What Makes Yu-Gi-Oh's New Splight Archetype a Tier 0 Deck

It has been a few weeks since Power of The Elements made its debut in the OCG. By now, tournament play has been in full swing and the absolute dominance of the Splight archetype is astounding. We will use this as an opportunity to take a closer look at what defines this new and oppressively strong Deck, so you can be in the know when it comes to the TCG early this August. And to Master Duel... in approximately 2 years of course.

What defines a "Tier 0" Deck

An entire Tier 0 archetype rarely comes to pass in Yu-Gi-Oh. The last notable one being SPYRAL, which came to full power just after Zoodiac was done dominating competitive play, back in 2017. In that regard Konami has been doing a decent job the past 5 years. Even if there still were the all-presently oppressive staples defining the formats, nothing came close to a one-sided Tier 0 format.

Until now. From what can be gleamed from the initial statistics, decklists of the dripped-out sprites have already been refined and follow a certain pattern. On top of that, their popularity has gone through the roof, meaning it is more than likely to be facing many, or exclusively mirror-matches during an event.

That being said, a deciding factor for the success of any meta Deck is the efficiency. The less cards are needed for the actual core game plan to function, the more slots can be filled with handtraps and handtrap counters. Splight Decks can manage running up to 18 cards for that purpose alone, putting them at a significant advantage. Let's look into the characteristics of the archetype to see why that is the case.

The Cards in Question

Since the cards haven't come out in the TCG, we only have the Japanese versions in our database. To make sure everyone is on the same page, here's a very quick overview of their individual effects:

• [YuGiOh Card (Splight Blue) Not Found] - Add a Splight Monster from your deck to your hand.
• Splight Jet - Add a Splight Spell/Trap from your deck to your hand.
• [YuGiOh Card (Splight Red) Not Found] - Tribute a Level/Rank/Link 2 to negate a Monster effect, and destroy it if you tributed a Link or Rank.
• [YuGiOh Card (Splight Carrot) Not Found] - Tribute a Level/Rank/Link 2 to negate a Spell/Trap effect, and destroy it if you tributed a Link or Rank.
• [YuGiOh Card (Splight Pixies) Not Found] - Send from hand to GY when a Level/Rank/Link 2 Monster battles an opponent to increase the ATK/DEF of your Monster by the ATK of the battling monster.
• [YuGiOh Card (Splight Starter) Not Found] - Special Summons a Splight from your Deck by paying Life Points equal to its attack.
• [YuGiOh Card (Splight Smashers) Not Found] - Banish a Level/Rank/Link 2 you control and a card your opponent controls, among other effects (this is a multi-archetype card).
• [YuGiOh Card (Gigantic Splight) Not Found] - Double ATK if it has an Extra Deck Monster as a material. You can lock both players out of Summoning anything other than Level/Rank/Link 2, then detach a material to summon a Level 2 Monster from your deck.
• [YuGiOh Card (Splight Elf) Not Found] - Protects Monsters it points to from targeting. Once per turn, you can revive a Level 2 (or Rank/Link 2 if your opponent controls a Monster).

Main Deck powerhouse

What if we told you that all Main Deck Splight Monsters read "If you control a Level 2 monster, you can Special Summon this card (from your hand)."? Of course that can only be used once per turn for every name, but the sheer flexibility this provides goes far. Not only that, but they double up as either searchers, negation by tribute, or stat increasers.

The usual Deck-ratio involves 3 of both searchers, [YuGiOh Card (Splight Blue) Not Found] and Splight Jet, as well as 2-1 of both negaters, [YuGiOh Card (Splight Red) Not Found] and [YuGiOh Card (Splight Carrot) Not Found]. The wannabe Honest, [YuGiOh Card (Splight Pixies) Not Found], is the only one left out, since it provides no immediate help and gaining lots of ATK is already something the Deck can accomplish.

One thing to mention for the Summon effect is that they don't start a chain. Meaning Maxx "C" would need to be used preemtively, which is a big deal. If that wasn't enough, there's also the aptly named [YuGiOh Card (Splight Starter) Not Found], Jet's prime search target. We can already see how 9 cards with access to pretty much every other card can lead to easy lines of play. Blue adds Jet, Jet adds Starter.

