The OCG 2018.04 Limit Regulation saw the rise of Sky Striker while Magician maintained their position despite the initial hit of having Double Iris Magician limited.

Compiled from a total of 542 top-placing decks from 81 competitive tournaments held in Japan, China and Asia, here is the final metagame breakdown of the OCG 2018.04 format.

Metagame Breakdown

179 Sky Striker: 177 Mono Sky Striker 2 Invoked Sky Striker

114 Magician: 106 Performapal Magician 7 Performapal Supreme King Magician 1 Performapal Odd-Eyes Magician

87 ABC: 65 Sky Striker ABC 21 Greener HERO ABC FTK 1 ABC FTK

36 Altergeist

35 Zefra: 27 Metalfoes Zefra 8 Mono Zefra

26 Gouki: 16 Sky Striker Gouki 10 Sky Striker Malicious Gouki

16 Trickstar: 7 Mono Trickstar 7 Sky Striker Trickstar 1 Invoked Trickstar 1 Mekk-Knight Trickstar

8 SPYRAL: 6 Sky Striker SPYRAL 2 Mono SPYRAL

7 Infernoid: 4 Greener Sky Striker Infernoid 2 Sky Striker Infernoid 1 Grinder Lair Infernoid

6 Mekk-Knight: 2 Kaiju Mekk-Knight 2 Sky Striker Mekk-Knight 1 Invoked Mekk-Knight 1 Kaiju Invoked Mekk-Knight

4 Atlantean Mermail: 2 Genex Atlantean Mermail 2 Sekka Genex Frog Atlantean Mermail

3 Burning Abyss

3 Infernity

3 Subterror

2 Bamboo Sky Striker Magical Explosion

2 Kozmo

2 Meta Beat

2 World Chalice

1 Demise True Draco

1 Greener Sky Striker Monarch

1 Invoked Shaddoll

1 Magical Musket

1 Palladium

1 Sky Striker Synchron Skyblaster

1 Zombie

Sky Striker

Sky Striker was already performing quite well at the start of the OCG 2018.04, but there were still some games where the deck would fizzle out due to not drawing Sky Striker Mobilize – Engage!. This consistency issue was resolved with the release of Sky Striker Ace – Hayate in Cybernetic Horizon, propelling Sky Striker to the top.

Sky Striker is undoubtedly the best deck in this format, having won multiple major tournaments such as YOT Thailand 2018 and 4 out of 5 Asia Championship 2018 Qualifiers. In the Japan World Championship Qualifiers 2018, 4 out of 5 players won their World Championship 2018 invitation using Sky Striker too.

Sky Striker Mecha – Hornet Drones – 3 → 1

The limitation of Sky Striker Mecha – Hornet Drones does decrease the consistency of Sky Striker, but the impact to Sky Striker’s strategy is little. Sky Striker is doing better than ever in the OCG 2018.07 format as its worst match-up, Magician, is now out of the competitive scene.

Magician

The limitation of Supreme King Dragon Darkwurm saw Magician focusing on the Performapal build.

Magician has a good match-up against Sky Striker as Star Pendulumgraph prevents Sky Striker Mecha – Widow Anchor and Sky Striker Maneuver – Afterburners! from targeting your Spellcaster monsters.

Magician is also able to run Naturia Beast and Secret Village of the Spellcasters to further skew the match-up in their favour.

Astrograph Sorcerer – 3 → 1

– 3 → 1 Harmonizing Magician – 3 → 1

– 3 → 1 Heavymetalfoes Electrumite – 3 → 1

Limiting these 3 core cards of the deck left Magician with no more tricks up their sleeves.

ABC

Sky Striker ABC was performing quite well early in the format while running Shaddoll engine in their Side Deck. However, their weakness was later figured out to be Retaliating “C”.

A new variant, Greener HERO ABC FTK, came out mid format and saw a brief surge in popularity during Golden Week. While they have a relatively short appearance, their impact on the competitive scene is significant enough to warrant a direct ban to both Cannon Soldier and Toon Cannon Soldier.

Cannon Soldier – 3 → 0

– 3 → 0 Toon Cannon Soldier – 3 → 0

– 3 → 0 Sky Striker Mecha – Hornet Drones – 3 → 1

Although the First-Turn-Kill is still possible with Cannon Soldier MK-2 or Amazoness Archer, the combo is now much harder to pull off and requires a significant investment in the Extra Deck.

Having Sky Striker Mecha – Hornet Drones limited hurts ABC, but running 2 Speedroid Terrortop and 1 Speedroid Taketomborg is a good substitute.

Conclusion

Out of all 542 decks, 179 decks were Sky Striker and 116 decks were using the Sky Striker engine. 247 decks were not running any Sky Striker Mecha – Hornet Drones.

ABC and Gouki are the top two decks that gained the most from running Hornet Drones.

However the Sky Striker engine is only applicable for decks that performs a significant amount of Link Summoning as part of their strategy. Pendulum decks like Magician and Zefra do not have a use for Hornet Drones.

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