The Yu-Gi-Oh TCG World Championship 2024 has now wrapped up with Ruben Penaranda of the United States winning it all with a 2-0 victory over Mark Solis in the final. The tournament’s results have made it clear what the current pecking order in the metagame right now looks like; however, with upcoming card bans and restrictions about to come for players in Japan and the rest of Asia-Pacific, this could soon change.

Following the conclusion of Worlds, these are the deck archetypes which are now on top of the meta:

Snake-Eye

Although the Snake-Eye deck didn’t win it all at Worlds, it was by far the most represented deck there with 12 of the tournament’s 28 players using it. This wasn’t a surprise at all—this deck’s reign at the summit of the meta has gone almost unchallenged for quite some time now. It was the only deck which had more than one of its players reach the semifinals with tournament runner-up Solis as well as Jose Santiago doing so.

Bolstered by the Fiendsmith engine, Snake-Eye decks will benefit from the Azamina cards which will further augment the deck’s power once Rage of the Abyss is released internationally in October. The new Azamina card archetype supplies the Snake-Eye deck with impressive disruptive capabilities and is expected to mitigate the effects that the upcoming card bans and restrictions would ordinarily have upon this deck.

Yubel

This was the deck which Penaranda took to the world title. Including Penaranda, a total of eight players brought a Yubel deck to Worlds. As is the case with the Snake-Eye deck, every player who used this deck incorporated the Fiendsmith engine into it. Something else that this deck had in common with the Snake-Eye deck is the fact that both decks had three players making it to the quarter-finals at Worlds—further proof that this is the clear second-best deck in the meta as of right now.

A highly stable and flexible deck, the Yubel deck is replete with counterplay options to be used against opposing monster-centric decks. Its use of the Fiendsmith engine allows the player to more easily bring key monsters into play. Additionally, this deck also benefits from the fact that it’s largely unaffected by passive external pressure which the opponent might attempt to exert from the opposing field.

Tenpai Dragon

Despite a strong performance throughout Worlds qualifiers around the globe, especially in Latin America, the Tenpai Dragon deck turned in a surprisingly underwhelming performance on the biggest stage in Seattle. Just two players used the deck at Worlds—Zhang Jiawei of China and Daigo Noguchi of Japan; only Zhang made it to the quarter-finals. Nevertheless, the deck’s excellent run of form during the lead-up to Worlds has made it clear that going forward, this deck still can’t be overlooked.

This deck which makes heavy use of Synchro Summoning is one of the relatively few decks which is often better when going second instead of first—a trait which can catch many an opponent off-guard. It’s a highly efficient deck which doesn’t require the use of many cards to perform its core functions, freeing up more empty slots which the player can fill with counterplay options for decks which might otherwise have a matchup advantage against this deck.

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