Heres my thoughts on the best and worst things to happen to Yu-Gi-Oh in the last 2 and a bit years,
At the start of 2008 one of the biggest and best moments happened to Yugioh!- The release of the "Phantom Darkness" Booster Pack,This pack not only released cards like Gladiator Beast Darius,Gladiator Proving Ground and Gladiator Beast Andal but also brought on the reign of Dark Armed Dragon Return(DAD-Return) Combining cards like Destiny Hero-Malicious,Destiny Draw,Allure Of Darkness,Dark Magician Of Chaos,Return From A Different Dimension,Dark Grepher and most importantly Dark Armed Dragon!
Dark Armed Dragon could be special summoned from the hand while you had exactly 3 Dark Monsters in your graveyard,This meant that a duelist could use cards like Dark Grepher and Destiny Draw to quickly fill up the Graveyard with darks and drop multiple DAD's
Although the release of these cards were big there was something even bigger on it's way!
The release of the "Lightsworn" archetype,
This deck worked by using "Lumina,Lightsworn Summoner","Solar Recharge" and other "Lightsworn" cards to send cards from the top of the deck to the Graveyard,This allowed players to special summon "Judgment Dragon" very quickly.
Gladiator Beasts and Lightsworns dominated the format from the release of LODT(Light Of Destruction) forward
September 2008-The Banned List
This list banned: Dark Magician Of Chaos,Destiny Hero-Disk Commander and Premature Burial.
And Restricted Breaker The Magical Warrior,Cyber Dragon,Monster Gate and Reasoning.
Not forgetting the semi-limited list: Dark Armed Dragon,Rescue Cat,Phantom Of Chaos,Summoner Monk,Card Of Safe Return,Chain Strike and Nobleman Of Crossout
along with changes to Restict cards was the unrestricting of other cards this time the cards unrestricted were:Allure Of Darkness,Destiny Hero-Malicious,Light And Darkness Dragon,Mage Power,Reinforcements Of The Army and Royal Decree
(Some of the PTDN cards had be quickly added to the list in May 2008)
The Format of September 2008 forward:
With the depart of Upper Deck Entertainment in the April the Yugioh scene for Europe was taken over by Konami.
The next thing that was about to happen was the Release of "The Duelist Genesis" along with alot of new things including Synchro Monsters,Psychics and new support for Lightsworn in the form of "Charge Of The Light Brigade"
The New set/list allowed Tele-Dad to make its debut at Shonen Jumps and other major Tournaments around the world... Tele-DAD looked similar to this:
Monsters
2 Dark Armed Dragon
3 Destiny Hero Malicious
2-3 Krebons
0-1 Psychic Commander
1 Dark Grepher
1 Spirit Reaper
1 Destiny Hero Fear Monger
1 Destiny Hero Doom Lord
1 Destiny Hero Diamond Dude
1 Elemental Hero Stratos
1 Mystic Tomato
1 Plaguespreader Zombie
1 Caius The Shadow Monarch
Spells
3 Destiny Draw
3 Allure Of Darkness
2 Reinforcements Of The Army
3 Emergency Teleport
1 Heavy Storm
1 Mystical Space Typhoon
1 Monster Reborn
1 Brain Control
0-2 Mind Control
Traps
3 Solemn Judgment
2 Phoenix Wing Wind Blast
2 Royal Oppression(optional)
1 Crush Card Virus
1 Trap Dustshoot
this deck won nearly every SJC(Shonen Jump Championship)/Major Event for the 6 mths that the deck was at full strength.
Zombies and Lightsworn were the nearest deck to Tele-Dad for this particular format.
March 2009
With Lightsworn getting Charge of the light brigade but not really seeing any play among alot of Tele-DAD decks since it was released
Lightsworn seemed like a good deck to play for the new format(Tele-DAD was cripled by DAD going to 1,allure/ddraw/malicious to 2 and Emergency teleport going to 1)
between March and around July lightsworn dominated,Then came the release of X-Saber Airbellum,Blackwing and Dark Stike Fighter
This made cards like Rescue Cat and Reckless Greed more playable outside of combo decks,
Cat Synchro and Blackwings main objectives were to clear the opponents field(Icarus Attack,Crush Card Virus etc...) and bring out 2 Dark Strike Fighters(GK Spy/Guard +Airbellum/Gale and Blackwing Shura/Lv 4 Blackwing Monster + Gale) attacking and tributing the 2 DSF's in the Main Phase 2 for 8000
Cold Wave and Summoner monk were the best way of doing this in Cat while Blackwing used Black Whirlwind,Morphing Jar and other cards to quickly thin through your deck.
September 2009
This ends the era of Cat/Blackwing/Lightsworn and a format of OTK's
Banned:Dark Strike Fighter,Card Of Safe Return,Monster Reborn and Crush Card Virus....
I will finish this article later as it's taking along time lol
