Solid Tournament Deck- Shaddy
A-hoy-hoy to all the wonderful Yu-Gi-Oh! players currently reading this tip. This is Shaddy yet again to inform you of something you may or may not need to know. Solid Tournament Decks, or STD's as I call them, are some of the most efficient and playable decks around. This is no accident...or maybe it is just a random happening, but that's very unlikely and would go against the whole point that I am trying so desperately to make. For arguments sake, I'm going to use the deck used by the Champion of the 2004 Yu-Gi-Oh! World Championship to show you that Card-Deck relationships make a great deck worthy of the title, STD.
 
Now, you're probably asking yourself "What the heck is this guy on? Making an obscene reference to various painful diseases and then mentioning this 'card-deck relationship,' which I've never heard of?" Well, mister/ma'am, hear this. When looking at any card for a good STD there should be 4-6 cards that fall into the same categories it falls into. For Example (Using the World Champion's deck):
Let's pick a random card like....D.D. Warrior Lady. D.D. Warrior Lady would fall into two general categories; Light and Monster Removal (She would also fit into Warrior, but it lacks support in this particular deck). Now there are already 2 other copies of this momma in the deck, so that's two cards that fall into both categories already. She also supports the Envoys being Light, 4 down. Under monster removal she'll be along with Tribe Infecting Virus (great for most STD's), Dark Hole, Ragieki, and so on, 7+. Not to mention she can be searched with Sangan and Shining Angel. D.D. Warrior Lady fits very nicely in this deck because she is so well supported and supports so many other cards.
 
"Now, Shaddy," you're saying to yourself, which seems to be your thing, "What about the drawing cards like Pot of Greed and Graceful Charity." Well, I was getting to that before I was so rudely interupted....Anyway! Like I was saying, Pot of Greed and Graceful Charity do go under the category of Drawing, but it also  goes under another category as a Deck-Thinner. There are other cards in this deck that fall under the same category: Mirage of Nightmare, Sangan, Witch, and Shinning Angel. Others STD's might include Painful Choice, Mystic Tomato, and Airnight Parshath as some of their Deck-Thinners.
 
Sure, many STD's are a real pain in the butt, however, you too can run a well made deck consisting of cards supporting each other without the annoying Overlap that happens in poorly constructed decks. Now, some might have a little trouble putting their cards into categories. Fear not, for the Shaddy does abide. General categories include Monster Removal, Spell/Trap Removal/Negation, Drawing, Deck Thinking (which include searchers), and Recursion (Usually 3-4 support cards in this category). More Specific Categories would be by Type (Warrior, Beast, Zombie, etc...), Name Based(Archfiends, Amazoness, Ojama, Dark Scorpions, etc...), and I think you get the idea. For the most part STD's have cards that fit into the more general categories in order to handle almost anything...ANYTHING!
 
One more thing...any category can greatly increase it's efficiency/use if it has every version of card (Spell, Monster, Trap) supporting it. For Example (Using the World Champion's STD): Monster Removal doesn't just have the Spell, Dark Hole, but also a Monster, Tribe Infecting Virus, and a Trap, Torrential Tribute to increase and support Monster Removal effectiveness. Should there be a problem where you can't Torrential Tribute (Jinzo) Dark Hole can be used. They also have a Spell Canceller on the field, Tribe Infecting Virus helps. Having every card version helps to insure that that category will be effective no matter what happens.
 
Feel like giving me your STD? By all means e-mail me at Shaddymaze@aol.com. I welcome questions and comments. Especially to those who get the Simpsons reference mentioned at the beginning of this article.
-Shaddy
 
Zombies!