Locals Report 1-9-12; Northtown Comic Book Shop

Pre-Tourney
So the plan yesterday was for me to pick up Zach (either at his place or Rob's) and most likely pick up Alan. Alan texted me and told me he'd be at my place around 3, at first I was like nah I'll pick you up but then figured it'd be OK if he parked a little bit away from my house. I figured my wife would get paranoid if there was a random van parked in front of our house lol. It's about 2:50 and I get a call from the mortgage company who I had been trying to contact, so as the lady is talking to me I text Alan and tell him to just come in once he gets here since I'm on the phone. My phone call gets over at like 3:20 and Alan still hasn't shown up yet. I text him again asking him where he was and no response. 3:30 rolls around, nothing, I'm like well what do I do, I wanted to be at the tourney around 4:15 and I gotta pick up Zach. I tell Alan I'd be leaving in 5.

He still doesn't show so I pack up and take off, and I get about 2 blocks out and he calls me and we agree that we'd just meet at Rob's. I get to Rob's, and there's only like 6 parking spots at his apartment complex and they were all full so I just park in the middle of the lot in the middle of all the cars. Zach comes out and gets in my car and I tell him Alan would meet us here in 5. As we're waiting this guy gets into his car so I move so that he can get out, and he's mean-mugging me the whole time as he's leaving the parking lot. I'm just like what, I'm not gonna take your spot for too long. Alan shows up and I tell him that I probably wouldn't take this guy's parking spot as I couldn't guarantee the safety of his vehicle so he drives up the street and parks.

Traffic sucks at this time of day but we surprisingly get there exactly at 4:15. Show up and see a lot of people that I haven't seen for a while, like Brandon who was a short kid last time I saw him now he's like as tall as me. Alan has to pay his rent or something and asks me if I could drive him to the nearby Safeway to meet his landlord. I'm like "...alright" and as we step out I run into Butters, last time I saw him was at my wedding reception like 2 years ago we're both like holy shit!! I tell him I'd be back after taking Alan to Safeway.

I didn't know where the Safeway was, so we end up taking a wrong turn from the get-go so we take the longest way there possible. Imagine a square; instead of traveling on just one side, we go on the other 3 to get to where we needed to go. At least the ride back is short and we're back at the shop by 4:55. This is the last time I play "taxi service" I swear to god. Tourney attendance is 12, a pretty big drop from the 16 they apparently had last week, and considering we accounted for 3 ourselves.
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Tourney
Round 1 vs Sheldon (Dragunity)
Zach makes an obligatory Big Bang Theory joke lol. Never met this kid before in my life so had no idea what he was playing, until he started to pile shuffle his deck face up. I'm like O_o but was like alright, if he wants me to see his deck I can't complain? lol. I see Dragunity dudes, Ravines, and a Zephyros.
Game 1 is pretty fairly back and forth but I'm usually a turn or two ahead and my monsters are bigger and easier to bring out. After D-Prison'ing his Stardust it was pretty much over.
Game 2 I don't draw any S/T removal or Maxx Cs so he combos for dudes each round. I don't bother reading the Gay Bulge he has out and he tells me that it gets the attack boost if he removes a guy from play, so I assume he meant from the field, so I go for Leviathan and attack and he banishes from grave the 1500 guy. I'm like :/ really, he's just like oh sorry if you misunderstood me. I re-stabilize but he pops my stuff with his Dragunity effects each turn so I lose that one.
Game 3 I open with MST and of course he went turn 1 Ravine so I MST at the opportune time. He's like "don't I still get the effect?" I'm like "no, needs to be on the field at resolution just like Whirlwind." After that and a Trish it was pretty much mine.
OXO
Record: 1-0

