Locals Report - The slow burn

Don't have much of a witty way of starting this off so let's dive right into how this weekend went shall we?  I was able to make it to Vanguard Locals (or what you can call it at this rate) and Yu-Gi-Oh Locals (which had an even worse turnout) this weekend and play in them both so I'll be doing small reports on them as the experiences were something to say the least.

Vanguard

Saturday was simple enough.  I arrive late because of work related shenanigans but all is not lost as we still haven't set up an actual tournament system yet (that'll be a goal for next year so help me) but thanks to Jordan, Chingo and Allen showing up we have enough people to actually do things.  While what's happening is being decided I opt to get some games in testing the upcoming Neo Nectar Support against both Beta and Allen;

Game 1 - Phantom Blue Ahsha vs Susanoo (Win)

Oracle Think Tank has become a deck you must respect thanks to the release of Still Water.  Say "if it wasn't for her the clan would be dead" all you want I'm still going to say that the card is fucking bonkers.  Turning off my ability to guard with Grade 0s and G-Guards for a whole turn for 3+ turns in a row is really, really obnoxious to deal with if you're playing a deck that lacks the ability to cycle/search PGs (ZtB, Luard) and I do think Bushi could have found a way to bring OTT back into the meta without resorting to something so dumb.

Rant aside I approached this matchup the best I could.  I tried to avoid taking too much damage early game so I could afford to no guard an attack or two on his Still Water turns and when it came for me to stride I went into Midsummer Flower Princess, Lieta and used her skill to call out copies of my PG since I rode one earlier that game which he was not prepared to deal with.  Beta subsequently misplays by not going into Still Water to build up advantage or push me to 5 damage for his next turn as I've come to notice he's the type of player who won't use his power cards unless he believes they'll get him the guaranteed kill and I punish him hard for it on my following turn with a Velhemina that's already at GB4 prior to attacking.  The result is I'm able to launch a series of 21, 16 and 35k swings at two crit each before I call out a 45k lane off my stride and flip a Stand Trigger to power through his hand.  Turns out the stand won me the game as he held onto two PGs and guarded the other attacks.  Oh well.

Game 2 - Phantom Blue Ahsha vs Masquerade Master, Harri (Win)

Allen's also doing some proxy testing, specifically the currently Japanese only Harri stride that single handedly makes Pale Moon a legit deck threat.  Who would have thought giving the clan a means to multi attack for a reasonable cost like many of the strides that Granblue has gotten would have made them competitive?  Certainly not me!

No but seriously the new Harri is good.  Being able to suck up Locked Cards for extra attacks is so good in the OCG.  He's easily going to be a 15-20 dollar card when we get him here.

Moving on we both play the game out normally.  I try to rush him a bit and he tries to Grade 2 game me (a concept that many on CFA finds deplorable but I've long come to accept as now being a thing) and I respond by reriding a couple times and eventually Seabreezing him.  Lucky for me my starter doesn't use CB so I was able to get good value off my turn and I think I fetched a PG off of Ihnes?  I remember being able to defend against his Master Harri turn, respond with a Lieta turn that pushed him to 3 or 4 and defend against his following Harri.  On my turn I go into Velhemina and set up a pretty decent series of attacks that he can't completely stop and subsequently kill him with a 3 crit Kela line.

After that it was decided we'd do 2v2 games and I was paired up with Alex, Derrick was paired with Chingo, Brendan was paired with Taylor (RIP Brendan.  I doubt anybody could play under such a handicap) and Beta was paired with Allen and they both played OTT.  Turns out this is technically not allowed but Jordan didn't want to restart everything after rounds were set up and people started playing.  A quick conversation with Alex later and we decided to play Zodiac Time Beast + Victor as the sheer power of my deck could help us get through any matchups that were bad for him like Chaos.  Not that it mattered because...

Round 1 - ZtB + Victor vs Susanoo + Battle Sisters (Loss)

What's better than dealing with 3-4 Still Waters?  How about twice as many.  Mind you this required us to actually get to that point but 3 out of 4 players this game bricked it seems as I opened with all triggers pre mulligan then all G2s and 3s post while Alex had to G-Assist and neither of us were able to flip triggers of any sort while our opponents were, including a triple crit that ended us before our second stride turns.

Round 2 - ZtB + Victor vs ???? + Dimension Robos (Win)

I legit forgot what Taylor played other than something not good.  Brendan piloted D-Robos since he figured Chaos would have made people unhappy.  Unfortunately he had to ride Laurel and both of us opened with hands that let us be aggressive from the start so we got in there and I know I spun Taylor's starter with Duplex Dragon and got off a pretty strong Split Pegasus while Alex had a Metaokaiser Victor with GB3 ready to go.  By the time my turn came up I was able to close the game out with Chronodragon Gearnext and that was that.

Finals - ZtB + Victor vs Susanoo + Battle Sisters (Win)

Redemption Time!  This game I opened with a hand that allowed me to play the ideal game against OTT as I clutch drew a 10k ride to no pass Beta's attacks and I think Alex was able to keep Allen from landing too many hits.  Our stride turns come up and I go into Pegasus to try and fetch Perfect Guards for Still Water and Alex has a GB3 Meteokaiser as his first stride.  Allen goes through all four of his Still Waters and a Stollen fairly quickly but Beta's still able to keep the pressure up and I'm forced to make a decision between either Gearnext or Abenir Phoenix since both of our opponents kept fucking healing holy shit. I decide to go with Phoenix since I had enough face up G-Units to call a full board...and call mostly triggers and a PG.  I do hit a Coatl so one of my lines is reasonably huge and I force Beta down to a small hand.  Allen runs out of strides and is almost about to deck out but hangs on through Alex's Victoplasma turn and I finish the game on my Gearnext turn with a fairly small deck that hadn't been shuffled and was the subject of Cruising Dragon and Unicorn's reverse stacking so the chances of me hitting the Triggers I had botdeck'd earlier.  I end up hitting my stack as I flip Stand Heal Stand on my first VG Swing, then a Crit on the second and we win the game in glorious anime style.

Seriously you could have had Chrono's "fierce battle" theme from G-Next and it would have fit perfectly.  However unlike Plot Armour the character, I usually don't trigger sack people unless I've been allowed to live long enough to actually hit my triggers that I usually don't check.

Yu-Gi-Oh!

I actually decided to play this day, even if it was a couple rounds.  The deck I chose was Trickstar as I figured the next time I'd be able to participate at a locals would be after a likely Banlist in January so I wanted my chance to play with "Full Power" Trickstars at least once.  After doing some small trades we had our pairings and my first round opponent was Rhett.

Round 1 - vs Infernoids (2-1)

Game 1 is a bit foggy despite how recent this was.  I just remember getting blown the fuck out of a setup that wasn't exactly the best for this matchup and I make a couple mistakes that I know cost me the game.  Giving him a better hand off Reincarnation didn't help my case much either.  Hoo boy.

Game 2 I have a stronger start and open with Gofu and Terraforming and I'm not hit with Hand Traps so I'm able to make the Bagooska + Ancient Fairy Dragon + Missus Radiant board that he's not able to break and passes.  However I've got a Devyaty to break and through considerable effort I force it out with Ningirisu and drop an Eater of Millions and start swinging.  He's able to bring out a Dekatron and I Ash it but he reveals the Void Imagination that nearly blows me out as now I've got a Tierra to deal with.  However because he can't summon any of his big Infernoids and I had a significant lead in LP over him at this point I'm not immediately dead and can afford to take some big hits to the face while trying to press through his defenses and eventually kill him with Candina + Lightstage attacking his Dekatron that was in Atk.

Game 3 is pretty straight forward.  He makes me start and I set up some backrow and a monster which he blows out with Devy and leaves me in a pickle.  However I topdeck a Kaiju and had drawn into Gofu off my Desires and opened with Chaos Hunter so I was able to hard Tribute summon the thing while using Reincarnation to bring back Candina and beat him a few turns later.

Round 2 - vs SPYRAL (2-0)

Nord annihilated me in our practice games before (like seriously the amount of obscene to god hands he had was disgusting) but in an actual tournament match things were more even?  We both opened with enough hand traps to prevent the other from playing however I was able to prevent him from resolving Resort and flipped Scapegoat on his EP and grabbed the Lillybell off a Candina on my following turn.  I also had a Lycoris in the grave which meant I had the cards needed to pull off the Firewall Trickstar OTK where you ram Lycoris into anything bigger than her (in this case Super Agent), have Firewall summon Lillybell off his effect, swing for 800 + 200, grab Lycoris from the graveyard, summon it by bouncing Lillybell and repeating until the opponent dies because Firewall is a well designed card am I right?

