Hey everyone, I’m back and this week I’m going to be talking about the return of a certain insect that defined last format; Maxx “C.” The card was the key factor in the Plant mirror match of last format and it rewarded players for using the card correctly. As the format shifted to more and more Dino-Rabbit mirror matches, the card slowly fell out of favor. The reality set in that even if you drew a card or two, you still were often not able to deal with whatever threat your opponent put out. By Dallas many of the top players had dropped it from their respected decks and by Chicago, the card was almost completely gone from main decks. Last weekend at the North American World Championship Qualifier, Tyler Tabman exploited the lack of Maxx “C”s in duelists’ decks by winning the tournament with Wind-Ups, a deck that never truly reached its potential while Maxx “C” was main decked in 3s, and earning a spot at the World Championships later this summer.
While the United States competitive season came to a close last weekend for the rest of the format, Europe still had their World Championship Qualifier this weekend. The results are in and the tournament is finished. I’d like to give a big congratulation to Stefano Memoli of Italy for winning and earning his spot at the World Championship. His deck of choice? The same as Tabman’s. Also Wind-Ups represented more spots in their Top 32 than any other deck. The Top 32 breakdown consists of 9 Wind-Ups, 7 Dino-Rabbits, 6 Inzektors, 5 Chaos Dragons, 1 Watt deck, 1 Chaos deck, and 1 Dark World deck (2 deck lists are missing). 20 of the 30 known lists were main decking at least 1 copy of Maxx “C.” It seems to me that those who chose to ignore the increase in Wind-Ups meta control got left behind in the tournament.
Maxx “C” and the Match Ups
Wind-Ups: This is clearly the match up where Maxx “C” shines the most. It completely stops Wind-Ups devastating loop for a whole turn and leaves them in an awkward position. If they start with Wind-Up Magician and Wind-Up Shark you Maxx “C” on Shark’s reveal. At this point Maxx “C” has already replaced itself and one of two things will happen. Either they will end with just Magician and Shark or they will pull a Wind-Up Rabbit from their deck and let you draw another card. Either way you can simply run over the Magician and Shark and completely stop their loop.
Also I want to remind you that if you know you are playing against Wind-Ups and they summon Tour Guide, play Maxx “C” immediately. Do not wait for the Zenmaity. Either way Maxx “C” is going to just be a 1 for 1, but if you wait for Zenmaity they now can pull Rabbit from their deck. Now if they can protect their Zenmaity for a turn, they don’t need any other cards to do the loop. They can simply detach the last material and get Hunter. Leaving them with just Tour Guide and Sangan is much less threatening than Zenmaity and Rabbit. Also that’s best case scenario. If they have Factory and you wait for Zenmaity you’re going to be in a horrible position. They will search Shark when they activate Zenmaity’s effect and just pull Rabbit from the deck. Then they’ll end and remove Rabbit when you draw and pull Magician from the deck. Now even if you can deal with Zenmaity, they’ve got the Magician Shark loop with a Rabbit coming back to play around Veiler. For this reason, you always Maxx “C” the Tour Guide.
Dino-Rabbit: Maxx “C” has always been an okay card against Dino-Rabbit. If you Maxx “C” the Rabbit you have balanced out Laggia’s negation by giving yourself an extra card to deal with it. If you’re playing a deck like Dragons, you probably don’t have too much trouble getting over the 2400 body once you’ve dealt with the negation. As I mentioned before, one of the original reasons Maxx “C” fell out of favor was that it didn’t deal with the card itself and that even if you drew a couple of cards, they still had the threat. Since Dragons don’t have this problem as they can simply attack over it, it balances out this downside to Maxx “C.” On the other hand, having Maxx “C” in against Rabbit while you’re playing Dragons makes you even more susceptible to Macro Cosmos. The way that I looked at this when I was playing Dragons, however, was that if they do not start with Rabbit I am already in an incredibly strong position. If they do start with Rabbit I will have a chance to Maxx “C” before they can set their Macro Cosmos.
I have a lot of friends that really like Maxx “C” in the Rabbit mirror as the mirror allows for a fair amount of interaction between players if one does not open with a blowout hand of Rabbit Tour Guide. Maxx “C” helps mitigate the blowout hands and give you a fighting chance even if they do open like that.
Inzektors: Maxx “C” isn’t great against Inzektors, but it ensures that you don’t get OTKed by Dragonfly, Sword, Hornet or Dragonfly, Giga-Mantis, Hornet. If you drop Maxx “C” when they blow up either Giga-Mantis or Sword and opt to special summon twice with Dragonfly, they probably won’t continue to try to OTK you as drawing a single Veiler will stop them and leave you with more than enough cards to deal with them.
Chaos Dragons: The only time Maxx “C” is going to be amazing in this matchup is in the mirror match. Often times in this matchup, you can explode with a Red-Eyes and Pulsar and drop Maxx “C” as soon as they draw. Here they are forced to special summon or lose the following turn. After they do so, you will have plenty of cards to deal with whatever field they have set up. Outside of this matchup, however, the card is not very good against them. The only card it truly hits is Tour Guide. Other than that, most things they are going to be specialing are Inherent and you cannot chain Maxx “C” to them.
With just under two months left before the next banlist, the format has shifted again. Wind-Ups are once again a top deck. To combat them you should fit a couple of copies of Maxx “C” somewhere between your main and side deck. Until next week everyone, play hard or go home!
Patrick Hoban
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