Degenerate Dragons, a Big Eye Company™

Your first thought with these dragons was that they were awful wasn't it? You'd be surprised at how wrong you are. The Elemental/Xiaolong/Supressor/Incarnate dragons are a group of 4 large dragons of Earth, Water, Wind, and Fire elements, along with their corresponding baby forms. Redox (Earth) pairs with Reactan, Blaster (Fire) with Burner, Tempest (Wind) with Lightning, and Tidal (Water) with Stream. Now again, you're thinking of how bad the babies are, are you not? "They can't even attack and make you go minus." That's where it gets crazy, you literally need NO HAND if you've got dragons in the grave. They generate cards on their own, and work completely off field advantage. Reminiscent of Infernities, no? Each of them share a few things, if they get banished they add 1 dragon monster of corresponding attribute to your hand, and can banish 2 dragons AND/OR monsters of the same attribute to special summon themselves from the grave or hand, AND they have a specific effect in the hand that allows you to send one of them and one monster of the same attribute to do an effect. WOW you're thinking, why am I not abusing the shit out of these? Then it hits you, the last line on the card. "You can only use one of these effects ONCE PER TURN."

Welp.

Remind you of someone?

Onto the effects.
Each dragon can add a dragon from the deck to the hand of the same attribute when banished. This includes by other dragons, WOW, what synergy! Popular targets are the smaller dragons, or in Tempest's case, Debris or Koa'ki Meiru Drago. Debris goes with Lightning, the smaller Tempest, to make level 7 synchros. Level 7, you'll see that again soon. Each also has an effect in the hand. Blaster can send himself and a Fire monster to destroy any one card on the field. Redox can send himself plus an Earth to revive a monster in your grave. Tempest can send himself and a Wind to add any one dragon monster to your hand from your deck. And finally, Tidal can send himself plus a Water to send a monster from your deck to the grave. Blaster's is obviously one of the best, as it can hit cards like Bottomless (I know what you're thinking, "I want them banished" We'll cover this later), Skill Drain, or Ophion; popular counters to the dragons.

Some fun cards to run in Degenerate dragons:

 Different Dimension Reincarnation to dump
 a dragon and get one you've previously
banished.

 Hidden Armory to dump a card for a DDR,
you don't need your normal summon anyway.

Gold Sarcophagus for instant searches,
then get the dragon 2 turns later.

 Treasured Sword of the Seven Stars,
banish a dragon draw 2 and search.

Now, what could a field of dragons that can't attack and can only use one of their effects a turn do? Then you think back to what made Tour Guide and Rescue Rabbit good cards, and notice the levels of the big dragons. 7, glorious 7. Now do you see why recurring level 7s are cool? That's right, the one, the only....

NAMBAH JYUUICHI: BIKU EYE

Now, I don't have to tell you why Big Eye is a good card, at least I hope I don't. Stealing any monster, regardless of Battle position, is a fabulous effect. The fun part comes next. This deck runs 3 of our depth-challenged friend, and you'll use them all most of the time. Steal their shit and smack them with it. Dragon mirrors usually end up being a Big Eye trading game. You can even run sooper sekrit tek in Eradicator Epidemic Virus, call spells and watch half of the decks this format shit themselves. huehuehue tenki. "But I'll run out of Big eye eventually," then stop using him every time you get dragons out. Instead, use this.

Dragons are cool, planes are cool,
what's not to like?

Mecha Phantom Beast Dragossack, my personal favorite rank 7. Detach 1 to summon 2 tokens and become unable to be destroyed by battle and card effects? I think so. A great offensive and defensive card, he can summon his own invincibility, and even utilize them offensively. By tributing 1 Mecha Phantom Beast monster, you can target any one card on the field and destroy it. Tokens are Mechas, and he can tribute himself too, which lets you make use of Cossacks in mirrors and such, or if you need to clear field. Another interesting, albeit harder to summon, option is Mermail Abyssgaios. Completely shuts down a few decks, and works wonders in the mirror. The only thing you have to make him is Tidal, and the once per turn clause hurts here. So you're wondering how to get 2 out in a turn? Let me show you.

