Today I was able to participate in yet another Sneak Peek at my local store. The New Challengers will be making its official release in the US on November 7th.

Same as the last Sneak Peek, participants received a world premier promotional card and five booster packs, containing nine cards each. Any regular readers will remember my previous Sneak Peek article and how I went over the rules regarding the sealed format rules. For those just joining us and those who have forgotten, here’s a quick refresher.

1) Each player receives five 9-card packs and one promotional card- 46 cards total with which to build their decks. You are NOT allowed to trade, sell, or give away your cards until the tournament is finished, or unless you drop from the tournament.

2) The minimum number of cards your deck can contain is 20 cards instead of the usual 40. All Fusion, Synchro and Xyz Monsters you receive are placed in the Extra Deck, though I imagine you can put them in the Side Deck if you want. Pendulum Monsters are placed in the Main or Side Decks. The 3-card limit does NOT apply.

3) All cards you do not put into your Main or Extra Decks are put into your Side Deck. The 15-card limit does NOT apply for this tournament. Your Side Deck can contain as many cards as you like.

4) Most Side Deck rules apply, meaning you can use your Side Deck in between Duels, but with one major exception: You can actively modify your deck by increasing or decreasing its size (but you cannot go below 20 cards in your Main Deck), or by exchanging cards entirely. You do not have to “un-Side” after a Match.

Now, without further ado, let’s get to the deck list and strategy! This month, I was as poor as dirt, but thanks to my good friend Bryson over at the YouTube channel Meta Makers, I was able to enter the tournament. Be sure to give his channel a look-see, Like his videos, and subscribe to his channel!

First, the deck list.

Main Deck: 20

Monsters: 15

1x Lancephorhynchus

2x Elegy the Melodious Diva

2x Lindbloom

2x Serenade the Melodious Diva

1x Performapal Cheermole

1x Performapal Trampolynx

1x Ruffian Railcar

1x Satellarknight Betelgeuse

1x Scrounging Goblin

1x Shaddoll Hound

1x Superheavy Samurai Soulbang Cannon

1x Superheavy Samurai Soulshield Wall

Spells: 3

1x Celestia

1x Magical Star Illusion

1x Wonder Balloons

Traps: 2

2x Punch-in-the-Box

Extra Deck: 2

1x Frightfur Bear

1x CXyz Barian Hope

Side Deck: 24

2x Block Spider

2x Fluffal Cat

2x Shogi Lance

1x Deskbot 002

1x Fluffal Owl

1x Fluffal Rabbit

1x Gogogo Goram

2x Hexatellarknight

2x Oracle of the Herald

1x Laser Qlip

1x Mimiclay

1x Toy Vendor

1x U.A. Powered Jersey

1x Xyz Change Tactics

2x Yang Zing Brutality

1x Different Dimension Encounter

1x Performapal Revival

1x Qlipper Launch

As you can probably tell, the deck was much harder to put together this time around. Much of my strategy actually focused on defense rather than attack. But that’s not to say I didn’t attack at all. If anything, I took a leaf out of the Superheavy Samurai book and turned my defense INTO my offense. The key card in this strategy was Lindbloom, a new Wyrm-Type monster with a very interesting Trigger effect: During any damage calculation in which one of your monsters is battling an opposing monster, each monster’s ATK is changed to match its current DEF. As an example, Lindbloom has 0 ATK, but 1800 DEF. If it attacks a monster or is attacked by a monster, its ATK will become 1800 until the end of the Damage Step. This powerful ability allowed me to turn many of my high-DEF monsters into heavy beaters that I could use to get around most other monsters. The one major weakness of the effect was that my opponent could use their own high-DEF monsters to turn the effect against me. But more often than not, I was actually prepared for that.

Using my DEF to fight wasn’t my only tactic, however. Unlike in the last Sneak Peek, I was actually able to perform a Pendulum Summon! By using the Scale 4 Performapal Trampolynx, and the Scale 7 Lancephorhynchus, I could Pendulum Summon one or both copies of the Level 5 Elegy the Melodious Diva. This in turn would let Elegy use her effect to give all Fairy-Type monsters I control +300 ATK. If both copies of Elegy hit the field via Special Summon, that wound up being a +600 boost for my Fairies.

Comboing off the Pendulum Summon, I would use Trampolynx to return Lancephorhynchus to my hand so that I could Tribute Summon it. 2500 ATK is nothing to scoff at (if you don’t have a Lindbloom, of course). And if I had Performapal Cheermole in my hand, I could put it in the newly-emptied Pendulum Zone so that Lancephorhynchus its own +300 ATK boost.

