YGO Locals Report - "EVERYTHING IS SH*T!"

He's right you know.  Hell I don't see much of a reason to really write anything here because everything really does feel like shit.  I don't like formats like the one we're in where matches can be literally decided by the diceroll because every deck's goal is to not let you play.  There's no pretense of a long grind and if there is it's not a long, daring game of trying to outwit the other player.  No instead it's because both players drew shit and are trying to play out of those hands.  In some cases it doesn't even matter who the players involved are as by simply going first, you can very well win the entire match!  I suppose the fact that I went to a tournament for the last time this year and was able to stay for the entire duration of it is worth mentioning seeing as Matt loves to bring up my never being present at locals yet has showed up even less than I have and the one time he does show up...he leaves almost immediately after.

Anyway I decided to play ABC as I was yet to use the deck in actual tournament play and I liked Blair Hunters approach to the deck.  Empowerment raises the ceiling and drawing your "Garnets" isn't the worst as they have actual viable Pendulum effects that let A and B beat over Vanity's Fiend in the Darklord matchup.  It was either that or Yang Zing and I didn't have that deck randomized nor felt like shuffling it so I went with this, but made sure to add a pair of Dark Hole to clear boards and push in.

Round 1 - vs Brilliant ABC (2-1)

I won the dieroll therefore I won the match.

Round 2 - vs Kaiju (2-1)

Kaiju decks suck.

Round 3 - vs Buji-I mean Paleozoic (0-2)

Helmet's too strong.

Top 4 - vs Woodhouse featuring Darklords (2-0)

H seck I outpel, i r teh gurst  EDITOR'S NOTE: Woodhouse's Spellchecker is still currently Forbidden on the current banlist.

Finals - vs I keep wanting to call it Bujin (0-2)

Some days you are able to overcome a helmet deck.  This was not that day for me.

And that was it.  Yay.

...what, you were expecting memes?  Me ripping into people?  More complaining about YGO?  I'm not Skull.  I'm not going to endlessly whine and complain about the meta being too this or that because I've known for a long time the way things have been going.  I've fielded my complaints and the people who've been willing to hear them out have heard them out.  Today if anything reaffirmed my position and I really don't have anymore to say about that.  As for the next time I participate in a YGO Locals?  Who knows?  I want NO part of Zodiac Beast format and no amount of Fluffals or Eidolon Beasts are going to change that.

Well okay it IS starting to get annoying seeing people with all the funds in the world at their fingertips literally buy every deck out there in any game, be mediocre at playing ALL OF THEM and because one of those decks is actually a Minerva deck with a Minerva he is very likely going to top the next Regionals solely on the back of it.  On the other hand it would be hilarious as hell if he scrubbed out despite having a Minerva as it would prove that you cannot simply buy a deck and expect it to get you a guaranteed Regional Top.  Right Qliphort players?

YGO Locals Report - Red-Eyed Disappointment

Oh boy, a Yu-Gi-Oh! Locals report!  Haven't seen one of these in a while.

Honestly I've been to a few of these in the last couple months despite what Matt would imply.  I just haven't bothered to post any of them as each tourney I've gone to has been;

Round 1 - get sacked by Derrick via Vanity's Emptiness Game 1 and lose game 2 because I brick.

Round 2 - whatever I play bricks horribly and I lose to some retard OR I'm paired against Nord and he's not playing a legit deck (compared to what he normally would use) and it ends up being the one match I open the literal nuts and win.

Round 3 - I get paired up with one of our literally handicapped players and I don't draw aids (ie hands in which I could probably give Ryan and Stove a good fight) and scrape them.

Repeat ad nauseam and you'll have a summary of the last couple months of YGO for me.  Tis what I get for not playing Blue-Eyes when I should or tossing aside what skill I've got and piloting ABC.  It's unfortunate as I want to play more combo style decks but I swear to whatever gods there are that they do not want me to play them given the hands I keep seeing when I pilot them compared to the hands Nord draws when he picks up the same deck and does test play.  Really deck?

Anyway this time I'll actually do a report as there hasn't been a Vanguard tournament for a while so until Set 9 comes out I really don't have much to talk about.  That and I also tried to give Red-Eyes a go which the last time I did I ended up ragequitting Tramps after getting 2-0'd by someone I had no business losing to.  I based the build on the Viral list that topped a Japanese tournament that was anti-ABC and since our locals is supposedly "always ABC" according to some people around here when in fact it's only 1 or two people at most playing the deck but no I'm gonna overside for the deck anyway I figured I might be able to steal a match or two.

Round 1 - v Raidraptors (2-0)

This deck is fucking terrible.  Don't let any pleb tell you otherwise.  All those cards you keep searching?

They.

Do.

Nothing.

Your phantom advantage is meaningless if all you ever do is wall up with weenie monsters while trying to resolve shave force or get to Ultimate Falcon.  You don't need Ultimate Falcon to win and are gonna show that by summoning something else?  Fantastic!  Your other Xyz monsters are easy to deal with and god help you if someone stops your normal summon since this deck needs to field shit in order to get moving.

Seriously people keep calling this a new Blackwing deck?  Lol.  Blackwings even in their power creeped and archaic state are FAR better than this trash.  They actually make offensive plays from the onset and have REAL extra deck threats.  Sort of.

Or you could play an actual combo/control deck like what Raidraptors want to be and pilot Metalfoes rather than sucking the dick of the obligatory edgelord of every anime like all these RR players do.

But seriously this deck is bad and the only time I've lost to it is when my opponent has opened with Vanity's Emptiness or multiple summon negates.  So basically to generic backrow and not the deck itself.  Raidraptors provided you don't brick and they don't open with a bajillion Solemns should be an easy win and that was the case here.  I summoned Meteor Comet Black Dragon, beat face and made sure that he could never summon Ultimate Falcon and that was that in both games.

Round 2 - vs ABC (0-2)

It's Woodhouse.  I basically have to open god to have a chance against him.  I open the complete opposite of that and lose Game 1 while Game 2 I open with a brick hand while he opens playable.  My Chaos Hunter gets Strike'd and I open with too many Winter Cherries so I literally cannot do anything in the face of R4 beats.

Round 3 - vs ABC (0-2)

This one was just unfortunate.  I open with Chaos Hunter and drop it...only to find out he's playing the Galaxy Soldier build so my plan literally goes up in smoke and I have no plays after he drops Infinity + Buster.  Game 2 I have to literally pass with nothing and he opens Hangar + Soldier with a hand to make it live, plays into my Maxx "C" and despite giving me +5-6 draws and allowing me to resolve multiple Allures I cannot draw into a hand that outs ABC Buster and Infinity and so I'm done and not in a good mood afterwards.  Not as angry as the last time I played this deck but still miffed enough that I didn't want to sit around and wait for the rest of the tournament to play out with a sour taste in my mouth so I ultimately decided to leave.  Not long after getting home I ended up napping for a few hours.  I'm sure I disappointed some people by not sticking around for our usual Robins/BK shenanigans but honestly I was probably going to be grouchy the entire day given the circumstances.  I mean hell even after the nap I'm still pretty salt with with this tournament report.

Props
-I finished Red-Eyes, Subterrors and even picked up Terrortops and Denglongs for Yang Zing and future deck projects
-I got to flash the cash with my somewhat blinged out Red-Eyes deck.
-I savaged Kody.  That's always a prop

Slops
-When my deck didn't want me to win, it pretty much slapped me in the face with a giant fuck you.  4 Red-Eyes, a Return of the Dragon Lords AND Eradicator?  I mean I may as well just bend over and let Bubba do his thing.
-Holy shit Allen is irritating as fuck when he's in the peanut gallery during your match.  Pretty much the entire time I played Cobb he was beating off to ABC which makes it REALLY frustrating to play out a losing match.

Even more Thunder Stuff! Obelisk returns!

Well I've established a tempo so I might as well roll with it.  Here are some cards that allow you to make Thunder Max Dragon.  No pictures though;

Storm Deity Avatar - Obelisk
Level 4 Wind
Thunder/Effect/2100/1600
This card is treated as a Normal Monster while in the Deck or Graveyard.  An Xyz Monster whose original attribute is Wind with this card as Xyz Material gains this effect.

● When this card is Xyz Summoned: Your opponent destroys one card they control and if they do, banish it.

Now imagine all the ways you get to abuse Normal Monster support and this guy.  Unexpected Dai pulls him out of the deck, Swing of Memories brings him back and Rescue Rabbit summons 2 Obelisks!  His removal effect also stacks so if you make a Lightning Chidori or Castel your opponent has to blow up and banish 2 cards on their field on top of of whatever you're spinning.  His effect also triggers if you Rank Up the Xyz Monster he's attached to.

Storm Deity - Obelisk the Green Slayer

Rank 4 Wind

Thunder/Xyz/Effect/2500/2000

2 Level 4 Thunder-Type Monsters

During your Standby Phase, if this card has an "Obelisk" monster attached as Xyz Material: You can Special Summon from your Extra Deck, 1 Rank 5 or 6 Wind monster, except a "Number" monster, by using this face-up card you control as the Xyz Material. (This is treated as an Xyz Summon. Xyz Materials attached to this card also become Xyz Materials on the Summoned monster.)  You can only use this effect of "Storm Deity - Obelisk the Green Slayer" once per turn.  IF this card attacks a defense position special summoned monster, inflict double piercing battle damage.  Once per turn: You can detatch 1 Xyz Material from this card; this card gains 500 attack and the following effect, until the end phase.

●This card can attack all monsters your opponent controls once each.

And this would be Obelisk's evolved form.  Like any iteration of Obelisk he has the ability to attack multiple enemies and pierce defenses ala his Net Navi form and he also has the ability to rank up into stronger Wind Xyz Monsters...like Thunder Max Dragon!  Now granted ObeliskTGS has to safely hit the board, stay alive through the opponent's turn AND make it to your turn with an Obelisk Xyz Material in order to rank up into something scary.  If anything I may have made him too balanced for 2016 Yu-Gi-Oh! (if anything his upgrade effect should be in either Standby much like how Thunder Max Dragon should banish a card for every 2 cards your opponent has banished...) although from a writing standpoint, I think the card is just fine as a boss monster.  Blatantly OP shit is best saved for the Zexal style end of series boss fights what with the 50 million attack you have to attack this thing or lose the duel nonsense.

