Why you shouldn’t play Anti Meta
17 Dec 2009 | Nick Butcher
This article will be covering why Anti Meta is a bad choice for a deck. Things such as why you draw dead with many of the hands. Going in-depth with the most popular builds of Anti Meta this format. Why Anti Meta is unable to control games due to “Solemn Judgment” being restricted.
One way of knowing if Anti Meta is a bad choice for a deck, is that there is no draw power included into the deck. Another reason is that they have to play 3 copies of cards like “Royal Oppression” the best Anti Meta card ever created. So if you have 3 copies of many of the cards in the deck, you will be drawing multiples of them, it is dead and due to the complete lack of draw power you cannot replenish your hand. People try to play “Morphing Jar” in their Anti Meta deck and it is a bad idea because the purpose of Anti Meta is to completely control your opponent with “Royal Oppression”, “Skill Drain” and “Thunder King Rai-Oh”.
Morphing jar against decks like Zombie, Lightsworn and Blackwing will probably benefit from drawing an extra 5 cards and discarding cards needed in the graveyard. The new Gemini Stun deck has cards 2 Gemini Sparks in the deck and 5-7 Gemini Monsters including “Elemental Hero Neos Alius” and the new card “Crusader of Endymion”. Very foolish, as good players would be well aware instantly, this deck is playing Geminis only to draw from “Gemini Spark” which leads to more inconsistent hands.
OK, now I am going to go through some of the most well known builds of Anti Meta, starting with gadgets:
Monsters: 17
2 Red Gadget
2 Yellow Gadget
2 Green Gadget
2 Thunder King Rai-Oh
2 Kycoo the Ghost Destroyer
3 Tragoedia
1 Blackwing – Gale the Whirlwind
3 D.D. Warrior Lady
Spells: 12
3 Book of Moon
2 Fissure
2 Soul Taker
1 Smashing Ground
1 Lightning Vortex
1 Heavy Storm
1 Mystical Space Typhoon
1 Pot of Avarice
Traps: 11
3 Royal Oppression
1 Solemn Judgment
2 Bottomless Trap Hole
2 Dimensional Prison
1 Mirror Force
1 Torrential Tribute
1 Trap Dustshoot
At first glance you might think that this deck looks solid but when you make this deck you will see that you cannot control the game against the top tier decks like it is supposed to. Against Lightsworn the only thing protecting Gadgets is “Royal Oppression” and without any draw power the deck cannot access them unless drawn in the first to second draw. Lightsworn indeed destroys this deck. Playing cards like “Celestia, Lightsworn Angel” and “Lyla, Lightsworn Sorceress” which is searchable by 3 copies of “Charge of the Light Brigade” can destroy the Royal Oppressions. The deck is very vulnerable to Zombies if Oppression is not drawn T1 because Zombies set up way too fast for Anti Meta to respond and with 2 “Pyramid Turtle” and 2 copies of “Mystic Tomato” which both are unaffected by Oppression, search out your combo’s. The 1 for 1 destruction cards like “Soul Taker”, “Fissure” and “Smashing Ground” are good against Monsters that have high attack points. Drawing 2 of the same Gadget is auto scoop because your stream will stuff up and you will have a large chance of being destroyed. Drawing 2 Different gadgets is not awful but does provide you with a card you would rather have in your deck.
The next deck has been overhyped for no reason; yes it special summons and there is draw power with “Allure of Darkness” but like all Anti Meta decks it is very inconsistent.
Chaos Sun:
3 THUNDER KING RAI-OH
3 D. D. WARRIOR LADY
3 KYCOO THE GHOST DESTROYER
3 DOOMCALIBER KNIGHT
2 CHAOS SORCERER
1 CYBER DRAGON
1 NEO SPACIAN GRAND MOLE
1 BREAKER THE MAGICAL WARRIOR
1 GORZ THE EMISSARY OF DARKNESS
1 BLACKWING – GALE THE WHIRLWIND
3 BOOK OF MOON
2 ALLURE OF DARKNESS
1 FISSURE
1 LIGHTING VORTEX
1 SMASHING GROUND
1 MY BODY AS A SHIELD
1 HEAVY STORM
1 MYSTICAL SPACE TYPHOON
2 ROYAL OPPRESSION
2 BOTTOMLESS TRAP HOLE
2 DIMENSIONAL PRISON
1 TRAP DUSTSHOOT
1 MIRROR FORCE
1 TORRENTIAL TRIBUTE
1 SOLEMN JUDGMENT
1 CALL OF THE HAUNTED
As you can see, this deck is using 3 of many cards that don’t need to be used in 3s, 3 “D.D. Warrior lady” and 3 “Kycoo the Ghost Destroyer” only to summon 2 “Chaos Sorcerer”. Allure is in the deck only for draw power when you don’t primarily want to remove your darks unless you have multiples in your hand and with only 10 dark monsters allure is not also alive in your hand. Spell line-up is pretty standard in terms if Anti Meta . Traps are also standard in an Anti Meta deck, protecting your monsters. “Doomcaliber Knight” is not very good against Cards like “Blackwing, Vayu the Emblem of Honor” and “Necro Gardna”. The rest of the deck is pretty standard, not much else to explain.
Now for the final part of this article: why you can’t control the game with Anti Meta without “Solemn Judgement”. A heavy storm completely destroys the deck; with only 1 solemn you can’t protect your “Royal Oppressions” and cannot really defend yourself against big pushes for game or control your opponents’ monsters and spells/traps. You should never play “Dark Bribe” in Anti Meta because it gives away too much advantage to your opponent.
In conclusion, Anti Meta is a bad choice for a deck because it is way too inconsistent and not played at an OP tournament level. May I add that not all these cards are bad; “Doomcaliber Knight” is played respectfully in many Tier 1 Side decks. If this Article is popular I will create a 2nd article on Anti Meta with 2 more decks including “Little City”.
Thank you.
For discussion.