Welcome to Week #0 of the OCG 2020.04 format.

This preliminary report will cover 105 top-performing decks from 15 tournaments that were held in Japan and Singapore during 20 – 29 March 2020, played under the new OCG 2020.04 Limit Regulation.

New Product Release

The Valuable Book 22 promotional cards Cyberspace Beast Jiujiu Cyberspace Dragon Longlong

Structure Deck: Sacred Beasts of Chaos

V Jump Spring 2020 subscription bonus promotional cards Speedroid Block-n-Roll Speedroid CarTurbo‎ D/D Dog

V Jump May 2020 promotional card Cyberspace Princess Niangniang



Metagame Breakdown

18 Orcust (10 Dragoon Orcust, 6 Sky Striker Dragoon Orcust, 1 Scrap Dragoon Orcust, 1 Scrap Orcust)

15 Salamangreat (11 Salamangreat, 4 Dragoon Salamangreat)

15 Thunder Dragon (13 Thunder Dragon, 2 Dragoon Thunder Dragon)

8 Sky Striker (5 Sky Striker, 3 Dragoon Sky Striker)

6 Invoked (4 Dragoon Invoked, 1 Sky Striker Dragoon Invoked, 1 Eldlich Dragoon Invoked)

5 Cyber Dragon

4 Eldlich

4 SPYRAL

3 Altergeist

3 Danger Dark World (2 Danger Dark World, 1 Dragoon Shaddoll Danger Dark World)

3 Magician

2 Dragoon Dinosaur

2 Gizmek Orochi Da Eiza

2 HERO

2 Mythical Beast Endymion

2 Zefra

1 Code Talker

1 Dragonmaid

1 Dragoon Burning Abyss

1 Dragoon Mekk-Knight Orcust

1 Eldlich Frog Paleozoic

1 Generaider

1 Grass Infernoid

1 Lunalight

1 Madolche

1 Mekk-Knight

1 3-Axis Synchro

Orcust

Despite being weakened by the OCG 2020.04 Limit Regulation with Orcust Harp Horror and Galatea, the Orcust Automaton limited, Orcust remains as the top contender in the new metagame.

The limitation made the I:P Masquerena opening much less desirable, causing Orcust players opting to finish with Red-Eyes Dark Dragoon instead. All of the Orcust decks that topped in Japan for this 2 weeks were running Dragoon.

Ryuppy (りゅっぴー) went 6-1 and finished 1st in “3rd PGS (Persona-Games)” (Team 3v3) which had 21 teams (63 participants).

He had prepared 2 Radian, the Multidimensional Kaiju in the Side Deck as Red-Eyes Dark Dragoon is still a dominant force in the metagame.

He also ran 2 Nibiru, the Primal Being in the Side Deck against Salamangreat, which is experiencing a resurgence.

Salamangreat

Hinkinson Louis Takashi “ふぇーり”, World Championship 2018 Japan Representative, went 6-0-1 and finished 1st in “3rd PGS (Persona-Games)” (Team 3v3) which had 21 teams (63 participants). His team mate Mikan (みかん) ran the exact same build and went 5-1-1.

This Salamangreat build was developed with Kosaka Kouki “魔鏡”, the 2019 World Champion who won using Salamangreat.

Taking advantage of the new Master Rule (1 April 2020 Revision), the deck uses Parallel eXceed to easily make Rank 4 monsters such as Number 60: Dugares the Timeless to draw cards, Abyss Dweller to disrupt the graveyard, or Number 41: Bagooska the Terribly Tired Tapir to negate Monster Effects. As Xyz Monsters can be Special Summoned directly onto the Main Monster Zone, this doesn’t affect the flow of the Salamangreat combo.

Kosaka’s unique touch is the inclusion of Formud Skipper, a Level 1 Cyberse monster. Being a Cyberse monster allows Formud Skipper to be used as a Link material for the Link Summoning of Salamangreat Balelynx, and that in turn would activate its Trigger Effect to add 1 Level 5 or higher Cyberse monster from your Deck to hand, which would put Parallel eXceed in hand. One for One can be used to Special Summon Formud Skipper, and that would allow the Normal Summon to be used on Lady Debug.

Thunder Dragon

Thunder Dragon is one of the decks that benefits from the new Master Rule (1 April 2020 Revision).

Being able to Special Summon Fusion Monsters directly in the Main Monster Zone meant that they could now skip the Link Monster and Special Summon both Thunder Dragon Colossus and Thunder Dragon Titan using under 5 summons to play around Nibiru, the Primal Being.

Sentence Spring (センテンススプリング) went 7-1 and finished 1st in “139th Oretachi Trading Card Club CS” which had 66 participants.

Thunder Dragonlord is a new addition from Eternity Code. It can generate resources by using its ② effect to send Thunder Dragondark from the deck to the graveyard during the End Phase, and then during the opponent’s turn use its ① effect to banish Thunder Dragondark and another card as cost. Thunder Dragondark ② effect can then add a “Thunder Dragon” card from deck to hand.

Thunder Dragonlord ① makes a Thunder monster becomes untargetable by opponent’s card effect, and can be used on Thunder Dragon Colossus against Altergeist or Sky Striker. Altergeist relies on Altergeist Meluseek to clear Thunder Dragon Colossus. Sky Striker could chain to Thunder Dragonlord‘s effect if they opened with Sky Striker Mecha – Widow Anchor in hand, but more often they depend on using Sky Striker Mobilize – Engage! or the combination of Sky Striker Ace – Hayate and Sky Striker Ace – Kagari to fetch Sky Striker Mecha – Widow Anchor.

Similar to Thunder Dragon Titan trick mentioned in OCG 2019.10 Metagame Report #10, Thunder Dragonlord can be used to play around Called by the Grave by banishing your ‘hand trap’ in respond. Thunder Dragonlord is better at this role as its ① effect is a free timing Quick Effect and banishing from the graveyard is a cost.

However, a point to note is that Red-Eyes Dark Dragoon ② effect does not target, so it could still choose to destroy the Thunder monster even though it became untargetable by Thunder Dragonlord ① effect.

Conclusion

Despite the limitation of Red-Eyes Dark Dragoon, Red-Eyes Fusion and Predaplant Verte Anaconda, Dragoon still had quite a strong presence in the this preliminary metagame.

Orcust is currently leading in the front and its predominant build is the Dragoon variant. Trailing behind are Salamangreat, Thunder Dragon, Sky Striker and Invoked and these decks are able to splash Dragoon too.

Kaiju is the current popular choice to deal against Red-Eyes Dark Dragoon.

Orcust would prefer to run Radian, the Multidimensional Kaiju as the DARK Kaiju could be used for Dark Grepher.

Salamangreat would prefer to run Dogoran, the Mad Flame Kaiju as the FIRE Kaiju could be retrieved from the graveyard by Salamangreat Sunlight Wolf.

Thunder Dragon would prefer to run Thunder King, the Lightningstrike Kaiju as the Thunder Kaiju could be added to hand by Thunder Dragon Fusion.

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