MBT's YGO Cwarentine Series has been delivering strong competitive play with a healthy mix of saucy deck-building during COVID restrictions. In its 11th iteration on November 29th, Zoodiac took the field by storm, with Mt Fuji's Zoo Eldlich variant winning out over Basam Steel's Dragon Link. Zoo had an unavoidable presence in both swiss (14%+ of the 256-player field) and top cut (7 of 16). But, what caught viewers' attention was some previously peculiar top cut diversity.
Yes, Dragon Link was there (3 of 16), but Infernoble Knights and Virtual World were notably absent. The remaining six slots of the top 16 were occupied by Prank-Kids (2 of 16, the most unexpected members) and one each of Buster Eldlich, Mekk-Knights, Unchained, and Dinosaur. When Top 4 slimmed down to Dragon Link, Dino, and two Zoo Eldlich, attention turned to Dino—piloted by Giant Skyhawk—as the odd one out. Dino had been absent in top cut the weekend following Phantom Rage's release.
An unfortunate EDOPro crash ended Skyhawk's top cut run in semifinals, but his build is a major head-turner for many players who only ever considered Dino's viability as a blind-second deck. Focused instead on setting the game's tempo by going first, Skyhawk's build caught both players and viewers completely off guard.
3rd/4th Place Dino Build
Skyhawk said he "felt like people would be over-prepared for combo" and "wanted a deck that had an easier time handling Zoo, that didn't have Nibiru chokepoints, and played purple cards." Skyhawk earned his invite for what would have been the 2020 NAWCQ on Paleozoic Dinos.
A mix of tried-and-true staples and niche/atypical techs, let's break down Skyhawk's build and discern the method behind the madness.
A Dino-mite Meta Call
Skyhawk took an old, niche favorite in the Dino arsenal and brought it to the forefront: Survival's End. For those unfamiliar, the text reads as follows.
Destroy as many Normal Monsters on the field as possible, and if you do, Special Summon Level 4 or lower Dinosaur-Type monsters from your Deck, up to the number destroyed, but destroy them during the End Phase. You can banish this card from your Graveyard, then target 1 Dinosaur-Type monster you control and 1 card your opponent controls; destroy them.
There are a few key factors on Survival's End that make it such a strong card. First, both of Survival's End's effects can be used in the same turn, unlike several meta-relevant spells and traps with GY effects (see: Eldlich). Second, neither effect is once per turn. Combined, these two factors make Survival's End a force to be reckoned with.
Skyhawk called out how the YGO pro circuit seems to be too scared to mainboard Survival's End. The card saw some sideboard success when Auroradon was a meta mainstay, but with Auroradon now out of favor, Survival's End has been left to extinction. He notes primarily that the community, both casual and competitive, has too much tunnel vision on Dino as a blind-second deck and has effectively locked itself out of innovation. Survival's End is unquestionably one of the strongest cards in Dino's arsenal that no one seems to care about.
Long story short, Survival's End is nuts.
Giant Skyhawk
Vanilla Format
How is Survival's End so strong? The answer to that lies in other card choices in the deck: Lost World, PSY-Framegear Gamma, and Nibiru, the Primal Being. While the former is a Dino standard and the latter two are no strangers to the meta, all three share one common, key point.
They generate normal monsters.
Thanks to Survival's End, Gamma (or, more specifically, PSY-Frame Driver) and Nibiru become play starters. Use Survival's End to destroy Driver or the Nibiru token. Special summon Petiteranodon, and then use Survival's End's GY effect to pop Petiteranodon and another card on your opponent's field. From there, you can summon Dinowrestler Pankratops for extra disruption or summon Souleating Oviraptor for turn three setup.
Tokens and normal monsters—thanks to Linkross, Nibiru, and the Eldlich traps—are already a mainstay of the current meta. By turning those normal monster resources into his own, Survival's End helped Skyhawk's Dino engine to be online at almost every stage of the game.
What made this strategy especially effective isn't necessarily what was being played, but rather what was distinctly missing: Herald of the Arc Light. Often the first-made negate of 2020's post-Linkross formats, Cwarentine Series 11 distinctly lacked the early Heralds that people typically expected. Less early Heralds meant more consistently resolving Nibiru, which effectively ensured Survival's End was online even more often than usual.
Stop, Drop, and Disrupt
Another standout card in Skyhawk's build is fairly unfamiliar to most Dino builds. Forbidden Droplet has seen little play in Dino builds because the cost tends to be too high. Few cards in the deck are actively disposable. Likely, most Dino players would only be using Droplet to get cards like Giant Rex or Driver out of their hand.
Survival's End changes that notion. Because of its GY effect, Droplet can send Survival's End from the hand and not worry about lost utility. More important to remember, though, is that Survival's End is a trap. It activates on the field and remains face-up on the field during chain resolution. If an opponent attempts to negate Survival's End with an on-field monster effect, Droplet can send Survival's End to the GY for cost. This negates the monster effect, and Survival's End still resolves.
While Droplet's attack modification isn't a huge deal for Dinos, it can be relevant for Giant Rex. Rex cannot attack directly, which makes damage-dealing awkward against a lone monster that's larger than Rex but killable by Ultimate Conductor Tyranno. Droplet maximizes damage output by putting the opposing monster below Rex's attack, saving your UCT for direct damage. Also, this gives Dino another way to deal with Accesscode Talker that's not extra deck-dependent. Minor, but notable.
