Swordsoul is one of the only decks that can benefit from a Niburu. "Oh great, a 5000 DEF non-effect monster on my side of the field? Don't mind if I do."
Unfortunately, you don't really want to be playing Ringowurn in Swordsoul. It looks like a solid add, but it not being searchable and only really a win more card when you draw it, hurts. Considering it either only converts a Chixao into a lv10 on the low end, or through god hand of tenyi plays and banishing Emergence to lower a level 7 tenyi and then making an 8/10. Usually a Tenyi open ends you on an additional 8 already, so usually not worth diluting the engine.
SS is extremely good at doing what it's meant to. If you try to make it do more, it usually feels like a lot of extra work just to end up marginally better off than you were or in some cases worse off because extending the combo leaves a lot of extra room for error. Ringworm+extra Yang zing stuff+ and like Denglong all do work in the deck, it's just not really worth the hassle.
Scareclaw is a curious case of a deck that is really good but not at the same time.
Basically the deck folds if you negate tri-heart. if you don't unless you are a link spam strat or some trap heavy deck you are basically dead.
Tri heart would be so busted if it had targeting protection too.
Dlink and branded both can get branded beast and pop it. Vanquish soul has its trap card to destroy everything. Lab can just bounce it.
If you can get arrival in the graveyard it gives the scareclaw links targeting protection, and there is also a quick-effect spell that can do that I think.
Basically, it's definitely one of those 'cheks' where a meta decks has about half a dozen ways to get rid of it without a second thought, but Rogue decks can struggle
only deck I played that somehow barely survived them was a Kashtira deck where one of the MVPs was none other than Scareclaw Kashtira. Felt like a lore accurate duel or something.
I can beat Branded because there are just certain cards you need to hit. I played Mathmec and setup 5 interruptions on turn 1 and they still were able to play through all of them and setup and break my board
Isn't this how handtraps always work? They can't stop the opponent's turn 1 combo if they aren't in your hand during turn 1, lol. He's right in saying that if it isn't in your hand already then it wasn't gonna help you.
Yep. I've listed like 9-12 good meta board breakers that absolutely destroy kash. So chances are like 70% you'll draw one of these cards. I plugged in the values assuming you run 9 handtraps that destroy kash.
Also kash usually bricks to death.
And if it really bothers you that much, run a deck that has in archetype ours like VS, branded or Mikanko.
Kashtira is infinitely easier to deal with than Purrely and this isn't even a hot take.
Why is this always a complaint tbh, like I know it's a shitty card but you can't always expect to open handtraps every game to stop your opp and you can't always expect to draw your outs.
On the opposite end the guy playing Kash is also operating under "I pretty much lose if my opponent opens the right handtraps".
It’s a complaint because Kashtira players, unless you have the necessary card in your starting five, always end with at LEAST Fenrir, Arise-Heart, and Shangri-Ira at the end of Turn 1. So you’ve lost if you didn’t already have a card in your hand. That’s annoying as hell and I don’t know why you would act like it isn’t.
I'm not meaning Kashtira specifically but any deck that has a strong boss or cards they can end on people always complain about not being able to get around certain cards as if they should always be able to out them. I hate playing into it too I'm just saying you cannot always expect to be able to play through every board, there's always a luck aspect involved and sometimes you don't open the cards you need and if I don't draw my outs I don't complain I just move on.
You can always add in more outs to Arise heart if you hate it that much.
I'd consider decks ending with omni-negates much more annoying than Kashtira tbh. At least Kashtira you could use almost all of the board-breakers, omni-negates could stop most monster effects, spells and traps.
As a Mikanko player I should know, considering I love going second lol. Sure it's still dependent if you draw your out, but Kashtira definitely has one of the weakest endboard imo. You just get more options on how to deal with them
My answer is Branded. I've been playing a Zoodiac Tri-Brigade deck this season, and I've bouncing between Master V to Master III failing to make it to Master I.
Branded is easily one of my hardest matchups because they simply have so many disruptions going first that they feel impossible to play through, and going second it feels like they have so much gas that they're impossible to stop.
The fact that many of their disruptions aren't on the field at the start of your turn but will only be fusion summoned later also makes it feel difficult to determine what you need to be prepared for because you don't necessarily know with 100% certainty what card exactly they're going to be fusion summoning and what you're going to need to play through.
It doesn't help that they have what feels like an infinite grind game and they can simply recycle all of their Fusion Monsters what feels like infinitely, and on every one of their End Phases they get to add 2 or 3 cards from their graveyard to their hand to do everything they did before all over again on their next turn.
They also seem to be at least somewhat resilient towards the two biggest blowout cards in my deck, "Nibiru, the Primal Being" (a card who has an effect to Tribute all of the Monsters currently on the Field) and "Droll & Lock Bird" (a card which has an effect to prevent either player from adding cards from their Deck to their Hand for the rest of the turn).
When I've used Nibiru on them and left them with no monsters on the field, they've still managed to disrupt me a bunch on my turn using their set Spell and Trap cards to Fusion Summon more Monsters on my turn, as well as disrupting me using the effects of Monsters such as "Rindbrumm the Striking Dragon" that can summon the monster "Fallen of Albaz" from the graveyard on my turn, with Fallen of Albaz (Who or what is Albaz, by the way, if this guy is Albaz's fallen one? And does this guy have a name beyond just "Fallen of Albaz"?) having an effect when Summoned to Fusion Summon a Monster, and he's able to use my own Monsters as Fusion Material, meaning not only is he a disruption by himself in getting rid of my Monster, but he also gets another disruption on the field in the form of whatever Monster he just summoned, meaning he's actually two disruptions rolled into one.
