Sunday, January 6, 2013

Beating the odds - Part 1

Hey all! Here today with another posts which isn't a tournament report. Been noticing the blog lacked content other than a storage shed for recording previous toppings.

So yeah, today I'll be talking about something so minute yet in-depth - Matchups.

Now, be it a new player or old-timer, everyone knows the basic idea of the term "Match-Up", which is used to describe if a player has a good or a bad one. However, a common misconception by most players, or at least here in Singapore, is that players already expect a win/loss the moment they find out their opponents deck.

Sadly, this is very, very wrong.

Common misconceptions on the "better" matchups are normally considered:

For Verz:
Hero
Mermail
Chaos Dragons
Agents

For Hero:
Wind-Ups

For Dark World:
Hero

Well, some might be a little off but the idea projected is there, whereby people think they'll get an assured win.

However, I strongly disagree with this mindset. Doesn't mean because you're paired up against a deck which has shown to out-perform yours in previous matches of other people, you have to follow it and assume the outcome of that match is what's already "proven".

I'm not saying that there's a sure-fire way to winning what seems to be a "bad matchup", but I'm saying that there's definitely more than what you think instead of going "OH HE DID THIS AND NOW I'M GONNA LOSE!"

Today, I'll be talking about decks which have the infamous Verz as their challenge. Most complains I've heard of comes from Mermail, Hero and Chaos Dragon players.

So, what exactly are these players afraid of? It's their boss card the deck is revolved around - Verz/Evilswarm Ophion.

Verz Ophion
Rank 4/Dark
2550/1650

2 Level 4 "lswarm" monsters
Neither player can Special Summon Level 5 or higher monsters while this card has Xyz Material. Once per turn: You can detach 1 Xyz Material from this card; add 1 "Infestation" Spell or Trap Card from your Deck to your hand.



Now, the standard Verz deck is built to help protect Verz Ophion and take advantage of it's continuous effect of preventing anything above Level 5 to be Special Summoned. It allows the deck to cut off the high level bosses of the opponents deck such as BLS, E-Hero The Shining, REDMD, Abyssmegalo and such, hence the dread of facing Verz with these decks.

Some common cards used to protect Ophion are:
-Pandemic Contagion Infestation (Easily searched out with Ophion's second effect, acts as a Lance without drawbacks)
-Forbidden Lance (Spell/Traps)
-Forbidden Garment (Destruction, mostly for monsters)
-Forbidden Chalice (Damage Step against Ryko/Snowman/DDWL)

Apparently, it may seem like their range of protection is big, however, we are forgetting that the standard deck count is around 40-42 at best, and maxing out or running a couple of such copies of such protective backrow usable only in specific situations make-up the deck.

From what I have mentioned so far, the average Verz deck now has such attributes to the deck:
-Heavy backrow
-Built around a few cards
-Beatdown strategy
-Relies on protection
-Shuts down level-based monsters

So from this, it is easily deduced that cards sided against Verz must be:
-Over-Power
-Maintain field presence on your side (Either through effect or high stats)
-Reduce field presence on their side without using monster effects (Priority lies in the backrow)
-Negates effects (Shutdown Ophion)
-Speed up exceed summoning (Ophion kills high-levels, not ranks)
-Counter-Trap Removal (Bypass Lance and Infestation)

So a list of cards normally effective against Verz would be:
-Rai-Oh
-Snowman Eater
-DDWL
-Ryko
-Consecrated Light
-Spirit Reaper
-MST
-Dust Tornado
-Malevolent Catastrophe
-Skill Drain
-Rivalry of Warlords
-Black Horn of Heaven

The list goes on, but I'm stating some very common targets mained/sided.

When it comes to going against a Verz deck, the main idea of getting closer to victory is through removing their Ophion (no shit.) with either effects which Lance/Infestation aren't able to stop, or by over powering the Ophion, following up either way with summoning the high-level bosses which Ophion cannot naturally overcome in Main Phase 2.

Cards which are used for their effects to remove Ophion are usually:
Atlantean Heavy Infantry
Rai-Oh
Wind-Up Zenmaines
Black Horn of Heaven
Rivalry of Warlords

Cards which are used for overpowering Ophion are usually:
Gemknight Pearl
Maestroke the Symphony Djinn
Gagaga Gunman/Cowboy
Acid Golem of Destruction
Honest (Somewhat)

And yes, everything has an out, so don't go all "but ____ will kill it!" The post is not to enlighten you on how to have a 100% success rate in winning a Verz matchup, but more on telling you that it's not as bad as you think it is.

So as you can see, this is just a short introduction on a series of stuff I'll be posting, today's post was about matchups, and I hope this was somewhat helpful in anyway, till next time!

Signing off,
Shaunewbiez

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