Tournament Report 11/27/10

So, I was going to go with the Chaos Debris deck that's been on my channel recently, but that deck it terrible, like Quickdraw Plants. I tried a Karakuri deck, but the theme itself is terrible. Then, I was thinking about using a Monarch deck that will be featured on my channel next week sometime, but Monarchs are meh right now. I considered a Quickdraw Plants deck like dubkdad1's, but I realized that Quickdraw Plants are still bad. With all of the Gravekeeper's hype, I actually considered Gladiator Beasts. I eventually just went back to Scrap Anti-Stun, since I couldn't really figure out anything else. So yeah.

There weren't many people there today. There were only a few of the better duelists there, which made the tournament pretty easy...

Round 1: vs Six Samurai

-Duel 1: He gained too much advantage off of Gateway of the Six and kept drawing more Six Samurai to use with it.

-Duel 2: I don't remember much, but I just controlled the game and such. So yeah, I won.

-Duel 3: Same as Duel 2.

Round 2: vs Skill Drain

-Duel 1: He dropped Battle Fader when I attacked with Scrap Twin Dragon. On the next turn, I revived Scrap Golem with Monster Reborn, and used it to dump Scrap Goblin on his side of the field. I Normal Summoned Rai-Oh, and punched a mess load of damage through the Goblin. During Main Phase 2, I used Scrap Twin Dragon to bounce it to my hand and remove his Battle Fader. He scooped on my next turn.

-Duel 2: He Monster Reborned my Scrap Twin Dragon, and I kept drawing random Spells/Traps that were no help.

-Duel 3: He wasted half of his cards to summon Jinzo, and I just dropped Cyber Dragon to go for Chimeratech Fortress Dragon. He wasn't too happy about that.

Round 3: vs Gravekeeper's

This was my Round 2 opponent from this tournament.

-Duel 1: He didn't use Royal Tribute, but he locked me down with Necrovalley and a bunch of Traps. It also didn't help that I stopped drawing Spells/Traps a few turns into the duel.

-Duel 2: This time, he did use Royal Tribute, taking my Effect Veiler and my Scrap Beast. It didn't matter much, though, since I was able to pull through with Nobleman of Extermination to remove our Bottomless Trap Holes and Rai-Oh (which I conveniently drew for my turn) backed by Forbidden Chalice to get over his Descendant. I basically controlled the duel from there.

-Duel 3: He used Royal Tribute, again, and I lost two Monsters, again. I was waiting behind an Mystical Space Typhoon to destroy his Necrovalley, but I had to waste it on his Zoma the Spirit; it was his only Monster at the moment, and I wanted to save my Banisher of the Radiance. I was so desperate that I had flipped Book of Moon to protect Banisher from Bottomless Trap Hole. He was so desperate that he used Solemn Judgment to destroy Banisher on its Flip Summon. But, I had just drawn Scrap Beast, so it was okay. I also drew into Zombie World a little after that, so I could get Necrovalley off the field. It also functioned as good fodder for Scrap Dragon, which I was able to summon against his Set Gravekeeper's Spy. I tried to destroy the Spy, but he used Effect Veiler to stop me. He used Book of Moon on my Scrap Dragon when it attacked, but I used Forbidden Chalice on the Spy when he Flip Summoned it. He was left in a terrible position, so I destroyed the Zombie World with Scrap Dragon to clear his Set back row, and he couldn't stop me from going for game.

Round 4: vs Machina Geartown

I was in the finals once again with Yugilo. He recorded the second and third duels, so they'll be up on his channel sometime tomorrow, I assume. As for the first duel, I just ran him through with Scraps and Rai-Oh, which he couldn't get over. I won't ruin the result of the match, but we split the store credit.

Using that, I ended up getting a Shooting Star Dragon tin, but I didn't pull anything worthwhile. The Super Rare E-Hero Ocean and Stardust Dragon are nice, though.

The Turbo Pack 4 that I got was also lackluster. I pulled Swallow Flip, but I gave it to Yugilo since I didn't need it.

So yeah, good tournament today, but it wasn't all that challenging, besides Round 3. I would consider going on Sundays, where there are more and better players, but I would rather get store credit than a booster box.

Additional YCS Atlanta Analysis

Now that the deck lists are up, I can do more in depth analysis.

