Lo(l)cals report - Testing Maiden Prophecy

Last week, the Blue-Eyes Structure deck was released and last weekend was a locals in one of the places I attend. So instead of continuing to fine-tune my current Prophecy build, I re-arranged the deck to fit in the Maiden engine (3 Maiden, 1 Blue-Eyes, 2 Azure-Eyes & 1 Star Eater) and see what it would give (no, I don't have that much time to test it on online platforms).

It’s been a while since the Destelbergen location organized a (decent) tournament, but this is the first in quite a while. To my surprise there were 18 people (yeah, that’s a lot in my eyes). 5 rounds of locals here we go.

Round 1: VS Stijn (Evilswarm)

• Game 1: I start and versus Evilswarm player's that's a blessing. I quickly overpower him with World and High Priestess. I can keep Ophion of the field with Book of Fate and the game is quickly ended.
• Game 2: The tables are turned. He opens Ophion and I’m stuck trying to get rid of Ophion after Ophion. The High priestes and World in my opening hand DID NOT help. Again, I did not see any Maiden or Blue-Eyes. I use a Compulsory Evac device and a Phoenix Wing to prevent him from searching another Pandemic, but he already had the other two in his hand/field (ah, f**k). I had trouble coming back and he finishes it off with a Crazy Box + EEV. Yeah, that’s game.
• Game 3: I open up horrible, but I do have a Veiler, a Breaker and Vanity’s Emptiness. Those three cards help me survive and pick his deck apart (since he doesn’t have MST). When I thought I had enough materials in my hand, I get rid of Emptiness, get Priestess on the field but I’m unable to make game. That was my mistake. He turns the duel around quickly and when I needed a good topdeck, my deck returns me a Blue-Eyes White Dragon. Yeah, that’s the only card of my Maiden “engine” I saw in this round.
• End result: OXX

Analysis: In this game I made the mistake to keep the Blue-Eyes engine in (even if I didn’t saw a damn’ card of it), since it wouldn’t do much good against Ophion. I did notice that my deck has a weakness to Evilswarms, but they have trouble handling Vanity’s Emptiness in return. I lost the game however, because I was too impatient and got rid of my Emptiness too soon.

Round 2: Vs Karel (Reptillianne)

• Game 1: Not much to say. He said his deck was a troll deck and troll decks don't do much against my kind of deck. He doesn't get the right cards and I quickly overpower him. This time I open with maiden, so Azure-Eyes quickly goes to the field. One turn later Star Eater appears as well. And one turn later it’s Blue-Eyes, Star Eater and Azure-Eyes. Ouch.
• Game 2: This time he does get the right cards to make him troll me. But I get rid of his key-cards too easily for him to actually stand a chance.
End result: OO

Analysis: First time I actually get the Maiden engine going. It feels really good. Azure-Eyes is hard to get rid of and with another Maiden+Blue Magician + a revived Blue-Eyes, Star Eater is very easy to make in this deck.

Round 3: Vs Worms (forgot this guy's name)

• Game 1: I open quite horrible, but I’m able to survive with my Spellbook Magician and a Gagagashield (no matter what you say, I like this card so I'll keep playing it). He hesitates to turn his defensive combo of Xex & Yagan into an offensive one when I have no good cards in my hand and that allows me to grind it through and make a come-back. But this duel takes time. I think we spent well over 30 minutes on this one duel.
• Game 2: We quickly go into time, but I’m able to give him the most damage in the end.
• End result: OO

Afterword: I recognize a beginning player and give him some tips and point out where he made mistakes, so that he can learn from them. Even though his deck wasn’t all that well-made to win, his plays were solid and well-thought out (the force is strong with this one).

Round 4: Vs Karel (Chain Burn)

• Game 1: A real back-and-forth game. I’m able to quickly get Azure-Eyes, Star Eater and another Blue-Eyes on the field, but when facing Chain Burn, that big field ended up turning against me. A few ruling questions are answered. Like, when Star Eater attacks, does Battle Fader work (yes) and does Swift Scarecrow work (the attack continues, but the battle phase ends after that). I actually win, because he thinks he has no more way out and surrenders… only to realize five minutes later that he could've won (he had Dimension wall). So I guess I lucked out.
• Game 2: I side out the maiden engine (since it only works against me) and side in some hate. But the cards that work the best against him is the constant Book of Fate bouncing his chain cards to his hand and recycling the Fates with Eternity and Tower. The sided Debunks take care of his Fader/Scarecrow and I make game shortly after that.
• End result: OO

Analysis: Yeah, the Maiden engine works against the controller when facing Chain Burn, that much was clear. But Debunk was godlike in this match-up. I said it before; it is one of the best side-deck cards in this format; that is no mistake.

