Subject: "Learning and taking advantage of the Metagame - Andrew Lee"

   In tournament, and sometimes even casual play, the
Metagame is a very important part of almost every ccg
there is. What is the Metagame you ask? The Metagame
are choices you make oustide of the actual games and
tournaments. The Metagame is deciding what kind of
deck to play, what cards to use, and thinking about
what kind of cards your opponent would use, and to
prepare for those cards. A good example from the show
would be when Bandit Keith was observing the Yugi/Seto
Kaiba battle to observe his enemie's strategies.
   The metagame isn't too hard to use in the American
Yugioh Enviroment simply because there are not too
many deck types yet, as in contrast to the Japanese
Yugioh Enviroment, because we have released only a
quantity equal to 4 series in the United States (those
4 being Japanese Legend of the Blue Eyes and Phantom
God making up the US Legend of the Blue Eyes, and
Japanese Metal Raiders and Revival of the Black
Demon's Dragon making up US Metal Raiders. The Black
Demon's Dragon, for your information, is Black Skull
Dragon :-D )
   With this in mind, using the metagame, we find out
that the only decks that are worth using in
tournaments at all are creature decks, exodia decks,
and to a certain degree, defense decks, which are
rather risky to run. 
   Exodia and creature decks are by far more popular
than defense decks, and in small tournaments with not
a lot of big-cash players, Exodia decks can also be
ruled out. Using the metagame here, if your going to a
small tournament, you can not worry about Exodia decks
when building a deck, though anti-exodia decks aren't
terribly hard to make, but since i'm already talking
about it, let's take a look at it.
   If your going to a tournament where you just know
most everyone is playing an exodia deck, using the
metagame, you would build a deck that completely
revovles around nuking those kind of decks, because
you figure if you can beat exodia decks, and most of
the decks are exodia decks, you will be able to win
most of the matches you play. Exodia decks are very
trap heavy, effect creature heavy, and rely heavily on
countertraps, specifically Magic Jammer. Without Magic
Jammer, one Card Destruction can finish it. Draft in 7
Tools of the Bandit and Solemn Judgement, and focus
your entire game on playing Card Destruction while
having support from your own counter traps. If you
pull it off, the only way he can win is if you only
removed one of his exodia pieces, and monter
reborn/hane hane it. 
   Creature decks are a bit harder to predict, as
there are so many. One of the easiest to counter would
be, of course, the Gate Guardian decks. If you have
Blue Eyes in your deck, the only creature in most Gate
Guardian decks that can defeat it (unless they, for
some reason, are playing Blue Eyes in the same deck as
a Gate Guardian, which would be extremely stupid) is
Gate Guardian itself. Just load up on Horn of Heavens
and Tribute to the Doomed to nuke all the Gate
Guardian pieces, and Gate Guardian will never make it
to the board.
   A more powerful creature deck is the beatdown deck,
relying on La Jinns and Dark Elves to destroy an
opponent. This can be countered by heavy, heavy
creature removal coupled with Lord of D / Flute of
Summoning combo (this is actually a different kind of
creature deck, and one of the most formidable ones). 
   Some other creature decks rely on Catapult Turtle
and Cannon Soldier. Horn of Heaven those cards, and
those decks usually fall apart. Easy.
   Finally, we get to the really really troublesome
creature deck. This is also a deck i like to use, and
appears to be a fairly defense deck at first, and may
even be mistaken for an exodia deck, for this deck's
completely focused around Lord of D / Flute of Dragon
Summoning. The other cards in it are just there to
stall until you can get all the cards you need for the
combo to appear in your hand (e.g. Magician of
Faith/Swords of Revealing Light) and Big Eye can help
a bit too. The heart of this deck is, of course, the
Lord of D. Just save a trap hole until he flips over a
Lord of D, and he's in trouble. Be sure to have a
Magic Jammer on the field in case he wisely decides to
try to Heavy Storm the field clear of Hazards.
   The only other creature deck are fusion decks and
field/type decks (like zombie decks). Fusion decks
won't really be powerful until the release of other
cards, like Frakendevil.
   Defense decks are not very popular, especially with
 powerful defensive cards such as Needle Worm, Metmal
Jar, Hurricane, and Dark Corridor still not avaible in
the US, but is still somewhat doable. The only problem
is they rely heavily on Magician of Faith to recycle
the necassary Card Destructions and Swords of
Revealing Light, and also, the only way they will make
you outpace themselves in drawing would be to dump
their hand onto the field and play Card Destruction.
The best way to counter this deck is to play a
slightly oversized beatdown deck. 
   Once Magic Ruler comes in, more aspects of Metagame
will have to be taken into consideration, such as Toon
World. I'll write more then, if needed.

If you need help with anything, you can email me at
Andrewllee@yahoo.com, or if your really smart, just go
to a qualified webpage like pojo or edo's website.

'til next time

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Finance - Get real-time stock quotes
http://finance.yahoo.com