Meta Weekly 229 Champion Spotlight - Luke Tyler

Interview with Luke Tyler

How does it feel to win this Meta Weekly?

Feels great, I had a lot of fun! This is my third Meta Weekly win, but it's been three years since my last, so it's nice to win again. I enjoy the meta Duel Links has at the moment, so I had fun in the event regardless of placement.

What was your approach to this new Box Format?

Other than Burning Abyss with Loading... I hadn't looked too much into the other decks newly=supported from the recent BOX, so I suppose I relied more on the knowledge of my own deck and learned the other decks as I played.

Why did you go with Burning Abyss?

Burning Abyss has been my all-time favourite deck ever since I started playing competitively in the TCG in 2015, and even before Loading... came to the deck in Duel Links I desperately jumped through hoops to find a way to reach KoG with Burning Abyss. So I'm super happy with how much support the deck has gotten recently (Loading... , then Loading... then Loading... ). The deck is now quite reminiscent of how the pure version of Burning Abyss was in 2016. Favouritism aside, I genuinely think that Beatrice pushes the deck into meta relevancy - it's a huge boost for both power and grind.

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

I managed beat all the D/D/D I faced, but with Odd-Eyes I didn't know a lot about the deck so I lost after making a couple of misplays. I faced Harpies in Top 16, which used to be one of the worst matchups for Burning Abyss - but now going first with Beatrice against a Normal Summon-reliant deck feels really strong. Other than that, it was cool to face some other newly-supported decks (Spellbooks and Galaxy-Eyes).

Anything you'd like to say about your decklist?

For the main deck, I used a trap-less build to summon Loading... more consistently. I don't think that Burning Abyss needs to draw a backrow to win going first anymore when Beatrice by herself is often enough in the defensive apartment. As for the Side Deck, I expected to face a mixture of new box decks and pre-existing top decks, so I tried to prepare my Side Deck with that in mind. Loading... is amazing against Pendulum decks (D/D/D and Odd-Eyes), Loading... is good against Burning Abyss, Galaxy-Eyes and Gandora. Loading... I threw into the deck to have an out to Loading... and an easier out to the new Loading... setup. As for changes, if I had a 3rd Loading... or Beatrice I would use it to replace Loading... .

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

I haven't played many tournaments recently, but I've been enjoying how Konami has been balancing Duel Links recently and for me that has certainly made competitive events more enticing to play (though I do wish the game was more affordable to those who want to get more competitively-involved).

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

Thank you to the DLM staff for hosting the event! I've been playing in these events for over 4 years now and still going. Shout-outs to my Twitch chat for hanging out with me during the stream where I KOG'd with Beatrice Burning Abyss a few hours before the tournament, and I look forward to talking about my Meta Weekly experience on Monday's stream. Also shoutout to my friend [B&P]Grucius for always discussing random decks and ideas with me. Shoutout to the readers for reading, and have a great day!

Winning Decklist: