Here's something worth talking about. The concept of whether or not a card is 'brokensauce' is one of the most subjective topics the game has to offer. Sometimes a card is considered too good by a player when they repeatedly lose to it, which is 100% driven by a sense of 'butthurt'. That is, feeling the need to get personal closure by attacking a certain card in particular, rather than looking at it and understanding what it is about it that makes it so difficult.
Now, while there are very powerful cards in the game, the majority of the cards released in booster sets are outright unplayable. They offer no real benefit and if you manage to find the situation to use it, the payoff is not worth it.
But what this article is about is the middle cards. The very narrow sweet spot that very few cards can actually fill. These are the Balanced cards.
Personally, I define a balanced card as:
"A card that gives an advantage proportionate to the amount of effort and resources used to use it at a competitive level"
In Layman's terms, if it does too much in one card, it's not balanced. Lets take a look at a few examples:
1. The Gadgets
The Gadget trio are a fantastic example of being balanced and playable. Their best ability is to be able to replace themselves when they are destroyed. Im terms of card advantage, It's not balanced since you replace the card in your hand and you have the gadget on your field, meaning a +1 overall. However the gadget you have summoned on the field is incredibly fragile and protecting it is essential for it to survive to your next turn. Simply put, if you want to keep your initial +1 that you got from the card, you have to work for it beyond the actual summon itself. There are other factors that make it balanced, like having to commit 6+ cards in your deck to effectively use them.
2. The Monarchs
All the monarchs can be considered balanced due to their inherent issue of having to be tribute summoned. This means that in a normal deck, you are gambling your field presence by upgrading to a bigger monster, in an attempt to knock a card(s) off your opponent's field. Of course, these days they are not at the highest competitive level simply because of inconsistencies and their inherent inability to keep up with the decks that are not balanced. But aside from that, it's a great example of gaining a nice advantage by using a proportionate level of available resources.
3. Maxx "C" In my opinion this card is balanced but yours may differ. I believe it is so mainly because of it's main problem of needing to rely on the opponent. But what it does which many other cards cannot do, is turn your opponent's broken tier 1 competitive powerhouse into a level playing field, where skill starts to come into the game again. Unless your opponent is a terrible player who got his/her tier 1 deck paid for by their parents, they will know to stop their summons after you drop Maxx "C". That is the exact reason why it's becoming more and more of a staple. You are discarding a card when your opponent would special summon (the condition and situation needed to effectively use it), and you draw when they resolve their effect (The advantage gained, which at this point is none).
There are many other cards that we all know that follow the criteria of what is balanced. All you really need to do to know whether or not a card is balanced is by asking yourself the definition i stated above. For example, Black Luster Soldier - Envoy of the Beginning is Unbalanced due to it being incredibly easy to summon, and has 2 very powerful effect that give the player advantage without any prior thought process.
The great thing about that definition is that no matter how the game changes in the future, it can always be applied to new cards to decide whether or not whining about the card is actually justified.
Comment down below what you reckon is the most balanced card in the game. I have a few but I can't choose.
Here's Simon He's Chaos Agent build he took to 5th place. More notably, he went undefeated on day 1, which says quite a bit more since only 2-3 people accomplish that feat per YCS.
