I was actually fairly busy before the tournament, on my to-do list was: get an oil change and replace my left headlight, pick up Danny's shoes I ordered for him from the post office, go grocery shopping, and finish my homework to turn in. So once class was over I decided to go to the Oil Can Henry's by my house to do the car stuff. The one thing I hate about these kinds of places is that they always try to sell you more and more services, especially if they know you don't know much about cars (which I don't). I told them I needed an oil change and my left headlight fixed, and I ended up getting both of my headlights "restored"/buffed out (so the light is brighter), my coolant system flushed, getting a new air filter, a new cap or something for the coolant system (since it apparently wasn't maintaining any pressure), and of course my oil changed. That ended up costing like $210 after a 10% discount. The guy tried to sell me this $60 oil and I'm like "look man, I just came in here for an oil change and to get my headlight fixed, and I'm already gonna be paying $250 for all this. I can't afford more stuff." So they all backed off, but I can admit my heating works a lot better now and the lights are visibly brighter! Yay? I hate car shit :/
I get back home, finish up my homework in like 20 minutes and turn it in via Blackboard. After that I figure out my side for the tournament, have a bite to eat, take my dog to go potty and check the mail, put her in her cage and I'm off to go to the post office. I get there and stand in line for like 15 minutes even though there were only 2 people ahead of me the whole time. The workers at the Sprague PO are incredibly slow, it's like this almost every time I've been there. I get the shoes and go to Danny's.
I notice Alan's van parked in front of his house so I'm like oh cool Alan's here. He told me he wasn't going to be able to play today so I thought it was funny he was most likely play-testing at Danny's. I ring the doorbell and hear someone shout to come in, and lo and behold Nate, Alan, Link, Zach, and Shiggs were all there chillin. My ORCS boxes also came in so I open them up with the team, my pulls were actually pretty bad. My secrets were XYZ Reborn, Gagaga Girl, and M-X-Saber guy. Beyond that I pretty much pulled only one of every good card in the set (Zenmaity, Mantis, Hornet, Rat, Shark, Dragonfly). I value-trade the Inzektor and Wind-Up stuff to Nate since he wanted the stuff the most and I didn't really care as long as I got equal value on it for stuff I can sell to Troll. Link helps us out by looking up values on his phone. Danny calls up his sitter and he's able to have his kids watched for the night so he's able to go to the tourney. I still have to go grocery shopping so I go to Wal-Mart and do that, get back and Link's the only one that's ready to go so I take him in my car while Zach and Nate will go with Danny. Shiggs decides to go to the Uncle's tourney for what ever reason.
Link and I get to my house and he helps me bring in the groceries, I let my dog out of her cage and she goes running out toward the kitchen/living room area to see Link standing there and she gets scared and starts barking. Normally she's really friendly, when Alan came over she was all up on him trying to give him kisses but I guess she just got too startled to see Link lol. Anyways I quickly put the groceries away since we were running a little later than I had hoped. We get to the mall right around 4:55.
I do the normal greeting/trading/relaxing thing and Brandon wants to see my Agent build so I hand him my deck. He's jelly of my Tour Guides lol. Aaron's sitting next to us and asks me what my name is, I'm like Mike, and he's like "do you write a blog?" I say "yup, Team Overload blog" and says he reads the blog regularly and starts describing my decklist lol. I don't really give a damn about anyone knowing my list/what I'm playing because I figure at the end of the day it's not really gonna affect the plays I make throughout a match. Obviously if I cared, I wouldn't post it on a public blog lol. I was kinda surprised that someone in the area and not on the team read the blog but was very happy at the same time. I've seen Aaron play in the various tournaments throughout our area, he's a cool guy and everyone has only nice things to say about him. Shout-outs!
