April 2022
Top 4:
What made you choose your deck for the tournament? What were your tech choices?
I had really wanted to mix things up for this tournament and play a Branded list incorporating the new, underhit support from the structure deck. However, after grinding that deck (and playing tons of matches against myself on NK), it was apparent that NK was still the stronger archetype. Had this been just a normal YTC, I would have played Branded anyway, but with money on the line, I went with what I thought gave me the best odds of winning.
My most notable tech choice was probably the main-decked Spell Shattering Arrow. Looking down the list of most represented decks, Arrow was strong into Noble Knight, D/D/D, Brave Pacifis and Pendulum. Even rogue decks in the tournament like Ancient Warriors and Sacred Beast are fairly weak to it. The Trinity meta right now just has a ton of face up spell and trap cards, so I think that cards like Fairy Wind and Spell Shattering Arrow are somewhat safe to main.
If you had it to do again, would you make any changes to your deck list?
I wouldn’t change anything in the main deck; it all performed well. As for my side, five cards there were included exclusively for the Noble Knight mirror match, which I never actually had to play, so those slots obviously could have been retooled. (Because I had anticipated a ton of Noble Knight decks this tournament, I had even considered main decking the Autonomous Action Unit, which I’m obviously happy I didn’t ultimately include.)
This was our first Trinity event with a cash prize pool, which seemed to have a huge influence on how players approached the tournament. In what ways did the tournament surprise you?
I was surprised that the other Noble Knight lists performed so poorly. I thought that NK and D/D/D were the two scariest decks in the format, so I was both surprised and relieved to see that no other players in top 4 were piloting them. I was also impressed that Temedun managed to top with Drytron Megalith, which is one of my favorite decks, but not one that I thought was positioned well to succeed given White Knight of Dogmatika’s recent ban.
How did your tournament experience go? Any notable moments?
I went undefeated in matches again! Over the past three events, I’m a combined 19-2 in YTC matches, so suffice to say the experiences have been going well.
My most memorable game was my very first match against Stephen’s empty jar list. I steamrolled it game one, but game 2 lasted for over an hour before I did finally deck out. Game three ended up being relatively close, so the match ultimately went for over two hours before I was able to win.
Ban list season is next month, with two sizable sets both dropping in May. Which changes to the ban list would you like to see?
I’m sure decks like Noble Knight and D/D/D will get the nerfs that they deserve. These archetypes snowball out of control from very simple set ups and need to be toned down.
The main change that I’d personally like to see is Springans Merrymaker brought back. With Fallen of Albaz banned, we can easily balance around Merrymaker by taxing it and the fusions it sends from the extra deck, which no longer serve any use to any other deck. Springans are a cool archetype but are currently unplayable without one of their two Xyz monsters.
Walrus
Nobody
What made you choose your deck for the tournament? What were your tech choices?
I chose this deck because its plays two of the strongest engines in the format and compared to other decks in its tier is extremely easy to pilot. There's very little decision making in the deck and small mistakes are usually not that detrimental to your overall plan compared to other decks. This deck is also strong because it's currently the strongest going 2nd strategy due to the Swordsoul and Adventure packages as those engines have the best tools in Dracoback and 1-card Baxia's, that also snowball the following turns if unchecked. The deck can easily OTK out of nowhere but struggles going 1st and without Pacifis quickly runs out of cards.
Tech cards I chose to run where Scapegoat, Metamorphosis and Timelords. The first two are just because they are fun and some of my favorite cards, though I do think Metamorphosis has some extremely unique and powerful options that should be looked at more. Timelords are in the main to deal with Adventure, NK and Pendulum, most decks are leaving spell/traps on the field these days so Zaphion is always live and Kamion is an easy answer to a lot of bosses, they are also level 10 which lines up nicely with Metamorphosis.
If you had it to do again, would you make any changes to your deck list?
Probably cut Auspice Chunjun, while it is a cool "handtrap" and can tribute Pac tokens to re-trigger Pacifis, its often just dead in hand and not actually that useful. If you wanted to be super optimal you can cut all the tech cards for more OTK stuff or Tenyi.
This was our first Trinity event with a cash prize pool, which seemed to have a huge influence on how players approached the tournament. In what ways did the tournament surprise you?
It more or less went as expected, with Swordsoul and NK having the highest representation. Temedun playing ritual again was a surprise though..
How did your tournament experience go? Any notable moments?
"I literally saw red at the edges of my vision when i saw baxia target the dino. I blame Impy for leaving these legal" - Ejinqus April 2022
Ban list season is next month, with two sizable sets both dropping in May. Which changes to the ban list would you like to see?
Some kind of hit to Swordsoul. Deck is insanely boring to both pilot and play against. NK should probably get hit as well, although Walrus was the only player that performed well with the deck but its grindgame is maybe too much. Dealing with a R4NK or Synchro every single turn is pretty daunting for decks that aren't also NK. Arfeudutyr loops are also very strong in my opinion and big reason for its matchup spread being so good but I'm not so sure this is the right hit since the deck completely folds to interuption without it. I'm sure that the community will come to some sort of consensus on these decks.
Temedun
What made you choose your deck for the tournament? What were your tech choices?
I didn’t feel like sitting down to brew or practice for this YTC so I just went with a deck that I already had a list for and knew how to play somewhat. I didn’t make any tech choices specifically for this tournament but maindeck Zaphion ended up being quite good, as well as having Elder Entity N’tss available for Diviner of the Heralds.
If you had it to do again, would you make any changes to your deck list?
Yes, I’d cut the extra Megalith Hagith as well as some other mediocre cards like Drytron Delta Altais and Ritual Sanctuary to go down to 45, for consistency’s sake. The aforementioned are pretty alright in a grind game but I bricked more often than I got into a grind game this tournament.
This was our first Trinity event with a cash prize pool, which seemed to have a huge influence on how players approached the tournament. In what ways did the tournament surprise you?
The amount of “pure” Noble Knight’s being played, never seen anyone but WideWalrus and Impy play them. Some guy called Jellyfish too but he was only around for a bit.
How did your tournament experience go? Any notable moments?
It went surprisingly well considering my deck. I was expecting people to break out the backrow and handtraps for the prize event, and for that to be that for rituals... and they did of course, but I managed to dodge most of it throughout swiss. Except for my r4 match against Large Lad, where he drew handtraps both games. And then he did it again in top cut >:(. Most notable moment was probably outright killing Sparky in r2 game 3 with Spell Shattering Arrow after he used Piri Reis Map to search Kepler, went for Gilgamesh and then paid 2k in dark contract costs.
Ban list season is next month, with two sizable sets both dropping in May. Which changes to the ban list would you like to see?
I’m not that invested into Trinity at the moment, so I haven’t been following the ban list discussion very closely lately, but I still think Swordsoul Emergence into Taia into Baxia, or any good synchro 8, is the dumbest shit. Twin Twisters is an unga card that does nothing but cheese potentially good games and we’d be better off without it. It’s pretty great vs trap hell decks, but really, just hit the goddamn trap hell instead of having this silly 1-of around that ruins most other games and won’t consistently show up when it’s needed.
Folo
What made you choose your deck for the tournament? What were your tech choices?
There is one deck. I played the one deck there is. As for odd stuff about my deck this time: I chose to run a dissolver, starving venom thingy, it never came up and basically it is bad, idea was blocking attacks and a tech choice, but that is just not relevant for the most part. I ran Melffys this time around, cause I realised you want to run beasts in pend anyway, that engine turned out very good. Drawing a melffy is always nuts, big pluses, so that is staying in for the next ytc. I chose steel star regulator for an ED choice but it never came up, so you are probably better off just running something like LAN. Supply squad was really good, I have not run it in a while, but format must have just been really bad when I dropped it cause it is perfectly fine in main. Sides that I guess stuff that might seem unusual is Vortex Trooper. I just find the consistency boost from too good to not run, no regrets. I chose some odd side deck stuff I do not usually run: deck lockdown crossout and prohibition, two of those never came up, I did side deck lockdown but did not draw it so I don't know how good that is, but idea is you can just pop it with a metalfoe and not wait, so it should be good. I chose envy main cause it was just too good when it was good. Magicians' Souls' one off is also pretty fine - people pair it with Dark Magician and stuff but that is really not needed. Sides that I think my main engines are the usual I think.
If you had it to do again, would you make any changes to your deck list?
No dissolver, venom or regulator: add something link LAN and masters to ED, for main maybe something like maindeck deck lockdown could be nice with how many decks search, need to think about that. Besides that I think the list is pretty optimal I have dropped some draw cards that were more bricky than helpful but I have not regretted that. For next format I need to reconsider various cards due to new pend support being released, so more stuff will get switched up, but as for this ytc's format list was mostly just fine.
This was our first Trinity event with a cash prize pool, which seemed to have a huge influence on how players approached the tournament. In what ways did the tournament surprise you?
Was there a difference in approach? It just felt like the usual to me. I haven't topped in a while and I did not especially try for this event, so the competition could not have been significantly tougher than normal. Honestly, nothing unusual.
How did your tournament experience go? Any notable moments?
Not really: Cino dropping midmatch after misplays was pretty cool, also probably the reason I topped. Sides that, I lost to the usual bad matchups: rituals and noble knight have always been bad for me, cause pend does not really do anything to stop either of them from playing much. Rituals keeping stuff in hand and noble knight normal monsters with heavy grave focus are both bad for pend to play against, since the gameplan is attack and try to kill your opponents field pretty much, there is little more significant interaction.
Ban list season is next month, with two sizable sets both dropping in May. Which changes to the ban list would you like to see?
The usual: Maugis ban, getting some of the cards off the list that have no reason for being there would be nice too (why do people think azurune is that good?). I think the format is in a fine place for the most part though. As for the new cards, my opinion is probably nothing unusual.