A Fireside Magic: the Gathering Tale for Commander Enthusiasts

Some games of Magic: the Gathering are essentially a no-contest. We don't really talk about those - it gives us no pleasure to regale a tale where we crushed our opponent with no resistance, and neither does it make the opponent feel great. We're usually friends with that opponent and don't want to do that to them. But some are down to the wire. Those usually make for the best stories later, and players who lose these games don't usually mind when they are close and could have gone either way

We played a game today in store of Commander Kingdoms that ended up about as close as a game can possibly get. Kingdoms, or Kings, is a rules variant - similar to the card game Bang! - where players have hidden roles and have to attempt to depose or defend a monarch in addition to eliminating each other.

A five-player game, the decks consisted of:

James - playing my Lord Windgrace; a strong ramp/reanimation deck that can draw stupid amounts of cards and loop lands through the graveyard for various effects

Joseph - playing Emmara, Soul of the Accord; a new and untested deck with a lot of untap synergy

Michael - playing Gishath, Sun's Avatar; another very strong ramp deck with some game-ending combos

Jay - playing Temmet, Vizier of Naktamun; a token deck with the potential to go very wide, or very tall, that I built for my son a while ago. Jay has made a few changes, but the premise remains the same

Myself - playing Vial Smasher/Tymna the Weaver; a trigger-burn deck that causes, encourages, and forces players to hurt themselves and each other

Jay took the role of the king; while I knew I was the assassin and had to take him out eventually, he had to be the last one to die, or the victory would go to the bandits! Of course, under the Kingdoms rules, I had no idea who the Bandits were, but one of the three players was the King's Knight, and you can usually count on the Knight's behaviour to give away his role. It's easily confused with the Assassin's Role - all too frequently the Assassin has to help the King out so he doesn't die too early - but there would be no confusion for me in this game!

I'm not going to do a play-by-play, but recap a few important play sequences that determined the outcome of the game

The game started with James initially reluctant to play Windgrace - he's a blue, and especially control player at heart - but the deck draws cards and has board sweepers, so it can take a control role when necessary and shift gears quickly. After picking it up, he was very soon convinced, as the early game saw Windgrace doing what it does best; busting out a stack of lands from the deck, this time via Harrow and Sakura-Tribe Elder.

*HYPNOTOAD SOUNDS***

James soon had The Gitrog Monster, Mina and Denn, Wildborn, and Ramunap Excavator in play, and was drawing three extra cards per turn with an Evolving Wilds. Courser of Kruphix was revealing his draws as it went, and it was all gas, gas, gas. Unfortunately this strong early play attracted the attention of Jay's flock of Entreat the Angels tokens, and while the deck packs a fair defence package against flyers, with black Demons, green reach creatures and the like, James hadn't seen any of them, and an emergency Squall Line left his life total too low - he was soon eliminated as Jay rebuilt his presence, then turned his attention towards me, bringing me down to twenty-six.

Joseph was a little land-light; Emmara had appeared and was holding the ground with a Blackblade Reforged, but we didn't see much action otherwise. Meantime, Michael had played a Ripjaw Raptor, Ranging Raptors and Forerunner of the Empire, so any time one of his Dinos hit the field, he'd draw a card and search up a land. His Commander hit the ground running - and a timely Haze of Pollen from Joseph prevented things from getting too stupid, but suggested his role as the King's protector.

A bit of a pet card, Stuffy Doll is, to me,
what multiplayer Magic: the Gathering is
all about - changing the rules of the   
game to your benefit

My deck struggled to get off the ground, ramping via mana rocks into virtually nothing. An early Tynma the Weaver and Queen Marchesa were soon outclassed on the field or ran into token blockers after drawing only a few cards; Tynma's only weapon was my own copy of Blackblade Reforged (providing no evasion) and Vial Smasher is a liability in Kingdoms; she tends to randomly hit the wrong players. I took a risk not long after the untimely passing of James and Lord Windgrace, and played one of my pet cards, Stuffy Doll, naming Jay - the King - suggesting that I may, in fact, be one of the bandits.

Stuffy Doll stayed on the board for the rest of the game

Michael, noting the presence of Stuffy Doll, accelerated his gameplay; Runic Armasaur allowed him to draw cards whenever I tapped the doll to deal damage to itself, and another Gishath attack let a small stack of Dinosaurs hit the field, clearing it of other creatures and pinging Stuffy Doll - and Jay - via Forerunner triggers, and the ramp and draw triggers ended up giving him enough resources to bring Zacama, Primal Calamity into play during his next turn and go to town, including the destruction of most of Jay's board state, and Joseph's along with it.

I bring out a Sunforger via Godo, Bandit Warlord since I've seen no removal spells all game, claw back some life (to forty!) and draw a few cards by attacking the land (and now permanent) light Joseph with my equipped Tynma the Weaver over the next couple of turns. This, unfortunately, confirms my role as the Assassin when I decline to deal lethal Commander damage to the King. Michael - who is very quick to pick up on cues like this - points his Zacama toward my Sunforger once he untaps, setting off a cascade of effects as I respond by searching up Utter End to exile it, and he responds by destroying everything else I control - aside from the indestructible Stuffy Doll.

Jay plays Mycosynth Lattice, "accidentally" reveals that he has Nevinyrral's Disk in hand - thankfully, I had topdecked a Bedevil last turn - and makes a copy of Stuffy Doll via Clever Impersonator. His doll names Michael. This winds up being very important shortly.

