Everyone going to an event, whether locals, regionals, or a Shonen Jump Championship, has to decide what deck to play. Some people might have very limited options, making their choice easy. Others may already have a deck in mind that’s been doing very well for them. I am in neither of these groups of people.

I have the mentality that there’s always a “correct” deck to play for every tournament; some deck that will naturally have a much better chance of winning than any other deck. This is the attitude that a lot of Magic: The Gathering players have when preparing for a big event such as a Pro Tour. My perspective of Yu-Gi-Oh! haas been affected by playing Magic and vice-versa. The challenge set before me was to solve the puzzle. What was the deck to play for SJC Nashville?

When my friends heard that I was going to Nashville (also known as “SJC Gaylord”), their first question was, “Are you playing Gadgets or Lightsworn?” Of course I told them that I hadn’t decided what I was playing yet, and was still considering all of my available options. I found the question that they asked was amusing though. It’s as if they viewed Gadgets and Lightsworn as the only possible decks that I could do well with.

Why would people assume that I would play Lightsworn? I think this was partly due to the article that I wrote a few weeks ago on CrowSworn.The other reason was that Lightsworn is the most popular deck and considered by most people to be the “best” deck. Lightsworn is clearly the deck to beat in this meta. If your deck consistently loses to Lightsworn, you should disregard it as a viable deck for any high-level event.

Why isn’t everyone running Lightsworn? It has no bad matchups for game 1, and if you have a good sidedeck, you should win games 2 and 3. There’s one small factor that’s turning away players from using Lightsworn…

“I would be running Lightsworn for sure if the mirror match didn’t exist.”

This was a quote from a brief conversation that I had with a player who top16ed SJC Orlando with a non-Lightsworn deck. (Note: I don’t use any names in my articles because I feel it’s rude to use people’s names without getting their permission first. That’s also why the phrase “one of my friends” will come up a lot in my articles.) From the conversations that I’ve had with good players,  the mirror match seems to be the most common reason for not running Lightsworn.

Obviously, every deck has the possibility of a mirror match. Many of the pro players that I’ve talked to have no problem playing Zombie mirrors or Blackwing mirrors. What makes Lightsworn so special? While there is always some skill involved in any matchup, the Lightsworn mirror match is almost entirely luck. No matter how you build your Lightsworn deck, you’re not going to get anything much better than a 50% winning percentage (even with a solid sidedeck). At a 10-round Shonen Jump Championship, it’s not uncommon for four of your matches to be against Lightsworn. If you can only win 50% of those matches, this has you losing two matches and most likely placing outside the top16.

On the other hand, other mirror matches are more skill based. For example, I have been playing Zombies for the past two weeks and have been winning about 75% of my mirror matches. Zombies, if built properly, have a good chance at beating Lightsworn while being able to beat the Zombie mirror at the same time. Unfortunately, the downside to Zombies is that the match against Gladiator Beasts is nearly unwinnable, and they can have a difficult time beating Blackwings as well.

What I was looking for is the deck that “beats everything”. That deck would be Lightsworn, but Lightsworn doesn’t beat Lightsworn. If you want to win the Lightsworn match, you need to either get lucky and summon a lot of Judgment Dragons or just hope that the person sitting on the other side of the table is a horrible player. You can’t rely on either of those happening at a Shonen Jump Championship.

That leaves the other deck that everyone was assuming that I would play: Gadgets. Gadgets are the deck I’m known for playing, and the deck that’s given me the best placings in premier events for my entire Yu-Gi-Oh! career. Of the eight regionals that I’ve top8ed, five of these were with Gadgets. However, don’t let the statistics lie to you. The first five regionals that I top8ed were all with Gadgets, while the last three were all with a non-Gadget deck. I was playing Gadgets non-stop ever since their release, but at some point I veered away from the archetype.

