Genesys was jumpin’ at YCS Pittsburgh! The 32, 16-player qualifiers were over by 4 PM on Saturday, with another 35 on-demand events firing as well, almost double what we had in Anaheim! Among the Duelists trying to qualify, 90 different strategies were represented, and the 64 qualifying Duelists finished their pods 3-0 or better with 34 different Decks. Today we’ll discuss some of the takeaways from the weekend’s events!

Continue?!
We mentioned in a previous post that we expected Vanquish Soul to still be a powerful Deck even after the October points adjustment. In Pittsburgh, 4 players made it to the Invitational using Vanquish Soul, and 1 made it all the way to the quarterfinals! The primary casualty of the points adjustment last month was Vanquish Soul Jiaolong. Among all the Vanquish Soul Decks from the qualifiers, players prioritized having a second copy of Vanquish Soul Hollie Sue, and to get those points they were willing to give up Jiaolong completely.

Genesys Regenesis
To replace the FIRE/EARTH/DARK monsters they had to remove due to points being added to the core Vanquish Soul cards, players turned to the Regenesis theme that has all 3 and an Emergency Teleport type card to help pull them from the Deck. Regenesis Code Summons Regenesis Archfiend or Regenesis Warrior from the Deck, and then when they go to the Graveyard during the opponent’s turn, you return them to your hand in the End Phase and now you have the Attributes you need!

This isn’t the only place Regenesis monsters and Regenesis Code have appeared in a supporting capacity, but we would be remiss if we didn’t shout out the Regenesis Deck itself, which has been steadily improving since Genesys began! While it didn’t make the Invitational in Anaheim, multiple Regenesis Decks made it through in Pittsburgh!

We Can Recreate Dino Rabbit in the Aggregate
Pittsburgh saw a rise in general use Summon engines. After the price of Speedroid Terrortop and Dodododo Warrior went up last month, Terrortop and Taketomborg were phased out in favor of Radiant Typhoon Eldam, Radiant Typhoon Swen, and Radiant Typhoon Chant. A much larger Deck commitment, but the cards are interchangeable.

As for Dodododo Warrior, it seems the increase in price just reminded everyone how powerful the card is and its usage went up! In fact, the increase is likely explained by players looking into the bridge between 2 Level 3s and Dodododo Warrior via Goblin Biker Big Gabonga. The Big Gabonga gets you Gogogo Goblindbergh (which is a “goblin”!)and provided you have your Normal Summon available, that gets you to everything else.

What are players doing with these cards? Mostly Xyz Summoning 1 Xyz Monster that negates a Spell/Trap and 1 that negates a monster effect, backed up by removal. Sometimes they also banish a bunch of your stuff either with Dimensional Fissure and/or “Runick” Spells. And if you close your eyes… you might have a flashback to Evolzar Laggia and Evolzar Dolkka backed up by Macro Cosmos and some Traps.

Classic Cards Reemerge!
This time around we saw a lot of classic cards and combinations appearing – and succeeding! Fan favorite Dante, Traveler of the Burning Abyss is back in action and made it all the way to the Quarterfinals, and his running mate The Phantom Knights of Break Sword did as well. Crystal Wing Synchro Dragon made the field, and we even saw a reemergence of the Windwitch cards (Ice Bell, Glass Bell, and Snow Bell) to help Summon it.

One old favorite Deck that didn’t make the field of 64 brought back the original Yang Zing cards from Duelist Alliance and The New Challengers. Yang Zing is one of the strategies we’re planning to add in the next Rivalry of Warlords update, and in fact was the only strategy we’re planning to add that no one had brought previously.

Who’s In? Who’s Out?
The number of unique strategies that made it to the Invitational increased from 24 in Anaheim to 34 in Pittsburgh! It wasn’t all additions though, some strategies that did make it in Anaheim did not make it in Pittsburgh, and some of those were a bit surprising!

OUT:
Blue-Eyes
Exosister
Fire King
Springans P.U.N.K.
Jurrac
Dinosaurs
Purrely
Ashened

IN:
Naturia
Psychics
Gem-Knight
Dragonmaid
Invoked Dracotail
Super Quantum
Chimera Azamina
K9 Artmage
Mitsurugi
Drytron
Ice Barrier
Monarchs
Rose Dragons
Megalith
Regenesis
K9
Onomat
ZW Utopia

The newcomers are a nice mix of Fusion, Synchro, Xyz, and Ritual strategies, a couple of hybrids, plus Monarchs. No one Summoning mechanic seems to rule them all.

Which Advanced Format Forbidden Cards Were Popular?
Pot of Greed continues to be the most played card off that list. Graceful Charity fell off almost completely since last time, but dropping Mirage of Nightmare to 0 got some players to use it, mostly as a Side Deck card. True King of All Calamities was nearly absent this time, but slashing the price of Metamorphosis got it into the Invitational.

Any Extreme Outliers?
Last month Vanquish Soul was an extreme performance outlier.  This time around, there were no extreme performance outliers. In Pittsburgh’s Invitational, there was a big group of Decks that appeared 1-3 times, and then a small group in the 4-6 range. In Anaheim, we had those 2 groups and then Vanquish Soul at 12 reps. There will always be some Decks that perform better than others in any given tournament, and there can only be 1 winner, but Pittsburgh’s distribution, with no huge outliers, is more ideal.

The current landscape of Genesys is looking pretty good from our perspective, and there are 2 more YCS events happening this month with 2 more Invitationals in tow! Notably, YCS Bologna will be our first chance to see how European Duelists are approaching Genesys. You could probably guess this based on the tournament schedule and release calendar, but we figure we should say outright that there won’t be a point adjustment this month. The next one is planned for December, after we’ve had a chance to digest the new data.