Ipocrisia: Traptrix Antimeta

Monsters: [14]

2 Maxx "C"
1 Neo-Spacian Grand Mole

2 Summoner Monk

3 Traptrix Atrax

3 Traptrix Myrmeleo

3 Traptrix Nepenthes

Spells: [11]

2 Forbidden Dress

3 Forbidden Lance

3 Pot of Duality

2 Terraforming

1 Seal of Orichalcos

Traps: [15]

1 Bottomless Trap HOLE

1 Compulsory Escape Device

2 Dimensional Prison

1 Macro Cosmos

2 Mirror Force

1 Solemn Warning

2 Trap HOLE

2 Traptrix Trap HOLE Nightmare

3 Void Trap HOLE

I promised, didn't I? That I would post this after the meta defined down a bit. Well, this is it, full of meta calls.

First of all, let's start saying that the Extra matters little to nothing, but on a second though, I'd add 1 catastor in place, maybe, of Utopia Ray or something else. The side is there, not really studied and tested, but that's the concept and should, approximatively, work.

As of the main, if I weren't to play that kind of side, I would have rather played 1 Terraforming and 2 Orichalcos, but I'd have to side two terras each game in which I used those fields.

Well, let's start:
As I already said in the previous post, the Sisters' strenght relies on +1s whenever you use a card, mainly because when you use that card, your opponent already wasted a couple of resources in order to summon the monster you've destroyed. To this, you can add Nepenthes' and Myrmeleo's searches, resulting in some effective +1.
It has some great control, that's for sure, and the monsters are relatively big under Orichalcos. Sure, they don't compete with >2300 ATK monsters, but still, Dress and Lance help there respectively against 2900 or less and 3100 or less, when paired with orichalcos and Atrax.
The deck can effectively main Macro Cosmos, and, if willing, even Dimensional Fissure (probably in place of a Void Trap Hole).

Maxx "C" is there for EDs (predominant deck, most likely, of the format) and as draw power. They're, indeed, substituting CCDs. If you don't like it, you can freely go back to Cardcar D.
Grand Mole here tries to solve one of the two main problems this deck has: big monsters. If the opponent manages to summon a big monster like Maestroke (which isn't hard at all to summon and we have pretty much no way to counter with our traps) or Gachi (which is slightly easier because of Atrax+Orichalcos) or other stuff like that and they keep it in defense, we have no way to kill them and, thus, killing the opponent. Grand Mole bounces the monster and, if they attempt to summon it again (assuming it is one of those we can counter) even though they went through our traps the first time, they won't be able to do so a second time. If they succeed to, oh well, we can just bounce it again, hopefully.
Summoner Monk brings more Sisters for some more consistence. Summoning Nepenthes this way is even more awesome than drawing into it, too.
Atrax, Myrm and Nep deserve no explanation, aside from Nep being in three copies. I didn't really like it that way, but it happens often to draw into no monsters (Yeah, DN hates us, I know) and this tries to extablish a better field alongside Monk. Keep in mind that Nep+Trap Hole is generally a good or decent start. Even BTH is okay, but someone may dodge it. You never know. After Nep activates her effect once, she's gone for good most of the times. When she survives, though, she will give you many pluses. However, by no mean protect her unless you need to kill the opponent's monster or you didn't manage to use her effect yet and have no other monsters.

As for the spells, you may see alot of them, compared to how many you'd expect, but that's because most of them act as traps but are, at the same time, monk fodder.
Dress+Lance acts as main protection, alongside Mirror, Prison and so on for our Atrax. I managed to kill a couple of comboes, too, hitting a monster with Lance so that nothing could be equipped to it. I even saw one of the biggest suicides ever of a monster that had 5000 ATK and dropped to 1700, crushing against my 2300 Atrax. Dress is mainly protection against BRD, whom may be lots of troubles if you don't manage to have a void or a nightmare.
3 Dualities are for consistency, and most of the times I wished I could play more.
2 Terra and 1 Orichalcos. I would have liked the opposite, so that the Terra was pretty much always live, and to reduce the DDs. What's more, if you extremely needed to XYZ, you could set one orichalcos over the other, even though you couldn't use it. With my side, though, it's needed to main 2 Terras. If you won't play that kind of side, I'd say 2 Orichalcos and 1 Terra.

The Traps are quite a lot, uh? Still, sometimes you may lack them if you don't play accordingly to your hand. The deck isn't that skilled, but still, it isn't totally skilless. Just think before activating something and it's all good.
CED, Prison and Mirror act as main counter to monsters once they are on the field. If they maanged to summon something big before you could set your traps, without those and mole, you'd have lost. This way, instead, you have some kind of counter.
Warning is the only trap that activates on the summon that isn't a hole trap, and thus not searchable. Though, it is too awesome to not be played.
As for the Holes, I chose this exact set after a little meta breakdown. I think this is one of the best combinations. BTH is must at 1. Void Trap Hole should be the one with more copies of itself and Trap Hole and Nightmare are to be played accordingly to the player in a total of 3/4 copies.


Let's see the PROs and the CONs of the deck, instead:
PRO: has counters that vary from nice to awesome for pretty much every deck;
CON: there are a couple of DDs, expecially some Holes against some decks;
PRO: can summon some nice beater with ease;
CON: being nice beater doesn't mean good/awesome beater, and we can't drop stronger than 2300, usually:
PRO: has lots of monster removal;
CON: not always it is effective and sometimes the opponent may just summon the boss before we can drop our traps on them;
PRO: the monsters are usually well protected;
CON: when they aren't, them being killed is most of the times a great loss because of the lack of recycling and reviving power;
PRO: when you manage to effectively control the opponent, most of the times it results in a lock;
CON: when you don't, you are probably going to have your ass kicked;
PRO: it manages to destroy pretty much everything if you play it right;
CON: control cards from the opponent are game-killer for you.

Resuming the advantages and disadvantages of the deck, it has some great control over the opponent with crazily good match-ups against other decks, but it basically loses to traps and big undestroyable monsters.

I've had some nice results with it, against most meta decks. I won to some Antimeta, but surely I lost more than won against them. Being able to side Decree is awesome (Atrax lets your traps activate even if decree is on the field). The rest of the side is awesome when it comes to certain decks, but it may be totally useless against others. I already said, that's mostly the concept of the side, not the real side itself.

Try it, you won't be disappointed.

See Ya.

P.s. Usual Lore, "Ipocrisia" means "Hypocrisy". That's to point out how traptrix work with their traps, they say they're able to dodge them (they all dodge Hole trap cards) but in the end, they suffer from them, not being able to practice what they preach.

