Lightning Warrior and my big stupid Timmy.
Posted on Sunday, November 14, 2010
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I consider myself first and foremost a casual player at this game (although that doesn’t mean I don’t keep up my knowledge over the metagame, and competitive strategy) and every once in a while a card just gets me giddy. This week that card is a new hard to get promo called Lightning Warrior.
Lightning Warrior
LIGHT/ Warrior – Synchro – Effect/ 7/ 2400/ 1200
1 Tuner + 1 or more non-Tuner monsters
When this card destroys an opponent's monster by battle and sends it to the Graveyard, inflict 300 damage to your opponent for each card in your opponent's hand.
Now, this card isn’t too great competitive wise, and there is little reason to use this over the other level 7 synchros that are available to us now. With that being said I would just like to point out that the art is badass.
Now that my fangasm is out of the way. I like this card for other reasons than it just being useful, but lets still dissect it’s effect just to have that done.
For starters, it’s a level 7 synchro, which is all right and fairly easy to get out. The 2400 attack is a bit low, just tying with Blackrose Dragon for the second highest attack in the level 7 generic synchros (not including Dark Strike Fighter). Other than that there isn’t much else to talk about in terms of its level.
The attribute is light, which means it combos with Honest. That gives this card a little bit more survivability and allows it to activate its effect easier. The effect really isn’t that great, providing a small amount of burn damage. Since the format isn’t really central on hand advantage since Storm is gone, the card’s effect will only be doing minimal damage. On average I would say 900 is the magic number, which isn’t enough to make the card warranted use over BRD or Scrap Archfiend. Although all of this is true, the card is yet another generic level 7 synchro which is something this game is short on.
The last bit of info has to do with this cards lore in the anime and manga. The card appears to be Yusei’s ace monster in the manga, seemingly being the manga version of Junk Warrior. This is cool I guess, if you are a fan of Yusei.
Personally, I just like this card because he is a Lightning Warrior, pretty silly to think something is cool because of a name and picture, but that’s what the big stupid timmy part in the title is referring too. It’s not a terrible card, but that’s only due to a lack of good level 7 synchros, all in all, when I get my one copy for collecting purposes it will probably see play in at least one my extra decks, because it’s just a cool card.
Mini-Golf
Posted on Friday, May 7, 2010
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Random
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So I played mini-golf yesterday. I got kind of blown out. My main problem was hitting the ball too hard. I blamed it on my muscles being too big. 1337
~E.P.B.
School Begone
Posted on Friday, April 23, 2010
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My classes are done, so I'll have more time to dedicate to the blog. As many of you people don't read it anyway though. I have some big plans, and I think I'll try and work on a new layout. Since I did that the last time I had a long break from blogging.
~E.P.B.
Match Post: Light Beatdown Vs. Zombie
Posted on Wednesday, March 31, 2010
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This next video is a Light Beatdown deck being played by Reggie against a Zombie deck piloted by Gary (in the original post I got the names mixed up, hence the video titles). The video is in 4 parts, so enjoy.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Update and Match: Batteryman versus Blackwings
It's been a while huh? Well it's going to be a little while longer because of my huge amount of school work. So anyway, I have decided to post a couple of videos and photos from a trip to GR I took earlier this March.
This is me versus my friend. Ignore the bad rulings, I've never claimed to be a judge. This is Batteryman versus Blackwings, I'm playing with Batteryman. For starters my friend was annoyed at all of the rulings questions and stuff he was receiving that day, so please excuse his attitude.
Part 1.
Part 2.
The Tempo Argument.
Posted on Sunday, February 21, 2010
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Chess. the gaining or losing of time and effectiveness relative to one's continued mobility or developing position, esp. with respectto the number of moves required to gain an objective: Black gained a tempo. ~ From Dictionary.com
Now, Yu-gi-oh is not chess, but the game does require set-up to the point where tempo plays a roll in the game. Tempo in Yu-gi-oh is a lot like how it was described in Chess. Tempo deals with the flow of the game, and how card advantage is interacting within a game of Yu-gi-oh. So here is my definition of tempo:
Tempo is the rate of play in a duel. Rate of play directly meaning the card advantage interactions that go on within that duel. Duels usually have different states of tempo. Tempo also deals with the number of options a person has in the game, much like card advantage. It is not just limited to the speed of the game.
If we look in Jason Grabher-Meyer’s article on Tempo, he lists the different rates of tempo and how they work. Being directly stated as the Slow Duel, Neutral Duel, and Fast Duel. To sum it up:
Slow Duel: Card exchanges rarely happens every turn. Both players can be viewed as building up resources.
Neutral Duel: Card exchanges are relatively even, both players maintain near equal card advantage.
Fast Duel: Card exchanges are relatively uneven, with one or both players using up card advantage faster than usual.
http://yugioh.tcgplayer.com/db/article.asp?id=1269~ Jason’s Tempo Article
The article discussed what the tempo states are, but did not mention the changing of the tempo states within a game, or how to directly analyze when the game state is about to change in a game. To understand this you must start at the beginning.
The first part of the in-game analysis is to ask yourself what role your deck is. Is your deck in the beatdown role or the control role? Miss-assigning deck roles can what cause a person to win or lose. Example being is that if your deck is in the beatdown role and is put into a control role than it will have less of a chance of winning, and vice versa.
More on this can be viewed in the MtG article of ‘Who’s the Beatdown?’ by Mike Flores. I know its Magic, but the central idea of the article is relevant to the game of Yu-gi-oh.
http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/3692.html ~Who’s the Beatdown Article
These roles will ultimately establish what you will want your tempo role to be. Most Beatdown decks want a fast game speed to establish a fast tempo. Most control decks want to establish a slow game speed with a slow tempo starting out and then developing into a fast tempo position where they are in control and gaining multiple pluses (cards like Oppression make this possible).
Changes in a deck’s role effects tempo a lot. Example being that a deck that attempts to establish a neutral tempo faces a deck that attempts to establish a slow tempo are playing each other. The slower deck is able to create a better control on the games tempo early on forcing the game to change completely making the neutral deck miss-assign it’s role. The deck that miss-assigns its tempo role is at a severe disadvantage because it is not playing it’s optimal game.
This is essentially an expanded idea of the ‘Who is the Beatdown’ idea from Magic, but deals less directly a deck’s role and more directly with what your deck needs to do to accomplish it’s role.
Much like the role of ‘Who is the Beatdown?’ you can also design your deck with different tempo rates in mind. For example, Lightsworn is a beatdown deck designed to have a fast duel tempo, making multiple +1 or +2 card exchanges possible where something like Pacman is a control deck that has a slow tempo in mind and making 1 for 1 tades while gaining advantage.
A fast duel tempo does not mean how fast your deck plays cards though. What determines the overall speed of your deck is the card commitment to the field, what determines the tempo is the card advantage exchanges in the game.
To know how tempo effects the game we must also know how it changes. For starters, changes in card advantage are important to determine the rate of play, as it is the number of options a person has in a given game state. As we saw in Jason’s article, the tempo rates are defined by card interactions. A change in card advantage can cause a change in tempo.
For example if both players have been committing to the field and making 1 for 1 trades for a Neutral duel tempo and then one person drops Judgment Dragon for a plus 1 or 2 over the next few turns, then game changed from a neutral tempo to a fast tempo. The other person must now catch up to the advantage lost by making a trade of his own like that. If the other person can not reduce the tempo to a slower one or keep up then he will probably lose. Losing cards in hand helps this even further, because it makes it that much harder to keep up with the same amount of commitment or duel tempo.
Knowing the speed of a game is important as well. The speed is also directly related to card advantage but deals with focusing on what is on the field more so. While card advantage determines what your options are, the game speed is something that effects the decisions you put towards the field and towards what you want to change the tempo into.
