Hits and misses of Return of the Duelist

Return of the Duelist came out (officially) in stores!

Reviewing the whole set is kind of ridiculous. So instead of doing that, I’ll give you my picks and drops from this set.

I tried to avoid archetype-specific cards, unless the cards can be used outside of their mentioned archetype.

Hits of the set

• Heroic Challenger – War Hammer: I kind of underestimated this card, but it’s good. If this card destroys your opponent’s monster and sends it to the grave, this guy can steal it and use its power for its own. If it wasn’t for Effect Veiler and three MSTs, this card would’ve been amazing.
• Temperance of Prophecy: If you’re trying to make a good spellcaster deck, from now on this card should be in it, whether or not its main focus is Prophecy monsters. When activating a Spellbook card, you can tribute this card for a high-level LIGHT or DARK spellcaster from your deck! And because most spellbooks affect spellcasters in general (not just the Prophecy monsters), these cards can be mashed into many decks.
• Madolche Magileine: Like the Gadget effect of re-filling your hand? Then check this card. When normal or flip summoned, this card searches another Madolche card, INCLUDING another copy of itself. With the usual Madolche effect that it’s automatically shuffled back in the deck, this card by itself can instantly make sure your hand is never empty (unless the summon is negated, of course).
• Uniflora, Mystical Beast of the forest: Anybody call for some Beast support? This guy is one of the best beasts I’ve seen in a while. Tribute this card to special summon ANY kind of beast from your grave or hand.
• Silver Sentinel: If your opponent has a fetish to destroy your back row, this card will surprise him. If your opponent destroys this card, it can special summon itself and destroy a card your opponent controls. A surprise about this card: they didn’t alter his sniper rifle! This probably is because the barrel isn’t that visible, but still, an unedited gun in Yu-Gi-Oh!? That’s a first one.
• Illusory Snatcher: Read this card as: Easy XYZ. I’ve looked around on the internet and somehow, this card does NOT miss timing. So, yes, it can be used in monarch (stated by the art), Hieratics, Steelswarm and any other deck that uses tributes.
• Gear Gigant X: a.k.a. the money card from the set! This card supports Geargia’s the most, but is also a generic card searcher in any machine type deck.
• Soul of Silvermountain: One of the more interesting cards. It blocks an opponent’s spell or trap card and when it destroys a monster, you can special summon ANY earth attribute monster from the grave. Granted, its 1800 attack is low, but otherwise this card would be dead broken (similar as how Leviair’s attack is only 1800). Bringing back Naturia Beast, Barkion, Iron Chain Dragon or other high-level earth monster is no joke.
• Sword Breaker: Ally of Justice Catastor for types instead of attributes. Nuff said. This is potentially the only (non-dark) monster that can commit suicide with Catastor.
• Galaxy Queen’s Light: Easy Lv. 7 and higher xyz summoning. Helps to summon monsters like Dyson Sphere, Super Robo Galaxy Destroyer and Gustav Max.
• Impenetrable attack: Remember how you can only use 3 Waboku’s in a deck? Hurray, Konami just re-made the card. Now you can chose whether or not you choose to prevent battle damage or prevent your monsters from being destroyed. But unlike Waboku, this card also prevents your monster being destroyed by card effect! Final Countdown decks will rejoice. Haters will hate, though.

Misses of the set

• Photon Caesar: In the anime, we’ve been introduced with several monsters which are treated as 2 XYZ materials. Those effects are translated in real-life as "special summon another copy of itself when normal summoned". A good example of this effect is Heroic Challenger – Double Lance. The less good example of this effect is Photon Caesar. Caesar was created to easily overlay into Neo-Galaxy-Eyes. But believe me, you will find more use in cards like Lightray Gearfried and Guardian of Order.
• Cold Feet: Every set has its cards that are weird or just simply suck donkey balls. This set has Cold Feet… literally. The card Cold Feet is a watered down version of Cold Wave and affects ONLY yourself. So unless you can combo it with Mystical Refpanel (who the hell would do that), you basically are just skrewing yourself.
• Blue Dragon Ninja: Ninja support FTW… or not? A potentially great card, if they would’ve switched the AND with an OR. Sorry, but discarding 2 cards to negate an effect is just not an option in real life.
• Spellbook Library of the Crescent: Possibly the worst of all spellbook cards I’ve seen. This card has a potential of more than 50% of being a dead card.
• Chew-bone: Of all OCG imports that could’ve made this set good (or better), we get possibly one of the worst OCG promo’s out there. This card represents the support zombies have been getting in the past few years. It’s not just any miss. This is a “three-strikes-you’re-out” kind of miss.
• The absence of Thunder Seahorse: The introduction of the Hunder (why no T?) archetype would’ve been a good deal, but Konami somehow forgot the key monster, Thunder Seahorse. The card has a similar effect like Thunder Dragon (of which the archetype is based upon), but isn’t limited to another copy of itself. I do wonder if they have plans of releasing it in the near future (the special edition or so?)
• The card rarity in general: Name any decent archetype card you want from this set, it will have a high rarity. We noticed it during the sneak. Only a handful of people got a few of the good cards and they were all super, ultra or secret rare.

Next time, I'll give you some test results of DN of the past week

The weekend: Them Locals #2 & The Japan Plan #1

Them Locals

Last Saturday I went to one of the Locals I attend. The last tourney in the March ’11 format and the last time I could use my Chaos Dragon deck in full glory. Due to writing this a little late, several matches have become a little hazy. So instead of improvising the rest of the matches (which could contain a lot of wrong info), I’ll just give the short version of it.

• Round 1: Vs Alexander (Blackwings): Lost due to amazingly bad opening hands.
• Round 2: Vs Jason (Karakuri): Barely won. Amazingly bad opening hands again, but I was able to come back.
• Round 3: Vs P-H (Six Sam): Won, because he has just as much bad luck in opening hands as me today.
• Round 4: Vs Mathias (Nordics): Won, because Chaos Dragon can outsmart even gods.

End result: 4th place (bad tie-breaks).

Price: 2 ROTD boosters which gave me a jank holo (Great, another Noble Knight Gawayn). For some reason, all ROTD boosters gave me nothing interesting or jank holo’s (rebound, Super Robo Galaxy Destroyer and Advanced Dark).

Trading went better than the tournament. Got myself a High Priestess, Temperance, Ancient Sacred Wyvern, Number 11: Big Eye and some other trade bait.

The Japan Plan #1

On Sundays, I met up with my two comrades (anime geeks, like me) to further plan the upcoming trip to Japan. The flight tickets were already booked (October 13 to October 27th), but now we came together to book the J-Rail Pass and (more importantly) the Hotels/Hostels/Ryokans to sleep. So we had to come up with details on what cities we would travel to on which days. This is the result:

Day	To see
October 13	Travel, the whole friggin' day (yeah, Japan is the other side of the world for me).
October 14	Arrival in Narita - Travel to Tokyo (nothing too serious since we expect a jetlag)
October 15	Tokyo
October 16	Tokyo
October 17	Tokyo
October 18	Tokyo + Travel to Takayama
October 19	Kamikochi
October 20	Takayama + travel to Kamazawa
October 21	Kamazawa + travel to Kyoto
October 22	Kyoto - The Fire Festival
October 23	Kyoto
October 24	Kyoto (or Nara, still haven't decided which day)
October 25	Kyoto (or Nara)
October 26	Traveling back to Tokyo
October 27	Travel homwards.

At the end of the evening, all necessary rooms were booked, safe the last day (still looking for a capsule hotel to stay at (one of my friends really wants to try that out).

Now the only thing left is filling our days with things to visit. We already have some sightseeing ideas and tips, but other tips are still welcome.

Until next time, V out.

New Format - Deck tests

It's been quite a while since I've done deck-experimenting. Last format, it was Chaos Dragons and that's it. Any other deck I made, failed the matchup vs inzektors, so I gave up quicly on them.

Since my Chaos Dragon deck got hit by the September F&L list, I'm doing a lot of deck tests, to see with which one I'm going to play until the next set comes out (at least).

But until that, I'm going to stop buying cards and test the decks first on DN.

Decks I'm testing right now:

• Chaos Dragons post September: My deck choice of last format, with only 1 REDMD, 0 Future Fusion, 1 Chaos Sorcerer and 2 Tour Guides. Also, with Night Assailant and Foolish Burial.
• Photon Lightray: A deck I've started last format, but I noticed it failed hard when facing Inzektors. So with Inzektors gone and a few new cards in the card pool, I'm giving this another try. Lightray Gearfried is still boss.
• Piper Exodia: Yeah, you're hearing that correctly. Ever since Wan chan (or Where arf thou?) came out, I've seen potential in Piper Exodia. The card is an amazing search card for both Piper, Kinka-Byo and each Exodia Limb. And honestly, what is better than inconsistent draw power? Search power!
• Prophecy mash-ups: I love spellcasters as a type, but finding a good build is harder than you think. Since pure Prophecy don't work, I'm trying out mash-ups with other spellcasters, like Lightsworn, Spell Counters and even Gravekeepers. So far, I've tested the results are fine, but the archetype really needs the cards from Abyss Rising to work (especially hanged man of Prophecy).
• Ninja's: Since Tsukuyomi is coming back, I'm looking for a card she can abuse. I found an abuse target in Senior Silver Ninja. Each time he's flipped face-up, I can spam the field with Ninja's. Made a pre-test build, but still need to test this one.
• Status: making a new build for: Chaos Control (curse you Konami) and Hieratic Agents (dunno if this will work, though).

Test results and decklists (when I agree with them) will follow...

Until next time, V out.

How the new Forbidden & Limited list will affect us

Chaos Dragons: close to being extinct

As a Chaos Dragon player, I realize we’ve been hurt. Future Fusion: forbidden (we saw that one coming miles away), REDMD: Limited (hurts a lot), Chaos Sorcerer limited (WHY?), Tour Guide became semi-limited (awh), Brionac Forbidden (although the last 2 are key cards in many decks anyways).

I’m currently testing out new deckbuilds of Chaos Dragons, but more on that later.

Inzektors: Got their wings ripped out

We expected Inzektors to get hit, but they got butchered instead. With two of the 3 key cards becoming limited, the deck got hurt a lot. They can’t run to Tour Guide (as an alternative) either, because she got hit as well.

I warned you to sell your inzektor stuff while it was still worth something.

Wind-up: Sunk your battleship

Konami was smart in this case. They hit Wind-ups where it hurt the most… the mass spamming has ceased. Zenmaighty to 1 will make Hunter much less of a threat. Honestly, I wished Konami would do this, but I never expected they would.

Rabbit decks: An arrow to the knee

This one is the top deck that got hurt the least. The tins may have given it away already. Konami wouldn’t promote their tins with 2 of the boss XYZ, if the bunny would’ve been served for lunch. Rabbit became semi-limited. With Tour Guide to 2, this top tier deck has the highest chance of survival in the new format.

HERO: it’s just a braze

Konami recognized that HERO’s have become stronger, so they semi-limited A Hero Lives (one of the problem cards in my eyes) and E-Emergency Call. In return they gave us the long-desired third Destiny Draw.

Hieratic mash-ups (specific: Gishki Hieratic): Let’s take one foot, your spine and your evil eye.

The Hieratic Loop got hit. REDMD to 1 and Seal of Convocation to 2 reduces the OTK-ability of this deck to 0. With Evigishki Gustkraken, they also pre-emptively hit the mash-up of Hieratics with Gishki’s. At first you might wonder: “Why Gustkraken?”. But I’ve seen the deck in action (thanks to Lithium3200’s uploads). The amount of times a hieratic player summons Gustkraken in one duel, makes Wind-up Hunter look like an amateur.

Offering Gadgets (Offerings no longer allowed)

With Ultimate Offering to 1, this deck is dead. No problem with that, Offering became a problem card ever since XYZ came out.

Stop the brain drain

This is a request from several OCG players I’ve seen. Stopping brainless decks. The argument is that Pot of Duality (and a few other cards) promote unskilled play. They got their wish somewhat, as Pot of Duality got semi-limited, together with Tour Guide. I hope this will promote skilled play & creative deck creation.

The decks that have recovered a little are:

• Plants: Spore Returns & Debris Dragon goes to 2. Hurray!
• Agents: The return of Earth gives the deck a little breather. But honestly, I’d rather have seen T.G. Striker return than this one.
• Blackwing: Kalut returns to 2, giving Blackwings that little extra boost they needed.
• Lightsworn: As predicted by many people, the Lightswornd get another card back. This time, it’s Necro Gardna. Will this boost their popularity?
• Stall/Burn: Marshmallon, Level Limit Area B, Magic Cylinder and Swords of Revealing Light are back at 3. This gives people who like stall decks an extra boost.
• Tele-DAD: Emergency Teleport is back unlimited. Same for Destiny Draw. Though the old Tele-DAD seems impossible to make, with all the new cards that came out ever since, it will be interesting to see new variants.

Decks that will flourish in the new format

Of course, it’s always hard to tell in the beginning of a new banlist (that matters). My first thought would be:

• Dino Rabbit: A little slower than before, but with 3 Leviair, 3 Laggia & 3 Dolkka, this is still a serious threat.
• HERO: With Stratos still in play and with Excalibur & Blade Armor Ninja, this remains a deck to be feared.
• Geargia: Better get used to the return of machine decks. Geargia has topped quite frequently in the OCG, so I kind of expect it to do the same here, even if the deck lacks certain cards from the OCG (like Tinplate goldfish).
• Six Samurai: Honestly, I forgot about these bastards, until I read the post of Lightgrunity. Its worst matchups are gone with this list, so it has a potential to come back with a revenge.
• Dark World: Did not get hurt by banlist. This deck might become a serious threat, but the deck is still its own worst enemy (mirror matches ftw).
• Atlantean mashups: Though this will wait until November (structure deck & Abyss Rising), you better prepare for the rise of water-attribute decks.
• Tele-DAD: Yeah, you ARE reading that correctly. With 3 Emergency Teleports and 3 Destiny Draws at their disposal and no other key card being hurt, I think Tele-DAD (and other Tele-mashups) is a serious contender for the upcoming format. So better fetch your Krebons while they’re cheap dirt, because in a month, he might be a rare find. E-Teleport already is.

