! you've just activated my trap card!

Kneel To the Frozen Sky: Brionac Dragon of the Ice Barrier

2010-11-14T18:58:00.000-08:00

We have a level 6 WATER Sea Serpent with 2300 ATK and 1400 DEF. These stats make Brionac below average. Even Gaia Knight and Iron Chain Dragon can school him in battle and the attribute and type do not help very much at all.
The effect is what is so astounding. You can send cards from your hand to the graveyard in order to put cards on the field back to the owner's hand. This is primarily used in zombie decks in order to clear the way with massive Mezuki, Burial and Plague plays for the one turn kill, but it also ends up working for almost every deck as it is a generic Synchro. Most decks can easily make a level 6 Synchro, so it is basically an answer to cards that would otherwise cause you trouble, like Stardust, Colossal and Armor Master and in tough spots, Dark Armed Dragon.

You can also use his ability to put himself back to the extra deck, so that your opponent can't play there Mind Control and Brain Control. His effect is rather costly, so unless you REALLY need to get a card off the field or you are going for game, Goyo Guardian is a better choice or even Gaia Knight.

Shoot for the Stars: Shooting star Dragon

2010-11-07T01:46:00.000-07:00

Here we have the counterpart to yesterdays Red Nova Dragon. Shooting Star Dragon is a level 10 WIND Dragon Synchro with 3300 ATK and 2500 DEF. It does need specific Tuners as well, requiring a Synchro Tuner and Stardust Dragon. Well, these stats are alright as far as a big boss monster goes. The non-generic Synchro stuff hurts, but there are plenty of ways to get out Stardust (Starlight Road) and Formula Synchron is not that hard to get out, so we can pretty much abuse that. Well, as always it is up to the effects to get things done.
The effects is 3 tiered, allowing you to activate each once per turn, even during your opponent's turn. The first one reveals the top 5 cards of your deck and then shuffles it. You get to attack with Shooting Star Dragon once for each Tuner revealed. This makes Shooting Star an Alpha Strike monster, as opposed to Red Nova which is a God monster that sits on the field and dominates. The second effect is that once per turn you can negate the effect of an opponent's acrd that destorys stuff on the field and negate it. Standard Stardust variant stuff there, but it's really useful. The third effect is the same as Red nova, allowing you to remove it from play to negate an attack.
As you can use these effects during either player's turn and the ease of getting out Stardust Dragon over Red Nova, I am going to have to say that Shooting Star is better, but not by much. Red Nova's indestructible option is far more attractive than a one per turn blanket negation. But the odds are you are going to be seeing more of Shooting Star Dragon in the weeks to come, as it is clearly a great monster and will win you the game most of the time it hits the field.
I am a little biased towards big scary dragons, but I have got to say, this is one of the first amazingly hard monsters to bring out that has actually been worth the effort in every single way.

Dark Steel, Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon

2010-10-21T09:06:00.000-07:00

This is the one card that makes Dragon decks even considered for competetive play. He boasts an impressive 2800 ATK and 2400 DEF on a level 10 DARK Dragon. DARK is always good and Dragon is what makes the card playable, although it would work for pretty much any other type as well.

The effects are that you can Special Summon it by removing a Dragon monster on the field from play. Then, once per turn you can Special Summon a Dragon type monster from your hand or graveyard.

The fact that it can be Special ummoned is what makes this card VERY good. You can use things like Totem Dragon to remove it, or even just tribute summon it. The ideal way to get this guy to the field is with Future Fusion. You use FF to send 2 REDMD, 2 Red Eyes Wyvern and a Totem Dragon targeting Fve Headed Dragon. At the end phase, you get two REDMD cards to the field.

Using Foolish Burial you can even get some of the bigger Dragons like Tyrant Dragon and White Night Dragon to the field for pretty much nothing. It gets a little cheap even when you have cards like Burial and Dragon's Mirror to bring enormous Dragons to the field. Basically, this card is crazy good for swarming with big guys, and using cards like Cards of Consonnance, you can get comboes going with White Stone of Legend.

