YCS Kansas Analysis

Pretty good coverage this time around, good job konami! Hey guys! So today I am going to be talking about YCS kansas and its implications on the meta!

This is the YCS that dictates the rest of the format(barring anything too broken comes out of order of chaos). The top 32 was as follows
16 Tengu Tour guide decks
5 Agent decks
4 Rabbit decks
3 Dark world
2 Karakuri
1 X-saber
1 Chaos

So this YCS was slightly more diverse than the last. Dark worlds have finally got the tops they deserve and it seems that dark smog really was a necessity though apparently it doesn't outright kill tengu/tour guide decks(just look at those numbers). Agents continue to fall out of favor, in fact rabbit decks almost equaled them in number, and I expect by the next YCS the Rabbit will have more tops than agents. Honestly tengu/tourguide decks is without a doubt the best deck of the format, it combines the two best cards in yugioh and the best engine in yugioh and puts them in a super powered deck. Karakuri decks continue to show up proving that they are a legitimate contender. I have a bias towards sabers so I am very glad that they topped, I am very interested in seeing what his build was. Not to mention Chaos topping which I was extremely glad about as this format is screaming chaos but they really haven't made a impact.

On a side note doesn't it always seem that the non big deck of the format always play eachother. Example: Top 4 the karakuri and chaos players play each other and the tengu/tour guide players play each other  How about if we have Chaos vs. Tengu/Tour guide and karakuri vs. Tengu/tour guide, but I digress this happens every YCS and every time I complain.

The eventual winner was(ironically) Courtney Waller with his Chaos deck. May I point out that this wasn't a deck with chaos in it it was a chaos deck with other cards in it(like Maxx c) the difference is the latter is a "true" Chaos deck and not some impostor with 2 rai-ohs and effect veiler with the plant engine + tour guide. His deck focused on the meta with dd crow and such and it was a solid list. I was happy to see a non tengu/tourguide deck win but it really doesn't change much as tengu/tour guide is still outright the best deck. and I don't see that changing anytime soon.

Dark World while they topped, still imo haven't lived up to their hype, they didn't top at their debut YCS and now have only topped 3 times. Part of the problem is tengu/tour guide decks are so good it makes everything else look underwhelming. Still Dark Smog did help them but their refusal to change with the dynamic meta will only continue to hurt them. Also if you have the tour guides you might as well use them for a better deck like tengu/tour guide which is also part of the problem, it's almost a gravekeeper esque problem where GK's did not change so people got bored and moved to other decks, only this time its tour guide and it being in other decks that are better than dark worlds.

Dino Rabbits did very well, to be honest I wasn't sure about the deck in my testing as it was so reliant on either opening with rabbit or tour guide and if you didn't draw into either  fast the deck would fall flat. I said this before it is a deck entirely reliant on how good your early game is. That and the fact that it has to run 6 sub par monsters 3 of which are terrible(Kabuzalus) as it is a neg one for you if tengu runs  into it. Alas dino rabbits had a good showing and the odds are in thier favor as you have roughly a 39% chance of drawing into either a rabbit or a tour guide(80% if you count both of those cards). Still the deck is very expensive and while that is not a problem for big time players it is a problem for the average player, which is why the deck is continually going to be underrepresented at regionals and such.

All in all this is the most important YCS of the format, this is the best our format has to offer and it tells you what you need to side, there are really no secrets left. That is why this YCS is important not because of who won or how many pro players made it into the top 32 but because this was the cahnce for all decks to shine and show if they lived up to the hype, from now to march your side deck should have no problem reflecting meta trends.

Thanks for reading!
SIDE NOTE: Thanks for the 6,000+ page views lets get that number up to 10,000 by march(which is this blogs 1 year anniversary for those not keeping track) keep on reading and I hope I helped, I will have a mid format analysis up in the coming week so look out for that!
-Cameron