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.

Tourney Report 12/3/11

There's something to build on with this Jurrac deck. I went 1-3 against four of the top decks in the metagame, but I made them work for their wins. Well, except for the TGU Agent deck I played in round two.

Round one, I played against a Karakuri deck and was able to win 2-1. Good start, even with a few of the Karakuri monsters having a higher defense than the Jurracs' attack. I was able to punish my opponent for trying to use cards like Nisamu and Inashichi.

Round two, TGU Agents. My opponent played four Tour Guides in the two games we played. LOL Yugioh. Even when I mounted some offense, he was smart to not leave a Mystical Shine Ball on the table that I could easily destroy.

Round three, Dark World. My draws were horrible in the first game, opening with two Jurrac Aeolo and the one Flamvell Magician in the deck. Second game, Raioh popped up his ugly head and I draw Bottomless Trap Hole the turn after he hit the field. I didn't draw a Lance, Mind Control, or anything else that would have helped me get him off the field. Yay.

Round four, Machina Gadget. Game one ended with me having a Stardust Dragon and a Evolzar Laggia on the field. Game two, he played the gadget gameplan to perfection, using trap removal to simplify the game state while nibbling away with gadgets. Game three, he gets a Kycoo on the field and (once again) I don't draw any removal to get it off the field. Le sigh.

I think I need to play Smashing Grounds in the deck to help deal with problematic monsters. I wanted to play Dimensional Prisons, but that's too slow. I'm definitely taking the Jurrac Gallim out of the deck. Terrible card.

We'll see what happens next week.

Building JurracVell

Last Saturday, I acquired two Evolzar Laggia. They were basically the last pieces I was waiting for before playing the build of Jurracs that I threw together.

3 Jurrac Guaiba
3 Jurrac Velo
3 Jurrac Dino
3 Jurrac Aeolo
1 Jurrac Gallim
3 Flamvell Firedog
1 Flamvell Magician

3 Fossil Dig
2 Rekindling
2 Forbidden Lance
1 Book of Moon
2 Mystical Space Typhoon
1 Heavy Storm
1 Mind Control
1 Monster Reborn
1 Dark Hole
1 Pot of Avarice

2 Bottomless Trap Hole
2 Solemn Warning
1 Solemn Judgment
1 Mirror Force
1 Torrential Tribute
1 Safe Zone

2 Evolzar Laggia
1 Number 39: Utopia
1 Steelswarm Roach
1 TG Hyper Librarian
1 Ally of Justice Catastor
1 Brionac, Dragon of the Ice Barrier
1 Orient Dragon
1 Black Rose Dragon
1 Ancient Fairy Dragon
1 Jurrac Giganoto
1 Stardust Dragon
1 Scrap Dragon
1 Thought Ruler Archfiend
1 Trishula, Dragon of the Ice Barrier

Using Flamvell Firedog or Jurrac Guaiba to get a synchro/xyz monster with one card is a powerful strategy. Especially Guaiba into Laggia. People who've had the displeasure to play against Rabbit decks may have run into this.

Guaiba attacks a low attack or defense target, sometimes assisted by Book of Moon or Forbidden Lance. Guaiba searches out either another copy of itself or a Velo. Overlay for Laggia. Now your opponent has to expend resources to get Laggia off the field before they can attempt to put their gameplan into effect.

And if they do get rid of Laggia, you have the resources to do it all over again.

You usually see a deck like this max out on Rekindling. I went down to two because Rekindling is terrible in the early game and drawing multiples before you have your graveyard stocked with monsters usually leads to a loss. I replaced one with a Pot of Avarice, because even though it has no synergy with Aeolo and Rekindling, it'll give me a chance to reuse my monsters from my extra deck.

The one card I don't have for the deck is Evolzar Dolkka. Dolkka is a good monster to add to the dino toolbox, but I'm not in a hurry to drop $40 for a toolbox monster. When I do get my hands on one, however, it'll probably replace the Roach in the extra deck.

Also note the absence of Pot of Duality. This deck special summons almost constantly that Duality would hinder the gameplan of this deck too often.

The deck doesn't really miss Duality, though, because of the three Fossil Dig that get you any dinosaur you need at the time from your deck.

Jurrac Guaiba: Natch.

Jurrac Velo: A recruiter for the rest of your Jurracs (if destroyed in battle while in attack mode). He also provides a level four body for Laggia.

Jurrac Dino: Level three tuner with a really solid ability. If Dino destroys an opponent's monster by battle, you can tribute a Jurrac you control during your end phase to draw two cards. Pot of Greed is good, right?

Jurrac Aeolo: Level one tuner that brings the deck together. His 200 defense means that Firedog and Rekindling can special summon him. He also can be tributed to special summon any other level four or lower Jurrac from your graveyard.

The side deck would be a combination of the usual stuff (third MST, Debunks) and two or three Gozen Match. All your monsters are fire and a nice chunk of your extra deck is fire so it won't hinder you too much. Doesn't work as well as with Karakuri, but...

