Subject: "A Little Lesson on Beatdown Strategy"

First of all, everyone reading this, ask yourselves this one question: What 
deck needs the most strategy? Well ... let's see ... a Toon deck? An Exodia 
deck? Well, obviously, both of these decks don't work well at all unless 
the whole deck is supporting them, so it can be seen as one large combo. 
After all, isn't any constructed deck a very large combo?

Now then, the second question is: Does playing any deck require any 
strategy? The less obvious but quite true answer to this is NO! None at 
all. The thinking process during a game is not strategy, but tactics. 
Tactics differ from strategy in that it is the response to immediate 
threats and circumstances. The only strategy in this card game is the 
building of the deck.

With that established, the only reason one would have to say that beatdown 
decks have no strategy is that the person has never faced a good beatdown. 
A deck with only strong monsters cannot be called a beatdown. It would be 
the same as a deck with the Exodia set and random cards thrown in being 
called an Exodia deck. For a deck to be Exodia it must have the support 
cards. The same goes with Beatdown decks.

These support cards are, mainly, monster removal and cards that remove or 
neutralize beatdown threats. (Messenger of Peace, Gravity Bind) An 
experienced Beatdown player would know why these are so vital to a deck. 
One last thing before I finish. The one reason there is so much resentment 
about Beatdown is that people feel it is a threat to their own decks' 
superiority. Prejudice is borne from insecurity.


Daniel (<mailto:dylj@netzero.net>dylj@netzero.net)