September is Tele-Party time!

The list

Short post, have been busy with work.

But the "Satoshi list" version of the possible Forbidden & Limited list that has been going around is real.

Credits goes to those who deserve it. In this case, Bahamut84:

http://duelingdays.blogspot.be/2012/08/2012-september-list.html

Madolche Puddingcess - When does it activate?

In the upcoming set (Return of the Duelist), we’re introduced to a lot of new archetypes. One of them is called Madolche, which combines names of dessert with titles. The key card of the Madolche is Madolche Puddingcess.

Now I’ve noticed there’s a lot of discussion about her effect. What’s the effect, you ask? Well, let’s look at the TCG card provided to us.

*Looks very closely.* Yeah, err… right. Blurry text, huh…

So until there’s a decent TCG picture available of Puddingcess, we’re stuck with the interpretation of the OCG text. That text goes as follows:

“When this card is destroyed by your opponent and sent to the Graveyard: Shuffle it into the Deck. If there are no monsters in your Graveyard, this card gains 800 ATK and DEF. When this card battles an opponent's monster: You can target 1 card your opponent controls; destroy it.”

The problem?

What seems to be the problem, you ask? Well, there are a few words missing in this card effect; a few VERY crucial words. The effect does NOT state WHEN the destruction effect occurs.

• Is it upon attack declaration (like the suicide effect of Utopia)?
• Is it before damage calculation (like Ally of Justice Catastor or Neo-Spacian Grand Mole)?
• Or is it after damage calculation (like D.D. Warrior Lady)?

The end results of these three possibilities are very different. Consider the following situation: You control a Caius the Shadow Monarch in face-up attack position, a set Spirit Reaper and a faced-down MST. Your opponent controls a Puddingcess and has no monsters in the grave.

The result would be the following, depending on the 3 given situations:

1. Your field would be empty and you would’ve taken 1800 damage. Your opponent would laugh at you with his puddingcess at his side. Virtually, this would mean this card is Raigeki incarnated.
2. Your opponent can attack either Caius or the set Reaper. The opponent could choose which card to destroy. If he chooses Caius, he does not take battle damage. Puddingcess will survive.
3. Your opponent can declare an attack on either the set Reaper or Caius. If he chooses Caius (for whatever spooky reason), the opponent will take 600 damage and Puddingcess will be destroyed. but after damage calculation, you can destroy either Caius, or one of the set cards.

Clearly, the end result varies a lot, from Puddingcess being destroyed by battle to Puddingcess being the only card left on the field. No wonder there’s a lot of discussion going on about her.

So what IS the right effect?

If you chose situation 3, you are correct (you get a free pudding from the puddingcess).

The destruction effect is activated AFTER damage calculation, similar to the effect of D.D. Warrior Lady.

If you chose situation 1, you’re either ignorant or foolish. There’s no way Konami would allow a walking Raigeki run on the field.

Reasoning

It took me a while to find a reliable source, but I found it somewhere on the DuelingNetwork forum. They stated that there was a similar line in the text of D.D. Warrior Lady & that of Puddingcess. So, I went and looked for the two OCG cards and compared them!

The original OCG text of D.D. Warrior lady states:

When this card battles another monster, after Damage Calculation you can remove the opponent's monster and this card from play.

Notice the similar part (aside that they're both blondes)? Yes, it IS: "When this card battles another monster".

Konami realized this wording would make this card annoyingly confusing and decided to fill in the following: ", after damage calculation".

Since this situation is repeating itself today with Princess Pudding, they will (normally) add those same three words on this card. But you’ll have to wait until after the sneak peek to see the fully corrected TCG text.

Until that time, we’re stuck with a blurry text and an interpretation of the OCG-text.

Seriously, what DOES it say?

V out.

Analysis of the “Banlist of the People”: What pissed you off the most?

In case you’ve missed my post about the “banlist of the people”: check this out.

Second point you’ve probably all wondered about… the sources for this list. Here’s my list.

This list includes many people you’ve probably never heard about (feels like a hipster), but also has a few well-known names, both in terms of bloggers, yugi-tubers and others: I’m talking about names like LFN, GQ, Mike, Bahamut84, K’Yde Ren, Ventus, Underworld6667 & DrakoDMD, Lithium3200, Wilson Tsang, Billy Brake, Vexacus4666, Thekeeko25, Merlin Schumacher,…

Next to each source, there’s a link to the blog post, forum post, article or youtube video I got the banlist wishlist/prediction from. Check the blogs & youtube channels, there are definitely some cool ones amongst them.

