Tournament Report 4/6/13 & 4/7/13

EDIT: The deck profile video for my Kaijudo deck is up.  I've linked to it in the post.

The reason why this post is coming out relatively late is because I went to the Kaijudo Duel Day this morning.  But that'll be discussed in the last part of this post; first is the usual Vanguard tournaments.  So yeah...

I went to the usual card shop yesterday, and neither my friend who plays Vanguard nor Riku were able to make it.  So, I just played my Dark Irregulars deck and such.  There were 13 players there, which is more than usual, but half of them were little kids whom I had never seen before.

I played against a little kid and his Narukami deck in the first round; I just made 20k columns to win, since he didn't have Vermillion.  My second round opponent was Aki's Round 3 opponent in this Vanguard team tournament; he was still playing Soulless Oracle Think Tank, and I was able to win with my ridiculous columns since Coco is 10k.  I won the third round against my Round 2 opponent from last weekend's morning Vanguard tournament because he's playing Reijy Dark Irregulars and doesn't really know what he's doing.  So I was undefeated going into the final round.  My opponent was my Round 2 opponent from the Set 5 draft tournament, and he was playing The End Kagero.  He got gradestuck on Grade 2 for most of the game, but kept getting Critical Triggers on his drive checks, so he was able to keep up pretty well.  However, without his 11k defense, I was able to beat him up with my 20k columns and such, so I won.

So I went undefeated and got 1st place.  That won me six packs of EB01.  Out of those packs and the entry pack of EB01, I pulled a third ZANBAKU and a Miss Mist.  The ZANBAKU was nice, since I think three is enough to serve as a back-up Vanguard in any post-Set 9 Murakumo deck.  I got the Tachikaze card from the promo pack, so that was bad.

After a while, my friend who plays Vanguard showed up.  He told me that he traded his Ergodiel Angel Feather deck for another Spectral Duke Gold Paladin deck, so now he has two.  He then explained that he planned on selling one of them to make a Majesty Lord Blaster deck, like he wanted all along.  But yeah, he'll probably do that this week, and end up using the Majesty Lord deck for the team tournaments.  And since Riku has sold his Dark Irregulars deck to make a The End Kagero deck, we're going to be just like every other team in the sense that we'll have crossride player(s).

Anyways, I showed my friend the fixed-up Kaijudo deck I made for him.  It's now a Fire/Water/Darkness mid-range deck that uses Kindrix the Psionic.  He wanted to use Kindrix because he claims it looks like Glory Maelstrom, so yeah... It ended up being much better than the previous version of the deck, which wasn't saying much.  But yeah, it was a viable deck.

Then, like usual, we went to the other card shop for the evening Vanguard tournament.  There were about 20 players there, and three of them were using Neo Nectar for some reason.  My Round 3 opponent from this evening Vanguard tournament ended up deciding to make a Spectral Duke Dragon deck and borrowed one from one of his friends.  He then lent my friend his Majesty Lord deck.  It's a little more complicated than that, but that's the general idea.  Regardless, I borrowed my friend's Pale Moon deck once again.  I requested that he make a few changes to the deck, and he did: replace Skull Jugglers with Dark Metal Bicorns and add Skyhigh Walkers.

Round 1: vs Gold Paladin (Spectral Duke)

I was paired up against the guy from whom my friend was borrowing the Majesty Lord deck.  We get paired up in the first round quite a bit... Anyways, he ended up getting the ride chain all three games, so he rushed me with the free cards he got.  I was able to win one game because he got gradestuck on Grade 1.

XOX

Round 2: vs Kagero

This guy was a new player using the Amber Dragon ride chain.  He asked me for tips and stuff so that he could get better, so that's good.  The main thing I told him was to not run the Amber Dragon ride chain, since he had a Conroe.  But yeah, I won with my 21k columns pretty easily, although our match went into time.

OO

Seeing as how that match went into time despite the fact that I 2-0'd him, I asked the tournament organizer how long the time limit for each round was.  30 minutes.  That's ridiculously short for Vanguard, since one game can take as long as 30 minutes or more provided both players are competent.  I'm going to see if I can complain about it next weekend, but we'll see.

Round 3: vs Gold Paladin (Spectral Duke)

My opponent was a little kid who had borrowed the deck he was using from another little kid.  He won the second game because he got the ride chain, but I won the first and third games because he didn't get the ride chain in those games.  I ended up winning the third game in time because the time limit is too short.

