Chain Beat Rulings (and Black Garden)

So, yeah, I'm playing Chain Beat recently and I'm pretty tired of explaining in almost each and every game rulings for the deck. A couple of time it happened that if I linked them to Pojo's Guide they'd just say "I don't trust a random forum's post" and if I link Wikia "Wikia's editable by anyone, ya know...". Also, I don't expect them to really believe a blog's post either, so let's just start by saying:
Everything I'm writing here is OFFICIAL.
It will always be taken by somewhere, sometimes I may not write the source, but everything is for sure.

So, let's start:

Wind-up Rabbit is one of the backbones of the deck, but has one hell of a tricky effect. Let's see what bothers up:

1.Wind-Up Rabbit's effect which banishes a monster isn't a cost and cannot then banish under Skill Drain;

2.When Wind-Up Rabbit returns on the field, it isn't considered a Special Summon, it is considered "returning on the field" and does not start a chain;

3.Wind-Up Rabbit's effect cannot be used in Damage Step.

First part is based on Problem Solving Card Text. Reading Rabbit's effect clearly explains that it is an effect, nothing to say here.

Second part will need one of PSCT's main rules: nothing's left unsaid in cards written with PSCT and nothing says one thing while it means something else. This means that if the card doesn't say that it is a Special Summon it means that it isn't, and if no method of summoning is explained it means there is none. The card simply is banished until then, this means that it'll "return" your next Stand-by Phase.

Third part should be obvious given that the only cards that can activate in Damage Step are counter traps, cards which directly modify ATK/DEF of a monster and cards which need to be chained directly to a card.

Evilswarm Thunderbird is our second and last floater, and, while it's mostly like Rabbit, it is worth writing about it:
1.Evilswarm Thunderbird's cannot be activated if Skill Drain is active;
2.When Evilswarm Thunderbird returns on the field, it's not considered a summon and it doesn't start a chain.
Basically, the same rulings from Rabbit, with the only difference that part 3 doesn't exist because it's explicitly written in the card text that it cannot be activated during damage step.

Black Garden is a difficult card. With PSCT. Without it it'd have been pure hell. Thank you, guy-who-proposed-PSCT-at-Konami-TCG:
1.If you summon a monster while Black Garden is active, but one of the two effects of Black Garden cannot be used (halving the ATK and Special Summoning a Token), the other works as it should;
2.Black Garden's effect upon summon starts a chain;
3.Once a monster's ATK is halved via Black Garden, its ATK is set on that value and won't change if a card which gave the monster that ATK doesn't apply its effect anymore;
4.If a monster is removed from the field and later returns, it won't have its ATK halved.

I decided to write only the most important ones, so to lighten the charge of the post, not making it too heavy of a read for it to be linked fast.
The first part is given by this article about PSCT, as you can see, Black Garden uses "also", meaning that neither is needed for the other.
The second part is purely obvious given the card, it being a trigger effect it must start a chain.
Third Part is, instead, the trickiest part. Based on the rulings of other cards which halve monster's ATK we can say that if there's Tenki on the field and then Rabbit is summoned while Black Garden is on the field, Rabbit's ATK will go to (1400+100)/2=750 ATK. If Tenki is then removed, Rabbit's ATK will stay at 750. This is pretty important if a monster gets an ATK boost in chain with Black Garden. Let's assume the following situation: there's Black Garden on the field, your opponent uses Call of the Haunter and summons Traptrix Myrmeleo. The chain will go as following:
Chain Link 1: Black Garden
Chain Link 2: Myrmeleo
If you did nothing now, Myrm would just go ahead and destroy your garden, leaving you open against a 1600 ATK Myrmeleo. Ahh, it would be nice if you could stop her effect so that you can just crash onto it with a Token gotten from her summon or something like that. Oh, but you can! You have that Forbidden Chalice, so you decide to chain it.
Chain Link 3: Forbidden Chalice.
The chain is then resolved:
Chalice boosts Myrm's ATK making her 2000 ATK and negates her effect; Myrm does nothing because her effect is negated; Black Garden goes ahead and halves Myrm's ATK making her ATK 1000 and summoning a token on your side of the field. All's well, your opponent will just destroy your token and deal you damage, BUT even after the End Phase, Chalice's boost won't go away, keeping her at 1000 ATK, which kind of hurts, but still doable by Rabbits and Thunderbirds.
Back at the rulings, part four is, instead, more obvious than everything else, but I got this as a question, too, so I figured I should have written that. If the monster isn't on the field anymore, its ATK goes back at the original value and when it returns the field it won't be halved (unless it is Summoned).


Hope it was a nice read, if I get other problems like those, I'll try and write them here. If you have something you'd want me to write, go ahead and say so.

See Ya.

My New Meta

Let's start saying that I only tested decks I intend to play either IRL or on DN, but mostly IRL. Here are the results:

Faced tons of Infernities, some Chain Beats, no Karakuris (yet), a little bit of GBs, some rogues, less Hieratics than I expected and then the usual random decks that you could encounter in the other meta, too.

I tested: Chain Beat, Legacy and Garden, with and without the Traptrix engine; Infernity, only Monk build; Gladiator Beast, not too much, though; my teammate is testing T.G. Antimeta, but I didn't hear the results yet; I'm going to test GKs and Malefic whenever I have time.

-As of now, I'm really loving Chain Beat, with the Garden build. With the right hand it can deal with all of them, only suffering Wingbeat of a Giant Dragon, but we can deal with it, pollinosis and the cards that deal with their monster that they'll target for Wingbeat itself, waiting for the moment when you draw into pollinosis to directly deal with that Wingbeat. Garden makes it possible to easily kill big creatures, and you can escape Master Key Beetle+Safe Zone with Compulsory Escape Device, assuming you played it correctly. If you're playing the traptrix build, you have access to more destruction power and control. Macro and fissure are pretty awesome, expecially against Infernity, and they're even easier to access in the Legacy build than in the Garden build because of the drawing power.

-Infernity, on the other side, has the potential to kill EVERY deck, assuming you started right and first. With the monk build, I may even say that 4 times on 5 you start decently, with 1 of them being awesome, 2 of them being pretty good, and one being decent. However, you may have your games killed by your opponent if he goes first, it's pretty easy for him to block you, assuming he got a decent hand. With Hieratic not having much (or any) backrow, it is a pretty easy match-up, and GB isn't too big a problem, because most of the control cards they have are battle related (at least, they aren't heavy on traps on the summon), but still, can have a couple of counters. Macro can kill Infernities BUT we now have a good counter. Aside the 3 regular MSTs, we can pretty easily summon Diamond Dire Wolf.

-From the few tests I did with Gladiator Beast, I realized it has a couple of possibilities, but it's not THAT strong as many are saying recently (I'm not confusing it with the OCG). However, it has a recyclable MST (bestiari), a focused DH (Murmillo), continuous monster's effect negation (Equeste+Chariot), easy to summon beatsticks (Essedarii and XYZs), a more feasible Icarus' Attack (Gyzaurus) and Icarus itself. It is an awesome deck for what it does (toolboxing). The bad side is: it hasn't got the speed Infernity has, and cannot instantly go into +1s and extreme control like Chain Beat.

The results are: I'm probably going with Chain Beat Garden IRL and Infernities on DN (maybe I'll even build them, sooner or later, but that's pretty costy), while I'm testing other stuff.

Sorry for the short post, but it was just a little overview.

See Ya.