Duality-less Dragons?

We all know what this does and why it was around 200 bucks a piece back in the day. Thinning the deck by one while potentially saving yourself from a bad topdeck at the cost of Special Summoning for the turn made this a powerful addition to control and combo based decks like Gravekeeper's, HERO Beat and Rescue Rabbit. What it does for Dragons is also no slouch as they lack any real form of draw power that isn't extremely situational (Trade-In, Cards of Consonance). Being able to go Duality into Future Fusion thinned the deck out by 6 and unlike Gold Sarcophagus wasn't a hard -1 for two turns. At 3 Pot of Duality was staple in decks that could get their hands on them and with the release of the 2011 tins, that included budget players. Duality's ability to make decks more consistent has made it one of the most popular spell cards in the game and a potential target for the upcoming Banlist.

Yet now as we wrap up 2011 and head into the new year with a new Booster Set and Dragons Collide on the horizon there has been talk going around of dropping this card from the deck entirely as the negatives are far more damning than the positives. Its not just a few people too. Both Richard Clarke and KotU; two of the most well known names of the Dragon Community have eliminated PoD from their decks in favour of taking more advantage of Divine Dragon Apocalypse and his ability to recycle powerful cards. This has naturally garnered some reactions on the Disaster thread on TCGP.

KotU; "I feel like the game moves at a faster pace now, so I don't really have time to be waiting a turn because I shut off Special Summons through playing Pot of Duality. Rather than continue running it because of the ability of Divine Dragon Apocalypse, I'd rather just run different cards that either support my core strategy or help to cripple my opponent's plans."

Clarke; "Turning any card into a Dragon is going to be a hot commodity, especially if you draw into dead/unnecessary cards and ned to retrieve REDMD / Yamata / LaDD for another run or any Dragon that's needed at that time of the game.

Again, putting a freeze on Special Summoning doesn't work for me unless I'm able to put the game away on that turn so Pot of Duality will continue to be an afterthought in my eyes."

I can see where they're coming from. Duality is really only good for when you don't plan to special summon that turn or have no other plays in addition to making the deck essentially 37 cards. Axing them allows for cards that haven't seen much play like Burst Breath, Mirror Force and the upcoming Dragon Reincarnation to see play for Standard, LaDDD and Spirit Well variants.

That's not to say PoD is useless to Disaster Dragon. Anti-Meta Disaster (which got another top at a YCS in Europe) may still need the 3 Duality, but even then I can see it potentially going without it in order to run more techy cards.

It's going to be hard to part with my Dualities in the deck BUT with all these positives outweighing the negative its something I'm gonna have to try and see how it works. Until the next time.