Rosso Sangue: Red Dragon Ninja Control

Monsters: [18]

1 Alector, Sovereign of Birds
1 Dark Simorgh

1 Galaxy-Eyes Photon Dragon/White Dragon Ninja

3 Jurrac Guaiba

3 Karakuri NINJA mdl 339 "Sazank"

2 Mist Valley Falcon

3 Ninja Grandmaster Hanzo

3 Red Dragon Ninja

1 Silver Senior Ninja

Spells: [7]

1 Dark Hole

1 Magic Planter

1 Monster Reborn

2 Mystical Space Typhoon

1 Reinforcement of the Army
2 Swallow's Nest

Traps: [13]

1 Dark Bribe

1 Fake Trap

2 Ninjitsu Art of Duplication

1 Ninjitsu Art of Shadow Sealing

1 Ninjitsu Art of Super-Transformation

3 Ninjitsu Art of Transformation

1 Return from the Different Dimension

1 Solemn Judgment

2 Solemn Warning

1 Starlight Road

'Kayyyy, that's it. Actually I don't know which one to choose between GEPD and White Dragon, GEPD takes care of common threats like zenmaines, maestroke, gachi and similar, while bonusing doing so. White Dragon is compatible with the Ninjitsu cards, Red Dragon target and protects all of the backrows you've got, even though it has 300 less ATK than GEPD, and there are some monsters with an higher ATK. What's more, GEPD can take care even of those with an higher ATK, working as a wall. Actually, I'm more into GEPD, but sometimes having White Dragon would have saved me from sure death. I'm sure that I'll side the one that I'm not maining, though.

About Guaiba without Lance, it's ok. At least, it puts pressure on the opponent.

About double Falcon and no Fiendish, I was thinking of adding them, since at least 2 cards to negate monster's effect are required.

About Reinforcement of the Army with only 3 hanzos, it's awesome. It's like playing 4 of them.

About single Magic Planter, it fits my gamestyle perfectly, just 1 is good.

About triple Sazank, good MU against Rabbit, it kills Zenmaines, Gachi and Maestroke with ease, Ninjitsu target and awesome surprise effect. Duplication can eventually bring two of them for great mass destruction.

About Fake Trap, it's great, Starlight is good, but can easily be negated and mst plays around it, while this card blocks more cards. If you don't like this card, play a Huge Revolution is Over, instead.

About single super-transformation with only Guaibas and GEPD/White Dragon as targets, it is good. First turn hanzo that searchs this puts the opponent under great presure, it's awesome.

For more explanation, here is the other post.

I played this deck quite a lot, I must say I'm having some fun with it, trolling your opponent with Sazank and Red Dragon, ultimately stoppiong some continuous cards with Alector, other than, obviously, monsters. I realized that I have quite a great match-up against rabbit, only that this deck suffers quite a lot Fissure/Macro, so siding S/T destruction should be needed. Maybe you can change the deck play-style entirely against some decks that don't set a lot. I think I'll build a side for this, not sure. If I do, I'll post it too.

That's All Folks.

Rosso Sangue: Deck Prototype: Red Dragon Ninja Control

Monsters: [20]

1 Alector, Sovereign of Birds

1 Black Luster Soldier - Envoy of the Beginning

1 Dark Simorgh

1 Galaxy-Eyes Photon Dragon

3 Jurrac Guaiba

2 Karakuri NINJA mdl 339 "Sazank"

1 Mist Valley Falcon

3 Ninja Grandmaster Hanzo

3 Red Dragon Ninja

1 Silver Senior Ninja

2 Upstart Golden Ninja

1 White Dragon Ninja

Spells: [7]

1 Dark Hole

1 Magic Planter

1 Monster Reborn

2 Mystical Space Typhoon

2 Swallow's Nest

Traps: [13]

1 Dark Bribe

1 Fake Trap

2 Ninjitsu Art of Duplication

1 Ninjitsu Art of Shadow Sealing

1 Ninjitsu Art of Super-Transformation

2 Ninjitsu Art of Transformation

1 Return from the Different Dimension

1 Solemn Judgment

2 Solemn Warning

1 Starlight Road

The extra is the worst I've ever built, just try not to even see it. Still, I don't use it a lot, so it's ok, I should add more xyz options, indeed.

