TONIGHT IS NOT HAPPENING

Sorry, if anyone was looking foreword to it. Apparently the set time is conflicting with my friends schedules. That and it snowed really hard, making it difficult for everyone to meet up.

Et3rnal13

Some news and...Number Chronicles Pt.1 Let's go get some Numbers.

Well, today's article is going to be more casual, really casual actually. There might not be much relevant information, but it was incredibly fun for me to write.  I felt like I discussed a couple of pretty heavy topics over the last few weeks, so for this one I wanted to do something more fun.

Also SORT OF BIG NEWS; tomorrow will be the first day that I'm starting my new podcast.  It's going to be a couple of the competitive players in my area discussing several topics at my choosing.  It's going to be an experiment, but it will work out much better than my first Video Blog.  I will be posting a link to my stream, and a link to my youtube channel where you can watch it if you miss the initial stream.  I'm aiming for starting somewhere around 11:00 p.m. EST time, so look here around that time for that.

ARISE NUMBER!!!

Number monsters are Xyz monsters in the Zexal anime that have an extra effect, they can not be destroyed by battle with non-number monsters.  These monsters don't get this extra added bonus in real life, but they still have decent effects, and they are still fun to collect.

The numbers in the real game add another collection element in the game.  This is a good thing for people looking to collect something, but not really looking for becoming a serious collector, or even add something a little extra if a person is buying packs.  It's just something cool you can look foreward to when a new set comes out.

Now, let's look at some tips to help someone collect numbers.

Start small, work your way up...basic tips for beginners.

The first Number seen on Zexal.

 A lot of the Number cards are pretty easy to obtain.  For example, the earlier numbers have been reprinted a ton, some of them you can even pick up for about a quarter in trade or cash.

Number 10: Illumiknight is pretty easy to get, and is a decent place to start a collection if you're short on trade-able cards.  Illumiknight isn't a very good example of a strong number though.  He doesn't really have a great effect.  He does have a couple of uses, and it really seems like cards like Illumiknight are ones to watch out for.  I don't think it would be that farfetched to say that with the card designed the way it is, it could, some day, be used in a combo oriented deck of some sort.  This is getting really close to saying it is has "potential" so I'll stop there. Number 34: Terror-Byte should be another easy snag, considering it's not valued at anything and has been reprinted twice.

A couple of the other numbers are staple cards for Xyz decks.  Numbers like Number 17: Leviathan Dragon, Number 39: Utopia, Number 30: Acid Golem of Destruction, and Number 16: Shock Master can be easily picked up.  They even see reprints really often. 

The more advanced stuff...

So yeah, some other places to pick up Numbers.  Shonen Jump Alpha gives out 4 promos each year with subscription.  Alpha promos are sometimes numbers, even if the card isn't that good those numbers can still end up costing a pretty penny if you get them elsewhere. The subscription is only $30, and even if there aren't any Numbers being offered at the moment, the promos are still generally pretty desirable things.

Shock Master was once of these promos, and fetched a pretty good chunk of money for just being one card.  Right now, the most recent card from Alpha was Number 40: Gimmick Puppet of Strings, with Number 88: Gimmick Puppet - Destiny Leo being the next one slated for shipment.  As time goes on, there will probably be even more offered. My guess is that the next one will be Number 69: God Heraldic, Coat of Arms.  At least that is what I would want it to be.

Next in line????

The other place that new Numbers see release is through the Zexal manga.  Everyone knows Number 50: Blackship of Corn by now, since it is a really good card.  He was released in the Zexal manga.  The next promo in the manga is Number 22: Zombiestein.  He won't be seen as much as the Blackship, but he's a fun little card, and a huge beatstick.  Sadly, if your looking for a playable Number then Zombiestein isn't the best.  It is, however, a really easy card to pick up for the collection.

New sets also contain a lot of Numbers.  Those releases are often related to the anime. Currently, the most sought after Number from a base set is Number 11: Big Eye.

