It's just one of those days.  I doubt most readers will see this, because it’s a late review for a card everyone else seems to have written off: The Paths of Destiny.

 

Since I felt compelled to write, there must be some sick OTK with it, right?  Nope, no OTK combo or even “mega combo” for it I am aware of.  Still, there are two aspects to it that remained largely unexplored.  First, let me mention some combo cards.  You can use Second Coin Toss to skew the results more in your favor.  You can use Des Wombat to prevent you from hurting yourself.  Something no one else mentioned was using Reaction to Bad Simochi to change the LP gain into a loss for the opponent.  That is, no matter what you do 2000 to them.  While it’d require work to set up and support, it would be pretty nasty: each The Paths of Destiny card becomes a guaranteed 2000 damage.  Combined with some other Reaction friendly cards and it… still is probably only a “fun deck”, but its Yu-Gi-Oh: seems like you just have to wait before a poor deck theme gets broken support to become an SJC winner.

 

Now, the other point I need to make is a general aspect of the game that, like it or not, exists: luck.   The “risk vs. reward” aspect is often ignored by high caliber players simply because it almost always ends up being more risk, less reward.  They are good: they control the game better.  Now, take some of the players, which really can be anyone who can find an opponent either equal to or significantly better than his- or herself, and think about luck based cards.  If I, and my deck, are truly equal to an opponent, I should consider some “luck” cards.  Why?  Well, odds of winning are already approximately 50-50: if I can replace the right card, I can maintain or at least approach the same amount of “skill” wins, but then receive a bonus amount of luck wins.  So, just to give example numbers (which are unlikely to be this straight forward), I cut a few cards for some luck based cards (that is, cards like The Path of Destiny), I might drop my skill wins to 45 out of 100, but I then pick up 15 “luck” wins (which is less than one in five duels) which pushes me to a net result of 60 out of 100.  No, that is not quite true, but I have to simplify statistics due to time constraints (it’d take me a while to get it precisely right).  Used properly, a luck card will win you more games via good fortune than it costs you, and the net result is more games than you would win without it (even factoring in the card you replaced for it).  When an opponent is significantly more skilled than you, it’s even more apparent: 1 win out 100 is better than 0.  In many ways, this is why OTK decks show up at tournaments: even if the odds of winning the overall event with it are low, for many who take that path it’s still the most probable way to win a tournament.

 

Ratings

 

Traditional: 1/5

 

Advanced: 2/5

 

Summary

An interesting card that builds up a forgotten (well, ignored) deck type or two; I like it, but admit its not going to impact the current game much unless most of us have missed something.

 

-Otaku