It seemed appropriate that SJC Orlando would mark my return with Gadgets. It was the start of a new format, and everyone was expecting the top tier decks to be Lightsworn and Gladiator Beasts. I didn’t have any of the cards for Lightsworn and I didn’t like Gladiator Beasts in this format. My plan for this event was simple:

1. Play Gadgets

2. Maindeck three Banisher of Radiance

3. Beat Lightsworn

4. Maindeck three Royal Oppression

5. Beat Gladiator Beasts

6. ???

7. PROFIT!

My plan worked pretty well. Before the event, I played against Lightsworn players for cards four times, and won 3/4 times. At the event, I beat Lightsworn four times. I lost one match to Lightsworn, partially due to getting a game 1 loss for a decklist error. My other loss was to Skill Drain Zombies, a deck that I was somewhat unprepared for. I beat Gladiator Beasts twice, including one in a feature match. I came in 18^th place, nearly top16ing with a deck that many players had thought was not on par with Lightsworn and Gladiator Beasts.

It was expected that I would play the deck for SJC Columbus, the next SJC that I was attending. After suffering a humiliating 0-2 drop, I got frustrated and decided that I was going to play other decks. I won a small win-a-mat event with Blackwings, and played those for awhile locally. While Absolute Zero had a lot of hype, I tested the deck rigorously. After I determined that the deck wasn’t as good as I had thought, I traded it for a Lightsworn deck. I did well at several locals with Blackwings, Lightsworn, and Zombies.

I’m not going to lie; I was doing everything in my power to not play Gadgets at SJC Nashville. Ever since SJC Columbus, I’d been testing everything except Gadgets. I’d decided that Gadgets would last on my list of options. I would only play the deck if none of the top tier decks tested well for me. Well, none of the top tier decks did test well for me, or at least not as well as I would’ve liked. I had a bad day at SJC Columbus with Gadgets, but they’ve done well at every other event I’ve taken them to. They even won one of The Game Academy’s $500 Cash Tournaments.

I think sometimes you just have to play whatever you feel is the best deck and accept that anything can happen. I might misplay horribly at SJC Nashville and miss out on a top16 as a result. I might draw gross hands and not top as a result. I might play against a deck that flat out beats mine. I might lose matches in time, or to a topdecked Brain Control. Things might not go my way, or the opposite might happen. However, I feel that my Gadget deck will give me the best chance at winning SJC Nashville, regardless of how well I actually do.

I could go on to explain the decklist that I’m playing and why I’ve made certain card choices. The important thing is what deck I decided to play, not what 70 cards (40 maindeck + 15 extra deck + 15 sidedeck) are included. I feel that Gadgets are the best deck for me to play at SJC Nashville, but not necessarily everyone else. I almost never misplay with Gadgets when I’m focused. Gadgets have no unwinnable matchups in this format, so I think I have a realistic chance at top16ing SJC Nashville.

Revising Lightsworn – January 30^th was the first regional to be held in Florida in nearly five months. Many players were there just to get their national invitation. Others entered the event to test for the upcoming Shonen Jump Championship in Nashville, Tennessee, while others were motivated purely by the promise of an X-Saber mat to the players good enough to finish in the top8.

A lot of people asked me what deck I played at the regional or what my record was. The answer is that I choose to judge at this regional. It was one of those things that I’d never done before, and I wanted to see what it was like. As I wrote on the comments form, “It was tiring and stressful, but rewarding.” However, I can tell you what deck I would have played at the regional if I had entered the event. I built a deck before the regional in the unlikely event that they didn’t want me to judge the event anymore.

After I arrived at the venue and confirmed that I was still judging, I had to lend out all of my available decks to my friends (Yes, this was a requirement). These consisted of Gadgets, Blackwings, and Lightsworn. I’d given up on Blackwings as a viable decktype; I had a build that I saw online about three weeks ago that maindecked two Kycoo the Ghost Destroyer. I hadn’t changed my gadget deck at all since it got 1^st place at The Game Academy’s $500 Cash Tournament.

