I cannot tell you how many times I have read those phrases over the past four and a half years playing this game (Yes, it has been that long). Over that long period of time, I have changed quite a bit as a gamer. I have gone from starting with Yu-Gi-Oh competitively (following from casual to semi-competitive Pokemon), moved to Vs System, and then ultimately took on Magic the Gathering. Currently, I play four different trading card games and have problems making time for all of them.

Oh, and did I mention the World of Warcraft account I’ve got? That is correct, ladies and gentlemen. I do not have a life. Or a girlfriend for that matter.

However, it is really hard to complain about my choice of being obsessed with games. The concept of competitive games is interesting, and can be rooted to game theory lessons you can learn in a Political Science class at college. In fact, when you experience more than one trading card game, you tend to learn a wide variety of tricks and tips from the pros of each game. It can be a bit of an information overload, but to me it is fascinating enough to continue pursuing gaming from multiple aspects (as a player and as a writer).

With my roots established in Yu-Gi-Oh, it has been hard to leave the game permanently. Even though it is hard to make time for competitive tournaments, I still regularly play the game and study new sets, card interactions, and deck concepts. One other thing I tend to study from this game is its player base and national metagame. Unfortunately right now, the metagame seems to be a tad bit stale with multiple variations of Return-Chaos being the only real decks seeing play at top-level events. I realized that players are still focusing too much on the concept of card advantage, and players are still suck in the Goat-Control format mindset in which resource advantage was the most important part of the duel. Players are also stuck with what they are familiar with, and despite the banning of Black Luster Soldier – Envoy of the Beginning, they cannot leave their Chaos roots and resorted to decks based upon Chaos Sorcerer instead.

However, those that do not like net-decks seem to be missing a few important aspects as well when building their decks. While coming up with your own idea can be fun, it won’t always be successful. Unfortunately, not every deck-theme is equal in this game, and therefore there are certain deck ideas that will just never work in a competitive environment. This is fine if you never intend to play in a regional event, but when you want to compete and do well at higher level events, then you will need to find a working strategy.

Unfortunately, both groups of players tend to make the same mistakes in the deck-construction process. While running tech is definitely relevant in a format of mirror matches, some competitive players forget what that tech may do to the rest of their deck. For example, adding a tech Royal Decree to your deck might be a nice lockdown strategy, but what does it do to you? It may potentially shut down your own traps later in a duel if your opponent gains control of the game. It also causes you to exclude cards that may help your deck, such as Treeborn Frog. Running both cards in the same main-deck can prove disastrous if you end up with both in a duel at some point. While a pro player may argue that if you play your cards in the right order that this won’t be a problem, it won’t excuse the fact that having one active and then drawing the other is going to seriously wreck your tempo. In fact, playing around with both of them if they ended up in your hand can also be bad for you, as you will be stuck with little or no ability to do anything productive. This will give your opponent a signal that your contradictory cards are clashing with each other and that they can take a chance to gain control of the duel.

More advanced mistakes in deck-construction such as these can be avoided by looking at what type of deck you truly want to run. In deck-construction, there are ultimately three different decks that you will end up creating, and they fall under three different archetypes.

The first archetype is the Aggro archetype. The strategy of this sort of deck is to treat tempo as your most valuable tool in a duel. While card advantage can be nice in replenishing your resources and giving you more fuel to beat your opponent with, the Aggro deck is meant to defeat your opponent fast and effectively. You don’t want to give your opponent a chance to gain any pressure on you, and you always want to be forcing them into making sub-optimal plays. This can be done through fast and aggressive monsters, massive monsters and cards that can quickly end a duel in one or two attacks, or even quick burn effects that are aimed to reduce your opponent’s life points to zero in a timely manner.

The second archetype is one more Yu-Gi-Oh players may (or may not) be familiar with. The Control archetype is seemingly the most popular, and is also the most misunderstood. While the Aggro deck is focused on a fast tempo, the Control deck is all about messing up your opponent’s tempo and position over you in a duel. This is done through cards that halt the battle phase, powerful and deadly removal cards, and tricks that give you massive card advantage. While the Aggro deck is all about destroying your opponent quickly, the control deck is all about reacting to what your opponent wants to do. This effectively makes your job very difficult, as you need to figure out how to best use your cards to disrupt your opponent’s game plan. Your win condition is usually some ultra-powerful monster or card that can instantly win you the game (Black Luster Soldier – Envoy of the Beginning and Return from the Different Dimension are excellent examples of this).

The third and final archetype is actually a collection of sub-themes that are too small to be considered their own archetype like Aggro and Control. A good name for this collection of sub-themes is the Alternate archetypes. These can include off-the-wall strategies that don’t use the same rules as Aggro and Control decks. This includes combo decks that rely on some sort of ridiculously powerful card interaction (Magical Scientist and Catapult Turtle), a Stasis deck that is focused on keeping your opponent from doing anything while you win the duel (Tsukuyomi Lock and Yata-Lock), and more interesting hybrid decks known as Aggro-Control (a combination of both elements from the first two archetypes). Describing the alternate decks can be difficult, as they all have their own set rules.

Over the next few weeks, be sure to check out TCGplayer.com for my continuation and deeper analysis of each deck archetype. I will be going into details about every aspect of Aggro, Control, and the alternate archetypes, and will supply deck-lists that serve as good examples of what each archetype is meant to do. Understanding what your deck’s purpose is the most important key to being able to win high-level events in any trading card game, and Yu-Gi-Oh is no exception to this rule.


by Mike Rosenberg....

and since im explaining hybrid decks here is a example
everybody knows zero zombi sworn!!!

u need this:
2 goblin zombie
1 mezuki
1 plague
1 zombie master
2 malicius
1 dasher
1 DAD
1 staratos
3 deep see divas
2 ryko
1 lumina
2 wulfs
1 lyla
1 chaos
1 morphing jar

spells and traps are obvius in this deck so im not gonna waste my time writing them
u need draw power and thats why there are d heroes abd lightsworns to mill and draw
this is a nasty deck and can be modified easy
.-..

Lolz.. that's obviously a Copy and Paste Article xD Wellz.. nice Zero Zombie Sworn (half-) deck xP

thx for posting this article snake! really nice info!