The January 1st banlist has been made official and is now in effect! Players are ready to dust out a variety of decks, both new and old. The meta still hasn't shaped but so far its looking to be in favor of Geargia! After a few regional reports, Geargia has been dominating just over half the top tables but looking into the top 16 category, we now see a variety of decks; to name a few, Geargia, Mermail, Fire Fists, Madolche, and Inzektors. So things are looking to be like the beginning of last format with YCS Toronto, in which we had a variety within the top 32 decklists.
Now I don't want to be the guy that bursts the bubble, but YuGiOh! players are greedy, VERY greedy. We want to be the best, and there's nothing wrong with this. The problem is that after the first few months as the Meta starts to shape, players begin to see that 1 to 2 decks are simply too dominate for other decks to ever maintain advantage. We as players begin to get "frustrated" because of the hard work and effort we put into building our decks and competing in highly skilled matches; ultimately resorting to playing the 1 to 2 decks that consistently win as opposed to what we thought would be best.
I'm not dissing those that play meta, to be honest we all, including myself, love and want to win. I love playing the meta matchup because that is when the truly, most skilled players come out on top and aren't reliant on "top deck" victories. I would much rather lose on that level of play then lose simply by floodgate or "top deck" scenarios; I want to identify what the problematic cards are, isolate the solution, and execute my play. That is what makes this game fun and interesting to me. One of the biggest "wow" moments I've had in this game was watching a friend in Top 8 at the Louisville Win-a-Case, as I watched the old format Dragon mirror match(with Baby Dragons). The play was rather simple and fairly easy, but with minimal effort my friend stopped a Crimson Blader attack by destroying his own monster and took X damage looking at Dracossack + 1 token and Crimson Blader! On his turn, he thought for a minute, then summoned a Blaster, banishing Tempest and another dragon, searched a Debris Dragon, summons the Debris Dragon and got Flamvell Guard from grave, synched to Colossal Fighter! Debris hit the token, Colossal collided with Crimson, only to resummon the Crimson Blazer, hit Dracossack to put his opponent in lock and won the following turn. That was rather simple, I know, but the point of this story was that he had a LOT more options and plays to commit but went with this simple and small play that didn't require a neg to reserve resources for a possible Swift Scarecrow. That is where the skill of the game comes into play! Players want to over exhaust resources and get greedy with plays only to get punished in the end by the more skilled player!
But enough of this, more on the possible Meta. As stated, players rush for the most consistently topping deck that is played; and with this other decks get overshadowed. When I got 2nd at Columbus for instance, I played 1 Prophecy deck, although I knew the deck was good, I wasn't as prepared for this matchup! I ended up winning on Turn 4 of time to a game breaking tribute summon of Blue-Eyes White Dragon but I feel that the matchup should not have come to that. Had I been more prepared for the Prophecy matchup I wouldn't have made a misplay in game 3 and ended the duel with 3 minutes before time. This is where all the players RUSH to the immediate topping deck of the format and other solid contenders get overlooked. Patrick Hoban was our 2013 National Champion and because he played Dragunity Ruler in the first YCS/Tournament of the format, players immediately built similar, if not exact, copies of the decks for their next regional. If 300 players enter an event, on average, 45% will be playing the deemed 'best' deck making others look not as good; this includes players that are both good and bad. It has been proven time and time again, you hand a decent/good player(Player A) a Tier 2 deck and an average/decent player(Player B) a Tier 1 deck, Player B will probably win the matchup because he would understand gamestate better than Player A.
What I'm asking is this: just because you see Geargia being a 2 card OTK that is topping right now, don't expect it to be the best of the best. You will probably see that matchup a LOT in your next coming regionals but don't expect it to be unbeatable because several players are playing the deck. The deck has flaws that you will need to isolate and find the answer to. Trap Stun I hear is the main reason they OTK, so let that be a starting point. There are several decks that I can see competing for the top spot and in the next few weeks, I'm going to reveal my renditions of them. There are some neat ideas that I have for Noble Knights and Plants that need to have testing done, the new format Dragon Ruler deck has a few changes that I have recently made, and Ghostricks seem to be an excellent answer for a LOT of the problems a lot of the top decks offer.
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Since I haven't posted a new deck in a while I wanted to share my new Plant deck! This deck still needs some work but is doing well. All the OCG cards will/should be coming in Legacy of the Valiant. If not, then they are easily replaced with other things. The deck combos rather well and Dichotomy is a God-Send.
Happy Dueling and let's build a format. Hopefully get some decklists up for you guys soon.
-Peperm1nt
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