www.pojo.com/yu-gi-oh

When Cards Collide
By Ryoga 

50: Subtlety
Edit 1: Torrential Tributed

 Oh frabjabulous day! The new banned list is out! My opinions on it, like last time, at the very very bottom of the article.

Last Solution:

             As with most of my easier puzzles, this one had quite a few answers. First, mine (which, for once, a few people got):

1.      Flip Summon Magician of Faith.

a.       Use her effect to add Soul Release to your hand.

2.      Activate Soul Release. Remove all monsters other than Cannon Soldier from your opponent’s Graveyard from play.

3.      Activate The Shallow Grave.

a.       Discard your hand to chain Serial Spell.

b.      You Special Summon Fusilier Dragon, the Dual-Mode Beast and Makyura the Destructor and your opponent Cannon Soldier.

4.      Activate Ceasefire to do 2500 damage (his LP now 2000).

a.       Final Attack Orders changes all monsters to Attack Position.

5.      Have Makyura attack Cannon Soldier to do 1600 – 1400 = 200 damage (his LP now 1800).

6.      Have Fusilier Dragon attack Nimble Momonga to do 2800 – 1000 = 1800 damage.

a.       Your opponent loses before Nimble Momonga’s effect activates.

Final Result: Him - 0, You – 100

            Next, the answer from Testaros25@aol.com, utilizing Berserk Gorilla’s inevitable destruction at the hands of itself:

1. Flip Summon Magician of Faith, adding Soul Release to your hand.

2. Activate Soul Release, removing all but Berserk Gorilla from your opponent's Graveyard.

3. Activate The Shallow Grave, chaining with Serial Spell discarding Fusilier Dragon. Special Summon both Fusilier Dragon and Makyura. Your opponent summons Berserk Gorilla.

4. Flip Ceasefire. Berserk Gorilla is destroyed before Final Attack Orders affects it. (Opponent's LP: 2500)

5. Attack Nimble Momonga with Fusilier. Nimble Momonga's effect activates. (Opponent's LP: 1700)

6. Attack directly with Makyura and Magician of Faith. (Opponent's LP: -200)

            Finally, the answer from Richard Volchianoff, that uses a little trick of Maths to do away with my little trick involving The Shallow Grave and Serial Spell entirely:

1. Flip Magician of Faith and choose soul release to remove Jinzo, Chiron the Mage, and Berserk Gorilla  it’s up to 5 so you can remove just 3.

2. Play The Shallow Grave and chain Serial Spell, discarding Fusilier Dragon. Now that you can both choose 2 monsters you choose Fusilier Dragon 
and Makyura and he will choose Cannon Soldier and Enraged Battle Ox.

3. Play ceasefire, dealing 3000 to your opponent (he now 1500). All monsters go to attack mode. 

4. Since you special summoned and flipped fusilier he is 2800 ATK. Use him to attack the face up attack nimble dealing 1800 damage.

You 100, Him -300.

               There is also argument over another method. It involves letting your opponent select Jinzo with The Shallow Grave, activating Ceasefire, 
letting Final Attack Orders move everything to Attack Position, and attacking, as in the other puzzles.

               I have a problem with this. I believe that Jinzo will supersede Final Attack Orders and negate its effect, but I can’t prove it.

               Anyone with comments on this, feel free to e-mail me.

Problem – Win the Game in One Turn:

            A puzzle from the Grave of another, originally the Life Points in this puzzle were 5300 and I was going to get rid of one of the cards so that the only solution was an obscure ruling. Then I decided the version without the ruling was more fun. Then I changed my mind; and then again. It’s up to you to find which I ended up on.

Field: (the upper part of the screen are your opponent’s cards)

Your Hand:
            Night Assailant, Don Zaloog, Makyura the Destructor, Monster Reincarnation, Airknight Parshath, Dark Magician of Chaos

Your Life Points:                                1100 

Your Opponent’s Life Points:             5400

The Top Six Cards of Your Deck Are (In the Following Order):
            Lightning Vortex, Graceful Charity, Sakuretsu Armor, Kycoo the Ghost Destroyer, Ceasefire, Big Bang Shot

Your Graveyard Contains:
            The Bistro Butcher, Twin Swords of Flashing Light – Tryce, Magical Thorn

Your Opponent has Five Cards in His Hand.

Your Opponent has 15 cards in his Deck.

You have Six Cards in Your Deck.

If Your Opponent Discards a Card from His Hand, It will Not be a Monster and Will Not Activate an Effect (ie. It isn’t and Elephant Statue). 

You start during your Main Phase 1 having done nothing this turn.

Oh, this one should annoy the fire out of my more dedicated readers.
26/9/5: OK, I was wrong. Only maybe a mild irritation. However, all hail the new banned list!

