Thursday 17 March 2011

Vala-Infernity: The topdeckiest deck around

"Infernity Archfiend"
Hello, ladies and gentlemen. Today I shall be presenting you with the product of countless hours of work and the depletion of my wallet. I will be trying out a new layout for decks and I most certainly hope you enjoy it. I got the idea for the layout from this blog: http://btmwanarchy.blogspot.com/ . Please leave any suggestions in the comments section, I'm keeping my eye out for new ideas that haven't been tested before.

Deck Overview


Main Deck
Extra Deck
Hopefully you will be able to make out my deck from that scale. As you can see, I run 15 monsters. For those who are unfamiliar with Infernity, 15 is considered somewhat excessive. I shall now proceed to analyze each section in depth.

Monsters


Monster Line Up
This is my monster line up. As you can see, I favor the Avenger variant. From testing, it is a lot more consistent, versatile and powerful. My preference is also for 3 copies of Infernity Mirage. Whilst some people may argue that 3 copies can lead to dead draws, I'm inclined to disagree. 80% of the time Mirage is active, and let us not forget that Mirage has uses outside of mindless OTK plays. It can set up strategic support, form walls and launch a flurry of synchros out of the blue. If one is unfortunate enough to draw double or, worst case scenario, triple, then they can make Grepher and Inferno active.

I have my build set to what I like to call intermittent synchroing, i.e. making non-major synchro plays. This can be something simple like making a Catastor or Stygian and burning through a few of my opponent's resources. It's good to force out Solemn Warnings early so I am unimpeded later on in the match.

Spells


Spell Line Up
I have received criticism about maining RotA. Some people say that it leads to dead draws, however, this is simply not the case. Baring in mind this deck possesses no draw power, the probability of me drawing Grepher and Knight before RotA is low. And even if it does happen, I can make Inferno and Brio live. The ability to become Dark Grepher or Armageddon Knight is why I'm a huge fan of RotA. It's rather versatile.

With its newly limited status, I'm re-experiencing "single copy syndrome" with BoM. BoM is amazing in 2s, however, a single copy simply isn't reliable enough to fulfill its role consistently. It will most likely become a Solemn Warning in the next few months.

I only like maining 1 MST. Its only real use in this deck is to rid the field of annoying Royal Oppressions, Necrovalleys and other frustrating continuous spells and traps. Blind firing into your opponents back row is terribly inefficient and has a low success rate, hence only 1 copy.

Traps
Trap Line Up
This is my trap line up. I main the standard 3 Barriers and 1 Break. Barrier is simply phenomenal and I cannot urge enough how important it is to main it in threes. I'm only maining 1 Solemn Warning due to space constraints, however, once a slot is free, I will most certainly add in a second copy. 3 Barriers, 2 Solemn Warnings and a Solemn Judgment render most decks totally useless. I'm quite a big fan of Warning at the moment (who isn't?). As mentioned in my previous post, TRA in the extra deck works very well in tandem with it, they both mitigate one another's weaknesses and can be very powerful. Solemn Warning helps fix a lot of the deck's consistency issues by providing unconditional negation.

My preference is for two copies of Infernity Inferno as opposed to three. In a previous post, I mentioned how much I loathe Inferno. However, from testing without it, I found that the deck became too slow without it, and it removed the OTK as a consistent option. I don't like drawing it too often, hence only two copies.

Call of the Haunted is a given in any Infernity deck, however, I felt I saw it far too little. Instead of omitting it, I decided to pair it up with a very old card; Archfiend's Roar. Essentially acting as a tailor made CotH, Roar has proven itself to be an asset which will not leave my trap line up for a very long time.

I'm still sticking by BTH. In my personal opinion, I believe that most (if not all) control decks should be maining this in 2s. It's not as good as it used to be, but the ability to ruin combo plays, cripple early summons and waste through my opponent's resources is far too good to pass up.

Trap Stun is still a good contender in my opinion. Whilst most of the meta has become scarce of traps, Trap Stun is still excellent against opposing control decks, or any lower tier deck for that matter. As I said before, I'm not a huge fan of blind firing with MST.

Extra Deck
Extra Deck Line Up
Most of my Extra Deck is standard, but I will cover a few things.