OXO

With that, they cut to Top 8.  My friend and my Round 1 opponent were both undefeated, so that was good and that helped my tie-breakers, respectively.  I ended up making it into the Top 8.

Top 8: vs Neo Nectar

So apparently the three Neo Nectar players all made Top 8.  I was up against one of them, and my friend was playing against another.  My opponent didn't have a complete deck, which is weird since it's Neo Nectar; it's probably the second cheapest deck in Vanguard or something... Anyways, I won 2-0 because I didn't let his on-hit effects through and I was able to make 20k columns.

OO

My friend also won his match against the other Neo Nectar player, and the third Neo Nectar player ended up playing against a Spectral Duke deck and lost.  So, all of the Neo Nectar players got knocked out of the Top 8, as it should be.  I have nothing against Neo Nectar, and I actually like the clan, but the deck isn't very good at all at this point in time.  I mean, it's practically a vanilla deck with some inconsequential on-hit effects.  Seriously, most decks in Vanguard are relatively bad, and Neo Nectar is one of them, at least until Set 8 is released.

Back to the actual tournament report, the other two players in the Top 4 besides my friend and I were the person who lent the Majesty Lord deck to my friend and my Top 4 opponent from last weekend's evening Vanguard tournament.  We all decided to split the prizes for Top 4, getting five packs each.  My friend got Set 5 in an attempt to pull some Majesty Lord stuff, but ended up pulling The End instead, which was good.  I got Set 7 in an attempt to pull some Pale Moon stuff, mainly Popcorn Boys.  My friend's Pale Moon deck was using two Candy Clowns and two Popcorn Boys, and I wanted to replace the ugly Candy Clowns.  Unfortunately, I didn't pull anything I wanted.

Regardless, it was a pretty good day, having won a total of eleven packs.  Afterwards, my friend and I played some more Kaijudo and such.  He also decided to give me his Pale Moon cards because he has owed me a bunch of money for a while, since I've been buying him food and paying his tournament entry fees fairly often.  So I said I'd take the Pale Moon deck as payment, and he agreed.  I really like the deck, since it can make 21k columns so easily and consistently along with having some other nice tricks.  In addition, there are so many different builds I could use so that if I ever get bored of the current version of the deck, I could try various other builds.

Anyways, I was able to go to the Kaijudo Duel Day on the following day (today) with Aki.  My friend who plays Vanguard showed up, and I paid his entry fee with the condition that I'd get any cards that he got, and seeing as how he doesn't even want Kaijudo cards and just wanted to play, it worked out for both of us.  I was using my Light/Water/Darkness Cobalt Control deck, Aki was using his Fire/Water Dragon Rush deck, and my friend was using the deck I built for him (Fire/Water/Darkness Kindrix mid-range).  There were 15 players there, including Fwazalaza and some other Kaijudo regulars.

Round 1: vs Light/Water/Darkness Control

He told me after the match that his good Light cards like Andromeda and Lyra were in his brother's deck, so I don't really know why he was running Light.

-Duel 1: He dropped two small blockers (Scaradorable and Star Lantern, I think), so I was able to punish him with two Fumes.  After having to discard two cards over two turns, he soon ran out of cards, so winning the game through attrition was fairly straightforward from there.
-Duel 2: I was able to use Fumes again to punish him for dropping Creatures early, and I was able to clear out what he had from there pretty easily.  Cobalt and Andromeda ensured that he wasn't going to be winning through battle.

OO

Round 2: vs Mono-Darkness

My friend who plays Vanguard lost to this guy in the first round, so I had to avenge him.

-Duel 1: He didn't open with the early aggression that I'm used to seeing from mono-Dark (I did have a mono-Dark deck before, so I know how it plays), so I was able to take my time killing his Scavenging Chimeras.  Those Scavenging Chimeras are basically the only way for mono-Dark to gain steady advantage, so I just dealt with those, then dropped Andromeda three times in one game (Dark Return is good) to win.
-Duel 2: He didn't get his Scavenging Chimeras, so I was able to win pretty easily.  He kept dropping Dark Scaradorables to break my shields one at a time, though.  He got me down to one shield before I dropped Andromeda, then Cobalt, to protect myself before going for game.

OO

At this point, my friend who plays Vanguard, whom I avenged, was 0-2, and ended up getting the bye for the third round.  Also for the third round, Aki was paired up against Fwazalaza, who was using his weird Storm Patrol deck.

