Six Samurai - The power hiding behind Shi En

We all know that Six Samurais (6S) is a luck-based deck.

Don't get me wrong, I respect all the Six Samurai players, including Junior Dorcin, Oscar Zavala, Sean Coovert,... You need to be a good player to do the correct combos with your given hand. The luck-based side is that, if you don't draw well enough, there's nothing you can do.

I'm not talking about luck today. I'm talking about the deck when it goes like expectation. What makes it good?

Shi En is a spell and trap negator, which is always good. 2500 is respectable in his era, but not now. Boss monsters (the Dragons, Master Hyperion, the Chaos duo) and especially the easy access to extra deck without using spell and traps (Tour Guide, Wind-Up, Machina Fortress, Summoner Monk...) make it easy to have a bigger beatstick on the field. Destroying Shi En is a little bit harder since Shi En has the ability to dodge destruction effect, and he has Magatama Musanaki as his backup.

However, Shi En is not all in that deck. Shi En is, as always, the boss. But the boss, as always, has his assistant.

• Hand of the Six/Mizuho: The destruction effect seems no dangerous at first glance, until you see it combined with Gateway.

• Legendary Six Samurai - Enishi: Don't ever underestimate this card. He has the ability to get rid of any monsters that belong to the extra deck. His effect is a quick effect, thus if you Bottomless him, he can kick himself to the hand and next turn will be no different.

• Heroic Champion Excalibur/Blade Armor Ninja: In the long run Six Samurai may not have enough resource to keep up with any deck of the current meta. However, they have the ability to push very hard (even without Gateway). 4400/4000 + 2500 is 6900/6500, no joke here! You may find yourself near death very often, and if you cannot push through everything the following turn, gg.

• Kageki + Shadow of the Six: 3500 (Kageki) + 2500 (Shadow) is 6000. No joke again!

Why am I talking about Six Samurai now? Because it's the black horse you should be watching out for. You say it has bad match-ups against everything? Yes, it seems. But aside from Wind-Ups and Karakuri (monster heavy variants of its, including Geargia), not many decks can set themselves up fast enough without the help of spell and trap.

Let's take a look at Chaos Dragon: Charge of the Light/Solar Recharge is denied. What will you do? Nothing looks effective against Samurais' field, from Ryko to Zenmaines. Or Mermails. You have no access to Abyssphere, so what if your Undine eats a Warning? Nothing you can do because even if you have Abyssmegalo AND Heavy Infantry (commonly run at 2 each), you have to get rid of all the other Samurais before touching Shi En (Megalo is smaller than Shi En if you do not realize it). No easy task. And what will Evolzar Laggia/Dolkka do against Shi En assuming no Forbidden Lances?

The real power of Samurais comes from turn 1-2 plays. If they go explosive turn 1 and you cannot break through, there's a high chance their turn 2 will be your last unless you play an incredible amount of traps. No matter how fast current metas are, people have 1 normal summon a turn. If you can't make use of it, or your opponent just doesn't let you, it's bad.

Side story: Today I picked my Samurai deck against Wind-Ups. I went first, ending my field with Gateway, Kizan, Grandmaster and Shi En, setting Bottomless. My opponent MST'd the Bottomless (I let it go because I feared Dark Hole or any power spell), then go Shark Magician into Tiras and Utopia. Utopia killed Grandmaster, Tiras killed Kizan and Gateway. Second turn, I searched for Enishi with ROTA, and as soon as my opponent got to his draw phase, his field was cleared. He sacked Rat from the top, made Acid Golem and killed Shi En (I have no Samurais in grave to feed Enishi T_T). My turn, I dropped Dojo and Mizuho, forcing out Torrential. His turn, he sacked a second Rat and make Zenmaity + Gigabrilliant to wreck me. My turn, I topped Elder (with an 1-counter-Dojo), make Catastor and killed Zenmaity. He flopped Rabbit of the top, summon it, pumped it to 1700 (and Brilliant to 2400), ended. I killed Brilliant with Catastor, set Double-Edged. He passed. I sacked a Kizan and Double-Edge for Shi En + Enishi into a field of Catastor, Shi En, Blade Armor Ninja to stole the game (Enishi cleared his Rabbit)

Like I said, getting Shark Magician'd and field cleared is not the end for Sams.

