An In-Depth Deck Builder's Guide v2.0

An In-Depth Deck Builder's Guide v2.0

Hello everyone. Back in March of 2009 I created one of my first articles, and it was a deck building guide that I posted on Duel Academy. Now, nearly a year later there have been many new packs, massive changes to the meta, and lovely new aspects to deckbuilding that must be taken into account! Therefore, I decided to update my guide for the new year. Enjoy!

**WARNING** **WARNING**
THIS IS A LONG ARTICLE. IT HAS A LOT OF INFORMATION. MAKE SURE YOU HAVE ENOUGH FREE TIME BEFORE READING. THIS GUIDE PROVIDES DETAILED KNOWLEDGE OF GAME THEORY AND IS NOT SOMETHING YOU SHOULD SIMPLY "BROWSE."
**WARNING** **WARNING**

So yeah, as the warning says, this isn't some short little how-to guide. This will take some time for you to read, but if you are able to read it and pay attention to the important points it makes, you will become capable of creating your own decks that will win duels.

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Table of Contents:

I. Examine Your Meta
II. Choose a Strategy and a Win Condition
III. Do Your Research
IV. Make it Your Own
V. Choose an Appropriate Ratio
VI. Focus! Focus! Focus!
VII. Toss it All in, then Thin to Win
VIII. A Little Something "Extra"
IX. The Side - Ultimate Proof of a Good Duelist
X. Testing 1, 2, 3 ... 50?

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I. Examine Your Meta

Before you start even looking at what archetype you want to build a deck around, the first thing to do is always, always, always, DETERMINE YOUR META. The "meta" is dependent upon the following criteria:

A. The current ban list
B. The cards currently in the game
C. The decks you are most likely to encounter

Let's take a look at each of these.

The ban list dictates which cards are currently considered to be so powerful as to merit reducing the number of them allowed in the deck. The cards fall into the categories of Semi-Limited (2 copies allowed), Limited (1 copy allowed), and Restricted (0 copies allowed). In the Traditional Format for Yugioh, there are no restricted cards, but because most major tournament play using the Advanced Format for Yugioh, that is the format that will be used in this article. The official ban list can be found at Konami's official site here:

http://www.yugioh-card.com/en/limited/

Understanding the reasons for why a card is banned is important to understanding whether you should use the card. There typically exist four particular reasons for why a card is admitted to the ban list. They are:

1. The card, in and of itself, creates a win condition that is easily obtainable.
2. The card, in and of itself, can consistently create a card advantage of +2 or greater in the player's favor.
3. The card, in combination with only one or two other cards, can create an OTK.
4. The card, in combination with only one or two other cards, can create an infinite loop.
5. The card, in and of itself, can defeat your opponent's entire strategy.

Understanding the ban list and understanding why certain cards are restricted, limited, or semi-limited can often lead to you find what effects are considered especially powerful, and then you can make a deck that is capable of mimicking some of those powerful effects.

You cannot emulate effects from the ban list, however, without a thorough knowledge of the cards currently in the game. This is one of the most difficult things for new players to do. It requires a massive amount of memorization, however, if you want to strive to be the best it is something you will have to do eventually. An average duelist should know the effects of at least 50% of the cards in the game. An experienced player should know the effects of at least 75% of the cards in the game and should be aware of approximately the effects of another 15-20% of the cards currently in the game. An expert player should know the full effects of at least 95% of the cards in the game and he or she should at least be aware of approximately the effects of EVERY card in the game! It is a great feat for certain, but to be the best at both dueling and deck building, that is what you have to become. You must become an encyclopedia of Yugioh cards, effects, and rulings in order to make it to the top.

Along with knowing the cards currently available in the game, you also need to know the top strategies in the game. Understanding what your opponent will be running is CRUCIAL to understanding what you should be running. Your deck has to be able to perform well against the other decks you most expect to see. To have an understanding of what your opponent is running you need to know two things:

1. What decks are considered to be the best?
2. What decks are being used where you will be dueling?

At first glance, you may consider these two statements to be one and the same, but they are very different. Some tournaments use special restrictions on your deck. Local tournies will have less people using decks that are not as expensive to build. Regional tournies and Shonen Jump Championships (SJC's) will have decks that have more money put into them and will be more representative of the top tier decks. So, how do you find out which decks are in the top tier, and how do you find out what will be used where you are dueling? Let's get to it!

The first one or two major tournaments of a format typically will decide what the meta is for the format (a format is the ban list currently in use, which is changed every March and September). If you are playing in one of these tournies, then this stage becomes more of a guess than anything else, but you can make it an educated guess by looking at the new ban list and answering the following questions.

A. Have any changes to the ban list dramatically affected the playability of certain deck-types (either positively or negatively)?
B. What were the top tier decks before the new format?
C. Have new cards come out that could be playable either as their own deck-type, or in another deck-type?

Once a format has had a couple major tournies, the meta can be determined by looking back at those tournies. For coverage of SJC tournies you can go to:

http://www.yugioh-card.com/en/events/

At that site there are four important tasks for you to accomplish if you want to gain an understanding of the meta. Those are:

1. There should be a posting somewhere of the spread for decks for the tournie. Find it. This is an easy way to see how many people are running which decks. Typically, after a couple tournies in the format these numbers will stay somewhat consistent for future tournies. The only exception to this is if the top 16 deck list does not reflect what people are running on average. This will cause a shift toward those decks for the next tournie.
2. Check the top 16 deck lists. In SJC tournies, the people whose decks did well enough on Day 1 to make the Day 2 bracket are always 16 in number. These 16 decks are made available for the public to view card-by-card. It will be posted somewhere on that site. This information is extremely useful!! People will copy these decks in the next tournie. I guarantee it.
3. Check out Featured Decks postings. These articles often feature decks who are outside of what most other people are running. They are typically very inventive decks, and are worth adding to your knowledge base. They can also often provide you with combos you didn't know about that can be useful when you go to create your own deck.
4. Check out Featured Matches. I cannot stress this enough. Sometimes, decks look good on paper but do not end up functioning like you thought they would. We'll get to testing your deck much later. For now, reading about the matches between expert duelists is an excellent way to learn how decks function, and to get more ideas of what combos can be used. It is important to look at more than just duels with decks you are looking to make, because knowing your opponent's strategies and combos will help you create a deck that can break those strategies apart!

Using all the information above, you should be able to determine the most powerful decks of the format. To determine which decks you will most likely be facing, however, can be very different. Always expect there to be a chance of running into a top tier deck, but if you're going to a local tournie, or a tournie with special rules involved, then there are other things to take into account. For local tournies, the best thing to do is ask around and gather as much information you can on what people in your area have been running recently. Again, knowing what decks you are most likely to be up against will affect how you construct your own deck. If a tournie has special rules, I suggest treating those rules like looking at the ban list for an entirely new format. Consider which decks will be positively and negatively affected by the special rules, and use that knowledge to determine what you are most likely to see. Some of these topics I am talking about take a certain level of experience playing the game in order to obtain these insights.

