The August 2019 Trinity Cup was held this month with 24 participants, and the results are in!
1st: guiltygearxx
2nd: yugitom
3rd-4th: MBT
3rd-4th: TreeTopDuelist
1st Place: guiltygearxx's Lunalight Shaddoll Zoodiac
What deck did you play and why?
Lunalight Shaddoll Zoodiac. Sunshine showed that Lunalight was strong last format, so it seemed like it would be good this format as well. Shaddolls are good in theory due to their ability to resolve massive advantage in certain matchups, including setting up Lunalights in GY. Zoodiac is also excellent early game - though I did not commit to the recycling engine since I only really planned to play them to establish my Lunalight combo pieces and for some added removal.
What tech choices did you play?
My biggest addition to Sunshine's build were the Shaddolls and a small dragon engine with Omni Dragon Brotaur and Keeper of the Shrine. I predicted that Shaddolls would be good because they enabled the aforementioned GY setup. However, they weren't really special and mainly were used as removal in slower games. Brotaur did not appear, but I figured that I didn't really like him shortly into the tournament due to the deck not really keeping much hand advantage in general.
I played 45 simply because there were enough cards I wanted to play in the deck. Solemn Judgement and Heavy Storm Duster were my trinities of choice because backrow is the main way most decks can beat the Lunalight fusions. I did not play Super Team Buddy Force Unite! because I was less focused on beast-warriors, though it is an excellent card in Sunshine's build. I also played Barricadeborg Blocker to reuse Fire Formation - Tenki, but it was one of my many poor extra deck choices.
How did you prepare for the meta, and would you change anything going forward?
The only serious decks people seemed interested in were Kozmo and Traptrix. Preparing for Kozmo - of course - includes the well known System Down. Herald of the Abyss also works as removal if they can't manage to get out multiples of their bosses. Mind Crush was something I tried for Kozmo to chain to the summon from hand effects. For Traptrix, Fantastical Dragon Phantazmay is the best momentum shifter possible, since they will want to link summon as soon as possible. The rest of the matchup is copious spell and trap removal and disruption, which I massively represented. Lastly I had some minor Pendulum hate because that's always a prudent matchup to have sides for.
Looking back, I built this deck with way too little versatility, which is bad because this deck actually generates excellent advantage outside of fusions (and can hold field presence.) I expected my matches to be shorter but they ended up much more dragged out than I had planned. I mainly needed links to remove my XYZ monsters but there were many times a generic Knightmare would have been helpful.
The deck also needed more rank 4 monsters since the deck can summon a generic rank 4 at neutral card advantage with ease. My list also did not play Zoodiac Chakanine instead of Zoodiac Boarbow - mistakenly not thinking that a generic 2 mat Zoodiac would not be necessary. Boarbow and Barricadeborg need to go, Thousand Eyes Restrict and Shaddolls may also go, but I'm not sure about that. Shaddolls as a whole did not seem that strong, but they are hard to evaluate. The deck is very good going into any future events and has tons of room to optimize.
How were your matchups?
I played against 3 traptrix, 2 kozmo, Pendulum and Danger Dark World. Traptrix can be tricky if you do not see the side, they can side Void Trap Hole, Time-Space Trap Hole and Deep Dark Trap Hole to eliminate fusions if you choose to summon into backrow. Early game advantage is key here - establishing a Zoodiac is good since they generally can't kill it costlessly. The side is important for dealing with backrow. Kozmo is a hard matchup because you generally do not exploit their extra deck summons. Despite being monster heavy, they can put up disruption as well. This is one of the harder matchups for the deck, I think. Pendulum can be a weirdly easy matchup since they open themselves to OTKs often, but they can also OTK your weak fields and get solid disruption depending on the hand. Danger is more of a deck focused on playing itself then playing against you, as long as you can get to your fusions you should be fine.
2nd Place: yugitom's Kozmo
What deck did you play and why?
I played Kozmo because it was the deck I felt the most comfortable using and I didn't want to use anything that I felt would be piloted infinitely better by people with more experience with those decks (like Traptrix.) Kozmo has a really good matchup against a lot of decks simply due to Kozmo Dark Eclipser and Kozmoll Dark Lady being answers to backrow-heavy decks and combo decks, respectively, and it's proven itself in my past cups, so it was a really easy and safe choice to make.
What tech choices did you play?
For some weird reason, I always decide to play something once it's hit the banlist and I don't know why I do it. However, it explains why I decided to use a Cyber Dragon engine for this cup after Chimeratech Fortress Dragon got co-forbidden. The main reason behind it was laziness, truth be told. My list from the July Championships had Fortress in the extra deck and an, at the time, co-forbidden Card Destruction in the main. After that, the banlist just swapped their positions on the list, so I didn't actually need to make any adjustments.
I played Cyber Dragons because Cybernetic Overflow is insane, and it really does me favors in the mirror match, which I was expecting a lot of. I'm really happy with how they did. I play Card Destruction to ensure I get some way to access Kozmo Tincan, and it also has the potential to set my GY up very nicely for a summon of Eclipser without Tincan. I did side it out often against decks that floated, though. Lastly, I ran Last Will with Clara & Rushka, the Ventriloduo and Salamangreat Almiraj to turn almost any normal summon into Tincan.
How did you prepare for the meta, and would you change anything going forward?