Monsters: 29
3 Mystical Shine Ball
3 Master Hyperion
3 The Agent of Creation – Venus
2 The Agent of Mystery – Earth
2 Tragoedia
2 Tour Guide From the Underworld
2 Spirit Reaper
2 Maxx “C”
2 Effect Veiler
1 Chaos Sorcerer
1 Archlord Kristya
1 Thunder King Rai-Oh
1 Herald of Orange Light
1 Gorz the Emissary of Darkness
1 Black Luster Soldier – Envoy of the Beginning
1 Honest
1 Sangan
Spells: 10
3 Mystical Space Typhoon
1 Enemy Controller
1 Forbidden Lance
1 Creature Swap
1 Dark Hole
1 Heavy Storm
1 Mind Control
1 Monster Reborn
Traps: 1
Treacherous Trap Hole
Extra Deck: 15
1 Armory Arm
1 Ally of Justice Catastor
1 Gaia Knight, the Force of Earth
1 Black Rose Dragon
1 Stardust Dragon
1 Number 96: Dark Mist
1 Gachi Gachi Gantetsu
1 Daigusto Phoenix
1 Wind-Up Zenmaines
1 Leviair the Sea Dragon
1 Number 17: Leviathan Dragon
1 Temtempo the Percussion Djinn
1 Number 30: Acid Golem of Destruction
1 Gem-Knight Pearl
1 Hieratic Sun Dragon Overlord of Heliopolis
Side Deck: 15
3 Gemini Imps
2 Gozen Match
2 Electric Virus
2 Royal Decree
2 Shadow-Imprisoning Mirror
1 Chimeratech Fortress Dragon
1 Effect Veiler
1 Cyber Dragon
1 System Down
Overall a very nice deck. 4 Agents made it into the top 16 so it looks like a great meta call. With the ability to churn out beaters with powerful effects, the deck has a great match-up against most rogue decks, which is something worth considering when playing 10 rounds with the possibility to play against anything.
Most Importantly, he decided to play a lot of hand traps, which says a lot about the game more than the deck itself. It's really important to be able to drop maxx "c" and veiler while being able to press on with big monsters. It's a really simple plan and it works really well.
Lastly, his Side deck made sure that he wouldn't have any problems against Wind-Ups (Gozen, Veiler), Geargia (CyDra, Chimeratech, System Down, Electric Virus) and Dark World (SIM and Gemini Imps). The other matchups can be taken care of with the already mained generic cards.
So yeah. Well done to the best duelist the UK has to offer!
TheTCGLover Out!
PS. Buy this game, It's so awesome!
I apologize for not making any blog posts for the last week. I've been settling into Uni and it's been a stressful beginning to a presumably stressful year.
But yeah. Six Samurai has won YCS Indy!
The pilot bested the force that is Wind-Ups, a more powerful force that has shown it's skill in the previous YCSs (Toronto and Guatemala). Sams has been considered a tier 2 deck for a while now but against certain decks (Especially Rogue decks), they can be very good. It's clear that the best Six Samurai players make sure their decks can access any of the 3 Naturia Synchros when they need them, which allows them to shut down the most important card type at that current time. Of course, Wind-Ups can access Shock Master for essentially 0 cost, but the card overall does not hurt Sams nearly as much as in the mirror match or against Burn/Countdown.
Once again, he won with Heroes, thereby showing that above all factors, if you're a skilled player with a certain deck, you will do exponentially better than anyone else trying to pilot the same deck.
EDIT: I found the decklist! Alter Reality Games posted it on their Facebook. I'm showing it here without their permission but if anyone affiliated with ARG reads this blog and has a problem with it being here, then please feel free to let me know.
Here was the Top 16 Breakdown for that YCS.
5x Wind-Up
3x Dino-Rabbit
2x Geargia
1x TeleDAD
1x Infernity
1x Hieratics
1x Psychics
1x Heroes (Winning deck)
1x Agents
Here's the Top 8
3x Wind-Up
2x Dino-Rabbit
1x Geargia
1x Psychic
1x Heroes
aaaand the Top 4
2x Dino-Rabbit
1x Geargia
1x Heroes
Dino-Rabbit had a mirror match in the Semi Final, meaning Hero and Rabbit played in the final. I'm surprised all 3 Wind-Up decks were knocked out of the Top 8, as well as Psychics. They both performed very well in Toronto so this is a completely opposite turn of events.
Hello once again. With the outright possibility of this deck becoming big and everyone netdecking it left, right and centre: I've decided to post his decklist and talk about the deck's awesomeness and it's shortcomings.
So yeah, the deck focuses around Earth monsters. Of course Archetypes which all have the same attribute will function better than just a bunch of random crap. Jeff picked Psychics even though you can do just as well using other Earth Attributes (Like Karakuri, Geargia, Gadgets etc.). Especially ones that synchro since it ultimately will put 3 Earths in the graveyard rather than just 2. So when there's exactly 5, he can drop one of his 3 Grandsoils. I feel that 3 is a little too much for the deck, but 2 seems too little. So with that it can stay at 3 since having too many is better than having none at all.