Trading for Numbers

Personally, I usually try to get the number cards as throw-ins in my trades.  Mostly because the majority of them are not really sought after anymore, due to excessive reprints or just not being powerful enough.  I like to wait on picking up the more expensive ones if I don't need them for a specific deck.  The most patient hunter is the one who gets the easiest prey after all. Generally, if the card is sought after enough, or is pretty iconic, it will be reprinted soon enough.

There are a few ways to get difficult Numbers without trading.  I usually don't advocate doing this, but playing for cards is another nice way.  If I were to do it, I would do the throw in method if it's a Number that is valued at less than $10.  Something like Big Eye would be a pretty difficult catch, because the only people who would ante it would probably be confident in their abilities.  So if someone is going to do it, make sure you know what you're doing.  Again, I do not advocate doing this, but it is a method for collecting Numbers as well as increasing a collection just in general. I accept no responsibility if you do this and lose.

Wrapping it Up

This was a pretty basic article. I hope it didn't bore any of you, like I said, it was meant to be pretty casual.  Just something to spur up some ideas.  The next part to this won't be posted any time soon, as it is something that there isn't a ton of new and interesting things to say on it. Also, Cosmo Blaze It Pt. 3 will be a video.  I'm going to have that up by the end of the weekend, by this point, I can actually talk in depth about the practical uses of the TCG exclusives.

~Et3rnal13

Also, if you got here from the Pojo Number Hunters Guild, feel free to post pictures of your collection in the comments section.

Admitting you play Yu-gi-oh and other things...

I haven't written anything in the past 5 days, and I realize that I need to.  I have a couple of things coming up that I am working on.  For starters, I want to do more videos, but the whole thing of just streaming and then trimming the video will not work once I start advertising the stream on League of Legends forums.

That, and the quality could be better, at least in terms of adding things that make videos interesting.  So, making it look more professional.  I'm not planning on doing just youtube videos, I still want my blog to be the primary thing. I just need to put more effort to make the videos appealing, things like scripting out what I want to talk about will also help, as now that I look at it, that Evol video was really bad for that reason. It was low production, unscripted, talking into a camera and me coming across as an idiot.

I also want to start a podcast with some of my friends.  It all depends on if they are down to do it.  Would be nice.

Coming out of the Yugi-closet

Probably the only card most people know.

One of the topics that comes up the most in this game is whether or not it is socially acceptable to play yu-gi-oh, or even admit to playing it.  It's something that every high school gamer worries about, it's something adults worry about, it's something guys worry about admitting to girls, basically, a lot of people worry about whether or not their lives would be destroyed if they mentioned that they play.

A big reason why this happens is because of how the show is presented.  The yu-gi-oh series is a pretty over-the-top toyetic anime about people saving the world with card games. This is combined with the dubbed version being targeted, even more so, to little kids.  This makes it difficult for people to admit that they play the game out of fear that their friends won't understand and that they will be labeled a social outcast.

I think the other thing is being worried that they fit into the stereotype.  We all know them.  Yu-gi-oh players are fat, smelly, pedophiles, mentally challenged, etc.  We even have people who play the game throw these around to other people, saying things like "that guy has no life, he smelled really bad" or "the guy I played was really overweight, he had literally no life".  There are people like that in almost any hobby, there are also even people who fit those stereotypes, but why throw it around? A lot of the people who play this game that I've met are generally normal people.  Everyday guys, who really shouldn't be worried about anything like that.

Even myself, up to a few months ago, had a fear of being judged because of how people would view my hobbies.  I realized that this was ridiculous fear, and I've just started mentioning stuff about the game on my Facebook account.

The problems with being afraid are kind of silly.  For starters, if people are really you're friends, why should they give a flying flip about what you do in your spare time? 

The other thing people remember.

