Abyss Rising Exceeds - Look Out For Them

Hello all, and I've only got one exam left to go which is on Monday night. I leave to return to Brunei on the Wednesday straight after that but of course I'll still be blogging.

Shadow of the Six Samurai - Shien

First up is Shadow of the Six Samurai - Shien. Konami has revealed its effect to target monsters with an attack lower than 2000, and to then boost its original attack to 2000. So essentially, the monster that benefits the most out of this is obviously Kageki, as he still ends up on a sweet 3500 thanks to his massive boost. That's still good enough to take out whatever monster you may be up against. However, it sadly means that there is no protection for Shi En or Shadow himself, which sorta sucks. Of course Shi En can still boot another samurai off the field to keep him from dying, but it means that with only a couple of monsters, he can be run over rather easily, just as before, which is disappointing. Because you have to make Utopia in this situation, you can't push as much as you'd want to just so you can have the defence to survive, should everything go wrong.

Playtesting with my samurais yesterday, I noticed the number of times that the two extra counters that Shadow would have put on the field would have been so handy for either ridiculous gateway spamming, or to get Dojo up to four counters so that I could then bring out LSS - Enishi and win. Also, my current build seems to get alot more use out of Leviair than before. I think I just get to use LSS - Enishi more often which means that Leviair actually has a target. Hence, it can grab a banished Kageki, and if your field is also graced with a Shadow, then that means that you have an OTK because he can put Kageki at 3500, while he himself goes in for 2500, and Leviair for 1800. Shadow would likely have been summoned by overlaying LSS - Enishi and Kizan in this situation.

However, the combo that went off the most when I decided to draw the nuts without Gateway joining in the fun usually ended up in having a Naturia Beast, backed with a trap or two, while sitting alongside LSS - Enishi and a Kizan. And the coolest thing was that for this exact situation and tons of others, Samurai now have more support than ever before. And thanks to the new set Abyss Rising, here's why:

Gandiva

http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Heroic_Champion_-_Gandiva
2 Level 4 Warrior-Type monsters
Once per turn, when a Level 4 or lower monster(s) is Special Summoned to your opponent's side of the field: You can detach 1 Xyz Material from this card; destroy that monster(s).

Its effect has yet to be confirmed, but I doubt that it'll change to be honest. Its stats are rather solid but not especially high. Of course, his effect is what draws him apart from the other Rank 4 monsters that you could be playing. As I talked about in my last post regarding Shadow, Samurais suffer from potentially getting blown out when they all hit the field, and then a bigger attacker comes down that they cant get rid of quickly enough. Gandiva solves this problem really well, even if his niche effect is rather situational. With his effect, he has the ability to completely shut down the Dino Rabbit deck if you can setup faster than they can. Also it stops Wind-ups instantly if that means anything anymore. In Dino Rabbit, both Rescue Rabbit and Tourguide can do nothing at all. That leaves them with their Guaibas and Vanillas to take you down. However, their attack manipulation cards (Chalice and Lance) are useless if you've got Naturia Beast face-up. So in this situation you've got a very simple lock up.

In most cases, this option is gonna be better than making Shi En, trying to protect him and hoping for the best because they can easily bait his effect out. And furthermore, relying on having a live trap set just to ensure you stay on the field is not the best way to go. The above combo with Gandiva is excellent because it doesn't need traps to keep it going, and if you do, well you've won. Swap Gandiva out for Roach to take on the Chaos Dragon matchup, and you're still good to go. So now you have a toolbox of different strategies depending on the situation that you're facing.

Gagaga Gunman

http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Gagaga_Gunman
2 Level 4 monsters
Once per turn: You can detach 1 Xyz Material from this card; activate 1 of these effects based on this card's battle position. ● Attack Position: This turn, during the Damage Step, if this card attacks an opponent's monster, it gains 1000 ATK, and the attack target loses 500 ATK. ● Defense Position: Inflict 800 damage to your opponent.

