In Which I Play With My (mystical shine) Balls

One of the bloggers I follow (LightGrunty) posted his result from his weekly local tourney last week.  Located in that post was a link to one of his matches that was recorded and posted to YouTube.  He was playing his Diva Nordic deck against a guy playing an Agent Monster Mash deck.

Grunty has been playing his Nordic deck for a while, so he knows the deck forward and backward and it was a good match.  However his opponent gave me inspiration.

I've had the stuff for Gallis OTK for a little bit but have never done anything with.  I've also wanted to play Agents recently because the addition of the second Agent Earth revitalizes the deck and it plays with a massive amount of boss monsters.  The idea of combining the two clicked with me, so I put Agent Mash together and played it at my local tourney.

The deck is a lot of fun to play and it surprises most people because they don't know how to react.  All of their spell and trap removal are dead (which they side out and then you side in your traps, trollface) and you generally have more threats than they have answers.

Round 1 - Daniel (Sun Dragon God)

Daniel is a kid who we're trying to help improve.  Thankfully, he's willing to learn.  Sadly, he's not a match for me at this point as I use BLS - EotB to wreck any advantage he could get from the Sun Dragon/Moon Dragon engine.  1-0

Round 2 - Birch (HERO)

The first real test for this deck is my friend Birch.  He's been playing HERO variants for a long time and he was playing a Bubblebeat version with two A Hero Lives that I lent him.  He was able to get me in two games by fending off my threats and coming back with Miracle Fusions.

Round 3 - Jacob (Agents)

Jacob is another friend, his build was more of a Lightray Agent build.  I was able to draw out his removal and then lock him down with Archlord Kristya in both games.  Game two was especially interesting as he had a bunch of cards on the field and had a Gachi Gachi Gantetsu and Venus on the field.  I made Witch of the Black Rose and used Venus and Witch to make Black Rose Dragon.  BRD torched his field and I detached a Shine Ball from Gachi Gachi.

That made four fairies in my graveyard and Kristya hit the field for mop-up duty.  After the game, Jacob showed me the Solemn Judgment that he didn't use on the Black Rose because he wasn't sure what my follow up play would be and he didn't think he really needed to protect the other cards on his field at the cost of half his life points.

Round 4 - Jesse (Six Samurai)

Jesse is a guy I've played against a lot in the past.  He's been busy with real life but he stopped in and borrowed some cards to put together a Samurai deck.  Game one, he drew no monsters and I pushed for the win.  Game two, he made a late misplay with Hand of the Six Samurai leaving me with a 3000 ATK Gorz token that wound up winning me the game, even after he activated Rivalry of Warlords.

It was a box tourney with a top four cut, and I was seeded... fifth.  Boourns.  However, the top four split the box and it was complete trash, so I felt a little better about my luck.

I may keep testing this deck for an upcoming regional in November, or common sense might take back over and I'll try to learn how to play my Winderps.  Time will tell.

Civil War: Wind-ups vs HERO

Choose your side!

Getting ready for a regional last week, I was testing Wind-ups.  The night before the event, I was feeling uncomfortable with my choice of deck.  I wound up going 2-3 with plenty of misplays throughout the event.

After clearing my mind for a week, I went back to my local and played HERO in a 20 person field.  I played wound up going 4-1 against some good competition (another HERO, 2 Agent, 1 Rabbit) before I lost to the same Rabbit deck in the top 4.

I think I'm more of a HERO player because the deck seems to be much more forgiving to user error.  Super Polymerization cures a lot of wounds (especially self-inflicted ones) and Miracle Fusion adds so much resiliency to the deck.

Meanwhile, Wind-ups is a massively powerful deck.  The deck is one of the rarities in Yugioh that can play at multiple speeds.  It can derp out Shock Master and try to lock you out of the game on turn one, it can make xyz monster after xyz monster and run you out of your defenses, or in a worst case scenario, it can simplify the game state and use an annoyingly evasive Wind-up Rabbit to nibble away your life points.

But unlike HERO, if you make a mistake with the game tempo in Wind-ups, you can find yourself out of resources fairly quickly.  The bad opening hands that Wind-ups can start with are usually much harder to work around than the bad opening hands that you can get with HERO.

Both decks are great.  It's all up to preference, of course.

TCG Exclusives Ruin Everything

This weekend I said to a friend, "I think I want to play Wind-ups."  Fast forward to Saturday night and, because of their dominance at YCS Toronto, I have to pay double for the Wind-up Sharks I was missing.  Tremendous.