I lent one of my friends my latest build of Lightsworn, the deck that I had been messing around with since Charge of the Light Brigade and Honest were reprinted. I decided that Chaos Sorcerer was way too good not to play in Lightsworn, but I didn’t like any of the “Twilight” versions that I’d seen lately. I decided to build one of my own that would better suit my playstyle.

Too good not to play.

When I showed my deck to the friend that I was lending it to, he quickly looked at the deck and determined that he didn’t like it. I had various judging duties to take care of, so I didn’t really have time to explain my card choices. He decided to change it to a more standard build of Lightsworn and took out my favorite tech card, saying he would side it instead. I replied with, “Yeah, I was siding them at first too, but then I realized I was bringing them in every game and said ‘wait a minute!’ It beats Zombies and the [Lightsworn] mirror.”

At the end of the day, he’d finished 6-2 and landed in 17^th place, which is a pretty respectable record. However, he essentially admitted that I was right about my tech choice when he admitted that he had sided it in every game.

Before I reveal my tech, I want to explain some of issues that I have with the most popular version of Twilight, often called French Twilight, that Vincent Ralambomiadana used to win SJC Columbus. One of the first things I look at when viewing a decklist is the monster/spell/trap ratio. I don’t like the fact that 70% of his decklist consists of monsters. I just don’t like getting stuck with all-monster hands in any deck. I think his deck was a good choice for the event that he won, but I think the deck needs to be modified for future events.

I understand why most Twilight decks are playing so many monsters. Once you add your usual suspects for Lightsworn monsters, Dark Armed and Chaos Sorcerer for the twilight component, and dark monsters you already have at least 26 monsters. I had a great idea to solve this issue. How about if we cut the dark monsters like Tragoedia for a dark monster that’s actually a trap? Wait… what?

New ruling: D.D. Crow is now a trap (because Admiral Ackbar said so).

As you may be aware, D.D. Crow almost never touches the field. It functions more like a trap you can activate straight from your hand instead of setting it (which in reality makes it better than a trap). However, for the purposes of a card like Chaos Sorcerer, it’s a dark monster. A card like D.D. Crow is just what I needed for this deck. It keeps my monster count low, and has the anti-meta flavor that I always love.

As an anti-meta card, I like D.D. Crow a lot more than Kycoo the Ghost Destroyer in Lightsworn for several reasons. The main one is that it wastes your normal summon, which you normally want to use to summon a Lightsworn monster such as Lumina, Lightsworn Summoner or Celestia, Lightsworn Angel. Also, inflicting battle damage with a monster like Kycoo is not as easy as it sounds. It can be stopped dead in its tracks with a trap like Bottomless Trap Hole or Mirror Force. You also cannot inflict damage if your opponent has a wall of defense position monsters. On the other hand, D.D. Crow is unstoppable by anything besides Divine Wrath or something similar. It’s a great way to surprise the Lightsworn player who tries to get back Judgment Dragon with a card like Monster Reincarnation or the Zombie player who tries to set up combos with Mezuki.

There are a few other unusual elements of my deck as well. Take a look for yourself. I’ve titled the deck CrowSworn because it’s the most notable card, and it’s also a catchy name.

Monsters: 25 (really 23)

[2] Judgment Dragon

[2] Celestia, Lightsworn Angel

[3] Lumina, Lightsworn Summoner

[1] Garoth, Lightsworn Warrior

[1] Ehren, Lightsworn Monk

[2] Lyla, Lightsworn Sorceress

[1] Ryko, Lightsworn Hunter

[2] Wulf, Lightsworn Beast

[3] Necro Gardna

[3] Honest

[2] Chaos Sorcerer

[1] Gorz, Emissary of Darkness

[2] D.D. Crow

Spells: 11

[3] Charge of the Light Brigade

[3] Solar Recharge

[2] Gold Sarcophagus

[1] Heavy Storm

[1] Mystical Space Typhoon

[1] My Body as a Shield

Traps: 4 (really 6)

