Some Thoughts for the Banlist and Update for Turbo Towers
The new banlist is quite rough on Qliphort, eh? Losing 1 scout, 2 saqlifice, 2 skill drain, and 2 Emptiness makes the standard Qliphort lose not only their consistency, but also their unfairness. It forced them to play more otk-oriented strategy, making them even more vulnerable to disruption. Burning Abyss got pretty small hit by the banlist, but they are already significantly hit by the release of Nekroz. On the other hand, losing 1 Preparation and 1 Brionac won't affect Nekroz' consistency that much. After all, they still have million ways to tutor Brionac with 3 Manju and Senju being legal.
On the surface, the banlist looked like a good one since it hits every major dominating archetype in TCG. However, I believe that's not the case. Qliphort might get hurt by the limitation of Vanity's Emptiness but I believe the one hurted the most are rogue decks. I'm talking about Yosenju, HERO, Sattelarknight, or any deck that relies on consistency and defensive cards with no powerful play.
I'd like to say that Vanity's Emptiness is a card that single-handedly makes Rogue deck able to keep up with the meta since it is a universal floodgate that can stop all of the top tier decks from playing their strategy. With no Vanity's Emptiness, rogue deck are forced to play an unfair attrition game with decks whose resources can replace its own. It's gonna be harsh and even if you play 100% correctly, you can still lose, simply because your resources are not enough to deal with all of their resources. Rogue decks also lose Snatch Steal, one power card that can literally steal the game from top tier decks.
With that in mind, I think that the domination of Nekroz will be even more unchallanged by the current meta. Unless, someone makes an innovation and break the meta with new archetype. With the unbanning of some of the best card from the past, we'll have a lot of new toy to be experimented with. The most exciting for me is the semi-limitation of Charge of the Light Brigade. Ridho Yoshel has already shown that Chaos Dragons can still be a contender in the Nekroz meta, and it was only with 1 charge (Not to mention, Chaos Dragons can also play with Dragon Ravine again).
With 2 charge, we can also see the rise of some grave based decks, like plant synchro (No, Lightsworn is not going to get better since they lost Dragon Rulers, playing the old build is just too inconsistent, no is no). Plant Synchro also get significant upgrade with the unlimiting of Lonefire Blossom, coupled with Glow-Up Bulb, I think that they did get their parts back now. Although 1 Debris and 1 Dandylion is gonna hold them from being contender again.
Speaking of Lonefire Blossom, it makes me want to play my Meliae Control brew again, but with no Emptiness, the deck has significantly lose its chance to fight the top tier. Fortunately, we do get another good defensive trap in Ring of Destruction. I think ROD is going to be the fifth member of Good Traps Everyday that previously only consisted of Warning, Torrent, Compul, and BTH.
Temple of The Kings is also potential. No, not the second effect, but the first. Being able to activate trap card the turn it was set means that you can play the Chain Material + Fusion Gate combo in first turn, making the deck even more stupid. Although finding the single copy of the Temple in the first turn is going to be a hard work, but it's worth as an addition one-of that can possibly makes the game even more unfair for your opponent.
Now let's talk about Turbo Towers, because that is the deck that I planned to use to break the meta, albeit only Indonesian meta since I can't afford to play outside Indonesia. The deck does get hit, although not as hard as the standard Qliphort. Turbo Towers lose only 2 cards, yes 2 cards, 1 Scout and 1 Saqlifice. Ideally, Turbo Towers doesn't want to play a full playset of Saqlifice because it will only add to its inconsistency, risking you to draw 2 Saqlifice in your opening hand.
However, losing 2 card is also a big deal in Turbo Towers because a deck that wants to assemble an exact five-card combo in every opening hand wants to make sure that all card in the deck can contribute to the five-card combo. Losing 2 cards means that we must find another 2 cards that can still contribute to the combo.
There are 2 routes that we can use from here. First, we can replace the 2 card with draw spell. Either Trade-In and Sacred Sword of Seven Starts is decent, but not OK. Most of the times, you won't get the correct pair for the cost of the draw spell, and you'll be forced to use Scout to add the cost of the spell and desperately hoping to draw Towers from the 2 extra cards.
Secondly, we can replace the 2 cards with another unfair monster. Remember, the goal of playing Turbo Towers is to be able to setup an unfair board presence by summoning a really unfair monster on turn 1. Apoqliphort Towers is surely one of the best unfair monster, but it's not the only one. There are still many unfair monsters that we can ramp into with Turbo Towers engine. For now, these are my best suggestion:
1. Light and Darkness Dragon
This card seems like the best candidate to put in maindeck. Just like Towers, this card makes most of your opponent's cards useless. Nekroz is definitely going to have a hard time to deal with LADD. Burning Abyss can reveal 4 Malebranches from their hand and attack the LADD but it will make them lose some tempo and having 4 Malebranches in hand means they only have few traps to deal with the next turn Apoqliphort Towers.
