Casual Fridays: Exploring A ‘Peek-A-Boo’ Deck 

10.15.04 I promise that despite the nursery school game reference used in this Friday’s article title I’m writing about Duel Masters. To be more exact, I’m writing about laid-back Duel Masters deck building—the type of deck building where the pressure to win takes a backseat to fun. I do realize that every time you play it’s an opportunity to improve your best decks, but right now I’m going to take off my dueling gloves and aim for some barehanded fun. Messing around with goofy deck ideas can shed light on the reasons why certain mechanics or cards don’t operate as well as one would hope in competitive play. Plus, there’s an inkling of something resembling strategy tucked into this article. Let’s take a look at a fun mechanic to use: Peeking.

Currently peeking at shields or a player’s hands isn’t a heavily employed tactic in competitive DM decks. Well, that isn’t a shocking revelation. The main qualm with peeking is that you’re not gaining much of an advantage in comparison to making plays that decrease your opponent’s board presence, lessen his options or that increase those two things for you. Spending mana to put a creature in your battle zone, remove threats from your opponent’s battle zone, fill your hand with options, or rob your opponent’s hand is better than spending mana to discover what’s lurking in your opponent’s shield zone or hand. On turn 2, if you spend 2 mana on Crimson Hammer to kill Deadly Fighter Braid Claw, then you’re decreasing your opponent’s broad presence. However, on turn 2 if you spend 2 mana on Recon Operation, then your opponent maintains field advantage and you just know what’s in his shield zone. See the difference?

Don’t get me wrong; knowing that an opponent has Terror Pit in the shield zone is very useful. If you know which shield is a Terror Pit, then you won’t send your Ladia Bale toward that shield if there are two other choices. But you still have to slam that Terror Pit sometime in order to go for the win; you’re only delaying the inevitable with peeking. The mana you spent on peeking at Terror Pit could have been used to drop another creature able to hit for a shield when Ladia Bale’s destroyed. Knowing that Crystal Lancer is coming because you’ve seen your opponent’s hand can help you prepare for it, but it’s ultimately more useful to take a stab at discarding it from your opponent’s hand—to decrease your opponent’s options.

If peeking came along the following lines: “look at your opponent’s hand. Then choose and discard one card from your opponent’s hand,” then peeking would be worth a shot in a greater variety of competitive decks if not ridiculously overpriced. Also, that type of peeking would be great if the effect were tacked onto a reasonably priced creature. Knowing what’s in store can be very instrumental when planning your attacks, but having better board presence and more options in hand than your opponent is infinitely more useful in the long term. Well, that’s only my opinion of course, and I have seen peek cards put to good use in tournament decks. Either way, peeking is not a mechanic that I’d heavily integrate into one of my competitive decks like say I would do draw power. With those things in mind, let’s examine the 4 cards in Duel Masters catered to the nosey player and slap some them into a deck.

Remember: the deck we’re making is for casual gaming only. Do not take this deck to your local JDC League expecting it to win games.

Wyn, the Oracle

Whenever this 2-mana creature attacks, you get to peak at 1 shield. You don’t have to break the shield you choose to look at, so you can choose another if Wyn gets a hit. Wyn's 1500 attack power means it's not going to stay on the field for long. More times than not, it won't even get to attack. And if Wyn does attack, the chances are very high that you're only getting 1 sneak peak because many 1-2 drop creatures can kill it. But for fun we’re going to toss this guy in a deck with blockers. So, if your opponent wants him off the field when blockers are out, then he’ll have to use removal. 

Stinger Ball

It has the same effect as Wyn, but 500 less power for 1 more mana. So, it’s worse than our other peek-hitter. All that stuff about Wyn applies to this guy except 1000 creatures can’t kill Wyn through direct attacks but can kill Stinger. 

Recon Operation

For 2 mana you get to look at up to 3 of your opponent’s shields. Not much to explain here. If you drop Recon Operation the turn you swing with Wyn or Stinger, then you’ll know 4 shields.

Liquid Scope

Scope’s the granddaddy of the peeking cards. For 4 mana or off the trigger you get to look at your opponent’s hand and all his shields. If you hard cast Liquid Scope, then you’re looking at a lost opportunity to summon 2-3 creatures for the same price (or remove some), which creates field disadvantage. But, as far as peeking goes this spell let’s you do it all. So, it has fun factor written all over it.

Just to be truly crazy, I’m forcing myself to use at least 2 of those cards in a deck:

4 Aqua Hulcus
4 Emeral
4 Wyn, the Oracle
4 La Ura Giga
4 Senatine Jade Tree
3 Mist Rias*
3 Dia Nork
2 Toel, Vizier of Hope
4 Spiral Gate
2 Teleportation
3 Liquid Scope
4 Holy Awe
4 Diamond Cutter

45 cards

*Later changed to Emerald Grass

I’m calling this deck “Peeping Tom.” It mimics a Water/Light Diamond Cutter sans some key creatures and spells (spots now occupied by the peek cards). It’s not the best looking build, even by casual standards, but it will do for our peeking exercise. Now, I’ll play Peeking Tom in a few games to see how much shield peeking I can do and where it leads (since it’s a fun deck I don’t want to get bogged down in heavy play testing):

