Random Stuff #35

Today I went to the flea market to get a bunch of cards. I got three Number 17: Leviathan Dragon tins and two Wind-Up Zenmaister tins after selling my Solemn Warnings. People might not know this yet, but it seems as though Solemn Warning will be in the Wave 2 tins. Even if they aren't, I wasn't planning on using them this format.

Besides those tins, some sleeves, and WoW cards, I made a list of Yu-Gi-Oh cards that I planned on picking up. I was able to get the three Goblin Zombies, a second Duel Terminal X-Saber Pashuul, a third Gold Rare Mystical Space Typhoon, and another Super Rare Call of the Haunted for my Zombie deck. I was also able to get a Steelswarm Roach at a decent price.

Aside from a few random Gem-Knight cards that I also picked up, the rest of the stuff was for Aki's deck. Three A Hero Lives and a Gladiator Beast Essedarii. I decided to pick up a box of Gold Series 4 in an attempt to get Black Luster Soldier, Gladiator Beast Gyzarus, and Doomcaliber Knight. I got the BLS and the Doomcaliber, but not the Gyzarus; not that that's bad, it's just odd.

After opening the Gold Series 4 box, I opened the tins. Nothing good from the packs. The Hidden Arsenal 4 packs were absolute garbage, Storm of Ragnarok was pretty horrible, and Extreme Victory was mediocre. Eh, the promo cards in the tins paid for the tins themselves, so whatever.

Either way, I was happy that I could get the cards for my Zombie deck and also the Steelswarm Roach. So, however I decide to make the deck, I'll have the cards for it.

The problem is trying to figure out how to make it. The T.G. engine is at least six cards, and the Zombie engine is at least seven cards. Add Reborn Tengus, Effect Veilers, Gorz, Caius, and X-Saber Pashuuls, and that's already 22 Monsters. I wanted to fit in another Caius, another Effect Veiler, another T.G. Warwolf, and Mystic Tomatoes, but there's just no room.

I even dropped Allure of Darkness, Foolish Burial, and other such Spells to make room. Not only is the Main Deck packed, but the Extra Deck is as well. I'm stuck on 17 cards, and I can't figure out what to drop:

Ally of Justice Decisive Armor

Trishula, Dragon of the Ice Barrier

Scrap Dragon

Colossal Fighter

Stardust Dragon

Black Rose Dragon

Gaia Knight, the Force of Earth

Revived King Ha Des

Doomkaiser Dragon

Brionac, Dragon of the Ice Barrier

Flamvell Uruquizas

Ally of Justice Catastor

T.G. Wonder Magician

Number 39: Utopia

Steelswarm Roach

Leviair the Sea Dragon

Gachi Gachi Gantetsu

The first most likely candidate is Gachi Gachi Gantetsu. I can summon it easily thanks to Reinforce Truth and T.G. Striker, but I don't know if I'd ever want to.

I'm thinking about dropping Flamvell Uruquizas, but I like the piercing and the generic requirements. More often than not, I'd be using a Warrior Tuner for a Synchro, so I won't have access to the Zombie Synchros. Speaking of which, I'd want to drop one of them.

Ha Des can be really good against decks that use cards like Reborn Tengu or other floaters, but those decks are few and far in between now. The only deck I can think of that would use floaters consistently is Zombies, but I could be using Doomkaiser Dragon to steal their Plaguespreader Zombie. Same against Lightsworn/Twilight. Neither does anything against Agent Fairies, so yeah...

Either way, I'll have to figure something out by Saturday, since that's going to be the first tournament of the format that I'll be going to. So yeah...

Tournament Report 8/28/11

Forgive the lack of posts. I was planning on posting a tournament report two days ago, but there was no tournament.

Anyway, I went to the last tournament of the format today with my Scrap Worms deck. I hadn't even looked at it for like a week, since I was working on a deck for the new format.

There were only fifteen players there today. All but two of them were regulars.

Round 1: vs X-Sabers

I've seen this guy around before, and I've probably played against him before, but I don't really remember when.

-Duel 1: Double Bottomless Trap Hole removed all of my stuff. Not that I drew Scrap Chimera or anything...

-Duel 2: He drew a lackluster hand and I was able to capitalize. I didn't even draw Scrap Chimera; that's how bad his hand was.

-Duel 3: I Set my only Scrap Beast to try and avoid Bottomless Trap Hole. He had Nobleman of Crossout... It was okay, though, since he ran into a Torrential Tribute and I beat him down with a Scrap Chimera.

Round 2: vs Gravekeeper's

This was my Round 2 opponent from this tournament.

-Duel 1: He went first and opened Royal Tribute, hitting my Scrap Beast and Worm Xex. He had two Recruiters to beat me down, and I couldn't stop them from searching when I finally did draw Monsters.

