PLAY'S · Metagame · 20 Aug 2026

What people are actually playing

319 decks from a sanctioned tournament. One deck accounts for a fifth of the field. This is the closest thing Duel Masters PLAY'S has to public metagame data — there are no official usage statistics, so everything anyone knows comes from someone counting.

Numbers below are from REIGN DMPS VERTEX CUP 2026 Autumn vol.2, played 30 July, a week after the current set landed. Format is New Division — the same one the Grand Prix uses on 13 September.

The field

1 Fire/Water/Dark Dragerion火水闇ドラゲリオン 21.0%

2 Light/Dark Lionel光闇ライオネル 11.7%

3 Water/Nature Scolar水自然スコーラー 8.3%

4 Fire/Light Raid火光レイド 7.6%

5 Light/Water/Nature Gouhaten光水自然轟破天 6.3%

5 Light/Water/Nature Ajisai光水自然アジサイ 6.3%

5 Mono-Fire GouGouGou火単轟轟轟 6.3%

Dragerion at 21% is the headline. More than one deck in five, in a field of 319, a week into a new set. The next-largest share is barely half that.

The top tables looked different

Kamigame publishes the same data split into the whole field and the upper bracket, and the two do not match. Their reading of the split:

Whole field vs upper bracket Across the full 319, Dragerion — a graveyard-resource deck built on HADES Dragerion — and Lionel, which wins through Zenith board control, were the two most-played. In the upper bracket it was Lionel and Gouhaten, the latter a control deck carried over from the previous format.

That gap between what people brought and what performed is the useful part. The most popular deck was not the most successful one.

What each deck does

One line each, from the published deck type and the cards the deck is named for. This is classification, not strategy — for how to actually pilot any of these, the Japanese deck guides go into far more depth than is worth paraphrasing.

Fire/Water/Dark Dragerion · 21.0%Beatdown 火水闇ドラゲリオン

Fills its own graveyard, then uses it as a resource. Named for HADES Dragerion 《HADES・ドラゲリオン》, a late-game creature that disrupts the opponent's board while the deck closes. Build cost high, operating difficulty high.

Light/Dark Lionel · 11.7%Control 光闇ライオネル

Built around Zenith creatures — the Zero-civilization high-end race — reaching a board the opponent cannot answer. The most accessible of the format's top decks: build cost medium, operating difficulty medium. Three separate Lionel builds have their own deck guides.

Water/Nature Scolar · 8.3%One-shot 水自然スコーラー

Assembles a combo and ends the game in a single turn. A holdover from the previous format, played now because it can go through a defensive board rather than around it. Build cost medium, operating difficulty high.

Fire/Light Raid · 7.6%Beatdown 火光レイド

Attacks early and keeps attacking. The most expensive deck in the format to build and the easiest to pilot — rated "very high" build cost and "low" operating difficulty. Won the previous sanctioned event.

Light/Water/Nature Gouhaten · 6.3%One-shot 光水自然轟破天

Another holdover, and the deck that did best at the top tables. Very high build cost, low operating difficulty — the same profile as Raid: expensive to assemble, straightforward once assembled.

Light/Water/Nature Ajisai · 6.3%Control 光水自然アジサイ

Named for Chōkaitaku Yōsei Ajisai! 《超開拓妖精アジサイ！》, a Secret-rarity card from the current set. Grouped with the Lionel decks as part of the durable half of the format.

Mono-Fire GouGouGou · 6.3%Rush 火単轟轟轟

Attacks from turn one and tries to finish before anything expensive arrives. The cheapest route into a competitive deck — medium build cost, low operating difficulty, one civilization so no colour problems. If you are starting from nothing, this is the least painful path.

Why the format slowed down

Kamigame's analysts describe a chain reaction rather than a single dominant card. Paraphrasing their read: many Lionel builds now include a Heaven's Gate counter package, and once you add Ajisai and similar decks to that group, the field has tilted toward durable decks that can run madness effects and other answers specifically to beat Dragerion.

In other words: one deck got popular, the field adapted by getting slower, and the answer to the slow decks is now a third group — Water/Nature Scolar and Water/Dark Magic Tools, both holdovers from the previous format, both able to punch through a defensive board.

This matches what players have been saying. Complaints about a durable, grinding format have been circulating for days, including from people wondering whether to attend the Grand Prix because of it. The tournament data supports the complaint: this is a format where games go long by design, because going long is how you beat the most popular deck.

Where these numbers come from, and what they are worth

There are no official statistics Takara Tomy publishes no usage data for Duel Masters PLAY'S. Everything the community knows about the metagame is counted by hand — either from tournament submissions, or by playing ranked and recording what the opponent was on. When you read a Japanese tier list, that is what is underneath it.

Source	Sample	What it is
REIGN tournament data	319 decks	Submitted decklists from an entry-gated event. The largest public sample available.
Ranked-match data	~100 games	Compiled by an editorial team playing the ladder and recording opponents, split into all players and top 500.
Tier lists	—	Editorial judgement, not computed. The site says so on the page.

Tournament data is the strongest of the three, but it is not the ladder. Entry required submitting a decklist to a bracketed event, which selects for players who prepare. What you meet at a random rank on a Tuesday evening will not look like this.

What happens next

Vol.2 is the most recent instalment with published usage figures. Vol.3 was played on 19 August and its data has not been released; vol.4 runs on 22 August. The set is now a month old rather than a week, so the next release will show whether the field has settled or moved again.

The Grand Prix on 13 September uses the same format. Between now and then there is one more sanctioned event, and a set that has had four more weeks of solving. Grand Prix details →

Reading the deck names

Every name here is civilizations plus a key card. Six characters cover the civilizations, and the rest is the card the deck is built on — the full breakdown is here.

Sources

Usage percentages and field size: Kamigame's metagame page for REIGN DMPS VERTEX CUP 2026 Autumn vol.2, played 30 July 2026, page updated 4 August. Data credited to REIGN, the tournament organiser.
Whole-field versus upper-bracket split, and the analysis of why durable decks rose: the same page. That reading is Kamigame's, not this site's, and is paraphrased here.
Tournament schedule and format: Kamigame's REIGN summary page, updated 12 August.
Absence of official statistics: no usage data is published by Takara Tomy; this is an observation from the absence of such a source rather than a stated policy.

Deck names are literal translations given alongside the Japanese. Percentages are reproduced as published. The one-line deck descriptions are built from the published deck type, build and operating difficulty ratings, and the cards each deck is named for — not from the strategy guides, which are someone else's work and are linked rather than summarised.