Update #2: We Faff About!
Click for Update 2!
Let’s open up the pause menu. Truly the highlight of any video game.
Music: Pause Menu
Deck Construction is for modifying your deck.
Recipe Viewer is for going over your deck recipes. A recipe is the list of cards in a deck; in other words, saving a deck recipe means saving a deck so you can rebuild it later.
Card List is a compendium of all the cards you’ve obtained. It also sorts them by what expansion they’re from, for when you’re hunting for additional copies. So you don’t have to remember if Chain Disappearance is in Dark Crisis Volume 1 or Dark Crisis Volume 2 (it’s in Dark REVELATION Volume 2).
Forbidden/Limited Card List lets you look at all the banlists you have available. Every card in Yu-Gi-Oh is either Unlimited (up to 3 copies in a deck), Semi-Limited (up to 2 copies), Limited (1 copy), or Forbidden (not allowed in a deck at all).
Stardust Accelerator comes with two banlists: the September 2008 banlist, and ‘Treat Ltd as Forb’, which is the same list but with the Limited cards also Forbidden. You could download new banlists from the Nintendo WFC, but of course you can’t do that anymore. The banlist only applies to your own decks, not to NPCs.
Here’s the deck construction screen. This is our deck, though I didn’t draw any of these monsters in my duel with Rally.
At the bottom are four tabs, and we’re currently on the second one. The four tabs are: Trunk, Main Deck, Side Deck, and Extra Deck.
The Trunk is just all the cards we aren’t currently using (apparently we keep our cards in a briefcase like Kaiba and not in a binder and/or on the floor in our room like everybody else).
The Main Deck is usually just called the ‘Deck’. It can have a minimum of 40 and maximum of 60 cards. You generally want to stick close to 40, to increase the chances you draw a desirable card. Right now we only have 50 cards total, let alone 50 good ones.
Skipping the Side Deck for the moment, the Extra Deck (called the Fusion Deck prior to 5D’s) contains all monsters that are stored there. Wow, that was a tautological statement. The Extra Deck is where your Fusion and Synchro Monsters go. It can have up to 15 cards.
The Side Deck is only used in Matches (tournament best-of-three games). Between each duel in the match, players can exchange cards between their Main/Extra Deck and Side Deck, to be better equipped to beat their opponent in the next duel. Since all the duels in Stardust Accelerator are singles, the Side Deck is technically useless. It can, however, be a convenient place to shortlist cards you may or may not ending in your deck, during deck construction.
Oh, the Side Deck can have up to 15 cards.
Now, here’s what our deck currently looks like.
MONSTERS:
1 Dark Valkyria
1 Dragon Ice
1 Gigantic Cephalotus
1 Granmarg the Rock Monarch (Lv6)
1 Jutte Fighter (Tuner)
1 Krebons (Tuner)
3 Mecha Bunny
1 Prime Material Dragon
1 Psychic Commander (Tuner)
1 Sonic Chick
1 The Calculator
1 The Creator (Lv8)
1 Tune Warrior (Tuner)
1 Twin-Barrel Dragon
1 Worm Apocalypse
1 Worm Barses
1 X-Saber Anapelera
1 X-Saber Galahad
SPELLS:
1 Big Bang Shot
1 Cup of Ace
1 Riryoku
1 Soul Taker
1 Twister
1 Unstable Evolution
TRAPS:
1 Birthright
1 Counter Counter
1 Destruction Jammer
1 Divine Wrath
1 Dust Tornado
1 Graceful Revival
1 Kunai with Chain
1 Magic Jammer
1 Overworked
1 Radiant Mirror Force
1 Raigeki Break
1 Reinforcements
1 Security Orb
SYNCHRO MONSTERS:
1 Gaia Knight, Force of the Earth (Lv6)
1 Magical Android (Lv5)
1 Psychic Lifetrancer (Lv7)
Along with the cards in our deck, there are 10 cards in our Side Deck…
SIDE DECK:
1 Ancient Gear Knight
1 Fossil Tusker
1 Ghost Gardna
1 Oyster Meister
1 Enemy Controller
1 Fairy Meteor Crush
1 Malevolent Nuzzler
1 Compulsory Evacuation Device
1 Defense Draw
1 Magical Arm Shield
There are a bunch of useful cards in our Side Deck and a bunch of garbage cards in our Main Deck, so I’m them out as follows:
OUT:
1 Worm Barses
1 Cup of Ace
1 Birthright
1 Counter Counter
1 Graceful Revival
1 Radiant Mirror Force
IN:
1 Ancient Gear Knight
1 Fossil Tusker
1 Enemy Controller
1 Malevolent Nuzzler
1 CED
1 Defense Draw
The two cards I want to draw your attention to are Enemy Controller and CED. PUT THEM IN YOUR DECK. Enemy Controller has been a staple card for many years, thanks to its extreme versatility. It’s our first Quick-Play Spell (during your turn you can activate it at any time from your hand; if you set it, it behaves exactly like a Trap), and has two effects, both of which can be used defensively or offensively depending on circumstance.
