Yu-Gi-Oh! Meta Analysis Week 9

By Froylan Carreno

Meta wise, not much has happenend in the last few days. Bujins still have a soft spot in my heart, but they will have a tough time competing in the next meta. Lightsworns, to my huge distaste, will be recieving great support in the coming months, and their main boss monster, Judgment Dragon, is the thing of nightmares for Bujins. It has the ability to destroy ALL cards on the feild, and there is no protection from that in a Bujin deck. I believe there were a plethora of other decks that more desperately needed support, like Toons and Crystal Beasts. It's a dissapointment really, but that's just how the game is sometimes. Just like with the ban list.

Indeed, Dragon Rulers are becoming a huge nuisance on DN as well About 40% of the decks I run into are Dragon Rulers. And even though my Bujins don't have a terrible match-up against them, it still irratiates me that people would resort to using such skill-less decks, especially when they have a high rating -- It's almost guranteed they are using Dragons.

Oh, and I'm not sure if I've mentioned this before, but Noble Knights are getting some great support as well. Their support is so good, that the deck may actually have a chance of becoming Meta next format. However, there is a part of me that cringes at the sight of all the support they are getting. For one thing, many of the cards you have to run only come in Secret Rare, which often propels the card to 50+$ if the card is really good. Also, Noble Knights are getting support from the rulings themselves, and using them to their advantage. But in the end, I would much rather see Noble Knights becoming #1 in the Meta than Dragon Rulers or Prophecy. The deck is not broken from what I've seen, but is preety damn good when run correctly.

On a last note, it's always nice to note all the past decks of the format that were the best in the Meta: Macro Rabbit, Inzektors, Tele-Dad, T.G Agents, Six Samurai, X-Sabers, Chaos Dragons, and tons more. These decks, at their respective times, we're all considered equally as broken as Dragon Rulers, and it makes one think.... Which deck really was the most broken deck ever? What was the most broken card ever? "Tour Guide from the Underworld" maybe? She's still at 2 but has been severely neatured by the ban of Sangan last year, and the fall of the best decks she was used in. I personally think "Dragged Down into the Grave" is the most annoying and broken card at 3 right now, and I would not care one bit if it went straight to banned. But that's just me.

Yu-Gi-Oh! Meta Analysis Week 8

By Froylan Carreno

Ah yes, just trying to catch up a bit here. Not much has happened since a few days ago. I have been on DN for extended periods of time this week. I've just fallen in love with Bujins, a somewhat new deck that is perfectly balanced: Not too overpowered and not too under powered. The whole point of the deck is to set up your graveyard with Bujin monsters, while at the same time maintaining feild presence with a Beast-Warrior type Bujin monster. You really can't do much without the Beast-Warrior Bujin monsters, and if you don't draw into one early on in the game, you won't last long in a competitive duel very long. However, in my opinion, the deck could be muchhhhhhhh better if you could use the effects of the Bujin monsters in the grave during either players turn. There is also a need for a Bujin monster that can destroy face-down cards. They also need some better Spell/Trap card support, since what there is does not help a player much in terms of keeping advantage. I have been winning most of my duels the past couple of days, and when I did lose, it was because I drew bad -- really bad, or my opponent was just flat out using Dragon Rulers. I hate how there's not much Bujins can do against cards like Dark Hole or Black Rose Dragon -- Cards that destroy whole fields, and since there is not much room in my deck for back-row, I can rarely stop them.

Just to say so, I've recently redid one my Yu-Gi-Oh trade binders, and made it look much more homely and pretty. Not many of friends will care, and most won't even notice, but I will, and really that's all that matters. I got into Yu-Gi-Oh of my own accord, and I've been playing it for over a decade. I've spent at least 1000$ on it over the years, and now that I think about it, about 800 of those dollars went to waste, to rot in worthless common cards I have in tins and binders. Am I proud of all the money I've spent on this game? No, not really. But it's my hobby, and people are known to spend shit tons of money on their hobby, so this should be socially acceptable. But one does not simply go out and say "I've spent thousands of dollars on a children's card game, let's go out." It's just dumb how some people have spent the same amount of money on shoes, clothes, electronics, whatever it may be, and that's perfectly fine. But we get a bad rep, for investing in things that are harmless. Some people just don't realize that pouring money into this is much better than emptying our wallets for illegal drugs and prostitutes. I don't know...

Kind of went on a tangent there, but I'm just writing what comes to mind -- And I have a lot of things on my mind-_- In other words, almost everyone is using Dragon Rulers on DN, and it's not pissing anyone off more than me. So infuriating to see bad players using good decks, and I'll soak up their tears when the deck gets destroyed by the ban list. I even had one complaining to me that Bujins were too overpowered, and he quit. The laughter in me quickly faded when I truly realized how much of a complete hypocrite he was, and that most people have his mentality: Whatever hurts me is bad, and whatever gets hurt by me is just another victim. And even when Dragon Rulers do get hit, these exact same players will just move onto the best next thing, whatever it may be. It's looking pretty good for Noble Knights and Dark Worlds but who knows. I know everyone, including me, will take exception to whatever starts winning too many tournaments. And everyone will still hate Dragon Rulers even then. People still hate on my Inzektors, and they're not even doing anything this format... Hypocrites the lot of them. One last note: "Dragged Down Into the Grave" needs to get limited or banned. Please do something right Konami.

