Tournament Report 7/29/12

As usual, I went to locals, again.  Yeah, I have nothing better to do during the summer.  I didn't have any time to change my Nordic Diva deck since yesterday, but I changed my Kaijudo deck somewhat.  Fumes is really not working for me, so I took them out for a second Overcharge and a Ghost Spy.  Aki also came with me to locals, and he got a Bull Rush deck.  Unfortunately, he pulled a Gilaflame out of the pack that came with the deck, so now we have four Gilaflames... Maybe I should tech it or something...

Anyways, there were about 30 players there today.  There were mostly regulars, some good non-regulars, and a few little children.

Round 1: vs Dino Rabbit

This guy wasn't a regular, but I had seen him before and knew what he was playing.  Since we had never played before, he had no idea what I was running.

-Duel 1: He opened Rabbit into Evolzar Laggia and Set two back rows.  I played Mystical Space Typhoon, seeing if he would use Laggia's effect; he didn't, and I destroyed an inconsequential back row.  I then Set Ryko and a back row.  He simply attacked with Laggia, losing his Laggia to my Ryko's effect.  He couldn't come back from that, since soon after, I used Pot of Duality to grab Effect Veiler, preventing him from using Tour Guide.  While he had a bunch of Normal Monsters to draw, I had a bunch of Effect Monsters with good effects to continue putting pressure on him to win.
-Duel 2: After playing Heavy Storm, he used two Normal Summoned Dinosaurs to make Evolzar Dolkka against my one Set Monster.  With Gorz and Effect Veiler in hand, there wasn't much I could do.  I tried to bait a negation with Veiler, but he just Set one back row and passed turn.  I drew another Veiler, and he flipped Macro Cosmos.  On the following turn, he summoned Tour Guide to get Leviair to get Rabbit to get Laggia, and I lost a turn later.
-Duel 3: The only Monsters he drew were Normal Monsters, so I just used stuff like Bottomless Trap Hole to get rid of them, and kept pushing with stuff like Reborn Tengu.  He couldn't get past my back row, and his back row wasn't enough to stop my Monsters.

OXO

Winning against Dino Rabbit is nice.  In theory, it should be easy, but my opponents usually open Rabbit and Tour Guide, so I hate the deck a lot more than I probably should.  Anyways...

Round 2: vs Chaos Dragons

-Duel 1: I opened with a Set Hamster and a Set MST.  He opened with Charge of the Light Brigade, milling two Dark Bribes and a Spell.  I had Set the MST because I wanted him to waste removal on it, since I knew that he was playing Chaos Dragons, but I didn't think that he ran back rows... Anyways, he searched Lyla and attacked into Hamster, letting me get Tanngnjostr (black goat), then used Lyla's effect to destroy my MST.  He Set two back rows, milled three cards, and ended.  I used Tanngnjostr's effect, but he negated with Forbidden Chalice.  I played MST on his other Set card, which was Forbidden Lance.  I then summoned a Guldfaxe from my hand and attacked with Hamster to kill Lyla, then directly with Tanngnjostr and Guldfaxe.  I Synchro Summoned Stardust Dragon, Set a back row, and ended my turn.  He Special Summoned Vice Dragon, then Normal Summoned Card Trooper and milled three cards, one of which was a Eclipse Wyvern, which banished Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon from his deck.  He then banished the Eclipse Wyvern and a Dark Monster from his Graveyard to Special Summon Chaos Sorcerer, which I had to let through.  He used Sorcerer's effect to banish my Stardust Dragon after getting back his REDMD.  He then banished the Vice Dragon to Special Summon REDMD, which I banished with Bottomless Trap Hole.  His Card Trooper ran over my Tanngnjostr (black goat), and he ended.  I Normal Summoned Reborn Tengu and attacked his Card Trooper, letting him draw a card.  I Set a back row and ended.  He Set a Monster and passed turn (I don't know why he didn't do anything...).  I summoned Deep Sea Diva and used its effect to grab Lost Blue Breaker.  With Diva, Blue Breaker, and Tengu, I Synchro Summoned Mist Wurm to bounce his whole field back to his hand, then grab another Reborn Tengu.  With that, I was able to go for game.
-Duel 2: He opened with a Set Monster and a back row.  I Normal Summoned Deep Sea Diva, and he negated its summon with Solemn Warning.  I ended there.  He drew and passed.  I Set a Monster and two back rows.  He Flip Summoned Ryko, but I banished it with Chaos Trap Hole.  He Normal Summoned Eclipse Wyvern, then banished it to Special Summon REDMD from his hand, whose effect got to Special Summon Vice Dragon from his hand.  He attacked with REDMD, destroying my Sangan and letting me search Deep Sea Diva, then directly with Vice Dragon.  I played Soul Taker on his REDMD, then Set the Spirit Reaper I drew.  He attacked, flipping the Reaper, then Set a back row.  I Normal Summoned Deep Sea Diva, activating its effect.  He Chained Book of Moon, thinking that it would stop the effect.  I told him otherwise, and was able to Special Summon my other Deep Sea Diva.  With that, I Synchro Summoned T.G. Hyper Librarian and ran over his Vice Dragon.  I Set a back row and ended.  He played Prohibition, prohibiting Bottomless Trap Hole.  He followed it up with Monster Reborn, reviving his REDMD.  I flipped Bottomless Trap Hole, and he pointed to his Prohibition.  I told him that it doesn't work on cards that were already on the field and that he should read the card.  He did, and realizing his mistake, scooped.  He had no Lights in his Graveyard, so he couldn't summon any of the Chaos Monsters in his hand.

OO

Round 3: vs Six Samurai

I was paired up against Fwazalaza.  We discussed a split, but decided against it.  There were still two more rounds after this, so it was a bit early to be splitting.

-Duel 1: I opened with a Set Monster and one back row.  He played Shien's Dojo, then Elder and Mizuho.  He used Mizuho's effect to destroy my Set Ryko by tributing his Elder.  He then Special Summoned Shinai and a second Mizuho, using the new Mizuho's effect to tribute Shinai and destroy my Set Gleipnir, which I Chained.  I searched Tanngrisnir (white goat), and he got back his Elder with Shinai's effect.  He used Dojo to Special Summon Kagemusha from his deck, Synchro Summoned Shi En, then Set his last card to his back row.  I Special Summoned Guldfaxe from my hand (yes, it actually has an effect... in the Six Samurai match-up at least...), then Normal Summoned the Tanngrisnir I had searched.  I Synchro Summoned Black Rose Dragon, trying to bait out Musakani Magatama.  Instead, he negated Black Rose's summon with Solemn Judgment.  So, I played Mind Control on his Shi En to bait out its negation, the played Dark Hole.  He Normal Summoned Elder, then Special Summoned the Kizan that he had just drawn.  He attacked with both, not afraid of Gorz this time, and ended.  I Set a Monster and a back row and ended.  He Set a back row, switched his Elder to Defense Position, and ended.  I Flip Summoned my Tanngnjostr (black goat), and he used Solemn Warning to negate its summon.  With five Monsters in my Graveyard, I played Pot of Avarice, letting me return all of my Monsters back to the deck and draw two cards.  I drew Monster Reborn, letting me steal his Shi En and win with it.
-Duel 2: He went first with Spirit of the Six Samurai and Kizan.  He equipped Spirit to Kizan, Set a back row, and ended.  I Set a Monster and two back rows.  He attacked with Kizan, and I flipped Book of Moon to turn his Kizan face-down and destroy the equipped Spirit.  He Set a Monster before ending.  I Flip Summoned Super-Nimble Mega Hamster, he flipped Warning, and I flipped Judgment.  Hamster Special Summoned Tanngnjostr (black goat), and I Normal Summoned Guldfaxe.  I tuned Guldfaxe to Hamster for Scrap Dragon, using its effect to destroy my Set Tanngnjostr and his Set Kagemusha.  I attacked over his Kizan and ended.  He Set two back rows and ended.  I summoned Deep Sea Diva, which he negated with a second Warning.  I Set a Warning of my own, then activated Scrap Dragon's effect, targeting my Warning and his lone back row.  He Chained it: Grave of the Super Ancient Organism.  I told him that it would still be destroyed.  He reread it and realized his mistake; he thought that it negated effects, as opposed to preventing them from activating.  So, I was able to attack with Scrap Dragon to drop him to 1200 LP.  He played Shien's Dojo and used Monster Reborn on his Kizan.  He sent Dojo to the Graveyard to get Shien's Squire and tuned it to Kizan for Catastor.  He attacked my Scrap Dragon with it and ended.  I Set a Reborn Tengu and ended.  He attacked it with Catastor, letting me get my second Tengu, and Set a back row.  I summoned Guldfaxe and tuned it to the Tengu for Thought Ruler Archfiend to kill the Catastor.  His next draw was of no help, so he scooped.

OO

Round 4: vs Wind-Ups

I was up against spondo (Round 2 opponent from this tournament).  We discussed a split; he wanted a box of Kaijudo Dojo Edition, but I needed to get Hidden Arsenal 6 for the Gem-Knights.  We couldn't reach an agreement, so we decided to play for it.

-Duel 1: He started with a Set Monster and two back rows.  Good, no loop.  I Set a Hamster and a back row.  He Set a back row and passed. I Flip Summoned Hamster, which he negated with Warning.  I Set another Hamster and ended.  He Set another back row and ended.  I Flip Summoned the second Hamster, getting hit by Warning again.  I Set Tanngnjostr (black goat) and ended.  He Set another back row and a Monster and ended.  I Flip Summoned Tanngnjostr, and he let it through.  I got Guldfaxe, then Normal Summoned Reborn Tengu.  I Synchro Summoned Scrap Dragon, grabbing my second Tengu.  I destroyed the Tengu to destroy one of his back rows, then attacked the Monster he Set second, killing Wind-Up Magician.  He Set another back row and passed.  I used Scrap Dragon's effect again, targeting my Gleipnir and another one of his back rows.  I Chained the Gleipnir to grab Tanngrisnir (white goat), then switched Tanngnjostr (black goat) to Defense Position.  I was afraid that he had a Sangan down, and I had nothing to stop the loop (my only back row was that Gleipnir), so I Set a bluff Pot of Avarice and passed.  He used his last back row, MST, on my Avarice in the End Phase.  He then drew Dark Hole and played it to kill my Scrap Dragon.  After that, he activated Wind-Up Factory and summoned Wind-Up Rabbit.  At that point, all hope was lost.  I had no outs to the Factory or the Rabbit, so the combination of them grabbing several combo pieces was more than enough for him to win the game.
-Duel 2: I opened with Reborn Tengu and two back rows.  He played Factory, Magician, and Shark.  I Chained Maxx "C" to Shark's effect, letting me draw a card when it was Special Summoned.  He searched another Shark using Factory, then overlaid his two Monsters for Utopia, letting me draw again.  He attacked my Tengu, letting me grab the second Tengu.  He Set two back rows and ended.  I summoned Guldfaxe and Synchro Summoned Thought Ruler Archfiend.  He used Torrential Tribute, but I negated with Solemn Judgment.  I then used Book of Moon on his Utopia and killed it with the Thought Ruler to gain back some LP.  I Set a bluff back row to go along with my one live one and passed.  He summoned Rat and activated the Shark from his hand, letting him trigger Factory and search a third Shark.  With Rat, he revived a Shark and Special Summoned the one he had just searched.  He leveled up two of his Sharks to make Zenmaioh in an attempt to destroy both of my back rows, but I flipped Bottomless Trap Hole.  He then Zenmaity looped me (without Hunter, just with Rats and Sharks), ending up with two Zenmaities and an Acid Golem.  His Acid Golem killed my Thought Ruler Archfiend and I took attacks from the Zenmaities.  My hand consisted of Lost Blue Breaker, Tanngrisnir (white goat), and some other Monster.  Unfortunately, it wasn't enough to hold him off until his Acid Golem burned him to death like I usually does.

XX

Round 5: vs Dark Worlds

I was paired up against AquaBass.  We decided to play for the Hobby League, since it's not really anything big and it's not like we could split it...

-Duel 1: I feared Grapha and made Stardust Dragon.  He played Gates and discarded Sillva to run over my Stardust.  I lost to that critical play and his one Main Decked Skill Drain.
-Duel 2: I opened with Prohibition, declaring, "Grapha, Dragon Lord of Dark World."  I Set a back row and a Monster before ending.  He drew a bunch of cards.  Like, all of them.  But, without Grapha, he couldn't mount an offensive.  He literally drew his whole deck, and Heavy Storm was the second-to-last card.  But by that time, I had Solemn Judgment to negate his Heavy Storm, so he proceeded to play Card Destruction and deck himself out.
-Duel 3: He opened up with two Set back rows, then Dragged Down Into the Grave, revealing a hand of Beiige, Broww, and Grapha.  My hand was Diva, Hamster, D.D. Crow, Chaos Trap Hole, and some other good Monster (Tanngnjostr (black goat), I think).  Since he had to choose first, I was able to base my decision off of his.  He discarded my D.D. Crow, the correct play, and I discarded his Beiige, letting him Special Summon it.  I Set my Hamster, of course, but he was able to destroy it with Solemn Warning, then proceed to beat me down with Beiige and Broww.  On his next turn, he Tribute Summoned Grapha by tributing his two Dark Worlds, apparently forgetting about my Chaos Trap Hole.  With that, he was out of Monsters, which let me beat him down with my random good stuff.

XOO

So yeah, I went 4-1 and got 3rd place.  I got a Hobby League Shining Angel, which is nice, I guess.  spondo and vadangchoinga were the finalists.  They tried to negotiate a split, like spondo and I had, but vadangchoinga foolishly declined to split a box of Kaijudo cards.  Unfortunately, vadangchoinga won and got a box of Galactic Overlord.  In a display of karmic justice, the best card that he pulled from his box was Shining Elf.

But seriously, I just wanted spondo to win so that he could get more Kaijudo cards, since he started playing yesterday with a couple Bull Rush decks and a set of Battle Decks.  It's quite convenient that most of the people who are starting Kaijudo now want to play Fire/Nature, since the Bull Rush deck makes building a Fire/Nature deck quite easy.  I mean, Fwazalaza and I had to spend a bunch of money (well, not so much in my case, as I only got half a box, which I split with Aki) getting booster packs so that we could get Light cards, since that's the only place to get Light cards at the moment.  I guess it's kind of unnecessary to play Light, though.  Honestly, I could replace all of my Light cards with Water Blockers, Darkness hand destruction cards, and Fire attackers, and the deck would work basically the same.  Skirmishers are just nice, is all.

Anyways, Aki didn't do so well, going X-3 drop.  Neither of us got good cards from the Turbo Pack 8's.  However, I did split a box of Hidden Arsenal 6 with Fwazalaza and another regular whom I've never played against before, oddly enough.  But yeah, we each paid for a third of a box and each got eight packs.  Fwazalaza was looking for Vylon stuff, I wanted my Gem-Knight stuff, and the third person wanted Laval stuff and Gishki Gustkraken.  I pulled two Gustkrakens and traded them to that third person for all of the Gem-Knight stuff he pulled (which was quite a bit).  Fwazalaza pulled a Gem-Knight Prismaura, and I traded him a Vylon Element and an Ultra Rare Double-Edged Sword Technique for it.  I also got a Duel Terminal Gem-Knight Obsidian and a Gem-Turtle off of Fwazalaza in a separate transaction.

But yeah, with that, I was able to get two Citrines, two more Prismauras, an Amethyst, three Ambers, and three Obsidians.  That means that I'll be running Gem-Knights next weekend.  I hope that Shien and Fwazalaza will have their DT-themed decks ready by then, as well...

Tournament Report 7/28/12

As usual, I went to locals today (really yesterday, since it's after midnight).  It feels like I open most of my tournament reports like this.

Anyways, when I got there, I was informed that this was one of those tournaments where you could win a 4-day Gen Con pass, which I didn't care about.  On the upside, each participant got two Turbo Packs instead of the usual one, so that was nice.

There were about 30 participants, with not that many regulars.  A lot of the players were less experienced players who had just gotten back into the game, or just people who weren't regulars.  As usual, I went with my Nordic Diva deck, since I really have no other deck to use competitively.  Once I get my Gem-Knights together, I'll run it, forcing Shien and Fwazalaza to run Gustos and Ice Barriers (or Vylons), respectively, according to our wager.  All I'm really waiting on is the Fusions, since I don't need the Geminis with the build that I'm planning.

Anyways...

Round 1: vs Dragons

This guy was running some weird Dragon deck.  It didn't make sense; it was like Disaster Dragon without Masked Dragons or any other smaller Dragons; just Apocralyph, Lightpulsar Dragon, Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon, and Red-Eyes Wyvern...  I guess it works if you draw Future Fusion...

-Duel 1: He opened with Allure of Darkness banishing D.D. Crow, which told me practically nothing about his deck.  I beat him down with a Tanngrisnir (white goat) for a bit, but then he dropped Dark Armed Dragon and destroyed my field with it.  I killed it with Dark Hole, but then he flipped Return from the Different Dimension, Synchro Summoning Brionac to bounce my back rows.  He then summoned Apocralyph to grab back his Dark Armed Dragon and played it again to attack for game.
-Duel 2: I opened with two back rows.  He played two Mystical Space Typhoons, then Future Fusion... I didn't draw any Monsters, as evidenced by my Monster-less opening, so I lost pretty quickly.  Oh, and he had Black Luster Soldier - Envoy of the Beginning, so that didn't help me out either.

XX

So, I just lost to a completely random deck that shouldn't be consistent, but he opened really well both duels.  I mean, seriously, he's not playing any smaller Monsters, just boss Monsters.  At least I can take solace in the fact that Future Fusion will hopefully be banned in a month...

Round 2: vs Lightsworn

This guy had just gotten back into the game, so he didn't know much about the meta.  The fact that I was playing a random "good stuff" deck was even more confusing for him, as well.  He was pretty nice, though; we had a fun match.

-Duel 1: I made Stardust Dragon using Reborn Tengu and Guldfaxe, then Set my hand to my back row.  Of course, half of my back rows were bluffs, but it doesn't matter if he can't use Heavy Storm.  He also milled pretty badly, not hitting enough Lightsworns to use the Judgment Dragon I assumed he had.
-Duel 2: I drew no Monsters, which is weird in a deck with like 23 Monsters, so I had to keep using Traps on all of his Lightsworn Monsters.  After my back row was thin enough, he dropped Judgment Dragon and finished me off.
-Duel 3: I made Stardust Dragon, Scrap Archfiend, and Thor over the course of two turns.  He played Dark Hole, forcing me to negate with Stardust Dragon, but I banished his only hope, a Judgment Dragon, with Chaos Trap Hole.  He scooped at that.

OXO

In this round, Fwazalaza had beaten my Round 1 opponent and avenged me.  But still, losing to that made me want to rethink what deck I should be using at locals.  So, I'll try my hardest to make Gem-Knights over the next week so that I can play them next weekend.  So yeah...

Round 3: vs Watts

I noticed earlier that this guy was a friend of my Round 2 opponent from this tournament, who is spondo on Dueling Network.  spondo often lends out his extra decks to his friends who don't have decks of their own, so I knew what to expect.

-Duel 1: I killed him really quickly with Scrap Dragon, destroying his Messenger of Peace, then going for game with it and Thor.
-Duel 2: He locked me down (not that I had anything that could do anything) with his Traps, then rushed me with Wattcobras.
-Duel 3: I rushed him with Brionac, discarding my useless cards to keep bouncing his Set Traps (Magic Cylinder and such, non-Chainables) and pushing for damage.  He wasn't able to draw any Monsters, so he couldn't really hurt me at all.

OXO

Round 4: vs Watts

This was a non-regular who had started coming to locals fairly often, so I realized that he was playing Watts.  When I sat down to face him, I was like, "Watts again?" and he was surprised that someone else was playing Watts.  But yeah, he was really cool, and this match was pretty fun.  He said that after seeing Nordics being run again, he was going to remake his Nordic deck.

-Duel 1: I dropped Thor, which got Fiendish Chained.  I then dropped Scrap Dragon, which got Fiendish Chained as well.  I used Ryko to destroy the Chain attached to Scrap Dragon, then used Scrap Dragon to destroy the Chain attached to Thor and my own Ryko.  He Chained Compulsory Evacuation Device to bounce my Thor, and I couldn't get past the Watthopper lock that he had set up.
-Duel 2: I drew a pretty bad hand, Setting Tanngnjostr (black goat) and a Dust Tornado.  He played MST, then Thunder King Rai-Oh, which killed my goat.  He Set a couple cards and ended.  I played Soul Taker, but he used Dark Bribe, letting me draw Book of Moon.  I used my own MST on his other back row, then summoned Sangan and used the Book to run over his Rai-Oh.  Unfortunately, he summoned another Rai-Oh and killed my Sangan.  With that, I was out of Monsters and had to use Monster Reborn to take his first Rai-Oh and crash with his second Rai-Oh.  Unfortunately, he had his Monster Reborn to revive one of his Rai-Ohs and keep beating me down with it.  I was forced to destroy it with a Ryko I drew later, but then took attacks from Wattcobra.  I Set Morphing Jar #2, hoping that he wouldn't attack it.  He summoned Wattdragonfly, and I had to use Compulsory Evacuation Device when it attacked to protect my Morphing Jar #2.  I took another attack from Wattcobra and he searched once more.  I topped Prohibition, playing it and declaring Wattdragonfly.  All I had left besides the Prohibition were the Morphing Jar #2 and a Set Torrential Tribute.  He Set up the Watthopper lock with a One for One and a Watthopper in his hand, then Set one back row after attacking directly.  I drew Pot of Duality, which was horrible, since it conflicted with Morphing Jar #2.  I flipped the Jar anyways, breaking his Watthopper lock.  I got a Guldfaxe, and he got two Wattcobras and one Watthopper.  I ended there.  He Flip Summoned everything, then Normal Summoned another Watthopper, and I flipped Torrential Tribute, breaking the lock again.  Unfortunately, I was low on LP and had no Monsters, so I lost to Wattgiraffe soon afterwards.

XX

With that, I decided to drop, again.  Seriously, I haven't been doing as well as I used to with this deck.  I suppose that I shouldn't worry too much about it.  I'll try to make my Gem-Knights over the week so that I can use it next weekend, as I stated earlier.  I would try to put it together tonight, but it's after midnight and I'm tired.  Besides, I still need to fix my Kaijudo deck.  Fumes isn't as good as everyone says it is.  It works well in a dedicated hand control deck, but it's not good as random tech...

So yeah, I pulled nothing good from my two Turbo Pack 8's, but I wasn't really expecting anything.  I've already gotten all of the cards I want from Turbo Pack 8, but I'd rather not get Turbo Pack 1 or 7, since apparently they had more Turbo Pack 7's.  But yeah, I donno what I'm going to do.  All I really need for my Gem-Knights is the Fusions, which are somewhat difficult to get.  It's difficult to get Duel Terminal cards in general, and I don't want the janky Secret Rare versions.  If it comes to that, though, I don't mind getting one Gem-Knight Prismaura and one Citrine.

Perhaps it might be a good idea for me to split a box of Hidden Arsenal 6 with Fwazalaza and AquaBass.  We all want cards from the set, but it's not really worth buying a box.  If we all get one-third of a box (eight packs), then we could trade each other the cards we want.  I believe that Fwazalaza wants Vylons and AquaBass wants Gishkis.  If AquaBass can actually make it to locals tomorrow (really today, since it's after midnight), then I would be down for splitting a box.  Then, I could finally complete my Gem-Knight deck (most likely), and we'd finally be able to go through with our arrangement.

Cardfight!! Vanguard

Cardfight! Stand up, my Vanguard!

...

No.

But yeah, I've been watching the English dub of the Vanguard anime.  Yes, I'm that bored.

It is somewhat entertaining, and does a good job of making me want to buy the cards and play the game.  It's really very smart, the way the show was made.  It focuses on some kid who had no friends, basically, and found meaning in his life in a card game.  It's kind of the same with Yu-Gi-Oh, except that the main character loses half of his duels and his life doesn't depend on him winning.

Too bad I'm still not going to spend any money at all on such a silly game.  Yeah, Yu-Gi-Oh doesn't take much skill this format, but Vanguard will never take much skill ever.  Yes, knowing when to guard and such is important, but it's all math and statistics.  It's more memory and knowledge than thought and application.  And that's why it's so popular, because it's easier to remember something than to understand it.

I do know how the game works and everything.  I'm not just bashing on the game without knowing what I'm talking about.  I know the rules and all that, it's really quite simple.

And not to say that Vanguard isn't fun.  It is pretty fun, but it's not fun in the challenging way that I like.  That's why I play Yu-Gi-Oh and Kaijudo, to be challenged.  I mean, Kaijudo punishes you for attacking unnecessarily, whereas Vanguard rewards you for attacking as often as possible.

But yeah, this is just a random little post about why I don't play Vanguard, despite having watched the show and having the funds necessary to play.

Kaijudo - The Dojo Edition/Bull Rush Deck Opening

Today, I met with Fwazalaza at my local card shop and we got some of the new Kaijudo cards!  We split a box of The Dojo Edition, each got a Bull Rush deck, and then he got another box of The Dojo Edition.  We pulled every card except for King Tsunami, I think.

The reason we're so quiet in this video is because we recorded this at my locals, so we didn't want to disturb the shopkeeper and such.

Also, we learned from these box openings that a holo can replace either a Common or an Uncommon, and that some packs come with 6 Commons, 2 Uncommons, and a Rare, instead of the usual 5 Commons, 3 Uncommons, and a Rare.

By the way, I decided not to upload my most recent deck profile yesterday because I wasn't satisfied with the quality of the video.  Seeing as how The Dojo Edition is already out, I don't see much point in uploading it now.

Tournament Report 7/22/12

As usual, I went to locals, again.  I didn't really have any time to change my Nordic Diva deck since yesterday, so I kept it the same.

There were about 26 people there today; mostly regulars, but also quite a few others.  Notably, there were no little children there today.

Round 1: vs Dragons

This was my Round 1 opponent from this tournament.  Again, he was running a weird Dragon build.

-Duel 1: I drew a really awkward hand of mostly Monsters.  We started by just Setting Monsters and back rows and passing.  I decided to summon Deep Sea Diva to grab Lost Blue Breaker and destroy his Set Divine Wrath.  I Synchro Summoned Catastor using the Diva and a Tanngrisnir (white goat), but he killed it when I tried to attack his Horus LV6 by using another Divine Wrath.  It started going downhill from there, since I didn't draw anything to deal with anything.  I was able to survive for a few turns against his Horus LV8, Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon, and Lightpulsar Dragon, but when I was about to summon my second Deep Sea Diva to make Gachi Gachi Gantetsu, I drew the third Diva.  Yeah, that was pretty bad, so I wasn't able to survive any longer.
-Duel 2: I made a Scrap Archfiend to beat him down.  He kept using Dragon Ravine, which he sided in, to dump Dragons, including REDMD and Lightpulsar Dragon.  He revived Lightpulsar Dragon with Call of the Haunted to protect himself, but I had a Soul Taker to deal with it.  After that, he had nothing that could deal with my Scrap Archfiend.
-Duel 3: He opened with Dragon Ravine to discard REDMD to dump Lightpulsar Dragon, then a couple Set cards.  I opened with a Set Hamster and a couple back rows.  He used the Ravine again to discard Horus LV6 to dump Prime Material Dragon, then summoned Divine Dragon Apocralyph to discard another card to grab back the REDMD.  He Special Summoned the REDMD by banishing Apocralyph, then revived Prime Material Dragon with its effect.  He attacked my Hamster, letting me get my Ryko, then attacked my Ryko, letting me destroy one of his back rows.  I Set a Monster and ended.  He revived Lightpulsar Dragon with REDMD's effect, then attacked with Prime Material Dragon.  I flipped my Morphing Jar #2, sending all three of his Dragons back to his deck.  He revealed Jinzo, Horus LV6, and Exploder Dragon as the three Monsters for Morphing Jar #2's effect, then Special Summoned the Exploder Dragon in face-down Defense Position before sending the other cards to the Graveyard.  He ended, shocked at what had happened.  I Normal Summoned Spirit Reaper, then flipped my bluffed Mind Control, taking his Exploder Dragon.  I attacked with the Reaper to rip a card out of his hand, then overlaid my Reaper and his Exploder Dragon for Leviathan Dragon.  I detached my Spirit Reaper to boost its ATK, then ended.  He Normal Summoned Phantom of Chaos, then discarded his last card to send Dark Armed Dragon to the Graveyard with Dragon Ravine.  He banished the Dark Armed to copy its effect, then banished three Darks from his Graveyard to destroy my whole field.  I Normal Summoned Tanngnjostr (black goat) to run over his Phantom and ended.  He drew and ended.  I switched my goat to Defense Position and Set a back row.  He Normal Summoned another Apocralyph, then banished it to summon REDMD.  I flipped Book of Moon to turn it face-down and prevent him from using its effect.  On my turn, I switched my Tanngnjostr back to Attack Position to trigger its effect and Special Summon Guldfaxe.  I Synchro Summoned Scrap Archfiend and ran over his REDMD.  He drew and Set a back row.  From there, I beat him down with Scrap Archfiend; his Dark Bribe was of no help.

XOO

Round 2: vs Inzektors

This was my Round 3 opponent from this tournament.  We seem to face each other a lot.

-Duel 1: I opened with a Pot of Duality to grab a Mystical Space Typhoon, then Set Super-Nimble Mega Hamster.  He summoned Inzektor Dragonfly.  When he equipped Inzektor Hornet to it, I negated Dragonfly's effect with Effect Veiler.  He Set two back rows and ended.  I played MST on his Call of the Haunted, then Flip Summoned my Hamster.  I Special Summoned Tanngrisnir (white goat) with its effect, since I had both of my Rykos in my hand.  It didn't matter much, though, since when I Normal Summoned Guldfaxe, he flipped Torrential Tribute.  On his turn, he used Centipede, Hornet, and Gigamantis to do the crazy loop OTK thing, and I died.
-Duel 2: I opened with a Set Ryko and two back rows.  He summoned Tour Guide to Special Summon Sangan in Defense Position and ended.  Fear of Hamsters is pretty powerful, eh?  I Normal Summoned Reborn Tengu and ran over his Tour Guide.  He summoned another Tour Guide to get the third Tour Guide, then overlaid for Wind-Up Zenmaines in Defense Position.  I Flip Summoned Ryko, destroying his Sangan, letting him search Inzektor Hornet.  I summoned Guldfaxe and tuned all of my Monsters to Synchro Summon Thor and grab the second Tengu.  I used Thor's effect, but he Chained Effect Veiler.  He summoned Centipede and equipped Hornet, but I negated with Effect Veiler.  He then switched his Zenmaines to Attack Position and attacked my Tengu.  That let him detach an Xyz Material, then destroy my Thor in the End Phase.  However, he forgot about Thor's revival effect, so I banished the Guldfaxe and revived Thor to deal 800 damage.  On my turn, I used Thor's effect to negate Zenmaines' effect, then ran over both of his Monsters with both of mine.  I was threatening game on my next turn, and there was nothing he could do about it.
-Duel 3: He went first with Dragonfly and Ladybug to make Tiras, then detached one of Tiras' Xyz Materials and ended.  I opened with a Set Ryko and two back rows.  He played Heavy Storm, then Dimensional Fissure.  He summoned the Dragonfly he searched to do another crazy loop combo and he ended up with Photon Strike Bounzer and Maestroke, so I died quite quickly.  It didn't help that the rest of my hand was two Divas and a Lost Blue Breaker...

XOX

Round 3: vs Chaos Dragons

This was my Round 1 opponent from this tournament.  He would've had a better chance if he had stuck with Dino Rabbit.

-Duel 1: He wasted a lot of his cards, and I was able to hit him three times with Spirit Reaper (he chose not to banish it with a Chaos Sorcerer...), so I was able to drop Thor using that Spirit Reaper, Guldfaxe, and Sangan without fear of a swarm of boss Monsters.  It also helped that Sangan let me search Effect Veiler.  He scooped soon afterwards.
-Duel 2: He opened with Card Trooper, milling three, and a back row.  I summoned Deep Sea Diva to Special Summon Lost Blue Breaker.  Blue Breaker ran over his Card Trooper, then Diva attacked directly.  After that, I used Blue Breaker's effect to destroy his Set... Torrential Tribute?  I asked him why he didn't activate it on the summon of my Blue Breaker, and he said that he wouldn't waste it on such weak Monsters.  No foresight, I guess.  Anyways, he ran over my Diva with a Lyla, and that let me Special Summon Tanngnjostr (black goat) from my hand.  On my turn, I triggered its effect to Special Summon Guldfaxe and Synchro Summoned Scrap Archfiend to kill his Lyla.  He drew Future Fusion soon afterwards, but misplayed it.  He sent two REDMD, Lightpulsar Dragon, and two Darkflare Dragons to the Graveyard; he probably should have switched one of the REDMD with an Eclipse Wyvern, but he didn't really think it through.  He Set a Monster and ended.  I attacked, letting his Ryko kill my Scrap Archfiend, then Set a Hamster.  He summoned Jain and attacked, letting me Special Summon a Tanngnjostr (black goat) with Hamster's effect.  He Set a card and ended.  I Flip Summoned Tanngnjostr, grabbing Guldfaxe, which let me make Black Rose Dragon.  That destroyed his Jain, Future Fusion, and Set Charge of the Light Brigade.  I was able to use Monster Reborn on his REDMD and revive that Black Rose Dragon soon afterwards, and he had no outs.

OO

Round 4: vs Chain Burn

-Duel 1: His Ojama Trio locked up my field, so I couldn't really do anything.  Since I wasn't able to swarm and kill him, I died slowly to his burn cards.
-Duel 2: He misplayed his Battle Fader and Gorz, letting me capitalize with Prohibition on his Swift Scarecrow.  I was able to OTK him without interference soon afterwards.
-Duel 3: This duel went into time.  He's playing Chain Burn.  Yeah...

XOX

With that, I decided to drop.  Going 2-2 again wasn't very good, but at least I got to play some good matches today.  Honestly, I don't really mind losing to Chain Burn; I bring this up because most people think that Chain Burn is a "degenerate" deck that shouldn't exist, but I think that it actually takes skill to play, so I respect Chain Burn as a deck.  Yeah, it can be cheap sometimes, but all decks can win if they draw well and go uncountered.  I'd much rather play against Chain Burn than Dino Rabbit or Six Samurai.

But yeah, I got the last Turbo Pack 7 they had, but all it had was a Lightning Warrior, so that was disappointing.  Well, I was able to trade the Ultimate Rare Thunder King Rai-Oh to vadangchoinga for a mess load of cards, so I guess it turned out alright.

Anyways, I will be going to locals on Tuesday to pick up The Dojo Edition and one or two Bull Rush decks.  It depends on what exactly is in the decks.  Aki and I will be getting at least two so that we can get the Gilaflames, but I also want spare Tornado Flames so that I can tech Fire in my Water/Darkness/Light deck.  Of course, I'll have to see what cards I get before I decide how I will run my deck.

And I'm starting to feel like half a box of The Dojo Edition might not be enough.  According to my calculations, it should be enough, but I'm not exactly lucky when it comes to opening packs.  For all I know, I'll pull a bunch of Gatling Skyterrors and Little Hissies that I'll never need, which will take the spot of the Commons and Uncommons that I actually want.  Hopefully I won't have such rotten luck, but we'll see, I guess.  If it does come to that, then I could always get more packs.  I guess I'll have to start winning store credit on Saturdays so that I can spend it on Kaijudo cards, ha ha.

Tournament Report 7/21/12

As usual, I went to locals today.  I haven't changed my Nordic Diva deck since last weekend.  There's really no point; I was going to try and work on a Gem-Knight deck last week, but my time was spent otherwise on non-Yu-Gi-Oh things, like waiting for the Kaijudo Dojo Edition booster set spoilers.  Yeah, I'm still really excited for Kaijudo, though it seems like Lights didn't get very many of their main cards in The Dojo Edition.  I mean, Water got Veil Vortex, Darkness got Terror Pit, Fire got Tornado Flame, and Nature got Root Trap.  All Light got was Sunshock and Regroup, both of which are good cards, but they're not Stormspark Blast...

Anyways, there were 20 players there for the tournament today.  Only regulars and regular newbs were there today.

Round 1: vs Bubble Beat

This was my Round 2 opponent from this tournament.

-Duel 1: I drew mostly Monsters for the majority of the duel, only drawing a couple Traps.  I had the opportunity to use Solemn Warning on a Stratos, but I declined to, since it was my only Trap at the time and I was worried about Miracle Fusion.  However, he didn't attack any of my Set Monsters at all.  So I was able to play in a such a way so that I'd be able to bait out his Torrential Tribute safely, then Set another Super-Nimble Mega Hamster.  Unfortunately, he played Heavy Storm, Dark Hole, then Monster Reborn for game.  Quite sad.
-Duel 2: Unlike the previous duel, I only drew a few Monsters this game.  I opened with a Set Bottomless Trap Hole and ended.  He used Duality to get Reinforcement of the Army to get Stratos to get Alius, then attacked and Set four back rows.  I Set a Monster and three more back rows.  He summoned Neos Alius, and I flipped the Bottomless.  He didn't have the Gemini Spark, so he bounced his Alius with Compulsory Evacuation Device.  Again, he declined to attack my Set Monsters.  I drew Reborn Tengu and summoned it, but he flipped Solemn Warning.  He summoned the Alius again to make Blade Armor Ninja, then detached the Alius to allow him to attack twice.  I used my own Compulsory Evacuation Device when he attacked, however, after using Mystical Space Typhoon to destroy his Set Solemn Judgment.  I Flip Summoned Ryko to destroy one of his face-downs, but he Chained the other: Fiendish Chain.  I Chained a second MST to destroy Fiendish Chain, but he Chained the card I targeted with Ryko's effect: Hero Blast.  I then Set a Monster and a Warning and ended.  He played MST to destroy my Warning, then summoned Alius and Set a back row.  Again, he declined to attack my Set Monster.  However, the Monster I had Set was Tanngnjostr (black goat), so I Flip Summoned it to get Guldfaxe and make Scrap Archfiend.  Unfortunately, he had Gemini Spark to destroy it.  I Set Sangan and ended.  He topped Thunder King Rai-Oh and killed my Sangan, which was horrible.  I drew the second Tengu, and there was nothing I could do to stop his Miracle Fusion.

XX

Round 2: vs Newbie Deck

He gave up when I kept telling him that he couldn't activate cards that he couldn't activate.  He usually tries to use Mausoleum of the Emperor to summon Obelisk, but he didn't draw those cards this duel.  Instead, he kept trying to play Gateway to Dark World on my turn from his hand, then after he had already summoned Monsters.  From what I could tell, he was kind of a spoiled kid...

Round 3: vs Newbie Deck

Eh, 2-0.  It was kind of interesting, at least.  He used Burden of the Mighty so that his Frostosaurus could kill my Thor, but I just made Catastor and he lost.

Round 4: vs Chaos Dragons

This was my Round 4 opponent from this tournament.

-Duel 1: I went first with a Set Hamster and two back rows.  He summoned Lyla and used its effect on my Set Compulsory Evacuation Device, which I allowed.  He milled two Tour Guides and a Chaos Sorcerer and ended.  I Flip Summoned Hamster to grab Ryko, then summoned Guldfaxe.  Hamster killed Lyla, and Guldfaxe attacked directly.  I Synchro Summoned Stardust Dragon and Set another back row before ending.  He topped MST and instantly played it on the card I had just Set, so I Chained Stardust Dragon's effect.  He then Special Summoned Darkflare Dragon.  On the summon, I flipped Book of Moon so that he couldn't use its effect to banish my Stardust, but he Chained Forbidden Lance to protect it.  He sent a Lightpulsar Dragon and Eclipse Wyvern from his hand and deck, respectively, to the Graveyard to banish my Stardust Dragon, then banish a Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon from his deck.  He then banished the Eclipse Wyvern and a Dark Monster to Special Summon Black Luster Soldier - Envoy of the Beginning.  He grabbed back his REDMD and banished his Darkflare Dragon to Special Summon it.  He then revived Lightpulsar Dragon with REDMD's effect, and banished my Ryko with BLS' effect.  I topped Dark Hole, but had no follow up and lost soon afterwards.
-Duel 2: I went first with Reborn Tengu and two back rows.  He played two MST"s to destroy my back rows, then played Future Fusion.  His field ended up being REDMD, Lightpulsar Dragon, and BLS.  I was holding the Dark Hole again, but had nothing else that I could do to kill the REDMD that he would revive.  I was able to survive until the Five-Headed Dragon came out, and when he tried to go for game with it, I flipped MST to destroy the Future Fusion, depriving him of the enjoyment of winning with FHD.

XX

So yeah, I went 2-2, which is really bad, considering the fact that my wins were against newbs.  I guess that I really need to concentrate more on beating HEROes, since they seem to be one of my tougher match-ups, though that could be said for Stun in general.  I'm not really sure about how I'm going to be able to side more against Stun decks, though.  A third Dust Tornado would be kind of overkill, not to mention unnecessary.  Oh well, it doesn't really matter that much, since we'll be getting the ban list in less than a month.

And, something good did come out of the tournament today.  So I went to get my Turbo Pack after my last round, and my Round 1 opponent was also waiting to get his Turbo Pack.  He told me to decide which pack I would get first, and that he would pick the same pack as me.  Just so you know, the shop owner had just found a bunch of Turbo Pack 1's in his storage room or whatever, so he started offering them as an option alongside Turbo Pack 7, Turbo Pack 8, Hidden Arsenal 4, Hidden Arsenal 5, and Storm of Ragnarok.  I picked Turbo Pack 8, so my Round 1 opponent followed suit.  He said that I'd better not make him regret his decision.  I opened my pack and looked inside, seeing the holo name.

"I pulled Thunder King Rai-Oh."  He didn't believe me, so I pulled it out of the pack and he was shocked.  He opened his pack, revealing Ready for Intercepting.  I noted how I always pull good cards from the Turbo Packs when I scrub out badly.  It's a nice consolation after basically losing all of my real matches today.

Afterwards, Fwazalaza and I went out to eat and play Kaijudo.  He's actually been able to beat me fairly often now.  It's kind of nice that he's been doing better against me; it'd be boring winning all of the time.  Anyways, we made plans to meet at locals Tuesday morning to get a couple boxes of The Dojo Edition.  He said that he wanted between one and two boxes, so I offered to split a box with him, so that I can get half a box and he can get one and a half boxes.  I'm planning on recording us opening the packs while we're at locals and uploading the video when I get home.  So yeah, I'm excited for that.  Although the Light Civilization cards weren't as good as I was hoping, they're still plenty good, and will definitely be replacing all of the Water Blockers that I've been using.

But until then, I won't change my deck.  I'll also try to record a deck profile to show how it is now.  It's kind of sad how I haven't even gotten to the Kaijudo videos showing the deck in its current state since alternating Yu-Gi-Oh and Kaijudo videos take a while to get through, even though I'm uploading daily.  Maybe I'll skip some of them and start on the newer videos soon.  Perhaps I'll upload the deck profile video on Monday; I'll see what I can do.

But yeah, I'll be at locals tomorrow, like usual.  Hopefully AquaBass and vadangchoinga will be there, too...

Kaijudo Booster Pack Analysis

Let me preface this post by stating that this isn't just about The Dojo Edition or the Base Set; this is about Kaijudo booster packs in general.  Also, most of what I'm inferring is based on the limited information that we've been given by Wizards of the Coast.  They seem to not like to give us any information until the packs are actually released, but we know enough to make these assumptions.

The old Duel Masters packs had 10 cards each with 6 Commons, 3 Uncommons, and 1 Rare per pack.  There would be a holo (Very/Super Rare) card in every third pack, which would replace one of the Commons.

We know that there will be 9 cards in each Kaijudo booster pack.  So far, we have one spoiler of a booster pack that someone who went to the San Diego Comic Con got:

Rumbling Terrasaur
Skeeter Swarmer
Drakon Weaponsmith
Skull Cutter
Sun-Stalk Seed
Aqua Commando
Brave Giant
Star Lantern
Gigargon

From the Battle Decks and online game, we know some of the rarities of those cards.  Rumbling Terrasaur, Skeeter Swarmer, and Skull Cutter are Commons.  Aqua Commando and Brave Giant are Uncommons, and Gigargon is Rare.  Based on the grouping of the cards in the spoiler, it's safe to assume that the first five cards, including Drakon Weaponsmith and Sun-Stalk Seed, are Commons, and that the next three cards are Uncommons, including Star Lantern.

So, that means that Kaijudo booster packs will most likely have 5 Commons, 3 Uncommons, and 1 Rare per pack.

Next, let's look at the set ratios for the Kaijudo booster packs.  So far, we know of The Dojo Edition (a 60-card set) and the Base Set (a 180-card set).  Normal Duel Masters sets always had a number of cards that was a multiple of 60.  So, it would also be safe to assume that the rarity distribution for Kaijudo sets would be similar to that of Duel Masters sets.

For a 60-card set for Duel Masters, there would be 5 Super Rares, 5 Very Rares, 15 Rares, 15 Uncommons, and 20 Rares.  For larger sets, these numbers would be multiplied.  So for a 120-card set, there would be twice as many of each rarity, and such.  It's very likely that The Dojo Edition will have exactly the same rarity distribution as a 60-card Duel Masters set.

Looking even closer, we'll see that the number of cards from each Civilization is equal in these booster packs.  So, in a 60-card set, there would be 12 cards from each Civilization.  This equality also applied for each rarity.  So since there are 5 Super Rares, there would be one from each Civilization, and such.

Lastly, from this information, we can infer an expected rarity distribution for a booster box of any Kaijudo pack.  Assuming that there is a holo in every three packs, a booster box (24 packs) would yield 8 holos.  The expected ratio would be three Super Rares and five Very Rares, or something around that.  As for the rest of the box, you could expect to pull:

• 24 Rares (1 per pack)
• 72 Uncommons (3 per pack)
• 112 Commons (5 per pack, minus the 8 holo cards)

Therefore, you would statistically pull about 1.5 of each Rare, almost 5 of each Uncommon, and almost 6 of each Common in a box.  Looking at these numbers in a vacuum, a booster box is a very good investment.  Most cards in these booster packs are playable, and it could be useful to have several copies of staple Commons and Uncommons.  Rares, Very Rares, and Super Rares would be harder to get, of course.

However, with the numerous reprints that we'll see in the Base Set (110/180 cards in the Base Set will be reprints), it may not be that great of an idea to stock up on all of these Commons and Uncommons from The Dojo Edition.  Of course, we barely know any of the cards in either set, so it's too early to tell.  I'd say that half a box of The Dojo Edition is a good investment if you already have Battle Decks.  It's still hard to tell, but I suppose that we'll see in a week or so what exactly is in The Dojo Edition.

That's basically it.  If you couldn't tell, I've been looking very deeply into Kaijudo.

And, now it's time for some Dojo Edition-specific analysis.  It would seem that the new Sun-Stalk Seed (which we don't have a picture of at the moment) is a Common.  Based on the analysis above, there would be exactly four Light Civilization Common cards in The Dojo Edition.  While Sun-Stalk Seed is a great card, I'm still hoping for Thunder Cruiser and Jade Monitor.

However, Sun-Stalk Seed and Blinder Beetle are two Common Light cards that are in The Dojo Edition, so the chances of Thunder Cruiser and Jade Monitor being the other two Common Light cards are slim.  We might get some stuff like Luminar and Nimbus Scout instead, which would be somewhat disappointing.

Regardless, Star Lantern would be a very nice replacement for Jade Monitor, so I wouldn't be too disappointed, I suppose.  And, Sun-Stalk Seed is basically in between Thunder Cruiser and Jade Monitor, Level and Power-wise.  It's also a Light Reef-Eye that can attack Creatures, which is great.  Sorry Reef-Eye, but you've just been outclassed.

And, let's not forget that we still have the Bull Rush starter deck that will be released alongside The Dojo Edition booster pack.  If one of the Civilizations that the deck includes is Light, then it'll be a good way to get Light staples, like Stormspark Blast... Of course, that probably won't happen, but we can still hope...

UPDATE: Based on set numbers that we've gotten, Stormspark Blast will not be in The Dojo Edition.  Also, Star Lantern is indeed an Uncommon, as shown by some new card spoilers on kaijudo.com.

Tournament Report 7/15/12

As I stated in yesterday's post, I would be going to locals again, today (really yesterday, since it's after midnight).  There was no Battle Pack tournament this time, though, so I got to sleep in.  But yeah, I took my Nordic Diva deck again, as usual.  I did have to replace the Maxx "C" I traded away with a Morphing Jar #2.  I wanted to try out the Morphing Jar #2 anyways, so I guess that this was an easy way for me to add it to the Side Deck.

But yeah, there were about 24 players there today.  Oddly enough, a lot of the regulars got paired up against each other early on.

Round 1: vs Chaos Dragons

This was my Round 3 opponent from this tournament.  I saw that he had switched decks before the tournament, so we knew what each other was running.

-Duel 1: The start of the game was pretty slow.  He went first with a Set Ryko, so I couldn't play anything important.  I just Set Gleipnir and let him waste his Ryko's effect.  He then summoned a Tour Guide to grab a second Tour Guide and attacked with all three Monsters.  After that, he made Wind-Up Zenmaines and ended.  I Set Super-Nimble Mega Hamster and two back rows.  He summoned Lyla, and I used Book of Moon when it tried to destroy my Bottomless Trap Hole.  He switched his Ryko to Defense Position and ended.  I Flip Summoned my Hamster and he negated its effect with Effect Veiler.  People seem to like to Veil Hamster, but it's honestly the least threatening effect I've got.  I ran over his Lyla, Set another back row, and ended.  He switched his Zenmaines to Attack Position and Normal Summoned Sangan.  He attacked my Hamster with Zenmaines, and I dropped the Tanngnjostr (black goat) that I searched with Gleipnir.  I guess that he forgot that Tanngnjostr has 1100 DEF.  On my turn, I switched Tanngnjostr to Attack Position to Special Summon Guldfaxe, then Normal Summoned Deep Sea Diva to Special Summon Lost Blue Breaker.  I tuned Guldfaxe to Tanngnjostr and Lost Blue Breaker to Synchro Summon Thor, then used Thor's effect to negate Zenmaines' effect.  Thor ran over Zenmaines and Diva destroyed Ryko.  I Set another back row for safe measure and ended.  He had absolutely no outs to Thor (assuming that Dark Hole doesn't count, and it doesn't), so I was able to win with it soon afterwards.
-Duel 2: He started with Tour Guide into Tour Guide and overlaid for Zenmaines.  I Set Super-Nimble Mega Hamster and two back rows.  He summoned Sangan and switched Zenmaines to Attack Position.  He attacked Hamster with Zenmaines, taking 300 damage, and letting me Special Summon Tanngrisnir (white goat).  He attacked Tanngrisnir with Sangan, and I Special Summoned two Nordic Beast Tokens and Tanngnjostr (black goat) from my hand.  On my turn, I switched Tanngnjostr to Attack Position to Special Summon Guldfaxe, then Synchro Summoned Thor using Guldfaxe and the two Tokens.  I used Thor's effect to negate Zenmaines' effect, then ran it over in battle.  He switched his Sangan to Defense Position and Set a Monster.  I used my Set Book of Moon on my own Tanngnjostr (black goat), then Flip Summoned it to Special Summon another Guldfaxe from my deck.  I tuned Guldfaxe to Hamster for Scrap Dragon and Set a Soul Taker so that I could destroy it and his Set Eclipse Wyvern.  He used its effect, but it didn't matter.  Tanngnjostr (black goat) attacked over his Sangan, then Scrap Dragon and Thor attacked directly for game.  He was disappointed that he couldn't search for Tragoedia with Sangan's effect.

OO

Round 2: vs Wind-Ups

This was my Round 2 opponent from yesterday, and he was out for revenge...

-Duel 1: I went first, but opened with no protection from his Hunter loop.  I Set Mystical Space Typhoon and Solemn Judgment and summoned Reborn Tengu, then ended.  He used Heavy Storm, and I decided to negate that with Solemn Judgment.  He then proceeded to Wind-Up Hunter loop my hand, ending with one Wind-Up Carrier Zenmaity and a Giga-Brilliant to kill both of my Tengus.  He Set two cards and I destroyed one of them with MST in the End Phase.  It didn't matter, though, since I was now top-decking against his four cards.  There was honestly nothing that I could draw to save myself, so I lost pretty quickly.
-Duel 2: I don't really remember what happened at the beginning of the duel, but he didn't open up with his combo pieces.  I was able to make a Scrap Dragon and destroy his back row with it, and he was stuck stalling behind Wind-Up Rabbit.  He was able to draw another Level 3 to go with his Rabbit to loop Zenmaities.  He ended up with two Zenmaities and an Acid Golem against my Scrap Dragon and Set Hamster.  He attacked my Scrap Dragon with Acid Golem, then my Hamster with a Zenmaity.  I Special Summoned Ryko, and he declined to attack it.  I drew and Set Book of Moon.  He had to detach an Xyz Material from Acid Golem, since he was at 1800 LP.  He used the Acid Golem to attack my Hamster, then attacked Ryko with one Zenmaity.  Ryko's effect destroyed the other Zenmaity.  I drew and Set another back row.  He had to detach Acid Golem's second Xyz Material in his Standby Phase.  Because of this, he had to OTK me (still at 7800 LP) without being able to Special Summon.  That wasn't possible, so he scooped.
-Duel 3: He opened with Magician and Shark, Special Summoning a second Magician and a Hunter.  Hunter tributed one Magician to send the Lost Blue Breaker in my hand to the Graveyard.  He overlaid Shark and Hunter for Zenmaity, grabbing Rat and using its effect to revive the Hunter.  However, I Chained D.D. Crow to banish the Hunter.  But, he had Instant Fusion, letting him overlay a Flame Ghost and the Rat to make Leviair and grab back the Hunter.  He tributed the other Magician to rip an MST out of my hand, then Set some back rows and ended.  The rest of my hand was Monsters, and he would be able to resume his loop on his next turn, so there was nothing I could do.  D.D. Crow helped out a little bit, but it doesn't do nearly as much as Effect Veiler or Maxx "C".  Oh well.  By the way, I didn't draw the Morphing Jar #2 I sided in, so the fact that I traded away my second Maxx "C" didn't affect the outcome of this match at all.

XOX

Round 3: vs Chaos Piper

-Duel 1: He started with Mystic Piper and Kinka-byo, so that was kind of annoying.  After a bit, though, I was able to use Compulsory Evacuation Device on his Kinka-byo, which caused his Mystic Piper to get banished.  However, he had drawn two Tour Guides using the Mystic Piper, meaning that he could make Leviair to get it back.  Regardless, I was able to keep doing damage to him while he kept drawing with Mystic Piper, and after a long duel, he surrendered after realizing that he wouldn't be able to win.
-Duel 2: He drew into his Piper/Kinka-byo combo again and was able to keep gaining advantage over me.  I was able to make a few separate Synchro and Xyz plays, but he had outs to all of them, including Creature Swap and Fossil Dyna Pachycephalo.
-Duel 3: I was able to make two direct attacks with Guldfaxe, but I had to use a Soul Taker on his Tragoedia.  With LP at 8000 to 5800, the duel went into time.  I kept my Monsters in Defense Position and continued to Set Monsters to protect myself.  He was able to drop a Chaos Sorcerer, but he couldn't deal any damage before he ran out of turns.

OXO

Round 4: vs Chaos Dragons

This was my Round 3 opponent from this tournament.  He was one of the last three undefeated players, meaning that I was paired up.  I agreed to give him the win for his Turbo Pack and Hobby League card, since the most that I could win in this position was a Hobby League card.  We still played it out for fun.

-Duel 1: He milled a total of zero Dark Monsters.  The only Dark Monster that he could Normal Summon was a Sangan, which he used Dark Hole on to search a Ryko to discard for Solar Recharge.  Still, he milled no Darks.  So, I amassed a field of Scrap Archfiend and Gachi Gachi Gantetsu with two back rows.  He Special Summoned Chaos Sorcerer by banishing the Sangan and an Eclipse Wyvern, but I bounced the Chaos Sorcerer with Compulsory Evacuation Device, and he scooped.  He showed me his hand of boss Monsters, none of which he could summon because he had no Dark Monsters in his Graveyard.
-Duel 2: The game went on pretty slowly, but I was able to set up a double Tanngnjostr (black goat) play when he attacked over my Hamster with a Darkflare Dragon.  Unfortunately, he then played Dark Hole to destroy both of my goats, since he didn't want me to summon Thor.  After a while, he played Future Fusion, to which I Chained MST, depriving him of his broken mill.  Regardless, I had no defensive back rows after that, so he barfed his hand of two Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon and Black Luster Soldier - Envoy of the Beginning onto the field for an OTK.  After this duel, however, the other two undefeated players finished their match.  So, we decided to leave this match at a draw so that my opponent could start the finals.

