Wybuster/Collapserpent

Aside from being borderline unplayable, the art is something to talk about right?

They go right into Chaos Dragons, special summoning themselves with good restrictions and balanced effects actually.

But what you might not realize for a while is that how much they look like Light Pulsar/Darkflare dragons.

Like... when they were kids...

A quick pic for reference

On totally unrelated note Kodomodragon is apparently "The Return of Dragunity"

So I'm looking forwards to Jump Festa this weekend. I dont know how much card gaming I will be doing, but I shall see.
Theres talk online of a lot of cheaters, as it isnt a very high level event with deck checks, people cheat by playing multiples of cards.
For example, in the past: 5 Gate of the Six Samurai, 4 Insektor Dragonfly.
This year, all the rage is 6 Windup Shark + 4 Tour Guides is blowing up online.

But that does explain the use of Dark Designator in Jump Festa events I've seen in the past...
Imagine my face when I hit a Dark Designator with Dual Spark o.O

Yeah. This.

/sezuar

So. Chaos Dragons are still a thing

Recent championships have been showing Chaos Dragons to be quite the fighting force.

For instance, 32 players, 8 heros, 1 chaos dragons. 1st place chaos dragons, 2nd place heros, remainder windups/darkworlds.


But the most interesting thing I notice about Chaos Dragons is their lineups nowadays.

2 Debris Dragon (Into Orient Dragon)
3 Effect Veiler, 2 max G
0 Traps
2 Mainboard Seal of Orichalchos
3 Deck Destruction Virus sideboarded
3 Darkflare Dragon

Its like they took every "good" monster the deck ever had, maxed out on them, and just ran with it and a few spells.

No night shot, only 3 Cyclones. And ZERO traps, only pumping out your own monsters and such. Not even Dark Hole

A bold move, but an interesting trend nonetheless.

Heraldic Generation

Good day, and welcome to THE 堕天 DUELIST, where we learn about more than just tier 1.

 So, today, we talk Heraldic Beasts.

Just looking at the individual cards, they seem powerful enough right?

Free +1s from graveyard for no reason?
A compulsary tutor even when used as an exceed material?
Said tutor having a 2000 ATK body?
Free special summoning of exceed monsters from the graveyard?
One card exceed summon from the graveyard?
The ability to play 4 Monster Reborn?

God even the less than powerful cards such as Basilisk seem good on their own.

So, what is the problem in the deck? Why isnt it being played?

Easy. It takes time to set up, and it doesnt have a future fusion to abuse.

So, what cards can we use to speed up this set up process?

The obvious Foolish Burial is unfortunately limited, so what about our other options.

Summon Priest.
Since all of our Heraldic Beasts are level 4, just pull one out and make an exceed. Sets up when the exceed dies.

Lavalbal Chain
Summon, activate effect, Dump a Leo, gain advantage.

Dire Wolf
When you need those exceed materials you used to head right on back to the graveyard

No. 10 Illuminator
Never a better graveyard set up engine than discarding then drawing

Miracle Dig/Burial From a Different Dimension
You're removing these Heraldic Beasts for their effects anyhows, why not just bring them back for more ridiculous advantage garnering

Pheonix Wing Wind Blast
Control on your defense and a nice discard outlet.


And now for the true gems of set up:

Chain Destruction
No, not Chain Dissapearance. Chain Destruction is a card, when a 2000 or lower monster is summoned. you can activate, destroying the cards with the same name in the deck, hand.
While this isnt usually a great strategy, its the perfect card we need to dumping multiple cards of the same name for some sweet setups.
Also, these also trigger Leo twice. Free 2 cards!

Generation Change
Generation Change is a trap card that destroys one monster from your field and special summons a monster with the same name from your deck. As with chain destruction, this doesnt necessarily mean losing advantage, as cards like Leo allow you to get advantage right back, and Aberconway can mean late game salvaging.



And now, the Decklist

14
3 Heraldic Beast Leo
3 Heraldic Beast Aberconway
1 Heraldic Beast Basilisk
1 Heraldic Beast Earley
1 Heraldic Beast Twin Head Eagle
2 Heraldic Beast Unicorn
2 Summon Priest
1 Green Baboon, Guardian of the Forest

17
3 Advanced Heraldic Art
2 Reborn Medallion
1 Foolish Burial
3 Exceed Gift
1 DDR - Different Dimensional Revival
1 Heavy Storm
2 MST
1 Monster Reborn
1 Dark Hole
2 Pot of Duality

10
2 Chain Destruction
1 Generation Change
2 Torrential Tribute
2 Bottomless Trap Hole
2 Pheonix Wing Wind Blast
1 Solemn Judgement

So, the first thing that might stick out to you is the low monster count.

