The Final Duel: Masked vs Element

As of this month, the YuGiOh GX manga has sadly ended in Japan. The final page showed Judai and Hibiki having their long awaited final match but ended before we can see any action...has anyone noticed how both the anime and the manga ended with these ball hanging cliff hangers? x.x
After reading b1337d0j0's post, I wanted to build my own HERO decks for both of these HERO duelists.

Yuki Judai's Deck - Transformation Summon! The Masked Heroes Have Arrived!

E.HERO Airman x1

E.HERO Ocean x3

E.HERO Ice Edge x2

E.HERO Heat x3

E.HERO Another Neos x3

E.HERO Wildman x1

Hane Kuriboh x1

E - Emergency Call x3

Reinforcements x1

A Hero Arrrives! x1

Mask Change x3

Miracle Fusion x3

Dual Spark x3

Raise Dead x1

Book of Moon x1

Holy Barrier - Mirror Force x1

Torrential Burial x1

Hero Blast x2

Compulsary Evacuation Device x2

Divine Warning x2

Call of the Living Dead x1

M.HERO Goka x3

M.HERO Vapor x3

E.HERO Absolute Zero x2

E.HERO Nova Master x2

E.HERO Shining x2

E.HERO Great Tornado x1

E.HERO Gaia x2

Mask Change is a very controlling card, it allows you to push for damage and dodge destruction effects. It has aggression and control. Sadly, the only Masked Hero of Judai's that's been released are Goka and Vapor. Hence we max out on the best HEROes to Mask Change with: Ocean and Heat. Ice Edge is also another viable target. It destroys Spells/Traps while avoiding big monsters to inflict some damage. It also sets up Hero Blast and Miracle Fusion plays.

While Judai never used Miracle Fusion in the manga with his Mask Heroes, I feel like it is a necessary card to have in a Hero deck like this as Control decks lack the big push. Miracle Fusion make these pushes possible when it's not possible to control your way out of the game. If you haven't noticed, the Masked Heroes do lack the offensive power (not including Goka's effect) to get over big monsters. Miracle Fusion will allow us to bring Gaia, Nova Master, Absolute Zero, Shining, and Great Tornado. Two of these fusions allowing us to Mask Change while also plusing off destruction (Zero + Mask).

Hibiki Koyo's Deck - Embodiments of Nature and Protectors of Earth: The Omni-HEROES

E.HERO Airman x1

E.HERO the Flash x1

E.HERO Voltech x2

E.HERO Ice Edge x1

E.HERO Ocean x2

E.HERO Heat x2

E.HERO Lady Heat x1

E.HERO Forestman x1

E.HERO Knopse x1

Rai Oh x3

E - Emergency Call x3

Reinforcements x1

A Hero Arrives! x1

Yuugou x1

Mirai Yuugou - Future Fusion x1

Miracle Fusion x3

Parallel World Fusion x3

Fusion Gate x1

Hurricane x1

Cyclone x2

Declaration of God x1

Holy Barrier - Mirror Force x1

Torrential Burial x1

Pitfall of Hades x2

Chain Material x1

Trap Stun x2

E.HERO the Earth x1

E.HERO Flame Blast x1

E.HERO Absolute Zero x3

E.HERO the Shining x3

E.HERO Nova Master x2

E.HERO Great Tornado x1

E.HERO Gaia x2

V.HERO Trinity x1

In contrast to how control would control with his Heroes, I feel that Koyo would have a more aggressive playing style. Spamming Fusions with Fusion Gate, Miracle Fusion, Future Fusion, Yuugou, and Chain Material. I know a lot of you guys cringe at the sight of Lady Heat and Knopse but as a tribute to Koyo Hibiki's Heroes, I feel like they were a necessary part of the deck. Parallel World Fusion seems to be Koyo's  Destiny Draw so I decided to max out on that.

I honestly don't know what else to say about this deck, it's pretty straight forward beatdown.

Well that's it, we will never know how the duel will play out. I guess the rest is left to the imagination.

Gotcha~

          Chow

Chow's Tourney Report 3/12/2011

This little Asian was pissed off that he didn't take first place when everyone was at Regionals so now that everyone's back at locals, it's time to get my game on! Yeah >:D

Deck: Gate HERO aka Lancelot 

Round 1: Hao and Gravekeepers

Duel 1: He gets out a Assailant with Solidarity out on the field with Necrovalley so the thing had 2800. I Fusion Gated into Absolute Zero and Book of Moon his Assailant so I could run over it with Neos Alius. I Chain Materialed next turn and ended with Zero and 2 Shinings. One of them blew up and I got back Voltic and Stratos. He sets two. I go, summon Stratos, nukes his face-down Mirror Force and Dimensional Prison.

Duel 2: He sets a monster, sets a reverse, activates Necrovalley, and plays Royal Tribute. He loses two monsters from his hand. He looks at mine: Terraforming, Chain Material, E.HERO Neos, Noblemen of Crossout, and Chain Material. He discards Neos. My turn, draw into Torrential, Noblemen his face down Recruiter, MST his backrow, and replaced Necrovalley with Fusion Gate. Set two reverse. He goes, summons, I Torrential. I go, activate Chain Material, he scoops.

OO

I see some other guys playing HERO decks and was wondering why no one played with Chain Material. Zack told me it was cuz it's a waste if they Dark Hole you. Psh, never happened to me, never will. Never lost a game after Chain Materialing...

Round 2: Absolute Zero/Light Beat

Duel 1: I summon Absolute Zero first turn, he Smashes. I make my Chain Material play, he Dark Holes...wtf. Zack, you jinxed me, you cheese-eater haha. I lost this game.

Duel 2: We pretty much took turn exchanging monsters, both down to 2100. He had Alius and Stratos. I draw into Super Poly.

Duel 3: I was down to 100, he had CyDra, Stratos, and Alius. I played Fusion Gate, fused for Zero and destroyed his Stratos. I set Trunade and Chain Material face down and forgot to activate Trunade to return Fusion Gate back to hand. He fuses the last two cards in his hand next turn for Shining which swings over Zero for game

XOX

Round 3: Tre and D.D.

Round 1: He summons Warrior Lady and sets two face downs. I go, he flips Macro Cosmos, I summon Stratos, search for Voltic and crash into Warrior Lady and he removes both of them from play. I set Solemn Judgement and passed. Next turn he attempts to Card Destruction. I looked at my hand of Fusion Gate, Voltic, Prisma, and Ocean...nuh uh screw you. SOLEMN JUDGEMENT! He passes. I activate Fusion Gate, fused Prisma and Ocean for Shining. Summon Voltic. Attack with Voltic and Special Summoned Stratos to blow up his Macro Cosmo and face down (Macro Cosmo). That's game.

Round 2: He summons DD Warrior Lady and sets two face down (deja vu). I Fusion Gate, summon Stratos and search Voltic, fused Stratos and Ocean for Zero, Zero and Voltic for Shining. Attacked with Shining. Yeah he can't do anything.

OO

So before my next round, I'm going to tell you guys a quick story that made this duel for me. Since the first day I came to this local, I've always been the HERO kid. I never played anything else. There's this big black guy that goes there, arrogant as fuck but an amazing duelist, he recently won Regionals. Anyways, arrogant, noisy, and egotistical. He's always looked down on me and doesn't even recognizes me, mostly because I was never really that good and never went more than 2-2 in a locals. Played against him once during the Duelist Revolution sneak peek. His Naturia deck killed my HEROES. From that day on, he was my wall and the wall that I was gonna break down to become a better duelist. Here comes the match that I've waited almost a year for. Here's Round 4...

Round 4: Alex and Legendary Six Samurais

Game 1: He takes the initiative and summons Kizan, sets 4 reverse and passes it on to me. I draw and play Terraforming. He asked, "Oh, Dragunitys?" And I'm thinking, "Really, have you ever seen me play anything besides Heroes?" I search Fusion Gate, summon Stratos, search, and rammed. Set three in my back row and pass it on to him. He activates Gateway, I Solemn Judgement. He flips United, summons Spirit of the Six Sam, special Grandmaster, equips and attacks. My turn, activate Fusion Gate, then Chain Material.

Me: Voltic and Voltic, summon Shining?

Alex: OK.

Me: Stratos and Ocean, summon Absolute Zero?

Alex: OK.

Me: Neos and Rainbow Dragon, Rainbow Neos?

Alex: OK...wait. What the fuck?

I guess he never saw Rainbow Neos coming cuz he started to freak out. I use Rainbow Neos to return his backrow, fused Rainbow Neos and Absolute Zero for Shining, Chain Materialed into another Shining which died and fetched me Stratos and Voltic. Yeah, that's game. He had 2 cards in hand and no comeback.

