Random topics - product updates, DN reflection, ARG article contest

So I'm kind of late to the party openly talking about this, even though I noticed the announcements pretty much when they came out for ORCS SE, the 2012 Premium Collection tin, and Ra Yellow pack. I'm not too concerned about Ra Yellow in terms of reprints, but it's anyone's guess what the promos for ORCS SE could be, and what all is gonna be in the 2012 tin. They are both slated for a March release, which just conveniently happens to be when our next ban list will be out. I don't think Konami would go overboard and release Tour Guide in either of these products. If the reprint happens this year at all, I'm really thinking it'll be Gold 5 or the 2012 tins we'd get later on in the year (like the Duality and Warning tins of this year). There hasn't been an announcement of the next Turbo Pack (at least I don't think) yet either so that's something to consider when it comes to the reprint game. I think the hot cards from STBL and STOR have a much higher chance of getting reprinted earlier in the year than Guide since those are both older sets and have their expensive/sought-after cards as well, namely Bulb and Maxx C. Troll&Toad is currently buying 1st ed Maxx C's at $50 and Bulb at $35. I think Maxx C is too good not to run right now so I won't be selling mine off quite yet, but like I mentioned way back I sold my Bulb already.

So Alter Reality Games is doing an Article/Writing contest and giving out some pretty good prizes for the top 8 articles. First place gets a 360 or $250 in store credit. I'm thinking about writing an article for it, and the gears in my brain are turning, trying to come up with an interesting topic that I could write a decent amount about, but also something that people would "want to" read. Obviously a whole article about how Konami sucks and YuGiOh is doomed isn't gonna win any votes from the casual population, so you gotta cater toward the audience if you know what I mean. If you'd like to check the details of the contest, here's the link: http://articles.alterealitygames.com/?p=7134

Yesterday I watched a very good Youtube video from Evan "Sandtrap" Vargas, Mr. Soul Control himself. He uses a very funny (albeit kind of drawn out) story to get his point across, talking about a rich man with his massive sword collection (including dildo swords), and raging violent hobos. His final point was to get people to critically look at and be able to realize where exactly in a game they messed up at, which caused their loss. He talks about how people tend to blame things like top-deck'd BLS's on their losses, and I admit that I do that as well, but he reminds us to think back on the whole game, and think about that critical move that we could've perhaps done differently to lead to a different outcome. Like I said his story seems to go on and on, and you'll most likely be tempted to close the thing out (I was at one point), but I'd really recommend watching the video which can be found at: http://www.youtube.com/user/TheSandTrap#p/a/u/0/AT228eHXqAE

So Zach won Monday's BGN tourney with Karakuri. I was surprised to hear the news since he'd been playing TG Agent all this time, and it was his first time running the deck at all. I guess Danny and him built it up and Danny showed him some of the moves of the deck. This was music to my ears since I had been pushing Karakuri, saying it was the best non-Tour Guide deck for about a month now. Even when Zach and I spoke about what he should play back for the PHSW Sneak, I was like "dude you should try Karakuri." I've been a pretty open fanboy about it locally so it's cool that someone else decided to try it out and see that they could win out with it. I still haven't had a chance to play it in locals but it's pretty much all I run on DN. The deck's actually gotten kind of auto-pilot for me, almost to the point that I'd say I've gotten kind of bored with it, but there's always that thrill of playing it in real life for the first time. I'll run it this weekend. Currently I'm stuck on a few aspects of the deck in terms of build: 2 or 3 Cyber Dragon mained, 2 or 3 Duality, how many Smashing to run main if any, main T-King or not, 2 or 3 Genex Neutron, 2 or 3 MST mained, 2 or 3 Kuick, trap line-up in general.

Speaking of DN, I had a good match against a Karakuri Machina player last night that I had the opportunity to beat for several turns, but due to my own laziness scooped it up after he double Machina Fortress'd after he Mind Control'd my T-King. This wasn't even game either, but I got too hasty and forgot that he couldn't attack with my T-King, so I wouldn't have lost that turn and next turn I would've beat him with my in-hand Cyber Dragon and going for Chimera. The key flaw of this game was that I had failed to notice that Chimeratech's boost only affects his ATK, and not his DEF as well. My opponent had a 3000 Chimera and I had Komachi and a 4-star Karakuri in hand (along with other cards), but I was like "well I can't run it over with Burei, and if I Black Rose I'd be losing out in advantage by a lot" so I just kinda stalled out with a Zenmaines. Had I bothered to read the card in its entirety, I would've simply gone into Burei + Kuick, and swung for plus's. I also didn't know that Chimeratech says that it can't be used as a Fusion material. I think our locals have been playing it wrong ever since the card was released, because everyone always uses their Cyber Dragon to fuse their opponent's Chimera away for their own. At the very least I've learned these things now, and I say it's better to realize these kinds of things on DN than in a real tournament, and use it to my advantage when my opponent thinks they can Chimera my Chimera with their Cyber Dragon.

I glossed over Nicky Lacaille's 2nd place Montreal regional report he posted on Pojo, and to my surprise he also has dropped Kristyas from his Agent deck. He even went to the extent of calling her a "lazy ass bitch" in his "slops" portion of his report. He's also running the conventional traps now, rather than the lone Trap Dustshoot which he made famous at whatever YCS he got 2nd at. A lot of players adopted that style of low trap-count Agent deck, but not even the innovator of it runs it any more. Not to say that whatever Nicky does with Agents is what everyone else should do, but just some food for thought.

Today's post was kinda all over the place, but I didn't really have any one specific thing to talk about at the moment, but had a lot of those smaller things. I'll be working on my article for ARG's contest, I'm afraid I'm gonna turn it into an essay rather than just an article though..lol. I need to ask them if there's a maximum word count.

Team O Player Interviews - Part 2 (Epler)

Brandon is one of our two Coeur d'Alene players, and our newest member as well (technically Alan re-joined, rather than joined for the first time).
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1. How long have you been playing this game, and when did you start playing competitively?
Well it's yugioh so of course I have been playing since I saw Yugi take down Kaiba on the t.v show. Way back since LOB. My first competitive deck I would have to say was Gravekeepers. I didn't really get competitive until about a year ago when I was tired of going to the tourneys and losing. Losing is no fun at all so from there on I decided I was going to start playing with the best people I could find and get better that way.

2. What "kind" of player would you consider yourself, or what is your particular play style? Aggressive vs conservative vs mixture, original vs strict net-deck, budget vs "money is no object", bling vs everything common, etc.
My favorite decks to play are the ones that are aggressive. I still conserve my hand, but I like to just get it all done in one turn if I can. A surprise OTK. I also like decks that have really good combos in it. When you pull off sick combos it just makes the deck fun.

3. What do your think about net-decking? Does it hurt or help a player's ability to play the game?
Net decking is something a lot of people frown upon, but in my experience how else do you get good ideas. It doesn't mean copy the deck card for card. Mix it up a little and make it your own. I think if you want to be a competitive player than you should get some ideas from the decks that are topping at regionals and ycs tourneys.

4. What do you think of the current format? If favorable, what do you like about it? If unfavorable, what is it you don't like about it?
I actually like the format a lot more now than when Giant Trunade was legal. I think Giant Trunade was much more broken than Heavy Storm. The big thing that made this format so much fun was that they brought BLS envoy back. I love that card and chaos decks are a lot of fun.

5. What is your current main deck and why do you run that deck?
Well I have two decks I use both a lot. One is Miracle Gemini and the other is Rescue Chaos Dragon. The Rescue Chaos dragon runs 3 hunter dragon and 3 alexandrite dragon with 2 rescue rabbit. You run 3 blue eyes, 1 horus, 2 galaxy eyes  photon dragon and since they are all level 8 you do 3 trade in and 2 pot of duality to help with hand consistency. Also to keep my dragon engine right I run 3 red eyes darkness metal dragons. The Chaos part of the deck I run 2 chaos sorcerer and 1 BLS envoy of the beginning. I also tech one card trooper to dump light and darks in the graveyard faster. I will get a full deck list up sometime. My first time running it in a tourney I had to play with saggi the dark clowns instead of my hunter dragons and I still made top 4 in a 18 man tourney.

6. What was the first holo you ever pulled out of a pack?
Dang I am pretty sure it was actually a super Flame Swordsman. I remember when I was a kid I opened that up and was so excited I pulled it. I wasn't even sure how fusions worked at the time, but I still was just excited I got something I saw Joey use on the show.

7. What is your favorite format/deck of all time?
My favorite format of all time would have to be when blackwings had Dark Strike fighter. I remember running that deck and nothing could ever stop me. I seriously had a lot of fun with it. I was bummed when it got banned, but I could definitely see why.

8. What do you think of reprints of expensive cards/reprints in general?
I love the fact they reprint expensive cards. Not a lot of players have the money to get the big named cards so they can't run the competitive decks that are out. When they reprint those cards it gives them a chance to get those and everyone can play on the same level.

9. If there was one thing that you could change about the game, what would it be?
If I could change anything about the game it would be to do a better job at making decks even. You have decks that everyone will run because it is better than all the rest. Then that deck will get the cards that make it good banned. If they didn't ban all those cards and brought back things like infernity launcher, black whirlwind, and gateway of the six to three you would have a bigger variety of broke decks and not just have one that they have to try and fix by banning the good stuff in it.

10. If there was one thing that you could change about your own ability to play, what would it be?
I sometimes let my emotions get to me when I play and I start to lose. I have worked on it a lot, but I just want to never let emotions change during the game. It makes it really hard to pull bluffs off and make moves when that happens.

11. A lot of players online raged at the news that Black Luster Soldier and Heavy Storm were coming off the ban list. How do you currently feel about both of them being back in the game?
I love that they are back. I would definitely prefer them over trunade and no BLS.

12. Do you think Black Luster Soldier will be re-banned in March? Why/why not?
I really hope not. They need monsters like that. He is an out, but I don't think of him as being more broke than krystia or Judgement dragon.

13. If you could play against any one "pro"/big-name YuGiOh player, who would it be?
Brandon Link... The kid is just so good I learn something new against him every time I go against him. lol I actually have never really thought about it. I guess right now it would be the latest YCS winner that ran Chaos deck Courtney Waller.

14. What do you think of the current state of Spokane-area (Spokane, Valley, CDA) YuGiOh?
I really actually wish we had a regional or something closer. The only time I ever get a chance to go to one is when it is in Boise or Seattle. They are both still pretty far away. The competition is still good though. It is more competitive in Spokane then it is in CDA, but CDA people are improving everyday. A lot of them are finally looking online for deck ideas and actually playing good decks.