As usual, however, Michael ignores this kind of semi-political gesture, and swings his Commander at Jay. After blocks are declared - Stuffy Doll and a couple of tokens are thrown under the bus - he plays Boros Charm (double strike mode!) and flashes in Dictate of the Twin Gods for a quadruple damage Commander kill. Obviously I can't allow this kind of thing to happen - my Assassin's contract is quite clear in that I must strike the finishing blow or I don't get paid, and we can't have that - so the Bedevil has to be pointed at Gishath, rather than the Lattice in response to the Disk trigger. Fortunately, the Disk hasn't hit the field yet.

I'd rather not control
my own agent, thanks

When it comes around to my turn, I topdeck like a freaking champion and play Voidstone Gargoyle naming Nevinyrral's Disk - we can't have that kind of nonsense happening at this point of the game. It's a pretty hateful-looking card, but I make a point of never naming a Commander with it, and most of the people I regularly play with know it as a combo breaker rather than a piece of oppression - it's certainly serving that role here! I play Xantcha, Sleeper Agent, which goes to Joseph - he looks like he could use a 5/5 to swing with, right? Jay and Michael rebuild their board state a little, while Joseph appears to have finally come across some lands - he now has five (!) in play. Michael's Dictate is still in play from his earlier kill attempt, so it's time for me to make a strong, but risky play; when Jay plays White Sun's Zenith with X=13, I respond with Parallectric Feedback, burning him for thirty and sending him to three. Mike doesn't have lethal on Jay this turn, however, thanks to that large horde of cat blockers that he paid very dearly for.

Now things get dirty; I play Gisela, Blade of Goldnight and pass the turn.

It turns out that Joseph really could use that 5/5 to swing with; he equips his Blackblade Reforged to Xantcha and swings "ten" damage at Jay - which is quadrupled to forty - and when it hits the Stuffy Doll naming Michael, it gets quadrupled to a hundred and sixty. Mike has enchantment removal for his own Dictate, but it's no use - the damage is only reduced to forty, which is still lethal. Mike joins James, and I'm pretty sure at this point the bandits are out of the game. On my turn, Gisela whacks Joseph, and he's finished off by a couple of Xantcha activations, sending the sleeper agent back to my side of the field.

Sh*t.

Now it's maths time for Jay; he calculates and doesn't have enough mana to kill me via Xantcha triggers, so instead uses it to play Hour of Reckoning, destroying everything on my side of the board. Except, of course, the still-indestructible Stuffy Doll. He then plays Marshal's Anthem, returning Linvala, the Preserver to play. He gains five life, sending him to eight, and all his creatures are boosted by one. It's now combat time, and heading my way are, um, thirteen 3/3 cat tokens and a 4/4 golem? Stuffy jumps in front of the golem, popping Jay upside the head for four and sending him to that same amount, and I take thirty-nine points of damage, going to a single life. My hand at at this point consists solely of an Arid Mesa that I won't be able to activate, but Jay can't get that final point of damage in this turn.

In Jay's end step, Stuffy Doll pings itself, sending him to three.

We go to my turn. I draw...come on topdeck of dreams...and it's

Not pictured: the actual mountain I drew

But it's not the end of the game yet; while it looks like I have nothing, there are two assets remaining. One is my so-far unplayed commander Vial Smasher the Fierce; now freed from the constraints of multiplayer Magic, she's free to pick my single opponent at "random" for the target of damage, so I cast her. The second is a copy of Throne of the High City, which I played much earlier in the game. I crack it to become the Monarch so I can draw a card at the end of turn, hoping it's an instant with converted mana cost three or greater.

It's this card:

My disappointment from the previous turn changes immediately to joy as I realise that the Vial Smasher trigger will kill Jay in his upkeep when I cast this. He'll be dead before I can lose the three life when the spell resolves.

Does it get any closer than this?

If you've had a close call in a game of Magic, and it's closer than this one was, I'd love to hear about it!

Yu-Gi-Oh! and why I, a twenty-year Magic: the Gathering Veteran, have started to like playing this game

It's because the game is essentially the Vintage format of Magic: the Gathering

Well, not quite - but it's damn close.

Yu-Gi-Oh has a huge list of banned and restricted cards, and while Vintage Magic has no banned cards, it does have a very long list of restricted ones, and the presence of the restricted ones is what determines play patterns. A resolved Ancestral Recall (limited to one: draw three cards) is just as likely to greatly assist a Vintage player in winning the game as a resolved Raigeki (limited to one: destroy all monsters your opponent controls) is in Yu-Gi-Oh!

Much of the play in competitive Yu-Gi-Oh! is on the "stack" with players attempting to counter or negate what their opponent is doing - the type of monster that you can discard from hand to stop the opponent doing something (a hand-trap) is prevalent in deck building.

The majority of the action takes place within the first two turns, but if neither player obtains an overwhelming advantage, the games can stretch on far longer.

The presence of the 15-card Extra Deck is like playing with a "wish" sideboard - but instead of needing wish cards, you have access to at all times, depending on what monsters you have on-field or in hand.

Any of this starting to sound familiar yet?

Another major part of competitive Yu-Gi-Oh! is the presence of "floodgate" cards, which make it hard and/or impossible for the opponent to play the game. These are similar to playing against a Mishra's Workshop deck, which plays a land that can make three mana per turn  - and then plays both Sphere of Resistance and Trinisphere on the first turn, making all spells cost a minimum of four mana. You won't be resolving anything for a while! Similarly, cards like Imperial Order and Royal Decree can lock a player right out of their main strategy in Yu-Gi-Oh! while other cards can restrict players to doing only one thing per turn. 

