So yeah I now own Shaddolls for the time being and decided that I'd play them in this week's tournament despite having never actually used them before. I figured this would be a good test of my ability as a player as Dolls are often referred to as the most skillful of the Tier 1 decks at the moment (as opposed to "Summon Deneb/Play Scout, set 4 go") so if I'm as good as people say I am, then I should be able to at the very finish with a winning record compared to the bad experiences I've had with Nekroz.
That and I REALLY wanted to play Sybill/Prediction Dolls. The moment the Sibyl theme appeared in the anime a friend told me "you'd play this deck if it were real" and then it ended up being real and looking really, really neat. When it was announced we'd be getting a TCG release of these things it was expected that I'd probably be the one to find some way to make them work around here. Given how the boss monster and deck works as a whole I've come to the conclusion that a Shaddoll variant is the only viable option to go just because of the synergy. Tarotrei opens up alot of plays to the deck that I know people will not expect and Shaddoll Graveyard effects Trigger when used for Ritual Summons since you are not sending them for cost, but on resolution of an effect. This means that if you tribute a Dragon and a Beast from hand to summon her (she's Lv.9) then you'll get a draw and backrow pop, then summon one of those monsters on EP which can lead to fun things like flipping Dragon on their turn. The main concern I have with this build however is that bricking potential rises by cutting down the number of Dolls from your main and the strain of running less Fusions in the Extra.
Those thoughts aside I quickly sleeved and shuffled a deck together, basing it off the list PhoenixFlareX posted a few days ago;
I take no shame in copying this list as I've said it before that Net Decking is an excellent way to learn how to play a new deck. Phoenix is also a Yugituber that I respect immensely who builds decks in the same ways that I do (consistency above all else while retaining an edge) and he's the best Dragunity player in North America by far so I'd say I was pretty confident this list would run smoothly as I figured out optimal plays and etc. I did make a few changes though as I was only able to get two Tarotrei's before the tournament started and nobody had a Anoyatillis for trade so my extra looked meh. That said on with the show;
Round 1 - vs Satellarknight (2-0)
Same guy from the last report except this match when WAY in my favour. The first game I summon Tarotrei and between her Book skill and Maxx "C" I kept him from making Triverr/Delteros which in turn kept Diamond from appearing. He did Ark it but in doing so let me punish him with Shaddoll Fusion and I took Game 1 without much trouble. Game 2 I had to fight through his backrow including turn 1 Anti-Spell Fragrance (except unlike when I play Nekroz I actually saw my sided MSTs), Emptiness and some other crap with El Shaddoll Fusion while setting up Tarotrei by sitting on Herald of Arc Light and having her flip monsters around. He puts up a fight but I run him out of options and drop Winda to lock him out of the game.
Round 2 - vs Junk Doppel (2-0)
Now that I got my revenge I was pretty much satisfied with the day given that from hereon out I'd be playing either Shaddolls or random decks given that a fair number of people weren't present. In this case it was a Synchro deck and I opened up with Mathematician into Bulb into Herald and Soul Charge the following turn and promptly Trished him and summoned Tarotrei and took it from there. Game 2 went the same way except we went into time and I was down in LP...except after my big Soul Charge play I annihilated him the next turn with El Shaddoll Fusions. By this point I had some people watching me play the deck as one of the players present wanted to build Prediction Princesses and after seeing the combos I was pulling off they were thoroughly impressed. I got a couple comments on being a beast and such.
Round 3 - vs Random (2-0)
This guy I swear is actually mentally handicapped. Rude? Perhaps but I'm just making an observation based around his appearance and the way he acts. I got a half empty stare most of this match and my plays literally did not matter to him because it took all of what he had to focus on his stuff.
Be that as it may you guys know I don't hold back and regardless of who I'm up against I play the same way so I naturally smoke him. I summon Trishula AGAIN in two games and he's unable to crack by board so I just pooped all over him.
Round 4 - vs Star Seraph Shaddolls (2-0)
Oh boy my first Mirror Match! The Doll Mirror much like any of today's Yu-Gi-Oh! Mirror Matches are complete aids because of how you need to Fusion Summon to make big plays but also get your Fusions off the board to avoid getting blown out by Shaddoll Fusion. This is much harder for my deck as I only run 2 Beasts but on the flip side Tarotrei can book my monsters to dodge this but that doesn't make this awful mirror THAT much better. The main thing I had going for me was that this was vs mullet scrublord supreme Kody who had also just picked up the deck (or barely used it as he re-read his cards repeatedly) who apparently will go on tilt if you don't let him shuffle your deck his own special way. You see this guy will shuffle his deck like every normal person does. However your deck is another story as he'll split it in two parts then put the deck back together in a specific way that can damage cards and alot of people have requested him to stop it and for the most part he ignores it, largely because it puts people on tilt and it's how he stacks (oh did I mention he's a fucking scumbag? One does not open with Prohibition as frequently as he does). I've told him before with other decks of mine that he'll damage my cards by doing that but lo and behold he still does it. Nord had even gone to the length of telling him that if he keeps doing it, he'll get suspended because of reasons that while I never heard likely had to do with either complaints and risk of cards being damage. Yet he still tried to do it here. And I had enough. The moment he picked up my deck and tried to "shuffle" it I told him to stop right there and shuffle my deck the same way he just did and that he had been told by Nord not to do it. His counter? "Nord's not a real judge and he's abusing his power because of-" and I cut him off saying that the employee behind the counter is also not allowing this and that he'll have to suck it up. Also wow really? Nord's not a real judge? What a fucking cunt.
