this is going to be sent into metagame as soon as Rob (the PTO) sends me the top 8 decklists
Mass Regionals 11/13/05
Holiday inn Boxburough
As I arrive to the tournament site at 8:10, the weather is slow moving and you get the feeling that the day is going to be a bit slow moving as well as you enter the tournament hall. Someone left the tournament hall unlocked and already at least 30 people have shown up. The tournament organizer has yet to show up and you already know the tournament will start late, be understaffed, and everything that can possibly go wrong does. As I'm trying to put my stuff away the friends I brought are asking to borrow cards, people are already asking me questions, I'm wondering where the tournament organizer is and the manager of the event hall comes in and starts to ask me questions.
I tell my friends to bother me later, I tell the players I don't know anything yet, I call the tournament orginizer to ask him what's going on, and hand the phone to the event hall manager. In less then a minute everything is taken care of and in five the tournament Orginizer shows up. Two of the judges have yet to show up as we unload the van and set up the PA system first. People file in as I anounce 4 times that Elemental Energy cards are not legal for the event and that the tournament is advanced format. We start handing out registration slips, blank UDE numbers, and decklist. As we find out one of our level two judges plans on participating we are down to myself, another level 2 judge, and a first time level 1 judge. On such short notice we find only one additional first time level 1 judge to help with the event.
Despite being understaffed, starting late, and having only 2 judges with tournament experiance we manage to register all 244 people, set up the table numbers, set up the projecter, brief the new judges on end of match procedure & and how to issue penalties, and start the tournament by about 9:25. Despite making 4 anouncements we still find several participants with either EEN cards or banned cards at the start of round one, usually acompanied by an upset parent. We quickly decided to have the level one judges direct issues such as this to me as I am the one with the player management certification and experiance. The tournament is on it's way and aside from end of match procedure everything is running smothly. As the day continues I hope to interview team Topdeck, find a few pieces of tech, and cover some matches in the top 8.
Here's a bit of blog. It's the third game of match five at table five, it's David Saxner Vs. Mike Pianka, both players are playing off the top of their deck with no hand. David 1500, Mike 1300. Mike has
D.D. Assailant on the field in attack with nothing in hand while David has a set
Enemy Controller; Mike ends his turn. David draws and sets
Scapegoat, ending his turn. Mike draws, enters his battle phase, and attacks only to be met by goat tokens represented by a 6-sided die. Mike goes for game by attacking a goat and switching it to attack with
Enemy Controller, David responds with his
Enemy Controller putting the Assailant to defense.
It's Saxner's turn, he luck sacks and draws a
Reinforcement of the Army which imediatly searches out a
D.D. Survivor.
D.D. Survivor hits the field and goes for the Assailant, both are removed and at David's end phase the Survivor comes back to the field. The croud has gathered as Mike's
Last Turn of the match begins.
D.D. Warrior Lady comes to Mikes hand, with 1300 life points left and a Survivor on the opposing field, is this a bad thing? Mike doesn't think so; he summons the Warrior Lady and attacks the goat token David never switched back into defense. With 1500 life points remaining,
D.D. Warrior Lady wins Mike Pianka the game!
As people start to realize they can't make top 32 (and win packs) people begin to drop out and the tournament starts to wind down. I've notices three peices of popular tech which alot of people are running, and two additional peices of tech I only saw one individual run. I'll start out with the popular tech:
The first, and most notable peice of tech I knew was going to be writing about halfway through round 3. I'll just say it, it's
Newdoria.
Newdoria isn't tech!!! Is that what you just said outloud? It is true,
Newdoria is hardly new to competative play and is a staple in the very popular Tomato Control deck; it's another dark monster that can be searched with Tomato and since Tomato control has so many small monsters you need something to clear the way for some damage. Today is differant,
Newdoria isn't showing up in tomato control decks, in fact I havn't really seen many tomato control decks,
Newdoria is showing up in beatdown decks, chaos decks, and even warrior decks. When I think about it I can't really blame people for using it, people put it in for good reason.
First off, in a format riddled with
D.D. Assailants and
Spirit Reapers destroying a monster with a card effect is definatly a good thing. Second, people are running it for the same reason they are running
D.D. Assailant; when it dies it take a monster with him. The differance between
D.D. Assailant's effect and
Newdoria's effect is great though.
