Tournament Report 4/21/12

So, I finally caught up on Homestuck, so I had some time to throw together a new deck.  But, I didn't have enough time to write a blog post during the week.  Next week will probably be the same, since my professors this quarter like to give out a lot of random homework...

But yeah, I went to the third Dragons Collide Sealed Deck tournament today to get a third Dragons Collide Structure Deck.  Long story short: I lost Round 1 and failed to get the mat.  But, I did play a couple duels against JB with my Nordics for fun.  He was using Chaos Dragons, and I lost two duels very quickly.  Then, I played against him in the Yugilo Format, with him using Yugilo's deck.  Yugilo filmed the duels, I think, so they'll be on his channel, probably.

After that and helping JB fix up Yugilo's deck, the tournament started.  There were 27 players with quite a few regulars, though most of the players were newbs... I decided to use a new variant of my Scrap Worms.  The main difference is that I took out Scrap Orthros to make room for Call of the Haunteds, which give me plays if I happen to lose my Normal Summon to something like Solemn Warning.

Round 1: vs Chaos Dragons

I had played against this guy at least one before.  I can't remember when, though.  But yeah, he told me earlier that he was running the Chaos Dragon build that got 2nd at YCS Dallas last weekend, card-for-card.  Okay then...

-Duel 1: I made Scrap Archfiend early to beat him down, then he played Future Fusion.  I had to summon a Scrap Dragon and destroy my Scrap Archfiend with its effect to get rid of the Future Fusion before Five-Headed Dragon came out.  I also had an Effect Veiler for the Darkflare Dragon he was depending on to banish his own Eclipse Wyvern with to seal the duel.
-Duel 2: He went first with a Set Monster.  I summoned Blackwing - Zephyros the Elite and attacked it, but it turned out to be an Honest.  So I Set a couple cards and ended.  He passed, so I summoned Scrap Beast and made Scrap Dragon to run over his Honest.  He played Electric Virus to steal my Scrap Dragon, then Set a Phantom of Chaos to destroy with Scrap Dragon's effect, destroying my Solemn Judgment.  I flipped Gozen Match in response to prevent him from banishing my Scrap Dragon to summon Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon, so he was stuck.  I was able to win with that Scrap Dragon, as he had no choice but to hand it back at the end of the turn.

Round 2: vs Skull Servants

Uh, okay...

-Duel 1: He didn't draw any back row (though he may just not play any...), so I was able to kill him with Scrap Dragon pretty easily.
-Duel 2: He banished my Scrap Dragon with Chaos Sorcerer, and I didn't draw any Monsters after that that I could counter with, so I died slowly.
-Duel 3: I was able to beat him down with Scrap Dragon, using a Veiler on his Black Luster Soldier - Envoy of the Beginning.

Round 3: vs Malefic Skill Drain

I was playing against vadangchoinga.  Honestly, I was kind of worried about this match-up because I have a lot of weak Monsters and not that much Monster removal.

-Duel 1: It seems as though he didn't draw many Monsters, so I was able to kill the few he did draw and just beat him down from there.
-Duel 2: I ended up taking two hits from a Rai-Oh, then using Solemn Warning to kill a Barbaros, but then he dropped Malefic Stardust Dragon to finish me off.
-Duel 3: I was able to whittle down his resources to a point where all he had was a Barbaros and one Set back row with three cards in hand.  I Special Summoned Photon Thrasher and ran over the Barbaros.  I then Set a third back row and ended my turn.  He played Geartown, then Malefic Stardust Dragon.  He then Tribute Summoned Ancient Gear Gadjiltron Dragon using the Malefic Stardust as a tribute.  I guess he feared a Dimensional Prison or something.  But, when he entered the Battle Phase, I flipped MST to destroy his last Set card, then activated Compulsory Evacuation Device to send his Gadjiltron Dragon back to his hand.  He thought for quite a bit before summoning Malefic Cyber End Dragon in Main Phase 2.  On my turn, I drew Heavy Storm, but I needed to keep my Set Foolish Burial alive.  So I just summoned Scrap Beast and made Scrap Dragon, destroying my Set Foolish Burial and his Malefic Cyber End.  I attacked directly and Set my Heavy Storm.  He drew and Set Solemn Judgment.  I flipped Heavy Storm, and he let it through, summoning the Gadjiltron Dragon from his hand when Geartown was destroyed.  I Set the Bottomless Trap Hole I had just drawn to destroy with Scrap Dragon's effect to destroy his Gadjiltron Dragon.  I attacked directly again, and his next card was of no help, so he scooped.

Round 4: vs Dark World

This was my Round 4 opponent from this tournament.  Apparently he had just sold all or most of his cards and was starting over again.

