It's time to D-D-D-D-DDDDUEL

[Doppleganger]

Preliminary testing of the new promo cards:

Tatsunoko - holy crack is this card good. A lot better than I anticipated, possibly better than if it was a Normal Summon monster once Librarian is on the field. As expected, it makes cards that are otherwise dead in hand instantly live: extra Doppelwarrior, Shaddoll Dragon, or Senko Sekkas. The biggest implication is that with it out, there's no longer a need to Special Summon a Level 5 monster to go Level 8, you can simply Synchro from the hand.

I currently don't have any Level 5s main-decked, but is going to get me to look for cards that 1) trigger effects when sent to the Grave, either for a Synchro or not and/or 2) have powerful effects as a tribute summon monster, which allows me to use Stormforth to rid myself of problem cards.

Black Jack - have not drawn it or had it go to grave consistently enough for abuse. Interesting design, but I'm going to take it out now because it can't be relied on. Artwork is a Wind-Up version of Jack Atlas.

[Princess Ana]

Endless Decay (Possible 4000 ATK beatstick)
Primitive Buttefly (Can change itself into a Level 6)
U.A. Perfect Ace (great negation effect)
Dark Scorpion - Gorg the Strong (possible PWWB effect)
Spell Canceller (It's Imperial Order)
Airknight Parshath (It draws)
Salvage Warrior (Can SS Tuners)
Evilswarm Golem (More limited pop but its reusable)
Taotie, Shadow of the Yang Zing (Immunity to Snatch Steal and Number 101)
Zaborg, the Thunder Monarch (Free pop on summon)

I've checked and there is pretty much nothing that works when its sent to the Grave. Level 5s kinda suck in these two regards honestly. Shame the Monarchs are all Level 6.

[Doppleganger]

Cyber Dragon, Denko, Taotie, Bixi, Pulao, Artifact Lancea, and Mist Archfiend look like the best candidates.

[Doppleganger]

I dueled phoopes (Trains) four times. The last game was eye-opening. Denko never came out, but I did end up using it for Synchro Material twice with Tatsunoko.

Tatsunoko can lead to Soul Charge-like loops if it Synchros with Doppelwarrior while another Level 1 Tuner is out. In the end the final card advantage total isn't sexy, it looks like a +2 or +3 overall, but the deck thinning and grave dumping is massive, and the cards exchanged are almost certainly disruption, because the summoning chain dead ends only with the draw of a trap card. I opened that final game with just a Mirror Force and drew a CED and PWWB through the Librarian pumping. I believe in hand I had two Junk Synchron and Soul Charge.

I didn't even play the Soul Charge because the field was actually too cluttered to take advantage of it, and I'd already burned out the loop eating up my Level 3 Synchros. phoopes was able to +3 with Maxx "C" during the next turn and it still wasn't enough.

[Doppleganger]

It IS possible to OTK now:

[Kindrindra]

Black Jack should have been a Traptrix

The mythology couple makes me want to run zombies for the first time ever. Ha.

[Princess Ana]

So in pursuit of all things Shaddolls, I've been trying my hand at what is likely to be the main variant of Shaddolls in the next format: Denko Dolls. This is an Chaos driven build that looks to OTK your opponent, or at least put your opponent in a position where they aren't able to comeback. This is different from the Artifact variant (which sadly is dead) in where the Artifact build looked to control your opponent through Sanctum/Moralltach, Construct, and Pleiades. This is all about speed and consistency, and is really something more like a combo-deck than anything else. It can grind, but it prefers not to. This is a deck that I've discovered (after being blissfully unaware of this) that actually prefers going second.

• Cards like Denko Sekka, Enemy Controller, and Shaddoll Fusion all are more useful Turn 2 than they are Turn 1, especially since a successful OTK generally relies on a resolved Shaddoll Fusion (which is why its run at 3)
• OTKing with six cards is a lot easier than OTKing with 5, especially since having to OTK turn 3 means that you face an opponent with a minimum of 6 cards
• If you can't OTK, your opponent is in a weaker position to comeback compared to going first

It takes a good amount of skill to master and the plays aren't really linear. I've been set back a number of turns because of a misplay and had to scramble to come back (this happened when I played against phoopes today, I misplayed summoning Shekinaga without having a way to force Number 81 to activate, which cost me at least three turns). In addition, you need to know how to maximize your damage. For example, let's say your hand has:

Mathematician, El Shaddoll Fusion, White Dragon Wyvernbuster, and Shaddoll Falco (although any Shadoll will do)

How do you maximize your damage? You summon Mathematician, sending whatever you need to the grave (1500). Banish a Shaddoll for Wyvernbuster. (3200). Activate El Shaddoll Fusion, sending the Falcon and Wyvernbuster to the grave to summon Construct (4300). Use Wyvernbuster to add Collapserpent to your hand, and SS it. (6100). With just that, you've multiplied your damage where as if you had used Wyvernbuster from the hand, you would have had a lot less damage. This doesn't account for potential Shaddoll Fusions (which will add either 2600 or 2800 damage) and the possibility of BLS (another 3000) which make decision making more difficult.

Anyways, the build I'm using is in my sig so if you wanna try it out (and I suggest you do, its probably the funnest meta deck I've played so far) feel free to take from my build and ask questions.

[Doppleganger]

This is a horrible card.

I've managed to pull this off in 5/6 duels with my awful build.

[Princess Ana]

Really makes you wonder who the fuck designed that card and then had the conscious to design Charon.

[Doppleganger]

I don't think they're the same design teams. I strongly suspect there is a "meta" team, and a "novelty" team, and the "novelty" team designs cards like Synchron, Stardust or Utopia, while "meta" designs the cards they intend to be used competitively. It sort of makes sense if you consider almost none of the cards which appear in any anime are competitive in the slightest. It's always Konami original archetypes, heavily suggesting a "meta" team.

The worst part of Dark Matter, incidentally, isn't the unstoppable mill or the 4000 double attacker: banishing 6 cards from the opponent's deck neuters most deck strategies. I think then, if Crush Card were chained to an effect that banishes, sending those 3 monsters for its effect would be worse than the original effect.

[Kindrindra]

Pretty sure design corps generally have team upon team and each team likely designs archetypes upon their own. A mere two teams would be utterly ridiculous and unproductive for such a large company.

[Princess Ana]

Originally Posted by Doppleganger

I don't think they're the same design teams. I strongly suspect there is a "meta" team, and a "novelty" team, and the "novelty" team designs cards like Synchron, Stardust or Utopia, while "meta" designs the cards they intend to be used competitively. It sort of makes sense if you consider almost none of the cards which appear in any anime are competitive in the slightest. It's always Konami original archetypes, heavily suggesting a "meta" team.

The worst part of Dark Matter, incidentally, isn't the unstoppable mill or the 4000 double attacker: banishing 6 cards from the opponent's deck neuters most deck strategies. I think then, if Crush Card were chained to an effect that banishes, sending those 3 monsters for its effect would be worse than the original effect.

There have actually been quite a few competitively viable cards that have shown up in anime, but from my experience its really apparent from GX onwards. Zane's entire deck ruled formats on its release (and led to the downfall of 2000 ATK beatsticks like Vampire Lord), Miracle Fusion and Super Polymerization, Dark Worlds, most Synchros etc etc. Hell, Shark from ZeXal had Number 101, who we all know completely shook up the meta. A good number of archetypes also appear in the manga (although whether this came before or after I don't know) that we know, such as Mecha Phantom Beasts, Evilswarm, and Fire Fists. Light and Darkness Dragon was Chazz's boss monster in the manga.

I dunno, a lot of competitive cards have come from the anime.

I built a Red-Eyes deck and one of my favorite plays has been to send REDMD and Wyvern to the grave, and then revive REDMD with Wyvern. Dark Matter is 100% borked.

[Doppleganger]

I battled phoopes who was allied with the Nekroz menace.

The first game, using Dark Matter Derp, was a crushing victory. I ended up banishing 9 monsters from his deck and dealing 13,000 damage in one turn. How do I break game?

The second game (using Junk Doppel) was a lot closer but it could have easily been a blow out in phoopes' favour. His lack of familiarity with the deck gave me the inches I needed to outlast him for a win, and only after sacking the almighty Soul Charge with a truly god-like top deck.

From what I saw personally, I feel like N-Trishula is an overrated card, and the more fearsome one is N-Clausolas. He's hard to summon outside of that one ritual that allows multiple summons, but he's by far the more dangerous card. The ability to just sit in defense while negating the effects WHILE ALSO REDUCING ATTACK POWER every single turn is busted as heck.

