I haven't blogged in quite a while, partly due to being busy but mostly due to it being the end of the format. At this point I don't have any tier 1 deck to run so I've just been waiting it out and having patience for the next ban list. The only tourney I make it to anymore is Tuesdays at Gamer's Haven, but I'd like to start going to Sunday Northtown since apparently a lot of people go there now. I built Darkworld but don't really like it so I've moved on to something else which I haven't played in a real match yet.
Unfortunately I haven't hopped on to the Goat Control bandwagon even though it does seem like a lot of fun. I wish our Tuesday "Mayhem"/pseudo-traditional tourney would be Goat format but I think it'd be confusing to explain to most people that went there. Everyone should be going hard for Advanced anyway once we get the list in like 3-4 weeks since the Seattle YCS is getting closer. I've been working on the next ban list for the Mayhem tourney and it was my goal to make "rotated-out" decks like Blackwings, Agents, and Plants to be able to be played again, and get rid of the "too broken even for Traditional" cards, so hopefully people enjoy the upcoming list. Just gotta run it by Danny, see what happens on the real list, and it should be good to go.
I think it's pretty sad that Advanced is so bad that a lot of people have been playing these "other" formats like this, to be honest I have more fun playing in the Mayhem tourney than Advanced even though there are a greater number of broken cards. It all seems to even out somehow so you can still come back from the usual broke plays you'd see in Advanced.
Other than that, Advanced YGO seems pretty much at a stand-still; not much to talk about besides product news that may come about and of course the ban list when it arrives. I've seen a lot of prediction videos on Youtube, and it's nice to see all the similar thought processes with the ones that I had in my banlist post. It's fairly easy to see what the problematic cards are in the game, hopefully Konami touches at least half of them for the overall betterment of the game.
Monday, July 23, 2012
Friday, July 13, 2012
One-Year Rule, No More?
With Comic-Con happening this week, it has been a helluva week for YGO product news, which I'm sure everyone is aware of by now. Although the official product page hasn't been updated to include all of this, enough pictures have surfaced which clearly show what upcoming products we have in store and content details. The various images/videos can be found by looking around Pojo, DGz, and Youtube.
- Wave 1 Collectors tins -
Evolzar Dolkka tin:
- Evolzar Dolkka
- Wind-Up Zenmaines
- Dark Highlander
- Scrap Dragon
- Genex Neutron
Excalibur tin:
- Excalibur
- Zenmaines
- Blizzard Princess
- Wind-Up Rabbit
- Evolzar Laggia
- Wave 2 Collectors tins -
Heliopolis tin
Hanzo tin
No promos known for either tin
- Legendary Collection 3 -
Notables: Secret versions of many staple cards, Ultras of many GK cards, Ultra Morphing Jar and Decree, common Chain Disappearance, Solemn Warning, Gold Sarc, and Soul Taker. Each box comes with a Seal of Orichalcos, Five-Headed, and a Gorz token among other things.
- Return of the Duelist SE -
Promos still unknown
- Abyss Rising SE -
Promos still unknown
So looks like we *finally* got the Scrap Dragon reprint that people have been waiting for for several years now. Too bad not many decks would run it these days anyways, so it's kinda late to the party. Besides that, it looks like basically everything good from PHSW is getting reprinted besides Rescue Rabbit, which kinda makes it redundant to put PHSW packs in the tins themselves. Abyss Rising having a Special Edition is an unexpected surprise since it breaks the traditional "every other set there's an SE" model. I've always liked Special Editions though so I'm pretty happy about this one.
There has been a lot of discussion in the forums about Konami's business model of releasing broken must-have-to-compete Secret rares and then reprinting them a year later, or earlier in some cases (like with these PHSW cards). The "general rule" of the "one-year rule" seems to have basically been thrown out the window, with PHSW coming out in November of 2011 and these tins coming out in August, for about 9 months total. One can bring up the old examples of Battle Fader and Drill Warrior getting quick reprints, but to my knowledge both were anime cards so they had "justification" to reprint those earlier than expected. Surely cards like Dolkka, Wind-Up Rabbit, and Zenmaines, all exclusives, aren't in the anime though. Maybe they are, I wouldn't know though since I haven't watched the show since the very early part of GX.
As a competitive or even semi-competitive player, what are we to do? It's not feasible to play the waiting game and be left in the dust by not running the broken Secret rare cards that Konami releases. If you do, you're basically at a huge disadvantage for the majority of the format. This makes it tough for the casual/budget players. And if we do invest to obtain them, we are always at potential risk of it getting reprinted in something and losing value of what we had to put in. It has basically gotten to the point of asking yourself "will I be OK with investing in this if it gets reprinted in 6 months?" It is an unfortunate Catch-22 but one that surely makes Konami a lot of money. They wouldn't do it if it didn't. After seeing that Wind-Up Rabbit was getting reprinted, I listed my deck on eBay a few days later. I made up my mind that for the rest of the format I'd just run something cheap and chances are wouldn't get hit. Even if it did, it wouldn't really hurt in terms of value anyway.
Between reprints and the ban list, you basically have to sell everything off or risk taking a big hit if you have various expensive cards. I've always made it a point to minimize the hits I take, so I suppose I have to play by Konami's rules around this time of the format.
- Wave 1 Collectors tins -
Evolzar Dolkka tin:
- Evolzar Dolkka
- Wind-Up Zenmaines
- Dark Highlander
- Scrap Dragon
- Genex Neutron
Excalibur tin:
- Excalibur
- Zenmaines
- Blizzard Princess
- Wind-Up Rabbit
- Evolzar Laggia
- Wave 2 Collectors tins -
Heliopolis tin
Hanzo tin
No promos known for either tin
- Legendary Collection 3 -
Notables: Secret versions of many staple cards, Ultras of many GK cards, Ultra Morphing Jar and Decree, common Chain Disappearance, Solemn Warning, Gold Sarc, and Soul Taker. Each box comes with a Seal of Orichalcos, Five-Headed, and a Gorz token among other things.
- Return of the Duelist SE -
Promos still unknown
- Abyss Rising SE -
Promos still unknown
So looks like we *finally* got the Scrap Dragon reprint that people have been waiting for for several years now. Too bad not many decks would run it these days anyways, so it's kinda late to the party. Besides that, it looks like basically everything good from PHSW is getting reprinted besides Rescue Rabbit, which kinda makes it redundant to put PHSW packs in the tins themselves. Abyss Rising having a Special Edition is an unexpected surprise since it breaks the traditional "every other set there's an SE" model. I've always liked Special Editions though so I'm pretty happy about this one.
There has been a lot of discussion in the forums about Konami's business model of releasing broken must-have-to-compete Secret rares and then reprinting them a year later, or earlier in some cases (like with these PHSW cards). The "general rule" of the "one-year rule" seems to have basically been thrown out the window, with PHSW coming out in November of 2011 and these tins coming out in August, for about 9 months total. One can bring up the old examples of Battle Fader and Drill Warrior getting quick reprints, but to my knowledge both were anime cards so they had "justification" to reprint those earlier than expected. Surely cards like Dolkka, Wind-Up Rabbit, and Zenmaines, all exclusives, aren't in the anime though. Maybe they are, I wouldn't know though since I haven't watched the show since the very early part of GX.
As a competitive or even semi-competitive player, what are we to do? It's not feasible to play the waiting game and be left in the dust by not running the broken Secret rare cards that Konami releases. If you do, you're basically at a huge disadvantage for the majority of the format. This makes it tough for the casual/budget players. And if we do invest to obtain them, we are always at potential risk of it getting reprinted in something and losing value of what we had to put in. It has basically gotten to the point of asking yourself "will I be OK with investing in this if it gets reprinted in 6 months?" It is an unfortunate Catch-22 but one that surely makes Konami a lot of money. They wouldn't do it if it didn't. After seeing that Wind-Up Rabbit was getting reprinted, I listed my deck on eBay a few days later. I made up my mind that for the rest of the format I'd just run something cheap and chances are wouldn't get hit. Even if it did, it wouldn't really hurt in terms of value anyway.
Between reprints and the ban list, you basically have to sell everything off or risk taking a big hit if you have various expensive cards. I've always made it a point to minimize the hits I take, so I suppose I have to play by Konami's rules around this time of the format.
