itt: byakk writes a giant article about the format while listening to dubstep

[byak]

So I'm bored and I decided I might as well write a Holy Wall of Text, Batman about the upcoming state of the format. It might not exactly be “upcoming” if you live in Europe, and what I mean by this, is the release of Dark Worlds in the TCG. Of course we still have a few days before it hits American shores .It's no doubt that Dark Worlds cause a big impact on the format, but the release of them solidifies our current format up a bit more. In this article I plan to go over the big three decks, the decks that can compete with those decks, and techs to be considered in this meta.

So we’ve been in this format for a good month or so by now. What has been trending? What should you, the humble ygo player, be considering?

Plant Synchro

This is personally my favorite deck right now, and possibly my favorite deck of all time. The deck has been treated similarly to Blackwings, as in their cards keep getting hit, but the deck still stays prominently solid. Unlike Blackwings, however, they stay as one of the best decks. Currently Plant Synchro decks rely on the amazing power of Tour Guide From the Underworld (which I’ll get to later) , Reborn Tengu, all of the traditional Plant power cards, and the recently unbanned Black Luster Soldier – Envoy of the Beginning. At the beginning of this format, when we all saw what Konami had done, we thought they were dead. Debris, Lonefire Blossom, Pot of Avarice, Formula Synchron, and T.G. Hyper Librarian were all limited, and this cut a lot power from the deck. Most of the Yugioh community decided to drop the deck and mess around with a lot of other decks, a lot which involved Tour Guide due to the Xyz ruling, which was promptly fixed. As the format progressed, people began to realize that the deck is still amazing, and it is. It’s true that Plant Synchro has lost a bunch of cards to the Restricted list, but this is easily fixed with Tour Guide. Tour Guide + Sangan can get you any of your limited cards as fast as possible, like Lonefire Blossom, Debris Dragon, Dandylion for One for One, etc. There’s also the amazing synergy the deck has with Reborn Tengu. One for One + Spore + Tengu, Lonefire + Tengu, Tengu + Enemy Controller, Pot of Avarice are all amazing plays thanks to Reborn Tengu, and it’s no doubt that this card does a large portion of the work in this deck. Lonefire Blossom + Monster Reborn combos are still as good as they were, too. You can still go Librarian + Formula Synchron, with the difference being you draw one less card, and there’s always Trishula, which can put you in a very favorable position against Agents and Dark World. Additionally, there’s Black Luster Soldier – Envoy of the Beginning, which basically most of the time wins you the game when you summon it. You have easy accessibility to lights and darks thanks to the Extra Deck, Tour Guide is played at three, and Plant Synchro builds have recently been maindecking copies of Thunder King Rai-Oh for general usefulness. Enemy Controller is also just an amazing Yugioh card with Tour Guide/Tengu/Plant Tuners that can simply end games. To put it short and concise, the deck is almost completely composed of power cards that have synergy with each other. Every limited card you draw almost works with every other limited card you draw and in the end results in a favorable outcome. Overall, the deck loses plays and slight consistency, but that doesn’t mean the deck is out of plays, or is inconsistent. It’s quite the opposite.

