Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Got my Kaijudo Battle Decks!



Finally, Kaijudo is here!  Well, it was here yesterday, but now Aki and I have our Battle Decks!

So yeah, I already put a Water/Darkness deck together, while Aki made a Fire/Nature deck.  We also made two 30-card mini-decks that I'm going to bring to locals so that people can try out the game and such.

After Aki and I got our Battle Decks, there were only two left at our locals.  So if you go to my locals and plan on getting Battle Decks, I'd advise ordering one or two online.  With the max-card limit reduced to three, two Battle Decks should be enough to make a good deck.  I mean, do you really need three Terror Pits right at this moment?

So yeah, let's hope that Kaijudo does well, and I'm hoping that we'll be able to get more local players supporting the game.  Maybe they'll start having Kaijudo tournaments before the Saturday Yu-Gi-Oh tournaments?  We shall see...

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Kaijudo Update

So the online Kaijudo card game is finally here.  I'm about to start playing, but I thought I'd post a little update thing first.

So apparently, a Kaijudo deck has to have at least 40 cards (meaning there is no maximum like there is in Duel Masters in Japan), and there can only be 3 of any one card in your deck.  So the limit was reduced from 4, which is how it was in Duel Masters.  I actually like this change, for some reason.

People have been worrying that the rules about winning the game have been changed.  The text of the starter guide would imply that you win once your opponent runs out of Shields and that you don't have to make a final attack.  However, upon closer analysis, it states that when you attack the opponent when they have no Shield left, then you win.  So you DO have to make a final attack.

The deck out rule appears to be the same as it was in Duel Masters.  Once your deck is empty, you lose.  That means that you lose upon drawing your final card and you don't even get the chance to use it.

That appears to be it regarding significant rules that may or may not have been changed.  There has been no mention of any sort of side board.  I guess it doesn't matter until Kaijudo tournaments start, though.

EDIT:

Apparently, now you don't have to tap mana that is the same Civilization as the card you're paying the cost for.  For instance, if you have eight mana but only one of them is Darkness Civilization, you can still tap the other seven mana for Razorkinder.  As long as you have at least one card of that Civilization in your mana zone, you can play cards of that Civilization.

Sunday, June 24, 2012

Tournament Report 6/24/12

As I have stated, I went to locals today with Aki.  He went with his HERO Beat deck with mained Skill Drains, and I used my Nordic Diva deck.  But before the tournament, we played a few games of Duel Masters, in anticipation of Kaijudo.  One of the regulars walked by and told me about how he used to play Duel Masters.  I told him about Kaijudo, since apparently he hadn't heard about it.

I actually spent a bunch of my free time during the tournament telling people to play Kaijudo.  I want the game to be popular enough (at my locals at least) so that it will take off and my locals will start hosting tournaments.  My main concern is that Kaijudo and Duel Masters are one of the most skill-intensive card games ever, since there are several decisions you have to make every turn.  The requirement of skill can turn people away from a game.  That's probably why Vanguard is doing so well...

Anyways, there were about 34 players there today.  About half of them were regulars, so that was good.

Round 1: vs Valhalla Agent Fairies

This was my Round 1 opponent from this tournament.  He still wasn't very good.

-Duel 1: He opened with Valhalla into Tethys, whereas I had a pretty passive hand.  However, he declined to attack my Set Monsters, letting me set up for Gaia Knight to keep running over all of his Monsters.
-Duel 2: I summoned Scrap Dragon pretty quickly and destroyed all of his cards.

OO

Round 2: vs Inzektors

-Duel 1: He swarmed pretty quickly with his Dragonflies to destroy all of my Set Monsters and kill me.
-Duel 2: I held onto my Shadow-Imprisoning Mirror until I could make a Stardust Dragon using Super-Nimble Mega Hamster and Guldfaxe.  Once I set that up, he couldn't do anything with his Inzektors.  Soon after, I was able to make a Tanngnjostr (black goat)/Deep Sea Diva play to make T.G. Hyper Librarian and Scrap Archfiend in the same turn.  Unfortunately, I wasn't able to draw with Librarian's effect, but it was enough to finish him off.
-Duel 3: He went first with a Centipede and a Set back row.  I summoned Reborn Tengu, and he didn't have the Solemn Warning, so I ran over his Centipede.  He Set another back row and passed.  I attacked directly with Tengu, then Set an MST.  He Set a Monster and passed.  In the End Phase, I used my Mystical Space Typhoon on the card he had Set most recently, and it turned out to be a Forbidden Lance.  I summoned Guldfaxe, and he flipped Torrential Tribute.  It was odd that he would just summon the Centipede and Set Torrential Tribute behind it.  Either way, he destroyed both of my Monsters and his Set Effect Veiler, and I got to Special Summon my second Reborn Tengu and attack directly.  I Set one back row and passed.  He played MST, then dropped Black Luster Soldier - Envoy of the Beginning.  With that, he attacked over my Tengu and directly to drop me to 3700 LP with just one card... I Set three back rows and a Guldfaxe.  He played Heavy Storm, then tried to banish my Set Monster.  I used Effect Veiler as kind of a bluff, hoping to draw something to save me.  But, he just summoned a Dragonfly and equipped it with Hornet.  I usually don't scoop, but I scooped at that.