About the main, let's start saying I've got the idea from Beau Butler from the TCGPlayer Blog (here's the article). To be honest, I didn't read it all, since I usually get tired from reading articles talking about a single cards in a single deck, but all I read (till the end of AssuREDly Good) gave me so many ideas that I shifted that page to DN to build it fastly, so even if I could read it all, I wanted to build it so badly that I couldn't have continued reading it however.

Back to deck itself, this is just a prototype, what I built in about 4 minutes, extra included. I've got so many doubts about this, that it could radically change.

Basically, the deck is based on Red Dragon Ninja and the -1s it can provide to the opponent. Getting that huge thing on the field isn't hard, and it can kill all of the backrows and even the set monsters like ryko, snowman eater, Gravekeeper's Spy, Geargiarmor, and so on. Being able to either put that card to bottom or top can not only do a -1 to your opponent, but even "stopping" his next draw making him draw the same card you spun. The mind set is: if that card can't kill you or your key cards, spin it. If it is a trap card or a flip monster and you can summon Simorgh, spin it. Otherwise, just put it back to the bottom of the deck and -1 the opponent.

That card really lets abuses everywhere, I happened to face an antimeta that set a pachy and 1 forbidden lance, 1 compulsory and 1 starlight road. I've first used mst, hitting compulsory, then I summoned red dragon to put back to the bottom his pachy, then used duplication to bring another red and spun his starlight road, then used swallow's nest and put to the bottom lance, then summoned simorgh banishing a dead hanzo and falcon. No need to say that the opponent just felt the need to ragequit.

Let's talk about the single cards:

Alector, great card, can be easily bringed to the field from the handto use swallow's nest on him to bring Red Dragon Ninja. Mainly Transformation target.

BLS, not sure about this card, however, in the few test I did, I didn't draw into him once, so I can't tell.

Dark Simorgh, great card, if backupped with some traps can be a great starting.

Galaxy, newly added, not sure, just 1 test with this one. If I drew into Hanzo or Super-Transformation, this card would have won the game for me. I won via Red Dragon in the end, though.

Guaiba, why be original? Let's be mainstream. Every deck with Hanzos and Super-Transformation plays those, so why not? Not sure about this one, I don't play lances, but this card rides over common cards, so it's ok. It won me games, but it's one of the prime candidates to be dropped along with BLS and another one.

Sazank, one of the main reason I built this deck. I thought "it should be trolling enough to exchange a red dragon in the opponent's end phase with two of these with Duplication and minusing the opponent by two, other than having 2 monsters that can attack directly and valid Ninjitsu's tribute fodder.

Falcon, great card, recycles dead ninjitsu's in an awesome way. Good card, I found myself in a situation like red dragon, falcon, double transformation already activated. I think it is needed in more than 1 copy, though, even if you can bring it with transformation.

Hanzo, awesome.

Red Dragon, centerpiece.

Silver, well, trollish card. In the few games I played (about 10), I could pull off his effect only once, and that felt great. Double Sazank and double Red Dragon, u mad? I think that 1 copy is enough.

Upstart, not sure about this card, but it is one of the best ninjas out there to be played here, I would run out of Ninjitsu's tribute fodders, but I'd like to drop this.

White, good card, but I'm thinking of dropping this one, too. Galaxy-Eyes has basically the same use (beater that doesn't fear its ninjitsu being destroyed), while being able to kill nasty XYZs easily.

No Heavy Storm, I've got lots of S/T hate, and this would have backfired on me, probably.

Planter, draw card.

