From: Mark Dowd [mailto:mastersniper999@hotmail.com]
Sent: Monday, August 14, 2006 10:59 AM
To: yugiohcrew@pojo.com
Subject: Mark's Guide to Competetive Deck Building (For the tips section)

This guide is for those people who have trouble building a good deck. It will detail the processes I go through when building one of my decks.

Before you begin: I highly recommend that before you begin deckbuilding, you

do two things. 1) Read and know the current Forbidden/Restricted List for whichever format you are building a deck for. 2) Download the program called

RONIN (Rulings Online Networked Information Node) onto your computer. It can

be found on either www.netrep.net or www.download.com. It has the card text and rulings for every card in the TCG listed. It is extremely if you need to

find a card with a particular effect, are wondering if the combo you though t of is legal, etc. It also has an easy-to-use search function for speedy reference. I have this program, and I use it very often. It's too useful.

NOTE: If you are connected to the internet when you open RONIN, it will automatically scan for any updates.

Section A) The Staples

The list of Staples is highly debatable, and some argue that there are no real staples. However, the cards on this list will generally benefit 95% of all decks they are put in, which is why they are considered Staples. The current Staples as I see them are:

Monsters
Sangan

Spells
Snatch Steal
Graceful Charity
Mystical Space Typhoon
Heavy Storm
Swords of Revealing Light

Traps
Call of the Haunted
Mirror Force
Torrential Tribute

Honorable Mention: Premature Burial, Scapegoat, Breaker the Magical Warrior,

Magician of Faith, Nobleman of Crossout, Exiled Force, and D.D. Warrior Lady

These cards will generally be the skeleton for any deck you will build. Keep

in mind though that this list is not definitive, and some cards may have to be dropped if they do not perform well.

Section B) Pre-Build

This is the first part of the actual deckbuilding process, and can be broken

down into two steps.

Step 1) Choose a Theme

This is by far one of the two most important steps you will have to take in the entire deckbuilding process. The theme is the most important aspect of your deck.

1a) Why is a theme so important?

Themes give your deck what is known as "synergy". If you do not know what this term means, here is the defenition:

syn.er.gy
n. pl. syn.er.gies
The interaction of two or more agents or forces so that their combined effect is greater than the sum of their individual effects.

Themes are precisely that---the interaction between the cards in your deck so that the combined effort is greater than the sum of their parts. Take Megarock Dragon for example. To summon it, you must Remove from Play (RFG) monsters in your Graveyard. This makes it highly synergistic with Return from the Different Dimension, a powerful Trap that can end the game if played at the right moment.

1b) What qualifies as a theme?

I define a theme as the synergistic relationship between the key cards of your deck. Under this defenition, that can be a key combo, an overall strategy, etc. Your theme can be anything from the well-established (Strike Ninja, Macro Cosmos, Zombies) to one of your own creation.

NOTE: Themes are not just some common aspect the cards in your deck share.
If you cram a bunch of LIGHT monsters together and call it a LIGHT deck, you

are misleading yourself. It is not a LIGHT deck, for there will be no synergy. An example of synergy with LIGHTs is using Freed the Brave Wanderer/Soul of Purity and Light to control the field and Fuel Return from the Different Dimension.

1c) How can I make my own theme?

Dig through your crap box of cards that everyone says suck. Just start reading effects and imagining what you would need to abuse them. Let you're mind wander. If you think of something, search RONIN to see if there is any card like the one you thought of. There are 1662 cards in the TCG (not counting Vanillas, effectless Rituals, and effectless Fusions), all boasting

a wide range of effects. Odds are that there will be SOMETHING resembling what you need. Keep in mind that themes are based upon as few as 1 and as many as 4 cards. The rest of the deck is either to support the theme or take

advantage of it.

1d) How many themes can I run in a deck?

Ideally, just one. You can run more than one, but ONLY---and I would like to

stress ONLY---if the themes either compliment each other or at least work well together. Don't try to run an Exodia/Final Countdown/Last Turn/Destiny Board/Burn/Beastdown deck.Those themes have nothing in common, and trying to

put all of them in one deck will just clog it up. If you run more than one theme, they should have some form of overlap between their support, like Chaos Burn. There are some good Burn monsters that are LIGHT/DARK, and Chaos

can fit right in with them.

Step 2) Start thinking

Don't go digging through your cards just yet. Now is the time to stop and think about it. Ask yourself sme questions like these:

What can I do to support my theme?
How can I take advantage of my theme?
What are my theme's strengths?
What are its weaknesses?
How can I use my theme to win?

The last one is very important. A theme is nothing if it cannot win. For some themes, like Beastdown, the win condition will be easy to spot. For others, like Clocktower Control, it will not be so easy.

Section C) The Build

Step 3) Mind Dump

This is the simplest and often the quickest of all the steps. Grab a writing

utensil and a pad of paper and find a quiet, comfortable place to sit down.
Loosen up your mind. Bring your theme and everything you have thought of about it to the front of your mind. Then, just start writing down a decklist

as it comes to you. Start with the very first cards that come to your mind and continue from there. Don't make any special attempt to organize Monsters/Spells/Traps yet, that will come later. A sample mind dump for a Strike Ninja deck might look something like this:

2 Strike Ninja
2 Reinforcement of the Army
3 DD Scout Plane
3 Mystic Tomato
2 Blowback Dragon
1 Dark Ruler HA Des
1 Deck Devastation Virus

It's a good idea to keep track of how many card you have written down in the

margin of your paper. Once you reach 40, stop. Don't go any further, no matter how much the train of though wants to wisk you away.

Step 4) Organize

Take you mind dump, and rewrite it on a new sheet of paper, this time organizing it into Monsters, Spells, and Traps. Then, take a second to just look it over. Is there too much of this? Too little of that? Do I really need this card in there? Can I find something better to replace this? Start crossing stuff out and adding stuff in. Once you are either satified with your edits or have clogged up the paper with cuts and additions, rewrite it on another sheet of paper and look it over. If you see any more issues, repeat the process. Once the deck looks as good as it can get on paper, it is time to move to the final phase of the deck building process.

Section D) The long road ahead.

This might be the last phase of the process, but don't think you're home free yet. This is the longest and most tedious phase: playtesting.
Everything you have done with your deck up until now has been largely theoretical. Now, you must actually duel a person with your deck. This is very important in guaging exactly what your deck needs to function. While you are dueling, take note of whatever issues your deck is having. are you drawing something too much? Drop some copies. Not drawing something enough?
Either add more copies or find a way to tutor (search) it. Something not helping you at all? Cut it.

The biggest thing to remember while playtesting is that you deck has gone from theoretics to engineering. Do not be discouraged if your deck fails miserably during the beginning stages of testing. If you analyze those failiures to find out why your deck failed when it did, you can make your deck much better for the next round of testing. To keep your spirits up in the midst of all this initial failiure, all you have to do is remember my deckbuilding philosophies:

"I am not discouraged. Each failed attempt is the next step towards progress"---Thomas Edison.
"Failiure is success if you learn from it"---Malcolm Forbes

If you keep those in mind, you should have a lot of fun making your own decks. It might not be as easy as making a Cookie deck, but you can catch some people off-guard with a Flip-Flop Rock deck. If you know what you are doing, you can take almost any deck and have success with it.

Questions, comments, and concerns (no flames) can be directed here:
mastersniper999@hotmail.com