I might actually side Raigekis and Dark Holes to deal with this. It's pretty dang dumb!

[Doppleganger]

Being a Prick at YGO: For Dummies

Originally Posted by Dueling Network

YoOO!: why does everyone use that deck
Dopple: ?
YoOO!: don't you get bored of mirror matches?
Dopple: lol
Dopple has lost 1800 life points
YoOO!: you misread shura's effect
YoOO!: just so you know.
Dopple has lost 1800 life points
Dopple: eff
YoOO!: gale eff
Dopple: you can't target it
YoOO!: oh
YoOO!: ok
YoOO!: sirrocco eff on gale then
Dopple: what does it gain
YoOO!: 2000
YoOO!: 3300 total.
YoOO!: -600
Dopple: damage step?
YoOO! has lost 200 life points
YoOO!: this is boring
YoOO!: 600
YoOO! has lost 600 life points
Dopple: eff
YoOO!: duh
YoOO!: just play
YoOO!: synchron decks take too long to do nothing.
YoOO!: yawn.
Dopple: eff
YoOO!: draw 5 more cares idc.
YoOO!: cards*
YoOO!: it won't change the outcome.
YoOO!: exodia deck much
YoOO!: god you take forever
YoOO!: how do you kep playing when it takes you1hour to lose
YoOO!: eff
YoOO!: ok?
Dopple: ok
Dopple: no
Dopple: that's a cost
Dopple: hold
YoOO!: eff gale
YoOO!: and whirlwind
YoOO!: gale on 3100
YoOO!: ? hurry
Dopple: ?
YoOO!: ? take too long learn to duel...
YoOO! has left the duel

I had some really bad luck this game, milling two Doppelwarrior with Tuning. As a result, I bricked early and bricked late, since I used Allure of Darkness to banish my final Doppelwarrior while also drawing a near dead ROTA. That left me with Effect Veiler, ROTA, CED and Forbidden Lance, because I was unable to turn Tatsunoko into a third Synchro (instead upgrading Yazi into Leo).

Once he dropped DAD, I had to Veiler it knowing he might have Blizzard. He dropped Blizzard and Black Whirlwind, the worst combination. Two things could have happened: adding Kalut to run over Leo if he had Bora or adding Bora to make BRD and blow up the field. My backrow was insufficient to stop that, since CED vs. DAD, Gale or Bora is bad YGO.

Instead, he adds Breeze, possibly the worst add that that would have been immediately live, and attacks into Leo, thinking he could target it with Gale's effect. Whoops.

In short, this guy talked trash but made a ton of bad moves. He COULD have won, since I was rather unlucky with my draws and mills, but screwed up too hard.

It's interesting that my deck is apparently "popular", because I never see it. Maybe that's because I play against meta decks only, but I've only seen one other non-Quickdraw JD build. Historically, I have dominated the mirror whether vs. Plant Synchro or Lightsworns as the mill engine.

[Doppleganger]

This is pretty tight.

[Princess Ana]

So I take it Mask Change Second has been paying off well?

[Doppleganger]

In that game, it didn't, it was just icing on the cake and got me to turn Tatsunoko into Armades rather than Yazi. Four backrow + Effect Veiler and a Stardust Dragon was pretty tough to stop as-is.

I got lucky with the MST and also milled Shaddoll Dragon, with an opening that included Soul Charge. I would have won with a less oppressive field.

Note that 101 was also at 1300 attack, because I Lanced it when the opponent played Rank-Up. His card in hand was Summoner Monk.

[Princess Ana]

Har har.

Anyways, something I've been wanting to consider is, should Spellbook of Judgment come back?

Yes, that card. The card I've been known to give the title of "One of the Most Broken Cards in the Game". But at the moment, its something to consider because Prophecy has lost pretty much any potency its ever had. The original deck wasn't great, and Judgment simply made it incredible. But the deck at the moment is at its lowest with only 1 Spellbook of Fate and 0 Spellbook of Judgment. With the massive powercreep that has come with Duelist Alliance and The New Challengers, and the arrival of decks such as Shaddolls, Burning Abyss, Qliphort, Infernoids, and Nekroz would Judgment:

• Give Prophecy enough of a boost so that it can compete with Tier 1 decks?
• Not give the deck enough of a boost so that current decks are eclipsed?

