GeneralZorpa on Yugioh
General Musings Part 1
January 21, 2009
I
often come up with ideas or opinions and even questions that
would not take a whole article to fill, so I decided to pur
some of the them to work in a series of articles called
General Musings. In here you can expect to find anything
from Frog Control to Fog Control, so if you like randomness,
this is the article series for you!
Tele-DAD Must be Tele-Stopped!
First
off, w00t! Lightsworn made it in the top 8 as the only non-tele
deck. Take that Zombies! Anyway, this deck needs to be
stopped. I mean seriously, when was the last time that a
deck so completely dominated the game? Even in the Gladiator
Beast Format, we still had Lightsworn and DARK decks
floating around in the top 8. There was ONE deck that has
squeaked in by the seat of Judgment Dragon and Honest and
that is Lightsworn. Even decks dedicated to bringing
Tele-DAD down have not been able to do it. To this, I
propose changes to the banlist come March, or sooner if we
can.
Bring
Allure of Darkness to 1
This
may seem a little harsh, but this is the card, not Destiny
Draw, that enables the hated Tele-DAD deck to get to the
cards that it needs in order to win. Otherwise they just
have a collection of random cards that may or may not work
well together. This may hurt the DARK decks or Hopeless
Dragon decks that are out there, but this card was never
meant to be released and just solidified DARK's continued
dominance rather than balancing out any weakness that could
have happened. Without Allure, Lightsworn and even a quick
Gladiator build can get around Tele-DAD.
Bring
Destiny Hero Malicious to 2
This
is not harsh at all. Free monsters is what gives the
Tele-DAD deck it's edge, and Malicious does that. Not only
working wit Destiny Draw, it can be pitched with Dark
Grepher or Armageddon Knight so that it can almost certainly
get to the graveyard on turn one. Malicious at 2 reduces an
opponent to one Synchro Summon per turn, which will really
help with the flood of Synchros that the deck can unleash on
turn one or two. The fact that Malicious actually has no
other purpose right now is a bonus, as his loss will not be
so widely felt.
Move
D.D. Warrior Lady Back to 3
This
is one that I have actually fought for for a long time. D.D.
Warrior Lady is a great answer to Synchros and can be easily
used to help get rid of cards that would otherwise be
impossible to kill. She is one of the more balanced cards in
the game, and she should be given a second chance to bring
herself and her DD buddies back fro the brink of the trash
bin.
There
are some other cards that I feel must be limited or
something like that, but these three are in my opinion the
major ones that need to be addressed.
Forged From a Blade
Divine Sword Phoenix Blade is a reincarnation of the
infamous Butterfly Dagger-Elma. That card had to be banned
because in combination with Sinister Serpent, discard costs
were pretty much negated. Phoenix Blade has had it's share
of the spotlight as well. It was Instrumental in DDT for
both getting the removed cards needed to be Special Summoned
with Dimension Fusion as well as getting the free discard
fodder that was needed to activate Magical Stone Excavation
and Lightning Vortex.
Nowadays, it just rots in
common boxes and collections of cards that are no longer
good. DDT may not be around, but there are plenty of uses
for this rather incredible equip spell card. The first is to
use it for discard fodder. Phoenix Wing Wind Blast, Divine
Wrath, Lightning Vortex, DDR-Different Dimension
Reincarnation and more cards all require a discard, and
sometimes a specific spell discard like Cursed Seal of the
Forbidden Spell. Spell Shield Type 8 and Eliminating the
League.
Phoenix Blade can fulfill all
of these discard costs as well as enabling cards to be
played that might otherwise be hard to activate. I am going
to specifically talk about Spell Shield Type 8, Cursed Seal
of the Forbidden Spell and Eliminating the League, as each
of these cards gives a great advantage but people are not as
willing to give up the discard of a spell card in order to
get their effects. They would rather dump a card like
Malicious or Necro Gardna that has some use while in the
graveyard to mitigate the cost.
Spell Shield Type 8 is a
great card. It can negate spells for every occasion. You can
auto-negate a spell that targets a monster on the field as
well as negate any spell just by discarding a spell card.
The original text of the card says that you can discard any
card, but the errata to the text says that it must be a
spell. The versatility of this card is what make sit nice,
as you can negate spells like Brain Control and Soul Taker
for free as well as bigger spells like Lightning Vortex and
Heavy Storm for a discard cost. Not my favorite of spell
negators, but definitely useful in a format where spell
cards rule the day.
