From: Sephiroth The Dark
Subject: Beginners - Some more, possibly helpful, ideas. By Rob Gray

 

 

 

  Hey there! It's me again!

 

  I've had a few duels since my last post, and have ironed out several of

the bugs that were in my deck list in my last post. However, I'm still not

entirely satisfied (I've had a few unlucky opening hands too many, and have

decided that there must be some kind of flaw in my deck on top of that, so

I'm still sorting it out), so if anyone has any suggestions, please do

e-mail me at the address at the end of this message. I'd be most grateful

for any extra ideas.

 

  However, one of the things I firmly believe in, is that good comes of

every situation if you make it, and I have definitely learned a lot from my

losses (and don't get me wrong, I've still won more with my new deck than I

have lost, just not a big enough percentage to keep me happy ;) ). What I've

learned is, you can never underestimate Spellcasters! They are one of the

few monster types that I can get totally stumped by, even when my deck would

be seemingly quite good against them.

 

  And that's what has inspired me to make this post. There is a definite

reason why Spellcasters are so much of a problem to me, and even I can see

why it is: they are so easy to use! True, an absolute beginner to the game

might find them a bit of a challenge to get used to at first, but once you

have a good understanding of the basic rules, you can generally run a pretty

respectable deck with little or no effort! Especially if you're using the

Spellcaster's Judgement structure deck as the basis of your deck (I'd

probably suggest replacing Dark Eradicator Warlock with another Dark

Magician, though, and check your cards against the Forbidden list... there

are a few changes you'll want to make quite quickly).

 

  There is another type of deck that's rather easy to run: Zombies! There

are so many cards for Zombies that make them a ludicrously simple deck to

use, as summoning monsters becomes quite a trivial matter (especially with

Pyramid Turtle!). Again, if you're using the structure deck as the basis of

your deck, Vampire Genesis isn't necessarily worth keeping in your deck, but

its effect is pretty good once it's on the field... it's really up to you

what you do with these kinds of monsters. They're a bit too situational for

me, though, and they're not easy to summon to the field.

 

  One thing that makes these decks work well is the ease at which most

monsters can be summoned to the field, and the effects that come with it.

Magical Dimension is a really good card for the Spellcaster deck, because

its only requirement is that you have a Spellcaster on the field and one in

your hand. Well, if your deck is Spellcaster-orientated anyway, that's not

so hard. You can then send a monster from the field to the graveyard to

special summon the Spellcaster from your hand, and you CAN destroy a monster

on the field as another part of the card's effect (I emphasise the "can",

because it's not a requisite of the spell card's effect, so you don't have

to kill your own monsters if there're none on your opponent's side of the

field)! Not a bad trade-off, especially when you're summoning Dark Magician

for your already-flipped Magician of Faith!

 

  For Zombies, there are also easy methods of summoning monsters. Pyramid

Turtle has one of the best search effects, seeking out Zombie monsters with

a defence lower than 2000! And you can summon it face-up in either attack or

defence position! There are plenty of monsters that have less than 2000

defence at your disposal, including powerful monsters like Ryu Kokki, or

monsters with nasty effects, like Soul-Absorbing Bone Tower (which was the

main tool in a powerful, yet entirely illegal, defensive strategy, also

involving Patrician of Darkness, employed against me by someone I used to

play against a lot. Every week, he seemed to come up with a new and

wonderful way to misinterpret the rulings on a card...). And Call Of The

Grave lets you Special Summon a monster when you have no others on the

field... great if you fell prey to a huge attack or powerful card effect

last turn!

 

  I'd possibly suggest that, for beginners, Zombie decks are perhaps the

best choice. While Spellcasters can be quite simple to use as well, a lot of

their effects involve spell counters and card effects whose timings can be

easily missed. Remember, only certain card effects can be activated in your

opponent's turn (which is something else often misinterpreted by the

aforementioned individual...): for example, Relinquished (or Thousand-Eyes

Restrict) cannot equip itself with a monster on your field during your turn.

It's an Ignition Effect, not a Multi-Trigger effect (it doesn't even

resemble a Trigger effect, in any way!). A Trigger/Multi-Trigger effect can

easily be recognised because it says "when something does something, this

effect activates", meaning it's automatic. You can miss the timing (e.g.

Peten The Dark Clown), but otherwise it will happen, having been

"triggered". It's not a trigger when you activate it yourself (i.e. "When...

you can..."). This is something I've seen mistaken too many times, so I

figured I'd bring it up.

 

  Back on topic, it's reasons like this that Spellcasters can have problems.

Remembering to put spell counters on cards, while seemingly trivial, can

easily be forgotten, and the timing of the activation of the effects can be

a hindrance. Zombies don't have so many of these problems, but a lot of them

do still have some pretty evil effects to throw at your opponent. And the

most powerful monsters aren't necessarily those with the highest levels

(King of Skull Servants with two other copies in the graveyard, along with

three Skull Servants, is pretty strong... for a level 1!), meaning that

Gravity Bind and similar can find a nice use in these decks!

 

  So, on this basis alone, I'd suggest that Zombies have the edge over

Spellcasters for beginner decks, but both are considerably formidable and

easy enough to use. They tend to lose their appeal as people become more

experienced, because they are a bit simple (although Spellcasters have a lot

of tricks to make them more complicated and strategic as a deck...), and it

makes winning duels rather easy after a while. Some people like a challenge,

rather than just winning all the time! For those who prefer a bit of a

challenge, might I suggest a Toon World deck? I haven't used mine in a few

years, so it might be easier to use now that newer Toons have been

introduced... but, still an entertaining one to wield!

 

  Hope this has been of some help, at least. E-mail me if you have any

queries, or suggestions, or comments. Again, I'm only going by experience,

and everyone's experiences are different, so don't be too annoyed if you

don't think a lot of this applies to you.

 

  Thanks for listening!

 

     Rob Gray (aka sephiroths_champ, aka Funky Kaiba)

 

     <sephiroths_champ@hotmail.com>