IgnitedSperm

Card Specific

Elemental HERO The Shining: Great card and essential in the E-HERO archetype. It is very good when combined with Fusion Gate and Miracle Fusion, and gets immediately boosted to 3200. Can easily take out a shien, and a reactor dragon once castle is gone from the field, or by using Beatdown. However, missing the absolute zero-shining combo, makes this card more of a beatstick. Lastly, using this card in a mixed archetype deck that includes light monsters makes it easier to summon but it gets boosted up to 2900 which isn’t good if not using beatdown. In an elemental hero deck, we are missing Elemental HERO Prisma which is a great light e-hero. This means that you have to be running E-hero Neos/Neos Alius to summon this. Banishing your stuff means that Brave Neos doesn’t get any power up, and miracle contact kinda useless, while Shining cannot be summoned with Neos Fusion. So is this card a good support for the Neos archetype? Well, yes and no, and mostly No. Shining comes in contrast with the main purpose of this deck, which is to recycle Neos by using Neos Fusion, Miracle contact etc.

The Deep Grave: Slower monster reborn. With toggle on in the standby phase, gives you immediate reborn. However, in the current meta, it shouldn’t be helpful to any of the meta decks.

White Stone of the Ancients: Very strong card but there is no easy way to send it to the grave. With the nerf in Trick up the Sleeve, Cosmo Brain isn’t guaranteed in the starting hand, otherwise this could be a great support for the blue-eyes archetype. Maybe Cards of Cosnonance could now be more useful in the deck while running both white stone of the legend and white stone of the ancients.

Wiretrap: Okay counter trap. However, in the current meta it’s useful only against weevil decks and I don’t think it will see much play in main decks, just because running Cosmic Cyclone is easier, faster and permanently deals with the issue. Unless a trap heavy meta occurs, I don’t see this card seeing any play at all.

Decktype

Darklords: While this archetype is benefited by paying 1000 life points, thus making it very good in 8000lp formats, it should be less useful in duel links. Most important thing about this deck is that Konami didn’t give us Banishment Of Darklords, which is the “diamond core” of darklords and their search engine, but we also won’t receive Darklord Zerato, which has a powerful destruction effect. Darklord Contact is a good way to special summon the monsters and activate their effects, but I don’t really think that this deck will have an impact in the meta, especially with Legendary Six Samurai- Enishi and Shien dominating it right now.

[SC] KingSwagbodi

Card Specific

Celestial Wolf Lord, Blue Sirius is a very nice generic 6 star tuner. The attack threshold is only 2400/1500 but it has an effect that if it is destroyed and leaves the field, you can target a monster and it will lose 2400 attack points. This is pretty much a 1 for 1, as you can now crash a smaller monster into that or next turn. However, defensive tech cards are still better as you have to use 2 resources to even pull him out. But if you are smart and have Psychic Wheeleder and are already using synchro decks for level 6’s, this is a nice add over Stardust Charge Warrior, etc. Wheeleder pops 1 face up already when you synchro. Now your boss floats and has a backlash effect even if they have to crash over it next turn. You can burn out an opponent fairly easily and secure a W if their deck is outresourced.

[FD] Vanitur

UR Cards

I personally feel that none of these will be impactful. There are better options than shining, the trap is too slow, and we learned from dragunities that 6 tuners + Cards of Consonance does not mean consistency. Blue Eyes has consistency problems, so I feel they will remain like that.

Decktype

X-Saber: I don’t know much about at all, but I do know { XX-Saber Faultroll} is a very nice addition and could seriously do some damage with Beatdown due to spamming ability. However, with Enishi, TTH, and Dual Wield being popular in sams, I don’t think Xsabers will have enough right now.

Noble Knights (one of my all time favorite decks): Sadly feels the same. We don’t have access to the XYZ cards yet, and while brothers, the monster-equip, and lady of the lake are all nice, i can’t see how any of them will burn through Sams with their protection and Enishi being Enishi. We need Excaliburn and the XYZ cards.

Darklords is a different story. At first glance they look a bit inconsistent since they lack their “diamond core” card. However, with all of them having powerful effects and high attack, this doesn’t matter much. Furthermore, we know from TCG that lifepoints really don’t matter. Getting off their powerful effects is far more worth it, especially when you can then use KaibaCorp Bling, Bandit, Destiny Draw, or other powerful skills right after. Definitely something I want to keep an eye on. The one weakness I see is that they need S/T to summon stuff and Shi En exists.

