Tournament Report 1/26/13

As usual, I went to locals for the Vanguard tournaments.  Riku was kind enough to go out and get some Megacolony cards for me (two perfect guards and a Grade 3 Giraffa), which I traded some Psychic cards for so that he could make a new Yu-Gi-Oh deck.  That let me finish my Megacolony deck, more or less.

So, I used it for the tournament.  My friend who plays Vanguard was using the Kagero deck he put together randomly, and Riku decided to try out my Blau-series Nova Grappler deck.  Again, there were only six players, so it ended up being best-of-three.

Round 1: vs Dark Irregulars

I don't really think that this guy knew what he was doing.  He purposefully did not ride his Edel Rose (the fact that he was playing Edel Rose at all told me that he was a newb) until he planned on using its Counterblast.  So, I just beat up his rear-guards and saved a perfect guard for his Edel Rose's attack to win both games.  He did do one clever thing, though: he used Greedy Hand to put Werewolf Sieger into the Soul when he didn't get to ride it.

Round 2: vs Gold Paladin (Spectral Duke)

Another newb; I could tell because he was playing Blade Feather Valkyrie and Flash Edge Valkyrie.  He had the money for stuff like Ezel and Spectral Duke, so he should be able to afford Vivianes... Anyways, I got my Grade 1 Giraffa to ride over my Grade 0 Giraffa and grab my Grade 2 Giraffa both games, so I didn't have much difficulty winning.

Round 3: vs Kagero

I was up against my friend, and this was the finals.  He trigger-sacked me a bunch (he got all four Draw Triggers on trigger checks in the first game), but I trigger-sacked him back with my Stand Triggers.  I also was able to use my Grade 3 Giraffa's effect to retire all of his boosters, which made it quite easy to guard.  So, I was able to win both games.

I ended up getting 1st place, but neither my friend nor Riku topped.  Disgraceful.  Ha ha, just kidding.  But no, it is still disgraceful.  My friend's tiebreakers were bad (he got paired down in the second round), and I don't know what happened to Riku.  I'm pretty sure that he just didn't know how to use my deck properly.  He still expressed an interest in it, though, so we're planning on trading my Blau-series deck for his Dark Irregulars deck next weekend.  I'll have to show him how to use the deck when we do that, but it shouldn't be too hard; it's not a difficult deck.

Anyways, I got a total of four packs and pulled a Blaster Dark and a Phantom Blaster Dragon.  I asked Riku to sell the Dragon when he goes to the flea market next week, and I held on to the Blaster Dark.

While we waited for the next tournament, I taught Riku how to play Z/X.  Yeah, that new-ish card game that's out in Japan.  When I first heard about it, I asked Aki if he knew anything about it.  He surprisingly had a couple starter sets that he had gotten the last time he went to Japan.  So, we tried it out last weekend before recording duel videos and it is a very interesting card game.  I would say that it's almost as skill-intensive as Kaijudo.  But yeah, I taught Riku how to play and we played a few games.  We also played some Vanguard, and I used what I call my "most powerful deck".  It's the Royal Paladin/Nubatama deck featuring Hell Spiders and Silvest.  For some reason, I kept drawing the one Silvest I have, so I taught Riku and my friend the importance of 18k columns.

But yeah, last weekend, since we spent a lot of time on Z/X (each game takes a while), Aki and I decided to only record Kaijudo videos.  We didn't have any new Yu-Gi-Oh decks to use, so the content on my channel had been getting a little stale.  All Aki has is his HERO deck and his Wind-Up Rabbit deck (featuring Yubel).  All I've got are Nordic Diva, Scraps, Gem-Knights, and the Debris HERO deck I used for like two weeks.

So, the plan was for me to record some Yu-Gi-Oh duels at locals between the Vanguard tournaments.  The problem was that none of the really good players showed up today.  I mean, spondo was there, but that was about it.  But the end of the tournament, the people at the top tables were people whom I had seen earlier making ridiculous misplays with easy decks like Gravekeeper's.  This is what Yu-Gi-Oh has degenerated to, sadly.