I actually like Compulsory Evacuation Device even more. It didn’t become a competitive staple until the introduction of Xyz Monsters, but it’s still handy in the Synchro era. It’s useful now, but it’s the kind of card that only gets better the better the deck you’re facing is.
So those are the cards you should definitely put in. There’s really only one card you should take OUT: Cup of Ace. It’s a spell that tosses a coin: if heads, you draw 2 cards, and if tails, your opponent draws 2.
Not only is a 50% success rate bad (obviously), and not only is your opponent getting to draw 2 a huge penalty, but the effect is actually weighted against you. In terms of card advantage, it looks like either a +2 or -2, but that’s deceptive. Playing Cup of Ace is a -1 by itself, so it’s actually either a +1 or -3.
The other cards I took out because they’re highly situational. Radiant Mirror Force is a perfect example. It has the exact same effect as Mirror Force (destroys all the opponent’s Attack Position monsters when they attack), but has the additional condition that they have to control three Attack Position monsters. If that situation comes up, Radiant Mirror Force will be GREAT and quite possibly be enough of a reversal to win me the game…but how often is that going to happen? How often is that going to happen, when in the process of summoning those three monsters to attack me with, they didn’t clean up my back row beforehand or otherwise protect themselves? And I could have probably prevented some or all of those monsters from being summoned in the first place with a well-timed Enemy Controller or CED.
Birthright and Graceful Revival have the same reasoning. Birthright revives a Normal Monster, but our only Normal Monsters are Tune Warrior and X-Saber Anapelera (Actually, Dark Valkyria and Ancient Gear Knight are Gemini monsters, so they’re treated as Normal Monsters in the Graveyard). Graceful Revival you could justify keeping: it revives a Level 2 or lower monster, and we have several of those (Jutte Fighter, Krebons, Sonic Chick, Worm Apocalypse, and three Mecha Bunny, for a total of seven targets), but there’s not a lot to do with them once we revive them. They can be used for a Tribute Summon or Synchro Summon, so if you want to keep it by all means do so.
Counter Counter is highly situational in that a competitive deck of the time is looking at 1-2 Counter Traps and a non-competitive deck is looking at…none. However, I’m about to duel an NPC who has a deck stuffed to the gills with Counter Traps, so I should’ve kept it.
I could continue to explain every card choice but this is already a giant wall of text. I’ll finish by saying I put in Ancient Gear Knight and Fossil Tusker because they have 1800 ATK and we need all the ATK we can get right now.
Music: Satellite
Going south from the starting…room…alley…location, we reach this place. The subway is clearly right in front of us, but I decided to explore some more instead, so I headed east.
In the next area is this bastard.
‘That place’ is on the complete other side of map. The ‘guy’ who runs it is a Dark Magician Girl cosplayer, so either this kid knows something I don’t or he agrees with me that ‘guys’ is a gender-neutral pronoun. Also I have no idea what that comma is doing in the middle of that sentence.
Is this motherfucker challenging our right to buy cards? This is NOT going to stand.
Music: Duel Start
I won janken this time, which is fortunate.
Yusuke can kick your ass if he goes first. He can kick your ass anyway, but especially if he goes first.
Music: Story Duel 4
I open with Malevolent Nuzzler, Kunai with Chain, Dragon Ice, Mecha Bunny, Shield Crush, and Magic Jammer. Like last duel, I open with a set Mecha Bunny.
Note that Dragon Ice is a Level 5 monster. Level 5-6 monsters require a Tribute of one monster on my field to Normal Summon, and Level 7+ monsters require 2 Tributes.
I also set Magic Jammer and Kunai with Chain. The former negates a spell by discarding a card, while the latter is an interesting, multi-effect trap.
