---------- Original Message ----------------------------------

From: "Areksu-chan" <alexd@pro-net.co.uk>

Reply-To: "Areksu-chan" <alexd@pro-net.co.uk>

Date:  Tue, 16 Mar 2004 15:22:04 -0000

A great original deck idea ~  Nerimon (8th Pojo tip! *clap*)

Hey all, I wanted to write this brief article to highlight a great new deck idea that was recently highlighted to me.

While competing in a tournament recently, in my first round I played a guy called Jake who had a deck with what he called his 'lock'. The lock involved two cards that were both overshadowed in the metagame, and they were Skull Lair and Sasuke Samurai. When he got both on the Field, he used his Skull Lair to remove monsters from play and destroy any face-up monster I played.

Any face-down monster was attacked and killed by Sasuke. It was a great strategy, and I only managed to beat him because he couldn't play any other monsters - I Mirror Force'd his Sasuke, set a Slate Warrior, set an Archfiend Soldier, sacrificed Archfiend for Jinzo, flipped Slate and attacked for 4800 and the win. Jake was also a friendly guy who didn't get discouraged by the loss, and I made sure to praise his deck whenever I was near him, cos I loved that original ideas were entering in tournaments (and the one I was at was an official Duelist King location in the UK, so that was even more impressive). So, whenever you're stuck for a good deck strategy, think of mah story and see what you have that you can use for an original and inventive idea!

Also, I want to talk about Umi decks. They have seen a lot of play recently but, consistently, their one weakness is M/T removal, for which there is quite a lot. Having one card be the basis of an entire strategy is a big weakness, and with IoC Umi has got a lot of extra power - however, there is still nothing concerning M/Ts. To all Umi deck players who are reading this, I suggest this card, which is overlooked by many, from IoC:

Fiend's Hand Mirror

Type: Trap

Switch the opponent's Spell Card effect that specifically designates 1 Spell or Trap Card as a target to another correct target.

Otherwise known as, screw up your opponent's MST and protect your Umi ^_^ Or, even better, a Judgement of Anubis would work well, however this requires a cost from your hand whereas FHM (>.< Yes, I know, FHM ... but you know what I mean) doesn't. I know this still doesn't protect you from Harpie's and Heavy, and Imperial Order would screw up Umi, but it's something to help you.

Please send me your comments, flame and suggestions to alexd@pro-net.co.uk.

Flames will not be read, but it'll give me a good laugh. However, if you have something constructive to say, I will always take everything on board and do my best to reply as quickly as possible. Also, to anyone who has YVD, I'd love a match sometime - but I won't give out my IP to anyone for my security, and if someone does wanna challenge me, they'll have to give me theirs - sorry if that's inconvenient for ya! Also, my current tournament deck list (my deck is named Abunai, Japanese for 'watch out') is available on http://houshiro.cjb.net if anyone is interested.

Until next time,

Nerimon, UK, 14