Tournament Report 9/28/13 & 9/29/13

So, this is my last weekend of children's card games before I have to concentrate on school.  It started with the morning Vanguard tournament at the usual card shop.  Ray and his friend were there.  There were five other players, four of whom were bad.  I was running Arboros Dragon Neo Nectar, and Ray was running my Beast Deity Nova Grappler deck.

In the first round, I played against one of the bad players whom I always beat.  Apparently, he hates our team (Team Snogal) because we always assume that we're going to win.  I told him that if he wants us to stop thinking like that, then he should play better.  He made terrible misplays, like calling Grade 2 or 3's to the back row and leaving them there just so that Tron would give his Blond Ezel the extra 4k, which didn't matter since Sephirot was at 11k.  He also cheered when I didn't get triggers and cursed when he didn't get triggers.  He was just immature in general.  But, I won, so whatever.

I got paired against Ray in the second round and we just played Kaijudo for fun.  He gave me the win because he had better tie-breakers.  In the third round, I played against one the the little kids whom I always beat.  He was playing Narukami; he had Vermillion and The Blood, but I don't know how many of each he had.  He still had garbage like Vasuki and Gyras in his deck, so yeah.  Anyways, he tried to break through my two-to-pass when he pulled a Critical Trigger after he used his Ultimate Break while I was at 4 damage.  I didn't have enough to guard if he had put it on a rear-guard like a sensible person, but he failed and I lived because of it.  I was able to win on the following turn.  He even misplayed on that turn, too, guarding until he ran out of cards, even though we both knew that he didn't have enough to guard everything.

So yeah, I went undefeated and won additional booster packs.  Ray and I got EB01 in an attempt to pull Machining Stag Beetle (I only have three), but we failed.  I got a Machining Armor Beetle from the other player there who wasn't bad ("There were five other players, four of whom were bad."), so that was cool.  I just need three more, not that I'd play Megacolony in tournaments anyways...

After that, we also decided to play in the evening Vanguard tournament.  I wasn't going to, but they started giving out promo packs, and I wanted more Armor Beetles, so I entered.  Neither Ray nor I pulled an Armor Beetle, though, so that was sad.  There was a total of 12 players there.

Round 1: vs Bermuda Triangle

She was playing a really random Bermuda Triangle build.  It had the Riviere ride chain, but also Vert and that Grade 3 that gains 10k when you ride a Grade 3 while it's a rear-guard, which is silly.  She was a really nice person, though.  Anyway, I won the first game easily, then lost the second game because I only pulled one trigger all game, and she got a bunch.  I got gradestuck on Grade 0 in the third game, so I lost.

OXX

Round 2: vs Oracle Think Tank (Soulless)

His deck was incomplete, and he didn't even ride Scarlet Witch, Coco, so I won easily.  He also attacked my rear-guards unnecessarily, otherwise he may have been able to win.

OO

Round 3: Aqua Force (Maelstrom)

He was playing a crummy Aqua Dork deck, so I didn't really worry too much.  I won the first game because his Basil and Seagull (he called a Stand Trigger just to get four attacks in) couldn't hit anything, and he didn't even get me to 4 damage.  I lost the second game because I kept drawing triggers and didn't have anything to put down as rear-guards.  I won the third game because he got gradestuck on Grade 0.

OXO

With that, they cut to Top 4.  I didn't make it, but Ray did.  He had to play against my Round 1 opponent, but he ended up losing due to getting trigger-sacked in the second game and gradestuck on Grade 1 in the third.

And that's why we play Kaijudo.  We went to the usual card shop this morning for the Kaijudo tournament.  Aki was also able to make it, since he wanted to test his new deck before the KMC.  He was using WDF Dragon Rush, now featuring Var-rakka and Squillace Scourge.  Ray was using a WDN Mid-range deck that used Borran and various Scaradorables.  I was using a LWF Aggro deck; I almost wasn't able to use it, because the fourth Snogal, who hasn't showed up in two weeks, still has my General Finbarrs and hasn't returned them, but I was able to borrow some from Fwazalaza, so that was cool.

There were a total of 10 players there.

Round 1: vs LWDF Dragons

I was playing against Stephen L.

-Duel 1: I had a good start with Cyber Scamp, and he had no early plays, so I basically just killed him before he could play anything.
-Duel 2: I had a good progression of Cyber Scamp and Aqua Seneschal, and his early plays were Piercing Judgment (to bounce the Seneschal and give me another Cyber Scamp) and Bottle of Wishes (to hit nothing of significance), so I won.

OO

Round 2: vs LWDF Dragons

This was my Round 1 opponent from this Kaijudo tournament.

-Duel 1: I rushed in at him with Cyber Scamp, Aqua Seneschal, and Gilaflame the Assaulter.  He had a Bottle of Wishes in the shields, which gave him Infernus the Awakened.  That killed everything I had except Gilaflame, which won me the game.  He started complaining that he didn't have a Shield Blast to deal with Gilaflame, so I told him that since he hit the Awakened off of Bottle, he lost the right to complain about not having enough Shield Blasts.
-Duel 2: He opened up with Nix and Herald of Infernus, which is difficult for me to deal with.  I opened with Seneschal, then Blade Barrier on the Herald so that I could safely attack.  I killed the Herald with Tornado Flame, but his Nix gave him too many free cards and too much momentum, so I lost.
-Duel 3: He opened up with Lux, Nix, then Lyra, so he was able to drop all of his Dragons too early.  I didn't have any cards that let me gain advantage, so I lost once he dropped two Andromedas.  I could deal with one, but not two.

OXX

Round 3: vs 5-Civ Dragons

-Duel 1: I rushed in at his shields with Cyber Scamp and hit a Bottle, which hit a Stormspark Blast.  That let me take the two Scamps in my deck and put them on the field for free.  He couldn't deal with that, so I won.
-Duel 2: I had a slow start (which will only happen 12% of the time for this deck), but so did he, so I was able to drop a Plasma Pincer and Cyber Scamp on turn 5 and win with those.

OO

That ended up being the last round, so I went 2-1 and got 3rd place.  Aki went 1-2, and Ray went 0-2, drop.  How sad.  Anyways, we got a total of 5 packs, and the only noteworthy cards we pulled were Serpens, Calamity Bell, and Cyber Scamp.  I was able to trade the Cyber Scamp to Fwazalaza since he only needed one more (which is ironic, since he traded me my third on one Friday) for a Razorkinder Puppet, so that was cool.

That's about it for this weekend.  The KMC is on Saturday, so that will be exciting.  I think that my new deck did well enough for me to consider using it at the KMC, but I still have other options.  We'll see what happens, I guess.

Random Stuff #54

It has been quite a while since I've done one of these posts, huh?  Well, it's my last day of summer break, so I figured that I might as well post on my recent thoughts on stuff.

The most important thing would be Kaijudo, but I kind of want to keep my strategy for the KMC a secret.  I can say that I've decided not to make a Queen Kalima deck, though.  I might just keep the playset of Queen Kalimas that I have, or I could try to sell and/or trade them.  I guess it just depends on what opportunities I can find.  I would probably be able to trade them at the KMC or something.  We'll see.

As for why I don't want to make a Queen Kalima deck at the moment, the deck is a little fragile.  It kind of loses to Keeper of Laws because of all of the ramp spells.  There's also the fact that the destruction effect Kalima has is based on which cards you mill.  Even if 60% of your deck is Darkness cards, you only have about a 44% chance of milling two Darkness cards and a 20% chance of milling three.  Those aren't promising numbers, in my opinion.  But, I guess it depends on the meta; if everyone plays Eternal Haven decks and they just ramp up to Eternal Haven and drop one Blocker with its effect, then you have a 64% chance of killing the Haven and the accompanying creature with Queen Kalima's effect.  That's not bad at all, but it assumes that those are the only two creatures on the board.  Like I said, it just depends on the meta.