I dueled Yusuke during a brief test recording, so I knew what deck he had when I started this duel. Since I already know he has a Counter Fairy / Sanctuary in the Sky deck, my plan is to negate Sanctuary with Magic Jammer, which will handicap some of his strategies. Reality is not that kind.
He summons Meltiel, Sage of the Sky (1600 ATK). Its ATK is unimpressive, but its effect can be a big problem:
With a deck as bad as the one we have right now, Meltiel’s effect going off while Sanctuary in the Sky is out could pretty much clinch the game by itself if we’re unlucky.
He attacks Mecha Bunny, so he takes 500 damage and I summon a second copy.
He sets two facedowns. His Spell/Trap lineup is I think just three Sanctuary in the Sky and a bunch of Counter Traps.
Our only S/T destruction right now is Worm Apocalypse and Twister, and the latter only destroys face-up Spells, so we have essentially no ability to preempt his Counter Traps. My preferred strategy in this situation is to make him activating his Counter Traps sooner rather than later. My thinking is this:
Every Counter Trap he activates now is one he can’t activate later. And right now all he has is Meltiel. Him recovering 1000 Life Points isn’t great, but better he do it now than later when Sanctuary in the Sky is out, or he has another Counter Fairy out.
Your other option is to make an educated guess as to what Counter Traps he has face-down and try not to trigger them. But he has traps to respond to pretty much every possible action, so that’s not easy to do.
I draw and summon X-Saber Galahad (1800 ATK). Galahad gains 300 ATK while attacking but loses 500 ATK when defending. He has a second effect that works with other X-Sabers but it’s not very good and we’ll probably never see it. In practice, he’s a straight downgrade to Steamroid, an older card with the same ATK and better effect (500 +/- instead of 300+/500-).
But he’s stronger than Meltiel and that’s what matters.
Yusuke activates Negate Attack. Despite the name, Negate Attack not only negates the attack but also ends the Battle Phase. He has three Negate Attack in his deck so enjoy running into all of them.
I expected that.
What I didn’t expect was him dropping Voltanis the Adjudicator on the third turn.
Voltanis the Adjudicator is a Level 8 monster with 2800 ATK (but only 1400 DEF). After you use a Counter Trap, you can Special Summon Voltanis from your hand by tributing all the monsters on your field. Then, for every Fairy-Type monster you tributed, it destroys 1 of your opponent’s cards.
In this case, he only had Meltiel, so Voltanis destroys 1 card (Magic Jammer).
Dragon Ice has 1800 ATK, which is low for a Level 5 monster, but when my opponent special summons a monster, Dragon Ice can special summon itself from my hand or Graveyard by discarding a card.
I misplayed here. I discarded Shield Crush when I didn’t need to. Remember, Dragon Ice can special summon itself from the hand OR GRAVEYARD. You can discard Dragon Ice as the cost for its own effect.
Normal Summoning is limited to a face-up Attack Position Normal Summon or a face-down Defense Position Normal Set. Special Summons are always face-up unless an effect says otherwise (like Mecha Bunny).
Seeing as Voltanis has 2800 ATK, Dragon Ice is going in Defense Position.
Despite how things look, I’m actually set up for a recovery.
Yusuke summons Harvest Angel of Wisdom (1800 ATK) and attacks with Voltanis, which is good news for me…
…because I still have Kunai with Chain.
Kunai with Chain can do three things:
- When an opponent’s monster attacks, it can change the attacker to Defense Position.
- It can equip onto one of my monsters, giving the monster +500 ATK.
- It can do both!
Along with switching Voltanis to Defense Position, I decide to equip Kunai with Chain on Dragon Ice. It might have been better to equip it on Galahad, but I don’t like Galahad’s self-ATK-loss effect.
Harvest Angel destroys Galahad, which is the first damage I’ve taken in this game.
And another face-down.
I draw Psychic Commander which means I get to Synchro Summon.
(This is not going to end well.)
I summon Psychic Commander and flip Mecha Bunny, which means Yusuke is…back to 8000 Life Points.
So, Synchro Summoning.
Synchro Summoning was introduced in Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D’s. This meant the introduction of two new kinds of monster: Synchro Monsters and Tuner monsters.
Here’s a Tuner. You can see it says ‘Tuner’ next to the monster’s Type. There’s nothing innately special about Tuners, they have no unique special abilities or anything like that. They’re just a requirement for summoning a Synchro Monster.
Here’s what a Synchro Monster looks like:
You can see in the description the phrase “1 Tuner + 1 or more non-Tuner monsters”. A Yu-Gi-Oh instruction booklet would call this the ‘recipe’ for summoning Magical Android.
To summon Magical Android, you need to have a Tuner and 1 or more non-Tuners on your field. Their total Levels need to equal the Level of the Synchro Monster (5, in this case). And you need to send the monsters to the Graveyard.
In this case, I have Psychic Commander (Lv3) + Mecha Bunny (Lv2) = Magical Android (Lv5).
Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D’s OST (4Kids Edition): Yusei Synchro Summon Theme
“Let’s rev it up!” I said ironically.
During a Synchro Summon, the Tuner turns into green rings and the other monsters turn into like a beam of light or something. Nobody knows why.
Music: Story Duel 4
What I didn’t know is that Yusuke has Solemn Judgment in his deck.
Solemn Judgment can negate a Spell, Trap, or the summon of a monster. Pretty much anything, in other words.
At the SLIGHT cost of half your Life Points.
Solemn Judgment’s cost is actually not as bad as it looks. Because it’s ‘half’ rather than a specific number, you can always pay it. Yusuke just decided to activate it at full Life Points because his AI’s a goof.
So ends my first Synchro Summon.
I change Dragon Ice to Attack Position and slap Malevolent Nuzzler onto it.
Malevolent Nuzzler is an Equip Card that gives +700 ATK. It also has an effect that lets you put it back on top of your deck when it’s sent to the Graveyard by paying 500 LP, but that’s not worth using often.
Dragon Ice’s ATK is now 1800 + 500 + 700 = 3000. Since Voltanis only has 1400 DEF, I didn’t necessarily need to do this. My concern was that Yusuke might have another Negate Attack set, and then Voltanis would be able to turn around and destroy Dragon Ice next turn.
Music: Winning Story Duel 1
This music plays for the rest of the duel even though I am a LONG way away from victory.
Yusuke turtles up, switching Harvest Angel to defense position and setting another monster and another Counter Trap.
This demonstrates the weakness of Counter Fairy decks. They’re predicated entirely on stopping the opponent from doing things. Once the opponent does something (like dump a 3000 ATK monster on the field), they have few outs to that. ‘Few’ doesn’t mean ‘zero’, though.
I draw Jutte Fighter (700 ATK), another Tuner. He can change an attack position monster to defense position, which can be useful when you’re behind but not so much when you’re ahead.
I have Dragon Ice attack the set monster, because I don’t want to deal with Harvest Angel’s effect. When Harvest Angel of Wisdom is destroyed in battle, it can retrieve a Counter Trap from the graveyard. I do NOT want to see Solemn Judgment again.
But I don’t really want to see Arcana Force 0 - The Fool, either.
The Arcana Force archetype was used by the antagonist from season 2 of Yu-Gi-Oh! GX. The idea behind them is that, like the tarot, the Arcana Forces can be either upright (beneficial effect) or reversed (detrimental effect), which is decided by coin flip when they’re summoned.
What’s important for The Fool is the very first sentence of its text: “This card cannot be destroyed by battle”.
Oh. We’re…going to be here for a while, aren’t we?
The Fool is actually part of an even meaner combo with the Sanctuary in the Sky, though it’s also a combo you can turn to your benefit if you draw well.
Along with being unable to be destroyed in battle, The Fool can’t switch battle position (a card effect can change its position, though). It also has its coin toss effect: Whenever either you (heads) or your opponent (tails) target it with a card effect, the card is automatically negated and destroyed. Because The Fool is foolish, it mixes up heads and tails.
This means that with the tails effect, it can’t be destroyed in battle AND your opponent can’t target it with effects. There’s a problem, though: Arcana Force monsters perform the coin toss when they’re summoned. That would mean The Fool is nearly indestructible, but stuck in attack position even though it has 0 ATK.
That’s where Sanctuary in the Sky comes. Sanctuary in the Sky is a Field Spell that makes Fairy-Types take no battle damage. The AI likes taking advantage of this and will happily normal summon The Fool, hoping to get its tails effect is Sanctuary in the Sky is out.
If this happens, DESTROY SANCTUARY IN THE SKY and get in as much damage as you can.
Did I mention Yusuke has three copies of The Fool? And three copies of Sanctuary?