It's virtually the same game, and the more I realise that, the more I enjoy it - although Magic will always by my first love.

Now, I've only been playing Yu-Gi-Oh! for just over three months now, but I'm a compulsive brewer, and this is an article about deck building. A few deck archetypes and methods of summoning have immediately jumped out as appealing to me. My favourite method of summoning is fusion, especially if the fusion monsters don't have specific materials. It's the game's least supported mechanic, and is inherently card disadvantage - two or more monsters plus the spell that fuses them become a single monster - but the archetypes focused around it usually have ways around this, and I think that's what appeals to me - creating that huge monster, offsetting the disadvantage by drawing cards, or using materials that already had other uses, and recycling cards. I love recycling things.

 In Magic, where Commander is my favourite format, I favour building decks that make it difficult (but not impossible) for my opponents to play the game, and strategies where I benefit when my opponents do things, whether it's specifically to me, or to each other. Now obviously Yu-Gi-Oh! isn't designed for multiplayer gaming, so we're going to focus on making the game more difficult for our opponent to play. 

What we're going to here is look at a deck that I've put together that makes use of fusion monsters to make it more difficult to play, and see what we can do to ruin other players' fun...oops, I meant "control the battlefield long enough to be able to win the game" and thanks to Super Polymerization being released from the banned list, and with the Soul Fusion set about to be released, we can only hope for a little more of that sweet, sweet support to come flooding our way. The two fusion archetypes I've used, both of which come with ways to circumvent the card disadvantage of fusion summoning, are Invoked - which gets around the card disadvantage by using materials from either graveyard - and Shaddoll, which does it by the virtue of being able to fuse from deck and having monsters have effects trigger when they are sent to the graveyard.

A nice example of a card that restricts
players to doing only one thing per turn
but the stats leave much to be desired;
Aleister's impersonation of dead Roman
emperor Caligula faints in a stiff breeze

Another card that shuts down strategies
that summon multiple times each turn
(I'm pretty sure that's almost all of them)
and is hard to destroy outside of battle
but sadly, she still isn't very tough!

    

The Shaddoll series of monsters should be no stranger to a competitive Yu-Gi-Oh player; they have not been at the height of their power since the banning of El Shaddoll Construct after their tournament dominance in 2014. Neither should the Invoked archetype provide any surprises, having consistently been near the top tables since their release thanks to the awesome omni-negate power of Invoked Mechaba and recycling ability of Invocation and Aleister the Invoker. The Invoked strategy has received a boost as well recently, with the printing of Aleister the Invoker of Madness opening up easy link summoning possibilities and giving us the ability to search for Invocation by making another fusion summon. He even activates when the opponent makes one! Invoked strategies are frequently seen alongside the Mekk-Knight archetype, which provides both strong main-deck beaters that don't take up the normal summon so often required for Aleister the Invoker, and LIGHT-archetype monsters for the summon of Invoked Mechaba. 

My original inspiration for the deck was discovering the banned card El Shaddoll Construct and a hope (in vain) that it may have been released on the last banned and restricted list update. This pairing between Mekk-Knights and Shaddolls would have made for a very interesting deck, with Mekk-Knight Red Moon and Yellow Star being able to banish Mekk-Knights that were sent to the graveyard to make that wonderful fusion monster in order to destroy monsters or traps, but it was not to be. Let's not forget, however, that Shaddoll Fusion is a very strong Yu-Gi-Oh! card, and was also hit with the ban stick at the height of the deck's dominance

"Fusion summon and draw two? Thanks"

Shaddoll Fusion has been at three for a little while now; pieces from that ban have been slowly coming back off the list, e.g. Mathematician's release back to three in the May list - and the card recently saw prominence in "Shaddoll Dino" decks, where it was used to dump Overtex Qoatlus and a Shaddoll in order to search for and activate Double Evolution Pill. In any Shaddoll list, the ability to make a fusion monster such as El Shaddoll Winda by sending Shaddoll Beast and Shaddoll Hedgehog from deck to graveyard, adding two cards to hand, provides for some very potent card advantage to offset the notorious cost of making fusion monsters.

Now, "El Shaddoll" monsters are fusion monsters made from a Shaddoll monster (a DARK Spellcaster) and one monster of a certain attribute...and "Invoked" monsters are fusion monsters made from Aleister the Invoker (also a DARK Spellcaster) and one monster of a certain attribute. Shaddoll Fusion can send monsters from the deck (or hand, or field) to the graveyard to make fusion monsters...and Invocation can banish monsters from the graveyard to make fusion monsters. These findings suggest a logical conclusion, and there is even crossover thanks to the sharing of the DARK attribute between archetypes; Aleister the Invoker and a Shaddoll monster can make either El Shaddoll Winda or Invoked Caliga as the matchup (or hand) demands! The two archetypes are a natural pairing, offering great card economy and the ability to set up restrictive floodgate and/or negate monsters. Invocation can even summon a Shaddoll monster, provided you have the materials in hand rather than on-field, although it isn't very economical to do so. The reverse, however, does not apply, and we have the minor problem when deck building that Invocation is one of the most easily found cards in the game; most Invoked decks have effectively eleven copies of the card (two Terraforming, three Magical Meltdown, three Aleister the Invoker, three Invocation) and Shaddoll Fusion can be found by...flip summoning a Hedgehog?

