Shonen Jump Championship Durham marks the last top-level competition in North America before the legalization of the new Shadow of Infinity cards on March 15. As we move forward into the unknown, it’s often useful to know where we’ve come from, in order to try and find the logical progressions from the past metagame to the new one. To achieve that end, I’ll be taking a look at some of the decks that have shaped the game over the past month, built by top players from Europe, Canada, and the United States.
Let’s start off with our friends across the pond who competed in the Pharaoh Tour’s Italian stop. The Top 8 decks from this tournament are an excellent representation of the metagame as a whole, with five different deck types making the cut to the elimination rounds. Among them were the standard Tomato Control, Warrior Toolbox, and Bazoo/Return, but the real story here is the success of two rogue decks, one of which won the tournament.
First, we have the so-called Merchant Pot Turbo deck (MPT for short) that was piloted by Emilio Rizzo. Even the most cursory glance at Rizzo’s build is enough to cause more than a few raised eyebrows to those seeing the deck for the first time. With 26 monsters in his deck, Rizzo defied the common convention of a nearly even split between monsters and non-monsters in favor of a setup that maximized the potential of the deck’s three copies of Pot of Avarice.
Similar to Flip-Flop Control, MPT seeks to win based on using its flip effects to sift through the deck in order to find its win condition, in this case the three copies of Chaos Sorcerer. However, unlike Flip-Flop Control, this deck forgoes the guaranteed draw of Dekoichi the Battlechanted Locomotive in favor of the high-risk effects generated by Magical Merchant, Cyber Jar, and Morphing Jar. Specifically, the deck is built to maximize the potential of Magical Merchant. By limiting the spells in the deck to only the most powerful limited spells and three copies of Pot of Avarice, whenever a Merchant goes off, the end result is almost always a power card being added to Rizzo’s hand or a Pot of Avarice activation. Either way, the opponent is put at a severe disadvantage and is forced to either play around the revealed power card or play catch-up with the card advantage gained from Avarice.
However, there are plenty of things that can cause this plan to backfire, many of which are significant enough to relegate MPT to the status of rogue deck that it currently occupies. First off, the deck has no defensive traps whatsoever, not even a Torrential Tribute. The only spell it carries with the potential to be used on defense is Book of Moon, a limited card. That means that out of 40 cards, MPT has exactly one defense against getting torn apart by Mystic Swordsman LV2. Losing even one Merchant without claiming its effect can be fatal in a deck that’s more than 50 percent monsters, even if you do manage to get rid of the Swordsman afterwards.
Fortunately for MPT, three copies of Royal Decree allow it to take out that Swordsman rather reliably once it hits the field. This brings me to the second major problem with the deck. Drawing doubles of Royal Decree, Pot of Avarice, and Chaos Sorcerer is extremely bad for business. A second Royal Decree is almost always a dead card, for obvious reasons. The definition of a double Pot of Avarice implies that you already have one in your possession, which implies that you haven’t played the first one yet. Soul Control players are well versed in how bad it is to get a second Pot of Avarice when you have yet to play your first one, as it’s neither a monster to fill the graveyard nor a card that helps you to get a monster to fill your graveyard.
Seeing two copies of Pot of Avarice in your starting hand is a lot like starting your first turn with four cards instead of six, unless you can immediately turn things around with a Merchant or Jar activation. Finally, double-Chaos Sorcerer is bad for the same reason that double-Pot of Avarice is bad—lack of resources to play it. The key difference is that it’s a lot easier to turn a hand with multiple Chaos Sorcerers into a winning hand than it is with multiple copes of Pot of Avarice, owing to Chaos Sorcerer’s lesser cost and greater presence on the field. Still, multiples of any of these cards except in “win more” situations can often lead to irreparable damage to your game plan . . . and to your subsequent scrubbing out of the event.
The last major weakness of MPT is the very thing that makes it an effective deck: its unique construction. It is extremely difficult to play an all-monster hand, and it is even harder to do so if your opponent has any sort of removal capability. I mentioned Mystic Swordsman LV2 above, but Nobleman of Crossout is even more deadly than the Swordsman could ever be if it hits a first or second turn Merchant. Totally losing access to Merchant turns the deck into a pile of cards with a high percentage of lousy topdecks and nearly no monster removal to speak of, and so does not drawing the Merchant, period. Right now it’s only a rogue deck in our metagame, but I think MPT can become a contender in the weeks leading up to our new Forbidden list, if the guys in the lab can somehow reduce the effect of less-than-stellar draws on the deck’s ability to survive the early game.
Speaking of surviving the early game, the other deck I want to take a look at is the unique Cyber-Stein One-Turn Kill build that was piloted to a win by William Vizzini in the same tournament. Unlike most builds, Vizzini’s trades in the ability to cycle through a huge number of cards during the first (or in this case, second) turn for the ability to survive past the first few turns of the game and guarantee more wins in the long run. As an overall strategy, I approve of this more than the general First-Turn Kill strategy that’s usually associated with Cyber-Stein. Personal approval aside, slow combo decks provide more of everything a combo deck needs to win (cards, time, etc.), which generally makes them a better choice for competitive play. What I don’t agree with in the build is the three copies of Poison of the Old Man. It’s true that they’re chainable to various removal cards, but they have one and only one function—to manipulate the life totals.