First and foremost, the deck is devoid of any level 7 synchros. The only possible way to summon them is by bridge synchroing, but in most cases, it's better to simply hold on to your synchro monster and preserve advantage when possible.

Some people have reduced their Hundred-Eyes Dragon count to 2, but I find myself using all three too often to reduce the quantity that I use. It's also very good outside of OTK plays, allowing for very powerful plays to become possible in tandem with either Infernity Mirage or Infernity Necromancer.

The ability for Dark End Dragon to bypass both Legendary Six Samurai - Shi En and Musakani Magatama is enough of a reason to grant it a slot in the Extra Deck. This card is terrific against Samurais. Not much else to say about it.

Colossal Fighter still sees some use even with Honest and Kalut limited. It can become pretty beefy against sams and can do some real damage against Scrap Dragon and Dark Armed Dragon users. It also has a mini-OTK with Armory Arm, which I have used once. It's still nice to have that OTK as an easy, last resort option.

Conclusion


Hoorah, I finally reached a conclusion. I hope you enjoyed that post. Please leave a comment and tell me if you like the new lay out style I'm testing.

For those of you who aren't a huge fan of this layout, here is the deck in a more standard layout.

Monsters [15]
[3] Infernity Archfiend
[3] Infernity Mirage
[3] Infernity Necromancer
[2] Infernity Avenger
[1] Dark Grepher
[1] Armageddon Knight
[1] Plaguespreader Zombie
[1] Stygian Street Patrol

Spells [9]
[1] Infernity Launcher
[1] Reinforcement of the Army
[1] Monster Reborn
[1] Foolish Burial
[1] Book of Moon
[1] One for One
[1] Mystical Space Typhoon
[1] Giant Trunade
[1] Dark Hole

Traps [16]
[2] Infernity Inferno
[1] Infernity Break
[3] Infernity Barrier
[1] Archfiend's Roar
[2] Trap Stun
[1] Torrential Tribute
[1] Call of the Haunted
[2] Bottomless Trap Hole
[1] Mirror Force
[1] Solemn Judgment
[1] Solemn Warning

Extra Deck [15]
[1] Mist Wurm
[3] Hundred-Eyes Dragon
[1] Infernity Doom Dragon
[1] Stardust Dragon
[1] Colossal Fighter
[1] Scrap Dragon
[1] Dark End Dragon
[1] Thought Ruler Archfiend
[1] Brionac, Dragon of the Ice Barrier
[1] Ally of Justice Catastor
[1] Stygian Sergeants
[1] Magical Android
[1] Armory Arm
Wishing you all the best,

~Valafar123

4 comments:

  1. I thoroughly enjoyed this deck profile. Very calmly explained. How has 1 Stygian Street Patrol been working over 2 copies?

    Other thoughts: Would you drop Infernos for Dualities? Or for any other sort of draw power?

    ReplyDelete
  2. @m: It pleases me to a great degree that you enjoyed my post, and thank you for the compliment.

    I'm liking 1 SSP a lot. I really do hate drawing it, so running 1 copy does a lot to mitigate it. I only ever need one per game as I tend to save it for when it is needed most.

    I've been having a love/hate relationship with Inferno. It's a terrible card, but the deck simply does not function correctly without it. Two copies is the golden number as far as Inferno goes.

    Duality is a no-no as far as this deck is concerned. You'd be surprised how much I special summon. I can't afford to skip a turn of potential game changing plays.

    As for draw power in general, it's kind of awkward in this deck. Duality is a no go as I just said, and Allure makes the game very hard for me due to the RFP aspect of it. When you take those two out of the equation, you'll find that there is no viable draw power sadly.

    Fortunately for me, I have always favored specific toolboxing over random drawing. Success rates are much higher as a consequence. I would like to see Konami print an Infernity draw card, but it'd be extremely hard to balance it.

    Thank you for your comment and suggestions.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Clearly, it must be tried before my Allakuri's... so I can be beat again. orz

    In any case, I enjoyed the post and like the formatting. I'd recommend against Duality, but you don't like it anyway. Ho hum/

    ReplyDelete
  4. @Allan Assiduity: I am one step ahead of you once more, Mr. Assiduity. Check and mate.

    @Everyone: I really appreciate the ratings on this post.

    I will be using this formatting again. Four hours per post is a labor of love!

    ReplyDelete