OX (but I gave him the win)

And after that, I decided to drop.  X-2's don't win anything on Sundays, but I still got two Turbo Pack 8's (including the one from my Round 4 opponent) and a Hobby League Shining Angel.  I pulled Alligator's Sword Dragon and Gozen Match from the Turbo Packs, so that wasn't too bad.

Anyways, Shien finally put together a Gusto deck.  The reason that this is relevant is because we made a deal of sorts a long time ago.  He said that if I were to run Gem-Knights in the tournament, then he would run Gustos.  With Hidden Arsenal 6 coming out on July 24, I'll be able to make a fairly decent Gem-Knight deck.  However, I've decided that I'm not going to buy any Hidden Arsenal 6 packs, since there are very few good cards in that pack.  I will try to trade for the Gem-Knight cards from Duel Terminal 6, instead.  Until then, this little wager of ours will have to wait, sadly.  But yeah, I think that I just need two Prismaura, two Citrine, three Amber, and one Amethyst.  I already have the Iolites and all of the Gem-Knights from Duel Terminal 5 that I need.

Oh, and did I mention that The Dojo Edition for Kaijudo is coming out on the same day as Hidden Arsenal 6?  Yeah, I'll be getting that for sure.  Not that many cards have been revealed so far, but the fact that we're finally getting some Light cards is amazing.  Again, I'm hoping for Thunder Cruisers and Jade Monitors.  I know that Shien wanted Blinder Beetle to be in the pack, and it was revealed today (really yesterday, since it's after midnight) to be in there, so I guess he'll be glad to hear that.

But yeah, I'll try to figure out a way to get the Gem-Knights as soon as possible, and I'll also be trying out some different builds.  The only way I've seen Gem-Knights played is using Obsidian and such to rush with Fusions (mainly Zirconia) and OTK.  I don't think I'll play them like that, but I'll have to see what other options I have.  I'll try to work on them later this week, since next week will be devoted to Kaijudo, of course.

Tournament Report 7/14/12

As usual, I decided to go to locals today (really yesterday, since it's after midnight).  But yeah, there was a Battle Pack tournament before the usual tournament.  I lost in the second round to my Round 1 opponent from this tournament, who went on to win the whole tournament and a Duelist Revolution play mat.  I told him after I lost to him that I'd buy the mat off of him if he were to win, and he did, so I did.  I now have a Duelist Revolution mat, which I may start to use in the future.  But yeah, my pulls from the Battle Packs were decent.  I got two copies of Adreus (one Starfoil), which was kind of annoying, but whatever.  I did gain a whole new appreciation for Backup Warrior, though.

Anyways, 27 people participated in the usual tournament.  I was using my Nordic Diva deck that I changed with additional anti-Samurai cards.

Round 1: vs Nordics

-Duel 1: I opened with two Set Traps.  He used Mystical Space Typhoon on my Gleipnir, and when I asked if he knew what it did, he told me that he was playing Nordics, too.  How interesting.  So I searched Tanngnjostr (black goat), and he summoned Rai-Oh to attack.  I took some hits for a little while before I was able to make a double Hamster play that got rid of his Rai-Oh and gave me a bunch of Set Monsters.  After I cleared his field, he make Odin using Valkyrie, but I killed his Odin with Ryko and finished him off before he could revive it.
-Duel 2: I was able to make a Scrap Dragon pretty quickly and take control from there.  Yeah, he was running a bunch of the weaker Nordic Monsters, so he couldn't really keep up.

OO

Round 2: vs Wind-Ups

This was my Round 4 opponent from this tournament.  I told him that I had played a mirror match in the previous round, but he didn't know what to think.  Either someone else was playing Nordics, someone else was playing Scraps, or I had decided to bring my Hieratic deck to locals.

-Duel 1: He went first, but didn't have the loop.  He played two Wind-Up Factories and Tour Guide into Zenmaity, letting him grab a Hunter to hit one card out of my hand, and search Shark and Rat.  He Set a back row and ended.  I drew to five cards in hand (Reborn Tengu, Mystical Space Typhoon, Solemn Warning, Lost Blue Breaker, and the second Tengu) and contemplated whether or not I wanted to MST what I expected to be a Warning.  With both Tengus in my hand, baiting it out seemed like the best option, so I summoned Tengu and he flipped Warning, claiming that he would not be happy if I had the second Tengu in my hand.  I Set my back rows and ended.  He MST"d my MST, which I Chained to destroy a Factory.  I used Warning on his Rat and took 1600 damage from the Hunter.  I summoned my second Tengu to kill the Hunter and ended.  But it didn't matter; with the Wind-Up Factory still out, he was able to keep searching Wind-Ups and constantly apply pressure.  My hand was lackluster, so I lost pretty quickly.
-Duel 2: I opened with Solemn Warning, Solemn Judgment, Torrential Tribute, Compulsory Evacuation Device, Maxx "C", and Effect Veiler.  I Set all of the Traps and ended.  He played Heavy Storm, which I negated with Solemn Judgment.  He then summoned Wind-Up Rat and played Instant Fusion.  I activated Maxx "C", and he Special Summoned his Flame Ghost.  He overlaid for Wind-Up Zenmaity, and I responded to the summon with Compulsory Evacuation Device.  He Set a card and ended.  I Set Super-Nimble Mega Hamster and ended.  He played Factory and summoned another Wind-Up Rat, which I negated with Warning.  On my turn, I summoned Deep Sea Diva, which he negated with Effect Veiler.  I Flip Summoned Super-Nimble Mega Hamster, grabbing my Ryko, then Synchro Summoned Gaia Knight, the Force of Earth.  He banished my Gaia Knight with Dimensional Prison when I attacked, and I ended.  He used Monster Reborn on his Wind-Up Rat, and I had to consider my options.  I needed the Ryko to destroy the Factory so he wouldn't be able to search anymore, so I didn't want to use my Torrential.  I decided to use Effect Veiler on the Rat after a while, but he still triggered Factory's effect to search another Rat.  He ended there.  I Normal Summoned Deep Sea Diva to grab another Diva, then Flip Summoned Ryko to destroy the Factory, as planned.  I then overlaid the two Divas for Gachi Gachi Gantetsu and crashed my Ryko into his Rat.  He summoned the third Rat, and I used Torrential Tribute.  I topped Reborn Tengu and pushed for 1900 damage.  From that point, he only drew back rows, and was unable to deal with my Tengu.
-Duel 3: He Set two cards and ended.  I summoned Guldfaxe and pushed for damage before Setting a couple back rows.  He used MST on one of them in the End Phase, then played another MST to destroy the other on his turn.  He summoned Rat and activated the Shark in his hand.  I Chained Maxx "C", and he ended there.  I played Mind Control, taking his Shark, then Synchro Summoning Thought Ruler Archfiend.  I attempted to end my Main Phase 1, and he used Effect Veiler.  That told me that his back row was Dimensional Prison.  So, still in my Main Phase 1, I Normal Summoned Tanngnjostr (black goat).  I used it to attack his Rat, and he declined to use Dimensional Prison on it.  From there, he was unable to deal with my Thought Ruler until it was too late (I think that he played Dark Hole after a while, but by that point, it didn't really matter).

XOO

Round 3: vs Inzektors

This was my Round 2 opponent from this tournament.  Before we started the duel, he claimed that he lost to me last time because he played too conservatively.  He stated that he wouldn't think about his plays this time and would just play aggressively.  However, he took just as long to think about his moves as last time, and didn't even attack me at all in the first duel...

-Duel 1: He only had one Dragonfly, and I had the Veiler for it.  From there, Reborn Tengu was able to rip apart his field, and I was able to make Stardust Dragon soon after to protect my back rows.  He stalled behind a Sangan, but I waited until I was able to OTK before attacking it.  He had Gorz, but I had Warning, so it didn't matter.
-Duel 2: My opening hand was Guldfaxe, Guldfaxe, Veiler, Veiler, Crevice Into the Different Dimension.  He passed his first turn, and I Set the Dust Tornado I drew.  He played MST, then summoned and attacked with Inzektor Hornet.  I summoned a Guldfaxe and ran over his Hornet.  He summoned Jurrac Guaiba, which I forgot that he used, and was forced to waste an Effect Veiler on it.  Guaiba killed my Guldfaxe and he Set a back row.  I Set a Ryko and an MST and ended.  He used MST on my MST in my End Phase, then summoned Centipede.  I used Effect Veiler when he equipped the Hornet, and he then equipped a Zektkaliber to his Centipede.  He attacked with Centipede, and I destroyed the Centipede with Ryko's effect, letting him grab back his Centipede using Zektkaliber's effect.  He attacked directly with Guaiba and ended.  I drew D.D. Crow and ended.  He summoned the Centipede again, and I Chained D.D. Crow to its effect, banishing the Hornet.  However, he equipped Ladybug from his hand, then sent it to the Graveyard to boost Centipede's Level by 1.  He searched Dragonfly, then attacked directly with both of his Monsters.  He then overlaid for Steelswarm Roach and ended.  I Set Hamster and Crevice and ended.  He summoned Dragonfly and activated its effect.  I Chained Crevice, banishing his Ladybug and my D.D. Crow, depriving him of the rest of his Inzektors.  He had no Inzektors in his hand, which was revealed to be Pot of Avarice, Monster Reborn, Effect Veiler, and Tour Guide.  He declined to attack and ended.  I summoned Reborn Tengu and ran over his Dragonfly.  He summoned his Tour Guide, grabbing Sangan and overlaying for Leviair.  His Leviair got back his Hornet, and Roach and Leviair attacked my two Tengus.  He Set a back row and ended.  I Flip Summoned my Hamster, and he declined to use Veiler.  I Special Summoned Ryko with Hamster's effect, then Normal Summoned my second Guldfaxe.  Without the ability to Synchro, I had to overlay for Utopia to run over his Leviair.  I Set a Compulsory Evacuation Device and he flipped Royal Decree in the End Phase.  He played Nobleman of Crossout on my Ryko... seriously, that actually happened... I guess he got tired of losing to Nordics... Anyways, he then used Monster Reborn on Sangan and tried to crash it into my Utopia.  I used Utopia's Moon Shield to block, and he switched his Hornet to Defense Position.  I attacked the Roach with Utopia and Set another Hamster.  He switched his Hornet back to Attack Position, then declared an attack with his Sangan on my Utopia.  I let it go, and he searched Dragonfly.  He then tried to crash his Hornet into my Utopia, which I blocked with Utopia's effect.  In his Main Phase 2, he played Pot of Avarice, then Normal Summoned a Tour Guide that he drew, grabbing the Sangan that he sent back with Avarice.  He overlaid the Tour Guide and Hornet for Leviathan Dragon, detaching Hornet to use Leviathan Dragon's effect.  He Set a back row and ended.  I topped Deep Sea Diva.  I Flip Summoned my Set Hamster, and he negated its effect with Effect Veiler.  I then summoned Deep Sea Diva, grabbing my Lost Blue Breaker.  Diva, Breaker, and Hamster made Mist Wurm, bouncing his Leviathan Dragon, Sangan, and Set Shrink (which he Chained).  Despite the Shrink, he was still at low enough LP for me to finish him off with Utopia and Mist Wurm.  By the way, this was the third duel that Mist Wurm has won for me.

