Welcome to Week #5 of the OCG 2018.07 format.

This report will cover 32 top-performing decks from 6 tournaments that were held in Japan and China during 28 – 31 July 2018.

Metagame Breakdown

10 Sky Striker

9 Altergeist

4 Thunder Dragon: 3 Mono Thunder Dragon 1 Diabolos Thunder Dragon

3 HERO Gouki

2 ABC: 1 Mono ABC 1 Greener HERO ABC

1 Blackwing

1 Greener Shaddoll Sky Striker Dinosaur

1 Greener Burning Abyss Chaos Thunder Dragon

1 Zefra

Sky Striker

Kinnikuso (きんにくそ) went 7-0 (excluding 2 byes) and finished 1st in “Atsu CS with Hatti CS” which had 59 participants.

He ran Inspector Boarder in the Side Deck for the Altergeist match-up. As most Altergeist are packing Secret Village of the Spellcasters and Anti-Spell Fragrance against Sky Striker, they have significantly less answers to Inspector Boarder. Their main out would be to activate Infinite Impermanence on Inspector Boarder and that would allow them to activate their Altergeist monster effects.

However, since Inspector Boarder is summoned to the Main Monster Zone, it would cause several Sky Striker spells to be unplayable.

Altergeist

Ui Ui (憂々) went 7-2 and finished 2nd in “Atsu CS with Hatti CS” which had 59 participants.

Altergeist players are starting to run Wee Witch’s Apprentice in the Extra Deck as an out to Inspector Boarder. The effect of Wee Witch’s Apprentice makes all DARK monsters on the field to gain 500 ATK/DEF and all LIGHT monsters on the field to lose 400 ATK/DEF. That would bring up Wee Witch’s Apprentice‘s ATK to 1900 and pull down Inspector Boarder‘s ATK to 1600, effectively allowing Wee Witch’s Apprentice to attack over Inspector Boarder.

However, Wee Witch’s Apprentice is not easy for Altergeist to Special Summon as it requires 2 DARK monsters. This is mostly accomplished by using either Linkuriboh or Relinquished Anima and Altergeist Multifaker. When Wee Witch’s Apprentice is later destroyed by battle or effect, its trigger effect could then retrieve Multifaker.

The threat of Inspector Boarder is a strong consideration for running Mind Control over Electric Virus in the Side Deck.

Thunder Dragon

Kuta (空太) went 4-3 (excluding 1 bye) and finished 3rd in “5th MCS with Hatti CS” which had 37 teams (111 participants).

He ran a Darkest Diabolos, Lord of the Lair in his Main Deck as a threat against Sky Striker and Altergeist.

As Darkest Diabolos cannot be targeted by the opponent’s card effects, this makes it immune to the likes of Sky Striker Mecha – Widow Anchor, Sky Striker Maneuver – Afterburners!, Altergeist Meluseek and Altergeist Silquitous.

Darkest Diabolos can be Special Summoned from the graveyard or hand when Thunder Dragon Colossus is Special Summoned by tributing a DARK non-Fusion Thunder Effect Monster. Normally this would only be Bolt Thunder Dragon or Beastial Thunder Dragon. But when Lair of Darkness is on the field, all face-up monsters becomes DARK, allowing Avian Thunder Dragon, Origin Thunder Dragon and Thunder Dragon to trigger Darkest Diabolos as well.

However, this concept of running Darkest Diabolos in Thunder Dragon is largely experimental and the relatively poor performance is reflected in the mediocre tournament record.

Conclusion

The huge spike in the performance of Altergeist this week puts it toe to toe against Sky Striker.

Thunder Dragon remains a popular choice, but was unable to breakthrough with Altergeist giving it a hard time.

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