Rage of Evolution Format (230901~)
The rRat So Far
231001 - More Spright hits, Nimble Beaver is dead, Mind Hacker is dead. Thank god I didn’t invest in Kashtira cards, mirite’? Banlist comes into effect on 231010.
For the crimes of dominating the format since release, Tearlaments was given a heavy SLAP and as of 230901, Tearlaments Merrli is banned.
While Tearlaments sits in the backrooms waiting for their new support card, two new archetypes arise with Kashtira (the Space Shogun) duking it out with Purrely (literally Vaporeon).
The Basics
Kashtira is an XYZ deck whose gameplan revolves around banishing villain decks facedown (my favorite kind of banishment!). They also go into XYZ monsters to lock enemy zones.
231010 Banlist - Ding dong! Mind Hacker is DEAD.
Most notably Kashtira runs Kashtira Fenrir, which banishes on enemy monster effect or its own attack. Without any restrictions on its use, Fenrir found its way into any deck that runs it.
Purrely is an XYZ deck whose gameplay revolves around dumping spell cards and attatching them to Purrely XYZ monsters to obtain a 5 material [Purrely Noir], which is unaffected by all effects.
It functions similarly to Sky Strikes since its in-archetype spells help in the summoning and reminds me of Runick pre-ban where they need a high concentration of Purrely cards in deck to function well. (which they do have right now)
SEPTEMBER EVENTS: KING OF THE ISLAND AND XYZ/FUSION EVENT
Oddly enough, King of the Island was more fun than XYZ/FUSION event, where Branded Decks reigned supreme.
“What no deck does to a motherfucka.”
King of the Island was a format where everyone had terrible decks, the obvious go-to beast-typed decks were heavily limited (Tri-Brigade). I find the format of interest because we basically reverted back to old Yu-Gi-Oh, where everyone had terrible decks with low consistency.
As a result of that low consistency, everyone either played OTK or Trap Burn, because nobody had any big attatchment to the decks they played. (sorry furries)
Birds and Spider OTK were especially prevalent, I personally played a Beetrooper + Spider OTK package because I didn’t have enough cards to make a complete deck, a story I am sure is repeated everywhere.
The loaner decks were very confusing and unintuitive, especially Fire Kings, which I do not think came with their new support?
Max C was a deciding factor in this low-power format, since any turn pass could become an OTK with no consistent counter. I was fitting in imperms and swapping them out for anti-traps depending on how much I felt the Traptrix and Birds were online.
“Branded, Branded, Branded”
I actually played very late in the event, so most people died to Despia (no Branded), although the overall logic was more or less the same as modern Bystial Branded.
Branded has an obscene winrate in the event, XYZs were far less visible and any strange XYZ attacks go straight into Zeus, so nobody is going to let an XYZ live after the battle phase.
Theater boys doing good work again, so much that I want to main them again. One thing I noticed very missing in the event: no Bystials. I rechecked the event rules and while Bystials were in, low-power players do not run them.
Now that Skill Drain is gone, Chimera is good? I’ll have to think about this a little more if I will bring them into ladder.
Branded fusion to 1 is not a big deal if you put in Fusion Deployment, which either brings out Cartesia or Albaz. Either one of them goes into a strong play, sending any card from Extra/Main deck to the grave, which can be Albion, bypassing the whole Mirrorjade problem.
If I could improve the deck, it would be to have more names and to fit either Branded Lost or Branded Regained in it.
