The Week Ahead

So this should be a fun week for the YuGiOh TCG!

First and foremost is the release of the Wave 2 tins tomorrow, where we can finally get our Solemn Warning, Darksoul, Fossil Dyna, Ehren, and Eatos reprints. In the end I may end up getting 6 Galaxy Eyes altogether, but I'll start out with 4 like I said I would get originally. The fact that the Wave 2 tins have an extra EXVC pack intrigues me very much, even though realistically I ain't gettin' another Tour Guide. We can dream though, right? Surely people are gonna pull it though, those lucky sonsofbitches! With these tins I look at it for the promos as the primary buy, and the packs as a bonus. Wanna know what the best card (in terms of value) I pulled out of a booster was out of 11 Wave 1 tins? 1 freakin' Birdman, and the rest was jank. I should be rewarded with a Tour Guide to help balance it out lol. Can't wait to pick Wave 2 up tomorrow :) What will this mean for me in terms of our local meta? Well I imagine my Hyperions getting Warning'd and ruining my day.

At the end of the week we have the Sneak Peek for Photon Shockwave. I always thought of Sneak Peeks like 'Christmas that comes 4 times a year'. It's the best time of the year to get your hustle on! I'm really curious to see what the turnout for the tournament is in comparison to how many people show up just to get the new stuff. I always thought it was odd how people buy and collect cards but never play in tournaments. Why pay for something that you aren't going to use? I guess I just have a too black-and-white perspective on things like this.

I've already sold off most of Zach's good stuff to ARG and Troll, and I added a few of my cards (like $90-worth) to go with it since I had some stuff I wanted to sell as well. Now I just gotta get rid of his jank holos, beat up Monster Binder, and 2 mats. Does anybody need/want 357 bulk holos w/ a M.Binder and 2 mats? I'm including some spare packs I have lying around from tournament-winnings as well. Looking to get $120-200 for it but willing to negotiate on prices/throw-ins. If you'd like to do a trade/buy via Pojo feel free to leave me a comment with your username and I will send you a PM from my account, and we can discuss there.

Feel free to check the listing at: http://www.ebay.com/itm/YuGiOh-Foil-Collection-357-Holos-Monster-Binder-Play-Mats-Turbo-Packs-/150687879349?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2315b290b5

I was planning on building that Karakuri deck when I got home today but now that I think about it, I don't think I have the little Stratos guy lol. I'll have to see. I'm sure Jeff has a bunch of extras though so I'll ask him for 3 on Saturday if I don't have any. I'm not sure what to do with my Darkworld stuff..Fabled Ravens are still $40 and a Dragged Down is like $6. Do I really want to throw in another $50 to play the deck? Not really. If I can somehow trade for a Raven that'd be fine, but I don't think I want to straight-up buy one. I wouldn't even mind paying $6 for a Dragged Down, but $40 for a Raven, meh, just doesn't seem worth it for a deck that had no tops. Speaking of Darkworld, I saw Dale Bellido's duel video of him playing a DW Plants deck, I just kinda thought to myself that DW can be inconsistent on their own, and then throwing the Plant engine into it? Seems like it could be even more inconsistent, but I can't argue with the philosophies of a player like Dale Bellido. He hasn't posted his full list, I'm guessing there are more cards to it which can help make it more consistent.

Guess that's about it for the moment. Have a Happy Halloween, whether you go for the candy, parties, or just stay home (like in my case). Save some money for the tins for tomorrow though! :)

Locals Report 10-29-11; Lightning Comics

So this morning after taking my dog to the vet, I made a last-minute decision to switch back to Agents because I just wasn't feeling comfortable enough with plants. A few days ago I watched dubkdad's Youtube video about playing what you're comfortable with and not always going by what you see in YCS results and stuff. What works for one person may not always be the case for another. So I rebuild Agents while watching Beavis and Butthead (hell ya for their return) and American Horror Story. I tell Zach that I'll be leaving soon since I have to go to his place and pick up his part of the money for the PHSW case and he wants me to sell off his collection. I get to his place and wait like 20 minutes for him to finally get back from the ATM but finally get the money and his stuff.

I get to Lightning and they're having a Halloween costume contest thing and there's also some local comic artists that are drawing random things for people. Superheroes, YuGiOh cards, etc. I trade with a few people and notice a lot of people are playing DW. I ask Colin what he's playing and he says "Darkworld" but I'm not sure whether to believe him or not but I adjust my side for the high number of DW I see anyway, and figure I'd include my anti-gadget and anti-GB stuff just in case. Jeff and his wife Melissa finally show so we test a little. We end up waiting till like 2:30 for the tourney to finally start due to the costume contest (normally starts at 1 or 1:30). Again there are a total of 8 people.

Round 1 vs Colin (Darkworld)
Game 1:
He wins the die roll and sets a monster and 2 s/t. I assume it's Morphing Jar so I Venus into Gachi and set my traps, attack and it's Broww. I'm like O_o he doesn't seem to know how to play the deck. He uses Dealings a bunch on Grapha and Snoww while I discard useless stuff like Veiler. I try to bait out a Grapha summon since I have Bottomless set but he DWLightnings it. I bring out Hyperion and pick away at his stuff. We both get down to like 3 cards while I have a Hyperion out. He brings out Grapha but runs into Honest, then I attack for the rest of his LPs.
Game 2:
I take 17 from a Snoww hit and that's it, I don't get to use any of my sided cards but I take it pretty easily (guessing he had a bad hand)
1-0

Round 2 vs Melissa (Naturia)
This is our first tourney match but we've played quite a few games casually, with her even beating me in a few. Bambooshoot can be scary if you don't draw a monster to deal with it.
Game 1:
She gets me down to 4100 but my monsters do a helluva lot more than hers, and she's still learning the game so it's kinda one-sided.
Game 2:
Pretty much the same story as last game, I don't really let her get anything going. In casuals I'm much nicer but in tourney I basically play every match as if I was in the final round of a regional/other large tourney.
2-0

Round 3 vs Jeff (Karakuri)
I think both of our games I bring out Trish and I'm lovin 2 mained Maxx C against his deck and bringing in the 3rd. I also end up tribute summoning out Kristya and he just can't deal with her. Game 2 I end up bringing out a 4000 Chimera and summon Earth to attack for game when he was at 46. I tell him about Jeff Jones' YCS Karakuri deck and told him I'd play it in a few weeks. Jeff (not Jones) thinks of himself as like a Karakuri guru, I'm gonna feel bad beating him with it, even though his is a very pure build right down to every single one of his monsters, and nearly all of his spell and traps. We talk a little about Cyber Dragon and how useful it is and he has like an internal dilemma about it not being a Karakuri, I was like "well no one's gonna think any less of you for running non-Karakuris or anything. If it helps your deck it's worth it." We'll see what he does.
3-0

This week we don't do a top 4 since we started later due to the costume contest. I'm the only undefeated, so I win for the 5th week in a row. It reminds me of Booker T (WCW/WWE) and I think to myself "I'm the 5-time, 5-time, 5-time, Lightning Comics Champion" (he used to say WCW Champion). I think I do a few little trades and I test a little with my Plants against Jeff, and yea, I just feel a lot more comfortable running Agents. I ask Big Mike about how the Sneak's gonna be next week and he said it'll be regular entry but also have the option of 5 packs+promo for $20. I'm still unsure if I will buy into that or not but I'll definitely play in the regular tourney.

Decklist:
Monsters: 28
3 Hyperion
3 Venus
3 Earth
3 Shine Ball
2 T-King
2 Maxx C
2 Veiler
3 Tour Guide
1 Sangan
1 BLS
1 Gorz
1 Kristya
1 Trag
1 Honest
1 Birdman

Spells: 6
1 Hole
1 Reborn
1 Heavy
1 Mind
2 MST

Traps: 7
1 Dustshoot
1 Torrential
1 M. Force
2 Bottomless
2 D-Prison

Extra:
Same as last weekend

Side:
2 Crow
2 Debunk
2 Gemini Imps
1 Shadow Mirror
1 MST
1 Maxx C
2 Pulling
2 Oaths
2 Cydra

I'm loving the 2 maindeck C's and I wasn't really missing Orange, in comparison to Veiler. I still like 1 Kristya and 1 Trag. Bottomless does fine for me and I liked my upped D-Prison count to 2. I'm not even sure if I want to run Warnings, lol. I think my main is pretty much perfectly catered to my local now, and I'm always adjusting my side to make it relevant as well. I'll play this next weekend for the sneak and then I'll probably try out Jeff Jones' Karakuri (minus the Fiendish Chains, just don't like that card), at a closer tourney like Uncle's after that. If I like Karakuri enough I'll end up selling my Plant stuff (namely Bulb, maybe Tengus).

Of Things to Come

So 1st ed Maxx C's have gone up again on Troll's buylist, now @ $30. They aren't buying 1st ed Tour Guides at all now. I was curious as to why this was, so I did a search on their inventory and they have 26 1st eds for sale for $190 and no Unlimited ones. I guess that pretty much explains it. $190 seems a bit high but I guess there are people that don't/aren't allowed to use eBay so I'm sure they have a market for it.

Last night I decided to hop on DGZ and check out Shriek's OCG site to try and get a feel of what we may expect to see in the post-PHSW meta. When I look for OCG lists on Shriek, I try to only look at the ones where it shows the attendance being like 100+, for obvious reasons. They sure like splashing the TG engine into whatever they can it seems like, lol. Nah, only into Agents and Gadgets. One interesting tech I saw in TG Agents was 2 copies of Elder of the Six Samurai and adding the obligatory Shi En with it, kinda like how Sabers did. I also see the tech Rush Rhino, something I tried when I first ran TG Agents but it was dismissed rather quickly by the forum folk. The unfortunate problem now with trying to look toward the OCG for meta predictions, is due to their lack of our big exclusives, namely Tour Guide and Tengu. I remember back in the day when what ever was hot in the OCG, would be hot for us like a few months later. If you kept up with the OCG, you had a better understanding of how the TCG was going to evolve. Now, it's just not as relevant due to the increasing gap in our card pools in general and our broken exclusives. I guess we get to see what good Extra deck cards we can anticipate and most likely plan to use though.

Obviously the first thing people think of when thinking about post-PHSW, is the impact of Rescue Rabbit, Laggia, and Dolkka. The deck doesn't seem to be doing all that much in OCG land, but they also don't have Tour Guide to abuse Rabbit, or Dolkka at all. I don't know if this alone will be what sets this deck apart for us. A lot of people said DW would be insane because of Tour Guide, but we didn't see much of that broken-ness out of Columbus (I highly doubt Dark Smog is going to be that "one card they need to be tier 0!" card). On paper Laggia and Dolkka are just insane. Normal monsters, however, are not. At least they have 1900 or 2000 atk (with 1700 if you run Kabazauls) depending on what kind of variant you run. If the deck does well, the problem that's going to happen is first and foremost the price. Imagine a deck with 3 Tour Guide, 2-3 Rabbit, 2 each(?) of the derkas, that alone may end up being $900-1000. On eBay Rescue Rabbit pre-orders are about 100, and Dolkka is anywhere from 60-100 (only looking at Buy-It-Nows). Oh boy I can already hear the whiners on the forums lol. But such is the cycle of YuGiOh, broken deck -> ban list -> new broken deck -> reprints of stuff in the old broken deck.

