Summoner of Illusions

Before I get to the meat of this post, I just want to post a little about my status. Its my blog, you have to hear about my problems.  Firstly, I am in the process of breaking off from my family. I have told them I am moving out and now I have to find a job and a flat and stuff. Secondly YugiohNetwork has gone down (Cue wailing widows), which is a big pain in the neck for me. I had to figure out a different way to play. I have always used YVD for duels betweens friends because its the nicest duelling interface by far, but when I have tried to use it with strangers before it has been one monumental pain. If anyone is able to give me advice on the best way to do that I would appreciate it I guess. Instead I have moved over to Kaibacorb VDS which has a better lobby and seemingly decent competition on it. The duelling system is very flashy but its not very user friendly, decent enough though. Very worryingly however, to get it to work you have to use Hamachi with strangers, which is basically an open Ethernet cable to the world. This sucks but right now its my only option.

So, onto my Yugioh strategy ideas. Todays post is about this rather attractive gentleman.

Name: Summoner of Illusions
Stats: [Spellcaster/Effect] LV3 ATK/800 DEF/900
Type: Light
Description: FLIP: Tribute 1 other monster to Special Summon 1 Fusion Monster from your Fusion Deck. The Fusion Monster is destroyed at the end of the turn this effect is activated.

His stats are basically meaningless, they open a few combos, but the real purpose of this guy is his effect, and its one of those ones that makes you sit up and pay attention. Anything that contains the words "Special Summon 1 Fusion Monster from your Fusion Deck" is probably worth a look. Cyber-Stein contained basically the same words and we all know how that ended. This sort of effect can not exist healthily in the game without extremely hefty restrictions; Cyber-Stein has a cost of 5000 life for this effect which is gigantic, more than half of the starting life points and the biggest life point payment cost ever if I am not mistaken. This was not a big enough restriction and he is now duly banned. However Summoner of Illusions has been sitting at 3 happily for many many years, so we can deduce his restrictions are more damning than having to pay 5000 life points. Lets discuss why.

First off, its a flip effect monster, this is a big black cross against it right from the off. Flip effect monsters are slow, really slow. They have to survive a not insignificant amount of peril before they can activate their effects. Nobleman of Crossout, Caius the Shadow Monarch, Brionac, Dragon of the Ice Barrier, Scrap Dragon, the list goes on. But yet flip effects are still a big part of the competitive metagame; Ryko, Lightsworn Hunter is a card we all love to hate. Its simple and powerful effect of destroying 1 card on the field is useful in almost every situation, while combining with a bonus effect of milling 3 that can, with luck, be game-breaking. Consider how amazingly good Ryko would be as a spell, and you will understand my point in relation to Summoner of Illusions.

 However this is not the only problem for Summoner of Illusions, its effect comes with a cost, you must tribute 1 other monster to activate it. I underline this because its huge, this makes this card only activatable as part of a combo, you need other cards along with this card to make it anything more than an 800/900 piece of meat. This is absolutely fatal to its Utility, which is a terrible thing. Topdecking this card when you are low on options is terrible, it will rarely be a live card in those sorts of situations. Cyber-Stein had similar issues, it was also unusable a lot, since you often have less than 5000 life points, however, if you did have 5000 or more, at least it could activate by itself without any help. Tributing 1 other monster is a difficult condition to fulfil, but yet, it is not impossible. Things like Dandylion, or Treeborn Frog have been filling the field up with monsters entirely for the purpose of tributing for a long time, so although you can not say this card has Utility this is not the final nail in its coffin.

There have always been many good looking targets for Summoner of Illusions, just like for Cyber Stein. You could go for an OTK with Cyber Twin Dragon or instead go for pure power with something like Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon. However, with the final line of its text: "The Fusion Monster is destroyed at the end of the turn this effect is activated."  all of them have been put to shame. Any Yugioh player knows that Flip Effects activate as often in your opponents turn as they do in your own turn, so if Summoner is attacked, your gorgeous Blue Eyes Ultimate Dragon will die before it can get in even one attack. Summoner of Illusions could only be used to any good effect during your turn, and that just couldnt happen consistently, however hard you tried. Summoner of Illusions had to be shelved, left to become dusty and forgotten. Until now.