At this point, I'm going to begin what will be a continuing example for this article. I am going to go through the process of creating a deck for an SJC in the September 2009 format.

After heading over and viewing information of recent tournaments, I have seen that the decks that are winning competitions tend to be:

Twilight Lightsworns, Destiny Zombies, Dimensional Chaos, and Vayu Blackwings.

Gladiator Beasts have also been used quite often, as have TeleDAD and Synchro Cat decks. With some of the newer cards of the format, I can make an educated guess that Supervise will enable GigaVise Plant decks to become a threat, and Archlord Kristya will make Kristya Lightsworns and Fatty Fairies into stronger archetypes. Six Samurai and Ritual decks have also recently received some very good support cards that may allow them to be more competitive.

Now that I have a pretty good idea of what the meta is that I'll be facing, it is time to address the next issue. This is a question you should always ask yourself before you begin making a deck. What does the current meta rely on? There can be a plethora of answers to this question. Some possible answers include:

Normal Summons
Special Summons
The Grave
Milling Cards
Synchro Summoning
Contact Fusions
Fusion Monsters
Clearing the Field
Using 1 for 1 Effects
Card Advantage
Hand Advantage
OTK's (One Turn Kills)
FTK's (First Turn Kills)
Use of Abusable Combo/s
Monster Effects
Beatsticks
Spells
Traps

For the example that I have begun using for this guide, let's take some of the things from this list and apply it to the current SJC meta.

Gladiator Beasts and Six Samurai typically need to normal summon a monster to the field and keep at least 1 or more monsters on the field in order to be effective.
All of the current top decks use Special Summons to bring out their most powerful monsters.
Zombies, Lightsworn, Vayu Blackwings and Chaos decks in particular need to load up the graveyard with a lot of monsters in order to make some of their biggest combos.
Lightsworn decks accomplish the above feat by milling cards during the end phase, and some of the other decks have been known to use a few Lightsworn monsters teched to help them accomplish the same feat.
In particular, Zombies, TeleDAD, and Synchro Cat decks are built around doing many Synchro Summons, although most competitive decks nowadays at least have some way of accomplishing the feat.
Gladiator Beasts are the only ones who have any Fusion monsters that seriously need to be considered threats, although there are specialty decks like Dark End Dragoon decks that also use Fusion monsters.
With cards like Black Rose Dragon, Judgment Dragon, and Dark Armed Dragon floating around, clearing the field is a very simple task nowadays in Yugioh.
1 for 1's are typically more seen in Stun, Gadget, and Monarch decks, which are not as popular or powerful in this format.
Card advantage is of the highest importance in slower formats. I would not go so far as to call this an excessively fast format, so card advantage is important, but the format still moves at a good clip (many decks are capable of OTK's and making big pushes), so card advantage isn't as overwhelmingly important as it has been in previous slower format. Still, never underestimate the importance of card advantage!
Most decks, such as Lightsworn, Zombies, and Blackwings are not centered around any OTK for this format but they do all have the potential to create OTK's given the right cards on the field, in-hand, and in the grave.

There are more things that can be mentioned about these decks, but for now the above should give you enough insight into how the thought process should work for you to be capable of doing the rest yourself. Gathering all of this information not only helps you when dueling those deck-types, it will also give you insight into potential weaknesses the decks. With all of this knowledge of the meta, it is now time to move on to the next step.

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II. Choose a Strategy and a Win Condition

At this point, you should now have figured out, at least approximately, what decks you can most expect to end up playing against and what their strategies are most centered toward. Now, it is time to determine what general strategy you wish to play, and what your primary win condition will be for your deck.

A win condition is the way in which you envision your deck winning the duel. All decks need to have this. It is what will create focus and synergy in the deck later on.

When choosing a competitive deck-type you need to, in general, match up that deck-type against the meta you expect to see. Zombies may be an awesome deck, but if your meta consists of a bunch of people using Macro decks, you are going to have a lot of bad matchups. Your choice does not have to be one of the meta decks, but it should be a deck that, in general, you feel has some sort of advantage over most of the meta you expect to see. If you are needing help in learning about different archetypes and decks, the wiki page for Yugioh has a very respectable list of generic deck-types here:

http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Deck_Types:_A-C

After choosing the generic deck-type you think you want to use, make sure you understand that deck's win condition. You should be able to complete the following sentence easily:

"I plan on using my deck to defeat my opponent by ______________"

An example of a way to end this sentence could be "summoning Judgment Dragon and swinging for big damage" or "locking down my opponent with Dark Simorgh and Anti-Spell Fragrance." Knowing what the win condition is for your deck is going to be very important later on when you begin actually making the deck, but we're still miles, leagues, light years from even touching an actual card!

Well, let's continue with that example I started with. I've noticed that decks containing the Lightsworn archetype have been placing well in tournaments recently and have even won a couple SJC tournies. When I look at the other popular deck-types out there, I see that almost all of them either Synchro Summon profusely or at least Special Summon powerful monsters like Judgment Dragon, Dark Simorgh, or Dark Armed Dragon. These factors lead me to think that at this time I can gain an advantage over my opponents by running a deck that makes use of the powerful Lightsworn archetype, while also somehow shutting down my opponent's Special Summons. Royal Oppression is no good, since that hurts me as well, and some cards like Vayu can get around its effect. Running Thunder King Rai-Oh may be a potential option, but another option is to make use of a card named Archlord Kristya.

While Archlord Kristya would also stop me from Special Summoning, she has enough ATK to give me a strong field presence and she can also get back Honests from the grave to make her more capable of standing by herself. This will mean making sure I have enough Fairies later on in my Lightsworn build if I want to add her, but that should not be too unreasonable of a request. I'll also probably want to look at finding ways of shutting down my opponent's graveyard, because so many strong archetypes make large use of it.

If I look at the win condition I am striving toward, I can say with ease that I planon using my deck to defeat my opponent by summoning Judgment Dragon and/or Archlord Kristya to clear away my opponent's field and stop him/her from special summoning monsters.

The deck-type I chose was Kristya Lightsworns. Remember, this is only an example. You should choose your own deck-type. Don't get too specific about what cards are going to be in it yet. Just pick your generic deck-type and win condition. No, you still aren't allowed to touch any actual cards yet or do any duels. You are, however, now ready for the next step!

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III. Do Your Research

Tired yet? Bored of reading? I told you this would be long. Don't expect it to end anytime soon. In this next step you will be researching the hell out of the deck-type you chose. When I say research, I mean follow this method:

1. Determine how the deck-type has performed in the past
2. (if applicable) Find decklists from pros who ran your deck-type
3. (if applicable) Find records of duels involving your deck-type
4. Determine your key cards
5. Determine cards that either have synergy with or combo with your key cards

To determine how the deck-type has performed in the past, you need to look at past tournies and see if your deck-type has had any strong showings. For local tournies, you can ask around and see if anyone has played with and done well with your deck-type in any of the recent previous tournies. If you're working with a deck-type that uses cards that were only recently released, this may be a more difficult task. If you cannot find anybody who has used your deck-type before, it most likely means one of two things - either your deck-type is not well enough known yet so very few people are running it or your deck-type is so bad that nobody bothers running it because they know it cannot beat the current meta. Most often, it will be the latter statement that is true in this case. The only information worse than this is if you hear from people who tried your deck-type, that definitively in tournament play the deck does not work well. If you find this to be the case, I strongly suggest changing your deck-type now, before you commit a whole lot more time working on something that has a high probability of failing to meet your expectations. If you are attending a major event such as an SJC, then all the information you need will be online. You can check to see if your deck-type has ever made Day 2 at an SJC in the past very easily. You can again use the Konami official web site given earlier in this guide to obtain that information.

The next step is to do some more searching. You'll be wanting to find as many decklists for your deck as possible from expert duelists. You are not doing this just so you can copy their decks. That is not the purpose here. The purpose is to see what duelists who have tournament experience are running in order to give yourself ideas on how you should construct the deck yourself. The Konami official site is a good place to check if your deck-type made Day 2, because the Top 16 decks all have their decklists opened to the public. You could also get lucky and find an article about your deck-type either on the Konami site or elsewhere. Another very good place to look for decklists is pojo.com. Many strong players post on pojo and there are also many high ranking judges who use the site. It is a very good source of information and there are sections where people can go to post their decks.

The next thing to do can be a bit tricky for some decks. You want to try to find a recorded duel where one or both duelists were using your deck-type. You may be able to get lucky and see a Feature Match on the Konami site that has a player using your deck-type. If not, the next best place to check is probably youtube.com, because many duelists put videos of their duels online. Finding records of duels where your deck-type won can help early on with giving you info on some of the combos you can create with the deck-type. Finding records of duels where your deck-type lost can give you info on what some of the weaknesses of your deck-type are, and you can attempt to fix or in some way cover those weaknesses when you actually begin building your deck.

After having viewed other people's versions of your deck-type and after checking out records of duels involving your deck-type you should now have some idea of what cards absolutely MUST be in your deck. These are key cards that are central to pulling off your strategy and that cannot be replaced. These aren't the cool and interesting cards that make neat combos. These are the cards where if you don't have them your deck physically does not work properly. If you've come this far and you are able to say with a straight face that your deck has no key cards, then what that tells me is that your deck does not have enough focus to be competitive and therefore you should start over from the beginning before wasting a bunch of your time. A deck with a bunch of random, powerful cards doesn't cut it in tournie play. I'll get into this more in a later chapter, but your deck needs to have focus!

For the last step of this chapter, you need to now determine cards that have synergy with or combo with your key cards. Synergy is when one card's effect helps out with another card's effect. The more synergy your cards have, the more flexible your deck will be when difficult situations arise. Having synergy also increases the focus of your deck. This is slightly different from cards that can create combos. Typically, combo cards are not as flexible and, while they can create giant pushes in your favor, they need to either have certain conditions fulfilled or they need for you to have certain other cards in your hand or on the field or in the grave. The term for describing these combo cards is "situational." If you can fulfill the situation to create the combo, you will be rewarded for it. Just be careful because typically if you draw the card without having the situation for using the card fulfilled it can become a dead draw. Dead draws are a bad thing. You want as few of them as possible in your deck. When you draw a card at the beginning of your turn, you want to be able to say "sweet, I can use this!" as often as possible. Therefore, although combo cards can have big pay-offs, just be careful that you do not add to your deck too many cards that can become dead draws.

You should already have a good idea of what cards provide your deck-type with synergy and combos by now by having looked at other decks and after seeing how the deck has operated in past duels. Another good place to check for more good tips is the Yugioh wiki. You should already have looked up your deck on the wiki in one of the earlier chapters. You can go back to that page and check out some of the helpful tips the wiki page has. You should also check out the Tips section for all of your key cards on the wiki. A quick way to find the wiki pages for your key cards is to go to google.com and type in a search of

wikia yugioh [name of card]

One of the first pages to pop up in your search should be the wiki page for the card. Click on the "Tips" link a bit under where it lists the card text for the card and you'll come up with a list of strategies and combos for the card. This is a great way to get some ideas for things you can use when you make your deck.

Ok, let's head back over to my continuing example. If you remember, in the last section I chose to get started on a Kristya LS deck. I'm preparing this deck for an imaginary SJC event, so let's look at past SJC history to see how the deck has performed.

After checking on yugioh-card.com, I found out that Lightsworns have consistently done well in tournament play and have even won a couple of SJC's recently. Archlord Kristya is a fairly new card, so I can only check 1 SJC to see how it has performed, and it turns out there was one deck that used Kristya in a Lightsworn build that made the day 2, top 16 list.

Because a Kristya deck made top 16, that is also one source for a deck list. After searching a bit more on the Konami site, I also found that one of the Feature Deck articles was on a Kristya LS deck by Chris Miller. This, combined with Brain Hines' top 16 build could give me a good foundation to start with, but I want more. Therefore, I went to pojo.com and did a search for Kristya Lightsworn decks. This gave me 3 more decklists to learn from, including one deck that won a regional event. Not too shabby. So that you can see what I see, check the links:

http://www.konami.com/yugioh/blog/?p=987
http://www.konami.com/yugioh/blog/?p=1070
http://www.pojo.biz/board/showthread.php?t=776818&highlight=Kristya
http://www.pojo.biz/board/showthread.php?t=781827&highlight=Kristya
http://www.pojo.biz/board/showthread.php?t=782374&highlight=Kristya

Now for the next step. This part was easy for me, as both Brian Hines and Chris Miller were featured in Feature Matches for SJC Columbus. This allows me to have a good idea of how the deck is able to operate and what sort of combos it can unleash. Again, so you can see what I see, here's the links:

http://www.konami.com/yugioh/blog/?p=941
http://www.konami.com/yugioh/blog/?p=1103

Since I was able to find a couple matches this way, I probably won't need to go searching on youtube for videos, but a truly dedicated person who was actually planning on physically making and using the deck probably would want to do that.

The next step is to determine my key cards. For this deck, this is quite easy as the deck quite obviously will center around bringing out the two biggest beatsticks with awesome effects: Archlord Kristya and Judgment Dragon. No other cards in this deck are so necessary that the deck cannot physically work without them. Most of the effort that I put into this deck should focus on helping me summon or abuse those two cards. They will be the focus of the deck.

Now I can move on to the last step, which is determining which cards have the best synergy and make the best combos with my cards. Obviously, I will need both Fairies and Lightsworn monsters in order to summon my 2 key cards, so any Lightsworns that are also Fairies immediately become useful to me. Two Lightsworns make that mark in Celestia and Shire. Since all Lightsworns are LIGHT, and so are both of my key cards, Honest is also a good choice for synergy. Honest is also a Fairy, which gives it strong synergy with Kristya. The fact that it likes to be in the hand gives it even stronger synergy with Kristya who can return it from the grave to the hand. Another interesting monster that I might not have thought of without doing research is Herald of Creation, who was being used in one of the pojo decks above. Rather than using only Beckoning Light, I can summon Herald (who is also LIGHT), who has 1800 ATK, and use his effect (with priority) to bring back a Judgment Dragon or Kristya, while also prepping the graveyard with his discard to let me summon the monster I bring to my hand. Very nifty and I would not have thought of it without doing the research!

An important part of synergy is creating deck speed through searching effects and draw engines. Since both of my key cards are 8-star monsters I can use Trade-In. I can also use the standard LS draw engines of Charge of the Light Brigade and Solar Recharge. What draw engines allow you to do is to take a 40-card deck and make it seem like you are using less cards. This allows you to have a higher chance of drawing into your key cards and combo cards. My rule of thumb is that every deck should have something that enhances its speed. I'd say that in my opinion you need a minimum of six cards in your deck whose sole purpose is either to search out important cards from your deck or to allow you to draw more cards from your deck (preferrably without losing any card advantage). In Yugioh, consistency is everything. Almost any deck can beat almost any other deck, but to do so consistently is the most important thing, and that requires being able to always get to your most powerful cards every duel. That is what searchers and draw engines allow you to do. So, for my deck I will have draw engines in Trade-In and Solar Recharge, as well as searching engines in Charge of the Light Brigade, and also potentially I could add in Gold Sarcophagus, which is a good generic draw engine, but that sort of thing can be decided later on.

While I did check the wiki pages for my key cards, in this case it didn't happen to reveal much insight that would be useful for the deck I am planning, however it is still good practice to check, because you never can be sure what combos other people have posted on the wiki that you might not have considered.

Now, with key cards, synergy, and combos ready to commence let's head on to the next chapter!!

Last edited by nekofjung on Sun Jan 10, 2010 3:24 pm; edited 4 times in total

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IV. Make it Your Own

Oh my, you are still reading? You should be proud of yourself. I hope you haven't been thinking about touching any cards yet! Well, you're still not going to be touching any cards just yet, but it is time to start straying from those decks you've been researching.

Until now, what you have been doing is called "netdecking." That is the process of taking and using a deck that someone else created. However, this guide is about creating your own deck, so we can't very well be walking around with someone else's creation!

First of all, this does not in any way mean that we will be making any radical changes from the researched builds. In yugioh, the differences between decks come from two areas.

1. The proportions of the cards
2. Techs

Card proportions are something I will be talking about more thoroughly in the next chapter, but for now just understand that it means the number of each individual card you will be using in the deck. This will be more determined later on, when you actually get around to testing the deck, but for now you can use some of your own judgment to do this properly. Remember that one of your goals is to limit dead draws. Well, I may be getting ahead of myself a bit here so I'll get back to this in a second. First thing is first. I want you to do two things write now.

1. Write down all your key cards and all the cards that will support them through synergy and combos.
2. Take all of the decks you have researched up until now and remove them from your sight. Close the any internet screens they are on. Delete them from your computer. Do not look at them. Do not give yourself any further temptation to look at them. You have already gotten everything out of them that you need.

Okay, tell me when you're done. I'll wait.

...

Done? Good. Now, let's get back to that discussion about card proportions and dead draws. Check the cards on that list you wrote down just a bit ago. Look at each card written down and think to yourself, "If I were behind in a duel and had to topdeck to make a comeback, would I want this card?" If your answer is yes, it is probably a card you'll want to run multiple copies of (unless it is limited obviously xD ). If your answer is no, you'll want to limit the number of copies you run of it, or you might even consider not using the card at all. For cards that are meant to be used for combos, the questions you'll want to be asking yourself are, "How often will I be able to pull off the combo," "How effective is the combo," and, "Is this card worth using outside of the combo?" Your answers to these questions should again determine how many copies of that card you will want to add to the deck. For now, these proportions can only be based on your assumptions and through reasoning. Later, you will be testing your deck and can make appropriate changes at that time, but that is still too far into the future for you to see yet!

The other part I mentioned about deck differences were techs. A tech is typically a combo card, but it is a card that is often underused by the majority of players. It still needs to be something that has good synergy with your deck, but it should also be something that is at least somewhat unique to your deck. I recommend having anywhere from two to five teched cards in your deck. Any more and your deck may lose consistency. Any fewer and your deck will lack creativity and will become too predictable. The reason for using techs is that this is not only a special way of making the deck your own creation, it is also a way of catching your opponent off-guard! Do you remember what you did in chapter 1? If you are facing a strong opponent, he/she is likely to pick up on what your deck-type is relatively easily. A particularly strong opponent will know every card that is typically associated with that deck, and will therefore be able to pick apart your strategy. The way to beat this level of opponent is to use teched cards! Setting up a combo your opponent isn't ready for is a great way to gain an upper hand in the battle! Being slightly unpredictable is important in Yugioh. Knowing your opponent's cards and strategies is how you determine your own moves in a duel. Therefore, if your opponent doesn't know all of the cards you are using, your opponent is more likely to misplay his/her own cards.

As usual, let's take a look at my continuing example. Since the deck focuses on my 2 key cards, I'll definitely want to max out copies of both of them, which will also let me run more copies of Trade-In, since it will have 5 targets. For draw engines that require a specific target (such as Trade-In, Destiny Draw, Allure of Darkness, and such) these are the proportions I suggest based on the number of targets you have in your deck:

1-2 targets --> 0
3 targets --> 1
4 targets --> 1 or 2
5 targets --> 2 or 3
6+ targets --> 3

Since this deck will have 5 targets for Trade-In, I'll probably start out with either two or three of them in my build. Since I easily have more than six targets for Charge of the Light Brigade and Solar Recharge, however, I will definitely be running three of each of those cards.

Since I will need probably 7-9 Fairies to be able to use Kristya consistently, and since I'll be running three copies of both Kristya and Honest, that leaves 1-3 copies of Celestia and Shire to be run. I don't want three copies of Celestia, because by herself she can be a dead draw as a monster who needs a tribute to be summoned. However, she should not be a dead draw too often as I should have many ways to put other monsters on the field, so I'll leave her at two for now. That leaves me with the option to either run one copy with Shire or to forget about running Shire. For now, I'll run that one copy but if it doesn't work out I could always take it out of the deck or just put it in the side deck for later. Another important card common to LS decks to think about is Wulf. Normally I would run him in threes, but Kristya stops special summons and that makes him a slightly more dead card at times when Kristya is on the field. Kristya also gives me more potential for dead draws, and Wulf is almost always going to be a dead draw, so for now I will cut two copies of him and bring him down to just one copy. Since Lumina can do an excellent job of prepping the grave for both Kristya and Judgment Dragon while also helping me swarm the field, in this deck she is more useful than in other LS decks and therefore I am going to run her in a full three copies.