Supreme Storm Deity - Thunder Max Dragon

I had an idea for an impromptu boss monster of the Storm Deity deck I've been working on;

Supreme Storm Deity - Thunder Max Dragon
Rank 5 Wind
Thunder/Xyz/Effect/3000/2500
3 Level 5 Thunder-Type Monsters
Once per turn: You can detach 2 Xyz Materials from this card; for every 3 of your opponent's banished cards, your opponent banishes cards from their hand or side of the field.  If 5 or more cards were banished by this effect, this card deals double battle damage during this turn's Battle Phase.

Since it's already been established that Storm Deity are a deck that destroys banishes your opponent's cards through the effects of its main deck monsters (and some of its extra deck monsters) then it only makes sense that all this would be leading towards a boss monster who has an effect based on your opponent's banished pile.  In addition to having non targeting field removal he also can potentially attack the hand if the opponent has no board to wipe which can make him devastating against decks that commit no cards to the board but still have a banish pile like Psy-Frames.  Lastly if he's able to banish alot of cards, he deals 2x damage during the battle phase which is a clean 6000 damage or more against an open board.

And yes he's basically a +3 if your opponent has played at least 1 Pot of Desires.

Winnipeg Regionals Report - All these places...

I honestly forgot to even do this and to be honest I don't have it in me to write a concise report.  Instead I'll just link to my video that does the exact same thing.  Right down to the part where I call out the faggot PSY-Frame player.

Remember folks.  Friends don't let friends play PSY-Frames.  Or Monarchs.

CFV Locals Report - Drumfire

This one should be short as we had a smaller turnout today due to a few of our players being out of town for a Pokemon Tournament, because that game looks like it's becoming good again.  That said we all more or less decided to say "fuck it" with our deck choices and such I decided to bust out my recently acquired (thanks Norden), but still untested and in the works Kagero deck as opposed to my wombo combo Gear Chronicle deck.  Admittedly it was a bit ballsy for me to play the deck with only 1 Denial Griffin, 1 Blademaster Taiten and no flame dragon heal triggers but I was eager to put my theories about the build I made into practice so I went it with it.

Round 1 - vs Revengers (2-0)

Well at least I got to get a match with Derrick out of the way.  If I wound up losing to variance I'd have the rest of the tourney to get over it and win the rematch in top cut.  Turns out that didn't happen as he straight bricked in both games which is uncharacteristic of Shadow Paladins but hey it happens.  Didn't help that I sniped Judgebau at every opportunity.  It IS a mighty need indeed.  Anyway I roll him without a whole lot of fanfare in the games, though in G2 he does get to do a few stride plays, but I limit his options with Bellog.  That feeling when your opponent wants to Aurageyser but you kill one of his only two rearguards.

Round 2 - vs Nubatama (2-1)

The first game was straight BS.  The guy gradestalls me and gets rewarded for it by flipping crits early so I'm down 4 damage to 2-3 for a fair bit of the game and I can't climb back into it, ultimately dying because of the GR that limits my hand to 4 cards plus Shiranui's discard effect on top of the amber clone sniping my Heal out of hand so I can't G-Guard and PG his attacks.  Game 2 he tries this shit again but this time around I'm on the Great who has a non Legion retire skill and I see Burnouts and Neoflames so between them and always attacking his RGs before anything else he's unable to pressure me while on 2.  After he finally rides to 3 and makes his play I come to the realization that his deck burns alot of counterblasts to operate and decide to play the CB management game while on a Legion'd Great as he kept leaving rearguards for me to swing at and it worked as he realized that after Guarding my VG attack on his VG that I wouldn't swing with my RG to give him anything to work with and eventually no guarded DOGE a few turns later.  I don't kill him but he's still limited on options and dies to a Stride.  Game 3 he goes first and skips trying to gradestall as he finally realized doing so against a removal deck is a terrible idea and the game pans out like you'd expect when Nubatama are forced to play fair, favourable for me.  I blow up his stuff while still managing his CB so that has no more than one to use on his Stride turn and he eventually dies when my Legend checks 4 Draws and a crit on the GB2 turn, with Nahalem and Spherical Lord on RG.

Round 3 - vs Ancient Dragons (2-0)

He doesn't do much of anything other than stride a big guy since I kept killing off his RGs and kept him at 3 damage until I saw fit to go for gameshot.  He subtly calls me out for being serious while he's using a fun deck.

Do you want me to bust out Narukami?  Cuz I'll show you how serious I can be when I'm punching the shit out of your terrible deck.

After that top cut was announced, though it'd only be a top 2 due to the turnout.

Finals - vs Revengers (2-1)

Game 1 I have a weak hand due to G-Assist and Derrick tends to rush with this deck so I can't defend or punish him for slapping his hand on the board.  In addition I check no defensive triggers (except on the last attack of the turn) so I'm down 4 to 1-2 I don't remember.  I know I lose this one.  Game 2 on the other hand is a sound trouncing as I completely dismantle his PBA turn with Defeat Flare and another turn with Denial Griffin which earned a salty remark of "that deck only wins because of its G-Guards."  Funny as its coming from the player who plays decks that literally wins off of lucksacking.  Game 3 is a bit more fair as I can't exactly Taiten him multiple times so I'm forced to close the damage gap through Nouvelle and the Legend.  I do manage to take a PBD turn without dying and Defeat Flare his PBA turn which pretty much kills his momentum as I'm far too ahead in advantage for him and he doesn't have the cards needed to block an Ace turn with Nehalems.

So I win the tournament, pull jank from my packs (though I pulled the Megacolony GR from my box) and move my Luquiers (finally) before calling it a day.  But not before I rip into how boring Enzo and Cas' promos are to Nord.

CFV Locals Report - Off the plank

This one'll be short as there really isn't much to talk about here.  Regina locals at this point is 50% Shadow Paladin, 25% Chaos, 10% Kagero, 10% Gear Chronicle and 5% whatever I play (which today was Granblue).

Okay that last part may be a lie but I'm not wrong on the first two parts.  Let's get on with this!

Round 1 - vs PBO Shadow Paladin (Win)

Oh right.  I forgot something other than Diablo and Revengers existed.  This was my first time playing against the PBD Break Ride version of the deck and it ran very, very poorly for what Shadow Paladin is capable of at this point.  It lacks the consistency/field building engines of the other variants and as such it's more vulnerable to retire which combined with the kind of attacking prowess of Granblue will eat away at the PBO player's hand pretty quickly.  Both games went this way.

Round 2 - vs Kagero (Win)

I say Kagero, but this is more or less what Evan was able to put together in I'm assuming a month's time.  Long story short a Kagero deck without its G-Guards or multiple Taiten is terrible and makes an already lopsided matchup even further in my favour.  Our games take a while as you would expect from Kagero's style of play but I take and maintain the tempo for the majority of it.

Round 3 - vs Raindear Bermuda Triangle (Win)

The player's words were "this is the worst Bermuda deck of them all."  At least he admits how cringy it is to play the clan.  Not very often one of the players in our locals will admit to their cringiness and trust me when I say we have alot of cringers.  I'd say 50% of the players in the room today.

Get rustled!

Anyway he's able to do some cute things but this was more or less a beating.  I'm playing a Tier 1 deck and he's playing Crystal Beasts, except this can's fanbase is even more obnoxious.  I roll him.

Top 4 - vs Chaos (Win)

Last week I discussed a strategy to use against Chaos that can put them in an awkward spot.  This week I employed it and sure enough it worked in allowing me to establish a tempo he could never take.  By the time he was able to start terrorizing my field with repeated locks I had my Unlocker set up and used it to maintain my momentum for Game 1 and I ultimately beat him with a Double Crit after whittling his hand down with repeated pokes.  Game 2 I scoop up due to unintentional cheating by using Pokkur's effect multiple times without having a Cray elemental in my G-Zone.  I could have played it out, said nothing and nobody would have noticed but I'm too much of a babyface to do that.  Game 3 I play the matchup as best as I could, though he kept flipping crits on my no guards early game so I'm down 4 damage to 2 going into my Stride turns.  I run it back through Cannoneer terrorism and pokes with Slash Shade to put him to 5 damage and at 5 cards in hand going into a Break Ride turn with 3 open counter blasts.  I swing at him 5 times and flip a trigger on my Vanguard attack so he's hella dead.

And that was that.  Evan won his match in top 4 and had to leave for work, though given our Round 2 it probably would have gone the same, so I got 1st and another UFS mat.  After that Ryan and I talked wrestling for 2 hours and I called it a day.

CFV Locals Report - Dark Prison

"Black Hole Cluster, fire."

At the risk of sounding full of shit I'd like to think we're at the point that I don't appear at locals often, but when I do it's epic.  Case in point I made my Grand(zon) return to Tramps for the legit first time since May and for the most part I didn't miss a beat.  It was like I never left.  It...also kind of helps that I had been keeping a close eye on the game during my downtime and watching some matches featuring the decks I own/relevant decks.  Last week's ARG was pretty good for getting an idea of how to play Gear Chronicle against Chaos which given our meta was good to know.

Round 1 - vs Kagero (Win)

His deck looked like a Legend Deck with a couple pulls from Set 7 thrown in.  Said pulls happened to be a pair of Taitens which I had to watch out for, but basically he didn't own Denial Griffins or Defeat Flares and without those Kagero's a bad deck, so I rolled him with Time Leap comboes and finished him off with Nextage in both games.

Round 2 - Bye

Round 3 - Chaos (Win)

Wasn't looking forward to this one given who I was up against.  Then again if I may be honest all of our Chaos players are notoriously sacky so regardless of which Link Joker player I faced I would have to deal with being cheesed out of wins by 12 crit.dek.

Anywho I brick the first two games of this match and don't see a Grade 3 for several turns.  I manage by fielding a full board and going ham on him and I'm rewarded as he wasn't running Sebreeze so the worst that could be done was Chaos Breaker followed by some lockers.  He ends up doing just that and I eventually lose due to a combination of staying on 2 longer than I should have (did not want to G-Assist off any of the cards in my hand) and getting killed by triggers.  Game 2 I do the same thing except he doesn't ride Chaos and has no Photons/etc when they were needed, so I push him with a full board and eventually G-Assist and get my deck rolling and beat him.  I know I keep mentioning the full board term alot here but it's a good way to deal with Chaos as Universe's first skill can't be used when you have occupied RG zones which makes their first stride play something terrible in the situation like Amnesty Messiah.  Game 3 he doesn't flip triggers on a turn he needed to and I overtake him with Time Leaps.

Top pairings are announced and I'm in and I have to face Shadow Paladins.  That's a fun matchup said no one ever.

Yeah I know kettle calling the pot black as I'm playing Clock Bois here.

Top 4 - vs Diablo (Win)

He was expecting a mirror.  No sir, I'm playing a deck that's even more cancerous!  I say that but in actuality our decks kind of ran terribly in both games of this match.  He ends up misriding Game 1 and I have the Sebreeze for it with Tick Tock/Melem/History Maker so things spiral out of control pretty quickly while in Game 2 he has to continually -1 stride so while he's able to get cards to use his Stride skills, he's not able to put much pressure on me.  On my end I have no CB for a few turns so I'm forced to Time Leap and pressure with Chronojet for a few turns.  I eventually win through a Nextage turn followed by a Phoenix turn, none of which yielded me any triggers during my checks by the way.

The other top 4 match took about a half hour to finish which during that time Nord and I went to get food.  By the time we came back it was decided to just end the tournament there with Jordan and I tied for first.  Turns out it would have been us playing if we had a finals but with Tramps set to close in 15 minutes and both of us being meticulous players there was just simply no time.  A shame as it would have been the best players in the city playing the best aggro deck (Time Leap) vs the best control deck (Hand Trap Kagero) of the format.  I ended up winning a Morrigan playmat from UFS and holy shit it looks nice.  I'm not one for waifu type shit with my mats/deckboxes/sleeves but this mat I may make an exception for.

Also I bought two boxes of TDIL and pulled jank.  I died.

Quick Blog and Deck Updates

Goodness it's been a while since I posted anything on here.  What the hell happened!?

TL:DR I haven't had a chance to go to locals for a long ass time because I had to pack/move/unpack on the weekends I've been off, of which I didn't have very many.  In addition to that I've been on a huge JRPG kick since May thanks to deciding to finish Trails in the Sky which had a tear jerker/cliffhanger ending that guaranteed I'd play and complete the sequel whenever I had a chance.  Upon beating THAT I decided to give the most recent English game in the series, Trails of Cold Steel a try a couple weeks ago and suddenly I find myself at 50 hours in game time and only halfway done as of this post.  By the time I finish that Phoenix Wright 6 should be out so it's looking like the vidya will be occupying a fair amount of my free time for the foreseeable future.

So yeah the hobby that I ended up dropping in favour of card games because they weren't as enjoyable to play has more or less become the hobby I play OVER card games because I find them more enjoyable at this time.  Go figure.

But fret not as I don't plan on quitting card games just yet as I still happen to be finding Vanguard quite enjoyable (and arguably the game has never been better than it is now) and while Yu-Gi-Oh! is in what I consider to be a format just as shitty as March 2012 there IS a banlist coming around the corner that HAS to nuke the current Tier 1 decks in order for the game to stop being stagnant and we have new tins coming which will likely have reprints of the last sets of chase cards (Solemn Strike) which I didn't pick up because of budgetary reasons.  These tins coming out are my reward for not putting myself into the red/selling off everything I owned/using tuition money for cards and being patient and I'm actually proud of being patient here.  As far as Konami taking the hammer to the meta it even makes sense from a business standpoint to kill PK Fire, Monarch, Kozmo and Pendulum in order for the new string of decks to compete in the format because what the fuck can ABCs do against a Dark Destroyer?  Japan's best decks can't do jack shit here and they know it.  We sure as hell do.

So that's where I'm at in regards to card games at this time.  In addition to that product spoilers have also influenced what I'll be devoting my time and effort to building which I'm going to list here;

Vanguard

-Narukami: They've been confirmed for Set 9 which is good and bad.  It's good because you all know I love this clan but it's bad because this will be the first set of a new block and as we've seen in the past the clans supported in the beginning of a block tend to have underwhelming support due to Bushiroad "testing the waters" with their goal of that season.  Clans supported in later sets tend to get better support due to Bushiroad having figured out how they want to do things (see Narukami, Pale Moon and OTT in Set 5 and compare them to Kagero, Gold Paladin and Dimension Police in Set 7).  Regardless I'll be investing this set both for my beloved Thunder Dragons and I hope to god they can make Thunderstrike good.  And for the love of god no more Erad Support.

-Gear Chronicle: A Trial Deck, a Clan Booster AND Set 9 Support.  Normally my wallet would be crying but two of those 3 products should be cheap as hell.  Only issues will be the RRRs from the Clan Booster and what comes out of Set 9.  At worst I'll just have to pass on Chronofang and just pick up the cards needed to keep Chronojet/Time Leap competitive.

-Neo Nectar: They're in Set 8 and by the looks of it this will be it for the foreseeable future if it's true Tokoha will be put on a bus next season.  Arboros Dragon support looks questonable considering Ahsha's current cardpool is better, but I'm certain Bloom will benefit regardless.  I'm on the fence though of dropping this deck though because I now have...

-Megacolony: I picked up Matt's Machining Deck which gets jack all from the Technical Booster, but I think Darkface or Giraffa may end up being the better decks in the long run.  Regardless the clan is cheap to build outside of G3 Darkfaces who are about 15 CAD so I might just bite the bullet and invest more into bugs and either keep them around as a hard control deck (Narukami and Gear Chronicle are what you'd classify as aggro control) or sell off Machining.dek, Darkface.dek and Giraffa.dek for about 80-100+ each if they become really hype.

-Granblue: Seven Seas shouldn't take too much to update after Set 8 as the deck as a whole is pretty solid as far as the main goes and Storm Calling Pirate King, Gash is a welcome addition to a sparse G-Zone.  Nightrose on the other hand will be more expensive on the grounds of being a Waifu and likely getting the bulk of the foil support.  After that we wait until next spring for the Idol Booster which will release support that'll finally put Nightrose over the edge while Pale Moon will continue to suck.



Yu-Gi-Oh!


-Blue-Eyes: All but finished.  I just have to pick up a playset of Pot of Desires and once the tins are out Solemn Strikes.

-Yang Zing: Apparently this has become one of the decks that I'm associated with according to Ryan. I'm cool with that and wouldn't you know these guys are going to become better over the rest of the year.  Metalfoes will be a welcome addition to the deck (turning into Yang Zinc) though I'm gonna have to experiment with engines to speed it up.  Ny3 (who aspiring Yang Zing players should check out as he's kind of really good with the deck and by that I mean he invented if not popularized the Zefra YZ variant) has calculated the probability of opening with a combo play to be about 60% of the time going first which sounds impressive at first, but then you realize most of the best decks usually have higher percent rates.  Then we have INOV which gives us Denglong and the 9 Paths to make the deck better.

-ABC: Yeah I'm hopping on this.  I already have Galaxy Soldiers from the Photon Deck and I have a soft spot for Machine beats type decks.  Just need to pick up 1 or 2 more Transmodify.

-Darklords: Why do I have a weakness for the big dumb monster decks?  Hopeless Dragon, Chaos Dragon, Agents, Dragon Lords and now these guys.  I've played with them for a couple weeks on DevPro and each bit of new support they get steadily improves the deck.  It's still not enough to make them as good as ABCs will be as they lack some key pieces (namely a spell that can dump any Darklord card from the deck to the graveyard) but I'll me damned if I don't admit they're fun to play with.

And that's all.  I plan on writing a post or making a video detailing what I want to see for Narukami out of Set 9 as I feel like alot of work needs to be done to bring them up to speed with the format of Vanguard.  Until then I'm gonna go grab my Vita now that it's finished charging and go grind some Septh.

CFV Locals Report - Deep Kaiser

A legit report this time around in case you were wondering.

It's been a bit but the blog is back in action with more tales from locals (worth mentioning) as following Regionals I had to work, then I had to sit out last week's CFV locals and made the mistake of playing YGO locals at a time in which I'm not fond of the game.  Come the movie pack/Felgrand structure my interest will be renewed but right now I'm NOT enjoying the game which is a point I've made clear and have been indirectly mocked for because of my preference for a game that is by all accounts even more flawed and horseshit than Yu-Gi-Oh! yet I still find enjoyable enough to play despite this.  I attribute this to a few things but the main one is that at the moment Vanguard actually has decks I find appealing enough to play that I'm willing to put up with the game's bullshit to get the chance to play them.  Yu-Gi-Oh! has had nothing like that for me since Nekroz and Clown Blade got slaughtered on the Banlist.

You see the heart of the matter is my shtick in TCGs has always been I play what I find appealing enough to stick with for a long time (like how I played Disaster Dragon from 2010-2012 and Mermail from 2012 to 2014) whereas I know people who have openly admitted that they have to keep changing up decks otherwise they become bored of the game and others will build literally everything under the goddamn sun.  Sometimes what I choose to play happens to be a rogue deck.  Other times it happens to be a meta deck and in some rare cases it's the best deck of the format.  In all cases I try to apply competitive theory and technical play to whatever I pilot.
Granted since Sept 2012 when Mermail came out what I've found appealing has usually been Tier 1 or near Tier 0 and almost every format to have come since I've wound up playing a Tier 1 deck and because of the time I've spent playing those decks people have probably come to expect me to be like Ryan or Magnus who will play strictly the best stuff when in fact that's false.  Why bring this up?  Because honestly ever since Pre-DOCS format there hasn't been a deck that I've favoured enough to continue playing regardless of the state of the format with the occasional appearance of Yang Zing (a rogue deck) and I refuse to play that deck when I think its a bad call.  I've built some shit but usually grew bored of them (Magician) or flat out disliked them (Kozmo) or the deck has more bad hands than good that I drop the thing like a bad habit.  As the result if the game does not have a deck I find appealing enough to want to play regardless of outcomes I'm more likely to sit the format out because I'm far less willing to put up with Yu-Gi-Oh!'s bullshit.

Which brings me back to my original point in that I currently favour Vanguard over Yu-Gi-Oh! because I'm willing to put up with its bullshit to play the decks I find appealing; Narukami, Granblue and Gear Chronicle.  Yu-Gi-Oh! has no deck like that for me until July and so I'm going to continue to sit it out and save myself the salt and increasing desire to quit that comes with getting your shit pushed in by people that I have no business losing to on even my worst day because they drew god/floodgates or I drew crap/no outs to floodgates.

So long story short people can back off on me choosing to focus more on Vanguard, Vanguard Theory and Vanguard Discussions over Yu-Gi-Oh! content at a time that I have way more interest in Vanguard than Yu-Gi-Oh! and respect my decision.  I'd like to think that I've at least earned THAT much after all this time.

Oh right.  This is a Vanguard Locals report.  Ahem;

This tournament was a 2v2 type where the losers of each team would play each other if there wasn't a 2-0.  Odd.  I ended up being partnered with Derrick which was fine by me as his tendency to flip double crits would hopefully make up for my flipping no triggers and as such I placed myself in the player B slot figuring that most teams would put their best player/12 crit player up first which I wanted to part in playing against.   I also opted to play Seven Seas Granblue with a heavily modified build that could do the usual Hollow shenanigans in order to have counter plays against Link Joker but I also ran cards that would help me maintain a board so that I wouldn't auto lose to Shadow Paladin.  The theory behind my list also took G-Guardians into account as their introduction into the format has now made games go a few turns longer which my original list couldn't handle and would deck out under.

With this in mind the pairings were done up and the day began

Round 1 - vs Altmile/Alfred (Win)

Thing to note is that these games are best of ones for each player and as the result we had 2 Nociel Decks in the room which would normally never see play otherwise.

Anyway this game takes a while as we are both able to adequately guard each others Aerial Knight/Nightmist plays thanks to 15k shields and G-Guards though since he doesn't run any retire cards I'm able to steadily build up advantage through my Amber Clone which culminates in 2 Break Ride turns and flipping Stand Triggers that I shuffled back into the deck off them to enable about 5 attacks of roughly 21K or more in both cases.  I run him out of hand and win while Derrick suffers from a trigger drought against Gears and in the third game doesn't have enough guard to live a 5 attack Altmile turn.

Round 2 - Bye

After losing our round we get the bye.  Great.  Furthermore Jordan and Evan who are both playing Nociel get paired up in the mirror which is about as exciting as watching Bujin play.  Team Rip indeed.

Round 3 - vs Legend/Rebirth (Win)

Yeah...until Blademaster Taiten comes out this matchup is horrendously one sided in my favour.  Not much I can say here as I kept going after him with 4 attacks a turn and letting my Hollow'd units dodge his stuff.  Derrick won against Darkface.

Top 4 - vs Chaos (Lose)

Well this game happened.  Simply put variance was not on my side this time around as; in 3 turns I only saw 2 triggers on offense and defense so I never had the power to push through his hand, I drew my Heal Trigger for turn 2 turns in a row ad milled my third, I drew only 1 Perfect Guard and I drew way too many Grade 3s and thus couldn't stop a 21k RG lane with crit to my 4 damage.  Really disappointed in this one as he had used up his Universes early and I was starting to get my deck rolling before I had a brick shoved in my face.  Derrick also lost his game as Jordan got to resolve multiple Refros and no hand in the world is going to help you against that.

So that was that.  We finished third and Derrick and I had a Granblue Mirror of Nightrose vs Nightmist and then I left.

Props
-Sold off the Darklady I got in Winnipeg at last
-With the exception of vs Chaos, my deck performed very adequately.  I'm going to tweak my G3 and G1 ratio as I drew way too many 3s too often but Colombard worked well and the Pokkur tech got in there

Slops
-My Chaos game.

YGO Locals "Report" - Par for the Course

Since I had to work this past weekend I had to take a pass on coming down to Tramps and trying to bounce back from my Regionals performance.  So instead I'm going to have a little fun here and write up a totally legit (fake) report that'll somehow wind up being pretty close to legit considering how hilarious(ly awful) locals can be.  Ahem;

After what happened last weekend I decided that this time around I'd play a deck that I felt 100% comfortable with even though I have no idea how its Kozmo matchup is in the form of Blue-Eyes.  Due to my amazing powers of amazing I got a hold of a playset of Alternative White Dragon and when I asked Nord if I could play them he was all "like fuck you are" but then I gave him his set and he was like "ayy lmao" and that was that and by that I mean he played the deck too.

Round 1 - vs Fire King Kozmo (2-1)

Of course I'm up against Magnus.  Wouldn't be a locals without us paired up round 1.  Game 1 I open with a Spirit Dragon play backed up by Emptiness which he can't clear so I steal the win while in Game 2 I open pretty poorly and can't clear his Dark Planet + Kaiser Collosseum setup so I lose.  Game 3 I can't even call a game as he opened with all of his field spells + Terraforming and it all goes downhill from there.

Round 2 - vs Magician Pendulum (2-0)

I need to come up with a nick name for this guy since calling him Ryan would be confusing since the Ryans I usually talk about on the blog are either good at the game (which this guy is not) or don't play anymore (which I wish was the case here).  Anyway Game 1 I open with Spirit Dragon which pretty much shuts his deck down if he can't clear it which sadly this guy does as he opens with Raigeki and a Pendulum Summon play, but nothing threatening while I've got Wingblast + Ancient Stone + Silver's Cry to crack his board followed up by Alternative White Dragon and Gospel of Revival in order to make Galaxy-Eyes Cipher Dragon to take his Odd-Eyes Absolute Dragon, Rank it up into Darkmatter Dragon and cripple him.  Game 2 he makes me go first and I open with a hand that lets me make Spirit Dragon AND Silver Dragon with Wingblast set so he pretty much can't play the game. I think I made him cry.

Round 3 - vs A pile of shit.dek (2-0)

So somehow Phillip managed to stall out Woodhouse long enough to raw draw Exodia 2 games in a row and that's why we ended up playing at this point of the day.  WELL OKAY THEN.  Game 1 I slowroll a win off Azure-Eyes bringing back Dragon Spirit to clear his grind cards and being able to make Crystal Wing Synchro Dragon because his deck is bad and usually gives me the time to do convoluted things.  Game 2 he goes first and sets a monster with a backrow and passes while I opened Melody + Trade In + Gospel so I cleared his monster, brought back Blue-Eyes and made Darkmatter Dragon before playing Lullaby of Obedience to summon his Winged Dragon of Ra - Phoenix Mode out of his deck (he misread the card and thought I got to choose what happens and for the lulz I choose not to argue) and beat him with it.

Top 4 - vs Raidraptors (2-0)

Ultimate Falcon gets summoned in Game 1 but I beat it over with Darkmatter Dragon and flip Emptiness when he tries to make a comeback while in Game 2 I chain Ghost Reaper to his Double Force and banish all his Ultimate Falcons to completely blow the game out.  So this is what it's like to Hungrybox people.

Finals - vs Blue-Eyes (2-1)

Figures the first tournament where legit Blue-Eyes are played Nord and I have to play the mirror in finals.  Sadly this match was straight up bullshit as in Game 1 we both bricked terribly.  I opened with all 3 of my Blue-Eyes and Ancient Stones while he opened with all of his draw spells.  I eventually topdeck an Alternative White Dragon and start playing the beats game with it and Spirit Dragon before he finally starts to see some monsters.  Unfortunately the game is too far gone and I start seeing my revival spells to clear his board and win.  Game 2 I make a Spirit Dragon backed by Emptiness but it gets offed by a Kaiju and he promptly goes off and kills me.  Game 3 I open draw spells + monsters and Soul Charge so I wind up making a board of Azure + Silver before normal summoning Ko'aki Meiru Drago and setting Wing Blast before passing.  He draws Maxx "C" a turn too late and scoops since I have 2 Gospel of Revivals in grave so he has no way of clearing my board and winning.

So I end up finishing the day with only 2 whole losses which is a nice step up from Regionals while Nord and I talked Blue-Eyes theory which included potentially maining Kaiju since most of them are Trade-In targets.  In addition to that Woodhouse started asking people for Koa'ki Meiru Dragos since we both played the card and because Aliens won an regionals last weekend Evan ordered the deck.  After all that we went to Robins to play Nord's "special" cube where all archetypes work with each other and it was just as much of a gong show as you could imagine.

Props
-Shrekked everyone
-Got to play Blue-Eyes!
-Beating Phillip with his own card
-Sacking the utter shit out of Bad Ryan.
-Ghost Reapering a Towers clone.  God it feels so good telling them "no, we ARE going to play actual Yu-Gi-Oh!  Get that shit out of here."
-Seeing Kody get shit on by Crystal Beasts

Slops
-Bricks
-Sacking the utter shit out of Good Ryan

So whatcha think?  Pretty accurate if I do say.

Narukami Lists - Post Fighter's Collection 2016

We all know that when it comes to Cardfight!! Vanguard I love me some thunder dragons.  Well I figure why not periodically post my decklists while making updates to them throughout the year like some other blogs while occasionally giving my thoughts on how certain builds fair in the format.

So with that said let's get this show on the road!

