap.
Game 2: He did the same thing and my hand was trash and i died.
Game 3: I forgot how i won
5-0
Round 6: Verz
he won the die roll
Game 1: He didn't have Ophion so i whacked past his Thunderbird into.... GORZ! He had Ophion , and i could clear the first lance, but he had the 2nd verz lance = GG
Game 2: I won because Mermail with Warning against the Ophion = ggverz
Game 3: The only legit game out of the 3. Very close call. He had like a big backrow and i had Heavy Storm but my hand was 1 leed 2 dragoons . Conserved the dragoons and then summoned infantry into diva and made gachi . Won because bahamut shark and friends are good.
The reason he lost is because he wasn't Sam and his Ophion doesnt stay on the field forever =(
6-0
Round 7: Chain Beat
He won the die roll
Game 1: Extremely nervous to play this match because i had no idea what the deck does, although the guy asked me some card opinions before the tournament but i couldn't give much constructive advice because i've no idea what it does. I overextend into Mirror Force (didn't expect this) and lost.
Game 2: Opened Diva into Catastor, set MST + dust tornado. He plays D Fissure and sets 2, and then I blow both his s/t, salvage back the stuff and just makes a field which he can't comeback from.
Game 3: I won in the end through grinding. Somehow all my game 3 ends up in some grind
7-0
Round 8: Windups
I win the die roll
Game 1: Mermail > windup
Game 2: He overextended his stuff into Shock Ruler and i Mirror Force then follow up with Storm ^^
8-0
Since this was a round robin tournament, i went undefeated and placed first and got that fire fist mat.
Decklist is as follows:
Added 3rd Infantry in the morning because i wanted to try it out.
Abyssturge is inside after sazabi performed stunts with it during our training session (kudos to SG best mermail for helping me up my game). I would much rather have a turge than a 3rd spike which means i can overextend my diva in turn 1.
PS: i wanted to run breakthrough skill but no one had any to lend out.
Sidedeck explanations:
1 gozen match because nobody had prideful roar/ knew what it does so i just threw it in to make it 15.
Malevolent catastrophe is inside because i never draw my sided backrow hate so more hate! It was good except i won without it, or it got MST-ed so...
The rest is very standard.
Good night people.
Hopefully after all this i can go back to reading up on the OCG.
Asia Championship 2013 has just passed and congratz to:
1) SAM MY IDOL FOR GETTING 2ND WITH VERZ
2) Edsel from Phillipines for getting 3rd
3) Korea for winning the whole thing !
In case anybody doesn't know yet :
Master Key Beetle + deck lockdown + 1 trap = GG incarnate dragons
Do check out Yugioh Edition Singapore on FB for the awesome coverage!
At the same time, it is currently day 2 of YCS Lille and fellow group Complexity Card Gaming members Alpay and Joshua Schmidt are now in the top32, all the best to them !
As i'm typing this, i just got news, Alpay finished in the top 16, and Joshua is in the top 8!
For both the pages mentioned above, just type it in the search bar in FB
So back to the report:
Today the venue was held in a RSL club which i guess stands for sport and leisure club or something, which meant it was a proper and good venue, unlike the previous ones. So, there was ample space to walk around, large playing spaces, and most importantly good lighting and aircon.
There were 128 people joining today, which was just as big as the previous and im tired so im just gonna post the report:
Round 1: Fire Fist
i won the die roll
Game 1 : he opened Abyss Dweller (how the fuck he know i using mermails?) but i somehow pull through and won
Game 2: He overextended into my Torrential tribute, we were topdecking, and we both made sick topdecks (he had tenki i had something else which i couldn't remember) but i won
1-0
Round 2: Six Samurai
i won the die roll
game 1: He wasted Solemn warning on my teus, and i just megalo and kill
game 2: This time he didn't want to waste his facedowns on my teus, so i summoned pike , knocked over the bottomless (why didn't he chain it?), played mst on his other backrow (which he kept touching meaning its obviously something good), and then otk
2-0
Round 3: Windups
he won the die roll
Game 1: he turn 1 D Fissure and car D, i cant remember what i did but i know i warning-ed his tour guide, and he had no monsters so i pulled through.
Game 2: I was very sure he was playing rabbit because no sign of WU in g1, so i sided in all the rabbit related bullshit and lost after he did the volcacharge combo
Game 3: Proper siding = win. cannot remember how.
3-0
Round 4: Mermail
i won the die roll
Game 1: He made Gachi then killed me with megalo + diva next turn
Game 2: I win somehow
Game 3: This was a very good game and had alot of grinding. Slowly played around his cards (he had advantage) until i had the advantage by a longshot. Won somehow because dweller + catastor > abystrite + bahamut + linde after i cleared his backrow.
4-0
Round 5: Dark World turbo
he won the die roll
Game 1: I swear i literally died when he had tour Guide, reborn, gates, card destruction, snow, a million dragged downs but somehow i won because he commited everything to his field and turbo-ed his deck and replenished my hand so i just destroy his field slowly, and his hand was all crap.
Game 2: He did the same thing and my hand was trash and i died.
Game 3: I forgot how i won
5-0
Round 6: Verz
he won the die roll
Game 1: He didn't have Ophion so i whacked past his Thunderbird into.... GORZ! He had Ophion , and i could clear the first lance, but he had the 2nd verz lance = GG
Game 2: I won because Mermail with Warning against the Ophion = ggverz
Game 3: The only legit game out of the 3. Very close call. He had like a big backrow and i had Heavy Storm but my hand was 1 leed 2 dragoons . Conserved the dragoons and then summoned infantry into diva and made gachi . Won because bahamut shark and friends are good.
The reason he lost is because he wasn't Sam and his Ophion doesnt stay on the field forever =(
6-0
Round 7: Chain Beat
He won the die roll
Game 1: Extremely nervous to play this match because i had no idea what the deck does, although the guy asked me some card opinions before the tournament but i couldn't give much constructive advice because i've no idea what it does. I overextend into Mirror Force (didn't expect this) and lost.
Game 2: Opened Diva into Catastor, set MST + dust tornado. He plays D Fissure and sets 2, and then I blow both his s/t, salvage back the stuff and just makes a field which he can't comeback from.
Game 3: I won in the end through grinding. Somehow all my game 3 ends up in some grind
7-0
Round 8: Windups
I win the die roll
Game 1: Mermail > windup
Game 2: He overextended his stuff into Shock Ruler and i Mirror Force then follow up with Storm ^^
8-0
Since this was a round robin tournament, i went undefeated and placed first and got that fire fist mat.
Decklist is as follows:
Added 3rd Infantry in the morning because i wanted to try it out.
Abyssturge is inside after sazabi performed stunts with it during our training session (kudos to SG best mermail for helping me up my game). I would much rather have a turge than a 3rd spike which means i can overextend my diva in turn 1.
PS: i wanted to run breakthrough skill but no one had any to lend out.
Sidedeck explanations:
1 gozen match because nobody had prideful roar/ knew what it does so i just threw it in to make it 15.
Malevolent catastrophe is inside because i never draw my sided backrow hate so more hate! It was good except i won without it, or it got MST-ed so...
The rest is very standard.
Good night people.
Thursday, April 18, 2013
A Short Message to Konami TCG
What are the odds of Konami's TCG team reading this? Probably lower than 20%, unless PJ suddenly decides to look at this measly blog; but heck i'll still give this a shot, i just have to because it is too important.
So here goes:
Dear Konami TCG team,
Prior to the release of LGTY TCG in May 2013, i would like to bring to your attention regarding the topic:
Releasing of Elemental Dragon Babies into the LGTY set, or any future sets, within a time span of 1 month thereof
The purpose of this short text is to urge you to release the E dragon babies into the TCG.
