GeneralZorpa on Yugioh Hero Duplication
July 22, 2008
What's Better Than One Hero? 3 Of Course!
Hero cards have the most support in the game, except for
maybe Normal Monsters. Most of this support is junk of
course. However, every once in a while you get something
that is truly a gem. Elemental Heroes Stratos, Wildheart and
Prisma are great cards, and support like Hero Blast, O-Oversoul,
E-Emergency Call, R-Righteous Justice and Hero Mask, wait,
Hero Mask? This rather unassuming common from LODT is a gem.
Yeah, a gem. What it does is very similar to Prisma. You
send an Elemental Hero from your deck to the graveyard and a
selected monster gets it's name until the end of the turn.
However, unlike Prisma, we are able to put this card on any
monster. So you can make, say a Card Trooper into an
Elemental Hero Bladedge. What use is that though? Well
Machine Duplication comes to mind.
This works because Hero Mask doesn't change the ATK or type
of the monster, only it's name. So while Card Trooper is
still a Machine with 400 ATK, it has the name of Elemental
Hero Bladedge. Machine Duplication only says that the
monster you can select as a target has to be a monster of
Machine type and 500 or less ATK and that you Special Summon
monsters of the same name. Now you're catching on. You play
Hero Mask on a Cyber Valley or Card Trooper, discarding,
say, Elemental Hero Neos from your deck. Machine Duplication
then brings out 2 copies of Elemental Hero Neos from your
Deck. You can do this with any Elemental Hero, so Ocean,
Bladedge, Neos, Neos Alius and Wildheart are all viable
targets. So here is a rather unique Elemental Hero build
that can quickly swarm the field.
Well there is a lot of odd choices in this deck. Neos Alius
has gained a lot of recognition lately because of the fact
that it combines the two theme with the most support (Normal
and Hero) and packs it all into a nice little 1900 ATK
beatstick package. Wildheart is great when an opponent has
many cards facedown and it has 1500 ATK which is not a small
number. Ocean allows you to get back and abuse Stratos in
Big City style as well as get back any Hero for a beatdown.
Cyber Valley is in here as a target for Machine
Duplication/Hero Mask as well as being a useful draw/stall
card all on it's own. The same is true of Card Trooper,
although he is a little more aggro than his LIGHT cousin.
Sangan and Stratos act as searchers as well as beaters.
Don't laugh at Sangan, I have won games because my opponent
wouldn't -1 themselves on the little guy and 1000 is
actually a lot of damage.
The Spells pretty much all support the combo as well as the
theme. Machine Dupe and Hero Mask swarm the field, thin the
deck and get more monsters onto the field. Reinforcements
and E-Emergency Call all search out Heroes, namely Stratos,
as well as being a toolbox of sorts when you need it. Book
of Moon is there for offensive use as well as a decent
counter to Dark Armed Dragon and Gladiator Beast Gyzarus
when they take the field. Monster Reborn gets back fallen
Heroes and even though it is the only Recursion card in the
deck, I just couldn't cut such a brilliant card. Mystical
Space Typhoon removes the opposing defenses as well as combo
pieces like Field Spells and Premature Burial.
The Traps are actually pretty standard in non-DARK and
non-Gladiator decks. Solemn Negates everything and such a
toolbox of negation has been a hallmark of Heroes since
their competitive debut in Big City decks. Royal Oppression
negates opposing Special Summons at a paltry cost, allowing
your Heroes to reign supreme. Careful though, it can be used
to negate your Hero Mask/Machine Duplication Special Summons
by your opponent, so only activate it if you have to. You
can also remove it with Dust Tornado or Mystical Space
Typhoon if you need to. Dust Tornado also removes opposing
defense as well as setting up with any other Trap if you
need to. Dimensional Prison is a surprise to people, but
with Royal Oppression backing it up, it is a solid choice,
especially when faced with "destroy and send to graveyard"
cards like Sangan. Mirror Force does much the same thing,
but is always a nice surprise in a professional format where
it is all but cut. Torrential Tribute continues to prove
that it is the best in the game, but punishing opposing
overextensions as well as just all around awesomeness.
Bottomless Trap Hole is amazing, as it will destroy pretty
much any monster commonly played and I would be a fool not
to include at least one copy.
Oh, That Can't Be Good...
This deck does have it's weaknesses. It has a lot of dead
draws. Hero Mask and Machine DUplication are useless without
Cyber Valley and Card Trooper, and even the hero cards can
become troublesome when topdecked wrong. The low monster
count also means for a couple of monsterless turns in your
future, although E-Call and Reinforcements can make sure
that that happens as rarely as possible.
Higher ATK monsters, like Gladiators, pose an offensive
problem, as only Neos Alius has any real bite with his bark.
Your defensive trap cards should stymie any Gladiator
shenanigans though. You will also lose lifepoints really
fast between attacks, Royal Oppression and Solemn Judgment.
You need to end the game quickly before you can be set back
by the loss of life. Crush Card Virus is also a problem, as
all but 5 of our monsters have under 1500 ATK so a timely
CCV would jsut destroy this deck.
Even as idiotic as it may sound, Eradicator Epidemic Virus
is going to eat you for dinner. It has made a comeback with
the new ruling on Fusilier Dragon the Duel Mode Beast (a
very versatile card in itself). Losing your Spell and Trap
cards is a death sentence. So on the same note, Royal
Decree, Horus, Silent Swordsman, Jinzo and Spell Canceller
must be avoided at all costs. Your traps and spells should
help keep them off the field, as your monsters will likely
do no such thing.
Your own Royal Oppression will hurt you as well, but only if
you time it wrong. Special Summoning all of your monsters
and then playing Oppression is the way to go. You won't
always have that luxury though, and unlike Imperial Order,
Oppression is impossible to get rid of short of spell and
trap removal. That is where your opponent comes in. You can
hold your Special Summon cards in hand and then your
opponent will use his or her spell or trap removal on the
Oppression, leaving you free to use your combo next turn,
and all the while you were beating them down with Neos Alius
and Wildheart or even Stratos.
Elemental Heroes may not be the ultimate force that they are
in the tv show, but they are not a force to be trifled with.
That's all I have for you today. You can reach me at
raptor1k@hotmail.com for
any questions, comments or whatever. A little kid at my
local said my articles were boring, so appease the poor guy
and help my writing become better. I know I am not as good
as Pook or the Metagame.com writers, but I am trying, so any
advice from you, my readers, is appreciated
PS, I know a lot about rulings, but maybe Curtis Shultz over
at Metagame could be more help as far as that goes,
especially with complicated scenarios. I will do my best,
but usually I just look it up at the official site under
card rulings and then get back to you.