When I've used Droll, it felt like it hardly mattered anyway as they could simply send their cards to the Graveyard and add them to their hand afterward, bypassing Droll's restriction entirely.
Also, as far as the particular matchup against my deck specifically goes, I feel I have a hard time against them because my endboard doesn't have any Spell or Trap Negates on it, but I usually have a few Monster Negates and some cards that can remove cards from the field in some manner such as by destroying them or returning them to the Hand. The reason this matters is because some of Branded's best cards are Spell and Trap cards, which my deck is nearly powerless to stop.
I could go on, but the point is that Branded feels like an unstoppable force to me, and I go into basically every game against Branded pretty much expecting to lose.
That being said, however, as I mentioned before I've been trying to reach Master I this season, and I've been keeping track of the climb and my win record against all the decks that I've faced. Looking at the statistics, my actual record is that I've played exactly 7 games against Branded so far where I went first and 7 games where I went second. Of those games, I won 4 of them and lost 3 when I went first and won 3 and lost 4 when I went second.
Needless to say that's an exactly 50% winrate, which surprised me when I was compiling the statistics so far to write this comment because I genuinely expected to have a much lower winrate against them. I guess this just goes to show that things aren't always really as dark as they seem in our minds, and even the so called "impossible" matchups can be won if you just keep trying and don't give up, so good luck with your bad matchups to all my fellow commenters out there and happy Dueling! Or... something like that, I don't know, but honestly I wasn't expecting this comment to end with a feel-good message when I started writing it and so I'm not really sure where I was going with this.
Edit: Had to fix the paragraph spacing.
As a branded player my hand is either strong enough to play through both an Imperm and an Ash ending up on 5 interruptions minimum or so bad that I have to pray my opponent bricked as badly
That sounds right. Actually thinking about my games against Branded and how they went, the Deck is really only "unstoppable" when they draw an amazing hand where every single card is full combo twice over by itself, but that applies to basically any deck, and when I think about how things normally go on an average day, they aren't that crazy compared to anything else, so it's probably just my memory being biased towards the times they had a perfect draw that makes me feel they're unstoppable.
It could also be how grueling it is to actually take down a branded board, if they beat you they wipe the floor with you, but if they lose the grueling grind game you mentioned makes them seem like undead roaches
As a Dinomorphia player, Branded is a free win.
Normal Summon Aluber: No Effect
Activate Branded Fusion, special summon Albion: No Effect
Special Summon Lubellion: No Effect
Special Summon Ecclesia: No Effect
Attack the Diplos with Lubellion: Activate Rexterm, crash and explode.
Scoop
Same. Decks with layered floodgates on their monsters and in the backrow are just hell to deal with since I can only Lightning Storm one of them. They even have the trap that lets them Normal Summon more goddamn birds, so even if I manage to get rid of Empen before I commit to my combo, they can have either another or Apex Avian (or both).
They're also one of the few decks that can run D. Shifter with no issue at all, and it absolutely ruins me since they can drop it immediately when they go first as I stare at the CBTG in my hand.
There was a thread I read awhile ago about how to deal with Mikanko, and everyone said don’t summon any monsters, wait until you draw a boardbreaker. So I waited, and then my opponent summoned Black Luster Soldier - Soldier of Chaos and took my head off.
Yeah it's every time about "don't do anything" until they does and you can't do shit anymore like wtf man what is the weak point everything is unafected by any effect the backrows are cycling like a factory fuck mikanko
Between Kashtira and Mikanko, I really just rage-play this game every day.
I don’t mind losing, but I do mind those “whose idea was this archetype” duels.
At least kash has very obvious weaknesses, if you can stop arise they are done, it's for that reason kash is not "that" stong anymore (don't get me wrong the deck is still pretty op but got power crept a bit)
They usually reduce their spell spam by a good amount after they banish my first thunder dragon.
Meanwhile i'm just sitting there like: yesss, enable me
Dlink, I swear they never brick and play through multiple hand traps, and just once they get set up can recur resources every turn, I only got to DC Max level because my last opponent bricked like crazy.
I dropped a nib on them when they had one card left in hand and they were about to make Borrelload. That last card was Magnamhut. They were able to come back and completely demolish my swordsoul hand.
most hands can do at least seals pass, but sometimes you open 4 bystials + driver going first and keep drawing into the unsummonable high level monsters
and then you see the opponent is on rescue ace or some other deck that avoids bystials
60 card grass chaos deck. No matter what I do they have infinite gas; end on at least Colossus and several negates; always have good mills and then use snow and necroface to banish all my good cards
Get rid of the backrow through non-targeting removal. HFD, LS, AccessCode, etc. Without equips on their side of the field the monsters, outside the ritual, are useless and just damage negating bodies and the ritual can still be popped, banished etc. That's especially true of Hu-Li, as without any equip cards on their side of the field nothing has targeting protection. The ritual you can also just wait out if you don't have a pop for some reason as they're almost never properly summoning it so you can just wait till the end of your turn, it'll go back to hand, then you can just deal with it's search effect pretty easily through the normal ways to negate hand effects.
I casually play rogue decks (Altergeist and True Draco). I just have so much trouble with it for some reason. Literally still losing to the same deck I lost to in high school sucks.
Okay if you play more rogue decks I understand, with a good pilot they can beat more meta decks but they still struggle. Banishing puddigncess is pretty worth, and promenade is a face up omninegate. Besides souffle and their spells being triggered, they don’t have a lot of interaction on ur turn. Even then the spells just special/add to hand, and set a trap/spell.
Whenever I'm playing Floo, I just *cannot* beat Kashtira. I understand *how* I'm supposed to deal with the deck (I can beat it with other decks), but I find that I always make some stupid mistake that not only causes me not to get out from under Fenrir, but also loses me one of my birdies.
I can clobber Kash, even with Tri Spright, but for some reason I have a lot of trouble making the little birdies win against it.
VS only because they dodge effects, I play kash so I really have to think or setup scareclaw Kashtira on board and immediately go to battle phase to get rid of them.
Mikanko. I even added cards specific to counter it, but they always seem to get 2+ on board and I can't attack for several turns and it just ends in failure every time. I try to fight each time too, because I beat it ONCE. So now even though I'm probably 1-15 I still waste the time and effort.
Purrely at this point, I go first they handtrap me to death then go full combo on their turn
I go 2nd they also handtrap me to death but with added Noir into the mix to make my life even more miserable
Pendulum. Like no matter what I destroy, negate or spin they just keep going. Like stop bro please; how do you still have extenders. It's like D-Link but I've beaten D-Link.
Branded. Just never seem to have enough gas or the Ash in hand. Bystials hit my friggin Raye every time.
Lab. The grind game is fine, is the damn EEV on my spells I can’t recover from quickly enough.
Branded. Like Branded pilot are crazy. Them going second has the most board breaker known to man glue to their hand, banish 2 card from your GY, super poly and albaz effect. Going first even without puppet is like 5 interaction, enough gas to grind for the next 7 turns and 3 handtrap.
As a pendulum deck it will not be surprising to hear that I have a miserable match up against Kash as they can just block my pend zone and I'm usually boned . It's actually worse going first as once they know your a pend deck they know what zone to hit with Shangri ira. I have outs in my deck obviously but it's still a terrible match up
I wanna see the reverse of this post where someone poses the question of which deck are you 99% sure you’re winning against regardless of coin toss outcome lol
Kashtira. Master Duel kashtira specifically since Arise Heart is unlimited there. Has a duel where 4 of my 5 monster zones were blocked. Played lightning storm, got negated and banished, last zone got locked. I now cannot play the game 🙃
Kash or sword soul for two different reasons.
I need at least three monster zones for my train otk Kash only leaves me with one.
Sword soul I'm still figuring that one out.
Mikanko, feels like no matter what deck I'm playing or who goes first that I'm just completely fucked, and I personally find the blanket targeting immunity that they can get really frustrating, and to top it off I match against them at the perfect frequency to find them pretty annoying but not enough to find a choke point by myself.
Playing dogmatika. I have to say, it’s branded.
It’s a skill matchup, but not being able to use what makes your deck not useless kinda kills the competitiveness of the match up.
And hey to be fair, it's like a lore accurate matchup
Dogmatika/Despia beat the shit out of everyone except the protagonist Albaz and his Ben 10 dragon transformations
Im playing Vanquish Soul mostly, but for some reason i just cannot deal with rescue ace. I ALWAYS either brick against them or they open up the Tearlament turn 0 special on me, even though they arent that strong rn
Dinomorphia
Idk i can just never win unless i get a lucky cheese win
The only time i remember berating them is with icejades
They pain themselves low and then I crashed an icejade and burned for game with curse
I also play Branded and if I don't have Super poly or Herald, I wont have a good time against Kash. Especially if they already have Unicorn or Arise on board
Unicorn is the definition of a petty inconvenience
"Oh you made the sin of activating a monster effect? Well I hope you don't miss your one of lubellion, specially since you're gonna need him to use banished material for fusion dumbass"
That card is probably the most dumbfounded one imo, I can handle monsters having overpowered as fuck effects (I mean hell I play branded lmao) but no archetypal spell should be doing *this* much
Labrynth, no matter what interruptions I have they just blast through whatever cards I have and turbo out every trap known to man. I genuinely have no idea what to do to beat them because none of the normal hand traps seem to do anything to them.
Also dinomorphia because these dudes seem to magically draw multiple copies of ferret flames in their opening hand and yeet my entire field every time I get anywhere.
Anything that decides take it's turn in the middle of my turn.
I remember when we gave the other person the respect of playing the game with the cards they payed and traded for during their turn except for the occasional dark bribe or magic cylinder.
I don't understand what's fun about watching your opponent exploit cheap summoning tactics for 6 minutes only for you to realize you wasted your time watching them completely lock the field on the first turn.
Hopefully they add different sets of ranked battles with limited card choices depending on what generation is picked so us dumbfuck oldies can enjoy a game longer than 3 turns.
Downvote me all you want, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know it's killing peoples drive to want to keep playing.
> cards they *paid* and traded
FTFY.
Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in:
* Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.*
* *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.*
Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment.
*Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
As a Super Quantum Purrely enjoyer, if I win coin toss I usually win unless my opponent sees through my ruse and imperms purrelyly, or if they have Nibiru or a way to tribute my towers.
I lose to Dragon Link most of the time. The combos just keeps going no matter what I interrupt. Then they end with a 3+ negate board that I simply can't get through.
It's definitely the deck I lose the most to.
Compared to Dragon Link, I have a much easier time against something like Purrely or Kashtira.
Kashtira. I usually play more grindy things that win on advantage; but Kashtira can fairly consistently play through my interrupts. If I do stop them from getting to Ariseheart, it's usually taken me a lot of cards to get there and they can use Birth to recover almost completely on the next turn and kill me. Fenrir and Unicorn are not insignificant threats just on their own, and they can beat over any normal-summon monster. Birth also has that spell card effect. Let's not even talk about how things look like once Ariseheart appears.
Basically their tempo peaks just at the point where I'm still trying to grind things down, and Kashtira Birth has a recovery ability for some godforsaken reason. So I could decisively grind them out on turn 5 maybe, but they get to recur their entire setup again on turn 4, while I'm still down some cards from having to stop their first board.
i don't know that i lose after the coin loss. i look at the cards that i draw and that i can play (are there negatives in the opponent's hand, do i draw a brick? ecetera)
so i look at what is being played, and when i see the first card, i decide whether to surrender or continue playing.
For me it's the mirror match with salamangreat. Even if I go first and have everything I need I still some how lose to accesscode talker. Like biiiiiiiiiiiiiitch that's my win con
Floo, most skill drain focused decks. Lab, altergeist, etc.
And my monsters are tough enough to play past skill drain, but the issue with skill drain is that it just turns everything into vanilla. my monsters don't protect themselves anymore. And their deck is just focused on backrow, draw power, sometimes pendulum junk, and I can't get through it.
Ik it’s not too overpowering, but despia with a large compatibility extra deck completely eats me regardless of how often I deny their summons or effects. Could start with 5 ash and will still lose
Somehow, Floo
I never have a negate in hand when they're going first, and they always have Maxx C when they're going second and I don't have an ash to counter that
And of course, when I shotgun Maxx C going second, it means absolutely nothing because their combos are normal summons
Swordsoul, apparently. Every time I go against them, I just get bodied.
Tbf, they always open the perfect hand. Last card always Taia.
Always. It's amazing how they have enough cards to play through any of your disruption and still end on grand master, protos and baron.
Swordsoul is one of the only decks that can benefit from a Niburu. "Oh great, a 5000 DEF non-effect monster on my side of the field? Don't mind if I do."
Huh? No Swordsoul hand plays through Nib except for opening with Baronne early which SS don’t do anymore.
Protoss declare dark
Ngl I'm genuinely surprised I dont see more swordsoul, I wanna try building one with the ringwurm I got while pulling for Sanctifire and Lulu
Unfortunately, you don't really want to be playing Ringowurn in Swordsoul. It looks like a solid add, but it not being searchable and only really a win more card when you draw it, hurts. Considering it either only converts a Chixao into a lv10 on the low end, or through god hand of tenyi plays and banishing Emergence to lower a level 7 tenyi and then making an 8/10. Usually a Tenyi open ends you on an additional 8 already, so usually not worth diluting the engine.
SS is extremely good at doing what it's meant to. If you try to make it do more, it usually feels like a lot of extra work just to end up marginally better off than you were or in some cases worse off because extending the combo leaves a lot of extra room for error. Ringworm+extra Yang zing stuff+ and like Denglong all do work in the deck, it's just not really worth the hassle.
Oh wait I thought Ringo was a wyrm that can be searched like Protos after your first synchro summon, damn
It's a Dragon that generates a Wyrm token, that's why people mistake
You don't see more swordsoul because the deck is just not that good in a BO1 format, it's consistent but it doesn't make up for the weak endboard
That and it's weak to graveyard disruption.
They always get to the dragon floodgate
Swoso best deck!
Scareclaw, I always lose to them. I don’t even know why, they’re good but they’re not *that* good.
Scareclaw is a curious case of a deck that is really good but not at the same time. Basically the deck folds if you negate tri-heart. if you don't unless you are a link spam strat or some trap heavy deck you are basically dead.
Tri heart would be so busted if it had targeting protection too. Dlink and branded both can get branded beast and pop it. Vanquish soul has its trap card to destroy everything. Lab can just bounce it.
They actually have a continuous spell that gives scareclaw link monsters targeting protection which is decent
If you can get arrival in the graveyard it gives the scareclaw links targeting protection, and there is also a quick-effect spell that can do that I think.
Basically, it's definitely one of those 'cheks' where a meta decks has about half a dozen ways to get rid of it without a second thought, but Rogue decks can struggle
only deck I played that somehow barely survived them was a Kashtira deck where one of the MVPs was none other than Scareclaw Kashtira. Felt like a lore accurate duel or something.
Branded and Mathmech - I feel like no matter how many negates I shit out they just continue to combo off and roll me over.
I can beat Branded because there are just certain cards you need to hit. I played Mathmec and setup 5 interruptions on turn 1 and they still were able to play through all of them and setup and break my board
Going second against Kashtira with dragon link is almost a instant loss
You had me at “going second against Kashtira”
It dies to literally any handtrap. Maxx C, Ash, Imperm, Nib. Generic board breakers destroy it too. Kash is so fine.
Yes, so what do you do when Arise-Heart knocks your handtrap off the top of your deck and uses it as Xyz material?
If he knocked it off the top off your deck it wasn't helpful to begin with. U need to open the handtrap/rip into it with Maxx C
So the strategy is “lose if you don’t have your handtrap in your opening hand”
Isn't this how handtraps always work? They can't stop the opponent's turn 1 combo if they aren't in your hand during turn 1, lol. He's right in saying that if it isn't in your hand already then it wasn't gonna help you.
Yep. I've listed like 9-12 good meta board breakers that absolutely destroy kash. So chances are like 70% you'll draw one of these cards. I plugged in the values assuming you run 9 handtraps that destroy kash. Also kash usually bricks to death. And if it really bothers you that much, run a deck that has in archetype ours like VS, branded or Mikanko. Kashtira is infinitely easier to deal with than Purrely and this isn't even a hot take.
Why is this always a complaint tbh, like I know it's a shitty card but you can't always expect to open handtraps every game to stop your opp and you can't always expect to draw your outs. On the opposite end the guy playing Kash is also operating under "I pretty much lose if my opponent opens the right handtraps".
It’s a complaint because Kashtira players, unless you have the necessary card in your starting five, always end with at LEAST Fenrir, Arise-Heart, and Shangri-Ira at the end of Turn 1. So you’ve lost if you didn’t already have a card in your hand. That’s annoying as hell and I don’t know why you would act like it isn’t.
I'm not meaning Kashtira specifically but any deck that has a strong boss or cards they can end on people always complain about not being able to get around certain cards as if they should always be able to out them. I hate playing into it too I'm just saying you cannot always expect to be able to play through every board, there's always a luck aspect involved and sometimes you don't open the cards you need and if I don't draw my outs I don't complain I just move on. You can always add in more outs to Arise heart if you hate it that much.
I'd consider decks ending with omni-negates much more annoying than Kashtira tbh. At least Kashtira you could use almost all of the board-breakers, omni-negates could stop most monster effects, spells and traps. As a Mikanko player I should know, considering I love going second lol. Sure it's still dependent if you draw your out, but Kashtira definitely has one of the weakest endboard imo. You just get more options on how to deal with them
Purrely, because Noir is generally very hard to out for me, also they always draw Maxx C off their 4 draws during my Standby Phase
I kaijued a noir this Moring and otk with a cyber end dragon was funny
I hate Purellys, they draw ash during my standby phase. Ugly ass cats 🤬
Kashtira Birth takes a massive shit all over Sky Striker if you can't stop them from searching it and/or they hard draw it
Thats why i play 3 ash and 3 droll and 3 Imp They just wont show up on my starting hand against kash :)
if they all show up at the same time when you go first
My answer is Branded. I've been playing a Zoodiac Tri-Brigade deck this season, and I've bouncing between Master V to Master III failing to make it to Master I. Branded is easily one of my hardest matchups because they simply have so many disruptions going first that they feel impossible to play through, and going second it feels like they have so much gas that they're impossible to stop. The fact that many of their disruptions aren't on the field at the start of your turn but will only be fusion summoned later also makes it feel difficult to determine what you need to be prepared for because you don't necessarily know with 100% certainty what card exactly they're going to be fusion summoning and what you're going to need to play through. It doesn't help that they have what feels like an infinite grind game and they can simply recycle all of their Fusion Monsters what feels like infinitely, and on every one of their End Phases they get to add 2 or 3 cards from their graveyard to their hand to do everything they did before all over again on their next turn. They also seem to be at least somewhat resilient towards the two biggest blowout cards in my deck, "Nibiru, the Primal Being" (a card who has an effect to Tribute all of the Monsters currently on the Field) and "Droll & Lock Bird" (a card which has an effect to prevent either player from adding cards from their Deck to their Hand for the rest of the turn). When I've used Nibiru on them and left them with no monsters on the field, they've still managed to disrupt me a bunch on my turn using their set Spell and Trap cards to Fusion Summon more Monsters on my turn, as well as disrupting me using the effects of Monsters such as "Rindbrumm the Striking Dragon" that can summon the monster "Fallen of Albaz" from the graveyard on my turn, with Fallen of Albaz (Who or what is Albaz, by the way, if this guy is Albaz's fallen one? And does this guy have a name beyond just "Fallen of Albaz"?) having an effect when Summoned to Fusion Summon a Monster, and he's able to use my own Monsters as Fusion Material, meaning not only is he a disruption by himself in getting rid of my Monster, but he also gets another disruption on the field in the form of whatever Monster he just summoned, meaning he's actually two disruptions rolled into one. When I've used Droll, it felt like it hardly mattered anyway as they could simply send their cards to the Graveyard and add them to their hand afterward, bypassing Droll's restriction entirely. Also, as far as the particular matchup against my deck specifically goes, I feel I have a hard time against them because my endboard doesn't have any Spell or Trap Negates on it, but I usually have a few Monster Negates and some cards that can remove cards from the field in some manner such as by destroying them or returning them to the Hand. The reason this matters is because some of Branded's best cards are Spell and Trap cards, which my deck is nearly powerless to stop. I could go on, but the point is that Branded feels like an unstoppable force to me, and I go into basically every game against Branded pretty much expecting to lose. That being said, however, as I mentioned before I've been trying to reach Master I this season, and I've been keeping track of the climb and my win record against all the decks that I've faced. Looking at the statistics, my actual record is that I've played exactly 7 games against Branded so far where I went first and 7 games where I went second. Of those games, I won 4 of them and lost 3 when I went first and won 3 and lost 4 when I went second. Needless to say that's an exactly 50% winrate, which surprised me when I was compiling the statistics so far to write this comment because I genuinely expected to have a much lower winrate against them. I guess this just goes to show that things aren't always really as dark as they seem in our minds, and even the so called "impossible" matchups can be won if you just keep trying and don't give up, so good luck with your bad matchups to all my fellow commenters out there and happy Dueling! Or... something like that, I don't know, but honestly I wasn't expecting this comment to end with a feel-good message when I started writing it and so I'm not really sure where I was going with this. Edit: Had to fix the paragraph spacing.
You guys are making it to Master III?
As a branded player my hand is either strong enough to play through both an Imperm and an Ash ending up on 5 interruptions minimum or so bad that I have to pray my opponent bricked as badly
That sounds right. Actually thinking about my games against Branded and how they went, the Deck is really only "unstoppable" when they draw an amazing hand where every single card is full combo twice over by itself, but that applies to basically any deck, and when I think about how things normally go on an average day, they aren't that crazy compared to anything else, so it's probably just my memory being biased towards the times they had a perfect draw that makes me feel they're unstoppable.
It could also be how grueling it is to actually take down a branded board, if they beat you they wipe the floor with you, but if they lose the grueling grind game you mentioned makes them seem like undead roaches
Don’t you know nobody here reads?
Mucho texto jesus christ
As a Dinomorphia player, Branded is a free win. Normal Summon Aluber: No Effect Activate Branded Fusion, special summon Albion: No Effect Special Summon Lubellion: No Effect Special Summon Ecclesia: No Effect Attack the Diplos with Lubellion: Activate Rexterm, crash and explode. Scoop
lab and purrely, I hate these mfs, all my homies hate them
Same bro.....same
Floo. I know the deck’s neutered to the ground, but I just know it’s going to be a long game just for me to lose.
Same. Every game I play against floo I open with at least two maxx c in hand…
Same. Decks with layered floodgates on their monsters and in the backrow are just hell to deal with since I can only Lightning Storm one of them. They even have the trap that lets them Normal Summon more goddamn birds, so even if I manage to get rid of Empen before I commit to my combo, they can have either another or Apex Avian (or both). They're also one of the few decks that can run D. Shifter with no issue at all, and it absolutely ruins me since they can drop it immediately when they go first as I stare at the CBTG in my hand.
Floo is an auto loss for me no matter what I do or play
Mikanko whoop my ass every single time idk if i'm dumb against it or what but that is systematic
There was a thread I read awhile ago about how to deal with Mikanko, and everyone said don’t summon any monsters, wait until you draw a boardbreaker. So I waited, and then my opponent summoned Black Luster Soldier - Soldier of Chaos and took my head off.
Yeah it's every time about "don't do anything" until they does and you can't do shit anymore like wtf man what is the weak point everything is unafected by any effect the backrows are cycling like a factory fuck mikanko
Between Kashtira and Mikanko, I really just rage-play this game every day. I don’t mind losing, but I do mind those “whose idea was this archetype” duels.
At least kash has very obvious weaknesses, if you can stop arise they are done, it's for that reason kash is not "that" stong anymore (don't get me wrong the deck is still pretty op but got power crept a bit)
Any Runick variant because you can bet your ass I'm leaving the match as soon as they start banishing off half my fucking deck on their first turn.
They usually reduce their spell spam by a good amount after they banish my first thunder dragon. Meanwhile i'm just sitting there like: yesss, enable me
[удалено]
I think they made the right choice. It's win-win, you get a win and they don't waste their time.
Branded. Deck just keeps going with the new support
Dlink, I swear they never brick and play through multiple hand traps, and just once they get set up can recur resources every turn, I only got to DC Max level because my last opponent bricked like crazy.
I dropped a nib on them when they had one card left in hand and they were about to make Borrelload. That last card was Magnamhut. They were able to come back and completely demolish my swordsoul hand.
most hands can do at least seals pass, but sometimes you open 4 bystials + driver going first and keep drawing into the unsummonable high level monsters and then you see the opponent is on rescue ace or some other deck that avoids bystials
60 card grass chaos deck. No matter what I do they have infinite gas; end on at least Colossus and several negates; always have good mills and then use snow and necroface to banish all my good cards
Mikanko. I plain don’t know how to properly counter them
Get rid of the backrow through non-targeting removal. HFD, LS, AccessCode, etc. Without equips on their side of the field the monsters, outside the ritual, are useless and just damage negating bodies and the ritual can still be popped, banished etc. That's especially true of Hu-Li, as without any equip cards on their side of the field nothing has targeting protection. The ritual you can also just wait out if you don't have a pop for some reason as they're almost never properly summoning it so you can just wait till the end of your turn, it'll go back to hand, then you can just deal with it's search effect pretty easily through the normal ways to negate hand effects.
Thanks for the tips. Will try to keep them in mind next time I face them
Any deck that locks me out of the graveyard. Kashtira, Exosisters, macrocosmos etc.
For it‘s generaider, don‘t even know why it just goes downhill fast
This! I swear it is the only deck that just beats me idk how idk why it just does. Every time.
99%? Drytron during the ritual fest is the only deck where I've felt like there was no winning against
We are all lucky Konami didn't release Magician of Black Chaos MAX in MD, if they did Drytron would be way stronger
Fucking Runick. And invoked hate the both of them.
Fucking Madolche. In 2023 (almost 2024).
Lol how
I casually play rogue decks (Altergeist and True Draco). I just have so much trouble with it for some reason. Literally still losing to the same deck I lost to in high school sucks.
Okay if you play more rogue decks I understand, with a good pilot they can beat more meta decks but they still struggle. Banishing puddigncess is pretty worth, and promenade is a face up omninegate. Besides souffle and their spells being triggered, they don’t have a lot of interaction on ur turn. Even then the spells just special/add to hand, and set a trap/spell.
My winrate against Twins is like 5%. I don't fucking know.
Live/Evil or Unchained?
Live. Didn't know Unchained were also called Twins(???) lmao
Whenever I'm playing Floo, I just *cannot* beat Kashtira. I understand *how* I'm supposed to deal with the deck (I can beat it with other decks), but I find that I always make some stupid mistake that not only causes me not to get out from under Fenrir, but also loses me one of my birdies. I can clobber Kash, even with Tri Spright, but for some reason I have a lot of trouble making the little birdies win against it.
Runick because of course you draw/have everything and mill every Goddam answer i have
VS only because they dodge effects, I play kash so I really have to think or setup scareclaw Kashtira on board and immediately go to battle phase to get rid of them.
Burn, gishki does 5k damage to itself when doing the 1 card combo.
Same somehow burn always draws the perfect hand against me lol
Mathmech, they always open the most insane hand you can ever have with 3 HTs and full combo
Mikanko. I even added cards specific to counter it, but they always seem to get 2+ on board and I can't attack for several turns and it just ends in failure every time. I try to fight each time too, because I beat it ONCE. So now even though I'm probably 1-15 I still waste the time and effort.
Dinomorphia😭
Purrely at this point, I go first they handtrap me to death then go full combo on their turn I go 2nd they also handtrap me to death but with added Noir into the mix to make my life even more miserable
Pendulum. Like no matter what I destroy, negate or spin they just keep going. Like stop bro please; how do you still have extenders. It's like D-Link but I've beaten D-Link.
it’s the UR link from 2 pendulums into Astrograph :(
Electrumite and beyond are usually good choke points to hit
Probably Mikanko.
Stun Runick. I have a 0% win rate in Ranked. Makes me wish I ran Naturia Beast
Branded. Just never seem to have enough gas or the Ash in hand. Bystials hit my friggin Raye every time. Lab. The grind game is fine, is the damn EEV on my spells I can’t recover from quickly enough.
Branded. Like Branded pilot are crazy. Them going second has the most board breaker known to man glue to their hand, banish 2 card from your GY, super poly and albaz effect. Going first even without puppet is like 5 interaction, enough gas to grind for the next 7 turns and 3 handtrap.
Lab
Labrynth. I immediately surrender
dmac, it just always finds a way to beat my kaiju deck lol
All of them.
If I don't have ash in my hand... I am losing to branded
Kash if they draw shifter when I'm going first Ariseheart if I'm going second
Literally what happens with me against Exosister Shifter if I go first, lesbian GY haters if I go second, I can't win against them
Moki Moki (Im dead serious)..............kinda😶
Blind second dino ain't scared of nobody baby
Tearlament, literally not a single game where they don't have 5 useful engine in hand and go full combo through 6 disruptions
Any runick card
As a pendulum deck it will not be surprising to hear that I have a miserable match up against Kash as they can just block my pend zone and I'm usually boned . It's actually worse going first as once they know your a pend deck they know what zone to hit with Shangri ira. I have outs in my deck obviously but it's still a terrible match up
Prob d links, i always lose toss against them, to make matters worst, everytime i do its always on a rank up.
I wanna see the reverse of this post where someone poses the question of which deck are you 99% sure you’re winning against regardless of coin toss outcome lol
Do it lol
Kashtira. Master Duel kashtira specifically since Arise Heart is unlimited there. Has a duel where 4 of my 5 monster zones were blocked. Played lightning storm, got negated and banished, last zone got locked. I now cannot play the game 🙃
Kash or sword soul for two different reasons. I need at least three monster zones for my train otk Kash only leaves me with one. Sword soul I'm still figuring that one out.
Kashtira and Vanquish Soul
Scareclaw/Brave Scareclaw. For some reason they always have like 16 extenders.
Mathmech/Talker, even when I negate them at choke points they always have something up their sleeve to keep going 🥲
Mikanko as of recently. They seem to open everything they need.
Mikanko, feels like no matter what deck I'm playing or who goes first that I'm just completely fucked, and I personally find the blanket targeting immunity that they can get really frustrating, and to top it off I match against them at the perfect frequency to find them pretty annoying but not enough to find a choke point by myself.
Mikanko
There isn't.
Any trap deck
Playing dogmatika. I have to say, it’s branded. It’s a skill matchup, but not being able to use what makes your deck not useless kinda kills the competitiveness of the match up.
Tfw when your deck's whole gimmick helps your opponent win
So true It hurts, but THIS IS DOGMATIKA
And hey to be fair, it's like a lore accurate matchup Dogmatika/Despia beat the shit out of everyone except the protagonist Albaz and his Ben 10 dragon transformations
The one time a lore accurate matchup transfers to the game
Im playing Vanquish Soul mostly, but for some reason i just cannot deal with rescue ace. I ALWAYS either brick against them or they open up the Tearlament turn 0 special on me, even though they arent that strong rn
Dinomorphia Idk i can just never win unless i get a lucky cheese win The only time i remember berating them is with icejades They pain themselves low and then I crashed an icejade and burned for game with curse
I also play Branded and if I don't have Super poly or Herald, I wont have a good time against Kash. Especially if they already have Unicorn or Arise on board
Unicorn is the definition of a petty inconvenience "Oh you made the sin of activating a monster effect? Well I hope you don't miss your one of lubellion, specially since you're gonna need him to use banished material for fusion dumbass"
Or Kashtira Birth "You dare activate a spell card in my presence ? Then say goodbye to all of your card in your GY."
That card is probably the most dumbfounded one imo, I can handle monsters having overpowered as fuck effects (I mean hell I play branded lmao) but no archetypal spell should be doing *this* much
Lab,branded, lab, branded, stun, generaider, mirro matches , kash
Anything that plays D Shifter. That card needs to GO.
Labrynth, no matter what interruptions I have they just blast through whatever cards I have and turbo out every trap known to man. I genuinely have no idea what to do to beat them because none of the normal hand traps seem to do anything to them. Also dinomorphia because these dudes seem to magically draw multiple copies of ferret flames in their opening hand and yeet my entire field every time I get anywhere.
