This post ushers in the first of many Post of the Month contests. Please realize that prizes have not yet been implemented.
Post 1 by “Phil Fitchew (magnumx23)” in Thoughts on Tragoedia:
Phil is a strong Southern California player who has performed well at numerous regionals in one of the tougher metas in the world. He has a top 8 performance at SJC Long Beach and can be found posting as magnumx23 on DuelistGroundz. His original post here:
I think that this card is the beginning of this game returning to a state where conservative play matters.
Another poster stated earlier that attacking is now too dangerous. This is a GOOD thing imo as attacking and playing recklessly nowadays isn’t punished ENOUGH. In the old days, card advantaged mattered a lot more than it does now. This meant that you had to conserve or play less cards to the board. Nowadays playing less cards to the field means you get OTKed a good amount of the time. Because of Tragoedia –- not the fact that it gets so big — but the fact that you can wait in peace without getting sacked means a skillful player with a hand full of cards is dangerous at all times now. The fact that Jae is making a deck centered around this guy only proves this point…
It’ll take more than just this one card obv., but the days of bad decks, bad plays, bad players, and reckless play winning are going to an end soon enough.
Jae’s Take: This is obviously a fantastic point. I say this despite agreeing with almost none of it.
Phil believes (and I along with many others agree strongly) that attacking through overextension is simply not punished the way it once was. The reasons for this are numerous; mass-removal cards have been phased out in favor of techy picks that deal with singular threats. And certainly Tragoedia seems to “right” this balance by indeed punishing overextensions and creating difficult situations for players who simply burn their whole hand to put double Dark Strike Fighter on the board.
My main point of contention is that I feel the “drop from battle damage” mechanic that Gorz uses is an extremely luck-based and unpleasant design decision. I feel that using a card like Tragoedia to combat the “wrong” of mass over-extensions and games ending in one or two turns is a huge detrimental “wrong” to the game itself. It effectively disincentivizes commitments to the field, further weakens the now struggling mechanic of the Normal Summon, and puts far too much attack power on the field on the opponent’s turn.
It’s interesting to ponder whether the greater good is served (as numerous players feel) by the addition of the Gorz mechanic to other cards like Tragoedia and perhaps future releases. I personally feel it is not; others feel it is. It’s difficult to reconcile both positions until we see more examples of cards like Gorz and Tragoedia in action. Gorz is broken for a whole different set of reasons (the mirror image token creating 5k+ damage without a normal summon).
Final note: I disagree with Phil’s notion of card advantage and its decreasing use. This will be saved for a future blog post.
And if you enjoyed this post by Magnumx23/Phil, vote for him here:
Matt Peddle all the way. It can be hard playing around BTH (key trap not even mentioned when you conceded the paragraph 2 point) unless you have a CW HS or GT to play before making your move.
Given your exact same situation:
monk -> discard -> cat -> 2 airbellum (with mind control in hand)
if opponent’s set was bth instead of mf (situation that is twice a common) then not only is it a 1:1 trade but you have 2 of your airbellums removed from play. this drastically reduces your ability to make a second huge play next turn.
cat’ing for 2 airbellums while not under cold wave if you know opponent is running bth is a ballsy play. i dont like saying things like “it is bad ygo” because there might very well be times when it needs to be done.
the other 2 posts were just “i agree with jae” and “i disagree with jae”
I dislike Gorz because he forces bad play by requiring you to allow your field to be totally cleared before you drop him.
but I have to say i like Tragoedia’s take on the ability (able to be dropped any time you take battle damage).
being @ 3 per deck and not requiring controller’s field to be empty makes this much less of a lucksack card imo.
Whatah while I appreciate the feedback and love your contributions I don’t think it’s really fair to put down the other well-thought out posts by just linking them to my opinion.
true, what i mean is that matt actually addressed an aspect of your post and refuted your game scenario and logic. that was a great reply. the other two i was not meaning to put down, just imo they are not in the same league.
(wish i could edit)
by:
the other two i was not meaning to put down, just imo they are not in the same league.
i was referring to the posts, not the people. magnum and living legend are great members of the online ygo community.
I disagree that Giant Trunade means you have to OTK. That’s what I first thought, but then I realized that Trunade allowing an Airbellum hit makes it a 1-1 plus damage, not to mention all the other crazy advantage swings you can make. Also, it forces Solemns if your opponent is scared of an OTK, which you may or may not have.
