Goodbye, Unicorn

On 30 September 2016, I, Scrublas participated in the final tournament for a full powered Metalfoes deck right before the 1 October 2016 OCG banlist goes into action, limiting our beloved Majespecter Unicorn – Kirin from 3 to 1.

 This is the first Forbidden/Limited List that have actually hit a deck after I came back to the game. Back then, TeleDAD and Lightsworn was running amok in the meta game. Lightsworn was my go to deck back when I was playing competitively, and I sold off the deck right before the deck was crippled by Konami’s ban hammer. Moving on to Black Feathers, and eventually quitting the game after Trishula, Dragon of the Ice Barrier became a necessary staple and me, being a 16 years old teen, was unable to afford it.

I came back to the game with the following archetype dominating the Meta game: Blue Eyes White Dragon, Burning Abyss (Phantom Knight Variant), D/D and Metalfoes. I was too afraid to jump head into a deck with a totally new summoning method (Pendulum), and thus I did not chose to play Metalfoes. I didn’t like the concept of D/D, and thus was left with only with Blue Eyes White Dragon and Burning Abyss. I was leaning towards Blue Eyes, but I was unsure what made me went into the Burning Abyss. It might be due to it being brought up in one of Dan Brown’s Novel, Inferno and me being a fanboy of Dan Brown.

I picked up Metalfoes right after Invasion of Venom was released in the OCG. Seeing that Metalfoes had some new support for the archetype, I decided to take a leap of faith and switched from playing ABC to Metalfoes. The playing style of Metalfoes and Pendulum monster was something I had never tried before, and as such, I deemed it as a challenge to myself to try and pick up the archetype successfully.

Close to 3.5 months have passed. I wouldn’t say I’m good at the deck, nor do I possess the key to the secrets of the archetype. But Metalfoes is the deck that is really dear to me. It is something that I have really enjoyed playing through the past 3.5 Months, and it is also through playing this deck, it has gotten me some really valuable friends that I really cherished.

Well, I guess enough of all these melancholy, and I’ll try and get down to how I fared in the tournament.

In the first match, I was paired against ABC. ABC have been a solid contender in the July 2016 format after the release of the Kaiba Structure Deck, taking about 30% of the meta game, and looking to dominate the October 2016 meta game.

Losing the dice roll, my opponent chose to go first. He started with a Gold Gadget, activating its effect. I chained the Ghost Ogre and Snow Rabbit that I managed to get in my starting hand. He then special summoned A-Assault Core from his hand, setting a facedown card at the back, and ended his turn. During my turn, I placed Archfiend Eccentrik at the pendulum zone, and activated its effect to destroy his faced down card. It turns out to be Solemn Strike. Special summoning my Gofu and using its effect, I then lay a scale 1 and scale 8, popping the tokens to set a Metalfoes Combination and a Metalfoes Counter, I pendulum summoned Majespecter Unicorn - Kirin, Archfiend Eccentrik and then synchro summoned for Psyframe Lord Omega. I then set a Solemn Notice faced down. He started his turn by activating Union Hanger, searching for another A-Assault Core. Upon resolution of the effect, I used Psyframe Lord Omega’s effect trying to aim for the card he had just searched, but failed. Photon Thrasher was special summoned and he normal summoned A-Assault Core that he had searched, triggering his field spell effect to equip a union monster, targeting the A-Assault Core that he had normal summoned. I used Majespecter Unicorn-Kirin’s ability, targeting itself and the A-Assault Core he had targeted and returned both to hand. With that, his play for the second turn was totally stopped as well. During my turn, I popped the Metalfoes Combination that I had and searched for a Metalfoes Volflame, and then activating Metalfoes Counter and special summoning another Metalfoes Volflame. Pendulum summoned both the Majespecter Unicorn - Kirin and Metalfoes Volflame in my hand and pushed for game.

For Game 2, I have sided in 3 System Down, 1 ABC Dragon Buster and 3 Ghost Reaper and Winter Cherries. My opponent chose to go first again, and I stared down at my atrocious hand. I vividly remember this hand as opposed to the others as it was really horrible. I started with 2 System Down, 1 Ghost Reaper and Winter Cherries, 1 Blackwing – Gofu the Vague Shadow, 1 Archfiend Eccentrik. The only redeeming fact about this is that I can go into Psyframe Lord – Omega and Ghost Reaper and Winter Cherries his ABC Dragon Buster to try and stall the game while trying to draw what I needed.

He managed to go into Bujintei Tsukuyomi, Union Hanger and I activated Ghost Reaper and Winter Cherries to banish all his ABC Dragon Buster. He ended his turn. I drew Majespecter Unicorn – Kirin, proceeded to make Psyframe Lord Omega, destroyed his Bujintei Tsukuyomi, and hopefully use the Gofu Token as a wall to shield from damage. His turn, Gold Gadget into one of the parts, overlayed to Gear Gigant X and searched for another A-Assault Core, probably to use Rank 4 XYZ beat down. The C-Crush Wyvern that was attached had its effect activated to special summon another C-Crushed Wyvern. Both my tokens were taken out. During my turn, I drew a Solemn Notice, used Psyframe Lord Omega to attack his C-Crushed Wyvern and he special summoned A-Assault Core, attaching his final C-Crushed Wyvern. I then activate Psyframe Lord Omega’s effect to tagged out, and then used System Down, clearing his field. He special summoned another monster onto the field. I set my Solemn Notice faced down and ended my turn. During his turn, he summoned another gadget and special summoned another ABC part from his hand, and went for pure beat down. I managed to drew Metalfoes Steelen and set it faced down. Another set of normal summon from hand, special summoned the equipped Union Monster, and attempted to beat through the faced down Metalfoes Steelen but to no avail. During Main Phase 2, he went for a Castel, the Skyblade Musketeer which was met with my Solemn Notice that was set. Realizing that he should had went for Diamond Dire Wolf first, he popped my Metalfoes Steelen. I then drew Metalfoes Golddriver on my next turn, activated the second System Down, and slowly attack with an attack point of 1,900 every turn. Realizing that he have run out of any form of resources, he decided to scoop.

The second match was against Blue Eyes White Dragon. Making a terribly huge mistake of thinking that nobody will be playing Blue Eyes White Dragon, I have not prepared any side deck cards for the deck. During the first game, I went through smoothly, using my Majespecter Unicorn - Kirin to bounce his Blue Eyes Alternative White Dragon preventing any further follow up plays. I then proceed to OTK him the next turn. Without any sides for Blue Eyes White Dragon, I got overwhelmed with a constant flow of Dragon Spirit of White, Blue Eyes Spirit Dragon and then finally Number 95: Galaxy Eyes Dark Matter Dragon. I got out tempo-ed in both game 2 and 3 and there was no way I could fight back anymore.

The third match was against a Cyber Dragon deck. Opponent was a casual player, nothing very special, Solemn Noticed his Cyber Dragon Infinity and he called it game when I presented a field for an OTK the next turn. For the second game, I was not sure why he chose for me to go first. With a board of Majespecter Unicorn – Kirin and Metalfoes Alhaest, he could not really put up a fight and decided to just scoop.

For the final match of the day, I faced off against D/D. He started with D/D Savant Kelper, searching for Dark Contract with the Gate. While trying to activate it, it was met with a Ghost Ogre and Snow Rabbit and was unable to make any more plays from there. I went with my turn and managed to kill him off immediately with a barrage of Metalfoes Volflames, Majespecter Unicorn – Kirin.

I sided in Dimension Barrier hoping that I will be able to stop his plays once again should he attempt to combo off. He chose for me to go first, which I guess it was due to him having a Kaiju engine in his deck, and he was trying to remove off the threats that he might need to face. I ended my field with a Metalfoes Alkahest and Majespecter Unicorn - Kirin, which was met with a Kaiju Slumber.

I had a Vanity Emptiness set on the back of my field, and was unsure of the interaction between it and Kaiju Slumber, and as such I did not activate it during standby phase. However, with the 2 Solemn Notice that I had set when he allowed me to go first, I manage to stop his plays and went for the game a few turns later.

As such, that concluded my final journey with a full powered Metalfoes deck. Metalfoes is definitely still a playable choice, and I foresee it to still hover around as a Tier 1.5 deck even with only 1 Majespecter Unicorn – Kirin. There are a couple of other engines that could be tested out, such as the Qli engines, which uses Qliphort Scout and Qliphort Monolith to go into a Cyber Dragon Infinity. Another example of a variation that could be used is also Guiding Ariadne and the Solemn Brigade (3 Solemn Notice, 1 Solemn Warning, 1 Solemn Judgement), however, I will leave these to another post, where either me or another member will be discussing about these potential evolutions of the Metalfoes Archetype.

I guess for now, it’s time to take a short break away from Metalfoes, and rest on its laurels temporarily, while I move on to playing ABC for the current season. Thank you for an enjoyable 3 months and all the wins that you had given me.

Goodbye, Unicorn.