If the deck doesn't do well however, I would say our format will pretty much be what it is now until ORCS (no idea what's good in that set). I don't think anything relevant is coming out of HA05, but I may be wrong, I dunno. If Plants continue to take the next few Jumps, I could see a ban of Lonefire, Dandylion, or both in March. From a business standpoint, imagine how upset they are that no DW's topped the YCS. What reason do people have to buy the deck if it didn't even top 32? A Trag, Fader, and Bribe reprint? Doesn't seem like enough, but I dunno, maybe it is for some people. They will nerf Plants so that they can force players to buy into their newer archetypes. If I were Konami I would pay the top pros to play what I wanted them to or offer a very small commission. If they do well with it, then that gets people to buy that product.

I think Wind-Ups will largely be ignored until they get that one broken XYZ, boss monster, draw card, or something along those lines. People are scooping up Wind-Up Factories for that moment, and if it ever comes, they should be able to profit a lot from it. I'm really interested in playing Karakuri as a non-Tour Guide deck and just need 2 more Genex Neutrons for it. However, I dunno, it just seems very susceptible in game 2 and 3 with the opponent siding in Cyber Dragons. I guess you just have to play accordingly and not leave a bunch of your machines out there for your opponent to Chimera away.

So taking all this into consideration, what becomes the equalizer? I believe it to be Maxx C and also its counter, Debunk. Maxx C is going to hinder all the decks from trying to go off without the opponent taking into consideration the reprecussion of their actions. If they try to go for game, they have to consider "Will he draw into Gorz/Trag if I let him draw too many?". That is why I believe Debunk to see an increase as well, to counter their counter. We even saw a Plant player at Columbus maindeck a copy, maybe other players did too, I dunno. It's at least going to be a sidedeck staple. There are so many hand-trap monsters and things that activate in the grave that it's probably a safe bet going into a big tourney. Speaking locally, it ain't the best card since no one else owns Maxx C's, only a few have Veilers, and no one's even running Plants. Maybe they'll be running DW this weekend though, we will see.

As for this weekend, I'm still unsure what I will play. I know I said I'd play whatever did well at the YCS, but I've been drawing kinda funky with Plants. Losing to Shiggs doesn't instill any confidence in the deck (no offense Shiggs) for me as well. I guess I'll have to run some more hands and see, or playtest a little right before the tourney and make a snap decision. I'm probably just over-thinking it. I can't play DW since I don't have Raven or a 3rd Dragged Down, and I can't run Karakuri since I'm missing 2 Neutrons like I stated previously. Pretty much comes down to Agents or Plants, lol. Obviously I haven't had too much issue winning with Agents, but I'd really like to play something else. Venus into Gachi every game gets repetitive, lol.

Ramblings for today (Maxx C & Tour Guide Update, Top 32 lists, eBay Rant, etc)

Seems like the folks at DGZ have finally gotten around to compiling the top 32 decklists as well, so I will be stepping away from the task of finding them and typing them out on here. At the moment they pretty much have all the same lists as me but they got people to post their own as well, since I'm sure not all of them are gonna be on Youtube. Eventually they'll show up on Pojo as well (if they haven't already), and the community's manpower > mine. Hopefully you enjoyed seeing them (in text) here before anywhere else though! I will be doing this for future YCS' as well. If you don't have a DGZ account for what ever reason, well you should go make one.

So as predicted in my last post, the buy price for Maxx C has gone up. On Troll&Toad they are offering $25 for both 1st and Unlimited editions. ARG has yet to update, but I know they don't update every single night like Troll does. For some reason though, Troll's buy price for 1st ed Tour Guides has dropped all the way to $90, while they still offer $135 for Unl. ARG's are still roughly the same ($137.75 1st, $120.25 Unl). My guess is that someone sold them a few, and from what I've noticed, every time someone sells them X card, their buy price for it goes down but then steadily climbs back up. For example I sold them 2 E-Hero Prismas one time for like $6.50, they accepted, and that very night they lowered it to like $5.85, but now they're back up to $6.50 (Gold) and $7 (DPCT). It's probably to avoid getting a flood of a particular card at the possible news of a reprint or something, so they can investigate and see why people may be selling X card to them. I dunno, all that is just a big giant guess, but it makes sense right? I know that if all of a sudden a bunch of people were trying to sell X card to me, I'd be curious as to why. Also on a big ticket item like Tour Guide, I'd want to make sure I sold the ones I had before I bought up too many more at a high price.

So my order of DW Structure box (split with Danny) and GENF SE box came in today, Danny and I were both like "eh, I don't even want these." I decided to open up 3 for myself and will try to trade/sell off the other. It's still a pretty decent product for its reprints and I'll probably swap out my sleeved up GK deck for DW just for the sake of having it built and sleeved. I pulled absolutely crappy in my GENF SE box; Smashing Horn for my Secret, and Leviathan & E-Hero Nova guy as my Ultras. Poopy. Only one more week for the Wave 2 tins though! I can't wait to have Warnings again and I've never owned a Fossil Dyna lol. To be honest I've been very content with Bottomless and D-Prison though, against these trigger-happy guys at my locals I can't really afford the life cost.

I tested a match with Shiggs with my Plants vs his GB, I lost 1-2 with no siding. I never liked the game 1 Plant-GB match-up. Shiggs plays at the downtown Uncle's on Saturdays so I asked him if he thought I should just come there. He said it basically sounds like the prize support is the same as Lightning, so there's no reason I should be driving all the way out there. Attendance for both places is about the same, pretty poopy. He said he'd like the competition with me being there :) My biggest thought is in regards to the Sneak; I want to go to the one where I feel there will be the most people since that means more people to plus off of in trades and more prize support via the tourney. My guess is that it'll be Lightning, so I want to build up my credit for that event, use it all up, and then play somewhere closer after that.

Between now and the release of PHSW, I'm not too sure what I will write about. Columbus has come and gone, DW didn't live up to its hype, and I don't think any more on the matter needs to be discussed since just about everyone and their mother has already talked about it (via forums, Youtube, and blogs). I think people will be shifting their hype toward Rabbit/Dinos, and again people will be asking themselves "Will it live up to the hype??"

So I sold my copy of Dead Space 2 on eBay literally 9 days ago (17th), and just last night the buyer opened an Item Not Received case. Now, that's just insane because that is a mere 8 days that they allowed for the item to get there. They stated that they tried to contact me via eBay and I didn't respond nor was I trying to help. Well guess what, I received no messages whatsoever from this person, and told eBay that they are free to look through my Inbox, Sent, and Deleted folders to verify this. I check the tracking and I sent it out on the 20th, and it arrived at its destination on the 22nd. Pretty speedy for First-Class all the way from WA to FL!

Here is what I wrote in my case response:

"I find the opening of this case laughable for 3 reasons:

1. The buyer stated that they tried to contact me via eBay. I have received no messages asking the whereabouts of the item. You are free to check my Inbox, Deleted messages, and Sent box to verify this.

2. The buyer paid for this item on the 17th and I sent this out on the 20th. With the case being opened yesterday, that is a mere 8 day wait for a case to be opened. 8 days. Say it to yourself and realize how ridiculous that sounds.

3. The item was sent with Delivery Confirmation and the tracking clearly says it showed up on the freakin' 22nd! 2 days after I sent the item. Imagine that!!

From USPS tracking site: Delivered, Oct-22-11, 09:26 AM, MIAMI, FL, 33166

"

Yea, I am just overall disgusted with the whole eBay process in general and how quickly one can open these cases. And all that does is hurt my account because he opened the damn thing. In eBay's eyes I would be a "bad" seller because this was opened against me. See why I have grown to hate it so much? The guy must either have balls of steel or is as dumb as a rock to try and open an INR case on an item that came with Delivery Confirmation and furthermore shows exactly when it arrived. My guess is that he's just beaten the game and wants to get his money back. It would've been smarter for him to file an Item Not as Described case and say the game didn't work when he tried to run it, send the game back to me, and get his money back. But, you know, that's what someone who isn't as dumb as a rock would do. Congrats dude, you're derp-tastic.

UPDATE: LOL, just a mere 10 minutes after replying back on my case, the buyer willingly closed the case on his own. Now watch, he'll leave me negative feedback cuz he wasn't able to fk me over.

Market Analysis & Prediction - Maxx C

Just a reminder that I am compiling the top 32 lists for Columbus in the post below, as far as I know this is the only place (so far) that you'll find them together in text format. You can obviously Youtube search "YCS Columbus" and browse around yourself, but I myself like having the text version all in one convenient location, since it's gonna take the Konami site forever and a half to put them up :)

It seems that Maxx C has spiked in popularity at Columbus, with Plant decks incorporating 2 or 3 in the main deck. Maxx C is pretty much the legal version of Royal Oppression. Sure it doesn't stop the monster, but at least you're getting something out of it and potentially plus'ing so that you can swing the momentum back to you. I remember early in the format when this card was only like $8-10.

Looking on eBay, the average Completed listing is $30 with a few outliers. If you wanted to buy one now, the cheapest Buy-It-Now is $37. Currently both Troll&Toad and ARG are buying them at 22 for 1st ed, and 21 for Unl ed. I would expect this value to increase over the next few days. Undoubtedly people will be wanting them since Plants dominated Columbus, and with them being Secret they're hard to obtain. There are only 20 listings for the card on eBay at the moment. I predict that they'll be ~$45 by the time the Wave 2 tins come out next week. My reasoning is that people will be able to get their cheap Solemn Warnings then, and be closer to building the deck that topped, and thus Maxx C will be in more demand. As more people want to play Plants, this card's viability keeps going up, so demand goes up, etc etc. It's also very safe from getting reprinted since the set is still fairly new. I'm glad I picked up my third a few weeks ago!

