Subject: Analysis/Testing of Various deck types -Pegasus Hello again. Well, after getting Eternal Duelist Soul, I realized I had the capacity to test various different types of decks and see which type I wanted to use in real life. I had previously settled for a Toon deck and, after testing, found that I still wanted a Toon deck, although I saw the merits of other types. Here is an analysis of those types and what I did with them: Turbo Exodia: This was the first type I tested and it was really my favorite. Unfortunately, I don't think I'll be able to scrape together the cards to make this deck. Basically, you use witches and sangans to search for Exodia parts (for the love of god, get the head first), use mystic tomato to search for witches and sangans, use cannon soldier to tribute your witches and sangans faster, and use backup soldier-painful choice to search for limbs. It's a very good idea to use MoP or Gravity Bind to counter beatdowns. Strengths: Very good against anti-beatdown decks. If you play it right, it's quite speedy. There are also very few ways aside from card destruction to counter this deck type. Weaknesses: Very weak to card destruction, but not as much as one might think. Once when I was using this deck against Marik, he Delinquent Duo'd my Exodia head, so I completely abanoned the Exodia strategy and actually burned him to death with Cannon Soldier + Messenger of Peace. It was hilarious. Final Analysis: This is a very strong deck archetype and deserves to be used. I suggest putting Burner cards into your Sidedeck in case you end up facing an anti-exodia deck in a tournament. Turbo Exodia shifts most easily to burner. Relinquished Control: This was only so-so. Basic strategy is to stall and use MoP or Gravity Bind until you can summon Relinquished, and then steal your opponent's monsters and attack directly. Use Senju and Sonic Bird to summon Relinquished more easily, of course. I found a major problem with this deck type: when your opponent has out two attacking monsters, one can destroy Relinquished's equip monster and the other can destroy Relinquished. Also very weak to TttD and Raigeki. Strengths: Good against "mind-less beatdown" decks. This deck will go well with the future card Sebek's Blessing because of the monster-stealing. Weaknesses: Very weak to monster removal. You might consider putting beatdown elements in your sidedeck. Final Analysis: If you're looking for fun, this is a fun deck. Otherwise, try a more solid type. Shadow Ghoul Beatdown: One word: BAD. Main point is to stack your deck with weak 4-star or lower monsters and keep laying them down until you draw Shadow Ghoul. I tried this deck with some hint of strategy: Cyber Jar, Dark Hole, Kiseitai, Castle of Dark Illusions.... but it didn't work at all. The main problem was that I lost so much life points while I was sacrificing monsters that, once I got Shadow Ghoul out, I would frequently lose when my opponent's LP was in the triple digits (I used Blast Sphere to do that). Strengths: Good against anti-equip magic decks, but that's about it. Weaknesses: Where do I begin? Final Analysis: Don't even think about it. If you just want to have some fun, however, I strongly suggest putting 4-star 1800+ attackers in your sidedeck. Blue-eyes Ultimate Dragon Beatdown: I refuse to classify this deck type as Fusion because Fusion isn't the main point. This was a Lord of D. + BEWD fusion/beatdown, but I inserted some searching cards and Cyber-Stein. Cyber-Stein completely changes the feasability of this deck. It's much better. Regardless, I still used the Lord of D. + FoSD just for some speed in getting out BEWDs quickly. I inserted 3 Polymerization just in the unlikely event that I actually drew and played all three BEWDs. Strengths: This is, quite literally, the strongest and fastest beatdown in the game. I mean, I had a 2-turn kill with this deck once. A one-turn kill is entirely possible with Cyber-Stein + Raigeki + Megamorph provided your opponent doesn't counter with Magic Jammer or monster removal once BEUD hits the field. Weaknesses: Cyber-Stein's 5000 LP cost makes this very weak to Burner decks as well as a burner/control. Final Analysis: Once Kaiba Structure and Cyber-Stein come out, this will be a VERY popular deck type indeed. It'll be like when Lord of D. decks were actually played because they were fast. This deck is fast too. Only much, much faster. Toon Beatdown/Burner: This is the deck I've actually decided to go with in real life. It may be crap now, but once Toon Index makes its appearance it'll be much better as a deck. The main point, of course, is to play Toon World and stack the field with Toon Monsters, then blitzkrieg your opponent's LP the next turn. I recommend using 3 Toon Skulls, 3 Toon Mermaids (replace these with Toon Gemini Elf once it comes out), and 1-2 Blue-eyes Toon. Don't use three. The fact that all toon cards are special summons makes this a nice deck type to play. Oh, and a cool combo I've found with this deck is to play one or two Toon Mermaids and then sac them for a Blue-eyes Toon. Another useful combo is to play Toon World, play toon cards, and play Giant Trunade to return Toon World to your hand (eliminating one of the primary weaknesses of this type of deck). Robbin Goblin worked quite well in this deck. Strengths: This plows right through Stall decks (but absolutely nobody uses stall decks anymore). It's also quite good against certain forms of Beatdown. Weaknesses: All the LP cost from playing Toon-related cards is going to get to you eventually. This deck is vulnerable to a good Control deck. Very vulnerable. And if you don't use Giant Trunade, it'll be vulnerable to any deck