Danny, Nate and Zach get there a little bit later, we all do sign-ups and the tourney gets started around 5:30 I believe. Attendance is 14, but for some reason it felt like there were a lot more people there. Probably because there were, there were probably like half a dozen people that didn't sign up and just hung out lol. Link's playing GK since he traded his Karakuri deck for a bunch of Pokemon stuff for mass pluses. I lend him my 3 Recruiters, Duality and a Warning so he actually has a deck lol. Zach borrows 2 of my Gold Sarcs and a Tour Guide from Danny so they are playing 2 each.
Round 1 vs Joseph (Lightsworn)
I notice Brandon telling him that I'm good and the guy's trying to be sarcastic and all like "ooh I'm scared." I really don't consider myself to be exponentially better than anyone else there and it's never a guarantee that I'll win or anything, since it's Yugz after all and any sacky thing can happen at any time. The guy's playing Lightsworn after all lol.
Game 1 He gets a Necro Gardna in the grave so I Trish to get rid of it and his in-hand JD. He Gorz's out but I end up Dark Hole'ing and summoning Hyperion + Venus to win next turn.
Game 2 I open with double Ball double Venus, I do my best to hold on but it's pretty much over after he Warning's my Tour Guide and I draw poop for the remainder of the game. I do try to stabilize by bringing out Zenmaines. He Charge's for Ehren, I Fiendish Chain his attack but he Call of the Haunted's his Aurkus :/ He ends and his field was like Wulf, Jain, Lumina and double Aurkus. I end up Dark Hole'ing but I think he JDs me soon after. Can't do much against that with opening multiple Balls lol.
Game 3 This was a little more back-and-forth. Mid game he ends up using JD's effect 3 times to kill off Gachi and swing for 3K but again I finish it off with Hyperion and Venus.
OXO
Record: 1-0
Round 2 vs Sheldon (Dragunity)
I played against this guy the last time I was here, figured it was Dragunity again and thought it'd be an easy win.
Game 1 Very back and forth. His little Dragunity effects annoy the hell out of me popping 2 of my things like turn after turn. He Synchros like crazy one turn and I end up drawing 5 from Maxx C but literally get nothing helpful. The critical move in this game was when I summoned Hyperion and he Bottomless'd. For some reason I just let it go, had I taken my priority to destroy Ravine he wouldn't have been able to search for his pieces each turn thereafter. That ends up costing me the game. Lots of card advantage on my end but I really can't do much when I get 2 cards popped each turn :/
Game 2 Looking back at my LP sheet, looks like this was an ass-whooping as I didn't do any damage to him. I remember not having the appropriate Fairys in my grave for any Hyperion set-up and having all 3 in my hand at one point. I think he Starlights my Heavy this game as well. I'm able to summon 2 Hyperion out but only able to use the effect for one of them. I figured I needed to have some kind of board because I'd lose next turn since he had Vaj + some dude out and I was at 1800. He topdecks Dux or one of those guys and pops my Hyperions and swings for game.
Wow, mad salty for losing to Dragunity lol.
XX
Record: 1-1
At this point I'm just salty and like -_- . Oh well I'd just try to win out and hope to make top 4. Danny and Zach are also 1-1 I believe while Nate and Link were 2-0. Earlier I noticed Nate having Marauding Captain on his field, figured he was playing some kind of Wind-Up but he also had a Gachi with Balls attached to it. I was like "hm some kind of weird Wind-Up Agent deck?" No idea. Danny and I just hang out and talk about random shit.
Round 3 vs Danny (Anti-Meta)
Early in the tourney Danny was trying to pick up Safe Zones and I'm like "wtf are you playing" but he kept it a secret lol. I thought he had been playing Dino Rabbit. I don't really remember too many specifics with our games and they're all blurred together at this point. His deck is very rogue I'd say since he's playing Banisher, Shard of Greed, Dyna, and I'm guessing the Kycoos came from the side. I remember my Reaper holding me out for a while in one of the games.
Game 1 He wins even after I open with Dustshoot. Besides Dust my opening hand wasn't very strong. Lose this one and his only damage is from his Warning.
Game 2 and 3: I win these and my only damage is from Venus + Warning in G2 and only Venus for G3. I remember in one of the games I have to summon Armory and equip it to his Reaper to get rid of it. Pokes from Venus won me the last 2 I think.
XOO
Record: 2-1
So Danny's contemplating dropping and since there isn't going to be a top 4 playoff I'm also like well wtf's the point. Nate ends up losing to the Dragunity guy as well, I'm just like "wtf this guy has gone through 2 Team O members with Dragunity. I guess we're just bad" lol. I can tell the guy and his friend are hyped and he's feeling himself. At this point the only undefeateds are Link (GK) and Sheldon (Dragunity). There are probably a whole bunch of 2-1's. Everyone ends up finishing out the tourney though, might as well not screw each other's tie-breakers all up.
Round 4 vs Nate (Agent w/ Marauding Captain tech)
When you think about it, Captain + Venus = Zenmaines + Gachi, which is actually pretty damn good. No loss in card advantage and you get 2 of the best walls in the game right now.
Both of our games are so long that again they are blurred so all I can go off of is my LP sheet. And yes, I'm pretty much the only player I know (at least in our area) that uses the old paper & pen way of keeping track of life. My logic is as follows:
If I use a calculator - mine is solar powered and about 15 years old. It turns off randomly or if there's not enough light. If it turns off, I lose life-count.
If I use my phone - the keys are so small and its easy to mistype a number or subtract it from the wrong side. If I get a call or text, in order for me to answer/check, I need to close out of my calculator and again I lose life-count.
With pen and paper, it's easy to see the changes in life and deduce where they came from. If some LP is taken from the wrong person, it's at least visible. I'll probably never use anything besides pen and paper for any TCG I may play.
Anyways, game 2 Nate opens with the Marauding + Venus play and sets Bottomless. I contemplated my move for a bit, but was like screw it and played Dark Hole and passed. As Zenmaines is mandatory, he destroyed his Bottomless. Not a lot that happens for a bunch of turns, I make a Zenmaines as well and wished I had a second one since my Leviathan ends up getting Bottomless'd. He brings out a Giga-Brilliant which puts pressure on me for a while but eventually I kill it via Zenmaines effect. In the final turns, he tries to Compulse my Zenmaines w/ 1 material, which I have to Solemn or I'd lose. I remember the final gamestate being his Hyperion, Venus, 1 backrow and no cards in hand to my empty field and Earth and Ball in hand. Life count is 750 (me) to 350 (him). I topdeck Cyber Dragon, look at LP, do the math for 2100-1600, and figure "sure, what the hell". No point in going for Black Rose just for him to top a monster. So I special Cydra, and swing over Venus for game. I was hoping for BLS for the past few turns but after the game I check my next draws which were like Warning and MST. That Cydra was pretty sacky lol.
OO
Record: 3-1
Link beats the Dragunity guy as I think GK is a tough match-up for Dragunity. I watch some of their game and the kid misplays like hell, every time Link flips Spy to get Recruiter and then normal summon Descendant, the guy has Bottomless and Warning down but only tries to Bottomless the Descendant and thus gets his Warning popped. Dunno. Top 4 ends up being (in order): Link, Sheldon, Me, and Roy (I think he's still playing Rabbit but not sure if he ever picked up any more Rabbits). So I get 3 ORCS packs and pull some crappy Inzektor Spell super (not Zektahawk).
During the tourney we talked about the upcoming Seattle regional and I say I'd most likely be able to go since the Seattle weather should be mild. Danny contemplates selling off a bunch of stuff but I tell him "just keep it for the regional and then unload after, that way you have stuff for the tourney in Feb, unload before the ban list in March, and we can pick stuff up again for the April Portland regional". He sells one of his Tour Guides to Zach for $140 I think. He needs a Steelswarm Schroash (yea, Schroash) and Roy offers to sell one for $30. Danny doesn't want to spend the money but I tell him that it's too good of a deal to not get it for $30 so I offer to buy it for him and he can just give me stuff to sell to Troll to pay me back.