Traptrix and (Anti)Meta

You know them, don't you?

Traptrix

a.k.a.

dem lolis

(IT'S A TRAP!)

Traptrix, Lolis or Traps, no matter how you want to call them, this is what they are: Trappers. They do whatever is possible to lure and trap you and your monsters in one of their many traps. They have a pretty nice lore, too, but I won't stop on it and focus on their utility. If you want to read the lore (I suggest you to do so), read it from this beautiful article on tcgplayer.

Staying on our topic, instead, you know I won't start a review without giving some proper explanations on why I'm trying them and on them themselves, and this time my reason for playing them is that I wanted to find some underdog antimeta that could flip tables. Traptrix (you may find discussion of them under the name of Kowakuma or Mesmerizing Maneater, too) are an unique archetype that works with the "Hole" normal traps. Let's see them singularly:

All of them have an effect that lets them dodge Hole cards, making those little things totally unaffected by them. They all are LV4 EARTH.

-Traptrix Nepenthes, the one on top left is the only Plant-type Traptrix. What it does is Special Summoning or Searching a Traptrix monster, excluding other copies of herself, from your deck, making her the recruiter of the archetype. When does this effect trigger? When a Hole normal trap is activated. Of course, it has the usual "you can only use the effect of "Traptrix Nepenthes" once per turn". Well, this was to be expected. With her 800/2000, she has the biggest defensive body among the Sisters (not that they really are sisters, but let's call them like this, as of now).

-Traptrix Atrax, the bottom one, is the Beater of the archetype, with 1800/1000. She is, like Myrmeleo, an Insect, and has two effects: one lets you activate Hole normal traps from your hand, this means that you can, theorically speaking, activate them on your first turn; the other effect gives all of your normal traps immunity from negation and makes their activation not prevent-able, basically, Decree and Trap Stun do nothing.

-Traptrix Myrmeleo, the one on the top right, is our official searcher for traps. It is usually summoned only to activate her effect or rarely to Xyz, because of her body not really special in anything, with 1600/1200. Still, this body means nothing compared to her effects: the first one activates upon Normal Summon, and lets you search a Hole normal trap from your deck; the second one activates upon Special Summon and (mandatory) makes you destroy a Spell or Trap on the field. Myrmeleo, for the first effect, is the most splashed one, creating a little engine that yet has to be well-defined.

Now that we have those, what do we do? Well, you probably noticed how they tend to be against the meta, because of their nice searching of Traps, but how can we use it?

In order to answer this, let's see what we can grab, mainly:

There are some others, but I didn't bother putting them here, because they are not relevant now and they won't, probably, for the near future.

Those are:

-Bottomless Trap Hole, the most known and generic one. Most likely, the best one, too. Triggers on normal and special summon and only needs the monster to be the opponent's one and to be 1500 ATK or more. As of the new banlist, you are only allowed to play one, sadly.

-Trap Hole, the oldest one. Only triggers on normal summons, and kills them if they are 1000 ATK or more, not that bad, at least. Given that we can search it and that it can potentially hit some meta decks coming, it deserves some spots.

-Void Trap Hole still follows the Bottomless and Trap Hole series, needing the monster to be special summoned and have 2000 ATK or more. What's good is that it negates the effect of the monster right before destroying it. Basically, if the opponent special summons Kuraz, even though that's a trigger effect upon special summon, you are able to kill it right away and avoid his effect.

-Deep Dark Hole is a little different. The "deep" part at the start of the name was to differentiate it from "Dark Trap Hole", but in Japan it had a different name, and with the Lolis being able to search them, they decided to change Dark Trap Hole's name to Darkfall to avoid ruling problems and not using the usual "except 'Dark Trap Hole'" part. What's good with Deep Dark Trap Hole is that it can stop all of the big Synchros from ED Plant, but has the ability to stop T.G. Wonder Magician against some T.G. decks and other options. However, what makes it good is that it doesn't neither target, nor destroy, it simply banishes. Stardust cannot negate it and all of the monsters which activate their effects upon destruction won't get anything from it.

-Traptrix Trap Hole Nightmare is the themed Trap Hole for Traptrix. What it does is hitting the monster when he thinks he is safe (basically what Franco Ferrara said). Let's say your opponent goes into Hyper Librarian, he then goes into Stardust with a Dragon and Spore, he attempts to draw with Librarian, but he won't be able to. Nightmare is on constant fight with Void Trap Hole, because the range of things they hit is pretty much the same, with few differences. Void can destroy the monster right upon summon, but it has the requirement of it having 2000 or more ATK, while nightmare doesn't have this last restriction, but needing the monster to effectively activate its effects. I consider Void better just because a skilled player would simply go into beatdown with the monster he summons and then wait the turn after to use the effect, unless it is mandatory. If the opponent knows we have Void he'll as simply avoid going into some bosses until he is sure he can drop two.

Yeah, you probably noticed: we theorically have answers to everything the meta may offer, that may be the main strenght of those Sisters.

This everything has a flaw, though, what is it? Consistency. Yeah, theorically speaking, they have lots of consistency, Nepenthes searches the Sisters and Myrmeleo searches the Traps, so where is the problem? Ya know, I tried them, 3 PoDs (which are, currently, staples for me) and even 3 CCDs, but it's not like I could fix the problem of having enough monsters in hand. Even if I did have those monsters in hand, I probably lacked the Traps to work with, I as simply, can't happen to balance them. The more I try to balance them, it changes build:

Most of the times it becomes a Rogue with Pachys and stuff with an engine made of 3 Myrms, 1 BTH, 2 Void Trap Hole and 2 Trap Holes;

Some other times it becomes a Ninja deck with some of the Sisters' engine which slows the deck down;

Other times it becomes a semi-lockdown which is way too inconsistent and has tons of negative match-ups.

However, those problems can all be solved with the right build, the real problem is defining the build itself. This is because the next meta yet has to form, and being this an Antimeta, you have to know what to counter while building. If you don't know that, you're building against something that won't see play.

This was a fast review of the principal cards, but I'll be explaining more when the meta settles down, with a couple of techs I already know.

See Ya

P.s. as you've seen, this is the first time I'm using those icons for the cards. I worked on them a little bit, and they'll be standards from now on. What I noticed before was that the posts were too plain. I don't like them to be too full of stuff which is not something of matters, but I guess this won't hurt. What's more, I developed them in a way that they are easy to work on and create, and I'll be slowly building a library with those cards so that I won't have to create an icon again of a card I already used.

