Media Yu-Gi-Oh! Discussion: MK3

Diophantine

Banned deucer.
So I went to locals for the first time since I was a kid last Wednesday and had way more fun than I expected. It really made me feel 10 again! I decided to pick up 3 of the Shaddoll Showdown structure deck because I saw it had a lot of good non-archetype specific cards and Shaddolls seem to be a pretty splashable archetype. Someone there gave me Cross Sheep for free which was nice. Since I spent £30 on Yugioh products, the shop gave me free Dark Magician Girl and Legendry Fisherman lost art promos. I've been testing different permutations of my card pool on EDOPro. Does anyone know any budget options to improve my deck?
 
Reviving Thread because this format rn is actually amazing.
So I went to locals for the first time since I was a kid last Wednesday and had way more fun than I expected. It really made me feel 10 again! I decided to pick up 3 of the Shaddoll Showdown structure deck because I saw it had a lot of good non-archetype specific cards and Shaddolls seem to be a pretty splashable archetype. Someone there gave me Cross Sheep for free which was nice. Since I spent £30 on Yugioh products, the shop gave me free Dark Magician Girl and Legendry Fisherman lost art promos. I've been testing different permutations of my card pool on EDOPro. Does anyone know any budget options to improve my deck?
Not sure how much has changed in the meantime but:
Good News: Invoked Shaddolls are in fact meta rn.
Bad News: The Invoked part of the deck will set you back £200 just for 3 Invocation. Probably about £300+ for the whole engine.

If you want to play pure Shaddolls I suggest you get your hands on a copy or two of Shaddoll Schism, I don't think it's that expensive and it's the best Shaddoll card (it's a Trap that lets you Fusion Summon using monsters in GY and then send an opponent's monster whose Attribute matches the summoned monster to the GY). Some other generic staple Traps would help like Solemn Judgement, Solemn Strike, Ice Dragon's Prison, Dogmatika Punishment, maybe Torrential Tribute (though blowing up your own Winda is sad). I think IDP is fairly expensive so you might want to check before you buy, the others (and generic Traps in general) are all pretty cheap.

Aside: anyone who wants to hear me rant about how much I love F.A. let me know.
 

Plague von Karma

Banned deucer.
May as well share my current Gishki Hand Loop Decklist that I've been fiddling with, it's massively improved since my last one.
1619084701044.png


This uses Deskbots to massively speed up the deck. You should all know the regular Deskbot combo, but if you're unfamiliar I'll put it in a spoiler...
  • NS Deskbot 003
  • Summon Deskbot 001 from deck
  • SS Crystron Halqifibrax w/both of them, eff SS Deskbot 001
  • SS Mecha Phantom Beast Auroradon w/both, use eff to summon 3 Tokens
  • Proc both Deskbot 001s, you should now have a full field. This on its own is an OTK on an open board since both 001s will have 3500 Atk each.
Optionally, you can tribute some of the tokens for Mecha Phantom Beast Coltwing to get some more tokens.
With what this gives you, you can Synchro into Herald of the Arc Light and Old Entity Ethagua, then go into Dugares the Timeless to +2; you'll draw 1 for summoning, then when you use its first effect, you can search off Herald while drawing 2, all at the cost of a discard. Once you've done so, you will have one token remaining and a now-dead Dugares, so tribute those two to get Coltwing out and continue the token generation, which also triggers Deskbot 001 again. Alternatively, you can summon Herald of the Arc Light and subsequently go into Adamancipator Risen - Dragite which has its effect brought online by the Halq in grave at this point. PSY-Framelord Omega can be summoned in the same fashion to support the hand loop if you have the cards to get that started; if you happen to open broken it's usually very affordable. This is all off of one card, though obviously you can't rely on opening with this all the time...

The other good NS is Deep Sea Diva, which summons Neptabyss from the deck, allowing for you to send Atlantean Dragoons and collect a Gishki Shadow/Vision, or summon Lapis Dragon. There are a few routes you can take with this thereafter; Diva + Gustkraken is an L8 Synchro on its own, or you can go into Halqifibrax for Deskbot plays. Personally, I like summoning Lapis Dragon and then using it + Neptabyss for the Deskbot plays, it's a very good way to access it and you get a full board of materials to work with. Oftentimes you can make Herald and make Dragite while still comboing off. Here's a combo for that, though you cannot open Dragoons in the same hand or it can't go off;
  • NS Diva
  • SS Neptabyss from deck
  • Activate effect, send Dragoons, add + SS Lapis Dragon
  • SS Needlefiber, do the Deskbot 001 combo from earlier. You should have Auroradon, 3 tokens, diva, and 001
  • SS Herald w/Token + 001
  • Auroradon eff, pop Herald + a token to SS Coltwing. You can keep Herald if you want, it just gets you Gustkraken to use later.
  • Use Diva + 2 tokens to make Dragite
This combo can absolutely be used in better ways imo, it's just one of the things I like doing.

Anyway, other notes that I don't really think I can explain at length;
  • Still using the Abyssgaios play w/Xyz Revive Splash which still a chore but extremely possible. If you open Foolish Goods you can likely get it off, remember that Beatrice can send it.
  • Beautunaful + One for One + Gishki Abyss is still in but all as one-offs. You can also get Beautunaful off of Diva but I've not been too fond of it thus far. It does let you summon Herald off one card though, which is neat.
  • Magical Midbreaker Field was chucked in since it's absolutely hilarious and this deck plays under it without any issues. We're attacking the hand, after all.
  • Deep Sea Minstrel is a bit weird but I'm keeping it since it triggers Dragoons and assists the loop.
  • I know some people like 3 Dragoons but drawing into this thing is fucking depressing and 2 is all that's needed for the Neptabyss proc.

Areas for improvement;
  • Honestly, the Extra Deck feels like it can be optimized a bit. Maybe dump Cross-Sheep for something? Idk, it feels a bit loose rn...
  • Could maybe cut Beautunaful, One for One, and Gishki Abyss for more consistency in getting to Diva/Deskbot 003. If anyone has tips there, lemme know. Gishki Photomirror could also be cut but sometimes I'm at points where I can't afford a tribute and this largely makes up for it. Nobody else uses it though, so it could be my own mediocre experience.
  • Side Deck could be way better.
 

