March 2012 Banlist Discussion Part 2: The Limited List

Now it's time for the Limited list. With the list almost in effect, I wanted to finish this segment before then so it's still worth talking about.

If you have not seen Part 1: Click here  (Right click and then new tab. Why this does not already happen when you right click makes no sense.)

So lets begin.

Tech Genus Striker
Okay. So right before the list, YCS Atlanta happened and T.Gs managed to win it. Of course, nobody had any sides to directly counter them and they are overall a good deck to play. High in Traps, they are able to whittle down your opponent and gain advantage. It seems like a pretty good deck and it's a shame that Benedikt Junk, the best player at YCS Leipzig who was playing T.Gs, did not make the final cut.

But why did Striker get hit?

In the OCG, as evidenced by the banlist, T.G Agents are rampant in the meta. This is because they do not have access to cards which make our meta decks work. For dino rabbits as an example: you need Tour guide to make Leviair and make another Evolzar. Without that combo, you will not be able to play the deck. That is why Konami had to look at T.G Agents and pick cards from it which were most problematic. It was either Striker or Warwolf, and Striker is overall the better card.

But in all honesty, It was a terrible hit. If you hit the Agent part more, then the deck would still not be able to function. Konami did hit the agent part, but not the right cards. But that is the reason why it was hit and the TCG has to deal with it.


The Agent of Mystery - Earth 
For the same reasons as above, Konami needed to hit Agents. This card allows for consistency which without, the deck would desperately need. If you keep earth alive for a turn, then you can go into Trishula next turn with the Venus you searched. So you lost no advantage and you managed to wipe 3 cards off your opponent. That actual play is not that great, but Konami should have hit Venus instead. Some players were really hoping that Hyperion would be hit too, but a boss monster is only really as good as the cards needed to come out. You can run a Boss monster that says "Win the duel", but if your deck only has a 0.1 chance of being able to summon it, then it's a bad card.

There is not much else to say about Earth. Both hits were pointless for the TCG and is a constant reminder that we are in desperate need for a separate Banlist from the OCG.



That's it for the Limited cards. The Semi-Limited discussion will be a lot longer, so you might want to get a drink for that one.

What does YCS Atlanta tell us?

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.

TheTCGLover out!

Yu-Gi-Oh Card Review: T.G. Hyper Librarian

Blogger is so stupid sometimes. I made a card review a couple of days ago about Meklord Astro Mekanikle. for some reason, its disappeared. And its not a decent enough card to make me want to review it again. (I apologize to anyone who has been waiting since wednesday for a new blog entry).
So i'll skip it and move along to the 3rd and most anticipated Nationals Prize Card, T.G. Hyper Librarian

Draw power at his fingertips.

This level 5 synchro monster has got a very nice 2400 attack and 1800 defence. That's really good on a level 5, since with that 2400 attack, it can go toe-to-toe with a monarch if it really needs to, but so can Magical Android so its not a huge deal. The 1800 defence means it's a decent defence if it so happens to be switched into defence. For some weird reason, it's a DARK attribute. That makes it chaos fodder but apart from that i would have preferred LIGHT so it would work with Honest. However, it does not require any specific non-tuners or tuners. You can just summon it with Junk synchron or Alien Ammonite or Legendary Six Samurai - Kageki and Kagemusha of the Six Samurai. There are so many ways to make a level 5 its not funny. But like all synchro monsters, big or small in level, it needs an effect to make the -1 (Using 2 monsters) upon summon worth it. This one does not disappoint:

While this card is face up, when a synchro monster is synchro summoned to the field, you must draw a card each time.

Wow. It's got one of those effects where you would read it the first time and think "That's not great", but 10 seconds later, you suddenly realise how many decks can abuse the hell out of this card. With synchro spamming being a big win condition in multiple decks, this card says "Please spam your extra deck and i'll reward you for it".

Not only does it reward you for doing it, you also draw whenever your opponent synchro summons. That means that if you spam the field with this card, your opponent will have to take down your front line to get to your life points and to do that, they will have to synchro summon. They can't get to you very easily if you have a 8 card hand on the beginning of every turn.

