In my time at Carnegie Mellon University, I have taken an unearthly number of math-intensive courses in my quest to complete my astrophysics degree. For the most part, these courses are either specific requirements for the degree or the core requirements for the Mellon College of Science. You might think that when I was finally able to fit electives into my schedule that I’d make a beeline straight for the non-math courses. If only it were that easy. A certain number of our electives need to be “technical” in nature as well . . . and by technical, they almost universally mean math-based. Resigned to never having a semester free of calculations, I took matrix algebra thinking that it would be both relevant and easy. It was neither. Now, months later, I can finally say that I’ve managed to draw a parallel with matrix algebra in the most unlikely of ways.

It involves a concept called “null space.” The null space of a matrix consists of all vectors that yield the “empty set” (basically nothing) when you multiply the matrix by them. When that happens, any information contained in the matrix is gone, and it can’t be recovered by any sort of reverse transformation. It’s almost like having a card or effect you play negated by a counter trap or Skill Drain or Light and Darkness Dragon. In fact, I think Light and Darkness Dragon is a great way to demonstrate this concept. It’s easy: use any card or effect that goes on the chain while Light and Darkness Dragon is out. Then, Light and Darkness Dragon negates that effect and it disappears. Light and Darkness Dragon would then be in the null space of any card or effect that uses the chain.

Did I just manage to connect matrix algebra with the Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG? I believe I did, and that means that a certain someone out there owes me dinner. I also think it’s an interesting and unique way to introduce this week’s deck, which revolves around Light and Darkness Dragon. Is the Dragon a good card? Of course it is. It’s so good you can use it to explain college-level mathematics.

Monsters: 20

2 Light and Darkness Dragon

1 Dark Magician of Chaos

2 D.D. Crow

1 Treeborn Frog

1 Marshmallon

3 Herald of Creation

1 Elemental Hero Stratos

1 Snipe Hunter

1 Sangan

1 Destiny Hero - Fear Monger

1 Destiny Hero - Disk Commander

2 Destiny Hero - Malicious

2 Destiny Hero - Plasma

1 Card Trooper

Spells: 14

2 Destiny Draw

2 Trade-In

2 Enemy Controller

2 Reinforcement of the Army

2 Foolish Burial

1 Heavy Storm

1 Scapegoat

1 Brain Control

1 Premature Burial

Traps: 6

1 Call of the Haunted

1 Torrential Tribute

1 Mirror Force

1 The Transmigration Prophecy

2 Phoenix Wing Wind Blast

I don’t think many people understand exactly how the Light and Darkness Dragon deck is supposed to work. There are some things that everyone already knows, like how good it is to get Disk Commander or Dark Magician of Chaos back when your Dragon is destroyed and how bad it is to wipe your own field when it goes even if you can’t revive your monster of choice. That’s why I’m going let you in on things regarding the card and the strategy that aren’t widely publicized. First, there is never a bad time to have Light and Darkness Dragon on the field. Just because I’ll get nailed next turn by both Raiza the Storm Monarch and Phoenix Wing Wind Blast or a Six Samurai effect and Phoenix Wing Wind Blast doesn’t mean I shouldn’t play the card. The fact of the matter is, your Dragon will soak up at least one of your opponent’s cards every time you play it, so why shouldn’t you play it as early and often as possible?

Speaking of playing it often, most players I talk to tend to ignore Herald of Creation when building this deck. Herald is basically the way to get Light and Darkness Dragon out of the graveyard and back into your hand, ready to go. The best part is, thanks to the nature of Light and Darkness Dragon, your opponent probably won’t have more than one monster on the field at any given time—likely the one that destroys your Dragon in the first place. If that happens and you have Treeborn Frog at the ready, choose Herald of Creation as the card to revive. This way, if your opponent doesn’t have a main phase 2 removal card for your Herald, you’ll be able to get back your Frog and your Dragon next turn and summon it again, all in the same turn. It’s a brutal and unending cycle of negation that will eventually wear down any player.

Setting the loop remains your first priority. This is where Foolish Burial comes into play: it allows you direct access to any monster as long as you want it in the graveyard. This is great for cards like Destiny Hero - Malicious and Treeborn Frog, but it’s also useful for fetching Light and Darkness Dragon from the deck if you happen to be holding on to Herald of Creation. Even better, the play that searches the Dragon out of the deck for you also helps you to set up the loop by virtually guaranteeing that Herald is in your graveyard when the Dragon goes down.

Furthermore, you can quickly power through your deck with Destiny Draw and Trade-In to get to the cards you need even faster. Once again, Herald helps out in these situations, especially when you need to get back the Dragon or Plasma you just pitched to Trade-In. Destiny Hero - Plasma is easily the most underrated card for this particular deck type. First off, you can pitch it to both Destiny Draw and Trade-In in addition to searching it out with Elemental Hero Stratos. Second, have you seen what the card does? For three tributes, you get to special summon a walking, one-sided Skill Drain that can also absorb your opponent’s monsters to steal his or her ATK points. It’s the ultimate card to play against Light and Darkness Dragon, and that makes it a perfect card to have in your deck in the event of a mirror match. Given the huge volume of mail in my box regarding how “Light and Darkness Dragon is the meta,” I would expect to face this card frequently at any major event. Dealing with opposing Dragons without resorting to your side deck can be a huge boon.

One of the unique challenges of building a deck around a monster that negates everything is finding a way to play useful spell, trap, and monster effects without negating them with your own card. As you hopefully learned from Curtis’s exhaustive series of articles on Light and Darkness Dragon, it’s possible to sneak cards by it since it can only activate once in any given chain. This is a necessary limitation on the card to stop it from infinitely chaining to negate its own effect, but you can use it to your advantage whenever your opponent plays a card by chaining another spell speed 2 or higher effect to blast your opponent while your Dragon turns a blind eye.

Let’s say your opponent tributes for a Monarch while you have a fresh Dragon on the field and an Enemy Controller set. Obviously, the opponent intends to drop your Dragon to 2300 ATK and then hit it so that he or she will at least be able to use card effects for a while. Once your Dragon triggers to negate that Monarch’s effect, you can then chain your set Enemy Controller (or alternatively, Phoenix Wing Wind Blast) to nullify the opponent’s plan and force him or her to waste more cards in order to avoid getting smashed in the face next turn. You can also use Treeborn Frog to achieve this effect on your own turn, but in this case you’ll be limited to either Enemy Controller or D.D. Crow from your hand. Crow is particularly effective in mirror matchups and against opposing copies of Treeborn Frog to ensure that your opponent will have to spend cards to bring down your Dragon.

Light and Darkness Dragon is certainly a force to be reckoned with, and I hope you all try the card out for yourself before engaging in further debate about it. As for me, I’m greatly looking forward to the results of SJC San Mateo. It may not be a definitive measure of what the next months will be like, but it sure will be interesting. Until next time, play hard, play fair, and most importantly, have fun!

Jerome McHale

jcmchale@andrew.cmu.edu

NEXT WEEK: I’m at it again with another sleeper card . . .