Welcome to Week #8 of the OCG 2018.07 format.

This report will cover 144 top-performing decks from 13 tournaments that were held in Japan and China during 15 – 21 August 2018.

Metagame Breakdown

59 Sky Striker

18 Altergeist

17 Gouki: 14 HERO Gouki 2 Greener HERO Gouki 1 Mono Gouki

6 DARK Warrior Link: 5 Mono DARK Warrior Link 1 Greener DARK Warrior Link

6 Good Stuff Link

6 Thunder Dragon

6 Trickstar

5 SPYRAL: 4 Mono SPYRAL 1 Greener SPYRAL

4 Cyber Dragon

3 ABC

3 Infernoid: 1 Greener Infernoid 1 Greener Lair Infernoid 1 Lair Infernoid

3 Wind-Up FTK

1 Atlantean Mermail

1 Blackwing

1 Burning Abyss Chaos Thunder Dragon

1 D/D

1 Demise True Draco

1 Junk Doppel

1 Mekk-Knight

1 Performapal Supreme King Magician

Metagame Analysis

The decline of Thunder Dragon and the rise of Altergeist has opened up the opportunity for Knightmare Link decks to perform well in the competitive scene.

The increase in Knightmare Link decks is not apparent initially as the deck can be built in a variety of ways – Gouki, DARK Warrior Link, Good Stuff Link, SPYRAL, ABC. However, when their numbers are tallied together, they hold a strong 25.7% of the competitive scene, double that of Altergeist.

Knightmare Link decks’ setup with Extra Link is difficult for both Sky Striker and Altergeist to deal it. Borrelsword Dragon and giving the opponent Knightmare Corruptor Iblee is often enough to shutdown Sky Striker, while Red Reboot leads to a One-Turn-Kill (OTK) against Altergeist.

Interestingly both the Japanese and Chinese players have come to the same conclusion that Knightmare Link decks are a strong contender for the current competitive scene, but they have developed different decks for the same approach.

Gouki is common among both regions, but the Japanese players went with Good Stuff Link, while the Chinese players took on DARK Warrior Link.

Sky Striker

Matcha (抹茶) went 7-1-1 and finished 1st in “4th Puchi Alpha CS with Hatti CS” (Team 3v3) which had 64 teams (192 participants).

The increased popularity of Knightmare Link decks have players allocated more Side Deck cards such as Skull Meister and Different Dimension Ground against them.

Skull Meister is able to negate Destiny HERO – Malicious, Dandylion, Doppelwarrior, Glow-Up Bulb, Jet Synchron, the various Gouki monsters, and many more Monster Effects that trigger in the graveyard. Skull Meister is unaffected by Magical Mid-Breaker Field, and multiple copies can be activated within the same turn, thus running 2 to 3 copies is great against an opponent who tries to power through the Maxx “C” challenge.

Different Dimension Ground is a great answer against That Grass Looks Greener. At times it has to be preemptively activated before the opponent Link Summon, but it would still be a decent tempo play that earns you a turn.

Altergeist

GenGen went 7-0-1 and finished 1st in “Summer Duel Fes 2018” (Team 3v3) which had 56 teams (168 participants).

He ran Scapegoat to protect himself from being OTK by Knightmare Link decks, especially when his traps are shutdown by Red Reboot.

Offensively, Scapegoat can also be used to Link Summon Summon Sorceress (through Linkuriboh and Security Dragon). Its effect can be used to Special Summon for Altergeist Meluseek by targeting another Spellcaster monsters. This allows him to go into Knightmare Cerberus and then Knightmare Gryphon in the Main Monster Zone. By shutting down the Monster Effects of Special Summoned monsters with Gryphon, Knightmare Link decks would have a difficult time developing their board.

He has also been experimenting with Grand Horn of Heaven. One of Sky Striker’s typical play is to send Sky Striker Mobilize – Engage! to graveyard using Sky Striker Ace – Hayate, and then retrieving it in Main Phase 2 by Link Summoning Sky Striker Ace – Kagari. Grand Horn of Heaven can be used to negate the summon of Kagari, instantly ending the Main Phase 2 and proceeding straight to the End Phase. This caught many players by surprise, often causing them to end with an empty board.

Gouki

Shirasagi Mayuri (白鹭茉百合) and Xiao Pei (小裴) finished 1st and 2nd respectively in “8th China National Championship” which had 536 participants.

They ran almost identical builds, but Xiao Pei chose to cut both copies of Dinowrestler Pankratops for the third Twin Twisters and the third Infinite Impermanence in the Side Deck.

Shirasagi Mayuri went 15-0, a perfect run, while Xiao Pei went 11-2-2.

They have chosen to go for a 60-card That Grass Looks Greener Gouki build, enabling them to run 4 Equipment Spell cards in the deck. This allows Isolde, Two Tales of the Noble Knights to Special Summon Armageddon Knight and further extending the combo.

But more often Neo-Spacian Aqua Dolphin is Special Summoned by Isolde to discard a monster from the opponent’s hand. This would commonly pick off Ghost Belle & Haunted Mansion, ensuring that Gouki Re-Match and Soul Charge would be able to resolve successfully later on.

An in-depth article written by Xiao Pei about the deck construction and card choices is available in Chinese: 60割草刚鬼浅谈

Conclusion

The metagame continues to evolve during the week of Bon Festival in Japan and CNC in China.

Sky Striker and Altergeist have to adapt and adjust their builds against threats from the various Knightmare Link decks to remain relevant in the competitive scene.

Apologies that this article took longer than usual to produce as the larger amount of tournaments and deck lists took a lot more time to tabulate, process and evaluate.

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