toAnother year brings new Yi-Gi-Oh challenges, and with that new cards to add to my lists of top ten cards everyone will abuse like the new cheapest brand of over-the-counter medicine that’s in low stock because of flu season.  We had interesting things happen this year… Monster Reborn is back (I would have never guessed that would happen), Konami continues to push their loli-fetish on us by making the zombie girls staples for top-tier decks, Evenly Matched exists, and Solemn Strike NEVER got hit.  As I make these lists, many people love to point out how A. MST is boss because it negates everything (Jking :P), B.  I missed a mention for a card clearly more boss than the others, or C. My lists are purely subjective because a card might work better in another type of deck than another.  So I’m going to respond here by saying:  A. MST is boss but I don’t care you think it negates everything (still Jking :P.  Grab Twin Twisters kids or go home), B.  I might have missed your card (God, we know you make sweet babies with your Quasar Dragon love pillow at night, but keep it to yourself), but I most likely didn’t because better –ish exists, and C. I’m making this blog post to tell you how I make my lists as objective as possible despite… You being a quarter right.

​It’s undeniable many cards work better, or rather thrive, in the theme they’re supposed to thrive in.  For example:  Eradicator Epidemic Virus will naturally only work in a Dark deck, Trickstar Reincarnation works best when aligned with 90s popstar group, and Solar Recharge only gives one a benefit in Lightsworns.  However, where I create a distinction between cards great in a theme vs just great cards is in asking what cards perform best, given similar circumstances, across themes. 

Cheers everybody, and Happy New Years!  Boy how do regrets fly by…  Looks like we have a new year, and a new year brings new challenges to our all-time favorite children’s card game.  I’ve tested and crashed several decks these 365 days of existence, like Mecha Phantom Beasts (Why… won’t…. these awesome cards… fly!), Hieratics (Sniffles, I wanted these guys to work so bad), F.A.s (Would an in-theme swarming card be too much to ask for?), and Turbo Naturias (I miss people’s surprised expressions when they lost to this one), and constructed a few decent ones that may surprise you, like Ritual Beasts (You better target my green birdie, or I’m OTKing you), Amorphages (You gotta know how to train demonic dragons right), and Metaphys (Yeah, I’m dragging your butt to the 5th dimension with me).  With Cryptids aligned with legions of the Nega-verse and a magical girl with mecha-suits fighting alongside pop-star pixies, you have to wonder where a Wind duelist is to stand this year.  He’ll give you a hint with his list of New Year’s Resolutions:

1. I resolve to only talk smack about decks truly deserving it, and only to save my most bitter haterade for those everyone loves to pet, coddle, and net-deck when I’m drunk.
2. I resolve to send viruses to not only Rage Quitters, but also Time Wasters, complete with the same symptom I made that Dude character create in that novel I wrote that one time.
3. I resolve to stop smiling maliciously when I ask my opponent, “Is there anything you want to do in response?” knowing full well there isn’t a damn thing they can do.
4. I resolve to not throw-up in my mouth when a new player tries to use MST to negate my Monster Reborn.
5. I resolve to not look at my opponent like he has the plague when he starts shuffling the cards in his hands while one’s thinking.
6. I resolve not to pray to God in my head when a player is trying to lock me out turn 1 that my opponent is a novice who will botch the play and give me an opening.
7. I resolve to shake my opponent’s hand after a match, even if I saw him scratch his butt and unconsciously rub his nose three times during our duel.  For the ladies in the house ;), when I see you scratching your crotch or scalp like you have a nest of lice.
8. I resolve to not look at my opponent like a little Nancy when he raises his hand before crying, “Judge!” at a simple ruling.
9. I resolve to properly apologize instead of saying, “My bad,” when I make a misplay.
10. I resolve to blog more, and to play Stamping Destruction less. 

 
I could have easily made this list a hundred, but I remembered the short attention span of the populace, so I shortened it to a meek 10.  Stay tuned to my blog for more in the Journey As a Wind Duelist.  What are your resolutions for this year as a duelist?  If you feel inclined, share them in the comments below.  Have a safe, Happy New Year from the Mist Valley Blogger, and Peace Out…

I thought the picture above was a good idea at the time...  In anycase, what really grinds my gears today (Yes, Family Guy reference) is how it's been difficult to find a deck I can connect with.  I mean, we have more Dark monsters than you can shake a Shadow Realm at (Danger! and Dark Worlds are creating an unholy love child while the Vampire Kingdom rises), but the biggest culprit is the endless rainbows of monsters that don't fit an Attribute or Type category.  

