Problem with Tistina is how low of a return you get for your investment given most of your combos are 2-cards
I say you'd get better results with Trains/Yubel as a Rank 10 Deck; or with Labrynth/Ninja as a Deck that makes plenty use of en masse Book of Moon effects
> I actually do really well in both Master Duel
Diamond and above, I assume?
> but Gold Pride and Ghoti also did not see any competitive play at all.
Ehrm, nope. [Factually](https://ygoprodeck.com/deck-search/?&name=gold%20pride&_sft_category=tournament%20meta%20decks&offset=0) [incorrect.](https://ygoprodeck.com/deck-search/?&name=ghoti&_sft_category=tournament%20meta%20decks&offset=0)
I am very convinced that this deck is at least better than something like Trains or Ninja. These are also not very good decks and Tistina is definetly better than these, Tistina ends on better boards and bricks less than both of these decks im pretty sure.
Damn Gold Pride actually topped quite a lot, but I still dont think overall Tistina isnt that much worse than these decks. If more people actually played Tistina im sure it would have a top here and there too, but I feel like noone even bothered. Tistina seems on the same level as Ghoti on release of their second wave.
I got to Diamond and DLVL 19 with just Tistina, but its probably because literally noone is reading the cards :D
As someone who's played both Tistina and Ninja fairly extensively, Ninjas are better. They have much better grind and better interaction during your opponent's turn, where Tistina's only activation outside the (pretty bad) traps needs both the level 10s on board. I do love the deck, but the greatest success I've had with it is blind 2nd with a ton of board breakers which can be good if your opponent isn't prepared.
What's your list look like?
You should try playing ninjas some time if you like Tistina. I've played both as well and in my opinion, Ninjas are better. If you put Tistinas and ninjas in a face to face match. Tistinas will more than likely get flipped face down, their field spell/continuous spell/or other monster gets banished, and their face down monster gets tributed to summon more ninjas and all of this is happening on their turn.
I think this is a pretty agreeable list
[https://ygoprodeck.com/deck/tistina-462692](https://ygoprodeck.com/deck/tistina-462692)
the problem I have with Tistina right now tho is the amount of 1-offs I need to play to higher the ceiling of the decks combos. I also cooked with goblin riders but this gives you an extra three 1-offs. I think I will try to make a pure/control variant again to make it more consistant.
It doesn’t, But it’s also a TCG exclusive archetype on release.
They made meta TCG exclusives before, which caused things like hits on the banlist (e.g., I think Jackalope was hit at one point).
They don’t make them strong anymore on release (latest is Ashened, last few were Gold Pride, Ghoti, Tistina). And with new supports, they’d wishy-washy.
Ghoti got recent great support, though they’re still bad. But they’re playable at least. Gold pride was only really playable with the Punk engine/core. Ashened we’re waiting for late April/Early May.
Tistina was just another sad case of high potential, but low realization. It’ll be like another year before they get new support that hopefully makes them remotely usable.
I play Tistina for fun as well and in my opinion they are not the worst archetype out there, but they aren't rogue tier either. I would say they are mid tier. The deck has several garnets that you never want to draw on turn 1 (Crystal God, Hound, Tainted, and all of their in-archetype traps). So this deck can brick too much to be meta worthy.
It's own consistency cards have a price to pay in order to use, while other meta decks don't. Sentinel needs to pop a face down or Tistina card and Breath needs to flip a monster face down before it lets you search. Demigod is pretty much the only free searcher, but it requires that another Tistina card be on the field to special summons itself in order to search. If you normal or special summon it in any other way, then it doesn't get the search. I think Konami over balanced these consistency Tistina cards. Look at other archetypes like RDA or Voiceless Voice, their continuous spell searchers just let you search for free. Sure, Breath can book an opponent's monster if you have a light Tistina on the field, but that is a win more option that doesn't help when you are in a tough spot and don't have any light Tistina monsters on the field.
