Tournament Report 10/20/12

As usual, I wasn't able to post during the week because school takes up a lot of time, but I was able to go to locals.  My friend who plays Vanguard gave me a Wyvern Guard, Barri, but I wasn't able to use it since I needed a fourth Dragonic Overlord to make it consistent enough to warrant playing.  He also gave me a Magician Girl, Kirara, which I put in my Invincible Overlord deck.  He didn't bring any other cards, despite me asking him to bring all of his Nova Grappler and Kagero stuff so that I could get my deck ready for the Vanguard Regional in two weeks.  But whatever, there's still time, I guess.

So, first was the small Vanguard tournament.  I was paired up against a Granblue player who didn't seem to use math when we played.  I had to ride up to Dragonic Overlord, and he filled his front row with 10k's without boosters.  So he kept attacking my 11k Dragonic Overlord with stuff like Commodore Blueblood, and he'd ask me why I don't take damage.  He caught on after a while, though.  It didn't matter, since he didn't get many triggers, while I just kept killing his rear-guards before killing him.  Since he basically couldn't damage me for most of the game, I had a bunch of 10k shields in my hand by the end of the game.

In the second round, I was up against my opponent from the finals of this small Vanguard tournament.  He was running Royal Paladins.  Basically what happened was that he attacked with his Vanguard Gancelot that had an extra Critical from its effect, then he got a Draw Trigger and a Critical Trigger to push through my two-to-pass guard.  Needless to say, I didn't get any Heal Triggers, so I lost.

After that, I played against a Narukami player in the third round, since there were actually enough players there to give prizes past 1st place.  I got my winning image of Mr. Invincible and Dragonic Overlord to put constant pressure on him and win.

In the fourth round, I played against a Spectral Duke Dragon-based Gold Paladin deck.  Basically what happened is that he got two Critical Triggers to push through my two-to-pass guard.  Yeah... Now, don't be fooled into thinking that it's bad to guard for two-to-pass.  Statistically, it's the best way to guard, unless you have an abundance of shields.

So yeah, I didn't win anything, and neither did my friend who plays Vanguard.  I then entered the Yu-Gi-Oh tournament with my Nordic Diva deck.  There were about 18 people there today (really yesterday, since it's after midnight).

Round 1: vs Dark Worlds

-Duel 1: He didn't draw Grapha, so I was able to completely dominate him with a Scrap Dragon.  It made me miss playing Scraps...
-Duel 2: He didn't draw any back row removal, so I was able to completely shut him down with two Dimensional Fissures.  It's a good card, yo.

OO

Round 2: vs Newbie Dino-Rabbit

My opponent here was a little kid who kept talking about how people always underestimated him because he was a little kid.  He had a full Dino-Rabbit deck with everything a... more experienced... Dino-Rabbit would use, but he still played it wrong.  I 2-0'd him after struggling a little bit since he drew both of his Rabbits in the first duel.

OO

Round 3: vs Counter Fairies with Agents

-Duel 1: I used Bottomless Trap Hole on his Bountiful Artemis, baited out all of his back row, then I summoned Catastor.  Yeah, he tried to use Hyperion, but Effect Veiler is a good card.
-Duel 2: I baited out all of his back rows, which forced him to minus since he didn't draw Bountiful Artemis, then summoned Catastor.  Yeah, Catastor is a good card.

OO

Round 4: vs Machina Geargia

This was my Round 4 opponent from this tournament.  Apparently he switches decks a lot, and it was his second time playing with Geargia.  Also, this happened to be the finals, since there were so few people.  We didn't even discuss splitting, since the prizes were fairly low anyways.

-Duel 1: I opened with Spined Gillman and milled Lost Blue Breaker with Ryko, so that when I needed to make a Catastor with Deep Sea Diva to stop him from killing me with Machina Fortress, I couldn't.  Quite sad.
-Duel 2: I threw my Thought Ruler Archfiend into a Mirror Force, then revived it with Monster Reborn a few turns later.  His only answer to that was Machina Fortress, but I always save a Bottomless Trap Hole for Fortress, so I banished it.  He had nothing else, so I won with Thought Ruler.
-Duel 3: He gained advantage slowly with his Geargia engine, while I just kept Setting cards.  After a while, when I was at 1700 LP to his 8000 LP, he left three Machine Monsters out.  Alright, Cyber Dragon into Chimeratech Fortress Dragon at 4000 ATK.  That took out half of his LP in one swing.  He Special Summoned his own Cyber Dragon and tried to fuse it with my Chimeratech Fortress Dragon, but Chimeratech Fortress Dragon cannot be used as a Fusion Material, so he was left there with a vulnerable Cyber Dragon.  I ran it over with my Fortress Dragon, then Set a Super-Nimble Hamster.  He summoned Geargiarsenal after using Mind Control to steal my Hamster.  He overlaid to make Utopia and stall for a bit.  But it didn't matter, I was able to clear out his field in a few turns and win with attacks from another Hamster and Reborn Tengu.