So with Emergency Teleport, the deck is capable of some interesting combos. Being able to summon a Psychic and then Teleport into Psychic Jumper means you can switch Serene Psychic Witch with their stronger monster and ram it, thereby allowing you to banish Esper Girl and bring it back on your standby phase. The whole combo allows for some nice draw power and puts Earths in your graveyard at the same time.
It's blatantly obvious that Maxx "C" and Card Trooper are amazing for this deck. The former allows for some insane draw and it's just a pro card overall. Add the fact that it's an earth that can discard itself to the graveyard means it's catered so well for this deck. The latter can dump up to 3 earth monsters from it's effect in a single turn, allowing for Grandsoil's summoning condition to be set up in just 2 turns (Make that a single turn if you discard Maxx "C" on their turn). He also uses Tragoedia which I've never really liked playing, but it does provide a nice defence in case you don't have Gorz and your opponent overextends. Gorz does a much better job and Tragoedia can sometimes feel like you're stopping an oncoming car by throwing yourself onto the road. Add the fact that it's a Dark type means that it's place in the deck might be worth looking into.
Anyway, another part of his plan is Miracle Synchro Fusion. He uses that late game to banish his stuff (allowing for more Graveyard Control) in order to summon Ultimate Axon Kicker, which on it's own is powerful enough to win games by itself. Plus it can be bluffed as a set card and lets you draw when it's destroyed, making it less dead than the first part of the effect would like you to think.
The rest of the deck is pretty much staples.
So yeah, it's a really interesting deck but I wouldn't expect to see it much due to the surprise factor now gone. But it's really awesome to see such shining innovation at the top of a huge tournament. It sure beats looking at the decklist of a Wind-Up Deck.
Hello Readers. With YCS Toronto just finished on Sunday, we have our first winner of the new format: Joshua Graham with Wind-Ups. He managed to take down ARG's Jeff Jones (Who's got a good number of titles under his belt) in the final and he was playing Grandsoil Psychics, a new deck that very few players were prepared for and took full advantage of the new cards in Return of the Duelist and the changes made on the new ban list.
Anyway starting from Top 16 (If Top 32 gets posted somewhere I'll add it in), we will take a look at the ratios and I will suggest explanations.
5x Wind-Ups
4x HEROs
2x Geargia
2x Dino Rabbit
1x Burn
1x Dark World
1x Psychics ft. Grandsoil
So with Wind-Ups taking almost 30% of the total top 16, they had the best chance of getting the win at this point due to sheer numbers. Wind-Ups really benefited from being able to easily transition to the next format by making just a couple of adjustments to their deck. The way the deck works now is much more bearable and actually incredibly skilled, provided your opponent is any good. And as we know from Plant Synchro, if a good player is piloting it, it will do bounds better than anyone else playing the deck. HERO managed to secure 4 places which gave them 25% of the Top 16. Even though their consistency got wobbled by the ban list, they still prove to be a force worthy of reaching the top tables in a YCS. However HERO is quite vague and Konami's writers didn't want to leak much more than "feat. Bubbleman" on the end rather than "Alive HERO" or "Bubble Beat" or "Gemini Beat" etc.
Geargia were the newcomers of this format, with them only being legal for 3 days prior to the YCS. They proved to be very powerful and resourceful by implementing the Karakuri Synchros into the mix. That as well as Gear Gigant X being a nice Advantage bonus once a turn gave the deck a lot of steam to use every turn. Dino Rabbit and Dark world are still hanging in there and Dino Rabbit were a lot cheaper to make which might have helped their numbers in Day 1. Burn always managed to secure 1-2 spots in almost every YCS due to it being quite easy to pilot and a Semi-pro's nightmare to face. The best players have no problem with it though and that's why it rarely gets past the top 8.
