Corpse Brigade

The following is an excerpt from a story I've been working on. Please enjoy. 

The clanging and screeches of metal awoke Gundir from his sleep. Hastily strapping his sword to his waist, he pushed aside the tent flap and stepped into the cool night air. He instinctively sniffed the air and caught the scent of campfire smoke, salted pork… and blood mingled precariously in between.

"What's going on?" he barked at a nearby guard. The main shrugged and resumed his duty of staring blankly at the horizon in search of an enemy they wouldn't see coming anyways. Gundir scowled and stalked off towards the bonfire pit, where the flickering flames and shadows illuminated the figures of two men battling to the death. Upon closer inspection, Gundir could see that one of the combatants was Lord Farrax, grinning maniacally as he plunged his broadsword into the other man's heart, whose garb, as Gundir could now see, was emblazoned with a Pyromancer's sigil.

Casual Dueling: The Sacred Beasts

Remember the Sacred Beasts? Also known as the "Three Phantasms" or "Phantom Demons," they were Egyptian God knockoffs that appeared in the first season of Yu-Gi-Oh! GX. Each Sacred Beasts resembles one of the Egyptian God cards in some fashion: Uria, Lord of Searing Flames is a counterpart to Slifer the Sky Dragon, as is Raviel, Lord of Phantasms to Obelisk the Tormentor, and Hamon, Lord of Striking Thunder to The Winged Dragon of Ra. Despite their imposing appearances and prominent role in the anime, the Sacred Beasts never really had their due in the actual card game, mostly because (with the possible exception of Hamon) it's next to impossible to summon the dang things. Uria requires a tribute of three Continuous Trap cards, Hamon needs three Continuous Spell Cards, and Raviel requires three Fiend-type Monsters. The odds, as they say, are not in your favor.

With the release of Duelist Saga, however, all of that is about to change. A decade after their time in the spotlight, the Sacred Beasts are getting two new support cards, and they are amazing. 

Casual Dueling: Blue-Eyes Felgrand

A while back, I talked about the new Blue-Eyes support and some alternative ways to play the deck. With Yu-Gi-Oh: VRAINS and the Link Summoning mechanic right around the corner, I feel as though decks that don't focus on summoning from the Extra Deck as heavily are going to see a boost in popularity, which made revisiting Blue-Eyes an appealing prospect. .

Unfortunately, playing Blue-Eyes nowadays is far from budget-friendly. While I'm sure any duelist worth their salt has innumerable copies of Kaiba's ace monster lying around (and sets like Legendary Decks II have made acquiring the bulk of the deck a lot easier), once you factor in cards like Alternative White Dragon, Twin Burst, and Sage with Eyes of Blue, you're looking at putting a fairly sizable chunk of change down on trading cards. Still, after getting lucky with some Darkside of Dimensions movie pack pulls (which netted me a copy of Alternative and a playset of Neo Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon), I decided to try and build the closest thing to a "budget" Blue-Eyes deck I could. The result, surprisingly, has proven to be quite effective.

Roar! I'm coming for your bank account. 

Casual Dueling: Alternative Blue-Eyes Decks

One of the few things keeping me in the game of Yu-Gi-Oh well past the point of diminishing returns is the continued legacy support Konami has been putting out for older archetypes. Iconic monsters like Dark Magician and Red-Eyes Black Dragon are more playable now than they've ever been, and we've even reached the point where the big daddy himself, Blue-Eyes White Dragon, is the deck to beat following a victory at the 2016 World Championships. Which also means, of course, that Blue-eyes has ceased to be anything close to a "budget" deck: those new cards are crazy expensive.

"Screw the rules, I have money!"

PG's Yu-gi-oh Decks: Dragunity Blue-Eyes

Kept you waiting, huh?

Seriously, though, it's been a while, hasn't it? I kind of got caught by the writing bug this morning and thought, what the hell, I'll do something for the Deck. And that something is... a new Yu-gi-oh deck profile! You're shocked, I know.

Back when Dragon Rulers were a thing, and Konami was still making money off of them, they decided to treat the symptoms rather than the disease by banning Dragon Ravine, which sort of sounded the death knell for the Dragunity archetype. But thanks to Dragon Ravine being at 2 (and the reprinting of Dragunity Knight Vajrayana) Dragunities are back and ready to rumble. The deck I'm presenting for you today is a fun little idea that combines Dragunity with the recent Blue-eyes White Dragon support. 

Competitive? Hell, no. Fun? Hell, yes. 

For those who don't know, Dragunities are an archetype focused on equipping themselves with smaller Dragon-type Tuners and making powerful Synchro monsters. They're probably one of the best Synchro engines of their day, and the release of Dragunity Divine Lance adds some additional consistency. Divine Lance is an Equip Spell that, once per turn, lets you equip a Dragunity monster from the deck, boosts the equipped monster's ATK by 100 for each Level star, and makes it immune to Trap effects. It's a fantastic card that really helps the deck out, allowing easy access to your Dragunity Phalanxes and Aklys when you don't have access to Dragon Ravine.

Updates!

Howdy, all!

So, as you may have noticed, things have been rather quiet around here. That's because, for starters, there's been a change of plans as far as the Journalism class is concerned- we are no longer required to post daily, so The Deck of Many Things will be returning to it's regularly schedules programming, so to speak- that is to say, whatever I'm in the mood for whenever I feel like it. :-)

Second, I'm pleased to announce that I am now a Consulting Editor at RPGFan.com! I'm really excited, because I've been following this website for years and it marks my first employment by a publication. The staff has been very welcoming and I look forward to working with them.

Things have been going very well for me- and with new Mario Kart DLC in hand and Kingdom Hearts II.5 HD ReMix on the horizon, it feels like there's a lot to look forward to. Until next time, dear reader!

Finished my most recent run of Kingdom Hearts Final Mix, in preparation for II.5 HD ReMIX! Unchanging armor, easy mode, no continues, and since I beat it in under 15 hours it apparently qualified as a speedrun.