Round 2 vs Corey (Scraps)
So I finally get the match I was looking for, since this guy had been talking trash and feeling himself the past few months since he started winning tourneys.
Not much to say for each game since they were both very similar. Basically Fiendish Chain wrecked me, his deck gets pluses turn after turn, and Scrap Dragon is a bitch to get rid of. Fiendish Chain my dude, then go into Scrap Dragon pop Chain to pop something. I hate how Scrap Dragon still gets to revive a monster even if the summon is negated. Normally you'd just say "well Bottomless or D-Prison it" but his sideboard plan had always been to side in Imperial Iron Walls. So, I went with siding in my S/T removal and also taking out stuff like Sorcerer and banish-based removal. It may have gotten to the point where he knows that people know what he sides in, so he may have dropped that gimmick altogether. I don't think I saw Wall in any of the games that he was playing in. He also has 3x Spy and a Descendant as tech which may sound janky, but in a meta where TKing attack into facedown is a common play, it's very good since the deck also has the 4-star tuners. I'll have to adjust my side to deal with this deck better.
XX
Record: 1-1

Round 3 vs Roy (Dino but only owns 1 Rabbit)
So I get down-paired as Roy is 0-2. I'm like wow my tie-breakers are that shitty, there probably won't be a next swiss round, and cutoff is top 4 so I'm probably done after this match.
He doesn't get much going in either match, at most he has a Sabersaurus or a TKing out. D-Fissure kinda hurts me but he doesn't know that XYZ materials go to the grave so eventually I'm able to fuel Hyperion and BLS.
OO
Record: 2-1

I don't make top 4 as expected and top 4 is Corey (Scraps), Link (Karakuri), Zach (Dino Rabbit), Alan (Karakuri). Even though I didn't make it I'm glad Alan did since that dude never gets to play cuz of his wife. I know had I played him I would've beat him but whatevs that's the nature of the pairing and tie-breaker system. I beat the guy that ended up getting 3rd at the last Seattle Shonen 2-0, wasn't even hard, but he made top and I didn't. As far as I'm concerned that SJC Doomcal should've been mine lol. Zach is able to make Guide-less Rabbit work but admits the deck would be much more bomb with them lol.

So it's Corey vs Alan and Link vs Zach and I watch Link and Zach's match. Link wins game 1 and game 2 I thought they were gonna get decked out as they had very few cards left. What a lonngggg game lol. There were some ruling issues and "don't know how this works" which may have contributed. I thought Zach was going to win game 2 but Link squeaks it through. For future reference, Spirit Reaper doesn't get destroyed when it's Compulsory'd. This probably would've impacted the game a lot in Zach's favor lol. Oh well.

Link vs Corey in the finals, and Corey wins 2-1. I'm just like wtf, how can this Scrap deck go through the whole team and win? Alan gets third and spends it on janky Hidden Arsenal 5, as the store's selection is pretty bad. They don't have any regular booster sets besides ANPR lol. Besides losing to Corey and him beating all the team members that were present it was a decent little tourney. I'm glad to have seen some people I hadn't seen in a very long time. Afterwards I call Danny and tell him the bad news and ask if he knows what tech is good against Corey's deck. He's like there isn't much, the best tech is you just have to beat him. I'm starting to think Compulsory is lookin' pretty good as bounce is about the only type of removal that's good against a combination of Scrap Dragon and Imperial Iron Wall. I know my side needs to be different than the one for Lightning as no one ran Anti-Meta as far as I could tell.

Usually my siding strategies have made me resort to switching to the 2x line-up of Agent monsters and Hyperion, similar to what Nicky Lacaille did with his main at his recent regional. This allows me to have a little more versatility and be slightly less susceptible to Leeching. With 3x of Earth, Venus, Hyperion, Ball, that already takes 12 spots of the deck and siding is rather difficult with that line-up. It's very "clumpy" if you will. As many others have mentioned, once you go into your first Venus and Gachi play, subsequent copies of Venus and Earth are rather meh. Dropping to 2 lowers the consistency of going into an early Venus+Gachi though, so there is that drawback. I'm also considering something like Frazier Smith's Agent build he posted on ARG, but I'd still want to run the Tour Guide engine. I'd probably just try to incorporate Fiendish Chains somehow since that card is all the rage right now. I probably wouldn't run it at Lightning but may try it for Northtown.