The release of Justice Hunters has already shaken the meta to its core, immediately supplanting the previous best decks with brand-new contenders. There’s the Dracotails, who have thus far been mediocrity personified in spite of being stronger than most decks released last year, Yummy, taking the meta by storm in a version playing 9+ Traps that can activate from the hand, and finally K9, the engine leading the pack in a number of different strategies. We knew this would be the case, given the results from the OCG over the past few months, as they get their cards well before the TCG, but there’s one wrinkle to this equation that hasn’t yet been solved out: Mitsurugi. Mitsurugi has, since its release in Supreme Darkness, been in the top 3 decks in the TCG in some form or another. It’s won a number of events, placed countless more, and crucially has never been hit on the banlist. Today, I want to posit the only deck we haven’t yet seen played in the OCG, which might just have a shot across the pond—I’m talking about K9 Mitsurugi.
Mitsurugi should be fairly banal at this point, with its stellar starter in Ame no Habakiri no Mitsurugi, a suite of potent Level 4 monsters that trigger from the Ritual Summon of Mitsurugi Ritual, and ways to play around hand traps few other decks can boast. Yet, with all of its core pieces being Level 4 & 8, why add in K9?
To begin, K9 as a strategy hinges on being the very first ‘5 Axis’ deck in the game’s history, flexing the untapped pool of Rank 5 Xyz Monsters to put up substantial endboards. Not only this, K9-17 Izuna is able to start playing on the opponent’s first turn if you’re going second, not unlike Tearlament, the most powerful deck in the game’s history. You’ll most often see K9 in either an handtrap capacity, kind of like PSY-Frame, with 3 Izuna and 1 K9-ØØ Lupis, where you attempt to make a Rank 5 Xyz before you’ve even had a turn, or as a true secondary engine. We’re using the latter, because there’s actually one underplayed snake that meshes these two decks together!
A core component of why Mitsurugi works is down to King of the Feral Imps, a generic Rank 4 monster that searches a Reptile; this is often used to continue plays in hands without Ame no Habakiri, or port into a secondary package of cards like the Ogdoadics. That being said, there is a DARK Level 5 Reptile that can be searched with this card, allowing Mitsurugi to contribute to the Rank 5 gameplan of your K9s: Urubonus, the Avatar of Malice. Beyond just its type and Level however, it’s somehow actually…good?
Urubonus can not only Special Summon itself by Tributing a Reptile, inadvertently triggering our Mitsurugi’s Tribute effects, but if you need to push damage against a deck, you can set up fairly easy OTKs by way of its second effect, getting rid of another Reptile in the process, which very well might come back if a Ritual is Tributed.
The actual K9 package is fairly extensive, and what takes it from a Gamma/Driver handtrap package to a true second engine is 3 copies of K9-66a Jokul, helping us Summon Urubonus or our other K9s for free, and searching most often an Izuna once it’s on the board. Not only that, between the field nuke that comes with Ame no Murakumo no Mitsurugi and the hand/GY negation of K9-17 “Ripper”, there’s actually few bases left uncovered by the endboard this deck produces. Opening any K9 + the Mitsurugi line, by way of things like Habakiri, results in an added negate to the board, via either Ripper or Number C104: Umbral Horror Masquerade. This stands up fairly well compared to other ways of previously playing Mitsurugi, such as the pops from Ryzeal’s Detonator, or extra Rank 4 from Ogdoadic. Even Fiendsmith doesn’t do much beyond add more ways of dealing with the field, something Mitsurugi never had problems with, so Ripper actually adds a substantial flex to the places you can interact with your opponent.
That’s not all, though—Mitsurugi was previously known as a deck poised to play through any handtrap available, and dear lord does K9 enjoy synergizing with a deck like that. Beyond the K9s being Rank 5 focused, their true gimmick is a thorough hatred of effects your opponent activates in the hand or GY; multiple cards trigger when such effects occur, and your monsters leap to the fray to stop whatever nonsense was about to occur.
This means that, should an unwary opponent dare to activate something like a Mulcharmy, you can go immensely advantage-positive, something before the Mulcharmy even resolves for a draw, in the case of Mulcharmy Purulia. That, alongside cards like Crossout Designator and Triple Tactics Talent, both limited, ensure you’re the scariest deck to handtrap around. The one caveat is that the format’s likely 3rd best deck, Yummy, mostly uses a suite of very literal Trap handtraps, the Dominus cards, as the core of its non-engine. This is a huge issue for you, especially given the monsters of the archetype don’t activate hand or GY effects, but the benefit is that ‘pure’ Yummy really doesn’t exist, as it needs help from secondary engines like Sky Striker to get off to the races, meaning there’s some point in their combo your K9s turn on.
Against the probable best deck in the room though, K9 Vanquish Soul, I’d give the win to K9 Mitsurugi—even with the printing of Holy Sue, I feel the core gameplan of Mitsurugi is substantially more powerful once it goes off, and while it’s less repeatable, you don’t risk running up against Infinite Impermanence to such a degree that it loses you the game, as targeted negation can do against VS. Our ratios are fairly standard, with the notable inclusion of a second Mitsurugi Ritual. Normally, if a deck has room it will flex into 3 copies of Pre-Preparation of Rites alongside Mirror, but as we lack space I’ve decided to double up on one of the best Ritual Spells ever printed. You don’t miss it, in practice.
For our non-engine we’re able to fit in a shocking amount of solid tools for how packed our engines are, with 16 if you aren’t counting the K9s, and a full 20, half our deck, if you do. The normal culprits are here, between Ash, Imperm, and the Limited Spells, but we’re quite light on the Mulcharmies for reasons described above—you can genuinely give your opponent too much advantage if you resolve one into a player using K9, and here we’re doing our best to hedge against what I believe to be the best deck in the format, Vanquish Soul K9.
The use of Crossout Designator, for that reason, is quite a bit wider than one might expect. It is not uncommon to banish our own K9 cards to prevent those of our opponents, and treating it more like a Sales Ban than a Called by the Grave can be to our benefit, as even interrupted boards do a ton in this format.
Last up is to talk about the Extra Deck, something I’ve not been excited to cover, as it requires we talk about the game’s newest VFD incarnation, Number 67: Pair-a-Dice Smasher. About 90% of the time, this locks your opponent out of monster effects for a turn, ala VFD, but you will notice…that’s not 100% of the time. There will be games you overextend, and play into things like Nibiru, knowing that if they don’t have it you essentially win the game then and there, before losing to a die roll. This is one of my least favorite cards to hit the meta in a long time, and I understand the frustration of seeing it reprinted in Justice Hunters, signalling it might not even be banned next list.
That being said, we’re on a ton of cool cards as well, such as our N.As.H. Knight line that pivots through Masquerade, or a way to make D/D/D Deviser King Deus Machinex by way of the K9s and D/D/D Marksman King Tell, which is crippling against exactly Maliss. 5 Axis is extremely cool aside from exactly Pair-a-Dice, and frankly I don’t even think it would be that crippled to lose the card, on top of being significantly more fun to play against.
I know this list is perhaps a bit boring in the face of many months of Mitsurugi, but I assure you, it’s quite a fun take on the deck in practice! Having Urubonus help you make…sadly Pair-a-Dice with 3 material is powerful, and brings Mitsurugi up as the next best way to potentially play the K9 engine aside from Vanquish Soul.
What are you playing from Justice Hunters? Have you been having fun with the 3 new archetypes debuting? How else are you using K9? Let me know in the comments below!
