Tournament Report 6/1/13 & 6/2/13

So I ended up being able to go to the Kaijudo tournament today, but the Vanguard tournaments from yesterday were first, so yeah.

There were 12 players at the morning Vanguard tournament.  I was using Arboros Dragon Neo Nectar, Riku was there and was using Arboros Dragon as well (both of us decided to make the deck independently, and his build is just one card different from mine, so that shows how simple deck-building in Vanguard is...).  My friend who plays Vanguard also showed up, and he decided to use a Soul Saver Dragon Royal Paladin deck that Riku made for fun.

I played against a bad Shadow Paladin player who left Nemain out on the field without a booster for the entire game and won.  I played against a newbie Royal Paladin player who got gradestuck on Grade 2 in the second round and won.  I got paired down against Riku in the third round and lost, but he gave me the win because I was still undefeated, while he had already lost the second round.  I then played against a newbie Spectral Duke Gold Paladin player and won because he got gradestuck on Grade 2.

So I ended up getting 1st place and winning five packs of Set 8.  I pulled an Armed Instructor, Bison and a Musketeer Rebecca (I know the Musketeers' names from testing them on the video game, but not their titles...).  That's about it.

Between tournaments, the three of us discussed our strategy for the upcoming Team League Regional on Friday.  My friend is probably going to run Pale Moon, but he may use Narukami or something.  Riku is either going to use his Arboros Dragon deck or my Dark Irregulars deck, and I'm going to use whichever one he doesn't use.  It doesn't really matter to me which deck I use; I'll just let him use whichever deck he's more comfortable with.

Anyways, after that was the evening Vanguard tournament.  There were 15 players there.  We were using the same decks as in the morning tournament.

I got a bye in the first round, so I just watched Riku's game.

Round 2: vs Gold Paladin (Spectral Duke)

This was my Round 4 opponent from this evening Vanguard tournament.  I lost the first game because I drew all of my Grade 3's (literally all of them) and therefore had no boosters.  I won the second game because he got gradestuck for a turn.  I lost the third game because he got his ride chain and I didn't get mine.  Oh, and I only drew two triggers all game and didn't drive/damage check any.

XOX

Round 3: vs Shadow Paladin (Ildona)

This was my Round 1 opponent from this evening Vanguard tournament.  I won both games because Ildona is a 10k Vanguard that gets beat up easily by 25k columns.  I didn't even get the ride chain in the first game, he just let through my Maiden of Trailing Rose's Persona Blast.

OO

Round 4: vs Neo Nectar (Arboros Dragon)

I was up against Riku.  We decided to play, then see how our tie-breakers did.  We both got our ride chains in the first game, but I got gradestuck on Grade 2.  Even so, he had a bunch of Grade 3's in hand, so my early rush allowed me to win, since I kept pulling triggers.  We both missed our ride chains in the second game, but he got more triggers than me, so I lost.  In the third game, he got his ride chain, while I did not, so I lost.  And afterwards, it turned out that his tie-breakers were better than mine, so that worked out well.

OXX

With that, they cut to Top 4.  I obviously didn't make it, but both of my friends did.  Unfortunately, my friend lost to getting trigger-sacked and gradestuck.  It was such a quick match, so Riku and his Top 4 opponent (my Round 2 opponent from this evening Vanguard tournament) were still playing.  However, they just agreed to a three-way split with the guy who sacked my friend.

They each got five packs, and although Riku pulled nothing, his opponent pulled a Sealed Demon Dragon, Dungaree.  I asked him to trade for the Dungaree, along with another copy I saw in his binder earlier.  I had pulled a Dimensional Robo, Daidragon from my entry pack, and traded it for the two Dungarees, so now I have three RRR's and one SP.  Maybe I'll play the Dungaree crossride when it comes out, who knows...?

So that's about it for the Vanguard tournaments.  And now we get to the important part of the post: the Kaijudo tournament.

There were 11 players there today, including my friend who plays Vanguard.  There were no new promos for this month, so we were playing for the same promos as before (Saracon and the other one), as well as packs.  I was using Light/Darkness/Nature Megabugs.  Yes, Megabugs, just like I said in the previous post.  My friend was using Aki's WDF Dragon Rush deck, again.

Round 1: vs WDF Dragon Control

This was the guy who had traded me The Hive Queen last weekend.

-Duel 1: He ended up wasting a lot of his cards really quickly, and he didn't have the Logos Scan to replenish his hand.  I simply swarmed the field with a bunch of floaters (cards that pay for themselves when they enter the battle field) like Mana Tick, Fumes, and Gigahorn Charger.  Then, I wiped out his field with The Hive Queen, which got me a Humonculon the Blaster, so that I could kill his Umbra.  After that, I just broke all of his shields in one turn (he was at 7 mana, so I knew he couldn't respond with a big Level 9 creature on the following turn), so I won.
-Duel 2: He ended up summoning Scaradorable of Gloom Hollow and getting really aggressive with it.  It took a few shields, but then I controlled the game with The Hive Queen and Ra-Vu, Seeker of Lightning.  He wasn't able to do much, since I rushed him before he could drop all of his big creatures, so I won.

OO

Round 2: vs WDF Dragon Aggro

-Duel 1: He didn't have Nix, so he ran out of cards really quickly.  He had a Herald of Infernus out, but with no cards in hand, it was no threat.  So, I just slowly built up a field with all of my floaters, then went for game with The Hive Queen and Ra-Vu, Seeker of Lightning.
-Duel 2: Same as before, he didn't have a Nix (he charged it this time, for some reason), so I didn't really have much to worry about.  I wasn't able to beat him before he got to 9 mana, but he couldn't really do much to stop me from winning anyway.

OO

At this point, there were only three undefeated players left, including myself.

Round 3: vs 5-Civ Dragons

This was my Round 2 opponent from this Kaijudo tournament, Eman of TCGWise.  He was one of the other undefeated players.  I asked him why he was running all five Civilizations, and he said that he didn't know what to run, so he just made the deck for fun.

-Duel 1: He didn't have any early plays and took a minus when he hard-cast Bottle of Wishes and hit Stormspark Blast, which was wasted.  So, I was able to just overwhelm him with my floaters and win with Ra-Vu, Seeker of Lightning and Lyra, the Blazing Sun.
-Duel 2: Again, he didn't have any substantial early plays.  He ended up drawing all three Bottle of Wishes, charging one and hard-casting the other two.  He got a Root Trap (to bind my Mana Tick) and a Lux.  I was able to drop The Hive Queen and control the game from there.  I also made a very evil play, tapping his last creature with Spark Cage, killing it with The Hive Queen, and getting Fumes off of The Hive Queen's effect to discard the only card in his hand.  But yeah, I was able to win pretty easily.

OO

The third undefeated player, who was paired down, won his match, so the next round would be the final one.

Round 4: vs LWD Dragon Control

He was excited to be in the finals, since he really wanted to win a tournament.  I had seen him play earlier, so I knew what to expect.

-Duel 1: He rushed me with Nix, Lyra, and two Lux.  I couldn't field a creature until turn 6 (I opened up with some low-cost spells, but not creatures), so I lost.  I had Mesmerized him on turn 3, and his hand was Nix, Lyra, and Andromeda.  I chose to discard Andromeda, but in retrospect, Nix wouldn't have been a bad option, either.  I just didn't want him to drop Andromeda and make it really difficult for me to break all of his shields in one turn, since I didn't have a Terror Pit or Root Trap.  I probably should've chosen Nix, since he topped another Lyra, which didn't really help him.  At the same time, I wasn't expecting him to rush me, since he was playing a Control deck.  Either way, I'll take that into consideration next time.
-Duel 2: I was able to rush him with my floaters this time.  I dropped The Hive Queen and The Swarmleader, but he killed them with Terror Pit and Lyra, respectively.  However, he had to crash his Lyra into The Swarmleader since I killed his Andromeda with Terror Pit before he played the Lyra.  So, I just rushed him with Fumes, Keeper of Laws, and Gigahorn Charger to win.
-Duel 3: He got really aggressive with Scaradorable of Gloom Hollow.  That gave me all of the cards I needed to rush him with The Hive Queen and two copies of Ra-Vu, Seeker of Lightning.  My deck doesn't have trouble dealing with Gloom Hollow, since I have stuff like Gigahorn Charger, Humonculon the Blaster, and Keeper of Dawn to deal with it.  So, I dealt with it, swarmed the field with floaters, and won.

XOO

So, I ended up going undefeated (only losing one game, in fact) and getting 1st place.  That won me another Saracon and six packs of Clash of the Duel Masters.

My friend ended up going 3-1.  He got a bye in the first round, lost the second round 0-2 to my Round 3 opponent, won the third round  2-0 against my Round 2 opponent, and won the fourth round 2-0 against a LWD Control deck that used Azuri, the Dawnbreaker.  He was able to get 3rd place, winning him two packs.

In total, including our entry packs, we got a total of 10 packs.  Out of those packs, I got a Squillace Scourge, Shapeshifter Scaradorable,  Magma Dragon Melgars, and Starseed Squadron.  Those are all cards I either didn't have or didn't mind having more of, so that worked out well.  I don't use Starseed Squardon anymore, and I don't think I'd use more than one Shapeshifter Scaradorable, but they're nice to have.

So, overall, my Megabug deck worked much better than expected.  I had to put a lot of work into it, since I haven't seen any other Megabug decks to get ideas from.  I would go more in detail about how I made the deck and what's in it, but I'm probably going to be using it at the KMC in Las Vegas, which Aki and I are going to attend, so I'd rather not spoil the deck quite yet.

I will say that I noticed that I would usually win before my opponent got to 9 mana.  The deck worked pretty well to prevent my opponents from dropping all of the big Level 9 Dragons that they rely on.  It was also pretty versatile, allowing me to either rush or stall out and try to control the game.  It certainly fit my play-style better, since I didn't really like just sitting and waiting for 20 turns before attacking shields.  I know that Fwazalaza does, though, since I saw that in one of his matches, he waited until he had like 15 creatures on the field before attacking shields...