Simple Deck-Building for Simple Duelists.

Alright Cardhousian Boys and Girls, here's a post I've been working on for Yugioh for a while.

The New Banlist, means that the Hazy-Flames are as impotent as I am on a Saturday morning, so you know what time it is then?

Time to build another Deck! I am opening up my book of tricks, and showing you how I fail at building-new-decks!   This isn't the only way to build a deck, but I like to KISS (Keep it Simple, Sucess!)

DECK BUILDING 101

  Step 1: Choose your "Staples".

You want roughly 10 from these lists. From my interpertation of the format, the Staple choices are will be (by Catagory):

Choose =<4 Anti-Monster cards:

Mirror Force x 2 (Destroy all attack-position monsters!)

Dark Hole X 1 (A slightly less useful version of the card above, but it still Flushes the field well enough)

Torrential Tribute x 1 (This card cannot be overstated; it's like Dark-Hole, but you can wait until your opponent summons the last XYZ material, then Flush them!)

Dimensional Prision x 2 (A bottomless trap hole that requires your opponent to attack with the monster.)

Fiendish Chain x 3 (Don't really like this because monsters you chain can still be used for tribute/xyz, but still a solid choice.)

Solemn Warning x 1 (Can negate Special Summons and effects that Special Summon, but at a price of 2000lp)

Bottomless Trap-Hole x 1 (Good Targeted Removal)

<=6 Anti-Spell/Traps:

Dark Bribe x 3 (Can counter almost any spell/trap clean up, but your opponent's hand goes up by 1)

Mystical Space Typhoon x3 (The one Free Spell/Trap clean-up, doesn't counter though.)

Seven Tools of the Bandit x 3 (Counters traps only, 1000 lp seems a bit hefty though.)

For this deck, I chose 3x MST, 3 Dark Bribe, 1 Torrential Tribute, 2 Mirror Force, 1 Dark Hole, and 1 Bottomless Trap hole. 11 is one higher then I like, but no matter.

Step 2: Choose your Monsters.

You will want around 20 monster cards. The More Synergy they have with each other, the better! I'm sounding like a Human Resources manager with this talk of Synergy, but what can you do?

For this Deck, I chose 3 Blue-Eyes White Dragon, 3 Darkstorm Dragon, 2 Dodger Dragon, 3 Maiden with Eyes of Blue, 3 Radius, the Half-Moon Dragon, 1 x Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon, 3x Schwarzchild Limit Dragon, and 3 The White Stone of Legend. 21 cards is a bit high, but only Step 5 can show me what's redundant.

21 monsters... one too many IMO, but Step 5 and 6 will give us opportunity to fix it.

Step 3: Choose extra Spell and Traps that will work in synergy with your other choices.

These cards will fill out the remainder of your deck. If you chose a particular archetype, there are often support cards that will help you here.

For this deck, I chose 3 x Silver's Cry, 3 Dragon Shrine, 2 Mausoleum of the Emperor and 2 Trade-In. Dragon Shrine allows me to send a Darkstorm Dragon, and then The White Stone of Legend. (activating it's effect, adding Blue-Eyes White Dragon to my hand) from my deck to the graveyard. Then Silver's Cry allows me to special-summon Darkstorm Dragon from my graveyard, and then use Mausoleum of the Emperor to Normal Summon Blue-Eyes White Dragon for 2000lp.

10 cards is perfect here.

Step 4: Choose your Extra-Deck Monsters.

You can have <= 15 cards in your extra-deck, made up of Fusion Monsters, Synchro Monsters and XYZ monsters. The More Synergy they have with all your previous selections, the better!

For this Deck, I chose 3 Azure-Eyes Silver Dragon, 1 Mist Wurm, 2 Hieratic Sun Dragon Overlord of Heliopolis, 2x Number 107: Galaxy-Eyes Tachyon Dragon, 1x Number 82: Heartlandraco and 3x Thunder-End Dragon.

  Step 5: Test and Refine it!

 This is the fun part Boys and Girls. This is also the only way to make sure what looks great on paper, works efficiently on the game-mats. After each session, pick-over your performance with a fine tooth comb, just like I will be doing come Saturday!