All told, this is a solid, fairly cheap deck to put together that has decent game against the top decks in the format.

In defense of structure decks.

A note from the tourney: one of the regulars saw me playing Machina Gadgets and shook his head. He apologized, but he said he couldn't imagine playing a modified structure deck in a competitive tourney.

If you feel that way, I can understand to a degree. Just don't let me hear you crying next month when people who don't agree with your sentiments start fucking shit up with Agent Angel.

The Lost Sanctuary deck gives Angel decks a variant of Dark Armed Dragon, a level two tuner that acts like Machina Gearframe, and an Allure of Darkness variant. Add to that the common versions of formerly secret rares like Marshmallon, Tethys, Valhalla, and (last but not least!) Archlord Kristya that will be floating around, and we have a playable deck that becomes very capable of tourney play with a few additions.

Konami has done this quite a bit recently, making structure decks that are playable in tournaments with a little variation, and I approve because it can get more people involved in tourney play. The players who can't afford a Six Sam or X-Saber deck can buy three copies of the deck and wind up with a deck that they'll feel more confident in playing in a tourney. More players, bigger prize pool, and more of a chance to learn and grow.

In a more greedy vein, it also gives me more options of decks to play, because I don't like playing the same deck week in and week out. So yeah, I'll be in line once again to get my copies of Lost Sanctuary when it drops June 15, and I advise you to do the same.

Testing Machina Gadget

We played a box tourney at my local shop yesterday, with 14 players. For the last few days, I'd been kicking around about five decks to play and finally decided to tweak Machina Gadget. The main reason I decided to play that deck is because I wanted to play a consistent deck that didn't get annihilated by side deck hate. Even though I don't have Pots of Duality (thanks again, Konami!), I had some pretty decent success with the deck.

3 Machina Gearframe
2 Machina Fortress
2 Red Gadget
2 Green Gadget
2 Yellow Gadget
3 Cyber Dragon
2 Genex Neutron
2 Genex Ally Birdman
1 Genex Ally Duradark
1 Glow Up Bulb

3 Smashing Ground
1 Limiter Removal
1 Dark Hole
1 Monster Reborn
2 Mystical Space Typhoon
1 Book of Moon

2 Solemn Warning
1 Solemn Judgment
1 Mirror Force
1 Torrential Tribute
2 Bottomless Trap Hole
2 Dimension Prison
2 Dark Bribe

Extra Deck:
1 Naturia Beast
1 AoJ Catastor
1 Brionac, Dragon of the Ice Boundary
2 Black Rose Dragon
1 Genex Ally Triforce
1 Scrap Archfiend
2 Stardust Dragon
1 Scrap Dragon
1 Thought Ruler Archfiend
1 Trishula, Dragon of the Ice Boundary
1 AoJ Field Marshall
2 Chimeratech Fortress Dragon

Lots of cards in this deck replace themselves which should help keep you nipping at your opponent's heels.

Genex Neutron is an 1800 ATK beatstick that has the benefit of adding a Birdman to your hand if it survives until your end phase.

I played three CyDrag because there's a handful of Karakuri and Machina players at my local, so I wanted to run two Fortress Dragon. CyDrag also is a free 2100 ATK beatstick that makes an easy level eight synchro monster with Birdman.

Glow Up Bulb is in the deck to make level five and six synchros, but I honestly never used it once all tourney.

I went 3-1 on the day, only losing to Kinky Chaos, a Chaos deck that uses Kinka-byo and Effect Veiler to abuse Formula Synchon. I got him back in the top eight, though. I also beat Frog Monarch and Six Sams (thank you, Machina Fortress equipped with Machina Gearframe!).

I wound up making top four and splitting the prize for 11 packs. I opened a Shien's Dojo and two Debunks, so that was worth the entry fee.

So yeah. Machina Gadget is still pretty good.

On the eve on the Extreme Victory sneak peak.

I hope that everybody is ready for the power creep of Yugioh to become a power LEAP. Ahahaha.

Ok, I shouldn't blog before my coffee has kicked in.

Today is the Extreme Victory sneak peak, and while everybody who participates gets a Reborn Tengu (which is well worth the $20 entry fee), there is a lot of good stuff in Extreme Victory that is going to wind up warping out metagame. I'd like to touch on one of those cards that might get lost in the shuffle.

Unknown Synchron is another in the cycle of "generic one star tuners that have a great effect that can be used once per duel". The down side to Unknown Synchron is that it's not repeatable like Glow Up Bulb or Spore, and as thus not nearly as broken.

The upsides are A. It has Cyber Dragon's special summon condition, which makes a level five synchro in one turn easy to make (hi there, Librarian!) and B. It's a dark monster, so it gets all the perks of dark monsters (Allure, Chaos, DAD). Hopefully Konami won't rarity-shift Unknown like they did Glow Up.

Two things:

A. An addendum to my post on Maxx C: the art creeps my wife out.  I think it looks awesome, with the roaches peering out from the secret rare foiled background.

