Sunday 27 November 2016

Top 10 Misplays of 2016

Nearing the end of the year... Time really does flies.
The examples are a mixture of my experiences as a player and as a spectator. These are written records of the misplays, both hilarious and cringe-worthy so that players can all learn from it. This post is by no means, a method of personal attack or character assassination. Don't flatter yourself, for the self-conscious; my blog doesn't have that many viewers anyway.

And since we are on the topic of misplays, allow me to give everyone a heads-up on unethical plays that might occur during player to player interactions as this seems like a suitable opportunity.

Situation 1:
Player A says during side decking that he wants to go first to avoid another lockdown. Player B hears that and sides in his 'going second' cards. Then after side-decking, shuffled and all, Player A states that he wants to go second instead.

Situation 2:
Player A laments: A Duster and I will have to scoop
Player B reveals and activates it, but player B negates it with [a card].
Player A complains that Player B lied, but B argued that it wasn't a formal surrender nor conceding gesture.
 

In both situations, it is really dependent on how the judge rules it. Thankfully, I haven't come across such opponents, and I hope no one else has such misfortune as well.


Anyway, let's proceed to the most cringe-worthy of cringe-worthy misplays

10) Read the erratum

I don't really recall when or where this happened, but I was a spectator for this. Time has been called and this was the final turn. Both players were 8000/8000, or something along those lines.

Player A activated A Hero Lives and opted to call forth Elemental HERO Shadow Mist, for whatever reasons, despite not having any cards in hand, and having Elemental HERO Stratos and Elemental HERO Bubbleman in the deck.
Player B was playing Nekroz, and had Clausolas, Trishula and Unicore on the field.
Realising that his plan of summoning Masked HERO Dark Law will be hampered by Unicore and Clausolas, he proceeded to salvage his game plan by activating Crush Card Virus, after much deliberation.
Upon resolving the trap card, he found out his misconception, as he thought that Crush Card destroys monsters with 1000ATK or more. Clausolas escaped the destruction, and thus Player A took a step further by activating his second trap, Diamond Dust, attempting to clear the way for a 'direct attack for game'.
Player B would then negate the attempt via a Solemn Judgment, and Player A responded to the negation with one of his own - Solemn Judgment. Then came Player A's final trap card - Call of the Haunted.
"Swing for game" he said.
Apart from the glaring mathematical error of not being able to inflict 6000LP worth of damage to compensate for the difference, with only Shadow Mist on field and Mask Change in hand, go figure out the greatest mistake in this sequence of events.

9) Read the card text
This one is short and simple, but it took all the self-control I had to keep myself from screaming in agony as I watched my friend conceded when his opponent activated Mask Change II on Number 11: Big Eye and swung for game. No mathematical miscalculation on this play, but if only my friend had bothered reading Mask Change II's card effect, that loss may not have happened.

Not everyone can be a hero.
Definitely not a monster with no level.


8) Did you "C" that coming?
This happened during a Monarch vs Dr Pe match. The Dracopal player conceded, thinking that he couldn't possibly do any special summoning from the Extra Deck due to Domain of the Monarch. Little did he realised that he could have tributed summon one monster in his hand (forgot what that was, but he had a level 6), using the opponent's Flying "C", then paste the proceed to go for game with his face up Extra Deck monsters, as he already has a complete scale.

7)
I read this one online and it happened in the TCG.
Apparently, the OP thought it was a good idea to use Goyo Guardian to steal Scarm, Malebranche of the Burning Abyss to prevent the search by his opponent during the End Phase. The fact that Scarm would self destruct upon the special summon due to Goyo Guardian's presence slipped his mind, so his opponent still got the search.


6) It's a trap!
During Pepe/EMEm's reign as a Tier 1 deck, we had a casual tournament where the finals pitched a Bujin deck against Pepe. Surprisingly, the Pepe player lost. A couple of bad decisions and misplays could be attributed to the loss. Apart from the constant destruction of monsters instead of the scales when resolving the effect of Performapal Pendulum Sorcerer, the most cringe-worthy play occurred when he summoned Number 16: Shock Master during his Main Phase 1. Attempting to deal damage for game, but fearing the backrow threats (which we learn later turned out to be all fakes), he called [Traps] instead of [Monsters] which would have hurt the Bujin player a lot more. The game ended when Shock Master attacked itself into oblivion, as the Bujin player dropped both Bujin Crane and Honest when Bujin Yamato was attacked.

ggez?
Happened during Pepe's era as well, in a match against Burning Abyss, back when Dante, Traveller of the Burning Abyss was still at three copies. Pepe player did a standard field set-up, flooding his field, and then proceeded to perform two xyz summons - Abyss Dweller and Number 16: Shock Master. The latter declared [Monsters] and that stood in the way of Abyss Dweller. Burning Abyss player just went ahead with his turn with a Dark Hole and Twin Twister, and his opponent was unable to react and respond with any chains. 

