Arising Rulings Issues with New Priority Ruling

Earlier I met up with Zach, Rob, and Link at Gamer's Haven and I played a few games against Link to see what it was like with the new priority ruling change. Because I know Inzektors will become more popular in our area and Veiler alongside it, I wanted to go over a few ruling things that came up in our games and undoubtedly will in others. Now I've always said I'm pretty bad when it comes to rulings, but what I am good at is looking shit up and trying to ensure that I find the most accurate rulings. I avoid Wiki as much as possible, and while nothing on Pojo Q&A is "official", it's as good as we're gonna get. Ain't no Netrep around anymore. This will serve as both reinforced research for myself, and a place for others to see what I've found for their own personal knowledge/understanding.

Inzektors vs Effect Veiler
1. After activating effect, before equipping:
So everyone knows that if for example you summon Dragonfly, opponent has no response, you say "activate effect", the opponent can then activate Veiler to negate Dragonfly's effect. In this scenario, no Inzektor monster will be equipped. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

2. After activating effect, after equipping:
This is the one that creates the most amount of confusion. So again, I summon Dragonfly, no response, effect, no response, so I equip Hornet to Dragonfly. AT THIS POINT, before using Hornet's effect to send it to the graveyard and pop a card, YOU MAY activate Veiler targeting Dragonfly. The end result is that Hornet WILL GO TO THE GRAVEYARD, and Dragonfly will not special summon anything. Hornet will not get to pop a card as well, even though it was "sent to the graveyard". Why is this? The best explanation I have found so far is a post by member DragonXDoom on the Pojo Q&A forum:

"Monsters can only be maintained in the S/T zone if they have an active effect that allows them to, or another effect allows them to. In this example, Hornet is being maintained by the effect of Dragonfly. Since Dragonfly was negated, Hornet can no longer be in the S/T Zone, so it is sent to the Graveyard. An exception to this rule would be monsters that equip themselves to another monster, such as Inzektor Giga-Weevil or Dark Necrofear."

As well as:
"A player CAN Veiler or Fiendish in response to Hornet equipping....and then because Dragonfly/Centipede's effect is negated, Hornet can no longer stay equipped....therefore it is destroyed via game mechanics, and no effects go off."

Also, Hornet's sending effect is Spell Speed 1, so you never had any kind of priority to send. There is also a window between 'after equipping' and 'sending' in which you or the opponent can play spell speed 2 or higher cards.

Quote from Redshift, a fairly reputable Pojo Q&A guy:

"After Dragonfly's effect resolves and Hornet moves to the Spell & Trap Card Zone, since a chain just ended that means a window to respond to that chain opens. This opportunity is only limited to Spell Speed 2 or higher effects. If both players pass and don't respond, now the turn player is able to continue with the Main Phase, in which that player can Summon, Set, use Hornet's effect, etc."

3. After sending the Inzektor to grave:

Not sure why anyone would do this, but there is still the possibility. So let's say I successfully equipped my Hornet to Dragonfly, and my opponent lets me send Hornet to the grave. Here, my opponent can activate Veiler on Dragonfly, so what is the end result? Hornet will pop a card, but I get no special summons off Dragonfly. This one should be rather simple like #1.

Sources that support these answers:
Link 1
Link 2
Link 3
Link 4

Inzektors vs DD Crow
There are many instances in games 2 and 3 where you'll have a Hornet in grave, Summon a Dragonfly in hopes of getting that Hornet from the grave to equip, but your opponent activates DD Crow to banish it. So what happens - is that it and continue with the turn? Nope. A lot of people know this already, but you'd be surprised at those that still don't. Here is a good breakdown of what happens from here:

"You can chain crow to it, and 1 of 3 things must happen;
1) They have to equip an inzektor from the grave
2) They have to equip an inzektor from the hand
3) If there are no inzektors in the grave/hand, they must reveal their hand."

They get to look at my hand?? Yup.
Also remember that Inzektors do not target, so if you have for example a Hornet in grave and a Hornet in hand and they Crow, you can still equip the one from your hand. Likewise if you simply had 2 Hornet in the grave.
Sources:
Link 1
Link 2

Inzektors vs Fiendish Chain
Ok, so we clarified a bit with what happens with Veiler. What about Fiendish Chain? 
Well, fortunately, it works the same way as Veiler does. Lucky!
Source: Link

Inzektors vs Forbidden Lance 
One could rationalize that since Lance makes it so the monster is unaffected by spells/traps so the Inzektor equip should fall off, but this is not the case. What happens is that any effect the monster gives the equipped monster (+500atk via Hornet, level manipulation, etc) goes away. The monster is "unaffected" by the Equip spell card. That doesn't mean it can't be equipped to it. So in our example, I'd get to send Hornet to pop, and special via Dragonfly. The only difference is that while Dragonfly was equipped, it wouldn't gain the 500 ATK boost nor be Level 6.
Source: Link

Zach and Rob played, and with Zach running Wind-Up, naturally Torrential vs Rabbit came up. 
Wind-Up Rabbit vs stuff in general
Since priority is gone, that means that WU Rabbit shouldn't be able to bounce away when a removal card is activated in response to the summon right? Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on which side of the table you're on) this is not the case as Wind-Up Rabbit has a Quick/Fast Effect, rather than Ignition. This means that once it has been successfully summoned, WU Rabbit's effect is "live" and can be used.

Here is a good list of answers when it comes to WU Rabbit in general:
 
● It’s a Quick Effect (Spell Speed 2) and can be activated at any point during either player’s turn, except the Damage Step.
● If you use this effect in your Draw Phase, the banished monster will return in the Standby Phase of that same turn. But if you use the effect during your Standby Phase, the monster will not return until the next Standby Phase.
● If Book of Moon is chained to this effect and flips the target monster face-down, it is still banished. Furthermore, it is banished face-down, and returns during the next Standby Phase face-down. This means that it cannot be Special Summoned with Leviair the Sea Dragon, as you cannot verify its Level.
● If your opponent takes control of your Wind-Up Rabbit and uses its effect, who it comes back to depends on how it was taken control of. When your opponent takes control of it ‘permanently’, with a card such as Monster Reborn, Creature Swap or Leviair the Sea Dragon, then Wind-Up Rabbit will return to the opponent’s side of the field and will remain there. If your opponent took control of it ‘temporarily’, with a card like Enemy Controller or Mind Control, then Rabbit will return to the opponent’s side of the field but immediately switch back to you.
● Returning the banished monster does not start a chain, and is not considered a Summon.
● If you Special Summon a Wind-Up monster, and then banish it with Rabbit’s effect, when that monster returns it will still be considered a monster that was Special Summoned for the purpose of Fossil Dyna Pachycephalo’s Flip(like) effect.

Sources:
Link 1 (3/4 down page)
Link 2 (Wilson Tsang explanation video - WU Rabbit explanation starts at the 6 minute mark.)

Bonus for Hero players/against Heroes:
Shining misses timing if it is destroyed at something other than Chain Link 1. So if I attack with Shining, you activate MST, then chain Mirror Force, Shining will miss timing since Mirror Force is Chain Link 2. If it is the other way around though (Mirror then MST), then Shining would not miss timing since Mirror Force will be Chain Link 1. Don't let people get away with not activating and chaining their shit correctly. Likewise, remember to chain correctly if you're trying to play around Shining. 
Source: Link

Rescue Rabbit vs Effect Veiler
And apparently people are confused about how Veiler and Rescue Rabbit work, so here it is:
If I normal summon Rescue Rabbit and you activate Veiler, I have to option of tributing and banishing it to pay its cost. That is not to say that I would still get to special summon 2 'nillers though. This is because Rescue Rabbit's effect activated on the field. Cards always activate and resolve in the same location, none of this 'activate on field, resolve in grave/banish' stuff.

Quote 1:
"When veilered or fiendished chain, rabbit can still activate (both do not prevent activation). In order to activate, you pay the cost, thats banishing the rabbit. To keep negating the effect, Fiendish Chain must stay attached to the monster. But because the rabbit is not there anymore, the effect can go through. Veiler has not the restriction of having to be attached to the monster, so even though rabbit is now banished, the effect will be negated."
  
Quote 2:
"Think of it this way,
If the monster is face-up on the field the moment you say "I want to activate its effect" before any costs are paid at all, cards like Effect Veiler, Forbidden Chalice, Debris Dragon, etc. will negate it, no matter where the monster ends up.
Ex. Rescue Rabbit, Stardust Dragon, Thunder King Rai-Oh, Lonefire Blossom, etc.

If the monster is else where, like the Graveyard, when you declare "I want to activate its effect", before any costs are paid, cards like Effect Veiler, Forbidden Chalice, Debris Dragon, etc. will NOT negate it.
Ex. Reborn Tengu, Colossal Fighter, Dandylion, etc.""

Sources:
Link 1 
Link 2 
Link 3 

OMG They took my pri-pri! + Local update

Thank God. No more auto-wins/losses to top-deck'd JD's and BLS's. At least having a set Bottomless will help you not get wrecked now.

Although the news has been spreading like wildfire, I'm sure there are those that will still be oblivious to it so figured I'd talk about it. Firstly, here's Konami's breakdown article of the change to "Fast Effect Timing" AKA priority. I honestly didn't read all that crap so I headed on to Youtube in hopes of hearing someone explain the changes instead. I'd recommend 3zinferno's (Wilson Tsang) video as well as MegaCapitalG's and TeamMinority's. CapitalG also posted a video about how he thinks the game will change. Worth watching.

