Hey you. Yeah, you. You tired of playing the same Golos deck, playing two lands a turn, drawing into your combo pieces, and winning while the entire table finishes War and Peace on their phones? You bored with your Sultai landfall deck, where you play solitaire for three hours? Board police getting too much to bear?
Well, let me introduce you to your new best friend:
[[Neheb, the Eternal]].
Now, if you've never seen Neheb before, I know what you're thinking. "Wow, that card looks absolutely absurd", and buddy, you're right. Neheb decks aren't as much EDH decks as they are high-score attempts, seeing how much damage they can dish out in a single turn. Damage doublers, triplers, pingers that only go face, and enough X spells to make Zaxara cry in a little Sultai corner.
You want infinite combats? Neheb. You want to [[Comet Storm]] for 80? Neheb. You want to burn that lifegain deck right back to the pit it crawled out of? YOU WANT TO PUT THE FEAR OF GOD INTO ANYONE WHO DARES CONTINUE TO LIVE? N E H E B.
STEP ONE: RAMP While Neheb himself is both a beeftank of a man and creates mana like he's eighty mountains strapped to a rocket sled, Neheb works best when he's out, and five mana isn't exactly cheap. So, what do we need? The standard rocks and ramp, like [[Sol Ring]], [[Wayfarer's Bauble]], [[Mind Stone]], [[Arcane Signet]], [[Ruby Medallion]], you get it. We do, however, run a few interesting ramp cards.
[[Cryptolith Fragment]] comes in tapped, sure, but once we have our big Lazotep Lasher out, we can tap it for one mana in the main phase, and three (3!) mana in the 2nd main phase. The good news is that if it transformed, something has gone horribly wrong, so we're not even gonna talk about the back. If it does flip, though, nine mana in the 2nd main isn't bad at all.
[[Everflowing Chalice]] isn't a rock, it's a bank. If you have a ton of mana floating in the second main, and you will, Everflowing Chalice is a way to keep some of it and use it on turns going forward. You can replace this with
[[Horizon Stone]], I guess, but Everflowing is just a bit faster, and remember: Horizon Stone is based on Kruphix, and he's Simic, and we blow Simic players into small chunks. Oh, also, we have better Horizon Stone.
THAT'S RIGHT WE HAVE
[[Leyline Tyrant]] BABY. You want to float mana? Leyline Tyrant. You want an evasive beater? Leyline Tyrant. You want protection from removal in the form of Leyline Tyrant choosing violence and blowing up someone's face? Ley. Line. Tyrant.
You want mana? You want it NOW? Cool. We got
[[Seething Song]] and
[[Jeska's Will]] for all your mana needs. Turn 2 Neheb is always a bucket of fun. Black can keep [[Dark Ritual]], I bet they're casting single target removal with it, what a bunch of nerds.
Our mana doubler is
[[Extraplanar Lens]] and
[[Snow-Covered Mountains]]. We want mana. Not them. If they have snow-covered mountains, blow them up first. Cowards.
[[Chandra, Torch of Defiance]] has two +1 abilities: gain red red, or deal two damage to each opponent, draw a card, and get six red mana. She's here for her good +1.
Now that we have our mana online, let's talk about our two plans: Nukes and Dukes.
STEP TWO: DUKES PART ONE: BOXING GLOVES Neheb is a commander that likes to attack. Once he's out, we're going to want to have him swing probably ever turn, because even if he's blocked he goes right over the top. The issue, however, is that while he has 6 toughness, that's not a lot going into the late game. So, we've got some boxing gloves for our beeftank.
[[Darksteel Plate]] lets us not really worry about Neheb. Slap some darksteel on that lazotep and watch the haymakers fly.
[[Sword of War and Peace]] and
[[Sword of Sinew and Steel]] give him protection from white and black, and also importantly, RED. We can use our X spells that also hit creatures with impunity once we give Neheb one of his twin blades.
[[Shadowspear]] gives Neheb trample, which lets him smack harder, and also, for two mana, you can remove indestructible and hexproof from an opponent's permanents. A glorious piece of tech. The lifelink can be nice, but it's, there to punch through. Speaking of punching through
[[Embercleave]] needs no introduction. If you're turning something sideways, Embercleave is always a great way to make sure it damn well hurts.
[[Swiftfoot Boots]] makes killing Neheb harder, and anything that makes Neheb stickier is good in my books. Haste is also an absolute plus. We don't have [[Lightning Greaves]] because we want to give Neheb more equipment than just lightning greaves, and shroud makes that harder than it needs to be.
PART TWO: SIDEWAYS CREATURES If we're swinging more than once a turn, and we WILL be swinging more than once a turn, we want to swing with things that create effects that benefit from multiple combats. Enter our beaters:
[[Tectonic Giant]] swings once and deals three damage to everyone, or impulse draws. You swing multiple times with him and with Neheb in play, and boy howdy did you just draw and make a ton of mana. An absolute unit of a card.
