Don't Space Out

Apologies for the terrible pun, but this article is about our good friend MST.

Mystical Space Typhoon may be one of the most versatile Spells in the game. It's close to Book of Moon as most versatile, in my opinion. The ability to instantly pop a backrow cannot be underestimated, and for a long time Mystical Space Typhoon was Limited due to its power. Times have changed, however, and we saw MST go from 1, to 2, and finally at 3. Being able to play Mystical Space Typhoon at 3, however, opens up a certain phenomenon that Alex and myself refer to as the 'Backrow Paradox'. If you open with two backrows, say a Solemn Warning and a Mirror Force, do you set two and risk losing them to a Heavy Storm? Or do you set one and have no protection after your opponent plays Mystical Space Typhoon?

It's easy to say that you'd rather set two because there are three Mystical Space Typhoons in most decks compared to one Heavy Storm. But losing two backrows puts you at a severe early game disadvantage. I have spoken elsewhere about how having your opponent Heavy two cards on their first turn has its advantages for you, but speaking strictly in terms of card advantage, it's not desirable. This paradox exists because we are in a format where Mystical Space Typhoon and Heavy Storm coexist at their full strength.

However, we're seeing a move away from Mystical Space Typhoon. The winner of the European WCQ only ran 2 MSTs in his deck. The reason for this was because recently, many 'no-Trap' decks have risen to the forefront. Traps are powerful, for sure, but they are often slow and clutter the deck. It's easy to get carried away with power cards like Bottomless Trap Hole. Chaos Dragons and variants of Monster Mash choose to forgo Traps. For this reason, Mystical Space Typhoon has dropped in usage.

But the irony here is that as Card X, the counter to Card Y drops in usage, it's more viable to run Card Y. We can apply this to the metagame in general, such as the recent Wind-Up phenomenon.

Increase in Maxx C -> Decrease in Wind-Ups -> Decrease in Maxx C -> Increase in Wind-Ups -> Increase in Maxx C

The cyclical nature of the metagame means that I could just be speculating in an uncertain period. However, there's no denying that the introduction of Chaos Dragons as well as Monster Mash being played more often has led to the decrease in Mystical Space Typhoon usage, and that those decks are here to stay. But with the decrease in Mystical Space Typhoon, isn't it more viable to run Trap-heavy decks focused on control such as Rabbit Control Wind-Ups or Dino Rabbit or even Gravekeepers? It's an interesting question for sure, and with no major tournaments left for this format, it may be a question that goes unanswered.

So, next time you draw a Mystical Space Typhoon, think about the influence that that little green piece of cardboard has over the metagame. And appreciate what you have, because you never know, come September 2012, you could be searching for a new deck...

On Wednesday I went to the tournament at Macarthur Square gametraders store and had a shot at winning their tournament. As always I spent the first half an hour scouting around to see what people would be playing and looking for any sweet trades or bargains. I managed to do some very good deals on Synchro monstrers that were no longer of any interest to me such as power tool dragon and ancient fairy dragon, for out-dated synchros like those I managed to get electric virus, tragoedia, sangan, super rare dust tornado and some other good staples. Also I got rid of an un-needed Shadow imprisoning mirror for a soul taker.  Later on in the night I also happily picked up an ultimate rare glow-up bulb for $10 , I know what you're thinking, "But why?, Glow- up is banned anyway". Let's put it this way, glow-up bulb was $50 at it's prime and now it's a measly $10, after the amount of criticism konami received for banning glow-up bulb it is bound to come off the banlist sooner or later, especially since Synchro monsters are way past their use-by date. Let's say glow-up bulb came off the list 1 year later from now. I won't even remember the $10 I spent to get it, but what I will remember is the $50 I will be putting into my wallet when I sell it. That being said I also plan to pick up another 4-5 more copies of Glow-up bulb when I have the money to spare. Right now I actually have another set of cards that I'm keeping my eye on but I'd rather not reveal that publicly yet, those who know me personally should know what I'm on the lookout for and I have very good reasons too.

Anyways I got a bit off track there, time to report on the tournament.

Match 1: Rogue Synchro deck
round 1: I opened with a bad hand and had to grind my way through half my deck before I drew into an Inzektor Hornet. Luckily I main deck compulsory evacuation device and I'm able to exploit the weakness of many Synchro monsters (bouncing them back to the extra deck).
Did not side
round 2: My opening hand was much better and I'm able to combo off and finish this round quickly, I try to pick up his effect veiler after the game which I assumed was going to waste since he didn't even sleeve his cards. But he didn't want to part with it so that was a shame.