My New Meta

Let's start saying that I only tested decks I intend to play either IRL or on DN, but mostly IRL. Here are the results:

Faced tons of Infernities, some Chain Beats, no Karakuris (yet), a little bit of GBs, some rogues, less Hieratics than I expected and then the usual random decks that you could encounter in the other meta, too.

I tested: Chain Beat, Legacy and Garden, with and without the Traptrix engine; Infernity, only Monk build; Gladiator Beast, not too much, though; my teammate is testing T.G. Antimeta, but I didn't hear the results yet; I'm going to test GKs and Malefic whenever I have time.

-As of now, I'm really loving Chain Beat, with the Garden build. With the right hand it can deal with all of them, only suffering Wingbeat of a Giant Dragon, but we can deal with it, pollinosis and the cards that deal with their monster that they'll target for Wingbeat itself, waiting for the moment when you draw into pollinosis to directly deal with that Wingbeat. Garden makes it possible to easily kill big creatures, and you can escape Master Key Beetle+Safe Zone with Compulsory Escape Device, assuming you played it correctly. If you're playing the traptrix build, you have access to more destruction power and control. Macro and fissure are pretty awesome, expecially against Infernity, and they're even easier to access in the Legacy build than in the Garden build because of the drawing power.

-Infernity, on the other side, has the potential to kill EVERY deck, assuming you started right and first. With the monk build, I may even say that 4 times on 5 you start decently, with 1 of them being awesome, 2 of them being pretty good, and one being decent. However, you may have your games killed by your opponent if he goes first, it's pretty easy for him to block you, assuming he got a decent hand. With Hieratic not having much (or any) backrow, it is a pretty easy match-up, and GB isn't too big a problem, because most of the control cards they have are battle related (at least, they aren't heavy on traps on the summon), but still, can have a couple of counters. Macro can kill Infernities BUT we now have a good counter. Aside the 3 regular MSTs, we can pretty easily summon Diamond Dire Wolf.

-From the few tests I did with Gladiator Beast, I realized it has a couple of possibilities, but it's not THAT strong as many are saying recently (I'm not confusing it with the OCG). However, it has a recyclable MST (bestiari), a focused DH (Murmillo), continuous monster's effect negation (Equeste+Chariot), easy to summon beatsticks (Essedarii and XYZs), a more feasible Icarus' Attack (Gyzaurus) and Icarus itself. It is an awesome deck for what it does (toolboxing). The bad side is: it hasn't got the speed Infernity has, and cannot instantly go into +1s and extreme control like Chain Beat.

The results are: I'm probably going with Chain Beat Garden IRL and Infernities on DN (maybe I'll even build them, sooner or later, but that's pretty costy), while I'm testing other stuff.

Sorry for the short post, but it was just a little overview.

See Ya.

Felt like it: I'm back, guys!///The Theory behind Plusses

Hey guys, how have you been? It's been a long time, hasn't it? Yeah, yeah, I know, I said I had no interest in the current meta, but I'm not taking back my word, I still have no interest in it. So, why am I writing? Well,  I felt like it. What's more, the Banlist is a Ray of Hope for me, it'll hopefully crush or enormously hurt ED and SB, "hopefully"... Let's just hope it is like that.
Then, then, what's moving and exciting me right now? If, let's say, ED and SB get injured so hard that they can't be played anymore, what will be left? Everything! As of now the meta is:
Tier 1: ED and SB;
Tier 2: Everything else aside 4funs.
You do realize that if the Tier 1 gets crushed, we'll have a various meta, at least for the first part of the september-march period?
If you follow the upcoming sets, you probably noticed that all (most) of the new cards form decks that aim to control. This simply means that the next meta will probably see lots of old decks reborned through the beautiful art of Heavy-Trap decks, a couple of fast decks, and brand-new decks whom, as said, aim to control, leading to a slow format.
Ahhh, this brings back memories, in a meta where if I couldn't play a deck because the idea behind it wasn't consistent enough, I could simply add those 11-12 traps and be happy.

Well, let's get to the point of the post: after having explained why I'm slowly getting back at the game, here's some little theory-oh.

Card Advantage Theory
Most of you, if not all, have used or read/heard this thing at least once and, most probably, you know what it means: the Card Advantage Theory (CAT, from now on) says that in this game, msot of the time, the player who's winning is the one with most cards on the field and viceversa. "Why's that?" you may (or may not, I don't care, lol) ask. It is as simple as that: the player with most cards is more likely the one who has more possible counters to the opponent's moves. If I have 10 cards and my opponent 8, we could balance it out saying that 8 of my card nullifies my opponent ones, and I'm in +2. This supports CAT, indeed. This means that the CAT takes into consideration your opponent's plusses and minuses, inverting them. For Example, if you both have no cards in hand and you have a One Day of Peace set and you activate it, you lose one card (-1), you draw one (+1), your opponent draws one (-1)=-1. So, yes, One Day of Peace is a -1.

CAT applied to cards
Even cards follow CAT's rules, let's use the very example of +1: Thunder Dragon
You have one card in your hand, Thunder Dragon, activating it, you lost 1 card, but you added other two. 2-1=1. Congrats, you just went +1.
But, let's talk about a +0 (well, mathematically speaking, 0 doesn't have a symbol before it, but usually you'll see it with either a + or a -, so let's keep it): Upstart Goblin.
Activating it, you lost one card, but drew one. 1-1=0.
This was a +0, nothing to be really proud of, but nothing bad, either.
Let's talk, then, of the infamous -1s: Spellbook of Power.
Activating it you lost 1 card, and just gave 1000 ATK to a monster, without other income. 0-1=-1. Damn, you went negative, that's no good, is it?

Exceptions and whatnots
What we saw in the last paragraph, mathematically speaking, is that Thunder Dragon is good, Upstart is meh, Foolish is bad, but is that right? Well, not. You mustn't forget that there are variables and that sometime card quality is what matters. Unless you have something that needs discard fodder, are you really having some use for those Thunder Dragons? I believe not, that's why Thunder Dragon is under-used, seeing use only in FTKs or similar thingies, because it thins the deck, lets you go +1 and provides discard fodder for Dark World Dealing.
What about Upstart? If what you did didn't provide you any advantage but just made the opponent gain 1000 LPs, what was its use? Again, deck thinning. Playing Upstarts basically lets you go under the 40 card limit. Playing 3 in a 40 card deck will make it like you're using 37 cards, which improves your deck. Let's just say you can bypass the 3-card limit, how would a deck made up of 35 Upstarts and 5 pieces of exodia be? Simply unarrestable, whoever goes first without the opponent reacting with a droll and lock bird wins.
And then, what about Spellbook of Power? It's an inconfutable -1, so it's bad, right? Damn no. This is one of the whatnots I was talking about, it has a "side effect". When it destroys a monster in battle, you get a Spellbook spell from your deck. This means that you lose the card you activate (-1), search one (+1) and destroy an opponent's monster (+1). All in all, it becomes a +1. You happy now, SB player?