A few rules with the list and my analysis:

• Don’t laugh/bash at people for some of the weird choices. Everyone has their own opinion. It does not automatically match yours. It does not mean Konami will follow them (nor you).
• Don’t cry if your list isn’t included in my list. I’ve stopped at 100 lists, since I had to stop at some point. So it’s perfectly possible I didn’t include yours. Also, my list was finished last week, so any updates on lists or new lists ever since have not been included.
• In my analysis, any card not mentioned did either not fit my post or had < 10% requests.

Now, let’s analyse the list a little deeper… What pissed you guys off in the past format?

Inzektors: Squash every bug!

The inzektors bug us, that much is clear. Nearly everyone (96%) voted for at least 1 inzektor card. Most of you want to stop the amount of special summoning (62%), others want to stop the searching (22%) and others just want the destruction to stop (31%). Everything mentioned is possible, since massive search power is just as annoying as massive field spamming and just as annoying as massive destruction.

Chaos Dragons: Turn 1 Future Fusion… Good Game?

I think this one is pretty clear. Future Fusion is the most requested card to be hit. 75% of you want Future Fusion to become forbidden; this card clearly pissed the most people off. The reasoning is obvious: Starting off with Future Fusion gives Chaos Dragon players the win.

The other Chaos Dragon cards that I’ve seen being requested for a hit are Red-eyes Darkness Metal Dragon (69%) and Lightpulsar Dragon (16%). The high rate of requests for REDMD is understandable, since it’s being abused in Hieratic decks (in the OCG) as well and 2 REDMD equals Gustav Max, the rank 10 mechanical phallus.

Rescue Rabbit: The Bunny or the Dragon

The Rabbit decks (Dino Rabbit in TCG, Verz Laggia in OCG) have become infamous in the past months. So it’s no surprise that 73% of you want to see the bunny being chained down to either 2 or 1. Next to that, several of you want to see the flying Solemn Judgment (Evolzar Laggia – 24%) and the flying Dimension Fusion (Leviair – 18%) get caught.

Wind-ups: The hunter being hunted

Although 34% of you want Wind-up Carrier Zenmaighty become more limited and some even Wind-up Rat (10%), the most requests came for Wind-up Hunter (4% limited, 59% says forbidden). In short, most of you can handle the mass special summoning, but the hand destruction has to go.

HERO’s: The HERO Gotham deserves?

HERO: Hero decks have gained popularity due the easy XYZ’ing and OTK with H.C. Excalibur and Blade Armor Ninja. Though the amount of requests in hits are lower than Inzektors, Wind-ups or Chaos Dragons, several of you want to see the HERO stuff get taken down a notch.

27% of you want to see Miracle Fusion get hit; 22% of you want E-Emergency Call get hit, 18% wants Super Polymerization to get hit, 11% want to see E-HERO Stratos banned. And then you of course have Future Fusion, since HERO’s can abuse this card as well.

Crippling the staple cards

Every deck has its staple cards. Sometimes it increases and sometimes it has increased too much to be good. The staple cards you want to see hit are: Black Luster Soldier EOTB (44%), Monster Reborn (58%), Mind Control (24%) and Mystical Space Typhoon (45%). Also requested is Pot of Avarice (16%).

One of the other things people want to see is the death of the Tour Guide engine. 46% of you want to see Tour Guide from the Underworld get some form of limit and 23% of you want to see Sangan gone.

Other archetypes needing a hit?

Hit requests for other archetypes are lower than the previous mentioned ones. But you do see a few cards returning that point out certain hate factors:

• Offering Gadgets: Ultimate Offering, combined with the Search power of Gadgets, create great XYZ monsters. Konami took Offering down to 2 last banlist, but 31% of you want to see it taken down further.
• Dark World: Forget Grapha, Snoww or Gates of Dark World. The card that pisses you off the most is Card Destruction (21%). The card gives unfair advantage, similar to Future Fusion.
• Six Samurai: Though several requests ask the return of Shi En or Smoke Signal, a lot of you still hate Gateway of the Six (17%) and want it gone.
• Final Countdown: Final Countdown decks have seen an increase in play and the deck managed to crawl its way into top events (together with Chain Burn). So it’s no surprise to see 13% of you want to see Final Countdown get hit, while 10% of you want One Day of Peace to take a hit.

Archetypes that need support:

Each time an archetype gets hit too hard, people drop it like it’s hot. But after a while, people want to see some cards return, to make the deck more playable. Prime examples are:

• Blackwings: At its peak, Blackwings got their wings clipped. But now, people want to see a com-back of sorts. 18% of you want to see Gale return to 2, 13% wants Kalut back and 9% wants Black Whirlwind.
• T.G. Agents: Got hit where it hurts last banlist. 19% of you want to see T.G. Striker return to 2 and the same amount wants to see The Agent of Mystery – Earth return to 2.
• Plants: Also butchered in the last F&L list, was the Plants Engine. 40% of you want Spore back, making it the most requested card to return from the forbidden status. Also requested are Reborn Tengu (12%) and Formula Synchron (10%).
• Lightsworn: For a few lists now, we’ve seen a return of hit Lightsworn cards. List after list, they’re getting a few cards back. This time around, 22% ask for the return of: Book of Moon, 15% wants to see Necro Gardna become unlimited, and 16% wants the same to happen to Lumina.

