Friday 30 March 2012

Understanding Dark bribe

DarkBribeSDGU-EN-C-1E.jpg 
It's Confucius :D

Dark bribe is a love hate card. You either love what it does or you hate what it does. It's simple enough to understand, negate an activation of your opponent's spell or trap and destroy it. Then they draw one card. In a straight forward situation and scenario this is a plus 1 for your opponent. This is exactly why Dark bribe is a love-hate card. Some people hate the plus1 it gives your opponent but others can appreciate what it does. I'm here to explain why I'm considering this card in some of my future deck builds.

In my experience Dark bribe is a card best played in the dying stages of the game. Meaning, play this card when the game is simplified to the point where you and your opponent are down to 1-3 cards each. A late game scenario typically looks like this:

The following scenario is not a very uncommon one these days. It's skill drain heros vs Dino rabbit. Skill drain puts Beast King Barboras at 3000atk and makes Laggia a simple 2400atk with no effect. Walking solemn? I don't think so. Now I (SynchroKnight) declares an attack on Evolzar Laggia and let's see how it plays out.



As you can see the opponent activated mirror force to which I chained Dark Bribe. Dark Bribe would then fetch my opponent an extra card but in return my Barboras is safe and his attack hits Laggia for 600 Life points. Which, as you can see at this point of the game is quite a big deal. The opponent then starts his/her turn with 3 cards in hand but has to face skill drain along with a 3k Beast.

Now let's explain how this scenario COULD'VE turned out if I didn't have a dark bribe set. I would have lost my Beast and be quite vulnerable to a counter attack the next move which would have finished me. In my opinion, Dark bribe works just like Solemn Judgment. The general notion is to play it late in the game where it's quite worth the cost. You wouldn't solemn judgment the very first card your opponent played when they have another 5 more in hand to back it up would you? Same thing with Dark bribe. You don't use it when your opponent has a plentiful amount of resources at their disposal. You use it late game where the effect is detrimental.

Yes, Dark bribe does give your opponent an extra card but think of it this way. You can only have one copy of heavy storm, monster reborn or Dark hole. Let's say you negated that with dark bribe, no matter what your opponent draws, it can't be one of those again. I won't deny that Solemn Judgment is a powerful card but there just aren't enough cards that can negate spells or traps. Especially in a format like this where spells and traps are so dominant. The key to dark bribe is just like solemn judgment.
KNOW WHEN TO ACTIVATE IT. 
To conclude, dark bribe is an advanced card that I personally think is only as good as the player. It all comes down to experience, ability to read and analyse the field and finally, a bit of luck. Why not try a copy or two of dark bribe in your next deck? Practice using it, when to time it and finally, what to negate with it. Perhaps with some luck, you will come to find (as I have) that it is a game changing card that hits opponents harder than they think.

Monday 26 March 2012

March Musings

Sorry for not being very active lately guys, I've been busy with Year 12, but I promise to put out some posts during the school holidays, possibly concluding the Introduction to Yu-Gi-Oh! series. A lot has happened since my last post - we saw Six Samurais win Guadalajara, Dino Rabbit take out Leipzig, and now Dark World winning the 100th YCS in Long Beach. I'm going to do a metagame analysis as my next post near the start of the holidays, as I saw some very interesting things in the Long Beach reports.

The main deck I've been playing is Dino Rabbit. It's too good. It has no negative matchups, and any deck that goes out of its way to stop Dino Rabbit is going to be crushed by the Rabbit sideboard. The recent practice of running Forbidden Lance at 3 has really limited the options players have at stopping the Rabbit. We've also seen Kaiser Colosseum being sided in to Dino Rabbit - a first turn Laggia and Kaiser Colosseum not only stops the Six Samurais, Dark Worlds and other swarm-happy decks, but it also gives the Rabbit mirror a good kick in the balls. Of course, you always run the risk of it being Typhooned, but most of your set cards will cry to MST like Starlight Road, Warning and Torrential anyway.

I've also looked into Chaos Dragons. It's a tier 2 deck at best, but there are some fun lockdowns and it's very explosive. It's my favourite deck to play with by far, though I will admit it is inconsistent at times and gets hit hard by the Inzektor matchup.

I think Maxx "C" and Effect Veiler are still important cards. I would still run three of each (between your main deck and your sideboard), maybe 1 or 2 Veilers at most if your deck isn't worried about Inzektors or anything. Veiler is still really versatile. Maxx "C" stops you from getting looped by Wind-Ups, and is a good tech against the surging Six Samurais and Dark World decks.

Another cool deck is Hero Beat, which is back for the new format. It's now incorporating Skill Drain, which hits a lot of decks very hard, as always. I don't think we'll ever see a meta in which Skill Drain isn't effective. The high ATK of Stratos, Neos Alius, Rai-Oh and Beast King Barbaros just applies constant pressure. It's also fairly consistent, as the deck runs Skill Drain at 3 and there are five ways to search out a Neos Alius. Miracle Fusion antics are great as always, and Super Polymerization gets around the undisputed king of this format, Evolzar Laggia.

