Monday 20 February 2012

What does YCS Atlanta tell us?

This post will be discussing the decks at the YCS over the weekend. I will focus on the top 32 since it's quite a broad range of decks that made it to the top cut and there's a lot to discuss.

Okay so here's the top 32, In order of how many there are:

15x Dino Rabbit
9x Wind-up
2x Inzektors
2x Tech Genus
1x Agents
1x Evolsaurs
1x Empty Jar!
1x Dark world

That's quite a diverse top 32 compared to the previous YCSs. Do take note that there are NO plant decks in the top 32, and Konami just burned them to the ground in the banlist. You really did your research didn't you, Konami?

So almost half of the Top 32 was Dino Rabbit: Currently the most expensive deck in yugioh. With them acquiring so many spots, they were almost a sure winner. Their general sackyness means that anyone can pick the deck up and play it. Wind-ups got a good number of spots, getting over a quarter of them. They are also pretty sacky and with them also not being hit whatsoever by the banlist, they're not going anywhere. In actual fact, with Trap Dustshoot going to 0, they have gotten stronger.

Now here's a surprise, only 2 Inzektors in Top 32. I don't know if this is because of a low number of players or because of other factors (People prepared for them better perhaps?) but 2 is surprisingly low. Their general ability to pop cards multiple times a turn makes you wonder what happened. It only gets worse for them at this point.

2 Tech Genus made the cut. That's impressive to be honest. It's nice to see them go out with a bang. One thing I like about T.G.s is the way the deck works. As PJ (TheIrishDuelist) said: "Most decks are designed to win. T.G.s are designed so they cannot lose" which summarises the deck perfectly. They can special summon multiple times a turn, pump their beast warriors and search for more copies. It really is a brilliant deck and I wish I could have made it.

Now for the 1 off's. Agents are losing a bit of consistency with the banlist but right now the only explanation for why they only managed 1 spot is they were probably under-represented. Most players were preferring to play other decks. That's not saying that Agents are bad or anything, they just require a little bit of skill and people don't like to think for themselves. I'm actually building Evolsaurs to mess around with this upcoming format, and the decklist was incredibly well made. He earned that spot and I would have liked to see him reach higher. Here is the decklist for it:


Moving on is Empty Jar. That's a huge surprise considering it's weak against Wind-ups and Dino Rabbits. The deck needs a hand for it to work and both decks can hurt it in some way or another. I would like to see the decklist and the side for this deck. If I see it, I'll put it on this post.

Lastly is Dark World. It managed one spot with the help of Trance Archfiend: A new Dark World support card in Order of Chaos. It lets you discard a card and give it 500 attack and when it dies, you can get a banished dark monster to your hand. It helps the deck immensely and if there was any reason for players to try the deck, Trance Archfiend is it.

So a pretty diverse Top cut. How does the Top 16 look?

7x Dino Rabbit
5x Wind-Up
1x Agents
1x Empty Jar
1x Dark World
1x Tech Genus

So half of the Dino Rabbit decks were knocked out and 4 Wind-ups lost. There is two important things to notice from this top 16. One is that both Inzektors that made the Top 32 were knocked out, which will make people wonder if they are really a tier 1 deck at this point.

Secondly, notice that Half the Rabbit decks went out. Half the players of the top 32 left and half the rabbit decks went out. That shows that the rabbit players are quite similar in terms of playstyle and if you know how to beat them, then you will probably be able to do a repeat performance on every rabbit player. If you don't get what I mean by that, then just remember that they still have a 50% chance of winning at this point.

The rogue 1 off decks are still in the running, which is very surprising. It's a shame that Evols went out though. But as you can see, it's 4 rogue decks against 12 sacky linear ones. It gives them quite an uphill struggle but with that, they can tell what they are most likely to play against and prepare accordingly.

For the top 8:

3x Dino Rabbit
3x Wind-Ups
1x Agents
1x Tech Genus

As you can see, the number of Dino rabbits are still proportionate to the number of them in the Top 32, which reinforces my point about them being easy to play against once you know what you're doing. Perhaps there is an amazing Side card that completely destroys them? Electric Virus perhaps?
Wind-ups are still doing well. Only 2 of the 5 decks went out so they are on level with Dino Rabbit. Both decks represent 37.5% of the top 8. Agents have managed to stay in considering there was only 1 in the Top 32. Well done to whoever is piloting it. Lets see what the Quarter-finals did:

Top 4:
2x Dino Rabbit
1x Wind-Ups
1x Tech Genus

Bye Agents. What we have left is concrete proof of Dino Rabbits representing around 50% of the decks since the Top 32. They have continuously managed to cut their numbers down in half every time. 2 Wind-ups went out, so at this point their chance of winning dropped to just 25%, making it the same as the remaining T.G. Deck left. This guy has been the remaining T.G. deck since the top 16.

In the end, 1 Dino Rabbit deck and the last Wind-Up deck was beaten, leaving Tech Genus and the last remaining Dino Rabbit deck. Even at this point Dino Rabbits retain their 50% representation.

The final was a very interesting read, but Tech Genus triumphed in the end, making this a very interesting YCS indeed. I'm really happy that they ended up winning since it was one of the rogue decks.

That's it for YCS Atlanta. I hope you learned a lot about what's to come next format. I am trying to retain from raging about the banlist due to it being absolutely atrocious.

TheTCGLover out!



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