TCG Meta Deck Representation & Breakdown

Deck Breakdown:

• 24 Spright
• 5 Tearlaments
• 5 Mathmech
• 3 Eldlich Variants
• 2 Drytron
• 2 Branded Despia
• 2 P.U.N.K.
• 1 Exosister
• 1 Floowandereeze
• 1 Plant (Sunavalon Rikka)
• 1 @Ignister
• 1 Sky STriker    
• 1 Swordsoul
• 1 Unknown (?)

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August 5th, 2022 - Power of the Elements

Deck Highlights

Spright

Spright - Sajidul Chowdury (1st place - Edison Regionals)

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Sajdul Chowdhury got 1st place at the Edison Regionals with his Spright deck.

Spright is a deck that has seen a lot of success in the OCG and now it's finally here in the TCG. It's an archetype that focuses around Level/Rank/Link 2 monsters and excels at creating a board with a lot of disruptions. The main strength of the deck is how they extend so easily while also gaining negation(s) through natural play. This makes them difficult to deal with as you not only need to open up with multiple hand traps but also the right combination of hand traps in order to stop them.

As a deck centered around Level 2s, Spright is able to play a few powerful engines. In Saj's case, he chose to play both Deep Sea Diva and the Frog package. These engines are good as they're both 1-card ways to get to a key monster. This lets the deck combo very consistently while also playing a high number of hand traps. The Frog package also enables the use of Toadally Awesome; an essential card in most of the deck's main lines.

Sajdul also chose to play the PSY-Framegear Gamma package along with Emergency Teleport. Gamma is a powerful hand trap that's great in almost every matchup and Teleport helps cover the weakness of Gamma; making it an extender and not just dead after its 1st use.

Solemn Warning is also here in the Side Deck as a 2-of. Warning is a strong card in most matchups but excels particularly well in the mirror match. Its main use is to either negate the 1st summon against Sprights (preventing more monsters from coming out) or to hit a committal card later on in a turn. Sajdul mentioned in his deck profile that it could be used to negate the summon of Divine Arsenal AA-ZEUS - Sky Thunder  after his opponent uses Dark Ruler No More. This would lead him to have a winning position afterwards as his opponent committed a lot of cards and his battle phase into going for that play. 

Tearlaments P.U.N.K. Danger! Frog

Tearlaments P.U.N.K. Danger! Frog - Khai Nguyen (6th place - St. Louis Regionals)

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Khai Nguyen got 6th place at the St. Louis Regionals with his Tearlaments deck.

Tearlaments is another deck that has seen a lot of success in the OCG and now is finally here in the TCG. It's an archetype that focuses on milling monsters to the GY in order to fusion summon. The main strength of this deck is their ability to create oppressive boards of powerful fusion monsters. For example, some builds of Tearlaments play King of the Swamp and Shaddoll monsters in order to summon Millennium-Eyes Restrict and El Shaddoll Winda. On the other hand, some builds such as Khai's forfeits both of those in favor of the P.U.N.K. and Frog engines.

One of the big advantages of Tearlaments is their ability to facilitate a variety of different engines. The P.U.N.K. engine is a great choice as it compliments the deck very well by helping them naturally develop while summoning Chaos Ruler, the Chaotic Magical Dragon. This not only lets you mill additional cards, but also transitions well into Baronne de Fleur or The Zombie Vampire . Khai also plays 3 copies of Danger! Mothman! as a way to trigger your Tearlaments effects and XYZ into Time Thief Redoer . Time Thief Redoer is helpful as it triggers your Tearlaments effects while also potentially netting you additional advantage or disuprtion. The Frog engine is also here as a way to take advantage of Spright Elf and Toadally Awesome . Since Tearlaments Merrli is a Level 2 and the deck mills so many cards, it's sometimes possible to make this powerful weapon of Spright, a weapon for Tearlaments as well.

The deck is also able to take advantage of its milling capabilities by playing a variety of cards with powerful GY effects. Some examples of this include Fairy Tail - Snow, Plaguespreader Zombie - and Galaxy Cyclone. Fairy Tail - Snow is great for both forcing out disruptions and for disrupting the opponent. Plaguespreader Zombie is a solid extender that helps summon Spright Elf, Crystron Halqifibrax, and Baronne de Fleur . And Galaxy Cyclone is great for removing pesky floodgates such as Mystic Mine.

