Notes & Combos
I spent some time testing a ton of different concepts but kept getting destroyed: go-first big combo Crusadia, go-first World Legacy, Kaiser Colosseum + Astram, stun Crusadia, 60 card Mekk-Crusadia... (I say more about the problem with these builds in the discussion video)
In the end it came down to OTK Mekk-Crusadia or board wipe midrange Mekk-Crusadia (which I played during Spright meta due to monster spam boards that Kaijus cannot solve alone).
Bystials make the World Legacy engine a liability now, lowering the value of the midrange strategy that relies solely on WL Secret to survive on turn 3. However, the fact is that the OTK strategy worked well in the last 2 seasons only because of the Tears matchup. Reasons it's become less reliable:
- Big monster spam boards make the 1-1 monster removal techs too poor value (Kaijus/CoH/Mind Control). In fact, any 1-1 tech is just poor value considering how fragile the main combo lines are + the lack of draw power in this deck.
- Deck diversity makes the "outs" that you draw less reliable, which means it's a lot better to have an alternative win condition. However, the Crusadia OTK line is quite demanding on your hand, making it very difficult to fit a full supporting engine into the list while having the requisite number of Crusadia monsters + board breakers. Remember that Crusadia main deck monsters are really, really poor value in the buildup phase (apart from normal summoned Arboria). This is why I have always been really against playing >=10 Crusadias in general.
Lost plenty of games automatically because it's now normal for first turn boards to be super greedy and basically unbreakable unless you have in-engine solutions. At some point I realized I'd forgotten to test Super Poly + Garura, and yeah that did help solve some boards that I otherwise had 0 hope against, but don't expect it to be some kind of silver bullet.
Stun is everywhere, btw. Very unfortunate I cannot play Red Reboot here. Still, Mekks being able to smack Inspector Boarder is all the justification I need for sticking with this hybrid. Runick is back for some reason, so I packed 2 Cosmic Cyclones, but it was quite useless a lot of the time. I would have preferred an extra Mekk + Pot of Prosperity in their place, I think.
Try not to normal summon Maximus to avoid him getting Bystial'ed. And where WL Succession is available, remember to play around Bystials by targeting non-Light/Dark monsters in GY!
I left out World Crown this time for the 2nd Girsu. I usually send either Succession or Memory with Girsu as Lib will almost always set Secret or Memory. I do think the 2nd Girsu is far better value in that slot.
Overall, still a very tough climb, but far more fun than just OTK-ing or scooping every single game. Midrange is peak Yu-Gi-Oh!
Replays
Playlist for all replays here, as always: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjRhxCvSwr4X8VWx4STZ7a7QUCJ-uXhyj
Deck discussion is currently 1% uploaded; hopefully it'll get there in a few hours. Will upload full replays when I have the time to rewatch and sort through everything.
To the person who commented "Great. Now upload the deck you actually climbed with" under last month's list: In the discussion video, I show my last few games up till the rank-up so you can stop doubting that power-of-friendship.dek can do it lmao.
When I have time, I will upload full-game replays of actually interesting duels from everything I've recorded.
The problem is that a lot of wins are really boring, as you will see. My last 3 games were essentially walk-offs thanks to handtraps and board breakers, but honestly what else are you supposed to do going 2nd against these greedy boards? Get lucky and draw the out, really.