Ammokkx

Yu-Gi-Oh!: Harmonia United

@Eklispe Ye, looks fine to me. You also wanted me to suggest cards, so:

-Moon Mirror Shield: Battle-focused archetype and a moon-based card.
-Three Strike Barrier: Lunalight are very battle-focused, so this is a protection trap that slots right in.
-The Grave of Enkindling: Bring back Cat or Panther Dancer and use it to fuse the next turn. Bonus points if you combo it with something like Defenders Intersect.
-Fusion Guard: Protection for effect damage and gets one of your Lunalight Fusions in the GY.
-Tri-and-Guess: Ez 3000 LP against non-fusion users.
-Prideful Roar: When all else fails, go full Jack Atlas. This one's just a personal favorite of mine.

Admittedly it's a lot of traps and not a lot of spells because traps are something your deck list didn't seem to have a lot of.

Yu-Gi-Oh!: Harmonia United

@MidKnights@ThePlumbum@King Cosmos@Deluge Ayy we've started.

We're opening up on a duel which is going to be pretty rigid, but don't worry too much about it. It'll be rigid for only 1-2 posts or so and after that we're letting you guys loose and free.

Yu-Gi-Oh!: Harmonia United

In terms of constructive criticism I'm interested in what card choices you might have made for the deck.

@Eklispe

I'll get back to you on this depending on whether or not you try to shuffle things around, but generally, I spend about 20 minutes brainstorming on YGOrpo and taking note of the most interesting cards I can find.

Yu-Gi-Oh!: Harmonia United

So, after talking it over with Satoshi, the first post is coming!

...at the end of the week. Specifically, Friday. It's already written up, don't worry about that, but Satoshi wants some time to mentally prepare I think. Anyway, we have enough players to feel confident at least.

Yu-Gi-Oh!: Harmonia United

@King Cosmos Well, at least you seem to geddit a bit better than you did at the start. I'm not going to be the ruling deity that tells you exactly what cards are and are not allowed, so I'm honestly fine with you keeping Gear Giant X. My whole spiel was more about how you didn't really need to rely on those cards at all as there's plenty you can do with little, and just because you can doesn't mean you should, but I don't have much of a problem with your decks anymore. Anything else would prolly just me being a bully, so as far as I'm concerned you're good on that front.

If Sat considers you accepted (which idk if he does) I do too.

@Eklispe >random fire formation cards

REEEEEE

Jokes aside, while I'd have liked a little more creativity in the card choices, it's not like you're putting in Torrential Tribute and Bottomless Trap Hole. As far as I'm concerned you're good on that front.

I kind of don't get how your number 1 relates to his deck, though, if I may be entirely honest. Nor dancing, nor the moon nor cute monster girls seem to be a key part of Lance and I don't feel like someone who only tries as hard as they need to for their goals falls in line with that deck. If anything I'd see him play something a lot slower, like Iunno, Evol or something. Just like how Lance slowly creeped up to where he was at his own pace, Evols slowly build up to becoming big and powerful. Not that I have an issue with them playing Lunalight, it just seems like a very odd choice.

Since Sat considers you accepted, I don't have a leg to stand on anyway =P you got the go-ahead to post it in the CS tab from him

Yu-Gi-Oh!: Harmonia United

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They are all Wind attribute Rank 4 XYZ. I honestly don't have much to work with.

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Again, there is a limited selection of Rank 4 machines. I'll add in Heavy Armoured Train Ironwolf though, since I only just noticed it and it seems to fit.

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I can make a level 5 synchro and, again, limited selection. I can replace it with Hi-Speedroid Chanbara since its a wind, machine spaceship thing, but I wanted to avoid dipping into other archetypes.

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I don't know what I did or why this is okay but the other wind monsters aren't.

@King Cosmos

Being limited is *not* a bad thing, though. Let's take a look at other people's deck lists:

Satoshi only listed 'Numbers' in the extra for Naoki. Granted, Numbers are huge af, but a lot of them are archetype or type locked so she has to get incredibly creative trying to summon them, but that becomes less of an issue once you realize she's a collector.

I only listed 'Genex' monsters. That's about, what, 11 monsters? half of which the deck struggles to summon and the other half that just don't do much?

Knights limited himself to only the E-HERO fusions, but E-Hero's kind of stonkers huge so he's more of an exception than most.

