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Leon’s South Wall Corner Club
Topdeckeeerrrrrr… My Thoughts on the CRV Sneak Preview.
August 9, 2005

Since the pre-release for the latest expansion, Cybernetic Revolution, has come and gone I thought it best to give a breakdown on my views of the event. I was especially interested in getting a first-hand view of the actual mechanics of playing in Limited format. It was definitely an over-all good experience. So sit back and enjoy while I make you jealous for missing this truly awesome event.

Ha ha ha! You had to go to stupid work! [Points finger and laughs in a pompous, arrogant manner.]

The event took place over two days: Saturday and Sunday. Each day also highlighted two separate events. One of the events was the Casual Play/ Limited event. You could not get much more low pressure than this. It started at around 10:30 but you could come and go whenever you please.
Limited free play took place essentially all day. $20 got you 5 packs of Cybernetic Revolution - which is the approximate monetary value for 4 packs
- and eventually a sixth.

This is where the mechanics of Limited format come in. You do not bring you own deck or any cards with you to construct your deck. You use the 5 packs given to you and construct a 20 card deck with which to play. You then find others to play against. After playing against a certain number of opponents
- regardless of your win-loss record - you go to the front counter with your score card and get your sixth pack. This type of low key, non-competitive environment is most appealing to parents of younger kids who support their child’s interest and just want them to have fun. Its a lot like the Toys R Us Duelist League.

Getting to see these decks in action was truly interesting. With limited format there is practically no monster removal so getting rid of your opponent’s monsters will essentially only be done through battle. So, disregarding any chance of creating a successful combo or control theme, the winner of the match usually was simply the player with the bigger beaters.

That being said there was some truly excellent picks to make for these
decks: Cybernetic Magician, Cyber Dragon, Goblin Elite Attack Force, Lei-Lei, Steamroid, and Jerry Beans Man all had toping attack scores for the set. Gyroid survived more than a few turns and made excellent tribute fodder. More interesting than that I’ve been seeing a few cards that provide unique benefits from no longer having a hand. Mechanical Hound, Cybernetic Cyclops (which looks just awesome for beast down), and E-Hero Bubbleman all come to mind.

Besides just the monsters - which made up the bulk of most decks - there were a few traps of notable mention. Rival Appears! allows you to select one monster on the opponent’s side of the field and special summon a monster from your hand with the same level. Very cool. In future constructed decks I would not be surprised if something like this made Rare Metal Dragon playable at long last. Next on the list is Conscription. A really, really cool card right there. Way too risky for normal constructed decks, but for the high monster content of these limited decks this card was simply amazing. You look at the top card of your opponent’s deck. If it’s a monster that can be Normal Summoned you Special Summon it on your side of the field.
If not your opponent draws the card. Finally, we have Dimensional Wall. This card is like a Magic Cylinder that does not negate the attack. So your monsters will still die, but the opponent will take the life point damage.

I could not really find too many Magic cards good for limited play. They were all combo dependant and expanded on existing themes from other sets.
There was E-Hero support, Machine support (obviously), Element support (Spirit techniques), and one totally random Dinosaur card. Gotta love that.

Here was something interesting though: Pot of Generosity. This is one of those cards you would want to play if you were suicidal in constructed, but I can see the point behind it when it comes to those few cards I mentioned who get benefits from having no hand. Basically, you play it to shuffle two cards from your hand back into your deck. Fun.

Besides the Limited free play there were also the Constructed tournaments.
You bring your deck, you pay $10 at the door, and you compete for prizes.
Pretty simple there. What I saw was exactly what I expected to see from a Constructed event. However, on Sunday I noticed an annoyingly large use of Phoenix and, seeing as I was already using it for months, that kind of irritated me. Oh well. Such is the nature of a trend.

>From what I saw the staff and judges did a much better job with this
>event
on Sunday than on Saturday. They took the Constructed tournament in three separate stages instead of all at once. This made each tournament smaller and easier to control. All and all the event was just plain fun. Our PTO, Tim Shields, was personally there doing raffles for T-shirts, posters, and what not. Judges were handing out TP6 packs like candy.

“Here’s two packs. Oh look! Here’s four more for being a good player.”

How did I do? On Saturday I tried out my Rescue Cat OTK and got slaughtered.
Dropped after second round. Sunday I used a Zombie-Phoenix that I constructed earlier that morning and went three and one to an eventual 8th place finish. I got a truly horrible tie-breaker but still grabbed four packs. Pulled Goblin Elite and Cyber Dragon.

Don’t ask me how, but somehow my teammate, Vishaal, managed to grab three Cyber Dragons and a Cybernetic Magician all on Saturday. Shoot. Way to shake on all the chase rares before the sets even released Vish…

I think I’ll end this review with an analysis of one of the coolest tech cards from the new set.

Drillroid

He’s an Earth, Machine, Four Star monster with 1600 attack and defense. He also has a Sasuke Samurai effect. Having that effect at those stats is simply awesome. This is one guy that I can thoroughly expect to see main decked come release date. Most players all carry an immense distrust of facedown monsters. I am especially bad about this. I would rather face a BLS full on than try and guess my opponent’s one face down. When I have to attack that Magician it just pains me to see how quickly I can lose. A lot of people extend this fear to tech cards like Mystic Swordsman lv2. Now you can get the same effect, but at a decent attack. Watch out for this guy.

I’ll sign off now. Thank you all for your e-mails. I promise I’ll try to answer them all over the week. For any questions, comments, or ideas you know where to find me.

Peace.