What happened exactly? Allow me to elaborate.
In regards to the trip itself I had a good time. I had been nervous leading up to this as for the last couple years I had developed a phobia of long driving road trips to the point that I every day leading up to this one I considered telling everyone "forget it, I can't go." I had become THAT afraid of car crashes. Honestly I'm still surprised that I was able to get myself to go on the trip to Edmonton which is a longer drive than Winnipeg, though I was bloody TERRIFIED every time we were hit by rain as all I thought was "Oh god we're gonna slip off the road and crash, I don't want to die." Truth be told if the weather had not held up and the roads were even remotely icy I would have refused to go. They didn't however and I was able to summon the courage needed to go on this trip.
The drive itself was cramped as the car we were in was very nice but because I was the smallest person of the group I had to sit in the middle seat in the back between two big guys and the result was my legs were in awkward positions for a long time. My right leg was fine however my left one with the knee I had injured years ago was just hurting. Whatever. No pain no gain right? It at the very least kept the "oh god I could die out here" thoughts out of my head. We arrived in Winnipeg with no problems while making our way to Fusion Gaming which was one of the stores that was hosting the Regionals alongside Galaxy.
That's right. Two Locals working together to bring about a quality Regionals experience for its community. Sounds like something that Regina could sure as hell use!
BANG BANG!
They had Fortress Whale. Fortress Whale. For those who aren't familiar this guy is a Super Rare Ritual Monster from Tournament Pack 7 and as such it's very hard to find now and a bit pricey. However one of the things I plan to do even if I quit playing the game is to build a collection of every TCG released Ritual Monster at highest rarity if possible and Fortress Whale is one of the most expensive non-Nekroz Ritual Monsters in the game. I wasn't deterred though and got it. Hilarious side note on that is since nobody in their right mind would WANT Fortress Whale they had it put somewhere that was out of sight and had to look for it. Totally worth it though as my Ritual Collection now as a star card. Now for Garma Sword and the others.
After all of that we went to the place we were staying at which was the Head Judge's home in Winnipeg and got to meet his parents who were SUPER nice. They had a basement area prepared for us, extra blankets/pillows/towels and even offered us stuff to make sandwiches while we playtested among other things. I never got their names though so all I can say is Mr. and Mrs. Jordan you guys are awesome and thank you for letting us stay. After having games against Denny's Volcanics so he could get an idea of the Nekroz matchup we all tried to go to sleep to get a decent amount of rest before the tournament.
Meaning of course that there'd be no way I'd be able to actually fall asleep and wound up lying awake most of the night before finally getting about four hours of rest. Typical.
We all wake up and have breakfast that Jordan's parents made for us that we thanked them profusely for as we were likely going to grab something from Tim Horton's or whatever (turns out that I don't mind scrambled eggs and I do not like hash browns at all. I really, really tried too but blech). Five showers later we're all out the door and head over to the tournament hall, meet up with Jordan and Megamonkey who was asked to be a judge before Denny, Damon, Shard and Myself all submit our decklists. This was what I ran for the tournament;
This list had a fair bit of theory behind it as I had read a post prior by Patrick Hoban that basically said if you're going to play techs to deal with decks you're better off running cards that are good against bad decks/players than ones that are good against good decks/players as you'll face the bad stuff frequently in the early rounds and the good stuff later when it's possible you can take a loss and let the side handle it. Thus I mained Mind Crush as I felt it would be strong against everything while the Armageddon Knight engine was really only good in an environment filled with Nekroz/Qli/BA. I also main decked Kycoo as it was good in the Mirror and against Dark Matter as I felt it would see alot of play this weekend. Part of me wanted to play it too as I could have borrowed the deck off of Ryan but this is the deck I put time and effort into building and I sure as hell was going to get as much out of it as I could. Onto the tournament;
Round 1 - vs Beelze Zombies (2-1)
First thing this gentleman said was that he recognized me from youtube which floored me as I never thought I'd see the day where I met any of my subscribers. Unfortunately I can't remember his name so all I can refer to him as is Beelze dude but it was neat. Game 1 went very fast as I Nekroz'd him, Game 2 I sided in floodgate hate and saw no backrow which made my Ice Hand and backrow hate dead as I was staring down a Beelze, Dark End Dragon and Void Ogre so I died. Game 3 I had to deal with a Void Ogre but eventually got the win.
