duellinksdraftchallenge

[duellinksdraftchallenge]

Welp, as usual, the Vagabond is the bane of our existence, barring us from getting a 10/10 inside of ten rounds. 🤷‍♂️

This challenge has been an interesting one. Pretty tough to succeed in, but we nearly grabbed it a couple of times. Pulling new, random sets each time definitely raised the difficulty factor. I think I’d recommend the one set version of this way more, but this was fun to try, anyway.

I think I want to take the “essence” of what we ended up building toward, and build a more mainstream interpretation of it, just to do it some justice. Look forward to that in a bit. 😉

[duellinksdraftchallenge]

Best I could come up with for the final deck, as I honestly could not think of what else to drop from the list. It’s got the potential: simple beatdown mixed with abundant removal. Let’s go!

[duellinksdraftchallenge]

Boy, would this set have been useful to have rolled sooner than R10…we could have easily built up a GB package over time, but with only 5 packs available, we don’t have a lot going there. Not our worst busts, and the extra Black Veloci should be useful, but this is it: our last shot at beating the Sealed Roulette Challenge!

[duellinksdraftchallenge]

A little salty here, honestly, as I would have gotten 10, but I got savagely luck-sacked by the Vagabond, while he was playing a random pile, too. But, it’s not like we haven’t lucked into a win or two ourselves, so I guess it all evens out one way or another.

We have but one more round to beat the challenge, or we’re gonna fall short. 😬 Here we go…

[duellinksdraftchallenge]

A few new additions here (couldn’t seem to work in the complete playset of Ill Witch we busted, though). Our big tribute monsters are gone, as they turned out to be too bricky for their value, and we’ve leaned more into our no-tribute + removal strategy. Star Eater is an interesting, if largely irrelevant, addition.

Let’s go for 10/10!!

[duellinksdraftchallenge]

R9 had some…interesting…pulls. Nothing cool like Power of the Guardians from DotW, but we got more than last time, at least, with Star Eater and a second copy of Glass Slippers. Our spin was useful, as well, giving us a chance to grab Black Veloci, which pairs very well with Power Frame, hits nicely as a 2200 (into monsters), and appreciates Security Orb.

Honestly, nothing all that crazy, but still a general rise in options. Can we grab that always-just-out-of-reach perfect 10 before we hit the wall at the end of 10 rounds? We’re gonna find out!

[duellinksdraftchallenge]

7/10 for this round. Not the record I was hoping for, but it’s led me to question a couple of cards. Palladium Oracle and Pandemic Dragon are my “boss monsters”, such as they are, but are pretty cumbersome in hand. On paper, they have a role to fill, but in practice, they are in the way more often than not.

But, this is the point of playtesting: sometimes practical experience is a better teacher than your experience and labbing can show on their own. Hopefully, better pulls for R9, as we definitely need them to get that sweet 10/10 before we close out R10.

[duellinksdraftchallenge]

For the first time in this challenge, and maybe any I’ve done, I cannot really use any of our R8 busts to improve our list. Sadly, nothing has changed on our list for this go ‘round, but some of our losses recently were pretty close, so hopefully we can break through this time.

[duellinksdraftchallenge]

Still couldn’t break the 8/10 ceiling on this challenge. Decided to go for Dimension of the Wizards over Dark Dimension to go fishing for better (N) cards, though I don’t really think we got any. In fact, this may be the most disappointing 10 packs we’ve busted in the entire challenge. Gonna see what we can do in deckbuilding nonetheless. 🤷‍♂️

[duellinksdraftchallenge]

Genuinely no idea what card to drop to go down to 20. Really want to include the Rosewhip to make Samurai Destroyer, and everything else serves an actually useful function. Hopefully, our heavy removal suite pulls us through to the elusive 10/10 this round.

[duellinksdraftchallenge]

R7 pulls were a mixed bag. Lots of useless/unplayable stuff, but a handful of really nice things, too. Second Quarantine, third Power Frame, 2x Full Force Strike, and Samurai Destroyer all look pretty good. May not keep leaning into Dark Dimension as our booster set, but it served us decently here, anyway. Slowly working our way toward something halfway consistent.

[duellinksdraftchallenge]

8/10

It feels like we’re trying to fight our way off of this “okay” plateau we’ve reached. 🤷‍♂️

[duellinksdraftchallenge]

Still not using the Extra Deck, but the Main Deck is looking decent enough for the format. The spell/trap line-up is offering some decent control, so I’m feeling as sketchy as I have been about our chances.

[duellinksdraftchallenge]

Not the most exciting pulls, but there are some interesting options. I don’t think our pool of GKs is good enough to support the fusion, but it’s worth a look. Pandemic Dragon, GK Guard, and Glass Slippers all probably have a place in our deck, though, giving us a little more removal.

[duellinksdraftchallenge]

8/10 last round. Dark Dimension is still the best set I think I can pick for my boosters. Dimension of the Wizards is a decent set to gain access to, as well. Hopefully, we can nab a perfect 10 for the next round. Not sure if the Granmarg will be useful, but it’s got some usability in our narrow pool of cards, so I’m not complaining. 🤷‍♂️

[duellinksdraftchallenge]

We got a random card from my collection as our spin, but the Red-Eyes Baby Dragon that ended up as our card isn’t too useful, unfortunately. 🤷‍♂️

That said, we’re incorporating some actual synergies and not-too-bad components now. Ignoring the Extra Deck, each card on the list now serves a genuine purpose.

Can we go 10/10? With how well it’s been going…maybe. Maybe.

[duellinksdraftchallenge]

Getting a little bit stronger with each set of pulls. Future Horizon was our new set, but I don’t necessarily know if there’s too much there for our purposes. Dark Dimension still seemed like the choice for the other half of our packs, so we grabbed those.

Second Powerframe, GK Guard, Trumpeter, Dicephoon, and even Rapid Warrior all seem promising, so we’ll see what we can come up with in deck building. 🤷‍♂️