Winning Deck Analysis: Tyler Tabman's Toys

I suppose anyone who's at least somewhat competitive has found out that the North American Qualifier was won by Tyler Tabman and his Wind-Up deck. So, I suppose I was right about my prediction on my last post saying that it would be a deck that has yet to win a YCS, in this case, Wind-Ups.
I hope that you've all read a bit further than the winner and found that the finals were Wind-Ups VS Wind-Ups: Tyler's with Instant Fusion and Robert Lewis's with Maurauding Captain to easily bring out the Level 3s in your hand, to make Zenmaity.


Overview of Wind-Ups:

To understand why Wind-Ups have won, we must first understand why they couldn't win. In fact, there are quite a few cards out there that pose a problem to them. To name a few: Maxx ''C'', Effect Veiler, D.D. Crow, Gozen Match and even Cyber Dragon/Chimeratech. The biggest problem being Maxx ''C''. With the decrease of Maxx ''C'' in the main deck, Wind-Ups have a higher chance ''to shine'', raising the chance of winning game 1. This was just the good meta call.

 

Decklist:

Monsters: 21
3 – Wind-Up Rabbit
3 – Wind-Up Rat
3 – Wind-Up Shark
3 – Tour Guide From the Underworld
3 – Effect Veiler
2 – Wind-Up Magician
1 – Wind-Up Hunter
1 – Spirit Reaper
1 – Gorz the Emissary of Darkness

Spells: 13
3 – Mystical Space Typhoon
2 – Wind-Up Factory
2 – Instant Fusion
1 – Heavy Storm
1 – Book of Moon
1 – Dark Hole
1 – Pot of Avarice
1 – Mind Control
1 – Monster Reborn

Traps: 8
2 – Solemn Warning
2 – Torrential Tribute
2 – Bottomless Trap Hole
1 – Solemn Judgment
1 – Mirror Force

Extra: 15
3 – Wind-Up Carrier Zenmaity
1 – Wind-Up Zenmaines
1 – Number 20: Giga Brilliant
1 – Leviair the Sea Dragon
1 – Number 17: Leviathan Dragon
1 – Temtempo the Percussion Djinn
1 – Number 39: Utopia
1 – Acid Golem
1 – Steelswarm Roach
1 – Tiras, Keeper of Genesis
1 – Adreus, Keeper of Armageddon
1 – Cyber Saurus
1 – Dragoness the Wicked Knight

Side: 15
3 – Dimensional Fissure
3 – Shadow Imprisoning Mirror
2 – Maxx C
2 – Snowman Eater
2 – Dimensional Prison
1 – Kycoo The Ghost Destroyer
1 – Soul Taker
1 – Dust Tornado



Analysis:

1. Spirit Reaper: Spirit Reaper has found its place in the current meta, being able to stall out many decks such as Dino Rabbit, Chaos Dragons, Hieratics and even Heroes, until they waste a card such as Book of Moon or Forbidden Lance or Maestroke's effect.

2. Gorz: Even with continuous spells like Wind-Up Factory, Gorz is an essential card in the current meta. He is one of the only ones who can save you from: Future Fusion/Chaos Dragon, Inzektor Loop and even hurts a first or second turn Laggia.

3. Triple MST: Meant to destroy cards that would hurt the deck, probably stuff like Macro Cosmos and Gozen Match, being a must-have card.

4. Double Instant Fusion: Opens up Dragoness or Cyber Saurus XYZ plays (level 3 or level 5). With this, he was able to increase the chances to start up the loop on turn 1, being able to do something like summon Wind-Up Hunter and Instant Fusion into Dragoness for a quick Zenmaity, effectively starting up the loop. Of course, he can also bring out Tiras and Adreus using Shark + Cyber Saurus.

5. Double Bottomless Trap Hole: Great card for the current meta, being able to hit at least something in every top deck. Chaos Dragons; 90% of their deck. Heroes; 90% of their monsters. Wind-Ups; Shark, XYZs and Hunter. Dino Rabbit; all Dinos, Rabbit into Dinos, Dolkka, waste Laggia. Dark World, 90% of their monsters, mainly Grapha, which hurts a lot.

6. Triple D-Fissure: Hurting decks like Dark World while minimally hurting Wind-Ups.

7. Triple Shadow-Imprisonning: Obviously to counter at the same time decks like Dark World and Inzektor.

8. Double Maxx ''C'': For that Wind-Up mirror match, used  in the feature match.

9. Double Snowman Eater: Pesky Laggia counter.

10. Double D-Prison: My guess mostly for Chaos Dragons and Dark World.

11. Kycoo: Hurting Chaos Dragons for a while now.

12. Soul Taker: the Smashing Ground of this meta, designed to hurt Lightpulsar and E-Hero the Shining.

13. Dust Tornado: Another MST pretty much...

Conclusion:

With this major victory for Wind-Ups, my guess is that the price for the cards are going to rise for a while then come back down when people start bringing back Maxx ''C''. Of course, with the eventual decrease of Wind-Ups, Maxx ''C'' will also begin to lose play and go back to the 20-to-30ish card instead of 70ish. When that happens, I suppose people will dust off and surprise the public yet again with these toys.

Anyway, best of luck to you Tyler.

A look at the meta: July 2012

Hello and welcome to my first post on the Emissary of Dueling.
Name's Lord Yvern, name on DN, Sh0cKrA.

Now, this is, if you couldn't tell, a blog on Yu-Gi-Oh! and I am here to discuss our current meta, on July 2012. SO, I will go through the big decks at the moment and give my opinion on them.