There is another side to this as well though.  Nobody likes having things shoved down their throats.  Being over-dramatic (such as making a Facebook post exclaiming that you play to the world) is a bit silly.  Another thing would be bringing it up with friends to the point of obsession.  When I was a little kid, in 5th grade, I was obsessed with Digimon to the point where that's all I mentioned to anyone when they tried to talk to me.  That was me years ago, and yeah, I was a little kid so it wasn't that big of a deal, but there are some people out there, who are immersed in the game to the point where that's all they mention to anybody.  My general rule is that, if my friend isn't really into it, or it doesn't apply to them (like there is no need to say anything about it to them) then I just don't bother bringing it up. There is no need to. If something comes up, like I say I'm taking a trip to Ohio or something for the weekend, and they ask why, I'll say something but otherwise, some things just aren't worth mentioning to people who aren't interested.

The worst thing about not being open about yourself is that it makes life harder than it all ready is.  I repeat, you are making life even more difficult, because you're worried that people don't like one of the things you do in your spare time.

I don't have any psychology background, but it really seems like in life, if you are hiding something, people will realize this, either subconsciously or just because you avoid some questions that they have. I think more people will notice you acting strangely to certain topics about your life, than they would if you just actually said what you were doing.  Being secretive really pushes people away, and it comes across as if you're an insincere person. It's also harder when you're gaming friends don't care what people think and want to playtest somewhere like a coffee shop or some other public place. I know I've missed out on some fun times. 

There should especially be no fear if you are in college.  Once you're in college, literally no one cares.

Personally...

My biggest reason why I've been more open about yu-gi-oh is because of what I want to do for the game.  I would like to start doing more multi-media projects in this game, especially since my major is partly based in the media.  It's part of the reason I write this blog, I really enjoy it, I like seeing that people read (or at least view) what I have to say about this game. It's addicting, and I want to do more.  It's also why I'm trying to do at least one video and podcast a month.  Let's face it, I do this for fun.

Part of the big reason being closed off about this topic is bad is because places like Facebook and Twitter are the places you are going to get the most connectivity.  For example, to comment on TCGplayer articles, you need to be connected to Facebook, usually.  In order to participate fully with ARG, you need to be able to comment on Facebook. In order to have access to rulings discussions, Facebook.  These are a ton of resources you miss out on if you try to compartmentalize your life by trying to separate yu-gi-oh and...well, the rest of life. It just doesn't work at the end of the day, and you spend time trying to cover up something that is irrelevant in the first place.

Finally...

If you don't remember this than you
weren't a 90s yu-gi-oh player.

Besides, there is little reason to be embarrassed anymore.  Lots of things from the late 90s, early 2000s, are getting a lot of attention, mainly because of nostalgia.  Hardly any people are ragging on Pokemon now, even though it faces the same social stigma that Yu-gi-oh would otherwise face. So why wouldn't yu-gi-oh be taken in a similar way? Maybe it's all the just the rise of nerd culture in today's society.

Anyway, I think getting ragged on for the game is a high school thing any way.

End

 That's about it.  Not really a heavy topic, and it's pretty opinionated.  Take whatever I say with a grain of salt.

~E.P.B.

Where Are We Now, A Perspective on Competitive Yu-gi-oh

So yeah, on the account of my Internet being all, all I basically can do is sit here and write blog posts that will get published either sometime today or tomorrow. Or never, it would be bad if I was in a state of perpetual Internetless, I use that...for science and porn.

Any who, lets talk about something that I rarely mention, the competitive side of the game.  Like I've said multiple times, I. am. not. a. competitive. player. I do not do nearly enough testing, I don't have that much of a desire or a need to play the game on that level. That does not, however, mean that I can't provide insight on some things, things that might not even pertain directly to play skill. This video got me thinking, it got me looking things up, and it made me realize something that everyone has been talking about.





What is the point of this article?  Well, the point is that a lot of people have been a lot of frustration within the competitive Yu-gi-oh community.  To some players, the game, as a whole, has fundamental problems with things such as coverage, prize support, and even a lack of "good" players relative to the older generation of pros, lasting until the end of the Tele-DaD format. People believe that these things have lead to the decline of the competitive environment, where things like Yugi-tubers are only making videos to profit, rather than help players and the same argument is used against people writing articles. Basically, the main point is that players are hungry for good, quality discussion on Yu-gi-oh strategy.