Next Week, I will discuss Step 7: Choose your Side Deck.

The Chad Is done!

New Ban-list =/= PITA

Before I get into my Weekly Rant, I want to first congratulate our Pokemon Professor, Troy Crossingham, on getting a Job! It turns out that he blew the Thesis grant money on women Card-Games, so now needs money to cover it up... Unless his thesis was "Pokemon Trading Cards are a fine way to blow a Thesis grant". If so, Mission Accomplished Troy!

Joking aside, I'm sure you will all congratulate him on doing something most of us can't do: Get a Job. Drinks on me!

The new Ban-list is coming, like a Pizza Delivery, which means I need to check the Banlist.

Give me one Sec...

Oh Shi-

Okay, I shouldn't be surprised, Troy did warn me, but I was too ... tired, lets go with that, to heed it.

I'm wondering who's Dumb Idea was it to limit Rekindling? Semi-Limit I can understand, It's a good card and all, but the timing of the list leaves a month wait for Hazy Flame Hydra... with only 1 rekindling. What The Hell Konami!?

Here's a basic summary of the Changes.

MORPHING JAR, MORPHING JAR #2 were added to the "FORBIDDEN" List.

COACH SOLDIER WOLFBARK, MERMAIL ABYSSGUNDE, REKINDLING, and INFERNITY BARRIER were added to the "LIMITED" List.

NECROFACE and HIERATIC SEAL OF CONVOCATION were added to the "SEMI-LIMITED" List

MAGICAL STONE EXCAVATION and PRIMAL SEED are Removed from the other lists.

Back to me now, No Rekindling means that even my old Jurracs are Faster then the neutered Hazy-Flames. Hydra allows me to partially offset this, but until then, I need to play another deck for a month or few ...

So I'm looking Forward to the Hazy-Flame's "Last Hoo-rah" tomorrow! (for a while at least.)
Also, I wish to just give you the following link to a post that will appeal to all bargain hunting duelists.

Let's (Figuratively) burn down the House!

Chad.

This is getting serious!!

So after weeks at work, and not being able to do much but come home and sleep like a baby, a hungry hungry baby (Firefly reference for all you no believers out there), I have finally found 5 minutes to write up another blog post.

Where to begin. Well lets start off by giving Kev a big thank you for putting on the Friday night Magic events (on the Friday), and also to our own Harley, for running said nights.
Second off, let us also thank those who actually showed up after saying they would. I personally don't believe the card house would run without the die hard cardhousians that we have.

Also on that note, welcome back to The Chad from his little stint in "The big bad world of Doctors". It is good to hear you are well and traveling with us still. The house hasn't been the same in your absence.

Now back to it... My post this week is really just a big thank you post. First to those who read these (sometimes  boring, mine especially) blog posts, to the writers of the posts and also to all the unnamed faces that are always around the cardhouse trading, dueling, playing or otherwise enjoying the card house experience. I have many a friend that have come to the card house and were blown away at the warmth you all show to new comers and regulars alike.

Being one of the few who is able to just float in and out each day at the cardy, I find myself talking with all sorts of players, from those who build decks to make people cry (myself and Harley), to those who are just in it for a few laughs and a game of cards which they love. Doing so has not only allowed me to see the range of people at the cardy, but also the measure of character we have in our little community.

I know most of this will go over a lot of heads, but suffice to say, I am honored and proud to be a cardhousian, and the reason is because of all the other players (YOU) in the community. I myslef am not much, but when there are 40 odd Yugi players, and the same number again Magic players in the store, one can not help but think "I am part of something that not only means a lot to me, but also means a lot to each and every person here",

Lastly i will say this for all those reading still;

We do not stop playing because we get older; We get older because we stop playing.

May the spirit of the card house empower you all

Ride the Vanguard!

Where did he Go?

Cardhousians, guess who's back?

If you are thinking of anyone else but The Chad. then you'd probably be wrong.

I'll just give an update on WTH happened, and address the rumors I heard about my 'disappearance'.

Q 1. "Were you butt-hurt that you got pwned the last week, and ragequit forever?"