So what cards can you use with this card? Those are the synchro monsters that let you bring out more synchro monsters quicker, such as the Karakuri Synchros (They bring out a karakuri from your deck upon summon). Obviously, you can use the T.G. Archetype, which specialises in synchro summoning quickly, to get large amount's of draw. Another great card to use with Hyper Librarian is Formula synchron which will probably be the most abused combo out there. When Formula synchron is synchro summoned while Hyper Librarian is on your field, you can draw 2 cards then if you need to, you can synchro summon into black rose dragon on your opponent's turn for more advantage. Then you will have a light and dark in the graveyard for Chaos Sorcerer. With Hyper librarian, there are just too many decks that can take advantage of it's draw power.

Fortunately, most of the yu-gi-oh community is anticipating this card will be banned in september, giving it only a couple of months to reign terror in our game. However, i personally feel with Exceeds debuting around the same time, the synchro mechanic will slowly fizzle away. People may disagree with me on that, but no more tuners are going to be made either, so it just seems to me that this card joined the party a little past due. Therefore, i think Konami will put this card to 1, but im not 100% certain on that since you only need 1 Librarian on the field to gain advantage. It's a bit like heavy storm in the sense that when it's around, it completely reshapes the game and you have to play with that certain card in mind at all times. If you know your opponent has this card avaliable to him/her, you will have to synchro summon when it's not on the field, and play defensively when it is. There is no other synchro monster that does that.

Yu-Gi-Oh Card Review: T.G. Wonder Magician

Hello readers. To keep with the T.G. theme im reviewing one of their synchro monsters. No, its not that broken mistake of a card Hyper Librarian.


Todays card is T.G. Wonder Magician

Thank god this card needs a T.G. Non-tuner.

This level 5 synchro monster has 1900 attack points (That's ok) and 0 defence (Err, what?). I guess thats ok since you will find yourself with this on your field during the end phase, so at least it can hold it's own a little. But this card has 3 very good effects:

When this card is Synchro summoned, select 1 spell/trap card on the field and destroy it. When this card is destroyed, draw a card. And then theres the formula synchron synchro on the opponent's turn clause.

So when it hits the field, you blow up a backrow. Thats very good since it pressures your opponent to use a card they might have wanted to use on something with a bit more attack. However, if they do not have a backrow and you do when you summon this card, you have to hit your own, which is bad (Fortunately you only get to blow up a card when you synchro summon Wonder Magician, so at least you have some control). And if you force them to use their bottomless, you draw a card. If you run into a mirror force, you draw a card (Card trooper, Umad bro?). So this card has a nice bonus if something happens to it.

On your opponent's turn, you can synchro summon with this card. Its a level 5, so it's a little easier to reach those higher levels than Formula synchron since you can just summon a level 2 or 3 instead of having to tribute summon or waste resources and synchro summon. Like Formula Synchron, you can wait for them to commit to the field and synchro into Black Rose Dragon with T.G. Catapult Turtle or any other level 2.

So how easy is it to Synchro summon this card? Very easy.
you can use T.G. striker and T.G. Werewolf without wasting your normal summon or you can use T.G. Catapult turtle to special summon T.G. Jet Falcon and synchro that way too. Or you can branch out of the T.G. Archetype and use any level 2 tuner like Plaguespreader Zombie.

It really is an amazing card. In my opinion if it did not require a T.G. non tuner it would be on par with Hyper Librarian.

The best T.G. deck ever!

While i have not got a single EXVC card right now, i am interested in the T.G. Archetype that has debuted in it. I thought "Since the nordic deck got some attention, why not make a T.G. one?" And so here i am.

here we go, the best Tech Genus deck ever made! (With an extra deck!)

EDITED AS OF SEPTEMBER 1ST 2011 (FOR THE NEW BANLIST!!!)