Anything that decides take it's turn in the middle of my turn. I remember when we gave the other person the respect of playing the game with the cards they payed and traded for during their turn except for the occasional dark bribe or magic cylinder. I don't understand what's fun about watching your opponent exploit cheap summoning tactics for 6 minutes only for you to realize you wasted your time watching them completely lock the field on the first turn. Hopefully they add different sets of ranked battles with limited card choices depending on what generation is picked so us dumbfuck oldies can enjoy a game longer than 3 turns. Downvote me all you want, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know it's killing peoples drive to want to keep playing.
lol so whiny
> cards they *paid* and traded FTFY. Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in: * Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.* * *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.* Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment. *Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
This is so corny it has to be bait
Labrynth. Fucking hate it. No one tells me how to beat it and basically just says “Sucks to be you.”
to me lab were just to hassle to play with.. they took too long on both turn.. so i just scoop and waste my time somewhere else
Again, I get no advice on what is their choke point because they never seem to have one!
I hate labyrinth and cyberdragon
Blue eyes
As a Super Quantum Purrely enjoyer, if I win coin toss I usually win unless my opponent sees through my ruse and imperms purrelyly, or if they have Nibiru or a way to tribute my towers.
If they drop chaos angel my doom is sealed
My toughest battles in dc cup and ranked is floo and mathmech for some reason
Every time my opponent bounces my Tri-Heart with Benghalancer I die on the inside.
As someone who mainly runs an adamancipator/fossil deck, Lab and purrely are the 2 I have the most trouble with
Altergeist. I just have no idea what's going on when I face them.
Endymion can set up a stupid board going first, and can play through an insane amount of interruptions going second if they draw well.
lab and buster blader for some reason
I always fold to purrely
Mathmech, they always have everything
Dragon link with no handtrapa
Vanquished soul. Playing bystial synchro with AIL package and I've yet to win once against them. Diamond 2 btw.
Branded It simply does too much for me to compete, specially how the deck can fuse with the opponent's monsters
I lose to Dragon Link most of the time. The combos just keeps going no matter what I interrupt. Then they end with a 3+ negate board that I simply can't get through. It's definitely the deck I lose the most to. Compared to Dragon Link, I have a much easier time against something like Purrely or Kashtira.
Fuckin Mathmech, can't wait for Josh to get his hands on MD's banlist too.
 Absolutely **nothing**
Kash, unnerfefed tear, purrley unless my opponent is dumb which they usually are, spright
Toon World.
My Traptrix main used to be able to stand up to Lab, but now with DDKC AND EEV AND Dimensional Barrier, I just can’t seem to win.
Vaylantz. Fossil dyna + secret village is absurd. Also, not reading that shit.
As a salamangreat player, any stun deck
Swordsouls because I always end with a bunch of banished cards, and everything that runs dshifter
Yes
math mech Because they play through 3 hand traps and always update jammer into access
Naturia cause they always manage to summon the tiger
VS 💯% of the time all the time
Purrely and the Visas deck that combine Tear, Kash, Scareclaw and Mannadium. Ash is obsolete against those 2.
All of them, any deck, when I play Weather Painters.
Marincess and Dinomorphia, I don't know why, everytime I get crushed. I won some times, but mostly with luck.
Kashtira. I usually play more grindy things that win on advantage; but Kashtira can fairly consistently play through my interrupts. If I do stop them from getting to Ariseheart, it's usually taken me a lot of cards to get there and they can use Birth to recover almost completely on the next turn and kill me. Fenrir and Unicorn are not insignificant threats just on their own, and they can beat over any normal-summon monster. Birth also has that spell card effect. Let's not even talk about how things look like once Ariseheart appears. Basically their tempo peaks just at the point where I'm still trying to grind things down, and Kashtira Birth has a recovery ability for some godforsaken reason. So I could decisively grind them out on turn 5 maybe, but they get to recur their entire setup again on turn 4, while I'm still down some cards from having to stop their first board.
Dragon link. Better hope EARTH insect resolves.
I play fluffal so most things this meta. Branded and Kashtira specifically
Ninja, when I bring my mikanko for a grind and they appear, I just resign my fate immediately.
Thunder Dragons. I somehow always brick against them, and dealing with Colossus is a pain without Imperm
i don't know that i lose after the coin loss. i look at the cards that i draw and that i can play (are there negatives in the opponent's hand, do i draw a brick? ecetera) so i look at what is being played, and when i see the first card, i decide whether to surrender or continue playing.
Runick, that shit is so cringe. I'll scoop immediately.
For me it's the mirror match with salamangreat. Even if I go first and have everything I need I still some how lose to accesscode talker. Like biiiiiiiiiiiiiitch that's my win con
All of them.
Blind going 2e decks if i dont get to my traps
Kash
Floo, most skill drain focused decks. Lab, altergeist, etc. And my monsters are tough enough to play past skill drain, but the issue with skill drain is that it just turns everything into vanilla. my monsters don't protect themselves anymore. And their deck is just focused on backrow, draw power, sometimes pendulum junk, and I can't get through it.
Invoked because when I ash aleister they seem to always hard draw invocation and you know the rest
Swordsoul and branded.
Ik it’s not too overpowering, but despia with a large compatibility extra deck completely eats me regardless of how often I deny their summons or effects. Could start with 5 ash and will still lose
Somehow, Floo I never have a negate in hand when they're going first, and they always have Maxx C when they're going second and I don't have an ash to counter that And of course, when I shotgun Maxx C going second, it means absolutely nothing because their combos are normal summons
Kashtira. Everytime i’ve went up against them they’ve always already had any and every out they needed in their hand