XOX

Round 3: vs Chaos Dragons

Interestingly enough, I was paired up against one of the nine undefeated players.  It was my Round 2 opponent from this tournament.  I used to see him all of the time at tournaments, but I guess he doesn't have as much time for Yu-Gi-Oh as he used to.  Anyways, I offered to give him the win since he was undefeated and I couldn't really win anything.  We still dueled for fun, though.

-Duel 1: He didn't draw any Lightsworn Monsters, so he was stuck relying on Tour Guides to make pushes.  I made a Tanngnjostr (black goat)/Deep Sea Diva play to Synchro Summon T.G. Hyper Librarian and Scrap Archfiend to draw a card to get over the Leviathan Dragon he made with Tour Guide, but then he dropped his Tragoedia.  He wanted to get rid of both of my Synchros, but his lone Tragoedia couldn't do that, so he played Dark Hole.  Soon after, I Synchro Summoned Thor to take control of the game, and he couldn't get over it after milling all of his Rykos with his Solar Recharges.
-Duel 2: He milled quite a few cards with Solar Recharges, then Special Summoned Lightpulsar Dragon from his hand.  I took a direct attack from that, since I didn't want to flip my Torrential Tribute.  I then summoned Deep Sea Diva, which he let go, and I used it to grab another Diva and overlay for Gachi Gachi Gantetsu.  From there, I used Monster Reborn to take his Darkflare Dragon (the only Dragon he could revive with Lightpulsar), and thanks to Gantetsu, I was able to run over his Lightpulsar with Darkflare.  He dropped Chaos Sorcerer to try and banish my Gantetsu, but I negated it with the Effect Veiler I had been holding for the whole game.  He then dropped BLS, and I had to flip Torrential Tribute then.  After that, we were stuck passing back and forth, since neither of us really had any plays.  I Set a Spirit Reaper next to my Gantetsu after a while, since we were both low on LP and he had milled his Dark Hole.  He kept passing with an empty field, telling me that he had Gorz.  He had 2900 LP left, so I wanted to kill him in one shot to avoid Gorz or Tragoedia.  I drew a Guldfaxe and summoned it to tune to the Spirit Reaper and Synchro Summon Scrap Archfiend.  Because of Gantetsu, my Scrap Archfiend had exactly 2900 ATK, letting me finish him off.  Sure enough, he had the Gorz in his hand.

OO (but I gave him the win)

By this point, Aki was X-3 (he lost to my Round 3 opponent in Round 1, gave his friend a win in Round 2, and lost to a weird Chaos Dragon deck in Round 3), but he decided not to drop, so I decided to continue.

Round 4: vs Newbie Deck

This kid was pretty nice and didn't mind losing.  Of course, I won 2-0.

After that, Aki and I decided to just drop and play WeiB Schwarz.  We got our Turbo Pack 8's, and I pulled the Ultra Rare Skill Drain.  After rubbing it in vadangchoinga's face, Aki and I played a game of Weib Schwarz.  While we were playing, my Round 3 opponent came over and gave me his Turbo Pack since I had given him the win in our match.  From that Turbo Pack 8, I pulled a Super Rare Mirror of Oaths.  Quite nice, I'd say.

My Round 4 opponent from this tournament, whom everyone calls "Shien", since he always plays Six Samurai, also gave me a bunch of random cards (mainly Gishki stuff).  I still need two more Gishki Beasts, though.  Anyways, I'll be getting some of the Samurai Warlord Structure Decks and giving him a bunch of the holos from them.  He only wants the holos, and I actually want the Commons (like Kizan, United, and Fiendish Chain), so I think that it'd be a good way to repay him.

So yeah, I technically went X-2 today, but not really.  I also pulled the Ultra Rare Skill Drain, so I'm okay with these results.  By the way, if someone at locals wants the Skill Drain (maybe you want it for your deck, vadangchoinga...?), it's up for trade.

And, Aki and I will be going back to locals on Wednesday to get our Kaijudo Battle Decks.  I've made it abundantly clear to the store owner that I will absolutely buy the Battle Decks (I've been asking him about them or other Kaijudo-related releases every time I go...), so he will almost certainly hold a couple for Aki and me.  If you haven't been reading my blog posts from the past couple months, then I should let you know that I'm very excited for Kaijudo.  Even with only two Battle Deck sets between us, I think that we'll be able to do a lot, and it'll be a lot of fun to play.  So yeah, play Kaijudo!  If no one plays, then it'll just die out like Duel Masters, and we don't want that to happen.

Saturday, June 23, 2012

Tournament Report 6/23/12

Surprise tournament report! But yeah, I decided that I had nothing better to do today, so I went to locals. I will still go tomorrow with Aki, in case you're wondering.

There ended up being 22 players. There were less than 10 regulars, so the rest were newbies.

Also, instead of putting the win/loss thing next to the deck I played against, I'm going to start putting it after the descriptions of the duels. It looks kind of weird, but it won't spoil the results as easily.

Round 1: vs Newbie Deck

He was running a Starter Deck with random stuff thrown in...

OO

Round 2: vs Karakuri

-Duel 1: I was able to make Thor, but he killed it with Sazank, which I wasn't expecting, as Sazank isn't normally played in competitive Karakuri decks. Then he plays the Karakuri Showdown Castle, and I realized he wasn't playing an optimal build. Whatever, I just made Scrap Dragon to lock him out of the duel.
-Duel 2: I was able to swarm a lot faster, making Scrap Dragon again to destroy his field.

