Chaos-The counter Counter-Revolution ---------- Original Message ---------------------------------- From: seanslcars@comcast.net Date: Thu, 14 Apr 2005 02:18:22 +0000 Hey Sean’s back with a new round of articles. Hope you enjoy them, and don’t forget to check out www.seanzhomepage.freeservers.com and go to the first custom page for my yugioh stuff. OK settle in. This is going to be a mega-article. Grab some popcorn and a soda and start a CD going. I was going to do this as a series, but changed my mind. First things first. I have received several emails that are kind of bordering on hatemail. Now remember, I don’t mind hatemail. It’s kind of amusing, and I’m going to share my amusement with you. The basic gist of this mail is, "Ever since you started your little pro-Chaos campaign other people are joining in. Stop it now!" Here’s some direct quotes from the emails I’ve gotten. Enjoy! "Three people at my store have tossed their original decks for chaos decks. My store is devoted to keeping yugioh original, and you are destroying our efforts!" "I got my younger brother into this game over a year ago. He has always looked to me for help. Now, he’s doing his own thing and when I ask why he says ‘because Sean says it’s ok!’ Leave my brother alone! Keep your statement off Pojo!" "You disgust me. Your support of chaos has blinded duelists to the excesses of cookie cutters that are destroying the game. You claim to love the game, but your articles are contributing to the destruction of the game’s true spirit." Well, all I have to say is that I’m proud to be a part of the chaos support group. And also, why can’t we all just get along? There’s only one deck that betrays the spirit of the game, and that’s a deck designed to just run out the clock. And even that’s not really against the spirit of the game it’s how these decks are played that’s the real problem. See my other article in this set for a further explanation. Moving along to the real point of this article. Being released with this batch of articles should be my ideas on a Harpie/Wind/beatdown deck and a red eyes deck. I’ve decided to take the plunge and look at Chaos decks. Sean’s note: In terms of yugioh, I’m poor. My entire collection is worth about $100 tops. I have my chaos deck and about 80 commons I kept because they might be useful one day. I sold everything to buy DVDs, an Xbox, a TV, and Xbox games and accessories. In my opinion it was an awesome trade. But anyway keep in mind that the only deck I own is chaos now, so you can expect me to go pretty in depth on it, a lot more so than others that I review. Strengths: The main strength of chaos in general is versatility. Warriors are NOT the kings of versatility; they’re the kings of speed. Chaos is deadly because of the myriad of options available to the chaos duelist. Being confined to mainly Light and Dark monsters isn’t really a problem. Control is inherent in nearly every chaos deck. Most chaos deck will run at least two spirit reapers and DD warrior lady. Add roulette barrels, ninja grandmaster sasuke, and tribe infecting virus to the mix, and you got some serious field control. Furthermore, many chaos decks will run zombrya and/or giant orc, which means deck devastation virus could always be lurking in the wings. Did I remember to mention cyber jar? Furthermore, chaos decks have speed. Thunder dragons are the perfect example of deck thinners. Granted, they’re deadweights and aren’t good for the field. Use them in a deck with more than one chaos mon. using these in an advanced deck with only BLS in your deck as a chaos mon is suicide. Don’t do it. However, don’t forget the Light/Dark elemental searchers, namely Shining Angel and Mystic Tomato. They both have a reasonably strong 1400 ATK, and they also thin out the deck looking for each other. I prefer Shining Angels to Thunder Dragons, but that’s merely my opinion. Mystic Tomatoes can also bring out sangan, or cyber jar, which you could instantly flip over with book of moon. Good way to kill a rush. Another chaos strength is just that-strength. Chaos beatdown is not inconceivable. Blade Knight, Reflect Bounder, Ninja Grandmaster Sasuke, and Thunder Nyan Nyan are all Light with high ATKs. With Darks, you got an even wider choice. Zombrya the dark, giant orc, archfiend soldier, mad dog of darkness, and breaker the magical warrior are all beatsticks that can blow apart an opponent’s formation. Chaos beatdown can pack a serious punch. The final strength of a chaos deck is the mighty chaos monsters themselves. Black Luster Soldier, Envoy of the Beginning, Chaos Emperor Dragon, Envoy of the End(Traditional format only), and the often-overshadowed Chaos Sorcerer all pack some serious power. BLS is the most powerful