Welcome to Week #2 of the OCG 2019.04 format.

This report will cover 48 top-performing decks from 8 tournaments that were held in Japan, China and Taiwan during 13 – 16 April 2019.

New Product Release

Rising Rampage

Metagame Breakdown

10 Salamangreat

9 Orcust: 6 Phantom Knights Orcust 1 DARK Warrior Phantom Knights Orcust 1 Super Quantum Phantom Knights Orcust 1 mono Orcust

8 Sky Striker

5 Altergeist

4 Thunder Dragon

2 Gandora-X FTK

2 Subterror

2 Zefra

1 Cyber Dragon

1 Infernoid

1 Magician

1 Mashoudou Burn

1 Mekk-Knight

1 Trickstar

Salamangreat

There is yet to be a consensus on whether running Backup Secretary or Psychic Tracker, Psychic Wheeleder is better. They synergise with a different set of cards and thus have their own pros and cons.

The Special Summoning effect of Backup Secretary, Psychic Tracker and Psychic Wheeleder are once per turn, so drawing multiple copies of the same card meant that the second copy would be stuck in hand. Hence some players are choosing to run a combination such as {1 Backup Secretary + 1 Psychic Tracker} or {1 Psychic Tracker + 1 Psychic Wheeleder}. This allows them to be Special Summoned together on the same turn.

Lotus (ロータス) went 6-0-1 and finished 1st in “8th Ryuppy CS with Hatti” (Team 3v3).

He chose to run 1 Psychic Tracker + 1 Psychic Wheeleder.

Orcust

Hsu Li Te (許立德), 3 – 4th in the Asia Championship 2017, finished 1st in “21st National Taiwan University (NTU) Cup” which had 256 participants.

He made a bold tech choice to keep Fantastical Dragon Phantazmay in the Side Deck, and run 2 Ghost Belle & Haunted Mansion in the Main Deck.

Ghost Belle & Haunted Mansion improves the match-up against Thunder Dragon and is still relevant against Salamangreat and Orcust.

Sky Striker

Erekiteru (エレキテル) went 6-0 and finished 2nd in “92nd Oretachi Trading Card Division CS ★ 2v2 Team Battle”.

He ran 3 copies of There Can Be Only One, a very powerful Continuous Trap card that limits each player to 1 monster of each Type.

There Can Be Only One is very effective in the current metagame as most of the top decks consists of mainly 1 monster type: Salamangreat – Cyberse, Orcust – Machine, Thunder Dragon – Thunder, Altergeist – Spellcaster.

While it does prevent Sky Striker from using their Link Monster to Link Summon into another, but for the opponent to get through, they would have to take out the Sky Striker Link Monster, and that would allow Sky Striker Ace – Raye to be Special Summoned. Raye could then switch into another Sky Striker Link Monster.

Sky Striker Mecha Modules – Multirole and Sky Striker Airspace – Area Zero also give Sky Striker a certain degree of control over There Can Be Only One since they could turn off the effect by sending it to the graveyard when there is an opportunity to push for game.

Conclusion

Rising Rampage did not have any immediate impact on its release weekend.

Although there is no new cards played in the competitive scene, the metagame continues to evolve on its own as we see the resurgence of Ghost Belle & Haunted Mansion, causing a drop in Thunder Dragon.

On the surface it may seem that the same decks are being played, but these decks are continuously being refined with respect to the competitive scene, having minor changes made to the Main Deck and Side Deck. While these minor changes do not impact the overall strategy of the deck, it pushes the win rate by looking for these minor advantages to improve the various match-ups.

Very often, these minor changes are overlooked by those who see, but do not observe.

The weekly report aims to uncover these unassuming minor changes by taking a deeper look into the thoughts and logic behind these card choices with respect to the current competitive scene. If you enjoyed these Weekly Metagame Reports, do consider supporting Road of the King on Patreon. Thank you.

References