YCS Columbus Top 32 Decklists

Putting them all here as I find them.
Total lists found: 11/32

1st - Billy Brake (Plant Synchro)
(Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8oVSPbYy-8&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL)
Monster: 23
3 Tour Guide
3 Tengu
3 Maxx C
2 Thunder King
2 Caius
1 Debris
1 Dandylion
1 Sangan
1 Spore
1 Veiler
1 Glow-Up
1 Reaper
1 Gorz
1 Lonefire
1 BLS

Spell: 13
2 E-Con
2 MST
1 One for One
1 Hole
1 Heavy
1 Foolish
1 Book
1 Avarice
1 Mind
1 Reborn
1 Goats

Trap: 5
2 Warning
1 Judgment
1 Torrential
1 Dustshoot

Side
1 Crow
1 T-King
1 Doomcal
2 Gemini Imps
2 D-Prison
2 Debunk
2 Shadow-Imprisoning
1 Dust
1 MST
2 Leeching

Extra
1 Formula
1 Armory
1 Catastor
1 Librarian
1 Brio
1 Orient
1 Black Rose
1 Ancient Fairy
1 Stardust
1 Scrap
1 Trish
1 Leviathan
1 Leviair
1 Utopia
1 Roach
---------------------------------------------------------
2nd - Alistar Albans (Plant Synchro)
(Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBi7IqNubYc&feature=feedlik)
Monster: 23
3 Tour Guide
1 Lonefire
1 Dandy
1 Spore
1 Glow-Up
1 Debris
3 Tengu
2 Caius
2 T-King
2 Maxx C
2 Veiler
1 Reaper
1 BLS
1 Sangan
1 Gorz

Spell: 13
2 E-Con
1 Avarice
2 MST
1 Book
1 Heavy
1 Reborn
1 One-for-one
1 Goats
1 Foolish
1 Hole
1 Mind

Trap: 5
2 Warning
1 Judgment
1 Torrential
1 Dustshoot

Extra:
1 Leviair
1 Utopia
1 Leviathan
1 Librarian
1 Stardust
1 Trish
1 Scrap
1 Catastor
1 Orient
1 Black Rose
1 Ancient Fairy
1 Arcanite
1 Armory
1 Brio
1 Formula

Side:
2 Gemini Imps
1 Crow
1 Closed Forest
1 MST
3 Leeching
2 Shadow-Imprisoning
2 Debunk
2 D-Prison
1 T-King
 ---------------------------------------------------------
Top 4 - Thomas Vo (Plant Synchro)
(Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yALqe9-ylFU)
Monster: 20
1 Gorz
1 Debris
1 Caius
1 BLS
1 Maxx C
2 Veiler
2 T-King
1 Lonefire
1 Dandy
1 Spore
1 Glow-Up
3 Tour Guide
1 Sangan
3 Tengu

Spell: 13
1 Hole
1 Reborn
1 Goats
1 Book
1 Avarice
1 Foolish
2 E-Con
1 One-for-one
1 Mind
2 MST
1 Heavy

Trap: 7
2 D-Prison
2 Warning
1 Judgment
1 Dustshoot
1 Torrential

Extra:
1 Utopia
1 Leviathan
1 Leviair
1 Formula
1 Armory
1 Librarian
1 Catastor
1 Brio
1 Orient
1 Black Rose
1 Ancient Fairy
1 Stardust
1 Scrap
1 Trish
1 Chimera

Side:
2 Gemini Imps
2 Crow
2 Cydra
1 Kycoo
2 Leeching
1 MST
2 Bottomless
2 Debunk
1 Dust
---------------------------------------------------------
Top 16 - Jeff Jones (Karakuri)
(Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdI-S5Pydxg&feature=player_embedded)
Monster: 22
3 Genex Neutron
3 Karakuri Merchant Inashichi
3 Cyber Dragon
3 Karakuri Ninja Kuick
3 Karakuri Komachi Ninishi
3 Maxx C
2 Karakuri Soldier Nisamu
1 Karakuri Watchdog Saizan
1 Karakuri Strategist Nishipachi

Spell: 10
3 MST
2 Duality
1 Avarice
1 Heavy
1 Reborn
1 Book
1 Hole

Trap: 8
3 Fiendish Chain
2 Warning
1 Judgment
1 Dustshoot
1 Force

Extra:
1 Leviathan
1 Utopia
1 Roach
1 Chimera
1 Catastor
1 Nat Beast
1 Landoise
1 Black Rose
1 Stardust
1 Scrap
1 Trish
2 Burei
2 Bureido

Side:
Not given
---------------------------------------------------------
Top 16 - Kevin Michael Ward II (TG Agents)
(Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DffAV4x1COE&feature=feedu)
Monster: 25
3 Earth
3 Venus
3 Ball
3 Hyperion
1 Kristya
2 Orange
1 Honest
2 TG Striker
3 TG Warwolf
1 Sangan
1 Birdman
1 Junk Synchron
1 BLS

Spell: 12
1 Hole
1 Reborn
1 Heavy
2 Smashing
2 Creature Swap
2 Duality
3 MST

Trap: 3
1 Dustshoot
2 Call

Extra:
1 Chimera
2 Gachi
1 Leviair
1 Armory
1 Wonder Magician
1 Catastor
1 Librarian
1 Brio
1 Wyvern
1 Ancient Fairy
1 Black Rose
1 Stardust
1 Scrap
1 Trish

Side:
2 Crow
1 Kycoo
2 T-King
2 Cydra
2 Leeching
3 Decree
3 Debunk
---------------------------------------------------------
Top 16 - Robert Boyajian II (Plant Synchro)
(Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neJtqhVStZ0&feature=feedu)
Monster: 23
3 Tengu
3 Tour Guide
3 Maxx C
1 Veiler
2 T-King
2 Caius
1 Lonefire
1 Dandy
1 Spore
1 Glow-Up
1 Debris
1 Sangan
1 Reaper
1 BLS
1 Gorz

Spell: 13
2 MST
2 E-Con
1 Goats
1 One-for-one
1 Reborn
1 Mind
1 Avarice
1 Heavy
1 Foolish
1 Book
1 Hole

Trap: 5
2 Warning
1 Judgment
1 Dustshoot
1 Torrential

Side:
1 Crow
1 T-King
1 Doomcal
2 Gemini Imps
1 MST
2 Leeching
2 Debunk
2 D-Prison
2 Shadow-Imprisoning
1 Dust

Extra:
1 Formula
1 Armory
1 Librarian
1 Catastor
1 Orient
1 Brio
1 Black Rose
1 Ancient Fairy
1 Stardust
1 Scrap
1 Trish
1 Leviair
1 Leviathan
1 Roach
1 Utopia
---------------------------------------------------------
Top 32 - Robert DiMartino (GB)
(Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mPT7JNsM_4)
Monster: 15
3 Test Tiger
2 Laquari
2 Darius
2 Prisma
2 Equeste
1 Retiari
1 Murmillo
1 Bestiari
1 Secutor

Spell: 10
3 A Hero Lives
2 Duality
1 Book
1 Reborn
1 Heavy
1 Hole
1 Smashing

Trap: 17
3 Chariot
2 Trap Stun
2 Warning
2 Bottomless
2 D-Prison
1 Force
1 Torrential
1 Judgment
1 Dustshoot
1 Starlight
1 Compulse

Extra:
1 Leviair
1 Utopia
1 Roach
1 Catastor
1 Brio
1 Black Rose
1 Stardust
2 Chimera
1 Essedarii
2 Herk
3 Gyzarus

Side
2 Consecrated Light
2 Kinetic Soldier
3 Cydra
1 Retiari
2 Debunk
2 Chain Disappearance
3 Crow
---------------------------------------------------------
Top 32 - Carl Waite (Machina)
(Source: http://www.youtube.com/user/mkohl40#p/u/4/SPnLEhMELiE)
Monster: 17
2 Red
2 Yellow
2 Green
2 Veiler
1 Mole
3 Gearframe
3 Fortress
1 Force
1 Gorz

Spell: 13
1 Hole
1 Mind
1 Book
1 Avarice
1 Limiter
3 MST
2 Creature Swap
3 Duality

Trap: 10
2 D-Prison
1 Compulse
1 Bottomless
1 Torrential
1 Force
1 Dustshoot
1 Judgment
2 Warning

Extra:
2 Chimera
2 Utopia
1 Roach
1 Colossal
1 Brio
1 Catastor
1 Trish
1 Orient
1 Scrap
1 Thoughtruler
1 Black Rose
1 Android
1 Stardust

Side:
2 Cydra
2 Kinetic
2 T-King
2 Leeching
1 Heavy
2 D-Fissure
1 Starlight
1 Bottomless
2 Shadow Mirror
---------------------------------------------------------
Top 32 - Joseph Giorlando (Plant Synchro)
(Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhEU1c4bnKc)
Monster: 21
3 Tengu
3 Tour Guide
2 T-King
2 Veiler
2 Maxx C
1 Sangan
1 BLS
1 Gorz
1 Lonefire
1 Dandy
1 Spore
1 Glow-Up
1 Debris
1 Caius

Spell: 13
1 Hole
1 Reborn
1 Heavy
1 Foolish
1 Mind
2 MST
2 E-Con
1 Book
1 Goats
1 Avarice
1 One-for-one

Trap: 7
2 Warning
1 Judgment
1 Debunk
1 Dustshoot
1 Torrential
1 D-Prison

Extra:
1 Black Rose
1 Catastor
1 Orient
1 Brio
1 Armory
1 Ancient Fairy
1 Formula
1 Librarian
1 Stardust
1 Scrap
1 Trish
1 Roach
1 Leviathan
1 Leviair
1 Utopia

Side:
3 Gemini Imps
2 Crow
2 Cydra
2 Leeching
1 MST
2 Bottomless
1 Debunk
1 Mirror Force
1 Chimera
---------------------------------------------------------
Top 32 - Camden Keener (Agents)
(Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IE_xiN5cj_I)
Monster: 28
3 Shineball
3 Earth
3 Venus
2 Kristya
3 Hyperion
3 Tour Guide
1 Sangan
2 Trago
1 Gorz
1 Birdman
2 Veiler
2 Maxx C
1 BLS
1 Honest

Spell: 6
2 MST
1 Heavy
1 Hole
1 Reborn
1 Mind

Trap: 7
2 Bottomless
1 D-Prison
1 Dustshoot
1 Torrential
2 Warning

Extra:
Not given

Side:
1 MST
2 Decree
2 Shadow-Mirror
2 Debunk
1 Crow
3 T-King
2 Leeching
2 Vanity's Fiend
---------------------------------------------------------
Top 32 - Danny McNally (Agents)
(Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jle2nnrsyS8)
Monster: 32
3 Hyperion
3 Venus
3 Tour Guide
3 Earth
3 Shineball
2 Kristya
2 T-King
2 Trago
2 Maxx C
2 Veiler
1 Sangan
1 BLS
1 Sorcerer
1 Honest
1 Jupiter
1 Birdman
1 Gorz

Spell: 7
3 MST
1 Hole
1 Heavy
1 Reborn
1 Mind

Trap: 2
1 Dustshoot
1 Debunk

Extra:
1 Utopia
1 Leviathan
1 Leviair
1 Gachi
1 Scrap
1 Trish
1 Gaia Knight
1 Stardust
1 Librarian
1 Black Rose
1 Brio
1 Catastor
1 Wyvern
1 Armory
1 Chimera

Side:
2 Cydra
1 Kycoo
2 Crow
2 Smashing
2 Decree
2 Bottomless
1 Torrential
1 Debunk
1 Dust
1 Transmigration

YCS Columbus Recap

Boy, was I ever wrong in my predictions, lol. Ah well, a lot of other people predicted similarly so we're all equally wrong. Like I said, it's very hard to predict these kinds of things.

Once again Billy Brake wins with Plants, congrats to him. There were roughly 1100 players, which was more than I had expected. I'm glad it was a 4-digit attendance this time.
The top 32 ended up being:
20 Plant
3 Agent
2 Gallis (guessing Monster Mash?)
1 Karakuri
1 TG
1 Gemini
1 Gadget
1 Chaos
1 GB
1 TG Agent

Things I found surprising were the much lower number of Agent tops, Gallis/Monster Mash topping, and Jeff Jones' Karakuri. Seems like he's always willing to go with unconventional picks and it's great that he does well with them. I'm curious to see what his list, and the Monster Mashes, look like!

Like Mike Bonacini said in the past, Plants have essentially become a "good stuff" deck where you can basically take the best cards of the format, smush them together, and that's pretty much it. It's very similar to the old-school chaos decks where you took the best lights and darks, the most broken spells and traps and you were good to go. Now it's Tengu, Plant engine, some techs, and BLS. The nice thing with Plants is that they're very flexible in regards to their siding potential. Playing with Agents, I've found myself having a harder time siding because there are just so many cards that just have to be in there. Plants have the room to incorporate side cards into the main and not be affected in their flow. They're also a little harder to side against, compared to a theme deck like Agents, DW, Machine, etc.

As for Darkworld's underwhelming performance, I think it boils down to these issues (not necessarily in order of most critical to least):
1. Players had less time to test with it in real life (a million game 1's on DN can only go so far).
2. I'm guessing most players either had plenty of hate for it in their side, or altered their main to accommodate for it. Like I said, with all the hype surrounding it, players were gonna be prepared for this deck probably more than any other. This being said, most of the pros probably figured this wouldn't be the best deck to go in with.
3. Its dependency on having a discard outlet/consistency. If it can't get the cards it needs to get going, it's not gonna do anything. It basically always needs to have some 2-card combo to do stuff. Compare this with a deck like Agents or Plants that have consistent, good, stand-alone plays.

Is this to say that DW is a bad deck? I wouldn't go as far to say that, when it gets rolling it can do some pretty devastating things and create a lot of advantage. A part of me feels that the best list simply hasn't been found yet, I think it needs to incorporate some more in-general/tech cards so its not so dependent on its own strategy of discard+do some stuff. Until that happens though, I can't be bothered picking up Fabled Ravens especially since I'm gonna be ordering our PHSW cases really soon. Earlier I said I was gonna pick up 2, but they're $50 a pop and just didn't want to gamble it. Hopefully this YCS will cause a decrease in their value. I'd probably be willing to pick them up at $30 each. It kinda sucks that none top 32'd though since we won't have a list to concretely base anything off of. Did the best-finishing DW deck run 0, 1, 2 Ravens? I will stick with what I said in my Market Analysis on Glow-Up. With this YCS, I could see anywhere from a $5-8 value increase, but just remember that 1-year release mark of STBL is coming up. Formula Synchron gets a reprint in Advent Calendar, I could see Bulb getting reprinted sooner rather than later.

I will probably try out Plants next weekend, even though I've been doing just fine with Agents and I really do like the deck. I'm guessing we will be getting decklists over Youtube over the next few days, I will post them on the blog as I find them. Once again, congrats to Billy Brake on his back-to-back YCS win!

Locals Report 10-22-11; Lightning Comics

Last night I went to the post office to see if my T'Kings had shown up, and they were finally there! Common T'Kings look weird, lol. I don't remember doing much in the morning besides showering, making breakfast (scrambled eggs w/ chicken, garlic, and cheese - yum), and checking out the start of the Columbus coverage. It's raining like beyond crazy, I'm like "great, gotta deal with all the idiot drivers." I drop my dog off at daycare and drive up to Lightning in the pouring rain. I thought maybe there would be fewer people today since it was raining.

I show up and it's pretty much the same crowd except some randoms were buying up Darkworld decks and this one guy I hadn't seen in a few months came back to play. I look around to try and see what people are playing so I can pick the most relevant 15 for my side. Kim didn't end up showing up, and the one guy that ran Agents last week didn't show up, so I'm totally glad I brought my extra side deck stuff. I woulda had about 6 useless spots otherwise. Jeff said he tweaked his Karakuri deck from last week so we test a few games, I pretty much trounce him so he changes it back to how it was last week. I can tell Colin was playing GB this week so my Mirror of Oaths finally, potentially, had the opportunity to be used. Donut shows up for a quick second and gives me $40 (doing a payment plan on a Pokemon deck I sold him) and a hug and then turns around and leaves. Total attendance this week was 8, three out of the past four weeks have been like this :/

Round 1 vs Older guy who has a bangable-looking daughter, w/ Macro
I've seen this guy ever since I first came to Lightning but never played against him. He's never done particularly well so I wasn't too worried.
Game 1 - I remember him having a pretty good field with Survivor, Tengu, Scout Plane, and my Gachi that he Creature Swap'd. His Macro was also hindering a lot of my cards that require to be sent to the grave (Honest, Orange, Maxx C) and I couldn't get anything in the grave for BLS or Hyperion. Tour Guide puts in work though and eventually I draw backrow removal, get some monsters in my grave, and Hyperion puts in work.
Game 2 - For some reason he summons Caius, I have an Earth and a set backrow and he targets my backrow - Bottomless, and it's pretty much downhill from there for him. After the game I asked him why he didn't just target Earth but he was just like "oh I wasn't thinking straight."
1-0

Round 2 vs Colin w/ Infected Mail GB
Game 1 - He starts w/ a set Hoplo and a s/t, so I MST, summon Earth, Mind Control, and synch for Brio. I really don't remember much beyond that but the only damage I take is 1000 from Venus.
Game 2 - He tries to do some cute tricks but it just results in him having his Bestiari Bottomless'd. He gets some swings in with Infected Mail but I Oaths the Murmillo he brings out to kill my Leviathan, then Earth + Gachi finishes him off.
2-0

In between rounds I watch Jeff play against the Sabers guy, while Big Mike is showing off with this Darkworld deck he made, basically 3 of the structures + Morphing Jar, Raven, and Threatening Roar. He's trouncing people left and right but he's running Goldd, Sillva, Celery, and a bunch of other unncessary stuff. Saber guy ends up beating Jeff, their match was pretty terrible though with a lot of misplays.

Round 3 vs Chris (Returning guy w/ Sabers)
Game 1 - Really don't remember specifics but all I take is 1000 from Venus. He forgot a Darksoul search but it wouldn't have mattered.
Game 2 - I open pretty terrible and he opens well and does sacky Saber stuff.
Game 3 - He Veilers my Venus and then my next turn I get out Catastor. His field becomes Faultroll, Nat Beast, Catastor, and Boggart, suicides the Catastors, attacks with Boggart, then Faultroll rather than Nat Beast first, so I Gorz out. I bring out Hyperion and BLS and he scoops the turn after.
3-0

So I'm the only undefeated and assume it's over, but no, Mike says we'll do a top 4. I'm like are you for real -_- Top 4 ends up being me, Jeff, Chris, and Eric (Older guy w/ dec daughter)

Round 4 vs Eric w/ Macro
Game 1 - This ends up being a pretty good match but my cards gain advantage while his don't. He brought me down to 2500.
Game 2 - I open 2 Master Hyperion, 2 Shine Ball, and a Gold Sarc. I'm like well at least I'll have an excuse if I lose. I think I draw Bottomless and I Gold Sarc for Heavy. Next turn I draw Earth and get the ball rolling. Hyperion is just too good.
4-0

Round 5 vs Jeff w/ Karakuri
Like he said earlier in the day, it would be us in the finals.
Game 1 - I don't get a damn thing going at all and he pokes at me with Karakuris.
Game 2 - I open Triple Tour Guide, Hyperion, Torrential, and Trag. I go Tour Guide into Sangan set Torrential. He passes, I pass, he does some shit and I Torrential and search for Maxx C. He tries to go for game so I Maxx C, I get to draw like 3 and he has a Burei and the 2200 1-tribute guy, he's like "screw it" and activates Limiter, but I Trag out after taking the Burei hit to avoid lethal. He loses his dudes and only has 1 in hand so I reclaim control and take it.
Game 3 - I open Tour Guide + Gold Sarc + Birdman so I combo for Leviair and Trish and he doesn't get anything going after that.
5-0

So undefeated and win again for the 4th week in a row. Come on Coeur d'Alene/Team Destiny players, I'm waiting for someone to end my streak. You're gonna let someone from Spokane come to your turf and beat you every week? Come out of the woodwork, put your Magic cards down, and let's play some Yugz. It's alright though cuz I'm comin' at you with Magic cards soon enough. Eh I know I said I'd stop going to Lightning but I'll play there until the Sneak where I'll cash out my store credit again. And THEN I'll be done driving all the way out there, until I hear attendance goes back up to how it was when I first showed up. I really hate not having any Team O members there, but I can't be expected to drive there every weekend from Spokane when we have 2 members that live in the freakin' town.

Big Mike asks me if I wanted to play him and I actually wanted to see how the Agent vs DW match-up would play out so I said sure I have time for a game.
Game 1 - He does a lot of Dragged Downs, Dealings, and Card Destruction stuff and ends up like +4 on me. I pick away at his board with MST and Hyperion though then bring out Kristya and he has no outs to her.
Game 2 - He opens mediocre and I maintain advantage, BLS and Earth finish it off.
Win 2-0

There isn't really anyone to trade with so I just pack up, say my good-byes, get my credit, and leave.
I come back and do some homework and eat. My wife's friend and I go out to see Paranormal Activity 3. My wife and my wife's friend's husband don't like scary movies but we both wanted to see it so we went together. Holy crap that was a freaky movie. I was a fan of the first two and I'd say this one was the best in terms of creepiness. If they can keep making them better like this I wouldn't mind if they kept coming out once a year. The Saw franchise got stale around the 3rd or 4th one but I'm pretty sure this will be #1 at the box office this weekend and it's getting good reviews. Little girls, and old ladies, are just. plain. creepy. I don't wanna spoil anything, but the end kinda confused me in terms of the people that were killed.

Being gone all day, I haven't been able to keep up with what's been happening in Columbus. The coverage seems pretty meh as usual. And what the hell is with this whole 'Grapha speaking in the third person' crap. Just sounds like Jason trying to push product. God, why can't they make this shit professional looking and sounding like Magic's coverage? And pictures? I've tried opening the pages on both Windows and Linux with Mozilla, IE, and Konqueror but nothing shows up. Pictures rarely ever show up until like hours after the tournament or sometimes days. I can't tell what the hell made it into Day 2 so I'll have to check the forums next. I'm guessing "Synchro Summon" is supposed to be Tengu Synchro? Wtf. It's kinda sad that the forums and Youtube are more beneficial in terms of coverage and finding decklists than the actual coverage site. Magic gets their decklists up pretty much right at the end of the event. It's obviously certainly possible since the European coverage is like that. I think it took 3 weeks for the US coverage to put decklists up for Toronto. I could be blind-folded with one arm tied behind my back and have the lists up quicker than that. Hell anyone that had at least 1 finger or 1 toe could.

Almost forgot the decklist!
3 Hyperion
3 Venus
3 Earth
3 Ball
1 Kristya
1 BLS
1 Gorz
1 Trag
3 Tour Guide
1 Sangan
2 Thunder King
1 Orange
1 Veiler
1 Maxx C
1 Honest
1 Birdman

2 Gold Sarc
1 Hole
1 Reborn
1 Heavy
1 Mind
2 MST

1 Dustshoot
1 Torrential
1 Force
2 Bottomless
1 D-Prison

Same extra as last weekend

Side ended up being
2 Cydra
1 Chimera
2 Oaths
2 Pulling
1 MST
1 Maxx C
1 Debunk
2 Breaker
2 Crow
1 D-Prison

I decided to main 1 Maxx since last week I sided in 2 every game. They weren't helpful in my match against Macro but I liked it against everything else I played. I also dropped it to 1 Kristya because she was dead in my hand much more often than she was live on the field. I personally thought it was OK at 1. I can see why a lot of the OCG builds haven't been running her. She's still one of the best monsters in the game, sure, but she's either a double-trib or gotta get the 4 in the grave, which is harder just cuz Hyperion is so good and you're banishing stuff. Trag is still putting in work for me and keeping me alive against these players that like to go all-in. Next weekend I'll be playing what ever does well at Columbus.

Market Analysis & Prediction - Glow-Up Bulb

So I have been thinking about doing a Market Analysis on Glow-Up for quite a while, just didn't know what was gonna happen before the announcement of the last 2 promos in the Wave 2 tins.

Many people (including Jeff Jones) predicted that Glow-Up would be the last promo to go along with Darksoul. Troll & Toad wasn't even buying them, even though they still had a pretty decent $35-40 value on eBay (higher for Ultimate). Now they are buying Ultra 1st's at $19.14 while ARG is buying Ulti 1st's at $25 and Ultra 1st's at $30 (kinda strange that they're paying more for Ultra?). Unlimited editions just aren't getting any love.

The primary reason why I decided to write on Glow-Up is because I was looking at Wiki's YGO TCG product release calendar to see what sets came out roughly a year ago. There's a saying/belief in this game that basically says once a set has been out for a year, the cards from it are susceptible for reprints. This isn't concrete of course, since Fossil Dyna came out ages ago, Lyla still hasn't been announced for a reprint, and we're still waiting on that Scrap Dragon reprint as well. On the flip side we got Battle Fader and Drill Warrior reprints very shortly after they got released, but people justify them by saying they've appeared on the anime. For the most part though, I feel that this is a general rule of thumb people should go by. STBL came out on November 16 of last year, so about 1 more month for the 1-year mark.

Glow-Up has been one of my favorite cards for quite a while now and is essential in decks that run the Plant engine, good in Monarchs (depending on build), and just pretty solid overall. He's an easy splash in a myriad of decks; plus'ing for a mill of 1 is pretty sweet. This being said, I feel that this is as good of a time as any to sell this little guy off especially if you aren't running a Plant engine deck as your main or secondary deck. For example if I end up selling my Tour Guides, that makes my Plant deck obsolete (IMO), and thus I wouldn't need my Bulb. The best thing this guy has going for him at the moment is Billy Brake's YCS win at Toronto.

This is the way I see it - if Plants end up winning again, then their value will probably remain relatively the same as what they are now or may see like a $5 price increase. If they don't do well however, and the field is pretty much all DW and Agents, I could see it going down to around $25 on eBay. After fees and shipping you're gonna end up with roughly $18 (see why I prefer to sell in bulk to ARG?). I say this because both of those are structure deck decks and thus easy to pick up. Why would Timmy want to go through the trouble of picking up set cards like Tengu and Bulb when the deck that won came out of a structure deck he can get at Wal-Mart for $10 a pop?

In a nutshell, I'm trying to say that Bulb has more things going against it than it does for it at the moment. Realistically the earliest it could see a reprint is Turbo Pack 7. Six came out in August so we may see 7 around December, and I say this based on 5's release date of April (so roughly 4 months apart). If not in Turbo 7, then Order of Chaos Special Edition, which is way beyond how far I care to look since we don't even have PHSW yet. Who knows, we may get some random-ass product release (similar to Europe's Advent Calendar thing) that sees a Bulb reprint.

You don't need to sell it off immediately or anything like that, but I would heavily consider it if Plants get outshadowed by DW and Agents at Columbus, and you aren't currently playing Plants but have a Bulb for what ever reason. This weekend I will be scouring the forums to see how certain decks do and base my sell decisions from there.

YCS Columbus Predictions + Ramblings

I find it interesting how when a new decktype gets released, people put a lot of weight into the results of the first YCS it shows up in. Which is kinda funny because theoretically that's when the amount of hate towards it will be at its maximum. I remember people hyping Dragunity a lot, and when it failed to perform well at whatever YCS it was that they debuted in, people pretty much wrote it off as just hype. Agents went through a very similar scenario but even with the amount of hate that people probably had for it, it still put up great results. That's what differentiates a deck being hype and it actually being good. Going into this YCS, I believe the top 3 decks will be Agents, Plants, and Darkworld, not necessarily in that order; Darkworld being the most played and the most hated on. The amount of hate towards it may mean that it won't win the whole event, but at the same time its odds become better of doing so, simply due to the sheer number of people running it.

I think decks like TG, GK, GB, Gadgets, Sabers, Monarchs, Gemini, etc may represent like 3-4 spots in the top 32. I think you would have to be pretty bold to run any of those decks though since we have a pretty clear top 3 list at this point. I know I wouldn't travel all that way to run anything else. If you are "down the street" from the event though, eh, whatever you wanna do is fine since you don't have all those travel expenses.

Overall, I'm going to predict that the top 32 will consist of 11 DW, 10 Agent, 7 Plant, and 4 Other. Note that I feel that these kinds of predictions and predicting the winner once the top 32 has been revealed, is rather pointless. Whenever you look on the forums, by the end of it all, nearly everyone is wrong in their prediction. You get random guy that's like "oh yea my boy [insert name here]'s got this without a doubt" and then they lose in their top 32 match, or something of that nature. It's almost like trying to predict where a bolt of lightning will strike in an open field with no trees. But, I think the numbers will be something like that, +/- 2 for each deck.

Billy Brake put up a good article regarding Darkworld on ARG's Articles site. For some reason I like the thought of using Marionette Mite, since it's literally a Puppet Plant for Darkworlds, but it seems to always miss everyone's list of useful cards against them. Summon my Grapha, Mite your Grapha, swing for game? I dunno, I guess it's too specific of a card (ie only hits Fiend and Zombie) when there are so many viable decks and side space being limited; stuff like DD Crow and Debunk hit a larger range of decks, hence why those kinds of cards get played over stuff like Mite.

Today I'll work on my side for tomorrow's tournament. I was actually thinking of setting aside like 20-25 cards, looking at what people are playing, and making my 15 that way. It's kind of a bitch move, but it's what the smart person would do. What I've always done is make my 15 and only bring my trade binder, and be sad that I had stuff like Mirror of Oaths in my side when 0 people were playing GB, but put them in due to word-of-mouth saying GB was popular. Another example, normally I may've decided to put Puppet Plants in since Kim came back to play Sams and said he'd be there this weekend, but if he didn't show up, then those spots would be useless. When you play strictly at locals, you gotta build your side for the people that you know will give you a challenge.

---------------Magic---------------
So I read the final match coverage of Grand Prix Brisbane where the UB guy won, like most blue control decks, the objective is to basically counter big threats that you can't deal with, use removal on the stuff that you don't need to counterspell, drop your big guy, and ride it out to victory. In this deck keep the Consecrated Sphinx alive and you'll draw more answers than your opponent does threats. Meh, this is exactly what I meant by pure control, and I think a lot of the singles I bought from Troll were White or like the Black/White land. FML. The thing is Blue/Black/White is so much more expensive than that Blue/Black deck that won, and the best it did was 24th in that tourney :S Oh well, at least I didn't drop money on the Lilianas; I might alter it to be primarily UB and splash some white, dunno yet! Either way Consecrated Sphinx seems pretty boss so need to pick those up. If I stick with Blue/Black, I wouldn't even need to sell my Tour Guides since the deck isn't too terribly expensive, compared to Solar Flare.

---------------Other---------------
So I just got an e-mail from eBay congratulating me and welcoming to their PowerSeller program. I got invited on my old account and actually turned it down so it's not too big of a deal to me. Seems like now they just add you into it. What I find funny is that they just put restrictions on my account like a week ago, now I have to wait like 2 weeks til I can do anything with the money I get from selling (like use it or transfer it), because like I talked about in my Fundamental Flaws article, the whole 'people filing Item Not Received cases' thing. Yea, just ignore the fact I have like a near-perfect rating.

In future posts I don't want to have to put "Ramblings" to indicate that I'm going to be talking about stuff other than what I have written for the title. Just assume I will since that's just the way I am. I will be doing a small Market Analysis post later today so be on the lookout for that :)

SD22 Dragonic Legion Update + Random Ramblings

So a few cards of what's in this deck for the OCG have been revealed (credit to Shriek), I expect it to remain the same for TCG:
Blue Eyes
Red Eyes
REDMD
Chaos Sorcerer
Red Eyes Black Chick
White Stone of Legend
Burst Stream of Distruction
Light of Redemption
Inferno Fire Blast
Escape from the Dark Dimension

And one of the new cards have been revealed as well:
Darkflare Dragon
Dark/Dragon - Effect/5/2400/DEF Unknown
You can special summon this card from your hand by removing from play 1 LIGHT and 1 DARK Monster in your Graveyard. Once per turn, by sending 1 Dragon-type Monster both from your hand and your Deck to the Graveyard, you can select 1 card in your opponent's Graveyard and remove it from play.

So I take back what I said about picking up REDMD's, at least the super ones. The Ultra should retain good value and be sought-after since it's the highest rarity. Super ones are hard enough to find around my area though, so I'm pretty sure I'm not gonna find an Ultra. As for Darkflare's effect, it's decent and allows for some combo's with REDMD and who knows what else might come with the deck. Fatty Dragons (do people still call it Hopeless?) with these guys seem like they can OTK for big damage out of nowhere. I think their issue has always been consistency and the ability to deal with disruption, so we'll see if any of the new cards help with that.

I finally got paid for my sale to Troll so I'm happy about that. I was kinda worried that my secret Thunder-Kings would be below what they would classify as NM but I guess they were content with how they were. I'll be sending out my ARG sell stuff today.  $ = <3  :)

I've noticed that my view count has been going up at a pretty good pace so I just wanted to say that I appreciate all of you for taking the time out of your day to at least look at my blog. Hopefully you have found some of the content  useful/entertaining/interesting. I'll be doing my best to maintain the pace I've been going at, about 1 post per day. Shoutouts to LFN for adding it to his blog list; if any one else that's visiting my blog has a blog of their own, please add it to your list as well and I will be more than happy return the favor. Likewise if yours is already on my list :) I'd like to do some kind of give-away/contest thing when I reach 1000 views but it's kind of difficult since it's not exactly like Youtube where you have subscribers. This thing's "followers" isn't really anything like Youtube's "subscribers". I read Mike Bonacini's blog for about 9 months and never was a follower, it's kinda like "what's the point when I have it bookmarked and check it every day anyway?" If anyone has any ideas please be sure to comment or send me a message.

As for Magic I've been considering picking up Blue-Black instead of Solar Flare since no Solar Flare topped the latest Grand Prix and Blue-Black won. This would make it so I wouldn't have to pick up Lilianas ($50 each) since it probably does best when paired with Sun Titan, but I'm just guessing at this point. I like White though, and like I said I didn't want to play a pure control deck, so I will have to think about it. I need to go over the UB decklist and see how it wins.

My next post will most likely be a YCS Columbus prediction, but I'd like to do a Market Analysis post as well, just not sure what card to do it on.

PHSW Set Review - Part 5

Finally getting around to catching up! As everyone is saying on the boards, this is a great money set. I think it's a great money set for the Ultras and Secrets, only for Rabbit.dek. As CaptialG said in his video, this isn't quite like TDGS and GENF that had a lot more support for a larger range of decks. Danny and I will both be getting a case - never ordered a case before so that's kinda cool :) Last night I used the rest of my Troll&Toad store credit to buy some Magic singles, cheaper stuff like playsets of the commons and uncommons in Solar Flare, as well as the cheaper rares like Day of Judgment and a few of the lands. I have a little more than half the deck purchased, now I just need to get the more expensive cards.

I will be selling another $100 worth of stuff to ARG but I think that'll be about the end of it. I had to milk the rest of my binder, there are basically no money cards left in it, which is perfectly fine. Actually a lot of it was cheapy holos that no one was interested in the first place. When I had expensive cards in it, people would want it sure but most people don't have much anyway so it was just kind of a waste of time since they'd skip over all the lower-value cards and only focus on the "cream of the crop", while I'm trying to find something more than that super Dandylion or other $5 card in their binder.

Anyways, on to the revealed cards that I haven't written reviews for:
Wind-Up Rabbit
EARTH Beast-Warrior
LV3 1400/900
During either player's turn: You can target 1 “Wind-Up” monster you control; banish it until your next Standby Phase. This effect can only be activated once while this card is face-up on the field.

They're pushing Wind-Ups pretty hard. Will they ever get to the point that GB's, BW's, and GK's did? I dunno, I don't know much about the deck but they seem a lot more fragile than BW's or GK's. Eventually if they release enough broken support it'll be played though. Is Wind-Up Rabbit broken? I don't really think so, it doesn't say draw, destroy, negate, discard, banish (your opponent's card), or special summon anywhere in its text, which are usually the top characteristics of broken cards we have.
Secret Rare
2/5 - I'd probably try to get rid of them at the sneak for $20-30. I dunno, I may be going the wrong way with Wind-Ups but I just don't like them.

Latinum, Exarch of Dark World
DARK Fiend
LV6 1500 DEF 2400
If this card is discarded to the Graveyard by a card effect: If it was discarded from your hand to your Graveyard by an opponent’s card effect, target 1 Fiend-Type monster on the field; Special Summon this card from the Graveyard, then that target (if any) gains 500 ATK.
Ultra Rare

This guy seems pretty bad. At best you give a 500 atk boost to a guy? This won't see play in competitive DW. I'd rather just run Goldd/Sillva, neither of which will see much play either.
2/5 - Give rid of them at the sneak while they have hype value.

Evolzar Dolkka
FIRE Dragon
RK4 2300/1700
2 Level 4 Dinosaur-Type monsters
When an Effect Monster’s effect activates: You can detach 1 Xyz Material from this card; negate the activation and destroy it.
Secret Rare

I covered this guy a little bit, we knew he negated a monster effect but just didn't know how many materials you had to detach. This guy is a walking double Herald of Orange Light with a respectable ATK. Absolutely insane. Why would anyone want to run Wind-Ups over Dinos when you got broke guys like this and Lagia? Besides the inevitable high price of Rescue Rabbit lol.
5/5 - Pick them up and hold on to 'em! If people want to buy them off you, be bold and say $80-100.

Dark Smog
Continuous Trap
Once per turn: You can target 1 monster in your opponent's Graveyard; discard 1 Fiend-Type monster and banish that target.
Secret Rare
A discard outlet that lets you turn every DW card you have into a DD Crow? Seems like good sideboard material, unless your meta was all DW. I think the best thing to deal with DW is banishing their Graphas, and this card is a good enabler of that.
I don't think this will be as big of a money card that people are wanting it to be. It's a sideboard card that can get MST'd away, but it's better than getting your Gate MST'd, since people are gonna bring in their 3rd copy from the side against you.
I think it will settle as a $10-15 secret but have like an initial $40 tag and gradually go down from there.
3/5

I think there are 2 exclusives left and that will round out the set. Actually, I don't remember writing about Infernity Knight. It looks like a Super, and I'm not sure if it would get played over the stuff they already have. It doesn't seem to be like the card that would make players all of a sudden be like "oh snap I'm gonna play Infernity now." I know the deck can be very potent, about the only deck that can still spam Trish, I just think it takes a lot of skill to play well and players would rather herp with Tour Guide/ Grapha/ Hyperion/ BLS/ Rabbit+Dolkka+Ragia kinds of cards.

Jumping the Fence

So it didn't take me very long to decide that I will be picking up Magic. I spoke with my friend Mikey from Texas (who I spoke about in my very early posts) and he told me he got top 32 at his States tournament. I am very proud of him. He's topped both a Yugz and MtG regional now, he has come a long way since I first met him and trained him to be the player he is today. He pretty much told me Magic is very good to get in now and Solar Flare (Black-White-Blue) is one of the top decks, if not the top. I also spoke with Butters and I guess he's achieved quite a bit in Magic since I've been gone, beating Luis Scott Vargas at a Starcity Games 5K in the finals, qualifying for Nationals twice (dunno if he went tho), top 8'ing a PTQ and barely missing Day 2 at a Pro Tour. He told me he plays about 4 days a week, I asked him what deck he was playing and he said "eh whatever people have to lend me." Just like old times, borrowing cards from people in order to play lol.

I also asked him where he was playing (Merlyn's and downtown Uncle's) and how the attendance was, he said "pretty good." Pretty good has a large range though so I'm gonna ask him like '20? 30?' When I started up Magic for the 2nd time (when I played seriously) tournaments used to be in the 30-35 range. Right before I left Spokane for boot camp, that figure had dropped to around 16. So is it back to the old days, or just decent enough like 15-20? I asked him about the new ratings system and pretty much my old Constructed rating will be gone very soon, I was sad to hear that. They also don't do the Player Rewards program anymore, very sad to hear that. It was a program where they sent you free full-art/alternate-art cards depending on how many tournaments you played in in like a 6-month period. The more you played, the more you got, and most of the Player Rewards cards were worth good money. I dunno why YGO can't do something similar. The only rewards we get are reprints of year or 2-year-old Ultra/Secret rares that get rarity bumped from the OCG in the first place. I went to Wal-Mart and picked up a Fat Pack of Innistrad but pulled crap except for 2 of the dual land things. Makes me pretty much not want to get a box of the set lol. Which I won't, singles all the way.

I asked them both what a Solar Flare deck costs and neither of them replied, so I did the research myself and even if I got 3 Liliana (the most expensive card in Standard I believe), it would be less than the total amount I would get from my Tour Guides. 3 YGO cards for a top-tier Magic deck and some change? That sounds like a good deal to me. I don't know the exact build I would play since the decklists I found all varied a good amount. Basically they all have a similar 45 to 50-card skeleton, then the rest is personal preference I guess. I'll have to learn the other decks and see what is popular in our area and build a side accordingly. Anything with blue has always been strong in Magic so I don't feel like I'm picking the wrong deck to come back with. I've never liked aggro, and I don't like pure control. I've done my best playing mid-range control decks and I used to play Solar Flare back in the day (with Angel of Despair) so the colors are nothing I'm unfamiliar with.

Unlike others, transitioning into Magic for me isn't a farewell to Yugz, it's more like a "hey long time no see" to Magic. Like I said in the previous post, I want to dominate in both games at the local level. This way we have at least 1 Team O member that is playing Magic which only helps our team presence. If Danny joins me we have a better presence and we can test with each other and whatnot. I will probably make the blog a mix of MtG and Yugioh content, at the very least it gives me more to write about. I will stick with my original plan of waiting till YCS Columbus in hopes that Tour Guide goes up. Actually I may wait till right after the Sneak so I have the best chance of winning it (we do regular tourneys rather than that sealed crap) and getting a lot of the new set. I don't know what it will mean for me in regards to playing Darkworld; I probably won't. I may switch my main to Pure Agents, TG Agents, or TG. I really like Plants but I probably wouldn't play the deck without Tour Guides. I will wait and see what happens in Columbus to see what my best options may be.

On a side note, I already got paid from my sale to ARG but still waiting on Troll and Toad. As advertised, they pretty much pay on the day that they receive (1 day after in my case). That is incredible service and I highly recommend selling to them. My only gripe I have is that when I was making my sell list their site listed Forbidden Lance at $7.75 and TU Sangan at 10.50 but when I sent my list they e-mailed me back saying they changed their prices to $4.75 and $6.50 respectively. I was like eh whatever that's fine, since I haven't had anyone be interested in either locally.

Greener on the Other Side? (The Tour Guide Effect)

This is another self-reflection type post.

I have been thinking about this issue over the past several weeks so I'm glad I can finally talk about it. Speaking as a Yu-Gi-Oh player, I came to the realization that I know that I will never be able to travel to the various YCS tournaments across the country, or even Nationals if I ever qualified. As Mike Bonacini pointed out in his last blog post, you only walk away with a few grand for winning a YCS anyway. I think that is why attendance in the YCS's the past few years have been so low; poor prize support. At the end of the day, the amount of what you can get has to be a lot more than what it costs to go. They should make it like how it used to be where only first got the prize card, and the prize card was broken. Or, have like 2 or 3 different prize cards for 1st - 3rd, each decreasing in broken-ness. What's the price on a Blood Mefist? Probably nothin' compared to Stein, Gold Sarc, CCV, and Doomcal in their peak. We saw the same thing with the Darklord cards, they were pretty meh in playability and thus in value, and attendance decreased. They give out a lot more copies of the prize card (does anyone really care if it's Ultra or Super?) too, thus decreasing its value. Yes it becomes unfair if only former YCS winners/people with a lot of money got to use the broken prize cards against others in future YCS events, but Christ, people need to get back that competitive mindset of "I don't give a crap, I'll beat you either way." Did only the people that had prize versions of Stein/CCV/Gold Sarc/Doomcal/Dark End ever win Jumps? No, well, CCV maybe a little if you could always stack Sangan/Necro + CCV, but you know what I mean. Did people just say "eh I'm not gonna play anymore" in the Dark Armed era? Some, sure, but from what I remember there was a huge boom in YGO around that time.

