Ninja Crane is Stunnin'

HEY WHAT HAPPENED TO THOSE LAST TWO MONTHS ALL MY POSTS ARE GONE

Yeah nah, I’ve been somewhat preoccupied and haven’t felt like updating in a while. Been starting to play IRL again, and as a result the majority of my attention is going to decks I can actually use there. My locals is tough as nails as well, some of the best in the UK attend there, so some of my fun builds just do not cut it.

With that in mind, I’ve been working on something for a while now. My Sacred Crane deck from a while ago has been developed into a Stun version, and it has been my main deck on here for a few weeks. So, here we have my current version.

Monsters: 17

1 Black Luster Soldier – Envoy of the Beginning

1 Cyber Dragon

3 Ninja Grandmaster Hanzo

3 Sacred Crane

2 Mist Valley Falcon

3 Tour Guide From the Underworld

1 Sangan

1 Spirit Reaper

2 Effect Veiler

Spells: 12

3 Pot of Duality

2 Mystical Space Typhoon

1 Allure of Darkness

1 Reinforcement of the Army

1 Monster Reborn

1 Dark Hole

1 Heavy Storm

1 Armor Ninjitsu Art of Alchemy

1 Book of Moon

Traps: 12

2 Ninjitsu Art of Transformation

2 Call of the Haunted

2 Icarus Attack

2 Torrential Tribute

2 Solemn Warning

1 Solemn Judgment

1 Starlight Road

Extra:

1 Chimeratech Fortress Dragon

1 Stardust Dragon

1 Black Rose Dragon

1 Brionac, Dragon of the Ice Barrier

1 Ally of Justice – Catastor

1 Armory Arm

1 Adreus, Keeper of Armageddon

1 Number C39: Utopia Ray

1 Number 39: Utopia

1 Maestroke the Symphony Djinn

1 Number 17: Leviathan Dragon

1 Number 20: Giga-Brilliant

1 Leviair the Sea Dragon

1 Temtempo the Percussion Djinn

1 Muzurhythm the String Djinn

Quick thing to mention before I get into how it works, Number 30: Acid Golem of Destruction is not legal in the UK and I don’t have Wind-Up Zenmaines. If I did, it would be run over the Mezurhythm.

The deck is fairly basic to play. The optimal opening move is to use Ninja Grandmaster Hanzo to search for Ninjitsu Art of Transformation, and then use that to special summon Sacred Crane on one of the upcoming turns in order to gain plusses. This combo is very underestimated, and I think a lot of people don’t understand why it is powerful, since you’re not going into a big beater with Transformation.

The reason it is so central is that it is allowing you to thin your deck by two cards, draw one card, and set up a light and a dark in the grave. This power all comes from drawing one Hanzo, and I consider it far superior to summoning a big beater like Apex Avian or Dark Simorgh.

That said, the deck also includes two Mist Valley Falcons. These have always been a favourite of mine, though I’ve not really seen much use for them for a long while. That has since changed with this; they can endlessly recycle the Call of the Haunteds, are 2000 point beaters, and targets for the Hanzo combo as well if it is ever needed (although I haven’t done it even once so far).

With such an easy way of ditching light and dark monsters, running Black Luster Soldier is self explanatory. It is a 3000 beater that banishes opponents cards and can win games on its own. Not running this would be an absurd choice on my part.

The Tour Guide + Sangan engine is needed in nearly everything. Even with the heavy stun and triple Duality, this deck is not an exception. It makes for extremely powerful plays, especially with Leviair, which I seem to make more than anything else in order to make use of any cards of mine that the opponent banishes. Using it to fetch Crane and getting another plus is so powerful. The only problem I have with it is that Sangan isn’t that great in this deck on its own. It can search Effect Veiler, Spirit Reaper, Tour Guide, and that’s it. They’re not bad searches by any means, but they feel rather lacklustre when it comes to power.

Effect Veiler is needed at at least two in most decks due to the current metagame. I’ve considered Fiendish Chain in its place, since I run Mist Valley Falcon at two, but that’s weak to MST and doesn’t give me a Light in grave for my BLS play. Veiler is too good.

Spirit Reaper and Cyber Dragon are techs. Reaper can stall very well, is a dark, and can make the opponent panic if he catches them with no monsters out. I ran it at two originally, but testing it at one has proven better, as it can force me on the defensive when I draw it at the wrong moment.

Cyber Dragon is unexpected game one, and I find it very effective in the Dino-Rabbit and Wind-Up match-ups. Very often the opponent will go into Zenmaines and I’ll be able to wipe it for free, while again getting a light in grave and a dark on the field.

Worth noting that the current monster count is low for the current metagame, so despite all the methods of dropping lights and darks in the grave, I am not running any copies of Chaos Sorcerer. Though I suppose it could be a tech at 1, I feel it would be dead too often for it to be worth it.

Triple Duality is something I’ve been hovering on. Because the deck special summons quite a lot, I’ve been using double for a long time, thinking three will clog. Now I’ve tested three though, I’m not having any real problems with it, and anything helping me get Hanzo early on is a good thing.

And getting Hanzo early is fairly easy with many of the cards in here. I run Reinforcement of the Army in order to effectively run four Hanzo, and an Allure of Darkness to dig another two cards. This, along with the Dualities and the Sacred Cranes, makes drawing happen very frequently, more so than in any other stunnish deck I know of right now.

Then we have a strange card that I’ve been running, Armor Ninjitsu Art of Alchemy. This is generally considered inferior to Magic Planter, a card that has a very similar effect but can be used on any continuous trap card. Seems better, considering that I’ve only got two other Ninjitsu Art cards.

I used to agree with this, but my testing has shown otherwise. Alchemy has one major advantage over Planter in that it can be searched by Hanzo. Since I only have two other targets for Hanzo to search, this is a great use for the third Hanzo when I draw it, clearing away my Transformation cards (which stay on the field after Sacred Crane dies) and netting me plusses. With Transformation nearly always being left out on the field, the fact that I can’t use it on other traps rarely seems to matter either, and though I occasionally draw it dead, I always seem to miss it if I ever leave it out. Great card, and very underestimated I think.

You have the staple spells, Monster Reborn, Heavy Storm, Dark Hole, MST, although I’ve left out Mind Control from the main, siding it instead. I won’t always have a monster due to my slightly lower monster count, and it’s a dead card against Chaos Dragons and a few others. I side it in for the Wind-Up and the Dino-Rabbit match-ups, but otherwise I don’t miss it at all.

MST I run at two, though these days I normally like it at three. However, because I run two Icarus Attack, I feel running two is easily compensated for, as I can wreck backrow with those and just side in the third.

Speaking of Icarus Attack, I love this card. So much. Because Sacred Crane isn’t the most useful card if you draw it, and playing Mist Valley Falcon will often get a trap used in response, it can take advantage and wipe out two cards unexpectedly. It’s just as live with Hanzo as well, as Hanzo can turn into a winged beast with Transformation anyway, so picking off cards to simplify the gamestate is very easy.

Call of the Haunted can also be used with it, turning it into a plus with Sacred Crane’s effect. As mentioned, can be used repeatedly with Sacred Crane, it is usually a +1 when the opponent hits it with something, and can be used to spring game out of nowhere at times. Though I’ve wanted to replace it with Fiendish Chain at times, I almost never find it dead so it’s sticking around.

Torrential Tribute is needed in this sort of thing right now, with swarming being as easy as it is. It might take out your field as well, but on the whole it’s definitely worth it. The Solemn brigade has to be run as well, it picks off so many threats and stops plays before they even start. If you’re not running these in this sort of deck you’re probably doing something wrong.

Starlight Road I’m running because of the deck’s low monster count and heavy backrow. Going on the aggressive is often risky with Dark Hole, Heavy Storm, and Torrential around, and drawing Starlight is like a message saying ‘Press your advantage, they can’t trap you so easily now’. The feeling of safety it grants makes it well worth playing, and when it goes off I’ll usually win the game.

Extra deck, lot of standard stuff in terms of synchros and xyzs. Stardust is run over Scrap Dragon because of the Starlight Road, and Chimeratech Fortress Dragon is needed for the Cyber Dragon in order to let it take out machines the way it does. Fairly basic there.

Adreus, Keeper of Armageddon is for when I side in Mind Control, in order to work with Cyber Dragon. Situational, but it’ll be missed if its not there. Though Tiras is the more popular choice, the fact that Adreus can pick off monsters bigger than itself without running over anything else makes me find it the better of the two if you can only run one or the other. If I had an Honest mained, I might change my mind, but as it is, Adreus is preferred.

