The June 2018 Trinity Cup has come and gone. It was organized through the Trinity Discord, and had 24 players. The Top 4 was as follows:

1st Place: guiltygearxx

2nd Place: TreeTopDuelist

3rd Place: Prawnwizard

4th Place: Kriptini

Thank you to all of our participants, and congratulations to the Top 4 on their performances. Now, each of them has agreed to give a short deck profile and tournament report.

1st place: guiltygearxx's Burning Abyss

guiltygearxx's winning Burning Abyss list. The trinities are the co-forbidden pair of Fairy Tail - Snow and Cir, Malebranche of the Burning Abyss, then 2 additional copies of Tour Guide From the Underworld, 2 additional copies of Mathematician, and 1 additional copy of Dante, Traveler of the Burning Abyss.

Why did you choose to run your deck?

I wanted to play a deck with a consistent turn 1 game plan. This deck can summon a strong boss monster using a number of 2 card combinations. Playing 60 cards actually allowed for more consistency because I could maximize on my 1 card play starters thereby justifying using normal monster engine requirements that made first turn Beatrice, Lady of the Eternal possible. The deck can also take advantage of Fairy Tail - Snow in the same way as Lightsworn, filling the grave to allow multiple re-uses.

What was your deckbuilding philosophy when making this deck?

I wanted the deck to be as consistent as possible, so the deck is quite monster heavy, particularly with level 3 monsters. I needed to max out on every usable Burning Abyss monster because they both allow Dante, Traveler of the Burning Abyss to add back a monster and could be used as a discard to summon Beatrice. The majority of the rest of my monsters were level 3 monsters that either had good effects such as the ghost tuners and Card Trooper, could be special summoned easily such as Junk Forward or Speedroid Terrortop, or had effects went sent to the graveyard such as Dandylion and the Phantom Knight engine. Due to utilizing so many combo cards my defensive lineup was more limited to extremely high impact essentials such as Solemns and Torrential Tribute as well as cards that could be used from the grave such as Lost Wind.

What were some of your tech choices and "trinities?"

My deck was heavily designed around my trinities. Tour Guide from the Underworld and Mathematician are 1 card Dantes and can also be used to summon normal monsters. Maxing out on these allowed me to use engine requirements such as Carboneddon without diluting the deck. Cir and Snow make an obvious co-pair allowing you to recur Dante multiple times as well as make use of mass milling that the deck is capable of.

I chose to run an extra Dante in order to both have a backup to Dante being disrupted as well as the ability to access more of my graveyard cards late game. I also played a Cyber Dragon package; Core can be used to remove an extra deck monster to summon a fusion and has the ability to summon Proto-Cyber Dragon while in the grave. Proto functions as both Rank 3 material as well as fusion material.

How did you prepare for the meta, and would you change anything going forward?

When siding I first looked at cards that had synergy with my graveyard based strategy, Shaddoll Dragon and Time Maiden could be used if sent to grave by Beatrice so those were easy to incorporate. I decided to play a Shaddoll engine so that I would have a blowout if I drew Shaddoll Fusion. I was going to play Shaddoll Core to recover a milled Shaddoll Fusion but ran out of side deck space. Besides Dragon, the Shaddoll cards did absolutely nothing the entire tournament.

The rest of my side deck was dedicated to dealing with the graveyard or Frogs. Graveyard hate was pretty flexible since most decks used the grave and cards like Called by the Grave could easily go in the main if the meta was more well defined. My most feared deck was Frogs due to their ability to punish you for interacting with them. I played divine wrath in the side as an added negate against Toadally Awesome that could not be responded to. I did not side for Pendulum and luckily never had to face one.

What were your matchups?

Round 1 I played against Lightsworn Dragons. This was a long match where we traded graveyard resources. I ultimately won due to being able to establish more milling in games 1 and 3.

Round 2 against Subterror Shaddoll. I stuck to the game plan of turn 1 Beatrice on the basis that he was not statistically likely to drop fusion, but he managed to drop it and out advantaged me. Round 3 I underestimated his OTK ability and he OTKed me by using a Subterror to banish Beatrice.

Round 3 was against another Lightsworn Dragon player. This match played out mostly identically to the first round.

Round 4 was against Spellbooks. This is a dangerous deck because of Spellbook of Judgement’s ability to create massive advantage. I won due to hoping he would brick and made him go first.

