Local Update

Well, I did terrible.  It wasn't even the deck, I just played like a derp the whole time, forgetting card effects, not remembering what stuff did...don't get me wrong the deck wasn't optimal, but I felt like it was me rather than the deck entirely.

While I was there I picked up some stuff to improve it, mainly 3 Sparkmans that I didn't have (I spent all day looking on Wednesday, didn't work out).  I put those in there, and ran it for a couple of games against various people, and it worked a lot better.  Miracle never really came up, but having those extra light monsters just made everything work.

Next week will probably be running the same thing.  I don't think it's fair that I give up a deck just because I played like crap.

~E.P.B.

Locals Tomorrow

Meaning that I get to play the game some more.  So what I'm running tomorrow is this:

Basically, I'm really excited to see how it does.  I don't have the stuff to play that Bushi deck yet, but the Noble Knights definitely look fun.  Don't know if I'll be able to obtain it all before the tournament starts though.  I'm missing:

2x Ignoble Knight of Black Laundsallyn 

2x Noble Knight Gawayn 

2x Noble Arms - Gallatin 

If I don't end up with those, probably going to replace Gawayns with Photon Thrashers.  Don't know about the other things though, it will be an experiment for sure, but I've been picking up all of these Heroic Champion Xyz and I really want to try them out in a deck other than another Hero variant.  So yeah.  Hopefully it won't be a repeat of last week, I'd rather loose horribly than barely miss out on making the prize cut after going 3-1.

~E.P.B.

The Phoenix and the Fire Kings, basic stuff.

The truth is, I just haven't felt like writing the past few days.  Been playing a lot of League of Legends, Binding of Isaac and Fallout New Vegas.  Since most of my close friends quit I don't get as much tournament action as I want to.  There's one locals new here, two about an hour away, and one in Detroit.  Generally feel like writing when I'm, ya know, actually playing the game.  I know there's DN and such, but I really don't want to wade through another online game community.

So yeah, Phoenix.dek.  I thought I was going to bored with the fire king stuff.  To be honest, I didn't look into the archetype all that much.  Boy, I didn't know what I was missing.  The fire king monsters are an entire archetype of Sacred Phoenix incarnates.  I mean how badass is that?

If you want to read what these guys actually do, it would be best to go here.  Since that basically explains it.  No offense to the guy who wrote the guide, I really only use them to look over the effects of cards.  Generally things with very small descriptions that tell me how many of a card I should run, just make me want to scream, deck building just isn't as simple as those things make it out to be, so yeah.

So what are we looking at?  Here's a deck.

Note: running two Diawulfs, changed it earlier, too lazy to change pic.

That's a lot of new cards, hence why it is important to read that link.  Anyway, your ace card of the deck is this guy.

Fire King High Avatar Garunix
Attribute: FIRE
Level: ********(8)
Type: Winged Beast/Effect
ATK: 2700
DEF: 1700
Text: During the next Standby Phase after this card was destroyed by a card effect and sent to the Graveyard: Special Summon this card from the Graveyard. When you do: Destroy all other monsters on the field. When this card is destroyed by battle and sent to the Graveyard: Special Summon 1 "Fire King" monster from your Deck, except "Fire King High Avatar Garunix". 

The entire archetype is basically about him.  He's kind of like a reverse Sacred Phoenix, blowing up monsters instead of spell and traps.  All of the other fire king monsters have a similar destruction clause when they're destroyed, during your next Standby Phase, you get a nifty effect.
These effects range from tutoring, destroying a card in your hand (triggering their effects), and a foolish burial for Fire Kings.

Basically, as the guide put it, the deck plays kind of like scraps...if scraps had access to Rekindling.  The other stuff in the deck all revolves around supporting the other cards. Flamvell Firedog and Rekindling work great since all of the Fire King's have 200 DEF. Swift Scarecrow and Gorz protect you while your monsters die. Wolfberk is basically a Wind-up Rat in the deck (okay, it's not as good, Wolfberk is more like a stronger Junk Synchron) letting you have access to Rank 4s or your monsters effects again.

