With the new list upon us, I was in 2 minds. In one hand, my Spell caster deck was in tatters, not much of a loss considering that it wasn’t even complete whilst I played with it. The deck, for all its merits was riddled with inconsistencies , and that really hindered me s a duelist. Quite often my dueling result was decided by my clogged hands or open field and lack of resources. The deck, to cut it short, was not good. Reasonable? Yes. Awful ? No. Noticeable? I think so , yes. But good? For the build, yes, but hardly anything truly dynamic. I needed something good now, something quite reliable. So, as I tend to do at times of poor decks, I turned to my fiend deck.

 

The fiend deck I run is nothing short of unconventional . A work-in-progress that I’ve been tampering with since the early days of Pharonic Guardian. It’s taught me a lot over the years, the importance of devotion to a particular theme, the vital ness of good searchers, and how to play essentially. The fiend deck molded me into what I am today, I changed as I changed it. It changed to suit my style, until ultimately, I’m NEARLY complete. As I said, the deck’s unconventional. it’s a strange hybrid of the tomato control/ beat down variants of the Fiend decks , without being entirely either. Its weird. It runs things that most fiend decks don’t , and is essentially a reflection of my uncertainty in Yugioh. It represents my dark side, but at the same time the boyish joy I’m filled with as a person. ( Why’d you think I’m so into Kuriboh?) It’s not a good deck. Truth be told, it could be called a bad deck. Like I said there’s a lot of conflicting themes in it, but what is a person without conflict?

 

The story of me and my fiends dates back really long ago, and I’m going into detail about it for all you guys, so read up, prepare for a life-story.

 

Initially, I good Dark Necrofear in a pack, as well as a Card of Safe return in my second, so you could say god was after me to go with either of these themes. Since CoSR sucked back then, guess which I decided? In the begging I only had 2 fiend monsters, a Giant germ and a Spear Cretin. Desperately I struggled for more until my ‘deck’ of fiends included both La Jinn AS WELL AS Ryu kishin powered. (Remember him? Such a nice monster) . Fast forward about a year and my fiend collection had amassed a lot more. Not only had I a Ha Des and a Masked beast ( see, god wanted me to play fiends…) I was also one of the only people to own a Slate Warrior in the UK. How great did I feel? The deck was beat down, but cool. I loved Giant Orc by the way. Sweet as, and he was common.

 

Fast forward to the trinity format, and my deck owned. I could take on Chaos no problem, winning at least half the time. All was good. Pot of greed , Graceful, eventually a Delinquent Duo, and 2 Magician of Faiths. I was on top of my game. And still the deck was unconventional. Still I could use what I liked no problem’s. Then the ban list came in. Every deck died, not just fiends. I tried to bounce back, I really did, but it wasn’t happening. I’d have to move on.

 

The fiend deck eventually was replaced by a wind / dragon deck. Pretty sweet considering I had 2400 attack level 4’s on my side ( gotta love field cards) . Then that fell through and fiends became powerful again. Then went to spell caster and here we are now.

 

Now this is where you get angry with me. You see , enlightening though that story was, it wasn’t relevant  really. Just a little back story, so I’m sorry if I wasted your time. The real story , is what happens next.

 

The fiend deck was out again. A good back up deck if ever (and whenever) the ‘main’ deck fell through, as it always seemed to do. The only problem was that it wasn’t the best. Not by any means. The deck’d become a tad bit dated. I hadn’t really kept on top of it , so it was my own fault really. At this point I considered leaving the game completely. My deck essentially sucked , and I lacked any cards to trade, any people to trade to , and I wasn’t going to start shelling out on packs again…oh no. I hit the largest slump of my dueling career . My deck couldn’t compete, it wasn’t even that fun to play, nothing was new, I’d had these cards for ages. I’d all but died inside.

 

I started thinking of new ways to approach my deck. I’d designed a load of decks for pojo, would they help? Well no, not really. Piercing Punishment was my masterpiece, and where the hell was I going to get 2 Airkinghts from completely out of the blue?  Still , I was the most reasonable deck available to me at that point. Cheap, effective and reasonable, not even unreliable. But alas, out of reach. I’d all but quit when something hit me. Browsing over the forums I saw something. People were talking about the new format, (as you’d expect) and then they started hitting on the idea that Phoenix was coming back.