Diophantine

Banned deucer.
Does anyone play any old formats? Like I mentioned earlier, I play Yugi-Kaiba format to a decent standard, and I'm looking to get into GOAT and maybe Edison.

Yugi-Kaiba format is great and really tests decision making skills, but can get a little repetitive and can also be kinda luck based. It reminds me a lot of RBY OU! Believe it or not this meta is still changing, and different players have their own opinions on card like Trap Master and Wall of Illusion. A good upside is that you don't really need to play/know much of it to be able to build/play to a decent standard. I recommend!
 

Segmr

El Bicho
is a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
Goat is great, very chill format and since it's so widespread there's a ton of resources on it you can find out there.

My personal favorite though would be Nekroz format if it is harder to find people to play it with, there's a lot of really interesting stuff to play around with and the main deck itself is super intricate too so it's a format with just a ton of ways to tackle it, bonus points if you play the post djinn variant which opens up for a lot of variances between the big 5 decks.
 
May as well share my current Gishki Hand Loop Decklist that I've been fiddling with, it's massively improved since my last one.
View attachment 334560

This uses Deskbots to massively speed up the deck. You should all know the regular Deskbot combo, but if you're unfamiliar I'll put it in a spoiler...
  • NS Deskbot 003
  • Summon Deskbot 001 from deck
  • SS Crystron Halqifibrax w/both of them, eff SS Deskbot 001
  • SS Mecha Phantom Beast Auroradon w/both, use eff to summon 3 Tokens
  • Proc both Deskbot 001s, you should now have a full field. This on its own is an OTK on an open board since both 001s will have 3500 Atk each.
Optionally, you can tribute some of the tokens for Mecha Phantom Beast Coltwing to get some more tokens.
With what this gives you, you can Synchro into Herald of the Arc Light and Old Entity Ethagua, then go into Dugares the Timeless to +2; you'll draw 1 for summoning, then when you use its first effect, you can search off Herald while drawing 2, all at the cost of a discard. Once you've done so, you will have one token remaining and a now-dead Dugares, so tribute those two to get Coltwing out and continue the token generation, which also triggers Deskbot 001 again. Alternatively, you can summon Herald of the Arc Light and subsequently go into Adamancipator Risen - Dragite which has its effect brought online by the Halq in grave at this point. PSY-Framelord Omega can be summoned in the same fashion to support the hand loop if you have the cards to get that started; if you happen to open broken it's usually very affordable. This is all off of one card, though obviously you can't rely on opening with this all the time...

The other good NS is Deep Sea Diva, which summons Neptabyss from the deck, allowing for you to send Atlantean Dragoons and collect a Gishki Shadow/Vision, or summon Lapis Dragon. There are a few routes you can take with this thereafter; Diva + Gustkraken is an L8 Synchro on its own, or you can go into Halqifibrax for Deskbot plays. Personally, I like summoning Lapis Dragon and then using it + Neptabyss for the Deskbot plays, it's a very good way to access it and you get a full board of materials to work with. Oftentimes you can make Herald and make Dragite while still comboing off. Here's a combo for that, though you cannot open Dragoons in the same hand or it can't go off;
  • NS Diva
  • SS Neptabyss from deck
  • Activate effect, send Dragoons, add + SS Lapis Dragon
  • SS Needlefiber, do the Deskbot 001 combo from earlier. You should have Auroradon, 3 tokens, diva, and 001
  • SS Herald w/Token + 001
  • Auroradon eff, pop Herald + a token to SS Coltwing. You can keep Herald if you want, it just gets you Gustkraken to use later.
  • Use Diva + 2 tokens to make Dragite
This combo can absolutely be used in better ways imo, it's just one of the things I like doing.

Anyway, other notes that I don't really think I can explain at length;
  • Still using the Abyssgaios play w/Xyz Revive Splash which still a chore but extremely possible. If you open Foolish Goods you can likely get it off, remember that Beatrice can send it.
  • Beautunaful + One for One + Gishki Abyss is still in but all as one-offs. You can also get Beautunaful off of Diva but I've not been too fond of it thus far. It does let you summon Herald off one card though, which is neat.
  • Magical Midbreaker Field was chucked in since it's absolutely hilarious and this deck plays under it without any issues. We're attacking the hand, after all.
  • Deep Sea Minstrel is a bit weird but I'm keeping it since it triggers Dragoons and assists the loop.
  • I know some people like 3 Dragoons but drawing into this thing is fucking depressing and 2 is all that's needed for the Neptabyss proc.

Areas for improvement;
  • Honestly, the Extra Deck feels like it can be optimized a bit. Maybe dump Cross-Sheep for something? Idk, it feels a bit loose rn...
  • Could maybe cut Beautunaful, One for One, and Gishki Abyss for more consistency in getting to Diva/Deskbot 003. If anyone has tips there, lemme know. Gishki Photomirror could also be cut but sometimes I'm at points where I can't afford a tribute and this largely makes up for it. Nobody else uses it though, so it could be my own mediocre experience.
  • Side Deck could be way better.
Ok hi! I've picked up a lot of experience was various Coltwing combos over the last year, and I've got a few tips to share:

Firstly Deskbot 003 is garbage, and is mostly used by Youtubers making clickbait. This might sound weird since it's a 1-card Fibrax but there's an awful lot of reasons behind this.
The big one though is it is MASSIVE handtrap bait. Ash, Imperm, Gamma, you name it, it hits 003 and ends your turn when it does, since it doesn't synergise with anything else in your deck. Neptabyss, for instance, is able to play through these handtraps because it sends Dragoons for cost, making any handtrap on it redundant since you still get the Dragoons search. I recommend 3 of it, and keep One For One to bomb it out without using a Normal Summon.
Another reason is that it forces you to play a second 001. A second 001 is a second card that's dead whenever you draw it. The combos work fine with 1 001 and in fact are usually better for it, since you can use the saved fieldspace to make plays like using Herald or Savage to shut off handtraps. Deep Sea Diva is the exemplary point of comparison here, since it uses Neptabyss as a summon target, a card you're playing with or without it, and hence doesn't brick you. Bonus: Diva is also a Tuner by itself, so it plays through Ash better by making more cards able to extend into Fibrax. I think those two should be the only Normal Summons you need.

