Event Breakdown: NAWCQ 2025
Date: July 11 - 13 2025
Overview
Wilfredo Flores wins the North America World Championship Qualifier with Fiendsmith Orcust! He dueled against Aditya Dharap in the Finals, who was on Maliss! World Legacy - "World Crown" for the win!
Here are the six competitors representing North America for the 2025 World Championships!
Wilfredo Flores - Fiendsmith Orcust
Isaias Estrada - Gem-Knight
Aditya Dharap - Maliss
Julien Kehon - Maliss
James Markowitz - Ryzeal Mitsurugi
Charley Futch - Fiendsmith Mitsurugi
Because Julien Kehon won in the Top 4 while already having his invite due to placing Top 2 at the Playoffs, the 5th place duelist will receive an invite via pass down. Charley Futch dueled Mario de Micco in a hard-fought duel and clutched a victory with his Fiendsmith Mitsurugi strategy, securing his worlds invite! These 6 will be representing North America in the upcoming 2025 World Championships in Paris! There were 2819 duelists, 12 rounds of Swiss and a cut to Top 64!
Despite the additions to the metagame, both Ryzeal Mitsurugi and Maliss remain the best two decks in the current format. However, the new decks do pack enough of a punch and are capable of keeping up with them! Let's take a look at some of the new strategies that popped off this tournament!
One of NA's exclusive decks, Orcust (also paired with Mitsurugi and one with Fiendsmith instead) also converted decently, due to how well the these archetypes supplement each other and cover their weaknesses, especially in the face of Artifact Lancea and due to how many free bodies Orcust is able to generate. Aside from that, a couple of Rank 4 Xyz Monsters have recently caught the ire of the playerbase, notably Infernal Flame Banshee, King of the Feral Imps, and Number 41: Bagooska the Terribly Tired Tapir.
Oh No, Matt?!
Ryzeal has once again received a significant boost with the introduction of Duelist's Advance supporting Yuma Tsukumo's Onomat cards! Dodododo Warrior is an absurdly powerful starter and extender that does everything you could ever want and more. It usually dumps Dodododwarf Gogogoglove for its hand effect with Zubababancho Gagagacoat as a potential search target. Mario de Micco ran the full engine, while others opted for the compact Warrior + Glove package.
The engine offers extra power and consistency due to being able to print out a lot of Level 4 bodies to supplement the Ryzeal cards. We've seen it perform well either on the play or on the draw due to how good both engines are. Even Mitsurugi can make use of them to great effect, with a few duelists mixing all three together.
The Revenge of Razen
Vanquish Soul is the breakout star in the NAWCQ, thanks to the new tools it has received in Vanquish Soul, Start! , Vanquish Soul Hollie Sue, and Vanquish Soul Rocks! 7/64 spots in Top Cut is no slouch! This powerful midrange strategy focuses on amassing resources and chaining their impressive array of archetypal disruptions to knock out their opponents! (For example sequencing Razen pop into Caesar pop into Madlove bounce, Borger draw or burn, Hollie Sue steal, Snow Devil's boardwipe, all while maintaining the right attributes in your hand.)
Vanquish Soul Razen gets some reprieve from carrying the entire weight of the deck in his shoulders, thankfully. Vanquish Soul Dr. Mad Love became an additional starter due to searching Start, which can nearly do it all! It adds another VS monster to your hand, protects your VS from destruction by battle or card effects, and even sets Vanquish Soul Snow Devil as the finisher on top. It helps that both of them also possess powerful disruptive effects on the field, with the former destroying other monsters in its column, while the latter returning a monster with the lowest DEF on the field to the hand!
VS can also comfortably play under Nibiru, the Primal Being, often only relying on 4 summons during the Main Phase to get going. Hollie Sue can even summon from the Deck during the End Phase to bypass Nib entirely! The deck also uniquely tests opponents with its high amounts of natural burn damage, putting the pressure on the opponents to keep the pace up.
The deck is sometimes capable of performing turn 0 combos thanks to Vanquish Soul Hollie Sue, either stealing the opponent's best starter to cut them off their plays, or going into Razen to pop your monster and then Vanquish Soul Caesar Valius to clear another card. Deckbuilding VS requires additional emphasis on its three attributes in order to maximize your cards and effects. Due to this, we've seen the likes of Bystials, Fantastical Dragon Phantazmay, D.D. Crow and even Ghost Belle & Haunted Mansion be a part of their defensive lineup. FIRE monsters are a bit of a luxury for the deck, so other techs that we saw this tournament include Dogoran, the Mad Flame Kaiju alongside Rescue-ACE Impulse and Rescue-ACE Fire Attacker.
Vanquish Soul Rocks isn't the flashiest of options, but it's a key component in board breaking and making sure you can get back to Rock of the Vanquisher whenever necessary. A couple of duelists are teching Pot of Extravagance as a way to get even more attributes in hand and to boost consistency. Outside of the Link-1, the Xyz, and utility answers for your opponent's cards, VS can get away with losing 6 Extra Deck cards just fine.