And the Djinn, well as I mentioned before Muzurhythm would be replaced by Zenmaines if I had it. As it is, it’s a decent card for the UK with Acid Golem prohibited. Tour Guide being made into a 3000 beater is great, and can pick off many problems or just run over something for game. Temtempo I find that no one expects, and it gives Tour Guide better answers to my opponent’s Utopia, Zenmaines, and Maestroke.

So this is about it. Got multiple versions of is as you may notice from the deck picture, and I’ll probably create a great deal more.

Peace guys, hope you enjoyed the first update in ages.

"The DN Shuffler is Broke"

For the record if this is incoherent I'm writing this because I can't sleep. Just something I feel like addressing.

I hear often from people (though it happens less these days, it still occurs) that Dueling Network’s shuffling system is terrible. That it is a poor simulation of real life, where you never get such awful hands, and that is cannot truly simulate the way a human player shuffles.

This is just nonsense, and I’ve thought so for a long while now.

I get bad hands on DN sometimes. I get bad hands in real life sometimes. On the whole, I haven’t noticed that much difference, the weird occurrences where you never draw that one card your deck depends on despite using a ton of draw cards occurs in real life as well. Its just bad luck, the cards being placed in a random order that happens to inconvenience you. Nothing more.

When it happens in reality, people often blame it on themselves for just not shuffling well, or occasionally on the opponent for stacking. It may be true in some cases, but more often than not it’s just the shuffles weren’t favourable, not that they were badly done. Dueling Network it is exactly the same.

Now I suppose that there could be some credibility to the fact that the shuffler doesn’t imitate the way a human shuffles. A human shuffling will often eight-pile or something, in order to deliberately spread out the cards that got clumped together in the previous games. A lot of players find this results in better hands.

Dueling Network obviously eliminates this advantage with its auto-shuffler. I get that it’s not exactly the same, but its certainly not something worth complaining about when you happen to open badly every now and then.

I can never help feeling that complaining that the DN shuffler is truly random rather than only partially random is like complaining that DN is fairer than real life.

Walling Chaos

Recently I’ve been using a new Chaos deck of mine. Initial design was to be aggressive, but it seems to have worked out as more of a stunnish build, and rather a good one too.

1 Black Luster Soldier – Envoy of the Beginning

1 Gorz the Emissary of Darkness

2 Tragoedia

2 Chaos Sorcerer

1 Cyber Dragon

2 Thunder King Rai-Oh

2 Gellenduo

3 Tour Guide from the Underworld

2 Spirit Reaper

2 Cardcar D

2 Effect Veiler

2 Maxx “C”

1 Sangan

1 Honest

2 Pot of Duality

2 Mystical Space Typhoon

1 Heavy Storm

1 Dark Hole

1 Monster Reborn

1 Mind Control

1 Book of Moon

2 Torrential Tribute

2 Fiendish Chain

2 Solemn Warning

1 Solemn Judgment

1 Chimeratech Fortress Dragon

1 Mist Wurm

1 Scrap Dragon

1 Black Rose Dragon

1 Brionac, Dragon of the Ice Barrier

1 Ally of Justice – Catastor

1 Armory Arm

1 Tiras, Keeper of Genesis

1 Number 39: Utopia

1 Number C39: Utopia Ray

1 Number 17: Leviathan Dragon

1 Number 20: Brilliant

1 Number 30: Acid Golem of Destruction

1 Leviair the Sea Dragon

1 Wind-Up Zenmaines

Side Deck:

1 Cyber Dragon

2 Kycoo the Ghost Destroyer

2 D.D. Crow

1 Effect Veiler

1 Maxx “C”

2 Forbidden Chalice

2 Forbidden Lance

1 Mystical Space Typhoon

3 Royal Decree

So there is the list. The deck plays with the standard chaos boss cards; two Chaos Sorcerer and one Black Luster Soldier. Easy to use in this sort of thing, banish anything, just generally good.

Two Tragoedia and one Gorz the Emissary of Darkness. All three are OTK stoppers, and this deck is fairly good at stalling until you have hand advantage so Trag is often very big. On the off-chance that it isn’t, it can be used for xyz shenanigans or something. Gorz is just big all the time, and the only thing that really interferes with it being played is Fiendish Chain on occasion.

Two Spirit Reaper and two Gellenduo is what makes this deck what it is in my eyes. They can act as fantastic walls, and if I want to go on the offensive they can help with that as well. Both are chaos fodder, both are good for xyzing, Gellenduo has decent attack and Reaper can take a shot at the opponent’s hand. Great cards.

Three Tour Guide and one Sangan. Everyone knows at this point how powerful this engine is, and the chaos cards make Leviair a great option.

Cyber Dragon is mained at 1 for tech. Comes out of nowhere and can deal with Zenmaines, or just wreck if I come up against Machina or Wind-Ups. Both are fairly common decks right now, so I’ve also got a second Cydra sided for that purpose.

Two Thunder King Rai-Oh are just generally good. I think three is overkill in this case, because I can just recycle the two I have quite a lot anyway. They shut down a lot of the opponent’s plays and are a big beater. Open this with Honest and you’re in a great position immediately.

Two Cardcar D, I kind of want to put it to three but I don’t know what to replace. It’s a great card here, summon it while you have Reaper or Gellenduo guarding you and just draw two. Opponent will usually waste any resources they have on it if they can, which at least means that your other monsters will have less to deal with later.

Two Effect Veiler, two Maxx “C”, one Honest. Effect Veiler is just standard now, and a generally great card. Light fodder as well. Honest is just good at everything here because most of your actual beaters are Lights. Maxx “C”, most would say it should be sided these days but I still think it’s better mained. People are still special summoning plenty, so at the very least you can usually get a 1 for 1. If you really can’t, side it out and you’re good.

Spell line-up is pretty standard. Only two Duality because two Rai-Oh and you often want to special summon with Tour Guide or Luster/Chaos Sorc. Book of Moon is more like a trap than a spell here, and can just do so much. Considered maining Forbidden Lances, but decided against it because I don’t really care about monster destruction most of the time, and it won’t save my Spirit Reapers anyway.

Two Torrential Tribute is neat because while you’re walling, the opponent will often try to build up field presence, and you can just take it all out in one shot. Generally you can recover from resource destruction, so never really been much of an issue to use it.

The Solemn brigade is just good in this sort of build. Stop major problems before they arise, the life point costs are virtually meaningless. As a note because I’ve seen people make this mistake a couple of times, they don’t destroy Gellenduo, because they make you pay life points rather than take damage.

Two Fiendish Chain can just stop opponent’s plays almost as abruptly as Solemn Warning can. It can also negate attacks, which is neat. Couple of problems though in that they’re weak to MST, and they can clog up your Gorz as I mentioned before. Neither problem is really that big though, so running two works fine.

Extra deck, you have the standard synchros +1 Armory Arm because I like having the option of Sangan + Effect Veiler. Level 4, makes your monsters bigger, and is Light for Honest compatibility. There is also the Chimeratech Fortress Dragon because I main a Cyber Dragon, without it Cydra wouldn’t be worth maining anymore.

Xyzs are all standard save for Tiras, Brilliant, and Utopia Ray. Tiras is again because of Cyber Dragon, I need something to go into should I ever be able to drop rank 5, and Tiras is the best choice in general. Brilliant is Honest compatible and its chaos fodder, I love teching it in my extras if I have the Guide engine. And Utopia Ray makes Mind Control better and can win games if I’m on a low score. Worst case scenario, its an extra Light in grave.

Side deck, the Kycoos are for other Chaos decks, specifically Chaos Dragons. They also work fairly well against Inzektors, by taking out the Hornet, though I generally don’t like to banish any more of their Inzektors after that as it allows for Leviair shenanigans if they ever get going.

The Crows are primarily for Inzektors or anything else that abuses the grave and is weak to Crow. I don’t use them against Chaos Dragons though, they ditch too much for banishing one target to ever really be worth it.

Extra Maxx “C” and Veiler for decks that they are weak too. People might say three is too many, but I happen to disagree and have never had them clog this build up.

Remaining cards aside from the third Mystical Space Typhoon are a Royal Decree engine. Useful on their own in certain cases, but mainly to be sided in together against trap heavy decks. They have to get rid of the Decree, while it’s out you can play around freely, and with your quick-play spells ready you’re not defenceless.

So there you go, pretty much it. Enjoy.

Watts and Whys – Watt Deck Updated

Not made a post in a couple of weeks, so here is an update. I haven’t been using this deck much lately, but my old Watt build on here is woefully outdated so this is to get a better list down.

