Cyclones vs Dustshoots

Hey, its Ghakim, here's my first blog post for the group, trust me, I won't post dumb things *Cough* like someone.

So today, we will discuss Yugioh's two most prominent cards. One gets rid of Spells and Traps (S/T) and one gets rid of monsters, or rather, just returns them. Both are very similar in terms of card bonuses individually. Though what if one was chained to the other?

Let's talk about Cyclone, or as its so annoyingly called, Mystical Space Typhoon (Gawd damn I hate its English name). Everyone seems to activate this at the start of their Main Phase 1. Nothing wrong with that, as that's the thing with the most priority you should do when you start your turn but personally, I think the best time to activate Cyclone is at your Draw Phase because some cards can only be activated during your Standby Phase. So if its not chained to, you'll luckily hit a Mirror Force, Bottomless, Solemn Judgment or Thunder of Ruler (WDF?), resulting in a +0 or 1-for-1, which is good. Though what if you opponent chains to it and makes you lose card advantage? In this case, Trap Dustshoot. If you're really unlucky, he would have set that card to chain it to your first card's activation, resulting in a -1 for you, which totally blows (Sup Ameen?). Now that's the situation if Trap Dustshoot is his only set card.

This time, assume your opponent has 2 set S/Ts and one set monster. So, you draw a card and he activates Dustshoot ASAP. Now, your opponent has 1 set S/T and one monster. Wouldn't it seem like a good idea to activate that Cyclone since your opponent will gain a lot of knowledge to your strategy? OK, so let's chain the Cyclone and blow the set card. BOOM, you hit either an Icarus Attack or a Torrential Tribute. You just foiled your opponent's plan for your turn. Now that's nothing, try to fool a Negator monster.

OK, so this time your opponent has 2 set S/Ts, and that damn Legendary Six Samurai - Shi En. You draw, Dustshoot opens, would you chain Cyclone? Just do it, because at this time, you force your opponent to think critically on whether or not he wants to save his other set card. If he negates it, you may have a chance to kill off Shi En. If not, then you will have successfully destroyed his set card and play mind games with him as you wouldn't obviously activate your other spell and traps.

So that's some of the ideas to optimize the use of Cyclone in your opening hand. Now what about Trap Dustshoot? When should we open it? Let's say you open Dustshoot ASAP upon your opponent's turn. The benefits of this; 1-for-1 removal, full information on your opponent's cards, best possibility of strategy disruption. OK, what if you activate it after your opponent activates his first card? Either 1-for-1 removal or 2-for-1 removal, partial information on your opponent's cards but a lower possibility of strategy disruption, if he places too many cards on the field. So which one is better? Depends on the deck it is used against. Against monster-light decks like E-HEROs, it either hits very critically or it misses entirely (All Spell/Trap hand, you see). Against monster-heavy decks like Lightsworns, T.G. A, and Junk Doppel, it hardly hurts them because of the high number of monsters they run.

So yeah, that's my first blog post about Yugioh here. I hoped y'all enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it. If you have any comments or thoughts, don't be afraid of posting it below.

-GHakim signing off-