I for one am so glad that priority is gone. I also believe a lot of players will get worse in the game, as they will not be able to hide behind broke Ignition effects to save their ass anymore. I believe this will let the players with more skill prevail and we will see less losses due to the "sack" factor. This is how the game should have always been - reward skill, and take away crutches. Some people needed those crutches though, so now it's up to them if they're going to step their game up or get swept.

So what are the big cards that get hit, what's not affected, and what becomes better?
In my opinion:
Hit
Rescue Rabbit
BLS/Sorcerer
DAD
Brionac
Scrap Dragon
JD
Leviair
Zenmaity/Hunter
REDMD
Card Car D (but still played in 3s in almost all OCG decks)
Solemn Brigade (still great, but you don't HAVE to straight-up Solemn that BLS/DAD/etc now)
Maxx C (Veiler will be more useful against more decks)

Not affected
Stratos
Gadgets
Tour Guide
Monarchs
Flip Monsters

Better
Veiler
Torrential
Bottomless
Trap Hole
Book of Moon
Chain Disappearance
Raigeki Break/PWWB
Fiendish Chain (this may get the boot though as players make space for BTH)
Gemini Spark
Hero Blast
Compulse

So how will this affect the meta? Well, first of all I know Veiler and Bottomless will see more play. This may cause S/T removal or negation play to increase, which may then cause Bottomless to go back down via that yoyo effect. Dino Rabbit gets hurt pretty bad, as that's going to absolutely suck getting your Rabbit Veiler'd or Book'd. I'm sure people will still run it though and just try to overcome/adapt to the change. Laggia and Dolkka are still beastly. As for the rest of the top decks, I think most of them have similar aspects with how they get hit. Dark World is probably affected the least, but an increase in BTH play will probably affect their Grapha unless they're just always popping them. I think the top decks will still be what they are currently and I don't think any particular deck gets a massive boost per se, but with Heroes not really giving a damn about Veiler and Spark/Blast being able to hit more, I'd expect their play to go up, maybe incorporating Lance to overcome the increase in BTH.
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Just wanted to provide an update to the local players - T&M's will be doing Advanced tourneys on Tuesdays in conjunction with Brandon's pseudo-Traditional one. Not sure what time it'll start but probably somewhere around the 5-5:30 range. I don't think anyone besides maybe a couple people are gonna stick with Brandon's tourney, so I'm just gonna say that that one's pretty much over. I don't care either way in terms of which format, I'm just gonna play in whichever one has the better turnout. Several people have been saying "there'd be more people if it was Advanced", so I'm looking forward to that possibility. I still found it funny though that Uncle's on Monday only ended up doing a 4-man Advanced tourney, and there were 14 people for Brandon's last night (which I won). I want to say it's because of day/location rather than the difference in format. I'm hoping the end result won't be like half the people playing one tourney and the rest the other, since you'd end up with 2 baby tourneys rather than one "decent" sized one.

A Weekend of Locals Recap + Box Tourney Report

So on Friday I went down to T&M around 4:30 for FNM, thinking it would start around 5:30 or so. Turns out they don't start til 7, so I was like :/ I traded the store some Veilers for the last 2 Phantasmal Image I needed, then sat there and tried to get Shiggs to come down to play in the tourney with me. He was like "if you're bored come over" and then Link messaged me right afterward to come over, so I was like sure I got too much time to kill. Head over and just chill for a bit, look at Shiggs' Magic deck (Zombie), play a few games and beat him and he doesn't want to play even though it's free for first-time FNM'ers at the store. I watch Link play some Super Mario RPG on the SNES (awesome game), I think we trade something for something, then I'm off to T&M again. My final record for the night was 3-2-1, finishing 17th out of 54 people. I thought it was kinda funny how everyone was like "hm I wonder why we have such a small crowd this week, usually it's like 70." Can't even get half that for YGO :/ After round 4 I was 3-0-1 and on the top table, but lost the last 2 to "random crap" and missed out on the prizing for top 8. Having to mulligan down to 5 doesn't help either, but I did gain a lot of experience. The tourney didn't get over til like 12:30 AM, which is just too freaking late for someone in my position. I think I'll try a smaller-sized tourney and one that starts earlier. Besides the inconvenience of the length, T&M's is not that big - 54 was tight, I don't want to even imagine there being 70 and trying to be able to walk around. Afterwards I go over to Danny's to crash for the night, I stay at his place for the weekend cuz I wouldn't be able to go to the box tourney on Sunday otherwise.

On Saturday Danny gets Shiggs and we all go to downtown Uncle's. Thankfully they hold the tourney for us to show up, even though I found it odd that they were Schroash'ing when their tourney usually starts at 1:30 anyway. We got there right around 1:15, with downtown being very bad for driving and finding a parking spot always next to impossible. I think the attendance was 10 or 12. The tourney ended up being me and Danny in the finals, we wanted to split but figuring out the logistics of who should get the win took a little thinking. We figured the people I played were worse than the people that Danny played so he gave me the win, we'd split the packs, and play for pride at his house later. We ended up playing at Link/Zach/Shigg's place later that night and I won 2-1 so I "won" the tourney lol. I think I got a Giga-Mantis and Evo-Force from my packs.

Saturday night we kick it at Zach's, Danny kicks my ass at Street Fighter (SNES) and I kick Zach's. It's crazy how slow that game is compared to like SF4 (and all its versions) and how much damage chip does. Nate and Dill Stewy show up, and later we all play Super Mario World which was very nostalgic and fun. I play some drunk YGO against Zach but I have no idea how our match turned out lol. Danny and I are starving so we leave and go get Jack, Nat and I watch this Paranormal Fact of Faked show, which was kinda cool, then I play some Mortal Kombat 3, get pissed at how cheap Shao Khan is, and go to bed.

Sunday is the box tourney, I show up around 10:30 after getting some donuts, water, and Tums from the 7-11. Mike, Isaac, and Paul are there, I chill with Paul a bit and offer him some donuts, talk about Magic and whatnot. I tweak my side a little bit, and learn that Puppet Plant only works on your turn and my mind was blown. All this time I thought you could do it on your opponent's as if it were any other hand trap, but I guess it got errata'd - playability of all those guys went down :( Still good but not nearly as I thought they were. We all have to play upstairs today since there's a Warhammer tourney downstairs, which sucks because it is hot as hell and only progressively gets worse throughout the day. More people show, the Yakima crew shows up, we're at 14 people and Joe needs 2 more people to get the tourney going. I had very little faith in anyone else showing up, but someone finally did at like 12:15 or so, so we started the tourney with someone getting the bye (Shiggs). 4 rounds, and prizing was only for top 2 (box for 1st 8 packs for 2nd), which I thought was kinda bad this time around. We all do get 2 packs though for entrance fee, so realistically that's like a whole box + some extra given out there.

Round 1 vs David (Inzektor)
This was a guy we had met at last Tuesday's T&M tourney, he's from Virginia but was here visiting, glad he could make it for the tourney.
I lose the die roll.
Game 1 - Fairly back and forth until I Solemn his Warning I believe and I'm able to go off.
Game 2 - This was more one-sided in my favor I believe. He's kinda down to topdecking while I have BLS to banish his Stardust and Gorz. He Mind Controls BLS to banish itself, next turn I can go off with Dragonfly.
OO
Record: 1-0

Round 2 vs Casey (Samurai)
One of the Yakima crew.
I win the die roll.
Game 1 - He goes for a Kageki + Hand play early, which I Torrential, and it's kinda downhill from there. He goes into a Barkion, which I don't really care about as I can just pop it and everything else the turn after.
Game 2 - He gets out an early Shi En and has plenty of Veilers to stop my play. I summon Dragonfly, Veiler, so I bait out Shi En with Dark Hole, then play Smashing and he's down to topdecking.
OO
Record: 2-0

We're given a 30 minute lunch break primarily because it's just so hot in the gaming room. Not trying to be a douche, but something needs to happen before summer rolls around if we're going to be expected to play upstairs, otherwise I'm just not going to play - that kind of environment is unplayable in my honest opinion. It's hotter playing in a closed room with no humidity than it was in Texas playing in a more open room with humidity, and I lived 2 hours from freaking Mexico. So I just chill downstairs and talk to Roy a bit about Magic, then decide I should go grab some Subway even though I wasn't too hungry at the moment.

We get underway again for round 3.

Round 3 vs Nate (Inzektor)
I don't think any teammates had to play each other in the prior rounds, so it was about time that we did so at this point in the tourney.
I lose the die roll.
Game 1 - I'm able to go for game with an end-phase Call on Dragonfly followed up with the Sword play.
Game 2 - I kept Duality'ing into BLS, it's like he wanted to be drawn but I had no light to play it. He is able to Sword play me for game.
Game 3 - I get a Sword play early on but I sit there and have a brainfart moment when I forget what I'm supposed to search for. I like knew I was supposed to grab Gigamantis, but realized I had messed up by not popping my Dragonfly and going for his Hopper w/ Hornet equipped instead. I finally figure out what the hell I'm doing but he has Gorz to protect himself. He makes a small comeback with a Dragonfly play but I have too much on the field and 2 Dragonfly in my hand to basically undo what he did on his turn.
OXO
Record: 3-0

Alan shows up for a little bit and gives me the money for the 3 Inzektor Swords I bought him but I haven't been able to go to the post office to pick them up yet. We play a few games until his wife calls and we all know how that ends up lol. Next round was starting anyway so he packs it up and leaves.

