Tournament Report 5/25/13 & 5/26/13

Because I'm off from school tomorrow, I was able to go to locals both days this weekend.  I even stopped by on Friday to buy two boxes of Clash of the Duel Masters for Aki and myself.  I recorded a box opening video, but it was really boring, so I decided not to upload it.  I ended up pulling some alright stuff, but it's a big set, and I'd rather not just list everything I pulled.  The main thing I'm disappointed about is that I only pulled one Featherfin Stalker.

Regardless, I went to the usual card shop yesterday for the Kaijudo Set Premiere.  It ended up being a three round event, and each time you win a round, you get a promo card.  I pulled a Truthseeker Forion and a Tatsurion the Relentless from my five packs, made a terrible deck because it's sealed, and only won one round.  But, the shopkeeper had a lot of extra promos (no one wanted Fault-Line Dragon), so he gave people whom only won one round an extra Fault-Line Dragon.  I won a Wild Sky Sword, so that was good.

After that, I just waited around and watched the Yu-Gi-Oh tournament.  My friend who plays Vanguard couldn't make it until like 5:30, so I just watched a bunch of Evilswarm mirror matches and played the Vanguard video game.

My friend and I decided to go to the card shop where the Team League Regional will be located to check it out and maybe join their tournament.  They ended up having a free team tournament yesterday, but we didn't get there until a few minutes after they closed registration... It took like half an hour to get there from the usual two card shops, so we won't be going back there again, except for the Team League.The fact that it was so far away meant that we weren't able to make it back to the evening Vanguard tournament in time, so we just let all of the little kids play each other.

My friend was able to get me the Maiden of Trailing Roses I needed, so I've just about completed my Arboros Dragon Neo Nectar deck.  So, I tried that out against my friend, who wanted to use my Pale Moon deck.  He won one of three games, and he got a sixth-damage Heal Trigger to save him in that game, so yeah.

We also played Kaijudo to practice for the tournament today.  I fixed up his Enforcer deck, but he wanted to use Aki's Dragon Rush deck, which Aki left with me before he left for Japan.  I added the one Infernus the Immolator that I got from the two boxes, and we played a few games.

Then, we got to watch the new episode of Vanguard on my phone, like we usually do every Saturday after the Vanguard tournaments.  I was personally satisfied by the outcome of the match between Aichi and Ren.  The loser had an opportunity to win, but misplayed (it was a really obvious misplay, too) and lost because of it.  Not that Vanguard takes much skill, since both sides were pulling triggers every turn.

But yeah, on the following day, we went to the Kaijudo tournament at the usual card shop.  I was using a four-Civ deck (everything except Fire), and my friend was using Aki's Dragon Rush deck.  There were three other people there, so it was a small tournament.

It was kind of silly, too, because I only played one round.  I just played the first round against Fwazalaza and lost because he rushed me with two Coriles, Keeper of Laws, and Paladio in the first game whereas I didn't have a play until turn 7, and then all of my finishers were in my shields, so my hand was just full of Spells in the second game while he built up a ridiculous field thanks to double Nix and Dreadclaw.

After that, I got a bye, while my friend, who had gotten a bye in the first round, got paired down and won.  So, I ended up getting a bye again because I couldn't play against Fwazalaza again, so he had to play against the my friend's previous opponent.  My friend ended up losing the finals because he ran out of patience, but whatever.

What was really stupid was that despite getting two byes, I got 2nd place.  I don't understand why, but I took the extra two packs and the Saracon.  My friend and I just got packs of Rise of the Duel Masters (the base set), since they were out of Clash, and I pulled a third Ra-Vu, Seeker of Lightning and a third Gigahorn Charger, so that was good.  The shopkeeper raffled out the remaining promos, and my friend got a Saracon, which he gave to me, so now I have three.  I doubt I'd use that many, but they're nice to have.

