Notes & Combos

Pretty fun climb actually (31 wins), and it was nice to know I could not derank. (Didn't matter too much though, as I never lost more than 2 in a row.)

Notable matchups were Branded, Snake-Eye, Blackwing, Swordsoul, Chimera and Blue-Eyes.

• Branded was the hardest by far, and it entirely depends on their skill level honestly. As you place monsters in their backrow, you keep having to then remove the actual Spells/Traps at some point, then place new monsters there. I'll have an absolutely insane duel in the YT video where I go 2nd and whittle down his resources carefully until I could recycle Knightmare Phoenix and push for game.
• Snake-Eye mirrors were definitely happening. It was a decent variety of players making a safe Nightingale pass, sometimes just Diabellstar + Flamberge, but nobody seemed to be on the Savage Dragon train anymore. (I saw someone on Infernoid, but that was ranked.) The key to winning here is to hold your Temple as long as possible, and wait on Promethean until you catch them clogged for Flamberge.
• Blackwing thankfully doesn't have any answer to Nibiru, but otherwise it's quite the challenge to go 2nd into Chinook, Blackbird Close, Twin Shadow (pop 2), Sharnga, Full Armor, Assault Dragon, Hot Red. Probably need a hand trap to beat a good player.
• Swordsoul was pretty doable. I stole a guy's Chengying, who reduced his monsters by 900 ATK, so he needed 3300 original ATK to lethal me over my 1800 Poplar, wasn't gonna happen! (...you'll see what I mean in the video.)
• Chimera was fairly easy. If you can bait their Coatl negate and Swordknight negate, just play around the big guy who punches 2-3 times by using Diabellstar to send your only atk position monster.