-Duel 2: I opened with Scrap Beast and a full back row. He Set four and a Spy. I drew and passed. He flipped Spy and I used Warning. He used Dark Hole, summoned a Spy, and attacked. I drew Worm Xex, summoned it after flipping Decree, and revived Worm Yagan. That ran through his Spy. Soon after, I drew a Closed Forest to solidify my position. He used Pot of Duality to get a Mystical Space Typhoon for my Decree, then topped another one soon afterwards to destroy Closed Forest. But by then, I was up a bunch of cards and he couldn't get through my Monsters.

-Duel 3: He Set a Monster and three back rows. I Set two back rows and a Scrap Beast. He flipped Spy and Special Summoned Descendant. Then he summoned Beast King Barbaros and attacked with all three. I drew for my turn and flipped MST to destroy a back row. He Chained Dark Bribe to protect it. I drew Giant Trunade and he flipped Solemn Judgment. Dust Tornado cleared the last back row and I summoned Scrap Chimera to run him through. He topped Pot of Duality, but it was no help.

Round 3: vs Tengu Zombies

-Duel 1: He opened with Reborn Tengu and a couple Set cards. I summoned Scrap Beast, and he tried to use Bottomless Trap Hole. Forbidden Lance protected my Beast. I played Mind Control to steal the Tengu, then overlaid the two Level 4's for Utopia, depriving him of his Tengu. He used Book of Moon on Utopia, but I was able to beat him down over a few turns to win.

-Duel 2: He opened with Reborn Tengu, again. I didn't draw any Monsters bigger than it, and you can't kill it with Spells/Traps, so I lost.

-Duel 3: Same as the second game... D.D. Crows and Effect Veilers don't stop Reborn Tengu...

Round 4: vs Tengu Zombies

This was my Round 5 opponent from this tournament.

-Duel 1: He overextended into my Gorz. I summoned Scrap Dragon after that and destroyed his field. He topped Mind Control to destroy my field... I couldn't make up for that, and lost to a top-decked Tengu which facilitated the summoning of Brionac.

-Duel 2: I summoned Scrap Twin Dragon to keep bouncing his floaters. Unfortunately, he was still alive, and I summoned a Scrap Dragon on the following turn. After that, he tried to make a big play to destroy my field, but Maxx "C" gave me a bunch of draws (exactly seven before he decided to scoop).

-Duel 3: I lost to Reborn Tengu again. Not drawing the Worms or Scrap Chimera makes it hard to deal with Reborn Tengu and the multitude of floaters that Zombies use, so I lost.

So I went 2-2, which is not good... Not that that means much, since this is the last tournament of the format.

With that, I need to concentrate on a deck for the new format. I was thinking Nordics (which you would know if you've been reading the recent posts...), but I'm not sure how consistent they would be. For instance, during testing today, I drew a hand of two Guldfaxe (the horse), two Mark of the Rose, and an Effect Veiler. Needless to say, I lost that game hopelessly.

After seeing Zombies in play, it makes me want to run them again. Not necessarily a slow variant that focuses only on floaters, but a faster deck that uses maybe T.G.'s or something. I mean, Zombies were a major deck in the Lightsworn/Zombie format, so why wouldn't they be able to beat Lightsworn this time around?

Nordics with Plants

So, after hearing about an amazing idea to use a Plant engine with Equip Spells and Power Tool Dragon in a Nordic deck from Eh Chavo, I decided to test it out.

I did use two Mark of the Rose, reminding me of the decks that I used to use it in two and a half years ago. However, instead of using two D.D.R., I used only one copy and replaced the other with Megamorph. No joke. I felt that D.D.R. was unnecessary in a format where people wouldn't be playing Bottomless Trap Hole or Dimensional Prison that often. Maybe the prevalence of Chaos would balance that out, but I still have Leviair the Sea Dragon to do D.D.R.'s job...

Megamorph isn't really that bad. If your LP are higher, it's not hard to equip Megamorph to an opponent's Monster to halve its ATK. It's pretty versatile. I had half a mind to put in two Megamorphs, too, but Power Tool Dragon isn't the main focus of the deck. It's just another tool in the Extra Deck. And, it's nice to go into it, grab an Equip Spell, then summon a Level 1 Tuner and make a Scrap Dragon.

While you can draw subpar hands sometimes with the Plant engine (Dandylion, Lonefire Blossom, Spore, Glow-Up Bulb, and Botanical Girl), the extra explosiveness warrants it, I think. As I said before, the Level 1 Tuners can make good use of Power Tool Dragon. I could even run Life Stream Dragon...

I'm kind of disappointed that I'm not able to run Reborn Tengu due to space issues, but I could always side them in...

Speaking of which, I could easily side into a more Stun-eqsue variant by taking out the Plant engine and Equip Spells. That's already seven cards at least (I might want to keep Dandylion and Glow-Up Bulb in the deck, since they're good on their own). That would allow me to side crazily against decks like Twilight, Zombies, and such. Triple Light-Imprisoning Mirror, triple Shadow-Imprisoning Mirror, triple Soul Release, triple Reborn Tengu, triple Puppet Plant. Oh look, there's my Side Deck.

It probably won't be that crazy, since I might modify the deck after getting some cards like Pot of Duality and such. Again, I'm just looking for some input, since I have a Regional coming up on September 3rd, and I really want to run an innovative, format-wrecking deck.

Nordic Beasts

I've finally gotten around to making a deck for the new format. Scraps are too slow and control-based to compete with Lightsworn when Heavy Storm is around, so I'll have to put them aside for now.

So, I'm going to look into some sort of Nordic Beast deck, like I was planning on doing a while ago.

After testing with Naturia Pineapple and a Plant engine on Dueling Network, it didn't really work out well. So, I dropped that to run a "pure" version. Well, as pure as it can be with Reborn Tengu and the mandatory drop-hand cards for the upcoming format.

And, since I'm looking for feedback, here's the deck list I was working on:

Monsters: (22)

Tragoedia x2

Gorz the Emissary of Darkness

Reborn Tengu x3

Guldfaxe of the Nordic Beasts x3 (the horse)

Super-Nimble Mega Hamster x3

Tanngnjostr of the Nordic Beasts x3 (the black goat)

Tanngrisnir of the Nordic Beasts (the white goat)

Sangan

Ryko, Lightsworn Hunter x2

Effect Veiler x3

Spells: (11)

Monster Reborn

Dark Hole

Heavy Storm

Mystical Space Typhoon x3

Book of Moon

Mind Control

Pot of Avarice

Pot of Duality x2

Traps: (7)

Torrential Tribute

Bottomless Trap Hole x2

Gleipnir, the Fetters of Fenrir x3

Trap Dustshoot

Extra Deck: (15)

Thor, Lord of the Aesir

Ally of Justice Decisive Armor (I've always wanted to run this)

Trishula, Dragon of the Ice Barrier

Scrap Dragon

Colossal Fighter

Stardust Dragon

Scrap Archfiend

Black Rose Dragon

Ancient Sacred Wyvern

Brionac, Dragon of the Ice Barrier

Ally of Justice Catastor

Number 39: Utopia

Wind-Up Zenmaister

Number 17: Leviathan Dragon

Leviair the Sea Dragon

What I like about this deck is how it can be largely reactive. You can basically adapt to whatever your opponent is doing. For instance, you'd like them to attack your Set Hamster, but if they try to be smart and decide not to, you can flip it, then summon a Level 4/Tuner for an Xyz/Synchro Summon.

Also, the fact that the majority of the Traps are Chainable is amazing. Gleipnir will force your opponent to think twice about blind Mystical Space Typhoons, and also allows you to safely Set multiple back rows despite Heavy Storm's existence.

What I'm not so sure about is running Tragoedia. I know that it's good for Synchros, Xyz, and protecting from OTK's, but it seems somewhat forced. It has the potential to go well with the deck in combination with Tanngnjostr (black goat), but I don't like it.

And, a card I'd like to find room for is Threatening Roar. It can allow me to safely Set Tanngnjostr (black goat) and flip it on the following turn for a Level 7 Synchro. Not to mention protecting from OTK's...

I haven't decided on the Side Deck, yet. I still want some input on the Main Deck, so the Side Deck will have to come later. So yeah, feel free to comment and such.

Tournament Report 8/19/11

So, to enjoy the last two weeks of the format before Twilight players start sacking everyone, I went to locals with my Scrap Worms.

However, before that, I played in a WoW TCG tournament with six other people. It's not very popular, but the game is fairly interesting.

I was using an Alliance Mage deck that I threw together last night. It's basically the Starter Deck with the Hero and most of the Allies switched out. I used some Dragonkin cards from War of the Elements like Bronze Guardian, Bronze Drake, and Azure Enforcer to help keep advantage and also to work with some of the other Arcane cards in my deck.

I lost to Erik in the first round. My deck depends on my Mage Abilities to kill bigger Allies, so as soon as he summoned that Red Dragonkin that makes all of his Allies Untargetable, I had lost. Not to mention that his Priest Hero kept healing itself when I tried to beat it down.

I won against Yugilo and his Death Knight deck in Round 2. I kept killing his Allies with my Abilities and poking for damage with my Bronze Dragonkin. I was able to keep up the damage and he couldn't kill all of my Allies.

In the last round, I played against my Round 5 opponent from this tournament. I opened with a subpar hand, but it was good enough to warrant keeping. Unfortunately, I didn't have outs to his swarm of Horde Allies, and I ended up losing before being able to set up my field.

I got a Generation Force pack for participating, and I ended up pulling an Elemental HERO Nova Master. Not bad, I suppose. I just need to focus my Mage deck a little more.

And, about an hour after that, the Yu-Gi-Oh tournament began.

Round 1: vs Worms

This was my Round 1 opponent from this tournament.

-Duel 1: The game turned into a stalemate when he flipped Royal Oppression in response to my Black Rose Dragon play. I used Fiendish Chain to lock down his Number 39: Utopia, and we just sat there for a while. Over the multitude of turns, I forced him to use Royal Oppression until he was down to 600 LP. That was when I made a push with Scrap Chimera to take the duel.

-Duel 2: He Set quite a few back rows, but a pair of Royal Decrees locked him down and allowed me to take control with Scrap Dragon.

Round 2: vs Machina Geartown

This was my Round 4 opponent from this tournament.

-Duel 1: It took a while for me to keep enough field presence for me to drop a Scrap Dragon and control the game with it. He couldn't deal with it, as he had already wasted all of his uses of Machina Fortress.

-Duel 2: He opened with two Machina Fortress and four cards that could be used to revive them... I didn't have any cards to remove them from play with, so I lost to the constant pressure.

-Duel 3: I opened with a Worm Xex play and a couple of back rows. He opened with Future Fusion... Luckily, I had D.D. Crow in hand to remove the Dekoichi he tried to revive with Black Salvo. He committed to the field, so I just let his Chimeratech Overdragon implode his field. With that advantage and a couple of Scrap Chimeras, I was able to take control of the game.

Round 3: vs Gravekeeper's

I had to play against Yusei JB, unfortunately. We agreed to a split, of course.

-Duel 1: He drew almost all Monsters, and I took his Gravekeeper's Spy with Mind Control, preventing him from getting its effect. I forced out his Solemn Warning by using the Spy for an Xyz Summon, then I made a Scrap Dragon to shut him out of the game.

-Duel 2: We both had mediocre openings from what I could tell. I could get over his Rai-Oh with Scrap Beast using Forbidden Lance, but he summoned another one. And, over a few turns, he was forced to use Solemn Judgment, then Warning, lowering his LP quite a bit. Once we were both low on cards, he topped Royal Tribute, revealing the Mind Control I just drew. After that, I drew a Scrapyard, letting me push for game. Mind Control really should be banned.

Round 4: vs Six Samurai

This was my Round 3 opponent from last weekend.

-Duel 1: I started with a Worm Xex play and a few back rows. He opened with Dojo, Elder and Kizan. I used Mystical Space Typhoon on the Dojo to prevent him from summoning a Kagemusha, but he had one in his hand anyways. Before Synchro Summoning Shi En, he Special Summoned Great Shogun Shien. He attacked Xex with Shi En, then made the mistake of attacking my Set Worm Yagan with Kizan, believing that it had the 300 ATK boost. So, I bounced his Shi En, and he had to attack Yagan with Shien. I then made another Worm Xex play and crashed the Worm Xex into Kizan. He then summoned Kagemusha and attacked with Shien, which I bounced with Yagan. Kagemusha hit me directly, but I just ran over it with Scrap Beast. And with that, he was top-decking. And, we all know how bad Samurai are at top-decking.

-Duel 2: He opened with Gateway, Kageki and Kagemusha. That gave him a couple of Kizans and a Grandmaster on the field and another Kageki to his hand. I was able to resolve a Royal Decree, but he was able to get over my Scrap Dragon with a Shi En equipped with Spirit of the Six Samurai, so I lost after taking so much damage.

-Duel 3: I opened with a Worm Xex play and Set four cards to the back row. Three of them were bluffs. And, when he played Gateway, again, I flipped the one card that wasn't a bluff: Dust Tornado. He summoned Kageki, Kagemusha, and Kizan, then attacked Worm Yagan with Kizan. Yagan died, but bounced the Kagemusha. He ended his turn, and I summoned Scrap Beast and flipped Mind Control to take Kizan. I Synchro Summoned Scrap Dragon with the Kizan, and ran through the Kageki. He couldn't deal with it, so I was able to control the duel with it.

Yugilo was actually one of the three undefeated players going into Round 4, but he got paired down and lost to my Round 1 opponent. So, that ended up being the last round, leaving me at 1st place. With that, I got store credit and split it with Yusei JB. He got some Generation Force packs, and I got myself an Ultimate Rare Leviair the Sea Dragon. I feel that it's a safe investment, so I ended up buying it even though it may be considered overpriced.

As for my Turbo Pack 6, I pulled a Rare Stardust Dragon, which is not bad. The Commons were bad though.

So yeah, my experience today is going to make me really miss this format. Sure, newbish players can Set their hand on the field and get some easy wins. But, skilled players can read those Set cards and bait them out or push through them accordingly. Sometimes there's just nothing that you can do, but I feel as though that would be amplified next format with Judgment Dragon, Kristya, and Black Luster Soldier running around. Maybe it won't be so bad, but we'll just have to see.

Back Rows Next Format

Assuming that the OCG and TCG ban lists will be the same (there's still hope that they won't be, hopefully), I'm trying to figure out how many and which Traps to run next format.

Some people are just running a few, like Trap Dustshoot, Solemn Judgment, and Torrential Tribute. Some people are running like ten Traps, including Starlight Road.

My thought is that if people don't Main Deck all of their Mystical Space Typhoons, they would Side Deck the rest of them. Which means that if you are using a bunch of Traps, your opponent can just side in additional Spell/Trap hate, and you'll be sad.

But really, people aren't going to have Mystical Space Typhoon all of the time. So Traps aren't as useless as they may seem now. I mean, Traps were never really that useless when Heavy Storm was legal before. Sure, we only had one MST, but everyone ran Dust Tornado as well. So it may not be THAT bad...

I'm still trying to figure out what to do with this new ban list. Twilight seems absolutely ridiculous, but people keep saying that it's inconsistent. That kind of makes it worse to lose to them, since Twilight is one of those decks where your opening hand determines whether you win or not.

So, what I want to know from you, the readers, is, what is your Trap line-up going to look like next format and why? Feel free to leave your answer as a comment below.

September 2011 Ban List

http://shriek.twoday.net/stories/38747774/

What is this. I don't even.

The fact that I used a stupid Internet meme despite the fact that I don't care for them shows how friggin' horrible this list is.

The only part of the list I can approve of is the newly banned cards. Three of the cards I wanted to get banned are on there, plus a card I didn't care for either way (Royal Oppression).

Plants got hit enough from the OCG side with Lonefire Blossom, Formula Synchron, and Pot of Avarice getting Limited. Something still needs to be done with the TCG-exclusives, Reborn Tengu and Tour Guide...

Six Samurai got hit a bit. They lost the ability to Extra Deck more than one Shi En, but, more importantly, they lost two Smoke Signals. Not to get too much into it now, but Heavy Storm coming back helped them a lot more than it hurt them, so they didn't lose that much power/consistency. Basically, they can afford to go second, now.

Lightsworn/Twilight got a huge boost. Judgment Dragon went the wrong way on the ban list; it should've gotten closer to being banned instead of getting farther from it... Also, friggin' Black Luster Soldier - Envoy of the Beginning has been released into the game once more. I didn't play competitively back then, but seeing as how it's a more broken Chaos Sorcerer that you can get back with Beckoning Light... Yeah, it's broken.

But wait! We have Light-Imprisoning Mirror to completely shut down Lightsworn, like we had a couple years ago! Right? Wrong. Konami found a way to anger both the pro-Stormers and the anti-Stormers.

Anti-Stormers hate that Heavy Storm is back. Pro-Stormers hate that Mystical Space Typhoon is Unlimited while Heavy Storm is around. Everyone loses.

Now, any hope of stopping huge swarms is stopped by an enormous amount of back row clearing cards. Set one? Get destroyed by MST. Set two? Get wrecked by Heavy Storm (or even two MST's). Our only hope? Starlight Road! No, just kidding; that card is really situational.

Besides the Forbidden section, there's only two things that I like about this new list. My selfish wish of having Necro Gardna being playable again is fulfilled. And now, we won't have to worry about going up against Stun decks, since Heavy Storm and three MST's wreck them. But, Stun decks are easy to beat, so that's bittersweet...

So, my main worry is that Lightsworn will be crazily powerful with this new list. Back rows will be unreliable, so we're being pushed even more to use Monster Effects. Hopefully my fears will not be realized and Lightsworn will be crazily inconsistent instead of crazily powerful... Regardless, that doesn't stop bad players from picking up the deck, beating players who are better than them, and then scrubbing out.

All in all, this list is horrible.

Tournament Report 8/13/11

Luckily, I was able to make it to locals today. There were at least 30 players, and quite a few of them were regulars. There was a noticeable amount of new faces there, too.

As usual, I was running Scrap Worms.

Round 1: vs Stardust/Assault Mode

-Duel 1: I open with a lackluster starting hand going first, so I just Set Bottomless Trap Hole and ended. He played Mystical Space Typhoon, then Dragon Ravine, discarding Dragunity Phalanx to get Dux, summoning it to get Vajrayana to get Stardust Dragon. He Set a back row then attacked. I made a Scrapstorm play to bait out Stardust Dragon's effect, then tried to take it with Monster Reborn. He flipped Dark Bribe. Then, on his turn, he topped Assault Beast and used it to get Assault Mode Activate. Then, he used Ravine's effect to get another Dux to get another Stardust. He played Pot of Avarice, then Set his hand to his back row. On my turn, he flipped TWO copies of Assault Mode Activate. I could get through one Stardust Dragon/Assault Mode, but not two.

-Duel 2: He opens Ravine and Decree, but Effect Veiler shut down his Dux. So I could make a Worm play to keep control. He couldn't draw anything to save himself, and lost.

-Duel 3: He summoned a SD/AM on me in my first Draw Phase after making the whole "Ravine, discard Phalanx, get Dux" play. I had Veiler for the Dux, but he sent it to the Graveyard for Mystletainn to get around the Veiler. He then proceeded to compliment himself for having an out to Veiler, saying that he expected it... I figure out a way to get rid of the SD/AM using Solemn Warning, but he summons another one...

So yeah, I got sacked like crazy in Round 1... Not fun... Oh, I shouldn't forget to mention that this guy ended up going X-2. What a waste...

Round 2: vs Six Samurai

-Duel 1: He opened with Kageki and Kagemusha, then Special Summoned Great Shogun Shien before Synchro Summoning Shi En. He then proceeded to Set the rest of his hand to his back row. I dropped Gorz when he attacked on his next turn to block his swing for game. I was then able to push through a Shi En and a Grandmaster. He tops Smoke Signal, searching Spirit of the Six Samurai, letting him run over my Gorz and Token. I hadn't drawn any Scrap or Worm cards, so Gorz was all that was protecting me. So, when it died, I lost.

-Duel 2: He misplayed with his Gateway, and I was able to just control him with Worms, then kill the Gateway with Scrap Dragon.

-Duel 3: I was able to push a Royal Decree through Shi En with Forbidden Chalice, which shut down his Double-Edged Sword Technique. That let me summon Scrap Dragon safely to leave him without cards to play.

Round 3: Six Samurai

-Duel 1: He opened weird with Kageki, summoning Elder. He then dropped Great Shogun Shien and Set some back rows. I opened pretty well with Scrap Goblin, which got me a Scrap Chimera through Scrapstorm. The resulting Scrap Dragon (I had Cyber Dragon to go with the revived Goblin) let me destroy his whole field.

-Duel 2: I opened with a Maxx "C", which forced him to stop Special Summoning after getting his Shi En out. That didn't help, though, as I didn't draw an out to Shi En that he couldn't answer with his back row. Not to mention the Shien's Dojo and Double-Edged Sword Technique he had ready to swarm on the following turn.

-Duel 3: I opened with a Set Worm Yagan and two back rows. He played Giant Trunade, then Gateway, Kagemusha, and Kizan. He searched for another Kizan, then played it and a Grandmaster. He then searched for the last Kizan, but kept it in his hand. He attacked with one of the Kizans on the field, and Yagan bounced Kagemusha. The other two Monsters attacked me directly for 4200 damage, and he Set one card. I was able to make a Scrap Dragon play with Cyber Dragon and Scrap Goblin. I ran over Grandmaster and destroyed the Gateway along with my Book of Moon. I then Set Fiendish Chain and ended my turn. He summoned Hand of the Six Samurai and tried to kill my Dragon by tributing a Kizan, but Fiendish Chain took care of that. He was forced to end his turn, letting me destroy his back row by destroying my Fiendish Chain. I was able to clean up his field pretty easily from there, crashing a Scrap Beast into Hand, then killing the other Kizan with Scrap Dragon.

Round 4: vs Yusei Synchro

I was playing against Erik, who is often featured on Yugilo's channel. As such, Yugilo filmed the match, and it should be up on his channel within the next few days.

Round 5: vs Six Samurai

This was my Round 1 opponent from this tournament. I see him around pretty often, but we almost never play against each other.

-Duel 1: My starting hand was really weird (Scrap Chimera, Forbidden Chalice, two Forbidden Lances, and Scrapstorm). Luckily, he just opened with Kizan, Grandmaster, and two Set cards. So, I summoned Scrap Chimera and Set those four cards. He attacked with Grandmaster, but Lance took care of that. He then attacked with Kizan, and another Lance took care of that, too. He Set another card and ended his turn. I attacked with Scrap Chimera, and countered his Mirror Force with Scrapstorm. Apparently, I opened with the exact hand to counter his hand. Scrapstorm gave me Worm Xex off of the draw, and I summoned it to dump and revive Yagan. I Set a Fiendish Chain and ended my turn. From there, I was able to prevent Shi En from even hitting the field, letting me poke him to death with Worm Xex.