Round 4 vs Shiggs (Samurai)
I win the die roll.
Once again I had to face Shiggs in tourney, at this point I'm like 0-5 against him for the past 2 or 3 weeks worth of tourneys and more of my side is committed just for him now.
Game 1 - He starts pretty broke while I open poop. He brings out a Maestroke which I thought was pretty cool.
Game 2 - I'm able to OTK with the Sword play.
Game 3 - He brings out a Nat Beast but it doesn't matter since I pop it and OTK like the next turn.
I finally slayed the dragon!
XOO
Record: 4-0

So top 4 was me, Nate, Zach, and Shiggs. All Team O top, with Shiggs :)

Top 4 vs Zach (Wind-Up)
I win the die roll.
Game 1 - I make a risky play of setting Dragonfly and Reborn, figuring that if he looped me I'd be screwed so I might as well set my key cards. Rest of my hand was 2 Hornet, Centipede, and Giga I think. This pays off though when he summons Shark and attacks into my Dragonfly and sets one. I get something Warning'd so I'm able to flip Reborn and go for game.
Game 2 - He pushes my poop in with my only relevant play being a DD Crow on his Hunter.
Game 3 - He has me on the ropes but I'm able to steal the win when I have to MST my Giga to bring out a Centipede which he can't run over and I have a Dragonfly I searched for.
OXO
Record: 5-0

Top 2 vs Shiggs (Samurai)
We agreed to split the packs, as I thought the difference from 24 to 8 was really big. 16 each was a pretty good average. We played for pride and the title of winner. I put him down once, now it was time to kill him once again. Unfortunately, as they say, vampire fuck up your evening.
I win the die roll.
Game 1 - I don't do a point of damage on him. I try to hold him off with a Zenmaines but he brings out Tempo, Maestroke, some other derkas, and I can't deal with all that.
Game 2 - Starts off fairly back and forth and I am able to regain some control after I bait out his Stardust and Reborn it. He tops into Enishi to bounce the Stardust. He gets a Grandmaster out and I'm in topdecking mode now. I set a Dragonfly, figuring if I summoned he'd just bounce and I'd be dead. He attacks with Enishi first which gives me a turn. I top a Kinetic, thinking I'm in a good spot now, but I think he reads it as a Kinetic so he goes into a Nat Beast, attacks my Kinetic with it, and it was over.
Vampire fuck up my evening!
XX
Record: 5-1

We hang around for a while to do last minute trades, say bye to the Yakima crew, and I go over to Danny's once again. I offer to pay for him to go out to China Buffet in the mall but we end up getting pizza and just watching a Tyler Perry Madea movie at his place instead. My pulls were pretty good in terms of holo count, I got: Invoker, Exa-Beetle, Hornet, Blade Armor, Najasho, rest was crap but it was like 9 holos out of 16 packs for $10 so I can't complain.

FNM Here I Come, Dragons, & Box Tourney Update

Well I finally got a chance to go to Gamer's Haven today and picked up the Snapcasters I've been holding out on buying for the past couple of months. Unfortunately they didn't have the last Phantasmal Image I was needing, but I'll try and get one tomorrow. What's nice about coming back into Magic is that I basically have nothing to lose, and everything to gain. Sure, I won a MtG regional 5 years ago, but that's half a decade. Right now my mentality is that I'm at the bottom and I can only go up from here in terms of skill, card pool, and knowledge about the current game. I know that I'll most likely have to read each card that gets played by my opponent, and I'm OK with that because each person I play against, win or lose, will only make me better and help me get back on top of the game. Like I've mentioned before, I'm wanting to get back due to the sheer number of people playing the game right now in our area, and increased playerbase means increased prize support, which means more opportunities to plus. Looking forward to my first FNM in about 2 years :)

I find it kind of funny that even though Dino Rabbit won Dallas and got 2nd at Tolouse, the deck that's getting the most talk right now is Chaos Dragons, and values for the cards in Rescue Rabbit haven't done a damn thing; I think Rescue Rabbits are actually going down. Maybe if Frazier had won, rather than Nizar. I'd like to build up a Dragon variant once the singles I ordered come in, who knows if I'll actually play it or not though.

As for the box tourney, I believe the prizes will be normal booster boxes of ORCS rather than SE's. When I went in there today, Bob only had 1 ORCS SE left for sale, and said he had ordered 4 boxes for the event and I saw a few sealed ORCS boxes on the shelf. Either way, a box tourney is a box tourney! I hope everyone in the area can make it out cuz Team O needs some competition ;) And remember, it starts at 11AM this time.

ORCS Box Tourney #2 Reminder - Gamer's Haven

Joe Lancaster told us at the regional that Gamer's Haven is going to be doing another ORCS (SE?) Box tourney this Sunday, and we were all like "oh, well that's nice to know" lol. A little on the late notice side but there's still almost a week, plenty of time to spread the word and prepare.

Information I have so far is:
Who: You & YGO friends
What: ORCS Box tourney (assuming SE)
Where: Gamer's Haven Spokane Valley
When: Sunday at 11AM

Not sure on the entry fee but will most likely be $10 again.

Regionals Report 4-14-2012; Guardian Games (Portland OR)

Friday
I got to Danny's around 10:30 on Friday, waited for him to finish packing and let Link and Zach know that I'd be over once Danny was ready. I think we left around 11, then waited some more in their parking lot for Zach to get ready and Link to come back from wherever he went. We're on our way around 11:30 after Link grabbed his Carter IV CD since I don't bother listening to anything besides the radio. We're all hungry but I wanted to get moving and not eat around where we were cuz my wife works in the area. We decide to eat at the Ritzville Zip's so Zach can put salt on his knuckle again (joke from last regs I went to). We meet the rest of the team there and we're all just like "holy shit, thought you guys weren't leaving til later." Takes us forever to get food, and everyone does some miscellaneous shopping at the nearby gas station. Link switches with Epler from my car to Donut's, and we're on our way once again.

We drive past John Day dam and it's Danny's first time seeing a dam so he was excited but unimpressed with the size. The dam at the Dalles is bigger so that's better lol. He's also excited about seeing a waterfall and asks if we can stop by one, and we're not in a hurry for anything so I'm perfectly fine with it. We stop at a waterfall before the bigger Multnomah Falls park, but I'm kinda glad we went to this one instead because it lets you pretty much go into the water if you wanted to, whereas it's all separated at the other one. It was cool getting all the mist from the waterfall right in your face lol. We take a few pictures and we're off once again. I think we roll into Portland around 6:30 and I miss an exit for our motel because my GPS is never clear about which way to turn and crap. We get there though and there's a lot of traffic due to the Portland basketball game. The lady directs us to a parking spot but I'm like "we're not here for the game" and she tells me to move to a different spot after checking in to the motel. I check in for the 2 rooms that I reserved for us, Donut and everyone else get there right after, and I tell everyone to just go into their rooms for now because the manager people are really "Jewish" about the number of people in the rooms. Their room was only a max occupancy of 2 (last available last-minute room) but there were gonna be 4 people in it, and they had just kicked out people that tried to sneak in their dogs, so the last thing I wanted was for all of us to get kicked out. Likewise the room I got for us was a max occupancy of 4 but I listed there going to be 2 people in it to avoid getting charged an additional $20 a night. Didn't really matter though because these people were so Jewish that they pretty much just stare at their security cameras all day and we get noticed the next day. Turns out that Idaho team was only going to stay one day even though I reserved the room for 2, so the next morning I went in to cancel and the manager was like "that's ok, but I know you have more than 2 people in the other room because I watched the security camera so I have to charge you extra for it." Fuck these people and this motel. Cheapass Indians.

Jewish Apu ^ Hotel manager

I printed out enough decklists and registration sheets for everyone and did a last-minute pre-register for Zach. This event listed max capacity for players at 140, and turned out that pre-registering was a very good decision. We order Chinese online and get no freaking plates so we have to make 2 out of the tops of 2 of the food containers. Pretty tasty though. We do a little testing, trades, changes to decks, Epler picks up Zach's Inzektor stuff, fill out decklists, and we get to bed at like 1:30 or so.

Saturday
Alarms are set for like 7 but we really don't get moving til like 8-something. Luckily the store is only about 10 minutes away. We drive past the store around 8:30 and there is a huge line, we decide to find something to eat since we still have half an hour and we're starving. We eventually find a Burger King, get it to go, drive back and find a parking spot. We meet up with Michael Anderson and a few other people and just wait for the store to open their doors. The line is pretty crazy so I was curious to see what was going to happen with the whole max capacity thing and pre-registration. Epler was the only one that I couldn't pre-register since he didn't have a Cossy card. Luckily he was toward the front of the line. So one of the judges has all of the people that pre-registered to form a separate line from everyone else and move toward the front. We meet Joe Lancaster inside and I ask him about the pre-registration stuff, asking if they'd have the info for people who pre-registered the night before (Zach). I was a little worried that they wouldn't have our info and also worried about Nate's entry since I forgot to put his info down when I paid, but followed up with an email to them right afterward to include his info. Luckily they did have his and all our info so we all got in without a hitch. We find a table in the back and just chill for the most part. A lot of random stuff happens between now and the tourney, which I won't go into the specifics. The funniest parts include "Anybody got any Lady Ninja Yae?", seeing Shiggs' brother AKA Cyclops, Master P, and Chris calling out "attention YuGiOh players, *silence and stares* anybody have a Forbidden Chalice?" lol. Epler comes in like an hour later and barely made it into the tournament. Apparently 115 people pre-registered, and their cutoff was going to be around the mid-150 range. They turned away a lot of people which is pretty unfortunate for anyone that traveled a long distance for the event. I do a few trades and stuff, nothing too major, and tourney gets started at like 12:30 or so?