In Starstrike blast a new target for Summoner of Illusions was released, a monster than truly unlocks that potential lying dormant on that shelf. Lets have a look.

Name: Gaia Drake, The Universal Force

Stats: [Beast-Warrior / Fusion / Effect] LV 10 ATK/ 3500 DEF/ 2800
Type: EARTH
Description: "Gaia Knight, the Force of Earth" + 1 non-Effect Synchro Monster
This card cannot be targeted by, or destroyed by, the effects of Effect Monsters. 

This card solves one of the big problems Summoner of Illusions had, probably the biggest of all its problems. This monster sticks about for ever if you summon it with him. This whole area is a real rulings melee, there is every possibility that this could be ruled differently in the future, but as far as I understand, this works this way. Besides, this is not the first monster that combos with the Summoner like this; Fiend Skull Dragon has been around for a while with its effect of Negating Flip-Effect monsters, but this effect simply doesnt have any other purpose in the competitive metagame than surviving. Flip effects have never been a big enough issue to consider a negation strategy. Its a decent effect, but on a monster with 2000 attack, its just not enough for the effort of summoning him. A simple Cyber Dragon is all that was needed to waste all that work. Gaia Drake though, is a whole different kettle of fish.

Once he hits the field, he is nothing short of brutal. For most competitve decks there are simply no monster based outs to him at all, none. 3500 attack is bigger than anything short of a highly powered up collosal fighter, which is unlikely to say the least. His effect protects him from almost ever monster effect I can think of (Damn you Cyber Eltanin) so once he is summoned, 60-70% of most decks, the part focused on summoning and protecting monsters, is entirely useless. I am looking at the YCS Atlanta winning gravekeeper deck right now, it has 3 cards that can potentially stop a succesfully summoned Gaia Drake on the field, just 3 cards, Mirror Force, Dark Hole and Torrential Tribute. This all adds up to make the summon of Gaia Drake enough to win a game. Summoner of Illusions has become a real win condition.

So how best to use Summoner of Illusions and Gaia Drake? We have already discussed that it is a tricky and inconsistent card. However when its so powerful, it cant be ignored. It is possible to make a deck entirely devoted to ensuring this combo goes off, and I have in fact, and will give it to you at the bottom of this post. This however seems to me, personally, to be gimmicky, fun but not really competitive. Instead we should notice that a Summoner of Illusions engine really does not take up much deck space at all. 1 Summoner of Illusions in your main deck and 1 Gaia Drake in your extra deck is all you need to make this play possible. All top tier decks have enough flexibility in them to include this sort of engine if they wanted. Of course it is not suitable for all top decks, because most can not guarantee that they will have tribute fodder for his effect. Summoner of Illusions is suitable for slower paced, conservative decks, that wish to force their opponent to play slowly, and not attack recklessly. The decks also need to be able to maintain a solid field presence to ensure he is live as often as possible. To me the 3 decks that stand out to me for use of Summoner of Illusions are Frog Monarchs, Plant Synchro/Quickdraw and Zombies (My personal deck of choice) though I am sure there are many more. I think any players of these decks owe it to themselves to give this fun and powerful little card a go.

N.B. This deck is a footnote, because it is not the main thrust of the post. However if you are a real Summoner of Illusions fan like me and really cant wait to start beating some face with Gaia Drake, I am here for you. This deck isnt going to win any major championships, but I definately think it can take wins off the top decks.

Illusion Confusion!