Next up is my tech card. I'll be teching two copies of Herald of Creation. Only one of the decks I looked up earlier uses it, and I haven't seen it in any of the decks that were playing in recent SJC's, so it should be unexpected, but it also does the job of adding a new dimension to the deck. To make things more interesting, it also has 1800 ATK which means it is a decent beatstick just by itself. However, his effect is best used later in the duel, so I won't be running a full three of him because I would rather not draw him in my starting hand too often.

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V. Choose an Appropriate Ratio

Sometimes you will run into people who will tell you things like "The perfect ratio for any deck is 20 monsters, 10 spells, and 10 traps. Don't go too far from this or your deck will suck!" I will say this now as clearly as possible. IGNORE THOSE FOOLS WHO SAY ANYTHING LIKE THAT!!

Every deck-type has its own strategy and focus, and therefore has its preferred ratio of monsters to spells to traps. A deck that utilizes Destiny Hero - Diamond Dude wouldn't want to have only 10 spells. A Counter Fairy deck built around using Counter Traps wouldn't want to have only 10 traps. A Gladiator Beast deck that wants most of its monsters to remain in the deck wouldn't want to run 20 monsters. The point I am making is that there is no set in stone ratio that is the best for a deck. You need to think of what your deck is meant to do, and decide what you would most want in your starting hands. If you have 20 monsters (assuming a 40-card deck), then on average you would start with three monsters in your hand (half of your deck is monsters, so on average half of your starting hand should be monsters statistically).

Now, although there is no set ratio for the cards in your deck, there are some things you should keep in mind:

1. Having less than 14 monsters means on average you will have only two monsters in your starting hand, and you will typically only have approximately a 1:3 chance of drawing a monster with each of your draws.
2. Having more than 25 monsters means on average you will have four monsters in your starting hand and only two spell or trap cards. You will also typically only have approximately a 1:3 chance of drawing a spell or trap card with each of your draws.

While you should keep those two facts in mind, I will again stress that this does not mean you can't make a deck with less than 14 or more than 25 monsters. It only means that you should only go outside of that range if your deck is specifically made to function with those proportions.

Let's head over again to my Kristya LS example. Lightsworns prep the grave by milling random cards from the top of the deck. Since I want more monsters to be milled rather than milling my important spells and traps that I'll want to be drawing into, I will probably want more monsters than I have spell and trap cards. Additionally, because the deck is meant to be capable of constantly attacking and creating ways to swarm and/or OTK my opponent, having too many traps may slow me down so I will probably want only the bare essentials when it comes to using Trap cards.

Well, this chapter was fairly simple and easy, wasn't it? Okay then, let's move on to the next chapter!

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VI. Focus! Focus! Focus!

This is the shortest and probably most important chapter of this guide. Read it well. Read it more than once.

Focusing your deck means not adding any cards that do not serve a specific purpose toward your strategy. This is my #1 rule for deck building!

#1 RULE: IF YOU ARE ASKED WHY YOU HAVE DECIDED TO PUT A SPECIFIC CARD IN YOUR DECK, YOU MUST BE ABLE TO REPLY WITH A RESPONSE THAT IN SOME WAY SHOWS THAT THE CARD SUPPORTS THE STRATEGY FOR THE DECK. IF YOU CANNOT DO THIS THEN THE CARD DOES NOT BELONG IN THE DECK!

Did you catch that? I think there is no possible way for me to make that any more clear. All cards in your deck whether they are monsters, spells, or traps, whether they are in your main deck, side deck, or extra deck, must support your overall strategy in some way. There is no reason to include a card in your deck, even if it is a powerful card, if it does not pertain to your strategy.

Seriously, the chapter is short. Read it a couple more times before continuing on to the next chapter. This stuff is important.

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VII. Toss it All in, then Thin to Win

This section is going to be talking some about statistics. It's a very math-oriented section and I suggest taking your time reading it so you can fully understand what I'm talking about. Yugioh is a game of luck only if you don't know the statistics and probabilities behind it. Understanding the math of yugioh is something that high level players need to know. It allows you to estimate your chances of drawing particular cards as well as your opponent's chances of drawing particular cards, which is invaluable both during a duel and when making your deck.

The final size of your deck should not exceed the 40 card minimum.

The reason for this is simple. When making a deck, you are creating a strategy where you want the correct cards in your hand as quickly as possible so that you can begin your big combos. The less cards you have in your deck, the higher the probability of drawing the card you need. Now, I promised math, so let's look at math.

Let's say you have three copies of a card in your deck. Your deck contains 40 cards. To determine your chances of drawing at least 1 copy of that card in your hand you use the following formula:

(# of possible 6-card hands containing that card) / (# of total possible 6-card hands)

To determine the number of total 6-card hands, you do:

nCr(cards in deck, cards being drawn)

nCr(40,6) = 3,383,380 total possible hands

nCr is a function on most scientific calculators that determines frequency. The actual math behind the function is very difficult and so I wouldn't want to do it by hand. It is represented by the mathematical function:

nCr(n,r) = n! / [r!(n - r)!]

Now, to determine the number of 6-card hands containing at least one copy of the card you desire, you use:

nCr(copies of card, # in starting hand) x nCr((cards in deck - copies of card), (cards being drawn - # in starting hand))

nCr(3,1) x nCr(40-3,6-1) + nCr(3,2) x nCr(40-3,6-2) + nCr(3,3) x nCr(40-3,6-3) = 1,513,596

That determines the possibility of drawing one, two, or three copies of the card in your starting hand. So, we just take that and divide by the total number of hands to get:

1,513,596 / 3,383,380 = 0.447 or 44.7%

So, with a 40-card deck and three copies of card, there is a 44.7% chance of drawing at least 1 or more copies of that card in your starting hand. Let's see what happens if we use a 45-card deck.

nCr(45,6) = 8,145,060 total possible hands

Just by adding 5 cards to the deck, you've increased the number of total possible hands by about 2.5x the previous amount!!

nCr(3,1) x nCr(42,5) + nCr(3,2) x nCr(42,4) + nCr(3,3) x nCr(42,3) = 2,899,274

2,899,274 / 8,145,060 = 0.356 or 35.6%

By adding just 5 cards to the deck, you have dropped your chances of drawing the card you want in your starting hand by almost 10%!! Let's go really big now and say you are using a 50-card deck.

nCr(50,6) = 15,890,700 total possible hands

nCr(3,1)xnCr(47,5) + nCr(3,2)xnCr(47,4) + nCr(3,3)xnCr(47,3) = 5,153,127

5,153,127 / 15,890,700 = 0.324 or 32.4%

So, from a standpoint of statistics, starting with a 40-card deck your odds are nearly 1:2 that you will draw the card in your starting hand, whereas with a 50-card deck, your odds drop to less than 1:3 of drawing the card. This means with a 40-card deck you can be reasonably confident that within the 1st two duels of a match, you'll draw the card in your starting hand once, whereas with a 45-card deck you'd be stretching things to draw it in your starting hand over the course of all three games of the match.

