The March 2018 Trinity Cup was held this past month, and it was a blast! The tournament was held on the Trinity Discord (found here), and we had 24 participants, with a Top 4 as follows:

1st: MonoBlueTron

2nd: punkrocklee

3rd: Subzeroark

4th: Srn347

Congratulations to all who topped! The following deck profiles were all written by the respective tournament participants.

1st Place: MonoBlueTron’s Pacifis Control

What deck did you play and why?

I played Pacifis Control. A better name for the deck would be “Phantasm Spiral Weathery Graydle Goodstuff,” but that wouldn’t fit in the dueling simulator.

I played this deck for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I was able to use several advantage engines that had snuck into playable as far as the format’s power level was concerned. Secondly, there were enough flex spots that I could devote answers to pendulum, the scariest deck in the format. Finally, I have sworn a blood oath to Pacifis, the Phantasm City. By winning the tournament I have ushered in 1000 years of flooding which will drown the Earth and all who inhabit it.

What tech choices did you play?

This is a bit of an odd question in a deck where every card is a spicy tech. The inclusion of Heavy Storm Duster and about 9 individual answers to Heavymetalfoes Electrumite is about as pointed as lists get.

There are more than a few spicy INTERACTIONS in the deck. You can repeatedly banish Zaphion, the Timelord with Sea Stealth Attack so you’ve always got an indestructible body on your side of the field. You can banish your Weatherys with their associated spells and traps and the Graydles with Sea Stealth Attack to turn on the Phantasm Spiral traps. The deck even return a set Chicken Game from Set Rotation to the hand with The Weather Rainy Canvas. Topologic Bomber Dragon can set up a soft lock with Pacifis, the Phantasm City, by repeatedly wiping the board and clearing your own token.

I wouldn’t recommend playing Demise of the Land, though. That card was giga-garbage.

How did your games go?

They went well. I played Performapal Pendulum R1, Ninjas R2 (which effectively became Dark Simorgh Turbo), Volcanic R3, Srn347’s Goodstuff R4 (my only loss), and Zefra Pendulum R5. In the top cut I played against HERO in semis and Summoner’s Art Pendulum in finals.

Alongside the aforementioned maindeck Heavymetalfoes Electrumite answers, I played a TON of sidedeck hate, including a whole Wavering Eyes engine. I was happy 3 of my 7 rounds throughout the tournament were against those decks. Srn347 was the only player who make an effort to play around Pacifis, the Phantasm City by activating cards and abilities only in the damage step, and it paid off.

My closest match was against Volcanic, which I still believe is the most powerful unexplored strategy in the format.

Is your deck still playable after the April banlist?

Hilariously, not a single card from my list was hit. If you are unsure of what to play, I would strongly encourage netdecking this list or using it as a litmus test for the format’s power. It’s going to be a little harder to steal games now that Twin Twister is unlimited, but it’s still a fantastic option for control players. Just play a little less hate for pendulums now that Heavymetalfoes Electrumite is semi-forbidden.

Shouts out to Wtrain for discovering the Weathery monsters, meepmoto27 and TreeTopDuelist for putting so much time into this format, and punkrocklee for an 8-hour Best of 3.

2nd Place: punkrocklee’s Summoner’s Art Pendulums

What deck did you play and why?

I played Summoner’s Art Pendulums since I believe it was the best deck of the format. The abundance of flexible scales and good cards to give you advantage even without big extra deck plays makes the deck more consistent and resilient than what most people thought Trinity pendulum decks could be. Any deck that is trying to do something fair gets punished by unfair resource generation. Simultaneously, any deck that is trying to do something unfair risks having to do it through negates.

What tech choices did you play?

