Closed Forest

Okay, so I shot this idea down in the comments section of the previous post.

That's basically because of my Side Decking habits. I side at least five cards against any given match-up because I actually want to draw those cards. To accomplish this, I have to put very generic cards in my Side Deck, like Smashing Ground.

That means that I'm not siding cards that are auto-wins against certain decks. An example of that would be Light-Imprisoning Mirror in the Lightsworn/Zombie format. You draw Light-Imprisoning, and you win against Lightsworn. Instead, I'm using cards like Banisher of the Radiance, which don't win duels on their own, but help significantly against a lot of different decks, like X-Sabers, Gravekeeper's, Frog Monarchs, Fish OTK, and Lightsworn.

However, because the Gravekeeper's match is so bad, I may have to break this habit. Closed Forest is basically a free win against Gravekeeper's, so siding three might be justified. Along the same lines, Ally Salvo is also very one-dimensional, but it kills Skill Drain in Hero Beat, which can cause me trouble.

Fortunately, the format has slowed down to the point where I can afford to wait to draw these cards. I would wait for them in the same way that I wait for Scrap Chimera: if I open with them, I can start aggressively, but if not, then I merely stall the game out until I can draw into them.

Unfortunately, besides simply not drawing the cards, there's a huge downside to Side Decking like this. If I were to go up against a rogue deck like Gladiator Beasts, I wouldn't be as prepared, since I would be dropping the generic stuff (Smashing Ground) for specific stuff (Ally Salvo).

In this way, Closed Forest is closing off my Side Deck to more versatile options, but if it can help against the second most played deck, then it might just pay off.

All I have to do to accomplish this is drop $50-60 on Closed Forests...

The Path to the YCS

As most of you should already know, YCS Anaheim is this weekend, and I'm going to be going.

I'm fairly confident in my Scrap Worms deck, and it has been doing really well against Six Samurai, X-Sabers, and basically everything else. The only shaky match-up is Gravekeeper's...

The pluses that I can accumulate against other Stun decks through Scrap Chimera and Scrapstorm are shut off with Necrovalley, which the Gravekeeper player can expect to have practically 100% of the time. It's worse than Skill Drain, because it gives their Monsters huge stat boosts, making them nearly impossible to destroy in battle.

And looking through my deck, I only have 6 outs to Necrovalley, which worries me even more. But, I don't want to do something silly like Main Deck triple Dust Tornado. That leads to dead draws against Six Samurai, Fish OTK, and... I can't think of anything else. Seeing how those match-ups are actually fairly easy for me, maybe I should consider Main Decking triple Dust Tornado...

It would alleviate my fear of Necrovalley, while also helping against other match-ups, like Hero Beat and Dragunities. The only problem would be deciding what to take out. I'd probably just Main Deck two and keep one in the Side Deck. Or, I could just Main Deck two Dust Tornadoes and Side Deck two Malevolent Catastrophes. Seems like a good idea.

So, I guess that's what I'll try. There may be more of this type of post throughout the week, because I'm really going to try and do well at the YCS. This type of tournament doesn't come around that much, and this format is a great one for me to go with a creative deck.

Tournament Report 4/2/11

If you didn't already see the announcement on my YouTube channel, then the reason I haven't been posting/uploading videos if because my computer was down for a few days.

Anyway, I took my Scrap Worms deck to locals again. I was able to go with Aki, and vadangchoinga and Yusei JB happened to be there.

It was a fairly small tournament (only like 24 players), and more than half of them were newbs.

Round 1: vs Six Samurai

-Duel 1: He opened with Gateway and Six Samurai United. I would've been able to do something if I had drawn a Tuner, but I didn't, so I ended up getting swarmed.

-Duel 2: I controlled him with Scraps and such.

-Duel 3: Same as the previous duel.

Round 2: vs Volcanics

This was my Round 6 opponent from this tournament.

-Duel 1: My hand started out pretty bad, but I eventually was able to Synchro Summon Scrap Dragon and win.

-Duel 2: Same, except that my hand was better this time.

Round 3: vs Newbie Fabled

This guy liked to use Karma Cut, Phoenix Wing Wind Blast, and Dark Core. But because of the way he played, he would only be able to use one before the others became dead cards. I took advantage of that and 2-0'd him, of course. Drawing Scrap Chimera in my starting hand helped, too.

Round 4: vs Blackwings

This was my Round 5 opponent from this tournament. By the way, there was only one more undefeated played, and he ended up getting paired down and losing, making this the finals.

-Duel 1: I used Monster-removal Traps on all of the Monsters that he summoned. He ended up drawing mostly Monsters, so all I had to do was control him for a few turns to win. I also top-decked Scrap Chimera after a while to go for game.

-Duel 2: Same thing, kind of. I opened with Scrap Chimera, Scrap Beast, Scrap Goblin, and some other stuff. I remember a really good play that I made: He had one back row and Bora on the field. I Synchro Summoned Scrap Dragon using Cyber Dragon and Scrap Goblin. He flipped Solemn Warning, and I revived Scrap Beast. My Mind Control then let me take his Bora and make another Scrap Dragon. He bounced it with Brionac on his turn, and still had one card left in hand. I drew another Scrap Chimera, summoned it, and tried to revive Scrap Beast. He dropped D.D. Crow, but I didn't mind. I Set Solemn Warning, and he bounced it with the card he drew. I just Synchro Summoned Scrap Archfiend to take control and win.

So yeah, I went undefeated again and got some store credit. I ended up buying the two Gleipnirs and the Thor I needed to complete the Nordic deck, which I will hopefully be making soon. I just need to figure out what engine to run with it.

Aki, vadangchoinga, and Yusei JB all ended up going X-1, so that was pretty good. Too bad they didn't win anything. By the way, Aki was able to take down two Six Samurai decks, which was pretty cool. He lost to Dragunities, sadly.

So yeah, another good week at the card shop.