OO

Round 3: vs Inzektors

This was my Round 1 opponent from this tournament. I guessed he switched back to Inzektors.

-Duel 1: I went first, Setting Sangan and Torrential Tribute. He summoned Inzektor Dragonfly, and I flipped Torrential; I searched Effect Veiler with Sangan. I drew another Veiler, which was cool, and pushed for some damage with Lost Blue Breaker. He then played Dimensional Fissure before summoning his Dragonfly, so my Veilers were dead. I lost because of that.
-Duel 2: I went first with Reborn Tengu and a Set Solemn Judgment. He Set three back rows and ended. I attacked with Tengu, then Set two more back rows to match him. He Set a Monster and ended. I used my MST on his Set Solemn Warning, then summoned Guldfaxe to Synchro Summon Thought Ruler Archfiend. He flipped Solemn Judgment, and I Chained my own. I got to Special Summon the second Reborn Tengu from my deck, then attacked his Set with Thought Ruler. It turned out to be a Ladybug, so I healed a little bit, then attacked with Tengu to drop him to 1450 LP. I Set a second card to my back row, and he flipped Royal Decree in my End Phase. I Chained the live Gleipnir to search Tanngnjostr (black goat). He used Monster Reborn on his Ladybug, then used its effect to equip a Hornet from his hand. He sent that to the Graveyard to destroy my Thought Ruler, then equipped his Ladybug with Zektkaliber and ended. I just summoned the second Guldfaxe (I had opened with two...) and made Scrap Dragon to run over his Ladybug for game.
-Duel 3: He went first, opening with Tour Guide into Sangan into Leviathan Dragon, detaching the Sangan to boost Leviathan. He also played Foolish Burial on his Hornet and Set one card. I played Dark Hole, Set Super-Nimble Mega Hamster, and Set three back rows. He used Mystical Space Typhoon on my Shadow-Imprisoning Mirror in the End Phase. He activated Heavy Storm, and I Chained Crevice Into the Different Dimension to banish his Hornet and Sangan. He Chained Call of the Haunted to save his Sangan, and I Chained MST to prevent the Call from resolving. With the back row cleared, he summoned his second Tour Guide to Special Summon his third Tour Guide and make Leviair. He used its effect to Special Summon the banished Sangan in Attack Position. He attacked my Set Hamster with the Leviair, and I Special Summoned Tanngnjostr (black goat) with its effect. He ended and I Flip Summoned my Tanngnjostr to Special Summon Guldfaxe. I tuned Guldfaxe to the Hamster to Synchro Summon Stardust Dragon and attack over his Leviair, leaving out my Tanngnjostr and his Sangan. I Set another Hamster and ended. He attacked my Tanngnjostr with his Sangan and Set a back row. I Flip Summoned my Hamster, Special Summoning Ryko, then summoned Guldfaxe. Using Hamster and Guldfaxe, I made Scrap Dragon. With its effect, I destroyed my Set Ryko and his Set Call of the Haunted. I attacked over his Sangan with Scrap Dragon, letting him search Dragonfly, then directly with Stardust Dragon. He was hoping to top-deck a Ladybug so that he could make a Tiras play, but he wasn't that fortunate, so he offered me the handshake. It didn't matter what he drew, since the last card in my hand was Effect Veiler, ha ha.

XOO

So, since vadangchoinga had defeated the fifth undefeated person who was paired down, the next round would be the finals. I was paired up against one of the regulars. Honestly, I didn't know who he was until last Saturday, despite him knowing who I was. But yeah, he wanted the win so that he'd get his picture on the wall, but you have to earn the picture to get it. We did agree to split the store credit, though.

Round 4: vs Chaos Dragons

-Duel 1: He went first with a Set Ryko. I played Mind Control, stealing it and Flip Summoning it to mill three cards. I then summoned Guldfaxe and Synchro Summoned Gaia Knight to attack directly. I then Set two back rows and ended. He Set another Ryko and ended. I Set a Super-Nimble Mega Hamster and ended. He Flip Summoned the Ryko, destroying my Gaia Knight, and milling an Eclipse Wyvern. He banished a Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon with its effect, then summoned Tour Guide to Special Summon Sangan. He then banished Eclipse Wyvern and a Dark Monster from his Graveyard to Special Summon Darkflare Dragon, letting him grab back his REDMD. He banished the Darkflare to Special Summon it, and then I decided to flip Torrential Tribute. He searched Card Trooper with Sangan and ended. I Set a Monster and ended. He summoned the Card Trooper and milled three cards. Then he decided to play Dark Hole and draw from his Card Trooper. From there, he banished the Darkflare Dragon and a Light Monster from his Graveyard to Special Summon Lightpulsar Dragon from his hand and attack directly. I played the Monster Reborn I had been holding from my opening hand to steal his only Dark Dragon: REDMD. That ran over his Lightpulsar, and he had nothing to revive. I Set Tanngrisnir (white goat) and ended. He summoned Card Trooper and milled three before attacking my Tanngrisnir, letting me Special Summon two Nordic Beast Tokens. I summoned Deep Sea Diva, whose effect he negated with Effect Veiler. Whatever, I just Synchro Summoned Scrap Dragon with the Tokens and ran over his Card Trooper with it. He didn't have Tragoedia, so REDMD was able to attack him for game.
-Duel 2: He swarmed pretty early to drop me to 1600 LP. I was able to clear up his swarm with a swarm of my own, but unfortunately, that meant that I couldn't leave out random Beasts and such. Against his Chaos Sorcerer and no cards in hand, I Set a Super-Nimble Mega Hamster. He attacked it, letting me Special Summon Ryko from my deck and Tanngnjostr (black goat) from my hand. He Set the card he drew and ended. I Flip Summoned Ryko to destroy his Set Forbidden Lance, which he Chained to weaken my Tanngnjostr. I switched it to Attack Position to Special Summon Tanngrisnir (white goat), then Normal Summoned Guldfaxe. I wanted to make Thor, but I couldn't just leave the Ryko out, so I had to make Mist Wurm using Tanngnjostr (black goat), Ryko, and Guldfaxe. I obviously didn't bounce his Chaos Sorcerer, but instead ran it over. He drew and passed. I attacked with Mist Wurm directly and Set the dead Chaos Trap Hole I had drawn, along with a Guldfaxe. He topped Lightpulsar Dragon and Special Summoned it, ramming it into my Mist Wurm to revive his REDMD. He declined to attack either of my Monsters with it, reviving Lightpulsar with its effect in Main Phase 2. I topped Effect Veiler, which was great. Since he declined to attack my Tanngrisnir (white goat), I couldn't make Thor. But, Effect Veiler gave me another Level with which I could Synchro Summon. So I Flip Summoned Guldfaxe and tuned it to Tanngrisnir for Scrap Archfiend, then Normal Summoned Veiler and tuned it to Scrap Archfiend for Scrap Dragon. I ran over his Lightpulsar, then destroyed my Set Chaos Trap Hole and his REDMD in Main Phase 2. He didn't draw any cards to save him and surrendered.

