Deadly and Dead

It's sad to make two off-topic posts about no-writing without putting any contents between them, still, I've got to write this.
I've got twice the tasks to do, and half the energy to do them, so writing posts here is kinda difficult for me. I've thought of a little solution, though: stop the card of the week.
That's not meant ot be a definitive stop, it's just for the time being. The reason for this are two:
1.I won't be here next monday, so I can't post it, and mondays are hard days to write or post something;
2.I think the CotW slows me down.

The two things I swore when I decided to start the CotW thing were that I wouldn't have missed one without letting you know and that I wouldn't have reviewed other cards outside the CotW. The latter really slows me down, not being able to review a card when I feel like just slows me a lot, and I noticed that writing it as a Card of the Week is pretty tiring, because I need to stay on that card for the most of the time, without being able to do little reviews about other cards to work in the same scenario and such. Being able to review whatever and whenever I want should work.

Stay Tuned, I believe I'll post something these days.

Missing the Blog and More Absence from It

Well, actually, I'm pretty missing blogging, but I never have the energy to write or something to write about. If that wasn't enough, I'll be missing from the blog for a week, so, for the first time, no card of the week for tomorrow, since there'll be no internet connection. Sad.
I'll try to be more active when I'll be back. I'm writing right now on my phone some topics to talk about when I'll be back, so, fear not, I should be able to write something.
See Ya.

Card of the Week #20: Metaion, the Timelord

Cannot be Special Summoned from the Deck. If you control no monsters, you can Normal Summon this card without Tributing. This card cannot be destroyed by battle or by card effects. You take no Battle Damage from battles involving this face-up Attack Position card. At the end of the Battle Phase, if this card attacked or was attacked: Return all other monsters on the field to the hand, and inflict 300 damage to your opponent for each card returned. During your Standby Phase: Shuffle this card into the Deck (even if face-down).

Lovely card, rulings, there we go:
If the a card returned to the hand via this card's effect isn't really in the hand (Plaguespreader summoned via its own effect, for example), that card won't be counted toward the number of cards for the damages.
Bouncing a Synchro monster, Fusion monster, or XYZ monster, is counted as bouncing them to the hand, so they will be counted.

No explanations.

Let's take a close look, then:
FIRE, nothing special since it can't be summoned from the deck;
LV10, some XYZs, go into Gustav with this and another monster;
Fairy, the great one, it's just perfect for this card;
Stats, 0 ATK and 0 DEF, not that they matter given the effect.

Well, I like this card. I used to play, and recently brought back to life, a fairy deck using Freya with Court of Justice and Valhalla to bring giant fairies. Needn't to say that this card was probably one of the best star of the deck, and funnier ones to play. In three copies I drew it frequently, and frequentily I did summon it. That was to clean the field from nasty XYZs, such as Zenmaines, Maestroke, or even giant synchros and hard-to-play-around monsters. Dealing some damages was even actually funny, and game winning if used right.
In this deck I used to play Freya as LV1 to trigger Court of Justice, and ATK booster for our fairies, while Athena and this dealt damages, while krystia was frequently blocking opponent's summons. Athena+this worked wonders, since you could attack with this, get rid of monsters on the field, summon athena somehow, tribute this and SS another monster so that we didn't get the -1 that this card usually has. Athena comboed quite a bit with Superbia and another athena, summoning this as finisher some times, while dealing other damages and having a field full of powerful beaters.
Valhalla was there to summon giant beatsticks from the void, and the rest was protection and staples. Good deck it was.

Talking of this card generally, I should underline how this card can be freely summoned from the hand, grave or banished zone. The only limit it puts, is that you can't from the deck. Actually, I think that if built well, Call of the Haunted should be its best friend. SS it via coth, wipe out the field, recycle CotH somehow (still thinking of a solid way to do so), use it again next turn, profit.
While this idea is still developing, one of the most possible ones is in Burn decks or monster-less (or deck with a low monster count) as a way to stall the opponent, do some damages, and have an empty field for your moves during your turn. As a level 10, it's great for random gustavs with metal reflect slime or other cards.

Having 0 ATK makes it a workable target for Limit Reverse, but even for reptilianne vaskii, if you were to play metaion in a reptilianne deck (needed to name this one since I'm thinking of how to efficiently play and build a reptilianne deck).


Actually, this post was just a fast one to put together various uses of this card. Today I had no time to write anything, since tomorrow there's English Oral Test (side note for who doesn't remember/know: Italian is my language, English is only the language I learnt at school) and need to study something, even if not truly needed. Oh, well.

See Ya.

Once again

Lack of post. Actually, it's not a time issue, but some ideas. It's just that recently I'm not playing ygo enough to build something, or even only think of some comboes. I should make posts like "Random Thoughts", to make the blog a little more active.
If you've got something you want me to talk about, just ask here under the comments, but don't expect builds, I could give some advices. If you want, you can post your decklist and ask for fixes, I'd like to try this one too. Only original decks, though.

