Deck Building Guide

We hope you enjoy your visit.

You are currently viewing our forum as a guest. This means you are limited to certain areas of the board and there are some features you can't use. If you join our community, you will be able to access member-only sections, and use many member-only features such as customizing your profile, sending personal messages, and voting in polls. Registration is simple, fast, and completely free.

Join our community!

If you are already a member please log in to your account to access all of our features:

Deck Building Guide; Tips for starters
Topic Started: May 27 2006, 08:08 PM (960 Views)
Cyber Jar	May 27 2006, 08:08 PM Post #1
Destruction in a jar Posts: 171 Group: DHQ Member Member #219 Joined: October 4, 2005	Deck Building Guide and Tips Updated 05-27-06 Author: Cyber Jar 1. Keep your deck as close to 40 as possible. A deck that uses more than 42 cards in it is too big. By keeping your deck small, it gives you a greater chance of drawing the cards that you need. 2. Give your deck a theme. Having a theme for your deck is not a good idea it is a requirement for winning. It doesn’t matter if you choose a Type (Spellcaster, Warrior, Beast) or an Attribute (Fire, Water, Light) or a deck that serves a specific purpose while blending Type and Attribute (Chaos, Skilldrain, Mill, Burn, Macro) Some deck types include :: Beatdown, Control, Beatdown/Control, Chaos, Deck Destruction, Exodia, Destiny Board, Dragon, Spellcaster, Zombie, Warrior, Beast-Warrior, Beast, Winged Beast, Fiend, Archfiend, Fairy, Insect, Dinosaur, Reptile, Fish, Sea Serpent, A Legendary Ocean, Machine, XYZ , Thunder, Aqua, Pyro, Rock, Plant, Last Turn, Life Gain, Earth, Water, Fire, Wind, Light, Dark, Gravity Bind, Lava Golem, Burner, Final Countdown/Stall, Magical Scientist, Gravekeeper, Spell Canceller, Fusion, Ritual, Union, Spirit, Toon, E- Hero, D- Hero 3. Give your deck a strategy. If you don't have a strategy for your deck, you're as good as dead. The easiest to start with is Beatdown. The sole point of a Beatdown deck is to crush your opponent’s monsters and then hit their Life Points. This theme will give you a good start with making a good deck. But after a while, it's good to drift away from the strategy and try something new and more difficult to master. Here are some basic strategies to consider. Swarmer :: The idea here is to fill your side of the field with as many monsters as possible as often as possible and slaughter your opponent through sheer force. Zombies are the best at this but Gravekeepers, Warriors, and Machines are also capable of Swarming. Big Hitters ::These decks run on the premise that if you can get your biggest badest monster out you will win. Level decks operate this way as well as decks like BEWD/BEUD Frustration :: These decks don’t try to do direct damage to an opponent but to control or negate whatever your opponent tries to do. This will often result in your opponent making mistakes that you can take advantage of. Hand and Field control decks fit this category. Protection :: The basic idea here is to either keep your opponent from attacking period with cards like Level Limit – Area B, Messenger of Peace and Gravity Bind or to limit them to attacking so that it can benefit you. Exodia, Burn and Mills all do this to some degree. Odd Balls :: These decks use a very specific set of conditions to cause the win. Last Turn decks and the 39 Monsters example from earlier are example of odd balls. Lockdowns :: These decks generally stop one or all basic ideas of your opponent’s decks. Horus, Silent Swordsman, Monarchs, and decks that use specific combos are all lockdown style decks. Example of a specific combo : Ojama Lock. Using 3 of the trap card Ojama Trio you set your opponents side of the field with 5 Ojama tokens. This eliminates their ability to summon a monster effectively locking their Monster Zones. 