Allow me to give my reasons why:
1) If E dragons aren't released, the entire TCG format will be a 1-deck format. Prior to one deck formats (some can be skillful like TeleDAD and GB), this is one of those cases where it is not, and the first person to access spellbook judgment day properly wins. The game will come down to who gets their JD and who learns how to use their JD against their opponent properly. This means just conserving it and knowing the right time to activate, or if you get lucky and draw 2 JDs, you will win the mirror.
The second/third games will be the exact same thing, with the added option of who draws their D&L birds, and maybe cursed seal of forbidden spells.
2) E dragons are not unskillful. The current TCG hypes the LADD dragosack 1st turn combo, because all they have had heard are rumours, and believe me when i first heard of the combo i was baffled too, and maybe some have had some exposure to some games on DN. However, after more testing, the engine is very subpar. Referring to the OCG, everyone has cut the LADD engine because it is inconsistent/takes up many resources etc. Reference to LADD as a outright win condition turn 1 is also bull, because there are many ways to play around it, and 1 of them include dropping a simple Castor + any verz and destroying the engine.
3) If the babies aren't released not only will every TCG event, but even Worlds 2013 become a 1-deck event, which is play prophecy and win. Evilswarm and mermail both can hold their grounds if they can access EEV first turn, but the problem comes down to actually drawing it or praying your opponent opens bad.
4) Despite the fact that E Dragons overpower just about every other deck except Prophecy and itself, the mirror match is very skillful. I believe as long as TCG players pick up the fact that LADD is crap soon enough, we will have a very skillful format which players will appreciate.
5) Despite receiving complains on the price tag on e dragons (3 SCR dragosack 3 SCR big eye and maybe more), i believe it is the same with receiving complaints about having to blow on 3 SCR judgment days/ Junons (high priestess). Besides haven't you been receiving complaints every format? No reprints of exp card- players complain. After reprint- players complain too.
6) If e dragons aren't released, and prophecy dominates, yes, the players will feel better, and less insecure about deck choices because they think oh its better than having 2 broke (almost tier 0s) in the game , rather than having 1 superior deck, so i can freely gamble on my mermail, fire fist, or verz. But it will make no difference so it is irrelevant because Prophecy will still take at least 75% of the top 8 spots in each TCG national event, (except if that country doesn't have a high number of players willing to invest in expensive decks, whilst the 25% goes to lucky players who managed to pilot their grade 2 tier 1 deck into the top 8)
7) No first turn Naturia beast/ six sam shien is not an option.
I believe it is in your good will to include the additions of the cards into the set, whether you have started production of the cards or not. Besides, the whole purpose of releasing the E Dragons into the OCG was to make up for the horrid card design of SJD right? (i hope) So, i dont see any reason why it won't be in TCG too.
Please, for the love of Christ, do not screw up my first TCG nationals experience with an 8 round swiss of prophecy.
Thank you very much.
Regards,
a very hopeful and troubled player
PS: ERR NO I AM NOT TROLLING I AM BEING DEAD SERIOUS
So here goes:
Dear Konami TCG team,
Prior to the release of LGTY TCG in May 2013, i would like to bring to your attention regarding the topic:
Releasing of Elemental Dragon Babies into the LGTY set, or any future sets, within a time span of 1 month thereof
The purpose of this short text is to urge you to release the E dragon babies into the TCG.
Allow me to give my reasons why:
1) If E dragons aren't released, the entire TCG format will be a 1-deck format. Prior to one deck formats (some can be skillful like TeleDAD and GB), this is one of those cases where it is not, and the first person to access spellbook judgment day properly wins. The game will come down to who gets their JD and who learns how to use their JD against their opponent properly. This means just conserving it and knowing the right time to activate, or if you get lucky and draw 2 JDs, you will win the mirror.
The second/third games will be the exact same thing, with the added option of who draws their D&L birds, and maybe cursed seal of forbidden spells.
2) E dragons are not unskillful. The current TCG hypes the LADD dragosack 1st turn combo, because all they have had heard are rumours, and believe me when i first heard of the combo i was baffled too, and maybe some have had some exposure to some games on DN. However, after more testing, the engine is very subpar. Referring to the OCG, everyone has cut the LADD engine because it is inconsistent/takes up many resources etc. Reference to LADD as a outright win condition turn 1 is also bull, because there are many ways to play around it, and 1 of them include dropping a simple Castor + any verz and destroying the engine.
3) If the babies aren't released not only will every TCG event, but even Worlds 2013 become a 1-deck event, which is play prophecy and win. Evilswarm and mermail both can hold their grounds if they can access EEV first turn, but the problem comes down to actually drawing it or praying your opponent opens bad.
4) Despite the fact that E Dragons overpower just about every other deck except Prophecy and itself, the mirror match is very skillful. I believe as long as TCG players pick up the fact that LADD is crap soon enough, we will have a very skillful format which players will appreciate.
5) Despite receiving complains on the price tag on e dragons (3 SCR dragosack 3 SCR big eye and maybe more), i believe it is the same with receiving complaints about having to blow on 3 SCR judgment days/ Junons (high priestess). Besides haven't you been receiving complaints every format? No reprints of exp card- players complain. After reprint- players complain too.
6) If e dragons aren't released, and prophecy dominates, yes, the players will feel better, and less insecure about deck choices because they think oh its better than having 2 broke (almost tier 0s) in the game , rather than having 1 superior deck, so i can freely gamble on my mermail, fire fist, or verz. But it will make no difference so it is irrelevant because Prophecy will still take at least 75% of the top 8 spots in each TCG national event, (except if that country doesn't have a high number of players willing to invest in expensive decks, whilst the 25% goes to lucky players who managed to pilot their grade 2 tier 1 deck into the top 8)
7) No first turn Naturia beast/ six sam shien is not an option.
I believe it is in your good will to include the additions of the cards into the set, whether you have started production of the cards or not. Besides, the whole purpose of releasing the E Dragons into the OCG was to make up for the horrid card design of SJD right? (i hope) So, i dont see any reason why it won't be in TCG too.
Please, for the love of Christ, do not screw up my first TCG nationals experience with an 8 round swiss of prophecy.
Thank you very much.
Regards,
a very hopeful and troubled player
PS: ERR NO I AM NOT TROLLING I AM BEING DEAD SERIOUS
Saturday, April 13, 2013
Deck list post + Extra stuff
The list is VERY standard in my opinion, but i bumped up the trap count to include fiendish chain. It was a good card today, but i am only half sold on it, because it makes my opponent's MSTs live. In a way, it could switch the target away from Abyssphere but the deck doesn't have any form of protection. Almost everytime i had this, i wished it was torrential tribute, simply because there were many times when people just flooded their field, especially with wind-up (should have side some gozen or something)
The side list was pretty solid/standard except for Enemy Controller. I saw Jeff Jones using E-con in his deck and so i thought, heck i'll just tech 1 in the side and see how it comes along. It was pretty bad, because i always wished it was another Soul Taker or some other more solid form of removal.
Surprisingly i did not face a single fire fist yesterday which i prepared and sided heavily for the matchup.
Now to talk about the tournament:
From what i said yesterday, the tournament format was an 8-round swiss with no top cut. (This wasn't a bad format from a neutral POV but i just personally do not like it. I will talk about why later)
The bad part was squeezing 130 people inside a store with a playing size area of approximately 3 by 5 metres playing space, and having no aircon. So you can imagine the sweat smell and the heat.
However, the event was quite a smooth one because the 3-man judge team was very good, and also fair, there weren't any biased rulings and they knew their stuff, so kudos to them. They also ran the rounds very smoothly, and things were very organized despite the bad atmosphere.