Round 1 vs Xelan (Ninja side into Hero)
I win the die roll.
Game 1 - I think I start with a Centipede+Hopper search for Dragonfly since I already have the Hornet. He summons Hanzo, I Veiler it, attacks over for 200 and sets 1. I summon Dragonfly, he Warnings so I pass. I take 2 hits from Hanzos and I endphase Call on Dragonfly then proceed to OTK with the Zektacaliber I have. He didn't know what Inzektors did since he had to read my cards each time. Kinda surprising for a fellow Asian.
Game 2 - Kinda throws me off by summoning Alius and later Rota'ing for Stratos. Didn't matter too much though since the stuff I sided in was going to be applicable against Hero anyway. I take this pretty decisively via swarming and having advantage.
OO
Record: 1-0

Round 2 vs Colin (DW)
I win the die roll.
Game 1 - He doesn't really get much going considering he's playing DW, eventually I win with Centipede equipped with 2 Swords.
Game 2 - He Solemns my D-Fissure for 4000, which I'm kinda happy about. He DDV's me as well, but it doesn't matter too much since my Hornet was set up and I had a Call to bring back Dragonfly, with Decree for backup to go for the win.
OO
Record: 2-0

Round 3 vs Taylor (Jurrac)
I win the die roll (3 in a row holy shit).
So I notice the guy's last name is like Quan or something but looks like a white guy. Then I look at him and can tell he's half-Asian like me cuz we just have "those" eyes. He says he's half-Chinese, I'm half-Japanese, and he gets jealous lol. We also get the random deckcheck and I'm kinda nervous because I'd hate to have messed something up and get a game loss. I'm pretty good about checking my shit multiple times though and all that kinda stuff. After like 8 minutes we are both good to go and they give us a 3 minute time extension (what happened to the extra 5 mins? lol)
Game 1 - I go with the turn 1 Hopper into Zenmaines play and search Fly since I have the Hornet already and set Solemn. He does some shit that's not too relevant and sets a backrow, I summon Fly, he goes to Warning, so I Judgment so I can go for the OTK, which I do.
Game 2 - I open pretty poop and he gets a Laggia and Dolkka out so I scoop to just start game 3 cuz we're running out of time and this guy is slow as molasses.
In between the game Zach comes up to me and asks me what I want from Subway since they're going to get food for everyone. I ask for a turkey and ham sandwich. 
Game 3 - He runs his Guaiba into my Snowman early on and it goes kinda down hill for him from there. There was some ruling confusion and I make a misplay by summoning Hornet thinking I had one in grave already. I fall back by equipping Giga-Mantis to it and beat down with it for a few turns. I eventually take game cuz he runs out of monsters to protect his LP.
OXO
Record: 3-0

At this point I think everyone on the team was 3-0 besides Danny and Link who were pretty much on the verge of dropping. Link had to play good people the first 4 rounds and Danny played against random shit and was drawing shitty 'niller hands. So far I haven't really played against anyone hard yet but I'll take the undefeated record so far. We get a 30 minute lunch break here.

Round 4 vs Andrew (Malefic GK)
No die roll.
The round starts, I sit and shuffle, but my opponent doesn't show up. The judge lets me know what the procedure is, if he doesn't show in 3 minutes he gets a game loss and if not in 10, a match loss. So I just shuffle up and wait and look at the games next to me. Guy doesn't show up after 3 mins so I take game 1. He ends up showing up a minute and a half before the 10 minutes are up and I let him know that he got the game loss because of showing up late, with the judge verifying it for him.
Game 1 - Win to late show-up
Game 2 - I think I Solemn a Torrential and Warning a Malefic since I'm at 2000 early on, but I just press on, don't get too greedy with attacks until I can set up my Hornet plays, which become slowed down due to Necrovalley. I eventually win as I pop everything he tries to set up and he can't get over my 2400 Centipede.
OO
Record: 4-0

I think we had like four 4-0s and one 3-1, maybe we were all undefeated, don't remember, but Link and Danny dropped at this point. Danny borrows Michael Andreson's Inzektors and enters the win-a-mat.

Round 5 vs Epler (Inzektor)
I win the die roll (guess this makes up for losing them all at the box tourney?).
So this was the first teammate vs teammate instance with us both being on table 1, and Zach played against a Dino Rabbit player on table 2.
Game 1 - He attacks over for 100 (I think Tking over Sword'd Dragonfly) then I'm able to OTK a turn or two later.
Game 2 - This one's more back and forth and I thought he had game after he made a DAD play but I Veiler'd his Dragonfly I believe. Next turn I'm able to Dragonfly back and have control of the game.
OO
Record: 5-0

Zach lost his match but held on like a champ as I watched him try to play out of the Rabbit player's advantage. I think Nate lost his match as well so everyone was 4-1 with me at 5-0. I felt confident about finishing well at this point.

Round 6 vs Rob (Solidarity Six Samurai)
I win the die roll.
I traded with this guy earlier and he seriously seemed like a character you'd see off the original Yugioh show. His voice was like a flamboyant Weevil but he wore a black trenchcoat, guy was just kinda odd in general. I knew he was running Sams so I was a little worried after losing to Shiggs the past 3 matches in a row but I figured I'd be able to beat this guy.
Game 1 - I don't have a solid turn 1 play and draw kinda poop in general so I just set something and pass. He goes absolutely nutty and hits me for 7000, this guy runs the one Samurai that can attack twice, I think his gameplan is to just attack through for fast damage before the opponent can set up. I don't have a way to clear his whole field so I lose as he has Solidarity to pump his guys huge.
Game 2 - Make turn 1 Zenmaines and he doesn't get anything going, summoning all the bad Samurai like Kamon, and I'm able to attack for over 7000 the turn after for game. I write OTK in my life sheet but he gives me some smartass remark about me not "technically" OTK'ing. I just ignore him.
Game 3 - This is pretty back and forth with me at 3100 and him at 2200, me never getting Hornet set up in grave, and we're both low in card count and he has 3 cards in hand to my 1 with Centipede on field. He goes Solidarity Kageki Kagemush for Shi En and attacks over my Centipede. I have Dragonfly in hand, draw into Foolish, and I knew it was over. I just set the Fly but he tops into a Grandmaster or something and I scoop it up. Had I gotten a Hornet set up I know that would've been mine :(
OXX
Record: 5-1

Afterwards the guy gives me "advice" by saying I should consider running Dark Creator and I simply have no words I can say since he was actually being serious. He walks off and everyone gives me the "how'd that bad player win?" eyes, one guy's like "so how does it feel to lose to a janky ass player like that?" and I was like "I'm pretty salty actually" but I just try to shrug it off and forget about it since we had 2 more rounds to go and I can still finish well.

Round 7 vs Minh (TG Agent)
I lose the die roll.
As we were shuffling I told him I was impressed that he was doing so well and repping Agents as it was my favorite deck last format. I was still pretty high in the tables at table 2.
Game 1 - I think my only relevant plays are Hopper with a Sword equipped to it, he destroys it so I grab Hopper back, and he has to ask the judge if that's how it actually works, so the judge explains how the cards hit the grave and stuff. Another no-Hornet game for me so I lose.
Game 2 - This one's fairly back and forth but I keep more advantage than he does and win out.
Game 3 - Pretty much a repeat of game 1 except he uses Prohibition on Hornet and I never draw into S/T removal. I hold out with Sword plays but the MST never comes so I lose. Pretty shitty since I've had no trouble drawing MSTs all day.
XOX
Record: 5-2

Everyone was watching the crazy Samurai guy playing against Dino Rabbit, and the final gamestate is like his Solidarity with no cards in hand to his Utopia and 1 card in hand. He rips Mind Control off the top, goes into Utopia Ray, attacks for game, and the crowd goes crazy with hype. Nowhere near as much as the Daigo vs Justin parry video, but probably as much as I've personally seen in Yugioh. One kid gets so hype shouting like "YUGIOHHH" and Danny say to him like "holy shit calm down dude, you gonna suck him off after the tourney or something?" and he just shuts up lol.

I think we're all 5-2 at this point except Epler who was 4-3 I believe. Danny tells me about how someone thought he was me from seeing his mat, so he finds the guy to bring over to introduce him to me, and it's none other than Code from Codename: YGO! He finds another guy who beat him with Monarchs, don't remember your name, sorry, but it was nice meeting and talking to both of you. Shout-outs :)

I'm pretty disappointed at being 5-2 as I wanted to finish X-1 at a big event, which I have yet to do. It seems like I always play against some random ass shit and lose, which keeps me from topping. Technically two X-2's will make top 8, but I knew from moving down all the way to table 17 that it probably wasn't going to happen even if I won. I guess those early-round easy match-ups finally caught up with me.