For example, early commitments to the field are a good example of this, changing the games speed and thus possibly changing the game’s tempo. An early commitment towards the field with a deck like Blackwings can force your opponent to have to commit more cards to keep up with you, which can in turn give you +1’s or +2’s and changing the game into a fast tempo. Something to pay attention to is that agressive committments like this can backfire.
A Game’s tempo does not always affect the game speed however. As we saw in the JD example the tempo could be changed to a fast duel when JD was played, but the total commitment to the field was relatively the same for both players. A game’s speed is related to how many cards are played at a time during a turn, tempo is related to the card advantage trades going on in the game. So a deck that gains a fast duel tempo does not mean that it is a fast deck.
Also another thing to pay attention to is the cards on the field as they are increasing. By doing this you can further guess what options your opponent has and then try to best counteract his attempt to change the game tempo or improve your own attempts.
Analyzing an opponent’s options and commitments can give you a good idea of how the tempo is going, and how to best change it as well as give you insight on how to best play against the opponents strategy. If they like conserving cards then trying to get them to commit them to the field early may end up being a good idea, or even playing slower than them and conserving more cards than them. It is important to analyze what your opponent is doing and how to best out play that or change their deck tempo role.
Changes in roles and tempo are important because they directly reflect the game state. Know the difference of the game tempos and how they can be changed is important because it can help you pinpoint critical spots in the game. It also helps with card evaluations that are not directly related to the general +1’s or –1’s of the game.
Using the newest card Battle Fader as an example. In a Monarch deck a well timed battle Fader can change the tempo of the game, forcing an early over commitment to the field by a person who is trying to force you into a faster duel tempo. In turn allowing you take advantage of their early commitment by establishing the fast duel tempo first rather than allowing them to do it.
Establishing the tempo of the game is important because it will define how your opponent will have to play his game. For example, being the one to establish the initial +1 or 2 in the Fast Duel tempo game will give you an advantage by forcing your opponent to catch up. Vice versa in a slow duel tempo conserving more cards than your opponent will make them have to hold back their own options, allowing you to make better trades and control over the game.
If a player can analyze and pinpoint the tempo changes in the game then it can become easy to exploit and recognize the opponent’s decisions and play style. Knowing how tempo works can help you improve your game and become a better duelist overall.
~E.P.B.
Sphinx Control for MtG
Posted on Tuesday, February 16, 2010
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2 Sphinx of the Steal Wind
4 Sharuum the Hegemon
2 Identity Crisis
4 Glassdust Hulk
1 Sphinx Summoner
2 Day of Judgement
3 Master Transmuter
3 Esper Charm
3 Tidehollow Sculler
3 Esper Stormblade
4 Vedalken Outlander
2 Couriers Capsule
3 Celestial Purge
5 Plains
4 Swamps
7 Islands
4 Marsh Flats
4 Arcane Sanctum
Does ok at FNM's, but it still needs some work. The late game for the deck is really good. I haven't run into too much Boros, but I'm worried at how fast my face gets kicked in in that match-up.
E.P.B.
These Past Few Weeks
Have been difficult to me. I cant really put forth much effort towards posting blogs or anything like that, I'd just look at the current progress of my journal entries too. I'd like to think I'll make a comeback with this. Two new posts are up for whoever still reads this. The posts are more for casual players at the moment, but I should have some stuff on whats new in the gaming world.
I've heard that Upperdeck has lost the rights to WoW tcg, which also means the mini game one would think. It worries me that blizzard may not pick the mini game up because of the lack of players, but whatever. I just want to play WoW minis sometimes.
If anyone who reads this knows of another good mini game to get into, let me know.
Thanks,
E.P.B.
Ole Times PT. 1
I was feeling really nostalgic about the game so I decided to post some really old stories I have about the game.
I really love Batteryman, it was my first real love in the game ever since the Lost Millennium came out. So why did I latch on to this theme? Well thunder has always been my favorite type, so the thunder archtype I had to play. Another reason was that I went to the Lost Millenium sneak preview and played Batteries, and it was also the last time I actually played with my brother. Makes me miss those days. Other than that there have been some good times with the deck, but more on that later.
