Subject: This game needs ALOT more restrictions (rant) - Don Taylor I have been playing Yu-gi-oh for about the past two weeks and it has become quite painfully obvious that this game needs ALOT more restrictions to cards based on the sheer magnitude of monster removal cards! Simply put, monster removal cards are the most powerful cards in the game and all need to be restricted to some degree. Let's look at the making of a sample deck to show my point... Monster's 3 Man-Eater Bug (Destroys a monster regardless of position) 3 Hane-Hane (returns a monster to an opponents hand regardless of position) 3 Wall of Illusion Magic Cards 3 Fissure 3 Tribute to the Doomed (Destroys monsters regardless of position) 2 Card Destruction 1 Raigeki (Destroys monsters regardless of position) 1 Change of Heart (Control an opponent's monster regardless of position) 1 Monster Reborn 1 Soul Exchange (Tribute an opponent's monster regardless of position) Traps 3 Trap Hole 2 Magic Jammer 2 Seven Tools of the Bandit 2 Waboku 1 Solemn Judgement (option of negating and destroying a monster once summond regardless of postion) 1 Miror force (Destroys all opponet's monsters in attack position) Well now, From this list, there are 23 cards out of 32 that can remove an opponents monster from the field (either destroyed or return to their hand) and out of those 23 removal cards, 13 of them can remove monsters regardless of their position. Well we still are lacking in the monster area, so let's look at some possible additions shall we? Crass Clown (flip effect: when this card is moved to attack postion from defense position, remove an opponents monster in play, regardless of position, back to his/her hand) Dream Clown (Effect: when this card is switched from attack position to defense position, destroy an opponent's monster regardless of position.) Oh joy! Even more removal Let's add a personal favorite card of mine to this deck shall we? 2 Stern Mystic To be honest, I can't understand why this card isn't completely broken. It's effect allows you to see all flipped down cards on the field momentarily. This mystic has 1500 attack and 1200 def, which is INCREDIBLE for an effect card! He also opens up numerous combos which decimate your opponent. The Stern Mystic is really the only card in the game I can think of that flips your opponent's cards over without triggering any effects. Sure you have to flip up your face down cards as well, but that can also work to your advantage. If your opponent hasn't pulled out their hair from all the removal cards you've played, just look at their faces when you flip over 2 trap holes, 1 magic jammer and 1 seven tools of the bandit in your magic/traps zone while they are trying desperately to keep one monster on the field for more than a turn. NOW they know you can counter any magic card they are praying to draw (like Raigeki or Dark Hole). Pretty demoralizing I'm sure. Remember that even if the Stern Mystic is trap holed, his effect still comes into play. Stern Mystic + Trap Master Destroy the desired trap card you choose. Bye-bye trap hole, magic jammer, mirror force, 7 tools, solemn judgement etc etc. Stern Mystic + Change of Heart Discover their very own man-eater bug, use it's effect on them. Stern Mystic + TttD/Raigeki Allows you to know which (if any) monster to remove while in face down position or to wait and use the removals at a better time. The face down card may be a wimp! Stern Mystic + your own tribute summon Shows you if the coast is clear for those Summoned skulls etc etc. Simply put, I might not be an expert but CLEARLY, this card needs a second review in "Card of the day"! after all, it was reviewed right before the Metal Raiders set came out. Granted, this card is absolutely horrible at the begging of the game and is best used anytime after the 5th round or so, therfore only 2 at most go in any deck to prevent the turn 1 mystic as much as possible. That being said, we could add: 2 trap master He gets under trap hole and can nuke any trap out of your opponet's area. As stated before, works real good with Stern Mystic. Another way to rid opponent of Ultimate offering. And if you havn't made the little 10 year old's cry yet, you can use: 2 Magician of Faith Just when they thought one raigeki and change of heart were bad enough... Add some level 5+ monsters to trash your opponent quicker: 3 summoned skull 2 Dark Magician (I added this particular card for reasons stated later.... please read on) Other possible additons that I can think of but include: 2 Mystical Elf For further defensive reasons. Gets under trap hole. 1 Pot of Greed Self explanitory 1 Dark Hole I avoid this card as with all the removal, youll end up hurting yourself more. Good for early use or when your opponent somwhow has removed all of your monsters but geting it early i rare considering it's limited. 