Round 5: Vs Hendrik (Plant Rulers, LS variant)

• Game 1: A game that takes long and goes back-and-forth. I use Magician’s Circle to get Maiden on the field, but quickly notice my opponent played the Lightsworn variant of Dragon Rulers when Lyla hits the field instead of Veiler (Okay, I did NOT expect that). He has trouble attacking my Maiden, because he realizes his Crimson Blader’s effect is bypassed by Maiden during HIS turn. But I’m unable to summon ol’ Blue-Eyes during my turn and I can’t get enough resources to get over his monsters. I end up losing after a very long duel.
• Game 2: We quickly run into time (the first duel took once again well over 30 minutes). A hand-held Tower keeps him from activating Dragon Ravine and my cards are able to stop his combo’s. In the end, most of his dragons are Banished and this time around I still have my combo-cards. I’m able to take the most lifepoints away from him (even though some bystanders told me I could've made game as well if I didn't play so defensive in my last turn) and thus win in time.
• End result: XO (time = tie)

Analysis: We both played well, but made some mistakes. Sometimes I banish the wrong spell card, or return the wrong banished card to the hand, stopping my combo’s in their tracks. He on the other hand often chained Maxx “C” on the wrong moments. First time I didn't make much of it, but the second time (when we were in time) the judge saw it and told him it was too little too late.

End result: 4th place (Hendrik 3rd place). The winner was a Mermail deck.

Afterthought:

The Maiden engine melded really well with the rest of the deck (at least if I see her, lol). I tried Magician’s Circle to get Temperance and Maiden on the field more quickly, but the requirement to set the card and attack the turn afterwards is a let-down. And the moment I did use it, the opponent had a Spellcaster stronger than mine. So I’ll keep experimenting with other ways to get my casters on the field more quickly (One for One maybe?).

Ohter than that, Vanity's Emptiness remains one of the best traps of the format, closely followed by Debunk.

So now I'm testing what other variants would turn out (like using Dark Magician to get Azure-Eyes for the lolz).

Them Locals: Legendary Collection Edition

Last weekend we had another local tourney. This time around, the price was 2 Legendary Collection 3 boxes for first place, 1 box for second place and lots of boosters (ROTD & TU7) for the rest. Yes, this store gives enough price support to keep its people happy.

Before the tournament, I try testing my ninja deck in real life. I play Vs Ruben’s new deck (Agents) and lose horribly, because he opens broken first game and he blocks my moves second game. Okay, enough testing, let’s take that Photon lightray deck and get on with it.

Round 1: Vs Tim (Twilight)

Both games are kind of similar. He tries to mill his light and dark monsters. But in both cases he ends up milling or discarding boss monsters, so he can’t defend himself enough for my boss monsters.

Result: OO

Round 2: Vs Maarten (Inzektors)

• Game 1: I notice that with only 1 Dragonfly & Hornet, it’s harder to get the deck working. I get my field going and negate his monsters at the right moment. That’s game.
• Game 2: I open badly and after a while I feel like just attacking his Sangan so he can search dragonfly and kill me off (yes, I gave up on that one).
• Game 3: Back-and-forth game. At a certain point he has a Centipede with Gigamantis & a Brilliant with 1 material detached. I’m able to summon a light monster and just revived Honest to get it back to my hand. Due to me doubting rulings, I attack Brilliant (I thought Mantis’ effect would go off when I destroy Centipede, I was wrong) and I end up losing a game I could’ve won.
• Result: OXX

Round 3: Vs Davy (Monarchs)

Newbie or someone returning to the game after a while, I’m not clear on that one.

• Game 1: I underestimate him and he gets LADD on the field early (I admit, I did not expect Soul Exchange). I only have spells in my hand, so f**k this game.
• Game 2: For a while, it looks good for him again, but then he attacks into a surprise Gorz and has no monster big enough to get over it. When I activate Gozen Match, he’s in trouble and can’t get his Caius out anymore.
• Game 3: Gozen match in my opening hand. He’s pissed when I activate it (he’s been facing the damn’ card every round, due to the Wind-up Hate (lol). As expected, he can’t overcome the card. He’s stuck with a Caius in his hand he can’t use. And when I mind Control his set Spirit Reaper, I can attack for game.
• Result: XOO

Round 4: Vs Ruben (Agents):

