November 2009

 

The Nine elements of Win:

 

            Greetings people, and welcome to my first Yu-Gi-Oh post. I have played the game competitively for about three years and have a bunch of local first place wins, 4 top 8s, and 1 first place in regional’s (for those of you who want to know my credentials).

    

 Although YGO is a card game, you can actually look at it through an analytical, almost mathlike viewpoint. I think the reasons why a topdeck wins can be divided into the: Nine Elements of Win. Those elements are as follows:

 

1. Swarm/Recover (Two different processes for the same purpose).

2. Draw/Search (Both different but they both contribute to card advantage and situational advantage).

3. The Main Boss (or boss 1).

4. A strong destruction card, be it monster, spell, or trap (boss 2).

5. Effects.

6. Stats.

7. Outside Synergy.

8. Strategy.

9. Speed.

 

Note that numbers 1-4 are theme-specific, and that number 7 and 8 can only be loosely defined.

 

 Now a deeper Explanation is as follows:
1a. Swarm: The ability for a deck to summon at least two monsters in one turn.

1b. The ability for a deck to be able to special summon monsters from the grave, or return to the hand.

 

2a. Draw: The ability for card presence to remain neutral or better while thinning the deck.

2b. Search: The ability for a deck to search through a pool of cards in the deck and put at least one of those cards in the hand, while not losing card presence.

 

3. Main Boss: A fairly easy to summon monster with high states and a powerful control or destruction effect (note that generic synchros do not count as bosses.) Or: The card that the deck always wants to use because it multiplies its chances of winning more than any other card in the deck.

 

4. Second Boss: Any card that can provide strong, cheap destruction.

 

5. Effects: Cards not listed in the other categories that can disrupt card presence, monster stats etc…

 

6. Stats: How many normal summoned, or easy special summoned monsters can hold their own in a battle. (2-3 monsters with 1700-1800 is a common amount of strong monsters in the current metagame.)

 

7.  Outside Support: How good non-staples, non-themed are in the deck.

 

8. Strategy: A generic but very achievable series of events that can cause the game to turn into a favorable situation. Note: A good deck has many backup strategies.

 

9. Speed: How fast all of these can be achieved. 

 

Those are the nine elements that make today’s deck good. Considering that this is very speculative territory I plan to write more articles in the future about this, and hopefully will be able to write decklists in the future and “dissect” them using these components. s

 

Questions or comments?

Shoot me an email at kuribohsquad@hotmail.com