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GeneralZorpa on Yugioh
Too Powerful to Play at Two
 December 14, 2009

WTF?
 
There have been a number of cards that have completely baffled me as far as semi-limitations are concerned. These cards appear to be so powerful that they are played in decks that could not otherwise reasonably support them as well as forcing decks into the limelight that should NEVER have been there in the first place.
 
These cards that I am talking about are Mezuki, Judgment Dragon and Gold Sarcophagus. They are so pwoerful that these are the cards that are defining the format. Whereas earlier this year Gladiators and Blackwings managed to squeeze into the top 8 at a Regional Championship, now the top 8 is 4 Lightsworn, 3 Zombie and one roge deck that got lucky.
 
If you look at the rest of the tournament, we see more anti-meta, Gladiator, Blackwing and odd decks that do strange things. It is a Regionals after all and there are bound to be more decks, but after the last Regional in Sacramento, I saw that at least 1/3 of the ENTIRE FIELD were Lightsworn decks and roughly another third were Zombie decks.
 
That tells me that too many of the cards that these decks play are too powerful.
 
Don't Judge ME!!
 
Judgment Dragon is one of the most powerful cards ever printed. It is up there with the legends of Chaos Emperor Dragon and Black Luster Soldier and even makes Yata Garasu (Arguably the best TRading Card made EVER) nervous. Often in the past it was JD and Dark Armed Dragon battling it out to see who reigns supreme. Now, DAD is splashed in the Lightsworn deck just because it can.
 
I just want to ask this simple question. Why, oh why is this card not limited? Lightsworn are powerful enough without having their own Alpha Bomb that they can drop at pretty much any time they damn well please. Honest is amazing, Wulf gets the job done and Lumina and Garoth in almost any other deck would be AMAZING.
 
With all of these broken cards at their disposal, why do they even need a pair of JD? The deck can use all of the milling cards to get to pretty much whatever card they want in the deck and then easily fill the graveyard enough for JD. A chained Beckoning Light can even foil a well timed D.D. Crow to remove the Judger of Tournaments from the game.
 
What I don't understand is that a card like Demise, King of Armageddon (even though it was powerfully broken once) who has 600 less ATK points, costs 1000 more lifepoints to activate and is IMMENSELY harder to Summon gets the boot while Judgment Dragon is welcomed into the hearts of Konami's designers.
 
I have always thought that the game designers had a soft spot for Lightsworn. I don't know whether they thought that the DARK decks were getting too dominant or what, but they have done almost everything humanly posible to make the deck win some major tournaments. Well, Konami, you've had your fun, Lightsworn are running the show and now it's time for the emergency banhammer.
 
Judgment Dragon shoud be at 1 or ntohing, as should Dark Armed Dragon. Nowhere else in the game do we see "Boss" monsters that are nearly as powerful as these two. All I am asking for is that a Double JD play not make a player who has carefully constructed a field to destroy his opponent's field suffer because of a resolved Gold Sarcophagus or a lucky topdeck.
 
So what I would do is one of these things. Put JD at one, or make it so that he "Judges" monsters only and not spell and trap cards. This would effectively make a Lightsworn player HAVE to make his moves more carefully, as the possibility of trap cards makes JD that much worse. It would bring it down to the level of the rest of the cards in the game, and make Lightsworn manageable for many decks that would otherwise not have a chance.
 
Ooooooh! Shiiiiny!
 
Gold Sarcophagus is one of those cards that I love to rag on, but still keep a playset around. This card is mainly used to grab a Judgment Dragon from the deck within the early turns of a Lightswon player's game in order to ensure that it is not milled and that they can get it when they need to 2 turns later.
 
It is also used in Zombie decks, getting the key Heavy Storm or Giant Trunade while they set up. It can also get the amazing Plaguespreader Zombie or any other key card and then returned to the deck with Burial from a Different Dimension for immediate Zombie shenanigans.
 
Other than that, I do not see the card anywhere else in my travels except in the amazing Hopeless Dragon deck to fetch Future Fusion or a Red Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon. There is always going to be a problem when an incredibly powerful card is being underused. So instead of what I want with JD and Mezuki, I say we UNLIMIT Gold Sarcophagus.
 
That usually brings a card to the attention of the players at large and increases the playability of the card in other decks. I know that it seems that I am giving more ower to the overpowered decks in the game right now. Let me explain.
 
The inevitable limitation of Judgment Dragon and Mezuki would again leave these decks slightly underpowered, unable to compete with the raging Blackwing deck. Gold Sarc offers them a way to get to that power and quickly, but at a price. They must wait for it. We slow the deck down, allowing more counters for it to be played but not without losing the intrinsic power of the deck.
 
We don't want those people who have paid their $500 US for their decks TOO angry, so this way everybody wins and there is less of an outcry for these decks to become destroyed, which pretty much nobody wants.
 
It's A Horse?
 
Mezuki should be back at one. Plain and simple. This card should never have been let off of it's leash, bridle or whatever. The pair of these cards allows a Zombie player to go off on turn 2 almost without fail, which almost always means a loss for the opposing player.
 
In my playtesting with my friend Michael, I found that he won on his second turn almost 40% of the time. That's pretty strong. I was playing a hard hitting Gemini deck that was usually able to get out 2 level 8 Synchros on turn three. Guess what happened the other 60% of the time? Go on guess.
 
20% of the time, he managed to recover from my counterattack (usually a Colossal and a Bottomless) and get out a Brionac and/or many level 8 Synchros and beat face. The rest of the time I managed to smash face or just out-topdeck him with my actually higher utility cards. Keep in mind that this is a GEMINI deck that I am playing and not even the strongest build that I have since come up with.
 
The wins and losses of these games were linked to which card? Mezuki. If my opponent had Mezuki in hand or a way to send Goblin Zombie to the graveyard from the field he was much more likely to win the game outright.
 
This is not a good thing. Even Lightsworn players groan when they go up against a Zombie deck, as it is the only deck capable of outracing them. Mezuki back at 1 allows the decks that are slower but more powerful to be able to mount a counteroffensive or at least survive the initial assault. The Zombie deck is a Blitz deck, capable of amazing speed and power, but not able to carry on a sustained assault if the game were to continue for a longer period of time.
 
We slow it down by dropping Mezuki and then giving them Gold Sarcophagus. They have to wait for their instant win and think about when and where they use their Mezuki, as it can actually be used indiscriminantly when there are two of them.
 
Well, that is the end of my rant, these cards need to be dealt with, and/or boosted. If you have any questions, please contact me at raptor1k@hotmail.com or as GeneralZorpa on the forums