OCG 2013.09 Metagame (1 Sep – 31 Oct 2013)

Dragon Rulers and Prophecy were hit by the Limit Regulation taking out the baby Dragon Rulers and Spellbook of Judgment. Dragon Ruler continues to be a force to be reckoned with, while Prophecy has greatly fallen from the competitive scene.

Compiled from a total of 232 top-placing decks from 26 competitive tournaments held in Japan, here is the final metagame breakdown of the OCG 2013.09 format.

• 61 Dragon Ruler (60 Dragon Ruler, 1 Red-Eyes Dragon Ruler)
• 54 Atlantean Mermail
• 33 Evilswarm
• 20 4-Axis Fire Fist
• 15 Dragunity (11 Dragon Ruler Dragunity, 4 Dragunity)
• 9 HERO (7 A Live HERO, 2 HERO Beat)
• 7 Laval
• 5 Gadget (3 Gadget, 2 Machina Gadget)
• 4 Dark World
• 4 Hieratic (3 Hieratic, 1 Dragon Ruler Hieratic)
• 4 Prophecy
• 2 Fire King
• 2 4-Axis Fire Fist
• 1 Bujin
• 1 Chain Burn
• 1 Constellar
• 1 Dragon Ruler Lightsworn
• 1 Geargia
• 1 Gladiator Beast
• 1 Harpie
• 1 Infernity
• 1 Inzektor
• 1 Junk Doppel
• 1 Six Samurai
• 1 X-Saber

The many hits to Dragon Ruler had greatly reduced their dominance, but they still managed to slightly eked out over Atlantean Mermail.

Without the baby Dragon Rulers to Special Summon them, the big Dragon Rulers would have to be Special Summoned by banishing other Dragons, resulting in quick depletion of the Dragon Rulers. D.D.R. – Different Dimension Reincarnation and Return from the Different Dimension were played to recur the banished Dragon Rulers.

Electric Virus became a key tech in this format, being able to take control of the opponent’s Dragon and Machine monsters. Dragon Rulers, Evilswarm Ophion and Mecha Phantom Beast Dracossack were some of the common targets to take with Electric Virus.

Evilswarm Ophion would only stop Level 5 or higher monsters from being Special Summoned while it has Xyz Material. Evilswarm opponent would often use 1 Xyz Material to search out Infestation Pandemic as Spell/Trap protection for Evilswarm Ophion. Hence players would side in Electric Virus with Infestation Terminus so that after taking control of the opponent’s Evilswarm Ophion, its effect could be activated to add Infestation Terminus from deck to hand, and thus depleting Evilswarm Ophion‘s Xyz Material, causing its effect to cease.

Having Prophecy out of the way opens up the second position for Atlantean Mermail to seize.

Besides the classic synergy of using the Atlantean monsters to fuel the cost of the Mermail monsters, the inclusion of Tidal, Dragon Ruler of Waterfalls provides the deck with additional firepower and could quickly close games when combined with Mermail Abyssmegalo double attacking.

Tidal, Dragon Ruler of Waterfalls opens up Rank 7 plays, and its ability to banish WATER monster from the graveyard also helps to control the amount of WATER monsters in the graveyard for Moulinglacia the Elemental Lord.

Evilswarm remains as a strong anti meta check against Dragon Ruler and Atlantean Mermail, using Evilswarm Ophion to stop their high level monsters from being Special Summoned. The old issue of having a weak going second strategy prevented the deck from achieving better results.

They also have a bad match-up going up against Fire Fist and HERO decks, which uses low level monsters decks to make Rank 4 plays and are mostly unaffected by Evilswarm Ophion.

The OCG 2013.09 format was the start of a revamped Limit Regulation system. Previous Limit Regulations were revised every 6 months, and could be too slow to check overbearing metagame such as Dragon Ruler and Prophecy in the OCG 2013.03 format. The new Limit Regulations were now revised every 2 or 3 months, allowing a faster response to problematic cards.

Although Dragon Ruler were still the top deck to beat, they are not as oppressive as before. No changes were made for the OCG 2013.09 → OCG 2013.11 Limit Regulation, allowing the metagame to continue to develop on its own.