Mathmech

Mathmech - Anthony Xu (1st place - Stay Weird Remote Duel Regionals)

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Anthony Xu got 1st place at the Stay Weird Remote Duel Regionals with his Mathmech deck.

Pure Mathmech has also made a leap into the meta after receiving Mathmech Circular in POTE. Mathmech is an archetype known for their OTKs but is more often seen as a Midrange deck at the competitive level. The deck's main idea is to build a board with some solid monsters and Mathmech Superfactorial. This is usually pretty solid as Superfactorial is a powerful trap that will provide additional disruptions during the opponent's turn. Afterwards, the deck can pretty easily transition into Accesscode Talker and try to make a push for game.

Anthony also chose to play 3 copies of The Winged Dragon of Ra - Sphere Mode in his Side Deck. Sphere Mode is a strong card against Spright and Tearlaments as it can break their boards with minimal counter-play. The deck can also easily get over Sphere Mode through both Primathmech Laplacian or Accesscode Talker.

Mathmech is a deck that has all the attributes of a strong mid-range deck. It can play a lot of hand traps, has good pushing power, and is pretty consistent. It's also a mono-type deck which allows it to play floodgates such as Rivalry of Warlords. Rivalry is still good as most combo decks need to incorporate many different types of monsters to facilitate their combo.

Exosister

Exosister - Qiuchi Zhu (6th place - Sioux Falls Regionals)

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Qiuchi Zhu got 6th place at the Sioux Falls Regionals with his Exosister deck.

Exosister is another deck that lept into the meta after receiving 2 new cards in POTE. Exosister is a mid-range control deck that focuses on setting up Exosisters Magnifica supported by multiple backrow. This is usually pretty strong as they have multiple non-targetting banish effects that can pose a lot of problems. This is also usually supported by a variety of hand traps which can include Ash Blossom & Joyous Spring, D.D. Crow, and Effect Veiler.

Exosister is strong due to their simple but effective playstyle. While the deck doesn't do anything amazing, it does consistently present solid monsters and troublesome backrow for the opponent to deal with. It's also strong against decks that interact with the GY a lot as that'll trigger the secondary effects of your Exosister monsters. This gives the deck free XYZ monsters that'll lock down the GY even further.

Qiuchi also chose to play Dimension Shifter and Gozen Match in his Main Deck. Both of these cards are very oppressive this meta as they're quite strong against the other 3 decks in this article. Shifter is even useful against Spright as it'll stop them from summoning Toadally Awesome. This lets the deck quickly lock your options before pressuring the board with Magnifica. 

Conclusion

With the release of POTE, we can definitely see a heavy shift in our meta. The most popular decks of the previous meta (Branded Despia, Swordsoul, P.U.N.K. variants, etc.) have been mainly dropped for newer options. Some of these decks are still doing well but the Top Cut has primarily been dominated by Sprights.

Dark Ruler No More is quickly becoming one of the most popular Main and Side Decked options with the amount of board building in the meta. While Ultimate Slayer also exists, it's a question of whether or not Slayer does enough right now or if it just hasn't received enough testing.

Mystic Mine and Triple Tactics Talent have also found their way back into many decks. Mine is mainly played in non-Spright and Tearlaments decks as a way to force answers or stall until a board-breaking card is drawn. Tactics is seeing play in almost all decks as many players agree that it is inevitable that it'll be live.

As the format develops, it'll be interesting to see how players optimize their builds and which builds will persist. As they're currently a few different Tearlaments builds and different options for the rest of the meta, it's certain that players will do a lot of testing leading up to YCS Rio. With that being said, it is worth mentioning that this is only the 1st week of Regionals since the release of POTE and the most optimal way to play each deck is most likely yet to be discovered.

References

Week of August 5th - August 12th, 2022

Tournaments:

August 6th, 2022

• Edison WCQ Regionals
• Columbus WCQ Regionals
• Fort Worth WCQ Regionals
• Knoxville WCQ Regionals
• Sioux Falls WCQ Regionals
• Toronto WCQ Regionals

August 7th, 2022

• Stay Weird Remote Duel WCQ Regionals