[[Etali, Primal Storm]] is four free draws per swing. You swing multiple times with Stompy McCardsteal, and you've basically cast Villainous Wealth in red.
[[Neheb, Dreadhorde Champion]] is both real and not impulse draw and mana ramp. Swing, dump bad cards, get mana, repeat. EZ Clap.
PART THREE: TECHNICAL KNOCKOUT [[World at War]] and
[[Savage Beating]] gives us extra combats, with World At War having rebound to guarantee us extra combat the next turn and Savage Beating giving us double strike to combat trick like an absolute madman if we need to really add insult to injury.
[[Aggrivated Assault]] takes a small amount to explain. So, if we swing with Neheb, and he's unblocked, we get four mana. Tap a mountain, five mana, get an extra combat, swing with Neheb, go to the next main phase, EIGHT MANA, because Neheb cares about total damage of the turn, and checks every post-combat main phase, not your first one. That's right. We go infinite. Blow up the world, send out Neheb, and swing for infinite gaining infinite mana.
Also do not shout the names of the cards in this section because most of them are absolutely crimes and your pod will call the cops to stop you from beating their life totals into the dirt.
STEP THREE: NUKES PART ONE: PRIMING FOR FISSION Before we can bow up the world, we need to prime ourselves for it. To do this, we need to damage our opponents, and get our damage increasing abilities online.
[[Acidic Soil]] and
[[Price of Progress]] are pretty much free damage. That guy who spent all game mana fixing? Yeah, he's getting shot for 16. The Golos deck? 30. Acidic Soil is there because it also counts basics, so the budget player who thought he was safe can get slapped for daring to play Magic as well.
[[Chandra's Ignition]] is 5 red mana for 12 red mana if you hit Neheb with it. It also board wipes. Slap it on Etali if you have protection for Neheb, and watch the world go down in fire.
[[Flame Rift]],
[[Slagstorm]], and
[[Fiery Confluence]] hit our opponents for dirt cheap costs. Three mana to get nine mana? two mana and four life for 12 mana? Treasonous Ogre is crying, he's been unemployed. Fiery Confluence is also a board wipe and a removal spell, which is super neato, as we're a mono-colored deck, so our toolbox isn't super diverse.
[[Combustible Gearhulk]] says "Give me draw or give me mana''. It's our Fact or Fiction, and much like Fact or Fiction, there are only bad answers. With an average CMC of 3, we're going to either draw three or get our mana back when someone takes 6 damage.
[[Pyrohemia]] says "pay one red mana: Gain three red mana". It's literally just Dark Ritual that is also removal. If you can't see why that's good I have no idea what you're doing in a red burn deck explanation.
[[Heartless Hidetsugu]] deals damage to each opponent equal to half their life total, rounded down. Deals damage. This isn't loss of life, this isn't 'becomes', Hidetsugu takes their life totals outside with a baseball bat and teaches it to fear the color red. Shadowspear on him makes you gain all the life they lost. If you have a damage doubler out, Hidetsugu says "Tap this creature, Win the Game." If he taps, and Neheb is out, one X spell almost guarantees a player death.
PART TWO: ROCKET FUEL [[Torbran, Thane of Red Fell]] is not a damage doubler, but it does make our smaller pingers like Flame Rift, Fiery Confluence, and Pyrohemia absolutely backbreaking. Think of him as the initial charge.
[[Insult // Injury]] often time reads "Pay 3 mana: Your next spell kills a player". Injury is nice, but we're really here for the cheap damage double and to stop any damage prevention shenanigans. We're casting Insult when we know we can go off.
[[Fiery Emancipation]] Is here because, honestly, we make so much mana we'd be stupid not to run it. Six mana to triple damage when we make dozens of mana a turn is an incredible deal, and because it's one-sided, we don't have to worry about people killing us immediately with their tiny creatures. [[Furnace of Rath]] is two mana cheaper, yes, but importantly it doubles instead of triples, and also, uh, it doubles on US. We're trying not to self-destruct.
PART FOUR: DETONATION [[Rolling Earthquake]] hits everything without horsemanship, so it hits everything. It's strictly better than Earthquake, because if we're casting an X spell, 80% of the time we're casting it because either A) We're about to lose or B) We're about to win.
[[Molten Disaster]] has split second, which makes it uncounterable, unreturnable, and uninteractable. It's our "YOU DARE PLAY BLUE?!" card.
[[Jaya's Immolating Inferno]] targets up to three targets. You will have three opponents in your pod. The math works.
[[Comet Storm]] is flexible, in that if you've already blown someone to kingdom come, it costs one less mana! So that's nice! It's also great target removal, and great with our newest card...