The only thing the top decks in the game have in common right now is the name they share.  The Fur Hire, Spyrals, Sky Strikers, and World Legacy are all a part of their own little clubs, making the age of great "decks" officially over.  I honestly believe, after careful thought achieved from meditating breathless upside down in a DBZ healing tank, The Card Makers were trying to revert the game back to its older state, when you couldn't stretch a single card across themes to create unexpected staples, but it instead created the era of Support Engines.  Pro players no longer take a deck like the Sky Strikers or Danger! or World Legacy and try to make them work; they take key components from these decks and combine them with key components from others to make something more potent than the original, like that guy you and I don't talk about who laces his new "product" with something producing unusual side effects.

Now of course this takes the game in a more unpredictable direction, where any two decks mixed together create a God mode waiting to be hit by the ban list later, but it creates something else as well, a disease I've recently acquired in the game I'm been trying to diagnose... until now:  Lost Deck Identity Syndrome.
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Lost Deck Identity Syndrome is more prevalent in the older players of the game, the ones who grew up on watching the anime where the style used in the show directly mirrored what you did in the game, but can still be seen in younger players hooked on the show first before jumping into the card game.  It's not a disease of the Pros, who will create a winning deck even if they have to mix a legless cheetah with a blind swift to get it, but a disease of the Romantics of the game, the ones who have cotton-candy cloud dreams of their deck embodying what they represent as a person.  One person might love dragons ('cause they're jerks), another bugs ('cause their weird), and another bird women ('cause they have problems).  You can even get more sophisticated with it, and say you have players who love beatdown strategies ('cause they're jerks), mill decks ('cause their weird), or negation decks ('cause they have problems).  Whatever one's fetish, Lost Deck Identity Syndrome becomes rampant in the community when the card makers are just trying to break the strategic mold of older decks to force you to buying what's new, or when someone in the design studio seems to have paper towels and a bottle of lotion set aside for a particular archetype (*Cough* *Cough* Dark decks).  

I, for one, want to cure this now rampant disease.  Many argued about the state of the game when Pendulums hit the scene during Arc V, but Konami pulled a hat trick on us by not making that format revolve around Pendulums.  We still had fast Synchro decks, reliable Xyzs, and some decks that didn't need to use the Extra deck at all.  We also had a myriad of strategies, including negating, swarming, beatdown, and got introduced to Tributing.  But in this format, everything revolves around Links, as if Konami was desperate to get back control of their game again.   The cure for this disease is so simple it's scary:  Create more complete decks with greater variety, or release cards to buff previous strategies, or just do both. The writer has gained hope with the new Dragunity, Dark Magician, and Blue Eyes support, but why not branch things further?  Let's make some more Amorphages, Mist Valley, Gusto, or Naturia support.  Let's make archetype specific decks that win by milling, a win-condition (other than Exodia, because Final Countdown was boss), or a puzzle of a boss monster.  Let's make the spirit of show reinfect our IRL heart of the cards.  Or you can keep fighting against Dark World/Dangers! or Spell Striker/Trickstars across the table from TooPro31337 who keeps shouting, as he locks you out from the game turn 1, "Quit complaining, it's just a game.  Pick a better deck."  The choice is yours, really, but I've picked my side of That Grass Looks Greener.

Greetings everybody!  I know it's been awhile, more like 4 months awhile, but I promise I have a good reason for vanishing quicker than that last girlfriend/boyfriend you had after they accidentally stumbled across your Bible Black collection.  Those reasons are so debilitating, in fact, I can't quite share them here, but just know while I haven't been blogging, I have been creating.  I decided to take a detour from my usual articles and set on a new path of discovery:  What are the best decks given different attributes/types.  Currently I'm on Attributes, but intend to float towards Types.  I'm doing this not only because you guys seem to enjoy my lists more than my How to Beat Popular Decks series (even though my popular deck series is what put me on the map), but also to give me an objective so I don't wind up brain-drained when it comes to topics.  So far, I've created a Best Wind, Fire, and Dark decks article, so please check those out when you get a chance.  

