Yu-Gi-Oh! Meta Analysis Week 4

By Froylan Carreno

It's official. The meta has reverted to it's unbalanced state prior to the ban list. Almost everyone on DN are using the decks that are far too overpowered to exist in the game, such as the newly-revived Dragon Rulers, Mermails, and now tons of other annoying decks people are using to counter those exact decks -- Decks that have long been loathed by the Yu-Gi-Oh community far before Dragon Rulers, those being Final Countown, Burn, and Exodia decks. With few decks being able to compete against the competitive decks, people have resorted to using "the cheap decks" to more effectively beat them in a duel.

"Final Countdown" is a card that, once activated, you will instantly win the duel within 20 turns, regardless of Life Points! Until those 20 turns are up, the user will continually stall with cards like Battle Fader and Threatening Roar -- Cards that are incredibly hard to stop, even for the Meta decks. The next deck on this list of "cheap" decks is Burn, a type of deck that relies on inflicting Effect Damage to your opponent, instead of Battle Damage. What makes facing this deck incredibly frustrating is how the opponent would always set 4 to 5 cards in the back row, pass turn to you, and then explode with their face-downs, then proceed to wreck you -- While at the same time protecting themselves with similar cards used in a Final Countdown deck. Before you know it, your Life Points are at 0, and all your attempts to reduce your opponents Life Points become irrelevant. The next deck, however, is probably the most infamous deck of all time, and undoubtedly one of the most despised.

Everybody knows when they're dueling an Exodia deck player, almost as soon as the opponent plays their first card. And when one finds out they're playing an Exodia player, they proceed to point an imaginary gun to their head, especially me. To win with an Exodia deck, you have to draw all 5 "pieces" or cards of Exodia in your hand, which with the right amount of cards and luck, you can literally accomplish without even giving your opponent a chance to play. In real life, no one ever wants to duel an Exodia player, even friends will try everything to avoid playing you. On DN, most people would instantly quit when they quickly realize you're playing such a taboo deck. But all these decks, though immensely infuriating, were mostly brought back into light when it becomes apparent any other deck(s) would have a hard time fighting a new age Meta deck.  

Certain aspects of the Yu-Gi-Oh game definitely need to be addressed, but those points are for another day. These decks are only being used more often because stronger, meta decks are becoming more prevalent. I myself am testing a Noble Knight deck -- A deck I am actually enjoying, for the simple fact that I came up with the full deck list myself with no outside sources, and it seems to win somewhat often! Though next week I will probably be using another deck, I feel Noble Knights will still stay one of my favorites.