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From: Darelliott@aol.com [mailto:Darelliott@aol.com]
Sent: Saturday, May 28, 2005 5:04 PM

Subject: RegnR8's Anti-Meta Monarchs - May 28, 2005


Regnr8's Anti-Meta Monarch
Tournament Report for May 27, 2005


Hi all,

Welcome to today's edition of the tournament report. I hope this writing finds you well and winning. Bare with me, for this is quite a long report. Sit back, get a cup of French Vanilla coffee and enjoy!

You know how there are "copy cat" killers, right? Someone hears about a murder done in a bizarre twisted way and, utilizing the one brain cell that seems to fire off sporatically, they think it would be a neat idea to try it out. Apparently, someone saw my last report and the only thing they read was "I received my first hate mail", and their one brain cell fired off and thought, "I think I will write that Regnr8 guy a hate mail too, because it will make him look foolish and me look cool like I am really an intellegent person".

Wrong.

It makes you sound like the uneducated, narrow minded idiot you represent.

Now onto the good stuff.

In my dueling experience since the last tournament, I was consitantly beaten by the same cards over and over again. Now, I was just sitting down, thinking about what cards consitute a competitve deck in today's environment and I came up with a list of cards that are used predominately in EVERY top tier deck in today's metagame. I post my personal opinion list for all to see and, of course, there will be naysayers and people who disagree with me but, if you really look at it you can't honestly disagree.

The ones marked with an asterik indicate cards that are in a lot of decks and a little debatable, but not too much. I hate to use the term "staple" but, this is about as "staple" as it can get. Here is the "generic" card line up that saturate today's metagame like a stale sponge.

Black Luster Soldier - Envoy of the Beginning
Breaker The Magical Warrior
Tribe Infecting Virus
Sinister Serpent
Sangan
Jinzo*
Airknight Parshath*
DD Warrior Lady*
DD Assailant*
Magician of Faith*
Exiled Force*
Spirit Reaper*
Reflect Bounder*
Kycoo the Ghost Destroyer*
Cyber Jar**(I know this is the most questionable card listed, but it's popular where I play)

Pot of Greed
Graceful Charity
Snatch Steal
Premature Burial
Delinquent Duo
Heavy Storm
Mystical Space Typhoon
Lightning Vortex
Nobleman of Crossout*
Scapegoat*
Metamorphosis*
Book of Moon*
Creature Swap*
Smashing Ground*

Call of the Haunted
Ring of Destruction
Torrential Tribute
Mirror Force
Bottomless Trap Hole*
Ceasefire*
Magic Cylinder*


The above equals thirty-four cards. Six shy of a full deck. Toss in an extra Magician of Faith or Kycoo, one more light or dark monster of your choice (Don Zaloog will do nicely) and your monsters are set at a comfy seventeen.

Mix with a couple of other Spell or Trap cards of your choice (I prefer an extra Scapegoat and Metamorphosis myself for some good field control) and voila! Congratulations, you have a real competitve deck that looks like every other flippin' deck in the current metagame of Yugioh.

9 times out of 10, it's whoever draws the best cards first will win. Not much skill in that.

So, I set myself to thinking. What sort of deck could possibly combat this and remain competitive? What hurts me the most? My Monarch deck does well, but it just seems to fail on occasion because I don't draw my broken cards before they draw theirs. It's sad to think I can't compete at the highest level because I don't use Mirror Force or BLS in my deck. In looking for a competitive, fun deck to try out, I kept coming back to three things; special summons, flip effects and spell/trap removal.

Special Summons. BLS is broken. We all know this. Scapegoats are rampant. Vampire Lord and Phoenix are a little less brutal. Call of the Haunted, Premature Burial and all special summoning is one factor in the current meta game that simply must be stopped.

Flip Effects. Magician of Faith has returned with a vengence. In the current meta, with the return of Delinquent and Graceful Charity, this card has reached nearly god status and it's a one level light monster, ripe for BLS and Thousand Eyes Restrict. Not many people use Night Assailant in my meta because I don't think they truly understand it's power. Cyber Jar is a double edged sword, but I don't want to get cut by it. Flip effects have either got to be stopped or negated any way possible.

