Leaving Competition

A few of you may sometimes enjoy the tournament reports or other meta analysis that occasionally appear on this blog, so today I wanted to explain why that hasn't been happening as much over the past month or so.

When the April 2014 banlist was announced, it was impossible to not notice that Bujin and Geargia had been left virtually untouched despite their strong showings in events over the course of the January 2014 format. You may remember this post wherein I tried to find out which decks have good match-ups against both of them in the hopes of finding something good to switch to after the end of my time playing Blackwings, because I honestly absolutely hate playing against either of those decks. However, I wasn't able to find any conclusive answers that also were a good fit for my playstyle.

Around this time I also had a lot of big assignments for school coming up, so I decided I'd just take a short break and wait to see if Dragons of Legend could bring a positive change in the game. This decision was made a million times easier by the fact that I was able to finally reach my goal with Blackwings right before these problems became a big deal, so I no longer felt as much pressure to go to events.

So April came and went, and Dragons of Legend was released. As it turned out, the set actually ended up releasing several powerful, influential cards that had an immediate impact on the game. Although this was what I was hoping for to an extent, it also unfortunately spelled the return of Dragon Rulers, yet another deck that I hate playing against. Not only that, but individual cards entered the meta that I'm sure would cause me to need a saltshaker, like Soul Charge and Wiretap.

So here we are today, in early May. After thinking long and hard about the impact of Dragons of Legend (and soon, Primal Origin) on the game, I'm thinking about extending my break from competition for a while longer. Not only are the cards and decks I mentioned keeping me away by making the game less fun, but I've found a new way to play that lets me enjoy Yugioh on a consistent basis without having to attend locals or even play against other people at all. Even if I wanted to go back to locals, I also still haven't settled on a new deck to play.

So for the next couple of months, I'm going to make an effort to stay away from locals for the most part and see if the July 2014 banlist makes things any better. I honestly just don't want to play in an environment where Bujin, Geargia, Dragon Rulers, and Quasar Plants are a thing. I really, really don't. But if by some miracle I stumble onto a competitive deck that can hang with the big threats, then I may start playing in events again.