Card of Demise - The return of the classic Anti-Meta deck

In my previous post, I talked about Card of Demise. Let me go into a little more detail about why this card is better than you might think!

The card effect

Draw until you have 3 cards in your hand, also for the rest of this turn after this card resolves, your opponent takes no damage. During the End Phase of this turn, send your entire hand to the Graveyard. You can only activate 1 "Card of Demise" per turn. You cannot Special Summon during the turn you activate this card.

Plus-2 card with huge drawback? Or with no drawback at all?

When I first read this card, I ignored it pretty quickly. While "draw until you have three cards" seems interesting enough, the drawbacks are very high. So I thought there would be no meta deck ever that would ever use this card.

But that's where the magic word rang. Meta.

In the OCG, this card was used nearly instantly and caused a few players to top events... with anti-meta decks.

This anti-meta deck is an update of the classic anti-meta deck, with cards like Rai-Oh, Banisher of Radiance, etc. A handful of monsters that are to be normal summoned and a sheitload of spells and traps.

With a deck like that, the deck pilot doesn't care about "discard your hand" drawbacks. They normal summon a banisher of Radiance or Rai-Oh, set their hand face-down, activate cards of demise, set some more cards until the field is full and end the turn with discarding 0 or maybe 1 card (if your deck doesn't like you and lets you draw into another monster). In a deck as dangerous as anti-meta, having a +2 card (in the best case) is not just good, it's frigging amazing.

Decklist?

The obvious question you have is: Where's the deck list? So here it is. Though remember, this is OCG. So a few cards have different limits there than over here in TCG.

MONSTER CARDS (11):

• 3 Banisher of the Radiance
• 3 Fossil Dyna Pachycephalo
• 3 Thunder King Rai-Oh
• 2 Kycoo the Ghost Destroyer

SPELL CARDS (10):

• 3 Card of Demise
• 3 Pot of Duality
• 1 Harpie’s Feather Duster
• 3 Moon Mirror Shield

TRAP CARDS (19):

• 2 Compulsory Evacuation Device
• 1 Torrential Tribute
• 1 Dimensional Prison
• 1 Starlight Road
• 3 Bottomless Trap Hole
• 1 Ring of Destruction
• 2 Rocket Hand
• 1 Vanity’s Emptiness
• 2 Macro Cosmos
• 1 Solemn Warning
• 1 Solemn Judgment
• 3 Solemn Strike

SIDE-DECK (15):

• 1 Dark Hole
• 2 Forbidden Lance
• 2 Mystical Space Typhoon
• 3 Book of Moon
• 1 Compulsory Evacuation Device
• 2 Chain Disappearance
• 3 Imperial Iron Wall
• 1 Macro Cosmos

Side-note: No extra deck was listed (and probably not used). If any card was used, I think it's limited to Stardust Dragon. though on the other end, if you play no extra deck it's a great mind-game to troll your opponent into thinking you play Monarchs (lol).

Other "weird" or "unusual" choices

It's been a while since an anti-meta deck has topped, so a few card choices are made that you're probably not that familiar with. Let me list them.

Rocket Hand (OCG exlcusive):
Target 1 face-up Attack Position monster you control with 800 or more ATK; equip this card to it. It gains 800 ATK. During either player's turn (except during the Damage Step): You can send this Equip Card to the Graveyard, then target 1 face-up card on the field; destroy it, then the monster that was equipped with this card cannot change its battle position, also its ATK becomes 0. You can only use 1 "Rocket Hand" effect per turn, and only once that turn.

Moon Mirror Shield:
If the equipped monster battles an opponent’s monster, during damage calculation: The equipped monster’s ATK and DEF become equal to the ATK or DEF (whichever is higher) of the opponent’s battling monster +100, during damage calculation only. If this face-up card is sent from the field to the Graveyard: Pay 500 LP; place this card on either the top or bottom of your Deck.

Basically these two cards do the same: Protect the few monsters you have and make sure they can overcome any challenge thrown at them.

Other uses for Card of Demise

Well, this deck choice of anti-meta shows that this card is best used in decks that don't special summon a lot and/or run a limited amount of monsters.