Kaiser

4x Dragonic Kasier Crimson
3x Dragonic Kaiser Vermillion
1x Dragonic Vanquisher

4x Demonic Dragon Berserker, Chatura
4x Voltage Horn Dragon
3x Dragonic Deathscythe

4x Dragon Dancer, Anastasia
4x Crown Holder Dragon
4x Mighty Bolt Dragoon
2x Rising Phoenix

8x Crit (4 Malevolent Djinn, 4x Lightning of Triumphant Return, Reseph)
4x Draw
4x Heal
1x Lizard Soldier, Saishin

4x Conquering Supreme Dragon, Conquest Dragon
4x Conquering Supreme Dragon, Dragonic Kaiser Warning
2x True Eradicator, Finish Blow Dragon
1x Lightning Dragon Knight, Zorras
1x Air Element, Seabreeze
2x Metal Element, Scryew
1x Dark Element, Dizmel
1x Lightning King Spirit Emperor, Vritra

Brawler

4x Brawler, Big Bang Knuckle Buster
4x Brawler, Big Bang Knuckle Dragon

4x Brawler, Skyhowl Dragon
2x Brawler, Big Bang Slash Buster
2x Brawler, Big Bang Slash Dragon
4x Demonic Dragon Berserker, Chatura

4x Dragon Dancer, Anastasia
4x Secret Fist Brawler, Koukon
4x Mighty Bolt Dragoon
1x Brawler, Wildcloak Dragon

8x Crit (4 Malevolent Djinn, 4x Brawler, Street Fight Dragon)
4x Brawler Draw
4x Brawler Heal
1x Lizard Soldier, Saishin

4x Conquering Supreme Dragon, Conquest Dragon
4x True Brawler, Big Bang Knuckle Turbo
1x Lightning Dragon Knight, Zorras
2x True Eradicator, Finish Blow Dragon
1x Air Element, Seabreeze
2x Metal Element, Scryew
1x Dark Element, Dizmel
1x Lightning King Spirit Emperor, Vritra


Vanquisher

4x Dragonic Vanquisher
3x Blitz Spear Dragoon

4x Demonic Dragon Berserker, Chatura
4x Voltage Horn Dragon
4x Rock Climb Dragoon

4x Dragon Dancer, Anastasia
4x Mighty Bolt Dragoon
4x Chain-Bolt Dragoon
2x Rising Phoenix

1x Malevolent Djinn
4x Lightning of Hope, Reseph
3x Draw
3x Dragon Dancer Vianne
4x Heal

4x Conquering Supreme Dragon, Dragonic Vanquisher "Voltage"
4x Conquering Supreme Dragon, Conquest Dragon
1x Lightning Dragon Knight, Zorras
1-2x Conquering Supreme Dragon, Voltechzapper Dragon
0-1x True Eradicator, Finish Blow Dragon
1x Air Element, Seabreeze
2x Metal Element, Scryew
1x Dark Element, Dizmel
1x Lightning King Spirit Emperor, Vritra

With the release of the G-Guardian mechanic I should note that it's going to be harder for some G-Units to do their thing.  Finish Blow Dragon is going to struggle with Scryew being able to make it easier to 2 pass the thing while Dizmel makes Dragonic Kaiser Warning turns considerably weaker than they used to be.  Thankfully most decks only run him at one so once you've baited the first one out, then you can attempt your final turn push.  With the expansion of the G-Zone Brawler, Kaiser and Vanquisher can all max out on Conquest Dragon and their signature boss strides without question, followed by some number of Zorras and Finish Blows for the first two decks as one is a costless form of pressure that will bait a PG or get some needed binds for Vritra while the other can still potentially kill the opponent if you're reading that they don't have a PG or a G-Guard play.  Vanquisher has the option to run Voltech due to its focus on binding and the card is pretty solid as a 1-2 of that can potentially clear and bind 3+ cards after the deck gets rolling which will make Voltage turns that much stronger.  He also punishes Gear Chronicle players who leave any of their units permabound and will have potential in the Chronofang matchup if that ever becomes a thing.  Lastly Seabreeze needs to be ran as a one of as Narukami has some good GB1 units (Voltage Horn, Vianne) that can punish people who try to play the Grade 2 game.  Vritra will be replaced when we get our clone of Denial Griffen who I hope to got gets to retire something in the front row and bind it upon being placed on Guardian Circle.

Winnipeg Regionals Report - Punting harder than WWE Creative

Just ONE thing.  You just had to do ONE thing.  Alas much like not booking Taker vs Sting at WM last year and now kicking yourselves for it I basically fucked myself out of a likely top due to a really bad mental slip and it's going to be something I won't live down for a long time.

But how did we get here you ask?  Well let me tell you!

For this Regionals I borrowed Matt's Kozmo deck with a list in mind that I felt had solid theory though Ryan was unsure and Evan immediately disagreed despite my reasoning which I thought was sound.  Then when Cody (Winnipeg's best player and one of the best in Canada) came to the place we were staying at and showed his Kozmo deck he ended up saying the exact same things to which I mentally fist pumped as it meant at the very least my line of thinking was correct in that you did not want to run 3 ofs for pilots in the Fire King build as you need more ships to pop and drawing the things will make it harder to combo.  You're better of summoning them off your ships during the EP.  In addition we had both said that maining Farmgirl was awful as you rarely ended up being able to summon it and land a hit as long as Prime Monarch existed among other things.  With that in mind I finalized my main deck and spent a good amount of time tweaking my side before hitting the sack and for once getting more than 3 hours of sleep.  The next day we arrived at the venue, I picked up 2 Magic Deflectors and after a long process of getting my decklist legit the tournament began;

Round 1 - vs Deskbots (2-0)

This was his first Regionals and he definitely showed signs of having the jitters that come with being at an event of this type for the first time.  In addition to that he was playing Deskbots which are a awful no matter what r/yugioh tells you so I stomp him in both games.

Round 2 - vs Kozmo (2-0)

Game 1 he doesn't see Kozmotown and I do which in itself makes winning the mirror match an uphill battle thanks to my considerably higher advantage.  In addition to that I'm certain he didn't see my 2nd Forerunner coming and I had Deflector for his E-Tele to win Game 1.  Game 2 he opens with a Pilot into Darklady set backrow play and shotguns Emptiness during my Standby Phase which I can only assume was out of expecting me to side in Kaiju.  Well in a rare case of meeting one sack draw with another I opened with Raigeki and used it to nick that problem, drop a Wickedwitch and start beating face as he doesn't draw a ship and eventually has to CotH his Lady back which I eventually deal with as I had a hand full of ships and I'm certain I resolve a Tincan at one point.  Basically I opened better both games and won because of it which is pretty much any mirror match in Yu-Gi-Oh! these days.  Skillful play my ass.

Round 3 - vs Yobooboo (2-1)

Game 1 I brick really terribly with a hand of multiple Maxx "C" which are terrible vs his deck and some other unplayable cards.  I set a bluff to see what he would do and scoop without revealing what I was playing in order to get the advantage in siding.  It pays off as he doesn't know what to bring in and I open with an Island combo to make a board that he can't answer and I win in a few turns.  Game 3 is more of a back and forth game as he opened with Macro Cosmos for the third straight time among other floodgates that I eventually answer thanks to Kozmotown allowing me to recycle Slipriders and Pilots while he thankfully never sees Card of Demise and as such his deck becomes the pile of shit it actually is and he loses.

Round 4 - vs Yobooboo (1-1)

Of course I play this cancer twice in a row.  Turns out an entire team of cancer players came that Cody warned us about.  Lucky me.

Anywho we get deck checked and while nothing bad happened the fact that my deck is returned organized as monsters/spells/traps means I have to do a considerable amount of shuffling to ensure I don't brick and sadly my shuffles weren't enough.  I open pretty poorly and have to deal with a turn 1 Emptiness that I can't clear for the life of me.  Worst off I make a brutal misplay by failing to realized I could have used Kozmojo to out the Emptiness by forcing out a Secret Move to self destruct the Emptienss before he entered his attack step and afterwards tag out to a ship he couldn't clear.  Instead I do it on attack declaration and miss my chance.  I eventually concede and we head into a retarded game 2 where Anti-Spell and Iron Wall are active because what the fuck is playing actual Yu-Gi-Oh! right?  God this game is shit.  Regardless we're doing a fine job of not letting the other play as I stick a Dog Fighter on the board which I ran specifically for Demise.dek as the Tokens are bigger than Yosenju and Qlis but this guy ends up taking it off Creature Swap which normally would be GG, right?  No this is where the match becomes silly as during my Standby he makes a token and I summon Forerunner in response to his Iron Wall flip or something.  I just know I have the thing in play.  During his Standby he summons another token followed up by 2 Yosenju but realizes he can't bounce Forerunner with 1 and passes to which I hold my breath as if he gets greedy and summons a third token during my Standby I win the game....and he does!  I mentally fist pump as he has now filled up 4 of his 5 monster zones with monsters and as the result he can't drop multiple Yosenju in order to out my Forerunner and now Darklady off CotH.  He realizes this during his turn and ends up throwing a Token into my Lady in order to clear space to summon his guys which I successfully kill with Lady as he for once doesn't have a Secret Move.  At this point time is looming and my LP is at 7500 so I make it a point to not attack, gain life with Forerunner, negate his monsters with Lady and eventually get a Tincan out, resolve its effect and tribute summon Landwalker to ensure he can't break my board.  At this point we have a crowd around us and people are lolmazed at the game state of his 5 set backrow including Iron Wall and a Tenki that I negated with Deflector, Dog Fighter and 3 tokens to my Anti-Spell, Kozmotown, Forerunner, Darklady and Landwalker.  At this point I've almost got the game in hand and the draw secured but I draw Yaksha for turn and realize if he stays alive for a turn and I draw into Wickedwitch (which thanks to mulligans would happen) I can Utopia the Lightning and beat him to death.  This succeeds as he doesn't attack my set Yaksha and on the following turn I flip it up, summon Witch, make Lightning and clear his board.  He reads him a few times to understand the effect and between his effect, Darklady and me making it clear that I was only going to attack wit Lightning until he died he ended up scooping.

Round 5 - vs Xyz Monarch (1-2)

Game 1 he summoned Majesty's Fiend and I outright lost.  Game 2 I open with Anti-Spell and am able to drop a Dark Destroyer off Tincan backed by Mojo which I use to clear his one of his sets followed by Sliprider killing his other set before I go off and kill him the following turn.  Game 3 I open with a bad hand made worse by his Erebus hitting my Teleport to completely kill my chance of playing around Either/Stormforth which he did have.  On his turn he does more Monarch things, drops Either and another Erebus and OTKs me in what was probably the most sacky game of the tournament.

Round 6 - vs Xyz Monarch (2-1)

Game 1 he drops Majesty's Fiend and I outright lost.  Getting real tired of this shit.  Games 2 and 3 though he opened with triple Brilliant Fusion and I'm going to assume Garnet as he never played them in order to at least get a chump blocker and as such I kill him quickly.

Round 7 - vs Fluffal (0-2)

Game 1 I open with the worst hand of the day; Both Island, mini Garunix, Terraforming and Kozmotown.  I scout to see what deck he plays and scoop it up and move into Game 2 in which I open much better and even do a decent job of keeping him from going completely off as Fluffals can kill you out of nowhere.  I even get to the point where I have an OTK set up and ready to go...except either because I was still tilted from Game 1 or because I got way ahead of myself in excitement I make the misplay of summoning Shark Fortress thinking Cyber Dragon Infinity's attack would be too low to get the OTK...except I don't use his effect!  By the time I realize this it's too late for me to do anything about it so I swing with everything to leave him at 300, leave a Stawman with Dark Destroyer in hand and Dark Lady on the field to make sure that Fluffal Wolf can't nuke my board.  He starts comboing which I expected because Toy Vendor is actually a horribly unbalanced card, the player is apparently a notorious sack and after seeing that I wasn't going to use Wicked Witch to negate his Fluffal Tigers and instead save it for his Wolf...he plays Dark Hole to wipe my board, power through my Forerunner and other ships and I whiff off my tincan search and lose the game as the result.

So because of my deck utterly crapping out when I desperately needed it to not and because of my own stupidity I ended up losing out on what by all accounts a guaranteed top as I know for a fact that if I won Game 2 I very well would have won Game 3 due to playing what was the superior deck and at the risk of sounding like a smug bastard also being a better player.  Unlike the situation with Fat Chris I kept my cool and no salty tears were shed and I was able to keep calm for the most part.  I'd say that a good portion of this came from the fact that my spirit was broken out of what happened and I if I was angry is was the "too pissed to get mad" kind.

After that we went to Movados, played Magnus' Cube in which I made a Lightsworn Deck and brought out Exterio with Metamorphisis.  The next day I picked up a Blue-Eyes deck core and wrote this report.

In regards to the deck I played it ran well for the most part.  Kozmos as I mentioned before have a decently high brick rate and the Island build does not run enough defensive cards to play out of its brick hands which is an aspect I dislike about the deck.  The vaunted Fire King Combos also do NOT happen nearly as often as people hype it up to be.  Instead you're going to just Island a Ship, bring out Strawman and bring back the ship to summon Tincan/Darklady and pass.  In regards to the game itself I think it's utter shit and I don't see that changing until after Nats.  For the love of god Konami just nuke the fucking format.

Props
-Picked up Reapers
-Picked up everything for Blue-Eyes.  Just need Alt. Dragon and Chaos Max
-Despite a losing effort I still finished higher than last time.  17 and under club represent yo!
-Fucking up Deskbots.  I'm going to say right now that anyone who plays that deck competitively is a shit player.
-My Cube deck was sweet
-Picking up OTS foils


Slops
-In 3 days I already have no more tolerance of Dat Boi memes.
-Not topping, obviously
-Misplays
-Bricking
-Losing to Floodgates featuring monsters
-That Round 7 punt.  I might as well call myself McCallum.
-Ryan cutting a guy off in the parking lot.  I'm still speechless.
-No Olive Garden.  I was so hyped...

Quick update

Had some free time that normally I'd have spent shooting discussion videos/deck profiles but since I'm still not 100% over my cold talking for a prolonged amount of time wasn't an option.  So instead I redid one of the sections on here that was going to be a Wikipedia style database for X-Stars...except I haven't been bothered to work on any fiction for over a year now so it was literally sitting there doing nothing and as such it's GONE.  Now it's just a page full of all the OG cards ideas I came up with over the last few years that I'll update every now and then as I find some of my old jot notes from the Edmonton Trip a few years ago.  You can find it here if you want to check out the initial batch of Abyssal and Storm Deity (now remade as a "combo on me?  I'll punish you bro" deck) cards.

As for the next part as I'm sure it's apparent by now my lack of desire to Yu-Gi-Oh! has not gone away.  If anything it's only gotten worse as the direction the game is going in addition to just how fucking whiny the player base has gotten keeps pushing me away.  At this point I have no doubt in my mind that once the Movie Pack and the rest of the Blue-Eyes Support comes out I'm done putting any money into the game and the following Regionals I go to will probably be the last as a player.  I'll still keep involved in the game as a judge since Locals is going to need somebody with a head on their shoulders to handle that stuff but when it's getting to the point that Matt is talking about quitting and Ryan hates the best deck in the game then you know things are going downhill.

YGO Locals Report - Headaches abound

Before I go into this I just wanna say ofc I'm starting to develop a cold 3 weeks before an upcoming Regionals.  Hopefully I can get over it in time as I've always believed that you don't go on a road trip with people when you're ill as it's kind of a dick move to give everyone in the car and the venue what you've been putting up with.

That being said on this particular day I wasn't feeling 100% due to having a headache that lasted through most of the day so I was not in the mood to do a whole lot of thinking which immediately ruled out Burning Abyss, Pendulum and Xyz Monarchs as decks to play.  Well it's a good thing I opted to play Kozmos (at Ryan's insistence after testing yesterday) as it's going to be the best deck post SHIV once Fire King Island, Darklady and Darkwalker are released so it's for the best I try to get as much practice as I can and figure out my matchups along the way.  So after building a deck off of what Matt had and borrowing a 3rd Mojo and 2 Strikes from Ryan I had a list in mind that was based on Tincan/Soartroopers interactions as I felt it raised the deck's limited ceiling somewhat.

Round 1 - vs Trap Xyz.dek (2-0)

First game in a tournament setting with the deck and I...brick.  Like drawing multiple Kozmotowns, big ships and Mojo/Calls but no pilots for turns.  He lands a couple Assault Halberd hits before I get fed up and Twin Twister my field spell and one of his backrow which turns out to be one of those shitty trap monsters from a recent set.  Excuse me wut?  Burgesstoma aren't out yet and even then that deck is garbage as fuck.  Anyway I get my ball rolling and kill him in a couple turns before realizing I could have done it faster through Farmgirl.  Gentlemen behold, the one person who can misplay with Kozmo even harder than Woodhouse!

Game 2 I open all 3 Kozmotowns and draw jackshit for a few turns which was beginning to annoy me.  Allen and Woodhouse open legit bonkers in every game I've had against them but I draw fucking aids?  Fuck off.

Anyway I eventually start seeing Tincans after taking a few hits and establish big ships backed by Mojos which is gg vs any rogue deck as Ryan has pointed out repeatedly.

Round 2 - vs Domain Monarchs (2-1)

He wins the dieroll, goes first, summons Erebus and drops Vanity's Fiend + March to my hand of Kozmotown, Pilot + Ships with Twin Tisters so I scoop it up without revealing what I'm playing and side appropriately.  Turns out he's playing a different (bad) build that maxes out on both fiends, Pot of Duality and as you could tell March so I bring in Restricts and hand traps.  Don't see either in Game 2 but I go off hard and kill him in a couple turns so it was irrelevant.  Game 3 on the other hand was aids as he dropped a Chaos Hunter that I couldn't clear for the life of me for several turns and had to sit behind a Wickedwitch backed by Mask of Restrict.  Thankfully he didn't side in any backrow hate so he couldn't clear the Mask at all while I finally drew into a Tincan and managed to put a Dark Destroyer in the graveyard and Call it back to out his Hunter.  He summons another one but since my card peen is bigger I beat him down with it and s-l-o-w-l-y win the game because Prime Monarch makes it difficult to get hits in when you only run 5 bigships that can beat it over.

Round 3 - vs DMoC Turbo (2-1)

So in a move that blindsided me Ryan opted to build something he saw off of Aznpersuasion's channel (who I find to be a reputable yugituber btw) as the concept of it looked neat.  That being said as he'll obviously go into (in possibly great detail) on his blog rogue vs Kozmo is an abysmal matchup because of how badly designed the bigships are.  I won't go so far as to say the matchup was one sided though as he does have the advantage of my inexperience with the deck, my tendency to brick when playing good decks and our matches usually drag out long enough that he has a chance at winning if I wind up being the first of us to make a glaring misplay that the other can capitalize on.  As such our match eventually goes into time as Game 1 I open complete aids where I have to yolo Allure and I get rewarded, but my hand is still poop and I have to mulligan...into an equally bad hand.  I'm talking summon Farmgirl set backrow pass bad.  He promptly kicks my ass.

Game 2 is a bit hazy as I know I flip up Mask of Restrict though I'm not sure how much of an effect it had.  I know I eventually win it which gives him the chance to go first game 3 and he goes off hard.  He creates an incredibly powerful board that I spend most of the game trying to fight through thanks to Prime Monarch allowing him to survive what would be normally gameshot turns.  I eventually kill him after drawing into Soartroopers while having another one in the grave with Farmgirl so I'm able do rank 3 shenanigans.

Top 8 - vs DMoC Turbo (2-0)

This match on the other hand was straight up BS on my part as I inadvertantly channeled my inner Armando and sacked the shit out of Ryan off of my mulligan and establish a Dark Destroyer backed by traps he can't clear.  Game 2 he opens poorly and is never able to get Prime Monarch in the grave so I kill him in a few turns.

After this I contemplate dropping and heading to BK with the others as I was getting hungry and my headache was becoming harder to deal with.  Had I been paired up with any of our Monarch players in top cut I would have done it.  Instead I was paired up with Derrick's D/D/Ds.

Top 4 - vs D/D/D (0-2)

This match I straight up punted.  Between several misplays and straight up brainfarting I took 2 games I had no business losing and I wind up getting utterly shitstomped.  My tilt was pretty real by the end of it so I was only too glad to be done with the day and so I was.

Props
-Flipping Mask of Restrict on Monarchs.  Not so fun when you can't play Yu-Gi-Oh!, isn't it?
-Shoutouts to Evan for coming in after 1:30.

Slops
-Kozmo are bullshit.  I honestly did not enjoy playing the deck as much as I thought I would.  Imo Magicians and BA are more of my thing.  Unfortunately post SHIV Kozmo are so good that if I want to get my invite I'm pretty much required to play the deck.
-Proving that you CAN misplay with a deck that is extremely simple to pilot, though I won't deny that it's play ceiling is definitely higher than that of Qlis and Tellarknights.  It's just that unfortunately the best way to play the deck is Tincan set backrow and hope it gets you there.
-The level of awful my headache was by the end of the day.  I'm JUST over it as of now.

CFV Locals Report - Bound For Glory

Man it's getting harder to come up with entertaining introductions, compelling matches or even good finishes these days.
So that means the title of this report is more than appropriate.

Anywho I had a chance to play at locals and decided to do so while also hoping to grab some millennium packs which I did but pulled jank.  Also pulled jank from Hi Speed Riders (Terrortop fishing FAIL) and moved some stuff before the tournament began and my choice ended up being G-Narukami as I had forgotten to bring my dice so Neo Nectar wasn't an option and Vanquisher.dek is one of 3 Narukami variants that I haven't played in a tournament yet (the other two are Nobles and Dungaree) so I decided to pilot that.  Turns out I was rewarded as nobody played Sanc Guard or Link Joker so we were all allowed to have fun for once.

Round 1 - vs Raizer (2-0)

He doesn't see Cat Butler in either game.  That's literally the only way this deck can win.  It also helps that I landed a few Chatura hits and got him to 7+ cards bound going into my Voltage turns and either killed him or ran him out of hand.

Round 2 - vs Diablo/Darkspray (2-1)

Game 1 I have to G-Assist for my Grade 3 Ride but hit enough draw support to get out of it and eventually Voltage him while he's at 5 cards bound to kill him.  Game 2 I get a giant Voltage play that he doesn't have enough cards to guard with and takes all 3 hits like a champ...and 6th damage heals out of it and proceeds to crit me the next turn.

3 weeks now.  3 weeks in a row that I've legit killed someone but a 6th damage heal saves them the game and I get killed on the following turn.  WHY.

That said he draws aids Game 3 and I establish my board of multiple Chain Bolts with Chatura/Voltage Horn/Rock Climb so his bind zone is pretty large by the time I'm able to Voltage him and flip a crit for good measure.

Round 3 - vs Vortimer/Diablo (0-2)

Playing against this guy is very frustrating as he will often say he never gets lucky, complain about trigger wars never going his way but proceeds to trigger sack me all the time.  Ofc this also happens to be the match where my deck decided to do it's best Monarch impression and I draw aids in both games while he's able to rush, play the grade 2 game while I can't and in the case of Game 2 hits a trigger every turn.  The fuck am I supposed to do against this level of bullshit when in all of my attacking turns he hits either a Heal that goes off or a draw trigger and thus going into my Grade 3 turn I've got 2 cards in hand to his 10?  After him checking the 4th draw trigger I literally picked up my cards and walked away because I was not having anymore of this shit.  Playing it out would have only made me more frustrated and potentially super salt.

So that was it.  I wound up finishing 2nd overall and the Vanquisher deck isn't THAT bad in play now that I've had time to think on it.  In fact I'm gonna go so far as to say Vanquisher has tremendous potential depending on what it's third set of support does as Voltage is a very scary card and if Bushi gives Narukami more ways to bind your opponent's cards by your second stride then it could end up being as potent as Diablo or at the very least Bloom.dek.  It's obviously got its failings in that as a G-Deck you lose to rush/gradelocking and as a Dragon Empire deck it doesn't generate advantage which in G-Era is a huge problem.  Taking cards away from the opponent is as Jordan said archaic as fuck as Kagero/Narukami/Nubatama aim to spend 1-2 CB to remove 1-2 cards a turn...but all of the best decks generate +5s for 1-2 CB so what the fuck life even?

Brawlers are the one exception to this as Turbo can wipe a board for CB1/SB1 which as ridiculous as this may sound is actually the perfect cost.  Given the progression of this game's power creep and how easy it is for Paladins to fill the board up off of next to nothing Turbo's power is just strong enough to counterbalance it.  Oh no the X killed a column and another front row!  Well I guess I could call my Violinist who calls Benon who calls Richard and get a draw and render what you did to be pointless.  Oh no Big Bang Turbo killed my board!  ...shit that's actually not good.  Now I have to actually throw down my hand to continue.

It's really hard for me to put what I want to say into words but basically if your deck's focus is on field control and you aren't able to consistently kill 3 or more units for cheap then your deck is awful.  This is why The X, Blademaster, Perdition, Vanquisher, Eradicator and Kaiser all suck in the format and will be joined by Dragonic Overlord the Legend.

Props
-Playing Narukami is always a good time for me
-50000+ RG Lanes were a thing today
-Picked up a 4th Big Bang Turbo and some trade fodder

Slops
-The bricks were too real round 3.
-My pack pulls were atrocious

YGO Locals Report - Fiery Finish

Whoa man another YGO Locals report.  It's almost like as if I'm getting back into the game.  I sort of am.  The issues I mentioned a few reports ago are still present but the banlist somewhat addresses it in that the deck that tries to make the unbreakable board and kill you the next is gone and as such everything else in the format will no longer have to build themselves to beat DracoPals.  I'm curious to see where this goes.

Anywho I really wanted to play some form of Burning Abyss today as for some reason my interest had been piqued in the last couple of weeks.  Probably because the deck is complicated to play compared to the other options I had on the table.  That and Ryan had literally everything I needed to borrow in order to build Big Monster BA which imo is the best variant going forward.

My reasoning is that most decks are aiming to blind first which Big BA is fine with.  You can build your deck to go second and break through it or if you're forced to go first make Beatrice with a Maxx "C" and pass.  Beatrice + Maxx "C" is strong by the way.  I also favour the pure BA over PK Fire due to its greater consistency as the latter deck runs more cards that can wind up dead in your hand which I'm not a fan of.  Lastly the deck doesn't need Solemn Strikes to compete which is fine by me.

So with my deck hastily built and almost no experience playing it outside of 3 DevPro games where my opponents were all bad I was in for an adventure;

Round 1 - vs Synchrons (2-0)

Some baddie who plays Main Character decks.  Not much to see here.  Granted he did serve as a chance to practice my play routes but lets be real here.  Yugi/Jaden/Yusei/Yuma decks are fucking terrible.  Yuya gets a pass due to Performapals and Magicians not sucking atm.  Anyway I fucko his board with Beatrice and when he tried to combo under Maxx "C" I decided to E-Con his Hyper Librarian so that I'd get 2 Draws off per synchro.  He promptly stopped after summoning Jet Warrior and bouncing it.  Then I killed him.  The other game Downerd Magician's piercing gets in there.

Round 2 - Monarchs (0-2)

Game 1 he has Stormforth into Majesty's Fiend and I do not have an out so I scoop.  Game 2 I'm pretty sure I straight up punted as I didn't realize Pilgrim Dante's discard triggers if I ram it into my opponent's monster and I probably could have won the game off it as he had only 1 card in hand and I had been doing a fine job of running him out of resources.  Unfortunately he unbricks and kills me.

Round 3 - Magicians (2-0)

Did I ever mention how this asshole that nobody likes was my first opponent in this game when I started in 2010?  How the hell do you stay a scrub after 6 years of playing!?

That aside I just destroy him.  Game 1 I got in there with 3 Dante pokes for 7500, made Beatrice then on his Standby dumped Barbar to burn him for game.  Game 2 he tries to Wavering Eyes after using Pendulum Call and passes with an open board.  Unfortunately I'm 1400 short of killing him but I've got Twin Twisters to break his scales and he dies.

Top 8 - vs Kozmo (2-0)

"How in the hell does this deck beat Kozmo?" I asked myself when building this deck.  Honestly I still don't know but somehow I managed to beat Allen game 1 despite him opening strongly.  Granted I was able to set up Dante/Cir shenanigans while he never saw Kozmotown game 1 and only resolved 1 Mojo so I was able to drag out the game enough that I could eventually Raigeki his board and kill him.  Game 2 I resolve System Down after forcing out a Warning and a Strike and beat him to Barbar range which he realized as I had one in graveyard, 2 Dante on the board and a Libic as a material.

Top 4 - vs Kozmo (2-0)

And then we have the idiot who runs Mistake in Tincan turbo here.  On the plus side he doesn't own Strikes and/or many Mojos so his backrows were things I could work around while I also opened with Maxx "C" to his E-Tele which is always nice.  Game 1 was a long, dragged out affair as I couldn't fight through his damned monsters while he didn't out my Utopic Future for whatever reason.  I mean I guess if you don't like winning you can not try to search Kozmotown, Kozmojo and Goodwitch with the Tincan that I couldn't beat over for 4 turns.  In the end he pays himself down to Barbar range so I dump one and burn him for game.  Game 2 I have the Maxx "C" again and I break his board by making him Kozmojo his ship to out my guy, then I get rid of his Wickedwitch with a Kaiju and clear his board.  He allures and loses his hand and I draw System Down so he's done.

Finals - vs Dracopals (0-2)

Being on the other side of this deck I can definitely see why people complain about Pendulums.  It really is difficult to grind out a win vs the deck unless you can break their scales which I sadly don't do either game.  I can also see why Face-Off is getting the hit here too as the card is literally bullshit incarnate at this point and Wavering Eyes has become a get out of jail card for correcting mismatched scale hands.

So yeah Ryan kind of savages me here as I expected.  I pretty much needed to open the literal nuts to out a typical Dracopal board with this deck given my experience level with it and that didn't happen in both games.  Also in Game 2 I found out I was running 4 Sea Kaiju so oops I'm immediately done.

After that we went to Rock Creek which I'm immediately regretting.  Oh god.

Props
-Eyyy I played
-Eyyy I got into finals
-Eyyy I savaged Kody
-Eyyy I beat not one but two Kozmo decks with a deck that in theory can't win Game 1.
-Eyyy I E-Conned a Librarian while having Maxx "C" in play

Slops
-FUCK my mills were bad at times.  Like milling 2 Cirs or milling a Scarm when I had one in hand to use for summoning Beatrice
-FUCK Misplays.  Oh I know I made them
-FUCK Monarchs
-FUCK Me.

CFV Locals Report - Garden Hazard

Not much of a lead up into this one as this locals was relatively tame outside of the obligatory "STNAD MY AVARTAR BLAZSTER BURRREIdO!" nonsense from the loud people who conveniently sit on another side of the room most of the time.

That said this time around I decided to spice things up a bit and play one of my decks that I always say I'm going to build and play in a tournament but never do in Ranunculus (aka Ahsha.dek) due to the fact that the set 6 support is REALLY good and pretty much makes it the de facto best Neo Nectar deck now.  Bloom in itself is actually a very strong ability due to most units not having a once per turn restriction which makes cloning turns really powerful.  Furthermore since they trigger when a named unit is called at any time you no longer care about drawing your clone targets, your cards will bloom anyway.  Furthermore because Bloom has a trigger and a PGG in its name they're searchable through the effect of Ihnes on ride or on call skill which is really helpful in setting up your defenses against aggro decks.  Lastly Ahsha's new support is also really potent as Glorious Bloom can buff your units by 15000-20000, Thuria enables so many bloom plays and Primavera can now let you swing for ridiculous numbers.  It also doesn't completely die to control (Narukami) as you do have the ability to rebuild your board after a nuke (you just can't do it consistently) and fight back.

Anywho with my deck built and no sign of Chingo it looked like today would be a hilariously fun day as long as I dodged Ryan as he was playing Messiah and I wanted nooooooo part of that.  How would it start?  Well;

Round 1 - vs Neo Nectar/Ahsha (2-1)

First game with the deck in a tourney and it's the fucking mirror match.  WELL OKAY.  Worse yet it's against Armando's GF who is just as much of a trigger sack as he is, though her sacking comes in the form of flipping crits on her G1/G2 attacking turns.  Still it basically means games against her usually involve having to play out of being down 5 damage to 1 going into her first stride turn.

Anyway we play the swing with 1-2 lanes game and she ends up getting first stride but I'm able to guard well enough while I stride into Primavera to push her to five damage, then kill her on my following turn as I had searched out defensive cards off Ihne's Bloom Skill.  Game 2 we both end up having to G-Assist to ride to 3 (we both hit Ahsha thank god) and she comes at me with a Dream Spinning Ahsha of low value while I've got "the combo" Primavera which I'm going to take a moment to explain;

-Primavera on attack allows you to put 5 normal units from drop zone to the top of the deck, then discard to call up to 4 copies of two cards you have in play.
-Bloom Units trigger when a same name unit is called on top of them as per the double Dorint + Blaster Dark ruling.
-With this in mind if you have Primavera clone Katerina + Thuria, you will call "four" Katerinas which will cause the first one to bloom 4 times (+16000 to the Katerina B, C and the 2 Thuria that are Katerina D and E) while the two new ones being called will bloom 3 times (+24000 to Katerina B, C, D and E) for a total of 10 Blooms triggered with that play.
-This will give your newly called units a minimum of +40000 and thus your rearguard lanes are 96000.  This is the most literal case of PG or die out there.

So anyway I get the combo off after attacking with an 11k and 13k RG lanes to start with while my VG gets PGd.  Rip.  Anyway she can't guard the rearguard lanes so she takes both hits and I kill her...except she 6th damage heals, rips a Stride for turn and double crits me because I checked no PGs and couldn't guard her Dream Spinning Ahsha.

What.

So for those keeping track this is now two weeks in a row in back to back games that I've literally been fucked out of a win due to a miracle heal.  Ugh.  Game 3.

This time around I get the option of first stride after we trade some blows and we're both sitting at pretty low damage,  My Dream Spinning turn puts her to I think 3-4 while her Dream Spinning isn't nearly as potent due to not having anything to attack with as she can't draw 2s this game and still runs Pia (which are horribly outdated btw) who sit in the back.  I live it and stride into Glorious Bloom and make my Green Shots super buff and swing with a 40k line, 60k Vanguard line that I flip a crit with and a 60k RG line.  Glorious Bloom is stupid.

Round 2 - vs Gear Chronicle (2-1)

Speaking of Armando, here he is and our games tend to go one of two ways now; one of us (usually him) critsacks so hard that it's usually over after first stride or I'm able to live the initial wave of Vanguard bullshit and grind out a win after a very long, hard fought game where I play my ass off.  Game 1 was this as I basically had to take small victories here and there by getting him to 3-4 damage so that the next turn I'd either kill him or leave his hand as shit, repeat because he checked a heal and finally just kill him with Glorious after living not one but two Nextage pushes.  Game 2 my hand is not the kind I needed to deal with Nextage while at 4 damage so I'm forced to no guard and hope I don't get critted.  I do.  Game 3 on the other hand I completely destroy him as I drop Primavera and pull off the combo and check 2 crits while I'm at it so my Rearguard lanes wind up being 101000. to his no PG hand and 5 damage.

Round 3 - vs Messiah (0-2)

Couldn't dodge Ryan after all and things went as I expected.  Link Joker regardless of the variant is just a horrendous matchup.  Like we're talking damn near auto lose since this clan relies on having same named units in play to gain buffs and well...locking kind of fucks that.  In addition every Link Joker Deck in Regina seems to be blessed with the ability to randomly critsack good players (and fizzle vs baddies) and I'd like to think I'm one of the better players in not just this city, but in Western Canada.

Not that it really mattered here as long story short we both tried to play the grade 2 game since whoever gets first stride here wins and he ultimately got that in both games.  After that it just usually snowballed as while I didn't outright die to any of his Amnesty Messiah turns or even his Excelics pushes, in both games I wound up having to burn basically everything in my hand to guard his stuff and that also meant throwing away my combo pieces and thus my own stride turns were utter shit.  Game 2 I get at least a Glorious Bloom play off to make my 3 Katerina's 26000 but aside from that I knew I was not going to win this round at all.

And that was it.  Jordan bought packs and pulled a Nightrose which Ryan got, Marco pulled an SP Vortmer and I pulled my 6th copies of Ihnes and Liliga. RIP.

Props
-Got to play Neo Nectar in a tournament for once.  In this one tournament I also proved that I'm our best Neo player and subsequently raised the bar for the 3 other Ahsha players to reach.
-Played and won the Neo Nectar Mirror.  It was silly
-Got the Primavera combo off.  Multiple times.  This is also silly as despite being a valid win condition that the deck can pull out of fucking nowhere, it's not the win condition (multiple Glorious turns are) meaning this deck doesn't play like some linear ass scrublord deck that tries to shoehorn itself into its one and only good play and hope to god that single gimmick of your deck gets there and if it doesn't you've automatically lost.  No Ahsha actually can do things outside of Break Riding Bad End Dragg-I MEAN striding Primavera.
-Completely destroyed two of the most crit sacky people of our locals with a deck that by the way it operates doesn't sack due to the fact it's constantly putting non triggers back into the deck.

Slops
-Misplays.  They happened a few times.
-Obligatory bricking that comes in Vanguard.
-Those games against Ryan.  I just got destroyed and usually I can put up a better fight than what I did and take off at least a stock or 2.  This was the equivalent to getting Rest'd 4 straight times.

CFV Win A Box Report - We be in there? Narr....

Third time's the charm right?  After all I've been to three of these now and have proceeded to miss top cut due to dubious circumstances *cough trigger sacking cough* so clearly I'm due for a break, right?

Sadly no.  Sadly no.

The day started off well as I in a shot in the dark manner decided I'd try to yolo build Seven Seas Granblue if I could and as fortune would have it I was able to borrow just about everything I needed off five people to build the deck minus Waterspout Djinns which I decided to offset through running 2 starters; 1 Peter the Ghostie and 1 Undying Departed, Grenache.  The build itself was based on a profile Team No Guard put up from a few years ago whose theory I applied here;

I should note though that since we're now in Stride Format and that Granblue has better units to call from drop zone I opted to run Ruin Shades to turbo mill and ultimately set up my Nightmist Strides.

Round 1 - vs Diablo/Dark Spray Dragon (2-0)

In both games my opponent drew hands that definitely could have been better while I drew hands that let me resolve multiple Banshee/Cutlass to build up hand, then play the game of call value units from drop zone and replace them with Slash Shade/Nightcrow when I could in order to maintain a board or as I'm calling it "playing the Nightmist game".  Between my 4 attacks per turn and decent hand (of 3 PGs) I'm able to win well before the danger of deckout presents itself.

Round 2 - vs Thing Blaster (0-2)

Game 1 I had to G-Assist for a Grade 1 Ride and miss it so I proceed to scoop it up given that I was up against Royals.  Game 2 I get my ball rolling and play damage control but ultimately lose to a mixture of misplays, him having 2 PGs during my Nightrose turn and running out of Heals while he's now at enough counterblast to get multiple Thing Savers off.  I scoop.

Round 3 - vs Witches (2-0)

This matchup started off hilarious as I kept letting my hollow'd units die so he couldn't fucko with them...but then I forgot Phantom Blaster Diablo existed and almost get punished for it.  Luckily this guy isn't Derrick so I don't get Critsacked at 3 damage, live and push his shit in with a 5 attack Nightrose turn.  Game 2 he's able to get his one Legion off that makes me call 0s from my deck but I wind up calling Banshee and Ghostie Family so the damage was nelgible while I kept terrorizing him with Negrorook into Slash Shade swings and maintaining a field so I wouldn't lose to Diablo.  Needing 30 k for my RG lanes plus a PG or no Guard my Vanguard for several turns will take a toll on slower decks such as his.

Round 4 - vs Revengers (0-2)

Crit.  Sacking.

Like I really wish I could go into more detail on this but Revengers are one of the most linear, auto pilot decks out there at this point and we've all played against them enough to know how the matchup goes.  Maintain hand/board so that you can guard PBD/RFD/Diablo, kill off their own RGs so that they have to call units down to eat and hope to god they don't sack you.  Thankfully this guy is not a pleb who runs 12 crit because in order to play Raging Form now you have to draw into your combo pieces.  But no I've gotta crit them to death yoloswagon360.

And as the result both games were back and forth as I tried to regulate his damage so that he couldn't get maximum value but also get him to a point where I felt safe pushing but eventually he would either break my guard with double crits or in the case of Game 2 after I put lethal damage on board he 6th damage heals twice and I lose to deckout.  Like fuck RNG.  Seriously.

So that was the day.  I ended up missing out on top cut again due to loltriggers which was annoying as the box that was the prize for this tournament ended up having a Secret Rare Ahsha which is 150 CAD at the time of this post.  On the other hand I had a blast playing Granblue and the Seven Seas deck in itself is a different kind of beast from Nightrose.  Its fast, can generate soft and surefire pluses and has a ridiculous stride game.  I can definitely see why the deck has taken off in Japan as it's legit as fuck.  Not looking to playing mirrors though.

Props
-First player to play Granblue at our locals in like forever and I'm gonna go on a limb and say I've already played the deck better than most others.  Suck it "I played this deck before it was cool" hipsters!
-Definitely the first to play Seven Seas at our locals.
-My Decklist name: "Salty 7c's."
-Picked up a Nightrose G4 and a Negrolazy
-Fucking destroying Witches.

Slops
-My Game 1 against Ryan
-My Game 2 against Evan.
-My pack pulls were godawful.