Overview

In case you missed it, this week's Meta Weekly was the first Meta Weekly after the new Main BOX and impactful ARC-V Level-Up Rewards. As a result we had several new decks finding their way into the meta. In the finals, we had two of these newly-supported decks, with

's Burning Abyss taking out 's D/D/D's in a close three-game slugfest.

Interview with Vhypir

How does it feel to win this Meta Weekly?

It feels amazing! After coming in second place last week, it means a lot to be able to bounce back like this. While there were not many participants, I felt the scene was filled with some pretty great players to make up for it.

Why did you go with Burning Abyss?

Aside from me having fun mastering the deck, it's one of the best decks to bring to the tournament scene, in my opinion. It has an insane grind game while being able to commit to sneaky lethals at any point with Loading... , Loading... or Loading... ; with decks like D/D/D, this was held to be even more true. Now, I know what y'all are probably thinking. Does the addition of Loading... really make the deck that much better?

Yes. Yes, it does.

Being able to feel comfortable with a follow-up regardless of the amount of Spell / Trap card zones that are occupied, along with it being searchable through Loading... is extremely important. While Tour Guide can prevent you from extending through a Loading... or Loading... , there are ways to play around that such as Special Summoning Loading... or Loading... since you more than likely have another Burning Abyss Monster in hand along with Tour Guide. Overall, Burning Abyss is an incredibly fun deck that I feel needs to be accounted for in future tourneys.

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

As mentioned earlier, I had expected a lot of D/D/Ds. But I never expected to have six of my eight matches be against them, much less them all being in a row spanning from Round 3 of Swiss to the Grand Finals. It's definitely the best deck after the new BOX, and I had a hard time keeping up with it and ended a lot of matches on Game 3.

As for my most notable matchup, it would have to be against my teammate, Egg, and his Buster Blader. The match almost went to time limit as I tried to find a way to out his board while playing around his Loading... from the Side Deck and Loading... from his Main Deck. While I lost a close Game 3, it was a fun experience for me overall.

I think what made the overall run much easier was that hardly anyone I saw played perfectly as far as interacting with my Burning Abyss monsters. I'm sure this will be corrected in time, though, as more BAs fill the tourney scene.

Anything you'd like to say about your decklist?

I considered a lot of different techs that meshed well with the flow of Burning Abyss, and ultimately chose cards like Loading... and Loading... to run in my Main Deck since I was expecting to see a lot of D/D/D and Odd-Eyes decks.

A tech I was also considering was Loading... , but I thought it would be too situational and not be a surefire way to out Pends like Bottomless Trap Hole is. However, I will say that it has a great mental advantage to get your opponent to feel too comfortable in building a board from not feeling a delay, but it's less effective in a Bo3 format.

While Loading... is an overall nice card to have, it's generally not the best against Pendulum decks and even if D/D/D uses the Graveyard more now, the new Loading... creates an overwhelming amount of pressure when used correctly, and this trap card is very slow. I figured I would need immediate answers to D/D/D's ability to make a powerful board.

It goes without saying that Loading... in my Side Deck helped tremendously in my run. In Grand Finals, I drew a total of 7 cards in Game 3, and all my discards were to my benefit. In addition, against D/D/D, they can't pop their own backrow cards to prevent themselves from taking damage. The only out they would have to it is High King Genghis negating the burn, but that's still a large burden on them and Mind of the Plana on High King after a quick Loading... banish solves all of your problems.

Looking back, I don't believe I would make any changes considering the recent Pendulum and Fluffal hype.

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

Not much, although I do wish to see more participants in these events. The current meta is great right now, and I feel like DMC should be making the events more accessible to members of the Discord to introduce some more hype.

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

Firstly, a huge shoutout to my team, Mile High Clan, for taking a chance on a new guy in the scene, none of this would be possible without y'all.

Shoutout to Regular Kids and all of the members that were cheering me on along the way. Big thanks to Black Titans for getting me into the tourney scene just recently after being a league junkie for so long. In addition, thank you to the Casual Heroes discord for being a great place to discuss list ideas and chill.

Special thanks to

, , , , , , and for the help and motivation along my whole journey.

Finally, BA best deck!!!

Winning Decklist:


That's all we got for this DLM Champion spotlight! What kind of questions should we be asking in the future? Comment down below!