Wait, what?

(snail.gif)

Don't draw this card, or you'll cry

What else to do but smash another engine into the deck - one that can assist with finding cards with the name Fusion (except Diffusion Wave Motion) and adding them to the hand...Plants! The pairing of Predaplant Ophrys Scorpio and Predaplant Darlingtonia Cobra can add Shaddoll Fusion (or Instant, or Brilliant, if we're going to use that) or the newly freed Super Polymerization directly to hand, while providing a pair of bodies to use as link or fusion material. In exchange for running a single garnet in the deck, we no longer have to rely on drawing a one-of restricted card or difficult-to-locate but powerful fusion spells. The addition of Lonefire Blossom - which is any plant you want it to be - provides something Invoked decks sometimes have a little trouble with: a playable FIRE attribute monster that isn't Ash Blossom and Joyous Spring to make Invoked Purgatrio. We never want to use our own Ash Blossom from hand, and of course we'd rather that the opponent didn't draw theirs!

So here's the decklist for "Start Your Engines" which looks like, well, a horrible monster mash of four different engines...but turns out to play as smooth as a baby's bottom, with answers to almost everything in the format and the ability to play through ill-timed negates with ease, set floodgates when playing first, OTK when playing second, fusion summon while under the effect of Imperial Order, and has five ways to find Super Polymerization to break boards. Yeah, it suffers against an opposing Ash Blossom and Joyous Spring and/or Droll and Lock Bird, but what deck doesn't? We all like to search to find the pieces we need!

(insert the dueling book image here)

We've included the following engines in this decklist:

Invoked

2 Terraforming

2 Magical Meltdown

3 Aleister the Invoker

3 Invocation

Standard, almost. Max Invocation is always correct; because triggering Aleister the Invoker uses the normal summon, it's a great target for an opposing Ash Blossom. We'd always like it in hand, if possible. We've had to cut one Magical Meltdown to fit everything else in, and max Aleister is necessary here because we don't always want to use our normal summon on him in this deck - sometimes he's better off discarded or sent to the graveyard when using another engine. As a result, we aren't running The Book of the Law, as we'll almost always use the Invoker of Madness effect to find Invocation. The extra deck Invoked monsters, discussed later, provide negate, floodgate, and board-sweeping effects, plus give the deck that all-important OTK potential.

Spicy tech: allows fusion summon of
monsters while under the effect of
Anti-spell Fragrance or Imperial Order

Predaplant

2 Lonefire Blossom

2 Predaplant Ophrys Scorpio

1 Predaplant Darlingtonia Cobra

1 Predaplant Chlamydosundew

1 Super Polymerization

2 Instant Fusion

This here is our access to our named "fusion" spells, including Super Polymerization. Unfortunately, Predaplant Darlingtonia Cobra is the worst garnet ever, but the engine doesn't run without it, and the spicy tech choice of Predaplant Chlamydosundew allows for fusion summoning while under the effect of an anti-spell floodgate. Running this little engine gives us five chances to draw Super Polymerization, and we've gone with an Instant Fusion package rather than Brilliant, as we'd have to include another garnet - a Gem-Knight monster - and I hate drawing dead cards. When using this engine, fusion summoning triggers Aleister the Invoker of Madness to find Invocation, so we don't have to use our normal summon for Aleister himself; instead we can open like this:

NS Ophrys Scorpio (or find via Lonefire Blossom) and activate effect; discard Aleister the Invoker, search deck for Darlingtonia Cobra and add either Shaddoll or Instant Fusion, make Aleister the Invoker of Madness off either a Mekk-Knight in hand or Instant Fusion target plus a Predaplant, play a fusion spell to trigger Invoker of Madness, then fusion summon an Invoked monster using the Aleister we discarded, shuffle Invocation back to deck, then return Aleister to hand.

Note that Invocation can also be used
to summon El Shaddoll Winda or Grysta
if materials are in hand, although this
is usually poor card economy. Effects
like Necrovalley and Masked Hero Dark
Law hurt the Invoked strategy, but we
can still banish from the field to fusion
summon, so we aren't crippled

Shaddoll

1 Shaddoll Beast

1 Shaddoll Squamata

1 Shaddoll Hedgehog

1 Shaddoll Dragon

1 Shaddoll Falco

3 Shaddoll Fusion

This is all that remains from the great Shaddoll cleansing of 2014, and we still can't make light fusions. But this engine still lets us draw cards, thin our deck, stock our graveyard and have a little back-row hate on hand - plus, it's self-recurring with Shaddoll Falco, who can also resurrect our Shaddoll boss monsters. As discussed above, the Predaplant engine interacts favourably with both the Invoked and Shaddoll engines; not just by finding Shaddoll Fusion spells, but three fusion monsters in the extra deck can be made from a Plant and a Shaddoll, and three can be made from Aleister the Invoker and a Plant. The extra deck El Shaddoll monsters, discussed later, provide floodgate and negate effects.