Cursed Seal of the Forbidden
Spell is in my opinion the epitome of spell negation. You
give up your spell card from your hand and your opponent
loses their spell, but they also cannot use any other copies
of the same spell for the rest of the duel. I fyou can
negate a key card like Emergency Teleport, Allure of
Darkness or Destiny Draw, then the standard Tele-DAD deck
has no way to bring the horrendous amount of Synchros that
it is is famous for, to the table. This also creates dead
cards in their deck. Tele-DAD cannot afford to have dead
cards in thier hand, otehrwise they cannot win. Especially
if you get a Draw spell, they cannot do anything with the
cards in their hand and will quickly lose.
Eliminating the League is
also a good card for dealing with top decks this format.
Destroying a card is good enough, but discarding additional
cards from tehir hand is even better. Lightsworn generally
don't like their Luminas in the graveyard, and Eliminating
the League can sne dthem there. It can also deal death blows
to Gladiator Beasts, destroying the Darius/Bestiari combo as
well as discarding Gladiators from the hand. But most
importantly of all, youget to see what is in your opponent's
hand. Currently Trap Dustshoot and Crush Card Virus are the
only widespread cards that allow you to do this. So why
isn't a card that destroys monsters, discards cards from the
hand and allows you to see your opponent's hand not being
played? Beats me, my guess is that people don't want to
discard spells for it's cost. But we all know how to
mitigate that don't we?
Where Have All the Gadgets
Gone?
I really couldn't say. I
have yet to see a Gadget deck this format that can work
well. Unfortunately for them, the deck is slow and has no
real draw power. This is where innovation comes in.
Thunderking Rai-Oh and other cards have been released that
make Gadgets viable again. As for myself, Soul Taker is the
big one here, as TKRO will negate your own Gadget's effects.
Soul Taker allows you to kill cards that would otherwise be
off limits to Gadgets. Shrink can even bring down the mighty
Stardust Dragon in battle with all but one of the clockwork
terrors.
Of course, we can also use
the card I was just talking about, Eliminating the League,
to give the gadgets and edge. Often, the deck does not use
all of the spells it has available to it. excess kill spells
are kept in the hand and are pretty much useless. Against a
Gadget deck, a player will often slow play, keeping hteir
cards off of the field so that you cannot kill them.
Eliminating the League lets you get any monster that they
would have summoned as well as sneaking a peak at their
hand. You can even use D.D. Designator to remove from play a
key card intheir hand to block it before it even sees play
as you know the cards in your opponent's hand. You can even
use dead copies of Designator to fuel Eliminating the
League. That is called SYNERGY my friends.
With Phoenix Wing Wind Blast
and Synchro monsters added to the mix, Gadgets can certainly
make a splash this format. Krebons and the evil
Plaguespreader Zombie can be used to make Goyo Guardian
appear out of thin air, which can mean victory with your
plethora of removal spells. Nobleman of Extermination is
especially good, as you can force th eactivation of Solemn
Judgment and Phoenix Wing Wind blast when your opponent may
not want them to activate it. Giant Trunade is nice as well
as you can set up a field of Gadgets with Ultimate Offering
and then clear the way for a massive strike on your
opponent's lifepoints.
You can also use Royal
Oppression in order to stop Special Summoning, something
that Gadgets do quite fine without. This will also stop
Synchros as well as KO Dragons from ruining your day. That
is probably the biggest threat facing Gadgets, that their
carefully built up field will be nuked by an overopwered
dragon that deserves to be in a dedicated WIND deck rather
than the two most powerful types in the game.
I Like Clouds
Too bad Cloudian cards
just are not viable right now. Oh wait, they are! All of the
Cloudians stay on teh field for an extended period of time,
making them ideal candidates for what class? That's right,
Synchro Summoning! Combine that with the innate ability of
Cloudians to inflict cards damage over time and you have a
deck that can whittle down opposing cards and then explode
with Synchros to take the game.
As far as Tuners go, Copy
Plant and Rose, Warrior of Revenge are ideal choices as most
of the Cloudian cards are level 4, allowing you access to
level 8 Synchros rather easily. Since it is the level 8
Synchros that do the most damage, you can unleash a flood
(pun intended) of Thought Ruler Archfiends, Stardust Dragons
and Colossal Fighters each turn! Much like the Gadget decks,
this deck can be outfitted with kill spells and traps so
that you can keep your guys on the field long enough for
them to do damage.
Not much else to say about
Cloudians, but they are really fun to play, so you can put
all of those useless rares and commons that you got from
GLAS while looking for Gladiator cards to use at your local.
Who knows, you might just have fun again.
That is all for this edition
of General Musings. you can reach me at
raptor1k@hotmail.com for any questions, tips or anything
else YGO related.
