Why Rabbit at 2 Hurts the deck HARD.

Hey guys. More Consistency with posts from now on, I promise. I keep taking gaps away from making stuff. Mainly due to commitments and other unavoidable things that just randomly crop up.

Anyway today is about the Banlist. More so, about Rescue Rabbit being put to 2. It's regarded as the core of the deck. Of course you can win without drawing a single rabbit the entire game, but it's an uphill struggle. The deck revolves around it being used and making a walking solemn or walking free divine wrath is too good to pass up. However at 2, it's consistency is hit harder than people realise.

At 3, the chances of drawing Rescue Rabbit in your opening hand of 6 cards is 39%. That means 39% of the time, you're opponent will need to have Effect Veiler in their hand or be going first and have an out to it set on their field. At 2, the chances of opening with Rabbit drop to just over 20%. That now means that 1 of 5 games you will be able to "Summon Laggia, set 3". Because of that, you might not even see Rabbit first turn AT ALL for an entire 3 game match. That's a lot of dino grinding against an opponent who isn't going to be relying on a 20% chance for their deck to function properly.

But the main reason why Rabbit at 2 hurts the deck is not because the chance of drawing it. It's because the deck has to play 6 Dinosaurs. If you bring the Ratios down to their simplest denominator, for every ONE Rescue Rabbit drawn, you will be just as likely to draw 3 Dinosaurs.

You may be thinking "Oh that's fine, I still have 3 Dinosaurs in my deck!". Well that might be true, but if you hadn't realised, Rabbit only works if you have 2 Dinosaurs with the same name in your deck. If you have 3 in your hand, 2 of those will have the SAME NAME.

What that means is that on top of the already annoying feat of getting a Rescue Rabbit in your hand, to be able to summon more than one Evolzar from a Rescue Rabbit, you need to have Rabbit as well as Tour Guide (which is at 2 now, too) in your hand just because you got a good opening hand. With Rabbit being 20% chance and Tour Guide being 20% too, you're bringing the chances of drawing like a champ at a measly 10%.

Beforehand, the chances were about 30%. So almost at least once in a 3 game match, you would be able to herp derp Laggia + Leviair + 2 Sabersaurus (2400 + 1800 + 3800 = 8000 damage exactly). Now, it's just not going to happen.

So yeah, I hope that's cleared up any hopes and dreams you had of your deck still being any good. Enjoy your hand of vanillas!

TheTCGLover Out!

Silver Sentinel: How useful is it?

Incase you don't know what Silver Sentinel is: here's a nice picture.

It's the newest addition to the 'Toy Magician' mechanic. That is, it sets itself in the spell and trap card zone and waits to be destroyed. However this card is far better then that piece of trash (sorry Toy Magician gods. Please don't hurt me T.T).

The great thing about this card is how it's effect will tend to play out. It does all it's shenanigans in the end phase, meaning that it will hit the field at a point in your opponent's turn where they are most vulnerable. For example, this card gets MST'd and is sitting in your graveyard. Then your opponent has a choice whether to set some cards and allow one to die, or just go cold turkey until their next turn. This entire psychology is what makes Zenmaines such a powerful tool.

When I get a couple of these guys at the Sets official release, I'm going to be running them in Alive Hero to replace the Future Fusion that I lost. I have to set my hand to summon Bubbleman and this card will be waiting in the backrow. But for me it's extra great since it's a warrior AND a level 4, meaning I can clear my opponent's cards away and go for Excalibur on my turn. It's broke as hell in theory and I'm pretty sure it will be just as good when used for real.

But the reason why I'm doing this little discussion now is because the Banlist is going to continue the reign of Backrow removal being at an all time high. There are so many ways that this card can get destroyed and since this card has just come out, it's not in the players mind like what Gorz has done. They will MST to try and get their plays through, and this card single handedly says "Do what you want, because I'll be back and everything you have labored to build will crumble". But of course, he will probably just say that with his gun, which will sound a bit more like "BOOM HEADSHOT!".

Another fantastic thing is that it can be sided out against decks like Gravekeepers or Dark world, where they might not be running as much backrow hate or Chaos Dragons where this card might be a little too slow. The card functions on it's own and therefore siding it out wont hurt the deck's synergy at all.

