However let's talk about the now and the unexpected trip I took this past weekend to Winnipeg for their last Regionals of the season. Like before I decided to play Nekroz as it's the only thing I'm familiar with at the moment (though I did pick up a U.A. core recently) however this time around I wasn't as thirsty for the top given that there was no way I'd be going to Nationals this year. The format in itself is not a good one and I can say with utter confidence that I'd probably get smashed by the large number of people who've been keeping up on the game wheras I've been well...look at the amount of posts I've had on here recently!
That said I went into this with the intention of doing as best as I can while aiming for a top as I've been without one since 2013 and I prepared my deck to deal with a field that I expected to consist of Nekroz, Shaddolls, Tellarknights and Qliphort as the most prominent decks;
Not much to say. It's a modified version of my list from Locals with some tech here and there. Chiefly I ran a copy of Gungnir as she's strong against Qli/Rogue with the bonus of being able to protect my monsters from Hole/Geki while I ran Swordmaster and Zubaba to out Spell Fragrance/Towers respectively. The Tellarknight Xyz I ran for the Doll/BA matchup and Galaxy Cyclone was played over Twister for its ability to out Floodgates easier through Chain.
With my build decided upon we make the long drive to Winnipeg, arriving after midnight and once again stay at a friend's place because his family is OP where we theorize some more, I alter the list to what it is and I make the futile attempt of trying to sleep before a tournament.
Seriously it's impossible. It's not nerves or anything. I just cannot physically fall asleep until after 4-5 am which is bad when you have to get up at 7-8. 3 hours of sleep later we get up and leave as Ryan is one of the judges thus the rest of us came along with him to set up the venue and stuff which was neat. It also meant that we all got first crack at the vendors and I immediate sought to pick up cards that I needed for my tournament and side decks like a playset of Cyclones and the Tellar Xyz. A few hours later the tournament begins with a turnout of about 50 people which meant 6 rounds of swiss meaning that if I went X-2 I'd basically have no hope of topping;
Round 1 - vs Spellcaster Dek (2-0)
Game 1: He summoned Defender the Magical Warrior and passed turn. I crush him in 2 turns.
Game 2: He leaves himself open to several Trishes so I smash him again. He was clearly new or not well informed as I noticed while he was picking up his cards that he had a Dark Magician of Chaos in his deck. I then had the fun of trying to get him to understand why it's a bad card and told him (nicely) that he needed to go to the judges and sort things out as having a Pre-Errata DMoC in your deck is kinda stupid and his opponents would shark the hell out of him for it. To be honest in this circumstance I probably would have called a judge over if he summoned it this game.
Round 2 - vs Star Seraph Dolls (2-0)
Oh boy right off the bat I'm paired up against one of Manitoba's best players if not the best in addition to being the guy I played the Blue-Eyes Dragon Ruler Mirror Match with back at the Regina Regionals and got creamed 2-0'd by. Needless to say I was a bit intimidated by the pressure to keep up with him was on and hopefully make the score 1-1 as he definitely knew my deck better than I did at this point.
Game 1: I won the die roll and went second as he summoned Math-Man and passed while I opened with a hand of Trish/Djinn/Combo pieces for a Lock and protection. I attempt to Trish which gets Veiler'd but set up a Lock with Gungnir behind it and eventually win it through some good draws.
Game 2: I don't remember the details on this one too well other than I opened with Djinn/Clausolas and set up another lock while getting some pretty strong draws to make it stick and eventually win.
Round 3 - vs Satellarknights (0-2)
Game 1 and 2: I really can't say much about these as I just could not get through his backrow as he was maining Anti-Spell and in both game had it, Fiendish Chain, Call and Oasis while setting up Triverr and started looping on me. I literally did not get to play a single turn of Yu-Gi-Oh! I was really disappointed by this and it was a real low point of the day.
Yu-Gi-Oh! 2015: If you're not comboing off to kill someone in one to two turns or locking them out of the game you are doing it wrong.
Yeah I can see why Cody (my Round 2 opponent) hates this format. It's really become stupid.
Round 4 - vs Satellarknights (2-1)
So after playing against Cody I'm now up against Jordan who is the friend whose place we were staying at for the trip! At this point I'm thinking that this day is going to be one of THOSE kind where it gets sillier and sillier.
