Exciting things in 2012 - Flowcharts!

If you are reading this blog post, then you are probably on the internet. If you are on the internet, reading a yugioh blog, you may have come across this fancy little doo-dad on Konami's Official Yugioh-card website.

I'm not going to waste you guys' time explaining what this flowchart means, if you've made your way to my blog, I'm sure you have skipped over many that try to teach how you use the chart. Many people call it different things: Loss of priority, On summon ignition effects, "the OCG ruling", etc. Semantics are the only thing that is wrong here, as everyone has the same idea; that following nonchainable events (such as a normal summon), only spell speed 2 and higher effects can activate. The post on the Official Strategy Site tells us that these new rules will CHANGE HOW WE PLAY THE GAME. This is 100% true, but just how drastic of a metagame change are we talking about? Try not to get lost in the predictions from internet forums: Solemn Warning useless? Raigeki Break and Phoenix Wing Wind Blast everywhere? Triple Effect Veiler in every deck? The return of Salvo Chaos and anything else that can summon 3 Black Rose Dragons? Limitations removed from certain Ignition Effect Monsters and their support in September, ex. Dark Armed Dragon? Stun to win the next YCS? Trap Stun and Backrow destruction more relevant? The return of Xsabers? The first in a series of price drops on Maxx "C"? While many of these are...more true than others, it is important to not underestimate the strength of current decks. Yugioh is still a card game, and luck is a factor in winning. This Flowchart and Fast effects don't "kill cards." In my opinion, barring anti-monster decks, the new change gives us more outs to the same plays we expect to see every day. Will you draw that out every game? Of course not. Laggia and Dolkka may drop in price by a few dollars, but they are still just as playable against many of the popular decks today. You can imagine that many players will only have 1-2 extra Veiler in their main deck to stop a first turn Laggia. If that player was lucky enough to go first, they may have 4 additional cards, along with Veilers to stop Rescue Rabbit's effect. This 10~% increase in stunning power definitely helps, but Rescue Rabbit is far from obsolete because of this. The same can be said about all of our favorite monsters with Ignition effects, many decks simply have an increased chance in drawing an out to those cards. With luck on their side, this does give lower tier decks a chance to respond to more powerful themes and archetypes. Adding a couple Raigeki Break to something like Fabled will make them a bit more relevant. No deck (outside of stun) will jump into the competitive scene because of this Fast effectchange, but luck is a huge factor here. We are actually in a format where great tech wins YCS competitions, so, if anything, this may add a bit of variety to popular builds. Will anything change in my decks? Probably not, though I may add an extra Effect Veiler into my side. If Maxx "C" is shifted to the side deck in favor of Effect Veiler, I may test Fabled once again. Other than that, I am not willing to resurrect older decks (like Koa'ki) despite the Fast Effect ruling. However, post GAOV and HA06, I will definitely try out some new things.

Quickee Post: eBay auctions!?

As a few of you already know, I started (re)playing Yugioh at the The Shining Darkness Sneak Peak in May of 2010. Almost two years later, I have amassed a few trinkets and shinies for the Yugioh TCG, and I am ready to share what I have with the rest of the playerbase. I don't need to trade for much any more, so the only option is to sell. Like any average joe schmuck, you can find me on eBay now.

User: epyonsan

I will try my best to created an up-to-date roster of items I am selling somewhere on this site. Perhaps a sidebar? Maybe it will be a page? For now, you can use the link or search for my name to see which cards I am selling.

This is a short list of "haves" that will find their way onto eBay soon:
SR Fiendish Chain
SR Inzektor Hornet
SCR Xyz Reborn
SR Yellow Gadget
SCR Tour Bus of the Underworld
UTR Inzektor Giga-Mantis
UTR Dark Hole
UTI Colossal Fighter
UTR Scrap Dragon
SCR Black Rose Dragon
R Skill Drain
and more as I get it.

Have any questions? Just email me at veedotme@gmail.com.

