February 2006

Surprisingly effective way to control your opp's field - Cyven

This tip is meant for all you creative souls who, like me, are sick of all the un-inspired deckbuilding going on by *most* of our supposed "best" duelists. I'm not gonna mention any names or bash people, that's not my right to do, but I can suggest alternatives.

Lately, I've been develloping a deck that works well enough on its own, but can be KILLER when assisted by the following simple combo:

Rivalry of Warlords
Light of Intervention
Ojama Trio


For all those who don't know these cards, here's a quick rundown of their effects:

Rivalry of Warlords:
Each player sends monsters from his/her side of the field to the Graveyard so that he/she only controls 1 Type of monster. As long as this card remains on the field, each player can only have 1 Type of monster on the field.

Light of Intervention:
Monster Cards cannot be Set face-down. Monsters Set in Defense Position are Normal Summoned in face-up Defense Position.

Ojama Trio:
Special Summon 3 "Ojama Tokens" (Beast-Type/LIGHT/Level 2/ATK 0/DEF
1000) in Defense Position on your opponent's side of the field. The tokens cannot be Tributed for a Tribute Summon. When an "Ojama Token"
is destroyed, the controller of that token takes 300 points of damage.

Starting to see the picture? If not, here's what this means:

-Rivalry forces both you and your opponent to only have 1 type of monster out on the field at a time.
-Light forces both you and your opponent to summon monsters face-up, be it in ATK or DEF.
-Ojama gives your opp 3 Beast-Type monsters.

Combine them together and unless your opponent maindecks Beasts, he won't be able to set OR summon. Now I understand how sensitive this combo is, Heavy Storm wipes it clean, Decree, Mobius and Jinzo can all stop it and single destroyers like Breaker, MST and Dust Tornado can chop the combo in half. However, there's some advantages to this combo that you should keep in mind:

1) Your opponent can only control 1 Type of monster at a time. If your opponent is controlling 2 monsters of the same type (let's say, he's controlling 2 Warriors), he cannot tribute one of them for a monster of a different type. Not even Jinzo. You can check NetRep's rulings if you want, I'm sure you'll find a lot more surprisingly interesting rulings on these cards as well.
2) Flip effects become useless. MoF, Dekoichi, Skelengel, Morphing Jar, Stealth Bird, Swarm of Scarabs/Locusts, GK Spy, OVM, all stop being effective. Another benefit is this: Monsters cannot be flipped or special summoned face down either, Apprentice Magician will summon the mons (itself, OVM, MoF and in rare cases, Hand) in face-up DEF (making MoF and OVM useless) and Book of Moon can't even be activated.
3) While the combo ensures you control what mons your opponent plays, your deck (if built correctly) only benefits from it when it's active, without being hurt by it when it's not.

What monster line-up should you play in this type of deck, you ask?
Well it's simple, Types that have great support!

You could use Warriors, Spellcasters, Machines, Fiends, or, as I have done, Dragons:

Here is the line-up I use:

White-Horned Dragon x2
Kaiser Glider
Armed Dragon LV5 x3

Armed Dragon LV3 x2
Masked Dragon x3
Twin-Headed Behemoth
Spear Dragon x2
Mirage Dragon
Luster Dragon (to be replaced with another Mirage) Exiled Force

The random Exiled is in case I don't have Rivalry out yet and I need some quick removal, the monster line-up otherwise speaks for itself.

The choice of my Armed Dragons and Masked Dragons will be explained by the first 2 spells I'll mention in my spell line-up:

Future Fusion
Dragon's Mirror
Last Will
Graceful Charity
Confiscation
Brain Control x2
Giant Trunade
MST
Smashing Ground x2
Premature Burial
Nobleman of Crossout
Nobleman of Extermination
Swords of Revealing Light

NoE provides extra s/t removal, since this deck doesn't get to use Heavy much (when Light and Rivalry are out, anyway), SoRL provides with quick monster removal if Rivalry is out in some cases. You read
it: SoRL can destroy mons. It's simple, as long as you have Rivalry out on the field. Suppose your opponent has 1 fd mon and an Ojama Token. You play SoRL, revealing the monster to be, say, DD Warrior Lady. According to NetRep's rulings, Rivalry makes it so that no monsters other than Beasts can be on your opponent's side of the field, so DD Warrior Lady is destroyed.

The rest kind of speaks for itself. FHD summons are quite easy in this deck and serve as great finishers.

On to the Traps:

Torrential Tribute
Mirror Force
Call of The Haunted
Light of Intervention x2
Rivalry of Warlords x2
Ojama Trio x2

2 is the magical number, 3 of each means drawing them TOO often, 1 of each means not drawing them enough.

The beauty of this deck, though, is how it can win in all sorts of ways, in some cases I got off the combo early enough and dominated.
Other times FHD granted me victory, it's amazing how a deck like this can be so succesful.

Strengths:
-Against decks using many different types (such as Monarch builds) -Against decks with little protection -Against decks with little s/t removal

Weaknesses:
-Against Burn decks
-Against efficient single-Type decks (such as Machine decks) -Against decks that are heavy on both s/t and monster removal

Ofcourse, I encourage you all to work out your own version.

Comments to be sent to:
cyven17@gmail.com

Hatemail to be sent to:
a11_th3_wa1@upy0ur.ass