 

Hmm, I though, Phoenix eh? Well , for one I owned one. I’d got it a while back in a special edition box. I was gonna make a Phoenix / Creator deck that I put up on Pojo. I also thought it’d be a good card for a weird beast deck I had in the works. I thought to myself that I could make something of this.

 

One of my best strategies developed on Pojo was the Marauding Captain + Hand of Nephthys combo.  I like Marauding, he combo’d well with the new semi limiting of Exiled Force. So there’s a use, right of the bat, this Phoenix deck might do quite well. I had at least one combo to make use of, but could I expand upon it.? Well, yeah.

 

Before I go into ay more, let me just explain something. I’ve always put myself down as the underdog in Yugioh. I didn’t run Chaos when Chaos was huge, and I did ok. I didn’t run Cyber Dragon or DDA during the regressive format ( thank GOD) . I’d always ran something that was unconventional, and had a decent success rate with it. I preached for originality until my fingers were sore from typing, because I knew it would work. Each deck I ran taught me something new about the game. I grew with my decks, and I’m glad I didn’t start writing for pojo any sooner than I did. I wasn’t ready before then, even though I thought I was.

 

The last gift my Spell caster  deck gave to me before its end was the revelation of something. For months I’d heard people complain about how over the top Chaos sorcerer was over the top, completely unfair and blah , blah , blah you know the rest. I’d partially agreed with them, but wasn’t that bothered. I didn’t run it, I did ok. Since it was arguably the best spell caster out there, I thought I’d give it a try. I wanted to make my spell caster deck as strong as it could be, so why not? The moment I first summoned it and hit my opponents monster something stirred in me. Something that hadn’t stirred in my for a long while.

 

You seer, I only play this one guy at dueling really. There aren’t any more in my area, there haven’t been for a while, and when there was they were terrible. We were the best, still are. We know each others moves like the back of our hands, and we can really aggravate each other sometimes  , but its all in good fun. We’re like rivals, except he’d never admit that. He always runs generally, the top notch powerful cards, except until recently when he ran a Silent Swordsman light deck. SLIGHTLY incomplete, but no way as incomplete as my Spell caster. He won most of the time. Thought less of my decks than myself, and generally knew he was my superior. I knew that’s how he felt, but I  didn’t mind one bit, he wasn’t exactly wrong. Anyway, the minute that that Chaos sorcerer hit the field and did its business there was a very exquisite look on his face. I loved it. A look of pure, unbridled, concealed hatred towards it. I’d given his cards that look before, I’d been there. I give them that look when Horus negated all my spells. I gave his cards that look when he zapped up my Ha Des with an Enemy controller after a lightning vortex. I’d given them that look when Silent Swordsman attack thought my Swords of revealing light. I gave him that look when he RFTDD’d his monsters and exiled his spirit Reaper. I even had that look when he Smashing Grounded my Slifer the following turn to its summoning since we’d just learnt that Smashing WASN’T in fact a targeting card like we had played it, so in our made up rules he could be killed (although we did have an unspeaking understanding that that DOES NOT work on him, its  just not done, and yet he still said its only, fair how else will I kill him !! Ooo, I’m too nice for my own good. I didn’t care anyway, I just told him that Magical Dimension didn’t target either, much to his fury. But I digress) But everyone’s had that look. He certainly had it when Chaos sorcerer hit the field and made short work of his defense. Its less of a look and more of a glare really. The glare that this isn’t fair.

 

Be that as it may, I continued to run my Chaos sorcerer. Partly to power up my deck, and partly to wind up my mate. When Chaos sorcerer was finally banned he said ‘About time , that thing’s REALLY broken’. This coming from the guy who’d ran both BLS and CED in the  Chaos era, against my fiend deck, and  had still lost on occasion. Then proceeded to say how ‘un - broken’ BLS was… but  once again, I digress. The rivalry runs deep. The important thing was that I’d had my first taste of power in a LONG time.

 

Ever since the end of the trinity format, we’d lost essentially all our power in this game.  That’s why everything went wrong in the regressive format. That’s why we’ve recovered tremendously with the re release of Ring of Destruction back into the meta. I can tell you it almost felt like cheating playing Graceful Charity again after the Regressive format. I was guilty for about a week after. Abstinence from power had riddled my mind with Yugioh, I was disillusioned.