4. Choose cards based upon effect and nothing else. Only use cards that will help your deck win duels. There are cards that are universally good, but not all of those belong in every deck either. The Primary Staples : These cards should be fit into 97.5% of all decks -Dark Hole -Sangan -Mystical Space Typhoon -Lightning Vortex -Call of the Haunted -Premature Burial -Heavy Storm -Snatch Steal -Torrential Tribute The Secondary Staples : These cards can fit into almost any deck 75% of the time. -Scapegoat -Swords of Revealing Light -Book of Moon -Breaker the Magical Warrior -Magician of Faith -Snatch Steal -Bottomless Trap Hole -Sakaretsu Armor -Cyber Jar -Nobleman of Crossout -Mirror Force -Magic Cylinder 5. Balance your deck. Balance is, simply put, making sure that the deck is capable enough in all areas to do the job. Generally, decks will certainly have a focus in one or two of the following areas, but must be capable in all in order to be competitive. These areas are: POWER- Power here is the ability of the deck to reduce the opponent’s LP to 0. Basic Power :: These are beatdown monsters with no summoning requirement. You can simply summon them and start smashing. Big Power :: These are beatdown monsters that have some kind of requirement to be summoned or attack. Burn Power :: These are the cards used to reduce your opponent’s LP with their effect alone. Backup Power :: These are cards that do not directly damage the opponent’s LP, but increase the abilities of a card in one of the other categories to do so. MANAGMENT - This is your ability move cards from where they are to where you want them. Without deck/hand management skills, you won’t be able to effectively execute your strategy. Field Management :: This is your ability to special summon or otherwise place monsters to the field. Hand Management :: This is your ability to restructure your hand. You should also keep track of how many cards require discarding as a cost in your deck. DEFENSE - Defense is your ability to protect your own LP from your opponents Power. Basic Defense :: Basic defense cards will protect your LP and/or your monsters from attacks or other maneuvers for more than 1 turn. Responsive Defense :: These are cards that can be used in direct response to an attack to protect LP or monsters or both. Burn Defense :: These are cards that can be used to block attempts to burn LP directly. Neutralizers :: These are cards that allow for the negation and/or neutralization of one or more of your opponent’s effects. CONTROL - This is the ability of the deck to alter your opponents Management Monster Control :: These are cards that allow direct control over your opponent’s monsters. Magic/Trap Control :: These are cards that allow direct control over your opponent’s magic and trap cards. Hand Control :: These are cards that allow direct and passive control over your opponent’s hand. Graveyard Control :: These are cards that allow direct control over your opponent’s graveyard. 6. Limit tribute monsters to a minimum. Try not to use more than 2 of any type of summoning on your Tribute monsters. 2 one Tribute, 2 two Tribute and 2 Special Summon Tribute monsters is about the extent of what you want for 5 star monsters and above. 7. Know your format. Yu-Gi-Oh The Trading Card Game currently has two formats; Advanced and Traditional. In the Advanced format certain very powerful cards (also referred to as Broken Cards) are banned from play. The Traditional Format does not have any cards banned. The one thing that both formats have in common is the Limiting of cards. In Traditional the cards that are banned in Advanced are Limited to 1 per deck. There are also cards in both formats that are Semi-Limited, or only 2 per deck allowed. 8. Keep your card ratio balanced. A good ratio has essentially the same amount of Monsters and Spells and roughly half that amount in Traps. For Example if you are going to build a 40 card deck you would want no more than 8 Traps with 16 Monsters and 16 Spells. As you become more advanced and knowledgeable in the game you will discover that this is a variable and should change depending on the deck you are building, but there are limits to what the ratio should be for a Tournament deck. I saw a deck once that had 39 Monsters, 0 Spells and 1 Trap. This deck was very fun to play, but wouldn’t stand a chance against a competitive deck. Here are some things to consider about each type of card in your deck. Monsters – Searchability :: How easy is it to get the monster you want or need when you need it? Monsters that can be summoned with