Ever turn up to a party wearing the same shirt as someone else? Multiply that slightly awkward moment by 25 and you get a rough approximation of what it must have been like at YCS Pasadena, a recent Yugioh tournament in which 80% of the top 32 duelists brought the same kind of deck.
At this Yugioh Championship Series, which took place in Pasadena, California last weekend, there was a clear favourite deck type among competitors. In fact, out of the top 32 players in the tournament, a staggering 26 were rocking the same strategy – a Yugioh deck archetype known as Ishizu Tearlaments.
It seems running this deck proved to be the right call, as only two non-Ishizu Tearlaments players made it into the top 16. Thank goodness one of those players, Vincent Man Kith CA Wong, claimed third place with their Bystial Spright deck, or it would’ve been a clean sweep for the rampaging Ishizu archetype. In the end, Ishizu Tearlaments decks took first, second, and fourth place.
Ishizu Tearlaments, for those wondering, is a deck that runs Tearlaments cards, combined with new Ishizu fairy cards that were released last week in the Magnificent Mavens set. The deck creates ridiculously strong combos by milling a few cards.
Obviously the Yugioh meta is not in a healthy place if one strategy clearly stands head and shoulders above the rest like this. Many players speculate that we’re now in a ‘Tier 0’ meta, with little to no room for variety outside of the very top deck. At Wargamer, we’re keeping our eyes peeled for the next Yugioh banlist announcement.