Yugioh National Championship 2012 Coming Fast!

Alright guy, it is that time again...NATIONALS!

In the next couple posts I will be talking about a few topics for this upcoming weekend; not this weekend but the next weekend: What decks to expect to see, Great tech cards, deck that I will be playing, what cards to pick up and drop.

What decks you should expect to see play.

The obvious Top Tier decks (Rabbits, Inzektors, Chaos Dragons, Final Countdown)

I am not going to really touch on these because they are all obvious decks to see in the top tables.

I expect to see a lot of HERO decks also. It is a fairly cheap deck and it does not take Tour Guides to win. The issue with the deck now is that Rabbit since it is a for of control take away a lot of the stem a HERO deck can half. HERO deck's plays are very telegraphed and if you stop one part the chain of them winning nearly falls a part. HERO decks were very good because they had big beaters and if go rolling then it got shut down. Now, with Chaos Dragons, hitting the mainstream play, HERO's big 1900 then turn into 2500 attackers really aren't doing any good especially with the soft loop of Lightpulsar Dragon and Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon.

Dark World, finally won the 100th YCS, I don't expect to see a lot of play. Obviously there are dedicated Dark World players, such as myself (although I am not that dedicated anymore), that will be there to compete but the deck is just so lackluster now and if you don't get a grapha to the grave then it is game over.  I just don't see them really putting up much of a fight against Rabbit or Chaos Dragons.

Wind-ups, the most underrated deck, will definitely have their dedicated players as well. These players most likely will stay true to their love of the deck but again a well placed effect veiler just shuts the deck down and its all down hill from there.

Then we have Gadgets. Gadgets took Spain national by surprised for a lot of the community in the North American TCG. I don't think any really expected it but I think as players in this community should expect to see a lot of people coming out of the dark with Gadgets especially full on net-decking. I don't know what this dude played against but I don't think the meta is anywhere near the same as North American TCG. I expect a lot of people to play Gadgets but I don't expect them to do well because most of them are probably not well practiced with the deck. Also a lot will have to do with if Stock Master is legal or not.

Obviously there will always be the random decks that will see play: Sabers, Lightsworn, Blackwings, Hieratics, Monarchs, Stun, ect, ect. I just don't think that these decks in the North American meta stand much of a chance. Innovation is such an amazing thing to have especially when it comes to such a competitive card game BUT if you are wanting to win then you are going to have to play on of Top 4 decks that I means to even be considered. You can look at the other nations winning decklists, those are meaningless especially when you are comparing the meta of the two nations.

I expect in the Top 32: 9 Rabbits, 8 Chaos Dragon, 4 Inzektors, 3 Countdown, 3 Wind-up, 2 HERO, 1 Dark World, 2 Random Squeeze ins.

Our nationals are also very clean cut and straight to the point. I just want the best players to win; so they can represent us well in Tokyo.

Stay tuned for another article in the next for hours about Great Tech cards for the main deck or side deck that nearly every deck so have.

How To Profit

There are many different ways to make money from this game: Win YCS/Regionals, Scale, Trade.

Winning/Topping YCS is a pretty difficult thing to do even if you have all the best cards so I am not going to spend any time on talking about this as if it were a reality for the majority of people.

Winning/Topping Regionals is a bit more manageable for the common reader of a blog like this. It costs $20 and you receive 5 packs; which if you were to go buy packs at the store, entering a regional will save you some money (saving cents is still saving). Comparatively topping in a regional is much much easier than a YCS. There are fewer people (in most case unless you went to YCS Lima) and the player base is not as competitive. Although your prizes for winning is a binder that is mediocre at best and a mat that for the time being (if it is a newer one) is wanted. So lets say you top, you will profit basically whatever you sell the mat for. Mat will sell for roughly 60-80 bucks in most cases and you can sell the binder for 20 which will cover your entry.

I am not sure that this is the path I would choose because you are spending from 9 to at least 7 (10 hours) attempting to make $60-80 which boils down to about $6-8 an hour; that is hardly even minimum wage.

Scaling is a bit difficult and it takes a lot of practice, patience, and money to make a profit this way. But hey you know what they say "The rich are only to get richer." But if you want to take the scaling route, look up my youtube channel for more information about that. Usually the sets are what determine the amount of profit (Order of Chaos) was a great set to scale. You will need to have a lot of information about the set and determine the expected values of the holos; you will pull supers the majority of the time and if the set does not have good supers then that should be a deterrence from purchasing the set.

Lastly there is Trading. This is by far the best way to make the most money especially if you are confident in your prices and you control the trade. Controlling the trade is key when it comes to it. You look up the prices and you decide the prices of the cards. Majority of the time you will ask what a person values their cards and they will either say: I dont know or they will spew out some grossly over value of the card.