Import-ant...in Theory
The last major standout card of Skyhawk's build was, by his own admission, entirely experimental. Xyz Import was intended to enable and fuel Skyhawk's rank-4 toolbox while also disrupting opposing boards. By stealing key combo pieces off the opponent's board, he could keep cards like Evolzar Dolkka online longer and burn more of his opponent's resources.
Unfortunately, while great in theory, Skyhawk noted after the tournament that Xyz Import wasn't strong in practice. He activated Import maybe once through eight rounds of swiss and three rounds of top cut. Xyz Import relies on getting to at least one xyz monster, making the card relatively useless in a void. Creating the conditions to activate Import could be strenuous or disadvantageous. As well, Survival's End brings the deck's focus more toward one-for-one trades. A card that requires work before the one-for-one trade can occur is difficult to resolve.
The Pilot's Reflections
I have spoken a few times with Giant Skyhawk about YCS 11 since the tournament ended to get his thoughts on how the build performed and what he would change moving forward.
The Dino Main Deck
The changes Skyhawk felt the main deck would require are actually quite minimal. With Xyz Import under-performing, he often wished for a copy of Ash Blossom & Joyous Spring in its stead. If not replacing the Imports with Ash, Skyhawk indicated other ratio adjustments in those open slots. Particularly, he said playing second copies of Animadorned Archosaur and Double Evolution Pill could be convenient. But, with how the build plays, those may not be necessary. A second Petiteranodon could also work, he noted, to avoid the pitfalls of drawing his lone copy.
Extra Deck Dino-namics
Skyhawk's extra deck was fairly standard with a few twists. Regarding what he felt didn't work, Skyhawk pointed to Apollousa, Bow of the Goddess and Tornado Dragon. Apollousa's shoddy performance makes sense for most people familiar with Dino: she requires too many resources to summon consistently and is, for Dino, a worse Evolzar Dolkka. For the future, he said he'd rather a second copy of Pentestag over Apollousa. Tornado Dragon's low performance may seem strange, though. To explain this, Skyhawk reminded me of his main deck's more trade-oriented build. Survival's End could handle the cards that Tornado Dragon would otherwise be dealing with. The slot, he said, would be better for another Number 60: Dugares the Timeless.
While the Linkross might look out of place in Skyhawk's extra deck, he could weaponize it with the help of Survival's End. Awkward opening hands could turn into a Linkross, two tokens, and set Survival's End, which creates a massively explosive, highly disruptive board state during the opponent's turn. Knightmare Phoenix, Skyhawk said, was usually the fodder here to make Linkross.
Boosting Dinos in the Side
Particularly notable in Skyhawk's side—and the card he thinks performed most strongly in the tournament—is a full playset of Evenly Matched. Skyhawk, alluding to the volume of Zoodiac matchups he played over his 11 rounds, noted that the post-Phantom Rage meta is more resource-oriented than focused on unbreakable boards. In a resource-driven meta, few cards carry raw power quite like Evenly. In resolving Evenly, Skyhawk's own grind-oriented build could out-trade whatever was left behind on field.
Another standout member of his side deck was Xyz Encore. While the card has been somewhat lackluster in the last few years' link-oriented gameplay, the new rise of xyz-centric win conditions restores Encore's viability. Skyhawk pointed to Divine Arsenal AA-ZEUS - Sky Thunder and True King of All Calamities as the main selling points for Encore. Because cards cannot chain to Encore, Skyhawk could safely out these problematic xyz monsters without recourse. Plus, thanks to UCT, clearing off the revived xyz material is a non-issue.
Regarding changes he'd make to the side going forward, the only card Skyhawk said he regretted outright was Lightning Storm. "After what I played against , STRONGLY considering siding some Royal Decrees. Royal Decree plus disrupt of Zoo summon means Eldlitch loses, and it's also strong vs. Dogmatika. Notably, Royal Decree does not stop the GY effect of End." As for why he'd prefer Decree to Lightning Storm, Skyhawk noted that whenever he drew Lightning Storm, there was usually another card he'd want on the board first. This would end up effectively invalidating Storm altogether. Decree, though, would allow him to clog an opponent's backrow without harm to himself. To give himself more flexibility, Decree is the preferred route.
Closing Thoughts
As a long-professed "purple card" lover, Giant Skyhawk pulled out this nod to his NAWCQ invite-earning deck as a way to catch opponents off-guard and force other players to play at his pace. The notable lack of "unbreakable boards" in Cwarentine Series 11 played perfectly into Skyhawk's grind-oriented strategy, where taking one-for-one trades often created more advantage for him than his opponent.
Potentially most important to him, though, is what this build proves: Dino is not a blind second-only deck. Dino has never struggled with pumping out damage. But, the deck has often been viewed as performing poorly when forced to set up first. In reinforcing turn one options, Skyhawk displayed that a stronger floor in Dino outclasses blindly careening towards a higher ceiling.
We'll leave you with this thought from Skyhawk's Top 16 opponent. Cheers!
Yeah, that is an FTK.
Jason Leonard (CyberVX)
