Subject: Random Inspiration-Jacob1189 Hi, Jacob1189 here to right yet another tip. I guess I might be beomcing another mughty mollusk, although not as many people respond to my messages, I wish you would hate mail is so fun to read!! Anyways, on to the Random Inspiration: HOW CAN I GET YOU STUPID PEOPLE TO STOP RANTING ON ANYTHING REMOTELY RELATED TO BEATDOWNS AND LET PEOPLE WHO ACTUALLY WANT TO LEARN SOMETHING ABOUT YUGIOH READ SOME REAL TIPS? I mean seriously, a rant is fun to read but not when it's the same one over and over.... And then, a Random Inspiration struck: WHAT IF I WROTE A TIP TO STOP THE MADNESS? THEN I WOULDN"T HAVE TO READ ANYMORE BEATDOWN RANTS! Until someone who hasn't read this posts a tip... :( Okay, so let's analyze a beatdown deck. It is obviously the most obvious choice, but I rarely see people pull this off correctly, and sometimes I see people incorporate beatdown into a defensive strategy. I have learned from that mistake, so i will say beatdowns really only work if the whole deck is centered around a beatdown's job: to eliminate every other deck out there and score either quick wins in the early game, gain an early lead to ride to a victory in the late-game, or build up a force and strike for heavy damage mid-game. Well, beatdowns used to be king of the hill. They are sitll viable, no mistake. They are probably still mostly tournament worthy, too. But I just have to say that there are now some more extremely viable choices out that are, not surprisingly, branches off of a standard beatdown. A standard beatdwon, however, usually just doesn't make the cut in serious play, although it is fun in casual play. Here is what a standard beatdwon is: lot's of combos, a couple tribute monsters, strong attackers. Why doesn't it make the cut? It is only taken to it's full potential if it survives on a fairly even keel until the mid to late game when all of the combos come through. If it is well contructed the cards used for the combos will work on their own, but the deck isn't really unified enough and is weak in the early game, and all games have an early game, but not always a mid and late game. A modified beatdown is one that features removal, powerful equips, monster searches, a few tech cards, counter-traps, some flip effect monsters, and possibly tribute monsters, possibly no tribute monsters. It is more unified and can hold it's own against most decks during all stages of the game, and is very similar to another cool beatdown variation, which seeks to build up field strength early in the game, and then blast the opponent with heavily equipped monsters, high removal, and card advantage. This is a fun deck to use, as it can also make late-game comebacks. The reason this differs from the past one is that it has little room for counter-traps, no room for techs, and probably only enough room for the magician of faith as far as flip effect monsters go. It is even more jam-packed with removal and equips, and also features reanimation cards such as premature burial and call of the haunted. It probably will only feature Jiunzo as a tribute monster, and possible summoned skull...The next is removal, hich means trap hole, fissure, and other such removal cards. It might also include barrel dragon and robbin' golbin as techs. This deck usually runs fewer monsters and has some harder decisions to make, such as what type of removal cards to use, how many to have, etc. and there is obvioulsy not enough room for all of them. It might use 3-star effect monsters like hayabusa knight, nimble momonga, karate man, white magical hat, etc., or it might feature 4-star beatdown monsters, or maybe a mix (maybe). This is sometimes mixed with clown control if there are weaker monsters, as it is pretty important to protect them from more strength based removal decks. This deck is nice early game, but if you don't gain a strong advantage at some point in the mid-game, you might have toruble if you can't draw any come-back cards like MoF or cyber jar, which are important in this deck. Another viable choice is hand destruction, a beatdown with robbin' goblins teched in, and possibly heightened removal. The last choice, which is VERY risky, but still very powerful, is velocity, which uses Jirai Gumo, Megamorph, Goblin Attack Force, Widespread Removal, mainly (concnetrating on face-down cards, with some all around removal and a bit of face-up) dark elf, and other such quick yet costly cards. You could tech in ookazi or even tremendous fire plus confiscation etc. to run your opponent out of options, it can work nicely, but the whole point is to win as fast as possible and use megamorph with dark elf/jirai gymo or if you fall behind it's VERY expensive but VERY cool peace, jacob1189n out vze39myj@verizon.net