Another list, Another format

With a new ban list comes our new format. Before I talk about this new format, let me first post the new cards added to the ban list that we all must abide by:





______________





Newly Forbidden:


Heavy Storm


Rescue Cat


Brain Control


Substitoad





Newly Limited:


Black Whirlwind


Royal Oppression


Infernity Launcher


Trishula(OCG only)


Monster Reborn


Dark Hole





Newly Semi-Limited:

Dewloren, King Tiger of the Ice Barrier

Mystical Space Typhoon


Chaos Sorcerer


Snipe Hunter


Ojama Trio


Magic Cylinder





Newly Unlimited:


Black Rose Dragon


Goblin Zombie


Cyber Dragon


Treeborn Frog


Royal Decree


United We Stand


__________________








Thoughts on Dark Hole and Monster Reborn:





This list brings great changes to this game, and at the same time doesn't really change much at all. If you've been playing this game for a decent amount of time, one of the first things that you notice on the list is Dark Hole and Monster Reborn at one. I think the ban list was done pretty well this time around, although I believe that Monster Reborn should have stayed banned. I have no problem with Dark Hole coming back simply because they took Heavy Storm away from us. Dark Hole is a more balanced card nowadays compared to Heavy Storm. The reason being that, when Dark Hole was banned, there was a lot less "swarm" in the game than there is now. The way the game is now, Dark Hole can wipe out an entire field and you'll just rebuild the same amount of monsters you lost the previous turn. Whereas when Heavy Storm gets played nowadays, it could easily lose you the match because you just lost your entire defense against your opponent. Monsters can easily be regained in a turn, it takes a few turns to get a "good" backfield. Heavy Storm being taken out of the format has also been "somewhat" balanced out by Mystical Space Typhoon going to two. My only problem with the list is Monster Reborn, because we are now able to use either: Black Rose Dragon or Dark Hole to wipe out the entire field then play Monster Reborn to bring back a powerful monster to combat your opponent. If you do this in a Blackwing Deck, you are potentially able to "blow the field", Monster Reborn a Blackwing monster, then swarm more Blackwings from your hand since Bora and Gale are able to be special summoned if you control a Blackwing other than a copy of themselves.





Thoughts on the banned cards:





I think that the new cards added to the "forbidden" category were great choices by Konami. In my opinion, Rescue Cat should have been banned after the Dark Strike Fighter format. All Rescue Cat can be used for is constant plus one's off of other cards in your hand and synching a lot with the monsters you grab with it(usually airbellums). If you don't know the Dark Strike format. There was a popular strategy being used called the "Dark Strike OTK". This is how the OTK was played out: You start off your turn summoning Summoner Monk(level 4 that allows you to special summon a level 4 from your deck by discarding a spell card), discard a spell for Summoner Monk summoning another Summoner Monk, use that Summoner Monk's effect to special summon Rescue Cat from the deck, tribute Rescue Cat to special summon two X-Saber Airbellums from your deck. Synch your Airbellums with your Summoner Monks for two Dark Strike Fighters. Due to the attack of Dark Strike Fighter(2600), if you attack directly with him twice(which you have two of them), then you will have done 5200 damage. His effect allows you to tribute one monster you control to inflict damage to your opponent equal to the level of the monster tributed times 200. Dark Strike Fighter is a level seven, so if you tribute both of your monsters. Your opponent will take 2800 damage, exactly enough for game. With the newest X Saber exclusives(mostly darksoul), Rescue Cat has been able to be played at a level in which it had never been played before. Thus, the banning of Rescue Cat was essential.

The next forbidden card I'm going to talk about is Substitoad. Substitoad is a level 1 monster that allows you to tribute one monster to special summon any "frog" monster from the deck. This was a popular card used in either a "frog" deck, or "Frog Monarch" deck. The "frog" deck was a very popular build due to the very infamous FTK. All you need for the Frog FTK is twenty frogs and a ronintoadin in our graveyard, and you needed a Mass Driver in play. Mass Driver is a spell card that allows you to tribute one monster you control to inflict 400 damage to your opponent. Ronintoadin is a monster that allows you to remove one "frog" monster from your graveyard to special summon him from the graveyard. You usually got these cards in your grave by having: Swap Frog, Substitoad and another random frog in your hand. Swap Frog is a frog that can be special summoned from the hand by sending one water monster in your hand to the graveyard. When he's summoned he can send one "aqua" type monster from your deck or field to the graveyard. You would special summon Swap Frog, normal summon Substitoad, procede to tribute the frogs with Substitoad to keep special summoning more frogs from the deck. Most of the time, you end up with two Ronintoadin's and twenty frogs in your graveyard with Mass Driver in hand. In case you haven't done the math, twenty times 400 is exactly 8000.

The other deck that Substitoad, as I mentioned before, was a "Frog Monarch" deck. Everybody knows the Monarchs(Caius, Raiza, Thestalos, etc). But this deck used the constant swarm of frogs to help get Treeborn Frog in the grave while getting field presence with Monarchs almost instantly. Treeborn Frog, as everybody knows, is able to be special summoned during your standby phase if you don't control any spell/trap cards. You get this to the grave through use of Swap Frog. You are almost assured that you will be able to get treeborn to the grave turn one due to running 2 Treeborn Frog, 3 Swap Frog and 3 Substitoad. That's an eight in forty chance of getting it in there turn one or if simplified one in five chance. So since you get five cards starting hand and draw into a sixth, you have great odds of getting one of the cards you need to get Treeborn Frog to the grave right away. Another card used in this deck but didn't get hit by the ban list is Battle Fader, this card is a level one, zero attack/zero defense monster that can special summon itself when your opponent declares a direct attack and end the battle phase. Substitoad definitely deserved to be put on this list of cards we can't use.