So, after seeing the Gravekeeper's decks that topped, I see that my initial view of the deck wasn't completely correct. These were Trap-heavy builds that only ran 14 Monsters, three of which were used to search Necrovalley. Of course, Stele helps to get Monsters back, but I'm still surprised that the Gravekeeper's players didn't find themselves constantly running out of Monsters. Yes, Recruiter searches additional Monsters, but the searches run out eventually in a deck like that.

Apparently, "Royal Tribute Control" is a better name for the deck, since Royal Tribute basically did all of the work. Tearing apart your opponent's hand, then knowing what they have left over is a devastating opening play that it's nearly impossible to recover from. Looks like Gemini Imps and Reign-Beaux might see some play again.

That's enough about Gravekeepers, let's discuss (Quickdraw) Plants. Apparently, 13 Plant Synchro decks (which may or may not have used Quickdraw Synchron) topped. That's more than a third of the Top 32. Whether that's because the deck is good/consistent or because so many people played it will have to wait until the Konami Event Coverage Team decides to post the deck spread for the event, which usually occurs the day of the following event. So yeah...

I generally don't like (Quickdraw) Plants. It's just a personal thing, and also because I used to draw terrible hands all the time. So, I'm inclined to hate the deck. But, I just saw dubkdad1's take on the deck, and it looks very solid. I would actually consider making one like it.

Plant Synchro decks are usually too slow, and they can't really fill the Graveyard that quickly. Still, I'm hesitant to use a deck that relies on Dandylion too much. I mean, every play in the deck revolves around Fluff Tokens, so not getting Dandylion means an auto-loss. Sure, there are quite a few ways to search for Dandylion, but if it gets removed, then you can't really do anything about it.

So yeah, besides the four Gravekeeper's decks and 13 Plant Synchro decks, the field was fairly diverse. There were six Blackwing decks, three X-Saber decks, two Lightsworn variants (one straight Lightsworn, the other Zombiesworn), and the rest were one-ofs: Machina Gadgets, Dimensional Eatos, Infernities, and Frog Monarchs.

With that spread, it becomes apparent that Gravekeeper's were able to take advantage of the Graveyard-dependent decks to take the top three spots. Oh, and Royal Tribute probably helped a lot, too.

YCS Atlanta

Before I start talking about Atlanta, let me say that YCS Milan was as expected. The deck that everyone expected to win did win. So yeah.

YCS Atlanta, on the other hand, was a huge upset. Gravekeeper's took the top three spots, as you probably already know. Although Gravekeeper's Recruiter gave them a boost, no one thought that it would be that powerful.

In theory, Gravekeeper's would be a perfect meta call. Necrovalley halts Graveyard-dependent decks, while turning all of the 1500 ATK Gravekeeper's into 2000 ATK beaters. That means that practically all of the prominent decks in the TCG have a bad match-up against Gravekeeper's. The only one that I can think of that doesn't have a bad match-up is Frog Monarchs.

Gladiator Beasts, Blackwings, and Gemini Stun can't get over 2000 ATK very easily, and if they can, it's just a temporary solution. They all can destroy Necrovalley somewhat consistently, but it's easy for the Gravekeeper's player to just drop another one on their turn.

X-Sabers, Debris Plants, Scraps, and Absolute Zero decks lose access to their Graveyards. Half the time, they use Royal Decree over Mystical Space Typhoon, so they can't get rid of Necrovalley without wasting a bunch of cards or finding a way to protect their set-up. The latter is unrealistic, because Gravekeeper's Descendant can rip through a field pretty easily.

Machina Gadgets and Quickdraw Plants don't rely on the Graveyard as much, since they can Special Summon big Monsters from the hand, essentially. They aren't hurt as badly by Necrovalley, since Gadgets don't care if they die, and Quickdraw Synchron gives easy access to Junk Destroyer or tribute fodder for Caius. Dandylion also helps.

Basically, decks that drop big Monsters from the hand have a good chance against Gravekeeper's. Their Trap line-up is generally thin, since they devote a lot of the deck to the Gravekeeper's Monsters. That gives decks like Six Samurai or Karakuri a good match-up against them, theoretically, of course.

Or, it could have just been a fluke. Either way, it's time to start Main Decking Mystical Space Typhoon again, if you were silly enough to take them out in the first place.