Swallow's nest, comboes with Red Dragon. I did OTK with this and a couple of set cards with hanzo (opponent's field was clear). Attack with Hanzo, then Transformation, bring Red Dragon, attack with him, then transformation, bring another Red Dragon, attack, then Swallow's nest.

Bribe, good negation card.

Fake Trap, here, I like it more than Starlight, and that's a rare thing. Seeing your opponent being killed by his own heavy while we don't take any damages to our S/Ts is just awesome. What's more, can't be negated via Warning.

Duplication, great card, can both do some swarms with Sazanks, and do Red Dragon again, or Senior Silver Ninja.

Sealing, testing this one. Actually, I don't like how it minuses you without any direct pluses, but this card is perfect against nasty combo decks and zenmaines/chronoaut.

Super-transformation. Why one? Because I don't really need this one, but it's awesome to break apart your opponent's comboes and bringing a big beater to the field, or guaiba.

Transformation, great card. I was thinking of playing 3 of those.

Return from the Different Dimension, didn't draw this card, not even once. Still it is theorically awesome, I've seen with my own eyes how much I can banish with red dragon.

Starlight, backrow protection.

So, the cards I think I'll drop are:

Upstart Golden Ninja

BLS

White Dragon Ninja

Guaiba (not sure about this one, I think that in the end I'll keep it because laggia and dolkka are amazing)

The cards I'd like to fit in are:

one more sazank (upstart substitute, since I'd run low on the number of ninjas)

one more Transformation

I'll try to fix this one, if you've got some ideas, just write them under here in the comments. I think that by next Saturday at least you'll be able to see the new decklist.

Usual Trivia: "Rosso Sangue" means "Crimson". That's referring to the card that Red Dragon Ninja is based off, Crimson Ninja.

That's All Folks!

Banned Lock: Card of the Week///Chronomaly Crystal Engine

I'm temporaly locking this label due to the banned, since everything I say for techs and side cards could be wrecked by the banned, still not fully confirmed.
In place of this, I'd rather talk of engines or likes, since it's more generic. I'll add those to the Card of the Week page, too. I'll restart the original card of the week on 3rd September, the first Monday of September. Well, let's start this:

OOPArts Crystal Engine: Chronomaly Cyrstal Bones and Chronomaly Crystal Skull

If your opponent controls a monster and you control no monsters, you can Special Summon this card (from your hand). When you do: You can Special Summon 1 "Chronomaly" monster from your hand or Graveyard, except "Chronomaly Crystal Bones".

If you control a face-up "Chronomaly" monster: You can discard this card; add 1 "Chronomaly" monster from your Deck or Graveyard to your hand, except "Chronomaly Crystal Skull". The effect of "Chronomaly Crystal Skull" can only be used once per turn.