Coming out from Malaysia where we play 5 rounds of swiss to make the top cut of top 32, and then playing another 5 rounds if you can make it to the final, most of us have never played that long, so it was a challenge of stamina for me.
Most good players have qualified for the seedings everytime they have the chance so that means they will be playing only 5 rounds to go to the finals.
Seedings give alot of advantage and leverage to good players for a number of reasons :
1) You don't feel tired. You can sleep in, reach late or go early and talk with your friends and observe what the other players are playing. This gives you so much advantage while nobody knows your deck.
2) You can actually eat or drink and not feel degenerated after playing a 5 round swiss. Using your brain to consider every option/possibility/situation can be very tiring. I remember how i went into time in the round 6match vs chaos dragons, and was the last match to finish, and right after that i had to play windups, so it wasn't easy.
3) You do not have to prepare for degenerate decks because they will be eliminated outside of the 5 round swiss. There will be less anti meta to prepare for too, and you will not meet random tier 2 decks (because everyone knows meta > anti meta).This gives your deck alot of leverage.
4) This is probably the most important point: In a long round tourney, the probability of your deck's inconsistencies start to show, because if you have taken advanced math before, the accuracy of a study increases with more scenarios considered. Thus, if you base your deck's consistency off a 5 round tourney, you may open bad maybe once or twice only (if your using a tier 1 deck). Yesterday in the 8 rounds, there were times i opened many unplayable hands (2 sphere 2 linde my life is good) or hands which just simply could not deal with what they had (its yugioh). Consequently, if you are playing the deck long run, the probability of you getting sacked or you sacking also increases. From yesterday's report i opened the nuts in at least 3 games, while my opponents opened the nuts in at least 4 games, which is quite accurate ^
So, to players who think TCG is not as hard as OCG, i've just explained how TCG can be harder in some ways. In SEA countries, the seeded tourney system is a huge advantage. i've no idea about Japan, but in TCG, no such thing exists, and i think the closest thing to a seeded tourney was YCS san diego, where the better players made day 2. Sure it is true that more OCG players know what they're doing compared to TCG ones (only like 1/10th of the players there were decent/good) while the rest were just strange.
I am not sure what decks made the top 8 yesterday, but i know:
1 Electrum deck
3 Mermail
1 Windup
Congrats to Bohdan, Jimmy, and Troy for topping, and to Sean for losing on the bubble at 9th place with sams. Ah well.
So, time to stop Yugioh for a few weeks, until the next regional.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So, this is a random part of the post i wanted to share since Baha already asked you guys to follow him on twitter where he posts comboes. I know some of you guys do not have twitter so i'll just share this here:
A few weeks ago, the deck i was talking about which can abuse Transturn is none other than Infernity!
3 Barrier TCG:
To do this you need to open with a hand of Zero Max, Grepher, and either Demon/ Necromancer
1) Grepher discard Demon/ Necro and sends Demon/Necro to grave
2) Zero Max summons Necro1, and Necro1 summon Demon1 which searches Necro 2
3) Grepher demon xyz lavalchain 1--> detach demon mill hellway patrol
4) Patrol ef ss necro 2--> summon demon 1
5) Demon 1 get infernity gun
6) 2 necro xyz levial--> levial summons patrol
7) demon and patrol xyz diawolf--> tributes itself to destroy levial
8) gun ss 2 necro --> Necro 1 summon Demon 1--> Demon 1 searches Demon 2
9) Patrol summon Demon B--> searches barrier 1
10) 2 Demon xyz Laval Chain 2--> Mill Trick Demon--> Searches Demon Palace to hand
11) Necro B ss Demon 1 --> Demon 1 searches barrier 2
12) Activate Palace banish Necro get Demon 3--> searches barrier 3
End product: 2 Laval Chain + 2 Demon + 1 Necromancer + Palace + 3 Barrier
Have fun guys ^
At the same time i want to point out that although the new spellbook boss has an uber broken effect, it is not that good because it is hard to special summon out. The only way is to play temperance, but are you really willing to add temperance and torunt to your spellbooks just for a chance to play that?
Level 9 is an awkward level too, and spellbooks sometimes get weird random hands despite getting 6 searchers because the deck has synergy only after spellbook of secrets hit the grave. Apart from that, without batel or secrets, your hands get really awkward.
Unless a new build for spellbooks comes out, the current OCG one will not run torunt. period.
Sydney Burwood Regionals report
Won't go into depth here so i'm gonna write a short one and follow it up with an article on how it felt to transition between TCG-OCG (feels weird), and follow it up with the decklist used.
The regs was really last minute i decided to go just 2-3 days before, and i playtested the mirror with Bixuan for like an hour the night before.
I basically tested genex mermail for weeks, but after a few scrubs to mono (too fast) , i decided to just play mono because it was so good.
So i took the build bixuan gave me and switched a few cards in there.
The format was an 8 round swiss with no top cut. Top 16 (i think) get their invites to Oceanics. So basically who placed top 8 in the swiss gets a playmat. This is such a retarded format (still better than single eliminnation) there should be a top 8, and we should not be forced to play 8 rounds just to know our standings =.=
There were 130 players (wow like malaysian nationals), and apparently it was the biggest regionals Australia has ever had?
Shoutout to Sean, Chris, Jimmy and everyone else who lent me their stuff and different bits and pieces of the deck to play. I dont have a single card/deck here.
Round 1: VS ?
I didn't know what he was playing, it looked something like monarchs so i just 2-0ed.
1-0
Round 2: VS 6 Sams
Game 1: He opened Shien, dropped 2 kizans, and commited his whole hand and i forgot how i killed him but something to do with capitalization.
Game 2: He opened D Fissure i chain max C, he summons Shien sets 4 backrow and attacks into my Tragoedia next turn. I drew 2 MSTs and set them. He flips up another D fissure, and when i used Tragoedia to attack, he flips fiendish chain, i respond with 2 MST to destroy it, and just win from there.
2-0
Round 3: Agents
Game 1: I can't remember what happened.
Game 2: I remember him making a full field and attacking into my Mirror Force.
3-0
Round 4: Karakuri
Game 1: He opened good, i drew the nuts, which was dark hole, salvage, reborn, diva, megalo and something. Cleared field, summon diva make catastor he warnings, and i hit him down to 400. He had a response but i forgot what else i did to win.
Game 2: Opened Naturia beast, d fissure, 2 backrow- scoop
Game 3: I vaguely remembered what happened but i remember doing some genius play where i dust tornado his f/d (i was hoping it was mst) and he chains it to my sphere allowing me to bring out pike, discards marksman, adds gunde. I proceed to reborn his karakuri tuner and make gungnir, discard megalo and gunde, to destroy his full field and make big eye, and capitalize, and sets 1 (bluffs a squall) He topdecks dark Hole next turn and makes Burei/bureeido (not sure?) because he said he doesnt know how to play around squall. but i fiendish chain it. He drops d fissure, i topdeck the diva and he rage quit.
4-0
Headache enters as the place was hot, stuffy, and they tried to fit 130 people into a store.
Round 5: Genex Mermail
Game 1: He open the nuts and then Moulins me i just die.
Game 2: He flips linde/marksman (not sure) and then summons genex controller and summons Ally Genex triace (wtf is this) to destroy my fd debunk.He summons megalo, hits for damage, and i try to com back, but he had better hands.
4-1
Round 6: Chaos Dragon
Game 1: He knew his stuff and he tries to kill me but i drop gorz, and i commit my hand to destroy his entire field (he overextended everything) but he topdecked the BLS yes! But i topdeck Avarice next yes!
Game 2: This game went into time, i forgot what happened but i know i won by a large margin.
