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.