Tier 1
Tier 2
TPC Comments
gift
Elementsabers have been promoted to Tier 2 and while the deck certainly has problems, it's still solid and can hold its own. The presence of Witchcrafters and Invoked Neos are one of the main reasons for the problems that Elementsabers have. These are the Tier 1 decks and are very commonly played. Witchcrafters simply outadvantage Elementsabers, and while the Invoked Neos is very winnable, it is still an annoying matchup. Nonetheless, the deck still has a very decent matchup spread. The new set, Arena of Sanctuary, also introduced another good matchup through Karakuri. Karakuri look to be a very decent deck and will definitely be popular in the near future.
The deck has held a positive win percentage over 3 weeks of Clan Wars and performed solid in community tournaments. It should be able to maintain its Tier 2 status for a while but is very vulnerable to drop due to changes in the meta. As soon as Elementsabers become just a bit too good, the meta will adjust to counter it like always, and we will return to the mean.
Tier 3
TPC Comments
ChuChuMTFKR
Despite being a powerful deck, consistency issues and low representation have dropped Blue-Eyes go to Tier 3. We saw some lists being played with more starters in exchange for the more explosive openings offered by the standard list, but those lists rely way too much on going first and struggle against aggresive decks like Blackwings, Karakuri, and HEROs.
Fetty Guap
Karakuri is being inducted back into the tier list following its recent release of support. Going first it can set up nicely with a field full of monsters, a draw, and a negate that will likely lead to another draw on your opponent's turn as well. Going second it can easily OTK as it usually plays cards like Loading... / Loading... / Loading... / Loading... to help play through disruptions because it only requires 2 cards to combo.
Herbel
Karakuri received a huge boost with the new Mini Box, Arena of Sanctuary. With the addition of Loading... the deck has now a one card combo with Loading... , and the deck can end on Loading... and Loading... with a 2-card combo, which can be either Merchant and Loading... or Komachi and Loading... . Karakuri Bonze alone gives a huge consistency boost to Karakuris, and it allows you to play other skills than Level Augmentation . The most popular Skill for the deck is Restart , which makes the deck more consistent.
The other big support is Loading... , a searchable monster negate, and we all know that every deck with generic negate had huge impact on the meta previously. Going first a well-timed Cash Inn can shut down the plays of majority of the meta decks.
The strength of karakuri was shown right on the first week of the deck. Going first the deck is super scary, consistently building big boards of Synchro monsters, generating card advantage with Bureido, and setting up searchable monster negate is all that a strong meta deck needs. Going second, however, the weakness of the deck is shown. Usually, you have only one line of play, and if that one play is disrupted by a Flip-down or Removal, you have to pass an open board. That's why Karakuri desperately relies on tech cards like Loading... , Loading... and Loading... for the going second scenarios. The access to Hey, Trunade! means that control decks never feel safe at setting their Traps on Turn 1. The only control deck that doesn't have to worry too much about Hey, Trunade! is Elementsabers, as Loading... can win the matchup alone, similarly to how it wins the Blackwing matchup.
With the additional draws and heavy deck thin, Karakuri gain a huge advantage of the Side Deck format, as they can easily see their match-deciding Side Deck cards. Overall, while Karakuri can act like a Turn 2 OTK deck with heavy removal, they can (and prefer) to go first, and set up their own plays.