Photon Saber Tiger - PST

        I have loved this card since I picked up a playset at YCS Kansas City.  A light level 3 Beast that searches another copy of itself (+1 anyone?), provides fodder for Chaos Monsters, gets bigger when you have another copy on the field, AND is perfect for XYZ summoning Rank 3 monsters.

Under Rated Tech Cards!

With Rabbit.dek taking the throne from Plants, there has to be some adjustments made to the maindeck.  I've been toying around with a few cards since selling my Tour Guides and now I think that I may have hit the jackpot.

Kuriboh Khaos Kontrol Update : Part 1

Hey guys, I need help with my Kuriboh deck.  As it stands, I believe the deck is pretty solid but there is a lot of times when my opponent will drop a well timed Thunder King Rai-Oh and I'm struggling to find answers.  Another problem I've been having is people figuring out my decks weakness:

WTF Konami!

I am completely flabbergasted at the amount of Brokenzors coming up for the next format...

Problems with Playtesting on DN!

Dueling Network is an amazing resource for toying around with new ideas with deck.  Without paying a dime or traveling to the nearest card shop, you can play Yugioh using cards you might not otherwise have access to or may not care to find.  That said

Competing with the Meta

Like many who try to play this game competitively, I am struggling to find a deck that both agrees with my playstyle and is fast enough to keep up with everythingthatrunstourguide.dek! Don't get me wrong.  I gladly welcome the challenge.  There are plethora of ideas out there and I am just going to have to narrow down which ones are actually viable.

Photon Chaos Decklist

After I sold my Tour Guides at YCS Kansas City, I decided that it was time to go back to what is the most fun for me in Yugioh.  Creating my own unique builds and playing them against the established meta.  With that in mind, I picked up a set of Photon Sabre Tigers and built a deck around them.

Humbling Experience #3

I wanna begin  by apologizing for wasting everyone's time with my Road to YCS KC series.  Going in to the event, I felt more confident than I ever have in my ability to play a children's card game.  Part of winning is having the winning attitude.  And I had a LOT OF IT!

Contest Time!

In general I despise YouTube contests.  The reason is because so many of them are geared to gaining subscribers and promising the entrants with things that are never going to come to fruition.  If you have been subscribed to me from the beginning then you know that my contests are geared towards just having fun.  The prizes are great and the rules are always simple:  Post your entry as a video response and HAVE FUN!

Make Me A Banner!

I'm in need of a few items.

[Project DOC]

If you head over to Team Dark Armed Monarch's YouTube channel you will find an interesting YugiTuber named Stephen.  He is currently in the progress of assembling short video logs chronicling the trials and tribulations invovled with this way of life we call Yugioh.

Dueling Network - DUBKDADONE

It has become necessary to repeat myself over and over again because so many people either do not or will not listen to the words in my videos.  If I am on Dueling Network, more than likely I am in the middle of a Duel.  If you would like to play me, then feel free to find my username, "DUBKDADONE," in the "Profile Viewer". Next add me as a friend.  Finally click, "Watch Duel" and the system will take you to my game in progress and you are free to request a game in the Watcher's Chat.

Dubkdad1's Respite

Don't worry, the Vlog's are still coming.  Unfavorable weather coupled with other responsibilities have prevented me from finding time to sit and record my daily Yugioh thoughts.  I have quite a few things in store over the next few weeks.

Road to YCS KC : What do you think thus far?

Hey guys.  I'm interested to find out what you all think about my YouTube series so far.  As I've said in the videos, I'm trying to chronicle my preparations for the event via VLog.  In doing so, I hope to capture the imagination and the support of my subscribers so that as well provide a way to constantly push myself to strive for the top spot.

Up and Coming Yugi-Tubers!

As of lately, I've been extremely bored out of my mind by the content or lack thereof from many of the "old hands" of Yugi-Tube...  The big names - myself until recently included - seemed to have gotten complacent with their "super star" status and have just not been putting as much effort into their videos as they were in the past when they were hungry.

Successful Troll was Successful!

Innovation is born out of necessity!  If you don't possess the expensive meta defining cards, then you MUST INNOVATE in order to be successful.  So many people are still up at arms about the price of Tour Guide.  If I didn't own them then I would be running something that either did not need them or find a suitable replacement and alter the deck accordingly.

Derp Wins Games!

I will try to explain the phenomenon that is "Victory Without Running X Card." I am talking about the people who claim that certain cards are not required to run certain decks effectively. Starting with Gladiator Beasts, Prisma vs Prismaless. If you found great success with your GB deck that didnt run Prisma back in the day, can you honestly say that it was BECAUSE you did not run Prisma?