Top 8:
3x Wind-Up
1x HEROs
1x Burn
1x Geargia
1x Psychic/Grandsoil
1x Dark World
Well look at that. The Majority of Wind-Ups managed to hold on and secure 37.5% of the Top 8. That's increased their odds by 7.5% so their chances of victory was on the rise. HERO took the biggest beat. They lost 3 of their 4 matches and now down to just one left. Maybe this won't be their format, just like every other one (lol). Geargia lost a match which is acceptable since that's proportionate to the number of players being halved each round. They still stood a chance but personally anyone with knowledge of how many were going to be played at the YCS would have sides against them, and just like any other Machine deck, they are so fucking easy to side, making their effectiveness during the format gradually get worse. Dark World managed to hold out as well at Grandsoil, but they did play eachother in the Top 8 round and Grandsoil progressed forward.
Top 4:
Psychics ft. Grandsoil vs Wind-Ups
Wind-Ups vs Geargia
So almost all the 1 of decks were wiped clean off. Wind-ups once again managed to bring their win chances higher to 50%. Plus they were not playing against eachother so they were guaranteed a place in the Final. Geargia's one of in the Top 8 managed to win so Jordan Kornntoff who was piloting the deck was clealy a cut above anyone else who was playing it that day. Maybe a special Tech?
Finally for the Top 2:
Psychics ft. Grandsoil vs Wind-Ups.
So the one-of deck that was in the Top 32 managed to win every game and make it to the final. Since the deck was under-represented immensely, it should be applauded for it's stunning achievement. Expect Grandsoil to jump up in price (I'm guessing $40 each?). There's not much else to say except toread the final for yourself. Incase you can't be bothered to, it was pretty much Shock Master that sealed game 3.
So yeah that's all there is to say. I'm glad the broken decks of last format have been phased out (I personally don't hate wind-ups anymore since they let you start your turn with a 6 card hand).
A Game Changing card
(Group 1) . The monsters have white names and the Spells and Traps have Black names. It's Konami's way of spicing things up a bit.
An average Spell/Trap card and a few average monsters that vary a bit. (Group 2).
A Beat stick (Group 3). It must have at least 1700 attack by it's raw power or by an effect (Such as the calculator).
Low attack monsters with potent effects.
A STARFOIL rare card!
Here's the List of monsters by Group.
Group 1 (Rare and Game Changing):
Witch of the Black Forest Cyber Jar Jinzo Injection Fairy Lily Dark Dust Spirit Skull Archfiend of Lightning Dark Magician of Chaos Blowback Dragon Mobius the Frost Monarch Fox Fire Ancient Gear Golem Treeborn Frog Super Conductor Tyranno Gorz the Emissary of Darkness Raiza the Storm Monarch White Night Dragon Deep Diver Caius the Shadow Monarch Krebons Tragoedia Obelisk the Tormentor Machina Fortress Tour Guide From the Underworld Number 39: Utopia Gachi Gachi Gantetsu Grenosaurus Number 17: Leviathan Dragon Wind-Up Zenmaister Tiras, Keeper of Genesis Adreus, Keeper of Armageddon Gem-Knight Pearl Raigeki Swords of Revealing Light Pot of Greed Harpie’s Feather Duster Graceful Charity Change of Heart Heavy Storm Snatch Steal Premature Burial Soul Exchange Scapegoat United We Stand Creature Swap Burden of the Mighty Pot of Duality Solemn Judgment Mirror Force Call of the Haunted Ring of Destruction Torrential Tribute Metal Reflect Slime Skill Drain Divine Wrath Dark Bribe
Group 2 (Spells and Traps, and a few monsters):
Greenkappa Penguin Soldier Mysterious Guard Exiled Force Old Vindictive Magician Breaker the Magical Warrior Grave Squirmer Ryko, Lightsworn Hunter Snowman Eater Fissure Tribute to the Doomed Axe of Despair Mystical Space Typhoon Horn of the Unicorn Offerings to the Doomed Bait Doll Book of Moon Autonomous Action Unit Ante Big Bang Shot Fiend’s Sanctuary Different Dimension Gate Enemy Controller Monster Gate Shield Crush Fighting Spirit Forbidden Chalice Darkworld Shackles Forbidden Lance Infected Mail Ego Boost Kunai with Chain Dust Tornado Windstorm of Etaqua Magic Drain Magic Cylinder Shadow Spell Blast with Chain Needle Ceiling Reckless Greed Nightmare Wheel Spell Shield Type-8 Interdimensional Matter Transporter Compulsory Evacuation Device Prideful Roar Half or Nothing Skill Successor Pixie Ring Changing Destiny Fiendish Chain Inverse Universe Miracle’s Wake Power Frame Damage Gate Liberty at Last!
