30/06/2012

Speedy Concept: Ojama HEROes

Just a concept, I once had a build that worked good, but I no longer have it, and totally forgot how it was, lol.
Use Stratos to search Prisma. Prisma helps going into Ojama fusions, eventually locking opponent's monster zones. Then, you could Miracle Fusion them going into Shining. Or, instead, there's Junk next turn to do some jobs.
Basically use Ojamas with Junk Synchron to go into Frozen Fitgerald most of times, but even catastor, magical android and likes are a possibility.
Super polymerization, just like every HERO deck controls opponent's field, but what's more you can use it to fuse with your ojamas (obvious stuff) or your opponent's ojama tokens if you're using Ojama Trio. Other than this, you can discard for his cost, Ojamagic. Super Poly counters pretty much everything, expecialy Evolzars.
DARK from Junk and LIGHT from Ojamas, means chaos, Chaos Sorcerer and BLS say hi. If you're worrying for only 3 dark monster you could add others, but don't forget that Junk's searchable via Tuning.
King of the Swamp is a card I love in here, searches polymerization after an Ojamagic usually to fuse 'em, or is itself a material for ojama fusions or an AZ material, the thing you should love the most.
Ojama Country let us change opponent's and our's monsters' stats. Now most of the monsters with high ATK have low DEF, meaning your opponent'll have little monsters, while you'll have your 3000 Ojama King. The thing that really does matter in this deck of this card is its reborn ability, discard ojamagic, SS Ojama, search other 3.
Well, this was only a concept, maybe I'll come up with a build one of these days, depends on how much time I have.

29/06/2012

Digital Mortal /// Speedy Fixes: Overdrive Monarch /// Hanoi's Tower

Digital Mortal: first of all I wanted to thank K'yde for naming me in the post regarding Gagaga Gunman, for my Gagaga FTK loop. I'll make a video to help lazy persons/persons that use mainly visual memory learning the combo. Check out his blog, Digital Mortal (even if a Shout Out of mine doesn't help at all, if someone stumbles in this article, make sure to check out his blog)

Overdrive Monarch: Ufficial name is Overdrive Monarch now. Just a couple of little fixes on the deck of the previous post.
I added Miracle Synchro Fusion, if you know how to use it, it won't even conflict with Treeborn if you decide to set it.
In exchange I took out a Tragoedia. Then I took out another Tragoedia (I really don't like it, it's pretty unuseful) for a Creature Swap, I used it the most to open bricks in giant wall with cards like Zenmaines with Treeborn Frog.

In the Extra I took out Leviair and Leviathan (sad choice, but I was never palying them since they didn't helped comboeing with Cleric) for a BRD (which I felt the need a lot of times) and, of course, Ultimate Axon Kicker for Miracle Synchro Fusion. It won me games and games.

Hanoi's Tower: I tried it yesterday night at a friend of mine's house, I used all of the 12 rings and I won. Just random thing, it was a revenge over a friend that said that without the manual to learn how it should be cleared, I wouldn't be able to solve it.
Nothing more.

28/06/2012

Beta Overdrive Frog Monarch

Uh? Are you saying that I'm doing too much post on this deck? Probable, but I said that if I didn't find a deck that I could mantain for a long time I would grow bored more than I'm now, so this isn't necessary a bad thing, what's more I said, promised, that I would post the decklist, so it was.



Monsters: [29]
3 Battle Fader
3 Caius the Shadow Monarch
2 Esper Girl
1 Gorz
3 Hushed Psychic Cleric
1 Mental Seeker
3 Overdrive Teleporter
3 Psychic Commander
1 Ronintoadin
2 Serene Psychic Witch
3 Swap Frig
2 Tragoedia
2 Treeborn Frog

Spells: [11]
1 Dark Hole
2 Emergency Teleport
3 Enemy Controller
1 Foolish Burial
1 Heavy Storm
1 Monster Reborn
2 Mystical Space Typhoon


I noticed how Extra Deck is totally personal, so I won't list. If you're curious or you don't know what to put in, look at my Extra.

However, the only cards I'll never change in number/drop will be Fader, Caius, Gorz, Cleric, Swap, Treeborn, obvious staples, E-Con, Teleport, Burial and Typhoon.

Why? Except from staples, Fader is awesome, same for E-Con, Teleport, Caius, Burial and Swap. Gorz is essential, when you're losing or you drew into nothing, this card can win you games too, Cleric is needed in 3 copies because you're going to combo a lot with here, I even started with 3 of her for some unlucky rounds, but she was awesome however, since you could combo however and provide good tribute fodders for tribute monsters, mainly Overdrive. Typhoon at two is kinda awesome, since it won't clog and you'll have the perfect number (3 with heavy) for your backrow hate.

I was thinking of adding Synchro Fusions, Ultimate Axon Kicker and Exterio, to be precise, but maybe they'll be a bit situational. Exterio is surely situational, not hard to summon, but since you have Beast and Barkion on the field you won't use them for Exterio, probably. What's more the Extra Deck is tight, if you look closely there isn't BRD, I'm going to add it at Gaia's place. I wanted to find a slot for Axon Kicker in the Extra, in the main I could simply drop 1 Tragoedia, but the problem is in the Extra.
There's one thing in the Extra I noticed, for some reason I never used R3 XYZs, maybe I could drop them and put in an Axon and one more synchro, maybe BRD in order to keep Gaia.
The reason why I don't want to drop gaia is that he's the only that will let us OTK. Strangely, even if comboeing in a nice way, it's pretty hard to OTK with this deck, one of the most probable cases is with the combo I said in the previous post, summoning Librarian, Gaia and Red Dragon Archfiend, right 8000 damages, but the opponent have to have a clear field, that's why I'd prefer going into a control combo, Beast+Barkion+Stardust, that's 7200, but given that you're drawing with Esper Girl you could draw into an Emergency Teleport and win attacking this way, OR going into Librarian+Brionac (to bounce threats)+Stardust/Scrap (based on how much you have to destroy), 7500 damges, 2 draws with Librarian and 2 total draws with Esper, and 3 discards with cleric, you have some probabilities to draw into some Reborn/Emergency Teleport and win.

When playing this deck you should take care of 2 things, take down opponent's backrow the most possible AND don't forget nothing. Personally I lost 2 duels last night because I did the wrong combo the first time and because I forgot to resummon stardust, that because I was sleepy, lol. However playing on Dueling Network and playing IRL is lot different, you won't forget stardust while playing IRL, while on Dueling Network it is kinda easy.

That should be all, if you have some questions, just ask. See Ya.

27/06/2012

Overdrive Frog Monarch?

I was trying something with Overdrive Teleporter, and, you know I love challenges, I made a build that features a little Frog engine (3 swaps, 2 treeborns and 1 ronintoadin), and triple caius.

Are you asking why? Oh, you say you aren't asking why? I'll explain however.
I love frog engine, it generates really easy tribute fodders for our monarchs, and in this case teleporter, too. Making the life easy for caius is really good, since it could run over threats that your backrow hate (2 MST and 1 heavy storm, not really an "hate", but there's still some), like some nasty rai-ohs and other things like that.
What's more, swap helps with Overdrive. We said that recycling him isn't easy, because the only way is ptolemys, and his main weakness is veiler, one of the most played card in this format. If veiler hits Overdrive, what will we do? Just cry over our 2000 lps and tribute fodder? I won't, go with swap to bounce it back and re-use him next turn.
Then, what other does the frog engine provide us? I believe it provides a good and hard-to-stop defence, the one in the hand, fader and gorz, with tragoedia too. What's more, Gorz usually provides the big monsters for the final pushes, while fader provides tribute fodder, and tragoedia can help in both things, basing on luck, while manipulating its own level or stealing opponent's monster. With Tragoedia there are a lot of lolly plays, one I like is stealing an opponent's lv6 monster discarding caius, and then copying is level to XYZ. This can be done with any level that has an XYZ that requires 2 monsters.
Other than this, in pretty much any duel I did, I saw how good was Enemy Controller. I play it in 3 copies, and stops everything. One of the move I did the most is stealing an opponent's rai-oh tributing treeborn to tribute him to go into a teleporter and combo.

Then, this deck has good potentials, because it isn't hard to make naturia beast+naturia barkion-Stardust Dragon plays and stop the opponent, if you just have a little set-up, nothing really hard to get, you will be able. In most cases it is done with an Esper Girl in grave (or in hand, but if needs at least a psychic monster in the grave), a Teleporter in hand and a Cleric on the field, with 2 discard fodder in hand:
Eff Cleric, discard a card (or Esper if you have another Psychic monster in grave) to banish Esper Girl
Tribute Cleric for Overdrive, then Cleric's effect will trigger summoning an esper girl and banishing the top card
Eff Overdrive, SS a Cleric and a Commander/level 3 psychic tune
Eff Cleric, discard to banish the first Cleric
Synchro Cleric+Esper into Beast, Cleric's and Esper's effect will trigger and you'll SS Cleric
Eff Cleric, discard to banish Esper
Synchro Cleric+Commander/lv3 tuner into Barkion
Cleric's effect wil trigger, and you'll SS Esper that will banish top card.
Esper+Overdrive into Stardust, Esper's effect will trigger and you'll add the banished card.

