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.