Who put out the fire?

Have things changed so much?

We’re all of three weeks into the new meta and it appears that a seismic shift has taken place away from Fire Fists. While my surveys do not include every regional tournament since April 1^st, I have included 56 deck lists.  If this sample is at all representative of the larger trend in Yugioh, players are switching Gears in a significant way.  

The grapha below lists the % of each of the major archetypes listed byTCGPlayer for the dates of April 1 to the present.  Geargias are the most dominating archetype if you combine the Pure and Karakuri variants.  Together, they make up about 27%.  Fire Fists have all but disappeared.  If you combine them with Fire Kings, you only get 5.4% of the decks. 

Figure 1: The Frequency of Decks in the Top 32

The problem with this analysis is that there are no denominators.  If 90% of the players enter with Geargias and only 27% top, the deck can be considered a bit feeble.  A better indicator of the strength of the deck would be to divide the percentage of tops by the percentage entered. 

Unfortunately, that’s a hard number to produce.  I have come up with a “Power Index” to take its place.  For this analysis, I gave 32 points for 1^st place decks, 31 for 2^nd, etc.  I then used these numbers to calculate a weighted average.  If one divides this weighted average by the % of decks given in the figure 1, you get a pseudo-power index.  By this analysis, Dragon Ruler variants outperform the field.  

Now enter Soul Charge.  This single card will likely change the meta again.  Though summoning a bucketful of monsters from your graveyard helps nearly everyone, some decks do not benefit as much.  Geargias, for example, will not get a great boast.  I suspect the same is true for Mermails.  On the other hand, dragon decks tend to have loaded graveyards. There may even be room for some decks we haven’t seen in eons, like Zombies. 

I do not like the fact that the ARG tournament will allow this set to be legal.  Granted, they really do not have much of a choice.  However, it will favor players with the capital investment to buy enough packs to get this card.  Perhaps that’s capitalism.  On the other hand, I like a game that rewards your cleverness and not your wallet.  

I’m still taking my CMG deck.  It really loses to effect negation and DD Crow can make a mess of things.  Nevertheless, it’s a bit roguish and roguish is good.  This analysis has led me to take out Overworked and put in Needle Ceiling.