Newdoria can absorb the attack of one monster and stop the attack of another, a very powerful ability when all too often people special summon
Cyber Dragon and then normal summon either a
Spirit Reaper or
Don Zaloog. It has some downfalls though, although 1200 attack is a decent chunk of damage and can kill a
Sangan or
Mystic Swordsman LV2 is just has no field presence which can be somewhat of a pain if you like to play offensivly. Where
D.D. Assailant can kill a Breaker (without the counter) in battle to get a 1 for nothing and then take out another monster with it's effect later,
Newdoria must either kamakazie or lie in wait to kill it's target. Something else to note, when you take control of an opponent's
Newdoria it is much easier to get both
Newdoria and the monster it's attacking killed (as
Newdoria's effect is mandatory); the same can not be said for
D.D. Assailant, this means something we we are dealing with a
Brain Control.
The next peice of tech is a card that definatly has some potential for competative play.
Nobleman of Crossout's less glorified cousin
Nobleman of Extermination, seen both in main decks and in side decks. After seeing the decklists from SJC Chicago is seems as though players would like to get rid of the multiple copies of
Widespread Ruin and
Sakuretsu Armor. People who are running the card seem to have a mixture of differant monster removal trap cards so that
Nobleman of Extermination does't affect them too much. There are definatly some cards you need to look of for when you use this card.
Mystical Space Typhoon and
Dust Tornado can be chained to
Nobleman of Extermination, make sure your opponent doesn't have anything to destroy with these cards unless you are confident the card you activate
Nobleman of Extermination on not one of these two cards.
Book of Moon and
Enemy Controller can be chained to
Nobleman of Extermination, to fix this problem simply activate
Nobleman of Extermination before you summon anything. The only cards you realy need to worry about if you follow these guidelines are
Call of the Haunted and
Scapegoat. Be wary of this new peice of tech, as a deck with x2
Sakuretsu Armor and x2
Widespread Ruin with a
Nobleman of Extermination is definatly something to fear.
Big Shield Gardna is our last peice of tech. Although the card made some last minute competative play in the old format people just didn't see
Big Shield Gardna worth it in a format with only one
Nobleman of Crossout and
Cyber Dragon in almost every deck. The arguments against
Big Shield Gardna are fairly great in number, the first arguement being that people can't run x2
Nobleman of Crossout anymore. The second arguement is that people all to often special summon
Cyber Dragon, normal summon another monster the same turn, and then take out the
Big Shield Gardna with both. The third arguement is that
Book of Moon is now limited to one per deck and the chances of getting these two cards together are not as likely as they used to be. The fourth argument against
Big Shield Gardna is that you can't count on your opponent to have a
Scapegoat for you to take advantage of; it used to be when your opponent was stuck with 4 goats on the field a lone
Big Shield Gardna could fend of your opponent unless (s)he was willing to attack a defense position gardna with a goat token... OUCH!
Despite all this,
Big Shield Gardna is still one of the best cards to play first turn. I've asked people their opinion, including the winner of the CT regionals last month, and people who use
Big Shield Gardna say it's a gigantic wall that you just don't mess with. You can always fend off the second attack on Gardna with a
Sakuretsu Armor or
Widespread Ruin, and it is definatly the monster that survives to be a tribute for Mobius next turn. The best way to describe Gardna is as everyone has said, a gigantic wall; in the right deck build Gardna can definatly be something worth considering.
Moving on to the individual, less popular tech...
Remember when Wilson Luc first ran Zombie Chaos with x2
Vampire Lord, x3
Pyramid Turtle, x2
Spirit Reaper and x2
Book of Life? It proved that some cards are just that good even though they only work for certain cards. Marciel from Team Outlook knew
Book of Life is a good card, but what cards do people run that are zombies?
Spirit Reaper of course; Marciel has come to regionals today with a deck that has 3
Spirit Reapers and a
Book of Life. Pretty sweet tech if you ask me.
Chaos is a popular choice today as people have found the
Chaos Sorcerer to be their new favorite card. The most successful builds seem to have only two
Chaos Sorcerers and do alot more then just chaos. People have found the best way to use
Chaos Sorcerer is to put it into a deck that already has alot of lights and darks, throw in one or two
Magical Merchants and your set to go. Some of the more dedicated builds have success too, I was passing by a player who had such a deck and I saw a peice of tech that really surprized me,
Skilled White Magician.