• Game 1: He apparently opens with 2 or 3 Shiny Balls, Kristya and Herald of Orange Light. He’s being beaten easily and is forced to negate the effect of my Crusher (when it goes to defense), because he has to do something. Logically, he loses. He showed his opening hand, it was horrible.
• Game 2: He's able to fend better than first game, but he still a bad opening hand (again, 2 balls in hand, together with 2 D.D. Crows). And trust me, a bad opening hand is not something you want when facing my deck. Yeah, that’s another win for me. I explain to him that D.D. Crow is useless against my deck. It just fuels cards like Lightray Sorcerer & Madoor.
• Result: OO

After that, I end up 4th place and there’s a top-4 cutoff.

Top 4 match: Vs Carl (Machina Geargia):

• Game 1: He starts off with Gearframe to search for Fortress. I mind control his Gearframe to overlay into Maestroke. But he has a second Gearframe, gets 2 Fortress on the field, turns them into Big Eye and steals my monster. With my field open, I can't come back from that.
• Game 2: I try my Cyber Valley + Mind Control trick on his Gear Gigant X, but he has Dark Bribe on the field (curses, foiled again). I fail to draw any of my side-deck and my draws are not enough for his barrage of machine monsters.
• Result: XX

End Result: 4th place

So no Legendary Collection for me, but I get a few boosters, with more yank holo’s (another Hierophant & Gawayn, hurray![/sarcasm]).

It was a nice tourney in a new location (the old place, where we had the barbeque-tournament was not the best location) and it was a nice place. Still needs a bit more decoration, but it’s already better than the other place.

Well, that’s the last locals I play until I come back from Japan (5 days until I leave). Then the first one is going to be the sneak peek of Abyss Rising on November 3rd.

Until next time, V out.

Them Locals Special Edition: Barbecue-tourney

Yesterday we had a special tournament at one of the places I attend. A Barbecue tournament. First we play, then we eat. Fun & Fun!

Round 1: Vs Kenneth (Gravekeepers):

• Game 1: A little back-and forth game. Necrovalley + Solidarity make powerhouses of those spellcasters. But the game turns over when I bring Lightray Daedalus on the field and I go: “Hey, for the first time EVER I can actually use his effect!” He grabs the card, reads it and swears. He tries to come back, but it’s KO soon after.
• Game 2: The game starts bad when he goes Necrovalley + Royal Tribute on me (my whole hand gone!). But he fails to draw ANY monster, so I get enough time to recuperate and come back. Not exactly the way I wanted to win, but yeah.
• Result: OO

"Hey, that's a nice field spell you have there, buddy..."

Round 2: Vs Miguel (Six Samurai)

• Game 1: So epic we’ll never talk about this game… EVER! <_< (I won one of the most awkward games I’ve played in months).
• Game 2: I open bad, he opens with two SS United and is able to OTK me.
• Game 3: Back-and forth game. After I get rid of his Shi En, he’s able to bring Driven Daredevil on the field (I thought he was going Black Rose, this was a surprise). After thinking for a while, I found a way to beat that bastard. I used my Maestroke’s last material to flip it down. Then I used my Forbidden Chalice on my maestroke to make his attack 100 higher than Daredevil’s defense, therefore bypassing his effect. He’s surprised and can’t come back.
• Result: OXO

"I put that b!tch face-down!"

Round 3: Vs Jeroen (Plant Synchro)

• Game 1: He loops around with his synchro’s and everything I try is being blocked. At a certain point he shows he could easily go into Shooting Quasar Dragon. Am I glad that's still illegal over here. End result: I lose.
• Game 2: I side in some stuff and he scratches in his head, because he doesn’t understand my deck or what it’s trying to do. This gives me some advantage in game 2 as I do know what his tries to do. But when both my Gearfrieds get milled (curses!), we go into time and I block access to my Gorz by having Gozen Match active, I ended up losing a game I should’ve won.
• Result: XX

"Hey, nice party. Can I come over and play?"
"NO!"

Round 4: Vs Carl (Machina Geargia)

• Game 1: Me never having faced Machina decks (I’m not counting DS games with bad AI) put me at a disadvantage, because I tried to counter with things that didn’t work as I thought they did (the Catastor Vs Gear Gigant+Gearframe ruling :-S). I end up losing.
• Game 2: I’m able to do some shenanigans with Chimeratech, but when I revive my Cyber Dragon I realize I don’t have a second one (*facepalm*). That was a stupid mistake that cost me game 2 (though Carl says he could’ve countered my other strategy). I have to admit, Machina Geargia is a good deck.
• Result: XX

"I ain't no Ancient Gear! I'm modern gear!"

End result: No top-4 cut-off and I end up 6th place or so. I can’t remember clearly (didn’t care anymore because of the two losses).

In between and after the duels we do some trades and we’re able to get cheap SE’s of Return of the Duelist (10€ instead of the usual 12,5€). I got 1 Librarian and 2 Acid Golems, together with the crappiest secret (why?), the one Spellbook I didn’t want (Hierophant) and a few good supers. Further trades and friends got me a few other cards I wanted, but getting that second High Priestess is going to be harder than I thought (since I’m not willing to pay a shitload of cash on a deck that’s not going to be a top deck anyway).

After that we got to eat barbecue. And even though the weather wasn’t that great (rain), the food and the atmosphere were great. It was a fun and great day after all.

Until next time, V out.

PS: Oh, yeah... Six Sam won YCS Indianapolis. Check the blogs of LFN for a report and the blog of Team overload for many of the decklists.

Them Locals #3

Yesterday, I went to one of the locals I attend from time to time in Ghent. Second time I brought my Photon Lightray deck along to a local tourney, but I noticed this time around there was some decent competition (yes).

I was a little late and the judge tells me that (since I got a little late on the sneak too here) this is the last time he would let it slip through his fingers (sure, k, no problem.).

Round 1: Vs Ruben (Wind-up)

• Game 1: I open broken and clear both his backrow (storm) and send his monster back to the deck (ehren). Turn 4, the game is already over and I didn't even get to see one of his monsters.
• Game 2: I suddenly notice what he's playing... wind-ups. Without siding decently and no Veiler in my hand, I quickly lose to his magician combo's.
• Game 3: I didn't draw a single good card from my side and draw my gearfried waaay to early to actually be useful. He solemns my only way of countering and I quickly lose (ratz).
• Result: OXX

Round 2: Vs Kai (random deck): newbies? I always face them for some reason...

• Game 1 & Game 2: With random monsters and spells you can't achieve a lot, honestly. I tried to hold back, but he quickly lost both games. I tell him he needs to reduce his deck to as close as 40 as possible (he has near 60 cards in there) and give him a few other hints.
• Result: OO

Round 3: Vs Michaël (HERO deck)

• Game 1: I open teh nutz again and he has to look as I take the game in a few turns.
• Game 2: I open badly this time around. But I'm able to hold my defenses for a while (thank you Lighray Madoor). But when he uses Miracle Fusion to get Great Tornade to blow my Madoor away and the next turn parallel world fusion, I have to give in.
• Game 3: For a while I fear I might lose again, but I draw into Spirit of Purity and Light, get enough monsters banished for Lightray Madoor and then use them to get Photon Strike Bounzer on the field. I finish with Summoning Lighray Gearfried, causing a deadlock. A close game, but I win.
• Result: OXO

Round 4: Vs Jolly (Zombies)

Another first-timer, but this one's better.

• Game 1: Again, I try to hold back. But my deck answers me with power cards. I win.
• Game 2: She gets stallers on the field (Spirit Reaper, Lady in Wight) and suddenly appears with Patrician of Darkness. I underetimate this old-school card and get suckered into defeat. Curses
• Game 3: She tries to stall again, but I get better answers in my hand this time around.
• Result: OXO

End result: 3 wins gives me the 4th place. 3 boosters of ROTD & the latest Turbo Pack as price. Though the only noteworthy card is... Rebound (why do I only draw crap from this set?).

The winner, Carl, gets 10 boosters and pulls 4 ultra/ulti cards (Puddingcess, Spellbook Magician, Spellbook of Secrets & SuperRoboGalaxyCrap). Why is he the only one that gets good stuff? :-(

On the other hand, the same day was able to get 10 ORCS boosters off a very cheap price (something close to 0). THose packs got me better results (Invoker, Super Transformation, Evolzar Solda, Dark Mist and a bunch of rares.

So, all in all a good day of testing. Now I at least have a few ideas to fill my side-deck with.

Until next time, V out.

The weekend: Them Locals #2 & The Japan Plan #1

Them Locals

Last Saturday I went to one of the Locals I attend. The last tourney in the March ’11 format and the last time I could use my Chaos Dragon deck in full glory. Due to writing this a little late, several matches have become a little hazy. So instead of improvising the rest of the matches (which could contain a lot of wrong info), I’ll just give the short version of it.

