Notes & Combos

Let's try again, shall we?

Glossary

The following is a list of abbreviations used to refer to each card

• Imperm - Infinite Impermanence

• Goon - Red Eyes Dark Dragoon

• Brade - Blazing Masquerade

• N/GETD - Neo/Galaxy Eyes Tachyon Dragon

• Harb - Hope Harbinger

• Mrena - I:P Masquerena

• Nib - Nibiru

• Veil - Effect Veiler

• NS - Normal Summon

• SS - Special Summon

• Fuse - Fusion Summon/use as material for Fusion

• Syn - Synchro Summon/Use as material for Synchro

• GY - Graveyard

• InEc - Incredible Ecclesia

• Alb - Refers to the "Albion" monsters, as opposed to "Nie", who is instead Albus, with the prefix referring to the specific adjectives (Shralb, Bralb)

• Nie - Hanyu Pinyin of 孽, means "illegitimate child", serves as both a differentiator from Alb, and as a more meaningful word than the incomprehensible Japanese 落胤, for the otherwise-censored Albus "The Fallen"

• Yuan - Longyuan, Main Deck

• Tà - Compromise between the Hanyu Pinyin of 大, Dà, and the shortened English name, to refer to Taia

• Chonk - Chunjun

• Mò - Mo Ye

• Gold - The Golden Swordsoul

• ForDrop - Forbidden Droplet

• CC - Cosmic Cyclone

• BoE - Book Of Eclipse

• Emerg - Swordsoul Emergence

• Sum - Swordsoul Sacred Summit

• Blout - Swordsoul Blackout

• MJ - Mirrorjade

• Slube - Searing Lubellion

• Qi - Qixing Longyuan

• Tianbe - Short for Tian-Bei, means "Tenyi Bear" AKA Draco Berserker

• Gite - Dragite

With that being said, let's get to the commentary

Neverending Pain

It was a time period like another in the depths of the most rotten of the ladders, also known as the Kaiba Cup.

Grass was growing, birds were flying, sun was shining, and Konami managed to do absolutely nothing to improve on the pitiful state of the ladder of the month before, instead opting for even more P2W options to make sure whales would easily win against even the most skilled of players, releasing more busted skills to ruin the ladder, while utterly refusing to both ban floodgates and FTK, and limiting the impact of staples, with Droll, Nib, ForDrop, and BoE razing whatever was left of the ladder.

Amidst the chaos, the P2W Belle, Horus, Mrena were razing ladder along the many top strategies, including Traptrix, Odion, with even more stun/p2w strategies involving Princess Adena and Rescue Rabbit now being discovered as a result.

In such times, where you couldn't understand where the harmful laissez-faire from Konami stopped, and the incompetence began, the few remaining players of Swordsoul left, let alone Duel Links, had to figure out how to survive this unbelievable abomination that is Staple Links, where a single card is enough to win 95% of the games, and where the only meaningful winning condition is drawing the broken staple in the right turn order, or being able to search it, both of which have done

...and I decided to remain on my staple, while getting outlucked in the worst moments. Yes, I know.

...eventually, I got the shred of luck I needed to get to 20 and I got it. Too many limitations of staples despite the broken search, really

My choices for the deck, much like last time, is based on not letting my opponent play and drawing a lot with Qi, and disrupting Continuous cards.

Combo was

Yuan discarding Tà to summon himself and Token -> Qi and burn 600 -> Sum revive Tà -> Tà activate and banish Sum to Summon Token into Xiao -> Send Gold with Tà, search Mò or Blout with InEc into Mò into reveal Swordsoul into Gite if possible, for I otherwise rely on what I draw and whatever the Skill allows me to fix before or after searching with Xiao -> QiXiaoGite, with Blout if fate smiles.

That way I have follow-up with InEc and Gold in the GY to revive the former on their turn, and SS Nie

Several, including ThunderSan17, have elected to go "one-shot" with boards and run 1 of every Swordsoul, especially Yuan.

I didn't: I like my piles of staples, and I like my fat birb, to get some fuel even after a wipe. It's not like I could prevent Nib anyway

The core idea is that you don't need to OTK in order to win: making the opponent's brain bleed sanity away, and their existence miserable, is more than sufficient. Sūnzǐ said something along the lines of "the acumen of skill is to win without battling". Hopefully they surrender before...

Unlike the previous version, I replaced Titaniklad with Slube because Adamancipator and Beetroopers weren't as frequent as Despia, and I could snipe both with MJ.

As for the single choices...

• InEc - Main NS because of how terrible Mò (if you disagree, you're not playing enough). Can occasionally serve as fodder for the Skill, thanks to Gold. Remember to count those monsters on their side before you burn your SS for nothing. Replaces Mò more consistency and serves as fodder against Goon. If you have the full 3 names (Tà, Yuan, Sum) in hand, it allows you to get Gite first for their Imperm (although that's exactly why they play Veil). Now if only we could fix Mo Ye
• Droll - Destroys so many decks it's out of mind. That includes many scenarios with the mirror. Mostly Drytron, tho
• Shralb - Drawing card, to fish for staples, and trigger for the Skill. DON'T SEND HIM WITH THE SKILL
• Nie - Abusing double summons from the Skill to Fuse with THEIR monsters good. Having to use 2 cards if with Slube bad. Praise MJ
• Chonk - Allows to dodge a lot of stuff, most notably Imperm and Veil, and can be searched by the Skill. If after BoE, you can still tribute 1 to summon it and use Blout with him.
• Three Swordsoul Idiots - Tà allows you to ignore disruption if banishing Blout. This is the only good thing here. Yuan is a free banish to trigger Gold
• Gold - Can be sent (and is a trigger) for the Skill but is best kept in hand, even if that happens rarely. Setting up up for InEc is all I could ask for...along the rest of the board, but given how broken MJ is, I'd say it's worth. The attack prevention still sucks.
• ForDrop - Hard Once Per Turn, but, at least, it allows you to bait the opponent by opening something else, like Emerg, and send it as free cost. The issue are the monsters. Should be banned
• CC - Might cost 1k but it prevents floating effects involving the GY. Also triggers Cheng
• BoE - Not even HOPT but with friendly fire enabled, and the minus can be disabled by Droll. Even more in need to be banned
• Emerg - Unfortunately, Gold is Limited 2 and, well, the Idiots...are Idiots, yes?
• Sum - Real skill comes from deciding when to give it up after searching it.
• Blout - Use Xiao then destroy it with it. Nobody must win except for me. 无人！！COMEBACKS ARE NOT TOLERATED! NEVER!! Ahem-I mean you, nobody except you. cough
• MJ - The time where he comes is usually the time where the match is over. Non target monster removal and anti comeback. What's not to love?
• Slube - DARK, can serve as a better body if using something else in the GY alongside Nie
• Bralb - LIGHT, and, unlike Slube, doesn't discard cards to Fuse
• Qi - He's everything and the main target to Syn, at the expense of Cheng, a real MU slaughterer. You will feel it against Chimera
• Tianbè - Emergency OTK and triggerer of Cheng
• Bàxî - Cannot touch Goon, but everything else is exposed to him, and, most importantly, takes care of Brade, GETD, Harb, and even Dingirsu. Useless to say, only Tà allows you the double shuffle. Can also revive both InEc and Gold, unlike several other cards.
• Cheng - You know things are getting worrying if you need him. Still great removal...assuming there is one card in BOTH their Field and GY
• Gite - He alone carries the deck to relevance. Just check the above lines
• Xiao - Ah, if only he wasn't designed so badly, by forcing you to choose between on-summon or the monster negate for that turn. Not to mention the lack of slots for a second one