Agents

This has been the more popular pick this format, especially at the beginning. In the beginning you had Tour Guide + Sarco to make Leviair, Stardust, and Gachi Gachi with the Xyz ruling. Without that, the deck steps down a notch, but is still a viable threat this format, as seen in recent YCS results. In my eyes, the deck appears to be very linear. The duel starts out with an Earth/Venus play (or Tour Guide if you’re playing the TGU variant), which eventually progresses to either a Birdman Trishula play or Gachi Gachi play, and then simply dumbs down to dropping all of your boss monsters to overwhelm your opponent. It could be described like stages, in a way. I tested Tour Guide Agents before a regional weeks ago, and I dropped the deck to play Plants instead. The reason I didn’t like it, was because it was too linear, and despite carrying an arsenal of boss monsters, doesn’t start up with the most consistent hands, even with Tour Guide. In my opinion, if you want more flexibility and you can make creative plays, go for Plant Synchro. If you want more straight up force, go for Agents. The deck is certainly very viable, despite the possibility of drawing clogged hands of boss monsters or Mystical Shine Balls. If the deck opens a decent hand, odds are it’s most likely winning. All you really need is an Agent, and enough control over the tempo of the game to grind out the win. Master Hyperion is instant removal to anything, and Kristya locks down your opponent in a format that relies on Special Summoning. If you think about it, there are minimal outs to an Archlord Kristya in some of the top decks, which is one of the main reasons why this deck is so good. There’s also the solid Gachi + Venus play which walls over your opponent and shuts down tiny threats. When playing Agents, there’s typically three variants: Pure, T.G., and TGU. They all are designed to fit to your personal playstyle. The TGU variant runs 3 Tour Guide From the Underworld, and most of the time Black Luster Soldier – Envoy of the Beginning. The point of this variant is to prevent yourself from opening total ass, as well as have access to another boss monster, and Leviair the Sea Dragon. The T.G. variant simply plays T.G. Striker and T.G. Warwolf, both of which open more plays when using The Agent of Creation – Venus. This build is more aggressive than the other two, and adds a whole different aspect of playing the deck, which is utilizing T.G.s. Finally, the pure build plays neither TGU or T.G., and in return has open space to play format techs, like Thunder King Rai-Oh, Tragoedia, Maxx “C”, etc. This variant’s strengths depend on how you build it, but it typically diverts the deck away from its linear playstyle. Depending on either variant you choose, the deck is amazing overall, and has proven to be one of the best three decks this format. It’s also the simplest out of the best, and since you can get most of the needed cards in the structure deck, it’s ideal for beginners.

Dark World

Now, for the deck everyone’s been talking about. This deck has simply been wrecking in the OCG since its release months ago. The premise of the deck is that you have a 2700-3000 beater in your Graveyard that can revive itself as long as you have a Dark World monster. This comes in the form of Grapha, Dragon Lord of Dark World. The deck has gotten tons of support, but this card is the most important, since it gives something Dark Worlds can use to actually win. Not only does the deck have power, but it has massive consistency. The average Dark World deck plays six to eight cards to discard and activate the effects of Dark World monsters. Grapha destroys any threat on the field, including Archlord Kristya and Thunder King Rai-Oh, Snoww, Unlight of Dark World adds any Dark World card you need to improve your field/graveyard setup, and Broww, Huntsman of Dark World to draw cards and give you more advantage. The new cards given to this deck ties everything together and produces one, explosive and powerful package. The deck gets even better in the TCG, because of Tour Guide From the Underworld. Tour Guide can search for Broww, which can be bounced by Grapha and discarded later, as well as Sangan, which can get your key cards, mainly Fabled Raven to make a big push next turn. Tour Guide can also make Leviair the Sea Dragon to bring back fiends you remove for The Gates of Dark World. As well as being able to gain tons of advantage, the deck can easily take control of any situation, generally through all of the hand control that can be played. This deck is the ideal deck for Deck Devastation Virus and Eradicator Epidemic Virus, which win games all on their own. There are also Dark World builds that stray away from Dark World Dealings because of the terrible mirror matches it creates, and compensates with Dragged Down into the Grave, which picks away the choice cards that your opponent can use to prevent you from winning, as well as make Mind Crush live. Another key point to the deck is the ability to main Skill Drain with minimal repercussions. Like Agents, the deck can be a bit inconsistent at times. If it doesn’t draw a discard outlet early, it’ll probably end up losing. Of course, with Tour Guide, searching Fabled Raven is a cinch. Unlike Agent’s linear playstyle, however, the deck just curb stomps anything if it draws a decent hand. It’ll probably rise above the other two top decks and be the best deck of the format, but only time can tell that one. Something to note is that the deck actually takes some kind of skill, since you have to make the right decisions on what you want to search with Snoww, dedicate your Normal Summon to, determine what Dark World you want to discard to end up with the best outcome, etc. Also, discarding the right card usually affects if you have a Dark World for Grapha late game, which is important.

These are the big three decks of the format, and will most likely take up a majority of the top tables at premier events. Obviously though they won’t be taking all of them, and there are some other competitors that do this, but just don’t make the cut when being a major deck.

T.G.

This deck rose to popularity at the conclusion of the North American WCQ, when Hansel Aguero went against the massive field of Plant Synchro to win it all in the finals and participate at Worlds. The deck has really good theory behind it too, and last format it was one of the best decks, due to having a really good Plant Synchro matchup and being an antimeta deck that doesn’t have to make antimeta plays. One of the notable things about T.G. is their use of Horn of the Phantom Beast. Horn can entirely shift the tempo of the game, putting your monster above theirs, getting rid of it, and drawing a card. Plus, they can’t use Mystical Space Typhoon so they don’t have much of a counter to it. It’s still somewhat the same case now, but the problem is the format has a lot of removal outside of the Battle Phase so Horn combos don’t shine as much as they used to. However, one thing to note is TG-EM1, which is a chainable Creature Swap for T.G.s. If you think about it, the format is full of boss monsters. There’s Grapha, Kristya, BLS, you name it. Playing a TG-EM1 on one of those monsters causes a massive shift in tempo, and what makes it even better is that you can run over the T.G. to add another one and make more plays. Another factor that hurts T.G.’s viability, however, is the return of Heavy Storm. T.G.s primarily relied on constant Spell or Trap Cards, and in this format it’s generally unsafe to go that route. So T.G. can’t utilize their backrows to their highest potential without having a Starlight Road or anything. Another problem is that if they can’t get over a boss monster, they just flat out lose. And we see a lot of that this format, and the fact that Grapha can pop your protection before putting monsters on the board is a major concern. Despite these problems, if the deck can cause a change in tempo, it can then easily win the game.

Karakuri

To some, this choice seems confusing. To others, they know what I’m talking about. To elaborate, Karakuri, while being a solid deck that can pull off combos that can win the game, can also answer 1/3 of the format, which is done by summoning Naturia Beast. Dark Worlds get extremely crippled by this card, especially when you can back it up with protection. Not being able to use Spells means you can’t discard anything outside of using Raven, and your only out is Tour Guide into Leviathan. This is the most important factor of the deck, and is why I’m bringing it up. Of course, it has thousands of other plays too, and only needs a few cards to go off and win, but unfortunately doesn’t do so as fast as the other decks do, but it is a serious competitor.

There are some other decks worth mentioning, but probably won’t do as well as the above. These are Scraps, Gladiator Beast, Hero Beat, and Anti-Meta.

Now that I’ve gone over the main decks in the format, it’s time to go a bit more In depth on some of the more popular cards in this format.

Tour Guide From the Underworld

This card alone arguably defines a majority of the meta. Adding it to a deck boosts its consistency by a lot, and gives you access to a plethora of Rank 3 Xyzs, where each can be used in a different situation for your advantage. Despite fixing Kevin Tewart’s stupidity, the card still retains extreme value and is still a staple in most decks, just for the consistency it brings. Tour Guide is far from sucking, and is one of the most important cards in this format.

Trap Dustshoot

In case some of you didn’t get the memo, this card is a staple. The reason I bring this card up is that I see it lacking in a bunch of decks. Consider this, Heavy Storm is back. Setting four backrows turn one is far from safe, so typically your opponent shouldn’t be loaded with cards in hand. It’s really easy to activate this card as opposed to last format, and should definitely run in everything, except maybe not in 0 Trap decks as it makes your opponent’s MST live.

Thunder King Rai-Oh

Probably one of the BEST anti cards in the game right now. The card shuts down Sangan, can run over things such as Tengu, and flat out shuts down Earth, Snoww, T.G.s, Hyperion, and Kristya. The card combats a majority of the format, and when building a deck you always have to consider maining it, and if not, siding it. Thunder King is simply an extremely disruptive card that doesn’t have too many outs, and forces your opponent to waste advantage to get rid of it. Not to mention it’s a light for Black Luster Soldier – Envoy of the Beginning.

Maxx “C”

This card is fairly good. It picked up popularity around the time of the NA WCQ, and stuck in most people’s main decks for the duration of last format, and still shows promise in this format. Maxx “C” is clutch against Agent’s Venus plays, as well as any of Plant Synchro’s plays. It’s also quite good to drop it on a Leviair play in Dark World. And even if it’s not great against a matchup, you can still drop it on a generic Special Summoning card and end up not losing any advantage. The card is important for Venus plays, and Plant Synchro as a whole, so if you have space, it’s definitely recommended.

Now that I’ve gone over the format, it’s best to also go over how to beat it, right?

Plant Synchro

This one’s tricky to give a definite answer to. The reason I say that is because a good portion of Plant decks side into stun, siding out all of the plant cards you side against, rendering cards that would be useful at first, such as D.D. Crow, useless. However, Thunder King Rai-Oh is always a good card to side vs the deck, to counter TGU plays and stop <1900 beaters they throw out. If they don’t side into Stun, having D.D. Crows is probably the most useful asset, as well as Effect Veiler. These two are the most important, and from that point you can add some other specific stuff to your side depending on what you’re actually playing

Agents

Once again, Thunder King Rai-Oh is a great answer to this deck, unless they drop a Venus on you, but even then it’s not that bad. An interesting choice is Kycoo the Ghost Destroyer, that removes their Agents they need for Kristya, and prevents your opponent from removing anything from their Graveyard to summon Hyperion. Aside from that, there are also the standard antilight cards, such as Light-Imprisoning Mirror and Leeching the Light. Both are good, but Leeching the Light is better when you can swarm. You should also consider that Agents can possibly side into light stun with Gozen Match, so you need to be prepared for when that happens. Although if they do that, it prevents them from making Gachi Gachi Gantetsu.

Dark World

I brought up a clear answer to Dark World earlier, and this card is Naturia Beast. Anything that can stop their spells is good enough, but there isn’t enough cards that do that. An odd choice is Anti-Spell Fragrance, which I saw a while ago but haven’t done anything with yet. D.D. Crow is good for getting rid of their Grapha, Thunder King Rai-Oh once again shuts down their Snoww, and Closed Forest can prevent them from activating The Gates to the Dark World, which is very important to the deck, making it a really good choice. Shadow Imprisoning Mirror can also work, but it doesn’t stop them from summoning Grapha which is a problem, but this problem could be fixed with D.D. Crow or even Bottomless Trap Hole. Another odd idea is Skull Meister. If you're going second game 2 and 3, discarding Skull Meister to negate Snoww or Broww can leave your opponent without any plays, but it isn't that great of a card. Good for the mirror though.

So this is all I feel like writing up at the moment. How about a tl;dr?

TL;DR
This format is defined by Tour Guide From the Underworld
Plants, Agent, and Dark World are the three best decks
Plants are perhaps the most flexible of the three, while Agents are the most linear
Dark Worlds take more skill than the others to play properly
Agents are better for newer players due to cost efficiency and simple playstyle
T.G., Karakuri, and some other decks can compete, but aren’t good enough to last long enough in a premier event
Thunder King Rai-Oh is the f***ing nuts in this format
Maxx “C” is still a good card
Black Luster Soldier – Envoy of the Beginning wins games on its own, if you can play it, play it.
If you’re not playing Trap Dustshoot you’re doing it wrong
D.D. Crow is arguably a staple in the side deck

[Expelsword]

No one ever mentions Flamvells...
Why are they so bad, I mean, on paper, they have one of the greatest cards ever.

[byak]

I dislike drawing Flamvells that aren't Firedog.