15. If there was one thing that you could say to the Spokane-area playerbase, what would it be?
Team Overload FTW!

Team O Player Interviews - Part 1 (Mike)

I wanted others to get a better idea about the other members of the team rather than just myself all the time, so I came up with a set of questions for each member to answer. Since it's easiest for me to answer my own questions, I'll start with my own and as I get back answers from the other members (just e-mailing them out) I'll post them up.
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1. How long have you been playing this game, and when did you start playing competitively?
I have been playing this game ever since the first Yugi and Kaiba decks came out. My best friend at the time and I were in to Magic but watched the show, and when the starter decks came out I bought one of each and we played against each other with them. We had no idea what the rules were and just went by how they played on the cartoon. We soon realized that it was BS to just summon Blue Eyes for free so we looked through the rulebook. My first tournament was around when LON came out, but I didn't get too competitive until PGD.  

2. What "kind" of player would you consider yourself, or what is your particular play style? Aggressive vs conservative vs mixture, original vs strict net-deck, budget vs "money is no object", bling vs everything common, etc.
I'd say I have a very conservative play style. I won't summon or waste removal if I don't have to. I'll generally always go for guaranteed damage first, like attacking with my monster before tributing it for a Monarch or something like that. Being so conservative, I'd say I can't really play aggro decks well, especially so in a game like Magic.
Ever since SJCs started and decklists were revealed, I've pretty much always net-decked and then made slight changes to meet my justifications. My rationale is that I simply don't have the time to come up with all-new strategies or top-tier strategies and stuff like that. I leave that to the pros since they have the dedication and ability to play test all the necessary hours required to create a top-tier list.
In general money is no object, but I never want to pay full price on an expensive card. I got my 3 Tour Guides for basically $100 total. I highly doubt I'd pay the current price for them if I didn't have them already.
I tend to go back and forth a lot when it comes to bling'ing my deck. One period of time I may be gung-ho about it, while the next be like "no, I'm making everything lowest rarity." In general though I say I prefer to have common versions of everything, because if you get your deck stolen it hurts a lot less monetarily. I can appreciate an all-bling'ed out deck though.

3. What do your think about net-decking? Does it hurt or help a player's ability to play the game?
I have no problems whatsoever with net-decking and those that net-deck, since I do it too. Honestly I think those that are 100% adamant about not doing it are only hurting themselves. Who knows, they may be a player that always does poorly at tournaments, but if they had just changed 6-10 cards to emulate a deck that did well and make it more viable, they may top 3 their tournaments on a weekly basis. I always have a problem with people that play X deck, and say that their entire monster line-up and a good chunk of their spell/traps have to be of type X. Your Zombie deck doesn't need to run sub-par cards like Call of the Mummy and god knows what else.
This is a double-edged sword though, because the more that people rely on net-deck'ing to make their deck, the less prepared they are at the start of new formats and when a new set is released. I believe it's important to be able to look at a card and be able to deem how playable it is currently and potentially in the future.

4. What do you think of the current format? If favorable, what do you like about it? If unfavorable, what is it you don't like about it?
Personally I love this format. I love Heavy Storm being back so not every deck just goes "set mon, set 5, go". There is still a lot of variety as well, even though Plants do have the YCS results dominated. On the local level, almost everyone runs something different than the next person. This makes siding difficult, but basically as a locals-only player, I only side for the top players at any given tournament anyway. I wish that Royal Oppression was still legal, but I think that Maxx C is basically the legal version of RO now.

5. What is your current main deck and why do you run that deck?
My main deck for the majority of the format so far has been TGU Agents, but I'm going to give Karakuri an honest effort, hopefully for the rest of the format. I feel that I need to prove to myself that I can win in this format without Tour Guide, and I feel that Karakuri is the best non-Tour Guide deck at the moment. I feel that it generates advantage just as well as any of the other decks, and also has consistent OTK ability. I always dismissed Karakuri as "just another deck that'll fail" but I've been able to see that it's far from that.

6. What was the first holo you ever pulled out of a pack?
I think it was a Tri-Horned Dragon out of LOB. Even though I was just starting out, I could easily tell it was trash since Blue Eyes had more attack. I think I ended up trading it for a Premature Burial and Snatch Steal or something ridiculous like that.

7. What is your favorite format/deck of all time?
My favorite deck is a toss-up between Magical Explosion OTK and the first iteration of DandyWarrior. I also have a soft spot for Gadget Monarchs and Blackwings. I have a lot of good memories with all the different decks I've done well with so it's hard to pick just one. As for format, it's probably actually DAD Return. That format separated the men from the boys.

8. What do you think of reprints of expensive cards/reprints in general?
I like it but at the same time I don't. I like it since in the end it means I can sell my expensive card to have more money, but it's annoying always having to "watch your back" for reprints. I hate being in the situation that "you have to run this expensive card to do well" and then it getting hit on the list or reprinted soon after and losing money on it. Now I just follow the "1-year rule", where you can basically just assume that a card can get reprinted a year after its release. I say if you keep an expensive card beyond that 1 year point and it gets reprinted, well that's on you and have no reason to bitch about it. If it helps you win though, then more power to ya.

9. If there was one thing that you could change about the game, what would it be?
There are a lot of things I could list, but if it's only one - better prize support at the Regional and above level. I think the reason attendance at YCSs have seemed to have gone down (overall) is because of decreasing prize support and the viability of the prize cards. At the end of the day, people need justification for spending hundreds of dollars to travel to an event, and usually that justification is in the form of prizes. When you have crappy prize cards, they end up not selling for as much, and thus the money potential goes down, and attendance with it.

10. If there was one thing that you could change about your own ability to play, what would it be?
Having a better idea of knowing when to push/go aggro. I tend to fall for bluff S/Ts a lot because I generally never set bluff S/Ts. I assume it's a live card, so I'll just attack minimally, giving my opponent more turns to potentially make a come-back. I've had some games where I would've won had I just summoned one more monster and attacked for game, but I guess the fear of walking into a Torrential or something just holds me back.

11. A lot of players online raged at the news that Black Luster Soldier and Heavy Storm were coming off the ban list. How do you currently feel about both of them being back in the game?
I love Heavy Storm being back. It seems to have brought back some amount of normalcy to the game. BLS is still cheap and I get salty losing to a top-deck'd BLS, but it is a lot more manageable now than it was in the past. There's a plethora of removal, and stuff like Catastor and Hyperion deal with it easily.

12. Do you think Black Luster Soldier will be re-banned in March? Why/why not?
It should be banned, but I don't think it will. Konami will want to push their Light/Dark Dragon structure deck, and BLS is an auto-include for that, thus making the deck more viable, at least in consumers' minds.

13. If you could play against any one "pro"/big-name YuGiOh player, who would it be?
Jae Kim. He has always been my favorite "pro" and I wish that he'd come back to the game after his suspension but most likely won't. He's the one that started us on the whole CrushShoot thing, and Magical Merchant. I think he also pioneered Warrior Toolbox. It'd be great to play against someone that has that kind of mindset.

14. What do you think of the current state of Spokane-area (Spokane, Valley, CDA) YuGiOh?
It's a shell of its former self. It'll never return to the glory days when we had 80+ people for Sneak Peeks, but it is what it is, and I can appreciate a 10-15 man tourney nowadays. When it gets to 8 or lower though it's rather disappointing. Andrew had a good thing going at Uncle's. Even though no one wanted to play in the mall, he still had the highest turnout for tournaments and was basically the event where everyone in the area went. 16+ man tourneys every week. After burning the bridge with Team O though, he's only got his loyal guys, but you can't run a 5-6 person tourney. He's made it so everyone is scattered, causing attendance everywhere to be lower.

15. If there was one thing that you could say to the Spokane-area playerbase, what would it be?
Don't be scared, and play! There are sooo many people that collect cards and are fairly decent players, but they just don't play in tourneys. The best way to improve your game is to get your share of ass-kickings and come to that "aha" moment on your own. In Texas I whooped up on Mikey every Friday for like a month for 3+ hours at a time, and he came to the realization on his own of the way to play correctly and advantageously. Now he's the best down there. No one starts out as the best; it takes time, dedication, and an open mind to do so. Make it to your locals and support the game that you love.

Locals Report 11-26-11; Lightning Comics

Subtitle: Serving Myself a Piece of Humble Pie/Reality Bitch-Slap

I apologize for the lack of posts the past week; as expected and talked about before, it's been simply a combination of being busy with schoolwork, work, shopping, holidays, and house stuff. I've been playing a lot more on DN though!
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So my morning starts around 7am since I have to take my car in to put studded snow tires on it. I get there around 8:15 and I finally get done around 9:30. Christ, sure took long enough to put 4 tires on. Between the time I get home and leave for Lightning, I eat some leftover Thanksgiving stuff, watch yesterday's episode of Thundercats (don't hate), and get one game in on DN. Played against a Fortune Lady deck that couldn't get much of anything going lol.

So I leave around 11:15 and get to Lightning at noon. There are a lot of people there, I pay my entry and they give me a raffle ticket. Apparently they're doing a raffle for some reason, giving away random comic books, action figures, and miscellaneous product. I test with Jeff and his wife, my Karakuri versus his Karakuri, and Karakuri vs Gravekeeper, respectively. Against his wife, it was pretty much whoever went first won the game. Or unless I got Royal Tributed for 3+ cards. Games against Jeff were pretty much one-sided (in my favor, obv come on now lol). I explained to both of them that I wasn't running Karakuri today and I was running "something else". Epler is surprisingly there and he's hella skinny so I was like "damn did you lose weight?" He explained he lost about 50 pounds. I need to do the same *sigh*.

Jeff ended up trading his Tour Guide he pulled a few weeks back for Big Mike's 3 Cyber Dragon, a Chimeratech, Decisive Armor, and a few other low-end miscellaneous cards. I was sooo jelly/upset since I didn't have an opportunity to grab my stuff from Danny's cuz I know I easily could've gotten it if I had my stuff. Oh well, I guess that's the price I have to pay for having a wife that controls my every action of every possible moment. Jeff then switched up his Karakuri deck a lot, incorporating Cyber Dragons, Instant Fusion+Cybersaurus, and gradually moving away from all the Karakuri-specific cards. He was like "How many Haipa/Cash Cache/Anatomy do you run?" I'm like "...none" and explained why I didn't like those cards. Throughout the day he commented that his deck felt much faster, maintained advantage a lot better, and was more consistent overall.

So the raffle starts, and everyone is basically eye'ing the Batman Arkham Aslyum figurine, I must admit that's the one thing I wanted. Everything else was just random crap for the most part. I ended up winning a signed Venom comic book, but left it at the store when I left; didn't really give a rat's ass about it to be honest. This little derka kid won the Batman figure.

So finally around 1:45 the tourney starts and there's a decent turnout at 15 people. I get a bye, and am like "well that's cool", but 3 other players' opponents just randomly left, so we all end up getting paired against each other.

Note: I'm not gonna go into too many specifics for games cuz I did about as bad as one can possibly do. I'll explain at the end.

Round 1 vs Colin (Offering Gadget)
I end up taking this to 3 games, at the end of game 3 he was at 2500 and I had a Magic Cylinder and Secret Barrel face down with him having a Lava Golem, a Utopia, and a T-king I believe. I had enough life to take the T-King hit. He attacks with Lava Golem so I Cylinder, and he Solemns it, so I lose.

Fortunately on the pairings I get marked as a win since I technically received the bye at first, so Colin and I get marked as having wins. Cool.

Round 2 vs Sjan (GB)
I get him down to around the 1000 mark game 1 but his Chariots just stop my Faders/Scarecrows and Lava Golem never ends up sticking on the field for more than a turn due to some removal. Game 2 I drew pretty bad and Gyzarus wrecked my Morphing Jar play.

Round 3 vs Epler (Rescue Chaos Dragons)
So Epler's playing this really strange Rabbit/Chaos/Dragon/Normal deck and has 3 copies of Saggi the Dark Clown because he doesn't have Hunter Dragons. He's also running maindeck Royal Decree, which I said was pretty much game over for me (he knew what I was playing from watching and vice versa). Game 1 I get him fairly low (around 2000 I think) but Decree just stops all my best plays. Game 2 I side into Agents but again he's got Decree with fat Dragons out and I can't draw MST, Heavy, or Hyperion to get rid of it.

Round 4 vs Eric (Anti-Meta/Stun?)
He's literally running Jinzo and Dark Bribe. Jinzo is basically just as good as Decree against Chain Burn, except I have the opportunity to tribute it via Lava Golem. Bribe wrecks my combos since it stops my chain shenanigans. I think I resolved Accumulated Fortune once. Game 1 I get him pretty low but his Caius' always end up removing my Magic Cylinder/Dimension Walls which would've been game. Game 2 I literally get him down to 100 LP but end up topping an Ojama Trio (when he had 3 monsters out already) and then a Chain Strike. He's not dumb enough to activate anything and just attacks for the win. My next card was Just Desserts *rage*.

Being 1-3, I drop and test against Kim, my Karakuri vs his Six Sam. He's all like "well Jeff can't beat this deck with his", but I pretty much dominated the 2 or 3 games we played lol. My wife is blowing my phone up so I'm just like "screw this", buy Kim's 2 Ultra Veilers off him, and pack up my stuff and leave. I tell her and repeatedly asked her throughout the day to just text me (so I can get back to her at my leisure), so of course she literally calls my phone 5 times right in a row. When I get a phone call from her, I gotta drop everything that I'm doing at the moment, pack everything up, and stand outside in the cold to go talk to her cuz I can't hear her otherwise. So annoying. Yea, you can say "but what if it's an emergency?" No. It's never a god damn emergency. It's always "I can't find my [insert random girly item here], where is it/where'd you put it?" I don't freakin' know, I don't put your high heels, clothes, cell phone, Macy's gift card, or glasses god damn anywhere - it's cuz you're too damn messy to find your own crap! /end rant

So I came to the realization that playing an "anti-meta" deck like Chain Burn only really works when your local actually runs "the meta". In testing against the "meta" decks like Plants and Agents, the deck's done exceptionally well both on my end and Mikey's. We both think that Chain Burn is "the" anti-meta deck because there are so many cards that the meta decks run that don't affect burn, and the game has gotten to the point where most players don't have any cards to deal with something like burn anyway via sideboard besides the 3rd MST and maybe a Dust that they had for DW/GK/backrow decks in the first place. I don't think random X deck that uses 2-3 Fossil Dyna and 2-3 D-Fissure is enough to truly be called "anti-meta", but I know it is by the majority. I like the deck against today's popular decks, however when all you do is go against rogue-ish decks or "random wtf" cards like maindeck Decree, Jinzo, and Bribe, it's pretty freakin' hard to win with something like Chain Burn. I don't know why I didn't think of this "derp" knowledge earlier, but I guess sometimes you just need to get slapped by reality lol. Or I gave my locals too much credit. It would've been nice to win a decent sized tournament like today, it also feels weird not writing an undefeated tourney report lol.

I believe I will be playing Karakuri for the rest of the format, unless I get frustrated with it and switch back to Agents. I've sold my Tengus and the Bulb so Plants aren't a possibility, but it's also not an option I'd want to pursue because I just have that gut feeling that the Bulb reprint is gonna happen sooner than later. My test games with Karakuri have gone really great as well so I feel pretty confident about sticking with it. Playing the best is very important to me, but so is my money. I'm pretty proud that I can say I've never really/seldom gotten completely screwed by banlists/reprints, compared to some people that either hoard and/or just refuse to sell cards off at the right time. Unfortunately I have to drop Chain Burn simply because my locals is jank. I'm honestly not scared of an extra MST and Heavy Storm, it's just the random crap that cripples the deck so much more. It seems like that's just the way it is sometimes; decks can be built to beat the top decks, but lose to the random crap that you can see at small locals. At least it wasn't expensive or anything!

Come January I believe I will be selling my set of Tour Guides. I really don't want to get screwed by the banlist or any upcoming product releases/reprints. They won't hit Guide but if they decide to ban Sangan, I'd expect it to go down to around $80. If Sangan were banned, in a scenario not involving Broww or Pot of Avarice, you'd only get 1 optimal use out of 3 Tour Guides; Guide for Guide, and the last one does nothing. Kevin Tewart on Pojo also mentioned that we could expect to see some upcoming product info in the next few weeks, which inevitably means reprints. Undoubtedly Gold 5 will come out this summer, and what better headliner card for it other than Tour Guide? That shit would sell like hotcakes if they end up leaving Sangan alone. If the only good card that was in Gold 5 was Tour Guide, it would still sell crazy amounts. EXVC also becomes 1 year old in May, and I think Gold Series always come out around June/July. You know the 1-year rule. Timing just seems too perfect.

Decklist for the main is the same as the version Dale Bellido ran the last regional of last format, but here it is for reference. Side was inspired by the guy who topped Seattle regional with it (sb24stk or something like that?):

13
3 Lava Golem
3 Scarecrow guy
3 Maxx C
2 Battle Fader
1 Morphing Jar
1 Gorz

7
3 Duality
2 Chain Strike
1 Thunder Short
1 Scapegoat

20
2 Cylinder
3 Dimension Wall
2 Ojama Trio
3 Just Desserts
3 Accumulated Fortune
3 Reckless Greed
1 Ceasefire
3 Secret Barrel

Side
2 Hyperion
2 Venus
3 Earth
2 Ball
2 MST
1 Heavy
1 Hole
1 Reborn
1 Mind Control

Extra
Stuff you'd play in a standard Agent list

YCS Kansas Recap + Looking ahead

Well seems like hell has frozen over, Konami already put up the top 32 decklists for Kansas. I think this is the quickest they've had them up in a very long time. I don't care for the 1.5 spacing though, I think it makes it take more space than it needs to, and it makes it so each category of card (monster, spell, etc) and the separation between players harder to see.

As expected, Plants (I refuse to call it anything other than that, for simplicity's sake) took the majority of the top spots but there was decent representation of the other top decks as well. Rabbit did better than I expected but it's not going to affect my local meta. I think Danny and I are still the only players that play that have Tour Guides, so there ain't no way people are gonna shell out for the Rabbits and the needed Tour Guides to play this.

One thing I found interesting was the decreased use of Kristya in the Agent decks; out of the 5 Agent decks that topped, only Camden Keener played 2 Kristya and only the guy running the Herald of Perfection version ran 1. This trend follows what's been happening with the OCG for quite some time, and parallels my assessment that it was "dead in my hand more often than it was live on the field."

It is nice having a few Dark World top, just for the sake of having a template to work off of. The three builds are fairly different, and some have rather "wtf" card picks/techs. Vincent Mireles, who did the best out of the 3 DW players, didn't run any Tour Guides. I'm not sure if this is the "optimal" approach to the deck, but something worth considering. If anything it's justification for those without Tour Guides to run the deck.

Looking ahead, I think the relevant products are Order of Chaos and the new Dragon structure deck. I haven't read too much into what's in ORCS, but apparently Wind-Ups continue to get more support, and Trans Archfiend will help Dark World. I'm sure we'll see other stuff like Dino support, pretty much Konami continuing their broke deck -> nerf -> new broke deck cycle. The March ban list will heavily affect how the game looks beyond that point. They'll either nerf according to the OCG, TCG, or say "screw it" and hit both games. Until then though, I'd say the format has stabilized to where the top decks are Plants, Agents, Rabbit, Dark World, and Karakuri. To me, "Chaos" just looks like Plants but minus the Tengu and Plant engine and adding 3 D-Alch, 2 Sorc, with Dark/Light techs. Same "good stuff" philosophy for the most part. I can totally expect to see someone running a version of it without Tour Guides at locals.

