Had to use that as a title at least once while playing Gear Chronicle which I totally did today as I was able to pick up an entire GC (and more) off a friend for my Genesis cards. Do I feel a bit of regret at this? A bit as Regalia was a deck I did enjoy playing and Fenrir was unlike anything I had ever piloted when it comes to Genesis. That and for a very long time Omniscience Regalia, Minerva was an avatar for me during Block 3 format in addition to being a waifu I guess. That said despite going after them and building Fenrir/Yata and Fenrir/Minerva so soon I had already become bored with the deck, so getting rid of them now while picking up the cards needed to more or less finish Gear Chronicle, a deck that I've been enjoying for quite a while now (but could never actually play because of expensive cards) in addition to becoming better with future sets due to the Time Leap based support was fine by me.
And with this I went from wanting to build Gear Chronicle at the start of the year but deciding not to so that Megamonkey could build the deck to getting said deck and playing it at the last locals of the year for me due to my work schedule. Now sadly Locals got jewed out of trial decks and I was only able to get one which really put a hamper on the build I had in mind, but I made do with I got.
1x Chrono Dran
8x Crit
4x Draw
4x Heal
4x Chronojet Dragon
4x Steam Fighter, Bahliff
4x Upstream Dragon
4x Steam Fighter, Kalibum
2x History-maker Dragon
4x PGG
4x Strider
2x Timebreak Dragon
2x Steam Maiden, Gigi
2x Steam Maiden, Danish
1x Steam Fighter, Uli-Nigen
2x Chronodragon Nextage
2x Interdimensional Dragon, Ragnaclock Dragon
2x Interdimensional Beast, Metallica Phoenix
1x Interdimensional Dragon, Faterider Dragon
1x Interdimensional Beast, Upheaval Pegasus
Didn't realize I was running 10 Grade 2s and extra Grade 1s but that's what happens when you hastily make deck edits. This build is considerably different from the Gear Chronicle of Set 4 where you focused entirely on spinning and powering up Gear Wolf for large columns. Instead my aim is to abuse Time Leap to fetch units that suit the situation and be generally more proactive against decks whereas in the past if I was up against a deck that was passive or didn't commit to the board, I couldn't really do a whole much outside of my Vanguard attacks as my Rears were more or less vanillas. At least this way I can push for extra decks/numbers by time leaping my 1s into Upstreams and 9ks into Baliffs. Also since I'm not running Relic Master Dragon or Amber my need for CB is considerably lower than earlier builds so damage unflippers outside of my PGGs aren't needed.
Round 1 - vs Pale Moon (Harry/Beast Tamer) (2-1)
Despite all of the theory I had behind this decklist (which I had spent a good few days thinking about) I still actually had to learn how to pilot it in order to figure out how to get the most out of Time Leaping and thus my play with this deck started off shaky but gradually becoming better and more clever as I realized interactions between certain cards which I'll cover in a deck profile at some point. In regards to this matchup G-Pale Moon actually is a respectable deck when Cancer Decks aren't present in the room as they can put out a good deal of pressure through Harri's Stride Break skill and the techs that Brando was running from older sets meshed nicely. I wish I could have gotten a Deck Proile. That said in Game 1 I'm able to overpower him, Game 2 I lose to a crit and Game 3 he's unable to deal with Nextage into Chronojet on top of Time Leaping into Upsteam Dragons then going into Gigis to maintain hand advantage so I win.
I also came to the realization here that with the exception of Jordan, everyone in Regina plays 12 crits, even in decks that really shouldn't because draws are better for their G2 game (Revengers come to mind). Gonna have to take that into account when deckbuilding and defending as the desire to sack around here is very real, despite half of these people saying that Vanguard isn't always about sacking.
Round 2 - vs Shadow Paladin (Claret/Diablo) (2-0)
In a rare twist of events I'm the one who trigger sacks Derrick as I flip two crits and put him horrendously behind in damage and while he's trying to close the gap, I push and win the first game before he has a chance to stride into Diablo. Game 2 is a little more hazy as I remember getting him to 5 damage but he double heals out of it, but I flip a crit on Ragnaclock and 3 damage him for the win.
Skillful. Playing.
Round 3 - vs Gear Chronicle (2-1)
When I found out I was paired against Armando I wept for a moment as he's notorious for being a massive sack in this game. Like we're talking about a level of sack that even Woodhouse would say "this is bullshit."
That said both of us were running nearly identical builds and lady luck was on both our sides today so this was probably going to be the most even match I've had with him all year! Anyway Game 1 I somehow get him to 5 damage to my 0 so I'm able to no guard some of his stride attacks and save my PGGs for his Nextage pushes while running him out of options with my own pushes. Game 2 he breaks my one passes with crits two turns in a row and despite making a major effort in getting back into the game I just can't overcome that much of a gap in adventage and lose. Game 3 we go back and forth but I'm able to keep a better hold on his field by spinning away his rears while he can't answer mine outside of Chronojet's Stride Break so he's forced to attack with just his VG for several turns before I make a massive Metallica Phoenix push that leaves him handless and boardless followed by a Ragnaclock + 2 Upstream Dragons the next turn and win. This match ended up being for first place so I ended up going undefeated with Gear Chronicle while Armando got 2nd, Derrick and Fatty Ding Dong I don't know and Ryan played Cancer Ripples but got savaged by RNGesus and lost each round. I fear for Yu-Gi-Oh! Locals Tomorrow.
So yeah that's the report and this will likely be the last post I make on here for the year. Happy Holidays.
Props
-Got to "finish" Gear Chronicle. Atm I can play a solid build, though not optimal
-Outsacking people. About time I got some love from RNGesus
-Selling off my Ripple Core for 60 when I had basically spent 5 bucks for everything.
Slops
-Need 1 more Nextage...
-Tramps not ordering enough Trial Decks. Seriously this is getting ridiculous when this community has THOSE GUYS that will buy 4 of a Trial Deck to make everything foil (Brando). You want to play Pale Moon? HAH! Also I know Brando's gonna buy 4 Granblue Trial Decks so I'll have to get some set aside...
Saturday 19 December 2015
Monday 14 December 2015
Pendulum Rant
The other day I watched a video discussing how we were truely entering the Pendulum Era now that we're seeing decks other than Qliphort exist. The video went on to talk about how there were people who are unhappy with the mechanic while also mentioning that without Pendulums the game would become stale. I dunno why it was this video that finally made me snap and go off but it did and here's what I had to say;
"The thing I've noticed is that alot of the people complaining about Pendulums (Qli aside because seriously, f**k that archetype and what it stands for) are the same people who complained about Xyz when they came out and I'm gonna go on a limb and say they also complained about Sycnhros. These same people have at each time said "This new mechanic is going to kill Yu-Gi-Oh! The game will be ruined! Just you see!" and then it doesn't because everyone else will have learned how to adapt to the new mechanic and work with it while these people end up being left behind because they refuse to adapt and stick to playing some tier 89 garbage deck and get trashed.
Incidentally these same people who are complaining will in fact touch a Pendulum deck and happily do so, it just won't be until several years later after Konami guts PePe/Majespecter/Magicians to the point of being unplayable because by playing them when no one else is (because those decks will obviously be awful at that point), they'll be "unique."
Now do I think the Pendulum Mechanic is ridiculous? I feel like it could have been done a little better with some of the card designs (Wavering, Ariadne) but I'll give Konami props for waiting a little over a year to push Pendulums to the forefront compared to how they did so with Xyz. I also do like the approach to deckbuilding it brings and the utility of some of the cards they've printed like Eccentrick. As somewhat of a veteran player I like how the game has evolved from how it was even five years ago and like you've said changes like these are a necessary evil in order to keep Yu-Gi-Oh! from being stale. Going back to my point of Konami waiting until DOCS to really push Pendulums, I clearly remember that prior to it people were complaining about how boring the game had become because the format was pretty much Dolls/BA/Etc the entire time and that was just only a YEAR, so I can only imagine how much worse it would have been if say the game had never changed mechanically since 2008 (which is what some people clearly have wanted to happen given the number of "no Synchros, Xyz or Pendulum" notes I see on Dueling Network). I'm sorry people but it's 2015, summoning the Dark Magician and trying to Heart of the Cards into Exodia stopped being cool YEARS ago! /rant."
And that pretty much sums up my opinion on the Pendulum Mechanic. It's a cool concept that is needed to keep Yu-Gi-Oh! exciting and MOST of the people who complain about it are the same stuck in the past old farts who still think that the game should be played how it was back in 2002 that complained about Synchros and Xyz ruining the game.
Yet here we are. Yu-Gi-Oh! is still alive and kicking. If the game does die it won't be because of some busted mechanic but because of Konami mishandling it. These are the same petty retards who think that Pachinko Machines are their future and cockblocked Kojima at the Video Game awards. Now granted I'm taking shots at Konami's video game division wheras YGO is handled by an entirely different one, but who knows when the stupidity will spill over? Time will tell.
So yeah Pendulums are cool and if you don't like them then it sucks to be you.
"The thing I've noticed is that alot of the people complaining about Pendulums (Qli aside because seriously, f**k that archetype and what it stands for) are the same people who complained about Xyz when they came out and I'm gonna go on a limb and say they also complained about Sycnhros. These same people have at each time said "This new mechanic is going to kill Yu-Gi-Oh! The game will be ruined! Just you see!" and then it doesn't because everyone else will have learned how to adapt to the new mechanic and work with it while these people end up being left behind because they refuse to adapt and stick to playing some tier 89 garbage deck and get trashed.
Incidentally these same people who are complaining will in fact touch a Pendulum deck and happily do so, it just won't be until several years later after Konami guts PePe/Majespecter/Magicians to the point of being unplayable because by playing them when no one else is (because those decks will obviously be awful at that point), they'll be "unique."
Now do I think the Pendulum Mechanic is ridiculous? I feel like it could have been done a little better with some of the card designs (Wavering, Ariadne) but I'll give Konami props for waiting a little over a year to push Pendulums to the forefront compared to how they did so with Xyz. I also do like the approach to deckbuilding it brings and the utility of some of the cards they've printed like Eccentrick. As somewhat of a veteran player I like how the game has evolved from how it was even five years ago and like you've said changes like these are a necessary evil in order to keep Yu-Gi-Oh! from being stale. Going back to my point of Konami waiting until DOCS to really push Pendulums, I clearly remember that prior to it people were complaining about how boring the game had become because the format was pretty much Dolls/BA/Etc the entire time and that was just only a YEAR, so I can only imagine how much worse it would have been if say the game had never changed mechanically since 2008 (which is what some people clearly have wanted to happen given the number of "no Synchros, Xyz or Pendulum" notes I see on Dueling Network). I'm sorry people but it's 2015, summoning the Dark Magician and trying to Heart of the Cards into Exodia stopped being cool YEARS ago! /rant."
And that pretty much sums up my opinion on the Pendulum Mechanic. It's a cool concept that is needed to keep Yu-Gi-Oh! exciting and MOST of the people who complain about it are the same stuck in the past old farts who still think that the game should be played how it was back in 2002 that complained about Synchros and Xyz ruining the game.
Yet here we are. Yu-Gi-Oh! is still alive and kicking. If the game does die it won't be because of some busted mechanic but because of Konami mishandling it. These are the same petty retards who think that Pachinko Machines are their future and cockblocked Kojima at the Video Game awards. Now granted I'm taking shots at Konami's video game division wheras YGO is handled by an entirely different one, but who knows when the stupidity will spill over? Time will tell.
So yeah Pendulums are cool and if you don't like them then it sucks to be you.
Sunday 29 November 2015
YGO Locals Report - Its so good yet so dirty
Remember that feeling of general surliness from the last Regional blog post? Yeah long time readers will know that when I usually get smashed at an event the following Locals I participate in I'll usually be playing some kind of degenerate strategy and this time was no different as I decided to play pure Yang Zing which of course meant one thing; floodgates! Floodgates aplenty!
What I ended up playing was a near exact copy of Pirasath Surane's list from Winnipeg's recent Regionals which had main decked Kaiser Colosseum which is quite legit vs the format at the moment. The guy got 2nd place with it and smashed damn near everything with it and I've talked to the guy (really chill person who LOVES dragons!) so I figured why not play it. As cool and "better" as the Zefra Turbo build may be I've mentioned before how bad the Majespecter matchup is and I did not want to play something that literally loses to Wavering Eyes when I was expecting Ryan, Matt, Magnus and Woodhouse to all be playing Pendulum decks that mained it. Turns out Ryan decided to play Chris Leblanc's Synchro Fusionist deck while Magnus played Tele-DAD. Wump wump.
Round 1 - vs Exodia Stall (2-0)
Game 1 I opened with Kaisers, Anti Spell and Lose 1 Turns but turns out I'm up against an Exodia deck so half of my hate was dead here. I end up running him out of options as he's relying on things like Threatening Roar while hoping to raw draw the pieces. Game 2 I make a Trishula and hit a limb so he's done.
Round 2 - vs Red-Eyes (2-0)
Both games he never dropped Archfiend Black Skull which literally screws my deck over, so it's good as I just had to deal with his Black Flares and backrow. He negates my first Baxia with Champion's Vigilance but because I'm good at this game I play Soul Charge and make another one, while in another game I Baxia away 3 of his sets during his MP2 and win with it + an Armades.
Round 3 - vs Synchro Fusionist.dek (2-0)
Figures that vs Ryan I open all of the helmet cards and I lock him out of both games here as G1 I had and kept Kaiser Colosseum in play while grinding out the game while in G2 I bait out a Herald of the Arc Light negate so that I can flip Rivalry of Warlords which Synchron decks just lose to.
Round 4 - vs D/D (0-2)
Then I get my come uppance as I make 1 mistake in each of these games in how I structure my plays so that I end up with sub optimal boards (that's right. This deck does have a degree of technical play despite being a helmet build) and I get punished for it by having Vanity's Emptiness flipped and can't clear it. To say I was unhappy was an understatement as it was literally that one fucking card that locked me out of the match as under normal circumstances D/D are not an issue for Yang Zing to deal with (hell I had multiple Creation set up so that I could have gone considerably plus) but nope, not this day. It's matches like these that show just how bullshit Emptiness as a card is and why it needs to be banned from play. I'm also aware that I probably come off as a hypocrite bitching about losing to a floodgate despite playing floodgates the deck. However to that I say my deck is made up of several floodgates so it's not out of the realm of possibility to see one or two over the course of the game given that I'm running 3 and 2 ofs. Vanity's Emptiness on the other hand is a bullshit sack card that you have a what, 12% chance of opening with? Fuck RNG.
Top 4 - vs Batterymen (2-0)
This was Ben's first time playing against any form of stun deck out there and he was quite disappointed. All I'm thinking is "you're so lucky you didn't have to play against Shard for the last year" as my cancer isn't near the level that was full strength Qliphort. Anyway I've got Skill Drain and Kaiser both games and he can't answer them so after I slowly whittle his LP away with Taotie I make a push and kill him.
Finals - vs Tele-DAD (1-2)
Oh hey, it's Magnus. First time we've squared off in a while if I'm correct. I'm sure Nord will tell me since he's been re reading all these blog entries from the beginning. Anywho Game 1 he can't clear my Chaofeng that was summoned with Darks, Game 2 I make a rotten donkey anus of myself by completely forgetting about my own Lose 1 Turn and making plays that caused an irrepairable game state, so I scooped it up while Game 3 I brick, play out of it, but don't get a whole lot to work with the following turns and end up taking a small Maxx "C" challenge when I probably shouldn't have as I planned to make a battle immune Herald of the Arc Light...but he drew into the cards needed to clear my Kaiser, dropped Dark Armed Dragon and I was dead.
So that was that. I did make some trades towards finishing up Odd-Eyes Magicians while picking up Magnus' BLS Regionals Mat (trading off an Odd-Eyes Fusion that holy shit has doubled in value) and afterwards we called it a day. The deck performed well and I can see why Pirasath played certain card choices over others while this tournament as a whole made me realize that god damn, I legitimately like Yang Zing as a deck. Despite their weaknesses and flaws, the deck is actually quite flexible in how it wants to play. You can play an advantage game with your floaters, a stun game with floodgates (and the best ones at that) OR you can play an aggressive OTK/Giant Board Lock with the Zefra build. Now that Shaddolls and Nekroz are RIP, I'd say that Yang Zing are probably the most technically oriented deck of the DUEA-era.
Props
-Got to play Yang Zing at a tournament where Macro Stun wasn't present!
-Trishing an Exodia Piece. GOD that felt good.
Slops
-Vanity's Emptiness
-Misplays
What I ended up playing was a near exact copy of Pirasath Surane's list from Winnipeg's recent Regionals which had main decked Kaiser Colosseum which is quite legit vs the format at the moment. The guy got 2nd place with it and smashed damn near everything with it and I've talked to the guy (really chill person who LOVES dragons!) so I figured why not play it. As cool and "better" as the Zefra Turbo build may be I've mentioned before how bad the Majespecter matchup is and I did not want to play something that literally loses to Wavering Eyes when I was expecting Ryan, Matt, Magnus and Woodhouse to all be playing Pendulum decks that mained it. Turns out Ryan decided to play Chris Leblanc's Synchro Fusionist deck while Magnus played Tele-DAD. Wump wump.
Round 1 - vs Exodia Stall (2-0)
Game 1 I opened with Kaisers, Anti Spell and Lose 1 Turns but turns out I'm up against an Exodia deck so half of my hate was dead here. I end up running him out of options as he's relying on things like Threatening Roar while hoping to raw draw the pieces. Game 2 I make a Trishula and hit a limb so he's done.
Round 2 - vs Red-Eyes (2-0)
Both games he never dropped Archfiend Black Skull which literally screws my deck over, so it's good as I just had to deal with his Black Flares and backrow. He negates my first Baxia with Champion's Vigilance but because I'm good at this game I play Soul Charge and make another one, while in another game I Baxia away 3 of his sets during his MP2 and win with it + an Armades.
