There’s a lot of advice, a good bit of it conflicting, out here in Yu-Gi-Oh land about what makes a good deck.  If you don’t believe me, spend an hour or two posting your opinions on the Pojo Message Boards.  You will quickly find that there are folks who disagree with you, which is fine since it’s not about being right or wrong; it’s about building a deck.

I’m basically a creative person and I like the trial and error method of deck building.  I make a deck and then I start substituting cards, over and over again.  I really like deck themes and playing deck themes against each other to see what works and what doesn’t.  If you want to see a cool list of deck themes, log into the Pojo Message Boards and do a search on the words “Deck Themes List’em” and you’ll find a post in which I’ve been trying to provide idea’s for folks who want some help initiating their creativity.

This series of articles is going to be completely different.  I’m going to take a look at a couple of winning decks and see what we can learn from thinking about them.  Rather than applying the trial and error creativity method, I’m going to study two decks that we know have worked really well for clues on what works and what doesn’t.  I’ll call this method historical analysis.

The two decks are Ng Yu Leung’s 2003 World Championship Deck and Masatoshi Togawa’s 2004 World Championship Deck.  Isn’t this interesting?  Here are the decks:

Ng Yu Leung’s 2003 World Championship Deck

Monsters 16 

1x Yata-Garasu
1x Fiber Jar
1x Kycoo the Ghost Destroyer
3x Mystic Tomato
2x Don Zaloog
3x Gemini Elf
1x Jinzo
1x Magician of Faith
1x Sangan
1x Sinister Serpent
1x Witch of the Black Forest

Spells 18

1x Rageki
1x Change of Heart
1x Nobleman of Crossout
1x Harpie’s Feather Duster
1x Pot of Greed
1x Graceful Charity
1x Mirage of Nightmare
1x Monster Reborn
1x Premature Burial
1x Snatch Steal
1x Dark Hole
1x Heavy Storm
1x Delinquent Duo
1x Confiscation
1x The Forceful Sentry
3x Mystical Space Typhoon

7 Traps

1x Imperial Order
1x Ring of Destruction
3x Drop Off
1x Call of the Haunted
1x Mirror Force 

Total 41

Side Deck
3x Electric Snake
1x Exiled Force
1x Airknight Parshath
1x White Magical Hat
1x Kycoo the Ghost Destroyer
1x Painful Choice
3x Book of Moon
1x Scapegoat
3x Torrential Tribute 

Masatoshi Togawa’s 2004 World Championship Deck

Monsters 17

1x Chaos Emperor Dragon – Envoy of the End
1x Black Luster Solider – Envoy of the Beginning
2x Kycoo the Ghost Destroyer
1x Breaker the Magical Warrior
1x Shining Angel
3x D.D. Warrior Lady
1x Jinzo
2x Magician of Faith
1x Sangan
1x Sinister Serpent
1x Witch of the Black Forest
1x Tribe Infecting Virus
1x Magical Scientist 

Spells 18

1x Smashing Ground
1x Creature Swap
1x Nobleman of Crossout
1x Pot of Greed
1x Graceful Charity
1x Mirage of Nightmare
1x Monster Reborn
1x Premature Burial
1x Snatch Steal
1x Dark Hole
1x Heavy Storm
1x Confiscation
1x The Forceful Sentry
3x Mystical Space Typhoon
2x Scapegoat 

5 Traps

2x Torrential Tribute
1x Ring of Destruction
1x Call of the Haunted
1x Mirror Force 

Total 40

Side Deck

1x Spirit Reaper
1x Don Zaloog
1x Airknight Parshath
1x Mystic Tomato
1x Berserk Gorilla
1x Creature Swap
3x Book of Moon
1x Nobleman of Crossout
1x Waboku
2x Royal Decree
1x Magic Cylinder
1x Time Seal

My first observation goes back to my very first article.  The greatest ATK of any of Ng Yu Leung’s monsters is 2400 for Jinzo, which is also the ONLY tribute monster in his entire deck and side deck.  His deck didn’t have Blue-Eye’s White Dragon, Dark Magician, Gate Guardian or any other high ATK monster that requires two tributes or any monsters that have complicated summoning requirements.  Masatoshi Togawa’s deck also had Jinzo.  Isn’t that interesting?  Masatoshi also had Chaos Emperor Dragon – Envoy of the End and Black Luster Solider – Envoy of the Beginning, which are greater than level 4, but please note that they do not require tribute from the field as a summoning requirement.  So winning at Yu-Gi-Oh is not about having a deck full of big tribute monsters.

My second observation is that Masatoshi’s deck is a 40 card deck.  In my “The Exodia FTK” article, I argue that a 40 card deck is the only way to go.  This turned out to be controversial with many of you arguing that there is nothing wrong with a 41 card deck.  Admittedly, Ng’s deck is a 41 card deck.  I would argue that if we removed Delinquent Duo and had a computer program that would Duel the 40 card deck with the 41 card deck a million times, the 40 card deck would win more than 50% of the time.  I’m not specifically targeting Delinquent Duo, maybe there is another card that should be removed.  All I’m getting at is a 40 card deck is best and clearly these guy’s are not playing 45 card decks.

I’m going to cut this article short right here, there will be a Part B.  Please feel free to e-mail me thoughts about these decks and what we can learn from them, maybe I’ll include your thoughts in the next article.

notasperfectasyou

It’s easy to find me on the message board, e-mail is ok, but I like open discussion better.

napay’s prior articles and why you’d want to read them:

“Mom and Dad Won’t Let Me Buy Cards On EBAY” presents some thoughts on the good and the bad of buying cards on EBAY and how you might work EBAY for a better experience.

“The Exodia FTK” presents an example of applying calculated mathematical probabilities to Yu-Gi-Oh in demonstration of why a deck 40 cards is a good idea.

“Fake/counterfeit Yu-Gi-Oh cards” presents a summarized version of my own experience buying fake cards and what I learned from it.

“The Star Circle” presents a very visual way to think about the components of your deck and how to think about card flow as a way to improving your deck.

“How Big is your Monster” is about why you need to stop thinking about how to get big ATK monsters in your deck and why you do need to think about how cards work synergistically

 

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