I mean, this could just be an opportunity for me to start playing in Yu-Gi-Oh tournaments again and beating all of the bad players, but Yu-Gi-Oh isn't like that anymore.  Everyone plays decks that minimize player interaction nowadays; Mermails, Wind-Ups, Dino Rabbit, and even Six Samurai and Lightsworn.  It doesn't matter if you're better than them if there's no player interaction anymore.  It's sad, but now that I think about it, the decks that I've been considering using competitively (Gem-Knights and Infernities when Hidden Arsenal 7 comes out) also minimize player interaction; they test the skill of the user, but not the skill of the opponent.  I really enjoyed using my Nordic Diva deck because it forced my opponents to misplay all the time; it was a deck that thrived on the skill gap between myself and my opponents.  But, decks like that don't work anymore.

Ironically, Megacolony in Vanguard is a deck that has the same concept of testing the skill gap between myself and my opponents, which is why I enjoy the play-style of Megacolony despite not liking the artwork.  Obviously, it wasn't to the degree of Nordic Diva, but the underlying concept is still there.

So yeah, that was just a random rant about how Yu-Gi-Oh is still really broken.  Back to the original point, I was unable to record Yu-Gi-Oh videos for my YouTube channel.  So, it'll probably just be Kaijudo for now.  And, Aki and I won't be able to hang out again for a few weeks, so there aren't going to be many videos until then.

Anyways, there were a little over 20 people for the other Vanguard tournament.  Riku wasn't able to make it, though, so it was just my friend and I.

Round 1: vs Oracle Think Tank (Tsukuyomi)

This was my Round 2 opponent from this evening Vanguard tournament.  He switched to the Tsukuyomi build for some reason.  Before the tournament started, I asked if he had gotten Dark Cats from the new Trail Deck.  He said that he hadn't because he didn't want to waste $20 just to get Dark Cats.  That was disappointing because I was hoping to mooch off of him to get some of the Commons from the Trail Deck, ha ha.  Anyways, he had overwhelming hand advantage in the first game, so I knew that I couldn't win by normal means.  I set out to deck him out, but I ended up being 5k short of shields when he only had one card left in his deck, so I just barely lost.  I won the second game because he missed his Grade 2 Tsukuyomi, so I just rushed him.  I won the third game with early pressure, and when I was going in for my final turn, I used Master Beetle's Limit Break to stun most of his field, so even if he were able to survive, he wouldn't be able to make a comeback.

XOO

Round 2: vs Angel Feather (Ergodiel)

This was my opponent from the finals of this evening Vanguard tournament.  He purposefully did not ride a Grade 1 when he went first in an attempt to draw the Heavenly Injector.  That failed, and put him back quite a bit, so I was able to win easily.  I won with generic tactics in the second game, and he didn't get many triggers.

OO

Round 3: vs Megacolony

I watched him play earlier and I saw that his deck was pretty incoherent.  He played Violent Vesper on purpose (not because he didn't have other Grade 3's), but not only did he never have to ride it, but he also never pulled triggers off of its superior call effect.  That's pretty lucky... Anyways, I just wore him down with generic Megacolony tactics, then double-trigger-sacked him on the final turn of both games to win.

OO

With that, they cut to Top 8.  Being undefeated, I made it, but my friend was 2-1 with bad tie-breakers, so he didn't make it.

Top 8: vs Narukami

This was my Round 3 opponent from last weekend's morning Vanguard tournament.  I chuckled at how his Saishin was just sitting there, making a bad column behind his Garuda or his Deathscythe.  But, I pulled a total of five triggers for both games, so I obviously lost.