Light Pulsar

Since the end of the format, around January, I have been on a "testing spree" of sorts. With Lancer Frogs slowly losing my interest, I was having trouble finding a new deck to play for 2012. My locals are somewhat diverse, with Inzektor being the most popular deck, and very little Wind-up and Dino-Rabbit to worry about. The rest of the deck attendance consists of Dark Worlds, Glad Beasts, Samurai, Dragons and other "custom" decks. The biggest one, Dragons, have only emerged from massive collections of Structure Deck: Dragon's Collide. I have seen so many variations of the deck in the last few weeks. Some use Lightsworn monsters and mill to win. Some use Ninja Grandmaster Hanzo for consistency. After a lot of deliberation, I too have a Chaos Dragon deck.

As I was saying, there are so many variations of Chaos Dragon that every deck you will see is going to be different (until someone tops a YCS with it).
A) Do I use Darkflare Dragon and how many?
B) Do I use Lightsworn?
C) High monster count? Low trap count?
D) Should I fit in 2 Hanzo and 2 Super-transformation? What about other non-dragon tech like Chaos Sorcerer, Tragoedia, Gorz, Summoner Monk, Herald of Creation, Thunder King, Effect Veiler, Honest, Kycoo, Doomcaliber Knight, Armageddon Knight, etc?
E) What other boss dragons do I use? Prime Material? Dark Horus? White-Horned Dragon? Blue-eyes White Dragon?
F) Gold Sarc? Duality? Upstarts? Card Trooper? Shard of Greed? How badly should I dig for Future Fusion?

I had all of these questions too when I built my "version" of Chaos Dragons. The only thing I can suggest is to test, test, test to see what you're comfortable with and play that. In my opinion, there are only 3 workable versions of Chaos Dragons:
1) High Monster count (26+) Lyla Dragons.
2) Mid-to-low monster count (21 and lower) High-tech Dragons.
3) Mid Monster count Super-Transform Dragons.
And mixtures between the three.
All versions of the deck are capable of beating the top 3 decks of the format (probably with Future Fusion's help), but what sets each deck apart is their normal summons and hand traps.
In Lyla Dragons, one good mill can win you the game. You also have an equal chance to mill all spells and traps and not get those Chaos pieces you needed. There is also a chance to mill your best boss drops(BLS, DAD, REDMD) without having a ready means to get them back (Light Pulsar Dragon, Divine Dragon Apocralyph, Monster Reincarnation, etc). Ryko and Lyla are decent normal summons, but they don't work against every deck. Lyla's ability to force the activation of a trap card is a great set-up for a boss-drop. When you have no follow-up to her ability, then you will end your turn with nothing but a 200def monster and 3 extra cards in your grave. Ryko on the other hand doesn't mind sitting on the field. Unless they have Inzektor Hornet or Evolsaur Dolkka, you're bound to destroy something. As a first turn set, you're probably trading monsters, which isn't as useful in Chaos Dragons as you may think(Unless it was a Laggia or equally hate-filled effect monster). Most threats involve non-attacking cards like Inzektor Hornet's effect and traps like Solemn Warning, Fiendish Chain and Mirror Force. Whenever Ryko misses a chance to destroy these, I consider it a waste. Therefore, I feel that Lyla Dragons are only as good as their milling, just like Lightsworn. The difference here is that the Dragon deck has monsters that can summon themselves from the grave, whereas Lightsworn need to return those cards to the hand or use Lumina to get them to the field.

Ninja Dragon decks solve one of the biggest problems I have with Dragon's Collide: the dark count. Dark monsters are usually feared in Yugioh, but as actual support to the dragon theme, it seems to be lacking. Every deck will automatically include 3 darks; Red-eyes Darkness Metal Dragon. The rest of the darks you will PROBABLY see at your locals are Dark Armed Dragon, Chaos Sorcerer, Gorz, and Darkflare Dragon...all monsters that require a set-up to play. So what other darks are even worth using?
Vice Dragon
Axe Dragonute
Divine Dragon Apocralyph
Darkfire Dragon (Instant Fusion)
Interplanetarypurplythorny Dragon
Anything that isn't a Dragon?
D.D. Crow
Spirit Reaper
Kycoo the Ghost Destroyer
Doomcaliber Knight
Armageddon Knight
Necro Gardna
Tour Guide of the Underworld
Sangan
Inzektors
etc etc

