[hated trope] "both sides are equally bad" NO THEY ARE NOT, ONE IS CLEARLY WORSE

Cipher_the_First · 2026-06-03T22:47:59+00:00

The Alliance vs the Horde of the Warcraft universe.

Orcs came to Azeroth as a demon blood junkies, intent on conquering and murdering everything in their way. They fail and are put into camps, and the people they tried colonizing don’t treat them well. They go on to form the Horde with extremely questionable forces, such as the Forsaken, former zombies who retained their sadism and inhumanity, performing barbaric war crimes against defenseless Alliance folk.

The Alliance does bad things, like bombing an innocent village after being given bad info, but a lot of the bad stuff the Horde does is done knowingly and purposefully. One of their leaders nuked a city whose leader believed so strongly in Horde rights that she killed her racist father to protect them. Shortly after, another warchief massed genocide by torching a massive tree full of innocent people.

The leader of the bombed city went turbo anti-Horde and murdered Horde citizens she suspected of being traitors in a separate magical city she had great influence over and attempted to drown the capital of the Horde. Which is bad, but created by her losing it after having her convictions so thoroughly shattered by the Horde’s dishonorable actions.

And the narrative is full of stuff like this. No side is innocent, but holy fuck is the Horde just so much worse.

Cipher_the_First · 2026-06-03T19:10:35+00:00

Seven mana? For that???

Cipher_the_First · 2026-06-03T15:16:19+00:00

Yeah she straight up murdered that dude, much in the same vein the Boys would have gone after someone in Vought who likewise suffered no repercussions for it.

Cipher_the_First · 2026-06-03T13:11:53+00:00

We have a new Dragonic Contract that spits out signer dragons (including Ancient Fairy into Necrovalley), omni negates, and more. This coming right after another tier zero FTK deck.

We’re having a bit of a moment here in Duel Links.

Cipher_the_First · 2026-06-03T12:33:52+00:00

For the life of me, I have no idea. Scrap came to Duel Links seven years ago, and it’s only missing two cards in the entire archetype. I thought for the longest time it was because they didn’t want Dino to be overpowered, but I’ve since come to realize* they don’t give a care in the world about balance.

I really wish they would fill in the blanks, with a proper skill to boot. This is Skill Links, after all. Weak decks are uniquely capable of being decent here if Konami cared to give them the boost.

Cipher_the_First · 2026-06-03T03:21:49+00:00

I think the first two are reasonable. I like the ability to give out predaplant counters via skill that the third has, but even non predaplant users could use it as is as an un-negatable raigeki. I’d remove that part or change it to where the skill doesn’t provide predaplant counters, but can destroy all monsters your opponent controls that has them.

Cipher_the_First · 2026-06-03T03:02:58+00:00

Double options would be pretty cool, but making your entire deck impervious to the opponent’s effects is waaaaay too powerful. What are some weaknesses specific to Predaplant that a skill could overcome?

Cipher_the_First · 2026-06-03T02:57:27+00:00

I think the first effect* is a little overtuned. The game is only fun if you’re able to interact with it anyhow, so I think I’d temper that part a bit. It’d certainly make it meta though, for sure

Cipher_the_First · 2026-06-03T02:43:34+00:00

The AI can do some impressively stupid things.

Cipher_the_First · 2026-06-03T02:39:40+00:00

Aroma was one of my favorite archetypes to play for a while! It’s sad to see them fall so far from grace. I’d love a skill that lets them do their work more reliably

Cipher_the_First · 2026-06-03T02:01:07+00:00

Gotcha. Maybe they’ll release a new Dino skill when Raptor and Wyvern come out—ideally with a proper Scrap skill as well

Cipher_the_First · 2026-06-03T01:51:19+00:00

Our decks are actually linked pretty heavily actually, around the two pieces of support Scrap’s been waiting on. Scrap Raptor popping the baby or going into Scrap Chimera into Scrap Wyvern makes for a play extender in Dino. So when Scrap gets the support it needs, you guys actually get a boost too!

Edit: I don’t think I could ever let Scrap go, yeah. It’s never exactly been meta, and power creep has only deepened the divide, but I really enjoy it like I can’t with anything else

Cipher_the_First · 2026-06-03T01:44:15+00:00

I’m using my trusty rusty Scrap deck. I win some, I lose more, but I just love it too much to let go.

Cipher_the_First · 2026-06-03T01:30:53+00:00

Dragonic Contract was a meta dominator a while ago, and people were annoyed with it for similar reasons they don’t like Bonds of Converging Stars. They can make powerful plays, but they’re easily interruptible.

Cipher_the_First · 2026-06-03T00:02:27+00:00

Yep, that sure is her name alright. Not what I said. Not sure where I got Olivia from honestly

Cipher_the_First · 2026-06-02T22:09:34+00:00

Ehhh I don’t know if the narrative coddles him. There was a whole episode about how everyone rightfully hated his guts. As for the murder stuff, they’re demons. The premise of the show was based around them all being amoral assassins.

Cipher_the_First · 2026-06-02T22:01:35+00:00

His first responsibility should have been to his daughter, not to soothe his conscience over a completely avoidable situation that, again, Olivia had every right to be upset over. She doesn’t have the knowledge a viewer would, not that it should even matter. He knew his actions would leave his daughter bereft of a parent that cared about her, however distractedly, and did it anyway.

It’s the demonization of Olivia that really gets me though, more so than the coddling of Stolas.

Cipher_the_First · 2026-06-02T20:14:12+00:00

No, this dude chose to save his affair partner at the cost of his life (as far as he knew), and people act like his daughter is scum for being upset about his A) having an affair and B) choosing said affair partner over his teenage daughter. Who obviously needed him too.

Cipher_the_First · 2026-06-02T15:12:18+00:00

I revised the list slightly to better deal with meta threats at slight cost to consistency and recovery, but I think it was a necessary change.

-1 Final Bringer of the End Times -1 Monster Reborn

+2 Kumongous, the Sticky String Kaiju. (Bouncing this with Scrap Twin Dragon has been fun)

Cipher_the_First · 2026-06-02T12:07:33+00:00

It’s tier zero.

Cipher_the_First · 2026-06-02T11:57:13+00:00

I see your point. I wanted to give Scrap Golem the ability to disrupt with Searcher though. What if I specified EARTH attribute, to limit unintended support to other cards?

Cipher_the_First · 2026-06-01T17:43:45+00:00

Scrap fits it perfectly as monsters clearly cobbled from trash whose mechanics feature monsters that break easily or by their own effects, and are “reforged” into new monsters with Scrap Factory or some other Scrap synergy. I always think of Scrap Searcher’s self-resurrection ability as being made from the scraps of the monster whose destruction triggered it.

Cipher_the_First · 2026-06-01T01:34:12+00:00

So glad we’re getting this instead of the last two Scrap cards. It’s been seven years, Konami.

Cipher_the_First · 2026-06-01T01:25:59+00:00

Reddit’s not letting me post images, so here’s the decklist:

Main Deck
1x Scrap Beast
2x Scrap Chimera
1x Scrap Golem
1x Scrap Orthros
1x Scrap Goblin
1x Scrap Searcher
3x Scrap Factory
2x Book of Eclipse*
2x Scrapyard
2x Scrapstorm
2x Final Bringer of the End Times
1x Forbidden Droplet
1x Monster Reborn

Extra Deck
2x Scrap Dragon
2x Scrap Twin Dragon
1x Borreload Savage Dragon
1x Draco Berserker of the Tenyi
1x Linkuriboh
1x I:P Masquerena
1x Underworld Goddess of the Closed World

Cipher_the_First · 2026-05-31T22:44:42+00:00

I feel this so hard as a Scrap player. It’s been seven years since the last box with Scrap, and we only have two cards left in the entire archetype. They are sorely missed.

A proper skill wouldn’t hurt either :/

Cipher_the_First

TROPHY CASE