OO

Round 4: vs Inzektors

This guy was a friend of the person I lost to in the Battle Pack tournament.  He knew that I was playing Nordics, but I knew that he was playing Inzektors, and I politely informed him that I had just beaten Inzektors in the previous round.  Yes, mind games are fun.

-Duel 1: I summoned Thor using Tanngnjostr (black goat), Tanngrisnir (white goat), and Guldfaxe.  He destroyed it with Hornet's effect once, then Torrential Tribute soon afterwards.  Unfortunately for him, I topped Monster Reborn to revive the Thor and keep beating his face in.  He had no more outs to it, so I was able to win with it.
-Duel 2: He drew no Inzektors for the majority of the duel.  He was trying to survive with Tour Guides and King Tiger Wanghus, but Reborn Tengu into Scrap Dragon dealt with all of that.  And when he finally drew an Inzektor, it was a Dragonfly, but he didn't have Hornet, so he couldn't do anything with it.  That let me finish him off with Scrap Dragon a couple turns later.

OO

Apparently, my supposedly horrible Inzektor match-up isn't as bad as I thought.  Perhaps it's because I side 7-9 cards against them...

Either way, I was one of the last two undefeated players.  The other undefeated player was my Round 4 opponent from this tournament.  We decided to split and play it out for fun.

Round 5: vs Dark Worlds

-Duel 1: She went first with a Set Monster and three back rows.  Gee, I wonder what that Monster could be.  I Set a Ryko and three back rows (Monster Reborn, Solemn Warning, and MST).  She used MST on my Warning in the End Phase, then Flip Summoned Morphing Jar on her turn after Setting the card she drew.  She discarded Grapha and Snoww, while I discarded Deep Sea Diva and Guldfaxe.  Grapha destroyed my Monster Reborn, and she searched The Gates of Dark World.  I was able to destroy it with MST after she banished Snoww, but she still had so much advantage that there wasn't much I could do.  Even after I cleared her field over the course of several turns, a process that used up most of my cards, she still had a full hand.  That Morphing Jar was just devastating, and she was able to keep beating me down under Skill Drain to win.
-Duel 2: I opened with Prohibition, declaring, "Grapha, Dragon Lord of Dark World."  I then Set a Solemn Warning and a Sangan.  She played Heavy Storm, then Dark World Dealings.  She discarded Goldd, and I discarded Pot of Avarice.  She killed my Sangan, letting me get Deep Sea Diva, then played Gates and Set two cards.  I summoned Deep Sea Diva and grabbed Lost Blue Breaker.  I tributed the Blue Breaker to destroy her Set Warning, which she forgot to use.  I then played Monster Reborn on my Sangan and Synchro Summoned T.G. Hyper Librarian.  With Sangan's effect, I searched a Hamster.  I Set a back row and ended.  She simply attacked with Goldd, but I flipped Dust Tornado to destroy Gates, letting my Librarian win the battle.  I then attacked with my Librarian, but she banished it with Dimensional Prison.  So, I Set Hamster and ended.  She summoned Tour Guide, grabbing Sangan and making Acid Golem.  It killed my Hamster, letting me get Ryko.  I drew another Prohibition, prohibiting Grapha once more, but it didn't matter.  In a couple turns, she played Skill Drain, nullifying her Acid Golem's effects and preventing me from using any of my effects.  I had a Dark Hole since the start of the game, and was forced to use it on her Acid Golem.  However, she used Monster Reborn on it, and I drew nothing but Monsters for the rest of the duel.  Hmm, perhaps I should play more back row destruction (as if I don't already play enough...).

XX

So yeah, I went 4-1 and got 2nd place, which is good.  I got a great deal of store credit, which was nice.  I spent it on two Secret Rare Dimensional Fissures and a Starfoil Pot of Duality.  I didn't need any more sleeves (I still have two unopened packs), so I spent the rest on some Battle Packs.  There were some decent pulls, like a Starfoil Greenkappa and a Starfoil Krebons.  But yeah, Battle Packs aren't really worth it, from what I've seen so far.  Oh well.  And my Turbo Pack 8 yielded an Alligator's Sword, which was bad...

Anyways, after the tournament, I traded away one of the Maxx "C"s in my Side Deck to Fwazalaza (my Round 2 opponent from this tournament, who finally gets a name) for a bunch of random stuff, including a Shining Elf (jealous, vadangchoinga?).  But yeah, I don't really need two Maxx "C"s, so I'm going to make due with just one.  I think I'll replace the second one with a Morphing Jar #2 or something.  Yep, more anti-Samurai cards.

But yeah, I'll be at locals again tomorrow (really today, since it's after midnight).

Hopes for the September 2012 Ban List

Alright, it's time for another "Hopes for the Ban List" post.  And, let me remind everyone that this is what I HOPE will happen (hence, "HOPES for the Ban List".  I do not think that very many of these things will actually happen.  In fact, I'm positive that very few will actually happen.

The reason is that Konami obviously makes its ban lists to promote new products.  They wanted people to buy Gold Series Haunted Mine and the Six Samurai Structure Deck, so they loosened the limits on Shien's Smoke Signal.  They wanted people to stop playing T.G. Agents because they wouldn't get any additional support, so they Limited Earth and Striker.  They wanted people to perhaps buy Hidden Arsenal 5, which includes Gustos, so they Semi-Limited Emergency Teleport.  They wanted the OCG players to buy their most recent Gold Series, so they didn't ban Black Luster Soldier - Envoy of the Beginning.  There's many many many many more examples, but that's not what this post is about.

The fact that Konami makes its lists to promote new products makes it hard to predict what would happen sometimes because we don't know all of the future products.  In retrospect, it's very easy to see why they made what seemed to be completely ridiculous decisions at the time.  That's why I don't make predictions for the ban list.  Everyone may say that it's very obvious that certain cards may be hit, but Konami may plan to release a whole archetype around those certain cards or give them massive support in upcoming sets, and would therefore not want to hit those cards.

But yeah, again, this is what I (No. 39) HOPE will happen.

Forbidden:

• Black Luster Soldier - Envoy of the Beginning
• It's broken.  If it were just a big Chaos Sorcerer, I'd be okay with it, but it has the double attack effect and can banish face-downs.
• Dandylion
• This should've been banned instead of Glow-Up Bulb and Spore.
• Gorz the Emissary of Darkness
• This card wins games that should've been lost.  I've won games that I probably shouldn't have because of this card; it's that broken.  Tragoedia is a much more balanced version of this card.
• Morphing Jar
• Kills Empty Jar and hurts whatever Dark World variants even play this card.
• Sangan
• This indirectly hits Tour Guide and also takes the most powerful searcher out of the game.
• Card Destruction
• This card is ridiculous in Dark Worlds.  Not only is the minus from playing this card canceled out by discarding all of your Dark World Monsters, you also get to disrupt your opponent's hand.
• Future Fusion
• This card is a 1-card FTK.  It also facilitates OTK's in Chaos Dragons and such.
• Gateway of the Six
• You don't deserve to win just because you play Six Samurai and opened with this card.  If this doesn't get banned, then I'd be happy with Six Samurai United being Limited.
• Limiter Removal
• You don't deserve to win just because you play Machines and drew this card.
• Mind Control
• In practically every tournament report that I used this card in, I stated that I still want it banned.  The fact that it can steal anything, including face-downs, is too good, and this card only gets better as new cards are released.
• Monster Reborn
• This card can bail you out of almost any situation.  You can play horribly and overextend as much as you want if this is in your hand, since after your opponent runs out of answers, you just drop this and win.  Or, you can top this in a losing situation and win.

Limited:

• Archlord Kristya
• Yes, this card isn't played anymore, but it's still powerful enough to warrant being it.  And Herald of Perfection decks can still use this for an untouchable lock-down.
• Grapha, Dragon Lord of Dark World
• A Dark World discard effect that destroys anything and can turn all of your Dark Worlds into 2700 ATK floaters once it's been discarded?  Yeah, no.
• Infernity Archfiend
• Infernities have been getting better and better as new sets have been released.  With Lavalval Chain, Daigusto Emeral, Void Orge Dragon, and now Gagaga Gunman, I think that the ridiculous OTK loops should be put to an end.
• Inzektor Dragonfly
• This is the problem behind Inzektors.  Yes, Hornet should have never existed, but nothing short of a ban on Hornet will curb this deck's power enough.  Limiting Dragonfly stops the crazy perpetual plus-4, though it still allows the deck a great deal of power.  Maybe Inzektors can play Beetron if this happens...
• Judgment Dragon
• Besides it having a broken effect, the main problem I have with this card is that once you can drop one, you can drop all three.
• Rescue Rabbit
• This is basically exactly like Rescue Cat, but it usually results in a 2400 ATK Solemn Judgment (Evolzar Laggia), a 2300 ATK double Divine Wrath (Evolzar Dolkka), or a 2550 ATK Special Summon lock-down with immunity from Spells/Traps (Verz Ophion).
• Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon
• This has been one of the most powerful cards in the game for the longest time.  It has just been too inconsistent until we got Eclipse Wyvern.  But now, Limiting this will weaken both Chaos Dragons and Hieratics, but still allow both of them to be playable decks (not that that has any relevance when creating ideal ban lists).
• Treeborn Frog
• I feel as though there should only be one of these in the game.  It effectively negates the cost of Tribute Summoning, which is really powerful in slower formats.  And with this at 1, it'll actually be susceptible to D.D. Crow.  Again, it's partially Swap Frog's fault for being able to dump multiple Frogs to the Graveyard by itself, so maybe I should want Swap Frog Limited instead.
• Wind-Up Rat
• This one is arguable, but I think that this is the main problem with Wind-Ups.  The combination of Rat and Zenmaity allow Wind-Ups to drop a series of Rank 3 Xyz Monsters.  With either one of them Limited, then the Hunter loop only hits two cards and the deck can't swarm.  I chose Rat over Zenmaity for being Limited because Rat is the instant Rank 3 Xyz, whereas Zenmaity just grabs another Wind-Up after you've already committed two cards (unless one of them was Rat...).
• Mystical Space Typhoon
• With Heavy Storm legal, MST becomes incredibly powerful.  If we could go back to the days where Heavy Storm and MST were both Limited, then I'd be happy.  Of course, Konami may just decide to ban Heavy Storm again and leave us with three MST's.  Having played through a year without Heavy Storm, I realize that I don't really care what happens to Heavy Storm.  If everyone plays Stun decks, it makes it a lot easier to win, since you aren't losing on turn three to OTK's half the time.
• Rekindling
• This card can make you Shooting Quasar Dragon at a plus.  Yeah, no.
• Royal Tribute
• Just because Gravekeeper's are bad doesn't mean that this card isn't broken.
• Shien's Smoke Signal
• This was only Semi-Limited because Konami wanted to sell their Structure Deck.  Hopefully it'll be Limited again, since Six Samurai shouldn't have this much consistency.
• Wind-Up Factory
• I realize that many Wind-Up decks don't even use Factory, but it's still the Black Whirlwind of Wind-Ups.  If you can't get rid of Factory, then your opponent will never run out of Wind-Up Monsters.
• Solemn Warning
• Summon negation without any loss in card advantage is too powerful.
• Ultimate Offering
• This card is absolutely crazy in Offering Gadgets, which has been doing very well in Japan from what I've been seeing.  Konami probably won't hit this because then people won't buy Return of the Duelist for Gear Gigant X, but hopefully something is done about this.

