Locals Report - 05/31/13

Hey there, welcome to this week's tournament report! Here's the deck I used:

It feels weird to say "only" in this situation, but the only big change to my deck since last week is the dropping of Monster Reborn. I realized that unless you have Swap Frog on hand or some sort of Extra Deck play to execute, Reborn does very little to help this deck's primary goals. Sure, it can be nice to randomly bring back a big monster and swing with it, but it's just not necessary. Also, having only 40 in the main is important to me now that I've realized I still can't seem to avoid games where I don't open with Swap/Treeborn/Foolish, or even get them by Turn 2. So that being said, let's get into the tournament.


Round 1 vs Wind-Ups
Auto-lose matchup, yay!
G1: My deck went slower than usual, and he went Magician-Shark into Pap-Leviair-Shock Master
G2: I stalled him for a while with Messengers, but Dimensional Fissure is really extremely unfair. Not being able to use Frogs hurts enough, but I can't even Veiler / Maxx "C" to defend myself. Anyways, Gorz and Jinzo put in some work, but he went Magician-Shark to summon both Pap and Leviair again, this time using two Sharks to summon Volcasaurus, destroying my Jinzo before changing into Gaia Dragon.

0-1

Round 2 vs Constellars
G1: An early-game Algiedi walked right into a giant Tragoedia, which caused him 2000 damage when I attacked over it next turn. He later had to use Judgment on my Raiza, leaving him with only 3000 life. I cleaned up fairly easily with direct hits from Swap Frog.
G2: I Veilered him three times but didn't draw anything to back them up. I could have fucking won this one if I had drawn tribute monsters, but I was worn down by his monsters eventually even with his deck slowed down dramatically.
G3: After taking 3400 damage myself, I stole his Praesepe with Controller and attacked him directly for 3400, then landed a 2400 hit with Tragoedia. This ended up going into time relatively fast, with him being unable to lower my life any more so I got the win.

All I have to say is, make sure you double-check the rules with someone who's in charge if the people spectating are telling you something you're not sure about. Our locals has a weird time procedure, and I don't think people were lying to me about it on purpose, but they were just confused. I knew the procedure, and I was right. This conflict could have EASILY given him the win and put me out of competition for the night.

1-1

Round 3 vs Infernity
G1: I got attacked by five monsters with 1800 ATK lol. Although the first one had to punch through my Fader from a previous turn, he used Cowboy to take out my last 800.
G2: I got 2000 from two Upstarts and used it to help pay off Messengers. A big Maxx "C" let me draw into a playset of Typhoons AND Heavy, which helped me break through his setup together with Soul Taker on his Necromancer. He loaded his deck with Archfiend for the next turn, but Raiza helped me plug it and take out his Lavalval Chain, lowering him to 8400. Next turn I summoned Jinzo to lock the backrow he had redrawn and swing for 4800, then I thankfully had the idea to summon Strike Bounzer in MP2 and activate Messenger. He topped his Archfiend, revealing it and taking 1000. Eventually, Bounzer struck for game.
G3: This was very long and I don't remember much of it, but he opened up poorly and we went into time with me slightly ahead and poised to win until he made Cowboy during his series of plays on the second-to-last turn of time. Then I topped a Maxx "C". God damn it, Cowboy!!! Lolol

1-2

Round 4 vs Lightsworn Chaos Dragons
G1: This was long and drawn out, as he repeatedly sent monsters from his hand to revive his Lightpulsar and break my pseudo-win setups. I finally put an end to it by dropping LADD and swinging over it, then negating more of his cards until I activated Treeborn twice to drain what was left of LADD, then summon Raiza and seal it.
G2: (Remember Game 2 of Round 5 against Infernities last week? This game was even crazier!)

He drew his opening hand, looked at it and quickly gave me the start. (This is cheating, but I decided to just let it go.) I simply used Swap and ended. He then summoned Card Trooper, milling three and attacking right into my Gorz. On my next turn, I brought back Treeborn, sacked it for Vanity's Fiend, then discarded Electric Virus to take his Trooper and mill 3 to boost it to 1900. I changed Gorz and his Token to attack, then swung for game! It feels so weird to OTK somebody with a deck totally not designed for it, lol.

His friend came over right after he lost and started telling him that he should've used his Effect Veiler, then use Battle Fader if he still played it. I was in shock - if you had a Veiler, why didn't you negate Card Trooper's boost to stay in the game?! I mean granted, you would've only had 600 left and been hard-pressed to deal with Vanity, but isn't that better than just being killed on the spot?

2-2

Round 5 vs Dino Rabbit
G1: This took a very long time as I had to play around a Fiendish Chain that I knew he had from him earlier taking it back, but he eventually wasted it on my Swap Frog and that helped me greatly. Late game, I revealed Dark Hole with Duality and used it to clear his Dolkka and attack with Swap for game.
G2: This was long again and went into time. I was forced to make some weird plays, including tributing two Treeborns to summon Gorz while under Macro, then having to tribute Gorz for Caius to banish his face-down monster, hoping it would be a Dark so I could deal just enough damage to get a win instead of a draw. It ended up being...

Awesome! One more win for the evening.

3-2

Round 6 vs Nobody
My opponent apparently dropped, so that was it for the evening. Can't say I minded though, because my headache was bothering me as usual.

4-2

Overall I guess this was an okay night. I wasn't very upset about not topping because my matchups pretty much just made it impossible for me. I know what you're thinking - "play better, stop sucking, blah BLAH BLAH," but at my current level of skill there was just no way to win Round 1 with the deck I'm playing. After that, all it took was one more loss to knock me out. Bottom line is I do need to improve, don't get me wrong, but overall it was just fate that took away the chance to top this week. Oh well. On the left are all of the cards I got on that night, thanks for reading!