Saturday, July 7, 2012
The September Banlist - Hopes & Expectations
As we all know, this format is one of the craziest (worst, to some people) ones we have ever had in the game. Virtually every high-tier deck has some kind of OTK spamming potential, or can eliminate an opponent's hand if they don't open with a handtrap. Each of these decks has some kind of element that can be viewed as "unfair". Any deck without this factor is generally lower tier. Now usually I don't do these kinds of things, where I'm going to list what I think should be on the ban list and my explanations for things. This is a mixture of predictions and my "wishful expectations". I can't say I could come up with a "good" list if my life depended on it, but it's clear what the problems are with our current format, and by making the appropriate adjustments, we may have a decent format for at least like the first half of it. Regardless of what the list is, people will always have something to bitch about it. I took inspiration in putting actual thought into making this after watching GreatFailsMontana's video talking about the ban list, and how there basically needs to be a mass ban of all decks to bring some order back into this game.
Note, there may be some unconventional cards/strategies that I overlook when suggesting these changes, as I'm not a card database, which would null and void the particular change. I'm not trying to suggest retarded changes that would break the game, so excuse me if I suggest something that would.
Ban:
BLS - I don't care what anyone says. Regardless of how many Veilers, Bottomless, or Torrential may exist in the game, BLS is BLS. The king of easily-summonable boss monsters. The summoning condition is a joke, and his effects and stats are simply too powerful.
Wind-Up Hunter - Generally decks that can wipe out an opponent's hand don't last long, and this is the one card that makes Wind-Ups over the top.
Card Destruction - While it really only gets played in Dark World, this is the one card that makes the deck unfair in my opinion. Originally designed as a card with a "drawback" (the -1 you take), can easily turn into ridiculous advantage in Dark World. The deck would still be completely playable without it.
Future Fusion - This is the legal version of Painful Choice for Dragons; any form of Painful Choice should not exist in Advanced. If something like Five-Headed was banned instead, I still think Future Fusion is the type of card that can be easily exploited in some kind of deck at some point in time anyway.
Gateway of the Six - Even without this card, Samurai can easily "go off". With this card though, they do so just way too easily. The one card that makes the deck unfair, but still good without it.
Monster Reborn - When you compare this to the other recursion cards we have, this one takes the cake. No drawback, no cost, no setup (compared to Call), no restrictions on whose graveyard. This card outright wins games in a lot of occasions and I think it's time for it to go.
Pot of Avarice - Back in the day, it's restriction on putting back 5 monsters was seen as a bad thing. In decks today, getting to re-use extremely powerful monsters isn't a bad thing at all, with a free +1 on top of it. Too good.
Restricted:
Inzektor Dragonfly - This is the card that makes Inzektors ridiculous. Getting to easily summon 2 monsters from the deck, which are going to net even more card advantage, and potentially for the OTK, is unfair. Leaving this at 1 still makes the deck playable, just not so ridiculous to the point where "topdeck Dragonfly for game" would be a regular occurrence.
REDMD - This is sort of a dual-purpose hit. One, is to settle down Dragons a bit, and the second is "preventative maintenance" for the card that is Gustaph Max. One Red-Eyes is fair I think, especially with banning Future Fusion. If you can get rid of the 1 REDMD, that makes Pulsar much less scary.
Rescue Rabbit/Evolzar Laggia - I'm not sure which deserves the hit more, but realistically it should be Rabbit. Rabbit is a 1-card Laggia, while other decks like Evols have to "work" for their Laggia. I think Evol is a fair deck, while I don't think the concept of Rabbit into Laggia is. Even Konami admitted that they knew it was powerful before it was even released.
Super Polymerization - Like the REDMD case, this is also preventative maintenance for when Escuridao gets released to us. A lot of Hero players would love to maindeck this card, but the lack of Escuridao makes it a potentially dead card. A card that is unstoppable, and takes your opponent's monster and turn it into a beater of your own, is kinda crazy, regardless of the cost. The purpose of hitting it to 1 is to reduce the probability of it being drawn. Heroes in general aren't broken, but any card that doesn't give the opponent a chance to respond to at all is pretty dang good.
Tour Guide - When you take into consideration Konami's article about how they don't like auto-include splash cards (which is how they explained nerfing the Plant engine), the Tour Guide engine takes the cake. Almost any deck you make these days starts out with 3 Tour Guide 1 Sangan without thought. Konami has made their money off the card in Battle Pack, so I think this would be a realistic hit. Obviously it being a TCG exclusive doesn't even matter, as we saw with Tengu.
Semi-Limited:
Gemini Spark/Miracle Fusion - Neither card is too broken per se, but if people flock to Heroes due to the list, they should have some aspect be hit.
I can't really think of anything more that deserves to be put down to 2 this time around, but a few that can go back up, to 2.
TG Striker - Coupled with the below card.
Agent Earth - Clearly putting both of these cards to 1 basically made them stop being played. Whether it's just TGs, just Agents, or TG Agent, none of those have been making an impact in the meta and I don't think either going to 2 would make either deck over the top.
Formula Synchron - There are basically no 1-star Tuners left to be abused, who knows it could probably go back to 3 with Fishborg, Bulb, and Spore all banned.
Black Whirlwind - Time to give Blackwings something back. Leaving Kalut at 1 makes this card fair in my opinion, and even with BWW at 2 I don't think the deck would see much play. It just makes it so the deck still has a tool after a single MST.
Final Countdown - I think putting this at 2 is enough for the deck to not get played, simply because it lowers the probability so much of drawing it turn 1. It doesn't need to be straight-up banned, but I think it going to 2 would make players more hesitant in running the deck at all.
Scapegoat - Why is this even at 1? There's no Morph, you can't XYZ with tokens, and you can't use them to tribute. Buys you a few turns, you can Synchro with them, cool with Creature Swap, sure, but so what. Goat is actually one of those cards that punishes Swap just as much as it helps it.
Clean-Up:
I don't think these cards going back to 3 would make the game ridiculous. Changes in the list also can warrant these being taken off.
Archlord Kristya - Even when Agents were played, 3 Kristya was never ran anyway.
Lonefire Blossom - Spore and Bulb are banned. With Avarice banned, what would Lonefire into Lonefire into Lonefire get you? A Tytannial or Dandy? So what. Sure you get some deck-thinning, but no Avarice makes it kinda pointless in my opinion.
Emergency Teleport - For the most part, this card flopped at 2. With Hunter banned, I doubt 3 would be ran in anything anyway.
Magical Stone Excavation - Does any deck exist that runs 2? Would any deck exist that ran 3? Probly not.
Primal Seed - Even with BLS in the format, no one runs this crap. With BLS banned, there's no reason for this to still be.
Swords of Revealing Light - Messenger of Peace and LLAB are much better cards, and I can't recall seeing any deck play 2. It'd probably be the same if it was at 3.
Mind Crush - Not ran at 2, can't see it ran at 3.
Note, there may be some unconventional cards/strategies that I overlook when suggesting these changes, as I'm not a card database, which would null and void the particular change. I'm not trying to suggest retarded changes that would break the game, so excuse me if I suggest something that would.
Ban:
BLS - I don't care what anyone says. Regardless of how many Veilers, Bottomless, or Torrential may exist in the game, BLS is BLS. The king of easily-summonable boss monsters. The summoning condition is a joke, and his effects and stats are simply too powerful.
Wind-Up Hunter - Generally decks that can wipe out an opponent's hand don't last long, and this is the one card that makes Wind-Ups over the top.
Card Destruction - While it really only gets played in Dark World, this is the one card that makes the deck unfair in my opinion. Originally designed as a card with a "drawback" (the -1 you take), can easily turn into ridiculous advantage in Dark World. The deck would still be completely playable without it.
Future Fusion - This is the legal version of Painful Choice for Dragons; any form of Painful Choice should not exist in Advanced. If something like Five-Headed was banned instead, I still think Future Fusion is the type of card that can be easily exploited in some kind of deck at some point in time anyway.
Gateway of the Six - Even without this card, Samurai can easily "go off". With this card though, they do so just way too easily. The one card that makes the deck unfair, but still good without it.
Monster Reborn - When you compare this to the other recursion cards we have, this one takes the cake. No drawback, no cost, no setup (compared to Call), no restrictions on whose graveyard. This card outright wins games in a lot of occasions and I think it's time for it to go.
Pot of Avarice - Back in the day, it's restriction on putting back 5 monsters was seen as a bad thing. In decks today, getting to re-use extremely powerful monsters isn't a bad thing at all, with a free +1 on top of it. Too good.
Restricted:
Inzektor Dragonfly - This is the card that makes Inzektors ridiculous. Getting to easily summon 2 monsters from the deck, which are going to net even more card advantage, and potentially for the OTK, is unfair. Leaving this at 1 still makes the deck playable, just not so ridiculous to the point where "topdeck Dragonfly for game" would be a regular occurrence.
REDMD - This is sort of a dual-purpose hit. One, is to settle down Dragons a bit, and the second is "preventative maintenance" for the card that is Gustaph Max. One Red-Eyes is fair I think, especially with banning Future Fusion. If you can get rid of the 1 REDMD, that makes Pulsar much less scary.
Rescue Rabbit/Evolzar Laggia - I'm not sure which deserves the hit more, but realistically it should be Rabbit. Rabbit is a 1-card Laggia, while other decks like Evols have to "work" for their Laggia. I think Evol is a fair deck, while I don't think the concept of Rabbit into Laggia is. Even Konami admitted that they knew it was powerful before it was even released.
Super Polymerization - Like the REDMD case, this is also preventative maintenance for when Escuridao gets released to us. A lot of Hero players would love to maindeck this card, but the lack of Escuridao makes it a potentially dead card. A card that is unstoppable, and takes your opponent's monster and turn it into a beater of your own, is kinda crazy, regardless of the cost. The purpose of hitting it to 1 is to reduce the probability of it being drawn. Heroes in general aren't broken, but any card that doesn't give the opponent a chance to respond to at all is pretty dang good.
Tour Guide - When you take into consideration Konami's article about how they don't like auto-include splash cards (which is how they explained nerfing the Plant engine), the Tour Guide engine takes the cake. Almost any deck you make these days starts out with 3 Tour Guide 1 Sangan without thought. Konami has made their money off the card in Battle Pack, so I think this would be a realistic hit. Obviously it being a TCG exclusive doesn't even matter, as we saw with Tengu.
Semi-Limited:
Gemini Spark/Miracle Fusion - Neither card is too broken per se, but if people flock to Heroes due to the list, they should have some aspect be hit.
I can't really think of anything more that deserves to be put down to 2 this time around, but a few that can go back up, to 2.
TG Striker - Coupled with the below card.
Agent Earth - Clearly putting both of these cards to 1 basically made them stop being played. Whether it's just TGs, just Agents, or TG Agent, none of those have been making an impact in the meta and I don't think either going to 2 would make either deck over the top.
Formula Synchron - There are basically no 1-star Tuners left to be abused, who knows it could probably go back to 3 with Fishborg, Bulb, and Spore all banned.
Black Whirlwind - Time to give Blackwings something back. Leaving Kalut at 1 makes this card fair in my opinion, and even with BWW at 2 I don't think the deck would see much play. It just makes it so the deck still has a tool after a single MST.
Final Countdown - I think putting this at 2 is enough for the deck to not get played, simply because it lowers the probability so much of drawing it turn 1. It doesn't need to be straight-up banned, but I think it going to 2 would make players more hesitant in running the deck at all.
Scapegoat - Why is this even at 1? There's no Morph, you can't XYZ with tokens, and you can't use them to tribute. Buys you a few turns, you can Synchro with them, cool with Creature Swap, sure, but so what. Goat is actually one of those cards that punishes Swap just as much as it helps it.
Clean-Up:
I don't think these cards going back to 3 would make the game ridiculous. Changes in the list also can warrant these being taken off.
Archlord Kristya - Even when Agents were played, 3 Kristya was never ran anyway.
Lonefire Blossom - Spore and Bulb are banned. With Avarice banned, what would Lonefire into Lonefire into Lonefire get you? A Tytannial or Dandy? So what. Sure you get some deck-thinning, but no Avarice makes it kinda pointless in my opinion.
Emergency Teleport - For the most part, this card flopped at 2. With Hunter banned, I doubt 3 would be ran in anything anyway.
Magical Stone Excavation - Does any deck exist that runs 2? Would any deck exist that ran 3? Probly not.
Primal Seed - Even with BLS in the format, no one runs this crap. With BLS banned, there's no reason for this to still be.
Swords of Revealing Light - Messenger of Peace and LLAB are much better cards, and I can't recall seeing any deck play 2. It'd probably be the same if it was at 3.
Mind Crush - Not ran at 2, can't see it ran at 3.
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
Box Tourney Recap + Ban List Hopes
So Sunday was our monthly box tourney at Gamer's Haven, where attendance was much lower than anticipated. Even with it given a week extension and a lot of word-of-mouth, for what ever reason, not a lot of people showed up. At one point I was sitting next to Danny and he was just like "it's the team, Jo's crew, Paul and Roy, and that's basically it." Mike H and Seto were also there, but considering the number of people that do play the game around here, that's pretty bad. Like I said, I'm not sure on the exact reasons, but it has to be one of or some combination of: price of the entry, day of the week, lack of interest in Battle Pack, or fear of competition. Now when it comes to the entry fee, at $10, that's not too bad considering Uncle's charges $15 and they've had similar turnouts, if not better, when you consider that Jo's crew doesn't show up for those. Sunday has never been a problem for most people in the past, so not sure why it would now. I know some people have work on Sundays, that's just something that happens. I try to come up with an excuse by saying "4th of July", but it just seems too early for most people to be heading off for vacations and whatnot. Battle Pack, which was the prizing for the event, has become pretty saturated since a lot of people have bought/acquired a lot of it. Perhaps they didn't want to play in a tourney where that was the prizing since they've acquired so much of it. Hopefully our next box tourney will be for Return of the Duelist, which will be brand new and hopefully people get excited for the set. And last but not least, unfortunately, I still feel that a lot of people don't come because they are scared of doing poorly and investing $10 into it at the same time. I've already talked about the importance of playing in more-competitive tourneys and how to improve many times before, so I'm not going to beat the dead horse anymore about it.
As for the tourney, I decided to give Inzektors another run after not having played it for a month, and changed my list in an effort to deal with Chaos Dragons better (ie maining 2 Reaper and dropping Veiler to 1). I unfortunately wasn't at the comfort level I wanted to be at with Wind-Ups so I made up my mind about a week ago that I'd run Inzektors for it. Since the deck isn't really ran around here anymore, I was also hoping that people had less hate for it in the side and fewer Veilers were being maindecked.
What I thought would happen: I'd make a glorious comeback with Inzektors and tear it up like I used to with the deck.
What actually happened: The deck pretty much pooped on me in all different forms, and then I got derped on by the others I faced. I experienced: all monster hands (only had 18 main), never drawing a Centipede/Dragonfly, Sabersaurus + 5 backrow one of which being Macro with me not having removal, and Chaos Dragon derp in general. In the Macro scenario, when I tried to run over by equipping Mantis, I got Compulse'd. Vampire fuck up my evening.
I saw similar BS happen to other people all day, where skilled players lost out to outright bad players simply because of opening hands and draws. It made me really disgusted at what the format had degenerated into, and the thought of 2 more months of this crap is kinda depressing. I know summer formats are bad and all, but holy cow is it just me or does this one just seem exponentially worse? It's also that time of the format where spending a lot of money on any one deck is just a bad idea cuz you never know what will happen with the ban list. My vote has to go to selling the majority of my stuff off and sticking with a deck to ride the format out with, preferably one that is cheap and has the lowest chance of getting hit.
Before Wind-Ups won Nationals, I thought that it would be the deck that fit into this category. It was always good, but the spotlight had moved away from it and it doesn't top a whole lot in the OCG since they don't have a lot of the cards. Now it seems that theoretically any deck has justification for why it should be hit/what aspect of the deck should be hit. In most cases, rightfully so. For example a lot of people think Card Destruction should be banned because it gives Darkworld crazy advantage, even though DW isn't really all that played right now. Should Card Destruction be banned? Yea, I think so. The problem with our current list is that for the most part, it only dealt with the the early part of what we were going through in the previous format. They hit TG Agent and Plants, and everyone was scratching their head thinking "what about Rabbit, Wind-Up, and Inzektor?" Due to the desire to sell product though, it was clear that they didn't want to hit the decks that emerged from the latest couple of sets and they went virtually untouched. I'm hoping they do more than just nerf the hell out of Inzektors and will actually be able to solve some of the problems we've seen this format. I know a lot of people would bitch about it, but I kind of wish that we'd have a ban list every 3 months because the tendency always seems to be we have a good first half, then a shitty second half. This usually occurs with the release of a new set, new broken combos/decks are formed, and they don't get dealt with until 3 months later. This seems to be exactly what has happened with this format, I thought overall the first half was good, now it is just terrible. I remember previous formats having similar patterns.
As for the tourney, I decided to give Inzektors another run after not having played it for a month, and changed my list in an effort to deal with Chaos Dragons better (ie maining 2 Reaper and dropping Veiler to 1). I unfortunately wasn't at the comfort level I wanted to be at with Wind-Ups so I made up my mind about a week ago that I'd run Inzektors for it. Since the deck isn't really ran around here anymore, I was also hoping that people had less hate for it in the side and fewer Veilers were being maindecked.
What I thought would happen: I'd make a glorious comeback with Inzektors and tear it up like I used to with the deck.
What actually happened: The deck pretty much pooped on me in all different forms, and then I got derped on by the others I faced. I experienced: all monster hands (only had 18 main), never drawing a Centipede/Dragonfly, Sabersaurus + 5 backrow one of which being Macro with me not having removal, and Chaos Dragon derp in general. In the Macro scenario, when I tried to run over by equipping Mantis, I got Compulse'd. Vampire fuck up my evening.
I saw similar BS happen to other people all day, where skilled players lost out to outright bad players simply because of opening hands and draws. It made me really disgusted at what the format had degenerated into, and the thought of 2 more months of this crap is kinda depressing. I know summer formats are bad and all, but holy cow is it just me or does this one just seem exponentially worse? It's also that time of the format where spending a lot of money on any one deck is just a bad idea cuz you never know what will happen with the ban list. My vote has to go to selling the majority of my stuff off and sticking with a deck to ride the format out with, preferably one that is cheap and has the lowest chance of getting hit.
Before Wind-Ups won Nationals, I thought that it would be the deck that fit into this category. It was always good, but the spotlight had moved away from it and it doesn't top a whole lot in the OCG since they don't have a lot of the cards. Now it seems that theoretically any deck has justification for why it should be hit/what aspect of the deck should be hit. In most cases, rightfully so. For example a lot of people think Card Destruction should be banned because it gives Darkworld crazy advantage, even though DW isn't really all that played right now. Should Card Destruction be banned? Yea, I think so. The problem with our current list is that for the most part, it only dealt with the the early part of what we were going through in the previous format. They hit TG Agent and Plants, and everyone was scratching their head thinking "what about Rabbit, Wind-Up, and Inzektor?" Due to the desire to sell product though, it was clear that they didn't want to hit the decks that emerged from the latest couple of sets and they went virtually untouched. I'm hoping they do more than just nerf the hell out of Inzektors and will actually be able to solve some of the problems we've seen this format. I know a lot of people would bitch about it, but I kind of wish that we'd have a ban list every 3 months because the tendency always seems to be we have a good first half, then a shitty second half. This usually occurs with the release of a new set, new broken combos/decks are formed, and they don't get dealt with until 3 months later. This seems to be exactly what has happened with this format, I thought overall the first half was good, now it is just terrible. I remember previous formats having similar patterns.
Friday, June 22, 2012
Playing on the Extreme Budget
After several months of witnessing this phenomenon occur in our area, I've finally decided to write on this. As usual, I don't mean to cause any personal offense in my writings, but I just wanted to bring up the matter, talk about it, and offer solutions.
The subject that I'm talking about is budget. Extreme budget. Now I completely understand that people have bills to pay, kids to feed, the economy is crap, gas is expensive, girlfriends are expensive, and all that kind of life stuff. I have to deal with that too, just like anybody else. But the extent that this conflicts with YGO, in our area, is bewildering. Players may have a deck completely built and good-to-go for a tourney, but when having to pay a mere $3 for entry fee, they "don't have it" and can't play. $3. That's like two 20 oz pops, or two crisp meat burritos from Taco Time on Monday, or a Battle Pack and a half, less than a gallon of gas, or about equal to a gallon of milk. I've always felt that YGO was the most expensive TCG to play in the Advanced/Standard-like format; so you play YGO, but can't afford a $3 entry fee? Doesn't that just seem like an oxymoron?
If you're young, I can somewhat sympathize. When I was in elementary school and throughout junior high, my dad gave me $3 a day for school lunch (I went to private school). What I'd normally do is just spend half, and save the other half during the week or two to buy what I wanted to. When I was in 2nd grade he used to give me a dollar a day to do the dishes, which I did do every day. I never had a separate allowance so if I wanted money, it was always eat less and save, do chores, have birthdays, or get good grades.
Some kids never get any money from their parents though, so what then? And what about the slightly older group that are beyond this means of obtaining money? Well, since you're going to a card shop to play cards, I'm guessing you'd have extra cards which you either don't have much use for or just aren't using. Chances are, like me when I was younger, you went out to the store and bought booster packs at full retail+tax, and pulled absolute janky poop the majority of the time and have a stack of crap commons and rares. A lot of people that go to tournaments are always looking to buy cards, and you know the price of certain cards in the game, so, SELL A CARD! Multiple if you have to - it shouldn't be too hard to accrue $3. You have to take into account that you're not going to get full eBay value for cash from most people these days, so if you're fine with a 10-15% undercut, then chances are your buyer will be happy to help you out. For a cheapy card, you'll probably have to undercut a bit more.
Now I know, you're gonna say "but all I have is stuff that nobody wants. Just these commons and rares." Fortunately, I buy commons - crap commons! My current buyprice for commons is 1.5 cents per, or 2 cents per in trade value. It doesn't matter what common it is, as long as it's in near-mint shape. I know this doesn't sound like a lot, but if you think about it in a larger scale, that's $15 for 1000 commons that you couldn't trade away anyway, which would pay for 5 weeks worth of tournaments. 200 commons for your entry fee right there. I'm not talking about cards like Dark Hole or Book of Moon; stuff like, I dunno, Bounzer Guard (don't even know what this does lol). This is more than what stores like Trollandtoad offer for bulk commons, as well as others in the "points" business where the standard is 1 cent per common, on top of the fact that shipping would eat up half the value anyway. So seriously, if you need money for entry and you "don't got shit", well I'm sure you have commons laying around you wouldn't mind getting rid of. I'd be happy to take 'em. Likewise if you're looking to improve your binder or deck, at 2 cents trade value per common, that's $20 for 1000. Who else do you know in our area that would do that? No one.
Other than that, always remember that structure decks are your friend and buying singles is always the way to go. If you don't have means of ordering singles, ask me. Buying boxes in YGO is unfortunately usually a "minus'ing" endeavor for most, and paying $20 for a sneak peak entry is almost never worth it, unless the promo card is sick (*cough*tengu). Buying loose booster packs from the store is just about the worst thing you can do in the long run. If you're wanting to buy like 3 of a certain structure deck, talk to me about splitting a whole box of one (8 per box), cuz it's easily possible to pick up structures for around $7 each this way, rather than having to pay $10 + tax on each. If you wanted to split one between you and a friend or something, that's fine too; I'm just trying to save y'all some money so this "no money for entry" thing becomes a thing of the past.
The subject that I'm talking about is budget. Extreme budget. Now I completely understand that people have bills to pay, kids to feed, the economy is crap, gas is expensive, girlfriends are expensive, and all that kind of life stuff. I have to deal with that too, just like anybody else. But the extent that this conflicts with YGO, in our area, is bewildering. Players may have a deck completely built and good-to-go for a tourney, but when having to pay a mere $3 for entry fee, they "don't have it" and can't play. $3. That's like two 20 oz pops, or two crisp meat burritos from Taco Time on Monday, or a Battle Pack and a half, less than a gallon of gas, or about equal to a gallon of milk. I've always felt that YGO was the most expensive TCG to play in the Advanced/Standard-like format; so you play YGO, but can't afford a $3 entry fee? Doesn't that just seem like an oxymoron?