Thoughts in general

More than single archetypes (except Inzektors), it can be noted that you want power cards gone. You don’t want overpowered cards that give unfair advantages, like Card Destruction (in Dark World), Gateway (Six Sam), Future Fusion (Chaos Dragons & HERO), Laggia (Rabbit), BLS (any dark+light deck), Ultimate Offering (Gadgets), Monster Reborn, Pot of Avarice and Mind Control. let’s hope Konami listens to the wishes of the players and creates a more balanced game.

Another thing I noticed is that a lot of people don't care which cards should become unlimited (safe Spore). The current list of semi-limited card apparantly is a list nobody really cares about. In comparison to the current limited cards, where most people state that "it's fine as it is, don't change those cards".

When the official Forbidden and Limited list is confirmed by Konami, I’ll compare it to this list and see how many of you were close and how far off this list is to what we actually wanted.

Until next time

V out.

Quick update - YCS Sheffield gets AMAZING support

You might've read it on Konami's official site, or somewhere on my blog. YCS Sheffield is a Battle Pack YCS instead of an Advanced Format YCS.
A lot of people have already refused to go, because of this.

Konami must've caught up on the news and is doing something really special for those that DO come:

• A special YCS Sheffield playmat with Breaker, the Magical Warrior
• A special Battle Pack Deck box
• A new YCS Promo Card: Blood Mefist is no more. Meet Digvorzhak, King of Heavy Industry, a Rank 5 Machine XYZ

 

So, yeah, it might be worth the trouble after all, huh...
V out.
Edit: Hey, I hear PJ Tierney is the artist of the mat! Congratz to him, it looks amazing

Rebuilding Chaos Control + Them Locals #1

Previous week, I wanted something to vary from analyzing tons of banlist wishlists. So I’ve been rebuilding my old chaos control deck. I was getting a bit tired of Chaos Dragons (shit happens when you’ve reached a build you're happy with and when you’re awaiting a banlist).

Recipe for the new deck:

1. let’s take the old deck.
2. Take out the old special summons (Cyber Dragon) and replace them with new ones (Tefnuit) that can be searched (convocation).
3. Add the staple cards from the Chaos Dragon deck that can be re-used.
4. Add the Tele-engine to the deck (E-Teleport & Krebons).
5. Flavour the build with cards from the past year (like Photon Thrasher) and random good ideas found on the net (thanks GQ for the idea of Void Ogre Dragon).
6. Evaluate and remove cards that have become slow/don’t help with this new build (removed Gale, Guldfaxe, Summoner Monk,…).
7. Test the end result.
8. Look what cards end up clogging or are bad top decks (like Birdman), remove them for better cards.
9. Repeat steps 7 & 8 until you’re happy.

So, I've build and re-shaped it until I got something I liked. And unlike the Chaos Dragon build (of which I was confident about from day 1), I wanted to test this one out on Duelingnetwork. It’s been months since I’ve been online (ref. if I'm online, you can find me as MaJuV).

I like this build, because of the crazy search power it has (Convocation, ROTA, E-Teleport, Charge o/t Light Brigade, Tour Guide) and its ability to crawl out of (almost) every bad situation I’ve been encountered with (safe otk’s), just like the previous Chaos Control deck.

And then, last sundays, I went to locals to test in real life.

Round 1: Vs newbie (why do I always get the newbies?):

Not much to say about it. This kid got the Cyber deck from his sister. While I tried helping him play the deck, this didn’t feel like a challenge to me.

Result: O? (he gave up after his first loss, even though I encouraged him to continue and learn some more. Oh well...)

Round 2: Vs Tricky (Malefic Geartown)

• Game 1: He gets 2 Gadjiltron Dragons out fast. I try getting his backrow with Lyla, but he chains and it ends up being Skill Drain. I lose quickly. He shows he had another skill Drain and 2 Beast King Barbaros in his hand. Yeah, I had no chance at all, huh.
• Game 2: He quickly reveals he sided in Necrovalley against me (oh, come on!) and brings out his Malefic Cyber End Dragon. I counter with Caius. He gets my Caius out of the way with Malefic Stardust. For the next few turns, I can only defend, as I can’t use the Chaos Sorcerer in my hand (curse you, Necrovalley). But I’m able to get rid of Malefic Stardust (thanks to D.D. Warrior Lady), get his Necrovalley (and his second one) out of the game and I make a come-back.
• Game 3: He does his Geartown stuff again and gets 2 Gadjiltron Dragons on the field. I quickly go down to 2000 lifepoints. I noticed I didn’t side out my veilers. While at first I thought it was a bad move, I made the best out of it, used the effect of Zephyros, summoned Veiler and synchro’d into A.J. Catastor. After his first dragon is reduced to scrap metal, he tries to defend his second Dragon with Skill Drain, but a well-timed Forbidden Lance makes sure that his dragons are no more. He tries to come back, but to no avail.
• Result: XOO

Tough match, this one. But I came back and won.