Anyway after that happened he as I already mentioned went on tilt/started sulking and it affected his gameplay while I started poking with Manju. He eventually summons Construct and leaves it on the field which I punished him by using Shaddoll Fusion into Shekhinaga to out it with El Shaddoll Fusion to dodge his Ring of Destruction and negating Construct by pitching Shaddoll Core! I win a couple turns later and we head into Game 2 with him going first leading me to side in 2 De-Fusions and 2 Ghost Ogre/Snow Rabbits. I don't remember much of the early game outside of seeing one of those De-Fusions and using it to out his Construct and beating down with my monsters while he's forced to burn multiple Fusion spells. We eventually go into time with me in the LP Lead with a Tarotrei on board and him having a few monsters or something. My memory's hazy as I know I had to deal with him having something that I was having trouble outing (likely a Construct I had Chained) until I drew a Dragon for turn and got the genius idea of setting it, then having Tarotrei turn it face up to bounce his monster off back to the extra deck and attack for game. His remark was "well someone drew their De-Fusion..."
Yeah because you couldn't stack our decks. Oooooh.
That aside this match proved one thing clear; the skill gap between us is there and I'm certain Kody now knows this more than ever. He's called me out on being unskilled because I used decks like Dragon Rulers (because 3 Charge Lightsworn in Sept. 2009 totally required thinking, right?) but this time around we played the same deck and despite my inexperience with Dolls I not only beat him, but I outplayed him. I can smash him with a top tier deck that he can never hope to touch or I can beat him with the same deck. It's all the same as I am now flat out better than him having grown as a player in 5 years, yet he hasn't changed at all. I've said this point before but this match right here is what drives it home.
Top 4 - vs Chaos Shaddolls (0-2)
So the Top 4 was all Shaddoll variants. We had;
Star Seraph Shaddolls - McMullet Scrublord
Chaos Shaddolls - DaFuq
Artifact Shadolls - Allen
Prediction Princess Shaddolls - Me
Yeah no wonder Damon threw his last round. I wouldn't have wanted to play endless Shaddoll matches with Zefra either. To be honest I kinda wanted to throw this game too but I felt like I needed to at least get some experience playing the mirror with someone who wasn't a scumbag. Damon did warn me that he rips BLS like no tomorrow and...
Game 1 - I brick super bad. It's bad enough when you open without Fusions and the opponent has El/Normal with Beasts in hand, but you also have no ways to set up a Ritual Summon. I try the Beatdown with Dragon/Squamata while resigning myself to letting him resolve flip effects, but his onslaught of mini Dragons becomes a huge problem. I keep myself relatively in the game while trying to assemble a hand that would let me Yu-Gi-Oh!, but then he goes off with multiple Constructs to my set Falco and drops BLS to kill me.
Game 2 - My hand is a little better as I can do some Fusion plays and even set a Beast! This time around I didn't see my sided cards while he saw all three Caius the Shadow Monarch that he brought in. I literally went "dafuq" as all of his turns were Fusion Spell, Tribute Caius, remove my guy and then I died in 3 turns.
And that was it. Honestly I was glad to be done as the shop was closing in half an hour and if I had somehow won this game I would have had to play Allen in the finals and GOD that would have been horrible. That's not to say Allen is an unpleasant player as that's the opposite, he's fun to play against as he's good and as the result we both take our time figuring out how to make the best play (as opposed to his friend(?) Tien who I feel is a massive twat and can be scummy) but the result is our matches take forever to get done and there's no way we could play a Doll mirror in under half an hour. Hell our Nekroz vs Doll matches have ended in draws because we each won a game before going into time!
After that I talked some more with the casuals as I explained how the deck worked from what I could understand. Keep in mind people that had basically zero experience with Dolls in a competitive setting (I know there was the one time I played Dolls vs Woodhouse using Qli but let's be real here, practice games against him are meaningless as you either get sacked by him or you kill him before he can sack you) but after playing it I have to say I had ALOT of fun. It could be because Dolls require more thinking on my part or that Tarotrei is just a really good monster and I got to play annodah Ritual deck which Damon pointed out on "You really do like Ritual cards man" much like how Nord is all "Synchros!" and uhh...do we have anyone with a hardon for Xyz? I doubt it. Anyway I got compliments from them again as I talked about interactions between the cards, even thinking up new ones on the fly and while I'll never let praise make my head swell it is gratifying to hear it.
Now should I be all happy that I'm getting accolades from randoms who play Helmet decks? Eeeh that's debatable but this day played a part in rekindling some of the passion that I had lost over the last year (that and there were no Qliphort decks present to which everyone was happy about. Most hated deck ever?) and a talk with Derrick over the various good players that we have here helped rebuild my confidence. Alot of the people here do consider me to be a good player at the game and arguably the 2nd best in the city with Magnus as first. Now do I consider this? Partially. I'd say I'm about even with Nord in the play area but he has the edge in getting what he needs whereas I'm way more open to radical changes within an established deck (like when Arma Knight/Dragon/Farfa became a thing in Nekroz) and willing to make adjustments which is something he's admitted to.
If anything what has become clear is that I'm good at the game, but I play things that appeal to me which during the early years were Rogue Decks (Disaster Dragon, Heroes) and later on happened to be Meta Decks (Agents, Mermail, Dragon Rulers, Nekroz). It just happens to be that regardless of what I play, I apply Competitive Game theory regardless and set out to play the best possible version of said deck.
And that if anything else is my defining trait. Even moreso than the salt.
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