The Game Outside the Game: Lessons From Underperforming at YCS Mexico

After my recent regional success with Labrynth—my second consecutive top in my local area—I decided to embark on yet another trip to an event: YCS Mexico, which took place on the 19th of April.

I felt… markedly unprepared for this one. I kept switching things around until literally 3 hours before the final deck submission deadline, when I finally settled on the list above. I ended up with a 4-3 finish before dropping, rapidly coming back to my hometown as I really don’t enjoy being in CDMX.

While I feel defeated, I also have time to reflect on what happened. I think that most of the mistakes here are not in technical play, but in other factors that I now realize are more important than what I initially thought.

So, what went wrong?

A Clear Mind for a Clean Game

I think the primary contributing factor to my underperformance was my mental state at the venue. On the Friday before taking my trip, I literally got no sleep—I stayed up all night trying stuff out on DuelingBook, adjusting the list, theorycrafting. While the core of my Labrynth list is mostly solved by now, more adjacent techs—such as Starry Dragon’s Cycle or Archfiend’s Ghastly Glitch—are usually the parts that I evaluate more closely in my lists.

I became wary of my own personal, no-handtrap style from my last list, les me to make a lot of changes.

I think the biggest thing interfering with my reasoning was my heightened sense of stress last month. Like I mentioned in my last blog update, I have been unemployed for a few weeks now, and the job search has been pretty hard. I’ve been unemployed for a few weeks, scrambling to juggle job applications, interviews, and financial anxiety (this trip was paid mostly with prize support from my WCQ top and a few smaller events).

I already get pretty nervous the day before an event, but I had an extremely heightened state of distress for this YCS, and I skipped sleep before registration, assuming I could rest afterwards… only to manage a two-hour nap, then suffer insomnia.

I got around three hours of overnight sleep. That means I attended the event with around six hours of sleep across two days.

Even as I am writing this, I still feel groggy, and it will probably take a few days for my body to stabilize (also, I actually got a confirmation letter for a job as I was arriving at CDMX, so that’s something).

Now, I imagine that no one wants to open a YGO strategy article and read, “sleep well the night before the event, guys!”, but that’s not my actual point here—I have had chronic issues with sleep, and even the WCQ I placed 2nd I didn’t have a very good night.

But there’s a difference between that and carrying stress over a month, agonizing about finding a job, then agonizing about an event, feeling the expectations rising after a successful WCQ performance, traveling to a city that I don’t like being in, then having two consecutive days without proper sleep. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that my lack of sleep was almost predetermined by the point I was getting ready for it.

Point is—a clear mind can lead you to better gameplay. I could not handle the stress and I pushed myself too hard. This is my biggest learning experience from this event.

Speaking about things that I pushed too hard…

What About Deckbuilding and Technical Play?

Obviously, with so much sleep deprivation, there is not much to say about my technical play—looking back at the games I lost, it’s hard to say if I could have done anything differently.

As for deckbuilding, however:

With 45 cards and only 2 Arianna and 2 Welcome Labrynth, I might have pushed the deck too much in terms of consistency. I think that, later down the line, I will stick to 43 cards, as to minimize this from happening. Two cards might not mean a lot, but they’re two potential ways to get to a card that can win you the game.

I’ll probably stop playing the field spell, unless the format demands it. I generally like siding it when I have the space, as it’s nice to have in a few matchups, but it’s simply not worth it. I miss it sometimes, but usually you can make do with just the Lovely pops.

I am also considering just playing 1 The Black Goat Laughs as a simple secondary Marrella target. It’s nice to draw sometimes as it’s a good discard, but the on-field effect is not very good in a lot of situations.

Lastly, I am returning to Archfiend’s Ghastly Glitch as my primary target to set from Lady Labrynth. I really like this one because it lets you respond to any card on the field, then replace itself by dumping Jack, giving you a very non-committal way to keep your disruption going. It is sadly not a good Trap Trick target, and requires that you already control a monster, leading me to prefer it as a 1-of.

My side deck was a little more scrambled, with the always-trusted Phantastical Dragon Phantazmay and Ultimate Slayer as usual, but I decided to play Labrynth Set-Up (generally a better pick than the field spell), Lord of the Heavenly Prison as my chosen defensive tech, which has additional utility going second for matches like Memento and Fire King, and Evenly Matched, a card I generally evaluate as being terrible, though I’ve noticed that a lot of players have been disrespecting it while testing.

This is my current list now. I would like to get an A Bao, but I simply don’t have funds right now for that.

I think I should not have maindecked Dominus Impulse and instead stuck to Starry Dragon’s Cycle. It’s just a bit weird sometimes to see my list and say “this is so drastically different, am I sure it’s going to work?”. But hey, it’s my playstyle, so I have to stand by it.

Or, Should I Switch Decks Instead?

One of the things that draws me to Labrynth is the way that it can adapt to almost any situation: Trap Cards have been bad for years, so they are allowed to do some wild and unconventional things in compensation. Labrynth can make use of this to have answers to almost anything you can think of, including its hard counters like Lightning Storm or Ash Blossom.

It is also unlike other modern decks, lacking one-card combos and predefined lines, the non-engine you play is both flexible and deeply tied into the main strategy, and people seldom prepare for such matchups.

On the other hand, I am starting to feel a bit of fatigue after so much playing this deck. I do love it, and I will probably take a short break at worst, but it’s undeniable that I have played this for a long time by YGO standards. I don’t know what I would play, though. Memento and K9 look cool, but I guess I’ll just have to wait and see.

If the rumors are true, however, we are going to get more Labrynth support soon, so I will probably bring the deck again to YCS Mérida in November… or not drop it at all, simply taking a break from YGO for a couple of weeks!

Final Thoughts

A combination of stress, self-doubt, poor sleep and general unpreparedness led to a subpar performance. I am concerned that after two years of playing this game, I only have regional WCQ tops, and only in my local area. I have come close—I placed 33rd at YCS Cancún last year, the one that TeamXSamurai won, which cut to 32, and I have had topping scores before—but I will not stop just because of one subpar performance.

I will instead take these insights, which are less related to the game and more about my mental state, and try to do better next time. I might go to my nationals at León, or I might skip it and just wait for other events. Regardless, I should start playing again sometime soon.

Have you had similar non-gameplay insights after attending to an event? Please let me know down in the comments.