Applications
Why is this rule so important in YGO? As said before, the player who has more cards is most likely the one winning, but why does it matter if there are cards that are -1, -2, -3 or +1, +2, +3? First of all, let's just say that we're speaking of an at least semi-competitive game-scene, where no one plays plain -1s aside from Foolish Burial, SB of Power and similar (because, in the end, they aren't really -1s or have a real purpose). Considering that you start with 6 cards, you shouldn't waste them, but use them to produce more cards. What an ED player does is a combo on first turn that usually takes him to about +6 (+6 from the original number, resulting in about 12 cards). Do you realize why EDs are so strong right now?
What about SBs, why are they so strong? That's because they have +1s of about +3/4 but that they do repeteatedly, plus eventual stuff from Power and such.
This means that Card Advantage can easily vary. If you keep on using 1 for 1 (you lose one card in exchange for another from the opponent, like MST) you'll eventually lose because the opponent will plus if you don't have a consistent plus engine. What's behind Antimeta is exactly that, it doesn't use simple 1 for 1, but uses cards (even though they are mostly one for ones in the end) that won't let the opponent plus. The example I use the most is "Veiler that Stratos". Of course locking their pluses isn't that helpful if you don't have a way to plus yourself, but what if the way to plus yourself is minusing the opponent? That is a legit way of plusing, I said before, an opponent's -1 is a +1 for you. Let's say, then, that you are playing a control deck, you have a 1200 ATK Dyna and a Garden on the field. You'll instantaneously notice that the opponent isn't able to SS big monsters while it is needed to have an AT LEAST 2400 ATK monster to ram into Dyna, as of now. You don't leave him ways to ATK you and to damage you (you're locking Garden's summons with Dyna) and when you summon you don't plus him. Given that you have a big monster, you're free to set your monsters and then flip them if you want them at full force.
Doing so, you'll either keep the opponent at your same number but with less useful cards or you'll be minusing him always.

Decks
The kind of decks that work with this mindset are mainly Control, Stun and Antimeta, Stun being the one who uses is the best. I named Chaos Stun a couple of times, my favourite Stun deck ever I'm renewing. Either in the next or the one after the next post I'll write about it and the renewed list I'm working on.
Control has the option I named up there of Garden+Pachy, for example, while Antimeta lives off that, with Pachy on the field and several backrows.


Well, well, liked getting back at writing a lil bit, hope I can fully return blogging.
Stay Tuned.

Catene Maligne: Accumulated Chain Beat (TCG)

Monsters: [7]

1 Night Assailant

1 Sangan

2 Tour Guide from the Underworld

3 Wind-Up Rabbit

Spells: [4]

1 Dark Hole

1 Forbidden Chalice

2 Pot of Duality

Traps: [29]

3 Accumulated Fortune

2 Bottomless Trap Hole

2 Compulsory Escape Device

3 Compulsory Evacuation Device

3 Dimensional Prison

2 Jar of Greed

3 Legacy of Yata

2 Macro Cosmos

2 Mirror Force

1 Solemn Judgment

2 Solemn Warning

2 Starlight Road

2 Torrential Tribute

Extra is one of the worst I've ever built, considering I forgot Chimeratech Fortress Dragon, too, lol. Only things you REALLY need for the extra are Zenmaity and 2 Stardusts, the rest is extra things, if you've got some zenmaines, Giga-Brilliant and other R3s, play them.

For the main itself, consider first that I promised lots of people to post this deck, and this day was the deadline, so I forced my way in against some important tasks I had to do (luckily, this morning I didn't go to school, and that helped me alot) to have some free time to write this. Said this, let's explain the deck as it is, first:

Chain Beat, uses immortal Wind-Up Rabbits (when OCG-built, at least 2 thunderbirds are needed since you can even go into Ophion, and they avoid everything just like Rabbit but with a bigger body, the only thing they fear that rabbits don't are beaters summoned without using any effects, but if you've got a random chainable card, you're fine) to beat the opponent, while back-upping and handling your opponent's resources with the tons of traps you've got. You totally don't fear traps, Judgment and Warning aside.

In this build I implemented Accumulated Fortunes and Legacy of Yata with Jar of Greed to increase the draw power, since this is budget build with no Cardcar Ds.

This was basically the deck itself, let's see them cards, now:

Tour Engine, believe it or not, this engine here really has its meaning. Zenmaity is R3, and the earlier you have rabbit on the field, the better it is. Both Sangan and Night Assailant are great here, not only as tour targets, but even on their own. Search power for Rabbit is needed, and Assailant can work as additional destructive power. Most of the times I start with Tour, I summon Assailant, because having the possibility to summon another R3 is awesome in here, having finally a big beater.

Rabbits, no need to explain, right?

Dark Hole, additional destruction that doesn't affect your rabbits.

Forbidden Chalice, testing them, not pretty sure, though. Basically, they help you dealing with nasty effects like Shock Ruler's or others. I was thinking of Gorz in place of this, more explanations later.

Pot of Duality, I SS little to nothing, so it's totally ok.

Accumulated Fortunes, if you didn't notice one little thing, you should now think I'm crazy, even with all of those chainable traps. Rabbit's effect is chainable and creates great chains. Think that 3 Rabbits alone trigger Accumulated, great, isn't it? Chainable +1 that could become +2 on your opponent's MST.

BTH, monster removal, enough said. Improves our bad match-up against Dark Worlds.

Compulsory Escape Device, use this, target one rabbit, then chain rabbit's effect. You minused, your opponent did, too, but he lost important resources. What's more, that's 2 chain links, even a random MST could trigger your Accumulated.

Compulsory Evacuation Device, easier, but it's a -1 on you, if it isn't on a Fusion/Synchro/XYZ. More on the two CEDs later.

Prison, improves once again our DW match-up, kind of helps against mermails if your opponent is foolish enough, and is monster removal.

Jar of Greed, +1 on opponent's MSTs, generates long chains, and replaces itself while putting pressure on the opponent because you've got lots of face-downs.

Legacy of Yata Garasu, same as before. The only better thing it has when compared to Jar of Greed is that it is a +1 if your opponent has tsukuyomi or kinka-byo. If you want to build this IRL but you haven't got the third Legacy, replace it with Jar, it's ok.