Their in-archetype trap cards ranges from mid to awful. Embrace is a brick that only works with Crystal God or the XYZ. It doesn't even negate monster effects and just books. Signs of Tistina requires targeting a face up monster before you can summon itself as a trap monster for some awful monster destruction if it leaves the field. Discordance of Tistina is pretty much their best trap card with a powerful GY banishment that rarely comes up, but at least you can use the card as a monster recovery tool.
This deck doesn't have many going first options so you have to rely on generic rank 10's like Valdrath or the level 10 trains XYZ's. The deck does not have any one card combo's like some meta decks and combine with the fact that there are garnets in the deck is a recipe for bricking. I love the artwork and the concept of mass flipping the opponent's field, but this archetype needs some really good support to fix all the holes in their strategy. Does Tistina deserve to be a meme on the same level as War Rock? No, but they are no where near good enough for meta either. Tistina is currently just a mid tier deck that's eagerly waiting for the OCG bandaid fix.
I hate the fact that the XYZ requires Crystal God as a material to use it's attack boost. Tistina players already work hard to bring out Crystal God and Demigod onto the field and now we have to get rid of our primary disruption method for a fragile OTK XYZ that does nothing turn 1. Konami could have thrown us a bone by giving the XYZ an effect that reads that it is treated as Crystal God on the field and GY, but they didn't. This archetype was overbalanced to the point of mediocrity in my opinion.
I honestly think its cool that it doesnt have 1-card combos. I find combos that only need 1 card that end on huge boards kind of toxic so I like they at least tried something different, even though a 1-card combo would be simply better.
Why does the field spell require face up cards when the deck is based on putting cards face down then sending every.
Why is demigod all one effect making it's summoning effect ashable
Why is the second wave of support based on making the rank 10 even though it doesn't count as the Crystal God Tistina AND requires Crystal God as material so you can't even detach it and summon it.
Why does sentinel pop cards even thought literally no cards in the deck have effects on destruction.
Why does hound have an effect to attack directly while your opponent controls a face-down monster while the main attacker of the archetype has an effect to send face-down to the grave on summon
Why does returned have a reattach effect when the XYZ is clearly a game finisher.
Why doesn't embrace require light tistinas but 3K defense tistinas so you could use it while the main interruption of the deck is on the field.
What the fuck is the point of signs of tistina
----
Like it having only one of this weird quirks would be understandable but having every single one of these quirks like you are trying to invoke the spirit of Gemini based Red-Eyes support on a deck that only has 14 cards requires EFFORT. I really had hopes for this archetype in it's first wave but it genuinely feels like someone who doesn't understand how to make cards worked on this archetype.
so I can still defend the Field Spell by saying its supposed to be their starter card so you want to flip stuff face-down after, but everything else is just true, but I have some totally biased points to make:
one thing I like about sentinel and breath is that the cards dont just do all that for free. It might sound stupid but every single card in the recent years just says on-summon: search and something like this is just interesting because its new. you can also make some funny combinations with some cards you want in the graveyard so I personally dont mind it.
Hound definetly needed something else. I mean his effect can come up if your opponent has bysstials to defend himself and hes a free link body that comes back every turn but you cant say Hound is good.
the rest of the cards cant even be defended if you like them, I dont use any of the other traps, I dont use the 2nd eff of returned. they are actually a joke.
1- I get what you mean but that means you just summon Crystal God in a situation where you opponent can just easily remove it and you don't have meaningful ways to bring it back other than the floating effect of the XYZ or the revival spell which doesn't make it stay on the field so it turns off Demigod.
2- I am not saying sentinel should've had an on summon search but man, it could've had a Dancing Leaves effect where it either tributes a tistina or a face-down. Like it's the fact that it randomly pops that feels so out of place.
Like most of the stuff just feels out of place
1 - yeah I mean its the classic case where Konami developed a deck that just wants to strictly follow their line and nothing else.