The deck has some of the most amazing tutor cards in it.  Onslaught of the Fireking and Fire Formation - Tenkei make sure you have access to your monsters.  The amount of tutoring is astonishing.  Fire King Ring Cycle, as the name suggests, lets you kill your own fire monster and bring back a fire monster, basically letting you continue your effects (especially if you destroy Garunix).  

Finally, your decks finishing card is Rekindling. The decklist above only has 2, but it's very possible to run 3 (in fact that might be better, I don't know yet). When you play it, you'll probably have a full field, which you can use at that point to do a number of different things.  The deck also has a lot of access to Rank 8s.  My deck above went a little overboard on that aspect, but you should be able to get the basic gist of it.  Diawolf is basically a Scrap Dragon for beast, winged beast, beast warrior monsters, making it a powerful addition to the extra deck.

So yeah, I know that's kind of basic, but I'm still learning about them myself.  The best thing about this deck is it can be built on a pretty low budget, most of the cards will be in the Fire King structure deck.  The downside is a lot of the power is still OCG only.  Meaning their might be a bit of a wait before the deck can hit it's full power.  I might work on a potential TCG list, but it definitely won't play the same.

Anyway, short article.  Next time, gonna do stuff with the Manga's.  Mainly because I really like Kiryu's Infernities in the manga, and Blackship of Corn ain't no joke either, unless you're like me and are going to attempt to build a corn deck, then it is kind of joke.

Later.

~E.P.B.

So I Hear...

Harpies are getting support in Lords of the Tachyon Galaxy set.  Which, is the next set after Cosmo Balzer Blazer in the TCG.  So yeah, that's pretty epic.  I'm not a big harpy fan myself, but I'm glad for the people that are.  After playing Batteryman for a number of years, I know that feel when you don't get support forever.  It's actually very taxing holding out for it, especially if someone loves the archetype.

Without going into too much detail.

That makes me excited.  I'm holding out for maybe a card (if I'm lucky) for the Dragunity archetype, especially since the set seems like it is going to be a wind based set.  Even if there isn't something specific for it, I'm sure there would be at least one card I could throw in the deck hopefully.  With that said, there was also a few other cards spoiled.

Also, if you're a fan of Number Xyz, your mileage may vary on the new numbers.  Numbers now go higher than 100, so it means more collecting. No. 107 is Galaxy Eyes Tachyon Dragon, which is the counterpart to Galaxy Eyes Photon Dragon.

Chaos Xyz are also getting a boost with Rank Up Magic- Barian's Force, which seems like it will make it a lot easier to make decks around chaos Xyz

Fairy Dragon Ancient, Machine Dragon Powertool, and Flashing Karat Dragon Stardust are all getting released as promo cards in Japan.  For those of you unfamiliar with those cards, they are the manga versions of the dragons from 5Ds.  Basically the monster designs are still the same, but they have some slight variations like different markings on them.  Their effects are also slightly different, and a lot of people would argue that their effects are more powerful.

Along with those promos, some of IV's non-xyz Gimmick Puppet cards are getting released.  Can you say FANSERVICE, because I sure can.

~E.P.B.

The End of the Heroic Journey (A Knight's Tale Pt. 3)

 "He charged the ranks of the goblins of Mount Gram in the Battle of The Green Fields, and knocked their king Golfimbul's head clean off with a wooden club. It sailed a hundred yards through the air and went down a rabbit hole, and in this way the battle was won, and the game of Golf invented at the same moment" 
~ J.R.R. Tolkien

Welcome to the grand finale, where I discuss my Bushi deck.  The legend of the warriors come to a close in this article, much like the end of a Heroic Journey.

So yeah, the Bushi deck that I have yet to build in real life.  Sadly, I'm only missing a few cards (I do have a hero beat deck, that will get cannibalized for it).  Without much more talking, here it is.

This is it.

The difficulty with this article is that I ran myself a bit thin.  I talked about everything that I wanted to, and now there is just space for this deck.  From what people can probably see, is that it uses some of the old ideas from the older Bushi decks.

