Farewell, Shineballs

My new main:

After building up my real-life Inzektor Agent build, drawing some hands, trying out some tweaks, and drawing some more hands, I've finally decided to say "screw this" with Agents altogether. After extensive shuffling and incorporating the styles of shuffling that I know (pile and Hindu), I think I opened with at least 1, drew into the 2nd very soon, or just straight-up opened with 2, Shineballs, about 9 out of 12 times. Not a large sample size I know, but that shit gets annoying quick! When it comes down to it, drawing into multiple Shineballs costs games. At the very least it puts you in a really shitty position, as they are never "live" cards. It's slightly mitigated if you run things like Herald of Orange or random things like PWWB, but those have largely fallen out of favor. I shouldn't have to run -1 cards just to make playing Balls not as bad.

There have of course been games where I've won even when opening double Ball, but in the majority of cases, I don't. I don't mean to sound arrogant, but I think I am too good to lose to less-skilled players simply because I drew into these vanilla 500/500's. If I open with 2, that's basically like starting with a 4-card hand. If you get turn 1 Dustshoot'd on top of it? Not good. I have been such a fan of Hyperion ever since I picked up Agents, but the Ball thing has just gotten to be too much for me. If there was just a way to NOT draw them or there was a feasible (ie not a minus) way of putting them back in the deck from the hand it'd be fantastic, however I guess my Balls just like to be in my hand :/ Like with the countless decks I've played in the past and have done well with, it's simply time to put them away for something else.

I've looked at countless OCG Inzektor lists, and I'm just not into stuff like Armageddon Knight, Mystic Tomato, Zephyros, or Card Trooper. Card Trooper's alright but the concept of "random mill" in anything other than LS was pretty much abandoned once the Plant lists became stabilized like last format or two ago, and I'm not in favor of it for this deck either. I don't even know what Zephyros is for lol. I'm guessing bounce used Fiendish Chains and Decrees from the side? I dunno, doesn't seem worth it especially if I'm not doing the mill. I don't have Veilers, hence the 3 T-Kings, and I couldn't think of another good light monster to main instead (Cydra isn't main-worthy IMO).

Still gotta work out my side, need to do the side-in/side-out process like I did with Agents to figure out what I want exactly. I'd like to put in some Rykos once the Dragon structure comes out since I've traded all mine off. I don't own a Giga-Mantis, but I'm really not sure if I'd be willing to cut anything if I owned one anyway. It's at 41 as it is, so I'd like to be able to cut something before thinking of adding cards. Without Veiler or tuners at all, I decided to go with a more XYZ-heavy Extra. I'll have a 2nd Zenmaines in there soon. The build was inspired by Makku-kun from Pojo/DGz.

Full list:
Monsters: 23
3 Hornet
3 Dragonfly
3 Centipede
3 Tour Guide
1 Sangan
3 TKing
1 BLS
1 Gorz
1 DAD
2 Maxx C
2 Reaper

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

Traps: 7
1 Dustshoot
1 Torrential
1 Solemn
2 Warning
2 Fiendish

Extra:
2 Zenmaines (1 w/ Stardust for now)
2 Leviair
2 Leviathan
1 Giga-brilliant
1 Utopia
1 Armory
1 Catastor
1 Brionac
1 Black Rose
1 Scrap
1 Trish
1 Chimera

Side
2 Cydra
1 Maxx C
2 D-Fissure
2 Doomcal
2 Black Horn of Heaven
1 Compulse
Some Trap Stun or Decree
Rest undecided

No Regionals (for me) QQ

Well unfortunately my wife's cousin died of cancer (I think) on Thursday last week, and the funeral is going to be on the same Saturday as regionals so I won't be able to go. The thing that sucks is that the funeral is in Seattle as well, so it's like "hey you've traveled all the way here but you can't play!" And of course I'll have to miss locals and won't be able to do any of my homework - awesome! Hopefully the team will be able to work something out so they can still go to the regional.

As for me, I'm going to continue unloading my extra stuff in anticipation for the ban list. I did just buy 3 Hornets but I may just hold onto them, and just ride the rest of the format out with Inzektor Agents. Now that I think about it, it kinda sounds like a horrible idea since both of those decktypes are probably the most likely candidates to receive hits lol. At least nothing in the Agent line-up is expensive or anything and Hornets aren't $80 Secrets. I got to playtest the deck a little last night against Alan on DN, it always seemed like I'd either draw into just the Inzektor stuff or just the Agent stuff and rarely a mixture. I think I need to tweak the build a little, but I'd also like to try it out in real life once the Hornets arrive to see if it plays out similar to how it has been online. I can admit getting the loop off for the first time was fun, but it's like "holy crap, these things are stupid lol". Kinda crazy to think we'll be getting the actual list in about 2 and a half weeks, and fake leaks in like 2 lol. I think they need to hit Wind-Up Loop but beyond that, I'm not sure if much of anything "needs" to get hit. Then again I haven't played much of the post-ORCS format.

Danny wanted me to mention that he'll be posting a video up on his YouTube sometime in the near future talking about buying collections and that kinda stuff, if anyone was interested in selling off theirs. I'll post a link once it's up.

Saturday Locals Recap; Lightning Comics

I'm straying from the usual naming convention this time since there was no actual tournament today.

My day starts off with me having to run a bunch of errands but after that I fill up with gas and head out to Lightning. I leave a little bit earlier just so I can try and get some trading/testing in. I show up, and the place is absolutely packed with Magic players. I talked to Nate last night about how I thought it'd be a small YGO tourney since that's what happened last time there was a Magic Pre-Release/Release (I never know which one it actually is, so just gonna call them Sneaks from now on). There were apparently 54 people that entered to play the Sneak..that is beyond anything I've seen in the time that I was playing Magic. I asked Big Mike if we'd get to do a tourney or anything and he said he wasn't sure so I traded with a few people and just sat around.

Nate and Donut come in and surprise me, and I buy Nate's Hornet+2x Dragonfly for $20. I've been perusing the Agent thread on DGz and seems like Inzektor-Agents are getting some pretty good hype, so thought I'd try it out as well. I ordered 2 Hornets last night so they should be in for Regionals if I want to go that route. Anyways Donut and I playtest a bit w/ siding. Turns out that because there are so many Magic players, there won't be a Yugz tourney and we'd also have to give up our seats. Again, first time I've ever heard/seen this kinda thing before - it almost made me just want to sign up for it lol, I should still be good enough at Limited/Sealed to do OK.

So the Magic players are finally ready to start their event and we all pack our bags to gtfo. I notice all the YGO players standing around the center island thing the store has, basically a 4-sided display thing of comics. So I stand with them and I jokingly ask Mike "so why can't we just play on this thing and have like a standing tourney?" Then he takes it up a notch and starts talking about doing a Battle Royale, I was like "like Battle City? We can just walk around and play each other." lol. Anyways he describes his idea to everyone and surprisingly enough people are interested in it so everyone gets out their mat and puts it on top of the glass shelf/display. Basically there was room for 10 people to play and it's every man for himself and everyone plays against each other, with everyone starting at 14000 LP. Cards like Dark Hole and Heavy were MVP since those hit all players lol. Oh shenanigans.

Since not everyone could play, Mike decided to do 2 rounds, with top 3 from the first round playing against/with the top 3 from the second. First round players were: Me (TGU Agent), Nate (Inzektor Agent), Donut (Karakuri), Random Gadget/Level3-Normal guy, Zach (not Team O, ls), Eric (Random Macro), Ross (Evolsars), Some guy I never seen before (Dino Rabbit), Melissa (Naturia/Tengu Plant hybrid?), and Jeff (DW).

The first guy that got knocked out was the guy playing Dino Rabbit. I don't remember how it happened, but everyone saw his hand of like Tour Guide and Rabbit and decided to gank on him lol. Was kinda surprised to see someone that's not on Team O with Guides. I can't even describe all the plays in this "battle royale" because it was so incredibly long. I think we hit the 2 hour mark by the end. At first I formed an alliance with Jeff and Melissa, making sure Jeff would have his Grapha to be able to use. For some reason his Grapha was the whore of the match because it seemed like everyone had Reborn'ed it lol. Melissa helped me keep my Hyperions alive against Ross who had this Dino XYZ that destroyed Special summoned monsters and crap. At the end it was Me, Nate, Donut, Gadget guy, and Melissa left. I cleared Gadget guy's Gravity Bind so that Nate could swing on him next turn to knock him out. At this point I had to turn-coat on Melissa since Nate's my teammate after all and I wasn't gonna attack Donut lol. I felt bad since she had helped me through the whole match, what a dick move! This all kinda reminded me of Survivor with alliances and back-stabbing and stuff, it was actually a lot of fun and there wasn't a person that played that wasn't smiling like the whole time.

So afterwards I go call Danny and tell him there wasn't even a tourney, and I was thinking of dropping from the Battle Royale thing cuz the next round was probably gonna take another 2 hours, and then there'd be the final round. I have way too much homework to be wasting my time on this crap, if I'm gonna spend my time might as well do some actual testing. So I go tell Mike that I want to drop and ask him if I could give Melissa my spot in the top 3 since she finished 4th. He says yes so in the end I did the right thing lol.

I get to Danny's and watch him and his team dominate on MW3 then we playtest like 10 games with sides. After seeing Tour Bus in action in Dino Rabbit, that shit's pretty good. It helped a lot in re-using Dinos for Rabbit. We also talked about ARG's article site and how good it was. Doomcal is getting better as the format progresses, check Frazier's article for more info/background.

Everyone's looking forward to Regionals, Danny decided he needs the 3rd Guide after all so he gave me some stuff to sell off so he can buy one. Hopefully if I order one it'll be here by the regional..not sure if it'll happen though :/

Lots of homework so I may not be able to play on Monday :( Sucks driving out all the way to Lightning just to get swarmed out by the Magic players lol.

E-Hero Shining Reprint

Just a small post, just noticed that the Premium Collection tin thing got updated with some spoilers.
http://www.yugioh-card.com/en/products/tin-pc2012.html
Confirmed cards include:
E-Hero Shining
Number 34 Terror Byte (Alternate Art)
Meteor Dragon (Normal monster)
Meteor B. Dragon (Fusion)
Ma'at (Effect monster)
Masked Hero Acid (Fusion)
Void Ogre Dragon (Synchro)
Quick-Span Knight (Effect)
Kagemucha Knight (Effect)
Photon Sanctuary (Spell)

Each tin comes with a Shining and Terror Byte guaranteed, along with 4 Secrets and 8 Supers. Set is 23 cards total. Release is March 20.

I guess I ... may pick up one? I've always wanted to play Hero as a fun deck but never bothered trying to get Shinings because I knew it'd eventually be reprinted so that Europe could have a legal version of it to play. Whether I pick up any beyond 1 will probably depend on the rest of the set. I'm guessing it'll be full of random crap though. I may not even bother and just try to pick up Shining as a single.

Why Tour Guide Won't Get Hit, & Starter Deck 2012

Shriek has put up the info for the TCG version of Starter Deck 2012, which has it listed for an April 17th release date. The OCG gets it in March 17th. I find this awesome since I think the release date difference in the past has always been like 2-3 months for products. I hope the trend of decreasing the release date gap continues. I honestly had no idea what was supposed to be in this deck so I decided to look it up. Most of the cards aren't leaked even for the OCG version, but besides the Utopia reprint, this guy caught my eye. I saw a thread on DGz about this guy but I guess I just didn't put 2 and 2 together, in that this card was coming out so soon:

Drum Devil Tenten Tempo (English name will most likely be different)
Earth
Fiend/XYZ/Effect
Rank 3
1700/1000
2 Level 3 Monsters
Once per turn: You can detach 1 Xyz Material from this card to target 1 Xyz Monster your opponent controls; detach all Xyz Materials attached to that target, and this card gains 500 ATK for each Xyz Material detached from the target.

This card is basically a Tour Guide-able out to the majority of the XYZs that are currently played. As another powerful generic Rank 3, Tour Guide's playability increases even more. Zenmaines w/ 2 Material? Who gives a shit. Take away the materials, pump this guy to 2700, and swing over.

At Monday's tourney after I had played Sheldon, he said something like "well at least there aren't going to be any more Rank 3's any time soon and Tour Guide will probably get hit on the ban list." Well, the first statement is obviously false as we can see above. In the same Starter deck there's also a guy called "String Devil Muzumuzu Rhythm" who's also a generic Rank 3 but I'd say not as good as Tempo, but still very good.

When it comes to the issue of Tour Guide and the ban list, people seem to be so adamant that it's going to get limited to 1. Now I don't have a crystal ball or anything and can't really 100% say that it is or isn't, but I'll try to look at the big picture and break down my logic as to why I don't think it's going to 1 in March:

1) XYZ is the mechanic Konami is trying to promote
Danny likes to mention this one a lot. We also saw this from our current ban list with the banning of Royal Oppression and probably why Book is still at 1. As long as people have the ability to (somewhat) freely XYZ summon, and they release more and more powerful XYZ, people will buy into it and that equals money for Konami. Tour Guide is undoubtedly the best XYZ-enabler in the game, so why would they hit it, decreasing the accessibility of XYZ Summon'ing? Don't make it harder to XYZ summon if that's what you're trying to sell - common sense.

2) OCG still doesn't have it
This is also an important point, and everyone's go-to response starts out with "But Allure". Looking at Wiki, the TCG-only semi-limit on Allure happened in May 2008. In September 2008 it went back to 3, then to 2 in March 2009. To 1 in March 2010. So the go-to TCG-OCG disparity that occurred was basically about 3 and a half years ago. Has there been any other glaring differences or hits on TCG exclusives after that? Not to my knowledge. So why out of the blue, when the last occurrence was 3.5 years ago, would they do some kind of TCG-only hit, taking into consideration #1?

2b) They haven't had a chance to milk OCG for it
Now a lot of the time they get our exclusives in an easier-to-obtain form via the "Extra Pack" which always releases around the middle of September. Why hit something when the OCG hasn't had a chance to play with it yet? Leaving it at 3, I'm assuming more people will buy this product to obtain them (as easy as they may or may not be to get) so they have their chance to play with 3 Guide. More sales = more money, obviously.

3) "They" make the list
I think this may ultimately be in question, but it "seems" like basically Konami in Japan has the majority of the say (98 cents) in what happens with a ban list, while Kevin puts his 2 cents toward that dollar. A lot of the times this is why we always have the "wtf why'd they hit that?" reaction when we initially see the list. It's because certain cards/decks are impacting the OCG too much.

4) No TCG reprint yet
Tour Guide is the most sought-after card in the game. Now let's think about it this way..if it goes to 1 and they decide to reprint it in the 2012 Collector's tins, how many tins will people have to buy to get the max allowable per deck? 1. How many if it's still at 3? 3, obviously. Which costs more, 1 tin or 3? 3, obviously. The point I'm trying to make is that if they leave it at 3, their potential profits are going to be three-fold and potentially more. If people want two playsets, they'll have to buy 6 tins vs just 2. I doubt people are buying EXVC boxes in order to obtain Guides, so obviously they're going to want a secondary method of "milking" us via a direct reprint. I guess the secondary method could technically be seen in the Warning tins with having 2 EXVC boosters. So I guess the reprint will be their tertiary method. The pattern has always been: make Secret rare broken card -> reprint it a year to 2 later -> hit it
Hitting it now would deviate from their usual pattern.

I think those are the major points in why I think Tour Guide won't get hit this coming list. They can always hit Sangan though, which is Tour Guide's best little helper. I don't think it'll make too much of an impact though as we do have relatively decent alternatives and we're continuing to get more good generic Rank 3's.

Locals Report 1-23-2012; Northtown Comic Book Shop

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).

Upcoming Seattle Regionals...good weather plz?

It's been snowing like crazy here in the Pacific Northwest the past few days, I had to shovel my driveway twice the other day cuz it snowed so much. It's not as bad here as it is in the neighboring areas though, and we didn't even get school cancelled, even though it seems like every other school in the area did lol.

There is an upcoming Regional in Seattle on like the 4th of February. Seems like the team is interested in going and want me to come along (most likely to drive). The problem is that the pass around Seattle is absolutely miserable around this time of year. Looking at Seattle's 10-day forecast though, it seems like mid-40's and rain. If it's like this until the Regional I wouldn't mind going, as rain doesn't bother me all that much. I'm not too sure on the meta though or what to expect. I'm guessing Inzektor and Wind-Up on top of all the other stuff that's been doing good lately like Plants and Rabbit. If I didn't have Veilers for the first two decks, would it even be worth going? Would I just stick with Agents since that's all I've played this format? Would I even have time to learn a new deck even if I wanted? Lots to think about and so little time!

