Notes & Combos

Same list I played on the ladder minus a Designator. You can refer to the write-up under that decklist for theory on why I'm playing a lower Runick spell count than the standard build.

At around lv 14 or 15 I had this thought of trying some going second strategy that played 3x Evenly, 3x Dark Ruler and 2x Shifter, because I felt that those cards are so strong right now in a variety of matchups. I wasn't sure which deck could best utilize those cards (it was probably Exosister but I didn't have all the cards), so I tried Musketeer and Zoodiac. The results were okay, but I kept facing other decks that also wanted to go second. It turns out, from my experience, a lot of people were running going second decks in this event in order to counter the meta. So funny enough, I went back to the meta option because I was seeing so much rogue. (It sounds paradoxical but if you're playing an anti-meta strategy, you don't want to face other rogue decks.) After that, it was pretty smooth getting to lv max.

This deck is just extremely consistent and doesn't lose very often going first because of the combination of monster effect interruptions + Smashers + Runick engine + hand traps. There isn't one card that can deal with all of those things at once. I dropped Designator because at the time of that card's inclusion, the Spright pack had just come out and about 50% of my matches on the ladder were against Spright variants. But with much more diversity in this event, Designator just didn't offer enough utility because it can only really negate Maxx C, Ash and Called By. My deck was at 41 anyways so it was an easy cut.

Other specific cards I want to comment on:

Herald of Pure Light - Obviously reclycling Maxx C is good in general, but recycling Ash can also be huge in the Despia matchup

Onibimaru - I think I've only ever summoned this card twice playing this deck, going to try some other options in this slot

Gamma package - This is the flex spot of the deck where you can opt for TTT or Lava Golem. I think the main argument that you would make against the Gamma package is that one out of the three cards being a brick hurts the overall consistency. (You can discard it, but you miss out on the chance that it offers value.) It still worked fine for me, and it can be a blowout card when resolved, but I do plan on experimenting with TTT / Lava Golem instead.