September 2020
Top 4:
What made you choose this deck for the tournament, and what were your tech choices?
The pure, unadulterated desire to make me suffer through not playing Dogmatika in yet another YTC.....I’m kidding, I was just really feeling zombies after Fraulein came back from the land of the Forbidden List. As for techs, I only had Dark Sacrifice and Draco Berserker of the Tenyi. I never drew Dark Sacrifice, so that made the imposing Dogmatika Punishment all the more painful, and I only summoned Draco Berserker twice.
Would you make any changes to the deck?
Oh absolutely. I’d completely drop Draco Berserker and knock my deck down to 45 cards. Besides that, there’s not much else you can do to improve the deck right now, unfortunately.
How did your matchups throughout Swiss and Top 4 go?
They were fine. I don’t really remember any of them, except for my 3 matches against Dogmatika and that one against plants. I should’ve lost all 4 of those games, but I drew really well into Plants and 1 of the Dogmatika matches, lost the other one, then won the last duel (finals) due to misplays and the biggest brick and RNG I’ve seen in a while.
Do you have a favorite play of the tournament?
I’d have to say the duel where I was against plants, and essentially otk’d cuz Aromaseraphy Jasmine has low ATK, can’t be destroyed by battle, and is forced to be in Attack Position.
Moving forward, what cards do you think should be banned or restricted, if any?
I would say that Dogmatika Punishment should be absolutely banned. The card provides too much tempo and advantage while being searchable, as well as recurrable come PHRA. Besides that, I’d say ban Supreme King Starving Venom Fusion Dragon and the rest are fine.
Burrito
Izanagi
What made you choose this deck for the tournament, and what were your tech choices?
Dogmatika is clearly the deck to beat right now, so I wanted to be on it. Punishment being at .5p means that you get to fill another co-card in for free, and the Sky Striker engine compliments Dogma very well. I had considered running a Traptrix variant instead, but I think that Dogma is a better built for going second than going first so I decided to run this. I also think that striker's easy access to s/t destruction and GY hate made them good candidates in general this format.
Tech wise I have a couple interesting choices, I'm main decking 6 conventional handtraps that interact against Dogma well, and decided to spend the extra point on Unchained Abominable Soul because that card is incredible for closing out games. I also decided to play Photon Sanctuary and Hip Hoshiningen after seeing it in Thundra as an extra way to put an Extra Deck mosnter on board and add damage.
In my side I decided to include the combo of Forbidden of Albaz + Fusion Deployment as an extra power play against Fusion and Dark decks while still being a two summon extra deck monster which is obviously strong with Dogma. The Timelord engine and Wavering Eyes never saw play sadly, but I think they're really strong in theory right now.
Would you make any changes to the deck?
Yes, I think the extra five cards to pick up pot of greed and another playable engine like Appliancer probably would have been worth it. My deck was really good at drawing cards and punching my opponent, but as g3 in finals shows it dawdles a lot if I can't get to a playstarter.
How did your matchups throughout Swiss and Top 4 go?
Matchups went pretty well throughout the tourney imo. R1 went up against Jeff's Darklords Greedy Venom.dek and managed to beat him 2-1 after accidentally wishing him luck. Then in R2 I beat Cinos by normal summoning Skull Meister and attacking for game. R3 I lost to Veiss because Skullgios is able to put in a ludicrous amount of damage. R4 I beat Burritos because I know how to play against zombies. R5 I lost to Inari because their Shaddoll deck was very strong.
Happily made top cut of my buchholz, turns out dueling the rest of top cut during swiss does that. Beat Inari in semi-finals because their Traptrix deck loses to me drawing s/t blowout in both my openers. Proceeded to lose to Burritos in finals because I don't know how to play against zombies.
Do you have a favorite play of the tournament?
No particular play comes to mind, but I did enjoy finding new and stupider ways to bait my opponent into making my Triple Tactics Talent live. Came up in both of my topcut matches.
Moving forward, what cards do you think should be banned or restricted, if any?
Something in Dogma will be banned before PHRA at the very least. I'm baisically certain of that by this point. I think it's highly likely that this will manifest as a Nadir ban, especially with the Tribrigade cards in PHRA making that card even stronger. Past that though, Ice Dragon's prison consistently put in the work of a .5p card, and should probably reflect that on the list.
Veiss
What made you choose this deck for the tournament, and what were your tech choices?
Well, to be frank: judging from the results of the last YTC combined with every locals and discussion leading up to this YTC it became kinda clear that if you weren't exactly abusing Dogmatika or using a deck that consistently put up with their advantage, then you were at a major disadvantage before the hands were even drawn. I saw that nobody was really interested in Fossils (and rightfully so) because their main deck monster had been banned in tandem with their core card being put at the .5 value, so, I decided to just take Dogmatika and run with Fossils for the most part. Shaddolls naturally fit in because well... resolving Nadir just wins games... or in a lot of the YTC's case, matches. Technically speaking, the Dogmatika cards themselves in tandem with Fossils are pseudo-techs, as for how they work in my list is solely dependent on capitalizing on Maximus gameplans (which usually is just the opponent going for Rafflesia - who lines up perfectly for a Skullgios or Skull King target - or N'tss) and my closing out the game thereafter. The entire concept of the games was to identify the amount of turns I could pursue lethal in and find a way to get there without misstepping.
Techs of choice: Different Dimension Ground, Blazing Mirror Force, Forbidden Chalice/Lance/Droplets, Thunder King Rai-Oh, Skull Meister, Ghost Belle. Some of these cards technically could find a place in the main deck, but this list wasn't really focused on being responsive, it was about being proactive. I never got to really make use of my tech choices in the ways I desired since I had only faced exclusively Dogmatika opponents until Top Cut.
