Analysis of YCS Bochum: Very diverse top 16, wind-ups win.

After my experience has been posted, I promised I’d post up an analysis of the event. It took a while, but here are the numbers:

• Players: 1455
• Rounds of Swiss: 8 on Saturday, 3 on Sunday.
• Cutoffs: top 256 at the beginning of sunday to continue the last 3 rounds of swiss.
• After 11 rounds of swiss, there was a top 32 cutoff.

Due to the high amount of players, losing 2 matches was often enough already for you to not be qualified for the top 32. It was harsh, but only 32 were allowed in.

Top 32 players/decks

Top 32 players were playing the following:

Duelist	Deck
Antione Duval	Dino Rabbit
Jan Groenke	Dino Rabbit
Piyal Peiris	Dino Rabbit
Sheik Soegrimsingh	Dino Rabbit
Andrea Zenari	Fire Fist
Anthony Francis	Fire Fist
Franck Bolognino	Fire Fist
Ho-Ming Wong	Fire Fist
Nicolas Petz	Fire Fist
Paul Adler	Fire Fist
Ricki Madsen	Fire Fist
Stefano Memoli	Fire Fist
Matthias Beu	HERO
Phi-Long Ly	HERO
Helio Babo	Mermail
Nick Boulbassakos	Mermail
Raul Wehnge	Mermail
Umut Serin	Mermail
Yannick Siegmund	Prophecy
Sandor Malinowski	Six Samurai
Alpay Engin	Wind-Up
Benjamin Lin	Wind-Up
Dennis Verspeek	Wind-Up
Dominik Kampel	Wind-Up
Felix Berttram	Wind-Up
Julian Kobler	Wind-Up
Michael de Santis	Wind-Up
Nicolai Knuesel	Wind-Up
Ole Wegner	Wind-Up
Thomas Cavaliere	Wind-Up
Valens Leteurtre	Wind-Up
Vitjan Glavicic	Wind-Up

So, that means:

Cutoff results

In the first round of the cut-off, wind-ups had 8 broken toys (12 to 4), Fire Fists lost 3 of their 8 brothers, Dino Rabbits power was cut in half and only one Merlantean player was left of the 4.

This results in the following top 16:

• 5x Fire Fist
• 4x Wind-up
• 2x Dino Rabbit
• 2x HERO
• 1x Mermail
• 1x Six Samurai
• 1x Prophecy

Top 8, this was reduced to:

• 2x Dino Rabbit
• 2x HERO
• 1x Fire Fist
• 1x Mermail
• 1x Six Samurai
• 1x Wind-up

Wow, this top 8 is very diverse. The 7 different decktypes that were in the top 32 were also present in the top 16. And if it wasn’t for the fact that the Six-Sam player was matched up with the Prophecy Player, all 7 might’ve ended up in the top 8. This once more proves that the current format is very diverse.

To continue: Top 4 was:

• Dino Rabbit
• Mermail
• Wind-up
• Fire Fist

4 Players, 4 decks. It happens, but not that often.

The final was (as we know by now) Stefano Memoli (Fire Fist) Versus Alpay Engin (Wind-up), resulting in a win for Engin and marking the final stand for Wind-ups.

And for those that want to know the decklist: it's available on Engin's youtube channel.

Afterword

That’s it for now. Took a while to write this, but I’ve got a few other things lineup for the rest of the week.

A few side-notes:

• Star Pack is out since end of last week. It sucks, as expected. Only a handful of nice reprints (Escuridao, Wisel, Wonder wand), but lots of crap.
• Zexal Tin content is now known and will release the end of this week. This release is better, as it holds the Numbers cards Volcasaurus, Freezerdon and Goldrat, Starliege Paladynamo, Gagagashield (a good trap for Spellcasters), and lots of other nice new cards (if you like Photon/Lightray/Galaxy decks, like me); together with a nice reprint of Giga-Brilliant.
• Edit: And yeah... noticed this youtube clip, revealing that the SE of Cosmo blazer will have Shark & Blade Armor Ninja. That fake picture is apparantly real. Fuck logic, lolkonami strikes again.
• Next up this week: My thoughts on Spellbook Judgment Day (the horror of Spellcasters) and my predictions of OCG cards included in Lord of the Tachyon Galaxy.

Until then, V out.

Macro Rabbits win YCS Barcelona

YCS Barcelona Was another successful European YCS with 820 attendees. All Saturday there were 7 rounds of Swiss, with the last 3 rounds being held today, on Sunday.

This was the first REAL European YCS the new format, so I was kind of curious how people all over Europe adapted with the new format. Will Dino Rabbit still be the most popular deck? Will people jump on the Inzektor-bandwagon of YCS Seattle? Will Mermails win? All questions that will be answered in this weekend.

Deck diversity was enoumous, spouting decks like Agents, Inzektors, Wind-ups, Chaos Dragons, Mermails, Rabbit decks (both classic & macro), Chain Burn, Geargia variants, Prophecy, Flamvell, Dragunity, etc.

