Not much of a lead up into this one as this locals was relatively tame outside of the obligatory "STNAD MY AVARTAR BLAZSTER BURRREIdO!" nonsense from the loud people who conveniently sit on another side of the room most of the time.
That said this time around I decided to spice things up a bit and play one of my decks that I always say I'm going to build and play in a tournament but never do in Ranunculus (aka Ahsha.dek) due to the fact that the set 6 support is REALLY good and pretty much makes it the de facto best Neo Nectar deck now. Bloom in itself is actually a very strong ability due to most units not having a once per turn restriction which makes cloning turns really powerful. Furthermore since they trigger when a named unit is called at any time you no longer care about drawing your clone targets, your cards will bloom anyway. Furthermore because Bloom has a trigger and a PGG in its name they're searchable through the effect of Ihnes on ride or on call skill which is really helpful in setting up your defenses against aggro decks. Lastly Ahsha's new support is also really potent as Glorious Bloom can buff your units by 15000-20000, Thuria enables so many bloom plays and Primavera can now let you swing for ridiculous numbers. It also doesn't completely die to control (Narukami) as you do have the ability to rebuild your board after a nuke (you just can't do it consistently) and fight back.
Anywho with my deck built and no sign of Chingo it looked like today would be a hilariously fun day as long as I dodged Ryan as he was playing Messiah and I wanted nooooooo part of that. How would it start? Well;
Round 1 - vs Neo Nectar/Ahsha (2-1)
First game with the deck in a tourney and it's the fucking mirror match. WELL OKAY. Worse yet it's against Armando's GF who is just as much of a trigger sack as he is, though her sacking comes in the form of flipping crits on her G1/G2 attacking turns. Still it basically means games against her usually involve having to play out of being down 5 damage to 1 going into her first stride turn.
Anyway we play the swing with 1-2 lanes game and she ends up getting first stride but I'm able to guard well enough while I stride into Primavera to push her to five damage, then kill her on my following turn as I had searched out defensive cards off Ihne's Bloom Skill. Game 2 we both end up having to G-Assist to ride to 3 (we both hit Ahsha thank god) and she comes at me with a Dream Spinning Ahsha of low value while I've got "the combo" Primavera which I'm going to take a moment to explain;
-Primavera on attack allows you to put 5 normal units from drop zone to the top of the deck, then discard to call up to 4 copies of two cards you have in play.
-Bloom Units trigger when a same name unit is called on top of them as per the double Dorint + Blaster Dark ruling.
-With this in mind if you have Primavera clone Katerina + Thuria, you will call "four" Katerinas which will cause the first one to bloom 4 times (+16000 to the Katerina B, C and the 2 Thuria that are Katerina D and E) while the two new ones being called will bloom 3 times (+24000 to Katerina B, C, D and E) for a total of 10 Blooms triggered with that play.
-This will give your newly called units a minimum of +40000 and thus your rearguard lanes are 96000. This is the most literal case of PG or die out there.
So anyway I get the combo off after attacking with an 11k and 13k RG lanes to start with while my VG gets PGd. Rip. Anyway she can't guard the rearguard lanes so she takes both hits and I kill her...except she 6th damage heals, rips a Stride for turn and double crits me because I checked no PGs and couldn't guard her Dream Spinning Ahsha.
What.
So for those keeping track this is now two weeks in a row in back to back games that I've literally been fucked out of a win due to a miracle heal. Ugh. Game 3.
This time around I get the option of first stride after we trade some blows and we're both sitting at pretty low damage, My Dream Spinning turn puts her to I think 3-4 while her Dream Spinning isn't nearly as potent due to not having anything to attack with as she can't draw 2s this game and still runs Pia (which are horribly outdated btw) who sit in the back. I live it and stride into Glorious Bloom and make my Green Shots super buff and swing with a 40k line, 60k Vanguard line that I flip a crit with and a 60k RG line. Glorious Bloom is stupid.
Round 2 - vs Gear Chronicle (2-1)
Speaking of Armando, here he is and our games tend to go one of two ways now; one of us (usually him) critsacks so hard that it's usually over after first stride or I'm able to live the initial wave of Vanguard bullshit and grind out a win after a very long, hard fought game where I play my ass off. Game 1 was this as I basically had to take small victories here and there by getting him to 3-4 damage so that the next turn I'd either kill him or leave his hand as shit, repeat because he checked a heal and finally just kill him with Glorious after living not one but two Nextage pushes. Game 2 my hand is not the kind I needed to deal with Nextage while at 4 damage so I'm forced to no guard and hope I don't get critted. I do. Game 3 on the other hand I completely destroy him as I drop Primavera and pull off the combo and check 2 crits while I'm at it so my Rearguard lanes wind up being 101000. to his no PG hand and 5 damage.
Round 3 - vs Messiah (0-2)
Couldn't dodge Ryan after all and things went as I expected. Link Joker regardless of the variant is just a horrendous matchup. Like we're talking damn near auto lose since this clan relies on having same named units in play to gain buffs and well...locking kind of fucks that. In addition every Link Joker Deck in Regina seems to be blessed with the ability to randomly critsack good players (and fizzle vs baddies) and I'd like to think I'm one of the better players in not just this city, but in Western Canada.
Not that it really mattered here as long story short we both tried to play the grade 2 game since whoever gets first stride here wins and he ultimately got that in both games. After that it just usually snowballed as while I didn't outright die to any of his Amnesty Messiah turns or even his Excelics pushes, in both games I wound up having to burn basically everything in my hand to guard his stuff and that also meant throwing away my combo pieces and thus my own stride turns were utter shit. Game 2 I get at least a Glorious Bloom play off to make my 3 Katerina's 26000 but aside from that I knew I was not going to win this round at all.
And that was it. Jordan bought packs and pulled a Nightrose which Ryan got, Marco pulled an SP Vortmer and I pulled my 6th copies of Ihnes and Liliga. RIP.
Props
-Got to play Neo Nectar in a tournament for once. In this one tournament I also proved that I'm our best Neo player and subsequently raised the bar for the 3 other Ahsha players to reach.
-Played and won the Neo Nectar Mirror. It was silly
-Got the Primavera combo off. Multiple times. This is also silly as despite being a valid win condition that the deck can pull out of fucking nowhere, it's not the win condition (multiple Glorious turns are) meaning this deck doesn't play like some linear ass scrublord deck that tries to shoehorn itself into its one and only good play and hope to god that single gimmick of your deck gets there and if it doesn't you've automatically lost. No Ahsha actually can do things outside of Break Riding Bad End Dragg-I MEAN striding Primavera.
-Completely destroyed two of the most crit sacky people of our locals with a deck that by the way it operates doesn't sack due to the fact it's constantly putting non triggers back into the deck.
Slops
-Misplays. They happened a few times.
-Obligatory bricking that comes in Vanguard.
-Those games against Ryan. I just got destroyed and usually I can put up a better fight than what I did and take off at least a stock or 2. This was the equivalent to getting Rest'd 4 straight times.
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