Magical Merchant - Format Staple(YGO)

[MegaDitto]

It's just a small though but is it really possible that Magical Merchant can be a format staple. It had it's glory moments in 2 different formats, so it's not new to the game. At first in the "Chaos Format" to quickly summon Black Luster Soldier-ETOB. Then found new hope in a format of discarding and dumping with the Merchant Pot Turbo decks. Though the deck were popular in the OCG format, it peaked trough to the TCG format for a short time. Now in the new current format, where draw options are limited and removing from play is still considered a good win condition, would this card be able to rise again as revived tech, or as a monster staple in CC decks?

With new monsters com ming from "Force of the Breaker" (easier summoning) and Pot of Avarice still being in the game. Will this card be a new form of a monster staple for a period of time?

 

[Frostweaver]

Again just like what I said about Morphing Jar in the other thread, Magical Merchant got problems that it must be set, slowing down the tempo and potentially giving the opponent a turn to rest up and recover from your barrage of attacks. Most people will probably rather want Card Trooper's random dump, even if it can be a bit risky at times, just because it can keep up the pressure.

This format feels like it's all about tempo to me. If you're playing a defensive tempo deck that runs a lot of Spys and other defenses to slow down the tempo in order to ruin the opponent's intended fast movement, then Merchant (along with Morphing Jar) got its chances.

 

[Kenny_C.002]

I was actually wondering that. Does YGO have a decent control deck? I mean control as in slowing down tempo to a grinding hault and then winning the card advantage attrition war.

 

[Frostweaver]

I was actually wondering that. Does YGO have a decent control deck? I mean control as in slowing down tempo to a grinding hault and then winning the card advantage attrition war.

Gadgets sort of do that... they grind to a hault and win the card advantage attrition war, but they don't do any control to the hand. I believe that Magic got 108 something card? I've heard about that in the YGO review for Gadgets...

The gadgets allow you to search your deck for another gadget (red search yellow, yellow search green, green search red). They're all puny monsters, but they always search for another monster when summoned. So, the deck loads up on tons of traps and other 1-for-1 trade off (usually, one spell/trap that can destroy another card on the field, thus 1-for-1 trade). Since gadgets always ensure that your hand has at least one monster as long as you keep summoning, and you get your normal 1 card draw, then eventually those 1-for-1 trade will empty the opponent's hand far faster than the gadget player.

There's "flip-flop control" 2 banlist ago (so that's a year.) Flip monsters are used, and Tsukuyomi uses her effect to turn the flip monster facedown again. Monsters flip back and forth like that to gain card advantage for sheer card advantage power. Most YGO player labelled Flip Flop Control a regressive deck in YGO history however, since it's a total pain and eliminates a lot of creativity since it's so painfully slow but still powerful.

There's a PACMAN deck in the same era (forgot what PACMAN stand for... I only remember the C stands for camel, which is Des Lacooda). It uses insane stalling cards, like every single one that exist. Then, it uses cards that can flip itself down with its own effect, and flip summon for an effect (different than flip effect, as they need to be flip summoned.) PACMAN uses Des Lacooda to draw, and the Swarm of Locust/Scarab to destroy monster/spell/trap slowly one by one. (All those 3 cards are like: when flip summoned, draw/destroy a monster/destroy a spell or trap. You can flip it facedown afterward.) The deck mills out every single card possible, and peck off the enemy with those puny monsters.

However, PACMAN is so card advantage intensive that it got "dead advantage"... it draws tons of cards and gets lots of advantage, but can't do crap with the advantage... PACMAN's failure ended the control era of YGO, and everyone doubts card advantage and switched to utility over advantage ^^ (since at the same time, booster packs seem to favor aggression way more too)

 

[Kenny_C.002]

Ah. I used to play PACMAN myself, but didn't think that it was good enough to be called a "good control deck", though. What I do find interesting is the reaction against control in YGO, since it seems rather basic that control would be integral to the whole game. Maybe that's just magic leaking out there, though, since we just find control to be just that, and usually people don't like to play against them, since it's even more powerful than the pathetic control YGO has/had.

Edit: I guess I should say the reason too. The reason why PACMAN failed IMO is simply because they lack the ability to draw fast enough to get to the optimal hand. In the case of "dead advantage", PACMAN no longer wants to look to draw cards, but drawing the optimal hand for recovery. Unfortunately, PACMAN generally lacks the ability to get to that optimal hand consistently either. At one point I opted to leave the camel out and put in 3 kill conditions (forgot what), and leave the attrition war to the swarms.

Any combo decks, by any chance?

 

[Frostweaver]

But the thing is, Magic also got better ways to counter the stronger control. On the other hand, YGO only has essentially 2 card (one of them is limited to one per deck) to handle facedown monsters. PACMAN is just fine in Japan and actually not considered, because they got a better card pool to deal with control and get out of it. In TCG YGO, flip flop lifts off and you're doomed for life until you lucksacked Confiscation, and nail Tsukuyomi off the hand, or get a Zaborg that can nuke the facedown upon summoning.

