Now that Mike and PJ have presented their sides of the argument, its time to look at what you, the readers, had to say. Remember, we’re talking about Starlight Road and whether or not you should still play cards like Mirror Force, Heavy Storm, and Torrential Tribute that are generally used when they would destroy 2 or more cards and thus likely to trigger Starlight Road. PJ says yes, Mike says no, and you say:

I personally find myself using cards such as Torrential Tribute, Heavy Storm, and Mirror Forceperhaps too often, and Starlight Road is definitely difficult to play around. Though I don’t think I’d want to get rid of my Heavy Storm just to avoid one card. Most people only use one Starlight Road in their Deck and if you are afraid of one Trap Card you may as well be afraid of them all, because you don’t know which one it’ll be. In that case, why not just run Jinzo?

- Chris

Why not just run Jinzo? Jinzo is cool, and with the ever rising Trap count of popular Decks, the sudden appearance of a Jinzo could be disastrous for an opponent. You could always SummonJinzo and then play your Heavy Storm. That way you don’t get nailed by Starlight Road and you set yourself up in a stronger position for later in the Duel. Playing Jinzo, however, is only useful in the case of Heavy Storm. Mirror Force and Torrential Tribute can’t even be used with Jinzo on the field, so it’s like you’re locking yourself out of those Traps anyways. It’s an interesting point, but not really a solution to the puzzle Starlight Road presents.

Despite the danger Starlight Road presents, it alone is not a reason to exclude cards that destroy multiple cards from your Deck, any more than the existence of Stardust Dragon means you should exclude destruction effects from your Deck entirely. You can still negate it, destroy it before it can be activated using cards like Mystical Space Typhoon or Dust Tornado, or play around it, and the Stardust Dragon wasn’t Synchro Summoned, so it can’t use its effect to Special Summon itself after being Tributed to negate a different destruction effect. And if your opponent is relying onStarlight Road for protection, simply stopping it can be crippling to their strategy, especially since most Duelists only use one copy.

- Warren

Warren seems to fall squarely into PJ’s camp on this one. Get rid of Starlight Road itself early on and you can play your most powerful cards without fear… if they only have one copy. Assuming that anyone only has a specific number of copies of a given card is always dangerous, unless of course its a Limited or Semi-Limited card. I’ve seen many players lose to a Starlight Road that they didn’t see coming because their opponent already had one in the Graveyard. Interesting point of note, most of these players were Blackwing Duelists trying to play extremely aggressively with their Icarus Attacks. It’s a cautionary tale, to be sure.

I for one, am for the article suggesting not to use the [cards that destroy multiple cards] in the first place. That was initial thought when I first saw Starlight Road. I figured, if I happen to run into any Duelist running Starlight Road(s), then it will be useless to them, as they won’t ever get to activate it. Which in turn, gives me an edge. Also, since I have taken Heavy Storm, Mirror Force, and Torrential Tribute out of my Decks, I found it opened up more room in my Deck, to help me achieve the goals of what the Deck was made to accomplish  faster and more consistently.

-J.C.

J.C. agrees with Mike and brings up another very valid and interesting point. Removing three cards that you’ve played in practically every if not literally every Deck you’ve ever built gives you three more open slots to play cards that increase the speed and consistency of your Deck or give you options against the Decks you expect to Duel against most often. X-Saber Decks can greatly benefit from this in particular, since they still have XX-Saber Hyunlei on standby if they need to destroy multiple Spell and Trap Cards at once, but they can use the extra space to max out on cards like Book of Moon, XX-Saber Boggart Knight, and XX-Saber Darksoul or to add cards like D.D. Crow.

Overall, your responses to our first Great Debate were overwhelmingly in favor of leavingHeavy Storm, Torrential Tribute, and Mirror Force in your Decks with some readers even claming that you shouldn’t even take Starlight Road into account when you Duel! Not a particularly surprising result given how powerful those cards are. That’ll wrap things up for our first Great Debate, but if you have a topic that you think we should discuss on the Strategy Site, whether its a point of contention in the Dueling world or just a new powerful strategy or a basic skill that everyone should know, let us know at us-ygorules@konami.com!