For exmaple, if Resuce Rabbit would ever be released from its limit, Dino Rabbit could make a return, using this card. Gravekeepers and regular HERO decks are decks that run limited amount of monsters and might be able to use it as well. Though similarly to Pot of Duality, the limit on special summons can become a drawback in these decks.

Luckily enough, decks like Chain Burn won't be able to use this card, because decks like that tend to focus on hand traps to save their lives. And one of the big drawbacks of Card of Demise is discarding your entire hand at the end of the turn.

But there are probably other obscure decks that suddenly might become good or better because of this card. I'm curious to see what top players wil use this card and make it work in random decks. Jeff Jones might be interested...

Until next time, V out.

The Millennium Pack - Booster of Demise

If the Millennium Pack flew under your radar in the past week, there's a good explanation for that. the millennium change was more than a decade ago. That's long past tense there. Same as with the pack's content. It's already past tense.

Lack of good new cards

Let's start with the positive aspect here. There's a few new cards in this pack. Some are either retrained versions of anime classics (e.g. a new Curse of Dragon), or random cards from the anime that for some reason turn into actual cards.

Yeah, who knew that Holding Arms, Holding Legs or Left Arm Offering would actually make it to an actual card before the rest of the Kuriboh family?

And there's some cards that are actual moments from the anime, like Symbol of Friendship (from the first episode) and The True Name (of the Pharaoh).

Want to know which cards are good? Well, there's only one. Cards of Demise. But this card is so interesting, I'm going to focus a single post on that, later this week.

The "whoops" moment

Past weekend, there was one other card from this set that made Yugioh headlines. And not because it's powerful, but rather because of a screw-up at Konami when translating its text. I'm talking about "Symbol of Friendship".

"Wait, is that permanent marker?"

The card should read:
To activate this card, you must draw it for your normal draw in your Draw Phase while your opponent controls 3 or more monsters and you control no cards, reveal it, and keep it revealed until the Main Phase 1. During your Main Phase 1 that same turn: You can activate this card from your hand; reveal 1 card from your Deck, and add it to your hand.

But it actually reads:
... while your opponent controls 3 or more monsters and you control no monsters, reveal it, and keep it revealed ...

Small error in terms of words, but a world of difference in activation possibilities. Just imagine Gorz the Emissary of Darkness with those two words being switched around.
This just made Symbol of Friendship's usability rise from 0% to like 1%.

Yeah, in case you didn't notice it in my sarcasm, the card still sucks no matter the card text screw up. Yes, I know YOU can make a deck that can make this card work. But that doesn't mean it's going to be a good deck.

Konami finishes the missing alternate art issue... or not?

One of the big promo tag lines of this set was that it had a bunch of the previously unreleased alternate art cards. And yes, that is true (good!). But could somebody at least call Konami and say they even f**ked that one up?

This was the moment to release all OCG alternate art cards we hadn't seen yet. But instead of that, we got a so-so job.

YES, we got a lot of unreleased alternate arts (including Broken Finger Flame Swordsman). Thank you for that.

"Not broken. I can just stretch
my fingers in superhuman ways!"

We also got a lot of "alternate art cards" that we've seen already in previous boosters, like Toon World or friggin' Viser Des. It was already weird enough for Viser Des to have an alternate art, but people certainly weren't waiting for a reprint of that card.

But the biggest issue is the cards which were still "missing" a few alternate arts, but Konami just goes: "Was it this one?" and utterly fails in the process.

I can understand mistaking 1 of the alternate arts. But I've checked. You picked the wrong artwork on FIVE cards. FIVE! How do you f**k that up?

Let me list the errors: Kuriboh, Summoned Skull, Red-Eyes B. Dragon, XYZ Dragon Cannon and Gilford the Lighting. Seriously, Gilford the Lighting? Gilford has TWO artworks. We had one, just pick the other! How difficult is that?

Due to these five screw-ups, these alternate arts are still left unreleased.

And worst of all [personal opinion]... Where's the Gemini Elf alt? Gemini Elf's art was like thé only alt I was really waiting for! And I'm sure I'm not alone on this one. And don't talk about the censorship, because the censored card has already been used in video games! You just had to print it!