Share and enjoy,

Ryoga

Tripleplay97@yahoo.com

    I LOVE the new banned/restricted list! All hail! It's great, spectacular, and actually showed up before I went to university, so I might be able to something about my deck in advance (phew). Now, I shall assume all of you are capable of actually going an finding out what is on the list. Here's an itemized list of opinions (BEWARE- All comments are made without deep consideration. It is very likely I missed quite a bit):

Black Luster Solider - Envoy of the Beginning: 
    My soul returns to me at last. I ran this card for the sole reason there was no good reason not to (beyond the selling of the soul part). Now I can feel free to remove those Light monsters from my deck and do something better with my 40 cards. This should impact the game hugely. No longer do you have to live in fear of your fragile field presence falling to one particular card. Maybe people will now build decks that have a point beyond stall until I draw BLS. It also means for, at least a month, people might bother to invent a proper deck. Oh happy day!

Delinquent Duo:
    I don't any tears will be lost here. Life is now so much easier for those of us that like combos. Exodia decks now only fear D.D. Designator (and they should). In fact, life is easier for all of us. As I said in my last tournament report, every game in which is activated against me, I lost. Now, maybe, I can win slightly more frequently.

Graceful Charity:
    Keeping this would have helped combo decks search out those last few pieces, and with BLS gone, dumping Lights and Darks becomes more of a moot point. However, to anyone that says it should have been kept, I direct your attention to the Dark Realm monsters of Elemental Energy. When they go to the Graveyard from your hand, they do something. They do something powerful. With Graceful, these decks would just take all the tournament wins and leave us where we started. Nice to see Upper Deck has foresight.

Mirror Force:
    Read this cards banning as, "Feel free to run swarm decks again folks!" Beatdown is being given a boost, so expect faster games. Without Book of Moon nor Scapegoat, sadly, there will be less negation of these attacks, so Beatdown can feel free to literally beatdown until someone thinks of some good defensive cards.

Pot of Greed:
    If you could call Pot-MoF-Tsuki a draw engine, it can no longer be used effectively. Banning Pot removes a little of that great aspect of this game: sudden comebacks. Drawing Pot when you are about to lose can sometimes save the game for you. That makes Yu-Gi-Oh the game it is. However, almost all of these cards can also be used to ensure you win the game when you are already doing so. In future, you will have to secure your position properly to win, and not rely on so many lucky draws. 

Ring of Destruction:
    This is my 'what the?' card. Ring isn't that broken. Now, yes, it is pretty much the only card that ever causes anyone to draw a game. This seems to be banned to fit with the limiting of other forms of attack prevention. If you look, Book of Moon, Scapegoat, Ring of Destruction, and Mirror Force are limited in some way. These are most of the forms of attack negation in the game. In future, if something attacks, it is likely to finish the job (Don Zaloog suddenly stands up and becomes noticed). 

Sinister Serpent:
    Pay properly for those cards! If the card wants you to discard a card from your hand, there is a reason they put that cost there. Discarding Sinister gets around this rule. Cards involving discards can now go back to being almost good enough to play and people can think properly about Sangan.

Tribe-Infecting Virus:
    WHIPPE! My greatest enemy (being a pure Warrior player) is gone! YES!!!
    Being more serious, this was a rather powerful card. Its banning has been called for many times. Think, does this game have any slightly weaker version of this reading something like, "Discard 1 Monster Card from your hand. Destroy target monster." Nope. Tribe is basically targeting destruction and almost all other forms of it are restrictive [hello, Tribute to the Doomed]. Considering we have Dark Hole back, this would have ensured the death of monsters. Now, we still have plenty of other things to kill monsters. They just don't target. Hopefully, type-based decks can now have some more success.

Now, the cards returning to the Limited List-
Confiscation:
    Meh. Control decks get a card to tinker with. A great thing to start the game on, as you know your opponent's hand and can plan accordingly. However, those plans require some skill, so the more advanced player maintains advantage. Now, this is likely to be seen in every deck and become a staple, but it isn't as game breaking as the cards we lost.

Dark Hole:
    In my opinion, the most balanced come-back-from-the-brink-of-defeat card. Unlike Pot or BLS, if you already have field advantage, this card will not help you to seal victory. If you carefully retain your Premature and Call, then yes, this will win you the game, and that is wrong (why it was banned in the first place). However, this is the single greatest card in the game to draw if you face a barrage to monsters, awaiting your destruction on the next turn. This card, like Fiber Jar, changes games. Life should become slightly more interesting, in my opinion.

