Hello, duelists! This is the week of YCS Toronto and a huge week for Yu-Gi-Oh as a whole. We recently received one of the best Forbidden & Limited Lists of all time, banning a whopping total of fifteen cards and rightfully changing the quantity on a multitude of others. Konami did a great job with the changes and I think it marks a giant step in the right direction for competitive play. Now that we’ve gotten that part out of the way, I think it’s fair to say that most of you have been spending every waking day testing out new and old ideas that were dead because of Prophecy and Dragons. Well, I’ll have you know that both of those two decks are still tier one and it will not be easy to beat them in the upcoming format. This article is going to focus on Spellbooks since it’s the deck I’ve been using the most since seeing the list, and I used it at YCS New Jersey before it became the auto-pilot monster with Spellbook of Judgment.
So almost every deck took a hit, some severely and some just enough to keep them in check, but nothing previously overpowered was left unscathed. Spellbooks only lost [ccProd]Spellbook of Judgment[/ccProd], but that happens to be the card that single-handedly makes the deck outrageous. The deck already has the ability to search itself, literally. It has access to two of the best cards in the game as well—[ccProd]The Grand Spellbook Tower[/ccProd] and [ccProd]Spellbook of Fate[/ccProd]. Both of those cards are a pure nuisance to anyone going against them and they are recyclable, so keeping them off the field is easier said than done.
Before the Lord of the Tachyon Galaxy was released, we were living under the sea suppressed by the overwhelming power of Mermails, which had won every single YCS in the March 2013 format. Despite everyone’s’ best efforts, nothing else was able to take home a single win during that time. Spellbooks became a playable deck towards the end of the Cosmo Blazer lifespan because emergence of Fire Fist/Dino Fist. It became apparent to some that those decks could not keep up with Prophecy because they aimed to play a grind game, and nothing could grind better than a Fateful Blue Boy in his Tower. The deck generated too many pluses every turn, so any other slow deck would be outpaced in a matter of turns. To make matters worse, [ccProd]Spellbook of Wisdom[/ccProd] was the stones due to its ability to render infinitebackrows.dek useless. Once you dropped Priestess coupled with Wisdom, it was game over. She would come out, destroy a card, attack over a monster, and probably absorb a trap with her book of protection. Thanks to [ccProd]Spellbook of Fate[/ccProd], the deck had outs to everything. I mean literally everything.
Well then what was the problem, how come it couldn’t make a better impact on the meta? I think timing had a lot to do with that. The deck would have been a mainstay in the format prior to Tachyon if it lasted longer. Unfortunately, Lord of the Tachyon Galaxy was a game-warping set. Nothing was the same when it was released; I mean even Mermails became a bottom-tier deck. And speaking of Mermails, that was the other reason that Prophecy couldn’t deal--the games would end too fast. Prophecy thrives off of long duels where it can amass absurd amounts of card advantage. It throws the opponent into a war of attrition that he/she cannot possibly win. Yu-Gi-Oh may very well be back at that point come September 1st, or August 31st for those of us attending Toronto.
Since the release of Judgment of the Light, Prophecy has gained a new card, [ccProd]World of Prophecy[/ccProd]. Its effect is as follows:
When this card is Special Summoned by the effect of a Spellcaster-Type monster or a "Spellbook" Spell Card: You can target 2 "Spellbook" Spell Cards in your Graveyard; add those targets to your hand. You cannot Special Summon other monsters during the turn you activate this effect. When you add card(s) to your hand by this effect: You can reveal 4 "Spellbook" Spell Cards with different names in your hand; destroy all other cards on the field.
That effect is obviously absurd and anyone who thinks otherwise is simply delusional. It has a whopping 2900 attack and 2400 defense, too! However, [ccProd]World of Prophecy[/ccProd] does come at a cost, and that cost is one of the riskiest ones to pay; your deck will sacrifice some consistency in order to play this card. It is a 9-star monster that has no other summoning condition outside of [ccProd]Temperance of Prophecy[/ccProd], [ccProd]Spellbook of Life[/ccProd], and for those of us who are really desperate, [ccProd]Magical Dimension[/ccProd]. This means that if you draw World of Prophecy, you will be stuck with it for a while, or perhaps forever. Some people have been talking about using cards like [ccProd]Phoenix Wing Wind Blast[/ccProd] to mitigate the bad draw, but that logic seems a little flawed to me since you’re now playing other half-decent cards to make use of a card that you hope to never draw.
In my opinion, there are two ways you could go about Prophecy. That is, either you use a build playing Temperance and [ccProd]World of Prophecy[/ccProd], or you use the more mainstream build with Justice and [ccProd]High Priestess of Prophecy[/ccProd]. I suppose that you could combine the two, but I do not recommend playing many monsters in this deck—it is one of the fastest ways to lose. Whichever build you play should be at least using some number of High Priestess regardless of anything else. She is a monster in this format when combined with Wisdom, and now, with Mermails nerfed and unable to kill as consistently, you will have more time to set up your plays and get to her. In fact, I would even argue that Prophecy ends the game faster than anything else once she hits the field. You may not necessarily deal 8000 points of damage in one turn, but such a huge swing in card advantage—backed by [ccProd]Spellbook of Fate[/ccProd] and fueled by [ccProd]The Grand Spellbook Tower[/ccProd]—is nearly impossible to overcome.
You can expect to see Prophecy sticking around this format as one of the top decks, alongside the new Dragon decks, so don’t be surprised when they start popping up everywhere again.
Until next time, duelists! Remember, Play Hard or Go Home!
-Frazier Smith
-The Dark Magician
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