Nate texted me and told me he went 2-0 in all his matches today until the finals against Sjan (silent S) running Inzektor, where he lost 1-2. I guess Big Mike made ORCS legal a few days ahead of time lol. I'm guessing Nate was playing Agent since he texted me questions about Hyperion during the day and commented how Gachi didn't do much against Inzektor. Is the deck as annoying as everyone makes it out to be? I wouldn't know as I haven't played against an "actual" one. I'm looking forward to playing on Monday at Northtown :)

Other than the usual school and work I've been busy selling off Rob's stuff to Troll and ARG. He's not quitting, just wants the extra cash. He has all the Rabbit stuff minus 1 Dolkka and a part of me thinks I should buy it off of him, but I've always been against big purchases so close to a ban list. Speaking of list, we'll probably get our leak in less than a month! I always hate the time period between like Feb/August 13 to the leak because of all the fake scans and "I heard this from this person who knows someone who works for Konami". I'm usually a sucker for the first one that actually looks real. Since I can read Japanese, I can tell when something clearly doesn't match up. I remember seeing a fake one for our current list, all the Japanese matched up, so I thought it was real but turned out it was just another fake. Either way I'm anticipating the list, even though I'm not anticipating having to scour through all the complaints from the forum folk lol.

Oh I've also been working on the "Big Book of Rulings", I've already used about $5 of my university print credit, at 5 cents a page I guess I've printed about 100 pages worth and know I have a lot more to do. I'm probably gonna have to buy a bigger binder lol. I get to the point where I draw a blank about what popular scenarios occur or what card I should look up. I think it's a pretty nifty thing to have though and I know it'll be helpful for us locally since there are a lot of "I'm not sure" replies from our tourney judges.

Anyways that's about it for today. My 3 ORCS boxes should be in by Tuesday, looking forward to that and as stated earlier, Monday tourney. Oh we should be getting our shirts in next week as well :)

Wow, why so serious?

Sorry the first paragraph here isn't YGO related, but a funny thing happened this morning as I was driving to school. There's this girl going like 40mph (in a 55) on the one-lane freeway out to the university. Last night it snowed in our area but I'd say the accumulation is like a whole half inch, if that. Anyways I'm behind her and all the cars ahead of her are long gone. I'm like wtf, seriously? She does the "random slam-on-brakes" move and I'm like oh hell nah and flash my brights at her once. At this point there's like a mile of cars that I could see behind me. We get to where it branches into 3 lanes, 2 going forward and one being a right-turn only. I get into the left and she gets into the turn-only lane and flips me off. I'm like "are you for real??" She's the one driving worse than a grandma and has the gall to flip me off? I flip her off right back and had three-quarters of a notion to go and follow her and tell her she has no idea how to drive, but I decide it's not worth my effort. I get stopped at a red light and this girl pulls up on the right of me with her window rolled down so I do as well, and she's like "I know that bitch, why the hell was she going so slow?" No idea...lol. I'm not into law that much, but I believe Washington State law says that you can technically be given a ticket if you go 15 below the speed limit since you're considered a road hazard at that point. I believe there's also some rule that says if you have more than 8 cars behind you because you're going under the speed limit, you're also considered a road hazard. I'm a firm believer in that I think state driving exams should be much harder, everyone should get their license taken away, and have to pass the harder exam to receive one. Between inherently stupid people and the old people that just can't see for shit anymore, and the truck drivers that just have to pass each other and fuck up the whole rest of the flow of traffic, there's just too many dangers on the road these days.

Anyways, I think I'm finally going to start working on this thing I've been meaning to do for a very long time; that is, what I call "the big book o' rulings". Whenever I go to a tournament it always seems like no one has good enough internet to be able to search for rulings when issues pop up, nor is there a person that's just that good with rulings knowledge. Back when I played in Texas I always used to have print-outs of Pojo Q&A things for things that affected the deck I was playing at the time. When Starlight Road was released, I made sure to have a printout of how it interacted with something like Royal Oppression, because you can believe that that came up a lot! Also if something came up and I didn't know the ruling for it, I made sure to look it up after the tourney and print it out to have for the future. I'm sure everyone's been screwed at some point in time because of ruling disputes and the "judge" not knowing the correct answer. You sit there and are 100% sure you're right, but have no proof to justify your answer. By having print-outs, I could always state to people that at least I had written proof to rationalize my thinking, while they were pretty much talking out their ass.

The past 2 weeks I've even had to explain to people why if Dandylion is used for an XYZ, you still gets tokens if it's detached. Same thing with Tour Bus. People always start off their counter-argument with "But Sangan," it's like uh, no, completely different. Similar issues pop up when opponent has D-Fissure on the field. For these things I'd like to just have a print-out that clearly states what happens and not have to bother trying to explain these things all the time.

I think the biggest downside to the whole UDE -> Konami transition was the loss of the official rulings database that UDE had. Konami does some official rulings for new cards as they get released, but in the majority of cases it's simply not enough. Realistically there are too many intricate interactions between cards for Konami to make a whole database of everything, and since they don't have anything, people usually resort to Wiki or like I mentioned, Pojo Q&A. A lot of people don't take Pojo seriously (and yea, I've gotten to the point where I don't even go into Gossip anymore), but for their Q&A section, I think it gets the job done. If you see an answer to a ruling question by guys like ness00 and Redshift (the only 2 names that come to my mind), then it's most likely safe to say you got your answer. I don't know those people in terms of what their judging credentials are but usually after those people post, that particular thread dies out since no one else needs to answer lol.

My "book o' rulings" will probably just be a 3-ring binder with 26 tabs for each letter, and just putting whatever I find in there accordingly. First things on my list: Reaper vs Compulsory/Brionac, Dandylion/Tour Bus XYZ, various Thunder-King rulings (inherent sp. summons).

Locals Report 1-16-12; Uncle's Games

Earlier in the day I spent quite a bit of time organizing the stuff I bought from Kim and throwing away the shitty rares and commons that I knew I wouldn't be able to do anything with. I also tweaked my deck and caught up on some TV shows. Alan and I decided that we'd try going to Uncle's to see how things were over there. I also wanted to talk to Andrew and see if he'd consider changing the day of his tournament because this whole "all tourneys everywhere are on Monday" thing is just getting ridiculous.

I pick up Alan around 4, grab some Jack in the Box, and he tells me that he's going to play Lancer Frogs and asks if he could borrow 3 Diva. I was like sure. I knew about the deck but didn't really know what it did besides go into Gachi and play Monarchs, he told me what the Lancer guy did and I was like hm seems kinda cool. We get to Uncle's and absolutely no one is there. We're like well we're pretty early so I finish eating and we playtest a little. We play with no side and I think he ends up beating me like 3 out of the 4 games. The deck's plays are so annoying lol. We weren't sure if Ronintoadin and Treeborn started a chain or not though, I text Mikey since he's played Monarchs forever and he says he didn't think so, so that screwed up my attempt at Maxx C plays.

For future reference(s):
Ronintoadin does in fact start a chain: "Ronintoadin has an ignition effect that special summons it. Removing the Frog monster is a cost to activate the effect. DD Crow (and thus also Maxx C) may be chained to that effect and remove Ronintoadin from play (draw in Maxx C's case)."
"When an opponent activates Treeborn Frog's effect, you can chain D. D. Crow in your hand to Frog's effect, since Crow is Chain Link 2 and no other links go on, then Crow will remove Frog and Frog's effect will resolve without effect..."

Basically the problem was him confusing Toad/Frog with something similar to Machina Fortress' summoning condition (which doesn't start a chain).

So anyways, some randoms show up and watch us play. One of the guys asks me if I need a Tour Bus and I'm like sure. He asks if I have a Horn of the Phantom Beast and I'm like "what the hell why is everyone looking for that card now?" Alan and I get done playing and I try to trade with the guys, but the guy with the Tour Bus pretty much only wants cash. I ask him how much and he says $80, we try to come up with a deal throughout the evening but in the end I say no since I figure its value is gonna keep dropping and since I'm getting 3 boxes, if I pull one, I figure I'd probably just be stuck with an extra Bus and one of which I over-paid for. I told him "nah, I'll wait a week for its price to drop in half" lol.