  

Monsters: 21

3 Summoner of Illusions
3 Cyber Dragon
3 Lyla, Lightsworn Sorceress
3 Caius the Shadow Monarch
2 A-D Changer
2 X-Saber Pashuul
1 Morphing Jar
1 Glow-Up Bulb
1 Sangan
1 Gorz the Emissary of Darkness
1 Ryko, Lightsworn Hunter
 

Spells: 9

3 Book of Moon
2 Mystical Space Typhoon
1 Monster Reborn
1 Dark Hole
1 Mind Control
1 Charge of the Light Brigade
 

Traps: 10

3 Reinforce Truth
2 Zero Gravity
2 Bottomless Trap Hole
1 Mirror Force
1 Torrential Tribute
1 Solemn Judgment
 

Extra: 15

3 Gaia Drake, the Universal Force
1 Ally of Justice Catastor
1 Chimeratech Fortress Dragon
1 Armory Arm
1 Black Rose Dragon
1 Brionac, Dragon of the Ice Barrier
1 Colossal Fighter
1 Formula Synchron
1 Magical Android
1 Scrap Dragon
1 Scrap Archfiend
1 Stardust Dragon
1 Goyo Guardian

Obviously this deck could probably use explanation, but you will have to figure it out for yourselves this time. Have fun and good night.

Online Play Testing #1

As you can tell from the post title, I hope to be able to bring a few reports on how a deck actually performs in the heat of battle if I ever do post a deck here. I will only be reporting the games I play against at least marginally competitive decks but I will make sure to post up any losses I have with the deck, as those are always the most telling.

For this I was using the deck "Arcanite Blast" that I have already featured.


1-0 against "Gut." with "Anti-Meta Serpents"

Really pleasant guy who said he has just come back to Yugiohnetwork after a long hiatus. He was fun to play and he used an interesting type of Deep Sea Diva + Gravekeepers Spy deck.

Started out really strong with a Breaker + Trust Guardian combo to destroy 3 of his cards, however one was a Card Trooper and when he brought it back with Monster Reborn next turn and tributed for Caius removing my arcanite I suddenly felt very low on attacking options. However he had ideas about summoning Red Nova dragon and as such ignored my set Scrap Goblin the next turn which was a fatal mistake, as I tuned it to Sangan next turn making Brionac despite his Solemn Judgment which I negated with Seven Tools of the Bandit. From there I was just too far ahead for him to compete, though the deck is somewhat slow paced so it took a while to win. There was a nice finish to the game, when I had used all 3 Arcanites in my extra deck, I finally topped Miracle Synchro fusion to take his remaining life points.

1-0 ish against "McRaww" with "take down"

I think this guy was a pretty decent player, he was using Plant Synchro.

I was set up for Miracle Synchro fusion on the second turn after my Arcanite was Book of Mooned, I was just waiting to rip it off the top. He tried summoning Tytannial but it fell into BTH. After that I got an Arsenal Summoners effect off and used it to summon Scrap Dragon with Scrap Beast. That beat down for a while, until I got into an interesting situation. He had just searched Dandylion with Sangan and his field was 1 set monster and 1 S/T, I reasoned that if he had kept back dandylion and his monster was a Ryko, that would be bad, wheras I could think of very few S/ts that could hurt my scrap dragon. So I destroyed his Monster which was of course Dandylion and exclaimed "Now the face down is going to be D-Prison!" Low and behold it was indeed D-Prison and my Scrap Dragon was removed. After that we traded blows for a while and we were both looking heavily to our topdecks. At this point we got disconnected, but I checked my next draw and it was the Miracle Synchro Fusion I had been waiting for for 10 of my turns. With his cards and field, I really doubt he would have been able to get over S.A.M. so I tentatively call this a 1-0 ish victory for me.

1-2 against someone (forgot who) with "New BW"

It was getting a bit late and I got into this super long, though very fun encounter with a well played Blackwing deck.

First game I started with an early spy into arcanite combo, getting 2 arcanite effects through which was nice, but one hit an MST so no real advantage was gained. I followed it up with a Miracle Synchro Fusion and he Book of Mooned my Magician, I solemned which in retrospect was a mistake. Still, I hit for 3400 and got a draw so I was feeling pretty good. Next turn he summoned Gale and ran over my Arcanite - Woops. I summoned Scrap Dragon next turn but he had Icarus Attack to destroy it, so all I could do was hit for 1600 with beast. Next turn he had monster reborn to bring back my Scrap Dragon, and that beat me down.