Round 3: Vs Drago (Inzektors)

I’ve been waiting for this one. I was hoping to face him, because I know this deck would fail against Inzektors. But I wanted to see how bad it would go and what moves I could make to make the best of it.

• Game 1: I set a monster. Next turn, he goes “I’ve got an OTK in my hands. If you don’t have a veiler or gorz/trag in your hand, you lose.” Well, f**k”… I tried to keep up appearance, but he went loop-de-loop and OTK’d me. Well, not much to test if you’re going to lose to an OTK, huh…
• Game 2: My Royal Decree stopped his traps and my Caius got rid of his Sangan. I end the turn with Photon Bounzer on the field. But he top decked MST (he top decked like a boss), got rid of my Decree, revealed his trap to be Compulsary and went all pain on me. His other face-down was Solemn Warning, so I couldn’t do much anymore.
• Result: XX

Round 4: Vs Jaouad (Gladiator Beasts)

• Game 1: He activates G.B. Chariot and ends up recycling the damn’ card turn after turn, bringing me down to 200LP. But I top decked BLS (like a baws) and I attacked his monster without activating his effect (in your face, Chariot). From there onward, I come back and take the game.
• Game 2: He can't keep his monsters on the field due to my chaos. I win.
• Result: OO

With 3 wins, I got 4th place and we held a top-4 cutoff.

Round 5: Vs Wim (Skill Drain HERO)

• Game 1: I catch him twice checking his top card while still being my turn. First time, I let it slide with a comment, but second time I get pissed. I call the judge and make him clear that he can’t do that (not that it would help him). For the rest, he tries to put some pressure on me with Rai-Oh, Torrential and Skill Drain, but I end up beating him with only a handful of lifepoints left.
• Game 2: Don’t remember this one too well, as everyone who didn’t top got their price support and started to take off (distraction = max level). All I remember is that he came close to winning, but I took the win in the end.
• Result: OO

Final Round: Vs Drago (the revenge?)

• Game 1: Repetition of last time, I get beaten fast.
• Game 2: He takes my bait and doesn’t go for OTK. The two Veilers in my hand and the Chalice help me stall, my chaos monsters get over him and remove his key cards from play. Win.
• Game 3: Back-and forth match. Near the end of the match, nearly everyone already left, including the shopkeeper (lol). We’re only with 6 or 8 people left. He went into Exa-Stag, taking both my Sangan (oh, come on! I needed that) and my Solemn’d Scrap Dragon, but the bug attacks into my D.D. Warrior lady (lol). I make a mistake, reborning the wrong monster (CED made it worse) and with a lack of light monsters in the grave, I can't come back.
• Result: XOX

End result: 2nd place (pretty good for a first real-life test with this deck).

Price: 3 Hidden Arsenal 6 boosters (nice). After some trading with the last people present, I go home with Vylon Disigma and some other secret rares I wanted from the set. Now I'm only missing a Sphreeze.

Card of the day:

When you play well at locals with a new build, there's always that one card that keeps saving you, or you keep going back to when it gets tough.

In this case, the card of the day surely was D.D. Warrior Lady.

I eat your Stardust for breakfast and wipe the floor with your Zenmaines!

The card is underappreciated and often neglected in favor of that white dog from the Lightsworn gang (gansta woof!). But the effect of the lady is still a pain to deal with (for the opponent) and Leviair brings her back so easily.

Well, I’ll post up the banlist real soon. I'm still writing the blog post with a thorough analysis, but I first wanted this one out.

Until then

V out.

The Forbidden & Limited List of the People - September 2012

I was quite pleased when I finished the requests of the hundreth person on my list. My list is finished. Well, not really; I could've continued forever, but I have to stop somewhere.

I've searched every Yu-Gi-Oh! blog I know of (and many more I never even heard of), I've splashed myself trough dozens of Yugitubers, in search of banlist predictions, wishlists, etc... and I've searched through lists on forums like TCGplayer, Duelingnetwork and Pojo.

And thus, this is the list of the people. This is what you want to happen.

