Chapter 162. A Simple Walkthrough of the Tri-Brigade Engine in Spright! Spright Power Recap Finale!
In the 5D's world.
Those who realized the same problem included Yusei Fudo and the other Synchro-era Duelists.
The compatibility between Toadally Awesome and Spright was way too high!
They had even started overlooking the self-restriction clauses.
One is the self-restriction on Spright Starter!
After it resolves, until the end of the turn, the Duelist can only Special Summon Level 2, Rank 2, or Link-2 monsters.
That makes it so the boss monsters of the Live☆Twin engine can't come out!
And the Live☆Twin engine has its own self-restriction too!
You have to mind those self-restriction clauses in a Duel!
"Looks like the Live☆Twin engine is the best choice after Toadally Awesome got Forbidden!"
"Yeah. At least it gives a lot of resource refills."
"But here's the question—if you look at it this way, isn't Spright's peak still the Toadally Awesome build?"
"Didn't Tearlaments already say as much? Seems like without Toadally Awesome, things don't look great for Spright."
"..."
The Synchro world's Duelists immediately launched into heated discussion.
Meanwhile, in the short video,
the Spright player had already moved on to the next part of the Spright breakdown.
Spright Player: "Those two lists are the more popular Spright builds."
Spright Player: "Of course, Spright's later 'peak' got overshadowed by Tearlaments."
Spright Player: "Last, let's take a look at Spright Tri-Brigade."
"Apart from the cores I mentioned before!"
"This Spright Tri-Brigade shell can also get flashy, and its competitive power is absolutely not worse than Spright Live☆Twin!"
"As for the Spright core, it's still the same idea!"
"The key is understanding what the Tri-Brigade engine is!"
"This engine revolves around Link plays."
"The non-Extra Deck monsters share a common effect."
"You can banish any number of Beast, Beast-Warrior, and/or Winged Beast monsters from your Graveyard to Special Summon from your Extra Deck one Beast/Beast-Warrior/Winged Beast Link Monster whose Link Rating equals the number banished."
"The self-restriction is that, for the rest of this turn, you can only use Beast, Beast-Warrior, and Winged Beast monsters as Link Material."
"Simply put, as long as your GY has enough of those three Types piled up!"
"Your GY becomes the Link counter that fuels your Link Summons!"
"Also, each non-Extra Deck Tri-Brigade monster's name has two effects, each usable once per turn."
"So the GY is crucial."
"Next, let's see which monsters make up the Tri-Brigade engine!"
Card #1! Tri-Brigade Fraktall!
FIRE Beast-Warrior.
Level 4, 1900/1600.
"Send this card from your hand or field to the GY; send 1 Level 3 or lower Beast, Beast-Warrior, or Winged Beast monster from your Deck to the GY."
A GY-setup assistant.
Card #2! Tri-Brigade Nervall!
WIND Winged Beast.
Level 1, 0/200.
"If this card is sent to the GY: You can add 1 'Tri-Brigade' monster from your Deck to your hand, except 'Tri-Brigade Nervall'."
A search assistant.
Card #3! Tri-Brigade Kitt!
FIRE Beast.
Level 2, 700/1000.
"If this card is sent to the GY: You can send 1 'Tri-Brigade' card from your Deck to the GY, except 'Tri-Brigade Kitt'."
Another GY-setup assistant.
Card #4! Tri-Brigade Kerass!
EARTH Beast.
Level 2, 1200/1500.
"You can discard 1 Beast, Beast-Warrior, or Winged Beast monster; Special Summon this card from your hand."
It Special Summons itself.
Once the Tri-Brigade engine inside Spright appeared,
Duelists across the worlds again showed puzzled, at-a-loss expressions!
No way?!
Spright can be adapted to so many different cores?!
First Toadally Awesome and Live☆Twin!
Now here comes a Tri-Brigade build!
And this Tri-Brigade system wasn't unfamiliar to veteran players!
Earlier, Ghostricks and Lyrilusc had already used Tri-Brigade for combo support!
Even so,
some still couldn't quite see what this "Tri-Brigade" was about—
or rather,
couldn't perceive how the Tri-Brigade engine helps a Deck function!
"The more I look, the weirder it seems! It's only a few Tri-Brigade cards, and only two of them are Level 2! Can this really mesh with Spright?"
"I don't get it—it's a Link-based Deck! Maybe ask the VRAINS Duelists."
"Ahem! Don't ask us—we don't fully get it either, but the Tri-Brigade engine is interesting!"
"True. The GY is your resource, and using it to Link Summon is wild! It's my first time seeing Link plays fueled straight from the GY!"
"...."
Duelists from the VRAINS world immediately started chatting excitedly in the group.
