The Dueling Stage
Clicking through a match isn't going to be everyone's cup of tea, especially given the game's long history in cardboard, but I personally grew fond of this way of playing after the first Extravaganza held way back in late 2020. I'll have to admit that, after that, I stuck mainly to playing online locals where most of my opponents either were friends or would become friends over the course of a few months. As for the Extravaganzas, I decided to give something back to the community and work at them as a volunteer instead, putting on the judge shirt metaphorically (I'm saying metaphorically: not because I wasn't actually wearing a judge shirt, but because the judge shirt never comes off).
There was a lot of skepticism about whether an event like this could work, and estimates of the total player count went anywhere from only a few hundred to a few brave people daring to think it would go into four-digit numbers. When registration finally opened, a grand total of 1,796 players signed on, and 1600 of them didn't just collect their goodie bag and go home. The players were randomly divided into seven different servers of about 250 players and, on Saturday morning, it was go time!
Ready for the New Format?
This event took place right after a new Forbidden & Limited List had come into effect. Decks like Dragon Link took severe hits when they lost
The most commonly played deck, however, was the Tri-Brigade strategy. While the forbidden
This would have been only 215, and the Dark Magician's allies would have been represented by double digits, if I had not picked up a Tri-Brigade core less than two weeks before the event.
Strength in Unity
Two weeks between playing a deck for the first time and entering an 1,800-player event is a pretty crazy idea for someone who never plays online. Luckily, I have a lot of amazing friends and teammates who helped me see what the deck can do and how I can make it do it. That aside, I was really not confident of my winning odds in the main event. None of my previous YCS experiences scored higher than eight wins, three losses, and I was more or less expecting to be normal summoning
I like to think that my decklist was as standard as can be. While I had heard about wild plays that could be made with
| Ryan Jacobs – YCS Remote Duel Top 32 – Tri-Brigade | ||
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Despite saying I rejected several ideas on the basis of not having playtested them, plenty of choices were made purely on theory alone. I tried to tailor my deck to both the possibility of playing exclusively mirror matches and Drytrons. I also didn't put all of my eggs in those two baskets, and looking at my matchups, that was definitely a perfectly balanced choice.
On Day one, I only encountered two players who were also a part of the Tri-Brigade crew, being my opening and closing match for the day. The journey through the first eight rounds literally started and ended on familiar terrain, but between them, I saw some unexpected strategies! I had a run-in with Prank-Kids and
I ended the first day on a 7-1 record, which definitely made me feel at ease going into Day 2. 6-2 is a very uncomfortable score to be on, because not every 9-2 duelist is guaranteed to make it into the Top 32. After a good night's sleep I, some coffees and a shower, I played two matches against Drytron where
Unfortunately, my YCS adventure came to an end in the Top 32 match, playing against an incredibly teched out Subterror deck where subpar hands combined with a bit of stress and a generally imperfect knowledge of my own deck ended up costing me the match.
Moving Forward
While I was unable to make it to the end, I was very satisfied with my first YCS top. I had come close in the past, when Trickstar Sky Striker was still a contender, and was not doing too bad after transitioning to Orcust Sky Striker, but eventually moved on to playing more casually after the banning of
Until I can get a hold of another top cut spot, I'll keep providing you with the regularly scheduled rogue content and meta-unrelated articles.
Opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and not necessarily Cardmarket.