Game 2: I drew into a bunch of HEROES and no Fusion Gate. He summoned Kizan and Zanji, I Veilered his Zanji so neither of them could get over Alius, he Doubled Edged Sword Techniqued into two more Kizan and Zanji which I Solemn Judgement. Ugh it was just an ugly game and I eventually lost.

Game 3: I drew into Terraforming, Ocean, Alius, Seven Tools, Chain Material, and Kinetic Soldier. I Terraformed for Fusion Gate, summoned Shining, set my hand and passed. He summoned Kageki, Kagemura, and then Kizan. Synced for Mist Wurm and bounced my Shining, Chain Material, and Seven Tools. He hit my Kinetic Soldier, set, and passed. I drew Ice Edge, set my hand again and passed. He activated United, summoned Spirit, Special Summoned Grandmaster, equipped. Attacked with Grandmaster and then directly with Wurm. Set and passed. My turn, draw, Chain Material. Went for Shining and he Bottomlessed...okay. Went for Rainbow Neos and slammed his hands down in frustration which got the attention of the whole room. This guy really doesn't like Rianbow Neos ._. I sent my face down Seven Tools to clean his backrow. Went for two more Zeros and a Gaia and fused for two permanent Shining and Zero. He had a card left in his hand and scooped.

OXO

Count: 3-1

Ranking: 4th out of 34?

I feel like some hero in an Anime, working hard this whole year to overcome my self proclaimed rival and win his attention. And I've done it. I'm pissed that I still have a problem playing against my own archetype but if I hadn't lost today, I would have never been able to play Alex. That one win was worth a hundred loses (and not one more).

Gotcha~

          Chow

Chain Material, A Hero's Call

I think everyone's been a bit too busy lately to be posting as much as we would like. Quizzes and tests are finally over yet papers still need to be written D:

"Id love to see how gate HERO works. Im an avid hero player and trying to find a decent build to try and having a hard time finding one. Your help would be greatly appreciated!" -U

I'm no expert but I can try my best to help a fellow HERO player :)

Where to start~ well obvious the deck revolves around fusing your Heroes via Fusion Gate. The reason why it's so good now in the TCG is because of the newly released Elemental Hero The Shining. He gains 300 for every E.HERO that is removed from the game and when he gets sent to the grave, you get to fetch two of your RFG E.HEROES and add them to your hand! In case you can't do the math, that's a plus one! Of course, doing things like using it as a Tribute/Release/Fusion/Synchro fodder will cause it to miss the timing. 

This guy can be quite the beast though. With Miracle Fusion or Fusion Gate, he will be guaranteed a minimum of 2900 ATK which is quite good. Gets over anything that isn't Ally of Justice Catastor, a souped up Colossal Fighter, Red Dragon Archfiend, Shi En, etc. He can be quite a hassle to destroy because some people will try to get rid of it without letting you gain advantage. If they can't do that, they'll also have a hard time taking it down by attacking because by mid-or-late game, he'll be a hard contender to take down.

There's also a variant that has been going on for more than half a year that resolves around Fusion Gated and Chain Material. Via Chain Material, you can fuse with Fusion Gate from your hand, field, deck, or graveyard by RFG but will not allow you to declare an attack for the turn. Also, at the End Phase, the monsters Special Summon by fusing using the conditions of Chain Material will be destroyed. This can work to your advantage though because the Shining will fetch you your HEROES and Absolute Zero will wreck your opponent's monsters. Thanks to Fusion Gate/Chain Material, you can easily summon 5 or more Fusion Monsters in one turn. The cool thing is that you can decide whether or not to apply the conditions of Chain Material when fusing so your monster will not always be destroyed.

The basic skeleton?

Elemental Hero Stratos x1

Terraforming x1/2

Fusion Gate x3

Chain Material x2/3

Elemental Hero the Shining x3

Elemental Hero Absolute Zero x3

Elemental Hero Gaia x1

I won't be providing the deck list that I took to this tournament. There are little tweaks that can be applied to the deck and I'll be starting to plaly in more locals/tournaments so I want to keep it a secret. Sorry, I don't allow netdeckers :P

Gotcha~

          Chow

Local Report 3/5/2011

First tournament with Shining and I was so stoked! Today was also regionals but it was kinda out of the way and I wanted to practice before doing anything big.