I'd also like to note, despite me resorting to Lists, I still want you to retain something while reading my articles, so I won't be machine gunning them like some of my recent competition, meaning I'll still take time till fill them with knowledge and my own weird brand of humor.  You know, at first I was just going to talk about how much I haven't blogged and apologize by doing figurative Japanese bows till my back broke, but I think I just discovered something I want to talk about:  Freakin' Lists.  I know you guys love them, but I, with my background as a writer, hate them, and I'll explain to you why.

Top 10 Bests Lists, the Best List, The Top 10 Things-They-Don't-Want-You-To-Know-Whatever Lists, are the intellectual equivalent of learning science by watching a Marvel movie.  They're quick, easy, awesome eye-candy, and might have some fact or two to add some belief in their suspension of disbelief, but they're all a magic trick.  How many of you actually remember most of the facts you watched from a Top 10 list, whether on Youtube or from a website (like Hubpages)?  If those with photographic memories put their hands down, the answer is probably low, like 1 or two facts per lists.  The reason for this, from my experience, is lists feed the need for people to get knowledge like one getting their fix for a meal from McDonald's.  Just as fast food isn't a healthy means to balance one's diet, Top Ten Lists (or Top 25, or 50 Random Facts) aren't an effective way to improve one's knowledge, because they don't give one the memory foundation to retain the information.  Think about it.

Your memory isn't built upon facts you just acquire by reading, but interconnected relationships between information that connects to more information, that link stronger between knowledge and images.  Top Ten Lists just throw facts at you without creating  a foundation for that relationship, something built naturally when watching a documentary or reading a biographical or informational text.  Basically, a bunch of random, blended facts about a single topic will not create the memory foundation you acquire watching something that continuously builds upon the knowledge it's already giving you.

But the worst thing about these lists is how easy they are to make.  I could literally Google level 3 Yugioh Monsters and put together a lists of 10 of those, call them the best, and Whalah!  I have a Top Ten list!   This adds even greater problems when one considers how easy it is to steal Top Ten Lists.  I remember a popular Youtuber I used to watch religiously who created top 50 lists, until he got in a beef with another Youtuber.  Unfortunately, my guy ended up on the butt end of the butt kicking, because the other guy exposed him for stealing his lists from lesser known article publishers, and my guy didn't even bother to change the order of the lists!  Needless to say, myself a writer with a strong, very strong allergic reaction to plagiarism, I unsubscribed from the guy, and even though he released an apology and has since listed the sources of his articles, I haven't watched a list from him since.

So, the moral of the story here, ladies and gents, is I haven't written a blog post for a long time and I'm sorry, and I think Top Lists are the intellectual equivalent of binge watching Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo while eating twelve bags of candy with a gallon of soda on the side.  I'm only doing them now because I now have competition who caught on to the cotton-candy dreams Lists provide.  Just know I will keep writing my How to Beat Popular Yugioh Decks series, and will continue to provide some insight into this children's card game with a hint of humor and wealth of knowledge.  Peace Out, and Happy Hunting out there.  

​Everyone knows the former trope:  The Rage Quitter.  As soon as an online match begins, you chuckle to yourself as you draw not a perfect hand, but one enabling you to do a decent combo.  You lay out your field for your setup next turn, then end it, emptying your mind as to not negatively influence the probability of your opponent ruining your strategy.  Then, like your significant other stopping you at the door after asking you to come over while his or her parents are away, the game message states:  “CryBaby628 has surrendered,” and you’re sent back to the lobby.  Or worse, you’re invested in the game for three turns, and have been getting your butt handed to you by your opponent’s plays.  You have the perfect strategy to revive yourself from the ashes, the cards in hand to make it happen, but the opponent’s field is as inviting as a minefield guarded by a battalion of B-2 bombers.  You then draw a Dark Hole, or a Raigeki, or a card able to disable the effect of that roadblock preventing your plays.  You activate the card, begin your magnificent comeback, when, as if your significant other stops pleasing you right before you climax, you see the game message:  “TooProToLose327 has surrendered,” and you’re sent back to the lobby. 
 