• Round 1: Vs Alexander (Blackwings): Lost due to amazingly bad opening hands.
• Round 2: Vs Jason (Karakuri): Barely won. Amazingly bad opening hands again, but I was able to come back.
• Round 3: Vs P-H (Six Sam): Won, because he has just as much bad luck in opening hands as me today.
• Round 4: Vs Mathias (Nordics): Won, because Chaos Dragon can outsmart even gods.

End result: 4th place (bad tie-breaks).

Price: 2 ROTD boosters which gave me a jank holo (Great, another Noble Knight Gawayn). For some reason, all ROTD boosters gave me nothing interesting or jank holo’s (rebound, Super Robo Galaxy Destroyer and Advanced Dark).

Trading went better than the tournament. Got myself a High Priestess, Temperance, Ancient Sacred Wyvern, Number 11: Big Eye and some other trade bait.

The Japan Plan #1

On Sundays, I met up with my two comrades (anime geeks, like me) to further plan the upcoming trip to Japan. The flight tickets were already booked (October 13 to October 27th), but now we came together to book the J-Rail Pass and (more importantly) the Hotels/Hostels/Ryokans to sleep. So we had to come up with details on what cities we would travel to on which days. This is the result:

Day	To see
October 13	Travel, the whole friggin' day (yeah, Japan is the other side of the world for me).
October 14	Arrival in Narita - Travel to Tokyo (nothing too serious since we expect a jetlag)
October 15	Tokyo
October 16	Tokyo
October 17	Tokyo
October 18	Tokyo + Travel to Takayama
October 19	Kamikochi
October 20	Takayama + travel to Kamazawa
October 21	Kamazawa + travel to Kyoto
October 22	Kyoto - The Fire Festival
October 23	Kyoto
October 24	Kyoto (or Nara, still haven't decided which day)
October 25	Kyoto (or Nara)
October 26	Traveling back to Tokyo
October 27	Travel homwards.

At the end of the evening, all necessary rooms were booked, safe the last day (still looking for a capsule hotel to stay at (one of my friends really wants to try that out).

Now the only thing left is filling our days with things to visit. We already have some sightseeing ideas and tips, but other tips are still welcome.

Until next time, V out.

Rebuilding Chaos Control + Them Locals #1

Previous week, I wanted something to vary from analyzing tons of banlist wishlists. So I’ve been rebuilding my old chaos control deck. I was getting a bit tired of Chaos Dragons (shit happens when you’ve reached a build you're happy with and when you’re awaiting a banlist).

Recipe for the new deck:

1. let’s take the old deck.
2. Take out the old special summons (Cyber Dragon) and replace them with new ones (Tefnuit) that can be searched (convocation).
3. Add the staple cards from the Chaos Dragon deck that can be re-used.
4. Add the Tele-engine to the deck (E-Teleport & Krebons).
5. Flavour the build with cards from the past year (like Photon Thrasher) and random good ideas found on the net (thanks GQ for the idea of Void Ogre Dragon).
6. Evaluate and remove cards that have become slow/don’t help with this new build (removed Gale, Guldfaxe, Summoner Monk,…).
7. Test the end result.
8. Look what cards end up clogging or are bad top decks (like Birdman), remove them for better cards.
9. Repeat steps 7 & 8 until you’re happy.

So, I've build and re-shaped it until I got something I liked. And unlike the Chaos Dragon build (of which I was confident about from day 1), I wanted to test this one out on Duelingnetwork. It’s been months since I’ve been online (ref. if I'm online, you can find me as MaJuV).

I like this build, because of the crazy search power it has (Convocation, ROTA, E-Teleport, Charge o/t Light Brigade, Tour Guide) and its ability to crawl out of (almost) every bad situation I’ve been encountered with (safe otk’s), just like the previous Chaos Control deck.

And then, last sundays, I went to locals to test in real life.

Round 1: Vs newbie (why do I always get the newbies?):

Not much to say about it. This kid got the Cyber deck from his sister. While I tried helping him play the deck, this didn’t feel like a challenge to me.

Result: O? (he gave up after his first loss, even though I encouraged him to continue and learn some more. Oh well...)

Round 2: Vs Tricky (Malefic Geartown)

• Game 1: He gets 2 Gadjiltron Dragons out fast. I try getting his backrow with Lyla, but he chains and it ends up being Skill Drain. I lose quickly. He shows he had another skill Drain and 2 Beast King Barbaros in his hand. Yeah, I had no chance at all, huh.
• Game 2: He quickly reveals he sided in Necrovalley against me (oh, come on!) and brings out his Malefic Cyber End Dragon. I counter with Caius. He gets my Caius out of the way with Malefic Stardust. For the next few turns, I can only defend, as I can’t use the Chaos Sorcerer in my hand (curse you, Necrovalley). But I’m able to get rid of Malefic Stardust (thanks to D.D. Warrior Lady), get his Necrovalley (and his second one) out of the game and I make a come-back.
• Game 3: He does his Geartown stuff again and gets 2 Gadjiltron Dragons on the field. I quickly go down to 2000 lifepoints. I noticed I didn’t side out my veilers. While at first I thought it was a bad move, I made the best out of it, used the effect of Zephyros, summoned Veiler and synchro’d into A.J. Catastor. After his first dragon is reduced to scrap metal, he tries to defend his second Dragon with Skill Drain, but a well-timed Forbidden Lance makes sure that his dragons are no more. He tries to come back, but to no avail.
• Result: XOO

Tough match, this one. But I came back and won.

Round 3: Vs Drago (Inzektors)

I’ve been waiting for this one. I was hoping to face him, because I know this deck would fail against Inzektors. But I wanted to see how bad it would go and what moves I could make to make the best of it.

• Game 1: I set a monster. Next turn, he goes “I’ve got an OTK in my hands. If you don’t have a veiler or gorz/trag in your hand, you lose.” Well, f**k”… I tried to keep up appearance, but he went loop-de-loop and OTK’d me. Well, not much to test if you’re going to lose to an OTK, huh…
• Game 2: My Royal Decree stopped his traps and my Caius got rid of his Sangan. I end the turn with Photon Bounzer on the field. But he top decked MST (he top decked like a boss), got rid of my Decree, revealed his trap to be Compulsary and went all pain on me. His other face-down was Solemn Warning, so I couldn’t do much anymore.
• Result: XX

Round 4: Vs Jaouad (Gladiator Beasts)

• Game 1: He activates G.B. Chariot and ends up recycling the damn’ card turn after turn, bringing me down to 200LP. But I top decked BLS (like a baws) and I attacked his monster without activating his effect (in your face, Chariot). From there onward, I come back and take the game.
• Game 2: He can't keep his monsters on the field due to my chaos. I win.
• Result: OO

With 3 wins, I got 4th place and we held a top-4 cutoff.

Round 5: Vs Wim (Skill Drain HERO)

• Game 1: I catch him twice checking his top card while still being my turn. First time, I let it slide with a comment, but second time I get pissed. I call the judge and make him clear that he can’t do that (not that it would help him). For the rest, he tries to put some pressure on me with Rai-Oh, Torrential and Skill Drain, but I end up beating him with only a handful of lifepoints left.
• Game 2: Don’t remember this one too well, as everyone who didn’t top got their price support and started to take off (distraction = max level). All I remember is that he came close to winning, but I took the win in the end.
• Result: OO

Final Round: Vs Drago (the revenge?)

• Game 1: Repetition of last time, I get beaten fast.
• Game 2: He takes my bait and doesn’t go for OTK. The two Veilers in my hand and the Chalice help me stall, my chaos monsters get over him and remove his key cards from play. Win.
• Game 3: Back-and forth match. Near the end of the match, nearly everyone already left, including the shopkeeper (lol). We’re only with 6 or 8 people left. He went into Exa-Stag, taking both my Sangan (oh, come on! I needed that) and my Solemn’d Scrap Dragon, but the bug attacks into my D.D. Warrior lady (lol). I make a mistake, reborning the wrong monster (CED made it worse) and with a lack of light monsters in the grave, I can't come back.
• Result: XOX

End result: 2nd place (pretty good for a first real-life test with this deck).

Price: 3 Hidden Arsenal 6 boosters (nice). After some trading with the last people present, I go home with Vylon Disigma and some other secret rares I wanted from the set. Now I'm only missing a Sphreeze.

Card of the day:

When you play well at locals with a new build, there's always that one card that keeps saving you, or you keep going back to when it gets tough.

In this case, the card of the day surely was D.D. Warrior Lady.

I eat your Stardust for breakfast and wipe the floor with your Zenmaines!

The card is underappreciated and often neglected in favor of that white dog from the Lightsworn gang (gansta woof!). But the effect of the lady is still a pain to deal with (for the opponent) and Leviair brings her back so easily.

Well, I’ll post up the banlist real soon. I'm still writing the blog post with a thorough analysis, but I first wanted this one out.

Until then

V out.