Esper will let you draw 2 cards in the process, but you'll discard 3 for Cleric, but given the order in which they happen, you need 2 cards in hand, other than Overdrive. That's not that big of a set-up, and it ends the turn with a big field. The combo can be changed in order to draw more (summoning librarian instead of beast), and since you're going to draw some more cards it isn't improbable that you'll draw into an Emergency Teleport and you'll win. You could even go into Scrap Dragon to do more damages and into brionac to bounce nasty cards.I believe that with the same set-up you can end with a winning field with more than 8000 damages if opponent has a clear field, going into Hyper Psychic Blaster, Gaia and Librarian, right 8000 lps.

I'm seaching slots for veilers, but for some reason I don't like them, even if they are good. I don't like them means that I really don't like them, not that they are no good, probably right now they're the best carsd to be played.

I believe this was all, if I have other updates on the deck, I'll post them. I'll post a beta decklist, too, if not today, I'll do it tomorrow.

25/06/2012

Card of the Week #6: Overdrive Teleporter

This card cannot be Special Summoned. You can pay 2000 Life Points to Special Summon 2 Level 3 Psychic-Type monsters from your Deck. This effect can only be used once while this card is face-up on the field.

Random Rulings:

1."This card cannot be Special Summoned" is not an effect, therefore not avoidable, not negable with Skill Drain or things like that.

2.Paying Life Points is cost.

Explanation? Not at all, it's not needed, at least if you want to check out something about costs you can see this other post.

Seeing this card closely we'll notice (from an objective point of view) that:

-He's LIGHT, easy material for BLS, probably, and other random supports;
-He's Level 6, can be useful for a lot of stuff, we'll see that later;
-He's Psychic-Type, Psychic supports for life points, but even for synchros that need a Psychic-type non-tuner, but I doubt this will be useful, except for a case I'll be sure to talk about later;
-He's got decent stats, 2100 runs over good level 4 monsters, but under a lot of easily summonable boss monsters. Sadly 1200 isn't enough to face Maestroke, mainly.

Leaving aside the Objective part of the review, we could say that this card is like a Psychic Monarch. That's not totally wrong, yeah, Monarch generally have 2400 ATK, this one as 2100, but still he is level 6, and this is what really make a monarch a monarch (even if there's an exception, but doesn't matter, LOL). We'll see why I mentioned them later.

Putting aside the big cost for the effect, that could be avoided with Telekinetic Charging Cell or Brain Research Lab, he's effect is awesome, is basically a double emergency teleport, only that he's frozen on lv3 and no other levels.

What could we do with the summoned monsters?
-XYZ into a rank 3 monster, knowing banishing properties of Psychic, it will be more likely Leviair;
-Synchro them into a level 6 synchro, if you summon 2 EARTH monsters you could even go into Barkion and have some protection;
-Synchro one of them with Teleporter and go into Hyper Blaster and use the other one for various sheningans;
-Use both's effect to do various abuses, it isn't totally hard;
-Use both to go into a Level 6 Synchro, maybe brionac to get rid of cards, attack, then XYZ them both into Photon Strike Bounzer to control more or into Constellar Ptolemys M7 to retrieve something, maybe Teleporter itself to Tribute Summon him using Bounzer itself as tribute and repeat the combo.

I like the last one, but probably it isn't totally good, but could be used when needed, not multiple times because of the 2000 LPs cost. If you have followed recent updates on the Monarch scene or you simply saw Illusion Snatch, you probably thinked of the easy loop of going into a monarch, summoning Illusion, attack, then XYZ into ptolemys, retrieve one of the 2, on the other turn retrieve the other one, tribute ptolemys for the monarch (if you don't have other tribute fodders) and repeat the process. Basically the same thing, only that if you have Illusion Snatch in hand you could have, at the cost of 2000 lps and a monster a Ptolemys as a beatstick and a r3 monster/level 6 synchro every turn.
However that's not the main reason why I talked about Monarch sooner, but because of the fact that they have a tribute in common, meaning you can use the same tribute fodder engine (could it be Frog Engine, could it be Emergency Teleport Engine, could it be random Faders and likes put in at random). Teleporter generates other tributes too. You can use his effect, synchro him with one of the summoned monsters and have the other one as tribute fodder, or synchro/xyz the two monsters and have himself as a tribute fodder, or don't synchro/xyz at all and have all of them for an obelisk, or tribute just one, or two, the combinations are a lot.

This card is virtually the best card ever (not really, but it is virtually awesome), but the cost and the restriction are the worst thing that they could add to his effect, The cost is bypassable with Charging Cell or Brain Research Lab, but it isn't recommended except if you want to build an abuse list that spams Ptolemys to recycle him. But the Summoning Restriction isn't bypassable at all, meaning you really have to not Special Summon him, and that's really bad, since you could have really build an abuse build that could have looped with hushed psychic cleric and brain research lab, being careful about lab, of course.


One of the best way to use him would be with Miracle Synchro Fusion to go into Ultimate Axon Kicker. It isn't even needed to explain it, just use Miracle banishing the Synchro monster and a material and you have your Axon Kicker. Kicker helps alot because you can use him (or it, I prefer thinking it is a man, since most of the psychic monsters are men and this card is a synchro+one of them, even if it has the aspect of Archfiend) to regain your payed life points by attacking an opponent's monster. Immune to Inzektors (but he is an infinite target, sadly, meaning they will loop with hornet even if you have no other cards) and Zenmaines, only way is acid golem or leviathan with its effect used 2 times, but with a simple honest you can get rid of both, or simply use a card to protect him or to lower the opponent's monster's ATK.


So, final thoughts on the card is that he can lead to good XYZs, to good synchros, to good fusions and to good tribute monsters, can generate a lot of comboes, expecially with Hushed Psychic Cleric.
Was it fast? Maybe, I reassumed all the possible to make this the littlest possible without excluding anything, just a little test to myself. Stay Tuned.

24/06/2012

Dueling Network Updates

The most used duel simulator online has been updated with a lot of new and really useful features.

Here's the full update from Dueling Network Admins.

Basically, I just wanted to say that, probably, Save Deck As option will make me want to play again. Before this, I got bored when putting in cards that I just put, or sometimes I've got flashes and started building, but, without noticing that, I was building over another deck, and I didn't want to lose the first one, so I had to copy the second one, and that was bad, it really made me mad sometimes and made me closing Dueling Network because of my laziness, losing those decks. This option will solve both.

Just hope this'll help making me want to start playing again at full speed.

That's All Folks.

22/06/2012

Losing Interest in the Game

Don't know if it is just the actual meta or the game itself, but I'm bored, I have nothing really cool to build (relatively to my standards), and the actual meta is one of the most boring ever. Actually I see it centered on Luck and the Skill (the one to cheat, I don't think any other kind of skill would help), other than Sharking at tournaments. Inzektor draw Damsel while at top deck, can win without any problem, WU needs 2 cards (replaceable by a lot of other cards or a lot of other ways to make the loop start) and leaving you with no cards in hand, Chaos Dragon is totally Skill-less, if you draw good card, like it is probably going to happen, you can summon a big field, while Rabbit needs only a card to go into a giant Solemn Judgment with no cost and with an "oppressive" body (if you have a walking judgment, it won't be easy to summon a big monster to get rid of it fastly, except being lucky and drawing into Dark Hole AND a way to summon a big monster, or other things like that).
Yeah, of course having a Meta where the top decks are pretty balanced related to themselves isn't bad, but that leaves no possibilities to play 4Fun decks, like I'd like to.

Hope I don't lose interest in it completely, because is one of the funniest hobbies I've never had.

This post was mainly to say that the blog will slow down, probably, but if I have some weekly post, I'll be sure to mantain it, no matter what, except if I totally quit the game.

Hope to See You, Bye-Bee (from Lucky Star, Lucky Channel reference)

21/06/2012

Scraps: Old Power and Newly Gotten Power

This card cannot be used as a Synchro Material Monster, except for the Synchro Summon of a "Scrap" monster and all the other Synchro Material Monsters must also be "Scrap" monsters. When this card is Normal Summoned, you can select 1 "Scrap" Tuner monster in your Graveyard and Special Summon it.


Scraps, oh, how much I loved them when they came out, then, like ever, once they started becoming popular I stopped playing them. I played every kind of build, the one I liked the most was the Geartown Build, even if it was the weakest one, LOL.
Scraps lost a lot, because in the following metas they were too slow, too weak and were easy to be countered. They then started playing the control build, it stopped opponent's moves while leaving us the time to prepare our moves, but Scraps weren't good enough however. They semi-limited Reborn Tengu, giving another big hit to the scraps, but then something good came out, XYZs.

Let's see the main cards of the deck and analyze their weakness:

Scrap Beast, 1600 ATK, 1300 DEF, LV4, Tuner, Beast. Its effect make him a recycler, like all of the Scrap Tuners, of Chimera, mainly. Has a good ATK, but nothing special, has a pretty low defense and an effect that we won't trigger pretty much never (destroy itself) because of its low DEF. However it is pretty much the second main card, played in 3 copies, sometimes in 2, never lower.

Scrap Goblin, 0 ATK, 500 DEF, LV3, Tuner, Beast-Warrior. Like Beast, has the recycler effect, and he will be able to activate it a lot more times because of the destroy-itself effect and the cannot-be-destroyed-by-battle effect. Is a one-turn-lasting reaper that recycles a Chimera back from the grave. However, it's not very played, if you don't know the deck/archetype, you're wondering why he's played in 1 copy, max.2, but sometimes he isn't even played.

