Locals Report 2-6-12; Northtown Comic Book Shop

So after class I have to stop by the bank to deposit a check and also go to the post office to pick up the Hornet that I ordered a while back. I pick up some Taco Time on the way to the post office since it's Crisp Meat Mondays, but the lady ends up giving me Crisp Beans instead. I didn't notice till after I drove off, and by the time I realized it wasn't worth the time to drive back. Crisp Beans are pretty good but Crisp Meats are so much better, lol. Sorry for the Taco Time tangent there.

Afterwards I head to Danny's to retrieve my stuff that I lent out to everyone for the regional, give Danny back his Wind-Up stuff, and trade off my extra Hornet. Shiggs is there and gives me a part of what he owes me and also picks up my spare Darkworld deck and 2 Dark Smogs. One of the Maxx C's I lent out didn't make it back but Nate offered to pay for a replacement. Not exactly sure what happened to it, but it is regionals - gotta watch everything like a hawk even if you're in a corner all by yourself lol. The Tour Guides I got back were pretty scratched up as well so I swap one out with Danny. Normally I wouldn't have a problem with it, but since I sold my set, it would be problematic if all I had were damaged ones to send. Danny and I get a match in, his Wind Ups vs my Inzektors after I tweaked my build to more of what I wanted to run for today's tourney. He wins 2-1 without siding. I head out after that since I still have homework to work on that's due today and needed to figure out what my build was going to be exactly. After being frustrated with how mine have been running, I just decide to go with an OCG list that did the best in the most recent, biggest tourney (one I saw was 300 people) with minor tweaks.

I leave about 4pm and get there around 4:25 I think. The store's alarm goes off as I walk in and I'm like "I don't think I stole anything going IN to the store lol". Only like Roy, Dwight, and Brandon are there and I ask them if anyone had a Giga-Mantis they'd trade, but unfortunately no one had any. Dwight is building X-Sabers and needed a Fulhelmknight so I just gave it to him and I trade a little with Brandon. I also get a match in vs Brandon, he was running old-school Zombies and actually beats me 2-1. At this point I'm like -_-' I have no faith in this deck lol. More people show, as well as Danny, Zach, Shiggs, and Alan, and I do a few trades here and there. Link shows up as well but didn't play Yugz for some reason. Sign-ups are about to end and I'm still scrambling to find a Giga-Mantis, but the judge/TO guy (forget his name) has one and trades it to me. Attendance is 16, but again it feels like there are a shitload of people there, I swear if they'd just sign up to play, ...!

Round 1 vs Aaron (Wind-Up)
Game 1 He never gets much going between MST'ing his Factories and Fiendish Chains and whatnot. Just control with Inzektors little by little and he's out of resources.
Game 2 At one point he specials Shark so I Maxx. I think he figured he had lost this one, so decides to go off with the combo and lets me draw a whole mess of cards. Surprisingly I can't do much with my massive hand but make sure he's basically down to topdecking and I discard Gardna and a Zephyros at end phase. He scoops next turn.
OO
Record: 1-0

Round 2 vs Paul (Dino Rabbit)
Never seen this guy before but he has a particular "noob" aura about him. I dunno I guess that's just me being judgmental. I traded 2 Kabazauls to him earlier but I guess I just didn't put 2 and 2 together since I had no idea what he was running at first.
Game 1 He turn 1 Rabbits into Dolkka which I end up Fiendish Chaining. I try to Torrential when he has 1 Zenmaines and I have 2 out, but he Dark Bribes it. Late in the game, the gamestate was his 2 Zenmaines and like 3 backrow to my 2 Zenmaines, Hornet with a Giga-Mantis equipped, with my whole backrow pretty much locked up between used Chains and Calls, and a dead Warning. My life is 750 after his early aggro and getting burned by Magic Cylinder (yea wtf). Turn after turn he sets a monster and I attack it with my pumped Hornet. He sets a Marshmallon of all things, I attack it, and get burned for the last 1000. I'm just like :S really?
Game 2 My side proved useful as he put in stuff like Shadow-Mirrors. I really don't remember this game too much but I win.
Game 3 Pretty sure he opened kinda bad, as most of my Inzektor plays go off without too much of a hitch. Last turn of the game I end-phase Compulse his lone monster to attack ftw and I think it was this game that I bring out DAD who puts in work as well.
XOO
Record: 2-0

Round 3 vs Corey (Scraps)
I'm glad Corey has been able to re-build his Scrap deck minus the blinged out stuff.
Game 1 I take a lot of damage early on, I'm down to like 1000 but I'm able to stabilize via Inzektors as he's basically topdecking. Fiendish Chains get played aplenty between the both of us. I think DAD seals the deal in the end.
As we're siding in he talks about how he has so much stuff for the Inzektor match-up, I'm just like alright. 
Game 2 I bring out Gorz and I end up Bottomless'ing a 2nd Scrap Dragon but he saves it with Scrapstorm or one of those cards. Inzektors pop his cards and I win.
OO
Record: 3-0

Round 4 vs Nate (Inzektor)
We weren't exactly sure what was going to happen in regards to having a top 4 play-off or not but we just go into our match. I honestly thought I was going to lose since he's had more experience with the deck since he just came back from regionals with it.
Game 1 He opens D-Fissure, Dustshoot, Tour Guide into Leviar for an Allure'd Centipede, who's equipped with Hornet and ready to pop my shit. Pretty much the nuts. I open pretty bad with Gardna, MST, Torrential, basically stuff that's just gonna get popped. I set Gardna and MST. He pops my MST which I use to destroy D-Fissure. He combos out too strongly though and pretty much pushes my poop in.
Game 2 I forget what he sided in, but I'm able to conveniently bring out DAD which wins the game. My sided-in Mind Control also proved to be useful.
Game 3 Fairly similar to Game 2 I believe. DAD was MVP for the day for me.
XOO
Record: 4-0

They decide to do Top 4 and I get paired against Roy.
Top 4 is me (Inzektor), Corey (Scrap), Roy (Dino Rabbit), and Nate (Inzektor).

Top 4 vs Roy (Dino Rabbit)
Game 1 He opens very strong and I literally open with Gardna and Zephyros. Figured I pretty much lost this, which I did. I rant a little about how I always draw the shit I want to mill.
Game 2 Pretty back and forth until the late game where we have absolutely nothing. I set a Maxx C since I'm very low on life. He doesn't draw any monsters and is at around 1300. He has 3 backrow, and I decide to just push and tribute summon for Giga-Mantis. He has no response to the summon or my attack so I surprisingly take it lol.
Game 3 Snowman Eater turned the tide of the game for me when he runs his Sabersaurus into it. Main 2 he Smashing Grounds it but I Book it since it was the only monster I had drawn into. I make a Zenmaines with it later. Late game Inzektor pops win the game.
XOO
Record: 5-0

Corey wins his match, and we sit down and shuffle up, he talks about how he'd like to just gtfo and I just look at him and am like "do you just want to split? I just wanna get the hell out of here too" so we agree to split lol. I get about $22 in credit since they don't have any packs worth getting.

Do a few trades with the people that are still there, and we get booted at 9 since that's when the mall closes.

Decklist: 41
Monsters: 20
3 Hornet
3 Centipede
3 Dragonfly
1 Giga-Mantis
2 Armageddon Knight
2 Card Trooper
1 Sangan
1 DAD
2 Maxx C
1 Zephyros
1 Gardna

Spells: 11
1 Hole
1 Reborn
1 Heavy
2 MST
1 Allure
1 Foolish
1 Book
2 Duality
1 Avarice

Traps: 10
1 Dustshoot
1 Torr
1 Solemn
2 Warning
2 Chain
2 Call
1 Limit Reverse

Extra
2 Zenmaines
2 Leviar
1 Giga-Brilliant
1 Leviathan
1 Utopia
1 Utopia Ray
1 Armory
1 Catastor
1 Brionac
1 Black Rose
1 Scrap
1 Trish
1 Chimera

Side
2 Cydra
2 TKing
2 Snowman
1 Reaper
1 MST
1 Dust
1 Compulse
2 Bottomless
1 Mirror Force
1 Mind Control
1 Smashing

As for the deck, to be perfectly honest, I felt like it ran like crap. A lot of my wins were sacky with DAD, who was pretty beast all night. It felt nice dropping him since no one expects it, I think the last time I dropped DAD was in the Blackwing era. Since I read that Lazaro went with an OCG-style build at Toronto regionals, I decided to do the best I could to make a similar one to the OCG since his list is nowhere to be found. I drew into Gardna and Zephyros way too often and never milled much of anything I wanted to with Trooper. It's like I'd mill a Dragonfly and Centipede, and draw into Hornet. I had to go Hornet for Hornet quite often, and I just don't like that play at all. Basically my assessment of "random mill" was on point, at least for me. Guess I just need to learn how to mill better lol.

Opening with Gardna I don't mind as much since I can Rank 3 with it, but Zephyros was completely useless. Maybe it'd be better when we get Lavalval Chain and the other Rank 4 guys. I think I went into Utopia only once though with an Arma Knight and a Chain'd TKing, so dunno if having more Rank 4s would prove Zephyros any more useful. I dunno, maybe I'm missing some kinda combo with it, and that's probably why they run Raigeki Break in their builds to be honest. Ah, the age-old Raigeki Break vs PWWB debate, lol. In a game where Zenmaines is a card, surely PWWB is better, right? Dunno. I never got to use Limit Reverse since it got MST'd the one time I drew it. Call was fairly handy, but with my shitty Trooper mills, it was never like "OMG I'm so glad I have Call down".

Giga-Mantis was OK and I never got to do this "loop" with it and Hornet. The extra ATK boost was alright, but it was just like whatever to me. Again, maybe I'm just not seeing the plays with it. Avarice was OK as well, and surprisingly it didn't conflict with DAD and the recursion traps and whatnot. It's fairly easy to get 5 monsters in there between Trooper, Inzektors, and XYZ'ing with them in general.

Not sure on what direction I should go with the deck, Zephyros is probably my first cut though until I find something online that tells me why it's good, unless I go with PWWB's. I really wish Lazaro's build or the top 4 ones from YCS Mexico would surface. I'm guessing Lazaro's won't surface til after Atlanta, if ever.

All in all it was a good tourney. Danny got rid of his Rabbits and picked up Dark World after seeing how well it did at the Seattle regional. He actually got Shiggs to just trade the deck I initially traded/sold to him lol. His Wind-Up is pretty much complete as well, and basically everyone is in agreeance that Wind-Up is the best deck for the remainder of the format. I'm gonna hold off until the ban list to make any purchases from this point forward, including the 3rd Maxx C. I get to mail off my Tour Guides tomorrow, which I will use the money to buy Magic stuff and finish out what I started with that. There are just so many people that play it around here now, and I figure if I can do well in Magic, I can always use what ever store credit I amass to simply buy Yugz product if I wanted to. It's time to dust off the Magic skills and put nubs in there place lol :)