Dale Bellido’s deck has perhaps the most hype of any going into this event. It’s received a lot of preliminary attention amongst internet communities and insiders, and though Lazaro Bellido couldn’t make it here today, he designed the deck. Lazaro’s had a pretty darn good track record lately—his SJC Hamilton deck laid the groundwork for the Machine builds that are just now coming into fashion, and his Monarch build at SJC Boston did a lot to shape the current North American metagame. Ryan Spicer’s second-place build at SJC Arlington was based off of Lazaro’s from Boston, and Spicer’s design was almost identical to the deck that won SJC Seattle for Kyle Lopez.

Now, Lazaro might be about to set another trend. Dale is running Lazaro’s latest masterpiece, and though Return from the Different Dimension has been a fringe deck since the removal of Chaos from the Advanced format, the Bellido brothers are takin’ it back. Check out the killer build that Dale took to a 7-1 finish in competition here yesterday.

1 D. D. Warrior Lady 

1 Sangan

Spells: 7

2 Reinforcement of the Army

1 Premature Burial

1 Nobleman of Crossout

1 Heavy Storm

1 Graceful Charity

1 Mystical Space Typhoon

Traps: 11

2 Sakuretsu Armor

2 Return from the Different Dimension

2 Bottomless Trap Hole

1 Ring of Destruction

1 Widespread Ruin

1 Call of the Haunted

1 Torrential Tribute

1 Mirror Force 

The deck is incredibly heavy on removal agents—the cards that actually get your monsters out of play. Bazoo the Soul-Eater removes monsters while teching Monarchs and Jinzo thanks to its massive ATK when pumped. 2500 ATK still takes down almost anything in the format, including Cyber Dragon and Sacred Phoenix, the latter of which is slowly gaining steam in high-level Advanced play.

The deck’s other removal agent—a playset of Banisher of the Radiance—is also tech for the metagame. Mystic Tomato is being run all over the place, and recruiters in general continue to be popular. Triple Banisher destroys Tomato and Giant Rat, while also seriously hampering cards like Call of the Haunted, Premature Burial, and Pot of Avarice. Oddly enough, Bellido is running both Call and Premature himself, so hopefully he can skill his way around his deck’s own internal conflicts.

From there, Bellido is also running two Freed the Brave Wanderer cards! The Freeds have eleven other Light monsters to feed off of, giving this deck two more ways to oust big hitters in addition to the three Bazoo cards. Flat out, there’s never been a top-level Return deck that packs so many ways to remove its own stuff: he’s even packing D. D. Assailant and D. D. Warrior Lady. Bellido is walking a fine line here, giving himself plenty of ways to activate Return early on for the win, but also leaving himself with potentially lame Bazoos and Freeds. Again, a familiarity with this deck will help him overcome the conflict.

Magical Merchant ensures that the graveyard is loaded with fodder to be removed with Bazoo and Freed, but it can also act as a removal agent itself when combined with Banisher of the Radiance. It helps Bellido dig towards Return from the Different Dimension and increases this deck’s ability to win in the early game. In the late game, it digs for defensive removal to keep the game going in Dale’s favor. Cool stuff.

A pair of Reinforcement of the Army cards make this a comparable strategy to other Warrior Toolbox variants, and Bellido can dig as needed for the Freeds, D. D. Warrior Lady, D. D. Assailant, both Exiled Force cards, and a surprising two Mystic Swordsman LV2 cards. If I had to guess, the call for two main-decked Swordsman seems like one part deck strategy and one part metagame call. On one hand, this deck can be shut down by a single big wall like Gravekeeper’s Spy or Spirit Reaper. On the other, this is a Shonen Jump Championship and most competitors play with a relatively conservative style compared to other tournaments. The stakes are high, and while risks can be rewarding (and this format is a fast one), SJCs are still the most defensive tournaments you’ll find. The pair of Mystic Swordsman LV2 cards shred into conservative players and punish them for a trend that almost everyone falls into at a big tournament like this one.

With so much removal in the form of Freed, the D. D. monsters, Exiled Force, and the deck’s big hitters, Lazaro designed the deck to be run without any Smashing Ground cards. That keeps the spell count low, and the deck packs a whopping eleven traps instead. Two Sakuretsu Armor cards, two Bottomless Trap Hole cards, and a single Widespread Ruin card ensure that tempting targets like weak Bazoos and Freed the Brave Wanderer stay safe in the face of big attacks. They also create card-for-card exchanges that speed up the tempo of the game and simplify the duel as a whole, meaning that when Return flips, its effects are amplified by a small field with very few monsters on the opponent’s side. It’s a textbook strategy that has been driving duelists to successful finishes for over a year, since Team Scoop took Return to top finishes at Gen Con So Cal last year.

Right now Bellido is sitting at a 1-0 record, and his deck seems to be a strong bid for a Day 2 qualification!