Event Breakdown: YCS Houston
Date: April 5-6, 2025
Overview
Pascal Manigat won YCS Houston with Goblin Biker Memento! He fought against Manuel Kalin from Switzerland on Pure Ryzeal in the finals. There were 1496 Duelists at the event, with 11 rounds of Swiss and a cut to Top 32!
Ryzeal and Maliss continue to dominate the format, as usual, with some minor developments here and there. Pure builds for the former are on a toss-up between hand traps, breakers, Ryzeal Plugin, Ryzeal Plasma Hole, and Seventh Tachyon vs Pot of Desires.
The Maliss Fiendsmith Bystial "bait" deck that's been sweeping European regionals saw a good amount of play this weekend, garnering 2 spots in Top Cut. Its supposed immunity to Artifact Lancea and other hand traps easily lets the deck create decent half-boards with a whole slew of non-engine waiting in the wings. All three archetypes coalescing into an unstoppable value train can easily overwhelm opponents if not accounted for. Both Fiendsmith and Bystials (FS climbing into a LIGHT Chaos Angel and Bystial Druiswurm) pressuring Ryzeal Detonator and Eclipse Twins give you some breathing room against the otherwise difficult matchup without having to resort to direct outs like Metaltronus.
YCS Houston Top 32 Breakdown
12 Ryzeal (7 Fiendsmith)
9 Maliss
2 Fiendsmith Bystial (Maliss)
2 Primite Blue-Eyes (1 Fiendsmith)
Others
1 Goblin Biker Memento
1 Atlantean Mermail
1 Labrynth
1 Azamina White Forest (Fiendsmith)
1 Odion (Fiendsmith)
1 Rescue-ACE (Fiendsmith)
1 Yubel (Fiendsmith)
The Victory Bone Party
One of the most underrated decks in the format, Memento, gets its first premier win! It's filled to the brim with strong 1 card starters, versatile Quick-Play spells that make it difficult to interact with and hand trap effectively, incredible card quality, and strong going second pushes with Mementotlan Akihiron + Mementoal Tecuhtlica - Combined Creation. Pascal Manigat used a small Goblin Biker package with Speedroid Terrortop and Rank 3 monsters to further supplement the strategy instead of the traditional Fiendsmith version. Pascal can also opt to protect his Memento combos with Number 75: Bamboozling Gossip Shadow if his hand is strong enough to do so, and we also saw Xyz Armor Torpedo used for a free draw before laddering into Number F0: Utopic Draco Future.
The side engine's ability to detach multiple materials from Ryzeal Detonator is a unique bonus, as seen in his ease in dealing with the Ryzeal matchup in both the Top 4 and the Finals between Goblin Biker Big Gabonga, Goblin Biker Grand Entrance, and Goblin Biker Dugg Charger, which gets Grand Breakout to bridge into Mementotlan Goblin.
Memento was already a viable contender in the Regional scene, and the banlist changes will make it an even more potent force in the metagame. We may see it continue to take over and perform well, especially with the loss of 2 Dimension Shifter, Abyss Dweller, 2 Bystial Druiswurm, and weakened Ryzeal and Maliss to boot.
Return of the Labrynth!
Kaihuang Zhang brought a very unexpected but strong Furniture build of Labrynth, with a similar approach to his 2nd Place build at the Los Angeles Regional! Pot of Extravagance boosted his hand economy due to the Furniture's 2 for 1 approach, and he went all-in with Arias the Labrynth Butler, Stovie Torbie, Chandraglier, Cooclock, and Absolute King Back Jack with Transaction Rollback, allowing for possible disruption plays even when going second. This made his deck uniquely effective when on the draw or on the play.
Other powerful Trap cards used in his strategy include Dimensional Barrier, Dominus Impulse, and Destructive Daruma Karma Cannon, which can be further accessed by Trap Trick and reset by Lovely Labrynth of the Silver Castle. Welcome Labrynth can also call upon Arias to use the card set by Lady Labrynth of the Silver Castle whenever necessary, and even the field spell Labrynth Labyrinth gave him a surprising amount of control and removal to top it off. His impressive performance brought him to a Top 8 finish at the event!
Kombteeper? Perhaps.
Odion makes its YCS debut with a great Top 32 placement! The deck has been doing very well across Regionals for such a new release, and it pairs perfectly well with several engines such as Kashtira or Fiendsmith. Odion gets additional synergy with Lacrima the Crimson Tears, able to send Fiendsmith in Paradise directly to the GY to enable Treasures of the Kings' second effect to search. Both Merciless Scorpion of Serket and The Man with the Mark also give you enough bodies to go into Fiendsmith combo to further protect your plays.
The Apophis army it puts up makes for formidable disruption, negation, and removal when paired with Statue of Anguish Pattern, Silhouhatte Rabbit, and Divine Serpent Apophis. Man with the Mark gives the deck a surprising amount of protection, making all of the monsters and the backrow challenging to remove. It's worth noting that Treasures is not counted as Temple of the Kings in the GY, which is another reason to run Verdict of Anubis, doubling as both a safety net and a way to easily summon Anubis the Last Judge.
Friendsmith Festival
For better or for worse, it seems that the Fiendsmith engine is here to stay! No hits on the banlist for the April 7th format, and even a semi-limiting of Unchained Soul of Sharvara as an additional incentive. Many people expected Moon of the Closed Heaven or D/D/D Wave High King Caesar to be eliminated from the format, but it looks like they're here to stay.
YCS Houston saw 14/32 decks make use of this timeless engine, which is receiving some reprints in Quarter Century Stampede. Odion, White Forest, Rescue-Ace, Yubel, the "bait" deck, and over half of the Ryzeal strategies were on the FS package.
Huge congratulations to Jesus Barrios for topping with Fiendsmith Rescue-ACE! This underrated strategy had some teeth and put up an impressive fight throughout Swiss, but sadly lost out in the Top 32. The Engravy train does not stop there, as even Primite Blue-Eyes had a Fiendsmith list piloted by Lexus Wingate from Team JRB.
White Forest was able to sneak in a topping placement, utilizing Fiendsmith and Azamina using its usual bag of tricks like The Black Goat Laughs. It may be worth keeping an eye out on that deck! WF will be getting a support wave in the next set with a Field Spell and the upgraded forms of both Diabellstar and Diabellze.
Conclusion
As the format comes to a close, we have one to two more weeks left of Regionals with the new banlist before Alliance Insight officially debuts. That set will introduce a lot of important cards moving forward, so be sure to prepare for it accordingly!
Player reception to the event and the banlist was overall positive, with the top decks receiving hits while not outright deleting them from the game. Even the unhits seem to have duelists experimenting with the likes of Unchained, so it'll be interesting to see if we see its resurgence.
We'll be uploading decks and posting more info as they come out! SUDA-MZMT's final tally will be up soon. Until next time, Renren out!
