Tournament Report: Melanie Lynette Top 8 JP NA WGP 25/26
- Melanie Lynette
- Jan 28
- 7 min read
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This will be in a slightly different format because, as your blog writer, I actually saw some success at this year's Japanese WGP! So this will be a bit more of a straight article instead. I have linked articles to the interviews of a few of my fellow Top 16 opponents so you can get the full perspective where relevant.
I began playing Weiss Schwarz in 2014, discovering the game when I saw a Sword Art Online Trial Deck for sale when I was looking for Magic: The Gathering singles. I realized that some of my favorite animes like Angel Beats, Clannad, and Nisekoi were in the game, and quickly got into both the English and Japanese sides. My first notable top was a 4th Place at the 2014 JP NA WGP with NIsekoi. Since then, while I haven’t had anything super big top wise (beyond a very small Origins Top 4 when Bushiroad held events there and some larger locals events), but I’ve qualified for JP Nationals multiple times and had a lot of fun at English Regionals.I am very passionate about teaching the game, deckbuilding, and helping to grow local communities. I love being a Tournament Organizer and running positive events for the community to have fun with! Always feel free to reach out if you have questions or would like help with something! (I will do a full game history biography in an article at some point in the future. But at least this gives a quick synopsis!)
Winning Decklist:
BushiNavi Code: 16D2M
I would consider my Oshi no Ko list to be a very standard build for the series at this point. The only thing I feel the need to point out is that I made an executive call the week before the event to let go a lot of the strategies to deny Idolm@ster Gakuen (Gakum@s) / Idolm@ster Shiny Colors reverses. I found I was spending too much stock (Memory Bounce Back to Hand Aqua) or taking too much damage from open lanes (Sacrifice Lane to Run to Backrow Kana) in attempting to do this and was only hurting my own game, because if the Kana brainstormer's check missed it still left an on reverse target. This was usually enough for most of my opponent's on the series in playtesting to still get off their entire game. In the end, it wasn't worth sacrificing tech space in my own build for. I noted throughout the event that I had far better resource management in my games due to this as well. A controversial call to be sure, but at least for my day this time it paid off.
Round 1: Win against Date-A-Live: 8 Book (Nia)
I had a really great start to the day with a talented and amazing opponent. He was on the new 8 Book Date-A-Live Nia build, which I only had about a game or two of playtesting against. We had a fairly evenly matched game until he went to Level 2. Sadly, he was short resources to play out more than one of the 3/2 Nia, and then proceeded to trigger several climaxes that he couldn’t pay out. I sent him to Level 3 since I hit the damage pocket. While he was able to swing me back to 3 with not too much of a finisher turn, Akane was able to pull out a win.
Round 2: Win against Kaiju No. 8: 8 Comeback (Door).
I had a solid game against another wonderful opponent. While I had some locals to playtest this match up, my opponent’s build was a bit more unique in that he was running the yellow event and a bit more yellow in his list than what I had seen previously. We had a very close game early with me taking some early damage, but my opponent was unlucky in his cancels in the mid-game. I was able to close out the game with Akane in the end.
Round 3: Win against Yuru Camp: 6 Gold Bar / 2 Gate (Pants) (4 Chiaki / 2 Aoi / 2 Rin)
My opponent was a professional pilot on this list and we had an extremely close game that just barely avoided in going over time. Both of us hit ideal deck states and the cancels were just flying back and forth. Neither of us had issues building resources either. He went to Level 3 first, and I somehow survived his finisher turn to answer back with Akane for the win. It was a very well-played and close game!
Round 4: Win against Love Live! Hasunosora: 8 Standby
I know from locals this match up can be very close and hard for Oshi no Ko to deal with if they got things going at Level 1 and 2. I genuinely felt horrible for my opponent this round because his deck just said “No.” the entire game. He was out out 4 to 5 climaxes between his opening hand, mulligan, and discarded due to effects by the end of his first turn. And it felt like every time he was getting close to stabilizing he’d trigger climaxes in spots that were difficult to pay out and for limited value. In the end, he pushed for game in the best way possible to at least send me to Level 3, but then the burns from an Akane finished it. I very much wish his deck had behaved as he was a very strong player who powered through the tough scenarios thrown at him.
