Another week, another deck. It really is something to pull a new set that basically makes most of the old cards seem useless by comparison.
Despite the ominous introduction, I haven't changed much in my strategy from before. The only thing that improved from last week was the offensive part (every tribute got its well-deserved retirement and non-tribute powerhouses like Jirai Gumo, Seven-Colored Fish und Ryu-Kishin Powered entered the fray) in conjunction with a few nice control tools in Paralyzing Potion and the Clowns.
The biggest impact had the staples: I won't pretend that dual Dark Hole + dual Mirror Force didn't carry the heck out of me. I unfortunately didn't get Imperial Order, Magician of Faith or Solemn Judgment; the first pretty much is universally owned by everyone except me!
But yeah, I managed. I successfully defended the crown against my friends.
The concept of the deck is the same as the last: Sit on 2k defenders, summon your tribute guy and dominate. Sanga of the Thunder und Suijin replaced my old tribute payoffs and definitely pulled their weight.
The other big portion of the deck was, again, Yami. This time, the boost was much more significant than before: Mystical Elf, her cuter sister and Aqua Madoor could survive any encounter with Jirai Gumo under Yami. Ryu-Kishin Powered could at least trade with the strongest beater without any drawbacks, Seven-Colored Fish. Crass Clown could also stand its own against former non-tribute stars Uraby and Skull Red bird, but that barely ever came up.
The other monsters were mostly just filler that made sense given the feel of the deck: Giant Soldier of Stone and Prevent Rat are just solid normals since 2k defenders are the heart and soul of this deck. Pulling thre Prevent Rat also allowed me to kick Spirit of the Harp in the site who had negative synergy with Yami.
Hane-Hane still punishes opposing tribute payoffs and equip-heavy setups.
The clowns were decent with protection (Paralyzing Potion or Swords) but were kind of meh in this stage of the game. Dream Clown nicely punished walling up, though, and occasionally forced stronger 2k defenders like Giant Soldier of Stone and Aqua Madoor into attack!
Masked Sorcerer is sort of a win more card and intended as such. I lack any form of search or draw power since I didn't pull any of the big searchers or Pot of Greed, so I looked for a way to get through my deck faster. It made good situations better and snowballed somewhat easier with Stim-Pack, but nothing more.
Stop Defense, Fissure, Dark Hole and Tribute to the Doomed are all meant to keep opposing field building in check and disrupt potential counter-walling up. Block Attack served a similar purpose as the "reverse walls" of Dark Elf and Jirai Gumo have poor Def.
The secret stars were the equips, however. Paralyzing Potion nicely vegetablized any threatening monster on the opposing end and slowed the game down enough for me to either build up advantage or remove the card with the clowns. Stim-Pack was amazing: It provided huge momentum swings and turned any of my decent attacking monsters into virtual powerhouses. The drawback only hurt me once. Usually, your monsters won't sit around so long to make the attack loss actually noticeable. And if you do, you're usually in a stalemate situation already. Thankfully, most of my friends missed this amazing card!
Mirror Force is just Mirror Force and really enabled the clowns. You could nicely dismantle set cards with a position change and be protected by the holy barrier against offensive threats.
The Extra is just filler cards, ranked according to looks.
The side is, for the most part, filler stuff. Sword & Shield seemed cool as a finisher on paper but I ultimately never used it. Plain walling up was usually more beneficial than a big offensive push.
Tremendous Fire was doing too little for field presence to ever warrant a main slot.
Time Wizard was supposed to serve as a third, riskier Dark Hole. Sided it in once but never used the effect.
Two-Pronged is still a decent tribute spot removal but thanks to my generally better tools available now, I never really bothered with it.
Remove Trap was pretty much dead since there are no permanent traps to speak of where it would work. Imperial Order as the only notable one for my deck negates it >.<
Mask of Darkness was supposed to recycle Mirror Forces. Never put it in once, though. I valued my other control tools too much to justify a wonky two-card combo in an already somewhat inconsistent deck.
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