Locals Report 12-3-11; Lightning Comics

Last night I was bored out of my mind and Rob texted me asking me if I could pick him up to go to Lightning, which was fine with me. I warned him and Zach that I had a feeling that my wife would be crazy and demand that I be back around 6:30pm or so, and I hate having to be in the situation where I have to drop from a tourney especially if I'm doing well. Both of them were fine with it so that was cool.

So my morning starts around 7am because my wife gets me up to help order curtains online with her for our house. I'm like yea that's exactly what I want to do at 7am. She finally leaves for work around 8:20 and wants me to make a copy of this Josh Groban+Glee Christmas CD I burned for her last year so I do that, make the bed, do 35 minutes worth of dishes, about 30 minutes worth of packing, and then take a shower, grab my stuff and leave. I had wanted to watch Thursday's Beavis & Butt-Head episodes and work on my decks and stuff since I had my stuff, but there was just too much to do this morning.

I head out around 10:30 since I had to stop by the post office to mail off a Pojo trade and pick up Epler's Hunter Dragons I ordered for him. On the drive over I was messing with my watch, and the little band that keeps the extra wristband from flinging around everywhere broke. I seem to go through a watch a year cuz of the little band thing breaking. I then head to the ATM to withdraw $100 since Kim said he had wanted to sell some stuff, but the damn dispenser or whatever was broken so I had to find another ATM to withdraw money. This just wasn't my morning. I finally find a working ATM and withdrew what I wanted.

I get to Rob's but completely brain-farted that I was 100 off the address number so I was just parked in front of this random house for like 5 minutes. He texted me and told me he was waiting outside and I was like derp I'm at the wrong place so I find the right address and pick him up. We talk about the blog and Yugz on our way to pick up Zach. We get to Zach's and surprisingly it doesn't take 15 minutes for him to come out lol. We're all hungry so we drive over to Jack in the Box, and I explain that I can't eat their Extreme Sausage Sandwich Sandwiches anymore lol. We took a little while to order and the drive-thru lady was giving me attitude, I was like hold the frick on but we get our food and finally head out to CDA. A few miles out the highway became 1 lane, which pretty much stopped the flow of traffic completely. I think we sat there for 10 minutes but it felt like eternity, and once we could go we went a whole 20mph. The other 2 lanes looked perfect, I dunno why it had to become 1 lane, and no one was working on the other lanes anyway. Hate that shit.

During the ride over there was a lot of "oh you gotta put this in the blog" but now I don't even remember what all happened lol. Some conversation about Yugz and sports I believe and Zach singing random songs. The drive felt like it took forever, didn't help that there were so many slow-ass people driving.

We get to Lightning around 12:20 and there's like hardly anyone there this week compared to last. Surprisingly Nate was there so we hug it out and then I go over to Epler to give him the Hunter Dragons. I sit down and tweak my side to include the 2 System Downs, which I never ended up using anyway. Between Zach and Jeff I thought I'd be using them, but Jeff didn't show up this week and I didn't get paired against Zach. Rob buys some cards off me and I give Nate some common staples to help complete his deck a little bit more. I just chill until the pairings get posted. There's a total of 9 people this week, which is strange since there were 16-18 people last week, and we have 5 Team O members this week and only 2 last week. I think it had to do with people being back for Thanksgiving last weekend, I dunno.

Round 1 I get paired against Rob. Awesome.
Round 1 vs Rob (Anti-Meta)
Fossil Dyna backed by traps is pretty much MVP against Karakuri, and T-King and Doomcal don't help either. I lose the di roll. Game 1 I remember getting poked a lot by Dyna, then eventually it was 2 Dyna and a T-King and I just couldn't do anything. Game 2 Rob gets in a situation where he has a Stardust and a Banisher out and I Mirror Force. We're both around the 1400 LP mark and I think I win with Komachi and 4-star (don't remember). I'm supposed to remember that there was this random guy watching our game and we're all like "who tf is that guy?" Game 3 was a lot like the first game, Dyna pretty much putting in work, I also walk right into a Starlight Road with my Heavy, I knew it was pretty much over after that.
0-1

Round 2 vs Zach (not Team O) (Monarch?)
I think he was running his dad's deck (Eric) cuz he played Battle Fader and Jinzo. I love seeing Jinzo on the field cuz that means I can go off with my Karakuri shenanigans. Landoise is pretty boss in this match-up too so I 2-0 him with very little trouble.
1-1

Round 3 vs Matt (Zombie)
Remember my interview question where I talked about how a "Zombie" deck doesn't need to run sub-par cards like Call of the Mummy? Well turn 1 he plays it and I'm like "oh god" and just chuckle to myself. I think his field is Call, Zombie Master, some derka, and a facedown. I'm like screw it so I go Komachi+Soldier for Black Rose blow-up and I knew it'd go off. His facedown was a Sak Armor. After that the game was pretty much mine. I don't bother siding, game 2 was more or less the same, Burei+Kuick putting in work and generating plus's.
2-1

