Notes & Combos

I played the Branded version of Dracotail from Silver 4 to Master 5. In 107 games I went 82-25 overall with relative ease. Here's some data to go with my record:

• Overall Win Rate = 76.64%
• Win Rate Going 1st = 77.59%
• Win Rate Going 2nd = 75.51%
• Average Game Length = 2.80 Turns

This deck is very fun to play. I think Dracotail is how archetypes should be constructed going forward. Your turn 1 endboard is typically 5 cards: 1 Arthalion, 1 Gulamel, all three traps set in the backrow, and Faimena in hand to fusion summon a disruption on the opponent's turn. This setup takes no time at all to establish and games become very interactive in subsequent turns. The deck also plays very well into Droll, Maxx "C", or Fuwa and is Nibiru-resistant.

All your disruption is basically face-up and your win condition is often a resource battle, especially in the mirror match. I played so many games where I thought I had zero chance of winning only to resolve a Ketu or Rahu and gain the upper hand in resources before grinding out a win. This deck has a very good matchup against archetypes like Sky Striker, for example, where games come down to managing your resources and getting the most value out of your cards.

I think this deck is also quite fair. There are ways to play around its disruptions, like summoning monsters in defense to play around Horn or chaining in response to your opponents effects to prevent Gulamel's activations. Ultimately the deck is so strong that the further up the ladder I went, the more often I played against opponents main-decking Retaliating "C" or Dimensional Fissure or playing Shifter as countermeasures.

At any rate, I enjoyed how this deck played and think it'll be the deck to beat in the next Duelist Cup for sure.