[MW] Thaw Out Hidden And Old Gems!

Thaw Out Hidden Once again, Dragons have won another YCS.

With YCS Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, now over, we want to give a big congratulations to Aditya Dharap for winning the event with Dracotail Branded out of 1847 total players. It was a real feat to watch his journey and many others throughout the YCS Feature Matches and Event. That being said, this week was a tad slower in news, as not much has been revealed yet, but this YCS gave us plenty to talk about from the main Advance Format and Genesys as well. Many current trends are starting to appear as well, as players are looking at other cards to stop the opponent from playing, as we saw Mitsurugi Normal Summoning Barrier Statue of the Torrents during the event, many players on K9 Variants at the YCS were running a copy of Numen erat Testudo to stop either player from Special Summoning monsters with 1800 or less ATK, and even Impcantation Bookstone as a card to give to the opponent to stop them from Special Summoning from the Extra Deck. But those will be talked about more at another date.

Highlighting a card from Aditya’s list, I wanted to first talk about Kashtira Fenrir in the Side Deck. We’ve talked about this card a few times over this year with how powerful it is, and it is something the OCG hasn’t been able to use since it has been forbidden there since July 1st, 2023. Running this card is extremely impactful against the K9 engine and Mitsurugi decks, as it makes it easy to banish face-up cards on the field face-down on a new chain. This can remove plenty of monsters from the field, like Ame no Mitsurugi no Murakumo, K9-17 Izuna, or Yummy★Snatchy if caught at the wrong time. Along with the ability to banish face-up cards face-down, you can also add any Kashtira monster from your Deck to your hand, even an additional copy of itself for extra Fusion Materials for Dracotail Arthalion’s effect (which targets and returns monsters from the field or GY to the hand).

With Kashtira Fenrir in the Side Deck, Aditya and many others opted to Main Deck Ghost Belle & Haunted Mansion this weekend, with it being an extremely powerful card currently. Ghost Belle is fantastic against Mitsurugi, Yummy, Dracotail, and Maliss, since it stops cards or effects that would add a card from the GY to the hand/Deck/Extra Deck, Special Summon a monster from the GY, or banish cards from the GY. It counters all the Mitsurugi Ritual Monsters when they want to search for a Mitsurugi card and Special Summon themselves from the GY. When it comes to Yummy, it stops their Synchro Monsters from returning themselves to the Extra Deck to Special Summon up to 2 Yummy monsters from the GY. It is amazing to have additional ways to negate the Dracotail Trap Cards in the mirror match as they place a Dracotail card from the GY to the bottom of the Deck. And finally, it’s good against Maliss if they want to use Maliss <C> GWC-06 to Special Summon anything from the GY or prevent Maliss <Q> White Binder from banishing anything from the GY.

Being a well-rounded Hand Trap in the current meta, with many reprints over the years, there is no doubt in the future this card will see constant play, as decks have been relying on the GY as time goes on.

One of the major cards from this weekend happened to be Denko Sekka as a direct counter to Dracotail and many other decks that capitalize on Setting Spells/Traps. While Denko Sekka is on the field and you have no Set Spells/Traps, neither player can Set Spells/Traps or activate them if they are Set on the field. This card has seen play time and time again over the years against Qliphort, True Draco, and even Labrynth. And every time it sees play, it shuts down the opponent’s plays if they don’t have a Counter Trap to stop the Summon of the card from happening. With many reprints over the years, this card is extremely accessible to the players in a few rarities, to the point of even being extremely cheap on the market. It’s always good to have a playset of this card lying around, as you never know if you’ll need it for the current or upcoming format.

Back in June, we covered PSY-Framegear Delta as a powerful Hand Trap to use against Spell Cards like Branded Fusion, Rahu Dracotail, and Mitsurugi Ritual. After 4 months have passed, the price has nearly doubled with the advent of Dracotail becoming one of the top Decks, to Mitsurugi being the top engine being played. Also, being able to use Ash Blossom & Joyous Springs alongside this card is a massive feat against many Decks. This is especially useful if your opponent uses Quick-Play Spell Cards during your turn, as you gain extra advantage with free Fusion Materials for Dracotail, extra Synchro Materials for high-Level Synchro Monsters, or free Link Materials for Decks like Maliss.

Even with 2 total printings, this card has been going up gradually over time, and we shall see what the future holds for the other PSY-Framegear monsters.

With Maliss coming back in full swing and seeing tons of representation along with 4 players making it within the Top 32 at the event, this has caused Maliss <P> March Hare to rise back up in price. Being in the top 5 Decks of the format, Maliss is still a powerful strategy as it continues to fight against Mitsurugi, Yummy, and Dracotail. With no reprint in sight still, March Hare is one of the essential cards in the Deck, as it is another way to banish your Maliss cards from your hand or GY, to start your plays by banishing Maliss <P> Dormouse or White Rabbit, or even a useful extender like the Bystials, to banish Maliss <Q> Red Ransom or White Binder from your GY.

Even with only 1 total print still from Alliance Insight, the Deck itself is still rather budget, especially post-Legendary 5D’s Decks, with all the Mulcharmies and plenty of staples used in the Deck being reprinted for the player base.

Number 3: Cicada King has been on the rise for a while, with the Radiant Typhoon archetype being prominent in the Genesys Format. When a monster’s effect activates on the field, you can detach 1 material from Number 3 to target that monster and negate its effect, then you can choose 1 Insect monster on the field and either make it gain 500 DEF or change its battle position. Another bonus with Cicada King is when it changes battle position, you can Special Summon 1 Insect monster from your hand or GY, which is amazing when paired with Kumongous, the Sticky String Kaiju, to prevent yourself from getting Kaiju’d, as you can only control 1 Kaiju monster.

Another card that is seeing tons of use in Genesys is Trishula, the Dragon of Icy Imprisonment, along with the Dragonmaid cards. You can summon it by either Fusion Summoning it with 3 monsters with different names from your hand and/or field or by Special Summoning it by banishing the above cards you control. On this card’s Special Summon, if you used monsters that were originally Dragons, you can reveal and banish 3 cards: 1 from your Deck, 1 from the top of the opponent’s Deck, and 1 from their Extra Deck. This makes it an extremely useful way to remove resources from your opponent while netting yourself the advantage of seeing what you are going against on Turn 1.

With only a total of 3 prints from the JUMP Promo, Battles of Legend: Armageddon, and Battles of Legend: Chapter 1, all copies of this card have gone up in price due to the amount of play it’s seeing; hopefully in the future we see a reprint for this card with quantities being low.

This past weekend was very exciting to see what the players brought to the table and what came up over the course of it. Hopefully with Phantom Revenge releasing in December, we will see a shift in power in the current Top Decks as new challengers approach the game.

Edited and co-written by Angryjon