Throughout the tourney there was a lot of drama since Corey's Scrap deck got stolen like the week before. The person that they think stole the deck came to the shop and I guess was showing it off like right in front of Corey, I believe in his original deckbox and sleeves and everything. Corey's deck is rather original so everyone's obviously going to know it's his. I'm surprised there was no beatdown that took place even though the atmosphere at times felt like there was going to be one. All of this somehow involved Seto (yea, he changed his name to Seto) who apparently got called to come in and thus brought a samurai sword with him (wtf lol). I think the guy that actually stole it tried to pin it on Seto and that he was "trying to get it back from him while he was asleep" or something. It all seems rather stupid; what kind of thief steals X item that belongs to person Y, then shows off that item a week later to person Y, claiming that its his own? I don't condone stealing or anything, but obviously a smart person would just sell everything off or alter it enough to the point that it's clearly not the same item. I feel bad for Corey since he had a lot of pride in that deck and it was also like all blinged out. Ulti Scrap Drags, Ulti Warnings, Secret Duality and everything (at least that's what Link told me). At least Scraps aren't too hard to rebuild besides the Scrap Dragons, the set of Tengus, Fiendish Chains, and staple stuff like Maxx C. Now that I think about it that's actually quite a bit. This is also why I prefer to play lowest rarity when I can :)
Afterwards we go up to the food court and Danny and I get some Flaming Wok. Zach's like "order a cheeseburger for god's sake" lol. I order plenty of burgers but when I'm at the mall I just feel like Chinese food I guess. The food is pretty stale since it's pretty much 15 minutes until the mall closes. After we get done eating we talk about the regional some more and Danny realizes it's gonna be basically a new-format tourney since ORCS is going to be legal. He said no one usually does well at these "start-of-format" events but I think everyone still wants to go regardless. I'm not sure exactly who all wants to go, I just know I can't take everyone lol. My car ain't big and a lot of us aren't small either lol. I only want 4 people total in the car since we went with 5 last time and I know it was very uncomfortable for everyone in the back. We also need to figure out hotel and all that. I'm just praying that the weather doesn't turn to shit again.
Decklist:
Monsters: 25
3x Hyperion
3x Venus
3x Earth
3x Ball
3x Guide
1x Sangan
1x BLS
1x Gorz
2x TKing
1x Honest
2x Reaper
2x Maxx C
Spells: 7
1x Hole
1x Reborn
1x Heavy
2x MST
1x Mind
1x Book
Traps: 8
1x Dustshoot
1x Torr
1x Judgment
2x Warning
2x DPrison
1x Fiendish Chain
Extra:
Same-same
Side:
2x Cydra
1x Chimera
2x Compulsory
2x Black Horn
1x Fiendish Chain
1x MST
1x TKing
1x Smashing
1x Snowman
1x Bottomless
1x DD Crow
1x System Down
I tried out the Fiendish Chain instead of Bottomless, it was alright I suppose. I was afraid to go to 2 since I feared having it out and drawing into Gorz. I'm also not comfortable with not running Gorz, so I figured I should be OK with 1 Chain. I'll try out the Chain and will try bumping it to 2. I love DPrison too much to cut it, even though I've noticed it's been the trend online lately. I understand the reasoning, I just think it's too useful for our meta. I'll probably end up cutting the System Down from the side since the only players that play Karakuri now are Donut and Alan. Alan can always end up playing Frogs so that makes a useless card in the side. I'm not sure what to put in its place since I'm not sure how our area specifically is going to shift with ORCS, but I know more people are trying to pick up Inzektors since everything's low rarity. Probably Shadow Mirror so I can have something more for the DW match-up as well (ie Jeff at Lightning).
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