Dino Rabbit Decklist

Time for a new meta decklist, today’s post is about one of the top deck(s) of the past format in TCG: Dino Rabbit; I’ll talk about Verz Rabbit too, that’s a kind of Tier 2 deck in OCG.

Both decks were hit more or less from the new banlist, to specify it: the semi-limit of Rescue Rabbit, Tour Guide and Pot Of Duality.

I still think that this deck is one big candidate for the new meta and it’s popularity in OCG will rise too as both Tour Guide and Dolkka will be finally released in the Extra Packs. So today I got unbelievable 3 decklists (!) for you. First one’s a pure Dino Rabbit like many TCG players builds although I got a triple Jurrac Guaiba, which I will explain later; second deck will be a more Dino focused Verz Rabbit deck; last one’s a more Verz focused deck (still refusing to call them Evilswarm, Verz sounds better and is much shorter so I’ll stay with this name 😉 )

It’s funny that they changed Evolkaiser to Evolzar, guess TCG branch of Konami likes Russian more than German lol

Decided to split up the posts in order to make it more readable and not having to scroll for ages to get to a certain deck, as the Dino Rabbit post got unexpectedly long; so I’ll post both Verz Rabbit decks in a few days.

A pure Dino Rabbit deck is what most TCG players use, but there are some differences in the choice of tech cards: you can either choose to run Jurracs, Photon Thrasher, Cardcar D, Spirit Reaper, Thunder King Rai-Oh or Veiler, even Neo-Spacian Grand Mole are in some decks. All those techs have their own reasons and give you a vague hint how each player is using their deck.

Decklist

Monster (18)

3x Kabazauls (LV 4)

3x Sabersaurus (LV 4)

2x Rescue Rabbit (LV 4)

3x Jurrac Guaiba (LV 4)

2x Tour Guide From The Underworld (LV 3)

1x Sangan (LV 3)

1x Spirit Reaper (LV 3)

2x Thunder King Rai-Oh  (LV 4)

1x Gorz The Emissary Of Darkness (LV 7)

Spell (12)

1x Heavy Storm

1x Dark Hole

1x Monster Reborn

2x Pot Of Duality

3x Forbidden Lance

3x Mystical Space Typhoon

1x Book Of Moon

Trap (10)

2x Compulsory Evacuation Device

1x Mirror Force

1x Torrential Tribute

2x Bottomless Trap Hole

2x Solemn Warning

1x Solemn Judgment

1x Starlight Road

Extra (15)

1x A.O.J. Catastor (LV 5)

1x Stardust Dragon (LV 8)

1x Wind-Up Zenmaines (R 3)

1x Leviair The Sea Dragon (R 3)

1x Daigusto Emeral (R 4)

1x Maestroke The Symphony Djinn (R 4)

1x Blackship Of Corn (R 4)

1x Photon Papilloperative (R 4)

1x Gem-Knight Pearl (R 4)

1x Number 16: Shock Master (R 4)

1x Evilswarm Ouroboros (R 4)

2x Evolzar Laggia (R 4)

2x Evolzar Dolkka (R 4)

Side (15)

1x Hanewata (LV 1 – Tuner)

2x Maxx “C” (LV 2)

1x Snowman Eater (LV 4)

2x Effect Veiler (LV 1 – Tuner)

2x Forbidden Chalice

2x Dimensional Prison

3x Macro Cosmos

1x Skill Drain

1x Mind Crush

Strategy and Explanation

Ok, so I’m just gonna start with this list: Like you all know the main point in Dino Rabbit is getting your Rabbit as fast as possible out to Special Summon 2 Vanilla Dinos with the same name in order to Xyz them to Laggia or when the situation depends Dolkka. The Tour Guides are there to Xyz summon Leviair, who can Special Summon your banished Rabbit, then you can Special Summon 2 Vanilla Dinos again, ready to Xyz into Laggia/Dolkka. Reaper and TKRO are there to stall / beat your opponent down until you get your Laggia/Dolkka out. Oh, and a Vanilla hand sucks, takes skill to know how to play with them in hand 😀 Well, that was the basic strategy of Dino Rabbit, now we’re moving to specific tech choices:

Jurrac Guaiba

This card’s not that good anymore as it was in the last format, but Guaiba and a set Forbidden Lance is still really good, was thinkin of Shrink too, but triple Lance is just better. If you can resolve Guaibas effect, this will result in a Laggia/Dolkka so the additional Dinos are quite good for the deck in my opinion, although Guaiba will have a hard time against HEROs and Dark World. I still like having him, if I had the space, I would put a Shrink inside just for Guaiba. Mike said one time that playing 41 cards in a Dino Rabbit deck would decrease the chance of getting multiple Vanillas in your hand, but that means also that my chance of getting Rescue Rabbit also decreases, so I’m not really happy with that idea, but I’ll try it (adding 1 Shrink raising the total number of cards to 41).