The next two forbidden cards I'm going to talk about are Brain Control and Heavy Storm. These are two cards that are used in virtually every deck as essential staples. Brain Control is a spell card that allows you to pay 800 lifepoints to take control of any face up monster your opponent controls for the turn(very comparable to Change of Heart but can't take face downs). Heavy Storm is a spell card that, without a cost, destroys all spell/trap cards on the field. Both cards are very good due to how they are able to change the entire landscape of the game for little to no cost. Brain Control deserved the ban hammer because it allows a player to take their opponent's strongest monster or a tuner, or something to clear the field for game and gain a huge advantage. Heavy Storm is able to wreck a person that has been buidling up their back row for a few turns, leaving them with no defense for the opponent to combat with. The only cards that can stop Heavy Storm that are commonly used are: Starlight Road and Solemn Judgment. Heavy must be destroying two of their cards for them to use Starlight Road and paying half your lifepoints isn't a cost most people want to pay early in the game.

__________________________________________________

On to the limited cards:

My opinion on the limited cards is that, again, they did very well with their choices except for Monster Reborn(as I said before, it should stay banned). Black Whirlwind is the first card I'm going to talk about. Black Whirlwind is a very popular card obviously used in Blackwings. It is a continuous spell card that, when you summon a "Blackwing" monster, allows you to search a "Blackwing" monster with attack less than the summoned monster from your deck and add it to your hand. If you know Blackwings, you'll know that two of their several key cards are: Kalut and Gale. Gale is a level three, 1300 ATK tuner monster that allows you to halve the attack and defense of one monster your opponent controls. Kalut is a level three, 1400 ATK monster that lets you discard him during the damage step when one of your blackwings is in battle to increase your Blackwing monster's attack by 1400. Essentially Kalut is the "Honest" of Blackwings. Blackwings have been able to be slowed down more due to only having one "search" card in the deck now.

The next card on the limited list is Royal Oppression. Royal Oppression is a continuous trap card that allows either player to pay 800 lifepoints to negate the special summon of a monster and destroy it. This card was previously only used in Anti Meta decks(decks based around beating the top decks of the format). But throughout the format, all of the decks that special summon a lot began to use Oppression to their advantage. Whether they used Trap Stun to get around it or just don't special summon while it's on the field. They were able to easily tech in two oprressions to keep advantage throughout the whole game. Oppression needed to be limited due to the amount of decks using it, especially since the top decks of both games(OCG and TCG) were maining two Oppressions: X Sabers and Blackwings.

Onto the next card: Infernity Launcher. Infernity Launcher is a very popular card obviously used in an Infernity deck. The entire Infernity Archetype revolves around having no cards in your hand. This may normally sound very risky because you never know what your going to draw and whether it will help you or not. But Infernity's benefit off of having no cards in your hand. Infernty Archfiend is able to special summon itself if you draw it while you have no cards in your hand. When he's special summoned while you have no cards in your hand, your able to search any "Infernity" card from your deck and add it to your hand. This is where Infernity Launcher comes in. Infernity Launcher is a continuous spell card that has two effects:

• Once per turn, you can send one card in your hand to the graveyard.
• If you have no cards in your hand, you can send this card to the graveyard to special summon two "Infernity" monsters from your graveyard.

The three main cards in the Infernity deck are: Infernity Beetle, Infernity Archfiend, Infernity Necromancer and Infernity Launcher. Infernity Beetle is a two star tuner that, if you have no cards in hand, you can tribute it off to special summon up to two more Beetle's from your deck. Infernity Necromancer is a level three monster that, if you have no cards in hand, you can special summon any "Infernity" monster from your graveyard once per turn. You will synch Necromancer(level 3), Archfiend(level 4) and Beetle together for Mist Wurm. Mist Wurm, when summoned allows you to return up to three cards your opponent controls to your hand. You will use Infernity Launcher to special summon Archfiend and Necromancer. Since Archfiend was special summoned, he will search another Infernity Launcher from your deck. Necromancer will special summon a Beetle from the graveyard, and you will synchro summon for another Mist Wurm. Repeat the steps until your opponen'ts field is empty and you have enough monsters to attack for game. This is the reason that Infernity Launcher was limited, simply because it is able to swarm your field for you way too well.

____________________________________________

Onto the Semi-Limited cards, these could have been chosen better in my opinon. Some of them should have stayed at one. Lets start things off with Mystical Space Typhoon. This card was brought to two because of Heavy Storm being banned. Konami wants spell/trap destruction to be more "one for one" than mass destruction. Mystical Space Typhoon is a great thing to bring to two because it's the only spell card that allows us to destroy any spell/trap for no cost(doesn't have to be face-down or face-up). It allows us to pick and choose which spell/traps we would like to destroy. Lets say your opponent has had a few spell/traps set and hasn't activated any of them even though you've been summoning and attacking, then they set a new card. Obviously your going to want to get rid of this new threat because you know the other ones aren't going to hurt you. So Typhoon allows you to get rid of that new threat without destroying their whole defense.

Chaos Sorcerer was also brought to two. Chaos Sorcerer is a card that was heavily used during the "Chaos" era(hence, the reason it was called the Chaos era). It was banned for several years until they brought it back a couple years ago. Then it was brought to two when Lightsworns were on the rise(promoting sales I assume). There was a Lightsworn variant called Twilight. Twilight was a deck using the "light" monsters of Lightsworns and combining them with the various good dark monsters throughout the game. Since Lightsworn is an archetype that thrives off of "milling" their deck. There would always be a light and a dark monster in your graveyard to special summon a Chaos Sorcerer. This is the reason that Chaos Sorcerer was limited back to one. Now that Lightsworns are out of the picture, there bringing Chaos Sorcerer back to two. I don't think it's going to see much play, mostly going to be used in people trying to make the Twilight deck good again. But It's not going to see a lot of use in high level tournaments.

Snipe Hunter is the next card that has been moved to two. Snipe Hunter was a very popular card at the time of his release. He is a 1500 ATK monster that allows you to discard one card and select any card on the field. You then roll a six-sided die, if the result is anything but a one or a six. The card is destroyed. This card was used a lot during the "Card Trooper, Dark Armed Dragon" era. Since that era is long since over, and not that many decks have a use for Snipe Hunter, it has been raised to two and probably will later be raised to three.

Ojama Trio being moved to two is a decision that I heavily disagree on simply because it's one of the cards that makes a deck called Chain Burn work. Chain Burn is a deck that wins off of burn damage(maybe this is why it's called chain burn). It uses cards such as: Chain Strike, Poison of the Old Man, Just Desserts and several others to burn your opponent's lifepoints down to nothing. Ojama Trio is able to be used to lock your opponent from summoning any creatures. You play one Ojama Trio, burn them until their able to get rid of one of the tokens. Then play the second Ojama Trio to lock their field with five monsters that can't be tributed. Your able to burn them to nothing after that pretty much. The only way around that now would be to dark hole the field, which would force them to take an additional 1500 damage because the tokens were destroyed.

Magic Cylinder is the last card(not going to talk about Dewloren) that got moved to two. The reasoning for this was probably because of the same reason they moved Ojama Trio to two: they wanted to help the Chain Burn deck. Magic Cylinder is able to stop an attack from your opponent and force them to take damage equal to the monster they just attacked with. It will make your opponent weary before attacking if your using the Chain Burn deck because they know that you have two of them in the deck. Other than that, I don't think Magic Cylinder is going to be used that much. I could see it going to three if Chain Burn still doesn't manage to do anything to the format.

_____________________________________________

Last but not least, the cards that have been taken off the ban list.

The first card to talk about is the one that everyone has been complaining about: Black Rose Dragon. Black Rose is a level seven synchro monster that, when summoned, allows you to destroy every card on the field. This card is going to be able to combo'd with Monster Reborn similarly to Dark Hole and Monster Reborn. This is a card that deserved to stay at one, but it seems that Konami wanted a format where the field will be getting wiped out repeatedly. This should have stayed at one, and I believe that it will get re-limited next format due to how much it will be used.

The next card taken off the list is Goblin Zombie. It is a card that was limited when Zombie decks were running rampant. Now that Crush Card Virus and Card of Safe Return has been banned, and several other zombies have been limited. This card won't pose much of a threat and definitely won't be used this format.

The next card taken off the list is Cyber Dragon. This card was originally limited due to the "Cyber era"(power bond for game). It was moved to two on the list a couple years later and continued to not be played at all. I think it will stay the same for the most part, but we definitely will see some Cyber Dragon OTK decks runnig around. But, I don't think that any of them will top a tournament due to inconsistency and other decks simply being better than it.

Another card taken off the list is Treeborn Frog. Treeborn Frog has been moved to three most likely because Substitoad has been banned. Treeborn, as I said earlier, is used in the popular Monarch deck. We will see it being played at three, but it will have the same outcome as it did before. Monarchs will play it, and that's pretty much it.

A card that I am very fond of has also been taken off of the list. This card is Royal Decree. Royal Decree is a continuous trap that negates the effects of all other trap cards on the field. This stops your opponent from doing anything to stop you from what you want to do.

The last card taken off the list is United We Stand. United We Stand is an equip spell card that increases the attack of the equipped monster by 800 times the number of monsters you control. Equips aren't really used in this game for the most part anymore so this going to three isn't going to be a big deal.

______________________________________________

To summarize my opinion on the new ban list. I think that this format is going to be a lot more "skill based" than it was last format due to all of the "explosion" cards we have in the format. Plus, a lot more decks have been balanced out so that there isn't any deck that is overly better than another deck(maybe sabers, but that's all I can think of). The new format starts today, let's all see how the this works out and good luck.

Card Analysis: Crush Card Virus and DAD, Lightsworn, Zombie era

Crush Card Virus

Trap Card

Tribute 1 dark monster with 1000 or less ATK. Check all monsters your opponent controls, your opponent's hand, and all cards they draw (until the end of your opponent's 3rd turn after this card's activation), and destroy all monsters with 1500 or more ATK.

