Lock VS Stall: How TO play Countdown

Lock Cards are everywhere.

Level B Limit, Gravity Bind, and Messenger of Peace. If the enemy doesnt Main Lylas, then theyll be stuck forever, letting you win with Countdown eaily.

But what if they do run some removal?

The problem with utility of Lock cards that prevent attacking by staying around is the fact that they have to be around to work.

In a removal-rampant format that we have nowadays, that just isnt possible.

But what about Stall?

For Countdown, It would be much more effective to not run any lock at all, or very few lock, but instead run a LOT of Stall.

For example, running 35 Stall cards, 3 Countdown and 2 Gold Sarcophagus might not look so nice on paper, but in practice, its totally different.

Since every turn, you are ideally drawing into a card that prevents the opponent from dealing battle damage, thus giving you another turn to draw one more, it essentially gives you near infinite turns.

Since stall cards tend to be one time use, and effectively end the turn(Waboku, Threat Roar, Zero Gardna, Battle Fader, etc), you survive to the next turn, every turn.

Whilst with Lock, you survive to the next turn, given the lock card still is around, leaving the switching of turns up to your opponent, not to you, as with Stall.

The advantage Lock has over Stall is that it doesnt consume as many cards. One card usually stalls for about 3-4 turns, in a regular game, depending on the opponent, which sure beats three or four cards that Stall requires to do the same.

Hence why it is the way of game slowing chosen by Burn decks.

What most countdown decks dont consider is how easily these lock cards are broken through, as well as how many monsters can just slip under them.

Whilst theyre not much of a problem most of the time, sometimes, a onslaught of 1200 ATK monsters DOES hurt, especially after you have no other stall because of the deckspace taken by the Lock type cards, and you have played Countdown.

Conclusion:

Countdown should focus much more on Stall type cards, cards that are one shot turn enders(almost), instead of Lock cards, which work for longer, but are more vulnerable.