Hidden Arsenal 4 Preview

Hey guys sorry I didn't do any updates for a while but I will make up for it. Instead of me talking about meta stratgies that you have heard a million times I will be doing my first set preview! So today i am going to talk about Hidden Arsenal 4. This pack comes with your standard duel terminal cards like jurrac, fabled, ice barrier, and naturia not to mention a couple of others. But the cards that i really want to focus on are really Fabled, naturia and a ice barrier. First Trishula dragon of the ice barrier, this card is a level 9 synchro that removes one card from the field hand and graveyard at summoning. I have no doubt in my mind that this card will help define the meta. In Japan this card is already at one but I have a feeling that in the TCG this card will be at 3 on release. To add insult to injury trishula has no summoning limitations, that means any one tuner monster and any two non tuner monsters can make this card, also it has 3000 atk. Secondly Fabled. This set almost makes fabled a very viable deck they are still a card away from being complete, but nonthe less they get the fabled chawa, cereburral, and nozchee all have effects that special summon a fabled. The monsters that in really want to talk about though are the synchros. First the fabled unicore this card is a level 4 synchro monster that has 2300 atk. Its effect is when both players have the same number of cards in hand you can negate any card effect played! Now this card has a great effect but the limitations are pretty high, as you both have to have the same number of cards in hand and since fabled burn through their hand rather quickly this can lead to problems. Now on to Naturia, this set actually turns them into a viable lockdown deck. With beast and barkion already out and bambooshoot out as well the deck is okay but more of a fun deck but that could change with hidden arsenal 4. As they get a fusion that uses barkion and beast as materials which is kinda hard to have on the field at the same time but the effect is rather good as you can negate a spell or trap by removing a card in your grave and milling the top card of your deck. naturia also get mantis which gets rid of monsters and other support. In conclusion hidden arsenal 4 is reallly a great set for trishula if for anything else. Also I am looking forward to fabled becoming good not to mention a slew of other support for dragunity, genex, and jurrac. See ya guys later! Also make sure to follow me by email!
-Cameron

The Meta: Blackwings

Here we are to a deck that is one that has been in our format ever since Raging Battle was released. Blackwings got good support up until Ancient Prophecy, that is where it all went down hill from there. In the shining darkness blackwings got a draw card that had too many restrictions, a tuner that had a subpar effect, and other monsters that just taking one look at them told you that they were no good. Then they got hit hard by the last few banlists, whirlwind going to 2, then to 1. Now in the current format kalut the monster that made the deck extremly broken is now at 1. Blackwings tried to adpt to these cahnges by adding ant-meta techs like royal oppression, and even cards like thunder king rai-oh. Despite all of these setbacks the deck has still found a way to survive and even prosper take the latest YCS for example Charlette. One blackwing player went to top 32 with a blackwing deck, by adding 2 spirit reaper he was able to provide needed help to the deck. Some people were suggesting that the limit on kalut was a good thing as kalut was the reason blackwings ran such a high monster count but now they can cut back on monsters. Also there are many other options for someone who wants to build balckwings like vayuturbo, a deck that focuses on synchro summoning from the graveyard. Or Vayu sworn which uses a lighsworn engine in conjunction witha blackwing engine. Also the techs you could add to the deck are limitless, card guard, Rai-Oh, Ryko, and more. In my personal view blackwings are far from dead, but there is now no solid answer to what to use in a blackwing deck, they still have 2 Icurs attack that gives them +'s so they still have good support, I just wish that konami would give them better support in coming packs. By the way don't forget to enter your email address in the white bar at the top of the blog so you can follow me by email, and also don't forget to answer the poll question at the top of the blog as well! See you guys later!
-Cameron

The meta: Dragunities

Now we have the newcomer to the party. They are one of the few good decks nowdays that vary from player to player as the deck just has so many different cards that can make it either aggro, control or conservative. I personally think that the best build is probably the control one so i will focus on that build the most. The basic premise of the deck is to get phalanx in the graveyard than summon it back with dux then sync for varanja then resummon phalanx with her effect then gor for level 8 sync. So the deck can pretty much just summon level 8 syncs and go from there. The build that I find the most interesting is the aggro build, as it can rival the aggressiveness of six sam. All you have to do is just throw in the ultra rare dragunity from the structure deck and the 2100 beater also from the structure deck, in conjuction with all of the other dragunities mentioned above and you have a very aggresive build even without trident dragon (as I really don't like that card as it gives you too many -'s) As you have read so far the deck is very vesitile but there is also one more build in which you can use dragunities in, conservitive. This build kind of plays like blackwings in the way that they don't get otk's but they focus on steady attacking and control with your level 8 syncs and trap cards. The final thing i want to talk about is their field spell: Dragon Canyon. This card single handidly made dragunties what they are today by turning any dead card in your hand into a very live one. By pitching a card in your hand you can either get a dragunity to your hand or put a dragunity in the grave, therefore fueling almost the entire combos of the deck, and like i said in the gravekeeper article this deck also benfited from the ban on heavy storm. That is all for today oh and srry for not remembering the names of some of the monsters!
-Cameron