OO

So yeah, I went undefeated and got 1st place. My Round 4 opponent got 2nd, and my Round 3 opponent got 3rd. The difference in the prizing between 1st and 2nd wasn't much, only a difference of like $5 in store credit. My Round 4 opponent got a bunch of Battle Packs, hoping to pull a Tour Guide (apparently, he only has one). He failed to do so, but gave me the Starfoil Doomcaliber Knight that he pulled.

So, using my store credit, I got a second Starfoil Doomcaliber Knight, since I've wanted to have them. I also got a bunch of sleeves: orange UltraPro's for me, black UltraPro's for Aki, and black Magic-sized sleeves for Aki (for Kaijudo!). By the way, we'll be going to get our Kaijudo Battle Decks on Wednesday, so expect a deck opening video soon after.

But yeah, I guess my Nordic Diva deck redeemed itself. It's not as good against Stun-esque decks as I would like, but I guess it does well against slower (non-Six Samurai) rouge decks and the top decks. At least I have Guldfaxe to help against Six Samurai, whereas Guldfaxe is practically a Normal Monster in every other match-up. So yeah, I'll be using it tomorrow as well. Tomorrow's tournament report may be delayed, though, depending on whether or not Aki and I decide to hang out and make videos after the tournament.

Thursday, June 21, 2012

Random Stuff #45

So, after sorting through every single Level 4 or lower Effect Monster in the game, I have decided that any "good stuff" deck that I could make would not be good enough to combat the meta.  In fact, the Nordic Diva deck I've been using is probably the best "good stuff" deck that I could be using.  Honestly, there's only nine Nordic cards in the Main Deck, with the rest of the Monsters being the Diva engine, the Hamster engine, and some "good stuff" (Gorz, Veiler, Sangan, Spirit Reaper).

So yeah, I'll just be using my Nordic Diva deck this Sunday, unless something weird happens at the tournament, like everyone decides to play Six Samurai or something... But, I'm assuming that there will be a lot of Chaos Dragon and Lightsworn players there, so I think Nordic Diva stands the best chance against those.

At the same time, I'm kind of planning for next format.  Even though the ban list is like two months away, the fact that there's no more major tournaments (at least until August, at the earliest) means that I don't really have to take this format very seriously anymore.  I mean, I'm not going to the World Championship Qualifier in Ohio, so there's really nothing else for this format for me.

As for next format, assuming the ban list hits Inzektors and Dino Rabbits, then the format should be much better.  I guess it would be good to kill the Wind-Up Hunter loop as well, and Chaos Dragons can be pretty ridiculous.  But the main thing is the two decks that prevent diversity in the format: the aforementioned Inzektors and Dino Rabbits.  Inzektors punish any deck that relies on Continuous cards (not named Skill Drain or Necrovalley) and decks that are slower or more control-based.  They also have a ridiculously easy to pull off OTK.  Dino Rabbits have their crazy Rabbit/Tour Guide play that can either OTK or drop Laggia and Dolkka to lock you out of the duel.

But if you've been playing this format in the TCG, I guess I don't have to tell you these things.  But yeah, assuming these things are hit, then next format should be pretty good.  Yes, there's a pattern; the format between September and March is generally good, but the format between March and September is generally horrible.

Another major factor here is the legality of Heavy Storm, though.  Will it get cycled out of the game after having been back for a year?  Perhaps.  If not, then I hope T.G. Striker comes back.  Yes, I want to play T.G. Zombies again.  But if Heavy Storm gets banned, Chaos Dragons get hit a lot indirectly (decks relying on the Lightsworn engine tend to suck without the threat of Heavy Storm around), and Scrap Worms become viable to combat all of the Gravekeeper's and Six Samurai that are bound to return.  So yeah, I feel like I'm just rambling here, so I'll stop with this subject.