[2] Bottomless Trap Hole

[2] Beckoning Light

Sidedeck: 15

[2] Waboku

[2] Royal Decree

[2] Dust Tornado

[1] Aurkus, Lightsworn Druid

[1] Phantom of Chaos

[2] Lightning Vortex

[1] Breaker the Magical Warrior

[1] My Body as a Shield

[1] Shiny Black “C”

[1] Nobleman of Crossout

[1] Kycoo the Ghost Destroyer

As you may notice, there is no Plaguespreader Zombie found in the deck. The reason for this is that I have a lot of respect for Zombies, more so than the average Lightsworn player. Milling a Plaguespreader Zombie in the end phase against Zombies can spell doom (see what I did there?). The Zombie player can take it with his/her Zombie Master and Doomkaiser Dragon and synchro a lot. When a Zombie player makes a lot of synchros in one turn, it means you lose.

If you mill me against Zombies, you lose.

As you can see, no extra deck is listed. It’s impossible for this deck to synchro (bar your opponent Creature Swapping you a tuner). Personally, I do have an extra deck for this in real life just in case I run into some weird situation where I do happen to obtain a tuner. However, you can choose not to run an extra deck for mind games. Sitting down to play your opponent and telling them you don’t have an extra deck can have some interesting effects. Whether you do that or not is your choice.

I’m also not maindecking Aurkus, Lightsworn Druid because I find it to be useless in the Zombie and Absolute Zero matchups. These decks have very few cards that target, only the staple spell Brain Control and monster effects like Caius the Shadow Monarch and Brionac, Dragon of the Ice Barrier. I feel there are not enough targeting cards in the format to warrant a maindeck inclusion. However, I do I have it sidedecked for the Lightsworn mirror, Blackwings, and Gladiator Beasts.

On the other hand, I am maindecking Ehren, Lightsworn Monk, a card that often doesn’t see play in Twilight builds. This card is crucial in the Zombie matchup (although its effect is practically useless in the Lightsworn mirror). Anything that the Zombie player sets is going to get wrecked by Ehren: Mystic Tomato, Pyrmamid Turtle, and Goblin Zombie. I find the early advantage that Ehren gives to be very helpful in this matchup. It’s also useful in the Absolute Zero matchup, often sending back Mystic Tomato or Sangan. Even against Blackwings it has its occasional use of sending back a set Vayu, Blackwing the Emblem of Honor into the deck.

The spells are fairly standard; the only card I would like to talk about is My Body as a Shield. This card is amazing and should be considered a staple in Lightsworn. The card has been discussed recently because it can negate the effect of the deadly Elemental Hero Absolute Zero. However, more importantly it negates Judgment Dragon and Celestia, Lightsworn Angel, two of the strongest cards in a Lightsworn deck. It also negates Icarus Attack, which is considered by many to be the best card in a Blackwing deck (next to Black Whirlwind). And of course we all know that it negates Mirror Force and Torrential Tribute (which have been seeing play since… forever). You see where I’m going with this? It essentially negates the best cards in every deck. However, it’s not quite as good against Zombies, so I usually side it out against them.

I’d also like to explain how My Body as a Shield works against Royal Oppression for those who don’t know. If Royal Oppression is negating a card that special summons itself (such as Judgment Dragon, Chaos Sorcerer, or any synchro) you cannot use My Body as a Shield in response since the monster is not on the field yet. One of the people I know calls it the “limbo” zone; it’s technically not on the field or in the hand. However, if you’re activating the effect of a card like Lumina, Lightsworn Summoner or Zombie Master, since the card is on the field, you may use My Body as a Shield if your opponent choose to activate Royal Oppression.

It’s important to know this for strategical purposes. What I often do is use Lumina to “bait” Royal Oppression while holding a My Body as a Shield. That way it’s safe to drop a Judgment Dragon later. Being able to read Royal Oppression is very important, as you have a number of ways to destroy it if you need to.