 A. No, I don't know how a paraplegic could be 'butt-hurt', no feeling, and while I got pwned the last time I went, I haven't rage-quit forever. As the Terminator says: 'I'll be back...'

Q2. Were you Abducted by aliens and probed?

A. No, the UN-Grey "Extra-Terrestrial Research Sampling Treaty" strictly forbids the abduction of retards and/or cripples, as they aren't representative samples of the human population, so no.

Q3. Did you finally get a Date?

A. Where does this talk of 'finally' come from? I met a few more interesting women, (tip to female Cardhousians apart from Fallon; You need to be Pretty bright as well as pretty to hook up with me.) but they aren't the reason I didn't make it last Saturday.

Q4. Were you in hospital?

Ding, Ding, Ding! We have a WinRAR here! I actually got sick after a rough-bus ride home.

Get to hospital, and I have Stones in both Kidneys that broke up like we wish One Direction would.

The Urology Unit in Nambour Hospital are still planning on going in and playing a game of "Where's Rocky" in the next few weeks, but for now I'm (physically) stable and right to go back to doing what I do best;

1. Nothing.
2. Playing Children's Card Games.
3. Getting Shot Down By Women.
4. Writing about Playing Children's Card Games.

 See you at the KO tournament Tomorrow!

Team Duels for Cardhousians!

Just a reminder that Team-Duels are tomorrow, and so I am going to keep it brief. I couldn't be stuffed making  totally forgot to make the Blue-Eyes White Dragon deck, so need to do that this evening, but because I am a pretty cool guy, I will quickly give you some tips on Team Duels.

1. Bring 2 different Decks with Different Strategies.

Unless you have an effective way to bribe Kev into giving you an awesome partner, There is nothing worse then playing a deck that relies on banishing stuff from your grave (Dragon Rulers, Darkworlds, Light/Dark Decks, etc ) then being paired up with anything that locks-down or bypasses the Graveyard, ( Gravekeepers, Macros, etc). Consider me funny, but the whole graveyard-lockdown is just being a (choice profanity that Kev won't let me type here). I'd go as far as saying that Gravekeepers are the worst deck to be paired with, unless you play Gravekeepers yourself. Back to my point, keep a 2nd deck just in case you get a partner who is incompatible with your primary deck build. It will save you a lot of hassle.

2. Bewere the Format ban-list.

Remember, this Team Format is unique to the Card-House, and follows the TCG banlist with the addition of any card that triggers in each player's standby phase, such as Final Countdown. (By the same ruling, Pumprincess should also be out, but I'm still waiting to hear.)

3. Have Fun!

This one is most important. I in particular keep on forgetting it, but Teams are a fun event, and can show you that a badass duelist in one-on-one, is foiled by their partner. Besides, Kev gets really annoyed if blood is spilled on the floors inside. If you have to kick your team-mates rear back into line, do so outside.*

That's All Folks!

Chad was Here.

*If you injure them in the street, apparently the Card House's insurance doesn't take a hit from it, which means cheaper prices for everyone! Hooray!

Funchy talks about new summon and new rules and i broke the curse!

Oh wow, would you look at the time! Must be time for me to bang my head against a keyboard and edit write another blog post! Now this one will be different than my usual tourney report because I'm also going to explain the ocg rule changes and pendulum summoning if you don't know how it works. Of course I'll still have my signature report but it will be shorter and at the end. Now quickly before we kick off may I apologise for my lack of posting about regionals, basically i lost my first three and came back to end it off 3-3 no invite oh well what can I do? On top of that I thought Chad would do a better job and it wouldn't be worth it.

On to the first order of business the two rule changes implemented into the OCG. Rule change numero uno is that the player who goes first MAY NOT draw on that turn, this includes hobaning so no upstart. Now the first thing i thought was HA take that exodia. Anyway I believe this is a step in the right direction as going first was super unfair but now I think players will go first I mean an extra card plus you can  upstart etc, why wouldn't you take that for the meager price of grinding through potential backrow? Thoughts? Second rule change is that there can be two I repeat TWO field spells on the field at the same time. Now I didn't think much of this except it kinda helps those who really need their field spell and kinda hurts those who have an alright  one but a big reason of using it is its a +0 and your opponent goes -1 so it hurts them but not too much on that one. Thoughts?