The archetypal tutor, Purple Nightfall
dodges removal and adds another   
recurring threat to the deck, plus for
no reason at all, he's chunky as AF     

Mekk-Knight

3 Mekk-Knight Purple Nightfall

2 Mekk-Knight Blue Sky

1 Mekk-Knight Indigo Eclipse

1 Mekk-Knight Red Moon

A self-contained light engine that doesn't use our valuable normal summon, providing both the material to make the important negate machine Invoked Mechaba and some serious main-deck beatdown capability. Red Moon's destruction-on-a-stick isn't once per turn; Indigo Eclipse can shift him over for another shot if you've got more Mekk-Knights in the graveyard. If the beautiful El Shaddoll Construct were freed from oblivion, we'd probably increase the size of this engine a little, but this is all we need. The quick  search effect of Purple Nightfall can be used to dodge removal, and Blue Sky's effect can add two or three Mekk-Knights to hand if the opponent has positioned their cards in the wrong columns

And the rest is a small package of denial, 3 Ash Blossom and Joyous Spring and 2 Ghost Belle and Haunted Mansion - plus 2 Called by the Grave, to stop the opponent's Ash Blossom and Joyous Spring, or worse, Droll and  Lock Bird - plus the restricted Foolish Burial, which can be used to trigger a Shaddoll Effect, or search Aleister to the grave for a later fusion summon.

In the extra deck, we've got the following tech choices; some quite standard, and some new and innovative:

1 Aleister the Invoker of Madness

1 Wee Witch's Apprentice

These are what we use to build up boards, or link-climb when necessary; we aren't huge on link monsters, but we have a couple of link-3, and the sideboard features a few 4s. The atk/def boost from Wee Witch's Apprentice is great in helping El Shaddoll Winda and Invoked Caliga survive in combat - although not ideal if we have our own light monsters in play - and if she dies, her resurrection ability can send a destroyed El Shaddoll Winda (which may have returned Shaddoll Fusion back to hand already) back to the extra deck for another go. I love recycling! Unfortunately Aleister the Invoker of Madness isn't quite as recyclable - he isn't "Aleister the Invoker" while banished, so you can't use the shuffle back to deck effect of Invocation to return him to the extra deck - but thanks to his dark attribute, you can use him to link-climb, send him to the bin, and later on Wee Witchy-poo can still send him back to deck when she bites the dust.

2 Invoked Mechaba

1 Invoked Purgatrio

1 Invoked Caliga

1 Invoked Elysium

Our Invoked package of floodgate, board wipe, OTK and negate machines, all of which are usually made from recycled resources in the graveyard. Note that when summoning Invoked Elysium, the "Invoked Monster" material can be banished from the graveyard, but the "Monster Special Summoned from the Extra Deck" must be banished from on the field

1 El Shaddoll Winda

1 El Shaddoll Grysta

1 El Shaddoll Shekhinaga

Our Shaddoll package for slowing the opponent down; Grysta negates summons including Pendulum summons, providing protection from on-arrival effects, Shekhinaga is our straight-up monster effect counter, and my favourite almost-indestructible floodgate El Shaddoll Winda slows everything down to a crawl. Note that Aleister the Invoker can be discarded to boost the occasionally-too-low attack strength El Shaddoll monsters as well as Invoked ones. As fusion materials are usually found from the deck when playing Shaddoll Fusion, the two Ghost Belle and Haunted Mansion is enough to make Shekhinaga, and the Lonefire Blossom or Ash Blossom is used to make Grysta.

1 Topologic Trisbaena

1 Knightmare Unicorn

1 Knightmare Phoenix

Link monster answers to problems here. The best way to set off Topologic Trisbaena's board-sweeping effect is to summon Mekk-Knight Purple Knightfall into one of its zones, banishing it to its own effect to search in response.

1 Mudragon of the Swamp

1 Starving Venom Fusion Dragon

And now we get to the spicy tech choices! The recently printed Mudragon of the Swamp is one of my favourite new cards, especially for this deck. It's a great Instant Fusion target, helping extend into Aleister the Invoker of Madness (it combines with any other monster in the deck) and provides targeting protection via its attribute-shifting effect.

Swiss Army Fusion Dragon may be a
better name for this card

Starving Venom Fusion Dragon is not a new card - and unlike the banned Supreme King Dragon Starving Venom, only copies opposing monster names and effects - but in this deck he puts in an awful lot of work. Two dark monsters on the field is an easy material requirement, and since the format's best floodgate monsters are dark, he's easily made using Super Polymerization to smash that floodgate - otherwise Predaplant Chlamydosundew and the Ophrys Scorpio that searched it up are probably the next-best choice, since you don't even need a spell card to do this - it can be done under the influence of Naturia Beast or Imperial Order. Plenty of matchups will involve your opponent playing a negate monster - turning Starving Venom into a copy of that is usually a good play. The on-summon effect is a weaker version of Borrelsword Dragon's attack-gaining effect, but can be used in the same fashion - it simply beats over any opposing monster for 2800, crushing it. The second effect can be used as a virtual Raigeki, again while under a no-spell situation - run Starving Venom Fusion Dragon into an opposing larger monster, and he'll take down all their special summoned monsters on the way to the graveyard!

Hiding away in the sideboard are a couple more fusion monsters - one of each attribute is covered by main and side deck, so we can Super Polymerization our way out of trouble! We don't have a main deck water monster to make El Shaddoll Anoyatyllis (although we can use our boi Mudragon of the Swamp) so she comes in against Water matchups or those involving continuous recycling effects such as Red-Eyes or Fur Hire, and Invoked Raidjin does the same job in Wind matchups, while also being a useful Instant Fusion target with attached Book of Moon effect. Mind Crush is there for Sky Striker and Trickstar, and Red Reboot for Altergeist. Droll and Lock Bird at three gives us game against decks that repeatedly search and add to hand, i.e. many of them - it's close to being a main deck choice, but Ash Blossom performs a similar role while adding a valuable attribute to the graveyard. Borreload Dragon is there for indestructible monsters, and the Mekk-Knight boosting package of Mekk-Knight of the Morning Star, Spectrum Supreme, World Legacy's Secret and World Legacy Succession lets you resurrect, negate, and link-climb your way into an untargetable 3k beater in Spectrum Supreme, Borreload, or the mighty Topologic Bomber Dragon, who fills out the last remaining slot in the side and can be triggered with Purple Nightfall, just like Trisbaena.

The deck has a very large amount of play lines depending on what's in the hand, but a few things to remember while starting are:

1) The Predaplant engine: this thing is f*cking versatile!

tribute to search for...

discard one, special summon

from deck, then find...

Scorpio/Lonefire plus any monster can make an Aleister the Invoker of Madness or Wee Witch's Apprentice - discard the monster to search for Predaplant Darlingtonia Cobra and special summon it. Cobra's effect can find Instant Fusion, Shaddoll Fusion, or Super Polymerization, depending on what you have in hand, then either link the two DARK Predaplants into Wee Witch's Apprentice, or play Instant Fusion and link one of them and your Instant Fusion target into Invoker of Madness. These are our ideal starting plays

Scorpio into Chlamydosundew is the go-to play if you can't play fusion spells, giving you three options: Sundew + Aleister in hand = Invoked Caliga. Sundew + a Shaddoll in hand = El Shaddoll Winda. Scorpio + Sundew = Starving Venom Fusion Dragon

A used Lonefire Blossom later becomes Invoked Purgatrio, but don't search them all out of the deck at once - sometimes you need one left to make El Shaddoll Grysta in order to plus off a Shaddoll Fusion

2) Dirty Shaddoll / Invocation interactions abound, like these rippers:

a) The trigger effect of Aleister the Invoker of Madness, which also happens when your opponent fusion summons, does not discard for cost - meaning it triggers your Shaddoll effects, e.g. casting Shaddoll Fusion with Aleister the Invoker of Madness in play can be used to send Shaddoll Hedgehog to the graveyard, adding Shaddoll Beast to hand - which can then be discarded to the fusion summon trigger in order to add Invocation to your hand and draw a card

b) Aleister the Invoker's discard to boost ATK/DEF can be used on any fusion monster. El Shaddoll Winda is usually target #1 in combat, and the 1000 ATK boost to her 2200 ATK, plus potentially 500 from Wee Witch's Apprentice, makes her very hard to get over

c) If Shaddoll Fusion's "from deck" effect is live with Invoker of Madness in play, but you don't have a real Aleister the Invoker around, you can Shaddoll Fusion sending Aleister the Invoker and a Shaddoll to graveyard for El Shaddoll Winda, then use the trigger effect to find Invocation, and fuse those two monsters into Invoked Caliga. Then, use Invocation's effect to shuffle back into deck and add Aleister the Invoker to hand

She's smiling because we figured out
her secret third ability; the one that
returns DARK extra deck monsters 
back to the extra deck

3) Returning extra deck monsters to hand returns them to the extra deck. This allows the on-destruction effect of Wee Witch's Apprentice to return the following monsters to the extra deck to be re-summoned - all of which have large, game-breaking effects:

a) Aleister the Invoker of Madness

b) El Shaddoll Winda

c) Invoked Caliga

d) Knightmare Unicorn

e) Topologic Trisbaena

f) Starving Venom Fusion Dragon

Avoid banishing these monsters from your graveyard for any effects; Aleister the Invoker of Madness is not "Aleister the Invoker" while banished, and is thus unrecoverable. You can force this return to extra deck by smashing Wee Witch's Apprentice into a stronger monster in the battle phase, similar to how players would smash Mathematician into things in order to draw a card, back when Shaddolls were commonly played

I love recycling and recursion in any trading card game - this deck has it in absolute spades, and its use of resources twice or more is a thing any environmentalist would be proud of. Lose an El Shaddoll boss monster? Shaddoll Fusion returns to hand and the next time you use it, bring Shaddoll Falco out from the deck and resurrect it. Flip extra deck monsters back in with Wee Witch's Apprentice and bring them around for another go. Aleister the Invoker and Invocation loop themselves; you can play them until you run out of Invoked monsters to summon. Fusion materials get used repeatedly; Shaddoll fusion spells sending from hand, deck or field to graveyard - then Invocation banishing from there, shuffling back to deck and sending a banished Aleister back to hand.

In Yu-Gi-Oh! decks are usually built as "go first" decks or "go second" decks, but of course, you can never guarantee going either first or second - if you lose the die roll and your opponent is playing a "go second" deck you'll be opening the game! I've taken a balanced approach with this deck, and usually do with deck building in general, because you're almost always forced into doing something you don't want to do - even if it's just to throw a spanner in the works of opposing plans! Obviously we'd like to go second with this deck; it usually means Shaddoll Fusion is live and we can use it to draw cards and fusion summon at the same time, and we have far greater access to Invoked Purgatrio for making an OTK thanks to our plant engine than most Invoked decks...

But we also have the ability to set floodgates, if we are forced to play first. Picture going first with a hand of Magical Meltdown, Lonefire Blossom, Invocation, a Shaddoll monster and something else. Play proceeds as follows:
Activate Meltdown and find Aleister the Invoker. Don't summon him, however!
Summon Lonefire Blossom, tribute to search up Predaplant Ophrys Scorpio and discard Aleister the Invoker to search up Darlingtonia Cobra and add Shaddoll Fusion to hand.
Link the two Predaplants into Wee Witch's Apprentice. Play Invocation, banishing one of the plants and Aleister to make Invoked Caliga, then shuffle it back to deck and add Aleister back to hand.
Play Shaddoll Fusion, sending Aleister and the Shaddoll monster from hand to the graveyard to make El Shaddoll Winda. Trigger the Shaddoll's effect. End turn.

