Reminder

Quick reminder regarding my twitter account. Lack of updates recently because of university exams, but will come back soon (to twitter, since its is instantaneous info at hand) at full time. 

Currently testing TCG ghostricks, and flirting with chain beat (grind games are my favourite).

See ya in twitter.

Saturday report.

Hello.

At morning, my brother and i went to Raccoon Games to make some trades/sales that we have already agreed (DW and other stuff). Got a pair of Crane Crane, but i sold Meliae a few weeks ago; but the wheel of capitalism keeps on spinning and those cranes will be traded/sold to the guy i sold Meliae.

After trading and so, i played a couple of relaxed matches using Meliae´s guy dragunitites, it was well built, but not perfectly. It lacked of Upstart Goblin and Gaia Dragon, the Thunder Charger, so the combo was hard to pull of, specially against HERO, charged with a huge load of traps. Out of 6 possible games, i won only 3 (bad deck is bad), but the point was to have fun and to teach those guys how their decks had to be played (they are money noobs).

After eating, we moved from Raccoon to Evolution Store to play locals. We built our decks, make another sale, and waited for the tourney to start.

Disastrous tourney: 1-12-2013 at Evolution Store.

Round 1:
Me (TCG Ghostricks) vs Scraps XOX
My brother (TCG Herldic Beast) vs Bujin XOX

Round 2:
Me vs DW XX
My brother vs Karakuri XX

Our decks weren´t as good as we thought, so we both scooped and looked for some trades/sales. Found a guy who was moving from YGO to Magic, so we bought him some cards (1 secret Tyras, 3 Ascetism, 1 super rare Armageddon Knight, 1 super rare Magical Android, and more stuff) for 10€.

Since we traded/sold our Elemental Dragon deck and we have no good deck to play, we agreed on not to play locals anymore until December´s banlist, LVAL release, and the end of the exams´period; but we will keep on trading/selling.

So that´s all for a strange Saturday.

On a side note: do any of the people at your locals want to build Elemental Dragons, despite being next banlist so close?

ALSO don´t forget to follow me on twitter: https://twitter.com/alvboncer

A pure advertisement, and some updates.

Hello. (Double post today, don´t forget to take a look on my post about Ghostricks).

Just click here and give it a "follow". Also, if you want, you can recommend me some ygo-related twitter accounts to get updated to knews and all sort of stuff.


On a side note, TCG exclusives and OCG imports have been revealed. Only 4 cards caught my attention: Armor Kappa, Ebony and Ivory dragons, and Dragorado.

Despite Deep Sea Diva being limited, opening Diva into Kappa is very nice to see what is your opponent playing.

And all 3 dragons will fit into a Hieratic chaos synchro deck, a deck that i have tested, but needs more testing.

Greetings.

Ghostricks.

Hello.

Here again with a Ghostricks related post. First of all, if you don´t know who or what they are, you should go here and have a read on it.

After you read it, or if you already knew about them, you have realized that they focus on setting not only themselves, but your opponent´s monsters also.

The point with Ghostricks is that, if you have built your deck properly, you should be thinning your deck, at least, 1 card per turn via Specter, Kyonshee, Stein, Pot of Duality, Tour Guide, Maiden with Eyes of Blue, and/or Wonder Wand.

As for every (or almost every) archetype, Ghostricks are no exception in having different builds; most of them are cookie-cutter, but, one more time, techs are the key pieces in a build.

As far as i know, there are 3 variants; Tour Guide Ghostricks, Lacooda Ghostricks, and Blue-eyes Ghostricks. The one that i have tested at its full and i will discuss about, is the Blue-eyes one, being very consistent and fast, combining good effects with stalling and beatsticks.