 In order to prime yourself, you need to read next couple of articles. If you all ready have seen them, or at least heard about it, you can skip.

http://kperovic.com/blog/ygo-the-state-of-the-game-restated/
http://articles.alterealitygames.com/?p=16110
http://duelistgroundz.com/index.php?showtopic=147607

All right, so by now, you should be pretty primed on what the main point of contention is.  I'm going to provide my thoughts on these issues.  BUT WAIT...you're probably thinking, "if you're a casual player, what makes you think you're going to have any idea what you're talking about?" Well, that's true, but the things that happened have actually aren't related to Yu-gi-oh in a card sense that much, and are more related to the cultural aspect of the game, and the construction of that culture.  Being that my main field of study in college is in communication (with some background stuff in Antrhopology), we talk about what and how exactly culture is constructed.

First of all, we need to decide on whether or not there has been a decline in the competitive culture of Yu-gi-oh.  We need to look at what happened, and where the starting point of all of this is.  So is there a decline?  My argument is yes, there is a decline.

Describing the Decline

 The decline is not necessarily in terms of raw numbers of people entering the tournament, but in terms of quality resources and discussion on the Internet, there is.  This is coupled with the lack of competitive drive, in fact, I would even argue that the lack of discussion is a direct reflection of the lack of competitive drive.  This is coupled with the lack of proper prize support.  I don't care what your opinion of Konami is, good or bad.  If a person is being honest and rational, they would look at this game and see that the prize support is strictly worse than all other available options in the card game world.

Also, the argument that players are just being greedy is just a bad argument, borderlining on being a strawman argument.  This isn't about wanting more, this has more to do with generally being concerned about the games competitive environment.  There is very little reason to want to be good at yu-gi-oh at the moment, and it's a shame when regionals hit 500 plus people and the best prize is something with no actual value (National Invite) that is barely worth the effort.  Yes there is a mat and a binder included, but playing 10 - 12 rounds is no where near worth it. No, people shouldn't make money off of being a yu-gi-oh player, but they should at least receive something that is worth the effort put into playing a competition of that caliber.

Also, I'll say this right now, I think the only reason Konami has these high numbers is because there is a lack of tournaments available.  The prize thing is not as big of an issue as the issue of the lack of tournaments.  I hate doing this, but if you compare it to MtGs tournament scene, it's not even close.  There was literally a competitive (5Ks, PTQs) tournament every weekend of the month of September that I could have gone to (in at most a 4 hour driving distance), multiples on the same day sometimes, in addition to local events.  Compare this to Yu-gi-oh, where there is a regional maybe once a month (sometimes twice) that is a reasonable distance, occasionally a YCS once a year within a reasonable distance, and Nationals. 

So yeah.  The big problem with comparing it to Magic is that Magic has all ways had more tournaments than yu-gi-oh, so that point may be moot.  What I am trying to say, is given which the prize structure of regionals (which I think is actually designed to discourage people from entering after getting their Nats invite) there should be no reason why those tournaments are hitting record numbers, unless that reason is because there is a lack of other semi-big tournaments to go to.

Let's touch on the topic of the coverage site as well.  Everyone hails Metagame as being the pinnacle of coverage.  I agree with this, Metagame offered outstanding insights, as well as daily articles on everything ranging from competition to casual play.  Konami's blog is taking a different design, publishing much less frequently, and are less than half the size of an average Metagame article.  For as much complaints as people have had on Konami Blog's coverage of events, I've found it to be decent to start with but I've felt like it has been slowly digressing.  Now it's Konami's site, and shorter articles are probably just the standard, this wouldn't be a problem if there were articles that targeted different groups of players, but this isn't true.  It is a shame as well, because the community knows the writers on the site could put out much more helpful official content, but it hasn't happened.

This all rolls into each other. So what you end up with is a player base that enjoys the game and wants more tournaments, but that partially lacks the resources to have meaningful discussions about the game. I think this leads to the decline of the competitive playerbase.  I get that people should think for themselves, but being able to have the resources in front of you, as well as being able to have topic starters is invaluable to the game as a whole.

