Ryoga

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Ryoga's Realm - When Cards Collide
And the Game Ends
December 26, 2006

            Nothing divides players more than the One Turn Kill (OTK). Many complain they ruin the game by giving players wins they don’t deserve. As I’ll show you in this article, there are some very silly combinations in Yu-Gi-Oh that win the game before your opponent can even play a card. However, they aren’t very easy to use. You have to make some careful decisions along the way, and even one wrong card in the deck can ruin your chances. Hopefully I can teach you a little bit about how to build, run, and even defeat, OTK’s.

            OTK’s are decks that can win the game in one turn, sometimes even the very first. They are powered by groups of cards working together to almost break the rules, and can be very particular about what cards they contain. For example, just one unnecessary monster in a Magical Dimension deck ruins everything as it works by using Reasoning to dump 20 Spell cards into the Graveyard. If Reasoning finds a monster too soon, you won’t be able to do enough damage to win.

Infinite cycles are the most common type of OTK. Butterfly Dagger – Elma is a good example. Imagine you have Gearfried the Iron Knight in play and Butterfly Dagger – Elma in your hand. You equip the dagger to Gearfried. Sadly, Gearfried doesn’t like this and destroys it. The dagger doesn’t like being destroyed and returns to your hand. Now, we’re back where we started. What good does that do? Well, what if you have something like Magical Marionette in play that wants Spells to be activated? Every time we play the dagger, he gets a bit more attack. After a few million times, we’ll have a monster that can destroy anyone in one attack.

Other decks use very powerful combos, the most obvious being the Last Turn deck. It doesn’t need a cycle, just three cards on the field: Wall of Revealing Light (to drop it’s Life Points to 1000), Last Turn, and Jowgen the Spiritualist (to ensure the opponent cannot get a monster through Last Turn). Once you have these pieces, there is very little anyone can do to stop you winning.

Now that you know a few OTK’s, you might be wondering how you’re supposed to use one. First you need to pick which combo to play. The fewer cards you require to start, the better. Cyber-Stein requires Stein himself, Giant Trunade, and Megamorph, whilst Dark Magician of Chaos needs DMoC (and the tributes to summon him), Mass Driver, Dimension Fusion, and Spell Economics, so Stein is easier to use than DMoC.

Also, the easier the cards are to find, the better. Both Catapult Turtle and Magical Scientist can be searched for by Sangan or Last Will, making it easy to shoot 2100 ATK Fusion monsters at your opponent with them, but you might have to wait too long to draw the Future Fusion and Overload Fusion required to get Chimeritech Overdragon on the field.

Once you decide on a deck, use as many copies of all of the pieces as possible. You want to make it as likely as possible that you will draw them. Then, add cards like Reload, Card Destruction, or Magical Mallet to sift through your deck for what you need. Deck thinning is also popular, with cards like Toon Table of Contents (play one to search for another) or Thunder Dragon, because the fewer cards in your deck, the more likely that you will draw what you want. Finally, you need stall cards, like Level Limit – Area B or Nimble Momonga, to keep you in the game long enough to use your combination.

The final thing to know about OTKs, though, is how to beat them. This is often quite hard because you have to draw your answer in time to stop your opponent. For example, attacking combos, like Chimeritech, are often countered with Kuriboh, but you can only use three in a 40card deck. However, just one extra turn should be enough to eliminate one piece of the puzzle and cripple a OTK. Hand destruction is very powerful against OTK’s since they need large hands to function or might only be allowed one copy of a pivotal card.

Overall, OTK’s aren’t the easiest decks to play, but they are very fun. Going through your opponent’s entire deck in one turn with a Cookie Jar deck is very rewarding. It is for you anyway. However, these decks are often easy to upset and a bad draw can guarantee a loss. If you’re playing one, know your deck and its enemies and prepare for them. If you aren’t, have an answer ready, or you might never have a chance.