July 2023
Top 4:
What made you choose your deck? What are some plays your deck can make?
I decided to bring my Rokket Mannadium list to this ytc because I wanted to bring Mannadium to a ytc before it gets hit. My deck is centered around using Chaos Ruler to mill my deck and put into rotation Shuffers, Trivikarma to then search an omni, and Riot Dragon which allows for me to be able to have my rokket package to always be accessible.
What were some tech choices you made? Would you make any changes to the list moving forward?
Techs i decided to add would be Ret-time Reviver Emit-ter as a board breaker that functions as a lv2 tuner and the Heralds that allow for me to have more searchable Hand traps off Chaos Ruler. If i were to change the list, i would cut it to 45 and cut the Armknight package because it rarely came up.
How did your deck handle the other pilots? Any notable moments?
My list mostly steamrolled through this ytc because of the Shuffelers hard countering most of the decks I faced and the rokket package provided me with high attack synchros that were very hard for other decks in the format to address without going neg. A notable moment in the ytc was Finals game 1 vs wide, milling Ret-time, and it coming up to then flip facedown a monster that was preventing me from outing Fraulein.
What Yugioh monster would you have as a pet?
Chain Dog, next to nobody knows this card but I've loved Chain Dog's design since I first saw it in Yugioh 5ds Tag Force 5. It's just a cute puppy that comes back if I have more pets.
Impy
Walrus
What made you choose your deck? What are some plays your deck can make?
It seemed like a good time to revisit Zombies with the new Ghost Fusion support. I felt a bit spoiled for choice with how strong Zombies, Ghoti, Beetrooper and Predaplant all are.
The deck’s main play is to turbo Immortal Dragon and then try to wall up as it generates tons of advantage. It can also play aggressively and end games suddenly with Vendread and Vampire Fraulein. Zombies are a very complete deck at the moment and feel great to play.
What were some tech choices you made? Would you make any changes to the list moving forward?
As far as 60-card highlander lists go, this feels pretty stock standard to me. Looking at the list, I’m having a hard time finding anything that I’d consider a tech.
I should have played Mannadium Reframing over Breakheart. My logic was that Reframing would be less of a brick, but in the end Reframing was repeatedly a brick anyway and I would have been better off just having the better payoff. I'd also replace Vampire Sucker with another level 6 synchro.
How did your deck handle the other pilots? Any notable moments?
Zombies are a consistent deck with a powerful baseline so they usually win. I lost to Photon and Impy’s Mannadium Rokket pile, both of which felt extremely strong.
What Yugioh monster would you have as a pet?
I'll take two Watthopper for protection.
Stephen
What made you choose your deck? What are some plays your deck can make?
I chose ReasonGate because I needed to top so I could get into Champs and I always top with this deck. Also, the Drytron Ritual monsters got Unlimited, so I wanted to see if the Ruinforce engine was good.
The deck, as usual, aims to get a critical mass of cards in the GY so I can make plays with those cards. Chaos Nephthys is crucial to the deck because it helps remove annoying cards. The Drytrons are an engine to make Union Carrier/Lyna/Linkross to improve my boardstate, draw cards with Delta and Litmus Doom Ritual, or stall with Assembled Nightingale.
What were some tech choices you made? Would you make any changes to the list moving forward?
I added the Ruinforce engine because of the previously mentioned unhit to Drytron. I also added a Pacifis engine because the card generates Tokens to use as Link Material or Tribute fodder for Monster Gate. The pop from the Trap is also very good.
I wouldn’t really make any changes except maining Vivid Tail and making a better side deck. Dodging removal with Vivid Tail came up a lot.
How did your tournament experience go? Any notable moments?
I went 2-2 in Swiss, got lucky and got into top 4, then lost the first round of Topcut.
Beating Cino 2-0 even though he was on a Chaos build with main deck Bystial was surprising. I threw game 2 against Impy because I let him make a Lavalval Chain and send an Ishizu shuffler, which I did not expect. I just did not draw Reasoning or Gate early enough against Brush and got outgrinded. Farl3nx’s Dark Magician build was scary because it could set up the Eternal Soul/Dragon Knight lock pretty consistently, which I couldn’t out game 2, but I drew a god hand game 3 and won. In top cut I threw a game against Walrus because I forgot Fraulein could pay a full 3000.
