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The aftermath of the World Championship Qualifiers

With the triple World Championship Qualifier weekend now finished, Kewl Tune placed their stake at the top of the format as the Deck won the European WCQ piloted by Tim Gräfe. While Ryan Yu went 18-0 through the North American WCQ with the almighty Sky Striker strategy, and Jerry Zhang won the Oceanics WCQ with the Light and Darkness Ritual Mitsurugi Fiend Yummy 60-card pile. This week, we will be looking at the most popular cards and techs from this event. Not everything can be covered in one article from this past weekend, this sums up some of the Top Tech cards and cards from the Topping Decks this weekend.

Hottest Techs From the Past Weekend

We’re going to start off this article with one of the cards that was seen in plenty of Side Decks of top lists, and it’s the new Pot of Sloth from Chaos Origins. This powerful Spell Card allows you to draw cards equal to the number of cards your opponent controls, but if you drew 2 or more cards, you place cards from your hand to the bottom of the Deck in any order, equal to the number of cards you drew minus 1. So if your opponent only has 1 card, it’s another Upstart Goblin-like card, netting you a single draw, which can matter in some situations. It’s noted that it was seen in anywhere from 1 to 3 copies in the topping Side Decks, averaging at 2 copies total, and it also seems to have powercrept Triple Tactics Thrust in a way that you can dig for your Side Deck cards or board breakers to help break the opponent’s board, or you can just use it as bait for negation-like cards.

Even though Protectcode Talker was mentioned and talked about a couple of weeks ago, we finally got to see the card in action at the WCQ events. This card has mainly been seen in Light and Darkness Ritual and Maliss as additional Link Material when paired with Zenna’s Deceiving Doll Maidens, Firewall Dragon, and even Charmer Quartet in Bloom. While you control this card, any Link-4 or higher monster you control cannot be targeted by your opponent’s card effects or be destroyed by battle, and it can Special Summon itself from your GY by banishing Link Monsters from your GY whose combined Link Ratings equal exactly 3, but it’s banished when it leaves the field. When paired with cards like Firewall Dragon and Zenna, you can send any monster from the Deck to the GY, thanks to Zenna, and return it to your hand with Firewall Dragon, so Droll & Lock Bird and other monsters that activate from the hand can be fetched this way. If you don’t opt to go into Firewall Dragon, you can send cards like Spell Canceller instead and Link Summon Charmer Quartet in Bloom in order to revive both the Zenna and the Spell Canceller back to the field, thus preventing all Spell Cards from being used and removing most threats in the current format.

Santa Claws was one of the tech cards that many players had in their Side Deck to counter Tower-like monsters, especially the new Magician of Dark Chaos – Black Chaos and Black Luster Soldier – Soldier of Light and Darkness from the Light and Darkness Ritual strategy. This card can Special Summon itself to your opponent’s field at the cost of Tributing 1 monster your opponent controls, and during the End Phase, if it’s still on the field, the person who activated that End Phase effect draws 1. This card has seen its time over the years as a tech alongside The Winged Dragon of Ra – Sphere Mode and the Kaiju monsters for removal against the opponent. It’s nice to see that this card has picked up in play again, especially when paired with Fiendsmith, as Fiendsmith’s Tract can search it straight from the Deck for this free form of removal.

Along with Santa Claws, The Winged Dragon of Ra – Sphere Mode has made more of an impact on the new format, as plenty of Decks are ending on more than two monsters on their board, so having this card remove 3 monsters off their field is incredible. This card has also seen plenty of play, like the Kaiju monsters, Santa Claws, and Lava Golem, but alas, with the game constantly changing, this card is rarely needed against Kewl Tune but is massively used against Elftnote, Branded, and Maliss. This card is a powerful Side Deck staple that can prove its worth. Even if it takes up your Normal Summon for the turn, this card can turn the tides if your Deck doesn’t need a Normal Summon whatsoever.

Finally, Illusion Gate saw plenty over this weekend as a board breaker that destroys as many monsters your opponent controls, and if you do, you can Special Summon 1 monster from their GY, ignoring its Summoning conditions provided it was Special Summoned properly first. All of this at the cost of half your LP. Plenty of players use 1-2 copies in their Side Decks to see it as often as they can, and Pot of Sloth happens to help make those odds better as you can literally “draw the out” if it doesn’t get met by an Ash Blossom & Joyous Springs. Even with that, Sacred Beasts post-Beyond the Brave will be able to search for this card by discarding a Level 10 monster thanks to their new Shimmering Shatterer of the Sacred Beasts (YGOrganization translation) Quick-Play Spell Card.

The format will be ever-changing going into the new Chaos Origin regional season as players are preparing for YCS Montreal, Quebec, from August 14th to the 16th, and the metagame could be completely different if the TCG releases a new Forbidden & Limited list before that, causing players to shift their tech cards to something different to combat the meta.

Archetype Cards To Lookout For

Light and Darkness Ritual is one of the Decks to beat currently in the metagame, and it shows as it took up 18.71% of the tops from the triple World Championship Qualifier weekend. This has caused Black Chaos to flip between the $55 and $60 marks, and it shows with how much power the card has. It can Special Summon itself from your hand by shuffling 1 Spellcaster or Warrior Ritual Monster from your hand or GY into your Deck. And while on the field, if you have a Ritual Spell in your GY, this card is unaffected by your opponent’s activated effects. And once during your Main Phase, you can banish 2 cards your opponent controls, which is extremely insane for removal. While it’s in your hand, you can discard it to place a Continuous Trap from your Deck that mentions Light and Darkness Ritual from your Deck or GY to your field face-up, which lets you stick a copy of Mind Shuffle to your field.

Invoked is on a hype train after doing well in all the WCQ events from the past weekend, and this caused Aleister the Invoker of Madness to rise in price. Although it requires 2 monsters with different Types and Attributes as its materials, it is still extremely easy to assemble those in this Deck and it helps out Invoked in a big way as it becomes Aleister the Invoker while on the field or in the GY. If you Fusion Summon a monster while you control Aleister the Invoker of Madness, you can discard 1 card to add 1 Invocation, the original, or a copy of The Book of Law from your Deck to your hand. This helps you Fusion Summon more to search out an additional copy of Invocation to Fusion Summon again, especially for the new Invoked Fusion Monsters released from Chaos Origins.

With Ryan Yu going all the way with Sky Strikers, going undefeated, it made players realize how much strength the Deck has against both Kewl Tune and Light and Darkness Ritual, as the control style can also have ways to target and remove threats from the GY and the field. Sky Striker Mobilize – Engage! is the heart and soul of the Deck, since it searches for any other Sky Striker card, and if you have 3 or more Spells in your GY, you can draw an additional card, netting you more advantage that you don’t know what to do with. Along with cards like Pot of Sloth and Pot of Desires, it helps fill your GY up with Spell Cards to net that additional draw and also fixes your hand to help you push for OTKs with Sky Striker Mobilize – Linkage!.

This weekend was amazing to watch at every moment, from the slow-grind games to the fast-combo Decks competing to be the best of the best. But I would love to congratulate everyone who earned the Top 8 spots at this event, and a special congratulations to Ryan Yu for going 18-0, undefeated through the whole tournament with Sky Strikers, a feat not many can accomplish. These next couple weeks will be quiet, as there are no events taking place until August 1st for the first regionals of the season as we lead into YCS Montreal, Canada, in the middle of August.

Edited and co-written by Angryjon