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Pojo's Yu-Gi-Oh Card of the Day

Upstart Goblin
Common

Draw 1 card from your Deck. Increase your opponent's Life Points by 1000 Life Points.

Type - Spell
Card Number - DB1-EN018

Card Ratings
Traditional: 1.7
Advanced: 4.9

Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale 1 being the worst.
3 ... average. 5 is the highest rating.


Date Reviewed - 10.21.05

 

Lord
Tranorix
Upstart Goblin

This is a horrible card unless you’re running Exodia or Bad Reaction to Simochi. And if you’re playing competitively, you are not running Bad Reaction to Simochi. Ever.

Why? There’s just no point! Unless you really need the deck thinning, drawing Upstart Goblin is commensurate to drawing the card you would’ve drawn with Upstart Goblin anyway…only your opponent now has extra Life Points. Unless this is something you want, just stay away from this card.

And if you put this in a deck with more than 40 cards in it…and you’re NOT running it specifically to give your opponent those Life Points…there is something seriously wrong with your logic.

Control (with 40 cards and NO MORE): 1.5/5
Bad Reaction to Simochi: 5/5
OVERALL RATING: 3.3/5
 

ExMinion OfDarkness
Upstart Goblin

Upstart took a major dive with this new list.

The up-and-coming deck that could possibly use Upstart before this list was the Cookie Jar deck, a one turn mill deck. Thanks to UDE *rolls eyes* Book of Taiyou was restricted to 1 and Pot was banned, so it's impossible to get a one turn mill off.

The one turn decks that are currently seeing good play are Cyber Stein (which you can't afford to give your opponent extra life in) and Ben Kei equip OTK (same thing.) This leaves Exodia, Last Turn, and other oddball decks like Final Countdown.

I haven't heard of a competitive Exodia or FC deck for a long while; though I HAVE heard of players cursing other players out from Last Turn matches that go "draw-draw-draw-Last Turn with Jowgen-draw-draw-draw-draw-draw-Last Turn with Jowgen". Thus I'd have to say this deck is the champion of using Upstart right now.

Heh...that makes my rating really easy.

Traditional: 1/5
Advanced: 5/5 for the Last Turn and other non-LP win decks, 1/5 all else
 

Coin Flip
I really miss Snapper. :(

Today we review Upstart Goblin, my super secret tech. Everyone who plays me knows that I have to use at least one of these in each of my decks to give my opponent a chance to win. I'm just that good.

Okay, egotistical facetiousness aside, this card is basically free LP advantage for your opponent. This does not fit in most decks. Don't try to fit it in yours.

Notice my wording there, though. Don't TRY to FIT IT IN. If there's no room for this card, don't play it. Its purpose is deck thinning. Heck, even if you have room, you might want to try other alternatives, such as Monday's card. Unless you aim to kill your opponent FAST with an alternate win condition like Exodia or Last Turn, this card is just LP disadvantage.

In the right deck, it's a 5/5 because it takes away a dead slot in your deck. But in a normal deck, it sucks. Therefore…

1.4/5 General

5/5 Exodia/Last Turn/appropriate alternate win condition.

Have a nice weekend, and well wishes to the woodland creatures.
 

Dark Paladin
Are you ready for our exciting close out the week card? Don't be, it isn't very exciting.

Upstart Goblin is ridiculously simple. You draw 1 card, your opponent gains 1000 lifepoints. This card, at least for now, is a decent draw option. It is faster than Reckless Greed with less of a side-effect, and faster than Jar of Greed with a worse effect.

The only two decks Upstart Goblin really fits in are Exodia and Final Countdown. Exodia the lifepoints don't matter since you are just buying time. Final Countdown, it just adds speed, which it definately needs.

Ratings:

Traditional: 3/5
Traditional Exodia/Final Countdown: 4.1/5

Advanced: 3.5/5
Advanced Exodia/Final Countdown: 4.6/5

You stay classy, Planet Earth :)
 

Otaku

Okay, I shouldn’t be taking time for this, but I actually may have found one more deck that can use this card, so I’m going to.

 

As we all know, Upstart Goblin is useless in most decks that already have at least 40 worthwhile cards to run.  In decks that can get by with less than 40 cards, it makes “okay” filler.  Of course, one could also run Reckless Greed or Jar of Greed in such decks, which are “slower” since they are Traps and thus must be set, but can be chained to S/T removal which is handy and they don’t give your opponent as much of an advantage.  Now, 1000 LP isn’t much, but it’s pretty bad for the normal Beatdown or Burn based deck.  Running two copies of Upstart Goblin may thin your deck by two cards but that’s also giving your opponent a 25% LP boost.  Not happy.

 

So, aside from the decks that don’t worry about raising your opponent’s LP (Depletion, Reaction to Bad Simochi, and the alternate win conditions based on specific card effects), where else can this be used?

 

A deck that has been in existence since Metal Raiders: Suicide Beatdown.  For those unfamiliar with the deck, Suicide Beatdown works by depleting one’s own LP in order to ultimately defeat the opponent through overwhelming power.  So it encompasses the basic Beatdown principals of hitting hard and fast, but adds to them burning copious amounts of LP in order to do things like negate almost anything the opponent throws at them (via Solemn Judgment) and utilize even bigger beatsticks than normal (Injection Fairy Lily and Jirai Gumo).  Immediately the following set, another staple of Suicide Beatdown was released: Megamorph.  You probably have seen it: if your LP is higher than the opponents, it cuts the equipped Monsters base ATK score in half.  If you and your opponent have equal LP scores, it does nothing, and if your LP is lower than you’re opponent’s, it doubles the base ATK of the equipped Monster.

 

How does that tie into Suicide Beatdown?  Well, a specific variation of Suicide Beatdown is Velocity.  Same deal, only it gets rid of almost all defensive options and is intensely aggressive.  Now, here’s a happy thought.  Instead of blowing up your own LP, why not use a card that speeds up your deck (which has room for one or two more cards before hitting the minimum 40) and will give your opponent just enough extra LP that you can easily take it away… and then some.  After all, with Velocity, you’ll usually be attacking with a 3000-4000 ATK Monster if Megamorph is doubling ATK scores.

 

Traditional       : 1.25/5-Plenty of other draw options, and decks that can do something clever with it are either too weak or already chock full of other cards.

 

Advanced        : 3/5-This is a composite score: in general, it gets a 2/5 since it can be a little useful in filling out your deck, but usually it won’t be worth it.  However, it has many wonderful, specific uses, where it’s usually worth about a 4/5 in such decks.  I decided to average the two, though that might be a little high or low: I didn’t bother “weighting” the groups since I don’t have exact estimates on how frequently they are all played.

 

Limited                        : 3.5/5-It’s nice to have options, and while LP gain is annoying, it beats having to add a Set’s Skull Servant (figuratively speaking) to fill out your deck.
 


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