What Yugioh monster would you have as a pet?
Apollousa’s bear.
Psionic
What made you choose your deck? What are some plays your deck can make?
I wanted to choose my deck because I liked Photons and I wanted to playtest now that Jumper was released. There's some weird itch in my brain that gets scratched when I pick up and play the Deck. I additionally enjoyed Kite Tenjo as a character in his two appearances, which kinda played into wanting to play this Deck.
Some plays that my Deck can make involve ripping your ED. The fact that it's also a 1-card combo starter also helps with consistency. It also has a lot of incidental loops with a lot of its cards thanks to Solfare. There's a theoretical Cleric loop involving shuffling Solflare and Sanctuary to continuously recover Cleric. Another play that I enjoyed was the OTK with Prime Photon Dragon. That act secures a bunch of duels on its own. I wouldn't advocate for its ban though, since it's very fragile without proper setup and clearing.
What were some tech choices you made? Would you make any changes to the list moving forward?
I didn't maindeck Trident, which was probably a mistake. That thing throws any kind of setup your opponent can provide by killing them turn 3 since it pierces. All you need is no interruption. I did enjoy the levels that my small Dogmatika engine provided. I should've used them in my previous list, am glad that I used them in this list, and will use them in my lists going forward. Duality was a very fun tech choice. It did come up in one game and was vital to my living because of it. I didn't really have any use for it past that, sadly. I did enjoy Traptrix Pinguicula, which had shut down a large portion of my opponent's decks when it was summoned. Shockingly, there was a lot of sending to the GY for effect.
Going forwards, I'm going to remove big level 8s that summon themselves with a very hard summoning condition. This, in my decklist, means Nytro Head and Galactic Spyral Dragon. Galactic was a brick and always sided out when I had the chance, Nytro Head was just never summoned except for one game. I'm going to run Galaxy Brave in its place. I'm also going to maindeck effect veiler, due to it being a handtrap and LIGHT mon.
How did your deck handle the other pilots? Any notable moments?
I'm going to be honest, I got very lucky in most of my duels. Bystials suck doodoo balls because they hit a lot of my GY resources, which I kinda like having. Somehow they only ever came up once. Duel 1 against Krasher he bricked twice. Duel 2 against Stephen I managed to have a field that would kill Chaos Nephthys, the main thing that would've been a pain to play against. That was the duel where Duality came in clutch. Popping his backrow before he had a chance to use it was very good. Very fun match to watch if you can. Walrus was the most fun and "fair" matchup because he had quite a couple of ways to handle my monsters, with the same going for him. I will say my duel against Cino could've gone better. He was very confused about everything. I misplayed g1 by reaction summoning Galaxy-Eyes Photon Dragon with Hyper to his bystial when I should've let it go. He had a way to banish it from the field anyways so holding Hyper was way better than turbo charging it. g3 was an instance of me being lucky because had he had any way of blocking my OTK I would've lost.
Impy duel was sad. This makes the second mu against him where I brick twice or don't have anything to contend his field. Infuriating. Stephen g2 was funny. He had exactly Pacifis on field and didn't have anything else, so I just poked with Galaxy Photon Dragon and Cleric until he died. Misplayed a bit by summoning Cleric a turn early, forgot about Galaxy Photon's buff by 500, so I thought I was dealing 35 a turn instead of 4k to his 6k LP. Didn't matter, still won.
I will say, going 4-0 and pronouncing PHOTON SWEEP is one of the best feeling in the world. Really wished I faced Erika, she's got a cool decklist.
What Yugioh monster would you have as a pet?
Either Galaxy-Eyes Cloudragon (Please imbed https://youtu.be/uZ_UL-Q5uuw in the name) (Sorry Wix won't let me) or Dogmatika Ecclesia. No further comments.