Luke Tyler

Now that the KC Cup has concluded, the Tier List has now reverted to being about side deck format. Some results from the KC Cup are having an influence on the tournament scene, but overall there haven’t been extreme changes in the metagame - which is what this Tier List is reflective of. sees itself enter the metagame after its KC Cup performance; it will be intriguing to see if it can meet meta-contender standards in the upcoming week or if it will fall from High Potential.

Tier 1

TPC Comments

EmAyy

Dark Magician was one of the “Go-To” decks during the KC Cup. Obviously very strong. Some players have now started to run and which makes the usual combo even scarier. Silent Magician gives the deck a way to protect your and even stop opposing Circles. And the added pressure from Silent Magician is difficult for most decks to deal with alongside .

Elementsabers are still Tier 1. Sabers seemed to be the dominant deck during the KC Cup, with Darklords as their only bad match-up. Dark Magician can be troublesome but a lot of new builds have been running 1-2 copies of which is great in that match-up.

Luke Tyler

Remaining to be the powerful control strategy that it is, there is a variant utilising and that performed well in the KC Cup - and is expected to see play in the tournament scene too. Silent Magician is a general threat for a lot of relevant decks and has the coverage of being able to negate . Strong performances from Dark Magician is expected to continue.

Tier 2

TPC Comments

Herbel

Although Darklords were a good choice for the KC Cup, the deck still remains as Tier 2. Turn 1 , paired up with is still a combo that shuts down the whole strategy of Darklords. Dark Magician with the addition of and become a real problem for Darklords. It’s almost impossible to out a Turn 1 Dark Magician combo with and paired with and .

Tier 3

TPC Comments:

Herbel

Crystrons are a creative deck, that works really well in good hands. One of the big advantage of the deck is the fact that there’s no standard decklist: no one can predict what techs you using, or how far you can go with your combos. One major weakness of the deck is the fact that cant save you from the negate of , and disruptions like , , and still proving effective against the deck.

High Potential

TPC Comments:

EmAyy

Dark Cavalry popped out of nowhere during the KC Cup. With the skill , it gives you a bit more consistency into opening turn one. Which makes this deck as we would call it in the TCG a “Towers Turbo” deck. This deck also has access to the Invoked engine and has multiple ways to fusion summon into everyone’s favorite fusions: and . This deck usually has good match ups against Elementsabers and Ritual Beasts due to Cavalry being able to negate everything that targets and pierce through most decks’ monsters.

Luke Tyler

A deck utilising , Aleister the Invoker and various fusion substitute cards to round out the monster count started popping up during the KC Cup. The deck functions through having access to a troublesome boss monster in Dark Cavalry as well as having access to the menacing Invoked engine. Prior to the KC Cup, there were builds using only Blazeman with fusion substitute cards for the monsters, but the recent addition of Aleister into the deck offers an alternative win condition as well as synergising with the rest of the deck. Tech cards with this deck vary quite a bit, and it will be interesting to see if it can carry over its KC Cup relevance into the tournament scene.

MedzR

Dark Cavalry is a new deck that popped up during the KC cup. By running the skill , the deck can very consistently summon a or turn one: two troublesome boss monsters that a host of decks struggle to deal with. Having played this deck for most of the KC cup I thought I would give some insight into its match ups.

The deck has a strong Elementsaber and Ritual Beast match-up, as both decks struggle to deal with Dark Cavalry being able to negate anything that targets. Add in the fact that Cavalry is bigger than any monster both decks run, outside of an early , both decks need to see techs that can deal with this otherwise they just lose. Triple is also seeing a lot of play in Cav so far which really makes it an uphill battle for both these decks.

Against Dark Magician, it can be problematic if the DM player opens the + combo with a . Once Rod is in the graveyard, the DM player can chain its graveyard effect to Circle’s banish effect, causing a chain block so cannot negate the banish. Despite this, Cavalry still has a good matchup against dm as a Turn 1 Cocytus is very difficult for DM to deal with and Cavalry can still be an issue, if they don’t have the rod for the chain block. The new version of DM has a better matchup against Cav, as opening the Circle-Nav combo with a Silent Magician negate makes it rather difficult for the Cav player to get a fusion off.

The Darklord matchup can be tricky as they can negate and with . is being run in the extra to help with this matchup, causing the DL player to play rather awkwardly to play around its effect. The issue with Millennium-eyes is that its base stat line is 0 ATK and DEF, meaning the DL player can simply attack over it with a (if they don’t discard a Darklord with a body big enough to wall 2600) or even an .

Blackwings cause this deck quite a bit of trouble, particularly if they go second. Blackwings typically cause you to burn through your negates, normally with excess . can be very troublesome to get over without a or an in hand.

Crystrons and Cyber Dragons are this deck’s worst matchups. Crystrons can easily out with and the same applies to , when combined with a summoning an to switch Cavalry into defence. Cyber Dragons can easily deal with Cavalry by using , as it doesn’t target. Whilst Cocytus can wall Cyber Dragons, the deck was already running cards like and to deal with it.

Shiranui is a quite an even matchup and running a higher deck count in Cavalry does help level the playing field. and are two ways to get Cavalry off the board and the deck can also cause chain blocks with and . Similarly to Elementsabers, Dark Cavalry can utilise the Shiranui players’ graveyard for easy access to and once again helps by disrupting the shiranui player.

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