Round 3 - vs Synchro Fusionist.dek (2-0)
Figures that vs Ryan I open all of the helmet cards and I lock him out of both games here as G1 I had and kept Kaiser Colosseum in play while grinding out the game while in G2 I bait out a Herald of the Arc Light negate so that I can flip Rivalry of Warlords which Synchron decks just lose to.
Round 4 - vs D/D (0-2)
Then I get my come uppance as I make 1 mistake in each of these games in how I structure my plays so that I end up with sub optimal boards (that's right. This deck does have a degree of technical play despite being a helmet build) and I get punished for it by having Vanity's Emptiness flipped and can't clear it. To say I was unhappy was an understatement as it was literally that one fucking card that locked me out of the match as under normal circumstances D/D are not an issue for Yang Zing to deal with (hell I had multiple Creation set up so that I could have gone considerably plus) but nope, not this day. It's matches like these that show just how bullshit Emptiness as a card is and why it needs to be banned from play. I'm also aware that I probably come off as a hypocrite bitching about losing to a floodgate despite playing floodgates the deck. However to that I say my deck is made up of several floodgates so it's not out of the realm of possibility to see one or two over the course of the game given that I'm running 3 and 2 ofs. Vanity's Emptiness on the other hand is a bullshit sack card that you have a what, 12% chance of opening with? Fuck RNG.
Top 4 - vs Batterymen (2-0)
This was Ben's first time playing against any form of stun deck out there and he was quite disappointed. All I'm thinking is "you're so lucky you didn't have to play against Shard for the last year" as my cancer isn't near the level that was full strength Qliphort. Anyway I've got Skill Drain and Kaiser both games and he can't answer them so after I slowly whittle his LP away with Taotie I make a push and kill him.
Finals - vs Tele-DAD (1-2)
Oh hey, it's Magnus. First time we've squared off in a while if I'm correct. I'm sure Nord will tell me since he's been re reading all these blog entries from the beginning. Anywho Game 1 he can't clear my Chaofeng that was summoned with Darks, Game 2 I make a rotten donkey anus of myself by completely forgetting about my own Lose 1 Turn and making plays that caused an irrepairable game state, so I scooped it up while Game 3 I brick, play out of it, but don't get a whole lot to work with the following turns and end up taking a small Maxx "C" challenge when I probably shouldn't have as I planned to make a battle immune Herald of the Arc Light...but he drew into the cards needed to clear my Kaiser, dropped Dark Armed Dragon and I was dead.
So that was that. I did make some trades towards finishing up Odd-Eyes Magicians while picking up Magnus' BLS Regionals Mat (trading off an Odd-Eyes Fusion that holy shit has doubled in value) and afterwards we called it a day. The deck performed well and I can see why Pirasath played certain card choices over others while this tournament as a whole made me realize that god damn, I legitimately like Yang Zing as a deck. Despite their weaknesses and flaws, the deck is actually quite flexible in how it wants to play. You can play an advantage game with your floaters, a stun game with floodgates (and the best ones at that) OR you can play an aggressive OTK/Giant Board Lock with the Zefra build. Now that Shaddolls and Nekroz are RIP, I'd say that Yang Zing are probably the most technically oriented deck of the DUEA-era.
Props
-Got to play Yang Zing at a tournament where Macro Stun wasn't present!
-Trishing an Exodia Piece. GOD that felt good.
Slops
-Vanity's Emptiness
-Misplays
Saturday 28 November 2015
CFV Locals Report - ROAD ROLLER DA!!!
No long winded intro this time given that I brought Brawlers to this, so let's go!
Round 1 - vs Alfred.dek (1-2)
Game 1 ends up taking more time to get done than most of the matches this round as I open weakly and have to deal with his damned magic numbers to my crossridden Knuckle Buster but through repeated board wipes run him out of resources to the point where Conquest can finish him off. Typical Brawler game plan. Game 2 I have to G Assist and lose shortly after while Game 3 all I can say is that he flipped triggers and I couldn't. It's really difficult to come back from a Crit Heal Heal check putting you at 4 to their 1 but by god I nearly did it. Then he flipped a crit and I died.
Round 2 - vs Messiah (2-0)
Wow. This deck is not threatening to Brawlers when your opponent doesn't cheat with it. He takes away my options for at turn, I remove his options entirely. It's kinda freaky how much Narukami has surpassed Link Joker when 2 years ago Eradicators legit struggled against them. Then again Link Joker's only good when Chaos Breaker Dragon is relevant so until January...
Round 3 - vs Revengers (2-1)
Ryan gets gradestuck game 1 and loses, I get gradestuck game 2 and can't deal with his zerg rush and lose while game 3 he ends up Legioning for Abyss while we were both at low damage (I think it was 2 to 2), flips a heal so he can't restand and I end up punishing him for it with Knuckle Turbo blowing up his board, then I Conquest him for two straight turns and win.
I ended up getting 2nd place after it was done with Peter Cheng-I mean Brandon getting "first" with Sanctuary Guard.dek. Not much else I can say here.
Props
-MUDAMUDAMUDAMUDAMUDAMUDA
Slops
-WRRRRRRYYYYYYYYY!!!!
Round 1 - vs Alfred.dek (1-2)
Game 1 ends up taking more time to get done than most of the matches this round as I open weakly and have to deal with his damned magic numbers to my crossridden Knuckle Buster but through repeated board wipes run him out of resources to the point where Conquest can finish him off. Typical Brawler game plan. Game 2 I have to G Assist and lose shortly after while Game 3 all I can say is that he flipped triggers and I couldn't. It's really difficult to come back from a Crit Heal Heal check putting you at 4 to their 1 but by god I nearly did it. Then he flipped a crit and I died.
Round 2 - vs Messiah (2-0)
Wow. This deck is not threatening to Brawlers when your opponent doesn't cheat with it. He takes away my options for at turn, I remove his options entirely. It's kinda freaky how much Narukami has surpassed Link Joker when 2 years ago Eradicators legit struggled against them. Then again Link Joker's only good when Chaos Breaker Dragon is relevant so until January...
Round 3 - vs Revengers (2-1)
Ryan gets gradestuck game 1 and loses, I get gradestuck game 2 and can't deal with his zerg rush and lose while game 3 he ends up Legioning for Abyss while we were both at low damage (I think it was 2 to 2), flips a heal so he can't restand and I end up punishing him for it with Knuckle Turbo blowing up his board, then I Conquest him for two straight turns and win.
I ended up getting 2nd place after it was done with Peter Cheng-I mean Brandon getting "first" with Sanctuary Guard.dek. Not much else I can say here.
Props
-MUDAMUDAMUDAMUDAMUDAMUDA
Slops
-WRRRRRRYYYYYYYYY!!!!
Sunday 15 November 2015
Winnipeg Regionals Report - The worst one yet?
To be honest I really don't feel like writing this up, but I've done a report for each of the Regionals I've been to each this year and with this being the last one it's obvious I'm going to do one.
For this event I considered either Yang Zing or PePe as I felt the first choice had a strong Kozmo matchup and before arriving in Winnipeg we were told there'd be a fair amount of them, could maindeck every good floodgate in the game and the Zefra build was ridiculously fast. However I ultimately discounted it as the Zefra build loses to Majespecter really badly and I didn't like the hands I was seeing with the stun build, so I went with PePe featuring Samurai Cavalry of Reptier as the Vector/Painful build just wasn't cutting it for me after we spent a long time talking theory with the group of Winnipeg players that we know (and happen to be their best ones at that) and realizing that playing Vector requires playing Painful which in itself isn't a great card and is not worth the 40.00 CDN tag. I got my Painfuls for 12 though so no real loss there. The result;
I opted to keep it simple. Run 3 of the Performage Scales, 3 Luster and 3 more low scales in the form of Samurai Calvary of Reptier as his on field effect was passable. I also opted to run a single copy of storm as a 3rd MST of sorts as there would be times were I needed to clear my scales and I didn't have Wavering Eyes OR I could just pop a Plushfire to pop a backrow and go off. As for how it went...
Round 1 - vs Traptrix Tellarknights (1-1)
This one was a long, tedious grind as he got off two straight Myrmeleo summons and off the first one searched a Space Trap Hole which is an obvious tell that he has Bottomless and my hand was not equipped to just throw monsters into backrow until they were gone. So I spend most of game one trying to keep him from building up advantage while whittling away at his backrow and ultimately come up short and lose. Game 2 on the other hand I blew him completely out of the water by resolving Storm for 4 in an attempt to game shot him...except he has Flying "C" so I couldn't do that. It's okay though as I end up ramming the Flying "C" and Jigabyte into his Diamond so that I end my turn with an Archfiend Eater and an Xyz Universe set knowing he has an Altair in hand and was likely going to make Castel to clear it and try and kill me. He does and I Universe his monsters into D/D/D/ Kali Yuga which takes him by surprise and I blow up his freshly set backrow on EP and win as time is called with the match ending as a draw.
Round 2 - vs Kozmo (2-0)
Just going to say right now Shard is not the player that he thinks he is and this weekend proved that very well. After talking with Ryan his build was fucking awful, his play with the deck has been equally bad and he is a very linear thinker. His deck choices reflect this and in this match I absolutely crush him. At least I'm sure I do as I don't remember much about it other than I deal with his spaceship easily enough and clear his Storming Force game 1 while in Game 2 he opens with a Spaceship and nothing else to my OTK hand. Not so tough now without your infinite fucking floodgates, are you?
Round 3 - vs Burning Abyss (1-2)
A deck that got smashed via the list and in the hands of someone who literally just started playing the game a week or so ago? Sounds like an easy win, right? No brother. That was not the case as in the first game I drew terribly. I open with mismatched scales and am unable to keep a monster on board to his multiple monsters that I eventually clear and make the mistake of not using Warning to stop a traveller that kills me. Game 2 I kill him in two turns and in Game 3 I brick again with a Plushfire, Time Space Trap Hole and multiple Wavering Eyes and never draw into another monster while his hitting Cir/Graff off his Dante mills, so I end up getting smashed by a noob.
Round 4 - vs Kozmos (1-2)
While this guy was a step up from Shard as a Kozmo player, now that I've had time to reflect on it I don't think he's an amazing player either as he made some very sketchy plays and tried to use handtraps in ways they weren't supposed to be used, such as chaining Maxx "C" to a Pendulum Summon, then trying to take it back when I decide not to Pendulum and instead set a monster. Wtf? We also had to call a judge over to explain how Chimeratech Fortress Dragon worked because he didn't think I could contact his Dark Destroyer. Read the fucking card! It's fitting then that in Games 1 and 3 I lock him out of the duel with Emptiness, but I end up getting greedy in the latter case in an attempt to gameshot under Maxx "C"...and he draws into Dark Destroyer and summons it via his Strawman to ruin that. He drops another Destroyer and time is called as I have Luster, Plushfire, Wavering Eyes and Cyber Dragon in hand. I set my scales to which he tries to Ghost Ogre but I tell him he physically can't as I'm just setting the scales and play accordingly, chaining Wavering to when he activates the ogre to Luster's effect.
I take a long time, maybe a minute and a half to figure out how to go about resolving this as I needed to make Emeral, shuffle back Chimeratech and tribute summon Cyber Dragon in order to contact fuse again and leave him crippled. In the end I add Samurai Cavalry and summon Damage Juggler, ram it into a Destroyer so that I could search Plushfire, Pendulum for 4 to make Ignister to out his Kozmotown and Emeral to do the play I just mentioned to which his mind was fucking blown. Now left with a Farmgirl in hand and nothing else to my board of 5850 damage, the only way he could win was to topdeck Raigeki which he fucking did. To say I was crushed was an understatement. I'll admit that the greedy game push I made earlier was dumb and I should have slow rolled him to a potential win under Emptiness, but dammit I managed to turn it around at the end. He apologized profusely and said he did not deserve to win that one and with this I was now eliminated from top cut contention.
So with my spirit broken I should have dropped out of the tournament and just walked around like last time. Instead I made the mistake of playing it out and I'll just sum it up here as I played some pretty scrubby people that I had way too much trouble with, losing to Yosenju PSY-Frames and D/D/Ds, with the last one being due to a game loss and him opening Anti-Spell + Wavering Eyes in Game 3. I also played an Ignight player but against him I opened the literal tits both games.
And that was the tournament. I finished horrendously and my will to play this game took a huge dive as I've now been to five regionals this year and I've choked at each of them. I've hit a brick wall that I haven't been able to clear since September 2013 and it's fucking frustrating as hell.
So after all that we did the usual things we do post Winnipeg Regionals and saw Rhonda Rousey get fucked up in her fight among other things.
Props
-I smashed Shard.
-I made some really clever plays
Slops
-Misplays
-Brick Hands
-Raigeki banned please
-Not topping
-Losing to bad decks? I'd say that Yosenju anything are not good and D/D/Ds are definitely not a good deck in the competitive sense.
For this event I considered either Yang Zing or PePe as I felt the first choice had a strong Kozmo matchup and before arriving in Winnipeg we were told there'd be a fair amount of them, could maindeck every good floodgate in the game and the Zefra build was ridiculously fast. However I ultimately discounted it as the Zefra build loses to Majespecter really badly and I didn't like the hands I was seeing with the stun build, so I went with PePe featuring Samurai Cavalry of Reptier as the Vector/Painful build just wasn't cutting it for me after we spent a long time talking theory with the group of Winnipeg players that we know (and happen to be their best ones at that) and realizing that playing Vector requires playing Painful which in itself isn't a great card and is not worth the 40.00 CDN tag. I got my Painfuls for 12 though so no real loss there. The result;
I opted to keep it simple. Run 3 of the Performage Scales, 3 Luster and 3 more low scales in the form of Samurai Calvary of Reptier as his on field effect was passable. I also opted to run a single copy of storm as a 3rd MST of sorts as there would be times were I needed to clear my scales and I didn't have Wavering Eyes OR I could just pop a Plushfire to pop a backrow and go off. As for how it went...
Round 1 - vs Traptrix Tellarknights (1-1)
This one was a long, tedious grind as he got off two straight Myrmeleo summons and off the first one searched a Space Trap Hole which is an obvious tell that he has Bottomless and my hand was not equipped to just throw monsters into backrow until they were gone. So I spend most of game one trying to keep him from building up advantage while whittling away at his backrow and ultimately come up short and lose. Game 2 on the other hand I blew him completely out of the water by resolving Storm for 4 in an attempt to game shot him...except he has Flying "C" so I couldn't do that. It's okay though as I end up ramming the Flying "C" and Jigabyte into his Diamond so that I end my turn with an Archfiend Eater and an Xyz Universe set knowing he has an Altair in hand and was likely going to make Castel to clear it and try and kill me. He does and I Universe his monsters into D/D/D/ Kali Yuga which takes him by surprise and I blow up his freshly set backrow on EP and win as time is called with the match ending as a draw.
Round 2 - vs Kozmo (2-0)
Just going to say right now Shard is not the player that he thinks he is and this weekend proved that very well. After talking with Ryan his build was fucking awful, his play with the deck has been equally bad and he is a very linear thinker. His deck choices reflect this and in this match I absolutely crush him. At least I'm sure I do as I don't remember much about it other than I deal with his spaceship easily enough and clear his Storming Force game 1 while in Game 2 he opens with a Spaceship and nothing else to my OTK hand. Not so tough now without your infinite fucking floodgates, are you?
Round 3 - vs Burning Abyss (1-2)
A deck that got smashed via the list and in the hands of someone who literally just started playing the game a week or so ago? Sounds like an easy win, right? No brother. That was not the case as in the first game I drew terribly. I open with mismatched scales and am unable to keep a monster on board to his multiple monsters that I eventually clear and make the mistake of not using Warning to stop a traveller that kills me. Game 2 I kill him in two turns and in Game 3 I brick again with a Plushfire, Time Space Trap Hole and multiple Wavering Eyes and never draw into another monster while his hitting Cir/Graff off his Dante mills, so I end up getting smashed by a noob.
Round 4 - vs Kozmos (1-2)
While this guy was a step up from Shard as a Kozmo player, now that I've had time to reflect on it I don't think he's an amazing player either as he made some very sketchy plays and tried to use handtraps in ways they weren't supposed to be used, such as chaining Maxx "C" to a Pendulum Summon, then trying to take it back when I decide not to Pendulum and instead set a monster. Wtf? We also had to call a judge over to explain how Chimeratech Fortress Dragon worked because he didn't think I could contact his Dark Destroyer. Read the fucking card! It's fitting then that in Games 1 and 3 I lock him out of the duel with Emptiness, but I end up getting greedy in the latter case in an attempt to gameshot under Maxx "C"...and he draws into Dark Destroyer and summons it via his Strawman to ruin that. He drops another Destroyer and time is called as I have Luster, Plushfire, Wavering Eyes and Cyber Dragon in hand. I set my scales to which he tries to Ghost Ogre but I tell him he physically can't as I'm just setting the scales and play accordingly, chaining Wavering to when he activates the ogre to Luster's effect.
I take a long time, maybe a minute and a half to figure out how to go about resolving this as I needed to make Emeral, shuffle back Chimeratech and tribute summon Cyber Dragon in order to contact fuse again and leave him crippled. In the end I add Samurai Cavalry and summon Damage Juggler, ram it into a Destroyer so that I could search Plushfire, Pendulum for 4 to make Ignister to out his Kozmotown and Emeral to do the play I just mentioned to which his mind was fucking blown. Now left with a Farmgirl in hand and nothing else to my board of 5850 damage, the only way he could win was to topdeck Raigeki which he fucking did. To say I was crushed was an understatement. I'll admit that the greedy game push I made earlier was dumb and I should have slow rolled him to a potential win under Emptiness, but dammit I managed to turn it around at the end. He apologized profusely and said he did not deserve to win that one and with this I was now eliminated from top cut contention.
