Notes & Combos

Tear is beatable, but this is definitely not the best choice to do it because this deck is susceptible to Anti-Tear decks (Exosister, Floowandereeze, Barrier Statue Stun). The developments from Anti-Tear that I expected were Belle and Crow seeing more play. What I saw more often was people playing Shifter, Dimensional Fissure and Macro. Lucky for me I faced more Tearlaments than Anti-Tear, which is what I wanted.

Ishizu cards were one approach I wanted to try. They are level 4s and Keldo/Mudora are most effective at reducing the impact of Agido/Kelbek mills. The next approach was to use handtraps. To be effective, handtraps need to be run in large amounts so you can open 1+ going second.

With 19 handtraps, its 78% chance to open 2 going 2nd and 42.8% to open 3. Opening 3 is usually overkill because sometimes Tear will pass if you Impermanence or Veiler the Kitkallos. They need Agido/Kelbek mills to gas through handtraps. Belle and D.D. Crow are also strong to beat Tear triggers on your turn, but they can also answer Mudora & Keldo. Ash is not the most effective vs Tear but it can deal with Havnis and Schieren. This comes up when they need a body for a Rank 4 or to maintain their Sulliek. Skull Meister is an option for Superfactorial, where you would make a 3 material Alembertian to search it for two interuptions. Laplacian is also valid to get rid of Kitkallos on board, then negate the mill 5 effect with Diameter - you would avoid sending from hand in most cases.

One gamestate I had to deal with going 2nd is Sulliek + Kitkallos after it has its effects negated. This is tough to deal with without Ash or Called By. Belle and D.D. Crow help here but can be unreliable vs a mill 5 that can potentially hit Agido or Kelbek. Because of this I considered these cards:

• Cosmic Cyclone answers Sulliek and does double duty vs Anti-Tear floodgates
• Cynet Backdoor is similar to Swordsoul's Heavenly Dragon Circle to dodge effect negation. Ideally, you would banish Circular when they attempt to Sulliek to push through the S/T search and grab Diameter

Finally, I think Knightmare Iblee would be a better Small World bridge than Gatchiri because it can be a floodgate vs Tear going first while still bridging with everything. This makes Laplacian more effective vs Tears as well.

If there are any questions, feel free to ask in the comments!