Cloudian Pendulum upgrade!

[Windikite]

Hey all, I have another upgrade here. Today's is Cloudians! Cloudians have some cool themes to build off of, and a few quirks that make some good design limitations.

 

If you didn't know:

1. Cloudians have really low attack, and a heavy emphasis on control through their counters.

2. They can't be destroyed by battle, but they are destroyed if they are in defense position.

3. They generate and use Fog Counters with and by their effects, allowing for mass devastation if given enough resources.

 

After a bit of thinking and some input from people on reddit I decided to make them all pendulum monsters, and modify some of their base effects to play well with being destroyed. They also have some nifty ways to generate counters, new pendulum effects and a new synchro aspect to them. Aside from that, here you guys go:

 

 

Here are the effects written out for you guys too:

 

                              Cloudian  -  Ghost Fog (Fiend/pendulum/effect/WATER/Level-1/ATK-0/DEF-0/PENDSCALE-1)

Effect - All Battle Damage to either player from a battle involving this monster becomes 0. If this card is destroyed by battle, distribute new Fog Counters equal to the Level of the monster that destroyed it among face-up monsters. Pendulum effect - Once per turn, if you have a "Cloudian" card in your other Pendulum Zone: You can destroy that card, and if you do, add 1 "Cloudian" Pendulum monster from your deck to your hand.

 

                               Cloudian  -  Sheep Cloud (Fairy/pendulum/effect/WATER/Level-1/ATK-0/DEF-0/PENDSCALE-2)

Effect - When this card is destroyed by battle Special Summon 2 "Cloudian Tokens" (Fairy-Type/WATER/Level 1/ATK 0/DEF 0) in Defense Position. These tokens cannot be Tributed for a Tribute Summon, unless it is for a "Cloudian" monster. Pendulum effect - If a "Cloudian" card is activated in your other Pendulum Zone: You can draw 1 card. You can only use this effect of "Cloudian - Sheep Cloud" once per turn.

 

                               Cloudian  -  Poison Cloud (Fiend/pendulum/effect/Tuner/WATER/Level-3/ATK-0/DEF-1000/PENDSCALE-1)

Effect - When this card is destroyed by battle, if it was face-up at the start of the Damage Step: Destroy the monster that destroyed it, and if you do, inflict 800 damage to your opponent. Pendulum effect - Once per turn, if you have a "Cloudian" card in your other Pendulum Zone: You can destroy both cards in your Pendulum Zones, and if you do, special summon this card.

 

                               Cloudian  -  Acid Cloud (Fairy/pendulum/effect/WATER/Level-4/ATK-500/DEF-0/PENDSCALE-4)

Effect - This card cannot be destroyed by battle. If this card is in face-up Defense Position, destroy it. When you Normal Summon this card, place 1 Fog Counter on it for each "Cloudian" monster on the field. You can remove 2 Fog Counters from this card to destroy 1 Spell or Trap Card. Pendulum effect - If this card in your Pendulum Zone is destroyed: You can return a spell or trap from the field to the hand. you can only gain this effect of "Cloudian - Acid Cloud" once per turn.

 

                               Cloudian  -  Atlus (Fairy/pendulum/effect/WATER/Level-4/ATK-1300/DEF-0/PENDSCALE-3)

Effect - This card cannot be destroyed by battle. If this card is in face-up Defense Position, destroy it. When you Normal Summon this card, place 1 Fog Counter on it for each "Cloudian" monster on the field. You can remove 3 Fog Counters from anywhere on the field to discard 1 random card from your opponent's hand. Pendulum effect - If you have a "Cloudian" card in your other Pendulum Zone, except "Cloudian - Atlus": The first time you would take damage each turn, prevent it.

 

                               Cloudian  -  Cirrostratus (Fairy/pendulum/effect/Tuner/WATER/Level-4/ATK-900/DEF-0/PENDSCALE-3)

Effect - This card cannot be destroyed by battle. If this card is in face-up Defense Position, destroy it. When you Normal Summon this card, place 1 Fog Counter on it for each "Cloudian" monster on the field. You can remove 2 Fog Counters from this card to destroy 1 monster on the field. Pendulum effect - Once per turn, if you have a "Cloudian" card in your other Pendulum Zone: You can destroy that card, and if you do add 1 of your "Cloudian" Pendulum monsters in your extra deck to your hand.