Second game, I had a hand full of S/Ts and so did he from the looks of it. We just sat there gaining resources until I could finally make an Arcanite push with Arsenal summoner, but he of course had Icarus Attack to stop that. But instead I Monster Reborned his Spirit Reaper and kept poking at him with it for the next few turns causing him to waste valuable defensive cards. Eventually I summoned a Brionac and used it to push for game over a few turns.

Third game was quite the irritating one. He opened with Black whirlwind and Bora but elected not to activate Whirlwind for some reason. I set Arsenal Summoner and 3 backrows and he Icarus'd my Miracle Synchro Fusion netting me a draw. He was constantly complaining of not drawing monsters and I kept bottomlessing or solemning any monsters he did get trying to keep him down. However I tried to summon all 3 Arcanite Magicians and all 3 got either Book of Mooned or Solemn Warninged which really slowed down my attacks tempo. I couldnt draw another Miracle Synchro fusion until my very last turn when I got it with Pot of Duality, where at the time I thought it would be enough, because I had a big wall of monsters to protect my quite meagre life points and he was out of defenses, but he topped Monster Reborn, stole a tuner from my grave, tuned it to Spirit Reaper then dropped Dark Armed Dragon for game.

2-1 against "Soo_Different" with "infernity"

Infernitys are my arch nemesis, I absolutely hate playing them.

In the first game I made a second turn Arcanite into Supreme Arcanite and he lost very shortly after.

Second game I had a hand full of tuners and Mirror force. In the end that couldnt do anything against Infernity Shenanigans.

The third game was much more exciting. I started with a first turn Breaker and decided to ignore his first set card assuming it to be Inferno or just something useless. He also set 1 Monster so I decided to try and push sme damage with Breaker and a Skilled Dark Magician but it was a necromancer. However he still couldnt do anything and just set a few backrows next turn. That was all the invitation I needed to blow them all up with Breaker then Arcanite then Supreme arcanite, Keeping it at 3400 by use of Skilled Darks Counters. Next turn he made some odd plays, he tried to make a Brionac with Armageddon knight and plaguespreader zombie by putting Archfiend on top of his deck. Then he made a one for one Mirage play and I paniced and used Torrential Tribute, but this was really a mistake, as I think I could have easily dealt with the worst he could have done. So I had very few attacking options. He managed to top an Archfiend despite the one  being put on top of his deck by Plague being shuffled in, but I bottomlessed it and he had to search another one with its effect. This left many tense turns where he could have topped Mirage for basically game but eventually I summoned a Brionac and just bounced my way to victory. It was much harder than it should have been though.

1-0 against "Presidential" with "Egyptian Temple"

With YCS Atlanta's result Gravekeepers are an interesting match up. The site was lagging ridiculously thouh, I dont know how we had the patience to finish the one longgg game we did.

He started very strongly with Necrovalley and Royal Tribute on the first turn hitting 2 of my monsters and he saw that my hand had both Solemn Judgment and Solemn Warning in it. So he correctly piled all the pressure on for early damage. On turn 3 I had to solemn when he tried to Bottomless my Breaker so I could kill his necrovalley and keep me in the game, unfortunately I hadnt had a chance to activate warning so it was now dead. My next 2 topdecks were both Seven Tools of the Bandit, and before I even had a chance to activate one, I was under a thousand. Luckily though i got a Trust Guardian'd Arcanite out which could protect me. I made a ood decision to not use one of its counters even though it was in defense, when I reasoned that he was happy to let me blow up his backrow and would be holding on to Necrovalley in hand. This kept me just barely alive with 650 life when he used Commandant and Assailant to put Necrovalley on the field and attack over my 1400 Arcanite twice. I somehow managed to summon another Arcanite using my  own Spys and used its effect to keep his Spy's from activating. This bought me enough time to get out Scrap Dragon and then top deck Miracle Synchro Fusion once that had died for an awesome comeback victory. I just wish I could have enjoyed it without all the lags.