5-1
Round 7: Windup
Game 1: Opened 2 sphere 2 linde. He had full backrow, with factory, rabbit bla bla.
Game 2: I swear he tried to slowplay me and went into time. He overextends his field, and i try to destroy it by doing infantry into diva plays. Summons infantry #1, he fiendish chain, summons infantry #2 via reborn and make black rose but he flips fiendish chain #2! He overextended the rest, i dark hole, but at the end of thee 5 rounds his life was higher so he won.
5-2
Round 8: Mirror match
Game 1: He opened the nuts and destroyed me in 1 turn.
Game 2: I remember him using linde effect and then brings out pike to discard gunde and summon linde and then dark holes himself (i had leed) lol. I think he overextends his field
then i dark hole and killed.
Game 3: I forgot how i won.
6-2 scrubbed ! Anyway a loss is a loss.
Placed 11 out of 130 players but at least i got my Oceanics invite.
Might play the other regionals (in a few weeks but dont know when) if i feel like waking up early.
More in depth post coming soon im pooped now.
The regs was really last minute i decided to go just 2-3 days before, and i playtested the mirror with Bixuan for like an hour the night before.
I basically tested genex mermail for weeks, but after a few scrubs to mono (too fast) , i decided to just play mono because it was so good.
So i took the build bixuan gave me and switched a few cards in there.
The format was an 8 round swiss with no top cut. Top 16 (i think) get their invites to Oceanics. So basically who placed top 8 in the swiss gets a playmat. This is such a retarded format (still better than single eliminnation) there should be a top 8, and we should not be forced to play 8 rounds just to know our standings =.=
There were 130 players (wow like malaysian nationals), and apparently it was the biggest regionals Australia has ever had?
Shoutout to Sean, Chris, Jimmy and everyone else who lent me their stuff and different bits and pieces of the deck to play. I dont have a single card/deck here.
Round 1: VS ?
I didn't know what he was playing, it looked something like monarchs so i just 2-0ed.
1-0
Round 2: VS 6 Sams
Game 1: He opened Shien, dropped 2 kizans, and commited his whole hand and i forgot how i killed him but something to do with capitalization.
Game 2: He opened D Fissure i chain max C, he summons Shien sets 4 backrow and attacks into my Tragoedia next turn. I drew 2 MSTs and set them. He flips up another D fissure, and when i used Tragoedia to attack, he flips fiendish chain, i respond with 2 MST to destroy it, and just win from there.
2-0
Round 3: Agents
Game 1: I can't remember what happened.
Game 2: I remember him making a full field and attacking into my Mirror Force.
3-0
Round 4: Karakuri
Game 1: He opened good, i drew the nuts, which was dark hole, salvage, reborn, diva, megalo and something. Cleared field, summon diva make catastor he warnings, and i hit him down to 400. He had a response but i forgot what else i did to win.
Game 2: Opened Naturia beast, d fissure, 2 backrow- scoop
Game 3: I vaguely remembered what happened but i remember doing some genius play where i dust tornado his f/d (i was hoping it was mst) and he chains it to my sphere allowing me to bring out pike, discards marksman, adds gunde. I proceed to reborn his karakuri tuner and make gungnir, discard megalo and gunde, to destroy his full field and make big eye, and capitalize, and sets 1 (bluffs a squall) He topdecks dark Hole next turn and makes Burei/bureeido (not sure?) because he said he doesnt know how to play around squall. but i fiendish chain it. He drops d fissure, i topdeck the diva and he rage quit.
4-0
Headache enters as the place was hot, stuffy, and they tried to fit 130 people into a store.
Round 5: Genex Mermail
Game 1: He open the nuts and then Moulins me i just die.
Game 2: He flips linde/marksman (not sure) and then summons genex controller and summons Ally Genex triace (wtf is this) to destroy my fd debunk.He summons megalo, hits for damage, and i try to com back, but he had better hands.
4-1
Round 6: Chaos Dragon
Game 1: He knew his stuff and he tries to kill me but i drop gorz, and i commit my hand to destroy his entire field (he overextended everything) but he topdecked the BLS yes! But i topdeck Avarice next yes!
Game 2: This game went into time, i forgot what happened but i know i won by a large margin.
5-1
Round 7: Windup
Game 1: Opened 2 sphere 2 linde. He had full backrow, with factory, rabbit bla bla.
Game 2: I swear he tried to slowplay me and went into time. He overextends his field, and i try to destroy it by doing infantry into diva plays. Summons infantry #1, he fiendish chain, summons infantry #2 via reborn and make black rose but he flips fiendish chain #2! He overextended the rest, i dark hole, but at the end of thee 5 rounds his life was higher so he won.
5-2
Round 8: Mirror match
Game 1: He opened the nuts and destroyed me in 1 turn.
Game 2: I remember him using linde effect and then brings out pike to discard gunde and summon linde and then dark holes himself (i had leed) lol. I think he overextends his field
then i dark hole and killed.
Game 3: I forgot how i won.
6-2 scrubbed ! Anyway a loss is a loss.
Placed 11 out of 130 players but at least i got my Oceanics invite.
Might play the other regionals (in a few weeks but dont know when) if i feel like waking up early.
More in depth post coming soon im pooped now.
Friday, April 5, 2013
Welcome to the New Meta!
Its been a while since i posted but i've been SOOO busy with piling assignments, and cramming for uni and truthfully the meta has been quite boring until now. Im in this weird transition stage between OCG and TCG and all i can say is the TCG is really different, many cards which they run, certain playstyles which we do not understand which we question can all be answered. I may do a comparison post next time but i highly doubt it because there'll probably be more relevant stuff to talk about by then....
Anyway, today i sparked my interest back in the OCG side of the game ! It occured to me that the upcoming format is a combo and speed format. So invest in those GSCR Veilers and Maxx C people!
What i love about combo formats is how skillful they can be. I honestly don't think backrow/control/grinding formats are that skillful anymore as they can get really boring and all they do is set cards and try to grind around it (what im experiencing in the TCG). All you have to do is not misplay and after a while all this reading of cards gets really boring because they occur are so damn obvious and you get bored of making the correct reads. Sometimes you can make the correct reads but you can't do anything about it :(
So, in my last article, i talked about how good incarnates were bla bla and what konami would do if they became broke. My guess was konami would transition into a different format like what they did with wind-ups. My guess was not entirely wrong neither was it right but the upcoming meta would be a combo meta in my opinion, especially post judgment of the light.
When you think about Incarnates, the first thing you think is dragosack LADD turn 1. Well, this post is gonna discuss about current card trends, and a short discussion of cards to look out for in JOTL.
After some playtesting last time, i noticed how easy the LADD combo was played around against. The other topdecks : Evilswarm and Prophecy can both topple it if they draw the right cards, which leads us to think, is the LADD approach really the right play? In fact, i've so much doubts that i almost considered cutting LADD, and if it had not been an outright winning condition versus certain decks, i would have cut the ladd-eclipse engine for something more consistent and explosive.
The problem with LADD is that if you do not draw rejuvenation, then you would have wasted plenty of resources on a play which is only 50-50 solid vs the other meta decks. For example Verz can open Mandragora + random monster and just destroy your whole setup. Prophecy could reveal Junon as many times for her effect and destroy Ladd in the process.
Consequently, in the mirror match, breakthrough skill has been seeing alot of play in japanese builds. You can easily Breakthrough your opponent's LADD effect by chaining to it when you activate a dragon effect. Now normally, i would say that japan and SEA has different playstyles and different card choices (eg : Our windups didnt play CarCarD and tenki like theirs did), but this time, the current build of dragons is very very relevant.
