QQ: Your Favorite Side Deck Card?
QQ stands for Quick Questions! It’s a new Advanced Format and a new play environment, thanks to the release of Duelist Alliance and the introduction of new Deck themes like Shaddolls, Satellarknights, and Burning Abyss. That’s caused huge shifts in the competitive landscape, and that means the ability to make reads on this weekend’s metagame and to accurately predict which strategies would be the most successful was clutch. With that in mind we asked competitors in the YCS main event one of the biggest questions of the weekend: “What’s your favorite Side Deck card for YCS Dallas?”
“Malevolent Catastrophe.” -Chris LeBlanc ~ Boston, Massachusetts
“Ojama Trio.” -Galo Orbea ~ Quito, Ecuador
“Vanity’s Fiend.” -Devin Sea ~ College Station, Texas
“Exchange.” -Rene Tarcies ~ Springfield, Missouri
“Gravekeeper’s Guard.” -Levi Steffen ~ Hesperia, California
“Fire Hand and Ice Hand.” -Sherwin Larhmani ~ Plano, Texas
“Chain Disappearance.” -Azad Deihim ~ Boston, Massachusetts
“The homie: Neo-Spacian Grand Mole!” -Samantha Mbodwam ~ Garden Grove, California
Side Deck tech was really varied this weekend, since there are lots of answers to a lot of the biggest, most popular strategies. We’ve seen a lot Duelists using Malevolent Catastrophe and Royal Decree to answer problematic Trap Cards that might pop up after Side Decking, especially from Satellarknights. Both Vanity’s Fiend and Majesty’s Fiend have shown up in full force as tools to stop Burning Abyss and Shaddoll. Cards like Ojama Trio and Chain Disappearance among others are some of the more interesting as Duelists as really digging to find the best answer for Burning Abyss.
We’ll see what Side Deck picks wind up defining the weekend once we see who makes the Top 16, and the Draft play cutoff!