[MW] The North America WCQ Techs And Decks Shake Up

Some surprising techs and decks appeared this weekend, so let’s dive into it.

The North American World Championship Qualifiers have finally completed, so let’s take a look and shine a spotlight on certain cards and techs that were used. First off, I’d love to congratulate all the duelists who made Day 2 and the Top 64. Your skill and knowledge of the game have shined extremely bright this past weekend.

Lunalight Kaleido Chick is being watched by the community as the new support from Duelist’s Advance has officially been released and has seen play everywhere. The new wave has made cards like Kaleido Chick better, as she can send either the new Lunalight Silver Hound to the set up the GY negation effect or Lunalight Yellow Martin to return 1 Lunalight card you control to Special Summon her from the GY, this allows you to have access to additional materials for Fusion or Xyz Summons.. By utilizing Lunalight Masquerade to send Lunalight Silver Hound to trigger its effects to Special Summon any Lunalight monster from your Deck, this can Special Summon Gold Leo this way, its effect lets you add 1 Lunalight monster from your Deck to your hand, then discard 1 card. By adding Lunalight Tiger to your hand this way, you can use its Pendulum Effect to Special Summon a Lunalight monster from your GY. If you add Lunalight Black Sheep instead, you can use its own discard effect to either add 1 other Lunalight monster from your GY to your hand or add a Polymerization from your deck to your hand. This brand new wave of Lunalight support is great for the deck itself and could carry it into the top cut at many Regionals and YCS events.

With a few printings, this card’s Ultra Rare price has been jumping all over the place as the highest rarity of the card. Either way, this card has cheaper printings in Rare and Common if you are on a budget.

With the wake of Gem-Knights making multiple tops at the NAWCQ, along with Isaias Estrada piloting the deck to Top 4, Gem-Knight Nepyrim’s main price has risen up drastically. Being the major heart of the deck, this card’s power isn’t one to mess around with. On its Normal or Special Summon, you can add any Gem-Knight card from your Deck to your hand, but any effect damage your opponent takes during the Main Phase is halved. With this, you can grab the new Gem-Knight Dispersion to Fusion Summon a Gem-Knight Fusion Monster using monsters from your hand or field. While you can do that, you can also use up to 2 monsters from your Deck/Extra Deck if they are non-Rock Gem-Knight monsters and you have Gem-Knight Fusion in the GY. The other great part about Nepyrim is during your Main Phase, you can immediately Normal Summon 1 “Gem-” monster, allowing you to Normal Summon Gem-Armadillo, which allows you to add any Gem-Knight monster from your Deck to your hand.

With the power of Gem-Knight now, it is shown that this will be a Deck to watch out for in the next couple of weeks, and sadly the support from Battles of Legend: Monster Mayhem won’t be legal to use at the EUWCQ.

Santa Claws was a tech for multiple players running the Fiendsmith package, especially in Joshua Evans’ Fiendsmith Ryzeal Mitsurigi Top 32 list, as a way to take care of important boss monsters, like Lunalight Liger Dancer. This card works wonders, as Fiendsmith Tract can search for any LIGHT Fiend monster in the game, and Santa Claws happens to be just that. It worked wonders against decks like Maliss to get rid of their Allied Code Talker @Ignister or against Ryzeal by Tributing over their Ryzeal Detonator.

With only a handful of reprints from 3 different Speed Duel products (Twisted Nightmares, Tournament Pack 3 and 7), Premium Gold: Return of the Bling, and the 2018 Advent Calendar, one can only hope this will be reprinted for more accessibility to the players.

Like Santa Claws, Mingrui Cai utilized Cannon Soldier in his Orcust Mitsurugi Deck within the Top 64 as a way to inflict damage to the opponent if time is ticking down to 0, since it is searchable via Orcust Crescendo. This was an interesting tech to see, as it works well with the Mitsurugi monsters by Tributing them, as you can trigger their effects since they were Tributed. We’ve seen this card pop up time and time again from the Danger! Dark World First-Turn Kill in 2018 and as recent as the Morphtronic FTK in 2023, so only time will tell what will happen to this FTK Machine.

This card has had reprints over the years, but the last time we saw it was in the 25th Anniversary reprint of Metal Raiders in 2023, so it is readily accessible for the players who want to try a copy out for their decks.

Crush Card Virus surprisingly made its way into the Top 64 via the Side Deck of Andrew Williams’ Vanquish Soul decklist as a counter to both Vanquish Soul and Mitsurugi. By Tributing a DARK monster with 1000 or less ATK, like Rock of the Vanquisher or Vanquish Soul Dr. Mad Love (whose ATK can be lowered just enough by Ame no Habakiri no Mitsurugi’s effect), you can destroy all monsters on your opponent’s field and their hand with 1500 or more ATK. After this, your opponent can destroy up to 3 monsters from their deck with 1500 or more ATK, and after this card resolves, your opponent takes no damage for the rest of this turn. This can be extremely useful to wipe your opponent’s board and whatever cards they have that they need for their pushes against your setup, while gaining full hand knowledge of what your opponent has.

This card was a shocking Side Deck option for many, as this tech came all the way from the OCG in their Vanquish Soul lists, so one will wonder if this will catch on going into the future.

Spell Card “Monster Reborn” has gained popularity in players’ Side Decks as a way to target copies of Artifact Lancea in their opponent’s GY to use it on their opponent’s turn to shut them off from banishing cards for the turn. This was first seen months ago as it slowly gained traction to now being seen everywhere in the top ranks of Master Duel. With this, you can interrupt cards like Bystial Magnamhut by reviving the monster it was attempting to banish or a monster that would’ve revived itself on your opponent’s field. Either scenario can be particularly harsh to your opponent, forcing them to divert into other plays. This card can be powerful in the right hands, and if used at the right time, this could be a powerful Spell Card to be used going into the future.

Having only 1 print still from The Infinite Forbidden, many players do think this will be a pick for a reprint in the 2025 Mega Tins, but only time will tell what these tins will hold.

Debuting in Duelist’s Advance, Gorgon of Zilofthonia has been seen in a couple of players’ Extra Decks in the Top Cut from the NAWCQ. This card was seen in 3 of the Top 32 Decks from Matthew Grooms in his @Ignister Maliss Top 32 List, Charley Futch III in his Fiendsmith Mitsurugi 5th Place List, and Nicolas Maffei in his Ryzeal Mitsurugi Top 16 List. Zilofthonia is a strong Link-3 that shuts down all monsters it points to as their activated effects are negated and they cannot attack. Gorgon also gains ATK equal to the total ATK of monsters it points to. While it points to no monsters, it cannot be destroyed by battle or monster effects. With all that said, you cannot Summon/Set monsters to a zone(s) this card points to, which is fine if you summon this card to the Extra Monster Zone. This single card can stop multiple monsters dead in their tracks if the opponent makes the mistake of putting all their monsters in adjacent Main Monster Zones where this card points to, as this will deal massive damage during the Battle Phase if one of the attacks lands on a low ATK monster.

With it being new, many cards like this will be tested and tried out over the next couple of weeks. Maybe we will see more of this card popping up at the EUWCQ weeks from now.

From now until the EUWCQ on July 25th-27th, players will be testing and playing their hearts out for the final major event for the 2024/2025 season of Yu-Gi-Oh! to see who goes to the World Championship this August 30th-31st. What surprises will we see from across the pond for our friends who will be attending this event?

Edited and co-written by Angryjon