No, he isn't using
Buster Blader in the deck, he used it simply as a light and a beatstick. Why not? People have forgotten how powerful a beatstick without an effect can be, especially in this format where field presence matters. With 1700 attack and 1900 defense
Skilled White Magician can defend against all 4 star monsters in today's format and can destroy pretty much any 4 star monster in battle minus
D.D. Survivor. In addition, useing an
Enemy Controller on
Skilled White Magician doesn't make it easier to kill in battle like with most monsters, it makes it harder.
Be warry of the beatsticks as they are a force to be reckoned with in this format. Beatsticks are no longer just about power, they get gain card advantage by killing monsters in battle and forcing the opponent to use a card effect to kill them.
Round seven is over, let's summerize what has happened so far. Nareg Torrison, winner of SJC Indi, is currently in 22nd place while Brice Tompson, who toped 8 at SJC Atlanta, is one place above at 21th place. Both Team Topdeck and and Team Outlook have already secured their position in top eight with Adam Donahue of Team Outlook at 1st place and Joshiro Chan of Team Topdeck in 2nd. Mike Pianka, the guy who won by attacking an attack position goat with a
D.D. Warrior Lady, is in 6th place now and needs only to win round 8 to make top 8. Two of the four people I drove here, Austin Ambra(3rd) and and Robert Gregino(5th), lost their perfect records to Joshiro Chan and Adam Donahue (respectfully) who are now duking it out at table one as I type.
Before I go off to help judge I'm going to make mention of some popular questions I've gotten today, the answers to them, and the reasons for the answers.
Question: "If
Mystic Swordsman LV2 attacks a face down
Sangan does
Sangan get it's effect?":
Answer: Yes,
Sangan's effect activate when it is sent from the field to the grave and that is exactly what happens when he destroyed by Swordsman's effect.
Question: "If I use
Snatch Steal on
Spirit Reaper and my opponent chains
Mystical Space Typhoon declaring
Snatch Steal will my opponent's
Spirit Reaper still kill itself?"
Answer: Ok, so in this situation
Mystical Space Typhoon would resolve first and destroy
Snatch Steal before it (
Snatch Steal) has a chance to resolve.
Spirit Reaper would not destroy itself because it was never targeted. The reason it was not targeted is because declaring a target, which is what is done at activation, is very differant from actually being targeted. The differance is similar to declaring an attack and actually attacking (BUT NOT THE SAME).
Question: "If I use
Magic Cylinder on
Spirit Reaper will
Spirit Reaper destroy itself?"
Answer: Yes,
Magic Cylinder targets therefore
Spirit Reaper will destroy itself.
Question: "If my opponent takes my
D.D. Survivor with
Snatch Steal ETC. and gets removed by the effect of my
D.D. Assailant, whos side of the field does
D.D. Survivor come back on if any?"
Answer: The owner of the removed from play pile that
D.D. Survivor goes to is the one who gets back
D.D. Survivor. Please note that
D.D. Survivor will go to the removed from play pile of the person who actually owns the
D.D. Survivor. To be more clear, when I say "owns" I'm not using game terminology, I'm using the english language.
In addition to these questions I got the questions I always get. Does
Book of Moon kill
Spirit Reaper? When my opponent activates
Heavy Storm can I chain
Call of the Haunted and
Torrential Tribute? To cover these questions makes no sense because I would end up covering them every single time I cover an event. Questions like these can be answered on the official FAQ at
www.ude.com/yugioh or by looking in your rule book (5.0). When you go to an event knowing the rules can be the differance between X-1 and X-3.
I'm here at table 2 of top 8. Right now both Mike Pianka and Austin Aubra are shuffling up, determined to be the one that walks away with an invite and a box. Mike wins the die roll and opts to go first. Mike draws, sets one card in each zone, and ends. Austin is a bit more aggresive, he special summons
Cyber Dragon, shuffles his hand in thought, summons
Newdoria, and attacks with it into a reaper that ends his attempt at damage. In his second main Austin attempts to kill the reaper with a
Snatch Steal in the his second main phase but mike stops it with a
Dust Tornado; Austin ends without further action. Mike summons
D.D. Assailant, kamakazies it into
Cyber Dragon, and ends. Austin does nothing but set a monster; it would appear as though neither players have any spell or trap cards in their hand, otherwise we would at least be seeing some bluffs.
