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The Astral Pack | An Honest Opinion

How do you feel about the astral pack?

Link to list: http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Astral_Pack:_Booster_One

- TheTCGLover
Posted by TheTCGLover at 18:03 0 comments 
Thursday, 29 November 2012

Dueling Network Vs YGOPro | Which is Better?

I apologize in advance for the imbalance of sound. What are you gonna do, eh.

Comment and Like :)
Posted by TheTCGLover at 00:56 0 comments 

Making Non-Verbal Reads in Yu-Gi-Oh!

I just read an article on the United Gosus website. (Rodrigo I think his name was) was talking about how to make reads on the opponent outside of the normal game process itself. I'm not talking about "Oh he's set 3 cards, chances are one of them is starlight road", since that is situation dependent and doesn't require you to take your eyes off the board.

Like Poker (another card game I love to play), half the battle can be won simply by taking a good look at your opponent's attitude. Knowing how they act when they're bluffing and when they're not can mean the difference between winning hundreds and thousands and walking away feeling salty.

Here's a few examples that I feel are a good way to read the opponent:

1. Typical "Pro" habits.

This can be further broken down to the actual actions themselves. Most players shuffle their hand since they are told it will convey a sense of "Don't mess with me" to the opponent. While most of the time this works, it can't do anything against a strong minded and confident player. You don't need to constantly move cards around in your hand and not doing it can actually give your opponent a sense of security. Especially in a game where most hands play themselves, all you need to be able to do it play it correctly.

Another pro habit would be graveyard fanning, since all it does is allow you to check your graveyard in a redundant way. If you pick it up and flick through it, how your eyes direct to certain cards in the graveyard are not seen by the opponent unlike fanning it along the table.

2. Their eye movements.

While it's not an exact science, it's considered important to understand how looking one way depicts a feeling and looking the other way depicts another. If your opponent is currently on the losing end and they draw into a power card (dark hole, monster reborn), their eyes will shift a certain direction (Either left or right) and it will give you an idea about whether they are happy to see the card or not. This eye direction is generally the same for all people, due to either side of the brain governing different functions. One side means  "What I can do with this new information" and the other side means "I wish I drew (Card name) over the card I just drew". While it requires you to weirdly stare at your opponent, if you start to notice a trend, you can almost predict your opponent's plays before he makes them.

3. Passive/Aggressive nature.

During a duel, a person's posture or response time changes depending on when the situation requires it. If a person draws an immediate out, then they might sit up straight since they now have something they can do. If they are playing passive and building up resources, then they might be slouching. Of course that depends on if you're playing in a YCS setting since in a tournament like that, you should always be alert and save your slouching for in between rounds.

Another obvious way to read passive/aggressive nature is how they treat a certain monster being summoned. It's annoying having to deal with a Laggia, but the true annoyance comes when they set 3-4 backrows behind it. If they show a complete passive attitude to a Laggia Set 4, then they're either accepting defeat or they have the perfect out to it. Something like Fossil Dyna or Snowman Eater means they have nothing to worry about and if they are setting a monster on their turn, it's worth looking at their behavior to see if you can get any reads about what it might be.

4. Lack of "pro" habits.

Sometimes there's a fine line between excessive behavior in a game of yugioh, and actually looking like you have no idea what you're doing. Hand shuffling can be done by anyone and it's worth noting that. But what about if your opponent is making slow movements or is generally not fussed by what they have in their hand (as in, they are not bothered to check it and keep it face down on the table). Or what about if they have their elbows on the table?

How about when you summon a semi-popular monster (a floater like card trooper for example) and they have to stare at the card (Without picking it up) for a few seconds so they can remember it's effect?

It all shows a lack of confidence. I'm not talking about the person themselves not being confident, but I mean in the context of the game. A player that knows all the cards they are expecting to play against inside out will not show ANY lack of confidence since it allows for a way for you to get an immediate idea of how competent they are.

Seriously, there's a lot of different ways to read your opponent without having to even talk to them. All it takes is for you to scan them with your eyes and see them for how they really are.

Anyway. Later haters!
Posted by TheTCGLover at 19:10 0 comments Labels: reading, reads, yugioh

Inzektors win YCS Seattle!

Posted by TheTCGLover at 14:58 0 comments 

Tag Dueling in Yu-Gi-Oh

Hey guys, TCGLover here.

I've been playing around on YGOPro somewhat recently. It was mainly because I was fed up with the sheer volume of incompetent players on Dueling network. Clearly the major flaw is that the program needs to be automated so that players are not whining to eachother. As of right now, YGOPro is still a little flawed in areas but overall it's giving me a lot of fun and not once have I had to say "eff" in the chat. Trust me, you don't miss it at all once you stop.

One difference that YGOPro has that cannot be compared to by the DN is Tag Dueling. On YGOPro you can host/join a 4 player game, with 2 players on each team, taking turns.

