I explained my expectations for the metagame today in the most recent School of Duel, so I’ve decided to take to the floor to see what the players think is going to go down and what they’ve been preparing for. There’s less than an hour remaining for registration and thus far it’s looking like the most played deck at this event is going to be Monarchs. Many players have explained to me that they simply didn’t know what to expect other than different Monarch builds and Demise. The main changes between the Monarch decks of Philly and the ones I’m seeing today are all Raiza based, with players either flat out swapping their Zaborgs out for Raizas or simply adding Raiza into the mix and modifying the deck accordingly. Paul Levitin, for example, has opted for a 12-Gauge build that runs three of everything but Granmarg, along with the requisite Mother Grizzly cards, Treeborn Frog, and Revival Jam. From what I’ve seen and heard thus far, not many people are main decking or side decking answers against the Destiny Hero Monarch deck, something that they seem to reconcile with the argument that its “too expensive” to see mainstream play. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about competitive players, however, it’s that they will get the cards they need to maximize their chances of winning.

Speaking of getting the cards they need, I’m amazed that I haven’t seen or heard very much about the Crystal Beasts. From my experience, it’s a very fast, very powerful deck, but the few builds that I’ve seen thus far are far from these ideals. I’ve only seen the slower Ancient City — Rainbow Ruins builds so far, and even within that group I’m seeing some fairly dubious card choices. A good example would be Last Resort, which seems like it would be really handy in such a deck, but in actuality will probably do these players more harm than good. Players have also been telling me that if they were to play Crystal Beasts, either here or at Nationals, they would do so with either no traps or with only Ring of Destruction, Torrential Tribute, and Mirror Force. I would take issue with both of those approaches, though the latter is far more acceptable than the former. Yes, Crystal Beasts is a speedy deck. Yes, traps aren’t as fast as normal and quick-play spells. The fact remains, however, that Crystal Raigeki and the power traps are incredibly good and set you up for those super-fast wins.

Finally, maybe I’m just talking to the wrong people, but Sky Scourge Norleras has seen barely any mention at all. Perhaps it’ll get a bit more face time on the message boards as tournament reports flood in about how said players were “sacked” by someone who stuck Dimension Fusion on top of his or her deck with A Feather of the Phoenix and then played Norleras. There must be some people out here playing it, but the most duelists seem to be willing to bet against ever having to play against the neo-Chaos monster. Anti-Demise cards are still dominating the side decks, much to the chagrin of the Demise players who showed up hoping to sneak into an undefined metagame. For the most part though, people seem to have defaulted to Monarchs for the event. Decks based on the new field spell searchers are nearly non-existent thus far (I saw someone sleeving Harpie Queens), and I’ve also seen the usual contingent of rogue and burn decks. Overall though, people don’t seem to be scared at all of any of this. As I said above, most people are running Monarchs and are expecting others to do the same, which is essentially correct based on my current observations. Still, that doesn’t mean that there’s nothing interesting here. I’m just one man, and I can’t investigate every single deck and player out there. Hopefully there are a lot of surprises to come, so keep on checking back to Metagame.com for the latest from Minneapolis!