Fish OTK - The New Meta

Recently, a new deck has surfaced amongst tournaments in America and the UK, topping like crazy and seems to be absolutely destroying most tournaments. The deck is Fish OTK, and while it is not a new deck as such, it seems that someone might have finally found the perfect build for it.
I have heard many people talking about the new year bringing a new meta, and this may be what they are talking about.

The Fish OTK deck is a combo based deck, using the card Superancient Deepsea King Coelacanth to quickly finish the duel in a turn by special summoning a whole load of fish tuner/non tuners and synchroing into large level 8+ synchro monsters. Previously the deck ran Oyster Meister, Royal Swamp Eel and even 7 Colored Fish to set up these synchro summons, using Royal Swamp Eel as a 4-star tuner and tuning with another level 4 fish, like 7 Colored Fish, straight into a level 8 synchro monster such as Stardust Dragon or Colossal Fighter.
The deck also found it fairly hard to get Coelacanth actually onto the field most of the time. I saw decks using tools such as Mausoleum of the Emperor or Star Blast to get him quickly onto the field and the deck could be easily stopped by widely used staple spell or trap cards such as Solemn Warning, and had to rely on luck to draw a Giant Trunade or Cold Wave to stop these cards.

The deck has changed considerably now, in terms of play and card choice. Solving the problem of getting Superancient Deepsea King Coelacanth onto the field, the deck now plays the frog engine of tribute fodder. Utilizing the amazing ability of Treeborn Frog to reborn itself from the graveyard at the start of every turn allows the deck to straight away have one out of two monsters needed for the tribute summon of Coelacanth.
The deck also uses Swap Frog and sometimes Foolish Burial to easily send a Treeborn Frog from the deck to the graveyard so that at the start of the next turn it can be used for the tribute summon of Coelacanth.
The deck also plays three copies of Fishborg Blaster. At first glance, Fishborg Blaster is just a level 1 tuner. But analysing the card in more detail shows why the card is absolutely crazy in the deck. Firstly it is a fish and a water type, meaning it can be special summoned by Coelacanth's effect and can also be used as ditch-fodder for Swap Frog's effect. The fact that it can be discarded by Swap Frog's effect is an amazing advantage, allowing the Fish OTK player to drop a Coelacanth straight away at the cost of just discarding a card. This works by discarding the Fishborg Blaster for the effect of Swap Frog, special summoning Swap Frog and sending a Treeborn Frog from the deck to the graveyard. Next you discard a card (possibly another Fishborg Blaster) to activate Fishborg Blaster's effect, allowing it to special summon itself if you control a level 3 or lower Water monster, namely Swap Frog. This already gives you 2 monster to tribute for Coelacanth's tribute summon and if you have drawn Giant Trunade or Cold Wave beforehand, then you have the OTK.
Looking at the deck and its' card choices shows not really any weakness and the deck looks incredibly conistent.
Roanintoadin is a standard choice for a deck that runs the frog engine. It can be milled-off via Swap Frog and if Treeborn Frog is in your graveyard alongside it and another frog, then you already have 2 monsters to tribute for the summon of Coelacanth. Dupe Frog is also a good choice, its' solid 2000 defence can allow it to stall and even stay on the field for a while for Coelacanth's tribute summon and if it is tributed or destroyed then it can search you your Swap Frog or another frog so that you can start up the frog tribute fodder engine. Snowman Eater is another good choice for the deck. Being a water monster it can be used for multiple card effect in the deck and also its' 1900 defence allows it to stall if you are finding it hard to draw into Coelacanth or another card you need for the OTK. Snowman Eater also gives the deck a favourable matchup against Anti-Meta, who's Fossil Dyna's or Doomcaliber Knights would normally cause trouble for you. Its destroy effect and high defence can be problem for the Anti-Meta player, and you can just proceed to wall up with Dupe Frogs and Snowman Eaters, until you draw the right cards for an OTK.
Finally, for the monsters, Royal Swamp Eel is an obvious choice as the main combo the deck sets up is special summoning 2 Fishborg Blasters and 2 Oyster Meisters from the deck. You synchro into Armory Arm and this leaves you with level 1 tokens from Oyster Meister's effect. You proceed to reborn Fishborg Blaster via its' effect and synchro into Formula Synchron, giving you another tuner and namely a draw from your deck. The OTK can spin off anyway from there by you going into just about any synchro, and Fishborg Blaster can be reborned multiple times.

