So on Friday I went down to T&M around 4:30 for FNM, thinking it would start around 5:30 or so. Turns out they don't start til 7, so I was like :/ I traded the store some Veilers for the last 2 Phantasmal Image I needed, then sat there and tried to get Shiggs to come down to play in the tourney with me. He was like "if you're bored come over" and then Link messaged me right afterward to come over, so I was like sure I got too much time to kill. Head over and just chill for a bit, look at Shiggs' Magic deck (Zombie), play a few games and beat him and he doesn't want to play even though it's free for first-time FNM'ers at the store. I watch Link play some Super Mario RPG on the SNES (awesome game), I think we trade something for something, then I'm off to T&M again. My final record for the night was 3-2-1, finishing 17th out of 54 people. I thought it was kinda funny how everyone was like "hm I wonder why we have such a small crowd this week, usually it's like 70." Can't even get half that for YGO :/ After round 4 I was 3-0-1 and on the top table, but lost the last 2 to "random crap" and missed out on the prizing for top 8. Having to mulligan down to 5 doesn't help either, but I did gain a lot of experience. The tourney didn't get over til like 12:30 AM, which is just too freaking late for someone in my position. I think I'll try a smaller-sized tourney and one that starts earlier. Besides the inconvenience of the length, T&M's is not that big - 54 was tight, I don't want to even imagine there being 70 and trying to be able to walk around. Afterwards I go over to Danny's to crash for the night, I stay at his place for the weekend cuz I wouldn't be able to go to the box tourney on Sunday otherwise.
On Saturday Danny gets Shiggs and we all go to downtown Uncle's. Thankfully they hold the tourney for us to show up, even though I found it odd that they were Schroash'ing when their tourney usually starts at 1:30 anyway. We got there right around 1:15, with downtown being very bad for driving and finding a parking spot always next to impossible. I think the attendance was 10 or 12. The tourney ended up being me and Danny in the finals, we wanted to split but figuring out the logistics of who should get the win took a little thinking. We figured the people I played were worse than the people that Danny played so he gave me the win, we'd split the packs, and play for pride at his house later. We ended up playing at Link/Zach/Shigg's place later that night and I won 2-1 so I "won" the tourney lol. I think I got a Giga-Mantis and Evo-Force from my packs.
Saturday night we kick it at Zach's, Danny kicks my ass at Street Fighter (SNES) and I kick Zach's. It's crazy how slow that game is compared to like SF4 (and all its versions) and how much damage chip does. Nate and Dill Stewy show up, and later we all play Super Mario World which was very nostalgic and fun. I play some drunk YGO against Zach but I have no idea how our match turned out lol. Danny and I are starving so we leave and go get Jack, Nat and I watch this Paranormal Fact of Faked show, which was kinda cool, then I play some Mortal Kombat 3, get pissed at how cheap Shao Khan is, and go to bed.
Sunday is the box tourney, I show up around 10:30 after getting some donuts, water, and Tums from the 7-11. Mike, Isaac, and Paul are there, I chill with Paul a bit and offer him some donuts, talk about Magic and whatnot. I tweak my side a little bit, and learn that Puppet Plant only works on your turn and my mind was blown. All this time I thought you could do it on your opponent's as if it were any other hand trap, but I guess it got errata'd - playability of all those guys went down :( Still good but not nearly as I thought they were. We all have to play upstairs today since there's a Warhammer tourney downstairs, which sucks because it is hot as hell and only progressively gets worse throughout the day. More people show, the Yakima crew shows up, we're at 14 people and Joe needs 2 more people to get the tourney going. I had very little faith in anyone else showing up, but someone finally did at like 12:15 or so, so we started the tourney with someone getting the bye (Shiggs). 4 rounds, and prizing was only for top 2 (box for 1st 8 packs for 2nd), which I thought was kinda bad this time around. We all do get 2 packs though for entrance fee, so realistically that's like a whole box + some extra given out there.
Round 1 vs David (Inzektor)
This was a guy we had met at last Tuesday's T&M tourney, he's from Virginia but was here visiting, glad he could make it for the tourney.
I lose the die roll.
Game 1 - Fairly back and forth until I Solemn his Warning I believe and I'm able to go off.
Game 2 - This was more one-sided in my favor I believe. He's kinda down to topdecking while I have BLS to banish his Stardust and Gorz. He Mind Controls BLS to banish itself, next turn I can go off with Dragonfly.
OO
Record: 1-0
Round 2 vs Casey (Samurai)
One of the Yakima crew.
I win the die roll.
Game 1 - He goes for a Kageki + Hand play early, which I Torrential, and it's kinda downhill from there. He goes into a Barkion, which I don't really care about as I can just pop it and everything else the turn after.
Game 2 - He gets out an early Shi En and has plenty of Veilers to stop my play. I summon Dragonfly, Veiler, so I bait out Shi En with Dark Hole, then play Smashing and he's down to topdecking.
OO
Record: 2-0
We're given a 30 minute lunch break primarily because it's just so hot in the gaming room. Not trying to be a douche, but something needs to happen before summer rolls around if we're going to be expected to play upstairs, otherwise I'm just not going to play - that kind of environment is unplayable in my honest opinion. It's hotter playing in a closed room with no humidity than it was in Texas playing in a more open room with humidity, and I lived 2 hours from freaking Mexico. So I just chill downstairs and talk to Roy a bit about Magic, then decide I should go grab some Subway even though I wasn't too hungry at the moment.
We get underway again for round 3.
Round 3 vs Nate (Inzektor)
I don't think any teammates had to play each other in the prior rounds, so it was about time that we did so at this point in the tourney.
I lose the die roll.