Out of all the generic darks out there, it is easy to see how helpful Grandmaster Hanzo is. He is Dark, his normal summon will thin out your deck, he has 1800 atk to get over Guaiba, Lyla, and other monsters not named Rai-oh, and if he stays on the field past your End phase, he will apply pressure to your opponent. A successful Hanzo will actually remove 2 cards from your deck and 1 from the opponent's side of the field at the cost of 1 card. You lose 1 card in your hand to summon Hanzo and you get Super Transform for free. Once you use Transform, both you and your opponent lose a monster, then you gain a new one from your deck). Depending on what your opponent summoned, You will probably want to super-transform as soon as possible. Just be careful not to allow your opponent to make an Xyz or anything else non-targettable. Perhaps the best part about Super Transform is that it has 0 cost to activate! That's right, if you thought it wasn't good because they can chain MST, then your worries are over; sending the monsters on both sides of the field to the graveyard happens in the resolution of Super-Transform. Even if your opponent has Macro Cosmos on the field, you can activate and resolve the card completely.

With all of these fine points, the ninja build (in my opinion) has the potential to be the best. Perhaps it is not even correct to call it a "Ninja Dragon" deck because we only care about Hanzo as a Dark target. Perhaps Hanzo is just THE best non-dragon dark monster available, and we splash him into Lightsworn and/or Lighsworn-less builds.

Which brings me to Lightswornless Chaos Dragons. This is what I play and feel the most comfortable with. The main idea of the build is to remove the luck factor that Lyla, Ryko, Charge, Ehren, etc bring with Dragon's Collide and replace it with (light) monsters that are relevant to the meta. Of course, let's not assume that LS Dragons can't play the best Light monsters; and let's not say that LS-less decks can't tech or side Ryko and Lyla. Non-LS builds have the ability to include traps, which make winning a lot easier than relying solely on Future Fusion or excellent mills. You can easily side with both decks, but in LS-less decks, you can main more of the things you would typically side against the top decks. For example, I main 1 D.D. Crow, 1 Spirit Reaper, 1 Thunder King, 2 Effect Veiler, and Honest.

The LS build can play these too, most likely at the cost of a few spell/trap slots. Most likely, those anti-meta cards will work against most competitive decks. For those that aren't too fazed by it, you can side into OTHER Light's and Darks that will affect their deck. Typically, I replace Crow for another Spirit Reaper against things that don't need the graveyard, and vice-versa for things that do. Tkings and Veilers can become Cyber Dragons. Sangan and Honest can become Doomcaliber or another Tking. We even have Electric Virus and Victoria for anything that runs Dragon monsters. Excessive siding is often a little difficult to do with so many single and double copies of cards. I typically go for the same cards to remove when I have to side for games 2 and 3:
Sangan
Reaper/D.D. Crow
Honest
Effect Veilers
1 Apocralyph
Solemn Judgment
Solemn Warning
Torrential Tribute
Book of Moon
Foolish Burial

All of those above cards are in the deck because of how universally good they are in game 1. The only side possible with this deck is to take out redundant, generic cards for things that are disruptive to the opposing duelist's entire deck. My side needs a LITTLE work, but so far, I am pretty confident in it:
2 Maxx "C"
1 Thunder King Rai-oh
1 D.D. Crow
1 Ryko, Lightsworn Hunter
2 Electric Virus
1 Spirit Reaper
1 Cyber Dragon
2 Skill Drain
2 Chain Disappearance
1 Torrential Tribute
1 Mystical Space Typhoon

As far as my deck is concerned, you can see that 21 monsters is EXTREMELY low for a Chaos Dragon deck.
Lights: The easiest part of the deck are the lights. Eclipse Wyvern counts for 2 lights and is one of the best cards in the deck. Unfortunately, I don't run 3 because it does not work with the build as a whole. Perhaps in Lightsworn variants or in a deck with more than 40 cards would it be possible. The only time I find myself wanting a 3rd Eclipse is when I have 1 in hand with Future Fusion. When that happens, you should really mill 4 Darks including Apocralyph and just play Dark Armed instead. Tking is one of the best 1st turn normal summons now and will almost guarantee a response from your opponent. Both of these are backed by Honest and can turn an easy attack from your opponent into frustration. Finally, even though Light Pulsar Dragon is one of the best Dragon's ever created, I am only using 2. With BLS, I only have 3 Chaos monsters in the entire deck. Yes there are some moments where you wish you could draw at least 1 of them. With all of the deck thinning from other cards, It usually works out just fine.

