Traditional at locals

I wasn't able to participate in the previous Traditional tourney due to… partying a little too hard the day before (lol) and failing to make time to create a decent enough deck. So that’s why I was a spectator last time.

Last Saturday, though, I was prepared and went to the other locals I usually attend, for a traditional Tourney. I pimped out my chaos dragons with forbidden cards (Painful Choice, Chaos Emperor Dragon, Dimension Fusion and Graceful Charity are all boss in Chaos Dragons).

Round 1: P-H (Six Sam):

• Game 1: I open up badly, but Imperial Order saved my ass, as my opponent opened with 5 spell cards (LOL). He can only advance slowly, while I recuperate from possibly one of the worst opening hands I've ever had. When my lifepoints drop down to 1900 (mostly due to paying the cost of Imperial order) I stopped paying the cost and get my game going. I get Future Fusion in my hand, resulting with a bunch of monsters and Chaos Emperor Dragon on the field, dropping his lifepoints to 2900 and then activating CED’s effect to burn 3200 for game.
• Game 2: I beat his monster with Leviathan Dragon turn 1, but he activates Gateway + SS United. He continues to summon, Searches/draws cards, drops Electric Virus on my dragon and OTK’s me. Yeah, I suddenly remembered why I hate Gateway of the SS.
• Game 3: Back and forth game, with Imperial order backing me again and Painful choice helping me advance. I win in the end.

Result: OXO

Round 2: Newbie (random warriors)

• Game 1: I realized this guy was new to the game and the god of card games wanted me to punish him. I opened up really broken (best hand of the day) and could FTK him.
• Game 2: Even with a quick-made deck that wasn’t prepared for Traditional, he showed quite some resilience. This guy holds some potential. But yeah, when facing Chaos Dragons unprepared in Traditional, you’re bound to lose.

Result: OO

I give him some tips on what he could’ve done to stop my advance, giving him some insight into the game.

Round 3: Vs Damon (Infernity)

• Game 1: The moment I activate Painful choice, he sees where I’m going and asks if I’m going to OTK him. I bluff a little, saying yes (as if! My hand wasn’t that great). He takes my bluff and scoops (his hand sucked, he told me).
• Game 2: I can’t do a thing when he starts looping. He OTK’s me.
• Game 3: I stop his Grepher with Veiler, seal his traps with Royal Decree and go forward from then on.

Result: OXO

Game 4: Carl (Piper Chaos)

• Game 1: Back-and-forth Game. He draws a lot and makes my moves backfire. I have few tricks of my own, but I know his Piper deck takes advantage of big, beefy monsters (like mine). Though moment he activates Crush Card Virus, I’m doomed. My field is swept clean and my hand is gone.
• Game 2: I have Troll & Lock bird ready, but he doesn’t activate a single draw card (once, a single Piper, wow). My  sided Royal Decree gets MST’d early on. Crush Card Virus doesn’t discard lot from my hand (I had Tour Guide, Veiler and the D&L bird that wouldn't fly), but with every good card I draw, being automatically sent to the graveyard, I can’t come back.

Result: XX

His loss over the Droll & Lock birds a few weeks ago clearly left a sore spot, as he didn't pimp his deck out with draw power (he said he’s the only one playing without Pot of Greed). No wonder my birds wouldn’t fly.

By request of the judge, we don't play top-4 (we agreed, result would've been the same, more or less)

End result: Third place (P-H got 2nd due to better tie-breaker)

• Card of the day: Imperial Order
• Fail card of the day: Dark Magician of Chaos (dunno why I bothered using him. Mostly ended up being a dead draw, even in Chaos Dragons).
• Got crushed by: Crush Card Virus. Yeah, that card really does hurt Chaos Dragons

So that's my locals report.

Next to the report, I've decided to do something with all the banlist predictions out there... But as this might take a while, I'll post about that near the end of the week.

Until next time, V out.

No deck is unbeatable (even in Traditional)

We all had that moment once, where we thought: "Damn, that deck can NOT be stopped!"

In the current Yu-Gi-Oh! format, I don't really have that feeling right now. Every deck can be beaten by another deck. For example, the current top decks of the march 2012 format.

• Wind-ups are weak to Maxx "C" and Veiler, 
• Chaos Dragons have a weakness to macro decks and recurring destruction (aka Hornet), 
• Dino Rabbits' weakness is that they have no outs to boss monsters like those Chaos Dragons spew. 
• Inzektors hate cards like Veiler & Dolkka, nor do they like chaos monsters.

Exchange FTK

In my own case, until recently I thought that the Traditional deck that could not be beaten was Exchange FTK.

For those that do not know Exchange FTK, I'll explain it in a few steps:

1. You draw a lot, with cards like Pot of Greed, Graceful Charity, One Day of Peace, Upstart Goblin,...)
2. You ensure Makyura the Destructor ends up in the graveyard (Foolish Burial, Armageddon Knight, Darkworld Dealings, Graceful Charity,...)
3. You draw recklessly, because you want to finish things in 1 turn (cards like reckless greed, Good Goblin Housekeeping & into the void)
4. You use Soul Release, because you don't want cards in your opponents' graveyard.
5. You activate Exchange of the Spirit from your hand, swapping grave and deck (not sending, SWAPPING!).
6. You use a draw power card that forces your opponent to draw a card (Dark World Dealings, One Day of Peace, Card Destruction).
7. Since your opponent cannot draw, you win.

In the few games I've seen happening with one of the better players at the steering wheel, the match was decided in less than 5 minutes, siding not included.

Holy s!!t, those guys must be banned!

They Key pieces for this FTK are of course: Makyura the Destructor and Exchange of the Spirit. Both cards have been forbidden for life for a reason.

•  Makyura has no line on it that says that it has to remain in the grave to continue resolving, thus he doesn't give a f**k when removed by D.D. Crow or such.

• Exchange's exact wording: Cards like Wulf, Lightsworn Beast, or Penguin Knight cannot activate, because they're not being sent to the graveyard. The deck has just been swapped with the graveyard. A choice in wording that Konami (thankfully) never repeated, due to it being unstoppable by anything in existence.

But in the finals of that Traditional tournament I watched, I thought Exchange FTK would win for sure. At least until I saw that very Echange-player struggling and losing.

I admit, cards like Delinquent Duo & Confiscation stopped the advance little by little. But there was a key card in there that put a lock on the whole idea behind Exchange FTK.

Droll & Lock Bird (read: Troll & Lock Bird)

Troll & Lock Bird is a hand trap that shines the most when faced with a "draw or die" deck. When your opponent draws a card (or adds a card to his hand), you can discard this card from your hand. Neither player can add any other cards from his deck to his hand that turn.

While this card does not seem that useful in most decks, it's a literal pain in the ass when it fights against Exchange FTK or other traditional decks that focus on drawing a lot of cards (Dragon Deep Draw, Exodia OTK,...).

Due to being forced to stop drawing, the reckless nature of Exchange FTK automatically backfires, as cards like Reckless Greed & Into the void suddenly DO have their drawbacks. Discarding the entire hand (Into the void) and not being able to draw any card in the draw phase (reckless greed) often means the player loses. And since Makyura is still limited, even in Traditional, you lose your chance of activating traps in your hand.

During the entire match, the Exchange player (whom I thought would win the tournament) faced Troll & Lock bird 5 times, causing him to be frustrated near the end and lose.

I saw the (what I thought) most unbeatable deck in Yu-Gi-Oh! go down in an exciting match and Troll & Lock Bird made that win happen.

What's to say... I've become a fan of this card.

Until next time.

V out.

Wind-up wins European Championship Yu-Gi-Oh!

Yeah, you hear it correctly. After Wind-ups have won the North-American Championship, they also win the European Championship.

Stefano Memoli (Italy) has taken the victory from Chaos Dragons. Congratulations to him.

Stefano might not sound unfamiliar, as he's also been one of the European representatives in 2010. Let’s hope this experience works out for him.

Great coverage, as usual

Thanks to the great coverage (as usual) of the European coverage team, we know pretty much everything we needed to know, like:

• Who will represent Europe at the World Championship
• What the deck lists are of the top 32
• Who was that awesome to actually summon the Dark Magician during a feature match?

Us, Belgians

And how did the Belgians do?... Yeah, not that great, huh. Most known names gave up after 6 or 7 rounds (including known names as Max, Kim and Sebastien).

The Belgian that got the highest rank was Michael Languedoc, who got a respectable 108th place. Still too low to get a top-64 spot.

Wind-ups on the rise

But the most important thing is… Wind-ups won again. After everyone dissed them a few months ago in favor of Chaos Dragons, they’ve come back with a vengeance. Wind-up and their ability to pick apart the opponent’s hand is something to be feared, after all.

Until next time

V out.

YCS Sheffield = battle pack YCS

When I returned from Werchter, I noticed a few updates on Yu-Gi-Oh! news.

the tins got their product page (if you didn't get the newsflash, both tins include Wind-up Zenmaines) and the product page of Return of the Duelist appeared.

Another thing that got announced were 2 new European YCS's. YCS Sheffield (weekend of September 8) and YCS Barcelona (weekend of december 1st).

Considering the low amount of YCS's Europe gets when compared to the US, I was quite happy to hear this.

But then I started reading the following :

So the main event of YCS Sheffield is going to be a Battle Pack tournament instead of the usual Advanced Format. Lol, what?

the people I spoke to at my locals could hardly believe what they heard or were simply angry because of this change. this isn't some local Pegasus League tournament or a side-event of a YCS, we're talking about the MAIN EVENT being Battle Pack Sealed.

YCS Toulouse had a little over 400 participants. Wanna bet this one ain't gonna get 200? Because, seriously, who is willing to pay hundreds of euro's for travel & stay to participate in a battle pack tournament?

Konami continues with the reassuring words:

This change does not mean that every YCS from now on will be Sealed Pack – YCS Barcelona will be again played in Advanced Constructed format. However, we do plan to host some of our future YCS events as Sealed Pack

Let's hope not.

V out.

Battle Pack Tournament

Yeah, it's been a while since I posted anything on this blog. I have been busy with a project for work with limited internet access. And meanwhile at home I rediscovered how addictive Civilization V really is (answer: really addictive).

But I have been preparing a few blog posts, so I'll update frequently in the next few days (before I leave to Rock Werchter at least :-P).

Well, let's start with the latest.

Battle Pack

Yesterday, we had a Battle Pack Sealed Tournament at our locals. Quite a few people showed up. There were 32 people present, which was more than usual for a Pegasus league tournament. But I guess the popularity of Battle Pack sparked the interest of many people.

We got 8 packs each (and 2 for price support, lol) and had to make a deck of minimum 20 cards.

The content of my packs:

• no “money” cards. No Tour Guide, Lance, Chalice, Tirus, Adreus,… But I did get a Solemn Judgment and a Gorz (which saved my ass a few times).
• 3 XYZ monsters: Leviathan Dragon, Utopia & Gem-Knight Pearl. Pearl and Utopia were used.
• Beat sticks, but no noteworthy effects: I put in Phantom of Chaos, but somewhere along the duels I noticed that none of my monsters had effects great enough for Phantom to use. But for some reason, I always had him and Creature Swap in my hand at the same time, which ended up being one of my combo’s :-P
• Forbidden cards: Raigeki (amazing card) and Premature Burial. Burial, combined with Autonomous Action Unit, allowed me to revive a few monsters.
• Draw power: 1 Reckless Greed, that’s it. My friend opening his packs in front of me had Pot of Greed, Pot of Duality and Graceful Charity (lol, what?)
• Fun card of the day: Bait Doll. Yeah, I did hit a spell from time to time, but I also hit a Solemn Judgment (on turn 2, lol) and a CED(which forced the opponents monster back to the hand), which was hilarious. I might end up using this card again in real-life, just because it’s funny.
• Card of the day: surprisingly: Spell Shield Type-8. Whether it’s fending of a Forbidden Lance/Chalice or a more dangerous Snatch Steal or Change of Heart, this guy jammed it. In this way of playing, my Spell Shield ended up being better than the Magic drain my opponents used (most of the times I had one or more spell card(s) in my hand).

The duels

Round 1: Versus guy that returned to the game after 7 years or so:

Beat him with some trouble (2-0). My beat sticks were strong, but hardly had effects, which I noticed is a downside. He was pleased with the learning experience from the match and I gave him some hints afterwards (he didn’t use cards like Book of Moon or Raiza the Storm Monarch). Thanks to the hints, he won the next three rounds, which was better than he ever expected (he was grateful for the help).

Round 2: Drago

First game, I ended up with 8 of my 10 support cards in the first 10 cards I got from my deck. I ended up losing because I couldn’t keep any monster on the field. Not to mention, he MST’d my Solemn Judgment in both games. Second round was closer, but I still ended up losing. (0-2)

Round 3: Rueben

This player was good. But in both Games I won with a close victory. (2-0)

Round 4: Julie

It was probably due to her crazy boyfriend next to her acting all weird, but she couldn’t focus on the game. She made several mistakes. I easily won 2-0.

Round 5: Guy whose name I forgot

This was the most exciting one and most memorable one. I might submit this to Konami’s come-back stories for Battle Pack.

First game, I won. Second game, he won (due to an early Solemn Judgment I used).

In round 3, his latest attack dropped my life points from 1900 to 400, while he had well over 5000 left. Next turn, I was able to use Raigeki to clear his field, even though I didn’t have any monsters. I set a Power frame and passed. His next turn, I used Solemn Judgment to stop his normal summon (down to 200). I pulled Reckless Greed and set it, hoping my opponent wouldn’t draw a monster. My opponent’s next draw was Treeborn frog (he cursed, I was happy). He summoned it and attacked, reducing my life points to 100). Next, I top decked Blast with Chain (fail), but Reckless Greed saved my life, as the two extra cards gave me Exarion Universe and Gene-Warped Warwolf (yes). I summoned Warwolf and crushed his frog.

Due to 1 set spell or trap, he couldn’t revive the Frog. He tried to finish me off by attacking Warwolf with Zombyra the Dark, but I used Blast with Chain on Warwolf, keeping it (and me) alive. When I attacked him directly, he used Metal Reflect Slime to defend himself. Next turn, he passed. Since I couldn’t draw and my warwolf couldn’t defeat his Slime, I passed as well. Then he got another monster and set 1 card. Next turn I summoned Exarion Universe and attacked his monster, which he defended with Power Frame. When he tried finishing me off by attacking my Exarion Universe I ended up defending my monster with exactly same trap (Power Frame). Realising I had two monsters of 2500 attack, he summoned another level 4 monster and XYZ summoned Utopia to defend himself (Utopia & the Slime).

I had my two monsters with 2500 attack and with the effect of Reckless Greed gone; I draw Exiled Force and summoned it. My opponent saw Exiled Force and panicked. I attacked Utopia twice with my 2500 beaters to bait Utopia’s negation (due to him panicking, he forgot he could allow a suicide). With no XYZ materials left, I targeted Utopia with Exiled Force, which resulted in his automatic destruction. In main phase 2, I tributed Force to destroy his Slime, together with his confidence to win. I had my two monsters with 2500 attack and he had an empty field with something over 3000 life points left. As his next top deck was a Forbidden lance with no monster to support it, he conceded. I had 100 life points and 4 cards in my deck left, but I won anyway.