In less than five days, Kaijudo will be released in the United States.  I'm planning on going with Aki to pick up Battle Decks the day after they're released, so that'll be cool.  Not only that, but apparently there's going to be some sort of online Kaijudo card game that actually teaches you how to play the card game (unlike the Battle Game... thing...).  So yeah, I can't wait for that.

Yeah, my summer is becoming really boring already.  I guess I shouldn't complain, since I don't have to do any work, but I've been pretty bored.  There's nothing exciting in Yu-Gi-Oh, Kaijudo isn't out yet, and there aren't any new video games that have grabbed my attention.  I've just been replaying through old video games that I have.

For instance, last week, it was Battle Assault 3: Featuring Gundam SEED.  It was pretty fun.  I hated using Aile Strike since it's Ultimate Attack is horrible, but all of the other Strike Gundams and Freedom Gundam were pretty good.  But yeah, I unlocked everything, so now I'm done with that.  I'll probably play through the first Paper Mario again later in the summer, once the excitement from Kaijudo dies down.  And for some reason, I feel like playing Time Crisis (2, 3, or 4).  I've only really played it in arcades, and I don't want to spend any money on it, but I feel like playing it for some reason...

Yeah, this blog post isn't really going anywhere.  I'll probably make the Nordic mind games post sometime next week, and of course, there'll be a locals report this Sunday.  So yeah...

Saturday, June 16, 2012

Tournament Report 6/16/12

So, I decided to use my Nordic Diva deck today.  Yeah, I saw one Dino Rabbit player and a bunch of Chaos Dragon players, which made me decide to use it, as opposed to my Scrap Worms deck.

The winner of this special tournament would get a 4-day Gen Con pass, and the Top 4 would get Galactic Overlord packs.  Everyone would get two Turbo Pack 8's for participating.  There were about 24 players there today.

Round 1: vs T.G. Stun - OXX

I was playing against vadangchoinga.  As usual, he was frustrated that he had to play against me.

-Duel 1: I was able to keep his Skill Drain off of the field and kept putting on pressure with my Set Monsters.
-Duel 2: I was able to destroy his Skill Drain again, but then he summoned Catastor.  I would be able to destroy it normally, but I drew my Lost Blue Breaker and no Monster removal.  I ran it over using Book of Moon, but the following attack from Utopia left him at 800 LP.  So, he used a Normal Summoned Thunder King Rai-Oh and my Thunder King Rai-Oh (courtesy of Monster Reborn) to make Utopia and Xyz Chaos Change it into Utopia Ray.  So yeah, I lost to that.
-Duel 3: I milled all of my Mystical Space Typhoons and wasn't able to destroy his second Skill Drain.  I lost to it and a Beast King Barbaros.

Round 2: vs Newbie Xyz - OO

He used D-Boyz.  Yeah...

Round 3: vs Gustos - XOX

-Duel 1: He destroyed all of my Monsters except Thor, then played Creature Swap...
-Duel 2: I summoned T.G. Hyper Librarian, then Synchro Summoned Stardust Dragon to draw a card.  He was top-decking at 1000 LP, so nothing could save him from that set-up.
-Duel 3: I dropped Thought Ruler Archfiend to protect myself from that Contact with Gusto Spell, but he Emergency Teleported out a Psychic Jumper to take control of my Thought Ruler.  I wasn't able to do anything against that, since I didn't draw any Monsters after that.

At that point, I just decided to drop and get my two Turbo Pack 8's.  I pulled a Lost Guardian from one and the Super Rare Upstart Goblin from the other.  Not bad, but I wanted two Gozen Matches, or at least an Alligator's Sword Dragon.  However, one of my friends said that he'd give me any Gozen Matches he pulled from his Turbo Packs, and he pulled two, so I now have my Rare Gozen Matches.

In the end, vadangchoinga got 2nd place, winning eight packs of GAOV.  He pulled a Hieratic Sun Dragon Overlord of Heliopolis and an Ultimate Rare Neo Galaxy-Eyes Photon Dragon, so he definitely made his money back.  My Round 2 opponent from this tournament won the tournament and the Gen Con pass with Wind-Ups.  It made me kind of want to make Wind-Ups, but meh.

So now, I'm considering what deck I would want to run next week.  I could still run my Nordic Diva deck, since it was kind of a fluke that I lost so badly today.  I could just add more Spell/Trap destruction to the Side Deck and continue to use it.  Or, I could use my Scrap Worms with a modified Side Deck for Lightsworns, Chaos Dragons, and Dino Rabbit.  I also have most of the cards I'd need for my Infernity deck; perhaps I could get some Tour Guides in a couple weeks.  And I do have my completed Hieratic deck, but I'm not sure exactly how I'd want to run it; it's a decent deck, but it's not really that competitive.

I am thinking about making a good stuff deck with T.G.'s, Deep Sea Divas, and whatever other good stuff I can think of.  It would be really weird, but I have a whole week to think of something.  It's just that with T.G. Striker Limited, it's hard to make anything good with T.G.'s.  Hopefully its restriction will get looser in September so that I can go back to running T.G. Zombies assuming Heavy Storm remains legal.  If Heavy Storm gets banned, then Scrap Worms become the go-to pick for the format.  But that's in another couple months...

