I run both Sarcs and 3 PoDs for the speed they both add. Yes, Sarc is slower and telegraphed, but Sabers play basically the same each game anyway. If I Sarc Wave turn 1 or 2, I have a slight mental edge. Are you going to commit as much backfield as you would have normally?

As for the PoD, I don't mind 2 PoD hands. I get 2 selective draws (basically) and Sabers DON'T spec. summon every turn. If I feel I might spec. summon, I don't use PoD until MP2 to help set up my defences/next turn.

Yes, my extra is missing Barkion. I don't see a need for it TBH. Most lineups consist mainly of Counter Traps and Quickplay Spells (both of which he can't negate).

I don't think I will be playing serious competition until mid next year. I want to go to Nats next year or the year after though.

I have had more success playing a 1, 2 style. Setting Rat/Emmers with DS/FHK in hand and then next turn making a free Hyunlei or protected Faultroll swarm.

I find Mind Control and Mirror Force to be subpar right now, just because most decks get rid of backrow or have the disruption mained to make such a play risky. I know this isn't a great argument, but...I know what I mean, but just can't put it into words.

I took GEC out about 1 month ago and it's not needed the way I play the deck. IMO it's a win more card.

On to against SS. The builds I have seen are basically Counter Traps (few) and very magic heavy (Naturia Beast? MST? Spell Shield Type 8?). I haven't tested against any as of yet, but I doubt I'll main something just to combat SS. I'll probably side Kinetic Soldier (more likely) or Puppet Plant.

One thing I am debating is AoJ DA for a 2nd Mist Wurm to help against Plants.

I beat a GKs 3-0 without siding (I used PoDs proxied) and the spped that I get my combo pieces was AMAZING. By turn 3 most games I could Cold Wave into a Hyunlei (or double Hyunlei), Faultroll play and finsh with Stardust/Scrap Dragon and Naturia Beast on the field. Afterwards he bi*ched about Wave for about 5 mins...lol.

I hope you have a great New Year Blue and thaks for the input.

But besides wave their is nothing you can really afford to wait two turns for. That's only going to get worse in february.

They don't special summon every turn, but you can't afford to give up two turns of special summoning either. When you draw two POD, you basically have a 5 card hand since you can't play your second POD until the next turn. And then you give up special summoning until your third turn. Which may be entirely too late.

Only quickplay that matters is book of moon, and if they had it, they would have booked your tuner. Only counter trap that really matters is solemn warning. They can use that on any synchro. baiting 2000 LP isn't always a bad thing. Being able to stop torrential, BTH, a trap stun on your GEC, limit reverse or call of the haunted from a plant debris deck, teched chain dissappearances before your bring back darksoul ? Pretty priceless. Even if you don't use him as often, There's several cards in your extra deck with less use than barkion ...

I love mind control now. And mirror force is a bad card, way too static. But as i explained on the other thread, having another mass destruction card when samurai negate your first is pretty much the difference between winning or losing.

It is. And guess what ? I win more :p

Its a bit futile to have this argument until you do test against it, or at least get a good grasp of just what this deck does. MST will definitely be your best friend, torpedoing Gateway before they can synchro shien and go off. Naturia Beast will be great, but only if you can get it to the field FAST. They play a ton of spells, but most of them are less relevant once they make a gateway swarm leaving a shien on the field.

Can't honestly say i've needed 2 before, or for that matter been able to drop two in a saber deck. So that's your call.

Can't argue that wave should have been banned already. But bi*ching about a card because you weren't prepared to see it is just lame. For the record though, GK are a slow set up deck. They basically spam recruiter to get pieces and stall out until they can poke you to death. You probably do have an advantage in that you don't main GEC though, where the rest of us have to side it out :p but key really is just to prioritize hyunlei and watch them squirm. GK aren't a very good deck, I wouldn't be surprised if it dissappeared from the scene altogether now. They had the element of surprise and I love that they sweeped top 3. But lets face it, if you expect the matchup, its not a hard one.

Same for you. How's this for a new year's wish ? Nats titles for both of us ;)

That's debatable. If I need Trunade? Dark Hole? It's for a mental edge. You know what I'm getting so you are going to play differently. If you know I have a DH coming are you going to swarm the field? Unless you can negate it of course.

Who says I have to play it? If I'm going to spec. summon I don't use it. I run a build that lets me play slow, hold the field (recruiters) and then unleash a protected Faultroll swarm and off the DS searches I have another swarm in hand. I have used it for Scrap Dragon food and it won the game so...lol.

