Format Recap: Sept'11 - Mar'12

As the end of the Sept'11 - Mar'12 format draws near, we see the release of Galactic Overlord and the next banlist coming in a short while.

In this post, I'll be doing a summary on the type of decks that have performed well in the meta and how Konami has sought to manipulate the metagame by introducing new cards and modifying the ban list.

Mainly, meta decks in my opinion fit into 1 or more of these categories:

1. Combo-Centric
2. Boss-Centric
3. Disruptive
4. Comboless Aggression

1) Combo-Centric

Decks that revolve around the extensive use of combos which require a certain amount of set-up for.

2) Boss-Centric

Decks that revolve around the usage of one or more similar "boss" monsters, either by maximising the potential of the boss monster(s)' effects or by using them as general sweepers.

3) Disruptive

Decks that revolve around the limiting of options of the opponent, either by negation and/or prevention of key cards/effects from being used in the most optimal manner.

4) Comboless Aggressive

Decks that do not really fit into any of the above categories and that win by simply being very aggressive or very oppressive to control the flow of the game.


Looking back at the decks that have done reasonably well in the past format:

  

Here's a visual representation of these decks:

 Legend:

Black Dot - One particular deck

Blue - Combo Centric

Red - Boss Centric

Green - Disruptive

Yellow - Comboless Aggression

     Looking at the chart, you may notice that the majority of the format meta decks reside in the bottom area, meaning that the current meta is about disrupting the enemy player and preventing his options. There are fewest meta decks in the yellow area, which happens to be consisted of decks which do not utilise combos and are more "unconventional".

What Konami has done for this format, apart from weakening GK and Six Samurai, was to return Heavy Storm to 1 and MST to 3. Now, in the beginning of the format, we questioned the decision-making process of Konami. But now, after going through 6 months of the ban list, I hope that the chart above shows why Konami has done what they did.

Both MST and Heavy Storm are considered "back row hate" cards; they are trap removers. In order to make the meta as healthy as possible (which was unfortunately spoiled by the insertion of Inzecters), Konami had to balance out decks in all four categories as much as possible. With the presence of these cards in the meta, there would be less people running the entire Solemn trap brigade, preventing an over-condensation of decks in the bottom green circle.

Other noticeable changes:

• BLS was bumped back to 1. This was to increase the amount of decks in the top red circle.
• Oppression to 0. To reduce amount of decks in bottom green region.
• Six Samurai key cards being limited. Again, to control amount of decks in Category 3.
• Fishborg/Junk Doppel synchros being hit. Konami doesn't like FTK Category 1 decks.
• Call of the Haunted to 2. This was to help out decks in Category 4 by providing them a generic revival card.
• Trunade to 0. Explained above.

Well that should be it for this post, the rest of the insights, just look at what was banned/limited/released and compare it with the chart above, you'll be able to understand whatever it is that Konami is doing.

Thanks for reading ;)

Speculation for Ban-list (very late lol)

Yo, sorry for the lack of updates, busy in school and my keyboard was damaged :(

Looking back at the Sept 2011 format, we saw 3 (+1 DT) main decks among other less powerful ones that gained power and popularity (when will these two traits every be mutually exclusive?) which basically dictated the meta for the latter half of the format. Meanwhile, decks that were successful in the previous format and weren't touched by the Sept 2011 ban list retained to a certain degree their previous success.

Fresh from the Sept 2011 format:

1) Inzecters

2) Rabbit Raggia

3) Lavals

4) Wind-ups

Somewhat reinstated decks:

1) Chaos variants thanks to BLS

2) Lightsworns (JD to 3?)

3) Hopeless Dragon (structure deck)

From previous format(s):

1) Agent variants

2) Junk Doppel variants (not so much due to Librarian and Formula to 1)

3) HERO beat variants

4) Machina variants

5) Gadget variants

6) Dark World

7) Gravekeepers

Judging by how Konami usually hammers decks that are too dominantly powerful to create a larger variety of top tier decks, many have speculated that Inzecters and Rabbit variants are inevitably going to be hit by the ban list.

