YCS Providence marks the first event where Duelists are able to incorporate the brand new cards from Alliance Insight into their Decks. The latest core set brings with it a ton of support cards for existing archetypes. Two of the most popular archetypes since their debut in Crossover Breakers have been the Ryzeal and Maliss themes, and each of them gets a couple of new tools in Alliance Insight. Let’s see how the new tech cards help support their respective strategies!

Maliss 

Maliss has been an extremely popular strategy with a lot of players, with a unique play style that involves banishing their own monsters, then Special Summoning them back to the field! Alliance Insight brings two incredible new cards to the strategy. Maliss <P> March Hare is the newest Maliss monster, and has three incredibly useful effects. First, if your Maliss Link Monster points to March Hare, then that monster cannot be targeted by card effects. This is amazing to help protect your monsters from Effect Veiler and Infinite Impermanence! Second, you can banish a Maliss card from your hand or Graveyard to Special Summon it from your hand. This can be a way to help extend your combos during your own turn, very similar to how many Maliss players have used the Bystial monsters, or it can be used during your opponent’s turn, allowing you to trigger the effects of various Maliss monsters to interact with your opponent. Finally, if March Hare is banished, you can pay 300 LP and add a banished Maliss monster to your hand. This can be extremely powerful when combined with a card like Allure of Darkness, and helps to ensure that you have follow-up in your hand to play on the following turn! 

The other new Maliss card is Maliss in the Mirror, a Quick-Play Spell Card! This card allows you to banish a Maliss monster from your hand or face-up field to target an opponent’s face-up monster and negate its effects until the end of the turn. This is definitely a nice tool for the Maliss strategy to have access to, as it gives the theme another card to add to the hand with Maliss <Q> Red Ransom, other than Maliss in Underground. Maliss in the Mirror can potentially help to provide follow-up, as well, as if it is banished, you can banish a Maliss card from your Graveyard, then add a Maliss card of the same type from your Deck to your hand. Just like with March Hare, this helps to ensure that you can consistently access your Maliss cards, giving the Deck additional pushes when performing its combos, ways to interact with your opponent on their turn, and consistent access to follow-up. Maliss is definitely one of the scariest Decks to look out for this weekend at YCS Providence! 

Ryzeal 

Ryzeal received direct support in Alliance Insight in the form of Star Ryzeal! Star Ryzeal is very similar to the other Ryzeal monsters in that it has a way to Special Summon itself to the field, as well as an effect that triggers on summon. You can Special Summon it by detaching a material from a monster that you control, but then you are limited to Special Summoning Rank 4 Xyz Monsters from your Extra Deck for the rest of the turn. It’s important to note that the monster you detach material from does not have to be a Ryzeal monster, so you can detach from cards such as King of Feral Imps or Gallant Granite! Star Ryzeal also allows you to Set a Ryzeal Spell/Trap Card from your Deck when it is summoned. Before the release of Star Ryzeal, many players would hold onto their copies of Effect Veiler, Infinite Impermanence, Ghost Ogre & Snow Rabbit, and Ash Blossom & Joyous Spring, specifically to negate the effect of Ryzeal Duo Drive, cutting off the Deck’s access to Ryzeal Cross. However, with Star Ryzeal, you can access Cross much earlier on in your turn, allowing you to set up Cross in order to ensure that Duo Drive can search for other Ryzeal cards! 

Of course, these are just a few of the new cards from Alliance Insight to keep an eye out for this weekend. Many Decks received amazing new support, so be sure to tune in to see what other Decks players are trying out!