Not really much else to say. It's a fantastic card and I'd advise getting a couple now before someone catches on to it's brokeness in the September Meta.

The TCG Lover Out!

Where did my third Tour Guide go?

Before I start, I want to say that I posted the new Forbidden and Limited list on the Navigation bar at the top of my blog. Might be worth checking it out if you haven't already.

So yeah, one of the many decent hits on the new list is Tour Guide from the Underworld to 2. But for some reason, instead of actually approaching the situation with thought, people have been trying to deal with the loss as a need to replace it. Of course, In decks you will now have 39 cards, but by no means should that new 40th card be something that works with Tour Guide. 

So apart from Sangan, which is still part of the team, what other cards can replace that 4th Tour Guide? The main ones are Cloudian - Acid Cloud, Night Assailant and the preferred choice, Tour Bus from the Underworld.

But the fact is, if you run 2 of a card that can get another card from your deck and 2 of those cards that needs to be ripped out of the deck, you're just as likely to draw a card you don't want. It's a 50/50 chance and that's not how it should be.

Tour Bus is the only acceptable option since once you have sent it to the graveyard, you can shuffle a Tour Guide back into the deck and be able to use it again, but I really wouldn't want to draw a 1000 attack vanilla  (essentially). 

The answer to the problem is to leave that 4th card. There is no need to replace it and having 2 Tour Guide + a Sangan means that you are going to draw Tour Guide before Sangan more often than not. AND if you draw that Sangan first, you can just search a Tour Guide and that can get the other one, leaving no dead cards in your deck.

So yeah, there is not much to say apart from that. Tour Guide and Sangan will never be as consistent as it was before, but adding anything else into the mix is just going to make it worse. Now if Sangan was banned, I would probably throw away the whole engine entirely. I love making Rank 3s just as much as the next guy, but without any search power from the engine, how is it going to help my main win condition?

Until next time, The TCG Lover out!

Fake List?

Here's the best fake September 2012 Banlist I've seen so far. It's actually still being debated whether or not it's fake.

Images:
http://webpaper.co/img/34727.jpg
http://webpaper.co/img/34711.jpg
http://webpaper.co/img/34728.jpg

EDIT: Here's another Image from the same website that was uploaded this morning. A bit clearer but the Semi-Limited cards look a little squashed. It's probably fake but it's intriguing to see that clearer pictures are coming through now.

http://webpaper.co/img/34876.jpg

Forbidden

Brionac, Dragon of The Ice Boundary.
Dark Armed Dragon.
Card Destruction.
Mind Control.
Sangan.
Wind-up Hunter.
Black Luster Soldier - Envoy of the beginning.
E- Hero Electrum.
Monster Reborn.

Limited

Rescue Rabbit.
Dark Magician of Chaos.
Super Polymerization.
Inzektor Centipede.
Witch of the Black Forest.
Ultimate Offering.
Solemn Warning.

Semi-Limited

One For One.
E- Emergency Call.
Legendary Six Samurai - Shi-En.
Gladiator Beast Bestiary.

Unlimited

Necro Gardna.
Primal Seed.
Formula Synchron.



If this list is actually real, then a lot of my predictions came true!

TheTCGLover out!

Yu-Gi-Oh Card Review: Noble Knight Gawayn

Happy Monday Readers!

With the REDU sneak peek coming up soon, as well as the ban list, a whole lot of changes are happening in the coming month. Are we going to be forced into playing against Dino Rabbit, Wind-Ups, Chaos Dragons and Inzektors for another 6 months? Is Alive Hero going to become tier 1? All the answers will be revealed in just a couple of months.

Anyway Noble Knight Artorigus was the sneak peek promo card for Galactic Overlord. It was a simple 1800/1800 Vanilla Light Warrior. While all of that is great, the fact that it had no effect and no synergy with any deck meant it was just going to sleep in binders.

However, to kick-start the Noble Knight Craze, we have been introduced to Noble Knight Gawayn

Dat ARTWORK!

With the same attribute and type as Artorigus, it's assumed the Noble Knights will all follow suit. At 1900 it's good a decent amount of power on it's own. At 500 defence though, it seems that he is all offence and not really a good defence. 

