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.