Conclusions:

6-3 in games, 4-1 in victories, I think the deck performed very well. I realise that Blackwings are probably going to be one of the toughest match up's for this deck with Icarus Attack amongst other problems. Book of Moon when used correctly is also very annoying. The deck works at a slow and solid pace unless it has Miracle Synchro Fusion but its still solid and very fun to play. I even got a few complements on the deck from a few of my opponents, which is always nice.

Supreme Arcanite Magician

We have to start somewhere. That is here.

The deck I worked on and played last before I sat down to start blogging is a deck focused around this absolutely killer card.

Name: Supreme Arcanite Magician
Stats: [Spellcaster / Fusion / Effect] LV 10 ATK/ 1400 DEF/ 2800
Type: LIGHT
Description: 1 Spellcaster-Type Synchro Monster + 1 Spellcaster-Type monster
This monster can only be Special Summoned by Fusion Summon (from the Extra Deck). When this card is Fusion Summoned, place 2 Spell Counters on it. This card gains 1000 ATK for each Spell Counter on it. Once per turn, you can remove 1 Spell Counter from your side of the field to activate 1 of the following effects: ● Select 1 card in the field and destroy it. ● Draw 1 card.

If you cant tell that this guy hitting the field is a big deal, you havent played yugioh before. Massive attack (When he has his counters), Massive defense (Important since once used he is still a pain to get rid of). Thats even before you note how amazing his effect is. Surely this guy needs many cards invested into him to bring him to the field right? Nope! Just one, with Miracle Synchro Fusion, as long as your Grave is set up right you summon him for just one card. Awesome. Oh and he cant even be bottomlessed. Sexy.

Now theres the point. "As long as your grave is set up right." This has been the reason Miracle Synchro Fusion hasnt taken off yet (That and there only being Ultimate Axon Kicker as a target). To summon S.A.M. you need a spellcaster type synchro monster and a spellcaster type monster in your grave or on your field. Generally needing a synchro monster to go to your grave doesnt sound that great, because most synchro monsters require a decent amount of resources. Having a specific kind of synchro monster needed makes it even worse because that just makes the card more situational. Consistency is key in these matters; having a hand full of dead Miracle Synchro Fusions just isnt good (Despite them being excellent bluffs, since if your opponent hits them with MST or etc. you get a draw, but thats just a small bonus.) The next logical step then, is trying to find ways to very consistently fulfil these conditions.

As of now in the Yugioh TCG there are 3 spellcaster synchro monsters. However, although the other 2 are not without merit, there is definately 1 which stands out above the rest. Arcanite Magician has been a powerful weapon ever since its release, being abused to the point of frustration in decks such as Synchro Cat. That deck had to be neutered by the banlist which shows the big advantage gaining power of Arcanite. The clue is in the name; which spellcaster synchro should be the focus of our Supreme Arcanite Magician deck. Once you have summoned Arcanite Magician (Solemn Warning or not), Miracle Synchro Fusion becomes live, since a spellcaster is necessary for the summon of Arcanite Magician himself. Therefore the aim of a Supreme Arcanite deck, is to consistently summon Arcanite Magician. If you can summon the bigger version also then... Woop Woop.

So without further waffle, I give you the decklist, titled on the spur of the moment!

Arcanite Blast!

Monsters: 17

3 Arsenal Summoner
3 Breaker the Magical Warrior
2 Scrap Goblin
2 Skilled Dark Magician
2 Gravekeeper's Spy
2 Trust Guardian
1 Blackwing - Gale the Whirlwind
1 Scrap Beast
1 Sangan


Spells: 14

3 Pot of Duality
3 Miracle Synchro Fusion
3 Book of Moon
2 Scrapyard
1 Monster Reborn
1 Dark Hole
1 Mind Control


Traps: 9

2 Solemn Warning
2 Seven Tools of the Bandit
2 Bottomless Trap Hole
1 Solemn Judgment
1 Mirror Force
1 Torrential Tribute


Extra: 15
3 Supreme Arcanite Magician
3 Arcanite Magician
2 Scrap Dragon
1 Ally of Justice Catastor
1 Brionac, Dragon of the Ice Barrier
1 Colossal Fighter
1 Goyo Guardian
1 Stardust Dragon
1 Black Rose Dragon
1 Chimeratech Fortress Dragon

