Tournament Report 5/4/13 & 5/5/13

I ended up going to locals both days this weekend.  First was the Vanguard tournaments...

I expected there to be a lot of Aqua Force players because people are crazy and think Aqua Force is a good deck.  So, I decided to use a deck that has an 11k Vanguard so that Basil can't make a successful attack while enabling four attacks.  I was thinking about using Megacolony so that I could have Master Beetle, but then I wouldn't be able to hit good numbers against crossrides.  So, I thought I'd try out Narukami this weekend.  I asked Aki to borrow his deck, since Narukami would be quite good against Aqua Force in theory, because as long as I have an 11k Vanguard, "there's no reason for me to fear anything from your silly Aqua Dorks, is there?"  The Vermillion Thunderbolt is also pretty nice.

There were about 10 players there for the morning Vanguard tournament, including my friend who plays Vanguard.  He was using his Great Nature deck, now featuring new cards from Set 8.  He didn't want to play against any Aqua Dorks, since then his Leo-pald and Bison would get beat up by Basil.

I played against a newbie Spectral Duke player in the first round and won because I got more triggers than him and he missed his ride chain.  I lost the second round against spondo and his The End Kagero deck because I only got two triggers all game.  I then lost the third round against a newbie Majesty Lord player because he trigger-sacked me like crazy.

My friend ended up getting trigger-sacked and only got 3rd place.  Neither of us pulled anything of interest.

Between tournaments, since we had a few hours to spare, we went to the flea market so that I could get Neo Nectar stuff for my Arboros Dragon deck.  We ended up running into my Round 3 opponent from this evening Vanguard tournament.  He sold me two Sephirots for a total of $12, which was a great price.  That's probably because we're friends, and also because I sold him three Diamond Aces for a total of $24 (through my friend who plays Vanguard, who did the actual transaction at an earlier date).

I went around and looked for Neo Nectar perfect guards, Maiden of Trailing Roses, and Sephirots, but they were all priced too high (who would pay $5 for a Maiden of Trailing Rose...?).  So we just left after that.  Either way, I found out earlier today that my friend would be able to get me three Trailing Roses and three perfect guards in two weeks, so that'll work out well.

But anyway, we also had the evening Vanguard tournament to attend.  There were 24 players there, including exactly one Aqua Force player.  I saw him play, and he was really bad.  Like, he ran a bunch of Critical Triggers and didn't know how Maelstrom's effect worked... Either way, my friend was still afraid of getting beat up by Basil, so I let him use Aki's Narukami deck, while I used his Great Nature deck.

Round 1: vs Kagero (Goku)

I was relieved to see that he was running Goku and not The End.  I mean, Great Nature can make 20k columns to keep up with crossrides, but it's hard to make a 23k column without sacrificing power from the other columns.  But that wasn't important.  The main thing was that I just beat him up with 20k columns, and he couldn't retire my Stamp Sea Otter, so I won.

OO

Round 2: vs Tachikaze

I got paired down, so I was playing against a little kid who was using a Set 3 Tachikaze deck (that is, he had no cards from Set 8, not even triggers).  He made bad columns and didn't know what he was doing, so I won.

OO

Round 3: vs Gold Paladin (Spectral Duke)

This was my Top 4 opponent from this evening Vanguard tournament.  He got his ride chain all three games, but got gradestuck on Grade 1 for one turn in the first game.  I was able to win that game, but lost the other two because he got his ride chain and got more triggers than me.

OXX

Round 4: vs Tachikaze (Raptor)

Thankfully, I had a lot of practice with Raptor-series Tachikaze on the Vanguard video game, so I know how the deck works.  The only difference was that he was playing those bad swapping units (Brachioporter, Brachiocarrier, and Brachiocastle), so those cards could never make good columns.  So I just out-advantaged him and won.

OO

With that, they cut to Top 8.  My friend was undefeated, so he made it.  I also made it, since I was 3-1.

Top 8: vs Kagero (The End)

This was my Round 2 opponent from this evening Vanguard tournament.  This was worrying, because Great Nature loses its main advantage (being able to make 20-21k columns) against crossrides.  I ended up pulling about seven triggers over the course of the match, but I was still able to win the first game because he kept drawing Grade 3's.  I didn't even draw my triggers, like in the last two games, I would look at my drop zone at the end of the game, and the only triggers there would be the few triggers that were in my starting hand.  Seriously, not getting any triggers all game for two games in a row meant I was terribly unlucky.