Plum limited himself to the B.A. lineup, 3 cards, and the 'Entity' lineup, 6, for a total of 9 Extra Deck cards.

Then we get to Deluge, who purposefully shafted himself the hardest. He only uses Jurrac and Grenosaurus, which if I recall from memory, is a total of 4.

You're also forgetting maindeck monsters in all this- Extra deck summoning isn't the only way to deal damage. Naoki's kind of screwed into the extra, but that's her entire shtick. Masaru can use Genex Solar or Commander, Yute has Bladedge or Neos(base), Leonard has a fall back ritual and generally a more drawn out playstyle and Hikaro has like Super Conductor Tyranno and Jurrac Tyrannus to fall back on.

Tetherwolf and Sabrehawk fill that role for your maindeck, being able to deal damage. You also have your trap card, Sonic Boom, which allows you to boost them up even further for a desperation play, making you have to rely less on your Extra Deck. Speaking of which, tbh, with their nice ATK values your three E.D. monsters in MPB are good enough to hold their own through most duels. It seems rare to me that you'll ever need to use anything else. That's not even talking about the effects, where Draccossack sits on his ass being hard to remove, Jacuslan works well as a final push and Conco-Ruda protects your tokens pretty nicely. All three of these create gamestates that require a lot of effort to go over just by themselves, so that's not a bad thing.

The reason why I found Tornado Dragon to be more fitting that the other two is because of course having that many airplanes and helicopters in one place would cause a boatload of wind, not to mention them getting sucked up as overlay units and circling the tornado seems pretty fitting.

By the way if you wanted to avoid digging into archetypes, Ally Of Justice is an archetype -w-

My point is, you don't need a stonkers huge extra deck. Generally, the closer you can keep it to your core the better. MPB have a lot of cards to work with as is and create nice enough fields mostly on their own, so there isn't much need to look to the generic card pool when you've already got these options available to you.

...Heck, you mentioned earlier how Gagaga is a toolbox for the extra, right? Well, keeping in mind that this is 4k, it really doesn't need to be. Gagaga Tag is a pretty insane boost card with how often you're going to be summoning and Samurai even lets you attack twice, dealing huge amounts of damage in the process. Cards like One-Shot and Wonder wand also boost the ATK of your spellcaster Gagagas a little further, which allows them to push for even more damage. You can even be cheeky, playing turn 1 cowboy in DEF, dealing 800, protecting it and then swinging over whatever boss monster they summoned next turn with the ATK position effect.

Well, that's just my take on matters anyway. All I'm trying to do is encourage you to get a lot more creative and think more outside the box, because I'm sure Sat doesn't care nearly as much as I do about decks. This is a story we're writing for, not a real game.

Yu-Gi-Oh!: Harmonia United

@King Cosmos Well, if you want my take on matters:

The not being familiar shouldn't be too much of a worry. I haven't played a single game of Ice Barrier in my life, 'Synchro Dragon' is very disjointed and messy with me not doing archetypes and I don't know how 2 synchron.

The MBP extra could still remove these cards, I don't see why they should stick around:

Lightning Chidori. What's this random electrical animal doing among freakin' AIRPLANES YEEEEAAAAHH! ?
Castel seems like an odd choice. He's just a dude with a gun, what, is he the pilot? ...Don't answer that.
Gaia Dragon- Dragon riding knight. airplanes yadda yadda- you get the point.
Gear Giant X- Searchers don't seem like much of an issue, and if you want a big beater you've got maindeck options enough.
Ally Of Justice Catastor is an anti-light killbot. Not really a vehicle or anything, just an eradication killbot.
Tornado Dragon... Okay, nevermind, I'm giving you this one. that's clever.

The other cards are either big floaty things in the sky or vehicles of some kind (if with a lot of firepower) so I don't have any issue with them, they seem to fit.

Yu-Gi-Oh!: Harmonia United

@King Cosmos There's some people with like, no extra to 4 cards total. Take Emi, for example. I legitimately don't intend to use anything except for Ice Barrier Synchros in their deck, simply because nothing else is a thematic fit. In that regard, there's a ton of stuff I don't like in your Lightsworn decklist. Black Rose, Scarlight, Omega, Crystal Wing etc. seem to be there because they have good effects rather than any themes in your deck, i.e. holy guardians summoning their big deity 'fuck off' dragon. In that regard, what is a performage doing in Nekroz? I get its effect can be synergetic, but it's be real weird for a random clown to pop up in the midst of a slew of cosplaying peeps. Jigabyte still sorta fits because Nekroz certainly has a few monstrosities, though.