At the start of day 2, 159 duelists kept on going for that top 32 spot. PJ Tierney analyzed what the top players played and concluded that it was very diverse.

Wind-ups were clearly the most popular deck of the day, as near 50% of all duelists left on Sunday played the deck.

After 10 rounds of harsh fighting came the list with the final standings. For your eyes too, this list can be found The following page.

Out of these duelists, there came the following top-32 cutoff.

Top-32

Decklists aren't out yet, but at least we know who played what on This page

In short:

13 tops of the 32 spots? That's near half of all the top spots! I know they were heavily represented, but this still is a LOT! They're certainly a force to be reckoned with.

PJ Tierney gave us a quick analysis of the topped decks and compared them to YCS Seattle. Check it out on: This page

Known people that topped were Simon Hé, Stephan Sluis, Peter Gross, Jack Bruun, Paul Clarke and several others.

These brave 32 duelists fought and only 16 remained. The Feature match was Simon Hé (Agents) Vs Frederico Zoppini (Mermail). A match that Frederico won btw.

The Top-16

16 people lose, including 2 agent decks, the sole Chain Burn, 3 Rabbits, 2 Inzektos, 5/6 mermails and 3 wind-ups, resulting in the following lineup:

• 2 Agents
• 2 Rabbit Variants
• 1 Inzektor
• 1 Mermail
• 10 Wind-up decks

With their continuous loop power, Wind-ups conquered the Mermails, leaving a sole survivor.

The top 16 had the following feature match: Peter Gross (Inzektors) Vs Jack Bruun (Dino Rabbit)

Only 8 survivors could continue into...

The Top-8

This time, the Wind-ups took a serious hit, being cut down from 10 to 4. Also, the last Bug was squashed (Peter Gross) and only 1 Agent was left alive.

So that resulted in the following Top 8:

• 4x Wind-ups
• 2 Dino Rabbit variants
• Mermails
• Agents

The profiles of the top 8 duelists can be found: On this page

The feature match in the top 8 was: Ali Fawaz (agents) Vs Luca Chetoni (Wind-up)

Final rounds

After being cut down to 4, all variation is still left. 4 completely different decks survive:

• Agents (Ali Fawaz)
• Mermails (Frederico Zopponi)
• Macro Rabbit (Jack Bruun)
• Wind-up (Stephan Sluis)

In the semi-finals, Jack Bruun had to face two-time YCS winner Stephan Sluis, while Ali Fawaz had to face off against Frederice Zopponi. How the second match went, I have no ide (but Frederico won). The match between Sluis & Bruun however, was Covered on this page.

In the finals, Jack Bruun (Macro Rabbit) faced off against Frederico Zopponi (Mermails) in an exciting finale. The match was covered here.

And the winner is

Congratulations to Jack Bruun! After a weekend, you rose above 819 other duelists and took this championship title with Macro Rabbit!

During this weekend, the next European YCS has been announced. It will be in Bochum (Germany) on February 23+24. Note the date, boys!

The Full Top-32 is:

• Winner: Jack Bruun - Macro Rabbit
• Runner-up: Frederico Zoppini - Mermail
• 3rd Place: Stephan Sluis - Wind-Up
• 4th Place:Ali Fawaz - Agent
• Top-8: Luca Chetoni - Wind-Up
• Top-8: Alpay Engin - Wind-Up
• Top-8: Rocco Tamburlini - Wind-Up
• Top-8: Robin Wetzel - Dino Rabbit
• Top-16: Paul Clarke - Wind-Up
• Top-16: Tolga Erkoc - Agent
• Top-16: Peter Groß - Inzektor
• Top-16: Nikos Hadjiioannou - Wind-Up
• Top-16: Sean McCabe - Wind-Up
• Top-16: Kristoffer Nielsen - Wind-Up
• Top-16: Alexis Payet - Wind-Up
• Top-16: Tony Vetuli - Wind-Up
• Top-32: Denis Bequiri - Inzektor
• Top-32: Leeroy Bitbol - Mermail
• Top-32: Thierry Cyganek - Wind-Up
• Top-32: Noel Garde - Mermail
• Top-32: Soner Güngör - Mermail
• Top-32: Simon He - Agent
• Top-32: Andrea Ippolito - Wind-up
• Top-32: Urh Kovacic - Agent
• Top-32: Sebastien Ma - Mermail
• Top-32: Felix Oberst - Dino Rabbit
• Top-32: Samuel Oliva - Dino Rabbit
• Top-32: Leonardo Pavone - Wind-Up
• Top-32: Piyal Peiris - Dino Rabbit
• Top-32: Sarimento Rafaelo - Inzektor
• Top-32: Joahua Schmidt - Mermail
• Top-32: Marcus Schultze - Chain Burn

So, that is all for now. Until next time, V out.