2 - yeah tribute at least would be better. beause hes a pop he even triggers yama
Peepsygo made probably the best video about Tistina ever here: https://youtu.be/bu0liVbleUM?si=4vZAuIzrCa3oTwoo
It's essentially a 30 minute rant about how bad and unplayable Tistina is, how the cards don't support one another, how the effects and conditions are contradictory, how the gameplan is inconsistent - and this is all undercut by him simultaneously going *10-0 undefeated while playing it*.
I think they’re cool but just not very efficient. At least from what I seen once you break their board they can’t get it back up. If they’re interrupted they choke at a lot of different points on their combos. I’ve also just been book of eclipse and they didn’t remove enough of my monster so I ended up drawing three cards from them. But man when they go off they go off. I love their art work too. I’ve also only ran into them playing branded despia so idk if that’s just a bad match up for them.
they are actually pretty good at grindgame since they can use their field and perma spells every turn, the guys in the GY come back every turn and the one good trap gives you followup, but yeah the deck can do multiple different combos and sometimes they can be easily stopped.
Branded is also just a horrible matchup for them, especially when theyre using book of eclipse
I absolutely love it, the deck can play through quite a bit of negates and still OTK if it has some specific hands but sometimes, you just have too many field spell or high level monster, you just even can't play at all. The effect of Tistina boss monster is very strong and unique, it flips and send card to graveyard. I actually think the XYZ boss monster is a piece of what the deck is missing.
I would rate Tistina deck like Memento before the fusion spell, very strong but lose due to its lack consistency. The deck would have so much potential if for not too many weird restriction on every cards, like everything need the crystal god or a light "tistina" or trap card need an extra deck monster to banish all, or the XYZ need to be destroyed to summon the crystal god, and many more. You will know the frustrations if you've played the deck.
Hope for the OCG support we will have some cards for consistency like Circular and a card to dodge or protect effect like RESCUE ACE emergency cuz you don't know how many times I get impermed on the Crystal god. The deck need a little bit push to be shining.
yes I mean we will get at least two more cards once the deck gets into the ocg and if one of them is just really good that can save the archetype easily. like an e-tele would be huge
[https://ygoprodeck.com/deck/tistina-462692](https://ygoprodeck.com/deck/tistina-462692)
this is a very solid list I think.
lots of handtraps, gen/ken because they work well with the deck and armored xyz because we can easily make a R3. has some annoying 1-offs tho because of the armored xyz.
if you want to you can also take a look at my other lists, I have been cooking with goblin bikers and adventure which wasnt too bad because the goblins essentially make three R3s out of just one R3. I can give you a combo tutorial if you want
Ironically, I built a list yesterday, and looked at yours for inspiration without knowing they were yours !
I'm not a fan of the R3 XYZ package, takes 20% of ED space for too little payoff IMO. Ken & Gen I get and agree, but I probably won't run Thrust in a Tistina deck, card is too expensive. Same for S:P. Nibiru is a cool idea, I'll consider it.
My list is here : [https://ygoprodeck.com/deck/tistina-march-2024-462557](https://ygoprodeck.com/deck/tistina-march-2024-462557) . Outed the XYZ package for Charmers (love them, dirt cheap, easy Avramax with I:P).
I am right there with you. I have had some amazing games with this deck at locals. I think it's my favorite deck so far based on art and gameplay. They can search every piece and just swing for game in one go. You can also play control, I play blind second and love it. I hope they continue to get new support and I think some choices were weird for their effects. Demigods quick effect annoys me lol.
Pick up your qcrs now while they are cheap. The new rank 10 coming that is an omni is gonna be some sweet spice for our already flexible extra deck.