There are only a few traps in this deck. The two Beckoning Lights are considered staples in a Lightsworn deck. I don’t think a third Beckoning Light or a 1-of Monster Reincarnation is necessary. Two Bottomless Trap Holes are being played because I like the fact that they’re live in every matchup. I like them against Blackwings, an overplayed deck in my meta, because it stops them from searching with Black Whirlwind (assuming the monster that was summoned had at least 1500 attack, which it usually does). It’s also great against the Lightsworn monster, stopping a Lumina into Garoth, Lightsworn Warrior play. Bottomless is also good against Judgment Dragon, since you know your opponent won’t be able to get it back to his/her hand later.

I’m not playing Mirror Force or Torrential Tribute, which might surprise some people. These “staple traps” are not necessary in a Lightsworn deck. Mirror Force is easily destroyed in the current metagame, and Torrential Tribute doesn’t help when your field is bigger than your opponent’s. Lightsworn like to swarm the field, and neither of these cards when you’re doing that.

I would like to talk about the sidedeck, although it’s not set in stone by any means. In Lightsworn, the sidedeck actually has two functions. The first is countering your opponent’s sidedeck.

[2] Dust Tornado

[2] Royal Decree

[1] Breaker the Magical Warrior

[1] Phantom of Chaos

Whether you side in Dust Tornado, Royal Decree, or both depends on your opponent’s deck. If your opponent is running something very trap heavy, such as Blackwings, I usually bring in Royal Decree. If it’s something with less traps, like Zombies or Absolute Zero, I usually find myself putting in Dust Tornado instead. If I’m playing against something anti-meta I bring in both because you want as much spell/trap removal as possible. Breaker the Magical Warrior and Phantom of Chaos are almost always brought in. They’re the best ways to get around a Light-Imprisoning Mirror.

Next, you have the cards that are specifically sided for the Lightsworn mirror match: Wabokus and Lightning Vortexes. Not only do these cards have synergy together, but they are also good by themselves against Lightsworn. A well-timed Waboku can stop you from getting OTKed and possibly even make your opponent deckout. Lightning Vortex is good at clearly the swarms that Lightsworn and known for getting. Lightning Vortex is a great answer to a first turn Lumina into a Garoth, Lightsworn Warrior (often milling a Wulf, Lightsworn Beast). Pitching a Necro Gardna with the Vortex makes it even better.

Kycoo the Ghost Destroyer is a random 1-of that’s sided in for both the Lightsworn mirror and Zombies. If you can get its effect off it’s great, but not quite good enough for me to want to bring in multiples. In fact I may end up cutting it if I can find something that serves a better purpose.

Shiny Black “C” is mainly against Zombies, but it can also be brought in against any deck that heavily relies on synchros. Once you get Shiny Black “C” into the grave, it becomes very hard for the Zombie player to OTK you, as that typically involves playing multiple synchros. Nobleman of Crossout is directed at Zombies as well. Eliminating set monsters is very important in that matchup.

My Body as a Shield is mainly in the side for the Lightsworn mirror. I find that whoever wins the mirror is often determined by who uses Judgment Dragon’s effect more, so negating its effect is obviously very helpful. I also bring it in against Blackwings because I feel that negating Icarus Attack is just that important.

That covers the side (Aurkus was previously discussed). Feel free to change the side and make it your own depending on your meta. Things that I would consider adding include Malevolent Catastrophe, Brain Control, and Thunder King Rai-Oh.

In testing so far the deck appears to have no bad matchups. In particular, I feel that people are overrating the Absolute Zero vs. Lightsworn matchup. I’ve been hearing some people saying that Absolute Zero should win every game. Absolute Zero itself is a Raigeki, which can obviously hurt Lightsworn. However, you can play around that. Just don’t overcommit to the field. If Lightsworn gets a fast hand, it’s hard for Absolute Zero to keep up with the pace. The earliest the deck can bring out Absolute Zero is turn 2 or 3, and by then the lightsworn player can have done a lot.

