It’s round 5, my lunch is getting cold, and my stomach is starting to rumble. Therefore it’s the perfect time to eat my lunch, take a look at the top tables and break down what’s doing well here.
Cyber Valley — This guy is everywhere. It seems you can’t look at a match without seeing one
of the players using it. Whether you’re winning with an OTK strategy relying on Magical Explosion or playing the standard Dark Armed Return builds, Cyber Valley is the perfect tech right now. Without Monarchs, most players are finding it hard to put their Brain Control and Enemy Controllers to good use. That is, they want to use the effect but don’t want to give the monster back at the end of the turn.
Cyber Valley takes it out of play when its effect resolves. This means players using Cyber Valley generally have more options throughout the game. Usually having the most options means winning the game, so expect Cyber Valley's playability to sky rocket in the coming months.
Crush Card Virus — The big one! With the Gold Series now released, Crush Card Virus is more widely available. You can sit down against anyone and get slapped with a Crush Card, even if it’s that person’s first tournament. This means Dark Armed Return decks get many times stronger. It also means Dark Armed Return decks have a lot more to watch out for. We watched Jeff Baumgartner fall to the Crush game 2 in his feature match. That would turn out to be a pivotal moment in the match, as Levi would go on to take it 2-1.
The metagame isn’t going to change overnight though, and it’s going to take some time for the impact of Crush Card Virus to be felt. The inclusion of Cyber Valley in many main decks these days is a start in what is sure to be one of many changes players make to their decks over the coming weeks. Crush Card Virus is demanding change, and the successful players these days are those who are adapting to and limiting the impact Crush Card Virus has on them.
Players using Crush Card Virus are unsurprisingly finding lots of success. Sitting at table 2 is a CO Burn deck, made playable because of the access to Crush Card Virus. Dark Armed Return is blowing through Six Samurai matchups now thanks to big Crush Card Virus’. In fact, only one Samurai deck is sitting among the undefeated players, a number much lower than previous Jumps.
Light and Darkness Dragon — Many players from Comic Odyssey are doing well with Light and Darkness Dragon in their decks. The reason is that hitting Light and Darkness Dragon with Crush Card Virus can actually be beneficial to the player who owns the Dragon. Assuming he or she doesn’t have a full field of cards, destroying Light and Darkness Dragon means that player can special summon a potentially game ending monster.
Imagine your opponent flips Crush Card Virus and you’ve got Light and Darkness Dragon in hand or on the field, Dark Magician of Chaos in the graveyard and Monster Reborn in the graveyard. Oh yah! That’s a 2800 ATK monster and a free Monster Reborn. Thanks for the Crush, sir!
The Dragon is also one of the best cards you can have in non-Dark Armed matches. Six Samurai look at the Dragon and frown, and Gladiator Beasts are virtually paralyzed as well. The only question is can Light and Darkness Dragon be useful in Dark Armed Return mirror matches that don’t involve Crush Card Virus. Fili Luna was able to defeat Mario Matheu’s Dragons, but only with the aid of every card in his hand. Things look good for CO and their Light and Darkness Dragons, and top players would do well to look into how successful they are here today.
The format has entered a state of change. To win you have to innovate, and to innovate you have to find tech that’s going to help you through an entire Shonen Jump Championship.