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.