[[Toralf, God of Fury]]. Oh yeah. In this deck, a deck where we overkill everything, Toralf becomes an absolute monster. Earthquake everyone, and have the excess damage dealt to their creatures finish them off. The flip side of the card also goes mana-positive with Neheb, if we really need to get there and are just out of reach. This is a card this deck loves like your opponents love not being blown off the face of the earth by fireballs.
PART FIVE: CLUSTER MUNITIONS [[Primal Amulet]] lets us copy our damage when it flips, and makes our damage spells cheaper before it does. It's easy to see why it's an all-star here.
[[Reverberate]] lets us copy something. Sometimes it'll be the counter that's trying to stop Jaya's Immolating Inferno. Sometimes it'll be the Immolating Inferno itself.
[[Reiterate]] is a multi-use reverberate, and we have the mana to use it.
STEP 4: THE REST OF THE DECK ThisIsn'tAStepButShhhhhh HASTE We want to give our creatures haste.
[[Generator Servant]],
[[Purphoros, Bronze-Blooded]], we can wheel away an
[[Anger]] with ease, and
[[Ogre Battledriver]] gives us a bit of oomph when our creatures enter the battlefield. Purphoros also functions as a sneak attack for when we want a creature to attack, but we don't have the mana to get it out.
DRAW Look. We're in mono red, which means we have... one tutor that's halfway decent for our plan, and that's
[[Gamble]]. We need draw. We're running a lot of it.
[[Valakut Awakening]],
[[Reforge the Soul]],
[[Molten Psyche]],
[[Magus of the Wheel]],
[[Commune with Lava]],
[[Cathartic Reunion]],
[[Faithless Looting]] whatever we need to draw a whole ton, we have.
The real all-star draw card is
[[Knollspine Dragon]]. Draw equal to damage to target opponent? In a burn deck? In a burn deck where our burn makes mana? Oh baby you best believe that when you slam this puppy down people are going to quake in their boots. From the dragon. And maybe from the Rolling Earthquake. Or the Molten Disaster. Whatever.
REMOVAL We're not running much actual removal, because, well, A: Mono Red, and B: We're a player removal deck. If you want board control, or if you want a deck that doesn't feel like piloting a crashing roller coaster that is currently on fire, go play
[[Zada, Hedron Grinder]]. We're here for the boom boom.
[[Vandalblast]] and
[[Shattering Spree]] let us remove pesky artifacts,
[[Blasphemous act]] removes board states for dirt cheap, and
[[Chaos Warp]] lets us deal with one of anything.
[[Deflecting Swat]] is for anyone trying to touch our Lazotep Loverboy or for stack interaction when our [[Pyroblast]] fails to stop a counter.
LANDS [[Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx]] is pure gas,
[[Ancient Tomb]] gets Neheb out fast, and
[[Rogue's passage]] gets us through chump blockers and deathtouchers if we need to swing with Neheb. Other than that, it's mountains, a
[[Myriad Landscape]], and a
[[Smoldering Crater]] to remind our opponents of the fate that awaits them and also some draw if we need it.
SIDEBOARD For some, four X spells isn't enough.
[[Fall of the Titans]] and
[[Earthquake]] are easy to slot in, and for those who want more combat,
[[Fury of the Horde]] is easy enough to get.
[[Mana Geyser]] is great against landfall decks,
[[Red Elemental Blast]] is good if your meta includes people who try to stop you from throwing the sun at them (Cowards.). If you want more draw,
[[Apex of Power]] is a free draw 10 spell, and
[[Dragon Mage]] is a
[[Wheel of Fortune]] on a stick. Well, Magus of the Wheel is Wheel of Fortune on a stick ALRIGHT YOU GET IT.
UPGRADES The easiest upgrade path for this deck is fast mana.
[[Mana Crypt]],
[[Grim Monolith]],
[[Mana Vault]],
[[Jeweled Lotus]] the faster you can pump out Neheb the better. They're not on this list because they're pretty goddamn expensive, and if you turn two Neheb people are going to focus you into the absolute dirt.
[[Doubling Cube]] is neat, but honestly, it's just a but overkill.
Otherwise, upgrades include
[[Wheel of Fortune]], your favorite
Eldrazi Titan as a big ol' beater if you like the multiple combats,
[[Sword of Fire and Ice]] is just the best damn sword we can get, and I'd say get
[[Gauntlet of Might]] but for many people that card costs more than rent for the month, so just skip it.
GAMEPLAN Step 1) Cast Neheb as fast as possible.
Step 2) Deal symmetrical damage, swing in.
Step 3) Go infinite with Aggressive Assault or cast a spell where X is, like, six trillion.
We're not interested in things like "Midrange" or "Control". No. We're Neheb. We're here to get high scores on the "How much damage can I make without going infinite" leaderboards. This is not a deck that does anything besides slam into people. It explodes. It goes absolutely haywire, totally off the rails, you'll need a calculator to check your mana.