What about those? It's a little and kinda splashable engine.
Both LV3, both LIGHT, both Rock, both rocks when they're together. One searches the other, and the other special summons the one.
SS Bones and SS Skull, XYZ.
Discard skull to search Bones, when possible, SS Bones and go into another XYZ.
Yeah, probably the limitation that skull has, having a Chronomaly on the field to use its effect, is kinda bad, but, think of how much it would have been broken. A starting hand of skull+Tour guide would have meant double XYZ R3 with chaos materials everywhere. Yep, that's the power of those, they're light and LV3, means they are chaos material and can go into leviair to retrieve things banished with BLS/Sorcerer, good, uh?
Still, there's an XYZ that helps using Skull. Tour guide into tour guide into Chronomaly Crystal Chrononaut. This helps having monsters on the field for skull's effect thus searching Bones for later uses.
Basically, what's this? An alternative engine that can be player along with tour guide engine for chaos decks lacking lights and/or darks. It's, of course, a R3 engine, not something to dislike, since R3s are actually the best kind of XYZs, Zenmaines, Leviair, Leviathan, and so on.
Actually, being those a total of 10 cards without the chaos monsters (6 from the Crystal Engine and 4 from the Tour Guide engine), you could even easily build a deck around those two engines instead of using them as a support engine. Adding the chaos monsters, 1 BLS 1/2 Chaos Sorcerer, some other staples, 2/3 Veiler, Solemn Trio, reborn, dark hole, 2/3 typhoon, 1 heavy storm, and we've already filled 10+2-3+10-12=22-25 slots. To this it's still needed to decide how the deck should work, and we need other monsters, I'd go for D.D. Warrior Lady that removes threats and generates monsters for Leviair, other than being LIGHT, RotA to search lady and other warriors I'm going to put in, like photon thrasher since he's a big beater easily summonable, warrior that goes thus into Excalibur/Blade Armor with lady, and we've filled other 6 slots. At this I'd add some other darks, caius could be a decent/good idea, based on personal preferences, I'd say. Other DARK monsters playable in here should be D.D. Crow to counter something in the actual and future meta. Breaker for more Backrow Hate, but I believe that it isn't needed. I'd rather go for Hanzo, searchable via RotA, letting us go into Guaiba for subsequential laggia/dollka. As another DARK monster, I'd add Gorz too, good against lots of decks, stops OTKs and is a win condition on his own. Given Hanzo and Super-Transformation, I'd add a LIGHT monster summonable via it, I'd say Prime Material Dragon or Horus LV6 (if you don't mind it not being LIGHT) are good choices. I actually put in Prime since it is LIGHT while Hanzo is DARK

Monsters: [27]

3 Tour Guide

1 Sangan

3 Chronomaly Crystal Skull

3 Chronomaly Crystal Bones

1 Black Luster Soldier

1 Chaos Sorcerer

2 Effect Veiler

3 Photon Thrasher

2 D.D. Warrior Lady
1 Prime Material Dragon

3 Ninja Grandmaster Hanzo
1 Gorz the Emissary of Darkness
3 Jurrac Guaiba

Spells: [10]
1 Dark Hole
1 Monster Reborn
1 Heavy Storm
2 Mystical Space Typhoon
1 Reinforcement of the Army
3 Forbidden Lance
1 Pot of Avarice

Traps: [3]
3 Ninjitsu Art of Super-Transformation

Now, how many of you noticed that this was a cookie cutter deck? A cookie cutter is, for those who don't know, a deck made of staples or little engines all put together that require no skill in building and usually even in playing.

The point of the post was that if there are too much good engines, a cookie cutter deck will be easier and easier to build. I did this cause, actually, the decks have, pretty much all, a standard list that you use everywhere:

3 Tour Guides+1 Sangan (usually)

Dark Hole+Monster Reborn+Heavy Storm+2/3 Typhoons

2 Solemn Warnings+1 Solemn Judgment

2/3 Veilers

Even only those are 14-16 cards, but we'll need to add other staples that aren't always played, like Book of moon, BTH, Mirror Force, torrential, D-Prison and so on.

Maybe this didn't look like that, but it was actually a post against those cookie cutter deck. You saw that the cards were all there because of a reason and they are all little engines:

Tour Guide Engine

Crystal Engine

Hanzo Engine (Hanzo+guaiba+usually other target+super-transformation)

Chaos Engine (chaos monsters+crystal engine+tour engine+random lights and darks)

Staples

Did this require some skills in building? It actually didn't. For that exact reason, it is even bad built (kinda), since it lacks of some cards to control the field, solemn trio at least, but when building a deck skilless it's kinda easy not putting something, because you can't shift from skilless to skillful.

Hope it was clear enough, however, I wasn't saying that having engines is a bad thing, but to use them moderately.

What's more, I believe the Crystal Engine is kinda good, even if I haven't still tested it.

Hope the post was useful, Stay Tuned.

P.s. I believe that the deck is actually playable, should be something like little under Tier 2, I don't know since I haven't tested it.

If you have some requests for the cards of the week once it will be re-opened, feel free to tell me under the comment or on DN (account: Leodip).

Card of the Week #11: Forbidden Lance

Target 1 face-up monster on the field; until the End Phase, it loses 800 ATK, but is unaffected by the effects of other Spell/Trap Cards.

Random Rulings:

1.This card targets.

2.You can use this card in the Damage Step.

3.You can use this card on a monster with less than 800 ATK and make him 0 ATK with protection from spells and traps.

Explanation:

Fist is clear enough.

Second is because during the damage step you can activate only cards that change ATK values and Counter Traps.

Third doesn't need explanations.

Fast close look, then to the real review:

Quick-Play Spell, quick-play is surely the best kind of spell card, probably even better of trap cards.
Activable in damage step, less counterable and more versatile.

As always, being a spell card, it's hard to write more in the close look, however, let'sgo to the real review.

Forbidden Lance is a card of the forbidden brigade (Forbidden Chalice, Forbidden Lance and Forbidden Garment. UPDATE: Dueling Days did a post about the entire trio, however I was planning on reviewing this card and had the review written from the last week, so I posted it however).
All of the cards from the forbidden brigade have a thing in common, they modify the ATK while doing some modifies to the monster, making possible to use their effect during damage step. For example, forbidden chalice on snowman eater.

Returning on our card, why am I reviewing this? It's a great card, it initially shined in GBs, lowers opponent's monsters ATK to destroy them with GBs or protect them from nasty spells/traps.
However this card gradually took place in lots of decks. Actually I'm playing this in madolches, basically the same thing of GBs, protect them both from attacks and spells/traps, not bad.
Still, this card became played in lots of places for the second effect mainly, protect some monsters from Bottomless in no matter the deck, on dollka to protect his summon, can stop nasty dimensional prisons or fiendish chains.
However, this card wouldn't have been played if it hadn't the other lowering-ATK effect, I believe. Yeah, it would've been way more broken for some decks, but wouldn't have seen play in other decks that needed that loss of ATK. Just consider again GBs and Madolches, it would have been bad for them. But consider Rabbit Laggia, yeah, happiness wouldn't stop so easily.

Back again to the real card, since you can use it against opponent's monster that wouldn't just result in a loss of 800 points of ATK and spell/trap invulnerability. Just consider I faced a vylon deck, he went into a giant monster, photon thrasher while I had Tiara without chateau. Thrasher itself wasn't enough, so he summoned cube, synchroed into sigma, equipped from the hand double mage power, vylon segment (protection from my set down, just in case it was a d-prison/mirror force), vylon material and while he attacked he equipped with sigma's effect another mage power. The ATK was 1800+2500+2500+2500+600=9900, I had 6000 LPs, it would have been enough.
When I activated lance on his sigma I was like "Sorry, I didn't intend to hurt your feelings", LOL.
It was game since he had only 700 LPs left. Well, rage quit before admitting defeat.

This card is basically used because of its versatility as I said, so it's not intended for closed-minded persons. You should always consider all of the situations while playing with or against this. When you're against GBs, consider always the half of your monster's ATK via shrink or 800 ATK less via forbidden lance, but don't forget that your monster could be affected with other S/Ts and that could make your maths go crazy.
Just consider all of the conditions of the field while using this. That's what you need to know while playing. I know this could seem obvious, but lots of peoples I know lost games because of that.
Example: My friend had lance face-down and shura, few in hand that didn't matter and 4000 lps. While opponent had hanzo and super-transformation setted (know because he searched that having no hand and then set) and 2100 lps.
Opponent used super-transformation on his turn, my friend used lance on his shura, opponent tribued then his hanzo and went into Jurrac Guaiba, attacked shura and went into laggia, subsequently won game because he stopped my friend's main move.
Of course my friend said that it was bad luck, I stopped him and said what he did wrongly.
He could have done Lance on hanzo, making him tribute his shura and going into random guaiba that couldn't have done nothing, at least going into Utopia/Maestroke after attacking. Then summon blizzard, revive Shura, go into brio, discard 2, attack and win.
Of course he said "Oh, I didn't think about it", with a Poker Face. He lost an online tournament for that, with real prizes. If he won that game he would have taken a set of tour guides and sangan (not that sangan costs something, but it's to make it effective and play-ready).