BTH should be seeing a lot less play. It's bad aginst Plants and that makes up most of the meta right now. I don't have the problem of TS on my GEC...:p. Haven't seen Disappearances sided (except for 1 person in a 5k tourney). I know Rich Clarke sides 2 and I used to (NoCs now).

What are the ones you would take out for Barkion? AoJ DA probably, anything else?

Answered on other thread.

...you know what I meant *narrowed eyes* XD. Like I said earlier, I replaced it and I haven't looked back. I really like Desmond Boyd's builds for Sabers (this and last format), so I thought I'd give it a pretty good try and slightly adjust my playstyle with Sabers and I ahve had a lot more success with it than the aggro build (that you run). This runs like Recruiter Zombies (if you can remember them). The only matchup I kind of miss GEC is LS and thankfully it's not a common matchup.

Agreed (about testing against it) and answered on other thread

It's a mater of playstyle really. I might give Barkion a go in here because the LS/Light Beat player plays GKs now.

Yes. Agree completely. They are nearly an autowin against Plants and that's the main reason they won and why they are doing so well now. I really don't like overhype...

As to the bi*ching, he's got a (very) mild mental disorder. The one where you can't really relate to others (can't remember the name), so we put up with it...

I'd like that...lol. It won't happen for me though. I only have locals and 1 Reagionals (I guess you could call it that) with ~50 people and I top 20ed (18th I think) and I didn't have PoDs (still don't :() and my build is running A LOT smoother now. Here's the report I did (if you hadn't seen it) http://www.ccgrealms.com/forum/showthread.php?t=617459. I got rule sharked (game 5) and let it bother me for the rest of the day.

EDIT: Forgot to say thanks for posting and all that. I like having a good debate and the like (good arguments and no flaming).

Well coming from someone who won't play mind control cause it gets negated a lot (despite it being the exact card that can get a person to play a certain way - summoning a tuner will almost always draw solemn warning if they know you have mind control) you should know that that's the other side of the medal. With two turns to prepare, they can anticipate the move, either finishing you now, knowing you don't have it and have 1 card less, or play preventive measures. Only cold wave really seems worth a two turn wait.

The thing is, that dead Duality in your hand is the card that could actually be making your game, and now you are stuck waiting a turn to activate it, and then another turn cause you can't special summon. Duality is a great card in that it can give you the needed card to go off next turn. But not when its sitting there for another turn doing nothing, then its just dead weight. And like sarco, the longer the game progresses, the less likely it is to be useful.

Maybe your meta is slow picking up on how good dissappearance is against plants and sabers :p BTH is seeing less play now, but its just one of many.

Black Rose is a bit of a "what if" card, maybe if you were playing hamster it would less the case. Chimeratech seems like overkill two, even with the cydra's sided, are you finding great difficulty beating machines ? and decisive armor as well likely.

I liked a slower build when we still had two oppressions, but now its harder to accomplish. Plus its not really my playing style either. If I overthink or slow-roll, then bad things happen to me :p Knowing current defensive line-ups, its best to go all out 90% of the time as early as you can. And can't argue with a 90% success rate even if it does cost me the other 10% pretty blatantly. Rather lose horribly 10% than lose a close one 30-40%.

Its beauty is in once it hits the field. if it doesn't, it baited a solemn card, if it did they will be wasting cards to get rid of it, because nearly every deck has a handfull of cards it sees negated. Heck, it even hurts when you negate a royal decree knowing all your cards push through now. And speaking of LS, ever negated a beckoning light ? Its like an LS player signalling "I'm desperate". Negating it usually means game. Plus its a LV6 2500 body. And its more stable than goyo guardian.

They call everything a mental disorder these days. I've got ADHD. Its a blessing once you cope with it. My sister was mildly autistic. its been my experience that its more enriching if you adapt to society, it makes you a better person and you will reap more benefits from your abnormality, than when you have society adapt to you, which only makes you feel more sorry for yourself and more convinced you have an actual disorder, when in all reality, you're just a little different.

There's no excuse for being a pain in the ###.

I had an awfully mediocre season this year, but now that my favourite samurai are coming back stronger than ever, i have a good feeling ;) if ever there was any deck you could play so succesfully with reckless abandon :p So wouldn't give up hope yet. And smoother or not, until you stop losing games (that aren't because of your own mistakes, otherwise you need to work on that first) you can always find a build that suits you better. I remember first time I played samurai. I wasn't expecting anything. Just another deck no one was playing at the time. I took 2nd in a 30-man tournament that had 3 national champs playing. Sometimes it just hits you like that.

