Tournament Report 10/27/12

As usual, I've got a triple tournament report for you, starting with the small Vanguard tournament at the usual card shop.

Before that, though, my friend who plays Vanguard brought me most of his Nova Grappler stuff; all that was missing was his one Twin Blader, his third Azure Dragon, and his one copy of Three Minutes.  So, I made the deck without those, opting to use a ninth Stand Trigger over the one Three Minutes that I lacked.  I also used an Azura Kaiser over the fourth Azure Dragon that I didn't have at the moment.  And, that's the deck I used for the small tournament.

In the first round, I played against the Spectral Duke Dragon Gold Paladin player I had played against in the fourth round from last week's small Vanguard tournament.  He got his ride chain off perfectly, and I wasn't able to rush him very effectively, so I lost.

My friend also lost, and we ended up getting paired up against each other in the second round.  So, we both just dropped and used the few Narukami cards he brought to make a deck for Aki.  At this point, it lacked Garudas, Dragonic Deathscythes, and basically all of the good cards.  It was pretty bad, honestly.  But yeah, we were just using what we had.  We were planning on making it better later that day, so yeah.

A while after that, the Yu-Gi-Oh tournament started.  There were only 14 players there today, since there was a Regional about an hour away, which I didn't bother to go to.  I was using my Nordic Diva deck, of course.  I really do want to try making other decks, but I don't really have time.  The only reason I have time to think of new Vanguard decks is because they're so easy to make.  Like, I thought of one on the way home from school on Friday (a Nubatama/Royal Paladin hybrid using the Galahad ride chain).  But that's besides the point...

Round 1: vs Chaos Dragons

This was my Round 1 opponent from last week's Yu-Gi-Oh tournament.  We were even sitting at the same table as last time.  He told me that he tried going to the Regional, but he was turned away since there were too many people, not unlike the previous Regional I tried to attend.

-Duel 1: He OTK'd me with Dark Armed Dragon, Black Luster Soldier - Envoy of the Beginning, and Darkflare Dragon...
-Duel 2: I went for an OTK with T.G. Hyper Librarian, Scrap Dragon, and Thor, but he guarded with Tragoedia, leaving himself at 1700 LP. He had no follow-up, so he just scooped afterwards.
-Duel 3: I summoned Thor and just beat his face in.  Effect Veiler and Bottomless Trap Hole protected Thor from Chaos Sorcerer and BLS, so there were no problems for me.

XOO

Round 2: vs Inzektors

This was my Round 5 opponent from this Yu-Gi-Oh tournament.

-Duel 1: He drew Dragonfly, Hornet, and Monster Reborn, so he won.
-Duel 2: He didn't draw any Inzektors except Centipede, so I won.  That's honestly what it comes down to now.
-Duel 3: He drew Dragonfly, Hornet, Centipede, and Ladybug.  He opened with Dragonfly into Ladybug into Centipede into Tiras, searching Zektkaliber.  He later used Pot of Duality to grab BLS, and I couldn't deal with all of the advantage, so I lost.

XOX

He ended up playing the Duel Terminal and getting a bunch of the new Gem-Knight cards, which he gave to me, since he knows that I play Gem-Knights.  Now I have three Sardonyx, and I got them all for free.

Round 3: vs Dark Worlds

He was kind of a newb, but he at least knew how all of his cards worked and played fairly well.

-Duel 1: He Dragged me Down and spammed Grapha, like the deck is supposed to.  I couldn't make anything bigger than Grapha, so I lost.
-Duel 2: I just rushed him with a bunch of Synchros to win.
-Duel 3: Again, he opened with Grapha and I couldn't make anything bigger than it.  I had a Dimensional Fissure, but he had two MST's.

XOX

With that, I decided to drop.  I just played Vanguard with my friend for a bit, then we left for the other Vanguard tournament.  Earlier, he had given me another Dragonic Overlord so that I could play a fourth one, and I changed up my Invincible Overlord deck a little bit.  But yeah, there were like 18 players there today.

Round 1: vs Oracle Think Tank (Tsukuyomi)

This was the same OTT player from Round 4 of this tournament.

-Fight 1: He missed his Grade 1 Tsukuyomi, riding Circle Magus instead.  I opened with a bunch of Grade 2's, so I just rushed him.  He couldn't really defend himself that well, so I was able to win with just random rush tactics.
-Fight 2: He got his ride chain off perfectly, but he didn't really commit to the field at all.  I understand that Tsukuyomi players tend to hold everything in their hand so that they can guard long enough to get to their stack, but it seems silly when your opponent gets to save all of their cards, too.  Either way, I just beat him up with my winning image while memorizing his whole hand.  There were times in the match were I was like, "You're going to intercept, then guard with a Tsukuyomi from your hand, right?" and he'd be all like, "Yeah, pretty much."  Either way, he got all of his Critical Triggers early when I was easily guarding them, so he couldn't apply much pressure late game.  The game went on long enough so that he decked out.  Yeah, he decked out before me, but that's mainly because he used Tsukuyomi's Counterblast four times over the course of the fight, and I didn't ride Mr. Invincible until later.

OO

Round 2: vs Royal Paladin

I was paired down against a little kid.  He didn't know all of the rules, so I was teaching him while we played.  But yeah, I won 2-0.

Round 3: vs Gold Paladin

This was the same fairly incompetent Gold Paladin player from Round 1 of last week's Vanguard tournament.  He's been getting better though.  He still plays stuff like Nemean Lion and the Grade 3 Sagramore, though...  Oh, and I was paired down again.

-Fight 1: He got some Critical Triggers early on, so I was at five damage pretty early.  I ended up having to minimum guard against his Vanguard, and he flipped two Critical Triggers...
-Fight 2: I got gradestuck on Grade 2 for a turn, which was pretty bad.  I just couldn't amass a field, since I had to guard for a bunch against all of his columns, so I lost.

XX

The tournament organizer decided to cut to Top 4 at this point.  I was the lowest 2-1, since I was paired down twice, so I didn't make it.  How sad.  Well, whatever.  My friend ended up getting a bunch of Narukami stuff from his friend, including Garudas and Deathscythes.  I also traded him some bad Kagero cards for all of the other stuff in his Narukami deck except the Vermillions, which he was supposed to give to my friend, but decided to keep because he likes to be irritating.

I also traded some of the Spike Brothers stuff I had been getting from my packs of Set 2 for a third Thunder Break Dragon.  With that, I was able to make a decent Narukami deck without Vermillions.  The main Vanguard is Thunder Break Dragon, of course, with Djinn of the Lightning Flash and Breakthrough Dragon as decent alternatives.  I made it according to Aki's specifications, with four Dragonic Deathscythes, since they're cool, and Spark Kid Dragoon as the starting Vanguard.  Also, I found out that Narukami has more than one Stand Trigger, so that's cool.  And since we're not using Vermillion, we can actually use Stand Triggers.

But yeah, assuming my friend brings the three Nova Grappler cards I still need next weekend, we'll be ready for the team tournament on Sunday.  And there's also the Vanguard Regional on Saturday, but that's not really the main point.  I mean, it takes a lot of luck to make it through 7-9 best-of-one double-elimination rounds in a game like Vanguard.  But whatever, I'll just mess with people with my Invincible Overlord deck, then play in the team tournament with my friend and Aki the following day.