Blackwings and the iCamp Theory
Posted on Friday, July 31, 2009
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Written by: Jason
So everyone knows about those ugly ass birdies right? Ya know the ones that got highly over hyped after they first came out and are basically the most sack deck since six samurais? Well if your play style is to swarm the field whenever you can then you are playing the deck wrong, and probably wont have much success with it.
Basically, Blackwings have three incredible cards in their decks, not counting the access to numerous powerful synchro monsters. Those cards being Blackwing Gale the Whirlwind, Black Whirlwind, and Icarus Attack. Now if you look at these three cards you begin to see the amazing control potential that Blackwings do have.
Now I don’t know about most people, but when I think of anti-meta, I think of gadgets. What most people don’t realize is that blackwings can play that very same play style that gadgets have. Black Whirlwind is the amazing card that can allow you to do this. You just camp on it and control the field with Icarus Attacks, Bottomless Trap Holes and Solemn Judgments. Even remember when one of my friends played against gadgets with blackwings, when asked if he won, he responded with “I out Gadget them,” personally, I found this hilarious.
Granted, you won’t be able to do this against skilled players using Gadgets, but you get the idea. All I’m saying, is that unless you’re bad, you want to play the Blackwing deck as a control-based deck.
Okay now that you’ve read that, there is a right time to go for the swarm as well, and that’s when you know you can win or back up the over extension with something that can guarantee that you keep your field presence. If you can’t win, do not play out all of the cards in your and, because you’re only going to set yourself up to lose.
So basically to some it up, Blackwings are more about control than swarming. Until next time.
E.P.B.
Round 4 Table 1 of Locals
Posted on Thursday, July 30, 2009
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(Please note: I am not the table judge for this match, any bad rulings and mistakes are on the players and judges)
The match tonight is between Sean Ailes and Andy Truong. Both players are playing Lightsworn in a mirror match up, Andy is playing a standardized varient while Sean is playing a teched version utilizing Card of Safe Return and Resoning. The players are playing for the 1st place prize of 50$ store credit.
The dice roll goes to Sean and Sean decides that he will start things off first. Sean draws his sixth card and starts off strong with Charge of the Light Brigade, milling Wulf Lightsworn Beast, another Charge and a Solar Recharge. Sean searches his deck for Lumina and special summons Wulf. Afterwards Sean activates his Foolish Burial, allowing him to send Garoth Lightsworn Warrior to his graveyard. Sean summons Lumina activates its effect discarding his Arkus Lightsworn Druid, and revives it in defense mode. Sean ends his turn by sending 5 cards to his graveyard, one of them being a Necro Guardna.
Andy starts his turn off with a move common many formats ago, the T-set, setting one monster and one spell or trap and ending his turn.
Sean draws, and enters straight into his battle phase. Sean attacks but Andy activates Crush Card Virus, and tributes his Necro Guardna. Crush card kills the Wulf on the field and a Wulf in Seans hand. Whats also important is the information Andy recieves from this strong opening play in the Lightsworn mirror match. Sean continues his assault with Lumina, hitting for 1000 and ending his turn. Sean sends 5 cards to the graveyard, none of them being anything that can activate in the graveyard.
Andy draws, sets a monster, and passes his turn.
Sean draws Lyla, and it gets hit by Crush Card. sean switches Arkus to attack mode and attacks Andy's facedown Plaguespreader and then Lumina hits for another 1000.
Andy's turn, will he do more than just set monsters? Yes he will. Andy activates his Charge of the Light Brigade sending three cards to the graveyard, one of which being his own Wulf and selects Ehren Lightsworn Monk, and adds it to his hand. Andy asks if Sean has any Necros in his graveyard and Sean responds with a reassuring 1. Andy summons Ehren with 1600 attack. Andy enters his battle phase and sends Wulf into Arkus, Sean doesn't respond with Necro Guardna and Andy decides to pump his Wulf up to 3300 with Honest. Sean takes the 2100 and Andy tries to attack Lumina with the Ehren, but Sean responds with Necro Guardna. Andy ends his turn.
Sean draws, both players forget that Crush Card is still active. Sean discards to summon Wulf with Lumina. Sean runs Wulf at Ehren, Andy asks if Sean is going to Honest and Sean replies with no, Andy tries to Necro Guardna, but is not able to because they were already in the damage step. Wulf then kills Ehren and the score shifts to 5900 against 5500, in Sean's favor. Sean ends milling three cards, two of which are Wulf and Necro Guardna.
