Yu-Gi-Oh! Deck Debut: Prediction Princess ft. Small World
For what it’s worth, I feel as though Photon Hypernova isn’t a well of niche options, unlike many of the Series Seven boxes. While we of course have standouts like Kashtira, and the potentially powerful Gold Pride, the set doesn’t do much for the deckbuilder looking to build around meta-breaking, rather than the meta itself. That said, following Vegas’ top cut, wild things are present in the current format: Labrynth is the third best deck, Tearlament & Spright are essentially Dead-on-Arrival, and even Ninja managed to snag multiple top 16 placements. Clearly, turning things face-down, and playing around the lock presented by Kashtira Shangri-Ira are what modern decks need to compete; to that end, I’d like to showcase a sleeper hit from Darkwing Blast, Prediction Princess.
Prediction Princess is most well-known for being the first Ritual archetype showcased in the anime for nearly half a decade upon its debut, although the cards hardly did anything during their heyday. Full Special Summon locks, or funny Whirlwind Weasel set-ups were common, though altogether inconsistent. In modern Yugioh however, the deck has been afforded not only a support wave, but also various tools that are practically made to turbo out these Rituals.
The core of this deck revolves around a piece of tech first pioneered by Shadoll pilots, being the Valkyrie Engine. By pivoting from a Diviner of the Herald into Trias Hierarchia, we can Special Summon Valkyrie Sechste, followed by Valkyrie Funfte. What that ends up giving you is a Level 9 body, in Trias, as well as 2 more Fairies that give us a genuine Spell/Trap Foolish, no strings attached. This does an enormous variety of things for the strategy, as you’ll soon see, but at bare minimum it’s material for both a crucial Link-2, as well as 9 Stars worth of Tribute fodder for our Rituals.
In order to continue, it’s vital to talk about the 2 Ritual Monsters that make the strategy function: Prediction Princess Tarotrei, and Prediction Princess Tarotreith. Tarotrei represents a Summon of a Flip monster in each of your End Phases, with the capability to flip it up, and Tarotreith Summons a Flip Monster from the Deck on flip, and can flip up or down any number of monsters. In concert, this means you’re able to chain together Tarotrei, into Tarotreith, into any number of powerful, sizable Flip Monsters. This allows us to Maindeck consistent answers, but also keep cards like Guard Dog and Whirlwind Weasel in our Sidedeck, when we know those specific tools will shut out the opponent upon their resolution. Moreover, both of their associated Ritual Spells have potent GY effects, which we can of course make use of, via the Valkyrie Engine. In particular, putting anUnderworld Ritual of Prediction into the GY can help recover from stalled gamestates.
It’s now time to talk about another card that makes the deck function now, when prior it had minimal consistency: Small World. This brainteaser of a card allows you to search for essentially any monster, so long as the proper conditions, or ‘bridges’ as they’re known, are met. In this Deck, we have a pivot between virtually any 2 pieces of any of our engines: Diviner is accessible through any Prediction Princess via Spirit of the Fall Wind, and should we need to answer a Kashtira lock, we can pivot from literally any single monster in the Deck into Thunder King, the Lightningstrike Kaiju. Because this list is so adept at Small World bridges, I’ve even elected to play a copy of Artifact Lancea Maindeck, to combat Kashtira & Branded, although Nibiru, the Primal Being is also a valid choice. Part of the skill of this strategy is knowing how to get from one card to another, so memorizing your bridges is a core component of playing Prediction Princess.
In terms of Valkyrie targets though, few are as potent as World Legacy’s Mind Meld. By putting this into the GY with Valkyrie Funfte, we can use the two bodies to Link Summon Lib the World Key Blademaster, giving us a Zone to Summon Deus X-Krawler, who is essentially Skill Drain. Even wilder is the fact that, from that position, we can Set a copy ofWorld Legacy Monstrosity for Xyz Plays in the following turns, or as a means to cheat out Prediction Princess Bibliomuse. In general, we’re looking to end on our Ritual setup, alongside Deus X-Krawler, and Pot of the Forbidden, devastating the opponent’s hand over the course of a turn cycle with its Confiscation-style effect. Aside from the core components of the deck, you’ve got plenty of options for Flip tools, Spells/Traps that want to be in the GY, and more, so while this decklist is functional, fun, and powerful at a Locals Level, more tinkering & tuning for higher level play could push it over the edge. After all, Ninja is debatably the 5th best Deck currently, and that’s due in large part to its ability to manipulate the positions of monsters, and benefit from that style of disruption.
As a bonus note, high-ceiling boards resulting in I:P Masquerena and any Ritual Monster, which isn’t a very high ceiling at all, can pivot into Dyna Mondo on the opponent’s turn, which is much like a Ritual-centric Knightmare Unicorn, except it ports back into a copy of Tarotrei, dodging removal with your key monster.
This particular article serves as a reminder to both myself and you, the reader, that Yugioh’s vast catalog of options is perhaps its greatest strength as a card game; by being truly eternal, we get to see flexible tools like Book of Eclipse or Book of Moon flexed against meta threats, while the clever duelist finds new ways to fight back against dominant decks. The Valkyrie Engine is just waiting for something to break it, and with more & more Spell/Traps having GY effects, it’s only a matter of time. Furthermore, the varied 9 Suite that Prediction Princess can employ is something of a marvel, and new tools like Laevatein, Generaider Boss of Shadow or Mereologic Aggregator may push players towards experimentation.
Part of why I chose to focus on Prediction Princess in this article centered around combatting Kashtira is the combination of elements it possesses. Bosses that can’t be beaten over by Fenrir, ability to flex into options that beat Shangri-Ira locks, and mechanisms to keep your opponent’s cards face-down early & often: Those are the tools Rogue decks need to compete. It helps, as well, that I get to showcase extremely novel lines like the Valkyrie Engine into Deus X-Krawler which may be even better in another Deck, and simply remains unexplored. I plan to take this list to my locals, and see how it fares beyond testing online, and I have a hunch there’ll be quite a bit of reading from my opponents’ side of the table. It’s difficult to predict your opponent’s going to be turboing Tarotrei, after all.
I hope you learned something new about the various Flip tools available now in both Darkwing Blast & Photon Hypernova! What sorts of Decks do you want to try the Valkyrie Engine in? Could Prediction Princess be a potential Rogue option in a Kashtira-heavy field? Let me know in the comments below!
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