#spyral

As anon pointed out in that ask a moment ago, getting the deck to work with 40 cards is proving very difficult. The SPYRAL deck can’t function purely on SPYRAL cards: they don’t alone have any means of getting cards into the grave to maintain Resort nor set up for Sleeper, they are excellent at clearing away boards going second but not exemplar at consistently setting up boards going first and they have some important normal summons spread between them all that usually one or the other card takes up.

So! It’s looking necessary to do one of two things: run a 60 card build or run Sleeper Turbo.

The latter build incorporates the former, but with the added benefit of the Zoodiac engine which synergises nicely with a whole lot of your SPYRAL cards and allows you to run Master Plan and the MISSIONs, as well as make full use of Foolish Burial Goods. As for the Sleeper combo itself, I didn’t come up with it, so I’ll link it here to save me typing it out and attribute it to the source I got it from. The combo is quite strong and only requires two cards - either Instant Fusion or Gofu and either Resort or Terraforming - and has potential to get even stronger with some more development. I just know we can use that extra special summon from Ancient Fairy Dragon for something great, like a tuner to make Crystal Wing or a Zoodiac to make a Drident, or even just an Agent that you called wrong so your Utility Wire can work.

There are a whole heap of cards that start off your combos in the sixty card deck - The Predaplant engine, Terrortop, Barrage, Resort, Machine Duplication, Ratpier - so while it does have a higher chance of bricking, the potential power output is drastically higher. With the right combination of cards, I’ve gone from five cards in hand to 11 cards on field with 3 or 4 still in hand. The Sleeper build trades off this power for consistency of a strong play that your opponent simultaneously will have difficulty removing but also threatens their board severely. The new cards have added a destructive boss monster, an incredibly protection/finisher card, non-targeting removal and a quick effect retrieval/revival card, all of which are searchable.

With regard to the upcoming meta, True Dracos are by far going to be the most threatening deck to compete against. Master Peace is difficult for this deck to overcome, it essentially requires you to either resolve a Drone on an Agent/Sleeper or make a rank4 out to it, with them likely destroying the first attempt you make at outing it. True Kings will also be something to contend with, as VFD will make completing your plays quite difficult, but not impossible. Zoodiacs and Zoodiac variants will still be around, especially with the addition of Lyca, but I feel now that SPYRALs will be able to contend with pure variants without too much issue.

I still have a lot of testing to do, and am happy to look at any suggestions or answer any questions regarding the direction SPYRALs are heading in, so feel free to hit me up! Sneak Peek is in a few days time so I’ll let you know how it goes~

Images from Konami’s own Facebook page

Sorry I’m so late! Konami unveiled the new SPYRAL cards a week or so ago and I’ve been hard at work testing them all, because they’re all quite good!

First up is SPYRAL Sleeper, a true behemoth of a card with an incredibly destructive effect and a relatively easy to access summoning procedure. Destroying two cards on either player’s turn is incredibly powerful, and destroying your own SPYRAL cards is usually beneficial to you as well! The SPYRAL MISSIONs all have great graveyard effects, and SPYRAL Master Plan will get her effect to search Resort and another SPYRAL monster when sent to the graveyard too! As for his self-destruct effect, although dangerous, I have yet to have it ever go off. It’s a matter of playing this card with the right support cards, namely SPYRAL Resort and the next card on the list:

SPYRAL Last Resort is a monster akin to Gwenhwyfar, in that it can equip from the hand to anySPYRAL monster and protect it from being destroyed by battle, and destroyed or targeted by card effects (mind you, the targeting is only from your opponent’s card effects, so you can still use cards like Drone or Sleeper on your SPYRALs). This card is most powerful when equipped to Sleeper, who can then target himself for his effect to destroy two cards and safely avoid nuking your own field. It also means your opponent will have a really hard time getting rid of your SPYRAL monsters, as usually you will also have SPYRAL Resort up on the field as well, protecting Last Resort from being targeted as well. It has one final effect, allowing you to send another face-up card you control to the graveyard in order to allow the equipped monster to attack directly. This is great for two reasons: the first is that, with Drone and the next equip card, your SPYRALs can reach pretty phenomenal levels of attack, so a direct attack can be lethal pretty quickly. The second is that it means, like Sleeper, you can send your SPYRAL cards to the graveyard in order to trigger their effects. You can also send an opponent’s monster you’ve taken with Recapture to the graveyard, which is very nice indeed.

The next card is SPYRAL GEAR - Fully Armed, an equip Spell only for Super Agent or Tough, granting a 1000 boost, banishing anything it destroys in battle along with 1 other card your opponent controls and floating into Agent when it’s destroyed. The card is pretty good, allowing Agent to beat over a great number of things, and non-targeting, non-destroying removal is always a great thing. Given it’s high searchability via Quik-Fix, the card is a definite good addition to the deck.

The final card is SPYRAL MISSION - Rescue, which I underestimated at first but definitely provides a lot of utility to the deck and enables some pretty fun plays. The on-field effect is a tremendous resource engine, adding back a SPYRAL monster each turn, including your opponent’s. It’ll be hard for you to ever be without cards in your hand with you adding back cards like Agent or Quik-Fix or Sleeper each turn, meaning you’ll have plenty to summon or even just use as discard fodder for Quik-Fix. The grave effect is where it really shines, however, allowing you to special summon SPYRAL monsters on your opponent’s turn. This allows you to summon Agent and destroy spells/traps during your opponent’s turn, as well as trigger Recapture and take an opponent’s monster before they can get any use out of it.

I’ll go ahead and make a separate post regarding builds, the direction the deck is heading and how competitively viable I think the deck is going to be in the upcoming future, but short version: I’m excited and optimistic~

(viahttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PW4KGGDoUs)

‘Ey check out my handsome face and watch me show off my SPYRAL deck and whack my friend in the stomach.

Guess who just got top 8 at a Regional with his SPYRALs~? Hoo boy you better believe it was me.

The deck list is up there for you all to look at, but I’ll go into my tournament report below. Also at some point I’ll probably make a deck profile with my friends which might be enjoyable to watch and I can explain all the card choices and stuff~

Round 1 vs Spirit/Kaiju OTK, 2-1 Win

Despite about 90 people being in this tournament, I somehow managed to get paired against three of my friends throughout the day, including in round one. My friend was playing a really silly deck that still had some nice potential. Essentially it relied on using Aratama and Nikitama to make rank 4s and Nikitama was really good for drawing cards (you could also send it with Brilliant Fusion) and then Pre-Preparation of Rites would get out Shinobaron Peacock which cleared all the monsters OR Kaiju Slumber would clear out all the monsters and then Peacock would bounce the monster you summoned to the opponent’s side and OTK with something you then normal summoned. Essentially he did this to me game 1 but games 2 and 3 he didn’t and a combination of Terrortop and Misty + Agent ended in victory for me.

Round 2 vs Synchron Quasar, 2-1 Win

I did get OTKed one of these games, despite using Ghost Ogre to hit Hyper Librarian, but the other games I held off with the Zoodiac engine keeping his plays in check one game and using Agent + a couple of Quik-Fixes to keep my Utility Wires coming to hold him off before drawing Ratpier and winning from there.

Round 3 vs 60 Card Infernoid/Zoodiac, 2-0 Win

Another round against my friend, this game was weird.He goes first and opens Ratpier which he does the combo with and he makes Bujintei Kagutsuchi with the two Rats he summons. The 5 cards he mills are allspells and the rest of the cards in his hand are either backrow or Infernoids he can’t summon because he literally has milled 0 Infernoids. I clear the board eventually, he stops me with Spiritual Swords of Concealing Light which I later get rid of with Tough and Agent. Then he has an empty field and 7000 life points while I have Drident with Whiptail attached, Agent and Misty on the field, Tough in my graveyard and Big Red and Speedroid Taketomborg in hand. I’m trying to figure out how to get 7000 damage on board, but Drident + Agent + Misty + Tough is only 6500, or 6900 if I make Misty and Agent into Gagaga Samurai, but then I realise that Tough is a Wind and I can special summon Taketomborg from hand for the extra 600 damage! But just before I go committing to any plays, I check his graveyard and see the Spiritual Swords and comment to myself “ah damn you can stop the OTK with this anyway”, which prompts my friend to look at the graveyard and go “oh I completely forgot about that”, so my reminder delayed my win by a turn :P

Then game 2 I opened Artifact Lancea, Maxx “C”, 2 Interrupted Kaiju Slumbers and Torrential Tribute and think “gee this is terrible”. My friend opens an equally awkward hand of Fairy Tail Snow, Zoodiac Whiptail, a couple of Infernoids he can’t summon and something else I can’t remember. I drop the Maxx “C” on the summon of Whiptail (which I probably shouldn’t have, I was planning on using Slumber anyway) and he passes where I then Slumber him after drawing something unhelpful. He’s forced, next turn, to use Infernoid Harmadik to get over my Kaiju and then summons Snow and starts beating me down with that. To which I then, next turn, respond with my OTHER Slumber and, weirdly enough, end up winning with Kaiju beatdown. He never even got enough cards into the graveyard to use Snow’s effect.