Darks: As you see, I don't play Darkflare Dragon. Even as a sideboard, I find it to be lacking. It is a Chaos monster, which is good, but it doesn't apply any of the pressure that a LPD can. The only use Darkflare has is to set up your grave for a potentially unseen play. You may have a wyvern in grave, attached to a Dark Armed that only requires 1 Darkflare to be live. Darkflare can almost disrupt the opponent's grave-based strategies too. The part I hate about it is that Darkflare's effect requires you to discard a Dragon monster. The discard is okay and Apocralyph proves it. Restricting the discard to Dragon-monsters kills his versatility. Instead of Darkflare, I tried Vice Dragons for a little while. They interact very well with REDMD, but as a turn 1 monster (and without REDMD to follow up), Vice doesn't provide much to the duel. After a lot of testing, I have resorted to 2 Axe Dragonute. Axe Dragonute can swing over most level 4 monster, and can do it every turn unlike most "Goblin Attack Force" style creatures. At 2000 ATK, he has great interaction with REDMD's summoning effect. When I side in Skill Drain against decks that require it, Axe Dragonute's presence increases. If you asked me months ago about using Axe Dragonute, I would have laughed at the thought. For now, until I get some Hanzo to try, Axe Dragonute has cemented his position in the deck.

Quickee Post: Ruling battle!

Rulings on the local level are usually a lot of fun. Everyone is on the same "level" of authority, regardless of your tournament prowess or judging experience. The key here at locals is that most players will only listen to the tournament organizer, or the general consensus. As a tournament organizer, players can feel confident when they come to you for a ruling; especially true if you have a laptop and WiFi! As "just another guy with a 3G phone", your word is only as good as the number of people around you who will agree with what you say. In a game that can be as complex as Yugioh, even the words printed on the cards can't be trusted by some players. The only way to reach these type of players is with cited proof of game mechanics.

Inzektor with multiple equipped cards
Until we receive any notice about the issue; when equip cards leave an Inzektor such as Centipede and Dragonfly at different times, yet on the same chain, that Inzektor will be able to activate it's effect for each instance of a detached equip spell card. However, it is very important to remember that Heavy Storm on those monsters, with multiple cards equipped to them, will only cause 1 search/special summon.

Example: Inzektor Dragonfly is equipped with Inzektor Hornet and Gigamantis. Hornet can be sent to the graveyard to activate the effect, destroying the equipped Gigamantis. Afterwards, a new chain starts between Gigamantis and 2 activations of Inzektor Dragonfly.

Source

Snowman Eater doesn't start a chain!?
This was a heated debated on the internet thanks to the YCS rumor mill. Similar to Hornet and Shi En, this was debunked thanks to Facebook. Snowman Eater's effect starts a chain and applicable monsters can negate the activation of that effect during the Damage Step.

Source

Monsters can not activate effects in the damage step unless they specifically say so...right?
For this, I really tried to turn to the rule book for some clarification. Unfortunately, the rule book didn't actually specify the use of Monster's Quick Effects during the damage step! Even worse, is that I am having trouble finding and ruling questions on the Official TCG Judge Forum about Quick Effects and the Damage Step. I can only trust that most players know by now that Monsters with Quick effects (spell speed 2) that negate effects can activate during the damage step. The (Unofficial) Yugioh Wikia has a nice breakdown of the Damage Step.

The only solace I can give you are some questions to think about:
Can Stardust Dragon negate the activation of Ally of Justice - Catastor?
Can Tytannial, Princess of Camelias negate the activation of Ryko, Lightsworn Hunter?
Can Herald of Perfection negate the activation of Battle Fader from the opponent's hand?

