Hey guys! This is my first blog entry on Yu-Gi-Oh! and this is my maiden voyage into the Yu-Gi-Oh! media as well! (well sort of). My name is Paul Reissmann and chances are you have never seen me or heard of me, unless we've already met before. I haven't won a YCS, I haven't topped a regional, heck, people at locals might know of me. Point is, I'm not very well known and this is my attempt to change that!
Anyone who does know me knows I play Yu-Gi-Oh!, the best trading card game on the planet as far as I'm concerned. I was hooked at the age of 10 (about 10.5 years ago if I'm REALLY specific). Watching Yugi summon Exodia and wipe the floor with Kaiba was pretty fun. I can remember walking away from the first episode thinking Blue-Eyes White Dragon was the coolest card ever, until Yugi's famed Dark Magician eventually became my absolute favorite monster card as a kid. I picked up Yugi's Starter Deck from a local gas station and started playing with a neighbor of mine for a while. We had so much fun! I can definitely say that's one of the reasons why I'm still in the game ten years later. From there I bought video games to improve my skill and then I heard about a card shop in Kalamazoo, MI where I attended my first free play. I beat one of the best players there! (although he was using an under powered deck at the time, but I was still pretty stoked!) It felt great to play other people who loved the game as much as I do. From there I tried to enter competitive play, but lack of transportation to a far away card shop wasn't practical, so I just played games and read Pojo.com for a lot of my insight on the game.
Then I took a break. A long one. Until I tried to get into the Yugitube community, and that went ok for a while, but then my second long hiatus came about and I left YouTube for a while. After I ended my hiatus, I came back around the 2010 X-Saber Format and decided to run Blackwings! (hence the title of the blog entry). To this day, Blackwings are one of my favorite decks to play and I'm still trying to keep them alive in competitive play. This is where I really began to gain steam in terms of more competitive play. For the last 3 years I've been attempting locals and regionals in order to get my nationals invite (this year would have been nice, but expenses are keeping the regional experiences at bay for the time being). How great would it be to go to Las Vegas? Pretty great, won't lie. Let's hope that happens!
My main card shop during my college years was Topps Trade Center in Benton Harbor, MI. Here I met the metagame that would spur me on to want to be a champion. Yet, because of my transferring colleges, I am currently attending Western Michigan University and playing at Fanfare in downtown Portage. My thirst for victory has yet to be quenched, but neither has my love of the game. This is why I write this blog because I LOVE to discuss the game in all it's entirety.
BLACKBIRDS SINGIN'
Now that that introduction is out of the way, there's something everyone needs to know about me before I get going why I love Blackwings so much: I'm a budget player. A decent one at that, but I don't have a lot of cash to shell out for deck like WATER or Wind-Ups. Back in 2010 when I was starting my attempt at being competitive at Yu-Gi-Oh! again, I decided to look around Pojo to see what deck seemed the cheapest, yet had a high impact on the gamestate and was just plain awesome to play. I found Blackwings pretty quickly and loved the premise behind the deck's operation and the speed it gave against the competition. It was doing very well at the YCS and regional level and better than that, it was CHEAP. Now it's even cheaper, which is pretty awesome. Even holoing out the deck isn't expensive, except for D.T. Boras that run a decent price tag. Mind you, I'm not hyping the deck to competitive standards NOW, because of course Konami has done away with the powerful cards that made Blackwings competitive by either limiting certain cards playability or just introducing better archetypes to the meta. Blackwings have been effectively clipped for a while now, but there's hope on the horizon.
Anyone who does know me knows I play Yu-Gi-Oh!, the best trading card game on the planet as far as I'm concerned. I was hooked at the age of 10 (about 10.5 years ago if I'm REALLY specific). Watching Yugi summon Exodia and wipe the floor with Kaiba was pretty fun. I can remember walking away from the first episode thinking Blue-Eyes White Dragon was the coolest card ever, until Yugi's famed Dark Magician eventually became my absolute favorite monster card as a kid. I picked up Yugi's Starter Deck from a local gas station and started playing with a neighbor of mine for a while. We had so much fun! I can definitely say that's one of the reasons why I'm still in the game ten years later. From there I bought video games to improve my skill and then I heard about a card shop in Kalamazoo, MI where I attended my first free play. I beat one of the best players there! (although he was using an under powered deck at the time, but I was still pretty stoked!) It felt great to play other people who loved the game as much as I do. From there I tried to enter competitive play, but lack of transportation to a far away card shop wasn't practical, so I just played games and read Pojo.com for a lot of my insight on the game.
Then I took a break. A long one. Until I tried to get into the Yugitube community, and that went ok for a while, but then my second long hiatus came about and I left YouTube for a while. After I ended my hiatus, I came back around the 2010 X-Saber Format and decided to run Blackwings! (hence the title of the blog entry). To this day, Blackwings are one of my favorite decks to play and I'm still trying to keep them alive in competitive play. This is where I really began to gain steam in terms of more competitive play. For the last 3 years I've been attempting locals and regionals in order to get my nationals invite (this year would have been nice, but expenses are keeping the regional experiences at bay for the time being). How great would it be to go to Las Vegas? Pretty great, won't lie. Let's hope that happens!