Spell and Trap removal. What's the best Spell and Trap removal card in the game today? If you said Heavy Storm, you are correct. This card is just a Harpie's Feather Duster in disguise. Rarely will the smart player use it when they have their own spell and trap cards on the field. When they do use it, it's probably one a Call of the Haunted Sangan or Jinzo. Maybe they have a pointless card they set as a bluff and don't care about it anyway. Heavy Storm = Harpies Feather Duster.

What's the second best spell and trap removal card in the game today? It's Mobius the Frost Monarch. So what if he get's Bottomless Trap Hole'd, you just wiped out the only protection they had. Ring of Destruction? Fine with me, you don't have anything left on the field. After an opponents Heavy Storm gets played, people are more inclinded to set two or more spells and/or traps becasue the major threat is gone. Usually, they will set two cards. One they really, really don't want to get MST'd and the other they sort of don't care about as much. Mobius takes both of them out.

As I write this, it is actually Friday evening, the day before a tournament. I am typing out these musings simply to let my readers know the following deck I use tomorrow is based upon a little guesswork and it's geared to be an anti-meta beatdown based slowing down or at least, tossing a wrench into, the current cookie cutter deck. Yes, there are a few cards that I MUST run to keep competitve so, it's some what based on the "staple" as well. You gotta draw the line somewhere. The side deck consists of even more cards that will, hopefully, help.


The Anti-Meta Monarch

x3 Mobius The Frost Monarch Up two six Spell or Traps destroyed in a 2400 attack monster. Not bad.
x2 Berserk Gorilla 2000 attack beatstick. Who cares about it's effect. Enemy Controller? Bah, who cares?!
x2 Kycoo the Ghost Destroyer A little graveyard removal, I hope.
x1 Mystic Swordsman LV2 Flip negator, but I can get hit pretty hard next turn. A risk I'm willing to take.
x1 Breaker the Magical Warrior 1900 attacker with some spell and trap removal built in, nice. Can't live without it.
x1 Tribe Infecting Virus Mass monster removal at the cost of a discard. Should be banned though.
x1 Sinister Serpent Got to love it.
x1 Spirit Reaper Good stall, but horrible against trample. Ouch. A little hand control too, if you're lucky.
x1 Sangan No explanation necessary.
x1 Chiron the Mage Interesting Card. Really good effect. Late game, this card can win it for you.
x1 Enraged Battle Ox A little anti-goat goodness.
x1 Exiled Force Better than DD Warrior Lady or DD Assailant. Reusable monster destruction.
x1 Injection Fairy Lily What a surprise! Kills BLS. Kills Phoenix. Kills anything, even yourself. Live dangerously.

x1 Pot of Greed No brainer
x1 Graceful Charity See above
x1 Heavy Storm Same
x1 MST Ditto
x1 Delinquent Duo Yup
x1 Snatch Steal Repeat
x2 Nobleman of Crossout Flips out and combos nicely with Book of Moon
x1 Book of Moon Protection or set up for NoC.
x1 Smashing Ground Monster Removal
x1 Hammer Shot Yeah, I know but it's an Ultimate and it's purty and I like it.
x1 Swords of Revealing Light Three turn protection on a good day. One turn protection on a bad. No turn on the worst.x1 x1 Enemy Controller Protection, control shift, or turn a token to attack position. Versitile, but BoM is better.
x1 Premature Burial Recursion at a paltry cost.
x1 My Body as a Shield Yea, JaeLove likes it, I tested one to see how it works and it's not that bad.

x2 Bottomless Trap Hole Goodbye BLS. Too bad you don't work on Jinzo.
x1 Ring of Destruction Ouch to both of us.
x1 Torrential Tribute Splat.
x1 Call of the Haunted Chaining Call to Heavy Storm and getting Sangan or Jinzo, priceless.
x1 Royal Command What? Yeah. This card owns you.
x1 Shadow of Eyes What? Yeah. This card kicks you in the cahones. Surprise.
x1 Royal Oppression No, I think not. You stay in graveyard, you don't come back. Go away, I hate you.

SIDE DECK

x1 Royal Oppression
x1 Ceasefire
x1 Mirror Force
x2 Enraged Battle Ox
x3 King Tiger Wanghu
x1 Chiron the Mage
x1 Jinzo
x1 Smashing Ground
x1 Soul Release
x1 My Body as a Shield
x1 Book of Moon
x1 Enemy Controller

So, if the main deck fails miserably, I can side deck in a little more traditional stuff. Well, that's it for the new revisions.

