Overview
In case you missed it, this week's Meta Championship Series was our No Side KC Cup MCS, and the first MCS in this post-minibox meta. As a delightful surprise, Water Xyz and Onomat, two of the new decks from the Mini Box, took up a healthy portion of Top Cut, even making it as far as Top 4. However, the more things change the more they stay the same, as the finals was a three-round slugfest between Negative1's Noble Knights and Masarike's Desperado, with Neg1 taking his first MCS championship. Negative1 is the #1 Ranked player on the DLM Ladder, if you want to learn more about him, check out his profile
Interview with Negative1
How do does it feel to win your first Meta Championship Series?
Lots of love from a bunch of people congratulating me, it feels really good to finally win an MCS. I have fallen short a couple of times in past MCS in Top 4, as well as a ton of my runs have ended in Top Cuts, so I am glad that the time I make it past Top 4 I get the win.
How did the day go for you? Any notable matchups?
Most of the matchups for Noble Knights are dictated by the coin flip, but I had a number of matches where I went second and still managed to pull out a win. I think the most notable matches were the ones against Desperado. I had considered using Desperado myself in this MCS because I think it can perform well against Noble Knights, however I think Desperado struggles against Thunder Dragons and Onomat without Side Deck. I reasoned that the more aggressive strategies would probably eliminate most of the Desperado decks from the tournament, so even if my build is not as strong against Desperado as it could be then it wouldn't be an issue if I can perform well in my other matchups. Lo and behold, Desperado was the matchup I had to play in Round 7 of Swiss to make Top 32 and it was the matchup I had to play in Grand Finals to win the tournament.
Would you like to explain any of your Deck choices?
A lot of the ratios were decided by looking at what I disliked about the more common Noble Knight builds. I'm generally opposed to using the discard Traps because they only really win you games if you go first; if you go first you will get a free card off of Loading... and be able to go even with the discard Trap, but if you go second then you often have to discard your combo pieces to survive to your next turn. I used Loading... and Loading... as my Traps because they both have no cost to activate, Treacherous can be a massive swing in advantage and Canadia is the best trap to use with it because it can pull itself out of the grave. I used 3 Loading... because I expected a lot of Thunder Dragons and Onomat, and both of those decks want to summon Loading... to hinder their opponents, so using Book of Moon to counter monster-based disruption seemed like the right call. I'm overall very satisfied with all my card choices in the Main and Extra Deck, I summoned all of my Extra Deck monsters at different points in the tournament.
What are your plans for the KaibaCorp Cup?
My only plans for KC Cup at the moment are to test a bunch and hope for the best, even though I just won MCS I do admit that the current meta puts a large emphasis on who goes first. If I find something I can enjoy playing for the weekend then I will try my best, but if not, then I may spend my time with friends.
Any advice for KCC hopefuls?
This KC Cup I don't have too much advice for people, other than if you want to compete this KC Cup just remain calm and make sure you don't get tilted from the coin flips, the Loading... s, and the Loading... s.
Lastly, Do you have any shout-outs you'd like to make?
Of course much love to everyone who participated. Shout-outs to my Clan Wars Clan 1% and my Team Wars Team Tier Zero, they were very supportive before and after all my games. Shout-outs to Snyffus and Taaha for talking with me about deckbuilding decisions. Last but not least much love to Dkayed, GiaJoestar, and all the mods for the great tournament!
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!