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

So, my friend who plays Vanguard and I decided to join the Vanguard tournaments this weekend.  I wanted to get Nova Grappler cards from Set 9, and he wanted Polaris for his Great Nature deck.

Also, there were 15 other players at the morning Vanguard tournament, which meant the prize was worth playing for.  I was using my Arboros Dragon Neo Nectar deck and my friend used my Dark Irregulars because he didn't want his Leo-pald to get beat up by Basil.

I won the first two rounds against little kids using Gold Paladins.  I played like Misaki, predicting my Critical Triggers correctly, and won easily.  I played the third round against a Narukami player.  He crossrode to The Blood and recklessly used its Ultimate Break.  I made two 23k+ columns with my Sephirots on the following turn to beat him down and win.

As expected, my final opponent was my friend, so he just gave me the win because he had better tie-breakers.  We got 1st and 2nd place, winning a total of 14 packs, not including the entry packs.  We pulled a Glory Maelstrom, a Tristinger Dragon, an Illuminal Dragon, and a Shirayuki.  We also got a few Rares that we wanted, so that was good.

Between tournaments, we just played Yu-Gi-Oh and Vanguard.  I remade my old Monarch deck, the one based around Drill Warrior and Necro Gardna.  It was pretty fun to play and isn't ridiculous like Gem-Knights, so I made it for fun.

After that, my friend and I met my Round 2 opponent from this Vanguard tournament at the other card shop.  My friend and I decided that he could join Team Snogal as the fourth Snogal, since his previous team abandoned him, and also because Riku quit Vanguard to concentrate on Kaijudo, which is good.  So, he was our third player for the team tournament yesterday.

There were two other teams there, which is the usual turnout nowadays.  Generally there's nine other people who show up, but I guess three of them couldn't make it.  So, it would just be a simple single elimination tournament with each player on the team playing a best-of-three match.  Because the tournament organizer knew that Team Snogal was better than the other two teams (generally because we always occupy half of the Top 4 of the normal tournaments), they gave us the bye, so all we had to do was beat the winning team from the first match.

What's more is that we correctly predicted who the other two teams were and what they would be playing.  We were also correct in our assumption of which team would win, and we prepared our line-up to beat theirs.  My friend was our first player, using the fourth Snogal's Ezel Gold Paladin deck.  We had him paired up against a The End Kagero deck.  The fourth Snogal was our second player, using my Dark Irregulars.  We had him paired up against an Ezel Gold Paladin deck.

I was the third player, playing in an Arboros Dragon Neo Nectar mirror match against my Round 3 opponent from this Vanguard tournament.  Apparently, after getting beaten by my Arboros Dragon deck so much, he decided to copy me.  We both missed our ride chains in the first game, so I killed his rear-guards and applied pressure with Maiden of Trailing Rose's Persona Blast.  I then surprised him by riding Sephirot to take advantage of the Limit Break and win.  I won the second game with double Critical Triggers, because that's so skillful.

Unfortunately, my friend got sacked and lost his match 1-2.  Not only that, but our fourth Snogal got gradestuck on two of his three games and lost 1-2.  Ugh, they failed the team, so we lost our chance at an easy 15 packs.

It didn't matter to me, though, since the fourth Snogal pulled an Illuminal Dragon from his entry pack and gave it to me, along with another Illuminal Dragon he had gotten earlier.  So, my Beast Deity Nova Grappler deck is complete until Set 10 comes out.  I was also able to get a couple of Dragonic Kaiser Vermillion "The Blood"s for Aki over the past couple weekends, so his deck will be complete when I'm able to give them to him.  My friend's Great Nature deck is also finished, so yeah, we don't really need much else for Vanguard until Set 10.

What's silly is that Team Snogal is going to pool together our money to get a case of Set 10 when it comes out, so we wouldn't even have to win any packs in tournaments.  I actually won't be putting any money in, since my friend will be paying for my share in order to pay off some of his debt to me, so I'll be getting Ethics Busters and such for free.  I hadn't really mentioned this earlier because we didn't really care enough, but now we've started planning for it and such, so yeah.  It worries me that Bushiroad took the release date for Set 10 off of the official website, but hopefully it's just some sort of mistake.

Anyways, my friend and I went to the Kaijudo tournament this morning, as well.  I was running my LFN Megabug deck, having trimmed the deck down to 42 cards.  My friend was running his WFN Aggro deck, except that we took the Sprouts out of the deck for Manapod Beetles.

There were 11 players there in total.

Round 1: vs LWDN Control

I was up against Fwazalaza.

-Duel 1: I drew no Megabugs in my opening hand and continued to not draw them until it was too late, so I lost.
-Duel 2: He slowly took control of the game after I broke all of his shields.  He was able to drop an Andromeda, but I broke those new shields, too, after killing his Andromeda with The Swarmleader (it serves a purpose other than being there because I don't have a third The Hive Queen!).  He waited too long to try and go for game, since he let me top-deck a Lyra, the Blazing Sun (after like five turns...) to tap his only Blocker so that my lone Ambush Scorpion could attack for game.
-Duel 3: Same as before, he waited too long to try and ensure his victory after I broke all of his shields.  He wiped out my field with Orion, then broke all of my shields.  He could've won if he had just attacked me instead of killing my creatures first, but he gave me the extra turn I needed.  I declared "Final Turn", played Stormspark Blast to tap his two Blockers, then played Gilaflame the Assaulter to attack for game.