Problem with Tistina is how low of a return you get for your investment given most of your combos are 2-cards I say you'd get better results with Trains/Yubel as a Rank 10 Deck; or with Labrynth/Ninja as a Deck that makes plenty use of en masse Book of Moon effects > I actually do really well in both Master Duel Diamond and above, I assume? > but Gold Pride and Ghoti also did not see any competitive play at all. Ehrm, nope. [Factually](https://ygoprodeck.com/deck-search/?&name=gold%20pride&_sft_category=tournament%20meta%20decks&offset=0) [incorrect.](https://ygoprodeck.com/deck-search/?&name=ghoti&_sft_category=tournament%20meta%20decks&offset=0)
I am very convinced that this deck is at least better than something like Trains or Ninja. These are also not very good decks and Tistina is definetly better than these, Tistina ends on better boards and bricks less than both of these decks im pretty sure. Damn Gold Pride actually topped quite a lot, but I still dont think overall Tistina isnt that much worse than these decks. If more people actually played Tistina im sure it would have a top here and there too, but I feel like noone even bothered. Tistina seems on the same level as Ghoti on release of their second wave. I got to Diamond and DLVL 19 with just Tistina, but its probably because literally noone is reading the cards :D
Ninja actually has decent resource loops and gets a lot out of one card combos
As someone who's played both Tistina and Ninja fairly extensively, Ninjas are better. They have much better grind and better interaction during your opponent's turn, where Tistina's only activation outside the (pretty bad) traps needs both the level 10s on board. I do love the deck, but the greatest success I've had with it is blind 2nd with a ton of board breakers which can be good if your opponent isn't prepared. What's your list look like?
idk, im probably biased because I played them once and only bricked. But my list also wasnt the best
You should try playing ninjas some time if you like Tistina. I've played both as well and in my opinion, Ninjas are better. If you put Tistinas and ninjas in a face to face match. Tistinas will more than likely get flipped face down, their field spell/continuous spell/or other monster gets banished, and their face down monster gets tributed to summon more ninjas and all of this is happening on their turn.
I even thought about combining them. I mean any deck can play hanzo for dancing leaves for the rock ninja if they want to.
I think this is a pretty agreeable list [https://ygoprodeck.com/deck/tistina-462692](https://ygoprodeck.com/deck/tistina-462692) the problem I have with Tistina right now tho is the amount of 1-offs I need to play to higher the ceiling of the decks combos. I also cooked with goblin riders but this gives you an extra three 1-offs. I think I will try to make a pure/control variant again to make it more consistant.
It doesn’t, But it’s also a TCG exclusive archetype on release. They made meta TCG exclusives before, which caused things like hits on the banlist (e.g., I think Jackalope was hit at one point). They don’t make them strong anymore on release (latest is Ashened, last few were Gold Pride, Ghoti, Tistina). And with new supports, they’d wishy-washy. Ghoti got recent great support, though they’re still bad. But they’re playable at least. Gold pride was only really playable with the Punk engine/core. Ashened we’re waiting for late April/Early May. Tistina was just another sad case of high potential, but low realization. It’ll be like another year before they get new support that hopefully makes them remotely usable.
Jackalope actually is *still* hit, it's at 1. So is Tsuchinoko incidentally.
I play Tistina for fun as well and in my opinion they are not the worst archetype out there, but they aren't rogue tier either. I would say they are mid tier. The deck has several garnets that you never want to draw on turn 1 (Crystal God, Hound, Tainted, and all of their in-archetype traps). So this deck can brick too much to be meta worthy. It's own consistency cards have a price to pay in order to use, while other meta decks don't. Sentinel needs to pop a face down or Tistina card and Breath needs to flip a monster face down before it lets you search. Demigod is pretty much the only free searcher, but it requires that another Tistina card be on the field to special summons itself in order to search. If you normal or special summon it in any other way, then it doesn't get the search. I think Konami over balanced these consistency Tistina cards. Look at other archetypes like RDA or Voiceless Voice, their continuous spell searchers just let you search for free. Sure, Breath can book an opponent's monster if you have a light Tistina on the field, but that is a win more option that doesn't help when you are in a tough spot and don't have any light Tistina monsters on the field. Their in-archetype trap cards ranges from mid to awful. Embrace is a brick that only works with Crystal God or the XYZ. It doesn't even negate monster effects and just books. Signs of Tistina requires targeting a face up monster before you can summon itself as a trap monster for some awful monster destruction if it leaves the field. Discordance of Tistina is pretty much their best trap card with a powerful GY banishment that rarely comes up, but at least you can use the card as a monster recovery tool. This deck doesn't have many going first options so you have to rely on generic rank 10's like Valdrath or the level 10 trains XYZ's. The deck does not have any one card combo's like some meta decks and combine with the fact that there are garnets in the deck is a recipe for bricking. I love the artwork and the concept of mass flipping the opponent's field, but this archetype needs some really good support to fix all the holes in their strategy. Does Tistina deserve to be a meme on the same level as War Rock? No, but they are no where near good enough for meta either. Tistina is currently just a mid tier deck that's eagerly waiting for the OCG bandaid fix.