Now here's another guy with an interesting effect. He can get over anything with less than 3000atk which is very handy to have. Now decks other than those that play warriors have an Excaliber-esque exceed to use. Also, his defence is rather solid. And the choice to be able to deal a bit of burn when required should never be overlooked.


Aside from all the other Mermail stuff and what not, Tannhäuser Gate looks like fun, letting you hit higher ranked exceeds, while Abysstrom possess quite a bit of raw power that someone might be smart enough to figure out how to use it more than effectively. Heraldics look alright so far but there isn't much to go off at the moment. I like the art on Number 9: Canopy Star - Dyson Sphere, but I doubt it'll do much in terms of being actually played. There's still a few more exceeds to be revealed as of yet, and I'll talk about them when they come out if they're good enough to be talked about. I won't likely do much analysis, if any at all, on Mermails because I've seen at least two other blogs that I read go quite in depth over them, so just check my recommended blog list every once in a while to see if anyone puts anything regarding them up. The set currently has lots of gaps as it is, so there is a chance that it could get alot better.


Sorry if this post was more directed towards how they provided opportunities for Samurai to get better, but this is what came to my head as their best use so far from a personal point of view. Of course, the September Banlist is closer than the release of this set in the TCG, so whether these points will be as relevant in the future has yet to be seen.

I've also picked up my first few MTG cards, being Sun Titan because he rocks the shit, and a few other cards like Splinterfright for this deck that I plan to make if the money necessary to do so appears from the sky sometime in the next month. I'm keen to enjoy Magic as I did in January earlier this year. Except this time, with my own deck, teched out in the way I'd like it to be. Should be good.


Till next time, this is DEFER signing out.

Royal Oppression, And Why It Must Return

Afternoon fellow readers. With both of my first two exams done and out of the way, I had hoped to chill on the internet today. My internet appears to have hit an all-time low in terms of speed which isn't very much fun at all. Whatever, hopefully it'll still be able to upload this blog post. If not, well you won't know anyway.

A couple of days ago I was thinking about the fundamental flaws of the March 2012 banlist and how it promoted exceeds, and then obviously in turn, special summons. I also thought about how the current format is essentially focused towards special summons and in some cases, spamming them (Chaos Dragons, Wind-Ups, and to a lesser degree, Rabbits). Then I remembered Royal Oppression. Why I forgot about in the first place I'll never know. But I recall throwing in my samurais just before it was banned and it really made the deck. The ability to setup your field and then keep your opponent off the board while saving the power trap you had for that one card that'd screw you over was amazing. Never mind that Shi En could also protect it from all the hate prepared for it. I don't know why I didn't put it in sooner but that's old news now.

Then I considered how it would impact the current meta if it was taken off the list and put back to one as it should be. It certainly wouldn't make every other banlist decision justifiable, but it would almost certainly help the format to retain some sense of structure. This is primarily because of a few reasons outlined below.

In the days of Teledad, throwing two or three synchros on the field with a DAD was powerful for its day. No massive mental jump there. But I remember when mirror matches suddenly became more and more complex as players decided on more "out-there" techs for their side decks. It wasn't until one player decided to main royal oppression, instead of siding it like the rest, that shit really went down. I can't remember his name, but you can imagine the deck with oppression backing it up. You'd have the above field of monsters. Your opponent somehow survives and tries to comeback with their own flurry of special summons. Upon flipping up Royal Oppression and achieving a simple +1 for a minor cost, you've now managed to keep their powerhouses from ever getting on the board, while also ensuring that any of their defenses can't stay on the board due to DAD being protected by Stardust.

And right there is the big difference between right now, and back then. You used to go all out and then try to keep your opponent out of the game if you didn't manage to OTK them. Now, you can keep putting out 1/2 major special summons every turn to keep applying the pressure on your opponent. Except the only difference is that you HAVE to keep doing this in order to win. Rabbits, Windups and Chaos Dragons need to continuously special summon turn after turn over the course of a duel. Rabbit doesn't come under this bracket as much due to the lockdown provided by Laggia and a few backrows, but it should definitely still be considered as 2/3 turns of "Rabbit => Laggia, Tour Guide => Leviair brings back Rabbit => Laggia", does net easier wins than usual. And it isn't that rare either.