Both of these scenarios are annoying as hell, and it is well known they hurt the community by not giving players an adequate opportunity to test their decks.  After all, that’s the real reason online card playing communities exist, right?  I would be willing to give a pass if a player told me, “Hey, I’m just testing this deck,” which lets me know one’s deck is crappy and one might quit if an egregious error displays in the build, but of course, most rage quitters don’t do this.  They provide no warning and will jump off a building if they even see a sign of smoke to their strategy.  Most people like to place the Hat of Crybaby on noobs, thinking they’re too immature to respect the game and its players, but us pros know many competent players who hate losing so much at the first sign of their cookie-cutter deck not winning like Leo Anaya’s did at Regionals will quit the game if so much as a sneeze of a challenge appears.  The Yu-Gi-Oh online community is aware of these players, and has implemented several punishments for them (The original YGOPro I played reduced your online points if you rage-quit; YGOPro Percy forces you to play other rage quitters).  However, I’ve become aware of a new type troll in the Yugioh online community, one that recently gained traction, especially in the online games not prepared to deal with them:  The Time Wasters.
 
Stop me if you haven’t experienced this one before:  You’re matching yourself evenly with another player, both of your decks bouncing off another’s strategies like fighters refusing to back-down in a brawl.  One of these turns, you manage to get the upper hand, destroying a vital card your opponent controls or negating a play they try to make.  You attack them for direct damage, then you end your turn, your palms sweating while waiting for a response.  You wait for a minute, then five… then your opponent begins their turn.  They summon a monster weaker than yours, set a Spell or Trap, then end their turn.  You take the bait, attack their monster, nothing happens, then end your turn.  You wait for your opponent’s to begin… for a minute… for five… then for ten.  Do you see where I’m going with this? 
 
Time Wasters, instead of quickly exiting the game once they’ve tasted some defeat, stall the game when they’re on the receiving end of a losing duel.  Some take more time to make a decision, as opposed to their speedy gameplay displayed earlier in a match, while others will just abandon the game altogether… without quitting.  In my opinion, I’d prefer a Rage Quitter over a Time Waster, because Rage Quitters, at the end of the shit-bow, only hurt themselves.  They’ll either lose points for exiting the game or get punished by having to face other Rage Quitters, depending on what online game you’re using.  Time Wasters, on the other hand, punish the other player as well by making them lose time they could have spent dueling a more cooperative player.  Not only that, but if you’re in a ranked match, quitting while playing a Time Waster will make you lose points instead of them. 
 
The first YGO Pro corrected this issue with the turn clock quickly diminishing if the turn player didn’t make moves, but there still wasn’t an adequate punishment for players who constantly stalled for time.  YGO Percy, on the other hand, not only lacks a punishment for such players, but the turn clock is much more liberal than the original, making it a rampant ground for Time Wasters.
 
Game makers need to realize a Time Waster is actually no different from the Rage Quitter, the only difference between the two is Rage Quitters smash out of the program; Time Wasters walk away from the computer.  The creator of online games need to have adequate punishments for both types of trolls, for they both have a means of ruining the online community for those desiring to enrich it.       

As the hype died down from the Wave of Light Structure deck because it didn’t deliver the broken, Counter Fairy goodness we were hoping for (As you can see by reading my tiny bio on the right, I have a fetish for negating stuff, and even ran an effective Chaos Counter Fairy deck until Pendulums came and arched on my parade), we have a new ensemble to look forward to in the Lair of Darkness Structure coming to the TCG next month.  With the deck focusing around Dark-themed monsters who must have the same ugly mothas as the Dark Worlds (or perhaps they inherited it from their Daddy’s side?), it’s pretty obvious its primary purpose is to serve as a counter to the Counter Fairies (Ha), and to create another interesting archetype vs archetype tie-in the Yu-Gi-Oh creators will never exploit (Would a spin-off series about the Duel Monsters world really be a bad idea?).  At first, this new archetype honestly scared me nearly as much as the Patron Saint of all Liars himself, because I thought it was another “Up Yours!” to Wind monsters, but let me explain how I discovered my initial belief was proven wrong, and to help you not make a similar mistake…

