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GeneralZorpa on Yugioh
General Musings Part 1
January 21, 2009

I often come up with ideas or opinions and even questions that would not take a whole article to fill, so I decided to pur some of the them to work in a series of articles called General Musings. In here you can expect to find anything from Frog Control to Fog Control, so if you like randomness, this is the article series for you!

Tele-DAD Must be Tele-Stopped!

First off, w00t! Lightsworn made it in the top 8 as the only non-tele deck. Take that Zombies! Anyway, this deck needs to be stopped. I mean seriously, when was the last time that a deck so completely dominated the game? Even in the Gladiator Beast Format, we still had Lightsworn and DARK decks floating around in the top 8. There was ONE deck that has squeaked in by the seat of Judgment Dragon and Honest and that is Lightsworn. Even decks dedicated to bringing Tele-DAD down have not been able to do it. To this, I propose changes to the banlist come March, or sooner if we can. 

Bring Allure of Darkness to 1

This may seem a little harsh, but this is the card, not Destiny Draw, that enables the hated Tele-DAD deck to get to the cards that it needs in order to win. Otherwise they just have a collection of random cards that may or may not work well together. This may hurt the DARK decks or Hopeless Dragon decks that are out there, but this card was never meant to be released and just solidified DARK's continued dominance rather than balancing out any weakness that could have happened. Without Allure, Lightsworn and even a quick Gladiator build can get around Tele-DAD.

Bring Destiny Hero Malicious to 2

This is not harsh at all. Free monsters is what gives the Tele-DAD deck it's edge, and Malicious does that. Not only working wit Destiny Draw, it can be pitched with Dark Grepher or Armageddon Knight so that it can almost certainly get to the graveyard on turn one. Malicious at 2 reduces an opponent to one Synchro Summon per turn, which will really help with the flood of Synchros that the deck can unleash on turn one or two. The fact that Malicious actually has no other purpose right now is a bonus, as his loss will not be so widely felt.

Move D.D. Warrior Lady Back to 3

This is one that I have actually fought for for a long time. D.D. Warrior Lady is a great answer to Synchros and can be easily used to help get rid of cards that would otherwise be impossible to kill. She is one of the more balanced cards in the game, and she should be given a second chance to bring herself and her DD buddies back fro the brink of the trash bin.

There are some other cards that I feel must be limited or something like  that, but these three are in my opinion the major ones that need to be addressed.

Forged From a Blade

Divine Sword Phoenix Blade is a reincarnation of the infamous Butterfly Dagger-Elma. That card had to be banned because in combination with Sinister Serpent, discard costs were pretty much negated. Phoenix Blade has had it's share of the spotlight as well. It was Instrumental in DDT for both getting the removed cards needed to be Special Summoned with Dimension Fusion as well as getting the free discard fodder that was needed to activate Magical Stone Excavation and Lightning Vortex.

Nowadays, it just rots in common boxes and collections of cards that are no longer good. DDT may not be around, but there are plenty of uses for this rather incredible equip spell card. The first is to use it for discard fodder. Phoenix Wing Wind Blast, Divine Wrath, Lightning Vortex, DDR-Different Dimension Reincarnation and more cards all require a discard, and sometimes a specific spell discard like Cursed Seal of the Forbidden Spell. Spell Shield Type 8 and Eliminating the League.

Phoenix Blade can fulfill all of these discard costs as well as enabling cards to be played that might otherwise be hard to activate. I am going to specifically talk about Spell Shield Type 8, Cursed Seal of the Forbidden Spell and Eliminating the League, as each of these cards gives a great advantage but people are not as willing to give up the discard of a spell card in order to get their effects. They would rather dump a card like Malicious or Necro Gardna that has some use while in the graveyard to mitigate the cost.

Spell Shield Type 8 is a great card. It can negate spells for every occasion. You can auto-negate a spell that targets a monster on the field as well as negate any spell just by discarding a spell card. The original text of the card says that you can discard any card, but the errata to the text says that it must be a spell. The versatility of this card is what make sit nice, as you can negate spells like Brain Control and Soul Taker for free as well as bigger spells like Lightning Vortex and Heavy Storm for a discard cost. Not my favorite of spell negators, but definitely useful in a format where spell cards rule the day.