It's working very well for me right now. With 2 Sarcs and 3 Dualities I can get quite near the speed of when we had Cat. With my style I don't spec summon often unless I'm making a protected Faultroll play or they have no backfield. I can still spec summon on my opponents turn...

Maybe. We have 12(ish) when everyone turns up to locals, lol. I am the only Sabers (and there is someone who runs Plants or Scraps but runs Scraps a lot more due to there being 2 GKs) and the only person that runs a side (apart from myself) prefers Mind Crush and Starlight Road against Sabers.

I only have 1 CFD. BRD stays, just in case. Got a +5 or +6 last time I was there with it. I was funny. But he didn't know you could chain BoM when a Sync is declared...

This build can do either. I prefer a slower paced game, but if I really want to go fast and all out I can. That's one reason I'm testing a 2nd Pash over Air.

No, I haven't hit a Beckoning, sounds like fun though. I'll probably cut AoJ for Barkion to test it. Thanks.

That's the word. Thanks. Autistic. It is no excuse but we make some exceptions for him. The problem in he thinks he knows all the rulings and he doesn't know when a card activates. It's activated when it's flipped. He thinks that for example I play Reborn and he has Warning/Solemn/Naturia Beast I can't pick targets because it negates the activation...You have to fully activate it before you can chain...lol.

That's really all I lose to (own mistakes). I tend to only see one way and then just go for it instead of thinking it through and don't see a better way until afterwards (like the BW matchup in the report). Do you have any tips that you could inpart? You sould have a better year this year, esp with you being a SS player.

EDIT: 2nd Pashuul in over the one-of Airbellum. It is more useful, while I like the ability to punish bad def if I can, with all the removal sided in (NoC, etc) having the only Pash removed sucks as it cuts out a lot of my extra.

Well for what its worth i'm getting the hang of this saber thing as well, won a tournament yesterday with relative ease. Wasn't planning on playing them anymore, but had them with me at tournament last week and i testing after every tournament game (I played plants for tournament) I ended up playing a lot better. So figured i'd try at least one more ...

I think post march will be great for me. A lot of players will pass on samurai when gateway is limited, and that's just when it starts getting fun for me. That's when the deck requires a certain skill again, has a more toolbox feel and doesn't require all the luck of the world in the mirror match.

As far as tips, try to calm down. Usually its just nerves making your overlook things, feeling close to a win and not seeing the bigger picture of when to be more or less conservative. It helps to wear an ipod or something, close yourself off from all the comments around you, it sets a new and steady internal pace. I don't do it anymore because it can distract as well (and you need the right music or you'll only get more jumpy :p) but its great when starting out.

Barkion did his work for me yesterday. I find on fields with a single set, Barkion is my best play. And a field of Beast, Barkion, faultrol and fulhelm is just fun as hell :p

I can imagine trying to get rid of that field *shudders*.

The problem I have is I don't think of things. Like, I sit and think and only see one possible play (when there are many) and it's ususally a bad choice of play at the time.

For example, I had a massive swarm under Wave (double Faultroll) and synced Goyo and Hyunlei (I think) and then attacked into an Honest. If I'd gone Brionac and bounced the 1-2 monsters it was game. I didn't think of that. Vs Light Beat.

Do you know of any ways to solve that sort of problem? I'll try and calm down a bit. Thanks.

At home it's got to the point where my brother doesn't want to play me anymore because I usually win very easily.

I'm debating on cutting a Rat and running Airbellum instead. If I do that, a Cydra and DCK are coming out of my side for BTHs. I cut MF from my side for a Trap Stun to help with BWs.

Updated for March 1st. Would love some help on Oppression (thinking 3rd Sarc) and on the 15th spot in my Extra.

Why are you even still running gold sarc ? Without cold wave to search, what do you need gold sarc for at all ? Any card you want to draw, you can just run more of instead of a gold sarc and draw it without losing a card for two turns and telegraphing your play. Only rescue cat and cold wave were really worth that. So main oppression, a third trap stun and something else over those three sarcs.

I know you really like some of the guys at TCGplayer, but how many sabers have topped with even one gold sarc since rescue cat was gone ? The answer is two (neither of which made top 8, and both were back in Philly early october when sabers were still better overall) ... St.Clair doesn't even bother playing POD, and few succesful decks use more than two POD. Slow playing does not win games in these formats ...

Plant-chaos, better saber builds, samurai, they all take advantage, because when you activate a gold sarc they know you are still AT LEAST two turns from making a serious play, and that you'll have a card less to defend yourself with during those turns. Dito for playing three POD, having two in your hand seriously hampers you for two turns. And Rats ... who also haven't topped since STBL. They might be slightly better with extra trap stun and one warning less, but in all, Hamster is a better choice. You won't be playing trap stun at the start of your opponents turn to stop a possible warning, but you will play it in your own turn before you flip a hamster if you can follow up with a tuner. rat won't get you a saber unless its attacked.

It's been testing pretty good right now.

I know you are not a fan of Sarc. Like ATG, I think of it as a hand fixer. I'll drop one for the Oppression though.

But as to your Rat argument Rat can also be aggro, which Hamster can't. Hamster can still be hit by Warning. Hamster summons in face down. Rat is much faster and has more targets.

Thing is that three trap stun can protect hamster on your own turn, because you can afford to go blind trap stun against a weak monster field, bring out Barkion, brionac, or even Landoise pretty soon. The facedown darksoul is also protected since no one maindecks NOC and more people will be looking at Chain Dissappearance. This is what true set up is all about.

ramming a rat head first into something will end your battlephase before you can make a move, and risk running into Dimensional prison, which will be seeing a lot more play. I'm not saying this lightly, you say this as if I've never tested or played these cards or know what their potential function is.

And if you need a hand fixer in a format when you can already just run more of whatever you need, then you are just using a bad card to make up for bad deckbuilding. Mull that one over for a while. A more consistent build should always give you a playable hand of six cards. If you need Gold sarc, and especially if you need more than one, it means your deck is so bad you have to consistently give up a card in hand and wait two turns to be able to do something because you hand needs fixing ...

Blue, I didn't mean to come accross that way :). Sorry.

I'm maining the Oppression. Got some testing in (only against current GBs though as this is what my best mate runs) and 3 Sarc is overkill. This MIGHT change.

I like Sarc. Yes, in your opinion my deck isn't great. I've found Sarc gives a psychological edge. They know when I get my Sarced card I'm going to go off (most of the time) so this gives them a timer. They have to go aggro INTO my Recruiters which allows me to setup faster.

I'm still open to ideas, but this has been testing very well in my area. I'm not a great duelist. I'm trying to become better but it's a long road (the two main reasons are I live out of town and don't have my licence so I can't get to locals often, and the other one is the best player in my area is an autistic kid who knows jack all about rulings but can duel well).

Uni is starting next week, so I won't have as much time for ygo until I sort my time out.

You don't have to apologize. I'm not easily offended. I'm just looking for the arguments. At the end of the day, you run what works for you, simple as that. But on here its about the "why", so I'm seeing if there is a logical argument behind your choices, other than "ATG said so". Cause he makes as many bad suggestions as he does good ones.

You should main oppression. I'm considering it myself. But whether its over a third sarc, I wouldn't even run one sarc.

If that works in your meta, by all means. But try and pull that on me, I know you have one card less to stop my brionac, I have two turns to set up brionac, I will have game long before two turns are over.

I'm juggling a job and two kids, trust me, I know how that works :p

I did finally get YVD set up though, so if you have MSN messenger we can stay in touch and practice some that way if you like. think you'll be up more times than most people in an American timezone.

That sounds AWESOME!! I'd like to play someone who is decent (for once). I have MSN but I'm hardly ever on it (last time was 3-4 months ago at least). I have YVD. I'M GMT+10. My day that I'm free 90% of the time is today (Sunday). 19:50 here atm.

That's good. Are you finding logical argument? Or more of ATG said so? While my build is (quite) similar to ATGs, I do test it and tweak it.

As to Rat vs Hamster. I found Hamster more useful it 2 cases. More def and free BRD if I needed it.

I have only played one mirror (and lost that due to a sh*t ruling about Warning missing the timing on GEC becuase I asked targets...). The thing is I found Rat faster and I have the option of going aggro with it which I don't with Hamster.

I found that with Aggro Sabers I tended to loose due to overextention without protection. GEC is good, but in a Trap hate format? I'm running them now because of no PoDs. What would you suggest? I don't want to run 3 Boggarts. I found while it is our easiest way of getting 2 Sabers out, 3 clogs the hand too much. I'm am actually (kind of) debating 1 Caius mained, but probably won't.

You'd suggest:
-2 Rat
-2 Sarc
-1-2 PoD

+1 Stun
+3-4 ???

Right?