I think I'm going to be looking at Crush Card Virus this week, and why it deserves a spot on the Forbidden List.

Crush Card Virus' Main Uses When it was used:

Crush Card was mostly used in things like: Tele DAD, Zombie and Lightsworn after Duelist Genesis launched in August, 2008. It was such a "broken" card because the things used for tributes for this card took no effort to get out onto the field, and you essentially "plus 1'd" off of tributing these monsters. With Lightsworn, you would normally tribute Plaguespreader Zombie. Or Sangan if you were running a Twilight(light and dark) varient.

Plaguespreader's effect allows him to special summon himself from the graveyard by returning one card from your hand to the top of your deck. If you did this he would be removed from play when he left the field. The use of this effect was the synchro capability, and the fact that, if you know Lightsworn, they could put Wulf, Lightsworn Beast on top of the deck. Then proceed to mill it with a different lightsworn on the field which would cause him to be special summoned. With plaguespreader on the field, you got to use him as a "Crush" target and got a 2100 monster off of his effect. The great use of Plaguespreader Zombie was that he could get so much off of his effect, especially with "stacking" the deck so that you would mill your fourth lightsworn so that you could summon Judgment Dragon the following turn. Sangan on the other hand was a great target because of his own effect, whenever he's sent from the field to the graveyard. He allows you to search any monster from your deck with 1500 ATK or less and add it to your hand. In Twilight varients, you could search one of your Lumina's out with this effect. Or you could search something out, like Ryko or something like that. Both of these cards were used in Zombies too, but the only dangerous one was Plaguespreader Zombie. Zombies used Plaguespreader to synchro summon a bunch of monsters in one turn. They didn't mind using Crush Card Virus with Plaguespreader because they could always get Plague back into the graveyard with a card called Burial From A Different Dimension. This card allows you to return up to three of your removed from play monsters back into your graveyard. This would combo with cards like: Mezuki and Card of Safe Return. Mezuki is a 1700 ATK monster that you can remove from your graveyard to special summon any Zombie type monster from your graveyard. Card of Safe Return allows you to draw a card every time you special summoned a monster from your graveyard. In other words, Zombies always had a card in their hand to send to the top whenever they would bring Plaguespreader back into the graveyard. The amount that Zombies would special summon from the grave, they tended to draw the cards they needed because of how much they got to draw. Which is also what caused Mezuki and Plaguespreader Zombie to be limited and Card of Safe Return to be banned.

Causes of Crush Card Virus Being Played:

The problem with facing up against a deck playing Crush Card Virus was that it normally changed the game entirely. It absolutely devastated a deck called "Gladiator Beast" because every monster in the deck, except Gladiator Beast Murmillo had an ATK 1500 or more. Gladiators were knocked out as one of the top metas because of this. Every deck would be hurt by this because of every deck running monsters over 1500 except for a few in select decks. The lower monsters usually being the tuners used with the bigger monsters which caused them to be pretty useless. The only decks that could really come back from this were the three decks I listed previously: Lightsworn, Tele DAD and Zombies. The reason they could come back from this is the fact that all three were running Crush Card Virus and that the one downside to Crush Card is that it only destroys the monsters on the field once. These decks could easily synchro with monsters to come back. Lightsworns could stall the three turns Crush Card was destroying their hand with the three Necro Gardnas that they were allowed to use. Necro Gardna can be removed from your graveyard to negate one attack from your opponent. Zombies got past this because they don't need to summon from the hand to summon anyways since all the effects went together to "swarm" their monsters from the graveyard. They would be able to swarm their synchros and attack for game. Tele DAD would use their annoying loops with Destiny Hero Malicious, Destiny Draw, and Emergency Teleport to swarm their synchros. All these combos using cards that were all under 1500. Destiny Draw allows you to discard one "Destiny Hero" monster from your hand to draw two cards from your deck. Destiny Hero Malicious allows you to remove him from your graveyard to special summon a Malicious from your deck. You could then use Emergency Teleport to special summon Krebons from your deck and synchro for a level eight monster(normally Stardust Dragon). All three of these "Goliath" decks would go head to head for the top deck until the forbidden list finally caught up to these decks and beginning stripping them of their utilities that caused them to be the top decks. Here is the timeline of these three decks

September, 2008 ends the DMOC era and begins the rise of Zombie, Lightsworn and DAD era:

Newly Banned(0):

Dark Magician of Chaos
Destiny Hero Disc Commander
Premature Burial

Newly Limited(1):

Breaker, the Magical Warrior
Cyber Dragon
Monster Gate

Newly Semi-Limited(2):

Card of Safe Return
Judgment Dragon
Dark Armed Dragon

March 2009 sees the fall of Gladiator Beasts, Tele DAD, Zombies

Newly Banned(0):

nothing

Newly Limited(1):

Chaos Sorcerer
Gladiator Beast Bestiari
Goyo Guardian
Mezuki
Dark Armed Dragon
Card of Safe Return
Emergency Teleport
Reinforcement of the Army

Newly Semi-Limited(2):

Goblin Zombie
Destiny Hero - Malicious
Raiza The Storm Monarch
Allure of Darkness
Destiny Draw

