Subject: The Evolution of the Last Will Deck - Last Will

I've received quite a bit of positive feedback from my prior Pojo tip, and 
from my tourney report, so I decided to post a new tip and see if it meets 
with a good response.

If you remember last time, I talked about some basic deck principles such 
as monster removal, monster addition and deck speed. If you remember, I 
preached very strongly about a monster removal deck, in addition to using 
cards such as Share the Pain and Last Will. In attempting to put a deck 
such as this into practice, I found that trying to work all these 
principles into a single deck led to too many cards, and an overall weaker 
deck. So, in this article, I'm going to show how my original idea evolved 
into my current deck.

First of all, I realized that the key cards that made this deck go were 2 
Witches, 2 Sangans, 3 Share the Pains and 3 Last Wills. That right there is 
a quarter of a deck, leaving very little precious room. Those 10 cards are 
what makes the deck go. Why, you ask? Well, there are many reasons, but it 
starts with deck speed.

Now, I alluded to this in my previous article, but I didn't quite stress 
the importance to this particular deck, or any deck for that matter. What 
this deck allows you to do is draw monsters from your deck at an incredible 
rate of speed. Aside from the obvious benefit of drawing monsters from your 
deck, it shrinks your deck size. There have been many articles written on 
the benefit of running a 40 card deck(smaller the better), so anything you 
can do to shrink it further is beneficial to ANY deck. The more cards you 
draw from your deck, the greater percentage chance you have to draw one of 
the key restricted cards each turn.

For example, say you've gone 10 turns. In a normal deck, you'd have drawn 
roughly 15 cards, making your deck size 25. Say you still have 2 Swords, 
Raigeki, Change of Heart and Monster Reborn in your deck. You have a 
one-fifth chance of drawing one of those 5 cards. In this deck, you're 
likely to have drawn 20 cards after 10 turns on average, making your deck 
size 20. Thus, you have a one-quarter chance of drawing one of those 5 
cards. In the latter situation, you have a 25% greater chance of drawing 
one of those 5 cards. As the game progresses, the advantage grows and 
grows, so eventually, your advantage should become enough to overwhelm your 
opponent with great magic cards.

Not to mention that with all the card drawing, you are able to pick and 
choose the monsters you want to play more easily then simply drawing them 
into your hand. If you're able to clear the field for direct damage(Dark 
Hole, Share the Pain, hell...even sacrifice a Sangan/Witch or a used-up 
flip effect monster for a Summoned Skull), use Last Will to bring out 
Masked Sorcerer or White Magical Hat to do direct damage and use their 
invaluable effects. If you happen to have a Trap Hole or another useful 
trap set, you can use the effect again next turn more likely than not. Use 
Last Will to bring out a Witch or a Sangan and increase the card drawing. 
Flip Magician of Faiths to get back Last Will, use Last Will, sacrifice for 
Summoned Skull, and get yet another monster out of your deck. You can even 
use that Last Will to bring out a Sangan to attack for 1000 damage, and 
when you lose it, you can get that Magician of Faith back. If you try, you 
can draw an insane amount of cards out of your deck if you need to. Of 
course, that's not always necessary, or helpful if done to an extreme, but 
the options are there.

Now, people seem to have a mental block against Share the Pains. This card 
is generally viewed as useless, and I don't understand why. Flip effect 
negation is so vital in this game, that any card that can neutralize that 
is a plus in itself. But there's more to it. Sure, you have to sacrifice a 
monster from the field, but there are some monsters that you WANT to lose 
from the field. Flip up a Magician of Faith, get its effect, and then to 
make sure you don't get 1500 damage done to you next turn, use it to take 
out their Summoned Skull, or set Magician of Faith. Use Share the Pain on 
Sangans and Witches to get their effects, and force your opponent to lose a 
more valued monster. Then, after that, you're free to summon a monster and 
do direct damage. And direct damage is the key to another vital part of 
Yu-Gi-Oh(more on that later).

