Chapter 140 – The Banishment Strategy

After a brief pause to let all the teams reorganise, the Top 16 Round finally began, and just like the earlier rounds, the four regional platforms had become the centre of attention as the 16 remaining teams gathered around them.

Alexander naturally focused on Region I first, where Promethean Academy's representatives, Leanna and Winfred, were already taking their places at the table while their opponents from Cleveland Lakefront Private School did the same.

Alexander glanced toward the two Cleveland duelists for a moment before immediately looking back at their cards.

He hadn't even bothered memorising their names, not because they were particularly bad, but because their decks were familiar and somewhat predictable; both of them were using strategies that had already proven themselves during the previous Duel Monsters Grand Prix, though they had clearly made modifications to suit their own preferences.

That at least earned them some points in Alexander's completely unofficial and utterly biased scoring system, 'They aren't meta-slaves at the very least, as they had actually taken the time to understand what they are playing and refined them to suit their personal preferences instead of blindly copying and hoping for the best... Still points off for originality, though.'

Alexander leaned back in his seat and watched as the duel progressed.

Cleveland wasn't incompetent, far from it, actually. Their players understood their card interactions and weren't wasting resources unnecessarily. Their timings were also noticeably better than some of the teams Alexander had watched earlier in the tournament, but after several turns, Alexander began to see the problem.

Promethean Academy had simply established a much stronger position.

Leanna had successfully summoned Chaos Sorcerer, giving her access to a reliable way of removing problematic monsters from the field. Meanwhile, Winfred had summoned Jinzo, and he even equipped it with the Equip Spell card Amplifier.

Watching the board state, Alexander raised an eyebrow and thought, 'There it is...'

With Jinzo and Amplifier established, Cleveland's Trap Cards were effectively shut down, while the Promethean team could continue using their own back row normally, and that wasn't even the only problem. They had enough Trap and Spell Cards available to deal with the few remaining threatening cards Cleveland could use to potentially establish a comeback.

Alexander watched for a few more moments before reaching his conclusion, 'Yeah. This is basically over.'

The Cleveland duelists could still theoretically draw into something useful, but realistically, the combination of Chaos Sorcerer and Jinzo had already put them in a terrible position, and even if they could draw it, Leanna and Winfred still had a way to deal with it.

Alexander decided there was no reason to keep watching a duel whose outcome he could already predict, so his attention shifted toward the Region II platform where the Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters team was facing Indianapolis Jefferson High School.

The brown-haired boy and green-haired girl from Xavier's team were already firmly in control of the pace of the duel.

Alexander watched one turn and then another, but that was more than enough for him to reach a conclusion.

He sighed internally while thinking, 'Yep. Indianapolis is fucked... The green-haired girl is using cards like Painful Choice, Heart of the Underdog, Dark Factory of Mass Production, and Normal Monsters to thin her deck and search for the Alpha, Beta, and Gamma Magnet Warriors as fast as possible. While the brown-haired guy is taking care of the back row, monsters, and overall survival so as to last long enough for Valkyrion the Magna Warrior to enter the field and sweep for game.'

It wasn't even a particularly close duel.

After everything Alexander had seen from the Indianapolis team during the tournament, he had no problem declaring them the least skilled team remaining.

Their decks might have been strong, and their cards might have been good, but their actual execution was simply not there.

They made unnecessary plays, missed opportunities, and failed to properly capitalise on the advantages their decks gave them.

Alexander shook his head. 'Having a good deck doesn't magically make you a good duelist. At least not with the current card pool...'

He watched for another moment before deciding that there was nothing worth analysing here either, so his gaze moved toward what he hoped would be a more interesting duel, the one taking place on the raised platform of Region IV where Anchorage Northstar High School was currently facing Omaha Heartland High School.

Alexander only needed a brief glance to understand what was happening.

Omaha was winning. Not only that, but they were winning in a way that looked relatively straightforward.