___________________________________________________________________

Between the ban lists of 2009, a deck called Synchro Cat rose from nowhere to claim the #1 deck in the meta. It used a new synchro monster that was released in Crimson Crisis called Dark Strike Fighter. He allows you to tribute any monster you control to inflict 200 damage to your opponent times that monsters level. The basic strategy used cards like: Rescue Cat, Summoner Monk, X - Saber Airbellum, and Dark Strike Fighter. Rescue Cat is a level four beast monster that you can tribute to special summon two level three or lower beast monsters from the deck. Summoner Monk is a level four monster that allows you to discard a spell card from your hand to special summon a level four monster from your deck. X - Saber Airbellum is a level three Beast, Tuner monster. The basic strategy was to summon Summoner Monk, use his effect to special summon another Summoner Monk from the deck, use this new Monk to special summon a Rescue Cat from the deck. You would then tribute the Rescue Cat to special summon two X - Saber Airbellum's from your deck. Tune those with the two Summoner Monks for two Dark Strike Fighters. Dark Strike Fighter had 2600 ATK, so if you attacked directly with both of these then tributed them both of their effects. It would total exactly 8000 damage. This strategy was called Dark Strike OTK. Another deck came out of nowhere called Blackwing. It wanted to be one of the top decks also, but hadn't had much support quite yet. It's main plus was the synchro monster that came with it, Blackwing Armor Master: A level seven synchro monster that could only be created with a Blackwing tuner. Blackwings had similarities to Six Samurais, but they swarmed a lot faster and there tuner(Blackwing - Gale the Whirlwind) could halve the attack and defense of any monster your opponent controls once per turn. This is what caused the following forbidden list to miss Lightsworn yet again.

___________________________________________________________________

September, 2009 ends Synchro Cat forever and the re-banning of Monster Reborn

Newly Banned(0):

Dark Strike Fighter
Card of Safe Return
Monster Reborn
Crush Card Virus

Newly Limited(1):

Black Rose Dragon
Blackwing - Gale the Whirlwind
Rescue Cat
Summoner Monk
Cold Wave
Mind Control
Call of the Haunted
Solemn Judgment

Newly Semi-Limited(2):

Lonefire Blossom
Mezuki
Bottemless Trap Hole
Chaos Sorcerer

New Unlimited(3):

D.D. Warrior Lady
Destiny Draw
Fissure
Breaker, The Magical Warrior

_________________________________________________________________

With Zombies, Synchro Cat and Tele DAD out of the way. Lightsworn was the remaining deck to reign supreme above all others. This deck won four of the next five Shonen Jump tournaments until the next forbidden list. The one deck that wasn't Lightsworn that won a Shonen Jump's was a Dark Skill Drain deck used by Jeff Jones. The next forbidden list causes the inevitable fall of Lightsworn.

___________________________________________________________________

March 2010, the fall of Lightsworn

Newly Banned(0):

nothing

Newly Limited(1):

Brionac, the Dragon of the Ice Barrier
Chaos Sorcerer
Lumina, Lightsworn Summoner
Mezuki
Necro Gardna
Allure of Darkness
Burial From a Different Dimension
Charge of the Light Brigade
Destiny Draw
Foolish Burial

Newly Semi-Limited(2):

Cyber Dragon
Honest
Skill Drain
Royal Oppression
Royal Decree
Dandylion

Newly Unlimited(3):

Mask of Darkness
Smashing Ground

__________________________________________________________________

This brings us to where we are now, the top decks are Quickdraw Dandywarrior and Infernity. There are other top decks, but these are the main two that should be mentioned. Quickdraw is a deck that uses a card called Quickdraw Synchron to synchro summon a bunch of synchro cards that are used by the main character on the anime show Yugioh 5d's. Quickdraw Synchron is a level five tuner monster that can be special summoned by discarding one monster card in your hand. Dandylion is a card that, when sent to the graveyard, summons two Fluff Tokens onto your field. You then tune these together for one of the synchros. This deck also uses a card called Debris Dragon that, when summoned, can special summon one monster with 500 or less attack from your graveyard. Debris Dragon is a level four tuner that can only synchro for dragon synchros. Infernity's, as I have said before in a previous blog, is another OTK deck. It is the most consistent OTK deck that most people have seen which uses the cards: Infernity Archfiend, Infernity Necromancer, Infernity Beetle, and Infernity Launcher to spam a bunch of synchros, clear the opponent's field, and attack for game. I like this format because of all of the top contenders for the tier 1 meta. I'm not going to list them, but I'm pretty sure that most of you know them already.

New Championship Series cards

Okay, we had the first Yugioh Championship Series this past weekend where we saw Machina Gadgets take the prize. Or should I say prizes. Yes, the prize card is no longer limited to just one card. If you top a Championship Series, you will receive one of each of these cards:

Darklord Asmodeus
Dark
Fairy
Level 8
3000/2500
This card cannot be special summoned from the deck or graveyard. Once per turn, you can send 1 fairy-type monster from your deck to the graveyard. When this card you control is destroyed and sent to the graveyard, special summon 1 "Asmo Token"(Fairy-type/dark/level 5/atk 1800/def 1300) and 1 "Deus Token" (fairy-type/dark/level 3/atk 1200/def 1200). An "Asmo Token" cannot be destroyed by card effects. A "Deus Token" cannot be destroyed by battle.