So here's the story of Toronto.  Wind-up players went, "Golly, I can't hand loop reliably now.  Guess I'll focus on making flexible plays out of my xyz toolbox and play enough defense to keep other players off their game."  HERO players went, "My deck is less reliable now?  Could have fooled me."  Geargia players went, "SURPRISE!"  And Jeff Jones went, "Here's a new deck for scrubs to netdeck until they get pissed that they can't get it to work right."

I just want to mention this as an aside: you aren't Jeff Jones.  Don't buy Grandsoils at $50 a pop and expect to dominate your regional.

The Psychic deck is brilliant.  Nobody expected it.  I will guarantee that if anybody runs over a Giant Rat in the next few months, they'll know exactly what they're playing against and, more importantly, have side deck answers for it.

Well, my litmus test was a huge ass fail.  Jones lost in the third game of the finals because Josh Graham, the man who won it all, opened his first turn with Tour Guide and Shark, two TCG exclusives.  Tour Guide searches Tour Guide and makes Toy Boat who then special summons Magician.  Shark special summons and Magician triggers making another Magician.  All three then overlay to make Shock Master, locking out Jones' crucial monster effects for three turns.  GG.

That probably isn't the exact way that it happened, but all it took to end the tourney was two cards.  That left four cards in hand to defend the board or mount a counter offensive if Jones somehow was able to make up any ground.  All the situation needed was a young Japanese boy to cry with his head on the table while Kevin Tewart was clueless.

So, obviously, do not get rid of your Effect Veilers.  They're still quite necessary, not just to stop Wind-ups but also to stop garbage like Gear Gigant X.

To expound on the title, I have two major pet peeves about the way Konami handles the TCG, secret rares/rarity shifts and TCG exclusives.

TCG Exclusives are terrible for this game.  Always have been, always will be.  And they'll continue to be for as long as Konami decides to use our meta to test out bonus cards for their favorite deck archetypes that just aren't quite good enough to take off in the OCG (see: Lightsworn, X-Sabers, Gladiator Beasts, Six Samurai, Wind-ups) or cards that are just flat out busted (Allure of Darkness, Lonefire Blossom, Tour Guide, Reborn Tengu).

Litmus Test for September 1st

Everybody is excited for the upcoming changes to the ban list.  I remain skeptical, not because it's a bad list, but because I've seen modified decks like HERO still OTK with reckless abandon.

For me, the litmus test on whether or not this will be a good format is if everybody is able to stop playing three Effect Veiler in every deck they run.  For most decks, splashing Effect Veiler is the only way to keep from getting OTK'd by some summoning loop garbage that floods your opponent's field with monsters.

I am curious to see what some of our local players come up with, however.  My store is holding a box tourney on Saturday, so not only is there a new ban list, but Return of the Duelist comes out on Tuesday with it's insane amount of rarity shifts.  I hope somebody buys, like, 15 boxes and comes with a Geargia deck (since Geargiant X got shifted to secret... thanks Konami!).

I'm testing a few decks and playing around with some concepts I've seen floating around the internet.  Trying to solidify something before a regional on Sept. 15th, but I've got three more weeks to decide...

Nurse Reficule, I Have a Burning Sensation

Ok, it's been a while since I've posted anything to this blog.  It's just sort of hard to have the dedication to write every few days about this game, especially when I only get to play/judge once a week for the most part.  However, I wanted to slap down a few words about a deck I'm testing.  I've been a big fan of synchro style decks since they were released and with the release of Lavals in Hidden Arsenal, I'm given a archetype that can synchro summon monsters with impunity.

Until we get the TCG version of Sweltering Heat Transmission Field in HA7, here's the deck list that I'm playing with:


3 Flamvell Firedog
1 Flamvell Magician
3 Laval Miller
3 Laval Magma Cannoneer
3 Laval Cannon
1 Laval Forest Sprite
3 Laval Volcano Handmaiden
2 Laval Lakeside Lady
2 Boost Warrior

3 Rekindling
3 Gold Sarcophagus
1 Heavy Storm
1 Foolish Burial
1 Mind Control
1 Monster Reborn
1 Reinforcement of the Army
1 One for One

2 Dustflame Blast
2 Torrential Tribute
1 Return from the Different Dimension
1 Solemn Judgment

1 Formula Synchron
1 Armory Arm
1 TG Hyper Librarian
1 Lavalval Dragon
1 AoJ Catastor
2 Lavalval Dragun
1 Laval Stennon
1 Black Rose Dragon
1 Stardust Dragon
1 Scrap Dragon
1 Red Dragon Archfiend
1 Red Nova Dragon
1 Shooting Star Dragon
1 Shooting Quasar Dragon

If you haven't played Lavals, you dump your tuners along with a Cannoneer or two into the graveyard, then Rekindling them for massive herp derp finishing with Red Nova Dragon or Shooting Quasar Dragon.  And despite what naysayers will tell you, the deck can win without Rekindling.