So with my spirit broken I should have dropped out of the tournament and just walked around like last time. Instead I made the mistake of playing it out and I'll just sum it up here as I played some pretty scrubby people that I had way too much trouble with, losing to Yosenju PSY-Frames and D/D/Ds, with the last one being due to a game loss and him opening Anti-Spell + Wavering Eyes in Game 3. I also played an Ignight player but against him I opened the literal tits both games.
And that was the tournament. I finished horrendously and my will to play this game took a huge dive as I've now been to five regionals this year and I've choked at each of them. I've hit a brick wall that I haven't been able to clear since September 2013 and it's fucking frustrating as hell.
So after all that we did the usual things we do post Winnipeg Regionals and saw Rhonda Rousey get fucked up in her fight among other things.
Props
-I smashed Shard.
-I made some really clever plays
Slops
-Misplays
-Brick Hands
-Raigeki banned please
-Not topping
-Losing to bad decks? I'd say that Yosenju anything are not good and D/D/Ds are definitely not a good deck in the competitive sense.
Sunday 1 November 2015
YGO Locals Report - Goodnight Sweet Princes
Last opportunity to play Nekroz at Locals before the new banlist? You bet I'm gonna do it! Here's what I played;
Basically the same list I ran last time, except I put in Gishki Chain as a 7th Ju which worked out well enough and tweaked the side to deal with our local meta easier. As for how things went...
Round 1 - vs Masked Heroes (0-2)
Game 1 he opened with Darklaw which I was able to eventually out thanks to Gishki Chain and Forbidden Lance but he ends up dropping an Acid afterwards and shotguns Vanity's Emptiness and I lose because of no mainable outs to the damned thing. Then Game 2 I opened badly with Lance, MST, RoTA and Decree but no Brio, Unicore, Ju, Prep or even another RoTA so I could search out Clausolas and Shurit for defensive purposes and eventually die to repeated pokes by his monsters and Cowboy.
Congrats Konami. You ban Exciton because it's in your mind an unbalanced card but you leave Emptiness alone? I can't count the number of times I've seen games end because someone flips this fucking thing and it can't be cleared. Christ.
Round 2 - vs Performage Shaddolls (2-0)
Norden had also lost his last round to Floodgates featuring Qliphort so this meant that whoever lost this one wasn't going to top and wouldn't you know, I open the literal nuts this match with a Turn 1 Diamond and Abyss Dweller to what would have been a bonkers hand of El Shaddoll Fusion + 4 monsters and Game 2 he opened an all monster hand with none of them being Dragon/Squamata so I OTK him.
Round 3 - vs Junk Doppel (2-0)
Nothing to say here as this guy was starting out, made some horrendous plays and didn't know what my deck did so I scraped him. The only notable thing here was that he took for fucking ever to get his shit together as he was doing a trade as the round started and fielding offers from everyone while I waited. I even attempted to do a trade myself which was difficult when you have Allen standing nearby going OODFPSDFKJDSFLKDSFJ:DSLKFDSJFDSL:KFJSLDKF when I'm trying to get say a Mist Valley Apex Avian. Because him and Woodhouse fucking lose their shit whenever a money card comes up, people become much less likely to let go of the card and as the result the trade falls through. Norden ends up getting the shit I wanted because he had a much better offer than I did and I end up getting screwed because of Allen had kept his fucking mouth shut after I told him to shut up several times this situation may have been different.
And that was it. Because of bullshit in the first round I didn't top and thus my time with Nekroz ends on a sour note, as has often been the case. I wonder if had I been playing in a better environment such as Winnipeg or even Saskatoon where I would only have to worry about building my deck to handle Dolls/BA during earlier formats and not having to deal with faggot decks like Darklaw Turbo/Qli/Burn my overall experiences with the deck would have been different. At the very least if I lost it would have been to legitimately good players thus I could gain from the experience as outside of Ryan and Magnus, most of our playerbase is either awful (Kody) to moderate (Colby), or just outright sack you (Woodhouse). You can't really "get good fagget" off of people scumbagging with Floodgates or opening Honest/ripping BLS. It's really a shame too as I really do like Nekroz and I'll make some attempt at playing it post banlist at least once before completely shelving the deck. With Shurit banned and people saying the deck no longer exists it means that some day I can take advantage of this and annihilate people because they forgot that Trishula exists and will play into it Turn 1.
After that we went to Robins where a round of Vanguard was held. I let Norden play my Brawlers and he seemed to enjoy it while I tried out my revised Musketeers that I built based off some theory I had. Long story short a good majority of the people or decks that I really hate to play against (Pokemon Scott, Machining) happen to be of the GB kind so if I can stay stuck at 2 while maintaining a large amount of pressure, I can lock them out of the game because their entire deck is vanilla while I'm still good go to. Once they get to 5 damage I Legion with Vera and kill them because they've used most of their hand to block my 19-21K columns. It's the same concept that Japanese Sanctuary Guard and Ripple players use and after executing it I can see why the North American playerbase considers this tactic to be cancerous and with certain decks it makes playing against them unbearable. I'm not sure how Bushiroad is going to be able to handle this as they can't just say "no you HAVE to ride a Grade 3 if you have it in your hand" as players will respond by playing a Grade 2 rush deck, like Ripple Rush.
Props
-Got to play Blue Cards one last time
-Pulled off some really sick plays
-Made a 5 Material Diamond
Slops
-Got to play Blue Cards one last time :(
-Vanity's. Emptiness.
Basically the same list I ran last time, except I put in Gishki Chain as a 7th Ju which worked out well enough and tweaked the side to deal with our local meta easier. As for how things went...
Round 1 - vs Masked Heroes (0-2)
Game 1 he opened with Darklaw which I was able to eventually out thanks to Gishki Chain and Forbidden Lance but he ends up dropping an Acid afterwards and shotguns Vanity's Emptiness and I lose because of no mainable outs to the damned thing. Then Game 2 I opened badly with Lance, MST, RoTA and Decree but no Brio, Unicore, Ju, Prep or even another RoTA so I could search out Clausolas and Shurit for defensive purposes and eventually die to repeated pokes by his monsters and Cowboy.
Congrats Konami. You ban Exciton because it's in your mind an unbalanced card but you leave Emptiness alone? I can't count the number of times I've seen games end because someone flips this fucking thing and it can't be cleared. Christ.
Round 2 - vs Performage Shaddolls (2-0)
Norden had also lost his last round to Floodgates featuring Qliphort so this meant that whoever lost this one wasn't going to top and wouldn't you know, I open the literal nuts this match with a Turn 1 Diamond and Abyss Dweller to what would have been a bonkers hand of El Shaddoll Fusion + 4 monsters and Game 2 he opened an all monster hand with none of them being Dragon/Squamata so I OTK him.
Round 3 - vs Junk Doppel (2-0)
Nothing to say here as this guy was starting out, made some horrendous plays and didn't know what my deck did so I scraped him. The only notable thing here was that he took for fucking ever to get his shit together as he was doing a trade as the round started and fielding offers from everyone while I waited. I even attempted to do a trade myself which was difficult when you have Allen standing nearby going OODFPSDFKJDSFLKDSFJ:DSLKFDSJFDSL:KFJSLDKF when I'm trying to get say a Mist Valley Apex Avian. Because him and Woodhouse fucking lose their shit whenever a money card comes up, people become much less likely to let go of the card and as the result the trade falls through. Norden ends up getting the shit I wanted because he had a much better offer than I did and I end up getting screwed because of Allen had kept his fucking mouth shut after I told him to shut up several times this situation may have been different.
And that was it. Because of bullshit in the first round I didn't top and thus my time with Nekroz ends on a sour note, as has often been the case. I wonder if had I been playing in a better environment such as Winnipeg or even Saskatoon where I would only have to worry about building my deck to handle Dolls/BA during earlier formats and not having to deal with faggot decks like Darklaw Turbo/Qli/Burn my overall experiences with the deck would have been different. At the very least if I lost it would have been to legitimately good players thus I could gain from the experience as outside of Ryan and Magnus, most of our playerbase is either awful (Kody) to moderate (Colby), or just outright sack you (Woodhouse). You can't really "get good fagget" off of people scumbagging with Floodgates or opening Honest/ripping BLS. It's really a shame too as I really do like Nekroz and I'll make some attempt at playing it post banlist at least once before completely shelving the deck. With Shurit banned and people saying the deck no longer exists it means that some day I can take advantage of this and annihilate people because they forgot that Trishula exists and will play into it Turn 1.
After that we went to Robins where a round of Vanguard was held. I let Norden play my Brawlers and he seemed to enjoy it while I tried out my revised Musketeers that I built based off some theory I had. Long story short a good majority of the people or decks that I really hate to play against (Pokemon Scott, Machining) happen to be of the GB kind so if I can stay stuck at 2 while maintaining a large amount of pressure, I can lock them out of the game because their entire deck is vanilla while I'm still good go to. Once they get to 5 damage I Legion with Vera and kill them because they've used most of their hand to block my 19-21K columns. It's the same concept that Japanese Sanctuary Guard and Ripple players use and after executing it I can see why the North American playerbase considers this tactic to be cancerous and with certain decks it makes playing against them unbearable. I'm not sure how Bushiroad is going to be able to handle this as they can't just say "no you HAVE to ride a Grade 3 if you have it in your hand" as players will respond by playing a Grade 2 rush deck, like Ripple Rush.
Props
-Got to play Blue Cards one last time
-Pulled off some really sick plays
-Made a 5 Material Diamond
Slops
-Got to play Blue Cards one last time :(
-Vanity's. Emptiness.
Saturday 31 October 2015
CFV Locals Report - "How do you not know what Seal Dragons do?"
This should be short as I already gave away last week what I'd be playing this time around in order to deal with all of the Paladin nonsense of my locals in the form of Brawlers as Big Bang Knuckle Turbo is one of the best ways to punish board spammage while Narukami's Grade 2 cardpool allows you to play the gradestuck game against stride reliant decks.
Round 1 - vs Gear Chronicle (1-2)
Not a whole lot I can say on this match as it's me vs Norden so we both respected each other's cards enough to not overextend, though Upheaval Pegasus really did fuck over my board presence whenever it was dropped while in turn I ORAORAORAORA'D his board when I felt it was needed. Ultimately though the match came down to me getting Crit'd to death by Chronodragon Nextage + Chronojet Dragon, with one instance being triple crit.
Round 2 - vs Seal Dragons (2-0)
I legit had to ask this guy what his cards did as I've never played against Seal Dragons before due to no self respecting player ever touching the deck beforehand. I even got a (somewhat) scoff and a "how could you not know what Seal Dragons do?" in response. Needless to say I thrash him thoroughly as Kagero decks not named Dragonic Overlord die to Narukami in G-Format. He does get some retires off, but each time I either call out a Chatura, Slash Buster or in one hilarious case call out Skyhowl Dragon to snipe off the G2 that made me call it out. Lol!
Round 3 - vs Messiah (2-1)
That feeling when you build your deck to counter the Paladin players and instead they all play Link Joker this week. Rip my attempt to next level. Oh well this was a golden opportunity to try and pay this guy back regardless while trying to figure out this matchup as Brawlers vs Star-Vaders was very dicey, but Messiah on the other hand should be well in my favour due to them needing RGs which well...y'know.
Anyway Game 1 he made me start which was fine as I had a hand that would let me play the Grade 2 stuck game which he made the mistake of trying to do and it backfired on him horrendously as I had Chatura/Slash Buster/Skyhowl with boosters and put him to 4 damage to 2. He eventually rides to 3 and I follow suit with a Legion play, then a Madew and outresource him. Game 2 I tried to Gradestuck him again but didn't draw the needed cards in order to keep it up before making a brutal misplay of striding into Turbo but without any Counterblasts, thus I wasn't able to wipe his board which gave him a turn to make a huge push, flip 3 crits and leave me with almost no hand for the next turn where he attacked with a big Amnesty Messiah and flipped 2 crits and I died. At this point it dawns on me that he's running 12 crit and I play accordingly as I snipe off his starter, get hits in with Chatura and most importantly getting Crossride stats vs a deck that can't make 18k columns that easily. Thanks to the defense buff my Draw Triggers are able to hold off his attacks while I continually boardwipe him with Turbo/Buster/Buster and draw the game out enough so that he ends up decking out before I can Conquest Dragon him.
I finish the day 5-3 and end up getting second, first place going to my round 3 opponent (meaning that had I not got crit sacked in Round 1 or 3, I may have gotten first) and a whole bunch of people tied for third. Overall I was very pleased with my deck as I had made some changes to it prior with the aim of improving its early game with the addition of Threatening Brawler, Koumei and Wildcloak Dragon and a 4th copy of Skyhowl Dragon over Chatura so that I could play the Grade 2 game vs G-Decks. Another minor but huge change was the addition of Rain Element, Madew in the G-Zone as striding for free and picking up Big Bangs from the drop zone for Buster's Legion skill was very huge. While it goes without saying that Legion decks should play Madew as a 1 of Staple, it goes doubly for this deck.
Props
-I got to play Narukami in a tournament, that's always a prop
-After the last couple locals where I had abysmal performances, I came roaring back with my fists of fury!
-Got my revenge on "Pokemon Scott" but utterly destroying and outplaying him. Your stacking and triple crits can only carry you so far!
Slops
-Crit Sacking ruined what was an otherwise good match with Norden
Round 1 - vs Gear Chronicle (1-2)
Not a whole lot I can say on this match as it's me vs Norden so we both respected each other's cards enough to not overextend, though Upheaval Pegasus really did fuck over my board presence whenever it was dropped while in turn I ORAORAORAORA'D his board when I felt it was needed. Ultimately though the match came down to me getting Crit'd to death by Chronodragon Nextage + Chronojet Dragon, with one instance being triple crit.
Round 2 - vs Seal Dragons (2-0)
I legit had to ask this guy what his cards did as I've never played against Seal Dragons before due to no self respecting player ever touching the deck beforehand. I even got a (somewhat) scoff and a "how could you not know what Seal Dragons do?" in response. Needless to say I thrash him thoroughly as Kagero decks not named Dragonic Overlord die to Narukami in G-Format. He does get some retires off, but each time I either call out a Chatura, Slash Buster or in one hilarious case call out Skyhowl Dragon to snipe off the G2 that made me call it out. Lol!
Round 3 - vs Messiah (2-1)
That feeling when you build your deck to counter the Paladin players and instead they all play Link Joker this week. Rip my attempt to next level. Oh well this was a golden opportunity to try and pay this guy back regardless while trying to figure out this matchup as Brawlers vs Star-Vaders was very dicey, but Messiah on the other hand should be well in my favour due to them needing RGs which well...y'know.
Anyway Game 1 he made me start which was fine as I had a hand that would let me play the Grade 2 stuck game which he made the mistake of trying to do and it backfired on him horrendously as I had Chatura/Slash Buster/Skyhowl with boosters and put him to 4 damage to 2. He eventually rides to 3 and I follow suit with a Legion play, then a Madew and outresource him. Game 2 I tried to Gradestuck him again but didn't draw the needed cards in order to keep it up before making a brutal misplay of striding into Turbo but without any Counterblasts, thus I wasn't able to wipe his board which gave him a turn to make a huge push, flip 3 crits and leave me with almost no hand for the next turn where he attacked with a big Amnesty Messiah and flipped 2 crits and I died. At this point it dawns on me that he's running 12 crit and I play accordingly as I snipe off his starter, get hits in with Chatura and most importantly getting Crossride stats vs a deck that can't make 18k columns that easily. Thanks to the defense buff my Draw Triggers are able to hold off his attacks while I continually boardwipe him with Turbo/Buster/Buster and draw the game out enough so that he ends up decking out before I can Conquest Dragon him.
I finish the day 5-3 and end up getting second, first place going to my round 3 opponent (meaning that had I not got crit sacked in Round 1 or 3, I may have gotten first) and a whole bunch of people tied for third. Overall I was very pleased with my deck as I had made some changes to it prior with the aim of improving its early game with the addition of Threatening Brawler, Koumei and Wildcloak Dragon and a 4th copy of Skyhowl Dragon over Chatura so that I could play the Grade 2 game vs G-Decks. Another minor but huge change was the addition of Rain Element, Madew in the G-Zone as striding for free and picking up Big Bangs from the drop zone for Buster's Legion skill was very huge. While it goes without saying that Legion decks should play Madew as a 1 of Staple, it goes doubly for this deck.
Props
-I got to play Narukami in a tournament, that's always a prop
-After the last couple locals where I had abysmal performances, I came roaring back with my fists of fury!
-Got my revenge on "Pokemon Scott" but utterly destroying and outplaying him. Your stacking and triple crits can only carry you so far!
Slops
-Crit Sacking ruined what was an otherwise good match with Norden
Monday 26 October 2015
Locals Report - Sharing the Pain
Two locals happened this weekend for me though the Cardfight!! Vanguard one can be summed up as; Paladins r bullshit, everyone bad at card games gets lucky with triggers far more frequently than the people who are good at card games/try to play smartly and fuck this noise I'm going back to piloting Narukami. What's the point of going to the trouble of building any of my side projects when I get smashed all the time and become frustrated. I'd like to chalk this up to RNG Jesus hating me this day but I've apparently been on his shitlist for months as even when piloting the mighty Sanctuary Guard or Revenger Deck I still get fucked over.
So yeah long story short I'm a bit sore with Vanguard at the moment and as such I decided to share my general annoyance with everyone in the form of playing Psy-Frames at YGO Locals. After all if I can't have fun, why should others? Norden has suggested I take a break for a bit and after this upcoming weekend I might. At the very least before I take a break I'm going to board wipe some people with my fists of fury. Maybe I'll even make a ORAORAORAORAORAORA scream from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure.
Anywho I arrive at the store, sell off my Speedroid core for 25 bucks and get my mind blown about price jumps before borrowing the cards I need to finish my decklist and sign up for the tournament with;
So yeah long story short I'm a bit sore with Vanguard at the moment and as such I decided to share my general annoyance with everyone in the form of playing Psy-Frames at YGO Locals. After all if I can't have fun, why should others? Norden has suggested I take a break for a bit and after this upcoming weekend I might. At the very least before I take a break I'm going to board wipe some people with my fists of fury. Maybe I'll even make a ORAORAORAORAORAORA scream from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure.
Anywho I arrive at the store, sell off my Speedroid core for 25 bucks and get my mind blown about price jumps before borrowing the cards I need to finish my decklist and sign up for the tournament with;
At the moment there is no clearly defined "best" build of this deck as the flaws of being reliant on the field spell/people enabling your hand traps haven't been solved yet. I opted to run only 2/2/2 Terraforming with Circuit and Chicken Game as I felt that while Circuit is important to the deck winning that 3 copies of it would be too much and lead to bricking as opposed to having just enough copies so that if I open/draw into it, it won't be in multiples that often while Chicken Game gives me something to search off Terraforming if I already have Circuit in hand, which did happen a fair bit. Turns out that logic can be thrown RIGHT out the window with Regina Locals as every pleb player maindecks MST and they'll immediately snipe Ciruit without thought. Doomcalibur Knight was my tech of choice to deal with people who thought they could stall me out by not doing anything as his 1900/1800 stats make him big enough to beat over Squamata/Unuk or tie with Dragon/Rai-Oh while also removing himself from the field to clear my board through his negation effect thus allowing me to Psy-Frame after doing his work. You're gonna kill Doomcal with a Hand Trap? That's fine by me. One less Veiler vs Omega or Maxx "C" to my Gears. The other thing of note was the inclusion of Dracossack who is made when you have 2 "floating" Level 7s and can clear your board/remove a card, Dark Strike Fighter who can clear the board while burning (which is relevant with this deck going into time alot) and Colossal Fighter for the Kozmo Matchup.
Round 1 - vs Igknights (2-0)
This one started off rocky as I got a couple of my Psy-Frame Gears mixed up and tried to negate a monster effect with Beta. Otherwise I pretty much had full control over this whole match as I didn't let him play Yu-Gi-Oh! at all through negation/Psy-Frame Overloard plays. He opened with Royal Magical Library both games but it was irrelevant as I kept killing his monsters with Beta/Gamma and it pissed him off something fierce. He ultimately rage quits because I didn't let him resolve one thing while also claiming "I never had this much trouble against the Psy-Frame decks I faced online!" over and over again. I'm sorry that I'm not a pleb and know how to play?
Round 2 - vs Chronomoly Artifacts (2-0)
Woodhouse opted not to play Kozmos this day for several reasons of which a few are legit in that the price to update the deck post DOCS will be an issue as Dark Destroyer won't be cheap and the Mirror Match is cancerous (though what Mirror Match that doesn't involve Dragons ISN'T?). I also believe he's not happy that he's no longer the special little snowflake who has Kozmos now that there are 2 other Kozmo players at Locals and likely 2 more after DOCS. That said I utterly thrash him and surprise surprise, he now wants my deck.
And yeah I know I'm not providing alot of details on technical play so far. All I can say is "lol Psy-Frames" as if I'm winning my games it's because I'm able to negate things and make my Field Spell stick.
Round 3 - vs Performage Shaddolls (1-2)
This match is a blur, but I do remember Norden popping both my Field Spells and spinning Overload away Game 1 which ultimately led to my loss as I dead drew multiple Psychic Feel Zones and fizzled out. Game 2 I had all the negation in the world, an answer to his Iron Wall and Psyframe Circuit was able to stick around and piss him off with a rage scoop (for those keeping track the number of people to have claimed this deck is "utter bullshit" now consists of; myself, Matt, Ryan, Cobb, Derrick, Shard and Igknight pleb). Then Game 3 happened where I took a fuckton of damage going into time and couldn't get the ball rolling before Turn 5.
Top 4 - vs Kozmo (1-2)
First time playing this matchup and it was Shard's fist time playing against the deck, aside from thinking it's cancerous. While I won't deny that Psy-Frames are a cancer deck I'd also like to point out this is coming from someone who is notorious for playing decks that are cancerous or cancerous amounts of backrow.
Anyway Game 1 I brick and end up taking way too much damage while making the mistake of leaving Colossal Fighter in attack position after he swings Forerunner into it as like always, he had the Honest so Farmgirl got in there. Game 2 on the other hand I completely annihilate him as I had Imperial Iron Wall to keep my guys in play after Circuit got popped and when that was finally dealt with I had both Epsilon and Beta in hand to negate his Farmgirl Attack and Fairy Wind, allowing me to do the rare but powerful double Psy-Frame Circuit play into a Scrap Dragon and Yazi, Evil of the Yang Zing who cleared both his set backrow to leave him with just a Kozmotown and only 1 card hand while I was Omega looping so I won that one. Then I bricked really badly in Game 3 as both Iron Wall and Circuit got MST'd, I dead drew Psychic Feel Zone but no Overloards to set it up quickly. I was able to keep in it for a bit, but I ultimately lost.
Not sure how I feel on the Kozmo matchup. The Psychics ability to banidodge makes it difficult to stop their pushes, though Zeta and Gamma are able to deal with Forerunner and if Overload is able to actually hit a Farmgirl, she ain't coming back. The big thing I noticed while losing Game 3 was Psy-Framelord Omega's Standby Phase effect to put banished cards back into the graveyard was extremely disruptive to Shard as I was able to take away a Forerunner that he had planned to get back with Kozmotown. Therefore if I'm able to get 2 Omegas onto the board and make them stick, I think the deck has a chance.
In regards to how the deck peformed it was okay. There were some issues I noticed after today such as dead drawing Psychic Feel Zone, Psychic Path being less than helpful and my reliance on Circuit. I also didn't like Jar of Avarice and feel like Psychic Overload would be helpful. I get that Jar recycles spells/traps, but the draw 2 off Overload seems more powerful. I also noticed that I really, really should have ran Soul Charge as it doesn't hurt my deck at all. Doomcalibur Knight was surprisingly not bad. Unlike Wind-Up Rabbit he's actually big enough to get over some monsters and doesn't require 9 cards like the Yosenju engine and thus makes the deck brick less. I'll continue to play him for the next while, but may ultimately drop him for something else that lets me attack on my turn and get the hell out of dodge afterwards.
Props
-Yay top 4?
-Got to Psy-Frame
-Added 2 more names to the list of people that Psy-Frames have pissed off
Slops
-Getting Circuit MST'd repeatedly
-Bricking
Wednesday 14 October 2015
Force of Will Locals Report - ...a Force of Will Locals Report
Well it took several more months than intended but at long last The Blue Corner has Force of Will content! This is mostly due to FoW being held on Wednesday which I almost never get off, except for this one thanks to some backroom politicking on my end. That said I'm still very, very new to the game so going into this I was a bit on the nervous side due to my lack of experience/confidence in my ability to play this. Long story short my games were going to be long, full of misplays and against high tier decks I knew I was going to get smashed. On the plus side I was able to pick up a playset of Cheshire Cat the Grinning Remnant and several cards needed to build a Blue/Green Valentina deck that I saw online while borrowing some other cards. Unfortunately I didn't have any Blue/Green Dual Stones and opted to run Magic Stone of Moon Shade in the slot on the grounds of paying 200 for any mana type wouldn't be so bad.
Oh how wrong I was.
Round 1 - vs Alice Blue/Black (1-2)
First match is against Liam to which I already knew was not going to end well. Don't get me wrong, Liam's an okay person but he is NEVER fun to play card games with. It can be Yu-Gi-Oh!, Vanguard, Magic or Force of Will it's always the same thing; he plays non interactive, protect the castle helmety bullshit 'control' decks that are usually linear as fuck. Hell I'm willing to bet if he ever played the Pokemon TCG he'd run Item/Ability Lock Decks or play stall6ever in the video games.
So yeah any game with him will usually be a slow, painful and tilt inducing loss unless you can counter his shit and bullshit your way to a win which is what I did in the second game thanks to using Banzai Attack + a counter on his counter to OTK him (which my deck doesn't do often) wheras in Games 1 and 3 he literally sat and protected the hell out of Medusa who has the effect to spin anything it battles with to the bottom of the deck. Block it? Gone AND it's done before damage calculation so instead of its attack being negated, the Medusa's attack continues and I take the hit. I attack and he blocks? My dude gets spun before I have the chance to kill it. The only way to kill a Medusa is to attack it while already resting which the one time I try to, my monster is blown up. The match goes into time and after paying myself low because I kept hitting Moon Shades with my ruler I get burned for game.
My first match of this game ever and it's against a helmet deck and I lose to burn. All that was needed to complete the trifecta of "shit I hate to lose against" was an alternate win con and I would be set. At the very least I took a game from him but I won't lie when I say if I play him again it'll be too soon and by the sounds of other people I've spoken to I'm not the only one that hates playing him.
Round 2 - vs Black/White (2-0)
Like me this guy was also starting out in the game so it was great to be able to play at a pace I found comfortable. I also opened with multiple Cheshire Cats and was able to field a board of floaters while drawing into and dropping a Purplemist the Fantasy Dragon at 1600/1600 which his deck couldn't do anything about and killed him after a few turns. Game 2 we go a bit back and forth as I had to deal with Resonators I couldn't target for my skills which I've come to realize is a problem for my list while dropping a really big 1300/1300 dude that did 500 burn to me if I tried to target it (I forget its name) and was significantly bigger than what I had at the time (I only play 1 Purplemist). However I just so happened to have had an One-Inch Boy and 2 Blue Mana in play during his End Phase which I had Valentina quick cast while on my turn I was able to attack with it, using my Glepnir Regalia's effect to force his monster to block Inch's attack and kill it, but since Inch did damage to it the monster was also killed. 500 Life to out any threat on the board? I'll gladly pay that! After that he really couldn't do much else as I got to J-Activate Valentina and used her God's Art to snatch steal one of his monsters leaving him with one less card to block with and killed him heading into time.
Round 3 - vs Pricia (2-1)
Well of course Norden and I had to be paired against each other. Just wouldn't be a report without me trying to remember how we tried to outwit each other with psyches, reads and oh wait he bricked Game 1 and hard to hard summon a 800/800 dude while I amassed a board and eventually dealt with in the first game while in Game 2 his deck went off very hard and despite having my own Medusa do Medusa things, he was able to deal with it and annihilate me. Game 3 both of our decks got to do things and we went into time as I had been dealing potshots most of the game while trying to find a way to answer his large board of beaters without the use of target skills thanks to his Rat that made his creatures untargetable during my turn. It eventually came down to me having just enough monsters in play to keep him from dealing lethal damage to me while I had a J-Activated Valentina in play whose God's Art I used to snag a monster during his turn to not only give myself a beatstick but to eliminate a potential block. In hindsight this was a bad play and I should have Snatch Steal'd his Rat so that on my turn I could have just plopped down an Etna to stun his whole board (or at least his big threats) and just attacked over everything for game. As it was I was still able to push for game as he couldn't block my monsters and Valentina was at +1000/1000, earning myself 4th place out of 16 which all things considered was pretty good as prior to this post I had literally only played less than 5 entire games of FoW. Huzzah.
After that Ryan, Matt, Nebbit and I went to Beer Bros with a person I had never met before and one of my old classmates from High School who had stopped by to learn about FoW and look to get into it. I chatted a bit with her and the others about things while waiting for our Woodhouse speed food to get to us before we all peaced out. T'was a good day.
The Good
-Competed in my first FoW tournament
-Top 4'd said tournament
-Winning Record
-Got a set of Cheshire Cats!
-Both Ryan and Nebbit have the cards I need to legit finish my main deck, so I can continue to play Valentina Blue/Green for the foreseeable future!
-Met up with an old acquaintance from my youth.
The Bad
-Not having 4 Magic Stone of Deep Wood
-Having to play against Liam
-Losing to Liam
-Not knowing half of the rulings/interactions of the game. I was trying to play my cards like Yu-Gi-Oh! cards.
-Not abusing Valentina's skills as well as I could have. Being able to drop monsters on my op's turn and attacking on mine is really, really good. Her God's Art is also damn handy for outing threats/blockers.
Oh how wrong I was.
Round 1 - vs Alice Blue/Black (1-2)
First match is against Liam to which I already knew was not going to end well. Don't get me wrong, Liam's an okay person but he is NEVER fun to play card games with. It can be Yu-Gi-Oh!, Vanguard, Magic or Force of Will it's always the same thing; he plays non interactive, protect the castle helmety bullshit 'control' decks that are usually linear as fuck. Hell I'm willing to bet if he ever played the Pokemon TCG he'd run Item/Ability Lock Decks or play stall6ever in the video games.
So yeah any game with him will usually be a slow, painful and tilt inducing loss unless you can counter his shit and bullshit your way to a win which is what I did in the second game thanks to using Banzai Attack + a counter on his counter to OTK him (which my deck doesn't do often) wheras in Games 1 and 3 he literally sat and protected the hell out of Medusa who has the effect to spin anything it battles with to the bottom of the deck. Block it? Gone AND it's done before damage calculation so instead of its attack being negated, the Medusa's attack continues and I take the hit. I attack and he blocks? My dude gets spun before I have the chance to kill it. The only way to kill a Medusa is to attack it while already resting which the one time I try to, my monster is blown up. The match goes into time and after paying myself low because I kept hitting Moon Shades with my ruler I get burned for game.
My first match of this game ever and it's against a helmet deck and I lose to burn. All that was needed to complete the trifecta of "shit I hate to lose against" was an alternate win con and I would be set. At the very least I took a game from him but I won't lie when I say if I play him again it'll be too soon and by the sounds of other people I've spoken to I'm not the only one that hates playing him.
Round 2 - vs Black/White (2-0)
Like me this guy was also starting out in the game so it was great to be able to play at a pace I found comfortable. I also opened with multiple Cheshire Cats and was able to field a board of floaters while drawing into and dropping a Purplemist the Fantasy Dragon at 1600/1600 which his deck couldn't do anything about and killed him after a few turns. Game 2 we go a bit back and forth as I had to deal with Resonators I couldn't target for my skills which I've come to realize is a problem for my list while dropping a really big 1300/1300 dude that did 500 burn to me if I tried to target it (I forget its name) and was significantly bigger than what I had at the time (I only play 1 Purplemist). However I just so happened to have had an One-Inch Boy and 2 Blue Mana in play during his End Phase which I had Valentina quick cast while on my turn I was able to attack with it, using my Glepnir Regalia's effect to force his monster to block Inch's attack and kill it, but since Inch did damage to it the monster was also killed. 500 Life to out any threat on the board? I'll gladly pay that! After that he really couldn't do much else as I got to J-Activate Valentina and used her God's Art to snatch steal one of his monsters leaving him with one less card to block with and killed him heading into time.
Round 3 - vs Pricia (2-1)
Well of course Norden and I had to be paired against each other. Just wouldn't be a report without me trying to remember how we tried to outwit each other with psyches, reads and oh wait he bricked Game 1 and hard to hard summon a 800/800 dude while I amassed a board and eventually dealt with in the first game while in Game 2 his deck went off very hard and despite having my own Medusa do Medusa things, he was able to deal with it and annihilate me. Game 3 both of our decks got to do things and we went into time as I had been dealing potshots most of the game while trying to find a way to answer his large board of beaters without the use of target skills thanks to his Rat that made his creatures untargetable during my turn. It eventually came down to me having just enough monsters in play to keep him from dealing lethal damage to me while I had a J-Activated Valentina in play whose God's Art I used to snag a monster during his turn to not only give myself a beatstick but to eliminate a potential block. In hindsight this was a bad play and I should have Snatch Steal'd his Rat so that on my turn I could have just plopped down an Etna to stun his whole board (or at least his big threats) and just attacked over everything for game. As it was I was still able to push for game as he couldn't block my monsters and Valentina was at +1000/1000, earning myself 4th place out of 16 which all things considered was pretty good as prior to this post I had literally only played less than 5 entire games of FoW. Huzzah.
After that Ryan, Matt, Nebbit and I went to Beer Bros with a person I had never met before and one of my old classmates from High School who had stopped by to learn about FoW and look to get into it. I chatted a bit with her and the others about things while waiting for our Woodhouse speed food to get to us before we all peaced out. T'was a good day.
The Good
-Competed in my first FoW tournament
-Top 4'd said tournament
-Winning Record
-Got a set of Cheshire Cats!
-Both Ryan and Nebbit have the cards I need to legit finish my main deck, so I can continue to play Valentina Blue/Green for the foreseeable future!
-Met up with an old acquaintance from my youth.
The Bad
-Not having 4 Magic Stone of Deep Wood
-Having to play against Liam
-Losing to Liam
-Not knowing half of the rulings/interactions of the game. I was trying to play my cards like Yu-Gi-Oh! cards.
-Not abusing Valentina's skills as well as I could have. Being able to drop monsters on my op's turn and attacking on mine is really, really good. Her God's Art is also damn handy for outing threats/blockers.
Tuesday 29 September 2015
Locals Report - Still not the saltiest
Once again I'm going to mesh Vanguard and Yu-Gi-Oh! into one upload while rambling on some side things...maybe. Let's get started!
Vanguard
Originally I was going to play Vermillion at this but then I learned that we were actually having a Sneak Peek for BTG4 which I was TOTALLY fine with as I want 3 clans worth of stuff from that set so I'd be hopefully able to pick stuff up and maybe win a mat? Turns out we held a vote for what kind of tournament it'd be and everyone wanted a standard best of 3 with 3 people getting the Nextage mat. So after cracking our packs, pulling garbage, trading for Genesis cards (2 Destruction Deity GET) and selling my Sanctuary Guard deck off I somehow ended up borrowing Ryan's Revenger deck and decided to go with it. If I did well despite never playing Revengers then it'd be a testament to how unbalanced the deck is though in retrospect I should have looked the deck over a bit more so I'd know what was in the deck/not. Still as for how it went;
Round 1 - vs Metalborgs (2-0)
He opens with a 5K VG which makes me greedy as I called Judgebau to the front which I realized was a stupid play as it forced me to call a Mordred to RG so I could resolve the skill. Otherwise he had never played against Revengers or Diablo before so he didn't commit much to the board which allowed me to resolve Diablo's no guard effect and donk him both games.
