Welcome to Week #3 of the OCG 2018.04 format.

This report will cover 40 top-performing decks from 5 tournaments that were held in Japan and China during 14 – 17 April 2018.

New Product Release

Cybernetic Horizon

Metagame Breakdown

11 Sky Striker

7 Magician: 5 Performapal Magician 1 Performapal Odd-Eyes Magician 1 Performapal Supreme King Magician

6 ABC: 5 Sky Striker ABC 1 ABC FTK

4 Zefra: 3 Metalfoes Zefra 1 Mono Zefra

3 Altergeist

2 Sky Striker Gouki

1 Bamboo Sky Striker Magical Explosion

1 Burning Abyss

1 Genex Altantean Mermail

1 Kaiju Invoked Mekk-Knight

1 Sky Striker SPYRAL

1 Subterror

1 Trickstar

Sky Striker

Cybernetic Horizon gave Sky Striker another new Link Monster – Sky Striker Ace – Hayate.

Sky Striker Ace – Hayate greatly improves the consistency of Sky Striker decks. By activating Hayate’s effect to send Sky Striker Mobilize – Engage! from deck to graveyard, it can be retrieved later by Link Summoning Sky Striker Ace – Kagari in the Main Phase 2. Alternatively if you opened with Sky Striker Mecha – Hornet Drones, then Hayate’s effect can also be used for sending Sky Striker Ace – Raye to the graveyard, setting up for Raye to recur when a Sky Striker Link Monster is destroyed by battle, or leaves the field because of an opponent’s card effect.

Minato (みなと) went 7-2 and finished 2nd in “2nd Yu CS” which had 80 participants.

He ran 3 Mind Control in the the Side Deck for the mirror match. Mind Control allows him to take control of the opponent’s Sky Striker monster and used it to Link Summon his own Sky Striker Link Monster.

Magician

Inakingu (いなきんぐ) went 8-0 and finished 1st in “2nd Yu CS” which had 80 participants.

He played Naturia Beast in his Extra Deck, which can be Synchro Summoned using Performapal Pendulum Sorcerer and Glow-Up Bulb. Naturia Beast was able to win every game against Sky Striker.

ABC

Sakuma (さくま) went 7-0 and finished 1 – 2nd in “69th Aichi CS with Hatti CS” (Team 3v3) which had 44 teams (132 participants).

Sakuma was using almost the same build last week. He went 7-0 and finished 1st in “68th Aichi CS in NextPro Osu Shop with Hatti CS” which had 52 participants.

The only changes were switching out 2 Typhoon for 2 Cosmic Cyclone in his Side Deck. This is an adaptive change to combat Altergeist, which have seen an increase in popularity due to the effectiveness of Anti-Spell Fragrance and Imperial Order in the current competitive scene.

Zefra

Kiiko (きーこ) went 6-2 and finished 1 – 2nd in “69th Aichi CS with Hatti CS” (Team 3v3) which had 44 teams (132 participants).

Although the standard Metalfoes Zefra combo only requires running 1 Astrograph Sorcerer, he ran the full 3 copies of Astrograph Sorcerer along with 1 Stargazer Magician. This allows him to run Eradicator Epidemic Virus in the Side Deck against Sky Striker.

Conclusion

Cybernetic Horizon had very minimal initial impact on the competitive scene. The only boost was to Sky Striker in the form of Sky Striker Ace – Hayate.

Sky Striker, Magician, ABC, Zefra, and Altergeist are expected to be the popular decks for the two upcoming major OCG tournaments – Duel City Championship 2017 (29, 30 April 2018) and YOT Thailand 2018 (5, 6 May 2018).