Thursday, June 7, 2012

The New Inzektor Standard? + Thoughts on Skill, local updates

After only placing in top 4 at the box tourney that Uncle's had on Monday, I've finally decided to give up on Inzektors. Top 4's not bad considering the other 3 were Chaos Dragon, but the way I lost game 3 of my top 4 match just left a really bad taste in my mouth. Actually I had already made up my mind that this tourney would be my final run with the deck, but the tourney just backed up my decision of doing so even more. No matter how "focused on consistency" I made my deck, I was still having occasional problems of "not having the pieces set up." Such is the fate of decks that rely on any sort of 2-card combo in my opinion. Granted I did run it completely different than my regional deck, but I just wanted to try out a few things before I gave it up. In theory the changes I made should've increased consistency, but again, still had problems.

As I talked about in my previous Inzektor post, I feel that the deck has the highest probability of getting hit the worst come this September. Even if the end result is that they don't do a damn thing to the deck, when you take into consideration the OCG meta, there's little reason to believe any other deck would get hit harder and thus why I'm selling it off. After speaking with a few people, there is general agreement on this matter, even though a lot of people think Chaos Dragon will still get hit somehow. Realistically Future Fusion or FHD to 0, tops, but with the deck doing nothing in OCG, who knows. The difference between Agents last format and Dragons this (both, structure decks) is that TG Agent was everywhere in the OCG, while Chaos Dragon isn't. At the very least, with Tengu getting hit, we know they are paying attention to the TCG.

Even though I am giving up the deck, I would like to discuss what I've seen become the new standard for it, at least from an OCG standpoint. In a nutshell it boils down to: 2 Hornet, no Cardcar, 3 Call, and 2 Trooper w/ DAD and/or BLS. I've seen the use of only 2 Hornet for a few weeks now - at first I found it crazy because most games I would personally have enough of a struggle getting 1 out of 3, but it is a trend that seems to be the norm now. In recent bigger tourneys it is evident here and here. My rationale to explain this is that Lavalval Chain helps in getting Hornet set up for the rest of the game, and it's not something that you'd want to draw into later on. The use of Card Trooper can also help, and while I don't like "random mill" outside of Chaos/LS-ish decks, the use of 3 Call justifies it in my opinion. I find it very interesting how all Inzektor decks ran 3 Cardcar earlier in the format, and now it's basically 1 or 0. I personally still really like running 2 - bait Warning, Veiler, Torr, or get the plus. Usually the 2 cards I'd draw off Cardcar only cemented my successful plays for next turn. If they Veiler, great, 1 less for Inzektors to deal with. I tried this 2 Hornet thing at the box tourney, and overall I agree with it. 

After a week with Chaos Dragon, which is what I run now for the time being, I find it crazy how much more often I have a turn 1 Future Fusion than I did having a Dragonfly/Centipede + Hornet play. It doesn't seem to mathematically make sense that I'd get a singleton card out of 40 or 41 on the first turn more often than I did getting either 1 of 6 Dragonfly/Centipede, 1 out of 3 Hornet+1 Foolish, and also taking into account 3 Duality/2 Cardcar. I haven't done the math, but again, seems like the flaw of 2-card combos. As for Dragons, I don't care what anyone says about the deck- resolving a Future Fusion within the first 2 turns of the game puts the player in an outright much better position to win the game. This is why so many "average/below-average"-skilled players can squeak wins away from someone who is much better lately. I wouldn't say that the deck is skill-less though as I had originally thought. Yes, plopping down Future Fusion is skill-less, and players can play the deck in a skill-less manner, but the same can be said for any deck. Turn 1 Rabbit, turn 2 Guide, sure, any derp can do that. But what do you do if you don't have those obvious plays? That is what distinguishes good players from bad right now. I think there is still room for skill to win out, it's just that some of these early-game setups and overpowered cards in general can be impossible to overcome right now, no matter how good you are.

Locally, the word from the grapevine is that T&M's has very little support now, from both the Magic and YGO community. Baptist church basement, 'nuff said. I've also been informed that they are doing a 50%-off all Magic singles sale now. I would expect the FNM attendance for Gamer's Haven to go up many-fold, so be prepared for the surge :) As for YGO, Gamer's Haven is doing Advanced for Sunday and Monday, and Traditional/Advanced-weekly switchoff on Tuesday. Between Haven, both Uncle's locations, and Northtown, that's a lot of YGO lol.

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