It's Mike's turn and he summons
D.D. Survivor, sets a s/t, attacks into the set warrior lady and, for some reason, Austin opts to remove; the survivor comes back at the end phase. It's Austin's turn and he's looking at his hand in thought, he decides to set a monster and end. Mike summons
Sangan and survivor goes for the set card; it's a tomato that gets
Don Zaloog.
Sangan into the
Newdoria kills Mike's reaper which ends the turn. It's Austin's turn and he's staring down a
Sangan, a
D.D. Survivor, and set s/t with only a Don. After a breif moment of thought Austin activates
Heavy Storm which destroys Mike's set
Scapegoat. Austin enters his battle phase without summoning anything; Don attacks hits
Sangan and takes out
Jinzo from mike's hand;
Sangan searches out
D.D. Warrior Lady. Austin sets a Spell/trap and ends.
The life point totals are Mike 7200/Austin 8000 and it's Mike's turn to be aggresive. Mike summons a Tomato and attacks don with it, the attack connects and tomato searches for a reaper.
Spirit Reaper attacks, and after checking his grave, Austin uses
Call of the Haunted on
Newdoria. Mike takes the replay to kill the
Newdoria with
D.D. Survivor and the reaper goes down by
Newdoria's effect. After Austin effectively saves a card in his hand, Mike ends his turn. Austin's turn and he has 3 cards with which to kill only a survivor; after a few seconds of thought Austin special summons
Cyber Dragon, attacks with Mike's Survivor with it, a ends his turn. Mike simply sets a monster and ends.
Austin attack a tomato with
Cyber Dragon which searches out a Don after which, Austin sets two spell/trap cards and ends his turn. Mike summons
D.D. Assailant, kamakazies it into
Cyber Dragon, and
Don Zaloog hits Austin directly to get rid of a Mobius out of his hand. Austin topdecks a
D.D. Assailant and uses it to kill don. After a few turns of going back and forth like this of the top of each others decks, Austin is at 3100 and Mike is at 6000. Austin uses his only card,
Premature Burial, to bring back
Don Zaloog which attacks direct and rids Mike of his only card, a
Chaos Sorcerer.
After a few rounds of fast play that I couldn't catch all of the score is 1600 to 3100 in Austin's favor. Austin has a card in hand, a set monster, a set s/t, and a ddwl staring down Mike's three set s/t cards. It's Austin's turn and he attacks with a
D.D. Warrior Lady which is stoped cold by Mike's
Enemy Controller. Astin ends his turn and Mike uses the
Smashing Ground he gets to Destroy
D.D. Warrior Lady. It's Austin's turn and he flips summons his face down, revealing it to be a
Spirit Reaper, and uses
Reinforcement of the Army to search out
D.D. Survivor. After Mike cuts Austin's deck,
D.D. Survivor is summoned and met by torrential.
It's Mike's turn and he flips the tides by flipping his last set card,
Heavy Storm, afterwhich he sets a Spell/Trap and ends his turn. Both players are now setting everything they draw as both
Heavy Storms are in the graveyard. It's Austin's turn and Austin has 4 set S/t cards while Mike has three. Austin plays the only card in his hand, a
Mystic Tomato, declares an attack with it. Mike activates
Sakuretsu Armor to the attack and Austin saves his Tomato with
Book of Moon. Mike summons Newdora, flips his nobleman to remove the Book'ed
Mystic Tomato, and attacks with the freshly summoned
Newdoria only to have it meet it's demise at the hands of Austin's
Sakuretsu Armor. Austin draws and sets a S/T, with nothing in his hand he ends his turn. It's Mikes turn again and with one S/T set and two cards in his hand he sets a second S/T to keep the first one company, ending his turn.