Andy draws, and decides to bring back Plaguespreader Zombie by putting a card on top of his deck. Andy tributes his Wulf for Celestia, Andy targets Sean Lumina and Wulf and mills four cards. Wulf gets special summoned off of this mill and Andy enters into his battle phase. Andy attacks over Wulf and Andy activates his Honest, forcing the 2300 down Sean's throat. Sean negates a Wulf attack with Necro Guardna and then takes the 400 from the attack mode Plaguespreader. Sean is left at 3200 and Andy synchro summons for Darkstrike Fighter and ends his turn.
Sean draws and now has four cards in his hand to Andy's one. Sean summons Arkus and atacks Darkstrike and Andy negates with Necro Guardna. Sean sets a spell or trap card and ends his turn after milling two cards.
Andy's turn and he draws, and starts calculating to see if he can get game this turn. Andy asks how many cards are left in Sean's deck and Sean responds with six. Andy tributes his Wulf for another Celestia and targets Sean's back row. The set Heavy Storm gets destroyed and Andy enters his battle phase. Andy attacks the Arkus with Celestia and Sean Necros. Andy checks graveyards and decides not to attack with Darkstrike fighter. Andy enters his main phase 2 and tributes Celestia and Darkstrike to bring Sean down to 800.
Sean draws and summons his Honest. Sean attacks with both Arkus and Honest, and then mills down to three cards in his deck.
Andy draws and uses a top decked Foolish Burial to send a Necro Guardna to the graveyard, Andy sets a monster and ends.
Sean draws and tributes the Arkus for Celestia, not able to activate it's effect. Sean attacks Andy's facedown Necro Guardna and ends.
Andy passes.
Sean draws and summons Honest and attacks for 1100 and tries to move in with Celestia and Andy negates.
Andy draws and seta a backrow and passes.
Sean draws and summons Plaguespreader. Sean hits with Plaguespreader and Celestia gets Necro Guardna'd. Sean synchro summons for Darkstrike Fighter and brings back Plaguespreader, using Darkstrike's burn effect for game.
Both players reach for their sidedecks in an attempt to side deck hate for the mirror match. The real question is whether or not the side deck choices will be effective in the next games.
Andy decides to go first this time, and starts off by activating Charge of the Light Brigade, milling three and selecting Arkus Lightsworn Druid as his target and special summoning a Wulf off of the Charge. Andy summons the Arkus, and sets a spell or trap. Andy then ends his turn with a Wulf and Arkus on the field and by milling two cards.
Sean draws and plays his own Charge of the Light Brigade for Lumina Lightsworn Summoner. Sean then summons his Ehren Lightsworn Monk, but loses it to Bottomless Trap Hole. Sean sets a back row and ends his turn.
Andy draws and plays his Garoth Lightsworn Warrior, and hits Sean directly with Wulf and Garoth, bringing Sean down to 4050, Andy then ends his turn after switching Arkus to defense mode. Andy does not hit anything off important of his mills.
Sean draws and plays Card of Safe Return, and then Foolish Burial. Sean sends Wulf to the graveyard with Foolish, Andy tries to negate Wulf with a D.D. Crow, but is then promptly reminded that Arkus will not let him target Lightsworn monsters with card effects. Sean draws a card off of Card of Safe Return and activates his Reasoning card and Andy calls level 4. Sean mills over a Wulf with his Reasoning and special summons Arkus to the field, and then special summons Wulf, but forgets to draw his card off of Card of Safe Return. Sean summons Lumina Lightsworn Summoner. Sean enters his battle phase and attempts to hit Arkus with one of his Wulfs. Wulf runs over Arkus and Sean decides to push into Andy's Wuld with his own. Sean's next attack was against Garoth with his Arkus, Sean obviously activates Honest's effect and deals Andy 1200 damage. Then, finally, Lumina hits Andy directly for 1000. Sean ends his turn and mills five cards, one of them being Wulf. Wulf is special summoned and this time Sean remembers to draw his card from Card of Safe Return.
Andy draws a card and plays Charge to select Lyla Lightsworn Sorceress. Andy summons Lyla and attacks Sean's Lumina. Sean activated Beckoning Light and Andy chains with a D.D. Crow to remove Sean's Honest! Sean discards his Necro Guardna to return a Celestia to his hand. Sean takes 700 from the attack and Andy ends his turn.
Sean turn, he draws and tributes Arkus for Celestia and blows up the Lyla. Sean tries to attack with his Wulf and hits successfully for 2100, the other Wulf and Celstia get Necro Guardna'd..
Andy's turn again and Andy does a T-set once again, and ends his turn..
Sean draws and tries to attack, but Andy activates his Crush Card Virus and tributes Plaguespreader, wiping the field clean! Sean plays his last card, Gold Sarcophocus and selects Monster Reincarnation from his deck.
Andy draws, and plays Lumina and discards for Ehren and attacks into Threatening Roar. Andy ends after milling a Guardna.
Sean draws Celstia and it gets destroyed. Sean sets a monster and ends.
