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The North School
by Ben Marley
Green Eggs and Spam

April 14
, 2006


Now, if I had finished this article a month or so ago when it was more innovative and current, it would have been far more informative. I had begun to play dark world, was closely watching MPT's being played, and saw MPTree (which is similar in many gameplay aspects) begin its ascent. But now, word is out: Spamming wins games, and spamming is the engine that drives the victory battleship, so to speak.

Back when I wrote my article about my thoughts on the ban list, I limited both Cyber Dragon and Chaos Sorcerer. While there were many reasons, one of the bigger ones that makes them so potent is their special summon mechanic. Again, this is nothing new to anyone. (At least CS has a cost!). I limited Mobius b/c he could potentially become a +3, since treeborn essentially makes him a free summon (as close as a tribute summon can be to sp. summon anyway- you get a big, potent monster for free; you just don't retain your normal summon). And, obviously, I limited Treeborn as well. The common thread that runs through all of these monsters is their "sp. summon-ability."

Don't come at me arguing, "Cyber Dragon and Sp. Summoning promotes bad hand management, and so its really a balanced mechanic and makes those cards (especially Dragon who isn’t an automatic +1)." People who say that are wrong, or aren't playing at any sort of competitive level. Cyber dragon is THE only free special summon in the game. It requires absolutely no resources. In that way, it is a round-about +1 (Where in most cases a Sp. Summon costs you something, here it doesn’t. So in the “grand scheme of things” you are up one.). So there.

In my article that I never finished, I started to explain exactly why the Sp. Summoning was so essential to winning in today’s metagame, and what kinds of things could help slow the roll (Bottomless Trap Hole...obviously). But, once more, this article is late in coming, and so that portion of the article would simply be redundant and useless.

However, the part of the article that might be useful was this idea: Based on this notion of Special Summoning being the most powerful mechanic in the metagame right now, a variety of other deck types, if built well, could potentially contend at a high level if centered around special summoning.

The obvious examples are Chaos decks. Then, I was going to talk about MPTree and monarchs (again, nothing new). After that, I was going to discuss Monarch Chaos, which might have been helpful a few days ago. But now, after SJC Baltimore, everyone knows that Monarch Chaos is fairly to very stellar. I could have spoken of Dark World or Return decs, and how their special summon capacity gave them the ability to be big time....but this is all old news.

So, what do I have to say that is actually interesting or novel? There are a few decktypes that can or do center around special summoning that might have a chance.


INSECTS:

Thanks to Doom Dozer, insect decks actually have punch; they can actually be useful. While insects are hampered by the availability of solid insects to play to feed the Doom Engine- they can do a few things right:

There is plenty of speed. 3 Magical Merchants was almost a staple in some decks last format, as it was the only real way to tutor a spell/trap and it's mill function fed Avarice fittingly. There is plenty of monster and s/t removal in the form of Swarms of Scarabs and Locusts and the old favorites, Man-Eater Bug and the less popular, 4-Stared Ladybug of Doom. Insects also have a solid discard option in Skull Mark Ladybug. Finally, merchants and swarms are of 2 popular elements (dark and light) which fit nicely into another spam-friendly decktype, and MEB and Merchant work well with Night Assailant and Tsukuyomi.

There is potential there for someone to work something out.

E-HEROS:

Yeh, rip on me now. Go for it. I know you want to.

But Thunder Giant and Shining Flare Wingman are legitimately decent cards, as are a few of the other fusions. Sparkman, the only one of 2 E-Hero's "almost" worth playing, is Chaos friendly, as is the Giant. And all E-Hero fusions are Spam friendly via Miracle Fusion- the only reason to play E-Hero's ever. A few people have tossed a deck along these lines together, but no one seems to follow through in a sincere fashion. I'm not saying this is going to win an SJC, but it could certainly pick up a local, and maybe a Regional tourney.

STRIKE NINJA:

Not actually special summoning in the traditional sense. DD Scout Plane works akin to Treeborn Frog, allowing for the free summon of a large advantage generating monster w/ the only cost being your normal summon.

Strike continues to great advantage by "special summoning" a 1700 atk warrior when that warrior would normally be destroyed. This is continued +1. So while your life points will frequently take a few shots- it is basically like you are getting the free special summon of a 1700 dark warrior about each turn or so. This is all presuming that your graveyard is loaded (which is the complicated part now that painful choice is gone).

Regardless, Strike can work, and the recent SJC Baltimore deck showed it.

DRAMATIC RESCUE:

The problem Amazonesses were never any good was because the monsters were never any good. Dramatic Rescue is a potentially awesome card, as is Amazoness Archers. It was the lack of anything to go along with them that was the problem. But I have always been a very strong supporter of Amazoness Chainwielder, who almost always can create some sort of advantage, and Amazoness Paliden at least has a very respectable attack.

Amazoness's are RotA friendly, and Spamming with DMoC, Jinzo, and other big wigs presents a very interesting combo. Again, not massive, but there is more potential there than you'd think.

INFERNO RECKLESS SUMMON:

This deck and decktype has been discussed at length, but to my knowledge has yet to really see anything more than theoretical speculation. Marauding Captain + 3x Mataza = GoodGame. Ben Kei worked and worked well a few formats ago along a similar idea. Its certainly worth looking into.

FIENDS:

Have stepped back into the limelight with Dark Necrofear's DDV-ness, and Slate Warrior is bound to see more play after the last SJC. Giant Germ is almost as awesome as Nimble, and provides "Treeborn Frog-like Sp. Summon" conditions. (Quotes b/c it obviously isn't a special summon- but its halfway there).

MACROCOSMOS:

I don't feel like i need to talk about Macrocosmos- others already have, it has generated a ton of hype, and frankly, I won't do the deck justice in a short Paragraph. Just know that it falls into this Sp. Summon/Spam category.

Just some thoughts to consider in general. Not all of these decks are the same, and some will work better than others, but they are all similar. The Spam mechanic near dictates victory this format. So, if you are bored of the monarch chaos or dark world decks, you may want to look to some of these options for a little something interesting.

As always- email me at xxbenthegreat (at) yahoo (dot) com



 


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