It's time for me to sign off and go about my business until the tournament tomorrow morning.

RegnR8

Saturday May 28, 2005

Well, it's now Saturday afternoon and I have just returned from the test drive of my new deck. Let's see how it performed, shall we?

Sports Cards and Collectables
Fayetteville, Ga.
$5.00 to play and you get a pack for entering.
5 Rounds of Swiss
Advanced Format
1st place gets 3 packs
2nd place gets 2
3rd place gets a laugh in the face
About 20 to 25 people today.

It looked like no one was going to show up. I was afraid the holiday weekend may have taken away a lot of the players but soon, a lot of people began walking through the doors and I knew I was going to have a tough work out in store for me if I was going to finish strong. Two of the entrants have finished in the Top 8 at Regional events. Two others have been store champions. Several more are excellent players and the rest play CCCC. LoL. It was going to be an uphill battle for me.

ROUND 1
MONARCHS VS WARRIOR/CHAOS/CONTROL

Hooray. I get the first test of the day against a CCC deck. This one has some Drop Off and GAF's but has the prerequisite Blade Knight and DD Assailant, blah, blah...

GAME 1
I go first and draw nothing but spells and traps in my opening hand. I have to activate Swords just to slow the bleeding.

He MST's my Swords (of course) and summons a Goblin Attack Force and attacks. Ouch.

I draw Mobius. Great. He's no good without a monster on the field to tribute for him. Argh. I use Smashing Ground on his GAF.

He summons a DD Assailant and attacks me again. Ouch.

I draw a Spirit Reaper and set it.

Nobelman of Crossout. I pay 1500 for My Body As a Shield and he Fissure's it anyway. Smeg.

I lose miserably. Not a very good start for my revised deck is it?

GAME 2
I pull my hair out. I get nothing but spell and trap cards again in my opening hand. I draw a Spirit Reaper in my draw phase and play Delinquent Duo. Nobleman of Crossout and Torrential go into the graveyard. I set the Reaper and Book of Moon.

Heavy Storm! Nobelman of Crossout! Great. Once again, I'm set up for a huge hammering! My deck sucks and I'm getting my booty smacked! He plays Reinforcements of the Army, gets a DD Assailant and attacks for 1700. He does empty out his hand though. He's top decking by turn two and has a 1700 attacker on the field. Not too smart but, he's kicking my butt.

I draw a Berserk Gorilla, and since he is totally unprotected, I Snatch Steal his Assailant and attck him for 3700. Not too shabby.

He sets a monster. I Nobelman of Crossout his Magician of Faith (both of them LoL), and attack for another 3700.

He draws and sets a s/t card.

I draw Bottomless, set it and attack into a Mirror Force. Bah. Whatever.

He summons a DD Assailant and I Bottomless her.

I summon Kycoo, Call my Gorilla back and attack for game. Nice turn around for me. I haven't used Mobius yet, and I have three in the deck!

GAME 3
He goes first and summons Marauding with Exiled Force and sets one S/T card. My opening hand consists of Injection, Ring of Destruction, MST, Tribe and something else I can't read my own handwriting. haha. I draw Mobius, MST his set card, summon Tribe and discard Mobius for warrior. I set Ring of Destruction and attack for 1600LP.

He Fissure's my Tribe, pays 800LP to Premature Burial his Marauding and I know he has nothing in his hand to help him at all. He sets a monster and attacks me for 1200 with Marauding. Meh. I take it.

I summon Kycoo and attack his Marauding, removing his Exiled Force from play.

He flips up his Magician of Faith, gets Fissure back, plays it on Kycoo, then tributes his Magician for Mobius, which I promptly Ring. LoL.

Im winning 3800 to 3200. He has an open field and I've been holding Injection Fairy Lily since my opening hand. I summon her and kill him.

Allright, well maybe the deck has some merit after all.

ROUND 2
MONARCHS VS BURN

Grrr. This deck hurts me really badly. This is one of the two players at the tournament today that have had Top 8 finishes in Regional Events. This person has done it twice. Oh boy.....

GAME 1
I win the die roll and go first. I draw a Gorilla, Pot, Ring, Kycoo, IFL and Sangan. Hmmm. Not bad. I play Pot, set Ring and summon Sangan in attack position. He says, "Who summons Sangan in attack?" I told him I did against this deck. LoL.

He sets 2 S/T and activates Tremendous Fire.

He activates Cursed Seal of the Forbidden Spell in my draw phase and I summon Injection and attack him with her and Sangan for 4400LP damage.

He sets all the rest of his S/T and on my turn, he activates Ojama Trio and Just Desserts getting me down to 500Lp but I simply attack him next turn with Sangan and Lily at 400 LP and I win.

GAME 2
I side deck in Chiron, Jinzo, Ceasefire and a bunch of other stuff.

He goes first and sets a couple of S/T and I draw a great opening hand. Heavy Storm, Pot, Sangan, Royal Command and Breaker.

He activates Cursed Seal and I attack with Sangan under his Gravity Bind. I pay 1000LP for Graceful and thats about it. I get a Ceasefire with Graceful and set it. I also get Royal Oppression activated.

He hurts himself by paying 2000LP for Messenger of Peace and his own Graceful Charity. He can't do much. He also forgets to negate my Call of the Haunted when I use it to get Jinzo while Royal Oppresion was active.

I tribute Sangan for a Mobius and destroy the Messenger of Peace and Cursed Seal he had.

He has no field and no hand when he top decks SWORDS. Smeggin' heck!

I draw another Mobius! Excellent! I tribute Mobius for another Mobius, destroying his Swords and attack for the win.

Great!! I think this is only maybe, the second time I have defeated this deck! I still didn't get the great hand I wanted against this but, I guess it was good enough.

ROUND 3
MONARCHS VS TSUKUYOMI CONTROL

Great. Another Top 8 Regional finisher. Today is pushing me to the limits!

GAME 1
He sets 2 S/T and a monster. I Heavy his Ring and Dust Tornado then summon Mystic Swordsman LV2 and attack his set Mask of Darkness. I set a couple of S/T cards and he Heavy's on his turn. Then he Snatch's my MStic LV2 and summons Tsukuyomi and turns it face down to keep it. I summon Kycoo and attack my own monster but, next turn his Tsukuyomi really owns me pretty hard for a while but he can't summon another monster and I get Injection out and attack him with her.

GAME 2
This was the best duel all day long. We went back and forth for a long time. We had a huge chain the end of the duel exchanging LP damage with Ceasefire, My Body as a Shield, Solemn Judgement and by the time it was over, he reduced me to 0. It was really fun.

GAME 3
Ouch. Mobius takes out everything and pretty much dominates.

SEMI-FINALS
MONARCHS VS CCCC Again.

Ok. Here's the second Chaos deck today. This one is even has at least one Chaos Sorceror in it in additon to the BLS.

GAME 1
Man, I can't get my flip effect negation stuff fast enough. His Cyber Jar tears through his deck and I can't get rid of his Magicians and soon BLS is on the field and I get killed by him. Figures. Humiliating defeat. Mental note: Main deck more flip management!

GAME 2
I side deck in about 5 cards. Another Ox, Ceasefire and a few others I can't remember.

I draw all monsters and no S/T. I fear I am going to be totally defeated. I do get Sinster as my first draw card. I am forced to set Sinister and just some useless Trap card.

He plays Heavy Storm. Yeah, yeah, whatever. He activates Graceful Charity. Here it comes. He discards Ceasefire and Book of Moon. Hmmm. Maybe he doesn't have any monsters in his hand. He NoC's my Sinister. Typical. He summons a Mad Dog of Darkness and attacks. He sets one S/T.

I activate my Heavy Storm. Yawn. I set Nobelman of Crossout, summon a Berserk and attack his angry doggy of absence of lightness.

He sets a face down monster.

I NoC his Magician of Faith. Direct hit! All three of them get removed from play. Beautiful. I summon a Kycoo and attack him for 2800LP and remove his doggy from play. I set MST.

He plays Lightning Vortex. Figures. First time I'd seen that card today. Well, he did just dump his entire hand for it so, it's all good.

Well, I have Injection in my hand and beat him up pretty good with her. He sets S/T cards but I tribute Lily for Mobius to destroy one and then tribute Mobius for Mobius the following turn to destroy the second card he set and I win.

GAME 3
I think I side deck one or two cards. I forget what, a second Book of Moon, I think. It doesn't matter.

He sets one face down and one S/T.

I Nobelman of Crossout his Blade Knight. OK. This tells me he has a pretty horrible hand. I summon Breaker and remove the token to destroy his set Premature Burial. Ok. He has either got one of the worst opening hands ever, or he's baiting me. I think he has a bad hand. The next turn or two should tell me for sure.

