I thought it might be interesting to separate and sort the list of the two decks a little differently.  If you have no idea what I’m talking about right now, you need to read Part A of this article series first.  Here’s a list of all the cards that both decks had in common.  I’m not interested in how many of that card was present nor am I interested in whether that card was in the side deck or main deck.  I’m only interested in presence.  Here’s the list of cards and I’ve separated them between banned or unbanned cards:

Kycoo The Ghost Destroyer
Mystic Tomato
Don Zaloog
Airknight Parshath
Jinzo
Magician of Faith
Sangan
Sinister Serpent
Book of Moon
Nobleman of Crossout
Scapegoat
Pot of Greed
Graceful Charity
Heavy Storm
Premature Burial
Snatch Steal
Mystical Space Typhoon
Torrential Tribute
Call of the Haunted
Mirror Force
Ring of Destruction

Witch of the Black Forest (currently banned)
Dark Hole (currently banned)
Monster Reborn (currently banned)
Mirage of Nightmare (currently banned)Confiscation (currently banned)
The Forceful Sentry (currently banned)

That’s a total of 27 different cards that were present in the 2003 and 2004 World Champion Decks.  To further analyze these cards, I’ve drawn two Star Circles (one for me and one for my opponent) and I’ve associated each card with a point in the Star Circles.  You might not agree with how I associate the cards to points and some cards might belong on more than one point, but for this analysis I’m trying to focus on the main benefit of the card and focus my attention there.  The cool thing about drawing a Star Circle is that you can draw your own and reach your own conclusions.  My opinions are not cast in stone.

On the Star Circle point for my opponent’s hand I’ve noted that 3 cards have impact here.  They are, The Forceful Sentry, Confiscation and Don Zaloog.  This says to me that having the ability to remove cards from your opponent’s hand is important.  The Forceful Sentry sends a card you choose back to their deck and Confiscation sends it to the graveyard.  Don Zaloog is different because you don’t get to choose the card, which might explain somewhat why The Forceful Sentry and Confiscation are banned and Don Zaloog is not.  I think we all know that Don is a great card, but you start to see just how important it is when you realize that it’s the one great card that lets you disrupt your opponent’s hand.

On the top point of the Star Circle that represents my opponent’s field I’ve noted that 10 of the cards have impact here.  They are Jinzo, Book of Moon, Nobleman of Crossout, Heavy Storm, Snatch Steal, Mystical Space Typhoon, Torrential Tribute, Mirror Force, Ring of Destruction and Dark Hole.  Dark Hole and Torrential Tribute are similar, but Torrential Tribute requires you to wait until your opponent does something first.  Dark Hole is more flexible to use which is probably why it’s banned while Torrential Tribute is not banned.  Mirror Force, Nobleman of Crossout and Ring of Destruction also clear your opponent’s monsters from the field, and they do it without destroying your monsters.  Some of you might also consider Book of Moon a field clearing card since it often puts your opponent’s monsters in a weakened position, so you can destroy them.  The key thing to remember is that Book of Moon is more of a field manipulation card; it gives you some control over what’s happening on your opponent’s side of the field.  I think it’s safe to say that getting rid of monsters on your opponent’s field is important and the 4 cards noted above are pretty good at doing this.  Then there’s Snatch Steal.  I love this card.  Not only do they lose the monster, but you get to beat them up with it then if you tribute it they don’t even get the 1000 LP’s.  You gain position, they lose position.  On the Magic and Trap Disruption side of the ledger, Heavy Storm, Mystical Space Typhoon and Jinzo round out the list.  None of these are banned.  Folks have argued back and forth for a long time about whether Jinzo will be banned, or if it should be banned, or whatever.  The fact is that you can have one in your deck and a lot of folks do.  It’s a great card and it’s got a really good ATK too.  Of course, you can’t play traps either when Jinzo is on the field, but you get to choose when to play your Jinzo and your opponent’s has to live with it.  Heavy Storm can wipe out all the magic and trap cards on the field in one blow.  So there are 9 really good cards that you can play that will disrupt your opponent’s field.  When you look at this on a Star Circle you see that there are many more cards devoted to disrupting your opponent’s field than their hand.  The main reason I think this is the case and why this is a good thing for you (but not for your opponent) is that it requires more resources to get cards to the field than in your hand.  So when you destroy something on your opponent’s field you are setting them back further than if you simply plucked a card out of their hand.  It’s also fun to whack away at your opponent’s life points after you’ve destroyed all their defenses. 

The last Star Circle point I’m going to look at today is your opponent’s graveyard.  There is one card I’ve associated with this point, Kycoo The Ghost Destroyer.  This is more than just an anti-chaos card.  You can get rid of your opponent’s Sinister Serpent, you can protect your graveyard which gives you more Call Of The Haunted and Premature Burial options and it’s got an 1800 ATK.  Most folks play Kycoo for its anti-chaos effect, mainly being that you can keep removing light monsters (or dark monsters) from your opponent’s graveyard in hopes of turning your opponent’s draw of Black Luster Soldier – Envoy Of The Beginning into a lousy topdeck.  It also prevents your opponent from summoning BLS-EotB while Kycoo is on the field, but as discussed above, there’s a lot of great monster removal cards out there and with a DEF of 700, Kycoo is frequently a Book of Moon target.  I generally use Kycoo to remove either light or dark monsters, which ever I think my opponent has less of.  In any case, it is the one card that made this list that is fabulous at creating advantage for you and disadvantage in your opponent’s graveyard. 

Some general observations about these 14 cards is that its about half the list and that says to me that a solid deck ought to have some balance between cards that work on improving your position and cards that work on weakening your opponent’s position.  It’s also clear to me that the best place to be disrupting your opponent is on the field.  It strikes me as interesting that none of the cards have a Needleworm-like effect that destroys the deck.  The other thing that really stands out about these cards is that none of them require a combo to be effective and useful.  Finally, several of these cards have shared impacts like Heavy Storm and Ring of Destruction.  This suggests that you shouldn’t eliminate a card from consideration in your deck just because it can have a negative impact on you.  It just means you need to be thinking about timing when you’re going to play it so as to minimize the impact on you and maximize the impact on your opponent. 

In the Part C, rather than looking at what you can do to your opponent, I’ll look at the other 13 cards that I think bring you benefit on your Star Circle.  Please feel free to e-mail me thoughts about these cards and/or how the Star Circle is or is not useful.  Maybe I’ll include your thoughts in the next article.

notasperfectasyou

It’s easy to find me on the message board, e-mail is ok, but I like open discussion better.

napay’s prior articles and why you’d want to read them:

“Thoughts and Observations about Winning Decks – Part A” presents a first installment of deck analysis for the purpose of seeing what can be learned from comparing two proven decks.

“Mom and Dad Won’t Let Me Buy Cards On EBAY” presents some thoughts on the good and the bad of buying cards on EBAY and how you might work EBAY for a better experience.

“The Exodia FTK” presents an example of applying calculated mathematical probabilities to Yu-Gi-Oh in demonstration of why a deck 40 cards is a good idea.

“Fake/counterfeit Yu-Gi-Oh cards” presents a summarized version of my own experience buying fake cards and what I learned from it.

“The Star Circle” presents a very visual way to think about the components of your deck and how to think about card flow as a way to improving your deck.

“How Big is your Monster” is about why you need to stop thinking about how to get big ATK monsters in your deck and why you do need to think about how cards work synergistically

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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