Cool Decks from YCS Toronto: New Look Dino-Rabbit!
The most enduring strategies in Dueling are the ones that have both a strong foundation and a lot of room to change if necessary. Dino-Rabbit has been such a Deck since its inception a year ago with the release of Photon Shockwave. It’s an extremely simple Deck in principle: You draw Rescue Rabbit, you use it to Summon an Evolzar, negate some stuff, and repeat. Now that Rescue Rabbit and Tour Guide from the Underworld are both Semi-Limited, every stage of the plan is harder to execute and less likely to happen. Further, strong Level 4 monsters with more than 1700 ATK or DEF have become popular making the Jurrac Guaiba back-up plan a lot less attractive to Dino-Rabbit Duelists.
But that didn’t stop James Kim from building a new Dino-Rabbit Deck and taking it to the playoffs of YCS Toronto. While he fell well short of the goal line, as did the other 5 Dino-Rabbit Duelists who made it to the playoffs, Kim did a lot of things right that you’ll want to take note of if you intend on using your shiny new Dolkkas and Laggias in the weeks or months to come.
1. Fight Fire without Dinosaurs On Fire
Jurrac Guaiba isn’t going to cut it when your opponents are throwing down Geargiarmors, Machina Gearframes, Thunder Kings, Neos Alius, Wind-Up Magician’s, and Snowman Eaters. So Kim cut it, as did all but one of the other Dino-Rabbit playoff contenders. Instead, he used Thunder King Rai-Oh and Snowman Eater to fill the gaps, widen the number of different plays the Deck can make, and increase its capacity for mayhem against search-and-Summon heavy strategies.
2. Take a Spin in the Card Car
You can only play two copies each of Rescue Rabbit and Tour Guide from the Underworld now, which makes it more likely for you to see Normal Monsters than it is your combo pieces. That means it’s essential to see as many cards from your Deck as you possibly can, and right now Galactic Overlord’s Cardcar D is the best way to do that. It lets you draw 2 cards compared to getting (and revealing) only 1 of the top 3 with Pot of Duality, and unlike Duality it can still be used when you or your opponent has Thunder King.
Grabbing 2 cards with Cardcar D also means that you can safely set multiple Trap Cards without fear of getting blown out of the game by Heavy Storm. No, it won’t actually stop the storm or save the Traps, but it dramatically lessens the impact a Heavy Storm can have and lets you draw either multiple new Traps to replace the ones you lost or the combo pieces you need to turn the tables on your now Storm-less opponent.
And last but not least, it’s the perfect card to play when you don’t really want to do much on your own turn. Duels are lasting much longer than they were just 2 weeks ago which vastly increases the usefulness of Cardcar D. You don’t have to Special Summon every turn or even attack every turn to stay in the Duel or take it over completely, and the number of defensive options available to Duelists is far greater. And what card goes great with D-fense? Cardcar D.
3. Continue to Make Good Use of Level 3 and Rank 3 Monsters
It’s not just Rescue Rabbit and the Evolzars that make Dino-Rabbit good, it’s also the Level 3 and Rank 3 supporting cast that goes with them. This is one of the two Decks that radically benefits from Tour Guide from the Underworld (the other is Wind-Ups) so it was important for Kim to find a replacement for the third Tour Guide that A. has a beneficial effect and B. doesn’t conflict with the rest of the Deck. Night Assailant was his choice, and it’s certainly a good one, acting as a Man-Eater Bug that can also be fetched out with Tour Guide. He also used Snowman Eater and Spirit Reaper, two excellent defensive Level 3 monsters. All of this makes it easier to access a wide slate of useful Rank 3 Xyz Monsters.
Kim’s Deck was certainly quite good, but not everything was sunshine and bunnies. Kim played 42 cards at YCS Toronto, which is very dangerous when your Deck’s main plays come from drawing one of 2 Semi-Limited cards as soon as possible. He also used fewer than 10 defensive Traps, reducing Cardcar D’s overall effectiveness and making it harder to win games where you only have Normal Monsters to work with. We may never know what actually stopped his run for the finals, but a combination of these two factors likely played a role in it.
Just because Dino-Rabbit didn’t win at YCS Toronto doesn’t mean it isn’t still a strong contender. With the incredible power at its disposal and plenty of space to experiment with, don’t be surprised to see Dino-Rabbit come back with a vengeance in YCS Guatemala and YCS Indianapolis!