[Leaderboard] 2016 Postseason (FINAL - Part 2)

[Flash Flyer - Sakura]

General stuff

- First to 3 votes or whoever gets the most votes by 3 pm HST on 5/12/2016 wins
- Voters must elaborate on their votes
- Participants or I reserve the right to nullify votes if reasoning is insufficient.

- Winner moves on to finals and receives a rep from the opponent
- All voters will get reps for accepted votes

Requirement

Make a card based on a Pokémon of your choice (can be legendary, starter, standard or some event)

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Card A

 

2 Level 5 monsters
● While in Attack Position: This card's original ATK becomes 3000 and its original DEF becomes 0. Once per turn, during either player's turn: You can detach 1 Xyz Material from this card; change this card to Defense Position.
● While in Defense Position: Once per turn, this card cannot be destroyed by card effects. At the end of the Damage Step, if an opponent's monster that battled this card was not destroyed: Halve that monster's ATK.

 

Card B

 

 

Cannot be Normal Summoned/Set. Must first be Special Summoned (from your hand) by having 5 or more WIND monsters in your Graveyard. Once per turn: You can send 1 WIND monster from your hand to your graveyard; this turn this monster can attack your opponent directly, but other monsters cannot attack.

 

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Because of how double elimination works, we have another match for the finals. So yeah, whoever wins this one gets the Postseason. 

[Yuuji Kazami]

Alrighty. Let's see on both sides.

 

Card A: A generic R5 that is very, very powerful considering its effects in combination with the high stats. The only other card that I can think of that is equal to its power would probably be Utopia the Lightning, although it requires a much stricter condition with Level 5's unless you use another Utopia to Xyz Summon. I'm rather hesitant about this card because having an Original ATK of 3000 and a quick protection effect to switch it to DEF position and protect itself OPT from card destruction. The additional effect would further deter your opponent from attacking, although I'm debating with the fact if it makes the card a little too much. It's very useful, yes, but there's also the fact to consider that your opponent would require atleast 2 cards to get rid of this thing if they wish to pop it with a card effect. Battle is usually out of the question, although it's still a possibility to consider.

 

On the plus side, direct R5 Xyz Monsters are rarely used nowadays. Pleides does see some sort of play, and aside from getting out Nova to Infinity, I don't think that there's much Decks that would take effort to make R5's. However, Decks such as Wind-Ups, Artifacts, Igknights to an extent, and maybe some few odd Decks that can access Astral or Level 5's could use this. Due to the lack of power that R5's have, and with Decks such as Artifacts and Wind-Ups not being as prevalent as before, I suppose that giving it more punch than the usual R5 is still acceptable.

 

I would've been satisfied had the stats been 2800 or 2700. 2900 and 3000 feels a little too much, but only a little.

 

Card B: This card works well in WIND decks, like "Harpie", "Gusto", "Mist Valley", "Mecha Phantom Beast" and "Dragunity". It has a similar Summoning Condition as the Elemental Lords, minus the drawbacks and the fact that it only needs to be first SS'ed before cards like COTH can be used on it. It's a bit underwhelming in my opinion, as opposed to card A being tadly overpowered. This makes this a rather hard choice, as Card A's direct damage effect isn't anything too special. I do like the fact that it's a sneak win, and I rather like cards such as Heartlanddraco and the like.

 

Also, since it's a Level 7, Mecha Phantom Beasts could use it rather easily for getting out Draccosack. Harpies, if they do choose to run the Pet Dragon, could also make a rather easy R7 for something like Big Eye I guess. Dragunity for a quick Level 8 synchro, and so on. There's a lot of decent plays that you can make with this card, but aside from using it as Material for another Summon, the primary effect doesn't feel too useful. It's similar to Rapid Warrior, yes, but the cost associated with it makes it feel a little out of place with the sending. Useful for Harpies to a decent extent, but for the other archetypes, it's not as effective.

 

I'll vote Card C for now. However, if nobody else votes or if someone else votes with a good reasoning that I had missed in which that it would sway my decision, I'll change my vote. Is that okay?

 

Expanded decision:

 

Card A: Thinking more, the time that it requires to get the Level 5's out are usually rather difficult, although Cyber Dragons can pull it off rather easily. However, getting the Level 5's out would most likely opt for Nova and Infinity as opposed to this card. However, in the right circumstance, such as the opponent having a 3000 non-targetable beater such as Kozmo Dark Destroyer or Eclipser, then this card is definitely a useful defense against it. You could opt for a suicide, but considering that this card can protect itself by using its effect, it's much more favourable to have this card as a shield as opposed to a beater. Kozmos wouldn't have too much difficulty ridding this card either. After all, Mojo, Dark Planet, and Dark Lady can all act as fair outs.

 

Against other meta Decks, such as Rank 4 spams with Castel, Utopia the Lightning, etc, this card doesn't stand too much of a chance honestly. Sure, the card has high stats, but OPT card effect destruction protection isn't really that good. Currently, I'm actually thinking that this card may not be as unfair as it initially seemed. Not all Decks can use this, but this card can also act as a R5 Diamond Crab King with slightly more buffs as compensation for taking the effort of using Level 5's.

 

Well, there's also the fact that Star Drawing exists. Might cost you your Normal Summon, but still a fun and rather useful card if you happen to pull off the Xyz. 

 

Card B: To be honest, Dragon Ravine does exist, so I'm re-thinking on this card as well. The Summoning condition can be easily fulfilled in the Deck, and running more than one copy with Dragunities wouldn't be as much of a risk as it is in other Decks. (Drawing this within the first turn could cost you a card, giving you only 4 to work with, and its near impossible to fulfill the conditions with the remaining 4 cards to Summon this card). However, let's say that this card is just used as one copy, and discuss about its effectiveness from there.

 

This card is rather fun to bash your opponent for 2700 damage, yes, but if any effect removes this card from the field after paying the cost can cause problems. (E.G. Raigeki Break, PWWB, etc, although people rarely use them nowadays). Kozmos could be a problem, although if you're smart enough, I suppose that you could outplay it. Then again, Magespecters are still seen around, Spirit Beasts to an extent, and other Decks with removal such as Icarus Attack or Fire Lake can also play around this card. If we're talking about effect negation, then it would apply to both cards, so I can't make any points there.

 

(Still thinking of reasons)

[Flash Flyer - Sakura]

Voting card C is perfectly legal (and you're not required to change your vote if there's a tie at the end). 

[Flash Flyer - Sakura]

The deadline technically expired 5 hours ago (and I was around doing stuff), but as it's a 0-0-1 vote (card C) and it cannot occur in Pre/Postseason, time for my tiebreaker. (I probably should've said to consider the abilities of the Pokemon that were chosen, given the nature of the theme. And to be rather honest, I was going to restrict this to the Eons [both of them], but voted otherwise to make it open to everything.

 

But enough of my rambling, here we go (even though I know who made what)...

 

Card A is certainly reflective of Stance Change, which inverts Aegislash's ATK/DEF if it switches battle position (remember #52, guys?). Granted, 3000/0 on a generic 2 mat Rank 5 that can freely attack and change itself to Defense Position to block destruction efforts may appear to be overbearing. ZW-Leo Arms has 3K ATK but is barred from direct attacks; Dark Requiem is vanilla unless you Rank-Up from DRXD (as far as anime-verse is concerned right now) and the other 3K and over R5 Xyz require 3+ mats. In terms of Rank 5s, there are certainly plenty of options that one can use (not all of them are meta at this time, but they exist; options include Artifacts, Chronomaly, CyDra, Constellar/Sacred and so forth). Aegislash does have dual 150 defenses in XY/ORAS, so I can probably see why the creator opted to give it a high DEF for a Rank 5.

 

Defense effect is pretty much King's Shield and blocks Raigeki, RDA and its expies and even Dark Destroyer (among other things); on that note, this can even wall said Destroyer in battle. Translating terms from Pokemon to Yugioh, KS drops Attack two stages (or halves), which it certainly exemplifies here.

 

So yeah, you can consider this to be extremely difficult to remove without the use of Castel/other non-destructive removal (or you force this into Attack Position, where its immunities are gone). I have to give credit to card A for incorporating the qualities well in this card, even though it does come off as a bit of a pain to get rid of at times (though Rank 5s aren't really prevalent nowadays; if this were a R6, then we'd probably be having a different conversation b/c that one does have viable targets to play with, especially with Cyber Angels and the like)

 

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Card B shares the same summon restriction as Windrose, but is arguably easier to use (you just need 5 or more + can revive it later on via CoTH without any restriction). However, it's simply a direct attacker and costs hand advantage, albeit 2700 points of damage is not fun to take either way. I know the above poster mentioned MPBs as a possible user for this (keep a spare O-lion in hand, ditch it and SS a Token, then proceed to Rank 7 with other monsters). Suppose this could be a replacement for Tempest (which I personally have used in here for a time) late-game, but yeah that's about it. Ravine exists, so Dragunities can also play with this if they want to, since their Graveyard will likely be full of monsters by then.

 

I don't know; maybe No Guard is the basis for this card's ability to direct attack. The inherent SS; its general high speed perhaps?

 

In any case, it's essentially a 2.7K monster that gets into your face, assuming you can provide discard fodder (and is generally easier to summon).

 

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So really, which one deserves to win the championship: A Rank 5 (#52) that can protect itself + weaken opponents that dare to strike it or a late-game direct beater for WIND decks?

 

Flavor-wise, I think card A would get it here, despite my slight power concerns on its DEF (though Crab King does the same thing and is R4, bar for its OPT protection from destruction effects). It reflects Aegislash's qualities here (which are certainly representative of what it's capable of doing in-game). Normally this section wouldn't be emphasized much, but since this is a Pop Culture thing, it's here.

 

Balance-wise, I'd probably give it to B, if only because it's not a pain in the neck to take out like A (which will leave the opponent with halved ATK if they survive the battle). However, A is probably fine, given that only a handful of Decks can even go into this in the first place, so it's probably fine.

 

Usability, pretty much A. It's basically a generic R5 that also has utility for weakening up the opponent. B has reasonable conditions, but generally reserved for late game plays (but it can help).

 

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Honestly, I'm generally torn right now, but voting A because I find it to be more useful in the long run than B. Don't get me wrong; B is certainly playable but its only niche is just blasting the opponent for massive amounts of damage (or fueling R7 stuff for MPB and Harpies; probably the former IMO).

 

So in a way, Gadjiltron takes this one and overall, the championship.

 

(Just be patient while I PM Rai to make the awards for Postseason. Also take this as a note that it is possible to make Advanced-level Pop Culture cards)

 

Yuuji gets repped for voting, despite a card C thing. (You can message me privately about who you would've voted for)