Cyber-Stein and Enemy Controller were bigger than ever before. Stein will definitely be a major enduring presence in this format for its last few months, but there isn’t much to be said about either it or Controller that hasn’t already been said. Instead, I’ll look at the four cards that haven’t seen nearly as much play before as they did this weekend.

Banisher of the Radiance: Jake McNeely and company aren’t the only duelists running Banisher of the Radiance today. Several competitors are using it in one of two different ways. The first is a twist on McNeely’s strategy, running three copies in order to remove everything from the game when it would otherwise hit the graveyard. This is different from McNeely’s strategy, because it prevents both duelists from using Chaos Sorcerer, while McNeely still looks to use it himself. The benefits to this are interesting though. A deck that can keep Banisher of the Radiance on the table, and get it out early enough, can turn Magician of Faith, Mystic Tomato, and Sangan into almost totally useless cards. It can then avoid using those cards in order to generate an advantage from Banisher’s symmetrical effect.

The second is as support for various remove from play tricks. While we all know that a face up D. D. Survivor removed from the game will return in the end phase, but duelists here are using Banisher to load their graveyard for Return, gain massive life points with Soul Absorption, and even take advantage of more challenging effects like Chaos Greed.

The first method was really popular this weekend, because the Arlington metagame has some interesting localized trends. Mystic Tomato is huge here, and other self-replacing monsters see more play than they normally would. The result is a tournament where Sakuretsu Armor saw infinitely more play than Bottomless Trap Hole: liberal sprinklings of Mystic Swordsman LV2 also encouraged the use of Sakuretsu. But with the driving force of that trend being “recruiter” monsters, Banisher becomes incredibly good. Not only is this the first event after the Japanese Nationals, but it also happened to be primed to support Banisher of the Radiance.

Don Zaloog: Hey everyone, Don’s back! After an extended vacation in Bermuda, everyone’s favorite bandolier-wearing sword-wielder saw a ton of play this weekend. I personally hate Don Zaloog: I think it’s vastly inferior to Spirit Reaper, since it’s so easily wiped off the field. It’s especially weak in an environment filled with Mystic Tomato, but there were some definite reasons for Don’s re-emergence. In an environment packed with recruiter monsters like Tomato and Shining Angel, Mystic Swordsman LV2 gains a certain degree of viability, so a lot of duelists were running one Reinforcement of the Army. At that point, it’s an easy leap to running Don, since Don gains the edge over Reaper of being searchable from the deck by both Sangan and Reinforcement, instead of just the furball.

Its most visible showing was in the finals, where James Naughton rotated in a single copy from his side deck, partly in order to improve his changes of pre-negating cards like Banisher of the Radiance and Kycoo. McNeeley had already sided the Banishers out by this point, but it was a smart call on Naughton’s behalf and wasn’t just made for that reason alone. This game is all about options, and leveraging those options into actual results. Sometimes the ability to dynamically search out options, such as Don Zaloog with Reinforcement of the Army, compensates for inherent risks (like having Don run over by a bigger monster right after it scores a successful hit).

Rush Recklessly: This card was everywhere. It was used in Chaos Return, several of Team GG’s decks, and lots of others that we didn’t have a chance to profile. On its most basic level, the card functions as an alternate entry to the same family of monster destruction that holds Bottomless Trap Hole and Sakuretsu Armor. It has its benefits and its drawbacks, and makes for another specialized entry into the card group. Its main drawback is that you usually need to control a monster in order to leverage it into monster destruction. On the flip side, Sakuretsu Armor and Bottomless Trap Hole can’t deal damage, Bottomless is limited to a certain ATK range, and neither can blow away a defense position Spirit Reaper.

On a more refined level, the card does more than just take card slots that would normally go towards conventional monster destruction. Cyber Dragon has served to alienate several cards from this format: a lot of duelists consider cards like Vampire Lord and Enraged Battle Ox to be simply unplayable due to Cyber Dragon’s ability to trump them with raw numbers. But, Cyber Dragon is only two or three cards out of forty, and you can match that number by playing two or three Rush. When you do, it appears as if you’ll be able to frequently trump a Cyber Dragon that is going for your smaller monster. I witnessed the “Cyber Dragon slams into Rush Recklessly” play over and over yesterday, and it was almost shocking to see the frequency with which it was happening.

Of course, when it’s not functioning as an emergency trump card against Cyber Dragon it can be used to deal more damage, create unexpected attacks, and target Reaper in the battle phase. It’s a highly versatile card, so while it provides a very refined, very specific service to certain monsters in the current play environment it does so without becoming a low utility card. Expect it to see a lot more play for the next few months, taking over slots from Sakuretsu, Bottomless, and Smashing Ground. Whether or not it can really expand the scope of the format by supporting smaller monsters remains to be seen, but so far the card has a lot of practical results on more basic levels.

Summoner of Illusions: This was definitely the random tech card of the weekend. Though it didn’t make the Top 8 in any way shape or form, a lot of duelists were experimenting with Summoner, probably because everyone and their mother has rushed out to build complete, Cyber-Stein-compliant fusion decks. When you’re already packing powerful fusions like Cyber End Dragon, Cyber Twin Dragon, Dark Balter the Terrible and Ryu Senshi, it’s going to cross your mind that, “Hey, using these guys without paying 5000 life points would be cool.” Summoner is balanced by its two chief restrictions: it needs to be flipped from the field, and can’t just be normal summoned like Cyber-Stein. That makes it a lot harder to use, since it can attack and be disrupted before it becomes useful. At the same time, you need to have a monster to tribute for its effect. But with Scapegoat being played in darn near everything now, that’s a bit easier than it once was.

The payoff for braving those pitfalls? A one-turn Stein effect that doesn’t cost life points. That’s pretty great, and can often mean game. The card is risky, and wasn’t particularly successful, so I doubt it will gain much popularity. But the potential that the card holds will always be there, and I’m sure that a small part of the dueling population is going to revisit it every now and then.

Of these four cards, the one most likely to see big play in the near future is definitely Rush Recklessly. Whether or not duelists will adopt the Banisher of the Radiance tech pioneered in Japan and brought to us by Jake McNeely, Jake Campbell, and Chris Sorelle, remains to be seen. If McNeely had won, then the deck’s proliferation through North America would have been a lock. As it stands, I can’t help but hearken back to many innovative decks that have done well but gone relatively ignored by the dueling masses. Banisher could be the next big thing, or it could be a flop.

There’s the tech. What you do with it is up to you, and it’ll be interesting to see what impact these cards might have at Shonen Jump Philadelphia one week from now.