My main card shop during my college years was Topps Trade Center in Benton Harbor, MI. Here I met the metagame that would spur me on to want to be a champion. Yet, because of my transferring colleges, I am currently attending Western Michigan University and playing at Fanfare in downtown Portage. My thirst for victory has yet to be quenched, but neither has my love of the game. This is why I write this blog because I LOVE to discuss the game in all it's entirety.
BLACKBIRDS SINGIN'
Now that that introduction is out of the way, there's something everyone needs to know about me before I get going why I love Blackwings so much: I'm a budget player. A decent one at that, but I don't have a lot of cash to shell out for deck like WATER or Wind-Ups. Back in 2010 when I was starting my attempt at being competitive at Yu-Gi-Oh! again, I decided to look around Pojo to see what deck seemed the cheapest, yet had a high impact on the gamestate and was just plain awesome to play. I found Blackwings pretty quickly and loved the premise behind the deck's operation and the speed it gave against the competition. It was doing very well at the YCS and regional level and better than that, it was CHEAP. Now it's even cheaper, which is pretty awesome. Even holoing out the deck isn't expensive, except for D.T. Boras that run a decent price tag. Mind you, I'm not hyping the deck to competitive standards NOW, because of course Konami has done away with the powerful cards that made Blackwings competitive by either limiting certain cards playability or just introducing better archetypes to the meta. Blackwings have been effectively clipped for a while now, but there's hope on the horizon.
THIS ONE DIDN'T MIGRATE WITH THE FLOCK...
With Lord of the Tachyon Galaxy on Japan's close at hand, in about 8 days we'll see just what the new set brings to Japan's meta. The most talked about archetype getting a boost are Harpies, a fan favorite, but with Harpies there comes an interesting new Xyz Monster. If you follow ARG on Facebook, you may have noticed this card, but for those of you who haven't take a look.
Sylphine, the Cold Bird Beast
Rank 4
WATER
2000/2200
"2 Level 4 Winged Beast-Type monsters
Once per turn: You can detach 1 Xyz Material from this card; until your next Standby Phase, negate the effects of all face-up cards your opponent currently controls, also this card gains 300 ATK for each face-up card currently on the field, except this card."
The question was raised to whether this card would promote the competitive nature of Blackwings and I think that is a definite YES. Without a doubt, the effect is amazing. When you detach 1 material from it, you negate all face-up cards your opponent currently controls until your next Standby Phase. This is a way for Shura to kill Spirit Reaper and Zenmaines (when backed up with a Kalut in hand). Not only this, it's pretty exclusive to the archetype. It may be a rough caparison, but it rivals Tiger King of the Fire Fist. The detachment also bumps Sylphine up 300 per card faceup on the field. If we have Whirlwind on the field, that's already 300 extra attack and more if the opponent has face-up monsters. Like it yet? The ease of play is also something to note, as any Shura that brings out a Kochi the Daybreak, or a normal summoned Kochi/Shura with a Bora in hand makes for easy summoning too.
With Lord of the Tachyon Galaxy on Japan's close at hand, in about 8 days we'll see just what the new set brings to Japan's meta. The most talked about archetype getting a boost are Harpies, a fan favorite, but with Harpies there comes an interesting new Xyz Monster. If you follow ARG on Facebook, you may have noticed this card, but for those of you who haven't take a look.
Sylphine, the Cold Bird Beast
Rank 4
WATER
2000/2200
"2 Level 4 Winged Beast-Type monsters
Once per turn: You can detach 1 Xyz Material from this card; until your next Standby Phase, negate the effects of all face-up cards your opponent currently controls, also this card gains 300 ATK for each face-up card currently on the field, except this card."
The question was raised to whether this card would promote the competitive nature of Blackwings and I think that is a definite YES. Without a doubt, the effect is amazing. When you detach 1 material from it, you negate all face-up cards your opponent currently controls until your next Standby Phase. This is a way for Shura to kill Spirit Reaper and Zenmaines (when backed up with a Kalut in hand). Not only this, it's pretty exclusive to the archetype. It may be a rough caparison, but it rivals Tiger King of the Fire Fist. The detachment also bumps Sylphine up 300 per card faceup on the field. If we have Whirlwind on the field, that's already 300 extra attack and more if the opponent has face-up monsters. Like it yet? The ease of play is also something to note, as any Shura that brings out a Kochi the Daybreak, or a normal summoned Kochi/Shura with a Bora in hand makes for easy summoning too.
RETURN TO THE NEST
With the up coming ban list coming in March, there are already speculations as to what it will entail. For me it makes me wonder about the fate of Black Whirlwind or Blackwing - Gale the Whirlwind. Either of these picks would boost the credibility of Blackwings in a competitive environment.
Why I am wondering what the banlist will do for this deck in particular? I have a few reasons.
First of all, Winged-Beasts are getting generic support in Lord of the Tachyon Galaxy. Sylphine is an example of this. The entire set is not revealed quite yet so we can't say what else will be released to boost Winged-Beasts across the board, BUT whatever helps Winged-Beasts helps Harpies AND Blackwings.