How Did We Get Here (The part where things get slightly different)

Up until now, it's been the same rehashed argument.  To put it in TL;DR form, Konami Strategy Site sucks, prizes suck, attendance is through the roof.  I'm trying to refrain as far as I can from arguments about the game (not the playerbase) getting less skilled, Konami designing to make the game easy or formats being bad, as it's hard to get actual evidence that those are the reasons (especially the whole Konami designing things so that anyone can win, no offense to the people using this argument, but it really sounds like a conspiracy theory.  This is vastly different than what I think is actually happening, but it stems from the idea that Konami is trying to make the game more casual, which is a different thing altogether).

We got here because of quite a few different things happening in Yu-gi-oh culture.

The Competitive Desert

UDE getting out of the picture was not a smooth transition at all.  For months during and after the whole thing went down there was a competitive desert.  What I mean is that there were no tournaments, there was very little reason to play the game competitively.  This might not seem like a big deal at first, after all, yu-gi-oh was still popular, but it took it's toll on the competitive scene of the game.  All discussion of the game halted, there wasn't much of a reason to talk about theory and all of that good stuff if there was no real reason to. 

I think the big thing that I am trying to say is that we never fully recovered from this flatline.  The big thing about this is that it lead to the other things on my list.  The transition was not smooth, interest in the game was declining (albeit at a slow pace), writing about the game slowed down, all contributing things to our current problem.

Metagame's death.

I've talked about this a bit in the paragraphs above, but I haven't mentioned how much of an impact this has had on the game.  Without Metagame, the premier source of topics and competitive insight is gone.  This wouldn't be much of a problem if something took it's place.  Right now, the closest thing we have is ARG, which gets a lot more flack than what they deserve.  The void left by Metagame means a couple of things to competitive culture.  For starters, I wouldn't say that the "Pros" in this game are worse than those of yesteryear, more so that they aren't in the limelight as much.  This does mean that the plays they make and why they make them aren't as well known, card choices and tech (a word that you almost never hear anymore) are also left out. 

Metagames death lead to a somewhat standstill on competitive discussion.  Instead of talking about things like card choices and tech, a lot of discussion seems to be on complaining about why a format is bad, hyping cards, etc.  I guess what I am trying to say is that without having a place to start, and without having that platform, there has been a decline of competitive discussion.  Whether you listened or agreed to what was written on there, it gave you something to talk about, it gave talking points, that is the most important thing.

Losing Metagame was to the Yu-gi-oh Community what losing major news networks would be to watercooler conversations.  No one is primed anymore.

The Decline of the Yu-gi-oh Teams

The big names in the pre-Konami era were teams, not specific people.  I guarantee more people that played in that era can name the teams more so than they can name each specific person on those teams.  Yu-gi-oh Teams gave us something incredibly unique to Yu-gi-oh, a community interconnected, something which wasn't seen anywhere else, and something that we lost.

The importance of the teams is incredibly understated.  Teams gave us a community. The competitive goal of Yu-gi-oh has become too individualized today.  Teams gave the community something to aspire to more so than the pro players ever could.  It also set a good example for the importance of playtesting and having a group that you could grow with. 

I think what I'm trying to say here is that by groups of players aspiring to play as a team and playtest as a team, grow as a team, bounded by the mutual idea of improvement was something that the game has lost.  Now, instead of being happy that you're friend did well at a champion level competition, you're jealous. Instead of having people help you focus on what you did wrong in a match, you become conceited.  Having a team meant people could call you out on your bullshit.

It's too individualized now. Sure you have friends but how often do you sit down and work, really work with your friends, not just for yourself, but for the guy sitting across from you as well?

The Pussification of Our Tournament System

Remember when I said that I don't think Konami was designing the cards and format so that anyone can win?  I don't think that's true.  I do not think there is substantial evidence to suggest that Konami wants everyone to be able to win equally.