So yeah, I'll have to figure out what to do by next Sunday, which is the day that I will attend locals, most likely with Aki.  We shall see...

Friday, June 15, 2012

Tournament Report 6/15/12

So, I expected there to be a Battle Pack tournament today, but when I got there, the store owner said that it would just be a normal tournament.  Good thing I brought my decks...

So yeah, there ended up being around 24 people.  I decided to use my Scrap Worms deck, since it seemed like there would be a lot of random stuff, Dark Worlds, and Inzektors.

Round 1: vs Newbie Crystal Beasts - OO

I just made Scrap Dragon both games and ripped his field apart.  I barely let him crystallize any of his Crystal Beasts.

Round 2: vs Inzektors - XOX

-Duel 1: I opened with a lackluster hand, as it had no Scrap Monsters in it.  I knew that this guy was playing Inzektors, so I just Set a couple Traps instead of making a Worm Xex play.  He did use Dragonfly to destroy my back rows, then did the crazy OTK combo to kill me.
-Duel 2: I actually drew relevant Traps and my Scrap Monsters this duel, so it was fairly easy to control the board.  He wasted an Effect Veiler so that he could drop BLS, but I had my own Veiler for it.  Yeah, that was kind of his last hope.
-Duel 3: I opened with three Scrap Tuners and two MST's.  Yeah, I lost to the Inzektor OTK combo.

Round 3: vs Final Countdown - OO

In both duels, I just slowly built up my field while destroying his back rows with Scrap Dragon.  There wasn't much he could do.

So there were three undefeated players at this point, and I was paired up against one of them.  It was the annoying guy who doesn't know how to stop talking that I played against in Round 1 of this tournament.  I have no idea of how he went undefeated, since he played against two regulars.  From what I heard, he just got really lucky or his opponent just got really unlucky.

Round 4: vs Newbie Dragons - OO

-Duel 1: I made a Maestroke with my Worm Yagan and his Alexandrite Dragon (courtesy of Mind Control).  He banished it with Dimensional Prison, using up his only Trap.  So, I overlaid two Scrap Beasts on the following turn to make Steelswarm Roach.  He used Blizzard Dragon to prevent it from attacking, but I just made a Thought Ruler Archfiend and killed his Blizzard Dragon.  He then summoned Totem Dragon and banished it for Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon, but I still had Steelswarm Roach... He rage-quit the duel when I negated REDMD's summon.
-Duel 2: I made a Scrap Dragon and he couldn't do anything about it.

So that ended up being the last round.  I went 3-1 and got 6th place (I still placed lower than my Round 4 opponent, which is stupid...) Anyways, only Top 3 got store credit, so I didn't win anything.  I did get a Really Eternal Rest out of my Turbo Pack 8, though, so that was nice.

But yeah, I'm not sure which deck I'll use tomorrow.  I'm probably just going to scope out the players there first, then decide, like I did today.  So yeah, we'll see...

Also, I was really tempted to buy two boxes of Battle Pack: Epic Dawn, since the probability of getting nice cards from it is fairly good.  The only reason I didn't buy them was because I'm going back tomorrow, so I'll have more time to think about it.  [Insert thinking time...] So now that I've thought about it, I won't be buying boxes of Battle Pack.  After taking the time to go through the set list, I realized that I only want 30 cards out of the 220.  Ten of those cards are Rares, ten are from the Spell/Trap slot, and the other ten are from the other two slots.  That's not worth buying boxes randomly.

I mean, Tour Guide has already dropped to $20 for a Rare and $25 for a Starfoil (at least at my locals), so why would I want to spend like a hundred dollars in an attempt to maybe pull two Tour Guides...?  Besides, I might play in Battle Pack tournaments either at locals or with friends, so there's no point in wasting my money on this.  My money will, however, be wasted on Kaijudo once that is released.

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Small Update

So, it turns out that I won't be going to locals on Sunday, so I'll be going on Saturday instead.  That means that I'll probably take my Scrap Worms.  Honestly, though, I could just see what everyone else is playing and decide accordingly before the tournament starts.

By the way, the Saturday tournament this week is special or something; first place gets a Gen Con pass, or something.  I don't really care, since I'm not going.  If I win it, I'd just sell it, or something.  Or something.

But yeah, I'm still going on Friday night for the Battle Pack tournament.  Like I said before, I'm hoping that they have a DREV Sneak Preview mat, since I want one.  It might replace my signature Rotom mat, since the Rotom mat is getting pretty old and dirty.  We'll see.

And, Aki taught me how to play WeiB Schwarz yesterday.  I actually like the game (which disappoints me greatly).  It's a pretty solid game, and for those of you who don't know how it works, it's basically like Vanguard, except better.  That's essentially because WeiB Schwarz actually requires skill and thought to play.  Even though it's cool as a card game, I doubt that I'd play it seriously because I don't care for the anime/manga/video games that it's based off of.

So yeah, don't forget to check out the Nordic Diva deck profile I posted yesterday on this very blog and on my secondary YouTube channel.

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Nordic Diva Deck Profile



Here's the deck profile, as promised.  Feel free to comment or ask questions and such.

And, here's the deck list:

Monsters: (23)

Gorz the Emissary of Darkness
Reborn Tengu x2
Guldfaxe of the Nordic Beasts x3
Super-Nimble Mega Hamster x3
Tanngrisnir of the Nordic Beasts
Tanngnjostr of the Nordic Beasts x3
Ryko, Lightsworn Hunter x2
Deep Sea Siva x3
Lost Blue Breaker
Sangan
Spirit Reaper
Effect Veiler x2

Spells: (10)

Monster Reborn
Dark Hole
Heavy Storm
Mystical Space Typhoon x3
Book of Moon
Mind Control
Pot of Avarice
Pot of Duality

Traps: (8)

Torrential Tribute x2
Bottomless Trap Hole x2
Solemn Judgment
Gleipnir, the Fetters of Fenrir x2
Compulsory Evacuation Device

Extra Deck: (15)

Thor, Lord of the Aesir
Mist Wurm
Scrap Dragon
Thought Ruler Archfiend
Stardust Dragon
Scrap Archfiend
Black Rose Dragon
Gaia Knight, the Force of Earth
Brionac, Dragon of the Ice Barrier
T.G. Hyper Librarian
Ally of Justice Catastor
Number 39: Utopia
Steelswarm Roach
Number 17: Leviathan Dragon
Gachi Gachi Gantetsu

Friday, June 8, 2012

Random Stuff #44

I got to participate in a casual Magic draft earlier this week.  One of my friends who plays both Yu-Gi-Oh and Magic invited me, and it seemed quite interesting.  I had watched Michael Bonacini's draft videos, and tried to emulate his strategy by drafting Blue, White, and Black.  There weren't many good Blue or Black cards.  I had to pass a couple Bone Splinters because I didn't get any Undying Creatures.  I ended up making a White/Black deck that didn't have much of a strategy.  Of course, this was my first time playing Magic, and while I did understand the basics, I obviously wasn't very good.

I lost to a Green/Black deck that used Soulbonding Creatures and Homicidal Seclusion (I think that's what it was called; it's the one that gives a crazy boost to your only Creature if you only control one Creature).  I won the first game because he didn't draw any Swamps (mana screw, basically), but lost the second and third games pretty quickly.  In retrospect, I should've taken some Homicidal Seclusions.

Then, I played against the friend who invited me to the draft.  He was using a Red/White deck that uses Burn at the Stake and other cards to support swarming.  I won the first game because I killed his 4-cost White 2/2 Human guy that gives +1/+1 to every Creature he controls for the turn when another Creature comes into play with Righteous Blow.  I lost the second game because he had that Red Planeswalker that could steal all of my Creatures, which allowed him to use Burn at the Stake to finish me off.  I won the third game due to general beatdown, though I think that he didn't draw many Creatures.

But yeah, it was fun.  I didn't keep the cards; my friend just had a bunch of his friends play for fun using a box he had gotten, and he ended up keeping everything.  I did buy a Terminus off of him as sort of a souvenir, since I like the card.

I don't think that I'll be spending any money on Magic, though.  Even if it's drafting, there's practically nothing I'd be able to do with the cards I get, unless I pull something expensive to sell.  I don't think that I'm going to play the odds, so I doubt that I'll be playing Magic any time soon.  It was interesting, but Magic isn't really the game where "the skilled players always win" that it has been said to be.  I don't know that much about the current format in Magic, and while it's probably better than the current format in Yu-Gi-Oh, the whole mana screw thing and set rotations are deal breakers.

But enough about that.  School is kind of winding down for me.  All of the big projects are over, and all that's left is two finals.  I've got one tomorrow which I'm not worried at all about, and one on Monday that I might have to prepare for.  After those are done, then I'm basically done with school for three months.

So, by Tuesday, I should be able to make a deck profile video of my Nordic Diva deck that I got Top 16 at Regionals with.  I'm also planning a couple of blog posts, one about the mind games that Nordic Beast decks can employ, and one that's a follow-up to the Risk vs Reward post I made a while ago.  The former may just get incorporated into the deck profile video, though; we'll see.

I'm considering going to the flea market on Wednesday to pick up some cards and such, but it may not be worth it.  I mean, what would I even get?  Tour Guides?  Well, maybe, but I don't even know if I want to use them, yet.  Maybe some DT Gem-Knight stuff for my collection, but there's really nothing worthwhile.

As for locals, I'm definitely going next Sunday with Aki.  I'm not sure what deck I want to use, though.  A lot of the players who use Lightsworn and Chaos Dragons tend to go on Sundays.  You know, the ones who rely on luck to win.  But yeah, against that, I may want to take my Nordic Diva deck with an adjusted Side Deck.  I'm not really sure about what to do, since I haven't been to locals on a Sunday for quite a while, and I'm not sure of what to expect.

I may also go on Friday night, since that's when the Battle Pack tournaments are.  Kind of weird, but I guess it's better than randomly in the morning before the normal Yu-Gi-Oh tournaments.  The prizes are additional Battle Packs and some play mats.  I don't know exactly which play mats, but the only one that has been given out so far (since these tournaments just started last Friday) was the Ancient Prophecy Sneak Preview mat.  If they had the Duelist Revolution one, then I'd be all for it.  I guess I'll have to check next time I'm there.

And lastly, there's less than three weeks until Kaijudo is released!  Hopefully there will be tournaments the week after the Battle Decks are released, but it's doubtful.  And with only 45 different cards at our disposal, there won't be much variation in decks until the first booster pack comes out.  We shall see, though...

