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The July 2019 Trinity Cup was held this month with 26 participants, and the results are in!
1st: Giant Skyhawk
2nd: Ding
3rd-4th: guiltygearxx
3rd-4th: 41 Flavors of Burritos
5th-8th: Sunshine
5th-8th: Icysion
5th-8th: LilShpeeThatCould
5th-8th: Anima7ed
Congratulations to all who topped! The following optional deck profiles were all written by the respective tournament participants.
1st Place: Giant Skyhawk's Jurassic Park
What deck did you play and why?
The sky was beginning to crack open.
It had grown dark over the Lost World. Galaxy Tyranno was doing his best, but he too was beginning to crack under the pressure of every single card in Yugioh that targets monsters screaming for Lost World to be banned. The Weather Painters, led by the maniacal moderator MonoBungusTron were causing ecological havoc on the entire universe.
The fire again was beginning to fade.
Just when all hope seemed lost, Pankratops and the Dinowrestlers rushed out of the volcano, having made new friends out of the fossils that lay around the Lost World. The bugs had finally been freed from their eternal state of slumber. Now there were soldiers to tell the banlist to buzz off. Even so, I knew that while we could win the battle, we would most certainly lose the war.
I walked back into the volcano to speak with my oldest friend, Jurrac Guaiba, one last time.
“You know we can’t win, right? I squeaked into the top cut at 8th again and people are still trying to ban Lost World and now Pankratops is in danger! What do I do?”
Jurrac Guaiba made his way to the base of the fire, which had now extinguished completely. He reached into the ashes and in the grip of his claws was an egg, unmistakably that of a Jurrac Aeolo that had not yet hatched.
“All good things must come to an end. Even this Lost World must eventually move into the past where it came from.”
Jurrac Guaiba handed me the egg, tears welling up in his eyes.
“Our time here is done, but that does not mean all hope is lost. Take this, and find a place for Dinosaurs to call home again.”
I step outside, and for a moment I feel like the Lost World is the same as it always was. A place of comfort for people and prehistoric creatures alike, a sense of adventure and excitement lingers in the air. I’m not likely to find a place like this ever again, but I’m determined to find these Dinosaurs a home.
“I’ll do it, just you wait. I always find a way.”
What tech choices did you play?
How did you prepare for the meta, and would you change anything going forward?
Meta preparation was basically the same, the only interesting choice I think was keeping the Cyber Dragon package in the side to prepare for a matchup with machine goodstuff which dinosaur has problems playing against.
How were your matchups?
Against Salamangreat it’s very important to play the resource game as tightly as you can and look for the right opening. Against Weather you just want to apply as much offensive pressure as possible. Finally, against Hero and Kozmo you want to play a grindier style of game as both decks would like to steamroll as fast as possible. Shoutouts to Sunshine for playing a fantastic Lunalight mash deck that really kept me on my toes for the entire match.
2nd Place: Ding's Rituals
What deck did you play and why?
Because I was desperate and wanted to get into the top cut of this month’s tournament, I used a ritual to sell my soul to the devil in exchange for a good deck.
In all seriousness, I played Rituals. It’s called Rituals because that’s the only way to describe the deck (unless you want to call it ImpcantationShinobaronNekrozLordoftheRedNephthys). The reasoning for the deck was that it (in theory) had not only a good matchup against Weather Painters and HERO, but also Salamangreat which (at the time) was considered one of the best decks in the format. The deck can also let you amass immense card advantage if unchecked.
The deck operates on putting Impcantation Chalislime in your hand as quick as possible and from there you can fuel your Ritual plays. Said Ritual plays include:
- Abusing Shinobaron/ess Peacock to mass remove cards from your opponent's board while also summoning Amano-Iwato, an incredibly powerful spirit monster that can lock out your opponent,
- Summoning Lord of the Red, a strong boss monster that can dismantle boards if unchecked, and
- Summoning Nekroz of Trishula, which is pretty self explanatory.