Now for the elephant on the post. The pendulum summon! Basically here it is in a nutshell
1. there are two new places on mats on the right and left hand sides between the deck and grave and extra and field zones the new zones are called "pendulum zones"
2. There are new pendulum monsters which you can use as normal monsters but when placed in the pendulum zone get an effect
3. When you have both zones filled once per turn you can special summon as many monsters from your hand and or pendulum monsters from your extra deck in between the pendulum levels of those monsters for example I have a level 1 and a level 8 i can special any amount of 2's 3's 4's etc up to sevens.
4. When the pendulum monsters get destroyed they go to the top of the extra (this doesnt count in your extra deck count)
5. You can overly and synchro with these guys and when they are in the pendulum zones they are treated as continuous spells.
If you want to check out these cool new guys for yourselves check this out http://www.ygorganization.com/ocg-v-jump-time/

On to the tournament report, imma keep it quick because I'm getting a sore head tired. Basically i was piloting sams for the first time and i managed to beat my previous curse and come out 3-2 owing my losses -to bad draws and whatnot and i must say x-sabers are by no means a push over i never thought them that difficult but they are pretty good i got 2-0d and i won 2-1 but it was hard i contribute the 2-0 loss to a bad hand and i couldnt draw one single kage musha and he opened stardust and naturia beast followed up by a barkion. Have a nice day!

That was Unprecidented...

The Winner of the Monthly Draw is entry 5: Logan H. Congratulations and apologies for the delay in the drawing, they will be there ready for you to get the next time you're in.

I know I promised that I'd post sooner, but I needed a few more days for my emotions to cool.
I would begin by congratulating the winners, but I can't for the life of me remember who to congratulate. I'll update this post when I hear back from Kev.

No "Triumph" for The Chad this year... No-one took the hint and stayed home... The Chad is still Great, but The Chad wasn't great enough

Anyway, the question remains, "How will I avoid problems next year? "

1. Plan further then a month in advance, and buy double the number of cards you need. While the Card House usually has everything worth having, I will remember to buy all the extra copies of cards I need when I see them. Case in point, I saw 5 Malefic Stardust Dragons at $3 2 months ago, and someone bought them all when I needed to buy some. (I know, but can't prove that Blake 'borrowed' my 3 copies for a Back-Up of his deck... Not sure whether to kill him, or hi-five him for such cunning.)

    2. If you are going to buy cards online, buy them from multiple sources, pay for faster postage,  and do so way ahead of time. I ordered 3 Malefic Stardusts from a seller on ebay, and didn't recieve them until Monday, despite being an Aussie seller who promised to deliver on the 6th of Febuary at the latest... when I ordered on the 7th of January. Needless to say, they didn't arrive in time, so god-damn it!.

    3. Make sure you have enough of the cards that  any scabs your siblings who may need the cards for their own decks. Even if you ask them, and they say no, BUY THEM ANYWAY! They are just waiting for you to drop your guard, and then they will swipe them. They did ask, and I explained to blake that the cards were specifically for my deck, and they said they didn't need them when I asked whether to order more. I also explained that I already blew invested $300 in their previous decks, and have been making do with a $45 deck.

    4. If I have the bribe for Kev to match me up with push-overs in a boogey-board bag, don't be suprised if it goes missing Shapelle Corby-Style. Disregard the struck-out statements, I isn't legit, I swear.

Now leaving Saturday where it belongs; as a distant Memory where we all laugh nervously, before I change the subject, and move onto Pokemon:

Yes it's been a long time, but I'm back in the game!


So many fairies, and I'm allergic to their pixie dust!

Seriously, it was an awesome session, and because I still have no clue about the Pokemon game, I will have to defer to Professor (Troy) Crossingham's expert oppinion, and remind you that he's waiting on a grant to test his hypothesis that a Pikachu can be used in ways even I get squemish thinking about...

I'm done like the Pizza I ate after the Tourney;

The Chad (has watched too much Charlie's Angels for his own good.)