Round 8 vs Zachary (Dino Rabbit)
I win the die roll.
Game 1 - He Solemns something for 4000 and pokes me for 1000 a few times with a Veiler'd Tour Guide. He has a pretty good field set up which I can't attack over, so I bait a Warning with my Dragonfly but I have Reborn to take the game, use Hopper so it can attack directly, and equip Giga-Mantis to directly go for the last damage.
Game 2 - I think he runs into a Snowman Eater and gradually loses out from there.
OO
Record: 6-2

Zach and Donut finish 6-2 as well, so it's really up to tie-breaks to see if any of us make it in. Nate and Epler finish 5-3. Zach gets 11th, Donut 15th, me 19th, and Nate 24th, with the top 24 getting invites. I remember Nate was the top of the 5-3's while I was on the low end of the 6-2's. We fill out Nats Invite forms, then wait around for Joe Lancaster to be done so we can finally grab some dinner at Red Robin. 4 out of the 7 of us getting our invites in one event is pretty sweet in my opinion. The top 8 was something like 1 DW, 1 TG Agent, 2 Samurai, 2 Dino Rabbit, 1 Wind-Up, and not sure about the last one. Pretty much everyone is hating on the trench coat Samurai guy, pretty much in disbelief that he's made it all the way to top 4. At the end he was like "I faced the likes of Rabbit, Inzektor, Heroes, and emerged victorious over them all!" or some corny shit like that.

The store has this cooler which has Choco Tacos, so Danny opens the top and goes in to grab one, and one of the workers comes over and is like "you have to keep that closed!" Danny's just like "holy shit I was just trying to grab a freakin ice cream" and just walks off but the worker is all trying to get him to come back to buy it. Danny doesn't want to "give them the satisfaction" so he asks me if I'd grab him one so I grab it and one for myself lol. Delicious!

The Idaho team leaves and we wait a bit more for Joe, eventually we're done with trades and drive to Red Robin, which has an unbelievably small parking lot - like 8 whole spots but we Hanzo the last one after driving around the block again. I would've just parked in the Denny's lot but was afraid of getting towed, even though it probably wouldn't happen since it was so late anyways. Can't take chances though! We wait forever and a half just for the 12 in our party to get split into 3 tables. We pick Michael Anderson's brain a little bit and I ask him "so what happened between Long Beach and now, to where Inzektor is getting more popularity among the pro players?" He explained it was because they finally got around to testing it and stopped doing the lazy default thing of just playing Dino Rabbit simply because of Laggia and Dolkka. I buy Danny's dinner for him as a late birthday gift, and Anderson enlightens all of us as to how good Red Robin's Honey Mustard really is - holy shit, that might just replace my love of Ranch dressing lol.

Afterwards we stop by a Shell to grab some beer and Mike's, go back to the motel and organize our binders and whatnot. Link was like "wow we're gay, we Yugioh all day and Yugioh some more when we get back" lol.

Sunday
Nothing too special, we try to grab donuts from Voodoo Donuts for breakfast/brunch but the line is beyond long. We eventually find a Panda Express which really jipped us on food. As we're sitting there Danny is like "it sounds like Street Fighter in here." I listen to the music and am like "yea it sounds like the Chun-Li stage" and we crack up to Zach's Street Fighter back-and-forth movement. Danny's convinced that it's the actual stage music but I was pretty sure it wasn't since I was able to hum the stage music which didn't sound like what was being played.

Drive back was pretty chill and we get back around 6:30, Danny and I playtest a game of his DW vs my Inzektor which he dominates, then we watch the deck profile of the guy who got 2nd at Dallas and our minds are blown when he explains the usefulness of Electric Virus in the deck.

Props:
Michael Anderson - cool as hell
Red Robin Honey Mustard dressing
The majority of the team getting our invite
Zach and Link's impersonations of everyone
Zach's emo-punk singing
Choco Tacos
The Carter IV
Me for pre-registering everyone

Slops:
Annoying as hell Solidarity Samurai guy
Small player cap- event would've been twice as big I think
Portland's Panda Express' lack of Paw Plate, selection, and amount of food given
Waiting forever at Red Robin thinking we'd all be together but be split up anyway
Red Robin's little ass parking lot
The massive number of bums in Portland, a special "lol" to that one passed out in front of a restaurant in China Town
Econo Lodge's Jew-ass manager

Most used phrases of the weekend:
"Vampire fuck up your evening."
"Anybody got a Lady Ninja Yae?"
"2-card combo!"

A special picture:

Decklist: 40
Monsters: 15
10 Staple Bugs
2 Hopper
2 Veiler
1 Sangan

Spells: 15
3 Duality
3 MST
3 Sword
1 Hole
1 Reborn
1 Heavy
1 Book
1 Foolish
1 Allure

Traps: 10
2 Torr
2 Warning
1 Judgment
2 Call
2 Fiendish
1 Mirror

I tried to go with a build that would minimize the number of dead cards in my hand, and I opted not to run Gorz in main due to having 4 continuous traps. The lack of boss monsters (ie BLS/DAD) may have helped in overcoming my match against trench coat Samurai and Agents, likewise having Spirit Reapers to help stall, but I didn't want to have those dead in my hand or give Inzektors Reapers to pop and stuff like that. I tried to keep it simple and keep it at 40 to have Hornet access as mathematically high as possible without relying on "random mill" via Trooper/Ryko.

Not sure where I'll take the deck from here on, it'll probably remain relatively the same until GAOV comes out. I may go back to the triple Veiler + BLS version and cut Fiendish Chain. May go up to 41, not really sure, may also look more into Dragons but I know I want to start up Magic again as soon as I can. I may order what I need tonight or pick it up from Gamer's Haven.

All in all I had a fantastic weekend, just wish I would've had a Hornet in game 3 vs trench coat Sams cuz I would've won that shit ages ago had I had it and probably topped. I may try again at May 19th's Seattle regional, but not sure yet. As for Nats, I'd really like to go but I have no idea what kind of story I could come up with to explain to the wife lol.

Prepping for Regionals

Well after months of talking about it, I think my deck is set for this weekend's Portland regionals. There's still a few other miscellaneous things I need to do today like get an oil change for my car, clean my car, confirm our motel reservation over the phone (gotten screwed in this past by not doing this), pack in general, and make sure my GPS's are working correctly cuz they've been jacked up as of late. The event site said there's going to be a 140-person limit as well, but they have an online pre-pay option so I signed up Danny, Link, and myself so far. Need Cossy#'s from the rest of the team if they want me to pre-register them. It's hard to say if this'll be necessary, since who knows it might be a low turnout (but I doubt it), but for this kind of thing where we're driving for 6+ hours to go to, I'd say it's better to be safe than sorry especially when it's so easy to guarantee your spot by pre-paying online.

After regionals I will be setting my sights on Magic and finally actually getting back into that. Only 3 Snapcasters and 1 Phantasmal Image to go!

Looking forward to the event, hopefully it all goes smoothly!

Box Tourney Report 4-9-12; Uncle's Games (Valley)

I messed around on DN the night before to finalize my main and sidedeck for the box tournament, expecting to face against Heroes and DW. After tweaking my real deck I headed off to Uncle's around 4:15 and got there around 4:30 and the regulars were there. Watched Corey and Paul play a few games, the Dino mirror is interesting to watch. Eventually Link shows up and then Nate, Danny can't make it nor could Alan and Donut :( I make a last-minute change to my side (take out a Dust Tornado for another Snowman) and don't do much else since I don't want people knowing what I was going to run today. Everyone signs up, we wait around till like 5:30 or so and eventually things get started. Attendance is 16, even though it felt like there were a lot more people there. I guess the $15 entry was too steep.

Round 1 vs Aaron (BW)I lose the die roll.
Game 1 - He sets Bora turn 1 and I pop it with Centipede. Next turn he Blizzards and goes into Armed Wing. I OTK next turn.
Game 2 - I don't get Hornet this whole game, and he is in good position via an Armor Master, but he goes into a Black Rose and nukes the field. He had thought that BRD stays on the field, but I say "no, it gets destroyed too." He reads it over, and puts it in the grave. I just power through with Zektcaliber'd Centipedes and whatnot, and I Solemn something he summons, forget what it was but win next turn.
OO
Record: 1-0

Round 2 vs Paul (Dino)
I lose the die roll.
Game 1 - I OTK somewhere around 3rd or 4th turn I believe.
Game 2 - I draw all traps and nothing but traps and Zektcalibers while Kabazauls beats me down.
Game 3 - This was a lot more back and forth in terms of LP, "Paul drew poopy" is what I have in my notes lol.
OXO
Record: 2-0

I watch Shiggs play against this guy running Zombies, which I see him activate Dark Hole, normal summon a Penguin Soldier and attack for game. I see them pack their stuff up, and I had thought they were actually playing a tournament game there, and I was just like "wow, really?" Turns out it was just for funsies.