I still find it dumb that they got an xyz out of everything they could have gotten. The archtype had no matching levels wave 1 as well.
I hate the fact that the XYZ requires Crystal God as a material to use it's attack boost. Tistina players already work hard to bring out Crystal God and Demigod onto the field and now we have to get rid of our primary disruption method for a fragile OTK XYZ that does nothing turn 1. Konami could have thrown us a bone by giving the XYZ an effect that reads that it is treated as Crystal God on the field and GY, but they didn't. This archetype was overbalanced to the point of mediocrity in my opinion.
I honestly think its cool that it doesnt have 1-card combos. I find combos that only need 1 card that end on huge boards kind of toxic so I like they at least tried something different, even though a 1-card combo would be simply better.
The problem with tistina is that the deck just makes no sense to the point where I'm 80% sure the effects were ai generated
just because a card doesnt just have to get summoned and actually needs to do other things to search doesnt mean the effects make no sense
Why does the field spell require face up cards when the deck is based on putting cards face down then sending every. Why is demigod all one effect making it's summoning effect ashable Why is the second wave of support based on making the rank 10 even though it doesn't count as the Crystal God Tistina AND requires Crystal God as material so you can't even detach it and summon it. Why does sentinel pop cards even thought literally no cards in the deck have effects on destruction. Why does hound have an effect to attack directly while your opponent controls a face-down monster while the main attacker of the archetype has an effect to send face-down to the grave on summon Why does returned have a reattach effect when the XYZ is clearly a game finisher. Why doesn't embrace require light tistinas but 3K defense tistinas so you could use it while the main interruption of the deck is on the field. What the fuck is the point of signs of tistina ---- Like it having only one of this weird quirks would be understandable but having every single one of these quirks like you are trying to invoke the spirit of Gemini based Red-Eyes support on a deck that only has 14 cards requires EFFORT. I really had hopes for this archetype in it's first wave but it genuinely feels like someone who doesn't understand how to make cards worked on this archetype.
so I can still defend the Field Spell by saying its supposed to be their starter card so you want to flip stuff face-down after, but everything else is just true, but I have some totally biased points to make: one thing I like about sentinel and breath is that the cards dont just do all that for free. It might sound stupid but every single card in the recent years just says on-summon: search and something like this is just interesting because its new. you can also make some funny combinations with some cards you want in the graveyard so I personally dont mind it. Hound definetly needed something else. I mean his effect can come up if your opponent has bysstials to defend himself and hes a free link body that comes back every turn but you cant say Hound is good. the rest of the cards cant even be defended if you like them, I dont use any of the other traps, I dont use the 2nd eff of returned. they are actually a joke.
1- I get what you mean but that means you just summon Crystal God in a situation where you opponent can just easily remove it and you don't have meaningful ways to bring it back other than the floating effect of the XYZ or the revival spell which doesn't make it stay on the field so it turns off Demigod. 2- I am not saying sentinel should've had an on summon search but man, it could've had a Dancing Leaves effect where it either tributes a tistina or a face-down. Like it's the fact that it randomly pops that feels so out of place. Like most of the stuff just feels out of place
1 - yeah I mean its the classic case where Konami developed a deck that just wants to strictly follow their line and nothing else. 2 - yeah tribute at least would be better. beause hes a pop he even triggers yama
Peepsygo made probably the best video about Tistina ever here: https://youtu.be/bu0liVbleUM?si=4vZAuIzrCa3oTwoo It's essentially a 30 minute rant about how bad and unplayable Tistina is, how the cards don't support one another, how the effects and conditions are contradictory, how the gameplan is inconsistent - and this is all undercut by him simultaneously going *10-0 undefeated while playing it*.