Time goes by and another guy shows up, so there's a whole 6 people and it's pretty much 5:30 at this point. Link calls me and is like "hey if you guys wanna come (to Northtown) you still can" but I tell him no since we wouldn't get there till like 6 and I didn't wanna screw up the whole tempo of the tourney. Turns out all the guys that went to Uncle's last week ended up going back to Northtown. Lol kinda expected that to happen but I told Link to tell them to make up their freakin minds cuz this shit is ridiculous. We end up doing a tourney anyway, as the guy said that he can technically do one with 6. I guess Andrew doesn't run the tourneys anymore as he wasn't there.

Round 1 vs Alan (Lancer Frogs)
So this is like the 3rd tournament in a row where I get paired against a teammate, gotta love these stacked pairings!
Game 1 he opens pretty poorly and just opens with a Poison Draw Frog in attack mode. I Book it and run it over so he doesn't get the draw. After that Hyperion takes control of the game, and I put a Shine Ball in attack mode to bait him to attack it, he does, so I Honest to inflict the last 500 of his LPs.
Game 2 He Caius' my guy but I have Gorz which takes control. The last turn of the game he has a Gachi in def mode with 1 material and 2 cards in hand to my Gorz, token, Gachi w/ 2 materials, Shine Ball, and a set Compulsory and like 3 cards in hand while he's at 6900. I decide to go all-in cuz I don't think he has Gorz, so I Compulsory the Gachi, tribute Ball for Cyber Dragon, special Hyperion, and swing for game.
OO
Record: 1-0

At this point I figure I have the tourney. The problem is though that after round 1 there'll be 3 undefeateds so one person will obviously get down-paired. I joke that if the person that got down-paired loses, well that's pretty much gonna screw tie-breakers and the tourney would also be over after the 2nd round lol.

So I obviously am the one that gets down-paired.
Round 2 vs Carl (Gusto)
I had very little clue as to what this deck tries to do, even after playing against Epler on DN who tried running it.
Game 1 Fairly back in forth in terms of LP count but I get in a few Reaper hits to completely swing advantage in my favor. Late-game Hyperion seals the deal.
Game 2 He uses Bribe to stop a few plays and is actually pretty ahead of me in life but I honestly don't care that much. I Black Horn his synchro and I pretty much win with Gorz and Catastor from there.
OO
Record: 2-0

Round 3 vs James (Fatty Dragons)
I get confused as to what the hell this deck is called now. Hopeless? Disaster? Is there a difference? Whatever it is, it focuses on REDMD and other big dragons (notably Galaxy-Eyes).
I joke with the guy about how every time I play against these decks on DN they always turn 1 Future Fusion and I lose if they do. He's like yea, Future helps a lot.
Game 1 He doesn't get much going as the only minuses on my LP are for 2 Balls via Venus. 2 hits from Venus and then Venus + Hyperion win the game.
Game 2 He opens with REDMD + Galaxy Eyes and I take it all but Gorz out on the Galaxy. From there I Venus for Gachi, bring out Hyperion, and am stabilized. He's down to topdecking tributes and I poke them away with Reaper. Which in hindsight might've not been a good idea cuz all it takes is a recurse of REDMD for him to be back in it.
OO
Record: 3-0

We play a few more casual games since no one else is close to being done and I stomp the guy some more lol. Galaxy Eyes is actually pretty decent since my deck XYZs so much. Pretty much says screw you to Gachi and Zenmaines.

So I win, Alan beats his last round opponent and gets 3rd. He receives 1 pack and pulls a Shard of Greed. I receive 4 packs and pull a Fengshoung or whatever that bird thing is. Sooo awesome lol. Considering there were only 6 people, I thought 4 packs for first was actually pretty decent. I don't think I can keep going to Uncle's though, since if Alan and I hadn't shown up there wouldn't have been a tourney and I doubt Alan would want to come back. Easy competition and good prize support proportionally, but there needs to be enough competition to have a tourney at all. I do a few trades and end up picking up a set of Guaibas for an Ulti Cerato. Guaibas are incredibly hard to find around here so I was happy to obtain 3 all at once. Link texts me later that night and tells me he won, beating Ian in the finals. I think their attendance was 16. Link got $20 in credit for first, so if you compare that value with what I got (basically $16), that's actually in my favor by a lot proportionally.

Decklist: 40
Monsters: 25
3x Hyperion
3x Venus
3x Earth
3x Ball
3x Guide
1x Sangan
2x TKing
1x Honest
2x Reaper
2x Maxx C
1x BLS
1x Gorz

Spells: 7
1x Hole
1x Reborn
1x Heavy
2x MST
1x Book
1x Mind

Traps: 8
1x Dustshoot
1x Torrential
2x Warning
1x Judgment
2x DPrison
1x Bottomless

Side:
2x Cydra
1x TKing
1x MST
1x Dust
1x Snowman
2x Black Horn Heaven
2x Compulsory
1x Smashing
2x Fiendish Chain
1x DD Crow
1x Mirror Force

I never realized how much Solemn Judgment was helpful until today. I also realized how much I missed Book. I did miss going Tour Guide into Night Assailant, but my objective was to cut the gimmicky stuff, make it more "stream-lined", and maximize effectiveness while also maintaining 40 cards. After trying out 2 Earth/Hyperion and playing today with 3 of them again, the difference was like night and day. I could consistently drop Hyperion when I wanted, and with the combination of Judgment I was able to Trish more often. I didn't have the problem of drawing into too many Balls, but realistically that's not an issue of the deck but more just about probability and shuffling and whatnot. Either way, I'm liking it.

Last night I thought to myself "so if they hit Agents, how far would they need to go for me to not play it any more?" I decided that if either Earth, Venus, or Hyperion went to 1, wouldn't play it. If either of them went to 2, would probably still play it, but if at least 2 of them went to 2, wouldn't play it.

My hardass professor basically has 4 assignments due between now and Monday, which really sucks. I have work this weekend as well so I won't be playing at Lightning. I apologize that my recent posts have simply been tourney reports, but with trying to keep my New Year's resolution, I guess it just comes with that lol.

Nate's ORCS Sneak Peak Report

Hey it’s Nate again. I was reading mike’s latest blog and decided to do another one of my own, but this time a tournament report. 

Before I jump in I just want to say that as soon as I can I will be starting back up with Youtube. The last channel didn’t turn out how I planned it. This one will be straight Team O. Deck profiles, tournament matches and lots of other goodies. I just need to get another camera first…

… Anyway, moving on to the report. I woke up in the morning extremely tired, but in a good mood. It had been a long time since I’d played in a sneak so I had been looking forward to it. I put a lot of time into my deck, and felt extremely confident in it. After hours of playing and tweaking the deck felt like mine. My final list turned out to be:

Monsters: 19

2x Green Gadget

2x Red Gadget

2x Yellow Gadget

3x Machina Gearframe

3x Machina Fortress

2x Machina Force

2x Card Trooper

2x Scrap Recycler

1x Effect Veiler

Spells: 10

1x Monster Reborn

1x Heavy Storm

1x Dark Hole

1x Pot of Avarice

1x Limiter Removal

1x Creature Swap

2x Mystical Space Typhoon

2x Pot of Duality

Traps: 11

1x Bottomless Trap Hole

1x Dimensional prison

1x Compulsory Evacuation Device

1x Call of the Haunted

1x Starlight Road

1x Trap Dustshoot

1x Torrential Tribute

1x Mirror Force

1x Solemn Judgement

2x Solemn Warning

At first I didn’t want to put up the list but I really don’t mind. If it helps anyone then good, if not oh well. But I’ll talk about the deck more another time, but for now let’s move one.

I show up to find Epler and Mike already there. After some mediocre pulls and a lot of trading we start the tournament.

Round 1: Mike (Agents)

I’ll be honest and say that I don’t remember a whole lot. All three games were good. Game three end with me flipping up penguin soldier, bouncing his 2 set monsters. Then reborn, discard fortress and fortress to bring one out, discard force for the other, and attack for game.

1-0

Round 2: Gomez (Karakuri)

Going into this I was a little frustrated to be playing another tough player in a row, but I wasn’t too worried because I won most of our fun games. The round went the same as most of our fun games, except better because I sided into three compulsory. Game three I simply compulsed synchros and poked with gadgets.

2-0

Round 3: Epler (T.G. w/ Tigers)

What? Another match against a teammate? I hate playing teammates, makes winning bitter-sweet. From game one I was a bit worried because his deck is simply more control than mine. One of our games I opened four gadgets, Avarice and Reborn… lost that one. Game three came down to too many gadgets and not enough spell/ trap support. Usually scrap recycler will get rid of my unwanted gadgets, but I never drew him. Epler played well and I lost, simple as that.