Monsters - 18

3x T.G. Striker

3x T.G. Warwolf

3x T.G. Rush Rhino
3x Reborn Tengu

2x Effect Veiler

2x Cyber Dragon
1x Thunder king Rai-Oh (You just need to know when to use it)
1x Gorz, the Emmisary of Darkness

Spells - 11

1x Monster Reborn

1x Dark Hole

1x Heavy storm

2x Mystical space typhoon

1x Reinforcement of the army
3x Pot of duality

1x Pot of avarice

1x Book of moon

Traps - 11

2x Solemn warning (Or bottomless)

1x Solemn judgement (or Seven tools)

2x Call of the haunted

1x Torrential tribute
1x Starlight Road
1x Reinforce Truth
1x Trap Dustshoot
2x Mind Crush 

Extra Deck - 13

1x T.G. Wonder Magician

1x T.G. Hyper Librarian

1x T.G. Blade Blaster

1x Formula synchron

1x Stardust dragon

1x Scrap Dragon

1x Chimeratech Fortress Dragon

1x Black rose dragon
1x Utopia
1x Steelswarm roach

1x Trishula, dragon of the ice barrier (Or mist wurm)

1x Brionac, dragon of the ice barrier (Or gaia knight)


DO NOT READ WHAT IS WRITTEN BELOW. IT IS TALKING ABOUT THE FIRST BUILD I POSTED HERE. THE DECKLIST YOU SEE ABOVE IS A REVISED VERSION THAT WINS GAMES. JUST SAYING.

Right. This deck is designed to be able to synchro summon quickly and go into blade blaster if its possible. I think 2 cyber magicians is the best number because its useless if you do not have a rush rhino in hand to use it with (It can be used with other monsters, but only with Kinka-byo can you make something useful). The other T.G. monsters ive chosen have to be ran in threes though, there's no reason not to. They search eachother after being destroyed, so why not?

Next up is the non T.G. monsters. Glow-up bulb allows another way to synchro with rush rhino other than Cyber magician, and you can special summon it with its effect so you can get multiple uses. Effect veiler is a good card and theres no reason to run one or two in any deck. Im running two simply because i can get it with one for one and it fuels avarice quickly. Junk synchron is a must in this deck. If you special summon a monster with its effect, you can activate the effect of T.G. Warwolf to special summon itself and go into a level 5 or 6 depending on what you want. Cyber dragon is just an easy beater which the deck needs to get out of a tight topdeck situation. Kinka-Byo is good to summon formula synchron and get multiple draws out of Hyper librarian, and like junk synchron, it can get Warwolf onto the field with ease. Sangan can search almost every monster in my deck and since im running torrential, its a good card to blow up.

For the spells, we have the staple Book, Reborn, Dark hole, Trunade stuff. I've got 2 Mystical space typhoon to keep the backrows under a bit more control. This deck cycles through monsters very quickly, so pot of avarice is fine at 2. TGX1-HL is an interesting card. It allows you to half a T.G. monster's attack and defence and destroy a spell or trap on the field, so you can use it to dodge bottomless and blow more backrows. Its not 100% recommended to run this, but its the best support card they have in my opinion, and i like throwing support cards in the mix now and then. One for one is a very good card in this deck. There are many targets for this card and this deck special summons often, and you can fetch the sent monster back with junk synchron or Kinka-Byo.

As for traps. You have just a nice basic lineup of good generic traps. Torrential tribute is good in this deck since all of the T.G. monsters fetch another T.G. monster from your deck in the end phase, as well as doing sangan shenanigans. The best way to torrential is to special summon T.G. striker, special summon Warwolf and set torrential. So your opponent summons a monster and you +2 at least, as well as fuel avarice next turn.

The extra deck is very cramped with all of the necessary T.G. synchro monsters. You can just cut out halberd cannon and dragonfly entirely, but halberd's effect is very good since you can bring out something to take its place after it dies, and its a walking Trap hole/Black horn of heaven which in this metagame, hurts almost every deck out there. With cards like cyber dragon and junk synchron, you can make a level 8 and a level 5 together which is good. Scrap dragon lets you destroy your own T.G. monsters and search out for more. Chimeratech gives you an out against machina and karakuri decks. Trishula is just a random addition to the extra since its so good. Its a little tough to go into though. T.G. Power Gladiator is not really necessary but its a good way to put pressure on your opponent if they decide to defend with a spirit reaper or a ryko. But the Go-To level 5s in this deck are the other two, Wonder magician (which i will review) and Hyper librarian. Wonder magician is an outstanding card which does so much and without it the deck would not be half as good. Librarian is just asking to be banned, but with Exceeds about to hit the scene, synchro monsters might die down a bit so this card could just be at 1 and not be too damaging.

In conclusion, this deck is quick, moderately cheap (I suggest waiting a bit for the prices to set at the moment and the actual set to release) and brings out powerful monsters with ease.