Round 3: vs Water/Light

This guy was running Skyforce Champion, Enforcer, and Cyber Lord Evolutions.  His deck wasn't really complete, and he admitted that it was a fluke that he was undefeated so far.

-Duel 1: He didn't get to evolve anything since his deck lacked focus, so I was able to whittle away at his card advantage and win with Andromeda, which he has exactly zero answers to.
-Duel 2: I kept killing the Creatures he put onto the field to prevent any potential Evolutions.  I played Andromeda, then Cobalt, and broke four of his five shields in one turn.  He couldn't kill me on the following turn, so I finished him off after that.

OO

At this point, the last two undefeated players were Aki and myself.  That was quite nice.

From there, to ensure that both of us would get Top 2 (tie-breakers could give the loser a lower ranking), I figured out our current tie-breakers.  My Round 2 opponent and my Round 3 opponent were paired against each other, so one of my tie-breakers would be 3-1 and the other would be 2-2.  My Round 1 opponent was 1-2 and dropped after losing the third round to Aki's Round 2 opponent.  Fwazalaza was 2-1, of course, and his Round 4 opponent dropped, meaning that he would be 3-1.  Aki's other two previous opponents were both 2-1, I think.  One of them ended up winning, and the other one lost, so Aki's final tie-breakers were 3-1, 3-1, and 2-2.  Mine ended up being 3-1, 2-2, 1-3.

So, we decided that I would get the win, since Aki had better tie-breakers, to ensure that he'd get 2nd place.  We also played Duel Masters for fun, and I ended up winning 2-0, so it's not like I didn't earn the win, ha ha.

Apparently my friend's opponent for Round 4 dropped as well so he basically got another bye, meaning that he lost every match he played in today.  That's alright, since he's fairly new to the game and doesn't get much practice, so he'll get better as he continues to play.

But yeah, I ended up getting 1st place, winning 8 packs, and Aki got 2nd place, winning 4 packs.  Seeing as how we share our Kaijudo cards, we basically just won 12 packs altogether.  We also got our entry packs, including my friend's entry pack, so we got a total of 15 packs.  1st and 2nd place also each got a promo, so I got Dorado and Aki got Billion-Degree Dragon; we just wanted to have one of each just in case, though we're not planning on using either.  From the 15 packs, we pulled two Ragefire Tatsurions (that makes four...), a Sok'ran the Untamed (that makes three...), and a Dracothane of the Abyss, which is the last Super Rare from DragonStrike Infernus that we needed.  That will probably go into my deck, since it's pretty good.

The shopkeeper also raffled off four more promos.  Fwazalaza got a Billion-Degree Dragon, but I don't know who got the other three.  And there were actually enough people for a prize for 3rd place.  My Round 2 opponent ended up getting 3rd place, and he also asked Aki and I if he could profile our decks for his YouTube channel.  Aki's deck was pretty self-explanatory (it's Dragon Rush), and he was pretty tired, so he didn't feel like it.  But I let them do a deck profile for my deck.

EDIT: The deck profile video is now up on their channel.

After the tournament, my friend and Aki played some more Kaijudo while I re-sleeved the Pale Moon deck.  He hadn't given me the deck yet, since he wanted to keep his Misaki sleeves (the deck was in Misaki sleeves, which is random, but alright...), so I un-sleeved the deck and sleeved it using generic white sleeves while they played Kaijudo.

My friend expressed an interest in Aki's Dragon Rush deck and contemplated making one for himself.  So, he may buy a box of DragonStrike Infernus, get Hyperspeed Dragons and Foulbyrns, then trade me for staple-esque stuff that he might need, like Tornado Flame, and he'll have the deck.  He's still thinking about it, though.

As for next week, my friend, Riku, and I will all be going to the Vanguard tournaments on Saturday.  We'll be going to the usual card shop for their morning tournament so we can do some last-minute testing for the decks we'll be using in the Team League tournament that the other card shop will be having in the evening.  The way it is right now, I'll probably use Pale Moon, my friend will probably use Majesty Lord but may use Spectral Duke instead, and Riku will be using The End.  We aren't completely certain on the team order, or maybe I'm just saying that in case any rival teams read my blog so they won't know our strategy...

But yeah, that's the plan for next weekend.  I won't be going to the Kaijudo tournament because I'll likely be busy.  Oh, and we don't need any more of the promos...