2-1

Round 4: Zach (Inzektor)(Not Team O)

Not to be a dick but this match was too easy. He hasn’t really learned how to play well yet, and is usually easy to out play. Game one I won with gadgets and game two was over turn two. First turn I opened with Compulsory, Gearframe, Limiter and Duality. I duality for a Gearframe, summon, summon it, add Fortress, attack his down and set Compulsory. He ends with just another set monster. I compulsory, summon Gearframe, summon Fortress and Limiter for game. He replies with “oh yeah, I love that old combo.” You mean Limiter and a machine? Haha, made me giggle.

3-1

Round 5: Jory? (Jurrac)I think her name is Jory, or something close. I’m bad with names. Anyway, there were enough people that we needed a round five of swiss, and I was all for it. The way I saw it, it was just another round until I won the tournament. Anyway this was another two game round. Game one she got out Laggia turn one, but after a long game scrap recycler got me out of a terrible hand. Game two was extremely similar to the one with Zach. Right before I played the limiter her brother came over and asked how she was doing. She replied with “well... oh, not good.” She played pretty well just not quite enough.

4-1

Round 6: Mike (Agents)

Finally top four. Epler had to leave so he scooped to Gomez, but I was in for another hard few games. Game one he was able to win. I just didn’t have the answers I needed. Games two and three Compulsory put in work. Game two I creature swapped his Gachi and game three I had limiter for game. All good games, Mike played extremely well.

5-1

Round 7: Gomez (Karakuri)

Yay, finals. I was very confident going into this match. I knew I had a good match up and that my side deck would play a huge part in who won. Game one he was down to top decking, one attack away from zero and he topped Cyber Dragon to contact with my gadget for game. Game 3 was very long again but this time I top deck Cyber Dragon.

Then it was on to game three. Gomez is going first and mentions how it would be funny if this game was won with Cyber Dragon also. I’m super concentrated, and don’t pay too much attention. By this time we have an audience, which I love. This is why I even play, to win in situations like this. I start off with a very control hand, including Cyber Dragon. For quite a few turns the game goes: gadget, control, gadget, control. He makes a push and get out Stardust and two Burriedo. I Dimensional Prison the Stardust and take the two attacks for his 2800 pigs. I special cyber dragon, contact for a 3000 and the game is mine from there.

6-1

Overall it was a very good day, lets recap:

Pros:

• Winning a mat in the raffle
• Good trades all day
• Picking up the Veilers I need because they’re cheap now
• All three Team Overload members made top 4, and our only losses were to each other
• Andie brought in four pizzas and monsters
• Winning the tournament

Cons:

• Epler having to leave
• Danny didn’t get there in time to enter

ORCS Sneak Peak Report 1-14-12; Lightning Comics

So my wife wakes me up earlier than I wanted to but I'm glad I did since it gave me more time to tweak my deck and whatnot. My plan is to leave much earlier than normal since it is the sneak peek after all. I've decided to sell off my Karakuri stuff but forgot that I had let Alan borrow a Neutron, so we met up at the Jack in the Box by where he lives so that I could grab it from him. I grab some food while I'm there and make the drive out to Lightning on my own. I actually got used to having like Zach in the car with me driving out to tourneys, so the drive alone was rather boring.

I get there and there are only about a half a dozen people there but they all bought into the 5 packs thing and everyone pulled a Secret. I was like "wow did they change the pull ratio to be 1 in 5 now?" lol. I buy in and pull nothin' but rares. FML. What a waste of $20. I knew that crap was gonna happen too. Everyone felt bad for me but this guy Chad also buys in to pull nothin but rares. He ends up buying $60 worth of product and pulls really poorly. I was like "you know for $60 you coulda bought a whole box and guarantee better pulls (at least in quantity)". I do a few trades here and there, help Epler build TGs from my random commons binder, and tourney starts at 1. I think attendance is like 18 but didn't have an exact count this time for what ever reason.

I get paired up against Nate, I'm like of course I play a team mate round 1 when there are only 3 of us in the first place. Fuckin' stacked pairings I swear ~_~

Round 1 vs Nate (Machina Gadget)
I figured Nate was playing the TG/Stun deck from last week, but pretty sure he summoned a Gadget first turn and it was obvious he's back with his signature deck.
Game 1 Fairly back and forth the whole match but his field is like Gadget and Fortress with backrow, I MST and Dark Hole and topdeck'd BLS wins the game. Pulled that one out my butt :P
Game 2 Penguin Soldier to clear my 2 set monsters (Reaper and Snowman I believe) and 2x Fortress and something else hit me for like 6000+.
Game 3 Drawing into triple Shine Ball = wowihatethisdeck
OXX
The last game pretty much set the tone for the rest of the day, not so much the triple Ball aspect, but just my overall thoughts about the deck.
Record: 0-1

Round 2 vs Chad (GBs)
Game 1 I start with Venus and Gachi, he Dark Holes and Enemy Controller's the Gachi to turn it to attack. He summons Hoplomus and attacks Gachi, I'm like OK, Hoplomus dies? Big misplay on that one and he pretty much scoops it up.
Game 2 Goes a little bit better but TKings are annoying for that deck to deal with, and my trap-based removal easily deals with whatever kind of plays he tries to make. A timely MST on his set War Chariot seals the deal.
OO
Record: 1-1

Round 3 vs Ross (Watts)
This is the same kid that was playing Gishki when it wasn't legal, I had no idea what he was playing but figured it'd be an easy win.
Game 1 He actually plus's a lot with Wattcobra and stops me from attacking with things like Waboku, Roar, and there's some Watt that makes it so you skip your next battle phase. Eventually his deck runs out of steam and I out advantage him.
Game 2 Fairly similar to game 1 but I hit him a lot with Spirit Reapers, Giga-Brilliant, Zenmaines, and late game Hyperion cleans up.
OO
Record: 2-1

After this round I go over to see Kim and Epler playing. Kim ends up winning but he has to leave so he gives Epler the win. I buy Kim's collection minus his Six Sam deck for $90. There's not a lot of high-end stuff besides a Brionac, Black Rose, and Barkion, but a lot of random little stuff I can sell off and he had like 3 decks. Good for tweaking and making up decks to sell on eBay I suppose. 


Round 4 vs Zachary (Inzektor)
I was pretty sure that Sneak cards aren't legal for tournament play until the official release, but I wasn't gonna cause a fuss about it since he's just a kid. I had no idea how he was 2-1 considering the deck he was running wasn't anything like the established Inzektor lists that the OCG is running. Every Inzektor related card you could think of was in there lol. Even the Zektahawk thing. There's not really anything too notable here besides knowing I got in a few Reaper hits, and Venus, Gachi, TKing, and standard removal deal with "random crap" fairly well.
OO
Record: 3-1

After the game I trade with Eric (Zachary's dad) and get his Ultra Gorz and Super Chain Disappearance for like 2 Ultra Leviathan and a Machina Fortress. Good trade is good :)

We had figured that this was the end of the tourney since Epler was the only undefeated, but Mike said "Konami threw another round at us." OK? Never heard that one before but it wasn't too late, so I didn't mind that much since I was good on my 7pm wife-set curfew.

Round 5 vs Jeff (Darkworld)
So pretty much whoever won here would make top 4. I was pretty confident going into this match since I had talked about how his deck was bad with Goldd, Celery, and stuff.
Game 1 He goes absolutely nuts with Card Destruction, Gates, Celery+Sillva plays, Dragged Downs, and everything. By the end of his turn his card count was like 9 to my 3 of like Hyperion, Bottomless, and something else. I scoop.
Not having much for Darkworld in my side, I knew I was gonna have to simply try and hope that he doesn't draw Card Destruction and outplay him.
Game 2 An early Gorz and token+Honest trick pretty much put me in a good spot early game, Zenmaines and a Crow on his Grapha kept me alive mid game, and late game Chaos Sorcerer won it for me I believe.
Game 3 So it all came down to this. He starts with a Sillva+Celery play and I'm like well fuck, but notice that Jeff likes to pick 2 cards in the middle of my hand so I put the cards I'd like to keep at the ends. I'm able to stabilise with a Zenmaines and a DEF position Sangan. We're both around the 3500 mark on LP, and I figure if I don't act quick he'll just attack over the Zenmaines and won't get its effect off. I take a big risk and tribute summon for Hyperion, he has no response so I'm like whew. He tries to DWLightning my set MST, and he gets confused when I just MST the Lightning itself. I explain that technically its on the field so I can simply target it. I pretty much clear his board next turn with Hyperion and I'm able to take it.
It'd probably be wise for me to put some more anti-DW stuff in my side, lol. 
XOO
Record: 4-1

Top 4 ends up being in order, Nate, Epler, Me, Donut. We do this 1-3 2-4 pairing again so I play Nate. Epler has to leave so he drops and Donuts gets the win. Awesome.