XOO

Round 2: vs DFN Megabugs

Apparently this guy was from out of town or something.  I knew that he was playing Megabugs because during Round 1, he started watching my match and asked "Just how many Megabug players are there here?"  Apparently, my Round 4 opponent from this Kaijudo tournament decided to play Megabugs this weekend, and my opponent saw that and showed me that he was running Megabugs as well.  It turns out that he was running a very different version of the deck than myself, so it was an interesting match.

-Duel 1: I knew that since he wasn't playing Light, I could stall out and it wouldn't matter, since he couldn't drop Andromeda.  He also didn't charge mana past 6, so I was okay with that.  I let him drop his The Hive Queen, then I locked it with Lyra, and then bound it with Root Trap on the following turn.  I set up to drop my own The Hive Queen and was able to break most of his shields.  He had a Root Trap for my The Hive Queen, but it didn't matter, since I was able to go for game on the following turn without it.
-Duel 2: I had a good set up with Mana Tick to grab Kryon, which I played on turn 5.  He dropped his The Hive Queen on turn 6 to go in and break shields, getting him a free Manapod Beetle.  I evolved for my The Hive Queen, which Kryon gave +2k so that I could kill his The Hive Queen.  I simply controlled him from there to win.

OO

Round 3: vs LWDF Control

I was paired down against my Top 4 opponent from KMC Las Vegas, Stephen L.  He had lost the previous round, and there were three undefeated players left, so I ended up getting paired down.  A lot of people wanted there to be a fourth round, so they wanted me to win so that they could continue playing.

-Duel 1: I opened up with a good progression of Manapod Beetle, Mana Tick, Kryon, then The Hive Queen.  Kryon gave everything Fast Attack, so I was able to kill him by turn 7.
-Duel 2: Same as before, though I took my time because he played Herald of Infernus, which stopped me for a couple of turns.  He didn't have any draw cards, though, so he ran out of cards after committing three of them to the field so early.  After I dealt with the Herald, I played Kryon and The Hive Queen to break all of his shields and win.

OO

Round 4: vs LWDn Control

We were the last two undefeated players, so this was the finals.  My opponent for this round had beaten my friend in the second round with multiple Andromedas in games 2 and 3, so I had to avenge him.  Apparently, this guy didn't have much experience playing Kaijudo; he said that it was only his second tournament.  As such, he didn't know what my deck did or how to play against it.

-Duel 1: He put Aqua Strider in mana early on, which was nice.  I had a good progression of Manapod Beetle, Mana Tick, Kryon, then The Hive Queen.  The Hive Queen got me Gigahorn Charger, which got me Lyra.  Unfortunately, The Hive Queen hit Bone Blades and Root Trap as Shield Blasts... He sent The Hive Queen and Manapod Beetle to mana, ramping me up by 3.  From there, it was easy enough to just swarm with little bugs and win due to Steamtank Kryon.
-Duel 2: I opened up with Mana Tick, then Keeper of Laws.  He played two Keeper of Laws, despite the fact that I played no spells in the first game, so that was fine by me.  I was able to follow it up with Steamtank Kryon, then The Hive Queen, which got me Gigahorn Charger, which got me Lyra, again.  The combination of Steamtank and Lyra is just so powerful, since it let me lock his Blocker on the following turn, then immediately break the rest of his shields and win.

OO

So, I ended up going undefeated and getting 1st place.  For that, I won six packs.  Sadly, my friend lost his last match to Mono-Fire Rush, so he just went 2-2.  Either way, I won one of the new holo Sprouts, and my friend got one from the raffle, so I had gotten a total of two.  I was able to trade them and a Shapeshifter Scaradorable to my Round 2 opponent for The Hive Queen, which he pulled from his entry pack.  So, now I have a third The Hive Queen, which is great.  I'll just win more Sprouts over the next three weeks.  Not to mention that I don't really need holo'd-out Sprouts...

But yeah, the deck worked how it's supposed to today, which was good.  I was considering using Water instead of Fire, but the Steamtank Kryon and Gilaflame the Assaulter are just so helpful against Control decks, so I don't really want to make that change.  If anything, I would take out the Light cards to use Water.  I mean, the Light section is just Andromeda, Lyras, Keeper of Laws, a couple Blockers, Stormspark Blasts, and Humonculons.  And now that I say that, I feel silly for wanting to take Light out of my deck.  I guess I just won't run Water, since General Finbarr can't be searched by Gigahorn Charger like Lyra can.  It's always something to consider, though.

Actually, the fourth Snogal has shown some interest in Kaijudo, since he used to play Duel Masters.  I'll probably try to make a deck for him to try out next weekend.  I'll see what I can come up with.  So yeah, that's about it.  Aki should also be able to make it to locals sometime next weekend, so we'll see what happens.