A guide to Prophecy, Dragon Ruler or Evilswarm?

Hey, guys! Sorry for not update my blog so frequent. Before I start off with today's topic, let's us give a round applause to Michael Bonacini for discussing the change of Yu-Gi-Oh nowadays. What he had mentioned in his blog indeed is a fact, however, the reason that I believe why Konami would alter the competitive environment is due to they want to access to new blood(player)/niche/market. For more detail of his blog content, kindly visit his blog(Death Aspect) which I have placed into my buddies list.

Today I would like to share some of my views regarding Prophecy, Dragon Ruler/Elemental Dragon and Evilswarm. Most of us only knowing how good they are but not much people fully understand of how the deck work like. As a result, better players will have higher chances to win the game and poor players will have more misplay. Therefore, we must learn well how the deck works around and from there we can plan how to goes against them especially during mirror match.

Firstly, let us review on Prophecy. As mentioned by Michael Ting in his article, Prophecy is a beat deck which quite similar with HERO beat. Actually, Prophecy not just a beat deck, but I would categorize it under the group of control-oriented deck. Basically, what it did is try to waste all your resource within the few turns and kill you once your resource fully deplete. Normally, they will outplay you within 3-5 turns. If they have exceed the period and they still unable to outplay of you then mostly they will having trouble. The deck mechanism is quite similar with Six Samurai but rather than swarming with monster, they swarming the field with many spellbook.

With the release of Extra Pack 2013, new Spellbook support is started added into their deck and I believe soon Star Hall will become an important card that can be fit into most of the prophecy build as it can boost their monsters attack so that they can kill most of the big monster easily. Generally, the key in prophecy is Spellbook of Judgment and Spellbook Magician of Prophecy. Without Spellbook Magician of Prophecy in the deck, Prophecy is unstable and you can lose the game easily due to most of the spellbook require a spellcaster on field so that it can be activate. If you able to resolve Spellbook Magician effect, then you will instantly +1.

High Priestess of Prophecy is a card that enable you to have destructible effect so that you can shut the game down earlier. However, drawing too much Priestess is a bad dream especially when you unable to fulfill its summon condition. It may destroy your deck consistency thus some of the OCG player already drop its number to 2 instead of 3. The spellbook that added by the effect of Judgment enable you to have enough of hand to outplay your opponent or lock down your opponent. Kycoo is important when you are facing with Dragon Ruler or mirror match. Thus most of the Prophecy player will conserve Kycoo as it is the card that can lock your opponent while attacking them.

During mirror match, the player that won the die roll mostly have advantage as almost nothing can interrupt you unless they have Effect Veiler on their hand. Spellbook of Judgment will be the key to win the game during mirror match as you can set it and wait for your opponent to start with their combo then only chain for it. During your opponent End Phase, you will have more hand to play during your turn or lock the SS of Justice of Prophecy by SS Jowgen as non-turn player will resolve their card effect then only follow by turn player card effect. Therefore, beware of this play as it does happen frequently.

Second, Dragon Ruler is dominating OCG and TCG environment and they are good enough against almost any deck. This is due to they can outplay you almost any time and whenever they needed. Apart from that, Dragon Ruler consider as the 1st deck in Yu-Gi-Oh history that not necessary to use up their normal summon while performing their combo. They are consistent most of the time as they can SS or Xyz summon almost any of their turn. However, they will be pretty bad if they have only 1 color Dragon Ruler in their hand and this situation seldom happen to them as they can swap their hand with the Dragon in their deck by using Tempest effect.

Basically, they will try to gather at least 3 color of Dragon Ruler in their graveyard so that they can have enough of resource to play during next turn. As I had discussed in my last article, Dragossack is the key to generate field advantage or suppress your opponent from having big play. 2nd, their Number 11: Big Eye is super effective especially during mirror match. The 1st player that firstly summon Big Eye during mirror match mostly will lose the game due to Big Eye Trading Card Game. As a result, be alert of dropping your Big Eye too early as you may lose the game because of it and dropping it when you have some sort of protection for Big Eye as some players started to main Enemy Controller to against from negated by Effect Veiler.

Vanity's Emptiness started become one of side deck for Dragon Ruler as they can shut down their opponent from abusive play after they have control the field. Many of the deck try to maining Vanity's Emptiness so that they can compete with this deck. However, Dragon Ruler can easily unlock it by activate Tempest effect to search for Dragon in the deck. Similar with Prophecy, Dragon Ruler normally try to deplete their opponent resource within 3-6 turns. If after the time frame they still unable to kill you, they will be facing difficulty of not enough of resources to continue the game. Thus the match between Prophecy and Dragon Ruler or mirror match is very interesting as you can see how they play their resource effectively.

Lastly, Evilswarm will be our last topic to discuss. Evilswarm is a deck where your monster will easily use up and once you unable to Xyz summon then you will lose the game. Most of the time, you will not have enough of monster in your hand and you will out of the tempo if your opponent able to withstand with the suppress of your Ophion. Some time you even have bad draw and require Infestation Infection to swap with other Evilswarm card from your deck. If your opponent chain with MST toward the play of Infection then you will lose a hand and may lead to a lose. Therefore, some of the players started to maining Kagetokage in order to improve the chance of Xyz summon.

1st, they will summon any Evilswarm monster then follow by SS of Kagetokage. If the monster you summon is Castor and you have another Evilswarm monster then you can have up to 2 Xyz monster on the field. In order to have more number of monster in the deck, they even include a copy of King of Feral Imps and Number 66: Master Key Bettle. They use Feral Imps to search out Kagetokage from the deck and use Master Key Bettle to protect their Ophion/Safe Zone/Imperial Iron Wall. If they have Castor, another Evilswarm and 2 copies Kagetokage and a Safe Zone, they will summon all of them and Xyz summon Ophion with Bettle then set the Safe Zone. Activate Bettle effect to target Safe Zone/Ophion, as a result, Ophion will not be easily destroy thus can form a lock down.

Evilswarm is a deck that require a lot of skill and a bit of luck as the deck is inconsistent thus not many people able to play it effectively. Some of the players even joke it as "it is not a deck" but for me, this is a deck which focus on player's skill rather than their combo. Their combo is straight-forward and this have cause some of the player for not thinking deeply on how to play it effectively. Innovative players will always come out of all sort of idea to improve their deck others than abandon it without having a try. So guys always remember that creative idea will generate better deck.

FYI, Droll & Lock Bird is not too effective against most of the deck except Prophecy and it only slow down the Prophecy but not killing them. Thus I don't highly recommend you guys to use it to stop DW or Dragon Ruler. Besides that, SD25 already officially release and overall the deck is inconsistent yet. Now I waiting for the release of special pack of V-Jump Edition 09(VE09). Hopefully this pack can upgrade the level of SD25 to tier 1. The new BLS will also release in this pack and more news will be revealed any time soon within this period.

Okay, that's all I want to share with you guys and sorry for posting such a lengthy article. Thanks for your precious time to drop by and wish you guys have a nice time with your parents. Last but not least, happy father's day to everyone and enjoy your precious moment with them. Please stay tuned for my next post.