3 Wattcobra

3 Wattdragonfly

3 Watthopper

2 Wattgiraffe

1 Wattpheasant

2 Effect Veiler

2 Cardcar D

3 Magic Planter

2 Pot of Duality

2 Photon Lead

1 Heavy Storm

1 One For One

1 Monster Reborn

1 Recycling Batteries

3 Call of the Haunted

3 Fiendish Chain

2 Red Screen

2 Dark Bribe

2 The Huge Revolution is Over

1 Solemn Judgment

1 Mist Wurm

1 Scrap Dragon

1 Black Rose Dragon

1 Brionac, Dragon of the Ice Barrier

1 Magical Android

1 Ally of Justice – Catastor

1 Armory Arm

1 Formula Synchron

2 Number 39: Utopia

1 Number C39: Utopia Ray

1 Number 50: Black Corn

1 Gem-Knight Pearl

1 Daigusto Phoenix

1 Gachi Gachi Gantetsu

Now, the basic aim of this deck is to get up the Watt Lock through whatever means, preferable as quickly as possible and with a level of protection. The Watt Lock consists of two Watthoppers, and the way it works is that while they are both out, the opponent cannot attack or target any Watts with card effects in any way. This leaves you free to attack directly with Wattcobra, Wattgiraffe, and Wattpheasant until the opponent’s life points are depleted.

There are limited outs to this lock, the most prominent being Torrential Tribute, Black Rose Dragon, and Dark Hole; all mass destruction cards that do not target, and so can get around the lock. The Hoppers need protection against these, and here it comes in the forms of defensive traps. Dark Bribe, Fiendish Chain, Solemn Judgment, and The Huge Revolution is Over, all make excellent protection.

Little note here in that it is common for people new to Watts (myself included) to use Starlight Road instead of The Huge Revolution is Over. This is not a good choice. Not because Starlight is bad or anything, but with this deck, a Stardust out on the field will just be run over easily, and Starlight is weak to Solemn Warning and the Laggias. THRiO, being a counter trap that doesn’t special summon, has none of these issues.

First off though the aim it to set up the lock. There are a variety of ways to do this in here. Wattdragonfly is the most important by far; it triggers very easily and immediately lets you special summon any Watt you want from the deck. You almost always want to open with Dragonfly in your hand, it’s just so good.

Alongside the Dragonfly are Monster Reborn and Call of the Haunted, in order to reuse a fallen Dragonfly and ram it to set up the lock. They’re also cool for a search with Wattcobra, which is nice for maintaining advantage. You have One for One, a -1 but a fast one that lets you get a Hopper instantly.

Then you have Photon Lead. Normally I would regard this card as awful, and in most decks it is. But here it allows a quick Hopper play from your hand, or one for any other Watt in here really, which gets you prepped and can save you with its quick-play status. Watthopper in hand is an easy thing to accomplish too, especially with three Cobras.

Last thing to mention with relation to the lock itself is the Recycling Batteries. This is a bit of a last resort, in case the lock got broken somehow, and it gives you a second chance to set it up. Running more than one results in clogging from my tests, but it is a great card and a nice +1 if you need it.

Onto the draw cards. Two Cardcar D and two Pot of Duality provide the draw power early on. I’ve tested three Duality, but it tends to slow me down at that number; I need to special summon to establish the lock, and so the limitation is a bit of a problem. Doesn’t interfere much at two though, and two Cardcar D works fine, though the cost of the normal summon is a bit of a pain sometimes.

I also run three Magic Planter, which is the main thing that separates my deck from most Watt decks. In order to support these three Planters, I run a total of eight continuous traps in the form of three Fiendish Chains, three Call of the Haunted, and two Red Screen. Planters are great once you got the lock up for replenishing your protection. Scrap the Fiendish Chain that you used to stop the now useless BRD, or remove the Red Screen that’s now doing nothing but eating away at your life points. Strictly speaking I’m not sure about the ratios I’m using here, I occasionally find them dead, so this particular area is a work in progress.

Red Screen by the way is what I use over Messenger of Peace, the preferred choice of most players. It deals me more damage and is a bit harder to get rid of, but it’s also impossible for the opponent to duck under it. Add to that the compatibility with the Planter, and I consider it a solid and underused choice.

Last thing to mention in the main is the two Effect Veilers. They’re pretty much just more traps here, I’m on the verge of replacing them now. Beginning to think there are better choices, I’ll update this if I do so.

The Extra deck isn’t something that I use an awful lot. There’s no reason to a lot of the time. But it’s better to have it there, because, well, there’s no reason not to. Better to have it for those occasions where you happen to need it.

There are the standard synchros of every level, plus Magical Android run alongside Catastor. This is to make use of the Veiler in the Chain Burn match-up, which, while infrequent, causes the deck major issues due to its need to commit to the field and all its defences being rendered meaningless.

The Xyzs are for beating (Pearl and Phoenix), stall (Utopia and Gachi), or just ridding the field of anything small but problematic (Black Corn). They come into play more often than the synchros, but I’ve never found myself in need of one that I don’t have here.

Anyway, that’s the deck. Hope you enjoyed this guys.

BWST: Updates and Techs

It was requested recently that I update my BWST guide. Seeing as I’ve learnt a lot since I did the last one, I figure that it’s worth doing, so here it is.

This is the basic frame that I now use to construct all my variations of the build.

Monsters: 19

1 Black Luster Soldier – Envoy of the Beginning

1 Gorz the Emissary of Darkness

3 Armageddon Knight

3 Tour Guide from the Underworld

3 Maxx “C”

3 Effect Veiler

2 Necro Gardna

1 Blackwing – Zephyrus the Elite

1 Sangan

1 Plaguespreader Zombie

Spells: 10

2 Pot of Duality

2 Mystical Space Typhoon

1 Heavy Storm

1 Dark Hole

1 Monster Reborn

1 Mind Control

1 Reinforcement of the Army

1 Allure of Darkness

Traps: 6

3 Call of the Haunted

3 Limit Reverse

Extra: 13

1 Mist Wurm

1 Scrap Dragon

1 Black Rose Dragon

1 Brionac, Dragon of the Ice Barrier

1 Magical Android

1 Ally of Justice – Catastor

1 Armory Arm

1 Number 39: Utopia

1 Number 17: Leviathan Dragon

1 Number 20:  Brilliant

1 Number 30: Acid Golem of Destruction

1 Leviair the Sea Dragon

1 Wind-Up Zenmaines

Side: 8

2 D.D. Warrior Lady

2 Spirit Reaper

2 D.D. Crow

1 Honest

1 Mystical Space Typhoon

For my previous explanation of what all the cards in the deck are for, see this post.

This is very similar to the previous frame I was using, but with a few improvements. The first of these is that Magical Android has replaces T.G. Hyper Librarian in the main deck. I initially thought that would be bad, but once I started using Honest engines it just felt so much better; its got the same stats, but is light, which gives the Honest compatibility and sets up BLS. After some testing of running all 3 I realised I never seemed to play Librarian after that.

Second improvement is putting in Acid Golem. I disregarded it previously, but after tests with and without it I found the option to go into it was something I really missed. 3000 beater from Guide is good stuff.

Third is setting more of the Side Deck in stone. I have decided that if not mained, Honest, D.D. Warrior Lady, and Spirit Reaper should be at least sided because of how powerful they all are in the deck. Reaper baits and stalls, Warrior Lady picks off pesky cards while prepping Leviair plays, and Honest is just broken.

 Now, some of my more recent tech variations.

Diva Variant

Main Deck:

3 Deep Sea Diva

2 Lost Blue Breaker

2 Snowman Eater (-1 Necro Gardna, -1 Limit Reverse)

Extra Deck:

1 Sea Dragon Lord Gishilnodon

1 Number 16: Shock Master

This is a fast, aggressive version. It can drop LV5 with incredible ease, not relying on resurrection for it as it has the Diva into Lost Blue Breaker play. If you do have a Call or a Limit Reverse ready, you can just summon Diva, pick off a backrow with Breaker, and then sync the Sangan with the Diva for a LV5 anyway.

Snowman Eater is a wall that picks off pesky monsters, but I run it primarily to stop Lost Blue Breaker being dead in hand. The original version didn’t run it and as a result I had major problems when I drew Breaker. Now I at least have more of a chance to make it live.

Sea Dragon Lord is a card rarely seen these days which I just rather liked because of the ease at which a LV3 can be sent to the grave in this deck. You got Call or Limit Reverse set and the opponent plays MST, they are gonna have a hard time running over a 3000 beater.

Shock Master is something I’m testing out. Most match-ups its going to be useless, but I keep finding the Chain Burn and Final Countdown match-ups to be a pain, so something like Shock Master that can make them weak is going to be worth it.

I suppose I could probably run the T.G. Hyper Librarian I mentioned earlier in this build. Its LV5 and lets me plus off synchros. But the fact is I never miss it, and I rarely seem to synchro with another synchro monster already out. If I’m doing that, Librarian would just be a ‘win more’ card.

One thing I sort of want to test in it is Gachi Gachi Gantetsu, which I could probably run over Shock Master. If you’re running low on Diva targets through bad draws, could be nice to make a temporary wall. I’ll be testing it soon, probably over Shock Master.

Chaos Birdman Variant

Main Deck:

2 D.D. Warrior Lady

2 Genex Ally Birdman

1 Gellenduo

1 Honest (-1 Limit Reverse)

Extra Deck:

1 Black Rose Dragon

1 Genex Ally Triforce

A versatile, but primarily aggressive build. Definitely one of my best so far.

Warrior Lady and Honest again because of the sheer power of the cards which I have emphasised over and over. Genex Ally Birdman is run because of high synergy with the rest of the cards in the deck; it can allow Armageddon Knight to be reused, can bounce back a Veiler’d Tour Guide for next turn, and is a very fast LV3 tuner. It is used primarily to make LV7 synchro monsters, which I will come to in a moment.

Gellenduo is a light LV4 wall that can fend off attacks for a fair while in tests. 1700 ATK and Honest compatibility can make it a small beater if it comes to it, and it can allow for Rank 4 plays. The only issue I have with it is it’ll destroy itself if I use Zephyrus effect to return any card other than Gellenduo, but I can work around this easily enough.

For the Extra Deck, a second Black Rose Dragon is run because nuking with this build is fairly easy and having a second seems to be worth it so far, though strictly speaking it’s not really needed.

There is also a favourite card of mine, Genex Ally Triforce. A LV7, 2500 beater that is easy to summon with Birdman and can recycle any light monsters you have in the grave, this is something that if you have it out, the opponent will have to deal with it fast. True it’s not too useful the first turn it comes out because the Light monster must be face down, but +1 every turn is not bad by any means and bringing Honest, Gellenduo, or Warrior Lady (if it gets hit by Warning or something) back can be brutal.

Some things I might want for the Side Deck are Ryko, Lightsworn Hunter, and Lyla, Lightsworn Sorceress, but I’ve put them aside for now because I don’t really like the milling as it disrupts the flow of the deck. Will probably make another variant incorporating them and Birdman though, because Triforce with Ryko would be fantastic.

Necrofear Variant

Main Deck:

2 Dark Necrofear

2 Newdoria

1 Night Assailant

Extra Deck:

1 Maestroke the Symphony Djinn

1 Melomelody the Brass Djinn

More of a fun variation than the other two, but still pretty capable of winning in my tests so far. It has a defensive style early on, which it trades up later in the game for a more aggressive style.

Dark Necrofear is run as the signature card of this variant. In order to play it you will usually be banishing two Tour Guides and one other Fiend. Almost never will that fiend be Sangan unless you are sure that you can get a Leviair play in straight afterwards. Necrofear is unexpected, and its effect makes the opponent nervous about destroying it.

Newdoria serves a similar purpose to D.D. Warrior Lady. It’s a dark Fiend that helps prepare for Dark Necrofear and pick off certain unwelcome monsters. Its okay, but I do have to admit that it doesn’t do the job as well as I’d initially hoped. Still a cool card though.

Night Assailant is just a nice card. It can pick off pesky monsters, and is a LV3 Fiend, thus making it a Tour Guide target and potentially allowing for more uses of the Guide. It has weak stats, but those tend not to matter as you’ll never be attacking with it.

The Djinn cards in the extra are, strictly speaking, run because they are Fiends and help set up Necrofear. With Melomelody, a single Tour Guide can make Dark Necrofear ready very quickly. I picked it because I think it’s the best of the Rank 3 Djinn; its Light, can attack twice, and doesn’t rely on the opponent having monsters to be useful. It’s also got some rather nice synergy with Honest if I side that in.

Maestroke is just a great card in general. It has an effect that can guard itself, and that can make opposing monsters vulnerable to attacks. I’m really liking it against Hero decks, which are rather a hard match-up for this most of the time.

Anyway, that’s all from me today. Peace out guys, hope you enjoyed this.

Ignition Priority has been Removed from the TCG

So, I have to make a post here because of this, because this is pretty major. The Yu-Gi-Oh TCG no longer has ignition priority upon summons.

For those who were not aware, the TCG (basically America and Europe) and the OCG (Asia and Japan) have long had metagames that were slowly growing apart, with the TCG becoming widely regarded as faster and more 'broken' than the OCG. There have been a number of factors in this, but one of the main ones was the existence of a rule in the TCG that did not exist in the OCG; ignition priority, the ability to use an ignition monster effect immediately after a monster was summoned.

Ignition priority has been a major factor in the TCG in what decks made it to the top. Dino-Rabbit, which this format has been fairly dominant as the best deck, was extremely capable of abusing it. The signature card, Rescue Rabbit, avoided a great deal of the most common counter cards to it, most notably Effect Veiler, by banishing itself before they could be used.

With it gone, Rescue Rabbit decks become much easier to counter. Veiler can be dropped on Rescue Rabbit to prevent a turn 1 Laggia play, which is fantastic news in general (though maybe not so much for Rabbit players).

Of the others two decks in the big three this format, Wind-Ups are also nerfed. Hunter and Zenmaighty losing their priority effects is a fairly major hit, though not quite as major. Inzektors though, previously the weakest of the big three, are virtually unaffected by the new ruling, and have the potential to gain power from this.

May seem a bit of a downside, considering how hated Inzektors are anyway, but I’m viewing this as a very good thing on the whole. This will give rogue decks more of a chance against the big decks, and create more variety. I personally am greatly looking forward to the changes coming from this rule.

Source: http://www.konami.com/yugioh/articles/?p=3799

Have fun guys!

Chaos Gallis

Not come up with anything I feel is really notable this week, so I’m going to post a deck I said I would I while back but never got around to. This is kind of old, but I tested it fairly recently and it is still powerful and really fun to play.

2 Tragoedia

1 Gorz the Emissary of Darkness

1 Black Luster Soldier – Envoy of the Beginning

3 Chaos Sorcerer

1 Caius the Shadow Monarch

3 Dimensional Alchemist

3 Gallis the Star Beast

3 Genex Ally Birdman

3 Tour Guide from the Underworld

3 Ryko, Lightsworn Hunter

3 Maxx “C”

3 Effect Veiler

2 Lyla, Lightsworn Sorceress

2 Card Trooper

2 Necro Gardna

1 Witch of the Black Rose

1 Blackwing – Zephyrus the Elite

1 Sangan

1 Tour Bus from the Underworld

1 Plaguespreader Zombie

1 Mist Wurm

1 Locomotion R-Genex

1 Red Dragon Archfiend

1 Scrap Dragon

1 Black Rose Dragon

1 Brionac, Dragon of the Ice Barrier

1 T.G. Hyper Librarian

1 Ally of Justice – Catastor

1 Armory Arm

1 Number 39: Utopia

2 Wind-Up Zenmaines

1 Number 30: Acid Golem of Destruction

1 Number 17: Leviathan Dragon

1 Leviair the Sea Dragon

Something I think I’ll mention first off as a running trend of mine is I often make bad choices in terms of the side deck, so I’ll generally leave that out of these lists. If I do include it, it’s because I’m very confident in it. This side deck though is frankly bad though, so I advise you to disregard it.

So this is an all monster chaos deck built around Gallis the Star Beast, a card which I first decided to mess with a while back and absolutely loved. It is a three star monster that can be special summoned by sending the top card of your deck to the grave, then deal damage equal to the sent monster’s level multiplied by 200. Although, it is destroyed if the card you sent is not a monster. As a result I think it is only really a good choice in pure monster builds (although I occasionally see it being run in Windzectors alongside spells for some reason.)

Anyway, Gallis at three and Genex Ally Birdman at three is the foundation. They can be used in combination with each other or various other cards for devastating effect. Adding Gallis back to hand to special summon Birdman allows for easy rank three plays, and potentially some rather hefty burn damage and mills, depending on how your luck is. I get good and bad with it, but the bad rarely bothers me and milling a Tragoedia for 2000 damage is very satisfying when it happens.

There are the standard chaos cards in here in the form of Black Luster Soldier and Chaos Sorcerer. Both have fantastic synergy with Genex Ally Birdman, although especially in the case of Chaos Sorcerer – not only can it allow for double removal very fast, but it can also synchro with it for Locomotion R-Genex. This means Sorcerer and Birdman together can effectively eliminate any three monsters before the battle phase has even come up. Milling is almost never a problem, stuff goes to the graveyard very fast in this deck, so playing these cards is very easy.

Hand traps exist in the form of three Effect Veiler, three Maxx “C”, two Tragoedia, and one Gorz. Maxx “C” is starting to prove a little more dead as of late, but I’m still happy with it at three. Veiler is useful against so many things, Tragoedia is extremely versatile, and Gorz will never have problems being dropped because you play no backrow. You need these really, because aside from Necro Gardna, the deck has no way of actually defending from attacks.

Tour Guide at three, Sangan at one, and Tour Bus at one makes for another rank three engine. The engine is backed up by Gallis and Birdman, which provide some rather useful outs in case of Veiler. Gallis can simply special summon and make for a rank 3 anyway, and Birdman can add the Guide back for another go next turn.

Tour Bus is tech really, not strictly needed, but I find it useful because this deck has a habit of milling my other Tour Guide targets, and milling a little random graveyard control is rather nice. Drawing into it is rarely a problem, again you can just use it with the Gallis or any other level three, its pretty easy to have one out.

Dimensional Alchemist is run at three for a couple of reasons. First off its effect will always hit a monster if used, so he will be able to get something back every time. This can make him useful from turn one; summon Alchemist, banish, pass. Even without that though, the chaos monsters among other things mean that you’re banishing like crazy anyway, and that makes Alchemist a very useful recycling card that the opponent isn’t that willing to kill a lot of the time.

The mill engine of three Ryko, Lightsworn Hunter, two Lyla, Lightsworn Sorceress, two Card Trooper, and the Gallis’, is pretty fast, and because every possible target for your milling is a monster, even more so. Ryko at three was something I’d originally declined, but the deck needs it as outs to certain problematic cards, and three mained is best from my testing. Lyla is great bait for certain backrow, something that you’ll want to get rid of before you drop your big boss monsters, and Trooper mills and lets you draw when destroyed, so you don’t lose a thing.

Random benefits from the milling can be found in the form of Necro Gardna, Plaguespreader Zombie, Blackwing – Zephyrus the Elite, and Tour Bus from the Underworld. None of these are really dead in hand either, at worst you can just throw them out when you have nothing better to play. Gardna is fantastic for controlling the tempo of the game, Plaguespreader is great for random synchro shenanigans, and Zephyrus serves a similar role to Birdman in recycling cards back to hand.

The last two cards in the main deck are just my personal tech choices, Caius the Shadow Monarch and Witch of the Black Rose. Witch is a level four dark tuner, and with its effect to self-destruct no longer being a risk, becomes a plus one on summon. Caius is used as additional control, taking out anything that’s being pesky and blocking your plays.

The extra deck consists for the most part of fairly standard stuff. The usual synchros are there, and there’s the rank three xyzs for the deck to make use of. I’ve wanted two Leviair but cannot find the space for it at this time, might take out Hyper Librarian for it but Librarian is actually pretty good in this build, if only as a beater.

Locomotion R-Genex can put things heavily in your favour, and the opponent will struggle quite a bit to recover from it. I usually treat summoning it as a win condition, as, even if the win isn’t instant, it’ll leave the opponent tapped out of resources while you can just keep going.

Bit of a WTF factor in there though is Red Dragon Archfiend run in place of Stardust Dragon. This is something I opted for to help me against Skill Drain decks, which are a very, very difficult match-up. A 3000 beater can help a great deal, and Stardust is something I have never needed here anyway – this deck recycles so much that destruction really doesn’t bother me even when I overextend.

Similarly hated match-up alongside Skill Drain is Macro, or any deck that banishes excessively. Best hope really there is to take out the banishing cards with Ryko and Lyla. Although, fun little ruling, Macro Cosmos will not stop Gallis effect. The mill for its effect is not a cost, and it will just be banished instead, while damage will still be inflicted.

Might add more on this later, but that’s it for now.

Unnecessary Admin Calls

Two updates in one day 0.0

As of a couple of days ago, the fact that I am a moderator on Dueling Network has become much more obvious than it was before. I have been one for a few months actually, but have been operating up until now on an alternate account known as Entropicat. I wont be using that any more though.

A fair number of people were aware of this anyway, it was hardly a secret. It just wasn't particularly obvious.

But anyhow, I would like to put this out there because a short while after I started moderating it became obvious rather quickly that a great many calls could have been resolved before they got started.

So here are a few quick tips prevent unnecessary admin calls and save time for us all.

1) Stay calm

It can sometimes be annoying when people are behaving in a frustrating manner towards you, maybe you’ve had a frustrating day and your opponent keeps getting lucky while you are drawing dead. But getting angry is not going to make things any better, and may even result in you saying something you regret when an admin shows up.

2) Communicate

Proper communication with the opponent helps so, so much. If you think your opponent is doing something wrong, ask them why they are doing it and listen to their answer. If they are incorrect, tell them why they are incorrect. If they are correct, then hey, you just learned something.

A lot of calls come up where literally the only problem is one player hasn’t properly communicated what they are doing. If it’s a language issue, then that’s somewhat okay, but cases where one user has simply refused to speak to the opponent are kind of silly.

3) Be civil

At no point should you seriously try to belittle them with insults like 'noob', 'idiot' etc when they disagree with you. That is not going to convince your opponent that you are right, that is going to convince them that you're a mean spirited person and make them fight against you harder.

On the flip side though, if your opponent says something like 'noob' once, or cusses a couple of times, that is not harassment. There are so many bogus harassment calls just because someone has used a throwaway curse word its ridiculous. If it keeps happening, by all means call an admin in, but it is not necessary for little things like that.

4) Look it up

A simple Google search to check up on the rulings. Obviously if someone is being stubborn or the ruling is complex an admin will be needed, but in general Google will answer a lot of the queries, and I can testify to this because I frequently use it to check up on rulings while I’m both on and off duty.

Might add more when they come to me but this is all that most users need to be honest. I can confidently say that the majority of DN doing these things would cut the number of calls in half at least.

Peace guys.

Sacred Crane Part 2

Welcome to part two of my Crane builds, I’m aware this will show up in the wrong order but if you care that much about chronology you'll scroll down and read the other post first. If not, just read on, I’ll get to it in a moment.

So this deck is, as it turns out, similar to BWST in terms of how to construct the main. I have narrowed it down to a specific base for the deck in terms of what is and is not needed for this particular build.

1 Black Luster Soldier – Envoy of the Beginning

1 Gorz the Emissary of Darkness

3 Ninja Grandmaster Hanzo

3 Sacred Crane

3 Tour Guide from the Underworld

2 Karakuri Ninja mdl 339 "Sazank"

2 Effect Veiler

2 Maxx “C”

1 Blackwing – Zephyrus the Elite

1 Sangan

2 Pot of Duality

2 Mystical Space Typhoon

1 Heavy Storm

1 Dark Hole

1 Monster Reborn

1 Mind Control

1 Allure of Darkness

1 Reinforcement of the Army

1 Pot of Avarice

3 Call of the Haunted

2 Ninjitsu Art of Transformation

1 Mist Wurm

1 Scrap Dragon

1 Black Rose Dragon

1 Brionac, Dragon of the Ice Barrier

1 Ally of Justice – Catastor

1 Number C39: Utopia Ray

1 Number 39: Utopia

1 Steelswarm Roach

1 Lavalval Chain

1 Diagusto Emeral

1 Number 30: Acid Golem of Destruction

1 Number 17: Leviathan Dragon

1 Leviair the Sea Dragon

1 Wind-Up Zenmaines

This is the base I have been using for my variants. I have gone over most of it in my previous post, but a change I think I need to mention is I dropped Effect Veiler to two as standard because testing has shown me that I really don’t need three. Draw power in the deck is fantastic and Veiler will usually wind up in my hand anyway.

I am also not strictly sure about Gorz the Emissary of Darkness and Blackwing – Zephyrus the Elite. They both pull their own weight and I don’t plan to remove them, but I would not regard them as massive staples in the deck. Gorz gets clogged by my Ninjitsu cards on occasion, and Zephyrus is less useful with the Armageddon Knight engine removed (although still pretty good with Lavalval Chain)

The Extra deck is pretty tight on space, only really room for one tech card – the others are all good enough in this deck to be considered staples. I suppose if you really wanted you could remove Roach, but it puts in a lot of work and I think the deck is better with it.

The Armageddon Engine I have put aside, it was the tech of the previous version but where it was new tech can now go. The deck is pretty versatile and potentially lots of cards can go there. I’m still not done with finding new ones, plenty more to test.

Here is my current favourite.

Tech:

2 Tragoedia

2 Thunder King Rai-Oh

1 Chaos Sorcerer

1 Number 39: Utopia (Extra)

I mentioned wanting to test Tragoedia last time, and I have done since, and let me say it is a complete tank here. Your hand will usually be pretty big, so he’ll have a very respectable attack. He can be dropped on short notice, is often highly unexpected. I have won games through him because the opponent simply cannot get an out to him.

If your hand is small, he’s still useful. Either as a quick block to save your life until next turn, or as a highly versatile Xyz fuel on account of his level changing ability; if your hand is small you will likely have a bunch of choices in the graveyard to go through. Plus the deck runs quite a lot of LV4 monsters that are just beaters once they hit the hand, so you can steal stuff from the opponent if the chance comes up.

