Arbalest's Big Crossbow

What could possibly be a better way of warming up in this winter than to read another entry of ABC reviewing a bunch of generic NPCs, and getting to the guy who only speaks in cheesy fiery lines all the time? Tagforce 1 #12: Dante The Elemental Master of Fire, in case the name didn't give it away. Like the others in his group, he is always in the Dueling Arena in the mornings and the Obelisk Blue Boy's dorm during after school hours. He talks about the Volcano area, because, you know, fire. Too bad for him, he has to remain glued to his friends at all times so he can't ever visit the volcano. Unlike Brown whose character we can somewhat glimpse at despite his cheesy dialogue, there isn't really any character to Dante at all. It's just a bunch of lines reminding you that he is the Fire guy. At most, there's his line when you offer him a sandwich. "Sorry, I can't accept your sandwich, because it doesn't make me horny." Thanks, Dante. That's your entire character now. On the bright side, that means I can get through this part of the character analysis faster. First of all, I would like to apologize to Celia for making fun of her deck for including a singular EARTH monster. Please accept my apology, fictional girl. I should have instead saved it for Dante, because what the actual fuck is this. He gives up on making a FIRE deck halfway through and just starts tossing in cards from the Inpachi series and a few cards that feature Kozaky in them. They have little to no synergy with one another, and he doesn't run any of them at enough copies for it to be a primary strategy for his deck. On top of that, what combos he does have are just plain shit. He can use Level Conversion Lab to make Ultimate Obedient Fiend (and no other monsters in his entire deck) easier to summon, but that card only works as a giant obstacle because he will almost always have other cards in his possession that he can't get rid of on his own. He can use The Thing in the Crater in order to float, but he only has 3 possible targets for this: Jigen Bakuden (which sucks and won't even be able to use its flip effect if summoned this way), Gaia Soul (which will just die at the end of the turn), and Guardian Ceal (needs the Bow to be on the field in order to even work). He can combo Big Burn with D.D. Dynamite, but then it makes his Blasting the Ruins unplayable and weakens Cemetary Bomb (TIL: that card's name has a typo and it was never fixed). If he ever gets Ceal out onto the field, he can equip it with Black Pendant so that when Ceal's effect goes off you take 500 damage. Hell yeah 500 damage. His only good plays are to bring out Gaia Soul or Spirit of Flames for some semi-good attack power, even if those Gaia Souls die in the End Phase. As bad as his character and deck are, I at least appreciate the presumably unintentional Dante's Inferno reference. Congratulations on accomplishing one thing. How would I fix this guy's deck? Easy. Burn it. I would consider my own take on a FIRE deck incomplete. I made a Baseball deck as a young child/teenager, and it included Return from the Different Dimension and Dimension Fusion so that you could banish monsters for Spirit of Flames/Inferno much more liberally, then get them back so that your Baseball Kids could be stupidly strong. Unfortunately I don't have either of those cards yet. For the sake of FIRE purity, you could remove the Exiled Force, though Sangan and Cyber Jar are both so good that I would be hesitant to remove them as well. I used to run Twinheaded Beast as well, which worked great with your Field Spells and Chimeras, but I don't want to run more than one monster that requires a Tribute Summon and I think that Thestalos is ultimately the better choice. Score: 1/10 The next character will be a surprise.

ur mom is cow

I had meant to make this entry on Craig at least a week ago, but I had gotten distracted by a recently released mod for Duelist of the Roses that makes everyone significantly harder, makes leveling up monsters significantly faster, and lets you actually obtain any card in the game in one form or another. So I've been busy playing the hell out of that (and I haven't even started a new playthrough for the intended experience, silly me). It's a great mod and I'm really glad to see that game get some sort of love after all of these years, even if it isn't the dream that is DotR 2. Anyways, this isn't a blog about DotR, it's about Tagforce. And right now, it's about Craig. Tagforce 1 #11: Craig You can find Craig at the Cliff before school, but he goes to the Volcano afterwards (hey, we were just there!) In both instances, Craig is with an Obelisk Blue student named Matthew. It's really neat to see the generic duelists have friendships, I just wish they would at the very least acknowledge each other instead of standing together at every given moment of the day. The deep juicy lore between the two is that Craig takes dueling much more seriously than his friend does, yet Matthew is the one who's in Obelisk Blue. The most logical and BORING explanation would be that Matthew was here first, but I like the idea that Matthew is just a lazy genius vs. Craig being a determined idiot. That theory would actually make Craig's deck fit perfectly to his character. When you talk to Craig, he says that there are rumors that Zane has a brother who goes to this school. You have to talk to Syrus before even getting the chance to speak to any of the generic duelists, so, yeah, thanks for telling us what we already know, Craig. Craig wonders if this mysterious brother figure that Zane has is as good a duelist as Zane is. People call Zane "Emperor Zane" in Yugioh GX, but in Tagforce 1 the generic duelists usually talk about one thing, making Craig probably the only person who actually calls him Emperor Zane. It just makes it a lot funnier than it really is. And speaking of goofy things that Craig does, Craig likes to say your name. Most duelists don't say your name even one time, but Craig has at least four lines where he says your name. I- Craig's deck is full of naming errors. I think I already mentioned that Mist Body is called "Mistobody" here, but all of the Machina cards are "Machiners" cards. You can probably see why I said that his deck reinforces the idea that Craig is a determined idiot; he has an incredible backrow lineup featuring BTH, Sakuretsu Armor, MST, Heavy Storm, both revival cards, and even Dust Tornado. Craig's backrow makes him an annoying opponent to duel against, BUT, he is still easy. His backrow is meant to buy him time to bring out his boss monster, Machiners Machina Force. On paper, this is a pretty sound archetype for what Machina cards we have so far: You summon Soldier, SS Sniper, put Mist Body on Sniper so your monsters are safe. Then get out Machina Defender and flip it up to get Commander Covington, and bam, there you go, one boss monster. But it just doesn't work. You still need to get four monsters whose stats range from bad to mediocre onto the field just to put them together for a boss monster whose only effect is that it can detach itself to put those monsters back onto the field Valkyrion-style. You even have to pay LP to attack with Machina Force. What the actual fuck, Craig. I even copied over his deck to see just how inconsistent it is, and yes, it is terrible. You sit there and counter cards until you dead draw enough crappy Machina cards to lose. I'd fix this deck by swapping out... uh... the Gaia Powers and the Noblemen of Crossout for 3x Giant Trunade to recycle your Steel Cages/Swords/Premature while also clearing up backrow for when you go on the offensive. I also added a copy of Cyber Jar which as insanely OP as it is, it is essential if you want to bring out this shitty boss monster. Like, I could never summon Machina Force until I added Cyber Jar. The stall spells, BTH, Saku, and Widespread Ruin are great for making sure you can flip it on your turn. If you want a Machina deck in Tagforce 1, this is probably the best you can do since the archetype in its state when this game was made is not good for anything but making Machina Force. Maybe switch some card ratios around like -1 Widespread for +1 Sakuretsu. If you want to further fix Craig's deck, just switch out the Machina cards for a monster lineup that isn't garbage. Score: 5.5/10 After the next duelist, we will be halfway through the cycle of Elemental Masters. The other half won't show up for a long, long time.

The good ol' days of seeing people make this exact card in CC. Also in addition to multiple copies not stacking, this doesn't work as well with multi-attackers like Cyber Twin or other multi hitters, which is a big rip. This half looks like it could fit into a future box in Duel Links as a UR card within the next year or two. On one hand, we've had Riryoku since forever and that's been fine, on the other hand it gets more versatility out of being a hand trap and by being a monster it gets extra benefits.

Give me the deck, Joseph

I am a true warrior of the three kingdoms, give me a character.

