Cardfight!! Vanguard - OCG Tournament Results (March 16-17/2019)

Some interesting things to note if you've been paying attention to some trends;

9th Hachioji Cup (Standard - 48 Teams):

1st) OTT/AF/SP

2nd) Murakumo/AF/SP

3rd) Murakumo/GP/OTT

4th) AF/GP/GN

Clan Distribution: 

AF - 26 

SP - 25 

Murakumo - 22 

RP - 15 

GP - 14 

OTT - 10 

GC - 10 

NN - 6 

Genesis - 4 

GN - 4 

PM - 2 

Narukami - 2 

Kagero - 1 

DP - 1 

Spike Brothers - 1 

DI - 1

1st Place

2nd Place

3rd Place

4th Place

Iwamizawa VGCS - VMC Qualifier (Standard - 43 people): 

1st) NN

2nd) SP

3rd) RP

4th) GN

5th-8th) SP/SP/NN/Narukami

Clan Distribution:

Shadow Paladin - 10

Royal Paladin - 5

Oracle Think Tank - 4

Murakumo - 4

Neo Nectar - 4

Gear Chronicle - 3

Angel Feather - 3

Narukami - 3

Spike Brothers - 1

Kagero - 1

Bermuda Triangle - 1

Link Joker - 1

Pale Moon - 1

Genesis - 1

Great Nature - 1

1st Place

2nd Place

3rd Place

4th Place

2nd Sapporo Cup - VMC Qualifier (Standard - 59 People): 

1st) OTT

2nd) AF

3rd) OTT

4th) ?

Clan Distribution: 

Oracle Think Tank - 12 

Angel Feather - 10 

Shadow Paladin - 9 

Royal Paladin - 6 

Neo Nectar - 4 

Kagero - 3 

Link Joker - 2

Genesis - 2

Great Nature - 2

Murakumo - 2

Pale Moon - 2

Gear Chronicle - 2

Narukami - 1

Gold Paladin - 1

Spike Brothers - 1

1st Place

2nd Place

3rd Place

Credit to the TeamAbsolution Discord for the images/results.

Notice something?  Between last weekend's Singles and this weekend's Murakumo is starting to struggle outside of Teams.  Turns out Japan is starting to figure out how to handle the deck and the result is we've all been overhyping a good deck as the BDIF when that title still belongs to Angel Feather.  Why is that?  Well it turns out the current popular build of Kumo (Shiraiyuki) has zero early game what it with it literally having no aggression until you hit that Grade 3 ride.  By comparison Angel Feather, Oracle Think Tank, Royal Paladin, Shadow Paladin, Great Nature and Neo Nectar all have plays from turn 2 onwards and can be the immediate aggressor vs the Murakumo player and put them at 3-4 damage and threaten them for game on the following turns unless Murakumo can heal itself back down.  We've also been giving Shadow Paladin less credit than it deserves as while that deck loses to AF/OTT unquestionably it does matchup reasonably well into the rest of the field.  

Will this translate over here?  Possibly?  NA can sometimes be slow on the uptake and I think initially Murakumo will perform strongly when Vilest Deletor drops this week but in due time I think the better VG players out there will figure out what Japan has and exploit the Shirayuki deck's weaknesses.