What made you choose Zombies for the tournament? What were your tech choices?

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     Heh heh heh, it seems the time has come for my Zombies to take the spotlight. I decided to play them because they’re my favorite deck to play, having used them enough to effectively call them my deck at this point. Around the last YTC that I played the deck, I began to experiment with a different build, having played a Vampire Shiranui based build since forever, and having tried a Skull Servant one at the start of the format. This time, I decided to invest moreso into the Shiranui portion of the deck, as well as Synchros. This directly lead to making use of previously unappreciated cards such as Shiranui Smith, Shiranui Style Samsara, and Shinobi Necro, as well as specific tech cards like Masked Chameleon and Angraecum Umbrella. However, I ended up losing to Folo in the Finals of that YTC, so I knew I had to make some drastic changes to stand a chance vs him in Champs. Hence, I made the decision to drop all Vampire cards, aside from Vampirr Fraulein and Vampire Sucker, and to instead focus on Shiranuis, Synchros, and banish Zombies, as well as some fun techs. These included Red-Eyes Zombie Necro Dragon, Tatsunecro, Yata-Garasu, Gold Sarcophagus, and the MVP of the Deck, Guard Ghost. The other aforementioned cards all played their individual roles, Gold Sarcophagus giving me flexibility with options for removal, recycling or a draw, and Masked Chameleon/Angraecum Umbrella allowing me to go into Extra Deck plays, but Guard Ghost hands down put in the most work. When it was combined with Jack-O-Bolan, the card allowed me to protect my important monster while also recycling itself to hand once it got banished, hands down leading to a number of victories just off that sheer advantage. But overall, it was the inclusion of all said cards that gave me the extra edge when needed.

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Would you make any changes to the deck?

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     Honestly, there isn’t much I would change about the deck. I’d most likely drop Yata-Garasu for either Ice Dragon’s Prison, Pot of Prosperity, or Heavy Storm Duster, drop Red-Eyes Zombie Necro Dragon for Tornado Dragon in the main deck, and maybe side Tatsunecro for something like Sonic Stun. Aside from that, the rest of the deck felt really good. The mixture of backrow and monsters allows for you to have flexibility and either focus on your monsters and setting up advantage/combos, or to punish your opponent by hitting them where it hurts with backrow/interruption.

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How did your tournament experience go? Any notable moments?

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     It was alright. Faced off against Noble Knights, Pendulum Mash, Noble Knight Sky Strikers, and Orcust WL Dogmatika goodstuff (I think). The matches vs Noble Knights and Pendulum were rough, because I lost the first matches respectively and ended up facing those players (Impy and Folo) again in top 4. Impy’s Noble Knights are much more combo oriented, which is very difficult for zombies to deal with due to their weak first turn plays, but in the rematch, our openings were more even so I was able to win with better macro plays and well placed interruption. Folo, on the other hand, I’d faced in the Zombies vs Pendulum matchup 4 times prior to champs, but still hadn’t figured out how to deal with it, resulting in an obvious loss in our first match. However, in our rematch in the Finals, I was finally able to figure out how to deal with the matchup using Jack-O-Bolan, Guard Ghost, and 5 matches (15 games) worth of experience to finally claim victory over Folo!

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If you could change the place of any one card on the banlist, whether it's at Half-Point, One-Point, or Banned, what card would that be?

     I would move Virtual World Kyubi - Shenshen to Half-Point, since the card is extremely underpowered at One-Point, and the fact that it also serves as a floodgate for you makes it quite detrimental to play, since most decks can’t make use of the card due to it also negatively affecting their gameplan. It’s revival and unbanish effects are good, but it is effectively a worse Psy-Framelord Omega in the terms of the format, so the only decks that could maybe justify running it would be Dinos, due to Oviraptor being able to summon it via Crystron Halqifibrax while making use of the unbanish effect on Miscellaneousaurus or Carboneddon, or Thunder Dragons, since you could make it with Hop Ear Squadron on Twin-Headed Thunder Dragon and the revival effect allowing you to activate your other Thunder Dragon effects.

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