Weekly Article #3 : A 2010 Yu-Gi-Oh! Review

Hello folks. Here is vem with the 3rd article of our article team. We will be looking into cards and archetypes that conquered the dueling field during 2010.

Let's begin right away! 2010 began with the September 09 banlist being active -

Spoiler:

If you take a look at the banlist, you will notice that Lumina, Charge of the Light aBrigade, Tragoedia, Necro Gardna and Honest were unlimited. Mezuki was semi-limited and Brionac was Unlimited. Allure of Darkness and Foolish Burial were also Semi-Limited while Burial from a Different Dimension was unlimited. You can easily understand from the above which decks were broken but let's take a closer look at them.


Lightsworn were for me the best deck of that format. They had 3 Charge
of the Light Brigade which was the best card in my opinion. It could search
for your 3 Luminas while milling useful cards like one of the 3 Necro
Gardnas, Plaguespreader Zombie or other Lightsworns to let you special
summon Judgment Dragon. Most of Lightsworn decks had many DARK monsters and that made cards like Dark Armed Dragon and Chaos Sorcerer abusable. That type of deck was called ''Twilight'' (not the bulls...movie). While Lightsworns were definetaly a top deck there was another deck close to them! And that deck was the undead....


With Burial from the Different Dimension, the zombies were able to reuse
effects like Mezuki's and Plaguespreader Zombie's multiple times. They
could abuse synchro summoning and had many Boss Monsters, like DAD, Tragoedia, Caius and Brionac. They had less speed than lightsworns since
they had lost Card of Safe Return and that's why in my opinion they
weren't the best deck of that format.

Other great decks were Blackwings, Gladiator Beasts and Gadget
Oppression during the first 3 months of 2010/

Before we get to see the March 10 banlist, let's take a look at a set that was released in February. And that is absolute Power Force which brought us many cards that are being played until today and are really succesful. Let's take a quick look at them.


Let's begin with two LV1 monsters who usually see play. The one in most side decks and the other in some deck variants. The first one is Consecrated Light. Blackwings have shown their potential after the set Raging Battle, so Konami decided to make a card that can easily counter them. Consecrated Light is the most known side against Blackwings and really deserves two spots in every player's Side Deck. Another great card is Battle Fader who can stop OTKs and works well in monarchs, salvo decks etc. There was also some great Gravekeeper support which is now a tier 1 deck. Stele and Descendant see great play and are important cards in a Gravekeeper Deck. There was also Drill Warrior which after Dandylion got back at Semi-Limited was -and still is- a key card of the Quickdraw Dandywarrior Deck with which Jeff Jones won the 75th SJC (Shonen Jump Championship). Lastly 2 great XX-Saber monsters were released in that set. XX-Saber Emmersblade and XX-Saber Hyunlei who are staples in every X-Saber Deck.

Right after Absolute Powerforce, a new Structure Deck was released. Its name was Machina Mayhem and it consisted of really good cards which had a shot versus other decks of the metagame. But before we talk about it let's peek into the March '10 banlist

Spoiler:

As you can see every single card that made Zombies and Lightsworns broken is now Limited, except from Honest and Judgment Dragon which are Semi-Limited. The era where those 2 decks conquered was over and people had to look for a new stable and powerful deck. Blackwings and Gladiator Beasts were of course standar choices and some Lightsworn decks played good enough but there were 2 more decks that made an impact. And the first deck that did so was...


The Structure Deck, Machina Mayhem gave easy access to Gadgets and the new really powerful Machina Monsters. The deck focuses on keeping advantage with Gadgets effect, and special summon Fortress which can be searched through Gearframe which is by itself a 1800 beatstick. With Smashing Ground at Unlimited the deck had a great potential since it could remove the opponent's monsters easily and had OTK potetnial with Limiter Removal. With the flow of time faster decks started to play and Machinas lost their power, but are still an fairly good deck to use.

The other deck is a deck which is commonly seen today and it is the famous.....


The Quickdraw deck won and had many spots in Top 16 at the last SJC -YCSes would begin after the 75th SJC- . The deck relied on Dandylion and Quickdraw Synchron while it had debris dragons to get out Stardusts and Black Rose Dragon. The tokens of Dandylion could make Synchro Summoning easy. If you special summon Quickdraw Synchron and discard a Dandylion you can go for a Drill Warrior or a Nitro Warrior. The deck ran Lonefire Blossoms and Tytanial, Princess of Camelias which was and is the beatstick of the deck. It also runs Ryko, Lightsworn Hunter and Super-Nimble-Mega Hamster engine for mill power.

Short after the last SJC a new set, The Shining Darkness, was released and it brought a massive change to the metagame since many kind of decks were introduced, and that included 1 FTK and 1 OTK deck. The first of those decks was..


Infernities had crazy OTK capabilities. They focussed on filling the grave with monsters like Archfiend, Beetle and Necromancer. Other monsters like Avenger gave you more Synchro Monster choices but the first 3 were enough to give you the game. The combo began when you had all the 3 monsters you needed in your grave and had a Launcher or an Infernity Mirage with no other cards in your hand. You special summoned Archfiend and Necromancer. Archfiend searched for another Launcher and Necromancer brought Beetle from the Grave. You could go for a level 6 or level 9 synchro. Then you could activate the 2nd launcher's effect and the combo would begin all over again! The TCG Exclusive Infernity Barrier gave extra protection to the Infernities and the opportunity to be still alive as a playable deck and with a more control gameplay that can still OTK after the September Banlist.

