With the expected Forbidden & Limited List being revealed at YCS Houston, Texas, it has brought new life into the game.
Even though Fiendsmith didn’t get hit directly as people expected, many cards from both Ryzeal and Maliss did, along with many other cards returning to the Limited sections up to Unlimited sections of the F&L List. Let’s dive into the market to see all the changes.
With Fiendsmith being the best engine of the format once again without suffering any hits, Fiendsmith’s Tract, Fiendsmith’s Requiem, and Lacrima the Crimson Tears all have gone up crazily as they weren’t reprinted in Quarter Century Stampede, while Fiendsmith Engraver did. Being the most recursive engine in the game now, players are going to shift their options to better equip themselves against this mighty engine.
A good amount of players have upped the amount of Fiendsmith’s Tract to 2 copies in their lists to add more consistency to their decks when it comes to the Fiendsmith combo. However, this card and Fiendsmith Engraver play into the opponent’s Droll & Lock Bird to prevent you from searching in the future. That said, if you start with Tract, it’ll be less harsh on you, as you can still go into your full Fiendsmith Combo if they don’t have another Hand Trap like Ash Blossom & Joyous Spring to stop Fiendsmith’s Requiem from Special Summoning a Fiendsmith monster from your Deck, or Effect Veiler/Infinite Impermanence on Lacrima the Crimson Tears to stop you from sending Fiendsmith Engraver from your Deck to your GY if you didn’t have one already.
While Lacrima the Crimson Tears is a 1-of in a majority of decks, it is great for Fiendsmith Ryzeal as it is a Level 4 monster that meshes extremely well with the Ryzeal cards if you get stopped while you just have her on the field. Being a LIGHT Fiend is another amazing bonus, as if you haven’t used your Normal Summon either, you can use her and another monster to make a Link-2 like Fiendsmith’s Sequence to Fusion Summon a Fiend Fusion Monster or just to make S:P Little Knight.
All 4 of these cards are a part of the main engine for Fiendsmith for any deck that can utilize it, especially now going into the new format. Even if it is weak to Droll & Lock Bird after the search off Fiendsmith’s Tract from Fiendsmith Engraver, you can still end on D/D/D Wave King High Caesar, which is a powerful play. Being the center of the format now, players will expect to shift their Hand Trap lineups to counteract this, using cards like Bystial Baldrake as more ways to banish any LIGHT or DARK monster from your opponent’s GY, as Bystial Druiswurm received a Limit and possibly Ghost Belle & Haunted Mansion as well to stop Fiendsmith Engraver from Special Summoning itself from the GY.
Being the center of attention for the Nationals Format, we will see Fiendsmith being played in nearly every topping Deck to replace the cards that were hit in those decks.
Next up, we have an insane tech against Fiendsmith. Some players have been leaning on Ally of Justice Cycle Reader, as it has a Quick Effect that lets you banish up to 2 LIGHT monsters from your opponent’s GY. Here’s a simple scenario where Cycle Reader comes into play against Fiendsmith, which consists of LIGHT monsters. Let’s say, for example, your opponent wants Fiendsmith Engraver in their GY. They would do the usual play of making Moon of the Closed Heaven, to then make Fiendsmith’s Requiem. Afterwards, they could bring out Lacrima the Crimson Tears with Requiem’s effect and then use Lacrima to send their Engraver to the GY. Once they use the effect of Engraver to Special Summon itself by shuffling back Moon of the Closed Heaven to their Extra Deck, you can discard Cycle Reader in response to banish their Fiendsmith’s Requiem and Fiendsmith Engraver, making them waste 3 total cards and burning them out of the now used up Lacrima. Even with hurting Fiendsmith in many ways, it also hits Blue-Eyes since all of their monsters are also LIGHT and it even hits White Forest Sinful Spoils Decks as well. With all that said, Cycle Reader has a very limited amount of prints from DT03, Hidden Arsenal 3, Hidden Arsenal: Chapter 1, and OTS Pack 3.
Overall, this card might see more play in this format because of how impactful it is against the Fiendsmith Engine just by hitting 2 impactful LIGHT Fiend monsters that they need for their combos, making them lose out on forms of interruptions.
Next up on this list, let’s take a look at Mathmech Superfactorial, which has been bought up to the heavens with the light of Mathmech Circular going to the Limited status. This is one of the most powerful Trap Cards that Mathmech has access to, as it targets up to 3 Mathmech monsters in your GY with different names and lets you Special Summon them, but with their effects negated. Immediately after you do so, the Trap lets you perform either a Synchro Summon or Xyz Summon of a Mathmech monster right away by using those revived monsters, letting you Synchro Summon either Geomathmech Magma or Geomathmech Final Sigma, or Xyz Summon either Primathmech Laplacian or Primathmech Alembertian. Be aware that if you go for the Synchro Summon, the revived monsters are shuffled back into the Deck instead of going back to the GY, which balances things out. A majority of Mathmech players opt to revive Mathmech Diameter and any other 2 Mathmech monsters, as Diameter gives your Primathmech Laplacian an additional effect that lets it negate a card or effect that your opponent activates.
Given this card only has 1 print from Mystic Fighters, it is definitely a 1-of Trap Card that you want to have for any Mathmech Deck.
