The Forbidden & Limited (F&L) List for the World Championship is a special mix of both the TCG and OCG lists with additional modifications. Because of that, the World Championship becomes a very unique tournament in terms of what strategies are being played. This is a fantastic opportunity for highly skilled Duelists because they can analyze what they think will be the strongest strategies for a completely new environment. Luckily, any Duelist who has made it as far as the World Championship is definitely at that skill caliber, so things are looking exciting for this weekend.

Since the release of Breakers of Shadow, Pendulums have been one of the top competitive strategies. It has taken various hits on the F&L list since then and still thrived, but the overall impact of two combined F&L lists on Pendulums is very different. Because the OCG has done a bit more to combat Pendulums, they lose much more in the World Championship. Performapal Monkeyboard, a major key to the Performapal variant of Pendulums’ success, is Forbidden in the OCG and thus not legal in the World Championship. The Performapal engine is very popular in TCG Pendulum Decks, but without Monkeyboard the rest of the whole engine is substantially weaker. Similarly, Pendulum Call is Limited in the OCG which is an integral piece to the Magician Pendulum engine. So how do Pendulums succeed without these two major role players?

One Pendulum strategy that hasn’t been hit is Majespecters, so assumptions could be made that any answer will probably rely heavily on Majespecter Raccoon – Bunbuku as well as Majespecter Unicorn – Kirin. Bunbuku gives you a fantastic form of card selection while also grabbing you a ton of cards if you’re Pendulum Summoning often, both of which are important to how Pendulums operate. Kirin is one of, if not the best form of disruption Pendulums have access to, and because it’s searchable via Bunbuku you can guarantee having it almost every game. Majespecters can be used as a splash engine with just Bunbuku and Kirin in almost any Pendulum Deck, but a dedicated Majespecter strategy could also be very successful. They get to take advantage of the powerful traps Majespecter Tornado and Majespecter Tempest, as well as several other Majespecters that can help find them search specific tools and amass more cards.

While Odd-Eyes Magician Decks did lose two copies of Pendulum Call, summoning huge threats like Mist Valley Apex Avian could still be the way to go. This is normally inconsistent without an abundance of high Pendulum Scales, but Sky Iris is still a fantastic tool that helps combat that problem. It not only protects your Pendulum Scales but also gives you a way to generate advantage by putting Pendulums into the Extra Deck to summon back later. It gives you solid card selection as well so you can always find whatever Pendulum Scale you’re missing.

Will the newest type of summoning reign supreme this weekend? Or will the King of Games pilot a more classic tactic? Stay tuned to coverage this weekend to find out!