This deck exists for one reason and one reason only: This deck is for Burn Timmies. Is it competitive? Eh. Does it win a lot? Eh.
Does the fear in the eyes of your opponents make this deck worth it? Yes.
For your consideration, Nuclear Neheb:
https://www.archidekt.com/decks/1072303#NUCLEAR_NEHEB If you’re up for another long read, this is part 2 of my original DD on WSB.
Link here for those interested. WSB has been removing my DDs so here I am.
TLDR; there is no tldr. If you are invested in this topic then read the whole thing and make up your mind about what it means to you as you see fit.
My goals from this DD post -
- There are a couple of important relevant points about short interest that I don’t see other recent GME DD’s talking about that I would like to bring to the table for discussion. I prefix their titles with “forgotten point”.
- I would like to be objective and only present data while avoiding confirmation bias. If you see me biased, feel free to point it out.
- Share what I personally think and plan to do moving forward. This is not advice but only my personal opinion.
Short interest data analysis
Preface -
- This analysis was written before the SI official report expected on Feb 9; and is based on data from Ortex.
- The reason for the above is because whether official numbers turn up equal or lower to estimates, they don’t really affect the points I bring up here.
- For the sake of this discussion, let’s assume that current short interest data is accurate and that the report reflects real short interest.
Alright, let’s start by looking at a couple metrics available from Ortex, utilization and on loan.
https://preview.redd.it/q5dn66bs7rg61.png?width=3475&format=png&auto=webp&s=67a1a43fc24392f9cdd70de79da13700284dc4fe Here are definitions provided by Ortex for the data in the chart:
UTILIZATION: The ratio between the number of shares on loan across all outstanding loans in the wholesale market and the number of shares available for lending at lending programs. 0% means that no shares have been borrowed or lent at these lending programs; 100% means that all shares available to borrow or lend at a lending program have, in fact, been lent. This does not represent the number of shares listed on the exchange that have been lent, because not all listed shares our available for lending; it indicates how much of the supply actually available for lending has been lent. Unless otherwise specified, this is given in decimal format. SHARES ON LOAN The current number of shares out on loan Note that “shares on loan” is less than short interest estimate. This is likely due to naked shorting (regardless whether by MM or otherwise). The difference between those values is ~5M shares, suggesting 5M naked shorted shares but that’s a tangent.
Forgotten point 1: Float shrinks as shorts cover
According to the above definitions, we can deduce the total number of loanable shares by taking the “
On Loan” value and dividing it by utilization. This value represents the total number of shares available to loan + loaned out shares, which is the total borrowable float. Aka true float shares minus unavailable to short (e.g cash accounts). We can then come up with the following values.
January 25th -> 48.6M shares January 26th -> 44.7M shares January 27th -> 40M shares January 28th -> 30.2M shares January 29th -> 28M share Feb 8th -> 26M shares
Observations
- Utilization remained at 100% until January 28th. It started dropping on the 29th, suggesting shorts covering. This means all the borrowable float was borrowed up until January 28th.
- The values above are suggesting that the size of the borrowable float has decreased significantly.
Point (2) above means one of two things. Either:
- My original hypothesis that the float shrinks as shorts cover is correct. Some covering has occurred, as a result many synthetic longs disappeared.
- OR, a significant number of shares suddenly became unavailable to lend (e.g, people moving their accounts from margin to cash).
I think the latter is unlikely because that would mean retail controls ~1.1B dollars (by current price). Therefore I think the former is what happened thus confirming my hypothesis that the float has shrunk.
This is important because of what I mention in the next section. If you remember my previous DD, I hypothesized that the squeeze should become way more violent as more covering occurs.
Forgotten point 2: Absolute short interest vs (short interest / float) ratio as influencer on squeeze
I’m seeing a lot of posts talking about the absolute value of the current short interest (aka total number of shares sold short). What is surprising me is I don’t see anybody talking about the short/float ratio.
See, whenever a VW comparison was brought up, the smart apes would tend to point out that the reason VW squeeze was very powerful was _not_ because of high short interest, in fact short interest was not high for VW like GME, but specifically because of the ratio of (shares sold short / available float to buy).
See, this is basically supply and demand. The higher this ratio is, the higher demand is and the higher a price would rise during a squeeze.
In case of VW, I’ve seen references of that ratio being ~12. To put this into perspective, for each 12 buyers there is 1 seller (assuming both parties are buying and selling 1 stock each for simplicity). Now let’s compare to GME.
Before recent events
- If you read my original post, you’ll see the data was suggesting that the short / float ratio was around 2:1 at best, 1.4:1 at worst.
- Although this value was not very high, I speculated that this ratio would increase as shorts start covering because theoretically synthetic longs should start to disappear from the float as they cover in turn reducing the total “real float”.
- I calculated the real float as ~30M shares. See my previous post for what I mean by real float.
After recent events
Now let’s take a second look at what the float looks like now after updated short interest estimates. I’ve updated blackrock and fidelity holdings with the values from their latest filings. Note that these values don’t account for retail holdings; and they only account for top 10 institutional holders so in reality the float should be smaller than this by at least a few million shares.
https://preview.redd.it/qhb2dioe8rg61.png?width=1441&format=png&auto=webp&s=afee02e1a4e2d000d21d0738e64af4137e6f0fb4 Observations
- According to the data, the current short/true_float ratio is at worst case 2.4:1. This is significantly increased from before squeeze; the worst case was 1:4:1. Realistically this value is probably much higher as indicated by the negative buyable float.
- In other words, supply is much more scarce now than before. If shorts cover, demand will become extremely higher than it was before recent events. If a squeeze were to happen, theoretically it may be able to reach higher highs than recent squeeze.
- Even if the squeeze were to continue, it would not end until a share offering or a large institution selling a large position because shares are more scarce now.
Speculations from above data
- The share price is currently extremely volatile; I speculate this is due to lack of shares to buy. Any interested large buyers can influence share price substantially very quickly.
- Due to the lack of share availability, I’m speculating that this was the primary reason trading was halted. Deposit requirements increased to 100% because clearing houses saw the squeeze happening and didn’t feel confident that enough real shares would be delivered and wanted money upfront so they don’t become left bagholding when short positions default.
What I think happened
I don’t know what happened, the data is simply not enough. Anybody who claims to know with certainty are lying. All we have is bits and pieces of data we can use to deduce high probability outcomes.
Regardless whether what happened recently was a squeeze or wasn’t, many of the underlying conditions and hypotheses that can cause a potential stock rise/squeeze still exist; just with a smaller short interest.
The primary factor that changed is short interest. But even if that did truly decrease, it is still very high even if it’s not >100% of float; and it also increased the demand/supply ratio with it substantially. The only difference now is if another squeeze happens, it will likely last a shorter time frame.
Speculations about what happened
- Organic demand initially skyrocketed the price. A partial squeeze happened.
- Dumb investors/funds that were not prepared got margin called and/or took losses. There were likely new shorts added along the way (e.g at 100 and 200) that got margin called when the price continued rising > 400
- Smart investors/funds decide to let others get massacred and instead the squeeze with dated calls. I mean, If I’m a shorter and I’m smart, greedy, and I feel confident that the price would go down why would I cover at a huge loss? I’d rather limit my max losses by buying OTM calls at my maximum loss threshold at a few months out; let the other shorts get massacred in the squeeze then cover later after it cools down. If I’m smart, I would have done this as soon as price passed the $20-$30 price.
- Since there are literally no shares I would wait for price to drop substantially before trying to work out a deal with Gamestop or one of the large institutional holders to buy out their shares at a set price. Maybe that’s why Fidelity sold their position? (Perhaps at higher than market price behind closed doors)
What this means going forward
- The other shorts eventually need to get out. They can’t get out now due to lack of supply and they’re betting on the company failure.
- If the company fails and share price drops, current shorts will wait for share availability, or work out a deal with Gamestop and/or large institutional investors to buy out their shares at a reasonable price.
- If the company succeeds and the share price continues rising, the remaining shorts will eventually get squeezed. Since the available shares aren’t enough to cover, I expect either another halt or behind closed door deals to buy out at certain prices.
- The time limit for the above is unknown and highly depends on how much the borrow rate is costing the shorters, how the company does in earnings and how the share price behaves from buying demand. If demand keeps growing.
- If a squeeze happens in the future, it will likely be shorter in duration due to the decreased short interest. It could happen over 1 day. However price could go up higher due to scarcer supply.
My personal stance and departing thoughts
I entered this position from the start because I like gamestop and I can see them naturally growing into a price >$200 over the next few years. This remains unchanged.
Can another squeeze happen? Absolutely. There are still 20M shares that need to be bought to cover which simply currently aren't available on the market. That's even assuming there are no new shorts.
Are the odds of it happening the same as before? Maybe; however the timeline definitely changed. It may take longer time to happen. If it happens, it will also be shorter lived. If the company succeeds and the share price slowly climbs shorts will eventually cover it's just a question of when.
In other words, this turned into a long term play that could happen over months or 1-2 years.
The above may sound frustrating; especially since it’s no longer inevitable within weeks like it was before when short interest was mind boggling. With that said, I’m still bullish. One underrated aspect not talked about often enough is that there are still large institutional holders that have their positions mostly unchanged even though they are now sitting on >10X profits. These guys are smart and greedy. If they’re not selling now then they see more potential and this is bullish.
