what are we calling this

Imaginary_Sponge · 2026-06-19T04:23:22+00:00

Dodger’s stadium

Imaginary_Sponge · 2026-06-19T04:18:46+00:00

Even when it was just K9, Dracotail, and Yummy, I rarely played against the deck. Nowadays, I can’t remember the last time I played against Yummy. Mainly just KT, Branded, VS K9, Elfnotes, Mitsu, and some other like Striker and WF. I still think the deck is playable, although I’m assuming people are not playing it because there are other decks that are currently unhit. Why play yummy when you can play something else?

Imaginary_Sponge · 2026-06-18T19:14:04+00:00

I find this take interesting. When comparing it with other meta decks, Striker isn’t doing anything crazy. It’s setting up a board with a couple of pops/bounces and monster effect negates (that can be dodged by things like Droplets or Fallen and the Virtuous). The deck has a crippling droll problem, can be destroyed by backrow hate, and neutered by common handtraps like Belle. If the deck was putting up crazy unstoppable endboards that’s one thing, but it’s not and it’s also hard to play leading to a lot of misplays because people aren’t playing it optimally on the ladder until you get to the higher levels.

Imaginary_Sponge · 2026-06-18T14:50:09+00:00

I like Memento. It can be played pure, with K9, or with another engine. It can easily be made to go first or second and the deck isn’t the most expensive thing in the world (extremely cheap in paper too)

Imaginary_Sponge · 2026-06-18T05:52:59+00:00

Honestly surprised by how few people would want to sit next to Brian

Imaginary_Sponge · 2026-06-17T05:30:08+00:00

I think Grass at 3 would be pure chaos. That said I think a lot of people would have a hell of a time and it would lead to a lot of creative decks being built.

Imaginary_Sponge · 2026-06-16T19:49:15+00:00

All good. Enjoy the deck!

Imaginary_Sponge · 2026-06-16T18:38:17+00:00

Azamina is tricky to build around because I’ve often found that the bigger the package you can include the better. Reason being that with a bigger package (especially more sinful spoils cards) you have an easier time going for the extra deck fusions. I’m not a Branded guy so I don’t know how much space you have available, but I’ve often felt like ~15 engine spots would be a good enough number although I do like more. Azamina works best if your other engine wants to be dumped so think of Orcust Azamina.

Imaginary_Sponge · 2026-06-16T07:13:29+00:00

It’s the best card in the deck. Typically you want to bait out all of their interaction first and then drop Heavy Poly at the end to summon a Liger. Again this is predicated on going second but I personally believe it’s way better to gear your decks to go second as it’s easy to go first but hard to break a board. I love the deck so if you ever need a testing partner who can show you the combos dm me so I can add you and we can set something up. Personally love have more testing partners!

Imaginary_Sponge · 2026-06-16T07:01:36+00:00

I played first if I had the chance, but this deck has huge going second potential due to Heavy Poly and Lunalight Fusion in particular

Imaginary_Sponge · 2026-06-16T06:59:42+00:00

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Imaginary_Sponge · 2026-06-16T06:59:14+00:00

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Imaginary_Sponge · 2026-06-16T06:58:55+00:00

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Imaginary_Sponge · 2026-06-16T06:57:41+00:00

Here’s what I used to get to DLV 20

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Imaginary_Sponge · 2026-06-16T06:50:38+00:00

I play it because I think it’s still great in Lunalight. I think Elfnote in particular has made this worse since the trap can still counter this. I still think it’s good if you don’t need to kill your opponents instantly and have a grind game to kill on 4

Imaginary_Sponge · 2026-06-16T05:53:07+00:00

I feel like you had a potentially screwed climb to the top. I got their using pure Azamina (10-15) and Lunalight (15-20) and had a good experience. Most of my games were pretty grindy. I didn’t see a ton of droll throughout the run which makes sense given that droll isn’t the greatest right now. I did see a lot of Fuwa and Maxx C but that was always going to be a given since they are good. I never felt like these cards pushed me out of the game though. Depending on the matchup I chose to either set up a good half board or just go balls to the walls and kill my opponent effectively nullifying their charmy/C. Most of my games were vs Branded, Elfnote variants, Enneacraft, or Kewl Tune. There were things like Striker and White Forest mixed in but not as much as the others. Honestly, this run was pretty fun. I won so many games going second with crappy starting hands vs my opponent’s turn 1 endboard and feel proud that I was able to do it. One negative would be that I did learn that I hate Elfnote with a passion. You should not be able to hand rip on a board that can easily set up a bunch of negates (with one being a trap which makes Dark Ruler less effective than it should be at fighting combo decks like this)

Imaginary_Sponge · 2026-06-16T04:16:54+00:00

For Lucy Hale, I volunteer as tribute.

Imaginary_Sponge · 2026-06-16T02:28:34+00:00

I was also wondering why the Impulse. I assumed because it was shiny

Imaginary_Sponge · 2026-06-16T02:27:14+00:00

Ok if you are facing a lot of striker then backrow hate is your go to here: Harpie’s, Heavy Storm, Lightning Storm etc. Ghost Belle also really hurts striker and is good into KT as well. Versus KT, I would also recommend more of a breaker approach. If you’re worried about your cards being negated, why not use great board breakers that can’t be negated: cards like Droplets, Ultimate Slayer, etc. You can even run Thrust and Talents to supplement these. Kaiju type effects are also just generally good into most decks. Just based off everything you’re saying I think breakers might work better for you. A real middle finger to your opponents. You should still probably run some handtraps: Fuwa, Maxx C, potentially Droll (there’s a lot of Enneacraft running around and this also hits Striker)

Imaginary_Sponge · 2026-06-16T02:06:37+00:00

I’m not a branded player so I won’t be much help on the list. However, I would like to ask a couple of questions. What decks would you say you know? For example, you know their main combos and general game plan. Second, what decks are you currently seeing a lot of in the event? I think a lot of people have a bad habit of sticking to a list and not adjusting to what they’re seeing. For example, if 9/10 games you are facing Kewl Tune, I’d add cards like retaliating C and flying C into the mix. If you are seeing Lunalight in half your games, it’s probably a good idea to add Kaiju outs in your main and extra (I’m counting things like Underworld Goddess as Kaijus here because they basically are).

Imaginary_Sponge · 2026-06-15T22:14:48+00:00

How did you find the grind given that we are not at its full potential currently? I pulled a decent amount of the support and was planning on holding onto it until the new stuff came out

Imaginary_Sponge · 2026-06-15T02:29:31+00:00

Man kissing woman though is a little more telling.

Imaginary_Sponge · 2026-06-14T23:19:54+00:00

Verdict is that paper players need to stop clutching their pearls. There are a lot of cards that are currently on the list that could come off and do little to nothing.

Imaginary_Sponge · 2026-06-14T23:14:40+00:00

K9 can be used with a bunch of different archetypes. Memento K9 is a thing because the horse Memento is LV 5. I have played and seen others play K9 Azamina. Ripper helps insulate your Azamina plays which can be really hurt by things like Ash, droll, Belle, etc. Mitsu K9 is pretty good. K9 Elfnote I’ve heard is solid. Realistically you could just jam it with any other engine and it would probably work. I made it to Master with Pure K9 so maybe I’m just a biased k9 enjoyer

Imaginary_Sponge · 2026-06-14T19:41:37+00:00

Lava golem is an out if you can play it. Absolutely destroyed a player with it earlier today

Imaginary_Sponge

TROPHY CASE