Round 2 - vs Volcanics (2-0)
Funny story. We all playtested against Denny so he could get a feel for various matchups. Turns out Damon, Denny and I ALL played Volcanics at this tournament so as the result we kind of knew things. Except that I'm an idiot who doesn't take the time to really study my opponents hand off a Mind Crush as I had no idea what Wildfire did and as the result I got punished terribly for it. He damn near kills me Game 1 while in Game 2 he Wildfires me again while also hitting a Unicore off Mind Crush so that stank. I also walk into a Blaze Accelerator Reload + Scattershot combo and get pretty low on life until I draw Kycoo, nuke his board with the Raigeki that I had held from turn 1 and started beating face it it, removing his Scattershots and Blaster, eventually winning.
Round 3 - vs Qliphort (0-2)
Not going to go too much into this as Qliphort are a deck you will likely lose the first Game too which I do as I opened very, very bad for this matchup and the second game I just did not have the cards needed to break a Qli setup in addition to making a horrendous series of misplays. I'm doubtful I would have won regardless but when you make a mistake then realize minutes later you made an even WORSE mistake it can really eat at you. On the plus side though? This guy decided to take a towel and marker it to look like a Spellground mat that has been dubbed swag grounds.
Round 4 - vs Nekroz (0-2)
This was also a case of less than ideal draws combined with mistakes cost me dearly. He opens with a Djinn lock but I break it, however my hand in the first game was the kind where I could have had a Valk in hand to stop his push for large but not lethal damage or keep my Brio in hand so I could grab a Shurit for the next turn. Eventually I run out of steam as I had shot myself in the foot by searching out a Cycle when I failed to realize I had a Cycle in hand already, effectively putting myself at -1 so I scoop and side. Game 2 I open with a hand of Senju + multiple Ritual Spells so I'm able to Djinn lock him, but it's without protection and I paid for it with a Raigeki followed up by a Djinn lock of his own and a Trishula two turns later.
Round 5 - vs Geargia Geartown (2-0)
I could tell immediately this guy was very new, probably a few months into the game based on his mannerisms and I opened with a playable hand so I crushed him Game 1. Then Game 2 happened where he played no floodgates so my Twisters and Shared Rides that I expected to put in work did nothing yet he still took me way too far thanks to all of his bloody Traptrix Trap Hole Nightmares, Mirror Forces and Bottomless. I had him under the Djinn lock with protection for a bit he Monarch Storm Forths it and his monster into Gadgetron Dragon and I started beating him down with my Jus and Trishula.
Round 6 - vs Geargia Karakuri (2-0)
This guy was a much more legit player that I had seen playing earlier and knew if given the chance he'd straight up kill me. I kill him in a few turns Game 1 and he opens monster heavy Game 2 and leaves a card in grave with a T-Set while I open with an MST and the cards needed to Trish him and go from there. He concedes knowing I wouldn't give him the chance to OTK the following turn with Valk. We then yapped for a while, or rather I went on about the many kinds of Ritual Decks I've played while telling him about Regina's "Prize Support" of Shadow Specters to which everyone around me cringed like they were kicked in the nuts. We also chatted Dragons post list.
Round 7 - Ritual Beast (2-0)
The guy seemed pleasant enough when we started playing but that all changed after the first few turns as he opened with no means to contact fuse and I was able to push with Unicore + Ju and eventually Cowboy him. The second game he flips up Mind Crush for Brio and whiffs but demands I let him study my entire hand (everyone else was fine with me laying my cards down one by one to show I had whatever and had no problem with me picking them back up after) and I was like "fine whatever" before he flipped a second Crush to try and get the Valk out of my hand while having no cards in hand, which I called him out on. I Dire Wolf'd it later while forcing his backrow out with Unicores and eventually won after negating his Snatch Steal with Trish. He offered the hand shake and stopped being pissy (he rolled his eyes every time I drew for turn as apparently I was inadvertently mimicking how the "pros" were drawing in addition to the hand shuffle. Let me tell you all something; you watch enough streams of this stuff and you WILL start subconsciously picking up these habits.) and it would be later that I found out he had travelled from Calgary and was desperate to get his invite, going so far as to Rule Shark someone and he stormed out of the room in anger over something else. I want to say that's just not a very sportsmanly thing to do and rather uncalled for...