Austin summons
D.D. Assailant off top of his deck, attacks with it, and the result makes me wish I had a nickel everytime a
D.D. Assailant was destroyed by a
Sakuretsu Armor. After somehow missing what Mike's turn consistded of it's Austin turn again; he summons
Sangan, attacks with it, and Mike, with only 1600 life points remaining decides to use up an
Enemy Controller to save 1000 life points. After Austin ends Mike uses
Snatch Steal on
Sangan, tributes it to summon
Mobius the Frost Monarch, and destroys
Nobleman of Crossout and a chained
Enemy Controller with it's effect. After Austin searches for
Magician of Faith with
Sangan, Mike activates swords
Swords of Revealing Light in his second main phase and ends his turn.
The field is Mike with
Swords of Revealing Light, a set Spell/Trap card, and a defense position
Mobius the Frost Monarch while Austin has only 1 set spell/trap card and a
Magician of Faith in his hand.
Austin activates his drawn reinforcement, searches out
Exiled Force, sets amonster and ends. For the reader who is wondering why Austin used
Reinforcement of the Army without the intent to use the monster the same turn, I will tell you because reading only this summary of events makes it difficult to realize. The reason is that only remaning warrior.both players' decks are getting small and Austin didn't want Reinforcement to become a dead weight, that is, draw his only remaining warrior another turn.
Back to the duel; Mike topdecks
Reinforcement of the Army as well, uses it to search out
Blade Knight, summons it, switches
Mobius the Frost Monarch back to attack position, and enters his battle phase. Blade attacks the face down
Magician of Faith first which, I might add, give Austin a
Dark Hole from his Grave.
Mobius the Frost Monarch then attacks for 2400 and
Sakuretsu Armor stops the damage.
Dark Hole clears the field from for Austin next turn but he is unable to follow up with an attack and sets one card in each zone. Mike's Swords if finally Sent to the grave, after another turn from Austin in which he draws and sets a spell/trap. Both players now have 3 set spell/trap cards each while Austin has a set monster. It's Mikes turn and he plays his only card in hand,
Dark Hole, which kills the
Exiled Force Austin searched out earlier. Mike then brings back
Jinzo with
Call of the Haunted, attacks with his freshly special summoned monster, and brings Austin down to a dangerously low 700 life points.
It's Austin's turn and he needs to do something about Mike's
Jinzo, he uses his set
Smashing Ground to destroy
Jinzo; Austin ends without further action. Both players draw, and set a spell/trap card consecutively for two turns and during Austin's end phase Mike's
Dust Tornado hits one of Austin's 4 downed cards, a
Sakuretsu Armor. Since it's now Mike's turn he summons another
D.D. Assailant which attacks into one of 4 freshly summoned goat tokens. After somehow missing Austin's turn (again) It is again Mikes turn; staring down 3 goats and 3 s/t. does Mike have a plan? it sure looks like it. HE TRIBUTE SETS A MONSTER! It appears as though Mike plans on stalling untill Austin decks out as Austin has 2 cards left in his deck while Mike has 4.
It's Austin turn again and the clock is ticking in more ways then one, he sets a monster to keep his goats company and ends. Mike simply sets a monster on his next turn and ends. It's austin's
Last Turn as he has no cards in his deck, it's do or die time, he is staringdown 3 set s/t cards, and 2 set monsters with only a set monster, 4 set spell/trap cards, and a card in hand. Mike has 2 cards left in his deck. Austin Uses
Dust Tornado on Mike's middle card revealing it to be a
Brain Control. Breaker hits field,
Spirit Reaper is flip summoned, and reaper attacks the tribute set
Cyber Dragon. Mike reveals his remaining face down to be
Premature Burial and
Smashing Ground. Mike Pianka Wins round one
It looks as though I picked the most exiting match to cover; that one duel lasted 37 minutes. Unfortunatly that leaves only 3 minutes for both players to side deck and finish the match. Time is called while both players are side decking, both players have two turns each after which life points will be checked. Austin choses to go first despite the situation he is in, I'm not so sure I would chose first given the same situation situation.
They begin gameplay; Austin sets a monster, 2 spell/trap cards and ends. Mike uses
Mystical Space Typhoon on
Sakuretsu Armor, sets 2 spell/trap cards, sets a monster, and ends his turn. It's Austin's final turn and he plays
Reinforcement of the Army from his hand to search out
D.D. Warrior Lady. Flip summoning his
D.D. Assailant, Austin attacks Mike's set
Kinetic Soldier, ending the quarterfinals.
Mike Pianka wins 2-0
