Yu-Gi-Oh! Game Anaylsis; Week 13

By Froylan Carreno

I find it funny as soon as "Number 7: Big Eye" got reprinted, everyone starts pulling him out out of his native pack. Before, he was worth nearly a hundred dollars (and was one of the few cards to ever reach that threshold), and after his reprint as a PROMO card, his price hiked down to 30$, and will probably continue to spiral downwards. Most of the other secret rare cards that were reprinted as promos are now worth less than 10$, when at their peaks could have been worth upwards of 50$. It really sucks when one of your expensive cards gets reprinted, but that's Yugioh for you: A bet, or a an investment. You pull an expensive or good card you don't need, your objective is to sell or trade it as fast as possible (unless you want to keep it to make your trade binder look pretty, like me). To put this cards value in perspective, "Big Eye" had the effect to take any monster from the opponent field, and allowed Big Eye's controller to use it as its own. Since there are not many legal cards that have this effect, Big Eye was believed, and is still considered, one of the strongest monsters of all time. For me personally, he is on my list of cards that NEEDS to go to one via the ban list. Only having to worry about one Big Eye is not nearly as bad as having to worry about 3 that could all sometimes be made in one turn. He was partly broken, and shot up in price, due to Dragon Rulers, and Dragon Rulers alone. Big Eye was originally a ten dollar card, until word got out that you could make rank 7 Xyz's easily with Dragon Rulers, and before Draccosac, Big Eye was the only good rank 7 Xyz. Then Draccosac himself was released, and all hell was unleashed with the unstoppable power of Dragon Rulers. So one could say, Dragon Rulers would not be what they are today without the assistance of Big Eye. And vice-versa. 

Recently on DN, I've been playing with Lightsworns, an old archetype that recently just got support. Overall, the new reformed deck is not as good as it used to be, and perhaps even worse since you have to sacrifice many cards in the deck to squeeze all the new cards and the cards that you now have to run to make the most of them. The deck definitely has had me some awesome duels, but some equally disappointing ones as well. Right now I am just trying to enjoy dueling with it, and not worrying much about how good or bad it is. The deck works and can hold its own and that's mostly all that matters. Like most decks on DN, I will eventually lose interest in it, but if I deem it to be competitive, it will most likely remain on my list of favorite decks. 

Not much else to speak about. Nothing Yu-Gi-Oh noteworthy is occurring in the coming weeks, except the ban list in about a month's time. I've been talking about it for a while now, and now that its approaching I feel weird getting a ban list so quickly after another. Originally, another ban list would not have been released until March, but this new system is much more copacetic for me, and likely for everyone else as well---Simply for the fact Dragon Rulers, and any other broken cards, will hopefully have a much shorter life span, thereby improving the Yu-Gi-Oh game, and meta in general. So yeah, only a few weeks left until then, and until then. Or a little before lol. 

Yu-Gi-Oh! Game Analysis; Week 12

By Froylan Carreno

Yeah I changed up the title a bit. I might change it around some more later on. But yeah a bit has happened since last week. Konami announced a special re-release of Battle Pack 2: War of the Giants, that by itself is not very newsworthy, but it's the promos that are being put in it that are significant: "Safe Zone, "High Priestess of Prophecy", "Number 11: Big Eye", "Fog King", and "Dragunity Knight - Vajrayana." All these cards are EXCELLENT reprints that all were worth at least 20$ before this sets announcement. Naturally, their prices will drop significantly, as is the case with all reprinted cards. For me personally, the only card I will be looking to get is "Safe Zone, as the other cards are mostly archetype specific, and have no use outside of their respective decks. Could these reprints be meta changing? No, simply because Dragon Rulers are still around, and they ain't taking no one's @#$%. just yet. Either way, this set would have gone largely unnoticed and unpopular if it wasn't for the inclusion of these reprints, which by the way are getting reprinted as Ultra Rare. It sucks the most when a one-rarity card is reprinted as a promo in the exact same rarity. However, there are no Ultra Rare Cards being reprinted in this set.

Honestly, I've been playing Call of Duty mostly since last week, but I have had some time to continue playing on DN with Traptrix. They've been pretty successful for being such a small and poorly know archetype. They've done well enough that I'm actually considering building them in real life. They are cheap, easy to find, and almost every backrow card it needs I already have. The only problems with it are that you almost always have to go first, or you will have a tough time winning, as the deck lacks big monsters to kill other monsters already on the field, excluding the Extra Deck. Really, it's a deck that could be much better if it had a bit more support. Ergo, the deck has really not been doing great in the meta, but I have heard of it topping a tournament once or twice in the past. I guess they can be considered a rogue deck because of that fact. Though they still have a long way to go to become Tier 2 or higher.

On a more personal note, one of my friends has been spending a crap ton of money on Yu-Gi-Oh cards since he got financial aid, and went from having nearly nothing, to having almost something. . . which is not much but I guess it's still better than nothing. He is also playing Call of Duty, and he seems to enjoy it almost as much as I do. It's just so amusing, it's been distracting me from almost everything. Hmmmm but I just finished a duel on DN, and the dude ragequit because I basically killed his whole field with my backrow (Backrow = Spells/Traps in the "backrow") A lot of people actually quit, and it's pretty amusing. Though I don't get any experience points, the experience itself is self-motivating. For me, at least. GG until next week. Lol.