Given that the deck needs more than 5000 life points remaining in order to pull off its win condition, it makes sense to assume that a vast majority of the time the combo player will chose to increase his or her own life points by 1200. Normally, doing damage to the opponent is a better idea than increasing your own life points, but in a deck where all the damage that needs to be done is taken care of by a climactic assault from a nigh-unstoppable monster, your priority should be staying alive for long enough to summon the monster. Therefore, if I were to build this deck, I’d trade the Poisons for three copies of The Spell Absorbing Life. This common trap from Ancient Sanctuary not only allows you to manipulate your life total, but it also allows you to dodge the nefarious gaze of Mystic Swordsman LV2 and Nobleman of Crossout. Sure, your flip effects won’t activate, but then again, neither will your opponent’s flip effects. Seeing as there are only three cards in the deck with flip effects, The Spell Absorbing Life has a minimal chance of backfiring at a crucial moment, especially considering that most crucial moments would involve your flip effect being negated anyway.
Breaking from a continuing trend in top decks from overseas, Vizzini’s deck includes only a minimal number of burn cards. This is especially interesting considering that the continuing trend I speak of is the trend to pack fifteen cards in the side deck that transforms your deck into a burn deck. Burn is, of course, a problem for a deck that needs to stay above 5000 life points to win. It also makes an ideal side deck choice, especially considering that the stall framework is already in place, and the conversion could easily be done in fifteen cards. In fact, just last week, Zach Austin showed the world that the reverse conversion was not only possible, but also extremely deadly. We’re talking 9-0 in the Swiss rounds deadly.
Burn is a concept that seems to have gotten a lot more attention as of late, probably still owing to Brendan Chock’s success during Shonen Jump San Francisco back in December. Zach Austin put a new spin on the old concept by not only including Chain Energy in his main deck (it’s about time someone got the memo), but he also decided to capitalize on burn’s significant ability to win game one to do something revolutionary: win game two as well.
Traditionally, burn is the easiest deck in the game to properly side deck against, with some players dedicating anywhere from five to fifteen slots of their side deck to combat it. Austin took advantage of this by dedicating his side deck to beat theirs. Personally, I’m not a fan of side decking to counter the counters to your deck, but Austin found a way to do it that stunned all comers all day. Unfortunately, the jig was up as soon as people saw what they were up against. This clearly depicts the problem with bringing a surprise deck to a major tournament. If all you’ve got is one trick, you may make the Top 8, but you can bet that your first round opponent for Day Two is willing to forego an extra hour of sleep to make sure you go down. The lesson here is consistency. If you can make your deck do its thing regardless of what your opponent does or what he or she sides in, you’ve got a winner in your hands.
Now, I’m sure it would be wildly fascinating at this point for me to talk about the rest of the Top 8 decks with their teched copies of Goldd and whatnot, but if we’re concerned about the immediate future of the game, I’d say a look at “The Deck Paul Levitin and Dale Bellido Were Playing” is in order. The first thing you’re likely to notice in them is the high concentration of high-level monsters. Sure, there are Cyber Dragons and Chaos Sorcerers, but that fact is that there are a lot of monsters in the deck that you can’t immediately play. I’m fairly certain that this became a factor at some point during the day, as both players ended up dropping before the conclusion of the Swiss rounds.
Fortunately, this is only going to be a problem for a few more weeks, as once Treeborn Frog becomes legal, sporting a higher number of tribute monsters may become the norm. This is assuming that you can keep your back row clear, something that’s usually not a good plan. Of the two builds, I would be more tempted to run a deck similar to Bellido’s build with its splash of Tomato Control. Tomatoes have always been the headliner for consistency in decks, and as you may know, I love it when my decks consistently do what they’re supposed to do. Levitin’s splash of Bazoo/Return just doesn’t have the same impact that it had as a full-blown deck type, and it really makes me wonder if he was really giving preparation for this event his all, or if his attention was more focused toward the post–Shadow of Infinity metagame. The question is, what is the post–Shadow of Infinity metagame?
No one knows for sure yet, but I’m sure all the major teams are testing away and looking for the answers. Soul Control is an obvious choice, though I wonder if Treeborn Frog will help the deck’s consistency or render it even more vulnerable to Spirit Reaper attacks. Perhaps Soul Control as it was originally conceived isn’t needed anymore. After all, its string of Top 8 showings was broken in Durham, where there was nary a Soul Exchange to be seen. Duelists all around the country, including myself, have plenty to think about before they head off to Orlando in a couple of weeks, so until next time, play hard, play fair, and most importantly, have fun!
Jerome McHale
jcmchale@andrew.cmu.edu
NEXT WEEK: Sure, everyone is going to throw Treeborn Frog into their decks regardless of whether or not it’s a good idea to do so. Next time, I’ll fight back by building a full-blown Frog deck.