Would you make any changes to the deck?
Predaplant Chlamydosundew could be dropped. That's about it really. If Fossil Fusion could find its way to my hand easier then I would be able to consistently OTK with the deck, but due to its restrictions, there's a pretty low ceiling to how much you can do with Fossils as a whole. When Dogmatika is finally hit, I expect the deck to be pretty much unplayable, but in the event I would ever revisit it, I would probably just switch to a Shaddoll / Gem-Knight build or something. Not sure. Nadir just enables a lot of silly things really.
How did your matchups throughout Swiss and Top 4 go?
As stated before, all of my matches in Swiss were just against Dogmatika. Of the 23 or so entries, 12 of them had been on the archetype so it was expected that I would face at least 2 during my run, but upwards of 3? Pretty unexpected, and really killed the experience for me in all honesty. The bane of my deck in almost every match was Lost Wind. It was only ever really enjoyable because I went up against a lot of the really skilled players the format had to offer, notably some individuals that I try to emulate with my builds and tech choices and such. It probably didn't show really in any of my matches with them that I was happy to face them, but I wish that we weren't just abusing the objectively best deck in the format for it, lol. My favorite match hands-down was when I faced Shameless on his Thunder Dogmatika list. Lotta highs, lotta lotta twists and turns. As much complaining as there was about Punishment resolving within the community, each of my opponents who had resolved it against me had proceeded to lose thereafter. In a lot of instances it was due to being unable to develop anything outside of setting cards or summoning Fleur. It wasn't that difficult for me to play around known removal, especially when I would force my opponent into it, preventing them from using the ED just because they wanted to Raigeki Break me. Barring the highly un-interactive match against Sera, pass, it was all-around a good time.
In Top 4 I finally faced a non-Dogmatika list, misplayed a ridiculous amount, and lost because I respected too much of Burritos' backrow. I was playing under the impression that if the cards that were face-up on the field weren't an issue and were never actually going to be one, then I would just have to dance around his backrow until I would come out on top. In all honesty, I probably should have just swallowed my pride and turtled behind Shaddoll control setups and Punishment, but meh.
Do you have a favorite play of the tournament?
Most of it was just in-the-moment sorta things. I never really performed any advanced tactics or plays, I really just determined the turns the game would end in and respected the highest (known) threats that I could afford to. If there was something to give then... in my match against Wtrain on his Frightur Dogmatika Shaddoll list there was a pretty complicated gamestate where he was trying to clear my board and get around my Skullgios and Fleur; however, thanks to the prevention of Cruel Whale and Kraken being unable to target Skullgios, I had managed to survive the turn, use Keystone to shuffle back my Skullgios, and use Fossil Fusion to return him to the field and swing for game.
Moving forward, what cards do you think should be banned or restricted, if any?
Ecclesia and Nadir. There was no reason both of them should have been Unlimited at the exact same time for this event or the previous one. Outside of centralizing cards, Ice Dragon's Prison is likely on the chopping block; though, I managed to play around it quite a bit in all honesty.
Iceberg
What made you choose this deck for the tournament, and what were your tech choices?
As powerful of an archetype Dogmatika was going into this YTC, it's also one I very much like thematically, and had already decided months in advance to using once they came out. It just so happened that they were the best deck. The synergy with Shaddoll was too strong to pass up, but I still wanted something else for a more coherent strategy. Going into a Link 1 followed by Ecclesia is such a ridiculous play under summon limit, and Traptrix Sera is one of the best. Combine that with Dogmatika Punishment and Resh Shaddoll Reincarnation being searchable and loopable traps, the STD deck was born.
I wouldn't say I had any unusual techs, but I used some cards that are under utilized. Last Will functions nicely with Traptrix monsters and fusion summoning, Pot of Dichotomy as well with recycling resources. Lilith being a pseudo Ecclesia was neat, choosing Punishment, Sales Pitch, and Back to the Front, repeating with the latter if you weren't lucky. The side was packed with cards to stop the mirror, with most being useful against a variety of matches.
Would you make any changes to the deck?
I was pretty satisfied with my card choices, after testing the deck at multiple locals and in various causal games as well. The Trinity choices may not have been optimal though, as I couldn't access Traptrix Rafflesia in most games, and when I did she unfortunately was outed very easily. Two Ecclesia was useful at times, but not necessary. Perhaps a smaller deck size would be the way to go.
How did your matchups throughout Swiss and Top 4 go?
I'm very happy with how the deck performed in Swiss, going 5-0 with most matches ending in two games. Top Cut was just the opposite, however, with Izanagi swiftly taking both in the immediate runback after round 5. In the first match I played with him, my Dogmatika Shaddoll engine was in full force, yet in the round to follow, it was nowhere to be seen. Traptrix was all I could draw, and he responded with back-to-back turn 1 backrow hate in Lightning Storm and Twin Twister. Not able to resolve my Sera properly, I was knocked out of the tourney faster than I thought. Frankly, Swiss wasn't noteworthy with most games being orientated around grindy control, although I did thoroughly enjoy my match with YurisBest, featuring a lot of fusion summoning and backrow maneuvering on both sides.
Do you have a favorite play of the tournament?
If anything was the highlight of the tournament, it was Veiss scooping after I Ashed his Nadir turn 1, and took his Wendi with Mind Control the next turn. I probably would've done the same.
Moving forward, what cards do you think should be banned or restricted, if any?
Dogmatika needs hits, but I'm against banning anything as I don't think it's necessary. I would recommend Nadir to 1 point, and Punishment to 1 point. Also, Ice Dragon's Prison functions in similar capacity to other half point Trap cards, so it should be hit accordingly.