But yeah, that's about it.  I'm going to try and go to the Kaijudo tournament next weekend, but I'm not sure if I'll be able to.  I shouldn't have that much homework this week, but we'll see.  If I do go, I'll probably play Megacolony.  Yes, Megacolony in Kaijudo.  I'm going to make a Megabug deck, since I pulled one Hive Queen and was able to trade for a second one today.  But yeah, I'll have to figure all of this out by next weekend...

Tournament Report 5/18/13

As usual, I went to locals yesterday.  Unfortunately, my friend who plays Vanguard wasn't able to make it, and I needed three Maiden of Trailing Roses from him to complete my Arboros Dragon Neo Nectar deck, so I wasn't able to use the deck yesterday.  I also decided that I didn't want to wait for like five hours between the morning and evening Vanguard tournaments by myself, so I just went to locals late in the afternoon.

When I got there, I talked to the shopkeeper at the usual card shop and learned about the format for next weekend's Kaijudo Set Premiere.  It's going to be a sealed deck tournament, with everyone using five packs of the new set, Clash of the Duel Masters, to make a deck.  There would be three rounds, and you'd get a promo card for each round you win.  I already asked my friend who plays Vanguard if he could participate to help me get promo cards, and he agreed to do so.  I'll need to teach him the basics of deck-building in Kaijudo, but it's not too difficult, especially since we'll only have 45 cards to work with, anyway.

Besides that, I sold my Number 11: Big Eye.  It was in my Gem-Knight deck, but I haven't been playing Yu-Gi-Oh, so I decided that I'd rather have cash than a shiny piece of cardboard that I don't even use anymore.  I was offered $80 for it, and that was good enough for me.  I mean, I got it for $12 a while ago, so that's a considerable amount of profit.

After that, I went to the other card shop for their evening Vanguard tournament.  There were 15 players there, two-third of which were little kids.  Again, there was really no challenge.  Regardless, I decided to use my Dark Irregulars since I haven't used them in a while and one kid was playing Aqua Dorks.

I got a bye for the first round, so that was nice.  I just scoped out the competition, as though it actually matters, since it's Vanguard...

Round 2: vs Tachikaze (Raptor-series)

This was my Round 3 opponent from this evening Vanguard tournament.  He got gradestuck both games, so I won.

OO

Round 3: vs Kagero (Lawkeeper)

This was my Round 3 opponent from last weekend's evening Vanguard tournament.  He was still using Raopia... Anyways, I lost the first game because I got gradestuck on Grade 0.  I won the second game because I drew well, and then I won the third game because he got gradestuck on Grade 2.

XOO

Round 4: vs Kagero (The End)

This was my Top 8 opponent from this evening Vanguard tournament.  I lost the first game because I the only triggers I got all game were my two Stand Triggers (not to say that Stand Triggers are bad, since they're not, but they were just the only triggers I got all game...).  But, I won the following two games because he got gradestuck both games.

XOO

So, I went undefeated because I got really lucky that my opponents kept getting gradestuck.  I literally won only one real game today, meaning that I only won one game where my opponent didn't get gradestuck.  And people think that Vanguard is a skill-intensive game...

But yeah, they cut to Top 4 after that.  My Round 2 and Round 4 opponents made it, along with my Round 2 opponent from this evening Vanguard tournament, who was using Machining Megacolony.  We just split and got four packs each.  I pulled garbage from my packs of Set 8, but it's not like I really needed anything.

So yeah, that's it.  My friend who plays Vanguard and I will go to the Kaijudo Set Premiere next Saturday, and I'll also be getting two boxes of the new set for Aki and myself.  And since I have school off on the following Monday (May 27), I should be able to go to the Kaijudo tournament on that Sunday as well, so that'll be cool.  I'll have less than a day to make two new decks (one for myself and one for my friend) with the new cards I pull, but I'll have plenty of time after the Set Premiere and before the evening Vanguard tournament to do so.