The funny part about this is that this is the second time I've killed Nord through a battle phase loop.  The first time was when I decked him out with Colossal Fighter while under Maxx "C" in Dragon Ruler format.  I wonder if/when the third will happen.

Game 2 he has a Gamma for my Ash and makes an Omega but I'm able to Ogre his Resort which hurts him haaaard.  I sack skillfully draw into a Lightstage that gets my engine going (while also pinning down a Solemn Strike) and basically try to wear him down while taking hits from Omega and waiting for my chance to blow up his board with the Slumber I had opened with.  I eventually do and win.

After that I had to drop out as my time to leave was coming up and I peaced out.  All in all it was a decent weekend even if my play on Sunday was spotty.  Admittedly I'm horrendously out of form but apparently that's still better than a good bulk of our competition which...is saddening.

To put it in perspective both of the locals I go to I can consider to be casual level table 500 play for most of the time but at least our Vanguard playerbase has actually improved in how it plays.  Technical play has (slightly) improved, people are aware of how the format is shaping up and are at least trying to suck less and I can see them actually pulling that off.  With the exception of not even a handful of names our Yu-Gi-Oh! playerbase hasn't improved at all and the players I'm thinking of are never going to get better be it because of shitty play, shitty attitude or yes.

It's going to be along road trying to get things rolling.  I wish everyone a Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year and a ton of luck.  We're all going to need it.

Props
-Jordan was able to make it to Vanguard and play.  This feeling of excitement must be what Nord gets when Evan or myself say "I'm going to play today."
-Savaging OTT is always nice.
-Flipping around old Deletor cards for way more than what I got them for.  Thanks Cobb for the OP OP trade last year.
-Almost done XMas shopping
-Trickstar was actually pretty enjoyable.  Considering my long absence from actually playing I think a deck of this nature is probably the best point to start with.  At this point I don't care for the overtly complex combo decks that take 30 plays to build a board like Spyral and rather just settle for something simple like this.  I've got multiple Vanguard decks if I want to scratch that itch.  Looking specifically at you Nightrose.


Slops
-The prices of Neo Nectar coming out Zoo.  I know Megacolony players have it worse (and saying that line itself is so wierd) but hoo boy.  Blusha is going to be expensive to build.  Really tempted to do that case split with Jordan and Marco.
-My misplays.
-My lack of Borreload and Akashic Magician.  They really do help this deck deal with things holy shit.

Retro Report - First Place Regina SK Yu-Gi-Oh! Regionals (September 2012)

This past September marked the end of an era in Regina in which Tramps Comics and Games closed its doors for good.  I won't go into the details of what happened only to say it's a rather painful loss for the community here as many memories were made over the years.  One of the biggest ones for me personally was that in September 2012 Tramps hosted a Regional Qualifier Tournament for Yu-Gi-Oh! which was a first for any card game in the province.  No city elsewhere had managed to do a thing for any of the other TCGs prevalent at the time.  Magic?  Pokemon?  Nope.  Yu-Gi-Oh!

Now granted because this was the first event of this kind to be held in the Province word didn't get very far and as the result the participants were solely players who lived in Saskatchewan.  To my knowledge we didn't get any people from Alberta or Manitoba and due to this the overall quality of competition was very low.  ALOT of the players present were bad in retrospect and the top cut of this event reflected it.  Despite being "Wind-Up Format" the deck itself didn't dominate the environment as you'd think as it was really only the most competitive of players who piloted the deck (and had Shock Masters) while everyone else pretty much came with their "signature" decks.  Honestly when I think more about it alot of people treated this Regionals as just another Local tournament, just with a larger turnout.  Due to this the tournament itself is more or less a joke as people who had no business playing at the top tables did so and some even topped and Nord has often voiced this to which I can't deny it.

However this Regional was still an important one nonetheless as it was again the first high level event to be held in the province (and we would only have 2 more following this before Tramps lost its OTS status and began its 5 year spiral into oblivion) and the reason it sticks strongly to me: I got 1st Place.  The turnout was small (61 people) and the players were of VERY questionable skill but at the end of the day I was the winner of the whole thing and I worked my ass off to do so, especially given that I wasn't even piloting a meta deck.

No the deck I used to win the very first Regionals held in Saskatchewan was motherfucking Dragunity.  Not only that but this was also following my 1st Place Top in Winnipeg in the recent March Regionals so if you do the math this meant that I had managed to get back to back tops and both of them were 1st Place.  At the time of this post I only have 3 tops to my name and chances are that's all I'm ever going to get given my...displeasure of current YGO but the "two First Place Tops" club is one of the few things that I can claim to be a part of and I think Magnus is the only one of our group to also have that title.  Someday you'll earn your spot Nord ;)

But back to the regionals.  I opted to play Dragunity as at the time I felt it was the strongest Dragon strategy following the banlist as Future Fusion was banned and REDMD went to 1.  Disaster Dragon died with that banlist and aside from 3 tops by Richard Clarke nobody relevant has been able to do anything with the deck since and even then I'm sure Clarke topped because he was just that good at the game.  Since I had gotten my first ever top with Dragons and at that time I called my channel "The Dragon Network" I had it in my head that all I was good at playing were Dragon decks and so I went with Dragunity.

Truth be told all 3 of my tops have come with Dragon decks (Disaster, Dragunity, Blue-Eyes Rulers) so that statement isn't that far off....

Anyway going into this tournament I had seen PhoenixFlareX's list that he used to get a Regional Top of his own the week prior and decided to use that as my base for the deck while educating myself on the "Atum Loop" that a surprising number of people didn't know about.  No at the time when people saw Dragunity they thought "oh it's MakeStardustpass.dek" and I knew I had the advantage because of that.  I was confident in my deck and made my way to the scene of the tournament in which I also recorded a fair bit of it;

Prior to the tournament actually beginning the head judge (Ryan P) allowed Scott to ask everyone for a moment of silence for the memory of a friend of the community Brendan Phillips who had passed away in a car crash on the way back from the recent Winnipeg Regionals in March.  For those of you who might have pieced it together by now; yes I was in this crash too.  It's why I had those bandages on my hand in my Disaster Dragon Deck Profile as I had severely injured my hand and still bear scars from where I got cut.  It's also why I've got a long standing phobia road trips (or being in the car with people who do things like fuck around on their phone while driving) and while I've managed to overcome it to the point that I can go with friends to Regionals again I absolutely refuse to go during times in which any form of snow or ice are on the roads.  I will gladly skip out on Regionals held in November, December, March and sometimes April if it means I won't have anxiety attacks leading up to and during the trip.  Case in point Nord, Cobb and Rhett went to a Regionals this past weekend and I had considered going...until we got hit with an early winter.  Nope GG I'm out.

With that context now explained you'd understand if I came into this tournament with a bit of a heavy heart as I wanted to win the tournament for Brendan (and I know I wasn't alone in this) and I know I made a prayer the night prior asking him to wish me luck.

Now with all of that explained I can get into the meat of this post, a copy and paste of my tournament report from Duelistgroundz;

Despite this being likely a small Regionals (although 60-90 is par for the course I've noticed for Prairie cities. At least in Sask and Manitoba. I can't comment on Alberta's turnouts) I was treating this as something I HAD to top since this was the first ever Yu-Gi-Oh! Regionals in Saskatchewan and it was being held here on my own doorstep. I had long decided that I was going to run Dragunity thanks to its ability to be aggressive with Ravine + Zeph combos while having a solid grind game in Stardust Dragon + Backrow. The things we discussed in this thread along with Dragunity videos I saw on youtube proved that I was on the right track and I ultimately went with what I posted on here just a few days ago except I switched Smashing Ground with Soul Taker since Heroes and Chaos Dragon were still played here. I expected to see the main meta decks (Graham Wind-Ups, Dark World, Heroes), Rogue decks and troll decks which was exactly what happened. Obviously the meta decks beat out the rest with our top 8 consisting of 2 Graham Wind-Ups, 1 Dark World, 1 Alive Hero, 1 Chaos Agent, 1 Gravekeepers, 1 Frognarch and 1 Dragunity (myself). The most played decks were Frognarchs, Heroes, Wind-Ups and Dark World. The rest were rogues. Nobody could afford Geargia Variants (I had traded away my Gigant X and Armours for a playset of TP Deep Sea Divas and TP Horn of the Phantom Beast the day prior) so that allowed me to get away without side decking hate for that matchup.

Yes I realize this was a bit over the top for just a small Regional but I tend to overdo things in this manner. I'll spare everyone a long winded tournament report given the size of the event but I will provide a quick summary and other notes;

[Spoiler]Unfortunately I forgot to write down Pot of Avarice on my decklist so I ended up being unable to use it the entire day. Thankfully I was only given a warning and not a loss.

Round 1 - vs Heroes (2-1)

Game 1; I opened Phalanx + 2 Mystletainn which allowed me to establish Stardust + Atum which he could not break, leading to a two turn kill.

Game 2; I opened awful with a Dragunity Legionnaire as my only monster. My backrow somewhat slows him down but I can't stave off 2 Blade Ninjas for long and scoop.

Game 3; Grinded this game out with backrow while ripping 2 straight Dux off the topdeck with a Phalanx in grave. A little sacky but it allowed me to drop a second Stardust and a Scrap Dragon respectively for game.

Round 2 - vs Macro Rabbit (0-2)

Game 1; Opened with Dux and Legionnaire, but no Dragon Ravine for what felt like ever. I'm able to get rid of his Laggia but he just has far too many counters to my own counters and I lose.

Game 2; I side in a total of 7 cards and I don't see a single one for about 10 turns while he opens with 2 Dimensional Fissure to my REDMD, Mystletainn and Phalanx. Despite this I did NOT make this an easy game for my opponent as I established a Dux and kept swinging while keeping him from maintaining a monster for a bit. Sadly he got to Rabbit and makes a Laggia which I eventually Prison + Chain away but I just could not get rid of his Fissures and ultimately lose. I sided in a 3rd MST, 2 Royal Decree, 2 Gozen Match and 2 Imperial Iron Wall. Should have sided in Twister as well but I couldn't think of what to side out for it.

Round 3 - vs Fabled Quasar (2-0)

Game 1; I spend a good 4 minutes waiting for my draw as he just goes completely off with combos. He had a Monster Reborn and a Pot of Avarice to continue things but fell just short of making Quasar Dragon which is great as I opened Ravine + Zephyros and two turn killed him.

Game 2; I put pressure on him early, forcing him to Synchro climb while I have T.G. Hyper Librarian on the board but I Fiendish Chain him before he can do more than that and take it from there.

Round 4 - vs Chain Burn (2-0)

Game 1: My opponent wins the dieroll and sets everything which makes me wonder if she's got a Morphing Jar down. I open Ravine and pitch Phalanx for Dux intending to summon it and make a Scrap Dragon. Instead she flips up all of her backrow and I learn I'm dealing with Chain Burn to which I'm like "OH WELL THEN" and decide to Synchro into this guy;

Felt so good.

Game 2; I make Black-Winged Dragon again and despite her sacking it off for Lava Golem I bring it back with REDMD and Dark Bribe her attempt to stop my Thunder Charger's attack for the win. Pierce + BWD pretty much makes this an automatic win for Dragunity players.

Fun Fact: I literally put Black-Winged Dragon in the night before because I figured "there's always a chance some troll will play burn at these things."  Justifiiiiied.

Round 5 - vs Destiny Hero Agents (2-0)

Game 1; This went pretty quickly as I had the Ravine + Zephyros hand to his 3 Destiny Draws and an Earth. I take it in 2 turns.

Game 2; He opens with Earth while I drop Stardust off of a Phalanx + Mystle combo and proceed to grind the game out while setting myself up for a big push with Vajrayana + Aklys combos.

Round 6 - vs Macro Stun (2-0)

Game 1; To my sheer joy he does not draw into Fissure or Macro and I'm able to overwhelm him with Thought Ruler Archfiend and protection.

Game 2; He opens Fissure and eventually Macro Cosmos when I try to summon Aklys from hand and equip it to Legionnaire hoping to pop his monster and Fissure. My backrow is able to keep me in the game despite not drawing any of my sided cards (again) when he gets me down to 200 LP. However unlike my Rabbit match this time I live long enough to draw an out and it happened to be Imperial Iron Wall which completely turned the game around as I was able to Synchro spam and quickly dropped TRA and Stardust to win the game.

Fun Fact: This was one of the last Regionals this guy played.  Now he's a professional musician.  I have no idea how far he's been able to make it but he seems to have a fanbase...

Top 8 - vs Frog Monarchs (2-0)

Game 1; I quickly establish a field of Stardust Dragon with Photon Strike Bounzer to knock a fair bit of life off (and using Forbidden Lance to protect myself from E-Con) before dropping Thunder Charger and attacking over his Treeborn for game.

Game 2; He opens double D.D. Crow which disrupts my Zephyros and Dux plays, but I do him one better by flipping up Gozen Match and protecting the hell out of it. He gets rid of my first Stardust but I make another with Legionnaire x2 and a Phalanx and keep swinging over his Ronintoadin before summoning Aklys (I had no more Dux/Legions left in deck and you bet I was missing Pot of Avarice at this point) and poking over his Treeborns for damage. The game is ultimately decided when he tries to E-Con my Stardust Dragon to which I chain MST targeting his E-Con then negate with Stardust to get him off the field and to make the Con resolve without effect. After this I warning his Swap Frog and Normal Summon Phalanx to poke over his monsters for game.

Top 4 - vs Wind-Ups (2-0)

Game 1; Both of us were considering dropping out at this point since we had our invites + deckbox but decided to play at least one game. I won the dieroll and opened Ravine + Zephyros which he couldn't answer. He conceded after drawing into an awful hand.

Game 2; He gave me the win wanting to drop out and get some trades done before closing time. Honestly I consider this a crummy way to get a win as he was one of the best players at this tournament :/

Finals - vs Dark World Turbo (2-1)

Game 1; Opens 3 Upstarts then Card Destruction which gets rid of my Ravine and 2 Terraforming while he continues to do the solitare combos that Dark Worlds are known for. I make a small push but he clears my second ravine and I lose my third one to dealings to which I scoop it up.

Game 2; I make a turn 1 Stardust Dragon which he does clear but he's unable to answer my Scrap Dragon that I make afterwords. Also helps that I set my entire hand to render his Dragged Downs dead.

Game 3; A real grind game here as I sit on a Stardust while keeping myself handless and setting up a Zephyros play. I eventually make an Atum whle getting him down to 5400 and Book of Mooning a Beiige that he summoned (Grapha was in grave). I do a quick mental tally in my head and determine I can kill him if his monster has less than 1300 defense (which he does) so I get a Dux out of the deck and summon it (Phalanx had been Smog'd earlier) while dropping Gaia Dragon the Thunder Charger and swinging for 5800 damage and the win.

That would be the gist of it. All in all the deck performed very well except for those oddball games with the shit hands (or not seeing my side deck for 10 turns) but otherwise it ran smoothly and many people just did not really know how my deck worked. They were aware of the traditional Level 8 plays that the deck is infamous for but each time I started doing my Rank 6 plays it blew their minds and the Atum + REDMD + SDD + Backrow board was damn hard to get around outside of a godly hand, which I was fortunate to not be the victim of. I'd say that this deck is easily Tier 1.5 in the hands of someone who knows how it works and how to manage its weaknesses. Dragunity Aklys gets a special mention for its sheer versatility as normal summoning it will put the opponent in the precarious situation of having to use removal on it or letting the summon go through so they can save their outs for Dux/Vaj. This of course lets you put Legionnaire on board and proceed to pick off monsters + Backrow. The Legionnaire + Aklys play is so potent this format I almost want to up the Legion count to 3. Almost. Mystletainn was also stellar thanks to being able to go Phalanx -> Stardust without needing Ravine or Dux. It's a hard -1 but you do get a 2500 negator you can protect. That or you could hit any Level 8 in the game.

Decklist;

Trails in the Sky - The Legend of Dragunity

Monsters

3 Dragunity Dux

3 Dragunity Phalanx

2 Dragunity Arma Mystletainn

2 Dragunity Legionnaire

2 Dragunity Aklys

2 Blackwing - Zephyros the Elite

1 Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon

Spells

3 Dragon Ravine

3 Terraforming

2 Cards of Consonance

2 Forbidden Lance

2 Mystical Space Typhoon

1 Book of Moon

1 Heavy Storm

1 Monster Reborn

1 Pot of Avarice

Traps

2 Dimensional Prison

2 Fiendish Chain

2 Solemn Warning

1 Solemn Judgment

1 Dark Bribe

1 Seven Tools of the Bandit

Extra Deck

3 Dragunity Knight - Vajrayana

1 Dragunity Knight - Gae Dearg

2 Stardust Dragon

1 Scrap Dragon

1 Black-Winged Dragon

1 Colossal Fighter

1 Thought Ruler Archfiend

1 T.G. Hyper Librarian

1 Ally of Justice Catastor

1 Hieratic Dragon King of Atum

1 Photon Strike Bounzer

1 Gaia Dragon, the Thunder Charger

Side Deck

2 Royal Decree

2 Gozen Match

2 Imperial Iron Wall

2 Shadow-Imprisoning Mirror

2 Twister

2 Soul Taker

2 Maxx "C"

1 Mystical Space Typhoon

At this point the only change I am considering would be keeping Maxx "C" in the side or not. Gojira made a good point that without Veiler, Gorz or Trag to draw into the opponent is just going to keep going anyway as Dragunity usually doesn't draw into anything that would stop their push regardless or take advantage of the hand you'd end up having outside of drawing the Trinity. In its place I may run either Cyber Dragon/System Down, Nobleman of Crossout or Thunder King Rai-Oh.

And that's it.  One of the Saskatoon players who had came to this event (and was one of their better if not best players.  He doesn't play anymore) made a video talking about his experience at the Regionals and described me as "one of the best and most skillful players I had ever seen" which was definitely something my ego appreciated.  Mind you on this day seeing Dragunity do the now well known Ravine + Zephyros combo was just bonkers.  What do you mean you have Atum, REDMD and Stardust on your field!?  Oh it was a good time.  My big regret from this was never writing a proper Regional Report on this blog as there was a timeframe in which I didn't give this thing a look let alone put my thoughts down.  Granted I've fallen back into that kind of state as at least until next spring I can't compete in a full YGO locals and our Vanguard Tournament scene died with Tramps (now it's just casual games and relay fights at Comicreaders) but you get the point.  My two other tops have written reports on here and with the exception of the times I've played Hunder Family and the two Regionals I went to this year (spoilers I did NOT have good times at either of them) I've done reports on all my other ones.  I guess I should do that but I'll sum them up here;

March 2013 - I got my two tops with Dragons so surely I can do it with my other favourite theme; Thunder.  Nope.  Fire Fist ate my ass both in the main tournament and the win a mat.  I also lost a close game to Machina Gadgets because he had stronger topdecks and greasy mullet played Dimensional Fissure in fucking Mermails.

June 2017 - Why the fuck did I listen to Nord and decide to play in Fusion Substitute Zoodiac format!?

September 2017 - True King Dinosaurs; they brick when you're up against Zoodiac/Trickstar but go the FUCK off against all the bad decks in the room.

There.

Narukami Lists - Post G-BT12

New set's out and I've got things to work on!  Let's do this;

Vanquisher

4x Dragonic Vanquisher "Sparking"
2x Eradicator, Dragonic Descendant "Sigma"

4x Demonic Dragon Berserker, Chatura
4x Martial Arts Dragon / Plea Lightning, Helena
4x Circular Blade of Strong Lightning, Grizel / Deserk Gunner, Kojin

4x Summon Lightning Dancing Princess, Anastasia
4x Mighty Bolt Dragoon
4x Smash Boxer Dragon
2x Dragon Dancer, Fatine

4x Lightning of Hope, Reseph
4x Draw / Crit
4x Dragon Dancer Vianne
4x Heal

2x Hardrod Dracokid

4x Conquering Surpeme Dragon, Dragonic Vanqusher "VBUSTER"
4x Conquering Supreme Dragon, Dragonic Vanquisher "Voltage"
1x Conquering Supreme Dragon, Dragonic Vanquisher "VMAX"
1x Conquering Surpeme Dragon, Closer Dragon
1x Air Element, Seabreeze
1x Dark Element, Dizmel
1x Spiritual Wisdom Creator, Brahma
1x Sky Guardian Supreme Dragon, Bulwark Dragon
2x Sky Guardian Supreme Dragon, Impede Dragon


Kaiser

4x Dragonic Kasier Crimson
2x Dragonic Kaiser Vermillion
2x Eradicator, Dragonic Descendant "Sigma"

4x Demonic Dragon Berserker, Chatura
4x Martial Arts Dragon
3x Dragonic Deathscythe

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

8x Crit
4x Draw
4x Heal

1x Hardrod Dracokid

4x Conquering Supreme Dragon, Dragonic Kaiser Warning
2x Conquering Supreme Dragon, Conquest Dragon
2x Conquering Supreme Dragon, Dragonic Vanquisher "VBUSTER"
1x Conquering Supreme Dragon, Dragonic Vanquisher "VMAX"
1x Conquering Supreme Dragon, Closer Dragon
1x Dark Element, Dizmel
2x Spiritual Wisdom Creator, Brahma
2x Sky Guardian Supreme Dragon, Impede Dragon

Brawler

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

3x Brawler, Skyhowl Dragon
3x 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 Lightning of Triumphant Return, Reseph)
4x Brawler Draw
4x Brawler Heal
1x Hardrod Dracokid

3x True Brawler, Big Bang Knuckle Turbo
2x Conquering Supreme Dragon, Conquest Dragon
2x Conquering Supreme Dragon, "Dragonic Vanquisher "VBUSTER"
2x Conquering Supreme Dragon, Dragonic Vanquisher "Voltage"
1x Conquering Supreme Dragon, Dragonic Vanquisher "VMAX"
1x Conquering Supreme Dragon, Closer Dragon
1x Light Element, Algleam
2x Spiritual Wisdom Creator, Brahma
2x Sky Guardian Supreme Dragon, Impede Dragon

Sweep Command Eradicator

4x Eradicator, Sweep Command Dragon
4x Eradiator, Dragonic Decendant "Sigma"

4x Demonic Dragon Berserker, Chatura
4x Martial Arts Dragon
4x Circular Blade of Strong Lightning, Grizel

4x Summon Lightning Dancing Princess, Anastasia
4x Eradicator Stride Fodder
4x Smash Boxer Dragon
1x Castor

4x Erad Heal

4x Erad Shiva
4x Erad Sharp Impact Dragon

4x Erad Draw

1x Eradicator, First Thunder Dracokid

4x Conquering Supreme Dragon, "Dragonic Vanquisher "VBUSTER"
2x Conquering Supreme Dragon, Conquest Dragon

2x Conquering Supreme Dragon, Dragonic Vanquisher "Voltage"

1x Conquering Supreme Dragon, Dragonic Vanquisher "VMAX"
2x Conquering Supreme Dragon, Closer Dragon
1x Light Element, Algleam

1x Spiritual Wisdom Creator, Brahma
1x Sky Guardian Supreme Dragon, Bulwark Dragon
2x Sky Guardian Supreme Dragon, Impede Dragon

TL:DR Dragonic Descendant Sigma goes into everything except Brawlers.  Having an 11k Restander in decks with Vanguards that can stack large amounts of power onto him is kind of stupid.  Vanquisher is obviously the strongest variant post set with Sweep Command following suit.  I've also updated Kaiser and Brawler though both of these decks are suffering from a severe case of "can't catch up" compared to Vanquisher and Erads.  These two decks need support in the same vein as Star Vaders.

G-BT12 Narukami Spoilers - Week 7 (Finale)

This is it!  The last post of this series as the set is now out in Japan and we've got full spoilers to work with.  Let's not waste any time on this as I've got a set review to wrap up!

Eradicator, Sharp Impact Dragon 

[ACT](R):{Put this into your Soul} CC1. 

It's a trigger that can Countercharge.  That kind of utility is always nice to have.  If this doesn't see play now it will in the future.

Storm Eraser Shiva

[ACT](R):{Put this unit into your Soul} Choose 1 of your units, during this turn

it gets POWER+3000.

And here we have a new Malevolent Djinn except this guy has an Eradicator name which will be relevant sometimes.  Pretty much replaces Djinn.

Summon Lightning Dancing Princess, Anastasia

CONT: Sentinel

AUTO: [Choose 1 card from your hand, Discard it] When this card is placed on (GC) from the hand, you can pay the cost. If you pay it, choose 1 of your Units being attacked, during that battle, it cannot be hit.

AUTO Thunderstrike 4: When this card is retired from (GC), you can draw 1 card.

And the last card of importance I'm going to talk about (Erads got a new Vanilla Heal and Draw but nothing replaces Seibo and Carbuncle in my eyes) is best girl Haru-I mean Anastasia.  I don't really have a whole lot to say about the card as she pretty much speaks for herself.  At Thunderstrike 4 she is essentially "free" and unlike the Battle Sister PG doesn't require a copy of herself in the drop.

That's right.  This PG literally power creeps the other good PG that was released in this set.

And that's it.  All in all Set 12 is very kind to Narukami.  In fact I'd go so far as to say that Narus are the clear winners of this set as not only do we have some quality cards here, but of significant quantity too.  Sure there were some duds (most of them being on the Eradicator side) but man Bushiroad sure made up for how utterly shit Set 9 was to us.  What they've done with Thunderstrike needs to be the gold standard of how to update a Keyword for the current format as there are clans out there that definitely need a similar level of work applied to them.  Aqua Force, Megacolony, Murakumo, the list goes on.  With Set 11 being good and Set 12 being great Bushiroad has all the momentum in the world from a design standpoint and we're all eager to see what will happen next.

Don't fuck this up.

G-BT12 Narukami Spoilers - Week 6

Not much I can say on this one.  We're literally coming down to the wire and it's just a handful of Rares plus one RR left.  Hopefully these will be spoiled next week.  Until then let's just take a look at the one card I get to talk about today;

Mystic Wisdom Creator, Brahma

Grade 4 / G Unit – G Guardian / Dragon Empire – Narukami – Noble

Shield 15000+

[G Guardian]

AUTO: [Choose 2 cards with different Grades from your Drop Zone, Bind them face-up] When this Unit is placed on (GC), you can pay the cost. If you apy it, during that battle, this Unit gains Shiled+10000.

Honestly there isn't much for me to say here.  Brahma is an easy to achieve 25k shield that only requires you to have a drop zone of your own as setup.  Oh no.  Not that.

But seriously something like this was needed as Bulwark Dragon is really difficult to make live outside of Thunderstrike decks and Brahma gives Eradicators, Brawlers, Vermillion and (I can't believe I'm saying this) Dungaree a legit G-Guard to work with.  That last deck is worth pointing out as Dungaree works off of having its own cards bound and this opens the door for eventual support.  I mean Bushiroad isn't above supporting meme decks in the game and Dungaree getting support would be no less out of place than Maiden Of.

Now obviously Brahma is something you need to be mindful of using in the Mirror Match as he immediately puts your opponent up by 2 Thunderstrikes (though honestly you'll just want to flip this guy up with Impede Dragon in the Mirror anyway) but I have to point out that he also helps you get more value out of Conquering Supreme Dragon, Closer Dragon as that card buffs your units by 2k for each card in your opponent's bind zone and yours as well.  An extra two binds means your units get an extra 4k which can sometimes be enough to make magic numbers and we definitely take those.

Run this at 1 in Vanquisher and at 2-3 in everything else.

G-BT12 Narukami Spoilers - Week 5

A day late!  Sorry!  I lost track of time while TP Metal Grinding and before I knew it I was pretty much donezos afterwards.  Well regardless this just means I have a little more to talk about due to recent spoilers.  Ahem.

It's less than 2 weeks to go until this set comes out and as such we're starting to finally see most of the Rares that this set has to offer.  This is fine as for the most part the Narukami rares have been pretty stellar (though my ink cartridges would probably like to have a word with BSR given the number of proxies I've made);

Lightning Strike of Aspiration, Helena

Grade 2 / Normal Unit / Dragon Empire – Narukami – Sylph

Power 9000

Shield 5000

AUTO GB1 Thunderstrike 3: [CB1] When this Unit is placed on (RC), and you have a “Vanquisher” Vanguard, you can pay the cost. If you pay it, draw 1 card, during that turn, this Unit gains Power+2000.

...I don't really know what I can say here that isn't glaringly obvious.  He's an on call +1 in a clan that desperately needs any hand building it can get.  If you further need convincing if this guy is good or not then the twits on Reddit don't like this guy.

 Electro-Butcher Dragon

Grade 3 / Normal Unit / Dragon Empire – Narukami – Thunder Dragon

Power 11000

AUTO: [CB1] When this Unit is placed on (RC), you can pay the cost. If you pay it, choose 1 of your opponent’s front row Rear-guards, Retire it, and Bind it face-up.

AUTO (RC) GB1 Thunderstrike 3: When this Unit attacks a Vanguard, during that battle, this Unit gains Power+3000.

Cool name, kind of let down by the Thunderstrike skill.  It's great that he's a souped up Skyhowl Dragon and with a 7k booster he hits 21 but I was kind of hoping for him to get more than just +3k when Wyvern Strike, Jargo can swing for +6k.

Eradicator, Dragonic Descendant "Sigma"

[AUTO](VC):[Counter Blast (1)-card with "Eradicator" in its card name] When your G unit with "Eradicator" in its original card name Stride, you may pay the cost. If you do, choose one of your vanguards, until end of turn, it gets [Power]+10000, and "[AUTO](VC):When this unit [Stand], it gets drive+1.".

[AUTO](RC)[1/Turn] Generation Break 1:[Counter Blast (1) & Choose a card from your hand, and discard it] At the end of the battle that this unit attacked a vanguard, if the attack did not hit, you may pay the cost. If you do, [Stand] this unit.

Where do I begin?

So this card could have been the unit that fixed many things.  Instead he only creates more issues.  His Stride Bonus works with any Erad Stride but really what good is it going to do for anything other than Zillion?  Do Linchu or Finish Blow care about it?  Hell no!  They can't restand and +10k isn't going to be relevant in most instances with those two.  To compound this Sigma doesn't help Zillion achieve it's goal of Restanding because he doesn't put pressure on your opponent to Guard which is what you want.  Descendant worked so well in Break Ride format because everyone had to play at 4 Damage to get their decks rolling which made him a terror to deal with lest you fear critsacking.  Today's Vanguard however has people being able to stay at 2-3 damage for a good while and thus they can safely no guard Zillion most of the time and not fear death because unless you're rocking 12 crits (and you're an idiot if you do in Erads).  Honestly Sigma should have been CB1 your opponent retires a RG and he gets a crit.  Boom.  Instant pressure to guard at 3 damage otherwise they die to you flipping a crit.  I mean sure if you get your opponent to 4-5 damage this guy with Zillion is kind of scary but Sigma at the end of the day doesn't do what he needed to do for the deck.

That being said his RG skill is very interesting.  He's basically a Magnum Assault for a discard and a CB but isn't restricted to Erads.  This makes him potentially splashable in other Narukami variants like Vanquisher as a restander on a Voltage turn is nothing to sneeze at.  He's also very, very good on Closer Dragon turns.

Still this is definitely the better Descendant to be on in the EDD deck.  He might also make an appearance in Sweep Command lists for his RG skill rather than the VG.

Fire Pillar Eradicator, Castor

VG-G-BT12-041 (R)

[AUTO]:[Counter Blast (1)] When this card is discarded from hand for the cost of Stride, you may pay the cost. If you do, look at seven cards from the top of your deck, reveal up to one grade 3 or greater card with "Eradicator" in its card name from among them, put it into your hand, and shuffle your deck.

[CONT](Hand):While you are paying the cost for Stride, if you have a vanguard with "Eradicator" in its card name, this card gets grade+2.

Why is it that I routinely shit on the Eradicator support you ask?  It's because of cards like this where Bushiroad is clearly designing them to be more complicated (and worse) than their peers.  I know someone's gonna say "hey it's a Stride Fodder for Erads!  You can't be mad!"

Oh yeah?  Need I point out that in the same set Oracle Think Tank gets Battle Sister, Baumkuchen who reads as:

[AUTO]:[Choose a grade 3 card with "Battle Sister" in its card name from your hand, and reveal it] When this unit is placed on (RC) from hand, you may pay the cost. If you do, search your deck for up to one grade 3 card with "Battle Sister" in its card name, reveal it, put it into your hand, choose a card from your hand, discard it, and shuffle your deck.

[CONT](Hand):While you are paying the cost for Stride, this card gets grade+2.

Now read Castor again.  Castor is completely worse than Baumkuchen!  Her filter skill is a free one for one provided you have  G3 in hand but she is a guaranteed search of any Grade 3 Battle Sister you need pre G3 ride and can correct your ride setup if need be whereas Castor is CB1 for a potential crapshoot +1 (how good are you at hitting Luards off Abyssal Owls btw) and Baumkuchen's Grade +2 counts towards any stride regardless of what Vanguard you are on.  

Do you know how awesome it would have been if you could fetch Sweep Command Dragon or a Vowing Sword Dragon on demand?  Consistency in this deck?  Why that's heresy!

Seriously Bushiroad.  Stop it with Eradicators.  Fucking support Narukami decks that need it.  Brawlers haven't gotten anything since Set 5 and they've been the biggest victims of this game's changing meta while Vermillion hasn't gotten shit despite being the most popular Narukami card among the playerbase.

Until next week.

GBT-12 Narukami Spoilers - Week 4

Yeesh.  For a moment there I was concerned there'd be nothing to talk about.  Turns out I was wrong as Bushiroad dropped some good things on us this week;

Lightning Chakram, Gliselle

G2 9k

AUTO (RC): When this Unit is attacked OR is chosen by the effect of an opponent’s card, your opponent chooses 1 card from their Drop Zone, and Binds it face-up.

CONT (RC) Thunderstrike 5: During your turn, this Unit gains Power+9000, and “ACT (RC) 1/Turn: [CB1] If you have a “Vanquisher” Vanguard, choose of your opponent’s (RC), when this Unit would attack the Vanguard, you can attack both the Vanguard and the Unit occupying the chosen (RC).”.

This one's interesting.  Low key really good, but it'll take a while for her to really get going because of Thunderstrike 5.  Both of her skills are live outside of GB which is relevant if I end up having to play the Grade 2 game and the first one can be surprisingly irritating to certain deck types.  Normally when your Grade 2 gaming you'll be protecting yourself and attacking rears.  Doing that against Gliselle will cost you a unit from the drop zone and she doesn't even have to be retired for this so if I can save her with a 5k to force out another attack and bind then she's already pulled a fair share of her weight.  Then we've got her other skill which makes her effectively an 18k beatstick with the ability to become a One Strike Two Folds Djinn for CB1 which is nothing to sneeze at.

Smash Boxer Dragon
G2 7k
CONT (RC) GB1: During a battle in which this Unit boosts a Unit with the Thunderstrike ability, this Unit and that Unit cannot be chosen by the effects of your opponent’s cards.
AUTO (RC) GB1 Thunderstrike 3: [Place this Unit into the Soul] At the end of a battle in which this Unit Boosts, if you have a “Vanquisher” Vanguard, you can pay the cost. If you pay it, draw 1 card, and CC1.

This card is perfect.  He literally covers all of my complaints that I've lodged this past month.  CB issues?  Smash Boxer covers it.  Soul issues?  Smash Boxer.  Hand?  Smash Boxer!  And to top it all off he gives himself and a Thunderstrike unit he boosts Resist which is going to be hilarious against Kagero.  Solid 4 of that easily replaces Chain-Bolt Dragoon.  What's that?  You need more convincing?  Well Woudragon from the reddits hates this thing and since we all know that guy has his head so far up his own ass that I'm certain if you gut punched him he'd end up with a broken nose then you know that this thing is the legit real deal good goods.  Takes alot of pressure off our triggers to provide soul AND it clears up your board so you can get more value off Impede Dragon.  He can also be splashed into Sweep Command decks since they first Stride Voltage which is now 1,000,000% the correct play and this guy adds to the Soul for Sweep's Limit Break while unflipping and drawing more cards.

Seriously this thing is super good and it could have been a RR.

G-BT12 Narukami Spoilers - Week 3

Well after having literally the nuts flashed at us last week we're back to talking about some mere commons.  Oh wait there's also a promo as well!  Well this is interesting.  Last I hear Granblue and Nova Grappler got some REALLY good promos that have been big helps to their decks.  I wonder if this guy will be the same?

Demonic Dragon Berserker, Manas

An ogre carries an iron club. A dragon carries thunder.”

Grade 3 / Normal Unit /

Power 10000

AUTO (VC/RC) GB1: When this Unit attacks a Vanguard, during that battle, this Unit gains Power+4000.

AUTO (RC) Thunderstrike 1: When this Unit’s attack hits a Rear-guard, Retire that Rear-guard, then bind it face-up.

That.  Flavour text.

Otherwise...it's not that good.  I had some ideas of what could be done with this guy but the more I think on it the more I realize he's just not good.  He's a 10k body which makes him awful to ride, his +4k is GB restricted (and only occurs when attacking the VG) and while being able to retire bind  what he hits at TS1 is useful in theory, in actuality he's likely going to be swinging at VG since most people try to play around Narukami by leaving their front row empty.  Now this could change if we get the ability to turn any RG into a One Strike Two Folds Djinn in the future but for now since Manas can't hit backrow units (which imo are way more valuable to a deck's strategy) he's not something to write home about.  I will say however that Manas DOES have applications in the Seven Scum matchup as he can threaten any Nightspinels, Slash Shades and Prisoner Dragons that are in play (though you're gonna have to boost him up to some HEUG numbers to actually get that hit to land).

Wyvern Strike, Timrasch

Grade 1 / Normal Unit / Dragon Empire – Narukami – Winged Dragon

Power 7000

Shield 5000

ACT (RC) Thunderstrike 3: [Retire this Unit] Choose a number of your Units up to the same number of cards in your opponent’s Bind Zone, during that turn, they gain Power+3000.

Now this is just bad.  -1 just to give out 3k buffs to potentially my whole board?  And at Thunderstrike 3 no less?  He also doesn't contribute TO Thunderstrike which is another problem I've got.  At least Trainee Monk Dragon can put himself into the Soul to let Vanquisher punch something.

Plasmatron Dragon
Grade 2 / Normal Unit / Dragon Empire – Narukami – Thunder Dragon
Power 9000
Shield 5000
ACT (RC) 1/Turn Thunderstrike 4: [CB1] For each of your opponent’s Bound cards, during that turn, this Unit gains Power+2000.
AUTO GB1: When this Unit is placed on (RC), your opponent chooses 1 card from their Drop Zone, and binds it face-up.

I've gone on record saying I didn't like Cloudmaster Dragon.  I thought he was incredibly bad for what he required (GB1 and Thunderstrike 2 at a time where binding outside of GB was really hard) with the payoff only being good the turn you called it.  Otherwise he was a 9k vanilla any other time.  I had also said many times if they ever made a Cloudmaster Dragon that could activate it's skill at any time it'd be a card I'd consider running.

Well here we are.

Plasmatron Dragon is good.  He may very well be one of the best commons in the set (and so far the only bad commons are Timrasch and the Eradicator support so GJ Bushi) and he pretty much fixes all the problems I had with Cloudmaster.  Same power gain ability except I can use it whenever I want?  Check.  Easier conditions for this skill?  Somewhat check.  Helps you towards your goal of building Thunderstrikes?  Why I didn't even ask for that but sure we take those!  Plasmatron Dragon is a card that does all of the things right...and yet I am probably not going to run it because (and I can't believe I can actually say this) the Thunderstrike deck now has alot of options for what it can run and as good as this is Chatura/10ks/Martial Arts Dragon are better.  If Vanguard had sidedecking or we'd get out of this awful Gradelocking/Rushing format that has required the use of Vanillas to deal with it, I'd likely run this guy over my 10ks.  However because sandbagging exists, he will (likely) see no play.

Well that's it for now.  Check back next week.  Probably going to only have 1 thing to talk about as I suspect the COTDs are gonna be about Gears, Neos, Shadows and OTT.  I'd really like to know what our new Perfect Guard does so I can proxy it.

G-BT12 Narukami Spoilers - Week 2

It's that time of the week again where I cover newly revealed cards from the new set and this week.  Hoo boy this week.  This week we got the good goods.  So good these goods are that I had to make a video on them AND I'm also making this post!  I could honestly take just these 3 cards and walk away but there's MORE to come what with a new PG and probably some commons and rares to bolster the deck.  Needless to say that BSR's knocked it out of the park with the Narukami foils this set.  A stark contrast to Set 9;

Hardrod Dracokid

Grade 0 / Normal Unit / Dragon Empire – Narukami – Thunder Dragon

Power 5000

Shield 10000

AUTO: Forerunner

ACT (RC): [Rest this Unit] Your opponent chooses 1 card from their Drop Zone, and binds it face-up. If no card gets Bound, Counter Charge 1 card & choose 1 Unit with the Thunderstrike ability, it gains Power+3000 this turn.

ACT (RC) Thunderstrike 4: [CB1 & Place this Unit into the Soul] Choose 1 of your Units, during that turn, it gains Power+3000, then your opponent chooses 1 of their Rear-guards, Retires it, and Binds it face-up.

It's gonna be hard to not flat out repeat everything I said in the video so instead I'll just add some additional things that have come up since as I've taken the time to make proxies of these new cards and have been goldfishing and testing against other decks I own (notably Nightrose).  One is that this guy is as good as I imagined and I do want to play a second.  He's for all intents and purposes a Rockclimb Dragoon that isn't locked to GB1 when you consider his 2nd skill which aside from the Pale Moon or Granblue Matchup will be live on your stride turns.  That and establishing 2 of these can lead to some really silly situations where you get to drop zone bind and countercharge.  Also these go into soul which is going to become very difficult to manage when you consider how many of our units use it now.  Run this in anything that isn't Sweep Command as when combined with VBUSTER you can pheasably get Kaiser, Eradicators and Brawlers to end their first stride turn at Thunderstrike 5.

Dragonic Vanquisher “Sparking”

Grade 3 / Normal Unit / Dragon Empire – Narukamoi – Thunder Dragon

Power 11000

AUTO (VC) Thunderstrike 4: When your Ride Phase begins, Counter Charge 1 or Soul Charge 1, your oppponent chooses 1 card from their Drop Zone, and binds it face-up.

AUTO (VC): [CB1] When you Stride this card with a G Unit, you can pay the cost. If you do, your opponent chooses 1 card from their Drop Zone, and Binds it face-up. And if Stride with a G Unit with the Thunderstrike ability, your opponent chooses 1 of their Rear-guards, Retires it, and binds it face-up.

I keep Soul Charging triggers way too often off this guy.

That aside this has definitely become my preferred ride.  I was concerned that not having OG Vanquisher's GB2 would be an issue vs multi attack decks but Granblue and ZTB comes at you with power lanes that the +3k wouldn't matter and you still have the option of Chain Bolt Dragoon giving out +2-4k buffs against other decks anyway so in the end this guy is defacto best Vanquisher as you NEED to get those rapid binds going.  I'm still going to run OG Vanquisher but I'm not sure about how many.  Probably 1-2?  Depends if we get a Wyvern Strike, Jargo clone or not.

Conquering Supreme Dragon, Dragonic Vanquisher “VBUSTER”

Grade 4 / G Unit / Dragon Empire – Narukami – Thunder Dragon

Power 15000+

[Stride]

ACT (VC) 1/Turn: [SB1 & Choose 1 card from your G Zone with the same name as this card, and flip it face-up] Your opponent chooses 1 card from their Drop Zone and Rear-guard respectively, and Binds them face-up. If you have more Rear-guards than your opponent, choose up to 3 of your Units, during that turn, they gain Power+3000.

CONT (VC) GB3 Thunderstrike 7: All of your front row Units gain Power+5000, and this Unit gains Critical+1/Drive+1.

It's so beautiful. ;_;

VBUSTER is the epitome of what I consider to be good design.  He has powerful skills but their costs are reasonable and is able to function against decks that would normally hard counter Narukami by leaving nothing on the board to kill.  As I alluded to Soul Management is a huge issue as you've got: Martial Arts Dragon, Rock Climb Dragoon, Dragon Dancer Fatine and now this guy in a deck that generally doesn't build up soul outside of what it rides and any Resephs/Djinns you put into the soul.  The result is if you get too soul blast happy with your Thunderstrike Rear Guards you'll find yourself running out of it by the time you stride this guy a 2nd time and thus miss out on more binds and the new trend that is Quad Drive (poor Cosmic Heroes.  You just keep getting dickpunched with each new set release).  That being said he accelerates your binding by 2 without using CB which is greatly appreciated in Vanquisher, can be splashed into any Narukami in order to turn on Thunderstrike easier and because he's a Vanquisher himself any flipped copies help VMAX punch more things.

Now is he perfect?  No.  I honestly would have liked him to bind cards from the drop equal to the number of face up Vanquisher in the G-Zone but I'm content with 3k buffs across the board and a follow up 5k to the front with an extra drive.  Could you imagine pulling off 4 checks AND resolving a Sweep Command restand in the same turn?  Decks can also somewhat play around this by cycling cards out of the drop zone if possible (Gear Chronicle and Neo Nectar come to mind) which will limit your ability to bind but these are small gripes that by no means tarnish what is otherwise a brilliantly designed card.  Flare Arms, Ziegenburg is a good card because he rewards you for playing Kagero the way it's supposed to be played (blowing shit up frequently and keeping tabs on your opponent's board) while also helping you get to your win con with his first skill.  VBUSTER is an amazing card because he enables your deck's win con against your worst match ups and is a win con himself.

Oh and you also first stride this guy 1000% of the time.  None of this phantom advantage pressure bullshit that Woudragon/fighteroflight/whateverthefuck these idiots with shit logic have.  You start with VBUSTER all the time now and if not then you'd better have a damn good reason.

Until next week.

YGO Locals Report - ...a YGO Locals Report

Hey it's one of these!  That only means one thing!  I in fact got to play Yu-Gi-Oh! and more importantly I actually wanted to play Yu-Gi-Oh! so I did.  It kind of helps that my order for an Invoked core that I made last month finally came in (which btw was some REALLY good timing on my part now that I've had a chance to see what the deck is valued at now) and I've been wanting to play that deck tenever, but didn't want to spend 70 dollars CAD on Invocations.

That being said what kind of Invoked deck I use is going to vary as what I played today gets screwed over by the Master Rule changes so I'll probably have to pair them up with True Dracos or Kaiju-Luna after this week.  However for today I decided to play the Invoked with Kaiju and Windwitch as I figured those two engines would pair up with the deck nicely and I could surprise some people due to I think nobody in the city having the deck at this time.

I arrived at Locals with some time to spare and chatted it up with my friends and saw that there were multiple Magician Decks (ugh) and at least one Dark Synchro deck (UGH) which made my deck choice somewhat valid?  I should have known that many people would be suicide bombing today with decks that get annihilated by Link Summoning (and good riddance too) and with 3 board wipes in the main board and 8 hand traps in my side I don't completely lose out?  I just have to hope to god to hit Ghost Ogre vs any Synchro Spam deck to kill the Hyper Librarian.

Round 1 - vs Synchrocentric (2-0)

He wins the dieroll and pops off to my 0 hand traps with Hyper Librarian allowing him to extend with godly topdecks which drags the game out longer and longer.  I see a Reasoning, Tuning, One For One AND Soul Charge get played as he combos and eventually fucks up due to being greedy with his setup.  I guess he wanted to have 3 negates but had to settle for only Quasar and Stardust Warrior while having his Omega snipe a Pot of Desires out of my hand and not the 2 Terraformings or 1 Magical Meltdown I also opened with.  It's fine though.  He didn't hit my Kaiju Slumber and since he left me with bevy of things to work with out of his Graveyard it was a simple matter of baiting out the Quasar (in this case he negated Invocation) and using Slumber to clear out his board.  Both of his Synchros couldn't float and I ended my turn with a Lightning Kaiju + Solemn Strike for his attempted Trishula which I followed up by banishing the Omega he synchro'd with for a Mechaba to lock up the duel.  Game 2 he goes first but has a much weaker hand that only lets him end with a Stardust Warrior and Herald of the Arc Light that I beat over with Mechaba and pass with a set Strike and an Alistar in hand.  He can't break my board and the game starts snowballing in my favour as I stick a Raidjin on the board and eventually take the match after a L-O-N-G amount of play.

Seriously fuck Quasar spam decks.  Quasar himself isn't even the biggest problem with that kind of strategy (lol Kaijus) but rather it's how fucking long these decks take to play their turns out.  Our first game was literally 20 minutes long and 15 of that was my opponent's first turn.

Round 2 - vs Magician Pendulum (2-0)

I end up winning the dieroll but my hand is definitely not good.  I'm forced to minus myself out the ass to make Raidjin as I drew a Wind Kaiju, 2 Field Spells and my Pot of Desires didn't get me any Windwitches or adequate protection.  Turns out however that this was JUUUUUST enough as because I summoned my Invoked in defense he wasn't able to suicide his Poison Magician into it to pop it and my in hand Alestar was able to keep it safe from any attack halfing shenanigans.  Come my turn I made another Raidjin and poke him with both + another Alestar (I drew one off another Desires) which he can't out, but still puts me in a bind my making Beelze which I can't out as my 2nd Desires banished my entire Kaiju engine so I have no choice but to try to draw into a means to get around it (which at this point is drawing into a Light to make Mechaba with so I can try to negate Beelze's Atk gain effect).  Come my turn I Invocation for a 3rd time which he chains Maxx "C" to and thanks to my 2 Raidjins I'm able to book and flip summon the first Alestar to search my Fusion spell a 2nd time and stick a third Raidjin + an Earth Fusion to his increasingly smaller pool of resources.  He eventually makes a Pendulum Summon play and makes Tornado Dragon with a Wisdom-Eye Magician while also leaving a Skullcrobat Joker on the board which costs him the game as I had 2 Alestars in hand and a means to make Mechaba and swing for game.  Game 2 he goes first and tries to do Magician things but I have Droll and Lock Bird to reduce him to summoning a Beelze and Pend. Summoning with a Pendulumgraph and passing.  My hand is enough that I can break that board due to Raigeki + Kaiju + Meltdown which I do play all of and follow up with a Raidjin and end with a Solemn Strike set.  He Pendulum Summons into it, including a Wisdom-Eye Magician and that opens the gates for me as I summon Mechaba the following turn and he scoops shortly after.  I somehow pull off the 2-0.

Round 3  vs Magician Z-ARC Pendulum (2-0)

And to cap off this weird chain of events a wild Cobb appeared!  Also playing Magicians!  However he's being a complete protagonist/antagonist and has Z-ARC as a power play.  Regardless I don't remember much of this match other than I decided to be greedy and attempt to Desires into a Windwitch play but end up banishing them and most of my Kaiju instead, so I decide to stop being dumb and make Mechaba and try to win the grind through my Twin Twister and Solemn Strike which I do.  It's not on the spot but the strike was a huge tempo swing as he had to rebuild his resources again while I'm sticking beaters on the field while never losing control of the game.  The 2nd Game he Pendulum Summons the Magician Xyz after I Ash Blossom his Pendulum Call and I'm able to get my ball rolling, but he topdecks another Pendulum Call and it's off to the races.  I answer with a topdecked Meltdown and Fusion Summon while having Twin Twisters to get his Sky Iris off the board and seal the game with another Solemn Strike.  However because I had obligations to attend to after this round I gave him the match and left.

So record wise he wins but as you can see here I was undefeated today.  Not bad for a test run with a new deck (though you can argue that what I played was considerably simple compared to the Synchro Spam, Magician and Lightsworn decks present) that I hope to figure out the optimal ratios for.

With that being said this post marks the last YGO entry on this blog under the current ruleset.  This week Link Strike and its rule changes come out and the impact will be felt immediately.  Decks will have to adjust and those that can't will die.  Simple as that.  The game will be slowed down for a bit, but once COTD comes out other decks will speed up, new decks will arise and new cancer will come with it.  However it's a level of bullshit that will be dramatically lesser compared to the path Yu-Gi-Oh! was heading towards and for that I am thankful this is happening.

See you guys in Link Format!

Props
-Eyyyy I didn't scrub out on the first round.
-Techically went undefeated with a solid anti-meta rogue deck.

Slops
-Didn't like 6 Field Spells in the deck.  Gonna cut Terraforming to 2.
-If I continue to run Desires I'm gonna need one more Kaiju.  I kept banishing 2-3 of them off one.
-I need one or 2 Rank 4s in the Extra.  Castel/Tornado Dragon legit came up once.

G-BT12 Narukami Spoilers - Week 1

Not going to lie this idea was 100% inspired by another player's own blog posts in which he gave opinions on spoilers for the upcoming Bermuda Triangle set and I really liked the idea so I'm going to do the same except instead of discussing new mermaid cards (at least until Circuit Break) I'm gonna talk about my favoured Thunder Dragons as they are spoiled in Dragon King's Awakening.  Thankfully I don't have nearly as much content to review so these posts should be short in theory, but long time readers know I do like to be thorough in my examinations.

That being said there are some things to get out of the way;

-Since I'll be reviewing these cards WELL before the entire set is spoiled there's a good chance my initial analysis may be too harsh or too lenient.
-For context we will be getting reprints of Dragonic Vanquisher, Mighty-Bolt Dragoon and Demonic Dragon Berserker Chatura in this set.  Thus I'm not holding my breath on Vanquisher specifically getting a card of the same power level as Dragon Knight, Mubdi from the last set or a Thunderstrike oriented Stride Fodder.

Now let's get started!

Shutdown Eradicator, Dokukakuji
[AUTO](RC):When this unit attacks, if you have a vanguard with "Eradicator" in its card name, this unit gets [Power]+2000 until end of that battle.
[AUTO](RC):[Counter Blast (1)] At the end of the battle that your grade 3 or greater vanguard with "Eradicator" in its card name attacked, if the attack did not hit, you may pay the cost. If you do, choose one of your vanguards, that unit and this unit get [Power]+5000 until end of turn.

This card is...okay I guess?  It's not hot garbage but at the same time I don't see why I'd run this over Chatura, Thunderboom Dragon or a host of other already released Eradicator Grade 2s.  The CB better used elsewhere.

Ambush Eradicator, Kosangyou

[AUTO]:Forerunner
[AUTO](RC):[Retire this unit] When an attack hits a vanguard during the battle that this unit boosted a unit with "Eradicator" in its card name, you may pay the cost. If you do, reveal three cards from the top of your deck. If all those cards have "Eradicator" in their card names, put a card from among them into your hand, and if you put a grade 3 card into your hand, Soul Charge (1). Shuffle your deck.

Oof.  This could have been the one starter to finally dethrone Linchu in non Sweep Decks as Linchu's ability to kill Grade 0s and 1s while still useful has somewhat waned due to 10k attackers no longer existing and most decks waiting until Stride before calling down their utility Grade 1s (with some exceptions) so a new starter wouldn't be argued against.  Unfortunately this guy isn't it as while the conditions to trigger him are the same and he doesn't use up CB in a deck that uses ALOT of it the fact is if you reveal a non Eradicator with his effect it fizzles and that's a HUGE problem considering the deck will be running many non Erad units (Stride Fodders, PGGs, Chatura) which will turn this into a giant -1.

EDIT: With VBuster requiring Soul alongside Sweep Command and Zillion this guy's inability to go into said soul is yet another reason as to why he's less than ideal.

True Eradicator, Bravesky Linchu
[Stride]-Stride Step-[Choose one or more cards with the sum of their grades being 3 or greater from your hand, and discard them] Stride this card on your (VC) from face down.
[ACT](VC):[1/Turn]:[Counter Blast (1) & Choose a face down card from your G zone with the same card name as this unit, and turn it face up & Choose one of your rear-guards with "Eradicator" in its card name, and put it into your soul] If you have a heart card with "Eradicator" in its card name, your opponent chooses two of his or her rear-guards for each face up card in your G zone, and retires them. Then, if your opponent has no rear-guards, you draw a card.

Hoo boy.  This guy.  Would you believe me that on the wiki page for this guy there was a huge shitshow over this thing that ended up causing a bajillion posts?  Yeah there was.  Guess who was involved?

Anyway despite what some would tell you Bravesky Linchu is actually quite good for the Eradicator deck.  Excluding Sweep Command this guy is your arguable best first stride play as for a CB and a unit on the board you're killing a minimum of 2 things and if you've cleared the board after this draw a card.  However if you have any other cards in the G-Zone prior to this then you get to kill even more things.  This lessens the blow of having to ride to G3 first as if you have a G-Guardian play and follow it up with Linchu then you get to retire 4 cards for CB1 and a unit on the board and likely draw a card.  That's nothing to sneeze at.

Now I can see the complaint that he requires you to give up a Rearguard in addition to a CB for a (likely) retire 2 when we've had Big Bang Knuckle Turbo "retire" 2 units for a CB and a SB or 5 if you've Legion'd before that.  The thing about that is Brawlers have become too slow as the current tempo of Vanguard requires you to be striding as often as possible and purposely taking a turn to Legion for anything that will not outright win you the game or put it out of reach is a HUGE loss in momentum and the primary reason white DOTX/DOTE god awful now in addition to the subclan being reliant on the opponent having a board of many things to punch in order to advance their gameplan (Brawlers kind of died out after Set 6 and both Granblue came into the format while Pale Moon was strengthened).  Yes they can abuse Conquest Dragon better than Erads but their big power play of punch the board with Turbo so that your Rear Guards become super huge can now be done with Linchu as his board wipe skill when paired up with Shuki + Hakusho literally achieves the same result as Slash Dragon/Buster + Kokon while also drawing a card to balance out the loss of a RG.  This means now Eradicators can now pull off Brawler's big power play on top of having access to Finish Blow Dragon and Zillion while Brawlers have Turbo + Conquest and that's really it.  Yes I know Finish and Zillion are not the best cards in the world but my point is that with Linchu the Eradicator G-Zone has become much more flexible than Brawlers' and is arguably better.

Lastly let's talk about the part that Linchu sucks up a RG.  It's actually not that awful when you mull it over.  It can be of use when you consider that Positive Dracokid Soul Blasts to unflip, Sweep Command Soul Blasts for his Limit Break (and you are FAR more likely to run out of Soul first with him), Rising Phoenix uses Soul to draw, Assault Eradicator Saikei uses Soul to Countercharge and Machine Gun Eradicator, Kantou uses soul to buff himself and a unit by 2k when something dies.  Like say the Vanguard when you use Impede Dragon to retire 1-2 units?  Combined with GBD's Limit Break thats a +5k to the Vanguard for a Soul Blast vs multi attack decks.  Linchu fuels this without having to do things like throw Malevolent Djinn into the Soul which was a thing we used to do back in the day.

EDIT: I forgot to add on that Zillion eats up Soul for his restand which is relevant and VBuster also uses soul for his own skill.  Not that I would promote playing VBuster over this guy in EDD/GBD as neither of them care about binds but still it's something to consider.

So yeah Linchu is not hot garbage.  He's not busted by any stretch of the imagination but he's definitely more useful than people are giving him credit for.  Hell look at what I was able to come up with.  Can you imagine how much I'm gonna yammer when we get to Buster and Sparking?

Anyway that wraps up the first week.  Tune in again when we will hopefully know the skills of some of the cards spoiled in Today's episode.  3 of the 5 things I predicted have come true so we'll see if I'm 5 for 5 and how close my theoretical effects were.