Peer in to the Veil: The big players at KMC’s this weekend

Peer into the Veil

Hey there Kaijudo duelists. This past weekend was the first weekend of the Winter KMC season and among the first tournaments with Shattered Alliances legal. We had 5 total KMC’s take place all over the U.S. with players trying their best to find victory.

First we’ll go to Torrington CT at the KMC which i participated in. Unfortunately i did not top 8 however fellow writer Brian Durkin took it home with his Dragon Variant. The top 8 consisted of 4 Dragon Variants, 2 Haven Variants, 1 Water/Dark/Light control, and 1 Light/Nature/Fire Rush. The Haven Variants were both 4 color versions. The Dragon lists were variations on 8/9 Birds with each player running their own techs. The Water/Dark/Light was a sort of classic variant from last format with a single Eternal Haven thrown in to the mix. The only rush deck that made it was a cool deck made by Carl of Team Peach and successfully piloted by Bill Swanson that included green for some of the aggressive dual civ’s like Sword Horned, Starseed, and Razorcat along with Essence Elf to boost your whole field even more. Finals was a dragon control mirror with Brian Durkin edging out Jonah Acosta for the win. I’m sure Brian will do something on his card choices and deck so you guys will have to look out for that in Brian’s section. There were a ton of awesome cards that proved to be powerful here and at the other KMC’s.

Moving along we’ll go to KMC Evansville where Jerah and Robert both were able to perform well. Check out Jerah’s recent article for decklists. 1st and 2nd place were also Dragon variants with 1st place having an interesting tech in the form of Jump Jets and 2nd place using Hammer Dragon Foulbyrn to gain massive advantage. Rounding out the top 8 are 5 Aggro/Rush Variants and a Haven Deck. Dragons continue it’s dominance in the meta. An awesome list from Jerah is similar to a list i lost to in the first round in CT piloted by Aiden Thorne, proving Blurple is still a contender. The Rush decks are still going strong with the addition of Blinder Beetle Prime and the slew of Fire/Light cards released in Shattered Alliances.

Next up is KMC Atlanta where the top 8 was almost dominated by Rush/Aggro decks. Only 2 control decks made it and none of them were Haven or Dragon decks. First place was a Water/Fire/Light Rush deck that included Water for it’s bounce to compliment the tap in light to punish slow control decks and get blockers out the way by any means necessary. 2nd place is one of the few Mega-Bug decks that managed to make it into top 8’s this weekend. Nothing much changed besides the addition of Cyber Scamp, who is proving to be a problem against slow control decks.

After that is KMC Ohio which was won by veteran CVH with his 4 color Haven deck. 2nd place was a Light rush deck and Kalima finally reared her head coming in at 3rd place. Around the bend are 4 Dragon Decks and 1 more Haven Deck. Spencer Swan and Gordon Hunt both made top 8 as well so a great day for Team Peach and a good showing for Control. We’re starting to see a ton of similarities in the decks here and i’ll go in to that in a minute.

Finally is KMC Albany where Robert Herbert won it all with his 4 color Haven Deck. Carl Reddish made top 8 with Mega Bugs. The rest of the top 8 consisted of 2 more Haven, 2 Dragon decks, 1 Mono Fire, and 1 Water/Dark/Light Aggro deck. This KMC had some interesting choices from the control players with Robert Herbert and David Bruno both piloting Haven Decks containing Blinder Beetle Primes.

My pick for the Top 5 cards this weekend:

1. General Finbarr. From Dragon decks to Rush decks the powerful Cyberlord known as Finbarr was all over the place. In dragons he allowed players to refill their hands and get aggressive with their birds to put away the game early if they needed to. In Rush/Aggro decks, it bounced blockers back to their opponents hand and prevented control players from mounting a come back while keeping the aggressive juices flowing by supplying players with more and more small creatures to pummel their opponents with. Get your starter decks fast if you haven’t already because this guy is on his way up.

2. Screeching Scaradorable. This card gave Control decks some much needed defense against Cyber Scamp, who players found to be a problem to deal with. Aggro players couldn’t just bounce it so easily because it would keep coming down and killing off their small creatures. Being able to kill opposing Umbras and Lux was a great asset as well. On the other side of that, Blurple decks found he dealt with Aqua Strider nicely and allowed that final push for the win. This little guy is making a comeback in a big way.

3. Cyber Scamp. This guy showed up in all kinds of decks with his versatility and resiliency. Once you start flooding the field it gets hard for control players to fight back with out the use of their spells and if they do, they’ve got another one of these little guys to deal with. Mega Bugs and Blurple get that much more dangerous. Watch out because that eye on his forehead isn’t looking at you, it’s looking at your wallet.

4. Heretic Prince Var-rakka. Dragons still had the best showing this weekend and this guy is a big part of that. He does quite a bit for dragon decks replacing Hyper Speed as the Fast Attack Enabler of dragons. Heretic Prince allows your birds to come in and have an even bigger immediate impact on the game and if you were attacking in early with birds, dropping this guy just seals the game right there. He’s also turn 8 which without even needing the help of birds is right before Haven decks most dangerous threats. Prince and Finbarr were best friends all weekend and things should stay that way.

5. Eternal Haven. Yea we all knew it was gonna be strong but people are still trying to perfect this guy and while Haven decks aren’t as complete as Dragon decks just yet, they were still able to put up some amazing numbers in the Top 8’s this weekend. Haven being untargetable is so back breaking, forcing players to use unorthodox cards to deal with it like Crimson Wyvern. This weekend proved Eternal Haven is the real deal and so is her price.