Another advantage that Absolute Zero has is the fact that the deck can bring out Ally of Justice Catastor as early in turn 1. This is just another reason why Chaos Sorcerer is good. Other outs include the obvious ones like Judgment Dragon and Celestia. You also have Bottomless Trap Hole and Ryko, Lightsworn Hunter. If you can manage to drop Gorz, Emissary of Darkness it gives you yet another answer.

I don’t want to go as far to say that the deck I’m featuring today is the best deck of the format. I certainly think there are other good options for a deck to take to a big event. I am attending SJC Nashville, and there are a lot of decks on my list to test. However, I would recommend that other competitive players put this deck, or one conceptually similar to it, on their list of decks to test. It may look unusual, but you might be surprised on how well it tests. Based on my testing so far, it has a strong mix of power and consistency.

Wednesday, January 27th – Allen Pennington takes us through his advanced Yu-Gi-Oh! strategy and shares tips on improving your Yu-Gi-Oh! game.

This was a classic matchup between Zombie and Lightsworn, a matchup I would consider to be even. Sometimes one player draws better that the other, but more often than not someone gets outplayed.

This was one of those cases.

The Zombie player had a great setup with his more control-oriented build. He had a Stardust Dragon, a Colossal Fighter, and a set Torrential Tribute. He was winning with 6300 lifepoints to his opponent’s 4400 and appeared to have established a good control of the game (the lightsworn player didn’t even have any Necro Gardnas in the grave). But this didn’t last for long. It was now the lightsworn player’s turn, and he did the only thing he could. He summoned normal Lumina, Lightsworn Summoner, discarded Wulf, Lightsworn Beast to bring it back, and put a card on the top of his deck to bring back Plaguespreader Zombie. The zombie player had no response, and he synchro’d for a Mist Wurm. He targeted all three of the Zombie player’s cards with Mist Wurm’s effect, prompting the Zombie player to activate Torrential Tribute, wiping the field.

It was topdeck mode for both players. The zombie player topdecked a Caius the Shadow Monarch (to go with his dead creature swap already in hand) and passed. The lightsworn player drew a Garoth, Lightsworn Warrior (his only card in hand), summoned it, attacked for 1850, and passed the turn. The zombie player ripped yet another Caius. Frustrated, he showed his hand to a spectator and said, “I only run two of those.” The lightsworn player drew a Necro Gardna, set it, hit for 1850 and passed. Finally, the Zombie player got a Spirit Reaper, something useful. He set it passed.

Next turn it was all over. The lightsworn player drew a Celestia, Lightsworn Angel, tributing Garoth to destroy Spirit Reaper, flipped Necro Gardna, and attacked for game. The zombie player complained about his opponent’s lucky draws. Had you watched this game, you might have thought that the Zombie player did all he could. But you would be wrong. Like the poor zombie player, you made the mistake of functional fixedness, a phenomenon that often prevents players from recognizing their in-game mistakes.

Specifically, go back to this play “prompting the Zombie player to activate Torrential Tribute, wiping the field.” What else could he have done? He could’ve let the Mist Wurm bounce the Torrential Tribute to his hand, and not wiped the field. However, this also would not have been a good play because if the lighsworn player did not summon another monster, he still would have lost. So what else could have done been done? Still can’t figure it out? I’ll give you a clue: it involves Stardust Dragon.

So maybe you figured it out. The Zombie player could have activated Torrential Tribute and then tributed Stardust Dragon to negate the Torrential Tribute, allowing Stardust Dragon to come back in the end phase (effectively saving his Stardust Dragon from its death). This would make any monster a viable topdeck (you could just Creature Swap it for the Mist Wurm), and in this case would’ve made those dead Monarchs live. He could tribute Stardust for Caius, remove Mist Wurm, attack for 2400, then next turn tribute for Caius again and attack for game.

