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What are you playing?
What deck are you on?
What are you sleeving up for the tourny?
 
These are just a few things you've probably been asked if you're going to the World Championship Qualifiers (I'm calling it Nationals for the rest of the article, get over it.).  I personally don't have a clue what I am playing yet.  I've narrowed it down to about 5 decks, but, after that, I still have a lot of testing.  You?  You may know what you're playing, if you don't though, read on!  I plan to outline what will be the major players this year at Nationals, and, why they're such titans right now.
 
 
Firstly, let's start off with what just won YCS Philly: Chaos Dragons.  Chaos Dragons is an incredibly resilient deck, as well as what I imagine Konami has been trying to make competitive since Invasion of Chaos was released.  It has Chaos effects, as well as everyone's favorite Monster Type, all in one very competitive, tier 1 deck.  Let's break this down:

Most common combo in the deck:  Red Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon + Lightpulsar Dragon
Deadliest Card in deck: Black Luster Soldier - Envoy of the Beginning OR Future Fusion

I know it seems silly to put Future Fusion on the same level as Black Luster Soldier, but, if they play Future Fusion on turn 1.  You are probably going to lose.

For example:
Future Fusion
>Reveal FGD/Five Headed Dragon/whatever it's called
>>Send Eclipse Wyvern to 'yard
>>>Remove Red Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon
>>Send Red Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon to 'yard
>>Send Eclipse Wyvern to 'yard
>>>Remove Light Pulsar Dragon
>>Send Light Pulsar Dragon to 'yard
>>Send Darkflare Dragon to 'yard

Now all of your Chaos monsters are turned on, not to mention you get a 5000/5000 monster in a couple of turns.  Don't forget removing the Wyvern's puts more cards in your hand as well.  Did I mention you still have 5 cards in your hand after all of this?  this deck just has so many good top decks that it is kind of rediculous.  There are around 10 cards you can topdeck that will just win you the game by itself

1-3. Light Pulsar
4. Darkflare Dragon
5-7. Red Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon
8. Judgment Dragon
9. Dark Armed Dragon
10. Black Luster Soldier - Envoy of the Beginning

To make room for all of the boss monsters (25% percent of the total deckspace!) most builds of dragons only play a single trap card in the main deck:  Treacherous Trap Hole.  While the card can help a lot, it is just a generic +1 that is chainable to mystical space typhoon and the like.  The deck generally has another 10 cards or so dedicated to the Lightsworn Engine to fuel Chaos monsters into the graveyard.  The biggest drawback of the deck is sometimes you get hands that are like
1. Solar Recharge
2. Solar Recharge
3. Black Luster Soldier
4. Dark Armed Dragon
5. Eclipse Wyvern
6. Light Pulsar Dragon

On the other hand, though, a single dark monster, a lightsworn, or, a REDMD and the hand gets pretty nutty.
 
Next up, I'll talk about the other deck that was in the top 8 of YCS Philly:  Dino-Rabbits.

Whether you like Dino-Rabbits (aka play the deck), or hate them (everyone else), it is hard to deny the hyper-consistency of the deck itself. 

For those who don't know, the deck revolves around using Rescue Rabbit to special summon two copies of Sabersaurus or Kabuzauls and overlaying the two normal Dinosaur-type monsters into Evolzar Dolkka or Evolzar Laggia.  One the Rabbit is banished, the deck generally uses Tour Guide from the Underworld to turn into Leviair the Sea Dragon, which, in turn, special summons Rabbit back from being RFG.  It's pretty rediculous, to put it lightly.  Generally any of their hands that have any combination of at least 1 Rescue Rabbit, follow by any combo of 2 Tour Guides and/or Rabbits is nigh-unbeatable, the amount of negation is horrible to play against.
 
Most common combo in the deck:  Rescue Rabbit >> Two Dino-type Normal monsters >> Evol XYZ
Deadliest Card in deck: Rescue Rabbit, Tour Guide from the Underworld
 
The rest of the deck is basically staples.  Another monster commonly played in these decks is Jurrac Guaiba with Forbidden Lance.  The Lance is good because it can protect Rabbit/Tour Guide, while also making your opponent's monsters smaller for Guaiba to run over.  The Guaiba just grabs another Guaiba, and then XYZ summons an Evol XYZ monsters to start the madness via that route.  This deck is fantastic and relatively easy to play.  Expect it to be very popular if you are at Nationals, and know the matchup well.
 
 
The third deck to round out the "big three" decks to expect is the Insect Horror itself:  The Human Cent- err, Inzektors.
 
Inzektors basically is what Dragunities wished they were.  The way the deck works, is they destroy a few cards a turn, while building their forces(/swarm).

Generally the deck centers around the card Inzektor Hornet.  It then uses Inzektor Dragonfly, with Inzektor Centipede to 'loop' your opponent's cards into the graveyard, while searching their deck for more Inzektors.  For example:

>Summon Inzektor Dragonfly
>Equip Hornet
>Send Hornet to GY
>>Destroy Card
>>>Dragonfly triggers: Search for Centipede
>Centipede Special Summons
>Equip Hornet
>Send Hornet to GY
>>Destroy Card
>>>Centipede Triggers: Search for Hornet
Repeat the Process next turn

Most common combo in the deck:  *See Above*
Deadliest Card in deck: Inzektor Hornet

Even after looping their opponent's cards out of play, the Inzektor deck still needs to actually win, right?  This is achieved with Izektor Giga-Mantis.  The card already makes one of your other in-play insects somewhat formidable on its own, then, once their opponent has no field, they target their own Mantis with Hornet to get another card out of their deck, and return one from their graveyard to play.  Eventually they just swarm the field and use something like Number 22: Giga-Brilliant to push for game.
 

Next up, I'm going to outline what I consider tier 1.5 decks (or what will be by then) and should be expected and tested for.
 

I'll start off by talking about what, until recently, was on the list of tier 1 decks: Wind-Ups.

Wind-Ups had a lot of hype right after the banlist hit exactly 0 cards they play and when people started using the 'hand loop' in the deck.  For people who don't understand the hand loop, it's an incredibly long process, and I outline it in another article about card advantage, feel free to refer to it for more information.  I feel that Wind-Ups may see another resurgence due to the availability of Tour Guide from the Underworld in Battle Pack: Epic Dawn, since the small availability of the card was part of what hurt the deck's popularity. 

Most common combo in the deck:  Hand Loop
Deadliest Card in deck: Wind-Up Rabbit, Wind-Up Shark

Part of what makes this deck so popular, is that unopposed, it is more than likely the only deck in this article more consistent that Dino-Rabbit.  All of the following combinations of cards can lead to a turn 1 hand loop:

TGU (Tour Guide) + Wind-Up Shark
TGU + Instant Fusion
TGU + Wind-Up Factory
Wind-Up Shark + Wind-Up Magician
Wind-Up Shark + Wind-Up Factory + Any Wind-Up monster
Wind-Up Factory + Instant Fusion + Any level 3 Wind-Up

I imagine there are some that I left out here, but, if you open up with any of those and a pot of avarice, your opponent starts out with 0 cards in hand, and you start out with a total of 8-9 cards, most of which being XYZ monsters.  The biggest weakness of the Wind-Up deck, is that it is affected by almost all of the hate in the format.  With priority gone, Bottomless Trap Hole can kill the combo.  There are tons of things that hurt the combo itself, unfortunately, though with most of the cards in the deck becoming more accessable, it may see some more popularity. 
 
Next up, the deck that has been trying to make it to 'tier 1' status for about six months:  Heroes

There are actually several builds of Heroes, and, in most people's opinion, while the deck can be annoying, it is the 'fair' deck of the format.  Fair being that it doesnt have some rediculous combo to just make it impossible for your opponent to ever win.  Generally speaking, the deck tries to get 1 or 2 monsters and just protect them until they beat the opponent down.  There are builds that use Fusion Gate, but they aren't what are seen more often, so I will leave that be for now.

Most common combo in the deck:  Super Polymerization to steal monsters
Deadliest Card in deck: Elemental Hero The Shining, Elemental Hero Absolute Zero

As stated above, the deck will try to 'steal' your monsters for fusion materials using Super Polymerization, which, for some reason, Konami decided cannot be responded to with anything.  Literally. 

The most common builds of Heroes right now are Bubble Beatdown and Light Beatdown.  Neither are uncommon, and both share a lot of the same cards, with 3-5 cards being the difference between the two.  The Bubble Beat variant seriously plays Elemental Hero Bubbleman, and the Light Beatdown version plays Cyber Dragon and Thunder King Rai-oh.  Both builds generally play Elemental Hero Neos Alius as a beatdown monster and target for Gemini Spark.  Not to mention it is a good thing to use to make Elemental Hero The Shining (as opposed to E-Hero Sparkman). 

The decks biggest weakness lies in what makes it so popular.  It doesn't have any game winning combos.  While netting lots of little +1's through gemini spark, battle, and things of the like, there isn'y anthing like the Wind-Up hand loop or the Red Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon/Lightpulsar combo that is almost unstoppable, so it can have problems dealing with those kinds of strategies.  It can also have a very hard time if it loses the die roll and the other player starts off with a loopy combo.
 

The third deck to be considered Tier 2 or better by Nationals is Samurai.  Lately the Samurai haven't been making huge waves at American tournaments, but, we have to consider that Mexico and Canada are both going to be at the WCQ and Samurai are HUGE in Mexico.  The deck is also the only deck that still synchro summons a lot, since plants got nuked.  The strength of the deck is that it can have 12 cards on turn 1 and all of the monsters be Evol-level synchros, as well as exceeds.  The deck has been doing somewhat iffy in the US, losing on the bubble at most big tournaments, but, it is getting a structure deck a few days before nationals, and that last three three structures released have all been pretty bombastic.

Most common combo in the deck:  Double Exceed or Synchro monster
Deadliest Card in deck: Legendary Six Samurai - Shi En, Naturia Barkion, Legendary Six Samurai - Enishi

I may be a bit biased on this call, as far as seeing samurais as a big threat, but, the deck has become huge every time it gets new playable cards, so I'm expecting something pretty huge for the deck.  The deck really can just go bonkers.  Take the following hand for example
 
1. Monster Reborn
2. Gateway of the Six
3. Six Samurai United
4. Shien's Dojo
5. Shien's Dojo
6. Kagemusha of the Six Samurai

Going first, this hand is nigh-unbeatable. Observe
1.Gateway/United/Dojo/Dojo
2. Kagemusha 2/1/1/1
3. Get Kizan 0/0/0/1
4. SS Kizan 2/1/1/2
5. Get Kizan 0/0/1/1
6. SS Kizan 2/1/2/2
7. Get Kizan 0/0/1/2
8. SS Kizan 2/1/2/3
9. Get Grandmaster of the Six Samurai 1/0/0/3
10. Overlay two Kizans into Blade Armor Ninja
11. Detach a Kizan for Ninja's effect
12. SS Grand Master 3/1/1/4
13. Crack Dojo for Shien's Squire 3/1/4
14. Synchro Kizan/Squire into LSS Shi En 5/2/5
15. Use gateway to get back Squire 0/1/5
16. Synchro Grandmaster and Squire into Naturia Barkion
17. Use Gateway to get back Grandmaster from Graveyard 0/1/1
18. SS Grandmaster 2/2/2
19. Overlay Grandmaster/Shi En into Number 12: Crimson Shadow Armor Ninja
20. Detach Shi En for Effect
21. Get back Kizan with gateway 0/1/1
22. SS Kizan 2/2/2
23. Gateway to SS Shien's Squire 0/0/0
24. Synchro Squire/Kizan into Naturia Beast
25. Monster Reborn Shi En 2/1/1
Too long didnt Read?
You end turn 1 with:
Gateway of the Six + 2 counters
Shien's Dojo 1 counter
Six Samurai United 1 counter
Legendary Six Samurai - Shi En
Naturia Barkion
Naturia Beast
Blade Armor Ninja
Number 12: Crimson Shadow Shadow Ninja
7 cards in Graveyard

While that board state isn't completely unbeatable, it's hard to imagine that working out for the opponent.
There are a lot of times where the deck is just an autopilot deck that spams Shi En as often as possible, but, some of the more complicated plays take a lot of practice to learn and know what order to special summon certain monsters (take the play above for example, that was harder than it looked, haha).  The deck's biggest weakness, at least right now, is that it has basically 0 good lategame topdecks.  All of the cards have fantastic synergy together, but are somewhat mediocre in a vacuum. 
 
 
I'm honestly not sure what I'm going to be playing yet, and I am going to try to do another article outlining some of the other 'fringe' decks to expect.  If I had unlimited funds and cardpool, I would probably play Dino Rabbit, with a lot of monster removal, or maybe maindeck Macro Cosmos, since that can really hurt the dragon deck itself, and that is the deck's only bad matchup off the top of my head.  If I forgot something feel free to contact me and ALL CAPS me about it or something.

email: andro_sphinx@yahoo.com
pojo forums: themcshakealchemis (no T)
youtube: themcshakealchemist
twitter: paper_gangsta_
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I'd love to talk to anyone about the game, feel free to reach me on any of the previously listed accounts!
 
Never stop learning
 
Sean Handy
The McShake Alchemist