Meta Weekly 188 Champion Spotlight - kingkrabbe

Interview with kingkrabbe

How does it feel to win your first Meta Weekly?

I have to say it feels pretty good. I've had a string of good results recently, so I'm glad I was finally able to close one out and win a Meta Weekly, especially after the close fall a few weeks ago against Yosenju.

Why did you go with Resonators this Weekly?

It's the deck I've been playing for most of this meta. Onomats are the deck to beat, so if you're not playing Onomats (which you probably should) you have to keep them in mind. With the 21 card build you have a near 75% chance of opening combo + a going second card (Loading... / Loading... ). Similarly, if you go first you have a 70% chance of combo + disruption (Loading... / Loading... / Loading... ). With Onomats being a bit weaker, and people tinkering a lot with their builds, I thought this was a good standard list to bring to the Meta Weekly to try and take advantage of this.

How did the day go for you? Any notable matchups?

Swiss was pretty uneventful, apart from a close match against my clanmate Jojo. I headed undefeated into Top 32. Top Cut got more turbulent as it went on though. In the Top 16 match I won 2-0 but Game 2 was decided on a 50/50 Loading... and an unlucky misread of backrow. Top 8 and Top 4 were Thunder Dragons and they always had the potential to blow me out on a missed OTK. Loading... really helped me out with this matchup, especially against

B.Z Sakura

where I managed to keep it on the field for 15 Turns to shut down his plays Game 2. Then in the Finals, I sacked the Gaia player game 1. Game 2 I opened the Side Decked Loading... but no combo. After multiple turns of stalling him, I finally was able to make my plays. It eventually came down to a 1/11 topdeck to win me the game, as I had no other Level 4s left in the deck but the final crucial Loading... after siding out Loading... . After that, and another topdeck of Poisonous Winds I was sure I had the game won, and I closed it out 2-0. My run was 5 Onomats, 3 TDs, 1 Vendread and 1 Gaia (I finished 10-0).

Would you like to explain any of your Deck choices?

The list I ran is pretty standard, cram as much techs into the deck as possible. Loading... for backrow, Loading... + Loading... to play into Onomat boards Turn 2, and Loading... because it's the best Limit 2 and I don't run any other Traps (in the Main Deck). My side was pretty diverse. I ran Loading... for wins against decks with no or limited outs. I had 1 Loading... just in case someone happened to go with Fire Kings. Loading... was mainly for Thunder Dragons but also in case of Loading... . I also sided 2 Loading... because it's strong disruption against Harpies and I wanted more options against Onomat. I messed with the deck ratios a lot in siding, dropping Loading... s and Loading... occasionally to fit in more disruption, especially against Onomats. Finally, the 2 Loading... was for Gaia. Two out of my last three Tops with Resonators have been stopped by Gaia, so I wanted something to really simplify the matchup. It really helped in the final, completely shutting down their plays and should have led to an easy victory if not for a horrible brick.

Do you have anything else you'd like to say about your Tournament Experience?

I'd like to thank the mods for keeping the tournament as smooth as possible and the casters for keeping it entertaining. And also props to

ChaosDragon88

who never had used Smash.gg before but made a good run into Top Cut.

Lastly, do you have any shout-outs you'd like to make?

I'd like to shout-out all my clanmates at Den of Thieves, especially the leaders Dizzybat and

DonViper

. Thanks to

jojo

and

SHOMA

for helping me with testing, and to

barles

for warning me about

B.Z Sakura

side decking Drowning. Shout-out to the SSA Discord for getting me into competitive Duel Links. And finally shout-out to my brother if he happens to read this.

Winning Decklist: