100 YCS
Posted on Saturday, March 24, 2012
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Well, the records have been broken, with yu-gi-oh's 100th YCS. I think the exact number of players was around 4,300. This YCS shows a couple of things.
The first being how much incentive actually pays off. The mat being included on entry is pretty huge. I don't think the turnout would have been the same if it wasn't included.
The next thing, is that the YCS is the 100th YCS. I'd imagine that this was some players reason to go. It's just kind of cool to say that you've attended the 100th championship. It's kind of historical in the narrow world of yu-gi-oh.
So good luck to all the people going, it should be a pretty historical event, and I'm excited to see what happens.
On a side note: I don't think Wind-ups will do too well. I think a lot of players overestimate the deck. I could be wrong. But it seemed very weak in testing.
Lightning Warrior and my big stupid Timmy.
Posted on Sunday, November 14, 2010
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I consider myself first and foremost a casual player at this game (although that doesn’t mean I don’t keep up my knowledge over the metagame, and competitive strategy) and every once in a while a card just gets me giddy. This week that card is a new hard to get promo called Lightning Warrior.
Lightning Warrior
LIGHT/ Warrior – Synchro – Effect/ 7/ 2400/ 1200
1 Tuner + 1 or more non-Tuner monsters
When this card destroys an opponent's monster by battle and sends it to the Graveyard, inflict 300 damage to your opponent for each card in your opponent's hand.
Now, this card isn’t too great competitive wise, and there is little reason to use this over the other level 7 synchros that are available to us now. With that being said I would just like to point out that the art is badass.
Now that my fangasm is out of the way. I like this card for other reasons than it just being useful, but lets still dissect it’s effect just to have that done.
For starters, it’s a level 7 synchro, which is all right and fairly easy to get out. The 2400 attack is a bit low, just tying with Blackrose Dragon for the second highest attack in the level 7 generic synchros (not including Dark Strike Fighter). Other than that there isn’t much else to talk about in terms of its level.
The attribute is light, which means it combos with Honest. That gives this card a little bit more survivability and allows it to activate its effect easier. The effect really isn’t that great, providing a small amount of burn damage. Since the format isn’t really central on hand advantage since Storm is gone, the card’s effect will only be doing minimal damage. On average I would say 900 is the magic number, which isn’t enough to make the card warranted use over BRD or Scrap Archfiend. Although all of this is true, the card is yet another generic level 7 synchro which is something this game is short on.
The last bit of info has to do with this cards lore in the anime and manga. The card appears to be Yusei’s ace monster in the manga, seemingly being the manga version of Junk Warrior. This is cool I guess, if you are a fan of Yusei.
Personally, I just like this card because he is a Lightning Warrior, pretty silly to think something is cool because of a name and picture, but that’s what the big stupid timmy part in the title is referring too. It’s not a terrible card, but that’s only due to a lack of good level 7 synchros, all in all, when I get my one copy for collecting purposes it will probably see play in at least one my extra decks, because it’s just a cool card.
Mini-Golf
Posted on Friday, May 7, 2010
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Random
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So I played mini-golf yesterday. I got kind of blown out. My main problem was hitting the ball too hard. I blamed it on my muscles being too big. 1337
~E.P.B.
School Begone
Posted on Friday, April 23, 2010
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My classes are done, so I'll have more time to dedicate to the blog. As many of you people don't read it anyway though. I have some big plans, and I think I'll try and work on a new layout. Since I did that the last time I had a long break from blogging.
~E.P.B.
Match Post: Light Beatdown Vs. Zombie
Posted on Wednesday, March 31, 2010
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This next video is a Light Beatdown deck being played by Reggie against a Zombie deck piloted by Gary (in the original post I got the names mixed up, hence the video titles). The video is in 4 parts, so enjoy.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Update and Match: Batteryman versus Blackwings
It's been a while huh? Well it's going to be a little while longer because of my huge amount of school work. So anyway, I have decided to post a couple of videos and photos from a trip to GR I took earlier this March.
This is me versus my friend. Ignore the bad rulings, I've never claimed to be a judge. This is Batteryman versus Blackwings, I'm playing with Batteryman. For starters my friend was annoyed at all of the rulings questions and stuff he was receiving that day, so please excuse his attitude.
Part 1.
Part 2.
The Tempo Argument.
Posted on Sunday, February 21, 2010
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Chess. the gaining or losing of time and effectiveness relative to one's continued mobility or developing position, esp. with respectto the number of moves required to gain an objective: Black gained a tempo. ~ From Dictionary.com
Now, Yu-gi-oh is not chess, but the game does require set-up to the point where tempo plays a roll in the game. Tempo in Yu-gi-oh is a lot like how it was described in Chess. Tempo deals with the flow of the game, and how card advantage is interacting within a game of Yu-gi-oh. So here is my definition of tempo:
Tempo is the rate of play in a duel. Rate of play directly meaning the card advantage interactions that go on within that duel. Duels usually have different states of tempo. Tempo also deals with the number of options a person has in the game, much like card advantage. It is not just limited to the speed of the game.
If we look in Jason Grabher-Meyer’s article on Tempo, he lists the different rates of tempo and how they work. Being directly stated as the Slow Duel, Neutral Duel, and Fast Duel. To sum it up:
Slow Duel: Card exchanges rarely happens every turn. Both players can be viewed as building up resources.
Neutral Duel: Card exchanges are relatively even, both players maintain near equal card advantage.