Now, the newly Limited Cards-
Book of Moon:
    Dagnabit, I liked this card. Last Turn decks suddenly become better. I'm going to have to break down and put two or three Elephant Statues in my side deck now. Well, the ultimate tech is held beck. Arguments with less experienced players about its interaction with Snatch Steal become a less frequent event. Well, we can probably find something else to hold back attacks (its main purpose in life).

Book of Taiyou:
    Why they didn't just ban Cyber Jar, I don't know (I hate Cookie Jar decks almost as much as Last Turn). Well, those combo decks suddenly become much more difficult to manage. Cyber End Dragon also can't manage FTK. It has to wait a turn. Oh goody.

Exchange of Spirit:
    Good choice. Make sure this deck doesn't become too rampant. It's a great combo and is very likely to see play. Limiting means it won't be quite as effective. Good job boys.

Limiter Removal:
    Limited to slow the advance of the Cyber End Dragon OTK. Sadly, it shall also halt the advance of the Machine Deck as this is the single reason they work at all (namely, "Hey I got an attack. Let's make sure it finishes the game."). Meh, never mind. I'm sure Zombies, Warriors, various combo decks, and Fiends can keep us perfectly happy.

Magician of Faith:
    Ooo. That's unexpected. Called for, but unexpected. MoF is rather powerful. It subverts the Limited list itself by allowing powerful cards to come back. Games don't like having their rules subverted (it doesn't do much for the foundations), so limiting this should make those rules slightly more stable. This also limits the use of draw engines.

Metamorphosis:
    Fusions are now much less useful (like they should be). The Cyber End Dragon OTK takes another hit and Dark Balter suddenly finds himself lonely. However, it still a good card and control decks can probably continue to enjoy this bed fellow. It could also fill out certain 'tech' slots just to make Snatch less painful. Not a necessary move, but it should make life interesting (and stop that Fusilier Dragon/King Dragun/Blue-Eyes deck that popped up at my local tourney).

Night Assailant:
    It seems they want to ensure when we pay a cost, we pay it properly. Also, these get around the limiting of MoF (in a rather slow way). One of these might start popping up to replace Sinister. It isn't perfect, but it is one of the best resource replenishers we have left.

Nobleman of Crossout:
    I don't care. I've ran one Nobleman for ages as I can't stand the cruddy topdeck that the second inevitably was. However, this does make Flip Effects better, and as Kevin said, Guardian Sphinx is much better for it (but not much as Mystic Swordsman LV2 still exists).

Scapegoat:
    Dang you! Dang you all! I've run two of this beauty since it came out. Then everyone started using it and see what you did? You went and got it banned! This does hold the place of greatest card advantage in a single card (+3), and it deserved this, but it doesn't mean I have to be happy about it. Another move to make games faster.

Thousand-Eyes Restrict:
    Rather unnecessary, but what the heck! It doesn't really matter and does prove the point that they can limit fusion monsters if they want to. No real pain comes from the limit, as it makes Scapegoat tokens less valuable. Just another nail in the Goat Control coffin.

Tsukuyomi:
    Combo-card supreme falls to dislike of world. Tsuki-lock decks take a serious blow, but they can probably still manage it. Heck, Cookie Jar managed with one Cyber Jar, why can't Tsuki? However, this will now become a valuable card. When you start dropping it on the field, make sure it isn't going to die, as you won't be getting another. This will probably enter the group of cards used to finish games.

Finally, Marauding Captain and Vampire Lord have been unlimited entirely. I don't think this really matters. With the reduced resource replenishment, Marauding becomes a risky play, and who cares about three Vampire Lords? Yes, it means a Zombie deck can just keep brining him back, but we have a simple answer to this problem: Cyber Dragon.

    So, what do I think this means for the game? Games will be faster. Attacks will fail less often, and self-recursive monsters will get a boost. Phoenix decks should be better. Zombie decks will be more noticed, but I've no idea if they will actually be powerful enough (I don't think they are fast enough). Destroying monsters during your opponent's turn has become more difficult, so Priority is more useful. I'd say, though, we just don't know what is coming. When we changed ban lists last time, I don't remember anyone heralding the age of Goat Control. I'd say we don't even know what sort of deck will be winning six months from now. All I can say is I think a lot of people will go to that next tournament with a Beastdown deck, only to discover that everyone else has and that Enraged Battle Ox isn't that useful against Attack Position Monsters.
    Also, after the tournament I went to last weekend, Cyber Dragon is very very very powerful. A card designed to ensure that going second has a use, that Machine Decks gets some life, and to level the playing field between Control Decks and Beatdown. The first two world champs ran control. The next banned list will help control's best friend, Don Zaloog. Cyber Dragon should mean Control and Beatdown get to fight it out properly.

Thank you,
Ryoga (23/9/5)