Another fond memory was this sort of cube draft me and my friends did. Although it wasn't really a cube draft. We all just picked cards out of my friends bad card basket to make a deck. What I ended up with was a pretty coherent deck (for being made of all bad cards) versus a beatdown deck made up of big monsters. The deck I had was a stall/normal deck, with so many random and bad cards you would cry. The most I remember is using Delta Attacker with triple Fiend Scorpion to beat my friends deck.
Aside from that there are many good memories of my friends that used to play. A lot of them involve me using an OTK of some sort (Chimeratech, Batteryman) to beat them, and although we weren't the best of players it was really fun. My favorite story would have to be a long one about a player who used to come into the shop.
This kid was a relatively rich kid who would always brag about how expensive his cards were. This was at the point that the first Champion pack came out. He always had the most expensive stuff at the time. One of which being Satellite Cannon. Me and the kid both really annoyed each other (I think we were about 13-14 at the time). I ended up winning out against the kid.
The next week the kid came back and was using the same cards that I did. Which would annoy me at the time. Since I played with stuff that was less than good I thought that I had a right to be the only one who played it (which was a dumb idea at the time, but I digress). The kid ended up doing horribly with it, and losing to one of my friends.
Looking back on it, it was just fun to have an enemy sometimes. Although I’d like to think I’m past childish things like that, it does make for a good story.
Newwwww post
Posted on Saturday, February 6, 2010
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Well, I have to write journals for my english class, and they can be on anything, so anything to me translates into gaming so I'm all good.
First things first. I can't play yugi until the summer. I have a class on the day of my locals so I really can not go to tournaments, except eith an hour or so drive on the weekend. I am however playing MtG, so expect that to show up in my topics now.
I hjave two things I already hjave written as journal entries, I'll probably post them sooner or later. For starters though, I ended up getting third at the pre-release sealed tournament for Worldwake, I got some packs and some nice stuff. Today I played in the launch party, which was a draft (1 Zendikar, 2 Worldwak) and took second. I did end up doing poorly at the first pre-release tournament the day before the one I mentioned, but I made up for it, so 2/3 tournaments aint too bad.
Second I am low on money, not low enough to keep me from playing in tournaments, but low enough to keep me from buying substantial amounts of cards at a time. I did pull a Jace the Mind Sculpter that I'm looking to sell if anyone reads this and might actually be interested.
So thats it for todayss update. Catch yall later.
~E.P.B.
Preview Card: My Favorite Card in Absolute Powerforc
Posted on Tuesday, January 12, 2010
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With Absolute Powerforce coming up, we have an interesting amount of new cards coming to the game. While not all of them as game breaking as we would all like them to be, most of the cards do something for their decktype that they haven't already have done before, or adding playability to the deck in general.
Today I am going to look at the ritual monster Garandolph, Devil King of Destruction.
Garandolph, Devil King of Destruction
Dark/ Fiend- Ritual/7/2700/1400
This card can only be ritual summoned by the spell card Ritual of Destruction. When this card is special summoned successfully, destroy all other face-up monsters with lower ATK than this card, and this card gains 100 ATK for each monster destroyed.
What this guy is looking to do is be a miniature Demise. While not doing anything particularly special he can get to decent attack values as well as providing a lightning vortex type effect.
The real reason to use this guy, or any ritual monster to be specific (Relinquished being the most competitive) would be because of the ritual djinns. Those cards can be used for ritual fodder from the graveyard and give the monster a couple of nice bonuses with their effects.
The ritual card for this monster is Ritual of Destruction.
Ritual of Destruction
Ritual Spell Card
This card is used to ritual summon Garandolph, Devil King of Destruction. You must also release monsters whose total level equals 7 or more from your hand or field. You can remove from play this card in your graveyard to have any monsters destroyed by battle with a ritual monster you control during this turn returned to the top of their owners deck instead of the graveyard.