Scrap Chimera, 1700 ATK, 500 DEF, LV4, Non-Tuner, Beast. 1-Card Scrap Dragon. Summon it, SS Beast, Synchro into Scrap Dragon. Sadly it has the restriction on the kind of monsters you can synchro summon with him into, only Scrap Monsters, so if you summon Goblin you can't, absolutely, go into Black Rose, would be pretty broken, lol. Then normally you can Synchro only into Scrap Archfiend and Scrap Dragon, mostly Dragon.

Scrapyard, Normal Spell. Simple searcher of tuners, sadly only tuners.

Scrapstorm, Quick-Play Spell. Select a tuner on the field, send Chimera to the grave, draw 1 and destroy the tuner, eff of the tuner, add Chimera back from the grave to the hand, and if you haven't used up your normal summon yet, you can NS Chimera, SS the tuner (probably Beast), and Synchro.


Those were the Scrap card that are played, sometimes you can play even Scrap Orthoros, SS it, destroy itself, take back chimera from the grave, and if you haven't used up your normal summon yet, you can summon Chimera, SS Orthoros and go into Scrap Dragon.

At this the support you'll more likely add are:

Reborn Tengu OR GK Engine (3 Spy+1 Descendant), Reborn Tengu is a good card, but at 2 it lost preyy much all of his go(o)dness, because it's harder to activate, but if you synchro with Beast into Scrap Dragon, you can then destroy the newly-summoned Reborn Tengu to blow up something of the opponent. At 3 it would have summoned another one at this point. The GK engine create field advantage and provides some good walls (Spies) while looking for the needed pieces, and with goblin you can Synchro into Arcanite. I prefer the GK engine over Reborn Tengu, but Tengu is a target of Horn of the Phantom Beast, we'll see it later.

Summoner Monk, ditch a spell, SS Beast, synchro. You'll have now a LV8 Synchro and a Beast in the grave for Chimera plays. I like this one, too.

Mind Control, well, take an opponent's monster and Synchro, not bad.

Horn of the Phantom Beast, draw engine and big booster for some monsters. Good Card is Good.


You noticed what I wrote till now? I wrote only about Synchros, but I said how XYZs boosted up this deck, didn't I?

Let's see fastly those cards again, I'll write only new things to what I wrote before, you'll see how much advatages XYZ give them:

Scrap Beast, being LV4 you can XYZ into those good Rank 4 Monsters, expecially is Special Summoned with Chimera.

Scrap Goblin, being LV3, you won't be able to really XYZ into anything good, but that could become better, I'll explain how in the new cards section.

Scrap Chimera, easy 1-Card XYZ with Beast. If used to XYZ it has no only-scrap-monsters restriction.

Scrap Orthoros, easy SS, however won't help XYZing, if not when SS via Chimera.

Scrapyard, nothing more.

Scrapstorm, not really anything else

Reborn Tengu OR GK Engine, Reborn Tengu doesn't help at all with XYZs, while the GK Engine itself without any other cards can do easy XYZs.

Summoner Monk, 1-Card XYZ (two considering the spell card to ditch).

Mind Control, helps with XYZs, too, steal a monster, XYZ, or steal Utopia, go into Utopia Ray.

Horn of the Phantom Beast, doesn't really help more with XYZs, but it is still a good card.


Those were the card re-overviewed, let's see new ones.

Genex Ally Birdman, NS Chimera, SS Goblin, bounce Chimera, go into a rank 3 XYZ wiht Birdman and Goblin.

Genex Blastfan, SS with Monk, add Birdman, bounce back monk, synchro with blastfan into BRD/Arcanite. Play only if you're playing 3 birdman, but I don't think that'll happen.


Yeah, mainly those two, but you can add a lot of things with XYZs.

Then, what did we see today? We saw how an old deck with a lot of lost power can get a lot of power bypassing some restriction, this of the scraps was pretty much an example, but there are a lot of other cards that gained power as long as the time passed, Mind Control for example, back in time you couldn't do pretty much anything with the mosnter you stole, that was to attack directly stealing the only monster they had, then we started using it with that lot of Synchros, and now with XYZs.
Then, whenever a card with resctriction like Scrap Chimera come out, continue keeping an eye on it, could become one of the most powerful card in the future.

That's all, hope it was useful on both sides (Scrap Deck and Bypassing Restriction), See Ya.

18/06/2012

Card of the Week #5: Daigusto Emeral

2 Level 4 monsters
Once per turn, you can activate 1 of these effects: ● Detach 1 Xyz Material from this card to target 3 monsters in your Graveyard; shuffle those targets into your Deck, then draw 1 card. ● Detach 1 Xyz Material from this card to target 1 non-Effect Monster in your Graveyard; Special Summon that target.

Random Rulings: (all written by me, since they are easiest to comprend and to learn, other than to apply in other situations, than the ones on wikia's page)

1.You can use both of the effects on the targeted monster, but it's needed that there are respectively before you detach 3 monsters in grave or a non-effect monster in grave.

2.Ritual, Synchro, XYZ and fusion monsters with no effect (an example for each one, Black Luster Soldier, Gaia Knight the force of Earth, Gem-Knight Pearl and Sanwitch) are considered non-effect monsters, and you can Special Summon them with Daigusto Emeral's second effect. Gemini Monsters can be Special Summoned, too.

3.Both of the effect target.

4.You can put back Fusion, Synchro and/or XYZ monsters with Emeral's first effect.

5.Having 3 monsters in the grave for Emeral's first effect is needed, you can't activate it if you have less than 3 monsters, that's the same reason that let ruling n.1 exist. If on the activation of the effect you have 3 or more monsters, but in resolution you'll have less than 3, you won't be able to shuffle the remaining back in the Deck (or Extra Deck) and to draw a card.


Well, these rulings are easy to explain too, first one needs as a "condition" to have at least 3 monsters or 1 non-effect to use it, that would have lead probably to a lot of abuses.
Second ruling has nothing to explain since it says non-effect monsters.
Third effect isn't really explainable, they target, nothing else.
Fourth is one of the rulings I like the most, since putting back isn't a cost but an effect, you can put 'em back and then draw.
Fifth one is good too, since putting back is an effect, if you can't put all the three cards back, you won't be able to put back any, and since that effect hasn't resolved, you won't be able to resolve any other effect, like drawing a card.

Well, let's see this card closely:
1.Gusto, random gusto support, nothing really good, however.
2.WIND, yeah, WIND has some good recycling supports and other things like that.
3.Rock-type, rock isn't really the most supported type ever, LOL.
4.XYZ, mainly re-summonable via XYZ Reborn and then use his effect.
5.Non-specific XYZ material.
6.Rank 4 is easy to summon.
7.Toolbox-able micro-PoA/Reborn
8.Weak Stats, enough to run over low-atk monsters, but a low atk monster won't last on the field more than an opponent's turn, if you don't veiler it.

Yeah, said like this, this card might look a weak card, while it is a weEk card (I didn't prepared this awful pun, and I'm hoping I used this card the right way, it just came up while writing), point 4, 5, 6 and 7 are enough to make him a good if not awesome card, sadly only-ocg for now, mainly point number 7. You should have noticed it by yourself how much it is a good point, if you didn't, it probably is because you haven't read this post regarding various kind of toolbox and why Extra Toolbox is great.

Putting this in a less-objective way, we could say that this card is great because you can basically summon a pot of avarice when needed, surely easiest than drawing into one, can be played in 3 copies and has a legs (LOL). Being XYZ is one of the best advantages, since he is easier to summon than a Synchro in this very moment, and rank 4 are the second easiest to summon, first ones are rank 3 because of inzektors, wind-ups and, mainly, tour guide.

I noticed how people tend to forget the second effect, that's pretty good, actually it won me games with HEROes.
Ex. Opponent had a set card (s/t, more likely trap since he was playing a random heavy trap deck that should have won via Beatdown), he had 1600 lp, I had Alius and Bubbleman and a gemini spark that I setted the turn before and didn't have a change to activate it. I had 700 lp. I wanted to be sure to win, even if in the end the set card was just a bluffed pot of avarice while he had 4 monsters in grave. Just went into Emeral with alius and Bubble, detached Bubbleman and revived another alius I had, then simply gemini spark, drawing totally unuseful stuff (another spark, lol), then went into beatdown with Emeral and won.

That was obvious, but sometimes people tend to forget that, just keep in mind, can help no matter the deck you're playing, even while playing against an opponent's Emeral. I always say to friends of mine, "Random Knowledge Help ALot" (RKHAL, pronounced like Recall), in Italian it was "Conoscenze Random Aiutano Molto" (CRAM, pronounced, with an English-like pronounciation, like Creme, a French word that means "cream", but that is mainly used to say "the best" or "the elite"), when I say Cram, they realize what they should see, what they forget and things like that.

Being a monster is probably the best point in this card even because he can be used for some loops. From the time this card came out I never saw a new loop that was effectively an infinite loop that didn't used this. An example could be my Infernity Gagaga FTK.

Ok, this is all, Stay Tuned, not too much however, since I have kinda finished the top things I wanted to talk about, lol.

17/06/2012

Toolbox: Main, Extra, Reverse and Banished

What's Toolbox? Why does more kind of it exist?
Well, basically Toolbox is the name we give to a deck that can search a specific monster or card when needed. These decks are called "Toolbox" because, like a box full of tools, you can pick what you need.