So, watch out!

And thanks for reading xD

Mermails, and Konami, yet again

I tried playing Mermails on DN today. They are, expectably, too strong, and I felt really sorry for my opponent each time I beat them with the usual boring combos.

It's way too easy to create a +4 in card advantages when playing Mermails. I'm not telling more specifically about its plays, you guys should all be familiar with them. The exact same feelings as if I were playing Inzektors with 3 Dragonflies and Hornets. Popping cards on the field, special summoning a lot of monster, massive damage and usually ending the duel in 1 or 2 turns. Everytime I started with an "average" hand, I had game. They are too broken, but also too boring as I didn't even need to think of what to do. Just summon Megalo, popping some cards, add Abyssphere, drop Moulinglacia, picking some more cards, attack for near game, set Sphere end. Next turn is gg no matter what.

Yes, I don't even need to think of anything to special after 2 hours of playing. I miss the early Plant format (2 Danylion, 2 Lonefire Blossom, Spore but no Bulbs) when I have to consider my moves every turn. I love YGO, as I've always been loving it for 7-8 years. But I'm getting tired, really.

So the question is, what the **** has Konami done to YGO?

I quitted during the TeleDAD format so I'll only be talking about more recent formats. In 2009, "Big 3" were Blackwing, Lightsworn and Cat Synchro. Blackwing was the most balanced: beatdown (Shura), some "average" special summoning elements (Bora, Gale, Blizzard), attack boost (Sirocco). The only annoying thing was triple Black Whirlwind which gave them too much speed. Handleable after all. Lightsworn is explosive but inconsistent, just like Chaos Dragon today. Cat Synchro made better push than Blackwing, but they didn't have any reliable combos aside abusing the Cat.

Then came the X-Sabers and Infernities. More summoning, faster, more inconsistent. Infernities were mad as always, but they needed setup. Same as Sabers, they needed to set up to start combo off.

In 2011, the plant-based decks became popular. Quickdraw Dandy, Debris Hime, Dark Debris (Doomcaliber, Caius, DAD...). Best recent format IMO

The 3 mentioned eras were good. The most important reason was that we didn't need to play the exact same thing as the other players who piloted the same deck (aside from Lightsworn and Frog FTK in game 1 only). We were not forced to do anything for the win. Each person had a different playstyle, which led to different approach to the game, and that way of approaching the game can be changed against different match-ups. Of course, as time went on, more broken hands were created more usually. Again, those broken hands could be abused by many different ways.

Take a look at recent metas: Six Samurai: Gateway, United, Kageki and Kagemusha and a bunch of Kizans ending with Shi En, some Kizans and some prioections. Agents just did the same thing everytime: Earth for Venus, Venus for 3 Balls (along with T.G. Striker sometimes), then Hyperion and Kristya came out. Or Inzektor: Dragonfly equips Hornet, boom, Centipede comes out, boom, adds Dragonfly, and Gigamantis included sometimes. Or Wind-Up loops? Or set Geargiarmor + Nishipachi? Or Dark Solitaire World?

...

..

.

I mean, the old decks' strategy couldn't be explained in one line of words. The new meta decks, conversely, are very easy to understand and operate. The consequences can easily be seen: Skills are not as important anymore. You don't need skills to to those combos mentioned above. We, semi-pro or competitive duelists, do not feel bad losing. But, it's really really bad to lose against an under-average player just because they have better hand. That thing did happen in the past, but not as frequently as now.

It's just some random thoughts of me about the game right now. I'm not quitting, I'm still in love with it. Just hoping things will get better soon. Don't talk about Cosmo Blaze here. Onslaught of the Fire King, along with their 2700 boss which has a Cyber Eltatin-like effect, is just as stupid as Mermails.

Btw, my Mermails build that I used:

Some explanation:

Max on almost everything: I'm not a control player. I just want to go fully aggressive as soon as possible.

Abyssgunde: I play too fast, which results in a lot of dead (Warning'd, Torrential'd,...) Mermails in grave. Bringing back a second Megalo for instant Big Eye is cool.

No Diva: the normal summon is often taken by Abysspike or Undine.

Against the Mermails

Yes Inzektor took the title at YCS Seattle, but the thing I noticed the most was the interesting showing of Mermail - Atlanteans in the YGO TCG. The deck looks like another version of Inzektor, with which you can creates massive card advantages through searching/blowing cards on the field.

