Tournament Report 5/11/13 & 5/12/13

Another entire weekend of playing card games.  As usual, yesterday was for Vanguard...

There were 11 players at the morning tournament.  I was playing Nova Grapplers for fun and my friend who plays Vanguard was playing Narukami, which he borrowed from his friend.

I lost the first round to a newbie Royal Paladin player who got eight triggers over the course of the game (including double Critical Triggers when I was at 3 damage, which ended the game), while I got a total of zero triggers.  Next, I played against Riku's Round 2 opponent from this Vanguard team tournament and won because he was using Hydro Hurricane Dragon... I was paired up against my friend in the third and final round, so I just gave him the win and we played Kaijudo for fun.

Unfortunately, neither of us won any packs, so that was sad.  We also pulled nothing of interest from our entry packs besides a Rumble Gun Dragon, which is now my fourth one.

Between tournaments, we just played Kaijudo to practice for today's tournament.  I'll discuss the decks a little more when we get to that part of the post.

Next was the evening Vanguard tournament.  There were 11 players there, and aside from my friend and myself, they were all little kids.  Don't be mistaken, some of those little kids have good decks and are regulars, but everyone there was a little kid...  I decided to use my Pale Moon deck, because there were exactly zero Aqua Dorks there.  My friend stuck with the Narukami deck.  I pulled a Great Daiyusha out of my entry pack, so that was cool.

Round 1: vs Gold Paladin (Spectral Duke)

This was my Round 3 opponent from this evening Vanguard tournament.  He got his ride chain all three games, as usual, because he appears to be insanely lucky.  I won the first round without even getting Crimson Beast Tamer into the soul because I got more triggers than him, but lost the next two games to double Critical Triggers...

OXX

Round 2: vs Granblue

He didn't really know what he was doing, so I just won by making 20k columns.

OO

Round 3: vs Kagero (Lawkeeper)

He didn't really know what he was doing (he was using Raopia...), so I just won by making 20k columns.  I also got lucky with triggers, which made it easy to win.

OO

With that, they cut to Top 4.  My friend was undefeated, and I was 2-1, so we both made it.  The other two players who made Top 4 were a couple of the regular little kids who were both playing The End Kagero.  We all just split and got three packs each.

I pulled nothing important, and my friend pulled a Maelstrom.  He sold it to the shop and used the store credit he got to get me a Neo Nectar perfect guard.  The reason he did that was because earlier, I was able to get a perfect guard off of my Round 2 opponent's older brother for $10, and another one (and a RRR Dungaree) from my Round 3 opponent in exchange for the Great Daiyusha I pulled earlier.  So, now I have three Neo Nectar perfect guards.

That means that I'll be able to play Arboros Dragon Neo Nectar next week, so that's cool.  It's not the most consistent deck, but it's about the only deck that can make 23k columns and have an 11k Vanguard at the same time.  And most of the time, 21k columns are good enough, and those are fairly easy to make in the deck thanks to Sephirot's Limit Break.  So yeah, I'll probably be playing that next weekend.

Anyways, the Kaijudo tournament was on the following day (today).  I changed my deck, taking out all of the Darkness cards and the Cobalt engine, instead opting to use Nature (including Manapod Beetle, Lepidos the Ancient, and Gigahorn Charger) and Ra-Vu, Seeker of Lightning.  So, I was now using a weird LWN deck that had Lepidos and stuff in it.  That meant that my whole Darkness section, including my new Razorkinder Puppet, was put into my friend's deck.  In fact, I just took seven cards (two Andromeda, two Lyra, and three Stormspark Blasts) out of my Cobalt Control deck, replaced them with some other cards, and let my friend use that.  Aki also came with me to the tournament, and he was using his Dragon Rush deck, except we added a Darkness section, including Necrodragon of Vile Ichor.  So we were all trying out new stuff.  I didn't expect my deck to win, since I was just testing a bunch of new stuff all at once, but I was hopeful.

There were seven players there today.  Also, I was hoping to start a new(-ish) keyword for "send into the mana zone": bind.  Yes, I got the idea from Vanguard, but it makes sense.  In cards like Root Trap or Ensnare, the creature getting sent to the mana zone ends up being bound by plants.  To be fair, Root Trap and Ensnare use artworks that are both used for Root Trap in Duel Masters (that is, the artwork on Ensnare is just the alternate artwork for Root Trap in Duel Masters), but still.  It's a lot easier to say "bind" than it is to say "send to your mana zone".

Round 1: vs LWD Cobalt Control

I was up against my friend, so that was kind of bad.  Either way, he won the first game because he just Terror Pitted all of my big creatures and decked me out.  I was able to win the following two games by using Lepidos and Ra-Vu.

XOO

Round 2: vs LWD Control

I was paired against Fwazalaza.

-Duel 1: I was able to win using Lepidos, Andromeda, and Ra-Vu to control the game.  I also got a lucky Stormspark Blast off of a Bottle of Wishes so that I could wipe out his field.
-Duel 2: I opened with no draw or ramp cards, so I was just stuck playing at a slow pace while he was able to build up his field.  In the end, he was just able to drop a bunch of Level 9 Dragons that I wasn't able to deal with, so he won.
-Duel 3: Again, I opened with no draw or ramp, instead having a hand of two Root Traps, Ra-Vu, Lyra, and Spark Cage.  That wasn't the main thing, though.  What lost me the game was him getting an Andromeda off of Bottle of Wishes on turn 6.  It's sad that such a sacky card exists in Kaijudo, but I guess I'll just have to figure out a way to deal with it.

OXX

Round 3: vs LWF Dragons

This was my Round 1 opponent from last weekend's Kaijudo tournament.  Both games played out about the same.  I would go first and open Manapod Beetle and Spark Cage to deal with his Nix while also functioning as draw and ramp (albeit lesser draw and ramp than Logos Scan or Reap and Sow), but he had another Nix and was able to win from there by dropping a chain of big Dragons.  I had Lepidos to deal with his Lyra and bind some of his shields, but I couldn't deal with the multiple Level 9 Dragons and ended up losing.  It was pretty frustrating, too, since he didn't really know what he was doing.  But he had the outs and I didn't, and that happens sometimes.

XX

So I ended up going 1-2, which is sad.  My friend and Aki didn't do any better.  They both went 1-2, with their wins being byes (my friend got the bye in Round 2, and Aki got it in Round 3).  At least we were able to get one of each promo card in the raffle (being three of the seven people there helped our odds quite a bit)...

It's alright that we lost, though, since I now know what to do with my deck.  Oh wait, it doesn't even matter, since a new set is coming out in two weeks.  And until then, I may not go to Kaijudo tournaments.  Meaning that the next time I go to Duel Days would be in June.  I mean, there's literally just one more Kaijudo tournament (May 19) until the new set becomes legal (May 25), so I don't see a point in going, especially since we already got one of each promo card.

As such, I may just get lazy and not change my deck until Aki and I get cards from the new set.  I mean, it won't matter, so why bother?  That being said, I'm still really excited to see what cards are in the new set.  Aki and I are planning on getting two boxes, but I kind of want to get three just to ensure we get everything we want.  I suppose that after we get the first two boxes, we'll be able to determine whether or not we need to get more packs.

But yeah, I guess I'll only be going to locals on Saturday next week.  It'll be nice to take a break from going both days.  Ideally, I'd like to go both days every week, but it gets pretty exhausting, especially since I have to go to school the following day...