Laval Miller is the slower creature version of Transmission Field.  It's a level 3 monster and when it's destroyed by battle and sent to the graveyard it sends two more Lavals from your deck to the graveyard.  Send a Cannoneer and a Handmaiden.  Send a Handmaiden.  Send a Handmaiden.  Send a Lakeside Lady.  And now your graveyard is set up for your future plays.

If your opponent has a backrow set, you can banish Lakeside Lady and another Laval to destroy it.  If they have a lot of cards on their side of the fiend, you can use Dustflame Blast to wipe and then follow up with Return from the Different Dimension or a Laval Cannon.

The other card that you may have to lean on if you can't get Miller to work is Lavalval Dragun (Konami, Y U NO SPELL 'DRAGOON'?).  It's a level six synchro with a sturdy 2500 ATK that requires a tuner and a Fire non-tuner.  Once per turn you can add a Laval from your deck to your hand and then send a Laval from your hand to the graveyard.

So you can go about this a few ways.  Especially if the format does slow down, Firedog into Forest Sprite gets you Dragun.  Gold Sarc for Forest Sprite and then summon Laval Cannon and special Forest Sprite will also get you Dragun.  You can then add a Handmaiden to your hand (or a Cannon if you already have a Handmaiden in hand) and then toss Handmaiden to your graveyard.

The side deck will contain things like MSTs, Royal Decrees, Effect Veiler and Swift Scarecrows depending on how the new format shapes up.

I went 2-1 with the deck yesterday.

I beat Karakuri 2-1, winning game 1 with Scrap Dragon and Laval Stennon on the field.  Lost game two to a massive swarm of Karakuri.  Won game 3 with a Red Nova Dragon that clocked in at 6000 ATK.

Lost to HERO 2-1.  Game 1 and 3 he opened Future Fusion for Zephyros and a HERO and wound up Ninja'ing me to death.  Game 2 I won because he walked into a Dustflame Blast that wiped his field and I followed up with a Cannon-fueled Laval Stennon and whittled away his lifepoints.

Beat Dragons 2-0.  Quasar on turn 3 in game one and on turn 2 in game two.  Lavalval Dragon played the role of Brionac in game two, bouncing both of his monsters before I attacked for 8000 with Quasar.

Is this deck the best without Transmission Field (or, for that matter, Lavaval Chain)?  Nope, but there IS something to build on here.

Splashing Evolzar Laggia

There's a trend that was mentioned on TCG Player's Facebook feed of players splashing Jurrac Guaiba into random decks to get access to Evolzar Laggia or Evolzar Dolkka. The discussion started when, during the weekend event discussion that occurs every Sunday night, somebody mentioned that they went 5-3 at a regional tournament with a HERO Beat deck that splashed Guaiba and Reborn Tengu.

That set some of our minds rushing. What other decks could we splash Jurrac Guaiba into without losing the feel for the deck?

HERO Beat is a good start. Guaiba is a good aggressive card and HERO Beat is a good aggressive deck that works on grinding out your opponent's resources. And even if Guaiba gets destroyed, you can use it for Miracle Fusion to make yourself an Elemental HERO Nova Master.

I had two ideas:

1. Elemental HERO Nova Master is good because it gives much needed flexibility to Miracle Fusion and Super Polymerization plays. But it's no Elemental HERO Absolute Zero. If only there was a water attribute dinosaur that made a copy of itself like Guaiba does.

Of course, Hydrogeddon does. Now, Hydrogeddon is strictly worse than Guaiba. Lower attack, and a weaker replicating effect that doesn't work on tokens. But access to Absolute Zero might be worth the trade-off.

2. The deck I really want to splash Guaiba into is TG Stun. Laggia seems to fit the control approach of TG Stun, so let's try something.