I'll just leave you with a picture I found rather humorous. I think it was taken at Long Beach. Thanks for your patience, we promise more to come!


Thursday 15 March 2012

Don't stay in the friend zone, Stay in the Safe zone

Today I'm here to talk about a very versatile trap card known as Safe zone
No fear Mirror force!!!
First of all let's do the usual thing with every card we talk about: Deconstruct it.
Activate by selecting 1 face-up Attack Position monster. That monster cannot be targeted or destroyed by your opponent's card effects, or be destroyed by battle. It cannot attack your opponent directly. When this card is removed from the field, destroy that monster. When that monster is removed from the field, destroy this card.



Activate by selecting 1 face-up Attack position monster. This seems simple enough does it not? Activate and target, done. WRONG! Does that line specify which monster to target? Does it say target one face-up monster on YOUR side of the field? No it does not. That means you can hook your opponent's monster up with this card. You may be wondering why you would want to help your opponent out with a card as powerful as this but I shall clear that up for you as the post progresses. 

That card cannot be targeted or destroyed by your opponent's card effects, or be destroyed by battle. Now how great is that? A monster that is practically invincible and you no longer have to fear spells or traps that would normally blow up your monster. The question from above still lingers though, why would you want to give your opponent such an advantage? I have yet to answer this question but fear not I will. Please note that your monster is not completely invincible, hence why I said practically invincible. The opponent can still use cards such as Caius the shadow monarch or Trishula, dragon of the Ice barrier or Brionac, Dragon of the ice barrier.

It cannot attack your opponent directly, sounds like a reasonable cost for making a monster near indestructible.
When this card is removed from the field, destroy that monster. When that monster is removed from the field, destroy this card. Seems simple enough, odds are the trap 'Safe Zone' is more likely to be destroyed than the monster that it's used on.

Okay time to explain why this card can work as a two way weapon.
Suppose your opponent activated Heavy storm to clear your back row, you could chain it to their monster and since safe-zone would be destroyed, so would their monster. Awesome right? Let's say your opponent just summoned their Black luster Soldier- Envoy of the beginning and is about to swing at you for 3k damage. You safe-zone their BLS and it can't scratch you. Next turn you can just use MST on safe zone and goodbye BLS.

There are many more ways to manipulate safe-zone but I haven't used it enough to experience all the different scenarios it can be used in. 

Hey guys sorry it's been a while, Alex and I (Alex) are both senior students and obviously the work load is killing us. Anyways the 100th YCS is coming  up and I sincerely wish every duelist out there (yes, even chain burn duelists) the best of luck. The expected turn out is 2000 + duelists!! That's definitely the biggest turn out in the history of Yu-Gi-Oh. Anyways onto my topic. Sorry to contradict you Manisier but I think the need to run triple maxx c is gone now. Let's look at why I would say such a ridiculous thing. You might be asking yourself  NO TRIPLE MAXX C?! HOW AM I GOING TO STOP THE WIND-UP COMBO ?! HOW DO I PLUS OFF TOUR GUIDE AND RABBIT PLAYS?!

The big 3:
Everyone knows the top 3 decks dominating the format has to be Rabbits, Inzektors and Wind-ups. Firstly let's look at Inzektors:
Their signature combo allows them to plus 4 but how many special summons do they do? Dragonfly brings out 1 centipede and from there that just makes your maxx c a 1 for 1. At best they're going to XYZ into zenmaines or something and you get a +1.
BUT
The Inzektor combo has the potential to plus 4, even if you plus 1 off their combo it's still a +2 for them at the end of the day. Now let's imagine you dropped effect veiler instead of Maxx c. Sure that's essentially a minus 1 for you but at least you're not going to let your opponent have a +4.
Wind-ups:
Yes it is devastating to lose your entire hand to the loop but more often than not Maxx c will only save you for one turn and you're only going to get a plus 1 off it at best, unless you have an idiot for an opponent. In my opinion Maxx c can be sided in for this deck but Maxx c isn't really worth maining anymore because most players have written off Wind-ups as both overpriced and easily beaten.
Rabbits:
Now this is the deck everyone wants to know how to beat. To be honest I don't even know the most consistent way to take down this deck. The best you can do is hope fiendish chains, snowman eaters and huge beaters will do the trick for you. Now, let's say you just met your opponent at YCS you realise he's running rabbits. If he starts his turn with a tour guide, odds are you will chain maxx c, he will bring out sangan and leave it at that. To you, that's a 1 for 1, but for him that's a +1.
If you chain maxx c to rabbit sure you will get the plus 1 but are you sure the two cards you draw can take down a Laggia? Now, suppose you had played a card like bottomless trap hole (a very underrated card against Rabbits) not only would you eliminate both their dinosaurs, you wouldn't even have to face Laggia at all !

I understand the urge to run triple maxx c and stop the opponent from doing mass special summons. But the Synchro era is over (sadly) and the only deck that spams special summons now are Wind-ups and like I said, they're not big deal. It's time to stop spending $330 on a playset of Maxx c and look at other cards which better suit a match up with the 'Big 3'.