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Nimbly's Nook

Inside the Game: Mainstreaming vs. Creativity

6/27/05

Here’s my first Featured Article on Pojo, so I hope you can enjoy my in depth analysis of the game and our adventure to figure out why we play this game.

Ok. I have one main belief in the game, and I would only hope that everyone who ever picked up a card would also believe: That a game is meant to be fun and enjoyable to play. Is that a word? Enjoyable? Eh…

Back to the point, everyone plays a game to enjoy it. Sometimes, it gets out of hand and people begin getting too serious about it. Tears are occasionally shed, decks slammed, angers flared, and many other signs of the Dimension of Angry Card Players. I’ll admit, I go to that land occasionally, but we can all say that we all went down that road before, when a game starts becoming serious. But, hopefully, we can get to the main idea of a game, to have fun and chill-ax.

What the heck does this have to do with anything? Well, I must say, it’s most disappointing when people do get serious and overreact over things. That’s why I always make a few decks. One is a competitive deck that mostly all business. For me, it’s my precious Red/Black deck. But there’s always another deck or 2 I have that really shows the game’s “fun factor”. Hopefully I can get everyone to do this.

With this article, let’s get to the bottom of the idea of Mainstream decks and seriousness against Creativity and fun.

Mainstream/Seriousness throws a left…

Let’s focus on the serious aspect of a game here. We should all know what a staple is: A deck or card that is currently strong in the metagame. We all know what Mainstreaming is: Using a popular deck theme or a deck idea that has become overly used. So what are the mainstream decks of today? Here’s what I see those being…

Green/Blue – Beast/People
Mono-Blue
Red/Black Rush
3/4-Color Control
Mono-Yellow-Blockage
Mono-Darkness-Control

That’s the main decks right now. I mean, we see them almost everywhere. Go to a tourney and you’ll definitely see a Mono-Water deck, since that is highly mainstreamed right now. Rush Decks are everywhere. Beast Folks have been abused like a palm playing Mario Party 1 (remember, the whole deal with getting blisters on your hand…good days…).

Do we care? You know, about the entire fact that decks have mainstreamed? Well, we’ve all played enough games to figure out that decks get popular. They’re just effective. It does get annoying. I mean, when we start seeing Pyrofighter and Barkwhip and all those in every deck with those colors, we start getting tired of the game. Will we ever see a banned list in this game? Hopefully so…

So why do we use those decks? I would think because we’ve been precon-ed with the idea that winning is fun. Yea, it is…to an extent. I mean, if you keep winning tourney after tourny, you get bored after a while. You lose the rush you normally get when you win, since winning has mainstreamed.

To end, Mainstreaming is okay if you do want to become successful in the game, but it gets old. Real old. Like the Life-Saver in your pocket you had since Kindergarten.

Creativity holds on…

Let’s get some background here first. Now, I can mostly guess that a lot of us started with another game before Duel Masters. I had YGO, Pokemon, Magic, lots of stuff.

Take YGO for example. I have a Warrior Deck, and I’m sick of playing it, since it mainstreamed and it’s not fun anymore. That’s why I have my “fun” deck. I have a second deck that is based on luck and complete chance. Time wizards, Dice Jars, Questions, all that. See, when you lose to a BLS-Envoy (a card in almost every deck), you don’t really feel anything but sadness and frustration, I would think. But if you lose to Dice Jar, a card so random, you really just laugh in disbelief, because it’s so unbelievable that it’s funny.

Duel masters is tougher, though. There isn’t that much room for originality, but if you look for it, you’ll find it. I mean, you could make a deck of 40 Billion-Degrees, and you still have a fun deck. That’s what’s the fun is about, using something weird or unbelievable that you never thought you could use.

So what do we got? A deck that is unbelievable, uses cards you never saw or thought of, and really demonstrates full enjoyment of the game. What can do that?

Here’s an idea that I was toying around with. It uses Hydro Hurricane with Yellow and Darkness cards, to reach full potential of the card.

Water
3x Corile
3x Emeral
4x Crystal Memory
3x Hydro Hurricane
3x Energy Stream

Light
4x La Ura Giga
4x Emerald Grass
4x Holy Awe
2x Mist Rias
2x Diamond Cutter

Darkness
4x Marrow Ooze
3x Bloody Squito
4x Terror Pit
2x Proclamation of Death
2x Horrid Worm
1x Snake Attack


The first time I used this deck was so much fun. I saw the reaction by my friend and he didn’t even know what to say when he got hit by the Hydro. He had to pick up the card and read it. By the time I was done, he had not a 1 card on his side of the field. We laughed it up.

And the Winner Is…

I don’t have that answer for you. If you think that winning and becoming a gaming legend is fun, then by all means, pack your mono-blue deck and head out to Continentals. If you think that creativity and thinking outside of the box is fun, then use your brain and think of something.

You all know where I stand. I’m all for Creativity. I mean, I just spent thousands of words of text showing my stance. Mainstreaming isn’t fun…hey, that only took 3 and a half words! Grrrr…

The Challenge!!!

Here’s your task Pojo People: Send me your stance on the issue. Are you a mainstream player or a creative thinker? Give me your stance. I’ll release a chart if I actually get responses. If you can, E-mail me at nimbly@gmail.com and speak your mind…

The Challenge- here’s the other task I got for you. I want to see some creativity in the minds of people, so resemble some sculptures of art and sit on a stool and think with your fist to your chin. Come up with an original idea for a deck that really demonstrates the idea of “fun” through my eyes. I’ll test out decks every Saturday that I can, so I want legal decks. No 40 copies of a card decks. I’ll start taking deck ideas by the day this article posts. I’ll stop on the Last Friday on Saturday. I’ll reveal the results on the first Day of August. The one person who comes up with the most fun deck that I got the best “kick” out of will win a prize that will be worth it. Take some time.

Send your deck ideas to nimbly@gmail.com
to enter…

Ok, that’s it for the first article. I’ll try to keep regular with the articles. I’ll try every week, or 2 a week or so. Reach me at my e-mail if you got anything to say.

Later Days…
Andrew Wang (Nimbly)
Hey, if you got an idea for an article, I’ll gladly write about it. Send it to the E-Mail and I’ll have it done within days…