New Era of Fun Decks!

I have decided to retire my Yusei Fudo deck series and now I have begun to undertake building a Yuma Whateverthafuckhislastnameis deck.  The main purpose as always is to use a few of his signature cards and create a deck that spam XYZs consistently.  I haven't exactly figured out which monsters I'm going to use because a lot of them suck.  But I'm looking at a few possibilities:

Kattabingu vs Bring It!

WTF???  Yugioh Ze(x)al debuts this weekend on w/e channel and I'm hoping to God that they don't translate Yuma's catch phrase into one of many shitty fanlations I have seen:

Regional Report 10/08/2011 - Lenexa, Kansas

It was decided that I would drive to this event since I had the most roomy vehicle. It was cool except that I had to work all day Friday. No matter I'm a BOSS and BOSSES don't fucking need sleep! So Friday night Team DKF!!! gather at aznpersuasion2008's house around 9pm. We get our deck registration forms printed out, binders organized, builk foils bundled up to sell to vendors, decks re-sleeved, and make a playlist for the trip (Isely Brothers, Smokey Robinson, Gap Band, Ice T, other old school shit because I'm old too.) Then we were all settled in for power naps around midnight, azn's phone starts blowing up and everyone from our town who is going to the Regional starts calling to see if they can meet up at his house. He says yes and suddenly we're overcome by eager beavers and my calm is ruined.

Gangstas Don't Dance They Boogie?!?

OMFG!  Has Konami gone done fucked up...AGAIN?  Yes friends, we are in the midst of the season of TCG Exclusives.  Tengu, Tour Guide from the Underworld, and now D-Boyz.  Sometimes I'm bothered that a majority of the people that play this game are "B"ad "K"ids and are incapable of predicting trends or quickly analyzing card interactions.  How many people do you know that said that Tour Guide was garbage because it could only get Sangan?

Leeching the Light

Congrats are definitely well deserved for Billy Brake for finally bringing home the Title!  It was absolutely hilarious that he won the match using Leeching the Light.  It's kind of funny how crappy foils, rares, and commons seem to find their way into playability.  From Mind Control during the Gladiator Beast Format, Royal Oppression during the DAD Return Format, Puppet Plant last format, and now Leeching the Light.

Tech Choices for the Format

Plants win yet another YCS. Makes me damn proud because as you all know I've been a plant player since Dandylion was at two copies per deck.  As excited as I am about the results of Toronto, I cannot allow myself to forget that Agents are a HUGE contender this format before the release of Dark Worlds.  I have to ask myself what are my options in combating both Agents and soon Dark Worlds. 

Welcome to the NEW FORMAT GAIZ!

What are you going to run this format?  Are you going to retool your old deck to fit the new format, innovate something new, or are you going to wait and figure out what you can netdeck after Torronto?

Playtesting vs Theory-oh

So I'm sitting behind my computer screen checking out other people's opinions on the new Sept 1st forbidden/limited list.  First thing I notice is that almost everyone is saying the same damn thing...verbatim!  LS are gonna be broken,  Zombies are broken, Heavy Storm back means that people aren't gonna set a bunch of backrow cards now, Mind Crush is at two so noa I rek some nubs, blah, blah, blah...

Open Letter to Konami

Dear Konami,

  My name is B. Darnell Alexander and I have a YouTube channel called, "dubkdad1."  On this YouTube channel, I positively promote Yu-gi-oh and as a result I have obtained over 16,000 subscribers many of whom are loyal followers of my videos.  On any given day, some 5,000+ people are viewing videos I have created about this game.  Lately, however, I have become more and more frustrated by a few things that are going on with my favorite hobby of all time.  I'm writing this letter to express the grievences that I and other competitive players have with the way you run Organize Play in Yu-gi-oh. 

Konami Keeps on Trollin

Whatever your opinion you have about Konami, you cannot doubt that they know how to market product unlike any other gaming company in the world.  They really aren't as concerned about Organized Play as they are concerned about their true cash cow...

Deck Concept I'm Considering

I really hate this time of the year in Yugioh.  Early to mid August/February is sort of the lull in competitive yugioh.  Twice a year, Konami sees fit to drop the banhammer or ease a previous banhammer on cards in the card pool.  I have absolutely no motivation to test, play, or even spend money on anything Yugioh related.

Cards I Miss, But Are Too Broken To Ever Come Back part 1

What are some of your favorite cards of all time?  If you are like me, the damn card is probably banned...and more than likely it deserved it's banned status.  To the newer players or less competitive players, understanding the Restricted status of cards is difficult.  This can be attributed to the fact that they either did not play the game in the card's prime, therefore don't have recurring nightmares of it's brokeness.  Or for whatever selfish reason, they just want to run the card because it's cool.  In today's article, I'll discuss my Monster of All Time:

Making Overpowered Cards Balanced

Twice a year, Konami sees fit to Limit, Semi-Limit, or outright Ban cards because of their inability to fully grasp card interactions with cards they create set to set.  The best way to explain this is Rescue Cat.  The card in of itself was bad Design, as Inherent +1s are not good for the game.  However, the card had always been balanced by the fact that cards you could grab with it were absolute GAAHBIJ!  That all changed with the release of  X Saber Airbellum and later on XX Saber Darksoul.  It's almost like they make cards just so they can ban cards... 

Analyzing the Recent Success of Anti-Meta

Whether you are using Tech Genus, Malefic Beats, or even Anti Monster Beasts, you are using an anti-meta deck.  The obvious definition for anti-meta is any deck that seeks to counter the current meta.  Not too long ago, Gravekeeper's did that job very well.  Now they seem to be eclipsed by more battle oriented decks.  Where GK's depended on Necrovalley to shut down graveyards and gain atk/def stats, this new breed of decks use specialized monsters with advantage generating effects on their own without much reliance on other cards.

Sacked vs Outplayed

How many times have you been in a tournament and heard someone exclaim, "ZOMG, I got sacked soooo hard!" or "Good job, you outplayed me sir!"? I'm pretty the amount of times you heard the former far outnumbers the times you heard the latter.

XYZ!!!

First, let me just correct some of you idiots right now.  The mechanic is called XYZ, pronounced "Ik-Seez". No Konami did NOT change the name of the mechanic. There should be no LOGICAL reason to say asinine things like, "I prefer to say Exceeds!" 

Dueling Network

As much as I love yugioh, I really HATE Dueling Network at times.  How many retarded people are their in this world?  Sometimes I just wanna rage quit life when I'm playing some REALLY (B)ad (K)id and they try to oppress during the Damage Step and claim that they are a "level 3" judge and therefore they should know if it works or not. 

Yugioh Jargon 3 - Words and Phrases Not Found in the Manual

Welcome to another edition of this series.  This week I want to talk about some of the gestures made by players in competitive play.  Sometimes you see these things and wonder if the person has AD/HD or are they just retarded. 

Yugioh Jargon 2 - Words and Phrases not found in the Manual

Last week we talked about commonly used phrases and gestures used by competitive players and what they mean.  Let's continue looking at some more phrases that were not brought up last time:

Yugioh Jargon 1 - Words and Phrases not found in the Manual

Hello friends.  To some of you who have been playing this game a short while have often sat nearby while two veterans are going at it and heard them exclaim or mutter words and phrases that obviously have relevance to the game, but the meaning of such totally escapes you.  Or sometimes you observe many people using the same manerisms or gestures.  I will try to define and bring to light many of these things to you to help you fit in with the vets in this series of Blog posts.

Where are the Good Yugitubers?

Just want to express my extreme disgust at the quality of Yugitube right now.

The Ballad of Don Zaloog, Part 1; Chapt 1

This is the Ballad of Don Zaloog, explicit lyrics
Goodie goodies, and kids shouldn’t hear this.

Now follow me as weave this epic journey

Cliff, Gorg, Chick, Meanae, and Donny Z.

Murderous, thieving, thugs who just don’t give a shit:

They are the Dark Scorpion Clique.

Decklist Compendium - 2010

Here you will find decklists for decks I created for 2010

Decklist Compendium 2011

Here you will find decklists for decks I created for 2011

Pictures From YCS Dallas

Here are some pictures that I took from YCS Dallas.  More will be added as the weekend comes to a close.

Puppet Jutsu - Karakuri Deck

Below is my take on the Karakuri deck.  It is a work in progress and I am in need of a few more cards.  Namely the synchros.  Let me know if you would like see a video about the deck when it's finished.

Why, Why, Why?

I am just wondering why Konami decides to make some Archetypes more playable than others.  There are so many interesting Archetypes out there: Koa'ki Meiru, Psychics, Dark Scorpions, etc, but Konami just gives them half ass support or totally forgets about them.  In Extreme Victory, apparently Psychics are getting new support involving the RFG mechanic, but if they don't include ways to quickly fuel that mechanic specifically for that Archetype, it will again be another half assed piece of support.  Let me know what you think.