The nice thing about these new ritual spells is that they actually function outside of just summoning the ritual monster. This spell has little synergy with the monster though, so it is a little disappointing. The next time you destroy an opponents monster with Garandolph by battle, you get to timeseal the opponent for a turn, which is pretty nice.
If you combo Garandolphs ritual effect with the Djinn that lets you draw a card when your ritual monster kills something, you can generate a nice plus over the opponent. The way I ended up constructing my decklist was using a Necro Guardna control style deck, with Garandolph as a finisher.
Thanks for reading, I'm hoping to have some more actual competitive articles up later this week.
~E.P.B.
The Guide to Writing Guides...Pojo Edition
Posted on Sunday, January 10, 2010
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Hi you all my know me as ***** ***** or if you follow my blog you would also know my username is EternalPhoenix13 or E.P.B. for short. What I am here to talk about today is a little something I would like to call the Guide to Guides. To tell you the truth this is a wee bit of a spoof, but it must be done because Pojo strategy section has essentially devolved itself into a place where it is all just guides. To start out let us look at how to start your guide.
First of all, pick a theme. You can pick any theme, or even a decktype! Hell you could even make one up! The reason why you do this is to poster child a theme. What I mean by this is that you are essentially slapping your name on the theme, so if the theme ever does well in an actual tournament not filled with four year olds then you can be the first jackass to raise his hand and go "I thought of that first."
Also you want your name to be forever associated with that theme, and be the authority on the theme. This entitles never ever never never ever being wrong about the theme never ever. See everyone is wrong, after all, you are supposed to be the authority to the theme and have your name attached to it, so how can you be wrong? The answer is you isn't!
The next thing to do is to start writing your guide. You have to begin your guide with something eye catchy and completely irrelevant to the actual because you need all of the sheeple to follow your every word. The way to start this is to include the lore and history of the cards, even if it is something as ridiculous as Batteryman. You in turn make up mythical stories that is something akin to a third grader writing a fairy tale, with terrible punctuation and all. Nothing is wrong with this though since technically you're not even wrong. Remember you are teh authority.
The next thing to do after you have finished writing the thesis/fairy tale is to find all of the cards for the theme. By all of the cards I mean all of the cards. Even if the theme has cards that no player in their right mind would ever run you still need to cover those cards because the cards are so irrelevant that they become relevant. So by golly gee, if your theme has a Thousand Eyes Idol, then you go on right ahead and include it.
The next bit is tricky. You have to write descriptions for all of the cards. The reason why this is so tricky is because you have to reword the cards original effect in such a way that you provide NO useful or relevant information, but still making it look like you did because you posted something in YOUR OWN WORDS. This is the most important concept. Being relevant is bad.
Don't forget to tell your ready how many copies he or she must include. Remember, when you are doing your best to promote originality, you must make everyone play the same original deck as you straight down to the very last original card. Originality is only original if everybody else is doing it the same way as you. Besides, it is not like decks in yu-gi-oh can have multiple variants.
Now we are starting to get close to the end of the guide. We still have a few more things we have to cover though. The next thing is including deck lists. You must now include deck lists to every variant the theme has. Make sure you only use the authorities on the theme. Which really should be you. This is the point where you use your most intelligent peons to make different deck lists according to variation. Don't worry if the variants of the decks contradict what you posted in your guide. Why? Because you are never wrong. You can't be. Also no one really notices these contradictions anyway. After all your peons wrote those deck lists, and they are sure as hell not as right as you.
Finally to give your guide credibility you should post some win loss records against relevant deck types. This is also an important step, you need to remember to make your test results as small as possible. For example if you have played a Blackwings only 3 times and have beaten them twice then you need to make sure everyone knows that you have a good match-up versus Blackwings. With a sample size that small and someone as right as you how could be wrong? Don't forget to make sure everyone knows how good at the game you are.