OXX

My Top 8 opponent went on to beat my Round 3 opponent in the Top 4 to make Top 2.  My friend also made it to the Top 2, and they ended up splitting.  So my friend got nine packs of Set 8.  He pulled a Sephirot and an SP Sealed Demon Dragon, Dungaree, both of which went to me.  My friend tends to pull cards that I want quite often, which is good (for me).  Now I'll only need one more Sephirot for my Arboros Dragon deck, and I wanted the Dungaree because I like its artwork.

So, even though I didn't win anything, I got three Sephirots, so that was good.

On the following day (today), there was a Kaijudo tournament at the usual card shop.  I decided to go because I had nothing better to do today (meaning that I was done with my homework from the previous week) and I wanted the new promos.

There were a total of ten players, including my friend who plays Vanguard.  I borrowed Aki's Dragon Rush deck for him to use, since he didn't really want to continue using the WDF deck he's been using.  I was using my LWD Cobalt Control deck, which I changed a bit since last month.

Round 1: vs LWF Dragons

We played several games after the match for the tournament, so I don't really remember how it went.  But basically, he didn't get Nix in either game, so I was able to win pretty easily.

OO

Round 2: vs LWD Control

I was up against Fwazalaza and his weird deck.  It still has Paladio and such, so yeah...

-Duel 1: I was able to control the game pretty easily with Andromeda and such, so I won.
-Duel 2: He ended up getting a bunch of shields from Andromeda, so I tried to deck him out.  However, I didn't have enough creatures to combat his, so he was able to break all of my shields and win.
-Duel 3: The second game took so long that this game went into time.  When time was called, I had two shields to his five, so I had to try and rush him.  But he had a bigger field presence than me, so I wasn't able to beat him before time was up, so my forced recklessness allowed him to win before the final turn.  It was really frustrating, too, since I had gotten him down to one card, but he kept topping Logos Scans and other cards to gain card advantage, so he was able to come back from a disadvantage of about four cards to win.

OXX

Round 3: vs LWD Dragon Control

This was my Round 3 opponent from the previous Kaijudo tournament.

-Duel 1: I had control of the game with him having only one card and me having just dropped Andromeda, but he topped Terror Pit to kill my Andromeda, then his own Andromeda to take control.  I didn't have an answer, so I just lost slowly while he amassed a field full of Dragons.
-Duel 2: I had control of the game with him having just a couple creatures out and nothing in his hand, but then he topped two Orions in a row to kill my whole field.  I was able to deal with them, but then he topped Dreadclaw, Dark Herald to get back all of his Dragons and win.

XX

So that was really disappointing.  My friend wasn't able to do any better, as he also went 1-2.  We got Rise of the Duel Masters (the base set) packs for our entry packs, since I don't need any more cards from DragonStrike Infernus.  We pulled a Mighty Shouter and a Stormspark Blast, so that was alright.  I also bought a Razorkinder Puppet from the shop for $10; I was surprised it cost so little, compared to before.

Anyways, I kind of don't know what to do now.  I felt like I lost because I wasn't running enough boss creatures.  Basically, most of the games that I lost ended that way because my opponent played more Dragons than me.  So, I just feel like I should run more Dragons or something like that.  But at the same time, I don't want to do that, because then you risk opening with no plays for the first five turns, and that's how you lose to rush or really any relatively fast-paced deck.  Maybe I'll try running Fire again, I'm not sure.

So, I'll just have to figure out what to do, since I really want to have at least one Saracon, Storm Dynamo, and it seems like the only way to get one is to get Top 3, since the Top 3 get promo cards, and the other three are raffled off.  The Top 3 get the first pick, the ones that get raffled off are generally the worse of the two promos, so since no one wants the other one, I'd have to top to get Saracon.

I also need to fix my friend's deck for next weekend.  He won't be able to use Aki's deck next time, since Aki will probably be coming with me to the Kaijudo tournament next Sunday.  So, I'll have to find the time to fix both my own deck and my friend's deck, and I barely know where to start, so yeah...

As for Vanguard, I'll just play Dark Irregulars or Nova Grappler next weekend.  No big deal, since the game is just luck.