Name: Chow
Deck: Gate HERO aka Lancelot

Match #1 - Josh and Aliens
Game 1 - I got out Absolute Zero first turn and had Solemn Judgement face down with Fusion Gate and Voltic in hand. I attacked and he Compulsed. After a lot of thinking, I decided to not risk it and Solemn his Compulse. Game was mine >:]
Game 2 - Chain Material and Fusion Gate won me this game.
OO

Match #2 - Morphtronics
Game 1 - He was beating me down with Videon/3 Equips. I Fusion Gated into Zero and then Shining for game.
Game 2 - I kept Chimerateching whenever he swarmed. Yeah it's not easy getting past a 4K Fortress Dragon.
OO

Match #3 - Brah and Gate HERO
Game 1 - I didn't keep track of how many Shinings I had left in the Extra Deck, activated Fusion Gate, attempted to go for Shining but couldn't find any. Next turn he activated Chain Material...
Game 2 - We traded off Heroes one after another. I went into Absolute Zero and Ocean, suicided into Kinetic Shoulder, and attacked with Ocean. I had Miracle Fusion and Monster Reborn in hand but decided to play conservatively. Big mistake. He went into Rainbow Neos, Gaia, and Absolute Zero. Sigh...
XX

Match #4 - Zack and SalvoDAD
Game 1 - Chain Material and Fusion Gate shenanigans. I Rainbow Neos his backrow, went into AZ and then into Shining which cleared off Sangan which he then added PSZ with, went into another Shining and used the dead HERO in grave with Neos for another Shining.
Game 2 - Seeing as how I ended the last game too quickly to know what to side in, I just sided in another Thunder King for Synchro plays. He Gold Sacred into DAD so he would get it back in two turns. The next three turns was him setting Dekoichi, having me destroy it, Dark Erupting it, and setting it again. I eventually drew into Gate and fused like crazy before he had a chance to counter with Dark Armed.
OO

Overall Rank: 2nd of 18?
Prize: 2 Turbo Pack 4. (SR Diva!!! :D)

My thoughts:
I'm pretty pissed I lost to my own HERO build teched with Gemini Spark but I did learn a lot. I should have kept better track of my Shinings and take more time with my moves. I also have a habit of over analyzing things, not just duels but life as well. While playing conservatively is good, learning when to play like that is also important. HEROES are an explosive deck and leaving an open monster with no backrow and thinking my 4300 LP would not hit 0 next turn was a stupid thought.
I have to admit though, although this deck is HEROES, I don't have much fun winning as I thought I would. My opponents don't look like they're having fun and the only thing that seems to be going on in my mind when I draw my hand is "Chain Material. Fusion Gate. Chain Material. Fusion Gate. Chain Material. Fusion Gate. Chain Material. Fusion Gate. Chain Material. Fusion Gate. Chain Material. Fusion Gate." I enjoy playing games where our LP are neck and neck and amazing plays are happening and stopped at the same time. Or maybe, and I don't mean to be arrogant, my games weren't challenging enough for me (except for Brah). Most of the really good people were playing in Regionals that day so I guess it should have been expected. I'm planning on giving Gate HERO another go for 1st and keep doing so til I get my very first 1st place.

Second, my friend Kevin has been pulling amazing stuff from the Turbo Packs he won. The first time he did a favor the guy who works there (Andrew, my self proclaimed Asian bro ho) and so Andrew rewarded him by throwing a Turbo Pack 3 at him but not before rubbing it on his balls. Kevin pulled a super rare Rekindling. Second time Kevin got a Turbo Pack 4, he rushed to Andrew and told him to rub his balls on it. Pulled a super rare Compulsory Evacuation Device. So today, all depressed that I got second, opened my Turbo Pack 4. But just as I was opening it, a thought occured. I rushed to Andrew, told him to rub his balls on it, and pulled a super rare Deep Sea Diva! ALL HAIL THE MAGICAL BALLS!!!!

A final note, I beat Zack and SalvoDAD so fast, I didn't get to see the unique part of the deck. He was using Genex Duradark and Neutron!!! Freakin genius! It acts as Chaos Sorc food and the Duradark can be revived via Black Salvo!!! And the guy's name was Zack Fast! Zack FAST! FAST!!!! Such a sick name for a guy with a sick deck.

Gotcha~
          Chow