Which brings us to the next topic ; Breakthrough Skill. Breakthrough skill is so versatile against every matchup. If i were you, i would invest in as many copies of this card as i can because you can.
1) destroy ladd and let you control it. If you were familiar with why Chalice was sided in most of the dragon decks in the ACQ, Skill does the very same thing.
2) gets over Jowgen the spiritualist effect.
3) gets over Evilswarm Ophion's effect (they can still chain lance though). But if you Skill their Ophion effect, there is a chance that they do not have lance unless they were lucky enough to open with it.
4) gets over the annoying Abyssgaios
5) Lets you finally destroy that damn dragosack in the mirror without having to resort to Big eye! Big eye is very risky if your opponent has Veiler, so why not use skill and suicide your dragosack into theirs!
The fact that most decks boss monsters in this format have continuous effect that restricts yours makes breakthrough skill even better, especially when it acts as a double effect veiler. So good!
Another reason why i am very hyped out about this format is how skillful the dragon mirror can be especially where timing and card choices matter the most. In the past few days i have noticed many different builds and different side/main cards which are very notable.
This format almost reminds me of Tele DAD because there is one dominating deck and your tech choices usually decided how far you would go. If im not mistaken one genius in the TCG decided to main royal oppression in their decks which was such a good tech (either Jae Kim or Jeff Jones i forgot)
Some notable cards i have seen are:
1) Vanity's Emptiness
2) Compulsory Evacuation Device
3) Breakthrough Skill
4) Metaion the Timelord (yes i just recently had time to read shriek here lol)
For example, most players would immediately remove their heavy storm and never consider siding in mst. That is a key point to be exploited as you can side in stuff like emptiness and compulsory which your opponent would definitely have no answer to !
There are so many playstyles and tech cards you can use so the mirror is always so skillful ! (unless you open shit). Like most of the time, the LADD turn 1 combo doesnt even exist anymore because who wants to make LADD which is not a solid play which can cause inconstencies with Wyvern, and can be played around with skill/chalice and everyone just sides it out. Take LADD turn 1 out of the equation, and suddenly the dragon mirror doesnt sound so bad anymore. Another notable card i would like to mention is Lava Golem which was used by Zack against Andrew in the Top 8 of Malaysia ACQ.
I have also seen Diva + infantry splashed into Incarnate dragons so that they have a good verz matchup. Seriously, with so much innovation, how can the game not be fun!
So, thats the current format in a nutshell. Now i will talk a little bit about the upcoming format post JOTL and the new Extra Pack.
Most players look at JOTL and think of firefist which gives them a chance to make blader to go past dragons. If that was all to JOTL i think konami would go bankcrupt.
In my opinion these are the 2 best cards in the set:
1) Demon palace- labyrinth of demon
The new field spell for the archetype is SO good as it helps provides the deck so much synergy. It could also be used in other fiend archetype decks.
2) Transturn.
If you haven't seen transturn you should read up on its effect. This is arguably the best card in the entire set lol because it can search any card from your deck by sending 1 monster of 1 lower level to the graveyard. EG: transturn diva into marks man.
Now some of you may not see how game breaking this card is, but it can be fairly gamebreaking for combo decks. Thank God you can only use the effect once per turn. I will not go into detail about this card or the decks it can be used in (as it is not my idea, i just literally stumbled upon it while randomly using my phone) but i expect these 2 cards to be particularly gamebreaking in the upcoming meta ;)
I am really sceptical with Konami for making crazy powerful spell cards. Last format we had extremely broke monster cards like rescue rabbit, inzektor dragonfly hornet etc and now we are getting what- Tenki, Judgment day of Spellbook, Hysteric Sign (i still reaffirm my stance that this is broke just that only 2 cards out of the whole archetype is good), and now Transturn? What Konami what.
Regarding the new extra pack, i dont think any card inside would be gamebreaking apart from abysteus. Teus will release mono mermails into the meta, but truthfully, i dont think it will be that good.... It probably cant keep up with dragons speed. Mermails would have been an incredible deck with Fishborg archer etc if dragons had not come into the format. Konami might release some other stuff but who knows! Maybe the new Blue eyes may have an impact in the meta, but i honestly dont see the deck being big because all the latest boss monsters have been quite shiddy, and
maybe the new support cards may just enhance dragons.
Anyway thats all for today have a nice day people and may you top locals tomorrow.
Anyway, today i sparked my interest back in the OCG side of the game ! It occured to me that the upcoming format is a combo and speed format. So invest in those GSCR Veilers and Maxx C people!
What i love about combo formats is how skillful they can be. I honestly don't think backrow/control/grinding formats are that skillful anymore as they can get really boring and all they do is set cards and try to grind around it (what im experiencing in the TCG). All you have to do is not misplay and after a while all this reading of cards gets really boring because they occur are so damn obvious and you get bored of making the correct reads. Sometimes you can make the correct reads but you can't do anything about it :(
So, in my last article, i talked about how good incarnates were bla bla and what konami would do if they became broke. My guess was konami would transition into a different format like what they did with wind-ups. My guess was not entirely wrong neither was it right but the upcoming meta would be a combo meta in my opinion, especially post judgment of the light.
When you think about Incarnates, the first thing you think is dragosack LADD turn 1. Well, this post is gonna discuss about current card trends, and a short discussion of cards to look out for in JOTL.
After some playtesting last time, i noticed how easy the LADD combo was played around against. The other topdecks : Evilswarm and Prophecy can both topple it if they draw the right cards, which leads us to think, is the LADD approach really the right play? In fact, i've so much doubts that i almost considered cutting LADD, and if it had not been an outright winning condition versus certain decks, i would have cut the ladd-eclipse engine for something more consistent and explosive.
The problem with LADD is that if you do not draw rejuvenation, then you would have wasted plenty of resources on a play which is only 50-50 solid vs the other meta decks. For example Verz can open Mandragora + random monster and just destroy your whole setup. Prophecy could reveal Junon as many times for her effect and destroy Ladd in the process.
Consequently, in the mirror match, breakthrough skill has been seeing alot of play in japanese builds. You can easily Breakthrough your opponent's LADD effect by chaining to it when you activate a dragon effect. Now normally, i would say that japan and SEA has different playstyles and different card choices (eg : Our windups didnt play CarCarD and tenki like theirs did), but this time, the current build of dragons is very very relevant.
Which brings us to the next topic ; Breakthrough Skill. Breakthrough skill is so versatile against every matchup. If i were you, i would invest in as many copies of this card as i can because you can.
1) destroy ladd and let you control it. If you were familiar with why Chalice was sided in most of the dragon decks in the ACQ, Skill does the very same thing.
2) gets over Jowgen the spiritualist effect.
3) gets over Evilswarm Ophion's effect (they can still chain lance though). But if you Skill their Ophion effect, there is a chance that they do not have lance unless they were lucky enough to open with it.
4) gets over the annoying Abyssgaios
5) Lets you finally destroy that damn dragosack in the mirror without having to resort to Big eye! Big eye is very risky if your opponent has Veiler, so why not use skill and suicide your dragosack into theirs!
The fact that most decks boss monsters in this format have continuous effect that restricts yours makes breakthrough skill even better, especially when it acts as a double effect veiler. So good!
Another reason why i am very hyped out about this format is how skillful the dragon mirror can be especially where timing and card choices matter the most. In the past few days i have noticed many different builds and different side/main cards which are very notable.
This format almost reminds me of Tele DAD because there is one dominating deck and your tech choices usually decided how far you would go. If im not mistaken one genius in the TCG decided to main royal oppression in their decks which was such a good tech (either Jae Kim or Jeff Jones i forgot)
Some notable cards i have seen are:
1) Vanity's Emptiness
2) Compulsory Evacuation Device
3) Breakthrough Skill
4) Metaion the Timelord (yes i just recently had time to read shriek here lol)
For example, most players would immediately remove their heavy storm and never consider siding in mst. That is a key point to be exploited as you can side in stuff like emptiness and compulsory which your opponent would definitely have no answer to !