XX

Unfortunately, only Top 4 wins prizes, so I didn't get anything.  I just sold the Blaster Dark I pulled earlier and the Cosmo Beak I pulled from the entry pack to get some new sleeves.  I was able to buy a third Megacolony perfect guard off someone for cheap, though, so now I have three.  With that, my Megacolony deck is basically done.  I'll have to change the build once crossrides come out, unfortunately, but we'll see what happens.

After that, my friend helped me put together my random Oracle Think Tank deck that I'd use to teach new players how to play.  I barely had enough cards for it; I had exactly enough Grade 2's, and I had to use a bunch of random Grade 1's.  When I was messing around with the deck against my friend's Angel Feather deck, I had to keep riding the Grade 1 Tsukuyomi over my Little Witch, Lulu.  But yeah, the deck is really incoherent, so I need more Grade 1's.  I also had to proxy a Heal Trigger since I only have three Lozenge Magus...

But yeah, I think that that's about it.  I'll probably use my Megacolony deck next weekend, but I am prepared to trade my Blau-series Nova Grappler deck for Riku's Dark Irregulars.  So, we'll see what happens.

Tournament Report 1/19/13

This weekend was the "Vanguard Welcome Campaign" or something like that.  So I decided to go to the Vanguard tournament at the usual card shop, there were only six players, but they gave out free stuff, including deck boxes and Flash Decks, so that was cool.

I was using my Blau-series Nova Grappler deck, as usual, though I am trying out one Eisenkugel because 20k columns are really good.  Since there were so few people, the shopkeeper decided to make the matches best-of-three, finally.  So now it was actually somewhat serious, and will be getting more than just a paragraph in these tournament reports...

Round 1: vs Kagero (Goku)

This was the same Goku Kagero player from last weekend.  I was able to win 2-1 in fairly straightforward games.  The 20k columns helped beat him up when he had to ride either Goku or Dragonic Executioner (as opposed to Dragonic Overlord, which has 11k power).  I also found out that he plays 12 Crit, 2 Draw, 2 Heal as his trigger line-up, which is weird...

Round 2: vs Gold Paladin (Spectral Duke)

This was my Round 4 opponent from this morning Vanguard tournament.  He didn't get to use his ride chain, so my 20k columns beat him up. 2-0.

Round 3: vs Narukami

This was the same Narukami player from Round 3 of this morning Vanguard tournament.  I couldn't really do anything in the first game, and he opened with a really good hand in the second game, so I lost 0-2.

So that was it.  The Narukami player got 1st place, I got 2nd place, and the Goku Kagero player got 3rd.  My friend used a bad Royal Paladin deck (on purpose, not because he thought it was good) because he wanted to replicate this moment from the anime, which required him to run Flogals.  He ended up losing to the Narukami player in the second round, then the Goku Kagero player in the third round (his Snogals became extinct, ha ha).  But yeah, with that, he's going to give Royal Paladins a rest for now.

Anyways, I ended up getting two packs of Set 4, in addition to my entry packs (a pack of Set 4 and a promo pack, the latter of which was garbage).  I didn't open up the packs of Set 4 because I'm going to give them to Aki, since he wanted to buy Set 4 for some reason.

Riku met up with us afterwards and we added Knowledge Drunkards to his deck to try them out.  I was also able to trade for some more Megacolony stuff, so that was cool.  My friend and I also went around asking our friends for some random cards from Cosmo Blazer, since the Sneak Preview was today.  He got some Gagaga cards, and I got some random Commons and Rares.  It's not enough to really do anything with, but I'll probably get some packs of Cosmo Blazer eventually.

After that, we went to the other card shop for their Vanguard tournament.  Before the tournament, I was able to trade the No Life King, Death Anchor I pulled last weekend for a fourth Twin Blader, so that was cool.  Now I wouldn't have to run a random Clay-doll Mechanic.  Anyways, there were 23 players there for the tournament.

