Monday, June 27, 2011

The secret to dueling: deck cycle theory

Thanks to Cloudstrife 189. Source of this article came from http://www.pojo.biz/board/showthread.php?t=749657


 Pre Disclaimer:
THIS IS A THEORY. Feel free to look up the defenition. I'm not saying the following is true by any means, I'm just stating the different deck categories and the cycle from how I've come to understand it. Please feel free to give me some tips and advice to make it a more sound theory and don't just bash/flame me to death please. Happy reading...

Disclaimer:
Some people made some very strong arguments and I see that its VERY hard to place the current decks into these catergories. For all my examples, I used very generic builds of these decks so people can just understand the concept I'm trying to express. Many of these decks fall into multiple categories thus nullifying a few of my points. Please just try and understand the underlining theory i'm trying to express...



Beatdown ----> Control -----> Speed----> Burn---->Beatdown---->etc

Examples of each of the following decks:

Beatdown: Lightsworn
Control: Glad Beast/salvo
Speed: Teledad/Diamond dude turbo/Bw's with dark strike fighter
Burn/stall: CO burn/ empty jar

The average generic makeup of the decks:

Beatdown: Monsters(25) Spells(10) Traps(5)
Control: Monsters(18) Spells(11) Traps(11)
Speed: Monsters(15) Spells(20) Traps(5)
Burn: Monsters(10) Spells(15) Traps(15)

Beatdown decks seem to focus on strong attackers and only use spells/traps to assist them occassionally. Because their monsters are natually strong, they don't need as much protection.

Control decks seem to focus on controlling the field all game with their control oriented effects of their well balance of monsters/spells/traps.

Speed decks play few monsters and few traps but lots of spells because it gets their combo going quick so they don't need as many of the "power" cards provided via monsters and traps. They try to end the game fast and quickly before their opponent can set up a proper defensive and counter.

Burn/stall decks don't rely too much on their monsters but more on their spells and traps for protection and to do their damage or mill their opponent out. 


With my theory, I greatly believe that the following is true:

Beatdown is good against Control but bad against Burn.
Control is good against Speed but bad against Beatdown.
Speed is good against Burn but bad against Control.
Burn is good against Beatdown but bad against Speed.

*No special correlation between Burn vs Control or Beatdown vs Speed.

Now, to support this theory, lets take the look at some matchup's to help support this.

If we look at something like an old school beatdown deck with 1900 attackers vs something like gadgets, the gadget player would have to waste a spell and trap to get rid of each and every attacker and would eventually run out of resources. The same could be said for Lightsworn vs Glads. 

However, Lightsworn decks would most likely lose to something like burn or deckout because LS decks don't play enough spell and trap removal to handle all the stall. Against a burn deck, all the dimension walls, magic cylinders, and skill drain/gravity bind lock might be too much for the lightsworn player to handle. Against a mill deck, it speaks for itself. One gravity bind and a few triggered needle worms/necrofaces would lead lightsworn decks to an early deckout. 

I could go on and on for every deck matchup, but feel free to think about some of these or think of your own:

Glads(control) vs Speed(teledad)
Glads: "You play heavy storm, I chain waboku. Good luck with overextending."
Teledad: "Sigh, I have no idea how I can get rid of Herk without all my spell/traps negated and that freaking war chariort you have f/d..." 


Speed(teledad) vs Stall/burn(mill)
Teledad:"No, dont mill my malicious, plague spreader, and necro gardnas again..."
Mill: "Sigh, i so need to side deck..."


Burn(CO burn) vs Beatdown (Lightsworn).
CO Burn:"And your judgement dragon locked down via skill drain runs into my dimension wall.......again!"
Lightsworn: "Damn,gg" 


Beatdown(lightsworn) vs Control(gadgets)
Lightsworn: "Take another -2 to get rid of my jain. Can you handle my garoth?"
Gadget: "Sigh, I hope I can topdeck into another smashing ground..." 


Etc

With this theory, I'm not saying that the player with the disadvantage will always lose. Obviously, skill and luck and other factors do come into account which I will talk about later. However, I"m just saying, theoretically, the given deck has a much better matchup. 


Now, time to throw some more stuff at you. A lot of players these days seem to mix two or more of these concepts together. Look at a lot of these new modern day Lightsworns. They are adding in bottomless trapholes (uping their trap count) and adding in arkus (control based) while keeping their original beatdown theme via honest. End result, a deck that can handle a lot more situations. This can be said about a lot of other decks as well. It also should be noted, that different version of any deck can be built to fall into any of the above cycles. I have seen glad beast decks that play equips and Andal to give it more of a beatdown theme. I have seen Teledad decks adding in oppressions to give it more of a control feel. Its up to the player however he chooses to tech out his deck.

In conclusion, I beleive this theory to be true. I believe that a non-teched out deck of any of the above decks will fall into my above stated cycle. So, the next time your afraid of going against a particular deck, figure out what type of deck it is, and then play its weakness.

P.S.
A few users felt like LS should be a speed deck and bw weren't included so I posted the following:

BW go 2 ways, but the main way I seem them to be is beatdown since they focus heavily on the otk via dark strike fighter.

LS are pretty fast, but their deck isn't as fast as teledad and doesn't prodcuce the otk as often. I think the current version we see these days are a mix of both beatdown/speed/control(arkus). Its hard to say exactly cuz I used generic examples and a lot of these decks might be composed of a lot more complex components....

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