There are so many playstyles and tech cards you can use so the mirror is always so skillful ! (unless you open shit). Like most of the time, the LADD turn 1 combo doesnt even exist anymore because who wants to make LADD which is not a solid play which can cause inconstencies with Wyvern, and can be played around with skill/chalice and everyone just sides it out. Take LADD turn 1 out of the equation, and suddenly the dragon mirror doesnt sound so bad anymore. Another notable card i would like to mention is Lava Golem which was used by Zack against Andrew in the Top 8 of Malaysia ACQ.
I have also seen Diva + infantry splashed into Incarnate dragons so that they have a good verz matchup. Seriously, with so much innovation, how can the game not be fun!
So, thats the current format in a nutshell. Now i will talk a little bit about the upcoming format post JOTL and the new Extra Pack.
Most players look at JOTL and think of firefist which gives them a chance to make blader to go past dragons. If that was all to JOTL i think konami would go bankcrupt.
In my opinion these are the 2 best cards in the set:
1) Demon palace- labyrinth of demon
The new field spell for the archetype is SO good as it helps provides the deck so much synergy. It could also be used in other fiend archetype decks.
2) Transturn.
If you haven't seen transturn you should read up on its effect. This is arguably the best card in the entire set lol because it can search any card from your deck by sending 1 monster of 1 lower level to the graveyard. EG: transturn diva into marks man.
Now some of you may not see how game breaking this card is, but it can be fairly gamebreaking for combo decks. Thank God you can only use the effect once per turn. I will not go into detail about this card or the decks it can be used in (as it is not my idea, i just literally stumbled upon it while randomly using my phone) but i expect these 2 cards to be particularly gamebreaking in the upcoming meta ;)
I am really sceptical with Konami for making crazy powerful spell cards. Last format we had extremely broke monster cards like rescue rabbit, inzektor dragonfly hornet etc and now we are getting what- Tenki, Judgment day of Spellbook, Hysteric Sign (i still reaffirm my stance that this is broke just that only 2 cards out of the whole archetype is good), and now Transturn? What Konami what.
Regarding the new extra pack, i dont think any card inside would be gamebreaking apart from abysteus. Teus will release mono mermails into the meta, but truthfully, i dont think it will be that good.... It probably cant keep up with dragons speed. Mermails would have been an incredible deck with Fishborg archer etc if dragons had not come into the format. Konami might release some other stuff but who knows! Maybe the new Blue eyes may have an impact in the meta, but i honestly dont see the deck being big because all the latest boss monsters have been quite shiddy, and
maybe the new support cards may just enhance dragons.
Anyway thats all for today have a nice day people and may you top locals tomorrow.
Sunday, March 24, 2013
malaysia acq 2013 coverage
The top 8 are:
6 dragons
1 prophecy
1 evilswarm
players are:
1) alex- 4d
2) andrew- 4d
3) alvin- prophecy
4) sam- verz
5) shahmir- 4d
6) wen shen- 4d
7) wesley- 4d
8) zack- 4d
The top 4 was :
sam
sam
shahmir
wesley
zack
finals were:
sam vs zack,
and sam emerged as champion!
coverage is all up on our HLG Fb page. Blogs are out of style, FB pages are the in thing.
coverage is all up on our HLG Fb page. Blogs are out of style, FB pages are the in thing.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/High-Level-Gaming/481414345245932?fref=ts
I will have the top 8 decklists posted there too, so stay tuned. Currently i have 2 obtained, 3 will be posted by our members who topped, and 3 more which i will obtain in some way.
The blog will be used for articles only and coverage for events will be done on FB. have a nice day people
Monday, March 18, 2013
Against The Montrosity
Today's post will be concerning incarnate dragons. The deck has been receiving alot of hype in the TCG, as many players are considering the legitimacy of the deck (legit deck is legit ppl), and are comparing the cards prowess in the new meta.
Indeed, the power creep has rose so immensely, that im actually thankful im playing TCG format. Even in TCG, im unfazed when my opponent makes a big play like Abyssgaios, or some other stuff, because nothing can compare to what dragons can do.
So i will be talking about the Dragons in general, on why they are so good, and how you can counter/beat them.
One of my friends referred to this deck as tier 0 in his blog (Incarnate Dragon Domination, YGO Zeroth Theory, LGQ), which got me thinking, how true it was. The deck has next to no bad hands, virtually any hand can make a Dragosack/Big eye, and have following resources for the next turn, dish out boss monsters like its nothing, insane deck thinning capabilities, and a solid win condition.
Why the deck is so good:
1) Light and Darkness Dragon
The deck has easy access to one of the games's boss monsters from the Perfect Circle era. LADD's dominance lies in its negations, whereby it causes opponents to waste resources to clear it. Once done, the following turn, the deck will play a bait game to slowly dish out cards efficiently to play around and clear your opponents' backrow/setup and win the game with sheer size.
The main player problem is that they do not know how to get rid of LADD. There are several ways like chaining another card to its effect to clear it (its not perfect herald). Ways to clear it efficiently include something like 1) activate spellbook magician of prophecy effect -> 2) LADD negates CL2,--> CL3 you chain spellbook of fate to banish it, and resolve your mage's effect. This is one way to do it without wasting any resources.
2) Its searching powers
The deck resembles TeleDAD because they are the only Tier 0s in the game. Tele DAD had so many drawing/searching cards that it was impossible to start with a dead hand. A standard field resembled Stratos, Stardust Dragon, a backrow (Crush Card Virus) etc. This deck has synergy between its cards where each large dragon can search any other copy of itself, or its younger version, along with other tech cards like debris dragon, exploder dragon. 3 copies of Gold sarcophagus also make the deck extra good.
3) Has access to the best power cards in the game such as REDMD, Big Eye, Dragosack, Return.
To couple with the fact that it has massive deck thinning abilities, this mean the deck has alot of chance to draw into its staples (storm reborn veiler) via Super Rejuvenation. Big Eye and Dragosack used to be balanced card designs compared to alot of other stuff, but dragons manage to make them broken. Just because of this deck, Return becomes ban-able because there are so many ways to abuse it. You can swarm and xyz, or you can use it to prevent an otk and plus off it at the end of the turn.
4) Even the best play from other decks is nothing compared to the average play of Dragons (quote: Johann Loke)
Take for example FF 3 axis, when you summon spirit into chicken, and search/swap cards, then synchro-ing for Horse prince and bring out another monster. Thats an instant + 2 (actually 3 because you get an extra s/t from chickens swapping ability since a used FF s/t is a floater) . Dragons simple play into Dragossack is so much bigger and better than the best FF play.
5) The deck can mimic situations with several banned cards. Aside from big eye (snatch steal), the deck's killer card is Super rejuvenation. Reju, at different situaions = Pot of Greed, Graceful Charity, Painful Choice/Future Fusion)
If you just discard 2 cards and have no follow up broke plays, Reju is still a Pot.
If you make a big play of discarding at least 4 dragons, you will find that it netts you 4 cards.
If you get super asdfghjkl lucky, and draw another reju from your first reju, which isnt hard, considering its only a and activate effect in end phase, you will likely win because you draw 4-8 cards and discard the dragons (painful choice + graceful charity all in one), immediately reducing your deck count by half in the first turn. You will then access reborn, storm, veiler, and make your setup invincible. If you discarded eclipse wyvern- scoop please.
6) The deck can side in and out cards effectively to counter different matchups,
There's not much to explain here.
