[Updated]Garden City, Michigan Regional 10/26/13 Top 8 Blue-Eyes Ruler

Here is the decklist for my top 8 this past weekend at Garden City, Michigan! I went x-1-1 just reaching the 8th slot! I'm very happy with the performance of my deck and did exactly what my thoughts were the whole tournament. As was the previous format with Dragon Rulers dominating everything, Dragon Rulers have molded into a new incarnation that is still as dominate. The mirror match is very important and a VERY tough grind where both decks answer each other until a Return play happens or when either player runs out of resources; through misplaying or whatever. What Blue-Eyes ruler does is it gives you Game 1 advantage through speed that the regular build wouldn't. I'm sure most dragon players will agree that if you do not have access to all 4 colors by turn 2, then you are behind in the mirror and when Turn 2 happens and you have access to all 4 colors, Ravine gives you and extra dragon through discards with Ravine. Adding the Blue-Eyes to hand gives you a Ravine, Raigeki Break, and PwwB discard that protects the monsters in hand to allow you to have the option of using their effects; such as Blaster Pop, Redox SS, or Tempest Add. Also, when playing the Mirror, it allows you to not be affected, as much, by DD Crow! The result was I only lost game one, three times in the tourney, due to very bad opens; but nonetheless, I'll accept the other 6 game 1 wins! Also note, that I only went first 4 times, so that means my opponent had the ever-demanding turn advantage! That should be somewhat of a statement of my thoughts on the speed. Next up is how I sided. The deck requires so much tight space that I couldn't run cards that I really wanted to; such as Terraforming or the 3rd Maxx "C". The side out for the mirror was 5-6 cards: 1 White Stone of Legend, 1 Blue-Eyes White Dragon, 3 Cards of Consonance, and when I needed the 6th, I sided out 6th Sense. In other match-ups such as Constellars, Evilswarms, Stun, etc., I was going to side out Maxx "C" and Swift Scarecrow or whatever would have been match appropriate. Before we continue, 6th Sense was complete garbage and hated that I had to run it. For starters, I was always able to maintain advantage or access to everything that I could possibly need, monster wise, but I never seemed to have the Traps to do much protection; keep in mind I only ran 4 total traps, so for now, Blue-Eyes Ruler will possibly drop this Luck Based card! Everytime I used it(5 times), I never had success on mills and never drew at all and had a PwwB or Raigeki Break been in it's place, I would have had greater success in those situations.

A note on my loss and tie:
I loss to a Dragon Ruler build that mained Decree and Vanity's Fiend. He went first game 1 and made Fiend Turn 1 and set decree. I scooped on my standby phase with no access to Blaster or a way to set it up. Game 2, opened decent but he cleared my board with Dark Hole and then did a similar setup, but I opened all monsters.

My Tie was because I won game 1 with 9 minutes left in round, I wanted to scoop at the 15 minute mark, but I was able to change the game into my favor and didn't wanna grind 2 games afterwards in hopes of a win. So it goes to game 2, we grind FOREVER!!! and I ended up not being able to make damage in turn 4 thanks to Vanity's Emptiness and get a tie.

 

Decklist: Blue-Eyes Dragon Ruler

Monsters: 25

12 Dragon Rulers

2 Blue-Eyes White Dragon

2 White Stone of Legend

2 Maxx "C"

2 Swift Scarecrow

2 Debris Dragon

1 Trigon

1 Dragunity Corsesca

1 Flamvell Guard 

Spells: 11

3 Dragon Ravine

3 Sacred Sword of Seven Stars

3 Cards of Consonance

2 MST

Traps: 4

1 Return from the Different Dimension

1 Sixth Sense

1 Phoenix Wing Wind Blast

1 Raigeki Break  

Side Deck: 15

1 Effect Veiler

1 Maxx "C"

2 DD Crow

2 Fencing Fire Ferret

2 XYZ Encore

1 Burial from the Different Dimension

2 Royal Decree

2 Mischief of the Yokai

2 Skill Drain

Explanations:

Trigon

Trigon has become a necessary card due to it being so searchable through Ravine and the fact that it is a Fire attribute makes it even better. Space is rather tight so I couldn't fit in cards like Card Trooper or Dandylion; although Dandylion does a pretty neat combo in Blue-Eyes Ruler similar to the Billy Brake play.

Terraforming/Cards of Consonance

I feel that since I was going for speed game 1, Cards of Consonance was the better option. Since I didn't have that many traps to begin with, opening a Ravine play wasn't always going to be my best bet, assuming my opponent would have a decent hand. So I wanted to dig as deep as I could and draw into Return faster. I always ended up with Ravine by turn 2 whether it was through Ancient Fairy Dragon or my own, so Terra wasn't that big of a factor. I did sit on CoC however at times throughout the tournament, but bluff sets are fine in this deck :D

Only 2 Maxx "C" Mained?

Maxx "C" is an excellent card and is needed at 3 in the mirror. With all my draw power, I would eventually draw into Maxx "C", which I did, and through the Blue-Eyes engine I was able to keep up regardless; also note, that Maxx "C" is not optimal early game if you have resources. Also, I have yet to be hit by Mystical Refpanel, but several of my good friends tell me it sucks when it happens, so doing all my draw power game 1 would help influence the reliance on Refpanel. Nonetheless, the 3rd came in after siding and I didn't want Maxx "C" if I were to play against Evilswarms or Constellars. Even in the Mirror, 2 Mained was fine with the speed. Especially with 2 Swift Scarecrows mained.

Mischief of the Yokai?!?

Mischief was such an excellent card in the mirror! Seeing as to how I can't side Imperial Iron Wall or Gozen Match, Mischief gave me 2 stops during all gamestates that was rather devasting when I did get to use it, which was three times. All of which I wasn't able to answer properly due to traps. But it did get the Crimson lock every time :D Great card and will continue to side it in the mirror.

Here's a Video of the Decklist with Further Explanations :D

Overall changes that need made!

Angel of Zera is trash! I didn't play the first prophecy match and I needed a second Crimson Blader several times! The side deck NEEDS to be adjusted a lot! For starters, a third Fire Ferret, a third Decree, and some more testing with Mischief to confirm that Decree won't answer all my problems. There's also this card everyone thinks they should run called Sixth Sense, and I want to take a minute and say the card is complete garbage! Several times I wished it were just another Break or Phoenix Wing Wind Blast.  

Rough-Draft Changes:

-1 Angel of Zera

-1 Sixth Sense(only in builds that don't have a lot of traps)

+1 Crimson Blader

+1 Raigeki Break/Solemn Warning