Liger vs the World
Lunalight managed to snag a spot in the Top Cut of the NAWCQ due to it being very well positioned in the format, and we might see it a lot more in the upcoming EUWCQ. Lunalight Liger Dancer is a near unbeatable card without running dedicated outs to it, and the deck is more than capable of bringing her out even through the turn-ending hand-traps at times (For example, Lunalight Gold Leo is able to end on S:P Little Knight, Liger Dancer, and Lunalight Silver Hound's S/T negate in the GY through Droll & Lock Bird). Not even Mitsurugi no Miko, Wousu is a reliable answer, due to being unable to answer both Bagooska and Liger.
LL players are more than happy to give you a few draws into Mulcharmy Fuwalos and Mulcharmy Purulia, if it means they get to bring out Liger and win the game regardless. Some hands are capable of backing up Liger with another copy of herself, making it so duelists can answer the first one, but fall short on dealing with the second. (Gorgon of Zilofthonia is seeing play for her ability to take out at least 1 Liger, which can be good if you used a few Hand Traps to weaken their board.)
Being a DARK-focused deck means they can also take advantage of Dominus Impulse to great effect. Lunalight Tiger's revival in the Pendulum Scale can still work under Impulse, due to it being a Spell effect. Going second, Heavy Polymerization and Lunalight Fusion can tip the scales in their favor and force wins by Ligering their way to victory! Interrupting the deck can prove to be quite tricky at times, due to something like a raw Polymerization off Lunalight Black Sheep fusing into Lunalight Perfume Dancer generating so much card advantage. Still, interrupting Gold Leo with an Effect Veiler or Infinite Impermanence is often a good play!
Similar to Ryzeal and Mitsurugi, the deck has several Rank 4 options it can flex into whenever the situation calls for it. While Liger may not be utterly unbeatable, it's extremely difficult to deal with it due to her quick effect to wipe the board and remove possible monster-based avenues of outing her. Smart LL players can also be permissive and hold their disrupts to dedicate protecting Liger as much as possible. (For example, finding a way to deal with Cyberse Wicckid when Maliss is going second to prevent her board wipe effect from getting hosed. This could be either wiping early, or I:P Masquerena into S:P Little Knight to get it out of the way.)
North America's Hidden Gems
Currently NA-only due to Monster Mayhem being delayed overseas, Gem-Knight is one of the few decks in the format that actually prefers to go second, in a similar vein to 2024's Tenpai Dragon! Gem-Knight Nepyrim is the deck's strongest starter and is a very pushed card, capable of doing it all! Gem-Knight Hollowcore is great at powering through boards, getting you access to Gem-Knight Fusion and has a very handy negation effect that can help clutch games.
Gem-Knight has several cards that were designed for going second such as Gem-Knight Quartz directly setting a "Fusion" Continuous Spell ( Scatter Fusion or Brilliant Fusion), giving you reliable access to these powerhouses. Triple Tactics Thrust can bridge into Gem-Knight engine via Foolish Burial into Nepyrim or Absorb Fusion if necessary in order to preserve both uses of Gem-Knight Dispersion. Shaddoll Fusion is another powerful tool the deck has in its arsenal to help ease fighting through established boards, capable of sending Nepyrim and Shaddoll Dragon or Nehshaddoll Genius to get the ball rolling.
While the deck can produce some pretty scary boards going first, it really dislikes running into Mulcharmies and other common interruptions. The going second variant fixes these issues by straight up being immune to Purulia and Fuwalos while also being a lot more Droll resistant, especially if you dedicate Quartz as your first search. Number 67: Pair-a-Dice Smasher made a surprise debut in the deck as a going first play, as it's more than capable of boarding 3 Level 5s with Seraphinites and Lady Lapis Lazuli, Archnemeses Protos is also an acceptable alternative.
Rogue Rangers
Congratulations to Joshua Riddell with his creative Fiendsmith Goblin Biker choice. The archetype's unique Xyz detaching antics and his great piloting definitely produced good results. We also got to see Evil Twin, P.U.N.K., and White Forest get 1 spot each, which is a pleasant surprise.
NAWCQ Top 64 Breakdown
18 Mitsurugi (15 Ryzeal, 9 Fiendsmith, 1 Ogdoadic)
18 Maliss (17 @ Ignister, 1 Mitsurugi)
7 Vanquish Soul
4 Orcust (3 Mitsurugi, 2 Fiendsmith)
3 Onomat Ryzeal
3 Gem-Knight
2 Memento (1 Millennium)
2 Atlantean Mermail
2 Primite Blue-Eyes
1 Lunalight
1 Evil Twin (Fiendsmith)
1 P.U.N.K. (Fiendsmith)
1 Goblin Biker (Fiendsmith)
1 Azamina White Forest
Conclusion
That's all the time we have for today folks! Feel free to check out the decklists here: https://ygoprodeck.com/tournament/north-america-wcq-2025-3208! Please stay tuned for our EUWCQ coverage! Their metagame will be slightly different due to the absence of the powerful BLMM archetypes such as Orcust and Gem-Knight.
- Renren
