The next Shonen Jump Championship in Durham, NC, is more than a month away. For now, the dueling world is quiet. In fact, I haven’t heard as much as a whisper about any new tech or decks since right after the information from Pharaoh Tour Bremen was posted. Even the message board pundits have been spinning their wheels lately, due to the lack of new material.* To break up the monotony, I’m going to share some of the data that I’ve obtained from analyzing and trying out some of the top decks from Bremen and Shonen Jump San Francisco.
First, though, I’d like to address some of the issues that have popped up in my mailbox over the holidays. The most popular topic has definitely been my Dimensional Analysis article, from right before the break. It turns out that there are a lot of people who are relieved to finally see a method of card analysis that goes beyond simple plus-ones and minus-ones. There are also some people who are a bit confused as to when they should be playing Enemy Controller to block a direct attack. Basically, I’d use it against a direct attack in any of the situations found on this conveniently numbered list.
1. Against a Spirit Reaper or Berserk Gorilla attack.
2. Against something with a nasty “When this card deals damage . . . ” effect.
3. Against a fatal attack.
4. If you judge that there is no reason to take the attack, because you would have used the Controller next turn anyways.
The second most popular topic in my inbox was, “Can you fix my deck?” Sadly, the answer is no. I don’t have the time to properly fix every deck that gets sent my way. Honestly, I don’t think any of us do, but if you think your deck has enough merit to make it into one of Jason’s columns, then you should feel free to send it to him.
Finally, I’ve been getting plenty of mail recently asking for my views on originality and “Cookie Cutter” decks in the metagame. I’d just like to say that I think we’ve got plenty of diversity in the current format, with a wide variety of decks being piloted to high finishes since October 1. I’d also point out that the deck types that are doing well in the Shonen Jump Championships are just products of our own national metagame, and that there are even more deck types that are doing well in other parts of the globe. One only needs to look to the Bremen coverage to see that. In short, while I think that there are a couple of improvements that could be made on April 1, I’m in no hurry to get there.
Now that that’s out of the way, let’s move on to the main event.
Pharaoh Tour Bremen
First, let’s hop across the pond to take a look at some of the ideas from the Top 8 of Pharaoh Tour Bremen. Probably the most controversial development to arrive from these decks was Adrian Madaj’s use of three copies of Strike Ninja along with three copies of Blast with Chain. Strike Ninja certainly makes sense to me, due to its ability to dodge Sakuretsu Armor and other forms of monster removal, but I don’t understand the need for three of them. The cost to use Strike Ninja’s ability isn’t exactly huge, but it’s not something you can really do with multiple copies of the card. In fact, you’d probably only be able to do it two or three times per game, at most. This makes me question the inclusion of three copies of the card, especially when Adrian was also playing Reinforcement of the Army—albeit only one. Surely two Ninjas would have been enough, even if Strike Ninja’s dodging ability was part of the deck’s win condition.
Seeing three Strike Ninja and three Blast with Chain instantly made me think of trying to use them together somehow, but a quick read of the latest text of Blast with Chain makes it clear that trying to combine them doesn’t work. I read on a forum that the Blasts were used to equip an opposing player’s Mobius the Frost Monarch so that when the Blast was destroyed, Mobius or some other opposing card would be destroyed as well. Again, looking at the text of Blast with Chain shows that this isn’t possible, since you have to equip your own monsters with Blast with Chain. You’d need to have one face-up monster at the time of Mobius’s summoning in order to take it out properly.
Finally, I heard it rumored that the Blasts were equipped to Mystic Tomato to make the Tomatoes difficult to destroy without the use of a removal card. This isn’t exactly an effective strategy, considering that the point of Mystic Tomato is to have it destroyed in battle so you can search for a monster. A more effective use of the Blast would be to equip a newly fetched Don Zaloog so that it could do damage in a larger variety of situations. However, this still wouldn’t help the cause of Blast with Chain, as it’s still most likely that the Don would be destroyed by battle or by a card effect rendering Blast’s destruction ability useless.
To sum it up, I can’t tell you why three copies of Blast with Chain are in Adrian’s deck, but if you plan to use them yourself for whatever reason, make sure you know exactly when you get the destruction ability. I had a couple of problems with players not understanding the text of Blast with Chain at the last Regionals I judged, and I hope you save yourself some time and trouble by reading it before you play it. Additionally, Adrian, if you’re out there and you’re reading this, please drop me a line and let me know why you chose three Blast with Chain to round out your deck. I quite honestly can’t figure it out.
The other major point of interest in Bremen was the side decks used in the Top 8. Everyone, and I mean everyone, was siding some sort of burn, whether it was full stall-burn or some casual burn cards like Magic Cylinder and Poison of the Old Man. I find this interesting due to the fact that it’s diametrically opposed to the American norm of side decking against burn. As we learned from the San Francisco Shonen Jump Championship, burn certainly has some power in this new format, but is it really so strong that it deserves to be a special side-decked strategy in every successful deck?
I’m not convinced, as burn doesn’t really do much to stop someone from nailing you with a one-turn-kill combo, especially seeing as most of them involve Giant Trunade. Heavy Storm or Mystic Swordsman LV2** from an aggressive deck can mess you up as well. On the other hand, Solemn Judgment does stop someone, assuming that your opponent doesn’t have any sort of backup removal in his or her hand at the time.
Still, a burn-on-burn matchup during the second game is not only boring, but it’s also almost completely decided on the starting hands. If one player has two Wave-Motion Cannon and a single Stealth Bird, versus the other player’s Gravity Binds and Des Koala, the game is going to be over rather fast as one player gets blown into oblivion by the other’s fortunate hand. Therefore, the only way to avoid that would be to not side deck at all, which defeats the purpose of having the burn side deck to begin with.
