Going undefeated in a major tournament like a Shonen Jump Championship or National Championship is incredibly difficult. Along with some flawless play, your deck has to be able to win nine or ten matches in a row. Furthermore you have to know how your deck can make that happen. Every matchup is winnable depending on what both players draw.

The Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG has always been a free-flowing game where anything can happen at any time. Sometimes games are incredibly fast because one player drew no defense while his or her opponent drew the nuts. In previous formats where there was only one dominant archetype at a time, the best plan was always saving your best cards to deal with your opponent’s. Games would often come down to who used the last Rescue Cat, Raiza the Storm Monarch, or Chaos Sorcerer.

These days there are at least four decks that anyone could make a case for running. Teleport Dark Armed Dragon, Gladiator Beasts, Lightsworn, and Monarchs all made Day 2 appearances at Baltimore, and each is well-equipped to survive a major tournament. These days you only see a mirror match every couple of rounds, and that’s actually something new to most duelists. They’re used to everyone playing the same cards, and as a result, we’re seeing a new way to play the game. Freezing is something I introduced a little while ago, and it’s more popular than ever right now.

Hector Heras went 9-0 at Baltimore. Teleport Dark Armed Dragon was the deck everyone said would win that tournament and sure enough the lone 9-0 player was using it. What came as a shock to many though was that he did it using the recently dropped Solemn Judgment. Here’s his list:

Monsters: 18

2 D.D. Crow
3 Destiny Hero - Malicious
1 Destiny Hero - Doom Lord
1 Sangan
3 Krebons
1 Armageddon Knight
1 Breaker the Magical Warrior
1 Elemental Hero Stratos
1 Psychic Commander
2 Caius the Shadow Monarch
2 Dark Armed Dragon

Most players entered Baltimore with their Teleport Dark Armed decks wielded like T-Hero. The primary goal was to one-turn KO the opponent with speed, special summons, and Destiny Hero - Malicious abuse. The majority of players who made Day 2 with Teleport Dark Armed used this strategy. The reason? This build struggles with the mirror match, especially if played incorrectly. Since both builds of the deck were so successful, they would have met up a lot. However this version is tremendously good at taking on everything else the metagame can produce. Hector’s 9-0 performance means that any matchup he faced was obviously winnable.

Think of this deck like a Perfect Circle build. There are two possible approaches to the game, and the one Hector chooses depends on how his opponent acts. When facing off against an opponent who’s unwilling to commit to the field or showing weakness, Hector can set up an incredibly powerful game position. Destiny Hero - Malicious and Emergency Teleport can produce up to two giant Synchro monsters without using a normal summon. This means you can use your normal summon to play Elemental Hero Stratos or Armageddon Knight to start the whole thing up in the first place.

Hector doesn’t use Necro Gardna or Dark Grepher because he doesn’t plan on winning over a couple of turns. He’s going to set up immediately and the opponent is never going to recover. Solemn Judgment and Phoenix Wing Wind Blast will stop any key play the opponent tries to make. Both also back up Stardust Dragon or Colossal Fighter, depending on the matchup. Against Gladiator Beasts 2500 ATK is enough to keep Stardust around, and with those trap cards to back it up there’s no way for the opponent to really respond. Troublesome cards will just get blocked, leaving the Gladiator player with a handful of cards that do nothing.

Against Lightsworn, Colossal Fighter can achieve the same condition. Lightsworn is a deck that invests everything into winning in battle, and that doesn’t help when your opponent can revive a 3000+ ATK beatstick indefinitely. With the same trap cards to back up the Fighter, how exactly is your opponent going to win the game? Solemn can stop the few cards that actually destroy the Fighter outside of battle. Imagine if you add Stardust Dragon or Crush Card Virus to the mix!

As you can see, it only takes a few key cards to win other matchups, hence Hector’s choice to play Gold Sarcophagus. The Sarc is definitely a luxury card and not everyone can afford it, but in this deck it’s a game winner. With all the draw and search power, Hector can draw into either Crush Card Virus or Gold Sarcophagus with relative ease. Using Crush can win almost any game, and having these power cards at his disposal is a good part of the reason Hector went 9-0.

D.D. Crow and Caius the Shadow Monarch help maintain the setup. Crow’s a responsive card that can break an opponent’s comeback right in half. Foolish Burial can special summon Wulf, Lightsworn Beast followed up with Celestia, Lightsworn Angel to take care of that Colossal Fighter. A good play, but one that D.D. Crow leaves torn apart. With no way to special summon Celestia you’re stuck in the same situation.

Caius is a more proactive card. Often your opponent is going to have a way to break up your intended plays. It could be as easy as a Ryko, Lightsworn Hunter to destroy the Colossal Fighter, or it might be something much more complicated, say a Necro Gardna to be destroyed so you can play Jain, Lightsworn Paladin and protect her from battle. That would allow you to use Celestia too, but Caius solves both problems. Sometimes all it takes is removing Sangan from play to leave the opponent with a dead Destiny Draw instead of two fresh cards. Staring down a Caius with heavy trap protection can mean the difference between having only one out, and having two or three instead.

Dark Armed Dragon sees more play in this deck than most because of Gold Sarcophagus. Dark Armed is probably the only other target besides Crush Card that Hector is going to choose. Semi-Limiting Dark Armed hurt Dark players because they couldn’t always count on having one. Quite often Teleport Dark Armed players aren’t drawing Dark Armed until late in the game. They’re dead then because the graveyard is already packed with Dark monsters, and the combination of drawing a dead card in the late game after not being able to play a Dark Armed earlier leads to losing the duel. Sarcophagus plucks the Dark Armed from the deck for Hector to put it to use earlier on. Doing so means the opponent is going to be weakened, and that’s one less bad topdeck later.

While Dale and Lazaro Bellido’s deck played to get things done quickly by winning, Hector’s deck wants to accomplish that by making the opponent lose. Smacking opponents down with his best cards thanks to speed draw and Gold Sarcophagus is how Hector went 9-0 in Baltimore. His rampage was cut short by one of the faster Teleport Dark Armed players though, which begs the question: which build should be played at the next Shonen Jump Championship?

—Matt Peddle