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Staff

Wow! Three weeks of Invitationals have already come and gone! A great deal of shock and awe have resounded through out North America as drastically different decks have proved their worth while throwing so much deck theory to the wind. What does all this variation mean for Duel Masters, though? Is Duel Masters more of a game of chance than any other? Does it really matter what cards you play? Perhaps Duel Master is simply the most balanced game to come along! More likely we are looking at a mix of both…

The information for this article has been derived from the only deck reports I have been able locate plus a little bit of information I was able to pull out of people I have talked to since the invitationals began. Because of this the entire article is based upon ten decks, plus that little bit of extra information. Despite the limited amount of information available for this report, I believe the decks included are an accurate enough representation of the current field of play – thus allowing us to draw at least some conclusions about the North American metagame.

So many people have been chatting it up on all the message boards about how different the winning decks they see are from their local metagame. I believe this to ultimately be a myth and in this article I intend to show this to you. Remember – these are the winning decks. As you read this article think about the decks that consistently dominate your own metagame and see if they seem to match up more than you originally thought…

Water and Darkness are the clearly the dominate colors currently being played. Amongst the winning decks reported plus those I have recorded in interviews 92.3% run at least some water (and normally a dominate amount) and 84.6% run some Darkness (this includes those that run a splash for Terror Pit). Fire seems to possess the next most dominant showing followed by Nature. Light falls predictably short with mostly being splashed for Holy Awe when played at all – an interesting phenomenon of which cecillbill has commented on seeming to be North American rather than a world-wide one.

While this informs us what civilizations are most played, it does not cover in what mixes they are played. When Duel Masters was first introduced we saw a great many mono-civilization decks and those with a little more guts ran dual civilizations. Gone are those days – and likely for good. A majority of winning decks at 57.2% ran three civilizations. A still significant 21.4% ran four civilizations leaving very few dual and single civilizational decks. This is an interesting new trend which I believe is truly setting Duel Masters apart from the often compared Magic: The Gathering which tends to show up with decks of much more limited color.

Hand destruction (forcing your opponent to discard) is a tactic that has been gaining a great deal of attention recently. While the showing of hand destruction decks is not yet overwhelming over third of all winning decks ran hand destruction as a serious strategy (I’m not counting those that tossed in a couple of Lost Souls). Expect to see more or this tactic as it continues to perform well and new hand destruction options come about.

Plenty of people have tried to tackle the “top x cards in the game.” While my intention is not to argue what the best card truly are, I would like to point out what the top winning decks say. Nearly every deck ran an entire playset Corile and/or Terror Pit – 9 out of 10. Eight out of every ten decks dared to run Pyrofighter Magnus and clearly showed off the little dragonoid’s power. Around half of the decks also ran both Emeral and Illusionary Merfolk in various amounts. Based upon this assessment I would say any top 10 list that doesn’t include these five in the top 5 is falling short to say the least – results don’t lie.

Another extremely debated subject is the amount of card that belong in a deck. Since the release of Duel Masters many players have preached the need to run as few cards as possible – thus keeping every and any deck down to 40 cards. How does this advice pan out in the results? Well – not a single top deck I located ran exactly 40 cards! In fact, the average seems to come out to somewhere around 47.5 cards! Time to head back to the drawing board for a few of you guys?

We’ve got a couple of months worth of Invitationals left! Look carefully at what is truly showing promise and power and perhaps you will want to reevaluate what you are going to take to Invitationals. Heed this advice and I look forward to seeing you at the Continental Championships!

I’ve compiled the sources I used for this article. Feel free to check them out – they are listed below.

Regards,
JMatthew
Markulin33@msn.com

Decks
Store: Gamelot
City: San Antonio, TX
Date: June 12th, 2005
2nd Place (15+)
Played by: Dk_Torres

4x mana nexus
3x natural snare
3x Barkwhip the smasher
4x Bronze arm tribe
3x crow winger
2x crystal Paladins
4x aqua guard
4x corile
4x emeral
4x aqua hulcus
3x illusionary merfolk
4x Pyrofighter magnus
4x searing wave
4x terror Pit

Total: 50 cards

Store: Gamelot
City: San Antonio, TX
Date: June 12th, 2005
2nd Place (14-)
Played by: Tony Bishop

4x Torcon
4x Bronze Arm Tribe
4x Fighter Duel Fang
4x Aqua Gaurd
4x Aqua Hulcus
4x Aqua Jolter
3x Crystal Paladin
3x Crystal Lancer
4x Corile
4x Holy Awe
4x Mana Nexus

Total: 42

Store: Madness Games
City: Dallas, TX
Date: June 18th, 2005
3rd/4th Place
Played by: Tang

4x Magris, Vizier of Magnetism
4x Sarius, Vizier of Suppression
3x Craze Valkyrie, the Drastic
4x Holy Awe
4x Terror Pit
3x Ghost Touch
4x Locomotiver
3x Death Smoke
4x Emeral
4x Corile
3x Illusionary Merfolk
4x Energy Stream

Total: 44 cards


Store: Gator Games & Hobby
City: San Mateo, California
Date: June 11th, 2005
Top 4
Played by: Mark Sweeney

4x Emeral
4x Thrash Crawler
4x Crystal Memory
4x Horrid Worm
4x Locomotiver
4x Proclamation of Death
4x Terror Pit
4x Pyrofighter Magnus
4x Rikabu's Screwdriver
4x Rothus the Traveler
4x Searing Wave

Total: 44 cards


Store: N/A Wizard World Philly
City: Philadelphia,
Date: June 4, 2005
4th Place
Played by: Elephant_Smash

Corile x4
Emeral x4
Illusionary Merfolk x4
Aqua Hulcus x4
Hunter Fish x4
Horrid Worm x4
Locomotiver x4
Ghost Touch x4
Terror Pit x4
Death Smoke x4
Pyrofighter Magnus x4
Searing Wave x4

Total: 48 cards


Store: Rising Phoenix
City: Gretna, Louisiana
Date: June 11th, 2005
1st Place
Played by: Daniel Seghers, Jr.
4x Bronze-Arm Tribe
2x Barkwhip The Smasher
2x Crow Winger
2x Fighter Dual Fang
2x Torcon
4x Aqua Hulcus
4x Corile
4x Aqua Guard
3x Crystal Lancer
2x Aqua Jolter
4x Mana Nexus
4x Natural Snare
2x Brain Serum
4x Terror Pit
Total: 43 cards

Store: Wizard World east
City: Philidelphia
Date: June 4th, 2005
1st Place
Played by: Sergio

4x Terror Pit
3x Mana Nexus
3x Rumbling Terrahorn
2x Twin Cannon Skyterror
2x Doboulgeyser, Giant Rock Beast
3x Crimson Hammer
3x Hunter Fish
2x Dark Reversal
4x Corile
4x Natural Snare
3x Bronze Arm Tribe
2x Lost Soul
4x Searing Wave
3x Meteosaur
2x Phantom Fish
4x Emeral
3x Illusionary Merfolk
4x Aqua Hulcus
Total: 55



Store: Wizard World east
City: Philidelphia
Date: June 4th, 2005
2nd Place
Played by: Nick

4x Terror Pit
4x Locomotiver
3x Lost Soul
4x Aqua Hulcus
4x Searing Wave
2x Bolmeteus Steel Dragon
1x Twin Cannon Skyterror
4x Corile
4x Hunter Fish
4x Phantom Fish
4x Energy Stream
4x Meteosaur
1x Bazagazeal Dragon
1x Pyrofighter Magnus

Total: 42

Store: Wizard World east
City: Philidelphia
Date: June 4th, 2005
3rd Place
Played by: Griffin

4x Searing Wave
4x Corile
4x Illusionary Merfolk
4x Horrid Worm
4x Terror Pit
4x Death Smoke
4x Pyrofighter Magnus
4x Emeral
4x Aqua Hulcus
4x Ghost Touch
4x Locomotiver
4x Hunter Fish

Total: 48

Store: Wizard World east
City: Philidelphia
Date: June 4th, 2005
4th Place
Played by: Manuel

4x Terror Pit
4x Mana Nexus
4x Bronze Arm Tribe
3x Tornado Flame
3x Sarius, Vizer of Suppression
2x Fighter Duel Fang
2x Twin Cannon Skyterror
4x Pyrofighter Magnus
4x Bombat, General of Speed
4x Natural Snare
4x Holy Awe
4x Burst Shot
2x Dark Reversal
4x Rikabu, the Dismantler
2x Kanesill, the Explorer
3x Lost Soul
3x Rumbling Terrahorn

Total: 56

Store: Madness Games
City: Dallas, TX
Date: June 18th, 2005
1st Place
Played by: N/A

4 Civilization Survivor
DK Torres provided me with an approximation of this deck. I couldn’t believe or understand the deck at first so I slapped it together and playtested it. This deck is AWESOME and likely the only true combo deck currently existing in the game. Here’s the approximation…

3x Q-tronic Gagantua
2x Tornado Flame
3x Blazosaur Q
2x Burst Shot
2x Searing Wave
3x Skullsweeper Q
3x Grave Worm Q
4x Terror Pit
4x Ripple Lotus Q
4x Spikestrike Ichthys Q
3x Smash Horn Q
3x Factory Shell Q
3x Bronze-Arm Tribe
3x Faerie Life

Store: Gamelot
City: San Antonio, TX
Date: June 12th, 2005
3rd/4th place (15+)
Played by: Matt

Mono-Water
DK Torres could likely give me a decklist, however I forget to bother to ask him and haven’t chatted with him in several days. This deck is pretty much what you might expect from Mono-Water, though.

Store: Gamelot
City: San Antonio, TX
Date: June 12th, 2005
1st place (15+)
Played by: Aaron

Hydrocutter
Strong control deck focusing on light blockers with Hydro Hurricane and Diamond Cutter for finishers.

Store: Gamelot
City: San Antonio, TX
Date: June 12th, 2005
1st place (14-)
Played by: Phillip

Water/Darkness
Bounce control with darkness creature kill.