2011 Year in Review, Testing Updates, DN Hate

As you can see at the top, I uploaded the logo that Danny's wife drew for our t-shirts. It was originally black and white, and due to the scanning I had to do a lot of editing by hand to make it clear that what she drew was black and the rest was white. Paper itself tends to scan gray with a lot of little dots. I have no idea how to use Photoshop, so I pretty much did all of the work on basically a per-pixel basis on MS Paint. I decided to fill in the white with red because after uploading the black and white image, I realized the entire blog was black and white and needed some color. Again I had to work for about another hour and a half to get it to fill, but now I can interchange colors very easily. Danny wants a black and yellow logo for his shirt; I told him I thought it looked like a Pikachu with that color scheme but he was alright with it lol. I'm not sure if the logo itself is supposed to be something, I think it looks a lot like Cyber Dragon lol. I like it a lot.

So after doing some more testing with Vargas' XYZ Chaos deck, I've decided I just don't like it enough to run it. Something about Photon Sabre Tiger just seems too slow for me. In most of my games I always seem to have useless Tigers in my hand in the late game. Snowman Eater is good all-around tech though and has been for a while, seem like all decks in OCG side 3 and as we get more and more Rank 3 XYZ's, they get better in playability. 1900 DEF that destroys a monster is pretty decent too obviously. I got to test a couple games using that Six Sam deck as well; I OTK'd a guy running Sacreds all thanks to Gateway. Before that I was in pretty bad shape until I Black Rose'd via Kagemush and Grandmaster, then DEST got the ball rolling. One other guy just quit to Gateway+United, so need to play a few more games with it, probably in rated.

I forget what this guy's name was exactly, but I joined a rated match against a guy with about 800 rating with my Agents. I took out a 3rd TKing for a Reaper and wanted to try it out. He ran TGs. He opens with King Tiger Wanghu and 3 backrow and I have a hand that I can't do a whole lot with due to the Tiger. I have a BLS, Earth, 2 Maxx C, Tour Guide, and Warning or something like that. Not too important, but I summon Earth so I can search Venus. I summon, say "ef", wait for a response and get nothing, so I proceed to search my deck. He goes "dude" and I go "?" and tries to tell me that I won't get Earth's effect because it got destroyed, and he ever so helpfully copies and pastes Tiger's effect text into the chat. I'm like "I understand that it gets destroyed, but I still successfully normal summoned it, and it doesn't negate the effect." I grab the Venus, send Earth to the grave, and he was like "you clearly don't know your rulings and how continuous effects work but idc we'll play your way go ahead" and proceeds to call me a noob and whatnot. At this point I'm like alright I'm gonna find that I'm right about this, pass my turn while I quickly go to Pojo Q&A and search "King Tiger Gadget" since I figured there'd be a good chance that people had asked about the interaction between Wanghu and Gadgets. I find the answer in the first hit for which I was right (still get searches), then I copy and paste a reply that someone had posted, then I copy the URL so the guy can look at it himself. He's like "yea you just typed some crap up idc". I'm like "no, I posted the god damn link that shows what happens and the correct ruling. At least I can show my justification for my reasonings." On my next turn my plan is to summon Tour Guide so I can get the dark I need for BLS and get a free Sangan search off the Tiger being there. I go "alright let's try this again" and I summon Tour Guide, wait for a response, and search for my Sangan. Again he's like "blah blah blah noob blah" and I'm just like "what, I just posted a link so you can see how it works for yourself." He Warnings my BLS and I proceed to get Horn'd to death, but at that point I didn't even care and just wanted to stop playing this moron.