Anyway, I've also been thinking about getting Pokemon X when it comes out.  I actually haven't discussed it for over two years, but I quit playing Pokemon White when I got to the Elite Four.  All of my Pokemon were around Level 40, and the Elite Four and N have all Level 48-52 Pokemon, meaning that I would get stomped.  I didn't want to waste my time grinding experience for that, so I quit.  Regardless, seeing as how I need a completed Generation V game to transfer Pokemon to Pokemon X, I've decided to finish Pokemon White.  I spent like three hours earlier today leveling up my Sigilyph and Lilligant to Level 50, and there's still a bunch more to do.  I guess I'll have two weeks before Pokemon X and Y are released, so I have time.

And, to be honest, Generation V pretty much ruined Pokemon for me.  I mean, there were some really unimaginative and ridiculous things in Black and White, which is a large part of why I quit playing White two years ago.  But, Pokemon X and Y look alright, and it seems as though older Pokemon (like from Generation IV and before) are a much larger focus of the game.  Instead of running into garbage bags and ice cream cones, it seems as though there are more well thought-out Pokemon than before.  I also like the fact that you basically start with three Pokemon (the Generation VI starter, the Generation I starter, and the promotional Torchic).

So, there are a lot of interesting features that make Pokemon X worth buying for me.  Even though Mega Evolutions are ridiculously gimmicky, I guess they can be kind of interesting.  Unfortunately, it doesn't take up a turn to Mega Evolve a Pokemon; you just Mega Evolve them before making your move for the turn.

And, I've missed playing Pokemon in general.  It was fun to battle against friends and such, and that will be easier with the options that Pokemon X and Y provide.  Being able to EV train Pokemon without tedious battling is quite convenient, so hopefully, it won't take entire days just to prepare one Pokemon.  There's still not that much information on Pokemon X and Y overall, though, so we'll just have to wait and see.

There's not much else to talk about, I guess.  There is Vanguard, but nothing interesting will be happening until Set 11 is released, so yeah.  And with school starting tomorrow, I will have very little time to make videos and blog posts.  Basically, I'll be concentrating on Kaijudo until the KMC on October 5, then I'll be working on finishing Pokemon White so that I can transfer up all of my Pokemon from Platinum and SoulSilver, then I'll be playing Pokemon X once it is released on October 12, or maybe a day or two after that.  From there, Team Snogal will just be waiting to get a case of Set 11 on October 26.  But yeah, that's about it.

Tournament Report 9/21/13 & 9/22/13

I went to locals as usual.  Aki and I went to the usual card shop on Saturday and met up with Ray.  We decided against playing in the morning Vanguard tournament, though apparently the new promo packs, the ones with Red Pulse Dracokid and Machining Armor Beetle, are out.  So, starting next weekend, I will start participating in the morning Vanguard tournaments to get promo packs.

Either way, we went to the evening Vanguard tournament at the other card shop.  Aki was playing WeiB Schwarz with one of his friends, and Ray wanted to play in the Vanguard tournament.  I didn't want to just sit there, so I decided to enter as well.  I was using my Arboros Dragon Neo Nectar deck, and he was using my Beast Deity Nova Grappler deck.  There were a total of 14 players there.

In the first round, I played against my Round 3 opponent from this evening Vanguard tournament.  He was playing Arboros Dragon Neo Nectar as well, got the ride chain all three games, and kept getting triggers on all of his drive checks, so I lost.

I proceeded to play against two little kids in the following two rounds and beat them both because they didn't even know how their own decks worked.  I had to play against Ray in the final round and ended up giving him the win because he had better tie-breakers than me.  He ended up getting into the Top 4, but got gradestuck on Grade 0, then got trigger-sacked in the following game to lose.

That was rather unsuccessful, so yeah.  On the following day (today), Ray and I went to the Kaijudo tournament at the usual card shop.  He was using his usual WDFN Dragon Rush deck, now with Deep Mind Probe, and I was using a LDN Mid-range deck.  It was kind of focused around Gigahorn Charger and Enforcers.  It's really difficult to describe...

Round 1: vs WFN Aggro

I was playing against Eman of TCGWise.