A pair of Jains are for beaters, and milling.  The Jain's will hopefully net you a Double Lance, Bushi, or a Doppelwarrior.  Jain was used in older Bushi decks for the same reasons, being able to push itself up to 2100 ATK will let it get over basically any standard sized monster like Thunder King or normal Dinosaur monster like Sabersaurus or Kabazuls.  Jain brings a lot to the table.

Two The Immortal Bushi is pretty standard in a deck like this.  Three would lead to dead draws, two is just enough to put one into the graveyard early in the game.

Two Junk Synchron.  It gives you some basic synchro options, especially Junk Destroyer and Junk Warrior for big attacks.  Scar Warrior is decent field protection.  The other warriors just provide some basic utility.

Now, lets move onto the more obscure card choices.  A lot of these cards are recent and underrated and undervalued, but that doesn't make them bad per se.

Gagaga Gardna was just released a set ago.  Many people took notice of this card when it was released.  It lets you special summon it to the field when the opponent declares a direct attack, when it would be destroyed by battle you can discard a card to stop its destruction.  A lot of people compared it to Battle Fader, and that's true, it's effect is a lot like Battle Fader except it doesn't end the battle phase, you could even fit Fader into a Bushi deck since it doesn't go to a graveyard.  The thing is, Gagaga Gardna's discard effect has a pretty high utility in this deck, letting you dump Double Lances and Bushis into the graveyard.  Not to mention his 1500 ATK, which when coupled with Solidarity gives you a 2300 attacker.  Gardna's effect lets you summon it at inopportune times, which is a really underrated effect in this game.

The deck's goal other than to gain advantage through synchroing and Bushi shenanigans is to win with Rank 4 Xyz.  Heroic Challenger Double Lance, Goblindbergh, Gagaga Gardna, and Heroic Challenger Extra Sword are all what makes this possible.  The first Xyz a person should be going for is Heroic Champion Gandiva.  Gandiva should be able to lock down the opponent's ability to spam the field with their own monsters.  Basically, Gandiva is a huge anti-meta card, stopping things like Venus and her shiny balls, wind-ups, and Dino Rabbit.  Making this as your opening move limits your opponent's options for at least one turn if you're going first.  If the deck gets lucky, it could open with Heroic Champion Kusanagi.  Once more, using Heroic Champion Extra Sword boosts the ATK permanently by 1000, making it hard for the opponent to get over it with anything in battle.

There is an aggressive route to the deck as well.  The deck has two hard hitters.  Blade Armor Ninja and Heroic Champion Excalibur both do sort of the same job, it just depends on what the needs are.  If Extra Sword was used, these monsters both gain 1000 ATK.  Now, just for rulings sake, this means if you use Extra Sword, and then its effect it will only be 4000 ATK and then revert back to 2000.  So if you use Extra Sword, you might not want to use Excalibur's effect until you know it will hit for a lot.  Blade Armor Ninja with Extra Sword gives you a 3200 ATK double attacker, which is really dangerous.  Both of these monsters are capable of ending the game.

You should have enough fodder to do these frequently.

The spell and trap line up is pretty standard.  The only difference is Solidarity and a bigger trap line-up.  The goal is to use Solidarity to give your monsters a boost and make them huge.  The thing with Solidarity is that it needs to be played tactically.  Playing it early means your opponent will be more apt to targeting it with spell and trap destruction, which can be a good thing if that's what you want.  Playing it later in the game means having a weaker field earlier, but having it be more beneficial in probably winning the game for you.  You could also play it prior to playing out a Heroic Champion.  If it's something like Gandiva or Kusanagi, your opponent will need to invest more resources into dealing with them, if you play it before something like Excalibur or Blade Armor Ninja, then you'll have an even bigger attacker (Excalibur gains an additional 800 ATK after boosting to 4K), at that point you should be able to finish them off.

The heavier trap line-up is important because it lets you control the field easier.

