OCG 2024.10 Metagame Report #10, #11

by Akira · 21 December 2024

Welcome to Week #10, #11 of the OCG 2024.10 format.

This report tabulates 147 top-performing decks from 33 tournaments that were held in Japan, China Mainland, Indonesia, Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand, South Korea and Vietnam during 7 – 19 December 2024.

Metagame Breakdown

49 Ryzeal
19 Maliss (14 Maliss, 2 Grass Maliss, 1 Grass Bystial Maliss, 1 Grass Horus Bystial Maliss, 1 Fiendsmith Bystial Maliss)
15 Primite Blue-Eyes
9 Memento
7 Gem-Knight (4 Gem-Knight, 3 Fiendsmith Gem-Knight)
5 Fiendsmith Azamina White Forest
4 Branded (3 Grass Branded, 1 Branded)
4 Crystron (3 Crystron, 1 Fiendsmith Crystron)
3 Atlantean
3 Centur-Ion (1 Centur-Ion, 1 Fiendsmith Centur-Ion, 1 Horus Centur-Ion)
3 Fiendsmith Yubel
3 Jurrac
3 Snake-Eye (2 Fiendsmith White Forest Azamina Snake-Eye, 1 White Forest Azamina Snake-Eye)
2 Fiendsmith Goblin Biker
2 Tenpai Dragon (1 Tenpai Dragon, 1 Fiendsmith Tenpai Dragon)
1 Branded Bystial Buster Blader
1 Fiendsmith Unchained
1 Fire King
1 Gimmick Puppet
1 Gladiator Beast
1 Grass Tearlaments Shaddoll Branded
1 HERO
1 Horus Fiendsmith Azamina Scareclaw
1 Horus SPYRAL
1 Millennium Crystal Beast
1 Nekroz
1 Primite Fiendsmith
1 Superheavy Samurai Cyber Dragon
1 Supreme King Z-ARC Magician
1 Therion Ragnaraika Aroma Sunavalon Rikka
1 Voiceless Voice

Ryzeal

Sonoda shared in his tweet (@roll_sv) his opinion on playing against Mulcharmy Fuwalos or Mulcharmy Purulia as a Ryzeal player.

When making a Rank 4 Monster would give the opponent 2 draws, then he would still go for a Ryzeal Duo Drive and follow up with Ryzeal Detonator, giving the opponent a total of 3 draws. Getting the full setup of Ryzeal Detonator, Ryzeal Cross and Ryzeal Plugin is far more advantageous than the additional 1 draw given to the opponent.

If making a Rank 4 Monster would only give the opponent 1 draw, then he would consider making just Ryzeal Detonator and stop. But if it is a Ryzeal mirror match, then he would still go all out for the full Ryzeal Duo Drive into Ryzeal Detonator setup. Especially if he opened with Dimensional Barrier in hand for the mirror match.

This is an interesting discussion among the players. They brought up that for most match-ups except Ryzeal, a single Ryzeal Detonator is enough to disrupt the opponent and there is no need to risk giving the opponent more cards. However, in the Ryzeal mirror match, a lone Ryzeal Detonator setup would be easily dismantled by Ext Ryzeal sending Mereologic Aggregator, so they would have to take the risk of giving more draws but setup a stronger board.

Retaliating “C” was seeing some play in the Side Deck against Fusion decks, namely against Snake-Eye and White Forest which uses the Azamina package and Memento. Now Retaliating “C” could be played in another relevant match-up against Gem-Knight.

Sonoda (そのだ) went 8-0 (excluding 1 bye) and finished 1st in “45th RAM Cup Individual Tournament” which had 77 participants.

Maliss

The Gryphon build for Maliss continues to perform well in the OCG metagame. Shani (しゃんい), the player featured in the previous metagame report, has written a really good article on Note (【OCG】グリフォン型M∀LICE展開メモ). He covers the pros and cons of the Terahertz build and Gryphon build, his deck build and card choices, as well as combos for the Gryphon build.

Hiroaki commented on his tweet (@miriny_forever) that he barely faced any Maliss mirror match in the “45th RAM Cup” and was able to get by without Artifact Lancea and Dominus Impulse. He came to the realization that he was underprepared for the Maliss mirror match when he was knocked out by Maliss in the “Duelist King Cup” on the next day. Now he gave proper thoughts to it calmly, he reasoned that he was already running Artifact Sanctum so adding Artifact Lancea would complement his Side Deck.

This is a common sentiment that many top players would had experienced. They could have topped or even won a tournament, but there could still be room for improvement in the deck build. Sometimes they just have a very lucky tournament run, and the weakness or flaws in the deck build are only revealed in another tournament run.

Hiroaki (ひろあき) went 6-1 (excluding 1 bye) and finished 3 – 4th in “45th RAM Cup Individual Tournament” which had 77 participants.

Blue-Eyes

Dongling went 7-3 and finished 17 – 32nd in “China City Tournament 2024 Chengdu”. Using the exact same deck list, he finished 2nd in “Top Deck Vis Ranking Tournament” which had 42 participants, proving that he has pretty good deck build with replicable results.

He opted not to run Crimson Dragon in the Extra Deck. He explained in the comment (吃行合一z) that he felt Crimson Dragon is a win-more card. Setting up the Crimson Dragon play would require making 2 Level 9 Synchro Monsters, which is only possible when there are no disruptions from the opponent.

This is also a reflection of his understanding of the current OCG metagame. Many decks are now largely running a heavy ‘hand trap’ build, including Nibiru, the Primal Being and Ghost Ogre & Snow Rabbit in the Main Deck. As such, many games would boil down to a game of attrition and thus he chose to build his deck to have a stronger floor that could play well under disruptions.

Conclusion

We have come to the end of the OCG 2024.10 format with Ryzeal in the lead, followed by Maliss and Primite Blue-Eyes trailing behind.

The very first Yu-Gi-Oh! Championship Series China (YCSC) will also be held today at Guangzhou. It would be played with the OCG format (Quarter Century Trinity Box not allowed) in a Best-of-One Match system. The live-stream will be available on the Yu-Gi-Oh! Card Game Bilibili channel 游戏王卡片游戏.

The OCG 2025.01 Limit Regulation will be announced tomorrow.

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