Wee Witch's ATK/DEF modifying ability helps to offset the physical weakness of your floodgate monsters; your opponent will need to get over a 2300DEF Caliga (you did summon him in defense position, didn't you?) and a 2800ATK Winda, or be forced to play the game activating one monster effect per turn, attacking with one monster per turn and special summoning once per turn. It's not impossible, by any stretch - but neither is it easy, and this deck floats like a rubber dinghy; if the opponent destroys El Shaddoll Winda, Shaddoll Fusion returns to your hand, and if they destroy Wee Witch's Apprentice, either Aleister the Invoker returns to hand for next turn, or El Shaddoll Winda returns to the extra deck to be re-summoned.

There's a lot of play to this deck, and it's full of anti-meta counters. I'm interested to see how it performs at the WA Open at the end of the month, and I have no hesitation in sharing the list - for your preparation purposes it probably falls somewhere between "Invoked" and "utter rogue strategy" and you were already preparing for that matchup!

Rabblemaster Games' Upcoming Win-a-Box Tournament

Strategies, deck ideas, and the like

Despite seeing some play around the store, competitive Megacorp has struggled to gain a foothold. With the largest prize support seen in the state to-date, we hope to remedy that at Rabblemaster Games this coming weekend, on Sunday August 12. So, with this large upcoming tournament, I thought we'd recap a few of the strategies that we've previously written about in this blog and see what kind of potential they have for tournament play. What deck are you considering playing, and where does it rate in terms of early-game explosiveness, defense, offense, and in playing the long game?

Let's take a look at what options we have available, and then a look at what cards we can expect to see a lot of in the tournament:

SETI - Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence is a "voltron" style deck - a strategy based around attaching various power-ups to a strong central character - based around the founder Luke Seti, Memadapt. Seti is a fairly weak founder in several aspects - none of his abilities directly affects combat - but his ability to attract power-up mutations at a frightening rate (twice per turn cycle; he can search before you take a turn) has led him to a place at the top of the French metagame. A very aggressive option with an almost complete inability to play the long game (eventually the founder destroys your own business or the main strategy stops working) the deck is designed to hit fast and hit hard and almost always wants to go second, taking the first opportunity to attack with a twice-mutated Luke Seti and going straight for the founder or business

Action-based decks running either Azrielle, Independent Enforcer or Xu Huang, Gnost Monk devote a fair portion of their decks to #action cards, in order to deal huge amounts of damage through their founders and/or keep them alive for further...action? Xu Huang decks have no trouble striking down an entire board full of the opponent's cards and dodging removal, while Azrielle decks are more likely to sneak an attack in and finish with a flurry of strikes and damage multipliers straight to the business. Decks running both founders can be explosive, suddenly switching gears from defensive dodging to full-blown triple strike, but usually require a little board presence in order to do this, as most of the #action cards have a double resource cost - usually IQ/BQ - meaning at least two other cards in play.

Unethical Control is a deck that uses the card-advantage (and sometimes cash-advantage) engine of The Glass Man to keep its hand full of frequently unethical #moral #assault cards to suppress the opponent's plays. While he's a bit of an, um, glass cannon, there are plenty of ways to keep him alive and working for you in this sort of deck, and the #unethical removal cards are cheap and effective against many of the common strategies - Rampant Bribery is murder against any consumer-based deck, and Kidnapping strong against decks with expensive characters

Baby, Come and Light my (mind)Fire is a Gnost burn deck focused on removing the opponent's ability to make powerful plays, burning through their cash reserves with Disruptor cards and putting Telekinetic Slash to good use to clear lanes of attack. Players are now starting the game with their founder above/below their business, rather than left/right, in order to avoid losing both their founder AND cash reserves to the same slash, just in case the opponent is running Gnost. The deck can struggle a little when coming from behind, but closes out games quickly when ahead, and benefits from a strong financial engine - constant psionic attacks can be a drain on your resource base as well as the opponent's.

Firebombing with Raamaa is an area-of-effect damage deck, using the interlocking pieces of Dormant Volcano, Life Insurance Policy and Raamaa, Incarnate Hierarch (or Banshee, Basilisk or Siren) to gain money while wiping out large portions of the opponent's field and taking control of important permanents via Economic Hitman. A reactive deck that defeats removal by virtue of game mechanics; the controller actively wants the cards in play sent to the open market and virtually nothing kills Raamaa in any case. Despair sets in as you realise that you have to take out a key character in order to survive, but it's sitting on top of a volcano and the resulting explosion will destroy three of your consumers and cut through two network connections!

