3v3 tourney report

It's basically 3v3 team tournament with the teammates sharing one banlist (1 Heavy Storm for all 3 people, 2 have to play without it, etc)

Team line-up was:

Player A: Banisher Thunderking Fossildyna etc.dek

Player B (me): Undine Mermail with Teus and all the "Mono" engine

Player C: Spellbook

Round 1: Free win as one of my opposite team's player did not attend

The anti-meta player faced Karakuri, which is of course free win too lol. I know all the in and out of Karakuris, and all he had to do was summon Fossil Dyna and backed it up with Forbidden Lance and Safe Zone

The Spellbook player had to play a mirror match. In duel 2 he was lucky enough to pull off a Cursed Seal of the Forbidden Spell against opponent's Spellbook of Secrets. GG lol

Team: OOO

Round 2: Chain Energy Volcanic Counter... Burn deck

This was stupidly hilarious. I was really confused of Volcanic Counter's MANDATORY burn effect. I thought it was like Necro Gardna so I didn't find a way to play around it. 

And the deck was cool. Onslaught of the Fire King for the Fire King Kirin, which in turn kicked Volcanic Queen to the grave

Game 1 I barely won thanks to the super duper fast rush. 

Game 2 he burned me to 600, then rammed Marshmallon into Megalo with Volcanic Counter in grave 

Game 3 I had a Decree face-up, Pike and Megalo attacking (into double Volcanic Queen). He flipped Magic Cylinder and Dimension Wall for nothing, I went dumb and rushed Megalo into Gorz lol. And then I realized I sided out my only out against Gorz and the 2400 token (Abyssleed), gg

At the same time, the anti meta player died quickly and badly to Malefic beatdown (Banisher no match Malefic Cyber End), while the Spellbook player somehow pull off a 2-1 win against Six Samurai. He was holding a dead Spellbook of Life and a High Priestess on field against Zanji, Irou and Grandmaster. Zanji killed Priestess (Grandmaster died in his place), Irou hit for 1700. Next turn he topped Justice, set and ended. The Samurai player topped United lol, attacked and ended. The final turn, the Spellbook player ripped Spellbook Magician of Prophecy, which makes Life live, also some Power trick involved and won

Team: XXO

Round 3: Dark World

Game 1: Got OTK'd with Grapha, Goldd and Beiige with Gates face-up. He hit some damage previously so I died bad

Game 2: I think I OTK'd him, like any usual Mermail does

Game 3: He hit me with 2 Dragged Down, 2 DDV but I managed to survive thanks to Pike + Dragoons + Moulinglacia to make a good Megalo play (forgot to side out Moulinglacia). He was under Reckless Greed and I killed him before he saw any draw

The anti-meta player faced Chaos Dragon which should be an auto win match-up thanks to Banisher, Fossil Dyna and such. However game 1 he died to Return from DD after everything was banished, and game 2 or 3 he ran into Aurkus (lol) and cannot killed the opponent right there. He ripped Dark Hole or Heavy Storm or something and that was GG

The Spellbook player played a mirror match again lol. The other deck had 2 Spellbook Magician, 3 Spellbook of Eternity and all the bad cards. Somehow he died to a Temperance into Priestess play after Cursing Spellbook of the Master

Team: XOX

Round 4: Hieratic

I know everything about Hieratic so everything was fine.

Game 1: He cannot go off soon and fast enough. I killed him like any other Mermail does

Game 2: He made an OTK board of Gaia, REDMD at 2800 and Scrap Dragon. I survived thanks to Sphere, then next turn make Big Eye, take Scrap Dragon, drop Moulinglacia, summon Linde, popped Linde and REDMD, called out Leed. GG

The anti meta player opened Banisher of the Radiance all 3 games against Mermail lol. Wasn't any easy game, but in game 3 when he was ready to die (facing Royal Decree, only had Spirit Reaper face-up against Marksman and Dragoons), he ripped BLS with exactly 1 LIGHT 1 DARK in grave lol GG

Team: OOO

However with the score 2-2 we didn't managed to get into top 4. It ended there D:

Sided heavily for Evilswarm, met none

Only used Dust Tornado, Decree and Maxx "C"

D:

See you next time xD

Evilswarm Ophion

...

is a bitch

Because there're around 700-720 level 5 or higher effect monsters in YGO right now (normal monster not counted since they aren't special summoned usually, maybe Wattaildragon, Luster 2 or Curse of Dragon but whatever)

Excluding Vanity's Fiend, LADD and the 8 monarchs and some more, let's say, 20 monsters which must be tributed summoned for the effect. Who really tribute summon monster anymore?