Group 3 (To slap your opponent's smirk off their face):
Luster Dragon Archfiend Soldier Mad Dog of Darkness Charcoal Inpachi Insect Knight Gene-Warped Warwolf Buster Blader Goblin Attack Force Bazoo the Soul-Eater Zombyra the Dark Slate Warrior Dark Ruler Ha Des Freed the Matchless General Airknight Parshath Asura Priest Exarion Universe Vampire Lord Toon Gemini Elf King Tiger Wanghu Guardian Sphinx Skilled White Magician Zaborg the Thunder Monarch D.D. Assailant Theban Nightmare The Tricky Raging Flame Sprite Chiron the Mage Cyber Dragon Cybernetic Magician Goblin Elite Attack Force Doomcaliber Knight Chainsaw Insect Card Trooper Voltic Kong Botanical Lion Ancient Gear Knight Blizzard Dragon Beast King Barbaros The Calculator Gaap the Divine Soldier Arcana Force XIV – Temperance Dark Valkyria Alector, Sovereign of Birds Twin-Barrel Dragon Abyssal Kingshark Jurrac Protops Hedge Guard Fabled Ashenveil Backup Warrior Ambitious Gofer Power Giant Card Guard Yaksha Gogogo Golem Big Jaws Wind-Up Soldier Wind-Up Dog Milla the Temporal Magician Ape Fighter Wind-Up Warrior
Group 4 (Small but potent):
Giant Soldier of Stone Mask of Darkness Morphing Jar Muka Muka Blast Sphere Big Shield Gardna Gilasaurus Possessed Dark Soul Twin-Headed Behemoth Makyura the Destructor Helping Robo for Combat Zolga Chaos Necromancer Stealth Bird Hyper Hammerhead Grave Protector Night Assailant Pitch-Black Warwolf Dekoichi the Battlechanted Locomotive Gyroid Drillroid Gravitic Orb Cloudian – Poison Cloud Des Mosquito Mad Reloader Phantom of Chaos Cyber Valley Blue Thunder T-45 Vortex Trooper DUCKER Mobile Cannon Worm Barses Shield Warrior Dark Resonator Noisy Gnat Fabled Raven Fortress Warrior Twin-Sword Marauder Level Warrior Level Eater) Naturia Strawberry Battle FaderAmazoness Sage Amazoness Trainee Hardened Armed DragonBlackwing – Zephyros the Elite Tanngrisnir of the Nordic Beasts Shine Knight Gagaga Magician Goblindbergh Psi-Blocker
So yeah, that's the entire 220 card list. With so many reprints of great competitive cards, there's no reason to buy some packs and pull some. However with this, many player's cards will go down in price so you might as well get the original print over the common ones.
Hello readers. Now that the largest tournament on record is over, we can now say congratulations to the winner, Michael Balan. He piloted Dark world all the way to victory. Its causing a big stir and is making players wonder: "When will a tier 1 deck win an American YCS?". There are many reasons why none of the 3 have won yet, but that's for another post.
Now to analyse the top tables, Starting with the top 16. The cut was actually the top 64 due to the high number of players, but I noticed how bad some of the top 64 decks were. They all had expensive cards like Maxx "C" and Fiendish chains which helped then get that far. But to get anywhere past the top 32, you have to be a skilled player and that will always triumph over buying your way through the tournament.
Top 16:
7x Dino Rabbit
3x Wind-up (2 of them being the wind-up beast variant)
2x Skill Drain Heroes
1x Piper Chaos
1x Dark World
1x Inzektors
1x Chain Burn
A total of 8 different decks in the top 16. That's actually the complete opposite to what most of the playerbase were expecting to see. In such a large event, there are going to be a lot of different decks and because of that, there are going to be more in the top tables. nearly all of the dino rabbit decks were placed against eachother, reducing their numbers by half no matter what. Was this deliberate? I don't know.