Round 2 - vs Revengers (2-0)
Oh boy, my first mirror match! While not as cancerous as the Nekroz Mirror in YGO, it does require a degree of finesse in making sure you don't leave yourself open to Diablo and dying. I should also note that Ryan's build runs 12 crit which I've repeatedly said is suboptimal, but I'd be lying if I didn't say that I flipped more crits to get some sack wins, like what ultimately happened in this match. That and in both games I opened with BDR + Dorint, BDRA on RG for the Judgebau kill and was able to swing for 9k, 14k, 16k which really set him back.
Round 3 - vs DotX (1-2)
Turns out that DotX is actually a bad matchup now that I've been watching some Revenger list videos as Revengers are a combo deck and your really big disgusting turns require you to have specific units in play (Judgebau, Dorint) and Kagero can keep you from doing that. I was able to win a game through crit sacking but the other two I lost because I didn't have a hand to deal with The ACE who broke through my guard the first time and thus I took 2 damage and lost.
In the end I got third place though I'm not sure if it was due to playing Revengers or not. Pretty sure I could have used Brawlers and had the same result but anyway was I right in saying that the Revenger clan itself is so powerful that it's considerable to a Helmet Deck? Not quite. Revengers are interesting in that they DO have some badly designed cards *coughRAGINGFORMDRAGONcough* and due to Shadow Paladin getting consistently GOOD support has made the deck disgustingly good BUT it's also a deck that does have a higher ceiling than other decks of its ilk and thus anybody CAN pick up the deck and do GOOD with it, but a really good player will do GREAT things with it.
Does this mean I've finally turned full circle and would pick it up? That's a big, big maybe. Ryan's offered me the Revenger deck for my Nekroz (banlist hits pending) and I'm legitimately considering it.
Yu-Gi-Oh!
Speaking of Nekroz I decided to play them on this day which honestly is a shock given my less than stellar record with them but I figured that this would be my last opportunity to play the deck in its current capacity as I'm pretty certain the next time I'm able to go to locals (two weeks from now) the new banlist will have dropped and at the very least Unicore will be at one and the deck will have to play very differently. Thus I took my Clown Nekroz list from Salvation, swapped out Breakthrough Skills for Forbidden Lance as I wanted to catch the Qlique by surprise with it and Exciton vs their bullshit and sided a bunch of anti backrow as with the exception of Ryan, all of Regina's players rely on floodgate backrow to beat the deck and he wasn't playing Shaddolls on this day so I didn't have to worry about getting OTK'd (the other Shaddoll players are still stuck in magical world of springtime where Star Seraphs were good and Mistake was mained). I did also keep a couple cards in the sideboard that were okay in the Mirror as I thought there'd be one other Nekroz present, but the player using it wouldn't be as experienced as I was. Now equipped with a Red-Eyes Flare Metal Dragon Playmat and with the new KMC Mat sleeves I felt like I was ready to do things;
Round 1 - vs Heroics (2-1)
I have no idea if this was Heroes or what but all I know is he made me go first, I opened with no play and he turn 1 Rhongo Bongo'd with a Dark Hole on the following turn so I was dead before I knew it. In retrospect I misplayed horrendously here as I had a Damage Juggler in hand and for some reason though it was useless vs Rhongo. No good sirs it was in fact quite usable and now that I've JUST realized it I'm actually upset as I could have survived to the point where I could have played. In any case prior to the match when he was setting his stuff out I got a glance at his side and spotted Macro, so I knew he'd be bringing backrow into this and sided in my removal, opened with Hand Traps like a champion, played Unicore control and Trished him to oblivion in the other two games.
Round 2 - vs Nekroz (2-1)
Turns out the guy who got Ryan's Nekroz traded them to the Shaddoll player I faced when I was playing prediction dolls and he's been playing with the deck since, having made it to the Top 64 cut of YCS Toronto. Well then. According to Norden though he was still not as experienced with the deck as we were and he didn't have Performages which meant I had an edge here and that's what happened as I won the dieroll and went second. He opened pretty tamely, getting I think a Ju search? All I know is that he didn't have a Nekroz in grave so which gave me the green light to try and kill him and I do so despite being under Maxx "C". Game 2 he kills me quickly as I got hit by a surprise Decisive Armour when I tried to Lance his Valk and I had already taken too much damage prior so that was quick, but then Game 3 ended being anything but as I'm able to play around his Gungnir with Valk and Juggler so he's unable to do significant damage to me while I'm slowly playing catchup to his explosive start and ultimately taking control of it by resolving a Trish with Dance Princess in play so that he couldn't Maxx "C" me and I hit his own Trish. Now granted the game was still on and at this point I had a Rank 4 play that could have either been Dweller for the complete lockout, or Emeral on the grounds of he wouldn't top a Ju and I could shuffle back in several cards for the fresh draw. I make Emeral, he tops a Ju, we're in time and I'm ahead in life so as long as I'm able to Valk stall I have this. I instead rip Preparation of Rites like a champion and he scoops.
Round 3 - vs Shaddoll (2-1)
Game 1 was really saddening. I got him down to 200 Life as he's playing Seraph Dolls and bricked for the most part so I'm set to win on the next turn. Then he Stick Chair Chairs my board into oblivion and draws Mistake, flips it on my turn and then I literally lose because I can't draw into Kaleidoscope before he kills me. Game 2 I make him go first and blow him out with Denko Sekka to what I imagine was a set Mistake given his facial expression and follow that up with a Decisive Armour on his set Squamata. Game 3 I open with 2 MST + all 3 Mirrors and feel bad as I have basically no way to prevent being OTKed. Instead he sets 3 S/T and passes of which I end phase MST two of them and hit both of his Mistakes and draw Brionac for turn! Oh he was not happy about that and mentioned several times that game about the double MST on his double Mistake throughout the rest of the game as I droped Unicore and get my ball rolling, he can't catch up and I seal the game with a Trishula on one turn and a Norden into Abyss Dweller play another and win thanks Trish being able to beat over a Shekhinaga.
Top 4 - vs M&M (2-0)
...Yes you read that right. Yes this is Ryan playing the deck for the fuck all of it and yes the TCG no DOCS card version of the deck is as bad but fun as you think it is. He played it out as best his could but we both knew the matchup was a tad bit skewed in my favour. Game 2 he had a potential OTK but I had Valk so that didn't happen and I won.
Finals - Nekroz (2-1)
Oh boy, this thread again. Honestly I had considered scooping it up as I really did not feel up to playing anodda Mirror match and the overall commitment it requires out of the player in order to not get smashed which I know terrible as I'm basically saying "waaahhh I don't wanna do that because its hard!" and after Game 1 I was even more tempted after opening with 5 combo piece As and not seeing a B before getting killed. But then Game 2 happened where I opened with the kind of hand that would let me OTK him with Number 104 Masquerade which he didn't even know was a thing (he had Maxx "C" as per usual with a live Valk). At that point the motivation returned and the me from 2011-2012 was back if only for this match. Game 3 despite its time was more or less in my favour from the onset as despite basically broadcasting that I had hand traps by leaving a Valk on the board after going off (he again had Maxx "C") there was really no way for him to play around it as he wasn't able to get drop Trishula without me going +2-3 off of my Maxx "C" or being shut down by Veiler (hurray for drawing my own hand traps. I only run 8 of them post side!) so we traded blows with me dropping him down to Cowboy range but unable to kill him off due to his Unicore. We play the stall game for a bit by not letting either of us kill the other's Unicore before I'm able to set up a hand that would let me Trish his Unicore with a Dance Princess in play (turns out he had drawn Retaliating "C" the turn before that) and attacked for game with Masquerade instead of using Cowboy on the off chance he might have had Veiler.
So yeah I finally got a Locals win with Nekroz, after several failed attempts. Just in time for the deck to be hammered! And that was basically it. I played some Vanguard with Ryan but Sunday was just NOT my day for VG and then we talked D/D/D theory along with Derrick before I showed Ryan a few Sceptile EX lists for PTCG as he was interested in it or Tyranitar. I doubt he'll have little trouble picking up either one of those in Winnipeg if he doesn't go full art.
Vanguard
Originally I was going to play Vermillion at this but then I learned that we were actually having a Sneak Peek for BTG4 which I was TOTALLY fine with as I want 3 clans worth of stuff from that set so I'd be hopefully able to pick stuff up and maybe win a mat? Turns out we held a vote for what kind of tournament it'd be and everyone wanted a standard best of 3 with 3 people getting the Nextage mat. So after cracking our packs, pulling garbage, trading for Genesis cards (2 Destruction Deity GET) and selling my Sanctuary Guard deck off I somehow ended up borrowing Ryan's Revenger deck and decided to go with it. If I did well despite never playing Revengers then it'd be a testament to how unbalanced the deck is though in retrospect I should have looked the deck over a bit more so I'd know what was in the deck/not. Still as for how it went;
Round 1 - vs Metalborgs (2-0)
He opens with a 5K VG which makes me greedy as I called Judgebau to the front which I realized was a stupid play as it forced me to call a Mordred to RG so I could resolve the skill. Otherwise he had never played against Revengers or Diablo before so he didn't commit much to the board which allowed me to resolve Diablo's no guard effect and donk him both games.
Round 2 - vs Revengers (2-0)
Oh boy, my first mirror match! While not as cancerous as the Nekroz Mirror in YGO, it does require a degree of finesse in making sure you don't leave yourself open to Diablo and dying. I should also note that Ryan's build runs 12 crit which I've repeatedly said is suboptimal, but I'd be lying if I didn't say that I flipped more crits to get some sack wins, like what ultimately happened in this match. That and in both games I opened with BDR + Dorint, BDRA on RG for the Judgebau kill and was able to swing for 9k, 14k, 16k which really set him back.
Round 3 - vs DotX (1-2)
Turns out that DotX is actually a bad matchup now that I've been watching some Revenger list videos as Revengers are a combo deck and your really big disgusting turns require you to have specific units in play (Judgebau, Dorint) and Kagero can keep you from doing that. I was able to win a game through crit sacking but the other two I lost because I didn't have a hand to deal with The ACE who broke through my guard the first time and thus I took 2 damage and lost.
In the end I got third place though I'm not sure if it was due to playing Revengers or not. Pretty sure I could have used Brawlers and had the same result but anyway was I right in saying that the Revenger clan itself is so powerful that it's considerable to a Helmet Deck? Not quite. Revengers are interesting in that they DO have some badly designed cards *coughRAGINGFORMDRAGONcough* and due to Shadow Paladin getting consistently GOOD support has made the deck disgustingly good BUT it's also a deck that does have a higher ceiling than other decks of its ilk and thus anybody CAN pick up the deck and do GOOD with it, but a really good player will do GREAT things with it.
Does this mean I've finally turned full circle and would pick it up? That's a big, big maybe. Ryan's offered me the Revenger deck for my Nekroz (banlist hits pending) and I'm legitimately considering it.
Yu-Gi-Oh!
Speaking of Nekroz I decided to play them on this day which honestly is a shock given my less than stellar record with them but I figured that this would be my last opportunity to play the deck in its current capacity as I'm pretty certain the next time I'm able to go to locals (two weeks from now) the new banlist will have dropped and at the very least Unicore will be at one and the deck will have to play very differently. Thus I took my Clown Nekroz list from Salvation, swapped out Breakthrough Skills for Forbidden Lance as I wanted to catch the Qlique by surprise with it and Exciton vs their bullshit and sided a bunch of anti backrow as with the exception of Ryan, all of Regina's players rely on floodgate backrow to beat the deck and he wasn't playing Shaddolls on this day so I didn't have to worry about getting OTK'd (the other Shaddoll players are still stuck in magical world of springtime where Star Seraphs were good and Mistake was mained). I did also keep a couple cards in the sideboard that were okay in the Mirror as I thought there'd be one other Nekroz present, but the player using it wouldn't be as experienced as I was. Now equipped with a Red-Eyes Flare Metal Dragon Playmat and with the new KMC Mat sleeves I felt like I was ready to do things;
Round 1 - vs Heroics (2-1)
I have no idea if this was Heroes or what but all I know is he made me go first, I opened with no play and he turn 1 Rhongo Bongo'd with a Dark Hole on the following turn so I was dead before I knew it. In retrospect I misplayed horrendously here as I had a Damage Juggler in hand and for some reason though it was useless vs Rhongo. No good sirs it was in fact quite usable and now that I've JUST realized it I'm actually upset as I could have survived to the point where I could have played. In any case prior to the match when he was setting his stuff out I got a glance at his side and spotted Macro, so I knew he'd be bringing backrow into this and sided in my removal, opened with Hand Traps like a champion, played Unicore control and Trished him to oblivion in the other two games.
Round 2 - vs Nekroz (2-1)
Turns out the guy who got Ryan's Nekroz traded them to the Shaddoll player I faced when I was playing prediction dolls and he's been playing with the deck since, having made it to the Top 64 cut of YCS Toronto. Well then. According to Norden though he was still not as experienced with the deck as we were and he didn't have Performages which meant I had an edge here and that's what happened as I won the dieroll and went second. He opened pretty tamely, getting I think a Ju search? All I know is that he didn't have a Nekroz in grave so which gave me the green light to try and kill him and I do so despite being under Maxx "C". Game 2 he kills me quickly as I got hit by a surprise Decisive Armour when I tried to Lance his Valk and I had already taken too much damage prior so that was quick, but then Game 3 ended being anything but as I'm able to play around his Gungnir with Valk and Juggler so he's unable to do significant damage to me while I'm slowly playing catchup to his explosive start and ultimately taking control of it by resolving a Trish with Dance Princess in play so that he couldn't Maxx "C" me and I hit his own Trish. Now granted the game was still on and at this point I had a Rank 4 play that could have either been Dweller for the complete lockout, or Emeral on the grounds of he wouldn't top a Ju and I could shuffle back in several cards for the fresh draw. I make Emeral, he tops a Ju, we're in time and I'm ahead in life so as long as I'm able to Valk stall I have this. I instead rip Preparation of Rites like a champion and he scoops.
Round 3 - vs Shaddoll (2-1)
Game 1 was really saddening. I got him down to 200 Life as he's playing Seraph Dolls and bricked for the most part so I'm set to win on the next turn. Then he Stick Chair Chairs my board into oblivion and draws Mistake, flips it on my turn and then I literally lose because I can't draw into Kaleidoscope before he kills me. Game 2 I make him go first and blow him out with Denko Sekka to what I imagine was a set Mistake given his facial expression and follow that up with a Decisive Armour on his set Squamata. Game 3 I open with 2 MST + all 3 Mirrors and feel bad as I have basically no way to prevent being OTKed. Instead he sets 3 S/T and passes of which I end phase MST two of them and hit both of his Mistakes and draw Brionac for turn! Oh he was not happy about that and mentioned several times that game about the double MST on his double Mistake throughout the rest of the game as I droped Unicore and get my ball rolling, he can't catch up and I seal the game with a Trishula on one turn and a Norden into Abyss Dweller play another and win thanks Trish being able to beat over a Shekhinaga.
Top 4 - vs M&M (2-0)
...Yes you read that right. Yes this is Ryan playing the deck for the fuck all of it and yes the TCG no DOCS card version of the deck is as bad but fun as you think it is. He played it out as best his could but we both knew the matchup was a tad bit skewed in my favour. Game 2 he had a potential OTK but I had Valk so that didn't happen and I won.
Finals - Nekroz (2-1)
Oh boy, this thread again. Honestly I had considered scooping it up as I really did not feel up to playing anodda Mirror match and the overall commitment it requires out of the player in order to not get smashed which I know terrible as I'm basically saying "waaahhh I don't wanna do that because its hard!" and after Game 1 I was even more tempted after opening with 5 combo piece As and not seeing a B before getting killed. But then Game 2 happened where I opened with the kind of hand that would let me OTK him with Number 104 Masquerade which he didn't even know was a thing (he had Maxx "C" as per usual with a live Valk). At that point the motivation returned and the me from 2011-2012 was back if only for this match. Game 3 despite its time was more or less in my favour from the onset as despite basically broadcasting that I had hand traps by leaving a Valk on the board after going off (he again had Maxx "C") there was really no way for him to play around it as he wasn't able to get drop Trishula without me going +2-3 off of my Maxx "C" or being shut down by Veiler (hurray for drawing my own hand traps. I only run 8 of them post side!) so we traded blows with me dropping him down to Cowboy range but unable to kill him off due to his Unicore. We play the stall game for a bit by not letting either of us kill the other's Unicore before I'm able to set up a hand that would let me Trish his Unicore with a Dance Princess in play (turns out he had drawn Retaliating "C" the turn before that) and attacked for game with Masquerade instead of using Cowboy on the off chance he might have had Veiler.
So yeah I finally got a Locals win with Nekroz, after several failed attempts. Just in time for the deck to be hammered! And that was basically it. I played some Vanguard with Ryan but Sunday was just NOT my day for VG and then we talked D/D/D theory along with Derrick before I showed Ryan a few Sceptile EX lists for PTCG as he was interested in it or Tyranitar. I doubt he'll have little trouble picking up either one of those in Winnipeg if he doesn't go full art.
Tuesday 22 September 2015
Fan Booster Update - Themes and Lore
Remember how a long time ago I wrote out contents for a fan booster set? Yeah I'm going to follow up on that by posting an outline of where I'm going to go with it and additional things as now that I've not only written up even MORE cards but have had some of my friends submit ideas for cards of their own I might be able to actually create a full on series of boosters or at the very least a lore for the boosters!
The themes
While Konami has made it a routine habit to shoot themselves in the foot what with the abandoning their Video Game Development in favour of mobile games and pachinko machines in what I can only be their attempts to outfuckup Capcom and EA, one thing I do have to give them credit on is how they've managed to take the idea of stories being told in their Yu-Gi-Oh! booster sets (also known as Lore) and run with it. They've been creating lores for quite a while with Warrior Dai Grepher, Warrior Lady of the Wasteland and The Six Samurai being prominent examples but where Konami really hit their stride was with the Hidden Arsenal sets as the "Duel Terminal Storyline" has been going on since 2008-2009 depending on the territory and it shows no sign of stopping now that the DT plot has been integrated into core booster sets. Why they opted to do so we'll never know (though part of me thinks this was influenced by Cardfight!! Vanguard's booster sets having 5 pack storylines) but it's made for some really sweet artwork and I like the concept, thus I've made it a personal goal to try and do the same thing with my project and I've made some significant progress on how I want to do things.
Like with the DT series I've got archetypes for each of the Attributes that have gimmicks and focus on a mechanic or two. Half of them I've made up myself while the other half have been ideas that my friends have come up with for shits and giggles but were totally on board with me using them. They are;
-Storm Deity: A Wind Thunder-Type theme that can use multiple summon types and focuses on field removal via killing multiple special summoned monsters. They also have skills that prevent floaters from activating their effects and many of their cards work with generic thunder-monsters.
-Abyssal: A Dark theme of multple monster types that plays different summon styles that focus on restricting the opponents' summoning options, such as making them pay LP or tribute extra monsters to Normal Summon. Like Evilswarm and Shaddolls many of the monsters used in this theme are hellspawn version of other creatures both famous and obscure while also possessing effects that destroy their own cards and are triggered on being destroyed.
-Pyromancer: A Fire theme of Spellcasters that special summon a Pyro-Type Normal Monster from hand/deck/graveyard which is needed to use their effects. This theme also uses Fusion Summons though it hasn't been decided if it's going to be a form of Contact Fusion using the Pyromancer and Pyro Monster or not.
-Graviton: A Earth type them of either Dragon-Type or Wyrm-Type monsters that are based around Banishing and Ritual Summoning. Graviton Monsters have an effect to Banish another card to use 1 Effect and a second effect that is triggered from being banished. Originally I was going to make them all dark based and an upgraded Red-Eyes B. Dragon as the ace monster in the form of Crimson-Eyes Graviton Dragon, but then CORE happened and Red-Eyes got actual support...
-Snow Flame/Frost Knight: This one is the most hazy one as I haven't given much thought of this theme yet. Originally I was going to make them Water Pyro Monsters that operated much like Vanguard's Bluish Flame deck, but now that I'm including Pyromancers in these sets I don't want to double up on types if I could. So instead I'm going to make this a Water Rock Archetype that uses Xyz Summons and a Reverse Scry mechanic, meaning you'll be looking at the bottom X cards of your deck and doing things, with many monsters having effects that trigger from being summoned/dumped from the deck so that older Rock Support works with them. I foresee Frost Knights inheriting the monster spammy nature of the Vanguard deck that initially inspired them.
-There is no Light theme as of yet.
And there's the themes. In addition to them I'd like to create some generic cards and legacy support for things such as Iron Chains (there you go Matt) or a reptile theme. As it is I can definitely create a Hidden Arsenal type set based on the 6 themes alone, or I could attempt to create core booster sets using about 3-4 of the themes per set. Problem with that though is that core boosters are 80 cards per set and usually have "show" cards comprising the first half which is kind of an issue given that I don't have a "show" to work with outside of fanfictions, except the fanfiction characters would actually be using decks based on the six themes. Looks like the legacy support may have to be expanded to be more than just one or two cards ala Koa'ki Meiru but be more of the Red-Eyes/Black Luster Soldier style.
The Story
Now that the themes have been laid out, what about the storylines? Well that one's the easy part. To put it simply X years after the events of the latest DT Storyline ends (which at this moment is the whole Dracoslayer vs Dracoruler thing) peace has returned to the DT world, however the constant wars have been taxing on the world and unfortunately the gates to the Abyss have been weakened to the point of bursting open. The ruler of the abyss, known as the Tyrant sees this new world to conquer and immediately leads his hellish army out of the gates and declares war on everything. At this same time a rogue lancer happens to be travelling the lands in search of strong opponents to fight and sees that the Tyrant would be the perfect test for his skill, but in order to get to him he is forced by the gods of the storm to lead an army to take back the world from his clutches. Reluctantly the lancer does so and the next great war is fought.
It's a very rough concept at this point but hey its a start. Obviously the rogue lancer is Obelisk the Green Slayer who ends up being the Storm Deity's champion who leads the armies of good against the abyss despite A) not being an actual Storm Deity card and B) he goes along with it for purely selfish reasons at the start of it. It's a nice reference to an old Battle Network Universe storyline I considered before going with the horrendous Liberation Mission plot instead.
Set Contents
No I'm not going to list every card made so far! Instead I'm just going to lay out the current plans for the sets and with the case of the first few their names. Then I'll upload posts with the contents of the sets. With that said the sets are;
YGOXS1 - Storm of the Abyss - Abyssal, Storm Deity, Pyromancer, Thunder-Type, Red-Eyes
YGOXS2 - March of the Skies - Storm Deity, Pyromancer, Iron Chain, Scrap
YGOXS3 - Descent into Chaos - Pyromancer, Abyssal, Chaos Dragon
YGOXS4 - Glory of the Duelist - Storm Deity, Frost Knight, Graviton,
YGOXS5 - War Against Darkness - Storm Deity, Abyssal, Frost Knight, Graviton
Yeah Storm Deity and Abyssal get 4 sets of support vs the other 4 theme which is due to them being the primary protagonist and antagonist of the block. And yes you read that right, set 3 has "Chaos" in its name, set 4 has "Duelist" and set 5 has "Darkness" in their names. I will try to design these sets accordingly ;)
The themes
While Konami has made it a routine habit to shoot themselves in the foot what with the abandoning their Video Game Development in favour of mobile games and pachinko machines in what I can only be their attempts to outfuckup Capcom and EA, one thing I do have to give them credit on is how they've managed to take the idea of stories being told in their Yu-Gi-Oh! booster sets (also known as Lore) and run with it. They've been creating lores for quite a while with Warrior Dai Grepher, Warrior Lady of the Wasteland and The Six Samurai being prominent examples but where Konami really hit their stride was with the Hidden Arsenal sets as the "Duel Terminal Storyline" has been going on since 2008-2009 depending on the territory and it shows no sign of stopping now that the DT plot has been integrated into core booster sets. Why they opted to do so we'll never know (though part of me thinks this was influenced by Cardfight!! Vanguard's booster sets having 5 pack storylines) but it's made for some really sweet artwork and I like the concept, thus I've made it a personal goal to try and do the same thing with my project and I've made some significant progress on how I want to do things.
Like with the DT series I've got archetypes for each of the Attributes that have gimmicks and focus on a mechanic or two. Half of them I've made up myself while the other half have been ideas that my friends have come up with for shits and giggles but were totally on board with me using them. They are;
-Storm Deity: A Wind Thunder-Type theme that can use multiple summon types and focuses on field removal via killing multiple special summoned monsters. They also have skills that prevent floaters from activating their effects and many of their cards work with generic thunder-monsters.
-Abyssal: A Dark theme of multple monster types that plays different summon styles that focus on restricting the opponents' summoning options, such as making them pay LP or tribute extra monsters to Normal Summon. Like Evilswarm and Shaddolls many of the monsters used in this theme are hellspawn version of other creatures both famous and obscure while also possessing effects that destroy their own cards and are triggered on being destroyed.
-Pyromancer: A Fire theme of Spellcasters that special summon a Pyro-Type Normal Monster from hand/deck/graveyard which is needed to use their effects. This theme also uses Fusion Summons though it hasn't been decided if it's going to be a form of Contact Fusion using the Pyromancer and Pyro Monster or not.
-Graviton: A Earth type them of either Dragon-Type or Wyrm-Type monsters that are based around Banishing and Ritual Summoning. Graviton Monsters have an effect to Banish another card to use 1 Effect and a second effect that is triggered from being banished. Originally I was going to make them all dark based and an upgraded Red-Eyes B. Dragon as the ace monster in the form of Crimson-Eyes Graviton Dragon, but then CORE happened and Red-Eyes got actual support...
-Snow Flame/Frost Knight: This one is the most hazy one as I haven't given much thought of this theme yet. Originally I was going to make them Water Pyro Monsters that operated much like Vanguard's Bluish Flame deck, but now that I'm including Pyromancers in these sets I don't want to double up on types if I could. So instead I'm going to make this a Water Rock Archetype that uses Xyz Summons and a Reverse Scry mechanic, meaning you'll be looking at the bottom X cards of your deck and doing things, with many monsters having effects that trigger from being summoned/dumped from the deck so that older Rock Support works with them. I foresee Frost Knights inheriting the monster spammy nature of the Vanguard deck that initially inspired them.
-There is no Light theme as of yet.
And there's the themes. In addition to them I'd like to create some generic cards and legacy support for things such as Iron Chains (there you go Matt) or a reptile theme. As it is I can definitely create a Hidden Arsenal type set based on the 6 themes alone, or I could attempt to create core booster sets using about 3-4 of the themes per set. Problem with that though is that core boosters are 80 cards per set and usually have "show" cards comprising the first half which is kind of an issue given that I don't have a "show" to work with outside of fanfictions, except the fanfiction characters would actually be using decks based on the six themes. Looks like the legacy support may have to be expanded to be more than just one or two cards ala Koa'ki Meiru but be more of the Red-Eyes/Black Luster Soldier style.
The Story
Now that the themes have been laid out, what about the storylines? Well that one's the easy part. To put it simply X years after the events of the latest DT Storyline ends (which at this moment is the whole Dracoslayer vs Dracoruler thing) peace has returned to the DT world, however the constant wars have been taxing on the world and unfortunately the gates to the Abyss have been weakened to the point of bursting open. The ruler of the abyss, known as the Tyrant sees this new world to conquer and immediately leads his hellish army out of the gates and declares war on everything. At this same time a rogue lancer happens to be travelling the lands in search of strong opponents to fight and sees that the Tyrant would be the perfect test for his skill, but in order to get to him he is forced by the gods of the storm to lead an army to take back the world from his clutches. Reluctantly the lancer does so and the next great war is fought.
It's a very rough concept at this point but hey its a start. Obviously the rogue lancer is Obelisk the Green Slayer who ends up being the Storm Deity's champion who leads the armies of good against the abyss despite A) not being an actual Storm Deity card and B) he goes along with it for purely selfish reasons at the start of it. It's a nice reference to an old Battle Network Universe storyline I considered before going with the horrendous Liberation Mission plot instead.
Set Contents
No I'm not going to list every card made so far! Instead I'm just going to lay out the current plans for the sets and with the case of the first few their names. Then I'll upload posts with the contents of the sets. With that said the sets are;
YGOXS1 - Storm of the Abyss - Abyssal, Storm Deity, Pyromancer, Thunder-Type, Red-Eyes
YGOXS2 - March of the Skies - Storm Deity, Pyromancer, Iron Chain, Scrap
YGOXS3 - Descent into Chaos - Pyromancer, Abyssal, Chaos Dragon
YGOXS4 - Glory of the Duelist - Storm Deity, Frost Knight, Graviton,
YGOXS5 - War Against Darkness - Storm Deity, Abyssal, Frost Knight, Graviton
Yeah Storm Deity and Abyssal get 4 sets of support vs the other 4 theme which is due to them being the primary protagonist and antagonist of the block. And yes you read that right, set 3 has "Chaos" in its name, set 4 has "Duelist" and set 5 has "Darkness" in their names. I will try to design these sets accordingly ;)
Sunday 13 September 2015
Winnipeg Regionals Report - And the Saltiest Person this weekend is...
To the two people who were expecting a different title all I have to say is psyche!
But really this Regionals was both good and ugly and I wish it could have gone better, yet at the same time I'm okay with how some things turned out. The trip itself was filled with much drama as there was whining, backstabbing and politicking behind peoples backs to the point I thought I was in a booking meeting where Triple H and Hulk Hogan were fighting to see who would go over. People were upset and it got to the point that one person dropped and I considered it as well, but decided to come along regardless while ignoring some jabs made at my expense from ironically enough one of the people who threw a bitchfest in the first place.
So we head out to Winnipeg and for once the weather was not shit. We make it to Jordan's OP as hell place and meet up with the other clique and at this point I sleeve up my Igknight deck so that they'd think I'd be using it at the tournament and side accordingly when in fact I planned to use Clownblade, but then Matt blew my cover and I was like "oh well." and after switching back to Clownblade we all futilely try to sleep for the next day.
We all wake up and are late getting to the venue as there was barely enough time to get registered and I was unable to pick up a second Exciton Knight but decide to roll with it as I was not confident in Igknight's ability to play against Shaddolls and Qliphort which were in droves including all 3 players of the other clique. Shard I can understand as he's been playing the deck forever and like Colby and Dark World for the longest time only plays it after getting a top with the deck. Colby and Damon on the other hand literally picked up the deck because they got destroyed by it and tried to build it with the hopes of helmeting their way to a top to which I was less than impressed. Colby I can see why as like Dark World it's a deck that takes absolutely zero thought or interaction with the opponent except this time around fucking with your opponent's hand has been replaced by floodgating them to death. Damon on the other hand I just facepalmed inwardly at as he already had Satellarknight, zero experience with Qli (though again, doesn't take much to play them) and by switching to Qli made his Burning Abyss matchup harder while basically opening himself up to getting smashed by any competent Doll player as they'd likely had more experience playing vs Qli, but he likely had no experience dealing with Dolls outside OMGFLIPFLOODGATES.
Hell Tellarknights even topped this Regionals.
As for me, well...
Round 1 - vs Blackwings (2-0)
This guy was horrendous. First up he was playing Blackwings in 2015, he shat his entire hand on his turn 1, played the Level 1 Tuners and made Vortex the Whirlwind to my hand of Retaliating Cs and I forget what else. I just know I ARK his Vortex and read that his set was a Mirror Force and kept him from resolving Whirlwind. Game 2 is a bit hazy but I'm pretty sure I ARK an Armed Wing and make Diamond to blow him out of the game.
Round 2 - vs Qliphort (1-2)
Floodgates! Floodgates everywhere! More than the eye can see! Yeah there was no way I was winning this one as he drew godly two games in a row and I could not answer Lose 1 Turn, Emptiness and Soul Drains before Qliphort Stealth annihilated me in all of his poorly designed stupidity. Seriously why did they give that thing a "cards cannot be activated in response to this effect" effect?
Round 3 - vs Satellarknight (2-0)
He opens with Rai-Oh set a couple which were revealed to be Fiendish Chains and Call of the Haunteds so it takes me a while to finally get that thing off the board but it's pretty clear at this point he's playing Tellars. We both make some misplays (me forgetting to Archfiend off my chained ARK) as he reads my set S/T as a Torrential and tries to Triverr it, but instead I blow him out with Warning for Game 1. Game 2 was a bit back and forth as I opened with some multiple Rank 4 shenanigans to his Maxx "C", but I'm able to keep him from getting his ball rolling, Rhapsody his 2 Denebs and swing with my Rank 4s and win.
Round 4 - vs Watt Burn (1-2)
The moment I saw this guy I got the vibe of him being another one of those randy people you meet on DN as he didn't know a majority of what my cards do and flips up stalling battle cards like Thunder of Ruler as I'm building a board. Then he flips Ceasefire and 3 Just Desserts to burn me for 6000 damage and I'm left dumbfounded (no Damage Jugglers were drawn this game). Game 2 I have a Damage Juggler for a huge burn play and I have Warning to stop his Wattdragonfly and Castel for his Watt battle phase stopper thing and kill him. Game 3 I don't have a Damage Juggler in hand nor see my Decrees and am not able to summon a turn 1 Trapeze Magician without leaving myself open to Lava Golem so he burns me down to 2800 and stalls out the rest of the match with Swift Scarecrow, Waboku and lastly when he had no cards on field or in hand rips Threatening Roar and beats me in time with flipping Watt Burn. Wonderful.
At this point I decided to drop out of the tournament as now I was X-2 with my most recent loss opting to drop out himself and the turnout was only 65 people meaning I had zero chance of topping and I didn't feel like playing out the rest of the day when I could be trading and hanging out with people and enjoying myself than playing 3 more rounds while likely on tilt. In regards to my deck it actually performed well as most of the hands I drew were playable and the theory behind the card choices were solid, I just failed to draw optimal hands against my worst matchup and got Yu-Gi-Oh!'d in another instance. The mainboard itself was prepped to deal with Dolls and Nekroz with 6 "C" cards and I drew Retaliating "C" in every single game I had it in so on paper I would have annihilated Dolls/Nekroz? Whose to say. The deck is fun as hell (unless you play burn, but nobody has fun playing that...) and I urge people to give it a try. Clown Blade is by no means a bad deck just because one card got banned. It can still function very well.
The tournament continues without me and Ryan ends up getting 5th place with Clown Dolls, Shard scrubbed out, Matt got 17th place as is tradition, Magnus finished 20th and both Damon and Colby got fucked over by the bubble (sucks, doesn't it), complete with Damon getting visibly upset and from what I heard very salty over being "so close" to the top.
After that there was a win a mat tournament that I entered with Igknights. I played against a horrendous BA player but I didn't open Library which G1 is your win con against the deck and Game 2 didn't see any of my floodgates (yeah yeah hypocrite I know) and got wrecked by Spell Shattering arrow and drew poop. It's okay though, we all went for wings and to Jordans for shenanigans including but not limited to cubing, watching Cody opening fucking busted, swapping stories of scrubs in action and just having a blast the entire night when I was awake followed by going to Galaxy the next day in which I talked Pokemon with Cameron and got some sweet swag. Hell the Red-Eyes Flare Metal Dragon Mat might even be mine as I know Ryan will part with it if I give him a good enough deal. Plus I finished my other decks! So with that said I'm now officially done giving two shits about the game until DOCS comes out when Nord, Matt, Magnus and I will break Performages.
