The September 2018 Trinity Cup Top 4 were:

1st: boddity77

2nd: Mistilteinn

3rd-4th: Young Dagger Dick

3rd-4th: AsuiKitsune

1st Place: boddity77's Trickstar Control

Why did you choose to run your deck?

In my opinion due to the singleton nature of the format and the current meta, small, resilient, and effectively interchangeable monster packages backed by prime backrow simply overwhelm all other choices. Decks based on larger engines generally suffer too much from having to work under singleton rules. They struggle with long games because individual engines often have a global ceiling: a SPYRAL deck loses once they've run through all the good SPYRAL threats (which are limited due to the archetype's size and singleton rules). However, a control mashup can have the top end threats from multiple different engines to lean on. I based this build off guiltygearxx's previous topping build but included stronger standalone engine picks and fewer bricks. Shout outs to my friend @dank for helping to test and refine the deck. I'm certain if you actually enjoyed playing Trickstars you could be up here too.

What was your deckbuilding philosophy when making this deck?

Each of the four main engines (Trickstars, Sky Strikers, Cyber Dragons, and the Tour Guide package) generate threats that float or otherwise replace themselves. Therefore, the ideal hand is exactly one starter card from one of the engines and four defensive cards. One Trickstar Candina searching Trickstar Light Stage searching Trickstar Lycoris to allow the Candina to search again applies enough offensive pressure to kill slow opponents. The deck is entirely designed around having simply good defensive cards at a density to allow for those openings.

Sky Strikers are the next best threat-generating package because Sky Striker Ace - Raye making each Link monster float into the others means your opponent has to put a lot of resources into breaking through. This is all while you get to search and recycle the incidentally good Sky Striker spells too. Cyber Dragon threats are less repeatable, but the trade off is they also solve a problem in the EMZ. Cyber Emergency, Herz, and Core each represent a Chimeratech Megafleet Dragon while searching the 2100 Cyber Dragon at least. Hard drawing Cyber Dragon is still alright because Megafleet alone is good. It's dangerous to go any bigger than these 4 though, because you only have 1 Megafleet.

The Tour Guide package helps fill in the gaps, as well as search the other engines. RotA can get Armageddon Knight, which can dump Scarm to search TGU, which summons Sangan and makes Wee Witch's Apprentice to search Raye while floating. Of course, you can also just RotA for Raye, or Sangan for Ash Blossom or Ghost Ogre. This flexibility of being able to represent either a monster engine or a piece of disruption smooths things over and ensures you always have just enough monsters to end the game, but also enough disruption to not get bowled over. Additionally, Sky Strikers and Trickstars have some TCG-inspired synergy where even if the floating threats are too weak to beat your opponent's board, both engines have incidental direct attackers and burn effects so you can win on chip damage instead.

What were some of your tech choices and "trinities?"

Late includes in the spell lineup include Ledger of Legerdemain and Pot of Avarice. Ledger was bad and lost me a round in swiss due to losing before the cards mattered and topdecking it when I needed a monster. Even the games where I resolved it and won often felt as though the cards didn't matter and having something else real 3 turns earlier would have been better. Pot of Avarice was unimaginably good and I firmly believe it deserves staple status. In a singleton format, reloading your engines while refueling your hand is well worth the bricks. It also has direct synergy with Cyber Dragons by reloading Megafleet making extra Cydra cards good. It also synergizes with Sky Strikers by letting you go through the links with an in-grave Raye again.

Almost every other card in the deck is one of a variety of top-tier pieces of disruption or part of one of the four main packages. Mana Dragon Zirnitron was acceptable but rarely contributed to a blowout. However, it does let you force Lightstage through S/T destruction and get multiplicative value from cards that banish themselves like Lost Wind and Trickstar Reincarnation. I would play it again in any deck with key spells and traps that can be disrupted. Phantom Skyblaster performed quite well, as it is a generic and splashable link engine that fit very well with the philosophy of the deck. It is reasonably strong, flexible, represents a floater in Wee Witch, and doesn't involve playing bricks, very similar to the Co-Forbidden Gofu.

How did you prepare for the meta, and would you change anything going forward?