I entered this position earlier than many so I’m biased in holding. I didn’t sell a single share on the climb. The recent drop cost me multiple $M. The bright side is if this takes a year then at least I’ll pay significantly less taxes on my gains.
I'm not touching this position anytime soon. GME can make $200 with no squeeze.
I hope this helps.
 | Introduction: Just Get to the Point! Before you scoff at the post by the title and length and write off into the comments on how ridiculous of a claim this all is, I want you to come back after watching this replay using nothing but a fairly sub-optimal test hand first: https://www.duelingbook.com/replay?id=7005-24986499 What you just witnessed was a 60-card deck, with a sub-optimal looking hand, churn out a True King of all Calamities (VFD), Herald of the Arc Light, live 3-material Apollousa protecting from hand traps including Nibiru, and draw 2-3 cards, with more resources to spare. All with alternative plays to go around interrupts and the flexibility to potentially extend into other cards if needed. Yeah, Igknights can do this, and they always could have done this. It's easier than it looks, more likely to happen than you think, and it's as potentially dangerous as it seems. We need to talk about this. Part I: The Deck in Question So, let's get right into it. Here's a current deck + Duelingbook download of the specific deck you just saw: A draft of the 60-card monstrosity that is Igknights (Duelingbook download: https://www.duelingbook.com/deck?id=7239524) We can go over the deckbuilding decisions, card choices and the two OCG cards later, because this is not the point. I'll keep it brief: Most of the cards are non-negotiable combo pieces and/or extenders. I'll explain the Igknights in a moment. The currently-OCG Rose Dragon package is replaceable by Deskbot 001 and either Coltwing or Aerosguin for VFD setups. The only cards I'd consider cutting are Astolfo, Genba, the 2nd Olivier, or Red Layer. Neo Space Connector package is mandatory because the hand knowledge is too valuable. Arfeudutyr is because we're in a partial-Control format where popping backrow is a useful tool to have and I needed another Equip Spell name. You only need the one Gearfried and Sublimation Knight as you'll soon find out. And the Side Deck and Extra Deck can be changed to whatever your goal or preference is depending on what you're running or planning. Like I said, none of that is the point. The point is, despite looking like a 60-card mess, this deck, and the combos it reaps, are unfathomably consistent to the point where it may just overshadow Dark Warrior Turbo as the go-to best turbo engine in the game. But, don't go off calling blasphemy over the claim that a 60-card deck could ever be touted as consistent just yet, because there's actual math and science backing this claim. Strap in boys, you're gonna be learning today! Part II: What's an Igknight? You might have noticed the staggering amount of Igknights in the main deck. While a normal person would advise to cut down on the cards that seem like they would take up unnecessary space, the truth of the matter is: You want to run as many Igknights in the deck as possible, for the exact reason that it takes up space. Let's start with the Igknights. They're all Normal FIRE Warrior Pendulum monster pairs ranging from Levels 3 through 6, each with Pendulum Scales 2 through 7. While they do nothing as monsters on the field, in the Pendulum Zone, they all share the same following effect: If you have an "Igknight" card in your other Pendulum Zone: You can destroy both cards in your Pendulum Zones, and if you do, add 1 FIRE Warrior-Type monster from your Deck or Graveyard to your hand.
Yep. Any FIRE Warrior monster, from either your Deck or GY. Any. It can be another Igknight or a Battlin' Boxer all I care. No once per turn restriction or any noticeable restriction besides needing any other Igknight in the other zone for that matter on them either. This was made almost six years ago. So, what does all of this mean? Well, unlike when they were first released and had almost no valuable cards to retrieve through their effects, it means Igknights act as the door to almost anything and everything imaginable when built around due to the cards they can now search and offer newfound synergy, and with great synergy to boot. That's right: Igknights, despite flopping upon their initial release, turned out to be way ahead of their time. And MY GOD, that consistency! Part III: Explaining the Expectation-Shattering Consistency As you saw from the replay, opening any 2 Igknights is equivalent to an instant Isolde by adding Sublimation Knight, a FIRE Warrior, from deck to hand and using it to spit out Squeaknight. As everyone probably knows, getting Isolde out likely leads into nasty combos and plusing that could spell doom once it hits the field. One lesser known fact about Isolde is that while you cannot summon or activate the effects of the Warrior it searches, you can still set it in Pendulum Scale. By doing this, you can complete the Pendulum Scales and retrieve the Igknights you initially popped as more fodder for your plays, and then pop the scales you currently have to search again. From there, your imagination is the limit as you have the ready materials to make almost anything. And it doesn't stop there. You also have access to additional extenders or starters either on your person or at the beckoned call of the Igknights. What's more, you don't necessarily need the Igknights to enable Isolde, as the numerous extenders you have also provides material for an Isolde summon. If anything, the flood of Igknights makes the aspect of summoning Isolde even more consistent than any 40-card deck could do, because the Igknights all double as starters, extenders, recovery, and even combo pieces for your other