Spirit Reaper

Like I said before this card’s just there for stalling and maybe stealing one hand card if everything works well and you got backup. It will definitely costs your opponent some effort and resources to get rid of Reaper, so it has its good aspects in your deck. If you don’t need it anymore, you can still Xyz him into Leviair/Zenmaines. This card is really good in mirror matches if you don’t have the best outs right now, assuming they don’t have Photon Papilloperative or Blackship Of Corn (that’s the reason for both of them in my main deck too).

Thunder King Rai-Oh

Rai-Oh didn’t really had the chance to play a major role in the last format due to Inzektors blowing him away in an instant, so it was just a mere side deck slot in some decks and most decks didn’t even had him. As this format’s gonna be a little slower, I think TKRO can be main-decked again in some decks. 1900 Beater and Inherent Special Summon-negating ability is still good, so I replaced the 2 Effect Veilers for 2 TKRO (I don’t think that Veiler will be that good anymore with HEROs and Dark World dominating the field, so I just sided them out, just in case of Wind-Up/Mirror Match).

Forbidden Lance

Forbidden Lance is a great card here, as it protects your monsters from your opponents cards and can also decrease your opponents monster’s attack, so that your Guaiba can overrun it to summon another guaiba ready to Xyz. That’s the reason for triple Lance. Luv the versatility of this card.

Book Of Moon

Also a really versatile card you can do so many things with it: Stop an attacking monster, prevent your opponent from using an Ignition effect, stop a Synchro summon (flip the tuner face-down), stop Xyz Summon (same as Synchro), Protect your own monsters from effects that affects face-up monsters (Mirror Force and stuff) etc. So this card has a staple status in my control decks.

Mirror Force

Finally this card has become useful again, as the Inzektors are disappearing from the front lines 😀 I’ve seen many players maining this card again and I fully agree with that. Although this card isn’t really chainable, this effect is still awesome like in the past days, if it goes through. Getting hit by a MST isn’t really a problem if you have some other traps for backup, just pay attention to a coming Heavy Storm. The increasing count of mained Mirror Force is also the reason for me to play Starlight Road, but I’ll come to that later.

Starlight Road

I said it in my HERO post before, this format plays a lot of mass removal, so you got to counter that somehow. Starlight Road is not the optimal choice as it can be blocked by Solemn Warning, but if you can resolve it, you have an amazing advantage to your opponent; the only “bad thing” is that you can’t Special Summon Stardust Dragon back from Grave once he used his own effect or gets destroyed, because he wasn’t Synchro Summoned properly (Source: Yu-Gi-Oh! Wikia). You can decide to use The Huge Revolution Is Over instead of Starlight, if you don’t like the point of getting negated by Solemn Warning. Remember there a quite a lot of mass removal in this format: Heavy Storm, Dark Hole, Torrential Tribute, Black Rose Dragon, Mirror Force and other stuff. Ah and one cool thing that you can do if your opponent plays Starlight Road to your Heavy Storm and tries to summon Stardust Dragon: You can chain MST to Starlight Raod to destroy your own Heavy Storm in  order to prevent him from summoning Stardust.
Why that? It’s because of a certain ruling: If you negate an effect with “Starlight Road” but cannot destroy the card, you cannot Special Summon “Stardust Dragon.”^[1] (Source: Yu-Gi-Oh! Wikia)
So what happens here exactly? We’ll just split it into the Chain Links and see what’s happening:

Chain Links:

• Chain Link 1: Heavy Storm activates (attempt to destroy all S/T)
• Chain Link 2: Starlight Road (Trying to negate Heavy)
• Chain Link 3: MST destroying your own Heavy Storm (You can target Spells/Traps that are activated at that time, cause they are still on the field, they just don’t lose their effects, so normally nobody’s doing that)

Resolution (resolving backwards):

• Chain Link 3: MST destroys your Heavy Storm (Heavy going straight into grave; not on the field anymore)
• Chain Link 2: Starlight Road negates Heavy Storms EFFECT (!) and tries to destroy Heavy Storm, but Heavy isn’t there anymore (this is where the ruling from before kicks in: Stardust DRagon Can’t be Special Summoned if you can’t destroy the card; the effect of Heavy Storm is still negated although)
• Chain Link 1: Heavy Storms effect tries to resolve, but gets negated by Starlight Road (The effect of Heavy Storm will still try to resolve, even though it isn’t there on the field anymore)

BUT: The only thing you can’t do is MST targeting itself (same as a destroyed Penguin Soldier targeting itself with its FLIP-effect), because Konami says so:” (…) [W]hen you activate “Mystical Space Typhoon“, it cannot target itself.^[6]  (Source: Yu-Gi-Oh! Wikia)

Puuh talked got too much about this topic, but whatever, now it’s already here. 😀 The other trap lineup should be clear, it’s the standard lineup for control decks.