Yes, 14 may be a very low monster count, but not only does the deck account for this by running Reborn Medallions for more monster recursion(Leo), the 5 of the decks monsters directly tutor out monsters, and the 3 Aberconway gives you even more monster salvage ability

Different Dimension Revival could also be Burial From a Different Dimension, but I prioritised picking a discard outlet in addition to the summoning.

Now, you may notice the 3 Exceed Gifts.
Most decks would not run any at all, since it defeats the purpose of having exceeds in the first place.
But when you are bringing out Rank 4 exceeds left right and center through special summoning effects and medallion arts, these let you get those materials back into the graveyard.
I wanted to add Generation Force to the deck to search out these cards, but there wasnt any space.

Some rank 4s have no drawback to having no materials, such as Hope, since you just go into Hope Ray.
Another potential draw source would be pot of avarice, returning your exceeds to draw cards.

Did I mention Using Leo as a material gives you his effect when hes detatched?
Use this to your advantage by making rank 4s with 2 Leos, then dumping both materials for a Exceed Gift. 2 Cards into 2 draw and 2 search. Pretty boss.

Thats all for today.

/sezuar

IRL

Good afternoon my readers, and welcome to THE 堕天 DUELIST, where we learn about more than just tier 1.

The first thing I would like to do is to share with you this news article

http://www.sponichi.co.jp/society/news/2012/12/10/kiji/K20121210004748760.html

Now, it is in Japanese, but this being the internet and all, I'm sure you all have heard some sort or form of the story.

If you haven't, heres the low down:
A 29 Year old was playing against a 11 year old in Yugioh at a card store.
After 2 games, which the 29 year old won, the 11 year old kid left.
The 29 year old strongly provoked the 11 year old for another game, and the 11 year old got pissed and knocked over the table (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻)  (it says knocked over the cards, but I'd like to think the kid flipped over the table)

In response, the 29 year old beat up the 11 year old. In the face, and was later arrested for doing so.

...

Wait. What?
That rather disproportionate, dont you think?


Yes, the cards fell... onto the ground, but he beat up a kid over it.

Sometimes, in the amount of connection we have to everyone else in the yugioh world, and how large we grow our yugioh world, and how much we grow our technique and knowledge of hte game...

its very easy to lose track of ourselves in our engrossment with our hobby, and lose track of the greater scope of things.

It is very important to take a step back sometimes and take a breather, and re-assess something from the outside, from a completely different perspective.

In context of the article, it would be to take a step back, and notice how yuigoh isnt as big a part of some peoples lives as it is some others.
For some, yugioh represents a very small portion of their lives. They have one box and one deck and just bust it out to play an odd game every few weeks.
For others, it represents a daily routine of working on decks and hammering out the perfect decklist to chase the prizes, and attending championships on an almost twice a week basis, reading the top articles and maybe writing out your own.
For yet others, they watch the values of cards like the stocks and are keen and sharp traders looking to make every extra cent out of anyone they can.
Likewise, some people have high rarity english decks, expensive card sleeves, and the entire set worth several tens of thousands of yen. while other people run around with dollar sleeves and super low rarities of everything, playing on a harsh budget.

But, when you come together with another person, you have to consider the other persons point of view as well.

One of the reasons I don't play on Dueling Network or EternalDream or ADS is that I believe that card gaming is more than just cardboard slinging. Its cardboard slinging with another person.

Human interaction is part of human life, and taking different perspectives at things is part of human interaction.

Card games and board games are mediums through which people develop different aspects of their interaction skills, or at least ideally they are.

Take some time and a step back and re-assess how much a part of your life is gaming, and rethink whether that amount is what you want it to be, and if it isnt, take steps to either make it more or less of your life.

Oh, and since you all are so mouth watering for actual proper YGO news, this being a yugioh blog and not a psychology/life advice blog and all.

This image been flying around the forums.

/sezuar

Flame Lords

Special summon Gardonix

Activate Seal of Orichalchos
Blow up Gardonix.

Next turn effect trigger

Vanguard Banlist

Quite the interesting choice.
It is a list of cards that you may have up to 2 of in one deck.

As in, you may pick up to 2 cards from the list to have in your deck.

I think this is an interesting approach to the banlist system, something no other game has tried.

