Whenever the forbidden and limited list goes through a transition, one of the first things we all do is evaluate which decks became stronger and which became weaker based on the changes. Most of the time, these predictions are based solely on the way games went in the previous format with no actual knowledge of how things run in the new format. Sometimes these predictions are correct, but we often find that they’re dead wrong. Take Dark World decks as an example. At both format changes since their release, people have clamored that each new format would make them “sooooo broken” or “the new CC.”  Looking back over the past year, we can see that this was obviously incorrect, and based on the results of the first regional events for this format, it’s still incorrect. For an example more relevant to today’s discussion, take a look at the Spellcaster deck. The loss of Tsukuyomi and Chaos Sorcerer directly affects the Spellcaster-type, and given the power level of those cards one would immediately assume that Spellcasters have lost two of their key cards. Thus, they should be a lot less powerful this time around than they were last time, right? Wrong. In fact, Tsukuyomi and Chaos Sorcerer harmed Spellcaster decks more often than they helped. Why? Because Spellcasters as a type are far more action-oriented than control-oriented. Cards like Magician’s Circle and Magical Dimension let the Spellcaster player deal huge amounts of damage in a single turn while greatly developing his or her board and/or destroying the opponent’s board. Tsukuyomi and Chaos Sorcerer can certainly help to turn the tide of duel, but for various reasons, they shined more in other decks than they did surrounded by nothing but other Spellcasters.

The first problem with playing Chaos Sorcerer in a regular Spellcaster deck was the lack of strong Light attribute Spellcasters to work with. Magician of Faith is the most obvious candidate for the job, but with only one of them to work with (or two last format) you would need at least five or six other Light types before Chaos Sorcerer (especially in multiples) stopped being risky. Think about all the good Light Spellcasters in the game without using a card database of any kind. How many can you think of? Personally, I think of Cybernetic Magician and in certain instances, Time Wizard. That’s about it, and I don’t think it’s worth loading the deck down with Cybernetic Magicians and Time Wizards just to allow for the use of Chaos Sorcerer. Spellcasters have much better Dark monsters, and since the Spellcaster deck thrives on synergy between its monsters, spells, and traps, it’s silly to threaten that synergy by introducing elements that don’t necessarily support your main strategy. Tsukuyomi, while it may help you to abuse the effects of Old Vindictive Magician and Magician of Faith, is a Spirit monster that can’t be special summoned. The inability to special summon Tsukuyomi made it practically worthless for the purposes of Magical Dimension and Magician’s Circle. This is highly problematic when your deck is built on using those two cards to their fullest potential. Now that those two are gone, people can’t just throw the cards in because they’re Spellcasters or because they’re blatantly powerful. Rather, they’ll need to look at their cards and consider the interactions with the rest of their deck outside of “generate a silly loop where I destroy a monster or get a spell back every turn!”  What interactions you say? Take a look at today’s deck, and I’ll explain.

Monsters: 19

1 Dark Magician of Chaos

2 Magical Marionette

2 Gravekeeper’s Spy

2 Apprentice Magician

1 Magician of Faith

2 Old Vindictive Magician

1 Time Wizard

1 Breaker the Magical Warrior

3 Kycoo the Ghost Destroyer

1 Dark Elf

1 Sangan

1 Injection Fairy Lily

1 Ancient Lamp

Spells: 13

1 Graceful Charity

1 Heavy Storm

1 Confiscation

1 Mystical Space Typhoon

2 Rush Recklessly

3 Magical Dimension

1 Nobleman of Crossout

1 Book of Moon

1 Pot of Avarice

1 Swords of Revealing Light

Traps: 9

2 Magician’s Circle

2 Dust Tornado

1 Ring of Destruction

1 Mirror Force

1 Magic Cylinder

1 Call of the Haunted

1 Deck Devastation Virus

The overall focus of this deck is to create an efficient beatdown machine where each card interacts nicely with each other card. Out of all the monsters in the deck, only 2 of them can’t be searched out with Magician’s Circle if the need arises, and one of them is Sangan, the only generic search card nearly everyone plays. Your primary goal while playing this deck is to deal massive damage in a single turn through the use of Magician’s Circle and Magical Dimension, creating a combination of field clearing and construction that’s difficult for the opponent to overcome. Take this situation for example:

I attack with Apprentice Magician into your Cyber Dragon. In response, I activate Magician’s Circle to pull Magical Marionette to the field. You then have to pick either Breaker the Magical Warrior or Magician of Faith and summon it to the field in attack position because those are probably the only two Spellcasters in your deck. Now a replay occurs since you now have a new target to attack. Instead of immediately declaring my attack, I activate Magical Dimension putting a spell counter on Marionette (2200 ATK). Apprentice Magician survived because of the replay, and is now tributed to special summon Kycoo the Ghost Destroyer, while Cyber Dragon is destroyed by Dimension. Now I press the attack and deal 2400 damage in addition to clearing out both of your monsters, removing Breaker from the number of useful draws left in your deck, and, if I so desire, removing up to two monsters from your graveyard from play. Oh, and that spell counter on the Marionette? If I get another counter (it doesn’t matter how as long as my Marionette survives until my turn), the next monster you play is toast.

Plays like this happen all the time with this deck.

Now, imagine that I had to squeeze more Light attribute monsters in to accommodate some Chaos Sorcerer cards. Any monsters that aren’t Light or Dark would have to go. That would immediately exclude excellent Spellcasters like Injection Fairy Lily and Ancient Lamp from the running, despite the fact that one is incredible with Magician’s Circle and the other is incredible with Magical Dimension. There’s nothing quite like directing your opponent’s first Cyber Twin Dragon attack back at his or her Cyber-Stein with Ancient Lamp only to follow up by using Magical Dimension against the second attack to destroy the Twin Dragon. Attacking a Spirit Reaper with Kycoo only to follow up with Magician’s Circle, pulling Injection Fairy Lily from the deck to attack with as well, is pretty sweet too. The point is that neither of these moves is possible unless you’re playing the required cards in your deck, which you wouldn’t if you tried to squeeze Chaos Sorcerer in. These are examples of how building a highly synergistic deck is often a lot better than strictly building around the most powerful single effects you can find, and it was possible during the last format. In fact, if one accepts that good Spellcaster decks last format didn’t even bother with Chaos Sorcerer, it reduces the overall list of cards lost down to Tsukuyomi alone.

I believe you’ll find a notable exclusion from the trap lineup in the deck above. Specifically, I’m not running Torrential Tribute. I want my deck to behave as a cohesive unit rather than a random pile of power cards. It needs to build field presence in order use its best effects, and while Torrential is absolutely amazing, it destroys the field presence that I’ve achieved thus far. That’s why I don’t play it . . . but I do play multiples of Dust Tornado along with Heavy Storm and Mystical Space Typhoon. My desire to have my board wiped by a single card is rather minimal. Of course, those cards can’t protect me from Lightning Vortex, but once again, it takes a very specialized deck in order to run that card properly, especially in multiples. If you find yourself dropping a Vortex early on after a rush destroys your field presence, you’re likely to find yourself low on options to fight back with. This is where cards like Divine Sword - Phoenix Blade come into play. Warrior decks utilizing that particular card have access to a wide variety of effects that play nice with both Warriors removed from the game by way of the graveyard and the return of the Blade to its owner’s hand. Of course, I’ve taken proper counter-measures against such decks by including three copies of Kycoo rather than three copies of Skilled Dark Magician, but the point is that the Warrior Phoenix Blade deck is another example of a way to exploit card synergy to its fullest and thus triumph over random piles of power cards.

Finally, I’d like to share some of the results from our first Regional event in Butler, PA. There were a lot of people playing decks based on Chimeratech Overdragon and Cyber-Stein. None of them made Top 8. In fact, of the entire Top 8, I only saw one random Stein main-decked and another pair side-decked. Both of those players lost their Top 8 matches. The final consisted of a match between a dedicated Zombie build and a Chaos deck that just removed the Forbidden cards and replaced them with other cards based on field control. In the end, the Zombie deck won out. It was really a grand day for the Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG and I’m hoping that this trend towards card synergy over piles of power cards continues as we approach Shonen Jump Championship Boston. If it does, Boston may just be the most exciting SJC of the year. Enjoy your playtesting, and, until next time, play hard, play fair, and, most importantly, have fun!

Jerome McHale

jcmchale@andrew.cmu.edu

NEXT WEEK: There’s a storm brewing, and I’m not talking about the weather in Pittsburgh.