Photon Papilloperative

Papilloperative’s purpose is just to stop Stallers like Spirit Reaper, Gellenduo or Marshmallon; destroys Reaper immediately due to his effect of being targeted and allows you to deal Damage to those other stallers.

Number 50: Blackship Of Corn

I liked the name “Black Corn” more, but it seems that the TCG branch of Konami has a faible for shitty names, so this card’s called Blackship of corn nowadays. Has almost the same purpose as Papilloperative, although it’s the better choice against Marshmallon and Gellenduo.

Gem-Knight Pearl

This guy’s here as a strong beater and he’s useful if Skill Drain’s out (you can still use Rabbit, as you can still activate effects and the effect resolves in the banished zone). Prefer him over Utopia cause of his attack and if I need protection, I’ll use Maestroke (said that in HEROs post too).

Daigusto Emeral

Effect:

2 Level 4 monsters
Once per turn: You can activate 1 of these effects. ● Detach 1 Xyz Material from this card to target 3 monsters in your Graveyard; shuffle those targets into your Deck, then draw 1 card. ● Detach 1 Xyz Material from this card to target 1 non-Effect Monster in your Graveyard; Special Summon that target.

This guy’s pretty neat if you know when to summon him, he can shuffle back 2 of your Dinos and Leviair (to reuse them; Leviair summoning Rabbit back, etc.) for example and you can even draw 1 card too, just pray that you don’t draw one of the shuffled vanilla Dino 😛

Evilswarm Ouroboros

Effect:

3 Level 4 monsters
Once per turn: You can detach 1 Xyz Material from this card; activate 1 of these effects. Each of these effects can only be used once while this card is face-up on the field. ● Target 1 card your opponent controls; return it to the hand. ● Send 1 random card from your opponent’s hand to the Graveyard. ● Banish 1 card in your opponent’s Graveyard.

Somehow really blurry card, but this should represent the infected counterpart of Trishula. 😉 The reason why I chose this card is because of his versatility, it has multiple effects that you can activate once this card’s face-up and you can only activate one of them during a turn. Still a good card in my opinion, if there’s some space left.

Number 16: Shock Master

A must have against random decks like Exodia (just call spell and they can say gg if they don’t have the outs to get rid of Shock Master), not that good against Burn decks although, they can activate the effects in your Standby Phase, so not really good. This cards popularity surprisingly rose during the past months, was always playing it, but seems like some people finally realized Shock Masters potential (the prize went up to 55 bucks) 😀

Hanewata

Just there against Burn decks, had a space left and was thinkin about having no out against Burn Decks except Laggia, so I decided to put 1 Hanewata in my Side.

Maxx “C”

Tech against Hieratic, Wind-Ups and all other swarming decks.

Snowman Eater

Mainly for the Mirror Match, just awesome against Laggia and the other dinos, except Dolkka.

Effect Veiler

Just got a Side Deck slot, because the playability of her decreased due to the increase of Hero Beat and Dark World, bad against Mermail too.

Forbidden Chalice

Sometimes the Chalice is better than Veiler, because you can activate it in your turn and it boosts your own monsters ATK too. Works good against Gorz (to prevent him from Summoning a token).

Dimensional Prison

Thought about maining this card, but I didn’t found the space for it, so just a Side Deck slot. Works good against Dark World (if it doesn’t get popped by Grapha), Chaos Dragon (Same with Lyla and Ryko) and HEROs.

Macro Cosmos

So good against so many decks. Dark World, Chaos Dragon, Lightsworn, Mermail and other stuff will be wrecked when they face this card without some way to remove it. I think it’s one of the main reasons why Dino Rabbit is successful like that: Dino Rabbit can virtually side against every deck, assuming they have the right cards in their Side Deck.

Skill Drain

Your Rabbits will still work under this card, while your Jurracs don’t, so be careful. This card’s still great against some decks (Gadgets, Inzektor, Mermail – not that great in particular but in combo with Macro)

Mind Crush

Great cards against Exodia decks, just be careful that they don’t have Dark Factory Of Mass Production, good against Gadgets and all other searcher decks too.

