Picking a Deck

The challenge of having multiple decks is picking the one to use for a tournament. Right now, I’ve done extensive play-testing, and it hasn’t helped my decision enough. I was originally choosing between these decks:


Dino-Rabbit

Wind-Ups

Agents

Chaos Anti-meta

Chaos Dragons

Exodia

I have tested all of these decks, and this is what I’ve determined:

- Chaos Dragons are slightly underpowered compared to Agents

- Agents has a wide-range of good or solid matchups, but falls horribly to its bad matchups

- Chaos Anti-Meta is honestly, pretty solid. However, it doesn’t have the explosive power that other decks do. It also has a somewhat bad matchup against Mermails

- Wind-Ups are the same always: They do everything, and occasionally make Shock Master first turn

- Dino-Rabbit with Macro is a really good meta call. However, I need to draw the Macro, and be able to make Laggia and Dollka quickly.

- Exodia will usually win game one this format, but will likely lose the following games. Oh, and Moulinglacia might murder the deck.

Taking this information into consideration, I’ve knocked down this list to four decks:

Dino-Rabbit

Wind-Ups

Agents

Chaos Anti-Meta

I believe that Agents do what Chaos Dragons do, and are a little more powerful and less reliant on luck. I don’t want to risk playing Exodia because the deck is simple to counter, and Moulinglacia exists.

I was impressed with Agents this weekend. This feeling lasted until today when I got savagely destroyed by Dark Worlds. Agents have a bad matchup against Dark Worlds, and it didn’t help that I didn’t draw a single MST or usable Herald of Orange Light. Honestly, if I’m playing Agents at Regionals, I might side Herald of Green Light. I can’t deny that Agents are impressive though, and have enough control over the board to capitalize all the time, usually. I also have to consider that Dark World decks will be minimal at the event.

I’ve tested Wind-Ups quite a bit to know that Agents have the overall better matchup, and they are on par with other strong decks. The deck destroyed Dark Worlds today, and I didn’t summon Shock Master once, so that’s a good sign. This deck wins because it has an out to almost everything, and can generate a lot of advantage. The major conflict I have arises with the increase of hand-traps, due to the rise of Mermails. Veiler and Maxx “C” should be staples, and those cards thwart Wind-Ups, usually.

Macro Dino-Rabbit just hurts a lot of decks, including Mermails, which will take up a good population at Regionals. It also has decent match-ups against every deck, due to Laggia and Dollka. The only negative is that sometimes, this deck has difficult hands. Also, drawing dead Rabbits late-game can be a serious factor.
The final option is Chaos Anti-Meta. This deck uses one-for-ones to take control of the game. I also use Light and Dark monsters that cause people issues, like Spirit Reaper and Thunder King. This deck doesn’t explode like other decks, and it rarely achieves a +1. Also, sometimes I will draw the wrong cards at the worst times. This is the same with most decks, though.

So those are the main points of my testing. I’m honestly stuck between these four decks, because they are all solid contenders for the Regionals.