A balancing argument for their claims would be that Konami will not (especially not after just releasing Order of Chaos for TCG so recently) hit the later meta decks as hard because after all they are in for the profit. Hitting Inzecters right now may as well be cutting off the market for TCG Order of Chaos boxes.


Hence, my personal speculation for the ban-list would be:

Banned: 
Trap Dustshoot

Trap Dustshoot basically gives the player control over the game if they draw it turn 1. There hasn't been a card as broken as this since Chaos Emperor Dragon in my opinion. Although it may turn into a dead draw sometime mid-game, no one has ever complained that Trap Dustshoot has created more dead draws then games won.

Limited:

Inzecter Damsel

Wind-up Carrier Zenmaighty

Rescue Rabbit

Dark Magician of Chaos

Royal Oppression

Call of the Haunted

Destiny Hero - Disk Commander


I believe all of you guys know that Damsel is the main culprit for making Inzecter decks so damn dirty to play against. Limiting Hornet isn't really going to be effective as people are just going to find means and ways to continue the Inzecter loop even if they lose their Hornet to a D.D. Crow.

Zenmaighty is the card that makes the Hand Destruction chain of Wind ups so scary. Limiting it to 1 will effectively make the deck more easy to deal with. Who likes losing to an opponent because their entire hand is lost right on the first turn?

Rabbit is also just too fast and broken, makes Raggia decks too consistent. Many argue that in order to run Rabbit you'd have to run vanillas as well, but 1900 attackers aren't too shabby in my opinion comparing to the shine balls Agents have instead.

DMoC has been on the list for sometime. Although right now the few most powerful spell cards (Reborn, Storm, Dark Hole, Mind Control) are all limited to 1 for good reason, bringing this card back MAY seem to be too scary. BUT, it's not like DMoC has a summoning condition as ridiculously easy as BLS or Sorceror, but those guys came out of the ban list anyway.

Oppression is just needed in this format especially with the Hieroglyphs coming out. Why was this card banned anyway?

Disk Commander probably is pretty useless in this format now. Premature Burial is banned and Reborn limited to 1. All that's available for this dude is Limit Reverse and Call of the Haunted (which leads me to limiting the latter), and about the only deck that runs Reverse now is probably just Inzecters. Konami needs a way to continue to make sure that their Inzecter cards are still selling, so giving them more targets for their Reverse is probably a good money making niche.

Semi-limited:

Rekindling

Rekindling makes Lavals too scary to play against, and thus in my opinion should be restricted a little.

Also, if Rabbit goes to 2, Raggia should go to 2 as well. Just a thought.

Unlimited:

Destiny Draw

D-Hero Malicious

Emergency Teleport

We're not in the Tele-DAD format anymore; DAD is limited to 1 and will be for quite a long while. There's no way that a pseudo-TeleDAD deck made out of just Teleport + Disk Commander + Malicious could ever match up to Inzecter or Rabbit Raggia decks in our current meta. In my opinion, it's time to allow Tier-2 decks get some more options to the engines they may wish to run so we could see more variety in the meta.

That's all I have for today~

Gigavise Inzecters

 

In the scenario that Hornet *might* go to 1 in the upcoming March 2012 banlist, I specifically engineered this deck concept to allow Inzecters to continue playing even if their Hornet gets D.D. Crow'ed. Also, this build allows Inzecters a means for an OTK.

There are 3 Hornets in the deck list atm, because it's probably not very smart to play with just 1 when they are still able to be played at 3 :P, but I haven't really needed the other 2 Hornets because I run D.D.R to counter Crows (they just clog up my hand >.<)

Deck list:

Monsters (20):

3x Inzecter Hornet

3x Inzecter Damsel

3x Inzecter Centipede

1x Inzecter 

1x Lonefire Blossom

1x Spore

1x Glow Up Bulb

1x Dandylion

3x Gigaplant (running just 1 will be fine, but in case of D.D. Crow..)

