Lack of Updates!?

Sorry that I haven't been updating very often. Been swamped with work because of the holiday season. Soon I'm going to give a been post about the Beast-type and how Unicorn Synchro is supposed to work. Hopefully I'll get some time on Thursday to make a thorough post about it.

Various things.

I don't have TOO much to talk about today. So I'll give a little bit of updates. I did take Divine Armageddon to locals last week and got into top 8. I lost to D.fissure Glads and to AbZero, which was 100% my fault. The deck works very well and I was able to beat what I thought was the worst matchup for it - Quickdraw Plants. You can tell that D.A. works because a lot of time I will have 4-6 cards in my hand while my opponent is playing multiple cards per turn, all of which get nuked by Black Rose or Demise during my next turn. But as I was saying, I did lose to D.Fissure Glads (a deck I always seem to lose to), so D.A.'s side deck needs some tweaking. Right now it uses the generic deck-hating side that the Koaki deck runs, but since Koakis don't have a dedicated harmful card like other decks do, it can side cards to use solely AGAINST decks. D.A. requires a side deck that can not only punish the opponent for using a tier 1 deck, but also stop the cards used to side against itself (Macro). I did the same with Unicorn Synchro, the side-deck is no longer "tier 1-hate", it is now complementary. So basically, I will have to find cards that can replace the Salvo Destruction engine and play into the opponent's Macro Cosmos. So far, the only things I've come up with is siding into the Demise-Garland build, with Escape from the Dark Dimension and Return from the D.D.

Speaking of Unicorn synchro, real life testing hasn't been going to well. Deck hurdles are important to think about with any new deck, especially one that you can't just find on the internet. Decks suffer from pretty much the same things, just some are more important than others. It can be overcoming enemies with high ATK power(monarchs), holding comparable field advantage(Sabers, Samurai), dealing with monster effects (Herald, Quickdraw), Backrow vulnerability(Stun, Macro) and a multitude of other things. From what I've gathered so far, Unicorn Synchro has 2 serious contenders. Those are Effect Negation (Skill Drain) and it has a serious Backrow Vulnerability. Monsters aren't usually an issue with the deck's synchro performance, so we had to take out a few of the trap cards that are designed for monster-stun. Most of this has been replaced by more offensive cards, as Unicorn Synchro is a surprisingly offensive deck, though many effects activate when your monster is killed. The way the deck is played is beginning to show more and more. You take hits, and burst back. Unicorn MK II needs more testing, but I feel that we are fast on the track of the correct build.

Lastly, a small tournament in Japan had a top 4 winning Naturia deck, which is great because "Naturals" are fun cards and I would love to give them a try. Though Naturia Cliff is not out yet, Naturia Cherry was released in STBL, and that is part of the Natural arsenal. Cherry is your fuel, Cliff is your grabber, Antjaw and Bambooshoot are the win condition. Besides those 3 cards, the only thing else you really need is to stop your opponent's monsters. So the rest of the deck is mostly monster stun. This is a look at the deck that topped. DISCLAIMER: I do not condone netdecking. It is difficult to find originality in a pool of 3000 items, but playing a deck strictly because it wins prizes is my definition of "netdecking."

x1 Giant Rat x1 Medusa Worm x1 Morphing Jar x3 Bambooshoot x2 Naturia Butterfly(DT07) x3 Naturia Cliff (DT05) x3 Des Lacooda (Not sure the reasoning behind this) x1 Monster Reborn x1 Swords of Revealing Light x3 Duality x1 Trunade x3 Dark Bribe x2 Bottomless x2 Grave of the Super Ancient Organism x1 Mirror Force x1 Solemn Judgement x2 Solemn Warning x1 Wall of Revealing Light x1 Royal Oppression x1 Trap Stun x3 Fiendish Chain (hate this card) x1 Starlight Road x3 Red Screen (excessive if you ask me)

Thats a whopping 21 trap cards. Some of the cards I do not necessarily agree with, but it worked for this guy/gal.

Nordic Beasts

In many many months, Konami will spring the next set upon us, Storm of Ragnarok (STOR). Of course it is a little silly to skip ahead so many months/packs, but Starstrike Blast just has nothing for me.

Storm of Ragnarok has a couple things going for it. One is the Meta-Destroying support Six Samurai are receiving. I'm sure a few people will quit YGO the moment the cards are released, but True Six Samurai suffer from the same problem the original Six Samurai do, mass destruction. Of course with My Body As A Shield or Starlight Road on the field, spamming 3-5 six samurais in 1 turn is game clinching. But without those 2 cards, decks that easily summon Black Rose Dragon (Or Demise in our case. Divine Armageddon!) destroys the player's advantage and makes it difficult for them to get their "tempo" back.

A few new themes get support, like Karakuri, Watts and Scraps. None of it is too defining, I think a lot of cards out now are powerful enough to make those 3 decks work. Blackwings also get a couple of new cards, most of which won't see any play.

The thing we ARE excited about are GOATS AND HORSES.

From left to right:
Tanngnjostr - When a monster you control is destroyed by battle and sent to the Graveyard, you can Special Summon this card from your hand. Once per turn, when this Defense Position card is changed to face-up Attack Position, you can Special Summon 1 "Nordic Beast" monster from your Deck, except "Tanngnjóstr of the Nordic Beasts".

Tanngrisnir - When this card is destroyed by battle and sent to the Graveyard, Special Summon 2 "Nordic Beast Tokens" (EARTH/Beast-Type/Level 3/ATK 0/DEF 0) in Defense Position.