Fast Duel: Card exchanges are relatively uneven, with one or both players using up card advantage faster than usual.
http://yugioh.tcgplayer.com/db/article.asp?id=1269~ Jason’s Tempo Article
The article discussed what the tempo states are, but did not mention the changing of the tempo states within a game, or how to directly analyze when the game state is about to change in a game. To understand this you must start at the beginning.
The first part of the in-game analysis is to ask yourself what role your deck is. Is your deck in the beatdown role or the control role? Miss-assigning deck roles can what cause a person to win or lose. Example being is that if your deck is in the beatdown role and is put into a control role than it will have less of a chance of winning, and vice versa.
More on this can be viewed in the MtG article of ‘Who’s the Beatdown?’ by Mike Flores. I know its Magic, but the central idea of the article is relevant to the game of Yu-gi-oh.
http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/3692.html ~Who’s the Beatdown Article
These roles will ultimately establish what you will want your tempo role to be. Most Beatdown decks want a fast game speed to establish a fast tempo. Most control decks want to establish a slow game speed with a slow tempo starting out and then developing into a fast tempo position where they are in control and gaining multiple pluses (cards like Oppression make this possible).
Changes in a deck’s role effects tempo a lot. Example being that a deck that attempts to establish a neutral tempo faces a deck that attempts to establish a slow tempo are playing each other. The slower deck is able to create a better control on the games tempo early on forcing the game to change completely making the neutral deck miss-assign it’s role. The deck that miss-assigns its tempo role is at a severe disadvantage because it is not playing it’s optimal game.
This is essentially an expanded idea of the ‘Who is the Beatdown’ idea from Magic, but deals less directly a deck’s role and more directly with what your deck needs to do to accomplish it’s role.
Much like the role of ‘Who is the Beatdown?’ you can also design your deck with different tempo rates in mind. For example, Lightsworn is a beatdown deck designed to have a fast duel tempo, making multiple +1 or +2 card exchanges possible where something like Pacman is a control deck that has a slow tempo in mind and making 1 for 1 tades while gaining advantage.
A fast duel tempo does not mean how fast your deck plays cards though. What determines the overall speed of your deck is the card commitment to the field, what determines the tempo is the card advantage exchanges in the game.
To know how tempo effects the game we must also know how it changes. For starters, changes in card advantage are important to determine the rate of play, as it is the number of options a person has in a given game state. As we saw in Jason’s article, the tempo rates are defined by card interactions. A change in card advantage can cause a change in tempo.
For example if both players have been committing to the field and making 1 for 1 trades for a Neutral duel tempo and then one person drops Judgment Dragon for a plus 1 or 2 over the next few turns, then game changed from a neutral tempo to a fast tempo. The other person must now catch up to the advantage lost by making a trade of his own like that. If the other person can not reduce the tempo to a slower one or keep up then he will probably lose. Losing cards in hand helps this even further, because it makes it that much harder to keep up with the same amount of commitment or duel tempo.
Knowing the speed of a game is important as well. The speed is also directly related to card advantage but deals with focusing on what is on the field more so. While card advantage determines what your options are, the game speed is something that effects the decisions you put towards the field and towards what you want to change the tempo into.
For example, early commitments to the field are a good example of this, changing the games speed and thus possibly changing the game’s tempo. An early commitment towards the field with a deck like Blackwings can force your opponent to have to commit more cards to keep up with you, which can in turn give you +1’s or +2’s and changing the game into a fast tempo. Something to pay attention to is that agressive committments like this can backfire.
A Game’s tempo does not always affect the game speed however. As we saw in the JD example the tempo could be changed to a fast duel when JD was played, but the total commitment to the field was relatively the same for both players. A game’s speed is related to how many cards are played at a time during a turn, tempo is related to the card advantage trades going on in the game. So a deck that gains a fast duel tempo does not mean that it is a fast deck.
Also another thing to pay attention to is the cards on the field as they are increasing. By doing this you can further guess what options your opponent has and then try to best counteract his attempt to change the game tempo or improve your own attempts.
Analyzing an opponent’s options and commitments can give you a good idea of how the tempo is going, and how to best change it as well as give you insight on how to best play against the opponents strategy. If they like conserving cards then trying to get them to commit them to the field early may end up being a good idea, or even playing slower than them and conserving more cards than them. It is important to analyze what your opponent is doing and how to best out play that or change their deck tempo role.
Changes in roles and tempo are important because they directly reflect the game state. Know the difference of the game tempos and how they can be changed is important because it can help you pinpoint critical spots in the game. It also helps with card evaluations that are not directly related to the general +1’s or –1’s of the game.
Using the newest card Battle Fader as an example. In a Monarch deck a well timed battle Fader can change the tempo of the game, forcing an early over commitment to the field by a person who is trying to force you into a faster duel tempo. In turn allowing you take advantage of their early commitment by establishing the fast duel tempo first rather than allowing them to do it.
Establishing the tempo of the game is important because it will define how your opponent will have to play his game. For example, being the one to establish the initial +1 or 2 in the Fast Duel tempo game will give you an advantage by forcing your opponent to catch up. Vice versa in a slow duel tempo conserving more cards than your opponent will make them have to hold back their own options, allowing you to make better trades and control over the game.
If a player can analyze and pinpoint the tempo changes in the game then it can become easy to exploit and recognize the opponent’s decisions and play style. Knowing how tempo works can help you improve your game and become a better duelist overall.
~E.P.B.