B. I've always wanted to write a series called Konami's Greatest Misses.  It would be about cards that should have never, ever been printed, for one reason or another.

My first post would be about Sixth Sense. Released as an ultra rare in the sixth Value Book, Sixth Sense is so grossly overpowered that it'll probably never be printed in the TCG in any form.

"Declare two numbers from 1 to 6. Your opponent rolls 1 six-sided die. If the die result is either of the two declared numbers, draw that number of cards. If not, send cards from the top of your Deck to the Graveyard equal to the die result."

Protip: 5 and 6.

So, if it works, it busts the game wide open. And if it doesn't, you get ruined by having your best cards put into the graveyard.

Oh wait, that's not right. You get to mill up to four cards into your graveyard to abuse there instead. Yeah, that's more like it.

Banhammered for good reason.

Where I ponder the use of Maxx C.

One of the cards that hasn't been used much is Maxx C.  I'm not sure if that's because it's a secret rare or because people just don't think it's good enough to fit a copy or two into your side deck.

Worst case scenario... ok, worst case scenario is that you have to set the damn thing because your opponent is playing a stun deck with no special summons.  Beyond that, you should be able to cycle Maxx C to draw 1 card, at worst.

At best?  Let's say a deck like Junk Doppel enters it's "mega draw" step with TG Hyper Librarian.  Normal summon Junk Synchron.  When Junk's ability triggers, you chain Maxx C.  Junk special summons Ryko and you draw a card.  Your opponent special summons Doppelwarrior from his hand and you draw a card.  Junk and Doppel synch for Librarian and you draw a card.  Doppel makes two tokens, you draw a card.

Here, you're up three cards. 

Opponent uses One for One to special summon Glow Up Bulb, you draw a card.  Synchro a token and Bulb for Formula Synchron, they draw two cards, you draw a card.  Special Bulb from graveyard you draw a card.  They make another Formula and draw two and you draw a card... you get the pattern.

Or after your opponent uses Junk Synchron and the Ryko that they special summoned from the graveyard to synchro for Frozen Fitzgerald, they decide to stop special summoning that turn.  They lose their momentum and you still draw two cards.

The best way to play Maxx C is to have a back up plan for it if you don't use it to draw a lot of cards.

Fili Luna played a Maxx C in his X-Saber deck and one in his side at YCS Anaheim.  Even if Maxx C wound up being a dead card in his hand, it is an Earth monster, so Luna could normal summon it and use it with his Fulhelmknight or Airbellum to make Naturia Beast.

If you play a deck like Junk Doppel, I think it's worth playing one main and one side.  Since it's a level two monster, it provides you with yet another Junk Synchron target.  If you use it to draw cards beforehand, all the better.

YCS Anaheim.

A few surprises in the top 32.

A Chaos Plant build made top 8.  Jason Grabher-Meyer was unavailable, weeping bitter tears for the Nordics.

A Chaos deck also made top 4.  The build packed the Stun Brothers (Thunder King Raioh and Doomcaliber Knight), but it also included Black Salvo and Dekoichi for card draw and easy synchro summons.

Finally, in the pile of usual suspects in this metagame, a zombie deck made top 32.  A zombie deck that didn't pack a single copy of Pot of Duality and Solemn Warning.  So yes, there is hope for those who don't want to drop $600 on five cards that'll be reprinted down the line.

T-minus five days until Trishula hits.  Get ready, stay healthy.

Playing Duel Transer

Hey, look another Yugioh blog that will probably die a quiet death after I get tired of writing to it.

So, I picked up a copy of Duel Transer yesterday.  Our local Gamestop had a copy, and I needed another copy of Closed Forest, so I picked it up.  To my pleasant surprise, the game is pretty good.  Cards aren't impossible to get, as is usually the case with the World Championship series.  The character and monster animations are nice, and when you get tired of them, you can shut them off.

And Goyo Guardian is powering me through the early part of the game.  Oh, how I missed you, you kabuki-painted powerhouse.

A little backstory: I played Magic for ten years before I fell out.  I started working full time and I found it harder to justify throwing cash into the money pit that wound up being the Standard tourney environment.  I had recently bought a DS, though, and found myself buying Yugioh WC 2008.

I wound up enjoying the game so much that I found one of our local stores that held local tournaments and started playing.

When I saw the spoilers for Duelist Genesis, I immediately noticed Goyo Guardian.  Yeah, Stardust Dragon was the flag carrier for the set, but Goyo was ridiculously overpowered for his level.  His effect of stealing a monster that he destroyed in battle was also pretty wild.

Three years down the road, and Konami finally realized that Goyo was too powerful.  He takes his place alongside Dark Strike Fighter on the list of synchro monsters too damn good to exist.

Next addition to that list: Tech Genus Hyper Librarian?  Time will tell.

So as I own the crappy decks in the early game of Duel Transer thanks to Goyo, I offer a toast.  Here's to you, too-strong, permanent Brain Control dude.  May your makeup never fade!