I was surprised and excited to sit down against a Yotsuba focused deck. While I have had games against several of the other girls in the series, this game was probably only the 3rd time I’ve played against Yotsuba. My opponent was somewhat familiar with my deck, but we had a wonderful match as we both asked questions and clarified each other’s card effects. He unfortunately couldn’t seem to get his climax combo for his Level 1 game, so he had trouble doing what he wanted alongside eating some pockets of unexpected damage. My opponent tried to push for game, but he was too far behind in damage to close it out. Despite this my opponent and I still had a very nice game!
After the nerve-wracking deck checks, we're off to Top 16 Cut.
This was an unfortunate pairing against a local teammate that I often playtest (and lose!) games against regularly in our local online server tournaments. Early game he definitely had the advantage as my brainstormer Kana’s top check at 0/6 whiffed and left him 3 easy on reverse targets for the 1/0 Saki. I watched him, as I have before in playtesting, brainstorm and helmet to get his Level 1s in hand, and, suddenly, we both realize he’s down to 4 cards in hand and can only attack twice with two 1/0 Sakis. Worse, one of them whiffs and triggers a climax on the stock check ability. From there, on my Level 1 turns, Kana’s top checks to rearrange kept revealing climaxes, so I left them there and ended up canceling a lot. My opponent was pushed to Level 3 first, but was short the resources to push for game. In theory, he should have been able to stall out with me at Level 2 being I was only 2/0 and compressed. He moved the one Temari that he played to heal off a damage to the back row, and my contemplation of how I needed to dig for Aqua Riki’s to send myself to Level 3 turned into a “well, I don’t need that” as I ate 7 straight (deserved at this point!) to Level 3. Akane closed out the game from there.
Round 5 of Swiss rematch! This time my opponent’s deck ran incredibly well, with multiple chances to resolve his Level 1 combo and was able to build resources. Unfortunately, despite having a good game resource wise, I just kept eating pockets of damage in a compressed deck at both Level 1 and Level 2 without canceling as expected. On the turn my opponent sent me to Level 3, he did an incredibly wise thing to preserve hand: he just moved up his Level 0 backrow to crash, and dropped a Level 0 in the slot where the 2/1 Taiki had been returned to hand off of Kana’s top check. Damage stuck, sending me to Level 3, but my opponent was very compressed and Akane was swinging into 2 open slots as well as a Level 0. With no targets to side for pinpoint, as well as multiple of Akane’s burns unluckily failing to hit Level 0’s or climaxes, my opponent was able to swing back for game after using an icy tail finisher to get damage off my last two cancels in deck and force a refresh into a decompressed, post-finisher deck. Still a great game!
Final Reflections:
Every round of this tournament I had great games against very talented players so it was incredibly enjoyable event. I think that’s one of the best parts of Weiss Schwarz, honestly, is that even at the highest competitive level we have an amazing community to play and interact with.
It would have been awesome to go a bit further and go past my 4th place at JP WGP Nationals in 2014, but I’m still very happy with how I performed at the event and will always keep working hard to keep achieving.
In the long run, results like this are only possible with a strong community that helps with the constant play testing, feedback, and camaraderie. Thank you so much to everyone who has helped me playtest at Paul’s Gamerzone, The Warp Gate, and in online matches. A special thanks to Jason, Dale, Evan C., Will A., and Aubrey P. for their continual playtesting arrangements beforehand!
As always, thank you to the community for your support of this Blog and Channel! Looking forward to putting out a lot of cool content going forward!
Interested in more Tournament Reports or you would like to submit your own Top 16 interview from the JP NA WGP 2025? Check out more reports or submit a form at https://level4weissschwarz.wixsite.com/lvl4ws/tournament-reports !
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