Tournament Report: Lordknight Yellow 

Location: Local Game Store in Hong Kong (Player's Club)

Participants: 17

Format: Swiss, Best of 1

Link to Finals Game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUhje2oVnqc&ab_channel=PC%E7%9A%84%E5%8D%A1%E7%89%8C%E9%81%8A%E6%88%B2%E9%A0%BB%E9%81%93

1st: Lordknight Yellow

2nd: Lordknight Yellow

3rd: Mega Zoo

Tournament Composition

4 Shoutmon DX/Wargrey 3 LK 2 Mega Zoo 2 Zwart + Donedevi 2 Big Swing Green 1 Ancient Grey Red 1 Ancient Garuru Blue 1 Hexeblau 1 Black (Owner didn't even bother to record what kind of black it was, RIP black)

Introduction

I placed 1st using the Lordknight yellow deck (finally after way too many 2nd places), what prompted this write-up is that my current version of LK is completely different from my old one, adjusted to fit the Hong Kong meta.

A significant number of people were playing "fun" decks which revolved around the 1st Anniversary Promos. Excluding those, Shoutmon DX red was popular. Unlike back in early March where it was 80% LK, there were only 3 LK decks.

I would also like to take this opportunity to talk about a deck I nearly played, but chickened out at the last moment, due to seeing multiple opponents playing hard counter decks.

Game 1: Lordknight Yellow v Ancient Garuru Blue

Super one-sided match, opponent's lack of tamer let me strangle his memory, lack of a lv5 chain prompted him to keep pushing out of breeding for draws, which just got cleared every time it was pushed out.

Lesson: Unless you can remake the chain, pushing out of breeding for draws is a bad idea, because the on board chain dies and you have to remake the entire chain again.

Game 2: Lordknight Yellow v Lordknight Yellow (4th place guy)

The opponent was unable to establish any threat in breeding, removed all lv5s on board. One-sided game.

Lesson: A single threat play style is extremely ineffective against LK, due to the ease of removing a single large threat. It is much more effective threatening an LK from the breeding zone rather than gambling a hard summon sticks. 

Game 3: Lordknight Yellow v Mega Zoo (3rd place guy, Yellow core)

The opponent couldn't remove my LKs, LK buffed also put them out of range for sec checks and Transcendent Sword. Saved up a wide board while removing any bodies he places out and tried to OTK.

Lesson: Mega Zoo is an extremely slow deck, remove all bodies on the field to prevent evo draws, forcing them to stick to 1 draw per turn. They then have to be really lucky to hit the red tamer to enable their red options (which is their main source of lv6 removal). Do not attack security for the sake of "efficiency" opening a removal option or tamer can radically change the game.

Game 4: Lordknight Yellow v Lordknight Yellow (2nd place guy)

Both had tamer, lv5 in breeding and lv5 on board, since I had 3 LKs and Knightmon in hand to setup lv5 for LK, I took the initiative to evo LK first to remove my opponent's lv5. As expected my LK got removed, followed up with a blocker. Was unable to get past the blocker to kill LK, set up my own blocker as well. Opponent only had Chaosmon:VA left as his only threat evod over his LK, had no breeding zone threat for the remainder of the game, eventually got out valued by LKs.

Lesson: While Chaosmon:VA is an excellent threat to clean up the board, post evo Chaosmon:VA is essentially a Vanila 14000DP beat stick, which is a super low threat as long as you can afford to give up 1 sec per turn. By not always have a chain in breeding setup it essentially signals to your opponent "clear my board at all cost", because the lack of breeding setup prevents LK from attacking thus no value plays. It doesn't matter even if you give the LK player tons of memory, because they won't be able to attack.

1st place - Lordknight Yellow

TTS Import:

 ["Exported from https://digimoncard.dev","BT3-003","BT5-003","BT5-003","BT5-003","BT5-003","BT1-049","BT4-038","BT4-038","BT4-115","BT4-115","BT5-033","BT5-033","BT5-034","BT5-034","BT5-035","BT5-035","BT5-035","BT5-035","ST3-04","ST3-04","BT3-037","BT3-037","BT3-037","BT4-042","BT4-042","BT4-042","BT5-037","ST3-07","ST3-07","ST3-07","ST3-07","BT3-039","BT3-039","BT3-039","BT4-046","BT5-042","BT5-042","BT5-042","BT5-042","BT1-062","BT1-062","BT4-048","BT5-045","BT5-045","BT5-045","BT5-045","BT4-091","BT4-091","BT4-104","BT4-104","BT5-099","BT5-099","BT1-087","BT1-087","BT1-087"]

Old Lordknight Yellow

TTS Import:

["Exported from https://digimoncard.dev","BT5-003","BT5-003","BT5-003","BT5-003","BT1-049","BT1-049","BT1-049","BT3-033","BT3-033","BT4-115","BT4-115","BT5-034","BT5-034","BT5-034","BT5-034","BT5-035","BT5-035","BT5-035","BT5-035","BT3-035","BT3-035","BT3-037","BT3-037","BT3-037","BT4-042","BT4-042","BT4-042","BT4-042","ST3-07","ST3-07","BT1-057","BT1-057","BT1-057","BT1-057","BT4-046","BT5-042","BT5-042","BT5-042","BT5-042","BT1-062","BT1-062","BT4-048","BT5-045","BT5-045","BT5-045","BT5-045","BT4-091","BT4-091","BT4-104","BT4-104","BT5-099","BT5-099","BT1-087","BT1-087"]

Previous write up: https://digimontcgdecks.blogspot.com/2021/03/tournament-report-lordknight-yellow-big.html

Change in deck type

The old version is a control deck that aims to get tiny advantages here and there through draws, removal, and board presence from LK pulls. The core issue with this approach is that even when I have a clear advantage it would take me several turns to close out the game due to the limitation of 1 LK pull per turn, it also lets the opponent clearly calculate the maximum sec attacks I can do. Certainly, the opponent may not know I don't run Bushiagumon and play around the non-existent threat, but I can't punish anyone that doesn't play around it. 

Due to the increased popularity of OTK decks such Zwart, Shoutmon DX, and Big Swing green, the dragged out game only increases the chances of my opponent getting the combo. While I can certainly wipe their board every turn, I still have to face the threat of breeding zone.

Using BT3-Angewomon allows me to save resources on dealing with on board threats and go for a wider board faster to end the game before my opponent can draw their combo. The trade off for this engine is the reduced number of draws hence consistency, and costly lv5 hard summon. The higher power ceiling more than makes up for it in this current OTK centric environment.

Card by card

Cutemon: Counters all the Fusion rush decks and as a bonus prevent green Hidden Potential and Download, didn't play it before due to the overwhelming popularity of LK.

4->5 Digitama: Back on 5 again, but not because I need 5. The same old turtle playstyle makes the 5th egg not matter at all, but due to running the BT3-Angewomon package and reduced Labramons, the extra draw power is welcome.

Bushiagumon: The exclusion was because Bushiagumon was useless apart from landing the killing blow, along with only having LK being able to pull it out, it was one of the lowest priority cards to pull out. But with Angewomon it makes it much easier to drop down.

4->2 Kotemon: Had to make room for Cutemon. Kotemon is also relatively low on the LK pull list, because you're hardly incentivized to attack with LK just for the potential search and exposing yourself to various dangers.

4->1 Labramon: One of the bigger changes, had to make room for ST-Patamon. It was not uncommon to nearly deck myself out running the full set of Labramons, but that made me realize that I was unable to utilize such a large hand because memory was limited. While ST-Patamon is close to useless when the opponent has a 3 mem tamer up, due to not running any 2cost lv3s it is relatively difficult to keep your opponent below 3 memory, ST-Patamon solves that problem by making any 3cost -DP removal effectively 2 cost.

Sirenmon: Deep down I still want to run Sirenmon, but since 4 Knightmon is staple, it only leaves 4-5 slots open for lv5s, it had to be axed to make room Angewomon

1 Wargrowlmon：Absolutely horrendous if you have hard summon it, but the -4000DP is good enough to take a spot since this deck can seldom make use of Sirenmon's 2cost evo.

3 TK 2 Blinding Light: The secured 3 memory is just too important, its extremely hard to make any plays without 3 memory. Blinding Light for the surprise is always good, but seriously contemplating changing it for the NEW 3cost delay options releasing in late April.

Spiral Masquerade: Lordknightmon simply floods the board too easily, it also gives yellow some much needed security effect.

Gladimon: Inferior TK, one of the lowest priority pulls for LK, basically a gamble unless you confirmed the contents of your security with TK beforehand. But the fact that it's a Knight lets you pick it up with Kotemon, thus the only Lv4 that can be "searched".

3 Piddomon, 3 Turuiemon, 4 Unimon:  Lets be honest, you're practically never going to attack with Turuiemon's 6000DP, thus the only value it brings is 1cost evo, which Piddomon also fills in the same role in addition to being a Blocker. However 6000dp is such an important threshold to meet, it dodges Alter-S, Shoutmon DX, Nidgghogmon, Knightmon + -1k from digitama, 2cost 5000DP lv3... and the list goes on. This is why I opted for the 3,3 split on Piddomon and Turuiemon, because 6000DP is just that important.

Yellow Base Rookie Rush

Yes, it's back and stronger than ever before all thanks to Starmons and Spiral Masquerade. The traditional way of playing against Rookie Rush was to slap a blocker and slowly build your board, while ignoring the Rookies, because they cant evo into a real threat anyways. However Starmons and Spiral Masquerade offers an extremely efficient method to wipe the board, heavily punishing your opponent for leaving your digimon alive.

I chickened out at the last second because I saw multiple Mega Zoo decks and a Hexeblau deck. Against Mega Zoo it instantly becomes a dice roll game on how many anti-lv3 cards they hit, against Hexeblue the inability to turtle in breeding just gives them way too much advantage and Hexeblau demands a Spiral Masquerade to answer.

I was still determined to try out the deck in a more serious environment, thus I played against my Game 1,2,3 opponents several times (because we had free time waiting for other matches to end). Results were 3:0 LK, 1:0 Mega Zoo, 2:0 Ancient Garuru blue.

Watch out, it's coming back!

Rookie Rush Writeup: https://digimontcgdecks.blogspot.com/2021/04/bt05-rookie-rush-tts-import-exported.html