Rai-Oh is a 1900 beater that stops searches, and is still very useful in the current meta. Deals with problem cards like Sangan, generally the opponent will have to get rid of it either by baiting it out with a synchro or an xyz, or by using some of their monster destruction. Only thing I don’t really like about it in here is it stops Hanzo searches, but so far that hasn’t proven to be a major problem.

Chaos Sorcerer is a smaller BLS and is just generally useful for picking off things I don’t like while manipulating my grave. I often drop this and go into a Guide play for awesome plusses. Winding up with Sorcerer, Leviair, and either Hanzo, Rai-Oh, or Crane on the field can be sooo broken.

Hope you enjoy, peace guys.

Sacred Crane Part 1

This will be an ongoing project. I'm not done with this deck by any means, but people keep asking me to post it so here you go guys.

1 Black Luster Soldier - Envoy of the Beginning
1 Chaos Sorcerer
3 Sacred Crane
3 Ninja Grandmaster Hanzo
3 Tour Guide from the Underworld
3 Effect Veiler
3 Maxx "C"
2 Summoner Monk
2 Genex Ally Birdman
1 Goblindbergh
1 Sangan
1 Blackwing - Zephyrus the Elite

2 Black Garden
2 Mystical Space Typhoon
1 Allure of Darkness
1 Dark Hole
1 Heavy Storm
1 Monster Reborn
1 Mind Control
1 Pot of Duality
1 Reinforcement of the Army

3 Call of the Haunted
2 Ninjitsu Art of Transformation

1 Mist Wurm
1 Scrap Dragon
1 Genex Ally Triforce
1 Black Rose Dragon
1 Brionac, Dragon of the Ice Barrier
1 Ally of Justice - Catastor
1 Number 39: Utopia
1 Lavalval Chain
1 Diagusto Emeral
1 Number 50: Black Corn
1 Steelsworn Roach
1 Number 30: Acid Golem of Destruction
1 Number 17: Leviathan Dragon
1 Leviair the Sea Dragon
1 Wind-Up Zenmaines

So here is the first version I made. To give credit, this was partially based off of a design by ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !CED, but with my own twist in using the Hanzo engine to search out Sacred Crane.

The deck itself obviously (judging by the name) revolves around Sacred Crane, a card that allows you to draw 1 whenever it is special summoned. It is searchable in here by Summoner Monk and by Ninjitsu Art of Transformation, both of which would result in a Light and a Dark in grave ready for Sorc or BLS, the boss monsters of the deck.

There is of course the Tour Guide engine to capitalise on these. Strong on its own of course, standard toolbox is always powerful, but it gets better with the capabilities to special summon a banished Sacred Crane with Leviair for more plusses.

Goblindbergh is basically a level 4 Marauding Captain. Ran at 1 for tech because its searchable with RotA and allows for special summoning Sacred Crane, making a rank 4 Xyz and a draw. Genex Ally Birdman is a great recycler, adding back to hand Tour Guide, Hanzo, Summoner Monk, BLS/Sorc, or Goblindbergh. This is kinda a win more card I've found, but it has its uses if you're behind too, especially in dealing with Effect Veiler, which this deck absolutely hates.

2 Black Garden is a control element that can also double as quick Crane ressurection. I loved it at first, but testing it I found it kinda tricky to get right; it was at its best when I had Tour Guide or something, but with all the backrow hatred the control aspect of it never really came into play.

I only ever ran two Ninjitsu Art of Transformation, never tested three. With only three Ninjas in the deck, three is simply not worth it, I got a fair number of dead draws even with just two.

Extra Deck is pretty cramped, but I got the space to for in Genex Ally Triforce, a favourite tech card of mine. Not too abusable, but its the kind of monster the opponent needs to get rid of quickly so to draw them into attack.

This was the prototype for me. Though probably considerably inferior to CED's build, I consider it a decent start. I'm not done though, and I'm liking my next version better.

Version Two:

1 Black Luster Soldier - Envoy of the Beginning
1 Gorz the Emissary of Darkness
3 Ninja Grandmaster Hanzo
3 Sacred Crane
3 Tour Guide from the Underworld
3 Effect Veiler
2 Armageddon Knight
2 Karakuri Ninja mdl 339 "Sazank"
2 Maxx "C"
1 Blackwing - Zephyrus the Elite
1 Sangan
1 Necro Gardna
1 Plaguespreader Zombie

2 Pot of Duality
2 Mystical Space Typhoon
1 Allure of Darkness
1 Heavy Storm
1 Dark Hole
1 Monster Reborn
1 Mind Control
1 Reinforcement of the Army
1 Pot of Avarice

3 Call of the Haunted
2 Ninjitsu Art of Transformation

1 Mist Wurm
1 Scrap Dragon
1 Black Rose Dragon
1 Brionac, Dragon of the Ice Barrier
1 Ally of Justice - Catastor
1 Armory Arm
1 Number 39: Utopia
1 Number C39: Utopia Ray
1 Lavalval Chain
1 Steelsworn Roach
1 Diagusto Emeral
1 Number 30: Acid Golem of Destruction
1 Number 17: Leviathan Dragon
1 Leviair the Sea Dragon
1 Wind-Up Zenmaines

Now this version was built from scratch in a manner closer to my normal style. For this version I've left out a lot of the important cards from the original, like Summoner Monk, Genex Ally Birdman, Black Garden. Monk was very good when I got it off, but a Veiler to it was simply disasterous and with Veiler being so common these days I just cannot keep it. Birdman is less useful with Monk out, and in any case I found I never actually needed it except to make Triforce or to OTK every now and then. Black Garden with Monk gone just wouldn't be worth the deck space.

So I have 3 Hanzo, 3 Crane, 2 Sazank, and 2 Transformation as a base engine. I included the Sazanks because the last deck struggled a little with monster destruction, and I special summoned Hanzo more than I had expected I'd need to so I thought I'd include a way to gain advantage off of it. Considered 3 Transformation to run with more Ninjas in the deck, but since Sazank is likely to die when its attacked its not really worth it imo.

Armageddon Knight engine is always a favourite of mine, and though I don't have the space for three, with so much draw power two is worth it. They can ditch Zephyrus, Plague, and Gardna, setting up whatever I need them to, and they are level 4 for easy Xyzing.

This version includes Gorz over Chaos Sorcerer. The deck needed the ability to stall in case it drew slow, and Gorz provides that kind of protection much better than Chaos Sorcerer, which is aggressive. Because of all the draw power I have also considered Tragoedia for doing the same job, which I will be testing at some point I imagine but is again out for now because of space issues.

BLS I'm sure everyone knows, it just wins games on its own. Amazing in both versions, I think it should be run in all Crane builds. 3 Tour Guide and Sangan I think go with this, they are just so versatile and have the ability to toolbox a banished Crane. Plus Sangan of course is another CotH target.

3 Veiler and 2 Maxx "C" was something I wasn't really happy with. Including Gorz I still have six hand traps mained, but I like to run Maxx and Veiler in threes. Still, I draw them both enough so far, so I'm okay with it for the moment.

Spells, I included one Duality in the first but I had to put it to two in the second. Special summoning every turn is less essential in version two, so getting the consistancy boost is very nice and has helped mitigate a few issues with slow starting hands. The rest are pretty much staples aside from Pot of Avarice, which I normally don't like, but I have found this deck just likes to recycle lots with Guides and with the extra deck. A +1 is always nice too.

For the extra deck, I included one Synchro of each level from 4 to 9. Nice and toolboxish, the only one that I think may be questioned is Armory Arm and I find it worth it often enough in decks that run both Sangan and Effect Veiler.

The Xyzs, Lavalval Chain sets up so many plays with the ability to dump anything in the grave, Emeral serves as a mini Avarice, Utopia is just controlling and Roach I've found so useful in the past. Stops a lot of big drops, like BLS and synchroing. C39 Utopia Ray I'm using as tech because its cool and pretty useful, and the rank threes are all for Guide toolboxing.

Will be making additional posts on this as I said, so keep an eye out for that.

Peace.

Rabbit Archfiends

I have, for a long long time, wanted to do something with the card Falling Down. Falling Down is an extremely powerful equip spell, similar to Snatch Steal but reliant on having an Archfiend out on the field. Problem is, Archfiends in general are a weak archetype, and would need heavy support.

Well now I have that sorted out!