Cursed Seal of the Forbidden Spell is in my opinion the epitome of spell negation. You give up your spell card from your hand and your opponent loses their spell, but they also cannot use any other copies of the same spell for the rest of the duel. I fyou can negate a key card like Emergency Teleport, Allure of Darkness or Destiny Draw, then the standard Tele-DAD deck has no way to bring the horrendous amount of Synchros that it is is famous for, to the table. This also creates dead cards in their deck. Tele-DAD cannot afford to have dead cards in thier hand, otehrwise they cannot win. Especially if you get a Draw spell, they cannot do anything with the cards in their hand and will quickly lose.

Eliminating the League is also a good card for dealing with top decks this format. Destroying a card is good enough, but discarding additional cards from tehir hand is even better. Lightsworn generally don't like their Luminas in the graveyard, and Eliminating the League can sne dthem there. It can also deal death blows to Gladiator Beasts, destroying the Darius/Bestiari combo as well as discarding Gladiators from the hand. But most importantly of all, youget to see what is in your opponent's hand. Currently Trap Dustshoot and Crush Card Virus are the only widespread cards that allow you to do this. So why isn't a card that destroys monsters, discards cards from the hand and allows you to see your opponent's hand not being played? Beats me, my guess is that people don't want to discard spells for it's cost. But we all know how to mitigate that don't we?

Where Have All the Gadgets Gone?

I really couldn't say. I have yet to see a Gadget deck this format that can work well. Unfortunately for them, the deck is slow and has no real draw power. This is where innovation comes in. Thunderking Rai-Oh and other cards have been released that make Gadgets viable again. As for myself, Soul Taker is the big one here, as TKRO will negate your own Gadget's effects. Soul Taker allows you to kill cards that would otherwise be off limits to Gadgets. Shrink can even bring down the mighty Stardust Dragon in battle with all but one of the clockwork terrors.

Of course, we can also use the card I was just talking about, Eliminating the League, to give the gadgets and edge. Often, the deck does not use all of the spells it has available to it. excess kill spells are kept in the hand and are pretty much useless. Against a Gadget deck, a player will often slow play, keeping hteir cards off of the field so that you cannot kill them. Eliminating the League lets you get any monster that they would have summoned as well as sneaking a peak at their hand. You can even use D.D. Designator to remove from play a key card intheir hand to block it before it even sees play as you know the cards in your opponent's hand. You can even use dead copies of Designator to fuel Eliminating the League. That is called SYNERGY my friends.

With Phoenix Wing Wind Blast and Synchro monsters added to the mix, Gadgets can certainly make a splash this format. Krebons and the evil Plaguespreader Zombie can be used to make Goyo Guardian appear out of thin air, which can mean victory with your plethora of removal spells. Nobleman of Extermination is especially good, as you can force th eactivation of Solemn Judgment and Phoenix Wing Wind blast when your opponent may not want them to activate it. Giant Trunade is nice as well as you can set up a field of Gadgets with Ultimate Offering and then clear the way for a massive strike on your opponent's lifepoints.

You can also use Royal Oppression in order to stop Special Summoning, something that Gadgets do quite fine without. This will also stop Synchros as well as KO Dragons from ruining your day. That is probably the biggest threat facing Gadgets, that their carefully built up field will be nuked by an overopwered dragon that deserves to be in a dedicated WIND deck rather than the two most powerful types in the game.

I Like Clouds

Too bad Cloudian cards just are not viable right now. Oh wait, they are! All of the Cloudians stay on teh field for an extended period of time, making them ideal candidates for what class? That's right, Synchro Summoning! Combine that with the innate ability of Cloudians to inflict cards damage over time and you have a deck that can whittle down opposing cards and then explode with Synchros to take the game.

As far as Tuners go, Copy Plant and Rose, Warrior of Revenge are ideal choices as most of the Cloudian cards are level 4, allowing you access to level 8 Synchros rather easily. Since it is the level 8 Synchros that do the most damage, you can unleash a flood (pun intended) of Thought Ruler Archfiends, Stardust Dragons and Colossal Fighters each turn! Much like the Gadget decks, this deck can be outfitted with kill spells and traps so that you can keep your guys on the field long enough for them to do damage.

Not much else to say about Cloudians, but they are really fun to play, so you can put all of those useless rares and commons that you got from GLAS while looking for Gladiator cards to use at your local. Who knows, you might just have fun again.

That is all for this edition of General Musings. you can reach me at raptor1k@hotmail.com for any questions, tips or anything else YGO related.

Thanx for reading!
GZ