The Yu-Gi-Oh! metagame at the 2006 European Championships is full of interesting contrasts. While the standard contingent of the latest iteration of Chaos Control decks is once again in evidence, it would be short-sighted to write off the metagame so quickly. The latest hot tool in fighting against Chaos Sorcerer and its cronies is Macro Cosmos, which effectively neuters a vast array of the recursive threats from such decks, as well as making the Sorcerer itself a lot harder to bring into play.
As a response to this, Return from the Different Dimension is seeing more play than ever before, as it is the first, best, and possibly only line of defence beyond Heavy Storm for the ongoing trap. The English seem confident that maindeck Royal Decree is the right call in the metagame, but with more tribute monsters around then ever, thanks to Treeborn Frog, it is a little early to say. Of all these tribute monsters, Zaborg, The Thunder Monarch seems the most popular for the weekend, supplanting Mobius in the battle of the Monarchs.
In addition, there are a number of more off-the-wall decks on which players have placed their hopes for victory. Cyber-Stein is increasingly becoming a win condition of choice for many decks, either as part of a dedicated one-turn kill deck, or another cog in the Chaos control machine.
Of course there is one time that Cyber-Stein becomes decidedly weaker—when the game has gone to time, and the winner will be determined on first life change. It doesn’t matter how big that Dragon will be, Cyber-Stein will be killing you first! It’s not big and it’s not clever, kids. Just say no.