Ruffian Railcar and Shaddoll Hound were put into the deck primarily for their Attack Points, 1800 and 1600, respectively. Railcar had the added bonus of a damage effect I could use on the first turn of the duel at no cost to my turn, or in any situation where attacking would be unwise.

The two Superheavy Samurai Soul monsters definitely warrant an explanation. I used them primarily for Soulbang Cannon‘s effect, a sort of last-ditch effort if I ever needed to get rid of some problem cards. If my opponent had a card whose effect activated in the Battle Phase- such as Lindbloom– I could negate that effect’s activation and destroy that card, along with every monster on the field.

The Spells were present to help me gain any kind of advantage over my opponent’s monsters’ ATK. The Field Spell Celestia, for instance, would turn Lindbloom into a 2100 ATK beater. Magical Star Illusion was also quite handy, especially against a field full of Set monsters. My opponent must have at least the same number of monsters as me, but they don’t have to be face-up!

The third Spell, Wonder Balloons, deserves its own paragraph. This card proved nightmarish in this format. Without Lindbloom to override it, Wonder Balloons would often spell doom for your opponent. Once each turn, you can feed it any number of cards from your hand to give it the same number of Balloon Counters. Each Balloon Counter would take away 100 ATK from your opponent’s monsters.

The only two Traps I used in the Main Deck were two copies of Punch-in-the-Box. Quite frankly, this card is amazingly nasty, and nastily amazing. When your opponent attacks while they have at least 2 monsters, you can send a different monster on their field to the Graveyard, then drop the attacking monster’s ATK by the sent monster’s ATK in the Graveyard. Does this card target? Yes. It targets the attacking monster. What about the other monster? Does it get targeted? The answer to that is a resounding NOPE! You do NOT tell your opponent which monster you’re stuffing into that spring-loaded boxing glove until you actually resolve the effect of Punch-in-the-Box. Oh, and one more thing: It “sends” to the Graveyard. It doesn’t “destroy” the monster, meaning a lot of anti-destruction effects will not work against it. For example: Stardust Dragon. There is one thing I noticed about this card, though: While you can certainly choose any monster to send to the Graveyard, the ATK decrease is dependent on that monster actually REACHING the Graveyard. If you choose to get rid of a Pendulum Monster, it will NOT go to the Graveyard, instead going to the Extra Deck. In that case, the attacking monster loses no ATK. Ditto any field with Macro Cosmos or similar cards in play.

The Extra Deck…. this was actually more useless than the last Sneak Peek. At least I had the means to summon Pilgrim Reaper and Cloudcastle. But a Fusion Monster without the proper Fusion Materials, and a Rank 7 Xyz Monster, well…. let’s just say those cards were only present as a formality.

I didn’t once use my Side Deck in this tournament, though I had given it consideration on many occasions. Most of the cards were useless to me, but I did ponder using most of the monsters, except for Shogi Lance. I had only considered using Mimiclay and Toy Vendor. I hardly even thought about using any of the Trap Cards, and when I did, I only considered Different Dimension Encounter and Performapal Revival.

I ended up taking 3rd place in the tournament. It wasn’t exactly my best day, though. I had an awful crick in my back- still present as I write this- which made concentration difficult. I also couldn’t remember some essential rulings with regards to ATK modifiers like Lindbloom and Wonder Balloons. This and a balloon-based stall strategy cost me the first round. The next two I won with some effort, though. The fourth and final round, however, was sheer luck, plain and simple. I got paired against the one guy who pulled Herald of Ultimateness. And wouldn’t you know it, the Ritual Spell was a COMMON. Short of depleting his hand and using Superheavy Samurai Soulbang Cannon, there was no way I would have won against that…. but his wife showed up and he decided to drop and go home, giving me the win. I have no doubt in my mind that I would have lost, though. I’m not going to pretend I could defeat Herald of Ultimateness.

I still ended up with a mat, though. So I’m pleased.

I’m going to go ahead and wrap this article up, folks. However, you should know that I’ve got two more articles in the works! The first will be discussing Prohibition and how it interacts with cards like Harpie Queen. The second will be a (hopefully simple) guide to ATK/DEF modifier effects. I’ll also try to do a few card reviews if I can get the time to research some of the more interesting cards in The New Challengers.

Until next time, Duelists! Duel fair and have fun!

UPDATE: Deck list now has links to the cards on the official database!