3 TG Striker
3 TG Warwolf
3 TG Rush Rhino
3 Jurrac Guaiba
3 Reborn Tengu

3 Pot of Duality
1 Heavy Storm
1 Dark Hole
1 Monster Reborn
1 Book of Moon
1 Pot of Avarice

3 Horn of the Phantom Beast
2 TG1-EM1
1 Solemn Judgment
2 Solemn Warning
2 Bottomless Trap Hole
1 Mirror Force
1 Torrential Tribute
2 Starlight Road
1 Dark Bribe
2 Dimensional Prison
1 Compulsory Evacuation Device

Extra deck includes the usual cards with a Laggia and Dolkka thrown in for good measure.

12-11-11 Gadget Offering

Even though I don't have Tour Guides, I have about eight different decks I can choose from. I've been playing Karakuri, Jurrac, Fabled, Chaos, TG Stun (and that deck will lead to my next experiment, *wink wink*). My favorite deck to play at the moment is Gadget Offering.

I just wanted to write a few things about the deck.

I've seen naysayers online talk about how the deck sucks because it has to get Ultimate Offering on the field to win. That's garbage. The deck has three speeds:

1. It plays like a regular Gadget deck. Simplify the game state with removal like Bottomless Trap Hole, Dimensional Prison, or Smashing Ground. Then lean on the Gadget engine to ensure that you always have a monster in hand to apply pressure.

2. Utilizing T.G. Striker, you can synchro for a small tool box of choice monsters. T.G. Wonder Magician, AoJ Catastor, Brionac, Naturia Barkion, Orient Dragon, and Trishula are some of the powerhouses that you can regularly get out utilizing Striker.

3. Herp derp Ultimate Offering. Make Gadget, pay 500 LP, make Gadget, xyz summon. Continue paying 1000 LP for an xyz monster (or synchro monster). Swarm your opponent and hope they don't have a Battle Fader.

The best part about this deck is that the third aspect of the deck gets even better when Evigishki Merrowgeist, Gem-Knight Pearl, Daigusto Emeral and Lavalval Chain finally get released in the TCG. Especially Emeral. Mmm... miniature Pot of Avarice.

I've also seen people who fall on the old standby "You can't play Gadgets with everybody playing Chimeratech Fortress Dragon to combat Karakuri." If you lose one Gadget to a Chimeratech, it's not a huge loss. Your deck plays enough defense that you can get the Chimeratech off the field.

If I pass my turn with two Gadgets on the field, I deserve to lose. I will always bring out a Utopia or a Steelswarm Roach with two Gadgets, depending on the situation.

I totally expect Tragoedia to be limited back down to one in March. It was moved to semi-limited to give xyz monsters some support, but it's too damn good with xyz and synchro monsters.

Also, note the absence of Solemn Warnings in this build. With Black Luster Soldier: Envoy of the Beginning in virtually every deck in my local meta, Warning is not quite the staple it once was. Even if I had a little more room, I'd rather play a reactive card like Compulsory Evacuation Device to handle xyz and synchro monsters. CED takes care of those nasty Gachi Gachi Gantetsu, Wind-Up Zenmaines, and makes Evolzar Laggia burn their negation effect on a card that normally doesn't make much more of an impact on the game other than tempo.

Here's my current build:

3 Red Gadget
3 Green Gadget
3 Yellow Gadget
3 T.G. Striker
2 T.G. Warwolf
2 Tragoedia

3 Pot of Duality
1 Book of Moon
1 Dark Hole
1 Monster Reborn
2 Smashing Ground
1 Heavy Storm
2 Mystical Space Typhoon
1 Pot of Avarice

3 Ultimate Offering
1 Solemn Judgment
2 Bottomless Trap Hole
2 Dimensional Prison
1 Mirror Force
1 Torrential Tribute
1 Compulsory Evacuation Device
1 Trap Dustshoot

3 Number 39: Utopia
1 Steelswarm Roach
1 Number 10: Illumiknight
1 T.G. Wonder Magician
1 Ally of Justice: Catastor
1 Brionac, Dragon of the Ice Barrier
1 Orient Dragon
1 Naturia Barkion
1 Gaia Knight, Force of Earth
1 Stardust Dragon
1 Scrap Dragon
1 Trishula, Dragon of the Ice Barrier
1 Chimeratech Fortress Dragon

Your side deck will vary, but it's really easy to side into a potent Stun-style deck. Fossil Dyna Pacycephalo and Breaker the Magical Warrior make a good compliment to this deck.