1 Heavy Storm Not the greatest card for this deck as the objective is to collect your best trap cards, protect them and use them when most needed. So.. If you go with only these cards as additions to the base 32 cards stated at the beginning: 2 Crass Clown 2 Stern Mystic 2 Trap Master 2 Magican of Faith 3 Summoned Skull 2 Dark Magician You end up with a deck consisting of 45 cards. 22 monsters, 12 magic and 11 trap. The scariest thing about this sample deck of monster destruction is that if you decided to buy 3 Yugi starter decks (which in Canadian dollars is about $50 total so that must mean that American's can get them for $5-10 total...lol... ok maybe $30, you'd have all the cards you need with the exception of: 3 Hane-Hane (can be easily obtained as he is in Kaiba's starters) 2 Magician of faith (rare card only..not too hard to aquire in packs) 3 Tribute to the doomed (rare) 2 Magic jammer 2 Seven tools of the bandit 1 Solemn Judgement 1 Raigeki 1 Mirror force Granted most of these are ultra rare and no doubt ultra expensive but most are also in the metal raider packs. I have only bought 10 packs of metal raiders and aquired 1 magic jammer and 1 magicain of faith. In essance, it wont take TOO much to aquire the rest of the cards. My point here is with some good trading skills, luck, and around $100 (which is pretty cheap for a CCG) you can have an ultimate removal deck that should win you more than your fair share of games. I know what your thinking... but your wrong! Even up against such a deck, you can chip away nicely to LP with powerful lvl4 monsters like la Jinn, 7 coloured fish, dark elf, neo, etc etc and destroy these monsters the old fashioned way. Well, granted, there are definite times when these powerful lvl4 monsters are going to deal their damage to a used up man-eater, hane-hane, trap master, stern mystic. But your only talking about 300-1000 LP damage each attack (without waboku or mirror force) and you will only take 3-6 of these attacks per game on average, given you dont get stuck with the "all trap and magic" hand at the beginning. Eventually, your opponent will run out of monsters to play and THAT's when you rip into his life points. It's inevitable that he will run out of monsters soon after the 5th round as you have like 25-27 removal cards out of 45 (over 55%) while your opponent will be no doubt playing a deck with a maximum of 40% lvl4 monsters or lower. In the first five turns your opponent should have roughly 4 available lvl 4 monsters while you have over 5 removal cards of some sort. Even Swords of the Revealing light isn't much of a defence to this deck as you use flip effects and magic/trap cards to get the job done. So the only way to beat a serious removal deck is with another removal deck. Sounds fun right? Soon, this game doesn't come down to multiple monster's on the field and stategy involving power up cards field cards, stim pack, reinforcements, castle walls etc etc... but rather, who gets luckier with their removals first. To be honest, the tv show is much better. At least they have monster's they can actually use for multiple rounds, where defence is part of the strategy and all the people who battle usually arn't without any monsters for most of the duel. In conclusion: There HAS to be MANY more restrictions to balance this game of yu-gi-oh out. Removal cards are by far the most powerful and most need to be restricted to some degree. Hopefully cards like: Man-eater bug Hane-Hane wall of illusion trap hole fissure tribute to the doomed heavy storm magician of faith get restricted in a BIG way. Otherwise, this game is going to turn into mega monster removal where such things as lvl5+ monsters are almost a joke with no monsters on the field to use as tribute and other things like fusion and special summon monsters have a 1 in a million chance of completion... for a round. Just my 2 cents! Send your thoughts, comments and arguements to: dctaylor@cogeco.ca