The ultimate Toolbox is, for sure, Gladiator Beasts, they attack, then tag out and SS the monster the need, Laquari if they need a Beatstick, Retiari if they need to banish an opponent's card in the grave, murmillo if they need to destroy an opponent's monster, Bestiari if they need to destroy an opponent's S/T and so on, based on which card you're playing. You can even summon specific monster material this way, if you have 2 GBs and you want to destroy multiple cards, you can tag out into bestiari, destroy a card, maybe with the other one you SS murmillo, destroy an opponent's monster, then go into Gyzaurus e destroy other cards.
Basically GBs are a perfect example of Main Toolbox, but even Extra Toolbox, since they can Summon what they need both from the Main and the Extra Deck.

Until now we talked about Main and Extra Toolbox, but what are Reverse and Banished Toolbox?

Let's use examples again:


Yeah, Infernity, those are the Ultimate Reverse Toolbox, they send everything to the grave, and then summon what they need to start comboeing. However they can do even pretty good Main Toolbox with Archfiend that searches everything, but even an awesome Extra Toolbox, they can synchro or XYZ in what they need like hell, go into HED if you want to search more ABCs (Awesome Backrow Card, I wrote it in infernities-related posts), go into void if you want more control, go into Doom Dragon if you want to kill opponent's monster, go into Trishula (no more sadly) Wurm to control more the opponent and prepare for an OTK, you can recruit pretty much anything from the extra deck like that.

Now let's arrive to the Banished Toolbox, it isn't used, I don't think a real Banished Toolbox Deck exists, but since it is a game zone, it's needed.
Cards like Dimensional Alchemist, Return from the Different Dimension, Escape from the Dark Dimension, D.D. Survivor, D.D. Scout Plane and other cards like this provide Toolbox from an "untouchable" zone, untouchable cause there aren't card (played right now) that affects opponent's RFG, if not in a good way. These cards combo well with cards that self remove themself, like D.D. Warrior Lady or Battle Fader, Cyber Valley is one of the most useful, too.

However, let's come back to Extra Toolbox. I wrote this post because I wanted to talk about this.
You know why before GBs there was no extra toolbox? Because to Fusion Summon you needed Polymerization, that meant that you were no more relying on your monsters, but even on a one-use spell card, and materials were specific, too. That meant that if your opponent knows your deck, you would be pretty predictable and your opponent could have prepared something to counter you.
GBs were the first to create an Extra Deck Toolbox (even the first Main Toolbox that didn't rely on recruiters like giant rat, shining angel and so on) because they had a wide range of monster they could have summoned by tagging out, destroy opponent's threat and then go in what you need.
Then Synchros came out, they needed only monsters and with the same two monsters (let's say junk synchron and armageddon knight) they could have done a wide range of monsters basing on what they needed. For this exact reason player at the start weren't fully happy about Synchros, because they weren't a lot and thus predictable. Initially you could have done only few level 7 monsters, then other monsters started appearing and then they became a lot, requiring you to build wisely your extra deck, since the 15-cards limit was applied. Then XYZ came out, same thing of Synchros, only that now we have 2 kind of generic monsters we can easily summon, in a strict deck (15, I'm talking of the extra deck, of course), but even if it's hard to put in what we need, we created a full generic Extra Toolbox that could fit in every deck.

2 Level 4 monsters
Once per turn, you can activate 1 of these effects: ● Detach 1 Xyz Material from this card to target 3 monsters in your Graveyard; shuffle those targets into your Deck, then draw 1 card. ● Detach 1 Xyz Material from this card to target 1 non-Effect Monster in your Graveyard; Special Summon that target.

However Extra Toolbox is awesome because of the fact that most Synchros/XYZ have main-deck-cards-like effect, let's say Laggia, he is surely easy to summon in a proper deck than drawing, setting and hoping to be not MST'd/Heavy Storm'd, while having a big body too. Same goes for Daigusto Emeral, can be used twice, one in this turn, one in the other, has another effect and putting back 3 is not ever a bad side (it's easiest to have 3 monster instead of 5), and being generic is easiest to be summoned, too. This is another reason why Gagaga Gunman is broken, because having 2 effects, one makes him 3000 ATK while attacking an opponent's monster, the other one is an Ookazi effect that can be used whenever you need it, surely easiest to summon than to draw into Ookazi. More it has a good defense body, meaning that he can protect our life points as well.

That's All Folks, I hope it was clear, this was to explain basically why Extra Deck became broken, but even to explain new players what's toolbox, since it was a kind of deck really used a lot time ago, before they started playing if they are new to the game.

See Ya

16/06/2012

Infernity Gagaga Gunman FTK, Improved Combo

2 Level 4 monsters
Once per turn: You can detach 1 Xyz Material from this card; activate 1 of these effects based on this card's battle position. ● Attack Position: This turn, during the Damage Step, if this card attacks an opponent's monster, it gains 1000 ATK, and the attack target loses 500 ATK. ● Defense Position: Inflict 800 damage to your opponent.
Well, I talked in the last post of the Gagaga Gunman Loop, read the post if you didn't it'll work as an introduction to this post.

I opened a text file and started writing, I worked on it, and finally I did the combo without the need of another card on the field. This combo is pretty much perfect, not considering opponent's card, because you can do infinite Emeral and you'll never run out of searchable monsters in the deck for Infernity Archfiends, cards that will be used as discard fodder for Brionac.

Let's start.

To manage the combo you'll need to know the 3 basic "Route"s for this, the HED Route, the most known, the Gunman Route and the Emeral Route. I decided to call them route because they are little comboes that let you do something, this is to help you understand the total combo.

Basically:
The HED (Hundred-Eyes Dragon) Route requires at least an HED in the extra, with the usual grave setup, Archfiend, Avenger and Necromancer, and Mirage on the field (or ready to be summoned from the hand, doesn't really matter). This is the most known, just use Mirage's effect, SS Necromancer and Avenger, use Necromancer's effect, SS Archfiend and, if needed, use Archfiend's effect, but it changes from situation to situation, I'll explain it better during the combo. Synchro all into Hundred-Eyes and you'll have the field you need for the other comboes. If this Route is following the Gunman Route, you'll need to search with Archfiend to bounce with Brionac's effect the remaining XYZ monster.

The Gunman Route requires at least a Gunman in the extra deck, Mirage, 2 Necromancers and 2 Archfiends in the grave, and HED and Brionac on the field. This isn't hard ot achieve if you follow the total combo.
Just use HED's effect banishing Mirage, then tribute HED to SS 2 Necromancers, use first necromancer's effect to summon an Archfiend without searching or searching an ABC (Awesome Backrow Card, like Infernity Barrier or Infernity Break), then second Necromancer's effect to SS the second Archfiend and use his effect to search a discardable monster, usually beetle or general. XYZ the two Archfiends into a defense position Gunman, use his effect to deal damages and then XYZ the 2 Necromancers into Leviair, use Leviair's effect to SS Mirage. Use Brionac's effect, discard the card you took with Archfiend to bounce Leviair or Gagaga, doesn't really matter. You'll remain with Brionac, Mirage and Gunman/Leviair and the grave with his best set-up.

The Emeral Route requires at least an Emeral in the Extra Deck, Mirage in the grave along with 2 Necromancers and 2 Archfiends, and HED and Brionac on the field. Like for the Gunman Route, this situation isn't hard to set-up.
Use HED's effect to banish Mirage, tribute itself to SS 2 Necromancers, eff of the first Necromancer, SS Archfiend without searching or search an ABC, eff of the second Necromancer, SS the second Archfiend, search a discard fodder. XYZ the two Archfiends into Emeral, use his effect to shuffle back 2 HEDs and an Infernity Monster usable as a discard fodder, then draw a card (you'll have 2 cards in hand right now, then). XYZ the two Necromancers into Leviair, use its effect to SS Mirage and then use Brionac's effect to discard the two cards in hand to bounce both Leviair and Emeral. The only change that can be done here is what to put back with EMmeral, I'll explain it during the combo.

There's even a Brionac Route, but since it is usable only a time, there's no need to write it here, I'll write it directly in the combo.

Here's the full combo, then (on hand, without having yet used your normal summon, Mirage, in grave Archfiend, Necromancer and Avenger, in the extra deck , 1 Brionac, 1 LV5 generic Synchro 1 Emeral, 1 Leviair, 1 Gunman and 2 HEDs):
NS Mirage
Go into the HED Route searching Launcher with Archfiend's effect.
/Use HED's effect, banish Mirage, tribute itself, SS Necromancer and Avenger, use Necromancer's effect to SS Archfiend searching for a second Necromancer and discard him for Launcher's effect, Synchro into Catastor with Avenger and Archfiend (or into any summonable LV 5 Synchro), use Launcher's effect to SS the second Necromancer and Avenger, use the second Necromancer's effect to SS Archfiend searching for another Archfiend, Synchro Avenger and the LV5 Synchro into Brionac.
XYZ the 2 Necromancers into Leviair, use its effect to bring Mirage back, then use Brionac's effect to discard the Archfiend you have in hand to bounce back Archfiend, then use Brionac's effect again to discard Archfiend and bounce Leviair./ (the part in those 2 "/" is the Brionac Route)
(now as you can see you have the perfect set-up, Brionac and Mirage on the field, 2 Necromancers, 2 Archfiends and an Avenger in the grave and all we need in the Extra Deck)
Now use Mirage's effect to start the HED Route, then go into the Emeral Route, then go into the HED Route, and then into the Gunman Route. The "pattern" is, then HED-Gunman-HED-Emeral-HED-Gunman-HED-Emeral and so on. However, since we search and discard a lot and put back only an infernity monster (with Emeral Route) once every 4 Routes, we could run off of discard fodder, that's why when we are left with few discard fodders in the deck we can change the pattern into HED-Emeral-HED-Emeral and so on, but we'll need to put back 1 HED and 2 discard fodders, since it is infinite, we can do infinite times till when we put back everything (except 2 Archfiends, 2 Necromancers, 1 Avenger and, if you don't have him on the field or banished, 1 Mirage), then restart the normal pattern.

