Overview
Currently I’m in eager anticipation of the regional
on the 14th of April 2007 held at Fanboy
3. I know its going to be an excellent event, and I
know I’m gonna have a lot of fun. One of the few
things that I don’t know is if I’m going to do well.
In this series of articles in the two weeks
preceding the regional I’ll let you into a little
insight in how I’m going about preparing for the
regional.
First lets start off with a little background
information. Fanboy 3 is one of the better gaming
placing in the UK, home of greats such as the Simon
Ho, ranked first in the UK, Wayne Pinkney, 2006
national champion, and a whole host of regulars.
This is a group of people that never cease to amaze
me with their unique duelling and tactical skills.
To sum up the meta, it’s one tough cookie (pun
intended). For all details please do go to their web
site: www.fanboy.co.uk
When attempting to go into any such major tournament
there are three phases that you could go through,
conceptualisation, play testing and improvement.
Don’t believe that these phases are linear, as you
can jump straight to play testing if you have done
your background research and decided to copy your
deck off www.metagame.com, bypassing
conceptualisation completely. Note I’m not
advocating or slating net-decking, but personally I
like the challenge.
Conceptualisation
In this article I intend to take you through the
first step of the process with a deck type which I
haven’t seen that much of on the forums, this is
conceptualisation.
If any of you out there played me two formats ago
you would have noticed one defining thing about me:
I always played the same deck. This is very strange
as now I constantly chop and change and wonder why I
don’t have as much success with a deck type. To
others it’s pretty simple, I don’t concentrate
enough on a single deck type in order to improve it
fully, and rather I split my time and effort on my
ever-changing whims. This stops now. Things go full
circle. It’s time to resurrect the Ninja.
The conceptualisation of this deck has involved
looking at a deck that recently won the Shonen Jump
Championship Houston. From Emon’s initial idea of
using Card Troopers to fill the graveyard for mass
removal I have tried to apply this idea to my
signature card, Strike Ninja. So in this I would
like to thank Emon
Ghaneian for winning the championship and bringing
this concept to the metagame.
Strike Ninja allows the player to maintain field
advantage at the cost of removing 2 DARK monsters
from the game. As this effect is a multi trigger
effect baring you attacking a face down Jujitsu
Master or getting Shrunk during the Damage step,
Strike Ninja is here to stay, provided you can fuel
his run.
One of the old ways to maintain this run was to use
Painful Choice to discard 3 D.D. Scout Plane to the
graveyard, which allowed the player to run multiple
tributes, which feeds the grave some more. Finally
the user would drop a Dimension Fusion to rush the
opponent for a win. Alas we have restriction on
these cards, but in return we got arguably better
ones: Future Fusion and Card Trooper.
Here is the proposed deck.
Over Fusion Strike Mark 1
Monsters
[1] Jinzo
[1] Blowback Dragon
[1] Dark Magician of Chaos
[3] Cyber Dragon
[3] Dekoichi the Battlechanted Locamotive
[1] D.D. Scout Plane
[1] D.D. Assailant
[3] Card Trooper
[1] Treeborn Frog
[1] Morphing Jar
[2] Strike Ninja
[1] Sangan
[2] Snipe Hunter
[1] D.D. Warrior Lady
Total: 22
Magics
[1] Future Fusion
[1] Overload Fusion
[1] Mystical Space Typhoon
[1] Scapegoat
[1] Snatch Steal
[1] Heavy Storm
[1] Premature Burial
[2] Smashing Ground
[1] Reinforcement of the Army
Total: 10
Traps
[1] Call of the Haunted
[3] Sakuretsu Armour
[1] Mirror Force
[1] Torrential Tribute
[1] Ring of Destruction
[2] Return From the Different Dimension
Total: 9
Lets look at some of the statistics of this deck
shall we?
How many Machines? 12
How many Darks? 12
How many Tribute? 6
How many Magics? 10
How many Traps? 9
As you can see the machines: dark ratio equal split
giving them equal opportunity to be removed from the
game from either Strike Ninja or Overload Fusion.
Usually I would not main deck Premature Burial OR
Call of the Haunted, but in this deck you would have
to be stupid not to. Both these cards allow you to
recall cards sent to the graveyard from Card Trooper
or Future Fusion. Adding to the chainability of Call
of the Haunted, Sangan, Jinzo or Dark Magician of
Chaos are solid deck choices.
Future Fusion is the crux of many OTK decks but in
this idea well use it somewhat differently. Future
Fusion allows us to manipulate the deck and the
graveyard, on a simple level it places a large
amount of dark monsters into the grave, but on a
more technical level it produces an improvement on
the draw. Do you think that you can win if you draw
a certain card? Future Fusion makes it happen a lot
faster. Deck thinning will be an important part of
the tactic but wait; Future fusion is a Limited
Card.
Card Trooper, once summoned, mills the tops three
cards of the deck, placing them in the graveyard; in
return you receive a 500-attack bonus for each,
boosting him to 1900 attack. What’s more is when
Card Trooper is destroyed you draw a card. This
means Card Trooper effectively mills through 4 cards
of your deck. To bring it back to the Strike Ninja
fetish I acquired so long ago, it can fuel this
little powerhouse as well.
To speed down to the key cards Dekoichi the
Battlechanted Locomotive acts as a ‘floater’. To all
of you not net-savvy with your Yu-Gi-Oh speak; it
basically replaces itself with another card. With a
deck with great milling tactics this is very
important late game, as any card you draw from a
spent Dekoichi is most likely much better then your
opponent’s.
The traps and Scapegoat allows us dodge the bullet
until the key cards can be drawn. Scapegoat provides
an instant + 3 (in pure advantage terms only!) and
other traps taking out key monsters in their arsenal
Snipe Hunter allows the removal of clear threats
before monsters return from the different dimension.
Say you have a set Return from the Different
Dimension with monsters removed from the game, and
your opponent has a face down monster and a set
magic or trap. In order to secure that victory would
you be willing to discard you whole hand? Admittedly
it’s a luck based card, but its 2/3 in your favour
(The Devil’s number, ironically). In short – I like
those odds.
So that’s conceptualisation. What I have tried to do
here is take an idea and used cards to create a
viable deck-type. I would love to know your initial
impressions of the deck. Is it a worthy idea? Will
it succeed? Please send all feedback to emuron@gmail.com
Until next time, when we move on to Play-testing.
Aaron Fletcher