with MST in it. Which are plentiful indeed. Final Analysis: While this is a nice deck type and also unexpectedly good, it's slow because of the nature of Toon cards. I suggest not playing this deck format seriously until Pegasus Starter is released in English. Clown (Weenie) Control: "Someguy"'s legendary deck format. Basic strategy is to use MoP or Gravity Bind to prevent your opponent from attacking while playing Dream Clowns until you have two. Once you have two, you can destroy one monster per turn and you can start playing other weenies like WMH or Hayabusa Knight. Of course, you could simply play WMH and Hayabusa Knight without playing the Dream Clowns first, provided you have some other Monster Removal (TttD would work). Robbin Goblin works in this deck too. This was, overall, a very fun deck to use. I also used a card called Penguin Soldier in this deck (FLIP: Select up to two monster cards on the field and return them to their owner's hands) and had some fun with that. Strengths: Excellent against standard 4-star beatdowns. Weaknesses: Weak to Jinzo-based beatdowns (if you're using Gravity Bind) or Imperial Order-based beatdowns (if you're using MoP). Final Analysis: Currently a very popular deck type, and I don't see why not. I strongly suggest using both MoP AND Gravity Bind in case your opponent either uses Jinzo or Imperial Order to negate one of them or if he/she Prohibits them. (For less experienced players, by that I mean use Prohibition against that card) Earth Beatdown: I must say that Beatdown has by far the most variations of any deck type, period. This particular deck's not very popular at the time because current Earth beatdowns simply use the Buster Blader + DNA Surgery combo, which can be deflected easily by Jinzo. However, my particular Earth beatdown makes use of a very powerful card: Valkyrion the Magna Warrior. Basic strategy is to use Giant Rat/Sangan to search for Alpha, Beta and Gamma until they're all in your hand/field, and then waiting for Valkyrion. I found that, when I ran three of all four of those cards, I was able to get them together frighteningly fast. I suspect, however, that Valkyrion will either be restricted or semi-restricted once it actually appears. Unfortunate. Note: After you play one Valkyrion, you can tribute a second one to bring back Alpha, Beta, and Gamma. This is a nice surprise tactic. Strengths: Using Gaia Power really makes this deck good against 4-star beatdown (most of which don't use earth monsters, or field cards at all), especially if you use Gemini Elf (because it's Earth). Weaknesses: Obviously, weak to card destruction and control. Final Analysis: Since I don't know whether Valkyrion and the various Magnet Warriors will premier before or after Kaiba Structure, I can't say anything about how popular this type of deck will be. Simply put, it'll be popular until BEUD comes out, and then it'll enjoy significantly less popularity after that. Dark Magician Beatdown: Another beatdown variant. This is a bad deck right now simply because Summoned Skull works so much better. However, once Dark Magician Girl premieres, this deck has significant merit. For my particular Dark Magician beatdown, besides including 3 Dark Magicians and 3 Dark Magician Girls, I also included some Delinquent Duos, Graceful Charities and revival cards so that I could both wreck my opponent's hand and get out Dark Magician/Girl through cemetery recursion. I discovered that Nobleman of Crossout works very well while testing this deck. I also included three MoFs and they've saved my butt several times. An earlier version of this deck also used Dark Sage and Time Wizard, but I found that they took up too much space (regardless, once I managed to draw a time wizard and three Axes of Despairs, and I actually won by attacking with Time Wizard + the three Axes twice and using its effect to clear the field twice). Strengths: Good against Monster Removal, but that's only because of the large amount of revival I put in it. Weaknesses: Weak to fast beatdowns. Adding MST + Nobleman of Crossout makes this deck much less vulnerable to Control. Final Analysis: Yugi wannabes will be all over this once DMG comes out. Catapult Turtle Burner: Basically, summoning Catapult Turtle and repeatedly sacrificing monsters to do LP damage. I used Black Pendant so that I could deal an additional 750 (500 from the effect and 250 from the ATK boost) damage when sacrificing. I also used high-ATK monsters that didn't attack (Dark Elf, Jirai Gumo) and I would've used GAF if it was in Eternal Duelist Soul... there's a variant on this deck using strong DEF monsters and Shield and Sword, but I haven't tested that one yet. It's a good idea to use Last Will in this deck so that, when you sac a monster, you can retrive a monster with 1500 or less ATK and sac that one, too! (sac = sacrifice = tribute) Also, use revival cards so you can re-use (re-sacrifice) monsters. Strengths: Good against Beatdowns as long as you use MoP or Gravity Bind to prevent Catapult Turtle from dying. Weaknesses: It has problems when MoP and Gravity Bind are absent. Final Analysis: It's kind of a slow deck, but it works. That's all for now. I think the only major types I haven't tested are Catapult Turtle + Shield and Sword, Shield and Sword Beatdown, 4-star (no tribute monster) Beatdown, and Maha Vailo Beatdown. I might test them. I might not. Depends. Questions, Comments, or other deck types you'd like me to test: qc@fengyuan.com -Pegasus (P.S. I realize that I haven't tested Aggro Exodia or Aggro Control, and that's because they both suck) (P.P.S. Can someone tell me exactly what constitutes a "Mid-range" and/or "Velocity" beatdown?)