extenders. Furthermore, the high number of Igknights smother the required combo pieces for the deck's success which you would rather not open and jam your opening plays, meaning they in turn provide additional consistency thanks to being redundant in all doing the same thing no matter which other Igknight is in scale with it. You also don't need to stuff the deck with too many copies of staple extenders like Olivier or Gearfried, because they are all easily-accessible and even recyclable from the GY. All of this means that, out of the 60 cards in the deck you saw, in order to achieve anything close to the combo that went down, all you need is to open almost any combination of 3 out of the first 48 cards you see in this deck list, all thanks to the huge amount of Igknights dropped in and the utility they provide. Opening like this not only prompts the green light for the full combo, but it also at the bare minimum secures an extension if the opponent ever decides to interrupt the early parts of the combo. To contextualize how insanely consistent this feat actually is, let's go to a hypergeometric calculator and prove this. Now, I use https://stattrek.com/online-calculatohypergeometric.aspx for my calculations, and it gives a detailed explanation on what the function is and how the calculator and equation works because I really do not want to waste more time on it than I have to. But here is a quick summary of the online calculator: Boring explanation of Hypergeometric variables - (D) = Total number of cards in deck
- (k) = Total number of desired cards you want to see in opening hand in deck
- (H) = Number of cards drawn for your opening hand
- (x) = Minimum amount of desired cards you want to see in your opening hand
So for this example, the number of cards in the deck (D) = 60, the number of cards drawn for opening hand (H) = 5, and we need to open at least (x) = 3 out of the (k) = 48 desired cards in deck. Now, we have our variables, so we plug them into the calculator, hit Calculate, and look for P(X ≥ x), or in this case P(X ≥ 3) because the opening hand needs at least 3 or more of the desired cards in deck. Doing so, we find that the odds of opening this combination and thus access to the full combo is... The results are... wait, what? ...95%. 95%!?!? That is an ABSURD value for consistency, especially given the requirements asked for it! To give context, a full Prank-Kids deck maxing out on each individual Prank-Kid and their Field Spell plus the 1 Terraforming has 16 1-card combo starters for their full combo (assuming no interruptions), and when put into the same calculator under a 40 card deck, opens that full combo 93.5% of the time. This means that the act of opening 3 cards in a 60 card deck is around as if not more consistent than one of the most consistent 1-card combos in the game, and arguably provides a better end result. Now, it could be argued that there are some smaller combinations that you could open under these conditions and still not have any opening play, such as opening once-per-turn duplicates or more specific extenders like Gearfried with no way to summon it. There is also the argument that the last 12 cards are garnets that you never want to open and opening any of them would spell doom for your plan. But, in the grand scheme of things, none of this really changes anything. Even if we try to low-ball the probability we found by factoring in said idiosyncrasies, it still wouldn't account for some of the 2-card and even 1-card plays that the deck can muster, which would by in large nearly cancel the shrunken probability. Furthermore, none of the remaining 12 cards in the deck are "hard garnets", which means even if you had some of them in your hand, it would not mean that any part of your combo is impossible because none of them have to be in deck in order to search out or complete the combo. The calculation given factors the worst case scenario where 2 of your opening cards could very well be those last cards, but you can make a combo using them anyway. Hell, it's sometimes possible to perform a full combo even if you opened 3 of the 12 cards, but I chose to not include that possibility as to not over-complicate things and to further low-ball the overall odds. So to summarize, this 60-card deck asking for a 3-card combo turns out to somehow be just as if not more consistent than arguably the most consistent 1-card combo in the current game, and ends on a better board too. Oh, and that essentially means we might have a deck that vomits out VFD more consistently and reliably than Virtual Worlds can. Convinced yet? Part IV: Counterplay... if you can call it that...? Okay, so we all see that it's pretty much guaranteed to open this monstrosity of a combo, but how easy is it to interrupt them when they go first? Well, here's the thing: It's surprisingly difficult. Let's start with the big elephant in the room: Unless it's Ghost Ogre or they're under Droll beforehand, you cannot hand trap the Igknight effects. The Igknights are worded in a way where they pop themselves in scale as part of their effects and are not once per turn, which means even if you negated the effect with Ash Blossom or Ghost Belle, they could just do it again and you wasted your hand trap. As for the entire combo line, because of the quick access to either Gearfried or Apollousa and the abundance of readily-available extenders either in hand or at beckoned call by the Igknights, it's frankly crazy hard to find a single choke point down the combo line before it's too late. Simple negates or interrupts like Ash, Veiler, D.D. Crow, or Belle most often than not act either as annoyances or sometimes non-factors if the correct extender happens to be on standby, or pointless by the time Gearfried or Apollousa comes out. Not even the blowout hand traps are easy roadblocks for the