Don’t believe the hype – there’s a lot more to the Dragon Rulers versus Prophecy matchup than some might suspect, and the past two weeks has seen a flurry of single card innovations.  Those individual choices will make or break hundreds of efforts at the Championship title this weekend, so today we want to take some time to show you the hottest, most debated cards on the tournament floor.  As you read the Feature Match coverage this weekend, watch out for these promising tech choices, and try to consider what they could mean for your tournaments moving forward.

Newer builds of Prophecy are leaving High Priestess of Prophecy behind in favor of complete emphasis on Kycoo the Ghost Destroyer and Jowgen the Spiritualist – two monsters with powerful abilities that can lock the Dragon Ruler player out of the game.  Recent Prophecy builds protects those monsters with Spellbook of Wisdom and Spellbook of Fate, reviving them with Spellbook of Life.  Newer versions even go so far as to use cards like Phoenix Wing Wind Blast and Mirror Force – the latter was a top pick for Chris Bountaloudis, our 2013 European Champion.

So what’s a Dragon Ruler Duelist to do?  Jowgen and Kycoo make typical plays extremely difficult for the Dragon Ruler player, keeping them from making the Special Summons they rely on.  Blaster, Dragon Ruler of Infernos can take out a single threat quite efficiently, but getting to Blaster isn’t always possible.  As a result, we’re seeing Dark Hole making its way back onto Main Deck lists.  We’re also seeing mained and sided play of Lightning Vortex, and competitors are even delving into the Dueling years gone by to Side Deck Last Day of Witch.  Vortex may be an important card this weekend: since a Dragon Ruler player can discard a Dragon Rulers for Vortex’s cost, then use that Dragon Ruler from the Graveyard, the activation cost of Vortex is much easier to pay for in this strategy than in others.