Round 3 vs Link (Wind-Up)
I lose the die roll (I'm on a roll!).
So this whole time I thought he was running Dino while his girlfriend was running Wind-Up since he was showing off "her" deck to me before the tourney. Glad I took out all my Maxx C's from the side! :/
Game 1 - Don't have much written down for this game, I remember Veiler'ing a few early plays to avoid getting looped but can't capitalize on anything and eventually end up with no hand. He takes this one.
Game 2 - He goes Magician, so I activate Vanity's Emptiness which ends his turn. I pop with Dragonfly, Solemn something, and he scoops.
Game 3 - An epic game, at one point I thought I was going to lose but turn it around with a endphase Call on Hopper which gets Fiendish'd, then Dragonfly and Leviair plays basically pop the whole field. He Dark Holes and simplifies the gamestate so he has nothing and he knows I have Dragonfly since I searched it from Centipede last turn. Fortunately my Hopper is in there so I can still special and then search for a Sword. He MST's the Sword as a sign of scooping. I remember really kicking myself for not having a 2nd Leviair in this game cuz I could've brought back some of his Rabbit'd away Wind-Ups.
XOO
Record: 3-0

Round 4 vs Shiggs (Samurai)
I lose the die roll (0 for 4, baby!)
Well Shiggs and I were the only undefeateds left so I didn't care too much about how ours was going to end up since I knew we'd both make tops. I make a remark about how I need to learn how to roll the dice better.
Game 1 - He sits there for a moment and I'm like "come onnn, Gateway United Dojo, just do it" which he does do exactly. Great! He wins this one with his massive advantage and field presence to my poop hand.
Game 2 - I turn 1 Zenmaines via Hopper play, he opens Gateway United, but I OTK next turn via Dragonfly+Sword combo. I jokingly say to him "you know Gateway's at 1 right?" and he just laughs.
Game 3 - He attacks into my facedown Kinetic Soldier, but he's able to bounce it with Enishi and from there on I have no other notes in my LP sheet besides a :( face. I lose.
XOX
Record: 3-1

Top 4 is Shiggs (Sams), Schroeder (Hero), Roy (Wind-Up), and me (Inzektor). I was like "hm, that's a really 'interesting' top 4" lol. Link and Nate got knocked out so I was kinda sad I was the only Team O member left. Oh well I probably would've just had to play one of them in top 4 had one of them made it in anyway lol.

Shiggs was who I wanted to play the least, so of course, as the norm, I get to play him. I tell him "if you beat me, you pretty much got this in the bag dude."

Top 4 vs Shiggs (Samurai)
I win the die roll (holy f)!
Game 1 - I was excited just to win the die roll, unfortunately I couldn't stop the wrath known as Shiggs, as he has 2 Veilers to stop my bug plays, then a Solemn Judgment to stop a Centipede summon, and then a top deck'd Warning for my Dragonfly next turn. I'm just like Christ, this kid's unstoppable right now.
Game 2 - Dragonfly+Sword OTK combo.
Game 3 - So this was it, the make or break game. I shuffle his deck real good cuz I've given him Gateway in almost all our games, unfortunately he still opens Gateway United with a massive field. He makes a bad move by summon'ing Veiler to Synchro, so I Torrential. Thought I had it in the bag at this point, but that freakin' Enishi puts in serious work. He then goes Kageki and Enishi and has a big grave to fuel him while we're both in topdecking mode pretty much. I make a misplay by D-Prison'ing the Kageki instead of the Enishi, but in retrospect I don't think it would've mattered because he would've just bounced whatever XYZ I went into and I'd be back to topdecking since I didn't have enough cards to finish off the remaining 6400 he had.
XOX
Record: 3-2

Roy loses his match, so him and I just split since it was 6 packs for 4th and 12 for 3rd, we were both perfectly fine with 9 each since the difference wasn't that much. Schoeder and Shiggs play it out, I could've sworn Shiggs was going to win this one, but he loses out in game 3. At one point he had three Level 3's on the field with no Tuner, and I think if he owned a Zenmaines he would've survived and maybe go on to win the match. Not sure why he didn't go Leviathan, maybe just for the extra field presence.

All in all it was a good tourney and I felt comfortable with the deck. My only losses were to Shiggs, which I've become fine with now. I have a newfound respect for him as a player, and no longer can I underestimate him, at least with Sams. That means I get to consider him a "threat", which means I'm just gonna commit more side for the match-up :) I thought the 1 Kinetic was gonna be enough of a silver bullet, and while it was, it just wasn't enough. One thing I hate about the game the past couple formats is there being so many decks and not being able to include the "silver bullet" type side cards and strictly going for "all purpose".

Uncle's Games Box Tourney Tomorrow

Just a heads up to the local players - the Valley Uncle's is holding another box tourney tomorrow at the usual 5PM time, and this time they've listed the entry fee as $15 right on their events site; shouldn't be a surprise this time around. I'm guessing they will be giving ORCS out since I know they still have quite a few boxes left from when they ordered a case from the previous box tourney. Hopefully everyone shows up on time and we're not waiting around til 6 for players to show up. This only prolongs the tourney especially if they do a top cut, which in all fairness, they should. I'll probably show up around 4.

Recap:
Who: you & friends that play Yugz
What: box tourney (ORCS?)
Where: Valley Mall Uncle's
When: Monday at 5
Why: because box tourneys > regular locals
Fee: $15

$50 Ninjas- Mission Impossible?

Well to follow up from my tourney report, I actually set out to try and come up with something that was Ninja-related and was around the $50 range, and be somewhat playable so I can sell to Dashboard. Threw some stuff together on DN, tweaked a little here and there after each game I played, and my result is:

The premise is basically "go into Blade Armor via Upstart+Hanzo, or a rank 5 via Cydra+Flame Armor, with help from Chaos". I had to take into consideration my card pool and what I could reasonably easily pick up if I needed (like I think I'd need a 3rd Alexandrite), and obviously I wouldn't include BLS, Dualities, D-Prisons, or Warnings in the deck. Everything to the right of the Stardust in the Extra I wouldn't include as well, but just had them in there for testing purposes. It actually held up quite well in the half a dozen Unrated games I played, granted I didn't play against any meta decks lol.

Going Hanzo->Super Trans->Alexandrite is pretty lackluster, but I couldn't go the Guaiba route cuz then he'd want Laggia which I wouldn't include, nor do I own White Dragon Ninjas. At least Alexandrite can get over the 1900's of Heroes and TKing in general, and it's a Light for the Sorcs, so that's basically why I put em in there. Everything else is rather staple-ish, and the Calls were pretty helpful in re-using Hanzo to search Upstart Ninja for more Blade Armor plays. Not sure how I feel about 3 Darks with 2 Sorcs, but I couldn't think of another Dark that would really go well with everything else in the deck. I had Gorz in at one point but with Calls and Super-Trans and lots of traps in general, took him out. I suppose I could cut 1 Sorc for another trap like Compulse. Having a lot of traps for Upstart Ninja is important. Cyber Dragon fuels the rank 5 plays with Flame Armor and is just a good Light beater, obviously. Now that I think about it I might throw in a Chimeratech just for potential anti-Zenmaines play and Machines in general.

One game I had Alexandrite on field, MST'd his one down, Mind Control'd his 4star, summon Upstart pitch a trap for Hanzo, search Upstart, go into Blade Armor and Utopia for game, with a potential Blade Armor play next turn lol. It was actually kinda cool.

I'll probably end up "demoing" the deck for Dashboard just to show him the plays and whatnot. Realistically I can only let go of just the main and maybe the cheaper stuff of the Extra for $50. I figure 3 Hanzo is $30 in itself, Utopia, Stardust, and a bunch of staples for $20? Probably still a bad deal on my end but I have a lot of extra of this stuff so I wouldn't mind getting rid of some for the cash, and I don't give a crap about having Hanzos or not. All I concluded from testing was "wow Hanzo's first effect kinda sucks" just cuz there aren't a lot of good Ninjitsu cards, at least when not playing the White Dragon Ninja/Guaiba version.

No real point of this post besides showing the result of me having a little fun with a seemingly-difficult task. I think this was the first deck I built purely from my own thought process in like 3 years as well lol. I suppose it's not that hard though when half of a deck anymore is staples/all-around good cards. If anyone had any suggestions for alternative routes for this deck and staying within a ~$50 budget I'm all ears :)

Locals Report 4-7-12; Uncle's Games (Downtown)

Well my plan for today's tourney was to use Heroes just so I could compare my performance with it against my performance with Inzektors. Danny and I agree to meet at his place after he got off work at 12:30 so we could go down together. He pulls in around 12:45 and we're off to Uncle's. Get there right around 1 I think and miraculously there are a few parking spots right out front. The meter unfortunately has an hour and a half limit so I'm pretty much gonna have to feed it after each round. Get there, and it's pretty much Ian, Shiggs, and a few other people I've never seen before. Make a few trades, shift over my Dualities and Warnings from my Inzektors to Heroes and tweak the Side and Extra a bit, then Danny and I test a game of his Inzektors vs my Heroes. He OTKs like second turn and I just watch because I've come to realize I don't actually know "the" OTK with the deck, at least the one that can do 10000+ damage. Shiggs bought a box of PHSW from the store and only pulled 2 Supers, an Ultra, and an Ulti. At first I thought he bought a sealed box and thought that was pretty strange, but turns out it was re-packed by the store. One can easily see what happened in that scenario - simple rule, don't buy unsealed boxes.

Anyways Ian comes over to us and makes some quip about how we "started the tournament already" since we're paired against each other first round. We make our remarks back like "ohh what is this, Lightning Comics (where the best always get paired against each other first round) ?" Then I say to Ian like "so who're you playing, the worst person here?" and we just laugh. I've always thought done-by-hand pairings were sketchy as fuck. Attendance is 8, pretty standard for downtown Uncle's. I'm fine with this since all I wanted was to play with Heroes outside of DN.

