Sylvan Learning Center - part 1: Card Choices

From Debris Hime to Quickdraw Dandy Warrior to Synchrocentric, whenever plants have had strong cards available, they have always been a powerful engine.  Konami has finally released a Plant Archetype consisting of cards that have characteristics of Monsters of other themes.  They have also granted the deck an array of combos that produces some of the most dominating fields the game has seen.  The only things keeping this deck from being the number one played deck in the Meta are the facts that the deck can serve up some of the WORST unplayable hands and that the learning curve for the deck is extremely high.  Unlike some of the other decks in the format, this deck is unforgiving and has no "I win" cards that can just be played from the hand or activated on the field such as Geargiagear with no prior setup.

In this series of articles, I would like to discuss how to improve the deck and its faults.  I would like to offer outside of the box ideas for card choices, combos, and useful interactions between the cards in this deck and other strategies in the current Meta.

Deck Compendium 2014

Decklists Created for 2014

Do you really need to run 3 MST? Part 1

I want to explore a concept that I have been messing around with.  In the last few years, there have been many decks that have chosen to forgo Spell based Spell/Trap removal, namely Mystical Space Typhoon.  Consider this:  The decks that you actually want spell and trap removal against, run in excess of 10 traps and they happen to set multples on their first turn.  In your opening hand staring down a Fire Fist Bear with 4 set cards, how many of those 6 cards do you actually want to be Mystical Space Typhoon?

Analyzing Hieratic Dragon Rulers from ARGCS Nashville

Whether it be over representation or the fact that the deck is that good.  Hieratic Rulers made a good showing at the event.  My only regret was that the pilots of the deck had just recently picked up Hieratics in general and had no background with the former versions of the deck.  In this article, I'm going to analyze my favorite list from the event, Chris Leblanc's Hieratic Ruler decklist.

Super Secret Secrets

I used to be like many of you and get upset when the high profile players come up with super secret strategies and refused to share them with the masses.  It used to annoy me that "I" was kept out of the loop.  What makes them so special that they feel that only the select few should be privy to such information?  The answer to the question is quite simple and depending on your reaction is the VERY reason why "YOU" are also kept out of the loop.

Mediocrity...

Usually, the beginning of a format means that there will be a plethora of really decks floating around in the competitive scene.  However, coming out of consecutive explosive formats, everything just seems so meh.