So yeah, that's the end of this three part saga.  I know I said I'd post some decks from pojo I thought were interesting, but I'm just going to link the discussion threads:
http://www.pojo.biz/board/showthread.php?t=864302&highlight=Bushi
http://www.pojo.biz/board/showthread.php?t=1033613&highlight=Bushi

Also, saw the Hobbit yesterday.  Three part series, and the first movie knocked it out of the ballpark for me.  So yeah, go see it.  I'm warning you though, it's three hours long.  I didn't even notice the length when I was watching it though.  I also went to locals, 3-1 with my Dragunity deck, sadly not making the cut for store credit.  My only lost to one of my friends in the first round who was piloting my Hero Beat deck, I beat Blackwings, Agents, and another Hero Beat.

I know I didn't tag the cards for this post, it takes me a while to do it, and there were a lot of cards in this one.

Anyway, next time, more phoenix.dek (this time it's the Fire King guys, I promise), maybe Slushy.dek or something to do with the recent Yu-gi-oh Manga's that I just bought.

~ E.P.B.

THIS AM SPARTAWULF (YGO A Knight's Tale Pt. 2)

"I would rather not
use a weapon if I knew another way
to grapple with the dragon and make good my boast
as I did against Grendel in days gone by.
But I shall be meeting molten venom
in the fire he breathes, so I go forth
in mail-shirt and a shield." (2518-2524)
~Beowulf

Welcome back to my three-part article series on the Warriors of Yu-gi-oh.  So where did I leave off, well the article was posted yesterday, but I'm unsure when this post will be finished.  Anyway, we left off with a warrior deck from 8 years ago, way back in 2004.  That was just prior to the GX era.

At this point, there wasn't a ton of space or technology for the warrior decks of old to rely on.  Other than a few cards, and possibly upgrading it's strategy slightly, the warrior decks weren't going to have a paradigm shift until after the start of the GX era.

Hold it there Sparky.

What was so interesting about the Lost Millennium set?  The set was the first set to introduce us to the Elemental Hero Archetype.  But, at the time, those guys were terrible.  They were the heroes that Yu-gi-oh deserved, but not the ones we needed at the time.  They introduced the idea, the concept of using the extra deck as a toolbox (not necessarily true, as morph and goat control decks actually did that, but it was the first time for Warrior decks, and archetype specific decks).

The Incredibles

Back in the day, the main complaint about hero decks was you couldn't summon the fusions without losing a ton of card advantage, the other complaint was that the fusions weren't generic enough.  You had to have two specific hero type monsters.  We all know where the deck went after that though, as the fusions being printed towards the end of the GX era and during the 5Ds era were extremely generic.

The Elemental Hero archetype during the GX era was popular for something else during the time.  While decks using Fusions were underground, the in-thing to play Heroes in was Big City (and Little City).  The Big City decks used cards like Elemental Hero Ocean and Skyscraper 2: Hero City to generate advantage over time.  The deck played like Gadgets did.  Build up incremental advantage over time by making one-for-one trades and build on a field and eventually run your opponent out of cards.

The Little City decks had a similar play style, but used Skyscraper (the original one).  That deck used hero monsters to run over anything the opponent played, while using recursion such as O-Oversoul.  The heroes not affected by Skyscraper on your opponent's turn where protected by the original hand-trap Honest. The Hero monsters used in this build are really similar to the ones used today.

 Both decks played a powerful spell and trap line-up used to defend that advantage.

At the Same Time

At the same period in time, we had the first incarnations of the Six Samurai decks.

Basically Nick Fury.

The Six Samurai decks of this era were focused on incredibly swarm plays.  It was one of the first times in the game where your opponent could end the game in a turn with a field of several powerful monsters. The early decks used cards like Grandmaster, Yaichi, Sprirt of the Six Samurai and Irou.  Each had a utility effect if you controlled a Six Samurai, and Grandmaster made it easy.  Coupled with spells and traps to protect the decks set up like My Body as a Shield, and the deck was able to make massive swings, and take out chunks of the opponent's life points at a time.