Additional Comment

Well I promised you 3 decks, but I guess that was a bit too much for one post so I’ll post my other decklists (Verz Rabbit V1, Verz Rabbit V2) in a few days and take a break for now, 2400+ words now lol

Thinkin of adding 1-2 Shadow-Imprisoning Mirror to my side but still not sure what to kick for it.

The post about Dino Rabbit got bigger than expected, so to make it more structured I’ll discuss Verz Rabbit in a separate post 😀

Did I forget something, you disagree with me in a certain point or you just want to state your opinion? – The comment section is wide open for you, you can either post your comment here on WordPress (click on the bubble at the top of the post or visit my Facebook page to discuss there (upper right corner of the blog or here).

Thanks for reading this big post and have a nice day 😉

All images are taken from Yu-Gi-Oh! Wikia and DuelingNetwork.

Next Meta Decks With The New Banlist?

So finally the new Banlist kicks in and some of us have to/want try some new decks or new variations of their old decks. Just looking at shrieks tourney deckilsts gives me a vague feeling what will be or could be the new Meta decks with the September 2012 banlist. I’m not ranking them according to tiers (Tier 1, Tier 2, etc.), but I’ll try to present you all candidates that I think have some potential to turn the tide to their favor. From now on I’ll post you the decklists of all decks I think could be strong this format every few days, so stay tuned.

Now most obviously would be the Meta decks that weren’t hit that badly (Just to say, the order isn’t related to the chances of getting Meta; it’s just how they come into my mind):

Elemental Heros:

This includes all versions of Bubble Beat, Hero Spark, and the likes. With just E-Call at 2 and A Hero Lives at 2 Heros didn’t really get hit that badly and are still a powerful force to be reckoned. Superpolymerization is still trolling every time and Miracle Fusion still at unbelievable 3 copies (like that although, Heros are just balanced that way now; ok maybe powerful, but not unfair).

Dino Rabbit/Verz Rabbit

Well they are really a bit more inconsistent, but those Dino Rabbits are still strong (I think Rabbits have the best chances to be Tier 1, because they have the best Siding options). You can go to Verz Laggia the second duel (against Hero), side in some Macro Cosmos (Chaos Dragon, Mermail, Dark World, Inzektor) or even using Skill Drain (Rabbit still works with Skill Drain) would be an option. Rabbit Dino is such a versatile deck Type, so it wouldn’t be wrong to gamble on this one. Backside is that Rescue Rabbit is still expensive as hell and Laggia and Dolkka are expensive too; good thing is that Laggia and Dolkka are reprinted in the Wave 1 tins in TCG now (Dolkka gets his own Tin and Laggia comes together with Excalibur as a Super-Rare; OCG is finally printing Dolkka in the new Extra Pack). Only sad thing is that Ophion is still a OCG-only card and for what I know it’s still uncertain if there will be printed for TCG in near future.

Dark World

Back from the backyard of your minds these guys are trying to top some events again after they were overpowered by Inzektors, Wind-Ups and Dinos. Still dying to Rabbits although and not really pleasant in case of Mirror Matches. Could be powerful if some people are thinking of siding Dark Smog, still seeing so many people who don’t even have this card in their side (Works against so many decks; Main is sometimes good too).  Like the Trance Archfiend build more than the OCG Raven build; I think that the Turbo build has more chances to top something although almost nobody seems to play it in tourneys.

Mermail Atlantean

I’ve seen Mermail decks quite often in the Top 4 of some different Japanese Tournaments, and not only Tournaments with 10-20 participants, but with 60-200 and still topping is really something you shouldn’t underestimate. There are a few different builds like Mermail Atlantean Hybrid builds, Genex Undine builds, Dragon Ice builds and some other stuff, but all in all a very promising archetype and one of my favorite decks at the moment. Definitely think that this will be one of the Top Tiers this format and I can’t wait for them to release Mermails here in the TCG zone.

Hieratic

Got hit by the semi-limit of their Seal and limit of Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon, but that’s not a big problem, because they can still swarm the field full with monsters, just not to that extent like they did before the September Banlist. Did you ever face a good Hieratic Deck with the new banlist? Well I did and I have to say: Still powerful as ever.

Six Samurai

They were somehow underestimated last format, but still present as Tier 1.5 – 2. now that the threat of encountering a Hornet on Rampage is minimalized, they may be gaining some strenght again. I’ve seen some really good Dojo/Asceticism builds, and this deck has swarming and controlling capabilities so could be some worthy opponent.

