Tournament Report 12/29/12

So, I went to locals for the last time this year.  I have been wanting to post stuff other than tournament reports, but there hasn't been much to discuss, at least on the TCG side.  I haven't been keeping up with Fire Fists, Sacred (Constellar), and Verz (lswarm), but they're all doing stuff in the OCG, apparently.  I just haven't had the motivation to keep up with them anymore.  Part of that is because I've been playing Pokemon Colosseum (that really old game for the Gamecube with the Shadow Pokemon) and Assassin's Creed (both Revelations and 3).

But yeah, I went to the usual card shop for their Vanguard tournament yesterday.  There were actually like 16 players there.  Half of them were newbs who just started out, so yeah.  I was using my Blau-series Nova Grappler deck, since I actually wanted to win extra promo packs and try to pull No Life King, Death Anchor for Riku's Dark Irregulars deck.

In the first round, I played against a newbie with a Narukami Trial Deck who got gradestuck on Grade 2, so I won.  In the second round, I played against a newbie (Spectral Duke) Gold Paladin player, but I got gradestuck on Grade 0 for the whole game and lost, which is ridiculous since I play 16 Grade 1's.  For the third round, I played a mirror-match against one of the regulars who switches decks every week or something and won because he drew a bunch of Triggers.  In the last round, I played against a newbie (Spectral Duke) Gold Paladin player and won because I kept killing his rear-guards so he couldn't effectively put pressure on me.  However, I was paired down in that last round, which ruined my tiebreakers, so I didn't get any additional packs.  My friend (who still needs a name) got 2nd place with his Snogal Royal Paladins, but none of us pulled Death Anchors.

However, my friend brought all of his extra Dark Irregulars stuff for Riku, so we fixed his deck so he doesn't have to rely on Reijy and the Demon Bike things anymore.  Now it focuses on Demon Eater (until he gets Death Anchors) and Doreen to make 21k lines.

But yeah, after that was the other Vanguard tournament.  There were almost 30 players there or something.

Round 1: vs Shadow Paladin

Last week, I saw that this guy timed his Phantom Blaster Dragon very badly, so I wasn't too worried.  He didn't make any such mistakes this time, but it wasn't too difficult for me to win 2-1.  What was ridiculous is that he pulled his Critical Triggers as often as I did; he only has four, and I have twelve, so that shouldn't happen.

Round 2: vs Gold Paladin

This was the same Gold Paladin player that I played against in Round 1 of this Vanguard tournament.  I don't know what his deal is, since he always sighs before he does anything (including guarding, attacking, and even speaking...).  I asked why, and he responded with "Why do you hate me for guarding for so low?"  I told him that guarding one-to-pass on the Vanguard is wrong (in most situations), but he insisted that it was correct.  Well, I won 2-0, since he kept guarding one-to-pass on my Stern Blaukluger.  On the final turn of the second game, I did five damage, four of which was from Stern because he guarded one-to-pass (10k worth of shield) even though he had another 5k in his hand.  If he had guarded correctly, he would've taken two damage from the Critical Trigger, which would've gone to my rear-guard.  But instead, he tried to prove me wrong and lost because of it.  You can get lucky guarding one-to-pass against a Vanguard, but it's mathematically stupid.

Round 3: vs Dimensional Police

This was my Round 4 opponent from last weekend's Vanguard tournament.  For some reason, he likes to keep all of his cards in his hand instead of calling rear-guards.  So, although he had a bunch of cards to defend with, he couldn't force more than three cards out of my hand during each of his turns, meaning that my card advantage was keeping constant throughout the game.  Anyways, in the first game, he had like eleven cards in hand when my Vanguard Stern Blaukluger attacked his Enigman Storm.  He guarded two-to-pass and my first Drive Check was a Critical Trigger.  He was at four damage, and he had so many cards in hand, so he would've been able to guard even if I gave the Trigger to my rear-guard.  So, I gave it to my Vanguard and pulled a Heal Trigger to push through his guard and win.  Trigger-sacking at its finest.  I won the second game because I was able to whittle down his card advantage, but he didn't form any real rear-guard columns to pressure me with.

At this point, there were four undefeated players left, and the tournament organizer was in a bad mood and wanted to close early or something, so he cut to Top 4.  I made it, since I was undefeated.  The total prize pool was 22 packs, so we decided to split five packs each, then play our Top 4 pairing for the last two packs.  The winners of the two games would each get an extra pack, if that makes any sense.

Top 4: vs Gold Paladin

His starting Vanguard was Kyrph.  The other two Top 4 were both Spectral Duke Gold Paladin players.  Anyways, my opponent opened with two Gigantech Destroyers, so I was able to pressure him early.  He also used Kyrph's superior ride effect on his third turn (the turn where he could've normal ridden one of his Gigantech Destroyers) and used Ezel's Limit Break twice to call out a Speeder Hound and a Halo Shield, Mark.  He didn't trigger-sack me, so all of the early pressure I put on him helped me win the turn after that, since he didn't have much to guard with.

So, I won six packs of Set 4.  The only notable card I pulled was Blaster Dark, which I traded to the shop for a pack of sleeves for Aki.  I didn't even get any holos, and I already have all of the Commons and Rares that I would want from Set 4, so that sucked.

Either way, I was able to trade my Battle Sister Chocolat for a damaged Twin Blader and an Epitome of Knowledge, Silvest.  Now I have three Twin Bladers, so that's cool.  I'm going to add it to my deck and change it around a little bit.  Asura Kaiser has been pretty useless, so I might take it out for a third Moai the Great, which has been the opposite of useless.  Dancing Wolf has also been kind of useless; if my opponent can't guard Stern Blaukluger the first time, they probably won't be able to guard it the second time, especially if I get a Trigger.  Dancing Wolf pushes out another 5k guard on the second attack due to its +3k effect, but it seems like overkill.  So, I'll probably drop one for the third Twin Blader, and I'll drop the other Dancing Wolf for something else.  And, I'm considering using some Draw Triggers again, we'll see...