These last 2 weeks I've been absent from articles, but this week I am back with what many people have been waiting for and are excited for.

This weekend is the ARG Circuit in St Louis, and I've decided to take my handy dandy Noble Knights. I've been running them for a long time, and have been a very huge fan even longer, so I'm very excited and eager to get playing with a deck I love so much. I have hardly played in any important events, so this will be my first one returning from a slight hiatus.

These past few months I've been using nothing but Noble Knights at my locals. I've tried so many things, and my deck as it is now, is very different from when I started. Making decisions this time around has been very difficult, because the meta of our game is very... odd. Lately other decks besides Dragon Rulers have been doing well at Regionals and other larger events. I think this is because seeing as it is the end of the format, many people dont want to run Dragon Rulers anymore. The deck has just gotten stale, which means the less people running it, the more room for other things to do better.

Now before, you knew exactly what you were going to play against, and because of this, ARG's own Sam Pedigo won the latest YCS in Europe with a very Anti-Dragon Geargia deck. If less people are playing Dragons, it means your side and main deck need to be more diverse to handle different things.

Around me, almost everyone has stopped playing Dragons to play something more "fun". There are tons of Battlin Boxers, Madolche, Constellar, Mermail. It's all very diverse. The first 2 decks, Boxers and Madolche are very, very difficult matchups for Noble Knights. Lead Yoke is a serious problem, and Tiaramisu is the queen of mean when it comes to not having to target cards to deal with them. I believe just about all of my losses the past 2 months were to one of those 2 decks, which made me feel very, very good.

Anyway, lets get to what you really came here for!

[ccDeck="Main Deck"]

2 Noble Knight Artorigus
3 Lady of the Lake
3 Maxx C
3 Noble Knight Borz
1 Noble Knight Drystan
3 Noble Knight Gawayn
1 Noble Knight Gwalchavad
3 Noble Knight Medraut

1 Foolish Burial
3 Kaiser Colosseum
3 Mystical Space Typhoon
1 Noble Arms - Arfeudutyr
1 Noble Arms - Caliburn
3 Noble Arms - Excaliburn
2 Noble Arms - Gallatin
3 Noble Arms of Destiny
1 Reinforcement of the Army

3 Trap Stun[/ccDeck] [ccDeck="Extra Deck"]

2 Ignoble Knight of High Laundsallyn
1 Abyss Dweller
2 Artorigus, King of the Noble Knights
1 Blade Armor Ninja
1 Gagaga Cowboy
1 Gaia Dragon, the Thunder Charger
1 Heroic Champion Excalibur
1 Lavalval Chain
1 Maestroke the Symphony Djinn
1 Number 61: Volcasaurus
2 Sacred Noble Knight of King Artorigus
1 Starliege Paladynamo[/ccDeck]

Yup. You see correctly. [ccProd]Lady of the Lake[/ccProd] is indeed in my deck, and I'm so glad after brushing her off as terrible, that I tried her again for giggles and I was like... "Wow, if I were straight right now, and you weren't a Yu-Gi-Oh card, I'd marry you. Totes."

She made all the really inconsistent things about Noble Knights better. Having to have a Noble Arms + a Noble Knight wasn't always THAT hard but when it didnt happen, things werent that great. She made it so now, you can now have her and a Noble Knight or an Artorigus in grave to make things happen and get the ball rolling.

High Laundsallyn with a bunch of equips after all, is just as good as an Artorigus Xyz with a bunch of equips. You still have a pseudo-diety, but now you just get extra searches for cards to play in the future rather than destroying monsters or destroying spells and traps.

[ccProd]Lady of the Lake[/ccProd] just opens so many other possibilities and combos when you dont have Medraut + Noble Arms. Even if it means running an 1800 Normal Monster, she is well worth it. Also, I actually kind of love running Artorigus (the Normal Monster). I always wanted to run more monsters that were Normal, that were not Gwalchavad. I've always wished that Drystan counted as a Normal when he wasnt equipped with a Noble Arms, as I would certainly play 2, maybe even 3. But Artorigus is the next best thing. 1800 Attack AND Defense are actually fairly relevant, more than I actually believed anyway. It's something you'll come to realize as you play the deck more and more.

As for Noble Knights go, my Monster lineup is pretty straight forward. 1 Drystan and 1 Gwalchavad I feel is the way to go, although sometimes I did enjoy 2 Gwalchavad as he really shines mid/late game.
3 Medraut and 3 Borz is staple while 3 Maxx C of course is near stable to help beat Dragons.

I feel like 9 Noble Arms, and the amount of each I play is the correct number. I feel like with Laundsaullyn pulling from the deck as well as Borz, 8 was too little, while 10 seemed like you opened with too many when you would rather have a monster or better support spells.

Hands down my favorite card right now is [ccProd]Kaiser Colosseum[/ccProd]. After throwing down an untargetable monster that cant be destroyed once per turn, it's near impossible to win without multiple Space Typhoons. You can only ever play 1 Monster, and 1 Monster is never enough to deal with a 3000+ monster who just cannot die. Even without summoning a big bad monster, just keeping your opponent at bay with like, lets say a Borz and Destiny, them not being able to play more than one monster a turn and attack over your Borz twice is quite annoying, and will allow you to live long enough to see the cards you need.

My favorite part about Colosseum is that its a Spell. Trap Stun is one of the most important/played Trap cards right now (as you can see I'm playing 3 myself), so things like Vanity Emptiness, [ccProd]Gozen Match[/ccProd], and other problem Trap cards can be dealt with so Dragons can do their stuff. Colosseum obviously cannot be stopped by [ccProd]Trap Stun[/ccProd], meaning that in order to deal with Artorigus + Equips + Colosseum, you will need a 2 forms of Spell/Trap removal; 1 to deal with the Colosseum, and 1 to deal with Excaliburn. Then you need to follow up with something like Big Eye or some other play that doesnt involve destroying. It's all very, very difficult.

And finally of course, I use 3 [ccProd]Trap Stun[/ccProd] myself as my only Traps. It allows you to freeze backrows so your Medraut plays or Laundsallyn plays go through, as well as halting things like [ccProd]Sixth Sense[/ccProd], [ccProd]Return from the Different Dimension[/ccProd], and [ccProd]Phoenix Wing Wind Blast [/ccProd] on your important equip cards after Sacred Artorigus hits the field.

Concluding this, I feel fairly confident going into St. Louis, for a couple reasons. One being not many people know what Noble Knights do (my favorite!) and know how to deal with them. Second of all, against your average Dragon Ruler player, I feel like I will be able to win most of my duels from simply making better plays. However, I've told my friends I expect to lose to at least 1 Dragon Ruler player either from Return, [ccProd]Sixth Sense[/ccProd], etc, and 1 more match from just having poor hands/luck. So I do indeed intend on going x-2 however I would be happy with x-3 as well. Doing decent with anything other than Dragon Rulers is pretty exciting.

Also, just another heads up, by the time you read this the new Forbidden/Limited list will be out! Exciting!

Wish me luck. As you read this I will be dueling against hundreds of other players. Until next time duelist, play hard or go home!

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