3 Archfiend Soldier
3 Sabersaurus
3 Rescue Rabbit
3 Tour Guide from the Underworld
2 Desrook Archfiend
2 Maxx "C"
1 Black Luster Soldier - Envoy of the Beginning
1 Gorz the Emissary of Darkness

3 Falling Down
2 Mystical Space Typhoon
2 Forbidden Lance
1 Monster Reborn
1 Dark Hole
1 Heavy Storm
1 Mind Control
1 Book of Moon
1 Pot of Avarice
1 Pot of Duality

2 Torrential Tribute
2 Fiendish Chain
2 Solemn Warning
1 Solemn Judgment
1 Mirror Force

Extra Deck:
1 Ally of Justice - Catastor
1 Brionac, Dragon of the Ice Barrier
1 Scrap Dragon
1 Mist Wurm
1 Verz Ouroboros
1 Number 16: Shock Master

2 Number 39: Utopia
1 Number C39: Utopia Ray
1 Evolzar Laggia
1 Evolzar Dolkka
1 Steelsworn Roach
1 Number 17: Leviathan Dragon
1 Leviair the Sea Dragon
1 Wind-Up Zenmaines

Side Deck:
2 Effect Veiler
2 Shadowknight Archfiend
2 Spirit Reaper
1 Neo-Spacian Grand Mole
1 Kinetic Soldier
1 Mystical Space Typhoon
3 Macro Cosmos
2 Bottomless Trap Hole
1 Fairy Wind

The deck is structured in a similar manner to Dino-Rabbit, in fact it even uses Sabersaurus because of the lack of a level four Normal Archfiend aside from Archfiend Soldier. I've considered a Verz engine instead, maybe allow me to incorporate Allure of Darkness, but really the Sabers are superior here.

The way the deck works is simple, but it has a great many tricks and can be pretty explosive. Rescue Rabbit searching into Archfiend Soldier is the big play, with 3800 damage placed on the table and access to Falling Down now granted, dealing massive damage is pretty easy. After this Xyzing is the usual approach if the opponent survives, either the Soldiers with the new monster (the reason for Shock Master and Verz Ouroboros in the Extra Deck), or just putting them together for Utopia and giving control back (kind of weak, only really used where an OTK failed for whatever reason).

A similar play can also be made with Tour Guide into Desrook Archfiend. This places 2100 damage on the table and preps Falling Down, although unless you have a nice Level 3 to steal or can take the opponent out with it you usually wont use that. What I like about it is it keeps more Tour Guide in the deck, and Desrook Archfiend is a Light that seems to slip under the radar for a lot of people, setting up for BLS - EotB. A lot of people don't expect BLS either, or use up all their defense stopping my Archfiend OTKs, so BLS is usually going to devastate people if I draw it.

Falling Down is magnificent. It can be absolutely devastating even if I'm not trying to OTK. Summon Archfiend Soldier, snatch their Level 4 for a Rank 4. Summon Desrook Archfiend, snatch their Level 3 for Rank 3. Summon either, snatch Utopia (which it pretty much the go-to Xyz this format), overlay into Utopia Ray so even if the Archfiend is destroyed they don't get their monster back. Or just snatch that BLS they summoned and whack them for game. Stealing stuff this format is sooooo good.

Archfiend Soldier works good as just a beater as well. 1900 attack and Fiendish Chain immunity is nice, and is shared by Sabersaurus. It with Falling Down often forces the opponent on the defensive, as they don't want me stealing the big monsters they summon but anything smaller gets run over.

41 cards is something I'm not sure I like in most decks, but it doesn't seem to be a problem for this deck. If I had to take something out, it would likely be the Pot of Duality, but since looking at the YCS Piper deck I've taken rather a liking to running a lone copy of it to dig for cards I need.

Side Deck, largely untested but its stuff that I know works. Fairy Wind is for Malefics and Dark Worlds, two decks with the potential to be problematic. Macro just wrecks Dark World and Inzektors, Bottomless and Shadowknight Archfiends are to deal with Stunnish builds. Spirit Reaper is for Dino-Rabbit and Legendary Six Samurai. Kinetic Soldier is Legendary Six Samurai again and Hero Stun, which has been growing in popularity. Third MST and Grand Mole are just generally useful sides.

Will probably use this for a while longer, its a lot of fun and has raised my rating considerably.

Peace guys.

Piper's Pet Cat

So with the recent YCS, Piper decks have been becoming more popular. The deck has tremendous draw power and all those sacky Chaos cards that make it oh so fun to play, and I thought I would post my version.

2 Tragoedia

1 Black Luster Soldier – Envoy of the Beginning

1 Gorz the Emissary of Darkness

2 Caius the Shadow Monarch

2 Chaos Sorcerer

3 Maxx “C”

3 Mystic Piper

3 Kinka-Byo

3 Battle Fader

3 Effect Veiler

2 D.D. Crow

1 Symphonic Warrior Basses

1 The Fabled Catsith

3 Creature Swap

2 Pot of Duality

2 Mystical Space Typhoon

1 Allure of Darkness

1 Dark Hole

1 Heavy Storm

1 Monster Reborn

1 Mind Control

1 One For One

1 T.G. Blade Blaster

1 Must Wurm

1 Scrap Dragon

1 Stardust Dragon

1 Black Rose Dragon

1 Arcanite Magician

1 Brionac, Dragon of the Ice Barrier

1 T.G. Hyper Librarian

1 Ally of Justice – Catastor

1 The Fabled Unicore

1 Armory Arm

1 Formula Synchron

1 Number 39: Utopia

1 Leviair the Sea Dragon

1 Wind-Up Zenmaines

Now this is nothing at all like the YCS version but I’ve had it since before then so this is not too surprising, I plan to make another later on taking the YCS version into account. This build functions in an extremely passive-aggressive manner, taking advantage of the opponent’s plays to advance its own position and stockpiling with Piper and Kinka all the while.

It has a total of 16 Level 1 monsters so double draws off Piper occur frequently. Fader, Gorz, Tragoedia, Veiler, Maxx “C”, and D.D. Crow all being taken into account also gives it a total of 14 hand traps, meaning committing to the field is rarely a necessity and first turn shenanigans can be hard to get off.

Caius the Shadow Monarch is for gamewinning plays, if I can drop it properly I’ll usually win that duel. Its dead sometimes, but in that case I’ll usually just discard it for another dark in the grave. This is pretty easy to do, the deck has a massive hand the majority of the time and I often have to discard at the end phase.

Which is where my favourite bit of tech comes in, The Fabled Catsith. Just taking a turn and not seeing the need to make a commitment preps it to destroy anything the opponent has face-up that could be causing you problems.

Symphonic Warrior Basses is a recurring Tuner thanks to Kinka, and with your massive hand it can be reshaped into a pretty high level. Creature Swap and Mind Control take advantage of this further, and combined with Tragoedia you can make basically any level you like.

The rest of it seems fairly self-explanitory, with the exception of the extra deck. The Fabled Unicore is run because it can be played with Catsith, but Fabled Ragin is not because your hand is unlikely to ever diminish that much. T.G. Blade Blaster is for Formula Synchron Mind Control plays, its generic so a better choice than Shooting Star Dragon; you see Scrap Dragon just as often as Stardust Dragon these days anyway.

Peace guys.

Shuffling the Hand

Hey guys I’m going to start updating regularly now, which probably means shorter posts but more info on the whole. Yay!

This was something that occurred to me a while ago. Each time I draw a card, before I make my next play, I shuffle my hand. Often my opponent, seeing this, will shuffle their hand in response. Occasionally they will spam it, which accomplishes little and is annoying quite frankly. Usually they just won’t shuffle at all unless a card attacks their hand, like Spirit Reaper or Wind-Up Hunter.

This is not really bad play or anything like that, this isn’t really the most important thing to think about. But there is a distinct purpose to shuffling the hand, and I think a lot of the people I face are missing it.

The purpose of shuffling the hand is to give the opponent less information about your plays.

How does this work, you might ask?

Imagine I have two cards in hand. I draw a third for my turn, and then play it immediately; Tour Guide from the Underworld. The opponent activates Solemn Warning, negates and destroys it. I place one card face down and end my turn.

Looks simple enough, right? But I am giving my opponent more information than I need to right there. Since I played the card I drew and I did it pretty fast, it is likely that I do not have anything else of that nature in my hand. Furthermore, since I had the card I just set already in my hand and I didn’t set it earlier, there is a good chance that it is a bluff and he can play aggressively.

I essentially just told my opponent my hand was worthless.

Compare it to this scenario. I draw a card, shuffle my hand, and then play Tour Guide. My opponent, unless he saw my hand earlier, will not know if I drew it that turn. He activates Warning, negates and destroys it. But now he can’t just dismiss the other two cards in my hand as being worthless, so if I then set a card facedown, bluffing Mirror Force, my opponent will have to play around that. If he knew I didn’t draw it that turn, he would be easily able to deduce it wasn’t Mirror Force, as I would have set it sooner.