monster in the game. CED comes in a close second. Both have insane power. Unfortunately, Chaos Sorcerer gets relegated to the shadows by his big brothers, but let’s give him some kudos here. When the Banlist first hit the set and I saw CED was banned, I shrugged my shoulders, took CED from the sleeve (and placed it in a hard protector of course) and replaced it with Chaos Sorcerer. Everyone else I knew with chaos mons was freaking out about having only one chaos mon instead of two. I recommend having one or two chaos mons in every chaos deck. BLS should be in every chaos deck. The second is optional. In advanced it should be Sorcerer, in Traditional it should be CED. If you’re feeling really adventurous, try three. You’ll find that you’ll almost always have a chaos mon as a deadweight in your hand, but if you can run it well, you got some serious firepower on your hands. Now, I’m not a boxing fan. But I assume that generally the first punch is not the knockout. You weaken the other guy and wear him down, then knock him out. This is the basic idea of chaos. Wear your opponent down with your normal, non-chaos cards, then use chaos monsters to knock him out for good. I’m barely scratching the surface of the power of a chaos deck, but I’m going to move on because if your attention span is like mine you’re getting bored right now. Weaknesses: Tech. Tech, tech, and more tech. If you don’t know what that is, it’s keeping cards that are specifically designed to combat another specific card or specific card group. Chaos is just begging for them. Keeping two or three bottomless trap holes or royal oppressions in your sidedeck to counter the summon is a good idea. Or you can use the old, antiquated (but still effective) soul release. Gravekeepers have a built-in defense with necrovalley. Kycoo the Ghost Destoyer provides another way to remove chaos food, and don’t forget dark blade the dragon knight. Let’s say you’re opponent’s running chaos and they got jinzo out. Snatch steal it, metamorphosize it into DbtDK, attack your opponent and remove lots of chaos food (including the jinzo you took a tributed). Basically, the best way to defend against chaos is to stop it from ever happening in the first place. There’s two ways to put out a fire. You can try to extinguish it, or you can deny it fuel. The first way probably won’t work. A good duelist will have protection set up around their BLS, so don’t just hold lightning vortex and plan to use it when BLS hits the field. Deny the fire fuel. Keep their chaos monsters off the field and the chaos duelist is in trouble. Chaos monsters are pretty much the yugioh world’s version of Achilles. If you either remember your mythology, or just saw Troy (awesome movie, I HIGHLY recommend it) you’re familiar with Achilles. He’s the greatest warrior out there, but he does have on minor weakness. According to legend, he couldn’t be killed because his mother, an immortal goddess, bathed him in the River Styx, and anywhere the water touched him he could never be hurt. However, since she held him by his ankles, he can be killed only by an injury to the ankle. In the movie, Paris (Orlando Bloom) shoots an arrow through his heel while he is rescuing Briseias. OK enough with my movie review/mythology lesson. Chaos is like that. Standing toe-to-toe with chaos and trying to slug it out is more often than not suicidal (Hector, aka Eric Bana, found that out the hard way when Brad Pitt plunged his sword into his chest). Chaos’s Achilles heel is the graveyard. Shoot an arrow through it, and chaos dies a slow, rotting, painful death. Don’t whine about the power of chaos, because this Achilles heel is one of the most exploitable in the entire game. If you have a problem with chaos, just keep a good amount of anti-chaos tech in your sidedeck. Sean’s overall assessment: Chaos is, in my opinion, the best deck out there. It has serious firepower with the most powerful final knockout punch in all of yugioh. I highly recommend using it. However, be extremely aware of it’s weakness in graveyard dependency. I recommend keeping at least one or two magic jammers. Jam your opponent’s spells and toss chaos food at the same time. Deck Designs: Deck Design Number 1 is a base chaos deck in Advanced mode. By the way, to those of you who have been sending me emails asking me what deck I use, here you go. This is the deck that I use at tournaments. It’s not that great, but it is cost-effective. Monsters Level 5+: 3 Black Luster Soldier, Envoy of the Beginning Chaos Sorcerer Jinzo Monsters Level 4-: 14 Blade Knight Blade Knight Magician of Faith Magician of Faith Ninja Grandmaster Sasuke Spirit Reaper Spirit Reaper Zombrya the Dark Zombrya the Dark Pitch-Black Warwolf Breaker the Magical