Metagame Report – June 2018 by Patrick Hoffmann

On July 2, 2018 by Valerio Zucco

Hi Guys,

I am Patrick Hoffmann from Team United Gosus.

Today I want to discuss the metagame of June 2018. I took several events on which the release of DASA had an impact and which were already played using the new end of match procedure into consideration:

Major Dates:
May 24th – Release of DASA
June 1st – New End of Match procedure find out more about it: http://www.yugioh-card.com/uk/news/detail.php?id=4498
June 3rd and 4th – YCS New Jersey / Secaucus
June 9th and 10th – German Nationals
June 23th and 24th – UK Nationals
June 28th Battles – of Legend: Relentless Revenge release

Let’s start with the new end of match procedure. On the 25th of May Konami published a new end of match procedure. Please follow the link to find out what it’s all about: http://www.yugioh-card.com/uk/news/detail.php?id=4498

In the past we had 5 additional turns after time was called and then we checked life points and after this we came to a decision (Winner / Draw). That means every player had the same chance with turns and battle phases to win the game or turn the life points in his favor. The new rule says that the players continue with the current phase of the game and when this phase is over they have to stop the game and find a decision (Win, Loss, or Draw). In this case they lost the aforementioned chance. So every player has to play faster and more careful not to lose to a small life points difference. For example if we are at turn one in Main phase 1 and „Player A“ summons Gagaga-Cowboy and activates its effect when time was called. „Player B“ could only activate a handtrap like effect veiler or anything else to stop this effect in order not to lose at this point. But if they negate the effect they will get only a draw and have no chance to win the game itself. I guess the idea about the new rule is not bad because it will save time between rounds but it gives players more reason to slowplay/stall and causes problems for the judges. This was my first thought but after playing 3 events with the new rule I can say that we have not really had more slowplays and cheating attempts but you have to learn to play your deck faster and better to not lose because of this new rule. So make sure that you know the new changes and effects for your deck and playstyle.

This is a great time to take notes about our Tier 1 Decks which was played at the most big tournaments this month.

1. Trickstar Sky Striker
2. Pure Sky Striker
3. Gouki / Pendulum

1. Trickstar Sky Striker:
After 4 weeks of this deck being around you can say that this deck is the most played deck of the biggest events in the past because it is so strong and versatile. The problem of Trickstar before was to clear big monsters and build enough pressure. The new Sky Striker engine solves this issue. With cards like „After burner“ or „Jamming Waves“ you can beat problem cards of your opponent easily and with cards like „Hornet drone“ you can summon the new strong Sky Striker links or make the new Knightmare monsters for the missing pressure. With them you can also generate a lot of plusses or push for big damage. Another good point is that you play the droll & Lock bird/Trickstar Reincarnation “combo”, Scapegoats and the Firewall OTK to win games in only 1 or 2 turns. But you can play slow grind games with the mix of resources from the Sky Striker- and Trickstar cards as well. Only a small weakness is that you can lose to Droll & Lock or against cards like imperial order which negates all spell cards, which is pretty strong against a deck that consists of 25+ spells. But you can easily take this risk and have a really good chance to win a tournament with this deck because its versatility and explosivity make up for it. A lot of great players have chosen to run this deck for the past couple of tournaments for good reason and I am sure, that it will be a big if not the biggest contender for the upcoming NAWCQ and EUWCQ tournaments.

2. Pure Sky Strikers:
This deck is really control based and wants to grind your opponent out with a lot of card advantage and field control. Cards like „Engage“ make sure that you will find the right cards every time and when you have 3 or more spells cards in your grave this card changes to a better pot of greed. With cards like „Raye“ and „Anchor“ you make sure that you will not lose your field presence or steal monster from your opponent and summon strong links like Topologic Bomber Dragon and the Knightmares. So with this plus you can’t really losse against slow rogue decks like Altergeist or Draco. But the weakness here is that this deck takes longer to beat your opponent most of the time as well because you don’t build such a high pressure. Playing Darkest Diabolos Lord of the Lair resolves this issue partly but it may still take a couple of turns to win the game even if you are miles ahead in cards. Another important property of this deck is that its match up against Trickstar Sky Striker is not great because Trickstar Sky Striker have such a high pressure and can otk easily. In my opinion this deck is a great choice for euros as well, because you will beat every rogue deck and when you manage to build a big advantage against the Trickstar Sky Striker Deck this match up could turn in your favor as well. However there are two more strong and fast decks as well – Goukis and Pendulum which could steal your win.