Six Samurai decks are still popular today, and have a lot of new cards brought to the table over the past few years. The strategy still feels close to the Six Samurai decks of old, even if the new strategies are more powerful.

Six Samurai decks epitomize the swarm and toolbox style of Warrior decks.  It was also one of the times that a warrior deck was pushed from being a decent deck into a great deck. 

The Bushi Movement

Phantom Darkness demolished the game, breaking the paradigms and status-quo of the card game in half.  A lot of people feel like this was a turning point in how the game was played, and to an extent I agree.

The Immortal Bushi decks came at a time when decks like Lightsworn, Gladiator Beasts, and Dark Armed Return where at their full power.  Basically at the time the deck relied on slowing the games tempo to play at it's own pace.  The deck epitomized the classic battle of Who's the Aggro?.

There can be only one.

The deck was a popular up until Crossroads of Chaos of the 5Ds era.  Perhaps one of the most interesting underground decks to me.

The pre-synchro versions utilized Skill Drain, Zombyra the Dark, The Immortal Bushi, and the equipment utility of Gearfried the Iron Knight and cards like Blast With Chain.  Some variants used Solidarity to pump the beaters even more.  This was coupled with an anti-meta spell and trap line-up using things like Enemy Controller to take advantage of Bushi's revival ability. The deck was able to push its way through some of the insanely powerful decks at the time.

The post-synchro variant revolved around some of the same ideas as the original deck.  Capitalizing on powerful beaters like Jain, Lightsworn Paladin that filled the graveyard, defense like Necro Gardna, and synchro elements like Junk Synchron and Jutte Fighter to take advantage of the free Bushi. These cards caused the deck still had incremental advantage on the mind.

Bushi decks were the most like the old warrior decks.  Utilizing both toolbox effects and swarm but still maintaining the generic aspect of the deck.

The Conclusion

The first two of these decks are still popular today, Heroes and Six Samurai still see play enough to be considered popular.  What happened to Bushi?  It faded into obscurity.  There are still people playing it, but it's not a popular underground deck anymore, and that's a shame.

Next time, I'm going to talk about my deck.  I'll probably pull some decks from Pojo's Warrior strategy thread as well, and see what other people are coming up with for their own variants.  The last article will probably be up on Friday or Saturday, tomorrow if I post anything it will probably be about my locals, might be nice not to have Yu-gi-oh Warriors on my mind for a day.

Until then.

~ E.P.B.

St. George and the Dragon (YGO: A Knight's Tale Pt. 1)

When I was little, I liked Dragon's.  I grew up around them.  The other thing I loved were stories about the warriors who would fight monsters.  I grew up with the story of St. George and the Dragon.

For anyone interested with the version I grew up with, here is a link: http://www.amazon.com/Saint-George-Dragon-Margaret-Hodges/dp/0316367958, I'm not saying to buy the book, but it has some great illustrations. This book was an adapted variant of Book 1 of the epic poem The Faerie Queen, by Edmund Spenser.   I'll link it here in case anyone is interested.
http://www.amazon.com/Faerie-Queene-Penguin-Classics/dp/0140422072

Anyway, here is a summary from the children's story book I'd read, this is from E. R. Bird on Amazon.com (the link is earlier, wouldn't be that hard to find as he is one of the top reviewers of the Children's book):

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"If you're not familiar with the tale of the Red Cross Knight and his fair lady Una I'll give you a little update. In this story, Una is the princess of a realm that has been threatened by a dragon. Because her parents are wussies Una takes it upon herself to find a champion who will do battle with the fowl beast.

Such a champion she finds in the Red Cross Knight and the two travel back to her land accompanied by her white donkey, pet goat, and dwarf servant (as per usual). In time, they find the dragon and three times does the Red Cross Knight fight with it.

 The first time he collapses from battle and is restored by a magic pool. The second time he collapses and is restored by a magic apple tree (don't ask). The third time he mightily smites the evil creature and his hand is promised in marriage to Una. But the knight is sworn to the Faerie Queen and he must serve her further before he settles down with his lovely wife."