Machina Gadget

Lost one Ultimate Offering, but with Tin Goldfish and Double Summon still powerful. In addition to that, it’s a really cheap deck, so there are many budget players, who will place their bets on Gadgets.

Agent Fairy

As Earth is now Semi-Limited instead of limited, many players are thinking of playing Agent Fairys again, all I gotta say is, it was a good deck and it still is a good deck.

Wind-Up

Can still pull off some hand rape, but not to that extent like before and you have to have a lot of resources. Seeing it as a Xyz swarm deck now, as it has easy access to many Xyz monsters and it is fast too.

Additional Comment:

Well there are some decks that are still powerful like Chaos Dragon, Inzektor, Blackwing and stuff, but both Chaos Dragon and Inzektors are losing their players due to the nerf and becoming too bored of playing one deck over and over again. Blackwing will definitely get in some Top 16, but I think it will just be some random toppings, unless a Blackwing hype breaks out. (it has potential to top, but the question is, are there players who want to play Blackwing?) Not sure what to think of Spellbooks although, they have some good combos and the card advantage you can gain is amazing, but it’s still somehow inconsistent in my opinion.

So what are your thoughts? Do you think there will be some other Archetypes taking over the meta or did I forgot  a decktype?

First deck coming in a few days will be a September 2012 Hero Deck (I think it will be a Gemini Spark deck and not Bubble Beat, but still not sure)

All images are taken from Yu-Gi-Oh! Wikia and Duelingnetwork.

Dino Rabbit Zekt

That’s one trolly deck I saw a couple of weeks ago on DN.
The trolly part is that you will completely fool your opponent and letting him no chance to specifically counter your deck. Just look at the Decklist and you’ll understand what I mean.
From the first impression your deck will be just a normal standard Laggia Deck, but if you go to game 2 your opponent will be stunned 😀

Decklist:

Monster (20)

3x Rescue Rabbit (LV 4)

3x Sabersaurus (LV 4)

3x Kabazauls (LV 4)

2x Cardcar D (LV 2)

1x Photon Trasher (LV 4)

3x Tour Guide From The Underworld (LV 3)

1x Sangan (LV 3)

3x Effect Veiler (LV 1)

1x Black Luster Soldier – Envoy Of The Beginning (LV 8)

Spell (10)

1x Heavy Storm

1x Dark Hole

1x Monster Reborn

3x Pot Of Duality

3x Mystical Space Typhoon

1x Book Of Moon

Trap (10)

2x Bottomless Trap Hole

2x Torrential Tribute

2x Solemn Warning

1x Solemn Judgment

1x Starlight Road

2x Compulsory Evacuation Device

Extra (15)

2x Wind-Up Zenamaines (R 3)

1x Leviair The Sea Dragon (R 3)

1x Evolzar Dolkka (R 4)

2x Evolzar Laggia (R 4)

1x Number 39: Utopia (R 4)

1x Number 16: Shock Master (R 4)

1x Evilswarm Ouroboros (R 4)

1x Number 61: Volcasaurus (R 5)

1x  Tiras Keeper Of Genesis (R 5)

1x Adreus Keeper Of Armageddon (R 5)

1x Wind-Up Arsenal Zenmaioh (R 5)

1x Ally Of Justice Catastor (LV 5)

1x Stardust Dragon (LV 8)

Side (15)

3x Inzektor Centipede (LV 3)

3x Inzektor Dragonfly (LV 3)

3x Inzektor Hornet (LV 3)

2x Inzektor Ladybug (LV 2)

1x Inzektor Gigamantis (LV 6)

2x Macro Cosmos

1x Chain Disappearance

The funny part is, you can either decide on playing another game with your Dino Rabbit engine or change to Inzektor, which is definitely awesome, because no one would expect you doing that.

If your match-up is ok you can just keep your cards in or even side in Macro Cosmos (against Inzektors and Chaos Dragon).

This build is definitely a contol build so you have to consider what you gonna do next, but if you’re doing it right there’s a high chance that you’ll win the match.

And don’t say that those 2 decks are just auto-pilot decks, they are definitely NOT. If you’re whining about them then you’re a loser, there’s no deck that is auto-pilot.

There are just decks which requires more strategy and are more compex, therefore more versatile and there are decks with a simple strategy, but you always have to consider about what you do next,

so this is the point that requires skill and this is what makes the difference between a good and a bad player.

Never say that a certain meta deck is bad, they are NOT. If they were bad, they wouldn’t be meta, right? And just because you lose to them or can’t keep up with their speed this is just because their strategy is better…

If you’re a good player, you either find something that outspeeds them or you find something to counter it. That’s the end of the story!