1x Sangan

2x Card Gunner

Spells (16):

3x Supervise

2x D.D.R. (Side in 1 more if opponent plays Crow)

1x Heavy Storm

1x Dark Hole

2x Mystical Space Typhoon

1x Pot of Avarice

1x Foolish Burial

1x Monster Reborn

2x Monster Slots

1x Swing of Memories

1x Mark of the Rose

Traps (4):

2x Solemn Warning

1x Solemn Judgement

1x Mirror Force


The deck basically runs similarly to a Gigavise deck, but after you're done grabbing your Supervises and synchroing for 2-3 Power Tools, you use your last Gigaplant to bring out Damsel, and from Damsel you do the Inzecter combo for a +4.

Basic combo:

1. Summon Lonefire Blossom, tribute for Gigaplant.

2. Equip Supervise to Gigaplant, bring back Lonefire, tribute Lonefire for Glow-up/Spore.

3. Synchro for Power Tool, use effect, targetting 2 Supervise and 1 D.D.R. Bring back Gigaplant with Supervise's effect.

Here is where the combo starts to deviate slightly, depending on current game conditions.

3a. If you grabbed Supervise, continue the loop for second Power Tool, this time 1 Supervise and 2 D.D.R.

3b. If you grabbed D.D.R., if you currently have Hornet RFG'ed, activate it and bring back Hornet. Then equip Hornet with Damsel/Centipede from hand, bring back Glow-up Bulb and synchro for another Power Tool.

3c. If you grabbed D.D.R without Hornet RFG'ed, bring back Bulb and synchro Bulb with Gigaplant for second Power Tool.

For situations b and c, activate Power Tool again, 2 Supervise and 1 D.D.R/Mark of Rose (if you already used Bulb). Getting 2 D.D.R in a row is a little troublesome, but combo still can continue if you have Monster Slots/Spore and enough cards in hand. But hopefully you get Supervise.

For second Power Tool:

4a. If you grabbed Supervise, equip it to Gigaplant, and use Gigaplant's effect to bring back Lonefire, tribute Lonefire for Spore/Glow-up (the other) and synchro for third Power Tool, search for 1 Supervise, 1 D.D.R and 1 Mark or 2 D.D.R.

4a2. Alternatively, you can use Gigaplant to bring back Damsel, then use Damsel to pull Hornet out from grave, then do your Inzecter combo for +s. If your Hornet is banished (meaning you pulled double Supervises), then continue to step 5.

4b. If you grabbed D.D.R, banish Lonefire, bring back Spore. Then activate D.D.R, bring back Lonefire, tribute Lonefire for a Gigaplant in your deck. Then bring back Glow-up Bulb and synchro for third Power Tool, search for 2 Supervise and 1 Mark.

4c. If you grabbed Mark of Rose, banish Bulb, steal one of your opponent's monsters :) Hopefully it's something with decent attack/level. If its level 3, bring Spore back and synchro for Third Power Tool. If it's level 4, go for L8, if level >5 it should be a decently powerful attacker :) 

4d. Alternatively, if you previously grabbed Supervise and now grab D.D.R./Mark of Rose, you should still have a un-gemini-ed Gigaplant on the field. In that case, banish Bulb, bring out Spore and synchro for Black Brutdrago. Then activate your D.D.R/Mark (banish spore this time) and bring back the Glow-Up Bulb to synchro with a Power Tool for L8 Synchro, or grab their monster (just needs 400 attack) with Mark for OTK :)

For third Power Tool:

5a. If you grabbed Supervise (woah), you already have an OTK, if you have Inzecters in grave you can pull them out with the third Supervised Gigaplant for easy destruction.

5b. If you grabbed D.D.R./Mark, pull back your banished Hornet if there is one. If not, just see what you have, it's not hard to figure out a means to deal 1.1k more damage for the OTK :) (I'm just lazy to type) And anyway to have reached this stage you probably have 3 Power Tools + Gigaplant = OTK already.

Don't discount the fact that you may start with 2 Supervises already in hand or something :) However this build is very reliant on having Lonefire because it's such a godsend searcher for your plants, but even so Inzecters are so powerful you can win even without doing the combos above. Just to warn you though, the deck has slight consistency issues (like drawing into both Bulb and Spore), but other than that if you shuffle properly the deck has no problem.

Tourney Report 28/01/12

http://sg-ygo.userboard.net/t8108-mini-tournament-ani-play-28-1-12

Deck used: Chaos Beatdown


Match 1: Junk Doppel (? Weird variant) XOO

First game, I lost to the standard Junk Doppel stunts, and I couldn't pull either a Gold Sarc or Chaos Zone, it was pretty junk a hand.

Game 2, he spent a lot of resources in bringing out a Junk Warrior and some other synchro monsters, but he hit into my Dimensional Alchemist + Honest and from there I brought out Chaos Sorceror(s) with a back row of Solemn Judgement and Bottomless while he had only 1 hand card left, it was easy from then on.

Game 3, I opened up with a turn 1 Stardust, but it got killed and reborned by him with 2 other synchros on the field. I don't remember much of what happened after but I managed to win by stalling with Cyber Valley and Chaos Zone giving me +s.

Match 2: Six Sam XX

Both games my opponent opened up with godly hands >.> Nothing much my deck can do against crazy first turn stunts.


Match 3: Gravekeepers OO

The first game, I saw that he chose to grab GK Spy from Duality with only 1 back row, so I just forced him to summon GKs in attack position by hitting him with a Red Demon Dragon and Chaos Sorceror. Eventually he lost to the 3000 beatstick.

Next game, I sided out all my BTH for Compulsory, and stalled him a bit. He didn't know that I played Chaos Zone, so he just put down his searched out Necrovalley on turn 1 with just an Assailant on the field and a few backrow. I replaced his Necrovalley, searched Necroface with Gold Sarc and got like 6 counters on Chaos Zone. Then, I summoned Guldfaxe, he BTHed, I used Chaos Zone to bring back Guldfaxe, he D-Prisoned; basically 1 Guldfaxe burnt off 2 of his defensive traps. He had nothing more to defend against me so I basically just hit him down with a 3.5k Necroface later on in the game.

Result: 3rd/4th

I had to leave early so I just shared with my opp in Top 4 placing lol

Gishki - Hybrid Build 1

I now have 3 Zealgigas to use at my disposal! So, I've decided to stray away from the hand control build I've played for so long to instead try out a Zealgigas Control Hybrid build.

 








23 Monsters

3x Ritua Vision
3x Ritua Shadow
2x Ritua Beast
2x Ritua Abyss
2x Ritua Arial
1x Ritua Emilia
1x Ritua Diviner
2x Deep Sea Diva

2x Eviritua Gustkrake
2x Eviritua Levianima
3x Eviritua Zealgigas

13 Spells

1x Heavy Storm
1x Dark Hole
3x Ritua Aquamirror
2x Salvage
2x Surface
2x Mystical Space Typhoon
1x Monster Reborn
1x Preparation of Rites

4 Traps

2x Compulsory Evacuation Device
1x Mirror Force
1x Torrential Tribute

I run Surfacing because I run Deep Sea Diva and Diviner, the latter because it is both a Beast and Diva target. 4 + 3 + 2 = 9, which allows me to bring out Trishula.

Compulsory Evacuation Device is run over Bottomless/Solemn/Warning/D-Prison because it is a cost-free chainable defense card. And it is especially useful against Inzektors because I can delay their +4 combo for 1 turn and Gustkrake their Dragonfly back to the deck to prevent overbearing plays the deck cannot recover from. It is the best trap of the format in my humble opinion.

I'll be uploading a short section on doing the Zealgigas OTK, but the basic skeleton is:

1. Get 2 Zealgigas in hand.

2. Get Mirror.

3. Tribute 1 Zealgigas, bring out other with Mirror.

4. Mirror returns to deck, grab Zealgigas back.

5. Draw 1 with Zealgigas on field, shuffle 1 card on field back.

6a. If more methods of searching for Mirror are available: Tribute field Zealgigas, summon Zealgigas in hand. Repeat steps 4-5-6a until only 1 mirror is available, then go to 6b.

6b. If you only have 1 Mirror left, continue from here. Mirror again, this time tributing something else (you would have drawn quite a few cards with Zealgigas' effect, so this should not be a problem. Draw 1 more with the Zealgigas you just summoned.

7. Attack with both Zealgigas. The field should be clear since you were able to use Zealgigas' effect at least twice.

8. Main Phase 2, XYZ summon Super Dreadnought Gustaph Cannon with both Zealgigas, and activate Rank 10 XYZ's effect to burn 2000 for game.

3200 + 3200 + 2000 = 8400

This is a relatively easy play to set up, and there are variants of it which I shall discuss more in-depth as I uncover more combos. It is also possible to loop Gustkrake instead of Zealgigas for Turn 1 plays, both going by the same concept.

Hieroglyphs

The new stuff coming out in Galactic Overlord includes a new archetype of LIGHT Dragons.

So far, after playing a few rounds against them, I find them to be explosively fast. Really explosively fast. Also, they are quite consistent because of their level-unlimited RotA, combined with the searches some of them have when they are tributed.

But I also find them to have a weakness: Over-extension.

If they go and pull their entire combo off with like 2 REDMDs on field and Galaxy Eyes Photon Dragon and their Rank 8 boss dragon, they are very likely to have no hand left and maybe at most 1 backrow. If you toss down a Fader and Black Hole them next turn, they are quite screwed. And they can't rely on Prime Material Dragon because they usually have little to no hand cards after all the stunts.

But all in all, a decently powerful archetype, just take Inzektors are overpowered to the point that they make this archetype look meek despite their recipe for disaster.

Comparing Hieroglyphs to Inzektors, I feel that this archetype is more of a aggressive rush, while Inzektors win by getting their +4 advantage every turn through the combo. Something like aggressive rush vs aggressive control. But at least this deck wouldn't flunk as badly when they don't draw their key card (a.k.a Hornet for Inzektors) because they have lots of searching and alternatives.

Tier 1? Maybe. But pales in comparison to the Tier 0.5 of Inzektors at the moment. We'll see how Konami does a Baygon banhammer on Inzektors come March~

Hand Control - Ritua (Gishki)

Ritua (Gishki in the TCG) cards in my opinion are one of the most underrated archetypes in YGO :) Water cards, because they are not often played (before the introduction of Frogs/Fish) results in powerful support for them, often with incredible pluses. Combining this with the recursion tactic of the Ritua archetype, this makes a Ritua deck actually very flexible with many different routes the deck could go.

I however do love control decks and hate meta ones, so a nice antidote to both poisons results in me going for a hand control Ritua build.

Monsters:

3x Gishki Shadow

3x Vision Gishki

2x Gishki Beast

2x Gishki Abyss

1x Gishki Avance

2x Gishki Emilia

1x Gishki Noelia

2x Evigishki Gustkrake

2x Evigishki Levianima

1x Evigishki Psychelone

Spells:

3x Gishki Aquamirror

2x Mystical Space Typhoon

1x Heavy Storm

1x Dark Hole

2x Salvage

2x Surface

2x Preparation of Rites

2x D.D. Designator

Traps:

2x Mind Crush

2x Spiritual Art - Aoi

1x Mirror Force

1x Trap Dustshoot

This build runs many hand control elements - Gustkrake + Psychelone shuffles 1 hand card back, Levianima sees the opponent's hand, D.D. Designator + Mind Crush + Spiritual Art - Aoi + Trap Dustshoot uses information from the other cards to rape opponent's hand.

Basic strategy for hand control? :D