Top 4 vs Nate
First 2 games were fairly back and forth I believe. I take the first he takes the second.
Game 3 I start with TKing and Bottomless, and I BTH his Cyber Dragon. He Dark Holes and summons Gearframe to search. I play another TKing to run it over. Reborn on my TKing for them to suicide and it was kinda downhill for me after that.

At least I get 3rd and can chill a bit before I have to leave to be back home. I give Danny a Black Horn of Heaven he needs. I comment how I thought Danny reminded me of Rocky since he was wearing a gray sweatshirt and gray sweatpants. There's also this guy that kept talking to Nate's GF about god knows what, eventually Danny's just like "dude can you please stop talking and go away?" the guy says OK, is silent for a split second, and then starts talking again but Danny cuts him off and is just like "no, seriously, can you go away" and so he turns around and wanders off. Some guy sitting across from us just stares at Danny in amazement or disgust, I dunno, lol. Either way it was funny and to be honest the guy just didn't have a clue.

All in all I wasn't happy with the tweaks that I made to the deck. Drawing into 2 Shine Balls in quite a few of my games is very depressing, and having 3 against Nate was absolutely brutal. That is the one aspect that I don't like about this deck; if you open with 2 of these things it's gonna be an uphill battle. 3 and you probably straight-up lose. The same could probably be said about Tengu, but at least it has some kind of body.

I did enjoy trading though and I know I was able to plus in most of my trades. The trade I did for the M-X-Saber Invoker was probably kinda meh, but at least I didn't have to trade a bunch of high-end cards for it. Basically a Laggia and some random Worm crap. I need Laggia for Rabbit and all, but at least they really aren't that expensive on eBay any more. It seemed like everyone was after Horn of the Phantom Beast today, I ended up trading the 4 I had in my binder away, and they had been sitting there for quite a while before :/ . 

On the ride home I think about what I would play if I didn't run Agent, obviously the Ball thing has really gotten to me. Maybe some kind of Chaos? They're very similar in principle besides the Agent stuff. Sell Tour Guides to play something like TG? Inzektors? I really don't know.

Decklist: 40
Monsters: 25
2 Hyperion
3 Venus
2 Earth
3 Shineball
3 Tour Guide
1 Sangan
1 Night Assailant
2 TKing
1 Honest
1 Maxx C
2 Reaper
1 BLS
1 Sorcerer
1 Gorz
1 Snowman

Spells: 8
1 Hole
1 Reborn
1 Heavy
3 MST
1 Mind
1 Smashing

Traps:7
1 Dustshoot
1 Torrential
2 Warning
2 D-Prison
1 Bottomless

Extra
Same as usual

Side
2 Cydra
1 TKing
1 Dust
1 Crow
1 Snowman
1 Smash
1 Bottomless
1 Mirror Force
1 System Down
2 Black Horn
2 Maxx C
1 Leeching

Monsters
Originally I was gonna try out the 2x Agent/Hyperion line-up but decided to include the 3rd Venus to increase my probability of opening with it. In hindsight, I didn't like it. There were too many instances where I either had no Agent to go with Hyperion, or wouldn't draw Hyperion when I needed it. I dropped down to just 1 Maxx C due to the happenings of last weekend, and with the match-ups I had today, I was happy with the change. Having triple probably only would've been good against Donut's Karakuri. I'm probably going to end up cutting the gimmicky stuff like Snowman and maybe Sorcerer. 2 Reapers are handy and with 3 MST I was able to get in a lot of direct hits.

Spells
I opted for 3 MST since I think I sided the 3rd in every game last weekend. A lot of people are playing backrow decks w/ Starlight now so I'm glad I ran 3 MST. Mind Control has been sub-par for me lately but that's probably a combination of more anti-meta with 4-stars guys (and me not running Utopia), and only running 3 Earth (2 today). I do get the occasional Trish summon because of it, so I'll probably keep it in. Random Smash was OK but nothing phenomenal.

Traps
I've been running this line-up for a while but thinking I should move away from Bottomless towards Fiendish Chain. I think Bottomless may be better at Lightning while Chain would be better at Northtown.

Pat Hoban posted a list on DGz he's been playing around with; it's basically a clean, standard line-up which I may try out for Monday. He has a tech Compulse, which I was thinking of having in my side anyway for the Scrap match-up I'll inevitably have to play. I probably also need to cut the gimmicky stuff and play conventional things like Book of Moon and Solemn Judgment again. However I'm most likely going to try going to Uncle's with Alan tomorrow, and who the hell knows what their meta is like. I'm guessing mostly tier 2 decks, so a lot like Lightning's meta.

Post-ORCS Pre-Ban List

This week has been very hectic for me since winter quarter just started up. Usually the first week of school is chill, right? Well for me it's been anything but. One of my professors, who's notorious for large amounts of homework, put up an assignment about a week before the quarter even started, and officially gave it out on the first day of class. Christ, the first day is supposed to be "here's the syllabus, see you tomorrow" kind of thing! His homeworks are hard and time-consuming as well, I've already put in about 12 hours on his first one which I'm still not finished with (due tomorrow) and on Wednesday he put up another larger assignment that's due next Wednesday. Holy hell, so not fair to give us a new one before we're even done with the first one! *sigh*

So luckily I'm gonna be able to sell my 2 Ultra Veilers to Troll for $20 a piece. I'd highly recommend moving them via Troll before they catch on to the reprint announcement, as ARG have already lowered their price dramatically and they're getting hard to move on eBay. It may suck having to wait for the SE release to own any, but money is money and I rather not lose it by holding on to stuff I know is getting reprinted.

I have to applaud Konami for not rarity-bumping the crap out of Inzektors, so I've put in my pre-order for 3 boxes. I don't see it being quite a money set so we're not going to do a joint case like we did for PHSW, but at least there are good cards spread out between the holo rarities. Recent complaints about the sets have been that the only good cards were a couple Ultras and the Secrets, so at least now we have good Supers in the form of Wind-Up Shark and the Inzektor guy, forget which one. There may be more good Supers, I dunno.

As for Wind-Ups, Shark, and the loop, my guess is that the format will be similar to Frog OTK, but now we have Maxx c, so basically open with Veiler/Maxx or lose. From what I can tell the loop deck seems even more consistent now with Shark, so from a business standpoint I think it was smart that they're reprinting Veiler in easy-to-get form, even though we'll get it after the ban list. We may get a crazy month-and-a-half format until the ban list takes care of stuff. I'm not sure if they'll hit Inzektors, but at least they're not too rare so you wouldn't take a hit that badly. Konami has a pretty decent track record of keeping FTK/massive discard type decks in check via ban lists, so if it gets too crazy I'm sure they'll hit it. But, at the same time, they could give justification in not doing anything by saying "what, we gave you easy Veilers. Deal with it. Buy more product."

Either way I'm selling my Wind-Up stuff, namely Hunter, and actually selling off a lot of random extra crap that I don't need. It's about that time of the format to let go of bulk and have funds to get a jump-start for the next list. I just got about $250 from Troll yesterday, and going to be sending them another $270 or more worth of stuff hopefully tomorrow. If Rabbit survives the list that's probably what I'll be picking up when the list is leaked. Until then, I'll probably just ride it out with Agents.

So the Sneak Peek is this weekend, I'll most likely go to Lightning but not sure if I'll be playing in the tourney since my wife is making me be home by 7. I may just go to trade, buy, sell, and playtest. I'd like to have my deck set for Monday's tourney. Speaking of Monday tourney, Danny texted me about the possibility of going back to Uncle's since Link is allowed to play there again and it seems like Andrew has been trying to change his ways. I'll probably see how the Northtown tourney's attendance is; if it's low that's a good indicator that people have gone back to Uncle's.

ORCS SE Promos Revealed!

So I check the product page this morning as usual, and they finally got the ORCS SE product page up! The promos are: Effect Veiler and The Winged Dragon of Ra.

For the "where's your proof?" peeps:
http://www.yugioh-card.com/en/products/se-orcs.html
(Clicking on the site link from the product page sends you to the Samurai Assault page since they have their link wrong. Above is the correct link.)

Sooo relieved that Tour Guide and Maxx C weren't in this lol, as I was seriously contemplating selling both off just because of this SE. These promos still aren't matching people's expectations/desires in things like Scrap Dragon and Fabled Raven, but hey I can appreciate the Veiler reprint as that card will most likely become very important in the upcoming meta. I'm glad I sold off my playset of rares, unfortunately I didn't get rid of my 2 Ultras but perhaps there's still time on eBay before their value plummets. Just a quick post since I literally just saw the news, still planning on writing an "actual" blog entry later today.

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.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.

Locals Report 1-7-12; Lightning Comics

I apologize for the lack of posts this past week; there hasn't really been any news to note and all I've really done is practice my siding but decided it wasn't worth specifically posting about, so I figured I'd just include it in the tournament report.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Well I've been waiting about 3 weeks for this tourney so I was very excited to say the least. Yesterday Alan came over to my place and we tested for a little bit but his wife is like mine and yanked his leash for him to come back after just like 2 hours lol. I lend him my Naturia Beast since he was planning on coming to today's tournament. Last night Danny asked if he could ride out with me so I said sure and also planned on picking up Zach. I texted Alan and asked if he'd be OK with driving himself out, because if I was in a situation where my wife demanded that I come back, I didn't want to force my teammates in a situation where they had to choose between dropping from the tournament and going back with me, or having to find a ride back to the Valley on their own somehow. I always worry about this when I drive people out, because I think it's rather wasteful to pay into a tournament and have to drop if you're doing well. He says that's fine so I'm relieved.

I do the normal getting-ready things and head out around 11:30 and tell Danny that I'd pick him up then Zach. Danny has to get his kids ready to drop off at the babysitter so we decide that I'd ride with him there, come back to Danny's, get in my car, then go pick up Zach. Once we get to Danny's Nate calls and tells us that Big Mike decided to start the tourney earlier, we're like "well that's cool, glad we got the memo." Danny calls Zach and tells him they're starting earlier so we have to go as soon as we can pretty much. We get to his place, but turns out Zach left his stuff at Danny's so we drive back to Danny's, then realize that it was in the van that his wife drove to work. At the same time Alan texts me and asks if I could come pick him up and I'm like ffffff. I tell him they're starting the tourney earlier, we're getting a late start as it was, so I couldn't back-track to go and get him. I thought we had established that he was driving out so I didn't know what was going on. I don't mind driving people but come on, I ain't no god damn taxi service lol. Don't tell me you're good to drive out and then ask me 10 minutes later if I can come pick you up. All this also meant we had no time to stop by and get some food; what a rocky morning lol. So Danny calls Epler to see if he'd order pizza for us, he said yes so we're like hell yea. We also figured Mike wouldn't turn away 4 people's worth of attendance so we weren't too worried about it. Danny and Zach notice Steve's car in the parking lot and joke that we should just go home now lol.

We go in and I tell Mike "well we came as fast as we could" and I pay my entry as Nate and Kim come to greet me. I say a few quick hellos but my priority was to help Zach get his deck ready (mine, since he didn't have his stuff) since we basically had no time. Oh, first I got the last $40 from Donut for the Pokemon stuff I sold him, only took like 4 months to pay it off lol. The only decks I had were my Karakuris minus Maxx Cs and Claudio Dark Worlds minus Tour Guide so Zach picks Karakuri and adds/tweaks some stuff. I do a quick small trade with Nate, I wanted his Wind-Up Hunters but he wanted to make the loop deck. I probably won't play the deck since it's pretty easily stopped by Veiler and Maxx. I talk a little bit with people, and round 1 pairings are up quickly.
Tourney attendance is 16, a very respectable number for our area, and also taking into account that Alan didn't end up making it. I ask him why he didn't come out and he says he had to take care of his wife or something. Damn, she keeps that leash short!

Round 1 vs Donut (Anti-Meta/Hero Beat)
So right off the bat I get paired against one of the better people at the tourney, awesome. Donut used to be on Team O. Some things went down between Danny and him in the past so he quit/got kicked out but I still <3 Donut. He's a good guy.
At this point I don't really remember the games but I win games 1 and 3. Game 2 I start with a pretty bad hand but stall out for a very long time between Reaper, Honest, and Snowman Eaters. His Fossil Dyna also pretty much stops either of us from doing anything. Eventually our boards become cleared out and he kills me with something. I remember Zenmaines putting in a lot of work and my sideboard was good to help handle his deck.
OXO
Record: 1-0

After Zach's match he comes up and complains that I didn't have a full Extra deck for the Karakuris, I don't have the cards to have full Extras for all my spare decks and I usually just keep all my random Synchros together for various decks all together, so that explains why there was a Wonder Magician with that pile of Synchros/Extra deck. I said it wasn't really my responsibility to make sure he had all the stuff since he easily could've looked thru to see what all was in there and what he needed. I honestly had forgotten it wasn't complete, and to boot there was no Naturia Beast since Alan was borrowing it. The pizzas that Epler ordered got there so I paid $10 for it (half) and had some pizza. Danny and I got full after like 3 pieces or so and we were also planning on going to the China Buffet so we just gave the slices to whoever wanted one pretty much.

Round 2 vs Eric (Anti-Meta/Stun)
Eric's daughter came today, she had on more makeup than usual and was lookin' pretty dec. She didn't play in the tourney though so she just sat and watched our match.
Game 1 The first 4 turns I don't draw relevant monsters (opened like 2 Maxx C) but have removal for his turn 1 Doomcal, turn 2 TKing, and turn 3 King Tiger. Turn 4 he plays TKing and I take the hit. Next turn I draw Venus and bait out TKing with Gachi. I think he runs it over with something next turn. I stall out a bit with Reaper but he gets rid of it and I draw bad for the rest of the game.
Game 2 I draw decent and so my deck actually does what it's supposed to and I think I get in like 3 hits in with Reaper. Hyperion puts in work, and Jinzo says "you're free to do whatever the f you want" lol. Why do people play Jinzo these days?
Game 3 Pretty much the same as game 2 but fewer hits with Reaper. Again my side was good for this kind of match-up.
XOO
Record: 2-0

I think it was in between these rounds that I watch Epler play his Infernity deck against this guy running GBs. The guy has a Herk out and 1 card in hand. Epler topdecks Archfiend like a boss and searches for Necromancer. Necromancer effect for Beetle, and Mist Wurm for game lol. The guy stands up and slams his cards on the table, gets mad salty and calls Epler a lucky bitch lol.

Round 3 vs Nate (Anti-Meta/TG w Photon Sabre Tigers)
I joke around with Nate that my first 2 matches were against Anti-Meta (albeit different variants) and he was like "well looks you get to play another one" lol. I say "anti-meta's the new poor man's deck" and it pretty much is, with Dyna, TKing, Duality, and Warning reprints.
For some reason I really don't remember our match but I lose the first game and win the next two. After losing game 1 I went to my side and was like "wait, what the hell did I lose to?" and stared at the lifepoint sheet while I was trying to recall exactly what he was playing. I had no clue - I only saw TG Striker, TKing, Tengu, and the Photon Sabre Tigers I think. Striker should've been a big indicator but it wasn't for me for some reason at that time. I guess I figured it was just a tech tuner that can special summon. I went with stuff like Cyber Dragon but took out TKings for some reason, after realizing it was TG after he summoned Rush Rhino and Duality'd for Horn, I was like crap those TKings would've been useful but I win that game anyway. So game 3 I side TKings back in and win a very good match.
XOO
Record: 3-0

Danny and I are the only undefeateds left and we go over who we all played, basically I played against much harder opponents. We looked around to who Danny's opponents were playing and I was like "uhh, ya, lol" so I gave Danny the win since we simply wanted to secure an all Team O top 4. The plan was to do that and have all of us split so we could chill at the China Buffet. We just talk for a bit then we get bored so he gets out his Plant deck so we can test. Plants do what they do best and have outs to like everything lol. He's trying out the Tour Guide Night Assailant thing as well and I think he likes it too.

