Tuesday 27 September 2011

Announcement: Reduction to the Number of Monthly Articles and E-Mail For Deck Application

Summer is over and School is back and ready to consume a vast amount of my precious time. This means several things to my Dueling "Career" with first and foremost being the reduction to the amount of time I have to spent experimenting on new Decks. Ergo I have to reduce the number of my Deck Profiles to one per month instead of the Whenever-An-Idea-Have-Popped-In-My-Head system. I hope it is for the best and that it will give me the time to find interesting ideas and to build as consistent decks as possible.

Now for the second matter. I have good ideas about new combos or decks and I am sure you have too. So if you want to share it and possibly have me making an article about it send it here:

adouloumis@hotmail.com

I will be really really grateful.

Here is what I am looking for:

-Combos that result in Game Win
-Combos that result in multiple pluses for you or minuses for the opponent
-Decks with original Win Conditions
-Original First Turn Kills or Loops
-Decks with interesting playstyle

What I am NOT looking for:
-Archetype Decks (e.g. X-Sabers, Six Samurai etc.) except if they abuse a special combo or playstyle
-Type/Attribute Decks (e.g. Dragons, Water etc.) except if they abuse a special combo or playstyle
-Hybrids (e.g. Scrapsworn, T.G. Agents etc.) except if they abuse a special combo or playstyle
-Situational Combos (e.g. Monster Reborn or One for One required)

Thanks for reading and till next time
-Eatos

Sunday 11 September 2011

Deck Profile # 7: Palomuro Tempest OTK


I have said again and again during my short time as a writer to this blog that I hate loops for I not only find them boring and unstable but even kind of unethical. Yet there is something fascinating in discovering a loop all by yourself even though when you go to Google you see that many people have found it  before you do. This happened to me about five weeks ago and even though it is not an extremely powerful or consistent loop I have got it one step further by making adding a winning condition and by making the deck that contains the loop as consistent as possible. I have to say that even if the deck was creating in order to set up the loop in the first turn and use it in the second with a consistency over 85% yet it is not even close to the Traditional Format First Turn Kill Decks and since it leaves the opponent with a turn to respond it's winning rate drops significantly. So I would suggest no one to run this deck and I have uploaded for purely academic reasons.

The loop begins with the small and unused X-Saber Palomuro. This little Reptile Special Summon itself from the Graveyard at the small cost of the 500 life points when a X-Saber is destroyed in battle. The good thing is that it does not states another X-Saber except himself ergo when a Palomuro dies you get another one from the Graveyard. The bad thing is that since you pay life points this loop cannot be used for an unlimited amount of times. And there the next card comes into play.

Rainbow Life, which can be activated at the cost of a card at hand, allows you for a turn to gain as much life points as you would have lost. So you activate Rainbow Life, attack with Palomuro to something with more than 700 ATK, you get the difference between the ATK of Palomuro and the opponent's monster and you summon the next Palomuro and announce the number of times you want to repeat the combo. For example if you suicide Palomuro to something like a Reborn Tengu with 1700 ATK you get 1500 every time and minusing the 500 life point cost you get 1000 life points every attack and if you say "I repeat the combo a million times” you get yourself a billion life points. This is what most opponents need before they scoop and burble something about broken loops and silly cards that kill the game. 

But one must not rely on the opponent to win at any case. A smart opponent will count the rest of the cards in both decks and considering the amount of Draw Power this deck contains in order to set up the loop in most cases you are going to lose first. And such one must find a way to abuse the loop even further. I have decided to do this using another X-Saber, Axel. This little guy allows for every time an X-Saber is destroyed by battle to draw one card. See the point? Draw all of your deck by repeatingly suicide the Palomuros in opponent's monsters. Yet when Axel is on the field you cannot perform the combo with Palomuro for unlimited amount of times since then you would be decked out  by yourself (Axel's effect is not optional).

But even having all of your deck on your hand is not gonna guarantee you the game so I had to add a win condition by stuffing to the deck as few cards cards as possible in order to hurt consistency as less as possible. I have found a fitting win condition in the face of Instant Fusion which is added to a single copy and used to summon Musician King. This level 5 Spellcaster-Type monster is tuned with Palomuro in order to summon Tempest Magician, a card known for it's ability to turn massive hands to Burn Damage OTKs making the perfect win condition to this deck.

So to sum up the whole combo since you will most likely have been confused. You need two Palomuro at the Graveyard along with Rainbow Life on the field and an Axel on the field in the first turn in order to begin the combo next turn. Since this is kind of hard to happen I decided to make some changes to make the deck more playable. First I have added Snake Rain which allows to send four Reptiles from the Deck to the Graveyard making perfect to send multiples of Palomuro there and second I ran XX-Saber Emmersblabe which allows me to suicide him in order to Special Summon both Axel from my Deck and Palomuro from the Graveyard. Ergo all the setup this combo needs is Emmersblade, Rainbow Life and Snake Rain first turn in hand. And trust me this is not hard at all.

But enough with the explanations, let's go to the deck build.

Monsters x 16
X-Saber Palomuro x 3
XX-Saber Emmersblade x 3
X-Saber Axel x 2
Broww, Huntsman of Dark World x 3
Evil Dragon Ananta x 3
Vennominon the King of Poisonous Snakes x 2

Obviously Palomuro and Emmersblade, the centerpieces of the deck is included at the maximum allowed of three copies in order to sent them to the Graveyard faster in the case of the former and add one to the hand as soon as possible in the case of the latter. Next we have one of the major flaws to this decks consistency but yet a necessary one. Two copies of X-Saber Axel are necessary since this deck runs (as you will see below) Card Destruction and Into the Void both of which will be unusable if the single copy of Axel is stuck in your hand and you cannot sent it to the Graveyard as the whole combo will be useless next turn.
Next Broww, Huntsman of Dark World is added paired as you will see by Card Destruction and triple Dark World Dealings making a really decent Draw engine.

Finally I had to add some Reptile-Type Monsters other than Palomuro since Snake Rain cannot work if you have less than 4 Reptiles in your deck. I have looked carefully to every Reptile in both TCG and OCG and I found none non-Archetype specific that can provide some sort of advantage from the Graveyard or even at the hand (with the exception of some crappy Worms that you get to Draw a card when they are Flip Summoned, but they were obviously ruled out as they offer nothing essential to the deck). I chose then to add Level 8 Dark Reptiles in order to have some valid targets for Trade-In and Allure of Darkness. Ergo I have added triple Evil Dragon Ananta and twice Vennominon the King of Poisonous Snakes. A total of 8 Reptiles in the deck makes sure that you will get to activate Snake Rain in the vast majority of occasions (I had tried with 7 and it was not an uncommon phenomenon to have draw 4 of them and a Snake Rain, making it completely dead). Also with 5 Dark Level 8 triple Trade-In and a single Allure are justified in a deck that works much like a First Turn Kill in terms of Draw Power.

Spells x 21
Snake Rain x 3
Instant Fusion x 1
Pot of Duality x 3
Momentary Truce x 3
Into the Void x 3
Trade-In  x 3
Allure of Darkness x 1
Dark Word Dealings x 3
Card Destruction x 1

Now for the Spells, we begin with triple Snake Rain a really great card as it is the primary way of dumping Palomuro in the Graveyard and also it thins the deck. Foolish Burial could be used as well but I found that there was absolutely  no need.  We continue with the single copy of Instant Fusion. By the time you would need this you will have theoretically drawn all of your deck so adding more of this is unnecessary and unneeded. If you draw it when you have Card Destruction or Into the Void you can simply set it (If your opponent haves  Mystical Space Typhoon/Heavy Storm/other form of back row hate then it would have used it in Rainbow Life anyway but then again as I said before this deck is here for purely academic purposes and it is not actually combatant).

Next we have the Draw Spell Arsenal. First there is Pot of Duality, which is an obvious choice in triplets since this deck does not uses any kind of Special Summons during the first turn in which it only draws (a lot!). Second Draw card is a currently OCG-only (do not worry, this card is coming out in November in Photon Shockwave) and it is one hell of a card in certain decks; Momentary Truce. Both players draw a card making it a 1-for-1 for you and a plus one for the opponent but all damage is reduced to zero during yours and your opponent’s turn,ensuring that you will not be OTK’d. But both Pot of Duality and Momentary Truce can be used only by the first turn when you draw and not in the second where you Special Summon like hell (possibly even a billion times) and when you want to do a Burn OTK through Tempest Magician (Momentary Truce is reducing to zero both Battle and Effect Damage). Finishing with the 1-for-1 draw cards we have Into the Void a simple card that allows you to thin your deck at the cost of discarding your entire Hand in the End Phase but if everything goes ok then you would have set up the combo and no longer needed your Hand. I guess that by now you have noticed the absence of Upstart Goblin. The reason of this is pretty simple; this deck wins by inflicting a certain amount of Burn Damage, if you have used 2 Goblins then the opponent haves 10000 life points, and this means that Tempest Magician needs 20 cards to fuel him in order to win. But with the rate this deck is thinned in the first turn it is not uncommon to draw more than 20 and so you may not have enough to discard for Tempest Magician.

Continuing with the Discard/Draw Spells, we have Trade-In a great Draw Card with 5 targets in this deck making it almost never dead. Allure of Darkness is even better since it targets every non-X-Saber monster in the deck but obviously it is better not to discard Broww as he does not get his effect. Dark World Dealings is a great card even though it helps the opponent along with you and it is a minus one since it lets you draw further into your deck without worrying about the other cards in hand (unlike Trade-In or Allure) and it makes a great pair to Broow since with him it is an ordinary 2-for-2 Draw Card much like Trade-In and Allure. Closing we have possibly the best Draw Card; Card Destruction can turn massive dead hands into great ones, plus it also combos well with Broww or even better Browws.

Traps x 3
Rainbow Life x 3

In the Trap Line-Up we have only the last necessary piece of the combo and no other card. I tried to add Solemn Judgment or even Dark Bribe/Debunk to protect the combo and the setup but for every Dead Card loses at least 3% of its ability to perform the setup during the first turn (and with 3 dead cards: 2 Axel and 1 Instant Fusion, without counting the possibly dead Broww/Trade-In/Dark Reptiles), I decided to cut off any even a little unnecessary card.

In the last test I have done to this Deck it was able to setup the combo First Turn in 87 out of 100 times but this does not mean I would have won (since this works as a First Turn Kill I tried it by myself and not in a real Duel most of the time). This deck does not have what it takes to win in a consistent and reliable rate as Mystical Space Typhoon, Heavy Storm and Effect Veiler; cards in almost every deck nowadays can easily counter the combo. If you have the cards make this deck for fun, it is truly funny to see other people faces when you have 1 billion life points or when you draw all of your deck and summon a single Synchro to claim game. If you do not have the cards then do not spend on this deck (if you like this style of decks try Traditional Format Makyura FTK or Dimension Fusion FTK).

Thanks for reading and till next time
-Eatos
Bibliography

Neither this time I have any Bibliogrphy Link to present but this time it is due to me, thinking and developing the loop by myself and so I haven't found any article or video to help me further.