YCS Kansas Top 32 Decklists (So far)

Another YCS has come and gone, and Chaos won.
Total decklists found: 10/32
This post will be updated as more are found.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1st - Courtney Waller (Chaos)
Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ebb2YHe5pRA&feature=feedf
Monsters: 27
1 Trago
1 Crow
2 Sorcerer
1 BLS
3 Tour Guide
3 D-Alch
2 Veiler
1 DDWL
2 Caius
1 Gorz
2 Fader
1 Reaper
1 Sangan
2 Maxx C
1 Honest
2 T-King
1 Kycoo

Spells: 12
1 Reborn
1 Heavy
2 MST
2 E-Con
1 Book
1 Hole
1 Allure
2 Duality
1 Avarice

Traps: 2
1 Torrential
1 Dustshoot

Extra:
2 Leviair
1 Leviathan
1 Zenmaines
1 Utopia
1 Roach
1 Armory
1 Android
1 Brio
1 Arcanite
1 BRD
1 Ancient Fairy
1 Scrap
1 Trish
1 Chimera

Side:
2 Gemini Imp
2 Vanity's Fiend
2 Fossil Dyna
2 Cydra
2 Ryko
2 Leeching
1 Soul Release
2 D-Prison
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3rd - Derek Rouse (Karakuri)
Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xVUsdqSiVo&feature=feedu
Monsters: 20
2 Genex Neutron
2 T-King
2 Cydra
3 Kuick
3 Merchant
2 Soldier
3 Komachi (Woman)
1 Strategist
1 Saizan (Dog)
1 Gorz

Spells: 11
2 Smashing
2 MST
2 Duality
1 Heavy
1 Book
1 Reborn
1 Mind
1 Hole

Traps: 9
2 Warning
2 Bottomless
1 Dustshoot
1 Judgment
1 Mirror
1 Torrential
1 Compulse

Extra:
1 Chimera
1 Catastor
1 Beast
1 Brionac
1 Barkion
1 Landoise
1 Black Rose
2 Burei
1 Stardust
2 Bureido
1 Trish
1 Leviathan
1 Utopia

Side:
2 Kycoo
2 D-Fissure
1 MST
1 System Down
2 Chain Disappearance
2 Debunk
2 Dust
1 Shadow Mirror
2 Smashing Horn
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Top 8 - Bobby Brake (Rabbit)
Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T374aYdta6I&feature=player_embedded
Monsters: 17
3 Kaba
3 Saber
3 Rabbit
1 Grand Mole
1 Sangan
3 Tour Guide
3 Guaiba

Spells: 13
1 Hole
1 Reborn
1 Book
2 Smashing
2 MST
3 Lance
3 D-Fissure

Traps: 11
1 Starlight
1 Torrential
1 Judgment
1 Dustshoot
1 Force
2 Warning
2 Bottomless
2 D-Prison

Side:
2 Shadow Mirror
1 Starlight
2 Fiendish Chain
1 Debunk
1 Smashing
1 MST
2 Leeching
1 Mind
2 Reaper
2 Cydra

Extra:
1 Brionac
1 Stardust
1 Trish
1 Catastor
1 Chimera
2 Dolkka
2 Laggia
1 Zenmaines
1 Leviathan
1 Utopia
1 Roach
2 Leviair
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Top 8 - Alberto Gonzales (Rabbit)
Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHEnmlG8v0s
Monsters: 19
1 Sangan
3 Tour Guide
3 Rabbit
3 Saber
3 Kaba
2 T-King
1 BLS
1 Gorz
1 Maxx C
1 Veiler

Spells: 12
1 Book
1 Hole
1 Mind
1 Avarice
1 Reborn
1 D-Fissure
2 Smashing
2 MST
2 Gold Sarc

Traps: 9
1 Force
1 Torr
1 Bottomless
1 Dustshoot
1 Judgment
2 Warning
2 D-Prison

Extra:
1 Zenmaines
1 Leviathan
2 Dolkka
1 Roach
2 Utopia
2 Leviair
2 Laggia
1 Stardust
1 Black Rose
1 Catastor
1 Trish

Side:
2 Debunk
1 Shadow Mirror
1 Starlight
2 Cydra
1 Gale
2 Doomcal
2 Dyna
2 Duality
1 Leeching
1 Chimera
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Top 8 - Patrick Hoban (Plants)
Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37ScUgybruo&feature=feedu
Monsters: 22
3 Tour Guide
1 Sangan
2 T-King
3 Tengu
1 Gorz
3 Maxx C
1 Veiler
1 Reaper
1 BLS
1 Caius
1 Lonefire
1 Dandy
1 Bulb
1 Spore
1 Debris

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

Traps: 6
2 Warning
1 D-Prison
1 Dustshoot
1 Judgment
1 Torrential

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

Side:
1 Crow
2 Cydra
1 Caius
1 Reaper
1 T-King
1 MST
2 Leeching
2 Bottomless
1 D-Prison
1 Debunk
1 Malevolent Catastrophe
1 Chimera
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Top 32 - Maurice Brantley (Dark World)
Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lc_sXBwBfJo&feature=feedu
Monsters: 22
3 Grapha
3 Snow
3 Broww
3 Sillva
3 Ceruli
3 Tour Guide
1 Sangan
1 Morphing Jar
1 Raven
1 Veiler

Spells: 12
3 Gate
2 DW Lightning
2 Dealings
2 Dragged Down
1 Card Destruction
1 Hole
1 Reborn

Traps: 6
2 Dark Smog
2 Deck Dev
2 Mind Crush

Extra:
2 Leviair
1 Zenmaines
1 Leviathan
1 Adreus
1 Catastor
1 Stygian Sergeants
1 Brionac
1 Black Rose
1 Ancient Fairy
1 Ancient Wyvern
1 Dark Highlander
1 Stardust
1 Scrap
1 Trish

Side:
1 Chimera
2 Cydra
2 T-King
1 Leeching
1 MST
2 Compulse
2 Debunk
2 Skill Drain
1 Decree
1 EEV
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Top 32 - Steffon Bizzel (Plants)
Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNv4F34HXd4&feature=feedu
Monsters: 23
3 Tour Guide
3 T-King
3 Tengu
3 Maxx C
1 BLS
1 Gorz
1 Caius
1 Debris
1 Spore
1 Bulb
1 Lonefire
1 Dandy
1 Veiler
1 Sangan
1 Reaper

Spells: 12
2 MST
2 E-Con
1 One for one
1 Foolish
1 Hole
1 Mind
1 Reborn
1 Heavy
1 Book
1 Avarice

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

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

Side:
1 Chimera
2 Cydra
1 Doomcal
1 Reaper
2 Leeching
1 MST
2 Smashing
2 Bottomless
1 Debunk
1 Dust
1 Transmigration
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Top 32 - Javier Trejo (Plants)
Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OSl8VnTmLg&feature=feedu
Monsters: 23
3 Tour Guide
3 T-King
3 Maxx C
3 Tengu
1 Debris
1 Dandy
1 Lonefire
1 Spore
1 Bulb
1 Sangan
1 Reaper
1 Gorz
1 Veiler
1 Caius
1 BLS

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

Traps: 5
2 Warning
1 Judgment
1 Dustshoot
1 Torrential

Extra:
1 Formula
1 Armory
1 Librarian
1 Catastor
1 Brionac
1 Orient
1 Black Rose
1 Scrap
1 Stardust
1 Trish
1 Leviair
1 Leviathan
1 Zenmaines
1 Roach
1 Utopia

Side:
1 Chimera
1 Doomcal
2 Cydra
1 Crow
2 Leeching
1 MST
1 Decree
2 Debunk
2 D-Prison
1 Dust
1 Bottomless
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Top 32 - Richard Lam (Rabbit)
Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zqiDQmgJ1w
Monsters: 19
3 Rabbit
3 Kaba
3 Saber
3 Tour Guide
3 Maxx C
1 Gorz
1 Grand Mole
2 Birdman

Spells: 15
3 Lance
3 MST
1 Heavy
2 Gold Sarc
1 Reborn
1 Book
1 Mind
1 Hole
1 Avarice
1 E-Con

Traps: 6
2 Warning
1 Solemn
1 Dustshoot
1 Torrential
1 Starlight

Extra:
1 Chimera
1 Stardust
1 Brio
2 Laggia
2 Dolkka
1 Utopia
1 Roach
2 Leviair
1 Zenmaines
1 Ancient Fairy
1 Black Rose
1 Gungnir

Side:
2 T-King
2 Leeching
2 Liberty At Last
2 Debunk
2 Cydra
2 Dust
2 Crow
1 Scrap Dragon
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Top 32 - Frazier Smith (Plants)
Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSzK7xPYS9U
Monsters: 22
3 Tengu
3 Tour Guide
3 Maxx C
2 Reaper
2 T-King
1 Caius
1 Debris
1 Spore
1 Bulb
1 Lonefire
1 Dandy
1 Gorz
1 BLS
1 Sangan

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

Traps: 5
2 Warning
1 Judgment
1 Torrential
1 Dustshoot

Side:
1 Decree
2 Fiendish Chain
2 D-Prison
1 Bottomless
2 Mind Crush
1 Reaper
1 Crow
2 Doomcal
1 MST
1 Closed Forest
1 Leeching

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

YCS Kansas + High Hopes/Expectations

All this time I thought YCS Kansas was next weekend instead of this weekend, lol shows how much I've been out of touch the past week. Yesterday Danny, Zach, and I got to open our case. I'd say our pulls were fairly middle-of-the-road. Another Rabbit instead of anything below Laggia (in the list below) woulda set us well in the green.

Our notables included:
1 Rescue Rabbit
1 Zenmaines
3 Dolkka
2 Dark Smog
2 Laggia
1 Wind-Up Rabbit
2 Shard of Greed
1 Metaion
1 D-Boyz

What we initially decided to do was sell all the high-end stuff before all their values plummet, and divvy up the rest of the stuff that wouldn't sell for much of anything on eBay/Troll/ARG. ARG's buy prices for PHSW are pretty crap, and Troll hasn't put up a section for the set yet, and you know how much I dislike selling on eBay. What I decided was to trade all the stuff on Pojo toward stuff that Troll/ARG will give good values for. This way I can trade on equal current values, but then having the option to sell the traded stuff to Troll/ARG because the new cards are going down in value every day. As more people get their boxes/cases in the mail, it temporarily saturates the market of product, thus causing values to go down cuz everyone is competing with each other to ensure a sale. We also don't have high hopes for Rabbit.dek doing well, thus causing values to go down even more. The worst-case scenario is that we held on to the Rabbit stuff, the deck fail to meet expectations at the YCS, and then it being very hard to move/values are way under what we would've got. On the flip side, we'd be losing a lot as well if the deck takes a lot of tops and everything goes up since they're Ultra/Secret, but I can't imagine that happening with the current top decks' consistencies, speed, and power in general.