I used the Pattern way to explain this because while writing I noticed how difficult was both to read and to write, and thought that that was ugly to see, and since I don't like wall of images (the combo explained with the images), I found them hard to follow and to learn from them, I adopted for the first time ever this kind of explanation, since it was only the repetition of some steps.

If you noticed (you should have), this combo doesn't need other cards except for the usual ones in an Infernity Deck, so it should be okay, you'll only need to use some other cards in the Extra Deck, nothing else, but you use most of them, too.

Another thing, even if I called this FTK, it's hard to do that, because the usual grave set-up isn't easy to do on first turn, requires a lot of luck and some tech cards like Hand Destruction (since you don't want to use Dealings and Card Destruction with Darkworld around, do you?). This deck has some possibilities to do that on first turn, but it's more likely to do that pretty always when you can pull of the classic Infernity Combo.

I won't even provide you a decklist since you can use your usual Infernity Deck and tweak a little your extra deck, nothing else, however, if you ask it, I'll post one.

15/06/2012

Speedy Article: Gagaga Gunman Loop

2 Level 4 monsters
Once per turn: You can detach 1 Xyz Material from this card; activate 1 of these effects based on this card's battle position. ● Attack Position: This turn, during the Damage Step, if this card attacks an opponent's monster, it gains 1000 ATK, and the attack target loses 500 ATK. ● Defense Position: Inflict 800 damage to your opponent.
When I first saw this card, it was first-sight love. I liked how his ATK effect is similar, but a lot more easy to use, to Utopia Ray's effect. His DEF effect dealed damage, Ookazi-like damage to be precise. And then I noticed that it required 2 generic level 4 monsters.

A friend of mine made me notice how this card's DEF effect is useful, mostly game winning, in tournament, at the last part of the game when at the first variation of life points, the player with less Life Points win. Easy to summon, then kill with Tournament's Mechanics.

But there's a thing I noticed. The effect is obviously once per turn, but if he leaves the field, the effect will be re-usable. Then I thinked about a little killing combo. Ya know I love crazy comboes and loop, and I love Infernities, too. Well, if they succeded into making infinite trishulas with a little set-up (no cards in hand but an infernity mirage and the simple 3-cards-grave-setup, avenger, archfiend and necromancer, why wouldn't they be able to summon a rank 4 monster?
I started writing the combo and I realized it was possible, I created for the first time ever a game winning loop. However, how I wrote it wasn't really precise, because usually I need to change something while playing, but I'm trying to write it out in a more precise way. I tried it out on DN (proxying Gunman) and it worked without any problem. You don't need specific card, you only need to have the usual infernity cards and to play in the extra deck 2/3 Hundred-Eyes Dragon (don't know if 2 are fine, I'm going to try it out), 1 random LV 5 Synchro, 1 Brionac (but I think you're playing that, yet, right?), 1 Daigusto Emeral, 1 Leviair and 1 Gagaga Gunman. However I think that all of this cards are played yet in infernities, except for gunman, so that's not hard.

I'm still perfecting the combo, but I realized that it needs your opponent or you to have at least one card on the field, but thinking about this, if your opponent has no cards on the field, you can crazy loop doing a lot of Synchros and XYZ, searching for Awesome Backrow Cards (I call them ABC, you can see it, they are the ABC of an Infernity Deck, though, it was hard to come up with a name like this, lol), and control your opponent till death, so it should be game however, if you have these cards and opponent has nothing to counter you.

Well, I'll try it out with some cards IRL to develop it the best, since there's no Solitaire Mode on DN. Sadly I'm on Linux Ubuntu, meaning I can't use YVD. I could use Wine to use it however, but lately Wine isn't working really good on my computer, for some reason. I could use my brother's computer, but it use it a lot and don't want me to use it. Well, I'll find a way, maybe some friends of mine could host on DN let me enter and then quit (since the combo is reaaaally long).

Another 2 little tips on the deck, if you use this combo successfully, it is really long, and you could run out of time, summon a gagaga and win however. The other tip is that if your opponent tries to stop you with Maxx "C", he'll run out of cards, if he doesn't play veiler. If he does, he'll stop the combo, but you'll have already a full backrow field. If he stops your infernity monster at the right moment you'll stop comboeing, if he stop them the wrong way, you'll continue (it's really hard to guess when's the right moment and when's the wrong moment), if he stops your brionac, you can combo normally with Infernities, pretty lol, uh? More, I play general that I search with archfiend and discard with brionac/launcher.
Hard to play deck but even hard to stop.

Well, once I'll have some more time, I'll try it out the best way possible.

12/06/2012

XYZ Climb

XYZ Climb, what is it? You probably (surely) heard of Synchro Climb, done by dragunities, a one-card Stardust Dragon. You just needed to summon Dux, equip Phalanx, SS Phalanx, Synchro into Vajrayana, equip Phalanx, SS Phalanx, Synchro into stardust. It is called Synchro Climb because you Synchro into a monster and use that monster to synchro into another. Well, you know, I wrote it a lot of times in the Batteryman AAA posts, that an XYZ Climb I invented (but I'm sure it existed yet), uses 2 LIGHT monster (in my case a Batterman AAA that summons another one). Here's the Visual Combo:


It's easy, just like the Synchro one, uh? For the people who don't know all of the card, here's the combo:
NS Batteryman AAA, SS Batteryman AAA
XYZ into Constellar Omega
Chaos XYZ Change into Constellar Ptolemys Messier 7
(optional) Chaos XYZ Change into Gaia Dragon, the Thunder Charger

Of course the combo is up to you, you can stop to Omega, attack with his effect on to be sure not to get hit by some cards, and then, in MP2 go into ptolemys, wait a turn and use his effect, then go into Gaia. Of course Gaia is optional because sometimes you'll prefer mantain ptolemys or omega, and has less attack then ptolemys, but when you're facing a spirit reaper this card is awesome.

With Ptolemys you can retrieve AAA and repeat the loop, this time you'll probably stop to Omega because he can provide defence to himself and Messier, being sure you're going to use ptolemys again.
Basically, the perfect one would be:
NS Batteryman, XYZ Climb into Ptolemys either in mp1 or 2
next turn use Ptolemys' effect to get back AAA
NS AAA, SS AAA XYZ into Omega
Omega's effect, be sure nothing will hurt ptolemys and himself this turn and the opponent's one.
Use Ptolemys' effect to retrieve Batteryman AAA
Chaos XYZ Change Omega into Ptolemys
Use AAA to go into omega again
Protect Ptolemys, use his effect next turn retrieve AAA
Use AAA to go into emeral to recycle a lot of useful things and draw one.

Only weak point is that Ptolemys can't activate his effect the turn he's Chaos XYZ Changed.

However, why am I talking about this? I talked about this widely in the Batteryman AAA's posts, so why?
Because with all of this XYZ and Chaos XYZ Change-able monsters I'm all fired up because I'm sure other XYZ Climb will come out. 
For example, just this XYZ Climb can be done with 2 level 3 LIGHT and 2 level 5 Light going respectively into Hyades or Pleiades.

That was all, Stay Tuned on the blog and the new cards, and hope we get some other cards to help XYZ Climb

11/06/2012

Card of the Week #4: Forbidden Chalice

Target 1 face-up monster on the field; until the End Phase, it gains 400 ATK, but its effects are negated .
Random Rulings:

Target 1 face-up monster on the field; until the End Phase, it gains 400 ATK, but its effects are negated.

If a monster like “Fusilier Dragon, the Dual-Mode Beast” is targeted with “Forbidden Chalice,” it has 3200 ATK, then 2800 ATK after the End Phase.

Forbidden Chalice, I always loved this card. It's like a focused Skill Drain that, like its counterpart, Forbidden Lance, has a double use. Well, let's see it:

Quick-Play Spell, this kind of card is the best in the world, you can activate them in opponent's turn like Traps, you can activate them in your turn like spells, but you can even use them in some phases where spell card can't activate (spell card activates only during main phase 1 and main phase 2, while quick-plays can be used pretty much in every phase, and even in some substeps hard to reach, like damage step.

Negating Effect, negates 1 monster effect. Being only for a turn, you can use it to run over monsters that have an effect that make them indistructible by battle or card's effect. You can stop even monsters that have an effect that activates only once, like a gadget, that activates when summoned, you can stop that card, and your opponent won't be able to activate it the next turn, if the gadget stays alive.

Boosting Effect, can be useful on your monsters to run over other monsters, and won't probably help your opponent, since you're going to negate monsters that have giant effect, like Rescue Rabbit, and those monsters usually have low stats, making them no more than monsters that can run over another copy of themself.


Note how this card doesn't have a restriction of which kind of monsters this card can be used, so you can use it on normal monsters, or you can use it on monsters that have their effect negated yet, like if there is a skill drain on the field.

Why do I prefer this card over skill drain? (of course it changes from deck to deck)

Forbidden Chalice doesn't affect our games, letting us to use our monster's effect.

