This weekend was the first anime convention of the year and there was more than plenty to do. However, this weekend also brought upon my neighbor's daughter and her choir deal. I would've gone to it friday night, but I had procrastinators to deal with. The tickets for that were good all weekend, but the procrastinators wanted to wait until sunday because of their usual protesting. When we finally did go, we found out that it was for a church cause.... sorry. I don't do church, especially when a church wants more conribution than what they mentioned beforehand. All in all, I saw her sing (and she was good) in addition to kickin' it at the anime convention. I got quite a payload on Duel Monsters too, including a Rainbow Dragon. If you forgot already, I mentioned the Rainbow Dragon in the same entry of the Gem Beasts. They have a cuelist pack series coming out soon, so hopefully it'll help out all of the duelists out there with failing Gem Beast decks.
While on the subject of the gem beasts, I discussed with a fellow vendor (I did some vending at the time) how the majority of these Gem Beast decks fail. This is because the gems themselves lack muscle and unless you get one of each of the seven gems in play, the high-powered Rainbow Dragon can't come out. In addition, duelists think that three copies of each gem will help them, but it only hinders them, because the repeats only do more damage than how you plan it out on paper. Add the fact that they want three of most of the spells that support the gems only adds more clutter. If there are any duelists out there that plan on making a successful Gem Beast deck, take my advice and do the following (I've made one and it's pretty damn decent):
1- Reduce the Clutter! This is the biggest problem with Gem Beast decks and why they fail, because decks are cluttered with three copies of each monster, including the Rainbow Dragon. Rainbow Dragon can only be played when seven different gems are in play (whether on the field, or in the graveyard) and not seven total gems. The same goes for the spells/traps that support these gems. Push comes to shove, only use two of each card (and sometimes one of a certain spell/trap) so you can use the staple stuff and actually survive!
2- Add some Muscle. The second biggest problem with the Gem Beasts is that you have seven low-powered monsters and a high-powered monster supported by spells and {usually} too few traps. Add some mid-powered monsters because there's only so much that the Sapphire, Amber and Topaz (which are the three strongest offensive Gems) can destroy. So put in some more heat, or you're going to get your hat handed to you. And don't limit your heat to just monsters, put some of that heat into your traps too. Because those spells can only do so much. If you need more of a hand, the Rainbow Dark Dragon comes in the next set, as well as some other cards in Jesse's duelist packs (which will come out shortly).
3- Create a Backup Plan. Though the point of the Gem Beasts is to call out the Rainbow Dragon, you won't be calling it out each duel. So make sure you have another strategy to get a victory, or you know what's gonna happen to you. Which is why #2 is more important to this one over #1.
4- Make a Side Deck! scream The obvious answer, especially when you're dealing with a deck theme that has a low success rate. How hard is it to scrounge up 15 supportive cards for this deck? Marginal dificulty, but at least you got cards out there that can help (traps cards, people) with many cards on the way to help out.
But all in all, a good weekend was had. Too bad I have to go to work tomorrow gonk
~Me, the mysterious katboy from afar.