Speaking of which, for the evening Vanguard tournament, my friend and I intend on checking out a different card shop than the usual two.  That's the card shop where the Team League Regional that we're going to attend will be held, so we thought it'd be a good idea to check the place out before the Regional, even if it's a little bit farther away.  Oh, and apparently their Vanguard tournaments are free...

Tournament Report 5/11/13 & 5/12/13

Another entire weekend of playing card games.  As usual, yesterday was for Vanguard...

There were 11 players at the morning tournament.  I was playing Nova Grapplers for fun and my friend who plays Vanguard was playing Narukami, which he borrowed from his friend.

I lost the first round to a newbie Royal Paladin player who got eight triggers over the course of the game (including double Critical Triggers when I was at 3 damage, which ended the game), while I got a total of zero triggers.  Next, I played against Riku's Round 2 opponent from this Vanguard team tournament and won because he was using Hydro Hurricane Dragon... I was paired up against my friend in the third and final round, so I just gave him the win and we played Kaijudo for fun.

Unfortunately, neither of us won any packs, so that was sad.  We also pulled nothing of interest from our entry packs besides a Rumble Gun Dragon, which is now my fourth one.

Between tournaments, we just played Kaijudo to practice for today's tournament.  I'll discuss the decks a little more when we get to that part of the post.

Next was the evening Vanguard tournament.  There were 11 players there, and aside from my friend and myself, they were all little kids.  Don't be mistaken, some of those little kids have good decks and are regulars, but everyone there was a little kid...  I decided to use my Pale Moon deck, because there were exactly zero Aqua Dorks there.  My friend stuck with the Narukami deck.  I pulled a Great Daiyusha out of my entry pack, so that was cool.

Round 1: vs Gold Paladin (Spectral Duke)

This was my Round 3 opponent from this evening Vanguard tournament.  He got his ride chain all three games, as usual, because he appears to be insanely lucky.  I won the first round without even getting Crimson Beast Tamer into the soul because I got more triggers than him, but lost the next two games to double Critical Triggers...

OXX

Round 2: vs Granblue

He didn't really know what he was doing, so I just won by making 20k columns.

OO

Round 3: vs Kagero (Lawkeeper)

He didn't really know what he was doing (he was using Raopia...), so I just won by making 20k columns.  I also got lucky with triggers, which made it easy to win.

OO

With that, they cut to Top 4.  My friend was undefeated, and I was 2-1, so we both made it.  The other two players who made Top 4 were a couple of the regular little kids who were both playing The End Kagero.  We all just split and got three packs each.

I pulled nothing important, and my friend pulled a Maelstrom.  He sold it to the shop and used the store credit he got to get me a Neo Nectar perfect guard.  The reason he did that was because earlier, I was able to get a perfect guard off of my Round 2 opponent's older brother for $10, and another one (and a RRR Dungaree) from my Round 3 opponent in exchange for the Great Daiyusha I pulled earlier.  So, now I have three Neo Nectar perfect guards.

That means that I'll be able to play Arboros Dragon Neo Nectar next week, so that's cool.  It's not the most consistent deck, but it's about the only deck that can make 23k columns and have an 11k Vanguard at the same time.  And most of the time, 21k columns are good enough, and those are fairly easy to make in the deck thanks to Sephirot's Limit Break.  So yeah, I'll probably be playing that next weekend.

Anyways, the Kaijudo tournament was on the following day (today).  I changed my deck, taking out all of the Darkness cards and the Cobalt engine, instead opting to use Nature (including Manapod Beetle, Lepidos the Ancient, and Gigahorn Charger) and Ra-Vu, Seeker of Lightning.  So, I was now using a weird LWN deck that had Lepidos and stuff in it.  That meant that my whole Darkness section, including my new Razorkinder Puppet, was put into my friend's deck.  In fact, I just took seven cards (two Andromeda, two Lyra, and three Stormspark Blasts) out of my Cobalt Control deck, replaced them with some other cards, and let my friend use that.  Aki also came with me to the tournament, and he was using his Dragon Rush deck, except we added a Darkness section, including Necrodragon of Vile Ichor.  So we were all trying out new stuff.  I didn't expect my deck to win, since I was just testing a bunch of new stuff all at once, but I was hopeful.

