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Zero Space
By Perennial Zero
April 11, 2007

Yu-Gi-Oh! Wi-Fi Dueling

Early Observations

Shameless Plug

First and foremost, I’d like to extend my sincerest gratitude to everyone who shared their thoughts and ideas with me via e-mail, and to all the guys and gals over at the Yu-Gi-Oh Duel Monsters World Championship 2007 GameFaqs forum who helped contribute to this article.

That being said, to any Yu-Gi-Oh! fan who owns a Nintendo DS I simply say to you… BUY THIS GAME!

Okay, the free advertisement for Konami aside, I cannot stress enough just how much fun Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters World Championship 2007 is - especially if you’re a fan of the YGO Trading Card Game. And if you’re into seriously tournament-level play, YGO Wi-Fi is perfect for testing out your new deck ideas and strategies against real-life duelists before your next big Shonen Jump Championship.

            Now, on with the article…

Current State of Affairs: Demise Dominance

Demise King/Doom Dozer One-Turn-Kill decks are rampant! At least amongst many of the top-ranked Wi-Fi duelists.

Since some of the more knowledgeable Pojo Card-of-the-Day reviewers have already mentioned the deck in their recent COTD reviews, I won’t go into too much detail about its contents, as you’re all probably going to net-deck Dan Bilbrey’s Demise King deck from the last Shonen Jump Tournament anyway. However, I will say this:

Playing against DK/DD OTK on Wi-Fi often, I have since had to main deck three copies of Bottomless Trap hole to counter Demise King’s ridiculously reliable effect; which, of course, has made me more prone to all the Stall/Burn decks out there. It’s all really a game of Rock-Scissors-Paper.

            Furthermore, I wont say that Demise King is the only “top-tier” deck out there these days, I myself use a Monarch/RFG variant and am currently ranked 1100+, but it is pretty much agreed that DK/DD OTK has already established itself as one of the “best” deck-types currently being played on Wi-Fi (as of the date of this article).

Playing Against Demise King

Demise King/Doom Dozer OTK is FAST – amazingly fast at that. And just like fellow Pojo-alumni Evan Vargas received just recognition for “pioneering” Soul Control, a lot of credit should go to Dan Bilbrey as well for introducing the greater YGO Community to this once over-looked ritual monster.

The Demise King deck runs through resources very effectively, but very quickly. In fact, expect to see Demise King often hitting the field on the opening turn. This is the deck’s greatest strength as well as its most exploitable weakness. If you can last at least 4 full turns against DK/DD OTK (which is no small feat), it shouldn’t be too hard to salvage a win.

After summoning Demise King, the user often leaves it relatively alone on the field to maximize its effect. The occasion face-down monster accompanying Demise King is almost always a Sangan or a Level 4 insect monster (the latter of which is a dead giveaway that he/she has a Doom Dozer in-hand). The only face-down Spell/Trap you have to worry about are the standard “big three” traps: Mirror Force, Torrential Tribute, and Ring of Destruction. Expect all other f/d S/T’s to be stall-related cards or bluffs.

            Preventing Demise King from hitting the field in the first place is the most reliable strategy (hence the 3x Bottomless Trap Holes). Ring of Destruction works, as always. Your only other option, really, is to use cards like Waboku and Threatening Roar, but you normally wouldn’t have those cards in your deck unless you’re running some kind of Stall/Burn variant or perhaps Destiny Dude Turbo. All other forms of defense (Mirror Force, Goats, searchers, etc…) are made utterly useless by Demise King’s effect. Thus is the genius of playing Demise King on Wi-Fi.

Your standard, cookie cutter deck is simply not built to handle Demise King OTK. If you could use a side-deck, then it’d be a different story. However, since no one really plays Match-style on Wi-Fi, the point really is moot.

The Muddled Middle

One duelist who contributed to this article made an interesting point. Amongst top-ranked duelists (1100+ Duel Points), there is much less variety in deck-types. However, amongst duelists with less than 1000 DP’s, variety is ever-present and refreshingly welcome, with the likes of Six Samurai, Burn, Gadget, Destiny Dude Turbo, Remove-From-Game, Necroface RFG, Dark World, and, believe it or not, Exodia making perennial appearances. In fact, I’ve even run across duelists sporting highly effective yet morosely irritating Self-Destruct Button decks whose primarily goal is not to win, but to fight to a Draw (a Draw DOES decrease your Duel Points, by the way).

            One of these decks I’d like to highlight is Necroface RFG.

A Wi-Fi Exclusive Deck!

Necroface RFG is an interesting, up-and-coming, deck-type that you will only see on Wi-Fi (at least in non-Japanese formats). The deck focuses on a currently unreleased monster called Necroface. Details about the card are as follows:

Necroface

Dark/Zombie/4/1200/1800

When this card is successfully summoned, shuffle all cards removed from game into each player’s respective deck. Increase this card's attack strength by each card shuffled this way x100. When this card is removed from the game, remove the top 5 cards of each player’s deck from the game.

Essentially, this is an alternate version of the standard Remove-From-Game deck that utilizes Macros Cosmos and other RFG tools, in conjunction with cards such as Reasoning, Monster Gate, Card Destruction and Card Trooper, to pump up Necro to ungodly levels of attack power. In play-testing, the Necroface user often ends up returning nearly EVERY played card back to each respective players’ decks, simulating a Fiber-Jar-like effect – except that at the resolution of Necro’s effect, the user has a 5000+ attack beat-stick on the field!

It’s definitely an interesting deck-type that shows a lot of promise. However, the card is pretty useful of its own accord as well. As one GameFaqs poster so eloquently put it: “It's the perfect way to stop RFG decks as well as the perfect tool for RFG decks.”

Final Words

To clarify a point I made in my last article regarding Disconnecting (DC’ing): If you turn off your Nintendo DS in a Duel you will lose an unmitigated 100 Duel Points, no matter who your opponent is. This loss of 100 DP’s is typically GREATER than the amount of DP’s you would lose by simply taking the loss and/or surrendering to an opponent of similar ranking. Unless the gap in ranking between you and your opponent is significantly skewed (for example a 1000-ranked duelist vs. someone with zero DP’s) it pays to take the loss. For the sake of the WiFi Community, I’ll leave this matter at that.

Good Luck and Godspeed,

Zero

If you have any comments/suggestions, I can be reached at PerennialZero@aol.com