Today’s metagame is very interesting, because there are four top decks that were obvious picks: Gladiator Beasts, Dark Armed Dragon, Lightsworn, and Monarchs. But the actual percentage of the field that each deck will comprise was extremely difficult to predict due to the viability of all four strategies, and a lot of top players are bringing heavily metagamed decks or innovative rogue strategies as well. That means there are a ton of wildcards that make the field even tougher to predict.

In order to construct an optimal deck for this tournament, a duelist would first have to decide what he or she was likely to go up against. A metagame read has to be made before you choose what to play, let alone what tech to run. I figured that with so many top duelists milling about before the tournament began, it would be cool to see what some of the game’s best players were anticipating. The results were intriguing, because they varied so much from player to player.

I started by talking to Jon Moore, right after getting the final list for his Six Samurai deck profile. His predictions for what he’d play against today? One Dark Armed Dragon, two Gladiator Beasts, one rogue deck, and a whopping six Lightsworn. It was a surprising call, so I asked him why he thought he’d face so many Lightsworn decks in today’s field: his answer was one that would be echoed by others. “I hung out and watched all the Last Chance Regionals yesterday. We actually did the math — the field was 80 to 90 percent Lightsworn.” Virtually anyone who scouted the Last Chance events yesterday would go on to predict a heavier Lightsworn presence than they’d initially guessed. Lightsworn was absolutely massive in yesterday’s qualifiers.

 

I caught up with Florida’s Andrew Fredella next, a Shonen Jump Champion and a star player for Team Illusion. They’re the newest group representing the famed B.R.A.D.’s Sportscards and Collectibles, and Fredella is looking to chalk up a big win here this weekend for the fledgling team. His predictions? Five Gladiator Beasts, three Dark Armed Dragon, one Gadget Anti-Metagame build (with Fossil Dyna Pachycephalo), and one Counter Fairy deck. Counter Fairies was a surprising choice, but Fredella had very purposeful reasoning: “It’s my worst matchup!” He broke into a grin. “I’ve never been able to beat it. Not once. I guarantee I play it today!”

Jesus Suarez had a similar metagame read, predicting five Gladiator Beasts, four Dark Armed Dragons, and a single Samurai deck. “I’ve seen some of those being played this morning,” he remarked, referring to the Samurai call. “I really want to play Gladiators all day long though.” Suarez and some of his teammates on Yu-Gi-Oh! ETC are playing a Monarch build fine-tuned to take down what they see as the number one deck here this weekend. Cesar Gonzalez was looking on, trying to work himself into a picture, and nodded emphatically.

Gonzalez himself made a similar read, but was one of the duelists anticipating Lightsworn as well. Like his teammates, he figured he’d play against five Gladiator Beast decks by the time the day was out, alongside three Dark Armed Dragon builds and two Lightsworn. Jesse Samek and Ryan Spicer were making similar guesses: Samek was prepared to face four Gladiator Beasts, two Dark Armed Dragons, two Lightsworn, and a Rogue build. “Maybe something like Gadgets with Fossil Dyna,” remarked Samek. Spicer was banking on playing six Gladiator Beasts, six Dark Armed Dragons, two Lightsworn, and he had no rogue deck on his radar.

Comic Odyssey stopped by next, and they were pretty together about their matchup expectations. I started with Ryan Hayakawa, and caught him totally off guard: “Uhhh . . . Ummmm . . . Uhhhh!” Ryan blinked and struggled to come up with his evaluation, so I quickly moved on to Eric Wu. “I think I’m going to see four Gladiator Beasts, four Dark Armed Dragons, and two Monarchs,” replied Wu, not missing a beat. His response was actually the fastest of the morning — he needed absolutely no time to produce his metagame predictions. Theeresak Poonsombat was almost in complete agreement, predicting four Gladiators, five Dark Armed Dragons, and one Monarch deck. “I think I’ll play against four Gladiators, four Dark Armeds, and two Monarchs,” stated Ryan Hayawaka. “You just copied me!” shouted Wu, grinning. Poonsombat laughed and Mario Matheu threw his lot in with T, predicting four Gladiators, four Dark Armed Dragon, a Monarch deck, and some sort of rogue build. Another Comic Odyssey star, Hugo Adame, made essentially the same call as the rest of the team minutes later: five Gladiator Beasts, three Dark Armed Dragon, and two Monarchs.

Vincent Tundo was looking forward to four Gladiator Beast matchups, two Monarchs, three Dark Armed Dragon, and a rogue strategy. “Maybe some type of new OTK?” Yeah, that figures. Chris Moosman was also predicting Gladiators as the top deck, expecting to see five Gladiator Beast builds, three Dark Armed Dragon, one Monarch, and one Lightsworn. His Lightsworn call was made days ago, and was not a result of yesterday’s Last Chance Regionals — “We got in last night. We wound up being stuck in the airport for a while, so we missed yesterday’s tournaments.”

Jerry Wang may be the strongest player in this format. Coming off a Shonen Jump Championship win and multiple Day 2 finishes over the past few months, he’s an exceptionally hot prospect for the title win this weekend. His read? “Four Dark Armed Dragon decks, three Gladiator Beasts, two Gadgets with Fossil Dyna, and one Monarch.” Jerry was one of the few competitors here today predicting a significant representation from Gadgets, and now that we’ve seen the top tables a few rounds into this event it appears he’s correct. Gadgets are everywhere. And hey, look! Cesar snuck into another picture. He does that if you don’t keep a spray bottle of water around.

So there you have it — more than a dozen of this tournament’s best players have weighed in, and the result is a variety of conflicting metagame predictions. Whose reads will turn out to be correct, and who will hamstring themselves with the wrong guesses? We’ll find out, as the Swiss rounds of this tournament continue!