Round 1 vs Danny (Dino-Rabbit)
I always wanted to see how Heroes did against Rabbit so I was looking forward to the match. Also my first time playing Heroes in real life even though I've wanted to for years now lol.
Game 1 - He makes a Laggia which I get rid of via D-Prison + Skill Drain. From there on I poke with Alius for a few turns then add a Barbaros into the mix and eventually take game.
Game 2 - I sided in Super Polys and Smashing Grounds and whatnot but I never draw Super Poly. Don't remember how this game goes but I pretty much retain control for the majority of it I think. A Shining and Alius take it.
OO
Record: 1-0

Danny says he should just drop at this point I'm like might as well play for the practice/testing aspect of it, even though the only other good person to play was Shiggs with his usual Sams.

Throughout the tourney this kid (who Danny has nicknamed "Dashboard") asks me if I'd trade him stuff, I'm like sure, but he doesn't have any cards or cash. The first trade we did I got 60 new sleeves from him, which I'll use for regs next weekend. After that, I'm just like "what am I supposed to do if you don't have any cards or cash?" He wants me to build him a Ninja deck for $50 (since he'll get money for his birthday next week), and "try it out" before he actually buys it. In my mind I'm just thinking like "even if you had a tier 1 deck you'd still do bad, so what's the point of me spending time to build a $50 Ninja deck (which is obviously going to do poorly by default), have you do bad with it, and then not buy it cuz it "won't be good enough"?" And he said no Dinos in it, which is the only variant of Ninjas I know of :/ I guess I'll try and come up with something cuz $50 is $50. He looks through my binder again later in the day and is like "can you build me Machina?" I'm like sure, I can pretty much make anything, it just completely depends on how much you're wanting to spend. Difficult people are difficult.

Round 2 vs Jordan (Anti-Meta Chaos?)
Never seen this guy before but he seemed cool. I had no clue what he was playing but figured there's nothin I can do about that, just shuffle up and play.
Game 1 - I open Stratos, which he Veilers. I'm like crap. He T-sets, I attack, and it's a Fossil Dyna of all things. I'm like "...oh, k?" Figured it was going to be a Sangan or Snowman or something lol. From there on I Gemini Spark twice for pluses and toward the end it's like his 3 cards to my 10 or so. He Solemns my Miracle Fusion but I just play another one and swing for game.
Game 2 - Open pretty poopy where Snowman is my only monster for most of the game and lose from his BLS.
Game 3 - Opened like double Alius and Rota with some other stuff, thought I'd lose this game because of it but all we did was one-for-one our summons and whatnot with Torrentials, Mirror Force, suicides, etc. I win cuz I stop his crucial plays later on.
OXO
Record: 2-0

Round 3 vs Shiggs (Samurai)
As usual, afraid to go into this, but especially with Heroes because I think it's a bad match-up.
Game 1 - I win the di roll but don't have a good opening, he does his usual setup for Shi En, Grandmaster plus some dude and I can't do much after that.
Game 2 - He doesn't open nutty and I maintain control. Don't remember this game beyond that lol. I really need to write more notes so I can talk a little bit more about the games I suppose.
Game 3 - Bad hand, and a combination of misplays, him starting with United and double Dojo, and not fully realizing how Shi En works cost me this one. The deck also inherent Special Summons way too much to correctly get the most use out of Maxx C's - to the point that I don't even like it in this match-up anymore. That and Shiggs has gotten much better with the deck all-around. Stick with a deck and that tends to happen :)
XOX
Record: 2-1

So Shiggs is the only undefeated and they never do top cutoff here. They don't even have ORCS so we get PHSW and GENF packs, which we all pull jack shit out of. Danny pulls a Piercing Moray and gives it to Dashboard. Oh ya, he got this nickname because Danny stomped him in round 2 and he dropped from the tourney right there lol. He ran X-Sabers and Danny just negated everything with Dolkka. Dashboard asks me how much it's worth, and there are 2 pennies lying in front of Shiggs on the table, I point to them, and say "about that much" and Jordan laughs. Earlier Dashboard asked me how much X-Saber Wayne was worth, I'm like "uhh, a quarter?" He gives me this confused/demoralized look and I say that it's just bad and Danny outwardly agrees with me just to get it through the kid's head. I never try to be a douche about these kinds of things but I can't just say like "oh ya, it's pretty decent." No use blowing smoke up peoples' asses especially if they're trying to get better at the game. At this point in my dueling "career" I don't mind helping those that are looking for help and will genuinely listen to advice. Tourney was short and sweet, which I'm thankful for cuz the parking meter was eating all my quarters like a little kid does Halloween candy.

Decklist:
Joe Giorlando's, -1 Dark Bribe for an Honest. Only difference in main.
I think Honest helped me in 2 pivotal spots in my games. Never played Bribe, Road, or Super Poly in any games. Hero Blast was good but was dead in one game where I couldn't dig into Alius. Only card from the Extra I went into was Shining.

My original theories about the deck seemed correct, in that it's pretty good against the popular meta but not so much against a deck that can go nutty like DW or Sams. It's real hard for Heroes to break up an established Shi-En+Grandmaster+another Sam+backrow set up, not only because of Shi-En's effect, but just cuz of the natural 1900 cap the deck has. Likewise a recursible 2700/3000 beater is gonna be tough. Inzektors on the other hand can pretty easily play out of the Sam field with a Dragonfly+Hornet, but the cards people have in their side for that deck hurt a lot more than what someone may have for a deck like Heroes. It feels like that's where the format is at right now, a huge "rock-paper-scissors" scenario and how well you do is dependent on how many "papers" you play if you're playing "scissors" and just hope that you don't get matched up against "rock". I think DW has good match-ups across the board right now, unfortunately their worst match-up is themselves, in that if they open just absolute shit or don't draw into their "turbo-ness", the deck can't do anything and loses. Many of the pros have said if DW just goes off there's not much that can be done, however the unreliability of always being able to go off is the deck's biggest hindrance at the moment I believe.

As for regionals, still pretty torn about which deck to play. I can totally imagine the first 2 or 3 rounds being random stuff like Chaos Dragons, or decks that can churn out recursible 2500+ monsters in general while I have a hand of 1900's and lose because of it. At the same time everyone's gonna have Shadow-Mirrors and those trap-based sideboard cards for Inzektors, and I don't want my games dependent on if I draw Decree or not, or just get blown up by a resolved Deck Dev. Deciding which cards should be in the main and side is pretty difficult as well since who knows what the hell will be played in Portland. A lot to think about and time is running out :( I think I pretty much need to make a decision after Monday's tourney and just play the hell out of whatever I choose between then and regionals, and commit side for my bad match-ups. That's about all you can do I suppose.

Farewell, Jeff Jones

Unfortunately another pro has left the game. Here is his farewell post from DGz:

"I figured since (No arrogance intended) I'm basically a yugioh household name, it would make more sense to post this here then hi/bye.

As some of you who are my facebook friends probably already know, I am leaving yugioh.
I'm usually not a very public person, in the sense of my personal life, but as of late, everything around me is falling apart, and I can no longer be bothered with this game. I more then likely, will not be back. I'm getting older, and I have too many things I need to attend to, and cant be allowed to be distracted by yugioh.

I'll still probably be on the forum when I'm bored and whatnot, but I'm most certainly parting with everything yugioh related I own.

Thanks for every one who has supported me, all the people i've met, and thank you to all my friends I've made over the past 10 years."

I know not everyone was a Jeff Jones fan, but I think he was one of the few great innovators we had left in the game. His top with DandyWarrior made $5 Drill Warriors jump up to $30 over night, so he had "that" effect on the game as well and therefore I always tried to follow what he did closely. I'm hoping he comes back when his life or whatever is going on gets smoothed out, but it seems like when pros quit they quit for good, at least compared to the average joe who comes back anywhere between a month to a year. 

TCG/OCG Tech Updates #1

Since I know not everyone locally keeps up with the OCG and TCG forum discussions as much as I do, I thought it'd be beneficial for those people if I shared what I occasionally found in terms of tech cards. Note that these aren't my techs, just stuff that I've seen from various OCG and TCG decklists, forum talk, etc. They may not be the most viable of cards as well, but again, just wanting to bring them out into the limelight.