Shaddoll can fight better since they can chain El-Shaddoll Fusion to any card that LADD negating, but even it will make them lose one card and lose Construct's effect to send card to grave. Sattelarknight has a better chance to deal with LADD if they get Honest to bounce over and over again. The biggest downside to play LADD is that it will destroy all of your scale if your opponent can deal with it. So you need to make sure that you summon LADD only when you can draw cards from Monolith. However, if your opponent can't deal with LADD, then you can summon Apoqliphort Towers in the next turn unopposed.
2. Mechanical Hound
Everybody has talked about Spell Canceller as a way to fight Nekroz. Only problem is that the card only good to fight Nekroz, since Qliphort and Shaddoll can just beat it down with their normal summoned monsters, and in a very diverse meta like Indonesia, giving some space of side deck that only works against one deck is not wise. Mechanical Hound is basically Spell Canceller on steroid. It worked just like Spell Canceller and it won't be beated down by Qliphort Ship or Shaddoll Dragon. Making zero hand in Turbo Towers is also very easy since you have Into the Void or you can just pendulum summon all of your monsters.
Again, Nekroz is going to have a very hard time to deal with this card. They might even flip the table on you until they can find Fire Hand/Ice Hand. Qliphort player also can't do much except setting their traps and hope that we run into one of them. Shaddoll player will probably only setting a Squamata or Dragon, again, hoping we'd run into them. However, this card doesn't do much in BA or Sattelarknight matchup, so this card is best in side deck.
3. Archlord Kristya
The good ol' Kristya. Everybody always want to flip the table when they face this in Agents matchup, back on its day. Kristya is still good in the current meta as special summoning monsters are still the norm of the current meta. However, unlike Mechanical Hound, LADD, or Towers, Kristya is vulnerable to spell removal. These days, Nekroz players are playing a full playset of Book of Eclipse. Qliphort players are used to bring Monarch Stormforth in the main deck and most decks are main decking Book of Moon. So the card is good, but it's too vulnerable so I probably want to skip it.
4. The Wicked Avatar
The last card I will mention here is probably the most obscure one, but it might work. The Wicked Avatar can be a better version of Apoqliphort Towers or worse depending on the situation. In Nekroz or Qliphort matchup, The Avatar is better than Towers since your opponent can't beat it down. However, in Burning Abyss matchup, Towers is definitely superior since your opponent can't farfa it. In general, The Wicked Avatar's only weakness is monster-effect removal, while Tower's only weakness is monster beatdown. This card has a potential after all.
All of those cards I mention above are the cards that can stops your opponent from playing Yu-Gi-Oh! The basic idea for putting those card in the deck is like this: If you draw those unfair monsters, then you just summon it and eat your opponent's resource or even their entire turn. Most of them only requires 2 tributes, so you can summon them with only 4 Qliphort monsters. If you have Scout among those 4, then you can search for Monolith, summoning the unfair monster, and draw 2 cards. Then next turn you can search for Apoqliphort Towers and summon it, hopefully unopposed, and runaway with the game.
But this is still some untested idea. It will need a lot of testing to know how effective those cards are. Hopefully I can find it before NATS.
On the surface, the banlist looked like a good one since it hits every major dominating archetype in TCG. However, I believe that's not the case. Qliphort might get hurt by the limitation of Vanity's Emptiness but I believe the one hurted the most are rogue decks. I'm talking about Yosenju, HERO, Sattelarknight, or any deck that relies on consistency and defensive cards with no powerful play.
I'd like to say that Vanity's Emptiness is a card that single-handedly makes Rogue deck able to keep up with the meta since it is a universal floodgate that can stop all of the top tier decks from playing their strategy. With no Vanity's Emptiness, rogue deck are forced to play an unfair attrition game with decks whose resources can replace its own. It's gonna be harsh and even if you play 100% correctly, you can still lose, simply because your resources are not enough to deal with all of their resources. Rogue decks also lose Snatch Steal, one power card that can literally steal the game from top tier decks.
With that in mind, I think that the domination of Nekroz will be even more unchallanged by the current meta. Unless, someone makes an innovation and break the meta with new archetype. With the unbanning of some of the best card from the past, we'll have a lot of new toy to be experimented with. The most exciting for me is the semi-limitation of Charge of the Light Brigade. Ridho Yoshel has already shown that Chaos Dragons can still be a contender in the Nekroz meta, and it was only with 1 charge (Not to mention, Chaos Dragons can also play with Dragon Ravine again).
With 2 charge, we can also see the rise of some grave based decks, like plant synchro (No, Lightsworn is not going to get better since they lost Dragon Rulers, playing the old build is just too inconsistent, no is no). Plant Synchro also get significant upgrade with the unlimiting of Lonefire Blossom, coupled with Glow-Up Bulb, I think that they did get their parts back now. Although 1 Debris and 1 Dandylion is gonna hold them from being contender again.
Speaking of Lonefire Blossom, it makes me want to play my Meliae Control brew again, but with no Emptiness, the deck has significantly lose its chance to fight the top tier. Fortunately, we do get another good defensive trap in Ring of Destruction. I think ROD is going to be the fifth member of Good Traps Everyday that previously only consisted of Warning, Torrent, Compul, and BTH.
