Hello, I am Negative1 and this is my September 2020 KC Cup writeup. I will be going over my preparation for the event as well as my experience during the event itself with some analysis of the decks I used along the way.

For every KC Cup, how you prepare will largely decide how you perform. If you have a good idea of what to expect and practice against it then your likelihood of succeeding is much greater.

Testing

Karakuri

Karakuri was the deck I tested against the most because I believed karakuri would be very popular this kc cup. What I found was that the deck is absolutely broken going first, arguably tier 0 if it could always do so. This is because they have draw power alongside having access to Hey, Trunade! and Offerings to the Doomed, the deck could make strong boards, and even if their board does get destroyed then they typically have a followup play. Average Karakuri hands go plus 2 or plus 3 in card economy meaning there are few decks that can compete with them. In a tier 0 format, you must either play the tier 0 deck or you must counter the tier 0 deck, so I immediately started looking for counters in the event the meta became dominated by karakuri.

Elementsabers

A common sentiment found in the duel links community was that karakuri lost to sabers, and because of how popular I was expecting karakuri to be I decided to test the matchup. What I found was that saber goes even at best, and likely loses to karakuri. This is because most people are only thinking of the games where elementsabers go first with Palace of the Elemental Lords, and with palace the deck is able to maintain a flip even if there is a trunade. However, sabers have a difficult time competing with karakuri in any other scenario, not to mention karakuri is capable of using offerings to destroy molehu before committing to a play. If karakuri go first they can set up a board uninterrupted, and without Elementsaber Malo saber struggles to summon Invoked Purgatrio on it’s first turn so it gets steamrolled by a board of 3 big monsters. Despite this weakness, saber does have a strong matchup against invoked neos and blackwings, and since I already have a lot of experience with the deck I was ready to play it if necessary.

Invoked Neos

Invoked neos was another deck that I expected in kc cup so I tested to see what it’s good and bad matchups were. Something I found was that there were not many matchups where I felt neos was favored. In kc cup, having a well rounded deck can be okay but just going even in wins and losses is not enough to win. To win kc cup, you must net more wins than losses, and because of this I choose to not run this deck.

Deck Choice

Now you may notice that I did not mention triamids among the decks I tested. This would be because I didn’t really test triamids, it was a deck I stumbled upon. The Wednesday before the event, I found out about a japanese event where triamids performed well in spite of an overwhelming karakuri presence. I found this quite odd, so I messaged Wayne Kenoff inquiring about the deck and he spoke favorably about it. After giving it some thought, I bought the deck on Thursday, but I spent most of the day getting responsibilities out of the way so that I would have no issues playing until Sunday. I was unsure if I would even end up using it, but having it as a potential fallback plan seemed like a good idea.

At the start of the event, I found invoked neos was the most played deck. Since elementsabers was the deck I felt had the safest matchup against invoked neos, I used this build to climb. The early hours of the kc cup were defined by the larger quantity of invoked decks and the overall lack of witchcrater. At most, I would play a single game against witchcrafter in 20, so running a deck like elementsabers that would otherwise lose to witchcrafter was not a risk. Saber resulted in my early climb going smoothly and reaching 42000 DP fairly fast, at which point I was near the lower end of top 10 global.

Invoked neos has ways to deal with many things, but the one thing they struggle with above all else is battle traps. Wall of Disruption and Mirror Wall are highly effective at beating neos because their only outs to battle traps is by randomly sniping them with Cosmic Cyclone and using Ultimate Providence. In both instances, they are spending resources to not lose instantly because battle traps punish neos for paying so many life points to trigger Volcanic Shell. I chose mirror wall over wall of disruption because I was also trying to protect myself against trunade in case I saw any karakuri while climbing. Additionally, paying the maintenance cost of 2000 life points can set up Destiny Draw for the following turn. Floodgate Trap Hole and Fiendish Chain are the best traps at locking up the opponent’s board, so I ran both of them at 3.

