From: Shadow Master [mailto:darkdestructionv30@yahoo.com]
Sent: Wednesday, April 05, 2006 9:01 PM

Subject: A Rant on Originality - Master of Shadows

Dang! Three in a week. I must have no life. Or a lot of time on my hands. I'm leaning towards Option B. As the subject suggests, I'm going to rant on originality. Do yourself a favor and scroll to the bottom or hit the Back button.

Originality: What is it? We don't see too much of it these days. Not too many original ideas are being used. These days, most people are running decks that almost look identical. Look at a random number of tournament decks and compare them. Go ahead, look. I'll wait.

..............................

Now that you're back, what cards did most of them have in common besides the "staples?" I haven't looked at some of these decks, but I can tell from what I've seen. Most of them have Mobius the Frost Monarch, Magician of Faith, Smashing Ground / Fissure, Breaker the Magical Warrior, Sakuretsu Armor / Widespread Ruin, Bottomless Trap Hole, Trap Hole, Tsukuyomi, D.D. Assailant, Spirit Reaper, among others. I won't name them all. Most decks at tournaments have some or all of these cards.

"But why?" you ask. The answer's simple. People are under the impression that in order to win, they must use a deck that contains all of these cards and is based on a deck that uses them. How many Tomato Control, Soul Control, and Warrior Toolbox decks do you see running around at your local tournament? Answer: it depends. How many people care about being original? I do.

They feel that since these decks contain the above mentioned cards and that those decks win most of the time, then they must use decks like those with cards like those to win. But that completely takes the fun out of the game. How would you like to duel yourself at each tournament you go to? "I'd love it!" some would say. Sure, you'll always win, but you'll always lose as well. You don't really learn anything when you duel against a near identical deck except another way to lose and another way to handle the deck.

Some people actually do care about originality, though. I am, for one. I currently run a Water deck among some other original decks. I've used a deck that involves Dirty Chaos Hand Control (see one of earlier articles from this month; the link's entitles "Pojo's tips" or something to that tune), one that used Light of Intervention in combination with Ninja Grandmaster Sasuke and Armed Dragon LV5, and a Skill Drain deck that used Normal Dark monsters to get my point across (not original but is still outside the norm). I've even tried using Scarr, Scout of Dark World as a system of deck thinning to keep up hand advantage. (Can't explain it, I'm not an advantage fanatic.)

The point is that we just don't see originality anymore. There are some ideas that deserve a mention but since no one wants to try anything outside their winning Cookie Cutter deck, no one will use them.

That's my rant. Contact me at darkdestructionv30@yahoo.com.

Until next time...