Monster Type (HER Event)! - Aftermath Edition!
tld;dr Konami shills Labrynth, it is super effective!
The Labrynth Shilling Monster Type event has come and gone, who were the big winners this time around?
What I Expected
I went into the event expecting Labrynth to be the most dominant deck and I was right: A good 34/78 of my matches were against Labrynth. This is in part because the loaner deck was sufficient; not optimized, but sufficient to beat majority of decks, and that Labrynth is the only deck that is running at full power. You were fighting a ladder-tier deck with literal third rate decks in this event if you decided to not play Labrynth.
I played pure Despia for the first part of the event, with some Super-Poly mixed in, but soon took them out because there were very little instances of it going off. One part because there are no good fusion targets, Garuda is banned so you can't just fuse both booba ladies on the field. The other is the problem of reach. Despia is really good at reaching the Despia/Branded parts of the deck, which means you have to open Super-Poly; not a good look for consistency!
I quickly realized the Labrynth threat was far, far more numerous than expected, and quickly subbed in some anti-trap heralds. They help a little, especially when newer Labrynth players completely bust their load on a turn 1 Welcome by throwing away Cuckoo Clock, or if Welcome is their only trap on the field and they were counting on it comboing with castle to recycle traps. It doesn't help against slightly better hands or more experienced players.
I crafted two Red Reboots this time around, which I kind of regret, but will put to good use when I am larping as Revolver in later seasons. In retrospect, I should have put in the ol' Evenly Matched, which is good against most other decks, instead of Red Reboot which is a strictly anti-Labrynth card. But the theater boys were losing so badly to Labyrnth that even Dramaturge sheds a tear behind that ugly mug of his.
In the end, I went even further in my anti-Labrynth tech, adding in [Royal Decree], surprisingly not banned in this event. I had a slightly better fighting chance from here on and reached the 11k points mark.
P.S: I could have played a lot more better if I crafted a single copy of the Darklord boss. But since this might be the theater boy's final appearance, I didn't. Despia Pure doesn't really have many good fusion endpoints besides Quaeritis.
What I Saw
Once I reached 11k, I started to play Labrynth as well.
With Ash Blossom banned, Labrynth became the only deck that can consistently one-card special summon their boss monster, and furnitures add even more hits to start out strong. The game is usually decided turn 1 or 2 when Labrynth sets the traps and field castle, then checks whether the opponent has duster.
The most painful part of the event were the Labrynth mirrors starting second. Usually you were so far behind the opponent since they could keep recycling Lady or keep your own traps off the field with castle.
the final list
There were a lot of deck specialists this time around, the one that most impressed me was one guy playing the Cyber Angel loaner at the end who managed to foil all my traps; if it wasn't for the timer forcing a misplay and him banishing all his ritual spells, the result of that match would have been very up in the air.
One major deck I missed out on was Timelords, which is one of the more accessible decks in any event. This one is on Author-kun, I didn't even notice that they were fairies until I saw the first one. They aren't exactly strong, but they counter Labrynth in a way because they don't take damage and can pack loads of going second cards. My response was always to just do my thing and not attack into the Timelords? They go away after a turn and it's minus advantage for my opponent at no cost to myself.
What I Got
There were quite a few notes to take while playing Labrynth:
Furniture is Too Good (only in this event) - In a format with low consistency, Labrynth, the deck with the highest consistency has the option to add consistency with furnitures. That's insane. The only reason furnitures are not considered is because of Ash making you 2-for-1 yourself, and deck space for things like [Lord of the Heavenly Prison].
Ice Dragon Prison Solves a Big Problem - A little into the format I started running into those Melodious stall decks who take advantage of Labrynth having strong destruction but no other type of removal. They would setup a "cannot be targeted, cannot be destroyed, cannot be battled" board with a fusion spell, and win from there. I quickly teched in [Ice Dragon Prison] to max and matchmaker stopped giving me those matchups.
Evenly Matched - The higher I went, the more the matchups were Labrynth vs Labrynth and decided by who started first/ who has Evenly Matched. The Solemn Judgements are to prevent myself from being Evenly Matched. This made for really boring gameplay, which is for the par for Yu-Gi-Oh. Yu-Gi-Oh is fun, competitive Yu-Gi-Oh is not. (t. Yuga)
Lady is a Superbuffed Multifaker - I was pretty new to Lady Labrynth and I quickly realized that Lady is what multifaker could have been. Special summons from hand when a trap is activated (ANY trap mind you, not even yours!), sets a trap to maintain advantage, AND has inherent protection. Compare this with poor little Multifaker who at best brings in a Silquitous or Meluseek and Lady is far and beyond the better trapmaster. Multifaker can be stopped by Maxx C, Ash and you still have to go into your limk monsters. Lady IS the boss monster.
Last Word
The Labrynth Event was surprisingly fun. Both for the Despia and Labrynth side. There was a lot of thinking in setting traps and outplaying other trap setters. I realized about 3/4 into the event I was actually PLAYING the game instead of counting negates and the number of starters in my hand. Sure the Labrynth vs Labrynth matchups were a slog afterwards, but when both sides were of equal power level, the games were fun.
I think I will play YGO a little more this month.
Author-kun
230802