So I actually intend to test it, and so if we have any other people who have played or would be willing to play the above decks so that I can test it out at various (so far eight) levels of testing, that would be grand. The current levels of testing are:

Spoiler: show

• 0 copies of Judgment, 1 copy of Fate
• 0 copies of Judgment, 3 copies of Fate
• 1 copy of Judgment, 0 copies of Fate
• 1 copy of Judgment, 1 copy of Fate
• 1 copy of Judgment, 3 copies of Fate
• 3 copies of Judgment, 0 copies of Fate
• 3 copies of Judgment, 1 copy of Fate
• 3 copies of Judgment, 3 copies of Fate

Now obviously the testing doesn't just cover Judgment, but it covers the interactions between Judgment and Fate. Fate as we know has been limited, and the addition of the extra variable only increases the range of testing. If you are wondering why I'm not testing at 2, that's because its largely irrelevant since Prophecy searches more than Nekroz on a good day.

Just figured I'd leave this here.

[Doppleganger]

I think it's too broken even at 1. There are ways to recycle it, like Quick Booster, so like with Trishula at 1 decks will just focus toward recycling the single copy rather than using it multiple times. Prophecy already does that with Spellbook of Fate.

[Princess Ana]

I think a lot of it has to do with what it does on paper. It's definitely a massive plus when resolved correctly and will give you a lot of cards to work with. But Prophecy suffers from just being a deck-thinning archetype.

Secrets is just another searcher, so its not doing anything in that regard.
Master can be another 1000 booster, but its still only allowing you to beat over something.
Power just gives 1000 ATK, which is basically a one-turn beatover. Doesn't help against any of the meta decks.
Wisdom is just a Lance.

The real card that gave Judgment its power was Fate. Fate was the really good card that enabled your engine to go longer with Eternity, and allowed you to continually respond to your opponent's Normal summoned monsters when they tried to beat over Jowgen. Judgment by itself is not going to protect a 1300 DEF wall. It's simply going to give you food for an engine who's primary purpose is to deck-thin. But with Fate and Judgment at 1, you are left with a dilemma of what to recycle. I experience this now with Fate at 1 and having to decide whether or not to recycle Fate or Eternity or Master. Granted, I worked around this by teching in copies of Strength of Prophecy, but those also don't grant you draws or create any real advantage.

But again, I'm still testing this, so I only have some preliminary experiences to go off. My first opinion is that Fate is the real problem card.

[Doppleganger]

Banish boys!



I was in the process of summoning Law when he quit. That's a pretty disgusting field for Lightsworn to look at.

[Doppleganger]

Nice Exodia deck you have there.



Shame if something happened to it.

[Princess Ana]

I feel so bad for him. He's even using the crappy Deep Draw build.

[Princess Ana]

Originally Posted by Doppleganger

The second game (using Junk Doppel) was a lot closer but it could have easily been a blow out in phoopes' favour. His lack of familiarity with the deck gave me the inches I needed to outlast him for a win, and only after sacking the almighty Soul Charge with a truly god-like top deck.

From what I saw personally, I feel like N-Trishula is an overrated card, and the more fearsome one is N-Clausolas. He's hard to summon outside of that one ritual that allows multiple summons, but he's by far the more dangerous card. The ability to just sit in defense while negating the effects WHILE ALSO REDUCING ATTACK POWER every single turn is busted as heck.

I might actually side Raigekis and Dark Holes to deal with this. It's pretty dang dumb!

You aren't going to see N-Claus summoned much, if at all, because of N-Trish. N-Trish is such a good card its mirror defining. The best Nekroz decks only run 1 N-Trish and maybe 2 N-Claus for good reason: neither of them are good in the mirror, or in the case of N-Trish is so good you don't want to get caught by it, which is the toughest match-up to win. On the other hand, you are more likely to see 3 N-Valkyrus, which is actually really good in a variety of match-ups. Don't expect to ever have a field to nuke against a good Nekroz player. That's my advice.

[Doppleganger]

I faced Nekroz in the OCG for real this time.



Great success! I did draw badly with the Librarian pumping, but I got Dark Law out with Stardust and managed to snipe Trishula. He then discarded Clausolas to grab the Ritual, summoned Unicore and Senju, then used Decisive Armour on Unicore to run over Stardust. He followed that up with MST (hitting my MST), then went into Castel to get rid of Dark Law.

I summoned BLS and ran over the Castel husk, then drew Chaos Sorcerer the next turn for the finisher.

DARK

LAW