Tournament Report 7/31/10

I took my Vayu Turbo deck again. I took out the two D-Hero Malicious and the Doomsday Horror, and I added a couple more Blackwings and two Cards for Black Feathers. I also decided to play two Book of Moon, and it ended up being a good decision.

There were quite a few new players there, today. There were only about 10 good players out of the 32 entrants.

Round 1: vs Newbie Heroes

I won both duels. He came up to me later, though, and asked how many Gales I was running. Obviously one, because it's Limited, but he wanted to check to make sure that I wasn't cheating or something...

Round 2: vs Gladiator Beasts

This was my opponent from Round 5 of this tournament, and I've played him a few times before. I just can't remember exactly when. He also was sitting next to me in Round 1, so he thought that I was playing Blackwings.

-Duel 1: I lost to lots of GB stunts. I also didn't draw any big Monsters.

-Duel 2: I Fissured his only Monster, so I kept poking with Dark Grepher for game.

-Duel 3: It started the same as Duel 2, except that I kept poking with Vayu and Armageddon Knight instead. He Set Rescue Cat, and I attacked into Mirror Force. He flipped Rescue Cat, I used Solemn Judgment on the Flip Summon, but he had Solemn Judgment to negate mine. He Special Summoned two Samnite and Normal Summoned Laquari to win.

Round 3: vs X-Sabers

This was my Round 1 opponent from last week. He too thought that I was running Blackwings.

-Duel 1: I started with a Set Necro Gardna. He opened with Rescue Cat for two X-Saber Airbellums, then dropped XX-Saber Faultroll. If he didn't have Faultroll, the play would have been much less broken. But, because he did, he ended up taking two cards out of my hand. Luckily, he missed the Brain Control, which I used to steal XX-Saber Gottoms. I attacked with it and used its effect to tribute it. I thought that I was in control then, but he had a Gottoms' Emergency Call to swarm again.

-Duel 2: I started with Dark Grepher and used its effect. Next turn, I ran over his Set XX-Saber Darksoul with Shura to Special Summon Vayu from my deck. I Tuned it to Dark Grepher for Catastor. I got destroyed next turn, because he played Heavy Storm, then dropped Boggart Knight, Airbellum, and Faultroll to revive Darksoul. He Synchro Summoned Brionac, bounced Catastor, and attacked. He was afraid of a Kalut, but I obviously didn't have it.

Round 4: vs Newbie Beatdown

I won both duels...

Round 5: vs Newbie Blackwings

This was my Round 1 opponent from this tournament. I won both duels with Goyo Guardian and Vayu swarming.

I went 3-2, sadly, and got 12th place. I pulled another Ultra Rare Dark Grepher from my Turbo Pack 3, so that was very nice. It's like a sign, telling me to only run two Dark Grephers...or maybe I'll pull a third one.

I saw some people buying Hidden Arsenal 2 packs, and they all pulled Genex cards that I wanted. So I got one pack, and I didn't get any Genex from it; very saddening.

Well, there's the DREV Sneak Peek next weekend, so I'm looking forward to that...

Random Stuff #15

In 5D's Episode 120, Jack wasn't smart enough to attack with Red Dragon Archfiend (after using Over Gain) before using Shock Wave. Of course, he would have to kill himself, since he wouldn't accept losing to a bunch of hand-holding Normal Monsters.

I've gotten to the worst part of Wind Waker: getting the Triforce (Charts). I made it through the Savage Labyrinth, but I've still got a few charts left to get. I'm also almost done with filling in the whole Sea Chart.

Since those tasks are pretty tedious, I've been going on the Pojo forum board, because that's what I do when I'm bored. About ten minutes after proceeding to do that, I generally leave, because those forums are just filled with stupidity... Everyone's all like, "Ban Rescue Cat!" when Faultroll is the real problem with X-Sabers. I'm not even going to get into the other stuff people bother posting there...

Well, I'm still trying to improve my Vayu Turbo deck. I originally wanted to make it more of a control build, but that didn't work out so well. I might have to play more Blackwing support. The odd thing is that when people see Dark Grepher, they say, "Blackwings?" I didn't know that Infernities died... (sarcasm, if you couldn't tell...)

I'm still trying to figure out a decent TCG Genex build, and I'm still trying to get some of the new Genex from Hidden Arsenal 2, but that's kind of difficult when I refuse to waste money on those packs...

X-Sabers

Yeah, the deck that's tearing up the TCG meta. It's practically the new Lightsworn, so I might as well talk about it before the ban list kills it in a month.

Despite what many people may think, Rescue Cat isn't what makes the deck broken. It's XX-Saber Faultroll. Rescue Cat (and to some extent, XX-Saber Boggart Knight) can facilitate the summoning of Faultroll, but it doesn't do all that much by itself.

If Rescue Cat didn't exist, then X-Sabers wouldn't use Gold Sarcophagus to the extent that they do now. In order to make Faultroll plays, they would have to get one X-Saber through the opponents turn through effects like XX-Saber Fulhelmknight, X-Saber Pashuul, and XX-Saber Emmersblade or they would have to Special Summon multiple X-Sabers in one turn, through effects like Boggart Knight and Gottoms' Emergency Call. Of course, this would only reduce the consistency of X-Sabers. It would still allow them to do well if the generic build was overhauled.

Now, if XX-Saber Faultroll didn't exist, um, yeah... I guess that X-Sabers could still swarm, but it wouldn't be nearly as effective. They would have to rely on Rescue Cat and Gottoms' Emergency Call. But, Rescue Cat is Limited and Gottoms' Emergency Call is pretty easy to get around.

Ending on some ban list speculation, although banning Rescue Cat is justified, Limiting XX-Saber Faultroll would hinder X-Sabers greatly, maybe even forcing them to become more of a control deck.