As for the YCS, I'm guessing we can just expect more of the same as the last one, except the "spotlights" will once again be on Darkworld and also Rabbit. If Darkworld fails to take any tops again, in most peoples' minds that would cement their view that the deck was just all hype. If Rabbit fails to take any tops, then Rabbit, Dolkka, and Laggia will probably see a 50% price cut and you could expect to see a lot of PHSW product hanging on the shelves of your local Walmart/Target/etc. If both scenarios occur, then I could imagine a significant hit on Plants in March, since like I talked about before, Konami needs to push their product and it's hurting them that the new product/decktype they're trying to push fails at the big events. I don't have any concrete proof of this or anything, but it's just common sense right? People tend to not buy stuff that hasn't proven itself to be good, whether it be cards, videogames, electronics, computers, cars, and anything else you can buy in general. However, the one thing Plants have aiding them in NOT getting hit is the OCG. Looking at their meta, one could say that Agents would be the deck to get hit the most. Since they obviously don't have Tengu and Tour Guide, you rarely see a Plant-engine based deck top their tourneys besides the occasional Junk Doppel/Zombie/randy mill deck. I think whatever happens with the list in March will be a big indicator as to exactly which game (TCG or OCG) actually affects the list greater since we have a pretty clear Plants (TCG) vs Agents (OCG) line drawn between the two.

Unfortunately I won't get to play this weekend again due to work, and next weekend is the hassle of Thanksgiving + buying presents + family + homework + a test on that following Monday (such BS). After that, my wife and I will probably have to go full throttle in the packing and moving process. I've already moved my stuff to Danny's, it's probably gonna have to stay there until we've finally moved in. Whenever I do get the opportunity to play, my Karakuri is good to go.

Good luck to everyone at the YCS, and if you're still holding on to Ravens and Smogs, and holding on to Rabbit stuff, keep your eyes peeled on the forums and coverage to see how the decks are doing. If your money's important to you it may be in your best interest to sell some things on Sunday!

Speaking of coverage, I find it absolutely ridiculous that decklists for Columbus still aren't up. Sure you can find them on Youtube and whatnot, but seriously, what a f'n joke. I will do like last time and scour Youtube and the forums and post the decklists as I find them on the blog for everyone to be able to read.

SD22 - Dragonic Legion Update

There's been a whole slew of product updates over in Shriek OCG land, but I'll talk about the updates for the Dragonic Legion structure deck since that's the only really relevant one for us for the time being.

The current list of revealed cards is:
Lightpulsar Dragon
Darkflare Dragon
Blue Eyes
Red Eyes
REDMD
Chaos Sorcerer
Red Eyes B. Chick
White Stone of Legend
Axe Dragonute
Vice Dragon
Dark Armed Dragon
Lord of Dragons
Chaos Space (?)
Burst Stream of Destruction
Light of Redemption
Inferno Fire Blast
Wingbeat of a Giant Dragon
Burst Breath
Flute of Summoning Dragon
Escape from the Dark Dimension

I guess it's nice to have a Dark Armed reprint, but they're fairly easy to get now and hardly any decks run him these days anyway. If you have any Super REDMD, I'd really recommend selling them. Troll & Toad's buying them at $10 a piece. I picked up 3 for a Utopia at the PHSW Sneak and sold them to Troll when they were buying them for $7 and thought I was doing good, so $10 is even better. I see very little reason for them not including it in the deck when we eventually get it.

The past 2 days I got to playtest against Cody, a friend of mine from Texas. It's nice getting back in touch with the guys from Corpus :) Last night we ended up playing like 6-8 games of Karakuri vs TG Agent and it was very back and forth. Generally whoever went first won that game. He's very notorious for having/drawing into exactly what he needs for any given time, so you always have to play around it. If you think he has Gorz, just assume he does. Assume he's gonna drop BLS or Dark Hole if you set up a field, and assume he has Heavy if you're contemplating setting 2 backrow. Even if I'm +4 on him all of his cards will be exactly what he needs to win on his turn if he finds an opening, lol.

Mikey has been messing around with Chain Burn on DN, which got me really interested in the deck. Apparently some topped recently, one in South Dakota and one in Seattle at this past weekend's regionals. Then I saw that Dale Bellido played it as a fun deck at the last regionals of last format and topped with it, and he ran it cuz someone beat him with it at Nationals, causing him to miss his top there. I read the cards and a few forum threads over and I purchased everything I didn't have for the deck for $16 on ARG. It will mostly be a troll deck that I can win with at locals once or twice, or until people start committing a mass amount of anti-burn cards in their side. It's not really a "budget" deck per se since it runs 3 Maxx C, but it's helluva lot more "budget" than Plants or TGU Agents that's for sure. It doesn't really need an Extra deck, which accounts for quite a bit of a deck's price as well. I used to play stall/burn back when BLS was in its prime when it first came out, so there's a lot of nostalgia there. I remember launching a Wave Motion Cannon for 6000 for the win once, that was so funny and epic.

Mikey is also going to make Team Overload shirts for us, which is beyond awesome. I can't even express the gratitude I have. The one thing from this game that everyone should keep with them after the game eventually dies out or they quit, is the friendships they've made from playing it. It's crazy to think that one can make life-long relationships with people from playing a children's card game, but the guys from Corpus and Team O are my bros for life. (Don't mean to sound so sappy, sorry lol)

Product Info - HA05 SE

EDIT: Apparently this is a Europe-only product.
Quote from Pojo:

Originally Posted by KevinTewart 

Please note that Hidden Arsenal 5 Special Edition is only for Europe, Latin America (and in Spanish only there), and Australia/New Zealand.

It will not be available in the U.S. or Canada.

 

So much for that! Oh well I'm still selling my Bulb to Troll for $40, they keep upping their buy price - can't complain since it's almost full price w/out fees!


So according to Shriek TCG, Konami is releasing a Special Edition for Hidden Arsenal 5 which includes 1 of 2 promo cards. With a release date of January 2012, it's coming out only one month after the regular release date. Could this be because Konami realizes people aren't too hyped up about this HA compared to HA04 since it had Trishula? Go with the mindset of "if it has a good promo, people will buy it." Hopefully they don't mess up this one like they are with the Six Samurai SE thing. The packs for that are lackluster, and the promo is worthless (Elder of the Six Sam). If they had wanted to sell that thing, they would've made an Ultra or Secret Kizan, which you know, people play 3 of in that deck (whoever still plays with it that is). Or, make and put in an all-new exclusive that would make them relevant again. I think they are a few months late on the idea of a Six Sam SE.

So what may the promos be for this SE? Last one we had 2 secrets, Emmersblade and Pineapple. Will they keep with the pattern of reprinting old set secrets, reprint some old HA cards (*cough*Brionac*cough*), or neither? I wouldn't mind a Brionac reprint. I'm sure everyone's wish-list is just gonna be the cards they had hoped to be in LCGX and the Wave 2 tins but didn't end up making it. Stuff like Scrap Dragon, Lyla, Glow-Up Bulb, Fabled Raven, Infernity Barrier. Then you got the fanatics that're gonna be like "Tour Guide!!" Who knows what will be in it, but just some food for thought if people had multiples of these cards and especially if they weren't using them. My Bulb is goin' for sure since I'm not using it and Troll is paying $35 for them.

I will post more on this SE whenever I find info on what the promos are.

Not much else interesting to note, Link got 9th at the Portland Pokemon regional this past weekend, our PHSW case is going to be in on Wednesday, and I haven't had a chance to do any more testing with Rabbit due to homework/a test today.

Rabbit Testing - Day 3

Testing on DN has gone pretty well today (so far) other than playing random noobs that don't know how to play. My first game of the day on Unrated the guy ragequit. I had a Dolkka out, he had a facedown monster, and I summoned Guaiba. He left. My very next match, he went first, used a bunch of cards to bring out a first-turn Red Eyes and burn me for 2400. I summon Tour Guide, and he ragequit. I was like "screw this" so I hopped on to Rated.

I make a game and accept this guy named Captainaizen who was running some Toon World crap with big defense monsters. He has a D-Hero Defender that I simply couldn't get over, but I establish my field and keep drawing cards until I know I can do something about it. My board becomes Dolkka and Laggia with a Tour Guide and a bunch of backrow (I had Road and Solemn set). I attack, he activates Mirror Force so I negate with Laggia. He tells me that my other monsters die, I'm like no, I'm negating the entire card. I also have D-Fissure active and he tells me that my monsters get banished when I detach. I'm like no, they're materials, not monsters. If it was Macro they'd get banished (I believe) but not with D-Fissure (plz correct me if I'm wrong). I eventually draw Mind Control so I normal summon Velo, Mind Control the Defender, and XYZ for Utopia. He had gained life earlier via Draining Shield so he didn't die that turn. Once it's his turn he tells me that I have to give Defender back due to Mind Control. I was like "I XYZ'd with it, it's no longer a monster for you to have back." He doesn't budge so I'm like whatever and gave it back to him. Later on he summons Toon Dark Magician Girl and attacks, and I activate Book of Moon (needed more s/t space since I was full). He tells me that I activated too late and the damage will go through. At this point I'm like "are you for real bro or just trying to troll me?" I flipped my Solemn Warning just to show him that I coulda just negated it if I wanted to, but he literally gave me no time to even respond to the summon. Summon, battle phase, attack. I tried to call admin but unsurprisingly no one came so I just took the damage. I had a 2500 Leviathan out and was gonna pump to 3000 next turn to attack over the Defender anyway. I hate having to play against people like this, but not much you can do I guess besides keeping an eye on them and not play them in the future, and strictly playing against people you know.

Next game I play against this guy running a 51 card deck (still in Rated). He asks me "So go easy right?" I'm like "I can go slow but can't promise easy" and he misunderstood what I meant by my duel note of "testing". Guess he thought I wanted people to go easy on me. I was like "no, please don't go easy on me". First turn he sets some 1500 Normal Dragon (Hunter Dragon?) with 2 s/t. I MST his Road, summon Rabbit and go Laggia just in case that 2nd s/t is something relevant. He doesn't activate anything so I attack over his Normal dude. By the time I summon my 2nd Rabbit and XYZ for Dolkka he quits. At this point I still haven't drawn into multiples of Kaba or Saber.

My next game I played against a Machina Gadget player who finally knew how to play the game. He had a strong early game but eventually I was able to re-establish control and a Starlight Road on his Mirror Force pretty much sealed it for me. He thought he had me when he had Green, Gearframe and Fortress and activated Limiter on turn 2 but I D-Prison'd his Fortress. People get way too hasty on this thing.

I played another pretty good player who has a 255-76 record so I was excited, at least it shows he's played a bunch of games lol. He was running a strange Worm/Gravekeeper variant and had a few annoying little tricks here and there but eventually I out-advantaged him by +4 and he was down to topdecking.

As of now, I'm actually liking this version I'm testing but I still haven't gotten a chance to play against a top player with what I'd consider a top meta deck (I'm thinkin Plants, Agents, mirror, Karakuri). Nonetheless, I'm comfortable enough with the deck at this point to at least show it and talk about some of my picks, etc.

Here's a text-based list just in case any of the pics are too blurry:
3 Tour Guide
1 Sangan
3 Kabazaulus
3 Sabersaurus
3 Rabbit
3 Guaiba
1 Velo

3 MST
1 Hole
1 Reborn
1 Book
2 Lance
3 D-Fissure
1 Mind

2 Warning
1 Solemn
2 Bottomless
2 Road
2 D-Prison
1 Force
2 Fiendish
1 Compulse

No side built yet

2 Dolkka
2 Laggia
1 Utopia
1 Roach
2 Leviair
1 Leviathan
1 Zenmaines
1 Catastor
1 Brionac
1 Black Rose
2 Stardust

Notes:
- So far, I haven't had a significant problem drawing into multiples of the same Normal. If I do, I have enough protection to just normal summon both and get my derka that way.
- I've had a change of heart and think that 2 sets of Normal dudes is enough after all. It seems like bad Yugioh to run 3 Rabbit and only 2 Normal sets, but I haven't drawn a dead Rabbit yet with this new build. Guaiba's actually been putting in a lot of work and I make my derkas from him.
- I like the build at 42, I've mostly been drawing Guaiba or singletons of the Normals.
- Unimpressed with Forbidden Lance so far. It helped me in the Stardust -> Machina Fortress situation and a few things here and there but I'd say it's just OK.
- D-Fissure hasn't done a damn thing for me yet, but I haven't played anyone running the top stuff like Plants, Maxx Cs, Veilers, etc.
- I like the trap-heavy build with 2 Road. Makes it so I don't have to fear Rabbit'ing into Bottomless as bad and the general mass removal like Hole, Torr, Force, Heavy.
- Fiendish Chain hasn't done a whole lot for me yet and I have yet to play Compulse. The one time I drew it, I had enough control to the point where it was just a win-more card.
- I have yet to Synchro with this deck, although the only instances of me being able to do so are via Mind Control or Reborn.

I still don't believe this deck to be any better than what we have already available to us in the form of Plants, Agents, Karakuri, etc. With Rabbit's high price tag I can't imagine someone going out and buying a set just to play this deck, when the aforementioned decks are much cheaper. I'd say it's a good deck, but there are better.


On a side note, I won't be playing in locals tomorrow so someone can finally have the opportunity at getting 1st at Lightning again lol. Donut won't be there to give me the last $40 he owes me, my wife and I need to meet our realtor to go over the inspection report, and I have hw due Sunday night along with a test on Monday. I doubt my Merchants are gonna be in by tomorrow anyway :/ If anyone has suggestions or recommendations for the deck I'm all ears and am willing to try out different cards (other than Shapesnatch and Trent lol).

Rabbit Testing - Day 2

So after I posted last night, I got in a few games against Mikey with Karakuris. That deck is a very nice change of pace from Agents for me and I enjoyed it very much. Hopefully my set of Merchants come in by Saturday so I can run it for the tournament on Saturday if I'm able to go.

Mikey and I played on DN again this morning/early afternoon, I played a couple games with my Agents then decided I would tweak my Rabbit build to see if it'd flow any better. I think I spent like 5 minutes taking out the crap and putting in stuff that I thought would be better. I think we got 4 total games in with me running Rabbit and him running his Zombie deck and then a GB deck he made. By the time we got to Rabbit testing I only had about an hour and a half left before I had to head back to class. Our last game pretty much came down to topdeck'ing and was quite fun. I went 3-1 (or 4-1, don't remember number of games we played) in our testing. Overall I felt much better about the build I tested today compared to the one last night, even though I dislike Kabazaulus very much when you gotta use it as a 1700 beater. I felt like I was playing back in 2002 lol.

Changes I made:
- Up the deckcount to 42. I didn't draw into any multiples of my Normal guys (yet).
- Add a set of Gene-Warped Warwolf for my 3rd set of Normals. I don't like it, but I think that 3 sets of Normals is necessary for Rabbit, and it runs over T-King. I don't think there are any other Normal Dino alternatives.
- Drop Maxx C's. I originally thought that it would be a good idea. Gives you card advantage, but realized it promotes drawing multiple Normals. 
- Drop Morays, Gold Sarcs, Hydrogeddons, and add a set of Jurrac Guaiba w/ 1 Velo.
- Add a couple more battle-trick cards like Lance and Chalice, and include more traps for defense.

My "I Wish/lol" list:
- That Dinos had a "Horn of the Phantom Beast"-like card. Chalice and Lance are cool and all, but I like Horn so much more.
- That Tengu was a Dino.
- That Dinos had a 2000ATK Normal.

Contemplation list:
- Adding Call of the Haunted, in the effort to make it easier to bring out Laggia/Dolkka.
- Dropping the Warwolfs but still maintaining a 42 deckcount. After my testing from last night I can't imagine running only 2 sets of Normals, but I'll just have to mess around with it. 

Tomorrow is a day off so I hope to get in a more substantial number of games in. I only had about 2 hours of free time today and I didn't want to exclusively test Rabbit, hence why I only got the 4 games in. I'll post a decklist after tomorrow's testing, granted I obtain at least somewhat similar results to how I did today. I also need to spend a little time on the forums to see what progress anyone has made/what their ideas are.
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Seattle Regionals is this weekend, unfortunately none of the team will be making the trip up. Like I mentioned way back, my wife and I paid for Michael Jackson Cirque du Soleil tickets so gotta go to that Saturday night. Link and Nate are going to a Pokemon regionals in Portland, I'm slightly disappointed they're picking Pokemon over Yugz but I can see why they'd want to do so, if like they thought it was easier to win out in Pokemon than Yugioh. If I played both games and there was a regionals on the same weekend for both games, I'd play the one that I thought I had a better chance of winning at. I'm not sure about the driving conditions on the Pass, so that may be a factor as well. In general driving to Portland is a much better and safer drive than Seattle. And there's no tax if you want to buy stuff in general :) I'm not sure if we have an official "Pokemon division" of the team, but nonetheless, "good luck" to Nate and Link at the Pokemon tourney. As for everyone else, I don't think anyone has the time or money to make the trip.
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Our PHSW case has been paid off with Dave and Adam's Card World, so we should be getting that in about a week and a half. We're just hoping to break even on it, if we could pull 2 Rabbits that would be great but I'm not sure if that's even possible on a case. Do they make it so each Secret per box in a case is different?

Rabbit Testing - Day 1

So the day before yesterday I made up a Rabbit.dek list that I wanted to try out on Dueling Network. I found it quite difficult to rationalize what route I wanted to try and thought would be best, but I decided on a trap-heavy Moray build. I got one game in against some really random deck, stomped it, and decided I'd probably just end up facing against jank decks and not get productive testing done, so I stopped. Today I got to test 2 games against Mikey, he's never really used DN before and was helping customers while he was at work, and I had to leave to go meet the home inspector, hence why we only got 2 games in.

From what I've seen so far, it seems that having only 2 sets of normal monsters isn't enough. I tried 3 Kabazaulus and 3 Sabersaurus. If you get your Rabbit off once, and draw 2 of the other set (ie Rabbit for 2x Kaba, and draw into 2x Saber), any future Rabbit plays are dead unless you Avarice them back. You're pretty much relying on your guys staying on the field/playing the beatdown game. I also used 3 Hydrogeddon to go with the Morays. I dunno if my numbers just aren't right or if I'm taking the wrong approach to the deck or what, but the deck just seemed very clunky overall. I don't really want to "blame DN's randomization" either. It's like draw multiple of your guys and not draw Moray, or vice versa. I also incorporated the Tour Guide + Gold Sarc combo, but never got that off. I remember that combo being very hyped in Agents, I tried it out myself for a while, and I think I got it off like once, and have subsequently dropped Gold Sarcs altogether. That's probably what will happen for this deck as well.

I've seen the OCG build that got first out of a 70-man tournament, I'd kinda like to try that one and see how it fares, but undoubtedly Tour Guide is too good not to run in this deck, right? I've also read about people having some success with D-Fissure builds, so that's another option. This deck seems like it has so many ways it can be run, it's really hard to decide which one to go with and test. Unfortunately I don't have a great deal of time to test and dink around with decks to come up with this kind of stuff either. I've never been a particularly good deckbuilder, and with the advent of the Internet, it's just much easier to copy a deck that has proven itself in a large tournament and tweak it to your play preferences. I don't want to turn this into a net-deck vs originality post though, I may do that at a later time.

As for the deck, my current stance is that it will fail to perform as hyped in this upcoming YCS. Like I mentioned previously, Laggia and Dolkka are phenomenal monsters, but the inconsistency of drawing into multiples of the same normal monster is what I believe will ultimately hold this deck back. At one point I considered upping the deck count to 42 to try and minimize this, but decided against it and ran 41. I think the consistency and resiliency of the top decks we have now will outshine Rabbit's capabilities and inconsistencies, but I won't write the deck off quite yet. Three games with a crap build is hardly justification to do so.

Tomorrow I will get some more testing in and re-vamp the deck in general. I also want to test Karakuri and my Agents, since I know it's good and want to get in some actual good games with Mikey in general. It has been a long time since we got to play like we used to. If I start finding a decent amount of success with Rabbit in testing I will post a build of what I'm working with, but I'm not gonna post a crap build that fails.

As for me getting back into Magic, it actually hasn't gotten anywhere since I last talked about it. Between school, homework, work, selling cards, playing Yugz, and the whole house-buying process, I simply haven't had the time or the initiative to look into what's going on in Magic. I haven't even touched my PS3 in like 2 weeks. Realistically speaking I'll probably just sell or trade the cards I bought and nip it in the bud altogether. I don't want to hold onto 30-some cards, convince myself that I'm going to get back into it, never do, and lose the value that I had with what I bought.

What's up with Team O? Status Update 2 + Captain's PHSW Report

So our team captain Danny ended up winning the Sneak Peek at Board Game Nation on Sunday, so we had domination over the Sneaks this weekend. We didn't play at Uncle's but Shiggs took that one lol. Danny wrote up a tourney report so I'd like to share that below:

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Wow seriously I feel like I turned over a new chapter in my life. They say that yugioh is just a card game well it is still very self validating. For a long time I question who I was, if I was still a good player and that made me question everything in my life. My job, my marriage, if I could be a good dad and they were all failing. My boss told me what happen to you? You walked around here and you held your head up high no matter what happened you use to be one of the best salesman we ever had here. I didn’t know what to say. Then he told me that I have to have a positive out look on my whole life so I have to take the good and understand the bad. Now I know I'm not gonna win every tournament I play in but I need to believe I can still win and this is how my day turned out.