effects like that of Sangan or Last Will are highly searchable. Repeatability :: Is your monsters effect something you can use each turn or a constant effect? Don Zaloog’s effect happens everytime you inflict damage, Spirit Reaper’s effect is continuous. Having a large amount of one time only effects is not a good idea. Field Presence :: How long can your monsters stay on your field protecting your LP? In some cases cards with a high defense are needed to Stall your opponent and protect your LP’s. Other monsters that can cause your opponents monsters to be Removed from the Game or destroyed should also be considered. Spells- Balance :: Do you have the right numbers of the Types of Spells? With limited exception you want the majority of your spells to be Normal Spells with some Quick Play and maybe a few Continuous thrown in. Once in a while you will need an Equip Spell or a Field Spell. Cost :: What does this spell cost you to use? Using several spells that cause you to discard your hand is very poor hand management and so they should be limited to 0-2 per deck. Traps- Balance :: Just like Spells there are primary types of Traps to use. For the most part these are the Normal Trap, although there are several Counter Traps and a couple of Continious Traps that should be carefully considered. Cost :: Again like Spells paying half your life point 3 times only help your opponent. Make sure to carefully examine what a trap costs you to use it to make sure it is worth the effect in a crunch. Trigger :: What makes it so that I can activate this Trap card? When you are selecting a Trap card either choose based upon what you expect your opponent to do or based upon a basic premise of destruction or negation. 9. Posting your Deck. The following format makes it easy for the people that will rate and fix your deck to see what is in your deck and offer suggestions. "Deck Title" Monsters- Number of Monsters in your deck Number of that card in your deck (1-3) x That Card's Name ex.- 3x Archfiend Soldier Spells- Number of Spells in your deck ex.- 1x Dark Hole Traps- Number of Traps in your deck ex.- 1x Mirror Force Fusion Deck (if you have Fusions)- Number of Fusions in your Fusion Deck ex.- 1x Dark Baltar the Terrible Total: Number of Cards in Main Deck + Number of Cards in Fusion Deck ex.- Total: 40 + 15 Fusions Sidedeck- 15 Optional in posting. Many times it is enough to ask for suggestion of what should go in your sdedeck. 10. Remember you asked for help by posting your deck. Listen to what they suggest before dismissing it :: Even if you think some of the suggestions made are worthless make sure that you check them out. Some people might know more than you :: If you are asking for help with your deck remember that some people have been playing this game from the beginning and/or are tournament winners. They might have more experience than you and know better how cards will work in real life. 11. Some abbreviations to know. 1/e = First Edition Meta = Metagame: The type of cards/decks that most people in your area are currently using. Also referred to as a Cookie Cutter or CC. Net’d = Net Decked: A deck that you copied from another site. CED = Chaos Emperor Dragon-Envoy of the End BLS = Black Luster Soldier-Envoy of the Beginning Witch/WotBF = Witch of the Black Forest TIV = Tribe Infecting Virus GAF = Goblin Attack Force GEAF = Goblin elite Attack Force Serpent = Sinister Serpent X-Force = Exiled Force DDWL = DD Warrior Lady BEWD = Blue-Eyes White Dragon DMoC = Dark Magician of Chaos MoF = Magician of Faith Breaker = Breaker the Magic Warrior TER = Thousand Eyes-Restrict. MS = Magical Scientist. Tinzo = Jinzo promo from a tin SS = Snatch Steal NoC = Nobleman of Crossout MST = Mystical Space Typhoon HFD = Harpy's Feather Duster HS = Heavy Storm. MoP = Messenger of Peace. SoRL = Swords of Revealing Light Meta = Metamorphosis TT = Torrential Tribute RoD = Ring of Destruction CoTH = Call of The Haunted MF = Mirror Force IO = Imperial Order. GB = Gravity Bind LLAB = Level Limit-Area B RFTDD = Return from the Different Dimension Moby = Mobius the Frost Monarch Z = Zaborg the Thunder Monarch



1 user reading this topic (1 Guest and 0 Anonymous)


« Previous Topic · Advanced Deck Discussion · Next Topic »