Oh, and it does not stop there. You also then get to account for draw engines, deck thinning cards, and searchers! Let's take Terraforming as an example. Say you have a Black Garden deck. The deck really needs for you to put Black Garden on the field as quickly as possible in order to function properly. Therefore, you use three copies of Black Garden and two copies of Terraforming. This is relatively the same as having five copies of Black Garden in your deck. Let's take it a step further. We'll add a draw engine but for simplicity's sake we'll add a simple one - Upstart Goblin. Upstart Goblin basically allows you to run a 37-card deck. Now, let's see what our statistics are for drawing Black Garden into our starting hand with this setup"

nCr(37,6) = 2,324,784 total possible hands (about 2/3 that of a 40-card deck!)

nCr(5,1)xnCr(32,5)+nCr(5,2)xnCr(32,4)+nCr(5,3)xnCr(32,3) = 1,416,080

1,416,080 / 2,324,784 = 0.609 or 60.9%
So by adding 2 searchers and 3 cards for drawing through your deck, you've increased your chances of obtaining Black Garden in your starting hand by a whopping 16.2%!! In nearly two out of every three duels you would have a Black Garden in your starting hand!

Going all the way back to chapter three, this is exactly why I say you should be dedicating at least six cards to searching or drawing through your deck. The increase you receive in the odds of drawing the right cards just increases so dramatically when you do so, and again the name of the game is getting rid of dead draws and only drawing into the card you need.

Going back now to the proportions of the cards you have, you should now be able to use this math to obtain a better idea of how many of each card you actually need in your deck, and if you are really getting into it, you can even use this type of math to determine your chances of drawing different killer starting hands. A real pro uses this math as the way to play around with the number of copies of each card kept in his/her deck.

One of my suggestions when picking out your proportions is to start out with more than you may need. This will probably get you well over the 40-card minimum. Then, after you have every card you want in the deck, thin out cards that you don't need in as many copies or eliminate cards that maybe you thought you had room for but don't really need as much. Just make sure that in the end you have 40 cards in your deck.

Before I end this chapter I want to make two notes of decks that are exceptions to the 40 card rule of thumb. Those decks are Gadgets and some Lightsworn decks. Gadget decks basically run six or nine Gadgets, and having more than one Gadget in your starting hand decreases their effectiveness since the point is to use their effects to keep on getting +1's in your hand for card advantage. Therefore, Gadget decks tend to run a few more cards in the deck to try to decrease the chances of ending up with two or more gadgets in the starting hand. The other deck that sometimes uses more than 40 cards are Lightsworn decks. While LS decks can run 40 cards, some people prefer to run a few extra since LS can have issues with decking out sometimes. Personally, I still wouldn't go too much above 40, if at all, but the concept is giving up some consistency in exchange for less chances of decking out. Decking out, however, can typically be fixed by playing more conservatively.

So, now that the math is all settled (you may want to read through it a few times to make sure you understand both the math itself and the implications behind it) let's check out how my example deck looks now before we go any further. I've used everything that I've been teaching you up until this point.

Monsters(23):
3x Archlord Kristya
2x Judgment Dragon
3x Honest
2x Celestia, LS Angel
1x Shire, LS Spirit
1x Wulf, LS Beast
3x Lumina, LS Summoner
1x Garoth, LS Warrior
1x Lyla, LS Sorceress
3x Necro Gardna
1x Plaguespreader Zombie
2x Herald of Creation

Spells(11):
3x Charge of the Light Brigade
3x Solar Recharge
2x Trade-In
1x Heavy Storm
1x Mystical Space Typhoon
1x Cold Wave

Traps(6):
2x Bottomless Trap Hole
1x Torrential Tribute
2x Beckoning Light
1x Mirror Force

So, after looking at using three copies of Trade-In, I decided I wanted some more room for my trap cards and kept it at two. Also, even though LS decks can be an exception to the 40-card rule I have chosen to keep this one at 40 cards for improved consistency and also because I can always get rid of milling LS by tributing them for Kristya if I am getting low on cards. I won't get her Fairy to hand effect that way, but she will still shut down all Special Summons. The rest of the deck has mostly been talked about already, so let's move on to the next chapter!

Last edited by nekofjung on Sun Jan 10, 2010 12:08 pm; edited 1 time in total

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VIII. A Little Something "Extra"

The Extra Deck (previously known as the Fusion Deck) is a place where you can store up to fifteen fusion and synchro monsters to play with. It is ALWAYS recommended to use all fifteen spaces (even if you have no Tuner monsters).

The reason why you want to fill up your Extra deck is to account for every possible scenario. You want to take all of the most likely scenarios and have cards ready for them, then if you still have space take into account the less likely scenarios. There are very few cards that you should be running multiple copies of here, and most of the time that is only for particular decks focused on those Fusion or Synchro monsters.

Some things to consider:

A. If you are using Brain Control and Mind Control, you can include Gladiator Beast Gyzarus, Blackwing Armor Master, and others because there is a chance you can take control of the monsters needed to summon them.
B. If you have space, Chimeratech Fortress Dragon is a good option in case your opponent happens to summon Cyber Dragon and any other Machine-type monster. You can use your opponent's monsters for the summon of this card.
C. Unless you have some one or two star monsters, you probably won't need Synchro monsters with four or less stars (like Armory Arm).

Even if you have no tuner monsters, there is always a chance you could get one via Brain Control or Mind Control. There is even some small chance your opponent could use Creature Swap and get you a tuner. Take this example:

Opponent uses Creature Swap with Goblin Zombie and Plaguespreader Zombie on the field while you control a monster and a face-down Phoenix Wing Wind Blast and Threatening Roar. You chain Wind Blast to the opponent's Creature Swap and send back to the deck the Goblin Zombie the opponent planned on swapping with your monster and instead you end up with Plaguespreader Zombie. You then use Threatening Roar to stop the opponent from hurting your Plaguespreader Zombie and on your turn you can summon a monster and synchro summon.

Is this scenario likely? Probably not. Is it possible? Definitely. This, and other unlikely scenarios like it are the reason why you should always have those fifteen cards available to you. They allow you to cope as various scenarios come up.