Versus Darkness/Fire Weenie Rush (played by my friend Adam)

*We decided to play two games since everyone had something to do that afternoon

Adam burst out of the gate with a fast game. Claw was his first play, Giga mine. Next turn he surprisingly cast Volcanic Arrow on Giga (Claw was able to stay on the field long enough to hit for 2 shields). Next turn saw a shield set with Emeral, I put down a Spiral Gate and retrieved Mist Rias. His next turn Adam played Brawler Zyler and I started to clamor for Emerald Grass. By the 4th turn he had knocked me down to 2 shields, and luckily one was Holy Awe. I pretty much didn’t stabilize the field until 2 Dia Nork were present. I pegged off his hitters with direct attacks from a Hulcus, and peeked at a shield with Wyn. By the 7th turn I was able to peek at all 4 shields and his hand with Scope & Wyn. When I sealed the game he had only 1 hitter on the field. Game 1: Me, # of peeks: 3

Adam played mana; I played Giga. Next turn sees Zyler, and I shield set Holy Awe with Emeral and gain a Hulcus. Next turn Adam Hammers my Giga and attacks with Zyler. Next turn I play Hulcus and slam Emeral into Zyler. Adam casts 2 Bone Piercers. I cast Jade Tree and hit with Hulcus. Adam Hammers my Hulcus. Next turn I cast Toel. Adam casts another Bone Piercer, then Hammers my Toel and stays at bay (perhaps building up for a Snake Attack hit). Next turn I cast Scope and Giga. He has Gett in hand, 2 Volcanic Arrows, 1 Blade and 1 Claw in his shield zone. Yuck. Next turn he drops another Piercer and Gett. Looks ugly, right? I draw Diamond Cutter—oh joy. He draws Smoke, hits Jade Tree and rams with a Bone, triggering Awe. I play Wyn; he plays Zyler. Okay, this is really just plain ugly. Adam has 5 ready hitters; I have 3 shields and 1 blocker. Game. I suck. Game 2: Adam, # of peeks: 1

Versus Water/Nature (played by my friend April)

*April had to go to class & then to work so we only played 1 game.

I play Awe to the mana zone then Giga. April drops a Pit as mana. I play Emerald Grass. April plays Burning Mane. I play Hulcus and draw Giga. April plays Hulcus; I play Wyn and Giga. I hit with Hulcus, triggers Pit and April toasts Hulcus. April plays Hulcus. I play Dia Nork and top deck. I swing with Wyn, look at a Spiral Gate then hit a Brain Serum. April plays Corile, sends Wyn on top of my deck. I play Wyn and go back to top decking. April evos Hulcus into Lancer and hits for 2. Second shield is Holy Awe, which I cast. I play Giga, knock off Hulcus, Corile (and lose Giga), and hit Mane. Then I swing with Wyn, peek at a Nexus, and then opt to hit the middle shield that I haven’t seen yet. April Pits my Wyn, then hits for 2 with Lancer. I play Emeral and Spiral Gate Lancer to April’s hand. April plays 2 Aqua Hulcus. I play Diamond Cutter. I hit with Giga, slam Nexus. April puts down Pit. I then hit with Emeral, Dia Nork gets bounced to my hand with Gate. I know Pit is the last shield. I have out two tapped creatures and 2 untapped creatures. If I attack, April could hit for the win next turn—I have 1 shield left—because we both know she’s going to Pit the remaining untapped hitter on my side of the field. Darn that Gate! I choose not to hit. April plays Lancer, and then rocks my last shield with it. Lucky draws, Batman! I draw Diamond Cutter. woOT! I cast Cutter, slam with Emeral, a Giga gets hit with Pit, and then I hit for the win with Emerald. Game: Me, # of peeks: 2

Not to my surprise peeking was useful when trying to maximize my losses when I attacked, especially when I was able to peek at 3 or more shields or do the peeking with a creature (gain a peek and a shield hit). If I had a field of weenie hitters, then it would be useful to know whether or not I was headed for a Burst Shot. I would still have to break that shield in order to win, but I could time the break to a moment where losing my field of 2000 hitters wouldn’t completely knock me out of the game. Overall, I would rather run more destruction or creatures (or in the case of the deck above more draw and bounce) than the peek cards. If you include peek cards in your casual or competitive decks, then you’ll have to weigh the pros and cons of using them instead of board & hand increasing/decreasing cards in relation to your decks’ win conditions.

Now, it’s your turn to do something different. Go build a fun deck that explores cards or mechanics that you wouldn’t normally put into a tourney deck. Don’t worry if your creation doesn’t win—just try to be as creative and wacky as possible. Get your friends in on the task too. You can make up a wacky homebrew tourney format where people must use certain cards. For example, name 5 cards that you consider to be bad and set the requirement that everyone’s deck has to include those cards. The point is to shake things up a bit. You’re not competing in a tournament every second of the day—so live a little. If you have any questions, want to see something covered in an article, or just want to chat, then drop me a line at kaiserpso@hotmail.com. Cheers!