With Memento winning the final YCS of the last format, we saw multiple cards get bought up, and even this Deck went unscathed from the list as well. The grand boss monster, Mementoal Tecuhtlica – Combined Creation, was hit up on listings as it happened, along with Mementotlan Bone Party and Mementotlan Angwitch, but I won’t cover those two this week since they are in Quarter Century Stampede. We will be focusing on the main boss monster, Combined Creation as it was not reprinted in the 25th Anniversary Tin: Dueling Mirrors Mega Tins, as now players hope to see if this will be reprinted for easier access to this card. Being a 5000 ATK/DEF monster, it can end games swiftly, as we saw when it was paired with Mementotlan Akahiron to attack directly.
With it only being from Valiant Smashers, it comes in a rainbow of rarities, from Ultra Rare to Collector’s Rare and even the highly collectible Quarter Century Secret Rare. But let’s hope this card also receives a Secret Rare printing in the future.
Along with Combined Creation, Goblin Biker Dugg Charger was bought out with its inclusion in the Goblin Biker Memento deck that won YCS Houston. It is run at 2 copies, with the Deck opting to run Goblin Biker Big Gabonga in the Extra Deck along with running a heavy Rank 3 Package to summon Number F0: Utopic Draco Future for extra protection against monster effects. It’s great as a tech, given you are already running Goblin Biker Grand Breakout, but it also lets you include Goblin Biker Grand Entrance to have more ways to search Mementotlan Goblin. Using this engine makes it so you play into the format as the main aspect of Goblin Bikers and their main ability to detach 1 Xyz Material from a monster on either field. This allows you to remove materials from the opponent’s Ryzeal Xyz Monsters, so for a Ryzeal Detonator, it’ll have fewer times it can use its effect to destroy a card on the field. Along with removing materials, Goblin Biker Dugg Charger can also add a Goblin Spell/Trap from your Deck to your hand.
Such a powerful card from Phantom Nightmare is finally showing how much utility it can serve in Memento as another way to access your Memento side of the deck.
Brilliant Fusion is finally back and legal, just in time for this year’s Battles of Legends: Monster Mayhem with the new Gem-Knight support. Also, on top of this, it has a brand-new reprint in Quarter Century Stampede as a Nostalgic Reprint in Prismatic Secret Rare and Quarter Century Secret Rare. This card has been amazing ever since it was released in Clash of Rebellions back in 2015, as it was used in a multitude of Decks from Performage Shaddoll to Extra Deck Monarchs to utilize Gem-Knight Seraphinite for its additional Normal Summon ability, as you can use a Gem-Knight monster and a LIGHT monster to Fusion Summon it.
Even with multiple prints, players have gone to grab their Ultimate Rares from OTS Tournament Pack 6, as it was the highest rarity and is still considered the highest by many players.
With the rise of the new format, Blue-Eyes Primite has taken its new spot in the top contenders for the format, causing Primite Dragon Ether Beryl to go up once again from where it was a couple of weeks ago. It is nice to see players move to different strategies to change up their playstyle for a bit till we await the release of Alliance Insight in a few weeks. Even if this card has been covered nearly back-to-back, it is good to capture this card going up in price with how much utility the Primite engine can bring to other Decks outside of Blue-Eyes like Fiendsmith where you can use Primite Roar to Summon White Duston from your Deck to go into the full Fiendsmith combo.
With this card finally gaining traction again, this format will be more diverse than before, causing huge shifts where Blue-Eyes could probably be one of the best Decks of the new format for now, but only time will tell.
The return of the king has come with Master Peace, the True Dracoslaying King returning into the format where True Draco… sadly isn’t as good as it once was. Many of the cards it utilized have been either Limited or Forbidden over the past years, especially when Dragonic Diagram is also still Limited making the consistency of the Deck worse off, even with cards like Card of Demise at 1 hurting the consistency more for them. Even though Master Peace is a strong and powerful Towers-like card, in today’s age, there are multiple ways to play around it and out the card through cards like Forbidden Droplet. Even if it is unaffected by Trap Cards, Destructive Daruma Karma Cannon can play around it as it forces the player to send their cards to the GY that do not get flipped face-down.
Even though Master Peace only had its Secret Rare Maximum Crisis print, it is getting Prismatic Secret Rare and Quarter Century Secret Rare printings in Quarter Century Stampede, like Brilliant Fusion, so it’ll be more accessible to players in the long term.
Finally, let’s end this article with Seventh Tachyon, as it has rebounded up with the limitation of Bonfire. This card is now permanently going to be played for Ryzeal as the main replacement now as their primary searcher by revealing Number 102: Star Seraph Sentry to search your Level 4 LIGHT monsters or Number 105: Battlin’ Boxer Star Cestus to search your Level 4 FIRE Ryzeal monsters. It’s the best of both worlds, as after you resolve this effect, it locks you into only being able to Xyz Summon for the rest of the turn, so you can do other portions of your combo if you’re on Fiendsmith or another engine that utilizes Link Summoning beforehand. Either way, Seventh Tachyon is going to be the card you use Droll & Lock Bird on, as it’ll shut off many of the searches that Ryzeal will have in the future.
Being a replacement for the newly limited Bonfire is great, as it has more restrictions than what Bonfire originally had. This card could see the same fate that it has in the OCG with being Limited as well in the future over the next few formats, but only time will tell.
With the new Forbidden and Limited list now in effect, this format will be the wild west for a bit until Alliance Insight releases, with players figuring out how they want to settle their Decks if they want to play certain hand traps like Droll & Lock Bird or if they want to stick with others like Nibiru, the Primal Being. But I can say for certain, expect much more Fiendsmith in the future as we go deeper into this new, exciting format.
Edited and co-written by Angryjon