There's only 1 Inzektors, once again showing their weakness when playing the other top decks. I guess when it comes to general play, the deck is pro and annoyingly good. But when its pitted against skilled and professional players with the best decks of the format, it falls short.
At this point i was rooting for Piper Chaos to win. I saw the build before the YCS and I couldn't wait to see how it fared. It's by far the sleeper deck at the moment and it's inherent ability to generate massive advantage with Mystic piper allows it to recover from a Wind-up loop easier than most decks.
Now for the Top 8:
3x Dino Rabbit
1x Wind-Up (Beast Variant)
1x Piper Chaos
1x Skill Drain Heroes
1x Dark world
1x Inzektors
Due to the dino rabbits playing eachother in the top 16, the diversity of the top 8 is kept high. 2 Wind-up decks were knocked out and it reduced their chance of winning to just 12.5%, ignoring other extra factors. Inzektors managed to hang in there, which keeps them at their tier 1 status. Dark world at this point, was starting to raise some eyebrows due to their poor showing in previous YCSs. Of course we know how it did, but at this point, all eyes were on the other rogue decks.
Finally, the top 4:
1x Dino Rabbit
1x Dark world
1x Piper chaos
1x Skill Drain Heroes
4 completely different decks, all with extremely skilled duelists piloting them. The person playing Skill Drain heroes has a Yugitube channel called YGOTRADER101. He just posted a video of his build and goes in depth on his deck. And guess what, it's got no Bubbleman in it!
Anyway, Dino rabbit's numbers had been cut down to just 1 left, which was piloted by Simon He; a European duelist. He is well known for his good yugiohs and at this point, was the favourite to win. I was still rooting for Piper Chaos: the underdog deck. At this point though, all decks had an equal chance of winning and it all came down to their luck.
Skill drain heroes and Piper chaos were both knocked out, leaving Simon He and Michael Balan to duke it out in the final. Due to graphas ability to keep coming back and rabbits relying on the Evolzars for their power, it's not a good matchup for the latter deck. The deck would have to rely on it's solemn warnings to keep it off the field long enough to get 8000 damage through. Unfortunately, Dark world did win and you can see how it went Here.
So yeah, that's enough analysis from me. A surprisingly diverse tournament consisting of a whopping 16 rounds in total for the final 2 players. Until next time!
This post will be discussing the decks at the YCS over the weekend. I will focus on the top 32 since it's quite a broad range of decks that made it to the top cut and there's a lot to discuss.
Okay so here's the top 32, In order of how many there are:
15x Dino Rabbit
9x Wind-up
2x Inzektors
2x Tech Genus
1x Agents
1x Evolsaurs
1x Empty Jar!
1x Dark world
That's quite a diverse top 32 compared to the previous YCSs. Do take note that there are NO plant decks in the top 32, and Konami just burned them to the ground in the banlist. You really did your research didn't you, Konami?
So almost half of the Top 32 was Dino Rabbit: Currently the most expensive deck in yugioh. With them acquiring so many spots, they were almost a sure winner. Their general sackyness means that anyone can pick the deck up and play it. Wind-ups got a good number of spots, getting over a quarter of them. They are also pretty sacky and with them also not being hit whatsoever by the banlist, they're not going anywhere. In actual fact, with Trap Dustshoot going to 0, they have gotten stronger.
Now here's a surprise, only 2 Inzektors in Top 32. I don't know if this is because of a low number of players or because of other factors (People prepared for them better perhaps?) but 2 is surprisingly low. Their general ability to pop cards multiple times a turn makes you wonder what happened. It only gets worse for them at this point.
2 Tech Genus made the cut. That's impressive to be honest. It's nice to see them go out with a bang. One thing I like about T.G.s is the way the deck works. As PJ (TheIrishDuelist) said: "Most decks are designed to win. T.G.s are designed so they cannot lose" which summarises the deck perfectly. They can special summon multiple times a turn, pump their beast warriors and search for more copies. It really is a brilliant deck and I wish I could have made it.