And no, you don't need to swap out Nekroz. What I *will* expect and ask is to not play them optimally, though. I'd rahter not every duel with your number one be 'summon - negate activate - negate - negate - negate' as that is incredibly boring to read.

And I could throw in a few S/T suggestions for Nekroz.

Ice Mirror- Summoning card and Nekroz work with mirrors anyway.
Spiritual Water art Aoi - Nekroz do rituals anyway, rituals in which they sac themselves, so this slots right in.
Ritual Weapon - Nekroz dress up anyway and some of them are level 6 or lower, so giving them a boost in ATK like this works really well.

Theese are just random suggestions after five minutes of searching in YGOpro, though, so don't take them as the be all end all and don't feel pressured to put them in. All I'm saying is, these cards aren't as thought about and, sure, you'd never play them in an actual Nekroz deck, but that's the fun part. You don't *have* to make this a real deck.

As for the Gagaga ones- I've actually played Gagagas before in RPs. I selected the monsters I went for very carefully, making sure to stay within the boundaries of spellcasters and warriors for the most part. They don't have to be the most versatile thing in the world as there's a lot you can do with very little. In fact, I urge you to take a look at this youtube channel. He often does scripted duels which he animates by re-editing clips over a greenscreen in the BG of YGOpro, and makes sure to be very faithful to character playstyles and decks. Some of my favorites are to be found here and here, which show off how well you can script with not too much to work with.

I also recommend checking out this one. Akaba Leo has a total of six cards, yet Yumers gets creative and makes it work anyway. Hell, Akaba Leo is winning for the most of it.

Yu-Gi-Oh!: Harmonia United

@King Cosmos Oof, those decks.

Alright, I think I may need to stress this again, but:

We're in a scripted environment. It's generally discouraged to go for the best cards, because they create the worst scenarios.

Generally, if a card is really good, it tends to create an unfair situation for the opponent where they have to spend a lot of time and effort getting rid of your things. This isn't bad in the case of a boss monster, but it becomes a problem when there's things in the S/T lineup that shut them down. Generally, when having full control, you don't want to interrupt your opponent. Cutting someone's turn off halfway can be good in a one-off scenario, but putting your focus on negation and removal makes your opponent have to spam harder which...

there's a reason Vrains duels suck.

I'd reccommened straying away from cards such as the solemn brigade, Twin Twisters, Mirror Force, Soul charge and general staples, really. Stuff like Upstart Goblin is also redundant, the only thing you accomplish is having a way for your opponent to gain 1000 LP. Magic Poker Formula is in full effect, so having a card that only draws you 1 and nothing else doesn't do much for you, as you could've just had the drawn card in hand to begin with.

Cards I like are stuff like your Draw Muscle, Strike of the Monarchs etc. because they're a lot more situational. They lead to more interesting gamestates without overly punishing your opponent for no real reason other than "I can".

Also, a last thing: If you're going to make example lists, try not to say stuff like 'Rank 4 Xyz' yeah? It implies you'd be summoning Utopia alongside Castel and Diamond Dire Wolf, three monsters that don't really relate each other in any way. Besides, Numbers are kind of Naoki's schtick and extra decks should be limited rather than broadened. Having everyone use everything makes decks feel less unique.

EDIT: Sat is working on the review of your characters, by the by

Yu-Gi-Oh!: Harmonia United

What do you mean by a limited number of challenges? Do you mean if you challenge the person above you and lose, say, five times you can't challenge them again? I assume this count resets if the order changes, so if either the person above you goes up a rank or you drop a rank?

@King Cosmos

Think of it like a 'once a month' thing. The academy is split up into three seasons and in each season you get three challenges. If you rise a rank, you get another challenge. Basically, you get three shots at ranking up. If you succeed in one of them, the shot isn't used up. if you lose, however, that one's expired. Three strikes, you're out for the season. You can't climb anymore.

EDIT: Though, honestly, it shouldn't come into play too much. YGO is pretty 'one and done' when it comes to measuring skill, so there's a good chance if you lost once you're going to keep losing until you've either massively improved or the other guy's in a slump.