Yusaku Fujiki and the others stared in surprise at these Tri-Brigade engine cards as well!
At first glance, nothing felt off.
Only after watching did they realize how frightening this Link approach is!
They have to build Link Rating on the field!
Tri-Brigade, though—does it in the GY!
So we're doing it backwards, huh!
Spright Player: "Once you know what each Tri-Brigade card does,"
Spright Player: "the next step is which Link monsters to include!"
"We'll keep it brief! After all, Spright's glory days belong to the Toad build!"
"Spright Tri-Brigade was always just a branch!"
"For Link monsters, you can run Tri-Brigade Bearbrumm the Rampant Rampager (Link-2)—during your Main Phase, discard 2 cards to Special Summon 1 of your banished Level 4 or lower tri-Types; if sent to the GY, add Tri-Brigade Revolt, then put 1 card from your hand on the bottom of the Deck."
"Then Tri-Brigade Ferrijit the Barren Blossom (Link-2)—Special Summon a tri-Type from hand; if sent to the GY, draw 1, then put 1 on the bottom."
"Tri-Brigade Rugal the Silver Sheller (Link-3)—on the opponent's turn, recycle tri-Type resources; if sent to the GY, reduce ATK across the board based on the number of different Types you control among Beast, Beast-Warrior, and Winged Beast."
"Lastly Tri-Brigade Shuraig the Ominous Omen (Link-4)—non-targeting banish on Summon; if sent to the GY, search based on how many of your tri-Types are banished."
"That's right—the Extra Deck only needs these Tri-Brigade Links!"
"Shuraig is mainly for the banish effect!"
"Rugal is primarily paired with Accesscode Talker to push an OTK!"
"Ferrijit smooths draws, and Bearbrumm searches Tri-Brigade Revolt!"
"Once you understand that, the Tri-Brigade engine is straightforward."
"Next are other Extra Deck inclusions: Ancient Warriors Oath – Double Dragon Lords (Link-2)!"
"Cost 1 card to bounce 1 face-up card!"
"I:P Masquerena and Apollousa, Bow of the Goddess need no explanation."
"And Number 29: Mannequin Cat as a utility."
"If your opponent controls a monster and you Special Summon, you can target their monster,"
"then Special Summon from your hand, Deck, or GY a monster with the same Type or Attribute."
"Now for the basic combo flow!"
"Use the Spright core to establish a board; front-load your Spright effects as much as possible; use Spright Sprind to send Nimble Angler and jump into Nimble Beaver to quickly amass tri-Type resources."
"After you line up the Tri-Brigade engine, you mainly rely on Gigantic Spright and Spright Sprind to access Tri-Brigade Kitt."
"Then use Spright's tools to finish the board..."
In the short video,
the Spright player gave a quick summary and walkthrough of the Spright Tri-Brigade engine!
Duelists everywhere also understood that Spright Tri-Brigade was a helpless choice after the later limits—and after Toadally Awesome was Forbidden!
The whole system has many self-restrictions, with lots of points to watch out for!
After listening, many Duelists whose play skill wasn't high to begin with were left completely baffled!
Even Yugi Muto, Seto Kaiba, Jaden Yuki, and Yusei Fudo looked stunned and at a loss.
Yugi Muto: "Uh… by the looks of it, Tri-Brigade can work, but it's not my style."
Yusaku Fujiki: "Same here. Even if this Link system can use the GY to perform Link Summons, I still prefer my Code Talkers."
Yuma Tsukumo: "It mostly hits weaker than the Toadally Awesome Spright we saw before. That one had way more impact."
Yusei Fudo: "Can't be helped. The Frog engine was the most compatible with Spright. Without Toadally Awesome, you can only look for other splashable packages."
After a bit of small talk, the Duelists in the chat didn't keep their focus on this so-called Spright Tri-Brigade.
Mainly because Spright with Toadally Awesome was the strongest peak throughout that stretch of history!
...
Spright Player: "Alright—Spright Tri-Brigade, just a quick pass."
Spright Player: "Next, let's talk about Spright's mid-era Forbidden & Limited journey."
Spright Player: "Among these builds, the hottest was the Toadally Awesome Spright."
"But the Toadally Awesome variant actually didn't live that long!"
"After Spright's debut shook the scene,"
"on the very next July list, Toadally Awesome was already Forbidden."
"At that point the Frog engine began to fall off!"
"Or rather, it started getting phased out!"
"On the October list, Union Carrier was gone; Ronintoadin, Spright Starter, Spright Blue, and Spright Jet were all Limited!"
"That made Spright much weaker than before."
"What can you do—Tearlaments' power in that metagame kicked off a 'Yu-Gi-Oh! 2.0' era."
