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.