March 2012 Forbidden and Limited List

February is coming to a close and you know what that means. The sun is shining here in New England. Woodland creatures are awakening from their hibernation. Shamrocks are hanging from businesses even though St. Patrick's day is a ways away. Car Dealerships are practically giving away vehicles for President's Day. And Konami giveth and taketh away our beloved cards. If you have been on any website involving Yugioh, you may have heard some angst amongst your fellow players. You may even have friends who are claiming to take a Yugioh vacation until September! They say this every year; don't worry, you'll see them in May. As a relatively new player, this is my first list that actually spun my head around. Question is, is it a good head-spin or bad head-spin?

http://www.yugioh-card.com/en/limited/

Newly Limited:
Glow-Up Bulb
Spore
Trishula, Dragon of the Ice Barrier - was limited
Trap Dustshoot - was limited

Limited:
The Agent of Mystery - Earth
T.G. Striker

Semi-Limited:
Lumina, Lightsworn Summoner - was limited
Marshmallon - was limited
Reborn Tengu
Emergency Teleport - was limited
Level Limit Area B - was limited
Shien's Smoke Signal - was limited
Torrential Tribute - was limited
Ultimate Offering

Newly Unlimited:
Call of the Haunted


So at first glance, you, I and the rest of the internet think of some very specific things:
1) Why weren't Wind-Ups hit?
2) Why weren't Inzecktor hit?
3) Why is the only world premiere card on the list Reborn Tengu?
4) Why kill the plant archetype completely?
5) Why the hit to Tech Genus?
6) Why limit so many cards last year, then semi-limit them this year?

Some people believe that the this list was designed to cripple generic synchro decks (Plants and T.G.) while making Xyz monsters and theme-specific Synchros the focus of the metagame. Some people believe that the current game state, with secret rare prices at an all-time high and the anticipation of reprints drives the  F&L list. Many people actually say that Konami knows more counters to our meta than we do; and with this list, older decks with some unknown technology can actually beat ZeXal decks.  We have a ton of new product being released this year, as well as new technology being uncovered every day. Perhaps the real answer to this list is that, by June, we will have so many potential tier 1 decks and cards to counter Hunter, Tour guide, and Hornet.

Just looking at YCS Atlanta, it is clear that the most popular decks are Wind-ups and Dino Rabbit.  With the new list, a few more decks get a boost in playability:
Six Samurai
Psychic
Lightsworn

Barring Lightsworn, Six Samurai and Psychic are 2 decks that have the benefit of running great tech without losing important card slots. Lightsworn have luck on their side and enough hand traps to stay in the game. No one wants to lose their whole hand or get Raigeki'd on turn 2, but there are sooooooo many cards now that can increases your chances of surviving:

Shadow-Imprisoning Mirror ***
Maxx "C" ****
Effect Veiler ****
Cyber Dragron **
Chaos Hunter **
Royal Prison ***
Skill Drain ****
Lava Golem **
2 Tragoedia ***
Ninjitsu Art of Super Transformation ***
D.D. Crow ****
Gozen Match ***
Rivalry of Warlords ****
Fiendish Chain ****
Compulsory Evacuation Device ***
Prohibition **
Marshmallon ****
Spirit Reaper ****

And that doesn't even include the biggest threat to Dino Rabbits and Wind-ups: Huge and Indestructible  monsters.

As scary as the format looks, I really think the key is in your own tech and side deck. A lot of people forget that, even though Wind-up, Inzektor, and Rabbit all have very consistent, powerful strategies; the sheer number of participates at YCS Atlanta brings the top 32 down to probability. The F&L list doesn't change TOO much about the game except for removing Tengu Plants(and a few Agent decks at your locals) from the equation. I wouldn't get your hopes up about banning Wind-up Hunter and limiting Inzektor Hornet until June, after we get Hidden Arsenal 6, Galactic Overload, Battle-pack epic dawn, a possible TCG Exclusive starter deck, Shooting Quasar Dragon, Slifer(Osiris), and the ton of other products this year.