Destiny Draw

When I noticed that the meta was shifting towards karakuri, I decided that sticking to sabers was a bad idea. When I made this connection I started playing triamids since I heard it had a decent karakuri matchup as mentioned earlier. I came to find out that the karakuri matchup was very reliable and used this build from 42000 DP to 56000 DP, which at the time I first reached it was first place global. However, not long after making it to first place global, I started to stagnate and felt that perhaps I should change decks again. This turned out to be a mistake because for the next 34 hours or so I was stuck between 50000 DP and 60000 DP regardless of what deck I tried. My entire day 2 was spent trying to make something work all for it to put me back in the same range. At the start of day 3, I decided that I would make a final attempt with triamids as it was the deck I felt was most reliable when playing against karakuri. If my final attempt was not successful I likely would have stopped playing or just tried to finish in top 100 global, but slowly but surely the deck started to win. I went from being stuck at the same spot to reaching 60000, then hitting 70000, then even hitting 80000. The ascent was surprisingly less difficult than I had thought it was going to be but in my final attempt to push I tried to be as focused as possible while playing and thought more critically about even small decisions. I believe these minor attention to detail approach is very helpful for performing well in kc cup.

As for the build, I think most of the ratios are very solid. 3 Triamid Hunter is valuable for getting multiple field spell tagout effects to resolve each turn. The tagouts are how the deck generates advantage so resolving multiple is critical. As for the trap lineup, mirror wall was a card to beat karakuri, Treacherous Trap Hole was a well rounded trap that can help you going second into karakuri as well as being effective against blackwings, a bad matchup that wasn’t super popular at any point but was still expected perhaps one every dozen games or so. 3 Triamid Pulse was instrumental in winning the karakuri matchup, since if you go first you can end their turn if you destroy the merchant when they target it with level 5.

Balance

Near the latter half of day 3, I started to see more more combo heavy strategies. I also started playing against a lightsworn levianeer deck very regularly, one that would typically summon Fortune Lady Every on their first turn and follow it up with Chaos Dragon Levianeer on their following turn. Every is very difficult for triamids to deal with because the way you counter every is typically by flipping it face down, returning it to the extra deck, or banishing it. Triamids can't do any of that. Levianeer will destroy 2 cards on the field if it is summoned using a combination of light and dark monsters, but the issue is that the effect does not target. This means that no matter what triamids try, Levianeer can always destroy their field spell. Every was also popping up in another matchup, against witchcrafter. Witchcrafter players were starting to use Machine Angel Ritual as a karakuri countermeasure to Offerings to the Doomed, but this also made triamids weaker against witch as they lose their ability to reliably destroy Witchcrafter Madame Verre. This meant that triamids took much longer to win games in this matchup, and that time given often resulted in the witchcrafter player getting access to their synchro plays or resolving Lyla, the Lightsworn Sorceress to pop the field spell. The last deck that I started seeing a decent amount on the third day was megalith. For those unaware, megalith was first place global for a decent portion of the first and second days of the event. The triamid vs megalith matchup is nothing crazy, but generally whoever goes first has a major advantage as both decks are capable of setting up an interruption to stop the other from playing. The adaptation I made was to run 3 copies of Powersink Stone; if you can activate 2 triamid effects in the draw phase, then this card is able to floodgate the combo decks while also being an effective card against karakuri since it is unaffected by trunade. With this build I finished at 97195 DP.

Balance

It is rather unfortunate to finish second, but I think in every defeat there should be something learned. Learning from failed KC Cup experiences is the way I have become more consistent. I often get asked me why I bother playing KC Cups if I have already qualified for worlds. While some people may consider me one of the best players, my personal goal is to be the best player ever. You can’t be the best if you aren’t consistent at the most competitive events konami holds, so at least in my mind it seems like the thing to do is to try my hardest in KC Cups. I know that not everyone will understand this perspective; the truth is that some views you can only get at the top. Good luck climbing everybody!

• Snyffus for discussion and testing
• Zaidking for discussion
• Wayne Kenoff for triamid insight
• My clan 1% and team Tier 0 for their moral support and council
• Everyone else who supported me, the kind words were appreciated