The Deck
Having tested lots of different versions of Shaddoll, I eventually chose Burning Abyss. Shaddoll is a combo-oriented deck, and is strong with Fusion, but if you don’t draw fusion, you have to beat down your opponent with Flip Effects. Polymerization goes some way to solving this, but is subpar in the mirror as you can’t tribute the fusions. I built the deck to utilize The Beginning of the End, which seemed the strongest card during testing, in versions of Shaddoll and Burning abyss. This explains choices like kuribandit, and Caius the Shadow Monarch over Raiza the storm monarch. I chose Raigeki break over Karma Cut as it can destroy backrow as well as monsters, making it generally more versatile.

You can find a more detailed deck profile on Play Matter’s Youtube channel.

Rd1 vs Tellar
G1 is given to me via multiple misplays from my opponent, using call in my ep when I had Breakthrough Skill, allowing me to resolve a Graff when he had Vanity’s Emptiness face-down and I had two squads up. I eventually kill him with the advantage gained off double Squad.

G2 I open 3 Cir, Malebranche of the Burning Abyss and a Scarm, Malebranche of the Burning Abyss, which gets Chain-Dissapearanced. I lose shortly.

G3 Goes on for a long time, as he drops Cairngorgon, Antiluminescent Knight which prevents me from using my discard traps. I have also seen he is running Wiretap, so I am hesitant about chaining Breakthrough to his Cairngorgon. I eventually kill it, and Supply Squad draws wins out for me.

1-0

Rd2 vs B.A
He isn’t running Supply Squad so both games go a similar way, I simply see one and end up multiple cards ahead to win the game.

2-0

Rd3 vs Shaddoll (Long Dao)
G1 We both start with weak hands, but unfortunately for me his becomes live a turn before he is about to die so he kills me with Dark Armed Dragon and Shaddoll Fusion.

G2 He doesn’t see a Fusion so I can slowly gain advantage off Dante and Squad.

G3 I feel safe to make a Dante because I have warning and another trap, but unfortunately for me he has two Mathematician to force out my backrows so he can use a Fusion and win the game.

2-1

Rd4 vs B.A.
G1 We both draw into triple Supply Squad but he resolves his first with a preemptive Trap Stun. He then has enough resources to stop me resolving mine so I lose.

G2 I open TGU and two sets. He MST’s both and summons his own, but unfortunately for him I draw a squad next turn so he can’t answer it and I slowly gain advantage and win.

G3 The first two games went on for a long time and I get LP down and end up losing on time. This is unfortunate for me as I resolved beginning of the end into multiple Squads so would likely have been able to win had the game continued a bit longer.

2-2

Rd5 vs Mermail
G1 Dante, Traveler of the Burning Abyss and Breakthrough seems to be too much for Mermails to cope with, providing a wall and shutting off multiple effects so he runs out of cards very fast.

G2 I lose reasonably fast because my only Burning Abyss monster gets stopped, leaving me with no plays.

G3 Much like G1, he loses out dropping multiple cards to backrow, and running out of cards.

3-2

Rd6 vs Tellar
He arrives late so gets a gameloss for g1.

The second game goes on for a long time, fortunately for me my opponent decides not to make Emeral off his Soul Charge, instead making Dweller and Gandiva which end being run over by a Dante in successive turns. He completely runs out of monsters but I am able to still have plays by looping Dante and Cir to win out eventually.

4-2

Rd7 vs 50 card.dek
G1 After eventually resolving a bandit I win out by resolving a The Beginning of the End to go without, giving me multiple trap cards to close the game out.

G2 I simply drop Vanity’s Fiend, which slowly kills him. He Compulsory’s it at some point, but has not follow-up play so I just summon it again next turn to win.

5-2

Rd8 vs Shaddoll Burning abyss (43 cards)
Both g1 and g2 go very easily for me, using The Beginning of the End to put me far enough ahead to win.

6-2

This was the end of Day 1, which had felt reasonably intense since I had been on the bubble since Round 4. I was glad for the extra hour due to the clocks going back, since returning to my friends house, where we were sleeping, took a very long time, because we missed the last train.

Rd9 vs Artifact Shaddoll
G1 I end up winning off his Shaddoll Fusion. I try to Emptiness it, he has MST so I Compulsory my own Downerd. He then shows me has hand so I can see he can no longer fuse and I can see it is all rubbish so I go ahead and beat him down. He scoops just before I was about to play The Beginning of the End.

G2 I open triple Vanity’s and double Break, but my 6th card is a Scarm so I can drop the fiend. He opened by fusing Winda and setting a Falco, so the Fiend sticks for a while. When he gets round to searching Squamata, I have multiple backrow so he doesn’t want to flip, being scared of warning or Breakthrough. I have Raigeki Break down, but am scared he could chain a Shadow games.

So I wait. Turns out he didn’t have games down and plays it the turn after he draws it, so I chain Break to it and recommence beating him down with Fiend.

7-2

Rd10 vs 60 card deck
I win Games 1 and 2 similar to my Round 8 match. We get deck checked which takes a very long time because his deck is so big.

8-2

Rd11 vs Artifact Shaddoll
This was featured on the Konami livestream. You can find it about 3hrs in to Day 2’s footage.

9-2

So I came 29th, sneaking into the top cut. I am happy to top this, having topped all the premier events I have attended this year.

T32
G1 I have Emptiness for Fusion, so I win over a few turns with a Caius and a copy of The Beginning of the End.

G2 He plays a super poly on my attempted Kuribandit, dropping an early El Shaddoll Winda. With no tributes and my Wind Blast Lanced, my only out to Winda is use a another trap to get a BA on board and normal another next turn. Unfortunately by this point a had taken some damage, and a poor Kuribandit the turn before got me no traps, so he sealed the game via a combo of me milling my last Graff target (Cir) of Dante (milled three to kill Winda), an End Phase Shadow Games into Falco, with a topdecked Moralltach into Michael sealed the game for him.

G3 I open fairly strong with TGU into Dante. I also had vanity’s fiend, and from my experience most players if they draw fusion tend to either want to clear backrow or set trap stun before playing fusion vs b.a.. Unfortunately for me, that isn’t what happens when you draw two Shaddoll Fusion, so he promptly played one, my only response being to Raigeki Break my own Dante and hope for the best. Unfortunately, he also had a Beast and a BLS to send, and made a Construct. Next turn he was able to Shadow Games my drawn Warning, and play another Fusion, fusing from deck, which more or less sealed the game, along with a Raigeki and a Trap Stun to seal the game.

Unfortunately for me this was the end of the tournament. I felt it was a shame the deck I made didn’t do better, as it was the product of a lot of testing, and it won’t get another big event to play it before the new set is released.

You can check out my deck list here: http://www.unitedgosus.com/ug-decklists-london14/

Anyway, thanks for reading.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tom Paine is a Math major at Oxford University in the United Kingdom. Tom has been a member of United Gosus since 2014, as a Player Intern. For more information about Tom, check out his member profile.