There are just so many combos you can pull off with this guy... Totem Dragon, Future Fusion, and Five Headed Dragon are his best friends, and when coupled with Red-Eyes Wyvern, it's easy to pull off massive swarms. Backbone of Dragon OTKs, and he's only going to get better as more dragon support is released.

Power of the twilight hour. LIght And Darkness Dragon

2010-10-20T09:21:00.000-07:00

This is the best card in Yu-Gi-Oh!, hands down. 2800 ATK, and a negation effect that is second to none. He can't be Special Summoned, which balances out his extreme goodliness. Then when he finally does bite the dust, you get a monster from your graveyard. Incredible, no?

There isn't a whole lot to say about this card that hasn't already been said. He is the easiest to get, best promo card ever in Yu-Gi-Oh! and that makes him more dangerous than any card in the game. Even little kids can see that once you summon this card you get a serious advantage that will pretty much win you the game. Plus the card art is amazing.

The eyes in the sky. hundred eyes dragon

2010-10-19T06:22:00.000-07:00

Kallens key monster from the Dark Signer season, Hundred-Eyes Dragon. Now at first glance this thing seems really hard to summon. Its not. You can easily synchro summon this in Dark World decks. Because Dark World monsters are Fiends, and for a DARK tuner you can use Dark Resonator, before Tragoedia was limited, you could use Tragoedia to copy a level 6 monster in your graveyard to make it a level 6 and tune Krebons into Tragoedia for Hundred-Eyes Dragon. Once a turn you can remove a level 6 or lower dark monster from your graveyard and it gets that name and it gains the same effects as the removed monster.

Hundred-Eyes Dragon is an interesting Synchro monster that clearly requires a deck-based around it to function. You can't simply splash DARK tuners and Fiends into any deck. Its effect is powerful enough so there's not much to say about this card. You can't splash it, but run it if you want to use a deck based around it.

Rise of darkness, Dark Armed Dragon

2010-10-16T05:06:00.000-07:00

Dark Armed Dragon, the big daddy in Yugioh. He is sooo easy to summon. Just a few cards played will get you to three darks. Remove a Dark to pop a card on the field is sooo stupid. I can’t see how Black Luster Soldier: Envoy Of The Beginning is banned, but this is not. This card is guaranteed to break games if/when you drop him on the board. Refuel your darks with Dark Grepher and a lot of other choices to keep abusing his effect.

that's potential for instant card advantage EVERY turn. Granted, he can't be Special Summoned aside from the way mentioned, but that's pretty good. You could certainly do a Dark monster deck that focuses around this guy with some beatdown or something.
He's stronger than the Monarchs, and arguably easier to summon. Just be sure you can protect him, as he is still vulnerable to all your favorite monster killers and Magic and Trap cards.

The big bonus that DAD gets when he is played is that he can be used virtually everywhere. Anywhere you can have 3 DARK monsters in the graveyard is a valid deck for DAD. Allure of Darkness, Dark Grepher and the Destiny Heroes are perfect for use with him as well, providing a platform for which to springboard this guy into the record books as one of the most expensive card in the game.

Yugioh Card Reviews: Dark End Dragon

2010-10-11T23:53:00.000-07:00

Hello everybody, today i wanted to start writing some reviews about some of my favorite cards starting with this one.
Dark End Dragon was originally released in Japan's Limited Edition set with its counter part Light End Dragon and the other 2 monsters that were used to bring the two dragons out. Dark End Dragon however is the better of the two, big shocker there right? But seriously, Dark End Dragon is a level 8 Synchro monster that needs a Dark non-Tuner monster with the Tuner to summon it, and once a turn it can take 500 attack and defense from itself to send a monster your opponent controls to the graveyard.

Now, this is really good for the sole fact that this card really doesn't have to attack to take out any monster your opponent controls. Since Dark End Dragon has a similar weakness when it comes to decreasing its attack, as that of Light and Darkness Dragon. Since its stats cant really be divided up by five, you have a limited amount of usage, and since you have to decrese its defense as well, you only have 4 times you can use Dark End Dragons ability. Now, thats enough to wipe out all monsters your opponent controls since more times than not no player has 5 monsters on their field during any game unless its like Scapegoat with another monster or something.

