With the final 2 spots for Goat Format Worlds up for grabs, we saw 47 players attend today's FLC, the most in the history of this tournament series. And, we arguably witnessed one of the most diverse fields of competition in quite some time. However, those rogue decks largely came up short, failing to crack the Top 8.
The most popular deck for a second tournament in a row was Thunder Dragon Chaos Control, coming in at 26% of the field. But its counterpart, Chaos Turbo, took a major hit in popularity, falling from 25% in FLC14 to 13% today. With so many players main decking anti-chaos tech cards like Trap Dustshoot and Kycoo the Ghost Destroyer, interestingly, it was the Chaos Turbo players, not the Chaos Control players, who felt they had to change tactics. On the whole, both decks were fairly successful, each being represented in the tournament's finals and multiples being present in the Top 8.
There was a pretty noticeable uptick in Warrior decks today, most likely as a result of sdlkilla's success in winning GFC10 with a Chaos Warrior deck last weekend. Warrior decks accounted for about 20% of the competition, up from about 10% last time. However, that success from GFC10 was not replicated today, with the highest placing Warrior player coming in at 6th place.
As far as individual cards go, Trap Dustshoot and Kycoo the Ghost Destroyer continue to be used to some degree to counter Thunder Dragon Chaos Control and Chaos Turbo decks. We also see quite a few duelists using Asura Priest to combat control decks and take advantage of the decrease in Sakuretsu Armors. However, a handful duelists in the Top 8 seemed prepared to counteract this trend, including some copies of Sakuretsu Armor in their side decks, if not main decks.
Some other notes: Combo and Lockdown decks were a bit more present today than they had been recently, making up 13% of the competition combined, including decks like Rescue Cat, Reasoning Gate Turbo, and Lockdown Burn. There is a growing sentiment in the community that Chaos mirrors are akin to coin flips these days, and perhaps more duelists are looking for ways to differentiate themselves and avoid that problem by experimenting with rogue decks again. For the moment, the top players in the format don't appear to be interested in such a tactic, but that all might change at the Goat Format World Championship in a few weeks. Stay tuned for the big reveal.
There was a pretty noticeable uptick in Warrior decks today, most likely as a result of sdlkilla's success in winning GFC10 with a Chaos Warrior deck last weekend. Warrior decks accounted for about 20% of the competition, up from about 10% last time. However, that success from GFC10 was not replicated today, with the highest placing Warrior player coming in at 6th place.
As far as individual cards go, Trap Dustshoot and Kycoo the Ghost Destroyer continue to be used to some degree to counter Thunder Dragon Chaos Control and Chaos Turbo decks. We also see quite a few duelists using Asura Priest to combat control decks and take advantage of the decrease in Sakuretsu Armors. However, a handful duelists in the Top 8 seemed prepared to counteract this trend, including some copies of Sakuretsu Armor in their side decks, if not main decks.
Some other notes: Combo and Lockdown decks were a bit more present today than they had been recently, making up 13% of the competition combined, including decks like Rescue Cat, Reasoning Gate Turbo, and Lockdown Burn. There is a growing sentiment in the community that Chaos mirrors are akin to coin flips these days, and perhaps more duelists are looking for ways to differentiate themselves and avoid that problem by experimenting with rogue decks again. For the moment, the top players in the format don't appear to be interested in such a tactic, but that all might change at the Goat Format World Championship in a few weeks. Stay tuned for the big reveal.