I would very much appreciate a VERY LEGITIMATE 100% LEGAL copy of those two games. Anyway, getting this next entry done much sooner than I thought. Here's Corey. Tagforce 1 #10: Corey If you go to beach in the morning, you will find this student staring out at the ocean from the Beach. What is he looking at? Does he like staring at it? Does he want to spot a whale surface for air? Did he have a late friend who was taken by the sea and he wants nothing more than revenge? Let's ask him why he- Oh, ok. A bit rude. Maybe if I give him a sandwich, he will be more cordial to- So much for that. Anyway, he doesn't return to the beach in the afternoon. Instead, he hangs out at the Volcano. I have no idea why the Volcano is such a hot spot in the afternoons (... ... ... ... ... knOWledGe Of puN iNtenTiON deNied...), but he's one of five people who hang out there, the only one who isn't right beside someone else. His cold, robotic speech and his deck of choice make it seem like Corey here just doesn't like people. It's like he does everything he can to put them off. He isn't here to give you any advice or to reference the show. He wants you to go away. And go away we shall - to the next part of this entry. I'd like to think that originally Corey was meant to have a more potent Final Countdown deck, without the burn cards tossed in, but the people designing the game realized how unfun it was to duel him so they changed his deck to be much more merciful. Instead of having turn after turn of Trap Cards canceling your Battle Phase, he instead runs this FC/burn near-highlander disaster. He can still be tough to duel, but he's so much easier than he could be. His Solar Flare Dragons and Lava Golem work well with his stall cards, but aside from that the two win conditions aren't all that compatible. I was thinking to myself, "Hmm, Final Countdown is really annoying to play against, so do I really want to remake his deck as the infamous anti-BP stall-til-you-win deck?" And maybe the answer to that question is yes. Corey needs to figure out what kind of deck he wants to run, either Final Countdown or Burn, but not both. Since Final Countdown is more unique to him, I'll just go with that. Toss out all of the burn cards. Final Countdown works by trading one card to stop the opponent from attacking, so this means I will also have to ditch almost all the monsters. While I'm at it, get rid of the Magical Mallet, Creature Swap, Shallow Grave, Draining Shield, and maybe even the Snatch Steal as OP as it is. In their place, put in the remaining copies of Final Countdown and Different Dimension Capsule - consistency is important. Now, instead of adding three copies of Threatening Roar, Waboku, and Thunder of Ruler, I'm going to also make him more merciful, just in a way that still functions as decent stall. He can still run some of those Traps I mentioned, but not all three of them. Instead, I wanna have him focus on creating monster locks, such as The Dark Door and Gyroid, Marauding Captain, and Command Knight. These locks tend to be annoying but you can get past them with removal, as opposed to the infinite line of Traps that is pretty much only countered with Jinzo or Royal Decree. OR MAYBE I SHOULD. NO BATTLE PHASE FOR YOU EVER AGAIN. GET MORE SPIRIT REAPERS. IS THERE STILL ROOM TO THROW IN WINGED KURIBOH AND THE FLUTE SO YOU CAN SUMMON IT RIGHT OUT OF THE DECK ? Score: 8/10 Next up, we'll be going back to Ra Yellow to talk about Craig. See you then!

Don't forget to consider this kind of content spam moving backwards too

YCMaker now censoring people for discussing his own wrongdoings, threatening them with unjust punishments of their own

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You're definitely a J24^

#BoycottYCMaker #Gigadidnothingwrong #Adminsnotmadmen

I've been goofing off in YCM a while and one thing I can say concerning that site is that projection is one hell of a drug. Tagforce 1 #9: Colin Finally, someone from the Ra Yellow dorm. Colin is a dork who likes to hang out at the main gate of the school, even after school's over. He's the only generic duelist that gives you a dialogue tree when you talk to him, because he asks you something important: "Do you have a card crush in your deck?" When I first saw this question, my moron child self thought he was talking about Crush Card Virus for some reason, so this was really weird to me. It took me way too long to realize what he actually meant. As it turns out, card crushes are an odd minor theme in GX. They are cards that you add to your deck because you like them very a lot. Cards that don't fit in the deck at all, but they make your skin tingle when you look at them. Basically, you added the Dark Magician Girl to your deck for no reason you weirdo. What the hell is wrong with you? Syrus will oftentimes comment that his card crush is Thunder Nyan Nyan, and even Bastion, the Yugioh Einstein or whatever, is not immune to this. His card crush is White Magician Pikeru. Colin serves to instruct the player that adding cards to their deck because they make their peepee hard is actually a very bad idea and not to do it. Don't do it or else he will be disappointed in you. And also it will make your deck worse, but that's not as important. IT WAS ALL A LIE, A RUSE. COLIN HAS STOLEN YOUR DARK MAGICIAN GIRL AND IS RUNNING OFF WITH HER AS WE SPEAK. COME BACK HERE WITH MY WIFE YOU BASTARD So, Colin runs a Charmer Deck. He has figured out how to run card crushes without compromising his deck - or that would be what I would say if he weren't also running a bunch of flavor cards like Dryad and Petit Dragon. I don't think I've ever made Charmers simply because they look terribly RNG dependent. Like if your opponent is running an EARTH deck and you draw Hiita. Or if your opponent runs a bunch of LIGHT monsters and you can't do anything except sit there and die because Lyna the Light Charmer wouldn't be released for another 4 years. It also does not help one bit that his deck is so cramped that he cannot run any particular charmer at 3 copies, ironically due to his random deck additions that are functionally the same as card crushes despite not being traditional card crushes. I mean, unless you are madly in love with the Archfiend Marmot of Nefariousness and want to marry it? Doriado is actually great for Fuh-Rin-Ka-Zan, but by running only 1 of those and not actually working for a Doraido deck this is just a terribly inconsistent combo that leaves him with even more dead cards. I would immediately get rid of all of the familiars from this deck, as well as the rest of the normal monsters. I'd also get rid of the Spiritual Arts except for a copy or two of the WATER one, since having so many of these just adds RNG on top of even more RNG, and you really don't need that. He can also afford to lose the Weed Out since it's quite likely he will trip over it. Instead, you need to make sure you have the right Charmer for the situation. Cards like Sangan, Cyber Jar, and the Pots of Greed and Avarice will help out consistency immensely. DNA Transplant allows you to switch your opponent's monsters' Attributes to work with the Charmers you drew, though it permanently disables the other ones unless you have Heavy Storm or Giant Trunade. Swords of Revealing Light is great for allowing you to Flip Summon a Charmer without being smacked in the face for a lot of damage on the next turn. Finally he can add some cards that want to Tribute the monsters he steals. Cards like Enemy Controller, Share the Pain, or Tribute Summonable monsters like the Monarchs Zaborg or Mobius. Colin has too many waifus to put into one deck. This time he runs a deck based around White Magician Pikeru and Black Magician Curran, both in functionality as well as flavor. He then adds Fire Princess so that his normally use-impaired heal effects can be used to inflict burn damage. There's also a bunch of Token generators so that he can get even more healing and/or burn damage off with cards like Token Thanksgiving and Token Feastevil (I only learned today that the card's name isn't Token Festival). Creature Swap lets him trade one of those tokens with an opponent's monster. I'm even less knowledgeable about Princess decks than I am with Charmers, but, off the bat, get rid of cards like Queen's Double, Princess of Tsurugi, and the Pikeru Traps, since they barely contribute to the strategy. He could also ditch the Fire Sorcerers since they require you to lose two cards for an Ookazi, which is completely terrible. These cards can be replaced with a battle floater to help find either Pikeru, Curran, or Fire Princess. I say use one of these because I think he should also run a copy of a low-ATK Level 5+ monster that you can also search up. For example, if he runs UFO Turtle to search up his Fire Princess, he can also run Woodborg Inpachi as a wall that he can later swap over to his opponent with Creature Swap, then kill it for his Trial of the Princesses. Alternatively, he could just give up on the Trial of the Princesses strategy because it sucks so much ass. Since Colin has one of those special multi-choice answers and is the only generic duelist to use more than one deck, it seems like he was supposed to be more important to the player than he ended up being when the game released. This is a shame, because I'd love to see more interesting generics. Anyways, the next duelist is pure evil! I'll see you all when I'm done procrastinating for a month! Score: 9/10

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