Realistically, for the remainder of my time in Yugz, I will be a simple locals guy with the occasional trips to regionals. One could argue "what's the point of going to regionals if you know you aren't gonna go to nationals?" I dunno, probably for the trading/buying/selling aspect of it and team pride if I do well. The problem is that back in the day the Seattle/Tacoma area used to have a regionals like every month to 2 months, now it's once per season. There are none on the east side of the state and none in Idaho. I don't think Portland gets any either, so it's basically a regional once a year for everyone in the Northwest. Will we ever get a YCS Seattle? Probably not, the turnout for the previous Seattle Jump was pretty poor. It was basically just an average-sized regional.

So if 99% of my playing time is restricted to locals, I thought, what is the point of me having these super-expensive cards (ie Tour Guide)? Danny and I are the only people that play to have a set, and I feel that my skill alone can still win me locals. We both only get to play at most once a week, and with their $450+ price tag, $8-10 in store credit per week at a $5 tourney entrance expense per week+ gas money to drive out there just doesn't justify it. For me, the point of having expensive cards is to win enough so they pay for themselves in winnings and that way you obtain more cards to continously do well and sell/trade the excess of what you obtain. That is why I have been considering playing at a closer location, to reduce my gas cost. Unfortunately Shiggs told me that the Saturday Uncle's tournament only gets like 6-8 as well. If they have better prize support though, I have to really consider that option.

Yes, Tour Guide adds consistency and is a great tool-box for Leviathan and Leviair and soon Zenmaines, and will only get better with Darkworld and future Rank 3's, but I just think "I'd probably do just fine anyway." I think the thing that makes me hesitate in selling them off is the competitive mindset I have from being on Team O. I have always felt that we represented a group of the best players that are in our area, and in my opinion to be the best you have to have the best in terms of skill and in cards. Without Tour Guide, I could not say I have the best cards in the game. I would be settling on "this is good enough" rather than go for "this is the best". I am pretty much at a crossroads between keeping my Tour Guides and playing only Yugz, and selling them off to play Magic as well. I'm not willing to pick the alternative of keeping the Guides AND picking up Magic. Too expensive. If I sold them off I would just have to make a few alterations as to what I'd play, but then I'd also have the money to probably have a tier-1 Magic deck. I'd most likely still win out in Yugz and then also in Magic. Sounds like the best of both worlds right?

Between Yugz and Magic, I've always said that I would play the most popular game in the area. Especially being military and moving around so much the past few years, there'd be no point in keeping all my Yugz stuff if no one played it, and vice versa. Pensacola FL and Corpus Christi TX were great places for Yugz so I stuck with the game. Now, in Spokane, I'm not certain. I have to consider all the places that currently run Magic tournaments and see how the attendance is in those locations. I would not mind having a brief Magic stint if it forced players back into Yugz, since I think that the love I have for this game is more than I have for Magic, even though I have achieved more in Magic than in YGO.

Over the next few weeks I will try to get numbers as to how the local FNMs are in attendance, the next couple of Yugz tournaments in the area, and consider how many people show up for the PHSW sneak. My mind says to sell Tour Guides after YCS Columbus since they will undoubtedly be in like every top 32 deck and thus increase in price even more. Regardless of what I do, I will still play YGO. My main deck will simply be $450+ lower in value but I'd also have a top-tier Magic deck. It may be a good move since eventually it will get reprinted, so might as well cash out now than gamble it all in the future. Mike Bonacini and Allen C. Pennington have made the transition to Magic, and I'm sure countless other people have as well. It's pretty apparent in our area when even at YGO tourneys the YGO players casually play Magic with each other rather than play in the actual YGO tourney. Like I said, in the best-case scenario I want to dominate in both Yugioh and Magic. The things in my top considerations are 1) the number of players 2) prize support 3) quality of players. The larger the attendance, the more opportunity there is to plus off trades and sells. The better the prize support, the more reward you get from doing well. The lower the quality of players, the easier it is to do well, but that comes down to personal satisfaction and desire - do you want to play against harder people to improve your own game, or dominate worse people and get that prize support? I like a mixture of both, but if I had to decide on one I would go with plus'ing from prize support and trading with nubs all day every day.

Locals Report 10-15-11; Lightning Comics & Weekend re-cap

Warning: this post is extremely long because it is basically 3 different posts combined into one. It's a whole weekend re-cap rather than just the locals report.

Part 1 is what I had written up Saturday night but wasn't able to upload since I didn't have net access. Part 2 will consist of the events of Saturday night, and Part 3 will consist of today. If you're only interested in how I did at the tourney, just read Part 1. Most of the rest of the post is just me telling a story of Saturday night, (in case any of the local guys were curious how our night went) and a reflection on the state of card games in our area.

Part 1:

So before the tournament I try to do as much of my homework that I can, I get like 60% of it done so I'm happy. I go to the post office at 11 to see if my T-Kings show up (since I have a PO box), and sure enough they still weren't there. I was like wtf you gotta be kidding me. I received an automated e-mail from bbcards last night asking if I was satisfied with my order, I just think to myself like “no, I haven't even received yet.” I'll e-mail them on Monday, the wait is ridiculous.

So I show up at the tournament and some unfamiliar faces show up. I'm like sweet better turn-out. Nate shows up so I give him a hug and he tells me how he got promoted at his job just after 10 days of being there, while his girlfriend had been working there for like 4 months and is still in the same position. I'm like “damn, at this rate you'll be the CEO in 2 months” lol.

So I get some trades in, give Nate my Stardust I pull out of the Turbo Pack and a spare double deckbox I had and he gives me his Super D.D. Crow from LCGX. This guy with his wife shows up and I ask him if he has trades, we exchange binders and I have to look though pages of random commons but keep my eyes open for little gems like Dragged Downs, Sabersaurus, etc. I see 2 Safe Zones which I can at least sell to ARG so I tell him I was interested in those. He takes his binder and pulls them out and is just like “here.” I'm like “...are you sure?” He's like “yea, they'll be put to better use in your hands.” I was thinking like “not really, I'm just trying to pick stuff that I can sell.” Oh well, can't complain getting free playable cards! He ends up giving away a bunch of random cards to people.

I think the turnout was 13, which I'm happy about cuz playing with 7 or 8 is just like -_- There are more Agent players today so I'm glad I altered my side to include 2 Leeching the Lights. I move my 2 Maxx C from my Plant deck to my side as well, which were definitely boss all day not just for Agents, but against everything I played.

Round 1 vs New guy w/ Tengu Synchro

Game 1

I open Stardust + Gachi and he doesn't really get much going.

Game 2

My end field is Thought Ruler, Hyperion, Kristya, and earlier he Solemn'd my Torrential for 4K.

1-0

Round 2 vs New guy with his wife w/ Pure Karakuri

Game 1

He explodes like on turn 2 and hits me for 7400, I establish a board and maintain control, but eventually he deals the last 600 by running over something.

Game 2

He tries to go off but I Maxx C. I literally draw to a handcount of 18, Trag out, and I explode right back and hit him for over 8000. I don't know what the board was, I think it was Trag+Brionac+Leviair+Kristya.

Game 3

He explodes right back and I have a mediocre hand, no Maxx C, Gorz, Trag, so I get OTK'd. :(

1-1

I was pretty salty because I hate losing by OTK like that. I don't mind losing because the other player is better than me, but when it's just big Karakuri x3 swing for game, I'm just like whatever. He explained that's pretty much all his deck does, go big or go home.

Round 3 vs New guy (lots of new show-ups today!) w/ Agents

This is actually the first mirror match I've played in tournament so I'm actually kinda excited!

Game 1

I open Venus + Gachi, he tries to Venus but I Bottomless. I get out Kristya and he tries to Battle Fader (eh?) and I remind him he can't special. 2 turns later he scooped it up.

Game 2

This game is a lot more back and forth, I don't remember the specifics, but I know it was a good game. I win 4300-0.

2-1

Round 4 vs Kim w/ Sams

This guy hasn't played in quite a while, he's a good guy so I'm glad he played today.

I was sorta worried cuz I know Sams can still sack off, but figured I'll just do my best.

Game 1

Turn 1 he pops off and has a field like Shi En, Grandmaster, some other derka but Hyperion is just too easy to bring out and run over Shi En. I pretty much have control after that.

Game 2

I open pretty bad and he goes crazy with Gateway United Dojo.

Game 3

He over-extends too much and I can reclaim control and board.

3-1

So they do a top 4 cut, and the top 4 of us are 3-1 and we talk about who should end up playing who. I played each of the 3-1's so it doesn't bother me too much. Naturally I don't want to play the guy I lost to, so obviously I get paired against him. Sackfest here we go!

Top 4

Vs Pure Karakuri guy

Game 1

He doesn't get much going and I end up like +3 or 4.

Game 2

He tries to goes off but I have Maxx C. Again he lets me draw like infinite cards, he thinks he has game when he has Brio + 3 Karakuri guys but I have Trag. He uses his last card to bounce Trag, and from Maxx C I drew Cyber Dragon, BLS, Hyperion, Tour Guide, obviously it's going to happen if you let me draw that many cards.

Top 2

Vs Kim w/ Six Sams

I joke around that I got revenge on the Karakuri guy and beat him, so now it was his turn to get revenge and beat me.

Game 1

He doesn't get much going and I take a quick lead with Trish and Hyperion and maintain the board.

Game 2

Turn 1 He opens with a field of X-Saber Wayne (why??), Hand, and like Kizan. I Gorz and it's pretty much all downhill from there.

So I win out for the 3^rd weekend in a row. Couer d'Alene ain't got nothin' on me lol :) I get to feel better about this win since there was actually decent competition today. No Team O members besides me (Nate had to drop and leave), so I was pretty much expected to win. I cashed in my store credit for a LCGX thing, pulled kinda crap. Best pulls were a Gallis, Laquari, War Chariot, 2 Lumina, and Instant Fusion; no T-King :S I shoulda just got the Wind-Up tin like I thought I should've, ah well.

After the tournament Kim and the Karakuri guy were all like “OK we gotta figure out what to play against these damn Agents.” I was just like “play Leeching the Light”, I knew they had no idea what it was so I pulled out one from my side and they were like O_O. By the time they're “set” against Agents though we're gonna have Darkworld and it'll just be a different can of worms, lol. I won't be able to run them next weekend though since the box I ordered won't get here till next week, unless I decide to go to the store and buy 3. I don't want to fall into that temptation though, since I'm getting 4 of the decks (½ a box). I may just up my side deck Crow count to 3, or run a Kycoo or something. No one has Dragged Downs, Ravens, or Tour Guides though so if they do run Darkworld, it's probably gonna be a crappy version. Kim asks me for help on his Agent build, he obviously doesn't have Tour Guide (since he didn't even have Trish and Catastor in his Extra) so he wants to run Junk Synchron. I'm like eh it's alright, if I didn't have Tour Guides my dark line-up would probably be Gorz, 2 Trag, Sangan, DD Crow+Breaker/2x Spy, Birdman.

