"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.