The release of Ophion spell the end for ~700 monsters in YGO, which is obviously not a good thing

However, considering the meta is really fast and Ophion is one of a few way to stop the mass summoning effectively (Megalo :<), Ophion is good for the meta

Bad for the game but good for the meta, so where did thing go wrong?

Ans: since they started releasing high-level but easy-summoning monster, starting DAD

5 years after that, things have changed a lot, but the game is always about mass summoning (except the Wind-Up Loop format)

So..

Too bad :< And won't be getting any better anytime soon

Mono Mermail and Undine Mermail

Everyone knows that Mono Mermail is getting hyped for the past month, after Billy Brake's success at YCS Miami

From there everyone is calling it the best Mermail, the standard Mermail, etc. I was impressed too. But after a month, let's take a deep look

What is the difference?

The classic Mermail plays 3 Undine, 2 Controller, 1 Moulinglacia and all those standard Mermail cards. The new Mermail plays 3 Abyssteus, 2 Abyssgunde in those slots, along with more Abysspikes and Abyssleed

First thing in sight, the Mono Mermail doesn't have to play any vanilla, which is classic Mermail's worse disadvantage. Drawing Genex Controller is really, REALLY painful. Mono Mermail also seems (SEEMS) faster, more explosive because of the ability to drop everything into the field (mainly thanks to Abyssteus and Abyssgunde).

The access to Abyssgaios is also Mono Mermail's advantage over everything else. 2800 ATK Skill Drain is too much to handle for some decks out there

Really that good?

Something that Mono Mermail lacks:

• The ability to search Abyssmegalo to hand. People say Linde can bring Megalo directly to the field and that's enough. I prefer searching the Abyss traps, and everyone does
• The access to Atlantean Dragoons: This is really important. Looking back, Dragoons is the card that everyone wanted to get restricted when the March banlist came (even I did). No Dragoons in hand = no Megalo, no Moulinglacia, no Deep Sea Diva. You have to draw those power cards yourselves, which is obviously not ideal because the searching ability is what people fear the most
• Moulinglacia: the game-finisher. Too good when you are ending the game, don't need to argue
• The use of Abysspike: Mono Mermail doesn't have really good target for Abysspike. Abysslinde and Abyssgunde can be searched with Abyssteus, leaving Marksman as the only decent target
• Salvage: I don't have a freaking idea why Billy and Jeff hate this card. Too good when you need to drop your hand to the field, better during late game when a Deep Sea Diva can change the whole tempo of the game, and 2 Divas can finish the game. 

I'm not saying Mono Mermail is worse than classic Undine Mermail. However, the weaknesses cannot be unseen

The (new) power of Mono Mermail mostly comes fom Abyssteus and Abyssgunde. But why can't Undine Mermail play the 2 cards? That takes 3-5 slots in the deck, which means you can simply take out your tech cards for the "Mono" elements

The fix?

This is one of those typical Mermail deck at YCS Seattle, when CBLZ wasn't released (Source: http://elbrarian.blogspot.com.au/)

To add the "Mono" elements to the deck (2 Abyssteus, 2 Abyssgunde, 1 Abyssmegalo 1 Abyssleed, 1 Abyssquall, 1 Salvage) let's take out:

1 Genex Undine (you have Abysspike/Abysslinde/Abyssphere for that)
1 Allure of Darkness (not really needed)
1 Mind Control (same reason)
2 Mirror Force (as above)
1 Ultimate Offering (really nice tech card, can make Undine become a 1-card OTK, but space is tight)

The ultimate searching power can afford the deck size of 42. To me, I don't play Dark Hole and Pot of Avarice

It's just me, I prefer it. Everything is up to the player of course. But after all the testing I came to the conclusion that this is the best Mermail variant that I've played

See you next time ~

Power card

I'm talking about Gorz, Effect Veiler, Maxx C, Dark Hole, Heavy Storm, Monster Reborn, Pot of Avarice, Solemn Warning, Solemn Judgment

I've been practising my Mermail without any of those cards. The 3v3 team tournament is coming soon (the whole team shares a banlist, which means 1 Heavy Storm for 3 people), and I'm the one who play the deck that doesn't need staple

I'm playing the pure TCG version of Mermail. No Tidal, no Fishborg, no Dragosack, no Abyss-scale of Mizuchi etc.. I submitted the deck on DN, and starting playing