Round 4 vs Zoodiac, 2-1 Win

One of the great advantages about playing a rogue deck is taking advantage of the fact that your opponent has no idea what your deck and the individual cards do. He goes first and makes Drident with backrow and Emeral, but by using Assault, Resort, Tough and Agent, I’m able to break through his initial board and clear out his backrow, allow me to then go through the Zoodiac part of my deck and establish a board. He hits some wrong cards with Drident and I eventually overpower him and he scoops.

I forget how game 2 goes, but I think it went something along the lines of “he does Zoodiac things and I don’t get cards to out it hard enough”

Game 3 is great, we both fight through a bunch of each others’ resources, until I’m down to Quik-Fix, a set Starlight Road, a Drone that I searched and another Big Red in hand, while he has very little. He attacks over Quik-Fix with, I think, Whiptail that I stop from going into an Xyz with Dimensional Barrier. I get out something bigger than the Whiptail and also summon Drone which lets me see his top three cards, a Cosmic Cyclone, a Tenki and a Twin Twister. I know I want the Twin Twister on top, but I pretend to be thinking long and hard about the cards that I see to give my opponent the idea that I don’t want him to use them. I then Big Red to get back the Quik Fix and he drops the Maxx “C”, which I feign annoyance at, search a Big Red, attack him for a little bit of damage, set the Big Red as a bluff and pass my turn. He draws the Twin Twister off Maxx “C” and the Cyclone for turn, then goes to Twin Twister my two set cards which of course gets the biggest smile from me as I flip the Starlight Road. He tries to make a play next turn and attacks into my Drone, which I tribute for its effect to increase Quik-Fix’s atk in the damage step, meaning he can’t do any damage. We’re in time by this point, so he concedes.

Round 5 vs Artifact Zoodiac, 1-2 Loss

Another friend of mine, although not as close as my other three friends, I did know his deck beforehand and he went on to win the tournament, so I can’t be too upset I lost I guess? The slightly bothersome bit was that he got a game loss for a decklist error and I still lost despite having the lead anyway, haha.

So game 1 immediately went to me, game 2 I figured out a pretty troublesome fact about the Artifact variant that being it’s much harder for me to play through backrow with cards like Tough and Agent because they wantme to destroy Sanctums and Artifacts. Despite this, I do fight through a Drident and Emeral board and hit a correct backrow, but when I start my Zoodiac play with Barrage he flips Torrential Tribute on the summon of my Broadbull and I’m left with nothing, so he makes a big comeback afterwards and finishes me with Gagaga Samurai.

Game 2 I open really mediocre, with Agent, Taketomborg, Starlight Road, SPYRAL Resort and something else I can’t remember, might have been Big Red. I blind call Agent wrong so I can’t go into any rank 4 plays and have to pass just sitting on Starlight Road. He opens Terrortop and is able to go into the Zoodiac plays and also sets 4 backrow. My turn doesn’t get any better and he flips Sanctum in the end phase to summon his Beagalltach which then destroys his set Scythe. He makes Pleiades and, with his existing Zoodiac board, attacks me for game.

Round 6 vs Atlantean Mermail, 0-2 Loss

I can’t remember the last time I beat Water actually, something about the deck’s sheer explosive, OTK potential just makes it hard for SPYRALs to deal with. It’s like, the OTK power they output just overrides the defensive capabilities I can make with the deck.

It also probably didn’t help that I didn’t open any Zoodiac cards, so I couldn’t even get out a Drident, but oh well. I get OTKed game 1 and game 2 I open bleh and can’t break his board of Toad, Mizuchi and Megalo.

Round 7 vs Metalfoe/Zoodiac/Kozmo, 2-0 Win

Final round and I’m paired against my friend for the fourth time today, which kinda sucks. He goes first, opening pretty decently but I break through it and set up Misty, Agent, Invoker and Drident, which keeps his Pendulum scales from going up and nets me the win.

Game 2 is pretty ridiculous: I accidently sided wrong. So normally, if I expect to be going 2nd, I’ll side out my Zoodiac engine for the Kaiju engine. Over the course of the day though, I figured I only ever could get out Master/make proper use of Assault with the Zoodiac engine, so I decided to side that out to make room for more cards that would help in the matchup. In doing so, I accidentally left in 1 Ratpier, my Whiptail and 1 Barrage. So he goes first and made a first turn board of DOG Fighter, Tincan, a Metalfoes card, a set Counter and complete Pendulum scales. I open Kaiju Slumber, Radian, Terrortop and some other irrelevant cards and think “gee I can get over the board but he still has Pendulum scales so next turn he’ll just do everything all over again”. Regardless, I activate Kaiju Slumber to wipe the board (after first summoning Radian over the DOG Fighter) and then, as I’m going through my deck to get out the Kaijus, I see that I’ve left my Rat and Whiptail in the deck and have an internal moment of “holy crap I can make Drident I accidentally might have won this” and then normal summon the Terrortop, search the Taketomborg and do a liiiitttlleee bit of Zoodiac shenanigans to get out Drident. I hit one scale during my turn, force him to make suboptimal plays the next and then draw Resort which gives me the massive resources necessary to maintain my lead and bring the duel to a close.

I finished up in 8th place, thanks to excellent breakers and a solid win-loss ratio, earning me a fancy Zoodiac mat and my invite to WCQs!

So the first thing you can probably notice here is that I sure am siding a Zoodiac engine. My logic was that I wouldn’t win every die roll and there would be games where I’d go second, thus I built the deck to go second since the Kaijus and SPYRALs are both really good at playing through fields. Then, if I lost a game, I’d side the Kaijus out for the much stronger Zoodiac engine and opt to go first, meaning I’d have an engine that is much more synergistic with the SPYRALs and also a powerful engine in general that was guaranteed to get its plays off because I was going first (well, more likely, plenty of handtraps still exist.)

I felt this logic  was quite sound, however, my problem lay with the fact that I only own one Zoodiac Barrage (and I borrowed the second Barrage, Drident and Bull off a friend, although having tested I believe I only need 1 Bull anyway). Having only one Barrage meant that I only saw it once the whole day (I opened Rat a couple of times) but Barrage really makes the whole combo come together and having only two in the deck hindered the consistency a fair bit. The rest of my side deck I didn’t use that much, the Lancea’s I used once to good effect against ABC but otherwise didn’t come up against any Infernoids and the Twin Twisters and Ghost Ogres were very effective against Metalfoes and Metalfoe variants, as was Ghost Ogre, D.D. Crow and Veiler nice to use against D/D/Ds (although I only ever got to resolve a Ghost Ogre against D/D/Ds, the theory was good.) Solemn Warning was my choice for a replacement to Barrage because, while it couldn’t do what Barrage did, it did put an effective stop to a single play of the opponent’s turn. If I owned a third Dimensional Barrier, I’d have probably used that instead though. Thinking back on it I probably should’ve gone with Vanity’s Emptiness, but it ultimately didn’t really matter because what I’d reallywant would be a third Barrage.

The extra deck is solid, the only thing I’d change is the second Broadbull for something else, maybe an Abyss Dweller? There are heaps of good rank 4 options so I’m not too fussy and I’m sure I’ll come to the optimal decision soon enough. SPYRAL Resort is really exceptional in this variant for putting back your extra deck monsters or the Zoodiac monsters not shuffled back by Emeral, meaning that it can repeatedly make use of the Zoodiac engine, as well as Drident comboeing really nicely with SPYRAL MISSION - Assault and SPYRAL Master Plan.

As for the main deck, I was actually really impressed with the effectiveness of the Kaiju engine, however, I did struggle sometimes with heavy Kaiju hands, even going second. I think I’ve come to the conclusion that I might flip the two engines; main the Zoodiacs and side the Kaijus, with more main-decked protection cards like My Body as a Shield to counter cards like Zoodiac Drident. The SPYRAL cards, notably Misty, Tough and Super Agent, are all actually very effective at playing through fields themselves, meaning that I should be able to still play through fields provided I have some cards like the aforementioned Shield. I’m not 100% on what ratios I should have with the new build, since the Kaiju engine and the Zoodiac engine are both 7 cards. I may go over 40, but I don’t want to get any higher than 42 really, or I start to run into consistency issues (and this variant had a fairly large amount of consistency). Summoner Monk is really powerful in this deck, and so long as I run him I can’t afford to cut cards like Dark Magic Veil nor cut down on the Assaults, but perhaps I’ll do some experimenting.

My next regionals is on the 3rd of March, so I’ll be practicing until then! We’ll also have the Invoked cards by then, so maybe I’ll look into Invoked variants of SPYRAL as well~

All the new SPYRAL cards got announced/leaked a few days ago, but I’ve been taking some time to play around with them for a bit before posting here so I could gain a better understanding of their place in the deck before sharing with you guys!

So first up we have SPYRAL Tough, and he brings some pretty awesome field clearing to the deck! First and foremost, him being treated as SPYRAL Super Agent is phenomenal, meaning you can access your Quik-Fix, Drone, Resort Staff and Utility Wire effects while he is on the field or graveyard, making him already useful in that regard. His stats match Agent, and while he can’t special summon himself, his effect is incredibly useful. Firstly, unlike Agent, he can hit monsters which is awesome for clearing the field. But what’s also important that distinguishes him from Agent is that his effect is not a hard once per turn. If you can bring out multiple Toughs or summon the same Tough multiple times a turn (easy with Assault and/Big Red!) then you can potentially blow away multiple cards in one turn. But the biggest factor contributing to Tough’s usefulness is his ability to look at the top card of your opponent’s deck, like Misty or Drone. Now, between Misty, Drone and Tough, the deck has heaps of ways to set up for Agent’s special summon effect, making it almost guaranteed that you’ll know your opponent’s next draw and be able to extend your plays.

The SPYRAL GEAR - Utility Wire is up next and this card is AMAZING. The most important thing about it is, of course, that it is searchable by Quik-Fix, making it really, really easy to access. Requiring Super Agent (or Tough) on the field to use it is not really a cost as you should be getting Super Agent out onto the field quickly in the first place anyway. The card offers non-destroying removal and returns cards to the deck, the most disruptive form of removal there is in that it not only does not trigger any monster effects, but forcing your opponent to draw a potentially useless card can set them back a whole turn. Naturally, setting a main deck card back to the top of the deck also means you can accurately call Agent, Tough and Misty’s effects correctly, so the synergy is significant. Utility Wire is an excellent, excellent card.

And then SPYRAL MISSION - Recapture is a little less impressive. The effect sounds great when you first read it, but unfortunately there is no in-theme way of special summoning a SPYRAL on your opponent’s turn. As such, the card, although a trap, offers no effective way of interrupting your opponent’s plays on their turn like Utility Wire does, which is what would have made this card really nice. But instead you have a card that takes a turn to set up and effectively offers you little in the way of advantage. The two most crucial, positive applications of Recapture are this: to take control of your opponent’s monsters and use them for Xyz or Synchro summons on your turn (hint, hint, Zoodiacs) or to set up chain links with Super Agent so that he is chain link 1 and Recapture is chain link 2, effectively letting him dodge cards like Solemn Strike, which is okay. The graveyard effect also isn’t anything to write home about; it only protects SPYRAL monsterswhen Resort is the card that mostly needs protection, and even then, it only protects one SPYRAL monster if multiple would be destroyed. Super Agent is usually strong enough to resist any destruction by battle anyway, and then cards like Master or Quik Fix WANT to be destroyed and sent to the graveyard to use their effects anyway. And it can’t protect SPYGAL Misty, who also would benefit from this protection. The card, while searchable, is slow, has rather specific activation requirements and has no in-theme way of being used on the opponent’s turn which is where it needs to be used to be good. If our last set of of support gives us something that lets us special summon on the opponent’s turn, then this card we definitely have its uses. For now though, it’s certainly playable but I feel there are better options.

All in all, from my testing I’ve concluded that Misty, Tough and Wire are all exceptional cards, but Misty is proving to be the most effective. She sets up Agent, draws cards and gives you disruption during either player’s turn. I’ve found that cards like Dark Magic Veil and Summoner Monk give easier access to her and allow you to make full use of her effects despite her SPYGAL limitations. Tough and Wire further enhance the deck’s natural plays and maintain your board and field advantage whilst furthering the deck’s goals of simplifying the gamestate to eventually start hitting them with Drone for the win. With the addition of Symphonics and Zoodiacs in Raging Tempest as well, the deck is highly versatile and I’ve yet to settle on the best build (although it’s looking to be a build with Summoner Monk/Dark Magic Veil and Zoodiacs) and from initial testing I’ve definitely been having success against Zoodiacs and meta decks of the prior format. I’ll keep you all updated as the set is actually released, but I’m really looking forward to playing some more SPYRALs this upcoming format!

Our first SPY…GAL? …SPYRAL support Card is revealed! And I think she’s really good!

At first glance, her not being a SPYRAL card is a rather big detriment: she can’t be searched with Resort nor Master, she can’t be special summoned via Big Red nor Assault and she can’t gain any attack benefits from Drone. Here’s the thing though: those would make her pretty damn broken. Everyone who’s involved in competitive Yugioh knows how absurd Majespecter Unicorn Kirin is and this card would, with the SPYRAL name, essentially turn into a level 4 Kirin that can be searched six ways from Sunday that can also be immune to targeting, battle and have potential for crazy high attack and be much, much, much easier to special summon. In short, no SPYRAL name because otherwise she’d be a lil’ too insane.

That being said, let’s look at the good things! First thing she does is look at the top card of your opponent’s deck, setting up Agent for a special summon and also, if you call it right, netting yourself a free draw. This is extremely important for gathering intel on your opponent’s deck asap, and succeeds in somewhere that Drone didn’t which is on the first turn play. Drone gathers the intel but, on a first turn board, doesn’t do much to interrupt the opponent. Misty, however, lets you put herself and Super Agent on board to bounce something of your opponent’s on their turn, interrupting plays at your leisure. We’ve all seen how strong quick-effect bouncing is with Kirin, so there’s no doubt that Misty’s effect is powerful in that regard, but also significant is putting Agent back in your hand. While in your hand, he can be used again on the next turn, continuing to fight his way through backrow.

She’s a dark spellcaster, like Master Plan, meaning that there’s potential for support from cards like Dark Horizon, Dark Magic Veiler and Allure of Darkness, but we’ll have to see about that in the future. Her first effect is also triggered by a special summon, a slight indication that perhaps there’ll be an in-theme means of special summoning her in the future? Either way, she’s a great card and I’m looking forward to the next three~

New SPYRAL cards on the way! We’ll get a new one revealed starting tomorrow and then the next one each day after that! We’ve also got that super, secret, supposedly game-changing monster being revealed tomorrow as well, so look forward to all that!

Vote for the next SPYRAL to be revealed here!

It’ll be the lady though. It’s allllwwaaaayyss the lady.

What’s up Yugioh nerds, sorry I didn’t post much in the lead up nor during my YCS this past weekend. I’ll admit, I was a liiitttllee bummed out about my performance, but it could’ve been worse I suppose~

I’ll do a breakdown of the whole day below the cut, but, as you’ve likely noticed, I managed to get a feature match at this YCS! I was 3 wins and 1 loss at this stage of the day, so feeling pretty good but alas, things went downhill from here on. I hate to attribute my losses to bad luck, but you’ll see in the video that I definitely got dealt a sub-optimal hand twice in a row and, it’s worth noting also that, throughout the day, I OPENED Gem-Knight Lazuli ten times and DREW Brilliant Fusion twice. I unfortunately, didn’t get to showcase the potential of the SPYRAL deck on stream, but had a bunch of other good games throughout the day that did. Here’s hoping that RATE gives us some really excellent cards to work with that’ll mean I don’t have to run cards like Brilliant Fusion to supplement the deck and can finally be a meta contender. 

Until then, he’s how my deck went: I went 4 wins 3 losses, which is the worst I’ve done at a YCS so far, but the day before I had won 3-0 in a win a mat, which was fun. I think I made my deck the best I could, so I’m not disappointed in that respect and I have RATE to look forward to. Match breakdowns below!

Round 1 vs Paleozoic Frogs

Game 1: I went first and had a very grindy game. I believe my opening board was something decent, enough to ensure he couldn’t make a Toad. The duration of the game was sniping away resources with Agent and Drone while maintaining tempo with Resort until I summoned Trishula, had it returned to the deck with Drowning Mirror Force, then summoned Trishula AGAIN and wiped away all of his resources and took the game.

Game 2: He opens Toad and a bunch of backrow and I know my hand isn’t strong enough to challenge that let alone deal with it, so I go to game 3.

Game 3: Similar to the first game, I won when I summoned Trishula and blew away all their resources and also sniped away their other cards with Agent and PSY-Framelord Omega.

Round 2 vs Darklords

Game 1: My opponent had lost his deck last round and didn’t find it until five minutes into the round, meaning he got a game loss.