Game 1: I sort of got to play Yu-Gi-Oh! by setting up a Gorgon and a Trish that got Veiler'd but I wasn't able to close it out before he broke my board and started looping Triverr with Fiendish and Calls to which I scooped it up and sided differently than the last round.
Game 2: He at some point ends with a Triverr on board with 2 Denebs under it and what I believed to be a Nova set to my MST with Trish in hand. I hit the Alpha and kill the Triverr so that he summons a Deneb from grave and gets to search before moving to MP2 and Trishing him for the eventual win.
Game 3: This game he flips an Anti-Spell but I see my Decree and Hands to deal with it and the game becomes a slow grind. I'm able to drop a Unicore to put him on a clock as he tries to set up a kill play through Valk via Mind Crush but after he sees that I have double Veiler it's just not going to happen.
Round 5 - vs Star Seraph Dolls (0-2)
Game 1: I go second and open up with with a Valk + Rank 4 play and push him down low for damage to his Math-Man and decide not to go for a Djinn Lock but instead Ptolemaeus into Diamond largely because I wanted to see if it'd actually work which was a BAD idea then and part of me knew it and decided to go with it anyway. As karma would have it he had Stick + Chair + Chair and ripped me a new one a few turns later and I just could not recover in time.
Game 2: He opened with Thunder King to my hand of Manju/Brio/Unicore/Trish/Clausolas and I drew Senju for turn. I cried inside.
Round 6 - vs Volcanics (2-1)
Game 1: This was his first encounter versus Nekroz while this was my 7th vs Volcanics. Long story short you Trish their Scattershots and the deck can't touch you.
Game 2: On the other hand they flip up Iron Wall and you don't draw search pieces or your Jus get negated you can't touch them.
Game 3: Hands bitchslap rogue decks.
I finish X-2 in swiss and placed 11th, tied with several other people for the last 3 slots which disappointed me but unlike last time I did not freak out or anything. I took it well given that finishing on the bubble is sort of respectable? The thing is I kept my end of a deal I made with Ryan that I would not act like a salt packet on the ground that he'd keep his ego in check. Who will win this little contest? We shall see!
After the main tournament several of us participated in side events including Dinosaur's Rage structure deck tournaments which was hilarious to watch and in my case 5Ds Starter Deck duels. I win my first round because of drawing my hate and being able to make the giant 2900 Normal monster stick but lose to Cody in the next round due to running out of steam. Sadface.
After that we all went to Applebees where I had an okay sandwich but would never order it again while we all chatted with the rest of the judges and their friends before heading over to Jordan's to play with Magnus' Cube and Cody's Battle Box (which is a neat concept I'll elaborate on in a later post) or rather everyone else did while I watched as I was donezos for card games that night. I was totally fine with this as I got to see hilarious things from all over the bloody place including one of the guys in the cube named Nicholai building Disaster Dragon Ruler and even referring it to that because he too played and enjoyed the deck and we talked dragons for a bit because FUCK YEAH DRAGONS. He proceeded to wreck people in the first cube before Tag Team Cube happened and Magnus and another man named Dao won the second by around 4 am. We were all donezos at that point.
The following day we head to Galaxy Games which had Vanguard singles which had things I had been looking all over for like MLBs and even got to trade off some Pokemon cards I didn't need! Then we went back to Regina, ninjaing our way through a snowstorm in May even. That was some straight up ebola shit right there.
Props
-Pulled the Water Doll Fusion from my entry packs which was dope.
-Picked up ALOT of stuff for really cheap or good value.
-Played against alot of quality opponents and even got the win vs some of them. While I'm clearly not on the level of Winnipeg's best players I can say with confidence that I can either go toe to toe with them on occasion when not given an ass hand to work with (see my "clutch" opening vs Cody in the Ruler Mirror) or give them one hell of a fight if I'm going to lose. I will make you WORK for your win.
-Finished the highest of our group of people (myself, Magnus, Matt) and narrowly missed the top cut.
Slops
-Almost doesn't count.
-Made some questionable decisions that cost me.
-Spent money obviously.
-Learned that the Poop Deck is exactly what I thought it was.
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