Card of the Week #19: Doomcaliber Knight

Cannot be Special Summoned. During either player's turn, when a monster effect is activated: Tribute this face-up card; negate the activation, and if you do, destroy that monster.

I wanted to review this card from quite some time, yesterday talking with a friend of mine I thought about reviewing this today, and so it was. Here, have some rulings:
-Tributing is a cost;
-The "cannot be special summoned" part of the effect is a condition;
-This effect does not target.

The first two don't need explanations, just keep in mind that you can use his effect even with skill drain on the field and that that "cannot be special summoned" can't be avoided no matter what.
The third one, instead, is a logical thing. As you all know, you can't target cards in hand or deck, so if this card hits a card in hand or deck, this means it can't target. That's the same reasoning that's behind Trishula's rulings.

Let's take a close look, shall we?
DARK, yeah, supports, and given his effect even chaos fodder;
LV4, usually a lovely level, but with this card it doesn't really matter, just keep that in mind for eventualities;
Fiend, some other good supports;
Stats, 1900 ATK is great, and everyone seems to forget that this card has a great defense, too, 1800 is really something.

I love this card, that's it. Great stats with great effect. Negate monster's effect to stop their plays, at the worst it's 1 for 1 trade, so it doesn't matter, expecially if you have some cards to back you up.

Well, why this card? As you should know, I like controllish and antimetish things, so that cards that are always there in these decks are my favourite ones. To be honest, I hated Doomcaliber initially, probably because of some bad experiences I had against him, but then I started playing chaos stun for something like 2/3 formats (before BLS was limited again) and this became one of the big three of the deck, alongside Thunder King and Chaos Sorcerer.

Why is doomcaliber so awesome? Doomcaliber has a particular ability: can negate any monster's effect, no matter where and when. The problem is that his effect is mandatory, but that's not a problem if you can work with him. Summon this, set 1 warn, 1 bribe and 1 dimensional prison and you are ready to win. While playing this card the main thing you need to control is YOUR field, and not only your opponent's. If you have nothing to back you up after you use his effect you're probably done for. I'd rather not summon him in place of sumoning him without any back-up plans or other antimetish cards in the backrow.
While you have to play being aware of this, this card is great because it can destroy giant monsters if they have mandatory effects or stop your opponent from using them if they don't have anything else to kill doomcaliber. If they do have them, you have your backrows, so anything's fine and you'll continue stopping your opponent's cards while locking your opponent's monster's effect with your still-on-the-field Doomcaliber Knight.

A pro that's at the same time a con is that doomcaliber can negate cards from everywhere, both fields, both hands, both decks, both graveyards, both banished zones, basically everywhere.
While this can be used from your opponent to kill your doomcaliber without high costs, or sometimes without any cost at all (treeborn frog is an example), you can use this to stop your opponent's key monster's effects, like the only monster's effect that inzektors will need to start comboeing, that rescue rabbit your opponent is trying to use, that Stratos your opponent is trying to summon (that has a mandatory effect, of course), that dark world's effect that your opponent used wasting a discard card only to kill that 2200 beater you have on the field (cause he gets the 300 ATK bonus from gateway, of course) and so on.

Speaking of Dark World, even though I never played them competitively recently, I started building an antimeta build that features triple doomcaliber. I'm actualyl developing this with a friend of mine that's way more expert than me about this deck, but I definitely think it has potential.
Being able to generate +1s or generally not to go into some -1s, and the ability to play skill drain, it makes Dark World a perfect deck for antimeta/control. Being Doomcaliber fiend, too, he gets the +300 ATK from gateway, making him a 2200 beater against TK or even cyber dragon, while being able to stop effects from the hand or graveyard, other than field if skill drain is not active.

I should, one day, do a general guide to control and antimeta decks, I felt the need of it sometimes.

Well, this was all, hope you liked the card and the post. Check out LFN and YGO's post about him, too, as he did a fast post about that card mained against the meta.
See Ya.