After the Blue-Eyes White Dragon reveal in the previous round, Alexander had expected Omaha's next match to be worth watching.

Instead, the duel was surprisingly predictable as both teams used fairly common decks, but Omaha's duelists were simply playing better.

Alexander's eyes remained on the platform for a few seconds before he eventually shifted his attention again, and that left the raised platform assigned to Region III, where Massachusetts Academy versus Little Rock Central Heights High School was taking place.

And the moment Alexander looked over there, his interest immediately returned, 'Now this is interesting.'

Alexander leaned forward slightly.

He immediately recognised Little Rock's strategy as it was the same combination he'd seen from them before.

One duelist was using the aggressive Warrior Deck while the other supported it with the Spellcaster Deck and, just as before, they had managed to establish their familiar combination of Marauding Captain.

Two copies stood on the field, and with them the Attack Lock was active.

Alexander nodded slightly. 'They're pulling it off rather consistently...'

It was a simple strategy, but there was something satisfying about how effectively the two decks worked together.

However, Massachusetts Academy had brought something equally interesting to the table.

Actually, they had brought two deck variations centred around the same basic idea: Banish.

But unlike Little Rock's straightforward field-control strategy, Massachusetts had divided the concept between their two decks.

One was focused on banishing the opponent's cards.

Alexander recognised several of the staple monsters with that effect immediately.

D.D. Assailant. D.D. Warrior. D.D. Warrior Lady. Banisher of the Light.

The second deck, on the other hand, took the concept in the opposite direction.

Instead of primarily banishing the opponent's cards, it deliberately banished its own cards and turned that process into an advantage.

Alexander spotted Fire Sorcerer and Lady Assailant of Flames, along with the card that really made the strategy interesting, Soul Absorption, which made it so that every time a card was banished, its controller gained 500 Life Points.

And then there was D.D. Scout Plane that whenever it was banished, it could return to the field during the End Phase.

Which meant it could repeatedly take advantage of its own banishment that was ensured by the Banisher of the Light on the field.

Alexander's eyes narrowed slightly while thinking, 'That's actually a pretty clever strategy, as in the current state of the game, Banishment is quite difficult to deal with... On top of that, it has quite a bit of potential too, thanks to that card...'

At first glance, Little Rock seemed to have the advantage. Their two Marauding Captains were still locking the field down, preventing the Massachusetts duelists from simply attacking their way through, yet Alexander wasn't looking at the field alone.

He was watching the Life Points and the overall state of the field.

Massachusetts' LP were constantly fluctuating. They would lose Life Points, then recover some of them thanks to Soul Absorption. Lose more, then recover a bit more.

Meanwhile, Little Rock's Life Points were steadily declining.

At the same time, Massachusetts was banishing card after card with each exchange, and their Graveyard was almost suspiciously empty.

Alexander immediately understood what was happening, 'Oh... They're feeding the banished zone. So they are going to pull that card off...'

The more the duel progressed, the stronger Massachusetts' strategy became, but the problem was that they were also burning through their resources extremely quickly, not that Little Rock wasn't doing much better. Both teams were approaching the point where they would have very little left to work with.

Alexander watched the ongoing duel carefully.

Then one of the Little Rock duelists noticed something: the troublesome monsters were gone.

There was no more D.D. Assailant, no D.D. Warrior, no D.D. Warrior Lady; only Banisher of the Light remained on the field, and Massachusetts' back row was almost completely empty; the only notable card left was Soul Absorption.

The Little Rock duelist seemed to conclude that the Attack Lock had done its job, and so the two Marauding Captains were no longer necessary.

Then, without any hesitation, the duelist tributed both of them.

Alexander's eyes narrowed, and he muttered, "He's ending the lock."

Julia, who was focusing on the Promethean Academy duel, turned toward him and asked, "What?"

Alexander simply told his friend that he was watching another duel and to not mind before he focused back on the duel.

The two Marauding Captains were sent away, opening the field once again before the duelist summoned his next monster, Sword Hunter.

[Sword Hunter - 2450 ATK / 1700 DEF]

Alexander nodded as that was a solid ace monster for the current era, just a little too slow and conditional for his personal taste.

The duelist immediately used Sword Hunter to attack Banisher of the Light, which was destroyed with little to no resistance.

Then Frontier Wiseman attacked directly, and the attack dealt 1600 Life Points of damage.

The situation suddenly looked much better for Little Rock, and then Sword Hunter's effect activated at the end of the Battle Phase.

The recently destroyed Banisher of the Light was equipped to it, increasing Sword Hunter's ATK by 200 points.

[Sword Hunter - 2650 ATK / 1700 DEF]

Alexander watched the field.

For anyone who hadn't been paying attention to the resource game, it looked like Little Rock had just completely turned things around.

The Attack Lock was gone. Massachusetts had lost another monster. Little Rock had established a 2650 ATK monster that could potentially grow even stronger. And their opponent's field looked almost empty.

But Alexander wasn't convinced, as he was perfectly aware of what kind of monster that particular setup supported.

Then Massachusetts' turn began.

One of their duelists drew his card, and the next move completely proved that Alexander's foresight was right, as the duelist simply placed a single monster onto the field.

A seemingly simple Level 3 monster that at first didn't look particularly threatening.

Alexander recognised it, and his eyes widened as he thought, 'As expected... Here it is... This is game over for Little Rock.'

The monster was Gren Maju Da Eiza.

[Gren Maju Da Eiza - ? ATK / ? DEF]

Alexander stared at the card for a moment as he remembered exactly what it did.

Its effect was brutally simple. Its ATK and DEF became the number of cards in its controller's banished zone multiplied by 400.

Alexander's eyes shifted toward the banished cards as the judge and Massachusetts duelist counted them.

Then his eyebrows rose as the judge announced, "There are 25 cards in the Banish Zone!"

In an instant, Alexander did the calculation.

25 × 400 = 10000.

Alexander's expression slowly changed before he muttered, "Oh boy... That's going to be overkill."

At the same time, the monster's stats changed accordingly.

[Gren Maju Da Eiza - 10000 ATK / 10000 DEF]

For a moment, the entire venue seemed to freeze, then the audience exploded.

The reaction was immediate.

People shouted in disbelief as the enormous number appeared on the screens, and even the commentators sounded caught off guard.

"10000 ATK!" one of the Mike exclaimed through the speakers. "It's over 8000!!"

Alexander couldn't help but grin while thinking, 'And that's the potentially strongest Level 3 monster of the game in sheer stats.'

The entire duel had been building toward this.

All those banished cards. All the Life Points Massachusetts had gained and lost. All the monsters that had disappeared from the field. All of it had been feeding this one moment.

The Little Rock players had believed they were dismantling Massachusetts' field; instead, they had helped create a 10000 ATK monster.

Alexander leaned back slightly while thinking, 'This duel is over...'

On the field, the Massachusetts duelist pointed toward Sword Hunter, "I attack Sword Hunter with Gren Maju Da Eiza!"

There was no suspense.

10000 ATK against 2650.

Gren Maju Da Eiza destroyed Sword Hunter and the remaining damage was more than enough to completely obliterate Little Rock's Life Points that instantly dropped to zero.

The audience erupted once again as Massachusetts Academy had won the Tag Duel.

Even the screens all over the arena showed

Massachusetts Academy - 1.

Little Rock Central Heights High School - 0.

Alexander stared at the field for a few seconds.

He had to admit it, that had been one hell of a show.

Massachusetts had been in control of the duel long before Little Rock realised it.

Alexander smiled slightly. 'Now that's how you properly build a deck around a concept and a sound strategy.'

The Top 16 had barely begun, and already the tournament had produced its biggest number yet.