If they respond with 'I don't know' then you proceed to look the value up and give them a price with a few shaven dollars off, if it is a $10 card then you say $5-7. From there you make a profit from about $3-5. Although that doesn't seem a lot at first but if you make 30 trades like that you have just profited $90-150 in the little time you are at a locals or regional.

If they respond with 'A gross over-value of the card' you have two options: You can either walk away (which is easier) or you can sit there and try to explain to them the actual price of the card. In this case you will most likely have to trade for the card at value which is never good for profiting. The only cards I would suggest doing this with are cards that you believe will retain their value or raise in price or cards that are in high demand that you could bump up a few bucks. Either way I would typically stay away from these type of trading.

Most people believe that trading for the higher priced cards is how people make the most profit but in reality it is how to make the quickest profit. If you plan on getting out of the game soon then this is the type of trading you should do. If you plan on staying in the game for a while then focusing on the cards that range for $5-20 is the way to go. You will make the majority of your profit shaving down $5-10 cards and then re-trading them or selling them for their actual price.

Stay tuned for trades that I have made at events. I typically write down all the trades which is a great way to keep track of what you have and how much you have made.

Cards to look out for 4-18-2012

Card Look Out!


Mischief of the Yokai - STBL
Each face-up monster on the field loses 2 Levels, until the End Phase. You can remove from play this card from your Graveyard to select 1 face-up monster and reduce its Level by 1, until the End Phase. This effect cannot be activated the same turn this card is sent to the Graveyard.


This card is relatively own until 100 YCS and with Rabbit running a muck in the current meta this card ultimately stops your opponent from being able to XYZ summon TWICE. NOT ONCE BUT TWICE! 


It is current running for 5-10 but I am expecting for it to go to about 15 because it is from a fairly old set and it can definitely be the turning point of a game against any deck that XYZ on a regular basis. You can probably pick these up for 1-3 due to the fact that it is not a widely known card from Starstrike Blast.

D.D. Crow

During either player's turn: You can discard this card from your hand to the Graveyard to target 1 card in your opponent's Graveyard; banish that target.

This card is a widely known as a card for the side deck. It is really good against Dark Worlds and Inzektors. If the ruling is confirmed against Inzektors it could definitely cause D.D. Crow to be the main source of the Inzektor demise. If you don't know what I am talking about with the rulings: If you opponent goes Inzektor activate effect and you D.D. Crow will they have only one Inzektor monster in the grave then they MUST equip one from their hand and if they don't equip one from their hand then you will be able to verify that they have no legal targets in their hand. Furthermore, if they don't have a monster in their hand or graveyard know you got what you initially wanted PLUS you gain the knowledge of their hand.

Lost Blue Breaker

If there is another face-up Fish, Sea Serpent, or Aqua-Type monster on the field: You can Tribute this card to target 1 Spell/Trap Card on the field; destroy that target.

With the OCG announcement of its next structure deck and Depp Sea Diva being a confirmed card, Lost Blue Breaker will become another card to be sought after especially with the new Water Boss monsters that are in this structure deck. The card right now is going for 1-2 bucks which is really lower especially for a secret rare. I would expect this card to rise in price even if it is reprinted in the structure deck. People like to holo out their decks which would cause this to go up to a minimum of $5. 

Introduction

Hello Profiteers,

My name is Alex but my screen handle on nearly all the Yugioh sites is Jo Axel. I have been playing this game since its release in 2002. I purchased Dark Duel Stories and the rest is history. On and off for about 10 years I think most people have lead that life style but finally I am here to stay for away and decided to put some information out for everyone to hopefully use and make this hobbies of ours not only that but also an investment. Not many hobbies people invest it actually can produce a profit but when it comes to cards, it definitely can you just need to know how.

I am going to be posting here as often as possible because I know that consistency matters when it comes to stuff like this. I am frequently in discussions on what to invest in and also I do a lot of research on my own. Spending several hours a day/week looking into cards to invest in; I feel like I have become a pretty good source of how to turn profit in this game. Not all of my predictions come into the light but that is how most of it is, in the long run it really isn't about the money to be made; it is about the experiences and the friendships discovered.

I have learned a lot for playing this game and I know most of the people reading this probably can relate to that statement. But now I am going to step away from the fluffy part of yugioh and get down to the serious business of it. If you really want to call it serious business. I look forward to see all of you comments and feedback. Don't be shy and please leave me a comment even if it is just a hello.

Check out my Youtube channel, click here. It gives the basics about scaling. It will also be covering a lot of what I write here but you'll be able to see me and listen instead of read.

Also follow me on twitter @YugiohJo for more instant news and updates.