The Old Person's Guide to the Meta

It’s YCS Eve and all through the Carolinas doolists are checking their lists and getting them right.  Perhaps, just perhaps, there are even a few old timers trying to do the same.  Most of you can’t appreciate the challenges facing the older duelist. Let me heighten your sensitivity.

 Here is what you see:

Here is what the over 40 duelist sees:

I will attempt to fix this inequity by providing The Old Persons Guide to the Yugioh Meta. (Please note, card effects have been simplified to assist in understanding the archetype as a whole. This is not in PSCT.)

Burning Abyss

The BA effect monsters are all level three dark fiends.  They have the following effects in common:

• Destroy the monster if you control a non-BA monster  
• Use only 1 effect per turn  
• Effect 1: Special summon the card from the hand if you control no magic cards  
• Effect 2: You can effects that occur when sent to the graveyard

The following is a list of BA effect monsters. The card name in parenthesis is simply a memory aid. 

Cir (Wolfbark): Special summon a BA monster from your graveyard

Graff (Rescue Rabbit like): Special summon a BA monster from your deck

Scarm (Stratos): Add 1 level 3 DARK fiend-type monster from your deck to your hand

Cagna (Armageddon Knight for magic cards): Send 1 BA magic card from your deck to the graveyard.

Calcab (Compulsory Evac for magic cards): Return a magic card to the hand.

Farfa (???): Banish one monster until the end phase.

Alice (Effect Veiler): Negate one monster’s effects until the end of this turn.

Libic (Tin Goldfish): Special summon 1 Level 3 DARK fiend-type monster from your hand

Qliphorts

Qlips are high level machine monsters that rely on the pendulum summoning mechanic.  They are all pendulum monsters that have the following effects in common:

Effects for monsters as spells (usually) in the pendulum zone 

• You can only special summon “Qli” monsters
• Qli monsters gain 300 ATK or your opponent loses 300 ATK
• The scale 1 monsters cause ATK gains
• The scale 9 monsters cause ATK losses

Effects for all monsters as monsters

• Become a level 4 monster with an ATK of 1800 if summoned without tributing
• If normal summoned/set, it is unaffected by  monsters whose level/rank is lower than this card's current level
• Effects when tribute summoned or when tributed
• The level 6 monsters have effects when tributed
• The level 7 or higher monsters get effects when tribute summoned using a Qli monster

The following is the list of Qli monsters.  The first number is the level and the second is the scale.

Carrier (6, 1, Compulsory Evac): Return one monster on the field to the hand

Helix (6, 9, MST): Destroy one magic card

Disk (7, 1, Rescue Rabbit): Special Summon 2 "Qli" monsters from your deck, but destroy them during the end phase.

Cephalopod (7, 9, ???): If your opponent has more monsters in the Graveyard, gain LP equal to the difference x 300, and if you do, inflict the same amount of damage to your opponent.

Stealth (8, 1, Super Compulsory Evac): Return one card to the hand (without opponent’s response)

Shell (8, 9, Piercing BLS): It can make a second attack and inflict piercing battle damage to your opponent.

Monolith (5, 1, spell only): Draw cards equal to the number of "Qli" monsters tributed for summons this turn.

Scout (5, 9, spell only ROTA): Pay 800 LP; add 1 "Qli" card from your deck

Shaddolls

The shaddolls are dark spellcasters that have effects when flipped and when sent to the graveyard.  You can only use one effect per turn.  Furthermore, the monster cannot target a copy of itself.

Beast (lvl 5)

FLIP:  Draw 2 cards, discard 1 card.

Graveyard: Draw 1 card.

Dragon (lvl 4)

FLIP: Return opponents card to hand.

Graveyard: Destroy 1 magic card

Falco (lvl 2)

FLIP: Special summon a graveyard Shaddoll monster in face-down defense position.

Graveyard:  Special summon this card in face-down defense position.

Hedgehog (lvl 3)

FLIP: Add 1 "Shaddoll" magic card from your deck to hand.

Graveyard: Add 1 "Shaddoll" monster from your deck to hand.

Squamata (lvl 4)

FLIP: Destroy 1 monster.

Graveyard: Send 1 "Shaddoll" card from your deck to the graveyard

Nothing looks more noob-like than picking up every card your opponent plays.  Hopefully this list will give the visually impaired, but wise doolist a little edge going into this weekend’s event.  

Editorial Note: I have had some good comments - and ones that I want to think about before answering.  My Tellar deck (like many) has had changes right up to the last minute.  I will give you my final list and a tourney report after we take on Charleston.  

Receding Waters: The F & L list for 2015

I once read a Pojo Forum thread entitled “What do you tell your friends when you go play Yugioh”.  Answers ranged from Poker to rock wall climbing. Only one intrepid doolist said he played Yugioh. While the game is enthusiastically embraced by the young, older players are imbued with a sense of guilty pleasure. Hence, there is a degree of irony when I say I feel guilty about my fondness for certain cards. I have found guilty pleasure in a part of a game that gives my guilty pleasure. 

Skill Drain is a card universally decried by most experienced players but secretly loved by me.  The card reduces the game to a mano a mano slugfest with no frilly effects and girly-man dodges.  It creates old fashioned duel monsters.  Besides, some of my most effective anti-meta strategies have revolved around this card.