 

                               Cloudian  -  Storm Dragon (Fairy/pendulum/effect/WATER/Level-4/ATK-1000/DEF-0/PENDSCALE-3)

Effect - This card cannot be destroyed by battle. If this card is in face-up Defense Position, destroy it. Once per turn, you can place 1 Fog Counter on 1 monster on the field. Pendulum effect - Once per turn, if you have a "Cloudian" card in your other Pendulum Zone: You can destroy that card, and if you do add 1 of your "Cloudian" Pendulum monsters in your extra deck to your hand.

 

                               Cloudian  -  Turbulence (Fairy/pendulum/effect/WATER/Level-4/ATK-0/DEF-0/PENDSCALE-4)

Effect - This card cannot be destroyed by battle. If this card is in face-up Defense Position, destroy it. When you Normal Summon this card, place 1 Fog Counter on it for each "Cloudian" monster on the field. You can remove 1 Fog Counter from this card to Special Summon 1 "Cloudian - Smoke Ball" from your Deck or from either player's Graveyard..Pendulum effect - ?

 

                               Cloudian  -  Nimbusman (Fairy/pendulum/effect/WATER/Level-5/ATK-1000/DEF-1000/PENDSCALE-1)

Effect - This card cannot be destroyed by battle. If this card is in face-up Defense Position, destroy it. You can Tribute any number of WATER monsters for the Tribute Summon of this card. When this card is Tribute Summoned, place 1 Fog Counter on it for each WATER monster you Tributed. This card gains 500 ATK for each Fog Counter on the field. Pendulum effect - Once per turn, you can remove Fog Counters from the field: Increase this card's Pendulum Scale by the amount of Fog Counters removed until end of turn.

 

                               Cloudian  -  Eye of the Typhoon (Aqua/pendulum/effect/WIND/Level-8/ATK-3000/DEF-1000/PENDSCALE-?)

Effect - This card cannot be destroyed by battle. If this card is in face-up Defense Position, destroy it. When this card declares an attack, change the battle positions of all face-up monsters, except "Cloudian" monsters. Pendulum effect - ?

 

The first plays of the deck revolve around using Sheep Cloud, Ghost Fog and Cirrostratus to stack your extra deck and grab the angry clouds. Once you have some angry clouds to bring out Nimbusman will let you do that if you got enough Fog Counters. You can Pendulum summon 4 cloudians and normal summon 1 to get 5 counters, or just stack up counters with Squall. with enough counters you can unleash a natural disaster on your opponent, destroying monsters, backrow or their hand. Then Synchro.

 

 

I currently need input at the least on pendulum effects for Turbulence and Typhoon. Also, smoke ball is completely unchanged.

[Dragonman82]

Um, just what are you planning to summon? After all most of your monsters are level 4 and at minimum you need a scale 5 to summon level 4 monster.

 

As for Eye of Typhoon effect you could just have it remove counters to search cards format the deck.

[Windikite]

Um, just what are you planning to summon? After all most of your monsters are level 4 and at minimum you need a scale 5 to summon level 4 monster.

 

As for Eye of Typhoon effect you could just have it remove counters to search cards format the deck.

Early game you cycle with Sheep Cloud, Ghost Fog and Cirrostratus, then pendulum out 1 star monsters. You need to normal summon your 4 or higher cloudians for the most part until you get Nimbusman and a few counters on the field. Nimbusman can increase his scale up to ridiculous amounts with enough counters, allowing you to summon your 4 or highers.

 

I was thinking of an effect similar to the Dracoslayer xyz, but tbh the deck has sooo much searching already with Squall and Ghost Fog. They already have a bunch of removal, though the monster removal isn't too effective in today's meta, but it is a control deck. They also have card draw. 

[Dom1996]

I want to start off by saying, I really like the fact that you've gone and "updated" some of these old and beloved archtypes. 

 

Regarding Ghost Fog, Cloud Sheep, and Poison Cloud; Although it's nice to see you've buffed the power of these cards, I do have qualms about the seemingly necessary usage of them. Both Sheep Cloud and Poison Cloud are sparingly( if at all used) in "Modern" day Cloudian decks, due to the weak board effects they posses, and the inability to survive battle. Although Ghost Fog was perhaps seen more, the restriction its effect has on levels means that it is hard to make use of. All of these means that we can cut down on the clunky cards of the deck.

