Sunday, December 16, 2012

Deck Profile: Spellbook of Cake

Ok the name is horrible. but honestly there are so many variants of spellbook decks that can be run (and more to come with future sets) that I needed a way to keep em strait in my head.

Madeleines are very small sponge cakes with a distinctive shell-like shape acquired from being baked in pans with shell-shaped depressions.

"Magic" + "Madeleine" = "Magileine" get it -sigh-

ok so why use magileine? Because in this varient of spellbooks, one of the main goals outside the main win condition is to maintain hand advantage. I feel that hand advantage is extreemly important not just to SS priestess with but because the deck is so defense deficient that hand traps are essential. So as we look at the mechanics of the deck keep that in mind. 


3x Effect Veiler
I like 3 for consistency sake but ill be honest this is one deck that makes good use of a veiler in the grave, and not just to bring out a BLS or sorcerer. With Spellbook of Life you have the opportunity to not only bring back a veiler to the field but to do it as a 2, 3, 4 or 5 star tuner making BRD, Scrap Dragon and everyones favorite Archanite Magician. Truth be told I may cut it down to 2 to make some room for maybe a copycat, strength or stoic. But in most cases veiler will keep you from being OTKed that one turn for you to then pop back in and establish control the next

1x Gorz
With a weak defense game hand traps like Gorz and Trag IMO are not just tech but part of the main gameplay. In this variant  you make some field sacrifices to build hand advantage so gorz is important. The biggest conflict is going to be tower. With tower out you cant drop gorz. But on the plus side gorz is a level 7 can can help you make Big Eye plays

3x High Priestess 
3 is a no brainer its the decks boss card. Is searchable, has that targeting destruction, lets you go into big eye blah blah blah

2x Justice
At first (and still in some builds) Im a big temperance fan. And early game temperance maybe the better play. The thing is that the potential for plussing is huge with justice, its one card that can net you 2 cards, setting up your hand and getting you a priestess ready to go, The thing to remember is that justice is an optional end phase effect. Its a plus and a minus. Minus because if you needed that field this turn its slow, Its a plus though because it gets around Veiler. How you may ask? Simple when you enter the end phase veilers effect ends and justice's is beginning. You must pass to your opponant to ask if they end veilers effect, when they do you may activate justice..... WAIT WAIT WAIT!!!! What if they choose not to end veilers effect? Simple you just pass again, veiler must end at some time, its a mandatory effect and teh double pass automatically forces mandatory effects to happen. Optional end phase effects come after.... So thank them very much for wasting a veiler on you

3x Madolche Magileine
Ok its not impressive based on its stats. a 1400 attack earth spellcaster who is a level 4 is mehhhh. But lets think about the function of this deck... hand advantage. Her effect is amazing, summon her and search for another... This card basically replaces itself and then the fact that if shes destroyed to the grave making her return to the deck means that she has the potential to always search another one. So basically when comboed with wand and power she's a plusing machine. Running 3 is a mandatory 2 is ineffective and at 1 would be asinine :)

2x Maxx C
Ok when you accept the idea that gorz and trag and veiler are essential pieces to how this variant functions you start to see the value of maxx c. Either it stops their combo out of fear or they yolo and let you draw into stuff that can stop them.

3x Magician
Card is amazing, its the only monster that can be searched via secrets. Not to mention that it gets the effect when flipped, so setting this guy is a pretty safe bet unless hes destroyed while facedown.
Some great plays early on are to summon, search, equip with wand, use wand and draw 2 more cards.

1x Temperence
Love the card, just loving justice more right now. It can be a big detractor to not be able to do more SSing. But the shear ease in which it can break out priestess is amazing, plus unlike justice it gives you material in the grave to use with "life"

2x Trag
Next to Priestess this is my fav. monster in the deck. Stops OTKs lets you steal monsters, can help you XYZ, and makes a Priestess that used life to comeback by banishing a level 3 means that you can go into gustav max. Those that go to game 2 or 3 will fear attacking you with those huge hands that you plus into.

1x Book of Moon
Many do not play this card, but It has such multiuse functions that I cant quite shed it yet. Im not gonna give a break down on BOM but Ill mention that its kinda nice that it can also reset a magician to let you search again.

(dont really need to talk about Heavy and Reborn)

2x Pot of Duality
Ive played with and with our POD, Its not the necessity card that it may be in some decks but it does smooth out the rough issues and inconsistencies. In any deck that may find itself completely open due to not drawing the right cards... POD should step in and help
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(the one off spell books. The cards in this category are not any less important than the other cards its just that due to the recycleing and searching nature of the architype they can be used multiple times and not bog the deck down )

1x Eternity
I really like 2 of these in the deck but space made it go down to. REMEMBER do not remove this card for priestess or Fate's effect if you only run one. Also its the biggest candidate to go to the bottom via towers draw effect

1x Fate
One of the most feared cards of the spellbook line up, its like Book of Moon/eclipse, back row compulse, and card banisher all in one, and for varying degerees of cost. its one of the cards that this deck runs that rewards good skilled gameplay and makes it not auto run.

1x Life
Many run 2... Ive never had issues with not being able to search it or play it due to the qty. But drawing into multiple ones suck. Sure this card makes priestess come back, but it also is a XYZ engine letting you bring back monsters at particular levels. Which is even more interesting when you can bring back veiler as a 2,3,4,5 even a 8 star tuner

1x Tower
Im a big fan of it at 1 not so much at 2. Heres the deal most of the time they just choose not to destroy tower and it sits there. More experienced players will know how to force it and make it miss timing. So untill spellbooks are looked at as a main part of the meta or in a very competitive environment Im ok at 1. Worst case I bring it back with eternity after priestess uses it to destroy.

Things to know about field spell cards
-Spell cards and field spell cards are not created the same. If you destroy a spell on a chain in most cases it's effect will still go off since it doesnt need to be on the field for the effect to resolve. (ex. You flip Book of Moon, they flip mst, the chain resolves with MST first destroying BOM then Moon flipping the card) Field spells however need to be on the field at resolution to get the effect. So if you pay the cost, they MST you will not get the effect.

-Also you can only have "ONE" active FSC on the field at a time. You can have one active on your side and one set on thier's thats fine but as soon as that other one activates and the chain resolves the first FSC gets destroyed.

-Also based on the 2 things I just told you, if the opponant activates a FSC over yours and you chain MST to thier FSC, the chain resolves with MST destroying the new FSC, its not there to resolve the effect, and the first FSC stays on the field since it the only "active FSC

READ THIS!!!!
This field spell's cost is not to send a card to the bottom of the deck... its one of the effects... Soo....
When you go to activate this cards draw effect, the opponant has a chance to chain a MST or what ever to destroy it. The chain resolves first with the FSC being destroyed, then it trys to resolve the effect (which it cant because the FSC is not on the field) since the destruction of the FSC didnt negate the effect activating the last thing to happen was not the destruction of the FSC so the effect to SS a monster misses timing.


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(the 3 off spell books.)

3x Secrets
its a staple in any variant at 3, searches all the spellbooks and magician, becomes broken with Sefer in the next set.

3x Power
In other variants I like this card at 2, here though powering up some of your weaker monsters and getting that card is ultra important, so the consistency at 3 works really well... ALso becomes rediculous next set with sefer
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Last but not least

2x Wonder wand
The perfect card to make use of some of those monsters you really hate to have to normal summon to leave out in attack (magician and Magileine) not to mention that its nice to help a stonger monster like priestess climb up to 3000 and attack over a 2800. Though this job is better left to power