OCG 2024.01 Metagame Report #8

by · 4 March 2024

Welcome to Week #8 of the OCG 2024.01 format.

This report tabulates 187 top-performing decks from 29 tournaments that were held in Japan, China Mainland, Thailand and South Korea during 23 – 28 February 2024.

Metagame Breakdown

  • 40 Sinful Spoils Snake-Eye Fire King
  • 32 Tenpai Dragon (30 Tenpai Dragon, 1 Dragunity Rokket Tenpai Dragon, 1 Kashtira Tenpai Dragon)
  • 25 Snake-Eye
  • 20 Voiceless Voice
  • 9 Branded (5 Grass Branded, 4 Branded)
  • 6 Ritual Beast
  • 4 Chimera
  • 4 Melodious
  • 4 Sinful Spoils Snake-Eye Rescue-ACE
  • 3 Centur-Ion
  • 3 Labrynth
  • 3 Runick
  • 3 Salamangreat
  • 2 Floowandereeze
  • 2 Melodious Vaylantz
  • 2 Vernusylph Adamancipator
  • 2 Yubel (1 Yubel, 1 Unchained Yubel)
  • 1 Chaos Galaxy-Eyes
  • 1 Chaos Thunder Dragon
  • 1 Fiend Link
  • 1 Grass Raidraptor
  • 1 Grass Tearlaments Shaddoll Branded
  • 1 Grass Sinful Spoils Snake-Eye Infernoid
  • 1 Grass Sinful Spoils Snake-Eye Infernoid Unchained)
  • 1 Horus Naturia
  • 1 Horus Superheavy Samurai
  • 1 Kashtira
  • 1 Labrynth Red Dragon Archfiend
  • 1 Lightsworn
  • 1 Mannadium
  • 1 Ragnaraika Sunavalon Rikka
  • 1 Ragnaraika Vernusylph Naturia
  • 1 Sinful Spoils Evolzar Dinosaur
  • 1 Sinful Spoils Snake-Eye Evolzar Horus
  • 1 Sky Striker
  • 1 Spright Tri-Brigade
  • 1 Supreme King Z-ARC Magician
  • 1 Supreme King Z-ARC FTK
  • 1 Unchained
  • 1 Voiceless Voice Mikanko

Fire King

Sinful Spoils Snake-Eye Fire King deck build has been largely optimized with many players running similar Main Deck and Extra Deck. But the Side Deck continues to be flexible and adapts according to the metagame.

Anti-Spell Fragrance, Solemn Strike and Solemn Judgment were the more popular Trap cards played in the Side Deck, but more recently Dimensional Barrier was also played against Tenpai Dragon.

Appointer of the Red Lotus is another option that is seeing play in the Side Deck. Being able to look at your opponent’s hand and banish 1 card from their hand until their next End Phase is a huge advantage when you can pick off their starter and plan your disruptions accordingly. Appointer of the Red Lotus could be used against most match-ups, but is not as good against Fire King or Snake-Eye due to the large amount of starters that they run. If you pick off their Snake-Eye Ash, they could have Bonfire or WANTED: Seeker of Sinful Spoils to fetch it out again.

Murako (ムラコ) went 7-1 and finished 1st in “8th Taiyo CS Trio” which had 25 teams (75 participants).

Tenpai Dragon

Tenpai Dragon deck builds are now running upwards of 22 ‘hand traps’ in the Main Deck. This ‘hand trap’ heavy version of the deck is likely the dominant build going forward. In the “Yu-Gi-Oh! Area Championship 2023 in Kyoto”, the champion teams of both A Block and B Block had 5 Tenpai Dragon running this build.

Tenpai Dragon could play the game of attrition against Fire King and Snake-Eye, where both sides would throw ‘hand traps’ at each other to disrupt their combos, until one side runs out of ‘hand traps’ and the other side could combo off. Since Tenpai Dragon has a much more compact core package, they could allocate more slots to ‘hand traps’. Sangen Summoning has a Continuous Effect that makes FIRE Dragon monsters you control becomes unaffected by your opponent’s activated effects during your Main Phase 1, which also makes it much more tricky to disrupt Tenpai Dragon.

