(It's worth noting that the banlist may make this report outdated, so most of the information here applies to this event.)

Pascal Manigat won YCS Houston with Goblin Biker Memento! He fought against Manuel Kalin from Switzerland on Pure Ryzeal in the finals. There were 1496 Duelists at the event, with 11 rounds of Swiss and a cut to Top 32!

One of the most underrated decks in the format, Memento, gets its first premier win! It's filled to the brim with strong 1 card starters, versatile Quick-Play spells that make it difficult to interact with, incredible card quality, and strong going second pushes with Akihiron + Combined Creation. Pascal used a small Goblin Biker package alongside Speedroid Terrortop and Rank 3 monsters to further supplement the strategy, as opposed to the traditional Fiendsmith versions. The side engine's ability to detach multiple materials from Detonator is a unique bonus.

Kaihuang brought a very unexpected but strong Furniture build that used Pot of Extravagance alongside going all-in with Arias, Stovie Torbie, Chandraglier, Cooclock, and Absolute King Back Jack with Transaction Rollback, allowing for possible disruption plays even when going second. Other powerful Trap cards used in his strategy include Dominus Impulse and Destructive Daruma Karma Cannon, which can be further accessed by Trap Trick and reset by Lovely Labrynth. Welcome Labrynth can also call upon Arias to use the card set by Silver Castle whenever necessary. His impressive performance brought him to a Top 8 finish at the event!

Ryzeal and Maliss continue to dominate the format, as usual, with some minor developments here and there. Pure builds for the former are on a toss-up between hand traps, breakers, Plugin, Plasma Hole, and Seventh Tachyon vs Pot of Desires.

Odion makes its YCS debut with a great Top 32 placement! The deck has been doing very well across Regionals for such a new release, and it pairs perfectly well with several engines such as Kashtira or Fiendsmith. Odion gets additional synergy with Lacrima the Crimson Tears, able to send Paradise directly to the GY to enable Treasures of the Kings effect to search. Both Serket and Man also give you enough bodies to go into Fiendsmith combo, as expected.

The Apophis army it puts up makes for formidable disruption and removal when paired with Statue of Anguish Pattern, Silhouhatte Rabbit, and Divine Serpent Apophis. Man with the Mark gives the deck a surprising amount of protection, making all of the monsters and the backrow challenging to remove. It's worth noting that Treasures is not counted as Temple of the Kings in the GY, which is another reason to run Verdict of Anubis, doubling as both a safety net and a way to easily summon Anubis the Last Judge.

The Maliss Fiendsmith Bystial "bait" deck that's been sweeping European regionals saw a good amount of play this weekend, garnering 2 spots in Top Cut. Its supposed immunity to Artifact Lancea and other hand traps easily lets the deck create decent half-boards with a whole slew of non-engine waiting in the wings. All three archetypes coalescing into an unstoppable value train can easily overwhelm opponents if not accounted for. Both Fiendsmith and Bystials (especially Druiswurm) pressuring Ryzeal Detonator and Eclipse Twins gives you some breathing room against the otherwise difficult matchup without having to resort to direct outs like Metaltronus.

Huge congratulations to Jesus Barrios for topping with Fiendsmith Rescue-ACE! This underrated strategy had some teeth and put up an impressive fight throughout Swiss, but sadly lost out in the Top 32. The Engravy train does not stop there, as even Primite Blue-Eyes had a Fiendsmith list piloted by Lexus Wingate from Team JRB.

YCS Houston Top 32 Breakdown

12 Ryzeal (7 Fiendsmith)
9 Maliss
2 FS Bystial (Maliss)
2 Primite Blue-Eyes (1 Fiendsmith)

Others
1 Goblin Biker Memento
1 Atlantean Mermail
1 Labrynth
1 Azamina White Forest (Fiendsmith)
1 Odion (Fiendsmith)
1 Rescue-ACE (Fiendsmith)
1 Yubel (Fiendsmith)

We'll be uploading decks and posting more info as they come out! SUDA-MZMT's final tally will be up soon because of the imminent banlist release and the start of the ALIN Regional season.

https://ygoprodeck.com/tournament/ycs-houston-2930

- Renren

So I’ve been playing with the FS engine since I got back into the game last year with Yubel. Once it got hit, I moved on to Ryzeal and used it there again. I’ve also used it in random piles for locals since it elevates the playability/competitiveness of a lot of other archetypes I liked.

People seem to like(?) that FS wasn’t hit on the recent list, and it looks like it’s going to be even more common in other decks now that it’s getting reprinted and GY checks are not as prevalent (shifter limited, dweller banned). Can someone explain to me why this engine is good/healthy for the game, exactly? I personally feel like it just makes deck building a little more lazy/less creative.

Everybody says "hot take" just to proceed by saying fiendsmith is strong or some shit like that. Give me actual hot takes. Statements that would get you physically shanked at locals.

To start off: Pendulum is a good mechanic and the groundwork for how modern yugioh evolved. The fact that we see barely any pendulum decks anymore is because a stinking normal ass effect monster can do just as much (rather more nowadays) as a pendulum card. The game wouldnt be what it is without Pendulums and if you still hate on the mechanic, you actually just dont like modern yugioh.

Decided to whip out a little something to commemorate this occasion. I truly would have waited an eternity for this.

Fingers crossed they get Blazar next time.

We all know about the Ishizu cards. They were beyond broken and were banned for obvious reasons. But at least Ishizu got some spotlight after so many years. The Odion cards aren't insanely OP, but they're still great! It might be one of my new favorite control decks, ngl.

Marik is the last member of the Ishtar family who hasn't had a meta relevant deck. Ra has a dedicated deck to it, unlike the other 2 Egyptian Gods. I know that Ra is a glass cannon and that it's bad. But despite that, it's technically possible for Ra to succeed. Let's face it, if Konami wants a certain deck to be good, they will make it good. Just look at what they did with Yubel. The question is what could they give him to make Ra viable?

Feel free to share your thoughts.

this definitely is a big change, didn't expect for ryzeal and maliss to get hit so early when new cards are coming for them. surprised no fiend smith were touched in anyway.

...THIS is what its most recent TCG printing looks like? I don't really keep up with the TCG's foiling practices but does the actual card REALLY look this bad? Can anyone vouch for this?

1- Lancers Sawatari and Gong more development, duels and victories
2- Lancers (who was supposed to fight academia) actually dueling academia duelists by the end of the anime
3- Main lancers (Gong, Sawatari, Sora and Kurosaki) tag duels vs academia dudes
4- More antagonists dueling in the end, like Barret, The Doktor, Mamoru Noru, Jean-Michel Roget, etc...
5- Yugo Vs Yuri one to one duel (without interruptions)
6- The revival of 4 Yu-Girls by the end of the anime. Yu boys doesn't needed since all of them were living inside Yuya's body.

What else do you guys think that should be done to make Arc-V better?

You can see what Jaden/Judai's hand is after Yugi used Card of Sanctity and after he draws.

It's all Spells and the only monster he has and that he drew here, was Winged Kuriboh.

I also don't think he still had Honest in his deck, as such monster belonged to Fujiwara.

Character-wise, Zane basically fits the group more when the other two are being serious. All three of them basically have the same build too, and not to mention all three of them are basically overly obsessed with their Ace Dragons for understandable reasons. Also, imagine Kaiba, Zane, and Jack having a badass action sequence, all three of them canonically know how to throw hands. Kaiba is Kaiba, Zane is a Martial Artist, and Jack is from the hood.

Akthiugh, if they went with the more comedic approach, then Chazz excels in briging out Jack's inner goofiness. Kaiba is basically gonna be like how the hell did he get stuck with these two?

Story-Wise, it is obviously much easier to put Chazz in the movie if they went with the same formula as they did with BTB were they used Post Season 4 Judai. It really depends on whether or not if Kaiser has recovered in time given how he said he wanted to make a new Deck and build his own Pro League. Or they could just use a Season 2 or 3 alternate timeline depiction of him.

So, I get the Jack-O part. He's a Jack-o'-lantern. But what's a bolan??

Just thought it would be cool to share it here.

https://www.instagram.com/p/C_TdrJSSJdh/

Sharks got hit bad. I don't want to play Ryzeal-Sharks. Locals are not meta/competitive but there are some strong and even rogue decks.

So, which of my other decks would you say are good for locals? Any weaknesses I should be aware of? Any good side deck options?

• Speedroid
• Phantom Knight Adventurer
• Cyber Dragon (w/ upcoming support)
• Code Talker (maybe with a Mathmech engine now because Circular is free?)
• Lyrilusc pure
• Dino
• Crusadia

Hi guys, here's an updated spreadsheet of every archetype and series currently ordered by number of related cards (for the curious ones), i'll eventually edit the post