"Spright could only tack on Live☆Twin, Tri-Brigade, and other engines to scrape by."
"All told, Spright's life was neither especially long nor short."
"Debuting at its peak, then going downhill as soon as restrictions hit."
"That's the opposite of Tearlaments."
"Even so, we still can't deny that Spright has always been an extremely powerful, top-tier Deck."
"Time for a final summary!"
"Let's give Spright a strength recap."
"First: it's easy to set up negates. Spright Red and Spright Carrot are both negates."
"In other words, it can very easily interrupt the opponent's plays!"
"Compare that to 'Stardust Junk' lines—what do they rely on to make negates?"
"Junk Speeder pulls resources, then a pile of plays that might get hit by Nibiru."
"One 'Maxx 'C'' might force you to pass; and the bosses that carry broad negates consume huge resources."
"Like Shooting Quasar Dragon, Cosmic Blazar Dragon, and so on."
"Or look at other Decks trying to set up a broad negate."
"What do they usually go for?"
"Baronne de Fleur, right? Level 10 Synchro is easy to make."
"Now compare all of that with Spright's negates."
"You spend massive resources."
"Spright only needs a single Level 2."
"Yes—this is Spright's first strength."
"Negates are easy to make. Think about it—easy."
The very first point of the final summary
already made the Duelists across the worlds go pale!
At the beginning, it didn't feel like much!
But after hearing it out,
the more they thought about it, the more wrong it felt!
Because—
it really is like that!
Baronne de Fleur has a broad negate.
Toadally Awesome has a broad negate.
So Baronne de Fleur equals Toadally Awesome.
Shooting Quasar Dragon and Cosmic Blazar Dragon have broad negates.
Toadally Awesome also has a broad negate.
So Shooting Quasar Dragon and Cosmic Blazar Dragon approximately equal Toadally Awesome!
You could even see it this way—
A "broad negate" equals Spright Red plus Spright Carrot!
Which means—
Spright Red and Spright Carrot together
already equal Baronne de Fleur, Shooting Quasar Dragon, and Cosmic Blazar Dragon!
Whoa!
Looked at this way,
Spright's negate setup is really absurd!
Tell me—
would you rather spend tons of resources to make one broad negate,
or spend a small amount to make one?
No contest!
Spright is strong because its negate costs are simple!
That comparison—
made Yusei Fudo in the 5D's world almost cough up blood!
"Even if the negates are the same! I still have to say this!"
"Stats and other effects are not the same!"
He said that,
but he knew perfectly well:
In Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters, negates are equalizers.
A Level 12 negate isn't "nobler" than a Level 10 negate, nor "nobler" than a Level 2 negate.
But—
face.
It's a matter of face!
Even if Toadally Awesome and Spright make negates easily,
they're not as cool as Stardust Dragon and 'Junk' explosion lines.
Cosmic Blazar Dragon and Shooting Star Dragon oozed style!
Spright Player: "Second: Spright's lines and support are clearly defined."
Spright Player: "Simply put, it's the 'iron triangle' I mentioned before."
Spright Player: "That iron triangle gives Spright the maximum possible extension routes."
"Whether it's Spright Blue, Spright Jet, or Spright Starter!"
"They can all act as starters for the Spright core."
"And its support suite is also clear."
"Spright Red and Spright Carrot can both Special Summon themselves and serve as negates."
"The in-archetype Link monsters—Spright Elf and Spright Sprind—fill the same role."
"Not to mention what the generic engines bring!"
"And third: excellent compatibility."
"I mentioned this earlier!"
"Let me elaborate a bit."
"When you have enough extenders, Spright and hand traps have superb compatibility."
"With a rational build, Spright is a one- or two-card combo Deck!"
"With very strong starter stability, Spright can pack even more generics!"
"That's about it!"
"That's the final summary for Spright!"
"Thanks for watching—see you next time."
The end.
With that, the Spright recap has fully concluded!
Even Duelists who already knew Spright's power
felt a mix of emotion and excitement after rewatching the short video from start to finish!
So many top-tier Decks!
Each with its own characteristics and some way to break a certain rule of Yu-Gi-Oh!
Dragon Rulers broke the paradigm of card disadvantage and bricking—Deck, GY, and banished all became accessible.
Zoodiac broke the paradigm with an ultra-small engine and extreme stability, a "fake-card" super-tier.
Then Spright, which broke the star-count build rules and made negates easy, while also leveraging the GY, Deck access, and stability.
No wonder people call Spright the peak of version 1.0.
And finally Tearlaments, breaking interaction timing and building boards explosively, with endless resources and "GY equals Deck," ushering in the 2.0 era!
So this is the evolution of top-tiers in the higher worlds?
Who knows what other top-tier systems are still unknown to them?
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