3. Gouki and Pendulum:
I choose to talk about these great combo decks at the same time because the playstyles and the gameplans are nearly the same for both. These Decks make a big turn 1 board if they start or if not they will try to otk you. So most of the time the games will end like with Trickstar Sky Striker in the first 2 turns. But the difference here is that this deck could not really play a grind game because after the first turn they have no resources in the extra and main deck left. Another weakness is that handtraps can hurt a lot. However to resolve this issue they have cards like called by the grave. This card can negate Handtraps easily and most decks play only 6 of them so the Gouki or Pendulum player can go off and make a nearly unbreakable board after they beat the first one. I guess the Match up against the Sky Striker decks is a little in your favor but this deck is hard to play and takes a lot of care to play out your combo perfectly to create the best boards. Another weakness could be cards like „Evenly Matched“ and „The winged Dragon of Ra Sphere mode“ see a lot of play in the side decks. But if you can easily play around these weaknesses and you like combo decks more than control decks these decks could be a great option for you to have success at the upcoming events.

To understand my reasoning please take a look at the following tables and the small summaries about the biggest events of the season in June 2018:

YCS New Jersey – 3rd and 4th June
Top 32
Trickstar Striker: 16
Pure Striker: 2
Altergeist: 4
Gouki: 3
Pendulum: 1
Other’s: 6

At this tournament we saw that Trickstar Striker dominated the whole tournament and won the event with 50 % Player’s in the Top cut. The most builds were really similar to the winning build of Koty Angel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlk1cLS5UAE a normal consistent build with Pot of Desires and without Shared Ride in the main Deck. So I came to the conclusion this event is a good example for my reasoning why Trickstar Striker is the best and dominant Deck of the format. Another point is that this tournament was the first big one with the new end of match procedure so this could be another reason why most players chose Trickstar Striker to play for this event. Because you can burn the life points of your opponent down pretty easily. This tournament was a direction for the german nationals as well. With a small difference that Linkkuriboh is not allowed in EUTCG areas but this was more a limination for Gouki than for the other decks.

German Nationals Mainz: June 3rd and 4th
Top 8
Trickstar Striker: 6
Pure Striker: 1
Mekk-Knight Invoked: 1

Like we saw in New Jersey the most players took Trickstar Striker to play the nationals. In the End Trickstar Striker won this event as well. This was the biggest European Nationals and that means the metagame of this event will have a high impact for the WCQ in Berlin next week as well. So please prepare your Deck for Trickstar Striker. The end of match procedure was in effect as well but there was not really a high impact except for that we played only until 9 pm on day 1 which is a really good end time for 8 Rounds with more than 1000 Players.

So 2 of the biggest Events was won by Trickstar Striker. What about UK? Did they do the same?

UK Nationals Birmingham: June 23rd and 24th
Mermail: 1
Burning Abyss: 1
True Draco: 1
Altergeist: 1
Pendulum: 2
Pure Striker: 4
Trickstar Striker: 21

If you see this table you think ok here we have the same winner with Trickstar Striker because more than 65 % played this Deck in the Top cut. But in the end Burning Abyss won this event. I can’t belive that but this Deck exists for more than 5 Years competetivly. Never has another Deck lasted that long. So maybe this Deck could be a great Metacall in Berlin ? What do you think?

I hope you enjoyed this article and please stay tuned for more Yu-Gi-Oh! Content from us.

I hope we see us in Berlin as well. With this words I say Goodbye and wish you a nice Weekend.

Greetz

Patrick Hoffmann