Round 5 was against TreeTopDuelist's "60 Inches" deck. This deck is scary because it utilizes so many powerful game stealers such as Snatch Steal and Orbital Hydralander. His Chaos Hunter sealed the deal against my Snow in grave.

Round 6 was against Prawnwizard's Hopeless Dragons. I diffused his aggression with Snow and chipped at him with burn and direct attacks.

Top 8 was against Frogs. I was dreading this match but managed to exploit some weak openings and punish him with some side deck cards. Solemn Warning on Toad sealed the deal.

Top 4, I played against Prawnwizard's Hopeless Dragon deck again. Things went similar to the first time despite getting caught by his Drowning Mirror Force even though I saw it in the round 6 match.

Finals, I played TreeTopDuelist's "60 Inches" deck again. Going into this match I was banking on him not seeing his power cards, he managed to get out Chaos Hunter, Black Luster Soldier - Envoy of the Beginning, and Hydralander but I somehow played through it with Knightmare Cerberus popping Chaos Hunter. We traded Snow for a bit until I got him down to low life and burned him with Barbar for game.

Is your deck still playable in the current format?

The only thing in the main deck that was hit was Snow going from Co-Forbidden to Semi-Forbidden. The deck is highly playable with slight tweaks. The new co- pair with Cir will be Solemn Strike or Judgement and you will need to remove a trinity for Snow. I would cut a Tour Guide since it is searchable.

2nd place: TreeTopDuelist's 60 Inches

TreeTopDuelist's 2nd-place "60-Inches" deck. The trinities are the co-forbidden Snatch Steal, Dark Hole, Black Luster Soldier - Envoy of the Beginning, Cir, Malebranche of the Burning Abyss, Fairy Tail - Luna, and Fairy Tail - Snow, along with the semi-forbidden Graceful Charity, Raigeki, and Orbital Hydralander.

Why did you choose to run your deck?

"60 Inches" is the idea of playing a 60-card deck with as many co- and semi-forbidden cards as possible. I'd recently won the Online Locals with a less-tuned version of this deck, and some other players called it a bad deck. This made me want to prove them wrong, so I changed it up a little and entered it into the Trinity Cup!

What was your deckbuilding philosophy when making this deck?

You can watch me build the entire deck from scratch on my youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xVpK2HwBsQ

How did you prepare for the meta, and would you change anything going forward?

I didn't really expect to come second, but Orbital Hydralander carried me for most games. Because of this, I didn't need to focus much on what my opponent was doing - I just wanted my cards to be better and more effective than the opponent's. Since I was playing a 60-card deck with few searchers, anything I sided in wouldn't consistently make its way into my hand. Because of that, I actually didn't bother with siding much. I played Chaos Hunter to counter Fairy Tail - Snow decks, but that was my only real metagame call.

What were your matchups?

Round 1: Vs Prawnwizard's Hopeless Dragons
Prawn was playing a pretty fast deck and managed to kill me before I could set anything up. I lost 2-0.

Round 2: Vs Dino Rabbit
My much more effective threats managed to net me a 2-1 win.

Round 3: Vs Frogs
Toadally Awesome won a game vs me here, but outside of that, I managed to grind him down for the 2-1 win.

Round 4: Vs Dragon Rulers
Dragon Rulers are strong in Trinity, where most monsters are pretty low-ATK, but they can't beat the HYDRA. 3000 ATK non-targeting destruction every turn is better than a bunch of do-nothing dragons. Again, I won 2-1.

Round 5: Vs guiltygearxx's Burning Abyss
He was playing a turn-1 Beatrice deck, which was pretty annoying. I made a lot of misplays here, but managed to put more damage on board to outrace him.

Round 6: Vs FLIP
My opponent played a really innovative FLIP deck that I've never seen before. It destroyed me in one game (Shaddoll Construct is *very* strong), but I ended up winning 2-1 again.

At this point I was 2nd in Swiss.
Top-8: Pacifis Control
My opponent wasn't able to play his match, so I went straight to top 4.

Top-4: Kriptini's Vampires
My opponent played a Zombie deck which turboed out PSY-Framelord Omega. It was annoying to deal with, but again, the quality of my cards and infinitely better topdecks lets 60 Inches out-grind a lot of strategies. I won 2-0

Top-2: guiltygearxx's Burning Abyss
Me vs guiltygearxx again. It was a very long match, and I managed to dump Orbital Hydralander, BLS, and Chaos Hunter onto the board, with Fairy Tail Snow in grave, but ended up getting outplayed and losing 1-2. It was a fun match and I'm happy that guiltygear finally won a Trinity Cup!