FTK Friday - GAWD! AN FTK?

God Day, God Evening, God Morning, God Affernoon, God Midnight.

Wherever you are, hello, and welcome to ZA 堕天 DUELIST.

And its Friday! and the First Friday of the month....

So you know what that means....

FIRST TURN KILL TIME!!!

So, welcome to this months FTK Friday: GAWD, an FTK!?

So, what cards will we be abusing this month?

Awwww yeah. thats right boys and girls,

If you're going to FTK anyhow, why not summon a GOD before ending them.

Of course, running just one isnt cool enough, nor showing off of how stable your deck is, so lets run ALL THREE!

You know, it would be really cool if there was a card that rewarded us even more for summoning all three of the gods.

Something... some reward that cant be stopped... and just wins. Just wins.

Oh. Right.

There is!

So, basically this says: Tribute All 3 Gods. Win.

So, lets get to it!

And now, the article name makes sense right?
GAWD FTK!


So, Todays decklist:


神のみぞ知るＦＴＫ

21
1 Giant Soldier of Obelisk
1 Sky Dragon of Osiris
1 Winged Dragon of Ra
1 Horakhty, Creator of Light
3 Tethys Goddess of Light
3 Holy Shine Ball
2 Agent of Mystery Earth
3 Agent of Creation Venus
3 Hecaterice
3 Master Hyperion

20
2 One Day of Peace
3 Upstart Goblin
1 Monster Reborn
3 Reload
3 Mystical Hammer
2 Hand Destruction
2 Magical Stone Excavation
2 Valhalla Hall of the Fallen
1 Dual Summon

As you can see, no FTK is without a crazy good draw engine going on.

For us, the draw engine we will be using is Tethys, the Goddess of Light.

So, whenever you draw a Fairy, you can reveal that fairy and draw one card.
So, if that is a fairy as well, you can reveal it an draw another!

Although this gives you a lot of cards, this requires a lot of fairys in your deck.
Hence, we use the bestest of the best fairys out there, Agents and Master Hyperion.

Master Hyperion doubles as tribute fodder.
Such great logic here at  堕天 duelist. "Cool boss monster! That would be really great as tribute fodder!"

Back on topic with Tethys, if you really want to draw a bunch of cards, you use other cards to draw as well as they would also trigger tethys.

As such, we run: Reload, Hand Destruction, Mystical Hammer, Upstart Goblin, and One Day of Peace.
As this is a search/draw/mulligan engine in itself, you want to dig up your Tethys by the first turn, get it out with Valhalla (Searched out by Hecatrice), fire off a reload/mystical hammer returning all fairies, and get the crazy draw going.

(Draw! Monster card! Draw! Monster Card! Draw! Monster Card!)

Once you get a lot of cards (read: your entire deck) in your hand, you can start doing crazy things.

Summon a Venus or some Master Hyperion. use their effects, activate Dual Summon, summon a god.

Discard a god using Hand Destruction. Revive it with Monster Reborn

Discard 2 cards for Magical Stone Excavation. Get back Monster Reborn  to get another god card.

Keep in mind that Dual Summon can only give you ONE more summon per turn, hence we only run 1.


And now that you have all 3 gods out, tribute all of them for a Horakhty.

Oh, whats this? Skill Drain you say?

Well, Horakhty's "I win" condition has been ruled to be, like Exodia, not be on a chain and be, in fact, a rules effect.

IE: You get all 3 Gods out, they cannot start a chain in response to the summons, you regain priority, tribute all 3 for Horakhty, win. Horakhty cannot be negated nor can its effect be stopped, period.


Other options for additional cards include: The Shallow Grave for getting that one more summon, DDR + Soul Release, for being even more a bause by getting all 3 gods FROM THE REMOVED FROM PLAY ZONE, Exodia, because why not.
What other ideas do you guys have?

Note the fact that this deck's monsters can function barely with just the monsters.

Hyperion, Venus, Earth, all top class picks, as with Valhalla.

Turn 1: Hecaterice into Valhalla into Venus into 3 Balls, release 3 for Osiris. Osiris standing at 3k, deck thinned by 4 cards. Pretty boss.
Opponent cannot: Wind Up, Hero, Mermail, Rabbit, Tour Guide, Flame Dance, Core Chimail,  Hieratic, X Saber, Grave Keepers, Six Samurai, Insectors, Froggy Frogs for jack shit.

