Notes & Combos

The main problem to solve for Branded in this event is Retribution not being available. Not having access to search for your Branded spells through 2 dumping effects hurt the versatility of this deck quite a bit. This means that 1 Veiler/Imperm could just end your turn. So a major priority in optimizing the build for this event is to find more ways to play out your hand. So with that in mind, here are how some of my choices and ratios differ for the purpose of this event:

• Patchwork engine - Doesn't do anything on it's own but has some good 2 card combinations w/ Tragedy & Fusion Deployment / Cartesia. Hard fusing will also get you stuff in the GY to access your Bystials. This is important because Anaconda, a card that can both facilitate your Bystial engine and give you Branded Fusion access, is also not available in this event.
• 3x Cartesia - You want to see this. Even as a normal summon, it's a solid starter with the constraints that you're working with.
• 3x Kitt - Without Retribution, you need more ways to directly access Branded Fusion. It's also a 1 card starter whereas a lot of your other engine cards require 2 card combinations.
• 3x Tragedy - You want to hard draw this because it has good 2 card combinations with Allure, Fusion Deployment, Cartesia, and the Patchwork engine. If you fuse with Tragedy before normal summoning you get access to Aluber, which is a very strong setup going first.
• Bystial engine w/ Branded Regained & Branded Beast included - I personally just like those cards and I think the grind game they provide is important when the consistency to your fusion engine is not as strong.
• 1x Albion - There's nothing great to dump with this card (I just dump Regained/Lost). Branded Sword is not worth playing because it's never live until you start playing, at which point you're fine anyways.
• 0x Branded in High Spirits - I still don't understand this card fully but to my understanding a lot of it's strength comes in facilitating End Phase plays via BiR, but withot Retribution you're just not gonna have access to those fancy combos. On top of that, Albaz is limited and Albion isn't worth maxing out for reasons previously stated, so you're also missing out on a lot of it's good 2 card combinations.

Overall, outside of Purrely which is at full strength, I think this deck is still as good as any other option while being extremely fun to play.