He sets a monster. Hmm. I'm thinking Magician of Faith. Gimme another Crossout or Ceasefire or Shadow of Eyes!

I play Pot and draw Mobius and Mirror Force. I set Torrential and Mirror Force and attack his set monster. It's a Royal Magical Library. Whoops. Well, I didn't really expect that one. Maybe this deck has a little more tech in it than most CC decks.

He plays Heavy Storm. DA*^%$$#$#$!!!! My Mirror Force and Torrential GONE! I guess it was stupid of me to set both of them. OK. It's not a guess, it WAS stupid. My bad. He plays Card Destruction and it actually helps me because I get Graceful Charity and Mystic Swordsman LV2. He sets a monster and two S/T cards. He plays Graceful Charity, discards two Night Assailants and gets them both back. Mmmm. That's crap.

Well, the Mystic takes out a Night Assailant with no worries and when he special summons BLS, I Bottomless him and then activate Royal Oppression and then he has no monsters and Injection kills him off.

Wow. I never really liked Injection Fairy Lily but, she's come through for me three times today and hasn't hurt me yet. Two times she's come out on a open field for the win.

FINALS
MONARCHS VS BEN KEI CHAOS

Excellent, I made it to the finals! what a surprise! Now I have to face a Ben Kei deck in the finals. He hasn't lost a duel all day. Let's see how I do against this.

GAME 1
I go first and draw Ring, Mystic LV2, Graceful, Enemy Controller, Exiled and Sangan. I play Graceful, summon Sangan and set the Enemy Controller and Ring.

He draws Heavy Storm. BS....Man, I hate that. What are the odds of having that on the first turn as often as it happens! He stalls with Swords for a while and then gets Ben Kei with UWS and an Axe and attacks all my monsters. A Kycoo, Gorilla and Mystic LV2. That's crap. He doesn't do quite enough damage to me though, and I Heavy Storm all his cards and Injection Fairy Lily attacks Ben Kei for the win. Injection AGAIN. 4 times she's won a duel for me today. We had a little Snafu because I had a set call of the Haunted and when I played Heavy, I chained my Call to a Gorilla and attacked with both but, I couldn't have done, neither of us caught it, but it didn't matter because Lily did enough damage to finish him off.

I gave him his first loss of the day.

GAME 2

He goes first and opens up with Graceful Charity, discarding an Iron Blacksmith and Giant Trunade. He sets a monster and that's it.

I Delinquent his other Iron Blacksmith and he chooses Big Bang Shot. I Exiled Force his Magician of Faith. Excellent. I set something as a bluff, I think.

He summons Sangan and attacks. I take it.

I summon Enraged Battle Ox and attack his Sangan. He gets DDWL.

He sets a monster. I'm thinking it ISN'T DDWL. I attack it with my Ox. It's Magician of Faith. Ok, he takes damage but gets Graceful back. I set MST.

He plays Graceful Charity and discards Jinzo and DDWL. Uh oh. BLS is lurking around the corner here, I can feel it. He plays Pot of Greed. Crap. The he Delinquent my Lily and I discard Mobius. We are now referring to the Graceful, Pot and Delinquent Duo combo as the "Holy Trinity" of Yugioh. LoL. Even after all that card manipulation, all he can do is set 2 S/T cards.

He Rings my Ox but I Book of Moon it and summon Kycoo and attack. I remove Jinzo and DDWL from play because they can hurt me the most.

He can't quite recover after that and when Kycoo takes out the remaining light and darks, he conceeds.

WOOT! I finish in first place! Not bad. The deck did better than expected. I won from my side deck more than anything else. There were several cards that I consistantly went for from my side deck and have main decked them. Chiron was a valuable asset, Ceasefire, Nobelman of Crossout, Royal Oppression and Royal Command were also helpful. I never drew the Shadow of Eyes, but I'm still going to main deck it. My Body As a Shield (all credit goes to JaeLove) worked well. But the main playa of the day had to be, without a doubt, riding a big ol' hypodermic needle to victory, Injection Fairy Lily. You go girl! haha.

So, I have decided to use this deck, with some minor changes tomorrow and if it does as well then as it did today, I may take it to Regionals.

Until tomorrow, happy dueling!


RegnR8
RegnR8@yahoo.com