I was expecting a field of mirror matches, BA, Pendulums, and Flip. In my opinion this order roughly represents the Trinity tier list for this event and I prepared accordingly. The mirror match is the mirror match and the primary way to succeed is to play better than the opponent. However, I included a Mekk-Knight engine as offensive pressure that doesn't lose to Megafleet and is bigger than most common threats from other engines. Lullaby of Obedience also made it in for Raye. Because even the non-graveyard centric decks often play graveyard effects and it's power versus BA, I opted to maindeck Called by the Grave. I also sided D.D. Crow, Ghost Belle, and Sky Striker Mecha - Shark Cannon.

For Pendulums I sided Spell Shattering Arrow, Typhoon, Pendulum Storm, MST, and Galaxy Cyclone to focus scales. For Flip, I threw in Nobleman of Crossout. Additionally, each of these are effective in rogue matchups or with overlap, with more S/T hate helping vs any backrow deck and Nobleman punishing decks with Shaddoll engines like ABC Dolls.

How were your matchups?

I played against BA three times, ABC Dolls twice, and Flip, Pendulums, and Gishki once each. BA is a relatively poor matchup because the deck actually has infinite value within its engine with the Cir-Dante loop. This means to win long grind games you need to break the loop. My only games dropped were to BA round 1, but I avenged myself versus the same player in top cut with better draws, better play, and my maindeck call paying off. ABC Dolls are within the same realm as a Flip deck and I did not feel the need to prepare for this deck in any way, and it showed in my record. The maindeck tools that help the BA matchup also punish ABCs. My deck is far less reliant on putting something in the EMZ than many so it's fairly easy to play around Shaddoll Fusion. Only TGU and Sky Strikers play into it, but TGU into Sangan can search the Ash Blossom to stop it.

The story was similar versus Flip as despite their power Subterrors make the deck fragile and bricky. Some Flip setups are also blown out by a mere Knightmare Cerberus on their Umastryx. Pendulum is worth siding for simply because of how much overlap there is with side deck cards that are strong vs pendulums and strong vs other decks. While I don't think pendulums are quite there in the top tiers, they are a strong rogue pick, and I felt more comfortable that I wouldn't get blown out by their high ceiling using a little extra hate. It paid off, though I also found that because of this high ceiling the burn win condition was more relevant here than in other matchups. Rituals still are barely above unplayable in Trinity and are reserved for casual decks only, so that match wasn't a concern.

Is your deck still playable in the current format?

While the exact deck is likely going to get emergency banned out with the loss of Light Stage, this philosophy holds true and still creates the best deck in my opinion. Every other core engine is untouched, and there are still a lot of other engines with similar investment that serve the same function of being offensive pressure based on one floating/self-replacing monster backed by hands full of disruption. Not only could the deck be left nearly the same minus cards due to the amount of Trinities spent playing a full Trickstar engine, playing a package of 2x Madolche Magileine, 1x Madolche Anjelly, and 1x Madolche Hootcake could fill a similar role. Messengelato, Mewfeuille, Puddingcess, Ticket and Chateau are worth experimenting with but I'm not even sure they're necessary.

Obviously the utility of Trickstars is missing, but the trade-off is the power of cards like Tiaramisu, and you can run a similar ratio of starters to bricks. Control decks made from piles of the most powerful pieces of generic disruption and the current flavor of the month of small, self-sufficient, interchangeable monster packages will continue to be at the peak of Trinity for the foreseeable future without significant innovation into dedicated engine-based strategies or a major rule shakeup.

 

2nd Place: Mistilteinn's Rank 4 Trickstar

Why did you choose to run your deck?

I chose to run rank 4 recruiters (Traptrix, Trickstar, Hero, Sky striker ft r4nk enablers) because it has zero bad match ups. Very low chance of bricking also gave me a distinct edge against the meta.

What was your deckbuilding philosophy when making this deck?

Don’t play bad cards and play as many live cards as possible. Make sure you build for consistency.

What were some of your tech choices and "trinities?"

Blind obliteration has an 85% chance of being a better Torrential Tribute vs most decks in the format. It proved itself throughout the event as a good pick.

How did you prepare for the meta, and would you change anything going forward?

I got Mermail OTKed 5 times by young dagger dick with every other deck I tried. Because of this, I just wanted to play a deck capable of heavy back row and a low chance of bricking. It also has an amazing matchup vs last month's winning FLIP deck.

How were your matchups?