Round 1 plants vs fairys
I play my long time buddie and teammate alan siebrecht now I thought damn seriously I cant get some chump first round. right out the gate one of the best players at the tourney.
Game 1 I win with t king lock and maxx c’s god I love this card
Game 2 I play maxx c on turn 2 he plays thru it and otk’s me how gutsy literally who does that lol
We go into time and I win.
Record: 1-0

Round 2 plants vs fairys again lol
Game 1 It was a really funky match he d prison my Tengu which I couldn’t believe lol I guess he had some logic behind it but spore and tengu won me this one.
Game 2 I hate fairys he otked me sweet love it.
Game 3 I open up T-King he sets Sangan loses it passes again, sets Shine Ball, passes again, sets Herald I think I got him on the ropes but he kills my King  8(. So I play One for One pitch Dandy and he chains Gozen match I'm thinking I sided out all 3 Mystical Space Typhoons I'm done. Spore and Dandy are wind tokens I summon Debris next turn swing for 1400 next turn summon Tengu lol all wind monsters still. He can't top to save his life. Next turn I synch for Orient Dragon still a wind monster then I go for Stardust basically you get it by now I take game 3.
Record: 2-0

Round 3 plants vs scraps
Now you think scraps what the heck but this kid makes it work he gets plus ones all day
Game 1 I really don’t remember but I win sorry.
Game 2 He sided Imperial Iron Wall now this was weird cause I thought that card sucks but none the less I have T-King out he has Tengu out, summons another, I play Bottomless on his last Tengu and he chains Imperial Iron Wall to save his Tengu. Then he XYZ summons for u top pia (lol that’s how we say it around my parts I guess). In my hand I have Gorz, Crow, BLS, and Tengu at this point. He draws real janky, plays TKing, I think I'm done cause my hand was bull only Gorz could save me and I can't summon BLS cause of the wall. I draw Dark Hole hit his face down and my TKing. I summon Debris thinking Black Rose time, oh my goodness Solemn Warning dotcom. Then he plays Heavy on his own Wall and passes I summon BLS and the rest is history but I never understood why he played heavy on his own card.
Record: 3-0

Top 4 plants vs agents (are you starting to see the trend I played agents all day)
Alan again this one ended quick sorry buddie much love
Game 1 I win
Game 2 He summons TKing and sets a back row. I summon Tour Guide and pull out Sangan from the deck, play Leeching the Light, hit him for 3900. He goes and passes. I summon Tengu and he tells me wow seriously even if he played Torrential wow the plusses. I win game 2. Good job to Alan he played for third and won his mat for the sneak peak.
Oh snap the finals
Record: 4-0

Finals plants vs scraps
Game 1 He wins I Solemn Warning his Scrap Dragon and he gets a ruling from the judge that he still gets the effect of Scrap Dragon and I was like wow seriously but I went with it. I wasn’t sure at this point if it was real or not and I still don’t know.
Game 2 I win
Game 3 Now I know game 2 was short but heres why game 3 was crazy he took my life poins down to 2200 and this game was his with his Tengu at 3300 cause of two Horn of the Phatom Beast I was like in trouble fast. Here are the fields: his field Tengu, 2 Horns, Monster Reborn my Hyper Librarian and a set monster and set trap. My field: Catastor, Tengu and my hand Crow, Pot of Avarice. Before I go into battle phase he Veilers Catastor so I go Glow up Bulb he Debunks it I play Crow for the fifth target for Pot of Avarice. I draw Tour Guide and Enemy Controller. I play Enemy on Tengu to take his Tengu, special mine from the deck, attack my Librarian to bring him down to 7200, attack his facedown Scrap Goblin with both my Tengu and Catastor. He has no target in the grave for Scrap Goblin. I XYZ summon both Tengus. He goes he sets one back row and summons Scrap Beast. My turn I draw Reborn I target Hyper Librarian. Now my field is Librarian Utopia and Catastor. I summon Tour Guide search out another Guide, XYZ summon Leviair, bring back Glow Up Bulb synchro for Brionac, draw off Librarian, pitch for his back row, attack for game and I'm the sneak peak champ go team overload.

Thru out this tournament I remained positive and believed I could win. I wanna thank my teammates for encouraging me the whole time and I wanna thank my manager at my job David for making me believe in myself. I told my teammates I was gonna win the sneak and I did there you have it yugioh players just have faith in you and you can accomplish anything.
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As for the state of the team, it looks like our active roster is Danny, Rob, Zach, Alan, and myself. I think Link is focused on Pokemon and Nate is re-building his deck. Dwight is busy with football, apparently their team is going to States (congrats). I think Antonio is pretty much off the team and done with Yugz, and don't really have much clue on Epler but seeing as how he hasn't been at his own turf's tourney in 6 weeks it seems safe to say he isn't in to playing all that much. Like I mentioned way back when I started the blog, we'd like to have a solid stable of people that are the best in skill that our area has to offer, actively playing, and a good teammate. If they aren't up to snuff in skill, then we at least need to see that they have the potential. You can usually tell when someone has reached their cap, or see that they have some kind of mental obstacle they need to overcome to reach "that" level. Some people, regardless of how much they play, spend money, or are coached, will simply just never get there. If that were not true, then one could say that anybody could be a professional [insert random sport here] player as long as they tried and practiced hard and long enough. That simply isn't true; people have a cap.

I finally ordered my set of Karakuri Merchant, and a Burei for Danny. I gotta trade for a Barkion though - I'm not gonna buy one since the deck doesn't go into level 6 all that much anyway. Seems like it's a "good to have, but not 100% necessary" kinda thing.

PHSW Sneak Peek Report 11-5-11; Lightning Comics

Last night I hopped on DN to test some Karakuri, but all I could get matched against were decks like Cloudians, this weird lifegain deck, so I was like screw it I'm just wasting my time. Zach and I talk a bit about what he should run for the Sneak and I tell him I got the majority of Plants, and Karakuri minus the Merchants, and that I was running Agents. He has "Jankents" (Jank-Agents) and asks me what his options were since he doesn't have Tour Guides, I was like "well you could play Pure or TG", and he talked about how he liked Danny's Gallis deck but wasn't going to borrow it.

So this morning I make breakfast, take a shower, and throw my backpack in the trunk while my wife takes a shower since I have to drive her in to work since she was going to be hanging out with her friends afterwards. Drop her off, drop the dog off at daycare, and I go to pick Zach up. I have to drive to the ATM since I needed to give him money from selling his stuff, and the night before I looked online to see if there are any ATMs that don't charge a fee. I wrote down the address and GPS it, we get there, I go to withdraw the money, and it asks if I'm OK with the $3 ATM fee. I'm like "what the f, the website said this ATM doesn't charge a fee! I shoulda just gone to Wal-Mart since I know they just charge $1.50!" So much for that crap, what a waste of time lol.

We pick up Burger King on the way in, walk in to Lightning, set our food and drinks down on the table, and Zach's bag falls on top of his drink and it spills everywhere. Smooooooth dude, lol. Way to make an entrance :) Lightning was pretty much packed with people, and apparently they allowed people to get packs all the way from like 11am (we got there around noon). I was like "god damnit, I bet people have sniped the good stuff already", but the tournament hadn't started so that was a plus. I eat my food real quick and ask Kim if he knows what people are running. He gives me a pretty good low-down so I make my side accordingly. Then I help Zach build his Agent deck and make the best 41 that I thought he had. He picks up a set of T-Kings from someone and buys 2 Maxx C from Kim so that helps his deck tremendously. I give him an Earth, let him borrow 2 Warnings and an Orient Dragon. I convince him to take the Pot of Duality's out, cut the Book, and cut random crap like Jupiter, Return from DD, and have him play 3 Earth and 3 Venus (I think it's pretty much mandatory). I pick the best 15 cards out of the cards he's got for his side and he's good to go.

I get in some trading with some peeps, and ask Big Mike if anyone pulled Rescue Rabbit but he shakes his head. I finally got rid of my extra DW structure deck to this guy for a few lower-end holos and a bunch of common staples. I'm soo glad I was finally able to get rid of that deck. Epler shows up for like 5 minutes and I was like "wtf dude, where've you been? I've won the past 5 tourneys" and he's just like "oh I didn't know you've been coming out here I would've if I had known". The whole point is to come out because I don't want to anymore, lol. Round 1 pairings get posted, and I notice that basically half the people in the room had disappeared. I was shocked that so many people just straight-up didn't want to play.

Total attendance for the tourney is 16.
Zach and I get paired against each other Round 1, we're like "wow this is stacked we should be playing each other in like the 4th round." Oh well.

Round 1 vs Zach (Agents)
Game 1 he stops my Venus play with Maxx C, he Dustshoots me later, but I'm able to bring out Kristya and maintain control.
Game 2 he opens with T-King, I draw pretty poorly, and the T-King shuts down the Earth I have in my hand. I get Dustshooted, he brings out Venus + Gachi, I Dark Hole, but he has Hyperion for anything I can get going. Too little too late.
Game 3 more or less the same but I try to put up a better fight. He Dustshoots me again when I have a hand of Sangan, Ball, Hyperion, and I think Storm. He obviously picks Sangan and it's pretty much all downhill from there for me. I think I get Trish'd and Kristya'd lol.
Record: 0-1
Maxx C shuts me down more than it does for him and I just drew too poorly games 2 and 3. Getting Dustshooted each game don't help either lol.
At this point I'm like "great, I gotta win out the rest to make sure I make the top cut" but I'm confident that I can manage that.