...but then I saw that after swiss I finished 10th, tied with about 5 other people in points and that's when I got upset and my ego finally got the better of me as I really felt that I had deserved to top after playing my ass off following those losses and was screwed over by tiebreakers and that some people topped that I felt shouldn't have. Now while I was nowhere near to the level of salt and fury as the last guy I did kind of slam my fist on the table and swore not too loudly, but enough to basically say I made a small scene that caused Ryan to walk away and it was definitely not one of my finer moments. I really, really, really need to stop doing this crap as it's going to become my defining trait if it has not already. The guy who is really good at the game but takes losing way too hard. Not the way I want to go out.
The tournament ends with the Nekroz player I lost to taking first, the Qli player I lost to taking second while Rulers, Nekroz and Qli made the rest of the cut. I finished X-2 and just missed out on the top which now that I've had a day to think it over is really well considering how much I haven't been playing this year. I was one of two Sask players to finish that well (the other got the 8th slot) and did the best out of the Regina players which in a tournament like this that had ALOT of good players is actually quite respectable. However I do have an ego and while it's not as...grandiose as some people I know it's still not letting me accept the fact that in the end I did not top and therefore I failed. Nor will it allow me to forgive myself for making misplays, not thinking things through nearly as much as I should of. Then there's the whole issue of my conscience after the whole losing my cool thing. It's more or less water under the bridge with most people but I'm supposed to be showing what Regina players are and...well okay alot of us do in fact get super butt mad over things not going our way so perhaps I really am the ideal representation but that's not okay and I'll be beating myself up over this for quite some time. Maybe this will be the boot to the head I need to finally be the player that some people think I am.
Shard split the Win-A-Box and pulled okay while Ryan pulled moderately well from his judge packs before we all went to a place called Monavdos I think? I can't remember the game that well. Good clubhouse sandwiches though. After that we go back to Fusion Gaming for a bit before ultimately leaving due to being tired. Ryan stayed behind to talk theory and other things with the Winnipeg guys and I do wish I could have done so as well but between feeling tired, shitty at myself for how the day went and not being a good people person in general I really just wanted to just sleep.
Do I get it though? No not even. Maybe a few hours. I'm legit surprised I'm not laserbeams while writing this but hey let's not question this. Instead let me say that we all got up the following day and after Jordan left we all took off and got back to Regina safely which was great as I was still worried through the entire trip about something bad happening. It didn't and here I am.
In regards to the future of the Blue Corner it's very much up in the air. There's no way I'll be going to Nationals now as I came up short of getting my invite and this was my only chance to do so for this year. I had planned on quitting the game entirely from a player standpoint in June while basically going to locals for the sake of hanging out with people and judging tournaments but now that Red-Eyes is getting his AMAZING support in CORE I can't quit just yet. It is a literal NEED for me to build that deck and to hell with it I'll run Red-Eyes at the Regionals in fall. So this old dragon will be sticking around for a while longer. I'll just be sleeping for a bit until August when I'll wake up alongside my avatar.
The Good
-Went back to Winnipeg which was on my to do list forever.
-Finished 10th place out of 70+ people in a really tough environment.
-Met a Subscriber. He was really nice.
-Swagrounds mat. I'm so going to do that.
-Got to see the best matchup ever. Doge Mat vs Grumpy Cat mat. The winner? Everyone.
-GOT MAH FORTRESS WHALE.
-Traded off alot of stuff I was never going to get rid of here in preparation for Zefra
-Seeing the legit players of Winnipeg get hyped for Red-Eyes.
-Talking with fellow long time Dragon players.
The Bad
-Misplays for days
-Bricking intensifies
-Obviously losing games
-Djinn Locks
-Bubbled
-Not going to Nats
The Ugly
-My ego. It does not show itself often but it does exist.