The meta: Gravekeepers

Ah Gravekeepers, they have been around forever and were actually one of the first themes to be invented. They were very good when they first came out, then when new better themes came out they fell by the wayside. Then fastforward a couple of years to absolute powerforce and new support for the theme came out, but that didn't break the theme yet. Then fastforward a couple of months to starstkrike blast and you get gravekeepers recruiter. This card single handidly broke the theme into what it is today. This card allowed them to take a YCS by surprise and actually win the event. Ever since that they have been a feared tier 1 deck. They are argueably the best deck of the current format and they are without a doubt the best anti meta deck. Not only did gravekeepers get great support in the past but the ban of heavy storm was a glorious celebration of all decks that used a field spell, in this case necrovalley. This card not only completely shuts down the graveyard but also makes the gravekeeper monsters huge 2000 beaters. Moving on to Royal Tribute this card can ruin great hands in an instant as it gets rid of all monsters in your opponents hand. So as you can see gravekeepers are a very awesome deck, also on a side note since I did not do an entry to the blog yesterday I am going to be doinga double entry today!

The Meta: X-saber

Hey guys today I am going to be talking about x-sabers. They have been a viable deck for over 4 formats but have only been widely used in highly competitive events in 1 format. They have pretty much stayed the same since the realease of the shining darkness, but that is not really a bad thing. Now here we are today in the march 2011 format and x-sabers are once again big, why? Well the answer is simple since blckwings are now not as strong as they once where people fall back on famaliar ground. X-sabers have great combos, great support and even better techs that you could throw in. You can basically through any good tech in the deck and have it work. They are a very big stable deck, much like how lightsworn was in previous formats, the process is get big for a format, die down then come back witha vengance. That is exactly what has happened here. X-sabers are also great because they really don't have bad matchups, except maybe gravekeepers but smart techs and siding fix that. Going back to blackwings, they had once held the spot that X-sabers now hold: a powerful deck that appears at every tournament and is very good. Well now that b-wings have been hit very hard, X-sabers have came in. I expect x-sabers to do very good this format so lets just wait and see! Thanks for reading and remeber to follow me if you like what you are reading so this blog can get more popular! Until next time (:
-Cameron

The Meta: Fish

Hey guys continuing on with my segment of the meta I am going to be talking about fish decks. Now if you paid any attemtion to the last YCS then you know that fish came in second place. The reason for this is because this is just a prime example of how pot of duality has helped our meta, by making decks that have great combos good by giving them consistency. Also there is another factor and that is that since super ancient deepsea fish thing needs two tributes, he was a easy target for cards like bottomless and solemn warning, but now that many tier  decks are not running any bottomless (like six sam) that makes the king fish easier to get out. Sure they still have to worry about solemn warning and other negation cards, that is nothinga little seven tools or trap stun can't fix. Does this mean that fish is now one of the best decks of the format, well who knows but definatley it has gotten alot better this format. Also what I really love about this deck is that it is just so flexible and is not a one card win deck. Alot of times people just win without getting their giant fish king out and if they do bonus for them! Also there are alot of sidecking possibilities for sidedecking, like if you want to be creative you can just make your sidedeck into a monarch one so that if you have a bad matchup to a certain deck(like gravekeepers) then you can just side in the monarchs and make it a formula monarchs build. So that is really all I have to say for today so until next time (:
-Cameron

The Meta: six sam

Hey guys I am going to have a new series (did I spell that right) about the top meta decks and decks that maybe aren't tier1 but are tier 2 or 3 so the first deck i am going to be talk about is going to six sam, as they won YCS Dallas and YCS Charleotte (how do you spell that). They are one of the best decks of the format, but why did most people main triple upstart goblin even though gateway was at one? The answer is quite simple: just like how blackwings lost 2 whirlwinds, then they mained 2-3 dualitys, then a few months later lost 2 kaluts. So the six sam deck is still capable of otk and is very aggro, but i never believed that you could overextend to the field if you only have 1 shi en as caius and other things can take it out and then dark hole and look where you are at. So I still firmly believe that while shi en is a key card of the deck kizan, kageki, and kagemusha are much more the heart of the deck. The deck is also able to accomadte litlle techs here and there so that really helps to adapt to your meta, though the monsters pretty much stay the same you could always mix things up in the spell and trap lineup. Also six sams are awsome against decks that set monsters alot as they can just run over their monsters and continue on the offensive. The bottom line is six sam is not a one trick pony. While some people believe it is an autopilot deck I do not believe that is the case, as it always isn't as simple as kageki summon kagemusha then sync. Six sam are also able to come back from the most hopeless situations as you have so much search power,a awsome draw engine and a awsome synchro that negates stuff. I also think that one of the best cards in the deck in this format by far is double edged sword technique as it is just so versitile as it can be used to go aggresive and push for game and also be used as a last ditch effort to comeback from the game. So i hoped you enjoyed this part of the segment the discussions will get better as I discuss Tier 2 and 3 decks as I can think of impressive stargeties with those decks so just barewith me until I get passed the tier one's.
-Cameron(darkstar)

Hello Everybody

Hi guys this is darkstar from TeamCrimsonRaiders and I am a yugioh player that loves Blackwings and Six Samurai decks. Please check us out and follow us as we will bring you up to date YCS news, our regional experiences and deck lists and discussions so please check us out (: