• Pojo Home Page
  
• Message Board
  
• Contact Staff
  

Mofox’s journey from Newbie to the UK National Tournament.
Turn by Turn Duel
August 23, 2006 

The same day that I had just been schooled by DimSum, Ilya came online ready for some duelling.  I was a little inspired by DimSum’s 10 tribute deck so I digged out my first deck I ever posted on Pojo’s Message Boards, my 12 tribute ultimate soul control deck.  I’d never duelled with it before but decided to break it out of the deck box for fun.  The first duel however didn’t even involve much tribute action as an angry Panda took out his fury on some Ojama Tokens and some Insects.

Note: This duel is old and uses the current Advanced Banlist at the time, October 05.

Ilya says:

drw 6 set 1 s/t and 1 monster end turn

Standard first turn move from Ilya.

Paul says:

ok I drw I special summon cyber dragon and set 1 mon respond?

Ilya says:

no response

Paul says:

cyber dragon atks your fd

Ilya says:

I activate set trap sak armor

Paul says:

I set 1 s/t and end turn

Now I made an error here in what I was trying to do.  My intention was to play aggressively with Cyber Dragon while still maintaining a solid defense.  Now because I had set my monster straight after summoning Cyber Dragon, if Ilya had have had Torrential Tribute set then they both would have been gone.  I should have played aggressively first and then set my defense in Main Phase 2.

Ilya says:

drw

Paul says:

I activate ojama trio

Ojama Trio was key to this deck being able to manage so many tributes, so it was necessary to activate it as early as possible.

Ilya says:

I flip summon my man eater bug destroy your set monster

Paul says:

you got my sangan

Paul says:

I bring GGP to hand

Ilya says:

normal summon Arsenal Bug response

Paul says:

no I have a clear field

Ilya says:

oh right I attack

Ilya says:

end turn

Although Ilya had taken a sizeable chunk out of my lifepoints, he had left his back field clear, his man eater bug in attack mode and had 5 monsters (including Ojama Tokens) on the field and had just seen me put GGP into my hand.  A certain bug was about to get squashed.

Paul says:

8000-5550

Paul says:

I drw

Paul says:

your back field please?

Ilya says:

clean

Paul says:

I summon GGP his atk is 3300

Paul says:

I attack man-eater bug

Paul says:

5150-5550

Paul says:

I set 1 s/t and end turn

My hand was a bit crap so I set a bluff s/t to try and put Ilya off, I actually got a better response.

Ilya says:

drw

Ilya says:

activate heavy storm

Paul says:

you got reload sorry

Ilya had wasted his heavy storm on a bluff set.

Ilya says:

ok switch arsenal bug into def mode

Ilya says:

summon exiled force offer X Force as tribute for their effect to destroy your GGP

Ilya says:

end turn

Ilya was on the defensive now however luck was on my side and I top-decked like a god!!

Paul says:

I drw

Paul says:

sorry, lucky top deck

Paul says:

I summon GGP and trample arsenal bug

Ilya says:

3350-5550

Paul says:

I end turn

It was such a lucky top-deck.  I had only 1 other s/t in my hand and I didn’t want to waste it (heavy storm) so I couldn’t put up a backfield.  GGP was now at 2300 which is still a formidable attack value so hopefully he could put Ilya off from going after my LP’s

Ilya says:

drw activate swords of revealing light

Ilya says:

set 1 mon end turn

Ilya was still playing defensively.  He must have had no monster destruction in his hand to take out GGP and not enough raw attack power in his deck to do something about him.  The setting of a monster put GGP’s attack up to 2800.

Paul says:

ok I drw

Paul says:

I play heavy storm

I saw an opportunity to push for the win and decided to go for it, I would only need one more turn after this to win the duel.

Ilya says:

my swords are gone

Paul says:

GGP atks your fd

Trampling whatever was there.  Although very possible that Ilya had a searcher or flip effect monster.  It was worth attacking just to get that trample damage.

Ilya says:

destroying my howling insect (1300 DEF) = 1500 damage

Paul says:

1850-5550

Ilya says:

I choose swarm of scarabs with howling’s effect

Because Ilya’s monster was a searcher it meant that part of my move I was going to perform next turn could now be performed in main phase 2.

Paul says:

ok main phase 2 I activate brain control

Paul says:

1850-4750

Paul says:

and then trib scarabs for my jinzo (my normal summon this turn)

Paul says:

I end turn

With Jinzo now on the field, any attacks would be protected from Sak Armour and summons would be protected from Torrential Tribute.  Things were ready for me to finish the game.

Ilya says:

drw set s/t and end turn

Ilya was now out of options, it was time to finish this.

Paul says:

ok I drw

Paul says:

GGP atk an ojama token, response?

Ilya says:

    no

Paul says:

ok now I play dark hole

Ilya says:

I think that that is game

Ilya says:

first its1300 damage

Ilya says:

then tokens effect gives an additional 900

Ilya says:

for 2200 total and I had 1850

Ilya says:

good game

Paul says:

yeah you too

So there we have it a break down of another one of my duels.  Now before I get a load of emails claiming how I made this stupid mistake and that stupid mistake.  Please take into context where I am coming from.  This was my 15^th ever duel, and at the present I only have 40+ duels worth of experience to be able to analyse this duel.  I will no doubt have made some mistakes which is fine, and I do want to know what they are so that I can improve my only request is no bashing and no flaming.  I want your help but I won’t tolerate abuse.

So hopefully now, you newbies can see more of my thought processes and hopefully they will help you in your own duelling decisions.  It was a quick duel that highlighted the playability of Gyaku-Gire Panda.  If truth were known this (along with Ojama Trio) is my favourite YGO card of all.

Ilya struggled this time under a lack of options and also the sheer strength of GGP.  If there is one thing to learn about this duel it is about tempo.  Tempo is an interesting concept that I am yet to fully understand and is talked about regularly by experienced duellists and writers.  In this duel we can understand the benefits of a high tempo.  By keeping the pressure on and continuing to summon high ATK value monsters I was playing a high tempo and I purposefully forced Ilya on the defensive.  There was 2 ways Ilya could gain the tempo back in his favour.

1. Stall the duel and force me to play at a lower tempo.

2. Swarm the field and push the tempo even higher above my already high tempo.

Ojama Trio was a useful card as it prevented Ilya from performing option 2.  By clogging up 3 of his monster zones it was not possible for him to swarm and increase his tempo.  That left him with option 1 to try and stall and slow the game down to a lower tempo.  Hence why he started to play defensive monsters, and also use cards like Swords of Revealing Light.  GGP is great in that it tramples over set monsters, and I had conserved my heavy storm to stop him from using s/t’s to stall the game.  Tempo is a very useful concept that newbies should look at not just while duelling but also while deck building.  I’m certainly going to be taking more notice of it particularly in relation to current top tier decks that are about to emerge.

For example, if the new banlist brings about a load of top tier decks that are slow tempo decks, such as OTKs whose aim it is to stall until they gain there pieces and then explode in single turn.  If you counter this by playing high tempo deck and force your opponent to keep expending cards from their hand to their field you may find you will force them to use some of their OTK combo cards when they don’t want to.  The opposite is also true, if the banlist brings about a load of high tempo decks such as Gravekeepers or Warrior Swarm decks then you can counter that by playing a slower tempo deck and try to stall the opponent or even better punish him/her for swarming.  You could use cards like Mirror Force, Forced Back, Ceasefire etc. oh and of course Ojama Trio!!!

I’ve have received some emails about my schooling session by DimSum.  It relates to move made by DimSum.  DimSum has Spirit Reaper on the field and plays Heavy Storm destroying my set Enemy Controller.  I have been told that if I had chained Enemy Controller and selected Spirit Reaper then it would have targeted him and destroyed him by his effect.  Then when DimSum attacked me it wouldn’t have discarded my own Spirit Reaper from my hand, I could have then set it and maybe stalled a little longer, or even possibly come back…. I guess we will never know.  Anyway it is a move that I will definitely think about in the future.

A few people have been asking if these turn-by-turn duel reviews are played in the traditional format.  Actually they are duels pre April 1^st and are played to the relevant Advanced Format Banlist at that time.  I’m weary that my articles are a bit out of date.  So my plan over the next few weeks is to submit just a few of the more notable duels I have had and get things up to date.  When the Deck Evolution play testing kicks in then there will up-to-date turn-by-turn duel action going on on a regular basis.  My next turn-by-turn duel will conclude this match up against Ilya.  Continuing from this one we see a lot more tribute action from my deck and I take the next one to record my first 2-0 victory over Ilya.  Look out for it over the next week.

IMPORTANT NOTICE!

I would like to apologise to those readers who might think they have not had a response to their emails.  You have, but unfortunately for some unknown reason many of the replies I sent have been rejected.  Now I think this may be to with some of the obscure email addresses that you guys have, but I have also noticed that my emails have not been going to @aol.com addresses either.  Picture my face as I log in to my email to see over 150 emails on one day.  Needless to say I thought I was popular, however my joy turned to horror as I opened my inbox and saw approx 75 email rejections.  If you still have copies of your original emails in a sent box or something similar resend and I will find a way to reply to you.

Due to the above notice I have been spending time to try and correct the problems with my hotmail account, it seems the only solution is to create a new email address.  I will be forwarding all unreplied emails from my old address (all 191 of them) to the new one and will gradually get through replying to them.  My new email address is below:

My email address is mofox_@hotmail.co.uk Click Here to email me for any help or advice or even your opinions on my articles.  I would love to hear your opinions and if you have any suggestions to improve them then let me know.  I will reply to all emails that are sent to me.  Remember newbies no question is a stupid question.

Until next time fellow duellists!