Spellbooks Moving Forward

August 28, 2013

by bradracer07

Hey everyone! My name is David Keener and I’m proud to bring you my first Yu-Gi-Oh! Article, for those of you who don’t know me I just placed second at both the North American WCQ and the world championship with spell books. With the new ban list for September 2013 released a lot of players have asked me my thoughts on spell books and their place in the new format. To start things off let me assure you the deck is not dead and is still in fact very real. Let’s talk about how the list itself affects the deck. We lost Spell book of judgment, this kills the deck as we’ve known it for the past couple months and forces the deck to return to its pre-tachyon shell, that’s okay though the deck was still definitely a contender during that format and we’ve got some new tools to work with as well. We also lost various trap cards though I think those are easy enough to replace. So really, books didn’t take a very hard hit at all when you compare it to some of the other decks from last format. What’s even more important, however, are the hate cards other decks lost against us; heavy storm is no longer legal and eradicator epidemic virus is limited to one so we won’t have to worry about being EEV’d turn one and not being able to play anymore. To top it all off the other decks like dragons and mermails all lost a lot of power due to the list as well. These changes add up to books being a very strong choice to start the format, the versatility of a card like spell book of fate is very valuable in an unknown format and we gained a tool most other decks don’t have any more in world of prophecy. World gives us the ability to destroy all other cards on the field, including spells and traps. With the loss of heavy storm this can be very relevant against slower back row oriented decks. The amazing utility of these cards alongside the massive advantage grand spell book tower and high priestess of prophecy can generate push this deck even further ahead in the early stages of the format. That being said lets take a look at the list I’ve been working on in the early stages of the format:

3 Spellbook Magician of Prophecy

2 Temperance of Prophecy

2 Justice of Prophecy

2 High Priestess of Prophecy

1 World of Prophecy

3 Spellbook of Secrets

2 Pot of Duality

2 Spellbook Library of the Crescent

2 Spellbook of the Master

2 Spellbook of Power

2 Spellbook of Wisdom

2 Spellbook of Fate

2 Grand Spellbook Tower

1 Spellbook of Life

1 Spellbook of Eternity

1 Book of Moon

3 Fiendish Chain

2 Phoenix Wing Wind Blast

2 Mirror Force

1 Compulsory Evacuation Device

1 Bottomless Trap Hole

1 Solemn Warning

The deck plays a lot of familiar spellbooks and prophecy monsters. Temperance was not played in pre-tachyon spellbook decks but the introduction of world makes him a necessary evil. Your monster count may seem very low but with duality secrets and crescent you should be able to find a creature early in the game. The trap line up aims to keep us alive until we can find a secrets and then help grind our opponent down. The wing blasts have a ton of utility, they deal with any problem card and get dead cards like world out of our hand. It’s important to understand once the deck gets going we have access to unlimited monster reborns in spellbook of life and nearly unlimited removal in spellbook of fate so once we find a secrets the game is in our control and we should never run out of resources. In most matchups the deck tries to wear down the opponents resources while keeping its own thanks to cards like spellbook tower and power then closing the game out with priestess or world. If you’re going to Toronto I expect this deck to be very strong and it is almost certainly what I would play if I could make it. Make sure you know how this deck works and how to play against it before the event to give yourself the best shot at winning. Thanks for reading everyone!