It’s been a while since we’ve had a tech update here in Metagame tournament coverage, but today’s tournament is just bristling with single card innovation. While most players are running an established archetype, everybody and their grandmother seems to be packing one or two secret weapons to try and find an edge. Here are some of the best tech choices seeing play today.

Marshmallon:

A top pick for competitors like Paul Levitin, Marshmallon is a star in multiple matchups, and a great addition to Teleport Dark Armed. Previously run out of top tournaments by the easy-access removal effects of the Gladiator Beast monsters, Marshmallon is back, giving players like Levitin a big edge both in the mirror match, and against Lightsworn.

TeleDAD has very few actual monster destruction effects: spinning Marshmallon with Phoenix Wing Wind Blast is only a temporary answer, while signature monsters like Stardust Dragon and Thought Ruler Archfiend can’t get through Marshmallon’s pillowy hide. “They usually have to waste a Synchro, summoning Red Dragon Archfiend to get through it,” remarked Levitin. That and Dark Armed Dragon are the deck’s two most likely answers, and that creates a big problem. TeleDAD is renowned for its speed, but it’s also known as a deck that can quickly burn itself out. Most games will only see the deck making two Synchro summons, perhaps special summoning one copy of Dark Armed Dragon in addition. Having to spend one of those two or three big summons on Red Dragon Archfiend means one less Stardust or Thought Ruler that the Marshmallon player will have to deal with.

Meanwhile, Red Dragon is the only level 8 Synchro lacking a built-in defensive ability. While Stardust, Thought Ruler, and Colossal Fighter all protect themselves (from destruction effects, targeting spells and traps, and battle respectively), Red Dragon is a sitting duck. Phoenix Wing Wind Blast and Compulsory Evacuation Device send it right back to the extra deck without any complications. If it’s not paired with Stardust Dragon, Mirror Force and Bottomless Trap Hole can spell disaster. TeleDAD’s win percentage rests heavily on its ability to present multiple control effects at once. Summoning Red Dragon makes it a lot harder to do that.

In the Lightsworn matchup Marshmallon can also be quite effective, and part of its potential lies in its surprise factor. While most duelists are running three copies of Celestia, Lightsworn Angel, few are running more than one Ryko, Lightsworn Hunter, or more than one Ehren, Lightsworn Monk. That means very few answers to Marshmallon, and an incorrect read can result in lost opportunities for game shots. I think most duelists would read a set monster in TeleDAD as Sangan pretty automatically. The only other possible reads are stuff like Necro Gardna or Mystic Tomato, the bulk of which are undesirable targets for a destruction effect — the Tomato’s really the only one a Lightsworn player would want to hit with Ryko or Celestia. Any face-down defense position card is a definite mark for Ehren, but she’s just not seeing the table time lately.

The result is a metagame where Marshmallon ranges between a game-saving card, to a game-breaking one, and at its worst it’s a defensive powerhouse. There are no Gladiator Beast decks anywhere near the top tables that I’ve seen, and that makes Marshmallon an incredibly safe, hugely advantageous piece of tech.

Magic Cylinder:

Marshmallon’s burn effect is also doing some decent damage, dropping opponents that have played Solemn Judgment to lower inflection points in the mid and late game. But Magical Cylinder is even better, and it’s seeing play splashed in practically everything.

With Gladiator Beasts seemingly down and out in this tournament, the only matchup packing a lot of spell and trap removal is Lightsworn, and most builds are only running two copies of Lyla, Lightsworn Sorceress — not three. They’re also choosing to target monsters with the effects of Ryko, Lightsworn Hunter and Celestia, Lightsworn Angel more frequently than perhaps expected, and that means relative safety for spell and trap cards. In the TeleDAD matchup? Forget it. Giant Trunade is at an all-time low, Mystical Space Typhoon is no longer being universally played, and Heavy Storm is easily negated in many cases. The result is a tournament metagame where Magic Cylinder almost always resolves. Combined with the big monsters dominating the tournament scene, the result is 2000 to 3000 damage every time Cylinder is activated.

Before your opponent activates Solemn Judgment, that level of damage can be enough to threaten a change in the pace of play. But after even just one Solemn Judgment has been activated and paid for, Magic Cylinder becomes a card that either drops your opponent by multiple inflection points and completely alters the way he or she has to approach the game, or, even better, it’s an instant win. Prime Material Dragon is gone, Hanewata is still weeks off, and Royal Decree seems to be falling out of favor in the handful of decks it could be used. It’s the perfect time to play this Yugi-favorite.

Magic Drain:

Speaking of old-school traps, Magic Drain is also seeing play in conjunction with Solemn Judgment. The top two decks in this format are largely dependent on a suite of draw and search cards, and without them they’re not nearly as good. Destiny Draw? Not particularly awesome when it’s just a one-card loss. Charge of the Light Brigade? Also not as cool when it doesn’t actually get you a monster from your deck.

TeleDAD is a combo strategy dependent on spells; disrupt them and you can beat it quite soundly, just as one could beat the original Dark Armed Return builds. Most TeleDAD hands need every card they have in order to create those big kill-turns. The current builds people are running are fine-tuned on a mathematic level to anticipate only a certain number of negation cards, and adding two or three Magic Drain to your deck throws that balance totally off kilter. Even if a TeleDAD player doesn’t need all of his or her cards to create a big turn, that player does generally need all the spells: Mystical Space Typhoon and Reinforcement of the Army are largely the only “disposable” spells the deck runs, and losing anything else to force through a draw card or a Teleport is often akin to an instant loss. Even then, Reinforcement can be a stretch in this context.

The popularity of Magic Drain has even led to a resurgence in Counter Fairies: several builds were undefeated in the very early rounds, though none made it through later matches. Thanks to the heavy combo dependency the top decks suffer from right now, it’s actually a stellar time to dust off Bountiful Artemis and Harvest Angel of Wisdom. Watch for Counter Fairies to gain representation over the next couple of months, but also watch for strange new variants that fail. I’m not sure why everyone has to do bizarre new things with Counter Fairy decks all the time (the same thing led to the concept’s downfall last year at Shonen Jump Championship Columbus), but a simple build could be a strong entrant into this format.

Windstorm of Etaqua:

Finally, yet another time-honored trap card is back from the shoebox of jank, making one-of appearances in tons of player’s side decks. Windstorm of Etaqua hasn’t really been on the competitive radar since the Goat Lock format (where it could easily seal a duel by turning multiple Sheep tokens to attack mode), but it’s starting to creep back into high-table play.

The reason? It too works well against TeleDAD and Lightsworn. Facing a Lightsworn swarm, Windstorm will block all potential attackers while turning them to their weak defense position. It can chain to Judgment Dragon’s effect to keep the Dragon from attacking too. Against TeleDAD it’s one of the few rare universal solutions to any current Synchro monster; it doesn’t destroy anything, so Stardust can’t stop it. It doesn’t target, so it also gets around Thought Ruler Archfiend. When TeleDAD goes for game with two Synchro summons in a single turn, Windstorm can rebuke both of them and anything else that would have dealt damage. Then you can mop up next turn.

Windstorm is actually main deck worthy in Lightsworn right now, taking the place of Book of Moon in any build that runs three Ehren, Lightsworn Monk. Packing Ehren alongside it, Windstorm even becomes an answer to the Lightsworn duelist’s Synchro nemesis — Colossal Fighter. Windstorm could be big tech for this archetype, so if you’re a Lightsworn player looking for something new, try main decking multiples.