Macro Cosmos, improves our bad match-up against DWs and Mermails.

Mirror Force, mass monster removal, nuff said.

Solemn Trio, massive negation effects, even though the cost is pretty high for this deck.

Starlight Road, this deck sets really alot, and not always all of the cards are chainable, so this is great, providing you a beatstick, too. Be aware of MSTs, if you encounter an experienced player, he could keep them (because if he is a good player he won't blind MST your face-downs, because most are chainable) and use them on his own Heavy Storm to stop Stardust's Summon via Starlight.

Torrential Tribute, mass monster removal, great one.

Ok, now let's check the missing cards:

Typhoons and Heavy, we don't fear set cards, and Heavy would backfire.

Gorz, I'm thinking to implement this. When I'm without cards, I'm losing, except for banished rabbits. If I've got something on the field, it surely has a way to get out of the field, if it hasn't, it is something triggerable via an attack, probably, and you should be okay if you've got that face-down.

Lava Golem, I was playing this, before, but I took it out because I needed to use other monster removal on that, but that isn't totally bad. I'm siding them.

Trap Hands, I don't really need more draw power via Maxx "C", and if I needed Veilers I would rather use more Chalices. I don't fear first turn comboes, so hand traps aren't really needed, and settable cards put lot of pressure on the opponent, and have easier ways to create chains.

CEDs combinations: Actually there are 2 Escape and 3 Evacuation, but I tested lots of ways before. I'd like 3 Escapes, but I think that a total of 6 would be way too much, and the main thing that prevents me from doing so is that it is a potential dead draw. However, it improves DW match-ups, and having Rabbit on the field isn't difficult at all, I could try 3 Escapes and 2 Evacuations.

Some mainable big or decent beater that works well with the entire deck, I was thinking of Winged Rhynos. Basically it is a Rabbit that works only with traps and eats your normal summon pretty much every turn. However, it takes quite some Warnings that would go to Rabbits, has a decent body (1800 ATK) and triggers Torrentials like a boss.

For the beater issue, I'm thinking of playing Orichalcos. TBH, I'm pretty sure I'll put it in, in the end. Makes rabbit a 1900, and with two rabbits your opponent won't be able to attack you at all. The inability to attack, however, could damage you, because you can't use some of your monster removal, but I think that's ok since you can just banish one of the rabbits and let the magic happen.

Shard of Greed, some more draw power. Deck is slow. Sadly, it draws all of the opponent's MSTs, so they will have less Half Dead Draws (when a card isn't totally unuseful, but still is worth be sided out if you don't fear other continuous cards).
Chain Strike, teched. More as a Game Finisher

Well, this was it. The deck's great, I'm planning on building it IRL.

That's All Folks!

Usual Trivia: "Catene Maligne" means "Malefic Chains", referring to the chains the deck will create and how they will influence the game (badly for the opponent).

Prohibition, What About Maindecking?

Activate by declaring 1 card name. Cards with that name, and their effects, cannot be used. Cards already on the field are not affected (including face-down cards).

Great side deck card it is, isn't it? Generic enough to be a generic side deck card against every deck. For this exact reason this card is primarly used for random decks you could encounter in a tournament but that you weren't ready for so that you didn't side anything. But, let's be a little more specific: every deck has a key card or some cards that they'd suffer alot to lose, or even cards that you don't want yourself to face. This card will always be there for you (looks romantic as a statement, doesn't it?).
So, what am I reviewing this card for? Maindeck it.
When there's a card enough specific to always be used it is considered a staple, let's say Reborn, Heavy and Dark Hole. Dark Hole and Heavy Storm are in the 90% of cases great minuses for the opponent and they could win your game, while reborn is played even in macro decks because SSing something without any cost is just great. No limit for the summon, even the opponent's grave is ok, and you can bring your opponent's BLS.
Prohibition does just the same, but even better: DH isn't good against some decks, Heavy isn't against other, Reborn suffers Macro decks, but this card can slow down ALL of them, or even kill some of them (prohibition on sea lancer is pretty much an auto-win, if you can protect prohibition).
Here's another factor, protection. Sometimes you can use Prohibition to protect yourself from DH when you overextended and opponent used fader or swift scarecrow, or even gorz. Sometimes you can use Prohibition on MST (maybe along Starlight face-down) to protect your field spell, your continuous cards, your face-downs, and your prohibition itself. Sometimes you can use prohibition when you see your opponent has 3 DARK monsters in grave on DAD.
This all makes maindecked prohibition great for lots of decks, from OTKs to control, to Antimeta, to Macro, to Skill, to Grave-reliant, to SS-reliant and so on.
Focusing a bit more on OTKs, you can use Prohibition on Gorz, Fader or Scarecrow (based on what you think opponent has in hand), or, if he has a set card, on Mirror Force, Prison or Compulsory. If you're comboeing and your opponent has a face-down, declare that Solemn Warning or Torrential Tribute right away.
Focusing on Control/Antimeta decks, stopping MST and Heavy Storms isn't everything you can do. If you play, let's say, a Control deck that focuses on bringing a boss monster to win, you can declare Solemn Warning and summon without worrying.

This is in game 1, in early game, where you don't even know what the opponent's playing, in mid and late game you can easily kill decks once you know what they're playing. Go for Prohibition on Hornet and plan to win, or use it on REDMD to stop the infamous Lightpulsar-REDMD loop, or use it on WU-Rabbit to stop some more abuses or Magician if he has yet to combo, while Mermails could lose some power once you stop their infantry, because they'd lose their raigeki break for face-ups that's searchable and abusable and that could destroy that prohibition itself. Everything suffers at least a bit Prohibition, even in game 1.

In game 2 and 3, if you didn't side out those prohibition (I'd always recommend to keep them, though, except for some rogue and such), this card gives you the upper hand since you won't have to side out anything to fit them, they're already in! Side what you want, and if it is a continuous spell/trap, declare MST.
Use this on Magician and protect it well, you should have already won like this. I won't explain all the decks cause you should know their main cards, just know that everything suffers, rogues and similar apart.

In game 2 and 3, too, you can use this card to counter-side. Basically awesome. You playing Wind-Ups? Go for Needle Ceiling. Playing Chaos Dragons? Fissure. Fear opponent's Prohibition? Prohibit it. (If you're asking if it is possible, yes it is).

Well, I described Prohibition as a meta call, sometime I should show you something else about Prohibition-
Stay Tuned, I prohibit you to stop following me (? LOL, just wanted to use prohibit someway, I like this verb a lot).