The thing that scared me wasn’t the boss Darkest Diabolos with his immortal, cheap, hand destruction self, or his concubine Lilith, who speeds up any Trap reliant deck, but the Field Spell that put a dark shiver down my spine.  The fact that it turned all monsters on the field into Dark monsters scared the-ish out of me, as if I just saw a rare fish and was about to say the word before someone punched me in the stomach and all I could say was “ish.”  As if it wasn’t bad enough, the 2nd effect will be abused by any tribute reliant deck (Infernoids, here we go again…), I thought the 1st effect would be a big hit to Wind-monsters.  Think about it for a second:  No other modern decks, to continue their plays, have Attribute restrictions like Wind monsters do:  For the Windwitches and Speedroids to continue their best plays, one is restricted to summoning Wind monsters for the rest of the turn.  My first thought was if all monsters on the field become Dark, you would be unable to summon a Wind monster after the Windwitch/Speedroid restrictions, because all monsters summoned would be Dark attribute!  Fortunately for me, though, a little research proved my theory incorrect. 

I looked for a card similar to Lair of Darkness, the Field Spell described above giving all creatures affected twisted smiles and sadistic eyes, and found DNA Transplant, something having the first effect of Lair of Darkness.  Then I looked up rulings for DNA Transplant, and I happened to get lucky from some other lost soul facing the same dilemma:  Under previous Upperdeck rulings concerning Barrier Statue vs DNA Transplant:

Barrier Statue: Note that effects like “DNA Transplant” change monster Attributes only after they are on the field. So it has no impact on what monsters can be Special Summoned while a Barrier Statue is in play. (http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Card_Rulings:DNA_Transplant)
 
This means as long as the monster remains in the Green Club while squatting in the Extra Deck or in the hand, even with the restriction, it can still be summoned.  Needless to say, I breathed a huge sigh of relief upon learning this, and consequently needed to change my blog post this week from a rant on how the Konami wigs are subliminally screwing Wind decks to how a little bit of research can save one a lot of heartache.  Want a preview of what awaits in the Lair of Darkness?  Take a look for yourself:
https://www.facebook.com/italianygo/posts/1573121686058279
http://www.qi-wmcard.com/card/20122/

Wind monsters are the best in the Yu-Gi-Oh trading card game, now fight me.
Nah, I’m not seriously going to start a physical or verbal argument on whether Wind monsters are the best in the game; it’s just my opinion they have the greatest potential.  Afterall, why else would Konami release Wind archetypes with a few good members, only to never release the cards needed to give the archetype its “final touches” as other decks get swarmed with support? 
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Hello, ladies and gentlebots.  My name is Mist87, and in case you haven’t put the puzzle pieces together yet, I’m a Yu-Gi-Oh enthusiast, one those Yu-Gi-Oh fans who tries to appreciate the T.V. while creating and exploring the card game in real life.  Even though I’ve played other archetypes over the course of my dueling career (I used to run Scraps and Naturia; I currently have Fire Kings and Metaphys in my arsenal), I’ve always found myself attracted to those with the attribute Green. 

I love to tell stories on how my brother and I used to buy the cards because we saw the T.V. show, without even knowing how to play the game 0_0.  We got a rule book and played to the best of our ability, using a group of poorly assembled cards collected from booster packs.  My “boss monster” during those days was Empress Mantis, a 2200 Attack Wind monster that I buffed with the Rising Air Current Field Spell.  I collected other monsters to fit the theme of my strongest monster, and I was overjoyed when I got Luster Dragon #2.  Then when I finally got my hands on some Harpies, I knew I was in love with the archetype (And for the record, I didn’t dress up as Mai Valentine for Halloween or anything.  I think I went the route of running three copies of Harpie’s Brother and imagining myself as her boyfriend…).

​And this leads to the point of this blog, which you probably followed through the bread of crumbs on Hubpages (Zeron87), or my inspirations of strategy on Pojo.com (Mist87):  I want to spread my knowledge about this game that’s become a huge part of my life, and if I make more friends along the way, that would be a huge bonus ;).  I don’t know what keeps me playing this game…  Is it because I have dreams that the reality of the T.V. will have some crazy influence on our world?  Who knows.  Am I hunting for a niche to use as an outlet to inform people of my existence?  Most likely.  Am I in love with bird women and hope one day I will magically turn into a male harpie and fly with my true kind?  Definitely.  So, if you also share delusions of being Seto Kaibo (Or Yami Yugi, I guess), play because you want your voice to be heard, or secretly dream of being reborn a Harpie, welcome to the MistValleyBlogger.  Let’s keep in touch ^_^.