How to Innovate, Part II – Mark

Absolutely certainly positively DON’T read this unless you’ve read the entire first article.

Where did it come from? How was it made?

Look at anything in the world. Ask yourself that^. Look at your deck. Yes, it came from the factory. Yes, it was manufactured. But how was it manufactured? What made the thing that made it? Keep on asking this to yourself. By asking one question about a simple trading card will bring you to the core of life and death. Also time and space. All you need to know is those two things about the universe and you will have infinite knowledge about everything in existence.

OK, so why does this relate to Yu-Gi-Oh? And deck building? Well, if you know the core of a deck, and build around it from all sides, you will have a sphere. Make it entirely symmetrical. Now you have a sphere that can roll in all directions. But if you’re put on a hill, you roll right down. You have lost all of you’re power, and the only attack you have is a powerful ram…. That everyone can tell is about to happen. So, let’s give your core some support. Give it a jet booster inside. Now nobody will know it’s there, and when you take it out, it will surprise the enemies while even giving a boost away from that hill. But it will run out of fuel. So now we need to add some of that. But to keep our sphere round and quick, we’ll have to scoop away some of the core’s defense. And now we need a way to renew that fuel. See where I’m going? But how does this relate to deck building!?

Having that round sphere gives you synergy, and you can peacefully change direction with no strife. Which means trouble. That represents every card in the deck to revolve around the core and each other – perfect synergy. That core gives you power (it is the theme of your deck) but you must protect it, for its pain is your weakness. Therefore building the cards as armor will make you better. The hill represents how easily your opponent can lock you down to a point where your core is rendered useless, and with that, your surrounding layer lays helpless, whilst the jet engine represents how you can turn the tides of flow and battle and surprise all opposing. But you’ll need fuel to do you going to do it? Can you support your core AND your comebacks? How can you get all cards to be with each other? The Graveyard is not for dead monsters. It is for newborn strategies. It is not the end once they go in. They are not unborn while resting in your deck. There is a way to speed up that slow drawing tempo and even pinpoint the exact things you need.

The last part of making an innovative deck is coming up, but notice how I’ve been saying this stuff? Don’t you feel that you’re slowly coming to understanding all of this? Go at your own pace, but even if this has already come together, you can still make that circle bigger. So, try some odd things, as I’ve listed below.

A Beast deck that is for stalling

An Exodia Deck that hates drawing Exodia

A Simochi deck that is aggressive instead of stall

A Monarch deck that hardly tributes

A Crystal Beast deck that doesn’t want crystals in Spell and Trap zones

The possibilities are near-endless, as even our universe must end someday. Our own Sun has only a few billion years. We don’t have much time. Chances are, you’ll still be here when it explodes.

I myself have done things like this, decks that defy the very laws of physics. How could a deck be without a core!? How could our sphere not collapse!? I guarantee that if you pass beyond that list and come upon the very specific cards, you will find FTK’s running rampant at only 2-3 cards needed.