Now I can openly admit I ain't no rulings guru or anything, far from it, but when there's a dispute and I FIND PROOF for why I'm right and you DON'T do a damn thing to justify your reasoning, especially when you're wrong, who are you to call ME a noob? I just completely hate this kind of attitude that people have, like "I'm right because I just know and you're bad cuz you don't agree (with my incorrect ruling)". Show them proof for why they're wrong? They're still adamant that they're "right". Most rational people can just be like "ah ok, got it" and admit that they're wrong when you show them proof for why you're right, and all you can do is just hope they remember the correct ruling for the future. Again I don't remember the guy's name, but dude if you happen to read this: fuck you. You're a dumb, ignorant, fuck. That's really all that needs to be said.
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2011 Year in Review

As we get closer to finishing out 2011, I thought I’d take a moment to reflect back on everything that happened in the game this year on both local and global scopes, and think about what we can look forward to in 2012. I don’t remember exactly when things were announced and that kinda stuff but I’ll do the best I can.

January

- Duelist Pack Yusei 3 was released. I don’t remember anything special coming out of it.

February

- Storm of Ragnarok was released, providing much support for Six Samurai, and gave us Maxx “C”.

- YCS Dallas takes place, which is the last YCS until the new March ban list. Nizar Sarhan wins with Six Samurai.

March

- The March ban list became official, finally banning Cold Wave.

- The Dragunity structure deck was released, but nothing too note-worthy came from it in terms of reprints. I regrettably bought 3 of this deck, getting sucked into all the hype.

- Storm of Ragnarok SE was released, giving us reprints of Hand of the Six Samurai and Light and Darkness Dragon. I purchased a few boxes of this.

- The first YCS of the March format took place in Charlotte, with Sean Coovert (Sams) beating Nicky Lacaille (Fish).

April

- Hidden Arsenal 4 was released, most notably giving us Trishula. I didn’t buy too much HA04, had to end up ordering a Trish as a single.

- We received Turbo Pack 5, giving us common Miracle Fusion, rare Puppet Plant, Super Six Sam United and Snowman Eater, Ultra Dark Hole, and Ulti Colossal.

- Angel Flores (Gemini) beat Jonathan Weigle (Gravekeeper) at YCS Anaheim, with much joking about winning with Penguin Soldier.

- The Duelist Pack Collection Tin came out, with the debut of Frozen Fitzgerald along with reprints of Zeman, Hundred Eyes, and Underground Arachnid. This product was fairly popular for the Veiler reprint and just having DREV packs.

May

- Extreme Victory was released, introducing the game-changing TCG exclusive cards of Reborn Tengu and Tour Guide from the Underworld. I didn’t buy any boxes of this, but picked up 2 sets of Tengus at the Sneak for almost nothing.

- Juan Morales (Tengu/GK/Birdman deck) beat Traviis Massengale (Debris Zombie) at YCS Orlando.

- Duelist Pack Crow was released, giving us very easy access to everything Blackwing and contained the debut of Zephyros the Elite.

June

- The Lost Sanctuary structure deck was released, giving us reprints of Solemn Judgment and a few old Secret Fairys. Many were upset at the exclusion of Archlord Kristya since the OCG had her in theirs. I ordered a box of this.

- Tyree Tinsley wins YCS Providence with Plants.

July

- Gold Series 4 was released, but not many were looking forward to the set due to the increased price and overall lack of desired reprints. There seemed to be a pretty dividing line between those that were very enthused for the set and those that weren’t. Doomcal was the highlight of the set. To this present day this is the first Gold Series that I haven’t purchased multiple boxes of.

- The 2012 Starter Deck “Dawn of the XYZ” was released, introducing us to our first XYZ monsters. I bought 2 of this deck I think.

- The much-hyped TG Hyper Librarian became legal, catapulting “Plant Synchro” to the top. I ordered 2 Shonen subscriptions just for this card.

- Hidden Arsenal SE was released, which gave us a reprint of XX-Saber Emmersblade. I haven’t bought any of this.

- US Nationals takes place, with Hansel Aguero (TG) beating Sam Pedigo (Plants).

August

- Generation Force became available, which was the first booster series to include the XYZ mechanic.