So if you win the Rock Paper Scissors:
1. You go first and can't attack
2. First opponent goes and can attack
3. Your partner goes and can attack
4. Second opponent goes.

You all share the same board and you all have a separate extra deck.

This could easily be implemented into real life just by giving each player their own colour sleeve, so that when the game ends the cards don't get muddled up. Of course that means your opponent can make a better guess about how to deal with the situation, but there's no other way to do it.

Another benefit to playing a tag duel is the advantage you get when both players play the same deck or archetype. You can synergise each others cards much better and situational combos go off a lot more often. For example one player can use 2 cards to make a naturia beast and the other player can make barkion. Normally using 2 cards in hand to make a synchro is a bad idea, but in this case it's not since the reward outweighs the cost.

Another thing to understand about playing tag duels in this way is how to optimise cards. For example, heavy storm will be live and most likely plus more than normal since both opponents will be setting cards. If you're going first, it would make sense to set your first turn heavy storm so your partner can flip it up before playing any cards and begin without having to deal with backrows, allowing you to maintain their field commitment on your turn. Simply put, going third or fourth means you are expected to commit to the field and take out your opponents field in a way that the person going fourth is going to have a hard time. That's only provided you can commit due to your partner who went before you actually knows what they're doing and gives you the right cards to use. That kind of strategy does not require both players to be playing the same deck, they just have to be conscious of how your end turn field is going to help your partner.

But the thing that annoys me the most about it on YGOPro is when they don't understand that giving each other cards is good. They make their own individual plays and against a total of 12 cards (from 2 separate decks with 2 different play styles), you should expect your field to not hold up at all. Setting monster reborn is allowing your partner to use it and make a wall for the both of you to sit behind if you need to.

Anyway that's all there is to say about that, check out my video below to see a video equivalent and what happens when your partner is a bad player.

Until next time, TCGLover out!
Posted by TheTCGLover at 16:50 0 comments Labels: tag, thetcglover, YGOPro, yugioh


Thunder King Rai-Oh: Best monster in the game?

Hey guys. TheTCGLover here.

You've already read the title, and It begs the question: is Thunder King ultimately the best monster card ever created?

Lets take a look at it at first glance. - 1900 attack, the best attack to be at for a level 4
- It's LIGHT. That means once it's died, it's still putting in work for you beyond the grave.
- It's not part of an Archetype. That means your opponent can't take it and use it with all of their Archetype cards (Like wind-ups).
- It can negate an inherent summon, which means that your opponent has to get over it by wasting cards.
- It shuts off Searching. To add to the previous point, if your opponent is looking for outs to this card, then how screwed are they when their outs are not currently in their hand?

But the best thing I like about it is that in terms of card advantage, it can be devastating. It will always one-for-one in terms of actual cards. But the new refined format of deciding card advantage means that this card is putting in work without you knowing it.

Bear with me while I explain it.

You have the normal card advantage, where if there are no cards on the field (for example) and you have 4 cards in hand to your opponent's 3, then you are currently ahead by 1 card. But the game has evolved farther than that.

What happens if the three cards in your opponent's hand is Monster Reborn, Thunder King and Torrential Tribute, while in your hand you have 3 Mystical Shine Balls and a dead Solemn Warning?

Your +1 advantage is not looking so good anymore, is it?

This is where Thunder King shines the most. A first turn Thunder King means that ANY and ALL search power is now dead until Thunder King is taken off the field. The Dualities, Thunder Sea Horses, E-Emergency Calls, The Agent of Mystery - Earths are all completely useless. While you're at 6 cards to your opponent's 6 cards, in actual fact you are ahead. All it took to accomplish that was your normal summon.

It goes beyond the "Lol no searching" application with this card however. The card's key strength really lies in it's ability to really hit the meta hard every single format. The definition of speed begins with the ability to SEARCH for your combo pieces faster than your opponent and be able to SUMMON as many monsters as possible. A first turn Thunder King is the most efficient way of giving your opponent and his deck the middle finger, while allowing you to make your plays next turn.

That's my reasoning behind why I feel it's arguably the best monster currently in the game. I'm not even mentioning the strengths against certain decks, because we all know that it puts in work against almost every single one, especially with Inzektors now off the radar again.

There is more to say about the card, but why bother? The stuff I've already mentioned should be enough to convince you of it's power.

Until next time, TheTCGLover out!

Posted by TheTCGLover at 14:47 1 comments Labels: Competitive, king, Meta, oh, rai, rai-oh, thunder, Yu-Gi-Oh


Feelings Toward the Future | Episode 2 | Disorderly March


Posted by TheTCGLover at 18:41 0 comments Become a TCGLover! Videos on my Channel Check out these Yugioh Bloggers!