Frog OTK

Frogs are the first water/aqua archtype with all the cards featuring "Frog" in the card name (With a couple of exceptions). At first when this archtype was introduced in Cybernetic Revolution, not much was thought of them due to the lack of support released at the time. Yet as time elapsed more and more support was released such as the field card Wetlands to give all your frogs a big attack boost. Combined with Gravity Bind this deck was quite annoying due to the low levels of the frogs sneaking under Gravity Bind and the attack boost of Wetlands, this early frog deck was a pain to face but not unbeatable!

In the most recent set "The Shining Darkness" a new card was released for frogs, Ronintoadin,

Now Ronintoadin is not technically a frog card as it does not feature the word frog in the name, but it is the main focus of one of the most consistant and difficult to stop OTK decks seen this format! The Frog/Mass Driver OTK!

This deck at the moment is one of the cheapest tournament winning decks, with Rodrigo Togores Moli winning the European Championship 2010 (Birmingham, England) using this deck beating Infernities in the final! Most noteable about this match up was that both decks can OTK, but even more shocking is the massive price tag difference!

Now the deck it self revolves around 4 cards, Substitoad, Swap Frog, Ronintoadin and Mass Driver

As with any deck, if you get the right opening hand you can win there and then. The Frog OTK is no exception. By opening with a hand with Substitoad, Swap Frog, Mass Driver then you can confidently say the game is yours! But how? This is how:

~Discard a Water type monster to special summon Swap Frog (Preferably a frog like Des Frog, Poison Draw Frog, Flip Flop Frog, Treeborn Frog etc)

~Use Swap Frog's effect to send Ronintoadin from your deck to the graveyard

~Normal summon Substitoad

~Use Substitoad's effect tributing Swap Frog to special summon another frog from your deck to the field

~Repeat until there is at least 21 frogs in your grave (At least one being a Ronintoadin)

~Activate Mass Driver

~Remove a frog from your grave to special summon Roanintoadin

~Tribute Roanintoadin with Mass Drivers effect for 400 damage

~Repeat the last two steps another 19 times to take the game (20x400 = 8000)

Now, that is ideally what you would want to do if you have the perfect opening hand! Which we all know doesn't happen. So what do we do if we don't open with the perfect hand? Use as many spells as possible to set up the OTK! Such spells suitable for this deck include, Moray of Greed, Salvage, and One for One.

These 3 cards are very important in the Frog OTK, as Moray of Greed and Salvage work in sync to add 2 frogs to your hand with Salvage and then return them to the deck using Moray of Greed for an instant +1 in the hope of drawing Mass Driver or One for One.

One for one is a rather popular card in Frog decks, Infernities and even in some X-saber builds!

It allows you to discard a monster from your hand to the grave (Hopefully Roadintoadin) to special summon one level one monster from your deck, and what you get? Substitoad!!! and provided you already have a monster on the field, you can then get to loading your grave full of frogs, and if you have Mass Driver in your hand, let the OTK commence!!

I hope you have enjoyed this guide to the Frog OTK!

YGO European Championship 2010 - Birmingham, England

Well, this is my first blog and i would like to start off with a, not so much a reveiw, as a discussion about the YuGiOh! - European Championship 2010 from a judges point of veiw.

Now let me begin this by saying that this international event was a great sucess from both sides of the event (Players and judges alike) and congratulations to Rodrigo Togores Moli (Madrid, Spain) for his victory using a very consistant Frog OTK deck.

Alot of the feedback from the judges focused mainly on the running of the event and things to improve on, one main focus being not picking up on slow play, and as a lot of you players will know, this can be hard to pick up and often fustrates everyone else (players and judges) who are waiting for the next round. Remember that we judges are watching you at these events and consistant offenders will receive warnings and this could escalate to game losses, and potentially match losses. I'm sure none of you players would want this, especially if you have travelled abroad for this sort of event!!

Now one thing I really feel should be brought up to all you players is observing other players, I as well as many other judges can understand your want to watch other players, your friends and teamates, but you must understand that we judges often move you all back several feet for several reasons, mainly because; we may think you are giving an unfair advantage to a player (which has severe consequences to both the player and yourself - yes yourself even if you are not playing in the main or public events), it can pose a fire hazard you all standing around the tables, it can put off alot of players who are still dueling (either in the match your watching or nearby duels) and most importantly it blocks the spaces in between the tables so we judges have a hard time doing our jobs! Yes we may seem harsh at times, but alot of the time you players do not listen! and again consistant offenders will receive penalties.

Surprisingly, at events such as this, we often find ourselves giving out game and match losses to players who are late to their tables after rounds have been announced! As I hope you are all aware that the offical Konami guidelines state that a player not in their correct table and/or facing the wrong opponenet, within 3 minutes will get a game loss for tardiness, and at the 10 minute mark you will receive a match loss for that particular round! Yet alot of players will argue against this stating that they did not realise that the round had started. I can fully understand that at Euro's this year there was not a system in place to announce the begining of each round, but if you are at an event this high up in the YGO calender you should all be aware that we advise you stay NEAR the main (or public) event area so you can be promt to your next opponent.

This is all I am going to say for now on this event, heck I may even do a part 2, time permitting.

Thanks for reading this and I hope this leads players to being better players at future events