Into the New Format

I didn't go to the Northtown tourney yesterday since I woke up feeling really sick and groggy. My wife started to get sick the other day and tends to never cover her mouth when she coughs, so naturally it was gonna happen :/ Later in the day I started to feel better so I make the trip to my post office to pick up my third Maxx C that I ordered, as well as all my Traditional stuff for Brandon's tourney. I forgot to order a Painful Choice and a Premature Burial though, ordered them later, but need to see if I can borrow them from someone if I play today. I built up the deck, tried out like 15 hands/playthroughs, and it can FTK fairly consistently. I'd rather play an Exchange of the Spirit deck, but Brandon has that card banned.

I think YCS Germany will be a good indication for how the rest of our format may look like, at least until GAOV comes out. Lots of Dino, and the rest being Inzektors and Wind-Ups. I'm actually really curious to see how our locals shifts, as there were quite a few people playing Tengus and Plants even til the very end. They'll probably switch to Gadgets, GBs, Heroes, or something. The threat of Dark World and Samurai is still something to take into consideration as well. If I ever get Tour Guides before the release of Battle Pack I'll probably switch to Wind-Ups, but I'm enjoying Inzektors at the moment. As more time passes the less inclined I feel to order Guides. I'm looking forward to the Veiler reprint so I can run BLS in my build. I ordered 5 boxes of ORCS SE so if someone wants cheap Veilers and doesn't want to buy the actual SEs, I'm your hookup :)

I've looked at the new-list tourney results over on Shriek, and it's pretty apparent that Card Car D will be the money Secret for GAOV. Rare in Japan, it's a draw card, so Secret over here. Sounds about right. Inzektor Gulf (or Gruf, whatever) is seeing quite a bit of play as a 2-of, even though I'm not sure why.

For reference:
Card Car D
Earth/Machine
Level 2
800/400
Cannot be Special Summoned. During the Main Phase 1 when this card is Normal Summoned: You can Tribute this card; draw 2 cards, and skip to the End Phase. You cannot Special Summon the turn you activated this effect.

Inzektor Gruf
Dark/Insect
Level 2
500/100

Once per turn: You can equip 1 "Inzektor" monster from your hand or Graveyard to this card. While this card is equipped to a monster, increase the equipped monster's Level by 2, and gains ATK and DEF equal to this card's ATK and DEF respectively. You can send this Equip Card to the Graveyard to target 1 monster you control; increase its Level by 1 or 2.

Overall I think Rank 3 is better than Rank 5, so not sure why all this manipulation for 2 more levels is being ran. Speaking of Rank 3, still waiting on my freaking mag with Acid Golem in it. I'll probably end up picking up a copy at Walmart or some grocery store or something. I think it's the first magazine promo (as opposed to subscription promo) in a while that's actually playable! (Souza is OK/meh.)

If you may not have known, there's some petition thing going on at Pojo, basically people upset at the ban list and expensive cards and trying to get Konami to change. The whole expensive card/rarity bump thing has been going on since Phantom freakin' Darkness. Obviously it's doing something right for them, otherwise they wouldn't be doing it. I remember way back when PTDN came out, and some guy on Pojo was ranting and raving about how the game was going to end and all this crap. Clearly he was wrong. Pretty much the same stories when Duality became a $100+ card, and Tour Guide became $180. I do agree this ban list didn't do anything to help with the latter problems of the previous format, and the top decks weren't hit so ORCS would still be a relevant set. The old-school players and those that have been around for a few years in general know and are used to all this, and there's never been a point to whining and moaning about it simply because Konami doesn't listen. Those that love the game will still play it, and those that are fed up will quit for a period of time but most likely come back into it somewhere along the line. To play Yugioh in the upper-tier level of competitiveness has always been a relatively expensive endeavor, but there are always cheaper and viable options out there if you can persevere. This is the way the game has been for a while, and probably always will be til it runs its course.