On that note now consider the return of Royal Oppression. Rather than providing ridiculous lockdown with a field of boss monsters, you now instead put them out turn after turn, which Oppression prevents. Wind-ups do go all out in one turn, but with Oppression up along with a little protection, they wouldn't have a chance in hell of winning. So, if you yourself are playing one of these decks or something similar and are maining oppression, you think you'd be on the road to victory too right? Not necessarily. If the game does turn in the tide of your opponent while you still have your own oppression up, you risk locking yourself out of the game which would most certainly spell disaster and eventual loss. This is because, as I mentioned before, the top decks NEED to special summon. The days of the powerful normal summon monsters that hold their own are gone. Honestly though, with players having the option choosing to use 3 MST, 1 Heavy, Dust Tornado, Night Shot, Royal Decree, along with numerous S/T destruction monster cards, Oppression wouldn't be that hard to hit mid-game at all.

And in this simple yet powerful observation lies the essence of why Yu-Gi-Oh was so much fun before. You actually had the mind games concerning whether their deck would run it or not. Do they currently have it facedown and should I go off? And to throw an opponent off, a duelist may even have run it regardless of whether it hurt their main strategy or not. Forcing an opponent into a position where they have to overextend and then you stop them cold mid-way through their combo really does provide wins. Or, conversely, one could force one's opponent into activating it prematurely. Hence, the timing of activation of Royal Oppression was really key and could easily separate good players from the bad. You had to bait your opponent out, give them the idea that it was safe to push. And then from this, there were all the mini-strategies within a deck based around "how am I going to deal with / work around Oppression should it be played?" and "how much would Oppression affect my deck's win condition?". Players often wasted their only MST for an unknown backrow, only to get screwed over by a well-timed Oppression a turn or two later.  Some players didn't even play it themselves because they knew their opponents would be, leaving themselves with more room for other mained techs. They forced them to have to throw it up if they had it and then used it against them, getting the use out of Oppression for free. It ultimately was one of the most skilled cards in terms of considering it in one's gameplan, both when used by you and against you.

Royal Oppression would also prevent sacky top-decks from determining games such as BLS. Now don't get me wrong, drawing BLS doesn't immediately give you the game, but if you're down to the point where each player only has one or two cards, then it WILL make a massive difference as to who is the victor. That much is not debatable.

However, Oppression isn't without its flaws. It proves to be way too powerful in decks that lockdown and protect it very well. One such deck is Six Samurai, with its replacement, Rabbit, doing largely the same thing for the most part. But one could argue that since Laggia only negates once, and can't individually protect itself, that maybe Rabbit wouldn't main it because they'd be shooting themselves in the foot if their opponent managed to get through Laggia and their couple of backrows. Because really, a few vanillas, and with Tour Guides and Rabbits dying instantly, the deck would be as effective as a Magikarp using splash.



Yes MST is at 3 with Heavy Storm also around, but if Konami decide to make a counter-intuitive non-dick move by bringing it back in September, then as much as I'd hate it, MST would have to be hit in some way. Not only for the above reason of nuking your oppression and going off again, but also so that players that blindly throw away their MST's would be punished as the opportunity to use MST's raw power would decrease per duel. Then the players that wisely time their MST's would see the results of their play pay-off over the course of a duel.

Bringing back Royal Oppression while limiting MST (there is Dust Tornado to turn to instead after all), could ultimately prove to be the saving grace of Yu-Gi-Oh's skilled competitive play. Of course these aren't the only changes that should be implemented. There are still various other smaller problems that could be fixed in a variety of ways. That much is up to Konami to decide upon. And it is with great hope, that I wish they do so.

Till next time, this is DEFER signing out.