The POWER THREE: of Dinos, Bugs and Toys

1. Dino Rabbit:
The arguably best deck of the meta, sporting 13 Nats Championship victories and the most YCS victories for the year, up-till-now, It is also the most stable of the power three, and also has one of the strongest openings: Laggia, Set 4. The thing that sets this deck apart is their ability to be at the same time a meta deck and an anti-meta deck, being able to main Macro Cosmos without being hurt, which hurts the rest of the Power Three. With power comes danger, Rabbit is also succeptible to bad hands, usually consisted of vanilla dinosaurs, and still gets hurts by Skill Drain.
Of course, Rescue Rabbit can also be played in more than just Dino Variant, it is the most powerful.

2. Inzektor:
The deck that shreds the field, leaving nothing in its wake... well, at least if all goes well. These bugs are the most aggroest of the Power Three with their combo being one of the most devastating in mid-late game. However, their deck requires ''key cards'' to start up the engine and if those cards were to be, for a reason or another unusable, the deck becomes also unusable. Other weaknesses include the fear of Shadow-Imprisoning, Macro Cosmos and Skill Drain, the first two easily sideable by Rabbit Decks and Shadow-Imprisoning by Wind-Ups.
However, it should be noted that while this deck has not yet won any YCSs, it sports 7 Nat victories.

 

3. Wind-Ups: 

Though some might argue on the third of the BIG THREE to be Chaos Dragons, I disagree. The reason why Chaos Dragons have been performing much better than Wind-Ups is that they're the anti-Rabbit deck. Now, in all card games, at top events there's usually the top-deck (in this case Rabbits), the one that people play with winning in mind and there's the counter-top-deck (in this case Chaos Dragons), the deck that hurts the ''TOP'' deck the most. Anyway, theory and shennanigans aside, there are the Wind-Ups. Wind-Ups have the most, no arguing, powerful and crippling first turn, if not stopped. Many people scoop when shown that the opponent has the Wind-Up loop + Pot of Avarice, that is the scariness of this deck. However, it also has its flaws, it cries at the hand of Gozen Match and its loop can be stopped by many cards (Maxx "C", Effect Veiler and D.D. Crow) that have the ability to be activated on even your opponent's tun.

On the other hand, Wind-Ups sports 6 Nat victories, winning the both North American WCQ, South American WCQ, but not winning any YCSs. 

The DARK HORSES: From the Dark World, out of Chaos, following the way of the Samurai and rewriting the Hieroglyphs, in a Heroic way

1. Dark World:
I'm sure that the threat of Grapha has not been forgotten by most when remembering YCS Long Beach, the largest YCS up-to-date. Its aggro-control style of play scares many decks out there and it stands head high when facing any deck. Its reviving Boss Monster, Grapha himself, makes some think whether killing the beast was worth it. However, this epic intro shouldn't hide the fact that it is also one of the easiest deck to side-deck against, with cards like Macro Cosmos, Dimensional Fissure and Shadow-Imprisoning running rampant in the current meta, Dark World suffers hard. However, with Effect Veiler running rampant, Dark World is happy to see the card in their opponent's hand while Dragging them. Anyhow, their single and their most glorious victory lies at YCS Long Beach.

 

2. Chaos Dragons:

With the Dragon Lord of Dark World on one hand, the chaotic dragons and their allies stand on the other.Their ability to bring out incredibly strong monsters at any given time scares most, even the scary Rescue Rabbit. Wanting to have a loop for themselves, they have their own REDM + Lightpulsar loop, keeping cards like Dark Hole, Torrential Tribute and Mirror Force at bay, thats without talking about a first turn Future Fusion spelling victory. For a decent amount of time, they were put on the same level as those of the Power Three, creating a temporary Rock, Paper, Scissors meta with Chaos Dragons being the rock, Dino Rabbits the scissors and Inzektor the paper. At the same time, many cards out there can stop their powers such as Macro Cosmos, Dimensional Fissure, Light-imprisoning and Necrovalley. They do however sport quite a few YCS victories and 6 NAT victories.

3. Six Samurai:
The threat of the Six lives on... With the ability to bring out many monsters and also having one of the most powerful first turns: Shien. Now with the buff that they've received in the form of a new stucture deck, few will tell us what they will become. With a spammable semi-Laggia in the form of Shien and great synergy within the deck, it is a potent force to face. However even Samurais fear certain cards, such as Kinetic Soldier, Warrior Elimination and well, Colossal Fighter. It does come with prestige though, topping many YCSs and pretty recently, winning YCS Guadalajare, that's without mentioning its victory at the Dominican Republic's NAT and also winning the WCQ of Central America.

4. Hieratics/Ninja Hieratics:
Though its popularity is not great in the western world, Asia knows better that we cannot underestimate these dragons, largely shadowed by their chaotic versions. Both the original and the variant are hurting players all over the Asian tournament scene and with their incredible speed and power, I am not surprised. Their main problems however involve that the deck is a hit-or-miss: either you get the combo out and win, or you don't and draw deader hands than Vanilla Dinosaurs. Other than that problem, there is the threat of Electric Virus, Mirror Force, Dark Hole, Torrential Tribute that they will have to face.

5. Heroes
The anti-meta deck of the format, their versatility and overall strength keeps this deck competitive. That goes without saying that Shining is a big monster for any deck and that Super Polymerization hurts all. They're also one of those decks that can play Macro Cosmos, Skill Drain, and most side-deckable cards without a problem. However, an early set-up is usually required to acquire victory and cannot keep up with other meta decks without a good early plan. Anyhow, they do have 4 NAT victories on their belts and they have topped quite a few YCSs.

SUMMARY:
As a thought on how the World Championship will go, I hope that more innovative decks would appear, or a variant of the top decks at the moment.
My guess is that Dino Rabbit will not be the winning deck, neither will it be Chaos Dragons but one of the decks that have not yet won a YCS.