-Duel 2: Maxx "C" gave me a couple draws in response to his Asceticism play. I worked a little bit to bait out his back rows before summoning a Worm Xex to ruin his Shi En. I ended up losing my Worms after bouncing his Shi En, but I was able to flip Royal Decree to lock down his one Trap. From there, I was able to make a safe Scrap Dragon play to take control of the duel.

So yeah, I went 4-1 and got fifth place. Sadly, only the Top 4 get prizes, so oh well. The Turbo Pack 6 wasn't bad; Magical Dimension, Creature Swap, and Armory Arm.

I also got some WoW TCG cards. I got a War of the Elements Epic Collection and the new Mage Starter Deck. I just liked the Mage Abilities I saw, so I just decided to go with that. I might switch to something else, we'll see...

"Tournament" Report 8/12/11

I went to the smaller card shop for the Turbo Pack tournaments that they have every Friday night. Unfortunately, only one other person showed up, so there was no tournament today...

I had seen him before at the card shop I usually go to; he plays Infernities. We talked a little, and I had to disagree with a lot of his opinions... For instance, he thinks that Fusion Gate HEROes are going to be amazing once we get Great Tornado. I'm pretty skeptical...

He asked to duel, and we did. He used a T.G. Stun deck like the one that won Nationals or a YCS (I don't remember nor care which).

Giant Trunade helped me make a big push in the first duel, leading to my victory. I was able to gain some advantage in the second duel with a Scrapstorm play and such. So, I won that match, 2-0.

We played another match, and decided to use our Side Decks this time. I finally drew my Worms, and they helped ward off Reborn Tengu in the first duel of this match. I sided in Royal Decree and such, and drew Decree, Mystical Space Typhoon, Dust Tornado, Cyber Dragon, and two Worm Xex in my starting hand. I used MST and Dust Tornado before flipping Decree to make sure I hit his live back rows. I ended up hitting a Dark Bribe, and he didn't have another out to the Decree, so I won that duel, too. Scrap Twin Dragon just cleaned up his Monsters and pushed for game.

We unsided and played another match without siding. 2-0. Yeah. His own Royal Oppression locked him down (I had 1700 LP and he only had 775 LP), letting me prevent potential Synchro plays. Avenging Knight Parshath actually won me that duel.

I was worried about the T.G. match-up for nothing, apparently... The Forbidden Lances really did make a difference.

We talked a little bit afterwards, and I found out that he reads Valafar's blog and talks to him quite a bit about Infernities. But, based on how he had no idea what Scraps or Worms do or how to play against them, it's safe to assume that he doesn't read my blog. Eh, it doesn't really matter to me.

Either way, hopefully I'll actually be able to go to a tournament tomorrow or Sunday... Not being able to play in a tournament for two weeks straight would be sad, not that it really matters, with the ban list coming up and all. Eh...

Tour Guide into Leviair

That combo's mere existence makes D.D. Crow somewhat worse.

Okay, maybe not its mere existence, but the fact that almost all of the decks that you would be using D.D. Crow against play easily summoned Level 3's lets them potentially plus after you remove stuff with D.D. Crow.

So, what are we supposed to use instead of D.D. Crow? Effect Veiler? If you use D.D. Crow, then you probably already use Effect Veiler. Even so, you can't replace all of your Crows with Veilers.

Basically, anything that banishes can now be easily countered by most decks.

You may think that it's a little crazy to worry this much about that, but the thing is that good players will probably save their Tour Guides until they need to use them. That means that they'll be dropping it when they have no other plays, or when they need to get something back from the banished pile.

Effectively, banishing something for them could end in a huge plus for your opponent. Of course, you could possibly have Effect Veiler ready to negate Tour Guide, but if you have Crows and Veilers every time you need them, then I don't see how you would be losing anyways.

What I'm looking at right now is using Shadow-Imprisoning Mirror to stop Tour Guide, Sangan, and other Darks they happen to play. There's also Pulling the Rug, and even Black Horn of Heaven (maybe not, though, since they would still plus off of Sangan...).

The problem with all of these cards is that they can be too situational. You're opponent's playing Dark Worlds? Sure, play Shadow-Imprisoning Mirror. They're playing Debris Plants? Pulling the Rug and Black Horn of Heaven work. Zombies? Shadow-Imprisoning Mirror and Black Horn of Heaven would probably be okay.

There's not much overlap for these cards, so it may or may not be efficient to Side Deck them, depending on the deck that you're playing.

But, I suppose we don't have to worry much about that until we find out what the new ban list is. Sangan might just be banned, making this much less of a hassle...

Generation Force Sneak Preview

I went with Aki to the same place that I went last time for the EXVC Sneak Preview. Only like six people showed up, so that was kind of lame.

Aki pulled the E-HERO Nova Master he wanted, and was satisfied with that.

