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David "BobDole" Hoffman on Yu-Gi-Oh!
Yu-Gi-Oh: Abusing the Hell Out of Your Sidedeck Howdy all faithful followers of the Pojo. I'm here to listen to you. To listen about your fears, your wants, and your needs. Then make fun of you for being such a gullible baby. But besides that, I'm also here to give you advice about something a lot of people don't take seriously at all. It's that little thing that sits in your deck box while the rest of your cards are out blowing up and being blown up. I'm not talking about your calculator, or your quarter you like to keep there for a coin flip, or for a soda if they already got a coin. No, I'm talking about the single most useful thing in the entire YGO game. The Sidedeck.
Now as I said, most
people just kind of blow the entire idea of a sidedeck
off. It's just 15 cards right? What difference can 15
cards make? The answer: The World! In all seriousness,
the Sidedeck is one of the most powerful things granted
to you by the makers of this game (Konami). This allows
you to - while in-between duels - switch cards in your
Deck with cards in your Sidedeck. With just those 15
cards, you can quite literally change your entire Deck.
You can completely stop anything that annoyed you last
game, and stomp all over your opponants strategy.
The problem with
most people is they don't like change. People don't want
to have to worry about how effective those cards really
are going to be. They'd rather just take a chance and
wing it. This leads to their opponant figuring out their
entire strategy, and then beating the ever-loving crap
out of them like a red headed stepchild. Whenever you
suggest a sidedeck to them, they just wave it off, and
pretend the only reason they lost was because of luck.
They can keep telling themselves that, but after losing
a dozen times to the same deck type, they'll change
their deck without using their sidedeck, and then get
smacked around by another deck type. It's a never-ending
cycle of ass whuppings.
Now most of us have a sidedeck, but seriously, when's the last time you switched more then one or two cards out? You might drop that MoF for a Reaper because you think your opponant swarms too hard, but that's about it right? Well as I said, I'm here to show you that your sidedeck can be your best friend. A better friend then that damned RFG pile ever was.
A sidedeck starts
simple. Most people just put whatever cards they
considered putting into their deck there. Incase they
have a Mid-Game Crisis (MGC), and decide to put that
Ninja Grandmaster in over that Kycoo. This is exactly
what you shouldn't do. First off, what're the chances
that card you opted not to put is going to be the
perfect counter to your opponants deck? You wanna know
the chances? Roughly 1 in 1500. There's alot of cards in
this game, and not too many specialize in shutting a
deck down. Granted there's quite a few, but not half as
many as most people tend to think.
So what cards should
you side? Well that's a question easily answered by
another question. What is your current Metagame? In
other words, what decks do you run into most often? If
it's Cyber Dragon Swarm (CDS), then side a Royal
Oppression, Jowgen, maybe another monster killing card
(Smashing Ground or Fissure). You'd be surprised how
much people rely on the Cyber Dragon coming out.
Stopping it dead can really hurt their strategies. If
most your tournament area runs these, put 2x Royal
Oppression, 1x Jowgen, 2x Zombyra, 1x Fissure/Smashing
Ground. Those cards will completely shut down any CDS
deck. Not only will your opponants special summons be
stomped on, but chances are he'll get annoyed rather
quickly. We all know what an annoyed duelist means.
So what if you run
into ToolBox Warrior. Well that's easy, anything that
stops Warriors. Kinetic Soldier, Magic Drain, Cyber
Dragon, and D.D. Survivor all cause the most horrid of
pain to ToolBox Warrior. Kinetic can slam down on some
GAFs, Magic Drain makes playing RotA regretable, Cyber
Dragon can pop out when they're swarming and kill most
Warriors quickly, and finally Survivor shuts down the
Warrior Lady and Assailant. You can even side a Trap
Hole incase they run a couple Dons.
One thing I
personally sidedeck, that I feel is becoming more and
more powerful, is Soul Release. Now think about it for
just a second. Pot of Avarice, Premature Burial, Call of
the Haunted, Chaos Sorcerer, and Bazoo. What do all
those have in common? They all get raped by Soul
Release. Dropping 5 mons out your opponants Graveyard
for the price of one card. You can completely stop Bazoo
from pumping, Pot from being activated for atleast
another couple of turns, Prema and Call both loose good
targets, and Chaos Sorcerer can't even hit the field
without a few lights and darks. Admittedly you have to
be careful while playing this, since RftDD decks are
rampant. You don't need to remove their strongest
monsters, just enough that your opponant looses options.
Premature is useless if Cyber and Morphing Jar are the
only monsters in the grave.
Now as I said
earlier, you can change your entire deck with just 15
cards. Monster are the key. Say you're running Beatdown.
Let's take a look at a beatdown deck I built awhile ago.
