[MW] Are You Ready To Enter The Board Breaker Format?

The hype from Justice Hunters is extremely real.

With Justice Hunters only a week away from being in the hands of players, let’s dive into the new meta. This will be a deep dive into cards players have been picking up to use with and against the three new themes: Dracotail, Yummy, and K9.

Our first stop is going to be one of the best Trap Cards going into the format, Infinite Impermanence. By targeting a monster your opponent controls, you get to negate its effects until the end of that turn. While it seems like a simple card at first, it stands out in two big ways. If you control no cards, you can activate it straight out of your hand, bypassing the slow nature Trap Cards typically have. And if you do choose to set it, it will negate the effects of any Spell/Trap Cards in the same column Infinite Impermanence was previously in that turn. This card is being paired once again with the Dominus cards like Dominus Purge and Songs of the Dominators in some Yummy lists, while being paired with Dominus Impulse still in Orcust and Maliss lists.

Still being one of the top Trap Cards next to the Dominus Trap Cards, it’ll shine the brightest when paired with those cards. Along with many reprints over the past 7 years, this card is readily available to the masses to pick up if they’re in need of this card.

At our next stop, we are going to be looking at Yummy and what cards players plan on using. Currently, from available lists, all players are utilizing Dominus Purge as a way to stop an effect that includes an effect that adds a card from the deck to the hand, and if a Trap is in your GY, you destroy that negated card. You can also activate Purge out of your hand as long as your opponent controls at least 1 card on their field. Since Purge is a Trap Card, cards like K9-17 Izuna suffer against it, as it isn’t a monster effect that was activated in the hand or the GY, which would have otherwise allowed the card to be able to use its effects. The downside of Purge is that if you activate it from your hand, you cannot activate the effects of DARK, WATER, and FIRE monsters for the rest of the Duel. This is fine, however, as all Yummy monsters are LIGHT, and even if you run cards like the WATER Attribute Mulcharmy Purulia in your Main Deck, you are usually activating it during the Draw Phase.

With Dominus Purge only existing in The Infinite Forbidden, it is possibly on track soon to receive a reprint in the 2025 Mega Tins this year, but only time will tell in the coming weeks if it will have one or not.

Paired with Dominus Purge, some players are going for a full-on Going Second build using Songs of the Dominators as well. If your opponent activates a monster effect on the field, you can negate that effect, and then if you have a Trap in your GY, you can add any Dominus card from your Deck to your hand. And just like Purge and Impermanence, it’s another Trap Card that you can activate directly from your hand, though in this case, you must not have any monsters in your GY. This is useful as it can fetch more copies of Purge, as it also allows you to destroy the card you negated since you’ll have a Trap Card in your GY. Like Purge, if you activate Songs of the Dominators from your hand, it stops you from activating monster effects in the hand, GY, and banishment until the end of the next turn. Funny enough, this is not an issue for your Yummy monsters since their ability to Special Summon themselves from your hand is not an effect that activates.

With only being from the recent Alliance Insight set, this card had a price spike as players are currently picking up copies of this card for the next and new format to see how far they can go for the 2025/2026 Championship Series.

Another powerful Trap Card has re-entered the format, and that is Evenly Matched. As one of the many cards that can wipe away boards in an instant, many players have been either using it as a Side Deck option if the opponent win Game 1 or 2, or they have it in their Main Decks already if they’re playing a going-second deck. At the end of the Battle Phase, this card makes your opponent banish cards from their field face-down so they control the same number of cards as you do. And like the above 3 cards, you can activate it out of your hand, provided you control no cards. This is important as it can force your opponent to use an effect to deal with it, such as Herald of the Arc Light, for example, or even against Vanquish Soul, to force them to use their effects to keep their important monsters in rotation.

Being one of the best board breakers in this format, it’ll be interesting to see how duelists play around this card once again. With many reprints, this card is easily accessible to the players from Super Rare prints to even the Luxury Quarter Century Print from the 25th Anniversary Rarity Collection and plenty of other sets it was reprinted in.

Finally, to round up all of the Normal Trap Cards, many chose to run copies of Triple Tactics Thrust as a way to grab copies of the above cards. This allows you to either Set a Normal Spell/Trap from the deck or, if your opponent controls a monster, add said Normal Spell/Trap Card to your hand instead. Being able to activate this whenever your opponent activates a monster effect during your turn is extremely powerful against Decks like K9 via cards like K9-17 Izuna or K9-ØØ Lupis and against Dracotail because of Dracotail Faimena, which allows the deck to quickly Fusion Summon 1 Dragon or Spellcaster Fusion Monster.