What I know is true is that there is this current system that is trying to make everyone happy.  What I mean is that by dropping invites down to top 32, and the 5 pack entry, it made the game much less serious in terms of competition.  Everyone may not be a winner, but you can damn sure feel like it under this system.  No one has to work as hard for their spot in Nationals anymore, I don't think this change was originally intentional, what had happened was after the shift, there was a rush to get people to be able to enter Nationals after the Yu-gi-oh Desert.  They dropped the invite level so that there could be a National tournament.  What happened was this drove Regional attendance through the roof at the time, and it could be considered largely successful, in turn making Konami keep that entry requirement permanently.

This isn't needed now.  I don't have the same marketing research, but I feel like if Konami brought the cut back up then there would be more of a drive to play in multiple regionals, which would drive up attendance even more.  The same could be said for prizing.

I wonder if the regional system switched to top 8 invites, with a box going to each of them, would work out.  I'd like to know if regional attendance would increase over time.  The main reason I say this because the original success of their system could have been caused because of initial hype and newness of it and lack of tournaments more so than the prize/invite structure. 

What I would largely like to see is more tournaments, whether that be championship level events, or just more regionals with more locations.  I'd like a system that rewards me for doing good at a tournament more so than it rewards more just for showing up.

I want there to be something special about going and getting to play in Nationals.  Right now, there isn't that feeling.  I get my invite, and I don't feel like I accomplished much, this is ass backwards from what it needs to be.  I don't care if the prize structure doesn't change, just do something to make me feel like it's not a waste of time again.

"'Can I get a trophy?' No, but you can participate." ~Christopher Titus

Where do we go from here?

All of what I previously discussed has lead to the game's competitive decline. We need to fix this.  What I purpose is much like one of the videos suggested.  Take the game into our own hands.  It doesn't even have to be the pros.  In fact, the pros owe NOTHING to us.  They don't owe us shit. Neither do the Yugi-tubers So let's talk, let's have discussions, legitimate discussions about competitive ideas we have.  IT doesn't even have to be good, just as long as you say something, anything you think is worth saying.  You have the power, that's all I'm saying.

Write articles, write ideas, give something back. Don't be afraid to be bad or receive criticism, that's how we improve.  Too many people are afraid of that now.  Don't be afraid to give criticism either. Make sure you are in depth. Don't just talk to hear yourself. 

Something I would say to the Pros is to start considering yourself in terms of teams again, it isn't even that hard.  ARG is practically a team all ready, just wear ARG shirts to tournaments and get the name out there. It's much easier than remembering the specific names and faces. Yugi-tubers, keep doing what you're doing but try to offer something in depth once in a while.

If you have friends, start working together more often.

Write Konami e-mails, messages, anything (don't be a douche though).

Things can get better, but it's no longer Metagame or Konami that's going to help us, it's ourselves. 
...........
..........
......
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Also, don't be lazy, half of you are going to think I'm crazy now, and just continue doing whatever, but I'm serious, we can change the game.

Fuck it, you don't believe me any way.

~E.P.B.

Bored campus snowy boredom

Yay college campus. Yay boredom. Part of the joys of having a halfway decent phone is that I can do stuff like this. The downside? No spellcheck. Huzzah! Any way. I need to update the top thingy slider, with what is in store for this week. Also the sneak preview was on sunday!

What happened there? Nothing too exciting. Payed my $20 for my 5 lottery tickets, sat down had hope. First pack, nothing. Second pack, mermail xyz, decent.  Was hoping for something different but whatevs. Third pack, swing and a miss. At this point the guy sitting next to me gets Diamond Dire. Was there any hope? Doubtful. Fourth pack, fail. It was looking grim. I grit my teeth in anticipation for the final pack. Open it. Move through the cards, hit the rare. Notice black behind it. Anticipation. Bullet time begins. 20 minutes in a half a second. Diamond Dire. Hell yeah.

Other than that bad pulls were abundent. As they allways are. People overhype sneaks but I feel the pack ratios are the same. There was one breakthrough skill floating around. Im trying to figure out if riding the hype train is worth it. I can pick two up for like 30 monies at the moment.

Anyway. My friend was trying to hussel peope to pay him 5 monies for his pull. Basically paying 5 for an Orbital 7. Unsure if worth it, so I avoid. In hindsight, it would have been all right, because I kind of need another caliburn.