Even if Skill Drain negates the effect of all the monsters, it requires 1000 lp, and the fact that affects all of the monsters isn't necessary good.

Skill Drain stays on the field, that means that if it is MST'd its effect wil vanish and you've payed 1000 lp for nothing, while Forbidden Chalice isn't negable if not with a spell/trap negation at the moment of its activation, but that's not assured, since most deck play only Solemn Judgment to negate spell and traps, some (rabbit laggia) play laggia, but if you use chalice on opponent's laggia, he won't negate it, and you can do all of the comboes you want, summon a big monster, and kill Laggia.

Forbidden Chalice modifies attack, that's good to power-up your monster, but it could be used to negate monster's effect during damage step, making it harder to counter.

Forbidden Chalice can negate barbaros' effect in damage step to make him a 3400 ATK beater 'till the end of the turn, and 3000 for all the rest of the turn.


Of course in some decks, skill drain is far better. Decks that have monsters that have bad effect, decks that don't need effect, decks that have monster's effect that activates in the graveyard and so on, but Chalice is more versatile and playable in more decks.

Overall: this card is versatile, can counter pretty much all of the decks in actual meta (inzektors, rabbit, chaos dragon, Wind-up) and even some fun deck that could be seen (Dragunities, random synchro deck, and so on), and even staple cards played in a lot of decks, Tour Guide mainly. The ATK boost is useful on your own monsters, and usually it doesn't help opponent's monster.

That was all, See Ya.

10/06/2012

Ordered by Aurora

Wondering what does the title mean? It's the name of a deck, nothing else, but that name from what does come from?

Neither player can Special Summon monsters. When another monster is Normal Summoned to either player's side of the field, destroy this card.
This is our first card. Maybe you know this card, I named it twice in the post regarding various types of effect.
This card has a simple text, a simple effect, and is considered a junk card. Well, who consider this card like this isn't totally wrong, but this card has a lot of potential. Let's see it closely:
Neither player can Special Summon monsters. Yeah, really, other than monsters what were you going to Summon? Just kidding. However, this one is a continuous effect, non-negable by Light-Imprisoning Mirror, if someone is still playing them.

The Aurora part of the name is cleared, what about the Ordered by part?

You can choose to negate the activation of an Effect Monster's effect that activates when a monster is Normal Summoned (including itself). If you do, that Effect Monster's controller draws 1 card.
Another easy text, but this time it is a little more tricky card.
That effect is, of course, neither trigger, nor ignition, if you were thinking that. It is a Quick Effect, so it reaches Spell Speed 2. It needs to be chained directly to the normal summoned effect, this means that if the normal summoned monster is chain link 1, this card needs to be chain link 2, if that's not possible, you won't be able to negate that effect. This is a rare thing to happen, though.
The card's effect itself does one simple and good thing: stops monster effect that works when they are summoned. This card was really good before Rabbit and Inzektors, but can still stop a lot of things, main one is Tour Guide from the Underworld. This card does stop even monster's effect that activates when a monster is normal summoned, like King Tiger Wanghu.

But those two cards aren't played together for no reason. The same way the latter card negates Wanghu, it negates Aurora Paragon too. So what does it mean? You'll have a Fossil Dyna with better ATK stats that will let you draw anytime a monster is normal summoned.

You won't be able to block Tour Guide's effect, if you have both of the card on the field, but you can negate Paragon, draw a card and opponent won't summon nothing because of SS negating effect.

What will one want to build with those 2 cards? Of course something Antimet-ish or stun-ish.
Let's see some cards for this:

King Tiger Wanghu, stops a lot of monsters in actual, stops damsel in Inzektors, Rabbit in every random rabbit deck, and pretty much every deck relies on little monsters with powerful effect, that'll help you a lot, I'd suggest to play this card in ever build of this deck, since it is negable via Order.

Thunder King Rai-Oh, second effect is pretty much unuseful here, but can still be used, however it is the first one that we need. Lock SS with Aurora, stop NS effects with Aurora, stop searching with this, opponent will just go crazy.

Tour Guide from the Underworld+Sangan, Sangan's a searcher, and even if I hate to admit this (again, I said the same thing in the Iron Chain post), Tour Guide is needed. Provides a beatstick (Leviathan or Acid Golem) and a "survivor" monster that destroys nasty things (Zenmaines), other than searching sangan, in some builds. In chaos builds it provides other than the thing said up here, even dark monsters and a retriever from the Banished Zone (Leviair).

Black Luster Soldier - Envoy of the Beginning+Chaos Sorcerer, yeah, chaos monsters, they're broken, if you can play them why not? The concept is, 'till you have Aurora it is ok, if you haven't, you can use those to win.

Safe Zone, protects your Aurora, and you can use it on your opponent's monster when he blind-MST  you or uses Heavy Storm. Good Card is Good.
-Imperial Custom, protects your Order, but even Safe Zone. If you reach a field like Aurora, Safe Zone on Aurora, Order and Imperial Custom, you should win.
--Fiendish Chain, this card is like a veiler that stops attacks too. If you're playing Imperial Custom, this card could be more good than it is now.
---Magic Planter, if you're playing that lot of continuous trap, Magic Planter could be good, not too much for the draw power (really good draw, though), but to get rid of some cards that are there for no reason, like fiendish that belonged to a monster used to XYZ.

Shining Angel, this card was good back in times, but right now Battle Summoners (or Recruiter, it's up to you how you want to call them, I prefer the second one) are slow and weak.

Gorz the Emissary of Darkness, this card is really good, stops a lot of decks, random OTKs, but if you can throw that against Six Samurais or Rabbit, opponent won't be able to recover fastly from this. You could think that with this lot of cards that tries to stay on the field, this card is bad, right? Well, that could be possible, but think of this: cards that will likely stay on the field are fiendish chain, either face-up or face-down, that means you have or that you can stop an opponent's OTK by stopping the main card's effect, Order, means you can stop a lot of opponent's card that could lead to an OTK, Aurora, means that you can stop opponent's summon since he does normal summon a monster to destroy your aurora, means you will remain with no cards on field and be able to Summon gorz. So if your opponent  stops your cards that will stop him, you'll be able to summon Gorz and stop him however.


This deck could be difficult to play sometime, expecially when you have multiple cards that activates when a monster is normal summoned. Here is how to play with them:
Order must be chained directly to the monster's effect, means that the effect must be last chain link. If you have Wanghu and Aurora and Order, and your opponent summons damsel, what will happen? SEGOC applies here. You'll of course want to destroy damsel and draw a card while keeping Aurora, so you'll need to make Wanghu Chain Link 1 and Aurora Chain Link 2, so that you will be able to (in order) draw a card, keep Aurora and destroy damsel.
You need to be careful while playing this, and be aware of the fact that if you have Order and Aurora on the field at the same time, you won't be able to stop opponent's effect with Order.

The Various Variants are:

Classic one, throw in the engine and some cards that doesn't interfere with that, some antimeta cards and that's all.
It is good, plays to stop every opponent's move, but could be somehow slow and if your opponent can summon a big monster some way, you won't probably be able to take him down.

Chaos Build, throw in the engine, some Doomcalibers, tour guides, TK, spirit reaper (for some match ups, and is dark and has a good effect).
Another good build, plays to stun your opponent mainly, without letting him combo. Deals best with big monsters, can take down by attacking everything that has 2999 or less ATK, and every monster with the banishing effect of BLS and Sorcerer.

Continuous Trap Build, plays to stun your opponent, has good draw power, and good beatstick. It could be the best one if it wasn't for the fact that it does clog easily you s/t zone, meaning you'll need both Skill and Luck to play this deck.

Counter Fairies Build, this is the one the fruit that falls farest from the tree (it is used in italy, don't know if it is used even in other countries, means that is is totally different from the one where you started from, like taking a different way from the original one). Throw the engine in a counter fairy deck, adjust something to take out cards that could interfere with the lock.
Haven't tried this, is an Idea I've got while writing the post, but theorically this should work good. Could take off monsters of good size, stuns a lot, has a lot of destruction and draw power. Yeah, really, should work.

Overall: deck has potential, it had more in the past but still now it is possible to be played and can be used without any problems in this meta while stopping a lot of decks. It is hard to play, so if you're looking for an auto-pilot deck, this isn't for you, really. Be sure to know perfectly the arguments in this post, expecially the SEGOC one.

09/06/2012

Tips for Pro Playing #3

Rule n.9, "Prepare yourself to anything"
Don't overextend if it isn't needed, don't summon/set everything if you don't have something to block an opponent Dark Hole/Heavy Storm. Knowing opponent's deck helps in here too.
You have a beautiful hand, you could deal million of tons of damages with that hand, but you need to deal only 2000, don't summon everything, opponent could have something to stop you and you're fucked-up.  Your opponent could Mirror Force you or use battle fader and then Dark Hole. So, Be Prepared.

Rule n.10, "Concentrate"
Wondering why I forgot this...
Well, let's say it now, it works however, doesn't it? Basically, concentrate on your own duel, not anyone else's, your and your opponent's one.
Since this rule was short, I merged this with another rule, "Don't Stress". There are tons of people around you while you're playing? Well, how does that affect you? You just need to don't even consider them. You're on the final of a tournament. All of the peoples that are watching you are people that like yugioh and went there to see a game, or people that didn't reach the final but stayed looking. First ones aren't a problem, they are simply watching. Don't misplay because you're under pressure because of the second ones, they didn't even reach that point of the game, they don't have any right to criticize you.