Game 1 - I'm able to go for game with an end-phase Call on Dragonfly followed up with the Sword play.
Game 2 - I kept Duality'ing into BLS, it's like he wanted to be drawn but I had no light to play it. He is able to Sword play me for game.
Game 3 - I get a Sword play early on but I sit there and have a brainfart moment when I forget what I'm supposed to search for. I like knew I was supposed to grab Gigamantis, but realized I had messed up by not popping my Dragonfly and going for his Hopper w/ Hornet equipped instead. I finally figure out what the hell I'm doing but he has Gorz to protect himself. He makes a small comeback with a Dragonfly play but I have too much on the field and 2 Dragonfly in my hand to basically undo what he did on his turn.
OXO
Record: 3-0
Alan shows up for a little bit and gives me the money for the 3 Inzektor Swords I bought him but I haven't been able to go to the post office to pick them up yet. We play a few games until his wife calls and we all know how that ends up lol. Next round was starting anyway so he packs it up and leaves.
Round 4 vs Shiggs (Samurai)
I win the die roll.
Once again I had to face Shiggs in tourney, at this point I'm like 0-5 against him for the past 2 or 3 weeks worth of tourneys and more of my side is committed just for him now.
Game 1 - He starts pretty broke while I open poop. He brings out a Maestroke which I thought was pretty cool.
Game 2 - I'm able to OTK with the Sword play.
Game 3 - He brings out a Nat Beast but it doesn't matter since I pop it and OTK like the next turn.
I finally slayed the dragon!
XOO
Record: 4-0
So top 4 was me, Nate, Zach, and Shiggs. All Team O top, with Shiggs :)
Top 4 vs Zach (Wind-Up)
I win the die roll.
Game 1 - I make a risky play of setting Dragonfly and Reborn, figuring that if he looped me I'd be screwed so I might as well set my key cards. Rest of my hand was 2 Hornet, Centipede, and Giga I think. This pays off though when he summons Shark and attacks into my Dragonfly and sets one. I get something Warning'd so I'm able to flip Reborn and go for game.
Game 2 - He pushes my poop in with my only relevant play being a DD Crow on his Hunter.
Game 3 - He has me on the ropes but I'm able to steal the win when I have to MST my Giga to bring out a Centipede which he can't run over and I have a Dragonfly I searched for.
OXO
Record: 5-0
Top 2 vs Shiggs (Samurai)
We agreed to split the packs, as I thought the difference from 24 to 8 was really big. 16 each was a pretty good average. We played for pride and the title of winner. I put him down once, now it was time to kill him once again. Unfortunately, as they say, vampire fuck up your evening.
I win the die roll.
Game 1 - I don't do a point of damage on him. I try to hold him off with a Zenmaines but he brings out Tempo, Maestroke, some other derkas, and I can't deal with all that.
Game 2 - Starts off fairly back and forth and I am able to regain some control after I bait out his Stardust and Reborn it. He tops into Enishi to bounce the Stardust. He gets a Grandmaster out and I'm in topdecking mode now. I set a Dragonfly, figuring if I summoned he'd just bounce and I'd be dead. He attacks with Enishi first which gives me a turn. I top a Kinetic, thinking I'm in a good spot now, but I think he reads it as a Kinetic so he goes into a Nat Beast, attacks my Kinetic with it, and it was over.
Vampire fuck up my evening!
XX
Record: 5-1
We hang around for a while to do last minute trades, say bye to the Yakima crew, and I go over to Danny's once again. I offer to pay for him to go out to China Buffet in the mall but we end up getting pizza and just watching a Tyler Perry Madea movie at his place instead. My pulls were pretty good in terms of holo count, I got: Invoker, Exa-Beetle, Hornet, Blade Armor, Najasho, rest was crap but it was like 9 holos out of 16 packs for $10 so I can't complain.
Seems like you had a decent weekend :)
ReplyDeleteDo you plan to go to the Avacyn Restored Prerelease this upcoming weekend in your area?
What deck did you use in Magic? I'm guessing some kind of control with Blue since you mentioned picking up Snapcaster and Images (veiler for images is pretty good :D).
Also, does anyone in your locals (Yugioh) plan to use something else besides Inzektor and Six Samurai lol? It seems so boring to play Yugioh if everybody uses the same deck. I could see why it took a while to get 15 people to start that second Yugioh tourney you went to and why the Yugioh tournaments you play in have a very low turnout.
And geezus crist, 54 people playing Magic haha. We're just lucky to get like 20 people playing in FNM in Ketchikan :P, but then again, we're a small town.
Not sure about the pre-release. I've always liked sealed but not really interested in having product just for the hell of it. For now I'm strictly sticking to picking up singles I may need.
ReplyDeleteI played the UWB Delver deck that Finkel ran at whatever big event he top 8'd with, with like maybe a couple changes. Side was a little different since I was just working with what I had/hadn't ordered.
As for our locals, the top players play Inzektor or Windup, and Shiggs with his Sams. Everyone has pretty much ditched Dino, at least the team members. Everyone else though runs whatever so there's still a "decent" amount of diversity.
I blame the low attendance of the box tourney on the lack of notice. The previous one we got the word out like a month and a half in advance to give people plenty of time to adjust their work schedules, have money for entry, and whatnot. This time it was about a week, so even just the rest of the team like Danny, Epler, Alan, and Donut couldn't make it. Team Atomic didn't show up for what ever reason. It's also unbelievable how people can't afford the $3 to play in a regular locals, let alone $10 for a box tourney. We also get no support from the playerbase in Idaho that's 20 minutes away.
But the turnouts in general have steadily decreased for several years now; people move away, have families, lose interest, are playing something else, can't afford to keep up competitively, etc.