Before moving on to side-decking, there're some notes for game 1 against Mermails. I myself have played a lot against them, and honestly my advice could only work when you're against an average hand. If your opponent open broken, just save time for side-decking.

1. Don't waste your MST blindly: This is maybe the most important thing about playing vs Mermails. If your MST walks into Abyssphere, which happens very often, you're dead. They can search out Abysslinde, then Abysslinde will be destroyed along with Abyssphere, and then Abysspike or Megalo can come out at any time. Unless you have a very developed field, Abysspike will be picked for some setup. At this point my advice is trying to finish the game because if you don't, your opponent will. Save your MST so that you can chain it to the activation of Abyssphere, at least it will be an one for one trade.
2. Don't use Gorz/Tragoedia too early. At least wait for 1-2 copies of Heavy Infantry out of their access. Aside from Infantry (which is commonly run at 2), they don't have that big monster to run over a 2400 Tragoedia or Gorz (Catastor cannot help, which is pretty good)
3. Don't attack their set monsters. Usually you'll hit an Abysslinde which calls out Abysspike/Megalo and shit will happen next turn.
4. Veiler the Divas/Megalos, and Maxx "C" the Spheres. The former is kinda obvious. About Sphere: If they get out Abysslinde and let it die to summon one more time, you get +1. If they don't get Abysslinde, you get +1 too.
5. Hit Moulinglacia: the Elemental Lords (Moulinglacia and Grandsoil) have the same drawback. If you want to survive another turn, Moulinglacia is your target.
6. Don't use Veiler on Genex Undine...

So now let's come to the side deck. The obvious choice are graveyard hate like Dimensional Fissure, Macro Cosmos, Banisher of the Radiance/Light, or even The End of Anubis! But what if you cannot run those card? I have some suggestions here:

1. Debunk: Destroys everything, including an in-hand Megalo. Sadly you can use only 1 Debunk, so if your opponent discard 2 Atlanteans to summon Megalo, just take the minuses from the Atlanteans and Debunk Megalo away. You don't want to face a 2400 double attacker backed with Abyssphere.
2. Soul Drain: Cannot stop Megalo, but it prevents ALL the destruction effects. Without too many minuses that setup is handleable. If you can affore Skill Drain, you can lock them down completely.
3. Mind Crush: Because Megalo uses the chain to summon, you can Crush it away before it hits the field. Crush also helps against the Dragoons' search, Salvage, etc... Sweetest play would be chaining Mind Crush to Allure of Darkness, calling Genex Controller. At least you rob them a Gorz/Tragoedia. Once I dropped 7 cards from my opponent's hand with that play.
4. Deck Devastation Virus: the Atlanteans, beside Dragoons, is small. Luckily Dragoons do nothing on their own. the Mermails are small too. Under Virus, their best play maybe summoning Abysspike, discard Dragoons to search Moulinglacia...
5. Wild Tornado: Yes, Wild Tornado. It helps against Abyssphere, and if it's randomly hit by Marksman, you still gain back a card from your opponent.
6. Gemini Imps: Mermails' winning play is often dropping Moulinglacia to eliminate the last chances of getting fought back. And if you successfully use Imps, you just destroy Moulinglacia which gives you another turn of breathing.
7. Multiple Veilers and Maxx "C", at least.

Conclusion? If something is good against Inzektor, it will probably be good against Mermails.

Side note: If you're running a fast, aggressive deck like Dragons, Agents, you should make big pushes as soon as possible. Mermails have a lot of advantages mid to late game, when they're set up and they start to have pluses from Salvages.

With Mermails getting more and more popular, I guess any of you guys should have some preparation of facing it. If you have more interesting choices, just comment below for my appreciation! Thanks for reading..

Mind Crush

"Declare 1 card name; if that card is in your opponent's hand, they must discard all copies of it, otherwise you discard 1 random card."

 So let's make a list of top tier deck (TCG)

• Wind-Up
• Geargia
• Machina Gadget
• Agent
• Chaos Dragon
• HERO
• Mermails

Too many LOL. Not in any order btw.

So let's take a look at how Mind Crush does against these deck:

1. Wind-Up: They play Factories! And when they normal summon Wind-Up Magician or special summon it with Zenmaity, just go confident and call SHARK, you win more than 90% of time.
2. Geargia: Just call Geargiaccelerator when you know they have it, at least you stop them for a turn.
3. Machina Gadget: They search to much. Just don't call Fortress, ok?
4. Earth searches Venus. Later on you should have some good read to call Hyperion/BLS/Kristya at the right time.
5. Eclipse Wyvern searches! Sadly people do not often play more than 1 Wyvern now. Charge of the Light Bridgade and Sangan search too. Overall Mind Crush does not do much against Dragons because it's hard to read Darkflare/Lightpulsar/BLS/DAD/Sorcerer/... Too many
6. HERO: E - Emergency Call and Stratos! Try to read Miracle Fusion too. If you're facing Bubblebeat then it's easier to use Crush.
7. Mermails: You can chain Mind Crush to Megaloabyss's summoning effect. It will be dropped to graveyard and no Abyssphere will be added. Abysspike, Atlantean Dragoons do searches too, not mentioning Salvage. Just don't call Genex Controller LOL

Aside from those specific use, Mind Crush can be used when you read Gorz, Tragoedia Veiler... Don't call Maxx "C", they can just chain it. Pot of Dualities among with other searching spells (Seal of Convocation, GB Proving Ground,...) are widely used too.

There're actually a lot more ways to abuse Mind Crush, but they depend on the state of the game you're playing. Try to read your opponent's mind, just try. Becoming better at using Mind Crush means becoming better at YGO overall since YGO has something called "mind game" which is really important and it defines the good and the best players.

That's for today, thanks for reading.

Abyss Rising Fish?

That ugly guy is still the boss.

Basically , the combo I'm thinking of:

Activate Superancient Deepsea King Coelacanth (SDKC), discarding Atlantean Dragoons to special summon 3 Mermail Abyssmanders and a Royal Swamp Eel, then using the Dragoons' effect to add Moulinglacia the Elemental Lord to your hand.

Do whatever synchro or xyz plays that you can do to get exactly 5 WATER in your graveyard. It depends on the number of Treeborn Frogs, Ronintoadins and friends that you loaded your graveyard with. Remember to pick xyz that can detach from itself without rough conditions (I'm talking of Maestroke, Photon Papilloperative, Abyss Dweller or something like that). If your opponent is running low on Life Point (rarely happens since you can only push once per duel), you can just go for the mighty Shock Master and call trap. I know you want to prevent Gorz/Tragoedia but Shock Master stops yourself too.

Back to the combo, after load your graveyard with WATERs, drop Moulinglacia to pick 2 cards from your opponent's hand. From this point you have SDKC, Moulinglacia and usually 2 synchro/xyz monsters on the field, enough for an OTK in most cases.

Sometimes after getting 1 Abyssmander into the grave you can use its effect to pump the 2 other Abyssmander to level 6 and go for Strike Bounzer/Force Focus/Exa-Beetle, or level 5 for Adreus/Volcasaurus (most of the time, to deal some damage then upgrade it to Gaia Thunder Charger, OCG use only, but it conflicts with Abyssmander which is a TCG Exclusive LOL).

Or when you don't have access to Moulinglacia just make Scrap Dragon + Stardust Dragon/Thought Ruler Archfiend with Ronintoadin as your free Scrap Dragon's bullet. 2800 + 2800 + 2500/2700 is still an OTK anyway.

The damn weaknesses is Moulinglacia itself. If you fail to OTK and your opponent clear your Moulinglacia next turn you'll be stopped for a turn, and then realize you have nothing left in your deck for combos. Metabo Shark or Pot of Avarice? They're dead in your hand most of the times IMO

Still I'm thinking because the additional OTK conditions (Atlantean Dragoons and Moulinglacia) take 5-6 slots in main deck, which used to belong to Light and Darkness Dragon and some extra defense (Tragoedia, Maxx C, Veiler...). It helps OTK, but it also make you feel dead when that OTK fails.

What do you think?

If you have time, feel free to make a deck based on the combo and test it for me, I'll be highly thankful for that :D

Chaos Dragon - My take on it

This is a decklist post!

But before I show you guys my Chaos Dragon build, I've got something to talk about it.

So the September ban list took away Future Fusion and 2 (1 in other builds) Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragons (REDMD).

In fact I don't really care about the former. Trust me or not, I've never played Future Fusion in all of my Chaos Dragon builds since I got my SDDCs. Reasons? Same as Peter Gross, it's a power card, but it also makes your opponent's Mystical Space Typhoons (MST) live. Because I wanted to make them DEAD, I decided not to include Future Fusion. Surely that means I didn't have any YOLO moments, but when I lost one copy of Recharge and replaced it with Future Fusion, Lyla milled it all the times. To conclude, I didn't think I needed it.

However, with REDMD limited to one copy per deck, my deck (more like my style, whatever) had to change. I'm used to special summoning REDMD from my hand, getting more dragons to my field and killing my opponents in less than 2 turns. My goal is not generating the REDMD-Lightpulsar loop. My goal is eliminating my opponent's 8000 LP, so I played 3 REDMDs (and 3 Eclipse Wyverns, 3 Darkflare Dragons) because REDMD in hand meant more damage.

Back to present. Deck changed, my playstyle did not. I sill want to do big big push, as big as possible, rather than controlling the field or such... Since 1 REDMD is never enough (even with Eclipse Wyverns at 3), I need to find another way of dealing damage. I tried everything: the Lightrays, Hieratic Dragon of Tefnuit (and Su, once, to make Atums), Gold Sarcophagus/Pot of Duality/Card Car D. The problem is that I never draw the right cards at the right time, like top-decking Card Car D when I need a Dark or Light to feed Lightpulsar, or late game Gold Sarcophagus when I have used/milled all the BLS, REDMD, Heavy Storm, Monster Reborn, etc..., or even Tefnuit when my field is already filled with monsters, Lightray when I have dropped all the Chaos things and did not even have 3 different Lights...

Shit.

And then I realized I was playing a Dragon combined with Lightsworn deck, and the Lightsworn boss is a Dragon which can be searched with Eclipse Wyvern.

So? I increased the number of different Lightsworns, added 1 Judgment Dragon as a tech. It did surprisingly well that I decided to play a full set of Judgment Dragons. Of course I got dead draws like hell LOL

Still, that's my way. After weeks of testing I finally come up with a deck I'm quite satisfied with:

Monster [32]
2 Lyla, Lightsworn Sorceress
2 Ryko, Lightsworn Hunter
2 Ehren, Lightsworn Monk
2 Lumina, Lightsworn Summoner
1 Garoth, Lightsworn Warrior
1 Jain, Lightsworn Paladin
2 Tour Guide from the Underworld
1 Sangan
2 Thunder King Rai-Oh
2 Eclipse Wyvern
2 Tragoedia
1 Gorz
3 Darkflare Dragon
3 Lightpulsar Dragon
2 Judgment Dragon
1 Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon
1 Dark Armed Dragon
1 Chaos Sorcerer
1 Black Luster Soldier - Envoy of the Beginning

Spell [8]
3 Solar Recharge
1 Charge of the Light Brigade
1 Dark Hole
1 Heavy Storm
1 Monster Reborn
1 Mystical Space Typhoon

Something's missing? Yes, I don't want to play more than 40 cards so Card Troopers have been cut from the deck.

The Tragoedia and Rai-Oh are pretty randoms, change to Doomcaliber Knight, Maxx C, Veiler of your own choice depending on the meta in your area.

Basically the deck's strategy did not change much: when you're safe, drop as much damage as possible. Simple huh?

With REDMD in graveyard, Judgment Dragon + Lightpulsar = GG. Or even if you opponent has Gorz, you can just pay for Judgment Dragon again and set up the exact same field in main phase 2.

Ehrens get rid of set monsters to clear the way for your push. You don't want to attack into Ryko, Snowman, Fossil Dyna Pachycephalo etc... It's my way to improve the Geargia match-up as well. Jain helps killing Rai-Oh. I'll play it at 2-3 if Jain milled 3 at End Phase, sigh.

The lone Typhoon is random, too. Sometimes I face Skill Drain/Soul Drain so I think I need it. At 1 because of tight deck space, and the deck thins itself very well.

Judgment Dragon is the boss of bosses, trust me.

That's it. Comments, as always, are highly appreciated.

Peace!