With it being reprinted in Quarter Century Bonanza to the Dueling Mirrors Tin and even Maze of Millennia, this card’s price has risen up for every copy to be $12 and up as being a super reliable Main or Side Deck card for this new format.

We enter back to the realm of cuteness with both Mulcharmy Purulia and Mulcharmy Fuwalos. These two monsters have risen to the top of the format as a way to counter multiple strategies. With Mulcharmy Purulia, it’s great against Decks that love Normal or Special Summoning monsters from the hand. It can hinder Decks like Yummy and Vanquish Soul since both themes utilize this mechanic as a way to extend their plays into their full boards. Being tied with Mulcharmy Fuwalos as the top monster that activates in the hand is insanity, as it feels like we’re back with Maxx “C”… but as an “at home” version of the card. 

On the other hand, Mulcharmy Fuwalos is still being played in the Main Deck, while some shifted it to the Side Deck as some are wary of Vanquish Soul K9 becoming the top Deck in the room, as they Special Summon monsters from the Deck and/or Extra Deck only a couple of times, granting you only 1 or 2 draws max. Since it is effective against other Decks in the format, like Yummy, Dracotail, and Ryzeal, it’s still great to have in your Deck at some capacity in the Main or Side Decks. Fuwalos alone causes many players to set up a half board, a weaker version of the full board they wanted to make, thus making them easier to break with board breakers, which are on the rise in this format. 

As Mulcharmy Fuwalos received the reprint in Quarter Century Stampede, its price has been stable over the past months, while Mulcharmy Purulia has been rising rapidly as it didn’t receive that luxury. Here’s hoping both of these cards are reprinted in the 2025 Mega Tins to lower their prices even more.

Dinowrestler Pankratops has entered into the meta once again because of its ability to Special Summon itself from the hand without having to activate an effect to do so. This card has seen its place since its release back in Soul Fusion and was a staple 3-of in the Main or Side Decks. During the Battle Phase, you can use it to attack over a monster that is stopping your plays, like El Shaddoll Winda, and then activate its Quick Effect by Tributing 1 Dinowrestler monster, usually itself, and then target 1 monster your opponent controls and destroy it. This card was limited at one point in the past due to how powerful its potential two-for-one removal was, but now, since it is Unlimited, players are utilizing it like they were back in the 2018/2019 formats.

With many Common, Rare, and Holo versions available to the player base, only the high-end rarities, like the Collector’s Rare and Quarter Century Secret Rare, have been picking up in price. Along with those, its Common printing in Soul Fusion and its Secret Rare printing from the previous Battles of Legend: Hero’s Revenge both have a steady price for budget players.

Another great board breaker going into this format is Super Polymerization. This Quick-Play Spell Card, which neither player can respond to, is to rival Decks like Yummy and Dracotail. The main Fusion Monsters you want to run, if used against Yummy, are Gurura, Wings of Resonate Life, Mudragon of the Swamp (for targeting protection), or Master of Ham. Against Vanquish Soul K9, if they end on K9-17 “Ripper, Number C104: Umbral Horror Masquerade, and Rock of the Vanquisher, you can utilize Starving Venom Fusion Dragon, Mudragon of the Swamp, or Magistus Chorozo. And finally, against Dracotail… well, you can almost use everything that was mentioned above along with Mysterion the Dragon Crown and the brand-new Secreterion Dragon from Duelist’s Advance. Being able to dismantle a board in an instant at the simple cost of a card discard, this can deal great devastation to the opponent as their board becomes a weaker state than it was prior.

With many reprints over the years, this card has seen its shifts in and out of the metagame, and now it’s time to dust them off once again.

Finally, as mentioned, the new Secreterion Dragon from Duelist’s Advance happens to be a great Fusion Monster for Super Polymerization against Dracotail and even Blue-Eyes. This card has a single downside, and that is it loses 100 ATK for each of your banished cards. But when combating Dracotail, it’s the least of your worries for a little. Now, while you control this Fusion Summoned card, your opponent cannot activate the effects of Special Summoned Dragon or Spellcaster monsters they control. It is also extremely useful in the mirror match, as you can target 1 Dragon and 1 Spellcaster monster in your GY, Special Summon one of them, and then place the other one on the bottom of the Deck. This is useful as you can put Dracotail monsters from the GY back into the Deck.

With only being from Duelist’s Advance, this card will be waiting for a reprint for a while, but it is always great to have a copy on hand, just in case you do want to utilize Super Polymerization in a future decklist.

This weekend is the European World Championship Qualifiers, and sadly, Justice Hunters and Battles of Legend: Monster Mayhem won’t be legal for this event, but it is always useful to get ahead of the game and other players when entering a new format.

Edited and co-written by Angryjon