20.000 Visit Count Hit!///Look at my favourite meta-ish decks

The blog reached 20.000 visits, totally good thing, in less than 2 months from the 10.000 (actually 1 month and 28 days, since the 20.000th visit was yesterday). As a special for this new record, I should do something I don't often do: talk about competitive decks that I like.
If you're fellow readers of this blog, you should know I hate overplayed decks, but I like them when no one knows about or plays them. However it happens that I fall in love with some kind of decks that are quite played, well, shit happens.
I like Control and OTK decks, better if they're together, that's the main reason of most of those decks:
Infernities, probably the one that looks like a meta deck that I like the most. Control your opponent, stop him from attempting suicide, then go into some wild OTK. Love Infernities for their explosion abilities. I'm actually playing them with a standard, beetle-less, build. Go into void ogre and archfiend with a pair or barriers down there and subsequently win. A side note, I do play 3 barriers cause I love them.
Karakuris, you should know this one too, since I posted it some time ago. Generates +1s, goes into Naturia Beast, my favourite synchro, possibly with safe zone attached, then goes into OTKs. Lovely one.
Six Samurais, even though it's been quite some time since I last played or built them, it's been some time that I wanted to restart playing them. I like them since they can explode with a lucky hand and go into easy OTKs OR stall with shi en and one of my favourite synchros ever, Naturia Beast (and eventually Barkion, but I like Beast more). Control 'em all, then kill.
X-Sabers, I like their style too, even though I have never played them, I'd like to start, only that recently I'm having quite some problems with DN (as usual, lol), and some combined lack of time and will. They're good, once again control them, their hand, their field, and then kill. Good, good, good, and EARTH for Beast/Barkion, other than eventual grandsoil.
Wind-Ups, only recently I've started liking them, since the limiting of zenmaity. They can combo to go into something controllish and OTK the opponent, while plusing you from everywhere. And, what's more, I love WU Rabbit, so that's it. After Zenmaity's limitation, it became more and more hard to play, with lots of reasoning needed, that's why I like it. Should start playing this one, too.
Rock Stun, actually playing them. Negate your opponent's thingies, and gradually make them lose their LPs. Like this because you negate even your opponent's breathing, and negating everything is one of my major sources of fun.
Antimeta&Rogue, same for the rock stun, only that this is more lollish. Turn 1, summon pachy, set 5, opponent gets an heart attack and then win.

This was all, pretty much. Consider that for today I didn't planned on write anything, so I just wrote a bunch of random things in this post, but I think I'll take some and write something more appropriate to them in the future.

Selvaggio: Beastly Synchro

Monsters: [22]

3 Chain Dog

2 Dark Desertapir

1 Egotistical Ape

1 Green Baboon

3 Key Mouse

3 Kinka-Byo

1 Lock Cat

3 Ryko

2 Super-Nimble

3 Uniflora

1 X-Saber Airbellum

Spells: [10]

1 Creature Swap

1 Dark Hole

2 Gold Sarcophagus

1 Heavy Storm

1 Mind Control

1 Monster Reborn

2 Mystical Space Typhoon

1 One for One

Traps: [7]

1 Fiend Comedian

3 Horn of the Phantom Beast

1 Solemn Judgment

2 Starlight Road

The Extra Deck is quite randomish, but it worked well. If you want, I think I should do it too, add one other Emeral by dropping a tricorn or unicorn.

Then, back to the deck itself, how does this work? It works fairly well, I'm yet to find the perfect build, but it works.

Go into fast Naturia Beast, maybe with Horn equipped to make it a giant beatstick not overrunnable via usual methods, then do, as fast as you can, barkion to lock out the opponent's usual choices and eventually lock even all of the methods they have to kill your duo (not everyone plays monsters capable to kill other monsters, and if the draw into veiler too late they should have lost already, even because you play other protections, too.

While doing this, you have lots of beat abilities, ryko's destroying ability, uniflora's SS ability, Kinka's effect to bring back uniflora and another monster with uniflora's effect, that single creature swap control and so on.

Explaining some of the most odd choices:

Desertapir+Gold Sarcophagus, extreme SS ability, with uniflora in the grave you can virtually SS all of the beast monsters.

Egotistical Ape, discard chain dog, bring him back, go into Beast. What's more, random tuner with variable levels.

Single Lock Cat, I didn't feel the need for more than one, since uniflora can't activate its effect, only thing left was summon mouse to use its effect once destroyed, or go into armory arm. If armory was beast, Lock Cat would have been at least at 2, but usually 3.

Green Baboon, decent beater, main reason for it. As an added reason, back-up plan sometimes.

Single Creature Swap, more have been cloggy to me, and 1 just good.

Fiend Comedian, my favourite tech from some time on. Use this, either ruin opponent's plans or give you the mill you need.

I'd like to have another emeral in there because one recycles the other one so that you don't have non-beasts in the grave.

The major problem of the deck was, though, the speed. You could either start with awesome hands or bad hands that needed you to stall some turns. However the deck has one main good point: it has pretty much never a totally bad hand such as "Oh, I have these shits, I should hit the admit defeat button", you could always turn the table.

Other ideas for the deck were playing solidarity as, the most of times, we have only beasts in the grave.

What's more, I initially played Bazoo in the deck to get rid of non-beast monsters, but when I read desertapir's effect closely I noticed that it wouldn't work with bazoo's effect, so I took if out for soul release that worked, but was way too occasional, I gave up on the idea of removing those monsters like that and use emeral instead, however I thought of Transmigration prophecy while writing this post. I think it should be good, recycle your cards, make your opponent's monsters not be a valid target for lot of cards and they're done for. What's more, chainable.

I believe I'll play one dropping an Airbellum, since it felt more than anything else cloggy and useless. And, yes, it happened, I had airbellum on the field against DWs making him totally dead.

Well, that was it. As usual, the translation: "Selvaggio" means "Wild", I felt it was appropriate for the deck since this goes "selvaggiamente" (wildly) into some big synchros and beaters.

See Ya.