There were seven players there today.  Also, I was hoping to start a new(-ish) keyword for "send into the mana zone": bind.  Yes, I got the idea from Vanguard, but it makes sense.  In cards like Root Trap or Ensnare, the creature getting sent to the mana zone ends up being bound by plants.  To be fair, Root Trap and Ensnare use artworks that are both used for Root Trap in Duel Masters (that is, the artwork on Ensnare is just the alternate artwork for Root Trap in Duel Masters), but still.  It's a lot easier to say "bind" than it is to say "send to your mana zone".

Round 1: vs LWD Cobalt Control

I was up against my friend, so that was kind of bad.  Either way, he won the first game because he just Terror Pitted all of my big creatures and decked me out.  I was able to win the following two games by using Lepidos and Ra-Vu.

XOO

Round 2: vs LWD Control

I was paired against Fwazalaza.

-Duel 1: I was able to win using Lepidos, Andromeda, and Ra-Vu to control the game.  I also got a lucky Stormspark Blast off of a Bottle of Wishes so that I could wipe out his field.
-Duel 2: I opened with no draw or ramp cards, so I was just stuck playing at a slow pace while he was able to build up his field.  In the end, he was just able to drop a bunch of Level 9 Dragons that I wasn't able to deal with, so he won.
-Duel 3: Again, I opened with no draw or ramp, instead having a hand of two Root Traps, Ra-Vu, Lyra, and Spark Cage.  That wasn't the main thing, though.  What lost me the game was him getting an Andromeda off of Bottle of Wishes on turn 6.  It's sad that such a sacky card exists in Kaijudo, but I guess I'll just have to figure out a way to deal with it.

OXX

Round 3: vs LWF Dragons

This was my Round 1 opponent from last weekend's Kaijudo tournament.  Both games played out about the same.  I would go first and open Manapod Beetle and Spark Cage to deal with his Nix while also functioning as draw and ramp (albeit lesser draw and ramp than Logos Scan or Reap and Sow), but he had another Nix and was able to win from there by dropping a chain of big Dragons.  I had Lepidos to deal with his Lyra and bind some of his shields, but I couldn't deal with the multiple Level 9 Dragons and ended up losing.  It was pretty frustrating, too, since he didn't really know what he was doing.  But he had the outs and I didn't, and that happens sometimes.

XX

So I ended up going 1-2, which is sad.  My friend and Aki didn't do any better.  They both went 1-2, with their wins being byes (my friend got the bye in Round 2, and Aki got it in Round 3).  At least we were able to get one of each promo card in the raffle (being three of the seven people there helped our odds quite a bit)...

It's alright that we lost, though, since I now know what to do with my deck.  Oh wait, it doesn't even matter, since a new set is coming out in two weeks.  And until then, I may not go to Kaijudo tournaments.  Meaning that the next time I go to Duel Days would be in June.  I mean, there's literally just one more Kaijudo tournament (May 19) until the new set becomes legal (May 25), so I don't see a point in going, especially since we already got one of each promo card.

As such, I may just get lazy and not change my deck until Aki and I get cards from the new set.  I mean, it won't matter, so why bother?  That being said, I'm still really excited to see what cards are in the new set.  Aki and I are planning on getting two boxes, but I kind of want to get three just to ensure we get everything we want.  I suppose that after we get the first two boxes, we'll be able to determine whether or not we need to get more packs.

But yeah, I guess I'll only be going to locals on Saturday next week.  It'll be nice to take a break from going both days.  Ideally, I'd like to go both days every week, but it gets pretty exhausting, especially since I have to go to school the following day...