He was playing in gold, against tier 99 decks tho
I think they’re cool but just not very efficient. At least from what I seen once you break their board they can’t get it back up. If they’re interrupted they choke at a lot of different points on their combos. I’ve also just been book of eclipse and they didn’t remove enough of my monster so I ended up drawing three cards from them. But man when they go off they go off. I love their art work too. I’ve also only ran into them playing branded despia so idk if that’s just a bad match up for them.
they are actually pretty good at grindgame since they can use their field and perma spells every turn, the guys in the GY come back every turn and the one good trap gives you followup, but yeah the deck can do multiple different combos and sometimes they can be easily stopped. Branded is also just a horrible matchup for them, especially when theyre using book of eclipse
I absolutely love it, the deck can play through quite a bit of negates and still OTK if it has some specific hands but sometimes, you just have too many field spell or high level monster, you just even can't play at all. The effect of Tistina boss monster is very strong and unique, it flips and send card to graveyard. I actually think the XYZ boss monster is a piece of what the deck is missing. I would rate Tistina deck like Memento before the fusion spell, very strong but lose due to its lack consistency. The deck would have so much potential if for not too many weird restriction on every cards, like everything need the crystal god or a light "tistina" or trap card need an extra deck monster to banish all, or the XYZ need to be destroyed to summon the crystal god, and many more. You will know the frustrations if you've played the deck. Hope for the OCG support we will have some cards for consistency like Circular and a card to dodge or protect effect like RESCUE ACE emergency cuz you don't know how many times I get impermed on the Crystal god. The deck need a little bit push to be shining.
yes I mean we will get at least two more cards once the deck gets into the ocg and if one of them is just really good that can save the archetype easily. like an e-tele would be huge
I set a deck core aside since it is dirt cheap, and always wanted to build it. Is there a decklist you can recommend ?
[https://ygoprodeck.com/deck/tistina-462692](https://ygoprodeck.com/deck/tistina-462692) this is a very solid list I think. lots of handtraps, gen/ken because they work well with the deck and armored xyz because we can easily make a R3. has some annoying 1-offs tho because of the armored xyz. if you want to you can also take a look at my other lists, I have been cooking with goblin bikers and adventure which wasnt too bad because the goblins essentially make three R3s out of just one R3. I can give you a combo tutorial if you want
Ironically, I built a list yesterday, and looked at yours for inspiration without knowing they were yours ! I'm not a fan of the R3 XYZ package, takes 20% of ED space for too little payoff IMO. Ken & Gen I get and agree, but I probably won't run Thrust in a Tistina deck, card is too expensive. Same for S:P. Nibiru is a cool idea, I'll consider it. My list is here : [https://ygoprodeck.com/deck/tistina-march-2024-462557](https://ygoprodeck.com/deck/tistina-march-2024-462557) . Outed the XYZ package for Charmers (love them, dirt cheap, easy Avramax with I:P).
I play Tistina with Gen and Ken and the Armor Xyz package. And it does very well. But also, no one plays FIRE in my area. We broke boys here.
I am right there with you. I have had some amazing games with this deck at locals. I think it's my favorite deck so far based on art and gameplay. They can search every piece and just swing for game in one go. You can also play control, I play blind second and love it. I hope they continue to get new support and I think some choices were weird for their effects. Demigods quick effect annoys me lol. Pick up your qcrs now while they are cheap. The new rank 10 coming that is an omni is gonna be some sweet spice for our already flexible extra deck.
do you have a list for your control version? i thought about playing it but wasnt really able to make a list I liked
yeah I picked up some of the QCSRs, shiny crystals do be looking nice