How the new Forbidden & Limited list will affect us

Chaos Dragons: close to being extinct

As a Chaos Dragon player, I realize we’ve been hurt. Future Fusion: forbidden (we saw that one coming miles away), REDMD: Limited (hurts a lot), Chaos Sorcerer limited (WHY?), Tour Guide became semi-limited (awh), Brionac Forbidden (although the last 2 are key cards in many decks anyways).

I’m currently testing out new deckbuilds of Chaos Dragons, but more on that later.

Inzektors: Got their wings ripped out

We expected Inzektors to get hit, but they got butchered instead. With two of the 3 key cards becoming limited, the deck got hurt a lot. They can’t run to Tour Guide (as an alternative) either, because she got hit as well.

I warned you to sell your inzektor stuff while it was still worth something.

Wind-up: Sunk your battleship

Konami was smart in this case. They hit Wind-ups where it hurt the most… the mass spamming has ceased. Zenmaighty to 1 will make Hunter much less of a threat. Honestly, I wished Konami would do this, but I never expected they would.

Rabbit decks: An arrow to the knee

This one is the top deck that got hurt the least. The tins may have given it away already. Konami wouldn’t promote their tins with 2 of the boss XYZ, if the bunny would’ve been served for lunch. Rabbit became semi-limited. With Tour Guide to 2, this top tier deck has the highest chance of survival in the new format.

HERO: it’s just a braze

Konami recognized that HERO’s have become stronger, so they semi-limited A Hero Lives (one of the problem cards in my eyes) and E-Emergency Call. In return they gave us the long-desired third Destiny Draw.

Hieratic mash-ups (specific: Gishki Hieratic): Let’s take one foot, your spine and your evil eye.

The Hieratic Loop got hit. REDMD to 1 and Seal of Convocation to 2 reduces the OTK-ability of this deck to 0. With Evigishki Gustkraken, they also pre-emptively hit the mash-up of Hieratics with Gishki’s. At first you might wonder: “Why Gustkraken?”. But I’ve seen the deck in action (thanks to Lithium3200’s uploads). The amount of times a hieratic player summons Gustkraken in one duel, makes Wind-up Hunter look like an amateur.

Offering Gadgets (Offerings no longer allowed)

With Ultimate Offering to 1, this deck is dead. No problem with that, Offering became a problem card ever since XYZ came out.

Stop the brain drain

This is a request from several OCG players I’ve seen. Stopping brainless decks. The argument is that Pot of Duality (and a few other cards) promote unskilled play. They got their wish somewhat, as Pot of Duality got semi-limited, together with Tour Guide. I hope this will promote skilled play & creative deck creation.

The decks that have recovered a little are:

• Plants: Spore Returns & Debris Dragon goes to 2. Hurray!
• Agents: The return of Earth gives the deck a little breather. But honestly, I’d rather have seen T.G. Striker return than this one.
• Blackwing: Kalut returns to 2, giving Blackwings that little extra boost they needed.
• Lightsworn: As predicted by many people, the Lightswornd get another card back. This time, it’s Necro Gardna. Will this boost their popularity?
• Stall/Burn: Marshmallon, Level Limit Area B, Magic Cylinder and Swords of Revealing Light are back at 3. This gives people who like stall decks an extra boost.
• Tele-DAD: Emergency Teleport is back unlimited. Same for Destiny Draw. Though the old Tele-DAD seems impossible to make, with all the new cards that came out ever since, it will be interesting to see new variants.

Decks that will flourish in the new format

Of course, it’s always hard to tell in the beginning of a new banlist (that matters). My first thought would be:

• Dino Rabbit: A little slower than before, but with 3 Leviair, 3 Laggia & 3 Dolkka, this is still a serious threat.
• HERO: With Stratos still in play and with Excalibur & Blade Armor Ninja, this remains a deck to be feared.
• Geargia: Better get used to the return of machine decks. Geargia has topped quite frequently in the OCG, so I kind of expect it to do the same here, even if the deck lacks certain cards from the OCG (like Tinplate goldfish).
• Six Samurai: Honestly, I forgot about these bastards, until I read the post of Lightgrunity. Its worst matchups are gone with this list, so it has a potential to come back with a revenge.
• Dark World: Did not get hurt by banlist. This deck might become a serious threat, but the deck is still its own worst enemy (mirror matches ftw).
• Atlantean mashups: Though this will wait until November (structure deck & Abyss Rising), you better prepare for the rise of water-attribute decks.
• Tele-DAD: Yeah, you ARE reading that correctly. With 3 Emergency Teleports and 3 Destiny Draws at their disposal and no other key card being hurt, I think Tele-DAD (and other Tele-mashups) is a serious contender for the upcoming format. So better fetch your Krebons while they’re cheap dirt, because in a month, he might be a rare find. E-Teleport already is.

September is Tele-Party time!