The first thing you might notice, and you might be unfamiliar with is the Arsenal Summoner engine. Yes, I consider it an Engine, and an underated one at that. So here is the card:

Name: Arsenal Summoner
Stats: Spellcaster/Effect Level 4 ATK/1600 DEF/1600
Type: WIND
Description: FLIP: Select 1 card that includes "Guardian" in its card name from your Deck and add it to your hand. You cannot select "Celtic Guardian", "Winged Dragon, Guardian of the Fortress #1", "Winged Dragon, Guardian of the Fortress #2", "Guardian of the Labyrinth", or "The Reliable Guardian".

Its a 1600 attack, 1600 defense floater once you activate its effect. This is always a good thing. It has other good targets like Guardian Eatos and Koa'ki Meiru Guardian but here we are using it exclusively to get to Trust Guardian, which is conveniently a level 3 tuner to go along with the Arsenal Summoners 4 levels and make that all-important Arcanite magician. Trust Guardian also has a reasonably useful effect; the synchro monster it makes cant be destroyed by battle once per turn. This is great for arcanite magician, since once its tokens are spent, it is generally nothing more than a body to chuck in the way of your opponents attacks. This effect makes it better at that. The play, flip Arsenal Summoner, search Trust Guardian, summon Trust Guardian, Summon Arcanite Magician, Blow up 2 things, is a straight +2 in card advantage, which is awesome.

The rest of this deck is also based around the level 4 Spellcaster + level 3 Tuner monster mechanic for summoning Arcanite Magician to make for added consistency by all parts being interchangeable. The other card choices in the deck arise from this.

As my other primary level 3 tuner I have chosen to use Scrap Goblin for is "Stickaroundability" and as a continuation of that I have chosen to add a single copy of Scrap Beast and 2 Scrapyard to make it more of a Scrap engine than simply a splash of Goblin. This has the added benefits of being able to use Scrap Dragon to full effect, should I ever summon him. The only other odd looking monster choice is the inclusion of 2 Skilled Dark Magician, which I actually feel is kind of "the rough edges" of the deck. I couldnt really find anything better. I felt more gravekeepers would be too passive and that Crusader of Endymion was too slow to be of any real use, so I chose Skilled Dark Magician for its truly excellent stats and its ability to easily gather spell counters for my Arcanite Magicians to use.

My spell and trap line up is reasonably standard I feel, with a greater than average amount of defense to ensure that my vulnerable spellcasters stick around long enough to be turned into lovely advantage gaining Arcanite Magicians. Pot of Duality makes this deck a lot better, since as I said earlier, consistency is key here, but hey, there are always replacements.

If anyone does read this, please do leave any comments or queries!

Welcome to my new Blog.

Hello and welcome.

This is the start of a new and prosperous era of blogging (Erm, I guess I hope so.) Right now I am writing to noone in particular. Noone at all in fact. Again, one hopes this will change. I intend to use this blog as a repository for all my thoughts on Yugioh and for my many many deck ideas.

This leads on to me explaining a little about myself. I come from England in the UK and have played this game slightly seriously for about 1 and a half years now I think. I say slightly seriously because although I do go to the occasional tournament now and then but my card collection is very small and I am really too poor to afford travel and accomodation at tournaments, let alone Pot of Dualitys. As such my main source of play is online at www.yugiohnetwork.com where I use the moniker WillStudyLater. I also occasionally attend a Fortnightly local tournament. Really though that is not my main passion in this game, I play purely as an extension of deck building. I enjoy greatly looking through cards and their effects, and then building fun, exciting, interesting and occasionally competitive decks. This will most likely end up as the focus of this blog. I do however follow quite a few Yugitube channels and other Yugioh blogs, so I may chip in my thoughts on developments in the game and meta (Rant excessively) sometimes.

Looking forward to writing to whoever it is who reads this.

Kamatari / William / Nostudyplease / Willstudylater