Round 4 vs Danny (Dino Rabbit)
Scoop to make sure Danny and I both top.
XX
Record: 3-1

I think it was at this point that I buy some of Kim's stuff since he's hurtin for cash due to car/insurance issues. I pick up a BLS, a bunch of holo staples, and like a set of PWWBs for $32. All in all I'm satisfied with the purchase so I'm sure I'll be able to profit a bit. I'll have to price it out later. So this round gets done and I guess Mike decides that we're doing a Top 8. We're like awesommmmme gotta play even more now lol. Top 8 (not in order) was Danny (Rabbit), Ty (TG), me (TGU Agent), Donut (Anti/Hero), Nate (Anti/TG), Zach (I think he made it- Karakuri), Eric (Anti/Stun), and Jeff (DW). Mike also does some BS pairings like 1st vs 3rd, 2v4, 5v7, and 6v8. I've never seen this kind of pairing before, we all thought it was supposed to be like 1v8, 2v7, etc. We figured he just wanted Team O to eliminate each other and try to put the lower-placed players into top 4. I dunno maybe it's just conspiracy thinking but I don't think he likes Team O as a whole that much. He's usually cool with me but then again I'm fairly mellow and easy to get along with. I don't think there's anyone that doesn't get along with me actually, even though there are people that annoy the hell out of me so I try not to hang around them too much.

Top 8/Round 5 vs Donut
So we get paired against each other again. Don't remember specifics but at one point I have Zenmaines, Venus, and Gachi on the field and he uses a bunch of cards to get rid of the Zenmaines. Game 2 I go with 2nd Reaper, Smashings, and Snowmans and stuff which are again good.
OO
Record: 4-1

Danny wins his match as well and get paired against each other but we just watch Jeff play against Nate in their top 4 match, and say that if Jeff wins I'll just play him but if Nate wins then we can do the Team O top 3 split. Danny asks if I'm sure I could win the match and I was like I think so, and explained that if DW Card Destructions for the nuts I couldn't really do much and I didn't know his build. I know it's not Claudio's and he runs "the crap" like Goldd, Sillva, and Celery. I figured the deck would probably just lose to itself but as the next 10 minutes went by I'm starting to second-guess my match against Dark World more and Danny has a lot more in his side for the match-up. I think all I got's a Crow, 2nd Bottomless, and some S/T removal. He talks about Shadow-Mirror being really good, and I was confused because I was sure that Mirror didn't stop one of the aspects of Grapha. Just looked it up, and it stops discard effects but Grapha can still special from the grave. I guess it still stops the majority of the deck so it's pretty good :) Jeff wins the first game and we're both like "ah crap" lol. Neither of us wanted to sit through another 45 minutes so we were pulling for Nate to win. I didn't watch their match too much but it seemed pretty back and forth. Nate ends up winning the match though so we get to split and GTFO. I think Nate spends his credit on something, don't remember, and Danny buys Metal Gear Solid 4 and gives me the rest of his credit (like a dollar and some change). I decide to save it since the Sneak is next week.

When we were in the videogame section, the manager comes up to us and is like "I know your moms aren't here, but I know my mom would tell me to not leave garbage lying around" and tells us the pizza boxes were still there as well as some sleeves and random cards and stuff. We're like well the garbage is beyond full so we didn't know where to put it. I walk over and pick up the cards and sleeves, Zach gets the pizza boxes, and he's like "so, put them aside...where to?" and the manager just tells him to leave them by the overflowing garbage can. Zach points out a McDonald's bag that's under one of the tables and some other garbage lying around, trying to emphasize that it wasn't just our garbage lying around. We tend to get blamed for shit like this even though we're never really messy per se; even if the pizza boxes were legitimately not ours, he still probably would've come to us first. :/ Whatevs.

So we finally leave and go to Top of China. We get the same waiter from last time, oh boy, lol. The football game is on but I don't pay attention to it and ask Nate about the meta at Northtown. When I was done eating, the waiter comes up to me and is like "su o fo", I'm just like god damnit, I have no idea what he's saying. I reply "Superbowl??" cuz that's what I thought he was saying, but I took like a split second to try and rationalize why he'd be saying "Superbowl" to me. My only guess was that I had to have a plate of food in order to watch the Superbowl or something, but today's... not the Superbowl?, lol, I dunno. Turns out he was asking if I wanted to keep my spoon and fork, but I was like "nah, I'm done done".

My wife was expecting me to be home by 7:30 and the tracking for the box of PHSW I ordered said it was supposed to arrive today (had it sent to Danny's) so I wanted to open that up before I went home so we left, said goodbyes to everyone, and dropped Zach off. We go to Danny's and don't see the box, so I'm like hm it'll probably show up on Monday. Take a quick bathroom break and leave, and that's a day. After getting back home, I check the tracking and it says it arrived there at 1:30pm so I was hoping it wasn't a case of someone stealing the box off his front porch. Danny just texted and said they left a slip that said it was at the post office for pick-up. Whew!

Decklist:
Total: 40
Monsters: 27
3 Hyperion
3 Venus
3 Earth
3 Ball
3 Guide
1 Sangan
1 Night Assailant
1 BLS
1 Sorcerer
1 Gorz
2 Thunder King
1 Honest
3 Maxx C
1 Reaper

Spells: 6
1 Hole
1 Reborn
1 Mind
1 Heavy
2 MST

Traps: 7
1 Dustshoot
1 Torrential
2 Warning
2 D-Prison
1 Bottomless

Extra
2 Gachi
1 Leviair
1 Leviathan
1 Giga-Brilliant
1 Zenmaines
1 Armory
1 Librarian
1 Catastor
1 Brionac
1 Orient
1 Black Rose
1 Stardust
1 Scrap
1 Trish

Side
1 Chimera
2 Cydra
1 TKing
2 Snowman
2 Smashing
1 Reaper
1 MST
1 Dust
1 DD Crow
1 Bottomless
1 Mirror Force
1 Black Horn of Heaven

I really liked the Night Assailant all day, and I think I drew into it only once but never ended up setting it. All my first Tour Guide plays besides the one were for Night Assailant and people were like "wtf??" lol. I explained my rationale that I had posted before, basically Guide->Guide = bad, and Guide->Sangan = sad (for me, cuz I <3 Sangan). In hindsight Sangan searches helped me a lot throughout the day, so I'm glad I had the option of going into Night Assailant and wasn't always using up Sangan for XYZ purposes. I didn't miss Trag at all, and Reaper is awesome. I wish I could fit in the 2nd one in the main but I'm honestly very comfortable with my build now. I know Agents isn't the best deck this format but I'm a firm believer in playing with what you're comfortable with and I am with this deck. I also like running a deck where if I do misplay, I know I can at least fall back on one of my many boss monsters to re-establish control. This is why I don't play something like Claudio's DW, seems like with that deck if you mess up once you're pretty much done, much like decks like GBs are. I ended up siding out all of the Maxx Cs for every match today, as all I played against were Anti-Meta type decks. Perhaps I need to cut down on the maindeck count of them for at least Lightning. I'll probably stick with them for the Northtown tournament on Monday though, and just tweak accordingly.

For the past week I've been practicing siding, and Evan Vargas' Youtube videos have helped me a lot. Realistically they aren't anything ground-breaking but they simply attempt to force you to sit there with your deck, pen & paper/something to write out exactly what you're siding in and out for the top match-ups you'd expect to play, and sit there and make your side. I thought it was silly at first but I was like screw it and did everything that he recommended, and I'm glad I did. After thinking about it, in my 8 or so years of playing this game, I have never really taken actual time to sit and exactly figure out my siding strategies for my match-ups. Like most people, I've only just thought about the match-ups I could face, throw some cards in that deal with them, and say "ah I'll figure it out while I'm playing." It's always been a struggle though, since I was always like "hmm, what should I take out??" during a match. I made up an Excel spreadsheet and listed all the match-ups that I would most likely face, and wrote out exactly what I was siding in and out for each. I theorized, tweaked, put stuff in, took stuff out, tweaked some more, and put in about an hour and a half or two of just practicing siding in and out and trying to memorize my siding strategies. I'm very glad I did these things because I felt much more comfortable knowing what my game plan was going to be for game 2 (and possibly 3) while I was playing game 1, rather than try to make one up on the fly during siding. I basically went into this tournament anticipating playing against Anti-Meta, Karakuri, and Dino Rabbit (ie Danny). I sided in every card in my side except Chimera, Crow, and Black Horn. Had I played any Machine variant, DW/Plant, or Danny, I would've utilized those cards though. If you think you have any problems with siding in general, I'd highly recommend watching his 2 videos and practicing your siding. Put in just a little bit of time now and then for it; it helps a lot!