Darklord Superbia
Dark
Fairy
Level 8
2900/2400
When this card is special summoned from your graveyard, you can special summon 1 fairy-type monster from your graveyard, except for "Darlord Superbia".

Darklord Edeh Arae
Dark
Fairy
Level 5
2300/2000
When this card is special summoned from the graveyard, it gains the following effect: During battle between this attacking card and a defense position monster whose def is lower than the atk of this card, inflict the difference as battle damage to your opponent.

Infernities

My opinion on the deck is that it is a very versatile deck. It is another OTK deck. I consider it Tier 1.5-tier 2. It can be easily stopped. But the difference between this OTK deck and most other OTK decks is the consistency of this one. Before talking about how it's stopped, let's first talk about how it works. These are the main three cards used for the otk:

This deck uses these cards to spam a bunch of synchros, clear the field and attack for game. You first play the Infernity Launcher, use it's effect to pitch the Archfiend to the graveyard, summon the other one. Assuming the rest of your hand are spell/traps(which they will be most of the time), you set those. Activate the effect of Infernity Launcher to summon the Archfiend that you pitched to the graveyard. Searh out another Infernity Launcher, play it, and tribute Infernity Beetle to get another two from the deck. Synchro Beetle and Archfiend together for a level six. Use the Launcher to bring the two monsters back, searching out another Launcher. Synchro the extra beetle for a level eight monster. Then repeat this Until your out of Launchers to search out. The last time that you special summon Archfiend, search out an Infernity Barrier and set it. This is one of the several ways to get the deck "kicking." There are other ways to "kick-start" the deck: You could use Infernity Necromancer to help special things from the grave. This is the preferred way get the deck running because of the Mist Wurm capability of emptying your opponent's entire field with one or two of them. A few of the cards that keep the deck working in case you don't get the "right hand" would probably be these:

The deck uses these three cards to do two things, help with the swarm and with control. I've already explained the point of Infernity Necromancer. Infernity Barrier is the card that is going to make the difference between OCG and TCG. Infernity Barrier is trap that, as long as your hand is empty, allows you to negate a spell/trap or monster effect and destroy the card. In other words, it's the card that will keep the deck going if they don't manaage to OTK. It can stop all the stuff that is sided in to stop the deck from killing it. Infernity Mirage on the other hand is another card used to help the "Archfiend loop." Infernity Mirage allows you to special summon up to two monsters from your graveyard as long as your hand is empty. These are three more cards that help the versitility of the deck. There is one more card that I can think of that people on several different forums over-hyped. That is Phantom Hand, or Handless Fake as it's called in the OCG:

Phantom Hand is a card that allows you to remove your hand face-down for one turn. I like the effect that it allows you to remove your hand from play for a turn. What I don't like is that it's a trap card. It would be a lot more usable if it were a spell card. The fact that you have to set it and risk it getting Typhoon'ed or Heavy Storm'd away before you even have a chance to use it is way too much of a risk than using cards that simply discard your cards.





Let's get to cards that can stop the deck:






Cards like these are used to stop things like: effects, swarm, attacking. I've seen Battle Fade sided in OCG. It allows the deck to "go off" and swarm their synchros, but stops the attack from happening. This will work, but the reason it won't do as much as it does in OCG is because of Infernity Barrier. They can easily negate these cards, which is one the reasons that it is hyped so much. But forget about the fact that they can stop these cards. Let's look at the uses of these cards before looking at how they can be stopped. Shadow-Imprisoning Mirror stops any of their effects from working, and stops it from doing any of the swarm without the Infernity Launcher. Royal Oppression will stop them from swarming "period." They can't use Launcher, Mirage, Necromancer, things like this. If you use the oppression, then expect them to make you pay a lot of life points to get around them. The thing I don't like about having to face the deck is all of the spell/trap destruction that they run. Dust Tornado's, Mystical Space Typhoon, Heavy Storm. I've seen some run Royal Decree, it stops their Barrier, but it also stops any cards from slowing them down. This deck will need to be sided against and they can easily get rid of the things sided against it. I can even see them siding prohibitions to stop battle fader, and using their spell/trap destruction to get rid of the rest.

To end this blog, I say good luck wth taking this deck on. It will be a very competitive deck, and will probably overcome the meta like Lightsworns did more because of hype than skill. This deck could potentially overcome the meta, but I don't think it will. It will be up there with Blackwing and Dandywarrior, but it won't dominate the meta like Lightsworn did.