I eventually attack Harvest Angel just to get it out of the way. His AI decides to get back Negate Attack instead of Solemn Judgment, which is okay by me.
He draws Zeradias, Herald of Heaven, which can be discarded to fetch Sanctuary of the Sky from his deck. Under these circumstances, Sanctuary isn’t a huge deal. It does mean I can’t use Enemy Controller to switch The Fool to attack position, were I to hypothetically draw it.
I draw Divine Wrath, a Counter Trap that negates the activation of a monster effect by discarding a card. I set it but don’t end up activating it. Unfortunately, most of the Counter Fairies’ effects don’t technically ‘activate’ – they’re an odd breed of continuous effect that only applies immediately after a Counter Trap resolves.
Next turn is Dark Valkyria (1800 ATK), which is something I can use.
Dark Valkyria is a Gemini monster. A Gemini monster starts out as a Normal Monster. Normal Summoning it again while it’s already on the field gives it its effects. And Dark Valkyria’s effect is to, just once, destroy a monster on the field.
Yusuke activates Forced Back, which negates the Normal/Flip Summon of a monster and sends it back to the hand.
This is why you don’t want to go second against him. He has THREE Forced Back.
Not a big deal, though. I can just summon it again next turn, and now he has one less Forced Back for me to deal with.
Next turn he activates his SECOND Solemn Judgment.
I was shocked to see this, and was equally shocked just now when I looked it up and Solemn Judgment wasn’t Limited to 1 until the September 2009 banlist, while Stardust Accelerator uses the September 2008 list.
I summon (and Gemini summon) Ancient Gear Knight. Its Gemini effect prevents the opponent from activating Spells and Traps when it attacks, which would prevent Negate Attack.
The second card from the left in my hand is The Creator, which I’m hoping to summon. It’s Level 8, and I’m not about to sacrifice to my 3000 ATK Dragon Ice to bring it out, but it has a very good effect. By discarding a card, and it can revive a monster from your graveyard. My long-term goal is to summon The Creator, and then use it to bring Dark Valkyria, and use Dark Valkyria to get rid of The Fool.
This will not end up happening.
He summons his second Zeradias (Zeradias is Level 4 and has 2100 ATK, but destroys itself if Sanctuary in the Sky isn’t out). He also weirdly decides to switch The Fool to attack position. He destroys Ancient Gear Knight with Zeradias and uses The Fool to check what my face-down monster is (it’s Sonic Chick).
I draw Twister! It destroys a face-up Spell at the cost of 500 LP, so I’ll get rid of Sanctuary. Since he paid another 2000 LP to activate his second Solemn Judgment, I’ll attack The Fool with Dragon Ice and win the–
Dark Bribe. Negate a spell or trap, but the opponent draws a card.
I set Jutte Fighter along with the card I drew with Dark Bribe, Security Orb. The latter changes an attacking monster to defense position, so as long as he doesn’t summon a new monster I’ll have enough tributes for The Creator.
Oh, right. I’m still setting cards in Main Phase 1 instead of MP2 because I’m used to Duel Links.
I get Negate Attack’d.
He summons Bountiful Artemis (1600 ATK), which lets him draw a card whenever a Counter Trap is activated. I stop Zeradias’ attack with Security Orb, but Artemis destroys Sonic Chick.
On my turn I decide to tribute Jutte Fighter to summon Prime Material Dragon (2400 ATK). It has two effects, one situationally handy and one very good, but neither will have any impact. I just want it for the ATK.
I get Negate Attack’d. (And Bountiful Artemis nets him a card.)
Then Yusuke does something very strange…
He gets so excited about drawing Voltanis that he decides to summon it. Not with its effect: he normal summons it. And tributes The Fool.
I don’t even mind losing Prime Material Dragon. I still have Dragon Ice with 3000 ATK.
There’s a couple more rounds of him setting stuff and me attacking it and him summoning his third Zeradias, but finally…
The Tribute Summon and Synchro Summon Bonuses are 3 DP per summon, so if you have, I dunno, a Frog Monarch deck or something you could rack up a decent amount of points that way.
Max ATK and Max Damage are presumably for hitting some threshold for ATK and damage. It’s probably 3000 minimum for both, but you might get more points for reaching higher ATK/damage thresholds. The same probably applies for the Destroy in Battle Bonus.
I’m going to be thankful for all this DP in a couple updates.
Next time, I’ll start summarizing duels more…summarizing-ly.