- The 2011 Collector’s tin (Wave 1) was released, which gave us much-desired Pot of Duality, E-Hero Gaia, and Archlord Kristya reprints. I ended up buying 12 or 13 of these.

- We received Turbo Pack 6, which gave us easy-to-get Armory Arm, rare Stardust, Super Chain Disappearance, Ultra Sangan, and Ultimate DAD.

- Robert Boyajian wins YCS Indy with Plants.

September

- The September ban list became official, and to much surprise Black Luster Soldier and Heavy Storm were no longer banned. BLS’s price tag following the news was around $50-60. Many thought Lonefire going to 1 would kill off Plants, and Reborn Tengu wasn’t used a whole lot at the start of the format, as evident in its value dropping to around $8-9. The banning of Fishborg and the limit of Formula basically killed off the Frog Monarch and Water Synchro decktypes, as well as Fish FTK/Trishula Spam.

- We received GENF SE, which contained reprints of E-Hero Absolute Zero and … Spore. I’ve gone through several boxes of SE’s.

- Billy Brake wins YCS Toronto, the first YCS of the September format, with Plants.

- Gale Orbea wins YCS Ecuador with TG Agents.

October

- We received the much-hyped Darkworld structure deck which contained reprints of Tragoedia and Battle Fader. I split a box of this with Danny.

- We also received Legendary Collection 2, bringing many rarity upgrades to various cards and decks. Notables (for me) were common Thunder-King and the legalization of Gallis the Star Beast. I purchased 1 binder in total, and pulled crap.

- Dark World failed to take any top spots at YCS Columbus, leading many to believe the deck was just “Dragunity hype”.

- I started our team’s official blog site, Team Overload Blog.

- Mike Bonacini, of Death Aspect Blog, retired from blogging.

- Billy Brake takes YCS Columbus with Plants to become the second back-to-back YCS/SJC Champion.

November

- Wave 2 tins were released, and players received their long-awaited reprints of Solemn Warning and Fossil Dyna. Other reprints like Darksoul, Ehren, and Eatos were appreciated as well. I ended up buying 6 or 7 of these.

- ORCS was released, and we received our rarity-bumped Rescue Rabbit along with new Dinosaurs for various Laggia/Dolkka-based decks. Danny, Zach, and I ordered a case of it and did OK with it; we were able to pretty much break even.

- YCS Kansas City took place, where Courtney Waller won with Chaos. This was the first YCS for Dino Rabbit to debut, and they did pretty well, occupying 3 spots in the top 8. Dark World also cracked into the top 32, taking 3 spots.

- Jarel “Pro” Winston started his “The Winston “Pro” Files” Youtube interview videos, featuring many of the game’s top pros including Dale Bellido, Cesar Gonzalez, Hector Heras, Billy Brake, Jae Kim, Shane Scurry, Claudio Kirchmair, and Robert Boyajian. He said he’ll be getting more interviews from more pros such as Jeff Jones, Emon, etc.

December

- ORCS and Ra Yellow Mega Pack were announced, along with the partial reveal of Tour Bus of the Underworld.

- Hidden Arsenal 5 and Samurai Assault SE were released; however there was not much hype for either product and will most likely be ignored.

- The first UK-based YCS takes place in Brighton, with Ping Xiao winning in a Dino Rabbit mirror-match.

Reprint Re-Cap (Notables)

Here is a list of cards that got reprinted, which either caused a significant price decrease to obtain, or was just a reprint of an old playable card in general.