Unfortunately, my advocacy will do little to keep the card viable.  Like many commentators, I suspect it will wind up on the F & L list since it cripples profitable archetypes and give Qlipharts a cheap advantage.  After all, advantage must come with a premium payable to Konami.  

Say Good Bye to an old friend

The most likely announcement will limit the card to one, which is the equivalent to banning the card.  In a game where searching accelerates the game state, limited unsearchable cards are useless.  This adage can be substantiated with a quick perusal of current crop of limited cards. The two most potent cards in the current format are Raigeki and Soul Charge. Yet, these cards are used only by tier 2 decks trying to make a run at God’s triangle.  Soul Drain is arguably one of the best cards against Burning Abyss, but it barely gets a mention.  If you can’t search for it, it’s not there.  Even at three, unsearchable cards are somewhat unreliable.  At one, they are non-existent.  So be prepared for Skill Drain to join Eradicator Epidemic Virus, Geargiagear, and Macro Cosmos as great but irrelevant cards. 

The dooling community has equal enmity for Vanity’s Emptiness.  Perhaps a portion of their ire is due to the high cost of the card.  Reprint hype gave a brief glimmer of hope for those who believe in equal access for all cards.  Unfortunately, that reprint only lowered the cost by $20.  It is still rather pricey.  This card may get the same treatment though it is not as great a threat.  Personally, I think its self-destruction clause makes it reasonably balanced.  As a result, it will likely get semi-limited and remain viable for most decks.  

The new  Emptiness?

Do these changes mean the flood tides are receding?  Not entirely. Floodgate cards will remain popular anti-meta strategies.  The mechanics will likely shift to monster effects like those used by Monarch decks.  However, one flood gate card is poised to emerge and that card is Mistake.  

The needle on the Whine-O-Meter spiked pretty high when Mistake was revealed.  Commentators across the Yugiverse talked about this card as if it was the end of dooling as we know it.  However, the release of the card was little more than hiccup.  After spiking in price to $30, it is now in the $4 range.  

The problem with the card is that it locks out both players.  Unlike Emptiness, one cannot easily get rid of it.  Playing Trap Stun works though this is a rather inconsistent two-card combo.  Burning Abyss players should consider it against Nekroz since the card allows you to add from the graveyard.  

Currently, I have it sided in Satellarknights.  While the card eviscerates Deneb and ROTA, the deck remains quite playable.  I’ve made life a little more bearable by playing three Trap Stuns and two Magic Planters.  Besides, the ubiquitous presence of MST means that the card is not around for long.  However, the card causes real problems for Qlipharts.  Who knows?  With Skill Drain and Emptiness at one,  Satellarknight players may get a real though brief boost. 

If I was a pragmatic person, I would sell Emptiness and buy Mistake.  But, I am more sentimental than pragmatic.  Reason flees where guilty pleasures thrive.  

The Yugioh Meta: Stable as a House of Cards

One of the distinct disadvantages to aging is the inexorable sense that time is accelerating.  I’m sure you’ve heard some baby boomer begin a sentence with “it seems like only yesterday”.  There is a biological basis for this observation.  As the human brain ages, gaps in perception are spliced out.  The result is our yesterdays are closer to us than your yesterdays.  

Still, it seems like only yesterday we were opening Duelist Alliance sneak peak packs.  

Regardless of your age, you may feel that the game has become somewhat unstable.  However, this is not due to the tempo of pack releases.  I would argue it’s the impact of those sets on the game. 

The Duelist Alliance set fundamentally changed the meta.  Nearly three quarters of all of the top performing decks did not exist until DA was released.  Are you still struggling to tell the difference between Graff, Cir, and Scarm?  You’re not alone in your unfamiliarity.  These cards have only been with us for three months.  Those that are well versed with the deck either play it or have a lot of on-line experience.  Some of us are still picking up the cards and reading them. 

I came to these conclusions by analyzing 191 decks that topped regionals, YCS, or ARG CS events from August to October.  Decks that included more than one archetype were categorized by their predominant card type.  Of these 191 decks, 76.1% were based on cards from Duelist Alliance.  This percentage did not significantly change when looking at results from September or October (79.9% and 75.8% respectively).  In other words, the F & L list had no impact on the meta.  There was also no change when one looks at the top 8 finishers.  Since August, 72.5% of the top eight decks were based on Duelist Alliance cards.  

The breakdown of the individual archetypes should not be particularly surprising to anyone who plays the game.  Shaddolls topped 39.2% of the time followed by Burning Abyss (25.3%) and Satellarknights (14.9%).  There were no dominant archetypes among the non-Duelist Alliance archetypes. This list included 21 archetypes, of which Mermails were the most common at 3.1%.  

This is not the first time the game has been so dominated by a single set.  However, the dominance of these sets tended to last.  Do you know what the most dominant archetype was at this time last year?  The answer is Dragon Rulers, which came to us in May 2013.  Six months ago, the top deck was Mermails, which was released five months earlier.  Unfortunately, this current crop of Yugioh defining decks may have a much shorter lifespan.  Of the current DA decks, Shaddolls are likely to be the most persistent.  The future of Burning Abyss is a bit harder to predict since this deck is not a part of the OCG.  However, we should all shudder a bit when we see an OCG meta dominated by Qliphoths and Necloths.