Round 2 vs Ross (Gishki?)
Game 1 I summon Earth, and he summons this 1800 Gishki guy, I have no idea what these cards are or do but I guess it's based on this lackluster Ritual guy. He's ahead of me in life for the majority of the game, but I just outright win in card advantage. He has the 1800 guy and the 2500 ritual dude so I Dark Hole then double Hyperion for the last of his 4800.
I go to my side and put in 1 Pulling the Rug (since that's all I had) and he whines about me siding. I'm just like whatever kid.
Game 2 I don't really let him get anything going since I figure out what the goal of his deck is. Veiler, Pulling, and Warning pretty much stop him from doing anything.
Turns out most of his deck was from the new DT set which isn't legal yet since the Hidden Arsenal for it hasn't come out. Oh well I honestly didn't give a crap since it was terrible lol.
Record: 1-1

Round 3 vs Eric (Chaos? w/ D-Alchemist)
Game 1 This ends up being a pretty good game, he Judgments a Tour Guide when he was at 7300, and I think this is what cost him the game. Between BLS and Hyperion I have too many boss monsters to take advantage of how much life he lost.
Game 2 Another good game, he brings out DAD and tries to blow up but I Torrential, next turn I bring out Kristya and he just can't deal with her.
Record: 2-1

Round 4 vs Kim (Sams)
Game 1 I summon T-King which basically shuts his whole deck down, at least whatever he had in his hand. All I take is 100 damage from attacking into a set Kageki. I Venus + Gachi so T-King can run over it, and next turn I swing in for 4300 on his last 42.
Game 2 He goes pretty aggro and we both use a bunch of cards so we don't have much by the mid-game. His field becomes Irou and Shi En, I set Sangan and he attacks it, I search Birdman since I have Puppet Plant in hand. He attacks w/ Shi En bringing me down to 700 (him at 6100). I Puppet Plant Shi En, summon Birdman and synch for Stardust and run over Irou. Get 2 more attacks in with Stardust and he's down to 300. He ends up Reborn'ing his Irou and has 2 facedown S/Ts. My turn I'm just totally confused as to what he could have face down, so I summon T-King, attack Irou with Stardust, he Cunnings to get Shi En back from the grave, but I just suicide and then swing with T-King for game.
That was a very close and good game.
Record: 3-1

I squeak into the Top 4 by getting 4th, and Top 4 ends up being me, Zach, Nelson, and this guy running Diva Zombie Plants (I guess?) with Lost Blue Breaker. I get paired against Nelson which I'm actually quite relieved about since he was running X-Sabers. Nothing against him personally in terms of his skill or anything, I just don't feel that that deck can beat Agents.

Top 4 vs Nelson (X-Sabers)
Game 1 It's pretty back and forth, and Maxx C puts in work. Late game I'm just poking at him with 2 Earths that were at 1200 cuz of Gachi w/ 1 material. He Reinforce Truth's for Pashuul, and his field ends up becoming Stardust, Urbellum, and Faultroll while I have Gachi and 2 Earth with 4 in hand. He swings Urbellum into Earth so I Honest. He gets rid of my other Earth and 1 more Gachi material. I summon Venus, special my 3rd ball, synch Earth and Ball for Armory Arm, equip, and swing at Stardust for game (he was at 800).
Game 2 He sets an Emmersblade. I set Sangan and Bottomless. He Mind Controls, summons Fulhelm, synchs for Hyunlei, which I Bottomless. I take the hit from Emmersblade and I Trag out. Activate Maxx C, attack Emmers, he specials Darksoul so I draw a card. I did this play cuz I had 2 Tour Guide in hand and I knew he'd go Darksoul, so I pitched to take control of it, make Trag level 3, and make Leviathan out of them. I later Debunk his Emmersblade and with the help of Maxx C it's pretty much a textbook finish from there. Pretty much just out-advantaged him.
Record: 4-1

So I wait for the other guy and Zach to finish, it looked like it was a pretty good back-and-forth match but Zach ends up taking it. I tell Zach that I'd like to just split so we could leave and grab dinner. He whines a little but in the end accepts. We both get a whopping $16.50 store credit and we buy Galaxy Eyes tins (I pulled crap) and I also get a pack of sleeves to empty out my credit. He pulls a Debunk and Wind-Up Factory so not bad. Danny explains his store credit situation with the worker guy but he can't help him, so Steve Sr. and Danny went to Big Mike about it and reminds him of the time they didn't write down their credit, so Danny ends up getting $14 and buys a Galaxy Eyes tin as well. I lend Danny 2 Warnings and a T-King he needs for tomorrow's Sneak event.

So Team O takes the Sneak, I guess technically my streak is still good since we split for 1st :) We say our goodbyes to everyone at the store and head to Top of China Buffet for food. We had one waiter guy come up to us and start sputtering random sounds to Danny while Zach and I are just quietly cracking up. He was trying to ask us if we came up from Spokane which we said yes to. Then he says like "Ta yu fo" to me and I'm just like what? He wanted me to keep my fork while he took my plate lol. He walks away a little then Danny goes like "Do you got any trades?" and we just bust up laughing. We talk some Yugz and then they talk sports while I think about Yugz, I was randomly like "wait is Elder (of the Six Sam) a tuner?" since we talked about the OCG playing 2 in their Agent builds. I thought it was, so you could synch it with Shine Ball, but it's not, and Danny reminded me that Earth was a tuner lol. I was like ohh that's actually kinda sweet. Eh, I think Shi En's attack is just took weak to be viable this format when Leviathan, Utopia, and Hyperion are just so easy to bring out. We say our goodbyes and call it a day.

I thought I could be finally done with going to Lightning, but turns out that Uncle's won't be running tournaments between now and like January since Christmas shopping will be picking up and they need their space. Soo looks like if I want to play on the one day I have free, Saturday, then I'd have to go to Lightning. I'm not sure what I'll do. I have grown to really enjoy playing at Lightning, but it's just such a long drive. However, our offer on the house that we wanted was finally accepted by the seller, so looks like we'll be moving to the Valley in the near future. This will be incredibly convenient for playing, since Board Game becomes even closer and the drive out to Lightning becomes not nearly as bad. Basically cut by a third, and I'm OK with driving that distance. Between now and then though, I'm not sure. I may not even really have time to play since we will undoubtedly be busy packing up.

Speaking of which, I now have to prepare selling off a good portion of my cards. I have decided to pick Karakuri as my secondary deck, so that means I can sell my Plant stuff. The only things of value are the Bulb and Tengus though I guess. If anyone wanted to buy them, I'd sell my 1st ed Bulb for $35 and the Tengu (Ultra) set for $35 as well. Leave a comment if interested. I need to order 3 Karakuri Merchants since Jeff didn't have any *sigh* :(. If I do well enough with Karakuri and/or Tour Guide becomes a solid $200, I will be selling those off as well.

All in all I had a very fun day of trading, playing, and hanging out. I didn't really buy anything, which I'm fine with. I didn't buy into the 5 packs + promo, primarily because Alexandrite sucks, until they make some broken Rank 4 requiring 2 Normal dragons or something (if ever). No one pulled Rabbit and I don't think anyone pulled Zenmaines or Dolkka either. I saw 1 D-Boyz, 1 Dark Smog, and some other bad secret I think. I had the opportunity to buy an Ulti Laggia for $50 but ultimately passed on it. I literally picked up no cards from PHSW, but am satisfied enough with the trades I did, and with our case coming in I think we will have our fill of PHSW. It was nice seeing some more competition and people coming out for the Sneak itself. 16 is a disappointing number for the tournament attendance, but what can ya do when people are too scared to play? I had a feeling that would happen; good turnout for packs but everyone leaving once the tourney started.

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

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

T: 7
2 Bottomless
2 Warning
1 Torrential
1 Force
1 Dustshoot

Side:
1 MST
2 Breaker
2 Debunk
1 Shadow-Mirror
2 Puppet Plant
2 Leeching
2 Gemini Imp
2 Cydra
1 Pulling

Do You Remember?

This is just a little thing that I'm doing for myself/for fun to recall all of my best YuGiOh memories for the sake of  nostalgia, and having them typed out so I never forget them. I'll start out with these and as I remember/think of more I will just add them at the end of my regular blog posts. This is intended to be kinda like David Letterman's top 10 list, and to stir up memories of these things that I know others have as well.

Do you remember:

1. When Adam Corn got caught cheating at Shonen Jump Seattle and literally crying about it in front of everyone. He had to write a letter explaining the situation, and I caught a glimpse of it, and it started off with "Hello, My name is Adam Corn" in like a 3rd graders penmanship.

2. Pulling off Pot-Graceful-Duo but still losing that game.

3. When that big black guy came up to Zach (Elton) all pissed off at Northtown while we were playing and said "Hey man, why you fuck my sister?!?" Then realized it wasn't who he was looking for and walked off. I think we both shat ourselves lol.

4a. Making Ian cry at the Sneak when I only gave him 3 Draw phases out of 2 games when I played Magical Explosion OTK.

4b. Lon thinking I was an idiot for playing Allure of Darkness when I had 8 spells in my hand, dumping everything, and ending my turn. (And then winning the next Draw phase.)

5. When people used to play Gadgets and Monarchs in the same deck.

6. Sitting across from Cesar Gonzalez at Seattle Shonen during decklist hand-in, and asking him why he was called Princess.

7. Playing against that fat Lightsworn kid in Texas and everyone watching our game, and when he played Heavy Storm all non-chelantly, flipping (with authority) Starlight Road and saying "Nekkah!" causing everyone to laugh.

8. Trading an Earthbound Immortal for an Archlord Kristya.

 9. When I thought my Dark Necrofear deck was so badass.

10. Playing on the floor in a corner of the bottom floor at Northtown, and a girl and her friend walking up toward us and throwing her cup full of ice at Jared.

11. Going to my first tournament and watching this kid play Exodia, seeing him draw his last card, and still not  getting all 5 pieces. Which resulted in crying on his part.

12. Tom and his 2 kids that reeked of cat pee.

13. Getting wreaked by Robert Lim at my first Regional in Cyber Dragon + Warrior Tool-box format.

14. Beating the guy who ended up getting 3rd at Seattle Shonen in Swiss 2-0, but not making top 16 cuz of tie-breakers.

15. When randoms thought that MST negated everything cuz it says destroy.

16. Going to my first local at Gamer's Den in Texas, and within 2 hours everyone talking about how "pro" I was (conversely, this shows how bad the meta was before I came along).

17. When Don Zaloog was played.

18. Whooping up on Elton with Gadgets all day when they came out, even though he talked about how bad and useless they were.

19. All of us leaving Klinger to fend for himself the night of the Seattle Shonen since he went out to dinner with the judges. We couldn't get a hold of him since he didn't have a phone, and he didn't show up where we told him to meet us. He couldn't get his stuff and slept in his judge's uniform that night with the other judges.

20. Standing in line in front of the convention center for an hour in the cold winter with everyone waiting for the Sneak to open.