Archlord Kristya

Armory Arm

Black Luster Soldier

Burial from a DD

Darksoul

Doomcal

Eatos

E-Hero Absolute Zero

E-Hero Gaia

Ehren

Emmersblade

Fossil Dyna

Hand of the Six Samurai

Judgment Dragon

Pot of Duality

Ryko

Solemn Warning

Solemn Judgment

Thunder King

Tragoedia

Props/Slops

Here is a list of things that I think Konami did right this year, and what I think they did wrong (not in any particular order):

Right:

“Easy-to-understand” card text and subsequent reprints

Reborn Tengu (not exactly “balanced”, but not broken)

2011 Collectible Tins and all of its reprints (both Wave 1 and Wave 2)

Legendary Collection 2 (even though it was pretty expensive)

Quickness of putting YCS Kansas decklists up

Taking Heavy Storm off the list

Putting Fishborg on the list (was just too good)

Maxx C (almost necessary to slow the game down)

Wrong:

Gold Series 4 (too weak of a product imo for the increased price [don’t give me that mat crap as justification])

Not acting sooner and more officially on the Tengu/Sangan/XYZ ruling issue (Facebook shouldn’t be used as a source for official rulings)

Censoring Alter Reality Games’ players’ shirts on event coverage (simply put they’re promoting the game, their articles are a helluva lot better as well)

Putting Royal Oppression on the list (blatant push for XYZs since they brought back Heavy AND put MST to 3)

Making recent sets where (basically) only the Secrets and a few Ultras are playable

Still not giving us the OCG Priority ruling (I’m a supporter of it)

Tour Guide (blatant push for XYZs)

Errata’ing Darksoul only when OCG got theirs

Blood Mefist (not good enough of a prize card)

Taking forever to put up YCS decklists (besides Kansas)

Decreasing quality and quantity of event coverage

Rarity-bump Rescue Rabbit

Samurai Assault SE

2012

So what do we have to look forward to next year? A lot of it I touched on in my “Looking Ahead” post, but in regards to just looking at the first part of the year, I think we can basically anticipate Inzektor as a new and playable archetype. Determining to what extent they will affect the meta is of course hard to tell, but at the very least they are very hyped and will only continue to get more support. They have recently won a 300+ man tourney in Japan and another in the 130 range, which is fairly impressive. The broken-ness (or lack thereof) of Tour Bus will also play a strong hand in the January to March time period and potentially beyond until next September.

We also have the March ban list, and it’s hard to tell what cards or decks will get hit or benefit. OCG results lead many to believe Agents will get hit, but I see it going either way for Agents or Plants. Plants have been around for many formats now, time to force us to play something else right? Regardless of how Plants get hit, there will always be some kind of “good stuff” deck that is just always viable. Tour Guide, Tengu, T-King, Maxx C, Gorz, BLS, you basically got half your monster lineup right there lol. I wish they would let up a little on some decks like Blackwings; give them a 2^nd Gale, a 2^nd Kalut, and/or a 2^nd Black Whirlwind to help with their viability. But, they’re not a “current anime” deck anymore so I can see why they’d shove them down in the ground and leave them there (even though I still like the deck tbh).

We will most likely get a Gold Series 5, a few more Turbo Packs, 2012 Collection tins, and the promos for ORCS SE haven’t been revealed yet so we can look forward to getting more reprints! Lyla and Ryko are in the next Dragon structure deck, so those will finally be really easy to obtain. Speaking of Dragons, they may also be something to consider next format; I hope they just ban Future Fusion, that card is too good for them lol. We should probably get the dark E-Hero guy, Escuriado or something, which may finally get more people to run Heroes. This deck also warrants Future Fusion’s ban, as made famous by Allen C. Pennington. 2012’s Hidden Arsenals will probably get us to Gemknights and maybe The Sacred archetypes. I don’t follow DT sets as closely as I probably should. I played against a few people running Sacred on DN; their XYZs are pretty good. It’s annoying playing against people running OCG cards on DN though. Truth be told I wish DN would have a separate column(s) for OCG. Include a single OCG-only card in your deck? That should restrict you from joining TCG matches. 

All in all I'd say the last 3 months of 2011 have been good for Yugz and I'm looking forward to finishing out this format. Historically Spring/Summer formats have always been very fast and considered "crap" to most players, but each and every year we all deal with it and move on. I say "bring on the mayhem!"