If that wasn't enough, in the next round, I played against him, he left his pendulum-summoned monsters in attack position, with no backrow protection, ending his turn from there.
  • No xyz summon?
  • "I don't want to let my monsters enter the grave" he replied.
Perhaps he thought he was learning from his previous mistakes? He realised that no xyz summons weren't the best course of action either, as I went for an OTK the next turn with both of my Number S39: Utopia the Lightning, attacking two of his Performapal Plushfire, which he was so kind to leave it in attack position.
Ya, I played two copies of S39 in my Yosenjus back then.


5) Not a Triverr situation
This one is mine. I was piloting Tellarknights after a long hiatus from the game but with the help of traps and Stellarknight Altair, I managed to call forth four monsters onto the field. Fearing a Solemn Strike would leave me with little resources, as I devote a 4-to-1 xyz summon or a 3-to-1 xyz summon of Stellarknight Triverr, I instead went for two xyz summons, using two materials in each occasion, hoping to bait the backrow threats. It resulted in a total disaster, as I was unable to follow up on my plays, with the best I could accomplish being Number 80: Rhapsody in Berserk using its effect and equipping to Dark Rebellion Xyz Dragon. However, Stellerknight Altair's lingering effect would leave me unable to declare any attacks. In the next turn, Castel the Skyblaster Musketeer took care of my large ATK monster without the need to even engage it in battle.
Bad decisions, bad decisions...
4) Get your game on~
When ABC first came out, Galaxy ABC was the popular trend. One player managed of set up a lockdown involving ABC-Dragon Buster and Cyber Dragon Infinity, and to top it off, he flipped Vanity's Emptiness during the Standby Phase, refusing to let Lava Golem have its way. He neglected the fact that he left his Chicken Game on the field, and only realised the consequences of that mistake when I activated it, opting to destroying the field card, which would in turn destroy Vanity's Emptiness. Attempts to prevent that were performed, but Chicken Game disallows any card to be chained to its effect, hence neither Dragon Buster's banish of the spell card, nor Cyber Dragon Infinity's negation could work. Ultimately, Vanity's Emptiness was destroyed, I sent Lava Golem over, and pendulum summoned Majespecter Unicorn - Kirin along with a few other pendulum friends. Bounced back Lava Golem and proceeded for a beatdown strategy. The loss of resources was too much for my opponent to recover from, and that caused him that game.

3)
Common things a player forget to do:
Revive a Stardust Dragon that was in grave.
Retrieve monsters banished by Farfa, Malebranche of the Burning Abyss
Search off the effects of Fullmetalfoes Bismagia or Scarm, Malebranche of the Burning Abyss. (I am guilty!)
Have a grand plan to swarm your field with special summons but then when you get started you realised you activated Pot of Duality this turn.

2) Grave Mistake
My opponent forgot that pendulums don't hit the grave, and his monster, which I stole via Fullmetalfoes Alkahest, would enter his grave instead. Alkahest survived the onslaught, and ultimately, my Vanity's Emptiness wasn't destroyed because nothing entered my grave.

1) Do Not
Ever Soul Charge and go for game. This actually happens more times than it should, as many forget about Soul Charge's restrictions of not being able to enter the Battle Phase. Normally happens after the player performs big plays after the revival, synchro summoning, xyz summoning and all, and get too caught up in the moment that you forgot you brought those monsters back via Soul Charge.

Conclusion
I personally arrived at plenty of 'misplay' situations due to underlying misconceptions and assumptions. That or 'illegal moves'/'situations that shouldn't have happened' because I neglected some restrictions on players, either me or my opponent. A common example would be The Phantom Knights of Break Sword's special summon limitation clause, after a player uses its effect to revive two Phantom Knight monsters on the field.

Like many things, to be better in the game, one has to learn via experience. I hope this article managed to share many [Do not] things to do. With sufficient content, perhaps I may even compose an article about the Top 10 plays I witnessed.

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