Babbies

That's right, the baby forms. You send one of the babies, plus a monster of the same attribute OR a dragon to summon the bigger form from the deck. Now, you're thinking that all they do is make you go minus, and while that's true, who cares? Like I said earlier, this deck CAN function like pseudo-Infernity. They do not need the hand with proper grave set-up, making the babies extremely useful to tutor out a dragon from the deck. After summoning, the little ones become food for later summons and can even help set up the grave with other Dragons. For example, let's say you have a Blaster in the grave, with a Stream and Redox in hand. You could banish both for Blaster, OR dump both with Stream for a Tidal, then banish with Blaster to have 2 level 7s AND you get a dragon from Redox. Ez-Pz.


Now, even though these dudes can work really well, they are not without weakness. Dimensional Fissure and Macro Cosmos stop the babies from being in the grave to summon stuff later, and the big ones from using hand effects. Bottomless can stop your onslaught by banishing a dragon after you use its effect to summon and you don't get the search. Skill Drain negates Cossack and Big Eye, making them vulnerable to big beaters. Soul Drain stops them from coming back from the grave, and stops the search from being banished. Imperial Iron Wall stops Banishing completely. Debunk stops all of their effects.

Don't forget, you can splash the Dragons in deck that run their attribute for interesting plays.

Read more...

The Ideology of Competitive Yugioh

This article is going to be about something that almost everyone understands on some level, but that is almost never clearly explained to new players. Everyone has understood these things implicitly for so long that they assume everyone else does as well. I'm going to talk about the (obvious) math of why it's better to use Heavy Storm on more than one card, and the reasons why people will use it against a single card anyways. I am going to talk about the mindset and thought processes that win games, the theory and ideology of competitive Yugioh.

Yugioh is, at its core, a numbers game. If your hand and field have a higher quantity and quality of numbers compared to your opponent, something is obviously going well. When a certain special number makes it from 8000 all the way to 0, the duel is over.

Every number in Yugioh is important, because they all help towards lowering that most important number to 0, but some numbers are more important and have a stronger influence on the duel than other numbers. To demonstrate which numbers are more important, let's create a hypothetical scenario where, at the end of Player A's turn, Player A has a lone Magic Cylinder and Player B has absolutely no cards at all. Player B starts their turn and draws Green Gadget. Player B is obviously going to Normal Summon Green Gadget, and use its effect to search for a Red Gadget. Player B attacks, and Player A flips up Magic Cylinder. That's the end of the scenario. Really? Yes, and there's actually quite a lot going on.

The most obvious thing is that Player A protected their own Life Points and damaged Player B's Life Points. If Player B has 1400 Life Points or less at the start of the scenario, Player A just won the duel. If Player B has more than 1400 Life Points before Magic Cylinder though, they now have a monster on the field which can each deal damage next turn, plus another card in hand. Further, Player A is now the one with no cards. Next turn, not only will Green Gadget be able to make up the 1400 difference that Magic Cylinder created, but Red Gadget will also be able to put Player B ahead by 1300 Life Points. Red Gadget will also search a Yellow Gadget, so in addition to drawing at the start of their turn Player B will have four cards compared to Player A's one. Even if Player A draws something that can deal with one (or even two) monsters, Player B is two or three cards ahead and is clearly about to turn the game in their favour.

That first situation is a bit drastic, but it gets the point across. Player B could have Sabersaurus, Thunder King Rai-Oh, Brotherhood of the Fire Fist - Bear, Atlantean Dragoons, any monster worth attacking with, and the situation is the same. If Player A does not win with Magic Cylinder, the problem is delayed instead of solved. For the most part, having an advantage over your opponent in terms of total cards is better than having advantage in terms of total Life Points.

That is the core principle of competitive Yugioh: Card advantage. Every decision in a tournament setting is made with the understanding that having and maintining more cards (and by extension more options and versatility) than your opponent is the oldest and most reliable strategy to win. I'll end this article by explaining some of the phrases that come up frequently when discussing card advantage.

Anything that causes you to have more cards than your opponent is called a relative (or net) plus (+1, +2, etc.).
Anything that causes you to have less cards than your opponent is called a relative (or net) minus (-1, -2, etc.).
There are a few ways to describe situations that cause no relative change in card advantage. Most of the time I refer to these situations as a net 0 (some people also say +0 or -0), and people also call them one for one exchanges (not to be confused with the card One for One).