Rule n.11, "Pride is nothing"
Don't misunderstand the title. Let's say you misplayed, but that misplay didn't cost you the game, don't do like you haven't had that card in hand and play it some turns after, just play it when needed. Okay, this rule may seem unuseful, but some friends of mine did this and lost the game because of that.

Rule n.12, "Expressions"
You need mirror force/battle fader to stop your opponent's incoming OTK, you draw into that, you jump for happiness, you scream "YEAAHHH", WRONG.
Don't do that, you draw, see that card, think for a bit of time as you're thinking what you need to do and then either pass if you draw fader or set a card (mirror force) and then pass. Your opponent will think that you drew into nothing and you're bluffing setting a card. Opponent's summon all for the otk, and you mirror force him, your opponent face will probably be like poker face, LOL.
Of course you need facial expression even when bluffing, but without exaggerating. Let's say you want to bluff, you draw, giggle a bit (only bit, you need to do that as your opponent may think that you don't want to demonstrate that but what happened is too good that it made you giggle. He will probably hold back, and you'll have one more turn to draw what you really need.

That's all for today, See Ya

08/06/2012

Useful Rulings and Game Mechanics #3: Spell Speed and Various Types of Effects

Here we are, this is the third post for Useful Rulings and Game Mechanics, here I'll post some rulings and game mechanics regarding Effects, Let's Start:

Spell Speed, What's that? What does it helps in?
Spell Speed is a way to classify the speed of an effect, and 3 types of it exist, Spell Speed 1, Spell Speed 2 and Spell Speed 3. You can chain to an effect only effects that has a Spell Speed greater of equal, except for Spell Speed 1, if an effect doesn't specify that. However, only effects have Spell Speed, attacks and summon doesn't, so if you summon a monster, you won't be able to activate bottomless trap hole, following this reasoning. For this, exist the possibility to use a card to "Respond" to an action. This means that you can activate a card when something happens to respond at that, nothing else. Spell Speed 1 are some Spells and all of the monster except for Quick Effect, Spell Speed 2 are Quick Effects, some spells and some traps, while Spell Speed 3 is made only of Counter Traps, nothing else.


Types of Effects, What are the various kind of them? What are the differences between them?
There are a lot of effects, but there are 2 types of effect and under them you can place all of the other: Optional and Compulsory, I talked a bit about them on the first post of Rulings and Game Mechanics explaining SEGOC and chains, be sure to have read that before continue reading this.
Under those two categories we have a lot of other kind of effects, I'll list and explain them here:

Trigger Effect, they are called like that cause they are activated when something happens, all of the Monarch are under this category, because they activate when they are tribute summoned, but even cards that activate when other cards do something, just think of Aurora Paragon, he destroys himself when some monster is normal summoned. However those effects aren't only activated when a monster is summoned, but even when a card is activated, a card is sent to the graveyard and so on. Another category of Trigger Effect exist, it is called Pseudo-Flip Effect, but I'll talk about that later.

Ignition Effect, those are effect that are activated "manually" by the player that control that card. Those effects are usually activated in main phase 1 or 2, except rare cards like Red-Eyes Wyvern. An example could be Rescue Rabbit. If you were playing yugioh before April 25th (for TCG players) or before March 19th (for OCG players) you should know that there were a thing called Priority. I wrote about its disappearance in this post. So if weren't playing before those dates, don't continue reading this paragraph, that could confuse you.
Basically when priority existed, you could have activated Ignition Effect of monsters at the same time of when they were summoned. With Effect Veiler that wasn't a problem, if you activated gale's effect at the same time it was summoned using priority, you could have negated that with Veiler and nothing happened, but the problem is with card that tributes, bounces back, remove themself for COST. As you should know costs are payedat the card's activation, so whatever was going to happens, you paid already the cost, it's like going to an Ice-Cream Shop and paying before you can get your Ice-Cream (here in Italy it is used, I don't knwo the situtation in other countries). Coming back to our topic, if you used Rescue Rabbit's effect with priority, he would remove himself and be immune to Effect Veiler, since he was no more on the field after your opponent has paid the cost and you were stuck with an Effect Veiler in hand with nothing to negate, cause there was no poin in negating laggia if you weren't going to activate a trap after that.
However without priority, this is no more possible and you need to wait till there is no more resolving, so you can avoid those kind of things with a destruction card before they can activate their effect, like Raigeki Break or Effect Veiler before your opponent could activate their monster's effect (because all of the monster's effect are Spell Speed 1, except for Quick Effect (known before as Multi-Trigger Effect, but I'll talk about them later).

Continuous Effect, are effect that don't activate, so that they don't start a chain. An example could be Aurora Paragon, again, since his first effect is continuous, not that when a player attempts to Special Summon a monster, this card suddenly activates and stops the opponent from doing so, he just totally stops Special Summons. Because of that, those monsters' effects can't be negated with Divine Wrath, because with that you can negate an effect that "activates" in that moment, but they can be negated by cards that totally nullify card's effects, like Skill Drain. However, sometimes, there are effects that can confuse you, like Bontiful Artemis. Even if this card's effect is triggered when a counter trap activates, it still is a continuous effect. You can guess that by the fact that you draw DURING the chain, and you know that it is impossible for a card to activate during a chain, meaning that you will be able to draw when the counter trap resolves because it is a Continuous Effect.

(Pseudo-)Flip Effect, they are effect that have "FLIP:" at the start of the effect, meaning that its effect works when it is flip summoned or turned from face-down position to face-up (no matter if ATK or DEF position). Ryko, Lightsworn Hunter is the best example for this. However there are cards that flip some monsters face-up, but clearly state that Flip Effect aren't activated at that time, reason why Pseudo-Flip Effects exist. Basically those cards don't have a flip effect, but they have a trigger effect that activate when they are flipped face-up from face-down. Most known card with this effect is Fossil Dyna Pachycephalo. However, don't confuse them with Flip Effect, they are simple Trigger Effect as they activate when a thing happens (being flipped face-up in this case).

Quick Effect, they are the only Spell Speed 2 monster's effects. They usually have the string of text "You can activate this effect during either player's turn". You should notice however that some Quick Effect can't activate twice or more during the same chain. The most known card with this effect is Light and Darkness Dragon.

Lingering Effect, I believe this one is the less-known kind of effect ever. Bascally this kind of effect activates after the card that generates that effect has resolved, like Final Countdown. This kind of effect can't be negated, except by negating directly the source of the effect at the activation, like Judgment on Final Countdown at its activation.


Hope this helped and, sorry, no images, but today my pc is somehow slow and images weren't totally needed here, am I wrong?
See Ya.

07/06/2012

Guide to: Iron Chains

Once per turn, you can select 1 "Iron Chain" monster you control to have it gain 300 ATK and DEF as long as this card is face-up on the field.
Iron Chain, one of the less-used archetype ever, because they had no real power, they could go in easy but really low mill, or into easy but really low damage. They are a group of only 4 monster+a synchro and a spell support, totally unuseful since it is for low mill (you'd need to have 5 iron chain monsters on the field, not attack to make your opponent mill 5 cards from his deck).
However, they started gaining some potentials as the time passes. Let's see the useful ones and then see the supports:

Iron Chain Coil, the one at the start of the post. He's nothing but a tuner. However, he is the second most useful card, you'll see why with the next one.

When this card destroys a monster by battle and sends it to the Graveyard, inflict 300 damage to your opponent. Once per turn, you can Special Summon 1 Level 4 or lower "Iron Chain" monster from your Graveyard, except "Iron Chain Repairman". This card cannot attack the turn you activate this effect.
Iron Chain Repairman. This+Coil in the grave make easy level 7 synchros. Black Rose Dragon is the favourite option but you can go into easy Landoise too, to stop opponent's Tour Guides, Rabbit, Inzektors, well, pretty much everything. Given that in this meta it is pretty much impossible to summon big monsters without using monster's effect, that should stop pretty much everyhing, just be aware of Dark Holes. With this deck you can even go into beast, so if you're lucky you can do both in one turn and be protected by everything.

These two were the useful Iron Chain cards. Were you expecting more? If yes, you were wrong. To build an Iron Chain deck you'd need 3 copies of both.
Basically you need to send Coil to the grave, summon repairman, use his effect and Summon coil. Then either synchro or combo with something else.

Well, let's the supports:

Reinforcement of the Army, searchs for Repairman and a lot of other cards.

Naturia Synchros (Naturia Beast, Naturia Barkion, Naturia Landoise and Naturia Leodrake), I'm going to use this in most of the cards description, so I wanted to let you read this first if you don't know 'em.

Black Rose Dragon, as said, this card is easily summonable being a Level 7 generic Synchro. Basically your Repairman become a field nuke, nothing else.

Mist Wurm, I said that level 9 are easy to summon too, and his effect permits OTKs, too.

Quillbolt Hedgehog, SS himself from the grave when a tuner is on the field. Not Bad. Level 2, EARTH, Machine, easily send-able to the grave, then SS him back to synchro with Coil into Beast or with Repairman and Coil into Leodrake (3000 attacker non-fiendish-able? Yes, thanks. Of course you need to use your judgment, and I don't mean the card, to know when to use it) or into Mist Wurm (bounce back some monsters and go, probably, into OTKs). If you have more than one of them you can even XYZ into daigusto phoenix or something like that.