Not only that, Share the Pain works BEAUTIFULLY with Last Will. A match 
made in heaven. They have a monster face down and a trap hole set, you have 
nothing on your side of the field. Not much you can do in a situation like 
this, but if you set a Sangan/Witch, play Share the Pain and Last Will, you 
can special summon any monster to the field(best used with White Magical 
Hat or Masked Sorcerer, works just fine with a Witch in attack mode) to 
avoid the trap hole, and then take a Magician of Faith(these are vital) to 
your hand. If you already have the Witch/Sangan set, all the better. You 
can use whichever card you take into your hand and play it that turn.

Now, why is direct damage so important? How do all these 900(Masked 
Sorcerer)/1000(White Magical Hat/Sangan)/1100(Witch) monsters replace 1800 
monsters without losing power? Well, there are a couple of reasons, but I 
generally prefer to have masses of small monsters attacking for direct 
damage. The small amounts add up, but they contribute to invaluable 
effects. Doing 900 damage instead of 1800 and drawing a card, or 1000 
damage and discarding a random card from the opponent's hand is infinitely 
better. Hand advantage is very very important...limit the opponent's 
options while enhancing your own. A Robbin' Goblin on the field, while 
attack with a flipped up Man-Eater Bug and a White Magical Hat means that, 
while only doing 1450 damage, you discard 3 cards from their hand. If you 
ever get them to the point where they have no cards in their hand and are 
forced to play from the top of the deck, you've won. Add Delinquent Duo and 
a couple Robbin' Goblins to go with the White Magical Hat, and you've got 
quite enough discard to completely mess with your opponent, without theming 
an entire deck to it.

But the real strength of the deck, and the way that it has changed the most 
from the original, is that it has adapted to the tenet that magic cards are 
the key to Yu-Gi-Oh. This is a deck theme, as well as a way to play the 
game. Use the Last Wills to summon Sangans and Witches, and use those in 
turns to get Magicians of Faith. The whole deck speed notion is meant to 
draw the monsters out so you have a better chance of drawing those crucial 
magic cards.

Some aspects of Monster Removal remain, such as the 3 Share the Pains, 3 
Trap Holes and 3 Man-Eaters, but cards such as Tribute to the Doomed, 
Solemn Judgement and Horn of Heaven have been scrapped. Why? Well, the 
costs of these cards are a little too high. Which is the say, the costs to 
these cards don't carry a potential benefit, like Share the Pain and 
Man-Eater Bug do. Losing a card from your hand is a steep price to pay, as 
is half your life points. Why Share the Pain and not Horn of Heaven? Share 
the Pain has added benefits. Losing a monster on your turn is better for 2 
reasons. It gives you the option to flip your monsters first, before 
sacrificing them. Also, when losing it on your turn, it gives you the 
option to use Last Will, which is the backbone of this deck.

If you've noticed, the cards in this deck are tailored to Last Will, so you 
can say that this deck is themed. Whereas most decks have 2 or 3 cards that 
can be brought out by Last Will, my deck has(or will have) no fewer than 6 
monsters that you would want to bring out via this card(2 Witches, 2 
Sangans, Masked Sorcerer, White Magical Hat). That makes this deck very 
adaptable to stall decks that run Messenger of Peace(Exodia and Burner 
decks love that card).

There are a lack of 1800 monsters in this deck, but these cards are very 
over-rated. Why does everybody think you need 6 of these in every deck? 
Their use is to be able to kill monsters weaker than themselves, and do 
direct damage(1800 worth), but with no effect. But does anybody really run 
any monsters that are between 1100 and 1800 attack? And would you not 
sacrifice some damage for some of the great effects those lower attack 
cards have? And besides, if you really need the raw power that La Jinn or 7 
Colored Fish provide, there's a much better alternative. Summoned Skull can 
be used in combination with Change of Heart or Snatch Steal. If you 
sacrifice a monster to bring this card out, Last Will can be used to get an 
additional monster on to the field. 2500 attack power is plenty of power, 
and between this card and the weaker effect monsters, there's no real 
reason to play any 1800 monsters at all(though I currently still run 2).

Anyway, sorry to have rambled, but just felt like putting to "paper" some 
of the things that were going through my mind with regards to my deck and 
Yu-Gi-Oh in general. I appreciate your time, and thanks for your support.

fastat3m@hotmail.com

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