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Master Duel Meta Report: Mysterious Labyrinth
With Selection Pack: Mysterious Labyrinth arriving just a few weeks ago at the start of December, players waited with bated breath to see how the long-awaited Labrynth and Runick archetypes would perform. While overall expectations should be satisfied, it has left a sour taste in the mouth of some as it marked the arrival of a new meta relevant floodgate deck.
With such a short time period between set releases, there will be little opportunity to showcase new techs to decks resulting in smaller text segments, additionally, the sample size will expectedly be fewer. Please consider this when looking at the graph below.
Data sourced from tournament reports on MasterDuelMeta.com
Runick
Despite dismissive comments from some, Runick has been the top performing decks in the last period, though how much of this is due to recency bias is up for debate.
What is not up for debate however, is that the deck is more than capable of keeping up with the current Master Duel meta. With the tools to deal with virtually any situation and resistance to most floodgates, Runick is rarely in an auto-lose situation. While playable and finding success in many different forms, such as combined with the Invoked engine, or as a Synchro deck, the floodgate variant has been overwhelmingly by competitive players. With a unique deck strategy that usually involves few or even zero monsters on the field, Runick is able to beat the clock that is the opponent assembling enough damage to end the duel by decking them out first.
It remains to be seen how powerful Runick will be in the meta over the future; while losing to auto lose techs such as Chaos Hunter and powerful cards like Cosmic Cyclone which disrupts the protect-the-castle strategy focusing around Runick Fountain, tournaments which follow a no side or best-of-one format do not allow players to take the measures needed to grant a chance to win. So many counters make it likely that Runick will not be particualrly dominant in tournaments with siding, but will be a force to be reckoned with in tournaments which do not.
If the Yu-Gi-Oh! DB website asks to login with Game Card ID just click "I don't have a game card ID" and fill some basic information to proceed
Export Guide
- Via the MDM extension (Recommended): Download on Firefox, or Chromium Browsers For Chromium browsers (Chrome/Edge/Opera/Brave...etc) just click "Add to chrome" on the store page and it'll work on most if not all chromium browsers. After using the extension, go to the Master Duel game => Main menu => Deck option => The Card database option at the top right corner => locate the deck you exported and copy it
Once the deck page loads click Edit then do one of the following based on the platform your device is running:
(PC Only): Press F12 to open the browser console => Paste the export code there => Hit Enter
OR (Other platforms/PC): In the address bar of the current tab remove the URL and type "javascript:" without the quotations then paste the export code and hit Enter
Save the deck
Go to the Master Duel game => Main menu => Deck option => The Card database option at the top right corner => locate the deck you exported and copy it
If the Yu-Gi-Oh! DB website asks to login with Game Card ID just click "I don't have a game card ID" and fill some basic information to proceed
Export Guide
- Via the MDM extension (Recommended): Download on Firefox, or Chromium Browsers For Chromium browsers (Chrome/Edge/Opera/Brave...etc) just click "Add to chrome" on the store page and it'll work on most if not all chromium browsers. After using the extension, go to the Master Duel game => Main menu => Deck option => The Card database option at the top right corner => locate the deck you exported and copy it
Once the deck page loads click Edit then do one of the following based on the platform your device is running:
(PC Only): Press F12 to open the browser console => Paste the export code there => Hit Enter
OR (Other platforms/PC): In the address bar of the current tab remove the URL and type "javascript:" without the quotations then paste the export code and hit Enter
Save the deck
Go to the Master Duel game => Main menu => Deck option => The Card database option at the top right corner => locate the deck you exported and copy it
If the Yu-Gi-Oh! DB website asks to login with Game Card ID just click "I don't have a game card ID" and fill some basic information to proceed
Export Guide
- Via the MDM extension (Recommended): Download on Firefox, or Chromium Browsers For Chromium browsers (Chrome/Edge/Opera/Brave...etc) just click "Add to chrome" on the store page and it'll work on most if not all chromium browsers. After using the extension, go to the Master Duel game => Main menu => Deck option => The Card database option at the top right corner => locate the deck you exported and copy it
Once the deck page loads click Edit then do one of the following based on the platform your device is running:
(PC Only): Press F12 to open the browser console => Paste the export code there => Hit Enter
OR (Other platforms/PC): In the address bar of the current tab remove the URL and type "javascript:" without the quotations then paste the export code and hit Enter
Save the deck
Go to the Master Duel game => Main menu => Deck option => The Card database option at the top right corner => locate the deck you exported and copy it
For the first time in months, Despia is no longer the showrunner in terms of representation. Despite getting brand new support, it has fallen by the wayside to Runick, though this can likely be attributed to recency bias. Despia is still the highest performing deck with a traditional playstyle, so those interested in that avenue of gameplay are still best off playing the deck. With the impending Duelist Cup Forbidden & Limited List, the players are expecting hits to this deck, which may spell the end of its meta relevance.
Of note is Despia's ability to play Eradicator Epidemic Virus, an extremely strong Trap that has applications against most decks but also immediately wins the Runick matchup.
If the Yu-Gi-Oh! DB website asks to login with Game Card ID just click "I don't have a game card ID" and fill some basic information to proceed
Export Guide
- Via the MDM extension (Recommended): Download on Firefox, or Chromium Browsers For Chromium browsers (Chrome/Edge/Opera/Brave...etc) just click "Add to chrome" on the store page and it'll work on most if not all chromium browsers. After using the extension, go to the Master Duel game => Main menu => Deck option => The Card database option at the top right corner => locate the deck you exported and copy it
Once the deck page loads click Edit then do one of the following based on the platform your device is running:
(PC Only): Press F12 to open the browser console => Paste the export code there => Hit Enter
OR (Other platforms/PC): In the address bar of the current tab remove the URL and type "javascript:" without the quotations then paste the export code and hit Enter
Save the deck
Go to the Master Duel game => Main menu => Deck option => The Card database option at the top right corner => locate the deck you exported and copy it
If the Yu-Gi-Oh! DB website asks to login with Game Card ID just click "I don't have a game card ID" and fill some basic information to proceed
Export Guide
- Via the MDM extension (Recommended): Download on Firefox, or Chromium Browsers For Chromium browsers (Chrome/Edge/Opera/Brave...etc) just click "Add to chrome" on the store page and it'll work on most if not all chromium browsers. After using the extension, go to the Master Duel game => Main menu => Deck option => The Card database option at the top right corner => locate the deck you exported and copy it
Once the deck page loads click Edit then do one of the following based on the platform your device is running:
(PC Only): Press F12 to open the browser console => Paste the export code there => Hit Enter
OR (Other platforms/PC): In the address bar of the current tab remove the URL and type "javascript:" without the quotations then paste the export code and hit Enter
Save the deck
Go to the Master Duel game => Main menu => Deck option => The Card database option at the top right corner => locate the deck you exported and copy it
If the Yu-Gi-Oh! DB website asks to login with Game Card ID just click "I don't have a game card ID" and fill some basic information to proceed
Export Guide
- Via the MDM extension (Recommended): Download on Firefox, or Chromium Browsers For Chromium browsers (Chrome/Edge/Opera/Brave...etc) just click "Add to chrome" on the store page and it'll work on most if not all chromium browsers. After using the extension, go to the Master Duel game => Main menu => Deck option => The Card database option at the top right corner => locate the deck you exported and copy it
Once the deck page loads click Edit then do one of the following based on the platform your device is running:
(PC Only): Press F12 to open the browser console => Paste the export code there => Hit Enter
OR (Other platforms/PC): In the address bar of the current tab remove the URL and type "javascript:" without the quotations then paste the export code and hit Enter
Save the deck
Go to the Master Duel game => Main menu => Deck option => The Card database option at the top right corner => locate the deck you exported and copy it
This probably will end up being wrong, but with the re-print selection box coming out I feel like Despia might not get hit too hard in the ban list just due to the fact they probably don’t want to discourage sales. Same with Swordsoul and possibly Runic (if anything, it will be minor hits to the deck)
The thing about despia, is that it might be the current best deck but it doesn't feel impossible to play against it. To be honest, I don't think it need any hit.
It seems like the past banlists Konami puts out for this game typically hit cards that have a high usage rate and occasionally they hit a card if they’re way too oppressive ( VFD, Bozo, etc). That’s the only reason I could see Despia getting a slight hit, but I agree with you, I don’t really think they need one. Good deck for sure, but not bad at all to play against.
I think it should also be mentioned if the tournaments are bo1 or bo3 because the winrate of some decks might be missleading and some new players might just spend all their UR points and regret it. For example Pendulum Magicians are strong going 1st but might even have less than 10% winrate going 2nd.
Master Duel has grown tremendously this past year for sure. Many players like me who never played competitive Yu-Gi-Oh now play MD. Will be exciting to see which new modes Konami are adding in future.
It's very hard to take meta reports like this serious when they don't include any of the official Tournaments that streamers do for Konami now. They use BO1 like many of these tournaments, but are much bigger and would change this meta report quite drastically.
Data sourced from tournament reports on MasterDuelMeta.com
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