There are many ways to beat dragons, be it consistent or inconsistent.
1) I would have to say, the best way to beat dragons is to use dragons.
Then again the mirror match would be highly resilient to the dice roll. The first person to make LADD will likely win. If neither of those situations arise, it will be quite skill based, like choosing which monsters to defend the field with, or conserving your Big eyes because the 1st player to run out of Big eyes usually lose, or just control with Abysgaios. Sometimes if you resolve a super rejuvenation while your opponent has at least 3 dragons of the same element in hand (eg: 1 blaster 2 burner), then its downright game.
2) Crimson Blader.
I saw a funny situation on DN once, when my teammate was playing a mirror with TCG player, of quite good reputation). My teammate won the game through Crimson Blader (dragon + flamvel guard), and the other guy was all salty attributing his loss to my friend running a " random card which nobody ran". Its still a joke to me today though, because Crimson Blader outrights kill the deck. However 2 things to note are :
a) Redox has 3000 def
b) If Blader destroys a dragosack token, its effect is not activated.
3) Side cards such as :
a) Soul drain
b) mental drain
are cute cards but don't really pose much threat to the deck. Like everybody knows, meta will always beat anti meta, and relying on a strategy which you need to draw out is always inferior. Most of the time, your deck is not even fast enough to kill dragons in 2 turns and just using Goldsarc into Storm takes care of the situation.
None of the other decks are as effective against dragons, and all could be played around against. Hero beat in theory may sound decent (traps + super poly) but its downright bad. Verz also sounds good at first but its game 1 is die roll dependant, if you make dragosack, verz dies or you can summon exploder dragon, or summon level 4, reborn something make diawolf/cowboy/maestroke. And its almost guaranteed a loss if you sidedeck. Macro Rabbit also sounds good but a Gold sarc into storm takes care of everything. Lagia is too small vs any dragon, and if you go into game 2/3 you will lose so badly.
However this is yugioh, so everydeck still has a chance to win in some ways. Dragons arent invincible but they are OP.
There are several approaches to the mirror match really. My personal approach would be to put in hand traps and keeping my Super reju. There are others too like siding in disgusting cards, and maintaining the decks consistency while taking out super reju.
In a nutshell, conserve your big eyes, do not overextend and keep track of the used dragons effects
One very important thing to take note of is that you should keep a notebook to record effects of which dragons your opponent have used already. Don't become a victim of cheating, because its easy to cheat, if you have no background knowledge of the effects. Use any method you like from jotting down on paper, tokens, or using other different colour coded cards. Make sure you've double checked with your tourney organizer to make sure your method is valid !
So, this is just a very brief run-through of the deck. There are many more things, which you will personally discover when testing with or against it. There are also alot of other strategies, or valid side cards vs dragons, which we will discuss next time after ACQ ;)
Thats all for today. If i have time, i will do a Prophecy post following up as a continuation for the MAS ACQ preparation series.
If Incarnate continues its domination, i could see Konami doing what it did to the OCG when windups were dominating, which is switch the formats by giving birth to new archetypes to either slow the deck down, or outpace it with different win conditions, (eg: Verz vs windups)
Indeed, the power creep has rose so immensely, that im actually thankful im playing TCG format. Even in TCG, im unfazed when my opponent makes a big play like Abyssgaios, or some other stuff, because nothing can compare to what dragons can do.
So i will be talking about the Dragons in general, on why they are so good, and how you can counter/beat them.
One of my friends referred to this deck as tier 0 in his blog (Incarnate Dragon Domination, YGO Zeroth Theory, LGQ), which got me thinking, how true it was. The deck has next to no bad hands, virtually any hand can make a Dragosack/Big eye, and have following resources for the next turn, dish out boss monsters like its nothing, insane deck thinning capabilities, and a solid win condition.
Why the deck is so good:
1) Light and Darkness Dragon
The deck has easy access to one of the games's boss monsters from the Perfect Circle era. LADD's dominance lies in its negations, whereby it causes opponents to waste resources to clear it. Once done, the following turn, the deck will play a bait game to slowly dish out cards efficiently to play around and clear your opponents' backrow/setup and win the game with sheer size.
The main player problem is that they do not know how to get rid of LADD. There are several ways like chaining another card to its effect to clear it (its not perfect herald). Ways to clear it efficiently include something like 1) activate spellbook magician of prophecy effect -> 2) LADD negates CL2,--> CL3 you chain spellbook of fate to banish it, and resolve your mage's effect. This is one way to do it without wasting any resources.
2) Its searching powers
The deck resembles TeleDAD because they are the only Tier 0s in the game. Tele DAD had so many drawing/searching cards that it was impossible to start with a dead hand. A standard field resembled Stratos, Stardust Dragon, a backrow (Crush Card Virus) etc. This deck has synergy between its cards where each large dragon can search any other copy of itself, or its younger version, along with other tech cards like debris dragon, exploder dragon. 3 copies of Gold sarcophagus also make the deck extra good.
3) Has access to the best power cards in the game such as REDMD, Big Eye, Dragosack, Return.
To couple with the fact that it has massive deck thinning abilities, this mean the deck has alot of chance to draw into its staples (storm reborn veiler) via Super Rejuvenation. Big Eye and Dragosack used to be balanced card designs compared to alot of other stuff, but dragons manage to make them broken. Just because of this deck, Return becomes ban-able because there are so many ways to abuse it. You can swarm and xyz, or you can use it to prevent an otk and plus off it at the end of the turn.
4) Even the best play from other decks is nothing compared to the average play of Dragons (quote: Johann Loke)
Take for example FF 3 axis, when you summon spirit into chicken, and search/swap cards, then synchro-ing for Horse prince and bring out another monster. Thats an instant + 2 (actually 3 because you get an extra s/t from chickens swapping ability since a used FF s/t is a floater) . Dragons simple play into Dragossack is so much bigger and better than the best FF play.
5) The deck can mimic situations with several banned cards. Aside from big eye (snatch steal), the deck's killer card is Super rejuvenation. Reju, at different situaions = Pot of Greed, Graceful Charity, Painful Choice/Future Fusion)
If you just discard 2 cards and have no follow up broke plays, Reju is still a Pot.
If you make a big play of discarding at least 4 dragons, you will find that it netts you 4 cards.
If you get super asdfghjkl lucky, and draw another reju from your first reju, which isnt hard, considering its only a and activate effect in end phase, you will likely win because you draw 4-8 cards and discard the dragons (painful choice + graceful charity all in one), immediately reducing your deck count by half in the first turn. You will then access reborn, storm, veiler, and make your setup invincible. If you discarded eclipse wyvern- scoop please.
6) The deck can side in and out cards effectively to counter different matchups,
There's not much to explain here.
There are many ways to beat dragons, be it consistent or inconsistent.
1) I would have to say, the best way to beat dragons is to use dragons.
Then again the mirror match would be highly resilient to the dice roll. The first person to make LADD will likely win. If neither of those situations arise, it will be quite skill based, like choosing which monsters to defend the field with, or conserving your Big eyes because the 1st player to run out of Big eyes usually lose, or just control with Abysgaios. Sometimes if you resolve a super rejuvenation while your opponent has at least 3 dragons of the same element in hand (eg: 1 blaster 2 burner), then its downright game.
2) Crimson Blader.
I saw a funny situation on DN once, when my teammate was playing a mirror with TCG player, of quite good reputation). My teammate won the game through Crimson Blader (dragon + flamvel guard), and the other guy was all salty attributing his loss to my friend running a " random card which nobody ran". Its still a joke to me today though, because Crimson Blader outrights kill the deck. However 2 things to note are :
a) Redox has 3000 def
b) If Blader destroys a dragosack token, its effect is not activated.