Price support

With 4 wins, I ended up getting 5th place. We didn’t get those special Battle Pack cards (have they even been distributed in Europe?). But next to the 2 Battle Packs everyone got as price support, 5th to 3rd place got an extra Turbo pack booster (ooh, the new one), 2nd place got a playmat (lol, the Crow one) and 1st place got a Premium Pack tin (nice).

The Turbo Pack didn’t have much (elephant statue of disaster, Gemini Imps & preparing to intercept), but one of the price Turbo packs got me a starfoil Fabled Raven and a Rare Tour Guide from the Underworld. Win!

Next to that, due to the high amount of attendees, I was able to get some good trades. So the day ended really well.

The battle pack tournament was surprisingly fun.

Soon more posts... I promise.

V out.

V at Regionals

Yesterday, there was WCQ Regional at my locals. I went there, but there was an underwhelming amount of twenty-something attendees. That’s a low amount for a qualifier. Could it be a backlash from the unusual high amount of attendees at nationals last week? Who knows?

As the judges waited a bit longer for more people to show up, I walked around, looking at the Qualifier mats that was price support. I was drooling over what I saw. It wasn’t the Grapha mat from last Regionals, it wasn’t the Heliopolis mat from nationals… It was the Ninja mat I wanted! That encouraged me to get into that top-8.

We waited for quite a bit, but finally end up giving in our deck lists and going into the first round.

Round 1: Vs Albert (Ninja Dragons)

It’s fated. At nearly every tournament we both attend, I’m going up against this guy. I like this guy, because he builds different decks nearly all the time. Some of them are good, others are bad. Some are original and fun to play against. Most of the times I win, but there have been several occasions where he surprised me and beat the living crap out of me. This time, he brought Ninja Dragons (cool).

• Game 1: I get Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon on the field, together with two Lightpulsar Dragons. I overlay both dragons for Photon Strike Bounzer, surprising him for already having the card (lol). He couldn’t do a damn thing anymore. He drew a Hanzo, but as my Bounzer would only negate it, he lost automatically.
• Game 2: He gets two Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragons on the field, together with Lightpulsar Dragon. He counts 8100 damage and comes to the conclusion he just OTK’d me (wow).
• Game 3: For the first time in our duel, he can get his ninja stuff going. I can play around the first Super-Transformation, but get hit by the second. But a topdecked Dark Hole & Victoria turn the duel around. I win.
• Result: OXO

Round 2: Vs. Kim, the national Champ (Inzektors) – Feature match!

From the moment I saw the matchup, I thought: “Cool, versus the champ and his Dino Rabbits”. It would be the first time playing against a Dino Rabbit deck in an actual tournament. We sit down at the Ninja mats (cool), in front of the camera; which I accidentally knock away (woops). The moment I talk to Kim about me facing the national champ and his Dino Rabbits, he says he brought another deck to this tournament. Boy, was I in for a surprise…

• Game 1: I quickly notice I ain’t facing Dino Rabbits when Dragonfly and co. hit the field. As usual, I lose the first game to “the ultimate self-touch deck”.
• Game: 2: It starts off well when I use Chain Disappearance on his Tour Guide (lol). Then I try using Veiler in a chain when he activated Safe Zone. He explains I couldn’t do that because Safe Zone prevented his Dragonfly from being Veilered. At that point I wanted to beat up that teammate of mine (the one that topped nationals). Two days before, he explained that it worked the opposite way, even against my arguments. Due to believing him (he didn’t realize he was wrong, until I put the facts in his face), I lost that game, when I should’ve won! (CURSES!)
• Result: XX

Round 3: Vs. Karel (Darkworld)

I face this guy from time to time. Nice guy, but a bit of a dork. I try to be nice to him, as he seems a tormented soul with a heavy past. But sometimes even I can’t help myself boasting a little when laughing together with my friends. I’m going to remember apologizing to him next time; I may have been a little harsh on the poor guy.

• Game 1: He can’t get his Darkworld cards in his hand (He normal summoned Snoww) and loses fast.
• Game 2: He suddenly gets Chaos Hunter on the field (my arch-nemesis), but he didn’t saw Honest supporting my Light Dragons, so I beat him.

the second game onward, my memory’s a little vague. So I’m not sure if I won 2-0, or 2-1.

Round 4: Vs Stijn (Inzektors)

I got in front of a fellow Chaos Dragons player, only to find out he switched over to Inzektors as well. Why is everybody changing to inzektors, for crying out loud? Oh, well.

• Game 1: I lose the dice roll, he gets his inzektor stuff going, I lose (familiar scenario).
• Game 2: I get Future fusion, get Chaos Monsters, I banish his key cards. I win.
• Game 3: I misjudge a face-down Solemn warning, when It actually was a Torrential Tribute. I wanted to keep my REDMD alive, so before I used REDMD’s effect, I Tried triggering the Warning by summoning Lyla, only facing Torrential Tribute and missing the chance of getting Lightpulsar’s loop. This misjudgment costs me this round. Aaaaaah…
• Result: XOX

Round 5: Vs Unknown (the bugz!)

I faced one of the few French guys that bothered coming to our area for the qualifier. Apparently he’s the buddy of Sebastien Gonzales, one of Belgium’s best players. So, I’m prepared for anything.

• Game 1: I have a bad opening hand and can’t protect myself against them swarming bugz (not again...)
• Game 2: Somehow I get Eclipse Wyvern in the grave, but my field remains empty. He plays Dimensional Fissure on me (gee, I didn’t see that one coming) and attacks me with Spirit Reaper (Okay, he got me there!). Next turn I surprise him with Return from the different Dimension, bringing back my two banished Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragons, using their effect to bring more boss monsters and overwhelm his attack-positioned reaper.
• Game 3: This exciting match goes back and forth. My deck shows its anti-inzektor potential, by banishing his hornet at least two times, veilering his Centipedes before they do a lot of damage & using Chain Disappearance on his Dragonflies. He counters my boss monsters with various traps. We go into time, but in the end he has to give in. For once I had the right cards at the right moment, making the right decisions.
• Result: XOO (Yes!)

Since there were less than thirty players, there were only 5 rounds, so that was it. Together with Maarten, another familiar face at locals (another one of those guys I face nearly every tournament), we joke about getting into top-8. We both realize it’s impossible with 2 losses. We both wanted that Ninja mat, as we're both Ninja fans.

Final standings are given and I end up being 8th place, to my own surprise. They seriously had to film my face when they announced me being in top-8, I was overjoyed, as I won that Ninja mat I wanted so badly! Maarten, on the other hand, was not that happy. He got 9th place, missing out on that mat. I could read the disappointment from his face. The organizer handed out the notes for qualification for the European Chamionship (in Italy). He handed one over to me, to my surprise. I thought only 1 person for each 6 players got qualified? Well, we’ll see whether or not I’ll get an official invite in my mailbox, or not. It’s not like I can go to Italy either way (lol).

Thoughts in general:

People are switching over to inzektors more and more. It’s a sad thing and I’ll be glad when September comes and puts an end to that self-touch deck.

The organizer held back on price support. I find it hard to believe that the winner gets the same price as the 8th place (me). It’s not really fair for a guy that won all rounds to get the same price as the guy that he beat in the second round.

Keep your eyes on Inzektor Players! If it isn’t re-using used monster effects, or getting to many cards in their hand, it’s misunderstanding their own cards. Safe Zone appears to be the latest tech card in the deck, but many players use it wrong! Remember the following:

1. Veiler that Dragonfly or Centipede BEFORE your opponent activates Safe Zone
2. you CANNOT attack directly with a monster equipped with Safe Zone!
3. You CANNOT prevent the destruction of a DEFENSE-position Dragonfly by activating Safe Zone.
4. When Safe Zone is removed from the field, that Dragonfly you tried to protect is destroyed & vice versa.

Nationals time

Warning: Beware of long post! I tried to make it easy enough to read...

Aaah, Nationals time. The second time I participated and I hoped to do a little better than last year. I remember last year, I got a mere 87th place out of about 120 participants. But that was the first year I was playing. This time around, I took my Chaos Dragon deck.

I got up at 7h, and took the train to Brussels. After a five-minute walk from the station, I end up at the Outpost of Brussels around 10h, where the tournament took place.

I thought that shop would be bigger; sine nationals attract about a hundred attendees each year. But I was wrong… It isn’t the biggest place, but apparently the organizers thought there wouldn’t be a hundred people because of the “economic crisis”. Guess what… there were 160 people, even more than last year! Woops! They hired the lounge bar next door to make sure all those people could sit and play. The top-32 tables and the feature matches were held in the lounge bar, the rest was in the Outpost.

Registration was slow (as expected), in that BIG shop [/sarcasm], so instead of starting out at 11 o’ clock, it ends up being 12h30 before we could really start. It was no surprise people started to get grumpy and hungry after a while. Most of them were there since before 10h.

In the meantime, I got to do some nice trades. I finally got that Hyper Psychic Blaster for my Psychic Gusto Deck & I finally got me a Trishula, the re-sealed Dragon of the Ice Barrier (now my Ice Barrier collection is complete! Hurray!). My friends, on the other hand, were hyping up on Cardfight Vanguard, that new trading card game. Since the Outpost was the first shop to actually sell these in Belgium, it was only a matter of time before they sold out. A lot of people were interested in them.

Somewhere between 12 & 12h30, all players get to sit down alphabetically, so that the judges could pick up the deck lists. The head Judge says that due to the late start, round 7 & 8 would be held the day after. I’m not pleased with the announcement, as I wasn’t planning on returning on Sundays (unless I would top, of course).

During this decklist-check, I’m seated in front of Max Van Nijverseel, the guy that got 4th place at YCS Toulouse. That guy’s huge! From the talks I had with him that day, I could hear he’s definitely one of Belgium’s finest players at the moment. Let’s just hope that 4th YCS place doesn’t get to his head.

Round 1: Vs Lightsworn-Chaos Dragons-something deck

A short while after that, we finally get to the first round. The first opponent speaks French and only a few words Dutch or English (great). But he understood the game mechanics well enough and my French is average enough to get the game going. I win the die-roll, so I go first.

• Game 1: I get dragons on the field easily. I beat him fast!
• Game 2: I open horribly, but he can’t seem to get stuff going either. Just like game 1, he isn’t using the effect of Eclipse Wyvern & I start to notice that he doesn’t have any dark monsters at all (HUH?). After a few turns, I finally can get Lightpulsar and Darkflare on the field, and I beat him down.
• Result: OO

He explains (in his worst English) that it was his first big tournament and he was quite nervous. That would explain why he couldn’t get the second game.

Just before the second round started, my judge-friend came up to me and said: “Hey, I’m taking care of coverage today. Would you mind if I picked you to be one the next feature matches?” I thought about it. As I’m a fair-play guy, it’s only an advantage to be covered, as my opponent cannot cheat. So, I said yes. We got to play on the Gagaga Girl mats, which were beautiful! I wanted one of those :-P.

Round 2: Vs Grapha's minions (feature match!)

This opponent is a guy from my locals. The feature match made him obviously more nervous than he would be in a regular matchup (my fault I guess :-P). After re-rolling the dice for 4 times (lol), I end up losing the roll.

• Game 1: I open up with Charge of the Light Brigade & Solar Recharge, together with a bunch of Chaos monsters (cool). I got Lyla to my hand, but he activates Mind crush and I have to say bye to Lyla (f**k). He buries his Grapha and he attacked me with Trance Archfiend (wait, that's all?). During the match he mistakingly draws after he played reckless Greeds. I didn’t notice it, but the judge did. He apologizes, but gets a warning and a replay ensues. His nervousness is getting worse and he can't focus anymore. Thanks to that, he forgets about that Grapha. I’m able to come back quickly and beat him!
• Game 2: I start to wonder if he ended up with the same hand, but with a Dark World Dealing instead of Mind Crush, because again, he buries his Grapha & he attacks with DJ Archfiend. He’s able to get Grapha on the field this time around, but I get over his him with REDMD, banish the living sh!t out of him with Darkflare Dragon and beat the rest of Grapha's armies!
• Result: OO

After the match is over, my friend-judge and another judge have a small discussion about how the first one forgot to start the camera (fail). So our match was typed out, but no video (too bad). Then I start hearing rumors about how the entry packs were going to be Order of Chaos instead of Galactic Overload. This caused a lot of irritation amongst the players, as people wanted GAOV, not ORCS.

Since I had time to spare, I buy 10 packs of Galactic Overload (since I wasn’t going to get anything from the entry). I open them, along with my mates and piss them off when we pull a Photon Strike Bounzer, a Night Beam, Evoltile Elginero & Light Art Hijiri and a few other good rares and commons. Yup, that was money well spent.

Round 3: Vs the Bugs

Another French guy, but at least this one speaks English well enough to have a conversation, even if he clearly wasn’t that talkative. Before we start, we finally get our entry packs, proving that it was ORCS we got (ugh). The only good card I pulled from it was Blade Armor Ninja. Then we roll dice, I lose.

• Game 1: After he opens Tour Guide into Sangan, I still have no idea what he plays. It takes a few turns, but it ends up being Inzektors. But Darkflare, Chaos Sorcerer and BLS cause a lot of his combo cards to be banished, before he could draw into a Dragonfly. I sure love Chaos monsters :-P.
• Game 2: He opens quite well and even though I put up quite the resistance, I can’t seem to draw a single Chaos monster. Even Lightpulsar refuses to go to my grave! Curses!
• Game 3: This one goes back and forth. I refuse to give into his Inzektors and banish his Centipede, Tour Guide, Sangan and 2 of his Hornets (again he fails to draw Dragonflies). But as we go into time, he finally gets his Dragonfly, takes the upper hand with his last Hornet and takes the last of my life points.
• Result: OXX

This was an exciting match, even though I lost in the end. At this time around, the time schedule for the nationals gets updated again, and apparently round 7 & 8 will be held today after all, but we weren’t going to get a 1-hour break between round 3 and 4. I’m pleased, but a few of the judges are complaining because it will be late when the tournament ends today.

I meet up with my friends. Several of them are able to keep a 3-0 score, but half of them had at least 1 or 2 losses.

Round 4: Vs the annoying bugs (again)

Another French guy, but he speaks English fluently and is quite the nice guy. We have a chat and help out the French and Dutch players next to us who apparently don’t understand each other. We roll dice, I win!

• Game 1: I open up with 2 Wyverns, a few Chaos monsters and 1 Ryko. He destroys the Ryko instantly with Hornet and attacks. I then draw my third wyvern and realize there’s no more way out for me. I quickly lose.
• Game 2: I can open quite well, but I mistakingly use my effect veiler as a monster instead of keeping it in my hand. Next turn, he summoned Dragonfly, which I couldn’t negate anymore. Well, I deserved that loss.
• Result: XX

Round 5: Vs Skill Drain Heroes

Finally I face another Dutch speaking guy. And it’s a guy that doesn’t play Inzektors! I win the dice roll, so I start out.

• Game 1: He flips Skill Drain early on in the game. I curse that card, since my MST’s are in my side-deck and Heavy Storm remained somewhere hidden in my deck the entire duel. I didn’t get Future Fusion, or the Lightsworn Support cards I needed. So when he gets Beast King Barbaros on the field, I have to face the truth. Skill Drain hurts.
• Game 2: Obviously I side in my MST’s and hurray, I open with one of them, together with Heavy Storm! I use both of them (too) early in the game, but neither of them hit Skill Drain (I do hit Solemn Warning and Judgment). Not surprisingly, he flips his Skill Drain soon after and I have no way out again (DAMNIT!). I hit myself in the head for using that MST too early to be good, since I can’t get the other two in my hand. And then Karma laughs in my face, providing me with top decks like Ryko & Lyla.
• Result: XX

At that point, I’m kind of pissed. The guy was nice, but I just got my third loss (again, due to my own mistakes), meaning chances of me getting top-32 were reduced to 0. When I meet up with my friends, most of them had 2 losses.

Round 6: Huh?

I sit down, rather ranked down after facing three losses in a row. The table area was quite empty, as three opponents don’t show up, including mine. The guy next to me starts the timer on his phone, saying that he missed the top 32 in Toulouse, because his last opponent showed up in the last seconds, stalled like hell and got the win due to time. He said that ever since, he’s making sure that doesn’t happen to him again. After two minutes my opponent shows up, he says I can have the win, signs the paper and walks off. Lol, what?

The guy that was timing calls the judge and he signs “no-show” on his paper. On my other side, another young player faces the wrath of the head judge after he has to admit his side-deck is in a box filled with other cards (hard to prove you're not cheating then,huh). Poor kid was nearly crying when he got a game loss.

Round 7: Chaos Dragons (lol, mirror-match)

The guy I face seems tired. When I talk to him about it, he says he hasn’t slept in near 48 hours. After the deck shuffle, I win the dice roll, so I begin.

• Game 1: I open up with chaos card and LS support, so I pass. He profits from it and gets Spirit Reaper on the field, attacking me. He picks Lightpulsar Dragon for discard (he’ll regret that) and didn’t get that Chaos Sorcerer (lucky me). Next turn, I get the Lightsworn engine working, get Future Fusion in my hand, get all my boss monsters on the field and try to go for an OTK. He prevents that, thanks to Gorz, but he ends up losing anyway.
• Game 2: I open bad, he opens Future Fusion. He wins, period.
• Game 3: This was one of the most exciting games of the day. He tries stuff by getting Darkflare Dragon in the grave. I draw Victoria, revive his Darkflare Dragon & banish it for my Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon (lol, Victoria Win!). But I can’t get the win yet. He’s good! He comes back and ends up reviving my BLS. I feared I had no outs with Lyla being the only card left on the field. But then I draw Divine Dragon Apocralyph and get an idea! I summon it, use its effect to get REDMD back to the hand, overlay him and Lyla for Maestroke, detach Apocralyph to turn that BLS face-down, remove Ryko & Apocralyph to summon Lightpulsar from my hand. Banish it to summon REDMD, special summon the other Lightpulsar from the grave and smash for game! Thank you Maestroke!
• Result: OXO

I thanked the guy for the exciting match. He smiled, but hoped the tournament would be over soon. I asked him: “So you can go to bed?” No, he said. “I still need to go out with my girl tonight”. Ouch, wonder how that turned out for him?

Later on, the judges put up the standing after round 7 (First standing I’ve seen today). I was in place 63 of the 160. Cool, still in top-64. Top 32 was impossible, but if I could remain in the top 64, I would still get those Qualifier sleeves. But 63th place is cutting it, so I had to win next round. Several of my friends were nervous too, because they had two losses. They couldn’t lose another one, or they would be kicked out of the top-32. That situation made the last round the most exciting one.

Round 8: Chain burn

The last one is Dutch speaking as well (hurray). I lose the dice roll.

• Game 1: He opens Pot of Duality and reveals Jar of Greed, Legend of Yata-Garasu and Morphing Jar. For a moment I feared he was playing empty jar, a deck my I have a bad matchup against. But for some reason, he picks Jar of Greed instead of Morphing Jar (huh?). After getting a few monsters on the field, I notice it isn’t an empty jar deck, but rather a chain burn deck. I tried getting to his life points asap, but he ends up countering me with double Just Desserts and finishes me off with Secret Barrel.
• Game 2: He stalls and draws massively again. But this time around, he doesn’t have that Swift Scarecrow in his hand, so I quickly kill him with my boss monsters.
• Game 3: All or nothing. Both of us were fighting to remain in top-64, so it was hard vs. hard. I get monsters on the field; he can counter with cards like Lava Golem. But I won’t go down that easily. I use his Ojama tokens to get Scrap Dragon and Catastor on the field. Both our life points go down, but neither player is giving up. Then he gets Metaion, the Timelord on the field. He would’ve killed me if its effect would’ve worked, but my Effect Veiler prevents him from attacking. When it was my draw phase, I started to wonder how to get over that card, as attacking it was out of the question. I knew it was just a matter of time before he activated another Just Desserts or Secret Barrel. In the background I hear “TIME!” and realize I had to do something, or I would lose (I was slightly behind in LP). I draw into Eclipse Wyvern and my first thought was “Bad topdeck”! But then I noticed I still had Lyla on the field and remembered that come-back move from last round. I overlay Lyla & Eclipse Wyvern to create Maestroke, the lifesaver. And yes, he saves my butt. I use his effect to put that Metaion face-down, then destroy it with Scrap Dragon’s effect and attack for game with all my monsters.
• Result: XOO

The game is over and we’re both happy with the exciting match.

Final standings came out, while I drank another juice. I ended up being 43th place (of 160 attendees). I was quite happy with the result, even if I wasn’t in the top-32 (wasn’t my expectation). But being so close to that top-32 made me feel a little bitter about my mistakes in the matches I lost (the so close, yet so far feeling).

Next to the ex-champ from my locals, one of my teammates (the best player) topped too, so he would be coming back on Sundays. After talking and joking around with all the guys from locals, I walk to the train station and head home. By the time I started walking, it’s already 21h, so it was past 23h when I got home. A long day passed by, and I was happy.

After hearing from my team later on, that teammate got to 7th place and apparantly one of the only Dino Rabbit players at nationals actually won over all the inzektors! No matter how many Inzektors topped, it's Dino Rabbit that wins again! (I felt happy again!)

Pros for today:

• Good trades and awesome GAOV-pulls.
• Doing a coverage match and winning it 2-0!
• Maestroke the Lifesaver being the best addition to the extra deck I had in months.
• One of my teammates getting 7th place! Congratz to him!
• Dino Rabbit beating all the inzektors (loving that result!)
• None of my opponents being bas*ards (unlike last year), some of them were really nice.

Cons for today:

• The not-so-great organization of the tournament (location, timing, changed time-schedule)
• Not getting GAOV as entry packs, but ORCS
• Making mistakes causing me to lose two matches.

So, that was me at nationals. This weekend it's European Qualifier. We'll see what my deck does there, with the nice addition of Photon Strike Bounzer :-P

Yu-Gi-Oh! Random boosterdraft & Karbonala Warrior

Last weekend was easter. And on Easter Mondays (a holiday over here), the local Yu-Gi-Oh! tournament organizer hosted a random boosterdraft!

The random boosterdraft is a tourney where people have a lot of mixed feelings about. Some of the regular players don't like it at all. I like it, because it's so friggin hilarious.
Last year, the boosterdraft was with Tactical Evolution. Everybody laughed their arses off because of the amazingly bad cards we pulled. And from time to time, somebody was glad they actually pulled a card that's worth something (FYI: Last year, Venominaga was still around 60-70€ & Elemental HERO Magma Neos around 40€).

This year, we pulled 4 random boosters in groups of 4 and drafted :-).
Random, like from Metal Raiders up and including Order of Chaos.
My deck won, surprisingly, due to the few combo's I was able to pull off :-D.
I have to admit, it was so evenly matched, that all of the top 3 had 1 loss on their counter. I'll spare you the decklist, since it wouldn't even be playable in actual tourneys.

Amongst the cards I chose, I got a first Edition SR Union Attack, SR Backup Soldier & Karbonala Warrior.That Karbonala Warrior made me quite happy.

To express my happiness about this card, a little background on this one:
Karbonala Warrior is the ONLY EARTH Lv. 4 target for Instant Fusion (to synch into Naturia Beast & Barkion). But the card is so old, hardly anyone has it. And it's not that good to waste a lot of money to import it from the UK or US.

Considering import is too expensive for this card, you need to find it from a player, buy it from a pack (lol, who would do that) or buy it as a single card from your dealer. And that's where the trouble begins. Where do you find the damn' card?
- In US & Australia, you can find it in Legend of Blue-Eyes(LOB), as a Rare (easy!).
- In most non-EN European countries (France, Germany,...), it came out in Magic/Spell Ruler (MRL), as a common (simple).
- Where I live, supposedly it's in either LOB or MRL... or in neither... It kinda depends from what country your dealer got his LOB & MRL packs (if he remembers at all!). That's confusing as hell and incredibly annoying if you want to find the card!
Reprints then? Oh, the only reprint came out in a Tournament pack that wasn't really distributed where I live... (*facepalm*).

Trading, it is, then...
About two months ago... after searching and asking people for over a year, I finally found a person who knew what the card was, still had it AND had the LOB-version in his trade binder. I was ripped off in the process (not to mention, the card was in a meh kinda state). But I finally had that hard-to-find Karbonala Warrior.

Then, last weekend I pulled that same Karbonala Warrior during the booster draft, from a MRL-pack (so it was European after all!). I was so happy and sad at the same time.
- Sad, because I instantly remembered being ripped off for this card I just pulled.
- Glad, because I pulled a first edtion mint condition Hard-to-find Karbonala Warrior... And that's what counts, isn't it?

On a side-note, in that tourney, I won 12 random boosters, which got me a Secret Fabled Ragin, a secret Daigusto Gulldos, a secret Malicious, a super Dark End Dragon, an Ultra Macro Cosmos, a E-Hero Prisma, a Super Different Dimension Dragon (that's an old one :-O) and a few hard-to-find usefull commons (really eternal rest & Dragged down into the grave).

Wow, that was a lot to type for being the first "new" blog post.
Well, soon more. I'll try to update this blog with a higher frequency.

V out.