Read more...

Constellar, Knights of the Stars!

You may have seen these monsters prior to reading this article; you may like or hate them, but come April Hidden Arsenal 7 will be released. That makes now a good time to learn exactly what this deck does, and what you should expect when you're up against them.

Don't be afraid to normal summon him.
If your opponent uses Veiler, that's one they
can't drop on Kaus.

Constellar are a Light attribute archetype of monsters named after Stars and Constellations with varying Types, that in itself causes trouble getting your combo pieces in hand. Luckily, almost all of their types have a specific search card. Pollux is a Warrior which corresponds with Reinforcements of the Army, Kaus is a Beast-Warrior who is grabbed by one of the best search cards in Fire Formation - Tenki, and finally Sheratan is the Constellar specific search card, who tutors any one Constellar monster from your deck.

Now, the entire deck focuses on summoning any one of the numerous Xyz monsters they have access to, then using that monster to work the situation into a beneficial one. They burn up hand advantage very quickly, often summoning 2 monsters from the hand for each Xyz. Now, onto the monsters in particular.

Veiler can't hurt me!
I'm a continuous effect, so only cards that
would negate my effect when I enter the
battlefield can stop me!

Pollux has the nifty effect of letting you Normal Summon a second time during the turn he was Normal Summoned. This effect is a continuous effect that is applied when he enters the field, which means Veiler can't stop him (Note that a previously activated Skill Drain can and will stop his effect from being applied). One of the most common plays is to summon Pollux, then Normal summon Kaus, use Kaus's effect to change both of their levels to 5, then overlay for Constellar Pleiades.

Though Algiedi is very similar in function and purpose to Pollux, she has one very big difference though. Her effect is NOT continuous, she triggers upon being Normal summoned to Special summon one level 4 Constellar monster from your hand. Veiler can and WILL stop Algiedi, so be wise with your plays.

Leonis is yet another monster who will allow you to Normal summon twice, coupling with Sheratan to search then Xyz so as not to leave that vulnerable 700 body out. It also works with Kaus, who can change himself to level 3 or Leonis to 4 to suit your situation. 

Uguu~

Constellar Sombres reads like this:
You can banish 1 ""Constellar" monster from your Graveyard to target 1 "Constellar" monster in your Graveyard; add that target to your hand. You can only use this effect of "Constellar Sombres" once per turn. During your Main Phase, if you used this effect this turn: You can Normal Summon 1 "Constellar" monster from your hand as an additional Normal Summon. During the turn this card was sent to the Graveyard, you can Tribute Summon 1 "Constellar" monster with 1 less Tribute than required. (You can only gain this effect once per turn.)

Ignore that last part, it's near useless. This card, with the help of any two Constellars in your grave (Which is VERY easy to fulfill due to using 2 Constellars for each Xyz), allows you to still have plays mid to late game. Recovering a card is extremely valuable when all your plays are based on the hand. Please note that her second effect to Normal summon again is an IGNITION effect that starts a chain, and can be hurt by Veiler. The only card that can search her in a Constellar deck is Sheratan, which is a shame. Drawing her in an opening hand or before the grave is set up sucks too.

Watch out for Veiler.
Kaus must modulate levels one by one,
and if they use Veiler after he's changed one level,
you could be stuck with a level 4 and a useless level 5.

Now, the monster you will summon the most often by the others' effects is this handsome devil. Constellar Kaus in essence is the only way to make your rank 5 monsters, and forms the backbone of the deck. His level modulation gives the deck access to an Extra deck toolbox of sorts. The level change is PERMANENT, and only leaves when that monster leaves the field. He has been blessed with the type of Beast-Warrior, which recently got a huge boost in Fire Formation - Tenki. Tenki also allows you to run Brotherhood of the Fire Fist - Bear for spot removal. Kaus also has a beefy 1800 body (and goes to 1900 with Tenki), the biggest in the deck outside of Photon Thrasher should you choose to run him.

The Constellar Xyz are all very powerful; Pleiades, Omega, Ptolemy, Praesepe, and Hyades are all useful. This allows the Extra to act as a toolbox and work any situation into your favor. Be it by Pleiades' bounce effect, Omega's immunity to S/T, Hyades changing a problem monster into defense, Ptolemy's ability to return a monster to the hand, or Praesepe's attack boost, all help to give you the edge to win.