Guldfaxe - If your opponent controls a Synchro Monster and you control no monsters, you can Special Summon this card from your hand.

This adds a 3rd Synchro engine to the beast lineup. We have Lockey, Scraps, and now Nordic Beasts. Obviously we won't use Guldfaxe for its effect, it will be just like Scrap beast and Airbellem, one of the main tuner targets of the deck. The 2 big cards are the goats Gnjostr and Grisnir. Grisnir gives you a better destruction effect that Nimble Momonga, and Gnjostr is the card that replaces Scrap Chimera, our synchro enabler. The best part is that both are searchable with MegaHamster and Giant Rat, unlike those scrap monsters. Of course, attack destruction effects are a tad slow nowadays, but the deck has to pack a bit of extra stun to keep your opponent at bay. Running triple Grisnirs means triple Super Rush Recklessly's may find their way back into the deck.

This is all barring the fact that we can use Thor in this deck, and Re-summon it from the grave twice.

Quickee Post - StarPSYCH Blast

Starstrike blast is days from US release. That's exciting right? Well unfortunately it is not. There are all of 3 cards from STBL that I actually want, and even them aren't too game-breaking.

Chain Dog - If you control exactly 2 face-up Beast-Type monsters, you can Special Summon this card from your Graveyard. If this card was Summoned this way, remove it from play when it is removed from the field. This card cannot be used as a Synchro Material Monster, except for the Synchro Summon of a Beast-Type monster. As you can see, the utility with Unicorn Synchro is there. You can easily Lock cat->Key mouse-> Chain dog and synchro for Tricorn. I believe Chain Dog is very good for general field presence; synchroing probably isn't necessary and should be left to emergencies.

Vanity's Emptiness - Neither player can Special Summon monsters. Destroy this card when a card is sent from the Deck or the field to your Graveyard. This card would be for Koakis. With oppression at 1, there's 1 less chance to nail Sabers and Glad Beasts in the brut of their offense. With "VanitE" we can stop tons of different plays the opponent can make. Boggart into Fullhelm? Emmersblade? Glad beast tag? Quickdraw? Treeborn? Debris Dragon? There are many decks that have plays you can stop with 1 flip of VanitE.

Archfiend Empress - If (exactly) 1 face-up DARK Fiend-Type monster on the field, except this card, would be destroyed, you can remove from play 1 DARK Fiend-Type monster from your Graveyard, instead. When this card is destroyed and sent from the field to the Graveyard, you can select 1 Level 6 or higher DARK Fiend-Type monster in your Graveyard, except "Archfiend Empress", and Special Summon it. If you can activate her first effect during the damage step, then fiend monsters cannot be destroyed by battle so long as you have fuel. Card effects will probably still hurt, but you would basically rely on Trap Stun and MBAAS for that. When Empress finally does leave the field, you get to summon Caius . There aren't too many other good targets for Empress to revive, but using her in tandem with RFTDD and EFTDD is awesome. A few targets are Caius, Ambitious Gofer, Belial, Synchro Fiends, Dark Necrofear, Gorz, and Yubel.

Northemise, Divine Armageddon

Earlier in the week a mentioned briefly around experimenting with Northwemko and Demise. I've played both decks, the Northy lock, and Demise Geartown OTK. Now we combined the best of both worlds. We removed the "lock" and the "one turn kill" to make it into a consistent deck that does what it does as much as it possibly can.

So as with any deck, D.A.(Divine Armageddon) has a win condition. That is to summon monsters like Demise and Blackrose to clear the opposition and attack life points directly. The deck lineup is:
Monsters: 24
Disk Magician x2
Genex Controller x2
Mechanical Chaser x3
Battle Fader x2
Black Salvo x2
Dekoichi x3
Gorz x1
Manju x3
Sangan x1
Sonic Bird x1
Demise x2
Northy x2
Spells: 12
ARA x1
Allure x1
Dark Hole x1
Gold Sarc x2
Monster Reborn x1
Pot of Avarice x2
Preparation of Rites x3
Ritual of Grace x1
Traps: 4
Call of the Haunted x1
Torrential Tribute x1
Trap Stun x2

As you see, the point of the deck is to use ARA in conjunction with Preparation of Rites to put Demise and Northy on the field together. As stated before, Northy won't be destroyed by Demise's effect, so while you take 2000 damage, your opponent takes 5100, which is a pretty fair trade off. To insure that this happens, there are 2 Trap Stuns that are always used before ANY card is played that turn. Then there are the Preps, which instantly summons Northy after a successful Demise summon. If Northy or ARA targets are in the grave, they are put back in with Pot of Avarice. If I fail to stop the opponent, the deck relies on Battle Fader and Gorz to keep the opponent at bay. If THAT can't happen, then we use Black Salvo to preemptively nuke the field. Against a classic T-set, Salvo is the perfect bait for Solemns and BTH. Afterward, you are free to Attack directly.

So what match-up does this not work against? One is decks like quickdraw and scraps to an extent. Decks that don't use much of a backrow, and also has 1 card synchros (Chimera into Dragon, Debris into anything). They don't have an advantage over D.A., they simply are not hurt as badly by the field destruction. But of course, against decks like that, we have other level 7 synchro targets like Scrap Archfiend. Another deck that can be a problem is pure Monarchs (no Absolute Zero). The problem with this deck is that with Monarchs in hand and Treeborn in the grave, it is very difficult to keep Demise and Northy on the field. Djinns destroy Monarchs, but this deck obviously has no way to perform rituals using them. The only real answer is side decking.