If you're young, I can somewhat sympathize. When I was in elementary school and throughout junior high, my dad gave me $3 a day for school lunch (I went to private school). What I'd normally do is just spend half, and save the other half during the week or two to buy what I wanted to. When I was in 2nd grade he used to give me a dollar a day to do the dishes, which I did do every day. I never had a separate allowance so if I wanted money, it was always eat less and save, do chores, have birthdays, or get good grades.
Some kids never get any money from their parents though, so what then? And what about the slightly older group that are beyond this means of obtaining money? Well, since you're going to a card shop to play cards, I'm guessing you'd have extra cards which you either don't have much use for or just aren't using. Chances are, like me when I was younger, you went out to the store and bought booster packs at full retail+tax, and pulled absolute janky poop the majority of the time and have a stack of crap commons and rares. A lot of people that go to tournaments are always looking to buy cards, and you know the price of certain cards in the game, so, SELL A CARD! Multiple if you have to - it shouldn't be too hard to accrue $3. You have to take into account that you're not going to get full eBay value for cash from most people these days, so if you're fine with a 10-15% undercut, then chances are your buyer will be happy to help you out. For a cheapy card, you'll probably have to undercut a bit more.
Now I know, you're gonna say "but all I have is stuff that nobody wants. Just these commons and rares." Fortunately, I buy commons - crap commons! My current buyprice for commons is 1.5 cents per, or 2 cents per in trade value. It doesn't matter what common it is, as long as it's in near-mint shape. I know this doesn't sound like a lot, but if you think about it in a larger scale, that's $15 for 1000 commons that you couldn't trade away anyway, which would pay for 5 weeks worth of tournaments. 200 commons for your entry fee right there. I'm not talking about cards like Dark Hole or Book of Moon; stuff like, I dunno, Bounzer Guard (don't even know what this does lol). This is more than what stores like Trollandtoad offer for bulk commons, as well as others in the "points" business where the standard is 1 cent per common, on top of the fact that shipping would eat up half the value anyway. So seriously, if you need money for entry and you "don't got shit", well I'm sure you have commons laying around you wouldn't mind getting rid of. I'd be happy to take 'em. Likewise if you're looking to improve your binder or deck, at 2 cents trade value per common, that's $20 for 1000. Who else do you know in our area that would do that? No one.
Other than that, always remember that structure decks are your friend and buying singles is always the way to go. If you don't have means of ordering singles, ask me. Buying boxes in YGO is unfortunately usually a "minus'ing" endeavor for most, and paying $20 for a sneak peak entry is almost never worth it, unless the promo card is sick (*cough*tengu). Buying loose booster packs from the store is just about the worst thing you can do in the long run. If you're wanting to buy like 3 of a certain structure deck, talk to me about splitting a whole box of one (8 per box), cuz it's easily possible to pick up structures for around $7 each this way, rather than having to pay $10 + tax on each. If you wanted to split one between you and a friend or something, that's fine too; I'm just trying to save y'all some money so this "no money for entry" thing becomes a thing of the past.
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
What Locals Mean to You, and What You Mean to Locals
This post will serve as a discussion/reflection on the locals for our area. This subject has been on several players' minds for several weeks now, with most discussion happening after the previous regional. Danny gave a great speech at last Tuesday's Gamer's Haven tourney, and I wanted to expand on it and talk about it from my perspective. After thinking about locals in general, there are so many different aspects of it to touch on, but I will do my best to talk about each. While I am personally thinking about our local area in writing this, I'm sure certain aspects may be applicable to all players of all areas.
I'd like to first start by talking about the significance of locals to players. Naturally locals can mean different things to different people, and each stance is equally valid when you think about it. For example, to one person, a local may just be another place where they make money by buying/selling/trading cards. To them, a local is a dime a dozen; as long as they can make money they are happy. If that local shop closed down, who cares, there are a bunch more. And conversely, a local may be as significant as being a "second home" to someone. Maybe they come from an abusive household where all they have to come home to is a drunk parent, and going to the local card shop after school instead is their safe haven to be themselves and do what they enjoy doing. For these people, their world would "crumble" if that shop closed down and have a great sense of loyalty to that local. For a lot of people though, in general, locals are simply where they go to hang out with their friends and partake in some friendly card game competition.
For me personally, I don't have a particular "allegiance" to any one single local. I've promoted every single local in the area at one point in time or another and tried to get people to come play in general, to all our locals. I've put countless miles on my car traveling all over the Spokane area. I always found it very interesting when certain people will be like "I'll only play at this place, screw the other place." I think these people seem to think that if they play at a different local they're doing some kind of "disservice" to their favorite local, which I just can't comprehend at all, especially if tournaments are held on completely different dates. Ever since Danny and I started up the first box tourney at Gamer's Haven, our area tends to do box tournaments quite frequently now. So when there's a particular date where let's say "the other" local has a box tourney and "yours" has a regular tourney, is it considered "abandoning" your local to go to the box tourney at the other place? In a sense, sure, it is. But in the grand scheme of things, what does it matter? Is your local going to go out of business because for that particular date you decided to go elsewhere for a bigger tourney, instead of the regular tourney and paying your $5 for a Turbo pack and 75 cents for a pop/soda? I highly doubt it. I would think that showing support in the community as a whole would be an act of greater purpose, but that's just me.
While locals can mean different things to players, we can easily talk about the different things that players mean to locals and their staff. To some staff and managers, they know that players are the life blood of their store and serve in any way they can for them and their game, even if they take in less profit in doing so. They're willing to put in 95-100% of entrance fee toward prizing, order what ever product you're in need of, make you feel welcome, etc. To others though, profit is the name of the game and through your wallet is how they play it. Stores like these tend to give out 50-70% of entrance fees toward prizing, significant mark-up of prices on packs, do last-minute changes for entrance fees, or pull shenanigans in general. Staff tends to not give a shit and play computer games in the back while you're standing up front waiting to buy something. I've even heard a story where one manager outright told a customer "if you're not buying anything, please leave." And yet players show up to these locals that have that mindset week in and week out, with fervid loyalty. Why- because it's 10 minutes closer than the other? Your local doesn't give a shit about you and just want you for your money, but you go anyway. OK THAT MAKES SENSE!
I'd like to mention the past box tourney held at Uncle's - entrance fee was $15 as always, and I believe attendance was 16, for a total of $240 worth of entrance fees. Prize support was all Battle Pack, and I believe it was a box for 1st and three-quarters for 2nd, while Shiggs and I ended up splitting 26 packs for 3rd and 4th. 5th got like 5, and 6th ended up getting some but I don't know the exact number of packs. So in terms of pack count, it went 36-24-16-10-5-and maybe 3? So we have 94 packs, or 2.6 boxes of Battle Pack. I personally could've ordered boxes of Battle Pack for $45, I'm sure the store less, but we'll say $45. Multiply 45 by 2.6 and you get 117. That comes out to about 48% of entrance fee going toward prizing. At full retail price at $2 a pack, that'd come out to 72 x 2.6 to equal 187.2, about 78% of the entrance fee total. Either way you look at it, talk about holding a tourney for profit. On top of this, Uncle's was supposed to hold a Sealed tourney on Thursday but ended up just doing a regular tourney because no one wanted to shell out $20 to play in that. When the idea of having a box tourney with a $10 entry was suggested, the best they could do with a 10-player attendance was to have 1st get a box and offer no other prizing. Now I know a box of GAOV don't cost no $100, more like $60 - get the fuck outta here.
What players in our area need to realize is for true growth to occur, both from a skill-level point of view and player attendance, there has to be unification. Let's say Timmy goes to Northtown, which is, I'm sorry, very notorious for being full of bad players. How much will he improve by playing the same fellow bad players week after week? Probably not very much. Likewise if he just gets stomped by that one "good" person that is only out for himself, where giving advice is against all of his best interests. That "good" player is also going to have a heightened sense of "being good" since he's won his locals for 2 months in a row. He's the top dog, so why shouldn't he? Well, what happens when that guy goes to a regional? Probably drop after the 3rd or 4th round and says "screw going to regionals" and never goes again. All he's done is play bad players and thus doesn't actually improve his game. No growth in terms of skill occurs in this situation among all parties. Having the majority of the playerbase play in one location, where you have a good representation of good players willing to help, and bad players just starting out or not really understanding the underlying fundamentals of gameplay, is important. It would bring a much-needed sense of community to this game for our area.
