This Japanese import strategy wins by setting up a bunch of monsters in the removed from play area and then activating Dimension Fusion for the win. What makes it different from Chimeratech Overdragon OTK? This deck is a lot faster, and a lot more disruptive to the opponent while it works its way towards a win. It’s all about speed.

Reasoning and Monster Gate tear through the deck to accomplish two things: first, they get to key monsters in a deck that only runs sixteen monsters total. That’s pretty important, because this deck has the same weakness as any other: if you don’t have monsters, you lose. With Mirror Force and Torrential Tribute as Evans’ only defensive effects, he needs to go off fast and needs to block as many shots as possible. If monsters get sent to the graveyard he usually doesn’t mind, since they should all be there eventually anyway.

The second function for Reasoning and Monster Gate is to discard copies of Divine Sword — Phoenix Blade. All the Destiny Hero monsters are Warriors, so once they hit the graveyard Evans can remove two of them to bounce Phoenix Blade back to his hand. In truth, getting the Blade back is just a bonus: it can add a bit more ATK when it’s needed and it gives more discard fodder (we’ll discuss that later). The real prize here is having a dynamic, resilient method of getting those Destiny Heroes loaded into the removed from play area. Countering the Blade is nearly impossible since its effect activates in the graveyard, so the only plausible way to stop it is to remove it from play.

Destiny Draw is the deck’s most potent draw card, and, again, the fact that it discards a Destiny Hero isn’t really much of a drawback in this particular case. If it discards Malicious, then that monster can just be removed from the graveyard to special summon another once Destiny Draw has resolved. If it discards Dasher, then Dasher’s effect is ready to be used when a monster is drawn in the draw phase. The deck needs to discard monsters to win, so both the draw, and the discard power, can be of tactical worth. Other discard effects in the deck include Card Destruction and Lightning Vortex. The latter sets up your big turns where you go for victory, clearing a blocked field and unbalancing Dimension Fusion even more. Most opponents won’t have anything removed from play by the time Dimension Fusion gets activated. If they do, then Lightning Vortex bats cleanup.

The Magical Stone Excavations are important because they help cover for the deck’s tendency to discard its win-condition level spells. Dimension Fusion is integral to achieving victory in most duels, and discarding all of them through Monster Gate or Reasoning does happen. In that case, Magical Stone Excavation doesn’t just fill in for the missing card — it turns the graveyard into a sort of reverse toolbox, giving Evans another place to search effects from. Brutal. Something resembling this deck can actually survive in the next format despite Dimension Fusion being limited to one per deck, strictly because Excavation exists. Excavation is also another great way to discard cards, and, since Excavation can discard monsters for removal later on, it’s far better here than Spell Reproduction.

Can Diamond Dude Turbo make it to the Top 8, in this, its one chance to do so? It seems possible — Evans has won out since his unfortunate loss earlier today, and he’s far from the only duelist playing this deck today. Time will tell whether or not Japanese brokenness will pay off here on American soil, but, either way, this is one deck we won’t be seeing by come March 1st.