     However, It seems like you've made them mandatory for the deck to run, Theoretically.Ghost Fog at 1+ is an absolute must, but Cloud sheep is needed for card draw, and poison fog is needed to clear away card sheep at the end to make way for a better pendulum scale.

 

It's nice to see that Acid has some nice synergy with Poison and Ghost Fog, and can still fulfill his function while being in the pendulum zone.

 

Although I question why you decided to make Cirrostratus the draw power, It is very well designed card draw as it still leaves your scale clear for a better pendulum pair to occur, as well as stacking the extra deck. A+ with this card.

 

Without the need to special summon extra Cloudians due to the nature of pendulums, I can see why you removed the self-special summon clause from Storm Dragon, But it is still sad to see the flexibility of the card go. In replace, the ability to fetch used level 4 Cloudians is amazing,especially combining Cirrostratus in the combo. Personally, This seems like the more reliable draw combo, even if it is on a delay. The removable of flexibility in its summon is a huge blow, however, since you can only pendulum summon once per turn, and if that goes sour, the original monster effect could have helped salvaged the situation. Monster Utility vs. Scale Utility I suppose.

 

Cloudian Squall is amazing. This is the card that Cloudians needed/need to be able to move forward, at least a little bit. The ability to spam counter immediately is a huge power boost to the archetype, and when combined with the mass summons of pendulums, could drive the control aspect of Cloudians out of control. Combined with Atlus, this card could completely empty an opponent's hand. This card alone could raise Cloudians so many tiers, due to the viable nature of Diamond Dust Cyclone, and the sheer power that updraft could potentially have. This card alone could salvage Cloudians to a semi-playable tier. Is it OP? I can't say, due to the fact that it's abilities scale exponentially with more monsters on the field. Atlus can also easily abuse this card late game, after it has gained tons of counters.

        It is a field spell, however, and although that means it is searchable ( A huge plus) it also means that we can't run stall as effectivly, as you unwittingly removed the ability to play "The Sanctuary in the Sky". Spirit Barrier will have to suffice.

 

Cloudians need counters more than anything else.

 

Now lets move to Nimbusman.

I was going to say that Nimbusman was a necessary add-in, due to him ebing the only card that can summonm back the needed Cloudians, but rereading the card shows that he can't even due that right. Nimbusman is an awful card all around, IRL and here. sure, in this version of the archtype he can reach 4000, but he has no way to protect himself form any card effects. He's a glass canon that requires 5 tributes to reach 4000. Cloudians are about control, and you have to remove all of your control cards to summon this card with any respectable amount of attack. His pendulum effect is not much better, forcing you to use 4 valubale Fog Counters and control 4 Cloudians already before you can summon any of the control monsters form your extra deck. And if you have 4 monsters, you probably already pendulumed this turn. As he is now, you most likely won't see him be played, except maybe as a side-in card at 1. 

 

Moving on

 

Although Turbulence's stat change is a bit confusing ( was 800 attack really too much?) What he needs, what the archtype needs, is ways to place more counters on the field. Perhaps a "Once per turn, place a Fog counter on all Face-up monsters" would be good, as it allows him to be destroyed right after by Storm Dragon or Ghost Fog. Some sort of counter effect, or perhaps something to due with the smoke balls, since you are giving up the ability to summon them by placing this card in the pendulum zone. I still think giving him his 800 attack back isn't a bad idea.

 

Theoretically, you could salvage everything in this archetype by simply giving Typhoon a pendulum scale of 5. No strings attached. It would mean that you could maintain a control oriented field and board even after something like a Raigeki hits the defenseless Clouds. It could also mean that we could remove the small, clunky, cloud engine, opting for a more viable draw engine in the Storm Dragon- Cirrus engine, as we can always -remake the scale during the next turn with no penalty.

I personally would also place a pendulum effect to place more counters on the field, one way or another. Squall will be hit ASAP when it hits the field, so water downed version would be helpful to maintain momentum, which is why I think turbulence should also take up a similar effect.

 

I also have to question if you were planning on changing Raging Cloudian, Summon Cloud, and Natural Disaster? Raging Cloudian and Natural Disaster assumes your destroyed monster's go to the grave, and Summon Cloud has an effect that summons Cloudians form the grave. Summon Cloud could be left alone, but you should consider an update for Natural Disaster and Raging Cloudian, if just to clarify their effects.