 

Anyway, onto the focus of the article again. We’d established that I’d recently decided to take Phoenix in my own direction, and had a cool combo with that,  Marauding captain and Exiled force, all having great synergy with each other. We’ve also established that power tasted good.

 

I looked through my collection of cards, through my various deck collections, until I remembered something. If you recall, a while back, I made my own variation of Soul Control, called S/T obliteration, focusing on Jinzo, Mobius and Brain control. For all its flaws, it was quite the potent idea. Then suddenly, brainwave. Mix them together. Why not? I wanted power. Jinzo and Mobius rocked, and Nephthys was all for s/t destruction wasn’t she? So I stuck them in. These were my powerful Tribute monsters that were left.

 

After that, I had some deck spaces left. The first thing that I thought of was sticking in the good old card I’d taken out in my Spell caster deck to purify it They’d been put in the fiend deck to fill some space anyway, why not use them? They rocked. So, DD Warrior Lady, Tree born Frog, Spirit Reaper, and the obvious Breaker and Magician of Faith hit the card sleeves again. Not to mention the fiendish Sangan. Now to make better use of my Reinforcements of the Army that were going in for my Phoenix / Marauding/ Exiled uses. Well, I had a Goblin Attack force lying around, and he was sweet. So in he went. I also wanted to stick in Mystic Swordsman level 2 as a nice handy dandy replacement to NoC, as well as being a Warrior, but that’s where my warrior pool ran dry. Maxed out at 7 Warriors ( see, I told you that was a Magic number)  I had to look for alternatives. Well , Apprentice Magician was great for searching my Hand’s, so in that went, since it had a back up use in Magician of Faith. Also, Morphing Jar was a good, solid card that perhaps I could find a use for, so in that went. Finally, Gigantes. A solid monster that could easily be fuelled by all the Earths for him. I was set.

 

My Spell and traps were pretty standard, with exception to the inclusion of Last will with a great 14 targets last time I checked, and Rush Recklessly, and interesting tech that I guess a lot of people thought of at the same time, as that been pooping up too. The decks had some fiddling, and its still not perfect ,  but here it is :

 

Monsters : 20

 

Sacred Phoenix of Nephthys
Mobius the Frost Monarch
Jinzo

 

Hand of Nephthys (x2)
Marauding Captain (x2)
Exiled Force (x2)
Apprentice Magician
Goblin Attack force
Gigantes
Mystic Swordsman lv 2
Morphing Jar
Spirit Reaper
Sangan
DD Warrior Lady
Tree born Frog
Magician of Faith
Breaker the Magical Warrior

 

Spells ; 13

 

Graceful Charity
Pre mature burial
Scapegoat
Heavy Storm
Mystical Space typhoon
Book of moon
Swords of Revealing Light
Nobleman of Crossout
Lightning Vortex
Reinforcements of the Army
Last Will
Rush Recklessly

 

Traps ; 7

 

Mirror Force
Torrential Tribute
Call of the Haunted
Ring of Destruction
Dust Tornado
Sakurtsu Armour
 Waboku

 

I put up a thread about this on pojo, not a single reply, ahhh well.

 

Upon fist glance, I bet a lot of you are thinking ‘Well Maltos that isn’t very original at all, where’s the theme?’

 

Well guys I’ve realized something. All this time I’ve been preaching about Originality vs. CC. Saying how much originality can beat CC if you put your mind to it. UI think I may have been a bit off on this. Hear me out.

 

The idea of using a deck, simply because its original is wrong. You don’t need to avoid powerful cards just you make yourself look more unique. To a pointy, I did that. Why else would it take me so long to use Chaos Sorcerer? I’ve realized that it’s not the concept of the deck that defines you as a player, it’s the story behind it that counts. You know you’re a better player if there’s more to your deck than ‘everyone else ran it so I  did to’ or ‘ I copied it from somewhere’ , that’s the difference, not the deck it self. I  suppose I’ll have to elaborate on this later, but I’m REALLY tired now. Until then, I’ll leave on the note that Dawn Yoshi was right the other day when he said that this is a brief golden age for deck building. Don’t waste it.

 

Till next time,

 

Dark__Maltos@msn.com

 

Have a good one guys.