Dark End Dragons ability could literally mean the end of the duel if the player with Dark End Dragon has the right field or if the opponents life points are just too low and easy to take out. Overall this card is quite the beast and if ever reprinted, its a must in any deck to use at least 1.

fiery rulers of the sky, Dragons

2010-10-09T15:25:00.000-07:00

Many Duelists believe that the most powerful card in a Dragon Deck is “Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon” (REDMD), a 2800 ATK powerhouse that can Special Summon Dragons from the hand or Graveyard once each turn. Those Duelists may be correct – REDMD can deal a ton of damage, and it can Special Summon monsters to pressure the opponent without requiring use of any cards from the hand

Koa’ki Meiru Drago” is an important part of the strategy, and he’s now running three copies to make sure he can Summon it as often as possible. Drago stops the Special Summon of LIGHT and DARK monsters, shutting down Lightsworn, Zombies, and a bunch of Synchro Summons. With those threats out of the way, Clarke keeps his Dragons safe while keeping the path clear for direct attacks.

When “Masked Dragon” is destroyed in battle, it can Special Summon a Dragon-Type monster with 1500 ATK or less from the Deck, making it a great defender and a slick way to search out the right Dragon for any situation. you can use it to get “Exploder Dragon,” destroying troublesome monsters like “Blackwing Armor Master” or “Colossal Fighter.” “Magna Drago” and “Debris Dragon” can be searched to set up Synchro Summons, and “Totem Dragon” is a reusable piece of Tribute fodder that can be Special Summoned from the Graveyard when you don't control any monsters.

Disaster Dragons have been tested and refined for months, and it shows. It's got a really unique, competitive creation that’s all about style. Dragon Decks will change a bit to take advantage of the new F&L list next week, but they don’t lose any cards; they just get better. For now though, it's looking to inspire his fellow Dragon players, and his performance here this weekend is just the start of what might come.

Shootout in the meadow, Quickdraw dandylion

2010-10-07T13:05:00.000-07:00

one of the top new Decks to keep an eye on is Quickdraw Dandywarrior! This Yusei-inspired strategy packs Quickdraw Synchron and Debris Dragon, Tuning them to Dandylion and its Fluff Tokens to unleash big Synchro Monsters. Strong defense, easy Tribute Summons, and plenty of cool plays make this Deck a serious competitor, so let’s take a look at how it works.

Quickdraw Synchron takes center stage in starting up this Deck’s best combos. By sending Dandylion from your hand to the Graveyard, you can Special Summon Quickdraw Synchron plus two Fluff Tokens (from the effect of Dandylion). From there, you can Tune Quickdraw to a Fluff Token to Synchro Summon Turbo Warrior or Drill Warrior.

Turbo Warrior halves the ATK of Level 6 and higher Synchro Monsters when it attacks them, making it easy to defeat bigger monsters like Goyo Guardian in battle. Its second effect protects it from the effects of Ryko, Lightsworn Hunter and Gladiator Beasts. It can’t even be targeted by the effects of Gladiator Beast Murmillo or Gladiator Beast Gyzarus!

Drill Warrior is different – its first effect lets you avoid battle completely, halving Drill Warrior’s ATK but letting it attack directly for the turn. Its second effect lets you discard a card and remove Drill Warrior from play – it comes back in your next Standby Phase.

This Deck does most of its attacking with Caius the Shadow Monarch, and Synchro Monsters Summoned with Quickdraw Synchron and Debris Dragon. All three monsters use Dandylion and its Fluff Tokens to set up big attacks, so you want to get Dandylion to your hand or Graveyard as fast as you can. You can do that in lots of different ways.

With so many different ways to build it, this Deck can be really unpredictable. A lot of competitors aren’t familiar with these cards yet: that makes it a great pick for any Duel, and a strong contender at big events.

Dread from the sky, Blackwings

2010-10-06T19:30:00.000-07:00

While Blackwings’ available cards haven’t changed since the release of shining darkness, there have been trends and shifts in how they’re played.
Blackwings are another deck that is very “user friendly.” What that means is even a relative beginner can pick up a deck like Blackwings or Cat Synchro and win. Like Cat Synchro, the deck is based around using cards that stop the cards that stop you from swarming the board. Like all tier one decks, Blackwings are able to swarm while retaining card advantage. Let’s delve a bit deeper into the reasons for Blackwing dominance.