Yu-Gi-Oh! Meta Analysis Week 11

By Froylan Carreno

Hello everybody! Just trying to catch up a bit here. Hopefully I'll only be a day or two behind after this, if at all. So really, not much has happened since yesterdery... but there I'll some things I forgot to mention. Yesterday I traded quite a bit of my actual cards for money and other cards I thought would be nice. I got a "Fusion Devourer" and a "Sage of Silence." The cards themselves are pretty much useless and worthless, but I really like the art on them.I traded some cards I didn't really use or care about so it was about worth it. I also got 20$ for selling my "Diagusto Emeral," a card that is realllllllly pretty and somewhat useful, but my friend just kept begging me to sell it to him, and I kind of felt bad for saying no for so long, so I sold him it^_^.

I'm still on the fence of what second deck I want to make, it could be either Battlin' Boxers, Heiratics, or Bujins. All 3 decks are good in their in retrospect, the best one probably being Bujins (but also the most expensive). Battlin' Boxers would probably be the cheapest and easiest deck to play/build, but likely also the weakest and relies too heavily on protecting one monster. Heiratics would be somewhere in between these two, but it's much more inconsistent than the other two decks put together. You essentially have one play, and if you exhaust all your resources making that play, you're almost guaranteed to lose. If I had to chose, I would play none of these decks. If Ghostricks were good, I'd definitely be playing those, or if I had the money to afford one of my good decks on DN, I would build one of those instead. But remember, one always has to weary of the ban list, and all the major changes it might bring to the Meta. Oh, and I don't know if I've mentioned this, but I collect banned cards. No real reason, except its' just cool, and some cards rocket up in price when they get unbanned, or even when they are rumored to be going to be unbanned... Lol.

Still a crap load of bad players playing Dragon Rulers on DN, but I've gotten used to it. Noble Knight cards in Shadow Specters is a crap ton of money, as expected. And all the decks that actually need support, like Toons, Ojamas, and Spirits, have no new support, as usual. If you play Yu-Gi-Oh, you learn to expect a lot of things from Konami, primarily to never expect much of them. They don't go by what people ask for, only what will line their pockets with the prettiest wall paper. I really hate it when they reprint cards that did NOT need a reprint, like "Gagaga Cowboy", and BLS. There were tons of other cards that were more in demand, and harder to get, with too many of them to name. If they really want to make money, and keep their consumers happy, they should listen with what we have to say, or at least what I say:
1. Better ban lists, by unbanning more cards that will do nothing if they come back, and by banning more cards that NEED to be banned IMMEDIATELY.
2. Give archetypes that actually NEED support... support! Like Toons, Spirits, Ojamas, and Bujins! Don't just give them random shitty cards either. They've done that before, and only angered everyone.
3. FIX first turn advantage. It really sucks that going first almost guarantees you a win. It would STRONGLY help if they made 1st turn player skip their Draw Phase and Battle Phase turn 1, or prevent them from activating any card effects or Special Summoning any monsters that turn. This is my #1 pet peeve about Yu-Gi-Oh!
4. When there is STRONG demand for it, reprint a card that people are actually asking for. Don't just reprint random shitty cards or cards that have been expensive forever and are un-usable this format. That just hurts long-time players, and gives them second thoughts about purchasing card packs.
5. As much as I like exclusive cards for the TCG, I still think OCG gets far better treatment from Konami, and it should be nearly equal. It's not fair that almost every card there is low-rarity, and all the good cards are bumped up in rarity here in the TCG. Everything gets released WAY earlier in the OCG as well. And they get AMAZING bundles over there that never, ever make it overseas. Even their ban list is better than ours, and they've literally been the same until September 1st arrived. . . And that's your Konami lesson for today.

Yu-Gi-Oh! Meta Analysis Week 10

By Froylan Carreno

Yay or neigh? Celebrate my tenth blog post? Heck might as well. Well, no, not really:/ The meta is starting to somewhat become visible for the next format. Dragons SHOULD and hopefully will be gone this January (because they are beyoooooooond annoying.) I think I've outgrown my Bujin fetish, for now at least. At the moment, I'm using Noble Knights, and with the new support they've just received, I can see them being a solid rogue deck next format. Rogue decks are decks that capable of holding their own against other decks in the game, including some meta decks. They will occasionally top a tournament, and usually gives players false hopes of them becoming meta. But just because a deck tops once or twice, does not mean it the deck that's "the one". The deck that is "the one" will be the one that is constantly topping EVERY tournament and claims around 12 of the 16 top spots. And almost ALWAYS, making this deck will cost you around a 1000 big ones. If Noble Knights are "the one", since almost every important card is Secret Rare, the deck could easily soar above 1000$.

So yeah, Noble Knights are pretty chill to use. Not too OP, not too weak sauce. Just made a Dragon Ruler player on DN ragequit, and it felt OH so good. I even took a picture to commemorate this event.
I can't near describe the thrill when I make a Dragon Ruler player quit. Almost brings a tear to my eye. Yes. Oh and Shadow Specters is about to be released in the TCG. Not toooooooo many good cards in there, at least not enough for me to go out and buy a shit ton of packs. Everything good I might pull I will likely just trade to friends who need it more than I do. But there's really nothing like the experience of cracking open a brand new pack of cards,except maybe actually pulling something good from one of them (which is hard as @#$%). I will suppress my hunger to finish writing this article. The world must know what I have to say... Toast. Toast is pretty freaking good right about now, lol.

In other words, I plan to go out sometime in the week to buy a special edition of Judgment of the Light, the as of this moment newest Yu-Gi-Oh card pack. I'm not sure why, I guess I just want the box more than anything else. Everything else inside is just a nice bonus<3 Still would be nice to pull some Bujin stuff to motivate me to make the deck in real life. But Call of Duty Ghosts just came out! And there's just so much stuff to do, I can't even seem to fit much time in for Yu-Gi-Oh anymore! But I can always try to squeeze a littttttttle bit every now and then. Perhaps more next week, huh?