March 2012 Banlist

Hello readers. The banlist is out(you have probably have seen it a 1,00 times already) and it is crap. But beofre that let me show you the banlist for the two of you that haven't seen it.(courtesy of Shreik)

Forbidden Cards 「禁止カード」:

Glow-Up Bulb 「グローアップ･バルブ」
Spore 「スポーア」
Trishula, Dragon of the Ice Barrier 「氷結界の龍　トリシューラ」
Trap Dustshoot 「ダスト・シュート」

Restriction Cards 「制限カード」:

Tech Genus Striker 「ＴＧ－ストライカー」
Agent of Mystery, Earth 「神秘の代行者 アース」

Semi-Restriction Cards 「準制限カード」:

Marshmallon 「マシュマロン」
Lumina, Lightsworn Summoner 「ライトロード･サモナー　ルミナス」
Emergency Teleport 「緊急テレポート」
Shien's Smoke Signal 「紫炎の狼煙」
Level Limit Area B 「レベル制限Ｂ地区」
Torrential Tribute 「激流葬」
Ultimate Offering「血の代償」
Reborn Tengu 「Reborn Tengu」

No longer restricted 「準制限」:

Call of the Haunted 「リビングデッドの呼び声」

At this point you have to fight fire with fire. Konami has practically made you buy ORCS as you either play wind ups or inzektors or burn in hell. Words cannot describe how angry I am. Imo it is simply wrong to not hits a deck(in this case decks) because you want to promote product. The game was at stake here at a stake has been driven through its heart. I will have my full analysis tomorrow because right now I am going to a friends house to play some video games!

-Cameron

Only On DN #1

There is really no pressing news to report today and since the banlist has yet to be revealed yugioh has not been that exciting. So in order to test my Chaos hero deck I decided to test it out on some random people on DN(it is more of a getting used to the plays of the deck than anything) then I remembered why I stopped doing that.... I have come to the conclusion that all of the stupid people on DN have formed a cult that's purpose is to piss me off and make my games a living nightmare. I don't mind if you don't know some of your rulings or card interactions we all have to learn. But that is just the problem when I point out a ruling( I always make sure I give them the link I got the ruling off of usually pojo or Dgz) they either deny it or falt out say that I am wrong. You have to eb able to accept your mistakes and learn from them! I am not saying that I am always right, if you think I am wrong then please give me a link that states otherwise, then we can talk. So I have decided to make a post every time I get some ahem unusual experiences on DN here are a few so far:

Scenario 1

Opponent: Has Royal decree on the field(activated last turn) then proceeds to activate mirror force on my attack.

Lesson: It always helps to read your cards!

Scenario 2

Opponent: Asks how did I special summon a stardust on his turn when I had a brio and a formula on the field.

Lesson: Read Lesson #1!

Scenario 3

Opponent:Plays the shallow grave when I have no monsters in my grave

Me: Umm sir it is a requirement for both players to have a monster in the grave for that card to be activated.(I find the ruling on the web and link it) 

Opponent: No one else has told me that ruling before so you are wrong.

Me: WTF

Lesson: Read my first paragraph of this post

This is purely meant for laughing purposes and to expose the DN Community for their stupidity. Don't get me wrong I have had some good games on DN with good duelists and with people who want to learn from their mistakes unfortunately they are the minority on DN.  Thanks for reading!

-Cameron

Locals Report 2-4-12

What! Are you serious! A Local Report! Oh yes I am! I know I haven't done one of these in a very long while but I at first didn't think that I wanted to do Locals reports anymore but I have changed my mind here we go!

So I am playing my Chaos heros, I got the skeleton off of ARG but I changed quite a few things around to match my playstyle and took out stuff that I didn't like and wha la I have a deck! In all seriousness I have been testing on DN alot recently with a ton of different hero builds and a modified version of Chaos Heros seemed to work the best this format.

Grant(co leader of the team) is the only member that comes with me all of the others are sick -_- anyways I get some pre tourney games in with Grant(playing karakuris) and we end up even at 2 games each, I go and play with some other people there and win most of my games. At this point I am feeling pretty confident but unfortunately I was proxing my rai-ohs since Brett was borrowing my rai-ohs. I am not able to borrow any rai-ohs so I am forced to put two solemn warnings in the main, which might be a little WTF to some of you but my build only runs three traps so whatever. I knew the warnings would work out fine but i was worried about the reduced light count. Also tourney attendance was pretty low at only about 30 people(which is low for my local) and about 20 of them were kids, usually teh ratio is this: 50 people and 30ish of them are good, so there is quite a difference.

Round 1 Cameron VS. Dragunity

 Game 1: She is a good player. She brings out 2 stardust even though I open 2 Maxx C and use them on both of here dux plays which is not good playerish but perhaps she decided to go for the risker play because her hand is not that good. i don't draw any outs to her field setup but I draw into gorz and summon it on her next attack, then I draw into monster reborn to revive the phalnx sycnh into brio with ailus and return both stardusts and attack for game.

Game 2: The game is pretty back and forth since I don't draw into any of my handtraps, eventually she gets out stardust and sets some backrow and that is game.

Game3: I draw into D.D crow and remove her phalnx. Nuff said.

Record 1-0

Round 2: Cameron vs. Dark World

Game 1: I out advantage him and win with my clutch BLS

Game 2: It is back and forth but then I ss Chaos Sorc and remove grapha and then beatdown from there

Record 2-0

Round 3: Cameron Vs. Frog Monarch

Game 1: He gets too many plusses with his monarchs and I don't draw good

Game 2: Read Game 1

Record 2-1

Round 4: Cameron VS. Dino rabbit

Game 1: It is pretty back and forth and it ends up getting down to 500 life each but he top decks a rabbit and summons utopia and that is game.

Game 2: It is another back and forth game but I gemni spark his dolkka and beatface from there.

Game 3: Again it is back and forth but i end up getting off a miracle fusion which he cannot stop and I win.

Record 3-1

Round 5: Cameron Vs. Six Samurai

Game 1: I have seen this player before but have never played him before. Anyways he opens sacky and I have no hand traps so he wins.

Game 2: I grind for advantage which is where heros excel so I win

Game 3: he opens 2 united, gateway and kageki and kagemusha, where u at veiler? Needless to say he wins

Final Record 3-2

It is a lackluster record but it happens, I will continue testing with this deck it is hella fun/good Imo. Also I am going to begin posting videos on the teams channel as a extension to this blog so look out for that in the near future! Thanks for reading!

-Cameron

Day 2 Recap of YCS Guadalajara

Hello fellow duelists! I am here with the complete day 2 recap of YCS Mexico.

Before I begin I would like to thank LFN for pointing out some of the other key cards in the wind up deck besides the loop they seem much more legitimate now and I can see why they are tier 1 no doubt.
I will begin with the top 8

The Top 8
2 Wind Up
2 Inzektor
2 Dino rabbit
1 Six Samurai
1 Plant Synchro

Not much has really changed here the big three decks that held the most spots in the top 32 still hold the most spots in the top 8. It is also painfully obvious that the former best deck of the format, Plant Synchro has fallen out of favor only holding one spot in the top 8. That Six Samurai deck continues to hang on....

The Top 4
2 Inzektors
1 Dino rabbit
1 Six Samurai

At this point Wind ups are eliminated completely and inzektors take the top spot. Dino Rabbit again stays in there and that lone six Samurai still lives....

Finals
Dino Rabbit VS. Six Samurai

That Six Samurai won't lose will he? But of course Dino Rabbit will win because the Six Samurai sackiness has ran out right? Also Dino Rabbit is commonly refereed to as the better Six Samurai deck right?

WRONG

Guess who won? Six Samurai

Yes your eyes do not deceive you.

I have said this last post as well, i don't see how six samurai can even possibly be a tier 1 competitor this format, Plant Synchro, Dino rabbit, Agents, Wind Ups, Inzektors can all beat it lets take a look at some outs that those decks have against shien and beast

Plant Synchro: It can drop any synchro at the drop of a hat and doesn't rely on spells too often and primarily uses monster effects.

Dino Rabbit: Laggia, Dollka are enough in their own right, if the six samurai duelist used the elder build than Dollka would not have been that good but rabbit should run all over the deck, if they can stop that initial summon of beast or shien than you are golden. Laggia can do that. Dino rabbit has a more control over its games because it has power over monster effects and spells and traps, ss only have control over spell and traps.

Agents: Hyperion wrecks shien and beast, nuff said

Wind Ups: They have the hand loop, they have the search power in factory, with shark they can drop almost any rank exceed rank( not any rank but you know what I mean) after studying their plays they are a very good deck, they are like the new X sabers only better, so they should have beat Six Samurai

Inzektors: They wipe the field every turn, Imo this is a horrible matchup for ss and just about every other deck that commits to the field.

Call me single minded but I do not and will not believe that ss are a viable tier 1 deck. Even Enishi is not convincing enough. I am not attacking the guy who won with them: Oscar Zavala congrats to him.


Anyway this YCS did cement a few things for the rest of the format. 

• Inzektors and wind ups are the new tier 1 that need to be handled accordingly
• Plant Sycnhro is on the bubble as to where it stands as I don't believe it got a fair representation at this YCS 
• Dino Rabbit is further cementing its tier 1 status and might be the best deck of the format(Ironic that a control deck is considering claims that control was dead at the start of this format)
• Agents are continuing to trend down I expect this trend to continue heading into Atalanta 
• Wind up/inzektors(the combined deck of them) despite getting their fair share of hype did not perform to standards.

I really wish that konmai would post decklists and feature matches it would allow me to disect more info but I digress.

 Thanks for reading

-Cameron

Recap Day 1 Of YCS Guadalajara

Hello Fellow duelists(I decided to change my intro I was getting bored of writing the same thing post after post) I am here to do a relatively short recap of the day one events of YCS Mexico(I will be calling it this for the remainder of the post because it is easier to spell!). I have to say it is quite surprising and unexpected.

First I would like to say that almost all of the info I have here is from konami's coverage site that you can find here. Also konami neglected to give any sort of feature match so I have no idea whatsoever about the way people played or certain cards they teched. Also I know very little about Latin America meta so if I sound very surprised about some decks topping and/or I do not recognize certain pros you will know why.

The Stats
Attendance: 512 participants
Rounds of Swiss: 9

The 9 Rounds of Swiss
First I did notice that Angel Flores( the guy that won both of California's YCS's) was in attendance and he was piloting dino rabbit and he also happened to be a bounty duelist. The rounds leading up to swiss were quite uneventful and konami was scarce with details, again I have no bios or matches to go off of. Konami did give deck types after round 8 and that was when the winds of change blew so to speak. Synchro summon had only about 3 spots and six samurai and gravekeeper were littered everywhere. Dino rabbit had respectable numbers, but wind ups were easily the most popular after the standings of round 8. Apparently their loop was very underestimated and easily took down their competitors. Really Allen C penninton calculated that wind ups only have baout a 42% chance to pull of teh loop first turn, thats less than 50% which means they should lose at least 50% of thier games. From my experience the wind up deck is a one trick pony and really doesn't have anything else to offer, Sure it can rank 3 alot but that isn't enough to win all of your games! Against decks like dino rabbit and plant synchro the deck should succumb to their power. Again many may say that the loop is the reason they had so many tops but how did they get that loop off so consistently?

The Top 32
Really very little changed from round 8 some six samurai decks and gravekeeper were eliminated but wind up dominance continued to shine through. Here are the official numbers
9 Wind ups
5 Inzektors
5 Dino rabbit
3 Synchro Summon
3 Six Samurai
1 Wind up/Inzektor
1 Scrap Stun
1 Dark World
1 Chaos
1 Agent
1 Gravekeeper
1 Tech genus

My reaction to it all
How did six samurai top let alone have 3 tops? The deck can open with the nuts but their is absolutely no way it is a tier 1 caliber deck. It is all luck sack you either open with the nuts and win or don't and lose. Sure last format they had 4 rotas which made the sack happen more often but I am not convinced that shien and naturia beast/barkion are enough to make it all the way to the top 32. The deck is not as consistent as it once was and is not a good deck. Maybe at most 1 might sneak in but equalling synchro summon in tops is absurd, I might sound ignorant here but there is no way in any meta with the same card pool as the tcg can compare synchro summon with six samurai, there is a reason that synchro summon top consistently and often and in plentiful amounts, because they are consistent and can constantly drop outs to almost any situation. Six Samurai sit behind shien or beast with a few backrow, sure that can win you games but not top a YCS(Rant over). Next wind ups taking the number one spot are surprising to me but again maybe I didn't take them seriously enough, I hope they post up the deck lists I am curious to see the builds. Inzektors are not a surprise to me, they are good and facts are fact, i just didn't know that wind ups were apparently better than them. The dino rabbit tops is to be expected. I honestly expected wind up/Inzektor to be number 1 here. In my testing against most of the tier 1 decks it stood its own and having access to both the hand loop and the field clearing capabilities of inzektors seems YCS worthy, so only having one spot is surprising. We have to have some rouge decks sneak in so scraps are worthy of that(I guess), gravekeeper seem off the wall really. I don't see how gravekeeper and agent could possible get the same number of tops as they are not even in the same league, royal tribute does win games but there are better ways of doing that and since gravekeepers rely on the backrow alot and this is not a backrow friendly format. Chaos is cool to top, dark world is to be expected, this just proves that the deck is really not that good. tech genus is meh but again it seems to have potential.

Conclusion
Alot of rouge decks that have seem to fallen off the radar topped here which kind of makes me doubt the legitimacy of this event since it is supposed to be such a high level event and all. My opinions are this:

• Six Samurai are not tier 1 caliber and shouldn't be treated as such
• Wind ups are a large threat and siding for them is going to be a deciding factor as apparently they have more to offer than the loop.
• Inzektors are good and should be handled accordingly
• Dino Rabbit continues to cement its tier 1 status
• Synchro Summon is still Imo the best deck of the format and can compete with inzektors and wind ups

Honestly perhaps the answer to alot of wind ups topping is alot of people having the same logic as me and thinking that wind ups were one trick ponies and not siding accordingly. If that is true than the problem is similar to when dark world came out only instead of siding too much and not topping people sided to little and focused so much on plant sycnhro that they forced plant synchro out of the limelight and allowed wind ups to go around un hindered. That of course still doesn't explain how 3 six samurai decks top at a YCS no less.

Thanks for reading and please leave your comments telling me your take on all of this I would like to get some opinions other than my own as maybe I am too blinded by my bias against six samurai, I am of course open to suggestions!

-Cameron

My March 2012 Banlist: Part 2: The list

NEWS ALERT: As I was writing this I found out that tour guide is going to be reprinted in some battle pack coming out in may, if you want to read all about it click here. The bastards did it! lol

Hey guys! So I do apologize for not posting anything in the past week. Finals week was upon me(they were late this year) and I had to study of course so I hope you all understand. Thanks for your patience and with finals finally over with I have time to myself! So I am continuing my banlist sereis and in this post I am going to give you my list and the reasons why.

Banned:
Black Luster soldier: This card is too powerful and can single handily win games on its own and the last thing we need is another boss monster that is splashable. Not to mention the summon condition is a joke if it can be called a condition at all. i think many people will agree with me that this card should have never came back in the first place.
Dandylion: This card generates too much advantage and for just being milled you get to free monsters, also they are level 1 which makes them ideal for synchroing since they can be used for nay level. I advocated this cards banning for a while and nothing has changed yet.
Glow up bulb: What? Two main plant cards both banned! Blasphemy! In al honesty and as I said on my last post about the banlist the plant engine has seen play in 3 consecutive formats and two of them were tier 1 formats. The deck is too good. Some could argue by saying it is tengu and tour guide that make the deck good but really the plant engine is just so easy to splash in anything and gives the deck so much flexibility that the whole engine needs to go to hell. I don't think that it is enough justification in that bulb's effect can be used once per duel  the card is too good and helps makes the plants engine what it is today.
Sangan: Sure tourguide could also be hit but in todays meta sangan is a generic searcher that can get pretty much all of your combo pieces to make a deck work. The problem is that in yugioh we have so many generic cards that just come together and make a deck good. I don't believe in this theory by all means ban this card.
 Future Fusion: Its a five card foolish burial need I say more? Plus it is a ftk maker in itself.
Pot of Avarice: I hate card that you can just rip off the top of your deck and win. I think they are bad for the game and require no skill other than being drawn to play. Plus this so called "cost" to activate the card by needing 5 monsters in your grave can't even be called a cost anymore.
Mind Control: This card has become no different than brain control and brain control is banned. We have so many options other than tribute now that again the negative effects of this card are not negative at all.
Monster Reborn: Read Pot of avarice.
Trap Dustshoot: When "monster mash" was popular this format this card and confiscation were almost equal in the amount of advantage it gave you. Now that the monster mash trend has died down dustshoot is not as good as confiscation but with decks running 20+ monsters and you getting to see your opponents entire hand it is ban worthy.

