This locals was relatively uneventful with the exceptions of a few people normally not seen showing up. Their presence more or less influenced what I was going to play as our resident Spike player has a style that Brawlers can't really take advantage of which is only make plays when he's at 5 damage whereas Bermuda Triangle doesn't call much of a board for me to punch. So I went with Gear Chronicle instead and ran a more "balanced" build as far as G-Zone goes.
Round 1 - vs Ripples (2-1)
When the hell did Woodhouse get back into the game? Well anyway he's (mis)playing Jordan's Ripple deck today and wins the first game due to me being gradestuck for about 5 turns wheras Game 2 I dunk him with Nextage and Game 3 I'm Gradestuck again but due to his misplays I'm able to not get killed and steal the win through Gear comboes.
Round 2 - vs Harmony Bermuda Triangle (2-0)
Both games played out the same; I got first Stride into a Metallia Phoenix that usually disabled his setup, then flipped a crit during my Nextage turn and killed him with a fat Chronojet to his hand of all G1s and above.
Round 3 - vs Memesaurs (1-2)
Megamonkey in one single tournament has invalidated every single Tachikaze player to come before him and this matchup was very close. The first game he got to stride into Gluttony Dogma and while I live the turn my hand is so shit afterwards that I'm never able to take the game back after my Nextage fails to close the game out and since I at the time could only Nextage once per game I pretty much lost any chance to close the gap and win. Game 2 on the other hand he has a weaker start and I'm able to set the pace and never stop as my Phoenix puts in work and Nextage kills him. Then Game 3 happens where I have to G-Assist for 3 turns and while I ultimately make a match of it, I just fall short of the comeback as I'm unable to pull off the vaunted double Heal out of 6th damage like our other Gear Chronicle player around here.
And that was that. I finished third while Memesaurs got second and Altmile got 1st. After this several of us decided to give Relay Fight a try and I was paired up with Chingo and Brando. After considering our options for decks I convinced them to play Chaos and Thing Saver respectively while I played Brawlers. My reasoning was simple; Chaos as 1st Fighter has the ability to lock the opponent down and draw cards for the 2nd fighter to take advantage of. The second fighter just happened to be me and well Brawlers definitely benefit from having a sizeable hand and loaded drop zone. Our last fighter was Brando and between Chingo and I there was no way he wouldn't have the soul or CB needed to kill the opponent with triple Thing Saver Dragon. How'd this play out? Well...
Round 1 - vs Ripple, Claret Sword, Sanctuary Guard
Chaos vs Ripples is already an auto win so it was really just a matter of how long the game dragged on and Woodhouse made the mistake of trying to win a losing battle when he should have let himself die with a decent hand. As the result the two play a back and fourth game at 4 damage with Woodhouse's board being locked down before he finally dies. Derrick comes in with Claret but only has a shit hand and as the result is unable to stride. He beats Chingo and gets one attack off on me but by that point I had a 15 card hand and go straight for the throat with Conquest Dragons and win. Fatty Ding Dong comes in last with Sanc and he makes a Sanc Guard push which I fend off then go into Legion and put Malevolent Djinn into the soul before punching his board. He kills me but that's fine as I leave Brando with a sizable hand, 4 unflipped damage and a 7 card soul for Thing Saver Dragon. Brando kills him after 3 Legion attacks.
Round 2 - vs Gear Chronicle, Angel Feather, Spike Bros
Chingo gets paired up against Jordan and the two have it out. This one goes a bit quicker as Chingo hits a few triggers before Jordan can get to Nextage which is good as Arpy comes in and as I expected uses Raphael's GB2 skill to take the damage lead. Chingo's able to close the gap eventually after he locks his board down through Universe and Big Crunch and Arpy thankfully doesn't know the wombo combo for Angel Feathers so it takes a while for him to eventually win it. Then I step in with a 12 card hand (lots of triggers in it tho) and proceed to Legion, Conquest, Turbo in that order with Kokon's in play so that Arpy ends up using way more cards to block than intended before dying and forcing Tommu to come in with a much smaller hand than Spike Brothers would have liked to work with. He makes a stride play which I block not because of wanting to live but because I had checked multiple PGGs at this point and I wanted to unflip as much damage as possible before dying. I stride into my last Turbo to punch away his board and force him to near death before he Crush rushes me and I'm done. Brando comes in and I've set him up to get 4 Thing Saver Dragon attacks off provided he doesn't draw into multiples. He does and is forced to make due with 2 but that's still enough to kill off Spikes after they've made their one big play and we win.
Victory goes to team Barqs! We DO have bite!
And that was that. We finished just as the store closed so after talking a bit of theory about Relay Fight we all split. Honestly I find the format to be VERY fun and as a once in a while kind of thing I'm all for it. Relay Fight actually adds another dimension to this game which is sorely needed as the way you go about deck building, your playstyle and how your stuff interacts with your team mates is really cool. Now there are people out there who'll shit on the format as its gimmicky but this game is all about the gimmicky stuff. Official events are for the most part not one vs one but 3 vs 3 and I would not be surprised if Bushiroad intends for Relay fight to be the new standard for these things. Now I do love me some one vs one as in that environment most of the time it comes down to who is the better raging sacklord but I also like the comradery aspect that comes with Team Fight and Relay Fight. And above all else the format is fun as hell.
Props
-Flipping my Royal Paladin stuff after buying them for really cheap. Does this make me a baller/vendor now? Not really. I find the idea of trying to be a baller/vendor in Regina laughable.
-Played Relay Fight
-Smashed everyone else at Relay fight. Hurray for the synergy between Link Joker, Narukami and Royal Paladin
-Witnessing the power of Memesaurus Rex
Slops
-My 1st Place streak with Gear Chronicles was broken.
Saturday 27 February 2016
Saturday 20 February 2016
CFV Win a Box Report - Too Many Crits
Well this was a letdown. Won't go into too much detail in this post because there really isn't much for me to talk about today. We had a Win-A-Box tournament and I entered with my best deck (Brawlers) and I got savaged due to this being one of those days where the Vanguard Gods simply don't like you and want you to go down hard. Like I swear I got buried harder than Sandow today;
Round 1 - vs Gear Chronicle (0-2)
Game 1 he strides into Fiery March Colossus and swings while preventing me from using my hand of 3 Perfect Guards and he flips a crit while I'm at 4 damage. Do I heal? No.
Game 2 he strides into Colossus and does it again except I'm at 3 damage so I opt to no guard it. He flips 2 crits and I don't check a Heal.
Round 2 - vs Gear Chronicle (2-1)
Game 1 he has to G-Assist and his deck is bad so I thrash him.
Game 2 he flips 2 crits to put me at 5 damage to his 1, has Guard for days and I only see 1 Heal out of 8 Checks so there's no way I can close the gap before he flips another crit and I die.
Game 3 he G-Assists and I thrash him again, even pulling off a double crit of my own, except he gets a Miracle Heal. I kill him regardless because Conquest Dragon.
Round 3 - vs Perdition Dragons (1-2)
Game 1 I have to G-Assist but because he's playing Kagero which is arguably my best matchup I'm still able to make it a game as I play damage control with him (ie forcing him to take damage to enable his retire cards, but in doing so he loses his starter to Saishin and thus Chatura is more likely to hit) but unfortunately I don't make the complete comeback and lose because of some wonky draws.
Game 2 I don't brick and just savage him. I'm talking countering his rush with Skyhowl, then rushing him back with Chatura and Slash Dragon and finally wiping out his hand with Turbo and Conquest. Basically like how Kagero vs Brawlers is supposed to play out.
Game 3 Is much more back and forth as I did not have a hand that would allow me to adequately maintain a push thus I was forced to attack with my VG only for a few turns while he hits 2 heals which is a problem. By the time I do start getting things rolling (ie I'm able to call my Rearguards) I check absolute garbage and am forced to no guard a hit and hope to god he doesn't crit me and he does. I don't hit a heal despite shuffling several into the deck for legion and I'm done.
A heartbreaking loss as I played my ass off to try and keep in the tournament but as I already mentioned there are just days where Vanguard hates you and this was one of them. I didn't bother to stick around to see how the top cut played out though as by the way it looked like none of the good players were in it.
At least the one positive to come out of this was my Reckless Rampage boxes were decent for pulls. I got nothing I wanted of course but I was able to move everything of value within minutes. The path to becoming Ninpo-Ryuu has begun.
Round 1 - vs Gear Chronicle (0-2)
Game 1 he strides into Fiery March Colossus and swings while preventing me from using my hand of 3 Perfect Guards and he flips a crit while I'm at 4 damage. Do I heal? No.
Game 2 he strides into Colossus and does it again except I'm at 3 damage so I opt to no guard it. He flips 2 crits and I don't check a Heal.
Round 2 - vs Gear Chronicle (2-1)
Game 1 he has to G-Assist and his deck is bad so I thrash him.
Game 2 he flips 2 crits to put me at 5 damage to his 1, has Guard for days and I only see 1 Heal out of 8 Checks so there's no way I can close the gap before he flips another crit and I die.
Game 3 he G-Assists and I thrash him again, even pulling off a double crit of my own, except he gets a Miracle Heal. I kill him regardless because Conquest Dragon.
Round 3 - vs Perdition Dragons (1-2)
Game 1 I have to G-Assist but because he's playing Kagero which is arguably my best matchup I'm still able to make it a game as I play damage control with him (ie forcing him to take damage to enable his retire cards, but in doing so he loses his starter to Saishin and thus Chatura is more likely to hit) but unfortunately I don't make the complete comeback and lose because of some wonky draws.
Game 2 I don't brick and just savage him. I'm talking countering his rush with Skyhowl, then rushing him back with Chatura and Slash Dragon and finally wiping out his hand with Turbo and Conquest. Basically like how Kagero vs Brawlers is supposed to play out.
Game 3 Is much more back and forth as I did not have a hand that would allow me to adequately maintain a push thus I was forced to attack with my VG only for a few turns while he hits 2 heals which is a problem. By the time I do start getting things rolling (ie I'm able to call my Rearguards) I check absolute garbage and am forced to no guard a hit and hope to god he doesn't crit me and he does. I don't hit a heal despite shuffling several into the deck for legion and I'm done.
A heartbreaking loss as I played my ass off to try and keep in the tournament but as I already mentioned there are just days where Vanguard hates you and this was one of them. I didn't bother to stick around to see how the top cut played out though as by the way it looked like none of the good players were in it.
At least the one positive to come out of this was my Reckless Rampage boxes were decent for pulls. I got nothing I wanted of course but I was able to move everything of value within minutes. The path to becoming Ninpo-Ryuu has begun.
Saturday 13 February 2016
CFV Locals Report - Too many airhorns
So what was supposed to be a Reckless Rampage sneak peek ended up being a bust as Tramps got dicked over by their eternally incompetent shippers. Rip as the Tachikaze hype around here is real (though I'm more concerned about Nubatama). On the plus side Tramps did get Wing Raiders and to nobody's surprise Norden even has all 3 decks built because of his baller skills letting him get playsets of all the good stuff. At this point I suppose I COULD whine and moan about him building the deck I want in Raid Raptors despite wanting to play it myself for a while now whereas he never even gave them a second look before they got good cards...or you know what? I'm gonna suck it up because like any competent person he probably had a change of opinion regarding Raid Raptors when it became clear after this set and Shining Victories that the deck just may be legit.
That and if he finishes the deck it's pretty much a given if I really want to play it I can probably borrow it for tournaments instead of having to invest in the deck myself :D. So here's hoping that other people whining and complaining won't cause him to sell the deck out of being fed up because the Regina card game community is REALLY bad when it comes to people crying until they get their way. I have faith that Norden won't give in to the bitching and keep Raid Raptors not only to stick it to these people but also to stop people from getting rewarded for the aforementioned bitching. Especially when they have OTHER decks to play.
What I don't approve of on the other hand was the blataint overuse of air horn memes. Holy shit that got really annoying, really fast. Every 10 minutes I heard BEW BEW BEW BEEEEEEEWWWW and that pretty much killed the meme for me. Seriously it was like Woodhouse heard the meme and as usual overused it to the point of ruining it.
Now with all of that out of the way onto the tournament itself. I decided to play a Chronoscommand Revolution based Gear Chronicle deck as I still don't have 4 Nextage and the concept seemed neat enough to try.
Round 1 - vs Revengers (1-2)
Bad matchup. Just bad. While I do take great lengths to try and win this and I do come a bit close by taking a game and losing a clone one the sad part is that my specific build has a much weaker pre-stride game and Shadow Paladins often have very little for Revolution to spin away. That and he was legit gradestuck but still managed to savage me through my mediocre hand.
Round 2 - vs Chaos (2-1)
Two things I really hit me today while playing this player. One is that he ALWAYS complains about triggers. If he doesn't get any he's upset. If I get just one he's upset. Second is that he's actually not very good at this game and a good portion of his wins come through crit sacking.
Anywho this match is where Reform Calling Gear Eagle started to put in work as while Universe was able to keep a good hold on my board for several turns, I was also able to convert what he didn't lock into new cards to replace what Chaos Breaker popped with its limit. This and the very real attacks of my Strides, Upstream and Melam still allowed me to put pressure on him with just a single row. Game 1 I end up winning through a Nextage I think while Game 2 he blows me out with triggers. Game 3 is more back and forth as we check no triggers for several turns while he's locking my shit and I'm spinning his. Eventually I have a board again and stride into Fiery March Colossus and use his skill to spin one of his G1s and thus make him a Glory Malestrom to his hand of all 2s and PGGs, flip a crit and kill him. We all spend several minutes talking about what ifs given that both of our decks were mostly triggers at this point but I'll say this; I played my ass off this round out of trying to respect my opponent. Even if we had shit luck I guarded appropriately, I utilized my cards so that his locks didn't kill me, managed his Counterblasts so that he couldn't Limit Break or lock and made certain he couldn't relock my shit through my strides. Triggers or no Triggers I played circles around him and his linear ass deck.
Round 3 - vs Gear Chronicle (2-0)
A mirror had to happen. There are 4 soon to be 5 people who own this deck in Regina. Mind you this guy is the worst of them all and I smack him silly G1 through Guard Terrorism while he critsacks me to 5 damage Game 2, but I pull out of it by setting up a Melam into Heart Thump Worker play and swing with a supercharged Chronojet stridden Fiery March Colossus and kill him.
At this point I had taken my deck apart, shot a deck profile and planned on giving the cards I borrowed back to Norden as normally we only play 3 rounds and call it a day. NOPE. Top cut was called and I was the 4th seed. I actually tried to get out of this as I was too lazy to put my deck back together and re-randomize it so that I wouldn't open aids >_>. I eventually say screw it as I can always just get savaged by "skillful" (sacky) players and be done with it. NOPE again. I'm up against Norden.
Top 4 - vs Blue Wave (2-1)
5 hours later and I can't remember much about this. I'm pretty sure what happened was Game 1 I kill him by flipping a crit with a Colossus attack while cockblocking PGs so he dies. Game 2 we both stay stuck at 2 and I die and Game 3 he's forced to ride to 3 first to salvage a shit hand and I flip a crit to his 4 damage and he doesn't heal out of it. Willing to bet his memory's sharper than mine on this so I'm sure his report will say a fair bit more.
Finals - vs Seekers (2-1)
This match took so long that by the time it was over I forgot if we even HAD a Game 1. Well we did and I won it by doing Gear Chronicle things before losing Game 2 due to having to G-Assist Turn 1 and him resolving a 3 attack Thing Saver Dragon on me. I guard all 3 swings safely but my hand is donezos afterwards and I get savaged the turn after. Game 3 was one of the most awkward games played and somewhat frustrating as he kept healing at 3 damage and the game turns into a long, long grind of me trying to climb back in at 4 damage to his 2. He's unable to flat out kill me as I keep spinning his RGs with my Strides so I'm able to block his stuff while whittling away his rearguards before it comes down to me being able to stride into Nextage to his two card hand. Upstream Dragon lands a hit to put him at 3 damage while Nextage gets PG'd. Nextage flips a crit that gets put on my double Heart Thump Worker line which swings and hits to put him at 5. After this Chronojet swings with his GB2 Skill and I use both Heart Thump Workers to buff him up by an additional 10k to his jackshit and flip a crit for the tournament!
So yeah I win the entire this after trying to drop out of it before top cut. Maybe I should be more haphazard more often? Odd thing here is this is the second time I've played Gear Chronicle at our tournaments and in both cases I've won and against some credible opponents in both tournaments. I think we've found my backup deck boys. All in all it was a good day. The Chronoscommand deck was okay but just like what TeamNoGuard said in their video it's a very casual for funsies list. A legit Gear Chronicle deck should definitely be of the Chronojet/Baliff type and if I ever get a 4th Nextage I'll try to play it that way. Upstream being able to search out your damage unflippers is very relevant.
Props
-Finished my Gear Chronicle (Main) Deck
-Pulled a Heartstamped Chronojet Dragon
-Picked up my 4th Nightmist Stride
Slops
-Bricking
That and if he finishes the deck it's pretty much a given if I really want to play it I can probably borrow it for tournaments instead of having to invest in the deck myself :D. So here's hoping that other people whining and complaining won't cause him to sell the deck out of being fed up because the Regina card game community is REALLY bad when it comes to people crying until they get their way. I have faith that Norden won't give in to the bitching and keep Raid Raptors not only to stick it to these people but also to stop people from getting rewarded for the aforementioned bitching. Especially when they have OTHER decks to play.
What I don't approve of on the other hand was the blataint overuse of air horn memes. Holy shit that got really annoying, really fast. Every 10 minutes I heard BEW BEW BEW BEEEEEEEWWWW and that pretty much killed the meme for me. Seriously it was like Woodhouse heard the meme and as usual overused it to the point of ruining it.
Now with all of that out of the way onto the tournament itself. I decided to play a Chronoscommand Revolution based Gear Chronicle deck as I still don't have 4 Nextage and the concept seemed neat enough to try.
Round 1 - vs Revengers (1-2)
Bad matchup. Just bad. While I do take great lengths to try and win this and I do come a bit close by taking a game and losing a clone one the sad part is that my specific build has a much weaker pre-stride game and Shadow Paladins often have very little for Revolution to spin away. That and he was legit gradestuck but still managed to savage me through my mediocre hand.
Round 2 - vs Chaos (2-1)
Two things I really hit me today while playing this player. One is that he ALWAYS complains about triggers. If he doesn't get any he's upset. If I get just one he's upset. Second is that he's actually not very good at this game and a good portion of his wins come through crit sacking.
Anywho this match is where Reform Calling Gear Eagle started to put in work as while Universe was able to keep a good hold on my board for several turns, I was also able to convert what he didn't lock into new cards to replace what Chaos Breaker popped with its limit. This and the very real attacks of my Strides, Upstream and Melam still allowed me to put pressure on him with just a single row. Game 1 I end up winning through a Nextage I think while Game 2 he blows me out with triggers. Game 3 is more back and forth as we check no triggers for several turns while he's locking my shit and I'm spinning his. Eventually I have a board again and stride into Fiery March Colossus and use his skill to spin one of his G1s and thus make him a Glory Malestrom to his hand of all 2s and PGGs, flip a crit and kill him. We all spend several minutes talking about what ifs given that both of our decks were mostly triggers at this point but I'll say this; I played my ass off this round out of trying to respect my opponent. Even if we had shit luck I guarded appropriately, I utilized my cards so that his locks didn't kill me, managed his Counterblasts so that he couldn't Limit Break or lock and made certain he couldn't relock my shit through my strides. Triggers or no Triggers I played circles around him and his linear ass deck.
Round 3 - vs Gear Chronicle (2-0)
A mirror had to happen. There are 4 soon to be 5 people who own this deck in Regina. Mind you this guy is the worst of them all and I smack him silly G1 through Guard Terrorism while he critsacks me to 5 damage Game 2, but I pull out of it by setting up a Melam into Heart Thump Worker play and swing with a supercharged Chronojet stridden Fiery March Colossus and kill him.
At this point I had taken my deck apart, shot a deck profile and planned on giving the cards I borrowed back to Norden as normally we only play 3 rounds and call it a day. NOPE. Top cut was called and I was the 4th seed. I actually tried to get out of this as I was too lazy to put my deck back together and re-randomize it so that I wouldn't open aids >_>. I eventually say screw it as I can always just get savaged by "skillful" (sacky) players and be done with it. NOPE again. I'm up against Norden.
Top 4 - vs Blue Wave (2-1)
5 hours later and I can't remember much about this. I'm pretty sure what happened was Game 1 I kill him by flipping a crit with a Colossus attack while cockblocking PGs so he dies. Game 2 we both stay stuck at 2 and I die and Game 3 he's forced to ride to 3 first to salvage a shit hand and I flip a crit to his 4 damage and he doesn't heal out of it. Willing to bet his memory's sharper than mine on this so I'm sure his report will say a fair bit more.
Finals - vs Seekers (2-1)
This match took so long that by the time it was over I forgot if we even HAD a Game 1. Well we did and I won it by doing Gear Chronicle things before losing Game 2 due to having to G-Assist Turn 1 and him resolving a 3 attack Thing Saver Dragon on me. I guard all 3 swings safely but my hand is donezos afterwards and I get savaged the turn after. Game 3 was one of the most awkward games played and somewhat frustrating as he kept healing at 3 damage and the game turns into a long, long grind of me trying to climb back in at 4 damage to his 2. He's unable to flat out kill me as I keep spinning his RGs with my Strides so I'm able to block his stuff while whittling away his rearguards before it comes down to me being able to stride into Nextage to his two card hand. Upstream Dragon lands a hit to put him at 3 damage while Nextage gets PG'd. Nextage flips a crit that gets put on my double Heart Thump Worker line which swings and hits to put him at 5. After this Chronojet swings with his GB2 Skill and I use both Heart Thump Workers to buff him up by an additional 10k to his jackshit and flip a crit for the tournament!
So yeah I win the entire this after trying to drop out of it before top cut. Maybe I should be more haphazard more often? Odd thing here is this is the second time I've played Gear Chronicle at our tournaments and in both cases I've won and against some credible opponents in both tournaments. I think we've found my backup deck boys. All in all it was a good day. The Chronoscommand deck was okay but just like what TeamNoGuard said in their video it's a very casual for funsies list. A legit Gear Chronicle deck should definitely be of the Chronojet/Baliff type and if I ever get a 4th Nextage I'll try to play it that way. Upstream being able to search out your damage unflippers is very relevant.
Props
-Finished my Gear Chronicle (Main) Deck
-Pulled a Heartstamped Chronojet Dragon
-Picked up my 4th Nightmist Stride
Slops
-Bricking
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