-Duel 1: He opened up with a really good progression of Weaponized Razorcat, Aqua Seneschal, then Bronze-Arm Sabertooth.  I couldn't do anything against such an early Double Breaker, so I lost pretty quickly.
-Duel 2: He opened up with the same progression as last time, except that I was able to deal with it this time.  Unfortunately, he had a Gilaflame the Assaulter, which I was unable to deal with.  I didn't draw any of my discard in time, and I didn't get any Shield Blasts, so I lost.

XX

I got a bye in the second round, so I recorded the match between Fwazalaza and Stephen L.  That was a mistake, since it took them an hour to finish because it was a Control mirror match...

Round 3: vs LWDN Control

Fwazalaza ended up losing against Stephen in the previous round, so I was paired against him.

-Duel 1: Gregoria's Fortress threatened his Eternal Haven and Death Liger, the Justicar, but I wasn't able to destroy them before he was able to destroy the Fortress.
-Duel 2: I just rushed him with stuff like Sword Horned, then ripped apart his hand with Skull Shatter to take control.  I was able to win using Noble Rumbling Terrasaur.
-Duel 3: I don't really remember what happened in this duel.  He basically just dropped Eternal Haven after using Root Trap on my Gregoria's Fortress, and I lost.

XOX

So both Ray and I ended up going 0-2, basically.  That was sad, but oh well.  I was just testing out this deck, since I'm kind of bored of playing Megabugs.  I'm just surprised that there were no Dragon decks today aside from Ray's.

Either way, because there was only five people in the tournament, everyone got a Necrose, Nightmare Bloom.  Since I paid for Ray's entry fee, I got his Necrose and entry pack.  He ended up pulling a Queen Kalima for me, so now I have three of those and four Necroses.

I was able to trade with Fwazalaza to get some cards for both Aki and I.  I traded an Eternal Haven and Twilight Archon for a Var-rakka, Khordia, Kivu, Ra-Vu the Indomitable, Waterspout Gargoyle, Sparkblade Protector, and a Duel Day Magris.  Now I have three each of the latter two, so I could make Mono-Light Rush if I wanted to.  It's a thing, especially with Blinder Beetle Prime, so I like having the option.

I did want to keep the Eternal Haven, but I figured that it would be really difficult to get any more of them, so I might as well just trade it for cards that I will use instead of letting it sit in my binder.  Fwazalaza also wanted a Queen Kalima, but since I have three now, I decided to make a deck around it.  I don't have high hopes, but at least it counters Eternal Haven decks (non-targetting removal is like the only way to kill Eternal Haven) and decks that try to dump a bunch of Dragons on the board in the late game (mass removal just deals with that).  I will build the deck later this week.

I do feel uneasy about having to try out new decks right now, though, because there is an upcoming Kaijudo Master Challenge at the usual card shop on October 5.  That means that I won't really have much time to test my deck.  I guess that didn't stop me from topping at the KMC in Las Vegas with LFN Megabugs, but still.

Lastly, my classes start on Thursday, so I won't be able to go to locals on Sundays starting in October.  I don't really care about October, since the Duel Day promo is bad, but I do want to be able to go in November.  I've pestered the shopkeeper about it, and he may move the Kaijudo tournaments to Saturdays, so there is still hope.  We'll see, I guess.

Tournament Report 9/15/13

My weekend actually started on Friday, but I didn't go to a tournament until today, so yeah...

On Friday, I went to the usual card shop to get two boxes of Shattered Alliances.  Out of those boxes, I pulled eight Super Rares and nine Very Rares, so that was pretty good.  The relevant cards that I pulled were two Queen Kalima, one Eternal Haven, one Twilight Archon, one Blitzer-Mech Falkora, and one Kivu, Ingenious Shaman.  Unfortunately, I didn't pull any of the Super Rare Dragons, so that was sad.  On the bright side, I pulled a total of zero Calamity Bells and Serpens, so there weren't any wasted Rares or Very Rares.  I might not even buy any of the Solar Eclipse decks because I don't need any of the cards from there.  We'll see...