Limited:
The Agent of creation-Earth: Not only is this card limit worthy it searches out the  one card rank 2 exceed enabler but by all logic it should be to keep things  consistent. stratos is limited and for that matter any card that is a searcher should at least be limited.
Wind Up Zenmighty: In case you didn't know loops that take all or most of your hand are broken and bad for the game.
Rescue Rabbit: Rescue Rabbit is a hard card to place. if you put it at one it pretty much kills off any deck that uses it as its main card(dino rabbit) as unlike its feline counterpart it is not really a good tech as you have to run at least 2 sub par monsters(most likely 3) for it to actually be a live card. But on the other hand if you put it at 2 it won't really do anything as it is still good enough to run at 2. Of course you could leave it and hit the exceeds it brings out(laggia and dolkka) but imo that won't really do anything as they aren't ban worthy and putting them at one is useless considering you usually only bring dollkka and laggia once. But in the end dino rabbit is tier 1 and the deck has to get hit unfortunately in this case it either gets left untouched or killed and I choose kill.
Mystical space typhoon: I loved the days when we had heavy and 1 mst. Imo it is the perfect balance of spell and trap destruction without going over board plus dust tornado has filed for unemployment and konami doesn't want to be a job killer right?(lol)
Inzektor Hornet: This card falls under my one and ya done theory. If you can remove it from the grave by dd crow or some other means you shouldn't have to worry about two more and this will force inzektors to actually play more conservative(I hope). But keep in mind the deck is not dead with this hit.
Grapha: Again this falls under my one and ya done theory, if you can remove the first one you shouldn't have to worry about 2 more, even if dark worlds aren't tier 1 that doesn't mean the deck shouldn't be hit.

Now for my more ahem controversial choices( still under limited mind you)
Royal Oppression: Imo we need this card to make the game good, sure it helps the tier 1 decks too but this helps curb the special summoning problem that we have in this game.
Goyo Guardian: Alot of people have said this and I agree. Imagine your opponent summon hyperion only for you to summon goyo and take it, PROFIT! Also since we have no shortage of boss monsters even without bls taking out this card won't be a problem.
Ultimat Offering: This card + Gadgets is quite good and will become broken once we get some really good rank 4's

Semi Limited:
Master Hyperion: It is easier to bring out than DAD and while it can't destroy three cards at one time you can usually just rip it off the top of your deck and summon it giving you an out to many situations, the reason I didn't limit it is because I already hit earth to 1.
Judgement Dragon: We need to return all of the lightsworn stuff back to where it was.
Blackwing-Kalut: Another card that alot of people have on their lists and I agree. Blackwings need some help and giving back some mind games to blackwings will really help them.
Book of moon: It is too much at three and too little at one plus exceeds are already cemented into our game no reason to promote them more.
Emergency Teleport: Last time I checked the tele dad format is gone so this card can come back.

Unlimited:
Summoner Monk: Saw no play at one or 2 and unlike most cards its cost ius a true cost so unlimit it and move on.
Primal Seed: Go! Play the deck the way it was meant to be played! No BLS! No problem! Main 3 Primal Seed and Top a YCS near you!
Magical Stone Evacation:  Because neg 2's are so good!(The sarcasm has ended FYI)

So there you have it! Before I go I would like to say thank you so much for the 10,000+ pageviews! Goal number 1 achieved! To infinity and beyond!
-Cameron