[TBurtBrooks@aol.com]
Subject: The Simple Guide To Building Effective Decks -TDuelist

   I'm back again with another tip. I'll be talking about building 
   simple low budget decks in no time flat. Before I begin, I would 
   like to point out that if you reply to my articles, don't tell me 
   I suck and start cursing at me because my opinion was different 
   from yours. You will regret it because I do fight back and make you 
   wish you never messed with me!
      Anyway, I'll start with the first most important step, choosing a 
      theme.
You would be surprised to know how many people still don't do this and 
their deck ends up not being successful. People please pay attention, 
this is the most necessary step in deck construction. This is where things 
go down hill.
think about what you want your deck to accomplish in a duel. Do you want 
to wipeout your opponent before they have the chance to pull off a big move? 
Do you
want to get all the pieces of Exude out? Do you want to destroy your 
opponent's deck to completely control them? What is your goal? When you 
have figured this out or have some idea of what you want to do, move on 
to the second step.
      The next step is to select the right spells, monsters, and traps. 
      We'll start with the monsters. Now, if you find that you do not have 
      the right cards for the deck theme, you should rethink a different 
      deck theme and work on the old one another time. Your monsters are 
      the most important part of your deck.
They are your offense and defense, so you must select them carefully and 
make sure they all work in harmony. So, an average deck size is 40-50 
cards, so monsters are usually from 20 to 30 monsters and the rest spells 
and traps. 
Now,
for example, you are building an Earth Deck destruction deck. The whole 
point of this deck is to use your earth monsters and your spell cards to 
dismantle your opponent's deck to srew up their drawing ability and help 
control their graveyard. Lets say that in your card collection, you have 
several Needle Worms.
Obviously, you would put 3 of them into your deck so that every time 
they're flipped, 5 cards off the top of the deck. After picking the 
monsters that support your theme and each other, you then choose the 
spells.
       Spells are very important. They provide power up's and add more 
       strategy into the game. When you select your spells, you must 
       select the ones that will work together with the rest of your 
       deck. Using the same example, you will need to select spells that 
       will power-up your Earth monsters and destroy your opponent where 
       it hurts the most. To power up the monsters, put in field and 
       equip cards like Gaia Power, Forest, Sogen, and Invigoration. 
       Gravekeepers Servant will demolish your opponent's deck a card 
       at a time. I would use Soul Release to restrict what can be brought 
       back into play. the rules for spell cards also apply to trap cards, 
       except there are a lot less of them.
      The next thing to do is test your deck out. The first time you 
      duel with your new deck, you should record the duel scores and 
      take notes on the entire duel (There is a notes section at the 
      back of the rulebook). This helps a lot because this let's you 
      know what happened that helped you win or what weren't you prepared 
      for that made you lose. I make a database for all this information 
      on a floppy disc so I could see how much work needed to be done. 
      Losing is always a learning experience. I lost a lot of times 
      because I had to many tribute cards and had no theme until I took 
      my cards out and started building Attribute decks. I reduced the 
      number of tributes and foud a theme for my deck. I think you 
      should always modify your deck frequently to become better.
     well that's my deck building guide. I hope you find it helpful. 
     If you have any questions, suggestions, or want to state your opinion 
     about something in a positive manner, email me.
Thaddaeus
TBurtbrooks@aol.com