On the surface, players just remember the games where Blackwing players are putting 4 monsters on the field, boosting Bora, and shoving over their set Sangan before using Dark Strike Fighter for game. They tend to forget the games where the Blackwing player uses a key late-game Blizzard, or makes a huge Icarus play, or uses Solemn Judgment to shut down a key shift of momentum.

like all of the big decks (including Lightsworn), can play immaculate control or unkempt aggression. However, the other big decks really favor one or the other. Gladiator Beasts, for example, while capable of exploding for virtual game (Heraklinos + s/t back-up) much prefer control. And while Lightsworn/Cat Synchro can create a controlled game state, both much prefer to unleash an aggressive style. Blackwings are the freest to roam due to their incredible versatility (which extends to their side-deck). The reasons for this are the key support cards that allow Blackwing monsters to morph into anything from a battle-impervious wall (Armor Master) to two cards on the opponent’s field (Icarus Attack).

Enter the Colosseum, Gladiator beasts

2010-10-06T01:39:00.000-07:00

Gladiators are popular because of the Deck’s flexibility. It can deal with all kinds of enemy Decks really well.
Each time a Gladiator Beast monster attacks, it can be returned to the Deck at the end of the Battle Phase to Special Summon another; and when a Gladiator Beast is “tagged in” it hits the field with an additional effect, like destroying cards on the field, or removing cards from the opponent’s Graveyard. Those “tagging” effectsare the basis of the Gladiator strategy.
Gladiator Beast Decks got a boost with the release of Starlight Road. They Set a lot of cards to their back row, so it fits right in to play 2-3 copies of Starlight Road. This protects their set-ups of Traps like Gladiator Beast War Chariot, which can negate monster effects. Another typical play is Waboku, which stops a Gladiator Beast from being destroyed when it’s attacked, but stills means that it “was attacked,” so it can tag out at the end of the Battle Phase.

Old school Gladiator Beast Decks sometimes focused on Elemental Hero Prisma’s ability to mimic Gladiator Beast Bestiari’s name for the summoning of Gladiator Beast Gyzarus. But that strategy hasn’t been very popular this Summer. Most Duelists realized pretty quickly that when you’re Dueling against Infernities and X-Sabers, it’s more important to disrupt your opponent’s Synchro Summons and keep them from putting combos together. That led to a huge upswing in Gladiator Beast use of Thunder King Rai-Oh.

The handless combo infernitys

2010-10-04T14:37:00.000-07:00

infernities hit the ground running three months ago when they received their first big group of cards in The Shining Darkness. Infernitites won at the Canadian World Championship Qualifier and YCS Chicago, but their winning streak was cut short by Sean Montague’s X-Saber win at the U.S. World Championship Qualifier. Today, after not even making it to the final rounds at the U.S. WCQ, they were back in Top 16 action.

The Infernity Deck, as usually played, is all about speed. Fill the Graveyard with copies of Infernity Archfiend, Infernity Necromancer, and some Tuners, then explode with Infernity Launcher and Infernity Mirage, Special Summoning fistfuls of monsters over and over to flood the field with Synchro Monsters. Infernity Barrier protects these combos, by stopping cards like D.D. Crow, Dust Tornado, and Solemn Judgment from stopping the rampage.

My top decks, x sabers

2010-10-03T22:08:00.000-07:00

Since the emergence of X-Sabers as a top competitive Deck, X-Sabers have centered on a two-method approach, with the hand-wrecking XX-Saber Gottoms and X-Saber Airbellum, and the on-field destruction of Saber Slash and XX-Saber Hyunlei. Play your cards, and you’d lose them to Slash and Hyunlei. Don’t play them, and you’d lose them to Gottoms and Airbellum.
Once Boggart Knight and Darksoul made their thunderous debut, the Deck became more aggressive. If you don’t keep up with X-Sabers, you’ll lose to their crushing speed. Saber Slash fell out of favor for months, only recently re-emerging after an impressive Top 4 finish in the hands of Gary Miotke at YCS Chicago, but Hyunlei was always a threat. Now, with Slash gaining popularity and X-Sabers operating at high speed, the threat is even more vicious than ever.

