[MW] Important Techs For The Justice Hunters Format

YCS Vancouver showed us the power that Justice Hunters hold.

YCS Vancouver had concluded, and Yummy, piloted by Steven Trifunoski, won the whole event. Let’s take a look at what has been going on from the impact of this event.

During this weekend, Jesse Kotton managed to duel his way into Top 8 with Dracotail and ran multiple copies of Blazing Cartesia, the Virtuous. Being a Spellcaster is great already, but having the ability to Quick Effect Fusion Summon any Level 8 or higher Fusion Monster from your Extra Deck is also amazing, accessing cards like Dracotail Arthalion, Secreterion Dragon, or Mysterion the Dragon Crown on either player’s turns. It’s even impactful against the many players who run cards like Infinite Impermanence or Effect Veiler in their builds because of the Quick Effect. Looking on the market side, all copies of this card have been bought out to where there are less than 110 listings on the market, even though there have been plenty of sales before this miraculous top.

Even without having a new accessible reprint for some time, it is safe to say that THE CHRONICLES DECK: The Fallen & The Virtuous confirmed a brand new Ultra Rare reprint of this card just in time for players to pick up for their Dracotail Decks.

Many of us have dealt with this next card in the Duelist Cups and the Rank Ladder for Master Duel, up to its own limitation last year in April 2024. Performpal Five-Rainbow Magician made an appearance in the Side Deck of Ahmed Ghazi’s Top 32 Dracotail Fiendsmith K9 list. This monster has been mainly placed in the Pendulum Zone for its strong Pendulum effect, as each player applies effects based on the number of Set cards in their Spell/Trap Zones. If any player has 0 Set cards, all monsters they control cannot attack or activate their effects, and if they have 4 or more Set cards, the ATK of all monsters they control becomes double their original ATK. It seems that Five-Rainbow is used against Vanquish Soul, as most of the time, they will have up to 2 cards set in their Spell & Trap Zones, usually 0 if you force them to use them early. Meanwhile, in Dracotail, a lot of the time, you can have up to 4 sets, allowing you to double the ATK of all your monsters to close out games faster.

With this card only having 1 print from Battles of Legend: Light’s Revenge, it’s strange that it hasn’t seen a reprint, as it was used by the main protagonist from Arc-V.

One of the techs that saw play in a few players’ Side Decks happened to be Clockwork Night, as a way to combat Yummy. While it is on the field, it changes all monsters to Machine monsters with the added bonus of granting all Machine monsters you control 500 ATK/DEF, while all Machine monsters your opponent controls lose 500 ATK/DEF. Now why is this useful against Yummy? Since Yummy★Snatchy requires 1 Level 4 or lower LIGHT Beast monster; they cannot Link Summon it by using any of their now mechanized Yummy monsters, locking them out of important plays. Outside of being used against Yummy, K9 Crystron made its appearance in the Top Cut with 5 duelists piloting it, with Yacine Sahli making it to the Top 4, siding a single copy. Even with its reprint from Quarter Century Bonanza, all copies have hit under 70 total listings, with the price going up since the release of Justice Hunters.

And for the Link counterpart to this card, Clockwork Knight has gone up in price once again with the new surge of Crystron K9. As previously covered, this turns any of your non-Link Machine monsters with 1000 ATK or less into an additional starter, like Crystron Smeiger and Scrap Recycler if you were to draw them. Along with this, thanks to the K9 engine, you can access Infinitrack River Stormer to bridge into Scrap Recycler and start your full combo as it sends Crystron Smeiger from your Deck to the GY. Another useful piece for this card is that you can target 1 Machine monster with 1000 or less ATK in your GY and Tribute 1 other Machine monster to Special Summon that target in Defense Position. This can set up your Crystron Tristaros for a reaction to your opponent’s effects or be used as an interruption during your opponent’s turn to Synchro Summon F.A. Dawn Dragster for a Spell/Trap negator.

Even with just being released in Supreme Darkness, this single Link Monster has made an impact on every Machine Deck and will keep its pace going into the future as more players test other Machine Decks that can utilize the K9 engine.

Even though K9 is the current best engine in the game, K9-17 Izuna has been slowly creeping down in price. Some duelists have realized that they are easier to pull with Konami adding an additional 4th Ultra Rare per box for the Deck Build Sets, as this started with Crossover Breakers in December. Being one of the main cards in the engine, some players opted to run 2 copies, while others opted to run the full 3 copies for consistency and/or space issues. When Izuna is Normal or Special Summoned, you can send any K9 card from your Deck to the GY. And if it is during your opponent’s first turn, you would want to send K9-ØØ Lupis, as he can Special Summon himself from your hand or GY if your opponent activated a Monster effect from their hand or GY. Then, Lupis allows you to quickly Xyz Summon an Xyz Monster, using himself as 1 of the materials. This allows you to make K9-17 “Ripper” for a monster effect negator or to Xyz Summon Super Starslayer TY-PHON – Sky Crisis to stop any monster with 3000 or more ATK from activating their effects.

Even with it being the main card of the engine, it has been slowly falling, but things will change post the upcoming Forbidden and Limited list that will be revealed sometime after this year’s World Championship.

Mulcharmy Fuwalos has entered this chat as all of its copies are hitting over $20 a piece from their $15 a couple of months ago. This vital monster has made its way into nearly every deck in this format, hitting an all-time high of 92.2% in terms of usage. Being able to draw 1 card each time your opponent Special Summons a monster(s) from the Deck or Extra Deck can give you a huge advantage if you run other cards to pair with it, like Ash Blossom & Joyous Spring, Ghost Ogre & Snow Rabbit, or Nibiru, the Primal Being. Being a part of the Mulcharmy trio, this one strives to be better, as nearly every Deck relies on Special Summoning monsters from the Deck/Extra Deck, so it’ll make your opponent end their turn, set up a mid-board, or play into it to see if they can win the game.

Many players are hoping the Mulcharmy monsters are in this year’s Mega Tins, and only time will tell if they will be or not since openings should be coming soon from sponsored creators.

Finally, let’s take a look at Retaliating “C”. There was only 1 Duelist on this card in the Top 32 from YCS Vancouver, and that was the winner of the event, Steven Trifunoski. Retaliating “C” has an amazing effect that lets you Special Summon it from your hand when your opponent activates a Spell Card that would Special Summon a monster(s). This is good against cards like Stake Your Soul!, Dracotail Ketu, Rahu Dracotail, and even Yummy☆Surprise if they declare to use the effect that would Special Summon 1 Yummy monster from the GY. While you control a Retaliating “C” that was Special Summoned by its own effect, any card sent to the GY is banished instead. This is great against many decks, such as, but not limited to, Dracotail (as they rely on their cards being sent to the GY to trigger effects), K9 (since K9-17 Izuna sends from the Deck to the GY), and Yummy (which needs to have their monsters in the GY to Special Summon back from their Synchro Monsters). It was shocking to see not many others on this card, as it can counter Decks completely in this format.

With this card having multiple printings, and many of them being easily accessible, it is great to have a way to counter most of the current meta, and I cannot wait to see if it takes off more going into the future.

Last week, I guessed either Dracotail or Yummy would win YCS Vancouver, and my prediction ended up coming true, seeing Yummy win its first YCS. Now, will Dracotail and K9 Vanquish Soul keep up its pace to match the power of the dessert cats in the future?

Edited and co-written by Angryjon