Tournament Report 4/13/13

As usual, I went to locals yesterday for the Vanguard tournaments.  I took Riku with me, and my friend who plays Vanguard was also there.  Of course, the main event would be the Team League Qualifier at the other card shop in the evening, but first we went to the usual card shop for their usual Vanguard tournament.

There were about 16 players there for the morning Vanguard tournament.  As usual, most of them were incompetent players.  Anyways, I was playing Pale Moon, Riku was playing The End Kagero, and my friend was playing Majesty Lord.

In the first round, I played against Neo Nectar and lost for three reasons: I couldn't make a full field for far too long, I couldn't get Crimson Beast Tamer into the soul until late game, and I didn't get a trigger on my final twin drive when six of the ten cards left in my deck were triggers.  It's Vanguard, so I didn't really care.  Regardless, I won the second round against a Shadow Paladin player who only played 11 Grade 1's, and therefore got gradestuck on Grade 0; when I asked him how many Grade 1's he played after the game, he didn't know and had to look through his deck and count them... I was paired against Riku in the third round, and he had better tie-breakers than me, so I gave him the win after beating him.  I played the last round against an incompetent Gold Paladin player who kept guarding one-to-pass against my Vanguard, and I kept getting Critical Triggers.  I explained to him afterwards why it's mathematically stupid to guard one-to-pass, so he'll hopefully stop doing that.

My friend ended up winning the tournament with his Majesty Lord deck, so he got 1st place and 7 additional packs.  Riku ended up getting 3rd place and 3 additional packs.  We all got packs of Set 7, and out of 13 packs, none of us pulled any Popcorn Boys... I just needed one more... Either way, I pulled Rumble Gun Dragon from my promo pack, so I was happy about that.

So after that short tournament, I decided to reform my Pale Moon deck so that I could hit 18k more easily.  The reasoning behind this was that I'd probably play against more crossrides at the team tournament.  So, I ended up buying a Crimson Beast Tamer from Riku (I only had three, which was kind of sad), and I got a Popcorn Boy off of him in exchange for a Candy Clown and two Nitro Jugglers.  Well, I gave him the Nitro Jugglers, then ended up just trading the Candy Clown for Popcorn Boy right before the team tournament started.

But yeah, we went to the other card shop for the team tournament, and apparently we had to fill out deck lists.  We had gotten there early, so that wasn't much of a problem.  This is the main reason why I needed the Popcorn Boy, so that I wouldn't have to waste additional time putting the one Candy Clown on my deck list... Anyways, there were about 26 teams there, which is ridiculous.  A lot of them were people who just travel around to all of the qualifiers, which is kind of stupid, because there's basically no prize support (or skill) in Vanguard, so even if you were to make it to the top, it wouldn't really mean anything...

Regardless, we were Team Snogal, Snogal lanyards included.  I was our team's first player with my Pale Moon deck.  Riku was second with The End, and my friend was third with Majesty Lord.  We had a strategy behind this, but it was kind of ruined because the tournament organizer didn't tell anyone that the order in which the team members signed up determined their order.  Therefore, only a few teams knew this and all of the other teams just had random orders.  Well, whatever, it's Vanguard, so it's basically just all luck.

The tournament structure was double elimination with each player playing a best-of-one game.  The team's total score would determine which team would win each match.  The tournament would continue until only two teams remained, and those teams would qualify for the Team League Regional.

Round 1: vs Royal Paladin

I was up against a little kid who knew what he was doing (but seeing as how it's Vanguard, how can you not?) and was running a generic Royal Paladin deck.  He got triggers and I didn't, so I lost.  I remember every time I did a twin drive, I'd flip over the two cards and say, "No trigger."  It happened far too often.

Riku ended up winning and my friend lost, so that was a pretty bad start.

XOX

Round 2: vs Gold Paladin

We were playing against a team of three bad players who just banded together to play in the tournament.  We all won because they're all bad...

OOO

Round 3: vs Angel Feather (Ergodiel)

We were playing against a team of three little kids who were regulars at this card shop.  My opponent missed his ride chain, and his Grade 3 Ergodiel was stuck as a 10k Vanguard.  So, I basically just abused it to death with my 20k columns and won.

Riku ended up losing against Spectral Duke and my friend won, so we won the match.

OXO

Round 4: vs Kagero (The End)

My friend scouted out this team earlier, so we knew what they were playing.  They were one of the few teams who knew about the team order thing, so our strategy was effective against them.  Anyways, my opponent got gradestuck on Grade 2, so I won.

Riku lost against Majesty Lord and my friend won against Soulless Oracle Think Tank, so we won.

OXO

Round 5: vs Pale Moon

My friend scouted out this team as well, so I knew that my opponent was playing a bad Pale Moon build with four Luquier.  The other two members of the team were at the morning Vanguard tournament.  Anyways, I ended up winning because I just made 20k columns and wore him down faster than he could do to me.  I started with a pretty bad hand (three Midnight Invaders...), but his deck doesn't really have any way to generate advantage, so the Midnight Invaders were able to make the 20k columns I needed to win.

Riku won against Narukami (the Narukami player got gradestuck) and my friend lost to The End Kagero (a player whom my friend had beaten at the morning Vanguard tournament, but he got double Critical Triggers early game to win).

OOX

There were four teams remaining at this point.  One of them was undefeated, so if they were to win the next round, then that would be the final round.

Round 6: vs Royal Paladin (Majesty Lord)

We were playing against a team of somewhat competent players.  Somewhat competent because they know how to make proper columns, but not much else.  My opponent was my Round 1 opponent from this evening Vanguard tournament.  He was playing multiple Wingal Braves and didn't realize that his triggers wouldn't work if the only unit on his field was Blaster Dark, both of which showed me that he was a bad player.  However, I didn't draw any attackers, so I had to wage war with my Grade 1's; thankfully, Turquoise Beast Tamer behind Dark Metal Bicorn hits 17k, so I was at least able to wear him down a little bit even though I couldn't fill up my field.  But he got too many Draw Triggers and I didn't get many triggers, so I lost.

Riku ended up winning, but my friend lost against a Soulless Oracle Think Tank player who kept getting his Critical Triggers, so we lost the match and were knocked out of the tournament.

XOX

Basically every round, one of my friends won but the other lost, so I'd have to win my game to win the match.  So, whenever I lost my game, we'd lose the match.  My friends need to play more consistent decks and not crossride garbage... So yeah, that was disappointing.  But it's Vanguard, and the only real prize for qualifying is getting the Team League deck boxes at the Regional.  So I don't see any point in being so invested in such a luck-based game.

That's why I'm going to try going to locals on Sundays starting next month so I can play Kaijudo every weekend.  After the Kaijudo tournament at the usual card shop, I would be able to go to a Vanguard tournament at a different card shop, so I could still spend an entire day at locals.  Unfortunately, it would be Sunday, so I'd probably get home late and have no time to do anything until Wednesday, since my schedule for Monday and Tuesday is pretty busy.  That's one of the reasons why I don't want to go to locals on Sunday, but none of this is for sure yet, so we'll see what happens...

The main reason that I won't be doing that this month, aside from the fact that I don't need any more copies of Dorado or Billion-Degree Dragon, is that next weekend will be the other Team League Qualifier that Team Snogal is planning on attending, and the weekend after that will have the Set 8 Sneak Preview, which my friend and I are planning on attending.  After that, though, there should be no more major Vanguard events, so I'll concentrate more on Kaijudo starting in May.

As for the Team League Qualifier, we (my friend who plays Vanguard and I) don't know if our third member will be Aki or Riku.  We were planning on having Aki on the team, but he might not be able to make it to the Team League Regional because he'll be going to Japan around the time when the Regional should be.  We don't know the date for the Team League Regional since Bushiroad hasn't posted those for North America, so we don't know whether or not Aki can make it, assuming we qualify.  Aki told me that we should have Riku play as our third member if we don't find out the Regional dates by then, but we'll just have to see what happens by next weekend.  Regardless, both Aki and Riku will be there with us next weekend, so we'll have right up until the start of the tournament to decide.

But yeah, that's about it.  Hopefully Bushiroad gets their act together and posts the dates for the Regionals.  I really doubt it though...