Notes & Combos

Unlike previous seasons, I intentionally held off on the final push to Master 1 this season until Maliss could release and I could test a deck against it before uploading it here.

That may have been a mistake.

Maliss in its current state is, for lack of a better term, nuts. It does everything: sets up unbreakable boards, recovers it all from a single effect, often can't be handtrapped in any way that matters, sometimes OTKs Tenpai-style, and even turbo draws for non-engine. No wonder -- despite the hype thankfully dying down a little -- the handtrap lineup of many decks has shifted to counter Maliss specifically (looking at you, Lancea). Going 2nd is still sacky as all bonkers: if you've got no turn 0 floodgate non-engine active, might as well go next. I hope that problem gets fixed soonish....

... That first bit was the same as my Purrely list intro, but I think it bore repeating, since this is the other side of that coin: this Mimikash deck is hilarious, but I don't suggest it past M3.

With Maliss and Tenpai being quite common, you're gonna run into frustrating interactions with Impulse (which suppresses any monsters you give your opponent), Droplet (which removes the monster from their board), and sometimes Reboot (which stuffs both Room and Azurune if you were trying to play around Nibiru).

The deck also feels quite dependent on the turn coinflip, with Talents often running face-first into a negate (and even if not, the Maliss endboard is all about their multiple cards, so you can't utilize the stolen card like Terahertz or an 800 Apo very well), engine-heavy hands will find themselves unable to OTK into even medium-sized endboards, which against the extreme recoverability of Maliss -- even under Typhon -- might as well be the L right there.

I cut Apo because hilariously every time I made it in this deck, I lost to a power spell. That might just be a matter of taste though, as my Yubel testing confirmed Apo is actually quite effective against Maliss if you can get there. Though, I also suspect Apo may be getting banned in the near future to allow Nibiru and Bloss to actually feel like they're doing anything against Maliss.

(Knightmare) Unicorn is there because SP sometimes just isn't interaction against Maliss. In this meta you might be able to get away with cutting Typhon instead though.