Remember that I can't use my effect
the turn you Chaos Xyz me.

I can bounce Monsters, Spells, AND Traps
on either player's field during
EITHER player's turn.

Dark Hole? What's that?

Now, this deck has a few weaknesses. It needs to summon both of the materials for an Xyz, making Effect Veiler a very good card to bring in. Veiler disrupts Sheratan, Kaus, Algiedi, and Sombres. The Xyz are hard to play around, often forcing you to go neg to get rid of them. Pleiades bounces and monsters that could be a threat, Omega makes all Constellars immune to S/T, Ptolemy and Praesepe are large bodies. Anything that stops them from getting into the awesome monsters is an effective method. Summon Limit, Bottomless, Torrential Tribute, Compulsory, all of these work. All of the maindeck monsters are not very strong, so big monsters can run them over.

I've learned that Safe Zone is a great tech card, it allows Omega to become immune to Monster effects in a sense. If they use Heavy or MST or any of the numerous S/T removal in the game, chain Omega to it to stop Safe Zone from affecting the Constellar in question. Some people run Photon Thrasher as a partner to the level 4 Constellar, either to Xyz summon, force a Rai-oh, or bait out S/T.

In essence, Constellar focus on getting the Field Advantage and holding it. They are very good at doing this quickly. The Xyz monsters are difficult to get around, and will require the opponent to waste valuable resources to get rid of them, only for you to make another the next turn. The deck needs to use Xyz or else it's entirely outmatched, so any tactics to prevent the Xyz work. It's a terribly fun deck to play, and is interesting to play against.

Read more...

Implying Owls Are Birds

Let's not beat around the bush here. I'm a guy who likes cute things. As I sit on my bed writing this article, I have a plush Minccino sitting atop a plush tiger sitting on my shelf.

I've got your new Dragunities right here Konami.

So it should come as no surprise that when you ask me what deck it is that I enjoy the most, I'd answer with Madolches.

"But Madolches are shit" you might say. And back when they first made their debut in Return of the Duelist, there'd be no denying that. They didn't really do anything. Actually it would be more apt to say they did absolutely nothing at all but look cute. And considering they debuted alongside Geargias and Prophecies, it was really easy to ignore them as another useless archetype made to fill up the set. But I didn't give up hope in them being good eventually, and the next booster pack, Abyss Rising finally gave them cards that let them do something; especially considering their new boss monster wasn't a terrible level 5 Main Deck monster.

Have fun trying to pull your Grapha out of the deck again.

 With an Xyz Monster under their belt that could recycle cards in the grave and clear the opponent's field, a Spell Card that turns all of your Main Deck monsters (and even Chateau) into a duplicate Magileine, and a Trap that vomits your hand onto the field for OTKs while even giving you fodder for Tiaramisu's effect, Madolches finally had the potential to be a competitive deck. 

Aside from the fact that you'd probably lose by the time you could manage to set all of that up without getting lucky draws.

Luckily, Konami decided to pull Owl out of Pooh Baseball, turn him into a Yugioh card, and create a sugar coated version of Wind-Up Magician.

SUBETE WA MADOLCHE NO SEKAI

   
Madolche Hootcake
EARTH/Beast/Level 3
1500/1100

 When this card in your possession is destroyed by your opponent's card (either by battle or by card effect) and sent to your Graveyard: Shuffle this card into the Deck. You can target 1 monster in your Graveyard; banish that target, then Special Summon 1 "Madolche" monster from your Deck, except "Madolche Hootcake". You can only use this effect of "Madolche Hootcake" once per turn.

Wanna let that sink in for a bit? This guy effortlessly pulls Messengelato from your deck, and because he's a Beast and not a Winged-Beast, Gelato then pulls a Madolche Spell or Trap from your deck. 

Why is this good? Well, I won't waste your time anymore and get to the purpose of this article, which is to explain my actual deck build. I'm not exactly great with coming up with names, so this deck goes by the simple title of Hootdox.

I know you're probably looking at this and saying "What the hell is going on here?" Well pipe down and listen, because that's what I'm here to tell ya.