I wasn't too sure what I'd expect but I did anticipate Kozmo and Traptrix. All of my outs to Traptrix were in the side and included Fantastical Dragon Phantazmay, the Timelords, and a bunch of generic backrow removal. As for Kozmo, I was maining Cyber Dragons, so I deemed that enough. That said, I did have System Down and Lullaby of Obedience in the side for the mirror but they never came up (shoutout to Cinosrepus for inspiring me to play Lullaby after beating me in champs with it.) I ran Dimensional Barrier for the fusion decks, too. I am not really sure what I would change going forward but I'd love to play Photon Cerberus in the side of future decks. I'm not sure if it's the right thing for Kozmo, because it relies on normal summons quite a bit, but we'll see.
How were your matchups?
All of my matchups were the toughest I've had in a cup so far. I lost my first match in swiss to Traptrix ABC. In Round 2, I played the mirror, which was as tough as I thought it'd be but I'm very happy I was able to prove I could win it. For Round 3, I played Shaddoll Blue-Eyes which I had to pull off some crazy top decks to win. Round 4 was my only 2-0 but I don't think it was a true display of what Fluffals could do due to his hands, so I think I got lucky there.
Final round of swiss was versus Lunalight Zoo which started out terribly for me in game 1 but I managed to come back in games 2 and 3. Sadly, I had a disconnection win in top 4. In the final, I had a nice and close match against Shaddoll Lunalight where I lost 2-1. I can't tell if it was the caliber of my opponents this month, my deck, or my plays, but all of my matchups were difficult and scary. Props to everyone I played, either way!
3rd-4th Place: MBT's Sera Geist
What deck did you play and why?
I played Sera Geist. Traptrick Sera is a heck of a card, but we’ve been struggling to find an adequate shell for her. After an unsatisfying finish in the previous cup with a pure build of the deck, I decided to try out Altergeist as a complementary archetype. It matched up INCREDIBLY well – it turns out an archetype that searches traps and hard removal is a great partner for a deck with no on-board removal and a reliance on opening chainable traps.
What tech choices did you play?
Honestly, most of the deck built itself. I’m playing many more trap cards than any of the other top decks, which I feel is basically inevitable in a Sera strategy. Because of this, I'm much deeper into the pool of "playable" trap cards than anyone competent - so don't mistake a bunch of garbage purple cards for next-level deckbuilding. I'm just desperate.
How did you prepare for the meta, and would you change anything going forward?
I didn't do a whole bunch of planning for the metagame, as evidenced by my whopping zero (0) outs to Kozmo Dark Eclipser. Since it was a largely unknown metagame, I played a bevy of generic spells and traps in order to compensate for what I expected to be an extremely diverse format. It served me well in swiss, but as the format evolves my trap lineup will likely become more focused and targeted.
How were your matchups?
They were fine. Most of my opponents, especially early, spent a TON of time setting up, which was great news for the control player at the table. My losses were only to players who adequately understood they were the beatdown in the matchup and played accordingly.
3rd-4th Place: TreeTopDuelist's Dark Factory Control
What deck did you play and why?
I hadn't planned to enter, but about 5 minutes before the decklist submission deadline, I found out that a girl I was talking to had another guy on the side, and I decided to remain in my abusive relationship with Yu-Gi-Oh.
Ever since Dark Factory of More Production was revealed, I'd been looking into a way to build a deck around it. I more or less just threw together a bunch of synergistic cards I liked, with a gameplan of being traditional control.
Dark Factory allows for a continuous resource engine in conjunction with Cir, Malebranche of the Burning Abyss, and Dante, Traveler of the Burning Abyss. Alongside that loop and things like Marshmacaron, I was able to grind most decks out of resources, then (by turn 30 or so) have enough backrow and cards in hand to theoretically counter every possible my opponent could make, essentially meaning that I'd won the game. To actually reduce their LP to 0, I played an extremely spicy boss in Sephylion the Ultimate Timelord, who could deal 8000 damage on the spot, and a Topologic Gumblar Dragon in the Extra Deck. Gumblar handloops are much less broken when they're done on turn 30 after you've essentially already won, but it was still pretty cool to see in a format like Trinity.
What tech choices did you play?
The biggest reason to play 40 or less cards is probably to increase the odds of opening handtraps to a maximum. Although these are very common in Trinity, I haven't seen too many people capitalize on playing Effect Veiler and Maxx "C" in the maindeck.
Lightning Vortex was also absurdly good, to such an extent that I'm convinced that it should almost be a format staple. You can compare it to Twin Twisters, which is statistically the most played card in all of Trinity.
How did you prepare for the meta, and would you change anything going forward?
I had my sights set on beating Kozmo and Weather Painter, and my deck featured many ways to out both of these strategies.
You can see my planning vs Kozmo here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8qHutAeIHw&feature=youtu.be
How were your matchups?
Match 1 was vs Kozmo. I'd planned a lot for this deck, ground out the opponent, and won through resources.
Match 2 was vs Witchcraft/Subterror. We had a long back-and forth, and then I managed to gumblar lock my opponent twice.
Match 3 was vs Fluffals. I thought I'd lose vs such an aggressive deck, and even had a bad hand, but took initiative when seeing that opponent also had a bad hand. I won this through a 10,800 damage OTK with Timelords and Dark Armed Dragon.
Match 4 was vs ABC. This was a very complex game to play, but I managed to out multiple ABC-Dragon Busters and eventually steal the win.
Match 5 was vs Traptrix Geist. I didn't prepare for this deck at all, and swiftly proved that tempo is better than control, despite managing to resolve multiple Zaphion The Timelords.
