Of all the decks expected to make a showing in the top cut of Pro-Play Tour: Dallas, Gladiator Beasts were probably near the bottom of the list. However, Yobani Martinez defied expectations by placing in the top 8 with Glad Beasts, using a rather unusual variant of it at that. Let’s take a look at the cards and strategies he employed to get so far in the tournament.

HEROes have been getting a lot help lately. A combination of hot new releases and surprising unlimits of old staples have put the deck in a better place than it’s been in for a few years. In particular, the recent Sao Paulo, Honolulu, and Sacramento regionals have all seen HERO tops, taking first place in Honolulu.

Rock monsters have seen a variety of success in rogue strategies over the years. They usually have high DEF values and card effects related to being in Defense Position. This includes EARTH monsters with powerful Flip effects, many of which have the ability to Set themselves after being Flip Summoned. A card that supports these strategies was released in Chaos Impact and is able to set up any Rock monster. It is an Xyz monster that can be a useful addition to more than just Rock decks. This card is Gallant Granite.

The Orcust deck is still a good deck to play competitively. In this article, I will explain why it is still present in the competitive metagame.

Future Visions is a strange card. In the anime, Dark Signer Carly Carmine uses it, who otherwise uses the Fortune Lady archetype. What makes it interesting is that it doesn’t directly support Fortune Ladies at all.

“Watt” is an archetype of fairly weak LIGHT monsters that have battle effects. These effects activate after attacking directly or when destroyed by an opponent’s card. As nearly every monster can help to disrupt your opponent in some way, they can be useful in control strategies. Whether it’s inflicting direct damage or removing problem cards from the field. With this in mind, I believe Watts could return to the meta in a meaningful way. This article will highlight the reasons why Watts would work well, and how they have an electrifying impact alongside one of the top decks.

Let’s get this out of the way: I’m not saying all hand traps are bad. However, the mentality around hand traps in general has been shifting for a while. The way hand traps are used to impact the game has drastically changed and in this change, yes, most hand traps suck.

Duel Terminals were real-life arcade machines that were released during the introduction of Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D’s. These machines offered the chance to play the trading card game with special “DUEL TERMINAL” Edition cards. These cards would be rewarded to the player after every game. Within these games, a narrative was created that tied various monster archetypes together in a world of their own. This series will explain the storylines presented through the Duel Terminals and Yugioh Master Guides.

Chaos Impact has proven itself to be another important set, with a handful of meta relevant cards being released. One of these is a new Cyberse Link monster that will be the topic of today’s discussion. It has good Link Arrows that can be used with any deck.

This weeks Yu-Gi-Oh! Deck Spotlight focuses on decks from the Duelist Kingdom anime arc! We take a look at some uploaded user decks that fill this criteria.