Solid Tournament Deck-
Shaddy
A-hoy-hoy to all the wonderful Yu-Gi-Oh!
players currently reading this tip. This is Shaddy yet again to inform you of
something you may or may not need to know. Solid Tournament Decks, or STD's as I
call them, are some of the most efficient and playable decks around. This is no
accident...or maybe it is just a random happening, but that's very unlikely and
would go against the whole point that I am trying so desperately to make. For
arguments sake, I'm going to use the deck used by the Champion of the 2004
Yu-Gi-Oh! World Championship to show you that Card-Deck relationships make a
great deck worthy of the title, STD.
Now, you're probably asking yourself "What the heck is
this guy on? Making an obscene reference to various painful diseases and then
mentioning this 'card-deck relationship,' which I've never heard of?" Well,
mister/ma'am, hear this. When looking at any card for a good STD there should be
4-6 cards that fall into the same categories it falls into. For Example (Using
the World Champion's deck):
Let's pick a random card like....D.D. Warrior
Lady. D.D. Warrior Lady would fall into two general categories; Light and
Monster Removal (She would also fit into Warrior, but it lacks support in this
particular deck). Now there are already 2 other copies of this momma in the
deck, so that's two cards that fall into both categories already. She also
supports the Envoys being Light, 4 down. Under monster removal she'll be along
with Tribe Infecting Virus (great for most STD's), Dark Hole, Ragieki, and so
on, 7+. Not to mention she can be searched with Sangan and Shining Angel. D.D.
Warrior Lady fits very nicely in this deck because she is so well supported and
supports so many other cards.
"Now, Shaddy," you're saying to yourself, which seems to
be your thing, "What about the drawing cards like Pot of Greed and Graceful
Charity." Well, I was getting to that before I was so rudely
interupted....Anyway! Like I was saying, Pot of Greed and Graceful Charity do go
under the category of Drawing, but it also goes under another category as
a Deck-Thinner. There are other cards in this deck that fall under the same
category: Mirage of Nightmare, Sangan, Witch, and Shinning Angel. Others STD's
might include Painful Choice, Mystic Tomato, and Airnight Parshath as some of
their Deck-Thinners.
Sure, many STD's are a real pain in the butt, however,
you too can run a well made deck consisting of cards supporting each other
without the annoying Overlap that happens in poorly constructed decks. Now, some
might have a little trouble putting their cards into categories. Fear not, for
the Shaddy does abide. General categories include Monster Removal, Spell/Trap
Removal/Negation, Drawing, Deck Thinking (which include searchers), and
Recursion (Usually 3-4 support cards in this category). More Specific Categories
would be by Type (Warrior, Beast, Zombie, etc...), Name Based(Archfiends,
Amazoness, Ojama, Dark Scorpions, etc...), and I think you get the idea. For the
most part STD's have cards that fit into the more general categories in order to
handle almost anything...ANYTHING!
One more thing...any category can greatly increase it's
efficiency/use if it has every version of card (Spell, Monster, Trap) supporting
it. For Example (Using the World Champion's STD): Monster Removal doesn't just
have the Spell, Dark Hole, but also a Monster, Tribe Infecting Virus, and a
Trap, Torrential Tribute to increase and support Monster Removal effectiveness.
Should there be a problem where you can't Torrential Tribute (Jinzo) Dark Hole
can be used. They also have a Spell Canceller on the field, Tribe Infecting
Virus helps. Having every card version helps to insure that that category will
be effective no matter what happens.
Feel like giving me your STD? By all means e-mail me at
Shaddymaze@aol.com. I welcome questions
and comments. Especially to those who get the Simpsons reference mentioned at
the beginning of this article.
-Shaddy
Zombies!