Streets Ahead is an alternative strategy that runs no consumers and instead focuses on making money through sales of property in the divest phase, using the value-multiplying Central Business District and Hypermarket and through having Streets and Highways adjacent to Automated Toll Systems, making use of main-deck defensive and stall cards - including Heracles, Senior Counsel as founder - while it sets up its engines. When they are running full steam few decks can compete with the revenue generation potential of infrastructure decks, and after a few turns of earning $30-40m, the deck simply buys all the cards off the opponent's side of the field and beats them to death with their own assets

Decks running the corp/donor core are flexible, accessing the game's best generic removal but otherwise devoting the majority of their cards to flooding the board with large numbers of cheap consumers, accelerating through the early game at a rate of 2-3 per turn and providing throwaway blockers for defense, bodies to crew mechanical suits with, and meat shields for surrounding important assets. This style of deck can out-pace opponents through sheer numbers of cards, and can quickly shift gears from money-making to using consumers in combat, taking advantage of the fact that enemy characters can only retaliate once per challenge phase in order to swarm-attack the stronger ones

Azrielle's Assassins is one of several #military based decks that take advantage of the cash generating ability of Barracks and focus on arming their characters with the awesome power of Vulcan Cannon and launching Precision attacks through the use of Guided Munitions, both of which are easily found in the decks through use of cards with the Dead Drop ability, including the signature card Battle Angel - military decks are one of the few that can afford to run this awesome card. Azrielle is a great defensive founder for a #military deck (she can hop in a first-turn Barracks and start generating cash and is very hard to get rid of) but several others are more playable in an aggressive one, including Chi, Corp Socialite

Now, keep in mind that these are just the decks that I've written about - and I'm just one man. All I've done is put a few ideas together, and while I'm pretty experienced in trading card games, I'm well aware there are other strategies out there to be discovered, including a deck archetype that Mark, the creator, has indicated is even stronger than any of the creations listed above! I hope somebody out there discovers it.

Now, to individual key cards. You can expect to see a few of these powerful cards across a fair number of deck lists; many of you readers may recognise these from previous articles where I have extolled the virtues of the cards:

Incarnate Donor

A key part of any deck that a) runs any number of Incarnate cards or b) runs a lot of cheap consumers, this Incarnate-aligned but still human sweetheart will accelerate game plans throughout the tournament while providing an excellent value-for-money body.

There's rarely a decklist I create that doesn't include this young lady - she gets you past the early turns, where you've got a lot of money but not many cards, by helping convert one into the other!

Corp Advisor

Playable in any deck that wants to be thinner and see more of its key cards throughout the game. Being the game's only raw card draw  means the Advisor will be seeing play in multiple decks at 3-4 each. It's a card I was glad to see printed at common, and in any deck that has the ability to re-deploy characters, he puts an unbelievable amount of work in. Like Incarnate Donor, the Advisor has a value for money body attached to a great on-deploy effect, and with a low trait cost, is easily splashable in a variety of decks

Dash Dingo

An absence of raw card draw in the game means that much of the card advantage is derived through searching decks via Mutation or Dead Drop abilities. A great way to take advantage of your own searching while acting as a hard counter to popular "search" founders like Luke Seti, The Glass Man and Illithis, Gnost Prophet - Anubian Tracker can take out multiple cards per turn and is a very potent card that we have difficulty keeping in stock. Expect to see high numbers of this dog turn out, either supporting main-deck strategies or in sideboards to answer these founders

Corp Executive

Dead Drop 4 from this hard-working employee is the search that provides the most value for money spent without taking too big a risk. Whether he's searching up a pair of Driverless Car Fleet, four Automated Toll Systems, or a Vulcan Cannon and Guided Munitions, Corp Executive is freaking everywhere and is expected to remain that way for the foreseeable future. Like Incarnate Donor, I rarely create a decklist without including this debonair gentleman, and in-line with his lore character, he certainly brings a lot of technical toys to the table!

Kidnapping and Assassination Contract

The game's most efficient removal and the game's most permanent, a wide variety of decks can fit these cards into their lineup, so expect to see plenty of these, and lesser amounts of cards like Natural Death, Kickback and Character Assassination

Michael Basa, Data Obfuscator

Michael Basa, yesterday

In the early stages of trading card games, hand control is frequently the strongest strategy. Early competitive Yu-Gi-Oh was dominated by the Yata-Garasu lock, which discarded the opponent's hand, then prevented them drawing any new cards. The strongest early Magic: the Gathering decks ran Hypnotic Specter, which provided a random discard from the opponent's hand when it dealt damage and was frequently played on turn one via Dark Ritual, followed by Hymn to Tourach, discarding two cards at random. Hitting your opponent's land cards was lights out as they lost the ability to play their other cards, which soon followed the first three into the graveyard.

Basa is no different. Turn one (on the draw) play Guided Munitions and Basa. Equip and attack, ignore blockers, opponent discards three - possibly all they have left after their turn one plays. Opponent didn't topdeck an answer? Next game.

Azrielle, Independent Enforcer

Megacorp players have shown a tendency to enjoy playing #unethical removal cards (they are good, dammit, and we all want to play good cards) but in an unethical-dominated metagame, Azrielle is boss. She doesn't interfere with playing your own #unethical cards to target the opponent's characters, and her immunity to the two most popular removal cards Kidnapping and Assassination Contract, plus 3/1/3/3 stats allowing her to survive most psionic attacks, make her a popular defensive choice. Heading up two different styles of deck means you may encounter Azrielle more than other founders

I'm already excited for the tournament - but I won't be playing in it! So, if anyone wants to borrow my Azrielle's Assassins list, please get in touch. I'm not sure if it's the correct choice for the tournament, but it does very nicely at ignoring whatever the opponent is doing and blasting them back to the stone age, generates money via Barracks and #military characters (including Azrielle) and if you thought she was hard to kill before, just wait until she hops inside the Barracks in response to a lethal attack!

See you this Sunday at Rabblemaster Games' Win-a-Box tournament!