Warrior Sangan Cyber Jar Tribe-Infecting Virus Spells: 12 Pot of Greed Nobleman of Crossout Snatch Steal Graceful Charity Delinquent Duo Lightning Vortex Smashing Ground Smashing Ground Swords of Revealing Light Premature Burial Mystical Space Typhoon Heavy Storm Traps: 11 Ceasefire Waboku Waboku Call of the haunted Torrential Tribute Dust Tornado Mirror Force Curse of Anubis Ring of Destruction Magic Jammer Magic Cylinder Deck Design 2: This is a base chaos deck in Traditional format. Monsters Level 5+: 7 Black Luster Soldier, Envoy of the Beginning Chaos Emperor Dragon, Envoy of the End Jinzo Airknight Parshath Thunder Dragon Thunder Dragon Thunder Dragon Monsters Level 4-: 11 Cyber Jar Kycoo the Ghost Destroyer Kycoo the Ghost Destroyer Spirit Reaper Spirit Reaper Witch of the Black Forest Breaker the Magical Warrior Yata-Garasu Tribe-Infecting Virus Blade Knight Magical Scientist (w/the full array of fusions) Spells: 15 Raigeki Dark Hole Lightning Vortex Harpies Feather Duster Heavy Storm Pot of Greed Graceful Charity Painful Choice Change of Heart Mystical Space Typhoon Mystical Space Typhoon Mystical Space Typhoon Mirage of Nightmare Nobleman of Crossout Nobleman of Crossout Traps: 7 Imperial Order Mirror Force Torrential Tribute Call of the Haunted Ring of Destruction Magic Cylinder Ceasefire Not done yet. Moving on the chaos hybrids. This is where the chaos monsters are fused with other popular deck designs. I’m going to provide several different designs. IMPORTANT SEAN’S NOTE: all my designs for the rest of the article will be in advanced format, because that’s what I play in. If you want to adapt them for Traditional, it shouldn’t be too tough. Hybrid 1: Zombie/Chaos. Two of the most versatile decks that have a natural fusing ability due to the fact that most zombies are Dark types, dealing with half the chaos food. You may run into a problem with the fact that zombies and chaos both eat up the graveyard. You may very well get into a situation where you have to ask yourself, "Should I remove that V-Lord from play for BLS or special summon it with book of life? I only got one dark mon there. What do I do?" While this is a tough decision, it’s the good type. You’re in a situation with too many options, not a situation where you have none. Without further ado, the chaos/zombie deck. Monsters Level 5+: 5 Vampire Lord Vampire Lord Black Luster Soldier, Envoy of the Beginning Chaos Sorcerer Jinzo Monsters Level 4-: 13 Pyramid Turtle Pyramid Turtle Spirit Reaper Spirit Reaper Spirit Reaper Magician of Faith Magician of Faith DD warrior lady Cyber Jar Sangan Blade Knight Ninja Grandmaster Sasuke Tribe-Infecting Virus Spells: 12 Book of Life Book of Life Pot of Greed Graceful Charity Creature Swap Nobleman of Crossout Nobleman of Crossout Swords of Revealing Light Mystical Space Typhoon Heavy Storm Premature Burial Snatch Steal Traps: 10 Magic Cylinder Ring of Destruction Dust Tornado Dust Tornado Waboku Waboku Waboku Call of the Haunted Magic Jammer Torrential Tribute Next is probably the most talked about deck currently in existence, the chaos/warrior deck. Combining the versatility and knockout punch setup of chaos with the speed and early power of warriors is an absolutely lethal fusion. This deck incorporates the best of both worlds, the two worlds that I consider the top ones in all of yugioh. Here’s my design on this deadly deck. Monsters Level 5+: 3 Black Luster Soldier, Envoy of the Beginning Freed the Matchless General Jinzo Monsters Level 4-: 14 Blade Knight Blade Knight Ninja Grandmaster Sasuke DD Warrior Lady Don Zaloog Don Zaloog Mataza the Zapper Zombrya the Dark Zombrya the Dark Marauding Captain Marauding Captain Cyber Jar Breaker the Magical Warrior Tribe-Infecting Virus Spells: 14 Pot of Greed Nobleman of Crossout Snatch Steal Graceful Charity Delinquent Duo Lightning Vortex Swords of Revealing Light Premature Burial Mystical Space Typhoon Heavy Storm Reinforcement of the Army Reinforcement of the Army The A. Forces The A. Forces Traps: 9 Ceasefire Call of the haunted Torrential Tribute Dust Tornado Mirror Force Curse of Anubis Ring of Destruction Magic Jammer Magic Cylinder There’s a bunch more hybrids you can try. Pretty much most decks out there can be fused with chaos to a certain extent. Experiment. Have fun. But I’m getting like carpal tunnel typing this, and so this ends my article on chaos decks. There might be follow-ups:) Hope you enjoyed. O yeah by the way if you’re reading this line congragulations you have a longer attention span than me. Comments? Questions? My email is seanslcars@comcast.net and my AIM screenname is NazGul0010. I’m not one of those people that says "No hatemail please". I love reading that stuff. Until next time-SetoKaibafan13