rant on konami renaming things in TCG

I normally don't mind the subtle change in names between OCG and TCG. But, after looking at The Shining Darkness spoiler. Almost the entire set( of the hyped cards) seems to have had it's name changed. The one that makes no sense to me is: Black-Feather Treasure was changed to "Cards For Black Feathers." They didn't even keep the difference with OCG to TCG and renaming it Cards For Blackwings. All they needed to do was rename it Blackwing Treasure if they absolutely had to rename it. There isn't anything politically wrong with the word "treasure" seeing as we have other cards with the word in it, ex: pharoh's treasure(I think that's what it's called). We had "Infernity Gun" changed to "Infernity Launcher." I can understand how the word "Gun" could be seen as bad in english. The Infernity Randomizer had its name changed from Infernity Roulette(I think that's what it was called, I don't remember though). The Turtle Once Called Called God was changed to "Testudo Erat Numen," which is Latin for "Turtle That Was a Higher Being"(sorry if that isn't the exact translation, I learned this from my friend who knows Latin). I understand that they change the names to protect the kids playing the game here in the states because these words are seen as offensive to some people. But, seeing as there are kids playing in Japan and other Asian countries, I think that since they get it called what it is. We should be able to have it translated correctly for once. All the pictures changed to fit American parents "standards." Look at the Asian picture of all of these: Dien Keto the Cure Master, Fairy Archer, Harpie Girl(not sure if this one was different). Their pictures are a lot more provocative than our subdued "Americanized" copies of them. It's not that I care about the picture being changed(I mean seriously look at Dien Keto, WTF), It's more along the line that you see the picture that it's going to be. Then you get something completely different, and your like: what the f*** is this. It's not that their changing the name or the picture, it's that Asian countries get what, in my opinion, is the better picture of the card, or the better name. To sum this review up about the change. I think it's ridiculous for Konami to change the name or picture for the view of Americans(and let's be honest it is because of Americans), and that they should keep the game the pictures and text for what it was supposed to be. If a card was meant to be provocative or vulgar, let it. Look at Magic The Gathering, it couldn't be a more provocative game with all the text and pictures on certain cards.

Dark End Dragon

Dark End Dragon

Dark End Dragon is the current prize card for the Shonen Jump Championships(soon to be the new premiere championships or whatever their calling it). It is a synchro monster that requres one tuner plus one or more non-tuner dark monsters. It's effect is that: once per turn, he can lose 500 ATK and DEF to send one monster your opponent controls to the graveyard.

Let's look at the advantages of this card: 2600 atk, pretty decent beater, his effect "sends" and not "destroy", this means he gets around Stardust Dragon and several other cards. Let's look at the cons of it: after he uses his effect, his attack stays at the reduced amount, he requires 1 non-tuner "DARK" monster, how many dark decks are actually being used right now. Only top tier ones I can think of are blackwing, dark monsters scattered in a deck, and after the 11th, Infernity. I think that it is a very "good" card, I just don't think it is a very "great" card. He can be used in a lot of decks as a staple, but I don't see him being the first thing you go to grab when you synch for a level eight monster. All in all, he's a good card that can be splashed into several different decks. His low attack is what makes him a problem, he would be a very broken card if his attack were more around 3000-3500. I'm personally hoping that he is in the gold series 3 this year simply because I love the art on the card. When this card eventually gets reprinted(and it will), I guess we'll see what TCG has in store for him.

Dark Armed Dragon Rant

Dark Armed Dragon(DAD)

I think he's one of the most over-hyped cards out there today. He is a level seven dark monster. You can remove one dark monster from your graveyard to destroy one card on the field. He cannot be normal summoned, he can only be special summoned if you have exactly three dark monsters in your graveyard. This harsh summoning condition is the problem that I have with the card. People are always debating which card is better: Judgment Dragon or Dark Armed Dragon. The way I see it, I don't think there is ever going to be a clear answer to that question. But, in my opinion, Judgment Dragon is a lot more broken than Dark Armed Dragon because of the fact that all you have to do is: mill four lightsworns to your graveyard, then you can summon a free 3000 ATK monster, blow up the field, and attack for 3000 direct. Whereas Dark Armed Dragon takes a lot more strategy than Judgment Dragon. If you draw him late game, he's useless most of the time. He requires you to be able to control your graveyard at all times so that there are three darks in it, which just isn't possible in most decks. From what I've seen: Dark Armed is allured away or becomes a dead card in hand. A lot of the time, people would rather have something like a: Smashing Ground, Mirror Force, or simply, a different monster. He is one of those cards that people have trouble letting go of. I say this because he is one of the most destructive cards of all time, and if you draw him early game. He may be able to annihilate a lot of cards and help you gain field advantage. But, the fact that this isn't possible every time you draw him is what makes me question the use. I took him out of my Blackwing deck because of all the dead draws he became. I decided there are better cards than him that could be put in place of him. You guys decide what you think of the card, I think it will see more useful play in the future. But for now, it should be taken out of most dark decks. If people tried it, they would see that there are better choices than Dark Armed Dragon.

Life of a duelist

Have you ever been at your local tournament and had annoying kid walk up to you asking to trade orduel you and you know he has nothing good to trade? Or that his deck isn't very goodat all? The kid never leaves you alone and will come around five minutes or so after you've said no to a duel to as again. Experienced players tend to be annoyed by this because the kid always thinks he can beat you. When a person is rude to this kid, some people freak out and ask why your so mean to a kid. I'll defend myself about this situation:

If you don't take the time to look at the sets, get the cards you need for your deck, or learn how to compete against the different decks at a tournament, then an experienced player shouldn't "have to" play against you. Now, I understand kids don't have much money to spend on a game like yugioh. Which is definitely a problem considering to get the "good" cards, you normally need a good portion of money to get them. But here's another way to look at this situation. If your one of those people, like me, that have been playing since you were younger. How did the better players treat you? Assuming you were one of those kids that couldn't ever get a Mirror Force, or the Envoys, or the things like that. People tended to ignore you a lot. You didn't have things people wanted, so they brushed you aside. If you weren't treated like this, then ignore this because I'm speaking about myself and people that went through this kind of stuff.

