July 2006
From: Brad Mathews [mailto:bradmathews@clearwire.net]
Sent: Friday, June 09, 2006 10:13 PM
To: yugiohcrew@pojo.com
Subject: Graceful Charity--by brad
Card #3 Graceful Charity
Hello, everyone, I’m back by popular demand (or like
a bad dream, whichever you’d prefer). This is the
first in a set of articles where i’ll be discussing
certain cards. I’ve chosen to write forty of these
articles. Quite the task. Verterans, be forewarned,
this is going to be a series or articles more geared
towards helping people who are new to the game
understand strategies and card relationships. Each
card is fairly obtainable, and when we’re finished,
we’ll have a fairly reliable deck constructed.
The third card we’ll be taking a look at with this
set of articles is Graceful Charity.
Graceful Charity DB2-EN095
Draw 3 cards from your deck, then discard any 2
cards from your hand.
There is a reason this is widely considered to be a
staple. The concept behind Graceful Charity is
absolutely brilliant, and it is not as broken as
most people assumed when it was banned. I’m going to
ignore Dark World. I dislike Dark World, and that is
more of a luck factor, in my opinion.
Strategy #1. Early Game Bad Hand Syndrome. I think
all of us has had one of those opening hands that
makes us cringe. I’m looking at you. You know the
like. Jinzo, a couple of Chaos Sorcerers, more
tributes, and Nobleman of Crossout. In this
instance, you play it when you get it. You’d be
surprised how it can turn a bad hand into a good
hand. Five cards of cycling is quite a bit, when you
think about it. That can be an entire hand!
Strategy #2. Pushing the envelope. I’ve let Graceful
Charity stay in my hand for several turns before.
Why? Because at the time I drew it, it didn’t serve
much purpose. I had a plenty decent hand. Using it
this way, you play out what you have. I like to
compare the first few turns of a Yu-Gi-Oh game to
the first round of a boxing match. You and your
oppoent are trading quick blows, but lifepoints have
not yet been exchanged. Is it advantageous to use
Graceful Charity in this situation? No. Because as
easily as it can turn a bad hand into a good hand,
it can turn a good hand into a not-so-good hand. You
don’t know what to discard, and you didn’t draw into
anything worthwile. So you wait it out, meanwhile
statcking up a little bit of card advantage. Then,
when you have it, you go in for the kill, pushing
for even more card advantage and putting your
oppoent into a very dire situation.
Graceful Charity is a great card that takes skill to
use. Of course, don’t be stupid about it. Believe
me, I’ve done some very stupid things with Graceful,
blunders which ultimately cost me the duel. It’s
about feeling it in your bones when it will do you
the most good, and feeling toward a hole in your
opponent’s strategy. If you think analytical about
it, you can master the real strategy behind this
card.
So there you have it. The do’s and don’ts of
Graceful Charity. Enjoy.
Feedback? Comments? Flames? Email me at bradmathews@clearwire.net.
I do not accept unsolicited hate mail.
Ciao.
