yugioh – Alternative Mindz

San Diego Comic Con 2019 Recap

July 23, 2019Julian Cannon Leave a Comment

San Diego Comic Con just wrapped up yesterday at the San Diego Convention Center as many attendees from different fandoms attended the show. No joke, over 100,000 people were there and I thought I would be obverwhelmed with going to different vendors, offsites, press rooms, and the panels this year, but I was not as I stretched out my schedule for press coverage this year. I can say that I am happy with my results for 2019 and here are my highlights below.

HALL H

I told myself that I would never go on very long lines and Hall H is an example of that. I believe that this year’s line was much longer than last year’s as it extended all the way to the IMDB boat. Some of the big panel attractions that were showcased this year were Marvel Studios, Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead, Supernatural, etc. We got the most news out of Marvel Studios as the Phase 4 announcements light up the room with a huge reception with announcements such as Black Widow, Doctor Strange, The Eternals, Loki, and the biggest of them all, Shang-Chi, Thor: Love and Thunder, and Blade. It is finally great to see Blade to be added to the MCU as I wanted that for years. DC did not have any panels this year at Hall H, but there was a screening of Batwoman on preview night and soon, you sill read my thoughts of the show. As for the Hall H line itself, it looks very intimidating when you realize that you are looking at the front of the line under the giant tent and it extends way to the back to the point where you cannot see it.

IT: CHAPTER 2 AT THE THEATER

At the theater where the Conan tapings took place during the week of Comic Con, there was a special screening preview of It:Chapter 2. Not only that the entire cast was there, you were able to pick up the exclusive Funko Pops at the end of the viewing. The previews that were shown has made the crowd drop their jaws at every scene that was shown. I honestly cannot wait for the film later this year since I am a fan of the previous film. The entire cast took questions from the fans after the showing and Conan presented the event!

MY INTERVIEWS

My interviews also took place at San Diego Comic Con as I interviewed cast members of Netflix’s The Order. Those included Katherine Isabelle, Sarah Grey, and Louriza Tronco along with executive producers and creator Dennis Heaton and Shelly Eriksen. We all talked about the upcoming second season of the show and it was a blast.

I also interviewed Alison Tolman and Alexa Swinton as we talked about the upcoming ABC series Emergence. I have never interviewed a child before so this was fun to do. And finally, I interviewed cosplayer and make-up artist Meg Wilbur as we talked about her cosplaying as Rogue, her daily routine, the marvel cinematic universe, and much more!

I also attended the press conferences of The Walking Dead, Fear The Walking Dead, The Boys, and Dark Crystal, but that will be on a seperate article!

OFFSITES

There were many offistes that happened this year. Although I did not attend many of them, there were a few that I attended. Amazon had their activations this year which showcased The Boys, Carnival Row, and The Expanse. All of them were very fun and what I forgot to mention in my article about the experience is that on preview day at Amazon, Carl’s Jr. had a truck out there and you had 3 options of cheeseburger types along with french fries and a drink and it was FREE! Many people did not know this until after the fact.

The Walking Dead’s Deadquarters had a huge presence once again with their offsite as this time around, it centered around the airplane and treehouse on the current season of Fear The Walking Dead. There were also times that the radaition gas pyrotechnics happened in the area and it looked awesome. The biggest feature of Deadquarters is that there was an area dedicated to the snowstorm crossing that you have seen in the season 9 finale of The Walking Dead. There was a lot of snow brewing in the tent and it was very cold inside. We had to go through the storm to go to the other side. I have seen frozen walkers, and The Whisperers’ border with heads on a pike.

After you escaped, you are then in a area where you can try the slots game of The Walking Dead, take a audition animation of the mobile app game The Walking Dead: Our World, and demo The Walking Dead: Onslaught. Very fun experinece and I cannot wait to see what they will bring next year.

I also took the time to play the upcoming Switch port of Yu-Gi-Oh: Legacy of the Duelist as the Link Summoning mechanic along with the VRAINS story option has been added. I talked with the game’s creator about the game along with the rule changes over the years of the Yu-Gi-Oh card game. I am a Nintendo Switch owner so I am looking forward to playing this on the go!

CONCLUSION

I love San Diego Comic Con and this year was an awesome year for the show. I also have to say that the weather was the best in San Diego for Comic Con in years and many other people have said the same thing. I did not have too much time to take pictures of cosplayers, but these two images from the show that I took are my favorite.

Another Top 10 Banned Yu-Gi-Oh Cards

April 24, 2018Julian Cannon 5 Comments

I originally did this list back in 2014 and now i feel that it is the right time to do another one since many cards from my original list are not on the banned list anymore and more were added on since then. Here is my list for another top 10 banned Yu-Gi-Oh cards along with the reason that these cards were put on the list.

#10. Chicken Game (Field Spell Card)

This card is brutal for First Turn Kills as a Field Spell Card and it can also speed up a duel, or force a lifepoint gain depending on the choice. This card can also cause an unbalance due to the player getting more advantage if their life points are much lower than the other.

#9. Pot of Greed (Spell Card)

Pot of Greed has been on and off the ban list and the limited list for years and it seems like it will not be off any list in the near future. It allows the player to draw 2 cards from the deck but now since there are more cards that responds to or supports deck drawing, this card has become more stronger due to this. Imagine playing this card on your first turn (this matters more these days since you cannot draw on the first draw phase anymore since 2015).

#8. Subsitoad (Effect Monster Card)

One of the most broken cards of the game Subsitoad is on the list. The attack points may be very low, but it’s effect is very brutal. Also, as soon as the Shinning Darkness booster support pack was released, it became an issue. A complete FTK deck was made with the frog cards including Subsitoad and look at it’s effect, it can easily trail through most of your deck with no trouble and is on top of things very easy to search and recover for its very solid Aqua-WATER type/attribute pairing.

#7. Time Seal (Trap Card)

This card became banned over 12 years ago and it is a strong reason why. It makes your opponent skip their Draw Phase. With this card and the deadly Yata-Garasu, it became the most deadly combination in Yu-Gi-Oh tournaments at the time and it needed to be forbidden.

#6. Dandylion (Effect Monster)

Dandylion should have been banned since day one. It’s effect was easily abused for many years especially for players who want to summon powerful monsters in the next turn, or to use spell or trap cards involving tokens.

#5. Cyber-Stein (Effect Monster)

Cyber-Stein should have been on my original list. His effect years ago was at a high cost to summon a fusion monster from the extra deck. Now that there are way too many lifepoint support cards, there is no way that this card will ever be taken off the forbidden list EVER! Also to note out, Cyber-Stein has not been reprinted or re-released since 2004.

#4. Super Rejuvenation (Quick-Play Spell Card)

The card encourages terrible resource management in the monster type that makes the most use of discarding and tributing. It is, in general, just a poorly designed card and one of the main reasons as to why Dragon Rulers were such a power house. The reason it was banned is because the Baby Dragon Rulers and other Dragon Rulers turned the card into an insane draw engine that could in no way be described as fair given how the deck operated. Currently if the card were to come off the ban list I suspect Blue-Eyes, Red-Eyes & Odd-Eyes would probably be the biggest abusers of it not that Sky Iris can be used more than once a turn.

#3. Mass Driver (Continuous Spell Card)

Recently added on the list back in the fall of 2017, It was banned because of its easy abuse on OTK and FTK Burn decks, that focused on continuously summoning frogs to sacrifice them and drain your opponent’s lifepoints. Before then, nobody has ever thought of using this combination and once people started to put the puzzle together, it had to be added on the forbidden list.

#2. Cold Wave (Spell Card)

Ah, THIS card. It’s one of the cards that had the longest lifespan before getting hit with a ban, mostly because until Glad Beasts came into the picture this was fully an awful card. This is mainly because the most it could do was provide backup stun and was fully outclassed by something like Trunade who was for a time at 2-3, and this was at the time VERY outdone by Heavy which directly got rid of the problem. To my knowledge this first became popular when Glads came onto the stage and I assume so probably because of major stun factor combined with brutal control and setup for safer Bestiari plays.

Honorable Mentions

Super Polymerization (Quick-Play Spell Card)

Painful Choice (Spell Card)

Vanitiy’s Emptiness (Continuous Trap Card)

Self-Destruct Button (Trap Card)

Ancient Fairy Dragon (Synchro Effect Monster)

#1. Maxx “C” (Effect Monster)

This card and effect changed the way of special summoning for a long period of time. Maxx “C”. The effect lets you draw one card every time your opponent special summon(s). Before the errata changed, you can have three of these monsters on the field with this effect. Even after they changed the errata, the effect was still highly abused especially for FTK. I think this will never be taken out of the list since it just got on the list not too long ago.

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Toy Fair 2016: Konami

February 19, 2016Rob Leave a Comment

Here’s the walkthrough with Konami at Toy Fair 2016. Enjoy!

Thanks to the Konami booth for taking care of us and until next time!

Posted by Alternative Mindz on Friday, February 19, 2016

Top 10 banned Yu-Gi-Oh cards

December 11, 2014Julian Cannon Leave a Comment

Since 2004, there has been certain restrictions to cards in the Yu-Gi-Oh trading card game. There are 3 lists for players to follow and to build their decks. “Forbidden” means that you are not allowed to have any copies of the particular cards in your deck, “limited” means you can only have one copy of a particular card in your deck and “Semi-Limited” means you can have only two particular cards in your deck. Whatever cards that are not on these lists, you can have a max of 3 cards in your deck. The reason for these lists is for balancing issues and to prevent powerful cards being used to win duels or to cut strategies. I have played the game from 2001-2008 and I have came across these lists in that time span. Every 6 months, these lists are updated and certain cards are either switched from one list to another or removed entirely. Now it is time to count down the top 10 forbidden cards in Yu-Gi-Oh history.

10. Dimension Fusion(Spell Card)

The most powerful spell for special summoning ever created. It took a long time to be forbidden but the card can easily create otks (one turn kill strategy). You can use just your own banished monsters and dont need ur opponent to have any. This card is crazy since it gives you the ability to get so many powerful banished monster cards out at once. Very few cards in existance have that ability.