 

Overall, although it looks very good, you have forced the players to play sub-par monsters and cards in order to unlock the full potential of the deck, if at all. Nimbusman is way to slow, way to needy for its pendulum effect, and will be one of the biggest targets to hit. The smaller clouds are clunky and difficult to use, and are not monsters you really want to summon back. The optimal scale would be either Ghost fog or Cloud dragon plus a scale of 5 of some sort. I would even throw in Igknight Margave so that we could summon back our important cards. its a searchable scale of 5+. Even though you tried to control the battle phase through the effect of Atlus, there are better cards with better effects than Atlus, like sanctuary in the sky or spirit barrier.

 

Personally, I think you might have to look back at certain cards, like Nimbusman, Sheep Cloud, and Poison Cloud and Rethink their purpose in the deck. As of now, there are better cards that can fill the roles that these cards fill. Nimbusman's monster effect has been awful for a while, and you haven't helped it with it's pendulum effect. there only 2 cards in the deck that need tributes, if you run them, so sheep cloud and it's tokens are not very good, And Poison Cloud will be run simply to clean up your scales. it's a nice summon effect, but synchroing would be an after thought.

 

The deck lacks Protection and counter making cards naturally, but the update has also driven the vital cards of this current deck away from the idea of control.

[Windikite]

Glad to see someone likes old archetypes being revamped. I'll go in order with all the points you brought up.

 

I really didn't look at modern cloudian decks at all. I used to play Cloudians, but they are so irrelevant now I could only go on what they seemed to be intended to do. Thus I needed to start somewhere when trying to fit what they already had into a new archetype. The general idea I came up with is that there are Happy Clouds and Angry Clouds. The Happy Clouds search out the Angry Clouds, bringing bad weather and control effects. I decided that since the happy clouds don't care about being normal summoned or using counters, they could be modeled after what I saw used in other Pendulum Decks to set up their plays. Based on some feedback on reddit I figured that their effects were good enough, just they didnt have enough counter generation. Rather than giving them multiple normal summons or changing their base effects I structured the deck so that the Happy would set up the extra and hand with angry and give you enough for a storm.

 

Ghost, Sheep and Poision were never used, but they had the most interesting effects in my eyes. Most of the other Clouds are just a variety of similar counter users. The other reason for making them a more focal point of the deck is Synchro. This deck was known for extreme synchroing at one point, and since pendulums prefer synchroing anyway I decided to play into that. The range of low level clouds makes synchroing very versatile for them, letting them hit anywhere from 4 to 12 pretty easily with smoke balls.

 

Small thing with the happy clouds, the general combo would be Sheep then Ghost, draw 1 off Sheep when ghost is activated, activate Ghost to destroy the now useless Sheep and search Cirrostratus, Nimbus or Poison. I made Cirrostratus draw since I couldn't find any other card that would prefer it for some reason. Anyway the easy cycle to be pendulumed later at least has vague hints at being monster focused.

 

Storm Dragon is one of the only cards functionally changed as a monster. It's effect didn't make a whole bunch of sense in a pendulum deck as it's main use so I gave it the ability to recycle cloudians from extra. The only other effect I could see working as it's pendulum effect is sending one from extra to grave to summmon it. However, I would not be opposed to changing it's monster effect to something like "grab a cloudian from grave" or "send a cloud from extra to grave to summon this from hand" or something. Don't know why but it's play with the grave before struck me as a recycling card. I could potentially make it the dedicated "fix this situation" card after a solemn or something.

 

Keep something in mind with Squall: If you pendulum summon, only 1 wave of counters hits the field since it was one instance of summoning. However, the normal summon after gets another wave, sheep's tokens get another wave as of right now, smoke balls get waves and even after that if you synchro or lose your monsters all counters go to the field spell. That is the super-powerful effect right there.

