Thanks to the many Shonen Jump Championships that have been held in the past year, many gamers have won a Nintendo DS by playing Yu-Gi-Oh!* Whether you won your Nintendo DS from a tournament or purchased it nearly a year ago, I’m sure you’ve been asking yourself, “When are the good games coming out for this system?” After all, the only real standout game that was released in the system’s first few months of existence was Super Mario 64 DS, which allowed you to play a game that was made nearly ten years ago—except you could play as the plumber in the green shirt instead of the plumber in the red shirt. However, as we approach the fall season, more highly anticipated games are coming to the Nintendo DS. In fact, if you’re looking for an addictive DS game right now, you can find Yu-Gi-Oh!: Nightmare Troubadour at your local game store.
In all honesty, this vast improvement over previous duel simulation games nearly made me miss the deadline for this article’s submission. But then again, this new DS game has also provided me with inspiration. While playing through the hordes of subpar duelists, such as Tea and Serenity, I earned enough points to buy about a dozen digital packs. After testing what I had opened up in these packs, it became apparent that this writer had forgotten how good some of those cards from Metal Raiders can be. In particular, Masked Sorcerer was netting me free cards left and right. This ultimately led to an important question.
Is Masked Sorcerer worth considering for a deck in today’s tournaments?
Seeing as how it’s the focus for this column, it’s pretty obvious that I believe Masked Sorcerer should be considered for tournament play.
The Basic Breakdown
It’s easy to see that Masked Sorcerer’s stats are far from impressive. Its 900 ATK will allow even the weakest competitive monsters to destroy it as a result of battle. Its 1400 DEF may ultimately punish risk-taking opponents who are attacking with monsters such as Sangan, but it’s not powerful enough to defend against monsters like Blade Knight and Breaker the Magical Warrior. Its DEF is above Tsukuyomi’s ATK, which is always a bonus in this environment. While Masked Sorcerer’s Spellcaster status won’t help out with any type-related card effects at the moment, its Dark attribute allows Mystic Tomato to summon this card-drawing monster with ease.
Some of you may be wondering, “Why would I risk using a monster with incredibly low stats just so I can draw one or two more cards?” Masked Sorcerer, if used as a strong element in Control decks, can net a duelist an extra card every turn. After all, one of the most important elements for a Control deck is to continue to gain card advantage while simultaneously using cards to decrease your opponent’s hand and board presence.
That might have sounded confusing. Perhaps it’s better to talk about the general strategy of Control decks.
The Not-So-Basic Breakdown
In Yu-Gi-Oh!, as well as in many other trading card games, Control decks tend to be centralized around keeping your opponent’s board presence small and his or her hand size minimal. However, doing so tends to wreck your overall card presence** as well. This is why almost every Control deck has some method of using tools that provide you with more cards, or the ability of controlling the opponent’s overall card presence at no cost to your card presence. A good example of controlling your opponent’s card presence at no expense to you is the “Clown Control” deck, which utilizes Dream Clown and many other monsters to reduce the opponent’s field without causing you to waste extra cards every turn.
Unfortunately, not every Control deck has its own Dream Clown. Many decks require a duelist to invest resources into decimating the opponent’s hand and field. However, without the ability to rebuild your card presence, you’ll be in as the same boat as your opponent—leading to a luck-based situation where you’re both playing with only the top card of your deck. This is why most Control decks use some form of card-drawing engine to ensure that they’ll have more options than their opponents.
For example, the Tsukuyomi Lock deck thoroughly abuses Magician of Faith with and Graceful Charity, and it also uses cards such as Night Assailant to maintain its hand advantage. All of the little monsters in this deck provide some form of card advantage that can be recycled through Tsukuyomi, which includes Old Vindictive Magician’s field control, Mask of Darkness’s recursion of tempo-slowing trap cards, and Apprentice Magician’s ability to recharge Breaker the Magical Warrior***.