Turn 1: Hecaterice into Valhalla into Venus into 3 Balls, release 3 for Obelisk. Obelisk standing at 4k, deck thinned by 4 cards. Pretty boss-er.
If opponent is playing: Dark Worlds, Chaos Dragons, Gladiator Beasts, Heros, or anything that banks on spot removal, kindly remind them that they have ZERO outs in their deck to the situation, as Obelisk cannot be targeted. Oh Snap.

Turn 1: Hecatrice into Valhalla into Tethys. Activate one day of peace, draw 1 reveal and draw another. Dont FTK because they thing you're a scrub and they wont OTK thanks to one day of peace. Enter your next draw phase and draw your deck.


Thats all for this month's FTK.

until next time,

/SezUAr

Summon! Osiris!

Summon! Osiris!
NO! SOLEMN JUDGEMENT!!! PAY 4k!

OK! OSIRIS RESOLVES! ATTACK FOR 5k!

So, lately I've been messing around with Heiratic Osiris.

Other than being incredibly fun, Its actually quite stable and suprisingly explosive.

Apparently you can solemn warning/judgement the god cards, they just wont do anything, and you waste your cards.
It was just someone's ruling at the store today, so I havent looked it up, but yeah. If you ever want to make one last struggle before death, solemn an Osiris. Totally a smart move.


But on to the discussion of Heiratic Osiris.

See, most builds do the same thing, and other than the staples and entire engine itself, the deck actually has a total of 5-7 empty slots for "Tech"

Some people play Black Garden.

It gets you your tribute fodder(yay), clogs the opponents field with tokens(so many decks nowadays hardly run tuners its not a disadvantage anymore. They cant get rid of them by exceeds!

And, with Osiris, there are 2 very nice interactions.

The first, being a god card, No chain can start when this card is normal/special summoned.
 This means that Black Garden will never get a chance to halve Osiris's attack!

The second is using it against opponents.
Now, whenever a monster is normal/special summoned, the following chain happens.
For examples sake, lets pick Rescue Rabbit. Because thats totally a genius move when staring down an Osiris.

So, they normal summon Rabbit.
Since Black Garden and Osiris have the same trigger, Simultaneous Effects Go On Chain, so you build the chain like this:
Chain 1: Osiris
Chain 2: Black Garden.

So black garden halves their attack in chain 2, gives you a token, and then Osiris eats up the halved attack.
Yep, thats right, this means that Osiris eats EVERYTHING smaller than 4001 ATK.
Not even The Wicked God Dreadroot gets through.
Dayyyummmmmm

Use this with Dark Simorgh. Pretty much wins you the game.

Now, another of the super cool cards that people chose to run is the 5 Exodia Parts.

No lie, some people play Heiratic Osiris and splash Exodia.

So, how does this work?

Well, the backbone of the deck, as we all know, since tier 1 competitive decks isnt everything in yugioh,
Is Tributing a bunch of Heiratics, getting tribute fodder for Osiris, and then tributing them for Osiris.
A lot of tributing, no?

So, to go with Osiris, people run Super Rejuvenation, since whats better than Osiris on the field?
Osiris on the field, setting all your hand as backrow, then drawing 10. Thats what.

So, for this draw 10+, people just decided to play in Exodia, since, why not.
Osiris on field, 3-4 backrow, and draw 10.
Discard 4? Naw im good. Exodia.

Almost as fun as Flame Dance Core Chimails, which, a suprisingly large amount of people as their sub non tourney deck.

/sezuar

FTKs in the format

Nope, not One Turn Kill,

First Turn Kill.

Usually, FTKs use either a massive burn effect, multiple of them, to win.

Its just that during my testing and research, some things has popped up on the topic of FTKs:

1: There are a lot of FTKs that are viable in this format
2: Holy crap they're actually stable.
3: Like, actually really considering bringing to tournaments stable.

The current format has a lot of viable tier 1-1.5 decks, and nobody seems to be using them FTK styles.

Isnt that a sign of a healthy format?

Where even though an FTK is viable people dont use it?

Just some actual FTKs in the format people use:

Tempest burn
Infernity Gagaga loop
Gransoil + Windups loop
Angels

and im sure everyone knows one or two more

/sezuar

Today at a CS

Chain 2 Macro Cosmo
Chain 3 Verz Thunderbird

Opponent: Ok.

Chain starts resolving, Verz Thunderbird jumps.
Chain 2 resolves, Macro Cosmos, Special summon helios from Deck.

Opponent: Wait wait! you cant do that! JUDGE!!

Oh dont you love it when the opponent gets warnings for stalling by calling judges