 

Tbh I don't really agree that Nimbusman is bad. I may need to change his monster effect maybe, but I think you may be misreading him. Nimbusman gains attack based on the whole field's counters, which is why I'm going to be nerfing the amount since we have this ridiculous field spell. However, his true power imo is his essentially unlimited scale. However of course you can't just nimbus immediately, you need to be able to flood some counters first. Using Ghost Fog to destroy itself on a monster and place it's counters anywhere will let you reach anywhere from scale 4-8 main phase 2 with nimbusman. Using Sheep and Squall will net you 2 waves of counters after battle along with 2 tokens so you can pendulum and potentially synchro main phase 2. If you grab nimbus after you can reliably gain counters then you just replace your scale with him and go nuts. He is also the way to get out Typhoon once I give him a reasonable boss effect. Anyway without nimbusman you wont pendulum at all without a higher scale monster.

 

On Turbulence, I actually didn't mean to hit his attack. I used Magic Set Editor and I was duplicating cards to make it go faster. I totally screwed up his stats. I actually think that the archetype can get plenty of counters on the field, but only reliably with Squall or maybe Ghost. One thing that the deck really does seem to be missing that only wavering eyes or Acid can really do is clear your scales if you have 2 useless for whatever reason. Poison can deal with 1, but not 2 since he must be in the pendulum zone to clear it. I could save this type of zone clear for another card, or maybe allow turbulence to remove 1 or 2 of your scales to search the field spell or a cloudian s/t. Giving him the counter spread would be very useful, but I'm not sure it's what the deck needs the most.

 

I don't have a problem with typhoon having a good scale, but maybe what I said about nimbus earlier changed how you saw him. Also, Squall getting hit wouldn't be that bad since potentially Turbulence could get it. I still disagree with the cloud engine being clunky, and instead rather useful for searching your clouds and getting plenty of ways to fuel counters, control and synchros. I haven't been able to come up with an effect yet for Typhoon, but I like playing off what the original cards were designed as. In this case, I think that maybe something that would destroy your clouds for a good purpose could be interesting. Something like "When this monster attacks you can change the battle position of all monsters your opponent controls. Once per turn, if you attacked this turn, you can change all cloudians to defense mode and then get some effect that pushes damage or something, maybe by summoning more clouds temporarily."

 

I will be making new Raging Cloudian, Summon Cloud and Natural Disaster cards. They won't play well either way on ygopro since this is technically a different archetype than cloudians in terms of code, but once I finish coding the cards they will all be available to download as a pack. Probably change their names to cloudian2 or something to distinguish them.

 

In my eyes, the strongest cards in the deck are not the control cards, but the engine that lets them normal summon for 5 counters, use it's effect up to 4 times if you have Squall and then synch into trishula if you like. I view the angry as machine guns you only need like 7 of really. This deck is really nothing but control, you may be missing where the control is however. It's much faster to be fair, but it will struggle to kill anyone by turn 4, it really needs to deplete their resources which is still the focus. Lastly, the deck may benefit from protection, but it's already really easy to bring back your monsters over and over again like the amorphous masses of vapors they are, I don't think they need protection really. Right now the thing the deck needs the most is counter generation to make nimbus easier to use. Turbulence might be that.

 

Anywhoo, I have been brainstorming with a completely different idea recently, giving them an excavate mechanic so that you "forecast the weather" and instead of sending a cloudian to grave, you send them to extra deck. Just a small thing.

[Dom1996]

I suppose I have read Nimbus man wrong the first time around, but it is still just a big monster. It has no innate protection, nor is there any innate protection that cloudians give each other. Also, the counter cost isn't the problem with his pendulum effect. its that I have to have 4 cloudians on the field (Of which we can only summon level 3's if hes in the scale already) or wait 4 turns with 1 cloudian. It is severe restriction on him and on the deck. The infinite times he can do this really has no meaning, since we need to A.) have cloudians on field B.) have a way to get counters reliably and c.) the only big pendulums we have in cloudians is Typhoon. No other deck would play nimbusman, and nimbusman is barely useful as he is right now in this deck.

 

It is better than I originally thought, But I think the disconnect might be in how I had viewed the deck, and personally, still do. Cloudian squall is still, as I said, godlike. Not that it needs to be nerfed, but it still an amazing card, especially the way I would play the deck.

 

The main problem I have with using the small clouds is consistency and variety. If I were to include the small clouds, other than ghost fog (Because it really is pretty good as it is now) I lose deck slots to use on control and counter play cards. I suppose you could run a synchro variant, as you said, but I feel as though you would be sacrificing a pure control build to do so. In addition, you will have to add tuner monster's, further clogging up a deck that does not have very many extended combos. The deck already runs 3 normal monsters, how many more are we expected to run? 