I entered once, and pulled the Blue-Blooded Oni and an Ultimate Rare Raigeki Bottle. Both of them were good enough for me to be satisfied with those holos.

After some other people entered and pulled garbage, I entered again. I pulled another Blue-Blooded Oni... Maybe I'm supposed to make a Zombie deck or something...?

No one had pulled anything good at the moment, so I tried my luck and entered twice more. I got an Ultra Rare Wonder Wand and the Wind-Up Factory. Then, the person who bought packs after me pulled Steelswarm Roach, and proceeded to win the Leviathan Dragon play mat...

So, that felt like a huge waste of money. The only consolation is that I got a bunch of good Rares, and that the holos I did pull should prove to be good trade bait. Now, I have to go waste a bunch of money getting a Steelswarm Roach and probably also a Leviair and an Orient Dragon. Oh well.

Random Stuff #34

I'm surprised at how many people have answered the Heavy Storm poll already. I didn't know that that many people read my blog.

Anyways, lots of stuff happened today. Beast King Barbaros was revealed to be in one of the new ZEXAL tins, so Aki can finally have the copies he always wanted. I don't care which tin it's in, since I'm buying three of each.

Kevin Tewart "officially" (through Facebook) laid down the law for Xyz Materials in the TCG. They are considered to be on the field. So, Reborn Tengu does not activate when it becomes an Xyz Material, but it does activate when it's detached. Same deal for Sangan and other such cards.

Now, I hate this new "ruling" as much as you probably do, but let's look at it objectively. If it had worked this way all along, we probably wouldn't care. We'd be all like, "Oh, it works the same as Synchros, except delayed a little bit. That's nice." This whole rage thing is because a new, arguably balanced mechanic was ripped out from under us. Not to mention the whole Tour Guide into Sangan thing that we already have to deal with.

Now, ignoring Tour Guide and Reborn Tengu, since those are already broken, the problem that I see with this is that it lets you turn random floaters into big Monsters for free. You've got two Goblin Zombies? Well, let's turn them into a Steelswarm Roach! What about those two XX-Saber Darksouls? Let's give you a 2500 ATK beater and a plus-1 in Leviathan Dragon! At least with Tuners there was some requirement, and the Tuner wasn't usually a floater. With this... well, I already gave you the examples.

To end on a nicer note, let's discuss Turbo Pack 6, shall we? This is a Turbo Pack that I actually want to get. All of the holos are great, the Rares are nice, and the Commons aren't garbage. Sure, there are some cards in here that I want less than others, but it's the best Turbo Pack we've seen in a while (basically since Turbo Pack 1 or 2). I don't even need the Ultimate Rare Dark Armed Dragon or the Ultra Rare Sangan, but they're nice enough to warrant keeping anyway.

My only problem with Turbo Pack 6 is that the $10 Rare in Chain Disappearance was reincarnated as a more expensive Super Rare. It's hard enough to get as it is; why couldn't it have been a Common? Eh, assuming Six Samurai, Tengu Plants, and Junk Doppel get hit hard enough in September, it won't be that good of a Side Deck card anymore. I've made due without it, but it would be really nice to have.

Heavy Storm Poll

I made a poll asking you guys whether or not you think that Heavy Storm should be legal.

Like I said in my Hopes post, I would like it to be legal, but it's honestly a coin toss with Konami.

Regardless of your choice on the poll, feel free to leave your reasoning behind your opinion as a comment to this post. Who knows, you might just change someone's mind...

Generation Force

I should be used to this by now, but all of the good cards now have obscene rarities. I guess it's not completely horrible, though. There are enough good cards in this set to make it plausible that vendors can make a profit off of a box, meaning that prices might not be as high as people might expect.

Another upside is that very few of the cards are necessary to my deck. All I really need to get is a Steelswarm Roach, but it would be very helpful to have an Orient Dragon, just in case.

As for the less urgent stuff, there's the HERO cards. A V-HERO Trinity, E-HERO Nova Master, M-HERO Goka, a few M-HERO Vapors, a V-HERO Adoration, and three Mask Changes. Flash is lackluster, and A Hero Lives isn't really necessary for a HERO deck. It's more for Prisma Gladiator Beasts.

However, I'm not going to get any of that stuff until I get a box of GENF Special Edition, or at least a box of GENF. Getting a box will give me most of the Wind-Ups and Banish Fish cards that I'll need. Then, whatever HERO cards I may happen to pull will be subtracted from the list of HERO cards I need to get. They shouldn't be that hard to get, since people will realize that they aren't that amazing.

And, since the ban list is coming up soon, it'll be much easier to win some box tournaments. So, that's my plan for now. If all goes well, I won't have to waste any money past the price of a Steelswarm Roach, Orient Dragon, and tournament entry fees.