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Now, that is a summary of what I grew up with (well, one of the stories...the other was A Dragon in my Backpack).

What does this have to do with Yu-gi-oh?  Well, fantasy elements make up just about any card game or role-playing game, and Yu-gi-oh is no exception.  Today, and probably the next few days, is the time to talk about the legendary warriors of the game, and lead up to the Bushi-control deck that I have built (you might be disappointed with it's playability... but it is a blast to play.  I'm really not trying to hype it, I just thought it would be fun to do some articles to lead up to it).

Remember me????????

So yeah, let's talk about ye olden times.  Way back in the day, warrior toolbox used to be a thing.  The term "toolbox" in Yu-gi-oh partially came from this deck.  The goal was to have answers for the opponents plays, and all of the answers could be easily searched with Reinforcement of the Army

All of the monsters within the deck were almost instantly accessible, and allowed for a one-for-one trade almost at any point in the game by using cards such as D.D. Warrior Lady and D.D. Assailant.  The deck also had some elements of hand control, which partially drew those origins from the chaos/hand-control era of the game.  Don-Zaloog was the main player in that sub theme, since he had a relatively good attack and defense score for the time.  I still remember the cries when people would swing with a recruiter monster into Don Zaloog and pluses ensued.

Jerome McHale actually wrote his first article on Metagame.com about a warrior deck and gave a nice little tidbit of history on the deck.  This was way back in 2004.

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"The Warrior deck first became playable back in 2003, after the release of Legacy of Darkness. The set brought efficient searching in the form of Reinforcement of the Army, quick monster removal with Exiled Force, and swarm power from the Marauding Captain. Legacy of Darkness even gave the Warrior deck Freed the Matchless General to carry its flag into battle.

As time passed and more sets were released, the Warrior deck got more and more tools. What happened to it? Why did the deck all but vanish when Invasion of Chaos came out? The answer is that Warrior decks rely on over-extension for victory. By rushing the opponent hard and fast with multiple summons and heavy-hitting level 4 monsters, the Warrior deck attempted to overrun the opposition before a defense could be established. This led to a quick drop in the Warrior duelist’s hand size.

After Invasion of Chaos became legal, players of Speed Chaos and Chaos Control took advantage of that fact by sitting behind sheep tokens and Wabokus until they drew their Chaos Emperor Dragon- Envoy of the End, Black Luster Soldier - Envoy of the Beginning, or any other mass removal card with a Yata-Garasu. After that, they would simply clear the field and peck you to death. With the elimination or restriction of the main mass removal cards in the game and the loss of Yata-Garasu, over-extension has once again become a viable strategy in major tournaments. Let’s take a look at a sample Speed Warrior deck.

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And here is what the deck looked like, click to zoom in.

Ah yes, the trip back to memory lane.  The three Command Knight might be a bit excessive, but it was a different time I guess.  After reading the article, I didn't agree with the choice to not include Black Luster Soldier: Envoy of the Beginning though, especially since the card was even more of a house in that era.  The trap line-up is interesting, and I really like the Mirror Wall tech.  I've always been a fan of that card since it has a lot more versatility than what the card initially shows.

You can see the basic ideas behind that deck.  Swarm the field with Warriors, make even trades with cards like Exiled Force and D.D. Warrior Lady. Lockout the opponent from attacking with a Command Knight or Marauding Captain.lock.  The deck doesn't have the small discard theme in it, but I think that was later in Yu-gi-oh anyway.  There's a toolbox aspect to the deck, Freed and Reinforcement of the Army both let you search out warriors from the deck, and the Warrior Returning Alive lets you toolbox your graveyard. The deck has a little bit of everything.

So now what?  I've told you a story about St. George, and then I talked a little bit about how the warrior toolbox deck first got developed, how is this information relevant?  Well, the same themes from the Warrior toolbox decks laid the ground work for some of the decks that we have today. 

But yeah, this article is pretty long for what I usually post, so I'm ending it here.

Next time, we'll talk about the Warrior deck of today, and the similarities between the old and new and a little bit on how we got there.

~E.P.B.