Fun times will eventually be had. Just not while the format is utter shit. Ryan may be finding some enjoyment in this. But not I.
Props
-Seeing one of my buds get the top
-Seeing no Qliphort decks topping
-Getting to watch the Synchron Extreme Structure Deck Tournament. God that entertaining.
-Picked up much swag
-Finished Red-Eyes, Gem-Knights, Vespiquen
-Got to hang out with the Winnipeg crew again.
-Snagged some hilarious photobombs.
-Despite my Round 4 opponent and the drama leading up to this event I was not the saltiest person this weekend. ;)
-Jordan's parents.
Slops
-I'm now 3 for 8 on the Regional Circuit. This is not exactly good for my confidence.
-Qliphort
-Floodgates
-Losing to a deck that on paper I should auto-win because of Trapeze Magician and to a player who I had to call a Judge to confirm that yes, you cannot chain the MST you just set on your turn. "I didn't know about that." It's in the rulebook!
But really this Regionals was both good and ugly and I wish it could have gone better, yet at the same time I'm okay with how some things turned out. The trip itself was filled with much drama as there was whining, backstabbing and politicking behind peoples backs to the point I thought I was in a booking meeting where Triple H and Hulk Hogan were fighting to see who would go over. People were upset and it got to the point that one person dropped and I considered it as well, but decided to come along regardless while ignoring some jabs made at my expense from ironically enough one of the people who threw a bitchfest in the first place.
So we head out to Winnipeg and for once the weather was not shit. We make it to Jordan's OP as hell place and meet up with the other clique and at this point I sleeve up my Igknight deck so that they'd think I'd be using it at the tournament and side accordingly when in fact I planned to use Clownblade, but then Matt blew my cover and I was like "oh well." and after switching back to Clownblade we all futilely try to sleep for the next day.
We all wake up and are late getting to the venue as there was barely enough time to get registered and I was unable to pick up a second Exciton Knight but decide to roll with it as I was not confident in Igknight's ability to play against Shaddolls and Qliphort which were in droves including all 3 players of the other clique. Shard I can understand as he's been playing the deck forever and like Colby and Dark World for the longest time only plays it after getting a top with the deck. Colby and Damon on the other hand literally picked up the deck because they got destroyed by it and tried to build it with the hopes of helmeting their way to a top to which I was less than impressed. Colby I can see why as like Dark World it's a deck that takes absolutely zero thought or interaction with the opponent except this time around fucking with your opponent's hand has been replaced by floodgating them to death. Damon on the other hand I just facepalmed inwardly at as he already had Satellarknight, zero experience with Qli (though again, doesn't take much to play them) and by switching to Qli made his Burning Abyss matchup harder while basically opening himself up to getting smashed by any competent Doll player as they'd likely had more experience playing vs Qli, but he likely had no experience dealing with Dolls outside OMGFLIPFLOODGATES.
Hell Tellarknights even topped this Regionals.
As for me, well...
Round 1 - vs Blackwings (2-0)
This guy was horrendous. First up he was playing Blackwings in 2015, he shat his entire hand on his turn 1, played the Level 1 Tuners and made Vortex the Whirlwind to my hand of Retaliating Cs and I forget what else. I just know I ARK his Vortex and read that his set was a Mirror Force and kept him from resolving Whirlwind. Game 2 is a bit hazy but I'm pretty sure I ARK an Armed Wing and make Diamond to blow him out of the game.
Round 2 - vs Qliphort (1-2)
Floodgates! Floodgates everywhere! More than the eye can see! Yeah there was no way I was winning this one as he drew godly two games in a row and I could not answer Lose 1 Turn, Emptiness and Soul Drains before Qliphort Stealth annihilated me in all of his poorly designed stupidity. Seriously why did they give that thing a "cards cannot be activated in response to this effect" effect?
Round 3 - vs Satellarknight (2-0)
He opens with Rai-Oh set a couple which were revealed to be Fiendish Chains and Call of the Haunteds so it takes me a while to finally get that thing off the board but it's pretty clear at this point he's playing Tellars. We both make some misplays (me forgetting to Archfiend off my chained ARK) as he reads my set S/T as a Torrential and tries to Triverr it, but instead I blow him out with Warning for Game 1. Game 2 was a bit back and forth as I opened with some multiple Rank 4 shenanigans to his Maxx "C", but I'm able to keep him from getting his ball rolling, Rhapsody his 2 Denebs and swing with my Rank 4s and win.
Round 4 - vs Watt Burn (1-2)
The moment I saw this guy I got the vibe of him being another one of those randy people you meet on DN as he didn't know a majority of what my cards do and flips up stalling battle cards like Thunder of Ruler as I'm building a board. Then he flips Ceasefire and 3 Just Desserts to burn me for 6000 damage and I'm left dumbfounded (no Damage Jugglers were drawn this game). Game 2 I have a Damage Juggler for a huge burn play and I have Warning to stop his Wattdragonfly and Castel for his Watt battle phase stopper thing and kill him. Game 3 I don't have a Damage Juggler in hand nor see my Decrees and am not able to summon a turn 1 Trapeze Magician without leaving myself open to Lava Golem so he burns me down to 2800 and stalls out the rest of the match with Swift Scarecrow, Waboku and lastly when he had no cards on field or in hand rips Threatening Roar and beats me in time with flipping Watt Burn. Wonderful.
At this point I decided to drop out of the tournament as now I was X-2 with my most recent loss opting to drop out himself and the turnout was only 65 people meaning I had zero chance of topping and I didn't feel like playing out the rest of the day when I could be trading and hanging out with people and enjoying myself than playing 3 more rounds while likely on tilt. In regards to my deck it actually performed well as most of the hands I drew were playable and the theory behind the card choices were solid, I just failed to draw optimal hands against my worst matchup and got Yu-Gi-Oh!'d in another instance. The mainboard itself was prepped to deal with Dolls and Nekroz with 6 "C" cards and I drew Retaliating "C" in every single game I had it in so on paper I would have annihilated Dolls/Nekroz? Whose to say. The deck is fun as hell (unless you play burn, but nobody has fun playing that...) and I urge people to give it a try. Clown Blade is by no means a bad deck just because one card got banned. It can still function very well.
The tournament continues without me and Ryan ends up getting 5th place with Clown Dolls, Shard scrubbed out, Matt got 17th place as is tradition, Magnus finished 20th and both Damon and Colby got fucked over by the bubble (sucks, doesn't it), complete with Damon getting visibly upset and from what I heard very salty over being "so close" to the top.
After that there was a win a mat tournament that I entered with Igknights. I played against a horrendous BA player but I didn't open Library which G1 is your win con against the deck and Game 2 didn't see any of my floodgates (yeah yeah hypocrite I know) and got wrecked by Spell Shattering arrow and drew poop. It's okay though, we all went for wings and to Jordans for shenanigans including but not limited to cubing, watching Cody opening fucking busted, swapping stories of scrubs in action and just having a blast the entire night when I was awake followed by going to Galaxy the next day in which I talked Pokemon with Cameron and got some sweet swag. Hell the Red-Eyes Flare Metal Dragon Mat might even be mine as I know Ryan will part with it if I give him a good enough deal. Plus I finished my other decks! So with that said I'm now officially done giving two shits about the game until DOCS comes out when Nord, Matt, Magnus and I will break Performages.
Fun times will eventually be had. Just not while the format is utter shit. Ryan may be finding some enjoyment in this. But not I.
Props
-Seeing one of my buds get the top
-Seeing no Qliphort decks topping
-Getting to watch the Synchron Extreme Structure Deck Tournament. God that entertaining.
-Picked up much swag
-Finished Red-Eyes, Gem-Knights, Vespiquen
-Got to hang out with the Winnipeg crew again.
-Snagged some hilarious photobombs.
-Despite my Round 4 opponent and the drama leading up to this event I was not the saltiest person this weekend. ;)
-Jordan's parents.
Slops
-I'm now 3 for 8 on the Regional Circuit. This is not exactly good for my confidence.
-Qliphort
-Floodgates
-Losing to a deck that on paper I should auto-win because of Trapeze Magician and to a player who I had to call a Judge to confirm that yes, you cannot chain the MST you just set on your turn. "I didn't know about that." It's in the rulebook!
Monday 31 August 2015
YGO Locals Report - Rengoku no Akuma
This locals was a bit on the important side as now that I know I'll be heading to Regionals in a few weeks I need to settle on a deck to play and this was an opportunity to get some games in with at least one of them. The deck choices I have are;
-Satellarknights
-Nekroz
-Ritual Beast
-Red-Eyes / Disaster Dragon (Project RED)
-Infernoid
-Igknight
So of these Nekroz are by far the strongest, however given my flat out abysmal performance with them at every tournament I've gone to I'm not confident I could play well let alone get a top especially with the Clown variant being a thing. Satellarknights have been ruled out as I know that there will be a ton of Shaddoll variants running around and the addition of the Performages makes the matchup really, really difficult and there's no way I'd be able to compete in the format with Igknights when I don't even have the cards yet. That pretty much leaves me with Infernoid, Ritual Beast and Dragons which I'm fine with as they are rogue decks that many people don't have proper experience playing and as such wouldn't know how to properly side on them. Now Kozmos being a thing in the format does mean that Imperial Iron Wall will be seeing WAY more play which'll make Ritual Beasts and Infernoids much harder to play, though Infernoids can out Iron Wall with Dekatron/Reasoning/Monster Gate/CotL/Lyla but they lose to Counterattacking "C" which is something I'll have to look into dealing with. I think Counterattacking "C" summon itself as a cost in response to Reasoning meaning I should be able to negate it with Forbidden Chalice and continue my way and hopefully slaughter the opponent as Infernoids have a promising Shaddoll and okayish Nekroz matchup which I like. Not sure how I feel on Burning Abyss.
Lastly there's Dragons in either a pure Red-Eyes build or a Disaster variant called Project RED that I've been brainstorming with Richard Clarke and other "family" members on which both have their pros and cons;
+You get to summon big, dirty Dragons from hand/deck/graveyard so Shaddoll Fusion will not get maximum value.
+Black Flare and Flare Metal Dragon punish slower strategies with their burn effects.
+Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon is fucking Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon
+Archfiend Black Skull Dragon is a beast vs Rogue decks
+Searchable recovery plays in the form of Red-Eyes Return and Spirit
+Disaster has access to Koa'ki Meiru Drago who prevents Trick Clown from summoning anything except Hat Tricker and stops all Kozmo special Summons. This is in addition to slowing Tellars/BA down if they can't out it.
-You're very prone to bricking
-Qliphort
-Dragons currently have a hard time answering an established board of monsters bigger than REDMD
-Nekroz of Trishula
-Disaster variants are very slow given it's a deck from 2010 trying to play in 2015. I'll give it props for hanging on much better than Blackwings and X-Sabers have. Pure Red-Eyes has access to Cards of Red Stone, Allure and Seven Star Sword if need be.
So yeah I'll be giving both decks a try to see what I like more. Currently leaning towards Infernoid because of how powerful Reasoning is and the options it has post siding (considering running Cyber Dragon Core + Cyber D to deal with Kozmos as most people will call Lv.1 vs this deck which lets Core summon Cyber Dragon...) and as such I played a modified version of the build that topped ARG with Dragged Downs and Mind Crushes. The player mentioned he hated Torrential in his main and wanted to move Mistake over so I did that and the result was;
Round 1 - vs Masked Hero (2-1)
Game 1: I opened 3 Antra, Big Chicken and something else. I died pretty quickly as he kept throwing Blade Armour Ninjas at me.
Game 2: He opens with Monk into Mist into Dark Law on my turn, but I opened with Harmadik so I out it, drop Dekatron and start pushing. Eventually I summon Big Chicken to lock it up.
Game 3: I get a bad Reasoning, but I'm able to keep throwing monsters at him until he eventually dies.
Round 2 - vs Performage Shaddolls (2-0)
Game 1: I get off a disgusting Reasoning and kill him in 2 turns Damage Juggler be damned.
Game 2: Pretty sure I OTK him here.
Round 3 - vs Clown Blade (2-1)
Game 1 - I win the dieroll and make him go first and he makes a board that I had to slowly go through as I didn't see Reasoning/Gate. Dekatron pulled me through though and I win.
Game 2 - He makes me go first and I opt to make a Felgrand thinking if I negate his Normal Summon play I'd live. Nope he had Book of Moon + 5 Monsters he could summon at once and he makes Feral Imps, Rhapsody and Trapeze Magician and OTKs the fuck out of me.
Game 3 - I pay him back with Reasoning Gate.
Top 4 - vs Kozmo (2-0)
Game 1: I open with Dragged Down and spot Honest (of course), Ring of Destruction and the 2800 spaceship which I get rid of and make it a point to put Devyaty in play. He rings it but I bring it back and when he tries to Honest me I negate it and win.
Game 2: I open pretty weakly as I end up using up most of my cards to field a couple of monsters and clear his board so I can play the damage game as Infernoids need to do as he drops Farmgirl then Jurageido and has it pump her up to beat over my Patrulea. Upon him trying to use Farmgirl however I flip Chivalry and he ragequits.
Finals - vs Performage Dolls (2-1)
Game 1: He opens sub par which can happen with that deck while I get off a decent enough mill to win.
Game 2: By his own admission after the match he opened with another bricky hand but literally went Mathmatician -> Squamata -> Dragon -> Draw Fusion spell and proceeds to OTK me.
Game 3: I get revenge by summoning Primais and spinning away one of his two sets which turned out to be Emptiness and resolve Monster Gate and 2 Reasonings and win after a pair of pushes.
So yeah I won locals for the first time since...Satellarknights had JUST come out? Yeah it's been over a year since I actually got first place. Whoohoo.
Now that said there were things about the deck that left me less than impressed and it was definitely Dragged Down and Mind Crush. Sided them out all the time as while I did win 2 games with the intel Dragged Down got me, I feel like I could just run Chicken Game in its place to actually draw combo pieces or my win buttons. I also really don't like how the deck will die if it runs out of steam against anything that can drag out the game. That part is something I'll have to accept as I do like the idea of a deck that can throw monsters into backrow until the opponent dies.
Props
-Picking up Ignkights
-Got Hoopa EX
-Topped
-Won Locals for the first time in a year.
Slops
-Every time I played Reasoning and only milled 2 monsters
-Playing Monster Gate on Raiden and the next card in deck was RAIDEN.
-Satellarknights
-Nekroz
-Ritual Beast
-Red-Eyes / Disaster Dragon (Project RED)
-Infernoid
-Igknight
So of these Nekroz are by far the strongest, however given my flat out abysmal performance with them at every tournament I've gone to I'm not confident I could play well let alone get a top especially with the Clown variant being a thing. Satellarknights have been ruled out as I know that there will be a ton of Shaddoll variants running around and the addition of the Performages makes the matchup really, really difficult and there's no way I'd be able to compete in the format with Igknights when I don't even have the cards yet. That pretty much leaves me with Infernoid, Ritual Beast and Dragons which I'm fine with as they are rogue decks that many people don't have proper experience playing and as such wouldn't know how to properly side on them. Now Kozmos being a thing in the format does mean that Imperial Iron Wall will be seeing WAY more play which'll make Ritual Beasts and Infernoids much harder to play, though Infernoids can out Iron Wall with Dekatron/Reasoning/Monster Gate/CotL/Lyla but they lose to Counterattacking "C" which is something I'll have to look into dealing with. I think Counterattacking "C" summon itself as a cost in response to Reasoning meaning I should be able to negate it with Forbidden Chalice and continue my way and hopefully slaughter the opponent as Infernoids have a promising Shaddoll and okayish Nekroz matchup which I like. Not sure how I feel on Burning Abyss.
Lastly there's Dragons in either a pure Red-Eyes build or a Disaster variant called Project RED that I've been brainstorming with Richard Clarke and other "family" members on which both have their pros and cons;
+You get to summon big, dirty Dragons from hand/deck/graveyard so Shaddoll Fusion will not get maximum value.
+Black Flare and Flare Metal Dragon punish slower strategies with their burn effects.
+Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon is fucking Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon
+Archfiend Black Skull Dragon is a beast vs Rogue decks
+Searchable recovery plays in the form of Red-Eyes Return and Spirit
+Disaster has access to Koa'ki Meiru Drago who prevents Trick Clown from summoning anything except Hat Tricker and stops all Kozmo special Summons. This is in addition to slowing Tellars/BA down if they can't out it.
-You're very prone to bricking
-Qliphort
-Dragons currently have a hard time answering an established board of monsters bigger than REDMD
-Nekroz of Trishula
-Disaster variants are very slow given it's a deck from 2010 trying to play in 2015. I'll give it props for hanging on much better than Blackwings and X-Sabers have. Pure Red-Eyes has access to Cards of Red Stone, Allure and Seven Star Sword if need be.
So yeah I'll be giving both decks a try to see what I like more. Currently leaning towards Infernoid because of how powerful Reasoning is and the options it has post siding (considering running Cyber Dragon Core + Cyber D to deal with Kozmos as most people will call Lv.1 vs this deck which lets Core summon Cyber Dragon...) and as such I played a modified version of the build that topped ARG with Dragged Downs and Mind Crushes. The player mentioned he hated Torrential in his main and wanted to move Mistake over so I did that and the result was;
Round 1 - vs Masked Hero (2-1)
Game 1: I opened 3 Antra, Big Chicken and something else. I died pretty quickly as he kept throwing Blade Armour Ninjas at me.
Game 2: He opens with Monk into Mist into Dark Law on my turn, but I opened with Harmadik so I out it, drop Dekatron and start pushing. Eventually I summon Big Chicken to lock it up.