And at last but not least we have the....


X-Saber was and is a swarming deck that can either gain control of the duel or wait for a good combo and go for an OTK . XX-Saber Boggart Knight and XX-Saber Darksoul are both TCG exclusives and are key cards of that deck, so take in mind that X-Sabers are not meta in OCG. The deck focused around Rescue Cat ,XX-Saber Darksoul which is a good level 3 non-tuner plus one of the best searchers ever made and XX-Saber Faultroll which was the boss monster of the deck. The other Sabers monsters that were used were Fulhelmknight Pashul,, Emmersblade, Airbellum and Boggart Knight. The deck used to ran Gold Sarcophagus to search for cards like Cold Wave and Rescue Cat. Rescue Cat would most likely bring Airbellums to direct attack your opponent and make them discard 2 cards, or Darksouls to gain their effects during the end phase, or both to go for a Hyunlei.

Other notable cards from The Shining Darkness are Spore, Herald of Perfection and Crevice into the Different Dimension.

Now around 2 weeks before the September Banlist a new Set was released bringing us some nice and of course expesive staple cards for the upcoming format together with a a brand new competitive archetype.


One monster, one trap and one spell. Three cards, one of each type that deserve a place in almost every deck. Solemn Warning is a Royal Oppression that is unlimited and works on the Damage Step. Effect Veiler is a D.D. Crow that negates effects and a level 1 tuner and finally Pot of Duality! The most overpriced card of the game which is the best one to search for your deck's best combos. But except from those cards a new archetype was realeased called...

Most of the Scraps' effect is that when they are destroyed by an effect of a Scrap monster they can add one Scrap monster from the Graveyard to their hand and that monster will probably be Scrap Chimera which can revive a Beast or a Goblin to Synchro Summon a Scrap Dragon or a Scrap Archfiend. Scrap Dragon is a staple Synchro Monster not only in Scraps but in every Extra Deck. Scrap Dragon can destroy a card on your side on the field and a card on your opponents side of the field. Since both cards are destroyed simultaneously Scrap Beast or Scrap Goblin can gain their effects and recycle a Chimera from the Grave. Also when Scrap Dragon is destroyed by your opponent you can revive a Scrap monster in your Graveyard. Another Interesting card is Scrap Golem, a LV5 monster which will be likely brought out by Scrap Dragon's 2nd effect that can special summon a Scrap Monster for free in either player's side of the field. That means you can revive Scrap Goblin and go for Scrap Dragon or if your opponent's LP are low special Summon a Goblin in attack position in your opponent's side of the field and attack it for game. Scraps have a great searcher, Scrapyard and an awesome Quick-Play spell card that is like a compination of Gemini Spark and Foolish Burial.

The September '10 banlist brought drastic changes to the game :

Spoiler:

Substitoad got banned and that completely killed the Frog FTK. Infernity Launcher at 1 made Infernities uncostitent. X-Sabers lost only Rescue Cat and they were the top deck until Starstrike Blast was released. Another surprise was the banning of Heavy Storm and unbanning of Dark Hole. The game changed and players set every S/T they had since they didn't have to fear of Heavy Storm. Dark Hole has been proven to be a balanced card. A player will rarely lose more than 1-2 monsters since if you are able to bring 3-4 monsters in a turn you will usually OTK your opponent. Black Rose Dragon at 3 was also a surprise and that gave a boost to Quickdraw/Debris decks
One month + after the new banlist got effect a new structure deck was released for the TCG and it was Marik's deck that gave easy access to Gravekeepers and Mirror Force which was released in common for the first time in TCG.

One and a half month before the end of 2010 the last set of the year was released, named Starstrike Blast. It featured support for Scraps and a promising new Archetype, Karakuri. The biggest boost was given to Gravekeepers (I am sorry but i don't have images of them) with just a single card and that card was Gravekeeper's Recruiter which gave the deck a good searcher. Gravekeepers have an incredible Field Spell, Necrovalley and a broken spell card Royal Tribute. The Gravekeeper monsters can easily get advatage with their effects and allure plus pot of duality give them the speed they want. They got plenty of traps backing them up too and that makes them one of the top decks at the end of 2010 along with the...


Synchro Plants are like Quickdraw decks but they don't play Quickdraw. They got really nice support that includes Formula Synchron, a LV2 synchro monster that gives you free draws and Glow-Up Bulb an easily summonable LV1 tuner monster. The deck relies on Debris Dragon and Dandylion to Synchro Summon monsters. The deck also relies in monarchs like Caius and maybe Raiza

So that's how 2010 ended, with the TCG awaiting Six Samurais which will probably be a tier 0.5 deck and the March Banlist to see how the game will change. And that is the end of this article

I did my best with this article. Sorry for my grammar mistakes and sorry that i didn't go into a lot details for every single card and archetype but i can't be 100% experienced with every single deck out there . I started playing in competitive level those last 4-5 months so i needed some hours of research in old sets and banlists.

That's all. I hope you enjoyed reading my article ;)

Awesome! The picture seem so lovely and suit the article much. As I can vote I will give you a +1 karma, because you surely deserve it.

To vem123 only:

Nice article, especially for those who quit the game & they're now back. ;)

+1

Great article Vem! It will be helpful with people missing some action as everybody posted! +1

I'm not quite sure, but I think we're missing Tele-DaD. Back then I didn't consider looking at meta decks at all so I don't quite remember if it was a killer.

Spoiler: