Me: Jesus that's alot of people.
Megamonkey: Thing is though we have a So Cal guy here and he said this is basically the size of a small locals to him.
Well that's disheartening. Still I don't believe that a turnout alone doesn't detract from the results. The quality of the player base at our Regionals has improved each time and the guy that I'm talking about did lose games. To top a Regional you will have to beat good players to finish well. I've done this in the past.
That said lets get to the good part of this post. The tournament itself. I decided to play the Blue-Eyes Dragon Ruler deck that has talked about by alot of people (Jeff Jones posted an article on the deck for instance) as I felt more and more comfortable with it as I continued to play. I dislike the mill aspect of Standard Rulers and Hand Traps are 4x Super Effective against Dragunity Rulers wheras the Blue-Eyes Ruler had the speed of the second version without having to worry about Hand Traps as much. However this comes at the risk of drawing absolute SHIT. This is a longtime weakness of the Blue-Eyes engine (see SOL Hopeless) and while it's not as bad here it's possible to flat out lose games because you opened with all of your draw pieces but nothing to use them. It's very Dark World esque in that you rely on alot of two card combos to thin out your deck. Still it was something that I knew alot of people were not aware of and that's always something that will give you an edge in an environment where many things could be played.
The most played decks at this were; Dragon Ruler variants, Prophecy, Mermail, Fire Fist variants, Evilswarm, Constellar, Infernity, Madolche with alot of rogue and stun decks. Gravekeepers, Malefic Stun, Light Zombie Hero Beat. What would I face first? Well...
Round 1 - v Last Warrior.dek (2-0)
Are you kidding me? I have to face one of our local guys off the bat? Not only that but its the guy who plays awful stuff. There's not really much I can say on this. He AHLs into a Prisma that I Veiler then Blader Game 1 while I Wing Blast his Last Warrior game 2 and summon Blue-Eyes White Dragon to win the match with WHITE LIGHTNING.
So I've won my first round, but it was against a bad deck. My confidence isn't feeling awful at all right now. Nope.
Round 2 - vs Dual Axis Fire Fist (2-0)
Dragons have a strong matchup against this and Game 1 went on for a little bit, buuuut I was able to burn out his resources and resolve a wonderful Scrap Dragon + MST play. Game 2 he got off both of his Debunks on my Blaster summons but Fencing Fire Ferret gets in there and stops his momentum when I pop his Bear. I'm able to out advantage and win.
Got paired up with a Sask player and a really good one at that. I've always wanted to duel Jay and now I have. It was enjoyable.
Round 3 - vs Madolche (2-1)
It's been a LONG time since I played this guy and as expected he gave me a good fight. Madolche Ticket is a fucking annoying card but I opened the nuts. I'm talking multiple Sacred Swords, Cards of Consonance, Trade-In AND Dragon Ravine. When this deck resolves three to four of its draw spells in a turn you are at a TREMENDOUS advantage and thanks to it I was able to keep the pressure on him with my beaters and Hand Traps. Game 2 goes by shortly after I get a Game Loss for drawing too many cards by accident and creating an irreparable game state. Well shit. Game 3 comes down to me setting up a Skill Drain + Blaster that he can't get around.
A little rattled by that game loss. Granted I drew shit anyway so I may have lost regardless.
Round 4 - vs Samurai (2-0)
How the hell is THIS DECK at the top tables. Magnus said he even got destroyed by his previous opponent. Whatever. He goes turn 1 Barkion set a few which I force out or something. I end up Bladering him. Game 3 he opens with Mind Drain to my Sword, CoC, Skill Drain and Maxx "C" which makes me sad. He beats me down to 2500 when I top a White Stone, CoC it off to draw Dragon Rulers which I sword off and it goes from there. I Skill Drain him as he attempts to make a comeback and that's that.
Easy 2-0. Samurai suck against Dragons.
Round 5 - vs Four Axis Fire Fist (2-0)
Another Regina player and it's the man known as Boss. He's been playing this deck for a long time now and we're both aware of how the matchup vs Dragons go. I'm able to deal with his backrow and win game 1 while drawing two MSTs to deal with his turn 1 Mind and Soul Drain. It snowballed from there as he couldn't draw monsters and I had Stardust + TRA.
So now I'm sitting at the undefeated spot at 5-0. So are a few other people, namely the only person aside from myself that was running Blue-Eyes. Guess who played him next?
Round 6 - vs Blue-Eyes Dragon Ruler (0-2)
I open complete ass game 1. Triple Cards of Consonance without things to pitch for them set me back alot compared to him hitting the kind of hand that I got against Madolche. Not good. He disrupts my attempt to clear his Colossal Fighter but I have the Veiler for his Blader play. Sadly I have to scoop it up. Game 2 went alot better as I was able to set up the Colossal with a Wing Blast that I use to get around a Big Eye. But then he flipped Return.
Oh.
Disappointed? Yes. That game 1 will haunt me for a while. Definitely need to hammer consistency some more.
Round 7 - vs Spellbooks (2-0)
I made several misplays both games but thanks to Ravine I keep him from advantaging off his Tower and timely Blaster pops cleared the way for my beaters to do things. Game 2 I ultimately Big Eye ZA WARUDO and win.
After ALLLL of that was said and done I ended up in 3rd place, earning this;
More trades and such were done before we went to Boston Pizza where I had pasta and Megamonkey had a pizza burger which looked amazing. I swear if god (uuuhhh) made food i would be this. Then we chatted there and at Cam's before wrapping it up.
Props
-Getting my third invite
-Getting a new deckbox
-Getting a Star Eater mat
-Playing a deck with Blue-Eyes in it
-WINNING a match with Blue-Eyes White Dragon
-Trades
Slops
-Awkward hands. Especially in the Mirror
-Misplays. I should have Veiler'd Temperance of Prophecy, not what it brings out.
-Getting that game loss.
All in all I was satisfied with how things went. I played well and barring the Prophecy matchup I don't think I misplayed really badly. I ran a deck that was good and something I was comfortable with and it worked. Will I continue to run Blue-Eyes Rulers? For now, yes.
Until next time!
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