As we saw above, Hootcake needs monsters in your Graveyard to activate his effect, which kinda seems to go against the entire gimmick of Madolche monsters, which is staying out of the Graveyard. The obvious solution to that predicament would be Xyz Summoning, but how do you Xyz Summon and have Hoot on the field at the same time?

 Why, Tech Genus Warwolf, of course.

T.G. Warwolf can Special Summon himself from your hand when a Level 4 or lower monster is Special Summoned to either side of the field. Obviously, a play you're going to see very often with Madolches is Normal Summoning Mewfeuille, whose effect then Special Summons a Madolche from your hand. By summoning another Level 3 Madolche with that effect and dropping Warwolf, you now have materials to Xyz Summon M-X-Saber Invoker, while keeping a Beast on the field to trigger the Messengelato Invoker summons.

With a monster now in your grave, you can banish it with Hootcake to summon a second Messengelato and pull off another search, and then overlay for Tiaramisu. If done early on, you may have to sacrifice plussing off of Ticket in order to actually pull Tiaramisu's effect off, but with Chateau being run at 3, there's a good chance you can have it in hand before executing this combo, allowing you to plus and plus and plus.

Of course things don't always go the ideal way, but that's why you have other options to be able to meet your objective. Tragoedia is a good card on its own, with Madolches' ability to build up hand advantage, but the Xyz era also makes Tragoedia's other two effects much more useful. Discard a monster to swipe an opponent's monster of the same level, then copy the level of the discarded monster for an Xyz Summon of any generic 2 and sometimes even 3 material monster! Are you starting to put the pieces together? You can summon Trag after suffering damage on your opponent's turn or even your own turn attacking into a monster with more ATK or DEF than your monster, then scoop up your opponent's Level 3 or 4 monster. This gives you a target for Hootcake's effect, and you can even use Tragoedia and an opponent's Level 3 to summon Invoker!

Using your opponent's forces to send them to their own demise; how like a Fiend.

I shouldn't have to explain Fire Formation - Tenki. It fetches a Beast-Warrior, i.e. Warwolf from your deck. I know that's not the pressing question on your mind. Reading through all of this you're thinking "Where does the "dox" in this deck's name come from?" "What the hell is that thing next to Tragoedia?" I know you. You're that guy in class who keeps interrupting the teacher with questions, not realizing the next thing they're going to say answers that question. Stop it. No one likes that guy. So put your hand down and let me explain.

Look at that guy's grin. He knows he's going to destroy you.

 Redox, the Rock-Incarnate Dragon
EARTH/Dragon/Level 7
1600/3000
  
You can banish 2 Dragon-Type or EARTH monsters from your hand or Graveyard, except this card; Special Summon this card from your hand or Graveyard. During your opponent's End Phase, if this card was Special Summoned: Return it to the hand. You can discard this card and 1 other EARTH monster to the Graveyard to target 1 monster in your Graveyard; Special Summon that target. When this card is banished: Add 1 EARTH Dragon-Type monster from your Deck to your hand. You can only use 1 "Redox, the Rock-Incarnate Dragon" effect per turn, and only once that turn.


Don't look at me like that. This guy is important enough to the deck that it's named after him. Are you even reading this guy's effect? He's a Monster Reborn that doesn't get laughed at by Naturia Beast and doesn't have a restriction on when you can use him like Grandsoil. Simply toss him and an EARTH monster from your hand and summon any monster you want from your Graveyard; even himself or the monster you discarded. This not only has the benefit of being able to summon more monsters in a turn than you would otherwise be able to, but on a turn that you didn't use his special summon effect, you can banish him with Hootcake to summon something from your deck, and Redox will add another copy of himself to your hand as well! How could you not run 3 of him? Situational as it may be, you can also use this guy with Tragoedia or another copy of himself to Xyz Summon Number 11: Big Eye and steal any monster from your opponent. Situational? Maybe. Doesn't mean it's impossible, and you will feel a sense of satisfaction if you pull that off.

 

Better go say a prayer. This is the new face of terror.

Don't count them out because they're a bunch of dolls and stuffed animals; Madolches may not be in the top tier, but they're still well on their way to taking this game by storm!
Read more...