Round 1: vs Gold Paladin (Spectral Duke)

This was ridiculous.  Even though he didn't get to use his ride chain (except in one game where he got gradestuck on the Grade 2 Vortimer because the Grade 1's skill called out the Spectral Duke Dragon he needed), he got double triggers on literally half of his Twin Drives.  The only reason I was able to win one game was because he got gradestuck (as I have already stated).  I really should've won the third game, too, but he sacked double Critical Triggers and I lost because of it.

XOX

Round 2: vs Gold Paladin (Spectral Duke)

I was up against a Yu-Gi-Oh player who reads my blog, so I can't talk badly about him.  Ha ha, just kidding.  He was pretty nice, and we had a fun match.  Apparently, he remembered seeing me from the last Regional I attended, which was like half a year ago, but we had never played against each other, so I honestly didn't remember him.  Anyways, I was able to win the first game because he opened up with like four Grade 3's or something, but I lost the other two games.  I had to ride Moai the Great too much yesterday, but it's so helpful that I don't want to replace it, so I'm not sure what to do with it.

OXX

So, it turns out that my friend, who decided to use my Beast Deity Nova Grappler deck, got sacked just like me in the first round, then lost to Riku in the second round.  So, we both dropped and left our hopes of winning with Riku.  He ended up winning the third round and his Top 8 match to make it into the Top 4, but then he lost to a Spectral Duke Gold Paladin player (there were so many of them).  He only got three packs of Set 4, but ended up pulling Cosmo Beak, Stern Blaukluger, and Phantom Blaster Dragon, all of which he plans on selling later.  So that was pretty good.

My friend randomly decided to make a Kagero deck for next weekend, and I kind of have no choice but to stick with my Nova Grapplers, since that's the only deck I have multiple perfect guards for.  I'm going to try and get perfect guards for my Megacolony deck, since I'd like to have more than one tournament-viable deck.

Also, some of my friends, like Fwazalaza and spondo, are starting to take an interest in Vanguard.  I tried to help teach spondo how to play, but all of my decks and my friend's decks are too complicated for a beginner to use by themselves (we like using skillful decks to try and add some skill to the sackfest that is Vanguard...).  So, I'm going to make a fairly bland Oracle Think Tank deck that doesn't take much thought.  It would just focus on generic beat-down and drawing extra cards.  I should be able to make it by next weekend, in case they want to play, so yeah.

Tournament Report 1/12/13

As usual, I went to locals and such.  Yeah, I was strongly considering not going this week, since Vanguard tournaments now cost money and the morning tournament is best-of-one, but I had nothing better to do, so yeah...  My friend who plays Vanguard was also there, since apparently he also had nothing better to do.

There were only seven players there today, probably because it now costs money to enter.  Four of them were newbs, one was a decent Goku Kagero player, and the other two were my friend and me.  I was running my Blau-series Nova Grapplers, as usual, though I did end up taking out the Death Army people for King of Sword and Queen of Heart.  Anyways, I beat the Goku Kagero player in the first round because I double trigger sacked him.  I lost the second round to my friend and his Snogal Royal Paladins despite getting a sixth damage Heal Trigger, but I won the last round against a newbie Royal Paladin player because he can't do math.

So I ended up getting 2nd place, while my friend got 1st place.  He got packs of Set 1, pulling nothing of interest, and I got packs of Set 4.  I pulled a Cosmo Beak and gave it to him, since he wants to make Dimension Police.  I pulled another No Life King, Death Anchor from the promo pack, so that was cool.

After that, my friend and I ended up helping out a couple of the newbs with their decks.  I gave one of them a bunch of Kagero Commons like Gattling Claw Dragons, Iron Tail Dragons, and some bad Grade 3's that are better than Yaksha (all he had was a Trail Deck), since Yaksha is just terrible.  But yeah, after that, we didn't have anything to do until the evening Vanguard tournament.