Game 2: He opens pretty meh with nothing but a lot of draw power and a Terrortop, when he finally goes to make a play I use D.D. Crow and stop his plays. On my turn, I make Omega + Drone and Agent and start looping Drone to ensure he doesn’t get any cards that can bring him out of the simplified gamestate and win.

Round 3 vs Atlantean/Mermails (played against a friend, never fun to do that)

Game 1: I bricked this game, and he OTKed with Diva and stuff.

Game 2: I think I open double Omega or something that good and then turn 2 resolve Trishula and the game’s over.

Game 3: A really intense game, my friend went first and opened Gaios and Toad and a couple other cards. I had the resources to get around the Gaios and Toad, but not without losing a bunch of my own resources. A combination of Book of Eclipse, Fairy Tail Snow, Brilliant Fusion and I think Raigeki managed to do it and also establish a rudimentary field that kept me in the game for a little longer, but because I had to use Eclipse on the board and couldn’t clear ALL of the monsters, my friend got out another two cards, including Dimensional Barrier. I had a Trishula play the next turn that would’ve probably won me the game, but the Dimensional Barrier sealed the game in a loss for me.

Round 4 vs ABC

Game 1: My opponent makes a mistake by setting a Union Hangar to his spell/trap zone instead of field zone before using Tsukuyomi which resulted in a judge having to fix the gamestate and alter a bunch of things, severely impeded my opponent’s focus for the remainder of the duel. I outed his board and made my own consisting of Omega, Hi-Speedroid Hagoita and used Omega to put a Fairy Tail Snow I’d banished off Desires into the graveyard. He had no way to out the board nor any resources left so went to game 2.

Game 2: My opponent opened Anti-Spell Fragrance, but I used D.D. Crow to stop a Buster Dragon. Despite Anti-Spell locking down a bunch of my plays, I was able to make some plays anyway and clear away some of the backrow. He start assembling some pieces of ABC but he made a disappointed face after using Pot of Desires, making me think he’d banished some of his pieces. I flipped a set System Down the next turn to clear out 2 Bs and 2 Cs he had in grave and one of his As I had hit with D.D. Crow earlier, so I was pretty confident he wouldn’t be able to make Buster this game. His Anti-Spell also started to work against him as he drew Hangar later in the duel but couldn’t play it. Eventually, I got out Omega and used Agent and Drone to clear out the rest of his field and stack his deck, which was when he then conceded.

Round 5 vs ABC

You can watch this in the video! Drawing Lazuli sucks, but I also drew virtually the same hand both games which was pretty frustrating, coupled with the fact that my opponent drew the stones both games.

Round 6 vs Paleozoics

Forgot to write this one down, but I went 1-2 a loss, I’m sure there was a Lazuli hand here somewhere that contributed to the loss.

Round 7 vs Odd-Eyes Magicians

Game 1: He lets me go first but, surprise surprise, I open Lazuli and it contributes to a bricky hand and I lose.

Game 2: I go first, open Omega and Dimensional Barrier with Resort on the field so winning is no problem.

Game 3: I Twin Twister his scales and use Drone and Agent so he has no plays for a quick win.

YGOPro is awful for testing competitively I’ve found, almost purely because I can’t go anywhere without seeing “Meta-deck guest starring Zoodiacs”. And testing against that doesn’t do me a whole lotta good considering my deck will be entirely different when Zoodiacs come out.

Anyway, look at this abomination that is doing surprisingly better than the 40 card variant I had. Basically, with 40 cards, I was pretty limited in my combos, mostly relying on opening a combination of Scrap Recycler/Mathematician and then a two card combination that also got out Master Plan to start off my Synchro plays. If I DIDN’T open that specific combination, my plays weren’t very good.

So by making the deck 60 cards, I’ve vastly increased the amount of combos the deck has. Weirdly enough, this had made it more consistent in making A play, as opposed to ‘sometimes’ making my ‘good’ play. The deck is also better for going first as a result, since now I have heaps of options for first turn combos that don’t necessarily rely on the SPYRALs or, similarly, don’t necessarily rely on Mathematician/Recycler.

Vanity’s Fiend and Scolding I only just put in. The logic with Fiend is that it’s a main-deck boss monster and I run so many special summon cards that tribute summoning him is super easy, also tributing Master Plan to summon him is pretty sweet, since Resort + Fiend + Agent on the field means I can keep boosting up Agent each turn with Drone while Vanity’s locks my opponent down. And Scolding’s just a neato trap, I felt like I could need more protection going first, haha.

But yeah, my main problem right now is lack of testing. I’ve been super busy all throughout December, so only get to locals every now and then. I have a YCS in January, which I am super excited for, but I’m going to need to do heaps of testing before I’m satisfied with my deck’s performance and right now I’m just not in a spot to do much testing. After Christmas though, I’m hoping to just regularly meet up with my friends and really put the pedal to metal in terms of testing~

As always, ideas and feedback are appreciated~

So after a difficult time trying to find Scrap Recyclers anywhere, I’ve finally finished my SPYRAL deck IRL! All that I think I want to add are Dimensional Barriers in place of the Solemns in the side deck, but otherwise it’s looking good to go! I’ll be taking it to locals on Saturday, so I’ll let’cha all know how it goes!

Here’s an updated decklist!

I cut out Prohibition, as hilarious as it was to use at times, in order to make space for consistency/setup cards like Mathematician and Scrap Recycler. Both send key cards like tuners or SPYRALs to the graveyard so I can start my plays. I also cut Phoenix Wing to the side deck, as this deck almost always MUST go second in order to do its thing and PWWB isn’t good going second. Great going first though! Twin Twister proved to be a MUCH better card, as it not only clears away the ever-so problematic Vanity’s Emptiness, but in a pinch it can be used first turn to start off your combos by discarding things you want to use graveyard effects of (and destroying your own cards isn’t so bad; typically you’ll hit either Resort, which you can get another copy of with Master, or Assault, which you want in the grave anyway).

The extra deck has Scrap Dragon (which is VERY nice with Master + tuner because you can destroy the Assault you searched with Master to extend your plays) and Herald, which is an easy level 4 to make with Math/Recycler and the tuner they send. Herald alone is pretty meh, but set it up with something like Stardust Spark or just a board of stuff and you can do some serious damage to decks like BA.

Let me know if there are any suggestions!

So I was thinking “hey, you made one video and you have all these replays saved up, why not just make a full length, proper video?”

So here it is, 13 minutes of SPYRAL shenanigans WITH sound. Check out the insane plays you can do! The deck has so many options! And, if you’d like, I have a reflection upon the deck, going into detail with regard to its playstyle and what I’ve learnt from testing it below the cut.

I am really, really enjoying this deck, almost as much if not equally as much as I enjoy playing Noble Knights. The deck is so fun and has so many options and cards like Drone and Agent have such unique interactions with the opponent’s deck that make alter your playstyle beyond the standard lines of thought.

With that in mind, I think I’ve ascertained the best way to play SPYRALs: the key is Drone. Now, as you can see from the video, all of SPYRALs big, explosive plays come from discarding/sending your key combo pieces to the graveyard - like Master Plan, Quik-Fix, Jet Synchron, Glow-Up Bulb, SPYRAL MISSION Assault, and so on - and bringing them back with their own effects or Big Red for massive Synchro plays. Now these plays tend to wipe out your opponent’s field and, with Trishula and Omega, even their hand and/or graveyard. Cards like Coral Dragon, Moonlight Rose Dragon and Dullahan all take out cards or weaken them so your other monsters can take them down. Super Agent clears out backrow and can boost his atk very high with Drone, and because of Resort and Master Plan, he is incredibly easy to search nowadays.

Now all that is super important for this reason: it simplifies the gamestate and narrows down your opponent’s resources. Even if you’ve also exhausted a lot playing through your opponent’s field, it’s at this point in the game that Drone becomes highly important. Stacking your opponent’s next draw secures your win condition. By simplifying the gamestate and then utilising Drone to ensure your opponent’s next draw is dead means that you can continue your explosive plays while ensuring your opponent has none. And since SPYRAL have so many recovery abilities and search power, it’s almost guaranteed that you’ll have a play next turn.

It’s a deck with a huge amount of potential, even this format. Now I wouldn’t go so far as to say it will be a contender for number one deck this format, but it is definitely shaping up to be a strong competitor nonetheless. It has a hugely versatile set of options in each game and the combos you can do with the deck are virtually limitless. It’s decks like this that make me wish the extra deck was bigger!

I don’t know if I’ve got the perfect build down, but I’m definitely happy with my current success. I’ll be keeping you all updated on my further builds and testing results and will be absolutely sure to let you know how I do with this deck at real life events!

Terrortop, Quik-Fix and Machine Duplication is greeeeaaaaatttt