Subject: Slap Of Reality - MajinUltima MajinUltima@hotmail.com AIM: MajinUltima MajinBakura@hotmail.com AIM: MajinBakura This is meant to be a slap of reality for 90% of YuGiOh players around, the 90% that either suck or are uninventive, the Beatdown 90%. Fact of the matter is now, and only moreso with time, Beatdown decks wont matter. Winning because my monster is bigger than your monster and having your monster wield his little wooden club and go 'URGH! Grog smash!' Those days are ending. Your pitiful little 'I can make my monster 15000 ATK power' combos are useless and a waste of ppls time. The dawn of a new little Yugioh era is starting: The Era Of Strategy. -Strategy (strat'e je) n., pl. -gies 1 a) the science of planning and directing large-scale military operations, specif. (as distinguished from TACTICS) of maneuvering forces into the most advantageous position prior to engagement with the enemy b) a plan or action based on this 2 a) skill in managing or planning, esp. by using stratagems b) a stratagem or artful means to some end Also, esp. for sense 1. Since 90%+ of you dont understand that word, Ill give you time to digest what you just read, assuming you can understand that much. Now, with ALL THAT having been said... onto my list of deck types. 1. Beatdown- lets start with the most common (and also the most basic, most simplistic, least complicated, least strategic, even a monkey could run one of these) deck type around. It strength lies in OH AH big things, my monsters stick is bigger than yours so I win. It is the neanderthal of decks. Its strength doesnt lie in anything except AVAILABILITY. People who are uninventive or are neanderthals themselves use this deck structure, period, end of story. Its weakness is that little thing I mentioned above, strategy. 2. Elemental- my own name for it, similar to beatdown but this actually has a focus, especially if you limit yourself to a pure-type which is currently borderline suicidal, but is fun to try. The only pure-type Id even consider are Light, Earth, and Dark. If youre really caught up on smacking them with big stuff, go for a pure-tpye deck and then LIMIT almost EVERY card in your deck to being that type. This is what we call a deck theme, youll be surpised in 1 or 2 sets how insanely powerful pure-type decks can be. 3. Toon/Dragon- combined currently because of the available cards. Lord of D is the best friend of the big Toon Monsters. Lord = HUGE monsters minus the tribute. This deck has its vulnerabilities in Toon World and the Lord so protect them. It relies too much on specific combos for my taste, but thats a LOT of firepower if it goes through. 4. Shield & Sword- big DEF deck, personally I think this deck is misunderstood. Yes turning a 2000 DEF monster into 2000 ATK is nice, but then youre stuck in ATK mode with a WEAK ATK stat which means unless you kill them in that 1 turn, you are in for a LOT of pain. For S&S I suggest being SMART, use things like the Harpie combos and many of the new 1650/1600 cards and such, that way you still have BETTER stats than them, but also when the S&S wears off youve still got monsters that can hurt ppl. My Harpies with S&S have won me MANY games against beatdowns. 5. Exodia- its Exodia, the uses of Exodia change with almost every set. Exodia gains MUCHO PLAYABILITY next set so have fun with it. In the mean time, snag a Painful Choice to use. 6. Sub-type decks- only noteworthy 2 currently imho are Fiends and Dragons. Got Zombies but on one much uses them expecting to win, usually for fun. Zombies get a lot of power with the PH set, but that wont be for a while. Dragons are Dragons, simple as that. 7. Counter decks- back from the big MRD era, a lot of ppl wanted to abuse Counter Trap mania, now its calmed down a lot. What little there is of this will pretty much evolve into a Trap Deck which uses like MUCHO Traps, some effect monsters, and almost nothing else. Some funny potential there though, especialy with all the spectacular Traps from the next set. 8. Discard decks- destroy their hand so every turn, in order to survive, they must rely on the Heart of the Cards. Fun to use with Chain Energy once you have board control and theyve got like no hand. 9. Burner decks- direct damage, 'nuff said. If you can get board control with this, then pair it also with Chain Energy for annoyance. 10. Deck Out deck- my personal favorite. Target the deck and run them out of cards. See my Card Destruction post from September for a lot more information. Both my current english deck and my japanese deck use this. 11. Life deck- least thats what Im calling it, doesnt exist yet, but there is mucho fun to be had with a deck based around getting you an insane ammount of life points. Give it a set or two for me to tell you how to work it. These are some of the biggest deck types around, so instead of going off with your little beatdown deck which cant even beat up a deck where the strongest monster has 1000 ATK... how about trying one of the other 9 currently available? As always, Im sure I will get a lot of interesting feedback from my 'adoring fans' and I honestly cant wait to hear it and reply, so email me at: MajinUltima@hotmail.com AIM: MajinUltima _________________________________________________________________ Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com