However, my friend decided that he was tired of his Royal Paladin deck, since it's kind of an all-or-nothing strategy.  Since you dump your whole hand to assemble the Blizzard Formation, you can't defend yourself if your opponent lives through your attack.  So, we rebuilt a worse version of my old Beast Deity Nova Grapplers for him to use.  We had to replace stuff like Kirara and King of Sword with Brutal Jack and NGM Prototype, since most of my Kiraras and Kings were in my deck.  But yeah, it worked out well enough, and he decided to use it for the other Vanguard tournament.

There were 16 players there for the evening tournament.  That's much less than before, probably because this tournament also started costing money.  Eh, whatever.

Round 1: vs Kagero (Lawkeeper)

He kept drawing all of his perfect guards, so my Stern Blaukluger was never able to land a hit, but my 20k lines (Moai the Great/Tough Boy and King/Queen) put a lot of pressure on his squishy 10k Lawkeeper, so I was able to win 2-1.

OXO

Round 2: vs Oracle Think Tank (Soulless)

This was my Top 8 opponent from last weekend's evening Vanguard tournament.  I won the first game because he drew into five of his Grade 3's and didn't have any perfect guards to make use of them.  I lost the second game due to the ridiculous advantage he got from Scarlet Witch, Coco.  The third game was really close, but I ended up losing because he got double triggers at a key moment.  My 20k columns helped out a lot, so I'm glad I switched from Death Army people to the King and Queen.

OXX

Round 3: vs Tachikaze

This guy was a pretty bad player.  I think he switches decks all the time, but doesn't really know what he's doing.  He kept making really terrible 14k lines, and he kept calling Critical Triggers behind his attackers in an attempt to get them back into his deck, but that failed really badly.  So I was able to win without much trouble.

OO

Round 4: vs Royal Paladins

I was up against a little kid.  He had no idea of what he was doing, as in the first game where he made himself gradestuck by sending back Gancelot to grab Blaster Blade after riding Tristan without any other Grade 3's in his hand... But, I lost the other two games because I got gradestuck on Grade 2 and he pulled double trigger after double trigger.  For instance, I lost the third game because I had to no guard against his Alfred at 20k when I had a Blaukluger at 10k (not Stern, just the Grade 2), and he pulled two Critical Triggers on his Twin Drive, even though he only plays four...

The good news was that he had to leave after that, so he ended up giving me the win.  But still, this is why Vanguard is stupid.

What was more stupid was that I didn't make it into the Top 4.  My friend got 1st place, my Round 2 opponent got 2nd, a Spike Brothers player who often tops got 3rd, and the bad Pale Moon guy got 4th.  At least what that meant was that my friend was up against the Pale Moon guy in the Top 4, and while the Pale Moon guy and the Spike Brothers guy wanted to split, I encouraged my friend to beat the Pale Moon guy so he could get more packs, since, again, the Pale Moon guy didn't deserve to be in the Top 4.

So, they ended up playing out the Top 4 matches.  I got to watch my friend win 2-0 against the Pale Moon guy, who misplayed like crazy.  For instance, his Grade 2 ride was Elephant Juggler, and he declined to call a Skull Juggler because he "didn't want to double Soulcharge."  He proceeded to ride Alice, then Luquier to Limit Break and dump his whole Soul onto the field.  That made his Alice/Midnight Bunny column worthless because he now had no Soul.  There aren't many decks in Vanguard where you actually have to think, but Pale Moon is one of them, and he had no idea of what he was doing.

My friend and the Oracle Think Tank player ended up winning, and they split the prizes for the Top 2.  So instead of getting only five packs, my friend got nine, so that was cool.  He pulled a Wyvern Guard, Barri, which he traded for a Halo Shield, Mark.  He also pulled some Oracle Think Tank stuff that he needed.  He said that he's planning on switching to a Soulless Oracle Think Tank deck for next week.  All he needs are two Scarlet Witch, Coco, so he'll probably buy them before the tournament.