Next: Xyz Revive Splash and Foolish Burial Goods are just eating deckspace for no reason. Yeah, it looks like a cool play to climb into Abyssgaios, but that's not the primary aim of your deck. You're trying to handloop, and any card that doesn't directly contribute to that is hurting you. It's the same trap people fall into when they add Dragoon to their combo deck "just in case" or "as a plan B". If you have a Plan B for this deck, it should be based on the assumption that your deck is getting handtrapped to near-death and use the minimal investment and deckspace possible. On that note, you can do some cool things with Fibrax's second effect, so I'd recommend some plan using that (read: Desert Locusts).

Beautunaful is pretty bad, Gishki Abyss is fine, Minstrel should be a 3-of. Ripping a handtrap before they get to play it huge. This is also why people like 3 Dragoons, as Minstrel+Dragoons is full combo through any 1 handtrap short of Dimension Shifter.

Right, now for the Extra Deck. One step at a time:
Herald of the Arc Light is not once per turn! Feel free to play 2 or even 3 copies, abuse the hell out of that thing.
Dragite is pretty heavily outclassed by Borreload Savage Dragon (even in Adamanciaptor decks, Dragite is considered situational). Savage Dragon being able to negate monster effects is pretty huge.
You can't really get that much value out of Cross Sheep so that should be an easy cut yeah. Photon Strike Bounzer is meh due to not hitting the hand or GY, but it's passable if you find yourself with extra space. The Old Entity is pretty redundant compared to just playing more Heralds. Beatrice is a whatever unless you have something specific to build. Basically, as you might expect, just build the Extra for whatever combo routes you want to go down.

Finally, your biggest issue is going to be going second with this deck. Think about how you could go second into casual boards like Dragoon+a random Trap, Savage Dragon+Herald (basically Baby's First Fibrax Combos), or just set 4 pass. Handrips are not going to cut it. It might be worth adding something like Knightmare Unicorn to climb into Accesscode with. See if you can find space to maindeck Gamma or Ash.

As for the Side Deck, the Nibs and DRNMs can stay, but the rest has to go. Exactly what you include should depend on what you expect to play against. Cosmic Cyclone works extremely well against Shaddoll Schism, Mystic Mine, Dragonmaid Tidying and other similar cards from decks that play a few high-impact Traps. Lightning Storm is the best anti-backrow card rn for monke matchups. The Broken Trio of Harpie's, Red Reboot and Pankratops are worth looking into as well. Oh and Triple Tactics Talent. Might even be worth maindecking that one, and it's certainly good to side in going first.

Hope this helps!
 

Texas Cloverleaf

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Nice to see this thread has revived, I'm down to share my current lists

1619108162712.png


I've been playing Pure Mekk-Knights the most lately with my Desires build. Haven't had the time to try out any Prosperity builds but they are also effective when paired with more blow out cards like Lightning Storm, I prefer the lower ceiling but higher consistency my hand traps offer, as cracking a board and setting up for turn 3 usually wins the game.

1619108280772.png


My Mekk Invoked build has gone through many iterations, the best being one that incorporated Ghost Reaper and Winter Chills during Infernoble/Dragon Link format, this is where I'm at with it currently. Haven't played this much this format though, I think my build is worse in this format than the ones with the heavy blowout cards that set up Mechaba and Dragoon, I've always been partial to Rainbow Neos' ability to end games on the spot (Mechaba+Rainbow+Aleister boost is 8k). Still, this will be good again once the format shifts (Dogmatika Invoked Shaddoll mainly), all about finding the right meta answers in the ocean of free space. Side note, 42 cards is the optimal number when playing the Set Rotation package, but you can go as high as 46 without seeing significant difference in the math, I've found 44 a sweet spot.

1619108489487.png


Probably my most competitive deck at the moment, its as far as I know a unique take on Dogmatika Zoo running a heavy trap trick package. Always looking for new and stronger traps to fit the meta, Transmigration was godly against Drytrons but D Barrier is likely stronger now.

Feel free to ask questions or offer critiques.
 
Nice to see this thread has revived, I'm down to share my current lists

View attachment 334637

I've been playing Pure Mekk-Knights the most lately with my Desires build. Haven't had the time to try out any Prosperity builds but they are also effective when paired with more blow out cards like Lightning Storm, I prefer the lower ceiling but higher consistency my hand traps offer, as cracking a board and setting up for turn 3 usually wins the game.

View attachment 334638

My Mekk Invoked build has gone through many iterations, the best being one that incorporated Ghost Reaper and Winter Chills during Infernoble/Dragon Link format, this is where I'm at with it currently. Haven't played this much this format though, I think my build is worse in this format than the ones with the heavy blowout cards that set up Mechaba and Dragoon, I've always been partial to Rainbow Neos' ability to end games on the spot (Mechaba+Rainbow+Aleister boost is 8k). Still, this will be good again once the format shifts (Dogmatika Invoked Shaddoll mainly), all about finding the right meta answers in the ocean of free space. Side note, 42 cards is the optimal number when playing the Set Rotation package, but you can go as high as 46 without seeing significant difference in the math, I've found 44 a sweet spot.

View attachment 334639

Probably my most competitive deck at the moment, its as far as I know a unique take on Dogmatika Zoo running a heavy trap trick package. Always looking for new and stronger traps to fit the meta, Transmigration was godly against Drytrons but D Barrier is likely stronger now.