This was the round that Zach was playing Colin, I was sitting next to Colin and he had a hand full of Gadgets, at one point his field is like Gadget, a set Ultimate Offering and a Torrential. Zach has a Burei and some derka out I think and goes into Brionac with not many cards in hand left, taking priority on the 2 backrow. Colin picks up his backrow and I'm just like O_O. Once the game was over I was like "why didn't you activate Torrential??" I guess he thought you couldn't activate it or something after Brionac used his effect. He was mad salty after that, even though he said he wasn't ;)

Round 4 vs Colin (UO Gadgets)
When I open with Neutron and search Komachi he was like "great, the same deck" lol. I don't remember too many of the specifics but I take the first game without that much trouble. I think I've played against his deck enough times to the point where I can basically guess what his plays are gonna be. Game 2 was a little tougher since I was drawing more of the S/T removal I sided in than monsters. At one point I was at 800 and he tributes for Caius, but fortunately he targets my Bottomless instead of Caius itself, I'm like whew. We go back and forth a little but he keeps attacking my Soldiers and letting me get Kuick which leads to Burei+Kuick and I win. He was visibly frustrated losing to 2 Karakuri back to back lol.
3-1

So I watch the final match between Zach and Nate, the 2 undefeateds left. Nate won the first game, and I started watching around mid-game of game 2. After Zach hit with Gorz twice, they were both around the ~1800-2000 mark. Nate ends up Compulsing Gorz. Zach is like +4 or 5 on Nate, a face-up TKing (I think) and has a facedown D-Pris. Nate has a backrow card that's been down for a long time with no cards in hand. He topdecks Monster Reborn, activates MST, Reborns for Hyperion, pops TKing, and swings for game. Man I felt salty about that and I wasn't even the one playing lol.

So Nate wins, Rob gets 2nd, Zach gets 3rd and I get 4th (unfortunately only top 3 get prizes v_v). Nice having an all Team O top 4 though, can't complain about that. Not to take anything away from Nate but I found it remarkable that he won with a straight Agent build (no Guide, no TKing, no TG) and hadn't played in a tourney for months. I'm still very surprised how good Fossil Dyna is, since I've never played it myself nor have I played against it that much in the past (too hard to find back in the day and I think Danny was the only one that had them/ran them). In retrospect I probably should've sided more S/T removal in against Rob, theoretically even something like Karakuri Soldier can take out a Dyna if it doesn't have to worry about getting D-Prison'd. I think anything with T-King, Doomcal, and Dyna is just a bad match-up for Karakuri in general. If he had the Maxx C's that'd just be complete lockdown.

Rob picks up stuff for Rabbit.dek and now just needs the last Rabbit and some Dolkkas but Danny almost has it built too. Zach has the Rabbit they both need, it'll most likely go to Danny though. Rob buys the last Galaxy Eyes tin and pulls an Infected Mail, and I get Nate's email address so I can send him the interview questions. Kim never showed up, I'm glad I had to pay the ATM surcharge to withdraw money just for him to not come lol. We drop Nate off at Donut's house, then we head to Carl's Jr for food. I wasn't hungry so I passed. The drive-thru chic was pretty funny since Zach was BS'ing with her, but it took a freakin long time cuz something was wrong with the pop machine's Dr. Prepreh that Zach wanted. She blamed it on Jim Numbnuts lol. We finally get the food, I drop off Zach, then go to Danny's so I can leave my stuff with him while I finish up packing and move next weekend. Alan is there so I get his e-mail address as well. Drop Rob off, and that's a day! I know there was a lot of stuff that I was "supposed" to include in the blog but I think I got the major highlights. It's impossible for me to remember every minute detail lol.

Decklist:
23
1 Gorz
2 Cyber Dragon
2 T-King
2 Neutron
3 Maxx C
3 Kuick
3 Komachi
3 Merchant
2 Soldier
1 Strategist
1 Watchdog

10
2 Duality
2 MST
1 Heavy
1 Reborn
1 Hole
1 Book
1 Mind
1 Avarice

8
1 Dustshoot
1 Torrential
1 Force
2 Warning
2 D-Prison
1 Bottomless

Extra
1 Chimera
1 Zenmaines
1 Utopia
1 Catastor
1 Nat Beast
1 Brionac
1 Black Rose
1 Landoise
2 Burei
2 Bureido
1 Stardust
1 Scrap
1 Trish

Side
1 MST
1 Dust
1 Cyber Dragon
2 Smashing
2 System Down
1 Pulling
1 Bottomless
2 Gemini Imp
2 Debunk
1 Veiler
1 Leeching