As for me, I don't know what else I could do with my deck.  It seems alright for the time being, seeing as how Vanguard is all luck.  The 20k columns really helped against the 10k Vanguards that have ridiculous effects, so I'm going to stick with them for now.  And I will be going to the morning Vanguard tournament next weekend for sure, since they're giving out free deck boxes to people who enter the tournament.

Tournament Report 1/5/13

So yeah, first tournament of the year.  But, since I'm still on break from Yu-Gi-Oh tournaments, all it contained was Vanguard, unfortunately.

First was the Vanguard tournament at the usual card shop.  There's actually a significant number of players there now (like 20 or something), even though the vast majority of them don't really know what they're doing.  For instance, some of them tried to argue that Stardust Trumpeter is better than Brugal.  Now, Brugal isn't a good card, but there's really no reason to play Stardust Trumpeter over Brugal...

Anyways, since the store owner decided to start charging an entry fee for these tournaments, I decided to use my Blau-series Nova Grappler deck, since I didn't want to pay $5 and walk away with just a couple of packs.  I won the first round against the same newbie Narukami player I had to play against last weekend.  I won the second round against a Megacolony player who said that the Grade 3 Giraffa is bad and that Stardust Trumpeter is better than Brugal.  He got gradestuck, so that was good for me; he usually luck-sacks all the time, but you can't really luck-sack your way out of being stuck on Grade 0.  I won the third round against the Narukami player that I played against in Round 2 of this Vanguard tournament.  I got double Critical Triggers on my first attack with my Stern Blaukluger, and although he guarded it, he couldn't guard the rear-guard that I gave the Triggers to.  I played against another Narukami player in the last round and won because he had no idea of what he was doing.

So yeah, I ended up going undefeated and getting 1st place.  I won 8 packs of Set 4, and got one more as my entry prize.  I also pulled a No Life King, Death Anchor from the promo pack and gave it to Riku so that he could complete his deck.  But yeah, out of my packs, I pulled a Dark Metal Dragon, Commander Laurel, and a RRR Stern Blaukluger.  That was my fifth Stern Blaukluger, so I sold it to the store to make back my $5.

After that, my friend who plays Vanguard, Riku, and I went out to eat.  We had like four hours until the Vanguard tournament at the other card shop, so we just played Vanguard and Kaijudo.  My friend and I decided that since he had been having bad luck with his Snogal Royal Paladin deck recently (he hasn't topped in a month), we would switch decks for the tournament.  He'd use my Nova Grapplers, and I'd use his Royal Paladins.  It would also confuse people, and that's always fun.

So there were almost 40 players for the Vanguard tournament at the other card shop.  Vanguard is getting pretty popular, which isn't really a good thing.  But whatever, it ends up working well for us later...

Round 1: vs Dark Irregulars

I was up against Riku.  He ended up killing me 2-0 with his Death Anchor's "Breakdown Death Brace" and his 20k rear-guard lines that all of the 10k Vanguards in Royal Paladins are defenseless against.  It made me regret not using my 11k Stern Blaukluger...

Round 2: vs Narukami

He was a little kid, and he got gradestuck, so I won.

Round 3: vs Pale Moon

This was my friend's bad Pale Moon friend.  He got gradestuck both games, so I won.

Round 4: vs Narukami

This was my Round 4 opponent from this Vanguard tournament.  I don't think he plays Stand Triggers anymore.  Anyways, he got Vermillion in the first game, along with drive checking a bunch of Critical Triggers, so he won.  He didn't get Vermillion in either of the other two games, so I won 2-1.

At this point, my friend, Riku, and I were all 3-1.  Now, the tournament organizer really surprised us, since he cut to Top 8.  Prizes were still only for the Top 4, but now we all had a chance to win.  After Swiss, Riku was 4th, my friend was 5th, and I was 8th.  So, my two friends had to play against each other, and I had to play against the 1st place player.