Black Garden, Giant Little Beatsticks, How to Build

When a monster(s) is Normal or Special Summoned, except by the effect of "Black Garden": Halve its ATK, also you Special Summon 1 "Rose Token" (Plant-Type/DARK/Level 2/ATK 800/DEF 800) to its controller's opponent's side of the field, in Attack Position. You can target 1 monster in your Graveyard with ATK equal to the total ATK of all face-up Plant-Type monsters on the field; destroy this card and all face-up Plant-Type monsters, then Special Summon that target.

Yeah, yeah, great card, anyone knows this card's great, right? Let's start saying that recently I'm taking a liking to this card (I always liked this, but recently it got better), and I'm thinking of lots of uses for this card's effects. Let's start reading them one by one:

When a monster(s) is Normal or Special Summoned, except by the effect of "Black Garden": Halve its ATK, also you Special Summon 1 "Rose Token" (Plant-Type/DARK/Level 2/ATK 800/DEF 800) to its controller's opponent's side of the field, in Attack Position.

Basically, I summon a monster, his ATK is halved, and I summon a token on the opponent's field or viceversa. This part of the effect is awesome, it's way this card is played where it is played. Decks that abuse this part of the effects are usually called Garden Control. Basically you set a monster that would benefit alot by having a greater ATK than other monsters, like don zaloog, next turn flip summon it and have a great beatstick that does anything. Here the name Giant Little Beatstick (GLB) comes to mind, it is a little beatstick, but it becomes giant if compared to other monsters. To abuse this card's effect we have:
Don Zaloog, hand control like hell.
Wind-Up Rabbit, becomes basically a 2800, good enough, isn't it? Comboes with Kaiser Colosseum (I'll say more about this later). (Verz Thunderbird does the beating better, but the Kaiser worse)
Horus, once LV6 is summoned, he'll be a hell of a beatstick (not halved via Garden, too), and could upgrade  easily beating a token into LV8 to negate ALL the spells, good enough.
Jurracs, Guaiba could easily become a laggia destroying the token he just generated, and Dino could let you draw two during the end phase (always working with kaiser colosseum).
(Pseudo-/)Flip Effects, Sazank could be a 1200 (2400 against other monsters) that sends a monster to the grave and direct attacks, Fossil Dyna could destroy all of the tokens and keep control on the field with his 2400 ATK, and so on.

What's more, the tokens being plant means you can use pollinosis as additional judgments (or better, main judgments, since I wouldn't play judgment itself for the LP cost that here is really bad), and fragrance storm as a mean to control the field for kaiser (I wouldn't suggest this, anyways, because could really be a dead draw)

Let's see the second and last part of the effect:

You can target 1 monster in your Graveyard with ATK equal to the total ATK of all face-up Plant-Type monsters on the field; destroy this card and all face-up Plant-Type monsters, then Special Summon that target.

Then, what about this? Let's start saying that tokens are 800 ATK and are probably the only plant monsters on the field, that means that the monster that you want to reborn has to be a 800*X ATK monster, where X is a number from 1 to 10 (even if the higher it is, the most difficult to summon it is), I find that 800, 1600 and 2400 are the easier to summon). I wrote something about Garden and possible targets in this post, so I think I should not focus on this part of the effect in the explanation, just use the other post as a reference for anything about this part of the effect.

Now, let's see supports for the supports. You can't just randomly play those supports if they don't accomplish at anything, so let's see some supports for the supports:
-Tour Engine, brings Rabbit faster. Not really needed, but for those who don't care for Kaiser Colosseum's field control and like Tour, this engine could be played. As engine I mean 2 Tours, Sangan and Night Assailant. Sangan searches pretty much anything, while Night Assailant is a mindfuck for the opponent. You'll be setting a lot of monsters, so your opponent wouldn't always expect a flip effect when you set a monster, so cards like assailant, fossil dyna, sazank and others are real bitches for the opponent.
-Kaiser Colosseum, I talked alot about this card in this post, why's that? Rabbit that auto-banishes itself reduces the number of monsters on your side of the field, reducing even the number of monsters the opponent can play. What's more, let's see an hand of garden+guaiba+Kaiser, and the opponent with a clear field (first turn, for example). Activate Garden, summon guaiba, the opponent gets a token, then activate kaiser and stop your opponent's monsters. Next turn (assuming it was the first turn), you beat the token, get another guaiba, opponent gets a token, too, go into laggia, your opponent can't summon the other token, and you'll be left with Laggia, kaiser and garden, while the opponent has a token. Lots of cards, generally, can abuse kaiser in here, I don't see why you shouldn't be playing with it.
-Ninjas, we do play sazank, we could play other ninjas. They can easily bring Horus and keep field control with supertransformation for when you don't have kaiser. You can summon either horus or white dragon, since the latter can prevent your S/Ts' destruction. We do even play some Dinos, so why not?
-Royal Decree, along with horus LV8, needs no explanation. You just have to balance your trap set well.

Now, counteracting to the opponent's counteract in the first game. Let's first see what the opponent is likely to do:
If he NS or SS monsters, it'll halve their monster's ATK, and they'll get me a token as tribute for horus and such, but he could not know I do play horus, based on your gamestyle and what you revealed to the opponent. Since he surely knows that having a monster with halved ATK against my monsters that benefit from killing opponent's monsters isn't good, he'll probably set them, so let's see what we can do against the setting of monsters.
Setting a monster isn't a very good option in YGO, since it'll make you lose the normal summon of the turn and you can't attack with that one, what's more you'll have to flip it next turn exposing it to additional traps the opponent could have drawn in the turn he bought. For this exact reason I'd max out on those BTH and CED. Bottomless is a great card, if the monster has less than 1500, it won't be a threat to us, if it is greater than 1500, you can kill it. Compulsory, on his side, can bounce that monster buying you another turn since he'll have to set the monster again and flip it next turn. I'd play some Torrential, too, but it's based on how your build is.
Acid Trap Hole is another choice, based on how much control you want on the opponent. Let's be realistic, no one plays >2000 DEF monsters, except Glads if they tech Hoplomus (but you'll have to encounter a GB that does play hoplomus, and both of the facts are pretty surrealistic, and they'll even have to draw into it, because searching it with proving would conclude nothing from their side of the game), and in that case you'll know who the set monster is. Only sad fact is that it trigger FLIP effects, but they would have triggered them however, sooner or later, right?

Other things they could do in game 1 is activating a field spell to ruin your garden setup. In that case you have few responses, but they are good enough considered that you'll have first to encounter a deck that plays a field spell and searches it pretty fastly. In that case we have 2/3 maindecked typhoons, cards to negate the field spell so that it won't destroy garden, and horus LV8. Horus is your main response to ANYTHING, once you have it into play, you can stop the main S/T destruction cards (MST and Heavy), and opponent's field spells.
Other than this, there's something I'm playing in lots of places recently, and it gave me some pretty results: maindecked Prohibition.
Every deck has some main cards for their strategy, and every deck plays typhoon and heavy that you'd want to forbid, so why not?

And there we are, post-side situation: you know the opponent's deck, your opponent knows yours, you've got to side.
You don't fear neither Macro nor Fissure, so if you encounter a Macro Rabbit, he'll surely de-side them in game two, even if it hasn't nothing special against you, so that'll be 3 slots that will probably go to hand traps or prohibition.
For the fact you don't fear Macro and Fissure, you can play them, even in the main if you want.
What someone will probably side against you is Closed Forest, if they do play it. In any case, what they'll side will probably be some continuous S/Ts, so add some Dust Tornadoes.
They could (should) add some more mass destruction effects if they side them, so build your list the way you'll be able to play 1 or 2 starlights in game 2.
Be aware if skill drain, too.
Build your list the way you'll be able to side Royal Decrees, if you're not maining them.
If you're not maining them, side hand traps. It's highly recommended to main them, though, since you fear a first turn explosion that you wouldn't be able to control since they started comboeing before you could put anything on the table.
Side some more mass destruction, if you don't play at least TTs in the main, because you, as just said, fear first turn explosions.
If your list is a little bit homogeneous in either type or attribute, side or main Gozen Match or Rivarly of Warlords. You just have to continuously summon plant/EARTH tokens on the opponent's side of the field so that he won't be able to do anything. That is more hate for the Wind-Up loop and other explosive decks, aside from Chaos Dragons. For Chaos Dragons Macro/Fissure are enough, but you should control them well enough with your mained cards.


Well, this was all for today's post. I could update it someday, but for now it is all. Take this post as a guide to the deck, I think it is pretty exhaustive about everything. If I forgot something, make me notice in the comment, I'll fix it.
See Ya.

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.

IRL Gaming///Jam Breeding Machine

I've actually decided to start playing IRL. Little 2-persons team, but still, it's half of the money we'll need to spend, so that's good with me. However, I wouldn't have started if I wouldn't have found other people in my town (let's call it town, even if it is kinda big) that play too, another 8/9 persons. Today morning I went there, and we bought a stardust and a Gyzarus, so, guess, what are we going to build? Had tons of fun.

Coming to the real topic of today's post, a reader asked me to revamp my Jam Breeding Deck, I actually did, still testing, though it's kinda good, only a little slow to start, but we've got tons of cards to protect ourself. Here's the list:

Don't mind that "Mad" in the name, it's just that I wanted to keep my other list and named this one with mad because it's kinda different from the other one.

Monsters: [3]
3 Cardcar D

Spells: [16]
1 Dark Hole
3 Gold Sarcophagus
1 Heat Wave
3 Jam Breeding Machine
2 Smashing Ground
1 Terraforming
2 Upstart Goblin
3 Wetlands

Traps: [21]
2 Bottomless Trap Hole
2 Dark Bribe
3 Dimensional Prison
2 Mirror Forces
1 Skill Drain
1 Solemn Judgment
2 Solemn Warning
2 The Huge Revolution Is Over
3 Token Stampede
2 Torrential Tributes
1 Trap Hole

So, everything needs an explanation here, let's start with what's NOT there:
-Pot of Dualities, you can't use it the same turn you SS a token with Breeding, I know you'll think "why is Cardcar D there, then?", but it's not the same.
-Second or third terraforming, drawing multiple copies of wetlands is really bad, since you can't even set it as bluff. Jam Breeding is a far more difficult card to get, this card played in 4 copies is just right, I believe.

Now, what's there and why:
-Cardcar D, this card is better than pot of duality in lots of cases: First Turn, draw 2, good enough, duality adds only a card, even if you can select between 3 cards; mid game (jam activated) set, more walls, duality can't be used like that, at the best, you can bluff duality, but you've got other tons of cards to set, you'll always have all slots full or just one left for emergency activations; late game (few lp left), as before; late game (few lp left and no jam breeding), this card can let you draw 2 and then protect yourself with other cards OR just attack and kill the opponent. What's more, duality reveals what you add, too predictable. And, if that wasn't enough to satisfy Duality Fans and you really want to play that, remember it's semi-limited, so you'll need however a cardcar d. If you want to play duality in place of cardcar d for money issues, I'd put 2 dualities and one more upstart.
-Heat Wave, lovely tech, it's great at 1, but I believe that the second would be bad for our draws.
-Skill Drain, lovely card in here, doesn't backfire, stops everything. At 1 because I pay too much life points.
-Huge Revolution over Starlight because it is less negable, and you wouldn't get to summon stardust with starlight if you have jam breeding on the field.

Overall, the deck is kinda slow, but I believe it can't reach an higher speed without losing consistency, so it's good. You can stall for tons of turns till you draw jam breeding.
Have fun with the deck, it's always funny locking-up the opponent with the various traps and then summon 2700 beaters once per turn that can't be destroyed by battle, isn't it?
See Ya, look forward for the card of the week, will be a good one, I believe.

Card of the Week #12: Photon Thrasher

Cannot be Normal Summoned or Set. Must first be Special Summoned (from your hand) while you control no monsters. If you control another monster, this card cannot attack.

A simple and yet giant effect, no rulings for this, only that he's a semi-nomi, so you can reborn him, but only if you succeeded into SSing him via his own effect.

Close look, then we'll go for the true review:

Photon Monster, some little photon supports, if you're going to play this in a photon deck;
LIGHT, this is really good, honest, here we go, and of course, lots and lots of supports, I'll name some later;
Level 4, XYZs there we go;
Warrior-Type, Reinforcement of the Army, the warrior returning alive and XYZs, I'll name something else later;
Cydra-like effect, SS without cost, even easier to bring to the field if compared to cydra since he doesn't need a monster on the opponent's field;
Stats, lovely stats, 2100/0, you'll mainly go into XYZs with this, but having a big easily summonable beater isn't half bad. 0 DEF isn't bad, since we're going into xyzs or attacks, I would never put him in defence, even if he had 2000, I believe.

This one is a great card, pretty much everyone knows his primary uses. SS, NS Stratos, search bubbleman, SS Bubbleman, Bubbleman+Thrasher=Excalibur/Blade Armor. In other decks is a big beater easily summonable that goes into blade/excalibur with another random LV4 Warrior, that's easily recruitable and recylable.

But, flying a little away from the competitive scene, this card is usable in lightrays.
There are decks based on the Ligtray cards, they are a set of 4 monsters (+lightray grepher, but here I'm talking about the "bosses") that have a summoning condition with no cost.
Lightray Daedalus, you'll never use its effect, but it is a 2600 summonable having 4 or more light monsters in the grave;
Lightray Gearfried, 2800 ATK, nice effect, s/t negation at the cost of banishing a warrior from the grave (thrasher?) while having only warriors on the field, though summoning him isn't easy, 5 or more light in the grave with different names, kinda hard;
Lightray Diabolos, 2800 ATK, same summoning condition of gearfried, and not bad effect, you can banish 1 light monster from the grave (not bad, we'll why with the next card) to check 1 set card on the field and send it to the top of bottom of deck, not bad, not awesome;
Lightray Sorcerer, 2300 ATK, but the only one with different summoning condition, you need to have at least 3 banished light monsters, and has a nice effect. Shuffle one of your light banished monsters in the deck (as an effect) and banish an opponent's monster, really good, there are builds based on him.

So, how would photon thrasher work in a lightray deck? Let's say we're going for Lightsworn engine (as most lightray decks do), this card is a free beater, warrior for gearfried, xyz material with most lightsworns, and with, let's say, jain, you can go into blade armor or excalibur, recyclable with beckoning light, giant beater under honest and so on.

However we needn't forget that synchros still exist, and this card is a perfect synchro fodder too, just summon this then the tuner and here we go. If someone remembers, back in time there were Bushi Abuse, they were warrior deck that used bushi as synchro fodder by reviving him every turn if we hadn't no monsters on the field, that supported with Junk Synchron, Doppel and other warrior monsters, in tandem with Warrior Synchro monsters, with Solidarity even Bushi alone with a monster in the grave was a really good beater (2000). I believe I'll rebuild the deck putting in thrasher and BLS, since the others are pretty much all dark, only few are of other attributes, and, based on personal preferences, there could be even some light ones. However, no matter the attribute, with thrasher and another lv4 you could go into excalibur, a light monster, too. RotA searches what you need, tuning searches for junk synchron, foolish sends bushi to the grave and we're all happy. Warrior Lady remoeves threats, with junk and bushi you can go into invoker that can summon another warrior, the comboes are a lot. Try it if you have time to build it, I believe it would be at least playable as 4fun, and kinda funny, too.
Remember that by reducing the number of monsters with effects on the field, you can go into skill drain build that would let your thrasher attack even with other monsters on the field.

If you want to build a photon deck, this card would be one of the main ones. Right now (without cards from the kite tenjo pack) the best way I'd build it would be antimeta. 3 of this, 3 crushers/tigers (I don't recommend both, but tiger has a best effect, while crusher is lv4), 3 lizards, some skill drains, some galaxy dragons, LaDD, classic S/T from an antimeta, honest, barbaros if you want to abuse of skill drain, photon trident, photon sanctuary and here we go.
We'll have a deck that controls all of the opponent's move, that can summon easily LaDD to indiscriminately negate everything, that spams big beaters with honest that's a troll card, that stops monster's effect with Skill Drain and has lots of possibilites. You can play RotA here, too,

Well, that's all, hope you liked the review. The card is awesome and playable in lots of ways, however I'm sure I forgot some builds, lol.
Let me know if you do something awesome with this card.
Stay Tuned.

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.

Hand Antimeta

Well, started building that, but it isn't simple. I putted in 3 Veilers, 3 Maxx and 2 Crows, 1 BLS and 1 Sorcerer, 3 Scarecrows, 3 Faders, Fiendish Chain and Solemn Trio. Of course I putted in One Day of Peace, deck's engine, and I'm thinking of putting in hand destruction. The deck should work stalling, drawing into something that kills opponent's field (I'm thinking some ways to use Black Rose Dragon, maybe Black Salvo+Wisel Army?), then summon something and totally control opponent's field with fiendish, Solemn Trio, Crow (to don't let opponent start inzektor combo), veiler, maxx in case of Chaos Dragon. Without even testing it, I can easily say that Chaos Dragons are the WORST match-up ever, there isn't a lot to stop them, you can solemn, fiendish, veiler them how much you want, but they can easily rise again. Veiler/Fiendish their monster? They simply XYZ. Crow monster's in grave? They don't give a fuck, they have a lot of light-dark monsters. Solemn them? SS back from grave. Can't handle them, only thing is Fossil Dyna, but we need to equip him with safe zone, too.
I play in here Wangu too, can help handling Inzektors and even rabbit, other than wind-up, so he's pretty good. With him I decided to put in 3 Horn of the Phantom Beast and, as an additional target, 3 Photon Sabre Tiger. I'm playing TK Rai-Oh, putted in without even thinking about it because he's prety much a staple in Antimetas, but, right now, it doesn't stop a lot nowadays, so I'm thinking of taking it out.
Even without Rai-Oh, lights fodder for chaos monster are enough, but the only dark are 2 Crows (not even considering Fader because he is banished after using his effect). Reason why I'm pretty sure I'll implement that Black Rose engine, Black Salvo and Wisel. To easily send what I need to the grave, I'm pretty sure I'll put in even 2 hand destruction.
That isn't all, of course, but the deck is starting taking a form in your mind, doesn't it? Well, those days I'm pretty busy with school and with a music band, but I'll try to build up something good.
Stay Tuned

Speedy Article: New Antimeta

I played a bit on Dueling Network today, I faced ONLY (unlucky) meta decks. Ya know, I hate meta decks, I prefer 4funs over them, but that's not it. Actual meta decks are A-N-N-O-Y-I-N-G, Wind-Up wipes out your hand, Inzektor wipes out your field and Rabbit has a lot of backrows. If we consider other decks that are going to enter the meta soon, like Hieratics (tomorrow they will be released in TCG), we can say that who starts with the better hand wins, because of hieratics' OTKs. So I'm planning on doing a strange kind of antimeta deck. The idea isn't totally formed in my mind, yet, so I wanted to write it down, 'cause I'm going to sleep now, and didn't want to forget the deck. Basically this deck plays in the main deck cards to stop specifically Inzektors, Wind-Ups, Rabbit and Hieratics, so I think that 3 of every Hand Trap is needed (even crow). Don't know what will be win condition though. Maybe stall with scarecrow/fader, heavy storm and dark hole, summon fossil dyna and set a heavy backrow, but still don't know.
Well, this may be enough for today, I'll continue tomorrow if I get some ideas. Stay Tuned.