As you probably already know, YCS Long Beach was the largest Yugioh TCG event in the history of the game. Over 4300 people attended this monumental event, and almost appropriately the event was filled with every deck imaginable. The top 16 embodied this perfectly, being a mishmash of both familiar and unfamiliar decks. I'll just take a brief look at the top 4 decks and give my thoughts about them.
1st Place: Dark worlds, piloted by Michael Balan
We all knew Dark Worlds were a decent deck, but I bet few people thought someone could take them to the very highest peaks of dueling fame. I believe a combination of pure skill and blind luck (in respect to pairings) helped him win it all, along with the amazing side decking skills needed to combat the biggest problem a Dark World deck faces: Game 2 and 3. One look at his side deck and you saw that he was ready to anti-side for all the hate being sided against him. Congrats to him for winning, he certainly deserves it.
2nd Place: Dino Rabbit, piloted by Simon He
Hey, its Dino Rabbit. I thought about only typing just that one sentence for this section. Nothing I say is going to change what you think about Dino Rabbit, or tell you anything you don't already know. Its a good deck, its tier 1, and it was the most played deck at the top tables of the event. No details about his deck have surfaced yet, but I have no reason to believe its anything radically different from the norm.
3rd/4th Place: Chaos Piper, piloted by Gabriel Perez
Now here's a deck I never thought I'd see top 4 a YCS. Most people counted Piper Chaos out when planning for the event, but this YCS was all about both the expected and the unexpected, and this deck certainly was unexpected. While the main deck is pretty standard bar a few odd tech choices like Wisel, Swap, and main decked D.D. Crow, the side deck was absolutely filthy. With only 2 main decked traps most S/T hate would be sided out game 2, and the opponent would quickly fall into the hands of his barrage of side decked traps. Kudos to you for taking a chance with transformation siding that payed off big time.
3rd/4th Place: Drained HERO's, piloted by Joseph Giorlando
HERO's made a big showing at YCS Long Beach, as it's no secret that they're very popular in the area (The last 2 California YCS events were won by a HERO variant). While its obvious that the pilot of this deck had overwhelming skill to take it this far, a few odd decisions in the deck left me puzzled. This deck bears a striking resemblance to Bubble HERO's, but it seems like he just dropped the Bubbleman and was filling the hole left in the deck with cards that normally don't see play in HERO decks, such as Barbaros and Crusader of Endymion. Puzzling but definitely not bad tech choices. The side deck is pretty geared towards Dino Rabbits, already a fairly favorable matchup. No doubt he smashed any Dino Rabbit player he played to pieces. There is an absence of cards that address probably the worst match up HEROs have in the current meta: Dark Worlds. For those who read the final duels you will know that this comes back to haunt Joseph as he must duel the future champion who is running Dark Worlds.
In conclusion...
That's all for the review of the Top 4 of YCS Long Beach. That isnt to say there arn't any other decks that are worthy of attention (Wind-Up Beasts from the Top 16 in particular caught my eye) but this was just meant to be just my 2 cents as admittedly there are other people who actually went that did a much better job of detailing the event than I could ever hope to =). Look forward to the newest edition of Dueling like a Mad Scientist, which should be up in a day or 2 (provided I stop procrastinating and get it finished...)
Till next time!
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