Top 8: vs Oracle Think Tank (Soulless)

This was my opponent from the semi-finals of this Vanguard tournament.  He had been running Great Nature with the Grade 4 before, but decided to use his Soulless build today.  He was also the player who beat both of my friends in the Swiss rounds, so I would be trying to avenge them.  Anyways, I lost in the first game because I couldn't set up my "three-fourths Blizzard Formation" (three Snogals in the back row), despite getting a sixth damage Heal Trigger (Elaine was just fulfilling her promise).  In the second game, I got gradestuck on Grade 2, but that Grade 2 was Galahad.  So, I was able to stack 24 cards at the bottom of my deck.  Once I finally got a Grade 3 (Palamedes), I was able to reach the top of the stack after my Twin Drive.  He attacked with his Vanguard Scarlet Witch, Coco, and I guarded with my Grade 0's.  He got a Draw Trigger and gave the power to Silent Tom, which he attacked with next.  "Elaine, power to Vanguard," I declared, then revealed the Heal Trigger at the top of the stack.  I lived through that turn, but I was unable to kill him on the following turn, even with the double Critical Triggers I stacked previously (he had three perfect guards...), so I lost to Silent Tom.  Still, it was cool to reach my stack perfectly.

My friend ended up beating Riku and played against my Top 8 opponent in the Top 4.  He lost since his opponent got Scarlet Witch, Coco's ridiculous draw power every game.  He played against an incompetent Narukami player for 3rd place and won, so he got 4 packs of Set 1.  He was going for the Iseult or CEO Amaterasu, but pulled Maiden of Libra instead.

And with that, we vowed never to use each other's decks again.  I hate how Garmore is just a flimsy 10k Vanguard, which is why I started playing Nova Grapplers in the first place.  And I don't know why he doesn't like my deck; he kept getting Blaupanzer, but I think that he also kept drawing a bunch of extra Grade 3's or something.  Hey, at least I have Twin Bladers; he only has one Iseult.

So yeah, the other card shop is also going to start charging an entry fee for their Vanguard tournaments.  It's a $3 entry fee, and you'd get a Vanguard pack for entering.  It seems better than the usual card shop, which still has best-of-one matches, which just invite luck-sack.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do next week.  I know that Riku would only go to the earlier tournament because of scheduling conflicts, and my friend would only go to the other tournament because it's cheaper and the prizes are better.  I haven't decided what to do, but I may just go to both because I can.  I'm also thinking about cutting the Death Army people from my deck in favor of King of Sword and Queen of Heart, but I'm not sure yet.

Random Stuff #52

I've been wanting to post stuff, but there's really nothing to discuss anymore.  As you know, I haven't been playing Yu-Gi-Oh competitively, so there's really nothing to discuss with regards to that.  I'm waiting for more updates for Kaijudo (organized play and such), and there's never anything to talk about for Vanguard.

But yeah, recently, I've just been playing through some video games.  I finished Pokemon Colosseum without wasting a bunch of time power-leveling all of my Pokemon.  I got everyone on my team up to Level 48 then went for the final boss.  It was kind of difficult, but the fact that he used a Slaking that basically lost half of its turns due to its ability made it pretty simple, since I could just gang up on the other Pokemon he had out.  Yeah, Double Battles were a large part of why I really liked Pokemon Colosseum; they're more exciting than Single Battles.

I also liked how the game was about making a balanced team as best as you could with a bunch of random Pokemon.  There were no wild Pokemon to catch; you had to steal ("Snag") Shadow Pokemon from other Trainers to make your team.  My final team ended up being Typhlosion, Jumpluff, Quagsire, Ampharos, Flygon, and Altaria.  I already decided from when I started the game that Jumpluff and Quagsire would be on my team, so I caught Quilava (over Bayleef and Croconaw) to balance out the team.  I also wanted to use Gligar, but then I realized that Flygon is just better than Gligar in every way possible, since Gligar can't evolve in Generation III.