-Duel 1: He went first and Set two cards, played Gates, and summoned Snoww before playing Dragged Down Into the Grave.  The last card in his hand was Grapha, while my hand consisted of Monster Reborn, Fiendish Chain, Zephyros, Cyber Dragon, and Effect Veiler.  He discarded my Fiendish Chain for some reason... We both drew and he bounced Snoww for Grapha's summon.  He played Dark World Dealings, letting me pitch my Zephyros while he discarded Snoww to search for another Snoww. Then he used Gates to discard the second Snoww to draw a card and search the third Snoww.  He played Allure of Darkness and banished Broww, then played another Gates over his active Gates.  With that, he discarded Snoww to draw and search another Broww.  When I started my turn, he used Mind Crush on my Monster Reborn, thinking that he'd get to see my hand.  I told him otherwise, so he just flipped another Mind Control to discard my Cyber Dragon and see my hand.  I went all or nothing and made Black Rose Dragon a turn later, but he had Starlight Road.  If I hadn't tried, I would've lost anyway, so at least I learned that he plays Starlight Road.
-Duel 2: I went first and opened with Photon Thrasher.  I played Foolish Burial to dump Scrap Beast and revived it with Scrap Chimera.  I tuned Beast to Photon Thrasher to make Stardust Dragon and Set the rest of my hand to my back row.  He played Dark World Dealings, discarding Grapha, while I essentially lost a Dust Tornado off of the top of my deck.  He discarded Grapha to attempt to destroy my Set Compulsory Evacuation Device.  I negated with Stardust Dragon.  He then played Heavy Storm, which I negated with Solemn Judgment.  He played Dark Hole to destroy my Scrap Chimera, then Set a card and ended.  I revived the Stardust Dragon and attacked directly with it before Setting the card I drew.  He played Reckless Greed after drawing, then played Gates and Malefic Stardust Dragon.  He attacked to destroy both of our Stardust Dragons, then Set a card.  I used Call of the Haunted on my Stardust Dragon in the End Phase.  I beat him down with the Stardust over the next two turns, as he couldn't draw due to his Reckless Greed.  When he was down to 500 LP, he Set a Monster and ended.  I bounced it with the Compulsory I was saving and attacked for game.
-Duel 3: I opened with a hand of Mystical Space Typhoon, Scrapyard, Scrap Beast, and two Scrap Chimeras.  He summoned Trance Archfiend and discarded Grapha before Setting a couple cards.  I summoned Scrap Beast, and he immediately flipped Skill Drain.  Uh, okay.  I attacked over his Trance Archfiend and Set all of my Spells/Traps.  He summoned Beiige before playing Dragged Down.  The last two cards in my hand were Scrap Chimeras, and his only card was Grapha, so we didn't exactly have to think about our choices... We both drew, and he used Grapha's effect to target my Set Scrapyard.  I Chained Shadow-Imprisoning, and he Chained Solemn Judgment, so I lost my Scrapyard.  He revived Grapha and attacked over my Scrap Beast.  I drew Zephyros after drawing Foolish Burial off of Dragged Down, so that was kind of horrible.  So, I just used Chimera to make Scrap Dragon, after using MST on his Skill Drain, and Set the Foolish Burial for later.  I ran over his Grapha with Scrap Dragon and ended.  From there he was just stalling behind his Grapha while I kept destroying his back rows with Scrap Dragon.  He couldn't really do much, so I was able to control him and win.

Round 5: vs Chaos Dragons

We were the last two undefeated players, so this would be the finals.  Honestly, this guy wasn't very good.  He made very silly moves, like using Book of Moon or Karma Cut immediately on the summon of my Scrap Beast.  Some of his card choices were also very questionable, but he kept drawing Eclipse Wyverns and Chaos Monsters to banish them with, so I guess all of that doesn't matter.

I did win the match, though it was much more of a struggle than it should have been.  He had all of the cards that he needed except Heavy Storm, so I was able to control him with back rows like Gozen Match.  But yeah, Yugilo filmed this match, so it'll be up on his channel.  The third duel is quite long, and it ended up being the first time I would every use Utopia Ray, so that was pretty cool.

So yeah, I ended up going undefeated and getting 1st place.  With the store credit, I got an Inzektor Exa-Beetle (I traded the other one I got away), a Maestroke, a Scrap Chimera (I want to have two play-sets), an Ultra Rare Macro Cosmos, some Magic-sized clear sleeves (which ended up being 1.0 mm too small...), a clear deck box (which I gave to Yugilo), and a Wiseman's Chalice (there was nothing else to get...).  I also got a pack of Hidden Arsenal 5 instead of the Turbo Pack for participating because I want to start getting some of the Super Rare Gishki cards like Ariel, Abyss, Shadow, and Aquamirror.  I ended up pulling a Gishki Abyss, so that was good.

So it seems as though the Scraps aren't that bad of a choice for the format.  The main thing is that Scrap Dragon is a beast that's difficult to get rid of unless you play Inzektors.  I also made the build a little faster by sacrificing some of the slower control elements.  There are less real Traps to make room for Call of the Haunted, which is really powerful in this type of deck.  Zephyros also gives easier access to non-Scrap Synchros and can bounce back my Scrap Chimera or Worm Xex for later use.  Honestly, though, I didn't draw the Worms that much. They helped in the final round to make Utopia under Gozen Match, but didn't do much besides that.  So yeah, I just needed the additional speed, I guess.

But, the Galactic Overlord Sneak Preview is next week, and I definitely won't be going to that.  I'd really rather not pay $20 for a bunch of packs I can buy for less and a Normal Monster...  And, since I can't go to the card shop next Friday, I won't be attending locals next weekend.  I guess that'll give me some time to relax next weekend, as I usually am pretty busy between locals and homework.  Perhaps I'll be able to make more videos with Aki, and I might even make a deck profile for my Nordic Diva deck, as I'm not going to be using it anymore.  But yeah, we'll see.