There was a free tournament. I left two rounds in, I was 2-0 with madolches. They are actually pretty good, but I was getting laughed at. Could have been the pink sleeves and me yelling Princess Power everytime puddingcess did something. Jusrt might have been that.

The reat of the day was all right.

- Et3rnal13

Brain Droppings: Random thoughts on different yugi things.

This is the first, and maybe last, but probably not, one of these types of things that I will do.  Basically, Brain Droppings is where I'll clear my head of things that I've wanted to say, but don't really want to write articles about.  Each of these will be like a mini article.  Sounds like fun.

Et3rnal13 on Potential

The tears, I feed off them.

Basically, you will hear a lot of people say "oh, this and this deck has potential", every time someone does that I just cry a little inside.  Now, it's perfectly reasonable to say something has potential in a format by looking at the cards in front of you.  I could say, for example, at the start of the September format that Dragunities had potential because they can pump out  hard hitting combos like the other decks that are being speculated as top of the format,  This wouldn't be a wrong thing to say (although, it did end up wrong in hindsight, because consistency matters), especially if I was verifying it through testing at the start of the format.  The same thing could be said for decks that will be released throughout the format (example: Fire Fists will be good because of x reason, y reason, z reason). 

Where I start having problems is when people look at an archetype or something, like Iron Chains or something, and go "this deck has potential to be good, if only Konami released more and better cards for it", at which point I go "well, no duh".  Any deck can be good if Konami releases powerful cards for it.  It seems like everyone who says this uses it as an excuse as to why they run what they run. Of course decks will get better if Konami releases more cards that are better for it.

Look, if you like a deck then run it, but don't try to pass it off like people who dismiss it are overlooking something that is important to a format.  Also, people forget to list reasons why something may or may not have "potential".

Et3rnal13 on Ebay

This one is going to be short, but my gawd, have you seen the prices on some of the singles on Ebay for Cosmo Blazer?  Ridiculous.  When your singles are going for double the price of some retail sites preorders of said single, then clearly, people in this game are just being money gougers.  There isn't even a "have it now reason" to fall back on, because the cards won't (or at least not supposed to be) legal until the sets official release date.

Et3rnal13 on Pojo Strategy Section

I use Pojo, I use Pojo a lot, I like the community there, and I'm sure a majority of you frequent Pojo as well.  As people could probably see, I like linking to their guides because they give a compiled list of the cards used in an archetype and it's much easier than looking it up individually.  Now, if people were interested in a really in depth discussion on archetypes, then I'd look for the thread on DGZ.

Here is my problem though.  The people on Pojo do this thing, where immediately once an archetype is announced they make a guide for it.  Generally, with the thread starter making the guide so he can have "dibs" on being the expert opinion on the archetype. 

Normally, I try not to swear on here, but that attitude is bullshit. Testing things early is important, don't get me wrong, I'd rather the guides get made then not, but when people do this, it really doesn't encourage testing.  Why? Because when someone makes it they all ready have listings of how many copies of a card you should run, why you should run it, etc.  The problem is, without any extensive testing of the archetype, how in the world can people say what the right number of certain cards is?  I get that for most cards you can look at it and probably figure out how many you should probably run, but that's not the point, the point is that doing this that early stifles deck growth.  It is helpful to some extent after a while of enough people playing the deck though, because it lets people know what others have had the most success with, but making a guide with numbers of what should be ran a night after the archetype is revealed does not.

Also, playing randoms on DN does not count as extensive testing, you're not going to queue up against random people on DN and test a gauntlet of the competitively viable decks of the format, it just doesn't happen.  You also won't be able to play with people guaranteed to be above a certain skill level that you need them to be.

The attitude feels toxic.  No one person is the ultimate authority on any deck, and I suggest people stop acting like they are.  I have more to say on this, but I'll end it here.

Et3rnal13 on Balance

Balance is relative, especially when judging the competitive scene of a game, and a lot of people forget that.   For example, lets say there are 5 decks that are way better than the other decks in a game, but are relatively the same in power compared to each other.  Could we not say that, due to them being the same in power to each other, that the format was relatively balanced?  Why does every single deck need to be competitive?