"We're still outside of YOUR grasp, boy." *wink*

Low ratio of new vs old cards

And lastly in my rant: What's with the low number of actual new cards? Why didn't Konami take the opportunity to add cards from the Millennium Box Gold Edition (Summoned Lord Exodia, Exodd Flame & Ties of the Brethren), or the cards from the Duelist Road packs (like Ring of Peace, Dark Burning Attack, etc). Or in worst case, add in some old Vanilla monsters not yet seen in the TCG (e.g. Horn Imp WAS a card Yugi used in the anime and still needs a TCG release).

Honestly, I wouldn't have made such a big noise about it, if it wasn't for so many weird/bad reprint choices in this set. Nearly half (if not more) of the cards are reprints of cards that were in other sets already. And I don't think anyone was waiting for another reprint of Scapegoat, or a reprint of Dark Master Zork...

Conclusion

This whole pack is one big heap of disappointment. We got a few new cards, we got some new alternate art cards. But it could've been a lot better!

And it shows. The secondary market only rates TWO cards with a value over €5. Winged Dragon of Ra Phoenix Mode (around €5-7) and Cards of Demise (currently between €12-15). It's been a while since a booster scored this low on the secondary market value.

So, skip buying this booster. If you care about the two previously mentioned cards, just buy them as single cards. There's no way buying a box of the Millennium pack would ever make you a happy customer.

Speaking about disappointments... next booster set is Shining Victories. Yeah, let's just hope the TCG exclusive cards are good, because this set needs a "motivation boost" of sorts. Drifting Ghost and the Blue Eyes monsters alone won't save it.

Until next time, V out.

TCG Forbidden & Limited List is out

So I was busy preparing a post about the new OCG set when suddenly...

http://www.yugioh-card.com/en/limited/

TCG Forbidden & Limited List is out today and goes in effect from Monday already. Saying that's fast is quite an understatement.

The April 11, 2016 Forbidden & limited list

Listed are only the changes

Forbidden

• Performage Damage Juggler – Already hit on the adjusted list
• Performage Plushfire – Already hit on the adjusted list
• Tellarknight Ptolemaeus- Already hit on the adjusted list
• Chicken Game – Previously Unlimited
• Wavering Eyes – Previously Unlimited

Limited

• Luster Pendulum, the Dracoslayer – Already hit on the adjusted list
• Performapal Monkeyboard – Already hit on the adjusted list
• Performapal Skullcrobat Joker – Already hit on the adjusted list
• Wisdom-Eye Magician – Previously Unlimited
• Elder Entity Norden – Previously Unlimited
• Thousand-Eyes Restrict – Previously Forbidden
• Ignister Prominence, The Blasting Dracoslayer – Previously Unlimited
• Draco Face-Off – Previously Unlimited
• Reasoning – Previously Unlimited
• Upstart Goblin – Previously Unlimited

Semi-Limited

• Debris Dragon – Previously Limited
• Allure of Darkness – Previously Limited
• Emergency Teleport – Previously Unlimited

Unlimited

• Dark Magician of Chaos – Previously Forbidden
• Tragoedia – Previously Semi-Limited
• Advanced Ritual Art – Previously Semi-Limited
• Crush Card Virus – Previously Limited

First impressions

Well, they confirmed EVERY change on the adjusted list without thinking about it if the hits were right or not.

Next to that, I see cards I kind of predicted (Ignister, Draco Face-off, Reasoning and arguably Wavering Eyes (thought it was going to be limited, but I'm just as happy with it being forbidden tbh).

Also surprised that Konami decided to take (minor) hits towards Kozmo, while officially still supporting them with new cards. This by Semi-limiting E-Teleport (hardly a hit in my eyes) and Reasoning (seen them abuse this). But for some reason I doubt they'll feel very salty about it. Might be that there's going to be another batch of support for them in the next set.

And... did Konami read my article about Monarch/Magical Explosion FTK? Because they made Chicken game forbidden instead of Life Equalizer. And as I said in that post, Monarch FTK deck is dead without Chicken Game.

Other than that, glad with the hits on Norden and Upstart Goblin; glad with the release of Thousand Eyes Restrict and DMoC. But I find it sad that Wisdom-Eye had to go as well. I admit, it's an OP searcher. But as the owner of an Odd-Eyes Magician deck I find it sad that a deck that hasn't topped (much) is being hit INSTEAD OF B.A. or MONARCHS?

 

That's it for now. Kind of figuring out what to do with my Odd-Eyes Magician deck now.

V out.