A Realistic Look at Unrealistic Ban Wishes

It's banlist season in Yugioh again, and everybody knows what that means. Complaints about cards that should be banned. Complaints about cards that should be unbanned. Thousand-Eyes Restrict is so hard to summon. Yata Garasu's ATK is so low. Pot of Greed isn't the only +1 in Yugioh. What's the worst that could happen? That's a good question, actually. What really is the worst that could happen? How do these cards compare to other power cards in Yugioh's Advanced Format? Let's start off looking at something simple.

Pot of Greed [Spell Card]

Draw 2 cards.

That's simple, right? Pot of Greed can be completely described in eight words. There are no complex card interactions to account for, which makes breaking down Pot of Greed's potential impact on the meta very easy. Pot of Greed:

- Has no costs

- Has no conditions

- Has no built-in drawbacks

- Is difficult to disrupt

- Creates an immediate advantage in any game state.

The first two points are clearly written on the card, and the third point is easy to see because nothing else is written on the card. Looking at the third and fourth point together, are there any situations that could cause Pot of Greed to have any drawbacks at all? What punishes players who have large hands, or who draw cards? Does anything disrupt drawing cards? Rai-Oh doesn't stop anyone from drawing. Trap Dustshoot punishes players for having large hands, but that's Forbidden. Moulinglacia hurts players who have cards in-hand, but Moulinglacia would have been summoned anyways for 2800 free attack. Dragged Down into the Grave punishes players who have any hand at all, not just a large hand. Secret Barrel punishes players for having cards anywhere, so whether your +1s are to the hand or field doesn't really matter.

Players' hands are seen as a sort of haven recently, and cards or decks that become too good at interfering with hands tend to be hurt in some way. Even against deck-out and milling decks, having more cards in hand means you are more likely to have cards to stop them. Unless you are facing some sort of eerily specific, it is very safe to say that you will not be punished for having a large hand, and that Pot of Greed has no drawbacks if it resolves. What happens if Pot of Greed doesn't resolve? Your opponent has spent a precious spell negation on Pot of Greed instead of something like Dark Hole or Monster Reborn. And that's the fifth point that I mentioned earlier. Pot of Greed always creates advantage. Either your opponent loses a valuable negation effect, or you draw two cards. Unless there is only a single card left in your deck, Pot of Greed is always live. Unless you are playing Infernity, adding two cards to your hand for free is always good.

What would this mean for the meta? Pot of Greed would be everywhere. There is exactly one deck in Yugioh that doesn't benefit from having more cards in its hand and, because of those five points I've been talking about, Pot of Greed can be activated at any time. In case that isn't evidence enough that Pot of Greed should stay banned, let's look at some of the most powerful cards in the September 2012 Advanced Format, and evaulate them in the same way we did Pot of Greed.

Monster Reborn [Spell Card]

Target 1 monster in either player's Graveyard; Special Summon it.

- Monster Reborn has no cost as far as card advantage.

- Monster Reborn needs for their to be a monster in either player's Graveyard. That's not had to do, but it's not likely to be immediately live on turn 1 like Pot of Greed is.

- Monster Reborn has no built-in drawbacks.

- Monster Reborn is disrupted by a fairly large number of cards, because disrupting Summons is important in this meta; Bottomless Trap Hole, Torrential Tribute, Compulsory Evacuation Device, Solemn Warning, etc.

- Monster Reborn does not create immediate advantage in every possible game state. It's pretty obvious that Monster Reborn isn't doing anybody any good if the graveyards are empty, or if Necrovalley is up. Even if there are monsters in the graveyard, they might not be anything worth reviving.

Monster Reborn has a very obvious and direct effect on the game state, but it isn't a live card 100% of the time like Pot of Greed.

Dark Hole [Spell Card]

Destroy all monsters on the field.

- Dark Hole has no cost.

- Dark Hole has a condition of requiring monsters on the field, preferably on your opponent's side of the field.

- Dark Hole has the drawback of destroying both sides of the field, which admittedly can be ignored in certain game states. Some game states can even benefit from it.

- Dark Hole is not too difficult to disrupt, through cards like Starlight Road, Stardust Dragon, Forbidden Lance, and quite a few others.