Monsters 5+: 2
1x Jinzo
1x Mobius the Frost Monarch
Monsters 4-: 16
3x Berserk Gorilla
3x Goblin Attack Force 3x Spear Dragon 2x D.D. Assailant 1x Cyber Jar 1x Morphing Jar 1x Injection Fairy Lily 1x Breaker the Magical Warrior Magics: 15
3x Smashing Ground
2x Enemy Controller 1x Snatch Steal 1x Dark Hole 1x Heavy Storm 1x Mystical Space Typhoon 1x Nobleman of Crossout 1x Dark World Lightning 1x Book of Moon 1x Swords of Revealing 1x Premature Burial 1x My Body as a Shield
Traps: 7
2x Sakuretsu Armor 1x Final Attack Orders 1x Bottomless Trap Hole 1x Torrential Tribute 1x Call of the Haunted 1x Dust Tornado
Granted it's far
from being one of my better decks, but it stole a
tournament or two. Now let's take a look at the sidedeck.
Monsters: 7
2x Don Zaloog
2x Spirit Reaper 1x Exiled Force 1x Magician of Faith 1x D.D. Assailant
Magics: 4
1x Messenger of
Peace
1x Scapegoat 2x Reinforcement of the Army
Traps: 4
1x Sakuretsu Armor 1x Dust Tornado 1x Royal Decree 1x Solemn Judgement
Now this isn't a
sidedeck made to counter several different deck types.
This is meant to switch your deck from complete Aggro
Beatdown to Aggro/Control. The Dons and Spirits provide
hand destruction. The Magician is helpful for grabbing
back devastating magics. The Messenger of Peace is
tremendous for stalling your opponant so you can set the
tempo. The Scapegoat and RotA are great for stalling and
searching. The traps should explain themselves. One trap
I have to elaborate on though. This trap has two simple
words that in YGO mean "Stops Everything". You know what
I'm talking about, don't you? The one and only Solemn
Judgement.
Many people don't
run this card because of the hefty LP cost. Granted half
your LP is quite a price, but let me reassure what it
does. It stops ANYTHING. Anything. Meaning nomatter what
gamebreaking move your opponant manages, you can stop
it. This is without question the single greatest
Sidedeck card ever created. Play your opponant once,
figure out what they rely on, and then main this.
Suddenly, everything that won them the game before this
is getting thrashed completely. It can stop something
that would normally mean game. I use this when my
opponant runs something like ToolBox Warrior.Imagine
this:
Your LP are at 500,
your opponants are 700. The field is Airknight and one
set mt for you, and a set monster from your opponant.
It's the beginning of his turn, and he flips up Sangan
with a smile on his face. You realise that if anything
manages to kill your Airknight, you're dead. He summons
out his DDA with a grand smirk of accomplishment. But
suddenly, on the horizon, lo and behold you flip up your
facedown card... SOLEMN JUDGEMENT! His DDA's summoning
gets negated, and now your opponant has an attack
position Sangan with your Airknight on the field,
standing proudly. You're now at 250 LP, but that doesn't
matter. Your opponant sets two mt to try and bluff, but
you see right through it, as your Airknight launches in
attack with his Heavenly Blade! The battle is yours, and
the thing that saved you was a single Solemn Judgement.
Now I know a couple
of you are thinking "Well why not run Sakuretsu in that
case". Simple, you didn't know it was a DDA coming. He
could have used Premature, Exiled, Berserk Gorilla, GAF,
GEAF, Jinzo, Mobius, Smashing Ground, Fissure or
anything like unto that. Solemn Judgement stops the lot
of em. It's without question one of the best traps to
put in any sidedeck. No matter what your tournament area
runs, have one Solemn Judgement sidedecked. It can make
or break games by itself. It's not so good early, but
mid to late it can prove deadly, and even has the chance
of making your opponant cry.
Anyway, as I
explained earlier, this changes from Aggro Beatdown to
Aggro/Control Beatdown. Don replaces Spear, Spirit
replaces the other Spear and a Berserk. Exiled for
another Berserk, and MoF just incase I need more monster
removal. Messenger replaces My Body, RotA for Enemy
Cons, and Goats for Dark World Lightning. As I said the
traps explain themselves according to situations.
Now as you may have
noticed, this is a deck that uses almost all the
sidedeck cards. It can swap over completely, and thus
you can completely and utterly confuse your opponant.
He'll go from thinking he's got everything figured out,
to be slammed around in the hand area instead of the
field. This can be devastating to almost any opponant,
spare those that actually expect it (Who the hell
expects this?). This is just an example of what
sidedecks can do. Explore for yourself, and find out
exactly what you consider to be nifty.
Well, that about wraps up my article for today. I'd like to go more indepth but unfortunately this is already a good chunk of writing that has taken me several hours. I'll swing by next time with a look at some Cookie-Cutter type decks. Till then, Peace out. - David "BobDole" Hoffman
Notes: Props to the
Chatroom as usual.
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