The fourth Snogal also showed up, and we decided to get the Magic Deck Builder's Toolkits.  We got a total of three (one for him, one for Aki, and one for myself), and we spent the rest of our time making decks to play for fun.  The fourth Snogal also bought a Kaijudo deck I made for him (LWN Aggro), so he'll hopefully be able to start playing in tournaments.

Yesterday, Aki and I met up with Ray.  We mainly played Kaijudo, and Ray decided to enter the evening Vanguard tournament at the other card shop for some reason.  He used Aki's Vermillion Narukami deck and lost in the Top 4 to Aqua Dorks.  That's about it.

As for today, I went to the Kaijudo Set Premiere at the usual card shop.  Ray and the fourth Snogal were able to make it as well.  Just like last time, everyone got five packs of the new set to make a deck from using a minimum of 30 cards.  There would be three rounds, and each player would get a promo card for each round they win.

My sealed pool was decent.  I had to use all five Civilizations, which I kind of wanted to avoid.  I ended up running a 34-card deck that included 16 Multi-civilization cards, so that wasn't very good.  However, from what everyone else was saying, a huge chunk of their decks were Multi-civilization cards, so I guess mine wasn't too bad.  I even used a few Mono-civilization vanillas so that I wouldn't get mana-screwed as easily.  The holos I pulled were Doomblast Scaradorable and Finbarr's Dreadnought; they aren't that great overall, but they're really good in sealed.

In the first round, I played against my Round 2 opponent from this Kaijudo tournament.  I rushed him with Phase Scout and Plasma Pincer, and he couldn't deal with them since his Blockers had Guard.  Once he finally killed my Phase Scout, I ended up bouncing his last Blocker with Crystallize to win.  Don't be mistaken, Crystallize is still a horrible card, it's just that your options are very limited in sealed... I ended up winning the second game using Doomblast Scaradorable to kill his King Alboran and beat him down.

For the second round, I was up against Ray.  Apparently, he had to play against the fourth Snogal in the first round and won.  Anyways, he got a very good sealed pool, including stuff like two Repulse, four Blade Barrier, a bunch of nice Light Blockers, and Borran, the Reality Shaper.  Luckily for me, I was prepared for such shenanigans.  I was able to use Magma Ram to banish his Sentrus, and Doomblast Scaradorable was able to deal with the rest.  He wasn't able to do much, since I also had Aqua-Reflector Nomulos to gain card advantage and keep me safe.

In the third round, I played against my Round 3 opponent from this Kaijudo tournament.  Apparently, he had gotten a bye in the first round, then won against Eman of TCGWise in the second round.  Anyways, he tried rushing me in the first game.  I was able to stabilize with Stingwing and Nomulos.  I used Crystallize on his Prototype Gunship so that it wouldn't kill my Phase Scout, and I also got a Repulse as the third shield he broke, meaning that I got to halt his last attack of the turn while also getting a free shield.  I was able to get around his Sentrus using Phase Scout, which let my Plasma Pincer kill his Onslaught Trooper without getting blocked.  Afterwards, I dropped Finbarr's Dreadnought to ensure my victory, since he had almost no cards left, while I had a full hand and a field full of creatures.  In the second game, he didn't open up nearly as aggressively, so I rushed him instead.  My Ghost Bites kept killing his creatures, and I was able to finish him off with Doomblast Scaradorable.  He was able to drop Skycrusher's Volcano-Ship, but it was too late.  I had four attacking creatures out, including Doomblast Scaradorable, and he only had three shields, one of which was a Flamewing Phoenix that I used a Ghost Bite on earlier.

With that, I had gone undefeated and earned three promo cards.  I got to choose them from a randomized pile of promos, and I ended up pulling three copies of Ba'kaar Frostwing...  I was audibly upset, since I didn't go 6-0 in games just to win three of the worse of the two promos.

