If you’ve read the coverage from SHONE JUMP Championship Nashville earlier this year, you may remember Alex Mitchell. Mitchell made the Top 16 with a Spaceship Deck. Packing cards like Blue Thunder T-45, Jade Knight, and Lord British Space Fighter, the Deck used Creature Swap to trade Tokens, Jade Knights, and Shining Angels for bigger opposing monsters. Honest and Limiter Removal made for some explosive turns and memorable wins.

This time Alex Mitchell is back, with a brand new build of the Deck he made famous! Here’s what the latest build of Spaceships looks like.

Monsters:

3 Blue Thunder T-45

3 Jade Knight

2 Lord British Space Fighter

1 Victory Viper XX03

3 Shining Angel

2 Honest

1 Morphing Jar

1 Sangan

1 Gorz the Emissary of Darkness

Spells:

2 Nobleman of Extermination

2 Book of Moon

2 Creature Swap

1 Mystical Space Typhoon

1 Heavy Storm

1 Giant Trunade

1 Limiter Removal

1 Riryoku

Traps:

2 Royal Oppression

2 Bottomless Trap Hole

2 Dimensional Prison

2 Dark Bribe

1 Call of the Haunted

1 Mirror Force

1 Torrential Tribute

1 Solemn Judgment

Once again, Mitchell is taking full advantage of Royal Oppression. Though his Deck packs plenty of Special Summon effects, none of them are affected by Royal Oppression except his Call of the Haunted. This is because all of his monster effects that allow him to Special Summon activate in the Damage Step, when Oppression can’t be played. That gives Mitchell a big advantage over a number of the top Decks here today. X-Sabers, Infernities, and Quickdraw Decks all need their Special Summons to survive, with Blackwings being the one common Deck at the top tables that can operate as normal when Oppression is active. By playing Oppression, Mitchell also gives himself a way to destroy Cyber Dragon when it’s Special Summoned, helping to fend off the threat that Chimeratech Fortress Dragon poses to any Machine Deck like his.

One of the differences between this version of Spaceships and the build Mitchell played at Nashville is a reaction to the Semi-Limitation of Honest. Mitchell can do things like use Honest to boost the ATK of Lord British Space Fighter. The ATK boost from Honest lasts for the rest of the turn, and since Lord British can attack again when it destroys a monster, Mitchell combos it with Honest to destroy all of his opponent’s monsters in a single turn, kicking out big damage thanks to its superior ATK. He can also activate Honest’s effect to boost the ATK of Victory Viper XX03, and when Victory Viper destroys a monster, the Token it Summons will gain the benefit of Honest’s ATK boost as well.

When Limiter Removal or a second copy of Honest is added to plays like those, they easily create game-winning attacks. But when Mitchell ran this Deck in Nashville, he could play 3 copies of Honest. Since he can only run 2 now, he plays Riryoku instead. “It’s a good replacement for Honest, and it doubles with Limiter Removal!” The stronger the opponent’s monster is, the more damage Riryoku is actually worth.

Mitchell played Nobleman of Extermination in Nashville, and is running it again here. While it was good before, it’s even better now that there are new Trap cards being played in multiples. “It’s a really good field clearer” explained Mitchell. “It takes care of Starlight Road, which is really popular. It stops Gladiator Beast War Chariot and Infernity Barrier, too.” Negating those last 2 traps is really important, because if his opponent can negate his monster effects, Mitchell faces serious problems putting together his combos. Destroying Dust Tornado and stripping all copies of it from his opponent’s deck, then Setting Royal Oppression, is especially sweet.

The number of tweaks between this Deck and the Nashville version are small in number, but it’s adapted well to the new format and the new Decks from The Shining Darkness. Will Mitchell score another miracle and make it to his second Day 2?