Another week, another draft. Spell Ruler seemed like a particularly promising set due to its abundancy of broken spells and decent equip spells. The last one actually was a staple in my friends' decks so it was reasonable to assume that they would be salivating over even the worse ones in here; they all are better than what we got in the previous sets, after all. Being prepared against those seemed (and indeed was) vital.
As for the broken spells... Imagine not pulling any of those and you'd have my situation. I did get two Spellbinding Circle, though, which is at least decent. Cyber Jar also was a very welcome addition to the deck.
I personally looked forward to the recruiters (Monsters that special summon a monster with 1,5k or less Atk from the deck after being destroyed by battle) since they would outline the direction I would be going into for the weeks to come.
My pulls gave me two options: Wind beatdown when the field spells drop and Earth with utility options. I hoped for a few Mother Grizzly to go in on an Umi deck with A Legendary Ocean later, but ended up pulling not a single one. Seeing that pretty much all of the winds printed so far were garbage whereas Earth had possibilities with Labyrinth Wall and Dream Clown as utility slots, my choice was simple.
The deck doesn't really have a cohesive strategy, but instead aims to profit from its wide variety of utility cards and removal to keep the upper hand. Equip spam joined tribute summoning Sanga of the Thunder/Suijin as potential for continuous board **********, however. The biggest enabler of my previous "strategy" was Yami, so it had no place in the deck anymore. Hey, at least Gaia, Succubus Knight and pretty much all of LoB's monster lineup can chill there now over Sogen!
Staying true to that, I cut down on the 2k defenders. Given the preferences of my small circle of friends, most of these would be wrecked before accumulating board advantage by numbers. I only kept those with reasonably high attack to possibly establish a board presence with equips. They were replaced by a swarming engine with a playset of Giant Germ which was supposed to enable my Tributes faster than the big-butted vanillas ever could.
Given this bigger focus on offense, I brought out the biggest non-tribute beaters I had to offer in Whiptail Crow and Seven-Colored Fish. Despite not getting punished for it, the former was a HUGE theoretical mistake. Guardian Of The Throne Room has the same stat line but an immunity against Paralyzing Potion which still is a decent stun option and would be much more relevant in utility!
Dark Elf and Jirai Gumo still are the "reverse walls" (monsters that discourage attacks with massive attack over massive def without any attacking themselves) they were before with the difference that attacking became much more enticing due to the massive amount of equip spells floating around. They also form the magic six (more than 50% chance to have one of those cards in your opening five) with my other walls, though incidentally so here.
The only exception to walling up being bad is, yeah, the wall in the deck. 3k still is very difficult to overcome even in a meta filled to the brim with equip spells. And it's even better if you can cheat it out without a tribute using a Giant Rat after your opponent's last attack! Dream Clown was my alternative rat target and supposed to put me in a position to destroy any particularly large or dominant monster by switching it to def in my following turn.
Speaking of, the clowns were thrown back on the bench other than this one copy of Dream Clown. Crass Clown already had trouble competing in Metal Raiders format stat-wise and an even more offensively oriented meta would't be kind to it. His work partner Dream Clown still had uses, but none that justified running additional copied that could potentially clog up my hand. It would be easy to beat over even with equips but still had utility as a follow up with Rat, so one copy was just right.
Cyber Jar is just Dark Hole and a way to fill up your field or hand. It's an amazing card that usually gets you out of tough spots. Since we play on the Traditional F&L list (with modifications done by the group as seen fit or when one player starts to dominate the field), the card was fair game. The consistency boost still is much appreciated. Don't set it on a neutral or good board state; it's the equivalent of throwing dice on the table and praying you roll all sixes.
Dark Hole, Fissure and Tribute To The Doomed just are more removal tools.
Even though giving your opponent 1k LP is so much worse in a slow-as-molasses Yugioh compared to modern standard, I still just enjoy playing 39 cards over 40. Consistency is key, and my decks need it badly given my lack of Pot Of Greed or searchers.
Paralyzing Potion still is the decent stun it also was in the week before and the other equips are just the best I got in terms of attack power. I went for the magic six as border for equips since they are only situationally useful at the end of the day, but should be usually on given my monster count. Wouldn't want to see more than one in an opener tbh; they clog your hand without any summonable monster.
The star of the week and by far my favorite card of this week was Tailor Of The Fickle, however. The card is super versatile and even more so with the absurd amount of variety in equips that were run in the group: It could be a watered-down Rush Recklessly (something I also failed to pull), effectively boost two of your monsters with one equip during the battle phase by activating Tailor after attacking with the equipped monster, shuffle Paralyzing Potions or Stim-Pack drops... The card was amazing and thankfully, most of my friends caught on in building this time. I used it in all of my games and usually had a pretty significant momentum shift in my favor everytime I resolved it.
Swords still enables tributes which only get better with Tailor and own equips.
Dual Mirror Force still is just broken at this stage of the game. Fun fact: Right after winning this week, we unanimously limited the card to one. Two of my friends also had it and we didn't want to inevitably hit those two as well. The limit hurt me and me alone, seeing as I am the only one in the group with more copies.
Spellbinding Circle was pretty much more a more consistent and reliable Paralyzing Potion. It was immune to Tailor Of The Fickle which made it a much safer bet than Paralyzing Potion for slowing a game down. It performed well this week but this will most likely be the last opportunity for that to be the case. The next set has Jinzo and much more S/T-removal.
The Extra still is just personal aesthetic preference and all part of a long-term scheme that will effectively hide any plans of using this portion of the game later.
The side was engineered to be a smokescreen into a degenerate burn/stall portion more true to what I played in the last weeks. I never used any of those cards - but one of my friends did. He almost kicked my butt since I had trouble getting anything going... But all monster advantage falters in the presence of Dark Hole. The smokescreen also had no cohesive plan: Do I want my opponent to attack and use card effects or do I want them not to attack? The cards point in both directions and kind of get in the way of each other. Go for better stuff than this! Even a side board of Remove Traps would have been better.
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