I don't know what the deal with Konami is, but they seem to have a personal vendetta vs. my favourite Yugioh lore hero - Albaz!
Their iconic powerful card, Branded Fusion, has been brought from the original 3, semi-limited to 2, and finally to ONE!!! Why Konami why, must Albaz (and his adoring fanbase, me included) suffer even more??? Branded is not even particularly oppressive (esp. since Expulsion has been banned) and its a general consensus that it is a fun/fair deck to fight against and pilot!
Perhaps Konami wants to change the strategy's identity from the over-centralizing resolution Branded Fusion to other forms of play. This harsh limit to the deck's best card forces Branded Despia players to be creative and adapt to the meta, or else they will fall behind with vs. the unstoppable progress of powercreep.
Luckily with all the support Branded Despia has, they're not a one trick pony and have many other plays other than resolving Branded Fusion. There are still many ways to search and recycle Branded Fusion, so that you can be sure that you can use it multiple times over the course of a duel.
With Tearlaments further weakened, Kashtira not at it's full power level just yet and Spright arguably the strongest deck on ladder, Branded can compete comfortably versus top tier Masterduel meta despite the seemingly critical consistency hit to Branded Fusion. Despite the 50 card decklist, getting to the one copy of Branded Fusion is still very accessible due to the many ways to tutor it out of the deck into hand, and there are multiple ways to recycle the card (that being Retribution, Tragedy and Kitt).
The second copy of
Branded Fusion has been replaced by
Keeper of Dragon Magic, whose discard of a card to search any normal fusion spell can help bring a card from hand to GY, triggering Edge Imp Chain's search or enabling Despian Tragedy's GY recovery. It's ability to summon Cartesia or Albaz from the GY, albeit facedown also has some utility, since you are given another piece of material for a fusion summon.
Other than that one minor change, the deck, strategy and win condition is functionally the same - fusion summon gigantic beatsticks and out-resource your opponent to secure the win!
If you want a detailed guide with combos on how to pilot Branded Despia, check out my guide for August.
Want to see the deck in action? Scroll to the very bottom for the Youtube video!
GLHF Duelists!
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