First the decklist and then, the discussion:

Monsters (16)
3 Stein
3 Kyonshee
3 Specter
3 BE Maiden
2 Witch
1 Lantern
1 BEWD

Spells (16)
3 House
3 Duality
3 MST
3 Swords of Concealing Light
2 Wonder Wand
1 Book of Moon
1 Recurring Nightmare

Traps (8)
3 Panic
2 Needle Ceiling
2 Dark Bribe
1 Out

The Ghostrick lineup: i maxed the copies of Stein, Kyonshee and Specter, because all 3 of them give or maintain card advantage and deck thinning. Two Witches to have enough targets for Wonder Wand, and because she has a Tsukuyomi-like effect, but having Ghostrick in her name. Only one Lantern; of course it is good to negate an attack and summon a monster, but apart from that, i see no more than 1 copy into this variant; if necessary, you can bring it back to your hand via Recurring Nightmare.

BEWD lineup: 3 Maiden, 1 BEWD and 2 Wonder Wand. You want BEWD on grave or in your deck when it is not on the field, so that is why you will only run 1. Maiden + Wonder Wand is always a good opening, but never ever go Maiden + Wand into Azure, never; you HAVE to draw 2 cards out of that play and thin your deck a little. Of course House gives this engine more power, House + Maiden is good stalling, the same occurs with House + BEWD, and that is why you have to draw 2 cards out of Wand, to get House as soon as possible.

Spells are a bunch of staples such as triple MST, Duality, Concealing, and House (key card in this deck), and Book of Moon (always good, specially in this deck). Condealing is very very good, despite what some think about this card and Needle Ceiling, both help you to maintain advantage and momentum during the game. I don´t have included Allure, because you will have to waste many resources to bring the monster back to your field via Leviair (Allure is recommended on TGU builds). 1 Recurring Nightmare; you can run more if you want, but there is a huge risk on getting cloggy. It is really helpful late game to bring back your "beastick" (Stein) or any other monster (Specter and/or Lantern).

The trap lineup, is pretty short; focusing on field control. Ghostrick Panic is a pseudo W Nebula Meteorite and Ghostrick Out is a pseudo Aeguis of the Ocean Dragon Lord; both searchable, and very useful to trigger Kyonshee and set your opponent´s monsters, and to make a push on your opponent´s Life Points respectively. Needle Ceiling is (and i am not exaggerating) a pseudo Raigeki. It never ever conflicts with Concealing (it could conflict if you play badly, but that is not the point, isn´t it?); it wipes out your opponent´s field and punishes overextending. Finally, Dark Bribe, a personal choice of myself that could be replaced with 2 Ghostrick Out. Not all spells and traps deal with destruction, and that is what i´m a fan of this card for field control.

Regarding extra deck choices, having a tuner means that you have to add some synchro monsters, as well as xyz monsters:

Extra deck (15)
1 Azure-eyes
1 Formula Synchron
1 Mist Bird Clausolas
1 Armory Arm
1 Black Rose Dragon
2 Ghostrick Alucard
1 Zenmaines
1 Leviathan Dragon
1 Gachi Gachi Gantetsu
1 Slacker Magician
1 Leviair
1 Temtempo
1 Melomelody
1 Muthurythm

Most of the cards are "just in case" cards, but "in case", they are great choices and you will find that this extra deck fits this variant very well.

That´s all about Ghostricks; at least until Ghostrick Mary and the new rank 1 xyz monster are released. After that, the deck should be rebuilt completely starting from 0.

Greetings

Plant deck´s extra deck (post SHSP).

Hello.

After testing plants, i realized that Tidal and a Plant Water monster are needed. Unfortunately, this will turn the deck into a Dragon Ruler deck with some plants in. I added them anyways, and proceeded to test it again. The deck was smoother, it has resources every turn to make a synchro summon and still summon a big dragon.

At first, i added Lord Poison, but soon i became aware that i don´t need another monster that makes more or less the same as Melia or Redox; so following the tutoring idea, i added Bonatical Girl instead. Of course it is still opponent dependant, but its effect is much more useful than Poison´s one (Dandy + Redox is nice to perform). Then, I cut some traps, because I found them unnecessary in too much situations, to add a playset of Sacred Swords to make the deck faster and keep on the pace with regular Dragon Ruler decks. Last but not least, i considered a playset of Royal Decree, specially if your local´s zone is full of anti meta decks; even against Dragon Ruler, Decree is a powerful card, so i switched RFtDD and Raigeki Break/PWWB for the whole playset.

So, after those changes being applied, the decklist ended this way: (SCROLL DOWN TO SEE FULL DECKLIST)

After shaping the main deck to fit your tastes, the next step is going through the extra deck. Being sort of a Dragon Ruler deck, we must include some lvl 8 synchro monsters; after that, we have to take Debris Dragon into consideration, so we will add some lvl 7, 1 lvl 6, and 1 lvl 11. Then, Crane Crane leads us to the step of adding some rank 3 monsters. But, what about Scapegoat? Should we add Formula Synchron, Mist Bird Clausolas, and Armory Arm? Well, in certain occasions, all of then are useful; the problem is that this kind of deck can perform a one-turn-Shooting Star Dragon, so we should add 1 Stardust Dragon and the previously mentioned monster.

An extra deck example (ignoring extra deck space):

1 Shooting Star Dragon*
1 Stardust Dragon*
1 Star Eater
1 Crimson Blader
1 Scrap Dragon
1 Red Dragon Archfiend
1 Colossal Fighter
2 BRD
1 Ancient Fairy Dragon
1 Orient Dragon/Iron Chain Dragon
1 Armory Arm
1 Mist Bird Clausolas
1 Formula Synchron
1 Leviair
2 Melia

That is 17 monsters, so we have to take 2 of them out. The only and wise change is to take Stadrust Dragon and Shooting Star Dragon out, despite Scapegoat and the one-turn-Shooting Star Dragon argument; a single Stardust can be rammed by simply a stronger monster, and if we take it out, Shooting follows it out of the extra deck.

So the ultimate decklist will be:

Monsters (24)
3 Redox
3 Blaster
3 Tempest
3 Tidal
1 Botanical Girl
1 Dandy
2 Crane
1 Lonefire
1 Tytannial
2 Debris Dragon
1 Spore
2 MaxxC
1 Neo-spacian Grand Mole

Spells (13)
1 Dark Hole
1 Foolish Burial
1 Book of Moon
1 Gold Sarcophagus
3 MST
3 Sacred Swords of Seven Stars
2 Enemy Controler
1 Scapegoat

Traps (3)
1 Return From the Different Dimension
2 Raigeki Break/PWWB
OR
3 Royal Decree

Extra Deck (15)
1 Star Eater
1 Crimson Blader
1 Scrap Dragon
1 Red Dragon Archfiend
1 Colossal Fighter
2 BRD
1 Ancient Fairy Dragon
1 Orient Dragon/Iron Chain Dragon
1 Armory Arm
1 Mist Bird Clausolas
1 Formula Synchron
1 Leviair
2 Melia

Well, that is all for today. Next time i will be discussing Ghostricks.

Greetings.

Plants post SHSP

Hello.

Here again. This time with an analysis about plant decks post SHSP (in fact, post Melia release).

As everybody should know, plants tutor very well themselves. You can perform the basic play Super Solar Nutrient + Evil Thorn, Lonefire Blossom + Redox, Foolish Burial + Dandylion + Crane Crane, stalling with Gravirose and tutoring/milling in Stanby Phase.

But, post SHSP, things will change. Plant decks will focus on that Crane + Dandy combo to abuse Melia and its annoying effect. Despite the fact of summoning your monster in defense position (if you are going to synchro/xyz with it, or it is Lonefire, this doesn´t matter), Melia is an essential addition to your deck. So how can you focus on Melia?

You will have to build your deck to abuse or apply Melia´s effect as much and as soon as possible, without losing consistency and having strong monsters. This is the time when Dragon Rulers and its splashability come to our mind. You go through YGO Wikia, DN, YGOpro to have a nice filter on plant and plant-support monsters that fit Dragon Rulers´ attribute, and at first sight, you realize that there are no good Plant Water monsters apart from Lord Poison (wich is opponent dependant, therefore a bad choice). So, your first move is to pick those good plants and add Wind, Earth and Fire Dragon Rulers. The result is a bunch of plants and dragons that can work very well toghether.

An example of monster lineup:
(20)
3 Redox
3 Blaster
3 Tempest
1 Dandy
2 Crane
1 Lonefire
1 Tytannial
2 Debris Dragon
1 Spore
2 MaxxC
1 Neo-spacian Grand Mole (personal tech)

As you can see, i cut Card Trooper to 0, because Mythic Dragon Rulers can deal tons of damage with a single monster over a lone Trooper, and blind milling is not good because Glow-up Bulb isn´t legal anymore. The point here is to use dragons to deal damage or make lvl8 or lvl11 synchros by summoning Spore from your graveyard. Debris and MaxxC are self explanatory here. Mole is used against Ophion, Bujin Beast-Warriors, and another threats. Special mention to Tytannial; a lvl8 beastick that prevents from targeting and disrupts cards like Big Eye, Bujin cards, DPrison, CED, Swift Scarecrow, Effect Veiler, Ghostrick Witch, and so on.

Then, the spell lineup can be very easy to adjust. Add 1 Dark Hole, 1 Foolish Burial, 1 Book of Moon, 1 Gold Sarcophagus, 3 MST, 2 Enemy Controler, and maybe 1 Scapegoat (personal tech).

This leads us to the trap lineup. Be aware that the sum of our monster and spell lineups is 30 cards, so we have room for 10 traps (which i think is a high number), so you can run less traps and more monsters/spells, giving room for some techs that you want to test. Cards like Mirror Force, Return From the Different Dimension, Solemn Warning, CED, The Transmigration Prophecy, Raigeki Break/PWWB are good choices, and maybe you could try Pollinosis to control a bit and get rid of those Dandy tokens that accumulate mid/late game.

Taking all that into account, a sample decklist could be the following:

Monsters (20)
3 Redox
3 Blaster
3 Tempest
1 Dandy
2 Crane
1 Lonefire
1 Tytannial
2 Debris Dragon
1 Spore
2 MaxxC
1 Neo-spacian Grand Mole

Spells (10)
1 Dark Hole
1 Foolish Burial
1 Book of Moon
1 Gold Sarcophagus
3 MST
2 Enemy Controler
1 Scapegoat

Traps (10)
1 Solemn Warning
2 Mirror Force
1 CED
1 Return From the Different Dimension
2 Raigeki Break/PWWB
2 Pollinosis
1 The Transmigration Prophecy

Of course this is only a sample decklist; it needs some testing and some cards have to be added/removed, as well as some techs can be added.

In the next post, I will talk about plant decks Extra Deck choices and the reasoning of those choices.

Greetings.

Back to blogging. Stupid Players and Sixth Sense

As the title says; back to blogging.

Regarding the most expensive common card in YGO, players show their stupidity on maining such a sacky card.

First reaction was: "Lightsworn Tier 0,9347; next to Edragons Tier 0,5281 maining this card". NO. If you mill 6th (which will happen most of the times), then your Lightsworn Pro-mill deck becomes a Common Lightsworn Sacky deck.

Apart from that, you will always choose 5/6, but if 1 or 2 is rolled, and you mill an important card/s, you get an instant -1 out of yourself (i know Edragons can plus out of nowhere), so i consider this card as a win-more card. Sure that Trooper´s mills are blind, but 6th cannot kill that Rai-oh, or become a BRD or a pseudo Monster Reborn.

You already have 3 Ravine, 2 CoC, 3 Sacred Swords, 2 Trooper (i think this will disappear post SHSP), 2 MaxxC to fuel things up. Not to mention that 6th can be MSTed; and if you prefer baiting an MST using Ravine instead of 6th, please sell your deck and try Vanguard.

And for those who think that i dunno how Edragons work, i already play them, and played them last format; but the point with Edragons is that instead of playing tourneys with them, you should be trading/selling their stuff because December 31th banlist is an issue, and Noble Knights, Plants variants and Ghostricks are good, if not the best, deck choices post December; also you shouldn´t be paying 30$/€ for that Joey pack, apart from collectible cards, the whole pack is a s***.

That´s all for today.