A regular feature of the Dice Masters casual events I attend at one of my FLGS’s (Element Games in Stockport) is bonus prizes for fielding all team members from one system ( ie Marvel, DC, D&D etc)
So, there I was a couple of weeks ago and our TO, Tim, was toting up the prize distribution at the end of the night when he asked (as he often does) “any body all Marvel? Anybody all DC?”. He followed the question, with a glint in his eye and a “tongue in cheek” tone, with “anybody play all Yu Gi Oh?” Everybody laughed (it’s not a popular set AT ALL down at Element Games) and we carried on with the prize giving.
I rarely get the “single system” bonus booster. For weeks now I’ve been testing out & tweaking my intended UK Nationals build (which is mixed) and, even then, prior to testing out that team I would go for mixed builds. But, with Nationals done & dusted I have started to wander back to re-visiting the joys of a more casual way of playing; of toying about with curious themes or trying out cards that have caught my eye for the fun of it all.
And so I thought “why the hell not give an all Yu Gi Oh build a go? At the very least the banter at the store will be a laugh”. So here it goes…
First step – a win condition. There is one route to lethal with Yu Gi Oh characters I’ve had my eye on for my win con: Overcrush. (Although, back then, it wasn’t called that) There are two cards I am going to use to build this Win Con in: ‘Blade Knight – Solo Act’ and ‘Horn of the Unicorn’.
With an absence of solutions to make dice unblock-able or any kind of in-set sweeping board clear option cards like these that can damage when blocked are going to be winners I reckon. ‘Blade Knight’ is cheap with inbuilt Overcrush and pretty decent stats.
‘Horn of the Unicorn’ gives an attack bump game text and Global that will give my attacking ‘Blade Knights’ a bit of a boost to improve their damage capacity. The burst text will grant other die the Overcrush mechanic – so in a pinch I could potentially use other characters as my Overcrushing soldiers in a plan B capacity.
If attacking with the ‘Blade Knight’ is going to form the main win condition then I’m going to need to protect them from commonly used Basic Action Globals and targeted removal strikes. Cards like ‘Storm – Wind Rider’, ‘Distraction’, ‘Punisher – McRook’, ‘Hawkeye – Longbow’, ‘Nightwing – Flying Grayson are all very popular in my local meta. The Yu Gi Oh set has a great combo to deal with such challenges in ‘Lord of D. – Dragon Protector’ and the ‘Ring of Magnetism – Action Attraction’.
This particular combo came as a suggestion from the Reddit Hive-mind, who I often turn to for inspiration & recommendations when it comes to team building. It’s a tricky combo, and I had to do some research to get my head around it, but it essentially creates a state where Actions or Abilities have no legal target and therefore completely nullifies them. (HERE’S the ruling on the Rules Forum, if anyone’s interested.)
There is, however, going to be some pesky, non-targeting abilities I’m going to have to deal with and so a little targeted removal of my own would be a good idea. The Yu Gi Oh set has an elegant answer to this in the form of ‘Millennium Puzzle – The Eternal Dungeon’.
I love this card. I love that it’s Continuous, sitting in wait to strike, and I love that it sends the die to the Used Pile. I’ve used it on numerous builds before and found that it’s only disadvantage is the Max:1 die limit. I also generally find that in my local meta Action Dice targeted actions are less well protected against than character abilities.
To afford all this I’ll need some solid ramp in place, and so I have chosen two card slots to fill with ‘Blue-Eyes White Dragon – Monstrous Dragon’ and’Morphing Jar – Canopic Jar’.
‘Morphing Jar’ will serve as the cheap meal for my BEWD Global and provide much needed energy for the higher fielding costs of the team. It is also a pretty solid die in its own right; carrying some really great stats for its cost – so it could be my alternative it may well prove to be useful cannon fodder for some blocking.
Next up – another plan B Overcrushing character – ‘Dark Magician Girl – Powerful Sorceress’.
She’s a solid die to purchase if I have over-abundance of Mask energy with the high volume of ‘Morphing Jars’ I’m using for ramp, and can turn all those spent ‘Jars’ to her advantage in an attack bump that will go well with the ‘Horn of the Unicorn’.
My final character slot is going to be filled by ‘Mystical Elf – Everlasting Support’.
I’ve chosen this character for a few reasons. Firstly – in set there is little mitigation for Direct Damage strategies, and in my local meta we see a lot of ‘Human Torch’ and Breath Weapon burn strategy going on. In the absence of a solution to mitigate this I’ve elected to use ‘Mystical Elf’ to re-coup as much life lost as possibly to such Burn damage. She synergies well with BEWD Global here as I am able to KO her on demand to initiate the life gain and gain the BEWD discount. Secondly – I’ll get a bit of bonus ramp off the back of it too, which is a nice bit of added value when I KO her. Finally – she’s got strong defensive stats, especially at level three.
My final slot is my second Basic Action and I have chosen ‘Monster Reborn’.
This card is there because, simply put, I’ve always fancied giving it a play test. It has the potential to mitigate fielding costs and speed up the process of getting my hands on the dice I want. It’s a bit of an experiment, so we’ll see how it goes.
Here is the team on the DiceMastersDB for y’all… (Click the pic for a link)
————-
So, there we go, a Yu Gi Oh only build. I’m planning on taking it down to the Casual Event I’m attending tomorrow night and think it will be a fun little team to play.
Keep an eye out for the event re-cap later in the week
What do think dear reader; is it a goer? Is there a Yu Gi Oh card I’ve missed that could make it a better team? Do you like it? Let me know in the comments below…
1 Comment