Now for the 1 off's. Agents are losing a bit of consistency with the banlist but right now the only explanation for why they only managed 1 spot is they were probably under-represented. Most players were preferring to play other decks. That's not saying that Agents are bad or anything, they just require a little bit of skill and people don't like to think for themselves. I'm actually building Evolsaurs to mess around with this upcoming format, and the decklist was incredibly well made. He earned that spot and I would have liked to see him reach higher. Here is the decklist for it:
Moving on is Empty Jar. That's a huge surprise considering it's weak against Wind-ups and Dino Rabbits. The deck needs a hand for it to work and both decks can hurt it in some way or another. I would like to see the decklist and the side for this deck. If I see it, I'll put it on this post.
Lastly is Dark World. It managed one spot with the help of Trance Archfiend: A new Dark World support card in Order of Chaos. It lets you discard a card and give it 500 attack and when it dies, you can get a banished dark monster to your hand. It helps the deck immensely and if there was any reason for players to try the deck, Trance Archfiend is it.
So a pretty diverse Top cut. How does the Top 16 look?
7x Dino Rabbit
5x Wind-Up
1x Agents
1x Empty Jar
1x Dark World
1x Tech Genus
So half of the Dino Rabbit decks were knocked out and 4 Wind-ups lost. There is two important things to notice from this top 16. One is that both Inzektors that made the Top 32 were knocked out, which will make people wonder if they are really a tier 1 deck at this point.
Secondly, notice that Half the Rabbit decks went out. Half the players of the top 32 left and half the rabbit decks went out. That shows that the rabbit players are quite similar in terms of playstyle and if you know how to beat them, then you will probably be able to do a repeat performance on every rabbit player. If you don't get what I mean by that, then just remember that they still have a 50% chance of winning at this point.
The rogue 1 off decks are still in the running, which is very surprising. It's a shame that Evols went out though. But as you can see, it's 4 rogue decks against 12 sacky linear ones. It gives them quite an uphill struggle but with that, they can tell what they are most likely to play against and prepare accordingly.
For the top 8:
3x Dino Rabbit
3x Wind-Ups
1x Agents
1x Tech Genus
As you can see, the number of Dino rabbits are still proportionate to the number of them in the Top 32, which reinforces my point about them being easy to play against once you know what you're doing. Perhaps there is an amazing Side card that completely destroys them? Electric Virus perhaps?
Wind-ups are still doing well. Only 2 of the 5 decks went out so they are on level with Dino Rabbit. Both decks represent 37.5% of the top 8. Agents have managed to stay in considering there was only 1 in the Top 32. Well done to whoever is piloting it. Lets see what the Quarter-finals did:
Top 4:
2x Dino Rabbit
1x Wind-Ups
1x Tech Genus
Bye Agents. What we have left is concrete proof of Dino Rabbits representing around 50% of the decks since the Top 32. They have continuously managed to cut their numbers down in half every time. 2 Wind-ups went out, so at this point their chance of winning dropped to just 25%, making it the same as the remaining T.G. Deck left. This guy has been the remaining T.G. deck since the top 16.
In the end, 1 Dino Rabbit deck and the last Wind-Up deck was beaten, leaving Tech Genus and the last remaining Dino Rabbit deck. Even at this point Dino Rabbits retain their 50% representation.
The final was a very interesting read, but Tech Genus triumphed in the end, making this a very interesting YCS indeed. I'm really happy that they ended up winning since it was one of the rogue decks.
That's it for YCS Atlanta. I hope you learned a lot about what's to come next format. I am trying to retain from raging about the banlist due to it being absolutely atrocious.
In my opinion this card is balanced but yours may differ. I believe it is so mainly because of it's main problem of needing to rely on the opponent. But what it does which many other cards cannot do, is turn your opponent's broken tier 1 competitive powerhouse into a level playing field, where skill starts to come into the game again. Unless your opponent is a terrible player who got his/her tier 1 deck paid for by their parents, they will know to stop their summons after you drop Maxx "C". That is the exact reason why it's becoming more and more of a staple. You are discarding a card when your opponent would special summon (the condition and situation needed to effectively use it), and you draw when they resolve their effect (The advantage gained, which at this point is none).
