Nouvelle Research Central
I've been playing a lot of Nouvelle and been wondering about a central question: why is Nouvelle not meta? I enjoy the deck, but trying it on ladder has exposed it to a lot of inherent weaknesses in the deck.
Nouvelle's Strengths
On paper, Nouvelle is a strong deck. Almost all its cards can go plus, fetch, replace themselves or have an additional function; the hallmark of all modern decks. Tribute is the strongest type of removal in the game. So why isn't it meta?
1) You opponent can choose - Nouvelle has a built-in weakness in defense position monsters. In an era of YGO where the best decks have NO SUCH WEAKNESSES, this is a big strike against the deck. Your opponent can simply CHOOSE to special summon Fenrir in defense position on Turn 2 and you have no response. Barring something [unreliable] like enemy controller, there aren't that many cards that can change position at instant speed. That means Nouvelle is at the mercy of your opponent's interactions CHOOSING to trigger a Nouvelle reaction!
2) It lets your opponent play Yu-Gi-Oh - Nouvelle is mostly reactive. Barring [Cook's Recipe], Nouvelle cannot forward interactions and will be 'stuck' without a way to 'point' at your monster. This makes [Cook's Recipe] a must get from the deck or lose the game on low star dishes. Nouvelle usually only runs two in-house traps, Cook's and Special recipe. But what if you are only able to get one side out of the two traps? You are forced into an awkward position where you have to give one up over the other and decide which is more important: Chef's for the long game, or Special to prevent board wipes. I've been instinctively choosing Special, but might do more testing for the Chef's line soon. Either way, there just aren't a lot of hard 'shutdown' lines that Nouvelle can play.
3) It plays a game that doesn't matter - Nouvelle plays the hand advantage game when it doesn't matter. To get to a ritual monster you need three things; the spell, the creature, and the sacrifice. You are doing the classic Jaden -2 to get 1 on board. If your creature doesn't do SOMETHING when it hits the board, it is so screwed.
Compare this with most meta decks who go plus, plus plus plus, Nouvelles simply can't keep up with its soft lock. Why would you play a deck which POTENTIALLY can give you hand advantage and POTENTIALLY lock the board, when you can just hard lock the board and play Max C?
That's why I like to open with 1star, it searches and gives you half the second ritual summon in meat recipe when it comes out. But giving you half the summon is not enough, you still have to reach for another summon, and sometimes you just don't get there. Let's say you open
1star, Fish Recipe, Sacrifice, X, X
After summon, your hand turns into
Meat, X, X, SEARCHED
You must be able to turn X, X into a sacrifice OR have searched into a Nouvelle monster that becomes something you want on field. AND you must still have an appropriate sacrifice. Normally you would want to search for a trap or At-Table off 1star, which makes the second dish super hard.
4) It Lacks a Decisive Turn 3 Finisher - Nouvelle cannot finish. It has no built-in finishers. Most of its extra decks are from other archetypes, specifically Dyna Mondo, which is a low-cost unicorn. But it doesn't really push for damage.
The most consistent way for a Nouvelle deck to finish is going from 3star to 5star to 6star and into hungry burger, but against better opponents, this doesn't happen much. Since the extra deck is the most reliable part of the deck, the finisher must come from there.
But who can help Nouvelle finish a game? Accesscode can't do it. I've been thinking about Borrelload, but I have to try it out myself. I'm loathe to sacrifice three Nouvelles for Nephthys already, it has to be something that lets me make use of the token I get from Cook's recipe.
Final Thoughts
Nouvelles is a flawed deck. I like the concept, but there are many weaknesses and I am operating in a space that is not very well-researched. (most people definitely do not like this deck).