9. Imperial Order (Continuous Trap Card)

Best negation ever created. Almost free and negates(cancels effects) any regular, quick-play, or ritual spell card.It can almost kill certain decks. maybe it would be weaker in a 10+ trap and less spell format, but not many decks would ignore this card. Also, there are certain cards that allows you to not pay any life points so be warned if someone use a card with that effect and this card at the same time.

8. Fiber Jar (Flip-Effect Monster Card)

While I must say that the Jar cards are weird as hell, this takes the cake. It’s a very unique and extremely badly designed card, but why? Because it’s essentially a reset button that I honestly think any and every deck would include on the simple basis that it saves you more than any other card could.

Not only does the game reset barring Life points which is in and of itself as luck based as it could get, this in tournaments can easily extend duels to be far longer than they should and draw everybody into overtime. This could possibly be what got in banned in the first place, since duels used to be far slower than they are now.

The card, like the other Jars, has a backing in luck to it. Morphing Jar gambles your opponent drawing 5 good cards, Cyber Jar gambles your opponent getting good cards AND enormous field presence, this risks your opponent getting a good opening hand.

It’s beyond the luck of the other cards in that it flips the bird to most of what happened prior to this card’s flip. There’s so little skill involved and it’s just a lazy reset button for anybody who’s in a poor situation, plus, the idea of people running this at 1 frequently gives the possibly for 2 to go off in one game. Duels would have potential to be the length of matches.

It makes things tedious and somewhat boring, on top of it. It’s just annoying to run into this and have to re-rely on luck because of a cheap flip-effect that re-does all but life points, meaning you could then re-open terribly.

The card itself is too good on almost every level to come back and most certainly would heavily impact the game. Should stay at 0, forever. Pojo opinion, begin.

7. Exchange Of The Spirit (Trap Card)

One of the fastest otk cards ever created. The duel can easily end before even starting your first turn. Easy to get 15 cards in the graveyard and comboing this with Hand Destruction easily ends the game. Nothing can stop this when you dont even get the chance to set a card. broken beyond belief. In fact, I was defeated a number of times due to card combos involving this card and cards that can damage your life points due to the number of cards that are in the graveyard.

6. Raigeki (Spell Card) and Harpie’s Feather Duster (Spell Card)

The reason these two cards are tied is because they both do almost the same action. Raigeki’s effect allows you to destroy all monsters on your opponents side of the field and the Feather Duster allows you to destroy every Spell and Trap on your opponents side of the field. Now imagine using these two cards in the same turn. Completely unfair. Raigeki was one of the first cards to be on the Forbidden list in 2004 and in October 2014, it was finally removed after spending 10 years on lockdown.

5. Thousand-Eyes Restrict (Fusion- Effect Monster Card)

This card annoyed the living crap out of me so bad that I refused to duel against anybody who had this card in their deck. All monsters except that one on the field cannot attack or change their battle positions. Plus, you can take control of one of your opponents monsters and have it as your own and whatever attack that monster is, will be transferred to this monster.

4. Tribe-Infecting Virus (Effect Monster Card)

Another card that is really powerful. It is too powerful because the effect is not once per turn. It can destroy any monster card on the field that you call (for example, Dragon, Zombie, Spellcaster types and more) as long as you discard a card from your hand. Every turn you can literally wipe the field with this card. The only way your Monster cards cannot be affected is if you have them on face down defense position.

3. Number 16: Shock Master (XYZ Effect Monster)

The effect is similar to the previous card but it really slows down the pace of a turn of using a card. Imagine that you cannot use an effect or activate a certain type of card until the end of your next turn. Talk about a serious cut down.

3. CHAOS EMPEROR DRAGON – ENVOY OF THE END (Effect Monster)

The only card in the game to clear everyone’s hand and field in one shot. Once you pay 1000 life points, every card on the field and both players hands are sent to the graveyard and your opponent takes 300 points of damage for each card sent. Imagine that there is 20 cards on the field and about a different number in both players hands. You can deal up to between 6000-8000 points of damage to your opponents life points in one turn. Now that is an overkill.

2. Sixth Sense (Trap Card)

The effect of this trap card can be both good and bad. The reason it can be good is because if one of the dice number results land correctly, you can draw as much cards depending on one of the selected numbers. If one of your two choices does not come up on the result of the dice roll, then you have to discard the number of cards from your deck. This can actually be dangerous because there are certain monsters with effects that can activate once they are discarded from the top of the deck. Also, the effect of allowing you to draw that many cards can benefit the player if they desperately need powerful cards.

1. Yata-Garasu (Effect Monster)

The most notorious card on this list. This card was banned the moment tournament players discovered exploits with this card to lock down players from drawing a card during the “draw phase” at the start of every turn. There are hundreds of combos to execute the “Yata-Garasu lock” and even more ways to prevent this card from ever leaving the field. I highly ever doubt that this card will ever get off the forbidden list due to the many exploits you can do with this one card every turn.

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