Top Player Council Thoughts
Less than a week away from the November KC cup, this Tier List update will be focused specifically on the KC cup format with best-of-1 duels on the ladder.
Tier 1
The best decks for the KC cup, expected to dominate the low DP range early and remain strong picks higher up even after counter-pick strategies take hold.
Blue-Eyes has been promoted to Tier 1, in part due to a great performance by BlackJesus who used them to win MCS XIII, but also because their power, consistency, and speed are very valuable for grind events like KC cups. An excellent match-up against Masked Heroes is a strong point as well, especially with Heroes likely being one of the most popular decks of the event.
Masked Heroes have remained in Tier 1 as a consistently reliable choice for KC cups. Pilots of Hero decks have used them to get Top 10 rankings in April/June, and multiple Top 100 rankings in August. Hero decks can be built successfully in multiple different ways: with Balance for maximum consistency, Sealed Tombs for help against Vampire and Blue-Eyes decks, or even The Tie that Binds for a boost in the mirror match. No matter how they're built, however, Heroes are always good for at least a few free games with an opening hand of multiple Loading... .
Vampires are the third and final Tier 1 deck going into the KC cup, although they are expected to be less played than Blue-Eyes and Heroes. Vampires' typical turn 1 set-up with Loading... /Loading... + Loading... + Loading... with another Vampire in the grave leaves them liable to get OTK'd on turn 2 by Masked Heroes. Top-performing Vampire players will have to be very clever and adaptable with their card/skill choices -- do you want to use Sealed Tombs for mirror matches (where Loading... is most useful), Blue-Eyes, and Spellbooks? Bandit and Loading... for backrow-heavy decks that might otherwise give you trouble? Even Destiny Draw is a very strong option, giving you access to game-ending cards like ECon or Trunade almost at will.
TPC Comments:
monkeyboy44:
Heroes tier 1, hope you were sitting down when you read that one. BEWD and Vampires also have just as much ability to compete as Heroes do in a best-of-1 format like the KC cup. There's a clear triangle here of which deck counters which and one may end up being a stronger choice than the other two depending on what the KC cup meta ends up looking like, but right now it's just too up in the air to say that any of these 3 will be better than the others, they'll likely all top.
Sasuke:
Heroes have and always will be one of the best decks to run in the KC cup. Even without Polymerization, the deck still has huge OTK potential with the right build. Vampires also have amazing OTK potential and can often win games by turn 4 or sooner with a Loading... play into Loading... /Loading... removal. Blue-Eyes will also be a great KC cup deck that can be very overwhelming. Although OTK potential is not as high as the other Tier 1 decks, it can often put 2-3 big bodies on the board by turn 2/3 and remove backrow with Loading... to go for quick games. It may not always win games as fast as Heroes or Vampires, but it for sure will have great consistency in the KC format.
Kcful:
Heroes provide fast and easy wins against a variety of matchups. Vampires will be the Spellbook and BEWD counters in the KC cup; expect to see them widely played. BEWD is another OTK deck that will be used to counter Heroes and stack up wins.