Fortunately, Ray won two of his matches (he won Round 3 against Fwazalaza) and pulled one of each promo.  The fourth Snogal ended up getting a bye after losing his first two matches, and he pulled a Veil Stalker.  Because Ray doesn't use Light and the fourth Snogal doesn't use Darkness, I was able to trade them each a Frostwing for their Veil Stalkers.  The fourth Snogal ended up giving the Frostwing I traded him to Ray, since he wasn't planning on using it.  How sad.  But, I guess it worked out for me, since I was able to get two Veil Stalkers for myself and one Frostwing for Aki.  I ended up giving Ray two Deep Mind Probes and the fourth Snogal two Lore-Striders for their decks to repay them for helping me get Veil Stalkers.  And also because those are the only non-holo cards they wanted from the set, so I was saving them the trouble of buying packs to pull them.

And, the fourth Snogal ended up pulling a Falkora, which Aki wanted a second copy of.  So, we're going to trade the Kivu to the fourth Snogal for his Falkora, since he wanted Kivu for his LWN Aggro deck.

I guess that's about it.  I did test my new Megabug variant quite a bit this weekend, but I don't want to talk too much about it since I want it to be a surprise at next weekend's Kaijudo tournament.  I'm still trying to win more copies of Necrose, so yeah.  But, I'm not that confident in my Megabug deck anymore.  All everyone plays at my locals is Dragons and Control.  This new variant is supposed to do pretty well against Dragons, but in testing against Aki's LWF Dragon deck, I only won about half of the games we played.  And, I fear that this new variant has a worse Control match-up than before, but I can't really test that because no one on Team Snogal plays Control.

I may end up going with a completely different deck, but I just don't have any ideas.  The fact that I pulled two Queen Kalimas kind of makes me want to run a deck around it, but I'm not sure.  I could certainly try, though I would rather use Eternal Haven over Queen Kalima.  I was really hoping that I could get a second Eternal Haven so that I could just use two of each in the same deck, but that didn't happen.  I'll see what I can do, but I can't really think of anything at the moment.

Tournament Report 9/7/13 & 9/8/13

I went to the morning Vanguard tournament at the usual card shop with Aki on Saturday.  My friend who plays Vanguard, who has finally picked a nickname (Ray), was there as well.  The three of us entered the tournament, and the other participants were five little kids.

I won the first two rounds against little kids, then played against Ray in the finals.  He gave me the win because he had better tiebreakers.  We got 1st and 2nd and got a total of 10 packs of the Misaki Set.  We pulled nothing good.

That's about how boring Vanguard is now.  Anyways, during the tournament, the fourth Snogal showed up.  The four of us went to the other card shop for the evening Vanguard tournament.  There were only 10 other players there, and Aki didn't really want to play in the tournament, so we decided not to enter.  It also doesn't help that the shopkeeper hates our team for always winning the tournament.  Whenever we enter, he gives out crummy prizes, but since we decided not to enter, he gave a box of the Misaki Set to the winner.

Instead of playing Vanguard, we participated in that free Magic: The Gathering event that was going on.  They gave out free cards and such, so why not?  I got a Green half-deck, Aki got a Black half-deck, Ray got a Blue half-deck, and the fourth Snogal got a White half-deck.  We all traded cards with each other, since we only needed our respective colors, so we all made mono-color decks.  I had to teach Ray and the fourth Snogal how to play, and it was pretty fun.

On the following day (yesterday), Ray and I went to the usual card shop for their Kaijudo tournament.  I was using my LFN Megabug deck, since I had no motivation to change the deck at all because Shattered Alliances is coming out in four days.  Ray was using his WDFN Dragon Rush deck.  There were five other players there.

Round 1: vs LWDF Control

I was playing against Eman of TCGWise.

-Duel 1: This game took most of the time in the match.  He was too hesitant to break shields, so we just sat there while I tried to whittle away at his advantage over time.  He kept top-decking Armored Dragons to kill my bugs, though, and when he finally broke through my shields, three of them were small Megabugs and the other two weren't Shield Blasts.
-Duel 2: I just straight out rushed him.  I don't even remember if he got to play a card or not.
-Duel 3: I was able to get aggressive early with The Hive Queen, and he couldn't deal with it, so I won.