Personally, I’ve found that it’s a good idea to have a little burn in one’s side deck, usually in the form of a couple copies of Wave-Motion Cannons to side in against dedicated Burn decks, or against any other deck that likes to slow-play its cards, like Flip-Flop Control. If there’s anyone out there with some insight into the European metagame, feel free to drop me a line on this subject—as I’m quite curious about it, and I’m sure many other players are as well. As a final point, remember that the Bremen tournament occurred before Elemental Energy became legal, so there have probably been changes to the European metagame since then.
Speaking of changes to the metagame, let’s jump right into the only major tournament in the United States to take place since the legalization of Elemental Energy: Shonen Jump Championship San Francisco!
Pot of Avarice: The New San Francisco Treat?
It very well could be, considering the obscene amount of play it saw there. appeared in a majority of the Top 8 decks from San Francisco, sometimes in multiples, with nearly no basic support for itself. Its inclusion, along with two copies of Chaos Sorcerer, in Andrew Long’s deck absolutely baffles me. But the inclusion of two copies of Pot of Avarice in any deck, especially one that’s as susceptible to bad draws as Soul Control, absolutely baffles me. Drawing it in your starting hand is nearly fatal, and I’ve learned this from watching many good players lose—even in the Top 8 of a Regional tournament—just because they drew it in their first five cards. It seems to me that players want Pot of Avarice to be as good as Pot of Greed, and in reality, that isn’t going to happen. My advice to any future players who feel the need to play Pot of Avarice is to pick the self-replacing monster that best suits your deck, and play three copies of it, along with two Magical Merchants. That, or really hope you never get it in your starting hand. Of course, that’s exactly what Team Overdose tried to do, and it didn’t really work out for them, now did it? This leads me to my next point, which is the Flip-Flop Control deck.
To put it simply, I don’t like Flip-Flop Control very much at all. Sure, it can draw a few extra cards (assuming that you aren’t getting dominated by Mystic Swordsman LV2), but what’s the point? What do those cards do for you that make you win the game? Looking at Overdose’s build, I can’t think of anything. It somehow seems unlikely that you’re going to be able to win off a handful of monster removal and nothing to follow it up with. I guess the point is to get to Mobius the Frost Monarch, Dark Hole, and Heavy Storm as fast as possible and try to win with them, but the fact remains that Flip-Flop doesn’t really put much pressure on the opposition, and if any of the Dekoichis, Tomatoes, or Merchants get negated or removed, the deck is in serious trouble.
My advice to players of Flip-Flop Control is to find some credible threats. In all my games against Flip-Flop Control, an early Mystic Swordsman LV2 was more than enough to start it down the path to defeat. For Flip-Flop Control to be successful in the future, it’ll need a way to deal with aggressive Warrior decks, as well as any other deck that has easy access to face-down monster removal or effect negation. Of course, what Flip-Flop does do well is completely deny Bazoo/Return the topdecking situation that it needs to win, and that’s definitely a point in Flip-Flop’s favor. The thing is, Bazoo/Return has been hated to death at this point, and that removes one of the major boons of playing Flip-Flop. As a final note, it also has a less than stellar first-game matchup against burn, which is something everyone should be keeping in mind as they choose their decks in preparation for Durham.
Finally, I can’t talk about the San Francisco Shonen Jump Championship without mentioning the fascinating Burn deck that Brandon Chock piloted all the way to the semifinals. First off, Ojama Trio/Just Desserts is quite clever, and it gives me yet another reason to be angry when I see Ojama tokens. I was surprised, however, that he chose not to include Chain Energy in his build of the deck. Maybe it’s just because the only consistently good Burn deck I’ve ever seen was based on Chain Energy, but I’ve always seen it as one of the best deterrents to the early game weenie rush that can give Burn decks problems. I also agree with Mike that this deck would have been better off with two copies of Des Lacooda instead of the copies of Dekoichi the Battlechanted Locomotive.
Personally, I think the best build would have involved Des Lacooda and Chain Energy, but I think I can understand why Brandon built this deck the way he did. Using Des Lacooda to any real advantage means that you have to be able to consistently stop it from being attacked. My thoughts are that Brandon was being realistic about his chances to keep it alive long enough to generate major advantage, and instead opted to increase his resiliency to Heavy Storm, as well as his ability to hurt the opponent’s chances of drawing into the cards that he or she might need.
To clarify, Dekoichi’s effect has a much greater chance of going off in the same turn as an opposing Heavy Storm than Des Lacooda’s chance of survival to the next turn. If Dekoichi is nailed by Nobleman of Crossout, the opponent’s copies are removed as well, which stops potential shenanigans with Tsukuyomi. Overall, it’s a pretty good build with some obvious skills behind it, especially considering the general tendency to pack side decks with burn-filled hate.
That about does it for me this week. Once again if you have questions, comments, suggestions, or any knowledge on the European metagame and the proper method to use Blast with Chain, drop me an email at jcmchale AT andrew DOT cmu DOT edu. If you’re looking for a fix of your deck, you’re in the wrong place.
Until next time, play hard, play fair, and most importantly, have fun!
—Jerome McHale
NEXT WEEK: The newest Structure Deck has some seriously sensational Spellcaster support, and I’ll be using some cards from it to create a cunningly competitive deck that may or may not contain the same amount of alliteration as this preview.
*You can tell they’re running out of material when they start whining about “CC”.
**Actually, lots of things can mess up a Burn deck, but fast Combo decks and Warrior Rush seems to do it the most effectively.