Banlist of the people

• Black Luster Soldier - Envoy of the Beginning: Forbidden (with Primal seed unlimited, obviously)
• Future Fusion: Forbidden
• Monster Reborn: Forbidden
• Wind-up Hunter: Forbidden
• Dark Magician of Chaos: Limited
• Inzektor Dragonfly: Limited
• Inzektor Hornet: Limited
• Mystical Space Typhoon: limited
• Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon: Limited
• Rekindling: Limited
• Ultimate Offering: Limited
• Wind-up Carrier Zenmaighty: Limited
• Rescue Rabbit: Semi-Limited
• Tour Guide from the Underworld: Semi-Limited
• Destiny Draw: Unlimited
• Marshmallon: Unlimited
• Spore: Unlimited

How was this list created?

Every card on this list has been named by 30% or more of the people whose list I've checked.

Things to take into account are:

• This is not my personal list. My personal oppinion is 1% of this list. So don't come nagging my choices are bad, because this list is the result of YOUR choices.
• Nearly everyone voted on at least 1 inzektor card. Centipede was another name mentioned frequently, but didn't have enough votes to be on this list (22%). Dragonfly (62% of the votes) and Hornet (31%) have been mentioned the most
• The cards most people want gone are: Future Fusion (75% of the people), Wind-up Hunter (59%) and Monster Reborn (58%). BLS gets an honorable (lol) fourth place of 44%, meaning that more than 50% of you people don't want or think this guy will get hit (surprised me, honestly).
• The two cards that people want off the forbidden list are Spore (40%) and Dark Magician of Chaos (35%). Other mentioned cards (like Royal oppression or Magician of Faith) didn't even get 20% of votes, so they're not on the list.
• While about 40% of you agree that Blackwings have been hit too hard, the card to return to 2 ends up being a point of discussion. Some of you want Gale back, others want Kalut and a few others want Black Whirlwind.

I'll upload the list later on, so it can be verified by everyone.

Until then, V out

Banlist RQ analysis Day 4+5: Near done & Beware the fake banlists

After analyzing multiple blogs, youtube channels and forums for possible banlist predictions, I've filled a list with 91 users and their choices/requests/predictions for the upcoming banlist.

Tonight (or tomorrow), I'll round it up at 100 lists and publish the results. Out of those results, I will post the wishlist of the people for the September 2012 format.

Some results may surprise, others will not. I mean, it will hardly surprise anyone to see cards like Future Fusion, Inzektor Dragonfly or Rescue Rabbit getting "top results" on this list.

Beware! The fake lists are coming

Yeah, since a few days, the first fake lists are appearing on the net. Don't let them fool you and take the following tips into account:

• The official V-Jump with the official forbidden & limited list will be in Japanese shelves on August 21. Only in the week before that release, REAL leaked images may appear. So, basically: everything that pops up on the net before August 15 can be considered fake.
• If the hits are too unrealistic, it's fake (cards like Change of Heart will never return).
• If the lay-out/artwork of the page looks old, looks fitting with a previous Yu-Gi-Oh anime or looks too much like one of the previous F&L lists, it's fake.
• If old manga or old cosplay characters appear on the page, it's fake. Only those from Zexal can appear (and even then it's not certain they will appear).
• And never forget. Konami makes the rules, not us. No matter how weird the real list looks like, you'll have to deal with it.
• However, if you do get your hands on that V-Jump early, take a picture of the list, together with the promo card + a picture of the V-Jump cover + the promo card, just to ensure you do have the real deal. FYI: the Promo card is Bahamut Shark, a rank 4 XYZ.

So, don't let some crazy list fool you and be patient. The list only goes into effect on September 1 anyway.

So until next time

V out.

Banlist RQ Analysis Day 2+3: Smile, note, move on

The analysis of banlist predictions continues:

• Checking all the Yugi-blogs: Done. I checked about 50 blogs, ignored those in other languages, though (spanish and Japanese aren't my thing).
• Checking all (important) yugi-tubers: Ongoing
• Checking AlterReality Games writers: Done (see previous blog post)
• Checking TCGplayer Forum: Done (only members with more than 100 posts)
• Checking Duelistgroundz forum: Ongoing (only found 1 or 2 real topics, weird)
• Checking DuelingNetwork Forums: Ongoing
• Checking Pojo Forums: Ongoing (only members with more than 500 posts)

And through scanning the lists, you sometimes see the strangest things. I've stopped being frustrated about lists. I simply smile at it, refuse to read/listen to the reasoning, note it down and move onward to the next list.

I've seen some strange things along the way:

• Bringing forbidden cards back to 3 (see last blog post).
• Bringing cards back at 3... that are already unlimited (yeah, Snipe Hunter and Nobleman of Crossout are already at three. No need to make them MORE unlimited).
• Members clearly outing their frustration for a single deck (seriously, making Exodia or Final Countdown forbidden, because you don't like other win conditions than beating your opponent?).
• People hitting "weird" cards instead of the problem cards (I've seen people limit Sabersaurus, for example).

So, instead of laughing at their personal opinions, I'll just note them down. It's the end result that counts anyway, single hits will be filtered out anyway.