Liberty and YUGIOH!

2010-10-02T08:08:00.001-07:00

Nestled among cobbled streets and the Liberty Bell, a new round of battles will ensue at the Pennsylvania Convention Center when Konami Digital Entertainment, Inc. (Konami) brings its wildly successful Yu-Gi-Oh! Championship Series (YCS) to historic Philadelphia. More than 1,000 players are expected to Duel for fantastic prizes at this premier-level Yu-Gi-Oh! TRADING CARD GAME (TCG) event.
The YCS will be held at the Pennsylvania Convention Center on October 9th – October 10th. Pre-registration will run from 3:00 – 7:00 p.m. Friday, October 8th and restart promptly at 8:00 a.m. on Saturday, October 9th. Round One will begin at 10:00 a.m. The Top 16 YCS finishers, along with the top Duelists of the Sunday Regional Qualifiers, earn invitations to participate in their respective 2011 World Championship Qualifier events, to be held next year.

Event Address:
Pennsylvania Convention Center
1101 Arch Street
Ballroom AB
Philadelphia, PA 19107

In addition to the main event, weekend activities include Public Events such as Regional Qualifiers, Tin Challenges, ATTACK OF THE GIANT CARD!!, Win-A-Mat, Dragon Duel and a tournament for the video game, Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D’s World Championship 2010 Reverse of Arcadia. The top Duelist in the video game tournament will get ten booster packs of the recently released Duelist Revolution!
Konami will award a set of the YCS prize cards to the main event winner, the two runners-up, and the winners of Sunday’s Public Events playoffs. Each of these Duelists will receive one copy of each of the three YCS prize cards: Ultra Rare versions for the winner of the main event, and Super Rare copies for the others.

2010/09 - San Jose, CA, Yu-Gi-Oh! Championship Series

2010-09-29T12:17:00.000-07:00

Angel flores and his geminis took the event with the following decklist

Monsters: 16
1 Elemental Hero Stratos
3 Elemental Hero Neos Alius
2 Honest
2 Effect Veiler
1 Gorz the Emissary of Darkness
2 Doomcaliber Knight
2 Thunder King Rai-Oh
2 Cyber Dragon
1 Banisher of the Radiance

Spells: 15
1 Mystical Space Typhoon
1 Nobleman of Crossout
1 Allure of Darkness
2 Book of Moon
1 Nobleman of Extermination
1 Reinforcement of the Army
1 Monster Reborn
1 E – Emergency Call
3 Pot of Duality
3 Gemini Spark

Traps: 10
3 Solemn Warning
2 Bottomless Trap Hole
2 Dimensional Prison
2 Hero Blast
1 Torrential Tribute

Side Deck: 15
1 Solemn Judgment
1 Royal Oppression
1 Mind Crush
2 Starlight Road
2 Gottoms’ Emergency Call
1 Super Polymerization
2 System Down
1 Nobleman of Crossout
2 Fossil Dyna Pachycephalo
2 Consecrated Light

Extra Deck: 15
2 Chimeratech Fortress Dragon
1 Dragon Knight Draco-Equiste
1 Elemental Hero Gaia
1 Elemental Hero Absolute Zero
1 Cyber Twin Dragon
1 Black Rose Dragon
1 Flamvell Uruquizas
1 Brionac, Dragon of the Ice Barrier
1 Ally of Justice Catastor
1 Goyo Guardian
1 Magical Android
1 Mist Wurm
2 Stardust Dragon

Little city at it's best.

Anti meta was a big contender with
6 X-sabers
5 blackwings and 2 quickdraw variants.

YU-GI-OH! ESE

2010-09-29T12:08:00.000-07:00

MEXICO CITY, MX (September 21, 2010) – Konami is thrilled to announce the first Yu-Gi-Oh! Championship Series (YCS) event to be held in Latin America. Following the successful debut of this flagship event earlier this year throughout Canada and the United States, Mexico City will play host to the YCS on November 13th and 14th.