For spells, the deck runs Cold Wave and Giant Trunade obviously, as one Solemn Warning or Bottomless Trap Hole would stop the whole OTK, and to get these cards fast from the deck also runs 2-3 Pot of Duality and 2 Gold Sarcophagus, and these don't only search the Cold Wave/Giant Trunade but can also search the Coelacanth or other cards to fuel the OTK.
The deck also runs some generic choices like 3 Moray of Greed to reshuffle hands and put those Oyster Meisters or Fishborg Blasters back to the deck and possibly draw into the cards for the OTK. Another generic choice is 3 Enemy Controller. Since the deck runs Treeborn Frog this is a good option to create tribute fodder for Coelacanth and get rid of annoying monsters at the same time.

The Irish Open is this weekend, and the rumours are that Fish OTK will wreck the event. I know a couple of friends who are going and are actually playing the deck, so we can only see.

Gravekeepers - as broken as they were?

So a few days back I managed to snag an excellent deal on some website, a playset of Royal Tribute for £5! I could finally put together that Gravekeepers deck I always wanted and laugh at peoples faces when I Royal Tribute them for a +3 or something silly.
Now that they've arrived, I'm not too sure that Gravekeepers are as good as they were, especially when they destroyed YCS Atlanta. I mean obviously some of the surprise factor has worn off, but surely that doesn't stop the devastating 1st turn Royal Tribute?

So anyway, I was testing the deck against a few mates and whilst the deck did work very well and was a terrible GRIND to play against, some of the time the deck would be -2 behind on card advantage, and this would most always happen if Necrovalley was MST'd early on in the game.
Also, the Anti-Meta/Stun matchup I found to be horrible, even though most of my monsters should outclass the 1900 beaters in attack with Necrovalley on the field. Rai-Oh proved to be a real handful and sometimes when my hands got clogged up with multiple monsters or Royal Tribute then Breaker the Magical Warrior got the Stun player an easy +1 off the Necrovalley, of which there are only 2 of in the deck even though it is the key card :/
Several matchups, the Gravekeepers deck found very easy. It destroyed Plant Synchro even without an early Royal Tribute, simply because the Necrovalley really helped against the Debris Dragon and of course the Pot of Avarice and stopped the deck getting easy +1's off of those cards.
The X-Saber matchup was more slightly harder, but again, Necrovalley proved to be a key card by not allowing the Saber cards to get their card advantage through Gottoms E-Call and XX-Saber Faultroll. Also, the fact that they couldn't really summon much to beat 2000 attack beatsticks proved to be their undoing.
Monarch matchups were more dependant on what was drawn, with Gravekeepers taking the easy win if they drew the Royal Tribute combo, which 8/10 times they did.
Finally, the Blackwing matchup was more so-so, with Blackwings winning sometimes due to their smallish amount of monsters (Royal Tribute didn't hit much) and their annoying Icarus Attack and other S/T destruction on Necrovalley.
Although, Starlight Road was a very good card in this matchup, players still don't see it coming.

My conclusion on the Gravekeepers deck is that maybe now that people expect certain plays from the deck, they know how to prepare. Though the deck does destroy certain decks it can still be beaten and its only real strengths are it's Royal Tribute combo and that it is a grind to play against. My theory is that the Gravekeepers were only a really good meta-call for YCS Atlanta with an event swamped with Plant Synchro/Quickdraw decks. Though the Gravekeepers deck is still a very strong deck, it is not unbeatable and by no means the best.

Blog Launch!

Wow, so I made a blog about YuGiOh, I am cool. This blog will probably accompany videos from my Youtube channel, which I'll post the link to somewhere =P
On another subject, I'm making this blog in the last day of 2010! Talk about new beginnings...
Anywayyyyyy, look forward to blog posts, mmkay? ;)