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

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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.

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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.