YCS Kansas has just passed and with it many decks made surprise appearances. Chaos winning the entire event was something that no one saw coming. Karakuri seems to keep creeping closer and closer to its first win, placing 3rd after everything was said and done. Rescue Rabbit made its debut and unsurprisingly lived up to its hype, taking a whopping 3 spots in the top 8! And just as I had expected it to, Dark World broke the top 32 barrier it could not break in Ohio, taking up another 3 spots in the Top 32! The top 32 at Kansas City was made up of the following, 16 Plants, 5 Agents, 4 Rabbit, 3 Dark World, 2 Karakuri, 1 Chaos, and 1 X-Saber deck! But today, I want to focus on a deck that was presented to myself and Chris Bowling months prior to YCS Kansas by Erin Diaz in the form of Dark World! The catch? Well if you know Erin at all, you can probably guess the deck is built for speed and noting else, and that is exactly what this deck packs!
Now I was a little bit skeptical when Bowling started testing this deck against me, because to be frank, I am not usually a fan of Erin's decks, but to my surprise, the deck outperformed my expectations! But before i go any further, lets take a look at the final build that Chris Bowling decided on playing for the now late YCS Kansas City!
Monsters: 16
3 Snoww, Unlighted of Dark World
3 Grapha, Dragon Lord of Dark World
3 Broww, Huntsman of Dark World
2 Beiige
1 Kahki
1 Sillva
Spells: 17
Traps: 7
We started off our testing with my Plant deck matched up against Bowling playing Erin's Dark World deck. Game 1 I was literally being torn apart. There are just so many threats that this deck contains against a Plant deck that you are going to be helpless around 90% of the time. A single Deck Devastation Virus resolving often times will drop half of your hand on its own, and when combined with cards like Dragged Down into the Grave or Mind Crush, all of your best cards like Black Luster Soldier will be useless sitting in the Graveyard. The deck has 1 goal and 1 goal only, and that is to control all of your opponents plays through the use of Dragged Down into the Grave, Deck Dev, Deck Eradicator Virus, Trap Dustshoot, Mind Crush, and Solemn Judgment. The deck accomplishes this goal extremely well because every single card in the deck either takes cards from the opponent, or draws you more cards to get the cards that take away your opponent's threats.
Next up we tested against Agents, which also got torn apart by Dark World because of cards like Dragged Down, Mind Crush and Trap Dustshoot. When you have the power to take away Agents only powerful cards like Master Hyperion and Black Luster Soldier, there really isn't a whole lot the Agent player can do. We went on to test against the other decks in the format, and after coming to the conclusion this deck had a very high win percentage game one, we knew that we wanted to take this deck to YCS Kansas, but we would need a Side Deck that could handle the plethora of side deck cards people would be packing for us in Missouri. Game 1 we felt would almost always be won by the Dark World duelist, but after that, the games would be an uphill battle because of cards like Shadow Mirror. We tested a variety of strategies in the side deck, and in the end came to the conclusion you can't side too many cards in each matchup because it would mess up the flow of the deck. I actually realized this after losing multiple games with a trap heavy sidedeck. I literally started to play games 2 and 3 with my main deck and came to the conclusion that I would win every game they did not get a successful Shadow Mirror on the field. So after rigorous testing, we figured out that siding just s few cards in each matchup for problem cards was the best route to go. Here is the Side Deck Bowling played at the YCS!
Sidedeck: 15
Now I should mention that there are two different ways you should be side decking when you play this deck based on if you go first or second and depending on what deck you are facing. When going second, cards like Mystical Space Typhoon are going to be much more needed to eliminate this decks Kryponite; Shadow Mirror. When going first, cards like Deck Eradicator Virus gain strength because you are able to go off uninterrupted and resolve the Eradicator which then eliminates any threats you may be facing, namely, Shadow Mirror. Now I would still keep in some copies of Mystical Space Typhoon in case things do not go your way, but in general when you are going first, you should be focusing on the deck turboing on the first turn when there are less potential threats your opponent can throw at you. Lyla serves the exact same purpose as Mystical Space Typhoon, getting rid of Shadow Mirror. Something important to keep in mind is that when you are turboing off on your first turn, that when you use cards like Dark World Dealings and Dragged Down into the Grave, your opponent is also drawing 1 card deeper into their deck. Now this is important because of cards like Gemini Imps that can hurt you, but this is also important because you can make your opponent draw more cards and then hit them hard with a Deck Dev. This all takes practice to get down, so don't feel discouraged if you decide to test play this deck for yourself and things do not go your way. Everything just takes a little bit of time and practice to get used to.
I would now like to mention some differences between my build and Bowling's. First off he ran a higher monster count than me by running an extra Sillva, and an extra Tour Guide. Some other differences were that he ran Khaki opposed to my third Beiige. In the places of those 2 extra monsters, I ran a second copy of Terraforming, and a single copy of Skill Drain. In testing I found that I drew too many monsters, and even with 14 monsters in my deck, I still often ran into the problem of drawing too many. By cutting it by two monsters I felt much better because this deck has a very hard time recovering from an all monster hand.
Skill Drain was a personal pick for me and one that I absolutely loved. In my opinion, it acts like another copy of a Deck Virus, but doesn't require the tribute. It is a little weaker because it is vulnerable to Spell and Trap Destruction, but overall, you will be winning early on anyways because of your Deck Devs and Mind Crushes, and having Skill Drain to stop potential top decked Black Lusters proved to be a game winning strategy for me.
I am writing this article on Thanksgiving, and although it won't be up until after everyone has already been stuffed, I'd like to say Happy Thanksgiving to all and I hope yall had a great one! Personally, mine is just starting and I am ready to eat! The Turkey has just been pulled out of the oven so that is my queue to end this article for now!
I hope yall enjoyed reading this, and if you have anything to say please feel free to leave your comments below! So until next time, Play Hard or GO HOME!
See yall next time,
Ryan Spicer
youtube.com/blackluster777
facebook: Ryan Spicer(Add Me!!)
Latest posts by Ryan Spicer (see all)
- The Great Oppression… - December 19, 2011
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- In the Shadows: YCS Kansas - November 27, 2011
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