Not a lot of players expected to see huge differences between the decks of the top-ranked players. A closer look at the Top 16 decks proves this assumption, since the Monarchs and flip effect monsters are everywhere.

Despite fan-favorites Zaborg the Thunder Monarch and Mobius the Frost Monarch, some duelists are also playing with Thestalos the Firestorm Monarch. The ever popular flip effect monsters Dekoichi the Battlechanted Locomotive and Magical Merchant make sure the deck has a high speed and Chaos Sorcerer gains crucial card advantage in the late game.

Some Cyber-Stein decks dominated the earlier rounds of the tournament, but only one of them has made the Top 16. Eleven out of the Top 16 decks were Flip Flop Monarch Control decks with Chaos Sorcerer; the other five decks featured Cyber-Stein, the recently popular Dark World monsters or Sacred Phoenix of Nephthys.

The two remaining decks were Burner builds, one of them with 51 cards. The dominance of the flip effect monsters, together with the Monarchs and Chaos Sorcerer is still without question.

No one was able to make a huge impact on the tournament with an unexpected deck today. Some players netdecked Shonen Jump Championship decks, especially the ones featuring flip effect monsters, Monarchs, and Chaos Sorcerer. The winning Cyber-Stein deck of this year’s UK National Championship had been copied as well, but these duelists weren't able to make it to the top tables.

The fact that even Vittorio Wiktor, who dominated several Regional tournaments with a Burner main deck, put his trust in a control build here today, proves the similarity of the metagame of this year’s National Championship. Almost no duelists tried to pilot a Gate Guardian One-Turn KO deck, a Water build, or something completely new through the field.