- Dark Hole does not create an immediate advantage in any game state. Maybe your opponent hasn't been drawing well, and they have nothing on the field. Maybe you have your own monster on the field, so Dark Hole is a net 0 or even a minus.

Just like Monster Reborn, Dark Hole has an obvious and direct effect on the game state, but there are right and wrong times to use it.

Heavy Storm [Spell Card]

Destroy all Spell and Trap Cards on the field.

- Heavy Storm does not have a cost.

- Heavy Storm has the condition of requiring other Spell and Trap cards to be on the field. Taking this a step further, Heavy Storm requires your opponent to not only play a deck which commits Spells and Traps to the field, but also for them to have Spell and Trap cards.

- Heavy Storm has the drawback of also destroying your own Spell and Trap cards, which again is something can be ignored or create an overall positive in certain game states.

- Heavy Storm shares several of the same counters that Dark Hole does; Starlight Road, Stardust Dragon, etc.

- Heavy Storm does not create immediate advantage in all game states. Maybe you have your own S/T down, or maybe your opponent is playing trapless. Have fun using Heavy against Gallis.

Just like Dark Hole, as powerful as Heavy Storm can be there are right and wrong times to use it. Heavy Storm is even more situational than Dark Hole, because not all decks rely on Spell and Trap cards for protection. Incidentally, Giant Trunade has no drawbacks and is difficult to disrupt which is one of the reasons why Trunade is banned but Heavy is not.

Mystical Space Typhoon [Spell Card <Quickplay>]

Target 1 Spell/Trap Card on the field; destroy that target.

- Mystical Space Typhoon has no cost.

- Mystical Space Typhoon has a condition of requiring other Spell and Trap cards to be on the field. Just like Heavy Storm, Mystical Space Typhoon is mainly to deal with your opponent's Spells and Traps.

- Mystical Space Typhoon has no internal drawbacks. It does have external drawbacks which will be addressed later.

- Mystical Space Typhoon is difficult to disrupt.

- Mystical Space Typhoon does not create immediate advantage in all game states. Most of the time Mystical Space Typhoon will do its job of simplifying the game state, but you run the risk of targeting a chainable card and wasting your Space Typhoon. There is also the possibility of your opponent not having any Spells or Traps to destroy.

Mystical Space Typhoon is much more generous than the previous 3 cards in that any time you can use it against your opponent you probably should, but it can still be punished. Mystical Space Typhoon also doesn't have nearly the same level of power as the previous 3 cards.

Pot of Avarice [Spell Card]

Select 5 Monster Cards in your Graveyard. Shuffle those cards into the Deck, then draw 2 cards.

- Pot of Avarice has no cost.

- Pot of Avarice has a condition of requiring 5 or more monsters in your Graveyard. Some decks can do this very easily, and others have trouble with it. Some decks would rather have their monsters in the grave than their deck anyways.

- Pot of Avarice can be disrupted. The cards that do so aren't popular, but they exist: D.D. Crow, Transmigration Prophecy, Crevice into a Different Dimension to name a few.

- Pot of Avarice has the potential drawback of removing monsters from your graveyard which you would rather have in there. It's not a drawback for every deck, but it's there.

- Pot of Avarice does not create immediate advantage in any game state. This is as simple as not having enough monsters in your grave that you are willing to shuffle back into your deck, or enough monsters in your grave at all.

Most of the time that Pot of Avarice is live is a good time to use it, but Pot of Avarice is not always live. Unlike the previous four cards, not every deck can benefit from Pot of Avarice.

So there it is. Four of the most powerful cards in Yugioh, and a fifth powerful card which is frequently compared to Pot of Greed. Each of those five cards have right and wrong times to use them, as well as times where they aren't able to be used at all. Even powerful, one-sided cards like Raigeki, Harpie's Feather Duster, Confiscation, Delinquent Duo, have the slightest possibility of not meeting their conditions to activate. From a practical standpoint, there are no wrong times to activate Pot of Greed and there are no times where Pot of Greed can't be activated. Pot of Greed is not the only +1 in Yugioh, and it probably isn't even be the strongest +1 in Yugioh. What Pot of Greed is, however, is the most easily accessible +1 in Yugioh. With the possible exception of Infernity, every deck can use Pot of Greed. Every game state benefits from its activation, and that is why Pot of Greed is banned.

Read more...