Andy's turn and time is called. Andy discards his card he drew to special summon Wulf, Andy then special summons Plaguespreader from his graveyard and synchros Plaguespreader and Lumina for Magical Android. Wulf runs over a Necro Guardna and Sean is able to negate the next two attacks with Necro Guardna.
Sean draws and Garoth he drew gets hit by Crush Card. Sean concedes and declares that he will be going first in game 3. Since time was called neither player would be allowed to side deck.
Sean declares that he will be going first. Sean starts by playing Card of Safe Return and the Solar Recharge. Sean discards Lyla and draws two cards and then mills two cards. Wulf gets special summoned to the field and Sean is able to draw another Card. Sean then activates his Charge of the Light Brigade for Lumina. Sean summons Lumina and discards Arkus and revives it, this play also nets Sean another card off of Card of Safe Return. Sean sets a face down back row and ends his turn and mills a Wulf, which also lets him to draw a third card off of the Card of Safe Return.
Andy draws and plays Heavy Storm. Sean chains Beckoning Light bringing him a Lyla, Judgement Dragon, and Honest to his hand. Andy plays a Charge of the Light Brigade selecting a Lumina and sets two backrow spell or trap cards and ends his turn.
Sean draws and summons a Lyla. Andy activates a torrential Tribute and Crush Card Virus destroying the field, and leaving Sean with two Honest in hand.
Andy draws on the last turn of the end of match procedure. Andy summons a Kycoo the Ghost Destroyer and attacks directly for game.
Andy wins in time and takes home 50$ in store credit.
The Bad Card Theory of YUGIOH
Posted on Tuesday, July 28, 2009
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Experience level: For beginners
Topic: Deck building
Written by: Jake (Bluemaster)
So, recently, I decided that the game of Yu-Gi-Oh contains no good cards. The flip side of this, of course, is that every card in the game is bad, although some are worse than others. Why, you ask? Well, for one thing, it opens the door for a variety of bad card humour ("Crush card? That thing's almost mediocre!" "Wow, I can almost see the mana cost on that one"). Jokes aside, thinking of every card in the game as bad makes good deck building easier.
Most players, when they begin the game, see all the cool cards in the game, and like them all so much. They cram them all into their decks, and when told that they should stick close to the 40 card minimum (IMO, there is no reason, ever, to exceed the 40 card minimum) they wonder why. After all, all the cards in their deck are so gooooood.
Wrong.
By thinking of cards as good, you can't see a reason to not play a lot. By thinking of cards as bad, you want to play as few as possible. This mode of thinking is supported by statistical argument, and thus makes sense in deck building.
If you're not a beginner, and you've read this far, you're probably thinking to yourself that this is just a very simple way of trying to trick newbies into playing 40 card decks as they should. It does function as this, but there's more to it. Even good players, heck, even the best, have trouble cutting some of the last few cards from their decks. This is because they focus too much on what good things the cards do for them.
Recently, a friend of mine, while debating Solemn Judgment in the Cat Synchro deck, said to me that he can't decide if it's good or not because sometimes it flat out wins games, and sometimes it flat out loses games. He was concentrating too much on the fact that it wins games, and wanted to play it, to win.
If you look at the bad side of a card, in this case, the fact that it was losing games, life becomes so much easier. Why in the world would you ever want to play a card that loses games? (Yes, there is, to some degree a risk v reward argument here, and no, I'm not saying Solemn is bad Cat Synchro. It's just an example.)
When you need to make those last few cuts from a deck, don't think about which one is best. Think about which one is the worst, and cut that. Think about how often a card is dead, how often it isn't dead but can't help in an efficient way. Think of every card in the game as bad, and you may find yourself winning more often with your new 'bad' deck than your old 'good' ones.
Until next time, may your cold waves always cost blue and two.
Blogity Blog for the Gamer's
Posted on Monday, July 27, 2009
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Introduction
Written by: Jason (EternalPhoenix13)
So Starting off, if you haven't read the About Us then you'll probably be wondering what exactly this blog is about. Well, quite frankly it is about gaming. Me and my friend Jake (Bluemaster on Pojo) will be co-writing on this blog. We'll let you know who's speaking to you at the start of each post. For starters, this is Jason (EternalPhoenix13 on pojo.biz) writing this post.
The games me and Jake will be woring on will be Magic; the Gathering, Yu-gi-oh, and WoW minis for starters. We'll try to let you know our opinions on new games coming out as well as keeping you up to date on the theories and mechanics behind some of the more competitive ideas involved in this games. We'll also be discussing our own exploits (and failures) in the card and board game world, so bear with us. Like I said though, this will be a ygo blog for a good portion of it.
This is primarily a test post. Tomorrow I plan on working on the graphics and spreading the word about this blog.
