G1 Note he picked Scissors (for next time)

T2: Reaper/NOC obviously. OK. Discarded Abyss Soldier so you're inclined to read Zoo, but remember you just NOC'd Merchant. This has to be an aggro Chaos build.

T3: So he didn't set a backrow and just set a monster. I read Dekoichi.

T4: Drew Faith. I would Tsuku obviously, then go bang bang, careful not to make Sorcerer live because he has no light right now. Note you need to save your Meta/Faith + Call/Tsuku followups for this.

Pause. You summoned Breaker for some really weird reason. You had to have been stuck on thinking this was Zoo, right? You had to think that was a D.D. Assailant? That was dumb. He didn't even have an S/T to bluff behind his set. Your Breaker could've gotten more value by popping the first card he could draw and set, likely something that can't be chained.

Unpause. You attacked into Mimic. OK, same thing as Dekoichi.

You discarded Sakuretsu with Reaper. Nice. That tells you his draw off Mimic was Sakuretsu (because he would've set it otherwise vs. Reaper). That also tells you his hand can't beat a Reaper, and he's on the draw.

T5: He set a monster and didn't summon. My guess is something that walls Reaper... Night Assailant? Spy? I think this because he drew, and for the first time this game, he didn’t shuffle his hand. Meaning he was confident in his set monster. I mean it could be another Mimic/Dekoichi but that seems unlikely. And he would've attacked Reaper with Sangan, I think, but again, I think it’s a wall.

T6: You drew BLS, shuffled, and attacked with Breaker. Couple things. Pause. First of all, there's no reason to shuffle your hand there. Don't do that. That's annoying. Besides, honestly, if he draws Duo, you want him to activate it with him thinking he knows something about the location of your cards, then shuffle your hand after he activates it to strip him of that information. Secondly, I can tell you plan on setting Faith, but that's dumb. Faith is how you're going to setup both Meta and BLS, and you haven't done anything to bait NOC yet.

Unpause. OK so it turns out it was SWM. That's unfortunate because I was going to say you should have summoned Tsukuyomi and I guess it worked out better this way for you. Anyway, in g2 and g3, don't summon Tsuku in situations like this where your Reaper would have otherwise gotten stuck in attack mode vs hand of Chaos monsters and a non-floater like Breaker.

Yeah, you set Faith. If I made that move I would've 100% lost the game.

T7: Of COURSE your opponent doesn't have NOC AND draws Breaker to make your random summon of him pay off (because now you can set Call). And he attacks your face-down, so you can get back NOC and Tsuku+NOC and keep lights away from him. Ugh, just imagine how different your situation would be right now if he had SWM hit Breaker and he summoned BLS in MP2 to remove Faith. It would completely change the balance of the game.

T8: You drew TT. OK, you have options. Pause.
You know your opponent doesn’t have a light yet, but probably runs Thunder Dragon, and definitely has 1 or more Chaos monsters ih. It’s important you prepare for the possibility of a live Sorc + BLS play on his next turn. He still has Grace and Tribe, which means he could have up to 5 out, and maybe Snatch too. He doesn’t have Snatch yet because he would’ve used it on Reaper. If you double-attack through SWM then rely on Tsuku/NOC then you can’t game. He could be holding Storm, waiting for a big push. He could be holding Sinister too. If you Tsuku BLS then you give him NOC as an out. If you Meta BLS then your Call is definitely still an option once you bait removal. I would probably summon BLS, remove SWM, Tsuku BLS, Meta BLS into Gatling, and attack for 4000, then set TT, making sure to leave 3 cards in my hand in case he draws Duo.

Unpause. OK, first of all, why are you summoning BLS in defense before committing to the Tsuku-summon? If he pulls Graceful shenanigans then you’re giving him the option to BLS double-attack over your BLS. Also you you gave him NOC as an out, and put your strongest follow-up card down first as bait. I don’t like that play. I also don’t like that you put BLS fd in MP2 instead of MP1, because you just didn’t do the extra 1100 from Tsuku for some reason. Note that you discarded BLS, meaning his Sorcerer is live, meaning any way he intends to get rid of BLS will probably involve banishing it, meaning your Call is looking really weak right now.

T9: Your opponent, for some reason, has decided to set a monster when he knows you have NOC, instead of using it (even if it is Faith, which it probably is, since he’s got another Sorc ih and wants another light). He also used Sorc to banish Reaper instead of trying to deal with the BLS that’s definitely going to end the game right here. You only won this game because your opponent is terrible.

T10: You drew DDWL. The play is obviously flip BLS, banish Sorc, NOC the fd, Meta BLS for Gatling, Call BLS, and summon DDWL and hit for exactly 7100, which is what you did. Your opponent scooped before you even summoned DDWL, probably disgraced with himself.

G2

T1: You open a monster hand, but so does your opponent, and he hits Pot, lol. I wouldn’t have discarded Sangan. This game isn’t looking great and I don’t think you can count on resolving Jar as a first-set when you’re behind the summon and down so many cards. He could go Mimic -> Meta, Abyss -> Sinister, or NOC. I would’ve kept Sangan and dumped Prem.

T2: You drew Meta, which obviously makes things a little bit more interesting. At this point you have the option to hit his FD with Sangan and hope it isn’t Mimic, then set Jar and Book or just pass, waiting for a better spot to set the Jar.

Pause: OK so you set Jar and Book vs his monster, instead of using Prem. That was dumb. That’s literally a card you’re HOPING to throw away. Why not get value out of it instead? I can get on board with setting Jar here, but not using Prem is unforgivable.

T3: Note he didn’t shuffle. And OK so he flipped SWM, summoned Sangan (that he drew), and attacked the FD, which is very fortunate for you. He discarded Mobius (uh), Mirror, Saku, and Goats (?). OK I understand him not setting any of that, but that’s a weird list.

T4: Pause. OK you have Sin, 2 Goat, DDWL, Merchant, and Duo vs a 2/2/3 setup. The first thing you should be asking yourself is why he would set 2 in this situation. Is it to protect from Duo? To bait Heavy? Does his board demand it? He’s not at risk of losing, so he doesn’t need to set Goats. He would also want to keep Goats in hand for the Duo, so that’s not there. My guess would be Ring and Book, or Book and Dust. Either way I’d be expecting Book.

I would Duo here to catch NOC if possible. I’d set DDWL and Goat. I’d hope to remove Sangan and let Merchant get Meta later.

Unpause. Pause. Uh, okay, so he runs Cursed Seal. And he did the 2-for-1 exchange that Duo was going to do anyway by discarding Book. He could’ve just held the Cursed Seal at that point I guess. Anyway yeah, this is a bad player playing a bad deck, and I don’t know that there’s a lot of value in analyzing this going forward. It’s clear he’s just playing cards as they become available to him. I’m thinking that fd is probably Dust, so you want to set both Goats to make that trade-off and make sure your LP is protected. Note that he wouldn’t have set Heavy next to Cursed Seal. You probably want to stick with the DDWL set. OK I guess 1 Goat is fine, he doesn’t have any lights/darks.

T5: So he draws Abyss Soldier and discards his ih Tribe to bounce your DDWL. That’s 4500 to the face, ouch. I’d be careful how you get rid of his SWM and Sangan from here.

T6: OK so you’ve obviously setting Goats and Merchant here.

T7: He Gracefuls into Heavy, Metas his Sangan, gets Sinister, gives himself a light and dark, bounces your Merchant, and hits 3 Goats. I think your follow-up is obvious. Note he runs at least 2 SWM. Also note this is not quite the aggro Chaos deck I expected.

T8: You drew NOC and almost did the right move. BLS should be in attack mode.

T9: He drew Breaker. Nothing special.

T10: You drew Snatch. I would NOT use it.

Pause. Why did you use Snatch? Worse, why did you turn SWM to attack mode? Now you lose to Sorc. Unpause.

T11: Okay so he drew Ring and you lost. This is because you didn’t set 2 Goats for some reason, as if you were more afraid of Heavy than Dust. You also got a little unlucky at the end, but the point is the game was winnable.

G3

T1: OK so you open Breaker Asura AK BLS Goat and DDWL. I’d probably set DDWL and pass. And OK you did too.

T2: He rams SWM into DDWL as you hoped, setting one s/t before passing. My guess is Goat.

T3: You drew Jar. I’d summon Asura and hope I was wrong about Goat. NVM, it connected, so it’s either Goat or Cursed Seal I guess. Pause: You set Goat here and I’m not sure why. He can’t use Prem/Call, he doesn’t have Chaos plays, you don’t have to force Breaker to drop right now. You don’t have Meta, and if he Duos, you probably want to at least keep Goat as an option, if not just another card in hand to save BLS.

T4: He drew, shuffled, and passed. That’s a Goat.

T5: You drew Duo. I wouldn’t use it right now. There’s too much risk of making his hand live and you can ride Asura for at least another turn. OK cool, you did that.

T6: He set a monster and passed. I think it’s Mimic.

T7: Pause. This is where you’re supposed to summon Breaker, not Asura, to build board presence and not be at risk of getting yourself behind the summon. And if that is Goat, it would be a good opportunity (not this turn, but in following turns) to set him up to be Goat-locked. Note that I haven’t seen him use Tsukuyomi yet and only one Metamorphosis, AND you’re sitting on BLS, Breaker, and Asura with him at 4600. Anyway instead you summoned Asura, ran into Mimic, and put yourself in a position to either discard, activate Duo, or set Duo, neither of which are ideal. You also Duo’d and hit Storm. AND he discarded a useless Saku. That’s very lucky for you. Unpause.

T8: He MST’d your Goats and you activated them. OK. He summoned SWM and hit a Goat. He’s an idiot.

T9: I would summon Breaker, run through the SWM, then pop what I think is Goat. You did the same. Cool.
T10: He Meta’d a Goat to suck up Breaker and hit one of your Goats. You’re lucky he’s terrible.

T11: You drew MST. Note that he couldn’t win unless he had Meta, Mobius, and BLS in his hand, and he topdeck’d Ring. That’s if you put him on a single turn. Pause.

You have a few options here. You could Tsuku/attack the TER and set MST. You could Tsuku/attack the TER and discard AK in the end phase. You could set Reaper. You could set Asura. You could just pass and discard AK.

I think I like the option of setting Reaper here. In your worst case, I think it sets you back a turn. In the best case, I think it keeps AK as a potential win condition depending on his upcoming draws. Second best option is summoning Tsuku/attacking the TER then discarding AK in the end phase. Unpause.

You set the MST. I don’t think that was necessary. It’s also dangerous because you’re making his Breaker live exactly when you need to hold that MST for your BLS.

T12: He passed.

T13: Yup, Asura into Goats, set TT (thankfully you have something to catch Breaker now)..

T14: He summons Abyss, calls priority to bounce a Goat, and you have the option to TT but don’t use it. I’m not sure what your plan is otherwise? Asura crash, mp2 summon BLS? Why?

T15: Yeah, you just Tsuku’d the Abyss down, setting yourself back a whole turn and giving him an extra Normal Summon to do damage. Terrible play.

T16: Pause. I guess you’re thinking “I’ll wait to summon Asura, TT, then SS BLS, but I don’t want to do that when he only has one monster on the field,” and that’s why you’re not using TT when he flips Abyss. But again, you could’ve had the 1700 direct to his face last turn if you used TT then, and that Asura shot would have put him in game range. You could’ve discarded AK last turn instead of setting Dust and literally had everything you needed to win by this upcoming turn.

T17: You drew Saku. Again, you don’t have a play here that doesn’t leave you unable to answer a BLS. You have to stall with Reaper/Saku/TT just to avoid Abyss raping you. And that’s exactly what you do.

T18: You obviously Saku his Abyss. He set a monster, which you HAVE to read as Faith.

T19: Pause. Every turn from here on out is an opportunity your opponent shouldn’t have had to win. Now you’re summoning Asura to his face-down instead of hitting through a bare field, but you know it’s Faith, so you have to TT your own summon, and again that’s just because you didn’t want to TT sooner. You put yourself in this position where you’ve committed to your backrow and forced yourself to play TT like this just because Heavy is in the grave, you didn’t discard AK sooner, and you didn’t play TT when Abyss was first summoned. Even if you wanted to attack through the FD (which you shouldn’t), you don’t have a good way to get ahead of the summon now. Unpause.

So you correctly, and unfortunately, summon Asura and TT because you know he has Faith. And you set the second Dust, I’m guessing, because you think he’s going to draw both Breaker and a backrow in one turn?

T20: He set a monster.

T21: Pause. Rip. You drew NOC with Tsuku ih. You summon BLS and remove the FD (OK I guess) but then you SET BLS FD WITH TSUKU. Why not tribute for Airknight??!? You have two Dusts down. If your opponent has Sorc or BLS, he’s going to remove. If he has Snatch, you’re covered. Why give him NOC as an out? You haven’t even baited anything besides Reaper a couple turns back.

So you’re opponent is at 3300 after you hit with Tsuku, but he could’ve been at 2500 if you hit with Airknight instead. And you could’ve gotten one card deeper into your 24-card deck to get Ring or Duo or Pot or Grace or Prem or Call, all of which seem really important right now.

Such a huge misplay. I hope he has NOC. Unpause.

T22: Note the order in which he did this: drew, checked your grave, then shuffled hand. This is different from his regular MO of just shuffling right after the draw most of the time. I call this the “guilty shuffle” sometimes. He just drew this Abyss Soldier, which is why he checked to see if you could re-summon BLS, and he shuffled his hand afterwards to make it seem like it was always part of the plan to summon Abyss. That’s important, because you know what he doesn’t have to answer that BLS with now.

T23: This sucks for you. You can either Tsuku + NOC now or set Reaper or Tsuku and hope to draw something. You decided not to set anything? That seems bad.

T24: OK, so you ate 1800. That’s not great.

T25: I just want to remind you, on this turn that you drew Graceful 1 turn later than ideal, that you could’ve had an Airknight get you here last turn. Or you could’ve won on T19. Such shame that you won at all, never mind this way.

Overall very disappointed. I feel like if I were playing these games, that your mistakes would’ve been punished more often. And that you benefited from your opponent being bad and playing a bad deck.

There were zero interesting plays in this game. Both of you might as well have been playing open-handed. That’s how little of a difference your plays made.