So if you control a LIGHT Normal Monster, you can special summon Gawayn from the hand in Defense Position. This makes that 500 defense much more of a problem, but fortunately with how the game is it wont be on the field for long.

It can be special summoned if you control Artorigus, meaning you can make a quick Rank 4. However due to them both being warriors, you have access to Blade Armor Ninja, which if timed correctly can rectify that -1 used to make it.

"But TCG Lover, there's a problem" I hear you scream. "That combo SUCKS ASS!"

Fortunately, there's more than just Artorigus. It works with ANY Light Normal Monster. You can summon it with Blue-Eyes White Dragon on the field. That sucks too, though.

However in the midst of all the crap cards, there is a Light Normal monster that many people are playing. Can you guess which one?

The Answer is Elemental HERO Neos Alius

Neos Alius is perfect. It's a level 4 light normal monster and it's a freaking warrior. AND the card is used in multiple tier 1-2 decks. Gawayn is like Bubbleman except you don't need to commit your hand to summon it and Gawayn can actually stand on it's own.

While the card can't be searched like Bubbleman, it does make for a light target for Elemental HERO - The Shining after you have made a Heroic Champion - Excalibur.

So while at this point the Noble Archetype has still got a long way to go, it can be used in other decks (Even Agents with their balls) in the meantime. It can only get better from here. With that in mind, it's worth picking up a playset just incase (or you can just enter 3 times in the sneak peek).

Until next time folks, TheTCGLover Out!

Yu-Gi-Oh Card Review: Elemental HERO Escuridaó

Greetings readers. How long has it been since I've done a card review?

The answer is: a LONG time.

However I am going to start doing them again since they are easy and a good way to go in some real depth on a card rather than talking about a collection and skimming over each one. Because when you skim, you are pretty much just telling readers stuff they already know. It's when you think outside the box and really think about a card that the reader (you) actually learns something.

So today's card is Elemental HERO Escuridao

The last one, and by far the best.

So clocking in at 2500 attack, it's got a decent amount of raw power for getting over most monsters. 2500 is the special number to aim for if you want to stand any chance against Dino Rabbits. 

However, it's effect allows it to gain 100 attack for each Elemental HERO in the graveyard. While that does seem pretty weak, it means late game it can take on almost anything. That BLS doesn't stand a chance if you have 10 Heroes resting in the graveyard.

But if you have any knowledge of the wonderful game of Yu-Gi-Oh, you will know how awaited this card has been for players. Now that it has been released, the potency it shares with Super Polymerization means with each Omni Hero released, nobody's monsters are safe. It's well accepted that DARK has the most amount of monsters AND the best ones too. With Escuridao needing a Dark monster, you can take those monsters and make this card for them to deal with.

While it's all well and good to say "Yay I can beat Dark decks", that's way too vague if you're at all competitive. With this card released, you can now main deck against: 

• Inzektors: All of their monsters are dark so you can just screw them over no matter what they summon.
• Tour Guide: Damn that pesky girl. She's underage but with Super Poly and this card, you can bend her over without worrying about going to jail for it.
• That STUPID CHAOS DRAGON LOOP: Lightpulsar + REDMD on the field is annoying. The key is to destroy both on your turn and they will bring REDMD back, allowing you to Escuridao. Of course you can super poly Lightpulsar into The Shining and cause it to miss timing, but that's no fun.

There are hundreds of other cards you can now beat with this card, but those are the main ones.

However a problem with these Omni Heroes is that when a new Archetype with a Specific Attribute is released, Heroes can just rip them apart since all of their Omnis have got decent effects. Even if the Archetype has tonnes of different Attributes (Like Wind-Ups), Heroes can give them a field day provided they have their Extra deck full of the Omnis.

This card can be used against them too. Dark decks can now wait for them to summon a HERO and then poly into Escuridao. Xyz monsters like Maestroke which are annoying to get rid of are now a piece of cake.

Anyway, that's pretty much all there is to say about it. Whether or not the card gets abused to a point where it will have to get banned, only time will tell. Unfortunately, with me being from the UK, the card is still illegal here until it's released in something official.

Until next time, TheTCGLover Out!