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From: AFernan104@aol.com
Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2005 19:05:52 EDT

Hola Amigos/Hi Friends!,

Some of you POJO staff might wonder why I am emailing you this; that's because it's for all true and serious duelists should think about. I'm here to explain the nature of "COUNTER-BALANCE". This is a plea for originality over cookie-cutterness, self-style over fad-following, and to some extent skill over luck. Currently in the Duel Monsters TCG, it still has some inherent flaws in terms of cards that have been released. The very structure of this game is very Top-Deck centric ergo(therefore) luck based. This leads to too many wins via sheer luck-of-the-draw(LotD). Even though some of the most game-breaking, tide-turning and broken-ass cards are banned in the Advance Format; there's not much ADVANCED strategies being demostrated and play-tested by the majority of duelists out there; especially from true Top Tier Duelists, shame on you guys!
Let's look at the results of the " 2005 YuGiOh World Championships " : This info is courtesy of pojo's Bryan Camareno a.k.a. DeathJester

1st Place: Miltiadis Markou (Greece)
1st: Phoenix/Morph/Chaos
2nd Place: Jorge Fabian Pina Lizarraga (Mexico)
2nd: Mill OTK
3rd Place: David Kretschmer (Germany)
3rd: Machine/Warrior
4th Place: Guan Sian Li (Taiwan)
4th: Chaos/Warrior

There's hope for variety in future top tier dueling in Duel Monsters(DMs). 2 out of the top 4 were I assume non-chaos. Hopefully, this will further the cause of most duelist to make there own viable deck-types and achieve success with said decks. Nevertheless, Black Luster Soldier•Envoy of the
Beginning(BLS) still took the top stop yet again.
Now I'm gonna give my definition of the term Counter-Balance(C-B):
An aspect of an object(s) or action(s) that yields a certain amount of advantage and/or disadvantage.
If this sentence sounds too abstract, I'll of course cite examples. Let me also add that counter-balance also deals with how cards affect the game as a whole not just the cards' themselves!
The following is an example of a card with good counter balance in terms of the card's effect design AND for the game:
Jinzo
ATK:  2400
DEF:  1500
Type:  Machine/Effect
Attribute:  DARK
Level: 6
Set Name:  Yu-Gi-Oh! Pharaoh's Servant
Card Num:  PSV-000
Rarity:  Hobby Secret
Effect: As long as this card remains face-up on the field, all
Trap Cards cannot be activated. The effects of all face-up Trap Cards are also negated.

The power of this Effect Monster Card was strong enough to actually affect the basics of deck-building in Yu-Gi-Oh!'s Duel Monsters when it was release! Even with the searching prowess of the well-missed and still advanced-ban Witch of the Black Forest gone; when thinking up any ideas that involved Trap Cards, Jinzo along with Royal Decree had to be considered as immediate threats.
Because of Jinzo(or as I wished he was still called by ANDROID PSYCHO-SHOCKER), most decks are comprised of the card-type ratios of 18-20 monsters, 10-15 spells and 5-10 traps. Here are the good counter-balance aspects of Mr.
PSV-000:
Strong Attack Statistics Respectable to this day!
Dark Attribute support is immense!
Star Level Morphable to the max!
Machine Limiter Removal please!
Effect Here we see the great effect design at work. This effect
effectively shuts-down most traps(95%). The bad news that it affects all traps on the field. This means players must time Jinzo's arrival well because as powerful as it is, Spell Cards like Snatch Steal and Brain Control totally own it!
So if Jinzo is a good example of counter-balance. What is my example of a bad one.
The following is an example of a card with bad counter-balance in terms of the card's effect design AND for the game:
Black Luster Soldier - Envoy of the Beginning

ATK:  3000
DEF:  2500
Type:  Warrior/Effect
Attribute:  LIGHT
Level: 8
Set Name:  Yu-Gi-Oh! Invasion of Chaos
Card Num:  IOC-025
Rarity:  Ultra Rare
Effect: This card can only be Special Summoned by removing 1
LIGHT and 1 DARK monster in your Graveyard from play. Once during each of your turns, you can select and activate 1 of the following effects:
•Remove 1 monster on the field from play. If you activate this effect, this card cannot attack during this turn.
•If this card destroyed your opponent's monster as a result of battle, it can attack once again in a row.

This card is the Ritual Monster Card Black Luster Soldier on CRACK!! It is was strong enough to actually affect the metagame for top-tier championship since it's release just like it was for his now banned dragon counterpart, Chaos Emperor Dragon - Envoy of the End(CED). Duel Monsters still surfers from it's presence to this day. Here are the good counter-balance aspects of Mr.
PSV-000:
Strong Attack Statistics It's like a Warrior version of Blue Eyes
White Dragon!
Defense Statistics Again it's like a Warrior version of Blue Eyes White Dragon!
Light Attribute support is immense!
Star Level This aspect is of course ignorable barring going up against
stall
Warrior Like there isn't support for these human monsters!
Effect Here we see the awful effect design at work. True the effects
are great; thing is they are TOO GREAT. The fact that BLS has TWO broken effects make most serious duelists get on the proverbial band-wagon and play him too much for the good of the game in the long run for fans OF the game. He needs to go because:
A) Getting Lights and Darks is a snap in the current metagame even
with the banning of Painful Choice
B) Getting one attack through wipes-out nearly half one's Life
Points even at near-full LP levels.
C) To exploit this monster is so easy that it doesn't really take
skill just basic timing and luck.
D) Konami/UDE made a mistake in it's design and are GUILTY of
abusing the money they don't need to make off it. The franchise IS successful but by making the game more about luck and not skill you make it easier for many paying customers to quit the game because of being bored with it and/or fed-up with giving money for a product that's inferior to other TCGs. Here's something to think about Konami/UDE: rogue duelists start forming seperate tourney and ignore official ones just to NOT have you profit from said rogueys and start convincing others to do the same!! It's not IMPOSSIBLE! Money talks(when profit is made) but when money walks(as in no ones buying enough) there is a problem folks! Think about it, as a CASUAL player it is my humble opinion that I don't need any more cards since my deck works fine as is in CASUAL which makes up the bulk of the dueling community. I only get new ones to try out new things.

I hereby implore all serious/casual duelists to recognize the faults of the game and improve upon it by supporting the good cards that Konami/UDE makes that are cohesive in designs with GOOD counter-balance and complaining, plus NOT buying broken money-wanna-be-making cards. I like to consider myself a deligent practitioner of dueling and I regularly go to sites online for all-things DMs, so frankly I'm tired and sick of reading CERTAIN card reviewers'
reviews and seeing "CHAOS FOOD" and ooo "LIGHT" and/or "DARK". To me it just seems like all you guilty-party members out there in cyber-land are on BLS's male-genitalia!! Hey sorry, but I calls'em as I sees'em!! I digress(be diffused), that I don't mean the cock-sucking to you as a person but as a duelist! :-)
Konami/UDE should just ban broken cards or re-release new altered versions that play differently. Here are some ideas:
Chaos Emperor Dragon - Envoy of the End
Require owner to special summon CED via Light and Dark Dragons!? Hmmm!!?
Black Luster Soldier - Envoy of the Beginning Require owner to special summon BLS via Light and Dark Warriors!? Hmmm!!?
If the top-tier metagames suffer from over-use of certain
deck-type/combos: Ban the key cards for a certain amount of time! Make the money later!!
Comments welcomed!

This is Angel-From-A-Higher-Plane from New York City, New York! STATING- DUEL with HONOR, HUMILITY, HEART and HONESTY! Add with a dash of CREATIVITY too, LOL!
Angel J. Fernandez
AFernan104@aol.com