Vanguard Regional Report

So, I was at the Vanguard Regional/National all weekend.  Since it's Vanguard and basically every game is "I trigger sacked/my opponent trigger sacked/I got gradestuck at [insert integer from 0 to 2]/my opponent got gradestuck", I'm not going to be posting details of each game.  But yeah...

So, I took my friend who plays Vanguard to the event, and we signed up for the Regional.  We had both preregistered, so we were guaranteed spots, but we still had to wait in line for like an hour.  What was cool was that we got free stuff for entering, including a deck box and a storage box.  I ended up being in C Block, while he was in F Block.  For those of you who don't know what that means, I'll explain the tournament structure.

It's best-of-one double-elimination.  So, each round is one game, and if you lose two games, you're eliminated from the tournament.  Everyone was split into blocks, and there was no tournament-structure-based reason for this.  Basically, everything was done on paper; every player had a score sheet, and they'd mark off their results.  Judges would verify the results, then collect the papers after each round, then pair people with people who had the same record.  They would do this by placing the score sheets on the tables, and the players would have to go and find their own score sheet, as opposed to crowding around a board with names and corresponding table numbers on them.  There are pro's and con's to any tournament structure, but the main flaw was that this tournament structure didn't really take into account tie-breakers when pairing players.  Tie-breakers for X-1's at the end of the tournaments were calculated based on when those players took their one loss.  But yeah, the reason for the blocks is so that it would be easier for the judges to pair people, since they'd only have to keep track of a subset of players.  Blocks were merged as the tournament progressed.

So yeah, I used my Invincible Overlord deck, and my friend used his Gold Paladins.

I won my first round against a competent Gold Paladin (Spectral Duke) player (neither of us really got triggers all game), lost my second round against a Gold Paladin (Garmore/Pellinore) player, won my third round against an incompetent Angel Feather player, won my fourth round against something (it was probably Narukami, but I don't remember), and lost for the second time in the fifth round against a good Kagero player.  I decked out in that fifth round, so that was significant.

My friend lost his first round against Soulless Oracle Think Tank, won his second round, and lost his third round.  When we had both lost twice, we went to play in the "Free Fight" event to get the free promo cards (Dragonic Vanisher and Sphere Magus).  Yeah, you could get both promos by just playing four rounds of casual play.  There was nothing remarkable about this side event, except that my friend was able to superior ride Pellinore twice in one turn.  Unsurprisingly, that was the final turn of that game.

With that, we left to go to the evening Vanguard tournament at the other card shop (by "other," I mean not the usual card shop).  My friend gave me the fourth Azure Dragon and the fourth Three Minutes, but he didn't have the Twin Blader.  So, I just fixed up my Nova Grappler deck as best I could and decided to use it in the tournament.  There were 24 players there.

Round 1: vs Gold Paladin

This guy was like emo or something, since he was always looking down and talking in a really dreary voice.  It's not that he was shy, it was something else...  But yeah, I lost to getting gradestuck in the first game and taking a double Critical Trigger in the third game.

Round 2: vs Angel Feather

This was my Round 3 opponent from this Vanguard tournament.  He abandoned his Royal Paladins or something.  But yeah, I won the first fight, but lost the other two.  My Nova Grapplers are generally weak against Angel Feather because I can't rush them for early damage that easily.

But yeah, with that, I was basically done.  Although there was no chance for me to top, I played the last two rounds for fun.  But yeah, not important.  My friend ended up going 3-1 after losing the first round to Soulless Oracle Think Tank.  He didn't top, so we left.

And, on the following day, we returned to the convention center for the Vanguard Nationals and team tournament.  This time, Aki was able to come too, and together we were Team Snogal.  Yes.  We were one of the first few teams to register apparently, since we were team number 007.  Yes.  We also got more free stuff for entering this tournament; they basically gave us the same goodie bags as from yesterday's Regional.  But yeah, we didn't really put any thought into the team order, since my friend just grabbed the first lanyard and I took the third one, leaving Aki with the second one.  I was playing Nova Grapplers, Aki was playing Narukami, and my friend was playing Royal Paladins, since his Golden Pals had failed him so badly yesterday.  Aki was able to get two Vermillions and a second perfect guard for his deck, so that was good.

By the way, the format for the team tournament was best-of-one matches, but the collective score for the team would determine which team won.  So basically, the team to win two games would win.

Round 1: vs Gold Paladin

I went first, but when I rode to Grade 2, I rushed him so fast that he couldn't do anything.  He was at like five damage by the time he got to Grade 3.  Aki lost to Granblue and my friend won against Dark Irregulars.

OXO

Round 2: vs Angel Feather

My worst match-up, apparently.  He rode Thousand-Ray, then Million-Ray Pegasus, so I couldn't rush him.  He didn't even know what he was doing most of the time, but I still lost, sadly.  Aki ended up losing too, so despite my friend's win, our team lost this round.

OXX

Round 3: vs Spike Brothers

I couldn't rush him very effectively, since he drew a decent amount of 10k shields.  He then rode up to the Limit Break guy and used all of his Counterblasts on one big push.  I got a Stand Trigger as a damage, so I was able to survive, but I couldn't do anything on the turn after, so I lost anyways.  Aki also lost, while my friend won.  What was odd was that in each of these three rounds, my friend would always finish first, winning his game, then Aki would finish after that, losing his game, and then the result of the match would depend on me.  I'm playing Nova Grapplers, my games are supposed to be quicker than that, yo.

OXX

With that, we were eliminated from the team tournament.  So, we just entered the Free Fight side event again to get more free cards.  This time, it was Exile Dragon and some other terrible Kagero card.  Aki gave me his terrible card, and I gave both of them to my friend in exchange for his Exile Dragon.

We then did some trading.  My friend traded away his Pellinores for Dark Irregular stuff and some Nova Grappler stuff for me.  I traded my Sphere Magus for a Dark Lord of Abyss for him.  Aki and I also bought some random Commons and Rares, including one and a half sets of the Galahad ride chain between us.  I got the whole set for myself, but Aki was supposed to get some from his friend, so he didn't want to buy the whole set.  I was also able to sell my Granblue perfect guard for $13, and I traded by Spike Brothers perfect guard for a Twin Blader.  So now, the net total of all of the money I've spent on Vanguard is $53.  I'm going to work on getting that number to zero by winning cards and selling them.

So yeah, that's basically everything relevent that happened over this past weekend.  Now I can concentrate less on Vanguard and more on Kaijudo, since the new set is coming out next week.  But yeah, that's about it...