WCQ: The Side Deck – Part 1 | Alter Reality Games

June 27, 2011

by Billy Brake

Hello Yugioh Community! Summer is now upon us and the World Championship Qualifier is just around the corner! I am very excited since this is basically the biggest tournament of the year in the Yugioh World. This year the USA and Canada will both be playing in the same “Nationals” event and we will send the Top 6 players of this tournament to World’s to try and take a championship home to North America! There are roughly 5000 players qualified and if even half of those players show up we are still looking at the biggest TCG tournament ever! As exciting as that is, more players means more decks, so you will have to make sure your side deck will be well prepared for you to have success. Today I am going to look over some of my favorite side deck cards for the World Championship Qualifier and why I like them!

Siding Monster TRAPS!
When I say monster traps I am referring to monsters that you can activate from your hand during your opponent’s turn. These guys are extremely powerful and almost unstoppable out side of an opponent’s Debunk. I have 3 in particular that I think fit good in the side.

Effect Veiler
If for some reason you cannot fit this card in your main deck, and I think everybody should, it must be in your side deck. Effect Veiler is one of the best cards printed in Yugioh recently. It can disrupts your opponents plays and is good against a wide variety of decks. When your opponent plays Giant Turnade you can have this ace up your sleeve and turn their big push into a waste of a turn! This card is going to be very key in success at the WCQ.

D.D. Crow
Like Effect Veiler this card can really disrupt your opponent. D.D. Crow should earn a spot in your side deck because of the devastation he can cause against the widely popular Plant deck. Chaining this card in response to a Pot Of Avarice, Monster Reborn, Call of the Haunted, or Limit Reverse can really set your opponent back. He is even a stronger Effect Veiler if your opponent tries to use Debris Dragon! He is not as versatile as Veiler against many decks, but has a more devastating impact.

Maxx “C”
I know many people do not like this card and they think that it is just a bad version of Effect Veiler, but I disagree. I really do like this card because if you go second and your opponent starts going off and trying to set up a big field of special summons you can discard this card from your hand and stop them in their tracks or gain a lot of pluses to mount a comeback. With T.G. Hyper Librarian being legal for this event special summoning a lot of monsters in one turn is going to be very popular and with Maxx “C’ you will be able to fight off the onslaught of cards by drawing your own amount of cards. Just be careful when you use this card against Fableds because they do play Card Destruction and might have a chance to deck you out! Overall, I like this card a lot in the side board.

The Monster Monsters!

Thunder King Rai-Oh
The once king of everybody’s side deck has now lost his luster. He has fallen out of many player’s side decks, but I think with the release of the new Fairy starter deck his popularity will increase again. He is decent against Six Samurai, but if your opponent draws Grandmaster it will be a problem though. I really like this card against Agents because it can negate their Hyperion Summons and Earth’s searching ability, TKR can really lock them down. He is a good card against random rouge decks and I feel he will see some play in many player’s side decks.

Fossil Dyna Pachycephalo
Once a card that was hardly used outside of straight Anti-Meta decks has gained a spot in many players’ side decks. He can be very powerful set against Six Samurai being able to wipe their field of all of their Shi En and Naturia Beast. He can also be summoned against Frog monarchs and ruin their entire day since they have minimal outs to this card. He is a card you can set and take many opponents by surprise. I feel you should side at least 1 copy of this powerful special summoning hate card!

Puppet Plant
Six Samurai have made themselves dominate in the meta with the ability to summon a giant 2500 atk spell/trap negating nuisance! What better way to deal with it than just take it! He is not really a monster, but more of a spell that gets around Solemn Judgment! Samurai decks do not have much that can stop this card and it can really devastate them! Just be careful in siding this card because a lot of Six Samurai decks side into Dimensional Fissure against a lot of decks and it will make this powerful card unusable.

The Spells!
In this current format there really are not too many spells that I feel belong in a side deck, if any at all. There are 2 cards that can help deal with the Gravekeeper match up, but outside of that there is not much to side for other decks.

Nobleman Of Crossout
This card is a very good card against Gravekeeper’s being able to get rid of all of those annoying Spy’s they rely on. It also has potential against Plants if you are having trouble dealing with set Ryko’s! The only other deck I would put this in against is X-Sabers to take away their Darksoul’s and Emmersblade’s. I feel that NoC is an okay side deck choice, but I am not the biggest fan of this card outside of the Gravekeeper match up.

Closed Forest
A card specifically for Gravekeeper’s! If Gk’s are giving your problem’s I strongly suggest siding this card against. I think it is the best card to beat the Gk. When you play this it will replace Necrovalley, not let them play another one, and when they finally do get rid of it, you will have another turn to set yourself to beat them before they can drop a Necrovalley to beef their monsters up and stop your key card’s involving the grave. Closed Forest is easily my favorite card in this match up and would definitely side deck it if Gravekeepers prove to be troublesome.

Conclusion
In this first part of my side deck discussion I went over my favorite Monster and Spell cards that I think would be good to side deck at the upcoming WCQ or even local tournaments for this summer’s format! Early next week I will be posting Part 2 to my discussion of the side deck and will go over the long list of trap cards, synchro monsters, and even a fusion monster that I feel are going to be key in having success this format! Thank you for reading and do not forget to check back next week for the exciting conclusion!