Yugioh has and will always be a game about whoever has the most money wins the most tournaments, or has the most cards. I've been through several different formats: Diamond Dude Turbo(DDT), Envoys, Royal Magical Library, Cyber OTK, Tele DAD, Lightsworn, and the current Flamvell craze. I was never a great duelist when I was younger, but I was never the worst either. I don't think I had a "decent" deck until Elemental Energy when the Dark World cards first came out. Then I made a Macro deck when Enemy of Justice first came out. I was making decks with the cards that were mostly commons or rares.

I think it was around when the Aster Phoenix pack changed the game that I started noticing the difference "skill wise" between the players at my locals. There are several different types of duelists: You've got the people that will throw together 40 cards and call it a deck, you've got the people that make the best deck of the format possible just because they have the money to do it, you've got the people that will do whatever it takes to win, and you've got the innovative people that will say: "screw your blackwings and your lightsworns" and find ways to use decks like yubel and find ways to win with them. This game needs more of the innovative people, this game is getting to be too much of "you have to use this deck to win."

It wasn't until a week or so ago that I realized just how much money has to do with the game that I decided to make this video. One of the better players that we had quit the game for good. This was one of the guys that I looked up to a long time ago. The thing that happened was that he used to run Telle DAD when it first came out. He made two complete copies of the deck for him and his son. He had a collection equivalent to TheFirstHokage's on youtube He had five extra Dark Armed Dragons, over 10 Emergency Teleports(you've got to remember that this is when DAD was like $160-250 and E teley was like $40 each), his collection was enormous. He was so attached to the deck that he refused to believe it was going to get killed by the forbidden list. Before you know it, he's out well over $1500 and no longer has a "great" usable deck. He was the type of yugioh player that paid for his bills and playing through his collection, so you can imagine all the trouble he was left with.

He spent the next year or so bashing Lightsworn and how broken they are. He's always mad that Telle DAD was the deck that died immediately in 2009 and that Lightsworn got to continue dominating for two years. His reason for quitting was the thing that made me lose respect for him. He quit because of all the faster than heck decks going around: Flamvell Cat, Lightsworn, Blackwing, and Gladiator Beasts that there was no point in continuing. Whereas a "good" yugioh player would say bring it on and lear how to side deck against decks like these. Mirror of oaths and oppression for glads, light imprisoning mirror and prohibitions for lightsworn, etc. He had a fully built monarch deck that, if he cared to pay attention to the game, would realize that the deck is dominating again this format.

I remember the first thing I thought when I saw his Telle DAD deck. I need to get a deck like this. I looked at Lightsworns, then looked at the price and felt like I died inside a little bit. I decided that, as a competitor, I was going to get this deck at all costs. I went out, applied at places around town until I got hired. I slowly started to get the deck together. It took a few months, but I managed to get everything except one Charge of the Light Brigade and a Crush Card Virus. I never got the charge, but my mom shocked the heck out of me when she actually bought me a crush card for my birthday. My household isn't rich like some other people that build Lightsworn. My birthday happened to land around the time my mom had a nice sum of money laying around. So instead of having a party, she bought me a crush card. I went on to a regional tournament and placed 8th. I sometimes wonder if I would have done better if I would have had the third charge. But that time has come and past. So I don't care anymore

If you plan to do good in this game, you have to be willing to make some sacrifices in your life. Nothing major, mostly money related, because to keep up with the game, you will have to keep shelling out money to get new cards. You'll have to spend some time looking at the newest sets, upcoming sets, and the competition that you'll have to play against. Some people say that synchros ruined the game. I think all they've done is sped up the game and added a new, fun mechanic to it. We're almost two years ino the synchro era, and the game is still the number one TCG worldwide. My one reccomendation is to buy singles online for a deck that your working on over buying packs. It saves you a lot more money than if you were to spend it all on boosters.

Welcome to blog yugioh

What's up guys, this is penguar321 from Team UPP. I decided to do this so that Ult Solemn isn't the only person doing a blog. I'll probably write on this one a lot more than he does on his(no offense to him). For those of you that don't know us. We're all yugioh players from Sioux Falls, SD. I've been playing pretty much nonstop since the release here in the states. Poprobs and Ult Solemn have been playing off and on since the release. I met Poprobs a couple years ago after he started playing again. He introduced me to Ult Solemn. We're currently planning for a regional tournament near Omaha, Nebraska on June 5th. Ult Solemn isn't sure if he can make it yet, but Poprobs and I will definitely be there if you guys want to hang out. I make vids on youtube about upcoming sets, duel vids, other stuff(i know it's what everybody does, but whatever). If you guys have any ideas that we can do on youtube then pm me on youtube. My youtube channel is at: http://www.youtube.com/user/penguar321 . We play locally at the Dragons' Den in Sioux Falls. We could definitely use some more competition, so if you live near here. Feel free to drop by. Yugioh tournaments are on Saturdays, 1 pm through normally 4. The winner gets a turbo pack 2, there are 4 rounds. After the 4 rounds, top 8 people are decided, then those people play in elimination to see who wins the pack. If you don't manage to top, you get to do a dice roll with the rest of the players for a turbo pack 1. The tournament follows the advanced format.