Is your deck still playable in the current format?

Yes, the only real card which got hit was Hydralander. There's a new card coming out soon which might replace it - "Levionia the Primordial Chaos Dragon." But until then, the deck has a much lower ceiling than before.

3rd place: Prawnwizards's Hopeless Dragons

Prawnwizard's 3rd-place Hopeless Dragons. The trinities are the co-forbidden Snatch Steal and Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon, and one additional copy of Red-Eyes Insight.

Why did you choose to run your deck?

At the last minute I decided the control deck I spent weeks working on was lame and I wanted to play the dragon deck I came up with a couple days ago.

What was your deckbuilding philosophy when making this deck?

I wanted to create a deck with the highest ceiling possible while still being a little consistent.

What were some of your tech choices and "trinities?"

The choices are pretty clear. Second copy of Insight to search Red-Eyes Fusion. Red-Eyes Darkness Metal because the card is extremely good at creating big boards of dragons, and Snatch Steal as a very strong tempo removal option.

How did you prepare for the meta, and would you change anything going forward?

I would change so much in this deck. This was only the second or third draft of the deck and had barely been refined at all. Abyss Actor - Curtain Raiser makes no sense and I sided it out every single game.

The side deck is a hot mess where I just randomly threw in the first 15 card that came to mind. This includes the Spellbook Magician of Prophecy engine and Safe Zone for some reason.

What were your matchups?

Anything that couldn't consistently setup disruption got rolled over. Decks like 60 Inches just can't handle having several large dragons thrown at them turn 2. Decks that could setup disruption were a real struggle and I relied largely on them bricking or me getting an insane hand to win.

Is your deck still playable in the current format?

Nothing in the deck got hit and my list has inspired a lot of people to make their own Red-Eyes variants. Lots of different options to make this deck actually decent.

4th place: Kriptini's Vampires

Kriptini's 4th-Place Vampires. The trinities are the co-forbidden Snatch Steal and PSY-Framelord Omega, and one additional copy of Vampire Domination.

Why did you choose to run your deck?

In Advanced format, everyone is talking about how Vampires aren't good, but I like them from a thematic perspective. Also I've had lots of fun with Zombie Synchro, so I wanted to try it in a format where it could be more viable.

What was your deckbuilding philosophy when making this deck?

The main goal of the deck was to consistently set the Graveyard up with Vampires. Once cards like Mezuki and the low level Vampires hit the Graveyard, the opponent can be beaten down by a combination of the various big Vampires and Vampire Fraulein.

What were some of your tech choices and "trinities?"

Using Omega to loop Mezuki is key to any Zombie deck. Aside from that, I wanted to use cards that stole my opponent's monsters (Snatch Steal, Mind Control, Brain Control) to assist me in making Dhampir Vampire Sheridan... though the summon limit doesn't really allow for Dhampir shenanigans, sadly. The second Domination is because having multiple copies of what is effectively a searchable Solemn Judgment is extremely good.

How did you prepare for the meta, and would you change anything going forward?

These were my first ever Trinity games so I didn't know what the meta was. Meep put some Timelords into my side deck but I don't think I ever actually drew into them. If I could have made changes to the deck, I probably would have put in some more aggro R4s (like Dark Rebellion Xyz Dragon) and have a duplicate of Vampire Familiar instead of Vampire Domination. While the control aspect was nice, searching monsters is integral to being able to recover after your board gets blown out.

What were your matchups?

Hard to remember, but Fairy Tail - Snow is uncomfortably strong. Also I don't think I ever successfully resolved Black Rose Dragon once in spite of summoning it like four or five times.

Is your deck still playable in the current format?

I think so. Put in Vampire's Desire for sure, it's a good recovery card and playstarter, which the deck needs more of because sometimes you open up utter garbage. Also a second copy of Vampire Familiar instead of a second copy of Vampire Domination. Super Team Buddy Force Unite! is cute but slow and doesn't really return it's investment unless you manage to get Familiar or Retainer off of it. Playing Rabbit + Dai with only two Zombino was not a smart move. You need to be careful with Crimson Knight Vampire Bram because his effect to revive himself is mandatory which can screw up your summons for the turn.

This has been the Top 4 Breakdown of the June 2018 Trinity Cup! Thanks to everyone for participating, and again, congratulations to the top 4. We hope to see you all for our July 2018 Trinity Cup!