XOO

Round 2: vs LWDN Control

I was playing against Fwazalza, whom had gotten a bye in the previous round.

-Duel 1: I got him down to zero cards, which is an accomplishment against a Control deck.  Unfortunately, the first card he top-decked after that was Andromeda, and he had enough mana to play it.  I had sent two Root Traps to the bottom of my deck with Mana Tick, so I knew that I couldn't deal with it.  I was able to shuffle my deck with Gigahorn Charger, and I held out long enough to draw one of those Root Traps, but it was far too late.  He had already taken control of the game by that point.
-Duel 2: I rushed him with bugs.  He couldn't deal with it, so I won.
-Duel 3: I started rushing him, but then he played two Aqua Striders when he had one shield left.  Apparently, they were in his shields.  He followed it up with two Andromedas, but I was able to Root Trap one of them.  We waited for a long while, long enough so that there were about six cards left in my deck.  But, because of Tsukuyomi Mana Tick and The Hive Queen, I knew the order of those last few cards.  I was able to capitalize on that to make a final push before he could go for game.  Unfortunately, it wasn't enough to win, so I lost.  At least I got to use the knowledge of the cards I stacked at the bottom of the deck effectively, so that was cool.

XOX

Round 3: vs LWDF Dragons

This was my Round 1 opponent from last weekend's Kaijudo tournament.

-Duel 1: He opened with the perfect progression of Nix, Herald of Infernus, then Lyra, and I didn't draw any of my outs to Herald, so I lost.
-Duel 2: He opened with the same progression as last time, and I lost in the same manner.  Agh, it's these types of matches that make me not want to play Megabugs anymore.

XX

Well, I may switch decks, depending on what I pull from the two boxes of Shattered Alliances that Aki and I are splitting.  Since I'm finished with summer classes and school doesn't start for another two weeks, I'll be able to go to the card shop this Friday to get the boxes.

Anyways, my friend won another Necrose in the raffle, and since I paid for his entry, he gave it to me, so now I have two.  We pulled a Gilaflame the Assaulter and a Lord Skycrusher out of our entry packs of The Dojo Edition... Those were the last packs that the shopkeeper had.  Well, at least they were good pulls.

After the Kaijudo tournament, Ray and Fwazalaza asked the shopkeeper if he had any extra Magic half-decks from the previous day, and he gave each of us one.  Ray got another Blue one, and I got a Blue one.  We fixed our decks so that they'd be actual 60-card decks and played for fun.

In fact, we're considering getting some of those Deck Builder's Toolkits so that we can make decks that are actually decent.  Ray, the fourth Snogal, and I are going to discuss it later to figure it out.  I doubt we'd enter any Magic tournaments, but it's a fun game to play with friends.  We'll see what happens, though.

Tournament Report 8/31/13 & 9/1/13

Aki and I were able to go to locals yesterday.  We didn't care about the Kamui and Misaki pack Sneak Preview, so we skipped it.  We ended up going to the evening Vanguard tournament with my friend who plays Vanguard, Riku, and the fourth Snogal.

There were only nine other people there for the Vanguard tournament, and Aki didn't feel like playing.  So, the fourth Snogal used Aki's Vermillion Narukami deck, Riku used his Arboros Dragon Neo Nectar deck, my friend used my Pale Moon deck, and I used my Rumble Gun/Dungaree Narukami deck.  We knew we would win, and the only crossride deck there was Aki's Narukami deck, so I decided to use my fun deck.

Round 1: vs Spike Brothers

This kid didn't really know what he was doing (he was using Especial Intercepts and Devil Summoner, but I guess Spike Brothers don't have much else...), and he had to ride Juggernaut Maximum both games, so I was able to win.

OO

So what happened in the first round was that the four players on our team won their matches, and the fifth undefeated player was my Round 3 opponent from this evening Vanguard tournament.  In the following round, he was paired against Riku, my friend was paired against a little kid with a bad Great Nature deck, and I had to play against the fourth Snogal.  We decided to play it out because it didn't matter.