Tenpai Dragon is also running the Promethean Princess, Bestower of Flames, Salamangreat Raging Phoenix and Worldsea Dragon Zealantis in the Extra Deck as an option to perform an One-Turn-Kill while under Dimensional Barrier. However, the opponent typically would not flip Dimensional Barrier pre-emptively, and would likely wait for you to move to the Battle Phase first. Hence, this is more of an option to bring out when you managed to force out Dimensional Barrier with Harpie’s Feather Duster or Heavy Storm.

On Friday, Ryunu (りゅぬ) went 7-1 and finished 2nd in “29th Lotus Cup” which had 26 teams (78 participants). On Saturday, he went 6-2 and finished 1st in “Yu-Gi-Oh! Area Championship 2023 in Kyoto (A Block)”.

Snake-Eye

The Black Goat Laughs is another tech option that some players are running in the Side Deck. This innovation largely came about as a tech to go against Tenpai Dragon, but could also work against other match-ups.

Against Tenpai Dragon, when the opponent activates Tenpai Dragon Chundra ① effect to Special Summon itself, The Black Goat Laughs ① effect could be chained to declare Tenpai Dragon Chundra and stop its Special Summon. Blocking Tenpai Dragon Chundra could effectively stop their Synchro Summon plays since Tenpai Dragon Chundra is the only Tuner Monster. If the opponent opens with Normal Summon Tenpai Dragon Chundra and moves to the Battle Phase, then The Black Goat Laughs ① effect could declare Sangenpai Bident Dragion to cut off the opponent and effectively stop their One-Turn-Kill.

On a later turn, The Black Goat Laughs ② effect could be used to declare 1 Monster Card name, and both players cannot activate the effects of monsters on the field with that original name for this turn. Against Voiceless Voice, this effect could be used on your turn to declare Skull Guardian, Protector of the Voiceless Voice to stop the opponent from using its negation effect.

Dimensional Barrier could only be used against Tenpai Dragon and Voiceless Voice, while The Black Goat Laughs could be used against Fire King, Snake-Eye, Tenpai Dragon and Voiceless Voice, technically almost any match-up as long as you could declare the appropriate Monster Card name to disrupt their play. A single copy of The Black Goat Laughs could be used two times over different turns also gives it a lot of mileage when current games often goes into a battle of attrition.

Gyaguna (ギャグナ) went 8-0 and finished 1st in “169th Next Play Cup” which had 35 participants.

Voiceless Voice

When looking at the tech choices of a deck, it is paramount to evaluate them as a whole package and see what match-ups they are used for together, and not individually as a standalone one-ofs.

The 1 Dimensional Barrier in the Side Deck is sided in together with 3 Summon Limit, as they fulfills the same purpose in the Tenpai Dragon match-up.

Many ‘hand traps’ have a hard once-per-turn clause, and any additional copies drawn cannot be used in the same turn. Drawing a hand of 3 Ghost Belle & Haunted Mansion is functionally only 1 disruption. Hence, some players may hedge by running 2 Ghost Belle & Haunted Mansion and 1 D.D. Crow instead.

The tech choices do not need to have similar effects, but as long as they are used for the specific match-up and are sided in together, then you would still have a decent chance of drawing your tech cards. Mixing up your tech choices also makes it harder for the opponent play around.

Kawakita Shinpei finished 2nd in “Yu-Gi-Oh! Area Championship 2023 in Kyoto (A Block)”.

Conclusion

The current format has largely stabilize with Sinful Spoils Snake-Eye Fire King, Tenpai Dragon, Snake-Eye and Voiceless Voice as the decks to beat.

Players are continuously bringing out new tech choices in the Side Deck, making it advantageous to keep up with the trends of what are being played.

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References

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5 Responses

  1. Cz says:
    4 March 2024 at 8:40 pm

    Anyone find the decklist for chaos Galaxy? Couldn’t find out in the references

    Reply
  2. jozie says:
    6 March 2024 at 9:04 am

    anyone find that lightsworn list? cant find it anywhere

    Reply
  3. Stefano says:
    9 March 2024 at 6:52 pm

    Anyone found the Voiceless Voice Mikanko list?

    Reply

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