Overall, this is a small thing, and one that you do not really need to learn. However, the little things like that can mean the difference between a win and a loss on occasion, and remembering to do this after every draw is overall a pretty easy thing to learn.

I should also note that there are three other purposes to shuffling it, but they are less important in my eyes.

The first of these is to bluff. With Veiler, Maxx “C”, and Gorz being what they are, the thought of them can put players off attempting a game-winning play simply because of how much its failure would hurt them.

I’m not really a fan of this though, because it draws the opponent’s attention to the hand, and they may make deductions based on the fact that you are shuffling it. Now I’m not saying that this method doesn’t work; it most certainly does sometimes. But bringing your hand to my attention can just as easily tell me that I’m in the clear to make my game-winning play, as if you had an out you probably wouldn’t shuffle it and draw my attention to it as such.

If you can pull this off, by all means do so. But I see it backfiring as often as it works, so I steer clear of this.

The second of these is to give yourself a new perspective on your hand. This is useful for some people I suppose, I do use this occasionally, but the vast majority of the time I do not need to do this and think the majority of people don’t either. This is far more useful when dueling in real life than on Dueling Network.

The third is entirely unnecessary if you do it after each draw. It is also the one I see most often; when an attack with something like Spirit Reaper is declared, the player shuffles the hand to randomise the discard. Since the hand would be randomised by the shuffle after each draw anyway, this would be essentially meaningless.

Peace guys.

BWST Under the new Banlist

UPDATE O.O

This was written over several days and has not been proof-read. Might have spelling errors or something.

Yah so I am frequently asked about this deck at the moment. Its the thing I am seen using on DN the vast majoriity of the time. It is versatile, fast, and I have already mentioned it before on this blog twice, but with the new banlist and my knowledge increasing I guess another couldn't hurt.

So here is the basic structure of BWST.

3 Tour Guide from the Underworld
3 Armageddon Knight
3 Effect Veiler
3 Maxx C
2 Necro Gardna
1 Black Luster Soldier - Envoy of the Beginning
1 Gorz the Emissary of Darkness
1 Sangan
1 Blackwing - Zephyrus the Elite
1 Plaguespreader Zombie

2 Pot of Duality
2 Mystical Space Typhoon
1 Allure of Darkness
1 Reinforcement of the Army
1 Heavy Storm
1 Dark Hole
1 Monster Reborn
1 Mind Control

3 Call of the Haunted
3 Limit Reverse

1 Ally of Justice - Catastor
1 T.G. Hyper Librarian
1 Brionac, Dragon of the Ice Barrier
1 Black Rose Dragon
1 Scrap Dragon
1 Mist Wurm
1 Number 17: Leviathan Dragon
1 Number 20: Brilliant
1 Leviair the Sea Dragon
1 Wind-Up Zemnaines
1 Number 39: Utopia


This deck will always, always, have most of those cards in. A few are optional, but it tends to work best with them all there. This is a very powerful, very versatile engine.

The deck revolves around Sangan. Yes Sangan is limited, but its simply so easy to search that this doesn't matter. 3 Armageddon Knight, 3 Tour Guide, 1 Reinforcement of the Army are used primarily to place Sangan in the grave as early as possible, where it can be repeatedly manipulated with Call of the Haunted and Limit Reverse.

Now obviously using Tour Guide to send Sangan to the grave is the more benificial play, but because the deck runs 2 Pot of Duality now its not always possible to do that. Go with Guide if you draw it, otherwise just use Armageddon, both do the job well enough.

After Sangan is in the grave, Tour Guide and Armageddon Knight become the fuel that powers the deck. Armageddon Knight is able to send to the grave Necro Gardna, Plaguespreader Zombie, and Blackwing - Zephyrus the Elite. Gardna is promarily for defense, but the first two of these can give you some explosive plays. Armageddon ditching Plague with either Call or Limit Reverse ready can give you either Mist Wurm and a Sangan search, Catastor/Librarian and a Sangan search, or Brionac. Usually it will be one of the first two, because Brionac is a minus.

Zephyrus is usually the play that follows the Plaguespreader play. Summon Armageddon Knight, send Zephyrus, add back the Call/Limit Reverse you used to get Sangan to SS Zephyrus, and make Utopia. So not only do you get Utopioa, but another use out of your resurrection trap.

Tour Guide's plays are well known of course. Leviathan for a 2500 beater, Leviair for toolboxing banished cards, Zenmaines for either stall or attacking to rid them of a pesky monster. But outside of Wind-Ups and Inzektors, Brilliant is usually ignored, and here it is surprisingly effective. It can make your opponent think twice about using their Rai-Oh on it, can set up for or bluff BLS-EotB, and 2100 beater is not bad at all. Its as viable an option as Leviathan Dragon is turn 1, more so in certain cases. And yes, turn 1 you are going to want to make either Leviathan or Brilliant, in order to set up your Calls/Limit Reverses quickly.

Effect Veiler and Maxx "C" are pro as ever and should always be run at 3. With the only backrow in the deck being resurrection cards, both are invaluable. Both are also searchable; one of this deck's greatest assets is that with Sangan in the grave, all backrow becomes very chainable, and a Heavy Storm or MST can let you add a Veiler or Maxx C to screw with the opponent's plays. It can also add Armageddon Knight and Tour Guide, for aggressive plays next turn.

Black Luster Soldier is run because despite only 3 Lights in the main deck, said lights are very easy to add and send to graveyard, Utopia and Brilliant are easy to play, and it just wins games.

The spells are mostly staples. Allure of Darkness is staple in a deck with this many darks, Reinforcement of the Army adds your Armageddon Knight. Only card that isn't really a staple is Pot of Duality at 2, and that's just because it adds a little consistency early game. I originally ran 3 Upstart instead, and still do in a couple of versions, but certain cards are just not good if they are drawn. See Necro Gardna and Zephyrus.

Gorz is a big beater. It can be fantastic, or it can be dead because you have a dead Limit Reverse on the field. I've deliberated removing it now Call is at 3, but it has proven to be a great card time and time again and can just win games on its own like BLS, so right now its needed.

Extra deck, Utopia is the only rank 4 you need. It is a 2500 beater, light, easy to play, and great for both beating and stalling. The Rank 3s are all Tour Guide toolboxes.

The synchros are fairly standard. Only thing worth mentioning is a lack of Stardust Dragon, because its hard to make LV8 with this deck and when its possible its not worth it if all you're getting is a Stardust.

Now, onto the tech.

This is what defines each and every version of the deck. There are a great many options for what to put in here, and it will basically be what the Sangan engine tries to fall back on. It can be aggressive or defensive, control or beatdown style. The only important thing is that it actually helps the rest of the deck. The tech in your main will be what defines the remaining slots in your extra deck.

If you want to run more than 5 tech cards, I recommend removing 1 Necro Gardna and/or 1 Limit Reverse. Which you do depends on what play style you have in mind.

A few of my favourite techs right now.

3 Wattdragonfly
2 Wattmeter Dragon
1 Honest (-1 Limit Reverse)
1 Magical Android

2 DD Warrior Lady
2 Spirit Reaper
1 Honest
1 Magical Android

3 Caius the Shadow Monarch
2 Battle Fader

3 Chaos End Master
2 Sphere of Chaos
1 Byser Shock (-1 Limit Reverse)
1 Honest (-1 Necro Gardna)
1 Magical Android

I have lots of others but these are my favourites right now. Caius and Fader is great for match-ups where the opponent plays explosively; Holy Marks for example. Fader's searchability prevents OTKs, which is awesome. The Watt engine is just a massive surprise; no one expects anything big from Wattdragonfly. As a bonus, Wattmeter Dragon is a normal monster, and thus has immunity to Fiendish Chain. Warrior Lady and Reaper can make for some awesome disruption plays, being useful both aggressively and defensively. Chaos End Master makes for instant Stardust or Scrap plays, is RotA searchable, and can be used with Honest to amazing effect.

Honest is awesome, although you need to run at least two more light monsters to make it worth it. It most definitely is worth it when you do though. Honest is the most powerful hand trap in the game, and is Sangan searchable. This can make for some explosive plays, especially when you drew BLS-EotB and are prepping an OTK. Magical Android must always go in the Extra Deck if you use Honest.

Because these deck defining cards only take up about five deck slots, it is possible to completely change your deck when it comes to Side-Decking. I almost always have the Caius engine sided, along with whatever other engines I feel would be useful. Being able to swap to a different deck at siding time can really throw an opponent off I find.

Staples in side deck are 2 D.D. Crow (for Inzektors and Wind-Up), 1 Mystical Space Typhoon (backrow heavy decks) and 2 Spirit Reaper (Dino-Rabbit). This leaves space for two engines, so you have the potential to switch between three different decks.

Any questions about this deck, feel free to message me on DN, but this I feel should cover the basics.

Peace.