Vote for me! Matt doesn’t need a free trip anyway ;P
Well I respectfully disagree with magnun’s opinion. My take on Tragodeia is that I think it is a “lucksack” card and it is bad for the game. To further explain, this card makes the battle phase seem more like a mind game and it can over complicate it as you now have to fear a card that can drop at nearly anytime and completely turn the tide of a game, while putting more damage on the board with no effort; it takes little skill to use this card. I really don’t think any card should do that; I don’t think any card should make you fear the main win condition of the game: The battle phase; the damage step.
Also, to side track a bit, about Gorz, I think it’s bad for the game for nearly the same reasons Tragodeia is: It punishes players for good playing and rewards the inexperienced for poor play. I mean, how is it good for the game to have a monster that can drop with no effort on the controller’s part and punish the better player?
I pretty much strongly disagree with everything matt posted. Trunade not only sets up the otk, as it also can be used to force sjs and allude protection to free up advantage swings via arcanite, black rose, or airbellum the counteract the minus 1 that trunade is. It is also foolish imo to disregard the power of sj and my body have in freeing up game shots, as demonstrated by the success of cat varients that opted to neglect cold wave at US nationals. I also have to disagree with the notion that cat synch plays no defense. Although cat builds aren’t as disruption heavy as blackwings and gladiator beasts (although some do go with 3 sj 2 bth 2 book), they provide similar and i would argue more defense in stalling out vs a bad hand then say, blackwings do. Cat has the ability to stall pretty easily vs a mediocre hand through its monster’s effects, which generally include the gravekeeper’s, cyber valley, tomato, gorz (which trunade also sets up lol) etc. Blackwings generally have to camp on bwam if they draw poorly, which is generally tougher to establish as it necessitates a blackwing monster+gale or a shura hit while the opponent has no defensive cards. Also, assuming the first scenerio, you would have to assume a cat player has some form of an out to icarus and bth such as my body or a follow up (gorz, reborn, another cat, etc) to go all out like that on turn 2 when they obviously cannot establish an accurate read due to it being too early in the game. Also, if cat synch hit one of their defensive cards besides the my body it is game over right there. It is foolish to think that blackwing has the upper hand while being significantly down in card advantage and field presence.
You bait out the Bottomless/Mirror Force/Solemn/Icarus with Arcanite/Rose or even with a simple direct attack with Airbellium. You have to read if they have the Book/Roar and play around them. Its that simple.
If they can’t kill or reduce your resources, you are bound to draw into whatever you need. Thats the difference btwn good players and bad players who play the deck, the good players get out of the trash hands.
A good point was made that Trunade doesn’t necessarily have to lead to an OTK to make it a good play. It is possible that my opponent has Icarus Attack and Torrential Tribute down, and that by playing Trunade I can bypass these cards long enough to make a Stardust Dragon and thus render them completely useless. Plays such as these to bypass cards like Solemn (or even force them out!) are indeed good plays and a good use of a Trunade.
Let me stroll down memory lane for a minute here. Here’s how I learned about advantage. I was playing a tournament where I would continuously play something like Smashing Ground or Sakuretsu Armor and follow it up with a Don Zaloog hit to the face. A few turns later I would count the card advantage and we’d be even. “How is this happening,” I wondered, if I keep pulling cards with Don Zaloog. The reason was that Don would just then die to a Berserk Gorilla, evening the trade.
Apply this to todays thinking. Instead of using a pair of cards (smashing/don) to kill 2 cards you’re using a bunch of cards to kill even more cards and generate a +1/2/3. However none of that means squat unless you can do something with it. In the scenario we’re already discussing you’ve got a spent Arcanite Magician which does nothing but sit there and look pretty and a Dark Strike Fighter, waiting to be gobbled up by Goyo Guardian or destroyed in battle. Here’s where Cat Synchro falls flat on it’s face. It just can’t convert gained advantage into a win. Of course if you’re playing against an idiot this argument may not apply, or if the person you’re playing against has a very poor hand.
Now if you add Book/Bottomless/Solemn to your scenario and stun my monster summon we’ve got an entirely different scenario. However once again I must point out how perfect of a storm this was for you. Not only did I have zero usable spell/trap cards to prevent your combos, but you have the ones necessary to prevent my combos and in addition I also don’t have the s/t removal to stop your combo-stoppers. This means I have a hand full of monsters and you have the stun cards necessary to keep my monsters off the board. Each and every deck will win in this case, so it’s a damn good thing Cat Synchro can win it too.
Also I can play around Bottomless with Kalut/Gale. If my topdeck is a spell/trap, this play can be defended and will take out the useless Arcanite next turn as well.
If you don’t have these specific stun cards it’s extremely easy for Blackwings to mount the comeback. I can easily determine that I have all monsters in hand. Any other trap card would be set instead of Mirror Force, Allure/Whirlwinds would have all went down last turn, Books would have been set instead of Mirror Force. The only cards I could have in my hand that aren’t monsters are Heavy Storm, Mystical Space Typhoon (MAYBE, I probably would have set this instead of Mirror Force too,) Brain Control, Monster Reborn, and if you play them, Dark Eruption and Mind Control.
In the case of Heavy/Space/Reborn I have answers to your stun cards, 2 monsters + my draw.
In the case of Brain Control I have a 1 card answer to even the playing field. I might even win this turn.
Only Mind Control and Dark Eruption cost me the game, which is why I side these cards and would not bring them in against Cat Synchro.
Since my hand was all monsters my Whirlwind search last turn would reflect that. I would only get Bora if I also had Sirocco/Gale, I would only get Kalut if I had another Shura, since I had no way of protecting my Whirlwind. I might very well get Blizzard (or have one already, I don’t see why you would play less than 2 Blizzard) because I already have ALL monsters in hand (remember this is before you discarded cards, meaning I had 4 monsters after my search.) In most instances though I would get Gale, because Gale + any blackwing is an answer.
I don’t doubt for one second that I could easily answer your board. I also think it would be far more difficult for you to then answer my new board, whatever it may be.
I think Living Legend brings up a good point, the fact that we have cards that exist like Gorz and Tragoedia later on will come and bite us from behind, Putting out a card to help the current game state which is severly flawed is a good thing, but the thing that makes this card such a threat is when a format is taken over by more “Control” type of decks as you even said yourself. Which then in turn we had a card that once helped out the game when it was in dire need of helping, but will possible be shown as a threat to possible futures Meta.
Matt most of my post was spent on the informative aspects of your wonderful post (that would help new and intermediate players analyze the board the way you do). So my post was directed mainly at the hypothetical scenario and why I disagreed as to who was winning.
I think the scenario has pretty much outlived its purpose, since by my own admission the “perfect storm” was set up to show a particular case of Cat generating immense card advantage. I could have done this through other methods as well (showing a Cold Wave + Arcanite + double Airbellum play on a two s/t field with no monsters).
And while I think we can both pretty much derive reads from each players’ hand depending on what build they are playing, it starts stretching factual credibility. If the Cat player did not have any s/t removal or backfield on t1 or t3 (highly unlikely) I would assume they are holding stuff like more Brain/Minds and Avarice to counter whatever counter the BW player sets up. But due to the unlikelihood of a Cat player having 6 cards in hand with no backfield or spell/trap removal making a Monk + Spell push on a developed board, again I think this scenario has outlived its purpose.
I grant that the original scenario (one of dozens of possible game states) was a bit unfair to the BW player. It was intended to be just one example (of many to come) that illustrate Cat generating card advantage to win.
I agree that Tragoedia is good for this game since it will punish those who will go overly aggressive. It is redic, imo, that decks like Synchro Cat and Black wing can OTK if they draw “the nuts”. Cards like Tragoedia and Gorz can aid in preventing from loosing just because they drew godly. They also make the player (if they wish) to conserve in fear if they have Gorz or Tragoedia in their hand. Also, if they choose not to conserve in the more than 50% chance their opponent actually has one of the two in hand (Open with 6 and if the opponent plays 3 Trag and 1 Gorz which isn’t always advised) then they get punished by wasting most, if not all, their cards and their opponent can switch momentum of the game and pull off a victory because of said recklessness. Basically, Gorz and Tragoedia gives fear to players that play recklessly and force them to conserve.
Just out of curiosity why is Peddle known as Haymaker? I’m not trying to make fun of the name or anything, I was just wondering (especially since its the name of an old Pokemon deck when Peddle plays Yugioh).
Hi, Super post, Need to mark it on Digg