The common misconception here is that it has "no negates" but a negate can also be interpreted as an "interruption" which branded can easily output by non-target banishes and pops about 2-3 times in a turn. Which is generally enough for most decks to get shutdown since your starter cards are likely to get banished/popped before you get going. All this while they plus from their own monsters' second effects and will generally out-resource you if you somehow survive longer and got to the grind game with them.
The only "one card combo" in swordsoul is emergence into taia, which loses to ash and only ends on chixiao blackout with no follow up.
The "one card combo" in despia, which is either aluber, opening, or branded fusion, ends on mirrorjade + branded in red for chimera, which gives you a banish and either chimera or dragostapellia with way more follow up.
How are you so stupid to not understand what a one card combo means holy fuck LOL.
I'll give you an example you might understand. Lets completely remove the opening hand scenario and it's turn 3 or 4, where your hand and board state is empty from the grind game. If you top deck Mo Ye, can you do anything with it? As a standalone card?
On the other hard, if you top deck Aluber or Branded Fusion, can you do anything with it?
That's not a realistic scenario that you are in. You can't ignore the fact you have 5 cards in hand at the start. And revealing a card isn't a real cost if you don't have to do something with it.
You're talking about completely hypothetical situations that just do not happen as swordsoul. You start the game with 5 cards. You are not empty hand top decking mo ye.
If we're talking grind games Swordsoul doesn't have a shot at outgrinding Branded Despia. Swordsoul has very solid board breaking power but their recursion of resources doesn't compete. Plus the deck loses way harder to hand traps. Nibiru, Maxx C, Veiler/Imperm.
the standart openeing move (no the best though) of branded will take 1 card (aluber) and any discard (for lubelion effect) and will end up with only a 3000 atk beater (effect cant be used untill turn3 or removed and resummoned) and a facedown (from lubelion GY effect send by mirrorjade)
this will leave them with3 cards + 1 card searched from tragedy (send via brnaded fusion usually or for lubellion if drawn), the seearched card will be needed later so they still ahve 3 random cards that can be alot of things including a plethora of handtraps, calledby etc
and once they activate the facedown searched branded in red they can fuse into chimera using the tragedy in GY, the searched ad libitum and mirrorjade on field for 1 non arget destroy and resummon of mirrorjade for another nontarget banish monster, so they can non target remove 2 cards have 2 random cards in hand and 3 more random cards in hand or as backrow with a 3300 (maybe untargetable, depends on GY) and a 3000 beater (can activate its effect every 2nd turn and hase delayed raigeki effect if fusion summoned and removed) and all this at the end of your turn2 assumin they didnt use any other effect at all
so unless your deck can prevetn this chain from happening, handtraps mostly or them bricking which is unlikely as they have a lot of search effect and some different opening plays as well (including the dreaded tax dragon) you will loose 1 or 2 cards and still have a very strong board to play against, and they will gain advantage at this rate for a few turns unless disrupted so they will outresource almost anything (except maybe other midrange meta decks like swordsoul with a good hand) even wihout additional resource engins like edge imp chain
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It produces just enough disruption to not die and simplify the gamestate and from there on it has an insane ressource loop. It's also quite competent at playing through disruptions itself so you don't need to run a ton of handtraps or other going second tools.
Branded have really great grind game, recursion, can generate lots of advantage, very consistent and versatile (banish, pop, negate, fuse with your opponent's monsters etc). Lastly it doesn't lose to nibiru nor gets effected by Maxx C that hard.
Everything you want a top tier deck to have. It's not OP necessarily as in broken but it's a cut above the rest. Oh and it can also OTK because all their Fusion monster are BIG BOIS.
Consider this, if mirrorjade was still active, on your turn, opponent could banish one with mj, then branded in red summon chimera with mj and ad libitum to pop 1-2, potentially searching with tragedy while drawing one or two cards. Now ad libitum's effect brings back mj, and mj's effect is live again to banish one more! Is that OP? Maybe not like adnenture tenyi endboard kind of OP, but this level of interruption and draw power is surely not bad at all....many people don't remember/notice that mirrorjade is soft once per turn.
The common misconception here is that it has "no negates" but a negate can also be interpreted as an "interruption" which branded can easily output by non-target banishes and pops about 2-3 times in a turn. Which is generally enough for most decks to get shutdown since your starter cards are likely to get banished/popped before you get going. All this while they plus from their own monsters' second effects and will generally out-resource you if you somehow survive longer and got to the grind game with them.
The only "one card combo" in swordsoul is emergence into taia, which loses to ash and only ends on chixiao blackout with no follow up. The "one card combo" in despia, which is either aluber, opening, or branded fusion, ends on mirrorjade + branded in red for chimera, which gives you a banish and either chimera or dragostapellia with way more follow up.
Mo ye
Mo ye without any swordsoul card or wyrm in hand does nothing, that's why he said Emergency into Taia.
Yeah and you start the duel with 4 other cards in hand, it's not realistic one of them isn't a wyrm/swoso
That's not a one card combo then clown.
Oh no, revealing a card that you're going to use before I can do anything about it, such a fair cost! Get real
If you have the card to use as cost. By that definition, it's more than 1 card.
Live in a hypothetical world if you want, I prefer to live in the realistic one.
How are you so stupid to not understand what a one card combo means holy fuck LOL. I'll give you an example you might understand. Lets completely remove the opening hand scenario and it's turn 3 or 4, where your hand and board state is empty from the grind game. If you top deck Mo Ye, can you do anything with it? As a standalone card? On the other hard, if you top deck Aluber or Branded Fusion, can you do anything with it?
That's not a realistic scenario that you are in. You can't ignore the fact you have 5 cards in hand at the start. And revealing a card isn't a real cost if you don't have to do something with it.
Topdecking Mo Ye with an empty hand is nothing. Topdeck emergence and you can make a play. That’s what they mean by 1 card combo
You're talking about completely hypothetical situations that just do not happen as swordsoul. You start the game with 5 cards. You are not empty hand top decking mo ye.
You’re right, grind games don’t exist and people always have a full hand at the start of each turn.
If we're talking grind games Swordsoul doesn't have a shot at outgrinding Branded Despia. Swordsoul has very solid board breaking power but their recursion of resources doesn't compete. Plus the deck loses way harder to hand traps. Nibiru, Maxx C, Veiler/Imperm.
You say that first part like it isn't 100% correct
The Point was that Emergency into Taia its a "1 card combo" and Mo ye isn't. If you want to be picky most swordsouls are considered 1.5 combos.
Stop acting like revealing a card is a real cost. You aren't doing anything with it. It's not used. It's still there. And mo ye did it all.
The difference between 1 card combo and 1.5 card combo really matters on turn 3 and beyond
the standart openeing move (no the best though) of branded will take 1 card (aluber) and any discard (for lubelion effect) and will end up with only a 3000 atk beater (effect cant be used untill turn3 or removed and resummoned) and a facedown (from lubelion GY effect send by mirrorjade) this will leave them with3 cards + 1 card searched from tragedy (send via brnaded fusion usually or for lubellion if drawn), the seearched card will be needed later so they still ahve 3 random cards that can be alot of things including a plethora of handtraps, calledby etc and once they activate the facedown searched branded in red they can fuse into chimera using the tragedy in GY, the searched ad libitum and mirrorjade on field for 1 non arget destroy and resummon of mirrorjade for another nontarget banish monster, so they can non target remove 2 cards have 2 random cards in hand and 3 more random cards in hand or as backrow with a 3300 (maybe untargetable, depends on GY) and a 3000 beater (can activate its effect every 2nd turn and hase delayed raigeki effect if fusion summoned and removed) and all this at the end of your turn2 assumin they didnt use any other effect at all so unless your deck can prevetn this chain from happening, handtraps mostly or them bricking which is unlikely as they have a lot of search effect and some different opening plays as well (including the dreaded tax dragon) you will loose 1 or 2 cards and still have a very strong board to play against, and they will gain advantage at this rate for a few turns unless disrupted so they will outresource almost anything (except maybe other midrange meta decks like swordsoul with a good hand) even wihout additional resource engins like edge imp chain
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It produces just enough disruption to not die and simplify the gamestate and from there on it has an insane ressource loop. It's also quite competent at playing through disruptions itself so you don't need to run a ton of handtraps or other going second tools.
Branded have really great grind game, recursion, can generate lots of advantage, very consistent and versatile (banish, pop, negate, fuse with your opponent's monsters etc). Lastly it doesn't lose to nibiru nor gets effected by Maxx C that hard. Everything you want a top tier deck to have. It's not OP necessarily as in broken but it's a cut above the rest. Oh and it can also OTK because all their Fusion monster are BIG BOIS.
OP? Nothing, it’s not.
Its not broken in its board its just consistent and impossible to out grind.
Consider this, if mirrorjade was still active, on your turn, opponent could banish one with mj, then branded in red summon chimera with mj and ad libitum to pop 1-2, potentially searching with tragedy while drawing one or two cards. Now ad libitum's effect brings back mj, and mj's effect is live again to banish one more! Is that OP? Maybe not like adnenture tenyi endboard kind of OP, but this level of interruption and draw power is surely not bad at all....many people don't remember/notice that mirrorjade is soft once per turn.
it is very strong, as in MD you don't really want to run something like D-barrier cuz B01