There's some very minor control through Thestalos, and a few other random monsters out there splashed into a cookie cutter deck. They can randomly discard a card. Thestalos once got a major spotlight. Spirit Reaper and Don Zaloog dominated before flip flop came to annoy the heck out of everyone.

However, a series of card was made to battle against these cards. Dark World monsters are special summoned along with cruelly punishing effects if they're discarded by the opponent's card effects, effectively discouraging control again.



Combo decks are currently... sorta dead as well just like control, since aggro is unimaginatively fast for YGO in comparison to all decks at the moment ._.; release of Twister effectively destroy all decks that rely on continous traps/fields even more than before.

Heck with it, even burn is basically gone... Chain Strike made it good again after a long time, but then that's also banned... a lot of burn deck's defense are banned ><; (I don' know why but apparently it was a huge problem in Japan, so they limited them all down to 1)

 

[Kenny_C.002]

I dunno, I tend to find the control "locks" in magic to be a lot softer even though individually the mechanics are a lot stronger as well. I guess this goes into the idea of mechanistic differences between the games. Strangely enough, I always think that control isn't viable simply because it's easy for the aggro to plow through initial setups and would only need a single break before finishing the game off. At least in my experiences with PACMAN, losses tend to come from single turn kills.

Flip-flop seems more a combo deck, btw. Just a slow-rolling combo deck. The words "going off" never applies to control. :3

 

[Frostweaver]

I always think of combo decks to be decks that always revolve around a few selective cards, and all the other cards in the deck are chosen to revolve around those cards (ex: Ocean deck, combos with Legendary Ocean where all cards are picked to abuse the one card). Control in YGO is generally anything that strips of the opponent's potential options (usually by discarding from hand.)

Reminds me... there's also the Tuskuyomi/Mask of Darkness/Time Seal lock. Time seal omits the opponent's draw phase. Mask of Darkness can flip to get back any trap card (time seal is a trap). So, basically, it's mini Yata-Garasu again to completely seal off all draw phases. That's also problematic, and again, YGO solution to everything: ban them all. Only recently did mask of darkness go back to 2 per deck...

 

[Kenny_C.002]

Well that's usually how you define the characteristic of combo vs. control. Combo doesn't really need to have a small combination of cards for it to be called combo, no. There are decks in mtg that dedicate themselves to synergistic combos that string together. This would be a similar situation. :3

 

[Frostweaver]

Well that's usually how you define the characteristic of combo vs. control. Combo doesn't really need to have a small combination of cards for it to be called combo, no. There are decks in mtg that dedicate themselves to synergistic combos that string together. This would be a similar situation. :3

We got a word for that (well, words)

Cookie Cutter


YGO got so many "combos" like that if you insist on calling them a combo... Apprentice Magician engine works for great tribute support and generally any defensive setup with Old Vindictive Magician. Throw in the Apprentice engine and you got solid defensive tributes. Use this "combo" together with monarchs who need tribute, and technically backbone of defensive monarch deck. If defense isn't wanted, then swap off magician engine for tomato then for a bit higher attack power with Sangan, Reaper and Snipe Hunter, but at the cost of weakness towards banisher of the radiance. Either engine can be swapped to tributes.

Eh, I guess that pooling up small combos are so ordinary that it's like cookie cutter. Use this cutter if you need this particular shape, blah blah... use these cards if you need to do this.


Guess the only example where every card got links with one another, yet they cannot be considered cookie cutter to be carried to any deck is Diamond Dude Turbo. The monster series Destiny Hero's effects generally activate in the graveyard (except for Diamond Dude itself) so normal magics that involve dumping cards into the graveyard are used. Diamond Dude's effect allows you to see if the top card of your deck is a normal spell once a turn during your main phase, and if it is, use it without any cost (if not, it's just going to the bottom of the deck, which is a minor drawback.) Costly spells are used to dump monsters to the graveyard, which is necessary to activate very powerful effects. Diamond Dude reduce chance of drawing those costly spells by using its own effect to use those spells before you draw them without costs. The combo completes itself with Divine Sword Phoenix Blade which can remove the Destiny Hero warrior monsters from the graveyard in order to be retrieved back to the hand (also function as a weak equip for 300+ atk as a minor bonus, and serve as discard fodder for costly spells as well if needed.) After the monsters are removed, use Dimension Fusion or Return from the Different Dimension to revive all removed monsters to end the game.

But classified as a combo deck that revolves around one card although every card can stand for itself, since the deck will severely lack speed if it's not for Diamond Dude cycling through spells after spells and using it for free.

Eh, these type of things happen between TCGs... MTG and YGO are both TCG, yet due to different culture (especially in cost vs no cost), the same term has slightly altered meanings.

 

[Kenny_C.002]

Most likely that would be the case. I think I understand the idea of cookie cutter, since the decks themselves generally lead to the exact same decklist every time, like how a cookie cutter is rigid in structure.

Interesting with the Diamond Dude deck. It would be classified as proably reanimator in our side of the world. Reanimator basically dumps costly creatures into the graveyard, then bring them back using different methods that is much less costly, which seems to be the basis for Diamond Dude. :3