Intro, Building on a Budget

Intro
There was once a time I was good. Sure, I often placed just outside of the top eight in a regional. I'm sad to say that in my prime, I missed out on winning games due to silly inhibitions like I won't play Yata Garasu because it's skill less or Chaos is over powered. I put my faith in my decks, my strategy, even if it kept me out of the recognition of tier one. But don't be mistaken- I had the cards and I knew how to use them.

In lieu of the meta winners, I ran very competitive and aggressive decks that would land me easily in the top 16, but always just shy of top eight. Warrior beat down featuring Marauding Captain who fueled my The A. Forces forcing my opponent on their heels. At the time where Scapegoat was ran at three per deck, I was running Beast Beatdown, ruining many peoples days with a combination of Enraged Battle Ox and Berserk Gorilla. Before fairies became what they were today, I was using Soul of Purity and Light in combination with cards like Dimension Fusion to create massive rushes on my opponents. These theoretically sound decks played well, but my unwillingness to conform with simple evolution of the formats kept me on the bubble.

In 2005 I competed in my first Shonen Jump tournament. At the time, the ruling deck in the Meta was Morph Control, using Scapegoat with Metamorphosis and Thousand Eyes Restrict. I thought this was a brilliant deck, and I like many others decided to play it at this tournament. I, unlike many others, put my own spin on it. To this day I'm proud of the deck, but I scrubbed out of the tournament rather quickly due to a lack of consistency against a higher level of opponent. (the deck can be seen here )

To make a long story just slightly shorter, I quit the game shortly after that tournament. I began to realize that because of the way Yu-gi-oh is set up, the only people who are going to win are people who are willing to play the cards that win, sacrificing their own creativity for championships. I quit the game and focused my attention on World of Warcraft and other various unhealthy habits, but never lost my spark for the game. I continued to buy the PSP and DS games, and I continued to keep up with what was good.

It's now 2011 and about a month ago I returned to the game, but with a few lessons learned. First, you do not have to give up your creativity to win, you simply need to stay ahead of the curves. Using broken cards is not immoral, it's just survival. Second, keeping up with the game is no longer about buying packs and learning every card. The game has become huge in social networking, duelists post youtube videos, they friend each other on facebook, as well as the good old standby of forums like pojo. Thousands of players are sharing ideas, meshing them with others and evolving the game through collective understanding of each others play styles. I, a player in Chicago, can understand what the meta in Florida is like just by visiting youtube, doing a google search, or hitting a forum. It's outstanding how much the game evolved in the past five years, when the forums were nothing but someone with a Yugi and Kaiba starter deck complaining that they can never get cards. Finally, if I'm going to play again, I'm going to play smart financially. Building on a budget is the key to playing this game but not going bankrupt. As far as hobbies are concerned, TCGs are probably the worst for your pocket book and the most volatile investment for your money. The key is to invest wisely in what you need, not what people tell you you need.

Building on a Budget

People often have the misconception that building on a budget means building a bad deck with random common cards you have sitting in a bottom of a drawer. This is not the case. As a player who is returning to the game, Konami has made it very easy for me to return to the game (much to the chagrin of many hard core players) by reprinting many popular cards. Some people call this Konami's greed, I consider it a way to keep new players flowing into the game. Either way, building competitively on a budget is absolutely possible, but you first need to figure out what your budget is.

Finding the Money
What is a fair budget? Every person has their own financial situation, and to be honest I really hate hearing form players who say "I can't win because I can't have" x. When I ask why they don't have x, they simply respond "I'm not rich like you!" If you want to build on a budget, you have to understand what your budget is.

So let's compare budgets to a fairly inexpensive hobby of going to the movies. This is not standard for most people but lets assume every week on Friday, after school or work you go to a movie. General cost of a ticket is roughly $10. Let's skip concessions for now, because really if you're buying concessions at a movie theater, this is the reason you can't afford a BLS in your deck. After the movie, you go to a fast food place, you get a burger meal, upwards of $6-7 for a combo. So you're looking at $17 a week or so to go out for a night and catch a flick and get a quick bite to eat, and this is a reasonable cost. So lets expand this cost over a month, and you're looking at about $68. So using this monthly budget, how can we be competitive?