But yeah, in previous playthroughs of the game, I used the three Legendary Beasts (Entei, Suicune, and Raikou), but I decided against it this time to make it more of a challenge.  So yeah, Ampharos just filled in the spot for the Electric-Type (and its Special Attack is ridiculously good), and I wanted another Flying-Type so that I could use Quagsire's and Flygon's Earthquakes more effectively, so I used Altaria.  There were no other good Flying-Types that could use Ice Beam (you get Delibird too late in the game for it to be effective, even though it would have STAB on Ice Beam).

So yeah, I was able to beat the final boss and all of his Level 60 Pokemon even though none of my Pokemon were above Level 50 by the time I faced him.  That was pretty fun.  And, I had so much fun playing Pokemon that I went back on Pokemon Battle Revolution and started playing some of the Colosseum Battles.  I chose the one where you use a team of rental Pokemon, but you can trade one of your Pokemon for one of your opponent's at the end of each battle.  You start with two "Rental Passes", and I chose the one that conveniently had a Rotom on it.  It was the better team anyways, but having the Rotom made it an easy choice.

And playing all of these Pokemon games reminded me why I liked playing Pokemon competitively.  Even though luck can play a large role during battles, you ultimately have all of your options available to you.  That is, opposed to a card game where you can only work with what you draw.  In Pokemon, you have your whole team of six Pokemon at the start of the battle, and you have to choose how to use those Pokemon to the greatest effect.  Sure, there are stupid things like critical hits (6.75% chance), getting frozen by Ice Beam (10% chance), and missing with moves like Charge Beam (95% accuracy), but skill plays a large role.

Unfortunately, I dislike Generation V to a great degree, so I refuse to play Pokemon Black/White anymore.  Not to mention that competitive Pokemon takes up a huge amount of time.  I mean, when I did play Pokemon competitively, that was basically all I did.  There was just so much to do: EV Training, breeding, testing IV's, getting TM's, balancing your team, studying every Pokemon people would conceivably use, and other such things.  I left power-leveling off the list because you only need to do that to evolve Pokemon or learn certain moves, and that could be accomplished by leaving your Pokemon in the Day Care and banding/clamping your DS.  But yeah, I don't regret wasting my summer all those years ago like that.  It was fun.

Anyways, before playing Colosseum and PBR, I was playing Assassin's Creed Revelations and Assassin's Creed III.  I can't really talk about these because there are too many spoilers and such.  But yeah, the AC: Revelations disc I had access to had the first Assassin's Creed on it, which I had skipped over (I started at AC2).  So, I tried playing it, but when I got to the first real mission, which was to travel over 1 kilometer to Damascus to talk to some guy, I quit.  All of the walking in AC3 before you get your Fast Travel points was irritating enough, so I definitely wasn't going to waste all of my time traveling in a game whose story I already knew.  Not only that, but you somehow lose your ability to counter kill at the beginning of the game.  You can't expect me to believe that Altair just magically forgot how to counter kill just because he was demoted.

But yeah, since I'm done with all of that, I decided to make a competitive Kaijudo deck so that when organized play is announced, I'll be ready.  Not only that, but Aki and I are going to record videos tomorrow and I wanted to use a new deck.  We tried to think of new Yu-Gi-Oh decks to use, but there's really nothing to try.  We haven't really gotten any new cards since I bought those two manga with Number 50: Blackship of Corn, neither of which I have opened...

Yeah, same old, same old.  Yu-Gi-Oh is stale, I'm waiting for Kaijudo tournaments (which hopefully won't be on Sundays...), and Vanguard is as skill-less as ever.  There's really nothing to talk about.  Now you can see why this post was dominated by my discussion of Pokemon.  But, I did find out that there will be a Yu-Gi-Oh Regional in my area in March, so if the ban list cleans up the game and the tournament organizer realizes that he needs to book a space that can hold up to 1000 players, then I'll be going to that.  But that's still months away, so yeah.