3) Side cards such as :
a) Soul drain
b) mental drain
are cute cards but don't really pose much threat to the deck. Like everybody knows, meta will always beat anti meta, and relying on a strategy which you need to draw out is always inferior. Most of the time, your deck is not even fast enough to kill dragons in 2 turns and just using Goldsarc into Storm takes care of the situation.
None of the other decks are as effective against dragons, and all could be played around against. Hero beat in theory may sound decent (traps + super poly) but its downright bad. Verz also sounds good at first but its game 1 is die roll dependant, if you make dragosack, verz dies or you can summon exploder dragon, or summon level 4, reborn something make diawolf/cowboy/maestroke. And its almost guaranteed a loss if you sidedeck. Macro Rabbit also sounds good but a Gold sarc into storm takes care of everything. Lagia is too small vs any dragon, and if you go into game 2/3 you will lose so badly.
However this is yugioh, so everydeck still has a chance to win in some ways. Dragons arent invincible but they are OP.
There are several approaches to the mirror match really. My personal approach would be to put in hand traps and keeping my Super reju. There are others too like siding in disgusting cards, and maintaining the decks consistency while taking out super reju.
In a nutshell, conserve your big eyes, do not overextend and keep track of the used dragons effects
One very important thing to take note of is that you should keep a notebook to record effects of which dragons your opponent have used already. Don't become a victim of cheating, because its easy to cheat, if you have no background knowledge of the effects. Use any method you like from jotting down on paper, tokens, or using other different colour coded cards. Make sure you've double checked with your tourney organizer to make sure your method is valid !
So, this is just a very brief run-through of the deck. There are many more things, which you will personally discover when testing with or against it. There are also alot of other strategies, or valid side cards vs dragons, which we will discuss next time after ACQ ;)
Thats all for today. If i have time, i will do a Prophecy post following up as a continuation for the MAS ACQ preparation series.
If Incarnate continues its domination, i could see Konami doing what it did to the OCG when windups were dominating, which is switch the formats by giving birth to new archetypes to either slow the deck down, or outpace it with different win conditions, (eg: Verz vs windups)
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
speculating malaysia acq meta 2.0
Hi guys, its been a while since i made a proper post. This blog may be relived again, whereby i will be writing relevant long articles as an additional section for HLG, compared to the short random things that popped up in my mind like my older posts. So, today i will go into discussing malaysia's meta for the ACQ.
A while back, i discussed this in a briefer version, where i said verz would not have a strong showing due to it being overshadowed by harpies, firefists etc. However, that was discussed before Konami + shriek ocg news released the info on the incarnate dragons, or on the baby dragons. Thus, with that, that post is now IRRELEVANT.
I would have done another post like this a while back, like 1 week before Singapore's (which concluded last weekend), but posting about how imba 4 dragons might ruin the surprise factor some players wanted to bring to the event. Everybody knew the deck was legit, but not many expected the top 4 to be wholly dominated by dragons. Personally, with some testing for the deck, i knew the complete one, which includes burner and lightning, would be a beast, but i was not sure how well the incomplete version would fare. (burner and lightning aren't legal for use in SG ACQ) (my dn account constantly produces poker hands like 3 tidal, or 3 gold sarcophagus, whereby the latter is a good thing)
With that said, it is important to note how good the deck will be since the full version will be legal for Malaysia. So, lets go over the potential meta candidates.
1) Incarnate Dragon. Malaysia has seen an increase of demand in dragons since last weekend, and at the same time, the supply for Big Eyes has diminished, whille inflating its price to at least a full rm50. It is safe to say the players are looking forward to repeating Kenneth, Nian Jie, and Wesley's success. I will not discuss card ratios or card techs, as certain players who want to use the deck will not like it.
2) Verz. Now that dragons are first in line, Verz will be the most played deck. Most players had access to it since last format, and this is the only deck which has a consistent solid matchup vs dragons in game 1. Games 2 and 3 go eitherway, whereby if your opponent opens LADD, + super rejuvenation, there isnt that much you can do.
3) FireFists. Between the 2 variants, i personally think level 3 firefist are a force to be reckoned with because they are on par with spellbooks, and have the potential to beat dragons due to speed. I expect level 4 to be more popular because most players have been using them since last format, and again price, becomes a limiting factor for the level 3 popularity. You will expect to see a decent number of firefists, especially since Verz is popular, and firefists have a good matchup vs verz.
4) Prophecy. The hated deck of the format. Nobody likes Judgment, and things get worse when they sack open One day of Peace vs you. It will be heavily sided against. The deck will have some showings, but probably not as many as you would expect.
This about describes the tier 1 decks and what you can expect.
Now i will discuss the tier 1.5- 2 decks that may have a showing.
1) Mermail. I was debating to include mermail in the tier 1 list, but i am not convinced of the deck at the moment. It has iffy 50-50 matchups versus the tier 1s, and the deck did not top Singapore's at all. This deck will have a showing in malaysia, with tidal and stream and the deck capitalizes on the ability to make Abyssgaios which is hard for the dragon matchup, and level 3 firefist.
2) Hero, Dark World, Six Samurai, Agents- I didn't want to go over this one by one because everybody knows how it works. I arranged them in decreasing order of the numbers, with Heroes being the most run and Agents being the least. These decks will always be around, but i do not expect even a handful to top. These are decks which can be potent if run by the right player, but most of the good players would not gamble on these
3) Machines- Now this is interesting because the deck dies to Ophion, but it is consistent. I do not have much of a clue, but i think they will be represented but i dont see them going pass the preliminary rounds.
And to all TCG players who are wondering:
Yes, windups are dead here.
What do I think will top in this event?
I expect the top 16 to comprise of the following tier 1 decks which i have listed, along with mermail or hero.
I will not speculate the number a deck topping because I am not God.
I will not speculate top 32, because the top cut has 16 seeded players, and we already know what some of them are running due to player preference, news and gossips, listing of decks on MYS info website, etc.
So, how do i suggest you prepare for the tournament?
The format is a single elimination one, which means consistency is key.
Rid your decks of unplayable inconsistent techs which would be a hindrance to you in mid/late games or if you start second. For example, i think nobody should main starlight road because it is inconsistent and situational.
Personal experience when i played ACQ last year, i drew 3 veiler in opening hand with no inzektors and irrelevant stuff vs agents.
Thus watch out for card ratios. 1 common mistake is when players try to stack their decks by placing certain cards with others before a round (dont lie, i know you've done it before). This is uncalled for because while pile shuffling, you may accidentally stack yourself (story of my life). At the same time, fiddle around with your deck to know its optimum number of piles which you should shuffle into. Some decks produce more consistent hands with 5 or 6 piles, some with 8, so take abit of time to know that so that you wont produce bad hands. This is not stacking unless the player does it intentionally.
I dont think many players do this, but it is something which can be applied to your yugioh.
Since it is a single elimination format, remember one random rogue matchup which you are unprepared for, and your out... So, make sure you have generic sidedeck cards which are flexible for several matchups. Do not hate so much on a certain deck until you dedicate too many main/side slots for a matchup you could never face. In malaysia it gets random so you may see a wild inzektor, or hieratic, which makes it tough.
Or perhaps your opponent Royal tribute + necrovalley your dragon hand?
Apart from the usual sufficient sleep, prepare yourself mentally stuff which you hear constantly, i think you should do what suits you. If you can perform better, by sacrificing sleep for late night playtesting, so be it. Some people perform better on an empty stomach (like me), so keep your food intake minimal as long as it suits you.
Singapore's HLG members will be there to provide some coverage so make sure you stay updated through FB!
Thats all for today.
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