Xteven's blog

"Why is Onomatopoeia Such a Bitch?"

2012-01-31T21:50:00.000-08:00

I’ll be the first to admit that Onomatopoeia can be a nasty bitch at times. Onomatopoeia is a character that I designed years ago, way before my yugioh series. Her character was originally a pre-teen girl that everybody hated, because of how ugly she was, and her annoying attitude. If you’ve ever watched the TV show Arther, you’re probably familiar with Muffy, the spoiled rich girl on that show (and my favorite character). She is probably the most similar character to Onomatopoeia that I can think of. Muffy is the girl that people love to hate. The same goes for Onomatopoeia.

Throughout Onomatopoeia’s teen years she became less ugly and more beautiful, mostly because of how much time and money she spent on her appearance. Because she had been bullied her whole life, mostly from men, she became very determined never to let any man ruin her life. In my series, Onomatopoeia never mentions anything about boys she likes. When she is only around other girls, she is quite pleasant. But when a man walks in the room, she knows he only wants one thing, and he can’t have it.

One thing I’ve noticed in real life about many girls who are new to the game, is that they often get in a relationship with one of the male players at their locals. Then a few weeks later, they are dumped, and they stop playing yugioh because their ex still plays at the locals. That is one reason why so few girls consistently play this game. I think serious yugioh players should never date other yugioh players, because of the same reason. If the relationship fails, you’d still see each other at locals every week, so one of you may stop going.

When people say they hate Onomatopoeia, I’m genuinely convinced that they actually love her, and love talking about her. It’s just like the Kardashians. Don’t tell me you wish they’d just go away for good. I know you enjoy gossiping about them. Everyone does.

So now that you know a little more about Onomatopoeia’s past, how do you feel about her character? Can you relate to her more/less now? Can you feel sympathy for her? Is she really a bitch?

Dueling Network = BAD for Playtesting

2011-12-09T19:53:00.000-08:00

     I hear a lot of people go off about how Dueling Network is the ideal place for testing out new decks. These people think they can learn how new decks work just from placing cards on the field, and assume they know what they’re doing. Dueling Network does not enforce correct card rulings. Players just have to assume that they are playing by the rules, and there is no way to prove they’re right. The most common mistakes people make when using a new deck are ‘missing the timing’ issues. There are many irregular rulings in the game, and testing on Dueling Network won’t teach you anything.
     When I want to test a new deck, I build it first in my World Championship 2011 Nintendo DS game, where gameplay is automatic. Some people assume that the video games aren’t very accurate. The World Championship games are very accurate, if not always right when it comes to card rulings. You don’t have to worry about forgetting to mill a couple turns back, the game does it all for you. It notifies you when you have ‘missed the timing’. When I am having an issue with a card ruling, I test it out in these games because they’re programmed to piece everything together. On Dueling Network, anything goes. In my past 100 ‘rated’ matches, I would say 85 of them had incorrect gameplay by players who most likely didn’t know how to play, and possibly by some downright cheaters.
     So, Dueling Network is actually the worst place to test out new decks, since there’s no way to know if you’re playing correctly. I’ve gotten so much better at this game from playing the World Championship DS games. The Tag Force games for PSP also work. I can’t even imagine how people would know how a chain works just from reading the rulebook. If you want to get better at this game, play the video games.

Who is Xteven?

2011-09-20T13:11:00.000-07:00

My real name is Steven Kimball, but I’m probably more flattered when people call me Xteven (pronounced Ex-Steven). I’m 22 years old, and have been playing Yugioh since Metal Raiders, so about a decade. I started playing Yugioh the same way as pretty much everyone else. I started watching the show and thought to myself, “That looks easy, I could probably play even better than Yugi.” Yeah… turns out Yugi was never really that good, and cheated like crazy. I entered my first tournament, using a random assessment of cards, like everyone else. Of, course during the era of Metal Raiders, there weren’t a whole lot of archetypes yet, so everyone just ran a bunch of vanilla beat-sicks. My first original deck was a Harpie deck, meant as a joke at first, but I ended up liking it a lot and thought it was pretty competitive.

So, for the next 8 years I only used Harpies in tournaments. Yeah, 8 years, just Harpies. It was not that bad, really. Of course, I never topped any regionals or anything with that deck, but I was pretty good at getting 2^nd place at locals. I always lost to the Lightsworn user. In recent years I got sick of losing, so I finally decided to run a mainstream deck. I built a Blackwing deck, and I remember how everyone at my locals kind of freaked out when they heard, because of how well I used my Harpie deck. They knew they were in trouble if I used a tier 1 deck. Yep, I topped my first regionals right after I built that deck, and I considered myself a pro because of that. Well… turns out that was the only top I've ever made, and I wasn’t quite as pro as I thought. If I don't play Blackwings or something else that's tier 1, I don't seem to win against someone who does.
I recorded my top 8 match and uploaded it onto my youtube channel as my first video, thinking that I was going to be just a normal Yugi-tuber. Then I recorded my first real life duel video just a couple days after that regional event. 3 weeks later, I uploaded “The Dandy Warrior That Draws Quickly”, thinking it would be a smash hit. Well, it wasn’t. I got new subscribers slower than most Yugi-tubers do. In fact, one of my friends who also got top 8 at that regional started his channel the same time as me, and he got 300 subs within a week. He got subs quickly because he used a Frog FTK, and apparently you can see him stacking his deck in this video (on someone else's channel). I was a little bit discouraged that my videos flopped, but I kept making them anyway because I enjoyed doing it. I took down the videos of my top 8 match, mostly because they weren't very relevant to my newer videos (and also because I lost the match :/).

Eventually, YourYugiohChannel saw my videos, and wanted to feature one on his channel. Interestingly enough, I started working on “Dueling the Yu-gi-oh Hustler” before he knew about my channel, knowing he would at least get a kick out of it. I started getting lots of subscribers after that video was featured on his channel. Of course the video on his channel gets a lot more views than any of my videos, but I like to think of it as the ultimate shout-out vid for myself.

So today, everyone at my locals thinks of me as Xteven from XtevensChannel, which I like... but I don’t think they take me very seriously as a competitive player. When I played Blackwings, they seemed to respect me a bit more, but I don’t like playing a skill-less deck. So, I may not become the greatest Yu-Gi-Oh player of all time, but I do plan on making more vids, getting more subs, and making XtevensChannel a well-known name in the Yugi-tube community!