The Diamond Door, June 2022

"In order to be the man, you gotta beat the man...! WOOOO---" - Ric Flair

This month, in order to find out how to beat Swordsouls, I played a whole month of Swordsoul. Boy, that did not turn out too well.

Certainly, it's strong; it's also throughly brainless. It was fun dunking on people with the Chixiao and Baronne board early on, but later on during the climb, every time I summoned Baronne I could feel my soul seep out of my body, crying in anguish. One thing that is funny is that the number of people who immediately surrender after seeing the Baronne/Chixiao board (6) is as much as any meta archetype. Go figure.

But first, this month's Diamond Door.

Did Anything Change...? (AW HELL NO)

"Trouble Cunny... Never came..."

I reached the top of Platinum 1 within 80 matches, with an abnormally high winrate of 56.25%, with 6 Connection Failed on my way up.

Not much has changed, Swordsouls, Eldlich, Tri-Brigade are still at the top, no surprises. Drytron has become so pathetic, I only ran into a single Drytron player, it's not even worth it to make fun of them. Swordsouless has a really obnoxious encounter rate, and I'll break it down later.

New Archetypes Doko?

The meta didn't shift that much, early on in the month there were some players playing Evil Twins in anticipation of Trouble Sunny, but Trouble Sunny never came... In the later half of the month after the Limit-1 event, Evil Twins virtually disappeared from ladder. UWOOOOHHHHH...!!! Damn Konami, needs correction...!!!

The new archetypes this month, Agents, Exosisters, didn't make a huge splash.

The upside of the new support is that you don't strictly need to put 3x [Sanctuary in the Sky] or fill your deck with multiple searchers, since the wording supports it being in the grave or cards which name it. The bad thing is that you still need one copy at least, and you still need to search it out.

Agents was really difficult to get excited for as a synchro deck, since Cupid Pitch is better served in pretty much any other synchro deck, AND you need to have pulled the Sanctuary in the Sky secret pack to combine with the new cards to get a working deck. It's quite complex to boot, banishes, return from banish zone and what not, and for all your work doesn't put up a strong negate board, making it still lose to many decks.

Part of the problem is compounded by how if you add the new Agents support, you run out of space for Solemn counter traps or counter-trap support. At this point you might as well play Counter Fairies with [Lord of the Heavenly Prison] as support.

In short, the new Agents support failed because of its high complexity and relatively low power level. (just Sneedfibre into Auroradon!)

Exosisters was really a failure of intended purpose. The concept is great, anytime your opponent touches the graveyard, your effect monsters become XYZ monsters and your opponent is punished for that. In reality, the entire archetype fails because your opponent can simply CHOOSE not to touch their graveyard.

I remember distinctly a game where I was Despia and playing against Exosisters, and all I had to do to screw their plan over was to say no to Dramaturge coming back, and run the little sisters over with my Masquarade dragon. Then everyone comes back anyway. Imagine that, a graveyard-centric deck can beat exosisters because it's strong enough to just run them over, and have Aluber touch his tralala when they are gone.

Exosisters suffer from a similar problem with Gravekeepers in that they cannot fully lock out the graveyard, and even when they do, it is trivially easy for many decks to get around it. It's great waifubait, and the concept is easy to pick up, but boy does the archetype not do its job. The worst part of it all is that in order for Exosisters to actually do their work, their best partner is... DPE. That's absolutely heretical isn't it? Soul score -100.

There is a secondary game plan of going into Zeus or Utopia double or nothing, but I think you are better served looking for another deck for that, unless the idea of exorcist nuns getting into battle mechs tickles your fancy.

Cute designs, good concept, bad execution. In short, Exosisters need to DO THEIR JOB.

How Do I Beat Swordsoul?

In reality, Baronne is the real threat. The only reason why Swordsouless is so strong is because it can consistently get out an omninegate paired with a monster negate plus more. So stopping Longyuan is crucial. The most common counter would be [Psy-Frame Gamma], forcing Swordsouless to must HAVE a extender or end on a weaker board.

For hard counters, there's always [Token Collector], but that bricks a lot when not playing against Swordsoul. At an encounter rate of 17%, having 1 in the deck means you don't see it, not having it means having a hard time against Swordsoul.

For decks that can run it, [There Can Only Be One] shuts down Swordsouless' wyrm summoning. Sure, it can be bounced with Vishuda, but you can completely brick an opponent's hand, especially if they special summoned a Tenyi, you can't go into Monk or anything else now. Now your opponent has to harddraw their single Blackout, which is not happening.

There's always the reliable Trap Trick into Dimension Barrier, but that is a strategy better run by trap heavy decks, or if you are to believe the winner of the recent YCS, Sky Strikers. If I play Altergeist next month, I'll try slotting it in to see how it pans out.

WAGA TAMASHI...

"Let me out, let me out...!!!"

This was by far the most unenjoyable month of MD so far. The games where I am ahead I am really, really ahead with my Baronne/Chixiao board, if not, I can just go into some form of Tenyi cancer anyway. The games where I lose I don't even feel a damn thing, because I know I can just setup the same board again and be just run over the next poor sap.

I stopped short of going into Diamond this month, conveinent since I am finishing part 4 of my book. (and I want those gemmies in less time) 

By gawd I do not want to play Swordsouless, neither as or against anymore. Maybe I'll play something FUN, like Relinquished NTR to sooth over the pains caused by Metahagging.

But at least I know what kills the Swordsoul.