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From: Zach Lowman [mailto:lonedothacker@gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, April 18, 2005 12:37 PM

A Handful of Shaman King Tips

>From starting this game its given me the best feel of all TCGs I've
started playing so I wish to provide a little inisight on what I've found from playing.

1) Pick a shaman you like. This is probably the simplest thing you can learn, the game has been made where there are only "staples" if you can call them that, amongst the types. I've yet to see someone construct a deck using a shaman they like that has NO CHANCE at winnng. I've played YGO, Yu Yu Hakusho and as sad as I am to admit Pokemon. In those 3 games unless you for whatever reason liked the really powerful cards you weren't going to run a deck that had a good chance at winning. Sadly a staple/net deck/cookie cutter will challenge most anything you make for fun and win. The only Shamans I haven't seen played are Lola and Jeanne, Lola theres some interest in playing her advantage but most people don't like Mind and Range as traits.

2) Find a way to afford your deck. UDE did good doing two things during this. One being the specters are limited to a certain Shaman and in turn you can trade them for the specter you need easier, there are Uncommons that 2 or 3 of that would make a fair trade for a rare, and commons for rares, in turn the rarity system on a whole. The other thing is the traits system. For any ONE deck you are limited to 4 types of cards (Teamwork/Advantage/Strike all styled and then unstyled
moves.) So if you run persay try Yoh/Soul/Ranged and got I don't know Blinding Foray and your friend runs Yoh You/Soul/Melee and has a Stalefish grab, neither of you are losing on the trade. Traits also seem to keep a balance on how powerful something can get, I'm thinking along the lines of Jeanne with Faust at her side a 3 Yellow for 8/8 could be sick.

3) Don't be afraid to try. You may have people tell you "Oh such and such won't work" or "4 Crackback and no Hunters Perch don't be a newb." These are things you sometimes need to find out for yourself.
Its one thing for someone who plays a Shaman who shares Advantage and Strikes similar IN YOUR AREA to make recommendations as they know what you're against.

4) Net Help. Its nice to get the Grand Super Shaman Supreme's opinion on your deck, but whats it worth? Are you a small town player who has no thought of going national or are you the small town hero winning the championship for your town? The former is getting advice that could hinder them. Why? You have a metagame, is your opponent defending in the Yellow zone a common strategy from using something like Jun, Big Sister in the green and they seem to be pulling a weaker strike or using a more valuable strike for her effect? Him telling you to avoid Hunter's Perch is hurting you. Forcing your opponent to lose his early zone advantage ala Big Sister will put them on the ropes.
(This doesn't express my overall thoughts/opinions on Hunter's Perch so don't flame mail me about it.)

5) Have fun and learn from it. Are you getting beat every game you play this weekend? COuld you not make a single point against your opponent? Were you just outclassed every zone you entered? Did you make a new friend? Did you make a trade that completed your deck/collection? Make plans for them to cover and have practice games before next weeks tournament? If you got a yes off the two sets of questions, atleast one in each, then you had fun but at the same time had a bad experience. How can you make the bad experience positive?
Ask things like "How did you come up with that strategy," "Can you look at my deck and give some feedback," "What would make this work better? Do you have any?" If you can improve from what you lost at, it wasn't truly a loss.

These are just generic things you can do to have a better time playing the game and give you a better insight to what you're trying to do with a deck. Next time I'll attempt to make something more card related.

~Vivi1886
E-mails of any type can be sent to dark_duelist_ryou_bakura@yahoo.com