The last step is the final one. If anyone comes in telling you you ideas don't work then you must defend yourself. For example if someone says you are wrong (you know you can not be) than you must post some random insult to the credibility of that poster, even if your insult is not true. Or defend yourself with zero-logic. Zero-logic is the idea that if you sound logical, then your ideas will be presented as such and the masses will believe you. Make sure you get your peons to join in and tell you how right you are, and then you can agree that "Yes I am right, thank you!" Even if you look completely stupid doing so.
Writing guides is a difficult job, if you follow this guide than you will be ready to write your very own guide. All you have to do is follow these simple steps.
E.P.B.
On Competitive Originality
Posted on Thursday, January 7, 2010
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For the purposes of this article, when I say original I mean deck types that do not see a lot of play. I do not mean that the deck has never been done before.
I think one of the main things in this game that other games don’t have is the concept of being original. Competitive originality is a hard concept. The two words go together almost as much as mayonnaise and peanut butter. The idea for some people is to play lower tier decks because they think it somehow makes them better (at deck building) than a person who plays the higher tier deck or even the copied idea. The truth in this game is that originality is meaningless to how competitive games are played.
As other articles before me have said, you get no points for being original, playing different decks, or making huge unnecessary plays. The point of originality is not to take the moral high ground but to have fun or if you like me, you enjoy a sort of self-fulfillment or pride when you are able to do well with decks that other people have stated to be trash. The trick is to not let the mindset make you believe that you are better by playing original decks.
I do not think that the right attitude at all is to feel like a player is taking the moral high ground by playing something original. Rather, in order to be truly good at originality I think a player must first be willing to accept the fact that the higher tier decks are actually really good, and I also think that people also have to get off of the moral high ground.
The point of doing this is self-discovery and will also help to build better original decks without having a negative view on the people who do play the game with tier 1 decks or netdecks. With that said, I think that in order to be good at originality you also have to know how the top tier decks work and have a better understanding of them than the average player. What that entails is also playing with the top tier decks and not necessarily restricting yourself to one decktype.
The next step is actually building the deck. When building with competitive originality in mind you have to first ask yourself what your deck’s goal is. This is where I feel like a lot of players get the wrong idea. What usually ends up happening is a person will build the original deck but hinder on its true goal or ideal by mixing it with something else, not focusing on the goal entirely, or being just plain wrong on the goal of the deck. This is much different than building a deck with an engine in it (like a D-hero engine in the Codalas deck).
I feel like some examples of this would be the Harpy Anti-Meta deck that did well at one of the nationals competitions or Gravekeeper decks revolving around swarm and beat down. The main thing to realize when deciding on the goal of your deck is to ask yourself if there is another deck that can accomplish that goal a lot better than your deck. For example, the Harpy Lady Anti-Meta deck did accomplish what a lot of originality players set out to do, but then a person could ask themselves “does this deck accomplish anti-meta better than Gadgets or Little City?” When judging how to build an original deck you should build around what theme or idea excels at the most.
The next thing is play testing. Play testing with an original deck has two different steps rather than the usual one. When play testing with a deck known to do well (more than likely a better tier deck) you play test to play the deck better and analyze what the best plays are in certain match ups. The difference with an original deck is that play testing in the earlier stages ends up focusing more on what works in the deck and what doesn’t more than what to do in the specific match-ups. What ends up happening is testing with an original deck or idea takes more time than play testing with a solidified idea.
What it comes down to is that competitive originality is innovation. The idea is to take an idea or a lower level deck, and try to turn it into the best deck possible. Doing this can lead to some great new ideas, or some great new failures, the trick is doing it right.
~E.P.B.
Coming to a Blog Near You.
Posted on Monday, January 4, 2010
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It has been a busy past few weeks. It has been pretty much the tournament season/ playtest session / holiday session part of the year for me, so it has meant that I have not put in a lot of time into the blog. With the next few weeks I am hoping to have new articles with original content, and hopefully get some videos on here as well.
Until then
~E.P.B.