Round 2: vs Narukami (Vermillion)

He was able to crossride in the first game, but he didn't have any rear-guards for most of the game.  I was able to retire the few that he did play so that I could win, despite not having very good columns.  I even drew five Grade 3's, so that I had to take his Vermillion Catastrophe at 3 damage.  He didn't pull any triggers, so I was able to live.  In the second game, he was able to crossride again and actually had rear-guard that time, so I lost.  He missed the crossride in the third game, so I was able to beat him up with the usual 16k columns.  Rumble Gun Dragon retired his only booster, and Dungaree kept killing his attackers (I drew into two Dungarees after drive checking one with Rumble Gun Dragon, so I kept riding Dungaree over Dungaree to use the Limit Break and keep the 11k defense).  I was able to win because of that.

OXO

Riku ended up losing to the Megacolony player, who got paired down against the fourth Snogal in the following round.

Round 3: vs Pale Moon

That, of course, meant that I was paired against my friend.  He wanted to play it out, since it didn't matter.  I lost the first game because whenever I rode Dungaree, I bound two triggers with its effect, which was sad.  In the second game, half of my Critical Triggers were lost into the Damage Zone, so I couldn't apply any pressure.  Not to mention that I hadn't seen Dragonic Deathscythe all day...

XX

The fourth Snogal was able to beat the Megacolony player, and they tournament organizer cut to Top 2.  That happened to be my friend and I, so we got all of the prizes.  We got 12 packs of the new Misaki set.  We pulled two Sakuyas and no other holos, so that was garbage.  At least my friend got a Battle Sister Fromage mat.

So that's about it for yesterday.  Today, my friend and I went to the morning Kaijudo tournament.  I was using my LFN Megabug deck, and he was using his WDFN Dragon Rush deck.  There were a total of 11 players there.

Round 1: vs LWDF Dragons

This was my Round 1 opponent from last weekend's Kaijudo tournament.

-Duel 1: I opened with a couple of bugs, but he had Herald of Infernus and Lyra, so I lost, since I didn't draw Tornado Flame until turn 8...
-Duel 2: Again, Herald and Lyra.  Agh, Herald is too strong against aggressive decks...

XX

Round 2: vs LWDN Control

I was playing against Fwazalaza

-Duel 1: I drew a bunch of bugs, and he had to charge his Aqua Strider, so I was able to just keep poking him with my bugs.  He used Mesmerize on The Hive Queen, but I was able to follow it up with Steamtank Kryon and Humonculon the Blaster to tap his Fullmetal Lemon, break the rest of his shields, and win.
-Duel 2: He used Mesmerize on The Hive Queen, again, but Steamtank Kryon allowed me to keep pushing through his shields.  He was left with two shields and an Aqua Strider against my Steamtank Kryon and Keeper of Laws.  He summoned Lyra to lock Kryon, then decided to crash his Strider into it so that my Lyra, which he saw with Mesmerize, wouldn't gain Fast Attack.  Regardless, I played the Lyra to lock his Lyra, and with Keeper of Laws, I was able to win on the following turn.

OO

Round 3: vs WDFN Dragon Rush

I was paired against my friend, who had won his first match, but lost his second.  He had better tie-breakers than me, so I gave him the win.

That ended up being the last round.  I think that my Round 1 opponent won, but I'm not sure.  My friend ended up winning a Necrose, Nightmare Bloom in the raffle, but since I paid his entry fee, he gave it to me.  My goal is to get at least four, so I need three more.  The idea is that I wouldn't use three in the same deck, but if Aki and I both want to use it, then we could each use two if we had four.

Well, I kind of want to make a new Kaijudo deck, but the new set, Shattered Alliances, will be released in less than two weeks, so I don't really feel like making one.  On the other hand, I need more Necroses, and topping at Kaijudo tournaments is the only way to get them for sure.  Since there are only three more weeks where Necrose will be given out, I would need to get one each week to fulfill my goal.  So, I might consider making a new Kaijudo deck solely for next week so that I could get a second Necrose.  We'll see what happens, I suppose.