What tech choices did you play?
How did you prepare for the meta, and would you change anything going forward?
The whole Ritual deck was meant to counteract the projected metagame, allowing me to hurt the predicted top 3 decks (HERO, Weather Painter, and Salamangreat) with Amano-Iwato.
I sidedecked Cerulean Sacred Phoenix of Nephthys because I thought Dinosaur would be lesser in the metagame, a mistake that would cost me heavily. In reality I wish I maindecked it due to how powerful it was in the Dinosaur matchup.
A big change I would make to the deck is removing the Pot of Extravagance and Heavy Storm Duster co-forbidden pair and replacing it with another Pre-Preparation of Rites. You really want to see your Ritual Monsters, and Pre-Prep is one of the best ways to search them out.
How were your matchups?
Game 1 I went against Meepmoto27’s Blue-Eyes White Dragon deck where I won 2-0, during the second game I used Cerulean Sacred Phoenix to bait out his Number 90: Galaxy-Eyes Photon Lord’s negation effect. After that I swept it up with Shinobaron Peacock to swing for game.
Game 2 I went against Anju’s SPYRAL deck where I won 2-1. It seemed like he was going to win in the last round, but I managed to pick up more steam than his deck could handle. SPYRAL was really insane though.
Game 3 I went against KrasherV’s Salamangreat Deck where I won 2-0. During the first game I used Shinobaroness Peacock to wipe his backrow and summon an Amano-Iwato that he couldn’t come back from. During the second game I summoned Peacock again, forcing Krasher to manually destroy his own backrow so that I couldn’t summon Amano from deck, after that I used Nekroz of Trishula to finish the game.
Game 4 I went against Guiltygearxx’s Dinosaur deck where I lost 2-1. I managed to give a good fight- Cerulean Sacred Phoenix of Nephthys being my saving grace and winning me game 2- However during the third game it was hit with a Paleozoic Dinomischus and couldn’t revive itself. The Dinosaur deck ran me over from there.
Game 5 I went against LilShpeeThatCould’s Jurassic Park deck where I lost 2-0. The first game went fine, however I was quickly killed by the powerful Giant Ballpark combo. The second game I bricked and got hit with another Giant Ballpark. This game was rough.
In Top Cut I went against Icysion’s Kozmo Deck where I won 2-0. The Kozmo deck’s biggest advantage was that they had large untargetable monsters. My deck completely went around that advantage with Shinobaron Peacock. Kozmoll Dark Lady was pretty scary though.
In Semi-Finals I went against Guiltygearxx’s Dinosaur deck again but this time I won 2-1. Guilty managed to brick in the last game, giving me the very lucky win.
In Finals I went against GiantSkyhawk’s Jurassic Park where I lost 2-1. The match was very intense, where it looked like I would win the final game. However due to hitting the incorrect backrow, my plays were outed and I lost. Very happy with how the game went, however. As you can see, all of my losses were to Dinosaurs.
3rd-4th Place: guiltygearxx's Dinosaur
3rd-4th Place: 41 Flavors of Burritos' Ninja
What deck did you play and why?
About a month ago, I had a huge desire to make a bunch of different decks. One of those decks was Ninjas. My first draft of the deck was a splash between Heroes, Tellarknights, and Ninjas. I called it Darkbright, because that’s edgy and I like the Elemental Hero with the same name. I eventually came back to the deck and remade it, aiming to reduce the number of dead cards while focusing the deck’s goal towards Ninjas. I eventually created the current variant and was satisfied enough with it that I wanted to play it in the cup.
What tech choices did you play?
How did you prepare for the meta, and would you change anything going forward?
My preparation for the meta was rather lackluster, unfortunately. I had Fusion of Fire and Ninjitsu Art of Shadow Sealing in the Side Deck for the Salamangreat matchup, along with Yellow Dragon Ninja for other backrow decks and to just have a 3k beater available. I also had Ninjitsu Art of Mirage-Transformation for decks that utilize the GY, along with Legacy of the Duelist (favorite card) for decks that ran loads of backrow. Besides that, a lot of my matchups were dependent on drawing Hanzo. My only answer to Dinosaurs was GY removal and Yellow Dragon Ninja, but that was also dependent on drawing into it vs a super consistent deck. HEROs would also provide trouble, but searchable interruption and my overall utility seemed to lead the matchup a bit in my favor. Weather required me drawing the usual Weather outs (Fairy Wind) or Destrudo + a non-tuner level 4 or lower monster. Ballpark required me to just sit back and pray. Going forward, I would definitely reduce the number of dragons in my main deck. While I do still believe that having multi-purpose Super-Transformation targets in the main deck is the power move, I 100% don’t need 4 targets. 2-3 would be fine. I would also like Timelords in the side deck, just because my deck lacked blowout cards. The only blowouts I had were Black Rose Dragon and Evilswarm Exciton Knight, but vs decks with loads of backrow, odds are those’re getting stopped. Besides that, I would just be looking for possible buffs to Ninja’s gameplan, since they’re super reliant on Hanzo.
How were your matchups?
My matches…weren’t really great. I got bodied by machines R1, since I super bricked and my only plays were answered immediately by Cyber Dragons. I got a bye R2, so I was unable to strut my stuff. I managed to beat Wuh Train and his Feast of the Wild.dek R3 (reading cards is apparently super important). I beat Heroes R4, but got a win R5 due to my opponent forfeiting. I am kind of annoyed that I didn’t get to show that my deck wasn’t bad and not that I made it into Top 8 via 2 free wins. I won 2-1 over Jurassic Park, but was unfortunately beaten 2-0 by a different Jurassic Park user. Not terrible, but not quite what I wanted. Oh well, it’s still is Top 4.
5th-8th Place: Sunshine's Lunalights
What did you play, and how did it perform?
I played Lunalights because they are a really good going second deck. I also hate Ballpark and this is good against it. If going against a deck that uses Extra Deck you can easily OTK them if they leave monsters in ATK position. Being able to send Crimson Fox from Deck with Lunalight Fusion both helps doing this and it also protects your already-protected Lunalight Panther Dancer from targeting effects such as Paleozoic Dinomischus. To give more consistency to the deck I also played Zoodiacs. Any one of them can make Broadbull to search what I'm missing for the combo or make 2800 banishing beatstick. I also chose to play a small Predaplant engine because Predaplant Chimerafflesia is really strong and all the Lunas are actually Dark. It was a really solid deck and it still is. It might perform better now that most tier 1 decks are hit.
5th-8th Place: Icysion's Kozmo
What did you play, and how did it perform?
5th-8th Place: LilShpeeThatCould's Jurassic Park
What did you play, and how did it perform?
I played Jurassic Park, like the header above this paragraph says. I played it mostly for the psychological factor. Because people think it's the best deck, they're more inclined to lose when playing against it. It becomes fate in their eyes, and they do not possess the power to change fate like I do, but that's a different plate of cookies for another glass of milk. Simply the name of the deck instills fear into my opponent's mind. Jurassic Park refers to both Jurassic World (which the field spell Lost World was designed after) as well as the card Giant Ballpark which I also play in the deck. Interestingly, the folks over at Universal Pictures were a big fan of my deck, so in June of 2015 (a few months before the June tournament), they decided to create a movie adaptation of my tournament experience. How they got the source material is beyond me, but I am currently drowning in legal fee debt all because they stole my idea from the future like a cyberpunk farfa.
5th-8th Place: Anima7ed's Fusion Goodstuff
What did you play, and how did it perform?
ithoughtsuperpolywouldbegood.dek. Essentially, given the meta was mostly Dinos and ultra aggro decks, I thought taking their advantage and making it mine would be a good idea. It turns out that Super Polymerization is actually very underwhelming in Trinity, and it was a mistake to put as much emphasis on it as I did.