While I did say I don't have an allegiance to any one single shop, and hey I just went to Uncle's on Monday just to turn around and go back to Haven due to lack of people, I truly believe that players in the area should put in their best effort to make it to tourneys at Gamer's Haven for these reasons:
- First and foremost, Bob is a fantastic manager that truly cares for the "community" and always does what he can to provide us with what we need. Since day 1 of walking into the shop I always felt welcome there. He's always tried to make YGO work, unfortunately with our small playerbase and sheer number of places to play and different days of the week, it hasn't always been easy and still isn't.
- Second, is convenience of parking and nearby food. Let's compare this with the Downtown Uncle's tourney, where parking is very limited and the parking meter ninjas are always looking to snipe you down with a ticket. It seems like I have to spend like $5 or 6 just in parking, and if I ever mess up by not running out there after a round to feed the meter since they're only an hour and a half, I risk getting a $15-20 ticket. That ain't worth it. If you take the bus or get dropped off, well lucky for you. There's also nowhere to get food nearby that I know of, so you're SOL besides soda/pop. Gamer's Haven has a Subway basically next door and a 7-11 just a short walk away, and ample free parking so that it's basically not an issue at all.
- I don't know about you, but space (and the lack thereof) has always driven me crazy with cardshops. Downtown Uncle's is so crammed that having a 10+ man tourney just feels difficult. Everyone that's been to Gamer's Haven before knows it's basically a castle with the CCG room and the large Warhammer room downstairs (when we're lucky enough to be able to play in it).
- Not trying to sound incredibly lazy, but how inconvenient is it that you have a 5 minute walk just to use the bathroom at a Valley Uncle's or Northtown tournament? To me, a lot! Haven has 2 bathrooms which I have very rarely had to stand in line for. If worse comes to worst you could always run to Subway or 7-11 which are both closer than walking to the bathroom at the mall tourneys lol.
- Prize support is always fair and basically maxxed out. No one expects a store to go minus due to prize support (which is what happened to T&M), but going 50-75% like Uncle's is ridiculous. Bob has always said that entrance fee is never intended to be part of profits and it has shown in every tourney I have played in there. It's unfortunate that YGO players generally don't "buy product", but like I've mentioned before, it's just that the product is just too bad.
- The hope of a Spokane regionals. Being the only place in the area that could hold the potential number of people for a regional, this one is my personal biggest reason. Unfortunately I think 70% of the playerbase in the area actually doesn't give a shit about having a regional here or not. Sure, one could just say "why don't you just run it anyway? People will come" but there's no guarantee of that and the last thing I'd want is a bloated amount of product ordered for the event and compensation for judge staff, just for there to be only 50 people to show up because the local support/interest isn't there. Simply playing in a regional has made me a better player each time I've played, regardless of how well or bad I did and I know that's how it is for everyone else that makes it to one too. Players around here just don't get that, and sit and wonder how to get better or why they're always losing. It's the lack of experience in high-level play. How convenient would it be to be able to have access to this in your own neighborhood as opposed to having to travel all the way to the other side of the state, which most players don't have the means of doing so in the first place? Our goal as duelists should be to always get better and never settle for "oh well, whatever." I watched a match at Uncle's once where one guy made huge misplays like 2 or 3 turns in a row to cost him the match, and when he got called out on it he was just like "oh well, nothing I could've done, whateverrr, it's just a game" and just shrugs it off but you can tell he's embarrased. This is exactly what people should NOT be doing, and instead be able to realize their mistake, take it in, and make sure you don't just repeat it in the next match.
For those in the area, I'd like it if you took a moment to reflect on what your locals means to you, what you think you mean to it, and what you want out of the game/what you hope to accomplish. Don't ever feel that you "owe" it to your locals to vehemently and loyally show up to theirs and only their tournaments. Don't feel that you need to buy their entire inventory if they're closing down, especially if you can't afford it. If they're going to throw out statements like "if you go to that tourney you're banned from here" or "if you don't like it, you can just leave and play somewhere else" bullshit, well that should be painfully obvious how much you really mean to them and how much they respect you. Don't settle for "good enough", because having that attitude toward the game and life in general will only get you so far. Make small realistic goals for yourself and do what you can to achieve them. There is a ton of support from all of the players at Gamer's Haven to help you do this, moreso than any other local in the area. Take these things into mind when you think to yourself "I wonder which store I should go to today?"
I'd like to first start by talking about the significance of locals to players. Naturally locals can mean different things to different people, and each stance is equally valid when you think about it. For example, to one person, a local may just be another place where they make money by buying/selling/trading cards. To them, a local is a dime a dozen; as long as they can make money they are happy. If that local shop closed down, who cares, there are a bunch more. And conversely, a local may be as significant as being a "second home" to someone. Maybe they come from an abusive household where all they have to come home to is a drunk parent, and going to the local card shop after school instead is their safe haven to be themselves and do what they enjoy doing. For these people, their world would "crumble" if that shop closed down and have a great sense of loyalty to that local. For a lot of people though, in general, locals are simply where they go to hang out with their friends and partake in some friendly card game competition.
For me personally, I don't have a particular "allegiance" to any one single local. I've promoted every single local in the area at one point in time or another and tried to get people to come play in general, to all our locals. I've put countless miles on my car traveling all over the Spokane area. I always found it very interesting when certain people will be like "I'll only play at this place, screw the other place." I think these people seem to think that if they play at a different local they're doing some kind of "disservice" to their favorite local, which I just can't comprehend at all, especially if tournaments are held on completely different dates. Ever since Danny and I started up the first box tourney at Gamer's Haven, our area tends to do box tournaments quite frequently now. So when there's a particular date where let's say "the other" local has a box tourney and "yours" has a regular tourney, is it considered "abandoning" your local to go to the box tourney at the other place? In a sense, sure, it is. But in the grand scheme of things, what does it matter? Is your local going to go out of business because for that particular date you decided to go elsewhere for a bigger tourney, instead of the regular tourney and paying your $5 for a Turbo pack and 75 cents for a pop/soda? I highly doubt it. I would think that showing support in the community as a whole would be an act of greater purpose, but that's just me.
While locals can mean different things to players, we can easily talk about the different things that players mean to locals and their staff. To some staff and managers, they know that players are the life blood of their store and serve in any way they can for them and their game, even if they take in less profit in doing so. They're willing to put in 95-100% of entrance fee toward prizing, order what ever product you're in need of, make you feel welcome, etc. To others though, profit is the name of the game and through your wallet is how they play it. Stores like these tend to give out 50-70% of entrance fees toward prizing, significant mark-up of prices on packs, do last-minute changes for entrance fees, or pull shenanigans in general. Staff tends to not give a shit and play computer games in the back while you're standing up front waiting to buy something. I've even heard a story where one manager outright told a customer "if you're not buying anything, please leave." And yet players show up to these locals that have that mindset week in and week out, with fervid loyalty. Why- because it's 10 minutes closer than the other? Your local doesn't give a shit about you and just want you for your money, but you go anyway. OK THAT MAKES SENSE!
I'd like to mention the past box tourney held at Uncle's - entrance fee was $15 as always, and I believe attendance was 16, for a total of $240 worth of entrance fees. Prize support was all Battle Pack, and I believe it was a box for 1st and three-quarters for 2nd, while Shiggs and I ended up splitting 26 packs for 3rd and 4th. 5th got like 5, and 6th ended up getting some but I don't know the exact number of packs. So in terms of pack count, it went 36-24-16-10-5-and maybe 3? So we have 94 packs, or 2.6 boxes of Battle Pack. I personally could've ordered boxes of Battle Pack for $45, I'm sure the store less, but we'll say $45. Multiply 45 by 2.6 and you get 117. That comes out to about 48% of entrance fee going toward prizing. At full retail price at $2 a pack, that'd come out to 72 x 2.6 to equal 187.2, about 78% of the entrance fee total. Either way you look at it, talk about holding a tourney for profit. On top of this, Uncle's was supposed to hold a Sealed tourney on Thursday but ended up just doing a regular tourney because no one wanted to shell out $20 to play in that. When the idea of having a box tourney with a $10 entry was suggested, the best they could do with a 10-player attendance was to have 1st get a box and offer no other prizing. Now I know a box of GAOV don't cost no $100, more like $60 - get the fuck outta here.
What players in our area need to realize is for true growth to occur, both from a skill-level point of view and player attendance, there has to be unification. Let's say Timmy goes to Northtown, which is, I'm sorry, very notorious for being full of bad players. How much will he improve by playing the same fellow bad players week after week? Probably not very much. Likewise if he just gets stomped by that one "good" person that is only out for himself, where giving advice is against all of his best interests. That "good" player is also going to have a heightened sense of "being good" since he's won his locals for 2 months in a row. He's the top dog, so why shouldn't he? Well, what happens when that guy goes to a regional? Probably drop after the 3rd or 4th round and says "screw going to regionals" and never goes again. All he's done is play bad players and thus doesn't actually improve his game. No growth in terms of skill occurs in this situation among all parties. Having the majority of the playerbase play in one location, where you have a good representation of good players willing to help, and bad players just starting out or not really understanding the underlying fundamentals of gameplay, is important. It would bring a much-needed sense of community to this game for our area.
While I did say I don't have an allegiance to any one single shop, and hey I just went to Uncle's on Monday just to turn around and go back to Haven due to lack of people, I truly believe that players in the area should put in their best effort to make it to tourneys at Gamer's Haven for these reasons:
- First and foremost, Bob is a fantastic manager that truly cares for the "community" and always does what he can to provide us with what we need. Since day 1 of walking into the shop I always felt welcome there. He's always tried to make YGO work, unfortunately with our small playerbase and sheer number of places to play and different days of the week, it hasn't always been easy and still isn't.
- Second, is convenience of parking and nearby food. Let's compare this with the Downtown Uncle's tourney, where parking is very limited and the parking meter ninjas are always looking to snipe you down with a ticket. It seems like I have to spend like $5 or 6 just in parking, and if I ever mess up by not running out there after a round to feed the meter since they're only an hour and a half, I risk getting a $15-20 ticket. That ain't worth it. If you take the bus or get dropped off, well lucky for you. There's also nowhere to get food nearby that I know of, so you're SOL besides soda/pop. Gamer's Haven has a Subway basically next door and a 7-11 just a short walk away, and ample free parking so that it's basically not an issue at all.
- I don't know about you, but space (and the lack thereof) has always driven me crazy with cardshops. Downtown Uncle's is so crammed that having a 10+ man tourney just feels difficult. Everyone that's been to Gamer's Haven before knows it's basically a castle with the CCG room and the large Warhammer room downstairs (when we're lucky enough to be able to play in it).
- Not trying to sound incredibly lazy, but how inconvenient is it that you have a 5 minute walk just to use the bathroom at a Valley Uncle's or Northtown tournament? To me, a lot! Haven has 2 bathrooms which I have very rarely had to stand in line for. If worse comes to worst you could always run to Subway or 7-11 which are both closer than walking to the bathroom at the mall tourneys lol.
- Prize support is always fair and basically maxxed out. No one expects a store to go minus due to prize support (which is what happened to T&M), but going 50-75% like Uncle's is ridiculous. Bob has always said that entrance fee is never intended to be part of profits and it has shown in every tourney I have played in there. It's unfortunate that YGO players generally don't "buy product", but like I've mentioned before, it's just that the product is just too bad.
- The hope of a Spokane regionals. Being the only place in the area that could hold the potential number of people for a regional, this one is my personal biggest reason. Unfortunately I think 70% of the playerbase in the area actually doesn't give a shit about having a regional here or not. Sure, one could just say "why don't you just run it anyway? People will come" but there's no guarantee of that and the last thing I'd want is a bloated amount of product ordered for the event and compensation for judge staff, just for there to be only 50 people to show up because the local support/interest isn't there. Simply playing in a regional has made me a better player each time I've played, regardless of how well or bad I did and I know that's how it is for everyone else that makes it to one too. Players around here just don't get that, and sit and wonder how to get better or why they're always losing. It's the lack of experience in high-level play. How convenient would it be to be able to have access to this in your own neighborhood as opposed to having to travel all the way to the other side of the state, which most players don't have the means of doing so in the first place? Our goal as duelists should be to always get better and never settle for "oh well, whatever." I watched a match at Uncle's once where one guy made huge misplays like 2 or 3 turns in a row to cost him the match, and when he got called out on it he was just like "oh well, nothing I could've done, whateverrr, it's just a game" and just shrugs it off but you can tell he's embarrased. This is exactly what people should NOT be doing, and instead be able to realize their mistake, take it in, and make sure you don't just repeat it in the next match.
For those in the area, I'd like it if you took a moment to reflect on what your locals means to you, what you think you mean to it, and what you want out of the game/what you hope to accomplish. Don't ever feel that you "owe" it to your locals to vehemently and loyally show up to theirs and only their tournaments. Don't feel that you need to buy their entire inventory if they're closing down, especially if you can't afford it. If they're going to throw out statements like "if you go to that tourney you're banned from here" or "if you don't like it, you can just leave and play somewhere else" bullshit, well that should be painfully obvious how much you really mean to them and how much they respect you. Don't settle for "good enough", because having that attitude toward the game and life in general will only get you so far. Make small realistic goals for yourself and do what you can to achieve them. There is a ton of support from all of the players at Gamer's Haven to help you do this, moreso than any other local in the area. Take these things into mind when you think to yourself "I wonder which store I should go to today?"
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
The Age-Old Debate: Set Rotation
During locals yesterday, we had an interesting mini-conversation about the age-old Magic vs YGO issue, with the majority of it being about the issue of set rotation. For those unaware, set rotation is when a certain number of sets become unplayable after new sets are introduced. For example in Magic, you'll generally have 2 "blocks" (3 sets per block) and a core set (which comes out every year) that are "Standard" legal. Standard is the equivalent to YGO's Advanced. As a new block is introduced, the oldest block will be "rotated out" so the card pool is ever-changing. Obviously we don't have this in Yugioh, but we do have a banned list that dictates what we run/don't run, moreso than Magic's.
People have very different opinions on set rotation, with some making assumptions about it when they actually don't know all the facts behind it. Many people who haven't played Magic believe that once a card is rotated out, it'll never be used again and it basically becomes garbage. Well this isn't necessarily true on two different accounts: 1) reprints do happen and 2) Magic supports multiple formats.
In terms of reprints in Magic, it's not exactly the same as it is in Yugioh. The purpose of reprints in Magic, generally, is to allow the particular card to be legal for Standard play. In Yugioh it's an issue of accessibility. Almost every Magic set has a reprint of some kind, some of them being simple commons/cheap cards (Naturalize, Oblivion Ring), while others are old Rares that haven't seen play in varying lengths of time. When I saw that Vampire Nocturnis was coming back, I let out an "ohh snap" since I ran Vampires as a cheap deck back then (and yes I did fuck up some evenings). Furthermore Magic has a yearly Core set where you find a lot of reprints of various commons all the way to Mythics. These reprints dictate what will or won't be legal for play, hey sounds a lot like our banned list. Something that a lot of people also don't realize is that you're allowed to play with an older version of a card if it was reprinted in a newer set. For example if you have a Birds of Paradise from Ravnica (a 7 year old set), you don't have to get the newest printing of it from M12 to play it. This makes it so you don't have to keep buying new cards, at least the ones that get reprinted. Yearly reprints such as these also help keep costs of bomb rares down, at least to a certain extent. In general, Magic cards have a shelf life of 2 years for Standard-legal play.
When you look at Yugioh's formats, it basically boils down to Advanced, Traditional, and I suppose Pegasus league. Traditional is basically unsupported on all fronts, and I have yet to see a Pegasus league tournament go down. In general, Advanced is the only truly supported format in Yugioh. When's the last time you've read coverage of a Traditional format YCS? Or a Pegasus league regional? Oh yea, never. Magic, however, has always had multiple formats that are supported on the Grand Prix and Pro Tour (and qualifier) level. You have Standard, Block Constructed, Sealed, Draft, Modern, Legacy, I don't even know what else. Their Sealed and Booster formats have always been popular, and the measure of a pro's skill is never completely dependent on their Standard deck alone. A true pro in Magic has to be capable at these other formats as well, otherwise they have to be choosey with which events to attend or just scrub out. As for using older cards, Magic has a format called Modern (called Extended in my day) which allows for even more blocks (several years' worth) to be legal for play. Who knows, your local may not have tournaments that support this format and all, but they do hold bigger events for these formats, which is a lot more than what Yugioh's doing.
