Notes & Combos
I like blinding second, and milling one card off Reasoning is the closest experience I can get to whiffing all my Dangers for this event, and so: Infernoid.
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For a small overview for those unfamiliar with this style of Infernoid deck: it aims to go second, board break and mill a bunch of Infernoid names to the GY with That Grass Looks Greener / Reasoning / Monster Gate, and then push for lethal. The main gimmick with Infernoids' self-summoning is that they can't summon if the total stars (levels+ranks) on your side of the field is 9 or greater. So the trick to pushing for damage is summon some Infernoids as cheaply as possible, link them off (since link monsters don't count toward this cap) and repeat until you have enough damage on board.
Without some of the usual link monsters, it's harder to OTK but not undoable: If you get around half the names in GY+hand, usually you can get 1 material on field in the process (a Decatron/Trickstar Corobane/a 1-4★ Infernoid that can be summoned for cheap) → summon a 7-8★ Infernoid by banishing 2 → link into a Knightmare (or Archfiend for more ATK) → banish 2 for 7-8★ → link into Muckraker → banish 2 for 7-8★ → banish 3 for 9-10★ → Muckraker bring back the previous link-2. The Infernoids are at minimum 5500 damage and the links at minimum 2600 for 9 names banished + 2 on field.
The Infernoid 8★ can attack twice if attacking into a monster, which can change considerations especially for attacking into an attack position monster. As can Change of Heart. Unicorn instead of Muckraker also suffices for specifically the 8★ + 10★.
Without the ability OTK, I usually aim to invest as little as possible to board break while sitting on one of the 9-10★ negate Infernoids (+ maybe a tribute fodder) and hope that's enough. It's not ideal, but by no means an auto-loss so long as their board was sufficiently broken.
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I'm not running the Infernoid spell/traps because I was running into far too many Labrynth players where Imagination is mostly a dead card. And Vanishment + Feast didn't seem worthwhile in isolation, so I'm running extra names + backrow hate, etc. instead. The extra names (third copies of the 1★ + 4★ + 9★) used to be a playset of Cosmic Cyclone, which were solid but the extra names felt more important to help compensate for the lack of Tierra mills, especially versus not-Lab.
Because I'm not running Feast, I swapped the usual 1-of 6★ Infernoid for an extra 8★ copy. Because pushing for lethal is a bit more annoying than usual, I give a bit more preference to what the 8★ offers over the 7★.
I have no explanation for the 1-of Lava Golem. It just is. I had an extra slot left over, and he's worked fine so far so I haven't questioned it. Imperm or Lair of Darkness are probably more correct, but eh.
Trickstar Light Stage + Trickstar Corobane is an extra material, especially for Monster Gate to help compensate for the lack of Snow. And Light Stage doubles as backrow hate of sorts. Thanks to Mila (Thetys?) for the idea because it sure as heck wouldn't have occurred to me.
Without Tierra + N'tss copies, the extra deck is roomy AF. The main things that matter are the Knightmares and occasionally Muckraker; run them at however many copies you're happy gambling with for Desires.
Apollousa mainly comes up for me when I can't reach lethal with Change of Heart since I can make a 3-mat with their monster + my link-2 + whatever Infernoid.
Masterking Archfiend is just a slightly bigger body than the Knightmares. His 500LP maintenance cost means he can send Decatron to the GY, which is funny but has yet to meaningfully come up for me.
I have yet to summon Underworld Goddess for this festival, but maybe one day.