Feel free to ask questions or offer critiques.
Ok, I certainly have suggestions for these 3 decks. I'll spoiler them to not take up too much space.
Ok,so the spice that pure Mekk players are currently giving themselves massive doses of COPIUM with is Sangan.
What.
Why.
Ok, so it makes sense once you've seen it I swear. First thing's first, you play 1 copy of Orange Sunset to be searched by it, and suddenly Normal Sangan+any S/T becomes combo via Salamangreat Almiraj. This opens up a load of utility going first or second. Sangan can also search handtraps like Ash, and Santa Claws (an interaction that actually made me lose it when I first saw it). Searchable Kaiju mmh. Suddenly Sangan is looking spicy, and it was a key part of the LCS XI Pure Mekk list that was X-0 after Day 1 and nearly topped.
I personally don't agree with maindeck Lancea because it does little VS Dlink and basically nothing VS backrow decks, but I'm aware these are considered good matchups for Mekks, so it's entirely your call. Mind Control rn is just weak, all it will do at best is force out 1 negate. Upstart is also a waste of a tech slot/handtrap space atm, and in such an open format every slot counts. It's also droll food. And yeah, Prosp is broken, play Prosp.
So while I'm not the most up-to-date on MekkVoked theory, there are some things that stand out to me as odd. Firstly, no Super Poly. Super Poly is kinda good. Secondly, the trickstar and set rotation package is kinda weak. It feels like something out of Orcust format, a throwback to when that engine actually functioned. The Instant Fusion is odd too, you're not trying to completely pop off so there isn't much point in negating handtraps. I'd say less links more fusions is the way to go, and as usual Prosp is broken play Prosp. Check out the LCS XI Top 16 MekkVoked deck, you can find it on YouTube pretty easy.
Right so Pure Zoo/ZooLich is 100% a deck I know what I'm doing with and there's an awful lot of issues here.
Firstly, if you're going to play an engine in Zoo, Eldlich works better than Dogmatika because their gameplans complement eachother. Dogmatika is mostly about setting up a Schism into Winda or supplying a couple of extra interruptions to give a short-term advantage. Invoked works much better with Dog because it can abuse that short-term lead better and protect Winda with Mechaba. Eldlich is all about rapidly simplifying the gamestate with a load of free Traps and then abusing how good Golden Lord is in simplified gamestates. Zoodiac is extremely good at forcing simplified gamestates.
Next, you 100% need 2 Zeus, 3 if you're playing the deck pure. It's your wincon, plain and simple. Being able to make a second one is huge, and people have even started moving to 2 Boarbow in ZooLich to get it out more often more reliably.
As for Pot of Avarice, well, it's just bad. Zoo players dropped it (and Zoodiac Combo) a long time ago. Why? Because it's a dead card in the opening hand. It never helps you until after you've completed your plays, which makes it a win-more card at that point. You just don't need dead cards in hand, and dropping it lets you play Prosp (ZooLich) or Desires (Pure Zoo).
The Trap Trick engine seems cool, but it suffers from a few problems. Firstly, that deck has 0 handtraps because of the space it needs. You can't just rely on Zeus to pull everything out of nowhere when Spheres, Tidying, Winda and UCT can all shut down a Zoo normal summon. You need handtraps to prevent your opponent just comboing freely. Also, you have 0 answers to Lightning Storm and other blowouts.
Secondly the targets are somewhat suboptimal. You mention wanting to remove Transmigration (please do lol) but to be honest I don't see any better replacements. The problem is Trap Trick only allowing a single further Trap to be used defeats the primary method of going second with Trap-heavy decks, which is to overload the opponent with blowouts like Torrential Tribute and use Solemn Strike where possible to shut down interactions with those blowouts. Restricting yourself to one further Trap just means that your opponent only needs 1 negate to shut everything down. IDP is fine, Needle Ceiling is somewhat outclassed by Torrential Tribute but ok, Punishment obviously has to go if you're not playing Dog cards, and Dbarrier frankly is pretty weak. Call Fusion VS Invoked Shaddoll and they just do Dogmatika plays then Fusion Summon on your turn. Call Synchro VS Dlink and they still get to do all their Guardragon combos. Call whatever you like VS Dino lol. Call Xyz in the mirror and well, stunning a control deck for 1 turn is not considered an effective strat. Have a look at the two Zoodiac lists that topped LCS XII. One pure, one Eldlich. That should give you some ideas of the Traps and handtraps you should be playing.

Hope this helps!
 

Texas Cloverleaf

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Ok, I certainly have suggestions for these 3 decks. I'll spoiler them to not take up too much space.
Ok,so the spice that pure Mekk players are currently giving themselves massive doses of COPIUM with is Sangan.
What.
Why.
Ok, so it makes sense once you've seen it I swear. First thing's first, you play 1 copy of Orange Sunset to be searched by it, and suddenly Normal Sangan+any S/T becomes combo via Salamangreat Almiraj. This opens up a load of utility going first or second. Sangan can also search handtraps like Ash, and Santa Claws (an interaction that actually made me lose it when I first saw it). Searchable Kaiju mmh. Suddenly Sangan is looking spicy, and it was a key part of the LCS XI Pure Mekk list that was X-0 after Day 1 and nearly topped.
I personally don't agree with maindeck Lancea because it does little VS Dlink and basically nothing VS backrow decks, but I'm aware these are considered good matchups for Mekks, so it's entirely your call. Mind Control rn is just weak, all it will do at best is force out 1 negate. Upstart is also a waste of a tech slot/handtrap space atm, and in such an open format every slot counts. It's also droll food. And yeah, Prosp is broken, play Prosp.

Yeah I'm one of the people who helped develop Sangan theory lol. It's not mandatory by any means, just a different way to build the list, Pure is extremely flexible. Searchable kaijus are very nice. Lancea slot is just hand trap flex, was Nib a couple weeks ago, swapped to Droll yesterday. I hear you on Mind Control but the counterpoint is that forcing out negates is valuable when the cards I absolutely want to be resolving are my Mekk engine. You're not wrong about Upstart being a "wasted space", however what it specifically does for Mekks is that it acts as a free space that is also a column setter - being able to set it to then summon Purple or Blue and then still resolve it for the draw is very nice. Often gets sided out and can definitely be replaced, but not valueless by any means.

So while I'm not the most up-to-date on MekkVoked theory, there are some things that stand out to me as odd. Firstly, no Super Poly. Super Poly is kinda good. Secondly, the trickstar and set rotation package is kinda weak. It feels like something out of Orcust format, a throwback to when that engine actually functioned. The Instant Fusion is odd too, you're not trying to completely pop off so there isn't much point in negating handtraps. I'd say less links more fusions is the way to go, and as usual Prosp is broken play Prosp. Check out the LCS XI Top 16 MekkVoked deck, you can find it on YouTube pretty easy.

Yeah I'd be playing Super Poly if I were maining this right now. Outing DogInvShad is important. Set Rotation is mandatory in my opinion. You need to be seeing Aleister every game and SR is how you maximize those odds, 63% vs 70% at 40 cards to open 1+. Corobane is a free body for Verte or Mechaba and the backrow stun is very nice to stop e.g. Punishment. Some builds aren't playing it right now, generally those going in on the heavy blowouts which I do think are better for this meta as previously mentioned. I do actually think Instant Fusion/MER is very valuable, the primary mechanism to OTK is Mechaba+Rainbow Neos and MER ensures your Aleister is getting through, after it does I have no problems linking off MER. I'm also very sure that I have plenty of fusions, this is actually more than I normall play. Raidjin usually shouldn't be played it just has good targets atm and Purgatrio is also one I sometimes cut for Halq in formats where Veiler is good (for the Accesscode climb), you really don't need him majority of the time. The LCS XI list is "fine". It's not all that far off from what I'd play for this format but it definitely has points to improve.

Right so Pure Zoo/ZooLich is 100% a deck I know what I'm doing with and there's an awful lot of issues here.
Firstly, if you're going to play an engine in Zoo, Eldlich works better than Dogmatika because their gameplans complement eachother. Dogmatika is mostly about setting up a Schism into Winda or supplying a couple of extra interruptions to give a short-term advantage. Invoked works much better with Dog because it can abuse that short-term lead better and protect Winda with Mechaba. Eldlich is all about rapidly simplifying the gamestate with a load of free Traps and then abusing how good Golden Lord is in simplified gamestates. Zoodiac is extremely good at forcing simplified gamestates.
Next, you 100% need 2 Zeus, 3 if you're playing the deck pure. It's your wincon, plain and simple. Being able to make a second one is huge, and people have even started moving to 2 Boarbow in ZooLich to get it out more often more reliably.
As for Pot of Avarice, well, it's just bad. Zoo players dropped it (and Zoodiac Combo) a long time ago. Why? Because it's a dead card in the opening hand. It never helps you until after you've completed your plays, which makes it a win-more card at that point. You just don't need dead cards in hand, and dropping it lets you play Prosp (ZooLich) or Desires (Pure Zoo).
The Trap Trick engine seems cool, but it suffers from a few problems. Firstly, that deck has 0 handtraps because of the space it needs. You can't just rely on Zeus to pull everything out of nowhere when Spheres, Tidying, Winda and UCT can all shut down a Zoo normal summon. You need handtraps to prevent your opponent just comboing freely. Also, you have 0 answers to Lightning Storm and other blowouts.
Secondly the targets are somewhat suboptimal. You mention wanting to remove Transmigration (please do lol) but to be honest I don't see any better replacements. The problem is Trap Trick only allowing a single further Trap to be used defeats the primary method of going second with Trap-heavy decks, which is to overload the opponent with blowouts like Torrential Tribute and use Solemn Strike where possible to shut down interactions with those blowouts. Restricting yourself to one further Trap just means that your opponent only needs 1 negate to shut everything down. IDP is fine, Needle Ceiling is somewhat outclassed by Torrential Tribute but ok, Punishment obviously has to go if you're not playing Dog cards, and Dbarrier frankly is pretty weak. Call Fusion VS Invoked Shaddoll and they just do Dogmatika plays then Fusion Summon on your turn. Call Synchro VS Dlink and they still get to do all their Guardragon combos. Call whatever you like VS Dino lol. Call Xyz in the mirror and well, stunning a control deck for 1 turn is not considered an effective strat. Have a look at the two Zoodiac lists that topped LCS XII. One pure, one Eldlich. That should give you some ideas of the Traps and handtraps you should be playing.

I kind of just disagree with this whole thing but its way too much disagreement to argue over. I understand the perspective you're approaching it from but I don't think you really understand how this particular build functions as a lot of the things you're listing as problems just don't matter. I've played ZooLich and DogZooLich and didn't care for either of them, the Eldlich cards really just aren't good enough. Also your evaluation of Avarice is very limited. I cut it from previous builds but its very important to this one. Aside from being able to get it off turn 1 some games, I generally don't need it to be active until turn 3, it's rarely dead because I dump so much to the grave, and its game winning just about every time it goes off, reloading the ED. Second Zeus will come eventually but not until the mega tins. (Also Needle Ceiling is strictly better than TT right now, TT conflicts with a number of board states and the timing windows it's open are generally not when you want to resolve the wipe, TT was in the slot originally and Needle has been distinctly better). Also Trap Trick only restricts you after its activation, obviously you're not using it first when you have four backrow set.


Thanks for the input!


edit: I think the major disconnect is you're thinking this deck relies a lot more on Zeus than it actually does. Zeus is the bomb for this deck, not the primary win con.

edit2: as an example here's a past list I made, it uses a lot of the things you're suggesting but I don't consider this build any good right now https://ygoprodeck.com/seekers-zoodiac-cwarantine-series-11-top-8/

edit3: yeah I see where you missed the boat now. This is 100% not a going second deck.

edit4: valid point about storm/duster though, not sure why I haven't been siding imperial/anti spell until now
 
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Segmr

El Bicho
is a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
Drident gone makes me sad, it's understandable with how absurdly flexible zoodiacs have become but it's still rather tragic, t'was a fun half a year or so at least.

Everything else engage aside just feels like stuff that was never not going to happen so no real toughts, other than i literally had started playing dlink 2 days prior :psytear:
 

Plague von Karma

Banned deucer.
Drident was fine, Zeus was the real issue and it'll show in this format. I don't know why Konami insists on making uninteractive cards like Zeus and scratches its head wondering why the format warps around them. I guess it makes a good buck, but why not make, idk, interesting competitive archetypes or better legacy support? Just seems counterproductive.
 

Mr. Uncompetitive

Ugh Cough! Cough! Splutter!
is a Contributor Alumnus
Any fellow SKY STRIKER GAMERS??? #RAYEISBAE
Raye Gang

I was really excited for Engage to come back despite everyone complaining about it being OP and other cards probably deserving to come off first; to be honest I was hoping all of the other TOSS format bans would be undone as well for the real pre-COVID throwback. Then again, MBT reacted to the unban by saying the words "Sky Striker Eldlich" and now I'm maybe having second thoughts.

Haven't been playing that much recently, but all of the other hits seem pretty reasonable given what I know about the meta and that Konami is always going to be prioritizing hitting older cards over newer cards if they can help it (as dumb as Zeus and Halq are), which is probably why Elpy took so long to get hit. Dino probably didn't need to get hit afaik but it has been around for a very long time, and hitting Misc specifically is just really fucking funny.

Also I just remembered that the next OCG Set (Burst of Destiny) is going to have Rokket support so Dragon Link is probably going to be fine regardless of the Elpy and Striker Dragon hits lol
 

Segmr

El Bicho
is a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
Drident was fine, Zeus was the real issue and it'll show in this format. I don't know why Konami insists on making uninteractive cards like Zeus and scratches its head wondering why the format warps around them. I guess it makes a good buck, but why not make, idk, interesting competitive archetypes or better legacy support? Just seems counterproductive.
I actually do disagree with that quite heavily, zeus had little to nothing to do with why drident got banned, if anything those things are pretty much completely removed from one another, drident gets banned because of the absurd flexibility in multiple decks it has same way as last time it got banned, no drident doesn't stop you from making zeus, in fact if you're making drident more often than not you're not making zeus specially so with utopic dragon coming in kings court and that was the card that got it banned in the OCG.

And for the latter thing i'm 100% sure they knew how good zeus was going to be it's the first piece of xyz support we had gotten in ages and it single handedly revived the mechanic so broken or not it did it's job, and it's gonna be banned eventually but now there's no reason to do so.
 
edit3: yeah I see where you missed the boat now. This is 100% not a going second deck.
Sorry I haven't replied to this, exams made me busy. Anyway, this comment was interesting to me, because it ties into how I like to build back row decks in general: I intend to go first, but build with the assumption that I will be losing the die roll ie: I avoid cards in the maindeck that are only good going first or second. I just make the assumption (and not an unfounded one I believe) that Trap decks just innately win most of their games they get to go first, so I put more focus on going second. In this case, my reasoning goes: "ofc Zoo+Nadir+3 backrow wins going first, so may as well play as many cards as possible that help going second". I still think that losing Mechaba+Meltdown protection is a bit of a sidegrade at best, but having seen that you're a stronger player than me, I'll defer to your practical experience with the deck.

Side note: I feel really bad about recommending ZooLich LOL THAT DECK IS HOT GARBAGE. I thought it was borderline at the time of writing that post, but yeah... Ouch. I think Eldlich's time as a competitive deck is over, it doesn't produce meaningful disruptions enough and gets pressured too hard by combo decks, as well outgrinded pretty easy by control decks. Unless we see an unexpected return of Stun Eldlich or Synchro Eldlich to the metagame, the Lich is dead.

My banlist thoughts:
This is the first time in the entire time of Elpy's existence that I have mixed feelings about it being banned. So ofc it gets banned now. I don't actually think Dlink with the Dragonmaid engine is an oppressive deck. It's the best deck, sure, but it has a much higher margin for error than most decks and doesn't put out that strong of an endboard. It grinds well and Borrelswords people well, but I don't think that it's that unfair of a deck, especially next to Tribrigade and Drytron. That said, we all know what Elpy does and it was inevitably going to break another format down the line. So farewell Elpy, but don't mistake these kind words as an invitation to return.
Let's be real here, this hit was to try and prevent Pure Zoodiac outclassing Tri-Zoo (which happened at the last LCS), and it's also an indirect nerf to Zeus, making it much harder to summon a 6-material Zeus. It's a minor tap for Tribrigade decks, but it's a death kneel for Pure Zoo... Or is it? I've heard it suggested this was a pre-emptive hit ahead of Utopic Future Dragon coming out in King's Court, which might get give Zoo some life yet. On a personal note, I just hate how generic Drident is for a quick pop, so while this is possibly an undeserved/strange hit, I'm not complaining. (Now can us F.A. players have 3 barrage back now plz k thanks.)
unaffected
unaffected
UNAFFECTED

Why wasn't this card banned? Seriously. Dino players: just replace 2 Misc with One for One and Giant Rex, boom deck functions as before. You literally have a better stratos you can summon from deck and a better ROTA to get it. I guess it hurts the "grind game", like an OTK deck cares that much about grinding to begin with. The main obstacle Dino players have with the new format is called Herald of Ultimateness. That aside, deck is good.
For all those who were wondering why this took so long, Konmai have been burned by unbanning Skullcrobat Joker before. Does this make Pend viable? No. Moving on.
Yes, Pot of Greed 2.0 is unbanned for Sky Striker aka Mine Turbo with added simping. Does this improve the deck? DUH. Does it make it good? No. Please get over your 2019 Stockholm Syndrome. You're allowed to play other decks now besides TOSS. This is a good thing.
The return of Stallio makes Salamangreat able to consistently set up their grind again, and somewhat do things going second. Does this allow them to compete with the big boys? No. Nerfed Dlink outgrinds them with sheer threat quantity, Prank-Kids do the 15+ tech slot with 1-card combos deckstyle better, and Tribrigade frankly eats them alive. Gone are the days when you needed a 2-card combo to go +4 with 1 interaction set up, now just activate Revolt lol. Prank-Kids are also the better budget deck unless you don't have £100 to hand. I guess Spinny Gazelle 3 handtraps takes games off decent decks, but so does a Kid and 4 tech cards. Without playing into Nibiru.
Yes, 1 Striker Dragon does hurt the deck a bunch, yes it is the correct hit. Does it kill Dlink? No. You have Chaos Space, Tidying, various revival effects and possibly even Spheres to use that 1 Striker Dragon over and over. Its arrow even lines up with Pisty for easy Guardragon plays. Dlink still has a formidable capacity to load up with advantage and Borrelsword opponents. It will be interesting to see the direction the deck goes in from here, as it has no shortage of options between larger Dragonmaid packages, Dragunity cards, Fibrax shenanigans, and the always fair and balanced Spheres. I'm glad the deck is not dead, and I'm looking forward to continuing to learn how much I suck at this game playing it.
Literally no-one cares.
Symbol of Heratage will make Plant decks.... Do absolutely nothing. In theory, yes it is abusable. In practice this card called Ash exists, which makes Lonefire Blossom more of a hindrance than a help as a Normal Summon. There aren't really any other decks that can play this card now.
Quick summary of my other opinions:
Anyone who asks for Harp Horror or Colossus to 1 needs to seek professional help. 2019 is over. It can't hurt you anymore. Fuck those two cards may they never again get splashed into literally every single deck.
Zeus to 1 is the take of the gods. Electrumite to 1 is the coldest take on the block and also wrong.
Anyone who at this point thinks Dragoon needs addressing (yes apparently people do) is not in touch with reality. Come on, you can beat this thing with pure Fur Hire. Garbage.
No-one likes Maxx C. Not even OCG players.
Blaster to 3 could happen at any time and no-one would care. Redox and Tidal need to stay dead until we have 3 Monster Reborn and 3 Foolish Burial in the game again. Tempest is fine at 1, maybe 2.
I actually do disagree with that quite heavily, zeus had little to nothing to do with why drident got banned, if anything those things are pretty much completely removed from one another, drident gets banned because of the absurd flexibility in multiple decks it has same way as last time it got banned, no drident doesn't stop you from making zeus, in fact if you're making drident more often than not you're not making zeus specially so with utopic dragon coming in kings court and that was the card that got it banned in the OCG.

And for the latter thing i'm 100% sure they knew how good zeus was going to be it's the first piece of xyz support we had gotten in ages and it single handedly revived the mechanic so broken or not it did it's job, and it's gonna be banned eventually but now there's no reason to do so.
Hate to be this guy but: 1. Drident was not seeing play outside Zoodaic-engine decks and banning it does nerf Zeus by making the Zoo engine in general much worse and preventing you making a 6-mat without Whiptail.
2. VFD was a card, Adamancipator made Rank 4s a bunch, Zeus was hardly the first xyz support in ages, neither did it single-handedly revive the mechanic. Xyz have been doing fine and being regularly represented in various Extra Decks for the last 2 years, Synchro was the struggling mechanic that got "saved" by HalqCross and is now doing not so great again, Fusion is literally just Invoked Shaddolls and has been ever since Colossus ban and Rituals are doing good with Drytron. There haven't really been any "struggling mechanics" for a while, it's just Link Monsters tend to get more representation because they're just more generic. Oh yeah, Pendulum. Sure they've been struggling, but then I think Konami just wants to quietly kill this mechanic...

Wow this turned out long. Sorry. All hail our Tribrigade overlords, have a nice format resolving Revolt I guess...
 

Segmr

El Bicho
is a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
Hate to be this guy but: 1. Drident was not seeing play outside Zoodaic-engine decks and banning it does nerf Zeus by making the Zoo engine in general much worse and preventing you making a 6-mat without Whiptail.
2. VFD was a card, Adamancipator made Rank 4s a bunch, Zeus was hardly the first xyz support in ages, neither did it single-handedly revive the mechanic. Xyz have been doing fine and being regularly represented in various Extra Decks for the last 2 years, Synchro was the struggling mechanic that got "saved" by HalqCross and is now doing not so great again, Fusion is literally just Invoked Shaddolls and has been ever since Colossus ban and Rituals are doing good with Drytron. There haven't really been any "struggling mechanics" for a while, it's just Link Monsters tend to get more representation because they're just more generic. Oh yeah, Pendulum. Sure they've been struggling, but then I think Konami just wants to quietly kill this mechanic...
Well drident can't see play outside zoodiac-engine decks so that i don't get and the thing is sure it makes zoo worse but if what you care about is making zeus and that's the card that's carrying you then you can play the deck the exact same way, what this does kill is rat = utopic dragon or clops which that poor card is homeless now and miscellaneous eldlitch abuse + other combos of the like.
Even tribrigade wouldn't like getting their board sent away if they can help it, they obviously love zeus but the newer version of it would have been a way better fit in the deck hadn't it gotten the preempt hit. Also yeah VFD was a card but it's one card and it's also an old ass card same with dweller which is the only one that's seen nonstop play since it came.

In fact the last deck i can remember that primarily made XYZ their goal before zoo came back was Lunalight's short lived spell as the most unexpected best deck the game has seen and all the extra deck cards they had were either orcust cards or from the Arc-V era.

It's not like i said oh literally no one played XYZ cards anymore but other than lunalights and ocasionally dinos that's not your focus anymore it's just a card you play most of the time cause as you said the formats were link centralized and trying to centralize it another way is the exact thing they did with halq if that one did it way too well.

Zeus to 1 is the take of the gods.
The best thing about Zeus it's not the broken ass effect, it's when you make another one bonus points if you make it on top of the old Zeus some cards should really be released at 1 lmao.
 

spatula

I LOVE CHIPFLAVOUR
is a Tiering Contributor
What do you guys think of some of the new archetypes announced? I'm definitely getting Exorsister the second they come out, they have the same artist as Sky Striker and the playstyle seems cool.

Also imperial order needs to be gone ASAP
 
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Mr. Uncompetitive

Ugh Cough! Cough! Splutter!
is a Contributor Alumnus
Exorsister and PUNK are neat but I'm prolly not gonna play them. Not completely sure what the meta atm is but based on what I roughly know, I imagine Exorsister will be good considering every relevant deck is going to be moving stuff out of the graveyard fairly regularly and it looks pretty splashable. It would be really funny if it results in Gren Maju becoming meta again lol. While I don't know if Brave Token is actually good, since there don't seem to be many ways to actually put a Brave Token on the field, I'm definitely gonna try it since it seems like it'll be really fun in combination with other archetypes (i.e. Tenyi)
 
It's been a while, but with the release of Crossout Designator leaked for this year's Mega Tins, I just wanted to show you all how to ruin this format until it gets banned!
Drytron feat. Crossout
I'll be going through this deck in terms of engines, rather than the traditional monster/spell/trap.
Main Deck: 41 cards
3 Alpha
3 Zeta
2 Gamma
1 Delta (some debate about Gamma and Delta, but I still think this is the correct ratio for space reasons)
1 Drytron Meteonis Draconids
3 Drytron Nova
1 Drytron Fafnir (2 is the correct amount in terms of how many Nova you want to see in your opening hand, though a lot of lists have been running 1 or totally cutting it due to space reasons and playing around Droll)
1 Meteonis Drytron (2 is possible to play around Belle, but not needed with Crossout)
3 Cyber Emergency (Drytrons are LIGHT Machines that cannot be Normal Summoned)
1 Foolish Burial
The Drytron engine is how you get your bodies and Ritual Monsters onto the field. For those that don't know, all the basic Level 1 Drytrons cannot be Normal Summoned, and Tribute a Drytron/Ritual Monster from your hand/field to Special Summon themselves from hand/GY, but at the cost of being unable to Special Summon monsters that can be Normal Summoned for that turn. Meteonis Drytron can Ritual Summon any Ritual Monster from hand/GY using ATK rather than Levels, but restricting you to only Tributing Machines. This suits the Level 1 2000 ATK Machine Drytrons perfectly, and allows them to use a variety of Ritual Monsters, including high-level ones most Ritual Decks struggle to Summon. Meteonis can also once per turn add itself back to your hand by decreasing a Drytron's ATK by 1000. Drytron Meteonis Draconids serves as a versatile on-theme boss monster equally suited to going first or second.
3 Diviner of the Herald
2 Herald of the Orange Light (3 is possible, but not required with Crossout)
1 Cyber Angel Benten
1 Cyber Angel Idaten
(1 Natasha is fully possible. Player preference.)
2 Eva
1 Herald of Ultimateness
And here is the previously controversial side of the deck. The endgoal of a normal Drytron turn 1 is a Herald of Ultimateness loaded with as many negates as can be sensibly obtained. Its normally awkward Level 12 is no obstacle at all to Drytron, and it has exactly 2000 ATK. Benten serves as Tribute fodder for the Drytrons, a Level 6 body for Beatrice and a searcher for the key non-Ritual cards of the deck. Diviner is a Manju that makes itself Level 6 after being summoned, basically. Idaten is a backup Level 6 body that adds Meteonis back to hand to Ritual Summon something else. Eva can be discarded off Ultimateness or sent from Deck to GY with Beatrice, searching two negates for Ultimateness and one DRNM-proof handtrap in Orange Light. Two Eva resolving with Ultimateness on board is usually game over.
3 Pot of Prosperity
3 Crossout Designator
1 Called by the Grave
1 Instant Fusion
1 Droll & Lock Bird
1 Infinite Impermanence
1 Effect Veiler
1 Ghost Belle & Haunted Mansion
(You can actually play the Dragoon engine in Drytron without getting laughed at, but with Crossout it simply isn't needed anymore IMO.)
And here is the newly controversial side of the deck! Yes, you too can have 7-8 ways to negate Droll & Lock Bird, the only way of stopping you Game 1! Enough said really. You can play Gamma as a maindeck Crossout target, but then it's just one useless card in your deck. The other Crossout targets are still handtraps even if you draw them. Another potential Crossout target is DD Crow, but its usage is fringe enough to justify dropping it. You can 100% go Crow>Veiler or even play Crow as a 42nd card. Now you know why OCG lists always have such wacky handtrap ratios, but the net result is you have 4 standard handtraps plus 2 Orange Lights plus your combo potential going second. You can 100% tweak this to suit whatever handtraps you want to play and whatever you expect to face, Instant is probably cuttable tbh.
Required for combo:
1 Herald of the Arc Light
1 Drytron Mu-Beta Fafnir
1 Beatrice, Lady of the Eternal
Useful for combo:
1 Linkuriboh
1 I:P Masquerena
2nd Drytron Mu-Beta Fafnir
2nd Herald of the Arc Light
1 Millennium Eyes Restrict (for Instant Fusion)
General tech:
1 Accesscode Talker or Borrelsword Dragon
1 Apollousa, Bow of the Goddess
1 Downerd Magician
1 "Divine" Piece Of Fuckery Zeus
1 Knightmare Phoenix
1 Knightmare Unicorn
1 Elder Entity N'tss (send off Diviner instead of Herald for a pop)
(Again, 1 Verte 1 Dragoon is an option to give you something to end on if you get blown out by handtraps, but that will happen much less with Crossout)
All pretty standard, aside from maybe the N'tss. You'll 100% want Phoenix Enforcer in here when that card comes out, whew now that's what a 2021 boss monster looks like. Dragoon, take notes.
WARNING. The following does not represent a well-tested Side Deck. Adjustment before use recommended.
3 Artifact Lancea
1 Ally of Justice Cycle Reader
2 Droll & Lock Bird
1 Dark Ruler No More
2 Forbidden Droplet
1 Lightning Storm
1 Harpie's Feather Duster
1 Red Reboot
3 Ash Blossom and Joyous Spring
The idea with this Side is to have multiple different cards with a similar effect to get the best out of Crossout. The 1 Cycle Reader is essential for negating the biggest blowout VS Drytron. Meanwhile, did you know Crossout can negate Dark Ruler and often Droplet too? Yep, fair and balanced. No Nibiru because Drytron doesn't really struggle with it that much: Nib only gets one of two windows to work with before Ultimateness turns it off unless the Drytron player greeds too hard, and it gives a free Benten search.
So uh, yeah. Fuck Crossout. Just 3 extra cards that negate handtraps is not what the format needs right now. Oh and it makes mirror matches hell. Oh and the best answer to it is itself, like all truly balanced cards... Have fun ig.
 
I'm looking forward to playing Magikey, but because Magikey is designed to work with Drytron, I risk being yeeted in the sun :(
I kinda hope Fairy-Drytron gets gutted so you can play the ritual engine without shame, their designs and what they make viable is cool.
 

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