There is no set listing of "the best 15 cards in your Extra Deck." Some people will tell you there is. Don't believe them. Just like everything else, the Extra Deck is something meant to change from deck to deck. You need to take several things into account when making an Extra deck, including:

1. Which, if any, tuners are you using?
2. What levels are all your monsters?
3. Are you using ways to take your opponent's monsters?
4. What levels of Synchro monsters are you most likely to summon?
5. What is the meta you are looking to face?

Let's go through this list one part at a time. First, some synchros have specific tuners that must be used to summon them. These synchros often have some pretty decent effects such as Blackwing Armor Master. You will probably want to keep these Synchros in mind if you are playing with the proper tuners.

Check the levels of all your monsters and all your tuners and determine what levels of synchro monsters it is physically possible to summon. You won't need as many, if any, of the Synchros of other levels unless you have extra room.

If you are using Mind Control, Brain Control, Autonomous Action Unit or other ways to take your opponent's monsters, then you can use cards like Gyzarus or Armor Master even if you don't personally have the cards required to summon them.

After having looked at the levels of your monsters, you should now be checking out what are the most likely combinations you will probably be able to make. You'll want more Synchro monsters of those levels. An example of this is that Zombie decks run Plaguespreader Zombie, who is level 2, along with a whole bunch of 4-star monsters like Zombie Master, Mezuki, and Goblin Zombie, so you can expect to be summoning multiple 6-star Synchro monsters because of this, and therefore you would want more than just a couple of them in the Extra Deck. Meanwhile, if you're using 6-star monsters like Monarchs or Destiny Hero - Malicious along with Plaguespreader and Krebons, then you would want more 8-star Synchros in the Extra Deck.

The last part takes us back to the very beginning of this guide. Observe your meta. Determine what decks you think you will be playing against wherever you will be playing this deck and from that decide what Synchro monsters will be the most useful to you. As an example, if you're expecting to see Lightsworns a lot, you could run Stardust Dragon to stop cards like Judgment Dragon and Celestia, and you could run Colossal Fighter and Blackwing Armor Master, both of whom null the effects of big players like Honest and Kalut. If you think you'll see more Zombies, it might be better to concentrate on cards like Goyo Guardian and Brionac, who don't help your opponent at all with loading the graveyard.

So, let's head over to the on-going longer example of the Kristya LS deck I'm working on. My only tuner is Plaguespreader Zombie, who is level 2. The majority of my other cards are 3 and 4-star monsters, except for Celestia who is level 5. This means I should probably be concentrating on 5, 6, and 7-star Synchro monsters. I'm not using cards that can take my opponent's monsters, so the chances are very low that I will ever summon a 4-star or lower Synchro monster, and while I could summon an 8-star Synchro monster, the chances that I would have the cards to do so and would want to sacrifice 3 monsters for it are also fairly low. The meta I believe I will be facing has already been described much earlier in this guide so check back at the beginning if you want to read about it because I don't feel like relisting it here. Based on all the available information, this is the Extra Deck I have decided upon for this deck:

Extra(15):
2x AoJ - Catastor
1x Goyo Guardian
2x Brionac, Dragon of the Ice Barrier
1x Tempest Magician
1x Black Rose Dragon
1x Ancient Fairy Dragon
1x Arcanite Magician
1x X-Saber Urbellum
1x Stardust Dragon
1x Colossal Fighter
1x Thought Ruler Archfiend
1x Red Dragon Archfiend
1x Chimeratech Fortress Dragon

The breakdown ends up being two 5-star Synchros, four 6-star Synchros, four 7-star Synchros, four 8-star Synchros, and one Fusion monster.

If you take nothing else away from this chapter, just remember this. You cannot just use a generic Extra Deck. You always need to customize your Extra Deck to fit the deck you are running.

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IX. The Side - Ultimate Proof of a Good Duelist

In a match duel, the most important factor for winning is proper creation and use of the side deck. The person who does the best job of preparing and strategically using a side is often going to be the person who wins the match. This is really where the big boys play. Those who plan ahead correctly and make the best side decks are quite often the ones who go on to win those big tournaments.

In general there are two ways to take advantage of side decking:

1. The Defensive Approach
2. The Offensive Approach

The defensive approach is one where you side in cards that are less useful for your deck's personal strategy, but that have a strong impact on shutting down your opponent's deck. This is the most common way to side deck and it has been proven to be very effective in most formats. Examples of this are using Kycoo the Ghost Destroyer to stop Zombies from using Mezuki and Necro Gardnas, or using Light-Imprisoning Mirror to shut down a Lightsworn deck.

There are many different and good cards to use with this approach to side decking, and if used correctly you can allow your deck to cover up its own weaknesses while shutting down your opponent's biggest plays. However, know well that there is a trade-off for this. If you side in too many cards you could end up doing serious damage to how well your own deck functions. Therefore, in side decking the name of the game is beating down your opponent's strategy using as few cards as possible so that your own strategy still runs relatively smoothly. Overlapping cards that can work well against multiple deck-types you expect to see is highly recommended. For example, Book of Moon can shut down many big plays from LS by flipping down Lyla or Judgment Dragon, and it has a wide range of uses generally. It also can be used against Blackwing decks to shut down Black Whirlwind and to stop your opponent from swarming the field. It can be used against Zombies to turn down Plaguespreader and stop your opponent from syncing. Using cards like this that can fulfill multiple purposes against multiple decks is the best way to make use of a side deck.

The other thing this approach to side decking can accomplish is to cover your weaknesses. If you have a deck that relies heavily on loading the grave, you may already have some cards in your main deck to stop cards like Macro Cosmos, but in case you come up against the worst scenario of an actual dedicated Macro deck, having even more ways to get rid of that weakness is important so you may want cards like Malevolent Catastrophe in your side deck.

The offensive approach is a completely different take to side decking. Rather than covering up your weaknesses and trying to exploit your opponent's weaknesses, you instead side into a completely different deck-type! This throws off the opponent and allows you to be unpredictable in both the 2nd and 3rd rounds, and it can make your opponent's efforts at side decking nearly worthless if done correctly. An old example of this is when someone is using a TeleDAD deck, but then sides in Skill Drain, Barbaros, and some other cards to make themselves into a Dark Skill Drain deck for the next round. Dark Skill Drain relies less on special summons and less on DARK monster effects, so if the opponent sided in Royal Oppression or Shadow-Imprisoning Mirror to combat you, you've just made your opponent end up with more dead draws.

The upside to this type of side decking is that if done correctly you minimize the damage you take to the consistency of the deck while making your opponent's efforts to side deck potentially worthless. One of the downsides is that not all decks are capable of these types of large-scale transformations, and pushing it to the point where you have to make changes to you main deck just so you can transform in the 2nd duel can be dangerous and may cause you to lose the 1st duel due to not having as solid of a deck. Therefore, while this is certainly a fun and interesting way of using the side deck, I suggest using it sparingly and only for decks that can easily side into another proficient deck-type that has different weaknesses than your main deck.