Game 3: I get a bad Reasoning, but I'm able to keep throwing monsters at him until he eventually dies.
Round 2 - vs Performage Shaddolls (2-0)
Game 1: I get off a disgusting Reasoning and kill him in 2 turns Damage Juggler be damned.
Game 2: Pretty sure I OTK him here.
Round 3 - vs Clown Blade (2-1)
Game 1 - I win the dieroll and make him go first and he makes a board that I had to slowly go through as I didn't see Reasoning/Gate. Dekatron pulled me through though and I win.
Game 2 - He makes me go first and I opt to make a Felgrand thinking if I negate his Normal Summon play I'd live. Nope he had Book of Moon + 5 Monsters he could summon at once and he makes Feral Imps, Rhapsody and Trapeze Magician and OTKs the fuck out of me.
Game 3 - I pay him back with Reasoning Gate.
Top 4 - vs Kozmo (2-0)
Game 1: I open with Dragged Down and spot Honest (of course), Ring of Destruction and the 2800 spaceship which I get rid of and make it a point to put Devyaty in play. He rings it but I bring it back and when he tries to Honest me I negate it and win.
Game 2: I open pretty weakly as I end up using up most of my cards to field a couple of monsters and clear his board so I can play the damage game as Infernoids need to do as he drops Farmgirl then Jurageido and has it pump her up to beat over my Patrulea. Upon him trying to use Farmgirl however I flip Chivalry and he ragequits.
Finals - vs Performage Dolls (2-1)
Game 1: He opens sub par which can happen with that deck while I get off a decent enough mill to win.
Game 2: By his own admission after the match he opened with another bricky hand but literally went Mathmatician -> Squamata -> Dragon -> Draw Fusion spell and proceeds to OTK me.
Game 3: I get revenge by summoning Primais and spinning away one of his two sets which turned out to be Emptiness and resolve Monster Gate and 2 Reasonings and win after a pair of pushes.
So yeah I won locals for the first time since...Satellarknights had JUST come out? Yeah it's been over a year since I actually got first place. Whoohoo.
Now that said there were things about the deck that left me less than impressed and it was definitely Dragged Down and Mind Crush. Sided them out all the time as while I did win 2 games with the intel Dragged Down got me, I feel like I could just run Chicken Game in its place to actually draw combo pieces or my win buttons. I also really don't like how the deck will die if it runs out of steam against anything that can drag out the game. That part is something I'll have to accept as I do like the idea of a deck that can throw monsters into backrow until the opponent dies.
Props
-Picking up Ignkights
-Got Hoopa EX
-Topped
-Won Locals for the first time in a year.
Slops
-Every time I played Reasoning and only milled 2 monsters
-Playing Monster Gate on Raiden and the next card in deck was RAIDEN.
Tuesday 25 August 2015
Decks that I don't miss - YGO Edition
Often times people will say "man I miss Tele-DAD, Plants and Dragon Rulers" and then discussions of beloved decks will ensure. Well today I'm going to next level everyone by listing many decks that I've come to despise. Let's do this!
-Infernity
-Dark World
-Inzektors
-Six Samurai
-Bujin
-Qliphort
-Chain Burn
-Exodia
-Final Countdown
-Inferno Tempest
-Magical Explosion
-Empty Jar
-Spellbook
-Yosenju
-Stall (Gravity Bind/Messinger of Peace/Marshmallon.dek)
-Nurse/Simochi
-Gravekeeper
-Evilswarm
-Wind-Up
-60.Card Scrublord
-Ice Barrier
-Jaden Elemental Heroes
-ZW Utopia
Off the top of my head. Some of these have been powercrept out of the game, others have been killed by banlists. The thing they all have in common though is that these decks can go fuck themselves.
Peace.
-Infernity
-Dark World
-Inzektors
-Six Samurai
-Bujin
-Qliphort
-Chain Burn
-Exodia
-Final Countdown
-Inferno Tempest
-Magical Explosion
-Empty Jar
-Spellbook
-Yosenju
-Stall (Gravity Bind/Messinger of Peace/Marshmallon.dek)
-Nurse/Simochi
-Gravekeeper
-Evilswarm
-Wind-Up
-60.Card Scrublord
-Ice Barrier
-Jaden Elemental Heroes
-ZW Utopia
Off the top of my head. Some of these have been powercrept out of the game, others have been killed by banlists. The thing they all have in common though is that these decks can go fuck themselves.
Peace.
Thursday 20 August 2015
Chronodragon Nextage - Didn't see THIS coming...
At long last the cover card of Vanguard G's 4th Booster set has been spoiled after a fair bit of speculation especially after Ahsha's evolution was revealed a few days prior. Many people were expecting Nextage to be a mesh of Chronojet Dragon's GB2 and Heart Skill for a Persona Flip and no other cost without the need for a Chronojet Heart.
We were all wrong. Very, very wrong.
We were all wrong. Very, very wrong.
Chronodragon Nextage
[Stride] (Released when both players' vanguards are grade 3 or greater!)-Stride Step-[Choose one or more cards with the sum of their grades being 3 or greater from your hand, and discard them] Stride this card on your (VC) from face down.
[AUTO](VC) Generation Break 2 (This ability is active if you have two or more face up G units in total on your (VC) or G zone):[Counter Blast (1) & Choose a face down card named "Chronodragon Nextage" from your G zone, turn it face up, choose three cards from your hand, and discard them] At the end of the battle that this unit attacked a vanguard, if you have a heart card with "Chronojet Dragon" in its card name, you may pay the cost. If you do, put this unit into your G zone face up, choose one of your vanguards, and [Stand] it.
Whoo boy. Where do I even begin on this one. Bushiroad has once again pulled the "if the clan isn't topping, give it a Restander" trick that they've done with Genesis (Minerva) and more recently Murakumo (Homura Raider) with Nextage here and at first glance this guy is really, really good. Is he the best restander in the game? No I think that one is a toss up between DOTX and Minerva but this guy is definitely no Homura Raider and he will see play. But to what extent? Let's find out.
Nextage's cost is almost identical to Dragonic Descendant/Minerva as a CB1/Discard 3 except as a G-Unit you're getting 3 cards to pitch and GB2 is much easier to turn on than Limit Break 4. Furthermore Gear Chronicle have a very solid lineup of G-Units to go into prior to this guy (namely Fate Rider Dragon, Lost Age Dragon, Upheaval Pegasus) so it's not like they won't be able to use this guy.
Now let's look into how this guy functions. After you battle with this guy you CB1, Discard 3, Persona Flip, bounce Nextage back to the Extra Deck, take your Chronojet Dragon and stand it back up for another attack. Come to think of it doesn't Chronojet have a GB2 skill of its own?
[AUTO](VC) Generation Break 2 (This ability is active if you have two or more face up G units in total on your (VC) or G zone):When this unit attacks a vanguard, until end of that battle, this unit gets [Power]+5000, and your opponent cannot call grade 1 or greater units from hand to (GC).
Oh. Right. He gets +5000 and Glory Malestrom's skill. That's actually kind of good. With your standard 5k Booster he hits 21k requiring a minimum 20k guard to two pass, throw a Gear Wolf behind him that's likely at 10k and you're now swinging for 26k which is the same as an unboosted Nextage. Nextage can very well stack triggers on the booster to make it harder to guard your attack and at the worst you're still getting 2 more checks for triggers to put on your side columns.
So basically your opponent is going to have to deal with a 26000+ Triple Drive and a 16000+ Twin Drive without the use of PGs. Nextage will likely draw those PGs out which is fine as Gear Chronicle has access to the still powerful Ragnaclock Dragon, though how many of him the deck will run is up in the air. Ragnaclock has been the finisher for Gears for a very long time but with Nextage being a thing I think his role is going to be reduced. Don't get me wrong his skill is very good as I believe that Guard Cancelling is one of the most powerful abilities in the game. However the one skill that has always been better than it and has been what rules Vanguard is Restanding and Nextage gives Gear Chronicle access to this incredibly powerful skill while making the second attack one with Guard Cancelling. On the other hand turning off Perfect Guards is only truely powerful in the later stages of the game whereas turning off guarding with 0s while also getting a crit is dangerous at any facet of the game.
In any case Nextage is a very good card and it definitely helps Gear Chronicle move in the right direction. Will they become tier 1 just because of him? It's quite possible though I remain skeptical due to the deck's weakness against rush decks (looking at you Sanc Guard) but hey if Murakumo can top events off the back of Homura Raider, then Gears definitely have a chance with this guy.
Tuesday 4 August 2015
Locals Report - RNG Jesus Hates me
No point in talking about the Vanguard portion as I had one of those days where more things went badly than good (notable examples being a game where all 5 of my damage were non Jewel Knights and in two matches where I don't check a single trigger via damage or twin/triple drive for five turns) and I've subsequently given Thing Saver the boot with Sanctuary Guard being next.
Now what about the Yu-Gi-Oh! part? Eh I decided to switch to Ritual Beasts because I again wanted to try something different. And it went like...
Round 1 - vs Shaddolls (1-2)
Game 1 I win despite being hit by several sack cards, Game 2 I lost because he blew me out with Exciton Knight and Game 3 started in time and he said he was going first but changed his mind at the very end when I had sided appropriately. Incidentally I realized I had kept Upstarts in not realizing we had gone into time and wouldn't you know I open with 2 of them and well, trying to out LP dolls in time is pretty much impossible.
Round 2 - vs Masked Heroes (2-0)
He opens with Monk into Shadow Mist and immediately drops Darklaw on my Standby Phase...to which I'm TOTALLY FINE WITH as I had Gold Sarc, Wen and a card a Ritual Beast Card in hand, so I banished then summoned Pettlephin and bounced the Darklaw, proceeded to combo and win the game. Game 2 he drops another Darklaw T1 but I out it with Dark Hole while opening Elder + Cannahawk so I win the game decisively.
Round 3 - vs Iron Chains (2-0)
This deck once topped here. And then Ryan and I actually participated in Locals and it never topped again. Also I didn't let him play Yu-Gi-Oh! which is how you're supposed to play Yu-Gi-Oh!
After that my tournament was over. My deck functioned well but there were some issues (weakness to BRD/Exciton) that need to be addressed and Construct can go screw itself. Now that one of the two resident helmet players has moved I don't need to side as much for Tellarknights as I used to (tho Qliphort is still a thing sadly) and can instead dedicate more space to beating Shaddolls as it makes up 50% of the meta here.
Following this we went to BK where we met a guy from Quebec who had just moved here and was looking to get back into Yu-Gi-Oh! while making it clear that he's primarily a competitive person and promptly pissed off Derrick because of him saying "fuck poor people" which is rude, but given that Quebec has a much more competitive environment I'm not surprised. It's just what he grew up in. My only concern is how badly he's going to influence Nord. Nice guy however.
Then we shot a video and I had games of Gear Chronicle vs Woodhouse's newly accquired Blue Flames from Damon that Derrick also got butt rustled over though I don't understand why as Woodhouse probably overpaid for the deck and Derrick can get the thing from him for less than he would have had to pay Damon? By the sounds of it a deal was lined up, but Damon changed his mind and traded the deck to Woodhouse instead. Perfectly fine, if you get one offer but then get another one that's even better then you take the better one especially when Woodhouse is involved as he's notorious for overpaying with cash whereas Derrick has to rely on overtrading with cards...except he gives away everything so he has nothing to offer when something else comes up and gets upset because he can't build what he wants because nobody will give him the cards he needs...because he has little to nothing that people want. It's not a matter of nobody wants to trade, it's just they basically can't because they can't find things they want and not everyone is willing to just give money cards away for free. As dickish and mean as this sounds I'm not Jordan or Chingo. I don't do pity trades (at least not anymore after the fiasco I had with the Aqua Force core I wanted to sell off and ultimately got a much worse deal for it than I wanted). I'm not going to just give something away all of the time. Especially if it's only going to enable the self destructive habit of continuously overtrading/paying just because you REALLY want something nownownow. Seriously this cycle needs to stop as I don't see it ending in any way but badly.
That being said here's what it comes down to; a trade/sell is not final until the actual exchange happens or a handshake agreement is made. Until then ALL BETS ARE OFF.
Incidentally there was a much bigger fit thrown earlier in the day too as Ryan freaked out because he couldn't finish his deck for the tournament as he...wasn't willing to take out all the pieces from his multiple decks/binders and expected everyone else to pull out cards from their stuff out of the blue to help him. That's how it looked to me and the subsequent freak out was comparable to my little scene in March and as such I told him to knock it off to which I got a scoffed at with basically, "yeah so you're one to talk so shut up."
Yeah this is a case of the teapot may be calling the kettle black, but the kettle is still fucking black here. He subsequently got over it and admitted he was in the wrong as the day went on but god damn, this community has become really whiny, bitchy and the attitudes with some people have become noticeable. Be it an ego from hanging around people, lording a shiny card you have over everyone, complaining about not being able to get a deck despite having the best deck in the format, becoming super cocky because you topped a regional with a helmet deck through dumb luck, complaining about the degeneracy of the game but playing a degenerate FTK deck and defending it, constantly bitching about anything that's not MtG and lording it as the superior game when I could care less, constantly telling everyone their problems don't fucking matter because a day in your life is a million times harder or getting super salty over losses everyone's gotten really bad.
Damn, I think I just took a shot at everyone in Regina, myself included.
Now what about the Yu-Gi-Oh! part? Eh I decided to switch to Ritual Beasts because I again wanted to try something different. And it went like...
Round 1 - vs Shaddolls (1-2)
Game 1 I win despite being hit by several sack cards, Game 2 I lost because he blew me out with Exciton Knight and Game 3 started in time and he said he was going first but changed his mind at the very end when I had sided appropriately. Incidentally I realized I had kept Upstarts in not realizing we had gone into time and wouldn't you know I open with 2 of them and well, trying to out LP dolls in time is pretty much impossible.
Round 2 - vs Masked Heroes (2-0)
He opens with Monk into Shadow Mist and immediately drops Darklaw on my Standby Phase...to which I'm TOTALLY FINE WITH as I had Gold Sarc, Wen and a card a Ritual Beast Card in hand, so I banished then summoned Pettlephin and bounced the Darklaw, proceeded to combo and win the game. Game 2 he drops another Darklaw T1 but I out it with Dark Hole while opening Elder + Cannahawk so I win the game decisively.
Round 3 - vs Iron Chains (2-0)
This deck once topped here. And then Ryan and I actually participated in Locals and it never topped again. Also I didn't let him play Yu-Gi-Oh! which is how you're supposed to play Yu-Gi-Oh!
After that my tournament was over. My deck functioned well but there were some issues (weakness to BRD/Exciton) that need to be addressed and Construct can go screw itself. Now that one of the two resident helmet players has moved I don't need to side as much for Tellarknights as I used to (tho Qliphort is still a thing sadly) and can instead dedicate more space to beating Shaddolls as it makes up 50% of the meta here.
Following this we went to BK where we met a guy from Quebec who had just moved here and was looking to get back into Yu-Gi-Oh! while making it clear that he's primarily a competitive person and promptly pissed off Derrick because of him saying "fuck poor people" which is rude, but given that Quebec has a much more competitive environment I'm not surprised. It's just what he grew up in. My only concern is how badly he's going to influence Nord. Nice guy however.
Then we shot a video and I had games of Gear Chronicle vs Woodhouse's newly accquired Blue Flames from Damon that Derrick also got butt rustled over though I don't understand why as Woodhouse probably overpaid for the deck and Derrick can get the thing from him for less than he would have had to pay Damon? By the sounds of it a deal was lined up, but Damon changed his mind and traded the deck to Woodhouse instead. Perfectly fine, if you get one offer but then get another one that's even better then you take the better one especially when Woodhouse is involved as he's notorious for overpaying with cash whereas Derrick has to rely on overtrading with cards...except he gives away everything so he has nothing to offer when something else comes up and gets upset because he can't build what he wants because nobody will give him the cards he needs...because he has little to nothing that people want. It's not a matter of nobody wants to trade, it's just they basically can't because they can't find things they want and not everyone is willing to just give money cards away for free. As dickish and mean as this sounds I'm not Jordan or Chingo. I don't do pity trades (at least not anymore after the fiasco I had with the Aqua Force core I wanted to sell off and ultimately got a much worse deal for it than I wanted). I'm not going to just give something away all of the time. Especially if it's only going to enable the self destructive habit of continuously overtrading/paying just because you REALLY want something nownownow. Seriously this cycle needs to stop as I don't see it ending in any way but badly.
That being said here's what it comes down to; a trade/sell is not final until the actual exchange happens or a handshake agreement is made. Until then ALL BETS ARE OFF.
Incidentally there was a much bigger fit thrown earlier in the day too as Ryan freaked out because he couldn't finish his deck for the tournament as he...wasn't willing to take out all the pieces from his multiple decks/binders and expected everyone else to pull out cards from their stuff out of the blue to help him. That's how it looked to me and the subsequent freak out was comparable to my little scene in March and as such I told him to knock it off to which I got a scoffed at with basically, "yeah so you're one to talk so shut up."
Yeah this is a case of the teapot may be calling the kettle black, but the kettle is still fucking black here. He subsequently got over it and admitted he was in the wrong as the day went on but god damn, this community has become really whiny, bitchy and the attitudes with some people have become noticeable. Be it an ego from hanging around people, lording a shiny card you have over everyone, complaining about not being able to get a deck despite having the best deck in the format, becoming super cocky because you topped a regional with a helmet deck through dumb luck, complaining about the degeneracy of the game but playing a degenerate FTK deck and defending it, constantly bitching about anything that's not MtG and lording it as the superior game when I could care less, constantly telling everyone their problems don't fucking matter because a day in your life is a million times harder or getting super salty over losses everyone's gotten really bad.
Damn, I think I just took a shot at everyone in Regina, myself included.
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