It's Nationals Season again.
IMO, preparing for PH Nationals is harder than most regions, especially if you can't afford meta decks or you're too attached to your weapon of choice (e.g. I'm too attached to Machine Spam based decks that I can't see myself use any other deck) Why did I say so? Because the meta here is so diverse that most maindeck and sidedeck choices against the meta decks(Prophecy, Dragons and Verz) do not work as well as planned.
For example, I've been playing with maindecked Drolls and Crows. Yes, those cards can help a lot when going against Prophecies and Dragons respectively, but how about for Rogues(which comprises the majority of PH meta)? Droll only helps if your opponent uses Maxx C (which is not widely used in PH due to scarcity and price) and if you're opponent somehow goes Gadget-Kage-Chain Summon on you. Against other decks, Droll sucks alot. But if I don't main it, I find myself scooping the whole match against Prophecy.
Crow has a lot more uses though. If you've read my previous post, dropping Crow at the right time can cripple popular Rogue decks since most of those run on Grave power. However, it does shit against Prophecy(which poses the biggest problem because Fate solves almost everything) other than decreasing the number of spells in their grave(not really a problem for them).
As for Maxx C, I dont have access to it. LOL
Against Verz, my deck of choice usually handles Verz well. Machines can summon a Rank 4 to handle Ophion and control the field from there via Redox. Most Rogues handle Verz well.
Another thing I'd like to point out is not maining MSTs. This works against Prophecy and Dragons but makes a Verz player happy, and there are more Verz decks in PH. Also, most Rogues rely on backrow and not maining MST against them is suicide(unless you're using Dragons and Prophecy)
Based on observations during weeklies, the PH meta normally consists of:
- Big 3
- both 3-axis and 4-axis FF (with 4-axis being more numerous due to relative cheapness)
- Gadgets, both Kage and Trap-based versions
- Heroes
- Agents
- Dark World
- some Bujins
- Trolls
- some anime-based deck that somehow works.
So with this diversity, what do you do?
Your best bet is to just increase your main deck's consistency(e.g. less tricks against meta, more "draw into combo pieces") while utilizing your sidedeck for the Big 3.
Or just main two copies of Book of Eclipse. Works wonders.