The main deck is rather straight forward, efficient cards that do things even through hate. There is a fair bit of S/T removal since removing all the backrow before you make your pendulum summon lets you play a lot bolder. The Hey, Trunade! wasn’t great so not sure I would recommend it. The Duelittle Chimera in the ED is to change gears from sitting on Wind-Up Zenmaines into doing big dangerous pendulum summons.The side has a lot of very matchup dependent cards since we never want to side more than just a couple of cards in this deck since the maindeck is already very good. Zany Zebra is for the mirror. It’s very good since it’s a decent scale as well as a monster depending on what you need. Hebo, Lord of the River and Shadow-Imprisoning Mirror are for BA. This was partially out of respect for the previous champion (boddity77) that I knew playing the deck. Light-Imprisoning Mirror and System Down are for ABC which I didn’t see any of. I accidentally took out Pendulum Storm at some point, but that was supposed to be in there. Prohibition is hate against Pacifis, the Phantasm City since calling Umi is very good.

How did your games go?

Very well, I was very happy with what the deck could do. Occasionally I bricked but bricking only cost me a match vs Srn347 in swiss. First round was up against guiltygearxx’s Zefra Pendulums. I just bullied him out of the game because he didn’t open his big combos. Next up I played vs boddity77, the former champion that I had dedicated side slots to. They were somewhat close games, but I drew Hebo and bounced his Dante, Traveler of the Burning Abyss in one of the games. He was just in a really bad spot after that and couldn’t recover. The third match was up against the mirror. I misplayed game 1, forgetting to use my opponent’s monsters/scales as fodder for Ignister Prominence, the Blasting Dracoslayer. However, I ended up winning after 2 more rather close games. The fourth match was up against Subzeroark’s HERO OTK, probably the coolest list in the entire tournament. He pulled off an amazing OTK game 1, but in the end I win on a 50/50 blind Mystical Space Typhoon. Last match in swiss is up vs Srn347 and I brick and pick up a loss. I was still in the top 4 though, and who’s my opponent? Oh, its Srn347 again. This one I manage to squeeze out and I advance to the finals. In the finals I am up against MonoBlueTron, the writer of this article. The games take forever as we both knew they would from playing each other in practice. At the end, he ends up winning and becoming our newest champion.

Is your deck still playable after the April banlist?

Would JFK have had a chance to win the 1964 elections? The deck in this form is very dead since they put Summoner’s Art to co-forbidden. The crux of the deck was having a lot of flexible scales and consistent power plays. Summoner’s Art facilitated both of those things and some of the other hits hurt as well. Pendulum is certainly still a viable deck, but without Summoner’s Art you can’t play Summoner’s Art Pendulums. If you want to play pendulums, I would recommend looking at ways to get searchable disruption through cards such as Zefraniu, Secret of the Yang Zing or the Mythical Beasts much the same way I got it through Summoner’s Art .

3rd Place: Srn347’s Goodstuff

What deck did you play and why?

As before, I played good cards.dek (also referred to as Good Stuff or Stun). It fits my playstyle well, I have fun playing it, and it works quite well.

What tech choices did you play?

Speedroid Maliciousmagnet, Engraver of the Mark, and Spiritual Beast Tamer Winda were all somewhat experimental techs. One could argue that Ultimate Offering was as well.

How did your games go?

They went pretty well. My 2 most difficult matchups, naturally, wound up getting 1st and 2nd place in the tournament. Pretty much any hand in which I got at least 1 monster and 3 backrow was one I felt reasonably confident in. This covers over 85% of my possible hands going first and over 90% going second. Since my deck is resource-intensive, the difficult matchups were the ones in which my opponent could generate more resources easily, such as the pendulum mechanic or Pacifis, the Phantasm City.

Is your deck still playable after the April banlist?

It sure is. It’s even gotten stronger, as Magical Scientist has moved to co-forbidden and Twin Twisters has moved to unlimited (although this one is a double-edged sword, as others now have more backrow removal for me as well). In addition, some ineffective tech choices were removed and some more effective cards have been added in their place.

4th Place: Subzeroark’s HERO OTK

What deck did you play and why? I played HERO OTK. I thought this deck was positioned well in the meta because it has a pretty good matchup into pendulums. Pendulums was the deck that everyone was saying would be the most prevalent in this format. Also Yugioh GX is my favorite season, Elemental HERO Honest Neos is one of my favorite cards, and I can’t resist playing Elemental HERO Stratos in a format that he’s unbanned in.