Welcome to Day 2! With 2 Rounds of Swiss competition still remaining before the cut to Top 64, there are several undefeated Duelists as we head into Round 10. Derric Brewer is one of them, securing a 9-0 record yesterday with a pure Tech Genus build! Tech Genus Decks actually did remarkably well yesterday, and the “pure” version – with no Plant-Types – may prove to be the breakout Deck of the tournament. Jeff Jones is 8-1 here this morning with a very similar strategy, and Brewer was his only loss yesterday: a Tech Genus mirror Match.
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As we head into Round 8 here in Day 1, Justin Delhon is undefeated with a simple, effective Gadget build that draws on Reborn Tengu, plus a suite of oppressive control monsters. The Gadget Deck is all about throwing self-replacing monsters at your opponent, and wearing them down with simple destruction cards like Mystical Space Typhoon; Solemn Warning; Bottomless Trap Hole; and more. The strategy? If you can keep destroying all of your opponent’s cards with simple card-for-card destruction effects, then all you need is a single Gadget to get the job done. One Gadget becomes two Gadgets, and that second Gadget gets you another; even if your opponent fights back to take down one of your monsters, you’ve always got another one waiting in the wings. Eliminate all of your opponent’s cards, and your pint-sized clockworks are free to bat cleanup. Delhon mixed that philosophy with a bunch of control-oriented monsters this weekend, and the result is a truly devastating Deck. Check it out!
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While Decks like Gladiator Beasts, Six Samurai, and Plant Synchro variants have grown in very obvious ways over the past six months, Gravekeeper Decks have largely remained the same since their reappearance – and newfound dominance – at YCS Atlanta last year. With that said, the best Gravekeeper Decks here today have been innovated, and a handful of important tech cards have elevated the Deck to new heights.
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If you read our Round 5 Feature Match coverage, you’ve already seen Lane Woodall’s deadly Six Samurai Deck in action! Once upon a time (oh, say six or seven weeks ago?) Six Samurai were all about one thing: unleashing Legendary Six Samurai – Shi En for a back-breaking first turn, scoring free cards along the way with Six Samurai United and Gateway of the Six. The Deck specialized in unleashing Shi En on turn 1 a whopping more than half of the time, thanks to powerful search cards and the deck-thinning Upstart Goblin.
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Gladiator Beasts are unique in today’s field because they offer a cunning Duelist several advantages that other strategies just can’t match. Almost any Gladiator Beast can be sent back to the Deck to “tag out” for another Gladiator when it makes a successful attack. Since all the Gladiator Beasts have different – and useful – abilities, a Gladiator Duelist can get to their most important monsters really easily. They can get to the monsters they need, almost whenever they need them, provided they can attack and tag out. That allows the Gladiator Duelist to run very few monsters, but still play a wide range of different monsters in a single Duel: even if they draw fewer monsters than other Decks over the course of any given game.
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