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.

New Ban List

So I have not updated in a long time. This is a mixture of laziness and the fact that I got rather bored of the current meta. Only decks I've really been playing recently are Watts and some other fun stuff I've got up here already. Except for a LaDD Photon build that I could probably post here, but I digress. This post is inspired by what is all but confirmed to be the March ban list.


Forbidden Cards 「禁止カード」:

Glow-Up Bulb 「グローアップ･バルブ」
Spore 「スポーア」
Trishula, Dragon of the Ice Barrier 「氷結界の龍　トリシューラ」
Trap Dustshoot 「ダスト・シュート」

Restriction Cards 「制限カード」:

Tech Genus Striker 「ＴＧ－ストライカー」
Agent of Mystery, Earth 「神秘の代行者 アース」

Semi-Restriction Cards 「準制限カード」:

Marshmallon 「マシュマロン」
Lumina, Lightsworn Summoner 「ライトロード･サモナー　ルミナス」
Emergency Teleport 「緊急テレポート」
Shien's Smoke Signal 「紫炎の狼煙」
Level Limit Area B 「レベル制限Ｂ地区」
Torrential Tribute 「激流葬」
Ultimate Offering「血の代償」
Reborn Tengu 「Reborn Tengu」

No longer restricted 「準制限」:

Call of the Haunted 「リビングデッドの呼び声」


(Source)


Bans:
Glow-Up Bulb: This hit is just another whack to hurt the Plant engine. Also hits Piper and Quickdraw somewhat, or anything that mills and splashes it in, but Plants are what this was aimed at.
Spore: Another hit to the Plant engine. It can be assumed that the engine is dead now. Spore never really had a use outside said engine to my knowledge.
Trishula, Dragon of the Ice Barrier: Just to hit synchros and promote Xyzs as far as I know. Maybe a minor hit to Wind-Ups, I see them drop it every now and then. I'll miss it, but card was broke if I'm honest with myself. Shame Mist Wurm sucks so much in comparison, but I guess its back.
Trap Dustshoot: Cool. I didn't like this card, it was sacky and if opened ensured game like 90% of the time. Good riddance.


Now I don't have any real problems with those hits. They're fair enough. What irks me slightly is Monster Reborn didn't get re-banned, I really don't like it sticking around and it deserves it. Mind Control also does, but I can live with it. These could have been much worse.



Limits:

The Agent of Mystery - Earth: Not that bothered, Agents were extremely broke in the OCG. I think they got off lightly tbh, was expecting Venus to be hit.
T.G. Striker: I /think/ that this was another hit on Agents. Don't know for sure. I also think its rather dumb though if I'm honest, the card really wasn't that broken and its not as if it makes Trish plays anymore. Someone tell me if I'm missing something please.



This is a lot smaller than usual. Considering the number of problem cards in our meta I mean, I was expecting rather a longer ban list than just these.


Semi-Limits:
Marshmallon: Yeah this is fine, its barely relevant these days. Spirit Reaper is far superior because it actually has offensive capabilities and can stop Dino-Rabbit.
Lumina, Lightsworn Summoner: Very interesting, and it being moved to here is probably partially responsible for Trish and Bulb being banned looking over it. Lightsworn might have the capacity to become more relevant with this, certainly more so than 3 JD made them.

Emergency Teleport: Not sure on this. It'll probably see abuse in Wind-Up, but its not as if its hard to spam LV3 monsters in that anyway. I don't consider it too threatening.
Shien's Smoke Signal: Cool. LSS have three quick searchers now, that's fine with me.
Level Limit - Area B: This could have gone to 3, its in the same boat as Marshmallon. Xyzs bypass it, and there's 2 MST + Heavy in most people's decks. Stall doesn't work that way for the most part these days anyway, its all chainables.
Torrential Tribute: I don't recall any deck that runs this outside of Anti-Meta variants. I'm fine with this, makes swarming more worrying.
Ultimate Offering: Offering Gadget just got hit I guess. I don't recall it doing anything anyway, so not sure I understand this one, but I'm fine with it mostly because I never liked Offering Gadget anyway.

Reborn Tengu: Okay, this is a point where I voice some actual dislike of the list. Konami has proven that they'll hit TCG exclusive cards, which I like. But this hit is really idiotic.

I mean, don't get me wrong. Tengu has been OP for a long time now and I'd totally understand the hit on any list but this one. But there are much, much bigger problem cards that are TCG exclusive than Tengu at the moment. The obvious format definer being Tour Guide from the Underworld, which is absent. More on that shortly.


Unlimited:
Call of the Haunted: I was only expecting this if Sangan or Dandy were banned. Don't think it'll make much impact though, its not broken at all these days.


Right, now, I've gone through the list and only had a problem with two hits. On the whole that's less than I expected to have a problem with when I started doing this, only two hits were actually dumb. And yet I am still confident in saying that this is probably the worst banlist I have ever seen from Konami.


Inzektors have been untouched. Not that I'm saying that it should have been killed, I was thinking some fairly minor hit like Dragonfly or Hornet to 2. That way they were still playable but less consistent. But if anything I think this list has actually made them stronger by banning Trishula, a common way to deal with Hornet.


The Wind-Up loop has been untouched. Now Wind-Ups outside the loop I'll reserve judgement on. I know they can spam like crazy, but it doesn't seem like something that couldn't be handled. On the other hand, with the loop, having to go through six months of opening with 1 card hands when facing them is rather discouraging to say the least.


Rabbit Dino has been untouched. I'll be honest and say this one doesn't bother me too much by its-self, the deck was tier 1 but fairly manageable, but it nonetheless irks me that it was left alone as well.



My biggest problem though, as mentioned earlier, is Tour Guide wasn't hit. Konami proved that they can hit TCG exclusives by hitting Reborn Tengu, and then left Tour Guide from the Underworld, a card that defines the TCG meta, alone. Promoting Xyzs is one thing, but that's pretty sad to me.



Plants were on their way out of the TCG anyway. They weren't dominating like they used to. If I faced them on DN I was usually happy, because I could usually beat them with my decks.


Agents weren't even tier 1 here anymore. They were still good, but outclassed by a lot of stuff and not really that relevant to the TCG meta anymore.


These are the only two decks that really got hit.


I can live with this, and I plan to. I'm not going to quit over this list, I'm going to accept it and play on. But this list, in terms of the TCG meta, changed almost nothing. And since I was tired of this format, and wanted new things, that's incredibly disappointing.



ty for reading.