Tonight, I got to do something in Dice Masters that I have never had a chance to do. We decided to draft Yu-Gi-Oh. I will be honest, that I do not know much about this set. I knew the big players, but overall this set is still a mystery to me. So, going in to this Draft I really did not know what to expect. Beyond the regular Draft Rules, we added in a random draw of BAC from the Yu-Gi-Oh Starter. Yes, this included Swords of Revealing light. I get why that card is banned now.
What Did You Play?
The Team: Yu-Gi-Oh Draft Team.
The only thing I knew about this set is that it had some expensive characters and fielding costs. The strategy was to go cheap where possible. Tonight I got to experience another first. I had two SR’s in one pile (Thousand Dragon and Slifer). I chose to keep Slifer. The rule in our store is that if you draft a SR, you have to play it. So, that slot was a given. I will be honest that I was not seeing much that I liked throughout the draft. I got a couple Blade Knights that had some built in Overcrush when attacking alone. Lord of D had decent stats for the cost. I messed up with Baby Dragon as I did not understand how Fusion worked. He mainly existed on the Team as I had two dice and he was a bolt source if needed. Doomcaliber Knight was there in case of annoying actions. Dark Magician Girl was there on the hopes that one of my random draws for BAC’s was Horn of the Unicorn. Harpie Lady was there just because. Marshmallon was cheap.
Like I said earlier, the BAC’s were randomly chosen after the draft. I got lucky in that I actually got Horn of the Unicorn. I didn’t really see myself using Mirror Wall, but it was what I drew.
I don’t have high hopes for this mish-mash of cards and dice as it is missing one major thing. I have NO RAMP!!! This looks like it is going to be a rough night. Let’s see what happened.
Game 1:
A mish-mash Team, but the UC Morphing Jar was the biggest headache on the Team. So, as I said earlier, Ramp was a problem here. The only real hope was to get things KO’ed. However, this Morphing Jar has the ability of removing this Ramp… and he did. I don’t think I rolled more than 4 dice all game. I gave up and turned it into an attack-fest. Swung early and swung often. Eventually had a clear field for him to punch me for lethal.
0-1
Game 2:
This one was against a Team that centered on the Kuriboh that KO’s a Sidekick when he is KO’ed. They also had the Transfer Power action (I do not remember the name). I went with early Blade Knights and swung with Overcrush when I could. At least with this game, when I got something KO’ed it stayed there. I was able to afford Dark Magician Girl and just had to wait for her to cycle. I bought Horn of the Unicorn and just needed the pieces to fall into place. In the meantime, there were lots of switchy shenanigans and I would get hit by big unblocked characters. Finally the turn came with Dark Magician Girl and Horn of the Unicorn showing up with a full Used Pile… and I whiffed the roll. I only had 7 energy and couldn’t afford Slifer. I knew I was dead the next turn as I had no field, so my opponent graciously let me buy it anyway for a discount so I could at least say I bought it… even if it wasn’t legitimate.
0-2
Game 3:
Bye! No 0-3 for me today.
1-2
Post-Mortem:
So kids… Ramp is pretty important. If you don’t have Ramp, don’t expect to ever purchase an 8 cost character. One of the other players that I didn’t end up playing against had the Swords of Revealing Light action. Watching it in action, I am grateful that Wizkids chose to ban it. The Global is stupid powerful and can end games.
As for what I drafted? At least I pulled a SR card. There was that. The rest was pretty meh if I am being honest. I like Dark Magician Girl and really like her with Overcrush. She just didn’t fire for me.
Would I play this again? No chance in hell. I still feel I need to go back and explore this set and there are some cool abilities in it. I have not had the chance to give it a fair chance as I am a huge Cape fan and the heroes will always come before whatever Yu-Gi-Oh is.
On that note… Let us know what you think of Yu-Gi-Oh as a set. Have you drafted it before? Any sound strategies that you would suggest? We would love to hear from you in the comments below.
As always, thanks for reading!
– jourdo