For the most part, very free. Trickstar Light Stage beats every deck on its own more or less.

Is your deck still playable in the current format?

Not if Trickstar Light Stage gets banned.

 

3rd-4th: Young Dagger Dick's Burning Abyss

Why did you choose to run your deck?

Light Stage is the best deck, but I'm not a weeb so I played the 2nd best deck. BA actually has a good Trickstar matchup if they don't hard draw Stage/Terraforming against you.

What was your deckbuilding philosophy when making this deck?

I really only wanted 3 types of cards in my deck: Burning Abyss, cards that got me to my BAs, and traps. I had to run some Garnets, but outside of those every card in my deck fit into one of those 3 categories.

What were some of your tech choices and "trinities?"

Arma and Grepher were just more cards to get Scarm in grave, and they also have a ton of utility with so many good targets to send off of them. Arma was amazing, but I definitely wouldn't play Grepher again. I don't want to discard most of the darks in my deck and effect negation is too prevalent. Playing Boots to send off Beatrice was cute a couple times, but Fog Blade isn't a very good card so it was definitely incorrect.

How did you prepare for the meta, and would you change anything going forward?

I mostly just focused my side on beating Trickstar, BA, Pend, Flip, and Good Stuff. I also wanted as much coverage as possible because of how many different decks see play. In hindsight, I don't think Pend or Flip are very good so I definitely wouldn't side as much for them.

How were your matchups?

There's not really any bad matchups with the deck. Stage was a blowout if I didn't draw an immediate out, but besides that my only losses were to bricking.

Is your deck still playable in the current format?

Yes, nothing got hit. The main change I would give for the build is that playing 60 is unnecessary.

3rd-4th: AsuiKitsune's Subterror Shaddoll

Why did you choose to run your deck?

Flips are terrible in the TCG and are decent in Trinity. Since I like the mechanic, I play the deck here.

 

What was your deckbuilding philosophy when making this deck?

I put a lot of emphasis on the Subterror engine because establishing Umastryx is a very good way to blow most decks out of the water. This is primarily because it's so hard to out.

 

What were some of your tech choices and "trinities?"

I didn't play anything extra special here. Cyber Dragons grant me access to Construct and a way to out Wee witch/Sky Strikers without them floating back into good cards.

I focused my trinities on the Subterrors because drawing The Hidden City gives me several options. Whether its Warrior to go into a behemoth with another monster or Archer to crash and float, the card is definitely strong.

 

How did you prepare for the meta, and would you change anything going forward?

I aimed my side deck for as many generic options as possible. The side has D Barrier and Debunk for Zoo and the mirror. I ran plenty of grave hate since most decks play with their grave a lot. I also ran extra backrow hate for Trickstars to kill their field spells.

How were your matchups?

R1 - I established Umastryx then brought back Thousand Eyes Locking him. Game 2 he had to Torrential himself to stop Umastryx. I then outpaced him from there.

R2 - Game 1 we fought back and forth with Shaddoll Fusions and he ended up pushing me until he had game. Game 2 I bricked and he opened Fofu setting up the next few turns for himself.

R3 - Game 1 he had an immediate answer for Umastryx, then had handtraps to stop my follow ups. Game 2 he immediately outpaced me with Sky Strikers and Twin Twisters.

R4 - He opened with Sky Strikers and I had the Doll Fusion to punish him. This let me outresource him for the rest of the game. In game 2, Ash stopped his One for One. Then using the doll monsters' grave effects with warrior, I outresourced him extremely quickly.

R5 - I have no idea where the replay for this is

R6 - I had pawns and Umastryx early which let me just remove everything he had without giving him a chance to fight back. Game 2 I baited his Fiendess negate then eclipsed to stop him from using Thousand Eyes. This let me draw into my Subterrors and establish Umastryx.

T8 - He opened Fofu for the 3rd game in a row and left an established extra deck monster. This let Shaddoll Fusion resolve and gave me enough resources to easily win. Game 2 he opened Gofu for the 4th time. I had Herz to get rid of Wee Witch and Dimensional Barrier to stop Doll Fusion, leaving him without enough cards to come back and win.

Is your deck still playable in the current format?

Yes, it's not as good as Field Spell.dek but it's better than most other decks. The deck is already optimized. At most I'd swap some of the generic traps for more backrow hate to stop the field spells.