Stop Buying Packs
Seriously. Cut it out. Packs are always a horrible investment. For starters, you're more than likely to get a bunch of cards you don't want OR don't need that will sit in your binder. Sure, you can get lucky, get amazing trade bait, and get exactly what you need at the fraction of the cost, but this is unlikely. If you want to get cards, you buy singles. The individual card will cost more than several packs of 9 cards, but you also do not gamble in getting the card, or a handful of bad silver rares. Playing on a budget doesn't mean you need to have a pile of bad cards, it simply means you have to choose which cards and when to buy them more carefully.

Structure Decks
Structure decks are amazing. Back when I quit was when the original structures were being released. They were interesting, much more competitive than say, Yugi Starter Deck 2 or Pegasus Starter Deck, but nothing to write home about. The structure decks that have been made recently? They're tournament worthy if you invest right. Keep in mind, when a Structure deck is released, the skeleton of the deck is right there for you, it takes a little bit of creativity to change the deck for the better so that you can compete with it. Often, this means buying three copies of the same deck-- a costly investment at roughly 30 dollars, but you now have 3 copies of every card, including the cards that make the deck special. You cut the 120+ cards you just invested in to the strongest 40, and you now have a decent deck, waiting to be pumped up by the last 37 dollars sitting in your budget. These decks are worth it-- they won't get you a Tour Guide From the Underworld, but they will get you the cards you need, guaranteed, to start winning more games.

Buy Singles
As mentioned before, buying singles is costly. But if Gates of the Under World or Lost Sanctuary aren't your style, singles are still preferable to buying packs, but only do so AFTER you understand what you want to build. If you're not buying boxes every month and creating a mountain of cards to access from, you need to plan your deck properly. Going out and buying every card your friend has that beats you is a quick way to lose a lot of money. Find your style, find your deck, get the cards that suit you. It's also important you keep up with news for the game. If Thunder King Rai-Oh is getting reprinted, it's not a worthwhile investment of $14 dollars when you can inevitably get him for a fraction of the price after the reprint.

Tins and Promos
Keep an eye out for tins. At $20 dollars you're getting five cards (and keeping up with current trends, it will include atleast 2-3 very good reprints) and 5 packs. Great way to save money and strengthen your deck. Same goes for stuff like Legendary Collection or Gold Collection. There are a ton of reprints in them, making their price on eBay drop considerably.

Prioritize
Scrap Dragon. Black Luster Soldier - Envoy of the Beginning. Glow-Up Bulb. These are GREAT cards, extremely powerful and useful in almost any deck. Of course, being so good, they're very highly in demand. The key is to remember that individual cards can turn tides, but a balanced deck wins games. Worry about the majority of your deck first, then supplement it with the chase cards after you have a solid foundation. Buying cheap cards like Genex Ally Birdman and Colossal Fighter may not be very flashy, but once you get the majority of your deck strategy in place, you'll be less reliant on having that chase card until next month rolls around, your budget is renewed, and you can buy the more expensive cards your missing.

Buying Boxes
I consider this slightly better than buying individual packs, but only due to the fact you increase your chances to get valuable cards significantly. If you are going to buy a box (which may break your budget a bit ) ONLY do it when you already have a deck idea, not when you're looking to build a new one. Buy it early in its release, this is when the cards in the pack are at their highest trade and sale value. BE PREPARED to sell very good cards to make your deck better. There are players who were willing to drop $100 on a Steelswarm Roach. That same Roach is now going for $60 on eBay. If you get a card that valuable, you should know the price will only drop fom there (there are some exceptions to this rule.) You can take that same money, invest it in other cards for your deck ($100=BLS + Brionac + Trishula) and worry about that card when the price drops. Unless the card says "If you summon this card, you win the game" you can probably go without it.

Trade
This costs you nothing. Go to local tournaments, trade cards you don't want or don't need for better cards for your deck. If you can't get something for your deck, get something popular and easy to trade. Even if you don't have a ton of cards, you may have one or two rares someone may need for their own deck. This is not a reliable method, but its a great way to get cards if you meet the right people.


Thank you for sitting through the first post on my blog, I really hope you enjoyed it. Comment below on your thoughts or suggestions for future articles.