Here’s the breakdown of the entire field of Duelists here at YCS Guadalajara!

-109 Pendulum Magician

-75 Draco
63 True Draco
12 True Draco variants

-50 Paleozoic
-33 Paleozoic Frog
-17 Paleozoic Frog variants

-36 ABC

-24 Invoked
18 Invoked variants
6 Windwitch Invoked

-18 Trickstar

-99 Other
11 Lightsworn
9 Blue-Eyes
7 Kozmo
7 SPYRAL
6 Infernoid
6 Windwitch Invoked
5 World Chalice
5 Dark Magician
5 Mermail
3 Chain Burn
3 Chaos
3 Dinosaur
3 Anti-Meta
3 Zombie Shiranui
2 Vendread
2 Metalfoes
2 PSY-Frame
2 Subterror
2 Dark Synchro
1 Artifact
1 Volcanic
1 D/D/D
1 Monarch
1 Herald
1 Shaddoll Predaplant
1 Cyber Dragon
1 Deskbot
1 Phantom Knight Burning Abyss
1 Harpie
1 Fluffal
1 Dark World
1 Yugi themed

Pendulum Magicians take up just over 1/4^th of the total Decks, and it’s no surprise. The various Magicians have some amazing effects, and it’s very difficult to get rid of them without triggering an effect which will simply replace them or destroy one of your cards. They have easy access to Synchro and Xyz Monsters as well, and some builds can even use Supreme King Z-ARC!

True Draco builds are the next most popular. They lost quite a bit with the newest Forbidden & Limited List, but the sheer power of Master Peace, the True Dracoslaying King, as well as the True Draco/True King Continuous Spells & Traps, simply cannot be overstated. They fare well against Pendulum Magicians, and can outright crush other Decks. Master Peace is a big part of why Duelists are still using so many Kaiju.

Paleozoics are the next most common Deck, only slightly behind True Draco in numbers. It’s a bit of a surprise, considering the complete absence of Paleozoics at the UDS Invitational two weeks ago. Turns out, the ability to Main Deck Anti-Spell Fragrance is pretty good! Paleozoics also make great use of Toadally Awesome, and can even use the new Mistar Boy.

ABC comes in next, showing that they’re still relevant after all this time. They’ve got all the makings of a strong Deck: An amazing Field Spell, cards that replace themselves, and an amazing boss monster. They can be modified in many ways too. We’ve seen things like True Draco and Chaos ABC Decks, for example.

Invoked Decks are technically the next Deck, but they’re a bit hard to quantify. We have 6 Windwitch builds, which were the most common for the last few months. We also have 18 other variants. Since the Main Deck of an Invoked Deck only requires a maximum of 9 Invoked cards (3 each of Aleister the Invoker, Invocation, and Magical Meltdown), it’s very easy to mix Invoked with a variety of other support cards.

Trickstars come next, and it’s no surprise to see them being played. They performed very well at the UDS Invitational, and the strategy is extremely customizable. Some players mix them with other archetypes, such as Jaime Marquez’s Windwitches we saw in his Feature Match earlier. Some use dedicated burn Decks, going so far as to run Dark Room of Nightmare. One thing they almost all have in common: Droll & Lock Bird. Resolving Droll & Lock Bird in the same Chain as Trickstar Reincarnation means your opponent banishes their hand and draws nothing! Some Duelists even play Disturbance Strategy for more chances at the same kind of combo.

As usual, the Other category is one of the largest. We have a ton of Duelists here, playing everything from Lightsworn to Blue-Eyes to Harpies. Big shoutout to the guy playing the Yugi Deck!