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Cloudstrife 189 on Yugioh
The secret to dueling: Identity Crisis 
September 15, 2009

So, hopefully by now, after reading my last 2 articles, you should have two things accomplished:
1) Have a deck that correlates to your play style
2) Know the key components of what you need to win a duel, prior to playing a card.
Now, this article still isn’t going to address actually playing a card (but we’re getting there), but the three last components that you need to figure out and figure out quickly.

Welcome to my next article, Identity Crisis!!!

So, you’re at a competition and you’re about to duel an opponent. There are three more things you must do to capture that final edge over your opponent. Identify, Identify, Identify!

1) Identify the player
What type of player are you dueling against?

*I have it broken down into 5 categories but I’m sure you can create your own.

Extreme Beginner- The player appears to be playing with a starter deck on a paper playmat with an unsleeved deck?

Beginner- The player is constantly asking you how to play his own cards and struggling to perform simple, basic combos (example, equip pyramid turtle with axe of despair)…He is asking to read all of your cards or an explanation of their effects.

Intermediate- The player seems to be playing with a tier 1 or 2 deck. He seems to know most of the effective combos but still misplays from time to time. He seems to know a bit of card rulings but still might not understand complex procedures like missing the timing or priority.

Advance Intermediate- The player is playing with a tier 1 deck or is backing up a tier 2 or 3 deck with some extreme skill/tech. He understands all the fundamentals of the game and knows his deck and your deck inside and out. His misplays are rare and far apart. Good luck catching him wrong with a ruling or procedural error but it does happen. Sometimes…

Expert- The player appears to be one of the best. His plays seem flawless and best suited for the situation. His demeanor will never be affected by your presence or playstyle. He knows all his card rulings and procedural rulings and seems to be constantly updated. He knows the contents of all the top tier 1 and 2 decks and has lots of experience at major competitions. His misplays seem almost nonexistent.

There might be some more characteristics to describe these players but I just expressed a quick generalization. It is very important to first identify the player. Why? Keep reading. I will tie everything together during the conclusion.

2)Identify the deck
What type of deck is your opponent playing with? Does his deck seem to be tier 1 (mainstream) or tier 2 (sub mainstream)? Is he playing with special tech (cards that don’t aren’t normally seen)? What’s his win condition? Is his deck highly combo oriented or do many cards seem to stand alone? All these questions and more should be asked to accurately identify what type of deck you’re really up against.

3)Identify the playstyle
The player will mainly be playing in one of three ways: Aggro (extremely aggressive), Stall (extremely slow), or Control (in between both extremes). Sometimes, on very rare occasions, you may get a random playstyle where it seems as the player himself doesn’t even know what he’s trying to accomplish. Regardless, quickly identify his playstyle as best as possible.

Connecting the Identities
Now, this is the most important part of the whole article. YOU CANNOT PLAY AGAISNT EVERY OPPONENT THE SAME WAY!!!! Each and every one of the above factors should determine how YOU play. By the time you sit down and finally figure out what deck you’re up against and how skillful your opponent is, it is too late to change your deck and obviously your skill level. However, you must try and change the one thing that you still have control over, and that is your playstyle. Let’s break it apart.

If you know your opponent is a beginner, playing gladiator beast, and seems to be stalling, you might want to play a little more aggressive and press for damage. If your opponent is an expert, playing a dark dad variant, and starts going aggressive, then you need to try to “control” his options and force him to make plays (like dropping DAD early) so you can counter and then react. However, I’m not saying necessarily that one playstyle directly counters another (this has been disproven). But what I am saying is that you need to figure out what your new focus should be in this match up. I see many players do the same opening time after time without taking these identity factors into account. It is much better for a glad beast player to open with Heraklinos against salvo dad, then it is against lightsworn, however, some players seem not to realize the difference. Salvo dad is heavily reliant on spell and trap cards and have little direct monster destruction, except for DAD of course, and would be highly slowed down by an early Heraklinos. On the other hand, Lightsworn decks could easily trample Heraklinos with an honest or celestia/judgement dragon and don’t rely as much on their spell/traps.

I currently play with a dark variant and I constantly tend to open with hands like cyber valley, reinforcement of the army, machine duplication, mind control, destiny draw and gold sarc. I have a billion different openings I can open with. However, if I know I’m going against an expert playing a lightsworn deck with a control style, I will have to decide on my tactic quickly. Will I choose to stall until he decks out by using rota to search for armageddon knight, drop a necro gardna in grave and gold sarc for burial from the different dimension? Will I choose to rota for stratos, search for malicious, play destiny draw and then gold sarc for dad to be more aggressive? Or will I open with cyber valley and machine duplication and go on that way for a more control based strategy?

This is where my first article comes into play, a direct correlation. In this article, I expressed the importance of having a deck to go with your playstyle. If I may elaborate, I still believe that you should have a primary playstyle. You need to have a deck that correlates to how you plan to play a majority of the time. However, after taking these identity factors into account, you need to decide if you should change for this duel. You have to ask yourself a very hard question, “Am I better off playing the way I usually play against this player/deck/playstyle lineup or will I have more advantage to change?” You will have strength doing your usual plays because you know the usual outcome and how to do it successfully. However it could be more advantageous to slow the duel down or speed it up or pace it somewhere in between. It is up to you. But the point of this article is to inform you that you do have a choice! Options are everything in life, and I just wanted to inform you of another option that I don’t see people utilize enough.

So in summary, Identify, Identify, Identify and then make a choice. Will you change your third identity (your playstyle) or will you keep it the same? It’s up to you. However, each identity should play a small but effective part in your duel against your opponent. Whoever can figure out the three identities first, has a slight edge. This is why lots of players try to catch their next opponent in a duel, if they can. This way they can quickly piece together these identities and begin their round with a slight advantage. But I don’t want to end on such a serious note. Try to have some fun in the process. Sometimes it’s fun to play your “lightsworn” deck really defensively by setting lots of monsters face down. It could even prove to be effective by masking the type of deck you’re playing temporarily and appearing like a beginner. They might shift their own playstyle to “aggressive” and then you could explode back with double JD and punish their over extensions. So just remember that options are always out there. The worst thing you could do is fail to think….or think to fail for that matter lol…

Until next time,
Cloudstrife 189