[Airride]

Welp.
Don't have Guide
Don't have BLS.
Run Machina and Evols.

...

Guess I'll be at locals most of this format, eeyup.

[Expelsword]

I have to wonder, are X-Sabers even relevant anymore?
I don't see them.
Tour Guide is going to end up a 1-Format Wonder, that's what I've gathered.

[Proto]

[quote name='Expelsword - 輝き' timestamp='1318642531' post='5580256']
I have to wonder, are X-Sabers even relevant anymore?
I don't see them.
Tour Guide is going to end up a 1-Format Wonder, that's what I've gathered.
[/quote]
Karakuris, in general do their job better >:

[Solemn Silver]

I pay agents
But I don`t have money for bls
so fml

[Just Crouton]

Stuff I never thought about until now.

[Canadian]

Reading articles like this are the reason byak is the king of TCG.

[byak]

[quote name='Canadian' timestamp='1318647163' post='5580379']
Reading articles like this are the reason byak is the king of TCG.
[/quote]

thisthisthisthisthis

i might be a douchebag but i understand the game more than the lot of you

[.Nu-13]

[quote name='Leviair the byakk Dragon' timestamp='1318647892' post='5580392']
i might be a douchebag but i understand the game more than the lot of you
[/quote]
Q4T

[Canadian]

Theres really only a small handful (maybe 10 people max) from here who:

- understand the format
- are able to play the game
- build decks with a degree of competence

[Azuh]

Tbh, all I was expecting from this topic was BLS and wubwubwubwubwubwub

[byak]

[quote name='Azuh' timestamp='1318648412' post='5580410']
Tbh, all I was expecting from this topic was BLS and wubwubwubwubwubwub
[/quote]

Granted BLS is one of the big main problems of the format, it's better to address the actual decks. o.o

[The Sacred Ninja]

I appreciate you mentioning the Karakuri. I knew Naturia Beast was quite a hassle to deal with, but I never stopped to think about exactly what in the meta was severely affected by him. Thanks for sharing!

[Canadian]

Karakuri's can be sided against really easily.

[The Sacred Ninja]

[quote name='Canadian' timestamp='1318649834' post='5580440']
Karakuri's can be sided against really easily.
[/quote]

Thank goodness for DN, huh?

[Agro]

You forgot to mention that Karakuri decks can run Dimensional Fissure, which can cripple Plant Synchros completely and utterly destroy DW.

I'd say you could put ChaosDragons in there, but I suppose TCG won't get that till next format.

[Ｎｏ．１７ リバイス・ドラゴン]

[quote name='Canadian' timestamp='1318648271' post='5580406']
Theres really only a small handful (maybe 10 people max) from here who:

- understand the format
- are able to play the game
- build decks with a degree of competence
[/quote]
Make that 9

[Legend Zero]

I'm kinda sad the GKs went to a lower Tier just because TCG exclusives.

[Ｎｏ．１７ リバイス・ドラゴン]

[quote name='Legend Zero' timestamp='1318652208' post='5580477']
I'm kinda sad the GKs went to a lower Tier just because TCG exclusives.
[/quote]
They aren't topping in japan...

[Legend Zero]

[quote name='Ｎｏ．１７ リバイス・ドラゴン' timestamp='1318652475' post='5580481']

They aren't topping in japan...
[/quote]
They got DWs and BLS coming back isn't really a good thing for them.

[Mehmani]

It's nice to see someone triumphing Crow for once, and it's also nice to see it back (mainly because one owns a playset).

Byakk for mod.

[Solemn Silver]

[quote name='Canadian' timestamp='1318648271' post='5580406']Theres really only a small handful (maybe 10 people max) from here who: - understand the format - are able to play the game - build decks with a degree of competence[/quote]


Who are..?

[Expelsword]

[quote name='Ctrl+Alt+Win' timestamp='1318691012' post='5580860']
Who are..?
[/quote]
Yugioh Overlord
Shard of Stardust
Ser Warjacksworth
Red W Mage
and several alts.