Semi-Limited:

• Master Hyperion
• The Agent of Creation - Venus
• The Agent of Mystery - Earth
• I think that Agents were hit a little too hard with Earth to 1.  The deck honestly wasn't that good or powerful, it was just that multiple Hyperions could cause a great deal of trouble.  With Hyperion, Venus, and Earth all moved to two (along with T.G. Striker at 3), the deck should be balanced.
• Hieratic Seal of Convocation
• This is a powerful search card for a fairly powerful deck.  I feel as though it should be hit in some way, since if everything else is slowed down, this Hieratics will become the fastest deck.
• Miracle Fusion
• I think that it's time HEROes got hit in some way.  With Blade Armor Ninja and Heroic Champion Excalibur, HEROes have been given multiple ways to OTK.  I think that banning Stratos may do the trick, but that may be a little harsh.  Semi-Limiting Miracle Fusion would solve the same problem I have with Hyperion, which is that being able to drop multiples make it too powerful.

Unlimited:

• Glow-Up Bulb
• Spore
• Dandylion should've been banned instead of these two Plant Tuners.  Yes, they can revive themselves, but Spore at least requires some deck dedication.  Glow-Up Bulb could stay banned for all I care, as long as Spore and Dandylion switch places.
• T.G. Striker
• Yes, Konami hit this card to stop people from playing T.G. Agents in the OCG and also to stop people from playing Synchros, but this card isn't broken, and I want it to come back.  I miss playing T.G. Zombies...
• Magical Stone Excavation
• Who cares if this is at three?  The decks that would use three have access to Spell Reproduction anyways.
• Primal Seed
• Even if BLS is legal, no one would use this card.

But yeah, that about does it for what I hope happens.  If I wanted to be selfish, I could ask for Goyo Guardian and/or Trishula to be unbanned, as well as Mezuki being Semi-Limited or Unlimited, but I'd prefer a balanced game rather than my own selfish wishes.  There's probably also some stuff that I missed and whatnot, but it doesn't really matter.

So yeah, the ban list should be out in about five weeks, so I guess that's what we'll all be waiting for.

Also, I put up another Heavy Storm poll like I did a year ago.  I'm interested in seeing what you guys think should happen to Heavy Storm...

Tournament Report 7/8/12

As I said in my previous post, I attended locals once more today.  Before the tournament, I played some Kaijudo against AquaBass.  Of course, I won.  I mean, it's not really fair when I have access to three Battle Decks and can make whatever deck I want.  He's not bad, though, so it was still a challenge.

Anyways, there were about 42 people there today, with a lot of newbs.  Like, not newbs that don't have good decks, but newbs who had stuff like Inzektors and Dino Rabbit but had no idea how to use them correctly.  Like, I saw one of them try to send Inzektor Hopper to the Graveyard as an Equip Card when Banisher of the Radiance was on the field.  It was pretty bad...  But yeah, I was running my Nordic Diva deck.

Round 1: vs Stun

-Duel 1: I opened with Super-Nimble Mega Hamster, Deep Sea Diva, and Heavy Storm.  So, I could destroy his whole back row and combo off on him pretty easily.  He did have stuff like Fossil Dyna Pachycephalo, but Ryko and Torrential Tribute dealt with those.

-Duel 2: He opened with two back rows.  I summoned Reborn Tengu and attacked directly before Setting two back rows.  He played Dark Hole, then Mirror of Oaths on the Tengu that I Special Summoned.  I was pretty surprised, as it made the Tengu that would normally be a plus into an even trade.  From there, I used a Ryko to get rid of a Fossil Dyna, and he used Torrential Tribute on my Deep Sea Diva play.  I then lost the Hamster in my hand to Spirit Reaper, but topped a Reaper of my own and Set it.  He topped Caius the Shadow Monarch to banish my Reaper, but I banished his Caius with Bottomless Trap Hole.  He drew a Rai-Oh soon after and beat me down for a few turns.  I was eventually able to use Torrential Tribute once he summoned another Monster, and after that he drew no more Monsters.  So, I was able to draw a Guldfaxe and beat him down with it for like four turns for game.

OO

Round 2: vs Six Samurai

This was my Round 4 opponent from this tournament.  He made his deck from one Structure Deck and spare Six Samurai cards he picked up.

-Duel 1: He opened with two Six Samurai United, Elder, and Kizan.  He drew four cards off of his Uniteds, then Set two back rows and ended.  I ran over the Elder with Reborn Tengu, Set a back row and ended.  He Special Summoned Grandmaster and another Kizan.  They ripped through my Tengus (which is why I didn't play Tengu in the Six Samurai format...), and he ended.  I set Super-Nimble Mega Hamster and ended.  He summoned Kageki and Special Summoned Mizuho with its effect.  He tributed Kageki for Mizuho's effect, but I negated it with Effect Veiler.  He then attacked my Hamster, which got a Ryko, which destroyed his Set Solemn Judgment when he attacked it.  After the following direct attacks, I was extremely low on LP.  All I had was another Ryko; I couldn't deal with his swarm.

-Duel 2: My starting hand included Tragoedia, three Hamsters, and two other Monsters.  I just Set the Hamster and ended.  He summoned Hand of the Six Samurai, then Kizan and Grandmaster.  He misplayed with his Hand, though, and since he destroyed by Hamster, but didn't destroy my Tragoedia after I used it to block.  With that Tragoedia, I was able to beat him down, and he wasn't able to summon Shi En, which made my job easier, I guess.  He did clear out my field with Dark Hole after a while, but he was down so many cards that it didn't matter.

-Duel 3: He opened with two United, Dojo, Kagemusha, Kizan, Grandmaster, leaving him with Shi En, Kizan, Grandmaster, two back rows, and two cards in hand.  I was able to drop Gorz, but he had Mirror Force.  I then tried a Black Rose Dragon play with Guldfaxe and Lost Blue Breaker, but he had Musakani Magatama.  To add insult to injury, he then topped Gateway and played it to continue to swarm.  I was able to make another Level 7 Synchro, but since my Black Rose was already gone, I had to use Scrap Archfiend.  In this case, I feel like I might've had a chance if I were running two Black Rose Dragons, but I really couldn't do much against his constant swarming.

XOX

Seriously, I've been trying to make my deck better against the good Six Samurai decks that focus on the lock down that Shi En provides, but I keep playing against the Six Samurai decks that play very few Traps and rely entirely on swarming.  It's kind of aggravating, since my deck is too passive to deal with them, short of something like Morphing Jar #2.  Perhaps I should try that out or something...

Round 3: vs HERO Beat

This was my Round 5 opponent from this tournament.

-Duel 1: He went first with E - Emergency Call and Reinforcement of the Army.  He grabbed Alius, then Stratos to grab another Alius.  I had an Effect Veiler, but I decided not to use it, wanting to save it for a Blade Armor Ninja or something, seeing as how he already had another Alius.  Perhaps that was a mistake, but I don't remember it affecting the game that much.  The main problem this duel was that the only Monster I drew were that Veiler, a Guldfaxe, and later, another Veiler.  I seem to draw like this against HERO Beat a lot, huh.  I was desperate enough to Monster Reborn his Rai-Oh, but he used Honest with his Alius to kill it.  From there, I just lost to Alius beat down and a Miracle Fusion.

-Duel 2: I drew a much more aggressive hand, so I Set Ryko and two back rows.  He played Heavy Storm, which was what I was fearing, which is why one of my Traps was Gleipnir, letting me search a Tanngnjostr (black goat).  The other one was Chaos Trap Hole, which he read while I was searching for Gleipnir; he said something along the lines of "that's pretty neat" before going to read the Tanngnjostr.  He then summoned Beast King Barbaros and ran over my Ryko, which destroyed his Barbaros.  When Ryko was destroyed, I got to summon my Tanngnjostr.  He Set one card and ended.  I used Tanngnjostr's effect to grab Guldfaxe and Synchro Summon Scrap Archfiend and attack.  I then Set three cards, now safe from Heavy Storm, and he hit my Dust Tornado with his MST in the End Phase.  He didn't seem to have any Monsters, as he just Set a back row and ended.  I attacked again with Scrap Archfiend, then Set a Tanngrisnir (white goat).  He Set a Monster and ended.  I summoned Deep Sea Diva to grab Lost Blue Breaker, then Flip Summoned my Tanngrisnir.  I Synchro Summoned Scrap Dragon and used its effect to destroy my Scrap Archfiend and his Set Fossil Dyna Pachycephalo.  He laughed, and after he showed me the Fossil Dyna, I laughed and said, "Thought so."  I simply attacked directly with Scrap Dragon for game, ignoring his one back row since I had Solemn Judgment Set since turn three.

-Duel 3: He went first with Stratos into Alius, Duality into Miracle Fusion, and one Set back row.  I played MST and Soul Taker to clear the field, then summoned Spirit Reaper to try and knock the Miracle Fusion out of his hand, but I only hit a Photon Thrasher.  My opponent's friend (my Round 2 opponent from this tournament) who was sitting next to me was sad to see the Photon Thrasher discarded, since he had recommended it to my opponent.  I didn't have any back row, so I just ended.  He used Miracle Fusion to grab The Shining and push some damage through my Spirit Reaper.  I switched it to Defense Position and Set a Ryko.  He summoned Alius and attacked my Ryko with The Shining.  I destroyed his Alius, then Special Summoned Tanngnjostr (black goat).  He Set a back row and ended.  I switched Tanngnjostr to Attack Position to trigger its effect and Special Summoned Guldfaxe.  I considered making Thor using all of my Monsters, but I wanted to keep Spirit Reaper alive in case Thor got Warning'd or Bottomless'd.  So, I summoned Lost Blue Breaker and combined it with my Nordic Beasts to Synchro Summon Thor.  Unfortunately, he played Super Polymerization, Fusion Summoning Elemental HERO Gaia to destroy my Spirit Reaper with its effect.  I still didn't have any back row, so he was able to swing for game on the following turn.

XOX

Having lost two matches, I decided to drop, since there was no point in continuing.  I got another Rare Gozen Match from my Turbo Pack 8, so that wasn't bad.  Many of the other regulars had decided to drop by this point; though AquaBass and Round 2 opponent from this tournament went X-1 and got Hobby League cards.  My Round 4 opponent from yesterday won the tournament with his Wind-Ups.  It makes me kind of want to play Infernities, but topping Infernity Archfiend doesn't really mean anything if they have Solemn Warning down after Wind-Up Hunter looping you.

Anyways, after the tournament, my Round 2 opponent from today, AquaBass, vadangchoinga, and Round 2 opponent from this tournament (who really needs a name so that I can refer to him more easily) all played Kaijudo and such.  Yeah, I'm still really excited for The Dojo Edition.

But yeah, I also was able to make a few trades.  I traded away my Super Rare Upstart Goblin and both Ultra Rare Skill Drains for two Super Rare Forbidden Lances, a Duel Terminal Book of Moon, a Parallel World Fusion, a Duel Terminal Black Horn of Heaven, two Common Skill Drains, a damaged Common Royal Decree, and a Hieratic Sun Dragon Overlord of Heliopolis.  Finally, I have a generic Rank 8 Xyz Monster, which could help if I decide to play Dark Worlds or something.

So yeah, I'm not sure what I want to do for next week.  There will be a Battle Pack tournament on Saturday before the usual tournament, but as for what deck I'm going to bring for the normal tournaments, I'm not entirely sure.  I'll probably just get lazy and bring my Nordic Diva deck again, regardless.