Suddenly 3 Monsters hit the field and the combo can go from there. It's incredible how, condensed into the first release of an archetype, it functions without a glaring flaw. Just in case, one copy of [YuGiOh Card (Splight Smashers) Not Found] is also included to act as a non-targeting Banish for Jet to search.

The one big downside comes with the restriction their starter Spell and XYZ Monster share. Only Level/Rank/Link 2s can be Special Summoned after using them. That is quite harsh, but with Yu-Gi-Oh's ever increasing card pool, there's still a sizable selection of Level 2 oriented cards to make use of.

The XYZ that summons from the Deck

[YuGiOh Card (Gigantic Splight) Not Found][YuGiOh Card (Splight Elf) Not Found]

A tale as old as time. There was Salamangreat Miragestallio, prior to that came M-X-Saber Invoker, and the one that might've started this trend, Wind-Up Carrier Zenmaity. Each one of them had to be banned, and except for Stallio they still are. Will [YuGiOh Card (Gigantic Splight) Not Found] suffer the same fate? It would make sense. It's the heart of the Deck and reaches a whole new level of absurd XYZ Monster, since it blocks your opponent from activating the effect of Nibiru, the Primal Being for good measure.

The giant doesn't take all the glory, however. [YuGiOh Card (Splight Elf) Not Found] is the other Extra Deck Monster and a vital piece of the endboard. It offers protection and recovery on either turn. This basically turns it into a Link-1 on the turn it's Summoned and only gets more out of hand from then onwards. The fact that none of these two mention anything close to "Splight" is reason for concern. The entire population of Level 2 Monsters is in on the party, and there's some nasty interaction because of that.

Twin-Toad Trepidation

So these colorful electrocution hazards are all about the number "2". A short overview of the Rank 2 pool would suggest that the likes of Number 65: Djinn Buster and Melffy of the Forest are as good as it gets.

"But wait-" The frog croaks. "We have unreasonable amounts of swarming due to non-once-per-turn effects and our boss Monster has some of the strongest effect negation in the entire game!" another pleaded. And so it was that Gigantic Splight would Summon Swap Frog, which sends Ronintoadin and then gets revived by Splight Elf to do it once more. Resulting in everyones favorite, Toadally Awesome. Now, in a sick twist of fate, the cost of Toad to tribute instead of detaching turns into a massive upside, as Spight Elf can just bring it right back if an opposing Monster is present.

2 omni-negations, no floating allowed, and whatever other Splights and handtraps are left to put a stop to the remaining plays. All of that is achievable with a single Splight Starter. One cruel line of play can even involve Summoning Maxx "C" via [YuGiOh Card (Gigantic Splight) Not Found] only to bounce it to the hand with Swap Frog.

Another useful tool for setting up the plays is Deep Sea Diva. Usually combos like these are centered around 3 starter cards and the one Garnet in Deck they are supposed to fetch. However, in a brilliant showcase of foresight, Diva can Summon itself and gets the combo rolling on its own. Just keep in mind that Aqua and Sea Serpent are not the same in the eyes of the Toad.

Any Counterplay?

Stopping [YuGiOh Card (Gigantic Splight) Not Found] should be priority number 1. Ash Blossom, Effect Veiler, Infinite Impermanence, and even Ghost Ogre all get there. Of course, if one of the smaller Splights offer negation or Splight Elf protects, the chokepoint can easily be missed. The most effective counter lies in Ghost Reaper & Winter Cherries, since it can be used on the very first Summon.

For going first, Dimensional Barrier shuts down any XYZ Summon. The same goes for Stygian Dirge, which also stops Splight Elf. Hilarious, but also vulnerable to Spell/Trap removal. On the note of going first, one archetype that stands the slightest amount of a fighting chance are Exosisters. They can lock Splights out of using the GY and recently improved with Exosister Martha, which also came out in POTE.

Speaking of GY, other methods to get rid of the frogs would include Dimension Shifter and D.D. Crow. Though the former is questionable in a format containing Maxx "C". It remains to be seen where the meta will go from here, but without an intervention on Konami's side there appears to be no way around the Splight-on-Splight action at competitive play.

Will you welcome our new Splight overlords with open arms? Let us know how you feel about them down in the comments.