User:Okamoto Takeo

Hi there! You can call me Takeo. It's not my actual name, of course, but it's inspired by two of the many books I'm fond of. For the backstory, see my Yugioh Card Maker page. As for Yugioh, I've played the game ever since Summoned Skull held the record for mid-level ATK -- and posed a threat to lots of high-level monsters as well. My first cards were the video game promo Exodia head/Dark Magician/Blue-Eyes White Dragon that I bought from a friend. After much negotiation, I eventually traded the Exodia head for another Blue-Eyes, Shadow Ghoul, Horn of the Unicorn and Gaia Power. Of course, the metagame's moved far away from beat-down tactics since then, and I've moved too. Most of the cards I had back then, including almost all the ones I just mentioned, have been traded or otherwise put away in exchange for new favorites.

However, Gaia Power has never been far from my Deck. I got a second one as a gift from another friend, providing some always-welcome backup. (I wondered afterwards if the gift was prompted by me introducing him to someone who wanted to dispose of a Manticore of Darkness, which soon became one of his favorite cards.) I liked EARTH monsters at first because they were powerful and straightforward, and I already had a lot of them. Since then, they've gained searching power, which is a must for me because I never picked up the mentality of "slimmer Deck = better." I started the game with a 50-card Yugi Starter Deck, and 50 cards has always been a reasonable guideline to me.

I should point out a few other things. One, I don't really play the game anymore. Of all the people I know who did play, only one still has cards. All the others decided the game had too easy, and they moved on. Another thing is that I was never a serious player. A 50-50 record was normal for me -- and I found it acceptable, also. Of course, one could object, "Would you want a 50% grade on a test? That's an F!" But in the game, each duel has a winner and a loser. Every victory is offset by someone losing, so in a group of evenly-matched people, the average record will be 50-50. (Plus, I think it's far more fun that way. I didn't play because I knew I'd win -- I played because I wanted to see if my trick would work.)

As for the anime, I've watched almost all the episodes in the first two runs and most of the 5D's run. However, I haven't watched any episodes ever since Placido got busted in half and Grannel Infinity made its on-screen debut. I'm more than content to read the summaries; the writers have so many freaking subplots going that I've essentially given up on them getting back to resolving the subplots from earlier. (They could have ended the series at the end of the Dark Signer arc, and the only real loose end I would have wanted tied up was the "fifth dragon" question.)

Notable Decks I've Built:
 * a deck for summoning Fusion monsters as often as possible
 * And I did it without having seen one episode of GX, thank you very much.
 * a Burn deck containing no monsters
 * It was intended to make monster destruction tactics invalid. Win/loss-wise, it was an utter failure.
 * a Gladiator Beast deck
 * plus a few extra grappling monsters added for fun like Hyper Hammerhead, Kuriboh, and Stardust Dragon

If I had to start over again, I'd probably want to invest in a Naturia deck. It has lock/counter strategies (always fun to watch in the anime, even if the Lock decks never work on the protagonists), searching, lots of little monsters, and -- of course -- a preponderance of EARTH. But that would be quite the investment, and I've found that whenever I buy a particular card (or even a tin in order to get its featured card), the result is never as good as I expect it to be. My favorite strategies came from trades or from cards (especially Common cards) that I pulled by chance from packs and decided to make the most of. (I bought a boxed set in hopes of getting Soul Rope, but I got Vortex Trooper instead. I got a Soul Rope later, but it didn't do as much for my Gladiator Beasts as Vortex Trooper did.)