Temple of The Kings is also potential. No, not the second effect, but the first. Being able to activate trap card the turn it was set means that you can play the Chain Material + Fusion Gate combo in first turn, making the deck even more stupid. Although finding the single copy of the Temple in the first turn is going to be a hard work, but it's worth as an addition one-of that can possibly makes the game even more unfair for your opponent.
Now let's talk about Turbo Towers, because that is the deck that I planned to use to break the meta, albeit only Indonesian meta since I can't afford to play outside Indonesia. The deck does get hit, although not as hard as the standard Qliphort. Turbo Towers lose only 2 cards, yes 2 cards, 1 Scout and 1 Saqlifice. Ideally, Turbo Towers doesn't want to play a full playset of Saqlifice because it will only add to its inconsistency, risking you to draw 2 Saqlifice in your opening hand.
However, losing 2 card is also a big deal in Turbo Towers because a deck that wants to assemble an exact five-card combo in every opening hand wants to make sure that all card in the deck can contribute to the five-card combo. Losing 2 cards means that we must find another 2 cards that can still contribute to the combo.
There are 2 routes that we can use from here. First, we can replace the 2 card with draw spell. Either Trade-In and Sacred Sword of Seven Starts is decent, but not OK. Most of the times, you won't get the correct pair for the cost of the draw spell, and you'll be forced to use Scout to add the cost of the spell and desperately hoping to draw Towers from the 2 extra cards.
Secondly, we can replace the 2 cards with another unfair monster. Remember, the goal of playing Turbo Towers is to be able to setup an unfair board presence by summoning a really unfair monster on turn 1. Apoqliphort Towers is surely one of the best unfair monster, but it's not the only one. There are still many unfair monsters that we can ramp into with Turbo Towers engine. For now, these are my best suggestion:
1. Light and Darkness Dragon
Shaddoll can fight better since they can chain El-Shaddoll Fusion to any card that LADD negating, but even it will make them lose one card and lose Construct's effect to send card to grave. Sattelarknight has a better chance to deal with LADD if they get Honest to bounce over and over again. The biggest downside to play LADD is that it will destroy all of your scale if your opponent can deal with it. So you need to make sure that you summon LADD only when you can draw cards from Monolith. However, if your opponent can't deal with LADD, then you can summon Apoqliphort Towers in the next turn unopposed.
Everybody has talked about Spell Canceller as a way to fight Nekroz. Only problem is that the card only good to fight Nekroz, since Qliphort and Shaddoll can just beat it down with their normal summoned monsters, and in a very diverse meta like Indonesia, giving some space of side deck that only works against one deck is not wise. Mechanical Hound is basically Spell Canceller on steroid. It worked just like Spell Canceller and it won't be beated down by Qliphort Ship or Shaddoll Dragon. Making zero hand in Turbo Towers is also very easy since you have Into the Void or you can just pendulum summon all of your monsters.
Again, Nekroz is going to have a very hard time to deal with this card. They might even flip the table on you until they can find Fire Hand/Ice Hand. Qliphort player also can't do much except setting their traps and hope that we run into one of them. Shaddoll player will probably only setting a Squamata or Dragon, again, hoping we'd run into them. However, this card doesn't do much in BA or Sattelarknight matchup, so this card is best in side deck.
3. Archlord Kristya
The last card I will mention here is probably the most obscure one, but it might work. The Wicked Avatar can be a better version of Apoqliphort Towers or worse depending on the situation. In Nekroz or Qliphort matchup, The Avatar is better than Towers since your opponent can't beat it down. However, in Burning Abyss matchup, Towers is definitely superior since your opponent can't farfa it. In general, The Wicked Avatar's only weakness is monster-effect removal, while Tower's only weakness is monster beatdown. This card has a potential after all.
All of those cards I mention above are the cards that can stops your opponent from playing Yu-Gi-Oh! The basic idea for putting those card in the deck is like this: If you draw those unfair monsters, then you just summon it and eat your opponent's resource or even their entire turn. Most of them only requires 2 tributes, so you can summon them with only 4 Qliphort monsters. If you have Scout among those 4, then you can search for Monolith, summoning the unfair monster, and draw 2 cards. Then next turn you can search for Apoqliphort Towers and summon it, hopefully unopposed, and runaway with the game.
But this is still some untested idea. It will need a lot of testing to know how effective those cards are. Hopefully I can find it before NATS.
I've tested wicked avatar. In my opinion, the time to set up wicked avatar is too long to be effective against the current meta (Basically forcing you to go to a grind game). Tower is definitely superior against wicked avatar in my test. Although, he is definitely good card if he is able to be summoned in first turn.
ReplyDeletemay I ask your opinion on chain summoning and Precious card from beyond?
Thanks for the comment :D
DeleteActually you can summon the Wicked Avatar in the first turn, you know the drill: Scout adding Monolith, pendulum 3 random Qliphort, then tribute them all to Wicked Avatar, so I wonder why do you think it is too long to be effective.
Regarding your question, I also have thought about precious card from beyond, but I think that Monolith is already enough to gain advantage by tribute summoning. Moreover, a single precious card from beyond in your opening hand can mess up with your plan to summon Tower in first turn. Chain Summoning, I actually have no idea how would you use it in Qliphort deck, would you mind to explain?