Sunday, June 3, 2012

Regionals Report 6/2/12

So, as I stated in the past few posts, I decided to go to Regionals yesterday.  I went with my Nordic Diva deck after having not played it for a month.  Eh, it's not like I forgot how to play the deck, as complex as it can be.  I mean, the mind games you can pull are crazy, but that's a story for another post.

Before the tournament started, I bought a Hieratic Dragon King of Atum and a Queen Dragun Djinn.  So, now I have the whole Hieratic deck, basically.  I also pulled a Hieratic Seal of Reflection from my entry packs.  That was the only holo...

There ended up being 506 players there.  Quite a lot, but thankfully not enough for ten rounds.  As such, there would be nine rounds...

Round 1: vs Newbie HEROes - OO
-It was his first time at a Regional, and he said his friend make the deck for him.

Round 2: vs Chaos Dragons - XX
-I lost to a Tour Guide play and BLS after countering his first swarm with Scrap Dragon in the first duel.  I lost the second duel on turn four to Future Fusion and a crazy amount of boss Monsters.

At this point, I considered just going to locals to beat on all of the newbies, but I decided to keep going, since many of the other regulars from locals were still here, like vadangchoinga and tsgreen.

Round 3: vs Gravekeeper's - OO
-I was able to just keep control of the duel with Reborn Tengu and Mind Control in both games.  He only drew one Necrovalley each game, and I was able to get rid of them both games.

Round 4: vs Tele-DAD - XOO
-In the first duel, he started by searching Stratos with RotA, then using it to search D-HERO Malicious, which was discarded to special Summon Dark Grepher.  Malicious and Emergency Teleport for Krebons made Stardust Dragon, and he overlaid Stratos and Dark Grepher for Utopia.  He Set the rest of his hand to his back row, and I knew it'd be quite difficult to win.  In the other two duels, he didn't draw nearly as well, so I was able to slowly whittle away at his card presence and win from there.

Round 5: vs HERO Beat - OO
-I won the first duel pretty decisively with all of my crazy Nordic plays, which he didn't have answers for.  He got pretty mad after that, but wasn't able to do anything to take revenge in the second game.

Round 6: vs Inzektors - OO
-He made a crucial misplay with Threatening Roar in the first duel, activating it on attack declaration, which allowed my Scrap Archfiend to still kill his Inzektor Dragonfly.  I drew a bunch of my side cards in the second duel, so I was able to take it even though I made a pretty silly misplay.

Round 7: vs HERO Beat - OXO
-I won the first duel because he really didn't know how to combat my Nordic tricks.  I lost the second duel by getting beat down by Blade Armor Ninja, and my counter play was stopped by Skill Drain.  I won the third duel because Gorz is broken; I dropped it when all he had left was a face-up Skill Drain, a Set Starlight Road (from Duality), a Stratos, and an Alius.

Round 8: vs Chaos Dragons - OO
-I drew such an aggressive hand in the first duel, and he only had one Dark to banish to make his plays, so I was able to just keep pushing with Synchros backed by Gachi Gachi Gantetsu courtesy of two Deep Sea Divas.  He drew pretty badly in the second duel, too, opening with three Effect Veilers.  I was able to capitalize and just keep beating him down.

So, by this point, word had spread about some weird Nordic deck that was somehow X-1.  This was from players whom I had beaten, players who were sitting next to me during my matches, and judges who would randomly stop to watch this weird Nordic deck somehow keep winning.  It was pretty cool, actually.  During the final round, there were like four judges just watching my match; they really wanted to see Nordics top.

Round 9: vs Dino Rabbits - XOX
-I lost the first duel to two Evolzar Dolkkas.  If he had played a third one, he would've won that duel even faster.  In game two, I was able to chip away at his card advantage pretty well, finishing off the rest of his cards with a Black Rose Dragon before beating him down with massive advantage.  I lost the third duel because his opening hand consisted of two Rescue Rabbits and two Tour Guides.  The other cards didn't even matter; that's enough to win a duel without anything else.

Oh well, it happens.  Honestly, I expected to go X-2 and drop by Round 5, but I was able to do much better than expected.  It was cool, though, that my deck had made such an impression on the people there.  My friends told me that they overheard people talking about my deck and such.  One of the judges who was watching my final match even came up to me and told me that he was sad that I lost that round.  "Me too," I replied.  It was sad to lose, but it made me happy that I was able to do so well with an obscure deck and influence people because of it.

And it's not like I completely failed.  I did go X-2, but I was one of the highest X-2's, tying for 12th place.  Nice, Top 16; that's the best I've done so far at a Regional.  I already have my invite, so I didn't care about that.  But, I got a few packs of Galactic Overlord; the best card in there was Gagaga Gardna, so they were pretty bad, unfortunately.

As for my friends, basically all of them went X-3 or X-4, and none of them got their invites or anything.  That's what they get for playing stuff like T.G. Stun, Chaos Dragons, and Six Samurai, heh.  Oh, and another "slop" about the Regional was that the Head Judge wasn't very good at his job (he didn't even understand how and why certain effects miss timing...).

So, it ended up being a pretty good day.  Unfortunately, I won't be able to attend a tournament next weekend, as I'll be busy with finals (not studying for them, of course, but one of my finals is on Saturday...).  However, after that, I'll be free of school for a few months, letting me concentrate on other things, like Yu-Gi-Oh and Kaijudo.  I may even do some Magic drafts or something, though I'll need to figure out what to do with the random cards I would get if I were to do that...