Event Breakdown: EUWCQ 2025
Date: July 25-27 2025
Overview
Lorenzo Muselli wins the European World Championship Qualifier with Vanquish Soul! He dueled against Roselle Thorkildsen in the Finals, who was also on Vanquish Soul! VS Mirror, Stake your Soul!
These 7 will be representing Europe in the upcoming 2025 World Championships in Paris! There were 2205 duelists, 12 rounds of Swiss, and a cut to Top 64!
Johannes Bauer - Fiendsmith Ryzeal Mitsurugi
Tom Kleinegräber - Fiendsmith Ryzeal Mitsurugi
Lorenzo Muselli - Vanquish Soul
Roselle Thorkildsen - Vanquish Soul
Mathis Magane - Maliss
Damien Valla - Maliss
What's Different?
The lack of Battles of Legend: Monster Mayhem is certainly felt, as Orcust and Gem-Knight are not legal for the event due to distribution reasons. As a result, decks from Duelist's Advance received a stronger emphasis and increased popularity for the event! (Onomat Ryzeal, Sky Striker, and Vanquish Soul). Unchained was also seen in the top tables around Round 9-10 or so, aided by the help of the Buio package! Unfortunately, just fell a bit short of the top 64. Fiendsmith is once again on everyone's radar, seeping into the rogue decks as a resilient grind engine (alongside the usual mainstay Mitsurugi). The former had also been taking advantage of it, but other decks like Memento (Pure is also popular) and Live/Evil Twin are also capable of using it!
Ryzeal Mitsurugi lists have continued to trim down the Ryzeal cards more in favor of more Mitsurugi cards like Mitsurugi Magatama, with some duelists like Johannes B. only playing 4 names, while other Maliss lists have been flip flopping on Maliss C GWC-06 and Maliss in the Mirror respectively.
For reasons unknown to duelists, Lunalight was not able to take any spots in the Top 64 of the EUWCQ. This could either be to low popularity or people being somewhat prepared for it in terms of defensives. Number 67: Pair-a-Dice Smasher (seen in some Vanquish Soul and Memento lists) has been notoriously stealing victories left and right due to the lessened amounts of Effect Veiler and Infinite Impermanence in people's decks, however.
The Hollie Sue Show
VS spiked in usage and popularity due to how difficult it is to stop and how powerful the archetypal cards are in navigating through tough situations. ( Vanquish Soul Heavy Borger's built in burn and its helpful dodging effect alongside Vanquish Soul Caesar Valius, the deck's innate resiliency towards certain Hand Traps, and Vanquish Soul Hollie Sue being a powerhouse and a half). It's the one of the best decks for the European World Championships and it's currently dominating hard, garnering 18/64 spots! Pot of Extravagance is a huge bomb card with almost no downside (Sorry Joshua), as you don't care too much about your ED aside from Rock of the Vanquisher, the Xyz, and other utility cards. The format is going to experience another shift with the upcoming release of Justice Hunters, but VS will continue to thrive there thanks to the K9 archetype. Hollie Sue herself is capable of performing miracles as a powerful hand trap if you have the right attributes to back her up! She can steal your opponent's pivotal combo piece to cripple their plays, or Special Summon Razen on their turn, add Caesar and even get 2 pops while setting up your engine!
Vanquish Soul Rocks is quite the potent Divine Arsenal AA-ZEUS - Sky Thunder enabler in difficult spots, provided you have enough grind tools to rebuild on the next turn. Its ability to destroy cards on the field by detaching an EARTH monster proves to be quite pivotal in picking apart boards in combination with Razen, Caesar, and Pantera's destruction effects.
Vanquish Soul - Continue? has been seeing some play due to its additional extension plays and help into Ryzeal Detonator. The Rescue-ACE suite and Phantazmay are also shooting up in popularity to help supplement the deck, trying to find Hollie Sue and help alleviate consistency issues! Speaking of Ryzeal, Herman Hansson had a very innovative build that uses Ext Ryzeal as a board breaker and a way to get to Razen at the same time.