Well, this was all for today, hope you enjoyed it, since the card is one I like a lot.
Some anticipations: Madolches (tomorrow or the day after tomorrow I'll post a build of it), working on some random decks, and some ninja things. I've already decided the card for the next cotw, I believe you'll like it.

Stay Tuned.

Falcon Emptiness feat. NINJAS

Lulz, bad connnection strikes again, I preferred to cancel the update, it needed 5 hours now, and it looked like it was only going to increase the time needed.

Let's talk about the real post, however.

Yeah, I wrote that, Ninjas. Well, a little engine, 3 Hanzo, 2 Upstart and 1 Ebisu, but still ninjas. Remember, I needed a boss monster. Well, I got Dark Simorgh and a bunch of good xyz now. Maybe it may seem to you like I just put these in only to have a boss monster, and they have nothing in common, and that may seem legit, well, let me explain that.

Basically Falcon bounces back old and used card, can bounce even emptiness if you want to SS, and then re-activate it. Emptiness won't be destroyed thanks to Imperial Custom, that protects all of the continuous traps. Custom will even protect your call of the haunted, bounce it back with falcon and re-use it. Use safe zone to protect yourself or on opponent's monster to bounce it back, blow up your opponent's monster, and get replay to attack again. You can use fiendish chain to negate effects of opponent's monster and then re-use it, just like veiler but usable in both player's turn and re-usable. It stops even attack from opponent's monsters. Big Bang Shot has exactly the same functions of Safe zone, only that it doesn't protect your monster, but gives you a boost and piercing effect. Then you can use easily Magic Planter as draw engine, and PoDs, just in case.

This was how the old Falcon Emptiness would have worked, but now with addition of Ninjas a lot of comboes are shown to you. Hanzo search Transformation Ninjitsu (not super-transformation, but if you want you could play super-transformation instead of transformation, play white dragon that has basically the same effect as imperial custom, only it protects even spell cards, but you lose an advantage I'm going to talk about right now): with Transformation, you can either summon Simorgh if you realy need a Boss, or Falcon, letting you starting all the combo of the deck.
Other this, Ninjas Engine lets you play Excalibur and Blade Ninja, easy Dark Simorgh summon and then backrow lock, provides even DARK monster for summon Dark Simorg from hand and LIGHT monsters for BLS or Sorcerer (you could try playing them, I don't but my list is still neither tested nor studied, I just builded it really fastly without thinking alot). With Dark Simorgh you may even try to fit in a copy of Anti-Spell Fragrance to lock your opponent's S/Ts.
This is a really heavy-trap deck, so Upstart Gold Ninja works really well, Ebisu summoned via upstart or normal summoned after being added via Hanzo lets you bounce 2/3 S/T, usually, and typhoon and night shot along with this means really backrow hate. With a re-usable call of the haunted, you can even resummon this after xyzzing and bounce again, if you have another ninja, and then xyz again.

Ok, let's summarize what Ninjas add to the deck:
Multiple and really easy tu summon Boss Monster, like excalibur, blade ninja and Simorgh.
Let you use a little S/Ts lock with Anti-Spell Fragrance and Dark Simorgh.
Let you search fastly for Falcon and start all of the combo.
Heavy backrow hate with Ebisu.

The normal deck, without Ninjas, had:
Recycling possibilites with Falcon and combo with this.
Locking Opponent's SS, if you have yet a bg monster out you're in a big advantage.
Let you play some cards like safe zone without making them never dead.
Let you have a good Draw Engine.
Let you negate a lot of opponent's monster effect with Fiendish Chain and then re-use them.

I think this was all, when I'll come with a good decklist, I won't hesitate from posting it. See ya.