Difficult as it is to believe, not every deck abuses Tsukuyomi. Many Control decks rely on their own individual methods of rebuilding card presence. What makes Masked Sorcerer special is that it’s a card-drawing engine that can be used in many different types of Control decks. While Masked Sorcerer cannot attack under Gravity Bind or Level Limit – Area B, it’s able to attack under the more versatile Messenger of Peace. What makes Masked Sorcerer so powerful is that it allows a Control duelist to run multiple copies of basic removal cards, such as Sakuretsu Armor and Widespread Ruin, without losing any card presence.
Masked Sorcerer allows you to draw cards in exchange for the card presence that you lose when you activate your standard removal and your counter traps. However, your opponent probably isn’t running a card-drawing engine, which means that you’re losing no overall card presence while your opponent is slowly wearing out his or her remaining options. This gives you the opportunity to draw into a game-ending card, such as Cybernetic Magician. If your opponent is down to only one or two cards, then summoning a monster like Cybernetic Magician will almost always win you the duel.
The bottom line is that Masked Sorcerer is a strong option for Control decks, because it provides the user with stable and reliable card advantage when it’s paired up with stable and reliable removal cards.
Combos and Other Uses
While Masked Sorcerer should be more commonly seen as a standard Control element, this little Spellcaster has some nasty combos with stat modifiers. Combining Masked Sorcerer with equip spells, such as Axe of Despair, allows its user to take down nearly every level 4 monster in the game—except for big beaters such as Berserk Gorilla. As a bonus, whenever you destroy one of your opponent’s larger monsters and deal damage to your opponent, Masked Sorcerer allows you to draw a card. This reduces the risk of using equip spells and the threat of losing more than one card if your opponent’s destroys your Masked Sorcerer.
One of the best card-advantage combos available with Masked Sorcerer is what happens when it’s put together with Robbin’ Goblin. Whenever you deal damage to your opponent while this continuous trap card is face up, you’ll not only draw a card with Masked Sorcerer, but you’ll also cause your opponent to lose one card at random. This means that you’ll gain a guaranteed +2 advantage whenever you deal damage to your opponent’s life points****. Of course, Robbin’ Goblin is a fine choice for many different themes, and many monsters, such as Don Zaloog, abuse this continuous trap card just as much as Masked Sorcerer does.
Cards such as Mirror Wall also work well when combined with Masked Sorcerer. However, thanks to the popularity of D. D. Assailant and D. D. Warrior Lady, it may be wise to rely on standard removal over stat modifiers. Perhaps the stat-modifying cards are best suited for the side deck at the moment.
Final Thoughts
The next update to the Advanced format’s Forbidden list is coming up. While many tournament duelists can take a guess at what’s going to be knocked out of competitive play, it’s a complete mystery as to what might be limited or semi-limited. Masked Sorcerer may see more play with the rise of the new Advanced format, and Control decks that aren’t called “Goat Control” may see more play. Masked Sorcerer provides a constant stream of card advantage to Control decks, and this may give the Control theme a fighting change in the coming months.
Also, thanks for all of the responses to last week’s article on Dream Clown. Within twenty-four hours of the article being posted here on Metagame.com, my inbox became swamped with deck lists and friendly emails from fans of that old-school control card. I may not be able to respond to each of you, so please don’t be upset if you don’t get a response immediately. I need some time to sit down and process what everyone sent me. I’ll be sure to feature the most popular questions and ideas in a later edition of Bill and Tom’s Binder. Once again, thanks a bunch for all your interest in last week’s article!
If you have any comments or concerns on today’s article, feel free to email me at Mrosenberg at Metagame dot com.
*My finish at the Los Angeles Shonen Jump Championship netted me my second Nintendo DS.
**Your overall card presence is the combined total of cards in your hand and on your field. It represents how many options are available for you to play or utilize.
***Many duelists tend to forget that Apprentice Magician has an effect written on it before its search effect is even mentioned. Surprising your opponent like this during a tournament is a blast.
****For those of you wondering what the integers may mean, please refer to my past article on Amazoness Chain-Master. To sum this example up, after your attack with Masked Sorcerer, you’ll have one more card than you did before the attack, while your opponent will have one less card. This means that you now have two cards more than your opponent.