1. Autonomous Action Unit/Wiseman's Chalice
 

Autonomous Action Unit

Pay 1500 Life Points. Select 1 Monster Card from your opponent's Graveyard. Special Summon it on your side of the field in face-up Attack Position, and equip it with this card. When this card is destroyed or removed from the field, the equipped monster is destroyed. Wiseman's Chalice If you control no monsters, select 1 monster in your opponent's Graveyard. Special Summon it. During the End Phase of this turn, give control of that Special Summoned monster to your opponent. The monster cannot be Tributed, or used as a Synchro Material Monster, while it is face-up on the field. I lumped these together since they are both similar in function. I remember Autonomous getting a little bit of attention on the forums a few years ago but nothing much ever came out of it. Currently you can find many OCG Inzektor lists playing 1 or 2 copies, since it can be a momentum-shifter in the mirror, which is most likely the most prevalent match-up, at least compared to the TCG. As for Wiseman's Chalice, I remember people talking about hoarding these when XYZ's first came out, but again, not much came out of it. I had 2 in my sidedeck for like a week, but took them out right before tournament to include more conventional cards. I like both in the Inzektor mirror, but with so many viable decks in our meta, it may not be feasible to run cards like these unless you had a lot of Inzektors in your area. Both have their pros and cons which should be evident if you just take a second to think about each. 2. Really Eternal Rest Destroy all monsters equipped with Equip Cards. Again, another anti-Inzektor sidedeck card for the most part. I can't see much opportunity to hit more than 1 monster, but you never know when the situation may arise. 3. Overworked Destroy each monster whose ATK is higher than its original ATK. Similar to the card above but capable of hitting monsters which get an attack boost via other ways. 4. Mischief of the Yokai Each face-up monster on the field loses 2 Levels, until the End Phase. You can remove from play this card from your Graveyard to select 1 face-up monster, and reduce its Level by 1, until the End Phase. This effect cannot be activated the turn this card is sent to the Graveyard. I remember when a user on Pojo brought this card up in the Profitting thread about a month or two ago, asking if he thought anyone saw potential in it (both playability and value). I think mostly everyone hesitated and said it was kind of situational and may not rise that much. I saw it and thought about buying out all of Troll & Toad's stock at first, but changed my mind last-minute. Now that one of the decks that topped Long Beach sided this card, talk, hype, and value have all gone up for it. It's fairly good disruption and can potentially be used again even if it gets MST'd or you've just used it already.

Locals Report 3-2-2012; Uncle's Games

Well I was pretty excited to play since the last tourney I played in was the box tourney, about a month ago. I had been playing on DN a little bit but nothin beats good ol' in-real-life games. I watched Wilson Tsang's video about the post-Long Beach meta in which he felt that Heroes were still below Inzektor and Wind-Up by a little. Up until this point, most of my testing on DN was with Heroes, but this made me hesitate in bringing them to the tourney. I also only had 2 Shinings and 1 Nova Master so I made a last-minute switch back to Inzektor and fixed up my Extra and Side accordingly. Grab my stuff and head over to Gamer's Haven.

Surprisingly Alan gets there exactly when I do and I also see Shiggs doing something outside, Alan and I both go upstairs and there's no one there besides a couple Magic players so we just sit down and test. I text Shiggs to come upstairs. He comes up, and it's like 4:40 by now and there's still no one here, which makes me doubt that there's going to be a tourney. I text Roy to see if he's at Northtown and if there are any players, and he tells me he's at Uncle's and there's currently 5 with 3 more on the way. I'm like "well screw this let's go to Uncle's" so we pack up and I drive Alan and Shiggs over. We get there and there's a fairly decent turnout considering it's Uncle's. I pay for Alan's entry and tourney gets started fairly soon. I ask Carl if he rules it where Hopper can use its effect on turn 1 since that was going to play a large role in what I played. He's like "yea I've always ruled it that you can do it turn 1" so I'm like sweet, don't need to make any changes. Attendance is 12.

Round 1 vs Seto (Chaos Dragons)
I think he just bought 3 of the structure deck and threw in some Veilers, JD's, and a BLS, not sure, but he was still sleeving up his deck so I just shuffled up then waited. For playing the game so long, the guy shuffles so slooow lol. I think it was like 10 minutes into the round by the time we got started, or at least it felt like that long.
Game 1- I decide to start with Centipede+Hopper but he Veilers my Centipede before I even say "effect", so I'm like alright. I stop the majority of his plays, he surprises me with a Lightpulsar play but it's like whatever, I can just pop as often as I want. Some Fiendish Chains stop his late-game JD and whatnot and I pop over for game.
Game 2 - He overextends turn 1 with 4 monsters and I Dark Hole. I Reborn one of his REDMD's which survives all the way til the end lol. I don't get any Inzektor plays online until mid-game or so and fairly low in life, but as they say, LP's are nice but I only need 1 to win.
OO
Record: 1-0

Round 2 vs Paul (Inzektor)
Game 1 - I think it was this game where he tried to Reborn my Dragonfly but I chained Call of the Haunted to fizzle his Reborn. He just gave me a dirty/"wow wtf" look lol. I admit that was pretty convenient right there. I generate more advantage over the next few turns and win.
Game 2 - I try to Mind Control his Dragonfly and use it but he has the Veiler, then I try to XYZ my Hornet with it but he has the Book. Crap! He combos off a little but not enough to go for game. I think I follow up with a Zektcaliber play to come back or maybe Mantis and win.
OO
Record: 2-0

So at this point the only undefeateds were me, Shiggs, and Alan, and I get down-paired.

Round 3 vs Dwight (Inzektor)
Game 1 - I pretty much get my engine going before he does and win out via OTK.
Game 2 - This game was funny since toward the end we were both down to top-decking and a game of "Hornet beatdown" ensued. Over the course of the game he drew into 3 Hornets and was basically 1-for-1'ing my stuff. Late game I draw a Dragonfly backed with a Fiendish Chain just in case and I win.
OO
Record: 3-0

I go over to watch Alan and Shiggs' match since Sams vs Karakuri feels like, so last format lol. Game count is 1-1. Alan has a set Snowman with a Torrential and Shiggs' hand is like Hand, Gateway, Dojo, United, Rivalry and E-Con I think. Plays the 3 spells then summons Hand so Alan Torrentials. I questioned the play but Alan explained it and it made sense since he had the Heavy in hand and didn't want to risk any more Sams coming out so Shiggs could plus off the United/etc. Alan plays Heavy to destroy the spells and the E-Con. He doesn't follow up with anything besides a set monster and maybe a S/T. Over the next few turns Shiggs is able to re-stabilize since Alan can't summon anything since he has a face-up Snowman and Shiggs has Rivalry active. He also Enishi's away a Leviathan or something Alan made. Late game Alan is behind and Dualities, pretty much needing a Dark Hole at this point, doesn't get it, and I can tell by his facial expression that he was pretty much screwed. He loses the next turn I believe.

Round 4 vs Shiggs (Samurai)
I always fear playing against Shiggs' Samurai cuz it just seems so nutty. I say Sams are basically like DW in that if they nut all over you you can't really do much and lose.
Game 1 - I misplay bad by using Warning on his Grandmaster, he's like OK and grabs it back. I completely forgot about that crap, I think it's BS. As I figured, this cost me the game and I don't have much else in my hand to come back.
Game 2 - I side in my Maxx C's, which I open and his turn he Smoke Signals and Rota's for Elder and Kagemush. I Maxx C so he doesn't go off so he passes turn with a set. From here on I'm able to control the match for the most part and I out advantage.
Game 3 - Wasn't looking forward to this since he'd start the match and sure enough turn 1 he has like Shi En, Grandmaster, Kizan, and a Gateway. I'm glad he didn't have any other S/Ts though since I just pop'd over his field and MST'd his Gateway. At the very end he shows that he drew into 2 more Grandmaster over the past 2 turns and scoops it up. I was like "damn, I think 3 GM is too many."
XOO
Record: 4-0

So at this point I was hoping they wouldn't do top 4 since it was about 8pm and the store usually closes at 9. I figured they wouldn't be able to do 2 rounds in an hour, but I wasn't going to bitch about it since they did top for the box tourney after we had complained. I figured it wouldn't be right of me to complain about not doing tops when I'm not 1st at the end of Swiss, and complain about doing tops when I am. Top 4 was me (Inzektor), Alan (Karakuri), Shiggs (Samurai), and Corey (DW). DW is what I wanted to face least, for obvious reasons, so naturally that's what I had to face lol. FML!

Top 4 vs Corey (DW)
Game 1 - Fairly back and forth I believe but he tries to dig for cards with Card Destruction and doesn't get much, and gets behind via Recklesses. Timely MSTs on Gates from my end help as well.
Game 2 - Early control via Dark Smog, Skill Drain, and a Crazy Card Destruction play for him to draw 7, and I'm at like 4 cards total after he Deck Devs. I try to hold on by D-Prison'ing one of his Graphas but it simply doesn't matter since he's like +8 on me.
Game 3 - This was one hell of a game, very back and forth. At the end, he has a face down s/t, a set monster, and Zenmaines w/ 2 material and is locked under Reckless. I have a set Decree, activate it, and do enough pops and attack to get rid of the Zenmaines. I think my Hornet was banished from a Crow so I have to make a Leviair play before doing all this, I don't even remember how now lol. He's locked under Reckless for his next turn, then I can pop away, keep his S/T there (Skill Drain) just in case he had Gorz in hand, and attack over.
OXO
Record: 5-0

Alan beat Shiggs, then we split for first since the wife is hounding me yet again and I'm pretty sure his as well to him. He pulls Dark Diviner and XYZ Reflect, I pull Hanzo and a Zektahawk. Nothin exciting lol.

Decklist: 41
Monsters: 17
10 Staple Bugs
2 Hopper
3 Veiler
1 BLS
1 Sangan

Spells: 15
3 Duality
3 MST
3 Kaliber
1 Allure
1 Hole
1 Reborn
1 Heavy
1 Book
1 Foolish

Traps: 9
2 Torr
3 Solemn Trio
2 Fiendish
2 Call

I made a last-minute decision to cut DAD and re-include trip Veiler and BLS. DAD is bomb when everything is set in place for him, but just not consistent enough I don't think. I don't think I ever drew into BLS today except in the test game against Alan. Veiler was OK in that it was never a hindrance and stopped my opponent's plays as needed. Everything else about the deck felt fine.