In terms of dealing with the deck, D.D. Crow has been seeing a lot of play to deal with Rock of the Vanquisher's add back effect, in order to help slow down the deck! The card is surprisingly good into other difficult matchups such as Memento and Atlantean Mermail. Ghost Ogre & Snow Rabbit is also seeing play in order to snipe Vanquish Soul, Start! People have even been Purulia'ing themselves going first!
Regain the Genesis
Denis Peeters managed to pilot a unique build of Regenesis to a Top 64 finish!
Bystials aren't new to the strategy of course, providing immense control against LIGHT and DARK decks. The deck's sizable grind game also gets a huge boost with The Bystial Lubellion placing Branded Regained and Bystial Magnamhut has the upside of adding Regenesis Dragon! Now that's all well and good, but enter the Dogmatika engine! Dogmatika Fleurdelis, the Knighted is an incredible powerhouse in her own right backed up by Dogmatika Ecclesia, the Virtuous, Dogmatika Punishment and Nadir Servant. The two Dogmatika monsters are quite capable of pushing sizable damage on their own! (Ecclesia + Fleur with the boosts is 5000 damage.) Coupled with Nadir dumping Elder Entity N'tss or Golden Cloud Beast - Malong, this can help the deck fight through boards while having decent setup potential to back up their modest plays! Pot of Extravagance shows up again as a staple in this deck as potent draw power.
Nether Optional
Primite Blue-Eyes has gone down a lot in popularity, but the German National Champion Özcan Özyildiz does it again and secures a Top 64 placement with an incredible 10-2 finish! Primite Dragon Ether Beryl does so much for Blue-Eyes, accessing Primite Lordly Lode and oftentimes hard carrying the deck to victory! The Primite engine provides near-unparalleled grind game and low to the ground setup that's very much resilient to the common turnskippers in the form of Mulcharmy Fuwalos, Mulcharmy Purulia, and Droll & Lock Bird! Primite Drillbeam is one of the best payoffs for the engine, able to nearly cut through anything it connects with. The DUAD support hasn't quite performed so far, due to Primite Dragon Nether Berzelius and Primite Fusion being rather clunky. Aside from getting unlucky with the Blue-Eyes bricks, the deck is quite solid in a long drawn out tournament such as the EUWCQ due to its ease of use. Hieratic Seal of the Heavenly Spheres can float into Blue-Eyes White Dragon to turn on Drillbeam in a pinch.
Zero to Hero!
Sky Striker does the unthinkable and snags 1 Top Cut placement in the EUWCQ, finishing at Top 8 and just shy of qualifying for Worlds! Sky Striker Ace - Zero is an amazing support card for the deck that does everything you could ever want and more, especially as she's accessible via Sky Striker Ace - Raye!
Sky Striker Special Maneuver - Lemnisgate! is great utility as well, recycling key cards and oftentimes wiping the opponent's board once you get the ball rolling, Its GY effect is also incredibly relevant, giving you an additional interruption with Sky Striker Ace - Zeke or Sky Striker Ace - Azalea Temperance! Despite not having Camellia or Prototype Sky Striker Ace - Amatsu, the deck is still highly consistent, capable of spamming the strongest power spells, and can rip through boards and setup difficult to handle interruptions (Zero pop, multiple Sky Striker Mecha - Widow Anchor, Sky Striker Mecha - Shark Cannon, Lemnis bounce into Azalea Temperance absorb or Zeke banish.)
Lunalight's low popularity and the deck's Mulcharmy resistance (if blinding second akin to Gem-Knight) give it a legitimate shot as a good rogue pick! Just make sure to dodge Droll & Lock Bird, as Drolling the Zero search is oftentimes back-breaking.
EUWCQ Top 64 Breakdown
20 Mitsurugi (18 Ryzeal, 2 Pure)
18 Vanquish Soul (1 Ryzeal)
15 Maliss
4 Memento
2 Ryzeal (Onomat)
1 Primite Blue-Eyes
1 Sky Striker
1 Regenesis (Dogmatika Bystial)
1 Atlantean Mermail
1 Evil Twin (FS)
Conclusion
That's all the time we have folks! Justice Hunters is right around the corner and will be legal for the World Championship! Will Yummy, K9, and Dracotail prevail? Only time will tell.