After reporting my win I went to scout out any more bargains and at the same time I couldn't help but feel tempted to buy the merchandise that the store was selling, such as a monster binder at $30 ($5 cheaper than usual and the orange pack of sleeves that I've been after for a long time now) but I'll get back to that later

Match 2: Lightsworns
round 1: The guy isn't very experienced and I just sit comfortably using Dragonfly and Hornet to take control of the game.
Did not side
round 2: I open with a really poor hand of 2 warning, monster reborn, dark hole and mystical space typhoon but he doesn't make any pushes so I eventually manage to draw Centipede and Hopper and use them to add Dragonfly to my hand and later Hornet to win the game.

Match 3: Dino Rabbit
round1: This was perhaps the hardest match of the night, it was my friend Jason and we had actually vsed the day before with me losing 2-0. I open with a pretty sub par hand including centipede and hopper and solemn judgment and 2 MST. I'm going first so I use centipede and hopper to fetch dragonfly and I set all my backrow and end. He summons rabbit and goes into Laggia which I negate with Solemn. He ends his turn with 2 backrow set and I MST both of them. I fetch Hornet with centipede and Hopper combo and attack directly. My memory of what happens next is hazy but all I know is I won this match because I veilered his Tour guide.
Side in:
2 Dust tornado (this is a must, you need to side in extra backrow destruction to handle macro cosmos/shadow imprisoning mirror)
3 electric virus (regret, they're horrible against the Rabbit match up, don't bother siding these guys in)
2 Bottomless trap hole (Amazing card in general, it might find it's way into my main deck, can kill both their Rabbit targets or even just destroy a lone dinosaur in general is good enough)
2 Snowman eater (A must against Rabbits)
Side out:
2 compulsory evacuation device (pointless to use against Rabbits, Laggia makes this card dead)
2 Threatening roar (You don't need to stall for an extra turn against Rabbits, one extra turn will do nothing for you if they're sitting on a Laggia with 3 backrow)
1 Inzektor lady bug (Cannot afford to have this guy being a dead draw and you don't need rank 5's in this match up)
2 Solemn Warning (I was going second you don't want to have warnings in your main deck if you're going second, it will just be dead once they stick the Evolzar to the field and in a match up like this you really can't afford to be throwing 2000 lps away.)
2 Effect veiler (Horrible against Rabbit, the only worthy target is Tour guide, no point veiler-ing the Rabbit they're just going to set 4 to protect it and then you'll be down a card anyway.)

round 2: I open with centipede and sword and Giga mantis and it's hard to get out of the situation. Eventually he has Macro cosmos established with 3 other backrow and Dolkka and I just can't fight through that, I scoop very shortly.
Side in:
2 Solemn Warning (I was going first so I was betting on having an established field with Warning to stop him from sticking any Evolzars to the field)
1 Compulsory evacuation device
Side out:
3 Electric Virus (I found out the hard way that this does nothing to Rabbits)

round 3: I open poorly and he managed to summon Dolkka and stick Macro cosmos to the field leaving me in a really bad position. He xyz summons Photon Papilloperative and switches my set veiler to attack mode and hits me with both for 4400 damage along with some other battle damage before for a total of 6100 damage. I'm able to nuke the field with dark hole and xyz summon leviathan dragon and swing at him for 2500 and again. During the last few stages of the match he had macro cosmos face up with 4 set and I had 5 cards set along with my 2500 leviathan dragon. He summoned Sabersaurus which signaled to me that he had some sort of attack altering card such as Forbidden lance so I used compulsory evacuation device. He negated that with Solemn Judgment and he was left with 1500lps. I feared that he had mirror force so all I did for my turn was detach one more material from leviathan dragon to pump it up to 3000 atk so that it would take more than just one lance to run it over. He drew and switched  sabersaurus to defense mode and next turn I ran it over. He drew and ended, I drew and summoned hopper to attack directly, he smiled and we shook hands.

Match 4: Chaos dragons
round 1: The guy opens with a 'bad hand' but my friend says that he could have easily won with that hand has he known what to do. I just use dragonfly and hornet to pick apart his field and win the round
Did not side
round 2: I open with the dragonfly and sword combo to take this match.

So in the end I came first with my friend Jason placing second and some random guy placing third. The top 3 players received a playmat from the Battle pack epic dawn series which was amazing and as the winner I received $40 prize money to use in the store. Remember those sleeves and binder that I wanted?

This is a picture of the mat, I'm a little disappointed that it is only a half sized mat but at the end of the day a mat is a mat and I'm always proud of mats that I've personally won which to date is two. Oh and I also spent my last $4 on a battle pack epic dawn booster and pulled a pot of duality and starfoil rare heavy storm.