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
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.
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