This was the 2nd weekend of Regionals held after the release of Dark Neostorm (DANE) and with it a now firmly Tier 1 Orcust deck, a still Tier 1 Salamangreat deck and the introduction of Mystic Mine, a cancerous field spell card that rejuvinated Sky Striker following the Limitation of Kagari while also spawning one of the most toxic stall/burn deck types I have ever seen in my years of playing this game. Oh and that deck also happens to destroy Sekka based strategies. Which I play.
Well at least that was what I eventually came to after weeks of flip flopping between decks and overthinking the shit out of everything while scouring the internet for profiles and information in how to deal with that deck as well as the other decks of the format as a Danger! Thunder player. Between Youtube, my friends and to a very small extent Pojo I eventually came to the conclusion that despite how brutal the Mine Burn matchup is that sticking with a Sekka build over a non Sekka or even a Pure Thunder Dragon deck was still the best way to play the deck and that playing anything else would only hinder my chances of winning. Why play an inferior version of a combo deck just to slightly improve my chances of not immediately losing to my worst matchup while making my matchups against the rest of the meta worse? That's just bad logic in my opinion. With that in mind I finally settled on the following list;
Pretty standard for the most part but there are some small tweaks I made to suit my tastes. Namely I decided to play only 4 Normal Summons (Solar + Arma), Destrudo as an extender that can help make Guardragons and Omni Dragon Brotaur which at the time of this post has seen play in about half of the Danger Thunder decks that have topped this format? People have either played and liked him or played and said they wish they had him. I've already said my piece on Brotaur's applications in this deck so you know my stance. I did however opt to keep Eclipse Wyvern in the deck as in my testing I found that I would have hands after the first Saryuja where I didn't want to discard a single card for Brotaur so in those circumstances I'd rather use Wyvern to eventually get my target. Furthermore with Pisty in the deck you can get two Wyverns off in the same turn depending on your combo. I mained the 1 Thanos Dragon since I can fetch it, sided Forbidden Chalice as an answer to Salad using Abyss Dweller on me in the Standby Phase while also being able to negate any of the monsters Orcust use to disrupt me like Dingirsu or Longirsu. The extra deck was super tight and I had to cut a Colossus for a Number 68 who has the ability to turn off Graveyard Special Summons until the end of the opponent's next turn which against Orcust and some rogue decks is lethal.
Now with that out of the way lets get into the thick of it;
The tournament itself had an attendance of about 73 people and it consisted of alot of Tier 1 and Tier 2 decks. The most played decks of the room by far were Orcust and Salamangreat which didn't surprise me. Most of the combo players would have moved to Orcust and Salad is a cheap deck. There was also Mine Striker, Mine Burn (specifically people who were netting the San Jose list with Sculd) as decks I needed to watch out for and meme strategies like The World OTK because of course someone needs to make a Fist of the North Star reference.
Wait that didn't come out right.
Regarding my deck choice there were about 4 Thunder Dragons and all of us played the Danger variant. The low numbers are also not surprising since Orcust took the deck's spot as "best combo deck" of the format due to its ability to put up strong boards through hundreds of card combinations. Not as strong as Thunder's end field mind you but they require specifics card combos to go off.
Round 1 - vs Salamangreat (2-0)
Game 1 I lose the dieroll but he doesn't open with the full combo as he has to dump Spinny with Gazelle and this leads him to ending with Stallio + Sunlight + Jaguar but no backrow pass which I'm more than happy to see. I discard Dragondark on his turn to thin my deck out and he thinks for a moment which is an obvious tell that he's got an Ash Blossom and I plan my turn out accordingly by baiting it with Sekka's Light then popping off with the Solar + Wyverburstar combo and kill him. Game 2 he makes me go first with the intent of breaking whatever board I make through his sided cards...but he doesn't open with any Hand Traps and I've got a combo hand that lets me establish a board while ripping a card with Levianeer. He dejectedly draws Lancea on the following turn and scoops.
Round 2 - vs Orcust (1-2)
This was unfortunate as I was paired up against Megamonkey who is of course one of my teammates and team kills are never fun. I also happened to know exactly what he was playing so when I won the dieroll and saw that I opened with a strong combo I made sure to summon Number 68 to shut off his Graveyard which turned out to get me there as he couldn't use Cymbal Skeleton or the Danger!? Tsuchinoko? that I hit out of his hand. Game 2 however he opens with the Orcust Combo and my Phantazmay (which I realize in retrospect I held for way too long because I wanted more draws off it) didn't draw me into my sided cards so I wound up losing. Game 3 I open with the literal nut hand that this deck has...but he opened with Lancea which immediately ended my turn and he OTK'd me afterwards.
Round 3 - vs Mystic Mine Burn (2-1)
It's funny because I kept saying all fucking month that I was gonna be the one person in our group that had to play against Mine and got eliminated by it and behold I end up being paired against it. It also didn't help that my opponent was the guy who topped YCS Chicago with Crusadia Guardragon that alot of the people in the Winnipeg community hate for his attitude and mannerisms which made me REALLY not want to lose to him. I wasn't surprised that he was playing mine burn and the San Jose list so at the very least I knew what his deck was aiming for. Game 1 doesn't matter as I immediately scoop when I see Lilith hit the board and he was amused (and surprised) that I did that so quickly but there was no way I was going to try and play out an unwinnible game while letting him potentially scum me in time like some of the Mine players are known for. Game 2 I open with 2 Thunder Dragons and a Twin Twister so I thin my deck by one and pass without a monster so that he couldn't slap Mine on the board and would have to get it into play off Metaverse which leaves him open being blown out by Denko or Levianeer. Through several turns we both pass and do nothing as he's drawing cards and setting whle also using Sculd to stack my deck. I out his first Wave Motion Cannon and Sculd with Twin Twisters in hopes of getting a better draw off his Dark Bribe but he lets it go through and I go back to passing with nothing. Eventually I'm discarding cards because of the hand size limit and one of them was Danger! Bigfoot! which killed his 2nd Sculd. This also put me at the ideal graveyard setup to summon Levianeer and attempt to kill both of his Metaverses through its effect and see if he was silly enough to chain them. He's not and I end up hitting a Metaverse and Ring of Destruction. He eventually scoops though I'm not sure why as he had 3 Mines in hand and could have paralyzed me. Maybe he just wanted to take the match to time in Game 3? Regardless he goes first, plays Pot of Extravagance set 5 pass and I ask him if he has anything in my Standby Phase or Main Phase to which he says no. I then summon Denko Sekka and he immediately scoops.
Round 4 - vs Lost World Dinos (2-1)
Game 1 I brick in the worst way by opening 4 mini chaos dragons and 2 of my garnets before I scoop it up. Game 2 I do a partial combo because of hand trap and I'm forced to Tribute summon a Thunder Monster just so I can make a Colossus and hope to god it gets me there. It fucking does as his hand was just weak enough as he needed to resolve searches to combo. Busted. Game 3 he T-Sets and I kill him.
Round 5 - vs Orcust (2-1)
I already knew in advance this guy was playing Orcust so when I won the dieroll and opened with the Solar + Wyverburstar combo I made sure to summon Number 68 alongside my Abyss, Colossus and Spheres and he was like "game 2." Game 2 he opens combo and has the Ash Blossom for my Phantazmay and I don't draw an answer to his board for turn so I die. Game 3 I open with the combo and make Number 68 while ripping 2 cards out of his hand with Diabolos and Levianeer through a hand trap so that he's staring at a THUD board with 3 cards in hand. He scoops.
Round 6 - vs Mine Sky Striker (2-0)
To make a long story short I straight up clapped Allen in this match. Game 1 he sets up a typical striker board and I power through it with my monsters and multiple link summons so that he's down to I think 1 or two sets? I know I kill a Shizuku and negate Raye's revival effect with Triple Bust Dragon. Also one of my dudes is a Colossus and he can't out it so after some time he scoops. Game 2 he goes first, sets up a field and passes while I eventually break through it and in an instance where I have to play ugly to win I make a Colossus in 1 zone and Titanic Galaxy in the other. Galaxy turned out to be the MVP here as he sucked up a Multirole and he redirected a Hayate swing into himself which is areally cool interaction.
Round 7 - vs Orcust (2-1)
You've gotta be kidding me. I pull busted from my Participaton Pack, played against Nord, played against Allen and now it's Nikoli (one of our riends from Winnipeg)? I guess so. Anyway I win the dieroll and I have full combo. Game 2 he does the Orcust combo, I see no Phantazmay or answers to his board and lose. Game 3 I open with the combo hand but I get put under Lancea so I try to do what I can and hope he doesn't have anything...and he doesn't. Excellent, I get another chance except this time my Skull Dread get's hit with Infinite Impermanence and I see a Droll and Lock Bird on the chain as well which makes me sad as I have to settle for Colossus and Snek + attack into his monsters which made me sad. He wasn't able to take advantage of my slow start however so he sets a Harp Horrror + spheres pass and I break his board and win.
After that the final standings were posted and I found myself in 3rd place after 7 rounds of swiss which finally breaks my now 6 year streak of no tops which in itself is pretty cool. Doing it with Thunder Dragons which is a deck I legit enjoy playing just makes it feel even better and well this deck does play like dragon decks I've piloted in the past so this is sort of a return to form for me since this would be technically my 4th top with a Dragon deck. Well okay then.
After the tournament we all went to iHop then got together and played smash and talked shit for the rest of the night.
Props
-Getting my 4th invite. It's small admittedly but considering how Cardfight!! Vanguard is my main game and YGO is something I play considerably less (although with BT coming out soon...) but I'm still happy that I got a top.
-Breaking my streak of no tops. 6 years is a long drought.
-Getting my top with Thunder Dragons. If there was ever a deck that would allow me to break the streak it would be with the lightning boys.
-Beating Mystic Mine. Fuck that deck.
-While I didn't play on it, I got to see the magic of Scoop on Smash Bros Ultimate.
-Winning a game of Smash with Ice Climbers despite never playing them before. Also that Aqua booty state is hilarious.
Slops
-Not opening my sided cards against combo decks.
-Having my opponent hit my Dangers
-Not getting enough sleep.
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