Almost Every Topic Under the Sun

Deeply apologizing for no pics. -.-

Yu – Gi – Oh! Trading Card Game is my number one hobby back in my days. This game is my absolute favorite, and would buy booster packs just for this game. My former deck is concentrated on various strategies to make your opponent distracted, my personal favorites being in control of the grave, banishing cards and letting your opponent discard cards.

Rarest cards that I have at that time are Dark Magician of Chaos, Chaos Emperor Dragon – Envoy of the End, and Relinquished (the latter made me almost win games that are otherwise on the losing side. That card follows me along with its ritual card like a ghost from the past from booster pack to booster pack, but that’s another story.)

Before the era of Links, Synchros, Xyz and whatnot, I’m just a casual player who enjoyed the game. Like any player, I’m focused on winning the game. But then, one event gave me a reality check and I have to choose between life and my game.

I chose the former and let my parents throw all my cards save for two that I have kept secret from my parents to this very day: Blue Eyes Shining Dragon and Maiden of the Aqua.

I don’t regret it, since I have finished college with flying colors. Never thought it took me more than a decade before going back to this game.

Then I have heard of Dueling Network, which lets me have a deck basically free of charge (the actual charge being your internet connection, which is another story too). It re – sparked a fire in me that’s gone long ago, and so I built my deck as I last remembered it.

First duel in, and there are monsters with white background that utterly stomped me on turn 1. Next duel, it’s the monsters with the black background that stomped me.

Third duel in, and I let my opponent be surprised by using the effect of Relinquished on his monster with the white background. To say that my opponent is actually surprised is an understatement. He actually quit on me when he saw that one happened.

I did some research on the monsters with the white and the black background, and thank Google for giving me the wiki for it. Those monsters are called Synchro Monsters and Xyz Monsters respectively.

At first, I feel apprehensive for using these monsters, but after almost 200 – 300 duels in the site, I decided to just bite it and join the trend
.
And there’s the part where I have to select the most appropriate deck for it.

I’m never used to copying decks of others. It’s mainly a trial and error for me. Way back when I’m playing this game, my friend suggested a strong water deck (the strongest monster there is Daedalus, by the way).

I flatly refused since it requires me to change my whole gameplay after a quick analysis on the deck with its key cards. My friend gave me the deck anyway, and after that life – changing event, that deck slept with the fishes (Yep, I’m horrible for making a pun like that).

And this is where the transition in my gameplay began.

At that time, my goal is to burn my opponent’s life points like crazy before they can get to me. If they have strong monsters, I have to eliminate them with my monsters first. But there are two problems.

Most of the monsters that they have had insane effects that can make Yugi turn in his grave. I tried the old school spellcaster set – up, but the swarming of these monsters is too slow compared to theirs. At most, I can only bring out one strong Synchro monster at best.

This is where I met the card Witch of the Black Rose.

It is a Level 4 Tuner Dark Spellcaster monster, which had an effect that if I did a Normal Summon on this card, I must reveal the top card of my deck to the opponent. If it’s a monster, it will be added to your hand. Otherwise, the Witch of the Black Rose that I summoned will be destroyed and sent to grave. It seems pretty harsh, until I saw that the AI of Dueling Network, for some reason, always reveals the card on the top of my deck as a monster card.

I did a research on the card, and it belonged to a Plant – Type deck revolving around Synchro Summoning. And the name of the user of this deck is Aki Izayoi. This is the only time that I copied the deck card for card (they had a term for this: Netdecking) and it still has missing parts (because of anime reasons…).

I tested it, and it seems to be working pretty fine, except for some glaring weaknesses here and there.

Black Garden, Mark of The Rose, and Vengeful Servant are among those cards.

It also has cards which only activate on specific situations, which made it even harder for me to use.

This is where my creativity kicked in.

Searching some cards from the protagonists, and adding some cards of my own that can complement the deck that I am using; I did a trial and error on using those cards. Yep, I even tested in on my opponents without indicating that I am using this deck as a test deck.

Fortunately, it did not fail, as the deck that I built using some of the cards that I replaced with performed much better and surprised more opponents than using her normal deck.

But there’s still one problem that I need to be addressed, and the answer came in as quickly as I am about to think what monsters will do well.

The Evil Thorn problem.

After I summoned them, they’re like sitting ducks waiting to be attacked.

The answer came in in the form of Slacker Magician, formerly known in Japan as ShyNEET Magician.

Yep, this monster is indestructible. And it made me learn the other summoning method in the process.

Later on, as I learned both summoning methods, I did the unthinkable as I build my own from the base deck of Aki Izayoi.

Putting Star Eater in the Extra Deck.

It’s a level 11 Synchro monster. It also has almost the same effects as Divine – Beast monsters. I just laughed as I put it in the Extra Deck as a joke/experiment to see if I can summon this ridiculous monster.

I never imagined that this monster will let the players hate me for the rest of their lives.

Duel 1, with these in my hand, I summoned this with Witch of the Black Rose, Double Summon, Evil Thorn and Fallen Angel of Roses. My opponent let out a string of infinite curse words in the chatbox that it filled the chatbox with those words, then quitted.

Duel 2, I summoned it again, this time with my opponent attempting to summon Quasar Dragon. He told me to wait, which I did, then cussed after finding out that his hand is basically bricked (this word means no good cards in hand to use). He then quitted on me after I picked on his Life Points.

I never imagined that what they call the Plant Engine can be this good.

Second unthinkable thing that I did is putting Beelze in the Extra deck. Next thing I knew, chaos ensued.

Yep, this really made me think how powerful the extra deck can be.
As much as possible, I’m summoning monsters from the main deck like the good old days. But these days, swarming is the norm, and link summons complicated the game even more.

It’s like I’m still living in the dinosaur age while their play styles continue to evolve.

Simplicity, creativity and fun thrown out of the window. That can explain the old timers’ lack of passion for the game nowadays. There are too many deck builds to choose from, mainly cards that are actually tailored to be in sync with other specific cards.

Not a bad idea for someone who duels for fun, but it’s an entirely different discussion in a meta - game setting and those who play the game for nostalgia.

I’m not an expert on this game. But I just hope that they can bring back the fun in playing this game just like the good old days.