My rating is quite high (1300 at the moment) so I faced a lot of Incarnate Dragons, Evilswarm (with Kerykeion) and Spellbook (with Judgment Day). I felt sad not having access to good card (especially Armor Kappa) but I'm not playing for the win. I play to test my skills

And I realized the deck is even better without those cards lol. It's pure Mermail, just Mermail that gives you the win. No sick top deck, gotta work with the deck completely, which brings me to another point that all these decks are so overpowered that super awesome cards like those above are not anymore irreplaceable

I don't know whether I should feel good or bad lol

It's no goodbye

I won't quit

Even though there's pretty nothing interesting for the TCG, I still want to play for fun.

Mermail is the best deck, and also the easiest to side against deck, which means every deck that can play Dimensional Fissure/Macro Cosmos has a chance (oh my Chaos Dragon D:)

I tried literally every good deck that people have been reminding me of (except Wind-Up, I just hate them for no reason lol). Kakakuri is still one of the best, simply because of the ability to dig the deck for Dimensional Fissure/Macro Cosmos. Roy St Clair's build, which included Genex Ally Remote, Karakuri 7749 Nanashick, Machine Duplication etc seems stupid at first but it really has potential. I'm saying this from the perspective of a long-time Karakuri players (I was playing KMP for 1 year, has everything ready for something big then Konami annouced the prohibition of Bulb D:)

Prophecy, being one of the most hyped deck after LTGY, is one of the most ignored deck right now lol. No Judgment = no goodness. I say "fuck it" and play Reaper Turbo, which has really good results thanks to DDV and EEV

...

..

.

Looking towards the near future (24 days to go), people are talking much about Evilswarm. Surely Ophion is a bitch, but without Kerykeion everything is still handleable. The eagerness for Evilswarm from people has made other good decks from HA07 seem underestimated

Let's not forget about the uninfected side, Constellar. Pleiades, just like Ophion, is a bitch. The Constellar theme is hyped like one year ago, and now with the help of Tenki that deck is just so good that the lack of Sombres isn't as bad as the lack of Kerykeion. Constellar plays 3 Sheratan 3 Algedi, 3 Pollux and 6 Kaust (Tenkis!) and ROTA and Xyz Reborn and some more shit which makes it the deck to expect in my opinion. They have just like 3 Stratos, 6 Kageki and 6 Kagemusha, 1 Monster Reborn, 3 Xyz Monster Reborn and their very own boss monster and also the hidden boss monster with the ability to reuse everything. Too good

Hieratic is also something good to expect thanks to the release of M7. Along with Volcasaurus, the ability to OTK opponent by turn 2-3 with 2-3 cards is scary as fuck

Giski, getting their Zeal Gigas, should be prepared for too. OTK combos that involves 2 Zeal Gigas only is exceptionally good considering Zeal Gigas has the ability to clear his path to do the 3200 damage. Even if you're unlucky enough to fail to pull the combo off, 3200 is still a big body and Salvage and Aquamirrorare bitches that can reuse everything

And Laval, one of a few synchro summoning themes left. Getting Molten Conduction Field is something huge, and Lavalval Chain is a good card. No matter how dominating Xyz monsters are, Shooting Quasar Dragon is still... incredible

Also Infernity. Thanks to Lavalval Chain, all the stupid earnings seem so easy to pull off. Top decking Archfiend is still sweet as fuck

Do you ever hear about Gem-Knight? Gem-Knight Fusion is a good card, and Gem-Knight Zirconia from HA07 opens a lot of combos for the deck

Good old decks also get some support. Gadget finally has Tin Goldfish so that they can make first turn Gear Gigant X/Shock Master more, also Abyss Dweller with 2200 ATK is annoying for Mermail people. Karakuri has Iron Call, which is basically a free synchro material (obviously better than Emergency Teleport)

You may say that the high-level themes die to Ophion. The only thing I can say is that I expect Fiendish Chain and Breakthrough Skill will have their price increased a lot soon. Let's not forget: If you target Ophion with Fiendish Chain and your opponent respond with Lance, the Chain still applies after the turn is over. And Evilswarm won't be having Kerykeion anytime soon, which means the ability to immediately make a second Ophion should be in doubt

Basically that's it, which means almost every card of HA07 is a good card

So every deck has a chance. Don't quit, people xD

(Don't talk about LTGY or JOTL here)