So what are the up-sides and down-sides to set rotation? Naturally, having to buy new cards to be able to play the most popular format, Standard, is probably the biggest down-side. This alone has made me quit Magic several times, because rotation was something that was always on the back of my mind and gave me that sense of "oh no I have to get rid of this card before it goes down in value" all the time. I didn't want to always have that feeling and it's something that one shouldn't just ignore. If you play at one period of time, take an extended break and decide to come back, well chances are 98% of your cards aren't going to be legal besides the basic lands unless your whole deck was made from a Core set. If you want to play in Standard, you'll basically always have to keep obtaining new cards. Compare this to YGO, where I've seen a few instances of people coming back, making a few slight revisions to cater to the list at the time, and at least their deck is legal for play and can enter the tournament.
An up-side to set rotation, in my opinion, is that it keeps the game more fresh and broke cards/combos eventually find their way out. The game will always have color-based decks that will see play like White Weenie, Mono-Red, Red/Green, Blue/Black, Blue/White, etc, so in a sense it may not seem like the game is fresh at all, but it's not like in Yugioh where half to 3/4 of the cards in your deck are just staples that have always been around to some extent or another.
What a lot of people don't understand, is that Yugioh basically does have a form of set rotation that is enforced by new sets coming out and via the banned list. Sure, you can run that Soul Control Monarch deck that you've been playing since 2007, but is that going to be competitive enough to handle all the new cards and mechanics that have come out? In most instances, no. To play the broke decks of today like Dino Rabbit, Inzektor, Chaos Dragon, etc, you need to have the new cards from the newer sets to be considered competitive (even though, yes, Chaos Dragon is cheap). Are any competitive decks that were played 4 years ago competitive today? I can't think of any. What happened to decks like Blackwings, Infernity, and X-Sabers? How many cards from the sets which those decks came from are played now? Present to a certain extent, sure, but between the list and new sets, they're basically phased out. In this way, Yugioh does essentially rotate sets out to where players need new cards to stay competitive. In both games, you basically have to buy new cards to play competitively. The only difference is that in order to play Standard Magic at all, you have to, whereas in Advanced Yugioh you don't necessarily.
When I was younger I used to always wish Yugioh had set rotation, but as I got older it became more obvious to me that we basically already do. I always feel like I'm having to pick up new cards, but thankfully I know my staples are safe for the most part. Sure they may ban random staple X and bring staple Y back, then flip-flop a year later, etc, but it's never like "well all this crap's useless now." That just happens to decks in general, but hey that's just how Konami ensures their cashflow. On the surface it doesn't seem like there is set rotation at all, and a lot of players find solace in that; there's no page on their site that has a list of what sets are currently legal for play, so we basically have "freedom" to run whatever we want. However the power level of new cards, the ban list, and the drive to play competitive decks makes it unattractive to actually "run what we want."
People have very different opinions on set rotation, with some making assumptions about it when they actually don't know all the facts behind it. Many people who haven't played Magic believe that once a card is rotated out, it'll never be used again and it basically becomes garbage. Well this isn't necessarily true on two different accounts: 1) reprints do happen and 2) Magic supports multiple formats.
In terms of reprints in Magic, it's not exactly the same as it is in Yugioh. The purpose of reprints in Magic, generally, is to allow the particular card to be legal for Standard play. In Yugioh it's an issue of accessibility. Almost every Magic set has a reprint of some kind, some of them being simple commons/cheap cards (Naturalize, Oblivion Ring), while others are old Rares that haven't seen play in varying lengths of time. When I saw that Vampire Nocturnis was coming back, I let out an "ohh snap" since I ran Vampires as a cheap deck back then (and yes I did fuck up some evenings). Furthermore Magic has a yearly Core set where you find a lot of reprints of various commons all the way to Mythics. These reprints dictate what will or won't be legal for play, hey sounds a lot like our banned list. Something that a lot of people also don't realize is that you're allowed to play with an older version of a card if it was reprinted in a newer set. For example if you have a Birds of Paradise from Ravnica (a 7 year old set), you don't have to get the newest printing of it from M12 to play it. This makes it so you don't have to keep buying new cards, at least the ones that get reprinted. Yearly reprints such as these also help keep costs of bomb rares down, at least to a certain extent. In general, Magic cards have a shelf life of 2 years for Standard-legal play.
When you look at Yugioh's formats, it basically boils down to Advanced, Traditional, and I suppose Pegasus league. Traditional is basically unsupported on all fronts, and I have yet to see a Pegasus league tournament go down. In general, Advanced is the only truly supported format in Yugioh. When's the last time you've read coverage of a Traditional format YCS? Or a Pegasus league regional? Oh yea, never. Magic, however, has always had multiple formats that are supported on the Grand Prix and Pro Tour (and qualifier) level. You have Standard, Block Constructed, Sealed, Draft, Modern, Legacy, I don't even know what else. Their Sealed and Booster formats have always been popular, and the measure of a pro's skill is never completely dependent on their Standard deck alone. A true pro in Magic has to be capable at these other formats as well, otherwise they have to be choosey with which events to attend or just scrub out. As for using older cards, Magic has a format called Modern (called Extended in my day) which allows for even more blocks (several years' worth) to be legal for play. Who knows, your local may not have tournaments that support this format and all, but they do hold bigger events for these formats, which is a lot more than what Yugioh's doing.
So what are the up-sides and down-sides to set rotation? Naturally, having to buy new cards to be able to play the most popular format, Standard, is probably the biggest down-side. This alone has made me quit Magic several times, because rotation was something that was always on the back of my mind and gave me that sense of "oh no I have to get rid of this card before it goes down in value" all the time. I didn't want to always have that feeling and it's something that one shouldn't just ignore. If you play at one period of time, take an extended break and decide to come back, well chances are 98% of your cards aren't going to be legal besides the basic lands unless your whole deck was made from a Core set. If you want to play in Standard, you'll basically always have to keep obtaining new cards. Compare this to YGO, where I've seen a few instances of people coming back, making a few slight revisions to cater to the list at the time, and at least their deck is legal for play and can enter the tournament.
An up-side to set rotation, in my opinion, is that it keeps the game more fresh and broke cards/combos eventually find their way out. The game will always have color-based decks that will see play like White Weenie, Mono-Red, Red/Green, Blue/Black, Blue/White, etc, so in a sense it may not seem like the game is fresh at all, but it's not like in Yugioh where half to 3/4 of the cards in your deck are just staples that have always been around to some extent or another.
What a lot of people don't understand, is that Yugioh basically does have a form of set rotation that is enforced by new sets coming out and via the banned list. Sure, you can run that Soul Control Monarch deck that you've been playing since 2007, but is that going to be competitive enough to handle all the new cards and mechanics that have come out? In most instances, no. To play the broke decks of today like Dino Rabbit, Inzektor, Chaos Dragon, etc, you need to have the new cards from the newer sets to be considered competitive (even though, yes, Chaos Dragon is cheap). Are any competitive decks that were played 4 years ago competitive today? I can't think of any. What happened to decks like Blackwings, Infernity, and X-Sabers? How many cards from the sets which those decks came from are played now? Present to a certain extent, sure, but between the list and new sets, they're basically phased out. In this way, Yugioh does essentially rotate sets out to where players need new cards to stay competitive. In both games, you basically have to buy new cards to play competitively. The only difference is that in order to play Standard Magic at all, you have to, whereas in Advanced Yugioh you don't necessarily.
When I was younger I used to always wish Yugioh had set rotation, but as I got older it became more obvious to me that we basically already do. I always feel like I'm having to pick up new cards, but thankfully I know my staples are safe for the most part. Sure they may ban random staple X and bring staple Y back, then flip-flop a year later, etc, but it's never like "well all this crap's useless now." That just happens to decks in general, but hey that's just how Konami ensures their cashflow. On the surface it doesn't seem like there is set rotation at all, and a lot of players find solace in that; there's no page on their site that has a list of what sets are currently legal for play, so we basically have "freedom" to run whatever we want. However the power level of new cards, the ban list, and the drive to play competitive decks makes it unattractive to actually "run what we want."
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