Notes & Combos

Preface

VSK9 is a deck that has been around for some time now and the lists have been pretty standardized. My view on VSK9 is that there's 31 main deck cards and 13 ED cards that are very difficult to cut (https://www.masterduelmeta.com/saved-decks/69c270cc0ba362817f331373), so I will mostly comment on the choices outside of these cards.

Main deck

3x Fuwa: best non-engine going 2nd card outside of Maxx C, good against almost every deck in the format. High synergy with the deck since it can draw you into your turn 0 plays, and turn 0 plays behind fuwas are very strong.

This is basically the only pure going 2nd card that I play in the main deck, all other cards are there to support the engines in some way.

1x Dogoran: The most going 2nd card of the bunch. Best Fire card you can play atm, good against KT/Sky Striker, or against random towers. Mostly there to have 8 Fires in the deck.

1x Magnamhut: Dark. Good against the Branded engine to stop some plays and good against KT to shuffle your deck after Cue. It only searches Caesar but that's fine. Just a generally busted card so if it's good in the meta we wanna play it since it also has the correct attributes and doesn't go -1.

1x Chaotic Elements: Another copy of Case that has the advantage of not being a brick if you draw both, while the downside is that what it searches is not always ideal and it can be hit by Ghost Belle. With that said, in 90% of cases, you want to search Jokul anyway so the first downside doesn't really matter. I put this in mostly for the KT matchup, because this is the matchup where you need the maximum amount of cards in your hand to be live to win. It's also decent to draw against Branded to recycle a Lantern in the grind game.

1x Called By/1x TTT: Going 1st cards that have the aim to sac your opponent when they had the misfortune of drawing handtraps (as if drawing hts against VSK9 was not bad enough). Aim of these cards is to maximize winrate going 1st. TTT also has some uses going 2nd, and is somewhat annoying for KT to deal with even if they know about it (since their only answers are Zalen and RS). Against the other decks, it's a bit similar to Dogoran where it throws opponents off because they are not necessarily playing around it well.

2nd Borger: VS Name, Dark, dodges Imperm/Veiler. Even if it's a brick on its own, the upsides supersede the downsides and 2nd Borger is pretty standard at this point. It's even stronger in this meta than the last since the burn can be relevant, and the draw is extremely good in the grind game.

Side deck

1x Arc Rebellion: Good in the Branded Matchup to end the game early and not get dragged into the grind game, which can easily happen since we don't play many outs to Dragon that Devours the Dogma. Can be an out to Liger. Also it's fun to smash your opponent for 15 000+ damage.

1x Vanquish Soul Rocks: Imo best card we can play in the ED going 2nd. One of the few ED card that can be live even if we couldn't develop a lot of plays, so it can shine in reduced gamestates that decks like KT can create. Overall very versatile (Zeus carrier, extra pop, easier access to S:P banish) that just gives access to a lines that otherwise wouldn't be accessible, and a card that your opponent might no necessarily be playing well around. My goat.

Considerations

Here's a non exhaustive list of deck choices you could make and a short explanation of why I didn't make them.

Ghost Belle: Strong in the meta, but overall I'm not a fan of handtraps in this format and it doesn't have the right attribute.

Droll: Weaker in the current format since it doesn't do much against Branded/Dracotail, also I do not like Droll in VSK9 because we make such poor use of it (can't self droll outside of Durendal lines, can't be used as discard fodders outside of Saryuja lines, wrong attribute). Still a really busted card when going first if behind a board.

Red Layer/ R.B Rocket: Cute Fire cards if you feel like you need more Fires, but I don't feel that way at the moment and Dogoran seems by far the best Fire card you can play.

Retaliating C: Very good against Dtail but a bit situational against KT/Branded and will be dead against a lot of other random matchups. Overall not a fan of these kind of tech cards for laddering unless you're in high rated and you meet the same decks over and over. Also wrong attribute.

Kashtira Package: Seems pretty decent but I don't want to craft 6 (or 7) URs to try it.

2nd Ripper: Mostly there for the KT matchup before, but with KT being less prevalent it makes less sense to slot it. Even against KT, they will mostly summon Crackle against VSK9 if they're desperate (at least competent pilots) and you might even have a way to win without Ripper then. If it gets sniped by Clip, well that's life sometimes. I could see some situations in the grind game where 2nd Ripper can be good, but it feels a bit too niche.