M-X-Saber Invoker, Comboes Like Hell with Repairman. Summon this using Coil as a material, use his effect detaching coil to summon repairman from deck, use repairman and effect and combo as you want. He's pretty easy to be summoned

Genex Ally Birdman, it recycles repairman while XYZing with coil into some monsters like leviair to take back used Qullbolt Hedgehog or other birdman used to synchro and things like that OR go into invoker to combo more. Sadly he is dark, if it was earth that would be crazy.

Junk Forward AND Elder of the Six Samurai, I put them together because I wanted to compare them as they are used for the same purpose. Junk Forward is easily summonable and is searchable via Reinforcement of the Army (you're going to play RotA in this deck), on the other side Elder isn't summonable during first turn because it needs the opponent to have a monster on his field, that stops your first turn lock. However Elder is easily searchable (Shien Smoke Signal AND RotA) and can help you go into Shi En. I usually prefer Forward since being easily summonable can help to get faster Synchros and XYZ and playing Shien Smoke Signal only for Elder may seem pretty unnecessary. However you can run a control build more centered aroun Shi En and Naturia Synchros with Elder.

X-Saber Pashuul, another Warrior, tuner, LV 2, EARTH. Basically an Heaven on Earth, goes with repairman into Barkion to stop traps or goes with forward/elder into Naturia Beast/Naturia Beast OR Shi En.

X-Saber Wayne, we play a lot of Warrior monsters, so this card will help a lot, even in some comboes.

Doppelwarrior, there's a lot of SSing from the grave, isn't there? Well, this one works really good in here. Sadly he's dark, but being a costless SS permit abuses of Birdman resulting in a free SS of Birdman. Along with Coil and Repairman this one Summons Level 9 and you've got two tokens OR this+Coil into Naturia Beast, then bounce Repairman for Birdman to re-use him, Synch Birdman with the two level 1 tokens to go into Wayne, with his effect re-summon Repairman and use his effect to summon back Coil to go into a level 7 (at this time I'd like Landoise if I have a spell card in hand).

Reinforce Truth, well, you have probably two targets, Doppelwarrior and Pashuul. This card really helps Synchro Summoning, more than you think.

Junk Synchron, good card, if you play doppelwarrior and some other level 2 monster (and you do if you use Hedgehogs) this one is really good. Nothing else to say since you should know how to use this card, that's not hard.

Quickdraw Synchron AND Dandylion AND Tuning (this engine is to be played only if you're playing Junk Synchron), this permits the abuse of Synchro Summons. However I don't like this since it overshadows the original Engine.

T.G. Striker AND T.G. Warwolf, I believe this two should be played together, but that's not really needed, you can play only one of it, if you want. Those two helps Synchroing and Warwolf let you summon easy rank 3 XYZ. Warwolf is DARK Beast-Warrior, pretty bad, while Striker is EARTH Warrior, going to love this. Naturia Synchros FTW!!!

Cyber Dragon, well, takes down Geargias and Gadgets, if needed. Is a beatstick that can take down some monsters and is sometimes used in some Side Decks, so if we can, why not playing this in here? You can summon this and then summon coil to go into a level 8 while dumping Coil in the grave. But it is mainly needed for another reason, read next card

Reveal 1 Fusion Monster in your Extra Deck and send, from your Main Deck to the Graveyard, the Fusion Material Monsters that are listed on that Fusion Monster Card. During your 2nd Standby Phase after this card's activation, Special Summon 1 of that Fusion Monster from your Extra Deck and target it with this card. (This Special Summon is treated as a Fusion Summon.) When this card leaves the field, destroy that target. When that target is destroyed, destroy this card.
Future Fusion, I think I'll never get tired of this card. Use this and dump all of the Machines to combo (Coil and Hedgehog mainly, but there are others I'm going to talk about). Just activate and dump everything, it's easy.

Machina Gearframe AND Machina Fortress, little splashable engine, and since pretty much every machine monster you play isn't needed in your hand (except few), fortress is pretty good to dump 'em in the grave providing a big monster, too. This card doesn't fear neither being destroyed by the Inzektor Loop, nor being discarded by the Wind-Up loop. Pretty good, uh? Being Machine can be sent from the grave to thing the deck using Future Fusion, only that once you have used your Future to extremely thin your deck, you won't be able to summon this back except by discarding 3 Birdman, but that's not really possible, lol.

Scrap Recycler, dumper, nothing else. Dump Hedgehog, Coil or whatever else you need in the grave to combo. Easy. If you draw into Future Fusion, this card is no longer needed, so you can dump it with fusion too to thin your own deck and draw faster the cards you need (tink that 3 coils+3 hedgehog+3 Recycler+at least 1 Cyber Dragon, but you can send how many of them you want+3 Machina Fortress+3 Gearframe=16 card thin).

Tour Guide from the Underworld AND Sangan, hate to admit this, but this little engine is really useful in here, since she's going to summon Invoker really fastly. Nothing else to say.

Spell Striker, WOW, I love this card. Initially, when the Wind-Up loop wasn't well knowed, I used to play a fast build that used this card. Hell if that was funny, since you were going to loop and no one knew that the loop existed. Being Warrior EARTH level 3 you don't even have to think about it, Naturia Synchros, Naturia Synchros everywhere. Being searchable with RotA, you can even banish your own RotA after you've searched this to summon himself. This card effect is good too, it helped me winning some duels, LOL. Only thing it risks while being on the field during your opponent's turn is the Inzektor Loop. Didn't mentioned it, but that was pretty understandable that this cards helps in XYZing, too.

The Warrior Returning Alive, this card can retrieve most of your most useful cards, mainly Repairman, but you can use this to retrieve Spell Striker and then remove this card to summon him. Nothing else to say.

Raigeki Break, discards your unuseful cards in hand (or mainly the ones that you need in the grave) to destroy opponent's card. As said in the Mirror VS. D-prison post, no one still plays Stardust Dragon, and without priority you can even use this to negate opponent's monsters effect like Rescue Rabbit or Inzektor Dragonfly and others. This is a random cards removal, too.

XX-Saber Gottoms, level 9 3100 ATK. He's here to manage even bigger monster without losing any other card, like acid golem or red archfiend dragon or other overboosted cards. Sadly he's fiendishable, so don't summon him if it only to deal other 100 damages, except if those 100 damages will let you win. You can use his effect too, tributing himself or Invoker.


This deck has potential, since with a good hand you can even do some crazy comboes. One I like is:
NS Repairman, SS Coil from the grave
SS Doppelwarrior from the hand
SS Birdman Bouncing Repairman
Synchro Birdman and Doppel into Librarian
get two tokens that you'll use to synchro with Coil into Wayne
(Draw 1 for Librarian)
Use Wayne's effect to SS Repairman
Use Repairman's eff to SS Coil
Synchro Coil and Repairman into a level 7
(Draw 1 for Librarian)
OR
Synchro Coil and Wayne into a level 8 (Scrap Dragon usually)
(Draw 1 for Librarian)
IF you summoned Scrap Dragon
Use his effect to shoot Repairman to destroy an opponent's card
OR
If you summoned Stardust Dragon, make sure that you've summoned your repairman in DEF 
because he can't attack at all

There are some variants of this deck other than the Iron Chain classic build:

Quickdraw build, using Junk Synchron, Quickdraw, Dandy, Doppel and Tuning with a special Extra.
PROs: this build tends to synchro a lot generating a lot of advantages even during the first turn.
CONs: this build tends to overshadow the Iron Chain main Engine and it needs a lot of space in the extra deck. Since the original build has a tight extra deck, this one could be difficult to build.

Mill Variant: uses Iron Chain Snake with Inferno Reckless Summon to equip them to a Lava Golem and then attack him with Photon Thrasher to deal some damages and make your opponent mill 24 (+6 draws and probably another draw due to a passed turn before this happened it is 31 cards, only 9 remains). Wait a turn (opponent draws a card remaining with 8 cards in deck, if he hasn't used any draw/search cards). Then you can use Repairman to re-summon snake, equip him to an opponent monter, XYZ Repairman and Thrasher into Blade Armor/Excalibur to deal more damages OR into Utopia to stall more, attack the monster and mill (probably 3/4). Wait 'till the opponent decks-out.
PROs: this build is somehow funny and unaxpected. Lava Golem can kill a lot of powerful cards in this format, like Laggia, The Shining and other cards.
CONs: unstable, if you don't draw into anything good it is all BUT funny.

Control Build: this one uses Elder to go into Shi En and abuses of Naturia Synchros, other than using some other tipical control cards.
PROs: is the second funniest build among these, it probably the most competitive since it can stop opponent moves really easily and has a lot of possilities, is not limited to some card (the Classic one is the most similar to this, so if you want you can use one of your Classic build to build this off of that).
CONs: can't explode on first turn like the Quickdraw and the classic build do.

Overall:
This deck has a lot of potential, and there are a lot of cards that support this kind of deck that I didn't talk about and it is possible that other will come out. Among those build, the control one is surely the best one, and I think it is less funny of the classic build for other people, while this one is the one that I like the most since I like a lot control decks.

Sorry, don't think I'm seeing you all as noobs, I linked all the cards, even the more known, for Par Condicio (Equal Conditions, don't know if that is known external to Italy, so I wrote it however). And, with the link you can easily check some rulings, and linking some cards and not others would be...ugly to see, I'd say.

Well, that was all for today, tomorrow I'll post something else, even if I don't know what, Stay Tuned