Second, Blackwings were very popular in Japan and the United States. The last Duelist Pack we had in the United States was Duelist Pack: Crow, to which you could spend your money on a whole box and assemble your own Blackwing deck without the generic staples, such as Reborn, Heavy Storm, etc. The deck in Japan was incredibly popular and survived 4 formats of being picked at and was modified successfully for a long period of time. To aid Blackwings would add sales to Lord of the Tachyon Galaxy in Japan indefinitely, as well as give Konami the opportunity to release World Premiere cards for additional Winged-Beast support in the US to boost sales. By promoting 2 decks, one being revitalized and the other being restored to a certain amount of popularity, your sales have a higher chance of increasing. Make sense?
Third, we were given 2 OCG imports in Cosmo Blazer to the Blackwing arsenal: Gladius and Damascus, the first addition to Blackwings in a long time. While these cards are somewhat terrible in terms of playability, they do promote Blackwings by being included in Cosmo Blazer. We also have Gram, the Shining Star being released in the American manga in April, a month after the banlist goes into effect. These introductions of previously OCG-only cards suggests support for Blackwings isn't coincidental, but perhaps a hint at the contents of the banlist.
As for the banlist itself, a lot of Yugitubers have called for the semi-limiting of Black Whirlwind. A few of these include MegaCapitalG and mkohl40, among others. There have been a few arguments to suggest good reasoning behind semi-limiting Black Whirlwind and I agree with them for the most part. Others have asked for Gale to come back to 2, while Robbie Kohl has made the point that this would create a splashable Blackwing engine (3 Shura and 2 Gale) that would be harmful to the gamestate, since Blackwing Armor Master also becomes more relevant in today's meta. Armor Master gives trouble to a lot of decks, including Dino Rabbit and Fire Fists, as well as a lot of other decks that I have not mentioned (think "if it has problems with Spirit Reaper, it's going to have problems with Armor Master").
With a banlist coming up, a new set in a few days in Japan, and the sleeping popularity of the Blackwing archetype, there are a lot of reasons to start looking at picking up those holo Kaluts and DT Boras. Hopefully I get to play one of my all time favorite decks come March! Otherwise, I'll stick to Dino Rabbit (if it's not nerfed out of existence).
Until next time!
Paul Reissmann
With the up coming ban list coming in March, there are already speculations as to what it will entail. For me it makes me wonder about the fate of Black Whirlwind or Blackwing - Gale the Whirlwind. Either of these picks would boost the credibility of Blackwings in a competitive environment.
Why I am wondering what the banlist will do for this deck in particular? I have a few reasons.
First of all, Winged-Beasts are getting generic support in Lord of the Tachyon Galaxy. Sylphine is an example of this. The entire set is not revealed quite yet so we can't say what else will be released to boost Winged-Beasts across the board, BUT whatever helps Winged-Beasts helps Harpies AND Blackwings.
Second, Blackwings were very popular in Japan and the United States. The last Duelist Pack we had in the United States was Duelist Pack: Crow, to which you could spend your money on a whole box and assemble your own Blackwing deck without the generic staples, such as Reborn, Heavy Storm, etc. The deck in Japan was incredibly popular and survived 4 formats of being picked at and was modified successfully for a long period of time. To aid Blackwings would add sales to Lord of the Tachyon Galaxy in Japan indefinitely, as well as give Konami the opportunity to release World Premiere cards for additional Winged-Beast support in the US to boost sales. By promoting 2 decks, one being revitalized and the other being restored to a certain amount of popularity, your sales have a higher chance of increasing. Make sense?
Third, we were given 2 OCG imports in Cosmo Blazer to the Blackwing arsenal: Gladius and Damascus, the first addition to Blackwings in a long time. While these cards are somewhat terrible in terms of playability, they do promote Blackwings by being included in Cosmo Blazer. We also have Gram, the Shining Star being released in the American manga in April, a month after the banlist goes into effect. These introductions of previously OCG-only cards suggests support for Blackwings isn't coincidental, but perhaps a hint at the contents of the banlist.
As for the banlist itself, a lot of Yugitubers have called for the semi-limiting of Black Whirlwind. A few of these include MegaCapitalG and mkohl40, among others. There have been a few arguments to suggest good reasoning behind semi-limiting Black Whirlwind and I agree with them for the most part. Others have asked for Gale to come back to 2, while Robbie Kohl has made the point that this would create a splashable Blackwing engine (3 Shura and 2 Gale) that would be harmful to the gamestate, since Blackwing Armor Master also becomes more relevant in today's meta. Armor Master gives trouble to a lot of decks, including Dino Rabbit and Fire Fists, as well as a lot of other decks that I have not mentioned (think "if it has problems with Spirit Reaper, it's going to have problems with Armor Master").
With a banlist coming up, a new set in a few days in Japan, and the sleeping popularity of the Blackwing archetype, there are a lot of reasons to start looking at picking up those holo Kaluts and DT Boras. Hopefully I get to play one of my all time favorite decks come March! Otherwise, I'll stick to Dino Rabbit (if it's not nerfed out of existence).
Until next time!
Paul Reissmann
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