Heading over to my continuing Kristya LS example, I could potentially transfer the deck into a pure LS form or a Twilight form, but the weaknesses of the two deck-types would not be different enough to warrant doing so, and I'm counting on Kristya to be able to take down the strategies I am expecting to come up against. Therefore, I will stick with the defensive approach for my side deck. Here is what I've come up with:

Side(15):
2x Book of Moon
2x Lightning Vortex
2x Kycoo the Ghost Destroyer
1x D.D. Crow
2x Malevolent Catastrophe
2x Trap Eater
2x Shadow-Imprisoning Mirror
2x Mind Crush

Book of Moon I've already explained. Since I'm expecting to see Blackwings and Lightsworn I'm packing Lightning Vortex for when my opponent attempts to swarm the field. Malevolent Catastrophe can take care of cards like Dimensional Fissure which can badly damage my ability to prep for Kristya and Judgment Dragon. Trap Eater is a way of taking out Macro Cosmos, Decree, Royal Oppression, and some other annoying cards, while also giving me a 4-star tuner to play around with. Shadow-Imprisoning Mirror can put a big dent in BW decks and is also nice to have against things like Norleras deck since both it and Kycoo can shut down Phantom of Chaos. Mind Crush I can use against many decks, but especially LS and BW to get rid of pesky things like Honests and Kaluts.

Well, you now have created a main deck, an extra deck, and a side deck. Your done, right? Right? Ha! As if I would just let you go as you are! You are still missing one of the most important aspects and the last that this guide will talk about!

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X. Testing 1, 2, 3 ... 50?

Before you take that deck of your's to a tournie, you first need to test it properly. Notice how I didn't just say test it, but rather test it PROPERLY! This means getting a few friends who are at least of the caliber of player you expect to meet and seriously thinking through how to test it.

You'll want to physically test your deck against all of the decks that you believe you may encounter. You'll want to test your deck many times against all of the decks that you believe you may encounter. To start, you'll want to play at least 20 - 30 duels with the deck.

The worst way you can hurt yourself is to make a bunch of changes before you've played that initial set of duels. Despite how wonderful the math behind Yugioh is, it is still only probabilities, and probabilities can only be seen over a long period of time. Over a short period of time you can have either a bunch of awesome hands or a bunch of very bad hands. By testing it many times, you can get a better idea of what your average hands are tending to be.

Another thing that all this testing does is it familiarizes you with the deck. Now, some of you are probably sitting back right now saying "Dude, I know how the cards are supposed to work in the deck," and I'm going to tell you right now that you don't. I have never once come upon any sort of competitive deck where I knew everything about the deck before playing with it several times. By playing with the deck, you learn what the best options are in situations where there is more than one way to make a correct move. You learn how to get yourself out of a hole, and you can discover synergies that you never knew were there. You WILL find hidden combos that you didn't know existed just by playing with the deck many times.

Once you've dueled with the deck 20 - 30 times against a good opponent who is using decks you expect to play against, it is now time to make tweaks. This is where you decide whether that card you kept at one copy is worth it, and whether you need to change the proportions of any of the cards you have. You are not fiddling with your strategy here. You've already decided on what your deck is going to be. These are minor adjustments that are meant to refine the way the deck runs.

Well, once you are done refining your deck, guess what? It's time for another 20-30 duels!! Oh, I'm sorry. Are you thinking that this is way to time consuming and not worth it at all? Yeah, you would think that wouldn't you? Well, top duelists, the ones who win major tournaments, will often duel with their deck over hundred times before they've decided it is ready for tournament play. I'm asking you to do it a minimum of 40 times, and if you do all match duels (as you should to improve your side decking skills), then that comes out to a total of approximately 13 matches minimum. If you duel seven top decks twice each, you've fulfilled that much.

Do not be like those people who feel that testing a deck means playing three duels with it against random people, and then making changes or abandoning the deck because you had some bad hands or being overly confident of the deck because you had some good hands. That is a very bad way of testing your deck and it will give you completely inaccurate results, which will help you all of none when it comes time to use that deck in a competitive setting.

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Well, it's been fun all. I hope you've learned some new and interesting things after all your dedication. Good work making it to the end of this ridiculously excessive guide. You can tell I like to give overkill a new meaning.

To all my followers, supporters, friends, enemies, and to all of those with excessive flem and not enough sleep, I bid you all adieu.

~-nekofjung, king of the cats-~

Wow great as always all thought i didn't read it all but i read all the important things but i wish if you could write more examples about the Side deck cuz i really suck at that XD i usually use some lame side deck lol

So Awesome...Stickied
Would read it in an hour or so and give a full comment..

Thanks very much Neko,i didnt read all things but i also readed the most important things.Realy helpfull article,i will read everything later,anyway again absolutely nice job.10/10

10/10 long article but a good one i didn't read it all eighter since i'm tired i read thill IX

i read it all it was very interesting ill test the theory and etc out awesome neko 10/10 it was a long article but broken down to understand and gives a great field on deciding your mind when it comes to deck building awesome

Well I read it all and I'm very proud of myself for doing so Again very well done neko definitely a 10/10. All the basics were explained and taken to an advanced level beautifully and in an understanding way.

Well I will read the whole when I get more free time.Seems you did an amazing thing, 10/10 no doubt.

I read it all. I must say that I liked the ratios part and the equation part the most. I really do not like that most of it reflected LS with Krysta, but I must say it was amazing no doubt..

Seems like an educational thing to read and you got what you aimed for..good work.

very nicely done

I finished it :D

great article i really loved it and really it helped me :D Thanks Cat meowwwwwww :D

man that was long, read the whole thing.

10/10 GREAT!!! Ive been wanting to make a deck and Ive attempted maybe 17 times??? This Helped me a lot THANKS SO MUCH@

this is the best yugioh guide i ever read :D

of course it is lol. after you read it, there is no comeback, ygo is not a game for you, not anymore :D

dont necro post

There is no such thing as a necro post on the best article on DA, just people giving respect where respect is due

germanfan23 wrote:

dont necro post

Don't mini-mod.

Wow this is really good hope theres gonna be a third version

Saw anti mini-modding post. Lol'd

Anyway, phenomenal article Neko.


I don't always read YGO articles, but when I do, Neko's are the best.
::Monkey3::

This guide is amazing. I haven't even started following all of the advice yet and my deckbuilding has improved.

Read the entire thing its awesome! very in depth

well neco this article is amazing, i had no idea that deck building was so intense. i am going to put your knowladge to work for me lol. well i want to say something to the admins and what not, i understand the rule about nero-posting, but i felt i had to respond to this article not only because im new to the site and just read it for the first time, but also to request that neco add a chapter about how xyz mosters effect everything, becuse xyz is my weakest area of knowlage. thank you for your time