XOO

With that, I went undefeated and got 1st place.  I used my store credit to get sleeves for Aki and vadangchoinga (who now owes me $5), as well as a double deck box for myself.  I spent the last few dollars on a couple of Battle Pack.  You know, those Epic Dawn ones that no one cares about anymore?  Well, I pulled a Rare Tour Guide, so that was cool.  I may or may not sell it, since I'm planning on getting three of the Hanzo tins, which have Tour Guides.  So, if I keep it, I'll have six Tour Guides.  Hmm, we'll see.

So after that was the Vanguard tournament at the other card shop.  There were only 11 people there for the tournament.

Round 1: vs Gold Paladin

This was the same fairly incompetent Gold Paladin player from last weekend.  He played somewhat better than last time, so that's good.

-Fight 1: He dumped his hand onto his field.  I killed all of his rear-guards.  Yeah, that's how my deck works.
-Fight 2: I didn't get a Grade 1, so I lost.
-Fight 3: I constructed my winning image to rip apart his field.  When I was attacking with Dragonic Overlord after using its Counterblast, I even told him that he didn't have enough to guard, since I had memorized his whole hand.  I can be quite evil sometimes.  It's the Stand Triggers, yo.

OXO

Round 2: vs Narukami

This was the same Narukami player that I played against in the third round of this small Vanguard tourmament.  Oddly enough, a third of the players here were running Narukami.  It was weird.

-Fight 1: Basically what happened is he got a Draw Trigger and a Critical Trigger to push through my two-to-pass guard when I was at four damage.  This happened to me too much today.
-Fight 2: I got gradestuck on Grade 2 and lost because of it.  At least Nehalem did a good job holding down the fort until I died was banished from the planet Cray.

XX

Round 3: vs Nova Grappler

This was my opponent from the semi-finals of this Vanguard tournament.

-Fight 1: I drew a bunch of my Grade 3's, so I didn't have enough to guard mid-game.  Not only that, but I had to anticipate Stand Triggers, so I basically just had to no-guard and hope for a Heal Trigger.  But yeah, I didn't get a Heal Trigger.
-Fight 2: I got gradestuck on Grade 1, so I lost.  This (getting gradestuck in general) happened to me too much today, as well.

XX

So, neither my friend nor I made it into the Top 4 this week, which was sad.  So, we just left after getting a few cards.  I was able to get two more Magician Girl, Kirara and a Beast Deity Azure Dragon for $16.  Yes, I spent a little more money on Vanguard, but I'll be selling some cards next weekend, so it'll even out.

Basically, those cards are going to be for the pure Nova Grappler deck I'm going to make.  But, why would I want to make a Nova Grappler deck?  Well, first of all, it's one of the clans that I like, mainly since it uses Stand Triggers.  But also, because the team tournament that Bushiroad is hosting on November 4 as a side event to the Vanguard National Championship requires single-clan decks.  I'm planning on entering with my friend who plays Vanguard and Aki.  My friend is supposed to be getting a Narukami deck for Aki, and hopefully that'll happen by next weekend so that Aki will have some time to practice with it.

But, back to the reason why I want to run Nova Grapplers.  I don't want to have to run a bunch of Grade 3's.  I know what those of you who play Nova Grapplers are thinking: "But Asura Kaiser and the Death Army people turn drive-checked Grade 3's into Stand Triggers!"  Yeah, but they don't turn them into shields for defending yourself.  I want to play a deck that runs as few as four Grade 3's, all of which are Azure Dragon.  Azure Dragon can be searched using the Grade 1 and 2 Beast Deities, so it'll hopefully work out.  I may play a fifth or sixth Grade 3 depending on how the deck shapes up, but I really don't want to play too many.

And for my Invincible Overlord deck, I feel like I want to run more Dragonic Overlord.  Every time I ride into Dragonic Overlord, the fact that it's an 11k Kagero helps a lot.  It lets me still use Kimnara and Gattling Claw Dragon, and it prevents Gold Paladins from making weak 15k lines to force 10k cards.  It'll also let me tech a Barri, so yeah.

By the way, I was able to finally use Mr. Invincible's Megablast today while playing against my friend's Royal Paladin deck.  I just attacked his rear-guard and he let it go, so my whole field stood back up.  Of course, that was because I hadn't drawn any Dragonic Overlords all game, so all of my damage was face-up.  So that was cool.