deck. Nibiru is easily preventable and very easy to extend past otherwise (search Olivier, summon it with its effect and use it and the token for Halq anyway), Droll isn't a guaranteed blowout because Ogier can provide a hilarious workaround to the block (remember that Igknights also add back from GY), Lancea only prevents certain avenues that can easy be replaced with other improvised plays (oh no, you can't banish for Divine Sword, it's not like you could do anything else or something), and while Gnomaterial is annoying, it's not necessarily a turn-ender on its own (you should have the extenders to make plays around it or even pop it yourself at times, you're fine). Imperming the Halq won't end the game either, because on the next turn they can tag Halq out for Roland to net a follow-up play for their next turn, while they still have a live Apollousa, typically more, at bare minimum. The only hand traps with a radically high chance of preventing the play are Dimensional Shifter, which will completely prevent the play but is forcibly uncommon given how few decks can actually use it, Psy-Frame Gamma or Herald of Orange Light + a Fairy on the Isolde, which is difficult but still feasible for them to play around, or a very uncommon Ghost Ogre on the Igknight effect and pray that they didn't open the extender or additional Igknight. So, your best bet to prevent this deck from popping off when going first is either by opening those specific hand traps or opening at least 2, realistically more, effective hand traps against them, which given the near-guaranteed odds of them opening at least Isolde plus an extender, the odds are entirely against you. Part V: But can it go 2nd? As for this deck's chances going 2nd... well as pessimistic as it sounds, who cares? With the current Tier 1 decks and unfair "you cannot play Yugioh" cards available to them, we're in a format where boardbreaking is nearly impossible thanks to VFD and (if this deck is anything to go by) hand traps either need to be perfect or extravagant in order to prevent combos from going off if they can at all. The deck here is built like an FTK turbo deck because that's what most of the format realistically is unless your deck plans to always open the perfect hand trap or blowout card at every conceivable point or set 5 backrow and hope that's enough. At that point, why bother diminishing the near-guaranteed consistency for only having a small chance for your chance to draw an interrupt to matter unless you know it will be useful after siding? Or, you know, you could not be a nihilist and instead be a realist? Nothing is stopping you from making some room for hand traps or even board breaking tools by trading it for some of the excess consistency anyway, because that's exactly what the Side Deck is for. Besides, the Ghost Girls are all Level 3 Tuners that you can Pendulum Summon from hand off the Igknights anyway, so either way they'll be useful sometime. In theory, the deck can have about as much of a time going 2nd as pre-banlist Dragon Link did when put in that context, so take it however you like. Conclusion/Discussion: What the hell is this? What we have here is, in my opinion, a custom-combo deck that is not only infuriatingly-difficult to prevent from popping off without the correct floodgate or excessive number of interrupts, but the birth of a ludicrous turbo engine with untapped potential that could very well rival Dark Warrior Turbo. It is ridiculously flexible, as it can theoretically make any strong combo board, is not restricted to specific boss monsters or combos, can waltz past most interrupts, has plenty of room for changes and additional techs given its base consistency... ...yet, for some unexplained reason, nobody bothered to use it. Yeah, what's strange is that none of this stuff is all that new, it's existed in the game for a long time but nobody decided to break the limits of the deck. In fact, it baffles me why nobody used this instead of the more commonplace Infernoble Knight builds that had terrible cases of opening unplayable hands. For example, by using Deskbot 001 and Mecha Phantom Beast Coltwing, it was completely possible for this Igknight build to end on 3-material Apollousa that prevented Nibiru, Borreload Savage, Herald of the Arc Light, a search off Synchro Roland in the GY, and Charles equipping and triggering a Smoke Grenade hand loop while circumventing most hand trap interactions. All without using Linkross. While Linkross was legal! But nobody used it. I don't understand the logic behind this. It couldn't have been because it was a 60-card deck because Dragon Link was pulling the same thing and proved that it could work and be consistent with 60 cards. It was entirely possible to run hand traps at the cost of some of its already-nuts consistency, so a lack of hand traps can't be the issue. It couldn't have been a meta call because Infernoble Knights were still Tier 1 at the time and during previous formats before. And it certainly couldn't be because this was a worse rendition of an already-effective deck, because this could be argued to be a better version of the deck for accomplishing the same things but with strictly better consistency and ability to play past hand traps while proving rarely any additional weaknesses. So, what happened? Why has nobody used this in a competitive setting? Was it stubbornness? Elitism? Bandwagon mentality? A lack of innovation? If it flopped, why and how did it flop? I legitimately have no idea why or how this never took off in a competitive setting, and invite anyone to chime in on why this never left the ground the way it should have Or, more preferably, to go out there and prove that this underappreciated deck is something to be legitimately feared by skeptics and competitors alike. |
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