Yu-Gi-Oh! Meta Analysis Week 7

By Froylan Carreno

The week has been a bit hot about Yu-Gi-Oh, more so than usual so I have a couple of things to talk about today. A couple of decks that aren't Dragon Rulers (for once) have been topping several tournaments, such as Madolches and Constellars, decks that are really only average on the grand scale. Whenever a deck like that tops, it makes it gain attention world wide, and (usually) some unique tech in cards could skyrocket in price, but usually also fall back down in price eventually. Cards like those are usually meta-dependent, meaning their usefulness varies depending on what decks are good. For example, "Imperial Iron Wall" is a 5$ common, and commons very rarely excel more than 3$. This card in particular is devastating to Dragon Rulers, as it essentially shuts the whole deck down, and can mean a guaranteed loss if it is not removed from the field. Another card, "Gozen Match" also devastates the deck, as it basically only allows Dragon Ruler players to control one monster. Overall, I like any card that hurts Dragon Ruler decks, but because of how they resourceful they are, they can also get rid of any card that threatens them with "Blaster", the strongest dragon in the deck, and has the ability to destroy any card on the field.

There have also been an extra amount of Yu-Gi-Oh memes going about the internet, particularly ones about the card "Mystical Space Typhoon" being able to negate the effects of cards. MST only destroys the activated card, but does not actually the effect of the card, so MST'ing anything that was just activated is 90% of the time incredibly pointless. It's better to just let MST sit in your backrow until your opponent sets a card, and then during the End Phase you activate your MST so your opponent cannot chain it (It is impossible to activate a face-down Spell Speed 2 card the turn it was set.) Spell Speeds are just a fancy term for saying which cards take "priority" in a chain, or what cards can be activated at certain times. Usually, only quick-monster effects and Spell Speed 3 can negate a Spell Speed 2 effect, like that of Dark Hole. "Solemn Judgment" was a great example of this negating power, before it was unfortunately banned in September. I think I've said just about all I wanted to get off my chest, so I'll call it a day until next week, or maybe earlier. Not sure what I'll be discussing. But yeah lates. 

Yu-Gi-Oh! Meta Analysis Week 6

By Froylan Carreno

Yes yes, this is one week late. I've been really busy with other school work and personal dilemmas to pour all my focus into writing this. I still hope to catch up with some 2-3 more posts in the coming weeks, but for now, I will update on whats been going on for the past weeks and days. Also, these posts are going to become more subjective than objective, simply because it's a bit more entertaining if I can write about my actual thoughts -- And I will also be more loosely talking through the game's jargon and I will try to post some pictures to make this a tiny bit more interesting to read. Actually, I think I will make this week's post more on the humerous side, since I'm really not in the mood to think heavily about anything right now. Here is a sample of a Yu-Gi-Oh! card I created online, for laughs.

That is me. 

I used to create cards like this all the time in my spare time, but what with school and all, it's kind of been pushed way back. Nowadays, I'm more interested in creating internet memes, ranging from the well known to the little known. Here is a decent one I found, pertaining to Yu-Gi-Oh!: 

I found this ridicoulsly funny the first time I saw it, because every statement within this picture is false, including the picture itself. The character being displayed is the main character in the original Yu-Gi-Oh! show, named Yami (In this form), and NOT Goku. And he is especially not a Pokemon trainer, but fans of both often like to compare them. I could read memes like these all day, but of course, time is of the essence. I have been on DN a few times, and I've been trying out an Assault Dragon Ruler deck, and it has proven to be both fun and competitive -- Though the deck itself is considered too OP and I few bad for using it sometimes. I'm trying to get an app that lets me play DN on my phone, but the warnings about doing so dissuade me. I am hungry and tired right now, while I type this, and I have an urge to play DN. There should be a bunch of new cards added to DN in a few weeks, and I will definitely be talking about those (if they are good) Oh and I just got some sleeves for my virtual cards on DN. I will post a picture of them in another post, but for now, I'm going to call it a night and maybe I'll cuddle up with my trade binder that I recently thought was stolen... Turns out my uncle was just hiding it with a couple of my other things, oblivious to the value of them. I'm just glad it wasn't really stolen, or I might have just quit Yu-Gi-Oh! out of depression and anger. The same thing happened to my obsession with Pokemon, but that's a whole different topic. For now, I just need to prepare myself for the weeks to come, but I'll be on my game to catch up this blog to the current date (hopefully).