Obviously, the zombie player could not have been psychic and predict that he was going to draw two Caius the Shadow Monarchs in a row, but that’s irrelevant. The fact is that tributing Stardust to negate Torrential Tribute would’ve given him much better odds to win the game. Any removal card, any monster, and Brain Control would’ve either won the game outright or turned it around in his favor. If it was that simple, why did both players and a group of spectators all not notice this costly misplay?

Remember when Stardust Dragon first came out it you realized why it was so good? It could negate many of your opponent’s important removal cards. Did you think it was good because you could use its effect in conjunction with Torrential Tribute to dodge a Mist Wurm bounce? Probably not. This is a perfect example of a psychological occurrence called functional fixedness: a cognitive bias that limits a person to using an object only in the way it is traditionally used. Clearly, the best way to use Stardust Dragon in this game was not “traditional” by any means.

Overcoming functional fixedness is one of the many ways that good players become great players. They make the best play instead of the most obvious play.

Probably the most classic example of how the first pro players overcame functional fixedness was the play that’s now known as the “pro storm”. For many years, everyone played Heavy Storm the same way Harpie’s Feather Duster was played; whenever you wanted to clear your opponent’s on-field spells/traps, you plop down a Heavy Storm and clear them. A smart player would never set more than one spell/trap compared to his opponent (so if I had one set spell/trap it would be ok for you to set two, but not three). Eventually, clever players were able to figure out that by setting Heavy Storm, you could trick your opponent into letting you get a 2-for-1. Word of the pro storm soon spread, and some players no longer had an issue of functional fixedness regarding Heavy Storm (a smart player would now avoid setting more spells/traps than his opponent unless one of them was chainable).

Usually functional fixedness is an issue with newer players picking up a new deck. At first, they only learn the most common plays and can’t see the less obvious ones. However, this can become a problem with more experienced players as well. They go into an auto-pilot mode after they are confident that they know all of the ins and outs of a deck. When you’re in auto-pilot mode you’re less likely to consider all of your plays; you just do the first thing that comes to mind.

I’ve played against a lot of pro players throughout the years, and have tried to see what they all have in common. One of the major things is that they all play much slower than the average player. This might seem a bit shady, and I would argue that a handful are doing it to stall for time. However, I think the majority are doing it because they are trying to think of every possible play, consider them all, and then do whatever they feel is optimal.

There’s two parts to making a good play and not letting functional fixedness get the best of you. The first part is thinking about your plays, but the second is actually reading your cards, something that might seem obvious. There’s no way that you could’ve made the Stardust Dragon play if you hadn’t known that it could negate the effects of your own cards. The more card interactions you understand, the more likely you are to make the correct play in a given situation.

Another example of functional fixedness involves synchros once again. Black Rose Dragon is considered to be an extra deck staple. If your opponent heavily commits to the field, you can summon it to blow up everything. It’s very useful. However, many players have never actually read the card’s text. If they had, they would realize that it actually has another effect. By removing a plant monster in your grave, you can force one of your opponent’s monsters to attack position and bash it for 2400. This might sound like a situation that would rarely come up, but if you’re playing Mystic Tomato, it might happen more often than you might think. I know I’ve caught plenty of opponents off guard by activating Black Rose Dragon’s second effect. It often invokes surprised comments from my opponents, “Wait, it has another effect?”

There are nearly infinite examples of situations where making unorthodox plays can win games. Having your Lightsworn monsters suicide into your opponent’s bigger monsters can prevent you from decking out with your Lightsworn monsters’ effects. The concept of having your monsters kill themselves is a play that’s obvious to some but often escapes the less experienced players who have a naive mindset of “Why would I ever want my monsters to kill themselves?” Another situation where killing your own monsters can be beneficial is to accelerate into a Dark Armed Dragon. By having Mystic Tomato suicide into your opponent’s monster and searching another copy of itself (and keep repeating the process) you can go to having zero darks in your graveyard to having three.

The best thing you can do if you want to learn new plays and become better in general is to watch others play. Different people make different plays. You might watch someone else play and reach an epiphany. You’ll see a really good play and be able to add it to your bag of tricks for future games.