Here was my deck:

3 Hyperion

3 Venus

3 Earth

3 Shineball

2 Kristya

1 Gorz

1 Trago

1 BLS

3 Tour Guide

1 Sangan

2 Orange Light

1 Veiler

1 Honest

1 Birdman

2 Gold Sarc

1 Duality

2 MST
1 Heavy

1 Mind

1 Reborn

1 Hole

1 Torrential

1 Mirror Force

1 D-Prison

1 Dustshoot

2 Bottomless

Side

2 Crow

2 Leeching

2 Maxx C

2 Breaker

2 Cyber Drag

1 Chimeratech

2 Pulling

1 MST

1 Mind Crush

Extra

2 Gachi

1 Leviathan

1 Leviair

1 Armory

1 Catastor

1 Librarian

1 Brio

1 Orient

1 Black Rose

1 Scrap Archfiend (should be Wyvern, but too hard to find and don't wanna buy)

1 Stardust

1 Scrap Drag

1 Thought Ruler

1 Trish

In retrospect, I really liked having Trag. It kept me alive against Sams and Karakuri when they went for their pushes. The Duality was pretty meh, and overall I liked D-Prison over Judgment. In any instance where I D-Prison'd, it was better doing that rather than paying half life for basically the same end result. These people have to realize that when I Maxx C, they shouldn't special like crazy to try and go for game. Just develop a reasonable board, and stop. Speaking of C, I sided 2 in every single game. I may try to run 1 main next week, I dunno. It's just so good against certain match-ups, especially when people don't know that they should just end their turn. It doesn't have too much synergy per-se since it's not a dark or a fairy, but it's just solid overall in the appropriate meta. The 2^nd Gachi didn't do anything for me, maybe I'll switch it out for an Android, I dunno. Most of my Extra deck I don't even use that much, but it's all about the toolbox factor. 

Part 2

So I get to Danny's around 7 and Jared is over, watching Danny play MW2. Jared and I try to connect to his wireless but he doesn't know the password and Nat doesn't know it by memory either, so I just open my text editor and start typing the locals report. We are all starving and end up leaving to go to Denny's around 8 I think. I drive us to Denny's and totally drive past it the first time, never realizing there was a Denny's there in the first place lol. We go to the lounge and I buy our first round of drinks, Long Islands for each of us. They were might tasty! Heather comes and I'm like "wow last time I saw you you were like a little kid", even though she was 18-19 lol. We talk about old times a little. I'm the first one done with my Long Island and I wasn't feeling much of anything. I had the most ice out of all of us, wtf. We order food and I offer to pay for Heather's meal since I'm just a nice guy like that. Once we're done we drive back to Danny's and I continue writing the locals report while everyone else gets ready to go out. I think I remember Jared saying we've been waiting for 45 minutes for Danny to get ready, I was like "when he comes downstairs we all gotta be like 'daaaammnn!'" lol. We're finally out the door and on our way at like 10. 

We go to this Chinese restaurant place so Danny can hit up karaoke, we walk in and immediately notice we're the youngest people there by like a good 30 years. They're all older hill-billy/redneck folk. Jared was like "the next youngest person is 64!" I thought it was rather odd that all these redneck people were at the Chinese restaurant/lounge singing country, lol. I have another Long Island, this one was bigger and stronger than the one I had at Denny's. 

We then go downtown, we get stuck at a railroad crossing and it's the longest wait ever. Sooo sloooow. I was like "we should get out and hop on and see where it takes us".

We find a parking spot downtown and we go to this bar, no idea what it was called. There were a ton of hotties, I was like dayum!! In retrospect though I had my beer goggles on, and as I sobered up a little I was like ew, your face is kinda busted. But, there were quite a few hotties nonetheless. We end up ordering another drink, I think it was a shot of something, don't remember. This short lady with fangled teeth stands next to Jared and they start talking, apparently she asks if they can Facebook each other and they talk while I'm just like ew :S Like she was 40, redneck lookin', with gnarly teeth. We go back and forth between dancing, going to the bathroom, and getting drinks. As I'm waiting in line to order a round of shots of Jack for everyone, this douchebag walks up to me and deliberately bumps me so that he can move past. At first I was like huh? then like oh hell nah, I looked at him and he smirked at me like a punk, I really wanted to go to town on him but I refrained since I was supposed to be "out of town" for the weekend, and if I did anything there would undoubtedly be cops involved, and I just couldn't afford to go through all that BS. Plus being Navy, that wouldn't look good in my superiors' or junior sailors' eyes. Man I was freakin' PO'd though, what a dick. 

After some more dancing we go for more drinks, this time I order a shot of 151 for Jared and me, and Danny ordered something for him and Heather. I literally couldn't feel my tongue after taking that shot lol. We go outside and there's a taco wagon right next to the bar, they don't take cash so I order for Jared (wow this seems like a recurring theme lol), we got these amazing beef burritos, omg I need to go back and get more. Not quite as good as the taco wagon in Walla Walla, but in the stupor that we were in, it was like heaven in my mouth. We walk over to Danny's car and Jared goes to sit in the backseat while the rest of us stand around and talk. There's a cop car that's circling the area and we're like well that's awesome. Eventually Jared is like laying down with his head hanging over the edge of the car and he pukes. We realize that 151 is Jared's kryptonite lol :) Heather and Danny get in the car, and Danny backs up the car a little so I don't have to walk over the puke. I get in the car and help Jared up and I'm like holding him in my arms lol. He rests his head on the passenger side headrest but his head keeps slipping off so I use my right hand to hold his head up. That's love right there, lol. 

We get back around 2am and Danny and I carry Jared back into the house and help him go to the bathroom so he can puke some more. Once he's done we help him lay down on the couch and I change to get ready for bed while Danny and Heather are talking outside in his car. Jared walks over to the kitchen and pukes some more in the sink, I go over and hand him some bread telling him it would help absorb the alcohol. I help him back to the couch and grab his cell phone and other stuff and put it by him so he doesn't lose it. I think I end up passing out around 2:30.

Part 3

I wake up at 5 because I need to move my car so Nat can back her car out of the driveway to go to work. I have a pretty good hangover. I also grab my water bottle out of the car and drink what's left of it, come back, brush my teeth, and go back to sleep. I think I wake up again at like 7 or so to the sound of Danny's son saying "mommy I did potty" over and over again. Fall back asleep again after a while and Danny hops on MW2 and I wake up at like 8:30. Relax for about another hour and I get up to work more on my homework that's due today. I figured if I didn't, I wouldn't be able to go to a tournament today so just get as much done so I'll be OK for tonight. We all get dressed to go out at around 11, we take Danny's sons to his in-laws so they can be watched and drive to Burger King for some much needed food. We arrive at Board Game Nation around noon.

There's no one there so we chill a little, Danny and I finish our trade for the secret Laquari and War Chariot and some other things, I go to the bathroom, come out and Shiggs is there. Time passes and we come to the realization that there most likely won't be a tourney. Danny and I test, then Rob comes and he plays with Jared. I hadn't seen Rob in quite a while so it was nice to see him again. Jared continuously makes jokes about Shiggs going to jail and purposely throwing down the soap so he can get some lovin'. We all crack up and the jokes keep on coming throughout the day. We love you Shiggs <3 

I tell Shiggs that I would pay money for a CD of him singing, and that he should first start out as a Youtube star singing popular songs and then release an album. I come up with his first album title, "Shiggified", when I use it in a sentence saying "every song I hear on the radio now is all Shiggified." I think we have stumbled on to something here :) I would gladly pay for enough booze for Shiggs to get drunk enough so that he can sing on camera and make Youtube videos. They would be instant hits I have no doubt about it. Screw Rebecca Black, there's a new Internet star in town, Shiggy Shigz!

We get done with our play-testing session around 4, and Danny and I get to talking about Magic. He says that Steve Sr. has been hanging out with Roy a lot lately and spending a lot of money on Magic. Magic has seem to boomed in popularity lately in our area. I half-jokingly tell Danny "yea, all these people think they're the shit at Magic. I should start up again and put them in their place. Can't have people feeling good about themselves, take them down a peg or two." In my peak I had about a 3 month win streak at Merlyn's followed by my undefeated Portland regional win in 2007. This was back when Merlyn's was literally the only place in the Spokane area to play Magic. Now it seems like every single shop has their own FNM. I could probably get back in the swing of things in a relatively short amount of time. We look at some of the new singles they have for sale, apparently black-blue-white Solar Flare is in again. I ask the owner if the new set is a good money set and he says yes. He's selling the new Liliana for like $55 and this 2/1 blue flash guy for like $25. I'm sure it's higher than what their real values are, but it's probably somewhere in that range. And he says all the new lands come in that set and they're decent money. If I get back in I may start with a box of Innistrad. Need to do more research.

I tell Danny that my big-picture goal is for Team O to basically dominate every local of every card game that was out there. Link and Nate got the Pokemon side of things, I have been dominating the Lightning Comics locals and Rob has been dominating the Board Game Nation ones, earlier it was this Corey guy playing Scraps who thinks he's the shit now cuz he has a few local tops under his belt. I guess he plays at Uncle's now, good job, everyone there sucks.

I really don't want to play at Lightning anymore cuz it's just too damn long of a drive and the payout just doesn't warrant it. But without me there, we wouldn't have a "representative" for Lightning. I don't know where Epler is, he freaking lives in CDA and hasn't been showing up. Nate not playing I can understand. I would most likely like to switch to playing at the downtown Uncle's on Saturdays. It's much much closer. I don't want to support Uncle's, but at the same time I don't like hearing about people running their mouth thinking they're hot shit when they don't even have to play a Team O member to win.

Danny and I talk a bit more in the BGN parking lot and I tell him that I felt that when I first came back to Spokane, everyone on the team had a hunger/passion to do extremely well and dominate. Nowadays it seems like that passion is gone. I understand life takes precedence over Yugz, but Danny brought up a good point of "do we want a team of good players that don't play, or have an active team that's not as good?" I don't know, my first preference is for those good players to play, but I obviously can't force anyone to play, as I'm busy on particular days too. Saturdays are basically my only days now. All this ties back in with my one post where I explained that there were too many different places to play and that results in each local having smaller attendance. 

I tell Danny that honestly I would like it if both Uncle's locations closed down to force those players into our locales of play. He says Andrew has pretty much killed competitive YuGiOh in our area, and I agree 100%. Danny also told me that the owner of Uncle's told him that YuGiOh was what was keeping her business afloat for some of the periods/monthly reports. Knowing that they have much lower attendance now that Team O doesn't play there anymore, it is probably just a matter of time before they close down. Either that or get rid of Andrew, I dunno how he has them wrapped around his finger like he does. The one thing they have going for them though is that they sell board games and that kinda stuff in general and have a location in the mall, so around Christmas time they are good business. I rarely see people any time else during the year though. I doubt a good holiday period is enough to support them for the whole rest of the year though and mall space rental can't be cheap.

Overall I had an amazing weekend. It was great to hang out in a non Yugioh-only atmosphere. Unfortunately I spent way more $ than I had hoped for, but when I think about the ratio between the number of years I've been gone and the night, it comes out to a pretty small amount. If we go out again though I ain't buyin' so many rounds of alcohol and not paying for peoples' meals, lol. 

It's late, this post is extremely long, and I still gotta get our sheets out of the dryer, get my wife to get out of bed so I can make it, and go to bed.