Counter Fairy, which is the deck I worry most about. For those who have farmed the game in the past, they will have farmed the Special Tea character and received a lot of various fairy support. After reading through every countertrap in the game right now, Counter Fairy is looking a bit scary. We will now have all the good fairies to synergize with this at our hands, and some Countertraps are quite strong (Divine Strike and the new one for Parshash are the main two). The scary thing about the archetype is it just looks like it will work without opponent’s being able to do anything. The new Fairy Cont. Spell protects your backrow, and in DL one strong interruption is often enough for the turn. Not being able to Cosmic Cyclone or otherwise target the backrow is scary. But also remember that Shi En cannot negate a countertrap. He can’t chain to it due to spell speeds. If someone opens a good hand and goes first, the opponent just loses if they don’t have Hey, Trunade. Also Balance could consistently get you access to Sanctuary in the Sky/New cont. Spell, a monster, and a strong countertrap.Definitely the deck I am watching the most

[FD] zzmondo

Box Analysis

At the time of this writing, the format is currently in a tier 0 state. Any other deck that wishes to contend not only has to possess good going first and second cards, but has to assume they will be staring down a monster disruption and a negate without a loss of resources on the opposing end with these disruptions. Many archetypes need a specific 2 card interaction to be established and generate their respective win conditions. Like many archetypes in DLs history, this would normally be solid criterion due to the minimalistic requirements. However, such interactions would require bypassing the negate and monster disruption. As of current, there is no archetype that could achieve this without granting the deck putting out the disruptions another turn. This turn thereby grants the opposing deck an opportunity to set up another negate or monster disruption. Not dealing with the threats directly only serves to establish the strength of the win con as the negate and monster disruption are accompanied by large bodies that force interaction. Does this mean the cards are bad? No. Far from it. Its just the state of the metagame requiring cards that are good enough in light of current threats to be able to establish themselves. Every monster or spell these decks will inevitably use to start their plays will be disrupted before they have the chance to combat the bodies themselves. That said, every archetype in here has a solid base to start its plays, but it can’t firmly maintain the intended board output.

Gnurrgard

Decktype

XX-Saber Faulttroll: Should find his way into lists but basically requires you to synchro immediately after to get any value, due to Duel Links 3 monster zones. His ability to swarm in combination with beatdown might just be worth it. Gottom’s Second Call is a wildcard: maybe there is a good combo with it, but the restriction of not conducting your battle phase hurts X-Sabers a lot. I don’t see it. All in all I think the deck gets access to more explosive plays due to Faultroll, but in the end that’s not enough to make them relevant. Maybe if the general power level is brought down.

🎓𝒜𝒟𝐿 𝑀𝒾𝓈𝓂𝒶𝑔🎓

Decktype

Darklords definitely gonna be tiered - where I would put them atm is probably t3; the deck is pretty prone to bricking, and since they didn’t get Banishment, they’ll struggle getting consistent combos ready. However, Ixchel being able to sidestep Shi En’s negates + recycle is something that can’t be ignored. Additionally, we get another form of non destruction removal in the form of Desire, which even though it targets, is still very good - the loss in ATK is so easily mitigated, it’s not even funny.

X-Sabers looks okay - but the lack of another tuner option really hurts them; Airbellum would be solid for them right now so that they can actually run up to 6 tuners and have some more options for play; Faultroll is definitely gonna be a big extender for them, but given how tight the zones are here, idk how much impact he’ll really have.

“lswarm” - Steelswarm support looks really good; not enough really to be tiered since it still relies on tribute summoning, but I can definitely see a solid deck involving Escalation of the Monarchs from their first box. Also iirc, the 2 new traps work with our current lineup of Evilswarm monsters, so that can finally be a more consistent deck.

Counter Fairies - I’m actually genuinely surprised at Konami deciding to release this now, when we’re already basically in a negate meta thanks to Sams; that being said, Sanctum of Parshath is BIG (for a lot of decks tbh since it can also just function as backrow protection if you don’t mind giving up a slot for it) and it has a lot of great effects. Overall, I’d put this in high potential - it’s still gonna struggle with consistency issues, and we don’t have the real bangers for Counter Traps that would make this beyond busted. (Wiretap coming in the same box is still good tho). Also Sams can protect themselves from being destroyed by Counter Traps, even after they’ve resolved.

NK - I like the new NK stuff; lots of kit to expand them away from a straight Medraut/Drystan control type build. I don’t think they’ll thrive in a 6Sam meta tho - especially with all the general warrior hate roaming around.

Heroes/BEWD/Lightsworn - nice added pieces to their respective kits, however, none of them individually do I think makes their respective decks tiered again. Heroes are likely to be tiered due to Neos Fusion. Ryko just makes me synchro into Armades against f/d monsters even more.

Blue Wolf/Deep Grave - Blue Wolf definitely gonna see play, especially with the 6th ED slot being available to all; Deep Grave is a nice revival card, albeit a bit slow; cancer might like this tho.

This box will be good after a larger banlist than the one we just got, imo, when the power level of the meta gets curbed - so I’d consider it a future investment; not necessarily something to have right now. (Although if you pull Blue Wolf early - props to you)