 

Again, I still dislike Nimbusman's pendulum effect. Unless you have worded it wrong, you need 4 on-field cloudian monsters before you can raise it's pendulum level. It requires too much set-up and too much time, and if your running a synchro variant, you most likely have lack of protection/negation cards to protect the scale that your trying to boost. I still think you need a decent scale of 5 somewhere, or else the deck wont go off.

 

Speaking of scales,you also only have 1 scale of 0, which means if you don't have ghost, your not summoning either of your small clouds, which in  turn makes your engine fail. if you want to keep your small cloud engine, you might consider making sheep a scale of 0 as well, so you can summon your clouds to begin with.

 

At least theoretically, to me it feels too slow for what you want it to do. If you pit it against a deck like Kozmo, or similar decks, your clouds can easily be out played, out-sped. Not that a scale of 5 would help all too much, but it allows you to instatly remake your board and regain control, assuming you survived. With the level 4's, not only do they act as damage reduction, but they can be comboed with other stall cards like Spirit barrier, or Sanctuary in the sky to lock your opponent out of the battle phase. Being able to re-establish that quickly is what will let this deck compete, somewhat.

 

Finally, speaking of combos, Turbulence + Squall as you have made it is a rather over-powered engine. Combine it with a rank 1 XYZ monsters, like dullahan, and you can fill your board if counters for free. assuming you dont draw a smokeball, you can fill the board with 5 rounds of counters immediately, making your diamond dust cyclone and Atlus have field days.

 

Regarding Turbulence's Pendulum effect; I could easily see a S/T search from blowing up scales. If you aren't willing to give the rank 5 to the archetype, a better scale manipulation would be useful, especially if it can kill itself and get the search. The reason I mentioned Counters is because you only have so many Squalls, and ghost fog won't always work, especially against a XYZ based deck.

 

For me, given what is here, I still would only run Ghost cloud, the level 4's, and a vanilla scale of 5 and make it effect based control and xyz monsters. Throw in supply Squad to make up for the "lost" draw power that sheep cloud provided, and run dragon cirro ghost as the main search and summon system. Supply Squad is an objectively better card, and is weak to the same things as sheep cloud. 

 

When you finish the coding, I'd be glad to try these cards out!

[Windikite]

Derp. I think I know what the issue is. I'm going off what I was able to code in ygopro, while his effect is slightly different here. I was not able to code the resitriction so I modified his effect there, which is how I prefer it now anyway. Same for some of the other cards. Check the cards now, they should be updated. This should clear up quite a lot of misunderstanding lol. The monsters that are tuners aren't effect monsters because magic set editor is weird.

 

You don't need to run Smoke Ball, he's not a tuner, but he can get you an extra level on sych if thats what you want. Poison Cloud and Cirrostratus are tuners.

 

I think I just don't see why how the archetype even with synchro can't be a control deck. Trishula and co are very controlling cards, not to mention all of the actual 4star clouds that do control. Also, there's no real reason to run more of the counter spender cloudians unless you are looking for r4nk plays, just one of them one the field is destructive enough without me even adding any effects to them. Having multiples is sort of redundant since you only need the one to machine gun their cards. The only exception I could see is penduluming out once with a couple of spenders, each will get 1 counter with field spell. Then you normal summon to give everything a counter so they all can do their effect once, except the normal summoned one which can do it twice.

 

I will look into Nimbusman's effect and scale, I was having issues using him even over the course of 2 turns but only because of the counters needed to raise his scale which could really only reliably be gotten by penduluming in the first place. Also Sheep's scale.

 

Turbulence's effect has always been pretty broken, however no one was really able to use it because of the counters required. Grabbing a 1 star monster a very large amount of times from deck or grave is a broken effect that can only be balanced by the resources needed to do it. I think the easiest choice of action here is to restrict the counter generation to when summoning cloudian pendulum monsters.

 

I will come up with a s/t effect for Turbulence, seems like the thing to do.

 

Here is a list of changes I'll be implementing then:

 

1. Nimbus scale change to 5, possible new effect
2. Squall to only trigger on Cloudian Pendulum monsters being summoned
3. S/T search off of Turbulence pendulum effect
4. Scale 0 for Sheep Cloud