Not gonna happen, sorry.

The other problem is there is a facet of people that want the game to go back to being 1-for-1 trades without a lot of the special summoning that happens today.  A lot of the complaints are that everything is far too powerful now compared to those days (which people argue were more skilled).  Yes, decks now are far too imbalanced in power compared to the days of say Fiend and Spellcaster Beatdown, and Goat Control.  I don't see why the game's growth should be a problem as a whole.  Is there powercreep?  That's a whole different article, but I think the game is just finally finding its niche in the card game world. I don't think that the power-creep has increased a ton after the last few years (last format was an example of making things too fast though, no game should be decided on the first turn, the nice thing is that the banlist is able to mitigate these problems). 

We need to face the reality that Konami is merely just falling into the niche of Yu-gi-oh being the popular fast-paced game on the market. 

Et3rnal13 on Side Decking

The majority of the games you play in competition will be post-side.  The Internet does not have nearly enough people talking about this subject though, especially at the depth that it needs to be talked about in.  ARG, TCGplayer, you have spies everywhere I hope, please fix this.  I will also do my part and write a second part to an article I wrote way back when.

Et3rnal13 on not writing 420 Cosmo Blaze It Pt. 3 in time

I'm sorry, my sneak is tomorrow, I haven't wrote it.  I've been extremely busy the past few days.  It will get written at some point though. 

~Et3rnal13 on Stopping.

Yeah, this is the end.

~Et3rnal13

Being a scrub (somewhat localish rant report)

Thursdays nights are when the tournament generally is.  I'm not writing a report tonight, just some things.

First of all, I probably played the worst that I've ever played tonight.  Went 1-2, which is a lot worse than what I normally do.  Basically, I made flashy plays when I had game on board and it cost me a match that I should have won all 3 games of.  I'm not saying my opponent got lucky, or that if I had done moves way differently that I would have won, but these are little things.  It's much sadder actually, as what had happened was I made basic misplays that would have made players who had even the most basic knowledge cringe.  Things like not activating Dragon's Ravine before playing Heavy Storm, and making Trident Dragon (off of a field with 2 Stardusts, Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon, Mysteltainn, and a Phalanx) instead of just going for Scrap Dragon and guaranteeing a win.

Needless to say, I did these things, realized how bad they were seconds after, and basically got kind of frustrated (it doesn't involve yelling or things like that, it's just mentally frustrating, I try not to let it show).  Part of the reason was being in autopilot mode, part of it was trying to be flashy. These are all things that bad players do.  These are things I usually don't actively do, and it's annoying that I know that but it happened any way.

Guess I just consider it a bad night and move on, everyone has them from time to time.

After the tournament, we all got some food.  Red Robin is a great burger place, and it's somewhere we haven't been to in a while.  Also, it was Jake's birthday, so we got the added bonus of watching the employees sing at him.

The we went to the 24-hour coffee shop downtown, I actually just got home 15 minutes ago.  Any way, there we met up with someone else we know.  Played a bunch of games.  Jake calls dragunity decent.  Which, something you should know, Jake plays this game competitively.  Although he hasn't topped anything other than bunches of regionals (not recently, as he is just getting back into the game), he is really good.  He's played MtG competitively as well, and has had moderate success at that game such as getting top 4 at a few Starcity Games 5K tournaments, top eighting a Pro-Tour Qualifier (not high enough to qualify sadly).

Since Jake takes things seriously and from a competitive standpoint, he doesn't get behind decks that don't have results, either by his own testing or topping other larger events.  So playing a couple of rounds and him calling the deck decent means that there is something at least good-enough about it to hang with the rest of the format. I generally judge my own competitive choices (for those times were I do want to play competitively) off of what Jake's results and ideas are.  I know I'm making a big deal off of what essentially is nothing, but generally his response to if I'm playing a less popular deck is "seems really bad".

I completed Gem-Knights and Madolches tonight.  So yeah, two new decks for me to play around with.  Something I am excited for.

~E.P.B.