Yugioh Tech Choices

Ahhh … the ever changing Yugioh landscape 

Just when you thought you had it down, it shifts, morphs, and renders obsolete handfuls of your hard earned cards.  Yesterday’s brokenness gives way to today’s brokenness and we are left with little more than shards of our former greed. 

Still, we play on. The season is not quite over and there are a few of us who are still looking for this year’s regional top.  With that in mind, let’s take a look at changes in the Yugioh Tech World.

Forbidden Lance is up and Mystical Space Typhoon is down: Lance and MST seem to be on opposite sides of the same seesaw.  In the fall, MST remained on the bench while Lance saw play.  During the winter, the trend reversed.  Now it’s spring and the young maiden with the illicit weapon is ready to play again.  

Seriously, the decks from YCS Philly were fairly trap-heavy.  The addition of traptrix monsters will make these cards seem ubiquitous.  If one adds the prospects of blowing up an Artifact, the allure of MST seems a bit darker.  I would put MST back in the side deck. 

Breakthrough Skill is up and Fiendish Chain is down:  The Yugioh world remains one that is richly dependent on effect monsters.  Fiendish Chain had the additional benefit of stopping beefy beaters.  As the DRoolers retreat, this distinction is less useful. On the other hand, stopping monsters that activate in the graveyard is a big plus in the Hands era. I should point out that BTS is a hand stop only when it is activated from the field; it doesn’t do so from the grave.  This is because the text for the first effect says “monster” while the text for the second effect says “target”. 

Target 1 face-up Effect Monster your opponent controls; negate the effects of that opponent's face-up monster, until the end of this turn. During your turn, except the turn this card was sent to the Graveyard: You can banish this card from your Graveyard, then target 1 face-up Effect Monster your opponent controls; negate that target's effects until the end of this turn.

Blackship and D Prison are back: I’ve always been a fan of these cards.  Removing without destroying is a neat way around a lot of problem monsters.  Now, BoC is ready to take any face-up hand and provide a little burn.  The burn damage is not trivial in the era of charged souls.  I should point out that Soul Charge was not played in many of the Handifacts.  

A special card for that special deck:  One of the advantages of playing Gears is the easy access to machines of any type.  Alley of Justice Cycle Reader is a card that I toyed with when Agents were popular.  However, it was not nearly as devastating as it is against Artifacts. … and it’s a tuner!  So with that in mind, I’m off to regionals with my Geargikuris.